BJ Hunt and Brian Tallberg

[00:03] B.J. HUNT: My name is B.J. Hunt. I am 48 years old. The date is August 22, 2024. I'm at the Andover Public Library. And I'm here with my one small step conversation partner, Brian.

[00:20] BRIAN TALLBERG: Okay, intro card. My name is Brian. I am 53 years old. Today is Thursday. I'm at the Andover public library. I'm here to. With my one step conversation with Mister B.J.

[00:34] B.J. HUNT: In Brian, your bio, it says, who am I? A question not quickly nor easily answered. I'm a father, a Christian, a small business owner. I value those whose actions match their words. Words are cheap. What a person spends their money and time on is what they truly value. My personal motto. You can have results or excuses. The choice is yours. I taught my daughters an important concept. Does the word happen to you? The world happened to you. Or do you change the world? Words are cheap. Actions change things. I don't get offended easily. Nice.

[01:18] BRIAN TALLBERG: All right, Mister B.J. I'm a husband of 24 years to my wife. We have two teenagers. We spent 18 years in education, but changed careers ten years ago to open my own company. Been working since I was 15. I have a bachelor's and a master's degree. I love family and fishing. I grew up Baptist, though. An owl, a Protestant, but not a great one at that. They have an interesting history.

[01:46] B.J. HUNT: So.

[01:48] BRIAN TALLBERG: Okay. All right, let's see. Why did I participate in one small step? I was invited. I enjoy conversations. Tell me a bit about your upbringing. How did you upbringing. Understanding means of american. So the questions are meant for you.

[02:04] B.J. HUNT: To ask your partner.

[02:06] BRIAN TALLBERG: Oh, okay. Why did you. Okay, there you go. Why did you get here?

[02:11] B.J. HUNT: Well, I just feel like the world is pretty divisive lately. And I just really feel like we could be better than that. And who better yet to try doing that? If I'm to your point, actions speak louder than words. I can't just talk about it. I need to do something about it.

[02:31] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yes, meeting people.

[02:32] B.J. HUNT: And that's why I'm here. So how about you? You say you're here just because you were asked to be?

[02:37] BRIAN TALLBERG: Well, I volunteered for it. They called me and asked me. So. Sure. Yes. My small business, I meet about 1000 people a year, engaging a thousand conversations a year. And we are in the world, 90% aligned. It's that stupid screen out there that's causing our problems.

[02:57] B.J. HUNT: Right. And what's. Can I ask what you do?

[03:01] BRIAN TALLBERG: Oh, fireplaces.

[03:02] B.J. HUNT: Okay, so you build them or install.

[03:05] BRIAN TALLBERG: Service, repair six months of the year. I work harder than the farmer. And in the summer I play more than a teacher.

[03:11] B.J. HUNT: Nice. That's interesting. I've never met anybody that. That was their profession.

[03:16] BRIAN TALLBERG: So very small. There's like ten of us in a city.

[03:19] B.J. HUNT: Okay.

[03:20] BRIAN TALLBERG: And what's your business?

[03:22] B.J. HUNT: Rent a brewery.

[03:23] BRIAN TALLBERG: Holy gosh.

[03:24] B.J. HUNT: So we. Yeah.

[03:26] BRIAN TALLBERG: Which one?

[03:27] B.J. HUNT: Walnut river brewing in El Dorado. And so. Yeah, yeah.

[03:32] BRIAN TALLBERG: You guys were at the beer bacon.

[03:34] B.J. HUNT: Fest two years ago and this year and. Yeah, we're at festivals all the time. I got one in Salina Saturday. I'm headed to Lawrence tomorrow. So we're all over the place.

[03:43] BRIAN TALLBERG: That's a cool thing.

[03:44] B.J. HUNT: So I. You know, like anything, it's just. It has its ups and downs. But driving home midnight on Saturday, having missed time with my family, it's not that cool. I enjoy what I do. Please don't get me wrong. Oh, you know, I. I do work six days a week and it does get old sometimes, so. But I do like what I do.

[04:06] BRIAN TALLBERG: So it's. I mean, I can imagine the excitement of 5000 gallons coming out perfect.

[04:11] B.J. HUNT: Yeah, that's actually my business partner's part. I don't make the beer. You don't want me make a beard. So it's. I'm pretty good at selling it and, you know, talking to people about it and. But. And that's actually one of the reasons I like the brewing, is it brings people together. You can have a great conversation over a pint.

[04:33] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yes.

[04:33] B.J. HUNT: And that's truly. I mean, one of the reasons, like our tap room only has one tv because. Yeah, you want to watch the Chiefs play. I get it. But you want to have a conversation. Most of our tables are not just four person tables. Here's an eight person. You know, there's the bar top. You sit with other people.

[04:55] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yes, I think so. Anyway, Ben Franklin had a great beer quote.

[04:59] B.J. HUNT: He's got a lot of good quotes.

[05:01] BRIAN TALLBERG: One was specifically beer. Beer proof that God likes us and wants us to be happy.

[05:05] B.J. HUNT: Right.

[05:06] BRIAN TALLBERG: That should be on the bottle somewhere, actually.

[05:08] B.J. HUNT: Yeah. Free state puts that on their shirts all the time. Free state brewing. So tell me about your upbringing.

[05:16] BRIAN TALLBERG: Oh, gosh. Typical. Late seventies, early eighties. Last key, we call it. What? Free roam parenting.

[05:24] B.J. HUNT: Yeah.

[05:25] BRIAN TALLBERG: You know, when the parents are gone and here's your key. Don't burn down the house.

[05:29] B.J. HUNT: God, yes.

[05:30] BRIAN TALLBERG: Free roam, kids. It was adventurous. I mean, we did things that I would never want my kids to do, but it was before this era.

[05:37] B.J. HUNT: Yeah.

[05:38] BRIAN TALLBERG: So we were allowed to do it.

[05:40] B.J. HUNT: Yeah. You can learn to light hairspray on fire and it makes a blue flame.

[05:45] BRIAN TALLBERG: Build. Yeah. Build forts. Oh, for sure. Bicycle to malls 10 miles away. Yeah, it was. It was tough, experimental, enriching. I mean, confidence building at the same time. You make mistakes, you learn to get laughed at. You learn to laugh at other people. I mean, there was no sensitivity. It was survival.

[06:10] B.J. HUNT: Wait, did you grow up on the south side?

[06:12] BRIAN TALLBERG: Oh, I grew up in Topeka.

[06:13] B.J. HUNT: Okay. Because it sounds like my upbringing in the south side of Wichita.

[06:17] BRIAN TALLBERG: So, yeah, it was not the richest neighborhood. Not the nicest. But we were resourceful.

[06:22] B.J. HUNT: Right.

[06:23] BRIAN TALLBERG: And getting into trouble. And more resourceful, learning not to get caught.

[06:27] B.J. HUNT: Right.

[06:28] BRIAN TALLBERG: You were clean up after yourself.

[06:30] B.J. HUNT: Well loved. But you had ample time to get.

[06:34] BRIAN TALLBERG: Into trouble and learn to clean up after yourself. Only the idiots got caught. If you leave messes, you get caught. The trick was learning how to hotwire the car and disabled the odometer so you wouldn't get caught.

[06:46] B.J. HUNT: I didn't ever get that far, so.

[06:49] BRIAN TALLBERG: I took it to an extreme.

[06:51] B.J. HUNT: No. You good?

[06:53] BRIAN TALLBERG: All right, so. All right, let's see. Do we go into the ugly one? Oh, all right. Can I twist this a little bit? What political viewpoint do you think is causing us the most distress in this? Cut enough viewpoint. Push from each party. So if you say one party's pushing this, it's most controversial. And that one pushing, that's most controversial.

[07:19] B.J. HUNT: Let me start with some background, I guess, on me, because I think it's good to know where people come from to understand maybe their answer. So I grew up very republican, but like most kids, I grew up republican, and so I just must be republican when I go to the polls, right? Because my mom and dad were. Well, turns out I can think of for myself. So. But I'm not a Democrat, and I'm actually fairly libertarian. I'm conservative fiscally. But if you want to garden naked in your backyard, just have a six foot fence, I don't care what you do. And so I don't need to tell you what you need to do. If you want to smoke weed in your backyard, I really don't care. Don't go get behind the wheel. Affect me. So that's kind of where I come from.

[08:10] BRIAN TALLBERG: Don't do it at the mall. I don't want to walk my kids.

[08:12] B.J. HUNT: Exactly. Exactly.

[08:13] BRIAN TALLBERG: But if you want to marry your goat and have three weird children from your goat, I don't care. Just don't tell me that I have to call your goat a wife.

[08:21] B.J. HUNT: I'm not sure that would be possible with the. Yeah. Anyway, so that's kind of where I come from.

[08:31] BRIAN TALLBERG: Right.

[08:31] B.J. HUNT: And so, frankly, I think all sides are guilty of just stopping listening to each other and not working together. And I don't want to be part of that problem. I'm sure I am in some fashion. Hence, again, the conversation here. So, you know, I don't know that there's one that's more of a problem than another.

[08:58] BRIAN TALLBERG: Oh, I didn't say which one was more problem. I said, what do you see is the biggest extreme on both sides that are just like, what is these people smoking and they need.

[09:06] B.J. HUNT: Yeah. And it just, and I think with Facebook and things like that, people tend to just only be one sided on that.

[09:17] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yeah.

[09:18] B.J. HUNT: And we forget to listen to each other, and it just. It's not that way. Right. You find that most people are more alike.

[09:26] BRIAN TALLBERG: That's what I found. So we have the media pushing things for divisiveness. It's just mind boggling to me. Why does everything have to be about sex and race? Why can't it be about the individual accomplishments? Why should I be judged and punished for something hundreds of years ago that I had nothing to do? Heck, my family had nothing to do with? And then on the other side, do I think abortion is wrong? I don't like abortion, but do I want my government controlling it? No. If I can't convince a person of my own morals and arguments why something's wrong, then I don't have a right to force it. I can make arguments on why murder is wrong. I can make arguments why stealing is wrong. I can make arguments why abortion is wrong, but that doesn't mean I want a law forcing it.

[10:16] B.J. HUNT: Yeah. You know, and it's, I think about a time where, you know, we try to size people up and figure out what box to put them in, because it's just easier. It's tidier, I think, in our brain to do so. But. So in my previous lifetime, I ran a daycare center, of all things, with 250 kids. So that was family business, hence the brewery afterwards. Right? Yeah. You couldn't drink at daycare. Yeah, they kind of shunned that.

[10:51] BRIAN TALLBERG: What made it quiet.

[10:52] B.J. HUNT: So my undergrad is elementary at early childhood, and then my business masters. And I told mom, dad, I said, I'm gonna go do my own business. Turns out I'm pretty good at drinking beer. So anyway, there's that. But one of the things that's a country song had two kids. And for just not beating around the bush, it was a, you know, white kid, black kid.

[11:14] BRIAN TALLBERG: Right. Mm hmm.

[11:15] B.J. HUNT: And I'm sure I should be nicer in saying that, but that's, in all intents purposes, what it was. So they come up, they're three years old, and they. They were in trouble for having a racial conversation, essentially. And I sat them both down and I said, okay, here's a box of crayons. I want you both to draw a picture of yourself. White kid picks out the white crown, so effectively, he can't see his drawing on his paper. And black kid picks out a black crown. And I said, okay, appreciate you doing that. Now, why don't you actually pick one out that matches your skin color? Oh, okay. So they go in, they pick one out. White kid actually picks out kind of a tan color. You know, they're pairing them up, and black kid picks out a dark brown color. And I said, oh, look, they're both brown. One's light brown, one's darker brown, but you're the same color. And I just kind of looked at each other, and they were like, oh, okay. And they just, like, skipped on out and went to the playground like, it's no big deal. I don't know why. I feel like we're either taught to be or we have to be divisive. We don't. So, I mean, I'm sure you have stories like that.

[12:33] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yeah. It's just about values, getting people to accept personal accountability and judging individuals individually as groups.

[12:41] B.J. HUNT: Right.

[12:41] BRIAN TALLBERG: But to do that, suddenly most of the divisiveness will be gone in this country, and two political partners would be out of work.

[12:49] B.J. HUNT: Yeah. Right. So do your politics differ from your parents?

[12:56] BRIAN TALLBERG: Oh, well, yeah. I mean, my dad's a hardcore Republican, my mom's a hardcore Democrat, and I'm.

[13:02] B.J. HUNT: Oh, wow.

[13:03] BRIAN TALLBERG: Neither.

[13:04] B.J. HUNT: Okay. How'd that work for your folks?

[13:08] BRIAN TALLBERG: Oh, they're divorced. They've been divorced since 1986.

[13:10] B.J. HUNT: Okay. My wife and I cancel each other out at the polls generally, but. Right. Okay.

[13:18] BRIAN TALLBERG: To me, both parties are corrupt. Now, if you spend four years in Congress and you're coming back out with millions of dollars, you're not representing the people, you're representing yourself.

[13:28] B.J. HUNT: So then you're independent or. Okay, interesting.

[13:33] BRIAN TALLBERG: Anywhere between independent, libertarian. I want my government weaker than Biden, climbing stairs with an economy stronger than Trump's ego.

[13:42] B.J. HUNT: That's fair. Kill it, Moses. I think they're all crazy, but I think that it would be interesting to have a common person in. Now, I realize that you have to be extremely smart, but. And I certainly don't qualify for being a president, but I think that, you know, there should be three of them choices out there.

[14:04] BRIAN TALLBERG: So have one in charge of the military, one in charge of the economy and one in charge of issues. Put three of them in there.

[14:11] B.J. HUNT: You know, I've always wondered if you got the vote on. On the budget by when you paid your taxes.

[14:17] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yeah.

[14:18] B.J. HUNT: Here, this one goes to roads or this goes to military.

[14:21] BRIAN TALLBERG: This go.

[14:21] B.J. HUNT: And that'll just tell you what people want funded.

[14:23] BRIAN TALLBERG: Guarantee you none of it was safe foreign aid.

[14:26] B.J. HUNT: So, yeah.

[14:29] BRIAN TALLBERG: We'Re pretty much aligned on that stuff. Let's see what else I can do to Sparka. Oh, let's see. What issue does not get enough attention. All right. From my perspective, personal accountability does not get enough attention.

[14:48] B.J. HUNT: Yeah.

[14:48] BRIAN TALLBERG: And what about you? What do you feel doesn't get enough attention?

[14:52] B.J. HUNT: Geez, so many things. I mean, I would definitely agree. Personal accountability, that is. We don't have enough of that in society in general. And I would say not even just jobs, but in relationships in general. You know, we all do our own thing. And I feel like I am always a better person when I have accountability. My wife or my business partners or, you know, even my kids, because my kids are 16 and 18 now. So one's high school. One's just now started college. And so when they got, you know, older, and I'm not sure how old yours are, but they get sassier, and they. They come with knowledge. And so you're like, yeah, dad, you can't tell me that anymore. That's not right. I'm like, okay, yeah, you're right. I have to look up my facts. So, you're right. Accountability is huge.

[15:55] BRIAN TALLBERG: My daughters are 20. 218. And soon to be 14. Okay, so three girls. That's karma. I earned it.

[16:04] B.J. HUNT: God bless you, sir. Yeah. One boy, one girl at our house.

[16:07] BRIAN TALLBERG: So which one's the older? The girl, and she's 18. She's almost sane about three more years.

[16:15] B.J. HUNT: Yeah, right. She's. She's got her first taste of dorm rooms, and so it's. I think she appreciates home, but she's liking the freedom at the same time, so. And she's getting into engineering, so her classes are not going to be easy. Oh, yeah. God bless her. I don't want to do that.

[16:39] BRIAN TALLBERG: There's some great engineering career fields out there.

[16:42] B.J. HUNT: Yeah. And as a gal, she is very outnumbered out there, so she is very much a minority.

[16:50] BRIAN TALLBERG: So good program. So, what's engineering?

[16:54] B.J. HUNT: She's doing aerospace at the moment.

[16:57] BRIAN TALLBERG: Oh, aerospace engineers. So, yeah, too many of those that I had to deal with.

[17:04] B.J. HUNT: Yeah, I'm sure. Didn't you say you were aircraft amp?

[17:08] BRIAN TALLBERG: No, I did. I was air force, working on aircraft for 20 years.

[17:11] B.J. HUNT: Which is basically an amp. It's not a and p. Civil.

[17:16] BRIAN TALLBERG: Too many times I had engineers tell me over the phone. Well, it fits on paper.

[17:20] B.J. HUNT: What would you work on, if I may?

[17:25] BRIAN TALLBERG: F. Did you say B ten s? I mean, not B ten s. B two s. Sorry, B two s. Yeah. F. Those are cool. A ten s t. Yeah. Six aircraft.

[17:44] B.J. HUNT: Wow. So you were a whiteman.

[17:47] BRIAN TALLBERG: Aircraft maintenance, and then got promoted too quickly to glorified babysitter.

[17:51] B.J. HUNT: Okay, then.

[17:53] BRIAN TALLBERG: All over the world, no doubt.

[17:56] B.J. HUNT: You're probably Alaska with f 15s.

[17:58] BRIAN TALLBERG: So a lot of Pacific time. Hawaii, Guam, Philippines, Thailand, Korea, Japan, Guam, Okinawa. A lot of time in the Pacific. I've eaten things that most people consider pets or would put on a. Put on a hook to catch real food with.

[18:19] B.J. HUNT: Right.

[18:20] BRIAN TALLBERG: Food is food. Protein is protein. It's.

[18:23] B.J. HUNT: Yeah.

[18:24] BRIAN TALLBERG: Let's get past the visual. It's all good.

[18:27] B.J. HUNT: Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. Appreciate all you've done for the country.

[18:31] BRIAN TALLBERG: Just had fun with it.

[18:32] B.J. HUNT: Yeah, not quite as much. 21 years.

[18:35] BRIAN TALLBERG: 21 years of the air force. Wow. That's a ways goes quick. It goes quick. The brewery beer. Now that would be. I tried that experiment back in 96.

[18:49] B.J. HUNT: How'd it go?

[18:50] BRIAN TALLBERG: I read the instructions, which was a bad thing.

[18:54] B.J. HUNT: What a mister beer kid.

[18:55] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yeah, mister beer. It's like.

[18:56] B.J. HUNT: Oh, yeah.

[18:57] BRIAN TALLBERG: For weak beer, do a half a cup of sugar. For normal beer, do one cup of sugar. My 21 year old brain says, I'm gonna do two cups of sugar. Turned out better. Oh, yeah. It tastes like, what, apple cider.

[19:09] B.J. HUNT: Yeah, you're blowing bottle tops off, too. That's funny. But we don't add sugar, but you get it from the grains.

[19:16] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yeah, it was a fun experiment back then. Mister beer kit.

[19:20] B.J. HUNT: Yeah, everybody starts with one of those.

[19:22] BRIAN TALLBERG: It's a good trial and error before you as it is.

[19:25] B.J. HUNT: Yeah, it's just like, you know, if I wanted to start doing chimneys, I'd probably make a little pizza oven out in the backyard, and I'd probably realize it's not very good and call you.

[19:35] BRIAN TALLBERG: Like, look, it don't freeze right. That's a good. Good quality of alcohol. Oh, man. All right, let's see. So your turn. Throw one at me.

[19:45] B.J. HUNT: Oh, man. All right, so what do you. Yeah, what have you been thinking with the 2024 election cycle this far?

[19:55] BRIAN TALLBERG: Well, it's not gonna be fun. If one lady manages to get in there, things will be. She's already pushing taxes that are going to be very painful for all of us. America will experience what the rest of the world does financially, which would be a good or bad thing, depending on your perspective. I don't like the fact that she's pushing for war against Russia. No one wins that. Yeah, but hopefully her puppet masters will keep her in line. If Trump gets in, all we're gonna have is chaos from the news media and from Congress trying to gin up trouble every day. Don't need that either.

[20:45] B.J. HUNT: Right. Hey, I don't feel like we have good options.

[20:49] BRIAN TALLBERG: We don't have good options. We don't have an honest media. We don't have an. If we had an unbiased media that reported the negative and positive legally on both sides, America could actually make an honest choice. But we don't have that either. Oh, um, here's the choices. We have four years of orange man bad in the media or eight more years of Biden's economy. I guess I can survive both.

[21:14] B.J. HUNT: Yeah. And we can get through them. I certainly have preferences, but it's. It's neither one of those guys or people, I should say.

[21:25] BRIAN TALLBERG: But Trump. I only risk four years, Kamala. I risk eight.

[21:28] B.J. HUNT: Right.

[21:29] BRIAN TALLBERG: And if I was JFK, I would push for Trump, get Trump in and out and push. That would give JFK four more years to push a strong, independent party.

[21:41] B.J. HUNT: Right.

[21:42] BRIAN TALLBERG: I mean, can't handle the guy's voice. It sounds like he gargled a broken glass in Jack Daniels. But I like what he says.

[21:49] B.J. HUNT: Teach their own offenses.

[21:51] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yeah.

[21:52] B.J. HUNT: Yeah.

[21:52] BRIAN TALLBERG: Not sure what happened to his voice, but, like, where he comes from.

[21:56] B.J. HUNT: I do think it would be interesting to see, not that I'm voting, actually. I have no idea which way I'm voting at this point, to be honest. But I think it'd be interesting to see a woman president and see how that goes. Now, I. I think we would have some difficulty with, particularly, like, Middle East. I do see you'd have to price in somebody different in maybe vice president, because there's just, unfortunately, a lot of the world that does not respect women.

[22:30] BRIAN TALLBERG: Right.

[22:30] B.J. HUNT: And so.

[22:32] BRIAN TALLBERG: But why are we importing those viewpoints in America by the millions?

[22:36] B.J. HUNT: Right. Also true.

[22:38] BRIAN TALLBERG: So do I have a problem with a woman president? No, but I want a woman president who understands that, hey, taxing America's to death is not a good idea.

[22:47] B.J. HUNT: Right.

[22:48] BRIAN TALLBERG: Don't be put in charge of securing our border and do nothing for. For four years and then claim you did a job that, yeah, doesn't work for me either. She also wants to do a unrealized gains tax. Let's say your home goes up a hundred thousand, then you're gonna be taxed on a hundred thousand.

[23:06] B.J. HUNT: Good luck.

[23:08] BRIAN TALLBERG: That's, that's one of her platform things.

[23:09] B.J. HUNT: Yes.

[23:09] BRIAN TALLBERG: Came out.

[23:10] B.J. HUNT: I think that's just so hard. Right. Because, because I don't know about you and your small business, but, I mean, we're certainly feeling the pinch.

[23:18] BRIAN TALLBERG: Oh, yeah.

[23:19] B.J. HUNT: And it's hard to. You have employees.

[23:24] BRIAN TALLBERG: Not anymore.

[23:26] B.J. HUNT: And so we do. And we, we become friends with them.

[23:29] BRIAN TALLBERG: Right, right.

[23:30] B.J. HUNT: And we actually, unfortunately, last year, laid off a couple of people and we felt absolutely terrible about it. Like, they have, they were friends. Right. They are friends. Keep it that way. We help them both, like, find jobs after, like, hey, we're laying you off, but we have another job lined up for you. Really? If you want to take it.

[23:53] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yeah.

[23:54] B.J. HUNT: And they're like, cool. They have good insurance. I'll take it. It's like, perfect. You start Monday. So there was really no switch for him and for us, I guess we, we had to do it as a company because beer had been kind of going down a little bit. Everybody's wanting to be healthier, which I get.

[24:15] BRIAN TALLBERG: That's great.

[24:16] B.J. HUNT: But I'm like, come on. So for us, we saw, you know, kind of the early markings of a recession, but nobody calls it a recession because of Wall Street. I think Main street has had a recession for probably years.

[24:33] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yeah. Look at all the closed businesses.

[24:34] B.J. HUNT: Wall street, different. And so that's what we base that on. And I think it is time to delineate between the two types of business because we have long just lumped those in together.

[24:46] BRIAN TALLBERG: And groceries are expensive, gases are expensive. Property taxes have gone up, energy has gone up. I haven't raised my rates exactly. Not going to.

[25:01] B.J. HUNT: Lord knows I want to, but I take the same salary I've taken.

[25:05] BRIAN TALLBERG: Oh, I'm, I'm a, I'm an evil little capitalist. I'm thinking about dropping my rates 10% just to hurt my competitors.

[25:13] B.J. HUNT: Yeah. Interesting. See how that goes.

[25:16] BRIAN TALLBERG: I got no overhead costs, so zero debt, zero overhead costs. Yeah. I could drop my rates by half, be half my competition rate and still do. Okay.

[25:26] B.J. HUNT: Yeah.

[25:26] BRIAN TALLBERG: I just don't know if I want to be that brutal to the guys yet.

[25:29] B.J. HUNT: Yeah.

[25:30] BRIAN TALLBERG: Walmart them out of business.

[25:33] B.J. HUNT: Rockefeller. Yeah.

[25:36] BRIAN TALLBERG: I guess that was the original one. Who did that. Rockefeller.

[25:38] B.J. HUNT: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[25:42] BRIAN TALLBERG: I just haven't decided yet.

[25:44] B.J. HUNT: Yeah. That's the thing. Like, in the brewing industry, we all get along pretty well.

[25:47] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yes.

[25:48] B.J. HUNT: We joke. It's like wrestling with your brother. You want to whoop his butt, but you don't want him to, you know, to do bad either.

[25:54] BRIAN TALLBERG: Right.

[25:55] B.J. HUNT: And so anyway, it's gonna.

[25:59] BRIAN TALLBERG: Let's see. Oh, I like that one. There we go. As a parent, what ways did you hope to emulate copy your own parents? And what ways did you hope to deviate from their parenting style?

[26:15] B.J. HUNT: Man. So. And I think it would. That probably depends upon the actual parent, right? Because my mom and my dad parented slightly differently.

[26:25] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yes. And they should.

[26:27] B.J. HUNT: And I knew who to ask. If I wanted to ride my bike to quick trip. I asked my dad if I wanted money. I asked my mom, because my dad's gonna make me mow the yard. My mom's just gonna give me $5, right. So I think the compassion side for my mom and to always help people and to work hard, and then for my dad, working hard because I watched him build a business. Right. And that was not easy on anyway, because they were working 530 in the morning until midnight for years, and it just hard. And so, working hard. But at the same time, on the flip side of that, I also watch my dad work really hard, sell the company, retire, and die within the same year, you know? And so then I challenge myself to go, okay, well, are you just here to work, or are you really here to family and to play to. What you say is a man values what he spends time on.

[27:43] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yeah.

[27:43] B.J. HUNT: And I do value work, absolutely value hard work. But I also value my family and my friends, and I want to make sure that I try to balance that. And so lately, I've tried to make sure when I'm at work, be at work, and when I'm at home, be at home, and try not to answer those texts and calls. Some of it's inevitable. But that's been a conversation I've had with my wife, and I could tell what was bothering her. And if that bothers her, it bothers me. So it's probably a weird way to answer that question.

[28:17] BRIAN TALLBERG: But I've watched my dad work two jobs growing up, and I realized, wow, I could wish he would have been there more. I think having him been there more would have been worth more to me than a, oh, we get to go on a vacation this summer. Did I apply those same lessons in my life? No, I figured that out a little bit too late now that my oldest was growing up. And I realized, wow, I lost too much time with my daughter because I was working six, seven days a week, twelve plus hours to try to put a good home, good this and good that. And at the time, what my child needed was more time with me, instead of nice this, nice that. So now that they're grown. I'm working hard to set them up for success so they don't have to work as hard so they can be there to be better parents.

[29:07] B.J. HUNT: Yeah. I saw a fact, a figure the other day that said, by the time your kid is 18, you have spent 95% of the time you will ever spend with him.

[29:18] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yeah.

[29:20] B.J. HUNT: And that just made me stop and think, what. What are you doing? Because you're trying to build that company.

[29:28] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yeah.

[29:28] B.J. HUNT: But your kids are little.

[29:29] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yeah. And you want to set them up for success. That's right. Into college. And. And.

[29:35] B.J. HUNT: And I think that's. I think that's probably the one. Well, one of the things that I think we can all almost universally agree on is we all want better lives for our kids.

[29:48] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yes.

[29:49] B.J. HUNT: I don't know anybody who would say no to that. What if I do? They're probably in prison cell.

[29:55] BRIAN TALLBERG: But.

[29:58] B.J. HUNT: Even a good chunk of those people would probably say that, too. Right?

[30:01] BRIAN TALLBERG: Right. Which is why I lean towards the people I want running the country. Well, I want them to care more about the economic strength of Americans, what makes it better for the middle class.

[30:14] B.J. HUNT: Right.

[30:14] BRIAN TALLBERG: And nothing. Dumping billions upon billions of dollars overseas. Heck, even the migrant situation, the amount of money that we spent on migrants, we could have fixed Mexico and we could have fixed it. We could have fixed the problem. Instead of treating a symptom, we could have fixed the problem.

[30:36] B.J. HUNT: And I think so. I always look at it as, I'm not the smartest guy in the room. I never claim to be. I never want to be. Not the stupidest, usually, but I always wonder what behind the scenes, we don't see. Like, if, for instance, if. And I don't know, I'm just throwing this out, like, you know, the reason we were in, you know, maybe Afghanistan, maybe there's a lot of information we didn't know about as to why we sent so much money and troops and.

[31:09] BRIAN TALLBERG: Because there's money and more. Right.

[31:13] B.J. HUNT: And I agree with that, which is unfortunate. But I always wondered what information we don't have as a general public. Not to say that they're doing a great job always, because that's not the case. But I do think we all want a better life for our kids. We just maybe disagree on how to do that, you know? I mean, I think we just all need to get back to that, hey, let's have a better life. Let's have a discussion on how we have a better life, but let's. Let's all try to have a better life for our kids.

[31:42] BRIAN TALLBERG: Right?

[31:42] B.J. HUNT: So.

[31:44] BRIAN TALLBERG: But do I want socialism.

[31:46] B.J. HUNT: No, no, no. I'm.

[31:48] BRIAN TALLBERG: It's on the plus side, socialism will cure America's obesity epidemic because no one will be able to afford to eat. So there's a plus side to that.

[32:01] B.J. HUNT: Problems. I still have access to beer.

[32:03] BRIAN TALLBERG: They're gonna need beer, right?

[32:07] B.J. HUNT: Did you ever read Atlas Shrugged?

[32:10] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yes. Well written. And. Oh, God, the one before it. Ink. Ah, geez. Shirt, fountain head. Yes, that one was powerful, too.

[32:17] B.J. HUNT: And I have not read that one. I've read atlas a couple times.

[32:21] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yes.

[32:22] B.J. HUNT: I should say listen to it because I'm driving all over the state all the time, so I. I plug it in on audiobook.

[32:27] BRIAN TALLBERG: When you need permission from those who do not work to do your job, you know you're in bad, right?

[32:34] B.J. HUNT: That's what my business. One of my business partners and I, when we first met, we really hit it off on that.

[32:41] BRIAN TALLBERG: I need permission from people who've never worked h vac, fireplace or anything, construction in their life to do my job. And they write the rules on how to do my job even though they've never had done my job.

[32:53] B.J. HUNT: Correct.

[32:53] BRIAN TALLBERG: That bothers me and I'm used to it.

[32:56] B.J. HUNT: Yeah.

[32:57] BRIAN TALLBERG: I can't change it, can't fix it yet.

[33:00] B.J. HUNT: So we probably had a lot of that in the military to people telling you what to do.

[33:03] BRIAN TALLBERG: They've never worked on a plane, not often. Because we promote within our own rank structure.

[33:10] B.J. HUNT: So that's good.

[33:13] BRIAN TALLBERG: There was a few officers here and there that got cross trained that weren't that wise in the situation. But that's what the senior nCO's are supposed to be. You take an old master sergeant and he'll smack the captain in the sense. But, um, government.

[33:35] B.J. HUNT: What do you know about your ancestry and how your family came to be in America?

[33:39] BRIAN TALLBERG: More than I should.

[33:41] B.J. HUNT: A lot of people don't. So that's good that you know that.

[33:44] BRIAN TALLBERG: My dad's side of the family is traced back to 1412, to Sweden, all the way down to a large Tallberg My grandfather on my dad's side came over early, 19 hundreds. My grandmother. My dad's side came over my grandmother. My dad's side was Irish. My grandfather was Swedish. He had to learn the language. He did not. He put himself through school, got an engineering degree through Yale. And then my father. My dad, born in 1939, joined the military 1956. Served until 1994. My mom's side of the family. Little bit harder. It looks more like a plate of spaghetti. They didn't care who or what they bred with. It is all in there. Yeah, I just know that they've been in Kansas for about 150 years. One side is, you know, east coast, upper class sophisticated, and the other is Kansas, small town redneck. And I'm the blend.

[34:54] B.J. HUNT: We're all just people.

[34:55] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yeah. I mean, I can engineer, design, something I want, or I can take some baling wire, duct tape, and fix something needed.

[35:02] B.J. HUNT: Yeah, there you go.

[35:03] BRIAN TALLBERG: Oh, that's in. And yours, actually.

[35:09] B.J. HUNT: So I do have some, you know, genealogy that gets us back to 15 hundreds on one side and then 16 hundreds or so on the other.

[35:21] BRIAN TALLBERG: Oh, nice.

[35:22] B.J. HUNT: But I did one of those ancestry tests, and I debated for years, and I didn't really want anybody else to have my, you know, genetic information. But I'm like, you know, how to put. How to do my fingerprints to get on the base or, you know, like, I have stuff out there. I would be dead in, you know, 30 years anyway, so why not? And so I found out, G. Shocker. I'm white. I kind of figured there'd be, you know, some little mystery back in there. It was pretty much british.

[36:01] BRIAN TALLBERG: A little bit of dodge.

[36:03] B.J. HUNT: Yeah. Just a little bit of Heinz 57. Really?

[36:06] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yeah.

[36:06] B.J. HUNT: So no real surprises. Um, hi. So. Yeah. But, um, we had some of the hunts came from Kentucky, and I guess my understanding is there were some that went to Kansas and some that went to Texas. Those were the rich ones. And that's not my side, so.

[36:28] BRIAN TALLBERG: I can relate to that.

[36:30] B.J. HUNT: That's okay, you know, but I don't have any. We didn't grow up rich, but I don't have any problems with my childhood. I grew up. I knew I was loved. I got to see both parents work hard. There was food on the table. Like, I have no qualms with it. Right. And you hear so many just terrible stories from people. I had a pretty good childhood. We went fishing a lot, you know, and. I don't know. My parents didn't beat me. I got grounded some, like, and certainly deserved that and more. But agreed.

[37:12] BRIAN TALLBERG: Being a free range kid was fun at the time. Would I allow my kids to be free range now? Not in today's world. Yeah.

[37:20] B.J. HUNT: Yeah. You didn't have the. You didn't have Google sitting in front of you telling where all the, like, weirdos lived and things like that. Like, we had talks about that. Like, hey, if you're gonna go walk.

[37:30] BRIAN TALLBERG: The dog, if we had, you don't.

[37:31] B.J. HUNT: Go down the street, right?

[37:33] BRIAN TALLBERG: You take 19 early eighties America with Google knowledge of where the weirdos are. Some of you would have a hundred parents around that house. And one less weirdo.

[37:42] B.J. HUNT: Yeah, right?

[37:43] BRIAN TALLBERG: There wasn't tolerance for that shit poop stuff.

[37:47] B.J. HUNT: Gonna have to bleep that later.

[37:50] BRIAN TALLBERG: They didn't tolerate it.

[37:51] B.J. HUNT: Right?

[37:52] BRIAN TALLBERG: I mean, I remember newspapers taking pictures of what cars are parked in front of the strip clubs and posting it in a newspaper to shame. Yeah.

[38:01] B.J. HUNT: Yeah.

[38:02] BRIAN TALLBERG: We went from one extreme, which was might have been too extreme, to what the heck? And I'm hoping that when it swings, it needs to get back to the middle, because the only way it's not going to go way too far to the right. It needs the people on the left to put some brakes on. Hey, this is a little bit too crazy because we want to put the brakes now so the pendulum doesn't go, holy snikeys, we're back to the inquisition again.

[38:30] B.J. HUNT: Right?

[38:32] BRIAN TALLBERG: And that's my concern. It's like, how do I get some of the people on the left to say, you know, some of this is just a little bit too crazy? We need to calm some of this down because we don't want these guys taking power again. We want to find this middle ground of, hey, stealing is wrong, raping is wrong, killing is wrong. Let kids be innocent. Judge people by their character, I'm hoping.

[38:56] B.J. HUNT: Right?

[38:57] BRIAN TALLBERG: Cause that pendulum swing, if it goes too far to the right, is gonna be just as bad. If it's too far to the left, that's right.

[39:03] B.J. HUNT: And too far in any direction is bad.

[39:05] BRIAN TALLBERG: Right.

[39:06] B.J. HUNT: Totally agree with that. And, you know, it's funny because when you see it totally republican or totally Democrat, when it's aligned, you know, in the House and the senate and the presidency, our spending goes up. It just changes on what they spend it on. You know, it's either going to be military or it's going to be people.

[39:24] BRIAN TALLBERG: And so now both sides are military. Either we're going to go Russia war or Middle east war. I'm like, how about no war? How about let's just send Congress to the war since they want to fight it. I'll sponsor our congressman. I'll even buy him the boxing gloves. Go fight. Yeah, well, we'll put Putin in the ring, too. And Natalia, or whatever, who's in control of Israel, let's put all these big guys in the room and let them fight it out and let the rest of us just live our lives. Yes, I'm full blown hippie, peace loving. Oh, shoot. Okay, where's the bad question? Final question. Select one or two. You want first shot or shall I go for it? Okay, I'll take first shot. What is. Oh, gosh oh, fine. I'll give you an easy one. Is something that's been bringing you joy.

[40:19] B.J. HUNT: Lately, as goofy as it sounds. Because I still have to work and I drive a lot fishing podcasts. I know that sounds goofy. Been listening to that. And I. Because I thoroughly enjoy, like, top water bass fishing, and it's something the family can do. I love top water bass fishing.

[40:41] BRIAN TALLBERG: Is that like a lake or a pond?

[40:43] B.J. HUNT: Ponds, usually out in the flint hills. My mom lives out in the flint hills and access to all these ponds. And if I can't go and do that, and it's been, you know, maybe it's a stressful day or whatever, I throw a little fishing podcast and try to learn a few more things, and I always want to be better.

[41:00] BRIAN TALLBERG: Pond fishing was always the best.

[41:02] B.J. HUNT: Yeah.

[41:02] BRIAN TALLBERG: Even if it was just a perch. Boy, those little guys can fight.

[41:07] B.J. HUNT: That's right.

[41:08] BRIAN TALLBERG: Or leave the trout lines out there, or come back the next day and get some catfish on them. Oh, been too long.

[41:17] B.J. HUNT: How about you? What's been bringing you joy?

[41:19] BRIAN TALLBERG: Oh, any chance I get with my children.

[41:22] B.J. HUNT: Isn't that the truth? Yeah, yeah, it's.

[41:26] BRIAN TALLBERG: Work is just something I do. Sleep is something I have to do. Food? No, I eat to live. I don't live to eat. It's just now that my kids are older, whenever I have a chance to just talk to them, sit back with them and watch them become. Yeah. My oldest is 22, married, and I can still remember her voice when she was three years old.

[41:48] B.J. HUNT: Isn't that funny?

[41:51] BRIAN TALLBERG: And I still remember that. And seeing her. She found a good kid. God, he's 24 kid.

[41:57] B.J. HUNT: Right.

[41:57] BRIAN TALLBERG: I'm hopeful for them. My 18 year old just started college to become a nurse. She was the. God, she was more rebellious than. I didn't even think that was possible. To go from full rebellion, dropping out of school at 9th grade, to getting her life back on track and in college at 18.

[42:14] B.J. HUNT: So that's awesome.

[42:16] BRIAN TALLBERG: Watching that brings me joy.

[42:18] B.J. HUNT: That's awesome. I'm glad to hear that for you.

[42:21] BRIAN TALLBERG: And okay, the Heineken. Alcohol free. I'm sorry. I love beer. The flavor of beer. But if I. The alcohol is bad for Mike.

[42:30] B.J. HUNT: I hear you. Bad for that. I understand. Pinkers. Yeah.

[42:34] BRIAN TALLBERG: It's weird how that.

[42:36] B.J. HUNT: Yeah, I.

[42:36] BRIAN TALLBERG: Not the liver, just the pancreas. Hurts.

[42:38] B.J. HUNT: Pancreas? Yeah.

[42:38] BRIAN TALLBERG: I'm not sure why, but that hurts.

[42:40] B.J. HUNT: Acute pancreatitis, probably.

[42:42] BRIAN TALLBERG: So I can't enjoy the alcohol anymore, but I still like the flavor of beer.

[42:47] B.J. HUNT: Fair. Um, was I what you expected?

[42:53] BRIAN TALLBERG: No.

[42:55] B.J. HUNT: In what way.

[42:57] BRIAN TALLBERG: We're too much. Uh, our views are too correlated.

[43:03] B.J. HUNT: Fair. I'm sure if we dug around, we'd find more things.

[43:07] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yeah. Come on. What happened to my side? Your side, my side, your side. Yeah, well, we're just people, right?

[43:14] B.J. HUNT: We're just people.

[43:15] BRIAN TALLBERG: At least maybe make it amber versus dark beer.

[43:18] B.J. HUNT: Oh, gosh. The thing is, is I like both. That's it?

[43:23] BRIAN TALLBERG: The black and tan?

[43:25] B.J. HUNT: Yeah. I can't pour one of those to save my life, but they are good. Oh, yeah. What's it?

[43:29] BRIAN TALLBERG: Guinness stout and irish bass.

[43:32] B.J. HUNT: Harper bass?

[43:32] BRIAN TALLBERG: Yeah, harp and bag.

[43:34] B.J. HUNT: Probably bass, but both are good.

[43:37] BRIAN TALLBERG: You know, every time I go to a liquor store telling like, come on, bring up your Kansas wineries and just make fun of one side and say, make America grape again. Do a wine sale.

[43:49] B.J. HUNT: That's awesome.

[43:50] BRIAN TALLBERG: Have a little fun.