Topeka Insider: The Journey of a Local Podcast's First Year | Justin & Jon

Did you know that we're in the top 99% of all podcasts? And she goes what are you talking Like? No, you're not.

You know whiskey, cigars and you want to start a podcast. I mean who?

middle-aged man doesn't want to start a podcast. I mean, I always start with Topeka's, the biggest small town you'll ever live in.

Well, welcome to our one-year episode of Topeka Insider. It's a very special day. Today I'm going to be guest hosting Gabriel. I'm normally behind the cameras. I'm Gabriel with Butel Media Group, and our guests today are some two really great guys the hosts of Topeka Insider, justin and John Woo.

Let's go. It's a pleasure to be on this podcast with you, Gabe Truly an honor. I'm honored that you finally invited us on.

I've been watching episodes from afar. Love what you're doing behind the scenes?

I'm just happy to be here, proud that our podcast could collaborate on this episode.

I'm happy to turn this parasocial relationship into a real one here now.

I've never heard that word so much until last week.

That's crazy yeah, well, awesome. So you know, I figured, you know it's kind of a running joke on this show, but let's grab a white monster together, you know, let's do it.

So, cheers, let's crack it on air crack it on air you don't get that sound from coffee. Excited to be here, gabe. Thanks for having us. Wow, yeah, I'm tired of.

I'm tired of getting coffee with people we need to. We've. I've been wanting to get a white monster with you guys for a while, so exactly.

It's been a running joke for a little while. We decided to make it not just an inside joke anymore. Make it it on the show. Maybe some other guys can go ahead and crack a white monster with each other.

Yeah, you don't need to set up a coffee appointment. You get an appointment to crack a white monster, and this episode is officially sponsored by White Monster.

I don't think we can say officially Unofficially sponsored.

Unofficially sponsored.

Officially sponsored. Please, please, White.

Monster. Sponsor this episode for us, Please. Awesome, but yeah, so tell us a little bit about you guys. The show you know, we started exactly a year ago when we released our first episode, but it was kind of a brainchild for a while. You know, justin had some ideas, john had been running a podcast for a little while. Tell us a little bit about what that process was like, getting everything up and rolling and from the concept to reality.

Yeah, go for it. Okay, like from the beginning.

From the beginning.

Take us all the way back so 2019, I think like late 2019, my friend, ryan and I started this podcast. We called it the Look Around Podcast and we literally would go into coffee shops and interview strangers just to like connect with people in Topeka. So they weren't like business owners, it was literally just people chilling like in the city and we'd ask like hey, we're doing this podcast, can we sit down and just ask you a few questions? And they like I don't think we had anyone turn us away. Like people were just like sure, this is great. And so we met a bunch of random people. It was super fun.

And then, like three months into that, covid happened and you were like not allowed to talk to strangers anymore, you know. So I kind of shut it down. And then I think like two years later I think 2023 maybe we like brought it back to life and we focused specifically on like people who own businesses and restaurants and things and we went to their place. So you know some of the guests we've had on here we were like in their place of business, interviewing them there. Uh, and then Ryan ended up kind of switching his employment around, got hired at AE, um, and Cody Foster was like you're not allowed to do that anymore, so uh, so I'm kidding, he just didn't have time.

He just didn't have time. So it kind of stalled for a second and then Justin was like. Justin reached out and said hey, are you still going to do that podcast? Because I've been thinking about doing a podcast, like, do you want to team up, you know? And so you know, ryan was like hey, I just don't have time to do that anymore, feel free. So we kind of merged, collabed and he was he. It's funny, you should tell him about how we came up with the name. Yeah.

So Topeka Insider is what we call. You know the podcast. We've been doing this for a year. The funniest part about it is probably five years ago. I thought this would be a good idea.

It would be fun for exactly time we were starting our podcast, so like the ideas came together, at the same time.

I mean who middle-aged man doesn't want to start a podcast?

Right, exactly, that's the peak of like male friendship is starting a podcast. That's right For sure At 30,.

You get into, like you know, whiskey, cigars and you want to start a podcast.

Yeah, absolutely so, about five years ago I wanted to do this. And yeah, absolutely so, about five years ago I wanted to do this, and so I'm like I'm going to buy the domain for Topeka Insider Topeka Insider dot com, in case you know, I want to do this.

And I kind of explored doing it but never really actually took the concrete steps other than buying the domain for Topeka Insider. And when you came up with the name in your mind, was Topeka Insider going?

to be a podcast. Yeah, it was going to be a podcast. Exactly what we're doing right now.

You know, website, socials, podcast, youtube, exactly what we're doing. Five years ago bought the domain, didn't do anything with it, but each year, you know, I get the email from GoDaddy. Do you want to renew? I'm like I guess you know, who knows you know? And so for five years I was paying for this domain, having nothing to do with it. Reach out to John hey, I want to start this podcast. I didn't know if you wanted to hop in. We could collab to kind of do what you were doing. And then I was like we could rebrand it and do a little bit different than what you're doing. And John's like yeah, that sounds great. You know, do you have a name idea? And I was like, well, you know, we could call it Topeka Insider. You know, I think that would be good. And then John was like cool, you know, I love it. I'm like great, I've owned the domain for five years. And there's no other option, but Topeka Insider.

It was so funny because he like totally lowballed, like how bought into the name he was. He's like what would you think about like something like Topeka Insider?

He's like we don't have to use that time I have so much invested in this name well, I mean invested in the name.

It. I mean it cost you like 25 bucks to renew the domain every year from godaddy, so it wasn't like I had, you know, hundreds and hundreds of dollars in it but I had owned it for five years, well, I mean five.

That is more than a hundred dollars. Yeah sure, 125 bucks, whatever it is but you know, I was like.

I was like Topeka Insider, that's the name. This is going to be awesome.

I would be interested to know what the date is that you originally bought that domain and compare it to how close it was that we released our very first podcast episode, because it's kind of like these ideas, independently, were being born.

That would be funny. I could find that date and five years later we collabed, but like it would be very interesting. Like what if?

they were the same day, Gosh, wouldn't that? That'd be kind of great. We can find that out. Just meant to be. I'll find that out. It's a match made in heaven. So that's how we got going.

And so I reached out to John in, so our first episode was in, you know, middle September of 24. I reached out to him in December 23 and said, hey, you know, would you want to do this thing? Had that conversation and then, uh, we kind of decided we're going to wait until they were in the middle of remodeling a community churches basement and they were going to have a media room, which is what we do it in now, and we're like, hey, let's wait till the basement gets done. We're going to bring this in-house, do it in one location every time. And so we waited six months before we even started recording, right, and then after six months of, uh, after six months, we started recording. Then we waited probably another three months before we released our first episode because we wanted to get a kind of a bank of them going before we just started releasing.

Yeah, we were. We were nervous, so like, okay, how's, how strong are we able to go? So we banked them up for a while, yeah, uh, and then it worked out to just like gear wise. Um, for a while, um, so Ryan Slazner had, uh, uh, a media company before he ended up working with AE. So when he went to AE, uh, our church just bought all of his gear, um, cameras and lighting and different things like that, um, a lot of it that we're using right now in this room in the church and uh, and so initially, his idea when he came to me, I was like, yeah, let's, let's collaborate, this would be awesome. He's like cool, uh, I'm trying to, you know, figure out funding for this, like $15,000 worth of gear that we're going we're gonna need. And he's like, do you guys have any gear? And I was like, well, we just bought all ryan's gear. And he looked he's like this is like 90 of my list like this is all the stuff I wanted to get.

Anyway, it's like perfect. I'll be honest, you know I've been. I mean, putting something on like this. It takes not only a ton of work but takes a ton of finances. And you know, at the end of the day, this is basically just a hobby for the both of us, like, yeah, we enjoy it, but how much can you actually? What's the word?

I mean, we're only, we're only making a few million a year, only a few. It's not really livable, you know. So you know there's.

There was a, there was a kind of a balance. I was weighing okay, if we're gonna full send this one, I want it to be quality, because I don't want to put something out that's going to be like you know, hosting a Topeka podcast already is like, oh, that's, that's cute. And so I'm like, okay, if we're going to do this and it's going to be cute, like I want this to be really good. That way we don't get that kind of feedback. And so you know, I'm looking to all this gear. Okay, what are we going to need?

And so was like the first moment where I'm like, you know, I think this is we're supposed to do this, because when I reached out to John, I was like, hey, this is the list we need. You know, do you have, do you have anything that you know could kind of help me offset this? And then he goes we have, we have some stuff. You know we can go. Look in the basement, go in the basement. They have 90% of what I need lights, mics, um, some furniture to do some of this. I mean, we had 90% of what we needed. I'm like this just made this way more obvious that like we should full send yeah.

Yeah, it was pretty sweet yeah.

Yeah and I, I have a funny story with this.

I was going to ask you, you got involved as well.

Well, so you know about that time, you know, just picking off exactly where Justin left off, he kind of came to me and said hey, I'm looking to start a podcast. We're looking at some gear that we may need. You know, what kind of gear do we need? What you know, here's what we may have. And I came and looked at the gear that you guys had and I'm like this gear looks a little familiar.

Oh, yeah, oh yeah, I forgot about this part.

Yeah, so it turns out one of the guys that when I first started in video production in 2020, we started doing a lot of our videos together and we actually lived together for a year and a half, and so I'd already seen a bunch of that gear, I'd already used a bunch of it and I'm just like I know exactly where this gear came from before it, you know.

Right, Because so that guy, it was a Nate, was that no Will.

Will.

Will, yeah, yeah, will. So Will bought all that stuff to start a video company. That's when you were involved and then he ended up moving to Florida, consolidating his company and sold all that gear to Ryan. Me and Ryan used it here and then the church bought it from Ryan. So it was just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You're like it was so funny when you showed it.

You're like I've seen these cameras before, yeah, and like some of them are like super unique. There's like some custom 3D printed stuff and I'm just like there's only one guy I know that had a camera like that. So yeah, so it all just kind of lined up. You know there was a lot of coincidences, a lot of things lined up, and now we're here here later. Absolutely, yeah, one year it's pretty big milestone. And when we're looking back at that one year, you know justin is a self-proclaimed idea guy, right, you love coming up with those ideas I have too many ideas we'll judge how good the ideas are.

But he says he's an idea well, let's, let's.

That doesn't. When I say I'm an idea guy, it doesn't mean I'm claiming they're good ideas.

Yeah, but he has a lot of ideas and one of the things that his wife knows about him very well is I'm a quitter, great at at starting things and having ideas. But yeah, you know, if you want to have a successful podcast, you gotta stick with it. You know, because it's a. It's a period of time where it's like nobody knows who you are.

What do you? What's the sorry? Go ahead yeah.

So what did your wife tell you when you were kind of coming?

up. So I'm pitching this idea not only to myself and to John, but I'm also pitching it to my wife, because my wife, you know, is a 50 50 owner and every little entrepreneur or every little idea I have. And so I'm pitching it to my wife saying, hey, you know, I'm gonna have to spend a little bit of money on some gear, but I think this could be really cool. What do you think? And she knows me better than anybody. And so she told me she goes. I think it's great, you should do it, but you have to commit to a year she goes. You don't get to quit until after one year.

She goes if after a year of releasing episodes.

You're like, eh, this isn't as going as well as I thought it would. You know she goes. You have my permission to quit. If you don't give it a year, you can't buy the stuff. I'm like, oh for sure, you know I'll give it a year, no problem. There have been several times where I thought about quitting. You know most of them had been what?

Honestly, wait a minute, wait a minute. There, there have been several times where I've questioned okay, is this worth the time, energy and financial investment to keep doing this? Which guests specifically did we have?

on when you felt like that. Honestly, most of them came from before we even started releasing, because it was January to September of 24 that we had spent committed to this idea before we started releasing anything, and we had interviewed lots and lots of guests, and so when you're doing all the work and not getting any of the you know the releasing of them and getting any feedback, or there's lots of times I'm like, okay, are we supposed to be doing this?

like this, you know, and it's a lot of money you know, to have make this, do this, well, you know, it just doesn't, just doesn't just happen right, and so there are several times, especially before we we got going, I'm like, okay, is this worth it?

And at that point, because we had Gabe involved and John was a co-host, I had to have some accountability. Like, oh, I can't quit. There's two other people involved in this, and so if it was just me, I almost guarantee you I would have quit before we released a single episode. And so that's one of the best things Not only is you sharing the load of work, but having some accountability with some other guys like hey, like Gabe's putting work on this, John's putting in work on this, like you know, there's no quitting. Like you know, I'm accountable to you too. So, yeah, for sure, I've definitely thought about quitting, but in the back of my mind I always knew my wife said I had to give it a year. Yeah, and so today is the day we can quit.

Nice knowing you Nice knowing you. Now that we've made it a year, do we have a special announcement? You?

have for our audience? Yep, I do. The special announcement is we're not going anywhere. We're not going anywhere.

Come on, let's go. Woo, I'll drink a white monster to that right there, here, here. Ah, Awesome, we have an asmr break in our episode.

Yeah and I remember those first. What was it like? Six episodes that we had in the bank and we were making. You know it. You know iterative improvements over time yeah, and we don't see those for months oh, I do remember that.

That's the hard part.

Yes, yeah, yeah, because what were some of those changes that we made early on?

I mean, we didn't even have these side curtains, we didn't have Side curtains. We had a lot of like we still had the table at that point.

The table. Was it just black? We just had the black walls?

No, we had this one curtain, oh we just had the one curtain.

Okay, yeah, the one curtain.

We didn't do that for like five or six episodes and so we were releasing old stuff where we had made improvements on the set. So I remember, yeah, we're releasing episodes and we're like, oh, we didn't. This is before we started taking pictures or we released one. That was before we changed this part of the studio.

There was like a camera change at some point because some of them were like kind of blurry yeah. Right, and so I remember there was like three or four months there was three or four months where we already had all these episodes banked up with this blurry lens. Yep, and so we are. Even though we were recording new episodes with a better lens, we still had to release these old ones, and every time they released we're like oh man, it's so bad.

Yeah, and that on on my side, like the behind the scenes side. So some of these cameras they use micro HDMI, which is it's not a good port, and what was happening was we were dropping frames so that the whole thing just looked laggy yeah it wasn't anything that we could change, you know on the side of thing, it was a hardware issue.

Yeah, so we upgraded to butyl media, that's right and so, yeah, we, I started bringing my cameras along to go ahead and make sure that that was smooth, you know rip will's cameras yeah, they're still in here, they're.

They're watching from the sidelines, I do think it's cool and one of the things I think we've done so well is we've every episode we tried to improve a little bit. Yeah, you know we didn't. If you look at our episode one compared to our episode today, you know the studio is way different, the quality is way different, even some, I would say, the content's different. You know whether it's. You know, upgrading to this format we have the seated format versus the table. Upgrading to this format we have the seated format versus the table. We upgraded our studio with a rug and the surround sound or the surround background, which is nice. We added that. I mean there's lots of things we've done.

We got sponsored by Monster.

We got sponsored by Monster. That was new certain today.

I mean there was a major milestone. We got sponsored by the city of Topeka. Absolutely, that was really cool. It was just how far was that a few months like? At what point did we officially start?

that was probably like episode like 20, so that was like four months ago. Because we do twice a week, twice a month, yeah, um, that's super helpful um, that we're able to offset some of our costs. That's big um, which just allows us to be more bought in. You know, when you know, okay, hey, we're not losing money every single month it makes it easier.

Yeah, there's less friction on it it made me so much more excited to like upgrade the studio. Okay, let's get some of this stuff going. Let's um get nicer chairs, let's get a rug, all these things like okay, that's great, now that I know we're not losing money every single. Or you know we're breaking. Even now it's you know. Okay, that's great, Now that I know we're not losing money every single. Or you know we're breaking. Even now it's you know we can. Someone's paying for our hobby.

It just makes it so much more fun. Someone's paying for a hobby.

Well, and, and you know when, when you get a sponsor like the city of Topeka, you can tell that it's having a impact in some form of they're bought in. You know they, they see what we're, what we're doing here, and so when you look back, like what was kind of the, the big like factor of of of you wanting to go ahead and create a podcast about the city of Topeka.

Um, I mean the. The idea um came. You know, initially, when Ryan Slazer and I first started, it was just like, hey, we just want to meet people, connect with people in the city. But it quickly became. You know, we became aware pretty quickly because, I mean, I'm a transplant. I moved to Topeka five or six years ago now. Ryan also was a transplant transplant. I moved to Topeka five or six years ago now. Ryan also was a transplant.

And so the more we connect with people in the city, the more we realized, hey, topeka has a real like identity problem. Like there are a lot of people who just hate Topeka, think that it's the worst, but my friends and I we love being here and so we're like, what is the problem? Because this is an amazing place, like, with amazing people. This is an amazing place with amazing people. It's an amazing place to raise a family. What are you not seeing here?

And so we just thought, hey, it'd be fun, it'd be easy to connect with a ton of people and just put cool people on display to show everyone who is having a hard time seeing the good things here. Hey, look at all these amazing people doing these really cool things. You like this coffee shop. Let's get to know that person who made that coffee shop and, you know, get to know a real human being who is from here, who grew up the same as you, but is is doing something good that makes our city better. Uh, so that was kind of the um, that ethos, if you will, of it and uh, I think we've just kind of doubled and tripled down on that. That. That really is. I mean, in some ways, we're kind of just like, you know, a hype podcast for the city of Topeka. You know just hyping it up all the time.

So yeah, that's probably the same for me. I mean, I've lived here my entire life and you know if we always hear, you know what can, what can you do to help Topeka's perception problem? What can you do to help the city? And there's not a whole lot guys like us can do. We're not going to go put in a restaurant downtown, we're not going to go necessarily start that business. But what can we do? We can talk positively about the people who are. We can talk about the difference they are making and show the person behind the business how they have a family and how they're putting their neck on the line to try and make the city a better place. And how can we highlight them and help them? Maybe with a little bit of publicity, but just show the world, show Topeka. You know who these people are that are taking a bet on our city. Yeah, absolutely yeah.

And so there's a little bit of a contrast there between you two, where Justin grew up here.

Right.

And John, you were a transplant and so there's a little bit of a different perspective from somebody that's that's been here a while. You know I've been here five years, so I've I've seen a lot of change even in the short amount of time that I've been here, and I'm sure you have as well, john. So let's talk a little bit about you know what? What was that process like? Where were you before and what kind of got you to move here to Topeka process?

like, where were you before and what kind of got you to move here to Topeka? Yeah, so 2019, my wife and I moved to Topeka to plant a church. We're a part of a small network in the area in Lawrence, in Kansas City and in Manhattan. We do like church-based campus ministry, reaching college students and things like that, and so I was in. I was at K-State for a while before that, working with college students before we moved here.

So we moved here in 2019, kind of with our network, decided that Topeka would be a great opportunity and, honestly, like the only thing I knew about Topeka before we moved here because I never really stopped in Topeka, you know, just drive I-70 past it to get to Lawrence or Kansas city and uh, the only thing I knew about it working at K-State was from students who grew up in Topeka coming to K-State and you know, I get to know them like, hey, I'm from Topeka. Cool, what's Topeka? Like it's the worst. I'm never going back there. A hundred percent of the students I met that were from here. That's basically what they would say and so that's all I knew. So I just thought, well, topeka must actually be the worst.

You know, that's like that's all I've heard Like I don't actually know anything Propaganda.

Yeah, I mean, that's all I heard from people, and so I didn't. Actually, you know, I think I stopped in Topeka one time, uh, like for gas or something like that, you know, in a real emergency, and so, you know, ended up visiting just to kind of get the lay of the land when we were thinking about where we wanted to go, and ended up meeting a bunch of people that lived here and kind of just driving around, seeing different parts of the city, walking around campus, you know, washburn and downtown and different things, and, honestly, like the vibe was not at all what I felt, like we'd been told from the kids who grew up here, went to K-State and told me that, and so we immediately were like, man, the opportunity here is pretty incredible. Why wouldn't we come here? And so we moved here fall 2019, six months before COVID.

And there was a point where, early on, it was kind of my dream. I was kind of like, hey, we need to go here, but I didn't want to move here unless my wife was on board, you know, and she was also excited, not just like, okay, john will follow, you know, this dream that you have. I wanted it to like be her dream too. So there was a point where she's like okay, I think this is what we need to do. But I could tell she was still a little like nervous about it, you know. And so instantly we moved and I was all in, I was like this is amazing and and I was just kind of waiting, like, okay, is she gonna really like be all in and feel that same way too? And I remember, just like two or three months in late 2019, we went and ate at that French restaurant on 17th street uh.

I don't know how you say it, chez.

Yasu, is that how you say it?

so we went there a little date night. It was really, it was really great. And she asked me like, hey, how long do you think we'll be here? And I was kind of like, oh no, like she's wanting out already, you know. And I was kind of like, you know, I was like low balling it. I mean, I was like I was all in at that point of motion. I was like I could be here the rest of my oh, you know, three to five years and she's like, you know, I think I could see us here for a really long time. And I was like for real, like are you serious? And she's like I don't know, there's just something about the city, like it's just a really cool place, I think, you know, and we, you know, we just talked for a long time about just the opportunity and just what God ended up here. And that's why, you know, we're so bought in, I think, to the city as transplant.

So yeah, you have that unique perspective looking from the outside, in that a lot of people living here or who have lived here their whole life, don't really, yeah, they don't, they don't know what it's like in other places, they just see the, the external view of these other places, like all the touristy spots.

Sure, yeah, yeah. My story is much shorter. I was born here, the end All right. The end.

Well, it's funny. I mean we just want to be like my wife and I, we just want to be where the action is. And so we lived in Lawrence briefly before we moved here and we lived basically like right on mass street. So we lived like a block off of mass street on ninth and New York and we loved it. We would walk to to mass all the time with our kids. There's different festivals and stuff. Well, then we moved to Topeka. We lived in the college hill neighborhood, which is like right in the center of town. Right, it's like a few blocks from campus.

at the time pt's rip was, you know, at 70 where coffee bar is burger stand was there and it felt very similar. It was like, okay, it's not mass street, you know, but it was like we're still in the center of where a bunch of stuff's happening, yeah, you know. And so for us it didn't feel like that big of a change. We're like this is great, we can walk everywhere we want to go. Like there's things happening here, you know. So sorry, anyway, sorry.

Anyway, just no, honestly I didn't have anything. I was born here and I love it here, don't want to leave, and it's where our family is, it's where our friends, family, I mean we, we know every. I feel like I know Topeka like the back of my hand and so because you're very involved in a lot of different community aspects. Yeah, Super involved. Yeah, Lots of boards, lots of uh friend groups.

How many boards are you on?

Too many? No, uh, three, I'd probably say. I'm on the, that's amazing. Yeah, I'm on the young life board, I'm on the Doc Sazo board and then the men's men's leadership team at our, at our church, for for men, cool, um, yeah, I love it. Get to stay involved, get to meet lots of people and yeah, I don't see myself going anywhere ever.

And you're a realtor, and so you have some clients that will reach out from wherever they're at, moving to Topeka. What, what's one of those things that that you tell them about the community? You know different areas, that they might enjoy.

Yeah, I mean, I always start with Topeka is the biggest small town you'll ever live in and most of them are always like what are you talking about? What does that mean? And so you know I'll say hey, you know you'll go to the grocery store and you'll see someone that you from work, that you, that you, that you met the other day, you know when they have so many grocery stores, and you know you'll meet someone at church that you know, knows your family member from you, know Ohio, and you're like how on earth it just feels like in Topeka.

And then you know, of course it's everywhere, but this is where we live and you know there's just the biggest small town you'll ever live in, and so that's the first thing I always lead off with. And then you know, talking about all the different local restaurants we have here and the most, the biggest thing that people always and usually it's like three or four months after they live here but they're so excited about how little traffic we have- you know, I always get hit with the hey.

You know, uh I need when we're looking for, when they're looking for a house, they always get hit with hey, we need to be within 20 minutes of our work.

And it's like all right cool Like we can.

we can live anywhere in here and it's like you know, uh, however mile radius, and like really, I'm like, yeah, it doesn't take you too long to get anywhere, and so that's one of the biggest things I think we take for granted For things.

I think we take for granted for sure you could ride your bike and get there in 20 minutes.

That's the biggest thing, like when I go to other spots, like especially like if I go to Colorado or something the drivers and like how much traffic always throws me off, because I'm just used to how easy it is to get places in Topeka and how simple the roads are, and just yeah, you know you don't have crazy intersections. It's just like if you need to get somewhere, like you can learn how to get almost anywhere in town yeah, yeah, for pretty quick, except for, uh, what used to be scary dylan's I think is what it was called, yeah, that area with its four one-way roads, yeah, yeah and it's the worst yeah they're close to 12th and so yeah, it's the worst.

Yeah, they're close to 12th and 10th. So yeah, it's Huntoon and 12th go east and west and then Washburn and Lane and it's just a square of one-way roads.

So bad that one would be a little more tricky.

God forbid you take a wrong turn there.

you just got to take a lap, yeah yeah, but I mean for that being one of the worst spots it's not. So, justin, when you have those different clients, what's one of the things that they kind of get excited about? Moving to a place like Topeka?

Well, when people are moving to Topeka, they're usually moving for one or two reasons. They're moving because of family, or they're moving because of their work, and so most of the time people aren't moving here because they heard something awesome going on and they want to be a part of it. It's very rare it's like oh, I heard, you know, topeka is the place to be because of this, this and that. Sure, it's usually, you know, families moving. Or hey, I got relocated my job's here, and so I usually have to sell people on Topeka.

And it's not a hard sell, because there is a lot of great things in Topeka that are up and coming that people who aren't, who don't live here, don't know about. You know, whether it's talking about downtown and what's going on over there, or hyping people up on the mall that advisors is taking over and doing everything that's going on there. I mean there's a lot of things to talk about like, hey, it's awesome you're here now. You know we're downtown, starting to thrive, we're getting this in a couple years with the mall. You know you're gonna love this. And then penguins come into the zoo.

Penguins come into the zoo, let's go.

I mean, it's pretty easy to talk about the great things that Topeka has to offer.

But, you know you tell people because they you know everyone reads online. You know Topeka's this, topeka's that and you know you just level with them. You know Topeka's got problems. Every city's got problems. You know, going in this location after dark it's not a place I go walking. You're going to have that everywhere, but of course, that's all they're going to be reading about coming in. So being able to shine a light on some of the really cool things is really awesome. I I love talking about the local hidden gym restaurants. You know, and sometimes what I'll do when a client closes on a home, you know, I'll get them a gift card to that restaurant.

I've been hyping up that way I make sure they go there right you know, like thursday club is when I hype up all the time you know so good yeah, like, hey, I get him a 50 gift card to thursday club because I want him to go check that out. You're buying a house, I mean let's go 50 bucks doesn't get you super far anymore if you're buying drinks too.

But well, yeah, you know, 50 bucks at thursday club, it's like probably a few.

That's like two dates, I think, at thursday club maybe not if you're getting the drinks that we're getting and get a couple burgers loaded up, lightweight, lightweight but so that's super fun, hyping people up on the local restaurants, the places where you can't google, and know that you know you see thursday club online.

If you're googling for burgers, you're like I don't know if that's good or not because you're not from here, but being able to send people that way like yeah, you got to check that place out or hey, you got to go check out whatever it is, it's pretty fun, dude.

You know what we should do. We should do a burger tour of Topeka. We should like hit, like Thursday Club Bobo's prize package, like I mean we could take suggestions, even that would be so fun and like, just like get them. And we could even like do it on air or something and just like live rate them.

That would be so fun, like Dave Portney's one bite pizza review yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah.

I don't often get told I look like a celebrity, but 99% of the time it's him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can see it. Yeah, okay, yeah, I just need to wear more leopard print, I think.

There you go, yeah. And then he's talking about being a celebrity. Someone's been getting recognized out in public recently, yeah.

Yeah, one of our 10 followers. That's right yeah.

I was at Jude's in God's Storehouse and this young dude recognized me. He's like are you from Topeka Insider? I was like heck, yes, let's go. And then I was in the Dillon's parking lot, although that was Rhett from Greater Topeka Partnerships. We kind of work together now, so that's kind of cheating. There's one other time, though, I texted you guys about it. You've texted us several times, few times.

yeah, there's one other time recently I forget where it was, but it just happens so much now. Yeah, you're gonna have to hide from the paparazzi.

Yeah, yeah going to the grocery store with my head covered.

That's great. So, yeah, yeah, I mean this area of topeka, like justin was talking about, it, is kind of like a big small town. You know you're gonna recognize people when you go out in public, wherever you go, like it's it's it's a big small town, just a community that you know you're gonna see your friends everywhere, just because there's just there are things going on everywhere, and I know I've just gone like grocery shopping or I've gone like Christmas shopping. I remember one day in the middle of a snowstorm and I think I went to like three different stores and I saw like four different people I knew during a snowstorm.

Like when people aren't normally out you know, it's just like that's, you know. Just talks about like the community and how you just happen to be friends with the most fearless people.

I'll actually put a little comment on that biggest small town. So John and I I get asked this a lot how long John and I have been friends, and the funny part about John and I's relationship is I actually didn't know, john, we've never we'd never talked in person.

Even to this day. Even to this day.

I had never talked to John in person until I reached out to him like, hey, are you still doing that podcast thing? You want to do that with me and it's like we weren't friends. I followed him on socials and I knew he was the pastor here.

We had a lot of mutual friends yeah, a lot of mutual friends, yeah, but that's the funniest part about this isn't, we weren't two buddies that had this idea together like, hey, we're gonna do this. Yeah, it was like just completely random that we both love Topeka, we both wanted to do this and like, let's do it together. Yeah, and so now Johnny's my best friend exactly podcast bros podcast bros, yeah, there you go.

I wanted to turn it on you. What's the last year been like for you, man, seeing just the progress of what we've been doing and your role in all of that?

So it kind of starts with me and Justin. We've known each other for a few years now. We've done lots of projects together and I understand each other pretty pretty well. So, like you know, when he was trying to bring me on for this project, he basically is, like I want this to be your playground, like, just go and make it the best that you can, which is I love that because it gives me an opportunity to do what I love to do, which is, you know, setting, setting up the lighting in a way that I really like, and, uh, getting our set put together in a way that's going to sound the best and look the best with what we have available, and that that's been a lot of fun. Just to kind of go and, uh, you know, make those small improvements, because you know there may be like one little thing that you see one week and it's like let's let's see if we can fix that or make that better, and you know it just builds on itself.

It's that recursive improvement that that really makes a good product because as you go on, as you're more consistent like that's that's how the growth happens and you know more, you bring in that consistency and it gives other people more opportunity to see what you're doing and hop on board and you know it's. It's just a fun experience. I enjoy learning about Topeka. You know I'm technically a transplant. I grew up about half an hour south of here in Overbrook, so where the fireworks are where the fireworks are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So John's uh the.

The young adult community likes to come down and watch fireworks in Overbrook. So, I always, I always say hello um to all of them whenever they come down.

That's awesome. What is one of the kind of behind-the-scenes media tech changes that you made that you're most excited about that maybe people wouldn't have noticed or been aware of? With this show, yeah, with this show.

Definitely changing to my cameras. Yeah, I was just— RIP.

Will's cameras. Again was I was, I was just rip will's cameras.

Yeah, those other cameras were driving me nuts because if you don't know what we're talking about, go back to like episode like first 10 or 5 through 10.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask is will people, how will people know?

oh, they'll know when they, when they go back. No, yeah, yeah, these ones are a lot smoother and it's just the playback experience.

So it was like every couple seconds a frame would drop, so it felt clippy, right, or?

it was like every other frame, so it's just like you're watching a slideshow. But the worst part about it was the fact that the frames were just being dropped inconsistently, so they weren't pacing.

Oh yeah.

There was. There's no consistency there, so like it would just stutter a lot and it you couldn't sync it up with the audio. So if you're watching the video, it's like you're probably not watching the video, you're probably just listening and doing something else, cause it's just like it's. Yeah, it drives me nuts.

It's actually the reason no one watches the video anymore they trained them early on. Don't watch this.

But I mean even, even the clips. I mean there's so much smoother now that we have. They are you know?

smooth playback.

And that was definitely, I think, the biggest jump because technically, spec wise, we didn't change that much. Um, you know, lenses are similar, the, the, the color is different, cause they're a different brand of cameras. But, uh, that that's, I would say, is probably the biggest jump that we've had, because, I mean, our lighting has stayed the same. We set this, the way that we can light this entire area do you remember when this light went out, mid episode?

yeah, okay who was that with? That was david.

Yeah, it was like episode two or three, yeah and it went out in the middle, and so we had to cut it and start over, or we had to pick back up, but it's the same light it hasn't gone out right.

I was gonna say we didn't replace the bulb.

Yeah, it was the, the power supply that went out on it yes, which? Apparently is something that happens with those ones.

But they're like they're, they're, so don't go around 100 yeah, yeah, 100 well, gabe's done a ton of little stuff over, you know our, our year. I mean like like he added a light behind the little setup here, the little blue highlight.

The little blue highlight the cameras and even sometimes like the angles of the cameras. He's changed. I mean our design, I mean all of this. We basically told Gabe, like we have this stuff for our studio, how do we incorporate this so it's in the shot or the plant, so it's not in John's face as he's trying to talk, and so Gabe's done a ton of behind-the-scenes stuff that each episode just makes a little bit better.

It's true, yeah, and it's nice when you can have a space that you can work with to do all that, because when we're talking about investing into a space to actually make it a good end product, it takes time to actually get everything you need, and once you kind of have it and and you can't see this, but the entire room here is like sound treated.

We've got sound panels on all the walls and stuff, so you can't. You can see that if you look at some of the earlier episodes, but before we had all the curtains which, speaking of the curtains are we ever gonna steam we gotta.

We've been talking about that for about a year now. That's so embarrassing.

Any volunteers. That's the problem. No one wants to do it.

We got to do that.

That's the next improvement how bad is it? We need to have people rate. I was going to say with the cameras when we switch. I don't know what we would give away, but we need something we could give away, like to someone who, like, figures out exactly which episode we switched cameras on.

Yeah, and we're like yeah, whoever can find it first.

It won't take you long, I promise.

Yeah.

Well, have you ever done a podcast before, like a reoccurring podcast for a client or yourself?

I have done a reoccurring podcast for a client or yourself. I have done a reoccurring podcast not for a client. Okay, so we got like four episodes in, so you can kind of count it as we were in the same stage that, uh, I actually did one with will, so it was with some of that equipment so no wonder why you guys dropping frames then too well, Well, I, so my camera angle had my camera, so it was good.

No, I, he didn't actually have these cameras at that point but, he had the lights actually were some of the same lights that we used to light that one.

I told my wife this. It would have been a couple of months ago, but I said did you know that we're in the top 99% of all podcasts in the United States, cause we made it past episode 20.

Cause we made it past episode 20. We made it past episode 20.

And she goes what are you talking? Like no, you're not. And I'm like yeah, you know, we made it past episode 20. If you do more than 20 episodes, you know you're in the top. You know one percentile of a top 1% of all podcasts and she was just rolling her eyes, whatever, but yeah, yeah.

It's amazing.

Yeah.

That's an interesting stat and I remember talking about that when we were starting and I'm like you know if, if you can be consistent and get to that point, like that's the point that most people quit by because it's just it's hard to be consistent in that way. But when you do that, I mean it gives you know you can, you can have on and that's one of the great things about this podcast is we get to have on a lot of great guests a lot of guests that you know we can learn a lot from, and um speaking of learning, we've learned some a few things about Topeka.

What's what's some of the things that we've learned about Topeka from some of our guests on here.

Oh man, Uh that we're getting penguins at the zoo at some point yeah, penguins at the zoo, I have one and it's.

I'm not a thai guy, thai food guy. I did not realize until we started this show how many people love jongs, right, how difficult it is to get a reservation there because you know I'm it's not my cup of tea, it's not the kind of food I eat, so it's not something I've really ever tried. The amount of people that have come on here when we talk about you know favorite local restaurant who say Jong's and like they're always disappointed, they can't get in sooner or whatever. I'm like I did not realize that place was as popular as it was. But everybody raves about that place and my sister just went there recently and she said it was the best ever. She loved it. Like all right, you know I need to.

Even though I don't like Thai food, I need to go check that place out just because, yeah, Well, it's even interesting, like, even if you take a step back from that, how many Thai restaurants we have. Yeah, for the size of, I don't know if that's a normal ratio, but we have three within a few miles of each other. Yeah.

Because you got Jong's, you have Thai Table near campus, and then you have tup tim thai 29 like all other. There's some other places that have thai food as well. Okay, yeah, and I think all three of those are pretty popular. I mean, john's obviously gets mentioned so often, but I know my family goes to all of them and yeah, we've got a reservation for next month?

for sure, yeah we need to.

We're just, we never think like ahead.

That's, I think you do have to think ahead.

I think it's just so crazy that you said, yeah, we have a reservation in a month yeah, seriously all right, that's how far out they book.

I think I've booked one reservation in my life that far ahead that's like because we had the inside scoop to get in so you even got in early it's yeah, you got to be multiple months in advance so that's multiple months

yeah, yeah, dang, that's something.

That's something I learned and I guess you said, I'm trying to think uh, I don't know about anything specific. I'm thinking about like some of the fun moments. Um, I mean, I learned a lot about each of our guests. I'm trying to remember like specific things.

Um, or maybe two zoo episodes are the ones that are coming to my mind of like random facts that I learned shanna and dennis, yeah, yeah, those were like pretty fascinating, just random things I was not expecting to talk about and learn about yeah you know like, uh, like the zoo's tiger program being like kind of a world famous tiger program, like in topeka, you're like what and like all the stuff he was talking about with conservation and like I mean, mean, I kind of freaked us out Like yeah, topeka was underwater, like that, whatever dinosaur was like swimming.

We're like please stop, this is going to give me nightmares, mosasaurus, zip it yeah.

So I guess on that note.

maybe ask all three of us. Maybe start with Gabe, who have been some of you, because you listen to every episode. You're here with us in studio.

People don't know, I know Topeka Insider probably.

I've listened to it probably more than anybody else, who would be some of your favorite guests that we had on that you thought were most interesting and then John, and then I'll maybe finish this, yeah.

I mean, I think, probably one of the most fun episodes was when we had Brett Ballard on I enjoyed that one quite a bit Um cause.

I mean there's a, there's a unique perspective there, but also he kind of had the, the, the basketball guys come on beforehand.

So he could kind of yeah, he got to respond to previous episodes. Yeah, exactly yeah.

So he had you know that that I I really I enjoyed that one quite a bit.

Yeah, um, he's funny too he. I enjoyed that one quite a bit. Yeah, he's funny too he was. He was easy to joke around with. Yeah, he's a funny guy, yeah.

I did. I really liked learning about the Topeka regional. What's going to go on there, cause I have a. Oh the airport? Yeah, I went through flight school for a little while, so like the whole airport, whole airport, all that kind of stuff and I have my drone pilot license, so like all that kind of stuff is really interesting to me and hearing that we might actually, you know, have a, have a functioning airport that we can go Um the big airline, some of some of those you know great vacation spots Like that's, that's going to be a pretty big deal to have that come in.

That was really interesting to me. And then and then have having him learning that he was a magician, that was you know something, that something like like those those sorts of things.

With that we learn about our guests, like when they're just talking about stuff and they just drop like this, like super cool, obscure fact about themselves, or like Eric when he was on here and just was talking about doing escape rooms and how they've done like a hundred different escape rooms all throughout the country you know, and they always do it like right at the very end.

Yeah.

They just dropped the most obscure fact about themselves.

That one was hilarious, yeah, cause I mean one that was super fun, cause shoe world one is like it's really fascinating and it's something that I didn't really have a lot of experience with, so it was just really interesting asking him lots of questions about how that worked. But then when he dropped the like oh yeah, I'm also like really into escape rooms I was like my guy, like man, I just want to hang out with you, bro, like we. My guy, like man, I just want to hang out with you bro, like we should go do an escape room and have a white monster together, you know oh and yeah, I love eric.

He's also.

He loves drones too, so we talk about drones all the time and yeah, how many escape rooms did he say he and his wife?

I think it was over 100, yeah wow, like throughout the whole country too and he said you know, sometimes I'll get into some free because they've done so many and they, like you know they're very good influencer.

I'm an escape room influencer.

Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, john favorite guests.

Oh, I mean, those are some of my favorite. I tend to be drawn to the ones like that, that there's just some really fascinating thing that is surprising, that's just like it's fun to talk about. You know, like Eric being really into escape rooms, it's surprising, it's really interesting. You know, those have been some of the things. So like shanna from the zoo was just really fascinating. To talk to dennis from the zoo, uh, eric from the his shoe store, um, there have been a handful like that that have just been like kind of surprising. Yeah, you know, um, uh, so am I allowed to say the one that? Nope, we just recorded you can't, john?

okay, you gotta keep that one to yourself.

I'll just, I'll, just, I'll just prime the pump that we just recorded, one that will release after this one. That was very fascinating.

That one is also my favorite, but we can't talk about it. We can't talk about it.

It might have been it might be our longest episode, unless this just keeps going.

Uh, now, but other than this one. I think it's our longest. We're on page one of my 10 pages of questions.

Yeah, exactly yeah, we're just going to this is a live stream for 24 straight hours. Yeah, I mean that one was very interesting, Will be very interesting, will be, will be, yes. So, yeah, I think those have been definitely some of my favorite moments. Yeah, immediately come off the top of my head. Yeah, uh, for me.

I'll go all the way back to episode one, andrew beckler's episode.

So he's playing oh man, that one was so fun, that was awesome. We did crack a cold, that was live on air uh playing.

Uh, he's playing in the all pro mini tour. Come on playing pro golf. That one was really interesting, just because uh was that our very first one, that was our very first one, wow, yep.

Well, no, no, we recorded, alex didn't. We was that first.

Well, that one didn't get released, because that one's all right, but we still are tech stage yeah, we're testing it out, yeah we had a little fun fact for everybody listening we had two episodes that we record in the beginning that never got released because we had technical failures.

Right.

Yeah Right, I remember when we had we had Caitlin Halsey on back when she was still working. Shout out to Caitlin Halsey, back when she was still working. It was the owner of Dialogue Coffee. She's now just the founder, she's moved on. But we had her on to talk about dialogue and something happened with my computer when we recorded, we were running through your computer.

Yeah, we were.

We were still figuring out things and it just went, poof, conked out, disappeared the. I was so incredibly frustrated just because I felt bad that we wasted her time, you know, wasted john and gabe's time.

She was such a good sport.

She was such a good sport about I felt horrible, I know, and then it. What made me feel better is I don't know if you remember this, but when I texted you and Gabe was like yeah, episode's not there. You know, I was basically apologizing and John sent this gif of someone taking the computer and throwing it to the ground Burn it.

Yeah, that was pretty funny. That made me feel better. Well, I mean, because, like I mean you were like super frustrated, which I totally get, but mean you were like super frustrated, which I totally get, um, but I, it's funny, he was just kind of venting to me like man, this sucks, you know. And and I was like, well, there was a time when, in the previous iteration of this, the look around podcast, the very same thing happened with ryan and I, where we recorded this episode we were so excited about and the files just disappeared. And I remember feeling the exact same thing. But by this time around, I was like, hey, I've been through this. It's like it's not as bad as you think.

It is like we're just keep rolling you know he's like it's okay, justin, we don't need to quit the podcast just because it didn't record.

That's like a rite of passage.

That was speaking of you know, that was one of those moments where I'm like I think I'm done yeah, I'm done. We haven't released any episodes at this point. You know we're not getting any sort of feedback. It's just, you know, us just powering through and it's like this sucks. We're done.

I have to call caitlin and tell her thing, too, is they were such good sports because I think they knew, like they knew, they were the first couple that we were recording, so they knew, hey, we're figuring out the tech on this, like there's a possibility this might not get used because we're still figuring things out there's a possibility you'll never see this, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, and so you know they were super cool about it.

So major shout out to Caitlin, alex Buehler and then Alex as well, but we did re-record with Alex, alex did cop on.

Yeah, but okay. So favorite episodes Andrew Beckler's is one of my favorites just because I love golf and so being able to hear his professional side of things that I'm not super into golf, but that was a really fun episode, just really fun to talk to.

Go listen to it. It's still there.

Episode one Episode one, so that was a good one. I really I mean Brett Ballards and Zach Watkins with Washburn. That was super fun, you know, getting to hear their inside scoop as coaches there at Washburn. I really enjoyed Matt Provanek's talking about his you know, uh, impact on Topeka, what his team's doing at greater Topeka partnership and now he's at Myrtle beach RIP. But that was a really betrayal.

That was a really interesting episode. Uh, the funny part about that episode is, if any of you guys have seen that episode, I start off the interview asking him if he hates Topeka, and you know completely joking.

No, no, no. Why do you hate Topeka? Yeah, yeah, yeah Did I.

Yeah, and I said is it true you hate Topeka, or why do you hate?

Topeka oh, is that Something like that? It doesn't matter.

I thought it was yeah, why do you hate Topeka? And I, you know it was obviously a complete joke, but serious. And then I think he got a little offended or he was a little taken back, that I just kind of went after him like that, obviously as a joke. But then he went into this bit about how he doesn't hate topeka, of course, and how he's actually committed to praying for topeka every day that he's gone, and immediately I was like I was just kidding.

Yeah, I was joking, trying to be lighthearted, oh yeah and so that was super cool set the tone for the entire episode. That you know this guy not only loves Topeka but has a deep love for Topeka and the community. That you know he's willing to pray for us every day as a community.

So that was it's what's quiet is? He actually emailed me the other day, Really. He said that he would be more than we'll come back on the show, but only if you're not there.

He dropped a lot of really interesting you know like behind the scenes sort of facts like net promoter score and stuff like that, yeah it was kind of a a new, a new thing for cities to do something like that the net promoter score.

Yeah, that was a very interesting. No, I wasn't even necessarily as interested as the at the number, you what our net promoter score is, you know from Topeka, but I was just more impressed that he had the idea to do that Right Like let's gather public perception of Topeka. Let's gather if people would recommend living here and doing business here.

Topeka is the first city to ever do that, first city to ever do that, so that was really cool and actually I think if you go to the greater topeka partnership facebook page or you stick around that page long enough, you they're they're running ads right now to try and get public opinion on the net promoter score.

So if you see that fill out that survey.

It's a one question survey on a scale of one to ten how likely are you to live or recommend living or doing business in topeka, something like that? And so I actually I filled it out 10. Let's go, boom, let's go. So those are some of my favorites.

Wow, we should have. Yeah, we should work out something where, like you know, figure out if Topeka Insider listeners fill that out.

Yeah, exactly, then like something good happens. Yeah, they'll have 10 people fill it out.

Yeah it out. Yeah, three of them are right here. Yeah, we each do it seven times. Use your different alias.

It's amazing yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Well, I don't have a whole lot more. We could hop into some rapid fires. That would be great.

So now, if wait, I have one more fun moment, okay one of my favorite moments uh, that I just, I just remember now, is when Everett Nelson turned the tables on us and you, oh yeah, and you so he went full journalist on us and started asking us like well, how about you guys talk to us? And I was like whoa, whoa, whoa, we will ask the questions here. But then he brought you in, he turned it on me and that was the worst, and we turned the camera on you, right?

Well see, that's the thing. So when I'm sitting back there, I have to pay attention to a lot of different things. I'm, I'm switching between camera angles, live, as well as making sure so I always I have a mic back there to speak. I don't have a camera on me, so what I had to do is I had to unmute my mic as I'm moving a camera and switching to that camera and switching back as I'm talking to him and like I remember. So there's like three things going on in my head at the same time, and I felt in that episode that I was just like, uh, I just felt like everything was going so slow.

So I mean, in all honesty, this is not your first time on camera, this is your second time.

Right, let's be honest. Technically that camera angle got included, though, right Like we turned it back. Yeah, yeah, against my will, but yes, well, what's funny? What's funny is that like uh, I, I can't remember. It's pretty dark right yeah because there's no lights, right, so the lights are, I'm supposed to be in the background remember I'm jamie back there, right, right, but like so we have these curtains. The curtains only cover this half of the room. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you're behind the light, so there's no light aimed at the computer person.

All that you see is like, sound like foam on the back wall, and that's it. And you just see like this, like white face and I have like dark hair.

And like.

I stuff. So all you see is just a floating face. That's like very dark back there.

You look good, baby, you look good. It's like the floating head of jesus on the billboard you know, like past colby on i-70 heaven or hell?

yeah, it's just. Oh, there's like this one, that's just like the floating head of jesus in a field of wheat oh yeah, you know like right past the uh, the like oasis gas station, whatever that's. Yeah, oh, he goes left well, rapid fire.

Yeah, so you know. On the way here, how many potholes did you hit?

well, I I drove around to get these white monsters and I might need a realignment on my car so that's why they're not carbonated anymore. That's right yeah, that's why they exploded when I didn't hit any, but I dodged one.

Sure, ok, ok, dodged one for sure. See, I have a tundra, so I just drive over them.

Not me, can't do that yeah.

Love it. So you know, when we're looking at all these different great restaurants, you know, justin, you were talking earlier about how you love those, those smaller restaurants. Justin, you were talking earlier about how you love those smaller restaurants. If you were going to go on a date night, or maybe just wanted to go have a great dinner experience, where would you go?

Easy. There's lots of things you could do. Here's what I would do Date night. I'd go to Thursday Club grab a Smashburger and Tater Tots Thursday Club, maybe grab a drink or two. I would then go to the T-Box and go hit some golf balls. They have sweet simulators down there and they have some food. If you want to grab a snack, then to end the night I would hop over to the Pennant, just right across the street, and grab a milkshake. Call it a night Wow.

This guy knows what he's doing this guy's asked this question.

A lot I've been thinking about he's studied for this.

Yeah, he's ready for the pop quiz. I love it. Uh, well, we have often done almost that exactly, so I would recommend that as well. But just to be different, I'll give a different answer. Uh, I think we would. Uh, well, we're very last minute people so we would not have gotten into Jong's on time. So actually, we actually really like another Thai place.

Thai Table is very close to where we live. We go there all the time. It's our six year old, our seven year old's, favorite restaurant. We will meet there. We'll meet friends there for dinner all the time. So we might go there for a date night. Uh, we might go uh, walk, um, like governor's mansion, or uh, or uh, burnett's mounds. We might like, we'll do that all the time. Actually, we'll go walk up burnett's mounds, uh, and then I would say, instead of uh, shakes which is a good movie, we've done that too um, we, we like to go to salute in westboro plaza or whatever it's called. Uh, there's a little like, uh, I don't know what. Would you call it bar, yeah, cocktail it's made like a wine kind of place.

Yeah, um, and so, yeah, we'll stop there for a drink after and just kind of hang out if it's nice be on the patio outside. Um, so we've, definitely we've done all of those things as well thursday club everything else but yeah, there you go.

We've've got some experienced Topekans.

Yeah, we don't mess around with our food, exactly.

That's right. What about you?

You know, there's a few different restaurants that I definitely like.

When's the last date you went on?

We don't need to get into that. There's some.

What kind of date are you looking for, Gabe?

Well, I usually will start my day at a coffee, but we'll get in a coffee later. No, for dinner. Honestly, there's a few really good ones. You can't go wrong with Jong's, but we've heard that enough. Yeah, it's some of the best food out there, but a couple of places that I really like are there is the Celtic Fox.

They're downtown close to the Capitol on the 8th celtic celtic, celtic, celtic, one of the two who cares?

it's great yeah, it's great good food. I just went to ireland so it's it's kind of yeah, you know, is that how they say it over there?

are you like the?

uh, student, who's gonna correct us all the time now?

I studied abroad in Italy. I studied abroad in the King's Bank.

No, but yeah it's a great place, great atmosphere. There's also Paisanos. I like Paisanos.

Oh yeah, paisanos is fire, yeah.

Breakfast place. A great place is Paisanos.

Yeah, do the tiramisu at Paisanos. Yeah, Paisanos is good.

So there's some of the great places that I like. Cool, it's awesome. Justin, you're a golfer.

Absolutely Wait, wait, wait. Can I make a suggestion? Yeah, should we introduce your new assistant and involve your assistant in this.

She's got a mic. She's got a mic yeah.

She can panic at trying to hit all the buttons while talking and answering our questions.

Alright, now I'm unmuted.

Delete the entire video.

I can't turn the camera around, but I can unmute. Go to date night. You've got to introduce yourself.

Hi, my name is Lucia. I'm brand new with Gabe's Company and this is my first time ever running the podcast.

Let's go Put her on the spot. If it's Gabe's company and this is my first time ever running the podcast let's go Put her on the spot Put her on the spot.

If it's bad, it's my fault. I'm sorry. We're cutting all of this actually Go to date night. Actually, I like to do date days on Saturdays, oh, full day. Well, we have a kid so it's hard to get on a date night unless we get a babysitter. So we take her along with us. But we just went to top city golf and did some practice for me, because I'm not the best and I just like to whack the ball.

Yep, um, we went there and then we get some sonic slushies and we just went to like I don't know where this was, michael took me. It was over by the kansas river, some little boat ramp, and we went over there and like had some sonic slushies and some sonic snacks.

I don't know where it was. Like yeah, cool, like hanging out, it was nice outside it wasn't super hot yeah, but and how many potholes did you hit on the way here?

um, I hit a really bad one on the way here, so at least like four damn I went down washburn I think it's washburn avenue and so I think I hit almost all of them that I possibly could yeah that's brutal, yeah, but justin you like golf.

What is uh one of your favorite if you? If you had to choose, if I had to pick one.

I my home course is cypress. Cypress Live over by there, so I hit up that one quite a bit. Yeah, I know everything about that course, every blade of grass, because I've been everywhere on that course. I'm also not a very good golfer, but I do love it, mostly in the trees.

Mostly in the trees. He knows the trees really well.

Yes, absolutely In the woods hole one. If you hit it to the right, you're going to be on your ish. Been over there plenty of times. What's?

the what's the trend right now, with like wives texting their husbands while they're playing golf. You know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, so what they'll do is, if you're sharing, if the husband's sharing their location with their wife. What they'll do is they'll screenshot the golf course and pin your husband in the sands and say why are you always in the sands?

or like why are you always in the?

trees and they like freak out.

And they're like what the heck I'm not doing that?

but they'll text them something first like hey, do you need sunscreen? Or I forget, do you need something? Oh, one I thought was like I'm getting you a chainsaw and they're like why? Like, because you're in the trees the whole time, sunscreen you know you're in the beach all the whole time.

Right, right, right yeah yeah, there you go, so any any other favorite golf spots?

Oh, cypress Lake Shawnee, those are golf spots. Oh, cypress lake shawnee, uh, those are great. Uh, firekeeper not in topeka, but we'll claim it. We love firekeeper. It's fun that one's an expensive one can't say I play there a lot, but that one's fun. There you go.

It's a good one john, I don't play golf often, but I do like lake shawnee and cypress are both very nice. Yep, uh, I probably probably like Lake Shawnee a little better, just because you get the water. Yeah, you know, going by the lake is pretty nice yeah.

Awesome. No, I funny story I've never actually played golf.

Nice really.

I used to live when I was with my parents' house, where I grew up pretty close to a golf course.

Really, oh, we can change that.

Oh, I know you can. Yeah, you can. The last few times I've been on a golf course has actually been doing videos for Justin. So I, I I've seen some very skilled people play golf, but at least some passionate people yeah.

I've seen a lot of very passionate people that are really into golf. A lot of that, yeah, but yeah no, it's interesting.

I think it would be one of those sports that, like you get into it and you have, like that one really good, like maybe it's one hole, maybe it's your entire day was just really good, and you come back and you're just chasing that again and then you're just like maybe you don't get anywhere close and you're like what I thought I was good now. That's one of those things that I feel like would be what keeps you coming back, because you know the potential that you have. It's kind of like when you go to the gym and you work out really hard to get a pump and you're just like, yeah, and then you go home and then you're small again and you're just like no, keeps you coming back, that's right do you have a favorite golf course?

I don't have a favorite, but my husband goes to Berkshire a lot because that's closest to our house, and then I think is there one at Perry no, is that part of Great Life? Yep, okay, yeah, because we have the Great Life membership so we'll use the Great Life courses and stuff. So Berkshire is the one I hear the most about.

Berkshire is the first one I played in Topeka. It was the first time I actually played in a long time.

There you go yeah.

Cool it was so bad, I played so bad.

Well, I mean, if you're going for the first time I have played on a simulator. But those I don't think are you played. Berkshire no, no, no, no, the uh t-box. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna t-box for some networking stuff, but nice, that's my only experience and putt putt.

Pretty good at putt putt I. I'm very solid mini golf see that that would be fun.

We could. We could do a mini golf little, uh see who's the better mini golfer.

I think I'll give you guys a run for your money there's a couple good spots in Topeka for mini golf yeah, but yeah, we should talk about favorite instead of favorite golf course, like who cares about that Favorite, putt, putt, course Favorite putt, putt course.

Yeah, Ellen's fun, but okay. So where can people find you guys? Cause you you know you're great podcasters, but you do do other things besides podcasting. Thank you, Gabe we enjoy podcasting, we podcasting.

Thank you, gabe, we enjoy podcasting.

We do enjoy podcasting, it's nice to hear that we're good at it, not quitting. Uh, I mean, I'm pretty active on Instagram at the John Griffith that's. I'm rarely on anything else.

Awesome, and how can people find you and come to your church?

Oh uh, community Topekacom. Uh, we're right across from the university on the south side and it's a good time 10 am on Sundays, Awesome.

Yeah, cool, cool People can find me on Instagram. That's probably my biggest, where I'm on the most Armbruster underscore JD. Yeah, if you send me a message on there.

What's your?

middle name Davis Davis.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, justin Davis Armbruster, that has a good ring to it. Instagram. But yeah, you can find me online if you just Google Justin Armbruster. I put my phone number out everywhere. It's my day job for people to know my number.

You don't have a Google voice number to keep it separate. I don't have a google voice number. It's what you see, is what you get. You get the real me get the real. Uh, get my cell phone, uh, yep, uh. So yeah, help people buy and sell homes here in topeka wait, so we skipped one question.

Oh, can do, you mind? Do we have time?

well, you know I didn't want to. You know, get get get all into that. But you know, if we, if we have to, we did we did skip the question.

We've got a little bit of beef on the show and it comes down to oh, then we skipped two because that's not the one I was going to ask. But yeah, we have two questions then.

I guess I was skipping through them, yeah no, you're good, We'll start with this one. We'll start with this one.

If you're going to do a home project which I think is more weight to my answer than his.

Whatever if you're going to do a home project, where are you going to go home? Depot menards or lowes?

I mean home depot. Yeah, because I, uh, you know, I actually do home projects, uh and, uh, you know, have some tools and uh, have learned some stuff. I go to Home Depot, I will say, though someone mentioned I forget which of our guests mentioned a while ago but some of the more local small hardware stores. I will say so Waters Hardware on 21st and Washburn. I will go there first to see if I can avoid driving all the way to the other side of town, and if they have it then I'm good. It's like I probably go there the most, but Home Depot of the big three for sure, okay.

Well, my answer is Menards, and I know my co-host here is going to throw me under saying I don't do home projects. Here's my rebuttal to that.

This is like. This is like the guy, the kid, who watches a video game. Players on YouTube. It's like you're not actually doing it, but you're like cosplaying.

Let me answer. I'll let you talk.

Stop interrupting me he's cosplaying as a contract. The answer is Menards.

Here's my reasoning. All the people I hire to do my home projects, they tell me they go to Menards.

That is a good point. They're professionals.

I'd have to think that they know what they're talking about there you go.

Yeah, that's a good one Awesome.

That's a good answer.

See, I have a mixed answer for that one, because I like to go to Ace for a lot of things, just because it's small and you can find what you need easily. But I definitely would prefer I mean, I I know guys that work at both home depot and menards. I know more guys that work at menards right, yeah I probably do too. I I enjoy the experience of going to menards.

Yeah, exactly you know you, you go in there and just like man, look at all this stuff. You could like you could camp out and live here for like a month and nobody would know.

But yeah, but you got three hours to kill.

Go hang out, menards I saw a guy sleeping in one of their recliners one time, like he just had a cart there and you're, that's funny, but yeah it's a.

It's a cool place, but that's awesome.

Home depot is great too, but I think our tally it's catching up.

Menards is definitely catching up just catching up a little bit. Yeah, it's still about 50. You know, it's about 50 of what the home depot is, I think at this point.

But it's made a big comeback, though, yeah yeah, lowes is losing by a lot um the question I was gonna ask is what is one thing to peak is missing?

yeah, as we've been talking to all these people, I thought that'd be a really interesting way to close is hey, what's one thing that you guys think is missing. Yeah, you know, restaurant store experience, whatever other than confidence that was a good answer.

That's why it was um hmm, you know I here's.

Here's an answer I have um, I don't know if I have like one thing, but I wish we had more local restaurants that specialized in one thing. What I love the most about thursday club is their menu consists of a single smash burger or a double right, that's it. They do one thing you do. They do it really well, and it's the best in topeka by far.

Um bobos is basically the same way. Too right, don't they just serve burgers?

burgers, but they got all sorts of stuff and I haven't been to bob in a while but I just love the simplicity.

I was there last week. It was amazing.

The simplicity of Thursday Club and I wish we had like a place that does hot dogs really well, like a hot dog cart. You know, all we do is do hot dogs that Like, hey, we do pizza, it's local, it's small and we just do it really really well. The Rock is good. Yeah, we have a lot of good pizza places, but I wish we had more places like Thursday Club and the other branches of food that they just do one thing, and they do it really, really well, and when you go there you're not sitting down looking at a menu.

You know already what you're going to get Right. So I wish we had more of those we do only spaghetti.

You can get a single spaghetti or a double spaghetti, yeah, to some extent, but what about you? Oh, man, that's a good question. Yeah, I mean, I think there are a lot of like restaurant-type things I would love to see, like a chicken and pickle, yeah, and pickle, yeah, would be fun. Um, I've been really intrigued by how many of our guests have mentioned a youth sports facility. Yeah, I thought that was really interesting. Um, I mean, my oldest is only seven, so it's not like we're doing a ton of youth sports. Uh, crossing our fingers. Hopefully it doesn't change, you know, but uh, yeah, I thought that was really interesting. Um, I think, like, yeah, like a chicken and pickle. I agree, honestly, I love, I think thursday club is so good because they major really well doing one thing at a high quality um and it'd be cool to have more things like that.

Um, yeah, love it what about you. Well, I've got, I've got one. That's not possible, unfortunately. That would be a ski Hill. There's one that's like an hour away.

That's pretty snow.

Creek. Yeah, I worked there in high school yeah.

Yeah, I've got some friends that work there and we go there sometimes, so that's a lot of fun, but, um, yeah, I on a more realistic note, though, it's a lot of fun, but, um, yeah, I on a more realistic note though. Um, you know, the things that I really like in Topeka that we have now is stuff like Burnett's mound, like stuff where you can like get out and like hike and like the governor's mansion trails are really nice. Um, the, the trails around the? Um natural. Is it not the natural history museum, the? Um Kansas museum not the Natural.

History Museum, the Kansas Museum, yeah, you know hiking and all that stuff.

I love going out there and hiking Are those connected to the governor's mansion.

No, they're close but they're not connected. They're two separate ones.

Okay.

They're, the museum Is that like the mountain biking ones.

So the mountain biking ones are the governor's mansion, yeah, okay, mansion, yeah, okay, yeah yeah.

And so those ones are pretty close to the river. And then um the history museum is more just like out in the grass on the pasture.

Okay, gotcha.

There, yeah, there. I mean, I I love trails like that Um do you like my left comments? I, I have spent probably, I mean so I ran cross country. That's where we practice cross country.

Oh really.

Wow, I've run a lot of miles on the Commonwealth Trails.

Wow cool.

So we ran those because that was one of the hardest courses in Kansas, so we practiced on it.

Right and all the other ones seemed easier. Do you ever run like Shunga Trail?

I know it's paved Right. I just I like the more secluded like areas that are like they're close to town but they're not like in town. Like Burnett's Mound is like there's a decent amount of people but it's spread out enough. I just the paved stuff. I'm not as into as much. I like more, like the trails and that kind of stuff yeah.

Cool, cool.

Do you have anything you would add? You wish was in Topeka? The one thing.

I wish I was in Topeka is actually coming to Topeka. It's.

Canes. I lived in Manhattan for four years before I moved to this and Canes was my go-to and every single time, like when I moved here to Topeka, I told my husband I was like we need Canes and literally for Valentine's Day last year we went to Lawrence to get Canes because I wanted it so badly. And then, whenever Steak and Shake shut down and they started putting in the canes, I was like yes, finally.

So my dream's coming true. Help me understand. I do not understand the cult fascination with canes.

So you know the cult fascination with Circle Coffee in Topeka.

Yeah.

It's like the same thing, so like, but if you're obsessed with one thing like circles. Good, like they have their smash burgers on Thursday nights, right, right, canes knows how to make their cane sauce. For one, I will say their fries are a little like eh, but their chicken strips are amazing and they make them really good.

Okay, so they actually are really good I like them.

They're very juicy.

They're very crispy and you have to have their cane sauce.

And their.

Texas toast is the best thing I've ever had.

I've never had a better Texas toast. Is their chicken better than Chick-fil-A's chicken?

In my opinion yeah.

Wow.

Well, because Chick-fil-A's chicken is a little soggy sometimes, but Cane's is crispy.

Yeah, different Okay.

I'm very dedicatedminded about it, yeah.

I know a lot of people are super excited they're supposed to open in like.

June so you have a place to go. We should do a launch day episode. Yeah, we should yeah that'd be fun, yeah, sweet.

Awesome, Dude. It was awesome having you on this side of the camera.

Yeah Well, it was awesome having you guys on the podcast. Shout-out to everybody listening, appreciate. Shout out to everybody listening, appreciate you guys.

This is flown by and we already have several more episodes in the bank. I guess if you take one thing from this episode, we're not going anywhere. Thanks for being here.