Episode 16: Black Friday Episode | Blackbird Cigar Co. Crow

[Music] Yo yo yo yo yo and welcome back to the Sticks and Stones podcast. Sticks and Stones is where we bring serious cigar smokers together with serious dealmakers. And welcome guys. This is the Black Friday edition podcast. So I hope everyone had a wonderfully blessed Thanksgiving and now we kick off the Christmas season. This is this is my jam. This is uh this is my Super Bowl. This is this is my event. I am Buddy the Elf when it comes to Christmas. So, this is like this is everything for me. And it wouldn't be Sticks and Stones if I didn't let you guys know what I am smoking and what I'm drinking. So, this morning I am and I've got I've got a story about this. This is the Blackbird Cigar Company Crow. This is a 60 ring and it is a San Andreas rapper. So, we're gonna give this a snippy snippy. And I am drinking this morning because I am a unicorn. Black coffee. So, a couple of fun facts about Black Friday because this is the Black Friday episode. Black Friday was used to describe the stock market crash which at that time was the the biggest market crash in history which took place September 24th, 1869. So that's like kind of weird on how we go from a shopping day that you know most modern-day Americans know Black Friday as a shopping day. It actually was called Black Friday because it was a huge market crash. Okay, that's that is a phenomenal draw. Holy smokes. Okay. All right. I see you, Blackbird. Then in the 90s and60s, the Philadelphia police coined it the Black Friday because of all of the tourists, all of the tourists uh coming into town, you know, for Thanksgiving. And also that Saturday was the if you're if you're in the Northeast, you know, you know, know anyone from the Northeast, the family that live in the Northeast, the Army Navy football game is huge. And it usually happens that uh that Saturday. So people would be coming into Philadelphia for you know sports fans coming in for the game. And then in the 1960s that's how retailers would kick off their you know Christmas shopping day you know day after Thanksgiving big sales. And another fun fact, I mean, if we're doing fun fact Friday, another fun fact, in 1961, retailers tried to rename the day Big Friday because they didn't like the connotation with, you know, the the doom and gloom, everybody dying in the stock market. And thank God the name didn't stick. So they they cut that [ __ ] out real quick. Probably one year of calling it Big Friday didn't do anything. And this is I think this is the coolest fact. In the 80s, retailers associated the name with their balance sheets. That's why they call it Black Friday because their balance sheets were going from red or negative to black and positive, you know, from all the sales, you know, big sales. So many people would come in, flood the doors and uh start buying a bunch of [ __ ] that they didn't need and brought, you know, it catapulted their their balance sheet from from bad to good. In the 1990s, Black Friday was associated with the biggest shopping day of the year. But in 2001, Black Friday was nationally recognized as the biggest shopping day of the year, surpassing the Saturday before Christmas. How crazy is that? So, I met these guys at Blackbird Cigar Company last night, actually. Really, really nice guys. And the story is really cool. So, it's it's it's a non it how do I say this? It's a it's a non-traditional or or a modern twist on a traditional industry or a traditional company, if you will. So, it's two brothers that are from the Dominican Republic and they worked at a very well-known cigar company, a cigar rolling factory. One of the brothers really wanted to double down on the cigar business and tobacco and rolling cigars and all that kind of stuff and made friends really good friends with the master blender at the company. And you know the the the blender told one of the brothers, "Look, if if you want to double down on this, if you want this to be your thing, you're going to have to you're going to have to hustle your ass off." Basically, is what he told him. You got to be here an hour early every single day so that I can teach you before you start your shift, you know, before you start your whatever it was 8, 10 hour, 12 hour shift. You'd have to get here an hour early every single day and probably worked weekends, you know, who knows? And this master blender taught this guy, you know, the ins and outs of the cigar company or the cigar world, the cigar business. And after, you know, a certain amount of time, the, you know, the guy didn't I met these guys at a at a cigar shop. They were doing a special event at at Cigar Distributors of Texas. So, I walked in looking for a cigar for the this Black Friday episode and lo and behold, Blackbird Cigar is having this big event in the lobby of of the cigar shop, you know. So, I'm talking to this guy and lots of lots of great information. So basically the guy learns the cigar business. He learns the the whole cigar world and from his from his mentor and um and then he says, you know, I really appreciate it, but I I got to go on my own and I got to start my own cigar company. You know, he you know, he you know, wished him well and whatever. And I think they actually end up collaborating once they they get off the ground with Blackbird. And the Crow is their very first cigar. and they came up with the crow. I mean, it's a really cool company. You know, they're very traditional in the way they do things. They're very traditional in the tobacos that they, you know, they pick and they harvest and all that sort of stuff. And they have their own fields now, you know. So, they they started they started, you know, small like, you know, grassroots and they're growing and expanding and and I believe these guys are going to blow up pretty soon. But they synonymized, you know, the industry or or their their business with, you know, birds. And, you know, everyone knows that the biggest bird and strongest bird is the eagle, but one of the smartest birds is the crow. I mean, this is this is directly from the representative at uh Blackbird Cigar Company. And that's why they named it Blackbird Cigar. And that's why they named it the very first cigar they named the Crow. So, this is a San Andreas wrapper, and it's a Mexican San Andreas wrapper. And they've got they've got a couple of different tobacos in here for the for the binder, the filler. This is solid. This is solid. I mean, this has got a great taste. And this is a this is a it's a premium cigar. This is about This is just shy of 12 bucks. Like $11.70 something. H really good [ __ ] Okay. Definitely putting Blackbird into the rotation. So, now it's Black Friday. Fun fact Friday. Let's do some fun facts about commercial real estate. Commercial real estate is the oldest asset class known to man. So what does that mean? It's been around forever. As long as humans been around, we've always been in real estate. You know, even if you go into the Bible. So what does that mean? It's the most solid investment vehicle you can get your hands on. Also, the commercial real estate sector is valued around 20 20.7 trillion with a T, guys. Tang trillion, not billion, trillion. That's a lot of freaking money. This is a fact that a lot of people may not know. Did you know that office buildings are ranked by a letter scale? A being the best and C being the worst? Yeah. So, like, you know, when you you'll hear brokers say, "Oh, you know, it's a it's an A building. It's a yeah, it's a B building." That's what they mean. It's a it's a ranking scale. What does the ranking scale include? Well, on an A building, on a class A office building, you know, typically what you have is you have a really nice lobby, sometimes with an atrium. There's always some sort of it's it's more of condition of the building, you know, probably a newer building, you know, maybe less than 20 years old, newer than 20 years old rather, has amenities. The amenities are huge. Some sort of hot food in the building, a cafe, cafeteria, restaurant, you know, something to to that effect. There's usually a gym, a gymnasium, a health club, whatever you want to call it on property. And then there's there's some office buildings that have some crazy perks like they're partnered up with a country club and you get, you know, discounts or free golf depending on, you know, which company you work for, which tenant you you work for. Car wash service, valet, parking, you know, all that. Those are class A office buildings. buildings with a lot of amenities, newer, newer condition building materials on the inside, like the finishing materials, a lot of like granite, marble, really expensive, wood, you know, things like that. A B-class building could be still a newer building, but little or no amenities. You know, just your run-of-the-mill office building, but doesn't have, you know, the the cafe or whatever. Some people will rank a an older deferred maintenance or deferred maintenance deferred. Let's just put it that way. Some people will take a class A building that has gotten to be older, a little little long in the tooth, you know, 25, 30, 40 years young building with maintenance deferred will move that building in from a class A building, an A an A building into a B building. And then you've got newer buildings that have no amenities and that would be a B building. A C building in in my opinion is a dumpster fire. But C buildings have a very good purpose. There are reasons for having a a class C building or or renting leasing a class C building. If you need a lot of office space, but you don't have forward-f facing public exposure, you don't get clients coming to your office, you don't need an impressive building to show off to your clients, a C-class building is is perfectly fine. If you need 25, 30, 40, 50,000 square ft of office space, why would you spend see dollars a square foot relatively all in when you can spend $18 or $20 a square foot, put your money into your buildout, build out your space, your office, however you want. You can make your own office as luxurious as you want it to be because it's completely up to you. I mean it's most of the time it's on your dime anyway. So instead of spending you know 50 60 70 a class building goes for ridiculous amounts of money hundreds of dollars a square foot. Why would you spend that money when you don't have anyone coming to your office? the only people coming to your office are your employees, you know. So, so a company who needs a lot of office space that doesn't have a lot of no clients coming into like, you know, like call centers or sales offices or marketing offices or, you know, something like that. That's no clients are coming to you, so don't spend the money. Another good application for a sea building is startups. If you don't know how well your business is going to do, if you don't know, you know, you have no idea if you're going to be around in two years, then don't spend don't spend the money on a A or B building. You know, C buildings serve a purpose, you know. So, it's like a successful, you know, medium to to even a successful small business. Any successful business that has any level of success and they're making money, you're not going to want to put up with a deferred maintained building legacy building and deal with, you know, shoddy HVAC, you know, a leaky leaky roof, you know, buildings are, you know, really, really jacked up. When you're when you have any level of success, you're not going to want to deal with that. And you're not going to want to deal with a landlord that doesn't want to put the money into the building, doesn't want to fix the HVAC, doesn't want to, you know, fix the uh the lobby, you know, bunch of cracked tiles in the flooring and, you know, the wallpaper from 1978 looks like [ __ ] You know, you don't want to deal with a building owner or management company like that when you're relatively successful. you know, you have a lot of money coming in and you you you're, you know, solid in your business model. You've got investors. You know where you're going to be. You know where you're going to you're going to be there for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. When you're solid in that and you're making money, you don't want to be in a sea building. But when you're first starting out and you have no investors and you are self-funding your business, this is your jam. This is your dream. this is what you want to do and you want to fund it yourself, you have to save every penny you can. So, I digress. I've gone way way too long on the the whole office building thing. So, Black Friday now, I I don't you know, just as a sidebar, not sidebar, front bar, whatever. This this this shit's fantastic, guys. This [ __ ] is fantastic. This Crow by Blackbird Cigar Company is fantastic. I mean, it's just got a very And I was talking to the guys last night and the two brothers are young guys, you know, they're they're probably not even 40 right now and they wanted to have something very unique. And one of the things that's happening right now in the cigar world is everybody is just trying to push out as much product as they possibly can. And if you walk into a humidor, walk into a big store, you're going to find, well, I I I made this comment. This was my exact comment cuz the guys at at Blackbird were kind of, you know, alluding to this. And I said, "Look, you walk into this humodor and and C DOT, Cigar Distributors of Texas is they have a big humodor. Walk into that humidor, pick out 10 cigars. All 10 of those [ __ ] are going to taste relatively the same, very similar. And that's what everyone is is pushing for. They're pushing for the same trends. They're pushing for the same type product, but it all tastes the same. So, how do you differentiate a $3 cigar from a $30 cigar when they taste the same? Similarly, relatively, they taste the same. You know, there's nothing that stands out. This is standing out, guys. This is This has got a a beautiful flavor. It's not It's got like a little spice, like a little a tiny bit. I'm not getting a ton of it, but which is good. I mean, they did a phenomenal job. They blended this phenomenally. This is not your run-of-the-mill. This is not something you're going to encounter in every single cigar out there. This puts these guys in a very unique position. So, getting back to Black Friday, you know, think of it what you will. I'm just going to give you my own opinion because that's what this show is about. It's about real talk, true honesty and, you know, your thoughts and viewpoints and whatnot. And uh I am not a fan of the whole Black Friday thing. I've never I've actually never been a fan of it. I've I've only done it one time in my life that I can remember. And I have and I've never done the craziness of camping out in front of a store. Never. I just I don't I don't see it. I absolutely don't see it. I mean my viewpoint is time is our greatest asset. It's our greatest commodity rather put it that way. Time you can't get back. Time you can't buy. So why would you waste time being in line for like 36 hours? Why would you waste that much time to buy a TV? What are you saving? So let's just say you know and this is it's it's the morning time so you know my I am not my calculator brain is not working. So let's just say that a new TV comes out. It's a it's a a 95 in Sony or LG or Samsung TV whatever. And normally it's $2,000. Let's call it that. It's $2,000. Black Friday sale it's $800. You're talking about a $1,200 savings right now. Just just so you know, goes to $800 for the Black Friday sale. It probably cost that company $12 to make that TV. Just saying. Just putting that out there. I don't know that for a fact, but I'm just saying. I I know it's nowhere near It didn't cost that company anywhere near $800. $1,200. Divide that by 36 hours. That's $33.33 an hour. So, it's $33.33 an hour waiting in line. So, do you make $33 an hour? I $33 an hour right now at the time of filming of this podcast episode in 2025. There are a lot of people that don't make $33.33 an hour and that is, you know, and you're sitting there in a lawn chair or a tent or whatever camping out so you can save $1,200 on a TV, which in a year in a year from then it's going to be $800 anyway because something, you know, new and exciting is going to come out and that TV is going to be $3,000. So the TV that you're waiting a day and a half camping out, you know, pissing in a Gatorade bottle, you're going to you're going to get for $800 anyway the following year. So I just I don't see it. I have never camped out of an Apple store for the newest iPhone. And don't get me wrong, I love Apple. I love the iPhone. I've been an Apple guy since 2007. And I am completely bought into the entire ecosystem. I've got multiple Apple computers. I've got multiple iPhones, the iPads, you know, all of it. The only thing that I am I'm really really want to buy, but I'm holding off on the the Apple Watch Ultra. I'm holding off on that just because I want to learn a little bit more about it and and if it's going to bring value to my life or if it's just a cool gadget, you know, and I'm really not interested in just buying a cool gadget, you know, if it really if the pedometer really works and if it really is is going to help me in the gym or if it's anymore. I I got to tell you that I'm not interested in technology and the business following me everywhere I go because I've I've learned something and calls right back to this whole Black Friday thing. Your time you cannot get back. So all of the believe me nobody believes in hard work more than I do. I am constantly working. Anyone who knows me, any of my friends, anybody who works with me, has worked with me, has brokered deals with me, knows that I work all the freaking time and I'm all about work. But, however, all of that work, if you're working all of that time, what does your family do with that time? That means you're not spending it with your family. So, yes, I work very hard Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m., maybe sometimes 7:00 a.m. to 5 6:00 p.m. After that, I want to shut down and I want to spend time with my friends and my family. And I want to devote myself, my time with the people I love the most. And I want to dedicate my time to them like I dedicated to my job. And I can't do that if I'm constantly, you know, checking my wrist for messages. Oh, this guy, you know, wants to make an offer on this property and whatever, blah blah blah blah blah. Because I I will tell you, and not that this is a bad thing, you know, I treat all of my clients with the utmost respect and and dedication and devotion and loyalty and confidentiality, all of the things of the fiduciary relationship. I absolutely do. But eight out of 10 of your clients you may not ever see again. They're there to buy one building through you, one property through you, and then you will not see them again. And that's perfectly fine. That's that's perfectly fine. No issues with that whatsoever. However, what does that do for your family when you have dedicated so much time and it's not like anything changes that you stayed up until 2:00 in the morning dealing with this person's offer or negotiation or issues or snags, whatever it may be. Was it a different outcome if you did things 8 to 5 or 8 to 6 or 7 to 4, you know, normal business hours? No, absolutely not. nothing different happened. And I'm going to give you a real world scenario. I'm going to give you a real world scenario. And just as a just as like a an in a nutshell, a client will come to you and make their problems yours. I've got to buy this building right now. I've gota, you know, I've got to close on this in a certain period of time or I've got to lease this building because I'm gonna get a contract and if I don't have the building and I can't show the the client my building and my operation, I won't get this contract blah blah blah blah blah. They make their problem your problem. They make their problem your issue and then they put this pressure on you to perform and to act in a certain amount of time and they expect you to be available 24 hours a day which no one should be for no love of money. There's no amount of money that you should be on call 24 hours a day. And even the medical industry, even doctors, surgeons, er doctors, I know that they sometimes have to be on call 24 hours a day, which shout out to the medical field. Lots loads of respect, loads of respect for that field, for doctors and surgeons and whatnot, but even they have to clock out sometime. But getting back to where where I was going with this, a client will make their problems your problems. And then when they accomplish their goal, your problems are not their problems. You know, let's just say that someone wants to lease a building and they're under a really, really bad time crunch. You know, whether that be they've been through three brokers and three brokers couldn't get their their assignment done, couldn't get the job done just because of the pressure and the performance and, you know, all of that type stuff. and they come to you and you are a seasoned professional, this is not daunting for you at all, you can get this done, but it's going to take a lot of your time and it's going to take a lot of tap dancing and a lot of work of which, by the way, if you're doing all of that work and putting all of that into that assignment, you are not doing your daily operations. You're not doing your daily prospecting, looking for new clients, looking for new listings, looking for new business. Whatever business you're in, if you're working with a client whose problems now become your problems, you are not focusing on yourself, your business, your operations, you are doing everything for that particular client. And if you're doing that, you're not doing what's best for your business, your family, your board of directors, you know, whatever. So, let's just say that you're doing this. You decide to help this company. You get them the building they're looking for. The landlord doesn't want to pay your commission. That client that made their problems your problems, I promise you, will give you so much issue paying your commission because they don't feel that they need to pay it. They feel like someone else should pay this. You know, I'm I'm not the building owner. I shouldn't have to pay this person's commission or, you know, there's some there's documents that I have to get signed in order to get paid from the landlord. that person will drag their feet because their operations, their business is more important for them. So, they'll they'll wait weeks in order to sign the documents they need to sign so you can get paid. I'm going to give you a real world scenario. I had a client I had a client come to me and I had a listing in New Jersey and the listing I had to give the listing up when I moved to Texas because I didn't have at that time I didn't have boots on the ground and it would not have been right for me to keep the listing and to perform poorly for my client my landlord client landlord hires another broker. The broker never takes my sign down. Even though, oddly enough, I issue I I issued the order to remove my sign from my sign company and they didn't remove my sign. So, this tenant over the weekend is looking for property. He's another one of those situations where his problem became my problem. He needed to get into this building. Calls the number on my sign and I got called all hours of the day, weekends. I remember taking my children to a pediatrician and I had to leave the office because he had to deal with me right then and there. And I told him I was in the pediatrician's office with my children. Didn't care. I missed time with my granddaughter. I missed time with my children. I missed time with my family because I said this became my problem. The fact that he needed to be into a new building within a month became my problem. And I did a lot of consulting work for this client that I did not charge for because just everything happened so fast. And I knew I wasn't going to get a consulting fee from this from this person. The listing broker, by the way, did absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. I did both sides of the transaction. When it was all said and done, I go to the guy I go to the tenant. I go to the guy that made his problem my problem. And I said, "Look, I did a lot of work for you." And he said, "Yes, I agree. I did things that are not normal for a standard tenant representation." Yes, I agree. I did not ask you upfront for a consulting fee. So, I'm not looking for any monetary anything from you. I'm not looking for a check. I'm not looking for a retainer. I'm not looking for anything. Did you like the service that I provided you? Oh my god. Amazing. One of the best brokers I've ever dealt with. I'm going to talk to my new landlord and tell him how good you were and that the listing broker shouldn't get anything out of this because he didn't do anything. Okay, that's that's all great. That's all fine. Do me a favor. Write me a review. You don't have to go to a website. You don't have to put anything in. Just send me an email or a text message. Something that I can use for my business so I can show the world that I'm worth my salt. you know that I've I've got metal and I'm a I'm a tough broker and perseverant and you know I'm not I've taken on your problem even though I didn't have to and I got the result you wanted. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. No, no problem. I'm in the process of moving in you know as you know because this was a fast deal and I got to move my entire company in in 2 days and soon as I settle in I'm going to write you that that email review. It's been I think over a year now. Still waiting on that review. So I wasted time not I I let me retract that. I spent time on work that I should have been spending time with my family, with my friends. And it's also for your mental health. If you are constantly working and constantly grinding, that is not good for your mental health. So, I potentially put myself in harm's way, took away from my friends and family for what, half of a commission of a lease commission and a review, a simple review I couldn't get from a tenant client. The the landlord, my former client, my former listing client gave me an awesome review and it was didn't take very much time. So coming back to Black Friday, why would I take that time that I could be doing so many other things to save money on a TV or a computer or phone? A second. Why would I take that time, that precious time that I can't get back and I can't buy? You can't buy time. Why would I do all of that and spend that time to buy Christmas gifts when in time, whether it be 1 month, 6 months, 6 years, 2 years, those gifts are not going to be remembered. Those gifts are going to be worn, broken, thrown out, forgotten. And your time, those are memories. I have memories with my grandpa, memories with my parents, memories with my friends, my cousins that are irreplaceable. You can't replace those. You can't replace memories. You can't replace time. So, why would I spend like two days camping out for an item? It's craziness for me. My own opinion, I mean, everyone does what they do, right? You do you do you. But just my own opinion on my podcast is why would I spend something so precious that God gives us on a daily basis? You know how they say every day above grounds is a good day? You know, we're given minutes because life can expire in minutes. I just recently had a a death in my family and it makes you realize a lot of stuff, right? Life is so short and it's so fragile and it can be gone in minutes. Why would I waste those minutes on doing something that doesn't help the greater good of your inner circle, your friends, your family, your immediate family, your extended family, and and your friends. I I would even say if you could do something for a perfect stranger that would help that person that would alter that person's life for something that's very simple, you wouldn't do that versus taking that time and sitting in a line for an item. I don't know. I just don't see it. I just I really don't see it. But I mean that's that's just and you know that's the greatest thing about America and the American dream. Everyone has their own opinion and everyone does what they do. So, in my opinion, that's just crazy. You know, you can I I'm I'm all for I'm all for buying gifts. I'm all for, you know, doing all that, but to sit in line and wait all that time, you know, if it was like a I'll put it into perspective. If it was like a um you know, you wait in line for 3 days or 2 days or whatever, 24 hours and you get a free all expenses paid vacation with your family. um for waiting in this line and you get, you know, you get into the building or whatever and you get this vacation or this experience. I'm all for that. That's great. I mean, because you're going to make memories that you're going to keep forever. All for that. But like wait in this line for 2 days for a TV, a phone, a game console, I I just don't see it. And look, you know, I'm I'm not knocking anybody who does that, but the way just the way I look at things is if you don't if you don't have the money, if you don't have the cash, that amount of money for that item, maybe wait until you do. Save up, budget, and tighten your belt until you can buy that item full price or, you know, whatever at a slight discount, you know, not the the Black Friday discount. And and I got to tell you, I don't honestly think that most of the Black Friday things I think is [ __ ] I think that retailers boost up a price just so they can cut it down to a to a Black Friday price, you know, or the manufacturers will change up a model number by, you know, just a few digits so they can say, "Oh, no. This is a new model. This is a new thing. This is not this is not that LG TV or this is not that, you know, whatever Samsung model. This is the the new model. This is the the the.3 or the -6. And for that it's, you know, retail is $3,000. But for Black Friday, it's, you know, 900. That's what I think a lot of the Black Friday stuff is. It's like increasing, boasting the number, augmenting the number so that way they can bring it down on a Black Friday sale, which honestly I think is misleading, but you know, whatever. You know, that's that's just my thoughts on the whole Black Friday thing. But you know what's great about the Black Friday thing? This is what's great about it and this is what I do love about it. It's when you've got people that are out there shopping that are not crazed, you know, that are not frantic, that are not getting violent over a TV, a PlayStation, an Xbox, people who are not looking to kill someone over a parking space. If you sit back, if you just sit back and look, you know, take a drive with your family or take a a drive with your wife or your significant other and you look at the retail centers and you see that the way they're decorated with the Christmas lights and the Christmas ornaments and the Christmas trees and there is a there is still a lot of good out there, guys. I mean, there's people, you know, walking around very cheerful, very happy, joyful. That's what I love about it. It's whether it's been commercialized or not. And it really has. Christmas has been commercialized. People associate Christmas with the gifts and the tree and and and all that, the presents and the lights and whatever. It's still a time to be happy. It's still a time to be joyful. This is a time to cherish your family members, cherish your children, your wife, your husband, your family. And you know, there's a whole spiritual thing that, you know, I'm not going to get into, but that is a big part of it. And it's a big part of why I love Christmas. And I think that sometimes people let Black Friday overshadow a lot of stuff, a lot of reasons for the seasons. But, you know, I get it. To each their own. I think that everybody has a reason for doing what they do. I just I just say don't let Black Friday overshadow every I mean, it's a it's a great time. You know, it's a it's a Friday. A lot of people take off, but take that time and enjoy the real things of life. You know, enjoy a cigar with your with your boys, you know, with your friends, with your dad. Guys, cherish your dads as long as you have them. They're not always going to be there. I know a lot of my friends, a lot of my cousins, a lot of my homeboys have lost their fathers. And they tell me, if I could just talk to my dad one more time, that would be great. Like, if I can get his advice for this problem that I'm I'm going through or this decision I need to make, it's worth its weight in gold. I I wish I could. I wish I could cherish the things that matter. Like I said, not knocking the whole Black Friday thing. If that's if that's your thing, awesome. That's great. I wish you all the best. But I just I look at it and it's inevitable. It's inevitable. You're going to turn the TV on or whatever, you know, news streaming platform or whatever thing on the internet and you're going to see fist fights at Walmart. Not not knocking any retailer, but fist fights at Walmart. riot broke out in Target. You know, this shopping mall, there was a shooting over a parking spot. You're going to see crazy [ __ ] You're gonna see crazy [ __ ] go down on Black Fridays. That's another reason why I stay away from retail during pretty much during the whole Christmas season. But I find little pockets of time to go do what I got to do. And you know, I used to be a proponent of uh buy as many gifts as you can. My goal was and I I've always been this way. I've always been this way. Even as as young as I can remember, probably, you know, eight, seven, eight, nine years old, I would be the last person to open gifts on Christmas. Still, till this very day, I'm the last person to open gifts. I actually hate opening gifts. I don't like receiving gifts, but I love giving them. And I would always like my goal would be to buy as many gifts as I can and like pile them up to the ceiling from floor to ceiling Christmas gifts. Used to be that guy. And then I just I guess as I got older I realized that it it's not about the gifts. It's about what's more important. It's about family and you know getting together and making the Christmas cookies with your kids and laughing and joking and putting on the Christmas music and trimming the tree and like in my family tradition is watching National Ampun's Christmas Vacation as many times during the Christmas holiday as you possibly can. I mean, one of my children gave me the moose cups that they drank the eggnog in. Like, they they found them on Etsy or Amazon or something, and we drank we drank out of those. And another one of my kids gave me a sweater with an ugly sweater, an ugly Christmas sweater with the Grisswald family truckster on it and with some some kind of a saying. I forget what the saying said, but I mean, that's what that's what Christmas is for me. I mean, that's enjoying that time, making those memories that you you like you can't no one can take away from you. That's what Christmas is all about for me. Remembering those times and doing all that stuff and, you know, sitting down with your family at dinner, reminiscing about those times because we're not all going to live forever, you know. So, when I'm dead and gone, my kids can share with their families, you know, the stuff that we did on Christmas time. But, you know, Black Friday is like it's the gateway to Christmas, right? It's it's signi it signifies it signals Christmas is coming. You know, we're we're less than a month away from Christmas, you know? So, get the get the tree out, start decorating the house, you know, get the get the uh the Christmas stockings out and and you know, make sure there's nothing uh no no creepy crawies inside of them and hang them on the uh the mantle, you know, all that all that type stuff, which is great. I love that stuff. It's a It's a time to put summer away. You know, summer's passed and fall has passed. Now we're getting into the gateway of winter time. And if you grew up in the Northeast like I did, it's a it's a great it's it's like bittersweet. It's a great time and it's also a crappy time because it's getting colder, which you know, I don't I don't hate on the cold. You can uh you can dress up warm in sweaters and jackets and boots and you know all that kind of stuff, but then the snowfall comes and you got to shovel the driveway and you got to salt the walkways. What a pain in the ass and then you have to you have to des. I don't miss that. That's for damn sure. Don't miss that at all. But, you know, it is what it is. I think that it's a good time for everybody if you make it a good time. If you put so much emphasis on, you know, whatever the gifts, the presents, the stores, it could be a horrible time for you. You know, I think that I remember a time it was Christmas time. I was young. My parents took us Christmas shopping. And I think it was just me and my brother. I think it was just me and my brother and my parents. And it's Christmas time. The shopping malls and the stores were very congested, very crowded. And uh my dad was about to park in this spot and this guy cut him off. And you know, normally in a normal situation, in a normal situation like that, it would be a fight. It would be an argument. It would be cursing back and forth. Hey, you're an [ __ ] whatever. Flipping the bird, whatever. And my dad was just like, you know what? It's it's Christmas time. I'm just going to let that go. You know, I'm not going to I'm not going to let that ruin my Christmas experience. And that was that was really big for me actually because I said, you know, in a time when and you know, my dad in his younger years, he had a very short fuse. So that normally would have set him off, but he said, "You know what? I'm not going to let that I'm not going to let that derail my my Christmas spirit. So just going to let him have it. Whatever. Another spot will come up." And inevitably a better spot actually opened up. So that kind of like that opened my eyes to there are other things that can motivate you. And don't let the BS don't let that [ __ ] like you know ruin your day, ruin your spirit, ruin that time for you. And you know, that's what I would that's what I would recommend for you guys. Like if there's if there's something going on and you know, it it could jack up your day, don't let it just don't let it, you know, walk away from it. Whatever. You don't want to be that guy on the news that you see, you know, strangling somebody over a parking space. But, you know, that is all I have for this episode, guys, for the Black Friday episode. You know, I hope you enjoyed it. As always, stay blessed, cherish your loved ones. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. I am signing off here for Sticks and Stones. So stay blessed and keep it rolling, baby. Keep it rolling, baby. Until the next episodes, I'm