S&YE228 - Camellia Foz

[00:00:09] Mental health is really important to me. Learning new things about myself as I find out who I really am and this version of who I am. Hello, this is Josh and you can find me on Instagram, CamelliaFoz988. You're listening to episode 228 of the Subie & You podcast. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Subie & YOU! podcast. As you just heard, I have Josh on this episode and we get into some great conversation about his Subaru.

[00:00:38] People that he likes to hang out with at times and some of his adventures. And as you just heard, also mental health that is really important to him. So this conversation goes a little deep, but that's good. It's good to have these conversations and it's good to look out for one another.

[00:00:58] But anyway, we will get into this here in just a little bit. But first, I want to say be sure to go check out the Dirt Subies podcast with my buddy Ben. He's doing a great job over there of getting some really good guests on. And his episodes differ from mine in that, one, he doesn't really prepare for them with questions like I do, which I think is kind of cool. He just kind of just goes for it.

[00:01:27] And then also his tend to get a little more technical, which is really good also because I've learned some things listening to his episodes. Because I just I don't know a whole lot of technical stuff and they get into that. And I think that's really good. So go check out the Dirt Subies podcast. He has it on all the major podcast platforms, but also on YouTube.

[00:01:50] And then you can also check out the Wave podcast. Those guys are doing a great job over there putting together some episodes and they are also technicians. So that gets very technical as well. And again, a lot of great information. So go check out the Wave podcast with Patrick and Dave and give that one a listen.

[00:02:12] Also want to give a shout out to all the mothers and wish you all a happy Mother's Day for yesterday, of course. And hope you had some great time with kids or with your own mother, family, friends, whatever it may be, whether you're a mother of a human or a mother of a fur baby, whichever it is. I hope you had a wonderful day. And now we will hear from one of our sponsors.

[00:02:39] The Subie and You podcast is brought to you by Eccentric Designs. For those of you who don't know, Eccentric Designs is a small community driven business that offers custom fit vinyl overlays for most Subaru models. This includes various designs for the rear reflectors, taillights and side taillights. I also offer fun decal designs like the popular fender stripes and stickers. To find designs for your Subie, head on over to eccentricdesigns.com.

[00:03:05] There's always more projects in the works, so be sure to follow at eccentric.designs on Instagram. As always, thank you so much, Eccentric Designs, for sponsoring the Subie & You podcast. If you're listening to this episode and you are a new Subaru owner, getting a decal or decals for your Subaru is a really great way to personalize it and make it your own. And it's also a very inexpensive way to get started in this whole crazy modding process that we all get into.

[00:03:35] But yeah, go check them out on Instagram and Etsy as well as their website, eccentricdesigns.com. All right, this week, this Wednesday, I'm traveling to Overland Expo West in Flagstaff, Arizona. And I'm super excited because I have the time to go. So I'm able to go out there on Wednesday and stay until Monday.

[00:03:56] That way, I have plenty of time to enjoy the whole event, get to meet people, haven't met before, get to see people again, and just truly enjoy the whole experience. So if you're going to be there, be sure to come by the Subaru booth and say hello and let's have some great conversation. And if you've never been, it's not too late. I think you can still get tickets. So go check it out. Come out there. Say hello.

[00:04:20] So check out just the whole expo because there's so many great vendors, so many great products, and it's just a really great experience. So hope to see you there. And one of the things that you will see there at Overland Expo is they will have a display for Subaru gear. But you can also order Subaru gear online at SubaruGear.com.

[00:04:40] You can also save 20% when you order at SubaruGear.com by using the code SUBINU2026 at checkout to get 20% off one item or your entire purchase. Also, if your total is over $50 after the 20% discount, you'll automatically get free shipping, and that is such a great deal. So go check out SubaruGear.com.

[00:05:04] Also, look for my video that I'm going to be putting out tomorrow on Tuesday, and I hope you like it. So thanks again, SubaruGear.com for sponsoring the SUBINU podcast. Always appreciate it, and thank you so much for bringing this great offer to our listeners.

[00:05:21] And to close out the sponsorship section, we also are sponsored by Mele Design Firm, where you can dress up your engine compartment with some awesome billeted engine bay caps as well as the front strut tower bar. They've got the pitch stop, and then you can get a custom battery mount for a custom battery, and you can upgrade your battery as well. I have all of those in my Crosstrek. They're all really great.

[00:05:49] I love opening up the hood every time and seeing those, but you can get 10% off all of those items by using the code SUBINU. So go check out MeleeDesignFirm.com. See what all they have to offer for your Subaru, and the 10% is pretty much good site-wide, so be sure to browse and check it out. But yeah, thank you so much, Melee Design Firm, for sponsoring the SUBINU podcast. And if you haven't listened to their episode, I had him on episode 40. It was a really, really great episode.

[00:06:19] So go check it out. But now we will get into this conversation with Josh and hear all about his Forrester and his adventures and about mental health. So let's get into this. Hey, welcome to the podcast, Josh. Thank you, buddy. Been a long-time listener, long-time follower. Awesome.

[00:06:46] I'm excited to be here and share my story with some of the people who already know me and some of the people who don't. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. And I know that we've been in communication for a while, so it's good to get you on here. So my first question before we get into the fun, funny question is like, why Subaru and why a Forrester? Sure. So that's kind of a multi-part question. Subaru has always sort of reached out to me from a style approach.

[00:07:15] I had a bunch of Honda friends growing up and as I got older, I knew that I wanted something all-wheel drive after owning two Hondas and a couple of different Jeeps. And I ended up getting myself my very first Subaru. It was a silver 99 SF5. It was pretty rad, little five-speed. Very nice. I was Forester, if you don't know the codes of the body style. No, I don't.

[00:07:44] But the Forester kind of spoke out to me because I'm a tall person. And legroom is really important. Headroom is really important. This car specifically, my mom wanted this car, but she didn't care if it was a turbo. I had to get the turbo. My mom passed away in 2009 before she could afford to get a 2009. Oh, I'm sorry, man.

[00:08:13] She wanted it in the red. So when I finally found one, I made sure that I was able to snap it up and help kind of bring her dream to fruition a little bit. Yeah, that's nice. Kind of like a tribute to her, huh? Yeah, yeah. The star's going to stay with me as long as I can possibly take it. I actually have a plan of trying to get it to 555,000 miles on the body.

[00:08:42] I don't care how many engines I have to put in it. Yeah. A little homage to Subaru 555. And then something my mom and I used to do, we would go to Alaska on 4th of July and watch them launch the cars off the hill. Oh, that's so cool. So what I plan on doing is trying to get it to 555,000 miles.

[00:09:06] Whatever blood takes me to do that and then take it to Alaska and sling it off of a mountain. Oh, I think I've seen that. It kind of sounds familiar, but I'm not 100% sure. Yeah, basically what they do is they have a track. They take the motor and the fuel and everything out. And then they either hook it up to a tow line and they fling it off of a mountain into a gorge.

[00:09:35] The furthest kind of fly gets a better record. You can get trophies for it, whatnot. Some of them are running engines and they just have them pinned down with a brick on the gas pedal. Oh, my gosh. But they're still on a track, so they go straight and then they just fly off 800 feet down to the ground. It's pretty fun to watch. Is it just like a collection of cars down there? Yep. They clean them up. Yeah.

[00:10:04] Yeah, they usually send like 50 to 60 cars every 4th of July. That's awesome. Sometimes they're like a Chevy Astro or, you know, whatever. The guys got at a junkyard. Yeah. Ran marquee, something like that. But something that my mom and I did almost every year if we could was go to Alaska and watch that. So I thought it would be kind of cool. So I guess y'all would fly up there and check it out? Yeah, I would fly up there and check it out.

[00:10:32] Or I would drive something else up there with my girlfriend. Very nice. And tow this behind. That's cool. I think I have enough money into it that I would eventually end up taking out the motor before I decided to send it off a clip. Yeah, that'd probably be a good idea. So you had the other Subaru before. Is this your second Subaru or have you had some others in between? What do you mean?

[00:11:01] I had three. Okay. And this is number three. I have a silver Hawkeye wagon WRX. Nice. I like wagons. Yeah. I do want, for some reason now, as I'm getting into my 30s, I really want like an old 85 GL. Like a cool retro car. I think that'd be fun. Yeah. The old Subarus are really nice.

[00:11:27] And whenever we go to Subie Fest, Texas, we see some out in the parking lot or, you know, out in the car show. And it's just so cool seeing those. I really enjoy those older cars. They just have those good lines on them. Yeah. And they're just, I don't know, they're unique and funky looking, which is kind of what makes them fun. One more additive to why a Forester. Mm-hmm.

[00:11:54] Something spoke out to me more other than just my mom wanting this car. Kind of like the black sheep. It was pretty much skipped over in modifications coming from the off-road world. So, as a fabricator, it's kind of fun to try and make a new project. I mean, you can buy roof racks for this. You can buy lifts. But the same lift for this car is also for a 2018 Crosstrek.

[00:12:25] Wow. So, it's like a lot of the suspension components are the same. So, you can kind of mix and match parts. But when it came to parts being made for it, other than a few companies like RallyTech and ADF, nobody really makes anything for this car. So, as the off-road journey of this car started, I really wanted to try and flex a little bit of the fabrication skills. Yeah, that's good. So, what have you fabricated for it then?

[00:12:55] Well, you've talked to Brandon. I figured out how to make the drive shops for them. Oh, yeah. Nice. And all Subaru's now. I'm capable of providing those. I can't make them anymore. I don't have the facility. Gotcha. Yeah. I made the custom light bracket on the front. I've made the ditch mounts. I've made a bed. I've made custom skid plate for it.

[00:13:23] I used, I think it was the primitive racing design, and I made a skid plate for it. But I'm in talks with ADF on getting something a little bit more updated on this summer. Yeah, that'd be good. Any other items on there? No, not really. I haven't done a whole lot when it comes to the fabrication, other than we'll get into a little bit more later when it comes to the interior modifications. Okay.

[00:13:52] I did do some bracket deletes and things to make the rest of what I have going on in here more cohesive. Oh, nice. Nice. So with the next question, I'll just go ahead and ask it before we get too deep into this, but do you prefer waffles or pancakes? I'm a pancakes guy, but really I'm more of a French toast. Yeah.

[00:14:22] I've been getting that a lot lately. French toast is king. It is good, yeah. But I've had people be like, well, neither really. I'm going to go off a little bit and say French toast. But no, I agree. French toast is good. I like pancakes more than I like waffles. It's a textural thing. Yeah. But waffles do have the ability to hold the syrup and butter, which kind of gives them the W on it. Yeah. They each have their place. French toast is so good. Yeah, it is.

[00:14:52] I agree there. But all right. My girlfriend makes incredible French toast. That's important. Yeah. I can usually ask for breakfast and I get it. Yeah, that's always nice. Yeah. So where is Camellia? Is that your mom's name or where did that come from? No, my mom's name was Teresa. Camellia comes from the paint code of this car, 69Z Camellia Red Pearl.

[00:15:22] Oh, okay. Gotcha. And if you're going to ask about the 988, which I'm sure you will, is the mental health crisis line, which I'm a big supporter of, awareness for mental health. I volunteered for the hotline and done some off-road welfare checks as well. Nice. Yeah, that's kind of where the 988 comes from. And in my bio, it says, please check on your friends. Mental health is important.

[00:15:53] Yeah, very much so. I am a couple of times survivor of attempts, unfortunately. And I've turned over a new leaf. So that's not who I am anymore. I'm more on the upper side of trying to help people through their problems. No. That doesn't succumb to my own. Yeah, that's good. It's important. Yeah. Because it can be tough at times, you know, for various reasons.

[00:16:20] And it's always good to check in on people, for sure. That was a couple of cool trips. I've actually gone to, there's a place called Lost Lake up here in Washington. And I've gone up there. It's a pretty rugged trail to get to the top of the trailhead. And I've gone up there because I got a call from one of my contacts at the hotline. They say, hey, we got somebody local. We can't get a truck up there. Do you think you can go?

[00:16:50] And I went up, ended up finding a guy in a Toyota Camry just sitting by a fire. He was just sitting by a fire. And I rolled up and we talked for like two or three hours. Talked him down. Talked him through some of his issues. And then he was able to get back in his car and come down the mountain with me and get some help. That's good, man. That's awesome.

[00:17:21] Well, I have a question about that then. How did he get his Camry up there if they said they couldn't get up there with trucks? Determination. I'm assuming. I guess so. Yeah. Maybe they just didn't have the resources available at the time that far away. Yeah. No, that's a good story. Yeah. If you can help somebody out, that's important.

[00:17:46] I always think it's more important to help people, especially if they're struggling and thinking about the ungodly. Yeah. You can't let those demons win. No. I don't know if you heard or not. We recently lost Overland Subies to his battle. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You and I messaged about that a little bit. That was a pretty tragic loss for the community. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:14] I mean, when I heard about that, I was like, what? What? Like, it just, because he was, he was always messaging people and. Constantly. Checking in on people, like every once in a while. I mean, and I mean, it was actually almost like weekly. He was like, Hey, happy Monday, broski, you know, happy Friday or whatever. And we would have, you know, chats for a while.

[00:18:39] And we were just talking about getting him on the podcast right before that happened. And I was just like, what's happening? Yeah. We were talking daily for a couple of months there. And then we were talking weekly and out of nowhere. I hadn't heard from him in a while. And I messaged the account and his husband answered.

[00:19:03] And we talked for a couple of weeks and he finally kind of told me that he was, he was no longer. It's really unfortunate. Yeah. Well, let's, let's try to move on. Let's not make it too heavy. Yeah. So when you bought the Forester, were you already planning to modify it? Like, was that already just in your line of sight?

[00:19:30] Or is it something that you just, you wanted to buy the Forester and then that came after? Well, I modify everything I own. I can't leave well enough alone. A good running car is beyond me. It's got to be messed up in some way, shape or form. And when I first bought this car, I was kind of torn which way I was going to go with the mobs. Whether I was going to make it kind of a track monster or what have you.

[00:19:58] And I really didn't decide that until after I got on Instagram what I was going to end up doing. But within three weeks, I had this thing on coilovers with an exhaust and I was at the track every weekend. Yeah, you didn't mess around. So it was lowered. It was lowered for a little while. Actually, not... Well, I say a little while is a little while because it was about six months before I decided that I was going to go a different direction. And nobody on the internet has seen this car lowered.

[00:20:28] A lot of my friends haven't seen it in that stage of its life. It was done well. But... Yeah. That's actually how I figured out how to build the driveshaft because I broke the driveshaft at a track. Or I broke the carrier bearing at a track and limped it back to my garage. And then I lived three minutes away from the track at the time. I limped it back to my garage very slowly with my hazards on.

[00:20:54] And then I ratchet strapped the driveshaft in place and drove it to Seattle. Oh my gosh. Wow. Drove it to where I worked at the time. I'm making driveshafts for a living. And just found some parts. I found out that the transmission yoke, the slip yoke is the same as a Nissan 350Z. Oh, that's interesting. Just by chance. There's a lot of Nissan parts in these cars.

[00:21:20] And like even in your cross track, I don't know what year cross track you have. But behind the... 2018? No, 21. Oh, 21. Yeah. I know behind the airbag of your, say, 2015, 16, 17, it has a Toyota symbol. I mean, these cars are kind of thrown together.

[00:21:43] But yeah, the 350Z transmission yoke flipped in and it felt really tight and it felt really good. So I went on to making measurements. And then I started making designs for the flange at the R160, one volt and five volt diff. Which are also the same for later cross tracks and Imprezas.

[00:22:08] And I contacted somebody at Powertrain Industries down in California. And I had to make me one of each flange. And I was able to make a one-piece driveshaft. Not that they weren't available. They were just extraordinarily expensive. And they usually came in carbon fiber for drag applications and things like that. Yeah. I wanted to make something a little bit more robust. So I started out with a steel one. And I drove that around for a while.

[00:22:38] So, yeah, I mean, I did it for a living. I made them driveshafts for anything from hot rods, you know, Hemikudas and freaking Honda CRVs all the way up to submarines and helicopter tail shafts. I made everything under the sun that used a driveshaft to transmit power from one side to the other. Nice. Nice. Yeah, you were in the perfect industry for that. I was, yes.

[00:23:06] I'm no longer in that industry. But, yeah. So after I did the driveshaft is when I made my Instagram. And I started following a couple of people. And I found Milton. I actually met him. I was wheeling with my dad in my dad's truck. And we got stuck in the mud. And we were just solo wheeling. And we were sitting there with a shovel trying to get out.

[00:23:33] And all of a sudden, this silver little car, before it was anything like it looks like now. Yeah. This silver car comes over the horizon of the hill. And he goes, you guys need a pole? That's how I met him in 2021. It was before I had my car. It was before I had my Instagram. Before I was even really on the internet at all. He yanked us out. He actually bent a bolt on my dad's steel bumper. Which I thought was incredible.

[00:24:03] Wow. Yeah. It's a little, at the time, I think it was still a 2 liter. Yeah. Yeah. Because he hasn't, he didn't change the motor until I think last year. Like maybe less than a year and a half ago. Like a FB25. Yeah. Yeah. That thing has turned around completely. That car is insane. Yeah. It's definitely not the same car that he first bought. No. No.

[00:24:29] I was actually just at their house not too long ago, hanging out and trying to get some diagnostics on a power steering angle sensor problem that I'm having. So I was able to go up there and hang out with them for a couple hours, which was pretty cool. Yeah. They're, they're really good about helping people too. Like if they need, you know, somebody needs to swap something out or do some kind of a modification and they need help or they've always been really great about helping. Yeah.

[00:24:57] And they always have really good like contacts for getting mods and stuff. Yeah. Not just from customer, not just from companies, but like he'll send me random Facebook marketplace links. Just randomly in my life. I just get a text from Milton and, oh, hey, you should buy these. Yeah. I wasn't sure how I was going to mod it after lowering it and going through the whole drive shop thing.

[00:25:23] And then I found the Instagram and I found Milton and Brandon Starscream total one. Oh yeah. And I was like, wow, this is a possibility. I can go in the off-road scene in a Subaru. Yeah. And that's when I really started to go kind of gung-ho as, as I could afford it. Yeah. So I guess you weren't really looking for this opportunity to go off-road. You just happened to see these other cars and then that kind of clicked in your head

[00:25:51] like, Hey, I can do that. Yeah. Yeah. And after I got kind of bored of the track scene, because there's only so many times you can, you know, drive in a circle or on a road track in a car that you can't really afford to modify before you kind of get bored. So I returned it back to stock and I started going out to the woods. Nice. And, uh, just kind of doing some, some stock off-roading. Was that your first experience going off-road or?

[00:26:20] No, no. I've, I come from a long line of off-roaders. They used to own a, a Jeep TJ with a six speed manual and longers on front and rear and 35s lifted and all crazy. And, uh, my dad's always been into off-roading. Oh, okay. That's cool. Yeah. So you kind of knew what you were doing. Yeah. A little bit. I mean, I knew like, I knew how to drive and I knew what I really wanted to do. But when I got this car, I was like, Oh, you know, maybe I'll make it fast.

[00:26:50] And then, you know, now I kept it as fast as it was, but, but big tires on it. So it gets horrible gas mileage. It makes a lot of noise, but you know. Yeah. So, so when you took, yeah. So when you took the Subaru off-road compared to like, you know, you, like you said, you had the Jeep before your dad was off-roading and stuff where, did you know the capabilities of what a Subaru could do when you first started going off-road or did you just discover that as you went along?

[00:27:19] I found more confidence once I was behind the wheel, but I've always kind of followed the rallies and watched like Olympus rally and stuff when it's televised or was televised. Now everything's online. But, uh, I was a big fan of watching rallies and dirt rallies, things like that rally cross. So I kind of knew what, you know, I knew what the Subaru was capable of and what it was born to do. Yeah. I just never really thought I saw it in an overland format.

[00:27:47] Like I never really thought that I would see it as this mountain goat that it is. Yeah. So when you took it back to stock and then you started going off-road, what was your first modification like specifically for off-roading? I cut the bumpers immediately. I just used the plunge saw multi-tool to do it.

[00:28:11] And, um, I, I realized that as, as I was kind of tempting the, the limits of approach and departure angle at a stock height on a stock size tire, cause I, I don't just, just do fire service roads. I'll see a little whoop-dee-doo and go, Hey, where's that go? And I'll just drive up there and get myself in so deep that, um, pulling bumpers off and,

[00:28:36] you know, I've come out of trails with my bumpers in my trunk or just like, Oh crap, I got to put these back on. So then I decided that it was probably a pretty good idea to cut them. And then I started seeing other people like the cross stretch with the Viper cuts, which I fell in love with. Yeah. So I kind of wanted to make my own version of that. So you definitely had a good reason to cut them. Yeah. I was tearing them off left and right. Uh, it's tied on all sorts of stuff.

[00:29:06] So like, what are, so going from the bumper cut, like what was the progression of mods and like to up to where you're at now? I mean, I know you have a ton of stuff, but like maybe just hit the major things that you've done. Uh, my first, well, so my first mod, uh, I gotta think about that for a second. The real first mod was coilovers, but, uh, that was pretty short lived within three weeks of buying the car and lasted less than three months.

[00:29:36] A list of the more notable mods, most notable mods, obviously my, my, my wrap with provided by wrap lender. But I would say looking at the car from 15 feet away, which I don't suggest you look at it any closer because she is not perfect. Um, definitely do the bumper cuts and, uh, the light brackets that seems to get a lot

[00:30:06] of attention, especially the front one, because I keep getting this kind of weird look from people who aren't real car guys, or maybe they are car guys. And I've gotten this comment more than once where they're like, I've never seen a long car turned into a dune buggy before. I bet that's so much fun to drive. My response is always, you know, yeah, it's fricking great.

[00:30:32] And other than that, nobody, not, I can't say nobody, but not a whole lot of people put snorkels on these cars, especially the Foresters. They don't make one for this car. Um, so this is actually just a Suzuki Grand Vitara snorkel that kind of fits. Yeah. It's kind of had to make it work, huh? Yeah. You use a little bit of heat. You kind of twist it.

[00:31:00] You, you move it into the places to make it a happy camper. And, uh, going back to that, don't look at it any closer than 15 feet. If you see some of my pictures from the passenger side, you'll see the little strip of tape. I'm putting this out as a PSA. If you're going to make yourself a snorkel or you're going to put a snorkel on your car, do not cut too low. There's a black piece of tape underneath my snorkel.

[00:31:26] And that's from me drilling way too low thinking I had my S together when it came to putting this thing on. And I drilled the hole way too low and ended up just taking my angle grinder and cutting a slot up and a square out and bolting this thing to the car. It is not perfect. It looks pretty good from 15 feet away. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking at it now. I see that. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:31:54] I want everybody to know that tape is there cause I'm stupid. Well, I mean, these things are, you know, if you're putting modifications on it, taking it off road, it's not going to stay perfect for too long and that's okay. Yeah. It's definitely seen as it's fair share of a PNW pinstripes we call them. Yeah. I mean, these, these things are, you know, if you're, if you're taking it off road and you're modifying it, you're doing it because, you know, you, and you're going to go do something

[00:32:23] that you really enjoy and it's fun and you can't expect it to not get banged up some whenever you're taking it off road. I mean, it's just. Oh yeah. Absolutely. And it's like, like for my, with my car, I have, I have a little ding on the passenger side door and it's from trying to do some donuts and in a gravel and a piece flew up and hit the door and it chipped the paint. And I'm okay with that.

[00:32:48] And then there's a dent in the plastic, the hard plastic that's underneath my driver's side fog light. And I think it was from my son going over and like hitting the other side of an embankment or something. I'm deviped to cut it. And then I even have like some pinstripes down the right side, the passenger side of my car

[00:33:13] where I was pulling out of a, uh, I was, I was next to one of those like, uh, things where you put the, where you'd return the cards at a grocery store. And I was trying to turn between in between that and another car, which I had done many times before. And somehow I just totally misjudged it, scraped the whole right side of my car with the basket like, uh, guard thing. And I was just, and it was at nighttime and I was like, Oh my gosh, what'd I just do?

[00:33:42] And I get home and I go look at it. And I didn't really see anything cause it was dark. And then even the next day when it was daylight and the sun was out, it was hardly noticeable. So, but you know, I can see it. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It could have been so bad, but you know, there's little things that I've done that, uh, you know, it's not perfect anymore.

[00:34:06] But I have like two little door dings on my driver's side door from somebody that parked close and just didn't care. That pisses me off. The other stuff that I did while I was out having fun, it doesn't bother me. But that I even have, I even have hail damage on my car, like on the hood and then on the like a pillar going up on the passenger side. And some of the risks you take for being in Texas. Yeah.

[00:34:36] But like, even that doesn't bother me, you know? And, but like somebody dinged my door and that really pisses me off. Cause it's like, you just don't care about the car that you parked next to. Screw you. Yeah. I have a recent one. This is post a wraplander vinyl. And it's a perfectly good cut in the vinyl and a nice straight ding in my rear. Quarter. On my driver's side.

[00:35:04] And I remember coming out of the store, knowing that I didn't park next to anybody, seeing that car and seeing my door or not my door. It's actually in the body of behind the window. And I'm like, are you serious? I know this guy just did this cause I didn't park next to anybody. And I was in the store for 10 minutes and I wanted to wait for him so bad. And I wanted to wait for him so bad.

[00:35:32] Cause he cut the new vinyl and put a new dent in the door that I didn't do myself. I wouldn't care if I threw a hammer at my car and created the dent. That'd be a story for me throwing a hammer at my car. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, mine was, I parked, I went to go, I was in San Antonio on a project with this guy. We went to go eat lunch and I always try to find a spot like at the end of a row where I can park like really close to the curb to try to make the space bigger, you know, than

[00:36:01] parking like right in the middle. And that's what I did. And somebody parked like, as I was walking up, I was like, you gotta be kidding me. Cause I saw that they were pretty close and, and they obviously it was that car that hit mine. Cause like you, there was nobody next to me when I first parked there and I'm like, I was so mad. It makes, it really makes you want to consider doing crime, but it's fine. Nobody's going to do that. Yeah.

[00:36:29] I'm going to, uh, I've got these little things that will let the air out of the tire. Let me just do that. Oh, I never even thought about that. I keep my quick air downs right with me in my driver's side door pocket. Yeah. Your tires doesn't have a hole buddy, but it's going to be flat. You just gave me a bad idea. You didn't hear that on the SubianU podcast. Nope. Nope. Not at all. Raphael is an angel. Uh, yeah.

[00:36:55] So like with, uh, going back to your mods, um, what would you say is like your favorite mod and which one has proved to be most useful? Favorite mod. I would definitely say is the lift. It's become the most useful as well. Visually. I would think is my hood paint. Yeah. And then there's a little bit of a story behind that. Cause when I got this car, it did have a claim on it.

[00:37:21] It got, uh, rear ended and pushed into another car. Oh yeah. And the paint was done horribly. So there was a scratch from the previous owner. It looked like maybe a jealous girlfriend or somebody, maybe the hood. It was a pretty deep scratch. And, uh, there was a bunch of swirling and all sorts of dumb stuff. And I decided I wanted to try my, my go at paint correction, not being a professional

[00:37:50] at all. And I sanded right through to the primer. Like immediately. I was either way too low of a grit or way too hard or whatever. I was just trying to wet stand the hood and it went straight to primer. Jeez. And I drove it like that for a while. And I didn't post pictures of my hood purposely because it looked so bad. And one day I was talking to a guy and he was like, Oh, I bought this stuff on Amazon.

[00:38:17] You just hook it up to your air compressor and it's like a, like a professional paint gun, but it's, it's bed liner. And I was like, nice. Huh? I was like, how's that come out? And he goes, dude, check out the bed of my truck. And it was, it was like line X. It was perfect. And, uh, he did it in his driveway. So I figured, Oh, what the hell? I'll give it a shot. And I went and bought that stuff for, I think it was like 150 bucks for the kit. And it came with four cans and a couple of spray nozzles. Mm-hmm.

[00:38:46] And, uh, I already had the air compressor. So I just hooked up the air compressor, put as much pressure into it that it needed and started spraying my hood. And I think it came out pretty good. There was only one little blob, one little blob on the passenger side there where it's, uh, it kind of came out a little thick and I was hoping that was going to level out, but it's been almost a year now. So I don't think it's going to. Yeah. No, I mean, it looks good though. I mean, it kind of like fixes. That 15 foot rule. Yeah.

[00:39:14] It fixes the issue that, you know, of it, the scratch and the swirls. Yeah. And I mean, that was a deep scratch. And the reason why I think they keyed it is because there's also a similar kind of identical scratch on the back glass. Oh, yeah. I think somebody took a key to it. Yeah. But I'll show you. Yeah. I don't know what this guy did to get that done to him, but. Yeah. Well, no, the hood looks good.

[00:39:44] I mean, it also, it just adds more character to it. Yeah. It does. It definitely adds a bit of spice to the look of the car. I usually get a lot of questions. My boss was just asking me, actually, he's like, did you use Linux for this? I'm like, no, I used such and such from Amazon. It's great. Yeah. He's like, I need to do my, I want to do my rocker panels on my, on my truck. Like, go for it. It's cheap. Like, going to the interior, you said you had, you did some stuff on the interior. Let's go ahead and talk about that.

[00:40:14] I did. Let me see here. Interior mods. There's a small moly panel that all of our buddies, Patrick over there at ADF, was kind enough to supply me. That's cool. That was, that was pretty cool. So that's a small interior mod. Other mods include just various storage.

[00:40:40] I did a full backseat removal and took off all the paneling on the inside and got rid of all of the brackets and seatbelts and those things, anything that would rattle. And I'm a, I'm a big guy for not letting rattles in my car. And I know I drive an almost 20 year old trip box, but I'm not letting it rattle.

[00:41:09] So what do you have back there now? That's the fun part. So the, the slight modification to the driver's seats that I kind of notched the hinge out a little bit and bent it down. So currently they're, they're sitting in a, in a seated position, but they're up further than normal cars would be in your regular seated position.

[00:41:35] Cause I wanted those seats, these seats in the front to go all the way into the back where the backseat used to be. And now these lay completely flat. And I have a bed built in the back that folds all the way out to the steering wheel. Wow. So it takes up the entire, the entire space of the front of the car and all of it. So once you open up the back and it's in camp mode, it takes a twin, a twin XL bed.

[00:42:04] So do you, so you lay the, the front seats down and then the mattress goes over on top of the seats? No, no. There's a bed platform built back there. Oh, okay. Gotcha. And it's all on different hinges. I can still access the bottom where the spare tire used to be. That's just extra storage now. Um, I have a nice big table on heavy weight drawer slides so I can, you know, make my coffee in the morning when I'm out camping.

[00:42:33] It's heavy enough to, uh, hold my scottle. When we went to the, uh, fun run for Tahuya with all 18 rigs, I was able to feed, I don't know, 15 people tacos. Probably. Yeah. Those are nice. Eight pounds of food. Is that the one from Oris? Uh, no, uh, Timbo Tusk. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Yeah. I have, I've had that one for quite a long time.

[00:43:00] And it's a nice little cast iron one and it's the 18 inch dish. Yeah. Those are really nice. Yeah. So yeah, there is a full bed when deployed into sleep mode from steering wheel all the way to hatch. And I'm almost six, four and I sit super comfortably with room and I don't have to sit sideways or any weirdness.

[00:43:27] Cause like when I first got this car and I was camping inside, um, I had just the front passenger seat kind of folded forward and I had a piece of wood that I laid over the laid down back seat and kind of slipped diagonal in the back. It was pretty rough. Yeah. That was before my rooftop tent. Yeah. I saw that you had one, I guess you, were you just running that for a while or do you still use that and just put it on when you need it?

[00:43:54] I ran it full time and I think that was my mistake. I mean, it's got the aerodynamics of a brick and it's heavy. And where I like to go off-roading is like places that most people don't go. Uh, really tight paths, lots of trees, lots of brush, lots of hanging, uh, foliage. And I kept getting it caught on stuff and I kept tearing the cover and it had duct tape on the cover now.

[00:44:23] And I was like, man, this thing's big and it's cumbersome and it's in the way. Granted, I really liked the fact that Hutch made that half size tent. I think Roof Nest makes one now. They didn't make one at the time. Cause it just takes up half the roof, right? Yeah. It takes up half the roof. Uh, Brittany, the Crosstrek has the same tent that I had. Oh, okay. And it takes up half and just folds over one side or the other, depending on which way you have it on your car.

[00:44:52] Um, then you kind of have like this little awning kind of space underneath the bed. Yeah. But it takes up the whole length of the car as well. So it's not compact in any way, shape or form. Yeah. And then, yeah. And then just getting it, uh, torn on stuff as you're going through that, uh, that can't be good for a tent. No, no, no, no. And I went to, uh, there's a, a camp spot that I call the one spot. I don't tell anybody where it is.

[00:45:22] There's no cell service there. So I couldn't tell you when I was there. Uh, and, uh, I had to go down there and cut a few trees out of the way. Uh, Derek would be proud of me. He loves cutting trees on trails, but. Yeah. He's, uh, he posts about that. He posts that all the time. Yeah. He loves opening up trails, but I found this one spot. Uh, and that's why I call it the one spot. It's a perfect little round campsite.

[00:45:50] You can turn around, you can do a 360 in it and maybe two cars. And, uh, when I was going down there, I ended up getting caught on a fallen tree. I thought I had the clearance and I just ripped the whole edge of that tent off. Oh my God. And, um, I actually did buy that from Starscream 1201 Brandon. The tent? He gave me a screaming deal on it and I was able to, yeah, the tent. Oh, okay.

[00:46:20] Um, he got it from a takeoff from his, his dealership. He was lucky. Oh yeah. But, uh, I ended up getting a screaming deal for it and I got all my, all my money back out of camping was it for a year. Um, every dollar I spent on it. So yeah, it was a fun experiment. Yeah. That was great. Yeah. Uh, so like with, uh, with going off road and everything, I've seen that you've driven

[00:46:47] through snow and you've driven through mud and you talked about before, like getting stuck in spots as far as like ripping your bumpers off and then having to come back down. Um, but have you like gotten stuck in mud or snow before? Uh, uh, we have a fun little, uh, adventure. It was like, uh, two, was it two winters ago?

[00:47:09] I think me carry mountain, Suey, uh, Milton and, uh, nomadic Normans. We went up to a snow wheeling trip and we just wanted to make tacos on the top of a mountain. That was your main goal, huh? It was our main goal. It was the only goal other than just hanging out with good people. Yeah. Let's go make tacos on top of a mountain. This was before I was lifted.

[00:47:38] So this is my fault for being novice and not actually going in prepared. Uh, it was like three feet of snow. It was up to my knees when I got out of the car. I got stuck four or five times. Every single time I stopped, I sunk and I got pulled out more times than I can count that day. Uh, Milton broke an axle, but there's no surprise he does that every time he turns his car to the right.

[00:48:04] Uh, but they pulled me out a bunch. Milton ended up going up really far. He broke his axle alone way up in the snow. Oh, uh, Terry pulled me backwards, probably a half mile down the mountain in Frankie, their rally car. Oh yeah. And I ended up just continuing on. I just kept going after she got out of the way.

[00:48:30] I just kept going and left my, at the time, new girlfriend up there with people she didn't know. Because she got out to like, kind of just like explore and talk to people and have a good time. And I was like, do you want to get in the car? And she was like, no, I'll just stay. Because she thought I was just moving like 20 feet. And I ended up going all the way. Yeah, I ended up going all the way down the mountain and waiting at the bottom for several hours.

[00:48:59] And I waited at the bottom and eventually. And no communication or? No communication, no cell service. Uh, my radio did send voice to their radios, but I couldn't hear them back. Oh. For some reason. I don't know what it was about my radio that, uh, that wouldn't allow me to hear their channels coming through. So, I was just blindly talking to my radio like, hey guys, I made it down to the bottom. You know, I hope you guys are safe. Stuff like that.

[00:49:30] And I ended up waiting. Anyone? Viewers? Yeah, right. And, uh, I ended up going to the other side of the valley and, and using binoculars to look at the ridge. Because it was starting to get dark. Oh my God. And I was like, I know they got lights. I know it's going to be fine. They got, you know, Baja designs. Yeah. All of that. All over their cars. And I knew that out of anybody that I could leave my girlfriend with, it would be them.

[00:49:58] And she'd be safe and she'd be able to get out. Because there was three cars up there. So, even if one of them fell off the side of the mountain, hopefully she wasn't in it. Surely. Some great thoughts going through your head there, huh? But they eventually came down. Yeah, right? Eventually, they all came down safe and sound and we had Paco's at the bottom. Did she slap you whenever she got down there? No. Where did you go? She was quite surprised. She knew, she could see me.

[00:50:25] I mean, it was clear, bluff, super snowpacked. And eventually she saw me go around the corner and down the edge of the ridge. So, she was more surprised. I was more surprised that she went, she stayed with them. It was a huge miscommunication. But it ended up being a fun time and we went down to the bottom of the mountain to a clear parking lot and had really, really delicious tacos. Hey, she was with you people. And then we all went home. Yeah, she was. Yeah, definitely.

[00:50:55] Out of any of my friends. I'll trust them over anyone with my girlfriend's life. Yeah. Yeah, no, they're good people. It's, you know, I, being in Houston and like when I have people on that start talking about people up there, I'm like, I feel very blessed that I've met so many of those people.

[00:51:17] Because if it wasn't for being able to go to like Overland Expo and Subie Fest, California, and then taking my son up to Washington for spring break one year, I probably would have not met any of the people. It helps that Milton and Terry are everywhere. And they are such big influences in this space. Yeah, 100%. And now they're doing teachings and Rebel Rally,

[00:51:45] and they got this really cool 25 Forester thing is rad in person. Have you seen it yet? I have not. I'm looking forward to seeing it. Are you going to Overland Expo in Oregon? Yeah, I'm going to the rest of them. Because there's the one in Flagstaff. I'm going to PNW, Colorado, and Virginia. Oh, you got to say hi to my friend off-roading me out back out there. Oh, which one?

[00:52:16] He's going to be in the Virginia one, I'm sure. I don't know if he's actually going to be posted up, but I know he's really making some big moves when it comes to Subaru and our group chat. He's doing a lot. He goes by Dirty Subie. Was he there last year? Well, maybe. I don't know. We just started talking not too long ago. Okay. Yeah. For me, it's like I've met so many people, too.

[00:52:44] It's hard to remember who I've met, you know? Well, not too long ago, you had Platosaurus Rex on here, right? Yeah. Yeah. He was just down on a camping trip with Dirty Subie and Kathleen or Atra Katsyagi. Yep. So they just had a giant thing together that was pretty cool. I think that was last month. They went to Cape Flag something. I don't know. It was a beach. Yeah.

[00:53:13] They had to get on a boat and go out and person their spot. Yep. Yeah. She's all over the place. She's an awesome person. Yeah. Yeah. They're going to be at Flagstaff again this year because that's where I first saw her in person was last year at Flagstaff. So it'll be cool to see her again. I've yet to meet her in person, but if you're ever actually scrolling through and around on Instagram, you'll see I-5 commuters.

[00:53:43] They had the Subaru with all the shit on it. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. She was in there. They're from my town. And I see them all the time on I-5. Oh, that's funny. They, so when they came up, they came through with the Subaru with all the shit on it. And then I saw a truck at Yagi and I was like, oh my God, I follow that person. Yep. I know. I saw her on there too.

[00:54:10] And I messaged her and I was like, oh, this is so funny that you made it on there. I never made it on that video, but I did make number one comment for, I liked the shit on my Subaru and got like 9,000 likes. Just that one comment. I was like, that's insane. Uh, so do you have more mods to come? I mean, I know some people were like, oh, I think I'm good where I'm at. And other people were like, oh, there's always something going on. Of course, that's a silly question. I always have something more to come.

[00:54:38] Uh, one of the bigger things that I'm working on right now is you might notice in some of my recent posts, I don't have all the shit on my Subaru, aforementioned shit. Yeah. Um, I'm working on making a one-off Prince who style, uh, roof rack. Of course, Prince who sells one, but it's 950 bucks and I don't want to spend that if I can make it for less. Of course. Yeah. I mean, why spend the money? Yeah.

[00:55:06] It's a fairly simple design and I think I can make it cooler. Yeah. I mean, and if you can do it yourself too, then why not? Yeah. I have a welder and a fabric or a laser table, uh, to a plasma cutting table. It's a four by eight. That's pretty cool. And, uh, I can run G code and just send my computer to cut it and call it a day. There you go. That's all you need. And I can, I can make it all myself.

[00:55:34] And I think, uh, I want to try and make one or two and then save the file and try and offer something to my, my fellow SH buddies who aren't happy with what they have. Uh, but, um, yeah, I think I can probably save these and modify them though. The, the, the footings and lengths and maybe offer something at a better price point.

[00:55:59] That's kind of a, a custom deal for, uh, some people in the future. Yeah. If I can actually, uh, make what I want to come to life. Yeah. My, uh, my roof rack ended up leaking, but that was user error. Cause I didn't, I was told to use a lot of sealant and I thought I used a lot of sealant, but apparently my idea of a lot of sealant isn't a lot of sealant. So it, uh, What brand do you have?

[00:56:27] I have the, um, spider, no drill roof rack. Oh, okay. I like it. I mean, it's worked out. Those ones do look cool. Yeah. And I don't, the only thing I have up there is my tire. I don't have anything else up there, but I mean, I had him on the podcast and that was kind of like his form of sponsorship was he sent me the rack. And, uh, so very thankful for that. Yeah.

[00:56:53] Uh, but when I, when I installed it, I installed it before, uh, Subaru flat fest in 2022, because I knew that I was going to be the only one there with one of his racks. And so that was kind of like a little, you know, form of advertising for him too. Oh yeah, for sure. Put all the sealant on and everything and drove up there. And on my way back, there was a huge storm and I was driving and I felt something dripping on my leg.

[00:57:22] And I look over and there's water dripping from the A pillar. Ooh. And I looked over on the passenger side and that like the headliner was wet, you know, right with right there where like the fabric meets the plastic. And then, so I pulled over into a gas station and the back corners were wet too. And I was like, Oh my gosh, what am I like? I've got this long drive home and there's a huge storm. Like there was this, I was going Southwest.

[00:57:51] I don't remember which highway it was, but I was coming Southwest going, driving back home. And there was this huge, like just gigantic storm that was just like, you know, usually the storm will start to move, you know, to the East or whatever. And it's like, it just kept recirculating in the same spot over and over and over. I'm like, this storm is not moving. This is pissing me off. So I was thinking, okay, I was looking on the map and on the map, it doesn't,

[00:58:21] look that far, but I'm like, I'm just going to go straight South and then go West and then just go like around the storm. But as I started driving and looking at the map more, I'm like, now the storm is moving and it's coming towards me again. And so I, I just kept pulling over under gas stations and parking for a while. And then eventually I was like, I had already been on the road for so long and I'm like, I've got, I just, I have to go home. Cause I had to go to work the next day.

[00:58:50] It was, this was on a Monday and I had to go to work on Tuesday and I was just driving. And so whenever I was driving, there was like a steady rain, but it wasn't very hard. And that didn't cause it to leak. It was a really heavy rain that was causing it to leak. So I was fine after that, but yeah, that was not fun. I know heavy rain. I was just in Chicago and my first day there, it was storming for hours.

[00:59:17] It was a rough landing to start get my car. By the time I made it to dinner, it was raining sideways with 40 miles an hour winds. And it was crazy. Yeah. Butter and lightning. Yeah. We get that here in Houston sometimes too. We hardly ever get that because we have a lot of hills here. Yeah. The other thing I realized, Illinois is completely flat. And it was like, not a hill. Yeah. Yeah. We have overpassed. I've never actually been to Texas.

[00:59:48] I would say you're not missing anything, but Texas is, there's some pretty nice spots. I mean, Houston isn't like, it's not terrible. There's, there's stuff here, but it's when you've been, when you've lived in Houston your whole life and then you go to states like Oregon or Washington or Colorado, California, any, anything along the West coast and, you know, or inland from the West coast, it's like, why am I living here? Cause it's so beautiful out there. Yeah.

[01:00:17] It is pretty, pretty rad out here. We are definitely spoiled to live here. Yeah. Um, I think one of the problems with living here is the cost and the people. And for somebody like me, I'm very much a lone, lone wolf. I kind of want to be left alone and it's kind of hard to find your peace. Yeah. How does your girlfriend feel about that? She is an agoraphobic. She loves it. Oh. I don't know what an agoraphobic is.

[01:00:47] That's somebody who's pretty much afraid of being outside. She likes to go to the mountains and stuff, but safe way, not a chance. Mountains are good though. Yeah. She loves going up to the mountains with me. Cause she could just like watch me enjoy, turn into a little kid, go over rocks. My toy car that I've built is a full size. It's a full size toy car. Yeah. I wish they had a hot wheels with this.

[01:01:15] I would totally modify a hot wheels to make it look like my car. Yeah. They never really came out with one. Yeah, they should. There's a company out there that makes one 64th die casts, but they're so expensive. Yeah. I've seen some of those and yeah, I imagine it's not cheap. They're like 250 bucks and it's just a die cast model. And I get it. Like get yours for your craft, but that's gotta be a hard sell. Yeah.

[01:01:43] So with, uh, going out and having fun in this giant toy car, like who are, you've mentioned some people before, but like are Carrie Milton, those like, and, and some of the other people, are those the people that you get out with regularly? Uh, I try to get out with the Sandy Subies tribe as much as I possibly can. They're, they're incredible people. Um, I am more of a lone wolf kind of guy.

[01:02:08] I do like to go out and find my peace, which kind of goes into, um, the going into the thick of the, the, the trails where most cars won't dare to drive. Yeah. Um, I do have a couple of really good friends that are, uh, closer to me. Uh, one of them, he's on here, but he's not, uh, he's not a, not a fan of posting, I guess.

[01:02:34] Uh, and he has a pretty cool Crosstrek. It's a 23 manual six speed. Oh yeah. And, uh, mine's a six speed too. I love it. Lucky. My Forrester never came. The, the XT never came in a manual. And I'm like, why? Yeah. That would have been so awesome. It's got the holes in the firewall. It's got the provisions. I don't see why you wouldn't just make it in a five speed or a six speed. That's stupid.

[01:03:04] That was a, that was money lost for Subaru. Yeah. But, uh, back to the topic there. Um, I do go out with Zach pretty regularly when we can. Uh, we like to get together and go have a beer in the woods and just enjoy the quiet and talk about our cars. Yeah. Uh, they're both ever evolving. So when we do get to catch up, there's always something fun to talk about. I was actually able through, through Instagram to meet like my very best friend and I will

[01:03:33] drive out of my way to come pick her up. I know her car is broken down and that's so sad. Anybody who lives in the Everett area of Washington, please DM me. I have a job for you. Um, I can work on cars. I just don't have the time. I fly constantly for work. Um, but I get to hang out with Danielle pretty, pretty regularly. She goes by Lawless Yeti and she has the coolest last name. It's Lawless.

[01:04:04] Like that's the coolest fricking last name. Yeah. Um, I've never heard of a cooler last name to be honest, but she's so much fun. Uh, you can see her in one of the videos where Milton got the zoomies and on a December trip and decided to do 65 miles an hour on a dirt corner and then loses fender. That sounds like him. That does sound like him, doesn't it? 100%. He was showing off his race where it's coilovers and how it drives like a cloud.

[01:04:33] I'm like, it must be nice. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, no, I get to, uh, I get to hang out with her as much as I can. We're both pretty busy. Um, but I will, I will stop the world to go hang out with her. And I'm so blessed to have been able to meet her through this Subaru space. It's one of the things that I love about the Subaru space is all the tricking people like you were talking about. Most of us are really good people. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:05:01] I, uh, it's, I mean, I think that's, what's really nice too. About especially the off-road and overland community is there just a lot of people are very similar in the fact that like, they just want to cheer other people on and help people. And, you know, if you need me, I'm there for you, whether it's just like, you know, texting or going out and, you know, picking you up for whatever reason. Uh, that's just, there's so many good people.

[01:05:29] And that's, that's what makes, that's what makes this community so great. Yeah. I have, so I have Zach and we like to go out on a little higher speed trips, um, kind of slide them around and have a good time on some gravel roads. And then Danielle and I are much more whimsical and we like to go to the wet woods and find mushrooms and things and just look at the nature and enjoy the peace and quiet. Yeah. That's always nice.

[01:05:59] Get out there in the woods and where it's just like, smells good. It's quiet. You've got good scenery. That's a... I'm blessed to live where I do. Yeah. Honestly, I am, uh, in Washington and on this property that, that I'm living on currently. Uh, it's pretty quiet. It's not too far off the beaten path, so it could be quieter. Yeah. But it is, um, it is pretty nice to have my own little slice of nature here. Yeah. Uh, that's important.

[01:06:29] Uh, so with the, um, you know, mods and everything, like with your wrap lander, uh, wrap, how'd you get connected with them? Um, really it was kind of just like a shot in the dark. I wanted to get a new look on the body, uh, with the body being in pretty rough shape, uh, from previous accidents and trips. And, and things. Uh, I've never been in an accident in this car, but it has definitely seen its fair share of bad drivers.

[01:06:57] Um, trying to do like a, like a three-quarter wrap or something, it wouldn't really look good without a lot of body prep and paint prep. To go underneath that wrap. Yeah. I kind of wanted to, to see what that might look like. So it was, it was really just a shot in the dark. I, I sent them a message and a couple of pictures of my car and asked them if it was something that they might want to feature.

[01:07:25] And they were so kind and sent me three different colors, uh, different wraps and, and a nice little banner and some swag. And it was kind of cool to be able to, uh, put them in my bio and have them be the 2026 sponsor for the car. Yeah. That's awesome. So when did you actually put it on? Uh, February. Oh, so it's fairly new then. Yeah. It's, it's, it's pretty new. And it was kind of ever evolving.

[01:07:54] And, and I really couldn't decide. If you see pictures of my car, you'll see it from both sides. Mm-hmm. And you'll, uh, you'll notice that the, the designs are different on both sides. Oh, yeah. The passenger side is Mount Rainier and the zoomed in spot on the top of Mount Rainier. Oh, so. And, uh, the driver's side is Mount Baker. And it's a zoomed in spot, uh, off to the east side of the mountain. I thought it was a pretty cool design.

[01:08:22] So I, I went with both. I couldn't decide. Yeah. And did you end up, did you put it on yourself? Yeah. Yeah. Rathlander is awesome. Uh, it's, it comes in a long sheet that's rolled up in a cardboard tube. Mm-hmm. You, you wash your car really well with some Dondish soap and a soft microfiber and, uh, maybe a little bit of rubbing alcohol or denatured alcohol or something to kind of prep the surface. And then you, you stick one end on it.

[01:08:49] You can kind of draw a little, you can pull with one hand and draw the line you want to draw with your finger. With the vinyl in place and it bends and curves and twists and does all sorts of cool stuff. Right. And, uh, it's, it's pretty robust. It didn't last to a car door in the parking lot of QFC, but, uh, it has lasted through the sticks and the twigs of the, the forest. It looks good. Definitely adds a nice element to the car.

[01:09:19] I definitely just wanted to, to try and do something. Uh, I'm planning on getting new bumper covers and, uh, cutting those as well, but in a different way. I'm going to be doing steel bumpers, uh, shortly, hopefully by the end of the summer. Nice. Nice. Which is going to come with a slew of different lighting, lighting mounting options. I'm probably going to keep these lights because I'm invested in them.

[01:09:43] But, uh, by the way, I'm kind of mad at Baja designs for coming out with the squadron too, just as I was happy with my lighting setup. Yeah, they look good. They do look good. Yeah. I don't know. I might just have to go with that discount code for, uh, diode dynamics because I love Baja designs, but you just came out with the backlight for the squadron right when I was done buying lights. Yeah.

[01:10:12] The backlight is definitely nice. I like that. Yeah. And it looks so cool. Yeah. So with like driving through mud and snow, which one would you say is your favorite to drive through? Definitely mud. Yeah. Definitely mud. It leaves a really cool color on the car. It's got a certain smell to it. You feel like you've done something really fun.

[01:10:35] Uh, you leave your tracks in the, in, in the mud and other people now have to try and navigate how you went through it. Cause you've messed up the track with your all wheel drive and then a Jeep gets stuck cause he's in two wheel drive. And then you go back up and pull out the Jeep and then make him mad cause he's $30,000 into a red bit. He can't get out of a mud hole that a Subaru just did. That sounds about right. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. No, mud is fun. I like mud a lot more.

[01:11:04] It's, I mean, if I had my choice, obviously I want like a, a semi soft, like a wet dirt. That would probably be my preference. I want like a big flat surface that is just like slippery muddy on top that you can go and just do donuts and do some drifting and stuff like that. But like everywhere I go, it's got ruts in it and you know, it's uneven and it's bumpy and you can't really do that. But, but it's still fun.

[01:11:31] But I mean, like I really like mud because it's really all that we have here, but I have driven through snow and I really like snow too. It's, it's definitely fun. You just get clay over there, don't you? Yeah. There's, there's some spots. Like if we go up to East Texas, like Northeast of Houston, there's some clay up there. It's red dirt. And, uh, but like in the Houston area, not too much. I think there might be a few little spots, but it's mostly just mud, not any clay.

[01:12:00] I'm jealous of the clay because that's even cooler mud to play in. It's slippery and also solid at the same time.

[01:12:35] Yeah.

[01:12:37] It's a lot of fun out there.

[01:13:07] They're like, yeah. And they go out to Moab and they camp on the side of the cliffs with all of the different mountains. Or I don't know if you call them mountains in Moab. Um, the monoliths of rock that the wind has cut out. Yeah. And it's just never ending sight of beautiful, like red stone and great sunsets. That's where I want to go. I want to go camp out there.

[01:13:34] I have a cool, uh, hammock mount on, on my car. And, uh, well, actually, no, I, I used to, uh, it's going to be a part of the new roof rack. Oh, nice. So I can go up top, but, um, I want to go up there and, uh, just hang out and watch the sunset in my hammock. So what's the furthest distance you've driven in your Forester? Cause you said you haven't really gone out of state, but have you, have you at all?

[01:14:02] Um, yes, with this car, I have gone out of state. Um, you might recall your, your conversation with Brandon. He, uh, he helped me replace my power steering pump when it exploded right outside of his job. Oh yeah. In Portland. Yeah. So, uh, we went to the Tillamook Forest, uh, later that afternoon. And realistically speaking, that's the farthest I've taken this car.

[01:14:29] I've had it for four years and I've only put about 50,000 miles on it. Yeah. That's not a lot. My, my goal to get to that five, five, five is going to take a long time. What are you at now? 210,000 on a 2009. Okay. So it's low mileage for a car this old. Yeah. My son has a 2010 Outback and his has, I think about 220 right now.

[01:14:58] It's he, I bought it with 199 on it. Uh, so he hasn't driven it at all. Yeah. He hasn't driven it. He's, he's had some issues with it, so he doesn't take it too far, but I mean, he's driven it like from here out to San Antonio a few times, but that's about it. Uh, not issues where it's not drivable, but just had to replace some things and get some things fixed. But, uh, other than that, it happens with a 15 plus year old car. Yeah.

[01:15:27] And unfortunately happens with a six month old brand new cars now. I mean, you can't really trust the reliability of anything. So I keep seeing a video every so often it keeps popping up. It says they're all unreliable. Just pick a cool one. What are some things that you like keep in your forester at all times, either gear or just anything? Well, I usually keep a pistol, uh, but that comes out of my car.

[01:15:57] When I leave it, fire extinguishers, water, uh, sometimes fuel depending on where I'm going. Yeah. Uh, I always keep a jump pack and an air compressor. So I always have air for my tire and a jump pack in case the battery decides to, to go out. Those are important. Yeah. Well, there's been too many times and too many hard lessons learned not to knock that in my car. Uh, fire extinguishers are always great because I've been able to get a lot of fun.

[01:16:27] I've been able to put out small like roadside fires during the summer before they became something too much. And, uh, I really, really go by this one brand. They're, uh, on, see if I can grab one. They're always mounted in my car. So they're easy to grab. I like these guys because you can buy them in, uh, eight packs for really cheap. Oh, that's good. And they're, they're just small little disposable guys.

[01:16:56] And there, there's enough in them to really actually do something. It's not just like a little bullet. And like those small, small ones, it's like a legitimate fire extinguisher. And I always carry three in my car at all times. That's good. One, one is definitely dedicated to the fact that I've done some of the wiring in this car, but, uh, I do enjoy being able to, uh, put a fire out when I can.

[01:17:24] So, uh, as far as like your, your forester's concerned, like how would you say that it best matches your personality? Oh man, that's a really good question. Um, I would say it's probably cause we're both a bit obnoxious, a bit loud, uh, maybe a bit, uh, abrasive to the eye in person. Um, most people don't see this thing coming until they do. Yeah.

[01:17:52] And we, we both have a pretty loud personality. I like to say that I'm quiet, but, uh, I'm deaf and most, mostly deaf. So I'm a pretty loud person, which I suppose I should have said, I'm sorry if the volumes are off. No, no, it sounds good. It's fine. If you could describe your forester in one word, what would it be? Neato. Neato. Oh, that's a good one. I haven't heard that one before. Yeah. It's fricking rad, man.

[01:18:21] Dude, that's like a, that's like a word from my childhood. That's neato. Yeah, I got that one from my aunt. Old school, man. I like it. Oh, there's another one. The personality of the car, how it matches me. We both have a lot of tattoos, scratches and scars and, uh, things like that. So that was one that was a good one to think of. How would you say that owning your Subaru has changed your life? In so many ways. I can't even count.

[01:18:49] Uh, we've already covered a lot, but, uh, meeting some of the best people in my life that I can call friends, uh, great companies to work with and they opened me up to places that I never, uh, thought I would ever get to. And some really cool experiences that I've been able to join in and be a part of. Um, really it kind of goes back to the quality of the people that I meet.

[01:19:15] I can't say that there's anybody that I just don't like, uh, in this community. There's a few, but, uh, uh, they're not off-roader Subarus. Yeah. The lowered, lowered Subaru guys tend to not do the SubiWave back and it's a bad taste in your mouth. I actually had one, a guy driving an STI. I gave a SubiWave to and he gave it back. I was like, oh, that's cool. Of course. So he's a purist. He's a good guy. Yeah. It might've helped too that Pearl was like really muddy at the time too.

[01:19:45] So yeah. Yeah. I usually get people like I can wave at another Subi and either they don't understand what they're seeing as a Subi because it's all cut up. Yeah. And it doesn't, I'm not sure. They think I'm like a forerunner from a really far distance or something like that because it's so tall. Yeah. Uh, and has like almost three and a half inches of lift. So it's, it's pretty tall.

[01:20:11] Um, but I usually get like, uh, just the other day I had this lifted. I came in Porsche Cayman fly by me and then slow down and he got level with my, my window and he just did me the nod. Like he kind of looked at me and he was like, yeah, respect. Perfect. And then he took off again and his car sounded incredible. It was a Porsche. So yeah. You know, it's got the power.

[01:20:38] But the fact that he flew by me in a 50 mile an hour zone, flew by me and then slowed down to acknowledge the car and then back on his business. That was, that was a pretty cool experience. Yeah. That's a good moment. I usually get that or the odd guy at the gas station going, what the hell is that? Usually go, it's just a lifted mom car. Yeah. And then, then I fire it up and it sounds like a WRX and you can hear this, the turbo through the snorkel.

[01:21:09] Like, uh, when I read it. Oh, that's so cool. It's really cool for me because it makes me just giddy every single time that I let go out of the throttle because I have a little blow off valve and then I have that. So it's kind of like Darth Vader breathing out on my passenger side. And then I got the blow off valve on the rights on the driver's side. So that just makes me happy as hell. Yeah. Do you think you'll always own a Subaru? I can't imagine a time in my life where I won't.

[01:21:39] Um, obviously, you know, circumstances happen. Uh, maybe something unfortunate will happen and I will, but, uh, I will end up. I will end up owning another Subaru as soon as I could after that. I mean, the older, like I said, the older I'm getting, I kind of want something older, like an 86, like a, like an 86 XT Subaru XT. It was really cool. Yeah. I like the SVXs, but they're really hard to come by.

[01:22:06] I really want to mess around and make a brat project or a Baja project, depending on what's in the budget and what's in a good, uh, good location. I've been toying around with the idea of getting a Baja. I would also really like to do, like, I've been seeing some of the lifted VAs and VBs, the WRXs, and I kind of just want to do one of those, like a lifted VB. Yeah. I know Milton wants to do one really bad. Of course he does. Of course he does. Yep.

[01:22:35] Uh, Safari, is it Safari WRX? Oh, I don't know. I think he's a, he's a really cool dude. His name is Anthony. Uh, he's also got a wrap-lander kit on his car. Oh, nice. He's got a lifted, uh, a lifted VB with a, um, what's the brand? It's not Wilco, or maybe it is Wilco off-road, uh, the swing-out tire carrier for the hitch. Oh, yeah. I can't remember offhand either.

[01:23:02] Uh, he's got, so he's got five, he's got an off-road wheel on the back on a swing-out on a freaking WRX. That's so cool. And, uh, some, uh, LP Adventure skid protection and the cool wrap-lander look, and it's just totally, totally cool. That's awesome. I gotta look him up. Yeah, he's a great dude. He's also really fun to talk to. And he's got a really cool car, so maybe you should, uh, talk to him about the podcast.

[01:23:32] He's a, uh, a car photographer as well. He does, uh, some, some racing photography. Very nice. Is there anything else you want to share about, like, that I didn't ask or we didn't talk about? I mean, I think we've, like, covered a lot. We have covered a lot. I think I've kind of talked my way out of, uh, out of asking any more questions. No, no, that's good. No, we covered a lot. Got a lot of good information in there. It's been a... I have a lot more to come on the car.

[01:24:01] Uh, anybody who is following me, stay tuned. Stop unfollowing me. I'm tired of seeing that number go down. I'm trying to get to 2,000 by my birthday. I don't think that that's going to happen, but, uh, I'm trying still. I need 70 more. Hey, maybe it'll happen after this. There's a lot of fun stuff going on. Yeah, maybe it will. I don't know. A lot of people who follow you already follow me. Yeah. Uh, so yeah.

[01:24:28] So this last segment, we'll get to know a little bit more about you, but who is Josh? As in describe yourself. We know you're 6'4". We'll see. Yeah, I'm tall. I'm tall. I'm tattooed. I have a large beard. I'm bald-headed. Um, I kind of, uh, I look like a, like a bit of a Viking, but, uh, who hasn't been on a diet in a while. You know, a little chubby.

[01:24:59] I got a fun check engine light tattoo on the side of my head. Oh, that's cool. That was a fun little story. I went to, uh, my, my artist and he was, he was feeling a little sick. So I just like hung out and watched TV with him instead of getting a tattoo. And then he was like, you know what? I want to do something. Let's, let's do something. What do you want to get? And I was like, I don't know. Check engine light on the side of my head. And he goes, that sounds cool. I was like, yeah, let's do it.

[01:25:29] That's awesome. Yeah. That was a very weird feeling. I don't know if you have any tattoos, but, uh. I have a couple. Um, so you, you, you can imagine the feeling of a machine when you're getting a tattoo. Now, put that on the side of your skull. It kind of rattles through. Gosh. It's a, it's a very surreal feeling. Where, where is it at on your head? It's just above the, the left ear. Oh, okay. Gotcha. It's kind of behind. I can't see it in the mirror. I have to take pictures of it.

[01:25:59] But, uh, how was that? Well, so I was at work. Was it last night? Yeah. And my, my coworker finally saw it for the first time because I wasn't wearing my bump cap. And, uh, he's like, oh, you check engine lights on. I was like, ah, that one never gets old. Uh, that's funny. Uh, yeah. Anything else about you? Uh, well, I got a few things that I wrote down here.

[01:26:29] Like, uh, I got a memory that I'd like to share. Maybe a fair, favorite memory or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's a favorite memory from childhood? I also like to tell you what I do for a living. Yeah. Because I think my job is pretty cool. Yeah. Um, favorite memory from childhood, probably riding my BMX bike 25 miles from city to city at two in the morning. What? When I was like 15. Um, I decided I didn't want to sleep over at my friend's house.

[01:26:59] Um, and my mom dropped me off in a different city to go be at, at his house. And he fell asleep and I couldn't sleep. So I was like, Hey man, I gotta go. My mom's waiting for me outside and he was just dead asleep. I was like, okay, man, be safe. Text me when you get home. We didn't have texts at the time. Um, and I got on my bike and I rode from Seattle to Kent. So anybody who's local, you know, that's pretty far.

[01:27:25] Uh, maybe not as a drive, but on a BMX bike at 13 years old is pretty far. At two in the morning, you said? Yeah. And I remember I listened to Down With The Sickness by Disturbed on repeat the entire album. It's a good album. Or the Sickness album, whichever it is. Yeah. No, it was great. Yeah. But I just listened because I had an iPod Nano. Oh. And this is back then. So. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to be 34 coming up next month. So.

[01:27:56] Yeah. What do you, uh, what do you do for a living? I work for a company called Crown Mechanical Solutions. Uh, we're coast to coast traveling. We work on, uh, Amazon's machines when they break. We're an emergency repair service. And at any point in time, even during this podcast, I could have gotten a call to fly somewhere to go fix it. Wow. And, uh, I was just in, I was just in, uh, Illinois for a week. Yeah.

[01:28:23] And we did a couple of emergency repairs on like, uh, elevator style systems. Okay. For their totes and their sorting facilities. And then on Tuesday, I'm going to Milwaukee for a one day turnaround. I wake up at two o'clock in the morning. I get on a plane. Gosh. I go to Milwaukee. I start a job at 9 a.m. I hopefully finish that job before 5 p.m. Then I get back on a plane and head back to Washington.

[01:28:50] No hotel, no sleep, no place to brush my teeth or nothing. Just maybe a quick bite to eat before I get back on the airplane. I mean, it's, it's, it's a pretty fun job, I think. Yeah. That's, uh, that's intense for one day. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's, it's definitely something that, uh, requires a level of, of urgency. Yeah.

[01:29:15] Because they call you and, and you may think that Amazon's bad to their, their employees, but when there's an emergency, their pockets get real deep. I did a job for them, uh, replaced two bolts on a broken tensioner and the, the bill was just shy of $20,000. Jeez. That was on a conveyor belt. They were wondering why the belt kept falling, kept falling off and shredding itself. And I went way down on my back and went, it's missing bolts.

[01:29:44] Yeah. That sounds like a pretty intense job. Yeah, it is. And it can be, but we have, uh, about 60 employees. We're looking for more. Um, it's a startup company. It's been around for about five years. Okay. And, uh, we're, we're just now expanding. We got, uh, 75 warehouses across the United States that we're contracted to work on. Nice. We got four people over in Cincinnati, 16 people in Illinois.

[01:30:14] Uh, just two people here in Washington, including myself. Expanding, huh? Yeah, we're expanding and expanding fast. I think we actually just hired four more people. Oh. I was on a, on a Zoom, a different Zoom meeting before this Zoom meeting. Do you have a, like a dream job? No. No, not at all. Okay. If I had a dream job, it would be something that was sustainable, that, uh, paid well enough and let me keep my peace. Yeah.

[01:30:43] As much as I like my job now, I wouldn't mind, you know, sleeping next to my lady and enjoying some peace and quiet and not having to worry about bills. Yeah. But, uh, this job affords me some of that. I get weekends off and I'm usually home for them. That's good. And, uh, uh, I don't have to worry about paying bills. It pays pretty well. That's good. What is something that makes you want to get out of bed every day? Uh, feeling useful.

[01:31:13] Oh, that's a, that's a really big one for me. Um, trying to get out of bed. Uh, usually, uh, my great Danes smelly gas. That'll do it. And the time clock calling. Yeah. Those are, those are pretty much it. Uh, things that make me want to stay in bed are, are the, the sweet moments that I get to be lazy with, uh, with Amanda. Yeah.

[01:31:38] It's probably my favorite thing to do is just lay down in bed and scroll rocked on Instagram and show each other reels and laugh. Cause. Yeah. The, the urgent job kind of gets you up to, to make you go, you know, you get a call at two o'clock in the morning and you got to book a flight for 5am and be at the airport, you know, calling an Uber and trying to get everything sorted. It's like calling 911, but from a different state and expecting them to show up. Yeah.

[01:32:07] That's a, that's a pretty quick turnaround. Yeah, it can be. Yeah. Like I said, the Milwaukee one is going to be like a, about a 20 hour day on the clock. So. Yeah. Well, you, at least you're kind of, you know, it's coming. Yeah, I do. I, I, I got word of that yesterday before going to bed and getting up at three o'clock central time to be on my airplane by six o'clock this morning. I don't care. Yeah. Yeah. You've had a long day today. Yeah.

[01:32:37] I've been up for a long time. I'm tired. What is something that really scares you? Oh man. Uh, being forgotten. I mean, like, I don't want to save the world or anything, but I would hate to fade away into the past. Like some of the friends I've had over the years. Yeah. There's been some friends that have just like gone away completely. You know, some of them went to jail. Some of them just, you know, moved on in life and, you know, I lost their number

[01:33:31] or something. Which is, I'm, I'd like to say on the, uh, the upper edge of the healed version of me. I'd like, I like the old people I knew to meet the new me. Yeah. No, that's good. That's something that really kind of drives me into keeping connections because you find out who your real friends are when, when you're a different person than you were when, you know, I used to be a really, really sad person. So.

[01:34:01] It's good to, uh, get into a happy place. Definitely. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That actually kind of dials into our last question. Um, a bit of advice that I'd like to give somebody about anything. That was a really well written question, even though it's simple. Um, and I'll tell the world sometimes it's okay to be mean to protect your peace. Not everybody deserves your time.

[01:34:25] Um, and friends don't, and if your friends don't have time to talk, you should probably reevaluate the scale in which you hold them because nothing is more important than your mental health. Yeah, no, I agree. I've had to do that with a few friends that I was sad when you have to do that. Yeah. That I was friends with for a really long time. And it's just like, it's like when people don't value the, the level of your friendship

[01:34:55] and it starts to feel one sided. And I can, I can leave you on a really weird experience. Um, um, I was kind of going through it. I was, uh, thinking about doing the unthinkable one time in my life and I reached out to my friend, uh, somebody who I thought was my friend. And he told me that that was, uh, God's plan for me. Told me that, uh, I should end my life because of that. Wow.

[01:35:24] I was like, that's, that's crazy. It did turn me around. It, his answer frustrated me enough. Yeah. Like screw you buddy. That's not, that's not what's going to happen. Yeah. Uh, man. And first of all, God would never make a plan for you to do that. Um, but it was like, yeah, it was nuts. And it turned, turned me around. I didn't talk to him for like eight years after that.

[01:35:51] And one day he responded to a comment or something that I had on Facebook or something. He goes, man, I haven't talked to you in forever. And I was like, yeah, cause you're an ass. Yeah. There's a reason for that, buddy. And he was like, what do you mean? I was like, you told me this. And he goes, that's not how I meant it at all. That's how it came out. That's absolutely how it came out. But that was, that was, uh, one of the people who met the healed version of me. Yeah.

[01:36:21] And, and ended up, uh, remaining a really good friend. That's good. Now he has a wife and three beautiful kids. I'm the godfather of it. So that's pretty cool. Yeah. It did turn out nice after all. Yeah. I have a friend that kind of just disappeared for a while and he, uh, me and another friend, she and I were like really good friends with him and we would message him and he just kind of just faded away and disappeared.

[01:36:49] And I didn't, I went to my son's high school graduation party and this girl that I'd known for a really long time, she was there and this guy came up in conversation and she was like, you know, have you talked to him? And I'm like, no, I haven't heard from him in like 10 years or something. I was like, do you? And she's like, yeah, we text like almost, you know, on a consistent basis. And I'm like, what? And so she gave me his number.

[01:37:17] I messaged him and that was, uh, I think a little, it was almost two years ago and we reconnected and, you know, I've never said anything about him disappearing. Like, oh, where did you go? Uh, what happened? You know? Cause it's just like, there's no need to go into that. And, uh, yeah. And so now like we've become really good friends again and we hang out as often as we can. Yeah. It's been really nice.

[01:37:45] And, uh, we've both, we both had gotten laid off. And so we had time to like go have long lunches, which was nice. But, you know, he, we both kind of agreed that like we came back into each other's lives at a pivotal time and at a time where it's like, he and I realized that we both understand each other really well and we have a lot of similarities and we've gone through a lot of similar things.

[01:38:13] And like, you know, Hey, it's just really good to have you in my life right now. So that worked out really nicely. That's great. I have a friend, uh, similar to that. Uh, we, we stopped talking, uh, after he got married. His, his wife doesn't like me. That can happen too. That's fine. That's fine. His wife doesn't have to like me. Um, and we ended up not talking for like two years.

[01:38:41] And then, uh, you know, one day he just texted me and we started talking again. I was like, I'm sorry if I said anything that caused this. I don't know. And he goes, no, I don't, I don't know what happened. We just stopped talking. I was like, well, we did kind of have a little bit of an argument. He goes, it's water under the bridge, man. We're best friends. We have been since 2012. Yeah. I'm like, you know what? You're right. Yeah. Bygones be bygones. Yeah. Friends are important.

[01:39:07] On top of that, he was looking for a used car and I found him a Crosstrek and he loves it. There you go. It worked out. That's the only bad advice I give anybody, buy a Subaru. It's good advice, but it's bad advice too. And every Subaru driver knows it. Yeah. But it comes with this awesome community. It does. I don't think he utilizes the community like he should though. He still asks me a lot of really, really random questions.

[01:39:36] I wish he would be able to Google. Yeah. Well, that's okay. He's still a good guy. Yeah. Well, cool, man. It was great having you on here and talking to you about your Subaru journey and about life stuff. And I'm glad we made it happen. But I think it's time for you. After so long, I'm so happy that we were able to communicate and make this actually work out. Yeah, me too. Stay tuned. The craziness isn't over.

[01:40:04] Yeah, we'll keep an eye on what's going on. But I don't care how high gas prices go. Oh, yeah. That's not going to stop people. You're going to drive this car. Yeah, that's not going to stop people. It didn't stop before. No. We'll just pick up a side hustle. Yep. Side hustle for our gas to get to work and bet. Yeah, exactly. Well, you go get some rest, man. I'm sure you'll save your time. Personally, it's just now 4 o'clock and I got to go eat dinner. Actually, I have to go to the store and get dinner.

[01:40:33] So I'm not ready to go to bed yet. But when it is time, I'll be sleeping soundly. Yeah, I'm sure you'll crash pretty hard. Yeah. I tried to stay up. I'm 34 and I tried to stay up all night last night. Yeah. No. No. Can't do it. I ended up falling asleep like 1130. Yeah. 1130 your time to get up at 3. Yeah, I haven't been that in a long time. I basically took a nap. It's tough. Don't try it. Don't try it.

[01:41:03] It's a bad idea. You're going to end up being too tired. I could have gone to bed at 9, but I was like, you know what? I'm going to handle this. Yeah. I'll sleep on the plane. No. Anyways, I'll talk to you soon, buddy. All right, man. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, you're welcome. Really appreciate your time today. Absolutely. Yeah. You have a good weekend. You too, bud. All right. Talk to you later. Bye. Bye. All right.

[01:41:28] First off, thank you so much, Josh, for taking the time to record with me and share your Subaru journey and especially talk about mental health. I know that's really important. So as he said, if you know somebody, just reach out to a friend because it could really, really help them and just be there for them. But be sure to go give him a follow. It's CamelliaFoz, C-A-M-E-L-L-I-A-F-O-Z underscore 988.

[01:41:55] So thanks again for tuning in to another episode. Hope you enjoyed this one. And we will see you next Monday for a Subie Scoop, which I will be doing from Overland Expo. So that'll be exciting for me to do it a little bit differently and do it from there. So I hope you all have a wonderful week. Hope to see you at Overland Expo and hang out and have a good chat. Much Subie love. Raph.

[01:42:22] The Subie and You podcast is hosted by Raphael in a closet in Houston, produced by Raphael in a room next to the closet in Houston, and edited by Raphael on a computer in the room next to the closet in Houston, with music by Luke Ruiz in another room in Houston. You can find the Subie and You podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, including Apple Podcast, Spotify, and many more. To support the podcast, please head over to patreon.com slash subieandyoupodcast.

[01:42:51] Once you join, you will have access to the Discord channel and Discord chats with other patrons. If you'd like to get in contact with the show, you can find them on Instagram at subieandyoupodcast, online at subieandyoupodcast.com, or by email, subieandyoupodcast at gmail.com. That's all for this week.