Podcasts about Central Oregon

More than 50 million Americans face food insecurity. And in the U.S., 9 out of the 10 counties with the highest rate of food insecurity are rural. To offset this disparity, Roundhouse Foundation recently launched a 6 million dollar investment which will support local food purchase over the next three years. Carly Auten is food program director at NeighborImpact, a grant recipient that distributes more than 4 million pounds of food every year and feeds 80,000 people across Central Oregon every month.

JD writes "I was 17 years old. Heading into my senior year in high school. Life was good. This was in 2001, over summer break. On a blue sky summer day, my friend and I decided to go out for a drive and walk around a park, known as Shevlin Park. Now, back in 2002 you could go out to places in and around Bend and it wouldn't be overcrowded by tourists. Shevlin Park was on the outskirts of town with trails along Tumalo Creek that backed up to nothing but nature. Of course today there's houses and it feels more like a park surrounded by residential housing. I included a photo to help understand my encounter. In the photo, the red dot is where my friend and I parked. The yellow dot is where we had our encounter and the direction this creature went. That day we got lucky as there was nobody else around. We decided to take a walk over to Tumalo Creek. Within minutes of walking I noticed in front of me a large pine tree that had fallen over. The tree was resting up on its stump and it had fallen over into a thick growth patch of pine trees and aspens and your random shrubs. I got the immediate idea to hop up onto the tree and attempt to balance my way along the fallen tree. Now this tree, resting on the stump and the top of the tree now resting in a thicket of trees, there was probably about 3 feet of space from the tree parallel to the ground. I was about 5ft 11inches so I figured once I was up on the tree walking along it I would have been close to 9ft. My friend stayed on the ground and walked along the side as I walked my way on the fallen tree. Now I had only been up on this fallen tree for a matter of seconds and as I started to walk on the fallen tree I suddenly started hearing what sounded like branches breaking, shrubs being smashed, basically, trees being disturbed by something. I glance up towards the sound and all I can see is this black mass at the end of the tree behind the thicket of trees and shrubs. This black mass starts to rise and my first thought is, "oh shit, we just woke up a bear!". Only problem was this black mass kept rising and rising and rising. I froze, not knowing that I was seeing. I knew there were no animals known to Central Oregon that were that big. I had no idea what to think. And that's when this black mass steps out from the thicket of trees and shrubs into full view. My eyes could not believe what I was seeing. Frozen in fear, hair standing up on the back of my neck, here was this huge dark brown bipedal creature that I would estimate to be maybe 2 feet taller than me. The head rested right on the body as if there was no neck at all. The shoulders on this thing had a massive width. And the arms seemed to be long, which would place the hands right around the knees. At the time I was experiencing mostly fear, but I know a small part of me was also amazed. I was seeing something that wasn't supposed to exist. I had heard about the legendary bigfoot and seen the Patterson footage. But I never thought much on the subject. When this creature stepped out, it was clear as day what I was witnessing and when I try to describe what I saw, this thing literally looked like the creature from the Patterson footage, except the hair seemed a bit shorter and cleaner. As this creature walked off into the woods, it never looked back. My friend and I only saw the back of this creature. I think it was possible we woke it up. In Shevlin Park there is a pond (the green dot in the photo) that was usually stocked with fish. I could only think that it might have come down in the night, had some fish, and decided to sleep a little longer than planned. As this creature walked off into the woods every step sounded like if you took a brick and threw it on the dirt and heard that thud. We watched this creature walk away for about 20 seconds until it was no longer in sight. This whole experience from it rising in the thicket to stepping out into view and walking off probably lasted around a minute. But during this encounter it felt like time almost stopped and my friend and I were frozen in fear for an hour. After the creature was no longer in view I turned to hear and all I could say was "what the heck was that!". She couldn't respond, still being confused about what she had just witnessed. We headed back to the car and when we both got in the car, I turned to hear and said, "I think we just saw bigfoot." From that day nature has never been the same. I still have a huge passion for the outdoors but since that encounter, I always catch myself scanning the tree line or taking a moment to pause and listen, wondering if I would run into this creature again. I remember being excited to share the experience with my mom once she got home from work. First thing she asked me was if I had been smoking anything. She found the whole thing funny and she listened to my whole encounter but I could tell she did not believe me. It turned into a joke, a laughing matter, that to this day, I still get laughed at if I bring it up. It was the same way when I shared my encounter with my friends. That was a huge blow realizing that nobody believed me. I realized that this was something that I couldn't just share with people. So I kept it locked away. I figured, although terrifying, what an awesome experience to get to see something that most people think doesn't even exist. I moved on with my life after that encounter figuring that was a once in a lifetime encounter. Odds of something like that happening again, yeah right. Which brings me to my second encounter. Encounter #2 In Bend there wasn't much back to do on a weekend when I was in my early 20's. You could go to the bars, or find a house party, or take off into the woods and have yourself a nice bonfire party with friends. Those were very popular back in my day. Now I cannot remember the specific year this took place. Maybe 2004. It was summer. My group of guy friends and I were always looking for the next best place to have a bonfire party so we would cruise the forest roads, or even unmarked roads, looking for the perfect spot. In the photo I included you'll see the yellow dot is where we had found this perfect little cul de sac at the end of a dirt road. This was just south of Bend so it didn't take long to get there either. It was perfect and became our go to spot for just us guys. The cul de sac had a huge manzanita field growing next to it. In the photo you'll see the manzanita is the light green area and we were also nestled up next to the lava flow. However the end of this dirt road was lined with fresh pine trees that ranged in heights of just 1ft to around 20 ft. They basically created a wall to where you couldn't really see the field unless you pushed through the wall of trees to the other side. So, one night my friends and I head out to our spot. It's a normal night of relaxing, having a very laid back time. At one point during the night, out of nowhere, we heard this scream/howl off in the distance. In the photo the red dot on the other side of the lava flow is where I would have guessed this sound came from. This scream/howl lasted for maybe 10 seconds. We all got real quiet wondering what that was. And of course, after the encounter I had a few years prior, I immediately said, "That is bigfoot!" I of course received plenty of laughter from my friends but I told them again, "I know it's crazy but that is legit a bigfoot. That's what they sound like." After my first encounter I dove into my research and listened to recordings of howls, read up what research was available at the time. They kept poking fun and eventually I just brushed it off. I was reminded that it didn't matter that I had an encounter. I knew they would never believe me anyways unless they experienced it for themselves. So I brushed it off and we continued through our night. Now I would guess around an hour and a half to maybe 2 hours later, there we are, chatting it up. It's nice and quiet. The fire is going strong. The sky is filled with stars. And then it happened... Out of nowhere, the loudest scream, growl, howl, which seemed all combined into one poured into our little cul de sac area. It sounded like a monster. That's the only way I can put it. And whatever this thing was, was directly right behind the wall of trees. It had to have been maybe 15 to 20 feet from us. I'll never forget, when I play the event over in my head, the feeling I had in my chest. It's like I could feel this animal's growl/scream/howl inside my chest. It felt like I had been stunned. All I know is when this vocalization hit me, it knocked me over in my camping chair. My friend to the left of me also was knocked over. But my friends that had their backs to the wall of trees, they lunged forward out of their seats unbelievably fast. Myself and my friend who had also been knocked backwards in our chairs got up from the dirt at lightning speed. I think myself and my 4 friends were in my car, doors locked, in a matter of seconds. In the photo, as mentioned, the yellow dot was where our site was, and the red dot next to it, is where I believe this creature was. My friends and I sat in the car for over an hour debating on who was going to get out and put the fire out. None of us wanted to exit the car after hearing this beastly roar. I could see in my friends faces they were scared, as was I. I kept thinking, that could only have been a bigfoot. But instead of hearing one of these vocalizations from far away like others have heard, we had front row seats. Only difference was that this creature sounded mad. The vocalization gave the feeling that this thing wanted us out of there. Eventually we all agreed to get out together and put the fire out. I had never seen my friends move so cautiously and on the ready for retreat in case this creature was still around. In the end, we got the fire out and left. And after that night, we never went back to that spot. The car ride back into town was quiet. I could tell none of us wanted to talk about what had just happened. And after that night, we didn't speak of it again. We all knew we experienced something that night that scared the toughness out of all of us. Almost like the feeling of being a little kid scared of a monster. And I hope to never hear a noise like that again in my life."

Unity is a non-denominational Spiritual Community in Central Oregon. Join us each week for some great music, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of inspirational soul food. All are welcome! This week: Ananda Das shares, “Activate the Power of Durga: The Yogic Path of Power and Protection”. Durga is the invincible goddess who rides a lion, holding divine weapons in ten arms — yet she emerges from stillness and returns to peace. She is both warrior and mother, protector and liberator, fierce and compassionate. You'll be invited to: - Learn the deeper meanings of Durga through stories - Chant sacred mantras to invoke Durga's energy and embody her qualities of strength, clarity, and grace - Experience guided meditations to connect with her archetypal presence and your own inner resilience - Explore yogic and tantric insights into boundaries, sovereignty, and spiritual empowerment Whether you're navigating a challenge, seeking clarity, or stepping into your own voice — this gathering is an invitation to return to your center and rise with fierce devotion. Ananda Das is a devotional artist, teacher, and founder of the Modern Bhakti Yoga Academy. With over 15 years of experience leading kirtans, spiritual trainings, and transformational retreats worldwide, he brings a unique blend of mantra, music, and mystic insight to his offerings. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ Submit your prayer claims online!: http://bit.ly/prayerclaim Please TXT donations to: (833) 455-1960 or Donate on our website: https://unitycentraloregon.org/donate/ Donate via Paypal: http://bit.ly/donateunitybend More goodness on our website: [www.UnityCentralOregon.org](http://www.unitycentraloregon.org/)

Welcome back to the Homeward podcast. I'm so excited to share today's conversation with beloved dream client + inspiration, Jenni Gritters.  Jenni is a business coach and strategist for solopreneurs seeking simplicity and sustainability. She's also a writer, mama of two red-heads, frequent hiker, sourdough baker, podcaster and the author of The Sustainable Solopreneur. She lives in Central Oregon and was formerly a journalist for more than a decade before stepping into her coaching work. We spent the last 2 years doing deep work together and working on, as she calls it, her Mental Model- which has allowed her to create her dream life doing her dream work. In today's conversation we celebrate her brand new book (it's out TODAY!) The Sustainable Solopreneur, plus Jenni shares the journey that got her to this moment and who she needed to become to allow it all to unfold.  I can't wait for you to listen.  Links Mentioned:  Get your copy of The Sustainable Solopreneur Learn more about Jenni on her website: jennigritters.com Follow Jenni over on Instagram: @jennigritters   Tag me in your big shifts + takeaways: @amberlilyestrom Did you hear something you loved here today?! Leave a Review + Subscribe via iTunes  

Send us a textA lot of development has happened since this episode was recorded, but what if the most valuable thing you make isn't content or code—but trust? We open the door to Storybooth's origin story, from a chance conversation at hot springs to a sold‑out Seattle wedding where a glass-walled “podcast booth” became the night's most crowded corner. This is a founder's-eye view of creating a new category: an experience that captures honest speech, family history, and the feelings that photos miss. StoryBooth specializes in creating custom event and brand media in a new and immersive way.  We talk through the craft behind it: a public radio backbone, editing that respects silence, and a proven interview technique that uses surprise messages from friends to bypass small talk and get to what's real. You'll hear how we validated the market, survived a noisy first activation at UW, and partnered with a booth maker to make joy visible from across the room. We're transparent about the logistics, from transport and acoustics to guest flow and fast-turn delivery, and why the glass matters—people need to see delight before they'll step inside.The personal stakes are here too. One of us shares a sobriety pivot that restored clarity and grit; the other opens up about divorce and the odd intimacy of editing marriage blessings alone at night. We wrestle with success without self-loss, bootstrapping without burnout, and the move from one-off events to semi-permanent placements at destination venues and communities to business to business application. If you care about founder journeys, category creation, event and brand storytelling, where connection is the product, this one's for you. The Circling Podcast is proud to be in partnership with Bend Magazine. Claim your five-dollar annual subscription when you visit www.bendmagazine.com and enter promo code: PODCAST at checkout. Your subscription includes 6 issues of our regions top publication celebrating mountain culture, and four bonus issues of Bend Home and Design, the leading home and building design magazine in Central Oregon. Support The Circling Podcast:Email us at: thecirclingpodcast@bendmagazine.comJoin the Circling membership: patreon.com/Thecirclingpodcast Follow us on Instagram @thecirclingpodcast @bendmagazineCover Song by: @theerinsmusic Bend Magazine. Remember to enter promo code: Podcast at checkout for your five-dollar annual subscription. https://bendmagazine.com. BOSS Sports Performance: https://www.bosssportsperformance.comBack Porch Coffee: https://www.backporchcoffeeroasters.comStory Booth: https://www.storyboothexperience.comRemember, the health of our community, relies on us!

Send us a textYour eyes know when your brain is fading—and that tiny lag can cost a run, a rep, or a line of code. We sit down with Jak and Sanjay Green, the father–son team behind Eyeonize, a caffeinated, mentholated under‑eye balm built to cool, hydrate, and wake you up without another cup or can. What started with a gaming industry shock, grew into a product designed for anyone who stares, rides, studies, or drives for long stretches and needs clarity on demand.This is a story about product integrity, community, and a clear why. It's also about redefining energy as a subtle, portable boost you can use mid‑flow, without stopping what you're doing. If you're juggling screens, chasing daylight, or stacking miles, you'll walk away with a fresh take on focus, branding, and what it means to build something useful, clean, and real.If this conversation hits, follow the journey, share it with a friend who lives at a desk or on a trail, and leave a quick review to help more people find the show.The Circling Podcast is proud to be in partnership with Bend Magazine. Claim your five-dollar annual subscription when you visit www.bendmagazine.com and enter promo code: PODCAST at checkout. Your subscription includes 6 issues of our regions top publication celebrating mountain culture, and four bonus issues of Bend Home and Design, the leading home and building design magazine in Central Oregon. Support The Circling Podcast:Email us at: thecirclingpodcast@bendmagazine.comJoin the Circling membership: patreon.com/Thecirclingpodcast Follow us on Instagram @thecirclingpodcast @bendmagazineCover Song by: @theerinsmusic Bend Magazine. Remember to enter promo code: Podcast at checkout for your five-dollar annual subscription. https://bendmagazine.com. BOSS Sports Performance: https://www.bosssportsperformance.comBack Porch Coffee: https://www.backporchcoffeeroasters.comStory Booth: https://www.storyboothexperience.comRemember, the health of our community, relies on us!

Unity is a non-denominational Spiritual Community in Central Oregon. Join us each week for some great music, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of inspirational soul food. All are welcome! This week: Carol Fox shares, “How God Speaks to Us”. We hear a lot about prayer at Unity - but what if our prayers are just one side of the conversation? What if Spirit/Source is also communicating with us? This week, we'll explore the many ways that God sends us messages and how we can tune in to hear them. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ Submit your prayer claims online!: http://bit.ly/prayerclaim Please TXT donations to: (833) 455-1960 or Donate on our website: https://unitycentraloregon.org/donate/ Donate via Paypal: http://bit.ly/donateunitybend More goodness on our website: [www.UnityCentralOregon.org](http://www.unitycentraloregon.org/)

Send us a textWhat if convenience food didn't feel like a compromise? We sit down with Howl at the Spoon founder Melanie Jenkinson, a former creative director who traded pitch decks for real ingredients, to unpack how healthy convenient options can change the way we eat. From backcountry meals to office lunches, Melanie shows why right-sized portions beat the clutter and waste of old-school bottles—and why a sauce that expires in weeks is a good thing.The conversation traces a winding path: Oregon hikes, a creative career stacked with pitches, the reality of gender gaps in leadership and funding, and a COVID-era pause that became an unexpected R&D gift. Melanie shares what 500+ markets and 150,000 samples taught her about flavor, packaging, and the language customers actually hear. We dig into the brand's clean-label stance, why “sauce graveyards” are a solvable problem, and how fruit dust turned into a café-friendly, kid-approved upgrade for yogurt, oats, lattes, and ice cream.We also talk systems and scale: moving beyond tents, building B2B partnerships with coffee shops and butchers, leaning into user-generated content, and using structured mentorship from Bend Outdoor Worx to set goals that stick. Through it all, Melanie's mission stays clear—reduce food waste, make real food easy, and design modern formats that fit real life. If you've ever wondered why that bottle in your fridge still looks the same after two years, this episode will change how you stock your kitchen.Enjoy the episode? Follow, share with a friend who meal preps, and leave a quick review to help more listeners discover founder stories that matter.The Circling Podcast is proud to be in partnership with Bend Magazine. Claim your five-dollar annual subscription when you visit www.bendmagazine.com and enter promo code: PODCAST at checkout. Your subscription includes 6 issues of our regions top publication celebrating mountain culture, and four bonus issues of Bend Home and Design, the leading home and building design magazine in Central Oregon. Support The Circling Podcast:Email us at: thecirclingpodcast@bendmagazine.comJoin the Circling membership: patreon.com/Thecirclingpodcast Follow us on Instagram @thecirclingpodcast @bendmagazineCover Song by: @theerinsmusic Bend Magazine. Remember to enter promo code: Podcast at checkout for your five-dollar annual subscription. https://bendmagazine.com. BOSS Sports Performance: https://www.bosssportsperformance.comBack Porch Coffee: https://www.backporchcoffeeroasters.comStory Booth: https://www.storyboothexperience.comRemember, the health of our community, relies on us!

Unity is a non-denominational Spiritual Community in Central Oregon. Join us each week for some great music, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of inspirational soul food. All are welcome! This week: Ester Nicholson shares, “The Roadmap Home To Your Authentic Self”. There is a place within you—unshaken by trauma, untouched by unworthiness—that has never been lost. It's your truest, most radiant self: the you that existed before the world told you who to be. In this soul-stirring talk, Ester Nicholson offers a powerful roadmap back home to that self—through the lens of spiritual truth, emotional honesty, and lived experience. You'll discover what caused the disconnection, how to gently unravel the false identities, and how to reclaim your inherent worth without striving. This is not a journey of becoming something new—it's a sacred return to who you've always been. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ Submit your prayer claims online!: http://bit.ly/prayerclaim Please TXT donations to: (833) 455-1960 or Donate on our website: https://unitycentraloregon.org/donate/ Donate via Paypal: http://bit.ly/donateunitybend More goodness on our website: [www.UnityCentralOregon.org](http://www.unitycentraloregon.org/)

Unity is a non-denominational Spiritual Community in Central Oregon. Join us each week for some great music, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of inspirational soul food. All are welcome! This week: Rev. Beth Welton-Miller shares, “Embodying the Radiance of Your Light amidst the Messiness of Life”. Life is messy. Yet we may believe that if life could just be a certain way, flowing and flawless, then life would be better and make more sense. What if the messiness is sacred and it can help us to recognize our authentic light. Light is our true divine nature. Light fuels healing, authenticity, creativity, clarity and purpose. So how do we recognize and embody this radiant light more fully even in the midst of the messiness of our lives? Join me in this discovery. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ Submit your prayer claims online!: http://bit.ly/prayerclaim Please TXT donations to: (833) 455-1960 or Donate on our website: https://unitycentraloregon.org/donate/ Donate via Paypal: http://bit.ly/donateunitybend More goodness on our website: [www.UnityCentralOregon.org](http://www.unitycentraloregon.org/)

Send us a textWhat if extra sleep at the trailhead didn't cost thousands or require a rooftop crane? We sit down with Kai Nevers and Kate Raber, the duo behind Wanderhut, to tell the story of a hatchback tent that deploys the moment you open your rear door—adding headroom, real ventilation, and bug-proof comfort without the hassle of pitching a tent in the dark. Born as a taped-up class project and validated by a stranger in a Home Depot parking lot, their design carries a simple promise: save time, breathe easier, and wake up ready for the adventure.We walk through the messy first prototype, the year-long quest to solve attachment (snaps for the win), and why focusing on the third-gen Subaru Outback became a superpower. Along the way, OSU Cascades and Bend Outdoor Works opened doors to mentors like former Nike design leader Naomi Morrison and industrial designer Ryan Price, whose hard-earned wisdom sharpened costing, positioning, and supply chain thinking. The result is a product that respects real-world constraints: it installs in minutes, lives in the car between trips, and hits a price point that welcomes new campers and overlanders without compromise.Under the gear talk is a human story about partnership, grit, and community. Kate's textile precision and Kai's big-picture push create the tension great products need. They're candid about cash flow, MOQs, tariff delays, and imposter syndrome—and how they keep the brand grounded by turning “marketing trips” into true resets outdoors. If you've ever chased vanlife comfort on a hatchback budget, this conversation offers practical insight, honest lessons, and a glimpse of what affordable, elegant outdoor design can look like.Subscribe, share with a friend who sleeps at trailheads, and leave a quick review to help more builders and weekend warriors find the show. Want in early? Join the waitlist at wanderhut.co and tell which car they should build for next.https://wanderhut.co/https://osucascades.eduhttps://brokesupply.comhttps://www.bendoutdoorworx.comThe Circling Podcast is proud to be in partnership with Bend Magazine. Claim your five-dollar annual subscription when you visit www.bendmagazine.com and enter promo code: PODCAST at checkout. Your subscription includes 6 issues of our regions top publication celebrating mountain culture, and four bonus issues of Bend Home and Design, the leading home and building design magazine in Central Oregon. Support The Circling Podcast:Email us at: thecirclingpodcast@bendmagazine.comJoin the Circling membership: patreon.com/Thecirclingpodcast Follow us on Instagram @thecirclingpodcast @bendmagazineCover Song by: @theerinsmusic Bend Magazine. Remember to enter promo code: Podcast at checkout for your five-dollar annual subscription. https://bendmagazine.com. BOSS Sports Performance: https://www.bosssportsperformance.comBack Porch Coffee: https://www.backporchcoffeeroasters.comStory Booth: https://www.storyboothexperience.comRemember, the health of our community, relies on us!

In this episode of Inside Deschutes County, we sit down with Dr. Richard Fawcett, Deschutes County Health Officer, and Sarah Van Meter, Immunization Program Coordinator, to talk about vaccines and the upcoming respiratory season. They share what community members should know about flu, COVID-19, and RSV, along with updates on vaccine access in Central Oregon. 

Earlier this month, Brett Hollins embarked on a road trip to Oregon from his parents’ home in San Antonio. He didn’t come to experience the high desert splendor of Central Oregon or to snap selfies at Multnomah Falls. He came to present workshops and play basketball with inmates at six prisons across the state, including Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario and Warner Creek Correctional Facility in Lakeview, both of which he once served time in.    In 2017, Hollins was sentenced to nearly six years in prison after pleading guilty to stabbing two men during a brawl that broke out during a party he and his friends attended near the campus of Southern Oregon University in Ashland. In 2021, then-Gov. Kate Brown commuted his sentence after he had served nearly four years of his six-year sentence.   The Oregonian/OregonLive sports writer Bill Oram has extensively profiled Hollins’ amazing journey of rehabilitation, including his decision to return to Ashland to play college basketball at Southern Oregon University, where he graduated last June and served as a team captain. More recently, Oram wrote about Hollins’ return to Snake River to play basketball and inspire adults in custody with workshops he developed through his new nonprofit, The Side Door Foundation. Hollins joins us, along with Michael Reese, director of the Oregon Department of Corrections, to share their perspectives on rehabilitation and the obstacles to it inside and outside of prison.

Empowering Central Oregon's Youth: Heart of Oregon Corps on BendBeat What if the next generation held the key to solving some of Central Oregon's biggest challenges? In this episode of BendBeat, Brian Ladd sits down with Laura Handy, Executive Director of Heart of Oregon Corps, to explore how this locally founded nonprofit is transforming lives—and our community. For 25 years, Heart of Oregon has been engaging youth ages 16–24 in a “work, earn, learn” model: young people gain job skills, earn wages and scholarships, and give back through projects that protect public lands, reduce wildfire risk, and even build affordable housing. if you want to know more go visit them at: https://www.hoccampus.org/ Laura shares powerful stories of transformation, the organization's impact on wildfire prevention, housing affordability, and childcare, and the exciting next chapter: a new Workforce Development Campus in Redmond. If you care about youth opportunity, community resilience, and the future of Central Oregon, this is a conversation you won't want to miss. Sponsored By: The Bulletin

Send us a textWhen cold hands meet cold beverages in the outdoor community of Bend, Oregon, something magical happens – the Giddy Up Glove is born. Sherrise Erlandson's entrepreneurial journey bridges her past and present, weaving together childhood lessons from Minnesota flea markets with a passion for creativity and connection."Connection is kind of my focus," Sherrise explains, revealing the heart of her brand. "With the Giddy Up Glove, it's connection between people, connection to the outdoors." Her insulated beverage mitten transforms outdoor social experiences, making the wearer "their own hero" with newfound confidence and comfort.The path to creating this quirky yet functional product wasn't straightforward. From selling homemade bookmarks as a child to traveling the country as a Lindy Hop dancer, designing websites, and eventually settling in Bend, Sherrise's creative spirit never dimmed. When motherhood temporarily paused her business dreams, it was her daughter Esther who sparked their revival through collaborative craft-making for local markets. When early versions of the Giddy Up Glove sold out immediately, Sherrise knew she had found her focus.Now her ambitions stretch from local markets to college and NFL licensing, with strategic plans for e-commerce, wholesale accounts, and specialized retail partnerships. She's even expanded the Giddy Up brand to include a children's meditation podcast, inspired by Esther's love of storytelling and quest for age-appropriate mindfulness content.Through it all, Sherrise embodies the entrepreneurial spirit with practical wisdom: "You have to start and be open to understanding that you know nothing... Most of the time you learn through your mistakes." Her journey reminds us that the most successful brands often begin with a simple problem, a creative solution, and the persistence to keep improving.Discover the Giddy Up Glove at https://giddyupguide.com and experience how functional mischief can transform your outdoor adventures. Make to check out and Subscribe to The Giddy Up Guide to the Galaxy Podcast.The Circling Podcast is proud to be in partnership with Bend Magazine. Claim your five-dollar annual subscription when you visit www.bendmagazine.com and enter promo code: PODCAST at checkout. Your subscription includes 6 issues of our regions top publication celebrating mountain culture, and four bonus issues of Bend Home and Design, the leading home and building design magazine in Central Oregon. Support The Circling Podcast:Email us at: thecirclingpodcast@bendmagazine.comJoin the Circling membership: patreon.com/Thecirclingpodcast Follow us on Instagram @thecirclingpodcast @bendmagazineCover Song by: @theerinsmusic Bend Magazine. Remember to enter promo code: Podcast at checkout for your five-dollar annual subscription. https://bendmagazine.com. BOSS Sports Performance: https://www.bosssportsperformance.comBack Porch Coffee: https://www.backporchcoffeeroasters.comStory Booth: https://www.storyboothexperience.comRemember, the health of our community, relies on us!

Unity is a non-denominational Spiritual Community in Central Oregon. Join us each week for some great music, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of inspirational soul food. All are welcome! This week: Ray Davis shares, “The Devil Made Me Do It - Hallelujah!”. We will discover what Ageless Wisdom Teachings have to say about turning our greatest distractions and temptations into spiritual Insights and Transformations. Ray Davis is a singer/songwriter/teacher on a mission: to personally introduce the world to High-Vibe music and arts.  High-Vibe, according to Ray, “celebrates the best and highest ideas about life, humanity, and each individual's unique opportunity to contribute something good to the world" without pandering to simplistic feel-good formulas or clichés. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ Submit your prayer claims online!: http://bit.ly/prayerclaim Please TXT donations to: (833) 455-1960 or Donate on our website: https://unitycentraloregon.org/donate/ Donate via Paypal: http://bit.ly/donateunitybend More goodness on our website: [www.UnityCentralOregon.org](http://www.unitycentraloregon.org/)

Send us a textFrom the punk rock days of Grenade Gloves to the mindful practices of Spiral Wax Company, Tim Karpinski's journey through the snowboarding industry is a masterclass in reinvention and redemption.Growing up as a competitive ski racer in New Jersey, Tim developed an early understanding of snow equipment maintenance that would later become foundational to his career. His world transformed when skateboarding entered his life as a teenager, introducing him to a creative counterculture that sparked his passion for design. After college, his artistic talents led him to design graphics for snowboarding legend Danny Kass at GNU Snowboards, eventually co-founding Grenade Gloves – a brand that revolutionized snowboarding culture in the early 2000s.While Grenade skyrocketed to $10 million in sales within four years, the meteoric rise came with a devastating personal cost. The celebration lifestyle, growing business pressures, and eventual collapse of relationships within the company left Tim traumatized and turning to alcohol for relief. "Anything traumatic can trigger this stuff," he reflects. "Whether going to war, losing a loved one, or watching the business you built with friends disappear."After years working as GNU's creative director while battling his demons privately, Tim's recovery journey through Alcoholics Anonymous transformed his approach to life and creativity. Moving to Bend, Oregon became a turning point, reconnecting him with snowboarding's simple joys while providing distance from his past.From this rebirth emerged Spiral Wax Company – the antithesis of Grenade's aggressive party culture. Built on principles of mindfulness, sustainability and self-care, Spiral encourages riders to "take a moment to slow down before sending it." The artisanal waxes, made with natural ingredients in Tim's home workshop, minimize environmental impact while maintaining performance.Tim's evolution from Grenade to Spiral represents more than a business pivot – it's a profound personal transformation reflected in entrepreneurship. By sharing his journey of recovery and reinvention, he shows how authentic values can drive business success in unexpected ways. Ready to slow down and enjoy the ride?The Circling Podcast is proud to be in partnership with Bend Magazine. Claim your five-dollar annual subscription when you visit www.bendmagazine.com and enter promo code: PODCAST at checkout. Your subscription includes 6 issues of our regions top publication celebrating mountain culture, and four bonus issues of Bend Home and Design, the leading home and building design magazine in Central Oregon. Support The Circling Podcast:Email us at: thecirclingpodcast@bendmagazine.comJoin the Circling membership: patreon.com/Thecirclingpodcast Follow us on Instagram @thecirclingpodcast @bendmagazineCover Song by: @theerinsmusic Bend Magazine. Remember to enter promo code: Podcast at checkout for your five-dollar annual subscription. https://bendmagazine.com. BOSS Sports Performance: https://www.bosssportsperformance.comBack Porch Coffee: https://www.backporchcoffeeroasters.comStory Booth: https://www.storyboothexperience.comRemember, the health of our community, relies on us!

Unity is a non-denominational Spiritual Community in Central Oregon. Join us each week for some great music, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of inspirational soul food. All are welcome! This week: William Gregory shares, “What is Spirituality?” Love is bigger than religion. Truth is older than scripture. Innocence is eternal. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ Submit your prayer claims online!: http://bit.ly/prayerclaim Please TXT donations to: (833) 455-1960 or Donate on our website: https://unitycentraloregon.org/donate/ Donate via Paypal: http://bit.ly/donateunitybend More goodness on our website: [www.UnityCentralOregon.org](http://www.unitycentraloregon.org/)

Send us a textWhat if your great-grandfather's formula from 1927 turned out to be exactly what today's sustainability movement is searching for? Tiffany Huey never planned to become an entrepreneur, but after 25 years climbing the corporate ladder at companies like Starbucks, PepsiCo, and Nestle, she found herself drawn back to her family's legacy: Snowshoe Leather Care.When COVID hit and corporate America wanted her back in Seattle, Tiffany made a life-changing decision. She would revitalize the leather care business her family had maintained as a side hustle for generations. Now working from a barn workshop in Bend, Oregon, she hand-pours each tin using the original equipment and the exact same three-ingredient formula her great-grandfather created nearly a century ago.This episode explores the fascinating intersection of heritage craftsmanship and modern sustainability. As Tiffany explains, "There's this whole concept of upkeep culture and thrifting... thinking about how to buy higher-quality things and take good care of them." It's this cultural shift that makes Snowshoe suddenly relevant to a new generation, while still maintaining its devoted following among ranchers, saddle makers, and leatherworkers who've sworn by it for decades.The heart of this story lies in the voices of those who've built and preserved this legacy. We hear from Tiffany's father about the company's early days, her brother-in-law who kept the business alive when no one else could, and most memorably, from Richard Bryant, an elderly Texas rancher whose emotional testimonial about his lifetime using Snowshoe becomes the episode's most powerful moment.Through Tiffany's journey, we discover how entrepreneurship can honor the past while embracing the future, and how sometimes the most innovative act is preserving something of true value. Whether you're fascinated by family businesses, sustainability, or the courage it takes to leave corporate comfort for entrepreneurial uncertainty, this story will inspire you to look at legacy in a whole new light.The Circling Podcast is proud to be in partnership with Bend Magazine. Claim your five-dollar annual subscription when you visit www.bendmagazine.com and enter promo code: PODCAST at checkout. Your subscription includes 6 issues of our regions top publication celebrating mountain culture, and four bonus issues of Bend Home and Design, the leading home and building design magazine in Central Oregon. Support The Circling Podcast:Email us at: thecirclingpodcast@bendmagazine.comJoin the Circling membership: patreon.com/Thecirclingpodcast Follow us on Instagram @thecirclingpodcast @bendmagazineCover Song by: @theerinsmusic Bend Magazine. Remember to enter promo code: Podcast at checkout for your five-dollar annual subscription. https://bendmagazine.com. BOSS Sports Performance: https://www.bosssportsperformance.comBack Porch Coffee: https://www.backporchcoffeeroasters.comStory Booth: https://www.storyboothexperience.comRemember, the health of our community, relies on us!

Unity is a non-denominational Spiritual Community in Central Oregon. Join us each week for some great music, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of inspirational soul food. All are welcome! This week: Nikko Kubota shares, “Light as Connection Animacy, Ritual, and Relationship”. What brings your world to life? This Sunday at Unity, we will be illuminating and exploring our deep spiritual relationship with the world around us. Through stories and experiences from my recent trek in the Andes, we will be discovering practices which can help lead us into a sense of connection, and profound awe. Let's learn to re-connect together! ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ Submit your prayer claims online!: http://bit.ly/prayerclaim Please TXT donations to: (833) 455-1960 or Donate on our website: https://unitycentraloregon.org/donate/ Donate via Paypal: http://bit.ly/donateunitybend More goodness on our website: [www.UnityCentralOregon.org](http://www.unitycentraloregon.org/)

Since it broke out two weeks ago, the Flat Fire burning two miles northeast of Sisters has burned more than 23,000 acres. The wildfire destroyed five homes, threatened hundreds of others and prompted evacuation orders that have since been lifted or reduced in Jefferson and Deschutes Counties.       Although the fire isn’t yet fully contained, the focus in the Sisters community has shifted to recovery. Those efforts are being coordinated by Citizens4Community, a nonprofit that aims to build community in Sisters by convening opportunities for civic engagement, collaboration and social connection among residents, including helping them become more fire-wise. This past spring, the nonprofit organized community forums to educate residents about fire insurance and wildfire preparedness. The nonprofit has recently created a list of resources for how to help fire victims, emergency responders, local businesses and other nonprofits impacted by the Flat Fire. It also helped another Central Oregon nonprofit, NeighborImpact, set up a Flat Fire relief fund and reached out to other nonprofits to learn from their experiences leading long-term recovery needs for communities devastated by wildfires.    Citizens4Community Executive Director Kellen Klein joins us to share more details about community building in Sisters and its recovery needs.  

Unity is a non-denominational Spiritual Community in Central Oregon. Join us each week for some great music, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of inspirational soul food. All are welcome! This week: Our panel shares, “Ask the Ministers”. Carol Fox was our scheduled speaker for today, but she unfortunately got sick at the last minute. Fortunately, however, we have a wonderful community with several ministers, and it was a perfect time to do one of our "Ask the Minister" series talks. This is where our community members ask whatever burning questions they have, and our ministers will give their honest responses! It's always a lot of fun and often surprising.

We are back again with another amazing story. Today we talk with Brad Irwin of Oregon Spirit Distillers. Out of Bend, Oregon bringing the heat. We talked everything from Rickhouse theft to marketing. Really hope you enjoy.Oregonspiritdistillers.comPatreon.com/the_whiskeyshamanBadmotivatorbarrels.com/shop/?aff=3https://www.instagram.com/zsmithwhiskeyandmixology?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=MWZ4dGp2MzlucjVvdw==thewhiskeyshaman.comTo look at the production team at Oregon Spirit Distillers, you'll find a story of how amazing spirits aren't simply made. World-class spirits are a product of a solid worth ethic and a growth mindset. Many of us worked our way up in the production department due to that solid work ethic, an unwavering commitment to quality, and most importantly, an enthusiasm for learning. We humbly nod to those who showed us the way, their ability to teach, and a willingness to share.We are thankful for the body of knowledge created and passed down from generations of distillers that helps us make traditional and authentic spirits from scratch and by the senses. Our goals are lofty, and we accomplish them because of our strong team dynamic. It's in our name, we are the spirit distillers of Oregon Spirit Distillers. We are proud to work together and make spirits we love to enjoy.BRAD IRWINOwner/Master DistillerWhiskey has three main ingredients: grain, water, and passion. Brad found a natural bounty of all three in his hometown of Bend, Oregon.In 2009, Brad and his wife Kathy embarked on the journey that would eventually create Central Oregon's first grain to glass whiskey distillery. Local high desert grain and mountain water were easy to source. The region's unique climate provided plenty of corn, barley, wheat, and rye. Crisp and pure water from the Cascade Mountains was abundant. Brad's passion for history, tradition, and quality is delivered in every drop that Oregon Spirit Distillers produces.2025 has found Brad back on the Production floor and he is loving every minute of it!  "It's great to get my hands dirty again and continue to expand and perfect our processes and products!"All spirit begins with its base ingredients. Ours is born in the grain farms of the High Desert, where hardy grains thrive under the watchful eye of dedicated farmers. Upon receiving these grains, they are run through our mill before being brought to the mash tun, where cascade mountain water will begin to unlock the milled grain and allow it to be transformed into something truly special with the addition of yeast in our fermentation tanks.The resulting ferment is then put through the stripping still, separating its alcohol from the rest of the mash, producing what is referred to as the low wines. The spent grain is then returned to the farmer for their cattle, creating a circle of sustainability that is vital to Oregon's ecosystem.The low wines then make their way to the core of our operation where they are distilled under careful hands and separated by cut until only the finest, referred to as the hearts, remains.While some of these spirits will receive an infusion of botanicals, our whiskeys continue their process, aging in Kelvin Cooperage crafted barrels each for a minimum of four years, with some spending even longer in this golden maturation.Throughout this process, our High Desert climate continues to seep its way into the spirit, creating temperature fluctuations and an arid environment that increases the barrels influence on the final product, which we encourage by refraining from topping off our barrels. Each spirit, in its proper time, makes its way to the bottling line where we package and prepare it for distribution.With expert distillers and dedicated support staff, we couldn't be prouder of our production methods, our team, and our exemplary final product.

The Flat Fire, which is burning two miles northeast of Sisters in Central Oregon, has grown to more than 23,000 acres and is 13% contained, as of Friday morning. The fire broke out last week, grew rapidly and prompted Level 1, 2 and 3 evacuation orders in Deschutes and Jefferson counties. On Thursday, Level 3 orders were downgraded to Level 2 in both counties. According to an update posted Thursday morning, five homes have been destroyed by the fire, the cause of which is still under investigation.     Jim Cornelius, editor-in-chief of The Nugget Newspaper in Sisters, says that while the community is no stranger to wildfires, efforts have expanded in recent years to make it more fire-wise and resilient to wildfires. The city is considering updates to its development code for new construction and in the spring, a local nonprofit, Citizens4Community, organized community forums to educate residents about fire insurance and wildfire preparedness, from assembling a go bag to requesting a free wildfire home assessment.    Cornelius joins us for an update about the Flat Fire, its impact on Sisters and how the catastrophic Labor Day Fires of 2020 shaped the community’s fire-readiness.  

Christian Historical Fiction Talk is listener supported. When you buy things through this site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Become a patron and enjoy special perks and bonus content.Show your appreciation for the show and buy me a coffee. You'll find details by following this link.Jane Kirkpatrick joins the show this week to chat about her new release, Across the Crying Sands. Oh my, what a wonderful talk we had. You might even get a few tears in your eyes as you listen to her share her personal story and the story of how Across the Crying Sands came to be. Patrons will get to hear all about the painting that's the header on her website. Across the Crying Sands by Jane KirkpatrickA Tale of Uncharted Adventure and Discovery Inspired by a True Story In 1888 Mary Edwards Gerritse is a witty and confident young woman who spends as much time as possible outdoors on the rugged Oregon coast where she and her husband, John, have settled. The two are a formidable pair who are working hard to prove their homesteading claim and build a family. But as Mary faces struggles of young motherhood and questions about her family of origin, she realizes that life is far from the adventure she imagined it would be.After losing the baby she's carrying, grief threatens Mary, but she finds an unconventional way to bring joy back into her life--by taking over a treacherous postal route. As Mary becomes the first female mail carrier to traverse the cliff-hugging mountain trails and remote Crying Sands Beach, with its changing tides and sudden squalls, she recaptures the spark she lost and discovers that a life without risk is no life at all.Get a copy of Across the Crying Sands by Jane Kirkpatrick.Jane Kirkpatrick is a New York Times best-selling and award-winning author of over 40 books and numerous essays for over 50 publications throughout the United States including The Oregonian and Daily Guideposts.She received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Romantic Times in 2012, the Caldera Achievement Award from The Nature of Words in 2006, and the Distinguished Northwest Writer award in 2005 from the Willamette Writers Association.Her works have sold over two million copies, and have won prestigious literary awards such as the Wrangler (National Cowboy Museum), WILLA Literary (Women Writing the West), Will Rogers Medallion (Will Rogers Foundation), and the Carol (American Christian Fiction Writers).Her many historical novels, most based on the lives of actual people, speak of timeless themes of hardiness, faith, commitment, hope, and love.Jane speaks internationally on the writing and the power of stories. Her presentations reflect stories of inspiration and courage believing that our lives are the stories other people read first.She is a Wisconsin native and graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Communications and Public Address and holds a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Clinical Social Work.Prior to her writing career, she worked with Native American families on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Central Oregon as a mental health and early childhood specialist for seventeen years. She was also the director of the Deschutes County Mental Health Program in Bend, Oregon.Jane and her husband Jerry now live in Redmond Oregon with their dog Ruppert.Visit Jane Kirkpatrick's website.

In this episode, Dr. Steve Gordon, President and CEO of St. Charles Health System, discusses expanding access to care in Central Oregon, strengthening clinical services, and building a patient-centered future amid financial and workforce challenges.

Unity is a non-denominational Spiritual Community in Central Oregon. Join us each week for some great music, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of inspirational soul food. All are welcome! This week: Rev. Jim Pasmore shares, “The Tao of Healing and Health”. In this talk Jim will present a review of healing practices through the ages from Shaman's of 30,000 years ago to Unity and in between. We will see that perennial wisdom has guided much of the more recent successful practices. Some surprising techniques were employed by the father of New Thought, Pinneas Quimby, that healed 10,000 folks in New England that conventional medicine of the day had given up on. Jim will share the fundamental basis of all healing: "Spirit is the life, mind is the builder and body is the result." He will also share some of his personal experiences with healing and health. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ Submit your prayer claims online!: http://bit.ly/prayerclaim Please TXT donations to: (833) 455-1960 or Donate on our website: https://unitycentraloregon.org/donate/ Donate via Paypal: http://bit.ly/donateunitybend More goodness on our website: [www.UnityCentralOregon.org](http://www.unitycentraloregon.org/)

Unity is a non-denominational Spiritual Community in Central Oregon. Join us each week for some great music, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of inspirational soul food. All are welcome! This week: Rev. Dr. Cari Bourette shares, “A Healthy World Begins with Understanding and Acceptance”. Summary: People see things from such different perspectives, it's difficult sometimes to even have a conversation! Health within and without begins with learning to see the process unfolding with eyes of understanding and acceptance. Short bio: Rev. Dr. Cari has been recently referred to as a “Jonathan Livingston Seagull in our midst.” She is an ordained Metaphysical Minister and has a doctorate in Psychology. Rev. Cari is an active member here at USCCO and also leads a Unity expansion ministry (Confluence IS) that specializes in support and assistance for those on the journey to Awakening and Oneness. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ Submit your prayer claims online!: http://bit.ly/prayerclaim Please TXT donations to: (833) 455-1960 or Donate on our website: https://unitycentraloregon.org/donate/ Donate via Paypal: http://bit.ly/donateunitybend More goodness on our website: [www.UnityCentralOregon.org](http://www.unitycentraloregon.org/)

Unity is a non-denominational Spiritual Community in Central Oregon. Join us each week for some great music, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of inspirational soul food. All are welcome! This week: Rev. Kelly Billings shares, “What? I'm Sacred?”. When you hear the word Sacred, do you think of yourself? How about Divine? We often hold views of ourselves that are anything but Divine, easily seeing our faults. Join me Sunday and we'll explore how to see ourselves more accurately. And love ourselves more fully. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ Submit your prayer claims online!: http://bit.ly/prayerclaim Please TXT donations to: (833) 455-1960 or Donate on our website: https://unitycentraloregon.org/donate/ Donate via Paypal: http://bit.ly/donateunitybend More goodness on our website: [www.UnityCentralOregon.org](http://www.unitycentraloregon.org/)

What happens when a community rallies behind higher education—and decides to build a cutting-edge university on top of a former landfill and pumice mine? Welcome to OSU-Cascades in Bend, Oregon. In this powerful conversation, OSU leaders Christine Coffin and Jared Pantella share how Oregon State University–Cascades is not only transforming Central Oregon's built environment but also driving sustainable innovation, education, and community connection. Learn about their audacious vision for a triple net-zero campus, the inspiring story of student-led businesses like Snowblanks, and the creation of an Innovation District that bridges academia and industry. From campus origins to future goals, this is a must-watch for anyone who cares about the future of Bend. Topics covered: History and transformation of OSU-Cascades   Capital planning & land remediation   Net zero energy, water, and waste goals   Community partnerships & industry integration   The role of higher education in Bend's future

Even if you consider yourself a runner, you probably aren't prepared for a run quite like this. On this week's episode of Peak Northwest, we dive into the Cascade Lakes Relay, a 216-mile race across the landscape of central Oregon that can get a little wilder and weirder than your average footrace. Similar to Oregon's famed Hood to Coast Relay, the Cascade Lakes Relay involves teams of runners who collectively tackle the length of the course over the course of two days. That means late-night shifts, spartan sleeping conditions and lots of wackiness along the way. Jamie Goldberg, politics and education editor for The Oregonian/Oregonlive, joined the podcast to talk about her recent experience running the relay. Here are some highlights from this week's show: How Goldberg survived a dusty midnight run through the mountains. Rain and snow made the summertime event a little chillier than expected. A pop-up rave and one double-decker party bus kept things lively during the race. Team culture is a major part of relay races, even if the runs are all solo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Gun Talk Hunt, KJ sits down with Gary Killingsworth—Gun Talk's own draw-tag lottery champ—who managed to land not one, not two, but THREE highly sought-after hunting tags in a single year.From Oregon's coveted Mount Emily elk unit to Central Oregon blacktail deer and Willamette Valley hunts, Gary shares how he built his strategy, what gear he's relying on, and tips for maximizing your draw odds. Whether you're chasing over-the-counter opportunities or managing your preference points portfolio, this is a must-watch for hunters serious about next season's draw.This Gun Talk Hunt is brought to you by Savage Arms, Remington Ammunition, SnapSafe, Timney Triggers, and First Person Defender.Be sure to check out the Gun Talk / Ammunition Depot Collab page for great deals:ammunitiondepot.com/guntalkGet 5% off any order at Optics Planet with code GUNTALK.Check out the NEW First Person Defender YouTube channel HERE.About Gun Talk HuntGun Talk Media's Gun Talk Hunt, with Kevin “KJ” Jarnagin, pairs decades of experience with today's latest tools and technology to help you succeed in the field. Whether it runs or flies - no matter what game you pursue - Gun Talk Hunt is a multi-platform podcast that gives today's hunters a voice in the digital world.For more content, subscribe to Gun Talk at guntalktv.com, on Gun Talk's Roku, Apple TV, iOS app, Android app, or find Gun Talk on YouTube, Rumble, Facebook, Instagram, X and guntalk.com. Catch First Person Defender on the new Official FPD YouTube channel. Listen to all Gun Talk Podcasts with Spreaker, iHeart, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find podcasts.Copyright ©2025 Freefire Media, LLCGun Talk Hunt 08.02.25Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gun-talk--6185159/support.

Send us a textWhat makes a brand more than just a business? The answer lies in the deeply human stories behind the logos, products, and mission statements.Birth of the Brands takes you on an intimate journey with Central Oregon's most promising entrepreneurs as they navigate the thrilling, terrifying path from inspiration to launch. Host Adam Short sits down with eight founders from the 2025 Bend Outdoor Worx Outdoor Accelerator Program to uncover the pivotal moments that shaped their vision and the personal experiences that fuel their passion.You'll meet Tiffany Huey, who's breathing new life into her great-grandfather's leather care company while honoring its nearly century-old legacy. Through touching testimonials from longtime users like Richard Bryant, we discover how quality craftsmanship creates generational impact. "I've used it on furniture, belts, boots, everything is leather," Bryant shares, revealing how this product has supported his ranching livelihood for over 60 years.Then there's Tim Karpinski, co-founder of the iconic Grenade Gloves, who candidly discusses his journey through addiction to sobriety and how that transformation led to creating Spiral Wax Company with pro snowboarder Max Warbington. "I got super into self-care, meditation... I wonder if I could bring some of that into snowboarding," Tim reflects, showcasing how authentic personal growth translates into business innovation.We also follow recent OSU-Cascades graduates Kai Nevers and Kate Raber, whose childhood memories of family road trips inspired Wanderhut—a company creating accessible car camping solutions born from their own experience of "sleeping out of the back of the car probably four nights a week" while balancing student life with their passion for the outdoors.These are only three of the eight founders and brands that we'll be introducing. Each episode goes beyond business strategies to explore the mentors, families, friends, and customers who breathe life into something new. Listen this fall wherever you get your podcasts and discover why great businesses aren't just built—they're born.Support The Circling Podcast:Email us at: thecirclingpodcast@bendmagazine.comJoin the Circling membership: patreon.com/Thecirclingpodcast Follow us on Instagram @thecirclingpodcast @bendmagazineCover Song by: @theerinsmusic Bend Magazine. Remember to enter promo code: Podcast at checkout for your five-dollar annual subscription. https://bendmagazine.com. BOSS Sports Performance: https://www.bosssportsperformance.comBack Porch Coffee: https://www.backporchcoffeeroasters.comStory Booth: https://www.storyboothexperience.comRemember, the health of our community, relies on us!

We have a special guest today named Bee. Or Michael B. who goes on Hinge pretends to be a girl and gets guys to give up their fishing spots. It's Central Oregon Fishing and we're going to find out what makes her/him tick. If you want to support free speech and good hunting content on the Information Superhighway, look for our coffee and books and wildlife forage blends at https://www.garylewisoutdoors.com/Shop/This episode is sponsored by West Coast Floats, of Philomath, Oregon, made in the USA since 1982 for steelhead and salmon fishermen. Visit https://westcoastfloats.com/Our TV sponsors include: Nosler, Camp Chef, Warne Scope Mounts, Carson, ProCure Bait Scents, Sullivan Glove Company, The Dalles Area Chamber of Commerce, Madras Ford, Bailey Seed and Smartz.Watch select episodes of Frontier Unlimited on our network of affiliates around the U.S. or click https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gary+lewis+outdoors+frontier+unlimited

Title: How to Make Millions with Vending Machines with Mike Hoffman Summary: In this conversation, Seth Bradley and Mike Hoffman delve into the world of vending machines as a business opportunity. Mike shares his journey from a Midwest farm boy to a successful entrepreneur in the vending industry, highlighting the evolution of vending technology and the potential for passive income. They discuss the importance of location, understanding demographics, and the scalability of vending routes. Mike emphasizes the need for upfront work and learning before delegating tasks, while also addressing the misconceptions surrounding passive income in the vending business. In this conversation, Seth Bradley and Mike discuss various aspects of entrepreneurship, particularly in the vending machine business. They explore the importance of capital raising, the journey of self-discovery, influences that shape business decisions, and the definition of success. The dialogue emphasizes the significance of flexibility, discipline, and focus in achieving entrepreneurial goals, while also touching on financial milestones and the attributes that distinguish successful entrepreneurs. Links to Watch and Subscribe:   Bullet Point Highlights: Mike's journey from a classic Midwest farm boy to a successful entrepreneur. The evolution of vending machines from traditional to smart technology. Understanding the importance of location in the vending business. The analogy of baseball levels to describe starting in vending. Scaling up from single A to big leagues in vending routes. The significance of demographics in product selection for vending machines. The potential for passive income with proper systems in place. The need for upfront work before achieving passivity in business. Vending is not a get-rich-quick scheme; it requires dedication. The future opportunities in the vending industry are expanding rapidly. Raising capital can dilute ownership but may be necessary for rapid growth. Self-discovery often leads to unexpected career paths. Influences in business can come from personal experiences rather than just mentors. Success is often defined by the ability to prioritize family and flexibility. Entrepreneurs work harder than in traditional jobs but gain flexibility. Discipline is crucial for saying no to distractions. Successful entrepreneurs often focus on niche markets. High foot traffic locations are ideal for vending machines. AI is transforming business operations and efficiency. Networking and connections can lead to valuable opportunities. Transcript: Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:04.898) Mike, what's going on buddy? Doing great brother, doing great. How about you?   Mike (00:06.748) Don't worry,   Mike (00:11.664) Good, I'm a little flustered. I usually have my mic set up over here, but I guess we just moved and it's not here today. I guess, yeah, new office and it's been a whole hot mess.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:19.822) New office or what?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:27.862) Nice man, nice. I see you got the whiteboard cranking back there. Love to see that.   Mike (00:33.114) Always. I love your background. That's sweet.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:38.03) Thanks man, yeah, I'm on camera all the time so I like I need to just build this out instead of using like a green screen so Made the investment made it happen   Mike (00:44.86) Totally.   Yeah, absolutely.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:49.442) Have we met in person or not? I don't know if we've met at a Wealth Without Wall Street event or I couldn't tell. Okay. No, I did not go to Nashville last year.   Mike (00:58.478) I don't think so. don't think you're... Were you in Nashville last year?   Mike (01:04.634) No, okay. No, I don't think we've met in person. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:08.256) Okay, all good, man. All good. Well, cool. I'll just go over the format real quick. We'll do kind of a shorter recording. We're do like 30 minutes, something like in that range. And then we'll just kind of like break. And then I'll, want to record a couple of other quick segments where I call it Million Dollar Monday. I'm kind of asking you about how you made your first, last and next million. And then 1 % closer, which would just be kind of what separates you, what makes you the   top 1 % in your particular vertical. So we'll just kind of record those separately. Those will be real short, like five minutes or so.   Mike (01:44.924) Okay, yeah, I'll follow your lead. All good.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:47.15) Cool. Cool. Let's see. I think I already have this auto recording. So we're already recording. So I'll just jump right in.   Mike (01:55.377) Okay.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:57.782) Welcome to Raise the Bar Radio, hosted by yours truly Seth Bradley. We today we've got Mr. Passive, Mike Hoffman. Mike, welcome to the show.   Mike (02:08.189) Thank you for having me fired up to be here.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:10.855) Absolutely man, really happy to have you on. I know it's been a little bit of a trek here to get our schedules lined up, but really stoked to have you on today, man. I see you said you moved into a new office. You've got the whiteboard cranking, so love to see it.   Mike (02:25.372) yeah, whiteboards are the only place I can get my thoughts down.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:29.399) Yeah, man, it makes a difference when you actually write something rather than type it or even on a mirror board where you're doing it online. just there's something about physically writing something down.   Mike (02:41.328) You know, I'm glad you said that because yesterday I flipped to Seattle for a quick work trip and I didn't have wifi and I literally had three pages of just, I, was so like the clarity of some of these kinds of bigger visions I have now from just being able to write for an hour on a flight was, I was like, man, I gotta do this more often.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:00.363) Yeah, for sure. The key though is once you write it down, it just doesn't go into the trash or into a black hole somewhere where you never see it again. So that's kind of the disadvantage there. If you have it on your computer and you're taking notes or you have it on a mirror board, at least it's there to reference all the time. If you write it down on paper, sometimes, I've got my Raze Masters book right here for notes, but it's like, it might go into the abyss and I'll never look at it again. So you gotta be careful about that.   Mike (03:27.184) Yeah, yeah, I need to check out the Miro boards. I've heard a lot of good things about them.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:31.467) Yeah, yeah. Awesome, Mike. Well, listen, for our audience who doesn't know anything about you, maybe just tell them, you know, tell them a little bit about your background. Tell them about your your main business and we can take it from there.   Mike (03:43.354) Yeah. So I think for those that don't know about me, I'm a classic Midwest farm boy started with a classic, you know, showing cattle at the county fair and all of that and had a lemonade stand growing up. And then my first job was actually at McDonald's, you know, thinking about the whole success of that business model. But when I was coaching and, out of college, I got my first rental and I was like, wow, this is crazy. making money without.   really much time involved. and then with my work in Silicon Valley, know, Seth, was classic Silicon Valley, you know, cutthroat job that, startup life and traveling three weeks out of the month. And I was on, I was in airports all the time. And was like, these vending machines I would run into at airports were just so archaic. And so I went down this path of like unattended retail and kind of the future of, of that. And that's really where I just see a huge opportunity right now.   And so it's kind of what led me into all these different income streams that I'm passionate about.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:49.431) That's awesome, man. Well, let's dive into that a little bit deeper. me about these income streams. It centers around vending machines, right? But I'm sure there's a lot more to it. I'm sure there's a lot of different entry points for people. Maybe just kind of give us a general synopsis to start out.   Mike (05:06.78) Yeah, so I think the big thing with, you know, if we're talking vending specifically as an income stream, you know, most people think of vending as the traditional machines where you enter in a code, you put your card on the machine and then a motor spirals down a Snickers bar or a soda and you go into the chute and grab it.   Nowadays, there's these smart machines that literally you just unlock the door, or even if you go into, land in the Vegas airport right at the bottom of the escalator where it says, welcome to Las Vegas, there's a 7-Eleven with gates and AI cameras, and there's no employees in the 7-Eleven. And it just tracks whatever you grab and to exit the gate, you have to pay for it. So like, there's just this huge market now where we just installed it in urgent care.   less than two months ago and we can do over the counter meds in that machine because it doesn't have to fit into a motor. It's just shelf space. You identify with the planogram with the AI cameras like, okay, Dayquil in this slot or Salad in this slot and then whatever they grab, gets charged to the person that pulls it from it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (06:15.469) That's interesting, man. Yeah, I mean, my initial thought too, was just like the traditional old vending machine where you're getting a candy bar or a cola out of there. But yeah, nowadays, now that you mentioned that, you see this more and more every single day where you've got these scanners, you've got kind of self-checkout, that sort of thing. So that's kind of, that expands that world and really opens it up to the future, right? Like it just really, that's what we're trying to get to, or at least we think we wanna get there, where we're kind of removing humans and...   kind of working with technologies and things like that.   Mike (06:49.488) Yeah, and I think, you know, removing the whole human thing. mean, those machines still got to get stocked and you know, there's not robots running around doing that. But I just come back to, I was a Marriott guy when I was on the road all the time and I'd go to these grab and goes at a Marriott and grab a, the end of the night, I'd grab like a little wine or an ice cream sandwich. And I literally had to go wait in line at the check-in desk behind three people checking in just to tell them, Hey, put these on.   room charge and I was like if I had a checkout kiosk in that grab-and-go I could have just removed all the friction for this customer experience.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (07:27.772) Right, 100%. Yeah, I mean, there's a place and time for it and there's more and more applications for it that just pop up every single day and you can kind of spot that in your life as you're just kind of moving through, whether you're checking into your hotel or whatever you're doing.   Mike (07:41.456) Yeah, yeah. So that's just kind of what excites me today.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (07:45.973) Yeah, yeah, so when a stranger asks you what you do just in the street, what do you tell them? Because I have a hard time answering that question sometimes too, but I'd love to hear what your answer is.   Mike (07:56.804) Yeah, I would just say it depends on the day. You know, what do you do or what's your, you know, it's like at the golf course when you get paired up with a stranger and they're like, tell me about what you do for your career. And I just say, I'm a classic entrepreneur. And then I'm like, well, what do you do? And it's like, well, tell me about the day. You know, what fire are you putting out? Like today we just got the go ahead for five more urgent cares for our local route. But then, you know, we have a community of operators across the country that we help really build.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (07:57.933) haha   Ha ha ha.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (08:09.879) Yeah. Yeah.   Mike (08:25.616) Vending empires and so we had a group call this morning. So literally, there's a lot of just, you know, it's classic entrepreneurial life. You never know what the day's script is gonna be.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (08:36.161) Yeah, for sure. And you focus a lot on not only on your own business, but also teaching others, right? Teaching others how to kind of break into this business.   Mike (08:45.402) Yeah, that's my passion, Seth. When I got into my first investment out of college was a $70,000 rental, you know, putting 20 % down or 14K and using an emergency fund. like my background in going to college was as a coach. like I knew I wanted to kind of take that mindset of like coaching people, you know, teach them how to fish. I don't want to catch all the fish myself. It's just not fulfilling that way. So that's really where my passion is.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (09:15.373) Gotcha, gotcha. tell me about like, tell me about step one. I mean, how does somebody break into this business? Obviously your own personal business is probably very advanced. There's probably a lot more sophisticated investing strategies at this point and you've got different layers to it. But somebody just kind of starting out that said, hey, this sounds pretty interesting. This vending machine business sounds like it can be passive. How do you recommend that they get started?   Mike (09:40.57) Yeah, so I'm always, I view like the whole vending scale as similar to Major League Baseball. You got your single A all the way up to the big leagues. And if you're just starting out, I always recommend like find a location where you can put a machine and just learn the process. Like to me, that's single A analogy. you know, that always starts with, people want to jump right to like, well, what type of machines do you recommend?   products, how do you price products? And the first question I'll always ask Seth is, well, what location is this machine going in? And they're like, well, I don't know yet. I was just going to buy one and put it in my garage to start. And it's like, no, you need to have the location first. So understanding that, is it a pet hospital? Is it an apartment? Is it a gym? Where is the foot traffic? And then you can cater to what's the best machine for that type of location.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (10:36.887) Got it, got it. Now is this a kind of a rent, you rent the space to place the machine with that particular business or wherever you're gonna place it or how does that all come together?   Mike (10:47.644) not typically, some people are kind of more advanced, like apartment complexes are used to the revenue share model. So they're going to ask for a piece of the pie for sure, for you to put the machine in their lobby. but like, you know, when we're talking urgent carers or even pet hospitals are viewing it as an amenity. And so we probably have, I don't even know how many machines now 75 now, and we, you know, less than half of those actually,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (10:50.423) Okay.   Mike (11:15.1) us rent or ask for a revenue share to have them in there. So I never leave lead with that, but we'll do it if we need to get the location.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (11:23.989) Interesting gotcha. So it's really a value add for wherever you're gonna place it and that's how most people or I guess most businesses would look at that and then you're able to capture that that space   Mike (11:27.366) Mm-hmm.   Mike (11:34.236) Yeah, absolutely. So, um, a great case study is we have a 25 employee roughing business here in Oregon. And you might think like, only 25 employees. It's not going to make that much money. Well, we do $1,200 a month. And the cool thing about this, Seth, is the CEO of this roughing company literally did napkin math on how much it costs for his employees to drive to the gas station during their 20 minute break. And then   How much they're paying for an energy drink at the gas station and then how much gas they're using with the roofing like the work trucks to get to and from the gas station So he's like I want to bring a smart machine into our warehouse Set the prices as half off so that four dollar monster only costs his rofers two dollars and then we invoice him the the business owner every month for the other 50 % and so he actually   Calculated as a cost savings not asking for money to rent the space   Seth Bradley, Esq. (12:35.597) Yeah, gotcha, gotcha. That makes sense. That makes sense. I love the baseball analogy with the single A, double A, triple A, even into the big leagues here. know, a lot of the folks that listen to this are already kind of, you know, in the big leagues or maybe think about some capital behind them. Like how would they be able to jump right in, maybe skip single or double A or would they, or do you even suggest that? Do you suggest that they start, you know, small just to learn and then maybe invest some more capital into it to expand or can they jump right to the big leagues?   Mike (12:48.891) Yeah.   Yeah.   Mike (13:03.966) I think they can jump right to the big leagues. this is, I'm glad you brought this up because just listening to some of your episodes from the past, there's no doubt that you have people that could buy a route like a off biz buy sell today. And I think this is a prime opportunity. it's very similar to flipping a house. you, you know, there's a route in Chicago, I think it was for $1.1 million, you know, whatever negotiating terms or seller financing or, or what have you, got a lot of, your, your   audience that is experts in that. But the cool thing about these routes is they have the old school machines that have the motors and that are limited to, this type of machine, you can only fit a 12 ounce cannon. Well, guess what? The minute you buy that route, you swap out that machine with one of these micro markets or smart machines. Now you just went from selling a 12 ounce soda for $1.25 to now a 16 ounce monster for $4.50.   Well, you just bought that location based on its current revenue numbers and by swapping out that machine, you're going to two or three acts your revenue just at that location. And so it's truly just like a value play, a value upgrade, like flipping the house of, okay, there's a lot of deals right now of these routes being sold by baby boomers where it's like, they got the old school Pepsi machine. Doesn't have a credit card reader on it. They can't track inventory remotely via their cell phones. So   They're not keeping it stocked. Like all those types of things can really play in your favor as a buyer that just wants to get to the big leagues right away.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (14:37.651) I love that. When you say buy a route, what are you really buying? Tell me about the contractual agreement behind that. What are you really buying there?   Mike (14:47.184) You're just buying the locations and the equipment associated with it. So like this Chicago route, it's like, we have machines in 75 properties all across the Chicago suburbs. And they could be medical clinics. could be apartments. could be employee break rooms at businesses, but that's when you start diving into those locations. It's like, I have a snack machine and a soda machine here. Well, you swap that out with a micro market that now instead of.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (14:49.279) Okay. Okay.   Mike (15:13.626) that machine that'll only hold a small bag of Doritos that you charge two bucks, well now you get the movie size theater bags that you can really put in there in a micro market. Like naturally just that valuation of that route based on those 75 machines current revenue, I mean you're gonna be able to two or three X your revenue right by just swapping out those machines.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (15:35.959) Wow, yeah, I love that analogy with real estate, right? It's just like a value add. It's like, how can I bring in more income from what already exists? Well, I need to upgrade or I need to put in some capital improvements, whatever you want to call it. Here's the vending machine upgrades or a different kind of system in there. And you get more income. And obviously that business in itself is going to be worth more in a higher multiple.   Mike (15:58.396) Absolutely. mean, a great example of this is we had a machine in an apartment complex and it was your traditional machine with the motors and you have to enter in the code. Well, we could only put in four 12 ounce drinks and then chips. Well, we swapped that out with a micro market. Well, now that micro market, we literally put in bags of Tide Pods for laundry, like these big bags of Tide Pods. We'll sell those like hotcakes for 15 bucks. And our old machine,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:25.281) Yeah, let's say those aren't cheap.   Mike (16:27.246) Yeah, our old machine Seth, it would take us to get to 15 bucks, we'd have to sell eight Snickers. That's one transaction.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:33.547) Right, right. Yeah, yeah. How do you do an analysis kind of based on like what you think is gonna sell there, right? Like you're replacing, let's say a Dorito machine with Tide Pods, you know? So you have to individually go to each location and figure out what will work, what will sell.   Mike (16:47.738) Yeah.   Mike (16:51.834) It's all about demographic. Absolutely. So, you know, we have, we have, we have a micro market and a manufacturing plant that's, it's a pumpkin farm and there's a ton of Hispanic workers. So we do a lot of like spicy foods, a lot of spicy chips. do, we do a ton of, mean, the sugar or sorry, the glass bottle cokes. They do, they love their pastries.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:53.431) Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (17:06.349) Yeah.   Mike (17:15.868) So we just doubled down on the demographics. So yesterday I was filming at one of our micro markets that's in a gym and they crushed the Fairlife protein shakes, like the more modern protein shakes, but they won't touch muscle milk. So we're literally taking out one row of muscle milk just to add an extra row of Fairlife shakes. So you're constantly just catering to the demographics and what's selling.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (17:40.632) Yeah, yeah, this is awesome. I mean, this is literally just like real estate, right? Like you go and you find a good market. You're talking about demographics, right? Find the market, see what they want, see how much you can upgrade, how you can upgrade. If it's an apartment, it's a unit. If it's here, it's the product that you're selling and the type of machine, or maybe it's a mini market. A lot of things to kind of tie your understanding to here.   Mike (17:45.926) Yeah.   Mike (18:05.904) Yeah, absolutely.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (18:07.615) Yeah, awesome, man. Awesome, Where are you at in your business? Like what, you know, what are the big leagues looking like right now? You know, what are you doing to expand your business, raising the bar in your business?   Mike (18:18.692) Yeah, I'm going after that's a really good question. I'm going after kind of these newer markets and we're kind of past that point of like, okay, let's pilot in this location. For example, that urgent care, we didn't know if it was going to be a good location two months ago when we installed. Well now it's already crushing it. Well, there's six other urgent cares in town and we just got to go ahead on five of those six. So like for me, it's doubling down on our current proof points of where.   okay, we know that manufacturing plant, the pumpkin farm does really well. So let's start getting intros to all their, manufacturers of the products they need to grow pumpkin. know, like we're just doubling down on scaling because now we have the operational blueprint to really just kind of to go after it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (19:03.917) Gotcha, gotcha. Tell me about how passive this can really be, right? So I used to have, before we switched over to the new brand, Raise the Bar podcast, it was the Passive Income Attorney podcast, right? I was really focused on passive investments, focused on bringing in passive investors into my real estate deals, things like that. And I think that word passive gets thrown around quite a bit, right? And sometimes it's abused because people get into things that are not truly passive.   Mike (19:18.427) Yeah.   Mike (19:28.784) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (19:33.517) What's your take on that as it relates to the vending business?   Mike (19:38.49) Yeah, so I think as far as with the vending business, there's clearly upfront leg work that needs to be done, whether that's finding locations or any of those things. So I have a route that is here in Oregon, and then we bought a route last year in Illinois and have scaled that route. I spend 30 minutes a week on each route now. that these urgent cares and stuff, like we have an operator that's running the whole route.   Here's the problem, Seth. It's like people are so scared to build systems to ultimately systemize things or they're too cheap to hire help. And I'm the opposite. like, you know, kind of like Dan Martell's buy back your time. Like I have like a leverage calculator and like I constantly think about is this worth my time? Cause as you know, you're busier than me. Like it's so limited.   for me, my routes, I would consider them passive, like one hour a week is, is nothing in my mind. But as far as like, you know, I'm, I'm also a passive investor on, we're building a, an oil loop station in Florida and I sent my money a year ago to, to my, active investor and I haven't talked to him since. Like that's actually truly probably passive now, you know, I'm not doing anything, but there's, there's different levels to that. And I'm a huge believer like.   don't delegate something until you know what you're delegating. So people that want to start with the vending routes, sure, if you want to buy a route that already has an operator, that's one thing. but these, if you're starting a vending route for your kid or for your stay at home wife or whatever, as a side hustle, like get in the weeds and install that first machine. So when you hire help to take over the route, you know what you're delegating.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (21:09.773) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (21:27.021) Yeah, that's key. That's key. And you you described just like any other business, right? I think that's kind of where people get themselves into trouble. That sometimes they get sold the dream that is truly passive. And eventually it can be. I mean, you're talking about an hour a week. To me, that's pretty damn passive, right? But you know, upfront, you you've got to learn the business. You've got to know what you're getting yourself into. Like you said, you've got to learn before you delegate so that you know what you're delegating.   There is going to be some upfront work and then as you're able to kind of delegate and learn Then you can make it more and more passive as you go   Mike (22:00.88) Yeah, I mean, it's no different than what's the same when people tell you that they're busy. I mean, you're just not a priority. Like that's a fact. you're not. People say it's the same thing when people come to me and they're like, I'm so busy. It's like, okay, well let me, let me see your schedule. Where are you spending your time? You know, it's like when people are like, I can't lose weight. Okay, well let me see your food log. What did you eat yesterday? Did you have ice cream? Like this is like the same kind of thing. That's where passive I think has been really abused.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (22:16.097) Yeah. Yep.   Mike (22:29.638) To me, the bigger issue is like, vending is not get rich quick. And so like, if you're expecting to leave your nine to five tomorrow and vending is going to make up for that in one day, like that's not going to   Seth Bradley, Esq. (22:41.089) Right, Makes sense. Speaking of passive, do you raise capital or do you have any kind of a fund or have you put together a fund for something like this?   Mike (22:51.48) We haven't put together a fun, we're definitely buying routes is definitely becoming more and more intriguing. And I know there's some PE players starting to get into the vending game, but it's something we've been definitely considering and on our radar of do we want to.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (22:58.541) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (23:10.231) Gotcha. Cool. I mean, you brought in money partners for some of those routes yet, or is that still something you're exploring too?   Mike (23:18.168) No, I think it's just something we're thinking about. mean, what do you recommend?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (23:21.089) Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'd recommend I mean, it depends, right? Like I'm I'm scared to turn you by trade, but I don't like to say you should always raise capital no matter what. Right. Like you've been able to scale your business as you have and grown it to where it is without bringing outside capital. It sounds which is great because you own 100 percent or with whatever business partners you might have. You know, when you start raising capital, you're giving a large chunk of that piece away, not necessarily your whole company. But if you're buying   you know, a set of routes or that sort of thing. You you're gonna give a big piece away to those past investors if you're starting a fund or even if it's up. Even a single asset syndication here for one of these, you know, these routes, you could put it together that way. You know, it's just something to consider. But a lot of times when people are looking to scale fast, right, if they wanna grow exponentially, you've gotta use other people's money to get there or hit the lottery.   Mike (24:08.294) Mm.   Mike (24:15.856) Absolutely, no, agree. That's spot-on and I actually before you know the Silicon Valley company That I was part of we had a we went through probably series a B C D C ground   Let's just say we weren't very fiscally responsible. So I come from the, you know, it's like the ex-girlfriend example. I don't want to just start taking everyone's money.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (24:42.413) Yeah, yeah, that tends to happen with some startups, right? Like before you get funding, you're super frugal because it's your money and every single dollar counts. And you're like, I don't want to pay, you if it's software, you don't want to pay the software engineers. I'm going to out, you know, put it, you know, hire Indian engineers, that sort of thing. And then once you get a few million bucks that you raised in that seed round, then it just goes and you're like, whoa, wait a minute, let's hire 20 people. You know, it's you got to be careful about that.   Mike (25:05.606) Yeah   Yeah, yeah, that's a great, great take on it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:11.245) Yeah, it's, yeah. It's a question I love to ask and I think it's about time for that. So, in a parallel universe, tell me about a different version of you. So a different but likely version, right? Like, for example, for me, I went to med school for a year and a half and then I dropped out and I ended up becoming an attorney. So that was like a big turning point, right? So I could have easily at some point just said screw it and became a doctor and that would have been a totally different route than I'm going down right now.   What's an example of something like that for you?   Mike (25:42.524) Wait, are you being serious about that? I took the MCAT too. I got into med school and then I, yeah, I was pretty mad in school. And then the more I learned about exercise science, I was like, organic chemistry is not fun.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:44.321) Yeah, totally.   yeah? There you go.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:57.39) It is not fun. I did not love that. I majored in exercise physiology and then I ended up switching to biology because it was just a little bit of an easier route to get my degree and go into med school and I went for a year and a half and then I dropped out because I absolutely hated it. I knew I didn't want to do it. I was just more attracted to business and that sort of thing.   Mike (26:16.346) Yeah, that's crazy. That's awesome. parallel universe. I, that's a really good question. I don't know. I, kinda, I have two kids under three and the other side of me wishes I would have traveled more.   you know, I mean, we'll get there hopefully when they get out of high school and someday. But right now I just think there's so many different cultural things and ways to skin the cat. And it's just fascinating to learn some of those things.   Mike (26:55.352) yourself in those cultures.   go to different cultures and really like understand how they did things for a time, a period of time to really just learn their thinking.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (27:07.777) Yeah, I love that man. I had a similar experience of what you're describing. I didn't travel abroad really other than like, you know, Canada and Mexico until I studied abroad in Barcelona during law school and I got to stay there for a couple of months. So you actually had some time. It wasn't like you're just visiting for a week or a weekend or anything like that. You got to kind of live there right for a couple of months and it just totally changed my, you know, my outlook on life and just the way that you see things like I feel like we're in the US and we just think   Mike (27:19.627) Seth Bradley, Esq. (27:37.76) US is number one and there's only one way to do things the way that we do things that kind of attitude. And then when you go to Western Europe and you see that culture and you drive or get on a train, it's like an hour away and you're in a totally different culture and they're doing it a certain way as well and it's working. You just see that other people are doing things differently and still being successful at it, still having a thriving culture and it's just awesome to see.   Mike (28:03.312) Yeah, absolutely.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (28:06.251) Yeah. Tell me about some major influences in your life. What turned you or got you into that, the vending business? It's not one of those typical things. mean, I know you're in the education business, so you're kind of really spreading the word about this type of business. But I would say when you started, there might not have been a mastermind or educational courses around this. mean, how did you kind of get drawn into that? Were there any particular people or influences that brought you in?   Mike (28:29.308) you   Mike (28:36.188) Yeah. So the, biggest influence for me to get into vending, uh, wasn't actually a person. It was actually, was, um, I had landed, I was coming back from the Pentagon from a trip back to the Bay for the startup we were talking about. And I was in the Denver airport and 11 PM, you know, our flight was delayed. And then they're like, Hey, you have to stay in the airport tonight. The pilot went over their hours for the day, blah, blah, blah. So I went to a vending machine and I remember buying a bottle of water.   I think it costs like at the time three bucks or something. I knew that bottle of water cost 20 cents at Costco. And I was like, there is someone that's at home with their kids right now making money off me and they're not even at this mission. Like the machine is doing the work. So I had like an aha moment of like, what are my true priorities in life? And like, why am I chasing this cutthroat startup from.   Palo Alto and trying to make it when reality was my priorities are freedom to spend more time with my family. So that's really kind of what led me into this path of starting a vending machine side hustle to keep our lifestyle as we had kids. We wanted to have a nanny and we wanted to be able to still go on dates and things like that as a couple with my wife. So that's really kind of my family and just like...   having the freedom to do things. Like that's what I'm really passionate about.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (29:59.084) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, building on that, and you may have already answered that, but what does success look like for you?   Mike (30:01.766) next   Mike (30:06.268) an empty calendar.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:08.621) Good luck with that. Good luck with that.   Mike (30:11.516) Oh man, I was gonna say, how do we crack that code? No, yeah. No, but I think success to me is doing things like picking up my daughter at three and even being able to say no to the things that aren't gonna get you to where you need, like the discipline piece of this too.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:15.708) man.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:33.995) Yeah, yeah, mean, you know, for me, it's kind of similar, right? It's not going to be able to empty that calendar. Not yet, at least maybe here in the future. But for now, it's pretty filled. But it is it's flexible, right? Like us as entrepreneurs, you know, we probably work more than we ever worked when we were in our W-2s. But at the same time, it's you know, we're working in our own business for ourselves, for our families. And we have the   Flexibility, a lot of people will say the freedom, right? But we have the flexibility to move things around. And if you want to pick your kids up at school at three, or you do want to take a weekend off, or something comes up in your schedule, you have the flexibility to do that. Whereas if you're kind of slaving away at the nine to five, you can't really do it.   Mike (31:04.486) Yeah. Yeah.   Mike (31:20.198) Yeah, that's spot on. mean, I just wrote that down, but flexibility is, cause you're right. When you started becoming an entrepreneur, this is what I tell people all the time when they want to get a venting around is like running your own business. You are going to work harder than you do for your boss currently at your W-2. Like you have to do payroll. You have to do, like you gotta like make sure there's money to actually do pay, you know, like all those things that you just don't even think about when you have a W-2. It's like, today's   Seth Bradley, Esq. (31:39.543) Yeah   Mike (31:48.89) You know, this Friday I get paid. Well, when you run a business, mean, that money's got to come from somewhere.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (31:51.905) Yeah   Right, yeah, 100%, man, 100%. All right, Mike, we're gonna wrap it up. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Tell the listeners where they can find out more about you.   Mike (32:05.286) Yeah, so thanks for having me. This has been great. I have free content all over the place. can find me on the classic Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, but I also have vendingpreneurs.com is where we help people that are more interested in actually the vending stuff. But I've been really trying to double down on YouTube lately because there's just a lot of content and you can't get it off a one minute reel.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:32.417) Love it, man. All right, Mike, appreciate it. Thanks for coming on the show.   Mike (32:35.91) Thanks for having me.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:37.227) Hi brother. Alright man, got a couple more questions for you. We do like a quick, kind of do the full podcast episode and then I'll just do kind of a quick episode that'll follow up on a Monday and then another one on a Friday. Cool.   Mike (32:55.814) See you.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:59.693) We out here.   Welcome to Million Dollar Mondays, how to make, keep, and scale a million dollars. Mike is a super successful entrepreneur in the vending machine business and beyond. Tell us, how did you make your first million dollars?   Mike (33:20.922) Yeah, Seth. It was probably actually through real estate and just getting a little bit kind of lucky with timing with COVID and short-term rentals and some of that. But yeah, that's probably how I got the first million.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:25.229) Mm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:37.079) Gotcha, cool. Yeah, real estate usually plays a role in the everybody's strategy down the line, whether they're in that primary business or not, whether they start out there or they end up there, real estate usually plays a part. How'd you make your last million?   Mike (33:53.956) Yeah, that's a good question because it's completely different than real estate, but it's actually been vending machines. So that's been kind of fun. just, you you talk about product market fit whenever you're an entrepreneur with a business. And that was just kind of the perfect storm right now of traditional vending really kind of being outdated. And we found a product market fit with it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:57.57) Right. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:16.215) Gotcha. Cool. that was from, was this maybe mostly attributed to kind of buying those routes, those larger routes?   Mike (34:23.32) Exactly. Yeah. Buying old school routes and really kind of flipping them like a house with modern micro markets charging, with different products and what would fit in a vending machine, like more of the unorthodox, you know, toilet paper and tide pods and things that wouldn't fit in a traditional vending machine. I mean, we'll sell $35 bottles of shampoo in these micro markets. So just kind of, go and add it in a different way.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:49.857) Yeah, and then with the aging population, there's gotta be more and more of these things popping up. So there should be more opportunity for people to get involved or for people like yourself to just snag everything, right?   Mike (35:01.102) Yeah, I think there's no chance I could snag everything, not even just in this town alone that I'm currently in. I mean, machines are getting cheaper, the technology is getting way better with AI. And nowadays, it's not what fits in a vending machine motor. It's okay, what's shelf space? if it's a bottle of shampoo or a glass Coke, it doesn't matter because it's not just getting thrown down the chute of a traditional machine.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (35:05.387) Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (35:27.521) Makes sense, makes sense. Last, how are you planning on making your next million dollars?   Mike (35:34.3) I think probably with AI, we're doing a lot of interesting stuff with helping people scale their, their vending routes. that is applicable to any, small business. And so I'm really intrigued. Just every time I go down a rabbit hole with some new AI tool, I feel like there's another better one that just came right behind it. So I just think it's kind of that time where you can really get ahead by just learning.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:06.209) Yeah, totally makes sense. mean people that are not paying attention to AI whether it's simply using chat GPT instead of Google search are getting left behind quickly because it's just advancing so fast. I can't even imagine what this world's gonna look like five years from now the way that things are moving.   Mike (36:23.132) It's crazy. Three years ago when I was working for a tech company selling software into the government, I would have to work with three secretaries to schedule a meeting with the general to sell their software. Now my EA is literally an AI bot and everyone that's scheduling time on my calendar, they don't even know they're talking to a non-human, which is pretty   Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:43.479) Yeah, 100%. We're gonna, I predicted within five years, everybody's gonna have a humanoid robot in their home with AI instilled and they're gonna be doing physical things for us at our homes. Yeah. Yep. Yep. 100%. Awesome, All right, moving on to the next one.   Mike (36:50.181) Yeah!   Mike (36:57.917) I hope so. I hope they can go to Costco get all our groceries do our do our laundry The dishes   Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:11.501) You're clearly in the top 1 % of what you do, Mike. What is it about you that separates you from the rest of the field?   Mike (37:19.056) Ooh, that's a good question, Seth. I think it's just discipline, know, discipline and focus. One of the hardest things is being able to say no with the things that don't align. And when I was growing up, I had a quote that has really stuck with me. That's like, it's better to be respected than liked. And I think that really resonates. Like naturally as a human, you want to be liked and help people, but the 1 % are really good at saying no.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:47.649) Yeah, I love that man. That's a great answer. Kind of building on that, what do you think the number one attribute is that makes a successful entrepreneur?   Mike (37:57.468) probably focus. Yeah. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:59.212) Yeah, focus. Yep. The one thing, right? The one thing.   Mike (38:04.186) Yep. That's why you come back to like the most successful entrepreneurs. They always niche down and they niche down because they just, got hyper-focused. Like this is kind of why for me, you know, I started this passive Mr. Passive on social media before I even got into Vendi. Well, now everyone's like, well, how passive is Vendi? And well, it's like, what's really interesting is I was posting all these different, what I thought passive income streams in the time, but everyone, 95 % of the questions I got about   Airbnbs are all my different investments was about bending. So I just niche down on, on bending and I just looked back on that and I was like, it really forced me to focus.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (38:43.263) Awesome, awesome. What's one thing someone could do today to get 1 % closer to success in the vending machine business if they are really interested in learning more?   Mike (38:53.892) tap into your connections and find a location that has high foot traffic, whether that's a friend that works at an urgent care, a sister that lives at an apartment. You know, you take your kid to that gymnastics studio that has a ton of foot traffic between 4 PM and 8 PM. Like all those locations are prime locations to put one of these modern smart machines in. so, tapping into your connections, well, you know,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (39:24.567) Love that man. Awesome. All right, Mike, I appreciate it, brother. We'll to meet in person sometime,   Mike (39:30.574) I would love to. Where are you based, Seth?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (39:31.789) I'm in San Diego, where you at?   Mike (39:34.78) I am in Eugene. Yeah, Oregon. I'll come down your way though.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (39:37.39) Cool We're planning on doing yeah, we're planning on doing so me and my wife we have a Sprinter van and Last May we did we did going back to the flexibility piece, right? We did 32 days in the van up through Wyoming Montana and then into like Into Canada and they're like Banff and Jasper and all the way up to Jasper and then we circled back on the west coast Through Vancouver and then down back to San Diego Yeah   Mike (40:05.52) What?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:06.829) Pretty wild, pretty awesome. And the reason I brought that up is this year we're gonna do shorter trip. We're probably gonna do two, maybe three weeks at the most, but we're gonna do kind of the Pacific Northwest. So Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver and all those parks and stuff up there.   Mike (40:17.254) Yeah.   Mike (40:21.744) Yeah, you definitely have a, have you been to Bend before? Bend is like my, that whole area, Central Oregon is, and even Idaho, like all those kind of, yeah. That's awesome. Please let me know when you're up this way. I mean, I'll come meet you wherever. That'd be amazing. Absolutely. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:24.641) Yeah, yeah I have.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:38.861) Sure man grab a coffee or beer. I appreciate it. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah all right brother great to meet you and I will send the information on when this is gonna get released and give you you materials and all that stuff so we can collaborate on social media   Mike (40:51.964) Okay. Okay. Yeah. Is a lot of your audience, like passive investors?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:58.593) So most of that, so now I'm rebranding. I rebranded because I'm gonna be speaking more towards like active entrepreneurs, Active entrepreneurs, people raising capital, that sort of thing. Whereas before it was based on passive investors and people really focused on attorneys. So I'm an attorney and I was raising capital from attorneys for my real estate deals. Now I'm really more into selling shovels. I'm scaling my law firm. I'm chief legal officer for Tribest, which is, we've got a fund to fund.   Mike (41:20.262) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (41:28.085) legal product there as well. So we're really trying to bring in active, active entrepreneurs and people raising capital.   Mike (41:29.777) Yeah.   Mike (41:36.572) Okay, because I got that, I was just thinking through when we talking about that oil development project, that could be a good, the guy that runs that fund could be a good interview for you. Just thinking through your audience, because he's always looking for investors into his fund and like these oil lubs are just crushing it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (41:49.901) Cool. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (41:58.464) Yeah, cool. Who is it? Just, I don't know if I know him or not.   Mike (42:02.183) Um, Robert Durkey, he's out of Florida. has, his problem is he's sitting on a gold mine that has no, like he's old school, doesn't know social media, any of that. So that's why I think he'd be perfect for you. Cause I think you could help him and he could definitely help you with some kickback. Yeah. So cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully we meet soon. Okay. See you Seth. Bye.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:05.645) I don't think I know. I don't think I know.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:13.889) Yeah. Gotcha.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:20.705) Cool, okay, sounds good man. Yeah, I appreciate the introduction.   Yeah, all right brother. Talk soon. See ya. Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en Mike Hoffman's Links: https://www.instagram.com/mikehoffmannofficial/ https://x.com/mrpassive_?lang=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikedhoffmann/ https://www.tiktok.com/@mr.passive

Unity is a non-denominational Spiritual Community in Central Oregon. Join us each week for some great music, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of inspirational soul food. All are welcome! This week: Kevin Kubota shares, “Creating a New Spiritual Path”. Have you ever wondered if life's transformative moments require dramatic events, or if they can quietly unfold within the fabric of everyday life? This Sunday, I invite you to join me on a journey of exploration as we delve into "Creating a New Spiritual Path." – drawing inspiration from a recent and dramatic experience trekking through the Andes Mountains. We'll ponder the concept of personal pilgrimages and embracing the peace and clarity that comes from deep surrender. Whether you're seeking profound change or gentle nudges on your spiritual journey, this talk promises to kindle curiosity and inspire introspection. Will you join me in this exploration? ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ Submit your prayer claims online!: http://bit.ly/prayerclaim Please TXT donations to: (833) 455-1960 or Donate on our website: https://unitycentraloregon.org/donate/ Donate via Paypal: http://bit.ly/donateunitybend More goodness on our website: [www.UnityCentralOregon.org](http://www.unitycentraloregon.org/)

Unity is a non-denominational Spiritual Community in Central Oregon. Join us each week for some great music, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of inspirational soul food. All are welcome! This week: Kevin Kubota shares "Creating a New Spiritual Path”. Have you ever wondered if life's transformative moments require dramatic events, or if they can quietly unfold within the fabric of everyday life? This Sunday, I invite you to join me on a journey of exploration as we delve into "Creating a New Spiritual Path." – drawing inspiration from a recent and dramatic experience trekking through the Andes Mountains. We'll ponder the concept of personal pilgrimages and embracing the peace and clarity that comes from deep surrender. Whether you're seeking profound change or gentle nudges on your spiritual journey, this talk promises to kindle curiosity and inspire introspection. Will you join me in this exploration? ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ Submit your prayer claims online!: http://bit.ly/prayerclaim Please TXT donations to: (833) 455-1960 or Donate on our website: https://unitycentraloregon.org/donate/ Donate via Paypal: http://bit.ly/donateunitybend More goodness on our website: [www.UnityCentralOregon.org](http://www.unitycentraloregon.org/)

Unity is a non-denominational Spiritual Community in Central Oregon. Join us each week for some great music, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of inspirational soul food. All are welcome! This week: Rev. Ruth Miller shares, “Being Creativity”. Sometimes the Universe requires us to respond to life very creatively. Most of the time it's because we forgot who we are: individualized expressions of an infinite creative process that we call God. Rev. Dr. Ruth Miller offers us insights and guidelines for being powerful creators in a time of apparent distress. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ Submit your prayer claims online!: http://bit.ly/prayerclaim Please TXT donations to: (833) 455-1960 or Donate on our website: https://unitycentraloregon.org/donate/ Donate via Paypal: http://bit.ly/donateunitybend More goodness on our website: [www.UnityCentralOregon.org](http://www.unitycentraloregon.org/)

Is there a lost crystal cave in central Oregon somewhere, lined with thousands of quartz crystals? Or is the whole thing just a legend? If it's real, maybe it would be better if we never found out .... (Deschutes and Crook counties, 1890s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1811a.central-oregon-lost-crystal-cave-520.html)

The union that represents reporters at Central Oregon’s 122-year-old newspaper is negotiating its first contract with the corporation that bought the outlet last fall. Carpenter Media Group has already laid off nonunion workers at the Bulletin, like the paper’s copy editor, but the Central Oregon NewsGuild says that a contract - and the worker protections it would include - must be in place before any union layoffs could be made. The company has acquired more than 30 newspapers in Oregon alone, including the Pamplin Media Group - and approximately 250 others in the U.S. and Canada. The NewsGuild unit has taken the unusual step of urging subscribers to cancel their subscriptions if the corporate management does not agree to their demands. The Carpenter Media Group declined our request to be interviewed and sent a statement that said it is “dedicated to preserving and strengthening community journalism in the communities we serve.” The company has made deep cuts in other local media outlets it has acquired. Central Oregon NewsGuild leader Morgan Owen is a crime and public safety reporter for the Bend Bulletin. She joins us to share the latest in the story that’s unfolding at her paper.

In this episode of the 'In the Woods' podcast by Oregon State University's Forestry and Natural Resources Extension Program, host Jacob Putney interviews Thomas Stokely, a forest ecologist with The Nature Conservancy in Central Oregon. They discuss the significance of wildlife habitat connectivity, the impacts of habitat fragmentation and loss, the role of roads and recreation, and the importance of integrating fire management to promote ecosystem health. Thomas explains concepts like landscape ecology, connectivity, and fragmentation, emphasizing the need for effective management strategies to balance human activities with conservation efforts. They explore specific projects like the Oregon Connectivity Assessment Mapping Project and strategies for mitigating human impact on wildlife through community involvement and science-based forest management practices. For more information and accessible transcripts go to inthewoods.com.

On this episode, Colleen Thomas from the Homeless Outreach Services Team (HOST) shares how her team connects people experiencing homelessness with mental health support and other critical resources.  Colleen also shares what drives her, what challenges the team faces, and what she wants the public to better understand about homelessness in Central Oregon.

We talk Alaska moose hunting with Luke Williams, whose favorite cartridge is the 338 Remington Ultra Magnum stoked with Nosler Partitions. We also talk about the 17 HMR and shooting rats, chucks and pigeons. Williams is one of the owners of 7C Cattle Company providing top quality locally grown exquisitely finished beef. You can find them at https://7ccattlecompany.com/If you want to support free speech and good hunting content in the Internet Age, look for our coffee and books and wildlife forage blends at https://www.garylewisoutdoors.com/Shop/This episode is sponsored by West Coast Floats, of Philomath, Oregon, made in the USA since 1982 for steelhead and salmon fishermen. Visit https://westcoastfloats.com/Our TV sponsors include: Nosler, Camp Chef, Warne Scope Mounts, Carson, ProCure Bait Scents, Sullivan Glove Company, The Dalles Area Chamber of Commerce, Madras Ford, Bailey Seed and Smartz.Watch select episodes of Frontier Unlimited on our network of affiliates around the U.S. or click https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gary+lewis+outdoors+frontier+unlimited

He is one independent SOB. His name is Dave Scott, he was the general's driver in Vietnam in the Army 101st Airborne. Dave Scott makes his home in Central Oregon's Newberry Crater but he frequently takes off to places like the the Northwest Territories or Mongolia. He has paddled solo on some of the world's most remote rivers like the Mackenzie in the NW Territories, the Yukon, the Eg. And he has a lot to say about getting free. You can learn more at https://1indsob.com/If you want to support free speech and good hunting content in the Internet Age, look for our coffee and books and wildlife forage blends at https://www.garylewisoutdoors.com/Shop/This episode is sponsored by West Coast Floats, of Philomath, Oregon, made in the USA since 1982 for steelhead and salmon fishermen. Visit https://westcoastfloats.com/Our TV sponsors include: Nosler, Camp Chef, Warne Scope Mounts, Carson, ProCure Bait Scents, Sullivan Glove Company, The Dalles Area Chamber of Commerce, Madras Ford, Bailey Seed and Smartz.Watch select episodes of Frontier Unlimited on our network of affiliates around the U.S. or click https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gary+lewis+outdoors+frontier+unlimited

Bend serves as a gateway to natural wonder and recreation in Central Oregon. But, like many other places across the West, the city has too few homes. “High Desert, Higher Costs: Bend and the Housing Crisis in the American West” explores the housing issues that have been brewing for decades in Bend. We’ll hear more about the city from Jonathan Bach, author of the book and housing reporter for The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Ryder Redfield is a close friend and ranch manager in Central Oregon. Ryder talks about his connection to the land, wildlife and his struggles with finding purpose and understanding in life. Joel and Ryder talk about their friendship and the spiritual growth they have experienced together through community and psychedelics. https://www.ryderredfield.com/https://jimgreenfootwear.com/https://bushsurvivaltraining.com/ Visit Folsompointnutrition.com and use code INTHEBUSH on checkout to receive a 20% discount on 100% grass fed Bison supplements. Please support them to support us.

Thistle & Nest, an affordable housing provider in Bend, says the city’s new tree code isn’t flexible enough and is raising the cost of building new housing in Central Oregon. At one of the affordable housing developments Thistle & Nest is currently building, the code will mean fewer homes get built, according to the organization, which is refusing to submit a tree preservation plan for the site. That challenge is currently being reviewed by a hearings officer and could be appealed to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals. Amy Warren, board president and co-founder of Thistle & Nest, joins us to explain why the nonprofit has decided to challenge the tree code.   

In this episode of The MISOGI Method, Jody talks about how she achieved a big MISOGI of learning to fly fish and challenging herself to catch a very specific number of giant rainbow trout on one of Central Oregon's most challenging rivers. People who have fished for years upon years still have days where they can't catch a single one. But Jody gets real specific and shares with her listeners how to approach and achieve a MISOGI. You will feel inspired and want to put your next MISOGI on your calendar right away!Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-misogi-method-experience-a-new-comfort-zone--2910681/support.

Tonight I will be speaking with Corey from Central Oregon. Corey in 1994 was partying on Round Butte. That night turned into terror as the group was spot lighted from this large ball of light in the sky. On their way out Corey and his friends saw a large creature and decided to give chase. The night gets much stranger.

Gary Lewis is an award-winning outdoor writer, television host, podcaster, and speaker based in Central Oregon. Since launching his career in 1995, he has become a respected voice in the hunting and fishing world, with over 16 books to his name and countless articles published in major outdoor magazines. He hosts the TV series Frontier Unlimited and the Gary Lewis Outdoorsman podcast, sharing real-world adventures from Oregon to Africa. Known for his deep knowledge of firearms, big game tactics, and conservation ethics, Gary continues to inspire sportsmen and women with his storytelling and passion for the outdoors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices