Jan 11, 2021
Recorded: December 20, 2020
This will be a bitter-sweet episode at The Outliers Inn. It’s the episode where Antlerboy (aka Benjamin Taylor) announces his retirement from pouring drinks and serving slop as co-host at the Inn. Between his part-time gig at the Inn and his other interests and pursuits (including running his companies, other podcasts that he produces, and writing a book), the time constraints have become more than obvious, and he regrettably has to step out from behind the bar.
It all started on November 3rd, 2014. This was the day that Tom Magliozzi, co-host of “Car Talk”, was recalled to that great junk yard in the sky, to be joyfully reunited with all his previous vehicles.
Car Talk was a radio show about cars, their owners, and maladies (of the cars, that is – mostly). Guests would call-in and share various symptoms they were experiencing with their automobiles. The hosts would roast the caller, their automobiles, and their maladies in a respectful manner; perhaps sometimes less respectful of the vehicles themselves and their manufacturers. Every episode was a lot of fun listen to and certainly anyone who did would smile and laugh at least once.
When JP read of the passing of Tom, he posted the article on Facebook. And Antlerboy was the first to comment on my post. Even though Antlerboy is from the United Kingdom, he had just started to listen to the show and even shared his version of Tom’s obituary; “So, it happened again. You wasted a perfectly good life amusing yourself and other people and upholding the values of intelligence, science, eloquence, and rude good humour. And even though St. Peter himself will run screaming from the Pearly Gates when he hears YOU say it.... ‘That was Tom Magliozzi. And, don't drive like your brother...'”
But then we got to thinking. There was a lot of absurdities that occur and opportunities to poke fun of the goings-on in our own profession; businesses and their operations. Heck, we were guilty of some of these goings-on ourselves. Why don’t we start our own show? And (eventually) The Outliers Inn was born with our first episode produced in October of 2015 (almost a full year later). You can read the mostly complete history of The Outliers Inn here.
Since then, we have produced 58 episodes over a five-year period; not a bad run rate.
So, we give a proper send-off to Antlerboy by taking a walk down memory lane with a few select guests.
And it’s only appropriate that we start with Don Burshnick, our resident Biermeister Extraordinaire. When he’s not brewing his beer, he is drinking it as a regular at the Inn and is even an occasional co-host when we find ourselves short-staffed. Don shares with us his latest concoction; a “Gummy-Bear” IPA. We are certain it would not pass the German Reinheitsgebot.
Other irregular regulars include;
And lastly, although the corpus delicti of Antlerboy as co-host is still warm, we are happy to introduce our last guest, David “Mule” Schneider as the new co-host at The Outliers Inn. David shares a bit about himself, starting with the details of his being involved supporting STEM at the high school level by coaching and leading “robotics” as a high-school sport. Mule’s expertise in logistics and warehousing has kept him incredibly busy over the COVID pandemic as the rush to ecommerce created a huge demand for his skills.
So, as the Great Bard, William Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet; “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” We all thank Antlerboy for his helping found and build the Outliers Inn and he has promised to grace the establishment from time to time. And those who remain are all better off for having had the opportunity to hoist a drink together with him and share insights into life’s goings-on.
Hosts: | Joseph Paris, Founder of the OpEx Society & The XONITEK Group of Companies |
Benjamin Taylor, Managing Partner of RedQuadrant. |