Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:02 Rest of the world. You've tuned into the Mac city morning show. I am your host, Elliot, Pierre, and we're going to start the show off the same way we start every show off with the moment of gratitude. I know you could be doing a million other things with your time. So the fact that you're spending with us truly does mean the world to me. So thank you on that note, Tanner hit him with the intro.
Speaker 1 00:00:24 Oh, she caught me loves when you're listening to the next anymore.
Speaker 0 00:00:33 All right. And we're back. Okay. I'm looking forward to the show cause I've bumped into this gentlemen once or twice, but we've never had a chance to chat. So I'm excited to find out a lot more about him with you guys at home. As you already know, I don't introduce my guests because they can do a better job at that than I can. So on that note, sir, can you please tell the people at home who you are and what you're about? My name's Nick. I work at a neural Toyota. I guess what I'm about is just customer service. Giving my customers the best experience they can get. And at the end of the day, my dad, man, there we go. That like taking my kid. Let's uh, let's just jump into that topic then. You're a dad. You got, how many children do you have?
Speaker 0 00:01:09 One, one boy or girl? Girl. How old? She is? 12. 12. Oh, you're in trouble. Yeah, man. Wow. Oh, okay. A 12 year old girl. What's she into everything. She's perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Literally. Perfect. I, her had to even raise my voice at her, like yeah. Um, yeah, she's just perfect. She's into crafts B paint a lot. Yeah. I would like playing old school video games. Okay. Okay. Nice. We were talking a little bit about that before. So, um, well I was talking about that old school video games. What system are you playing? What games are you playing? What? What's this what's the most? Um, it's like an emulator. I don't know. It's like all the old school. Nintendo and Sega games. Right, right. What's your go-to game? Um, like Mario of course is fun. And then we play like a double dragon and stuff like that.
Speaker 0 00:02:04 Okay. Okay. Now, have you found yourself when she's not around playing these games or not that often? It's, it's just funner to do with her. Okay. You have good self control? Yeah, because, uh, I've been sneak, like I have a super Nintendo and a Nintendo 64 and uh, we plugged them into the garage and me and Keegan and him playing. Um, he's my little boy. He's six. And uh, when he's sleeping every once in a while, like I have my, uh, my gym is in the garage too, so I'll be working out and then like the consoles are looking at me, so, okay. I'll sit down and I'll play and I'll get better at a game. And the next day he busted me. He's like you were practicing again. I was just like, yeah, it was, I was. So you work at Northwell Toyota. You've been there for a year.
Speaker 0 00:02:49 You're new. So are you new to Fort McMurray or just moved up here in December. Okay. Sweet. All right. So let's talk, let's chat about that before I find out where you came from, why did you move to Fort McMurray? How did you hear about it? Um, well I had a good friend of mine who was up here. Um, and he's, you know, I was kind of looking for a change with Colvin and stuff down south. It's kind of like somebody turned the tap off. Yeah. Um, and he's like, you know what? Come up here. There's lots of great opportunities. Yeah. So I did, uh, and man, I'm just absolutely in love with this community. That's awesome. We're going to plant some roots up here. We just got a new place actually just up here as well. Nice walking distance. That's awesome. So down south, where are we talking like America?
Speaker 0 00:03:30 Are we talking? Calgary. Calgary. Calgary. Okay. Sweet. And so Calgary, Fort McMurray. Have you always lived in Calgary? No. No. I, I was down there for about four or five years or that I was in slave lake for the better part of my adult. Okay. So you're an Alberta boy then? Yeah. Okay. So I'm fascinated with people who bounce around and move. It's just, cause I've never really done it. Other from school, I have to move to school. Then I came back. So I love the adventurous nature of people who are willing to like move. So what brought you from safe slave lake to Calgary? So I used to engineer, I was in the oil field and then I lost my job. Like three quarters of the guys in the oil field did when, when the price of oil dropped. So I needed to start over again.
Speaker 0 00:04:19 That's right. I went back to school. I got my first year of EMT done. And then I got offered a job at the local car dealership. Yeah. And you know, at that point I would like, what do you need me to do? Bus? Like just sweep the parking lot for money. I'll do that. Right. But then they hired me in sales and then just my career progressed. There we go. So now as far as neuron, is this your first dealership that you've worked at? No. No, no, no, no. You were at a dealership in Calgary first, uh, Toyota or not Toyota, not Toyota. This was my first experience with Toyota. And again, I'm just elated with it. It's the best product I've ever worked with. That's awesome. Yeah. And the boys down there at NARAL, it's pretty chill. It's such a great environment, man. Like fad and uh, Keith and now memory back.
Speaker 0 00:05:03 Yeah. It's a lot of fun down there. Yeah. I've known those boys for years. Um, since when I say boys, I was a boy when I first met them. Yep. I think I might've been five years old when I first met ki already done. Yeah. So that was like in the 90 or in eighties? Yeah. They built a really good team down there, man. Like it's, it's his family already. I've only been there for four months and then yeah. You know, like after work, those guys are my best buds too. That's right. Yeah. That's awesome. So when we were scheduling this, we did a FaceTime. You were out with your daughter on the weekend. Um, you guys, what were you guys up to? You're walking around somewhere. You're outside. Just checking out the sites. Right? There's lots of lots to see the, we went down here by the river and then actually my coworker crystal told me there was a, pardon?
Speaker 0 00:05:48 Me? A little waterfall. Yeah. But you gotta, like, she sent me this weird Facebook like map to get there. It's like, oh, you go to here if I misplaced and then he out. So that was cool. And did you find it? Yeah, that was great and stuff. Yeah. We like get, no, we got a dog that we rescued two years ago. She's sweetheart, what kind of dog? I think she might be bored of. You never know when you're going to skew. All right. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I know. There's tons of nature stuff in Fort McMurray defined. Now I know you're talking down here and we're not going to give the location away of the studio unless you're coming in as guest, then I'll give you the address away. But um, I grew up in Dickins field. Um, well I moved there when I was five, I should say so.
Speaker 0 00:06:33 Um, so I was always in a Birchwood trails. So if you have an opportunity to go check out the Birchwood trails, I highly recommend it. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we'll do that this weekend. Oh and happy father's day. Oh, happy father's day as well. That is that's coming up pretty quick here. It'd be closed for the weekend. Uh, yes and no. I've been yes. In regards to, I've been told to leave Sunday, open don't book, anything be ready, but I don't know what's going on. I used to get spoiled once in awhile. So my, my, my child Keegan, he's very, very excited about it. Um, the funny thing about father's day is I have this one and my wife is just like, yeah, you're not doing this anymore. Once I had a child and he got to the age of wanting to do stuff, he would call it man's day.
Speaker 0 00:07:20 And I don't know if this is true or not. So like, don't send me a bunch of hate. This is not my idea. This is my buddy's Tim's idea. I'm not going to say his name. Cause he might get in trouble for this one. But he told me that in Germany, on father's day, it's called man's day. And what they do is they get together as men and they get a bunch of booze and meat and cheese and put it in wagons. I'm not mad at this idea and they just walk around and they just hang out and eat and drink like bros. And then they go to the park with their wagon and meet some other bros and drink. And it actually, because for the most like, that's what dudes like to do. And so they call it man's day. Cause father's day here in north America, like, it's really not about the dad. Like you're not doing what you want to do, doing what the kid and the lady wants you to do. So. Yeah. So for a few years prior to having a child, I used to go every father's day and celebrate man's day.
Speaker 0 00:08:21 And it was awesome. Like the shenanigans were great, but my wife quickly told me, like once I had a kid, she's like, yeah, this man's day idea it's out here. So somebody, if, uh, if anybody's out there from Germany watching the show, fill me in, is this a real thing? Man's day. Nice. So, but yeah, for father's day, I'm not going to ruin it because you know, Keegan does watch some of these shows every once in a while. So, um, I I've caught wind of some of the stuff that he's got planned, so I'm not going to ruin it. I'm just going to enjoy it. But I'm looking forward to doing them. Cause that's what kids are. Cool. Everything, man. Yeah. Like if you're out there and you don't have any kids, I'm not the type of person who promotes it. If you don't want it, like if you don't want to have kids, that's cool.
Speaker 0 00:09:05 I don't think it will make your life any lesser of a life, I guess. Yeah. Once you have a kid though, you recognize like, holy shit, this is awesome. Yeah. And I can't imagine my life without, oh, that was the TSN turning point for me, man. Oh, I don't know anything about anything. I need to get way better. That's right. My thing. And like you can, uh, build off this one is I w I found, I wasted so much time before a kid. I thought I was busy. That's what I mean. I thought, oh, I'm good. Well, like I'm working hard. I'm saving money. I know lots. No, man. As soon as I had a kid, I had all this weight on my shoulders. Yeah. Like I remember the moment that my, uh, we had a C-section and the doctor handed me my child and she was like, uh, Hey dad, it's time for her first bath.
Speaker 0 00:09:54 And I was like, okay. I mean, are you crazy? Like, I'm not, I don't have my ticket in bathing. The youngest human being on the face of the planet right now. That's right. You know what I mean? So, and I just had this weight on my shoulders, like, oh man, you gotta, like, you gotta be, you had the opportunity to be the best dad that you can be and give this kid the best life. Like that's on you. That's right. So you gotta get to work, man. That's true. That's exactly it. And it's crazy. And the thing is you still have to do everything you were doing before, but now you have this immense responsibility to, I wish that I had add that. Like I just got this crazy thirst for knowledge. Like I gotta be the smartest guy now. Like what can I have that when I was like in high school?
Speaker 0 00:10:37 That's right. Well then the kids will call you out. My kid calls me out all the time. I'm just like, can I, luckily I got this phone so I can be like, you know what? I don't know. Let's look that up. I don't know how parents did it before phones. Right? Like you can play with it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And just mind your business. Like it's crazy. But yeah, it's a, it's a game changer. I love it. And the minutes I'm like reliving a bunch of my childhood through him in regards to my parents are awesome. And they kept all my toys. Oh, nice. Everything. My parents are borderline hoarders. I found out because I'm like, yeah, you should have this toy. My mom's like, oh, go into the garage. You'll find them all. And so, uh, we've been pulling out like all the old Lego's and Batman's and all these old school toys and he's loving it again.
Speaker 0 00:11:30 That's kind of it to see that, uh, that free pass to do kids stuff. You like to be a kid again. Right. That's right. Your, your buddies are like, Hey, come on over, watch UFC. You watch the game or whatever. Yeah. That's fun. Or do you want to go figure out where butterflies go when it's raining? That's right. You know what I mean? That's right. Let's go on an adventure. That's right. And some of the questions that he asks you just like, oh man, there's thought about it like that before. Like it's an ongoing learning experience. Yeah. Uh, one of the favorite parts I love about having a child is I like cartoons. Yep. And now I have like free pass to watch cartoons, go to the movies, watch something. And you're not that guy, like why is there a 30 plus year old man here watching this cartoon?
Speaker 0 00:12:17 I'm like, oh, cause I got a, I got a six year old. I'm like, oh, pass. Yeah. Prior to that, I was just that weird guy. Oh, I still did it. My best parenting wins just as far as like movies and stuff go. Yeah. Frozen was coming out. Okay. So I downloaded the music beforehand and we listened to it for about a week before the mole. Wow. Okay. So she was her and I were the only ones in the movie theater that knew all the songs that were going to happen. Man. She was lit up like a Christmas tree. You know what I mean? Like that's awesome. Wow. I love that. Good idea. That's a good one. I'm going to utilize that. It's yeah, man. I just stumbled on it. Right. That's a smart idea. Yeah. The other thing I'm liking is playing some of these games with them, like battleship or like kids monopoly, like they're coming out with kids games.
Speaker 0 00:13:12 Oh he can kind of get into it. Cause like as a six year old playing some of these games as we were a kid, you just couldn't, it's two events. So like the board game market has definitely recognized that, Hey, we can make money off the younger generation. Let's give them these sports things. So before selling cars, you said you were in the oil patch. What did you do know about as an engineer for Weatherford and I, it was a combination <inaudible> pardon me? <inaudible> like you got the pinky no-no. That was my job title. Okay. Okay. Downhole engineer. I did completion work, right? Like explosives and new active equipment. Yeah. Really active equipment. So logging tools for like the formations and interesting. Yup. Hm. The reason I, that I think, and I pause about that. Um, prior to this life that I live now, I used to work in, um, the area of non-destructive testing.
Speaker 0 00:14:07 Okay. And so they used to use a lot of radiation to like check the thickness and welds and stuff. So I'm always interested when somebody is like, oh, cause, um, that was great. It was, I liked it. Cause I was always, always, always learning. Right. That's right. Like we were worked in, uh, like with cement bond, logging tools, like you know how to run the tool, but how do they work? How did, how do they operate? Right. Like they would, they would emit, emit these little ticks sounds like, right. And then it would have a receiver. You know what I mean? Like if you hit a piece of pipe, that's free. It's like, oh yeah. Right. But if there's cement tight to it, right. So it matches the sound waves. Right. And then it tells you how, how dense that cement is. It was just like, I haven't heard like that, man.
Speaker 0 00:14:51 That is really interesting. Yeah. No, there's, there's so many career choices out there that like, you never would know unless you stumble into it. Somebody tells you about it. Like the guidance counselor at school is definitely not telling you about that career option. No. No. So how did you find yourself in that one? It just happened stats. I was like, I had no clue. I graduated high school year early. Yeah. No clue what to do. Like what am I going to? I got no, school's easy for me. And all my buddies said you should be a teacher. Yeah. Be great at that, man. Yeah. So I applied and got accepted and it was going to be a junior high science teacher. I got accepted in red deer for bachelor of education, general sciences, secondary. Okay. So I was going to go do that. Then I went to work on the rigs to save up money because I had a cousin that was, and at that time you could be 17 years old and go work on the rigs and do a big boy job.
Speaker 0 00:15:41 And I had to go do a career investigation report. And my ex-girlfriend, uh, in high school, her father was my math teacher and he was my boy. So I did the career investigation report with him. And the last question I asked him was like, just out of curiosity, like how much do you make a year? And he's like, you know, not everybody's been doing this as long as me Nick, but uh, I made $50,000 this year and I was like, nevermind, I'm 17. I just made that in eight months or on, he was like, yeah, nevermind. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I would've had like, uh, a second silver thought or, or somebody to be like, qualify that 50 grand though. They also have like a pension package, their weekends off evens off also the entire summer. And you're molding young minds. Like it would have been uh, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:16:27 You know, frozen cots. Hindsight's 2020. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Well, here's a con I'm going to say this about being, uh, a teacher and a con because I'm married to a teacher. Okay. Is, um, you get that time off, but it's peak time. So when you're traveling, I'm telling you you're paying peak travel time. And unfortunately with that travel time, you get a lot of it. But if something happens outside of that travel time, like let's say somebody decides to get married. It's a true story and you ain't going to it yet. So sometimes I got to attend weddings by myself. So, but yeah. Being a teacher, there are a lot of perks. Yeah. Yeah. But I really need a wedding date. I'm always here. Yeah. There you go. So the other, uh, yeah, the big downs, the big upside to have to being a teacher though, is the impact that you leave on kids.
Speaker 0 00:17:16 Like it's crazy. But yeah, when that's the one thing, especially growing up here in McMurry, um, you can make a lot of money in the oil field. You just can't. And so it's hard to like tell people like, Hey, there are these other careers. They don't make as much money, but they're equally as fulfilling. And then more often than not, people are funny, man. Like, cause I, when I was living in slave lake, working as an engineer, did a bunch of completion work up here at Suncor on the sag. Diesa right. And the difference between living in Fort McMurray versus driving through and going, oh, this is where everybody that works out here lives. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Completely different. Completely different, man. I love it here. People are like the first month that I was here. I can't tell you how many, like welcome to Fort McMurray's.
Speaker 0 00:18:02 I got, you know what I mean? Yeah. Very welcoming community. It's all, man. It is. It's a big difference. I used to be in human resources. And so I used to bring guys up. Some of them were fly in, fly out. Some of them like actually move their whole family here. And it's one thing that I will say, and the MBA has definitely proved this point. If you live at work, you don't like what you do. And you don't like the place that you're living. So for all the guys who live in camp and they say, Fort McMurray sucks. It looks like, yeah, you're living in camp. You're not really in Fort McMurray. And I could, if I have to live next to a plant site, I would agree. But you're having like NBA players who are in this bubble who are just like, this is the worst.
Speaker 0 00:18:39 I hate it. And they're playing basketball. Yeah. So it just goes to show you yeah. If you're living wherever you're living, if that's where you're tied in for work, it's not going to be a good experience. And so I find that yeah. When guys who were living in camp say, Hey, I don't like for me Murray it's dude, you don't know for him. But as soon as you come into the community, you're like this place rocks. Yeah. So we've been here four months and uh, every weekend. Yeah. I'm like, oh we could go do that too. There's another new thing that we could go explore or whatever. That's right. Yeah. It's awesome. It's bounty of stuff. That's cool to hear, man. So we're at the part of the show it's called the Mac city minute. Tanner is going to ask you a few quick questions. I don't know what he's going to ask you. So best of luck, Tanner hit him with a big Mac city minute. Alrighty.
Speaker 2 00:19:23 Question number one for you. What is your favorite way to spend time in Fort Mac with your daughter
Speaker 0 00:19:29 Exploring? Yep. Question
Speaker 2 00:19:32 Number two. What has been your favorite part of being in Fort McMurray?
Speaker 0 00:19:38 All the people I've met. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:19:40 Question number three. What is your favorite food? You've tried in Fort McMurray.
Speaker 0 00:19:47 Oh, that's an easy one man. That's Mitchell's cafe dude. I get there. I, I sold that, um, a girl, a vehicle that owns a place. Okay. And man, she got me. She got the better end of that deal. I mean get the sandwich. She grabbed me a free sandwich and now I'm like, I'm hooked. What do you got you? Well, what do you got on the go today? I love it. Awesome.
Speaker 2 00:20:09 Question number four. What is your craziest car sales story? Oh, I can't tell it.
Speaker 0 00:20:18 Oh, don't take less servings for this one. Yeah, because I brought it up. I was, I got a car deal done for a lady and this was over the phone. Yeah. Unbeknownst to me. She's in the hospital and she just had her leg amputated because she had diabetes. Oh no, we need to get the paperwork signed. And my boss at the time was like, well, you totally hear my ass down to the hospital. Yeah. He get the paper and she was the nicest lady, the world. But you've never felt like a grease your human being that when you go into a hospital and say, yeah, I'm just here to get paperworks then. Yeah. Yeah. That was the worst. That was the craziest. That, and I was young. I was just starting. I was in Calgary. I wouldn't do that at that. At this time it would be like, uh, yeah, we'll just wait. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:21:11 And your final question. What is one reason you want to grow your roots in Fort McMurray?
Speaker 0 00:21:17 Okay, man. That's easy. Yeah. I absolutely love it here. The team that I work with are amazing. And people like you that I've met. Like I can't say enough. Good stuff about her. I love it up here. And those have been your five questions. That's awesome. Now in regards to, to Mitchell's what's your order there, man? I I'm literally going through the menu. You don't have, you don't have like a go-to order. What was the one that I just got the last, I think it's called sweet heat or something like that. Okay. Yeah. It's got like chips on the sandwich and stuff and Montreal smoked meat. Yeah. Routes and Ms. Dijon mustard. Nice. My goal, like I've never had a bad sandwich here either, but my go-to jam and I don't know what it's called, but as soon as I go in, they know it's, it's got Turkey, Turkey, cranberry roll.
Speaker 0 00:22:00 There we go, man. Like it's, it's like Thanksgiving, but better. Well, usually when I go to a restaurant, like, you know, you have your go-to like, if you go to subway, you exclusively get this one type of sandwich to a pizza place. You get this kind of pizza. That's right. I didn't want to do that there. That's where I'm so glad that I did just go through that and yeah, that's my go-to jam there, but you are right. That's the way to do it. I had this little thing and I don't know if we've ever brought this up. How I order food at restaurants. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:22:28 Very early in the, uh, in the
Speaker 0 00:22:30 Show. Yeah. So this story, not a lot of people know. Um, I used to be a recruiter, so I used to travel all around Canada and the world, arguably and interview people. But I lived on the road. So when, like you said, you go to a restaurant, you're always ordering the same thing. And I found the most menus are the exact same. You know what I mean? You got burgers, yard, whatever you got. So, um, I just got to the point where I was ordering the same thing. So now when I go to restaurants, the majority of the time, I actually don't order my own food. Oh yes. I get to the waitress, tore my food and I say, Hey, whatever you would eat, if you were me, that's what I want. I don't have any allergies. I like everything. You're not going to bring me something I'm not going to eat.
Speaker 0 00:23:11 And the food that has been presented to me, it's the best thing I've ever done. They'll bring you their favorite dish. And they work in the restaurant so they know what's good. Have you ever done any work in west? Never. Never. Never. Never, never. Nope. So, uh, yeah, I just, I love, I love food and I love being surprised with different things. I've been brought food that I would've never in a million years ordered. Sometimes you look at it and you're just like, what is this? But I've never had a bad experience. It's the way to go. Yeah, man. Cool. So, uh, that's it, that's 20 minutes. It flew by, I think we might be over 20 actually. Tanner hit his watch a few minutes ago at me. So, so before I let you go, though, thank you for showing up. Definitely appreciate it. No worries.
Speaker 0 00:23:52 And uh, this is the part of the show where you get a shameless plug, so pop up who you are and how people can support you. Come support me at Norelle Toyota. Um, you can look me up on my, uh, I have a Facebook page for neural. It's just Nick at neural Toyota. I don't know if he can share that or whatever boomer. I don't know how technology works, but with your help on figuring that out actually. Yeah. We'll connect. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for having me, man. There we go. All right. Well then that's easy. So yeah, there will be a link below. So definitely click on it. Support, uh, Nick here at Northwell Toyota. Um, they have awesome cars. He's an awesome dude. So that's, that's an easy one on that note. That's been the end of the episode. So thank you very much for tuning in. I really do appreciate it as per usual. Uh, hopefully you're having a nice day and we'll see you tomorrow. Peace.
Speaker 4 00:24:56 Talk about quenching your ugly thirst.
