Two Grumpy Vets and a Duuude

Rich kicks things off with a furnace contactor that cost $254 for a part that runs $12 to $43, then confesses he slept through most of a big radio contest and printed his way through the weekend instead: monitor stands, risers, a laptop stand, a retractable box cutter, and a Christmas list of boomerangs, kites, and snowball launchers. Bryan's radiator job means pulling the whole front end off the car, and then he gets to the heavy part: his grandson Rooster, the urgent care visit that missed it, the ER that found pyloric stenosis, and why you advocate for yourself and your kids for the rest of your life. Rich's podiatrist says almost nothing and sells him a $35 pair of insoles, and Bryan explains the six-on, six-off work rotation. Ron shows up late and walks us through a contract driver who placarded a trailer for flammables that weren't on it, a $7,500-a-day hauling rate, and a manual-versus-automatic argument that wanders through J.B. Hunt orientation, floating gears, and a nephew's automatic-only CDL restriction. Along the way: a law firm called Do We Cheat Them and How, a printed hand with a collapsible middle finger, TPU TV bricks and Monopoly money, a Jeep on 37s that's about to get an aluminum oil cooler, Augie the crayon-eating golden retriever, Bella the house hippo, lightning over the roof and a grounded ham shack, and a 3.6 percent cost-of-living bump that buys more cigarettes. Website of the week is Get Free Snacks, Ron's tip of the day is turn around, don't drown, and Bryan drops off the call before the bears get fed.
Links Mentioned

• Get Free Snacks – the website of the week: free full-size snacks from top brands, you just review what shows up
• Wikipedia – the page on the Communist Control Act of 1954
• Lowe's – where the $12 furnace contactor lives
• H-E-B – where the cigarettes used to be, before they stopped carrying them
• Walmart – the Arkansas delivery where the gear-floating ride-along happened
• J.B. Hunt – the orientation road test and the "you will not float my gears" speech
• YouTube – where the Jeep tune-up research is going to happen
• Gemini – the cyberpunk picture frame rendering
• Messenger – how Ron got tracked down for the recording
• Zoom – the leaked meeting recording in the DSA story
• BMW – nice cars, never going to buy one
• Toyota – the car that would make somebody a happy man
• Facebook – where the 3D printed hand with the collapsible middle finger turned up, and one of the places to share the show
• Instagram – one of the places to share the show
• X – one of the places to share the show
• Bluesky – one of the places to share the show
• Mastodon – one of the places to share the show

• Time – share the show with someone who'd enjoy it
• Talent – send us album/episode/chapter art (2000x2000px)
• Treasure – hit "Support This Show" in your podcast app for one-time or recurring support via PayPal

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Bryan opens from a Weatherford hotel with a very small bowl of gumbo and the Route 66 history of Lucille's, which rolls into Casey's buying ASAP Energy and a full-blown Casey's pizza fight between Bryan and Rich. Rich finds a nickel under his carport, pennies are officially done, and nobody can explain the 900-car line for $9 Starbucks coffee. Ron nearly loses his bumper to a Waco construction zone driver with no common sense, then gets pulled over by the same Grand Prairie DOT officer for the third time in five months. Rich is four days into his new 3D printer and has been a printing fool: headset holders, a poop catcher, a spirograph, a brush, plastic-jerky filament drying, TPU scrubbies, and the question of whether 3D printed slop is still slop if it sells. Rich also tells the story of quitting a trucking job over a $700 seat, and crawls into his attic to find a humming furnace transformer and almost no insulation. The heavy part comes when Ron tells the story of Patrick's service dog, and the idea that a veteran can't be forgiven turns into a long, wound-up run through David, Peter, and Joseph. From there it's New Jersey's war on ducks on the dash, Cruising the Coast breaking its record at 10,712, a Sea-Doo pontoon with a brake, challenge coins for first responders, Tears of the 22 closing its doors, Christmas cookies with mustard, Rich's dying smoker, and a Ninite tip for setting up a new Windows machine. It closes with the phrase of the day: sometimes you're the windshield and sometimes you're the bug.
Links Mentioned

• Ninite – one custom installer for the apps you want on a new Windows computer, with an updater to keep them current
• Tinkercad – the free, beginner-friendly CAD tool for designing 3D prints
• Canva – the design tool Rich would love to stop relying on
• PodcastApps.com – directory of modern podcast apps with live tags, chapters, and a Support This Show button
• PayPal – one-time or recurring support for the show
• Casey's – the pizza and food argument that started it all
• Starbucks – the $9 coffee and the 900-car line
• Black Rifle Coffee – $5.50 to fill up a mug
• Scrub Daddy – the sponge Rich can print for a lot less than nine bucks
• Walmart – where the Scrub Daddy sponges are sold
• Amazon – where the filament dry box is coming from
• Sea-Doo – the pontoon boat with a brake and a jet drive
• Tesla – the Cybertruck, the bedliner one, and the one that jumps
• YouTube – where the 3D printed slop videos kept showing up
• Facebook – Cruising the Coast notifications, the Cybertruck post, and the dragon-selling kid
• Instagram – one of the places to share the show
• Bluesky – one of the places to share the show
• X – one of the places to share the show
• Mastodon – one of the places to share the show

• Time – share the show with someone who'd enjoy it
• Talent – send us album/episode/chapter art (2000x2000px)
• Treasure – hit "Support This Show" in your podcast app for one-time or recurring support via PayPal

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• ArtCraft – Site of the Week, free open-source Adobe-style apps (PhotoCraft, VectorCraft, FilmCraft, SoundCraft, and more)
• Adobe – the subscription software those clones are aimed at
• Audacity – the free audio editor, version 3.8 vs. 4
• Etsy – where lighted frames might sell, as long as the design is original
• Amazon – the four-piston air compressor, USB LED strips, phone cases, and the needle felting kit
• Gemini – Gemini Live and its room-by-room 3D print ideas
• Claude – asked about the lighted frame idea too
• Hobby Lobby – filament and clock parts
• Michaels – more filament
• Crocs – the shoes getting ugly toe charms
• Facebook – marriage advice groups, Where's Waldo posts, and Josh Johnson clips
• YouTube – Josh Johnson clips, prepper videos, and the Windows 11 video that started it
• Reddit – where the Susan Dell photo blew up
• HBO Max – Josh Johnson's show
• GitHub – home of the Windows 11 bloatware remover that landed in the chat
• Microsoft – Windows 11 and Edge, with the tracking switched off
• PodcastApps.com – directory of modern podcast apps that support funding tags and chapters
• TwoGrumpyVets.com – the show's website, with the Value for Value tab
• PayPal – one-time or recurring support for the show
• Patreon – the paywall game we don't play

• Time – share the show with someone who'd enjoy it
• Talent – send us album/episode/chapter art (2000x2000px)
• Treasure – hit "Support This Show" in your podcast app for one-time or recurring support via PayPal

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Bryan, Rich, and the Duuude get together for another round of life, mostly unplanned, with Rich and Ron in the same room for Cruisin' the Coast week. Bella slides out of her harness during a Jeep ride and ends the day with a new harness and a Lamb Chop toy. Thousands of hot rods roll into town, a dozen of them break down in the driving lanes, and the rain cancels the drag races. From there it's pull-the-thermostat theory, Rock Auto prices, Mopar coolant, control arms, a Louisiana State Police run-in, truck cameras that judge your elbow, Rich's porch screening and a 70-and-a-half-inch measuring screwup, a Suzuki Samurai with an engine bigger than the car, a surprise CDL school payout for Ron, Bryan's AI influencer rabbit hole, tornado stories, France's school riots, Mississippi's reading scores, and the college bubble. The best part: Rich walks into a ham radio club meeting on Thursday night and walks out a member, with new friends, club shirts, and a calendar full of POTA and contest events. It closes with Route 66 on the Air and QSL cards, Bella's cheese tax, Tulsa King on Rich's couch, a steroid pack that took the edge off Rich's pain, liver and thiamine talk, and WorldCam.io as the Site of the Week.
Links Mentioned

• WorldCam.io – Site of the Week, live webcams and traffic cams from all over the world
• RockAuto – cheap parts for the 3.6 Jeep: thermostat housings, control arms, coolant
• Elk City Hamfest – the Elk City amateur radio club's hamfest page
• ARRL – where to look up ham radio clubs by county
• PodcastApps.com – directory of modern podcast apps that support live tags, funding tags, and chapters
• Fountain – a modern podcast app that can pick up the live show
• Podcast Guru – a modern podcast app that can pick up the live show
• TwoGrumpyVets.com – the show's website, with the Value for Value tab
• PayPal – one-time or recurring support for the show
• Metal Cloak – the adjustable control arms and drag link
• Facebook – where the car pictures, videos, and canceled-drag-race news showed up
• TikTok – where the AI influencers kept popping up
• YouTube – the AI-generated jazz videos playing for Bella
• BBC – the report on the French school protests
• Paramount+ – home of Tulsa King
• Petco – where the new harness and the Lamb Chop toy came from
• Walmart – delivery for the hoagie supplies and green olives
• Lowe's – where the porch screen door came from
• CVS – the extra-strength magnesium
• CafePress – possible show merch, if the t-shirt prices ever behave
• Canva – for album art (2000x2000px, please)
• GIMP – another option for making show art
• Zoom – the recording platform, with its usual drama

• Time – share the show with someone who'd enjoy it
• Talent – send us album/episode/chapter art (2000x2000px)
• Treasure – hit "Support This Show" in your podcast app for one-time or recurring support via PayPal

If you are struggling with life please reach out to The Suicide Life Line - Dial 988
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If you are struggling with life please reach out to The Suicide Life Line - Dial 988
The world needs you here. 

Recorded the Monday before Cruisin' the Coast, and it wanders everywhere. Bryan and Rich compare notes on the junk landing in their inboxes, starting with a Coffee and Classics book club pitch that has nothing to do with this show, while Bryan walks through a Podmatch webinar invite and a "come on our podcast" offer that turned into a $5,000 sales pitch. Ron, on the road, has a camera going into the Jeep and finds out the long-lost GoPro has been sitting in a bag on a dining room chair this whole time. Rich builds a free 20-meter delta loop that came out looking like an isosceles triangle, and somewhere in there the three of them take on Pacific hurricanes, a 2029 comet scare, and whether the news just wants everybody scared.
From there it's gas prices and who really profits from the pump, with Bryan, Rich, and Ron all taking a swing at the refinery argument, plus Ron's closed Pizza Hut and a grocery bill that needs a sit-down. Rich puts a $55 fill-up on the table and hosts a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses with Bella watching from the window. Bryan's daughter gets a $1,000 wheel bearing in Amarillo, and Ron swears by RockAuto and $27 Moog control arms. Then it gets deep: Bryan on the Seventh Day Adventist girl from a Dallas summer and the church hypocrites, a long run on grace, judgment, and whether God forgets (four verses worth), Ron on forgiving his dad and doing the retirement math, Rich on learning how to stop working and fill the hours, and Bryan's Guadalupe River tubing days. It wraps with Bryan's website of the week, OSIRIS AI, and Ron's tip of the day for anyone who spots a red Jeep with shark teeth on I-10.
Links Mentioned
Website of the Week — planes, satellites, space debris, and live traffic cams on one map: osirisai.live
Podmatch (Bryan's webinar invite): podmatch.com
RockAuto (Ron's control arm order): rockauto.com
AutoZone and O'Reilly (the parts-price comparison): autozone.com and oreillyauto.com
Meineke (the Amarillo repair shop): meineke.com
Moonraker (Rich's European mast shopping): moonrakeronline.com
Pizza Hut (closed on Mondays): pizzahut.com
Murphy USA (gas price comparisons): murphyusa.com
ElevenLabs and Rocket Mortgage (inbox spam): elevenlabs.io and rocketmortgage.com
Patreon (the Grandpa Gamer plan): patreon.com
Facebook and TikTok (feed rabbit holes): facebook.com and tiktok.com
Find a podcasting 2.0 app: podcastapps.com
Support the Show
If we made you laugh, cry, think, or groan, that's us creating value in your life — and this show runs on value for value, not sponsors. You can contribute Time (tell someone about the show, share it on social media), Talent (send us chapter or episode art — 2000x2000 pixels), or Treasure (head to twogrumpyvets.com, hit the B4V tab, and you'll land on our PayPal page — one-time or recurring, your choice). If you're on a podcasting 2.0 app with the funding tag, look for the "support this show" button.
Get In Touch
Bryan: [email protected]
Rich: [email protected]
Want to reach Ron? Send it to either of us and we'll pass it along.

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This one's a classic hangout episode that goes everywhere at once. Rich is dealing with a hot, itchy leg that has him and the VA nervously eyeing a possible blood clot, and his dental partial breaks for the second time in months. Ron gets tangled up in a "we need a referral" runaround with a VA nurse who already had the MRI he sent her, watches his Jeep's resale value crater, and picks a losing fight with a Walmart clerk over a gas discount card. Bryan gets an arthritis diagnosis after his knee swells up, and somewhere in there Bella the watchdog is convinced the world is ending.

From there it's the usual chaos: T-shirt and embroidery business schemes, laptop and RAM sticker shock, gator tail under the heat lamp, driverless semis on the interstate, oil markets and who actually profits from war, 20,000 volts through Rich's backside courtesy of a Noid light, licking 9-volt batteries to test them, prison talk (the Black Dolphin gets a mention), zero sunspots on FT8, the real origin of "redneck," why unions turned into a racket, and a website of the week for finding ethanol-free gas. If you like unfiltered conversations, half-finished stories, and three friends arguing their way through everything, this one's for you.

Links Mentioned
Website of the Week — ethanol-free gas finder: pure-gas.org
RockAuto (Ron's control arm order): rockauto.com
CarGurus (Jeep resale value check): cargurus.com
Newegg (computer parts pricing): newegg.com
Walmart Plus membership: walmart.com/plus
Into the Shadows with Simon Whistler (YouTube): youtube.com/@intotheshadows
Find a podcasting 2.0 app: podcastapps.com

Support the Show
If we made you laugh, cry, think, or groan, that's us creating value in your life — and this show runs on value for value, not sponsors. You can contribute Time (tell someone about the show, share it on social media), Talent (send us chapter or episode art — 2000x2000 pixels), or Treasure (head to twogrumpyvets.com, hit the B4V tab, and you'll land on our PayPal page — one-time or recurring, your choice). If you're on a podcasting 2.0 app with the funding tag, look for the "support this show" button.

Get In Touch
Bryan: [email protected]
Rich: [email protected]
Want to reach Ron? Send it to either of us and we'll pass it along.

If you are struggling with life please reach out to The Suicide Life Line - Dial 988
The world needs you here. 

Bryan and Rich open by arguing over who got on the call first, then Rich rolls into a busy ham radio week: new 2m and handheld gear, a porch contact that led him to the Wednesday Whataburger meetup with the Jackson County club, and the night he put his laptop back on Windows just to send an email over the radio and watch it land on his own phone. That kicks off an argument over how many hops an email really makes, a turtle farm in Korea, and how much fiber is buried under the country. Bryan is about to welcome a new baby boy into the family, tells the story of tying western Nebraska grain co-ops together over rail-line fiber, and brings a locate story about a fiber hit where the marks were right and the proof was in hand.

From there it's a full Monday of rabbit holes: colonoscopy stories where the patient wakes up mid-procedure, Rich's ham, rice, and cheese experiment and the electric smoker display he needs to replace, Ron's runza memories and a kolache argument, Bryan's boudin history, and an Am I the Asshole segment from Bryan about a kid, a suit, and a wedding. The guys get into people who think they're worth $100,000 out of high school, raising kids to be comfortable being uncomfortable, and whether anybody actually asked to be here. Ron brings the work stories: hauling 12,000 pounds overweight and proving it at the scale, a mechanic candidate who wanted $38 an hour and couldn't name a tire tread depth, the Social Security age 62 versus 67 math, and a CDL school reimbursement paper he found after eight years. Bryan's mystery pain beside his shoulder blade and a knee that quits mid-show round out the aches and pains, and Bryan gets his Wendy's order wrong on the drive. The guys argue over diesel prices, Bryan's Website of the Week is a virtual cat that blocks your screen when you scroll too long, and the tip of the day is a basic training cadence.

Links Mentioned

Support the Show

Get In Touch

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Bryan actually beats Rich to the call for the first time in show history — and Rich never lives it down. From there it's a full three hours: Rich jacks up a sagging furnace with a pair of house jacks and declares war on an ant invasion, Bryan's ELD takes a total brain fart and knocks him back to paper logs, and the guys work through diesel and grocery prices, government holidays, and a hard debate over a child murder case in the news.

On the ham radio side, Rich walks through his new 2m/70cm dipole, a solo 65" TV mount and shack sound upgrade, and the choice between a Moxon and a hex beam for the upcoming contest season. There's RTTY, Morse code, and a tribute to the last of the Navajo code talkers. Bryan lays out his trip to Amarillo to go be a granddad, and the back half covers Rich's comms trailer dreams, a round of AI robocalls, and Bryan's find for Website of the Week.

Links Mentioned

Support the Show

Get In Touch

If you are struggling with life please reach out to The Suicide Life Line - Dial 988
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• Let's Enhance — Rich's Website of the Week pick. Turns old, low-res, or scanned photos into high-definition images.

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Rich, Bryan, and Ron settle in for another round of weather complaints, heat index bragging rights, and home-repair swapping — Ron's up early for a run to Abilene, Rich shares how sealing his AC ducts dropped his electric bill about $2 a day, and Bryan's still fighting a 130-degree attic and an old house that used to run a $500-a-month natural gas bill before the wood stove took over.

From there it wanders everywhere it usually does: Rich's dilemma over joining a ham radio club (and the Thursday-night scheduling conflict that finally pushed the show to Mondays), hitting 10,000 downloads and sorting real listeners from bot traffic, a Hennessy Velociraptor sighting, celebrity deaths and the Dolly Parton/Freebird duet nobody knew existed, a long detour into AI, data centers, and the power grid, and the usual politics-and-government venting. Rich lays out his plan to shoot video for Cruising the Coast with his new phone and gimbal — which is also where the episode gets its name. Bryan talks about his wife wanting to see her uncle while she still can, growing older, and the Ocean Pacific corduroy shorts he's bringing back. Route 66 trivia and a website of the week round it out, and Ron closes with a trucking safety tip everyone needs to hear.

We're a value-for-value show — no sponsors, no ads. If we got you to laugh, think, or yell at your speakers, that's worth something, and there are three ways to send it back:

Bryan: [email protected]

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