Jay Curtis: The Joy of Tinkering

Jay Curtis [00:00:00] There's nothing wrong with being curious. And I think, I think that is a key thing to differentiate for future happiness. If you can maybe just be curious. Yeah. Welcome

Vance Crowe [00:00:13] Back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today we are going to have another interview with a man named Jay Curtis. Jay has shown up on the Ag Tribes report. If you're very closely watching, you know that Jay and I did a video about how to move Bitcoin off an exchange onto a treasure wallet, and he's one of my closest friends. He's a retired farmer up in Ontario, and when you see him in the background, you'll notice there is a lot of smoke there. And that's 'cause he is living through those big fires up there. This conversation is really fun and it's really hard to do because I talk to Jay all the time, so to keep things fresh and new and interesting. So we weren't pretending on this thing. I had to ask him questions I don't think about very much. And what comes out in this conversation is a lot about tinkering, a lot about being curious and finding new and interesting ways to engage with the world, to solve problems, to build stuff, to make Jay laugh. So I hope you really enjoy this deep conversation with an introspective quiet farmer that loves tinkering. We're gonna get to that in just a moment, but I wanted to tell you about two things quickly. The first is the interest based communications course that I've been running has been a huge success. We now just ran the second cohort where people said, Hey, I'm gonna put my hand up. I want to go. Some of them personally paying for it or having their office call up and say, Hey, we wanna do this leadership training, we want to invest in our people. So we'll have them come to your interest based communications class. If you are interested in coming to St.

Vance Crowe [00:01:46] Louis, Missouri, spending three days with me and a group of people that are like you, people that are trying to move up in the world, they're trying to figure out how can I be better understood by others? How can I make my point better understood? How can I tell a story? How can I negotiate all of these conflicts? If you are one of those people that wants to do that, then I would encourage you to go to Articulate Ventures slash IBC. There you're gonna find a portal to be able to apply to the class we are now putting on an application process. We are gonna make it so that people that want to attend, share what they're gonna talk about, what they need to work on. And we will make sure that those cohorts, the fact that there's only eight people in them, are really tightly knit together and they're the perfect group to learn from. So if you're interested, go to Articulate Ventures slash IBC. The other thing I was told to mention is I have a new listener, a guy that's been listening, he said, back to my entire back catalog and he wrote me and said he was super annoyed with me because I never ask people to like and subscribe to the podcast. I do that in part because I don't know, it feels a little cliche or cliquey or whatever, or, or asking. But he said no. It makes him feel like I'm not concerned with him being connected with the podcast. And that's not the case. I want you to have a great relationship with the podcast. I want you to feel excited and energized by it. And I want you to know that I have these conversations for you.

Vance Crowe [00:03:17] So you like this podcast. I hope that you will like and subscribe it and share it with your friends. Alright, without further ado, let's head to the interview with Jay Curtis. Jay Curtis, welcome back to the podcast.

Jay Curtis [00:03:32] Hello.

Vance Crowe [00:03:33] Hey. Have you been on the podcast before? I know you've been on, we've done video recordings together, but I can't remember if you've actually been on the show.

Jay Curtis [00:03:41] We did a ag tribe, someone canceled and you got me in last second for that. So that was one time.

Vance Crowe [00:03:48] So you are sitting out in Ontario right now. What is behind you?

Jay Curtis [00:03:53] Well, I'm sitting in on a runway, a grass runway, and my beautiful corn is on both sides and I have a three rows, 60 inches sunflowers. And I, I put them on part of this runway 'cause there's gonna be a wedding. My son's getting married here before too long. So it's kind of a beautiful spot and I spend a lot of time walking up and down this run of my thinking.

Vance Crowe [00:04:17] And do you, you take your airplane out on that runway?

Jay Curtis [00:04:20] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We have a, it's an old antique rag and tube. It's in a bronca champion, so it, it, it lives here in shop and goes in and out of the door sideways on a trolley. And the runway is right behind the house and Barnes here. So it's pretty handy.

Vance Crowe [00:04:41] How did you pick up the skill of plane flying?

Jay Curtis [00:04:45] Well, my grandfather flew in the first war and that always stuck with me. He seldom talked about it. There was some pitchers around. One uncle had all those pitchers and it always fascinated me. And then my wife's uncle was close to our age and he was a crop duster pilot and, and a teacher of flight training. And I got to be really chummy with him. And then one thing led to another and I said, I gotta get my license. And I did that in 1989. And I got my license all at once, very quickly in one winter. And then I never flew for 20 years 'cause I got married, took over the farm and I also had a fear of flying that I, that I conquered 20 years later. And then it just went crazy with fun. Yep.

Vance Crowe [00:05:34] Fear of flying. But then you got back in, I don't understand like you, how, why 20 years later did you decide to go do this?

Jay Curtis [00:05:42] Partly due to money taking over the farm, financial things, having kids, no time. And then it, it kept eating at me and there was a a quite, there was a, a subtle fear of flying even though I was awesome at it in my training. And I passed with flying colors very quickly. And it's easy to learn to fly. If you do it really hard, go hard at it because you don't forget anything. So it's a neat story because I did have a fear of flying even though I had a license. And then I conquered that, you know, 20 years later I bought a, a, a sister ship to the plane I have now. And I flew that thing all the time. And in another boat, 20 hours everything clicked. Then I understood everything about the science and I was so comfortable. And then it was nothing but fun. Yep. That's, yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:06:31] That's what I mean, flying a plane to me is like, oh my gosh, it's so risky. I have to remember so many things. How could I possibly keep track of all of those things and keep myself alive?

Jay Curtis [00:06:43] Yeah. And it starts that way and, and it gets a, well, I was a little paranoia about it. Little things would set me off in the training. Like I hit a bird on takeoff once while training and it just about destroyed me. The first solo, you are alone. If you, if you pass out or freak out, you're done. And that those things would bother you if you're, if you're that way. But I, but I got through that. But then, then it, it, it's truly just, it's a g like, it's, it's so fun. There's nothing like it. The speed rush when you're coming or going out of a runway, the sensation of speed that dissipates when you get in the air and then it's just you, you're never bored. It never gets old. That's one thing that never gets old. I've had so many other things, bikes, snowmobiles, this, that and the other thing, but the plane never gets old. Yep.

Vance Crowe [00:07:35] And the, the 20 hours that you're up there, is it that you have to get a feel for it? Did you already understand the physics and the

Jay Curtis [00:07:42] Equipment before you went up? Yeah, it was just a confidence thing that then I was, I am so crazy in my mind that I have to be a perfectionist in understanding things or I have zero confidence in those things. And it took, like, I had my license in say 50 hours roughly, which was 52 hours, which is very tight. And then 20 years go by, but another 20 hours of just thinking and, and, and I was more mature mentally and then it just sunk in. And then once total understanding sets in, like I just don't have any problem. Like it's, it's just fun. Then

Vance Crowe [00:08:24] You're like, mechanical knowledge is unbelievable to me, right? Like if my generator goes out, you're like, you can talk me through it without even seeing the generator. But I think it's 'cause you have to have like a visceral understanding of things. Like would you have been a good engineer that was drawing diagrams or did you need to be the person actually touching the metal of the, of the way the engine works?

Jay Curtis [00:08:47] Yeah. And that's, that's an interesting thing. Like my dad was not mechanical at all, at all. He was a, an animal person. Cattle mechanical things did not interest him at all. And I, at a very, very young age, I was the opposite. I had no interest in in shoveling manure, but anything that had a motor made sound I was fascinated with. And yeah, I would've been a terrific engineer. I have a brother who's a world class power dam engineer. He's retired and he still consults around the globe and, and I'll tell him about things I'm doing and and he'll be going like, yeah, that's pretty cool. Like, we're on the same wavelength often. So it is a, it's a weird thing how it comes. Some people are touched by it, some aren't and that's fine. But, and one thing I do think that's different now that would've really helped me 30 years ago is with the internet and everything on there, you can learn if you have an interest in something, you have answers immediately before you'd have to maybe go find a wore out world book encyclopedia and see if there's anything in there. Totally different world I use like the new world knowledge. It's just so available. It's crazy. It's, it's crazy good.

Vance Crowe [00:10:05] I think about, so I one time bought a house and helped renovate it and like do all the electrical, the plumbing and everything. And I remember I was holding a book up being like, okay, how do you sweat pipe? Okay, it says you put the solder right up there on that copper footing. Okay, now I'm gonna heat it up. But now you could watch a video from 15 different angles. You could have a master plumber telling you exactly how to do it. You could watch a novice be like, these are all the mistakes I made. And do it in, in two and a half minutes you would be up to speed.

Jay Curtis [00:10:37] Yeah. And you'll understand like, how come I heat the pipe up higher if it's a vertical fitting, I heat it up high and put the solder down low at the joint capillary action sucks it up. But it's amazing. You just need to understand how that works once you understand how it works. Like I've, I've re plumbed a whole house and never had one leak and I'm not an expert plumber. But you just need to understand, you have to be clean, you have to use a flux, a certain heat, and you're good to go. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:11:02] Well I think like that's the, the challenging thing about knowing things. You actually have to do it right, like feel it and you're like, oh, that's, that's how that feels. You maybe heard it described and then you have this intuitive knowledge of it, but like every, there's almost nothing that you can have that kind of knowledge until you've been like playing around with it, trying to get the solder to work and then all of a sudden it starts getting sucked up.

Jay Curtis [00:11:27] Oh yeah. And, and in early repairs, like you'd butcher things, you smash things, you, you dimple something over and you'll never get it apart. And then you, you get real smart in a hurry and then you start paying attention how to take something apart and how it went so you can put it back together, stuff like that.

Vance Crowe [00:11:44] Well how crazy. I remember taking apart my brakes in my car when I had no business changing the brakes in my car, but we didn't have digital cameras so kids will never remember that. You could be like, oh, I'll just take a photo of how that thing goes together. And every piece I'm taking off now you can watch yourself take it off and then just reverse engineer it. But back when I was learning how to do this stuff there, like, you better remember how it's put together. 'cause there's nothing to show you.

Jay Curtis [00:12:09] There's so many videos on absolute different things you might be fixing and you'll find you, if you spend a little time, you'll find a video quite often that will walk you through the very thing you're trying to fix. Yep.

Vance Crowe [00:12:23] You are you using AI for for figuring out how to fix things? Yeah,

Jay Curtis [00:12:29] Yeah. All the time. I, I I compare with it. It isn't always right, but most times it is extremely helpful. I had a, a diesel tractor at my father-in-law's estate and it, it just wouldn't run. And I didn't have fuel coming out the injection lines and, and I just kept, you know, prompting AI certain ways, ask it in the same things in a different way, more complex wording. And it just kept spitting out the same thing. It's the idle cutoff plunger stuck in this rotary poi is working on. And and it wasn't a big deal. You just take the lid off. You have to be careful, but you could, but you could easily fix it. And when I did it's like, holy shit, that thing was bang on. You know, you'd get the same advice if you, if you, if you talk to the right mechanics. But here you're just doing it for free at home with not driving around looking for somebody. It's those kind of things. Yeah. The, it's very handy. Like recently it's just an ome on an ignition coil for an ancient antique lawnmower. Like what's the primary winding resistance typical and what's the secondary just to, to try to figure out is this coil, it was a weak coil, it wasn't shot, but it had things that wouldn't allow the engine to fully rev, but it would idle. Nice.

Vance Crowe [00:13:46] Wait, so, so you are going way, way deep in the details 'cause that's how you understand things. But why don't we first start off with what old tractor are you talking about?

Jay Curtis [00:13:55] Oh, well, just recently and it's, we'll call the word synchronicity just keeps coming into my world. It's just crazy events that happen that send you in a different direction. And, and this happens about monthly with me One minute. It's, it's a, it's a whack or a two dozen holi chainsaws and it's IEL Canadian obsolete, 1950s chainsaws. And you, you learn how they run and you learn how to fix their ignition systems and carburetors with without spending any money and it's just becomes a, an obsessive hobby. It's, it's a, it's a little bit crazy. But then, so this last project, it's a Boland's ride master, I think it's the first self-propelled garden tractor. They're from the forties and fifties. And this thing is ancient and I found one because a buddy was working on a, on his father-in-law's given to him, self-propelled cultivator of the same type. And then he had questions for me and, and then it just, it just kind of falls in your lap. I see one advertised and I go look at it and it's an old man. He is 80 something and we just become pals because there's this common interest in things and he's too old to bother with it 'cause he is, he can't pull it over or fix it anymore. He used to, but he knows that I likely will by talking to me. And then you get this thing and then it's an obsession to hear it run. And then, you know, 15 hours later it's running. You know, I had to retrofit the whole ignition system.

Jay Curtis [00:15:25] There's some obsolete parts and then you just, you just go online and, and keep researching the hell out of the specifics. Then you come up with a, a workaround and it, and it works. And then you feel like a million bucks. It, it's kind of goofy. A lot of people don't understand that, but everyone understands when you have a hopeless thing and no matter what it is in your life and you fix it and you move forward, that's a feeling that that's what living's for.

Vance Crowe [00:15:54] Yeah. Kate Crosby calls it the click, right where, where you've been hammering on something and then all of a sudden it just goes right into the right spot. I was just talking with an architect friend of mine, he was like, when I realized that I can move this wall and then it clicks into the right spot and it solves that person's problem, then I, I have this eureka moment with your, with your tractor. One though is like, most people would look at a dusty old tractor that hasn't run how long since that thing had run?

Jay Curtis [00:16:23] Oh, probably 30 years, 25 years. Who

Vance Crowe [00:16:27] They would just be like, all right, well that thing used to run and no it doesn't.

Jay Curtis [00:16:30] Yeah. And there's, there's risks without it they can be too far gone. But when you're looking at buying it, I mean you can feel compression, you can see if there's any remnant of spark there. You can do little things. You just learn. You learn to what's a good one and a bad one. And yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:16:47] So as you're going through this old school motor engine, what did you, what's different about the way those engines were made than the way that people Well

Jay Curtis [00:16:57] They're all, they're all very common in any modern engine. It's just, it's, some of the parts are obsolete. Like it had a specific really ancient ignition magneto system and you just can't get those, the coil. And in the way the coil works and the way it's aligned, it's just very odd. And then someone made a workaround using a slightly more modern coil, but it involved a bunch of machining and you just, you know, it's hot, it's terrible here you can hardly breathe and you know, I just go in the shop and clamp things down and get a, a dye grinder out and just rework the whole thing until it fits, you know, using a caliper and just make it perfect. Put it on and the thing fires right up and it's, it's a fun thing. Yeah. It's just a bunch of things like that. Like over the years there's like, I have old Gleaner combines, they're 45 years old and plus, and I find them for, like, I farm with a lot of older stuff here. I only farm like 108 acres of corn. I used to do two 10, but I always worked off the farm. So now I'm only 108 acres of crop, fully retired. I have all the time in the world to do whatever I want. And I have really cool, cool equipment. Doesn't make any sense for a lot of people, but that's what I wanna do in retirement. So that's what I do.

Vance Crowe [00:18:15] Yeah. So 108 acres, you're not pulling out this 24 row combine to whip that thing down in, in, in two hours or something, are you No,

Jay Curtis [00:18:25] I have a six row planter and a four row corn head and a 15 foot bean head and, and in good corn, which I can have at times, it takes me two or three weeks to get the crop off because like I gotta take it to a mill and it, and it's nothing but fun. I mean, I'm always tweeting videos and, and I have jokes say F two Gleaner diesel. It, it comes from a cool history of great old guys that they're gone now, but I knew them well and I bought it from the family for scrap price. And it's just heartwarming 'cause you're using this thing, but I'll retrofit it like the AC works, you're cold, you're nice and cool, everything has to work, all the lights have to work, the mechanics have to work, but you can fix that old stuff. Reasonable. I'm not saying a, a young farmer should do that 'cause it's, it's very risky. But I, I can handle the risk and I love fixing and it doesn't really freak me out. I got an injection pump, go on the thing and it's big deal. Two days later I'm running, you know?

Vance Crowe [00:19:24] Yeah. 'cause if, if you have like a time hiccup something where you're like, oh shoot, I gotta stop and, and the whole operation shuts down, you're only trying to get that 108 out.

Jay Curtis [00:19:35] Yeah. If you got big mortgage payments, I mean you're, it's a curse if you try to do things that you shouldn't, but what I'm doing, it's just, it's, it's hobby fun and,

Vance Crowe [00:19:46] Well, it's hobby fun now, but I like 108 acres 60 years ago would've been enough to keep a family going. Oh

Jay Curtis [00:19:54] Yeah. It put, it put a family with four kids, you know, it, it put a full size family and educated them and everybody had fun and, and there was always a vehicle. And, and typically then it was, you know, the, the, the wifes was home looking after things and, and that was then, and that doesn't happen anymore. Now. It's kinda sad. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:20:20] You're in Ontario, which right now the world is, you know, shaking their finger at Ontario 'cause there's a bunch of smoke coming there. I don't know where the smoke is coming from one. Do you see it? Are you, oh

Jay Curtis [00:20:32] Yeah, like today you can see a kind of a, a haze in the background. It's nothing like it was yesterday and the day before you could cut it with a knife and it smelt terrible. It was a foul odor. I think it was a couple years ago. We had a couple of those days there was terrible fires maybe in

Vance Crowe [00:20:53] Northern. Is this just brush fires? What is it?

Jay Curtis [00:20:55] Well, it's forest fires massive forest and, and, and Canada has so much forest to the north like way north of cottage country. It's just massive forests forever. And I think proportionally it, it's huge versus what the forests are in your country. And, and that's an, it's, I I don't, I don't want to get into politics or anything and I'm not an expert on it's all don't wanna be don't just don't know. But I, I imagine it's, it's, it's always bean lightning dry weather has probably always been. And it's a natural regeneration thing. And yeah. When this happens, it, it's pretty nasty. And I, I was golfing with a buddy yesterday and I said within the next 24 to 48 hours, we are gonna hear about a lot of complaints from our friends to the south. He just texted me this morning and said, you were bang on because that's what we're reading in the news now, of course the complaints from politicians in the south that we don't know what we're

Vance Crowe [00:21:56] Doing. Yeah. But you have about as much control over forest fires as I do. Right. Like

Jay Curtis [00:22:00] I think that's how it is. But it's nice to point fingers. I mean, we get told there's nothing you have up there that we need. We get told these things. People are getting a little tired of some of the stuff. I don't wanna get political and it's, we all have such

Vance Crowe [00:22:15] Good friends. Yeah. But, but without getting political, you, you have pointed out to me like the kind of bristling that's happening with Canadians over time. Right. It doesn't feel like the Americans and the Canadians are friendly in the way that they were just even two years ago.

Jay Curtis [00:22:32] And the media probably doesn't help either. I'm sure businesses want things to be very similar to what they've always been. And Yeah, I don't, I'm I'm just not an expert on any of that really. But the, the fire thing is brutal and it would be annoying to have your neighbor if you're at a campground and the neighbors got railway ties and cooking, trying to cook something over a stench in Creo soap fire and you're downwind. It would, you would probably walk over there and say, you've gotta stop doing that. Come on. Right. I dunno. I don't know. I think it'll land quickly. It always does. I think this has been going on for thousands of years and I'm not, I'm too old to worry about that. I can't fix it. I thought the other day maybe we should have, instead of building battery plants here to save the world with ev fricking vehicles right near me. I I'm a little suspect about that whole plan. Maybe we should have had a thousand water bombers, you know, but then who's gonna fly them?

Vance Crowe [00:23:41] Yeah. So what you're talking about, 'cause I I, you had told me about this project to build a battery factory near your farm, and I had heard you build and I was kinda like, all right, big factory. Okay. And then when I came up to the Grain Growers Association, the Grain Farmers of Ontario and then visited your farm and you drove me by this battery monstrosity and it is like acres upon, how big was that facility that they built?

Jay Curtis [00:24:06] Well, the, the initial takeover of agricultural land, I think was 1500 acres. The battery plant doesn't entail all that, but it's a good, it's a, it's a good chunk of it. And then there's other side business, some graphite business. I don't know, there's just a, I'm a little worrisome. I thi I, I suspect that could be wrong. And again, what do I know about politics? But, but I suspect we outbid everyone else in the world to get Power Co. Which is part of Volkswagen. I understand. To come here we're I'll bet. I I would, I'm suspicious that the Canadian taxpayer is probably paid for everything to date and they're slowly building a building and they say it's gonna happen and be producing by the end of next year. But it wouldn't, I don't know, I, it wouldn't surprise me that things change or maybe someone runs away and doesn't, maybe hasn't really even paid anything yet. Maybe we'll turn it into a giant 1500 acre golf simulator building or something for people to go to in the winter. Or build drones. Build drones in there. I, I don't know what we'll do. I I don't mean to be so well you down on it.

Vance Crowe [00:25:20] It, it's just an interesting thing because in Canada they took a bunch of, of taxpayer money and bought these farmers out and then started building and it was like, it took a lot of productive land outta commission and nothing seems to be built there.

Jay Curtis [00:25:34] Yeah. And

Vance Crowe [00:25:35] The way some

Jay Curtis [00:25:35] Of that happened was a little strange. And I'm, I'm not gonna get into that, but there's just so many, I don't know, I just, I got a bad feeling about it. I, I, I hope the taxpayer isn't left holding a bag.

Vance Crowe [00:25:49] Alright, we're gonna take a quick break here to jump in and share that speaking season is about upon us. And if you are in a group that is planning a, a speaking engagement, a conference, a workshop, I hope you'll consider bringing me in. You can go to Vance Crowe dot com to learn more about the speeches that I deliver and ways that I could come and, and help your organization both given entertaining, but I hope really practical talk about how to communicate better. So the conference organizer has a terrible challenge. The audience can pull out their phone and pull up anyone talking about anything. How do you find somebody that is both going to reach every single person in that audience and yet still have that spike of energy where people are electrified 'cause they're hearing about things that they aren't used to or that make them think about things in a different way. The most important question that I ask a conference organizer is what is it that you want people to feel? What emotion do you want them to have when we leave this talk? What's their disposition? How are they gonna interact with one another? What does this prompt in the people that are there? It's not just the information, what you're giving them is energy, a reason to be there in that moment. Now they take that energy and they share it amongst each other. For me, the best speech is when people walk away being like, I now have a tangible skill. But they didn't necessarily readily accept it and they had to grapple with it.

Vance Crowe [00:27:23] They set their phone down, they leaned forward, they said, how do I feel about this? And through that, an energy is created that is not about the speaker, it's about the person listening to the speech. It's far beyond motivation. It's actually giving people skills.

Jay Curtis [00:27:45] You did just mention drones. What are your thoughts on agricultural drones? Where is this going in the future? Yeah, I was just talking to someone on the phone yesterday. A big discussion and, and, and it's funny, a couple years ago, 'cause I'm old, I'm still old school. What am I, 64? And, and, and, and I I, I'm pretty good with technology and I used to sell technology and ag and stuff and I, I'm shocked at how fast it's coming on. In fact, I think three weeks ago roughly, I I signed up with a, a local guy south of me. And he has one of those bigger drones. I think it carries a hundred liters. And talking to him, I'm, see I've, like, I I thought it was five fields and I'm most slow. I added up at six fields for 108 acres of corn. And if you use a ground rig, that's a lot of tramping, a lot of turnaround and tramping percentage of crop is just, is ruined with a rig driving through to put fungicide on corn at tassel. So tar spot doesn't wipe us out and, and quality of sellable grain. So most people have to put this fungicide on at that time, which will be in the next week to 10 days here. And I'm gonna get this guy with the drone. I've, I'm gonna try that. I think that is coming on hard and fast. And it, it surprised me how hard and fast it is. I'll know more after what the, what the application consistency is.

Jay Curtis [00:29:21] 'cause it's critical that it's evenly applied. It's, it's, it's a bit of money. You know, you're into, you know, 50 plus dollars an acre Canadian to try to protect your crop and have more yield. So I'm gonna give that world fullheartedly. And I know some people the, that is gonna be a thing. There's, there's robots going through corn fields north of me. And I know of those people. I don't know them well, but they're putting nitrogen on more carefully. You know, many passes and these things just run all the time. So it is coming, it is gonna be a big thing, I think. Yep.

Vance Crowe [00:30:01] Yeah. And one of the things that strikes me about ag is there is definitely money to, to have the capital for drones and single row nitrogen feeders because you're right now your combine for a large operation, $800,000. Right. So $800,000 in, in these other types of equipment is not too far out of the realm of, of possibility. And when you have a robot, then you don't need labor.

Jay Curtis [00:30:30] Yeah. And labor, I thinks the next, the, it's the huge question mark and I see it, I've seen it for years. I used to work at a big, big farm until I was 50. And, and, and it's quality labor. How do you keep those people there? And it's such an intense business anymore. And it's, it's getting to be so technical that that's probably the workaround is to, is to be digital and less human.

Vance Crowe [00:30:58] You said something kind of interesting there. You said the work of farming is so technical or at least on those big farms. I don't think that that's like what people think of when they think of farming.

Jay Curtis [00:31:08] Yeah. I think a lot of people still think of hay seed guy walked around a straw hat, but oh, what's going on is incredible. Like, just the stuff you need to know and, and, and, and big farms are just, they're all over it. You know, they have, they have hired people, they'll, hi, they, they, they generally have some form of consultants 'cause there's so much to keep up on and just everything, it's genetics of seeds and whether it's animals, there's just so much going on and changing all the time. Yeah. It's probably the most, the most technically advancing thing there is, I think is ag

Vance Crowe [00:31:53] And the spraying of the drone. Using the drone to spray your fields Is, I I calculated about $5,000 you said. Right? So you have about a hundred acres.

Jay Curtis [00:32:02] Well that's chemical and everything. Yeah. That's

Vance Crowe [00:32:04] Chemical included. What would that

Jay Curtis [00:32:05] Have cost? Yeah, it be 5,500. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:32:07] What would you have cost? What would it have cost if you hired a person to go out and do that?

Jay Curtis [00:32:11] Well, it'd be about the same. It'll be the same. Very much about the same. And there's attributes. If you had a big square square, huge long fields, you probably want a ground rig. It's putting more water on. There's different nozzle systems that can get really cool coverage done. And it depends what your problem is you're going after. If you're a hog farmer feeding your corn dawn, DON, it's a long name. It's a toxin vomit toxin type thing. There's different products, there's different, there's just so many different moving things going on depending on who you're selling your corn, what your corn is purposed for. But certain diseases, we have to keep an eye on that. Like tar spot's been a real problem around here in the last just few years. That's a new thing. And, and if you get it and don't protect properly for it, you can, you can really get your yield wiped out to the point where you're seriously losing money. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:33:08] What a, what a gamble though. I mean, just for your farm, you gotta put $5,000 of a product on that. Maybe tar spot wouldn't come in, but that's just to protect things.

Jay Curtis [00:33:18] Yep. Yeah. And it's, and you, and you, well you just know you have to do it. Like my corn this year is just tremendous looking. Everything's going just about perfectly so far. So you, you'd be a fool to watch that fall apart on you because you couldn't do the last step properly. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:33:42] And with the drones you were just saying like, Hey, there's some that it's better for a regular applicator for a big truck to go through. You want more water. But when you think five years from now, do you think ag will be noticeably different?

Jay Curtis [00:33:56] Yeah, I've, I've thought this for like, my problem started with the labor. Where are the people gonna get the labor? And I think some of the, a lot of the animal operations, I assume it's a lot of foreign labor and I think that's the same whether it's in your country or up here. And, but, but for, for crop farming, it's so technical that I do think that's gonna really expediate the, the digital way of doing things, which is gonna be drones. They'll just, they'll just be automatic reloading, automatic recharging, battery changes and the things will just run and run and run. And if the parameters aren't right for the environment, they just sit still. And when they're, when it's good to go, they'll go. That'll be the future. And I think it'll, it'll just change the face of everything. Probably the ones that adapt that, probably the, the first early, early adapters are always at risk. But once it gets a hold and the right stuff gets coming, I think that'll be it. Yeah, that's probably how, it's probably how it's gonna go. Maybe we'll have lighter machines, less compaction and some of the stuff is just getting so big. I don't know, like seeding has to happen so fast. We can't just run around with a two foot drone cultivating a field and plant it in a month. No, it, it needs to be planted in like two hours. But, but there is a lot of stuff that can happen with that technology.

Vance Crowe [00:35:24] So you used to manage a big farm operation up in Canada. What, what are you overseeing when you're in a role like that?

Jay Curtis [00:35:33] Well, I didn't manage it. I was, I worked there and I was, I was a key person in a, in a great crew of people. That's how I would word that. And, and and

Vance Crowe [00:35:46] You're responsible for keeping the equipment running, what you're, you're telling people what fields to go plant in. What, what was your role there? Yeah,

Jay Curtis [00:35:54] A little bit of that. But mostly just keeping things running and running equipment well and covering, you know, a ton of acres in a hurry, you know, but I did that for 20 years and it was good. And you know, they're right around the corner. We're great friends.

Vance Crowe [00:36:13] Well, what I wanted to get to is, if you were in that role again and you're 20 years younger, AI now exists, how would you be using AI to, to do your role at that big operation?

Jay Curtis [00:36:26] Well, it'd probably just streamline, you know, maintenance of things. I imagine, you know, less books and manuals probably just make, when a machine would come in and what needs doing and how to do it, it would just be more simple for someone to just go at it and do it properly and not miss things or something like that. I'm, I'm guessing,

Vance Crowe [00:36:51] So I I I have been completely staggered 'cause I started using Fable. Everybody's talking about Fable, fable, fable. But a week and a half ago it came back online and I had time. So I started using it and it has been a, it is a quantum leap from whatever I was using before to now. And things like all of my bookkeeping work could be solved. Like what normally would take me several days of work was done in two hours. And the level of sophistication through which it solved the problems, like it went and looked up an accounting quirk that we have with my business. Saw how my wife did it in the past, asked if that would be okay to do it with this one. And then did it. And this is like multi-step thinking, like long-term understanding how accounting works and it filed everything. Now knowing how sophisticated that is, I am convinced that AI is going to take over so much more than even I thought my mind just keeps getting more and more exploded. And I think about things like managing a fleet of robots is probably a lot easier for an AI to do than managing a fleet of people.

Jay Curtis [00:38:03] Yeah. I think that would have to be, I I'm sure of it. Right. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:38:11] When with ai are you, you're gung-ho you're afraid of it, you think good thing, what do you think?

Jay Curtis [00:38:18] I am, I am still, I'm retired and I'm, I'm old school so that means I'm thrifty. I'm still using free AI and I get bloody frustrated when it decides, hey, you've had enough of this for free and you can't have your answers anymore right now. And I'm, I'm almost annoyed enough to get the checkbook out and sign up for 20 or 30 bucks a month, but not quite yet. 'cause 'cause it's, well I've just been busy doing a lot of golfing and stuff. I used it a ton this winter. I got into a big project and I made a downforce indicator monitor system for corn planters. And I used it e extensively for that. And it was, it greatly helped me get my mind around how best to do it inexpensively. But it was not always perfect. And then I, like, I wrecked, I wrecked a a couple things listening to its advice about how to, how to add this due that or that and the electronics of a load cell transmitter to get out of a problem I had, because it didn't have enough adjustment for certain strain gauges. I was plugging into it. And I got so mad my wife would be dying laughing. 'cause I, I'd start swearing at the thing because I'd come in and it cooked one of my boxes. It was a Chinese built transmitters probably kind of suspect in the first place. But I was so close. But, but, but, but yet I know deep down inside I, I'd asked that thing the same type of questions but worded a hundred different ways.

Jay Curtis [00:39:56] And that helped me the way my brain works to understand it better, to hear all those versions of answers back. And then it, it added confidence to understand it. And then just a weird synchronicity happened. I come up, I come up with the perfect kind of brain box for it by, by punching in parameters of the search engine to keep narrowing down. I had to get away from adjustable potentiometers in this thing. And enough of that 'cause it's, it's crazy talk. But, but it did set me onto a, a digital way to get around the problem. So yeah, I give it full marks for that. I use it all the time. Like really? Yeah. I still, I use it many times a day. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:40:43] When you say you yelled at it, yelled, are you still yelling at your ai?

Jay Curtis [00:40:47] Once in a while, I, I was yelling at it actually because, you know, I wanted a gag image. We ham it up with just goofy grade five boy school boy humor with other farmers up here. And I'm always altering an image or changing the wording on something and it wouldn't generate the image for me fast enough to suit me. And I'd, I'd politely say like, hurry up, I'm waiting, you're killing me. Like, why is this so slow? Well, I'm so sorry you're frustrated. And, and it's always so polite. And then I'll, I'll just, I'll just lay it in there just as a joke. Joke and it, and it's so funny. Like, oh, people think you're nuts. But but that's all by design to get you to pay the 20 bucks a month. Right?

Vance Crowe [00:41:33] 20 bucks a month. I have, I pay so much more than that. I am buying the, the masterminds of the AI and it has helped me in crazy ways. But let's go back to something you said, a downforce indicator. What in the world does a person need a downforce indicator for on a tractor?

Jay Curtis [00:41:52] Tractor? Well, it goes on a planter, a row crop planter. So like I used to in my, you know, my last job I got into more machinery service and warranty for a big German company. And then I ended up at another place of employment, I sold corn planters and specialty corn heads and, and other things and technical planters have systems on them to, to properly seed row crops, corn, soybeans. We'll just say that's the mainstay. And it's how much weight do supplemental weight do we apply to the row unit? And it's called gauge wheel margin typically, or gauge wheel weight. And those systems are awesome and they're so necessary because I used to sell it. And it's incredible what it can do for you over an old school system where you just set it and hope for the best and do a little digging and proof testing once in a while across the field.

Vance Crowe [00:42:53] And what you're saying is, as the planter's going along, you want that seed to be at the same depth all the time. Yeah.

Jay Curtis [00:43:00] Or

Vance Crowe [00:43:00] Close to it. But because the soil changes as you move across the field sometimes what the amount of pressure to get it into the dirt is a lot less. So you would go way too deep

Jay Curtis [00:43:11] Or maybe, well, it, it, it's not changing depth so much. It's as simple as this. If you don't have enough weight, supplemental weight applied on the row unit and you counter heavier ground or ground of resistance to get seed blades in the ground, you will end up shallow seeding. And that's a very bad thing, especially for corn. Yeah. So, so there's all kinds of things going on. It's a moving target, but a supplemental weight if we have a load cell in the row unit and a and a way to measure it. And that's what the technical planners of today do. And they also automatically adjust the supplemental downforce typically with hydraulic cylinder. The old ones did airbags, they're a little slow to react. But anyways, in a nutshell, I, there's no inexpensive way to see what you're doing on older, typically older planners and there's still a lot of older technology planners doing perfect jobs. They're, they're capable just as much providing a great job as, as the newest of new planners if they're maintained properly. So I just come up with this idea and it's not a new idea. We, they tried to do it where I worked and it just didn't work quite right and they gave up on it years ago. But I I, I re I have lots of time now in the winter and I was bored, so it took me about a month. So I investigated how does that work? And I just wanna make a simple system to monitor just one row because usually the downforce we apply is the same setting for all rows.

Jay Curtis [00:44:50] So we're gonna just pick a row. And I come up with a very inexpensive way to look at that in live time going across the field. So say we have a planner with four spring setting choices or infinite air pressure on an airbag system choices. We, we start off with a a a a setting just by past history. And then we do a little digging and then we go and plant the rest of the spring. You know, we don't, you know, spring season and then we, we really don't know what's going on for the different parts of the field that have different soil characteristics or penetration forces that fight the unit going in the ground. You don't wanna overdo it either. So you could say, well just set it at full blast and, and you'll be good. No, 'cause too much is bad and not enough is really bad. There's a kind of a known sweet spot that most people agree on. And, and that and this system, I just come up with it, it's beautiful, it's simple tested, tested it this spring and the people that test it buy it. So,

Vance Crowe [00:45:56] So let me see if I can understand it. So you're now saying like, hey, you wanna get that thing in at the same depth as you're going across the field and you've got a couple options, you can really back it off and, and that way you don't go too deep. Or you could put it in real hard and you could go real deep. But normally in an old planter it doesn't have a sensor, it won't tell you what it's doing. So you set it at the beginning of the field, you go down field and you're like, all right, well I'm gonna turn around and go back. But with the sensor that you have now, it's just on one of the rosa planters and it is actually testing the connectivity of the ground telling you are you deep enough or no, you're not making enough contact. And when somebody knows they're not making enough contact, they can stop planting, go out there and adjust it. Because once they adjust it, the corn will be planted more properly and that will yield lead to a big yield boost.

Jay Curtis [00:46:48] Yeah, you're pretty close to perfect there. The, if we're way too light, we'll certainly be, could be shallow seeding. If we're way too heavy, we still won't be too deep. It's just that we'll smear the soil and over compress it and the roots will have a hard time going drawing through a compacted sidewall. So some of the verbiage is so close, but not perfect, but you pretty well there. So yes, the, the goal is with this device, it gives the standard setup planter guy, whether it's springs or airbags, it'll tell him his most op op optimal choice is, is the best he can do. And that that can only be done by watching this thing going across the field. And then when you do see a troubled spot, you hop out and see how bad it is. And it, and it's a, it's a give and take 'cause the next setting might be way too heavy. The setting under that might be too light. But this gives us a real piece of lifetime information we never had before.

Vance Crowe [00:47:51] So you, you built this because you were just wanted to tinker around and then it was something you had tried to do before at your old shop. What, what happened this year that made it, so this was the year to get Jay's bo I don't know, were you Jay's little box? What do you call this?

Jay Curtis [00:48:07] Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:48:08] Well I, I got a little

Jay Curtis [00:48:10] Website up now. It's called curtis downforce.com. So it just hit me 'cause I, I wanted to test this. I was curious about it. I had no idea what the import input voltages were or the millivolt voltages out of the Wheatstone bridge of the load cells that are commonly available out there and, and it's winter and you know, other than feeding the wood boiler to heat the house, the wood's all cut, everything's kind of going good and I'm bored 'cause it's too snowy to go flying. And the snowmobile, you just ride that so long and you can't stand that anymore. So I started just with a multimeter, a nine volt battery, a used load cell or two or three and just started playing around in the kitchen trying to figure out the parameters of this thing. And then with AI and then all this, the goofing around, I kept trying more and more pieces of the puzzle, electronic boxes, ordering them in and waiting for them to get here. And then I come up with the right solution and it took about a month and which was normally I go to bed at nine o'clock at night and there's a lot of nights I'd just speak keen and go on until midnight playing around, reading, asking rock over and over and over, over again. The same questions, trying to understand better and better and better. So I, I was pretty proud of how the damn the, the thing worked. I, I almost said damn thing. No, it isn't a damn thing. It's a nice thing.

Jay Curtis [00:49:41] I can't believe how awesome it is because there's so many little things it has to be so it can't, it has to be buffered a little. So it's not jumpy to read. It has to be inexpensive. You know, I'll talk to some people, oh you it should do this, it should do that one. No, you, you, you need to listen. This is how it has to be to be inexpensive and it's so awesome. It's a great indicator. Yeah. To me I think it's crazy not to have one if you have nothing, it's all on your planner.

Vance Crowe [00:50:13] So you built the, the sensor that you needed for you right? Because you're running old planters and you wanted to know if your, your rows were going in the ground.

Jay Curtis [00:50:21] Yeah. And then as soon as the thing's built then, you know, I was testing it while there's still snow on the ground as soon as it thawed a bit so the seed blades can penetrate the grass on the runway or muddy parts of the yard. Oh. Testing it to, to, to just test this and that and some of the buffering settings and whatnot. And then you just knew instantly this thing is rock and this is gonna work and it's awesome. And I had a good friend way up east test it for me. I built one for him, one for me and a neighbor and, and just, yeah, you could just tell when they got to the field 'cause we're too wet here and I'm just chomp and to get to the field, I wanna see this thing, Ron, come on, weatherman, cooperate. I'm in a hurry. I wanna see the box. Ron is more than I wanna plant the corn. But then the reports start coming in and videos and, and yeah, I mean that those people a beautiful testimonial on website. I mean it's just awesome. It, it, it, it's, it's not, it's not a lot of money and it's, it's a good piece to have just add confidence to any operator that you've done the best you can for your manual setup. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:51:35] It's, it's awesome. I mean like in, in our little group, it's just fun for whenever somebody's tinkering on stuff to show what you've done, but then you took it the next step further and you were like, Hey, if somebody wants this, I'm gonna put up a website. But are you just selling the devices right there? Like what, what is it? If somebody was like, I want,

Jay Curtis [00:51:54] Yeah, we'll see how it goes. Like, I think this time of year no one's really looking for that. There's wheat harvest going on, there's then there's gonna be soybean and then corn harvest. But right after that people will get thinking mode about planter gadgets and upgrades and then we'll see where it goes from there. And probably it'd be a couple options if someone, if they contact me and I think we'll just have 'em contact me, which the website directs and we'll have a discussion and then determine how handy they are. If they're real kind of, they like putting their hands on things and assembling things, it can be cheaper to do it that way. And if they're, you know, depending on what borders are involved, duty and all that stuff can be a pain. So let's just keep it, not that it's open source, but a little close to open source, just help people out, get it out there. I get a little bit of money to satisfy all the time invested and, and if they're not technical at all, like I can put it together, get it shipped, whatever. It's not difficult to put on and it's not difficult to understand. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:53:04] For my sake, I hope you, you get in paid enough that you can start paying for actual subscription to ai. That would be my, yeah.

Jay Curtis [00:53:13] Wouldn't it be cool if I could make enough off this to support 20 or 30 bucks a month Canadian for an AI and then I might be able to solve more problems in the world. Right.

Vance Crowe [00:53:26] Would you, I mean, I feel like that it, like the winter time is Jay tinkering time. So the audience may or may not know this. Like, Jay and I talk every day, like literally every single day and you are a tinkerer. And for a while there it was, I was getting constant videos of you getting engines on chainsaws. Is, is this winter gonna be another chainsaw year? One year you did a boiler?

Jay Curtis [00:53:50] No, I did a wood boiler. I bought a used one from a great friend neighbor and then, you know, and then a bulldozer to cut wood more efficiently and safely. And then, I don't know what the thing, I mean, there's always, there's always a new thing. There's no risk of running out of a new project. There's always something that has to come along.

Vance Crowe [00:54:09] And do you have any, what's your next tackle that, you know, like the Curtis downforce indicator that came from, I wanna know how, how if I'm planning on my own fields, are there any other problems that you're like, oh, that's the next one I would solve for myself in my manual setup?

Jay Curtis [00:54:28] No, I'm pretty good. I was just happy to come up with that thing for how well it works is it was just, it's one of my prouder things I kind of come up with for ideas that turned into something very useful. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:54:45] Yeah. You liked doing your own little, like self r and d, the wood boiler that you mentioned. Did you, were there plans for that? Did you, like, how did you know to do that?

Jay Curtis [00:54:56] They, they're well known around, I mean there, this was a 400,000 BTU unit. I mean, it would heat more than my house easily, you know, you just put a insulated tube system in the ground to transfer the heat from that to the house. And then I just butchered my duct system and put a liquid radiator in. Like it's, it's all easy to do stuff really Systems, the, the, the fan control. I just come up with a, my own design, just use another thermostat, just wired in. It just, it just calls for the fan to start and stop when the house is, and yet if you're sick or you go away, the propane takes over. You just set it at a point or two under and, and nothing bad's gonna happen. It, it's pretty sim that stuff's pretty simple.

Vance Crowe [00:55:48] Wait, so your thermostat, one of the thermostats is set in your house so that it turns on a fan in the boiler to make it heat up to, to blow oxygen on there?

Jay Curtis [00:55:59] No. Well, there's one in the boiler. The, the fire almost goes out. So the boiler, that's an engineered system and it works perfect. So it's like a, a furnace when it's calling for, for more water temperature. But once the water temperature's met it, it's holding a couple hundred gallons of stored energy and heat. And then in the, the furnace fan in my propane furnace, it's just set with a different thermostat to use the wood so that the propane doesn't come on. So you don't waste any propane money. Propane's super expensive and I have all the wood I can use here. I got a big bush. So, so yeah, you just engineer control system and that's pretty easy stuff. It's fun.

Vance Crowe [00:56:43] Well, I mean, you're being pretty modest, but I've seen that thing fired up like it's a jet engine preparing to take off.

Jay Curtis [00:56:51] Oh, you're mixing my wood boiler to heat the house up with the turbo burn barrel, which is a completely, I should put a link on or something. Maybe I'll find the YouTube video. But, so it's a completely useless device. It was made for entertainment purposes only. You get a giant old propane tank and you cut a door in it that's sealable for air, almost airtight. And then I put a turbocharger from an 8 55 Cummins diesel, you know, an old school diesel

Vance Crowe [00:57:25] Truck.

Jay Curtis [00:57:26] And then I have an electric oil pump to feed the bearing. And what you do is you start a hardwood fire in this thing, and then you seal it up quick and then you spin the intake rotor of the turbo with a giant leaf blower and it pumps oxygen into the bottom of the tank through a, you know, a tube system that I welded up in about a quarter of a day using old farm parts. But anyways, what this is it, it's actually a jet engine and once itself sustains the turbine takes over and then it, it'll go exponential and blow up. So you have to have a throttle plate on it, or it'll absolutely blow up and possibly take your head off if you're anywhere near it. So I'm out there with a motorcycle helmet and goggles and big mitts and running the throttle plate. And you hardly have it open, but it sounds just like a Boeing jet engine running. And at night it throws a, a cone flame, like out the back of an SR 71 Blackbird. And, and it's hilarious. And it'll, it'll burn up a charge of wood in about two minutes violently turns that mass into raw heat energy and it's gone. And it sounds like a jet is running in my yard. My wife gets so worried that someone is gonna die, die. And I only do it when I'm around by myself, but I've lit it a few times and it's so funny.

Jay Curtis [00:58:58] And it's just meant as a gag, like who has their, you gotta build your own jet engine and watch it run, but it's a jet engine that burns wood. We have.

Vance Crowe [00:59:34] Now let's talk about the creative process of, of Jay Curtis's mind. When you come up with the jet turbo trash barrel for burning, are you like, is this happening because you're like, man, I have a lot of trash to burn and I wish I could do it faster and therefore I come up with the engine or I wanna make what, how does this work? No,

Jay Curtis [00:59:55] It's more beautiful than that. I saw a clip of some guy in Australia that built one and it was so ridiculous and dangerous that, well, I just have to have one and I'm building one now. So I call an old truck buddy. I got a turbo for $50 or something and a tank from another buddy for free. And then, you know, a few hours of just cutting holes, hacking, making doors. It has no purpose. You put blocks of hardwood in it, you ignite it, you seal it up, you start the intake with a leaf blower and you stand back and witness the absolute joy sound of your own jet engine running in the backyard. It has no purpose. I did, I think in a, I did cook a hot dog. I burn it to Smither Marines. I held a hot dog there and a wire, but I was scared to be near it. But, but it has no purpose. But sometimes you just have to have fun. Right.

Vance Crowe [01:00:50] Well, speaking of fun, and I know we've talked about this before, but you've had some more time to reflect on it. You did the, the work of Bitcoin, you've been around it, you've, you've tried to move it to wallets and stuff. What's go, you know, and people stop talking about Bitcoin when the price goes down so low. Are you still a Bitcoin or are you still interested in the technology?

Jay Curtis [01:01:14] Oh yeah, very much so. And and for the reasons, when you spend enough time researching how it works and what it really is, and we're not talking about any form of shit coin. They are all shit coins. The more you understand it, there's only one thing. And that's the Bitcoin. It rhymes with shitcoin, but it's not shitcoin and it's the total polar opposite of shitcoin. And a lot of people, they just won't understand it. They won't have anything to do with understanding it. But so much of the world's problems, I do believe it's, it's, it would solve so much trouble, like this battery plant, we come up with some cockamamie thing to, to boost votes and look hopeful for the future. But we probably, I, I don't know, I could, you could say Jay, you're all wrong, but I suspect we just print a bunch of money and pay for these things. And the Bitcoin, you can't print more and it's a rarity. It's scarcity. Like this land here, you, it's you, it's, it's a beautiful thing and it's how it moves. And I've had some just interesting stories. There's some, there's just neat things you can do with it. And I, I I have, I have a desire to have some, I think it's a healthy hedge against a world of, of a system where they print their ways out of trouble.

Jay Curtis [01:02:52] How's that?

Vance Crowe [01:02:53] Oh, I think you're exactly right. I mean, and I really like your comparison to land. 'cause like everything else can be inflated. You, you think like gold, oh, I'll own that 'cause it's scarce. Well, they're mining more gold. There's 2% more gold coming into the system all the time. But with land it's not. And just like Bitcoin, where if you lose the address and then those Bitcoin are just taken outta the system, same thing. If you convert your farm into a solar farm, you're not gonna, it can't be, it can't be ag land anymore. And so over time, the amount that's available is going to go down. And the avail, the, presumably if the demand stays up or goes up when supply goes down, price will go up. But that's not been an easy road in the last year or so. How do you feel about the price fluctuations and things like that going on with Bitcoin?

Jay Curtis [01:03:43] Oh, it can be humbling, but, but when you, but but it doesn't bother me when I'm humbled because I know when you, when you understand how it works and the beauty of it, how it can't really be manipulated by corruption, then it's a little bit hopeful. And if it's a little bit hopeful, what's wrong with being in there? I think it's still gonna be a thing. Yeah, I don't think I say that because oh, since I'm in and I made a mistake that I'm gonna think that way. No, because it it's, it's how and why it works. There you go.

Vance Crowe [01:04:23] What do the people around you, I mean, if you, if you, you and your wife get invited to a wedding or a conference and you go to it, do you, can you bring up Bitcoin and have a conversation?

Jay Curtis [01:04:33] It won't be for very long typically. And that's all right. And it's so funny, oh, I've indoctrinated some of my friends. I forced them to, oh, put a wall to Satoshi on your phone or something. And I'll do, I have that on my phone. And so if I, if I stop at Steak and Shake in Michigan, I can buy a Bitcoin burger and they're awesome. And I, and it's so funny to just walk up to the thing and bam, boom, it's paid for and yeah, you can, you can do that with your credit card. Yeah, whatever. But no, typically, like I've, I've exchanged funds back and forth and some fringe people, they just kinda know me just a little. We've never really talked maybe once on the phone. Most of my Twitter people, we talk on the phone all the time and I force some of them to do transactions back and forth and, and I don't know, I don't get too pushy, but it, it is funny. I think it, it startles them when they, they they see it move back and forth, but they're too busy with their lives and they don't have that curiosity to take it to the next level, which is the understanding of it perhaps. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [01:05:47] That was, yeah, I think curiosity may be like one of the most important characteristics, at least of, of the people that I'm around. Right. The people that are the most curious, even if you're curious about stuff, I don't care at all about those are the most interesting people 'cause they know things, they've discovered things.

Jay Curtis [01:06:04] Yeah, I would say absolutely. I was thinking, thinking of the word curiosity the other day, for some reason I said something to my wife about it and I think, I'm damn curious, there'll be just things come along and you just gotta know about that even though you're not really, you never maybe be involved with it or use it or whatever it is, but there's nothing wrong with being curious. And I think, I think that is a key thing to differentiate for future happiness. If you can maybe just be curious. Yeah. Never lose your curious. I think it keeps people young. Wouldn't a wouldn't an old person that may be perceived to be boring. Like maybe I am to some people. But if you're curious, you just, you're never done. There's always something else to go.

Vance Crowe [01:06:57] No, my mentor Pete was incredibly curious. I I think there's like, there's an added thing to it too. 'cause your curiosity reminds me of this guy named Doug Salmons, who's a famous geneticist biochemist that I had on the podcast a long time ago. And he talked about this concept called consilience. And I don't know if we've ever talked about this word, but consilience is, everything has to fit together.

Jay Curtis [01:07:22] Exactly.

Vance Crowe [01:07:23] And there's no, there's no fray things in that, like his form of curiosity is when he finds something almost conci, but then he realizes it's, it's not, he's gotta go discover more in order to make sure it all fits.

Jay Curtis [01:07:38] Oh, that sounds familiar For me personally, it drives me crazy if I understand most of something or if I was gonna sell something, but I don't understand how that feature works. It would, it would crush me and it would bother me. And then I'd have to know how that works or, or I, I just wouldn't feel comfortable selling it, you know,

Vance Crowe [01:08:02] Would an, I mean sales, it probably really came out. So you have to be way prepared on something before you'll, before you'll put your stamp on it.

Jay Curtis [01:08:10] Yeah. And it, and it was weird for me 'cause I never even got into anything like sales until after 50, you know, so, so then you just, you kind of wondered at the same time, am I doing this right or is this how it's supposed to be? But I'm so, I don't know. Just yeah, I have to, I have to know how that works.

Vance Crowe [01:08:35] Yeah. The, the fitting together for me, like for you that I know quite well reminds me there's another, we have a shared friend named Nick Cick and one of our jokes, 'cause Nick is a physicist and he does like hardcore very interesting scientific experiments. But if you answer a question, Nick calls you up and he asks you a question. We, we refer to it as if you give a nick a cookie because he's gonna be like, wait, that didn't answer every single aspect I have. So can you answer these four more questions in the email follow up? And then you answer those four and then he is got six more questions behind that. But like with him, he just can't stop until he answers it all. And you and I that probably the only time you and I have ever come to like conflict is when you're asking me questions and I'm like, I don't, I don't know the actual details of that. Leave me alone.

Jay Curtis [01:09:26] Yeah, that's funny.

Vance Crowe [01:09:28] Are other people in your family, do they need consilience? Is this a genetic thing?

Jay Curtis [01:09:33] I don't think so. I'm very rare in my family. My other siblings aren't like me. I well, your engineer brother,

Vance Crowe [01:09:42] You must have consilience. Yeah,

Jay Curtis [01:09:43] We're very different people. I don't know. And I don't know, I, it's like I was an absolute hermit until maybe 50 or 49 and then everything just turned upside down. Yeah. I don't know. What

Vance Crowe [01:10:01] What do you think changed that made you go from technician to sales?

Jay Curtis [01:10:06] Well, I think just, yeah, the curiosity thing. So the expanding of the mind and, and being forced to take on all these new things and then it just, it it just keeps expanding. It's like a catalyst or something maybe. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. I'd say though way more into learning now than I ever have been. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:10:33] There is no better time to learn. I mean, I, right now I am focusing all my AI time on building projects for myself, but when I'm driving I, I, it's rare that I will listen to a podcast for more, more than one episode of a podcast because I usually flip on AI and I'm like, all right, now I'm gonna ask you a bunch of questions about this thing and I'm gonna put forward all my ideas on this concept and the discussion I have about Alexander the Great and the Macedonians and you know, four 30 ad or BC like, you know, I couldn't do it unless I had that professor sitting in the car right next to me.

Jay Curtis [01:11:09] Yeah, interesting. Yeah. And one thing I find that's funny for me is I wasn't a, a school scholary type. I, I don't like reading books. I am not a giant book reader. I am not well versed in, you know, and, and I don't know super intellectual terminology. I'm kind of a, the simpleton in the group, but I get the feel of what they're talking, I feel it very well, does that make sense? I somehow feel I suck it up feeling what the, what the discussion is about, but I won't understand some of the language used. And that's frustrating sometimes.

Vance Crowe [01:12:00] Yeah. But I mean, I, from my experience of you just like the airplane, you kind of stay there until you do get comfortable. So I'm gonna wrap up, but I thought there's two things that I wanted to talk with you about. The first one, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put you on the spot 'cause I don't actually know how you did it and I'm curious. And then the other one is, 'cause if people want to get ahold of you, but the first one, the one I'm gonna put you on the spot is you actually a couple of years ago got me to a trip up to Ontario where I got to visit you as well. How did you get that group to, to bring me up there?

Jay Curtis [01:12:39] Well, like when you came to GFO, you

Vance Crowe [01:12:42] Know the grain Farmers of Ontario,

Jay Curtis [01:12:44] Like, you know, I pay small dues like part of your crop money, just a small percent or whatever goes to them to fund research and have those grand annual meetings and bring speakers like you in and no, I, I would use them for data like how many million acres are, are in Ontario and what, what is this particular pension fund worth and what would that land, what that, that fund is worth more than all the land in Ontario and these things. This is how my mind works and it has for years and I get so angry and tell people about it and they just gloss over and it goes in one ear and out the other. But, but, but looking at their website and information and stuff and then, well they, they just have people and I know people that sit on those boards and then well just email 'em like, who you got for speakers? Like Buddy speaks and then I got to know you 'cause we did the legacy interview and then, you know, we'd just become close friends kind of in a, in a strange way being so far apart. But no, I just get ahold of them and, and say, this is, this is an idea that you, you need to consider. And then it just happens and it's kind of, it's kind of a neat feeling when you, you put the, the bee in somebody's bonnet about an idea and then, and the idea moves forward and it's as simple as that. It just went like clockwork didn't it?

Jay Curtis [01:14:15] It was fun.

Vance Crowe [01:14:16] Oh, it was awesome. I mean, one day the guy that calls me on the phone and we have all these, these funny conversations about flying and stuff, then he says, Hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna recommend you to this group and we got to then see each other and I got to go give that speech. So it was awesome. I hope other people would be open to doing that too. If you're a part of an organization, I would love to come do a talk about having better communication or negotiation. But I'm, I've always been very grateful to that and it really helped our friendship to, to blossom.

Jay Curtis [01:14:46] Yeah. And I, and I sat in the crowd, my wife and I were there and you can, you could just feel the, the interest in the topics at hand and it was perfect for the situation. And yeah, the, the whole legacy interview brought me a a lot out of my shell too. And with, you know, personal family stuff that just got kind of aired amongst my family and that was an interesting, that was one of the most interesting things I think I've ever done. Yep.

Vance Crowe [01:15:18] Really?

Jay Curtis [01:15:19] Yeah, I'd say so it changed the dynamics of how my kids look at my wife and I, I'd say. Yeah. Because they, you know, they get to see what, what all we went through and it and, and it's done in a way that alters how well how they look at our reality. Yep. Yeah. I would recommend that for a lot of people.

Vance Crowe [01:15:46] Yeah, man, I, the, the, the easy part of that experience is sitting down to have the conversation and then people tell me so much so often, like actually the huge payoff wasn't just that the interview was fun, it was that when my kids watch it now they have other questions for me now they know what to ask while I'm, I'm still around and I'm, it delights me to that years later. You're still really happy with that purchase.

Jay Curtis [01:16:11] No, that was, that was pretty cool.

Vance Crowe [01:16:13] Yeah. Well the other thing that I wanted to do is, I believe that within my, the Vance Crow podcast audience, there are a lot of tinkerers like you. And my goal is to get Jay's like network as filled up with other weird consilience tinkerers if people were like, all right, this Jay character's interesting. How should they go about getting a hold of you talking with you, hearing about the downforce indicator?

Jay Curtis [01:16:42] Well the downforce force indicator is@curtisdownforce.com so that's a website and there's a email thing there to get ahold of me and then I'll get back to anybody that way or I'm on Twitter also. Yep.

Vance Crowe [01:17:01] And what is your Twitter handle, do you remember?

Jay Curtis [01:17:04] I think it's the letter Jay Curtis, C-U-R-T-I

Vance Crowe [01:17:09] At seven ac. And that's not seven acres, that's what people think it stands for. It's, that's the designation of the old airplane. It's an aranka champion seven ac. So Jay Curtis, letter J at seven AC I thinks the Twitter feed. Yep. Well Jay, thank you so much for coming on. You have a great day. Alright, that's going to do it for today's interview with Jay Curtis, thank you so much for hanging around and like I said in the beginning, I hope you will like and subscribe and even more importantly share this with a friend. My hope is that, you know, a tinkerer that's just like Jay, somebody that absolutely demands Consilience is always curious in building things and you send the show to him so that they can hear Jay's explanations and the way he works and thinks. And you just never know what will happen just by sharing a simple podcast. So I hope you'll like and subscribe and I hope you'll share it with a friend. Now we're gonna leave with a little message about how you and your family could do a legacy interview. We'll be back next week with more conversations with interesting people.

Jay Curtis [01:18:17] I bought a legacy interview because in my life there's been some complicated times and it's very easy to keep putting it off. The more I thought about it, I have to get this done. And I faced some pushback from my wife to do this. She was hesitant to expose things in her background that would bring uncomfortable feelings, maybe back to the surface, pursued her to just come and do this. And yesterday we did our interview. It was much beyond what I expected and I had very high expectations. We got to talk about all the good things, the good qualities of each other, funny kid stories, challenges, just all the challenges. The brutal honesty of every detail of your life was extremely beneficial to both of us. And we touch on the future to help future people. They might be going through something out of their troubles in their lives. As much as it means to me. It was an incredible experience to my wife. You know, it actually brings us a lot closer in a, in a beautiful way. I know so many people that have such interesting things that should be recorded for their future generations. I would say just set a time and do it and you will not regret it.