All-In Design
"All-In Design" is IIDA Alabama's podcast that invites you into the dynamic world of commercial interior design. Immerse yourself in the artistry, innovation, and inspiration that shape the spaces where we work, collaborate, and create. Discover the latest trends, cutting-edge technologies, and timeless design principles that define the ever-evolving landscape of commercial interiors.
All-In Design
Episode #37 - Interview with Morgan Nelson
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Join us on this episode of All-In Design, as we speak with Morgan Nelson with Davis Architects. As evidenced by the length of this episode, Morgan is not one to have difficulty speaking about any topic and we discussed a wide range. We touch on how buildings are built, A/V closets, dislike for certain colors and trends, designing for various sports facilities, and having a tough skin when it comes to criticism. If you host a podcast focused on sports, you should consider having Morgan on, as she likely knows more than you do.
Recorded live before a studio audience, this is All In Design. Hello and welcome to All In Design IDA Alabama's podcast. Thank you for listening. My name is Chad Moore here with my co-host Mark Griffo. Hey everybody. And Mark, I'm a little concerned about today's guest. You know, sometimes we have people on that it's, you know, we got to bring them out of their shell a little bit. And so I'm afraid that today's guest is going to be a little bit like that. But we'll see. Hopefully she can warm up. So if you'll introduce today's guest. I'm happy to introduce. Yeah, it's going to be a tough nut to crack, especially before the show we always sit around and we chat for a little bit and the conversation has been really boring and not wide-ranging at all. We may not cover design once on this podcast. We're probably going to get derailed very quickly. I don't know, this questionnaire, there's a lot of really good content in here. There is. I think a lot of people are going to be very interested in the things that this guest, I am proud to introduce, happy to introduce our friend Morgan Nelson with Davis Architects. She's an associate at at Davis. Been there about 11 years. Morgan, welcome to the show. Glad to have you.
SPEAKER_02Thanks. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01So the floor is yours. We know that you have listened to Stephanie Pope's episode. Yep. Stephanie is your colleague at Davis. My boss. She doesn't
SPEAKER_02like for me to point that out, but she is my boss.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you have to. So now you're our second guest from Davis.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you.
SPEAKER_01And so now, why don't you tell us a little bit about your Well,
SPEAKER_02I mean, what do you want to know? I don't know. Like you said before, I've been at Davis for 11 years. I went to Alabama, graduated from the design program at Alabama. And you're from Birmingham? I'm from Birmingham, yeah. I grew up in Birmingham. Where were you born? I'm just kidding. We can start all the way back there at Brooklyn where babies are born. This will be a four-hour manifesto. This will be the longest manifesto ever. Let's see, what else? I didn't start my career at Davis. I think some people are always surprised by that because I graduated towards the end of the recession um and luckily ended up at a small firm here in town that specialized in like low income like tax credit application housing and they needed somebody there was nine people they need and they'd never really hired a designer before um and so I worked for a man his name is Bruce Harrington he's the best so Bruce if you're listening to this still love you um and I was kind of like a his girl Friday for him I did a little bit of kind of everything I wrote owner architect contracts I did CA like contract administration like running you know ASIs and RFIs and kind of like the paperwork of construction like through an architectural office I did that and mainly what I did is like graphics and marketing so kind of similar similar to what you do anybody can do it especially just right at school and really I mean he hired me really because I knew in design you know as a designer you have that kind of of a background and then I would pick up red lines and whatever that they would let me pick up or that I could you know kind of information I could glean from him and do whatever interiors they did have and I did that for two years and it was a good it was a good experience it's not really you know what I thought I would be doing out of college but I learned so much I learned a lot about like how really how a building is built you know there's this one class you have to take at Alabama and I don't know if they still when I was there we took it in the engineering department and this is retired construction administration guy who would come in and teach like basically how a building is built but He has this class. It was at 8 a.m. in the morning. He didn't require you to be there. And if you went to the class before the test, he would tell you all the answers to the test. So nobody really paid attention. And argumentatively, it was the most important class that you needed to be paying attention to. And so coming out of that, I mean, I knew the basics, but like...
SPEAKER_00Foundation. Yeah, foundation, walls. And if you were to ask me anything about that
SPEAKER_02class, I remember he showed us a video of one of the fraternity houses at Alabama being literally like put on... a truck and moved across the street at one time like in the 70s or something and he showed us this video of this fraternity house and that's the only thing I remember from this class so that didn't really help me but walking in there I mean it was all architects and I you know it really Don't think they really knew what to do with me. At the time, they're
SPEAKER_01all... You're the only designer. Only designer
SPEAKER_02with Bruce. And I worked for Bruce and there were six other architects or seven other architects. And then Denise, a lady who ran the office and did, you know, she was kind of the office manager. She kind of ran all of our lives. She was the best. It's
SPEAKER_01better than running all over your lives.
SPEAKER_02I know. That's true. It's
SPEAKER_01terrible. I think Go on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, and, you know, like, typical, I think, you know, I have a very loud personality, and I don't think they were quite prepared for that, but Bruce was great. He really taught me, like, how
SPEAKER_01construction. I'm just imagining, like, a 22-year-old Morgan. Oh, I know. 22-year-old Morgan walking into a building. Into a, yeah. A group of architects who are probably all. Denise, yeah. Denise, and then all men?
SPEAKER_02No, there were, there was one other female architect, Ann Marie, and she's, she was great. And she really, like, if I had to question, like, They were all great. Like, you know, they'd stop what they're doing and answer a question or really helped me kind of understand. Like, you know, I'll pick up whatever you need help drawing a detail. I may not know what it is, but if you can sketch it for me, I'll get in there and do it. I have no problem with that. And they were really great. I learned a lot, learned a lot about how stuff is built and, you know, owner architect agreements, which are it's all legal stuff. It's all stuff you kind of have to pick up. And he really taught me a lot, even stuff. probably doesn't what you would think translate to what I do traditionally now at Davis, but it does. I use all that information. You have to know that stuff to pass your test, too. So it was a really good experience. And then I actually got recruited into the job I have now at Davis, and I've been there since.
SPEAKER_01So question, I guess you filled out our questionnaire, and you mentioned you were going to go into college with a different major.
SPEAKER_02That's right.
SPEAKER_01And then your father was like, eh, maybe not. Yeah. How did that happen? Yeah. Have you had a conversation with him? Like, why did you?
SPEAKER_02No. Well, that's a good question. I should ask him that. I've always, even as a little kid.
SPEAKER_01He's our special guest. He's coming. I know. Look,
SPEAKER_02y'all think I have a personality. I get it straight from him. You should meet him. He's an interesting guy. But I have always been really into, I guess, like traditionally what people like decorating or home stuff. Even when I was a little kid, I loved, do y'all remember trading spaces? I used to love that. show and I convinced my dad to paint my ceiling in my bedroom orange which I know you'll find out I hate the color orange that could be and wait to make it better my bedroom was yellow yes yes
SPEAKER_01so what's going on
SPEAKER_02so I've always been like very opinionated and very kind of inclined to all those things I always wanted to move things around in my bedroom and do that kind of stuff and so maybe he saw that in his job he does work with you know furniture dealers architects and designers in his job so he is familiar with that I thought I wanted to be a journalist what I really wanted to be was Kate Hudson from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days I didn't really want to like you know write newspaper articles I wanted to like you know work for Vogue and do all the fun stuff not the best writer I mean I can write but I
SPEAKER_01can
SPEAKER_02write I hope my questionnaire does prove that a little bit I can you know
SPEAKER_01We follow. Write a little bit of
SPEAKER_02a soliloquy. Grammar, you know, isn't always my best friend. I
SPEAKER_01did wonder if he was like, you
SPEAKER_02know, I'm writing
SPEAKER_01your strong suit.
SPEAKER_02No, not that at all. He just, when I applied, because when you apply to college, you have to apply to a school. And I applied to the communications school. You do, yeah. And I got in, but the... I think he looked at me one day and was like, why do you want to be a journalist? Like I've never, I'd never really voiced this. And I was like, dad, have you seen Kate Hudson? I really think that I could be her. No, he literally, he looked at me and was like, I think you would be really good at, at this. Like, you know, we know people, you know, I have friends who are in this business. Like we, you know, you can do all these things. And luckily Homewood, um, at the time, had a class. I don't know if they still do, but they had an interior design class, and so I signed up for it.
SPEAKER_01Homewood High School? Homewood High School.
SPEAKER_02Cool. And it was kind of like just the basics, learning about different types of architecture and a couple of projects within that and some other things, but it really kind of helped me go, okay, yeah, I do think I want to do this. Then in between... graduating high school that summer I worked as a runner which for all you really young people a runner is basically like a grunt errand person you get paid to drive around before email was a common thing we drove around everywhere and so I was paid by Turner Batson I worked for Turner I was paid as a runner and so when I wasn't on my routes in the afternoon. I know, because you would work, I'd work in the office in the morning and then I'd have to like map quest because this was before GPS was common. I'd have to map quest my routes like to where I was going. And so I would like do office stuff. I'd file, you know, file or clean or do all that kind of stuff. And so luckily I had the opportunity to ask people like Kristen Corley worked there at the time.
SPEAKER_03Ask
SPEAKER_02Kristen like all kinds of questions And that really kind of helps them like, okay, this is kind of where I want to go and what I want to do.
SPEAKER_01How did you find Bruce after graduating?
SPEAKER_02So my best friend's dad actually worked for him at the time. He's now at UAB. He's now an architect or project manager at UAB, Billy Higginbotham. And so he was working for him at the time and knew that Bruce needed somebody and suggested me.
SPEAKER_01I'm writing all these names down because they can be guests on the podcast. We've named like five people. Bruce
SPEAKER_02is an interesting guy. Bruce is a really interesting guy. You should. I think he might be retired now.
SPEAKER_01We did his office once upon a time, like just directly with one of our manufacturers. His office is right
SPEAKER_02above the AIA office, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we did his personal office, like his Case Good. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I forget how we got hooked up with him, but it was one of those where, you know, he got A&D discount. And I guess you probably weren't there yet because it was like we were holding his hand through everything and finished samples and the whole thing. And with A&D discount. He's like, I got to get an interior designer in here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably, yeah. And somehow he ended up with me. Yeah. But with A&E discount, the reps don't get paid anything because we're giving the notes to get the best price for the A&E firm. But it was a ton of work on the front end, and then it got installed, and he had all these questions from back and forth. And you could tell he was starting to get a little annoyed with me because I was getting to the point where I was like, okay, I'm kind of done with this. And I think finally it kind of came. It was like, you know, I didn't get paid for it. I mean, this was just kind of – he's like, oh, oh, okay, okay. He's very methodical. He's very methodical. I mean, he was great, and it was a great – and I think the office turned out – it looked nice, and I think he was happy with it. Of course it looked nice. Yeah, yeah. Of course. But I think he was happy with it. But, yeah, it was just a funny learning. Funny. Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02He's a very, like, um... He's a very, like, very different from Neil. Neil's very methodical. But, like, Bruce
SPEAKER_01is very. And Neil is Neil Davis. Neil
SPEAKER_02Davis. That's right. Neil Davis of Davis Architects.
SPEAKER_01And Neil just retired?
SPEAKER_02He changed positions. Okay. He's now chairman of the board and director of design. Design. That sounds right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But he is no longer the president. Yes. Courtney is now the president. Neil is very methodical. But Bruce is very like analytical. Like he has to know, or at least when I worked for him. He's
SPEAKER_03an engineer,
SPEAKER_02isn't he? No, he's an architect, but he kind of has a brain like an engineer in that sense. Like he wants to know. the like every you know scenario or every portion of something before he makes a
SPEAKER_01decision this checks with my experience yes
SPEAKER_02which is different than which I feel like which is different than Neil I can't really explain how yeah I can't really explain how it's different than Neil but it's different than how kind of Neil comes up with the design I mean like even Bruce is even like that when he's you know space planning out of space he wants to know all the variables and kind of figure that out and Neil wants to know all those things but he's kind of shifting as it goes, if that makes sense. As he's figuring things out, he's adjusting things, whether it's in his head or on a paper. Speaking
SPEAKER_01of Davis Architects, what is the focus of Davis Architects? What kind of projects do you all work on?
SPEAKER_02We work on commercial work. We do a little bit of residential when called upon for a football coach or a president of a university. Do
SPEAKER_01you want to do a house in Homewood, Alabama?
SPEAKER_02I don't know. Your house scares me a little bit because of the wildlife. The wildlife. I'm scared my design would end up on National Geographic. That
SPEAKER_00would be
SPEAKER_01awesome. Come on, right?
SPEAKER_02But Davis, we do commercial work. We do a lot of higher education. That's kind of a lot of where we sit. We do a lot of hospitality within that. We're performing arts venues. We've done museums, K through 12 schools, corporate within a higher education situation.
SPEAKER_01What is corporate within a higher ed situation?
SPEAKER_02So, like, an administration building runs more like a – within a college would be more like a corporate type of job, even though it's technically a higher ed. At least in my brain. That's kind of how I think of it. Because it's more offices, less classrooms. I guess it's probably better. Do
SPEAKER_01you personally lean towards any – like, is there
SPEAKER_02– Well, the past
SPEAKER_01–
SPEAKER_02decade I've worked on a lot of athletic work I've worked on a lot of different stuff we do we do a lot of athletic facilities as well um I have done a lot of a pretty good mixture of things I have done probably more athletic work than non-athletic work it's probably a better right
SPEAKER_01yeah so what type of athletic work is that stadiums is it training a little bit of everything
SPEAKER_02training rooms locker rooms stadiums arenas um uh like clubs like high hospitality spaces within athletic facilities like renovating even like small tiny things or feasibility studies trying to figure out you know If they have this much money that they know they have, do they have to fundraise more money to do these things? What is it going to look like? Designing custom lockers and offices and kind of how those spaces function within buildings.
SPEAKER_01Didn't you all do like a golf?
SPEAKER_02Yes, golf facilities,
SPEAKER_01yes. You mean golf, like a top golf? No,
SPEAKER_02no, no, like a golf. We did Alabama. We've done a couple of golf things, but I think he's talking about Alabama, the golf facility. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Probably traditionally looks like a country club. We're going to boost our listenership. Yeah. We're going with it on this episode just by mentioning the fact that we're talking a lot about the University of Alabama. Yeah. But I've worked on other, I've worked in other schools. But I think people, you know, it's all about ratings. That's true. I am an Alabama grad. Roll tide. Well, let's not get crazy. But yeah, it's interesting in a lot of what you filled out in your questionnaire. Like you have a lot of access like you mean in terms of I mean that's interior design anyway right you're in it
SPEAKER_02you're in the
SPEAKER_01middle of it but it's just really interesting the projects that you've worked on especially at UA
SPEAKER_02yeah I've had a pretty I mean I feel pretty lucky I've gotten to do a lot of really cool stuff with people outside of Alabama and the athletic world I've also worked for a lot of I mean you know working for Sanford is really cool especially because I grew up literally directly behind that. I went, I graduated high school at the right center at Sanford. So every time we do stuff there, it is literally in my backyard because I live in Homewood now. Um, but yeah, I, I, I've had a really, I've been kind of fortunate. I've had a really cool, but yeah, I do. I've done a where you do get a very interesting access, very interesting viewpoint into that world.
SPEAKER_01Right. For sure. Yeah. Well, we were, before we started recording, we were talking about, you know, some actors and some different things going on with, with movies. And it does seem like it's like looking at what, and designers in general, especially if they've got a variety of projects they're working on, but even within sports, like the golf thing, I'm sure there are things you learned about golf that you had no idea about or what their needs were. were
SPEAKER_02so i started i i bought a or i got a set of golf clubs during this job because i decided i was going to learn how to play golf my dad has always been a big golfer and i was like when when i was little he's a big golfer well he was like i think he was perplexed by it because he knows i'm not great but i kept telling stephanie and one of the architect on that job skyler i was like i could be a child prodigy in golf and we just don't know because i never played did it turn out that way at 33 i could figure it out no i cannot i'm I'm not that great, but I have recruited said architect Skylar recently into also becoming a golf person. So we are going to, you know, we're
SPEAKER_01going to take classes and stuff. Oh, yeah. Take
SPEAKER_02lessons. Oh, yeah. I'm going to I'm going to get really good. I have a feeling. I just know it's going to happen. But yeah, you do every that. I feel like that's what they don't tell you is like every. type of project comes with a set of learning that you have to do about what that is because golf functions differently than football functions which functions differently than a k-12 functions or um i
SPEAKER_01would hope so oh yeah
SPEAKER_02or even like we did a job we did a job with um the air force academy we did a renovation to their football stadium and because that job is on an Air Force base, you have, there's, like, all of these documents you have to read about, like, design standards that you have to follow so that, like, they can't, you can't have a ledge that somebody could put something that could explode, you know? Like, or, like, there's all these extra rules and regulations. You can have shelves, but not a ledge. But, like, you can't have, where people could put a bomb, yeah. It was, like, where people could maybe put a bomb or something. Like, they're very particular about all those things, and there's these binders full of, like stuff you have to read. Um, and, but in the athletic world, I feel like each sport is almost like that too. In the sense that like how, and with really with each coach, how each coach functions is different from another. So how they set up their football, um, space or how they function with their assistants and their coaches and stuff and how they recruit is different than the next guy. I remember when we were doing UCF, the coach changed. They had a coaching change in the middle of it. And I remember the whole philosophy of how the building was going to work. completely changed and so it was like okay well let's go back because you're building something like let's actually build something that will work you want to build something that's
SPEAKER_01functional coaches
SPEAKER_02i can't remember one of them's the one one of them's the one that went to minnesota
SPEAKER_01okay
SPEAKER_02i think no that's not right because he came from eastern michigan uh It might have been Scott Frost.
SPEAKER_01At UA, you just recently went through a pretty major coaching. Did they have a coaching change recently? I don't know. I don't really follow football.
SPEAKER_02You never know. That was interesting. being a fly on the wall to see him kind of Coach DeBoer, I'm sorry, Coach DeBoer kind of walk into this space. Well, first off, like you're coming from Washington to Alabama. That's a culture
SPEAKER_01shock. And Nick Saban's office was so traditional.
SPEAKER_02Well, and that's so traditional.
SPEAKER_01What was the button? Did I read that right? Close the door.
SPEAKER_02So Saban traditionally has had a button, yeah, that he would press like a remote that would close his door. So he could be at his desk, somebody come in, they meet, and he doesn't have to get up to close
SPEAKER_01it. There's a button there that closes it. He seems like Saban would be the type of guy to look at you and be like, you go close the door. Why'd you leave the door
SPEAKER_02open? But think about being like the, they always say you don't want to be the guy after the guy. No,
SPEAKER_00you don't. I mean,
SPEAKER_02that is the guy after the guy, but not even that. you're the guy coming in after a guy who's been there for 17 years, who's still there in a different role. And you're walking into his... He had some success. Yeah, had some success. You're walking into his uber traditional office that has nothing in it because he took all of his stuff into his new office that's pretty iconic, that's been filmed and photographed and interviewed all throughout pretty regularly. And you're trying... Trying to build your own identity there after this guy who's been the guy.
SPEAKER_01So Saban still has an office there. Saban
SPEAKER_02still, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay, but he didn't keep the same space. No,
SPEAKER_02because there's no room. He moved to another area. Okay. And then... But like he took his stuff with him, obviously. So there's nothing there. Just kind of interesting to see a fly on the wall of like, OK, this guy's coming in. He's got to hire all of his staff and he's got to figure out within that how they're going to function in this new space, in this new state that we were just hired a week ago. Like just the whole like everything from right from the very beginning and then being asked by us, like, well, what do you want your office to look like? What do you want? What do you want this chair to look Like, you know, as a whole, it's almost, inconsequential even though it's not right you know it is a question like how are you going to use your office to recruit how are you going to bring people in how are you going to bring players in when are you going to like what's that going to look like does your assistant need to be the gatekeeper to your office is she going to sit here like there's all these questions you don't think about that come up
SPEAKER_01and this is where I found your questions interesting because I would have never thought of that I would have never thought that yeah this is this is an interior design project we're out with the old and And then with the new and the new wants new and you're bringing in a firm. Well, it's not even that the new wants new.
SPEAKER_02It's just that they function differently. Yeah. Totally different philosophy. How they, how he meets with people is different. Like, you know, just think about like when you move from one job to the other, like what I would imagine, you know, every firm works differently. It's kind of like that. But instead of the firm, you moving to a different firm, the firm's moving. It's almost like you played like a Russian roulette with offices in the firm. And now you got to, you know now davis is going to ccr's office they're going to occupy that office but it runs it looks completely different and how they where the desks are don't make sense with how you function with the people you work with or how you want to try to recruit people in and so
SPEAKER_01it yeah i mean there's almost it's almost even though alabama has a an amazing brand but within that's there's the kind of company culture and there's there's and there is some branding there too as far as his own version of the brand
SPEAKER_02yeah well and like every coach has their own like um you know motto not motto is the wrong word but like philosophy you know
SPEAKER_01right so how does it work from the business side like so coach deborah gets hired saban moves all his stuff out coach comes not personal he probably had people yeah probably you know um no he packed that stuff i'm just kidding um are you guys is davis architects they're waiting for him
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_01No, it's not
SPEAKER_02like he steps off the plane and we're there. I mean, we're just contracted. We're contacted by UA, and they ask us to meet with them to
SPEAKER_01figure that out. Is your question kind of like how soon? Yeah, how soon? It wasn't anything he requested. No. It was out of necessity. Like, he's got no desk, so let's figure that out. These resources are available for you. Or was there any conversations before he set foot there? I would imagine. I was not privy to that.
SPEAKER_02So, you know.
SPEAKER_01One day, Morgan. Yeah. In 17 years. I will say this. We met with him. Let's see if we can get that person on. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02yeah, exactly. That'd be an interesting conversation, I'm sure. What, um... I would say I think we met with him like maybe a month after he had been officially hired. You know, you're hired and then you got to go and try to retain your players and then recruit your staff. Keep
SPEAKER_03everybody from leaving.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, pretty much. You got to keep everybody from leaving because the rules are, I mean, you get hired, coach leaves and portal opens. And, you know, you're preyed upon by everybody else. You're trying to retain the players you got and recruit more. Plus you got to hire a staff. And where's the button to my door? We're so low on the priority. there yeah we're so low on the priority there
SPEAKER_01but as far as recruitment goes you guys did work on a space to help yeah
SPEAKER_02yeah
SPEAKER_01so I mean that
SPEAKER_02yeah that was before that was five years longer than that it's 2017 when we did that and so we were building the dining hall addition to the football building but for all athletes but we where they had traditionally been eating as a team was the question was well now this space is just kind of a big empty space what are we going to do with it now and so really looking at the function of okay you bring a recruit in for a weekend that function of how they move through a space and how do they get to um i talk with my hands i've never been more aware that like my hands are right in front of my face
SPEAKER_00three we were doing a video
SPEAKER_02i'm glad i didn't make it to that uh because all you would see is like my hands just moving in awkward positions um but like Recruit comes in, he comes in through the building. Okay, well, what door does he come in? He's coming up these stairs. Well, he's moving through this space. Well, as a 17-year-old, what's cool? What's important when you're recruiting for a space? What do you find interesting? And luckily, we were doing this job. I didn't put this down. We were doing this job. Our intern was a football player at Sanford. He was about to graduate from Sanford with an interior architecture degree, and he was a quarterback at Sanford. So I was like, okay, Drew, When you were recruiting, what'd you find cool? Like, you know, what was cool? What'd you care about? What would you want to see? Yeah, and he really helped us. And, you know, they've got all these trophies. Like, they've got to find a home for them. What is that going to look like? How is that going to look cool? How do you plan for the trophies you have now, but also plan for what if you win a championship, which they did before this project started. They won another one before construction started. Like, drawings were done... They want a championship construction started. So it was like, Oh, so our plans for the future really are, you know, but like, how do you do that without make the space also looking unfinished? You know, like how do you plan for growth without also
SPEAKER_01having a bunch of empty cases or a bunch of
SPEAKER_02empty walls or what does that look like? What's the plan for that moving forward? Um,
SPEAKER_01what was Drew's last name?
SPEAKER_02Peterson.
SPEAKER_01Who was his dad?
SPEAKER_02Doug Peterson.
SPEAKER_01Sorry, Drew. Superbowl winner. Super Bowl. For the Eagles? Yeah, for the Eagles. Oh, yeah. Just throwing that out there. It's just a little factoid. Which he,
SPEAKER_02like, didn't want anybody to know. He didn't tell anybody in our office until after he, I mean, I knew and Stephanie knew, but, like, nobody else in our office knew because his dad was, I mean, that he, his dad won the Super Bowl the fall after he was our
SPEAKER_01intern.
SPEAKER_02So, like.
SPEAKER_01What is it with, like, coaching dads in town? Because Christy Arians. Yeah, Christy, I know. He
SPEAKER_02was, like, when he first told Stephanie, we were, like, oh, yeah, yeah. And he was, like, uh. And we were like, I mean, Christy.
SPEAKER_01Big deal. Yeah, big deal. Yeah, because he was one of my dad's students. And that's the reason my parents watched the Super Bowl. It's because they wanted to see if they could see Drew on the sideline. And they did. Yeah. He's an
SPEAKER_02architect now. I don't know if your dad still keeps in touch with him. Oh, he has school. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We'll have
SPEAKER_02him on the show. He's in Nashville.
SPEAKER_01Write it down. Because I thought, I guess I read it wrong. And maybe I tried to research, too, where I thought that renovation about the recruitment area was was newer like so we did
SPEAKER_02so we that part was after oh no no no
SPEAKER_01yeah that that has been there like on the Pat McAfee show or something that was talking about something being new and like
SPEAKER_02so oh oh yes so that is different okay so that was a part of the DeBoer they took an area next to um his office that was a meeting room that is no longer a meeting room and is now like a recruitment like waiting room so because of the way he functions and that's almost like a cause and effect what we were just talking about because he recruits differently this space he needed this space that was different than what
SPEAKER_01was there six years
SPEAKER_02ago and so we built that as a part of that, or we designed that as a part of that job.
SPEAKER_01And what was that, what was done different? Cause it mentioned in your, uh, your response, something about working with a graphics company and you, you had something. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So with in 2017, I mean,
SPEAKER_01I'm going back and forth. You're going back and forth. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, and with the other, I mean, any of those jobs, obviously you have a graphics consultant. Those, those guys do incredible work and we're fortunate that we've worked with some pretty great guys. Um, Alabama used one company, um, and they kind of in 2017, like they, we would go, okay, but what if we wanted helmets to have video on the visors that showed first-round graphics? And they have an engineering department figuring it out. And like, okay, well, the computer's got to go through the wall, and we've got to have access here. And so you're kind of working in tandem with them on those things because that space in itself is like one big, huge graphics thing. You've got to pack all this stuff in there. It's got to look really cool and you know, okay, we're going to display rings and we're going to display them on this wall. Okay, well, the graphics company is the one. Is Davis
SPEAKER_03hiring?
SPEAKER_02I know. I
SPEAKER_01know, right? This sounds awesome. It sounds
SPEAKER_02fun, but then when you're like, you're sitting there like, okay, I've got to come up with an idea. Like, what have we not done or what have I not seen,
SPEAKER_01you know? Chad and I have
SPEAKER_02lots of ideas. Well, great. Send them our way.
SPEAKER_01We can build a podcast. I mean, it sounds
SPEAKER_02like this is all I do. I swear I do other stuff. I swear I work on other things like classrooms and, you know.
SPEAKER_01Education. Education. Overrated. So what was that like seeing – because I went on your Facebook page. Yeah. And you had that posted where it was like, oh, if only he knew my name, he could say my – Oh,
SPEAKER_02that is cool. I'm not going to lie. Like that's really cool to see your work kind of displayed on like a – you know, of course – my name's not out there or
SPEAKER_01Davis is. Yeah. Yeah. Worldwide. International. I feel
SPEAKER_02like we're the sort of like a pit bull song. Mr. 305. Mr. 205. That is cool. Like, I'm not going to lie. That's really cool to see. It's, it's kind of the self veining part of that. It's gratifying to see, you know, other people talk about your work, even though they have no idea that they're talking about it or how cool that space is, is gratifying, especially when you're working late nights and trying to meet a deadline and, you know, have the flip side of that is, is you've got to also like grow thick skin in this job or have thick skin and not care that you spent three days working, you know, 15 hour days on something to be presented to a client to, you know for them to just completely crap on it because they'll do that too like you know yeah and they should they're paying for it
SPEAKER_01they should tell you they should get exactly what they want in your questionnaire yeah you're like yeah they are paying for it
SPEAKER_02there i mean at the end of the day you know money is what rules it all like you you are they are paying for it they are at the end of the day the client and so you know they can tell you that that tile looks like maybe it's already been urinated on. Is that a very specific example? That is an example. That is an example. Or, you know, I really don't like that at all. Or, you know, they will... It's not like when somebody is going to an art museum and the artist is standing next to them and they feel, somebody feels self-conscious of their words to
SPEAKER_01what that. Oh,
SPEAKER_02yeah, I love it. Yeah. They're not saying that. So if you are, that is my advice to young designers. If you
SPEAKER_01are. I will say during art festivals, people will tell you exactly what they think of your work. That's shocking. Yeah. That's shocking. My kid could do this. Yeah. Yeah, where's your kid?
SPEAKER_02oh man that'd be some talented kid um but there is like a level of like you gotta you gotta grow some thick skin so there's kind of both ends of the spectrum so when you do see your work kind of out there and people talking about it and stuff you've worked really hard on it is really gratifying and nice to see um that is kind of the and i love sports in general i'm not athletic at all um here you're a golfer you're going to be a golfer. Well, I'm going to be a golfer. But some argue, is that a sport? You can drink while you do it. That's
SPEAKER_01true. You can drink while you do lots of sports. I've played volleyball drinking. Yeah, I don't know if it's advisable.
SPEAKER_02Well, you know,
SPEAKER_01that is true. I've played soccer drinking. Not drinking while running, but there was a keg on the sideline. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That just seems like a bad combination. Running and
SPEAKER_02beer, that just doesn't seem to mix well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, golf, swinging metal rods.
SPEAKER_02That sounds like a good time.
SPEAKER_01It is. I've only played golf several times, and I've had at least one beer every single time I've ever played. I own a set of clubs.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01That's as far as I can take my golfing experience. I own a set of clubs. I've golfed, but I wouldn't say what I do is playing golf. Yeah, I would say that. I have a
SPEAKER_02feeling, but I think that's the average. I think the average person who plays golf would probably tell you that. Maybe. They always say, like... golf is like one unless you're really good it's like three hours of being very frustrated for the five minutes that you hit
SPEAKER_01that one shot yeah and you really don't know what you did no hit it and you're like oh yeah no yeah i've been doing that the whole time i'll do this again and then it just you shank it all the way to the right yeah
SPEAKER_02who knows
SPEAKER_01you're right it's not a sport it's all luck
SPEAKER_02Well, they say it's all mental, you know? Like, it's mainly a mental game.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I
SPEAKER_02can
SPEAKER_01see that. Well, then Tiger Woods came around and started doing bench presses, and now everybody talks about how strong they are.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but, you know, it's mental. Guys get the yips, and, you know, they're top three one weekend, and then the next weekend they don't even make the cut.
SPEAKER_01Have you ever seen somebody with baseball yips?
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01It's bizarre.
SPEAKER_02It is bizarre, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do you know what the yips are? I have no idea what yips are. So the yips are is... I'm going to throw this pen, okay? Since we're not on video, man. Season three. You got to get this video in here. And it can be like an actual baseball player. We can do that whenever. It doesn't have to be season three. Mark's committed to season three. But it's like you'd be a professional athlete, right? And it's the guy on second, and he's going to throw it to the first baseman, and he literally does this. And he can't get the ball to go more than six feet.
SPEAKER_02He loses it.
SPEAKER_01Or he's going to throw the ball, and it's going to hit the catcher in the face. And it's, but yeah, it's a Morgan's point. It's mental. It's mental. Just in that moment, something like his, he lost his focus. It's in that moment, but then it can, that moment can last for months. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's the reason why most of those guys have sports psychologists. Like most golfers have, there's a guy in town who does that. He's like well-known sports psychologist. Like I think for a lot of guys on tour, I can't
SPEAKER_01remember his name. There's a job for everything. I know there's a job for everything. Do you ever have, ever have that happen to you during interior design? The design yips? Yeah. No.
SPEAKER_02As long
SPEAKER_01as you have coffee. Because you have a good team to support you. That's
SPEAKER_02right. That's right. Brainstorming. Brainstorming. You always got somebody else with an idea when you don't have one. So I guess yes. I mean, I guess everybody runs out of ideas at some point for a little while. Your head gets stuck on this one kind of thought process or one kind of, you know, and you're like, oh, I can't. Like I've got
SPEAKER_01to. Can't get out of that. They
SPEAKER_02don't like it. I've got to pivot, you know, and
SPEAKER_01can't figure out what that is. It looks like somebody urinated on it. I got to pivot.
SPEAKER_02Isn't that? That's such a great... What did that come from? It came from a finished presentation with an athletic director, and there was some tile, and it was like a... It was like a metal tile that had almost like a corrugated, like a rust kind
SPEAKER_01of feel on it. I was going to say there's a little corrosion going on. Yeah. I mean,
SPEAKER_02it's an understandable description. It's an understandable description. I just, I mean, and that was like eight years ago. And I still remember it to this day because it was such a good, it was such a good like, oh, okay. Okay. So anybody will say anything. Like, you know, like people will just tell you exactly how they feel.
SPEAKER_01Have you ever used that material in any other project?
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And every time you use it, you're like, yeah.
SPEAKER_02In a different color way, but yes. Now that you bring it up. Now that you bring that up. Yes, I have. Yes, I have. In restrooms. In a different color way. And you would have no idea that that's the tile I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01But yeah. Tell us about AV rooms.
SPEAKER_02AV rooms. Oh, I don't know. What did I say about AV rooms? You talked a lot about AV rooms. Did I really?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. There's a whole paragraph. There's a whole thing. Okay. I'm like looking for chat. It was kind of like. I
SPEAKER_02told you it was streams of,
SPEAKER_01on streams of consciousness. I just wrote down. It was long. I can't remember. I don't have the actual question in front of me. I do, but it's, I'm not which page, but it was, it was in essence like when you, you've got to pay attention to, I think it was technology. It was asking about technology. Oh yes. It's
SPEAKER_02about like the future of where, yeah, and
SPEAKER_01you're like you actually have to really pay attention I think
SPEAKER_02it's really more not really about AV rooms but about AV in general I mean I feel like I am I know how to use a phone I know how to use a computer but you start talking to me about cat 6 cable and you know the intricacies of how to get the TV to work like the way you want it to work it's not even like the closet it's really like getting the closet I know getting the TV to work how you want it to work like the intricacies of that are becoming more and more prevalent of making sure you plan for those things on the front end than figuring out in the job like oh I want to put TV here well it's not that simple of like let
SPEAKER_01me just go to Best Buy and buy one there's nothing worse than finalizing the plan and then being told you need to find a hundred square feet yeah
SPEAKER_02because there's limitations you know you got all that cable can only run so many feet you know without needing a rack or a connection or some kind of access panel and so
SPEAKER_01Has this happened several times or just one? A few. Okay.
SPEAKER_02A few. It just depends, you know, on
SPEAKER_01the job. It was probably one of the more interesting answers that we had to that question. Really? Because a lot of people, and you mentioned AI and you mentioned Revit and software. Is that
SPEAKER_02typically what people have
SPEAKER_01said? Rendering and AI. Yeah, but yours was like, there's physicality. You're like, because this stuff is being created in a vacuum. Well, because when people,
SPEAKER_02I mean, have you talked to an AV consultant? When they talk, sometimes it is like they expect you to know the same language that they are speaking right and they could be speaking Klingon to me
SPEAKER_03I
SPEAKER_02just don't like you know like I but you can't just nod and follow like pretend like you're following along because they're telling you what they need
SPEAKER_03yeah
SPEAKER_02yeah so sometimes I have to be like I think I told a guy the last year we had started a project and I was me it was a smaller project I was like I need for you to speak to me as
SPEAKER_01if I
SPEAKER_02as if as if Like, I am an eighth grader, and you are telling me about exactly what you need for this job. Which
SPEAKER_01is funny, because an eighth grader might know.
SPEAKER_02Eighth grader probably
SPEAKER_01does know, yeah. Second grader.
SPEAKER_02Maybe I need to dumb it down, yeah. I'm a newborn baby. Please explain to me how all of this is going to work. But there is, like, a level of understanding outside of interior design and building that you've got to have, like, with consultants and, you know, electrical saying, I need these things, or I've got to have an access panel here because everywhere where your AV cabling is running above the ceiling, if it turns, they got to be able to get above the ceiling to access that and, you know, ensure that something can happen if something breaks or whatever that may be. There's a level like they don't, they don't teach you in college of like communicating with other disciplines, you know, and learning some form of like structural is telling you, they got to have this piece over here. You got to understand why they got to have it. But like you need to speak the same language. You need to speak the same language, you know, or language you can understand. So there is like a level of semi-knowledge to read other people's drawings and understand when they say, hey, I need this. That means, you know, I need 100 square feet
SPEAKER_01to put a baby rack here. And it's got to be this close to. That's right. It's
SPEAKER_02got to be this close to here. And it can only exceed like this. You know, it's only going to serve this area So I'm going to need one upstairs and they probably need to stack so that stuff can flow. Yeah. Those kinds of things that they don't teach you when you're space planning in college.
SPEAKER_01It'll be interesting to see what happens in 10 years. It will be interesting to see. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I feel like they're getting bigger and not smaller. Like everything else, like the trends, you know, smaller as in like
SPEAKER_01technology, everything's
SPEAKER_02slimmer and smaller. And AV rooms are just getting bigger and more complicated.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, I know just going in to present, you know, as a rep going into conference rooms, you know, everything's smarter. Yeah. But then it's more complicated. Nobody knows how to work it. Yeah. And you're just constantly. I was going to say using that word smarter loosely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Supposedly. I was using air quotes, but you can't see it. I know. We have one
SPEAKER_02TV in one conference room in our office that I legitimately do not know how to work. Like every time I meet in there, I have to ask somebody else how to turn it on and get it to show my computer from the screen because I cannot figure it
SPEAKER_01out. I've been in a design firm. I was presenting with another rep, and we couldn't get the TV to work. And the people that were there were like, oh, you know, so-and-so knows how to work it, but they're not here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You could be at
SPEAKER_01Davis. You could have been at Davis. I looked up the model number of the television to try to figure out, and got the instructions, PDF on it, to try to figure out where there were buttons on it that I could access to change the input. But I was literally looking up the instructions for that particular television. It's like the TV in this room. It's behind glass, and it's real cool, and it's sleek, and stuff like that. Does it turn on? How do you access stuff? Right. You know? so
SPEAKER_02av racks that's why you have the cabinet underneath
SPEAKER_01there is a cord here see there is yeah and it's that's that's that's a little bit of uh yeah no it works but and it's funny y'all notice that because when we eventually renovate the space that's one thing i want is we can have some wireless connectivity but i want the ability to connect to every tv what's shocking to me
SPEAKER_02though is like I feel like an iPhone's pretty intuitive. Technology, as it's grown, I feel like it's become more intuitive. I mean, if a three-year-old can use an iPhone, then it should be easy. But I feel like this situation, like conference rooms, TVs, how to hook up something to said TV, should have gotten more simple or simpler, but it has not. I feel like as technology has grown, it has gotten far more complicated.
SPEAKER_01Right. Well, I mean, you're dealing with different manufacturers and trying to create their own standards. So an iPhone is one. Google and Apple fighting it out.
SPEAKER_02That's true.
SPEAKER_01And so there's all these different interfaces that they're creating.
SPEAKER_02There are days when I think... Can we go back to the Stone
SPEAKER_01Age? Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. We can go quite that far back. The Stone Age. Interior design was much simpler then. It is.
SPEAKER_02I'm just saying, you know, there are days that I think, wouldn't that be easier?
SPEAKER_01Some straw.
SPEAKER_02That's right. Wouldn't that be easier?
SPEAKER_01Speaking of design trends. I don't know if that was a good transition. That worked. You were saying in your answers that you felt like we're getting to more timeless. Uh-huh. So what do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_02I mean, I feel like we're moving to, and it could just be what's trending now. It could be just totally full of it. Timeless is trending. Timeless is trending. I feel like we're moving more. I think people are more conscious of, like, I want this space to last longer than the trend may last from five years. So let's look at how is this going to look. Mauve and green marble. That's right. Oh, I freaking hate
SPEAKER_01mauve. Oh, I hate that color. I wrote it down because you had timeless. And then I was probably arranged about how I hate green marble. And then we're coming back to the
SPEAKER_0290s. That's right. Oh, man. I'm a child of the 90s. That's all I can think about. And it's what's trendy now. But I think... or I have found like people are more conscious of like, okay, how can we make this look good and make this really sleek and nice now, but also think about in 10 years when the trend of green marble and mauve paint may be, you know, no longer kosher or, you know, out the door again, this space isn't going to look like, you know, it's totally dated. How do we keep something that's going to stay, you know, classic and nice in the longevity. I think that's more in the forethought of people now than it was, say, 15 years ago.
SPEAKER_01What is your personal design taste? Do you have one? Like, do you have a certain style that you gravitate toward or you try to incorporate? Well, I love to paint
SPEAKER_02everything
SPEAKER_01black. Okay.
SPEAKER_02That's kind of my, yeah. I love Sherman Williams iron ore. I could write a, I could write a TED talk on how great of a painter. Did you paint your room black? I just painted my room like dark green. It's like almost black. It's a mossy green. It's so great. Mossy green. It's like a dark, dark green.
SPEAKER_01Why didn't you go with the iron ore?
SPEAKER_02Did you think about it? I did. I thought about it because I, I was trying to get my dad to help me paint it, and I knew that if maybe I added a little bit of color in there, he would complain a little bit less about it. Especially because I asked. I asked. I have the ceiling painted that, too. It's been a whole. It's a whole. It's five sides of moss. Of dark. It looks so good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It looks so good. I'm a fan of a dark bedroom.
SPEAKER_02I'm a fan of any dark room. I think things look... more... Well, it hides a multitude of sins. But also, I think it looks... I don't know. I just like the way things pop on a dark color. I don't know. Maybe I'm just trying to convince everybody.
SPEAKER_03Black
SPEAKER_02is back. No, I'm not done. We're building some built-ins that my bed is going to slide into, and I've got to build a closet doors. What color is your floor? It's still ongoing. It's wood. I have the traditional...
SPEAKER_01And what we're talking about, for no one who knows what we're talking about, is you're renovating your bedroom.
SPEAKER_02I am. I'm renovating my bedroom, and Mark, who follows me on social media, I think has been following my... to make this less of a daunting... task and to the comedic relief of all of my friends I have been posting about it as if I'm an influencer because it's the only way that I have been able to get through because I've been living in my guest bedroom with all of my clothes in my living room for about two months now so
SPEAKER_01don't get out of here yeah I know so the cabinets are they going to be what color are they going to be dark green yeah yeah so
SPEAKER_02so
SPEAKER_01where are the pops going to come from
SPEAKER_02from my My bed and some other furniture in the room and then art. Smart. So we'll see. I do. I love
SPEAKER_01a dark color. Or like a colorful lamp.
SPEAKER_02Maybe. Maybe.
SPEAKER_01That's what I'm imagining. I don't know why. Nice. Nice. Also, thanks. You're like, maybe. Maybe.
SPEAKER_03Who
SPEAKER_02knows? I haven't gotten there yet, to be completely honest. I hadn't reached that point yet. We've got to build the built-ins first for me to be able to even do anything else.
SPEAKER_01Where are you in the progress? Are you close?
SPEAKER_02We've measured, and we were trying – so my – Dad built me some bedside tables, and we're hoping that he can take that and then add on to it to build the bookcase portion on top of it. He's got to adjust to those. So we're getting
SPEAKER_01there. Is he enjoying this process?
SPEAKER_02No, not at all. No, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01And what did he say about the green?
SPEAKER_02Oh, he's complained about it the entire time. Sorry, Dad. And when I informed him that we were painting, he was like, the ceiling too? And I was like, yeah, the ceiling too.
SPEAKER_01I think you put that in one of your posts or something like that. Yeah. I think this is a good time to talk about the colors, just yellow and orange.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. I hate them so much. I don't know why I hate them
SPEAKER_01so much. But you had them when you were a kid.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Maybe that's why I hate them. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Like you don't like them in any fashion?
SPEAKER_02I like the concept of yellow.
SPEAKER_01I like the concept of yellow. I don't know what
SPEAKER_02that means. I know. As in like when other people wear yellow, like butter yellow. is I guess in right now looks so great on them
SPEAKER_01when you see a ripe banana you're like that's it I like the concept of that banana
SPEAKER_02I do love a banana but like I do not love when I walk into a yellow room I think like mm-mm nope I just don't love the color yellow. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01There's a whole psychology behind yellow. Hate of the color orange and yellow. And I wrote, so like the sun. Maybe. Yeah. But I guess those are bright, cheerful colors and you like it dark. I do. Black and mossy green.
SPEAKER_02And mossy green. I mean, I've used them both in jobs.
SPEAKER_01Because a client told you to? No, because it called for it. I'm thinking about iron ore. I did do an
SPEAKER_02elementary school where at the entire the main hallway was like an eight eight pack like marker so every column was painted different colors all the way down and i was like let me pick the yellow let me pick the like softest yellow possible yeah i was like let me pick the like buttery it's like softest yellow possible that doesn't offend you know my eyes i would just wish there's a girl in our office casey is a designer in an office and she loves orange. Loves orange.
SPEAKER_01And she finds it. Do you all not get along?
SPEAKER_02No, we get along great. But she finds it like as a personal cost that I hate the color orange. Maybe because I've always grown up as an Alabama fan. I'm just predestined to hate that color. I don't
SPEAKER_01know. I mean, there could be something there. Maybe. I still think it's childhood. There's some trauma. I
SPEAKER_02just and she every few days she'll bring over some super like stylized interior that has orange. It's like colored in some form of orange. And she'll be like, see, isn't it great? Don't you love orange?
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_02Yes. She's trying to like slowly brainwash me into
SPEAKER_01liking orange. Maybe she should present you with a mossy room that has like an orange lamp. That has like an
SPEAKER_02orange lamp. Maybe then, yeah. Casey, are you listening?
SPEAKER_01Mark back with an orange lamp. He really wants a lamp in
SPEAKER_02there. The last one she showed me was like an orange and white. It was like a indoor like sauna room almost. And it was like orange and white. checkered tile on the floor and then on the walls it was like orange and navy checkered tile. And I was like, Casey, even if I liked orange, even if I was convinced this was good as orange, you've got Tennessee on the floor and Auburn on the wall. You think I'm going to say I like that? Probably
SPEAKER_01not.
SPEAKER_02Casey went to SCAD.
SPEAKER_01That's why she doesn't know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, she doesn't understand.
SPEAKER_01That explains it. Here's a white and orange checkered floor and an Auburn checkered wall. Let's ask the Alabama grad if she likes it. This doesn't look amazing I
SPEAKER_02was like, are you crazy?
SPEAKER_01this is cracking me up so I've got in front of me again since we don't have video I've got my computer and I get the season three so I've got the waves the sound waves you know as far as you know read out are we crashing
SPEAKER_02oh no she is am I too
SPEAKER_01loud yeah usually it's you but yeah you're just like boom boom boom which is great but we'll it'll all we'll get it people will be having to adjust the volume up and down
SPEAKER_02solid that's probably that's probably like the the like underfoot of my life
SPEAKER_01like people are just kind of yeah yeah right Yeah, yeah. All right, so I think we are 55 minutes in, so we'll jump to Rapid Fire. Rapid Fire, okay. I should have put this as part of my intro, but you are recently on the IIDA Alabama board. That's right. I am, yes. That's right. Congratulations. Thank you. Are you excited about that? Is this one of your questions? This is one of my questions. This is Rapid Fire. And as I'm asking, I was like, the question could be a yes. I don't
SPEAKER_02know yet. I don't know yet how I feel about it. I think it's going to be a learning experience for me. I don't love asking people for money. I'm now the VP of sponsorship. So that will be an interesting experience.
SPEAKER_01Do you know Mickey Davis? He's really good at asking. Is he really? He's very good at asking. I do know
SPEAKER_02Mickey. Maybe I should get some pointers from Mickey.
SPEAKER_01He can really shake people down. And is one of our most loyal listeners. It's nice to give him a shout out.
SPEAKER_02Mickey, I'll be contacting you to figure out how to be better at my new job.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so outside of collegiate sports, are there any professional sports that you follow?
SPEAKER_02All of them. Do
SPEAKER_01you have particular teams or a certain area? I'm a Chelsea
SPEAKER_02fan for English Premier. I've always been a big Red Sox fan. Love the Red Sox. Don't really have a professional team in football that I like. I kind of just watch it all. The NFL does a really good job with the Red Zone. It kind of makes... You cannot follow a team and kind of get into professional football really well. Is
SPEAKER_01there a golfer you follow? I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I love what Schefter's doing right now. Obviously, I follow Justin Thomas, who's at Alabama. Well, I was at Alabama. I think Max Homa has hit kind of a slump recently, which is kind of interesting to see. Yeah, we were. No, we weren't. No, I'm sure you weren't. It's kind of interesting to see him trying to figure out. Yeah, we're still talking about golf. Trying to figure out what he's going to do kind of from here. He fired his caddy a couple of months ago, so he's got a new caddy.
SPEAKER_01Sounds like a big deal.
SPEAKER_02Which is kind of like firing your coach and trying to get a new coach. It's kind of a how do you, what do you do next? So it'll be interesting to see how he kind of pulls out for that and I'm trying to think of other sports. Follow a little bit of everything. Hockey. Hockey. Yeah, I'm a Preds fan. Nice. I like hockey just in general. Anything that's, like, any sport that allows fighting on ice. Do we do
SPEAKER_03NBA
SPEAKER_02yet? So great. No, yeah, not, follow NBA, not a huge, like, follow one team. I like LeBron. I'm not, like, a huge LeBron person. I think Steph Curry kind of changed the game in the NBA. Been following Caitlin Clark a lot. Sorry, W. WNBA. Was watching Wimbledon earlier this morning. We had it on the office. I don't know if the American lost or won. What's his name? What
SPEAKER_01about the Westminster Dog Show? Not a fan. Is that a sport? I don't know how that would classify. Is this showing stuff? Sports? I don't think that's a sport. Maybe for the
SPEAKER_02dogs. Have you ever seen Seven Days Out? Do you know what that is? It's this docu-series on Netflix from maybe seven or eight years ago. But the whole concept is they start following these people seven days out from a main event. Westminster Dog Show is one of the episodes. And they follow contestants, the people that run the thing, and all these different aspects of the same thing. So there's an episode on the Kentucky Derby. There's an episode on the dog show there's an episode on like the Chanel couture fashion like at fashion week there's one on like NASA they're like a taking the satellite and blowing it up into Saturn because it's like run its course. And that's how you get, I guess, rid of satellite space junk. I don't know. Sure. So that's one. And then there's one I'm missing. But they're all really interesting because they follow all these different aspects of this event. Right. Like people normally show. Yeah. It's really cool. But there's one on the dog show. That
SPEAKER_01was a really quick answer. Rapid fire. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. That's great. Yeah. What's what's the weirdest? I like that. See, I'm going to derail us. Mickey texted. I'm usually the one to derail.
SPEAKER_02OK. Yeah, I can go on. I mean, I
SPEAKER_01can talk about anything. Yeah. I mean, when you started into sports, I was like, this could be the entire podcast. Yeah. I mean, I can
SPEAKER_02literally take a topic. I could probably talk 10 minutes on anything.
SPEAKER_01When we talk to.
SPEAKER_02I could talk about that.
SPEAKER_01I'll give you
SPEAKER_02my thoughts on that later
SPEAKER_01on our last episode I don't know how y'all got off track but I was like I'm gonna put us back on track which is very off brand and Nikki texted me and Chad and was like the irony of the episode I'm gonna put us back on track okay what's the weirdest or most unexpected source of design inspiration you've ever encountered
SPEAKER_02ooh I don't know that's a good one
SPEAKER_01Seems like because you've done a lot of different stuff. I know. And a lot of different people.
SPEAKER_02I know. I don't know professionally. Like, as a professional designer, I don't know. In college, I designed an entire restaurant. You know, every project's fake. Air quotes for those. Yeah, sorry. Air quotes. You know, season three, you'd see it. But I designed an entire restaurant out of the concept. It was like... on a wine vineyard of like wine being poured out of a glass, like from a bottle into a glass and how like, you know, like when wine's poured, it kind of has this like flow. And so the entire restaurant kind of like flowed kind of like that
SPEAKER_01with the bar. Okay. I gotcha. I'm picking up
SPEAKER_02what you're putting down. I don't know. I don't know. Um, professionally, I'm sure there's something, um, I'm just not off the top of my head. I feel like with every project, you kind of tunnel vision into what you're currently working on, and you forget all the things that you did before that.
SPEAKER_01I think the wine is a pretty good answer. Yeah, that works. I may have needed a
SPEAKER_02concept the night before, two hours before walking into class,
SPEAKER_01and came up with that, and then ran with it. She may have been having some wine. And then ran with it, and
SPEAKER_02that's what we went with.
SPEAKER_01All right, since it's the summer, what's the... Best vacation you've ever been on?
SPEAKER_02Ooh. You know, I heard Lori Bailey and Adam were in our office this morning, and they were asking this question to somebody in our office. And I was like, I don't know the answer to that.
SPEAKER_01Unicorns want to know. The unicorns want to know. The
SPEAKER_02unicorns want to know. They did it in our office today. I went to China in 2018 in the middle of January. It was freezing. I went to Tibet, very cold, based in the Himalayan mountains, and it was awesome. I had no expectations. What did you go with? I went with people from my church. We were visiting some people that lived there, but who don't live there now, so I'm allowed to say that. But I had no expectations going, and it was... I'm not one to like – I'm not super adventurous when it comes to a lot of aspects of – or some aspects of my life. I'm not really like a
SPEAKER_01– That goes to your motto. It
SPEAKER_02does. It goes to my motto. I won't do anything where somebody would not feel sorry for me if I died. So like I'm not, you know, bungee jumping. Yeah, that's right. That's
SPEAKER_01right. I had to read it like two or three times before. I was like, what is she saying?
SPEAKER_02I'm saying like I'm not, you know – I'm not getting in the, what is it, the Titan? That went down to the Titan? Yeah. Like, I'm not getting in that, you know? I
SPEAKER_01felt sorry for him. That's actually going to be my next question. Really, was that? Well, no, I'm keeping it. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Well, either way, it was not something that I ever thought. Like, I never really was, like, had this huge desire to go to it. to China, but the opportunity presented itself. And I went and it was maybe probably one of the best trips I've ever been on. Nice. And I would go back. I would go back.
SPEAKER_01Cool. All right. So we just we just mentioned your personal motto, which is for the people who missed it. I won't do anything where someone wouldn't feel sorry for me if I died.
SPEAKER_02That's right.
SPEAKER_01So how do I want to word this question?
SPEAKER_02Explain.
SPEAKER_01Explain your motto. No. Is there something that you would really want to do, but you're not going to do? Because you're like, if I die. Because if I die, nobody would feel sorry for me? Nothing's going to fall into that category.
SPEAKER_02I'm sure there is. I am fascinated by sharks. I find them interesting. I don't know why. Don't ask me why. I used to love and I used to like religiously watch it. We used to watch it in college. There's like drinking games you can play when you watch it. I used to love. I am afraid of the ocean. I will not get in the water ever. It's the immensity
SPEAKER_01of the ocean. Not dip your toe in? No.
SPEAKER_02We'll never do it.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Have you ever? Yes. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_01She almost died.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Went back. No. I am afraid of the immensity of the ocean and so I will never get in But I find the concept of people getting in a gauge in water to look at a shark fascinating. I don't know if I would ever do it, to answer your question. I find
SPEAKER_01the thought process interesting. I do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I like this. I
SPEAKER_02just think, like, you never hear people go, like, who die bungee jumping, like, oh, you know, poor them. They chose to jump off that perfectly good bridge strapped
SPEAKER_01to a cord. Oh, yeah, no, we often make a joke in our friend group about, like, that just terrible phrase of, like, he died doing what he loved. And it's like his parachute didn't open. Yeah. Right. That's what I mean. That's what I mean. He loved parachuting. Right. He did not love falling to the earth to his death. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's the reason for the motto.
SPEAKER_01Okay. All right. You're stranded on an island.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_01You have access to only one resource of entertainment. So you've got food. You're fine. But you're stuck there. You only have access to one source of entertainment. It's unlimited. And your choices are movies, books, TV shows, or music. Books. Books. Okay. I read a lot. What's your favorite
SPEAKER_02book? Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. Okay. Yeah. Weren't expecting that, were you? No. But I do appreciate that. Have you ever read Peter Pan? Peter Pan
SPEAKER_01I do appreciate I feel like I read it when I was super dark nothing like I have not read it nothing like the movie it's super dark like the OG Pinocchio
SPEAKER_02yeah it is
SPEAKER_01it's like not at all it's
SPEAKER_02very it's very dark
SPEAKER_01I love how you answer that so fast and with the author's name like you're just boom I
SPEAKER_02own four copies of it
SPEAKER_01okay are they different editions no
SPEAKER_02I just happen to over time have owned four yeah I have owned four copies of it I would say Peter Pan
SPEAKER_01or you're drunk in a bookstore Peter Pan
SPEAKER_02yeah Or most of the time, if I'm carrying a purse or I'm traveling or something, I typically keep a copy of Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's in my purse. It's only like... 70 pages. Very, very thin little book. Right. And it's actually a bunch of short stories. Tiffany's was a short story that he wrote within a book of other like
SPEAKER_01little short stories. Have you ever read In Cold Blood?
SPEAKER_02I have read In Cold Blood. Really good. It is. It's incredible. But I keep that. I read, I have like three or four copies of that too that I have like, you know, destroyed and had to get another copy. But I'm a big reader.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Cool. Great.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Nice. Was that, is it my question? Yeah. Oh, my question was favorite book. Oh, okay. I thought that was just a
SPEAKER_00follow-up. Yeah, no, that was my quick. See, look, right there, Chad. It's written
SPEAKER_01down. Favorite book. All right, great. It just happened to follow that I said books. What's your go-to non-curse curse word? If you have to cuss. I
SPEAKER_02typically
SPEAKER_01cuss. I have such a potty mouth. There's children around. Morgan doesn't give a... Sometimes. They're not my children.
SPEAKER_02Sometimes. That's a good question. I don't know. Fudge. I do love, I do love when like, Oh, fudge. Oh, fudge sticks. I have a friend who used to say that instead, like just would not use the F word at all. And she would go, Oh, fudge sticks. And I'd be like, what are you saying? But I, I now have picked it up.
SPEAKER_01Is this my last one? You always keep count. Yep. I do. Okay. Describe yourself in three words.
SPEAKER_02Loud. Um, uh, multifaceted
SPEAKER_01that is one word way to go we're on two
SPEAKER_02now yeah um i don't know can i just have two loud and multifaceted
SPEAKER_01like that covers a multitude say loud again yeah loud and loud if you could take one property in birmingham and renovate it what property would it be and what would you do with it oh
SPEAKER_02It's a new question. It is a new question. That's a good one. And that's a good one. It's a good one. Thank
SPEAKER_01you. We should ask the people in Huntsville the question. In Birmingham. In Birmingham. They would love that. Two hours away
SPEAKER_02from you. What's
SPEAKER_01your favorite restaurant in Birmingham?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I don't know. That's a good question. Yeah. I don't know. I find it interesting. Have you ever been speechless before? I know. I've never been speechless before. Well done, Chad. Yes. When you asked me a question, I was not anticipating. I don't know. Can
SPEAKER_01you get back to us?
SPEAKER_02No, that's not what I'm about to say. Can I answer it without answering it? Okay. I always find it interesting when you see, I feel like you see it more now too, where people take like schools and they'll buy them and they'll turn them into like. Into apartments or whatever. Yes. Or like.
SPEAKER_01There's a baseball stadium. There's one in
SPEAKER_02Vestavia that this guy's opening that like nonprofits can like rent space inside of. You
SPEAKER_01know what's really funny about this answer? It's because there is a space in Huntsville. it's where like yellow hammer is there's a bunch of events there's one in there's
SPEAKER_02one in helena
SPEAKER_01it's an old school and you go and it's an old school and there's a brewery yeah lockers and stuff yeah right there's right
SPEAKER_02there's one in helena i find them interesting that people take these schools and repurpose them into very different things right
SPEAKER_03yeah
SPEAKER_02but they still look Like schools. Like a school, yeah. It still looks like a school. Can you imagine renting an apartment, but you're really renting a gym? Right. A gym-torium, like your bedrooms in the old stage.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I've seen where they've done that. They've taken classrooms to become the apartments, but they keep the gymnasium as part of an amenity where people can go shoot. So there's some cool things that can be done.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So the non-answer to that would be, it would be interesting to do that. Repurpose something that's... To repurpose...
SPEAKER_01Right? Something completely different. So you need an elementary school.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Let me know.
SPEAKER_01Where'd you go to elementary?
SPEAKER_02Edgewood.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02Still there.
SPEAKER_01Still there. All right. So we did this last time. I'm going to do it again. Okay. Create a song. Oh, I like this. Based off of the episode and your answers. But I want you to give me three random words to incorporate into the song. AI makes the song. I don't really make the song.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Um... Three random words. Red cooler.
SPEAKER_01Red cooler.
SPEAKER_02I'm just going to name three things.
SPEAKER_01Box of Kleenex. Box of Kleenex.
SPEAKER_02And whiteboard.
SPEAKER_01Whiteboard. All right.
SPEAKER_02I'm interested to see what that's going to turn up.
SPEAKER_01I
SPEAKER_02had to write a song in the ninth grade as a part of an English project, and that was harder than I thought it was going to be.
SPEAKER_01That's super easy now.
SPEAKER_02I know.
SPEAKER_01Too bad. Yeah, you just tell AI to do it. Just tell AI to do it. If only I had AI. Yeah, genre would be good. But what music genre? Jazz? Show tune?
SPEAKER_02Let's go show tune. Rock and roll? I'd like to hear a show tune talking about a red cooler.
SPEAKER_01I was listening to the last song from Bethany's episode like early in the morning. What
SPEAKER_02genre was it?
SPEAKER_01She did pop. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02pop.
SPEAKER_01Okay. But like modern pop. Okay. And I just had the thought, I was like, if Erin wakes up, she's going to be like, what is happening right now? She would be mad. Yeah. My seven-year-old son is obsessed with it. Assess with the AI making the song? There's an AI. It's Songer. I think it's called Songer.co or CA. I can't remember which. But yeah, so he's constantly like, let's write a song. Or if somebody comes over, he's like, do you want to write a song? And so we'll come up with it. So for Father's Day, I made a song for my dad, but with a bunch of stuff about him in it. You
SPEAKER_02just give it a prompt and send
SPEAKER_01it in it? The lyrics I do through ChatGPT. And then I adjust them, because sometimes they don't make sense or whatever. But I adjust them somewhat. And then you put it into song or tell it what genre and it'll spit out a couple options.
SPEAKER_02You know, when I was in college, I thought, dang, it would have really sucked to not have had the internet to write papers. And now I think that people in college now probably think like, wow, it really would have been really sucked not to have chat GPT. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, we've talked about this on the show about how a lot of like English classes, high school and college level are going back to in-person handwritten.
SPEAKER_02Well, here's the thing. If you don't, if you don't learn the skill, like if you rely on chat, GPT to write everything for you, then you're not even going to be able to write an email.
SPEAKER_01Chad's not going to be able to write any more songs. Chad's songwriting business is going to go
SPEAKER_02way down. But I just mean in general, like life skills, like formatting an email that doesn't sound like it comes from a text.
SPEAKER_01I told you this story, but my son got busted for using ChatGPT for a paper and he's in eighth grade. And so we went through this whole thing where it's like, do you use AI? And he's like, no, I did not use AI. And it's like, okay, can I see your computer? He's like, um... Really? I'm like, yeah. What's your password? And you could tell he's just like, oh, this isn't good. And the first thing that popped up was a YouTube query. How do I, you know, tell my teacher, convince my cheat teacher I didn't cheat? Yeah. And then there was a. That's incriminating. That is incriminating. And then there was a full, like there was another tab. I'm still on
SPEAKER_02his side, though. He said he didn't do it.
SPEAKER_01ChatGPT that was a full, like, conversation with ChatGPT. Oh, about how to write a paper. You know, he came back and it was, you know, and I apologize. to my son for putting this out in the world. But he had come back and was like, well, you know, she doesn't believe that I was telling the truth, so I'm playing devil's advocate to try to convince her that I did tell the truth. And I'm like, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. But eventually it was like, okay. But the whole conversation with ChatGPT, That's a confession, man. Dang, you got one smart seven-year-old. You got a smart seven-year-old. No, he's in eighth grade, so not seven. I wrote a whole
SPEAKER_02paper in college citing one sentence in a book I have yet to read, and I was supposed to have read it twice.
SPEAKER_01What was the book?
SPEAKER_02Scarlet Letter.
SPEAKER_01Oh, what a slog.
SPEAKER_02I know. I wrote an entire paper. I even made an A on it. But I feel like that's the skill. The BSing, the ability to BS something on the fly is going to be lost because everybody is just going to
SPEAKER_01catch you. He's got that debt. Not a problem. My mom taught me this for 40 years. She would have been like, no, Morgan didn't do this. I made an A on it. That was a
SPEAKER_02legit paper. It's about feminism.
SPEAKER_01To Vin, my son, he did come clean and the teacher was really cool about it and everything was fine. But it was one of those moments like, okay, we really have to talk about it.
SPEAKER_02There's a girl last year who went to a student in Middle Tennessee or something and it came up on my For You page. She wrote a paper, did not use AI, but had Grammarly check the grammar of her paper,
SPEAKER_03and
SPEAKER_02the teacher flagged it as failed or whatever, and she had to go to professional standards. She put all of this on social media. Grammarly even wrote an entire thing saying, it's going to pop that says we used it. It's not. All we do is suggest grammar edits.
UNKNOWNRight.
SPEAKER_02And the school still wouldn't let her even have an incomplete in the class, which I think is the next big thing that people are going to be debating about and talking about is privacy and digital privacy. But then I also think within that, there's going to be a conversation of... AI and how do you, with learning, if it's going back to literally a pencil in the little blue book things that you write, you know, in person, in class, or kind of what that's gonna be to continue to, so that your entire ability to function does not rely on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, everything just being, so anyways, I'm gonna use AI to make a song. Yeah, what I love about this is that, so this is actually what happens in the post-show Like normally we turn the mics off like 15 minutes ago. Yeah. And then we just sit around. Sorry about that. And we keep talking. I stopped recording. There was no outro. There you go. Just dead air. Dead air. Just click. Just dead air. You just gradually turned the volume down. Yeah. And that was before we even did the rapid fire questions. I just was throwing it ahead and turned it off. Nice. Nice. Thank you so much for coming on. Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate
SPEAKER_02it. Hope it's not, you know, loss of content. I hope any of it makes
SPEAKER_01sense. That was a good outro. We'll keep that. Thanks again.
SPEAKER_02You're welcome.
SPEAKER_00She's got talent, taste, and Tuscaloosa charm. A sketchbook in one hand, style on her arm. From Bama's bold fields, no journalism dream. We're talking interiors fit for a queen. Started with Bruce, yeah, that's where she grew Now she's calling the plays on a 50-yard view No yellow, no orange, that's her sacred vow But give her iron ore and just watch her wow She's drafted locker rooms, she's detailed the lights Mapped out media zones and recruitment rooms, right? You want the drama, she can design and She's got her whiteboard full of vision, her notes in sync And if you doubt her spec, just grab a Kleenex and think Because this gameday glam Her style's on fire orange Yikes With a red cooler vibe Whiteboard wisdom and iron or cool. She's rewriting the rule book of design school. So pull up a mic, adjust that chair. It's Morgan on all in, breathe that sporty air. Morgan from Davis Architects, no orange allowed.