Riding Shotgun: Inside the Subie & YOU! Podcast with Rafael Ruiz

Rafael Ruiz: 0:00

I didn't know, when I first started it, that I was going to get sponsored. I didn't know that Subaru of America was going to reach out to me and say, hey, we've got some opportunities. We want to run by you.

Tom Anderson: 0:27

All right, welcome in. It is a new episode of Basic AF. Tom A, Jeff B. Back together again for a new show. Jeff, how's it going?

Jeff Battersby: 0:36

It's good, tom. I'm here, I'm breathing, I'm among the living, I'm doing all those things. Yeah, it's good stuff. Happy to be here, happy to see your bright, smiling face.

Tom Anderson: 0:50

Likewise. Likewise, we have a very special guest on this episode. We have Rafael Ruiz joining us. He is the host of the Subi and you podcast. You've probably heard Jeff refer a couple of times to the side project that I have that Subaru related, and so Rafael and I have been chatting back and forth for two plus years, I think at this point, through Instagram and messages and everything. So he has his own podcast for the Subaru community, the Subi and you podcast, and has found some great success with it. Well, over 140 episodes, 100,000 plus total downloads. So, rafael, thank you so much for joining us. It's a pleasure to have you.

Rafael Ruiz: 1:34

Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks for having me on and thanks for that great intro. You said that you're going to have somebody very special on, so I'm wondering who that is. Okay, sorry, pal, it's you.

Jeff Battersby: 1:47

The Easter Bunny's not coming to this one.

Rafael Ruiz: 1:50

Yeah, we got a ways for that yeah.

Jeff Battersby: 1:52

So we know you're slumming with us. So that's a pretty straightforward.

Tom Anderson: 1:57

Yeah, and we do appreciate you taking time to join us for this one.

Rafael Ruiz: 2:01

Yeah, no, very glad to be here. It's nice to be a guest on another podcast. Right, you don't have much work to do with this one you just talked to us.

Tom Anderson: 2:11

Yeah, nice change Wax eloquent. Yeah, rafael had me on his show, episode 78, about a year and a half ago and, to be honest, that's kind of what got the itch going again for me to want to do podcasting. Jeff and I did a show with friend of ours back in 2011 and we hit 30 couple episodes. I think it was for that and then that kind of fell off John Mangino. Yeah, Hi John.

Jeff Battersby: 2:39

We know you listen.

Tom Anderson: 2:41

And so he had me on his show and it was a lot of fun. We had a great conversation and I was like, hey, that kind of has me wanting to do this stuff again, and it took a little while, but then Jeff and I reconnected. But anyhow, we have Rafael along. We want to talk to him about his show and how he produces that, manages it, edits records not necessarily in that order Systems. He has apps that he uses, things like that and let you all get to know him a little bit better and, hopefully, enjoy the show.

Jeff Battersby: 3:14

Yeah, and I think the starting point is how did you get started doing this? It's kind of interesting because obviously Subaru's vehicles. I'm a genius and we all know this already and it's interesting that you kicked off a podcast. How did you get started? Why did you start doing this? What kind of precipitated that?

Rafael Ruiz: 3:37

I bought a Subaru Crosstrek back in September of 2020 and had no idea that there was this humongous community out there. I knew I wanted a Crosstrek for years and I also wanted to get a manual. So that's a little bit different because they're pretty rare with the Crosstrek.

Rafael Ruiz: 3:57

So I bought the Crosstrek, started an Instagram account because I was following some other Subaru's with my personal account and I started to see really quickly that people are very passionate about their Subaru's, and back then reels weren't a thing, so there wasn't. It's mostly just pictures and captions. So I again very quickly saw that people are passionate. So I decided because I had done a podcast before this and so I already had some equipment, kind of knew how to interview people and I had some ideas of what I wanted to do. But I was thinking maybe people might be interested in sharing more about their car, you know, their mods and then also their Subaru journey, and I didn't know it would become what it has. But so that was kind of where the idea came from. And then there's this woman that does decals. Her name is Jen. She goes, her account is eccentric designs and I started connecting with her, became friends, bought some decals and I got her to be my first guest, and so that was kind of how it all started.

Jeff Battersby: 5:07

Very interesting. So you started that in what year you started? You got your Subaru in 2020. Yeah, you kicked off the podcast a long after that.

Rafael Ruiz: 5:19

My first episode released on Monday, january 4th of 2021, because I wanted to release it for the new year for 2021. And I was like, well, january 1st is a holiday, so a lot of people may not listen to it. It's also on a Friday, so people are going to be out partying and stuff. Who's going to want to listen to a podcast? So I'm like, let me just do it on Monday and then I'll just release them every Monday from then on. And so Jen with eccentric designs had she had been doing that for about six months, a lot of people in the community knew who she and they knew who she was, who she was, and people were already buying her decals. She also has a separate car account and a lot of people were following that. So having her on is my first guest and I had put out a little teaser on my page. But having her as my first guest and people seeing that people kind of freaked out and then came to the podcast pretty quickly and just started growing from there. Wow.

Tom Anderson: 6:15

That's very smart.

Jeff Battersby: 6:17

Yeah, absolutely. So it's really interesting to see that and then to kind of pick up, just based on the fact that you saw a couple things on Instagram, had you seen Tom's stuff? Actually, tom, when did you put your start doing your site? It's been a couple of years.

Tom Anderson: 6:31

Oh, it's been, yeah, nine years now.

Rafael Ruiz: 6:33

Nine years 2014.

Tom Anderson: 6:35

Yeah, yeah, okay, which sometimes I wonder that must be crazy, that's what I'm doing.

Rafael Ruiz: 6:41

But yeah, well, I mean you get connected with accounts, especially like in the. Through Instagram and the Subaru community. You come across so many people and you get connected with so many people, like I don't remember how. I get connected with a lot of different people.

Rafael Ruiz: 6:55

So I'm sure that I saw Tom's account somewhere or somebody shared it in their stories or something, and so I thought it was really cool what he is doing, because his account isn't he's not featuring his own Subaru, he's featuring other Subarus, and so I thought that was really cool and I reached out to him and was like asked him if he'd be interested in being on the podcast to talk about what he's been doing and, especially since he's been doing it for so long featuring all these other builds and finding out how he is getting these people onto his account, like is he reaching out and asking them for permission or is he just sharing their accounts.

Rafael Ruiz: 7:34

So that was a good episode and interesting to find out how he got started, what he was doing, and we've been state connected and we help each other out. He's got the newsletter, so he includes like a rewind for the podcast and the newsletter, which I very, very much appreciate and I remember at times to share in my stories that he has a newsletter and try to get people to sign up for it.

Tom Anderson: 8:00

Yeah, and I'm happy to share that. I think one, because you're just such a nice guy. And you really are, and I think that's part, a big part actually, of the reason why your show has done so well is because when people sit and they talk to you and get to know you and plus you're going out to events and things now too but you're, you know, you're just a likable, sincere, good person and I think that attracts people. Thank you, thank you.

Rafael Ruiz: 8:29

I hope so. I have a lot of people say too that I have a very calming voice and I was recording with a guy. I think it was last night. I was talking to him and he said that and I'm like man, I hope I'm not putting people to sleep while they're driving.

Tom Anderson: 8:45

No.

Rafael Ruiz: 8:45

I'm getting it directs because, oh yeah, I was listening to the Subin U podcast and his calming voice.

Tom Anderson: 8:53

Maybe that could be your other gig.

Jeff Battersby: 8:57

Hey, I've thought about it. Yeah, there are some opportunities with that.

Rafael Ruiz: 9:03

No, I've actually I took a. I'm trying to thank you. I took a voiceover course a little over a year ago, because I had so many people compliment my voice. I'm like, okay, I guess I have a nice voice, let me see if I can, you know, give this a shot. And I've done a couple of things so far.

Jeff Battersby: 9:21

That's great, yeah, and listening to you now, I'm ready to take a nap. No, all right, we lost Jeff. I don't add much to this anyways, it's been lost for a while. So in 2021, january 2021, you kick off your first podcast. You're now at how many episodes is it again? You're at 140?

Rafael Ruiz: 9:47

142. This past Monday I released 142.

Jeff Battersby: 9:51

142 episodes.

Tom Anderson: 9:53

Now does that count? But you have had bonus episodes. Yeah, it's not Thanks to you, it's just 142.

Rafael Ruiz: 9:58

I also have bonus episodes. I have quite a few because I went to Subifest California. I did a bonus episode from there because I recorded with people. I went to Subaru Flat Fest, which is in Madison, wisconsin. I have a bonus episode from that. I went to last year. They had the big event at Gilman Subaru Southwest, so I did a bonus episode from there. And just recently they had Subifest Texas and I recorded with four of the kind of Texas Dallas area dealerships and that was a bonus episode. But I also did there's something that I did that I wanted to do more of. It's just I just don't have a lot of time to do it. But I did one episode with a couple of guys called Tales from the Trails, where they were just talking about crazy stuff that happened while they were out and hitting some trails, right.

Tom Anderson: 10:47

Which was probably a fun episode to do.

Rafael Ruiz: 10:48

Oh it was, and it was cool too, because I had met them. It was with Chris and Juan. Chris goes by Shadow Roo. He was episode seven, the one that I recorded with the funky phone.

Rafael Ruiz: 10:59

And then Juan he was. I think it was episode 12. And so I went to Colorado because I was going to do the episode with them and then I said wait a minute, I'm going to be coming out there and we're going to hit some trails together and I want to wait until after I come out there so that I can be part of that episode, so we can talk about Tales from the Trails with me in it as well. So that was what we did.

Tom Anderson: 11:25

Nice, nice. So let's go back to that. So episode one the early days. I know we talked a little bit before we started to record about this, but I thought it was interesting In the early beginning, which makes sense the early beginning not the late beginning, not the middle.

Jeff Battersby: 11:41

Yeah, yeah, the middle beginning or the end beginning.

Tom Anderson: 11:44

It's been a long day, so in the early days of your podcast, what type of a setup did you have?

Rafael Ruiz: 11:53

So back then I had the Scarlett 4i4 and then I had that going through my MacBook and then my microphone was the Shure MV88, which is this small, tiny little condenser microphone that I bought as part of a video kit because I was thinking that it would be cool to have that and use it at events or something. And I bought it before I even started the Subaru podcast, because I had mentioned earlier that I had another podcast so, and it was a vegan themed podcast and I was going out to like vegan festivals and stuff and I thought it'd be cool to have for those kind of events Gotcha. So that's what I was using with my other podcast and that's what I started off with this one. And then again, with episode seven, I ran into the issue of recording a phone call. So that was when I upgraded to the Roadcaster Pro, because it has the ability to take a phone call and record that way, which I really really like, right.

Tom Anderson: 12:52

Okay, so Roadcaster Pro, still, you've got a Shure. Which Shure do you have there?

Rafael Ruiz: 12:56

So actually I have the this is a Shure, I think it's the MV7B, because I know there's like the MV7 that a lot of the bigger the.

Tom Anderson: 13:09

Joe Rogan mic. Huh, it's the Joe Rogan mic. Yeah, yeah, it's a little bit of a crossing.

Rafael Ruiz: 13:13

So this is kind of like the baby brother of that and I so when I all of my equipment that I used, I ended up doing a lot of research, looked up a lot of YouTube videos and that was how I selected my equipment. So I got I did. This was a new mic. It's relatively new, and so when I found out that it was coming out and it was half the cost, I'm like I'm gonna upgrade to that, let's do that.

Tom Anderson: 13:35

Yeah, I did a lot of the same thing before I pulled the trigger on. What I was going to get is like lots of YouTube videos, and it's a personality defect I have where I have to research things into the dirt.

Rafael Ruiz: 13:47

Oh, I do too. Yeah, I get that.

Tom Anderson: 13:52

So, yeah, I, I, I went deep and I was like, no, this is too much, I just need to not think about it so much. So I just got the Rokaster Pro 2, which was the current model at that point, and the RODE is the PodMic just because it's around. Just keep the stack road, and that way, if there's any issues anywhere, it's one place to contact and license it yeah that's good.

Rafael Ruiz: 14:10

So what did you? So I did a lot of my research with podcastage I'm guessing that's how you say it and because he does a lot of mic and podcast equipment reviews, yeah, and and he's got an awesome setup, which I'm sure is a lot of money, but he talks about post editing and stuff, which I don't do any of that because I just have GarageBand Right, so I don't have.

Rafael Ruiz: 14:38

I mean, I know there's, I know there's plugins and stuff and there's another podcasting app that you can use for recording. I can't remember what it's called, but it has some plugins that you can use and I was thinking that would be really nice because there are some things that cut out some of the noise that can come through, and but I mean this program is like a thousand years old. This program is like a thousand dollars. So I'm like um that's how I'll stick with what I'm doing.

Tom Anderson: 15:04

Yeah Well, I mean, you're having great success with it so and yeah, honestly, to me it's like the, and I know it's changed a lot. But podcasting in its truest sense to me is this it's three dudes in closets.

Tom Anderson: 15:22

Yeah, because it's the only quiet space in the house and but I think that's really like, that's it's roots, that's where it came from, um, and then, you know, it became hip and the, the big mega corporation, started to do it. I heard, where did I hear this song? It might have been on, uh, on Adam Curry shows, but he was talking about that and maybe it was NPR. They had like 23 people working on one show, yeah, and then they laid them all off because it didn't make any money. And I'm like, well, no kidding, it doesn't make any money, it's a podcast, yeah.

Rafael Ruiz: 15:56

I mean you have to have thousands of downloads to make money. And cause I was, I was watching a YouTube video. Cause I use Buzzsprout and Buzzsprout has a YouTube channel and they have a podcast about podcasting. So I was watching one of their YouTube videos and they were talking about where was I going with?

Rafael Ruiz: 16:14

this Uh, oh, they, yeah, so they were. They were talking about, uh, downloads and everything, and they had this woman on that started a true crime podcast, which apparently those do really well. So maybe that's just what I need to do if I want to make money, right?

Jeff Battersby: 16:28

But kill somebody and then talk about it, right yeah?

Rafael Ruiz: 16:33

So. So she was like, yeah, you know, when I first started out I wasn't getting that many downloads. I mean, I think I was only getting like 1500 downloads and, you know, a week. And I'm just like what? Not that many. So because I know that the way like sleep number, bed and better helpcom and all those companies that that are in the business to sponsor podcasts, they want to sponsor podcasts that get thousands and thousands of them downloads because they need thousands and thousands of people to be listening to it to get any kind of, you know, exposure out there. And so, you know, usually with those you get paid, like if it's like a 60 second ad at the beginning of an episode, it's like 30 bucks for that 60 second ad, so which you think $30 isn't that much. But if you take $30 times 10,000 downloads per episode and if you're doing four a month, that's a lot of money, right, I don't have those kind of downloads.

Tom Anderson: 17:30

No, you really need those big numbers? Yeah, Because it'll pay you per Yep. So go ahead, Jeff. No, no, no, no, no. Got nothing in.

Rafael Ruiz: 17:39

No, I was going to say that I am thankful to be sponsored with my podcast.

Jeff Battersby: 17:43

Nice. Who sponsors you, by the way? Let's shut them out here, might as well.

Rafael Ruiz: 17:47

It's a company called Subaru of America, you may have heard of it Wow. Yeah, it's a little company. Ooh, what a flex.

Jeff Battersby: 17:55

Now it'll eventually be. You know that might be big business in time.

Rafael Ruiz: 17:59

Well, so they have the Subaru gear store where they have, you know, anything that's branded Subaru and Subaru Motorsports USA, and they so with the, with the gear store. They didn't really they don't really do any advertising, and so they thought that that would be a good fit for the podcast, because then that would get the gear store more exposure. And so so they started sponsoring me, and this is we're in the second year of them sponsoring me Not two years in a row, but like the second term, if you want to call it and then I have a wheel sponsor that sponsors me. So that's, that's been nice. And then that woman, jen from eccentric design, she started sponsoring me as well.

Tom Anderson: 18:38

Right. I think that's the benefit of being in such a you know well-defined niche, right Because? It's not just cars right, it could be anything else. It's not an automotive show per se, it's really not. I mean, we talk about Subaru's on the show, but it's, it's more the story behind the person who drives it.

Rafael Ruiz: 18:57

Yeah, yeah, and in my probably the last 10 episodes or so, I started doing an, a segment called to you know the person behind the account, where I asked personal questions so that, because you chat, you can chat with people online a lot about builds and a little bit about themselves. But one of the things that I found that people have messaged me that they say man, I've been chatting with this person for so long and now I get to actually hear what they sound like and learn more about them, and so to hear people say that it's really meaningful, you know it is.

Tom Anderson: 19:30

Definitely is All right. And so, with the, the show, maybe let's talk a little bit about how you operate that thing, cause you've got, obviously you're scheduling that you need to do, you've got recording, we've talked a bit about the podcast setup that you have there, so we've, we've covered that, but like, what's You're doing, travel? Clearly Right yeah.

Rafael Ruiz: 19:52

Yeah, I have some done, some travel, yeah. So I use note, my notes app to keep track of all of my guests. So I have I have. So basically have like a subi and you it's kind of like my you know folder off to the side and then within that I have a bunch of different notes that I've put together and that's where I compile all of my individual episodes, where I'll have like the episode number, what the title is going to be, and then all of the information that I'm going to put into my episode notes. And then I have a separate one that I have it's just called subi and you podcast guests and that's where I have all of the guests listed that I've recorded with and then the ones that are on my list of ones to get to at some point. And I've had some people on the list for a long time. I recorded with the guy the other night and well, the one from Monday had been a year that we started talking until I finally got them on.

Tom Anderson: 20:54

Wow.

Rafael Ruiz: 20:55

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby: 20:56

Do you have guests every show or you're having? Okay, you have guests every single show.

Rafael Ruiz: 21:02

Except for I have done. I don't remember if I yeah, so I did. I think I did it as a bonus episode, but I haven't really. I think I've only maybe done two solo episodes. But other than that, I mean it's the point and the I guess the goal of the podcast is to interview people within the community or brands, because I've had quite a few brands on the podcast as well that make products for Subaru only and then also for Subaru and other car manufacturers, so that's been fun when I did so. When I reached my, I did 100,000 download solo episode and I so that one was a solo episode and I put in a lot of statistics of what's happened over the past 133 episodes and 100,000 downloads, and at the time I had recorded with 19 brands out of 133 episodes.

Rafael Ruiz: 21:54

So that was that was. I didn't even I didn't know that the number was that big. So that was interesting for me to find out. I knew it was quite a few, but not that many.

Tom Anderson: 22:01

Yeah, it's really impressive. And then when you record, how far in advance typically do you record before the show will actually come out? Like I'll tell you, our show is usually like a Friday night, but we're more topical, like it's kind of it's not necessarily a new show, but we do covers. You know, if it's a big news story, we'll cover it, and so sometimes it's timely in that regard and so we'll usually record like on a Thursday or Friday, and then the show gets published on Monday. But sometimes I wish it wasn't as aggressive, yeah that's pretty compact, but we make it work.

Tom Anderson: 22:39

But how do you set that up for what you're doing?

Rafael Ruiz: 22:43

So I usually I've kind of gone. It hasn't been consistent. I usually will try. So I have my son with me every other week so I try not to record the weeks that he's with me and, just, you know, give him that time. So I try to record the weeks he's not with me and I generally would like to record at least two or three episodes a week if I can. But at minimum I try to do two, because in that way if somebody cancels on me then I'm like, oh crap, now I don't have an episode for Monday.

Tom Anderson: 23:18

Yeah.

Rafael Ruiz: 23:19

So I have done as many as four or five, I think, in one week, which was it was tough, but it was also nice because I'm like now I can just kind of sit back and relax and just edit over the next few weeks and not have to worry about that's what we need to do.

Tom Anderson: 23:35

Yeah, and we've talked about that.

Jeff Battersby: 23:37

We've talked about, you know, of piling up a couple of them.

Tom Anderson: 23:40

Probably do that coming up in the well, because once you hit like November and you hit the holidays and it's gonna be tough to do, like you know, a Thursday and then drop it on Monday, but I mean, be asleep from Thanksgiving dinner will be try to do a show, yeah.

Rafael Ruiz: 23:57

Well, yeah, so I tried to get at least a couple of episodes in. You know that week that my son isn't with me, so that for the next two weeks I can have episodes to put out and then, when I get to that two week mark, again record a couple more. And it's to keep and I have kept that pretty consistent, except for lately. It's just been tough to get them in there.

Jeff Battersby: 24:18

Is this your primary line of work? Is this the only thing that you're doing, or do you have a day job?

Rafael Ruiz: 24:23

I wish it was but no, it is.

Jeff Battersby: 24:25

I do have a full-time job too.

Rafael Ruiz: 24:27

That's the thing is so.

Jeff Battersby: 24:28

Which is what? What do?

Rafael Ruiz: 24:28

you do so. I'm a project manager for a small architectural and engineering firm and you know it's a good job but it can be stressful at times because we've got a lot of projects going on and we're always really busy and you know so it's tough because, like when I'm recording in the evenings, that's taking up my own personal time. When I'm editing in the morning or in the evenings.

Tom Anderson: 24:49

that's taking up my own personal time, right and you have a long, stressful day at work and then you come home and then you get to jump right back into work. Yeah, and it could be. It's a lot Sometimes wonder why I do all the side things. I have going on and told Jeff it's like, ah, maybe rethink some of the things.

Rafael Ruiz: 25:08

but I mean, thankfully, I work from home, so the only days that I don't work from home are on Mondays, so like yesterday. So we're recording this on Tuesday night and. I recorded an episode on a Monday and that was tough because I had set it up to record at seven, I believe, and I got home at like 640.

Tom Anderson: 25:26

So I messaged the guy and I was like hey.

Rafael Ruiz: 25:29

I need a few more minutes. And he was like, yeah, sure, no problem. So, yeah, I try to get those in so, like you know, I don't have to like get home from work. So I try to schedule them around seven or seven, 30 my time, so that I can have some time to eat and just relax, cause I just because it's five o'clock doesn't mean I'm done with work, cause a lot of times I might work till 535, 45 or six, depending on what we've got going on. And then I'm like okay, now only have an hour before I have to record, Then we chat for a while, then we record the episode, which can be anywhere from an hour and 20 minutes to an hour and a half, and then we chat for a while. So then there goes two hours. So now by the time I'm done, it's like nine o'clock and I'm like now I gotta start thinking about getting ready for bed. Yeah, pretty much, even though I don't go to bed that early.

Tom Anderson: 26:17

Right. So we had conversations like before just phone calls and things where we were talking and both of us kind of talking about that balance between primary work and inside hustles and things and those I think you mentioned back then you know. So you know it's 11 o'clock and you'd just gotten back from a road trip and you had a show to edit and Monday's coming up. So you said you had to do it and you did.

Rafael Ruiz: 26:40

Yeah, Well, yeah, and that's the thing too is my previous job. I used to travel, so if I was gonna have to be gone for like two or three days some week, then I had to schedule around that. And that was a lot tougher when I was traveling because I would get sometimes we would, you know, I'd get home and I'm like, oh man, I gotta edit. I might get home on a Friday or something and like I gotta edit this episode before Monday, but I've got plans for the weekend and so just trying to squeeze everything in is, you know, tough sometimes.

Tom Anderson: 27:11

So let me ask you this, and I'll pose this to both of you, all right, why do you think we do these things Like? Because, I mean, we've talked about it. It's you've got the grind of work, you've got family life, you got dinner, you need some decompressed time, and then we say you know what I'd like to do in the non-spare time that I have? I'd like to do some more work, but I'm not getting paid for, so it's a labor of love. I mean, there's no, no considerable income. I speak for Jeff and I. Raffiato, I don't know your situation, but yeah.

Tom Anderson: 27:44

You said it wasn't your full-time job, so we'll go with that. So what drives you to do the show? You asking me, or Jeff? I know Jeff, he just likes to see my face.

Jeff Battersby: 27:57

I'm more curious about yours. This is my social club.

Rafael Ruiz: 28:00

This is.

Jeff Battersby: 28:01

Tom's basically the only friend I have, except for Steve. Steve, you're my friend too, but Tom's, tom's like I said, I live in Jeffrey Dahmer's basement. That's where I'm at right now. There's not much going on if I'm not out collecting heads. So yeah, I do it for the fun of it. I really this is an avocation for me. I have a few of these, actually A few live-in theaters.

Jeff Battersby: 28:31

No, no, no, no. Oh, I was on the board of a local theater for up until June of this year, but also I do a lot of theater work. In fact, this week, starting on Thursday evening, we're in tech for a readers theater production that's gonna run on the weekend. So I've got tech and then I've got four shows. So that's obviously another outlet. But this is to me, this is creative, it's a creative outlet. And, for the record, I mean Tom does most of the late work on this. He does the hard work. I show up and try to be funny Rarely am I, but I try to be, try to add some 15-inch humor into this conversation.

Tom Anderson: 29:22

There, it is 35 minutes in. That's right, that's a record for us. Yeah, well, it is.

Jeff Battersby: 29:31

So for me this is a fun thing to do, and the only thing that I do after this is Tom does whatever editing there is, and usually it's pretty much straight from tape to live, and then I listen to it to make sure that there's nothing to egregious in it before we send it out. So that's kind of my piece, and I can do that while I'm washing dishes.

Rafael Ruiz: 29:57

Yeah, yeah, for me again. I just I bought the Subaru because I'd been wanting a Subaru Cross Trek for a long time, for at least five years. So when I bought it I was just thinking, hey, I have this car that has the ability to go off road. I didn't know how capable it was, but I mean I'd watched some YouTube videos so I knew it was pretty capable. But I'm also watching these YouTube videos, thinking I have nothing like that around where I am, but when we have our annual family reunion there's some county roads up there that might be fun, and that was like what I was thinking would be at the extent of it. So when I started connecting with all these people and seeing their passion, then my passion grew seeing what they were doing and connecting with people. And then so when I started, when I had the idea to do the podcast to give because it's really to give people a place to share about their build and their journey and about themselves, and because the last question that I asked is like how is owning a Subaru change your life? And so that's where we really get into. It's more than just about a car.

Rafael Ruiz: 31:07

But for me, I enjoy connecting with people. I enjoy helping people to share their stories and I didn't know when I first started it that I was going to get sponsored. I didn't know that Subaru of America was going to reach out to me and say, hey, we've got some opportunities we want to run by you. I didn't know that I would be going out to all these events. I didn't even know about the Subifest events, I didn't know about Winterfest, I didn't know, I mean, there was so much I didn't know about Subaru. So for me, I enjoy doing it to just it's kind of my way to be a part of the community. But also the messages that I get from people is that's a really big part of what helps me keep going, as people reaching out and saying thank you for doing this, keep doing it, we love it and we look forward to it every Monday.

Tom Anderson: 31:56

Yeah, I think they've definitely made. You've made a connection with them and, through extension, they've made more connections into the community, I think.

Rafael Ruiz: 32:05

Yeah, because I've had so many people say that it's helped connect the community in a way that has never been there before. And then I've had people say, oh man, I've been looking for a Subaru podcast for a long time and I just Googled and I came across yours or somebody might see it in somebody's stories and be like, oh, that's how I came across the podcast. And then there's people that have I've never listened to a podcast ever in my life and this is the only one that I listen to. Or I've never listened to a podcast. I listened to this one and now I've started listening to some other ones too, because I like the platform and I like the concept of it.

Jeff Battersby: 32:41

Right, yeah, and I think what's interesting about Subarus in general is it really is people that have Subarus, or tend to have Subarus, tend to be people that are outside a lot. They're camping. I don't want to generalize too much, but you don't hear about the Buick podcast. There might be, but not, but not Delta 88. Got my Delta 88 and we're ready to go, boys.

Rafael Ruiz: 33:10

My mom had a Delta 88. That was a thing.

Jeff Battersby: 33:15

It definitely was a thing, but it definitely seems like a very connected community. In fact, when Tom first started doing his Instagram, I was at that time driving a Subaru my son's driving that one now, as we said earlier. But the growth of his Instagram was insane to me, like some teeny tiny little Instagram that he just put up because he likes Subarus On a whim. Yeah, it was just kind of a fun thing, and how many people do you have following that now? I already asked that, I think.

Tom Anderson: 33:54

About 40,000, a little over that, but it's gotten pretty stagnated of late because of the platform changes Like yeah.

Rafael Ruiz: 34:04

Instagram.

Tom Anderson: 34:04

I think Rafael mentioned it earlier, but like with the reels and video and things like that.

Jeff Battersby: 34:10

Instagram is trying to be.

Tom Anderson: 34:13

They want to be TikTok, because TikTok's eating their lunch which is funny, though and Twitter's, which is their so-called Twitter thing, has actually become a pretty good photo-sharing platform. Oh nice, and which makes sense when you think about it, because when you join threads, you join with your Instagram account. So if you already have the Instagram account, that kind of leads to think, well, you're probably like photography, at least back in the day. I don't know. I mean, you know, maybe people just joined for reels and stuff now, but so it's actually become pretty good for that. But I'm sure video won't take it over eventually as well.

Rafael Ruiz: 34:53

Yeah, and when they started coming, when people started doing reels, I was like I love doing photos, I am not gonna do reels, and now I do a lot of reels. But. But I'm starting to do the reels because I've found ways to get creative with it and I've started using this app called cap cut, and cap cut is really fun to put stuff together. So I've just I've been having fun with it. Nice, so I enjoy doing reels now.

Jeff Battersby: 35:17

It's definitely the reason to do it.

Rafael Ruiz: 35:20

Yeah, so with your.

Tom Anderson: 35:22

I'm sorry, go ahead.

Rafael Ruiz: 35:23

Yeah, no, I just I was gonna say real quick because, like I, so I have a. I have a patreon account also, so I have patrons that you know sign up and help support the podcast. And we were having a chat the other night and we were talking about posting and how you know we've there were several of us that were saying that we are just gonna post whenever we want to and not try to, you know, post on a regular schedule or post just a post, and so I'm kind of getting more like that with my car account.

Rafael Ruiz: 35:53

But I have a wheel sponsor, so we have wheel Wednesday, so I have to make sure and try to come up with something to post for that right, and but other than that, you know I just in living in Houston. There's not much here, so it gets kind of boring at times and I just feel like I don't have much content to post need to head down to Nolence.

Tom Anderson: 36:11

Urban drive around downtown Houston and stuff.

Rafael Ruiz: 36:14

Yeah. Yeah, I mean there's stuff here, but like the other, I mean last week it rained, so Thursday night I met up with some people and I went mutting and it was so much fun. I mean but but we have. So we have a lot of Private land in Texas, so there's very few spots that we can find, and there's this one spot that's maybe like 200 feet long in this little grassy area and just go around Around the same spot but I mean I was drifting through this turn and it was so much fun.

Rafael Ruiz: 36:47

If you look at my reels now, well, my stories on Pearl's page. I did a little clip of it and I mean I just I put there I could do this all day and I literally could have. I mean it was so much fun. But funny. So Every once in a while, like if we get some rain and some mud and we can go out and have some fun, then then there's some content.

Tom Anderson: 37:06

Yeah, and then you see places like you know, the Pacific Northwest.

Jeff Battersby: 37:10

And they suck yeah New.

Rafael Ruiz: 37:14

York, where I'm at.

Jeff Battersby: 37:15

Yeah you're in a beautiful area too. I mean it's nice where.

Tom Anderson: 37:17

I'm at too. I mean we're in the valley here, but we've got mountain ranges both sides. I mean two hours and I'm pretty deep in country in West Virginia, which you know pretty place.

Rafael Ruiz: 37:27

Yeah, I mean, there's just no coverage shaft post later.

Rafael Ruiz: 37:30

Yeah, I mean, see, and I, when I discovered mountains going out to Colorado for work years ago, I fell in love with mountains, and Mountains are so far from where we are. I mean it's to get into any kind of mountains that are decent. I mean it's like a 15-hour drive. We've got some stuff out in West Texas and there's some like a bit. There's a big canyon, there's Palo Duro Canyon out there, which is Apparently it's referred to the as the Grand Canyon of Texas and it's beautiful. But I love mountains. I mean I would, I could be in mountains every day.

Jeff Battersby: 38:05

Jeff is yeah, I'm in mountains and I actually, and I know the feel. I lived in East Texas for three and a half years.

Rafael Ruiz: 38:14

Oh, we're at up by Tyler, okay so you know where alto is, or do you remember?

Jeff Battersby: 38:19

I don't remember out now.

Rafael Ruiz: 38:21

Okay, I don't think it's too far from Tyler, but that's where a lot of my family is from is from alto.

Tom Anderson: 38:26

Got it.

Jeff Battersby: 38:27

every time I hear of Tyler Texas, I think of the Tote's oh yeah, I think of the roses, because it's the rose capital of Texas as well.

Tom Anderson: 38:36

So they grow the.

Jeff Battersby: 38:37

Tyler Rose in.

Tom Anderson: 38:38

Texas geography lesson for today.

Jeff Battersby: 38:40

There you go, you got your special thing. But I moved there from California and, man, I was lost. I, you know, I used to to spend my summers in the Sierra and and it was humid and oh yeah, and the stuff that they called mountains, it was like.

Rafael Ruiz: 38:58

Hills.

Tom Anderson: 38:59

That's not even a hill pal, it's an overpass.

Jeff Battersby: 39:03

That's a, you know, a small uphill climb.

Rafael Ruiz: 39:08

Yeah, I'm talking about.

Jeff Battersby: 39:09

Oakland Hills were you know five times what what East Texas had. So I feel you that's in Houston's particularly flat, that whole area is not, there's not a, there's not a hill around and, like you said, not not anything particularly close. That's easy to get to. So so that's interesting. So you doing little mud runs.

Rafael Ruiz: 39:31

Well y'all. So you asked me about my job earlier, and then you brought up Tyler. We're actually working on three projects in Tyler right now.

Tom Anderson: 39:38

Interesting, yeah, there you go Nice tie in there too.

Rafael Ruiz: 39:43

Yeah, I'm getting better at that. Yeah, my own podcast I'll. Somebody will say something and it'll spark a question that's coming up and I'll use whatever they said to tie in that next question.

Jeff Battersby: 39:55

Right, good, yes, Turn it into a radio man and you are so.

Rafael Ruiz: 39:59

So that's the one thing that I didn't mention is, whenever I have because I have guests, I always come up with questions and I send the questions out to my guests ahead of time so that they can Look them over, so they can be more prepared for the episode too, because I asked some deep questions sometimes.

Jeff Battersby: 40:14

So what you're saying is we sucker punched you. Is that the deal? No, no, you're here with no, no questions ahead of time. So you know I like this.

Rafael Ruiz: 40:22

It's free for yeah, I like the free form. I mean I've done that. I've done a couple of episodes freeform like that and Early on, so I wasn't as prepared mentally, like I didn't have it all together so but I mean it still turned out well. But I yeah it's. I have found that I've been listening to several podcasts recently that have co-hosts and I really love the co-host. Like I would love to do another Podcast with a co-host. That'd be. I think that'd be a lot of fun.

Jeff Battersby: 40:51

Yeah, that makes this, I will say, easier for us. You know a little little in Inside baseball but we, speaking of Houston, one again tonight, by the way Thank, maybe they're playing now, I don't know but the yeah, there's something to be said for having two of us. So you know, there's. There's that. First of all, there's rapport that Tom and I have. You know that we've had pretty much since we became friends. I would say, you know, yeah, kind of had that little, that little back-and-forth going on. But it definitely makes a difference when you're playing off of each other and and, yeah, I could, I could see where it's hard if you're the one that's driving the conversation always, yeah, that that can be. I'm sure that can be challenging.

Rafael Ruiz: 41:39

Yeah, I mean there's there's times where I mean, most of the time, we get into pretty good conversation because the questions will spark Conversation, and then, you know, I don't stick to just my questions because somebody will say something and it'll spark another question. And I mean, like the one I recorded last night, we got into all kinds of conversations. I asked a bunch of different questions and I think I'd only asked like two of my actual questions. But then I've had people where I'll ask them a question and then they give a very brief response and there's no conversation around the question and there could have been so much more conversation. So though, I asked them a question and they'll be like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then I'm like thinking that's it.

Rafael Ruiz: 42:24

And then there's this awkward silence for a while and then I'm like thinking okay, I guess I'm going to the next question, so, and then it's just it's. I've. I think I've had two episodes only out of 142, which isn't bad, where it was like that, where I'm just like this is so painful, like I'm not even really enjoying this that much. Yeah, it's a no conversation, yeah, well, I go and cry and drink.

Jeff Battersby: 42:49

Yeah, it's a If you're the one that's always pushing something and you don't have people. You know this is improv to some extent, so it's, you know, yes and yes and yes, and you know you're you're you're leaning into the conversation, trying to. Nobody likes dead air.

Jeff Battersby: 43:07

That's where editing comes in, yeah well, that's, that is true, editing does make up for dead air and, you know, hacking a lung out or something like that, but it's If it's, if there is no back and forth with a guest, and you see then why. You know, guys like God rest his soul, dynamists and these people who had, you know, they had people cackling in the background all the time too. You know there's somebody always bringing something in, so there's, so there's Something, something going on there. But if you're the one that's running the show and you've got a guess, it's going yes, yeah, mm-hmm. Oh, I do that. Yeah, mm-hmm, yeah, that doesn't want to say anything. It becomes difficult to uh, you know, to do that, to do the job for sure.

Rafael Ruiz: 43:56

Well, I mentioned editing and you had asked me about editing earlier, tom, but so I use garage band to record into garage band and then that's where I do all of my editing.

Rafael Ruiz: 44:06

So all the brain farts and the dead air and the you know, Coughs or whatever, or the repetitive words, then I'll go through and cut that out. So sometimes editing, I've had people ask me like, well, how long does editing take? I said, well, at least as long as the actual episode plus However long it takes me to get all the extra stuff out of there. So sometimes if it's an hour and a half episode, it could take me as long as three or four hours Just to yeah, it takes me probably 90 minutes for like, if we do an hour Episode yeah, which is what we try to keep it to.

Jeff Battersby: 44:43

We try to not get it past. You know, right now, you know, steve is done with the gym for the day, and so he's uh. He's saving the rest of it Maros Gym trip, you know. So we try to keep it in that little window, but have you have you done any editing like this garage band?

Tom Anderson: 45:01

do this where you can edit in like one in a quarter, one and a half speed.

Rafael Ruiz: 45:06

I don't know, I've never looked at that.

Tom Anderson: 45:08

Yeah, so I edit with an app on the iPad called ferrite that I heard some people recommend and it think it goes up maybe even to 2x, and I tried it. I couldn't do it. I was like no, no, no, no, no, that's, that's yeah for one. I haven't done it long enough to be that comfortable just with the process again, and so I was like, yeah, but so that's why it takes 90 minutes to do the, to do the thing, sometimes longer. I did one I don't know Jeff three, three episodes, four episodes ago, where I got about 40 minutes into it and then I totally botched the edit and start over.

Tom Anderson: 45:45

Are you kidding? And so that was a long weekend, but so you use garage. Why I say Tom has the painful yeah and editing what you mentioned cap, cut and notes. Are there any other apps that you kind of lean on for you? Just probably just Google for your calendar. I know you've got a Gmail address and stuff, but I actually, I mean, I don't really.

Rafael Ruiz: 46:09

Yeah, I mean I use a calendar sometimes, like I use Google calendar to Just remind myself that I have an episode coming up. But I so what I do in my notes app is I'm in, I'm in there, a lot is. I kind of just know that I have an episode coming up, but in the episode or in my notes app, where I have all the guests listed, listed, I will put the the episode number, their Instagram handle, their name, what date I'm recording and at what time, their email address and then when I'm gonna release the episode. So that's the information I have for each one of them.

Tom Anderson: 46:42

Gotcha, yeah, yeah, I like it.

Rafael Ruiz: 46:46

Yeah, and I took a. I took a podcast training course a long time ago. As I mentioned, I was. I did a vegan podcast the vegan theme podcast before this, and there were some people that I had connected with and they were trying to roll out like this podcast training program. And they reached out to me because we had been communicating a lot. And they reached out, said hey, would you like to be part of this like pilot program, and we'll give you like a highly discounted rate. And I said sure.

Rafael Ruiz: 47:18

So I ended up taking the class and they were using garage band. But at the time I had an HP and I was like I don't know how to use audacity or anything else really, and I'm learning what to do through garage band. I'm not sure what to do with it. I'm just gonna go back to the video and I'm learning what to do through garage band. So I got a pretty good amount back in my taxes right after that and it was right. Before I started the other podcast, my first podcast, and I'd been wanting a Mac forever. I used to work at CompUSA way back in the day and my best friend was like the.

Rafael Ruiz: 47:53

Mac person there at CompUSA and so we had one of the back areas where all the Macs were and she was always back there talking to people and she had Macs at home and I've always been curious about them. But even back then I don't even think I had my own computer, but I just had this fascination with Macs because they were different and I've always been fascinated with things that were different. So I get my tax return and I'm like I'm getting a Macbook. So I got a Macbook Pro and that was how that started and I was like, thank goodness, I have something that I can use. You know, I've got GarageBand now, so I'm happy. But I also have this awesome computer that I know is going to last a really long time and perform well. It will. Oh yeah, now I actually upgraded to. I don't know, it might be downgraded, but I gave my son my Macbook Pro and I got a Macbook Air with the M2 chip because I wanted that was an upgrade.

Rafael Ruiz: 48:52

Yeah, so I wanted my other Mac. The fans kept turning on with my other.

Rafael Ruiz: 48:59

Macbook. Oh yeah, and it was so loud and my mic could hear the fans, so you want to know how I operate. So this is one of the things that I used to do. I have these big rectangular ice packs that are about the same shape as the Macbook, so I would get a towel and I would put it over the ice pack and then put my Macbook on top of the ice pack so that it would keep it cool. And it worked a lot of times, except for the two times. There was one night that I was like, okay, I'm done recording, I could go to the bathroom, I could do some other stuff, and I left my Macbook sitting on top of the ice pack all night long and I came back into my closet the next morning. Oh my God.

Rafael Ruiz: 49:47

There was condensation all over the keyboard and I was like, oh God, no, this is not happening. So I immediately wiped it off, of course. I took it off the ice pack and I just let it sit out and kind of air out and it you know. So it was still working and then, like I think it was like a couple of days later it wouldn't turn on.

Tom Anderson: 50:09

And I was like oh God, no no, no, no.

Rafael Ruiz: 50:11

This cannot be happening. So I forgot what I did, but I just closed it, let it sit there for a while, opened it back up and it finally started working again, and it was working fine after that. That's close.

Tom Anderson: 50:25

Yeah.

Rafael Ruiz: 50:26

Yeah, and then I did it again, but I caught it a little bit sooner than the last time. It only been sitting there for like a couple of hours. So, yeah, when I found out and then again I was doing some research when I found out that the MacBook Air didn't have fans I'm like I've got to get one. It's smaller, it's more portable, it's powerful.

Tom Anderson: 50:44

Battery lasts forever.

Rafael Ruiz: 50:46

Yeah, and it's like I'm not doing a bunch of crazy. You know video stuff or anything. Just you know it's a computer. Everybody needs a computer pretty much these days and it's going to do what I need it to do, and so you know. Now my son wants a MacBook Air because he's got the MacBook Pro and he's like the fans are so loud, yeah, but I mean, you know I was thankful to be able to give him a MacBook at 16.

Tom Anderson: 51:10

No doubt, yeah, yeah. So did you get the 13?

Rafael Ruiz: 51:15

inch MacBook Air. Yeah, yeah, I mean, that screen's big enough for me, and my girlfriend has a MacBook Pro with a 17 inch screen or maybe the 15 inch? What do they have? 15 or 16.

Tom Anderson: 51:26

These days 15. The new one's, 16. 16 MacBook Air. Okay.

Rafael Ruiz: 51:31

So maybe yeah, so hers must be, at least, I guess, the 15. But she was like your MacBook is so small, like how can you stand it?

Jeff Battersby: 51:37

I'm like.

Tom Anderson: 51:38

I love it.

Rafael Ruiz: 51:38

It's fine, it's light, it's easy to carry around.

Tom Anderson: 51:42

It is so light.

Rafael Ruiz: 51:43

Yeah, and the screen is plenty big for me. I don't need anything bigger, but it'd be nice to have a separate screen though.

Tom Anderson: 51:49

Yeah, we deployed a bunch of those MacBook Airs to our students that work this fall, so 800 and a couple Nice. So we've been using one for six months. No, no, probably now it's closer to nine or 10. But yeah, it's been great Like no heat issues?

Tom Anderson: 52:04

Yeah, obviously no fans, because it doesn't have one, but it doesn't need more mop to really even kick the fan on if it did. Now my personal one's the 16 inch MacBook Pro, because I like the bigger screen, but to be honest, I don't use it that much Like I've got a Mac mini that's on my desk or I've got an external display hooked up to that I usually use that or the iPad I have, but I think if the 15 inch MacBook Pro or, I'm sorry, the 15 inch MacBook Air would have been available when I was buying, I would have gotten that instead.

Tom Anderson: 52:33

Yeah.

Rafael Ruiz: 52:35

But it wasn't. Yeah, my son, my son's my old MacBook Pro. Now on the right side of the screen it's got some lines going up and down on it. I don't know what I mean. He says he didn't drop it, but I know he's had it in his backpack and he's dropped his backpack down kind of hard a few times, so that may have been a cause of this?

Tom Anderson: 52:55

Yeah, those are so thin. Like they're I won't say delicate necessarily, but they're not. There's not a lot of leeway there for the screen to kind of get pressed on something, but yeah.

Rafael Ruiz: 53:07

So I'm thinking about getting seen if I don't know if they would give me anything for it because of that, but seeing if I can do like a trade in what year is? It. It's a 2016, I think, or 17 maybe.

Jeff Battersby: 53:20

I mean it still works fine, but yeah, they might throw you a couple of bucks. I wonder that that seems like it's at the border of. Is that still Intel processors in that one? I think so, yeah, yeah, so those things are vintage.

Tom Anderson: 53:34

Yeah, had the scissor or the butterfly keyboard too, so the keyboards were real problematic. You haven't had any keyboard problems with it since you've had it.

Rafael Ruiz: 53:44

No Good, and it had the little slide bar on it too, right Touch bar thing.

Tom Anderson: 53:49

Yeah, touch bar. Yeah, yep iPhone, I'm assuming. Yeah, I have.

Rafael Ruiz: 53:56

So I've kind of been behind on the iPhones. But I had an iPhone SE for a while and then what was the one that they came out with? That was like the 10X or something like that was a little bit bigger. It was kind of like an off model that they had for a while I think I can't remember, but it was when the 10 came out and it was like a 10X and I was like this is a little too big for me. So I went back down to the SE and then, about six months ago or more, I actually went down because it's small, a little bit smaller, but I went to the iPhone 13 mini.

Rafael Ruiz: 54:34

And I really like it a lot.

Tom Anderson: 54:36

It fits in my hands. Better it fits in my hands, better they don't make it anymore.

Rafael Ruiz: 54:40

Do what yeah?

Tom Anderson: 54:41

They're not making it anymore.

Rafael Ruiz: 54:43

Yeah, Well, not the 13, right.

Tom Anderson: 54:46

I think the mini has a plastic hole. Yeah, I think it's a little.

Jeff Battersby: 54:50

And I just I don't know if you listened to the last show or our last show, but I I listened to about half of it, I think maybe. No, so that's all we're good for.

Tom Anderson: 54:59

Hey, you're not wrong.

Rafael Ruiz: 55:03

Yeah, I couldn't get past the 15 inches though.

Jeff Battersby: 55:12

So I have a new 15 and I had the 13 before that and I love the 15. I'm happy with the cameras in it, but I probably didn't need to upgrade.

Rafael Ruiz: 55:24

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby: 55:26

That's what we said in the last show.

Rafael Ruiz: 55:28

Yeah, you were saying I don't need to get a thousand dollar camera every two years. No right, I don't.

Tom Anderson: 55:34

I really don't. I did listen to the first half.

Jeff Battersby: 55:36

He did, I was complaining about the watch.

Tom Anderson: 55:39

Oh, that's something.

Rafael Ruiz: 55:40

I'd have to go finish it up now. Yeah, no, but I mean I like the 13 mini because it's like I just I don't like a big giant phone. I had one that was a little bit bigger before and I just, like you know, I'm like stretching my thumb way up, you know, and then trying to do the reachable or whatever, and or touch ability. I can't remember what it's called, but yeah, I know them. I know my phone can do a lot more than I use it for.

Jeff Battersby: 56:09

It's my go-to camera. That's really what it is. And then you know, yeah, when I have to answer Tom's texts about how crappy is watch OS is yeah those.

Rafael Ruiz: 56:20

I have an old Apple watch I think it's the third or something, I can't remember but I bought it bought it mainly and it doesn't have it just has wifi. It doesn't have cellular. Because I'm like I'm not I know I'm not going to use it that much, but I bought it mostly for I bought it one, because there was a lot of times when I was like in a noisy place or something and I'm like if I got a text message I didn't feel that somebody texted me, or if somebody was calling me, I was like it'd be nice to know if somebody's texting me or calling me, because then I could just see it on my watch. But then I also got it for running too, to use the app on that, which was really nice Nike Run app.

Tom Anderson: 56:57

Just, you still do daily wear that, or is it just here and there?

Rafael Ruiz: 57:01

No, yeah, it's just here and there, mostly lately, just when I go running, because I tried to wear it and use it for that and I just I never got into it.

Tom Anderson: 57:10

And Jeff's got a similar story, Like he tried way back when and has. Well, you've been with the UltraWatch for a while now.

Jeff Battersby: 57:18

It'll be a year in November and I'm not afraid to evaluate or reevaluate. I'm happy with it. You know, in particular, I used it this weekend for hiking and used the All Trails app. I didn't use Apple's Baps for that for hiking this past weekend, but it's great for that. I can see where I am, you know, on the trail. Really good, really good trail direction.

Jeff Battersby: 57:46

So that's a great thing. I still have the phone with me, though, because I'm going to take pictures with my phone, but I don't have to keep on hauling that out of my pocket to see where the trail is. I can just look at the watch.

Jeff Battersby: 57:59

So, yeah, but my initial experience was I gave it to my son after six months. I just didn't. I never have. This is the first time I've worn a watch, probably in my life, and I've had this for a year almost, and sometimes I still forget about it. I did this morning. I didn't put it on until you know an hour or so after I started my day, and that's okay. I don't feel I like having it, but I don't feel bound to wear it all the time.

Rafael Ruiz: 58:30

Yeah, I've been trying to not be with my phone as much.

Rafael Ruiz: 58:35

I'm just kind of getting to where you know, if it wasn't, for I mean, because I have the podcast, I like to stay engaged. And then you know, again, with my car account it's not. There's not as much there, but because of the podcast I try to keep up with it, and then my girlfriend and my son and stuff. But there's been times when I'm like I'm going to go out to my car and clean it up and do some other stuff and I'm going to leave my phone in the apartment and it's a really good feeling.

Tom Anderson: 59:04

Yeah, I feel that. Definitely good to not be tied to those things. Yeah, which is easier said than done sometimes.

Rafael Ruiz: 59:12

Oh 100%. Yeah, but you know what did we do back in the day, you know.

Tom Anderson: 59:19

Well, we did read a book, magazines and TV shows and baseball games, and you know I think we mentioned this there's, you can look it up, but there's like a picture of someone posted is like here are all the things that have been replaced by the smartphone and it's like a huge table full of stuff, right Like video camera, cassette recorders and books and TVs and all these things. So it's, it's one of those double-edged swords. It's like, yeah, spend a bunch of time on there and be productive, learn a lot of stuff. I mean, look how much we talked about YouTube earlier. As you know, that's where we went to research things. So you know, good and bad, no surprise.

Rafael Ruiz: 1:00:04

Yeah, I mean, I think the cell phone is. It is pretty amazing because, you know, you think back to back in the day when we were younger.

Rafael Ruiz: 1:00:14

If you're driving around, you've got a bunch of tapes, you know, If you're outside and you want to listen to music if you're not in your car, if you're not at home, well, I got to bring a Walkman, you know, with some headphones and yeah, like you said, what all the devices that it's replaced I mean. To me, I think, the biggest thing with having a phone and what the capability is the amount of music that you can have right there.

Rafael Ruiz: 1:00:39

Too much Because, yeah, I mean, yeah there's. There's just a humongous selection, but I mean it's pretty amazing because you don't have to deal with a see. I mean there's still something nostalgic about touching something and you know putting it in the CD player and all that kind of stuff, but they have the ability to just scroll and find a song within seconds. That's pretty awesome, yeah.

Tom Anderson: 1:01:02

I like that. Yeah, I've found some old albums in the garage. A couple of weekends ago I was cleaning some things out and like it's more iron maiden and Beastie Boys and stuff. But you take those out and you look and so you know you'd be, you'd be playing the record, but then the liner notes and everything that were on the you know, the sleeve that the album was in was became such a part of that experience back then right.

Tom Anderson: 1:01:25

Because it's like you know, maybe it had the lyrics, maybe it didn't, but it would have something right that you gave. Some of them were just pictures, but you could look at the pictures, like granted you didn't do that every time you played it. Usually it's the first time, but it was part of the experience that we don't really get now. I think you get some animated artwork for playlists and stuff like that on the Apple Music app and I'm not really looking at that.

Jeff Battersby: 1:01:48

Yeah, and actually the new version of the Apple Music app also has you can see those kinds of details and not so much. You know there's not liner notes that I've seen yet, but there's definitely there's. If you go to a song, you can see who the instrumentalists were on the song. You can see all that stuff. Now that's all new in the latest version of the music app, which I do like. I like the ability to be able to go look at that, look at the lyrics, and I use the lyrics feature constantly, like I'm constantly paying attention to what's going on, which I've been doing since I was old enough to listen to music. You know that's kind of the way I played that game, but yeah, it's the physical.

Jeff Battersby: 1:02:26

I still have LPs upstairs that you know I don't have a great turntable, but I have a turntable that I can throw those on. There are a couple of bands that it's like ah yeah, I definitely want to get on there Another hip again, so you can probably find them.

Rafael Ruiz: 1:02:40

They are, yeah, audio tech. There's like two record stores in town here. Audio tech. I can make one that's pretty good and that's probably what I'm going to get my son for Christmas, because he likes listening to records and his stepdad is he doesn't need anymore, I don't think, but he used to do some DJ stuff and so he has a lot of DJ equipment there at the house. Oh, cool and he's got a bunch of records and I've gotten my son some records so I want to get him a turntable for.

Tom Anderson: 1:03:05

Christmas. He's big into music, right yeah?

Rafael Ruiz: 1:03:09

Yeah, and he's my. The music, the intro and outro music for my podcast is music that my son made. He didn't make it for the podcast, it was music that he had made like the summer of 2020. I guess he was bored and I took it I mean it's royalty free, you know took it and used it.

Tom Anderson: 1:03:25

Yeah, that's great.

Rafael Ruiz: 1:03:29

Yeah, and I use, I use Spotify for my music. Just, I was using Apple music, but the thing I don't like about it and I don't know if that's changed is I like to change the EQ settings and I remember like there wasn't an adjustable EQ that you could set on your own. It was only preset EQ settings and you couldn't do it in the app. You had to go into settings on your phone and then go to like Apple music and then go to this thing and then this other thing. And what got me into using Spotify is my brother was using it and he wanted to share a playlist with me and I was like whoa, you can do that, he goes, yeah. So I signed up for Spotify, he shared his playlist with me and I've been using it ever since.

Tom Anderson: 1:04:09

Yeah, Spotify to me has always been not quite sure how to put it, but it always feels more like it's built for just a bunch of people that like to share music with other people, and it's and again I had and I say all that, but I've used Apple music for the last several years just because it's part of the bundle that I have.

Tom Anderson: 1:04:28

But it just seems to me like it's very playlist oriented and especially community playlist, like when you do a search and maybe all of that's changed since I haven't been on it as of late. But the Apple one you can find things but it's not as community. You know, like I'm not going to find Raphael's playlists.

Jeff Battersby: 1:04:48

Like I could Well. Yeah, there's the option that you have to turn on, you know see what your friends are listening to. I'm not interested in that Right.

Tom Anderson: 1:04:56

And I've done that with a couple of people, but I think Spotify, though, just just feels more that that's been its thing, which is what I like, because I never want to listen to an album start to finish. I got tired of that when I was 12 and there was like two good songs and the other eight were trash and I'm like I'm out of that scene.

Jeff Battersby: 1:05:12

I'm still 12, I guess.

Tom Anderson: 1:05:14

And it's just, it gets boring and I think part of it's because, you know, I did work radio for a while when I was 18 and liked being poor. I did that, but so, anyhow, we've gone off to a bit of a tangent there.

Rafael Ruiz: 1:05:27

Yeah, yeah, it's not that we ever do that. We're talking about music apps.

Tom Anderson: 1:05:31

Yep, all right. So, gentlemen, we are at about the hour mark. All right, rafael, any closing things? We didn't cover that that you wanted to talk about.

Rafael Ruiz: 1:05:43

No, I think we've covered it all. I mean, we talked about my setup, how I record, editing and a bunch of other fun stuff, and I just want to thank you both for having me on.

Jeff Battersby: 1:05:52

It's great to have. It's been a pleasure Really really appreciate having you, rafael.

Tom Anderson: 1:05:55

Yeah, thank you, jeff, and if absolutely, it's been a pleasure and glad we could do it. I know we talked about it for a little while there, so glad we got it kind of synced up and it could do it and wish you nothing but continued success with the Sube and you podcast. I think that's a fantastic thing you're doing there. I think the response that you've seen from it is proof of that, so wish you all the best for that. Thank you, and do appreciate your time coming on with us.

Jeff Battersby: 1:06:22

Yeah, and where can everybody find you on social media?

Rafael Ruiz: 1:06:24

So my podcast is Sube and you podcast and it's a dot in between all the words, and then you can find me at Sube and you podcastcom and I don't have Twitter or what's the other threads.

Jeff Battersby: 1:06:41

Yeah, threads blue sky.

Rafael Ruiz: 1:06:44

Yeah, I'm on Facebook.

Tom Anderson: 1:06:45

Masked at home.

Rafael Ruiz: 1:06:45

I don't really do anything with Facebook, so it's mostly Instagram.

Jeff Battersby: 1:06:49

Good for you, yeah, all right, cool, cool, excellent.

Rafael Ruiz: 1:06:52

Thanks again.

Jeff Battersby: 1:06:55

Yeah, and we'll have links to all of that in the podcast notes. So, as usual, a feedback at basicafshowcom. You can get us there if you need to get us there. You can get our website, basicafshowcom as well, and we'll be happy to respond to any emails. We'd love to have emails. We still have stickers and whatnot. If anybody wants something like that, happy to do it. Show artwork the amazing Randall Martin design. So we're always happy to shout Randall out, who has been working on a book with my sister.

Jeff Battersby: 1:07:27

Nice so which she should have her hot little hands on in the next couple of weeks. And then music by Psychokinetics, and we're grateful to Psychokinetics and Celcius7 for giving us the beats to intro and outro too. Tommy, anything else, tommy, look at me, kick my ass after that.

Tom Anderson: 1:07:49

Hey, tommy, what are we going to do About my bedtime? So we're going to have to go guys.

Jeff Battersby: 1:07:53

Yeah, okay, it's nine o'clock. Tommy.

Rafael Ruiz: 1:07:55

The name is Neo.

Tom Anderson: 1:07:57

Yes, you got it in. Excellent, I was waiting for that. All right, no, I think that is that's everything. So, rafael, again, thank you so much. Yeah, man, thanks, I really appreciate it All right, and for all of you listening there, thank you for joining us. As always, have a great rest of your day, or rest of your night. See ya, adios, see you next time.