07-31-26 FULL SHOW - I've Got Short Timers Real Bad

What's up, everybody? It's Bretzky, and America is turning 250. And I can't think of a better way to celebrate that than playing on an American-owned social casino, SpinQuest.com. With all of your favorite games, live craps, bubble craps, live blackjack, there's no better place to play for free and win real cash prizes. SpinQuest.com. SpendQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Boy, where prohibited, visit SpenQuest.com for more details. The Mandy Connell show is sponsored by Bell and Pollock Accident and Injury Lawyers. Now, it's Mandy Connell. Mandy Connell, Ruin the Day. On K-O-A, 850 a.m. 94-1 FM. keeping ignorance at bay. Welcome, welcome to a Friday edition of the show. I'm your host for the next three hours, Mandy Cottle. And today I am joined by almost Papa to Be. Well, he is a Papa to Be. He's almost a Dad. That baby's percolating. That's Grant Smith, everybody. Hello, hello. Without to be Dad. We don't do the Friday. Oh, all together now. Woo! I'm so excited about your impending baby. I can't wait. I am tired of waiting. I know. This is like the hardest stretch so far because you're just like, well, we're in the window. It could happen any day now. Let me just give you dad a piece of advice because I would say this to your wife, Olivia, but I know that the words I'm about to share with you are impossible for her. Get as much sleep as you can. I've been getting plenty. Yeah. Get it in because the first, yep, the last month of pregnancy, you just. You can't. She's up like four times every night. It's so miserable. The end of pregnancy is so miserable. It's not the part that everybody's like, you're glowing. No, that's just sweat. Because it's a billion degrees outside and I got a baby on my bladder, but thanks for playing. I am excited for fall with a newborn. Oh, yeah. I think that will be very fun. Oh, yes. She has been struggling through the 100 degrees. The baby's going to be the perfect age to be a baby pumpkin. A Halloween. She was looking at outfits today when I was leaving for work. I'm talking about carve out the pumpkin, put the baby inside the pumpkin arms and legs. Well, with the drought and everything this year, a bunch of the pumpkin patches aren't even opening. Yeah. So Olivia's like, well, what am I going to do? They'll be there next year. And the baby will be even better next year in the pumpkin patch. We do have something growing in our backyard. We're not sure what it is. It's either a squash or a pumpkin, we're hoping pumpkin. Okay, there you go. Well, when is the due date? The 10th? August 10th. That's the day. I'm supposed to get back from vacation. So if I see you here, I'll be like, Grant, what is, what are you doing? And then it's Thai food, and then it's spicy things, and then it's just walking around all the time to get that baby. Well, we've heard of one. fail-proof method. Oh, wait, wait. Please dazzle me with your foolproof method. Now, I went to labor early, so I did not have any of these issues. But one of my favorite stories of all time dealing with pregnancy, a really good friend of mine's sister was pregnant. And she's not a very tall woman. She's maybe five, three. And she was overdue by like two weeks.

She was the most pregnant, pregnant person you have ever seen in your entire life. It looked like she was carrying a football team. She was ginormous. And so the doctor said, look, walk around. Well, we live in Florida, right? So it's hot. So we go to the mall. And she's so pregnant that she would walk like from one bench. She would pass one bench. And then she would have to sit down at the next one just to rest to take her feet off. And this woman, this older lady walks up and goes, oh, sweetheart. She's sitting on the bench. this older woman walks up and goes oh sweetheart what do you do and she looks at her and goes two weeks ago yeah we do a woman looked like she'd been hit and we were like oh my gosh I'm so sorry we do like a mile loop around our house and there's a couple of benches set up that we would never stop at before but we make sure we sit at them for yeah for a while each time now I mean don't get me wrong being pregnant was also like the coolest experience I've ever had in my entire life and i feel bad for men that you don't get the super cool part of being pregnant i i don't feel bad that you don't have the last month of pregnancy i've literally said this to my wife multiple times like i don't want the full pregnancy but man it would be so cool to know what that feels like feeling a little human in your body that's like it's so big now that it's like it moves her whole stomach all the time oh yeah it's so amazing it's just it's such a miraculous thing it just is Having a baby. I mean, don't get me wrong. I don't want to do it again. Let's, yeah, let's just, okay, I'm just going to say it. I've already turned on my out of office reply on my email to go on at 3 p.m. Is that not the best feeling in the world? Well, usually that's kind of how I start. I kind of kick off my vacation. I go back to the desk after work and I sit down and I open my computer and I, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. And bada bing, bada boom, I am then done. And yet I did not do it because I already did it because I have to race and get to the airport and yada, yada, yada. Where are you going? We're flying to Vancouver today. And then we are hopping on a cruise ship on Sunday to go to Alaska. But it's the kids. It's the grandkids. This is something that Chuck and I, when we were broke. I mean, we were so broke, like we were broke. There wasn't even room for the bee, right? We couldn't even afford the being broke. That's how broke we were. And we had just gotten married. The boys were already teenagers, and we were talking about how cool it would be. Because we had friends who took their kids on a vacation, all expenses paid, like once every two years. Every other year. And then the family had this big meeting where they all decided where they were going to go on vacation. The kids did a pitch meeting with a PowerPoint presentation for their destination of choice. And then there was a vote. And I just, I loved that. And at the time, it felt like we were never going to be able to afford to do that. And granted, we're not going on as nice a trip as they went on. But being able to take our kids and our grandkids on a trip, this is like it's.

I mean, we can fight. It really is. And I remember thinking, man, that would be so great. But it's just, it was so far away at the time. And it was so remote the chances of us being able to do that. It was just, it's just nice to be able to make that happen. And I'm incredibly grateful. And if you guys weren't listening to me ramble, I would not be able to do this. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Let's do the blog, shall we? Today, the last day of July. Go to Mandyblog.com. Mandy blog.com. I am posting for the last time on the K-O-A blog site today. I will not be cross-posting anymore after today. So go to Mandyblog.com. Go ahead and bookmark it. Go ahead and subscribe. Do whatever you got to do. By the way, thanks to you. Shop me over 3,500 subscribers yesterday. I really appreciate you. Look for the headline that says 731-26 blog. I got short-timers real bad. Click on that, and here are the headlines you will find within. Good evening, Mr. Mr. North and South American, all the ships and clips at sea. Let's go to Press Flash. A Denver government adds 40K to a new home. Colorado wine is still booming. You need to ask me anything today. Boulder's idiotic climate lawsuit is back in the news. Spain is being invaded. Scrolling? Can we talk about naked dressing for a minute? A Colorado D-transitioner talks about gender ideology. Another tiny Colorado town bites the dust. Pine beetles are in the metro. A deal to disarm Hamas has been tentatively reached. Yes, the condo market in Denver is unraveling. Oh, look, another AI escaped and attacked another AI. Are these Denver's best breakfast burritos? It's National Avocado Day and there's free guack. Want a job? Get a tattoo. What a cool place to become a citizen. O Zempic Face is a thing. senior dog zoomies. U.S. Department of Ed is investigating gay kissing assignment. Cruise line gratuities are going up. How to bid for an upgrade on a cruise? Trump actually shrunk the size of the federal government. Interstate or freeway, the language of roads. When your candidate loses, you hate everyone. Explaining a library to Gen Z. Yes, working for tips equals better service. Remember that time John Stewart was right about COVID? They gave it a shirt but not a face? Those are the headlines on the blog at mandiblog.com. Tick, tack, toe. A winner. Yes, there we go. There we go. Anyway, today is the final day before vacation. I do have two guests coming up. We have not spoken with Andrew Woodward. He's a nerd at the Common Sense Institute, and I use the word nerd with love and respect. Someone sent me a salty text message the last time I mentioned nerds on the show, Grant, and I was like, I'm sorry, sir. Do you not realize who's running the world right now? Yeah, nerds are cool now. The nerds are in charge of everything.

nerd is a sign of respect now, I believe, and that is how I intended. But Andrea Woodward is one of the nerds at Common Sense Institute. If you did not see this story, this is exactly, I mean, you know, when I sit here on the show and I talk about Mayor Mike Johnston flapping his gums about affordability, and I said, what do I say? If you guys listen to the show, you already know. You know what I say, and that is, why don't you look and see where government makes home building more expensive and fix that? Well, common sense did. They can't fix it, of course. All they can do is point out how ridiculous it is to build houses in Denver. And here's the kicker. Here's the just a piece de resistance. Is that every program the Democrats come up with to make housing more affordable adds more fees on the people who build houses. It makes absolutely no sense. It's so stupid. $40,000. Just in government imposed costs on every new home. 40 grand. We'll talk to Andrew Woodward about that at length at 1 o'clock. At 1 at 2.30, we were supposed to do this last week, and then I didn't realize we had a baseball game last week. So I am sort of doing a wine yogi segment without the wine yogi. But Kevin Weber with Carboy Rinery is on. They have just opened. Love Carboy. Well, did you know they have a new tasting room that overlooks Garden of the Gods? Wow. Yeah. They have like a patio. They got so you can sit and kind of look over Garden of the Gods and sip. Carboy wine. One of my favorite spots in Colorado and has gotten even better now with Carboy Winery. It's fantastic. It's absolutely fantastic. So Kevin's come in. We're going to talk about that. We're going to do a little nerdy conversation about their certifications. In the wine world, things like, you know, being green and sustainable. All of that stuff is a big part. of the industry because they need to take care of what they've got. But it also has an impact, according to the wine yogi, on the outcome of the wine. So we're going to have a little nerdy conversation about wine at 2.30. We've got nerdy economics at 1, nerdy wine at 2.30. And the rest of it, people, is up to you. Because I have mentally checked out. I am packed up. I am ready to go. My suitcase is by the door, Grant. By the door. I have also mentally checked out. See, there you go. That makes two of us. Well, that's, that's disappointing because, yeah, I don't know if you guys just heard A-Ride from training camp. That was a great cut-in, by the way. He did a really, really good job. But he's usually the one to keep me on track when I've mentally chucked out. So I can't. Can't do that right now. I do have a few things on the blog today. You can always text us on the common spirit health text line. I did get a question. Where did that question come from? It was kind of an interesting question. I am going to talk about the Hamas disarmament agreement. I don't agree with it. I mean, wait, I don't agree it's actually going to happen. That's what I'm trying to say.

I'm just trying to say, I don't think it's actually going to happen. I just don't. I'll believe it when I see it. I'll believe it when I see weapons leaving the area. I'll believe it then. Here's a question from the text line, though, or excuse me, from Facebook that I want to get to because I've been thinking about it ever since I saw this woman's comment. If you weren't keeping us, your radio family, up to date with everything, what career would you be in right now? Still a flight attendant or something else? I would definitely not be a flight attendant. I was looking for an exit ramp from being a flight attendant. Not because I didn't like the job. I did, but I'm too much of a home body. I just got sick of traveling all the time. And I love to travel and I didn't want to ruin it for myself. But I don't know. You know, Grant, do you ever think about this? Like, you know, the sliding doors theory of your life? If you had just made a left turn, when you made a right turn kind of thing, what your life would be? I mean, you're not even that old. For me, I'm 57 now, and I've been doing this job since 1997 in some way, shape, or form. It's so much a part of who I am. And frankly, I told my dad this a long time ago. My dad, when I told him I was leaving flight attending, at first I had to tell my dad I was dropping out of college to become a flight attendant. That was phenomenal. Yeah, that went great. That could not have been better, Grant. Thanks for asking. And then after he takes advantage of my flight benefits a few times, I have to tell him I'm leaving being a flight attendant to go try and break into radio and he says, you're going to die poor. This is what my dad says. And I said, not if you die rich. Well, he fooled me. Anyway.

I told my dad that when I got into talk radio, I felt like I found a career where everything that I'm naturally adept at is in this job. I am really adept at reading very, very quickly at a very high level of reading comprehension. It's one of my gifts and my skills, and I thank my mom for that. But I'm also good at taking big, sort of big picture ideas and pulling them together in a way that makes sense. That's actually one of the compliments that I get from people. It's like, hey, you take all these things that seem unconnected and you bring them all together to help me understand the whole picture. And there's just not a lot of jobs. I mean, CIA analyst, I don't know. But I just, I don't pine away for another job, I guess. I don't think about. there's nothing I'd rather be doing. Well, that's a hard part of working in this industry, right? It's like, you look at all the other real jobs. Yeah. I don't want to do that crap. Mm-hmm. I would probably be an accountant. Well, isn't your dad an accountant? My dad is a CPA, and I always thought that would be the easy route. If I wanted to do that, I would just take over his... I would rather have my nose hairs pulled out one by one than do accounting. Yeah, I saw how miserable he was every tax season. I was like, this is not the life I want. That is not. Talk about things I am not naturally adept at. You put a spreadsheet in front of me and I got nothing. I'm like, I don't even know what these numbers mean. I was always very good at math and school and I was like, I could do this. For sure, I'd have a great teacher to tell me how to do everything. But like I said, I just saw how miserable he was from the months of January to April. And now with things getting extended, it's like. half the year basically where he's like god i'm at work 12 hours a day yeah and one of the things one of the coolest things he ever said to me i was back home when i just started working on your show and i was like yeah this stuff is so fun but there's just no money and he's like well do you like your job i'm like yeah i love it and he said well that's more important like enjoy your life do do something that brings you joy that also will bring home money to your family, but do something that you love doing. I have mixed feelings about that because I love to cook and I paid my way through college and my first five years in radio working in restaurants. Not in the kitchen, though. I always worked front of house. And for a long time, I wanted to own a restaurant. But man, that is an industry that will eat you up and spit you out. Physically, I saw what it did to some of my friends just really hurt their bodies. And they don't love to cook anymore. And I still love to cook. So there's things like, yes, find something you love.

and do it, but we also have to manage people's expectations. If you love playing video games and smoking pot and eating Cheetos, chances of you be making a living that way, not great. Well, it's not like you don't still work hard. That's not what I was trying to say. I know, I know exactly what you're talking about. And you can get a college scholarship for video games now. I know, I know, I'm just saying, unless you're really good at it, it's kind of like being, you know, I'm going to play professional basketball. Okay, let me know how that works out. No, it's interesting. It's just, it's very interesting. I don't know. I'm probably going to think about that my whole vacation now. Mandy, yesterday I asked two questions that did not get a response. But since you said, we could ask anything today. I'll ask again. First, I heard you mentioning underwear and missed the lead up, but you mentioned buttons and snaps and zippers and just made me wonder what the heck kind of underwear you wear. And secondly, I asked what happened to the Golden Spike Roofing Jingle after the ad. I miss it. And so have to add it myself at the end of each time hearing it. I don't know. I'm going to record a new Golden Spike Roofing commercial with the jingle when I get back just for you. I'm going to do it. The first question, I was not talking about buttons and snaps and zippers. We moved on from the underwear conversation because I asked people, Grant, do you have A team underwear and B team underwear? Yes. Everybody does. And a C team. Oh, you have a seat? I get rid of the C team. Nope, I save them for, you know, like when you go on vacation. And you take all of your A team with you. Yeah. And then you got a couple B teams when you get back. You don't want to do laundry yet. See, that's, I, I was talking about the fact that I had already packed my A team. I was wearing my B team and I was very unhappy about that. I did save a pair of A team for today. But no, then that conversation turned into a conversation about buying the same item. And they've changed it. And I said that, you know, they're trying to save money. So they make the zippers cheaper and the buttons worse or whatever. So the underwear does not have buttons and zippers. It was the later on in the conversation talking about clothing that had changed. And I will fix that golden spike. And I'm going to tell Spike that you love the jingle and miss it. Here's the thing. I sing it too. I sing these jingles. I will tell one of my clients if their jingle was terrible. But... I think I have, let's see, Fixit has one that's good. Golden Spike has one that's good. I don't think anybody else has a jingle right now. Well, you've always got, it's not one of your endorsements, but my favorite is the tree farm. Five miles west to the tree farm. It's going to be that kind of day, you guys. And of course you can't forget cars for kids. Oh, no. Don't you dare. Grant, don't you dare. Mandy, perhaps the best description of Alaska's mood and character comes from Henry Gannett, Chief Geographer for the United States Geological Survey, who in 1899 wrote...

If you are old, go by all means. But if you are young, stay away until you've grown older. The scenery of Alaska is so much grander than anything else of the kind in the world that once beheld, all other scenery becomes flat and insipid. It is not well to dull one's capacity for such enjoyment by seeing the finest first. Exactly. Exactly. We'll be back. It's asked me anything, but we can also talk about whether or not Hamas will actually disarm. We'll do that next. Oh, I have had no luck lately. Wait, lady luck? Brett Ski, I got you. I've had so much luck on SpinQuest.com. They have all of my favorite games, slot games, live blackjack craps, and bubble craps. You can even get a $30 coin pack for just $10 bucks. $10 for 30. I'm headed over to SpinQuest.com right now. SpenQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit spendquest.com for more details.

Ben Albright sent me a text on the break that said, let me pull it up so I can read it in its entirety. It said, I do not understand A team and B team underwear to which I responded because it's been. Is this because of a lack of underwear? To which he responded, no, I just believe you have underwear or you have trash. Ben, you don't have the backup underwear that just kind of lurks in the back of the drawer just in case something happens and you have no access to laundry or anything and you just have to have a backup in there? Well, isn't that just clean laundry? I mean, I don't understand the concept here. I mean, I have underwear, and then if that underwear gets frayed, stained, or a hole in it, then it becomes trash or a dust rag. Do you buy the exact same kind of underwear all the time? See, I think this is one of those situations where guys have it so much easier because I mentioned this yesterday. The underwear that I've been wearing on a regular basis for literally like 25 years, the company that made it stop making it like two years ago. Oh, no. Yeah. So now I went and bought, when I realized they were discontinued, I bought every pair that I could find. Like, I've got a good maybe five more, six more years of underwear. But after that, then I've got to go through the process of buying other underwear, which is going to be uncomfortable. Some of it's not going to. to feel right and then I'm going to make it if it makes the first sort of cut then it becomes B team underwear but a lot of it I donate it I do donate because I don't really I'll put it on and go nope that's not happening Yeah, I'm not donating underwear just because I don't know. Like I donated to the waste basket or to the dust rag pile if it gets, you know, frayed or holes or whatever. But yeah, I bought the same underwear for probably 15 years. And I single-handedly maybe keeping that company business. I don't know. But if they ever go out of business, I'm in a world of hurt. Yeah, see, that's where I am right now. Guys really do have it easy. You guys don't have to deal with bras, which are. Honest to God, buying a bra is I would rather, again, have my nasal hair plucked out one by one than have to go bra shopping. It's miserable. It's just, it's an absolutely miserable experience. And guys are just like, I'll just take some boxer briefs and call it a day. I'm a little bitter about that. I do the compression boxer briefs from Mac Weldon. Shout out to them stay in business, please, because I do not want to look for a new underwear provider. Well, you know, good for you, Ben, that you're fancy enough that you can just willy-nilly get rid of the B-Team underwear and only have A-team underwear. Not all of us are that fancy.

I didn't realize that was a fancy thing. I just thought if your underwear became decrepit, you got rid of it. But it's not necessarily decrepit. Some of it's brand new. Some of my B-Team underwear is almost brand new. It's just uncomfortable. I don't want to wear it on a daily basis. Then why would you buy uncomfortable until you buy it, bring it home, try it on, and go, oh, God, what did I just buy? This is the thing about women's underwear that's different than men's underwear. Yeah, I don't have to worry about the thong or any of that kind of stuff. Yeah. Don't lie to the people, Ben. We know you wear a thong. Ben, I appreciate your input on this. Absolutely. Take care. I have a good one. That Ben Albright, you can hear him. Of course, by the way, we got a big Broncos training camp show happening tomorrow from 9 to noon. We got Ben Albright out there. We got Ryan's going to be out there. And we, of course, Nick Ferguson is going to be there as well. And we are covering training camp better than anybody else. I'm just going to say it. If you don't follow our social media, this is when you want to jump on. Because between training camp and then the regular season, the Broncos, we give you such good content. And you can follow everything, everything about the Broncos on our social media. Hi, Mandy, I'm 66 years old. I've not worn underwear since I was 17 years old. Now, see, that is too much information. Right there. That's a brave soul. It is. Mandy, back in the Y2K panic, I bought 365 pairs of underwear, so I'm good for a while. Now, wait a minute. I have follow-up questions about that text message. I remember Y2K very clearly. And for those who are younger and maybe didn't live through the terror that was Y2K, what was going to happen, you see, is that on New Year's Eve, 1999, we were not just going to party like it was 1999. We were going to have a complete societal collapse because computers were not going to be able to understand what to do with zero, zero, because up until that point, it had meant 1900. And oh my God. We were all going to die, but nobody talked about buying 365 pairs of underwear. What did, what, how? Textor? What, what did you do? I'm going to need you to follow up, please. Thank you. Mandy, you're good because in five or six years it'll be depends. Oh, no, not yet. I'm not ready for that. Not at all. Not at all. Remember when you were saying, shut up, Dr. Anthony Fauci? I guess he finally did. That is a fair point, texter. That is a very fair point. On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Yeah, yeah. Hi, Mandy Connell. Ask you anything. After losing weight, have you ever been fit shamed? I went from 230 to 170 on soda after hip replacement, and now I have random people call me crap like Slim in a derogatory manner. I just had some woman of size at the supermarket call me that because I aggressively passed her. Watch it, Slim!

I stopped and asked her, would you rather be my size or yours? And she started to cry like a victim. Have a great vacation. Let me just say this, you guys. One of the great things about having this job that I have is that I have had so much nasty commentary directed at me that none of it affects me at all. If somebody made a derogatory comment, I don't even think it wouldn't even register because I don't care. I truly don't care. And if someone truly was fit shaming you, if they really are making a derogatory comment because you are slimmer than they are, that's just, I'd feel bad for them. Feel sad for them, not you. Don't worry about it. I mean, that's, this is something if I could just, if I could spread this one quality that I've earned over all these many years to all of you in this, it doesn't matter what some random person thinks or says about you. Amen. It does not matter. ever doesn't matter and you know it matters what your family thinks and if your family is fit shaming you then you guys need to have a you need to hash it out the unfortunate truth is that people friends like to be around friends that share their similar bad habits so they don't have to feel bad about their bad habits that's the reality and i've been in those friend groups before So when you start making better choices and you start taking care of yourself, there is a lot of resentment, but it's not about you. It's about their own personal failures. I will never forget during the pandemic when I was walking around Walmart and I did not have a mask on. And this girl walks up to me and she drops her mask down. And she goes, do people look at you really mean when you don't wear a mask? I'm like, yeah. She goes, doesn't that bother you? And I went, not at all. I don't know any of these people. I don't care about any of these people. I don't care what they think of me. It is the most liberating experience of your life to finally really take that to your heart and soul. And if anybody called me slim, I would be like, oh, girl, thank you. Thank you. You make anything derogatory that implies that I am thin, I am down with that. Own it, baby. I would have t-shirts printed with slim across the back. I would just, yep, you're right. That's me. That is me? Mandy, is Southern hospitality a real thing? 100% it is a real thing. The only thing I really, really, really, really in my heart miss about living in the South is Southern hospitality. It's easier when you're Southern to be extended Southern hospitality. It's harder when you're an outsider because one thing about being in the South, they can be very insular, but that's honestly because when you get out of the South and the Southern people, they make fun of you. They assume you're stupid because you have an accent. But Southern hospitality and being a good hostess and setting a nice table and all of that good stuff, it is 100% a huge thing in the South. I still get Southern Living Magazine. When I started getting this like 35 years ago, it was an actual magazine, but now it's basically a glorified pamphlet, and that makes me incredibly sad.

But I look at all these articles about setting a beautiful table and all of this stuff. And I just, I do miss that. The warmth of the South. You don't have it anywhere else in this country. That's not to say there are not wonderful places in this country that are kind and welcoming, but you do not have the true warmth that you get in the South when it comes to, you know, people saying, oh, you're going to stop by and visit. Let me cook you an entire meal, which is how they do it, which is why everyone's fat. Forget whatever plans you have this weekend because you're staying at home and playing on SpinQuest. And there's never been a better time to sign up than right now. New users get $30 coin packs for just $10. All the table games you love with hundreds of slot games and real cash prizes. That's at SpinQuest.com. SpinQuest.com. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit SpenQuest.com for more details. History is a guide, if you pay attention, and everything Hamas has ever promised to do has ended with them breaking the agreement. And Hamas already came out today. Hamas is not. Hamas always said laying down its heavy weapons, which could come later in the process, was contingent on the creation of a Palestinian state. Do you know many times Hamas said no thank you to a Palestinian state? I'm not even going to get into it right now. Hamas said Friday it will begin disarming. However, Israel must pull out completely of Gaza. Now, Israel has not officially commented on the deal yet. This is another thing. It's like I think it's more than a little bit absurd that anyone would think negotiating. anything with Hamas and not having Israel in the loop as part of the process. There's no point in doing that. We cannot bind another country to our agreement. They're a sovereign nation. So we shall see, Israel has laid as a condition of a two-state solution, which, by the way, Israel has offered multiple times in the past, is that Hamas must completely disarm. But I don't believe it's going to happen. I just, I don't believe it's going to happen. Israel, I'm sure, doesn't believe it's going to happen. Now, Israel is, they have elections coming up in October. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing an extremely difficult re-election battle. Opponents are accusing him of ignoring the evidence that the October 7th attack was coming. So it's a pretty heated election cycle in Israel as well. So it may be that they have to accept this now until the election is over and then they'll make a decision about what to do then. So Trump says it would be carried out in carefully constructed phases. As disarmament is complete, Israeli forces will withdraw and the International Stabilization Force will work with a new Palestinian police force to take responsibility for Gaza being safe for its residents and its neighbors. Now here's the problem. Where do these police force members come from? How much you want to bet that it's going to be a bunch of dudes who like five minutes before were Hamas soldiers and terrorists? Where are you going to get these Palestinian policemen?

So there's a lot of steps in here. There's a lot of talk here. I just, I'll believe it when I see it. That's all I'm saying. Mandy, Starbucks, Dutch Brothers or Ziggy's. I don't even think I've had an iced coffee from Ziggy's. I have never been to Dutch Brothers. What? I don't buy coffee out. Like, Here's the thing. What about when you're driving to the mountains? You're like, oh, I need to pick me up before I have to sit in the eyes. Then I just go to whatever. I try to find a local coffee shop then, and I'll just go to a local, although I will tell you, Grant, you used to work in a coffee shop. For many years. More and more and more local coffee shops are not carrying a dark roast. And I don't like a medium roast. And God forbid, I put a light roast in my mouth. What is that? What did you just brew grass clippings? What even is light roast? Why are we even doing that? Why is that a thing? I guarantee most coffee shops still have a dark roast. I am locally owned coffee shops. More often, I walk in now and they're like, oh, we don't have. It's like, no. So I end up getting an Americana, which I don't find is satisfying. Any coffee shop worth it salt has an option of all three. I agree. But I'm telling you, as a dark roast drinker, it is getting more difficult to find a dark roast. Nonetheless, yeah, I'm just, I'm super cheap about coffee, but I buy major Dickinson's blend, Pete's, you know, Pete's coffee. I buy the beans at Costco. I know exactly how much each cup of coffee cost me. in my little arrow press. Have you ever seen the aeropress coffee thing? I have one of those because I only make one cup at a time. Do you just, it's like a little K cup that you put in? No, it's actually kind of a manual espresso machine. It is a plastic tube that you put coffee and water in like a French press, but then you put the top in so it holds it in there. The pressure holds it in there. And then you push it through after a minute. And it's better than a French press because you don't get all the silt at the bottom. Yeah. We have an espresso machine and just like a curig. Yeah. Well, I have a curing, but those coffee pods, I'm like they're too expensive. Well, that's why you just buy the replaceable one. I have the replaceable one. But I also think the aeropress makes a much better cup of coffee. Okay. For a single coffee. It takes longer, but it just makes a better cup of coffee. But I know exactly how much each cup of coffee costs because I went and worked it out. I did the math grant. Of course you did. And you're telling me to go pay four bucks for drink coffee at Starbucks? No, thank you, sir. No, the Starbucks or the Dutch brothers, which is delicious, but it's like just as much sugar as coffee. That's like a treat. It's like when you're out and about and you're like, let's get a pick-me-up. There you go. I'll spend $7 on the street. Well, that's if I'm traveling and I'm at the airport or something, then yeah, I will. But most of the time, I'm making my coffee at home or I'm making it here. I also have a box of coffee pods in my office at my desk right now here. That's good to know when I need to steal one. Well, right now it's Lavaza because that's what was on sale last time. So there you go.

Anyway, we're going to take a quick time out. When we get back, we're going to talk to Andrew Woodward of the Common Sense Institute. You want to know why housing is so expensive? Let's talk about Denver government. Hey guys, Lady Luck here. Are you going on any road trips this summer? I know I'm going to be going on a bunch of road trips. And being that I'm going to be passenger princess, I love playing on SpinQuest.com. SpinQuest has all of my favorite slot games, live blackjack, live craps. Head on over to SpinQuest right now and get yourself a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. The Mandy Connell show is sponsored by Bell and Pollock Accident and Injury Lawyers. Now, it's Mandy Connell. Mandy Connell, ruined the day. On KLA, 8.50 a.m. 941 FM. Through the static and the noise she cuts through the frame. Mandy Connell keeping ignorance at bay. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the second hour of the show. The last day of before I go on vacation on a big Alaskan cruise with my family, I cannot wait. I have to respond to two folks on the text line before we get to our next guest. Hi, Mandy. I'm at the car wash and Cheyenne and just pulled around to wipe my truck down and had K-O-A up and loud. An older man drying an older Ford Superduty who has good hearing said, why do you listen to that Denver crap? I don't like Denver radio. They're all clowns. I said, she doesn't care what you think of her. She just said so, which is true. I do not. He's just missing out on great entertainment. And then there was this one. Don't hold it in. How much is each cup of coffee cost my way? Thank you for asking. My daily coffee costs 16.5 cents. That's how cheap I am that I worked it out to how much I get per my two pound bag of coffee that I get a Costco. 16.5 cents. Thank you very much. You know, speaking of the cost of things, the government hasn't figured out a way to drive up the cost of my daily cup of coffee because I'm thrifty. However, they have found a way to drive up the cost of building a house. And joining me now a nerd from the Common Sense Institute where all the nerds work. He's Andrew Woodward and Andrew, welcome to the show first of all. That's your first visit to the program. Thanks for having me, Mandy. Great to be here. So what is your background and what is your area of concentration at Common Sense? Yep. So I'm an economist here at the Common Sense Institute, and we are a nonpartisan data-driven research institution covering many state policy issues, so anything from the cost of housing to crime to education. And you're... Right on the spot. This report is on the cost of housing, and we've got a few interesting findings for the state. One of the things I say a lot on the show, and when Mayor Mike Johnston especially, when he stands up and talks about another government program is going to make everything affordable for everybody. And I always say, why don't you look and see what kind of damage you, the government, are inflicting on home builders? Like, let's fix the part that government has made more expensive. So when I saw your report...

My reaction was, of course, it adds $40,000 to the cost of building a new home. Break that down for me, Andrew. Where did that number come from? Yeah, absolutely. So it may not be surprising that the number is large, but interesting to see how it is to accept between other states. So in our study, we compared Denver to 12 comparable states like Salt Lake City, Portland, Oregon. just to see how the cost stack up so breaking those out let's start with sales tax for example so Denver sales tax ranks quite high among comparable cities now colorado state sales tax is just 2.9 percent which is actually quite low but once you factor in local rates denvers combined 9.15 percent results in quite a high rate compared to our peers so looking at that The cost of materials, the tax on that is actually 60% higher than the national average. So now if we're building a 2,000 square foot house, we can estimate that sales tax burden to be $7,000. Compare that to other cities like Portland or Bozeman, where there is no state or local sales tax or even Cheyenne. You just mentioned the Wyoming folks. Their sales tax rate is just five. Just 5%. So big difference there. And then there's plenty of other fees to discuss as well. It doesn't, you know, you don't necessarily think about sales tax when you're, when you're buying a home. But that has to be taken into consideration. So what are some of the other fees or taxes that are on the process as well? Right. So there's a whole stack of fees, and this applies to building a home in any city, but we found that Denver's fees, each of them, are notably higher than most of the 12 peer cities in our analysis. So these fees include everything from system development charges to connect to the water and sewer mains. building permit fees, plan review fees, there's trade permit fees. So think about electricians, plumbers, HVAC guys, they're all paying a fee of several hundred dollars just to be able to work on the house. So when you stack all of these up, these fees plus our estimated sales tax expense, Denver's already the most expensive among the 12 pure cities in our analysis. And then there's a few more things on top of that. Well, I want to talk a little bit about the permitting process because that's a hidden tax. And that is one of the reasons I was telling Andrew off the air. I've talked to two different developers who no longer build in Denver for two reasons. Number one, the fees that Andrew is talking about because these are people building houses that should sell for $500,000. These are maybe not starter home.

a higher level home somewhere else maybe even starter homes here but they said they can't get the permitting that in six months and there's carrying costs that get carried by the builders that then get passed on to the consumers we can't ignore that right That's exactly right. So there's not only other fees for these permits, but once you count the time it takes of delays on the city's time, there's cost of financing. So Denver's average plan review time for major residential projects is 209 days. Other cities' wait times are significantly lower. We looked at Salt Lake Cities was just 45 days. So whether you're a developer or a family building your own home, this extended wait time means you're incurring costs for months and months before you can actually move in. So we estimate the gap between Denver and Salt Lake City's timeline represents about $9,000 in avoidable financing costs. You also looked at some other fees, especially I want to talk about the Denver's water system development fee, because you found it was 91% above the national average. What exactly are they doing with that exorbitant amount of money? right yep water is definitely one that stands out in colorado and a lot of that has to do with water scarcity issues and the cost of buying water rights for some of these suburbs around Denver especially but the basic idea is that when you build a new home The main water line down the street needs to be extended and who's going to pay for that cost. So that rests heavily upon new home builders. And we also noted that not only is Denver's fee very high, but surrounding suburbs fees are actually two to three times higher than Denver's water system development fee. And that's where we're seeing a lot of the growth in new. housing developments just for the fact that there's more space in some of those suburbs. So huge expense for Coloradoans building houses. I live in Douglas County where it feels like they have just sprinkled housing seeds all over the place because they're just sprouting up like mushrooms. How do the outer suburbs, like when you look at the overall cost, did you guys analyze the outer suburbs versus Denver? I know you did other cities, but was there a county where things are better? and counties where they are worse. I guess this is what I'm asking.

Yep, it depends where you want to live. So if you look out in Lamar, fees can be as low as $3,000. And if you want to live in Arvada, water system development, fees can be as high as $40,000. So it varies quite a bit. For those interested in going deeper, you can look on our website. We have a map of probably 20 to 30 cities in the state to show you the wide range. But yeah, you're right. It varies quite a bit depending on what suburb or what town you're in in the state, anywhere from 3,000 to 40. $6,000 to connect to the waterline. Don't get me wrong. I do believe that new developments need to have skin in the game when it comes to the infrastructure that they need to make these new developments. I'm not opposed to that because that does feel more like a fee for service. But what I'd love to see is the justification for this wild disparity in the fees that these different cities and towns are charging. I mean, I really think it probably has to do with who could pass it with no one paying attention. Right? New people are not going to be at the city council meeting or wherever these decisions are made. Did you guys have any sort of rhyme or reason? Is there an explanation given? Or is it just in Arvada? Here's your $40,000 bill. Yep. For this study, we really were just collecting the facts. So we have the data for all these various cities. We don't have the line items that the city uses those funds for. But you can just see from the variation that there's, Obviously, different approaches, city to city, of the size of fees that they're willing to ask for, and then the use would be another question. Another good perspective is just to compare this across other cities in the West. So water fees in Denver are quite similar to those in Cheyenne, but you look at cities like Phoenix or Bozeman, Salt Lake City, Boise. Our fees are two to three times higher when it comes to water system development fees. What is the impact been on our home building here in Colorado versus or here in the Denver Metro versus those cities you just mentioned? Are we building as many houses now? Right. So our benchmark is mostly on the fees. We do know that Denver permits for single family homes have dropped significantly since 2021. I think we have, it's well into the double digits, maybe a 40% decrease in permits for new single family homes since 2021. How are other cities doing though? Are they continuing to grow? And it varies quite a bit. I'd say we know there's strong growth in cities like Oklahoma City, Dallas, Omaha. And one thing all those cities have in common is quite a bit lower fees. If you look at, we have a chart in our report that has this, the total stacked cost for each of these fees. And those three cities I mentioned are definitely towards the cheaper end. Well, you've got a list on this study as well, the most unaffordable housing markets. And you have Colorado at number 12 in the affordable ranking. How did this ranking come about? Right. And that actually might be a relatively optimistic ranking. There's a number of rankings that have come out recently. There's one from CNBC that's been quoted in quite a few articles lately. Colorado's.

Towards the bottom, if not the worst for home affordability, whether you look at the typical single family home price compared to median household income or if you look in a bit more detail and look at more variables, Colorado is ranking lower and lower for the past five or ten years as far as home affordability rankings. What about the affordability? Let me think of how to ask this. Actually, a texter just texted it. They were asking about water. Where's the future water coming from for all this development? Is that part of the reason that water fees are so high or do they have to have assured supply? I mean, our water stuff out here, Andrew, I'm not going to lie. I'm from Florida where water falls out of the sky every day. I've never dealt with water issues until I moved here. And every time I start to think I have a handle on it, this new thing pops up. Like, where are these developers getting assured supply? Is that taken into account in any of the data that you looked through? through? So for our understanding from our research, these water system development fees, there is some overlap in what those funds are used for. As far as a deep dive in water, we haven't done that just yet. Obviously a very important topic for the state, especially this summer with how low some of the lakes and reservoirs are. So you can expect some upcoming research on the water topics, but that's all I have to say as far as this study. Did you look at how much affordable, the affordable housing fees that have been created by Denver and the state of Colorado, how much they directly add to the cost of someone else's home? Yes, and thank you for bringing that up. So a lot of these fees, as I mentioned, they exist in other cities. We just happen to be a bit higher. Now, this affordable housing linkage fee is something quite unique to Denver. Across the 12 cities we looked at, Portland, Oregon was the only other city with a comparable fee, and theirs was actually five times lower than what we see in Denver. So the Denver fee is $8.18 per square foot. And in our study, we based it off of a 2,000 square foot new build home. That would total more than $16,000, which the city collects to create and preserve affordable homes for low to moderate income families. While making everybody else pay more. I mean, let's be real. We're basically subsidizing the people who are going to be lucky enough to get into the program that the government has decided they're the lucky ones. They win the prize and the rest of us just get to buy a ticket and never cash it. I mean, that's me just dumbing things out. I do want to ask you something about permitting fees, the graph that you have in the Common Sense Institute's report that I'm talking with with Andrew Woodward, the author of the report. You have a graph that shows building permit fees, plan review fees, and trade permits. some states not have trade permits at all? Because in Denver, they had a sizable chunk onto the cost of all of these fees. Why do Phoenix and Cheyenne not have those fees at all?

Right. So these are all policy issues. It's up to policymakers whether or not we have these fees, whether they grow, or whether they cease to exist. So you'll note in quite a few cities, you mentioned a few of them, Omaha, Oklahoma City, Nashville. They're missing a number of these fees, and you'll notice that that's also correlated with some of the cities that have continued to see growth in home building in contrast to what Denver is experienced. And the cost is much, much lower. I mean, we're sitting around $6,000 just in permitting fees, plan review fees, and trade permits. Whereas Oklahoma City is sitting around $500, it looks like, based on the graph. These are all significant things that government could address. But where's the argument, Andrew? I mean, maybe this is, maybe I'm asking the wrong person this question, but I don't know what a plan review fee does. But I do know that AI will do it better and faster than the people probably in that office. So at what point do we start to see some of these... slow, expensive systems start to get better. I mean, I guess we have to have different people. I'm answering my own questions, Andrew. You don't even need to be here for this part of the interview. It's just, it's frustrating when you see it laid out like this and you know that government can do better, but they don't have any incentive to do better because their answer is always another program for affordable housing for the chosen few while increasing the costs on everyone else. It becomes this sort of, you know, self-fulfilling prophecy of housing gets more expensive because they make it more expensive, but for a few, they're going to make it cheaper. And it's a frustrating cycle, and I wish there was more I could do to change it right now. But I appreciate the incredibly hard work that you did on this to sort of open everybody's eyes on what that actually looks like in practice. Andrew Woodward, I appreciate your time today and everything you do, a common sense. Great. Thank you, Mandy. All right. That is Andrew Woodward. You can read the study in its entirety at my website. You can link to it at Mandy blog.com. But there's nothing surprising in this study. Nothing. I was not remotely surprised when I saw this because government, what's frustrating is that the people in charge, it's like they have no sense of responsibility. I've been going back and forth on X with Chris Vanderween. One of the reporters here, and he's been defending Anthony Fauci and the media. And, you know, I made a point to him today. Like, the press dropped the ball on the Anthony Fauci thing because it is the press's responsibility to remain skeptical and distrustful. And the media just took every press release as gospel. and regurgitated it. And then shouted down people who disagreed. And he made a comment like, you know, hey, so some random person on the internet said a bunch of lies too. I'm like, the media got a special mention in the bill of freaking rights. Some rando on the internet didn't.

So we have to pay attention to this stuff. I'm not sure anything will change in Denver until the city just has a full complete collapse. I heard Steve Hilton today on Travis and Buck when I was driving in. That guy's running for governor of California. And listening to him, talk about Los Angeles right now, because Los Angeles is in a very precarious position. If you did not know this, there are a bunch of blue state Democrats who are suing to prevent the merger between MGM and Paramount. Wait a minute, is that? Google that real quick rant and make sure that it's MGM and Paramount. I think it is. But now that I said it, it sounded wrong once I said, So two movie studios want to merge. You know, I could argue that that's not good for media because I work for a company that bought up a bunch of radio stations, and I don't think that's been good for media. I just don't. I don't think consolidating ownership is good for anything. Central planning fails, even when it's corporate central planning, fails a lot of the time for a very good reason. But nonetheless, is it Paramount and MGM? Grants looking. Paramount and Warner Brothers. Oh, sorry. Warner Brothers. Thank you. I knew it sounded wrong when I said it. So Paramount and Warner Brothers want to merge. And these Blue State Democrats are suing to stop two privately owned businesses publicly traded from merging. And now Paramount is thinking about taking all of its production, what's left of its corporate offices and moving to Tennessee. And Steve Hilton is on with Travis and Buck talking about the fact that if the movie industry fully decamps from Los Angeles, because movies are made all over the place, people are now offering incentives all over the world to come film there, and you'd be an idiot not to, especially when California makes it 50 fresh layers of hell to film there. And Steve Hilton says if the movie industry goes, We become Detroit in Los Angeles. Because when the car industry left Detroit, it hollowed out that city so freaking fast. And it still has not remotely recovered to where it was before when the auto industry was strong in Detroit. And you know who signed on to that lawsuit? Phil Weiser. Why in the world would Phil Weiser in Colorado give a rat's ass about a movie studio? merger in Los Angeles. He doesn't. He just wants to tell you to sue Trump again. It's just so, ugh, so, so, so, so pathetic. So incredibly pathetic. All right, guys, it is ask me anything because I'm on vacation tomorrow. and for the next week. And I'm a little bit checked out. I'm not going to lie. Mandy, what happened to the promise to Douglas County residents about plentiful water by building the Router Hess Reservoir? I got to tell you, I'm pretty impressed with that reservoir. I go walk around there a lot. I like that reservoir. And we've just had what? I think Douglas County has added, let's see, I believe a million people in the last 10 years. It feels like a million.

They've now had to call in the military because the people that are coming from Morocco include a bunch of people that the Moroccan government just let out of prison. Does all of this sound familiar? The first time I heard of such a thing of people being let out of prison to be let to invade another country was when the castros let a bunch of people out of Cuban prison and that began the Manuel boat lift in the 80s. And that's, if you've ever seen the movie Scarface, that is about what happened when they let all of these people out of prison and they all came to Miami in a huge flood. So this is a humanitarian disaster. It is a disaster in Spanish. I mean, in Spain. But the reality is Spain brought this on itself. So here are the theories across Europe right now about why Spain is being invaded. The European far right joined the White House in accusing Spain's prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, a socialist. of inspiring the crossings with his migrant-friendly policies. Wait a minute. Are they talking about Pedro Sanchez or are they talking about Joe Biden? Mr. Sanchez, on the other hand, is trying to deflect blame and said it's human trafficking networks. They misled migrants about the ease with which they could remain on Spanish territory. But the reality is, is that Spain brought it on themselves. They announced some time ago they were going to give immunity or they were going to give status to 500,000 illegal immigrants that were already in the country that created a flood of people. At the same time, Spain's Supreme Court declared that the southern border doesn't exist. If people come from the ocean and they come out of the water, then they get to stay. They don't get immediately deported. Now, many of you may not know that that is very similar to the wet foot, dry foot policy that was in place in the United States for forever when it came to Cuban immigrants. If Cuban immigrants could get one foot on the ground, They could stay. If you caught them in the ocean in a boat, they had to go back. It's an insane policy. I mean, and when I lived in Southwest Florida. Sanibel Island is only, let me think for a second, so Sanibel Island is probably 130 miles from Cuba. So they would bring these Cuban immigrants over in these Go Fast boats from Cuba and they would pull up to Sanibel Beach and they would just let all of these people jump out of the boat and they would run up onto the shore and then they would wait for immigration to show up.

Because then they could stay. And Spain's Supreme Court said, heck yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's make it happen. Now, Italy has now stepped in. Italy has entered the chat. Giorgia Meloni is like, no, Spain. We're going to be reintroducing border controls because here's what happens. Most of the time in Spain or in Europe, when you go from country to country, there's no stop. You don't stop in between the borders. It's not like in the olden times where you see on movies where you're on a train and then a guy gets on the train and let me see your ticket and your passport. It doesn't happen because all of them have inner agreements and you can just go freely in between the countries. Well, Giorgia Meloni's like, not anymore. Nope, not going to do it. Because we don't want all of your illegal immigrants to storm into our country. So she called it an extraordinary measure that would be kept in force only for the time necessary with particular attention to limiting any impact on summer tourist flows. So everybody, everybody is freaking out. Ireland is the current president of the European Council, which provides the European Union political leadership. And a spokesperson for the Irish presidency said, it's now been confirmed that over 37,500 people have already voluntarily returned to Morocco and that there is no onward movement from Sweta to the European continent or other member states. Well, not yet. Come on. Oh, no, to the textury said 60,000 inmates. No, not 60,000 inmates. We don't know how many inmates. I saw the number earlier, roughly 2,000. But there's just a slight amount of prison and sending them across. Just go across the strait of Gibraltar. It'll be fine. It'll be fine. Nothing to see here. It's all good. So what they're finding, though, is unlike in the United States, when people like Mayor Mike Johnson decided to take your taxpayer dollars and use them to feed and clothe and give free apartments to illegal immigrants, let's just say Spain is not rolling out the welcome whack. Many are being pushed along by Spanish police officers and soldiers. Many have not eaten in days. Days. So they're trying to stay. But they're not going to make it. By the way, say Utah, which is the city in Spain that is now being overrun, has a total of 83,000 residents normally. And they have now gotten an additional 50 to 60,000 people in the last couple of days. This is what happens when you tell people who live in a miserable crap hole of a country that they're going to have amnesty in a non-craphole country. This is what happens. It's exactly what happened here. Only Spain is not nearly as big and able to manage it. I think their strategy of just...

Pulling up the welcome mat and slamming doors probably the best one. Forget whatever plans you have this weekend because you're staying at home and playing on SpinQuest. And there's never been a better time to sign up than right now. New users get $30 coin packs for just $10. All the table games you love with hundreds of slot games and real cash prizes. That's at SpinQuest.com. SpinQuest.com. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Voidware prohibited. Visit spendquest.com for more details. Mandy, what do you think Jesus would do? I am not arrogant to think I would know. I'm just going to have to guess. I don't like it when people invoke, what would Jesus do? And I don't know if you're being serious or not. I'm going to take it as if you were. I'm not going to pick on you. But I don't like it. What would Jesus do when we're talking about a governmental response to a governmental situation? Because the reality is very, very simple, you guys. Do you have any idea how many garbage countries there are around the world? Just absolute dumps of humanity that are full of corruption where people have no opportunity. And they're really good people that live in these garbage dump countries. And they want to come to the United States to have the opportunity for a better life. But at what point do we in the United States of America say, you know, we got to make sure that we can handle it. We got to make sure that we are able to absorb people in a reasonable fashion. That is actually what legal immigration should be focused on. It should be focused on accepting people in our country at a rate that allows us to allow them to assimilate, to become a part of the country instead of creating, you know, little carve-outs in certain cities where they just brought their culture with them. Because when we are overrun with people who don't share our value system, it is very difficult to make sure that they adopt a value system that is compatible with life in the United States of America. You know, I welcome the best to the best. I love talking to people that have come here from somewhere else. This is one of the reasons why I always talk to my Uber drivers and my taxi drivers, because I mean nine out of ten times, those are going to be immigrants who are here and they are hustling. They got like three other jobs. They're driving on the side. But you talk to them about why they came to the United States of America. And they're exactly the people that I want here. They're like, I want to come here and make something of myself and be somebody. I want to take advantage of the American dream. They're not here to take advantage of the American welfare state. I want those people here. I want anybody who comes here for freedom and the opportunity to be the best version of themselves. Like that is the immigrant that I want here. But if you're coming here to look for a free apartment and a free cell phone, I don't want you here because now you've become another one of my dependents and I can't even tell you what to do. Because if I am paying your bills, I deserve to have a say in your life. That's how it is when you're a parent.

As long as I'm putting the bill, I get a say in your decision making. So it's just, it's. It's sad that people live in such horrible places with such lack of opportunity, with such high levels of corruption, that they feel the need, the desire, the drive to leave their home behind, leave their families behind, to make a long and illegal and dangerous trek to get to a country that is better. But at what point does the country that's better have to protect their betterness for the people that already live there? If you bring in a whole bunch of people who just want to take advantage of the welfare system or don't want to do the right thing or they want to commit crimes going back to Scarface. We got a lot of Cubans who came here with criminal records and a lot of criminal knowledge. And they created one of the biggest narco states in the world, right in Miami in the 1980s. So we don't want those people here. And yet that is in an unmeasured. form of immigration like these invasions by people you don't have time to sort the wheat from the chaff and bring in the people that are going to be productive members of society and make sure the people that are here to pray on other people don't get the chance to come here i have a great story on the blog today they just did a naturalization ceremony where they made 300 people who came to the united states they they granted them citizenship and they did it at red rocks I love everything about that story. You've got people who made the active choices. Many of them probably spent thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars because I don't know if you guys have seen what it takes to get through the legal immigration process. That's a topic for another day. But these are people who chose to be here, not just people who are lucky enough to be born here like we were. They put the effort in. So it's frustrating that we can't take care of everyone in the world who lives in a garbage country. Really, it's sad. But there's also part of me that at this stage in the game, it's like, when are you going to clean up your own garbage country? When are you going to look around the world and see examples all over the place where things work? Free markets work. Holding people accountable for corruption works. Well, you can't talk about the United States with that anymore. That ship sailed a long time ago. It isn't ask me anything, but when we get back, we're going to talk about naked dressing. You heard me right. It's a thing. It's a fashion choice. And it's a bad one in many situations. I'll be right back. You know what? It sucks to be bored. But when I get on my phone and play real casino games on SpinQuest.com, the time flies by. That two-hour wait at the DMV seems like 10 minutes. Play your favorite slots. Live blackjack, live craps with a live dealer. New players, $30 coin packs are on sale for 10 bucks. Play SpinQuest.com and you'll never be bored again. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit spendquest.com for more details.

The Mandy Connell show is sponsored by Bell and Pollock Accident and Injury Lawyers. Now, it's Mandy Connell. Mandi Conno, Ruin the Day. On KLA, 8.50 a.m. 941 FM. Through the static and the noise, she cuts through the frame. Mandy Connell keeping ignorance at bay. Welcome, welcome to the third. of the show last hour before vacation. I'm Mandy Connell. That guy's Grant Smith in for Anthony Rodriguez, who is out covering training camp. I'm just going to say it. K-O-A has it covered wall-to-wall. And I don't get to go because while my show is happening, it's quiet time. And there's actually enforced quiet time during training camp, and it's right when my show happens. But tomorrow morning at 9, are you going to be here for that? Grant, are you running the show for that? Tomorrow's that, Zach? Thankfully. I will be not here. All right. But in the morning, Ben Albright, Ryan Edwards, Nick Ferguson are going to be here. They're going to be broadcasting from training camp tomorrow with the Broncos Country Tonight, Training Camp Show. So tune in on K-O-A to hear that. And we're kind of having an ask-me-anything, Lucy-goose kind of show. But guys, I have a video on the blog. I just want to make sure that you go watch. And it is an interview on a podcast called Free State Colorado with a Colorado woman who spent 20 years. trying to become a man. She has now detransitioned and oh. M.G. I learned so much from listening to this podcast that I had no idea about. And I feel like I'm pretty well informed, but she talked about the damage done to her body and the kind of decisions that were making young people or letting young people make with lifelong consequences that have to do with sexual function, your ability to have sexual satisfaction. I mean, it is just, it's super scary, but that is on the blog today. You should check it out. I do want to talk about. this new, I'm gonna call it style. called naked dressing. Now, Grant, I know you and Olivia have been pregnant, so you're probably not going out on the town as much as you have previously. Have you seen any of this naked dressing happening out and about? Because I've got to tell you. I don't know what that means. Like, okay, clothes, like women going out with a sheer top and just a bra underneath or a lace skirt with like granny panties on underneath, but still naked other than that. That kind of dressing. Yeah. I have seen that. In the club, right? Oh, yes. All the times I'm in the club. I mean, just going out at bars and whatnot. Yeah, for sure. And that's one place. Because when I was young, I wore shirts you could see through. I wore a crocheted top all the time, but I had a bra. I'm not going to the hell that. I'm not crazy. I'm not a maniac.

But now, listen to this. This is from the Wall Street Journal, by the way. This is an esteemed publication. When Jennifer Epstein wore a sheer lace skirt that showed off her underwear to dinner with her husband, his response after he regained his ability to speak was, where's the rest of your outfit? Epstein is a pharmacist in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, said she wasn't looking for his approval. It feels empowering, the 43-year-old said. It's a modern kind of feminism that embraces self-assurance and femininity on your own terms. Guys and gals, this is another win by the patriarchy. Yet another. Win by the unseen hand of the deep male gaze. Because you know who loves women walking around with their underwear hanging out, dudes? I mean, dudes. Yeah, I was going to say, I have zero problem with this. Well, this is the one that got me. This is the one that got me. When Christian Espinoza walked into a dinner during a cybersecurity conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, he did a double take. Seated near him was a woman in a brawlet and a sheer black skirt. He said, I'm not so many rattles easily, but I remember thinking, I have no idea where to look right now. Here's the kicker. She turned out to be the keynote speaker. And this is where it gets really dicey. Because if you're going to the club and you are trying to attract male attention or female attention, if that's your thing, nothing wrong with that at all, and you want to show your naughty bits, you want to go to a concert wearing a sheer shirt with a bra, more power to you. But do not kid yourself that this is some kind of bold form of feminism. This is another way to get men to look at you, even if you are a lesbian. Because men really don't care if you're a lesbian, if you have great boobs, then they can see them through your sheer shirt. They don't care. They really don't. And men, back me up, 56690. These are just, back in the day, we used to call that dressing slutty. Yes. Yes, indeedy. Yes. Mandy, other than being quiet, what do the Broncos do during quiet time at training camp? I don't know because they make everybody leave. They can all pull out little mats on the field and take a little nappy nap. I don't know. Yeah, I think that's when they do their yoga exercise. Well, I know that they do like team meetings from that morning's practice or something. I don't know. But they didn't tell me. Mandy, Marco Rubio has just cut entry to the U.S. from Spain due to the migrant crisis. There you go. Mandy, where does your cruise depart from? It departs from Vancouver, Canada. You ever been to Vancouver, Grant?

I had a layover in Vancouver. Great city. Beautiful airport, too. One of my favorite cities in Canada, and I love some of the cities in Canada. I really do want to go, because I want to go skiing up there at some point. In Whistler? Yep. Okay, so here's the little thing about Whistler from a non-skier who went skiing in Whistler and tried to learn how to snowboard. Grant, all their mountains are like this. All of them. Well, luckily, I'm a pretty good skiing. Well, they're straight up and down. It's like Crested Butte. It was terrifying. A snowbird in Utah. It's just straight down. I need a meandering sort of, you know. I need to meander. What's that trail at Keystone that's like two miles long and you're just like barely moving? The one at Winter Park that's the green where there's like three parts where unless the snow is perfect, you totally have to like cross country ski to get through it because it's so flat. That's where I live, Grant. That's where I live. Flattered the better. Mandy, you should hear my gay men friends lust all over the shirtless straight men goes both ways. Exactly. Mandy, ho's going to hoe. Here's the thing, though. Now you have a professional woman who's giving a keynote speech who's appearing at a cybersecurity conference. Now, I just want to, I want to paint a picture of the men at this conference. It is a cyber security conference. I bet you some of those men have never seen a naked woman. Now, not all. There are some hot cybersecurity guys. There are. But I'm just saying stereotypically that stereotype exists for a reason. Mandy, I look at boobs every opportunity and I'm old. My husband could be a hundred years old. And if there's a woman with great boobs, he is going to look at her. And at 100, he just won't care. He'll be like, hey, I'm looking at your boobs. Nice job. Because he barely cares enough now to not do that. My grandma used to love to tell this story when my grandpa, my dad's dad, would go up onto OU's campus or whatever event he was going to. He wrecked his car twice. Looking girls. Looking at scantily clad college girls. That's fantastic. Oh, by the way, yes, quiet time is when the Broncos have orange slices and caprisons. You are correct, Texer. You've cracked the code. Ryan Edwards hands him out. Oh, yeah, exactly. Yeah. It is plaid when it's 90 degrees. So, Mandy, I've been married to my wonderful wife for over 50 years. But if a woman walked into a restaurant or a place of business looking like that, I know where my eyes would go. One of the reasons I know I'm married to the right person is because we have the following relationship. Chuck and I wrote dinner one night. We've gone up into the mountains. We were a nice restaurant, but it was mud season, so we were like the only people in the restaurant. And here comes the beautiful, young, 19-year-old hostess with the girls prominently on display. And she went to wipe down the table directly next to us. My husband looks over. I look at my husband. He looks back at me and just looks at me and goes, they were right there. I couldn't argue. Just couldn't argue. Grant Whistler is great if it's cold enough at the bottom to not be a lake and there's no fog. There you go. Mandy, I'm a man who loves looking at women in their bodies, but it's almost more fun to watch the guys at the gym ogle and turn their heads to look at girls. Note to those guys, you can actually look at things without turning your head. Mandy.

Would you pretty please ask one of the K-OA sports people what the Broncos do during quiet time? Excuse me, can we get Aaron on the phone to ask him, Grant? Because he's out there. Give him a call. We'll take a break. We'll get Aaron on the phone. We'll get Arrott on the phone. We'll get to the bottom of this quiet time business. Hanging out at the pool is great. Relaxing and playing Vegas-style games on my phone at the same time. Drink in one hand and a blackjack in the other. It's all at SpinQuest. Over a thousand games including your favorite slots and table games. Be cool with this summer special. New players get $30 coin packs for 10 at SpinQuest.com. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. Every time my wife and I go out, she says, what would you like me to wear? I always say something slutty. She's 56 and hot, but it's always a good joke. I'm in, so I'm the same age as your wife, a little bit older. I've just turned 57. And I was telling somebody the other day, and guys, you probably don't understand this because men, men's fashion doesn't change all that much. But I'm in this weird space right now where I'm not ready for like old lady clothes, but. I go to the store and I don't want to look like I'm trying to dress like my daughter. So I'm just kind of wearing the same clothes I've always worn as a Gen Xer and I'm, I don't know. Being old, weird. Mandy, what do they mean with a Republican Party becoming a minority party? What happens when, let me see, how much of the vote will make a party the minority? I'm going to make sure I have this right. I want to make sure I have the numbers right. I'm aware of what you're talking about. I just want to make sure that I have the exact data. So if a party receives less than, oh, no, no, talking about, oh, no, I don't have the exact numbers. I think it's like if they get less. If they get less than 10%. That's the problem. Okay, we're going to check in with Arod right now because someone asked, what do the Broncos do during quiet time at the training camp? And Arod is at training camp so much that he probably has his finger on the pulse of what this is. So Anthony... Have you actually been able to see what happens during quiet time? Because we have listeners that speculate this is when they give out orange slices and Capri Sons. I said maybe this is when they bring out their little pads and they lay on the ground and take a little nap. But do you have any idea what they do during quiet time? Well, first of all, hello, and secondly, I've got to follow that beginning of that segment there. Quite the segue. But you're partially right. Some of that in there, you are correct. So.

They typically take quite a bit of time to head off the field. They do indeed sit down with their pad. They've got their kind of their friends and family that they've brought out for camp to kind of hang out with them. A good contingent of them goes and signs, autographs, and hangs out with some fans kind of on the entry line there where the barricade is for the fans were sitting this year. And then they will slowly but surely as they will trickle back into the now new. facility and start to get treatment and all that and get ready for that next day probably start reviewing some some tape so it's kind of a little bit of all of the above probably not much a not too much of quiet time necessarily still a lot of work they get done but it's just all off the practice field all right so there could be what what i heard was there could be orange slices and caprisons while they're on the field talking so that could happen in theory. They have to be approved by the training staff. They always have the certain snacks out. I will say in years past, they would get those those kind of snacks on the way out of the facility before practice. They would have the snacks and the drinks and all the all the gatorades and whatnot laid out before. I don't know if they do it post practice as well, but I assume the recovery is probably just as important as the pre-practice sustenance. So I would think so. haven't had a chance to chat since you have been taking a little tour of the new training facility tell me a little bit about that Well, first and foremost, I'll tell you right from the horse's mouth, Mr. Greg Penner, owner and CEO, stop by for a few minutes real fast before we came back on air earlier today during Ross's show. And he was essentially saying that they're proud of this thing. First of all, it's immaculate. When Kean and I walked up before in the morning, the amount of lights that were on in this, it looked like a college campus. It looked like a snazzy, fancy hotel. And as the day progressed, and as the sun started to came, it as the sun rose, it is just immaculate. I mean, I compared it when I used to work at the ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut. It is in line with something like that. Like, you know, we all know the story now by now, 175 million completely privately funded by the Walton Tenors. And it's just, it's beautiful. It is, it is something to behold. The Broncos have put out some, some behind the scene stuff. We've obviously been able to see. I mean, you can see pretty far into it because there's so much glass windows. You can see a lot of the open off. and kind of the gym and the training and like the hangout area for the players. You can see so much of it. It is, it's special. And the players have been gushing about it. Well, that's only going to help us in the future. And I know that you guys are going to be out there all weekend tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. You can listen to the Broncos country tonight, training camp show with Ben and Ryan and Nick. So tune in then. Arod, we'll see you when I get back from vacation, my friend. Sounds good. Enjoy it. All right. We are going to take a quick time out when we get back. We're going to talk a little bit about Colorado wine with the OG Colorado wine that I'm aware of, the good ones. That would be the guy. Kevin Weber from Carboy Rinery coming up next.

What's going on, everyone? It's Bluff here, and we're driving through the States in the BluffMobile, and the best thing that we can do is play our favorite casino-style games on SpinQuest. They have over 1,000 games, including Live Dealer, Blackjack, and craps, with tons of slots and unlimited. You can get a $30 coin pack for just $10 for new users. Sign up today. Go to SpinQuest.com right now. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit spendquest.com for more details. Carboy Winery, one of the reasons I like talking to you guys is because I think you, and correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like you were the first Colorado winery who sort of figured it out. You figured out how to make great wine in this climate with grapes that grow here and you created a tasting experience, a tasting room experience, complete with a meat aquarium where you make like dried meat in there. But. But so you're in a way, to me, you represent kind of the OG of the Colorado wine scene that is now massive. And there's so many great wineries in Colorado. And when I moved here in 2013, I could not say that. Yeah. I mean, I think Colorado wine is having a moment. I don't, I don't want to give ourselves too much of a bat on the back thinking that we're the OGs, but of this kind of new renaissance of Colorado wine or new pioneers. You know, we just had a goal that when we started that we wanted to, you know, take this industry and prove that we could put our wines on a world stage. And we just wanted to have fun while we were doing it. And it's kind of taken an organic route where it has where we've grown as big as we've been. Well, I might come to the tasting room because the one in Littleton right next to Breckenridge Rory is just spectacular. And I think you demonstrated that you can make the entire wine thing an experience in Colorado the same way it's been in Napa for a long time. I mean, in. You go to California, and there are tons of venues like the ones that you guys have. But we didn't really have that here. So now you're expanding even more. Tell me about the new tasting room in Colorado Springs. Yeah, so we just opened Colorado Springs. It's our fifth tasting room location for Carboy, and we opened it alongside our sister restaurant, Angelo's Taverno, which is a copycat of the 50-year-old staple that we took over in 2013 in Capitol Hill. And, you know, we just wanted to keep spreading the gospel of what we're doing, where we're merging, you know, great food and experience with wine. And really just getting Colorado wine, it's due. You know, so that's, we're excited to be down there. It's a great community. And we've been looking forward to being down there for a couple years now. Well, and I said earlier that you can overlook Garden of Gods. That's not it. But you can see Pikes Peak. So we're, I mean, what is the view? You got a patio. You got garage doors. People can have that indoor, outdoor experience. What are people going to see when they're sitting in the tasting room? So it's a double-decker concept right off of I-25 in Woodman. So it's an old Chicago that was basically. that we took over. And we put the Angelo's tavern restaurant on the base level and put the tasting room up above on the rooftop. So we've got this big garage door that opens up that looks right at Pike's Peak. It's a beautiful tasting room. You know, every time we open up a new taste room, we're like, oh, this is my favorite taste room. But this one, this one really does have that really nice tasting room feel.

It's got some of the components of, you know, aesthetics from the other taste rooms that we have around the state. But it's a great spot. So let's talk a little bit about some of the stuff that's happening with your wine and you're just, you guys got a new certification for the way that you're making wine. And I know that in winemaking, that is becoming a bigger deal. People want to know what's in their wine bottle, right? They want to know that everything, how everything was made. How is that, what is that process like? And what did you just achieve? Well, Well, we just achieved was a silver metal recognition from Colorado Green Business Network. And it has more to do with just the incremental steps that we're committing to in our industry. Because making wine, making spirits, you know, it's not the cleanest, you know, you use a lot of wine. There's a lot of resources. You know, 40% of the product. comes in the form of packaging and that's something that we've excelled in since day one where you know about half of the 28 000 cases equivalent that we make every year goes into stainless recyclable format you know for stainless steel kegs and uh so that's something that's always been you know something we've done but every year we're trying to level up you know we're putting solar out in our vineyard uh in palisade we're You know, we put a gray water system in when we open up that location as well. And so every year we're just looking at, hey, what more can we do to take more incremental steps and be making a more sustainable product and being more sustainable business? Are you using gray water on the vines? Yes. Okay, because in Florida, people don't know this, but in Florida where it rains every day and we don't have the water problems we have here, they take the gray water, which has been treated a little bit. It's not toxic. It doesn't have poop in it. It's been treated the first round. It's just not appropriate for drinking. And that's what you use for irrigation on your lawn. So to hear that that's one of the things when I moved out here. I was like, wait, what? We don't do that. Seems like it would make even more sense out here because you're not wasting water that would otherwise be good for drinking just with irrigation. Does that make a difference? Does any of this make a difference in the quality of the wine that you guys are producing? I don't think the water necessarily does. I mean, to understand grape growing, you know, there's grapes, they only want a certain amount of water anyway. So getting a ton of rain isn't great, especially this. time of year as the grapes are starting to get ready for harvest. So it's not something where the type of water you're using is going to influence it as much as the soil where the grapes vines are planted. So. When you talk about the rain that we're having now and the big drought, how is the drought, how are your grapes doing? The grapes are actually doing pretty fantastic. I was more concerned about the fires, you know, especially the ones in Utah as they were coming there. But we get, you know, we got lucky that when the smoke came through the valley, it did so at a time when the grapes are at a point where they're not as susceptible to getting things like smoke taint, you know, early around in the year. Now, it is a thing. It is a thing, yeah, yes.

now we've got a lot of grapes that are starting what's called varasian where the grapes that are all start off green they start to turn their respective colors and so the grape skins they start to get a little thinner this is the point in time where if we had wildfires and a lot of smoke in the valley where we would be really concerned you'd probably be turning on fans if you're a vineyard owner that has fans to try to keep that smoke off of them but That would be my biggest concern out there. You know, we were fortunate enough that we haven't been as impacted by the drought as much as maybe here on the front range. Well, I'm actually fascinated by the smoke taint. So we're going to ask one more follow up. So could you not make a wine? What is it due to the wine or can you even use it at that point? Oh, yeah. You could definitely use it. I mean, smoke is no. Smoke taint is nothing new to winemakers all over the West. So California has had well-documented fires over the last, you know, five to ten years. Same thing with Oregon and Washington. You know, when you get smoke taint and a wine, it can come off as kind of a smoky flavor. That's what they call it smoke taint. And there's things that winemakers can do to minimize that impact once the wine is made and gets into the bottle. You know, it's very much a... a chemistry assignment. I went to a wine tasting in Indiana. I don't know if you know about the wine people in Indiana, but the guy who owned this particular winery was a chemist who loved wine, bought a winery. So his wine tasting was unlike anything I've ever been to in my entire life. And I found out at that wine tasting that there's all kinds of random things that on the face of it would seem terrible, like certain rots, certain, you know, funguses, things that happen. But they can actually create a... really spectacular wine. You just can't control them. I was wondering, like, has anybody ever made a smoke-taint wine that everybody was like, this is amazing? Or is it one of those things where you just kind of hope for the best? Absolutely. I mean, there are some people that probably really like it. You know, the wine community and the Somalié community out there, you know, they'll probably judge those wines a little more stringently. You know, they'll want wines that don't have those kind of flaws. But look, at the end of the day, A consumer is the one that gets to decide whether they like it or not. And I've met, and I've actually had a couple of wines that had smoke tan on them, and I didn't find them displeasing at all. And I think there's different levels of it as well. So it's, it's like the most non-committal, not quite a compliment. I didn't find them displeasing. I'm going to use that now with my husband when he says, is this okay? I did not find it displeasing. So the wine industry overall, and Kevin and I were talking about this off the air, The wine industry overall has seen a big dip over the last few years. Younger generations have not started drinking wine, but... Some of them have, but you've noticed, like, specifically, they're not necessarily going to do what I did when I was 21 years old, which is go buy a bottle of Sutter home, but they're also not kind of sucked into the hype about really expensive wine. Yeah, I mean, there's two things happening right now. There is simultaneously, actually, there is this pro-wellness movement, which is a big cultural shift. Right.

And that is the younger generations, you know, younger millennials, Gen Z, like, they're at the forefront of that. And then at the same time, we have a big changing of the guard from which consumers in charge for the wine industry, which has been the boomers in the past, you know, and the value proposition to younger wine drinkers is just different. It's not that they don't. want to drink wine. They actually do, and they actually do understand it. It's just they are not going to be fed something that they're not going to buy into. Right. So is there, and I asked, I use the phrase, I'm like, are they getting craft beard? These big corporations that sell a ton of wine, they're not necessarily going to be the first choice for these younger wine drinkers. Are they getting craft beard? Are they getting outdone with wines with a lower price point, but by smaller vineyards? Because there's a little bit of a, you know, a little bit of, it's a small vineyard, you can only get it on the western slope kind of thing. There's a little bit of snobbery there, but it's affordable snobbery. When I was 21 or even when I was 24 when I first really got into wine. If my barrier of entry was an $85 tasting just for six one ounce pours, I probably wouldn't have gone there. So I think that's one of the big missteps that's still happening in legacy regions in this country like Napa and Sonoma. You know, what we try to do is we make, we make really good wine. We're very proud of the wine that we make, but we make it approachable and the way that we serve it to people makes it genuine. It makes it authentic. You know, we have a story to tell with it. And we're serving it to them in a way that makes sense. You know, we're bringing it to them instead of saying, hey, you have to come to us. And I think that's a big difference between how the way they used to do things and how the way we do them now. So there are big fires in France right now. And they are in the wine producing regions? Are you guys already looking at that saying, okay, are we going to have a complete lack of French wine competition? Or do you even think about it in those terms? Are you competing with California wines? Are you competing with old world wines? How do you position yourself mentally? for that. You know, right now, we just want to own our backyard. You know, we're, we're firmly getting people in this state to know that we, hey, we make really good wine here that can stand up on national stages and international stages. And, and now we're at Carboy, we're starting to branch outside of Colorado and start to make a name for ourselves in a value proposition for, hey, you know, this is high altitude, high elevation, you know, desert wine and it's got a fun story to tell. So. You know, France isn't really our competitor, and neither is Napa Valley. But what is in competition is, you know, when the consumer goes out and it goes to a restaurant, hey, what are they going to choose to drink? Right. Can we get a Colorado wine on the menu? And people say, oh, my gosh, this is really great, you know. And we're starting to see that more and more now. And that's really exciting for me. And it's exciting to see some of our brethren in the industry that are sharing in that moment as well. When you talk to other winemakers, because I get the impression, and I could be wrong about this as well, I get the impression that Colorado's wine industry is very insulated in that you guys all know each other. It kind of feels that way. It's a very small industry, and we do know each other. And honestly, this whole industry to California to Washington, Oregon is very small. I mean, it's amazing the amount of people that you come across that have, you know, two or three degrees of separation all over the place. So in Colorado, it's even smaller. But, you know,

I would like to think that everybody's in this together. And, you know, we have 150 wineries in this state. And you probably, we probably only interact with 20 or so on a regular basis. I could probably recognize 20 or maybe 25 of winemakers here in Colorado. I didn't realize there was that many. But do you count? And I'm not knocking this, but these sort of storefront where they're getting grapes from California and blending their own wines. Do you count those as a winery? Are you counting about, you know, people who are, I guess you'd have to, producing grapes? I mean, how do you define that? I mean, the winery is just the business. Right. You know, it's where, you know, so if you're a brewery, you make beer, if you're a winery, you make wine. So it's where they get the grapes from. I think that's for the consumer to be able to look at and say, hey, you know. is this one you know tell me more about this wine are these grapes grown here and i mean i think those things do matter and i think they matter more in wine than they do in beer and spirits certainly yeah nobody asked where do you get your hops from that i i noticed that years ago and there is a level of snobbery there it's like where do you get your grapes it's like really could you even tell you know and so and we have to import some grapes don't we we don't have enough Yeah, I mean, we have about 800 acres planted across the state. And so there's a lot considering that there's a lot of wineries that are not utilizing all those grapes. But look, when we started, you know, our first Colorado harvest in 2017 and then 2018, there was a time, you know, probably 2019, 2020, where we couldn't buy enough grapes, which led to us purchasing our own vineyards because we couldn't get enough. And now we probably have. There's probably plenty of grapes that we could buy out there. But, you know, we also outgrew our ability to produce grapes in Colorado on our own. So we ended up planting in Washington State like five or six years ago as well. And that wine really just kind of supplements our programs with the restaurants. But, you know, the Colorado wines that we make are our, that's our lead foot. So are you guys still experimenting? And last time I talked to you, we were talking about experimenting with different grapes, more native grapes, things of that. How is that experimentation panning out? Oh, it's great. I mean, it's every year we're like, okay, this is, it's literally what more, what new can we do? So, you know, last year we. introduced, I think the last time I was on our show, we introduced our Coseco, which is Colorado Presco. And now this year we're like, you know, we should follow that up and do a Lambrusco, you know. Oh my god, that's my mom's. My mom loves Labrusco. Just have some fun. That's like straight out of the 1970s. You just hit me with the Lambrusco. Would you like some lamb rusco? Yeah. But I still love the native fizz. That is the one that is my absolute favorite. It's just so perfect for summer. Kevin, what is the next big thing out of Carboy? I feel like every time I talk to you, there's just more and more and more. Obviously, the tasting room in Colorado Springs is a big deal. What's next?

You know, right now, the name of the game for us is just increasing quality. You know, we were very fortunate. We just had 12 wines place, really amazing scores on wine enthusiasts and James Suckling, and that's only going to help further Colorado wine. And a lot of people don't, hey, take a serious look at this region. And then, you know, we'll probably get a little antsy in the pants and start looking for another location. And it might be out of state. I don't know. I might tease that a little bit. It could be out of state. Look at you. I don't know. Maybe IDK. Maybe I'll take it back later. I don't know. Kevin Weber with carbonyery. I love what's happened in Colorado wine because when I first got here, I got given bottles of Colorado wine. And I'm not going to mention any winemakers. But I never bought a bottle of Colorado wine after that. It was not good. And what's happened since then in last... 13 years that I've been here has just been remarkable. You guys and all of the other ventures that are just doing amazing wines. I just think it's a great story. Oh, I appreciate that. And we need more people spreading that kind of gospel. Well, this text just said, Mandy, we just did the wine tour. We did the wine trolley tour and Carboy was on there. And we had an amazing time and really great wine and ended up buying six bottles. They're awesome. There you go. Kevin, I appreciate you making the trip, man. We'll see you again. Hey, thank you. Do you want to play out of the day? Are you ready? Yeah, absolutely. I've never skipped it. Never skipped it. All right. We've got Connor Shreve-in. We've got Kevin Weber from Carboy Winery, and they're both going to lose to me because now it's time for the most inside segment on the radio of its kind. And now you yell. You, Grant. Me? Yeah. What about one of our two guests? Connor, yell in the world. In the world! Not bad. Of the day. All right, it works like this. First, we get the dad joke of the day. All you have to do is laugh or groan. It does nothing else required. Yes, Grant. Dad joke of the day. I had to kick Cinderella off the softball team. Oh, gosh. She kept running away from the ball. Oh. Wow. Well, just pretend that never happened. What's the word of the day, please? Grant, let's just move on. Word of the day? James Comey. C-O-M-E-L-Y. Cumley. Doesn't that mean kind of like a little bit homely? Or is it? Is it? Frumpy? I don't know. Kevin, you want to take a shot? I don't know if I want to guess on that one. Okay, I was going to say that, but I was like, you have to be appropriate. You have people in the studio. It's actually the opposite. Okay. It is an old-fashioned phrase that means a pleasing appearance, pretty or attractive. Right. I don't know if I'm using that in a sentence. Textors are asking me who is filling in for me next week. I know Ben Albright's in on Monday, but other than that, I don't know.

I love the Ben shows. I'm assuming they won't break the station while I'm gone, but I don't care who fills in here. I believe Deb Flores in a couple of days. Okay, Dev's in a couple days, Ben's in. I don't know if Willie B's making a return anyway. Now, what is our trivia question I have right here? What is the most expensive edible fungus in the world? It's got to be truffles. Yes. That was my guess. The punchant white truffle, Tommy Tuberville Magnatom Pico, which can sell for as much as $3,000 per kilogram. Apparently, it is on par with cocaine. Anyway, see that? What happened to our insult of the day? That was short-lived. Okay, well, they're not good, and I tried to make them... Good and they're not good. And so I ditched that part of the show. Well, the bad jokes aren't good either. The dad jokes are sometimes good. The insults were never good. So we've done away with that. All right. Connor, Shreve, ready? What is our Jeopardy category? You remember, Kevin, you have to shout your name out to answer the question in the form of a question like Jeopardy. What is our Jeopardy category? I know you already have your vacation shoes on. We're going to put on our disco shoes. Ooh. You ready for the first one? Yes. This group with a construction worker. Mandy. Who are the village people? Correct. Y'all are both just sit quietly while I get the distair category. I'm just going to let you know right now. Go ahead. I'm your boogeyman by KC. and this group. Mandy? What are the Sunshine Band? Correct. To everything, there is a season. The first top 40 hit for this. Connor? Connor. What are the, or who are the birds? Oh. Incorrect. Say the whole thing. Say the whole thing. To everything, there is a season. The first top 40 hit for this queen of disco was Love to Love You Baby. Mandy, who is Donna Summer? Correct. The tramps wanted to burn that mother down with this song from Saturday Night Fever. Burn the mother down. Think of fire. Saturday night fever. I got nothing. Anyone else? Anyone? No. No? That is Disco Inferno. Oh, gosh, I'm so mad at me right now. Don't freak out, but Queen's another... Who is she? Correct. I apologize that that category was just so... I feel a little like Clisavon on Jeopardy right now when he just had stamps. You know, basically things that Mandy loves and disco music happens to be one of them. Grant, you couldn't do spirits? I know. I know. I know. Okay, guys, my auto response is already on on my email because I'm going on vacation as soon as this show is over. But I will be back Monday, August 10th, with a brand new intro. Yes, Grant. By the way, I just wanted to give a quick shout out to Anne Marie. Yes. She lives by one of my friends and loyal listener to the Mandy Connell show and said she follows along to Olivia and I's relationship and now future baby through the Mandy. Connell Show. We're here for you, Ann Marie. We will keep you informed. Everybody have a great week. I'll be back in a little bit. And until then, keep it right here on K-O-A.

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