The CWB Association Welding Podcast
The CWB Association Welding Podcast
Episode 196 with Rae Ripple and Max Ceron
The CWB Association had the privilege to attend Fabtech in Orlando, Florida this year. We are bringing you special episodes recorded in person to keep our members on top of what’s new and exciting in the steel and welding industry.
Get ready for our annual Fabtech tradition episode with Rae Ripple, where we explore the themes of freedom, personal growth, and the comfort of rural living. Rae shares a snapshot of her latest projects and the beautiful intersection of creativity and self-discovery. From the freedom to teach through creative outlets to the simple joys of raising chickens, this episode is a heartfelt exploration of life's transitions and the enduring connections that make it all worthwhile.
Follow Rae Ripple:
Website: https://raeripple.com/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rae_ripple?lang=en
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/raeripple
Thank you to our Podcast Advertisers:
Canada Welding Supply: https://canadaweldingsupply.ca/
Miller: https://www.millerwelds.com/products/augmentedarc
Canaweld: https://canaweld.com/
Josef Gases: https://josefgases.com/
Fabtech is North America’s largest metal forming, fabricating, welding, and finishing event! Schedule the next event in your calendar: September 8-11th, 2025 in Chicago, IL. https://www.fabtechexpo.com/
What did you think about this episode? Send a text message to the show!
All right, I can check. Check, I'm good. So I'm Max Duran. Max Duran, cwb Association Welding Podcast, pod pod podcast. Today we have a really cool guest welding podcast. The show is about to begin.
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Speaker 1:This episode is brought to you by our friends at Miller Electric. We're excited to talk to you about their advanced technology training solutions, offering the Augmented Arc, an augmented reality welding tool designed to train and transform welding techniques in an engaging environment. This multi-process welding simulator maximizes students' welding education while minimizing expenses and training time. Maximizes students' welding education while minimizing expenses and training time. In fact, compared to traditional welding education, you can reduce training time by 65% and material and coupon expenses by up to 60%. Not too shabby at all. Train, transform and inspire the next generation of welders with Augmented Arc Head to millerweldscom slash training solutions to discover our full range of education tools. Hello and welcome to the CWB Association podcast. My name is Max Teron and, as always, we're here at Fabtech in sunny Florida 2024. We're going to have such a good time this week. We're doing a tradition, though. This is the tradition that we've done every Fabtech for a few years now, and that is having our great interview with Ray R ray. How are you?
Speaker 2:hi, I love this. I have to tell you, and everybody knows this, this is my favorite podcast to do every single year but why?
Speaker 2:why, like you got lots of cool people that you're cool, you're cool people, you're cool people you're like when y'all are some of my favorite humans on the planet and so like, being here and doing this with you and it just continuing to be a tradition is my favorite well, you know, it's interesting because we chat throughout the year we do right we do, like they're just a little and it's not, like you know, like business talk, it's not.
Speaker 1:It's like I found a pretty flower, like you know, like yeah, stuff like that. Because I I feel like we kind of got a little bit of that vibe where we both have careers that take us out into the public and put us in front of people all the time with expectations, but at the end of the day we're happy in our little rural towns. Because I still live in a small town in canada I don't live anywhere near toronto or vancouver, none of that know. Like I got my lot with my garden and my boat and my trailer and my stuff and I could just sit on my deck all day hanging out and I feel like Same, same.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Same Like, and it's funny because every time we do talk, we don't even say a word, not a lick of welding nothing Like it's all just like flowers, plants, trees, water the rain. Like just think like I feel, like almost we can be human with each other.
Speaker 1:You, know, because like sometimes outside of this, like you have to like not be sometimes, well, you got to show different faces of the dice, right Like and, and sometimes people need, and it's not a wrong or a bad, it's it. I mean, we all do it. You got the face to show your family, you got the face to show your business, you got the face to show your whatever, and we have the face to show each other. Because I don't have these conversations with everybody either right Same.
Speaker 1:Last year when we did our interview was right after the Barbie movie came out and we had both watched it.
Speaker 2:And we were pumped.
Speaker 1:We were like that was literally the best movie ever. It should win every Academy Award and it did.
Speaker 1:So it did pretty good. Now for this year, we were thinking we're like what are we going to do for topic? And it's interesting because we've had busy years. Yeah Right, we've had busy years. And when I was watching some of your stuff earlier in the year and I've known you for a few years now there's a kind of recurring theme and I was actually thinking about this last night, like at two in the morning, I was like you know, there's a word that I start to think of forming in my mind when I think of Ray, and I think it means a lot of different things and the word is freedom. Okay, and I know that you've used that term in different ways. You know, ride free, born free. We've talked about how we have we're very feral and that freedom but also danger you get from being feral. And you know, in this last year asking you now you know how's the road to freedom? Because it's a never-ending battle it is right.
Speaker 1:It's a never-ending battle to find freedom for your spirit, freedom for your business, freedom for the family. There's all these layers to it. How's it been?
Speaker 2:it's been tough yeah but like the best kind of toughness you know where you get something back, tough yeah you get something back.
Speaker 2:But you know, I have this theory like it's. I don't know if it's like a thing or not, but it's like a flipping your pancake, like my pancake has been kind of like on one side for a while and I just flipped it and it's kind of browning on the other side right now, which is like the greatest feeling. But it's not something that's easy because you know you try to make a pancake.
Speaker 2:The very first one is always screwed up every single time you pour a first pancake it's always messed up. You go to flip it. It like messes up everything, everything with it like screws up. So like I'm on like a pancake flip right now, and it's like on pancake number five yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. But no, it's exhilarating it's frightening, it's terrifying. It's so much fear, so much scaredness. But also like so much freedom, yeah, so much freedom, but like you have to have that exchange. You know, something has to like go in order for you to get that freedom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a yin and yang, it's the exchange of energy in the universe. Nothing comes without a repercussion or an action. It's just the rules of life, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I was talking to somebody you know. Your thought Like there was a woman that actually came up to me on the show and she was like I've been watching you for so long.
Speaker 1:She was like so what is it the biggest struggle right now for you in your life? Like what is the biggest struggle and I'm like it's the head.
Speaker 2:It's the head never stops. It never stops. So, controlling this and like projecting, whatever you put in the universe, it always comes and returns itself back, you know, and so like it's been that cycle of just like thought in and out, and so like I kind of like, in a weird sense of things, feel like I like manifested all of this, you know, for myself, just speaking it, just living, I believe in manifestation yeah I believe that it's a fine line between skill and effort.
Speaker 1:but then there's a little piece in there, maybe a bigger piece, but there's a little piece in there, maybe a bigger piece, but there's a piece in there of you just believing that it's a thing. Yep, like it's just, I just think it's going to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So it will. And really, how can anyone say it ain't Yep, right, yeah, because it's my brain, it's my body. If I want it to be that way, who's to say it's not Right, right? What I find is wrong with that type or not wrong, but difficult with that type of thinking. It's like building a sidewalk and you can try so hard to make a beautiful sidewalk out of concrete and it's strong and you have the forms and it's square and it's pretty, and one little dandelion gets in there, a tree root, and it can upend the whole thing and it's slow. Those slow little cracks that you don't notice are coming next thing. You know, that thing that you so carefully built is cracked yep and it was something that you know.
Speaker 1:You saw that weed eight months ago, a year ago, and you're like nah, no big deal yeah and they tend to to try to crack in on your manifest right. That is something that I struggle with all the time, because you can over-focus on career, you can over-focus on a lot of things and you let little things that you think are covered slide, yep, and they bite you in the butt, man.
Speaker 2:They always do. Yeah, they bite you in the butt. They always do, they always do. And I'm a firm believer, too, in whether you believe in God or the universe or what it is, but when you're in a situation or in life, the universe tends to make you so uncomfortable it'll force you to move, and that's kind of what this year has been for me, you know, but it's been like a, you know.
Speaker 2:It's a year of chasing freedom and peace, calmness, softness, which is something I've never really had in my life, and now I like I finally, I'm finally starting to feel what that feels like, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the very first time I interviewed you, we talked about how, when you grow up in poverty, when you grow up afraid, you don't ever think past today You're like, tomorrow's not a thing.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:As you become more free and as you become more confident, you have the ability to start looking ahead and kind of you know, planning what some of. I'm not very good at that kind of stuff, but you start developing an idea of where you kind of want to be or where you want to get to Right, yeah, at this stage where you are, how far out is your dream right now, like, do you got some way out that you're trying to get to, or is it kind of like you caught up to that line and you want to sit for a bit?
Speaker 2:I think you know me there's always something out there there's always something else I'm chasing. I always have a new dream or a new goal that I'm trying to accomplish, and I always accomplish it you know because I set myself. I, I said it and I am after it will be, and it will be and it will happen, you know. And so, like always right now, I think the biggest goal for my life was to seek freedom to seek calmness and to seek softness in my life.
Speaker 2:And also to realize that, like being safe, you're safe, it's just change right. That's like the biggest thing I'm trying to learn right now is I'm safe, it's just change and like that's something when you grow up in survival mode, you don't know how to live.
Speaker 1:you live in survival mode, and so I'm really just learning how to live you know, and be alive, and feel alive and when you're safe and you're not used to being safe, it doesn't feel safe. No, it feels like a trick. It feels, yeah, it feels like the shoe's gonna drop at any moment, but like it's not why would it?
Speaker 2:you know it's your shoe, yeah, like it's not this time, you know, and I well, and if it, did.
Speaker 1:If it did, you'd survive. I always do, and you'd learn, and you'd move on, because it's not like life's gonna stop throwing spaghetti at you like it is, it's life you know what I mean life, I like spaghetti a lot, you know so I will eat all this.
Speaker 2:I feel like I can visibly prove that I like spaghetti quite a bit more, but.
Speaker 1:But. But you know, it is true. Like I mean you brought it up, you know the move moving around you, everyone knows. Now you live in a different state right, I left texas yeah, you left texas and now you are in tennessee, nashville right, and how far of a move was that.
Speaker 2:Hours was like uh, I think the map it's like almost 16 hours, but the actual move itself was like traveling there. It was like a 24 hour trip. It was insane. It was like the most intense moment of my life, like I've been through some pretty scary stuff you know, but this, like leaving texas, was something I never thought would happen no, I've never even heard you mention it, yeah it's like, uh, when I said, the universe makes you so uncomfortable, eventually you have to go, that kind of what it was for me like I think I was trying so hard to hang on to make it fit.
Speaker 2:But there's bigger plans out there. For me there's more. I'm a tree frog. That was stuck in the desert you know what I mean and so, like it was time, it was very, it was so much the cutest little toes I have the cutest little nose. But um, yeah, I I just and I did. I knew nothing about the place I was moving.
Speaker 1:I knew nothing about the research. Where were you?
Speaker 2:like you know, I've always wanted to live there, since I was seven years old, like no, I just jumped off of a cliff and I built my plane on the way down and I just somehow landed in the most beautiful place on earth, and I know other people could argue that.
Speaker 1:But like beauty for you I have trees the size of dinosaurs well, you showed me your property. You got a lake right there like yeah, it's in my backyard.
Speaker 2:I mean I have deer that live in my like on my property I see them every morning. I drink coffee with them every morning. Little bambis like I'm manifesting a baby.
Speaker 1:Uh right, like a baby, deer right now you want it to like come be your pet.
Speaker 2:Yes, and like live in my house and stuff you. You know they poop a lot.
Speaker 1:You know that right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's okay, so do the kids, you know.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you that Kids came with. Well, no, it's not even that. It was that element of you know. You said like it was the most frightening thing you've ever had to do. And people, I think, think that, like, when you're done one frightening thing, you start comparing frightening things in your life. And it doesn't necessarily work like that. I feel like when you get older, taking risks is almost more frightening. Oh right, because if you're 21 years old and you take a risk, nah, you're just a 21 year old. You got the rest of your life to figure it out 25 year old, 28 year old yeah you can. 30 some year old.
Speaker 1:I'm 39 right things start getting tougher now. You got kids that are older, their school, their friends, their things. Like this is now not an easy decision. You need buy-in from everyone. You need support from everyone. Was it there? Your kids were down. Was this the the ripple family striking on new claim?
Speaker 2:Honestly like it, like I said you want to when I said the universe makes you so uncomfortable you're forced to move, like I in a sense I I wanted something different. I just didn't know what it was yet and so when I moved I actually didn't tell anybody. Like my manager knew very few people in my life knew and then I kind of just did it because it was such a scary experience. I'm moving my business, my plants, my motorcycles, my kids, my animals.
Speaker 1:And you have a lot of plants, oh, a lot of plants.
Speaker 3:I rented a.
Speaker 2:U-Haul just for my plants. Like, just for my plants.
Speaker 3:The whole thing was full.
Speaker 2:I'll have to send you a photo so you can see it but the entire thing was filled with plants.
Speaker 1:I had to cut my deer cactus oh no, and half just to get it, but it's already growing. Can you plant the top half?
Speaker 2:yeah, because you can do that with cactuses right, yeah, I planted the top half and it's already growing like another big stalk out of this cactus, which is so funny and ironic in life you know know because I'm safe. It's just change and, like, everything that I was leaving behind got replenished times two. You know what?
Speaker 3:I mean.
Speaker 2:Like cutting the cactus. I was so sad about cutting my cactus because I really didn't want to cut it and I tried every way to get it to fit in the U-Haul and it wouldn't fit and it was kind of like my life in Texas. Try every way to get it to fit.
Speaker 1:And it and it wouldn't fit and it was kind of like my life in texas try every way to get it to fit and it just wasn't gonna fit and sometimes, when the door is trying to close, let it close, relax, yeah like literally, it was like a relax and like it's so.
Speaker 2:It's cool, how like even seeing my cactus over the last couple of months because I've been in tennessee since, uh, the end of may and seeing the way that my cactus is growing every day when I walk past it, I'm like I'm growing, like yeah, you're like you, me both bro yeah, like I like it kind of. I've really learned to just be grateful this year like that's like just being.
Speaker 2:I posted on Facebook in February of this year and, like like I said, I kind of accidentally manifested this for my life. I said I just want to wake up to a painted sunrise over a field of sunflowers with a walking distance to a lake. I literally just moved there I literally just moved there and I didn't think that that was something that was ever going to happen in my life. I think my inner child, like.
Speaker 1:I see, my, my craved that.
Speaker 2:It was almost like a disney vision, you know, I see little desi like sitting on on the porch and like just every time I'm outside my shop and every time I'm in the house, like I just think about my little self and how proud I should be of her for going through all of these things to get to this point.
Speaker 1:And so it's do you think little desi would be shocked oh, for sure yeah oh, for sure, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2:Like I, I think, like for me Growing up, like I said, I never really had even just a small amount of hope. Nothing was supposed to be like this.
Speaker 3:This is not supposed to be like this.
Speaker 2:I feel like sometimes that this isn't even my life, but it's just. God chooses you. And when he chooses you. You have to go, and that's just like when you put on those magic glasses you can't take them off, but you can use them for good or you can use it for evil, and I'm I've dispelled my life to using what the good lord gave me yeah.
Speaker 1:Now how was the change for your kids? They're all right, oh yeah they're loving it. They're loving it lots of room for the dirt bikes oh yeah, and cash was on harley now so, oh yeah, he's on harley now yeah, and chloe's 20. Um, she's got a pretty significant other they're talking about getting married next year, things like that.
Speaker 2:My daughter's pregnant oh, you're, so lucky I'm gonna be grandpa on january.
Speaker 1:I want to be a grandma so bad grandpa before 50. I know that's my, that's my goal, it's my goal.
Speaker 2:I have baby fever, so bad. But no more babies for me because they're grown, obviously done so it's like all my friends, like when are y'all having babies? Like I need babies in my life. Like I already told kristen, I was like as soon as you have a baby, I'm moving in for like three months well, I work from home.
Speaker 1:So I have friends that have babies and they're like oh, I wasn't able to go to my workout because you know the baby. I'm like I work at home, like I will take your baby. I like babies, I like to hang out with babies. It's fun. Oh, my God, I know I love.
Speaker 2:I have baby fever Like I, I, I this. I wanted a complete opposite life for myself, in a sense.
Speaker 3:When I was growing up, I literally did I wanted to have so many kids.
Speaker 2:I wanted to be like the soccer mom and make dinner for my husband and, like you know, complete opposite for what I'm doing right now.
Speaker 1:That's a very generic dream that I think it's like pushed in the kids heads right, it is, yeah, I wanted to have 15 kids and cook for my husband too, but I mean it just never really worked out. Man, like I'm dying right now.
Speaker 2:That's so funny. Yeah, no, they're great. Um, I think they needed the change too. Um, cash is homeschooled, so like the moving school stuff was pretty easy because he can just do homeschool from home and like ride motorcycles. He hangs out with me in the shop, you know, and he's making new friends and the cool thing about the area that I live in the lake goes down. We're learning a lot about the area because we just threw a dart and kind of ended up there right.
Speaker 2:You're the newcomers, right oh yeah, and so I'm learning about the lake, and the lake goes down every winter and everybody rides their Polaris and dirt bikes out there. It's a big flat space, yeah, and he's driving now so he can load up the bike. Take it around five seconds to the bigger part of the lake and unload and ride his bike and ride, you know, come home or ride his dirt bike down there because we live in such a rural area like it's nice you're not crossing roads yeah, nope.
Speaker 1:What about, like um access? Do you feel like you have less access to the things that? You were used to, or more, or it's better, or oh, so much better.
Speaker 2:So, like in west texas, it was like traveling to a third world country, literally to get to me like it was four flights anywhere I went in the us it was terrible, like the, the terminals where there's like four terminals I think, and in midland, you know, and it was all the flights were always double too, because you're going yeah you're going everywhere and so like, even as far as like a home depot.
Speaker 2:I would have to go an hour and 15 to a home depot, even though I'm like in the rulest area ever I have an ulta, I have a bath and body works home depot a low my metal supplier is closer my gas supplier is closer and I'm still within a an hour of an international airport which is so in all ways like you know, which is so cool and I have so many more connections and resources, and I feel like everybody has more access to me too in
Speaker 3:tennessee a bad thing.
Speaker 2:Uh, it can be, but for like what I do and the people that have access to me like, those people are the ones that like. You're okay with yeah, yeah, I'm okay with, so like I actually have a lot more access to resources, better doctors, better everything better hospitals, you know just better people. I live in what they call the Bible belt.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Is that what they call?
Speaker 1:it. I hope that's not as scary as it sounds. It's not.
Speaker 2:And like scary as it sounds, it's not and like it's, it's funny because like everybody says, people in texas are nice, come to tennessee those people are so nice, like everywhere I go I've heard it's fantastic yeah, it's so sweet, the people are sweet, isn't ian johnson in tennessee.
Speaker 1:How far is he from you I think he's about 45 minutes oh really for me. Yeah, he's not far are you guys like friends at all yeah, we're homie homies um mike wolf um he's like a town over whistling diesels out there.
Speaker 2:Um derek from vice group, barrage is out there. I hear a lot of people are moving to tennessee, so really I didn't even know that until you got there yeah, I like seriously threw a dart, found my dream house and like we moved quick like 30 days gone, gone.
Speaker 1:Now that you're there, you can like sit on your like rocking chair with a piece of wheat in your mouth and when new people show up, you can be like took you long enough? Oh yeah, Well, and my neighbors are great too.
Speaker 2:Like everybody I'm around is great and I've never had access to like good neighbors and like the commodity, the community like that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:They can all hang out.
Speaker 2:You can just go and do stuff, oh yeah, they were having a birthday party Like I was. I just built a sign for Miranda Lambert, and so they were having a birthday party while I was, like outside, building this sign. Like we got hot dogs and hamburgers over here. You want to come over here? I was like heck yeah dogs and hamburgers over here.
Speaker 2:You want to come over here? I was like heck, yeah, like, yeah, we've never had that like, ever like, and and where we were in texas it was so closed off like we were very, very, very, very private homebodies like because you know, like it's just like it was hard for people to even get to you. Yeah, it was just us there and so, like now we're like around, like like being able to talk, hang hang out with people make friends and you still got enough space that you can disappear when you want to.
Speaker 1:Oh, for sure, you got to drive down a long driveway to get to my house, which is nice.
Speaker 2:And it's hidden in the woods and in the mountains, and so it's nice.
Speaker 1:So you're like up a mountain, halfway up foothills, Like foothills of the mountains, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Like 10 minutes up is is like you're up on top of the mountain it's pretty cool yeah lots of curves, the roads, oh my gosh, the motorcycle riding, the motorcycle riding I was gonna ask you did any of this affect sponsorships?
Speaker 1:did any of this affect professional contacts you? You being in a different state, you moving, was there any backlash from any of the people that support you professionally?
Speaker 2:Honestly, it's been tenfold higher.
Speaker 1:Better yeah.
Speaker 2:Better, because now they have better access to me too. Like I said, nobody had access to us Texas, which is kind of crazy to think. If you really think about it, because it's an oil filled country, you feel like the all the oil filled companies there. You would think all the manufacturing companies are there. Now I'm like close to Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is all manufacturing construction, you name it Like everything is right there and everybody's within a four hour distance, which is super cool.
Speaker 3:Or six hours.
Speaker 2:And. I drove in Texas my whole life, so nine hour drive for me is like nothing yeah nothing, and I'm going through three states in nine hours versus just going to houston in nine hours, you know so and like what about?
Speaker 1:you know the the weather? Are you gonna get snow now? Are you in a place that gets cold now or is it still summer all the time? Listen, I get weather now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get weather now, like if anybody knows west texas knows that west texas is dirt, just dirt. We get dust storms that look like something like in the. What is that movie? The mummy whenever the dust storms come in that's a legit thing. That happens in texas and west texas and people don't really think that that really kind of happens, but like the dirt is just too much and it's all in the house everywhere you go you can't get away from it.
Speaker 2:Like it's so nice to be able to open my windows and there's a breeze that rose through and you're not chewing dirt, oh yeah, all my windows are open all the time, the the heat too, like this summer. This is my first summer in Tennessee too, and so like it would be like the highest, I think I got like 90 degrees, I'm sure everybody's like. You just haven't been there yet, but long enough yet, but like I would go into town and people are like man, it's so hot out here.
Speaker 2:Blah blah, hot out here, blah, blah, blah I'm like where, like this is great, like I'm outside working in it, you know, like I, I love it. And then I'm gonna get it's cold right now. Check the weather this morning it was like 36 degrees. Oh, that's just about freezing. I love it. My plants are in and out, like I have, like I said, windows and doors open.
Speaker 1:I've never been able to do that yeah ever like ever, it's just so you're going to have to buy snowmobiles.
Speaker 2:That would be dope.
Speaker 1:I wonder if you get enough snow on the mountain. You should.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I have no idea, you'll find out, I know, I literally know nothing about the area, so I guess we'll find out Now what about the shop? Bigger, smaller, you got more space for your shop. Is it all set up? It's about the same.
Speaker 2:Um, I am gonna add on, of course, and just keep building. Keep building, because now I have land and so I can, so I have all the space to build and keep growing and this is yours.
Speaker 1:You bought it's mine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's mine nobody can take it away from me?
Speaker 2:yes, take it away from me now you know those kinds of things. Nobody can take it away. I'll never have to move again and as a product of your environment.
Speaker 1:My whole life I've had to move every year, twice a year sometimes dude, let me tell you a story that happened just before I came on this flight. I was sitting at home with my wife and we were just chitting and chatting and she knows my history in my life and and then she asked me is this the house that you've lived in the longest? And I had never thought about that because I moved so much as a kid that I was like I don't know how long we've been married nine years, how long we've had this house nine years, wow. I'm like yes, this is the longest I've ever been in a house, and that's a crazy thing to think that most people grow up in houses their lives, and so I've never been in a place since I was born longer than seven years. I started going through my entire life.
Speaker 2:Most of the time it was two to three years oh yeah, see, that's annoying oh, dude to pack your stuff up and just keep moving, keep moving keep moving, like, and I'm struggling with like, feeling like, even though it's my, I love it. I love it so much. I'm struggling with, um, we're not gonna have to pick up and move again, so like hanging things and making it a home making it real. There's been a part of me that's like I don't know should I do this, because what if we do have to move?
Speaker 1:and I'm like wait, wait, why would I have to?
Speaker 2:I own it, it's mine and for anybody that has not bought a house before first off, I know as a small business owner or as a business owner. It's very hard to buy a house on your own or whatever.
Speaker 1:I wasn't able to buy my first house until I was 32.
Speaker 2:Yeah, see so if you're in your 20s and you're thinking about buying a house and you can't, or it's, I mean, I'm 39. I just bought my first house. That's a big deal and so like, also, like you don't have to put so much pressure on yourself trying to own, but like I am, just like I'm grateful for this place. I like I feel like it was just handpicked from you know from this guy for me, you know. So I just I am struggling a bit with like making, like, trying to make it a home.
Speaker 1:Well, it's fresh.
Speaker 2:Like it's fresh. You're months in. You're safe, it's changed.
Speaker 1:You're safe, it's changed, that's it and you're going to get to the point where that safety becomes creativity right, yep, where you creativity right, where you're like okay, I don't feel I'm in danger. I can start opening that part of my brain where I can start looking at things in terms of what I want it to be yeah not just like I like this wall, I'm gonna hang something on it. But like you know what, maybe I need to paint the wall, maybe I need to move something right. Like you know, what's funny is I.
Speaker 2:I love the hannah montana movie.
Speaker 1:I know I know, I know but I love the hannah mont.
Speaker 3:I know, I know, I know I get it, but I love the Hannah.
Speaker 2:Montana movie. Like, I love this show.
Speaker 3:I know.
Speaker 2:I'm a nerd, but let me nerd out for a second. I have this shed that came with the property and it looks just like the shed from the Hannah. Montana movie, so like I cannot wait to paint flowers on it, like with the white windows. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like I cannot wait to paint flowers on it, Like I've been waiting for it to get just a little bit cool enough to where I can just like go out there in the sun and just paint a mural on it.
Speaker 2:I cannot wait for that, like I just, it's just.
Speaker 1:It's going to happen, it's perfect, it's going to be perfect, yeah, and then you got to call up Miley Cyrus and be like yo.
Speaker 2:Listen, she's from Tennessee. Yeah, exactly, that's my girl party in the us, yes, so, um, yeah, I, I love it and I'm always I'm like within five to ten minutes from like, probably 10 different waterfalls like, which is pretty cool. So I'm like tlc right now chasing waterfalls. You know, um, yeah, water, like I'm around so much life and uh, versus like so much, just like life-sucking chaos chaos in west texas you know not that I'm a deterrent of chaos.
Speaker 1:I think sometimes chaos has a purpose. Um, sometimes, if you don't know what to do, a little bit of chaos pushes you in for sure in the right direction, for sure, but uh, it's not good when it's not your kid yes, yes if it's someone else's chaos that starts to pull you in.
Speaker 2:That's where that's no, no, no, bueno, you are who you hang out with you are who you surround yourself with, even if it's just you know three, four, five people or even just one, that person can really take a toll on you your health, your life, your career, and you have to be controlling the mind what you projected. The universe always returns itself back in, and so who you hang out with is the exact same thing. Who your partners with who you're business and with like in business with you know everything about your life reflects reflect that and so like I was really, really feeling.
Speaker 2:I think that a lot in in west texas, who I was hanging out with, who I was associated with, things like that and separating myself, wearing you down, yeah very.
Speaker 1:It really does take a toll on you well, and the other part of that that we don't like to admit to ourselves is that we go all in and if we go right and if we go all in, even if it's wrong, by the time we figure out it's wrong?
Speaker 1:we're all in, and then it's like, oh, like I was married for 10 years, got divorced man and everyone's like why did you wait so long? Everyone hated her, everything was terrible and I was like. I was like I don't know, I don't know, I don't even know I consider myself a smart person. I just put my blinders on and I guess you just feel like you went all in. This is what you get.
Speaker 2:And I have a curse Like my curse is I'm full sin in everything you do and you and you'll hear me say full sin full, sin full sin, I'm 100. I support every decision I make, even if it's the wrong decision, you know.
Speaker 3:Sometimes it fights me in the end? Yeah, it sure does, but I still 100.
Speaker 2:Support every decision, because if you don't support your own decisions, then how can anybody else support you? You know and you gotta learn yep, so supporting my decision, thought through. It's not a failure, it's not a loss. It's just another notch in the belt.
Speaker 1:I don't believe in the word failure. I mean you do or you do not and you roll with it. Right, it is what it is.
Speaker 2:And two, I'm very grateful for West Texas. I'm very grateful for what West Texas gave me, because had it not been for West Texas pushing me, then I wouldn't be the person I am today. I wouldn't have the career that I have, I wouldn't have the heart.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't have any of the things that Texas gave me, and so I'm taking all that and I'm putting it into love now and this year. January 1st of this year, I made a decision that everything after this, my muse is going to be love. Everything that's going to be created after this is going to be created out of a place of love instead of a place of heartbreak, and it's been, it's really like benefited, you know, thoughts in the universe. If it's going to be love, it's going to be love that returns itself back and it really has and love has many faces it has many angles right.
Speaker 1:People are like oh, you just think everything's gonna be happy. No, no, that's. Love doesn't mean mean happy necessarily.
Speaker 2:Love is being scared, right and sad. Yeah Right, love is many things, right, all of those things, but at the end of the day, it's the love. You know, love is what pulls us through.
Speaker 1:Let's take our break for our sponsors Now. We're already ripping through time like crazy here.
Speaker 1:So, every year we get in trouble. Danielle's like stop. So we're going to take our break for our sponsors right now. We'll be back right away here on the CWB Association podcast with Ray Ripple.
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Speaker 1:And we are back on the cwb association podcast today. We are in fabtech 2024 doing our special series and, as tradition would have it, we have Ray here with us. We're going to continue from the first half. We were talking about this last year and the changes and the chase for freedom, the chase for love, the things that you're doing and you have a privilege to do because you're a healthy and creative, you know free willed mind and you have the ability to make change when you want Right. You're not ever convicted to anything, especially something bad. Now, in this last year, year and a half, there's also been a lot of really cool stuff you've been doing, that's been working out and I got a list. But first I'm going to start with the Harley stuff. But first I'm going to start with the Harley stuff. When we interviewed last year, you had just started that Harley, you know.
Speaker 1:Contract, I guess or you know working with that. What have you done with them in the last year?
Speaker 2:What kind of cool stuff. So I built a road glide for them last year for Born Free, california, which was super cool because I went in a complete opposite direction of what everybody else goes in, because that's what I do. I always got to shake things up and it kind of had led to a bunch of other things. I just did my my garage episode for them, which was pretty cool. It did really well on on the social medias and on youtube but, um, yeah, harley, die hard harley. I got five harleys now like I I'm one for each finger.
Speaker 2:One for each finger, one I'm trying to get one for every day of the week you know that kind of thing, but having, of course, cash being in on it, like I really am like hoping he latches on to Harley too. And like you know just.
Speaker 1:Will you judge him if he comes home with a really nice like Honda?
Speaker 2:or Well, Honda, Okay look.
Speaker 1:Or Kawasaki.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna lie, or buol, or I want a gold wing, yeah, like an 80s model gold wing has like a backup button in the reverse and stuff. Those are like couches I do want a gold wing, really bad, um, that's I just there's just something special about them harley, I mean, think about it. Think about it like a friend of mine's got the indian the rocket three.
Speaker 1:That thing is insane I mean it's all right.
Speaker 3:All right, I mean come right, right, come right, my drag chapter. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:We'll talk then yeah, harley davidson's great continuing it's still doing, continuing, still doing good.
Speaker 2:Everything with that's good.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, love harley davidson, of course all right, the movie you had, a movie made with you about you. What's that process? Someone calls you up and says hey, Ray, let's make a movie. Let's make a movie Like how does that work?
Speaker 2:Actually it was kind, of you know, planting seeds in life. And I did the commercials for northern tool I was doing a lot of stuff with northern tool and um the production, um crew that filmed that commercial and I became really good friends so I was gonna do this other show and they were asking me to join the union right and so I called like the artist union. Yeah that, what is it bag?
Speaker 2:or whatever it is um. So they were asking me to join the union, and so I called um. Me and him became really good friends on set and so I called him to ask him if he was a part of the actors union, like, what is his thoughts? That conversation lasted 10 minutes and then we dove like four hours and just into me like he was very curious about my life, like things like that.
Speaker 2:He was like I don't know, but I'm gonna film something. I I really feel like I need to film something with you one day. And then one day they showed up with half a million dollars worth of equipment to my house you had to have known they were coming it wasn't like it was a process.
Speaker 2:For sure it was a process, for sure to get to that point, but it kind of was like they just showed up, we, um, we did a lot of um, deep dive stuff, like I think people see my life on social media and they see or think they have like um access to you or no, like they, I think people think that my life is just great all the time oh well, that's, you know what I mean yeah, I think that they like people just see my life I put only what people want to see on social media.
Speaker 2:So this is like kind of like like what it takes and how, um, how my life has really affected me out behind the scenes. I know you think you see this happy go lucky person all the time, but really it requires a lot of work to control this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I find that statement interesting from you because I feel like, since the first time I ever met you, first time we ever actually like had a talk, I didn't get happy, go lucky, really Right. No, I like, since the first time I ever met you, first time we ever actually like had a talk, I didn't get happy, go lucky, really right. No, I could. To be honest, to be completely honest to you, uh, I could see the sadness behind the eyes, like, and I could see that, but people like us see it in each other, right, because we're the same, because we're the same and we know that, like, yeah, I'm awesome, everything's good, but there's some trauma, yeah, and it requires a lot of work it does it?
Speaker 1:does it like to just live? I've been going to a shrink since I was seven.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just two times a week for me. You know what I mean like therapy it's part of life. It's a part of life, but it takes a lot of work to be able to just function sometimes and it takes a lot of work sometimes to even just find a reason to get out of bed, and I think, um people, we need to be able to see the vulnerability of that, be honest about that, and I'm very, very open and honest about my life.
Speaker 2:I will tell you everything you want to know, because eventually I'm not going to be here one day and I want the world to have this and who's going to tell the story? Yeah, I want the world to have this because, like I said, I was chosen to put the, put on the magic glasses and now I can't take them off, you know. And so this is that deep dive behind what you might see on social media and the work and the, the, the dedication and and the hardship, hardship into putting it into back myself you know what I mean and so so what's the premise?
Speaker 1:is it over like a span of time, or are we going back to like here's 10 year old ray to today?
Speaker 2:like um it's. It's hard to explain yeah, I'll send it to you so you can watch the screener um, it is heavy.
Speaker 1:Is there a release? Release?
Speaker 2:not yet, because it's running. It's running things right now yeah. It's in the circuit. Yeah, it's in the circuit. So it's in two Academy-nominated festivals right now. It's up for Best Documentary and we've got a lot of really big names on the film.
Speaker 3:We have got Company.
Speaker 2:3. We have people that are huge in the industry that have been working on this film we have Ryex and Bear Mountain.
Speaker 1:It's full length Hour and a half two hours.
Speaker 2:It hour and a half two hours. It's a short documentary, so it's a short film, uh, so basically it's about this pivotal moment in my life where I realized that you, I need to live.
Speaker 2:I need to learn to live you know, and so that's kind of what it's about, and so um it it really it's weird how, like I thought I was okay until it opened again, until we filmed and I realized that I was just blanketing a lot of things and so and really just put in a lot of work into um my ptsd, because I do suffer with ptsd, and so like putting a lot of work into myself, investing in myself and less caring about everything else and just focusing on this you know, this is the biggest challenge for me right now. Not that it's like I'm in a bad place or anything like that.
Speaker 1:It's just a work in progress. Every day it's a work in progress, and so this is a film that reflects that just the work in progress did you feel like it was an honor to be asked to make a movie, or were you worried that perhaps this is just another possible person that's looking to use ray to get success? Because there's always an aspect of who wants to do something with you and why uh, I know no I honestly because I would be a skeptic like that. I'd be like why I was very, very safe.
Speaker 2:Yeah with michael, dan and all of them, jay all of them. I was very, very, very safe with them and and they didn't push, they didn't nothing. We let things come out naturally as they went. And it's it's the universe, you know, the universe chooses you in that moment. And it's it's wild because, like I, things that were happening while we were filming were like reflections of a 10-year cycle, like all condensed in like it was like things were happening and I was like it would click in something, like something would click from like 10 years ago.
Speaker 2:I'm like oh wait, that's. This is why. This is why. And like I, like, for instance, I made one of my very first sculptures. Not welded was a dress that I made. That the reflection of my life. Every piece of it represents something and if you do a deep dive into my instagram you'll find it. Her name is monet.
Speaker 2:My middle name is monet a lot of people don't know that, but um, so it's been this direct reflection of my life, but like I kind of have been carrying it around like a baggage, like you still have it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you ever sell it?
Speaker 2:well, it's, I'm, it's a funny story, so like I I've been carrying this dress around for a long time as baggage and while we were filming um, I was showing them the property and they were um. It was in storage. You know, I didn't want to look at it like it just is just there, and he was like, can we film this? What's the story behind it? And I was like, honestly, I really just want to set this on fire.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, I'm done with it, let's film it so, um, but I was like no, no, no, no, it stays, it stays, it stays. I don't want to talk about it, I want nothing. And then we got into this interview and I don't really open up a lot about deep dive into my dad.
Speaker 1:I guess you can say Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so in the interview I kind of really opened up, I went there and, like after we were done, I was like you know what it's time, like I really think it's time, and so we lit that on fire and I felt freedom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you feel that?
Speaker 2:that snap, I feel like I finally, for I finally got to let a lot of things go, and it's, it's so. And then the premiere happened in march of this year.
Speaker 1:Where was the premiere?
Speaker 2:in palm springs. Okay and so, and then the premiere happened, and then life completely changed. It was like that 10-year cycle. I built that dress 10 years ago and I don't know why I built it. It was a dream I had and it came to me like literally how to build it, what I was going to do with it, that kind of thing, and it was like a complete opposite expectation of what I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 1:That's why I?
Speaker 2:just carried it around like baggage, and so now it makes sense. That's what it represented, yeah it makes sense why I had to build it. I had to build it because I had to become this person I am today, in order to let go of that person.
Speaker 2:It was almost like a shield of armor for the last 10 years that I've been, I've been wearing kind of secretly, like under the clothes you know, and like letting that go lighting on fire and then my whole life changed and now I'm in tennessee, like I think we don't understand things a lot of the times yeah I think even when they're happening, whether it was yesterday, a week ago or even you know, 10 years, like I think I didn't really understand that part of my life and there's still a lot of things like why, why?
Speaker 1:why I?
Speaker 2:have to have a reason for everything I don't think there always is no, and I I didn't have a reason for 10 years and sometimes it
Speaker 1:just reveals it around, yeah yeah, it just reveals itself.
Speaker 2:So I think within the film, like it really was a, it just really showed me that like man, I'm really, I'm on the right track I'm doing it. I'm doing it I'm I'm on the right track and I'm doing exactly what I was supposed to do with the dress when I had the dream and so have you stopped to think about what you're doing today might mean in 10 years from now?
Speaker 1:yeah, I do every day Because you crack that window and you start seeing those connections, because I do that all the time too. It's like you know, 10 years ago I haven't done a hard drug in 10 years I don't know if I should even talk about that. But 10 years, right, 10 years. And you know, 10 years from now, what am I going to be able to say? That I've achieved?
Speaker 3:10 gonna be able to say that I've achieved.
Speaker 1:10 years from now, what am I gonna say that I've accomplished and be proud of myself. For it might be simple, stupid things, but to me they might matter. To somebody else it doesn't mean anything, but it doesn't have to, doesn't matter I, I find my I.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna be a titty baby for a second, but I literally find myself crying at least once a day, and it's not even like a crying of like sadness but like I feel, like for the first time in my life I really can just cry just let it out like finally just decompress, like everything I've been holding on to and it's crazy how, filming that movie to the premiere, to where my life is now, over the span of 10 years, like, how, like I feel, like finally, like I'm like being able to breathe, like in a sense, even though I haven't got the catharsis of it right. Yeah, I haven't got really to the point where I enjoy it yet um I'm still working on that part, but as far as like the actual like, taking the deep breath out and like being able to just release some things that I really have been hanging on to for a very long time.
Speaker 1:You know the making of the movie, the release, the whole package. Now, is this a possible? Another project in ray's world is this oh honey, we plant.
Speaker 2:Did you get a taste of film? Here like yeah well and I do a lot of filming too. I mean, like we film a lot for hypertherm too. Now and then like uh filming for you know harley davidson commercials you know, other. You know tv stuff, um. So I know that this is a seed that's gonna reveal itself into a beautiful tree and even in more years.
Speaker 3:You know, or maybe it's not 10 years.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's tomorrow you know, we don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1:But bamboo can grow up to three feet a day yeah, yeah, I mean, who knows?
Speaker 2:and maybe it's a bamboo, we don't know right, you never know. And but it's really, it's like I. I'm very proud of it. I've only watched it, uh, one and a half times was it hard it. I yeah the premiere even too, like, and I love Kristen so much because, like, even during the premiere, like, like just holding her hand- in the theater and like she got up with me to leave.
Speaker 2:You know she got up with me to leave and and just be with me in a moment outside of the theater while everybody else was watching it. But you know, it's crazy is like after we were done everybody left the theater. One woman come up to me and she works for child protective services and she was like I'm so sorry, your state failed you yeah and it that's the first time anybody has ever said that to me.
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry. Your state failed you because they did and they fail kids every single day which is which is a terrible thing to say, and so like I really hope that this kind of shines light on all these kids that are getting lost in the system and being products of their environment and that don't find a way out.
Speaker 2:This is why I love the trade so much, because the trades really have saved my life. The hard work, the hands-on, the everything that comes with it is really truly transformed and changed my life and, like I want other people to see that, I need other kids that are like me, that are being felt by their state.
Speaker 1:Well, that was basically one of the first conversations we have, because I'm a refugee from a war, yep, and it was the trades that saved my family's life. My dad got a job as a boilermaker in Canada. Boom, there's the rest of the story. You know, like, without the trades in my life and my family's life, who knows, who knows what it'd been right, like, oh yeah. So, movies aside, now it's rolling because we could talk about that for a while. Right, we're coming up on an hour here, so we're at fabtech. What was the mission for this fabtech? You know, there's always a goal. You know, uh, last year, you, what was the project you did last year? Uh, I had a hood last year you?
Speaker 2:what was the project you did? Last year?
Speaker 1:I had a hood last year, right the hood. This year, when I talked to you like three months ago, you're like the mach one is coming, yes, where everyone saw the mach one. And then I was like sad the mach one was getting cut up at least there's a second gen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, right right, but I have a mustang, like I love my mustangs, um, but then it's not here, right, and I think there's obviously a number of things that factored into that. Probably Hurricane, I assume, would be one of them. Two of them yeah yeah, like I mean that's a problem. But you know, is the Mustang still a project to go? Is it done?
Speaker 2:the Mustang. I was going to try to finish it here but two hurricanes one hit Tennessee and North Carolina, and then on top of that, you know, milton just rolled through a couple of like what a week ago it just rolled through. So at one point, like Fabtech, we didn't even think was going to happen. And then when they said green go light, at that point it was like almost not too late to bring it.
Speaker 2:But the road to get here in the devastation, and like I just almost felt, like it was too much and like too many people are suffering right now and lost everything, I do not feel like my heart can do it. My heart can't do it. So I, my team, we talked about it. We made a conscious decision Like I just think it's best that we wait and save that for something else so it's gonna be on hold until the right well, I'm still gonna cut it, I'm still gonna it's still um a build.
Speaker 2:Um, we just got word o'reilly's is sponsoring the build, so um, all of the parts are taken care of so does it run right now?
Speaker 1:it doesn't run yet close.
Speaker 2:It has a 351 cleveland cc transmission. Um, it needs some love on the inside, but an obviously new wiring because I burnt it all up, but uh, so, um, it's going to be, it will run and drive. Um, and it was running and driving at one point. The motor was rebuilt and sat back in, so, um, I just got to kind of reconnect things. The front end needs some work.
Speaker 1:Um, it needs a radiator, you know those kinds of things, but you're allowed to drive it on the street once it's done, can you? Oh yeah, I'm driving it on the street.
Speaker 2:I think the only thing that I'm worried about is this is the first unibody car that I've ever cut.
Speaker 1:It's not going to have the structural strength, Right?
Speaker 2:so I've been doing a lot of research on the specs of like sub frames for the mach 1 mustang and there's a lot out there for it. Yeah, I'm gonna build a subframe for it and it's honestly the integrity people are so like. Oh my god, there goes the instructional integrity of the car, but it's like the integrity is more on the inside the panels are just on the inside.
Speaker 1:The panels are just on the outside.
Speaker 2:Yeah, panels, it's not so if the panels were supporting everything on that car, it would crumble like a can anyways can plasma cut glass no I wish I wish I want to get into glass so bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know I've been thinking about getting into glass too whenever you're ready, let's do it together.
Speaker 2:It'd be super fun.
Speaker 1:It's like maybe you could get a spare windshield and cut the pattern with like a water jet and yeah, that would be dope don't, don't listen to me.
Speaker 2:I'm not an artist you're like that's dumb that'd be dope yeah, I'm just kidding, uh, no, I, um, I'm just gonna build a subframe for it. It will run and drive I'm gonna tag it. I'm gonna inspect it, like all that kind of stuff I basically am building the resume on it. It is not my car, even though it's my car. This car is not my car. I think that's what that way with all art Whose car? Is it, whoever it belongs to, oh.
Speaker 1:You know, or the purchaser maybe, yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't create art for myself. I do not Even though I have a couple of my own personal pieces. I never create art for myself.
Speaker 1:I create it for somebody else so it is mine right now.
Speaker 2:I'm going to build a resume on it. Get it to some really cool places.
Speaker 1:I would love to take it to Roadkill Nights do the burnout contest, because I could just imagine just shredding tires and the smoke coming through the panels, right?
Speaker 2:so, um, I have goals and dreams and and things that seeds I'm gonna plant with it and then whoever it belongs to, it'll end up where it belongs what color do you envision it when it's done? I'm actually gonna take it back down to the original.
Speaker 1:Like copper red is that what it was originally.
Speaker 2:That's what it was that blue has got to go, and whoever painted it.
Speaker 1:If you're watching this, you did a terrible, terrible, terrible job. How's it like cutting through Bondo. Isn't that a lovely smell? It's terrible.
Speaker 2:It's terrible, but somebody reached out to me on Instagram and was like hey, you just take a torch, it burns off it's like plastic yeah. So just burning off Bondo.
Speaker 3:Trying to get it gone yeah it's gross?
Speaker 2:yeah, it is really gross you know it's wild is there's a lot of lead in cars that I didn't know was a thing in the older model vehicle, so it still explodes and gets all over your clothes you can't get it out, it burns it stains out of your skin. But um yeah, I have huge plans for that thing. So, even though I didn't make it here, just know big things are coming.
Speaker 1:And what you did here at Fabtech was the panel with the cutting right.
Speaker 2:Yep all freehand.
Speaker 1:And that was all to show off the sync system right. Yep, and is that the new one with just like the one cartridge?
Speaker 2:switch out yes yes.
Speaker 1:So we interviewed the upcoming successive CEO of Hypertherm a couple days ago and he was telling me about, like you know, the R&D that goes behind these programs and it's like when does it stop? It just keeps getting better and easier and better and easier. And they have people like you that can just show like I had people comment like I stopped and I saw Ray, she could cut so fast with that thing, right.
Speaker 1:It's just like right and it's like you know. In your terms, you've been with doing this for a few years. How much has that technology changed in your short period of time here?
Speaker 2:well, I, mean you like just see what I do?
Speaker 1:like it's changed.
Speaker 2:If you look at my work from the very beginning, whenever I started, versus my work now, I had somebody come up to me and was like man, you're really getting good, I'm like I know, I know it's but having your equipment is what matters, yeah and so um hypertherm. The plasma system has really truly transformed my, my cut pattern. How? I cut how fast I cut and it really helps a lot with warping because I'm really fast, which helps with warping because, it helps with the heat, and so, um showcasing it, I went to go visit the plant.
Speaker 2:Uh, a couple of years ago uh, it's in new hampshire and the hr guy pulled me aside and he was like I just want you to know when we hire new people, not everybody that they hire is in the welding industry of course, and so he was like when we hire new people and they don't understand, I try to explain to him what the system does.
Speaker 1:They watch your videos.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he just brings up my Instagram and hiring like when he's hiring new people. He was like because it immediately explains what our system does, and there's not anybody else that does that, and so it's pretty cool that, like I, it's weird.
Speaker 2:It doesn't feel like my life, you know it's weird because this doesn't feel like my life, you know, and so like it's crazy that just something I just was, my first piece of equipment was a plasma cutter you know, I was cutting things up from the tow yard and the fact that like just cutting those, those things up and the fire extinguishers up is really like planted that seed to let this tree grow is like, I'm very grateful now, what else is going on?
Speaker 1:because what have we missed? The movie harley hypertherm. Uh, the move right. What else is going on in ray's life?
Speaker 2:like I mean, that's a lot already yeah, I have my, my second book coming out oh yeah, look again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nope, this one book, yes, this one is uh, poetry.
Speaker 2:Uh, the book is titled the intrusive thoughts of an influencer. Uh, I think we had that conversation. I actually hate the word influencer um, so this is my intrusive thoughts. Um, basically, it's my diary entries for the last like 10 years. You know 10 year cycles. Um, so it's gonna look beautiful on the outside and you're gonna open, open it up and it's going to be dark yeah.
Speaker 2:It's going to be real, real thoughts, real, real emotions because, you know, we're all human, we all bleed red and I want people to see that there's there's more to what you see on Instagram, that I'm a human, just like you, and we're all in this boat. We're all living for the first time. Everybody here is living for the first time.
Speaker 2:We don't know about anything you know, and so, like this, is that guidebook for the next person that's going through a heartbreak or just suffering, or just being for a moment. You only got five seconds of happiness and then you're back into the sorrow, like it seems almost as if it would be a dark, um sad book, but really at the end of it?
Speaker 2:yeah, because like the beginning of it. You and I didn't notice this, and so I started putting together my manuscript, because I have to get it all together and in categories, like in chapters in a sense, because there's um 186 pages right now, um so putting it.
Speaker 1:you want to flow right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wanted to flow, but I also wanted to be accurate and timeline. Okay, and so I got it all printed out and I had it all laid out and I was putting it together in the manuscript my room and like reading some of the first things that I wrote versus. Like you know, I woke up in January one of this year that my, my year was going to be a muse of love you know my place of love.
Speaker 2:This year that my, my year was going to be a muse of love. You know my place of love, and to see my writing transform over the last like 10 years, it's like it's, it's almost like a phoenix in itself, just in my, my writings, you know, like just in my poetry, like going from this really, really, really dark, cold place to like I'm really seeing the light at the end of the tunnel now and I think I need the world to see that. I want the world to see that because somebody else is going through the exact same thing.
Speaker 1:But also we think the thing, these things we think the same things like you know, so I don't know, like when I I talk to people about anxiety, I suffer from anxiety, really bad people. People are like how do I suffer from anxiety? I do podcasts, I run a big company, all these things. I travel the world, but inside I am like all the time.
Speaker 2:I'm just talking to my driver about anxiety poop, like having anxiety poop and I take meds Like it's not like I had to go get help.
Speaker 1:I had to figure it out right, because as a young person you self-medicate. Well, that don't work. Kids Like for a bit, but not for very long.
Speaker 2:So you know and see and I choose not to. I should.
Speaker 1:I bet I should be, medicated. Everyone's different, yeah, but.
Speaker 2:I choose not to, because I feel like that's where my art comes from.
Speaker 1:I totally get that.
Speaker 2:So I feel like, if I do, Medicaid, it'll numb it out. And I do therapy in different ways, like I actually have therapy. And then I write I'm outside, I'm with chickens.
Speaker 1:I'm with my farm now.
Speaker 2:I love chickens.
Speaker 1:You should get those chickens with those little Beatles haircuts.
Speaker 2:What are they?
Speaker 1:called Funny thing about.
Speaker 2:Tennessee and being in the mountains and the woods is there's a whole other set of problems with animals.
Speaker 1:Coyotes and yeah, so I had 12 chickens whenever I got this house and a fox broke into the coop and climbed.
Speaker 2:I had wood buried too a foot in the ground.
Speaker 1:You dug under.
Speaker 2:Dug under and slaughtered 10 of my chickens and then on my way up here I get a text message that says cash, son, cash is pissed and I was like why the dog next door? Ate the other two one of the two I have left, and so now I only have one and he's gonna be so lonely he is mad and Cash loves these chickens. He lets them in the house and like, get them out of the house.
Speaker 1:They're cute. They can't be in the house.
Speaker 2:They're not dirty, no, he just brings them in the house because he's Cash and those are his animals and they like being snuggled. Oh, he loves snuggling them. He spoils the heck heck out of these chickens. So now I have to get him some new chickens. I think we're gonna do duck um a lot and obviously, a more secure prison for them. You know which I?
Speaker 2:I live in la la land and I think, oh, I just let them all out, they'll all get along together, all the animals, they're gonna be great and then they're beef oh yeah we have two hawks in the yard. So, like it started with this hawk got one and then I was like mortified. I was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry this is my fault.
Speaker 1:I put you in a place of death.
Speaker 2:I literally was trying to just let you out of poop and experience life and eat bugs.
Speaker 3:And this hawk just slaughtered you and then.
Speaker 2:I had to keep them put up. And then they still got eaten. Still got eaten. Still got eaten. This is crazy to me, ain't?
Speaker 1:that a lesson of life it is even a cage won't protect you it won't, it won't.
Speaker 2:Life is harsh, yeah, yeah, so um, yeah, I yeah, it's been fun, yeah well, let's wrap up the the podcast here.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about the next 10 year cycle. That's been a nice you know theme that you brought in. That I like. I like that idea. You know, you said you're 39. Where's 49 year old ray? Where do you see? What are some of the thoughts. You know you're, by then you'll probably be grandma. You'll, you know, things will be happy, kids will be grown up. What's kind of the, the vision that you're putting out there for yourself for the next 10 year?
Speaker 2:win uh, I think, of course, with my career. Just double. I would love to double everything.
Speaker 1:Can you handle?
Speaker 2:double. Yeah, I can handle everything. Baby, Come on, bring it at me.
Speaker 1:I got it.
Speaker 2:You know, like that kind of thing. I would love to plant more flowers in my life. You know, that's I think the next 10 years, like I said, waking up January 1 this year, of everything after this is going to be created at a place of love. I'm always planting trees Time to plant flowers and enjoy them you know, and so for the next 10 years. I think that's what my life looks like. It's just more flowers, more stopping and smelling and enjoying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just living, getting that balance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just living. I put in the hard work um. I've laid it down. I know my hands aren't gonna work forever and so that's why I've really been focusing on my plasma lab class, which we haven't talked about. Yet I uh do a plasma lab class where I'm teaching people my patterns how often are you doing that? Uh well, right now, the next class is in october, the end of October. I'm doing it twice a month.
Speaker 1:Out of your place.
Speaker 2:So it's a virtual class, so anybody can take it anywhere in their own shop, use their own equipment, that kind of stuff which is really really cool over Zoom, or we can do in-person classes. I offer classes at colleges like come and teach the plasma. Like what the plasma can do.
Speaker 1:And you have a passport, right I? Do I do Thought plasma like what the plasma can do, because you have a passport right.
Speaker 2:Do I do so? Um? Thoughts are brewing, so I think um when we have welding school. I think the plasma part of welding school is this big compared to everything else and so I'm really trying to shape shift that in the industry and so having the plasma class really, uh, transformed things, so like that um to doing more teaching, because, like I don't get keep anything, I know like a lot of um people in the industry and artists have secrets and they want to keep those secret clothes.
Speaker 2:I don't I'll tell you anything. I'll teach you anything you want to learn my pattern. I'll teach it because eventually you're going to turn it into whatever you want to turn it into that's right, and it's still the. There's still execution, the execution, yeah, yeah, and I kind of like the thought of having little minions out there doing my dirty work.
Speaker 1:You know I used to call all my students my chickadees, yeah my little chickadees. Get out there, my little chickadees, because learn what I learned crush it, crush, go out there and be the best I have art everywhere I have art.
Speaker 2:Everywhere I have, I have pieces that people are gonna stand in front of when I'm long gone and say, man, I really would have loved her, you know like I have that already.
Speaker 2:Now it's time to give it to someone else, like I want to give it to them, give it to the kids, so that way, what's next is going to be 10 times greater. You know what I mean. It's leave. I'm just paving the road. I want to leave something behind for them. So I'm not gatekeeping nothing, I'm gonna teach everything I can well, now they at least got a house with five harleys.
Speaker 1:Yeah brother, yeah that's why I tell my kids all time like there's not gonna be much of a will, because I'm extremely irresponsible but.
Speaker 2:But you get harley you got a house.
Speaker 1:You got a mustang, you get a house.
Speaker 2:You get all my knickknacks, yeah, and all the stuff that I collected in my house, on my knickknacks and like I'm a thrift donkey and so like everything that I have is actually valuable to the right person to the right person.
Speaker 2:But, um, so yeah, I find value in all of those things. But, yeah, teaching that's the next 10 years. It's like laying leaving more of myself in that aspect for somebody else to kind of make their own art, because if you've seen the kids that are the cultures that they're creating right now like if I would have been doing that in high school, could you imagine where my work would be now? So, like, these kids are going to surpass me in 10 years and I'm honored and grateful that I get to give them my knowledge, you know.
Speaker 2:I can't wait to sit back and just watch them all take off.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, you know, thank you so much for being here. It's always a blast, Always great to see you. We got to figure out how to work not just at fab tech together.
Speaker 2:figure out something to do, hopefully I can come visit your new place.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna make you some spaghetti yeah, I like spaghetti hanging out on my porch. I like a lot of spaghetti, me too me too and uh, and we'll do any shout outs, anything you want to say to anybody, we good everybody.
Speaker 2:I love you guys, my kids, kids hi.
Speaker 1:Hi, mom, hi, All right, well, thank you everyone for following along. Thank you for being here for this episode. We're going to keep filming here on Fabtech. We've got lots more of them coming and make sure you keep downloading, sharing and commenting and use the new fan mail feature on our Buzzsprout website. So until the next episode, I'll catch you there. We hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 3:You've been listening to the CWB Association Welding Podcast with Max Serrano. If you enjoyed what you heard today, rate our podcast and visit us at cwbassociationorg to learn more. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions on what you'd like to learn about in the future. Produced by the CWB Group and presented by Max Ceron, this podcast serves to educate and connect the welding community. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.