TAGQ (That's A Good Question)

Ben Johnston talks to his father Scott about improv comedy, forestry and landscaping, as well as computing, cooking, and music, and whatever else these characters are interested in.

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TAGQ (That's A Good Question)

Boring Trees

November 04, 2025 • Ben Johnston & Scott Johnston • Episode 42

Ben interviews his brother Adam, also a grad student studying trees. Adam goes into how he's using cellular structure in oaks to reveal climate history. Along the way they talk grad school realities and other student job related stories.

• why oaks can extend climate reconstructions farther back in time
• sanding protocols, imaging, and AI for cell-level features
• grad school workloads, TA work, and lab culture
• work outside of grad school
• sponsor shoutout to Tiger Shark Industrial Abrasives

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Scott: 0:09

Hi. Welcome to Episode forty two of the podcast. That's a good question. This is Scott, Ben's father, and today we're carrying on with a new format of having one of us interview another guest of interest. And this time it's my son and Ben's younger brother Adam. And I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but one of the things they start off discussing is Adam's work in grad school and his master's thesis of working on climate reconstruction from cell structure of California oaks, which he's doing via tree coring of oaks in California and then analyzing their cell structure using imaging and AI. And so I'm looking forward to this discussion as much as you. So let's get started.

Ben: 1:36

He's here. Recording. Recording in progress. Wow. Well, everybody, I'm here with myself, myself and Adam Johnston. It's been a while since you've you've heard from either one of us, actually, I think. Dad's been doing uh some solo solo episodes. I don't know if you've heard but solo episodes. Well, I guess no, I well no, I they're not solo. No co-hosts, technically solo in the sense that this one is a solo episode, also.

Adam: 2:19

Okay.

Ben: 2:23

Had one with uh friend Steve Goodwin, one with grandma.

Adam: 2:27

Yeah, those are very interesting people.

Ben: 2:33

Yeah, two very interesting people in their own regards. Yeah. Yeah, you got a plethora of guests. I don't even know the last time I was I did a podcast the summer for me. It was just so just so fucked up. And school now I'm back in school too, so yeah. Here we are. What are your two drinks? Uh protein shake, muscle milk. Yeah.

Adam: 3:14

Number one, muscle milk. Which reminds me I need to go to Costco because that was my last one. And then I have coffee because we finally got like a little pour over coffee set up in my lab at school. Oh, dang. So like I almost as long as I if I bring food here, I almost don't need to leave the building to do. Actually, I don't need to leave the building. I got a microwave on the floor below me and a refrigerator down there. I got a thermos, coffee mugs, and coffee up here in the lab. So it's nice. So I'm ready for my pour over, huh?

Ben: 3:56

Yeah. That's state of the art for uh for an office building. I wish there are labs on my campus, and I have like friends and stuff that do that in their offices, but I have nothing of the sort.

Adam: 4:12

I'm not a real student, so we just got it established because uh my advisor, there's an undergrad that works in the office, he's doing mountain meteorology. And because I just finished my proposal, he's like, All right, so now like everybody's gonna be like working in the lab like a lot. It's like, what can we do to make it so you guys will like be like able to spend a lot of time in the lab? And the first thing we said is like we need coffee in here. Because there's another coffee machine before? No, not in here. I mean, it's a pretty small, it's a pretty small lab. Yeah, are those uh board games behind you? No, so these are all box like tops to boxes where we keep the old cores. Oh, okay, the old tree cores. These are all like really old catalog cores.

Ben: 5:11

Like these are this is from you could just leave them in the open air like that, huh? They just get kind of must see and you just you just wipe that off. Doesn't really matter.

Adam: 5:20

Yeah, just are old. Yeah, these weren't even when we were doing cell imaging or stuff, so they're not even sanded super finely. But my core is it's like, yeah, I try to image them as fast as possible so that way nothing gets on them or anything. Yeah. And they're such high resolution that any little dust spec would just Yeah, thankfully, I mean you probably saw in my presentation, but the features I'm measuring are so large that's not actually that big of a concern. It's like scratches aren't a huge deal, which were a huge deal for like the past grad students. It's like you couldn't have a single scratch on the core. But with mine, it's not that big of a deal, but I've gotten really good at sanding, so I don't have scratches. I s yeah, okay. It's not a big deal. If you have scratches, but you don't have scratches, so I don't have scratches. I have I have definitely like I have perfected the sanding procedure for not just oaks, but for this work. So yeah, yeah. I'm like halfway writing an actual like SOP for it, so like people that follow me will actually be able to try and like do what I do for their research. Yeah, I'm creating an entirely yeah, new methodology. Yeah. Novel science. The board in grad school is to produce novel science. That seems okay.

Ben: 7:02

I mean, if you're doing a read if you have to do a thesis, yeah. When I'm thinking of somebody doing a thesis, it's like you gotta do something somebody hasn't done before, but I guess that's actually not the case. Yeah, but isn't the point of science to just keep replicating things, also? Well, yeah, it's like we've always taken a master's degree and say, like, that person, I don't know if I totally trust their methods.

Adam: 7:28

I'm gonna try it again, make a couple tweets and see what that's like, but the grad student that went before me, she's basically like seeing if her advice what her advisor did 20 years ago to San Pedro Creek is actually doing something.

Ben: 7:46

Yeah, right. I guess that's but that's more of like a monitoring effort for was that the other person that I was also presenting? I mean, that was just like monitoring for a restoration project, you know?

Adam: 7:58

Yeah, so the restoration project happened like 10, almost 20 years ago. Right. And now she's like gonna see like it actually did something. So that's actually I'm going to that site today. It's that same paper in Pacifica. And part of the restoration project is they planted alder trees along the the bankfall, like where it like actually gets to the flood level. Right. Just like for shade and stuff and to help read and strengthen the shoreline along the creek and everything. But they want they're curious to core the alder trees to see like if they can get any signals from the alder trees. But signals about the health of the creek. Yeah, okay. Because the idea is hopefully like the creek levels are actually raising and becoming more consistent. Cause I'm trying to steelhead, I think, use that river for migration or whatever that traveling. Yeah, for traveling. So that's a big deal why San Pedro Creek is so important, especially in Pacifica. So they're trying to make sure it's in good enough condition for like the steel head year-round. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Ben: 9:28

Look back up a little and say, what's a tree core? For the uh two or three listeners that might not know.

Adam: 9:35

So a tree core is a small piece of wood that you will extract from a tree. So the idea behind it is there's a method of science for climate and chronologies and just dating things called dendrochronology. So dendro tree, chronology, study of time. And what you do is because a tree grows a ring every year, it does like a really good job at giving us a natural time stamp. So what we do is we try to get a collection of every single ring by collecting this long skinny piece of wood. So this is from the bark all the way to the center of the tree. This one we might have gone past center, or just about center, but this is a pretty long one. So the idea is we get this is a California black oak. Okay. That's a pick bark. Yeah, and is it to be sapwood? No, that is bark, and more specifically because it's an oak tree, and they you they have cork. So it's beneath the bark, there's a very thick layer of cork, and then you get to the cambium.

Ben: 11:05

Oh, oh, so really, so there's bark, then cork, then cambium.

Adam: 11:11

Yeah, and I'm pretty sure that cork is considered part of the bark, like it's the spongy layer to the bark. But yeah, and that causes its own issues, if I'm being honest, because it can be really because we want to keep the bark, yeah, and we want to keep the bark because that will guarantee us in the image, like, okay, that was the first year. If we know it's attached to the bark, it's like that was the most recent year. Yeah, that can be really hard to keep hold on to. Yeah, usually just right off when you take the core out. Yeah, yeah. But we collect it using this instrument called an increment bore. This is a pretty small one, actually. Yeah, but all it is is kind of metal blue tube. It's a hollow drill, essentially, that you do by hand. So it has this very sharp drill bit at the end, and I'm pretty sure it's made of titanium or some metal even stronger than that. Yeah. And it's hollow down the center. So the idea is we drill into the tree by hand, and this ends up being the handle. So you like have it like that and you twist it. And the idea is hopefully you can get to the center of the tree with no problems, but that's a lot easier said than done because rot and other things are a big issue.

Ben: 12:37

Seems idea to get through rot than it is to get it out.

Adam: 12:43

Well, rot, it's easy to get through, yeah, but then the rot breaks up, and then the teeth are no longer biting on anything, so you have a really hard time getting it out. Right. And also if there's gonna happen to you. But it happens more often than you'd think. Yeah. Because most of the trees that we're collecting, we're trying to get super old trees. Most of them are approaching the end of their life and they are starting to be impacted by the rot.

Ben: 13:20

Yeah, I was, you know, this is a big reason why I went to grad school was to see to learn about trees and to know how a group of trees is doing and what we can expect from them in the future. And when I was pouring those trees a few weeks ago, I would say one in five. It got to the point where certain trees we were doing, like probably an average of one in ten, we got the core stuck in. And they're in the tree or in the bore. The bore was stuck in the tree. Ah, yeah. Okay. And so it it was very, very slow going, even though we had a mechanized tree bore, so like I could drill in and then use the use the special spoon to take the core out. And then when we would try to unscrew it, though, it would yeah, seize up and wouldn't come out. And then we'd have to have this whole process of like someone pulling on it super hard while the other person unscrewed. Yeah. And we'd take it out, and the end of the end of the bit had like little powdery wood come out of it, which you know means that the middle of the tree was like just rotten, and it's getting that hard, hardwood rot. And so this is like a small landowner that I'm working with on their orchard, too. So I wonder like the it's a chestnut orchard, and I wonder what it means. Like, does this mean like 10 years from now, like they're not even gonna have an orchard unless they like yeah? So it's I don't know. I have to add talk to an expert about it. Like, because I imagine it more or less means that the trees are doomed. It's just like what's the time frame on it? I don't really know.

Adam: 15:14

Yeah, and I mean that's like what I think is the number one cause of death in trees is end up heartwood rot. Yeah. And like if we look at the maple cookie from the lake house in Wisconsin, this is pretty far up the main stem, but this is rot. And if you went down the main stem, almost the entire center of the almost all the heartwood was just rotted out. Wow. Completely, which is why that tree ended up falling. Like right, yeah. It was it just needed it was gonna fall at some point. Just a matter of when.

Ben: 15:51

Yeah, big enough gust of wind or enough time to just keep rotting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam: 16:05

I have two questions about you getting bores stuck in trees. Okay. Well, one question and one more question. Hypothesis. Okay. How long did you leave? Do you leave the boars in the tree?

Ben: 16:22

Uh anywhere between like 15 seconds to five minutes, depending on how hard it is to get the core out.

Adam: 16:37

Yeah, okay. So I asked that because oak trees are known for taking the lives of many increment bores. Oh, really? Because oak trees have a response where the cells will start to like seize and expand, and it will cause the bore to just get stuck. And it's like there's no chance of getting it out. Holy smoke. So when we do oak trees, it's like we work with like no more than two minutes in the tree. If it if you can't get the core out, it's just like just take the boar out because we don't have to spend another thousand dollars for another boar. So fascinating.

Ben: 17:16

Yeah. How do people figure out that that's what's happening? That the tree is like actually like expanding around the bore.

Adam: 17:25

It's a mix of people experiencing it, dendrocrinologists that aren't biologists, because not many biologists actually go out and court oak trees. Right. And then the biologists going like, that's what's happening, dude. Like, this is what oak trees do. Like, if you cut off its limb, it's gonna go into defense mechanism and like make a scab. Right. And it takes that extremely quickly. Yeah, it does that so fast because it's able to transport. Right. The big reason why I think it's able to do that is see if I have a picture I can pull up. But oak trees, do you know what ray cells are? Uh not really.

Ben: 18:12

I would be able to give you a definition.

Adam: 18:14

So they transport carbohydrates internally and externally throughout the tree. So like from the ray cells. Yeah, and the ray cells are ginormous in oak trees. Oh. And I think it has something to do with that. It's able to transport what it needs to try to heal itself a lot faster than other trees. It just floods the area.

Ben: 18:39

I mean, it's kind of like when we like clot our blood and when you get a cut, it just happens extremely fast. The body sends all sorts of things to the site, and like it puffs up too, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And it's just like such a quick like snap of your finger sort of immune response.

Adam: 18:58

Yeah.

Ben: 18:59

And the trees, the tree is pretty much doing the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You said, did you have another question?

Adam: 19:11

It's not really a question, but the reason why we use we don't use machine-driven ones is so that we can feel the rot immediately when it happened. So like when we're drilling into the tree, is like it's usually a very constant like pressure that you're going in, or it might constantly increase in difficulty as you get deeper and deeper. Right. But as soon as you hit rot, it gets like exponentially easier. And like if you've cored enough trees, especially by hand, you can get to like that much of a turn and be like, yep, I just hit rot. Okay, yeah. So that prevents us from going into the rot, which makes it a lot easier to take it out. Yeah, we lose years, right? We can't then we can't get to the pith, but like trade-off a lot, yeah, it's a lot better than losing your bore or having to spend 10 minutes trying to get the bore out of the tree. Right. Yeah. But yeah, I've definitely gone like full, like two legs up, leaning against the tree with all my weight to like get the bore out before.

Ben: 20:20

Right. I mean, the way we did it was someone was standing with the tree and I I was just like pulling on it while the other person unscrewed, and that worked out pretty well. If you can figure out the like body mechanics, the ergonomics of it, that would seem like it was the way to go. Yeah. It sounds like oaks are can be even more challenging though.

Adam: 20:42

So yeah, that was it's kind of a reason why it's a little ambitious for me to do oaks. There's some issues with them. But at the same time, oaks have been. I didn't mention it in my proposal because like I only have so much time to give my presentation. But there are three chronologies, like climate reconstructions we have that go back to 10,000 years. And two out of three of them are from oak trees. So oak trees are pretty well known to like go back, like you can use them to go back really far. Yeah, right. Right.

Ben: 21:23

Yeah. Yeah. And it becomes especially especially useful if you start looking at not just the rings, but the different like structures within the rings. Yeah. When stuff gets real crazy.

Adam: 21:38

Yeah, but not many I mean, at least for oaks, nobody's done that yet, but yeah. So that's the lions. Yeah. It's like a Futurama episode or something. Yeah. The way you say that.

Ben: 21:56

Uh how much time do you spend in the lab now?

Adam: 22:03

Let's see. The lab from 9 a.m. to about 2 o'clock, I'm in the lab. And from same thing on Thursday. And then Friday, I'm usually here like all day from 9 a.m. to 5. So I spent a good amount of time in here. Yeah, especially now, because now I'm on a big sanding and sample processing push. So I've like spent I spent like six hours sanding yesterday. Yeah. I went home and my hands, even when I got home, felt like they were still like vibrating. Are you getting from sanding? Are you getting paid for your time in the lab? I mean, no, not directly, but I got like a stipend. At the end of at the end of last semester, I got a $10,000 scholarship. Okay. So that came in this week. I mean, this semester. Yeah, I don't get paid for my research. It's just part of being in grad school. It's like a full-time job. You just versus like the environmental science majors or like the geography majors, it's like they all have like jobs outside of school, but the earth scientists and the other and a lot of the other MS students are like, no, you don't have time to do that. Like you need to put your thesis, is what you put on your resume once you get out of grad school. It's like this is you should have a public cost you pay. Yeah.

Ben: 23:41

The way it is.

Adam: 23:42

Yeah. Yeah. But I get paid, I teach two lab sections and then I grade for two classes. So I get paid to do that. Oh, it's like $1,500 a month. Like 17 hours a week or something like that.

Ben: 24:01

Yeah, okay. Yeah. So it's some. Are you still it's some? Are you still parking? Still.

Adam: 24:12

I'm not. Really? My company lost the lease on my 1910 on the Union Street garage. Oh, wow. And I mean, they own a bunch of other locations. Like they could still work at the Olympic Club or something. That was the one, yeah. That was my bread and butter. I can do homework while I was there. I knew all the customers. The customers knew me. I'd get free food while I worked there. Versus if I worked at the Olympic Club, it's like, even if it's not busy, I'm not allowed to do my homework when I'm there. Really? Yeah. Wow. The Olympic Club management will just be like, get off your computer. Yeah. They like want me to just stand there and be ready all the time.

Ben: 24:54

It's about optics just as much. It is about doing a good thing, doing a good job. Yeah.

Adam: 24:59

Yeah. Damn. Exactly. Also, the customers are assholes. Not all of them, but like 80% of them. It's not like that. It's not like the 1910. Yeah, where every it was like one in a hundred customers were assholes. And then because I worked there by myself and it wasn't the Olympic clubs, if somebody was an asshole to me, it's like I could just be an asshole back to them. Yeah. And like there was no shame in it. My boss didn't care. He's like, I would get a complaint like once every four months, and it would be purely just because somebody's got something so far up, yeah, so far up their ass, and they don't like all be like the garage is full, or they want to park the car themselves. And it's like, no, you can't do that.

Ben: 25:46

Yeah. Doing customer service, that was always such an interesting thing. When cust whenever there would be a customer that like threatened to talk to my manager or something, which I think might have happened like once, but it was such an absurd situation.

Adam: 26:01

Yeah, it was never like there was never a legitimate complaint against me.

Ben: 26:06

Right, exactly. It was because like yeah, I don't even know. But yeah, and like it was always the managers being like, God, that person was fucking a nightmare. Yeah, exactly. And it's like so for all you people out there that think you're like threatening someone in customer service, I'm gonna talk to your manager. It's like I'm gonna be fired. You're just gonna get made fun of behind the scenes.

Adam: 26:36

Yeah, like I didn't spit in your food. Right. I didn't take your car out for a joyride or something. Like somebody literally accused me of taking their car out for a joyride. And it like wasn't a terrible car, it was like a BMW, like a newer BMW. But it's like I think my car is cooler than that car. And I've parked way cooler cars than that. And I'm like, in my head, I didn't tell them this. I wish I did, but I was like, dude, if I'm gonna take a car off for a joyride, it ain't gonna be your car.

Ben: 27:09

There are 10 other cars in here. I would much rather drive around.

Adam: 27:12

Yeah, exactly. And it's like at the end of the day, it's like I'm all by myself when I worked there. If I took a joy car off for a joyride, that's nobody's at the fucking garage, like whatsoever. He fired in an instant. Yeah, so he like he like apparently said he took a picture of his speedometer before I parked the car, and he says 60 miles were put on the spedom um on the speedometer. Oh my god. In three hours. He thinks I put 60 miles on the car in three hours. He just immediately just like I would have had to just call ass to like San Jose and back or something. Which would have taken I mean, yeah, that would have taken like two or three hours, but like Jesus Christ, dude. I'm like it's pretty wild.

Ben: 28:00

Yeah, yeah. I don't think I got that job at Chipotle.

Adam: 28:07

I think they honestly it seems like was it like on campus? Very close, yeah. I feel like those are really competitive. Because I remember I when I first started going to SF State, I applied for the Chipotle right next to campus. And like I had two years of experience working at Chipotle. Probably good references. They didn't even they didn't even call me back or anything.

Ben: 28:34

They just like I don't, yeah. God, how do people do it then?

Adam: 28:39

I don't know. And the funny thing is that Chipotle next to my campus like sucks. The employees are not good. Yeah. I mean at the end of the day, I genuinely think which I get is they do they do really always pick people that like are bilingual.

Ben: 29:03

Yeah, they didn't even ask me, I guess I would have specified that, but they didn't even ask me that. Yeah.

Adam: 29:10

Yeah, that's the other thing. I don't know how they would do it unless they just like borderline racist and just look at your name and they're like, oh, your last name's Vasquez. He probably speaks to it. Yeah, right.

Ben: 29:20

Like, okay, we're gonna I'm gonna try to get as many Mexicans in here as possible.

Adam: 29:23

Johnston, no way this guy speaks Spanish. But it's funny, even when I was in high school, I spoke enough Spanish to work at Chipotle. There was multiple people a day that walked in that spoke no English, and I was perfectly fine like taking their order or checking them out.

Ben: 29:39

Yeah.

Adam: 29:39

Like I knew how to say arroz blanco or cafe, like pinto or negroes, like it was not hard.

Ben: 29:48

No, I know exactly. Like I know you can do that, queso, salsa, yeah.

Adam: 30:00

Yeah, so I mean also Chipotle in any job like that, it's so dependent on who's managing the place. Right. I was very lucky the one in San Carlos is ran by a very good people. Unfortunately, the guy who managed me when I worked there, he actually just passed away like six months ago. Oh shit. And I like missed the call because like I don't pick up random phone numbers. Yeah. And they didn't leave me, they didn't leave me a voicemail.

Ben: 30:31

I don't know. You kind of gotta get with the times, bro. If you want to get in touch with me and you're trying to call, leave me a message because we're all getting nine spam calls a day.

Adam: 30:42

Yeah, it's just like then I went to the Chipotle one time when I was at mom and dad's, and like the kitchen manager that was at least he was the kitchen manager when I worked there, he's like, dude, like why didn't you like get back to me? I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, dude, I called you. Juan died. I'm like, what? He was like, Yeah, I was trying to have you come to like the funeral. And I was like, Did you leave me a message? He's like, No, dude, you don't have my number saved. I'm like, no, I don't have your I don't think I ever had your number. I was like, like, I might have had like his Snapchat or something. Like, I smoked weed with him once or twice, but like I know I don't You don't have my number. I had your number though. I'm like, damn. I'm like, how did you even have my number? He probably just looked at like employee records or something.

Ben: 31:29

Well, Chipotle ever wants to get in touch with me, they'll contact me through their AI assistant named Ava Cotto. Wait, oh like that's horrible. That's how you apply. It's like you scan their QR code and then they say, okay, and then they send you a message and it's from Ava Cotto. She asked you the question, and you literally apply over text message.

Adam: 31:54

That's ridiculous. Yeah, no, I actually filled an online application and they called me like a week later. I remember they called me while I was at lunch at Sequoia.

Ben: 32:04

I showed up for my interview, like they didn't even they were like, oh, right, okay, go pick a seat. And I had to wait for 10 minutes before they like were ready to come interview me.

Adam: 32:13

Oh, you actually got an interview?

Ben: 32:15

Yeah. Yeah, they did. Yeah. Wow, that's crazy. Like, if you get an interview, I would expect that you would have just been hired. I yeah, it's interesting. I also applied to Chipotle when I was an undergrad too. And I told them I was available like pretty much every evening and all weekends. And they said, we'll get back. So I mean they might still get back to me. They like it's only been a week. And they said like they'd get back to me this week, but I'm just I'm at the point though where for how busy I am, as much as I need money, I like don't know if it's I don't know how it would fit into my schedule. Yeah. School takes up so much of my time. I don't have I have no idea.

Adam: 33:00

Yeah, I mean is there a professor you could TA for? Or have you? I mean I imagine it's probably competitive at University of Washington.

Ben: 33:11

Yeah, it's very competitive. And I applied to two TA positions yesterday to this next quarter. But I don't know the professors personally, and the professors I do know personally are they have full labs. I'm not a master's of science student, so I don't work in anybody's lab. So, and that's that's how all my friends have their TA jobs is well one got it because they applied, but for some reason she got it instead of me. I don't know. I think I just don't know how to apply for a fucking job. I think that's really it. I mean, but 90 95% of it comes down to connections, you know. But I also just don't know like about my application or whatever, or I don't think I I have a lot of soft skills, but I do not have a lot of technical skills.

Adam: 34:02

And that's I mean, you don't need to have technical skills to be a TA. Yeah, well, there's still not seen to be able to communicate and like be on time.

Ben: 34:15

Yeah, that's about it. Yeah, maybe not overdo it in my applications. I don't know. I mean, I'm just too intense. People are like, this guy sounds like he's burnt out. I'm like, well, you're not wrong.

Adam: 34:26

So yeah, I never thought about it with me being an MS student having an influence. Because like that's how it is for me. Is like they're like, of course, my advisor is instantly like, can you TA next semester? And I'm like, yep. He's like, okay, I'm gonna request for you. Yeah, right. Like, I'm gonna have you be my still have to go through the application process.

Ben: 34:51

Yeah, I still have to apply and stuff. But like But he's got the final say. He's like, well, it's yeah, yeah.

Adam: 34:59

But at SF State, they like need especially GTAs, so like the actual like teaching a lab, they always need more TAs. So like the semester started, it's like, okay, I'm teeing, I'm grading for my advisor for his global warming class. I'm grading for the instructor that I teach the weather and climate labs for. So that's already nine hours of work. And then I'm also teaching the two sections. So that's I can only work 20 hours a week on campus. There's like a cap. Yeah. And then at the weekend of the semester, I get emails from like three different professors that are like, Adam, I need a TA. Could you please TA? Like, you're the only earth science student that I trust to like teach this class or like great. It's like it's easy work, like three hours a week. You're like, well, it's actually six hours a week, and I'm like, I cannot, like, I'm over the cap. And also, like teaching two lab sections and grading for two classes, it's like that's not a good thing.

Ben: 36:03

Yeah, that's not enough.

Adam: 36:03

You know, and they only pay me like 1850 an hour, right? Versus like I'm realizing how much extra money the parking brought me in because it would pay me 25 bucks an hour, and I got cash tips too. So I think I would get like 300 bucks a week. Yeah. Like almost after taxes. Right. Only working a few days a week, huh? Only one day a week. Woo! Just Saturday. Granted, it's a 10-hour shift, right? But like Saturdays, it's like you have my brunch rush dead until like five o'clock, busy for dinner, close at eight, and I'm just doing my homework between the rushes. Yeah. And I get free lunch and dinner.

Ben: 36:52

Like Adam has. I just need to become a parking attendant or work at a front desk, and then I'll be set. And you know, I just had this like standard with like in terms of like being able to find a job. And it just don't it doesn't come that easily. You kind of just get have to get lucky, you know.

Adam: 37:08

No, I got lucky, and I mean the reason why I got that parking job is because I was doing valet special events before COVID. And like I worked up the ladder, they finally trusted me that, like, okay, Adam actually knows how to drive stick shift. So like they would reach out to me to be like, because believe it or not, not many valets know how to drive stick shift. It's like one out of ten knows how to drive stick shift. So it's a very valid, yeah, it's a very valid question. I wouldn't pull up to a valet and be like how to drive stick qualification. No, it's not. But so they would call me before COVID. They'd be like, Adam, we don't have anybody at the event that can drive stick besides the manager, but the manager needs to like stay up front and deal with the people. Yeah, they're like, could you please like we'll pay you overtime? Can you just be the one stick shift person at this event? So that was like the start of me being like, okay, they know like I'm a good employee and I can take care of the cars. Right. And that also gave me the opportunity to charge him really cool cars because it's like nobody else. Yeah, and meet Harrison, he didn't even drive, but like, yeah, I met Harrison Ford, and he did his famous hey kid line to me. Yeah, thank you so yeah, and it was yeah, and then COVID happened. So when COVID hit, I was working at Bix restaurant, which is like a Bix as B and Bix or D as and Dix? Bix, B-I-X. And I think it's actually considered a historic building restaurant in San Francisco, but it's like a pretty like nice fancy restaurant in San Francisco, and then COVID hit, so like nobody was balleting. And once I came back to the city, they I just asked them, like, oh, is there like any garages that I could work at? And they like gave me Union Street. Oh, wow. Yeah, so it was a lot of like right place, right time, yeah. And like having having actually the right skill set of being able to drive stick shift, and those personal connections you've been building over time. Yeah, so like all the managers that by the time COVID was starting to fade out, it was like the managers that worked with me at the special events were now parking garage managers, so they all knew me. Yeah, Adam, I can work Union Street. Like he he can drive stick, he can drive any stick-shift car you throw at him. Yeah, right. And you need to know how to drive stick-ship and union because you're all by yourself.

Ben: 39:54

It's like and you're good with customers. Yeah. And you and you you're you're you're kind of like built like a bouncer too. So that's it.

Adam: 40:07

Yeah, that too. Except I definitely I definitely get would get ageism at that job. Yeah. Where it's um, but that's like also just another thing when it's like, okay, I'll just turn on my asshole switch and like be a dick to you. It's like I remember this one lady vividly, like, she came in, she had to go to the bank. We we that validated for the bank, but she was adamant, like, I don't want you to drive my car. I've been driving for 40 years, and I've like never gotten in an accident. And she's driving like a Honda Fit. It's like not even in this car. I'm telling you, you're a bad driver. I'm just valid. I'm like, but I'm just like, I do this for a living. I do this for a living, and I'm liable for every single car in this parking garage. Like, I want, I'm gonna park your car. And we just got in this like back and forth match. And I was like, okay, fine, park your car. You're I'm gonna move three cars for you so you can park your car because you're so privileged. I literally said that to her. I was like, so you can park your car right there, and I'm gonna let you know I'm gonna have to park it in, even though you're gonna be back in 10 minutes. I have to park it in because I'm just gonna be blocking the exit. Yeah, and then she like didn't, then like she sat there and kept going into the wrong gear of her own car. Like she kept like trying to go in reverse, she went into neutral and was like revving her car, and like then she like and then she like parked it super crooked. And I was like, and then I told her like when she left, then when she went to the band, I was like, So you really haven't had an accident yet? Like this is surprising.

Ben: 41:47

Like your manager probably got a call from her.

Adam: 41:51

I don't know.

Ben: 41:51

She who the hell you said, kid working God, such God. Or like where's the decency?

Adam: 42:02

Or people be like, Oh, is it like, is this parking garage like safe? And I'm like, I'm here to keep an eye on everything. Like, they're like, Are you sure? And I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, if you're telling me, and I've literally be like, if you're trying to tell me I'm bad at my job and you haven't even met me before, that's another thing. But it's like I've worked here for this long, there's never been anybody that came in or broke into a car. If some homeless person comes in, I will like scream at them and take them out of the parking garage.

Ben: 42:33

Why would it be any less safe than being on the street?

Adam: 42:36

It's literally No, it's significantly more safe. I'm literally an attendant. Like that's what I mean. Yeah, why would it be? I tell people, like, no, you can leave your computer in your car. Like, if somebody, I like tell them straight, I was like, if somebody takes something from your car, it was me. And I'm not gonna take something from your car. So if you find something missing, you know exactly who to blame. Like you can call anything. If it wasn't me, then it was my fault that that person took the thing. Yeah, no matter what, it was my fault. It's like but yeah, it's just yeah, people are silly.

Ben: 43:09

People are silly, man. That's so that's so funny. Wow. End of an era though, if you're not working there anymore. I mean, if it's is it still a parking garage?

Adam: 43:18

Yeah, it's still a parking garage. It's owned by like a family parking company, and they're not part of the union, and they only hire family members. Right. It seems like it's a good thing that I didn't get hired by them. Yeah, okay. Because the people because I still I still go to the bus stop, that bar across the street, because I play in the pool league there now. Oh shit. And so I see like the people I used to park cars for, and they're like, man, that garage is a shit show now. Oh, it's not it's like the people I work there are so lazy, and it's like it just doesn't seem like they enjoy themselves at all.

Ben: 43:57

And it's just like you should go park there sometime to see what it's like.

Adam: 44:00

I don't want to next time we go visit you, we'll do that. Sure, as long as somebody can stick the electron. Yeah, yeah, and it's not I don't want them, I don't trust them to park my car. Like, have you seen my car? Yeah, right. Like, it's a fucking nice car, dude. And it's stick shift, and it's like I still haven't seen it in person, but yeah. Well, yeah, if you if you come for the winter Thanksgiving or something, then yeah, I'm coming soon.

Ben: 44:31

Yeah, okay.

Adam: 44:31

You'll see it then.

Ben: 44:33

Yeah, yeah, I got I'm realizing that because I go to school at UW, I have a premium Zoom account. Which means that Premium Zoom, it's not gonna cut us off in 40 minutes. Never realize that.

Adam: 44:50

It's been about oh, because his dad doesn't want to pay for it. Yeah, yeah. Shout out to being on a university email, baby. Yeah, dad. Go go to grad school, bro. Yeah, SST is the same thing. I can do it as long as I want.

Ben: 45:06

And I also realized we didn't get a sponsor in yet. So, do you have any ideas? I have an idea, but you should sponsor? Yeah, we spot we always have sponsors for our podcast.

Adam: 45:18

Well, there is an actual sponsor for my lab that I got for my lab.

Ben: 45:22

Oh yeah.

Adam: 45:23

Shout out.

Ben: 45:24

Sorry, true. This is uh out of outside of contract. We didn't we didn't advertise when we were at the appropriate time stamp in the conversation, but okay.

Adam: 45:35

Well, they don't care. Yeah, but they are genuinely a sponsor. As a state for our tree rain climate lab, we have a very awesome sponsor, Tiger Shark Industrial Abrasives. This is the sandpaper that we use. Is that a sand? And no, this is sandpaper. But it's genuinely it's that we have used so many different types of sandpaper to figure out the best thing for sanding the wood cores. And this is by far the best sandpaper in the fucking world. Well, like it is so amazing, and they hook us up every single time I reach out to them, I'll just like DM them on Instagram, and I'll be like, yo, we need like this grit, we need this much of this grit. And they're like, Yeah, okay, we'll send it out. Yeah, I think it's they're made, it's made in China, but don't let that fool you because this is like fucking amazing sandpaper. Yeah, I mean China just is the 4,000 grit sandpaper. If you're here to feel it, it's like a cloth, it's like not like sandpaper, it's just super, super fine. Yeah, I can preach about this all day. This is the best, this is what makes it possible to make it scratchless. Yeah, right. This is what makes our imaging possible.

Ben: 46:57

But what do people do when they do like hardwood floors and things? They probably would use something like that, right?

Adam: 47:05

Maybe, but you don't need to sand a hardwood floor to the way I'm sanding the sand this these cores. No, no, no, no, no.

Ben: 47:13

Because you don't get to the same resolution.

Adam: 47:16

You don't need to but you want it smooth and shiny. Yeah, but this is smooth and shiny, and this was sanded to like 1200 grit. Yeah, which is versus that when I do a core, let's see if I have a nice one that's still shiny over here. I mean, you probably won't be able to see it, but also with wood floor, they put a sealer on top of it, too. Like this, if you can kind of tell how shiny it is. Yeah, right. That is purely from sanding.

Ben: 47:50

Wow.

Adam: 47:50

This was gone up to 4,000 grit on the orbital fander, and then we polish it to 22,000 grit. 22,000. This core is literally has no scratches in it. You could look down every millimeter or micron of this, and there's not gonna be a single scratch on this core.

Ben: 48:08

Oh god.

Adam: 48:09

And this is a oak from Ireland. Irish oak. Yeah, Cecile Oak. Corcus Petrea. Petrea. Petreia. Yeah, so shout out Tiger Shark. That is actually shout out to Tiger Shark. Good. It's probably the most legit sponsor you've actually had on this. Yeah, that's actually kind of a real spoon. Actually a deal. We have a sticker. I'll show we have a sticker on our door that even says we're sponsored by them. Oh man, this is not looking good. So I just hung one of my project posters to decorate our lab.

Ben: 48:56

Yeah. It's not looking good. Yeah.

Adam: 49:00