SPEAKER_03 0:00

Yeah, that was that's sick that you remember that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

I can't I don't remember it was my favorite class, dude. I remember one I did a junior year, senior year. I signed up for one semester and then no no A set.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

I just hit record PS.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

So it's run.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Oh, that could be a test drive. I don't know if we wanted to be spontaneous with the intro. All right. Well Elias Vallejo.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Thank you for coming over here to this to Aggie Square in Sacramento. I love it. I love it, man.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

Welcome to the Stories of Sacramento podcast. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

I love this.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

I appreciate you coming out.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

And I uh yeah, you know, we've uh we've known each other since kindergarten, which is very interesting. And um I knew that.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

You know, went to preschool together.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Yeah, we went to preschool together, me, you, and Tony.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

That's right, yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

And um, you know, I I really like, I really like, well, first off, um congratulations on the Valley Host restaurant. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Well, I love I love the food there, and like it's always a party when when you guys host the the games and all that. And uh one of the big things I want to ask you about because you know, I I never been to Mexico, but um it seems like you you guys from Halos, if I'm correct, it's which is the mountains.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

It's a kind of it's a small town about two hours from Alajara in the state of Jalisco.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

In Jale School, right? Um yeah, like um how how was your experience in Jalos? And uh, when did your family come from Jalos into Sacramento?

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Well, that's actually kind of cool. So my dad wasn't born there actually, he he was born in LA. Okay, uh he's one of 11 kids, but when he was about five or six, they were in Watts LA, which is like kind of bad. And my my grandma was like, I don't want my kids growing up in this environment with gangs and violence. So they moved to Mexico for about two years, and then they came back to Sacramento. And my dad grew up here his whole life. But my mom is from Hajlos, she was born and raised. You know, she's actually well, she lived in Hajlos, but her parents are from Dequa, which is a small farm town about 20 minutes from there, it's like from Hudal Grove. But Decwa is like tiny, you can walk the whole town and you won't even be tired. It's it's really small. So, but they live in the city of Hadlos, which is it's a it's still a town, but it's a little bigger. There's the schools and all that. And my dad, since he grew up in Hadlos for a couple years and his parents are from there, he would go like me often in the summer, or like for Carnaval, which is the festivals before Ash Wednesday. So one year he's out there in August when they do the celebrations of the V the Virgin Mary, and he knew this guy, they call him El Indio. He's my my brother's godfather, he was married to my mom's sister, and he's saying hi or whatever, and he introduced my dad to my mom. So this was, I think my dad was like 27. My mom, my mom was 17, but she told him I'm 19. Because she's like, I like this guy. So they meet once, whatever, and at that, there's they go to the Plaza de Todos where they fight the bulls, and this is one plaza, one entrance, one exit. Like it's a bunch of people, and coincidentally, they run into each other again, right? So they were at a wedding at the same event time, so they just kind of had these all coincidences. And my dad walked her home one day and he's like, Can I get your phone number? She's like, Oh, I don't have a phone, you know. She's like, Ah, this guy's from the US, he doesn't care. But my dad paid attention to their address, so he called his aunt from Mexico. Hey, I'm going back to Sacramento, but go back to this address, ask for the number. I like this girl, Lula this, my mom, Lulu, right? Yeah, so my aunt goes, my mom knew the aunt, everyone knows each other in the time. I was like, What are you doing here? Are you here for my older sister, Patricia? She's like, No, I'm here for you. And I was like, For me? My nephew, Efrain, my dad, he wants your phone number. You said he wouldn't give it to you, but he really likes you. So my mom was like, Oh, maybe he is interested. Okay, here's my phone number. So, you know, they call, they write. Uh, my dad goes to Mexico. At the time, he was bachelor, he had a business already, so he would go off to Mexico. They start dating. Uh, about so she's 17, about three years later, they get married, and they my dad rings my mom to Sacramento. And they that's on the ended up here, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

Just to clarify, this is for me. Um, Jalos is sure for Jalos Titlan. Or is that okay, okay? One place.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Yes, I just wanted it. Most people spell it halos a j o s, but if you're from there, a lot of people spell it with the X instead of the J.

SPEAKER_03 4:37

Yeah. Cool. Interesting. Okay. So you said your your dad had a business here in Sacramento, or was this here, here, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

So he so my my dad, uh, when my he's the third youngest of 11 kids. Wow. So when my uncle, I think he's like five or maybe a little more than like six years older than my dad, he decided he wanted to start like a deli kind of okay, like like half cafeteria type thing, but with like tackles and stuff. So he started it over in East Street, downtown Sacramento, which is where they grew up. Yeah. So like people were like, Well, why don't you go somewhere nicer? And they're like, No, we grew up here, this is our area. So he opens in Delhi. My dad was about 17, 18 when he started working with my uncle. Uh, and then around 18, uh, I think my my dad was like ready to like partner up with him because he knew how everything ran. And my uncle would go on vacation in Mexico. My dad could run the whole restaurant. So my dad's like, Can I partner up with you? He's like, Yeah, you know, you you know how everything works. So they started in the deli, and like when they needed help, my grandma, like a lot of the recipes, like I'm I'm sure you've had the enchilada sauce of hijo. That's my grandma's recipe.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

I've had the flautas, the flautas.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Okay, so there's this enchilada sauce they put on top of like uh tamales and sometimes the macho burrito, and that sauce is a recipe from my grandma who's now 94. So, I mean old recipe. Yeah, uh, some of my aunts worked the kitchen, and as my dad got a little older and they started making more revenue from the deli, like they had lines out the door, they got a food truck for tacos, and they bought their first restaurant on 14th Street. And from there, it's been growing and stuff, you know, ups and downs. But now they have uh Vejos on 4th Street, Fourth and S, and they've been in business for over 35 years.

SPEAKER_03 6:21

Amazing, man.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Adrian brought up uh a good, you know, something uh I believe you told me you had a relative who um, you know, he's maybe in his 90s by now, but he was one of the first people to begin certain Mexican recipes. The tortillas? The tortillas, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Yeah, so there's this guy that I would mark. So his uh son married my my dad's sister, so he's kind of like not really my grandpa, but you know, I I've known him since I was young. Yeah, so he started a store called the Jalisco, which is the state of Mexico. His big thing was selling produce, but and you know, vegetables, Mexican chiles. But the big thing was before La Esperanza Superior, he was the first place in Sacramento to make homemade tortillas, tortilla. Yeah, now he started here in Sacramento, but his business grew really quick because no one else did that. He served tortillas all to Northern California, Sacramento, Stockton, yeah, Modesto. He even did some places on the uh like right by Reno, like the coast of Nevada. Yeah, so he had a huge business, it grew really fast. Now he has there's more competition and stuff, and he's older. I think he might have sold the business, but for many, many years he was he was sold tortillas, and at our restaurant, we bought produce from him, whether it be uh tortillas, aguacates, tomatoes, everything. Wow, and he was like the first one in Sacramento. Like a lot of people who like are from the Mexican culture that are older, like in you know, 80s or whatever, they most likely know that I will medicado if they were like involved in that. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

That's something that's very cool. That's awesome. I really wanted to like touch on that because it's something my dad brings up every so often of like he came here in 86, 87 here in Sacramento. Um, he was he came here behind like two of his older siblings who they'd been here for maybe a year or two years. He said back then, they're like today, it's like um you know, or like it's on every corner, like they're everywhere, man. Especially on Franklin Boulevard over there, yeah. Man, but when they came, like there was not a lot of that. So you you telling us the story about like your family, dude. That's that's sick, man. That's for like he would tell me, like, there'd be very few, and the few that would do it, like it's like you said, they would maybe be based out of Sacramento, but they would cover a huge area delivering to like like you said, Stockton or like even up to Reno. People would he told me this story about like um it dude. I mean, imagine the the the coincidence if it's the same people he was talking about, but like loading up a van full of just like you said, produce and like it was back in those days, it's it's probably the highest. Yeah, man, that's crazy. And they take it out to like the fields that can sell, yeah. It's crazy, man.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

That's that's sick, dude. I kind of you know went over my dad's story kind of quick, but like like you said, covering a lot of Sacramento. He he he's stable like in downtown Sacramento, but but like when he was starting off looking for locations, he had one in Rancho Cordova, you know, like he was just looking for locations, you know. Even right now, where uh at Caballo Blanco is that was a place that was offered to my dad, but at the time he just purchased the restaurant he has now. So that you know, but like on S Fourth? Yeah, S4th. But for many years, uh like my dad, when he first started, and my uncle started, he tells me they'd go to like uh you know a beer and wine fest and they bring vendors. The only Mexican restaurants in the Sacramento area was Alejos, Teresa de Manas. I think there was one other one, I don't remember what it was, but there was three. I mean, now you see like 20 downtown. But he was saying back in that time, the reason the business took off so fast is it was there's only really three authentic Mexican restaurants in the Sacramento area. That was one of them, and they brought all the recipes from Mexico.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

Man, that's awesome, man. That's that's a beautiful story, man. That's the goes to show. And now it's like you said, man, the raza is everywhere, man.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

And I mean, it it truly shows like my my dad, his family, they grew up 11 kids like working in the fields. They didn't grow up with money, but like you know, my dad always says, you know, growing up poor, I always wanted more for my family. So that kind of like puts the spark in them to go out there, hustle, and find a way to make a better life.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

Absolutely, man. That's insane. That's awesome. Um, tell us a little bit about you, man.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

About me. Yeah. I mean, what can I say? I was born and raised in Sack. I love it here. Uh I go to Mexico most summers because that's where my mom's family ends up every summer. If not during Christmas, Texas. Uh, my dad's family is all either here or LA, you know, like the extended ones in LA, but most of them are here. Here in Sac. Uh, I mean, really, mine's just a basic Sacramento story, you know. I I went to preschool in Pocket with Adrian. From there, I went to Holy Spirit, the private school in Land Park. After that, Christian Brothers High School, community college for a while, and now I'm in Texas State.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Yeah, we uh yeah, we were we were always uh talking from well, I I'm gonna be honest, preschool. I I think we did talk. Yeah, when preschool we probably did. Then um, I was supposed to go to Holy Spirit, but they didn't have space, so I went to St. Roberts. But then uh Christian Brothers, we we met each other again, and we even did Saks City classes together. Yeah, we did.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Yeah, you know what's funny about Holy Spirit, about me getting in there. So originally my first language and my brother's first language was Spanish. We're three years apart at the house. My mom was at home, Spanish with dad, it was English, but really we didn't know a whole lot of English, so we figured what school's gonna take my kids. So my mom tried St. Patrick's and St. Roberts, where there's a larger Hispanic community. And they said, No, your kids' English isn't good enough to come here. They said that to me, and my mom's like, Oh my god, what am I gonna do? And my aunt, Lauda was like, Hey, my son Anderez, he spoke better English, but like this school said they'll take them if they don't speak English. So we go to Holy Spirit, and Miss Pilaki, our kindergarten, me, my brother, and sister's kindergarten teacher goes, Oh, they don't speak uh good English. I was like, No, like you know, we speak Spanish at the house, but they're learning. She says, Don't worry, they'll learn with me. She's one of those old school, like strict teachers. Nice. We came out of kindergarten reading, writing, and speaking English. She, yeah, and that it was the only school, like we were the only Hispanic kids. It was a predominantly white school, but they took us and we sure enough learned our English pretty well there.

SPEAKER_03 12:35

That's awesome. That's crazy. That unlocks memories for me. Like, I remember being very young going into going into uh St. Robert's as well. I started out there in kindergarten, and like so like you said, like you know, I now that I remember, I feel like I remember like Mr. Baker, Mr. Baker, like just getting out. I had to have been like so young, but I remember them like before I started there, they were like asking me questions like in the in one of the classrooms. Like, now that you mentioned that, dude, I feel like that's what it must have been. Like, does this kid speak good English? Yeah, before we like admit him. Must have been good enough for them because I mean it's funny, dude.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Like, I remember kindergarten, I'll never forget, he was my best friend, but I never really spoke to him. I just thought, this guy's my friend, his name was Chase Turner. He sat on the magic carpet on the right of me. And Miss Pilaki says, All right, like, you know, the basics kindergarten, put up your right hand, and I'm sitting there like his right. And I look at Chase and he puts up his right hand, I just copy him. Yeah, there you go. All right, put up your left hand. So I copy this kid whenever it was like writing or like colors and stuff. Like, oh, he knows. I'll just copy him. He's my friend now, but didn't know how to communicate. Hey, want to be my friend, you know? I just yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

Are you still in contact with him?

SPEAKER_00 13:48

No, he actually, when we were in like third or fourth grade, he moved to Denver or Oregon. And we kind of lost. I mean, we we weren't really friends per se. Like I said, I couldn't communicate that to him. I see. First, we had rolled around and my cousin Tony joined the Holy Spirit, and I was like, Oh, I got someone I can talk to now or whatever. Yeah. And Diego, who's our friend, he was there since kindergarten. And because his parents spoke Spanish and my parents did, almost instantly, like we were just you guys got lost together together.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

Man, that's that's awesome, man.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

That's that's the type of story that so around around second grade you would say, or first grade, you're just fluent English.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Uh yeah, pretty much. I mean, there's always the like some kids knew words like propeller, and I was like, What's that? But like I I knew how to like hold a sentence, right? I knew how to read and write, but there were just like some words that you hear as a kid, I hear them in Spanish, they hear them in English, but you know, yeah, when you're young, you can develop your brain and their tongue.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

It's a lot easier to uh compare to an adult. It's where they're like sponges with new languages.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 14:46

Absolutely. I remember um I don't know if you can relate if you guys can relate, like, but I remember um movies like with subtitles. Oh, yeah. That would that would help me a lot. But like, I mean, we were still watching like cartoons and stuff in Spanish, Blaza Sesamo and stuff. Yeah, but I do remember like coming up, man. You you learn, you learn one way or another.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

And it was a big one too. I mean, I was a little older and I grew up here, so I knew English really well. But uh my cousin, he tells me he played a lot of Pokemon. We love Pokemon growing up, so he had it on his Nintendo, like uh the DS or whatever. The DS, yeah. And it'd be like, it would say, Oh, uh Pikachu does scratch, and he'd see the scratch marks, but like, okay, so scratch is like the scud. Yeah, make that he played a lot of video games and he put them in English and just put subtitles and kind of figure out okay, this is what this means. And he speaks as well as I do English to Spanish, you know.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

That's good, yeah. Yeah, I'd like to put my experience too when uh my family we just uh we decided to live in Spain for a whole year. This was sixth grade. Yeah, and um it was at first, you know, I was I was so confused. Um they thought I was uh I don't know if you know the politics in Spain, but the Catalanes, oh yeah, like they thought I was Catalán because I was like, I was like, you know what? But like within a few, it's like as a child you can absorb a whole language, especially if you're immersed in it. Um within a few weeks I was speaking Spanish. Yeah, and then it's funny because like the Spanish we speak, you know, it's like the Mexican Spanish in Spain it's different, but it's funny like it it's honestly it's just theos, and sometimes they're they're a little more direct. Yeah, like I was yeah, that those are the major differences. And when I came back to California, my uh my Thail it began it just disappeared.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Yeah, just hearing Mexican. It's probably because your dad spoke like the Spanish we speak, right? Right, yeah, uh yes, yes. Because I mean I I learned most my Spanish at home. My mom is from Mexico, she she and from little like Spanish alone, you know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:47

Yeah, man. Yeah. Well, we we all learn one way or another, right? Yeah, man. Um, and so you, you know, we all went to Christian Brothers, one thing we have in common. We all graduated crack class of 2019. Correct. Yeah, um, you play tell me some of the tell me about some of the sports you played.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

So I went in uh during the summer to play baseball, like on the summer baseball team, because I love baseball. I always have, I still like to watch it. But I was one of those kids growing up that like played basketball at school. He played soccer in Land Park and then baseball for baseball time. So I did all three, right? I never really stuck to one, even though I liked baseball the most. When I got to about seventh grade, my mom's like, you gotta pick one, like everyone's doing one. Do you want to do baseball year-round or like soccer? I said baseball. So I started doing baseball year-round. So about two years of year-round baseball, and I get to Christian Brothers summer, these kids have been playing year-round baseball since they were like seven years old. So they've been doing it for the last seven years. I've been doing it for two. They're all significantly better, they all played on teams together, they all know each other. I don't know anybody. So at the summer league, I started noticing I'm not as good as these guys. I need to like practice or whatever. The tryouts come, and I'm like, I'm still not as good as these guys. So what I did when it was freshman year tryouts, I did baseball tryouts and volleyball tryouts. I did volleyball in eighth grade, was not good, didn't didn't like know the rules or anything, but I liked it. I thought it was fun. So I went it is fun. Yeah. So I went to the tryouts and baseball tryouts an hour after baseball directly to volleyball. You know, I was there like I was there from 7 a.m. to like 7 p.m., you know, long days. But I was like, if I don't make baseball, I still want to play a sport. Right, right. So I'm doing that, and baseball try uh the list comes out, cut Elias, Emerald, Cedros, uh, Jack Milliken. Me and Jack Milliken were both doing volleyball tryouts. Volleyball had eight players on the JV team, so automatically we all made it. And from there, I fell in love with volleyball, started doing year-round competitive, and I played well, I I guess you could say all four years. It was all three years. I quit halfway through my senior year for other reasons. But yeah, freshman year, I did I did fine. Sophomore year, I was a starter, like I was on the court non-stop. I was one of the better players on the team. I was never captain because I wasn't I talked bad to the coaches and they didn't like that. Yeah, like uh, anyways, but uh I got like MVP as a sophomore, you know, junior year. I didn't start because I wasn't the better player, but I got to play every once in a while. As a senior, what happened was I was a starter again for the back row and I got sick one deer, uh one day. I got sick like for a week. I missed the Jesuit game, I missed the pictures, I missed a lot. So then I come back and I'm going to practice, you know, putting my work in. I'm not starting. All right, fine. Maybe he wants to start someone else. I'm not playing second string. I may be going in for like a set or two. And I talked to the coach, like, hey coach, like the thing is you you had me as a starter, you said I was gonna start, I got sick, I came back, and now I'm not really playing. I said I've been to every practice, I show up on time, I'm never late. What's going on? What do you want from me so I can get more playing time? Because if it if I'm just gonna be riding the bench, I don't want to continue playing. Right. So he says to me, uh, we'll talk about this later. I was like, okay, but like I don't want anyone to know, let's keep it private. And I won't name the coach, but we had a little like uh team dinner that day because one of our players had a torn ACL, so we wanted to go see him, and he was the captain. So we go to see him, and at the dinner now we're all done. And the coach brings up the private conversation we had in front of the entire team. Oh yeah, he goes, All right, team. So I had a conversation with Elias today. He feels that he's not playing enough and that he's been putting in the work that you need to play. And what do you guys think? Should uh should he's thinking of quitting, but like we maybe you should encourage him to stay on the team. Do you guys have like any words you want to say? And some kids are like, Oh, you know, we just gotta like keep at it and like come on, like the team won't be the same without you, and this and I was like, I was listening, I was like, okay, okay, okay. And then the next day, uh, or that was a Friday, then on Monday, I turned to my uniform. I was like, I quit polo. He's like, Oh, you don't like want to join? I was like, No. I said, realistically, I probably would have, but the fact that you brought up our private conversation to the whole team when I wanted to keep it private, I said, I didn't like that, I don't want to play for you anymore. I'm done.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

So yeah, sorry to hear that, man. It's it's unfortunate. I mean, um, I you know, you hear stories about like it's in those formative years, you know, a sport that you really love, you know, um, it can be like that love for that sport can be fostered or can be completely like killed by like a coach.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

It's crazy that luckily I didn't stop playing, you know. I play uh like open gyms and I then I sexy that like what's called a volleyball class, but really you're just playing. And through there I met a few people that like they make teams and do like open gyms. And funny enough, one of the guys that uh I became friends with, his name is Paul. He took me to uh a gym to do an open gym one time, and that coach who I Quit on plays with the same group of people that he played with. And I saw him at the gym or whatever. And he's like, Oh, how are you doing? I was like, I'm doing good. Oh, you still play volleyball? I was like, I still play volleyball. He's like, Oh, okay, that's cool. That's cool. I'm I'm glad you didn't just like quit. I was like, No, I didn't quit entirely.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

Man. Oh, yeah. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

And he's a good guy. I mean, he was a great coach. I just didn't like that you brought up that predator. I don't want to say make it sound like I don't like this guy. He's I still, if I see him, I still talk to him. But I just that at that moment I was like, I don't I don't want to play like that.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

And um, so uh, you know, it's good that you didn't let that hold you back. Yeah, that's that's it's really great to hear and you know, powering through that adversity. Um, and you have you have like a fair share of siblings, if I'm not clear if I'm mistaken, older brother, younger sister.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Yeah, but I mean my dad had a bunch, my mom my dad's one of eleven, mom's one of one of eight, so I have a lot of cousins. With dads, okay.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Well, I mean big family reunions. Yeah, Adrian knows uh at the restaurant when we went to see the Mexico against England game, the restaurant was full. Yeah. I want to say maybe 20% of the people were not family, 80% filling up the whole restaurant wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

It's because I I kept seeing people walk in and you know, they were like very welcoming. They're like, hey, yeah, hugging, and you know, yeah, and I get up to say hi or whatever. Yeah, so I was all like, yeah, family connected. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:25

And um, man, man, that's good. You guys packed out the whole packed out the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Yeah, we had the patio uh people too, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Man, that game was intense, especially those last few minutes.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Uh yeah, they're attacking, they couldn't get through.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

We yeah, I mean we we fought the fight. Yeah, we did. We did, we didn't go out like 0-3.

SPEAKER_03 23:44

Yeah, yeah, all right, yeah. How uh fortunately, unfortunately for the US, that was that was kind of painful to watch.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Yeah, they got knocked out.

SPEAKER_03 23:53

Yeah, you would say it was a little was worse. Um and so after Christian Brothers, you went to community college?

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Yes, I went to Sacramento City College and a little bit of American River College.

SPEAKER_03 24:06

Okay, yeah. And so did you go with the thought of um like with something in mind? Did you just go to do your GEs? That's a very popular, I mean, honestly, a smarter, uh, smarter option, if you ask me, like those GEs for me and high school.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

I'll be honest, I'm a lazy student and I was in high school. Junior year, senior year, you know, I passed, but I wasn't like really trying hard. I didn't know like really the colleges that are around, you know. Like I always thought I want to go to Santa Cruz, I want to surf. UC Santa Cruz is in the forest, it's not anywhere near the beach. Really? No, it's in the forest. Wow, you guys can like to be here. Yeah, so so I I was like, I want to go to UC Santa Cruz, my cousin goes there, I want to surf, I want to this, I want to go to the skate parks, this and that. Uh I didn't have the grades to get in. So I go to so one of the counselors, the college counselor's like, so like you can apply to Sacks Day, like a smaller school, but like I was like SAC State a small school. Or smaller, or small school, right? Oh so I was like, I didn't take the SATs, I didn't take the ACTs. Oh man. So I was like, my back memory. Yeah, my GPA is low, and I I know I want to go to UC Santa Cruz. I I'm not gonna get in. I'll go to community college and then transfer. Yeah. In community college, I found out UC Santa Cruz is in the forest. It's like 30 to 40 minutes from any beach, and it's not even like the boardwalk beach. So I was like, I don't want to go there. As I'm in community college, I'm doing GE's, but I know I want to do business. Uh my my major's business, right? So I uh no, sorry, uh econ, but they don't have econ, so I'm I do business administration. So I go in, I'm doing some business classes, I find out UC Santa uh UC Santa Barbara is right on the beach. That's where you surf, go to the skate parts, like Santa Barbara, that's where I'm gonna go, right? My parents are like, Well, you better get a job because it's expensive out there. And I look at the tuition and stuff, it's mad expensive. But I was like, I can do it, right? So I'm going through, I take some econ classes, I take a finance class, I was like, I like finance more. Let me look into this stuff. Oh, you can make more money as a financial advisor. So I started taking finance classes and I switched my major to finance. I took an accounting class and I was like, oh, accounting is really cool too. And you can do finance with an accounting degree, but you can't do accounting with a finance degree. So like accounting is a little higher, you can go down. I was like, well, maybe it's better if I do accounting. So I started doing accounting classes. I go talk to the counselor, he says, You've done enough accounting, finance, economics, and business, or you could apply to any business school in California and have all the requirements you need to get in. So I I did you need 60 credits to transfer. I did about 75. Only 60 of them, only 60 of them transferred, but it's fine, right? So I I started thinking, okay, Santa Barbara. But then I start realizing, you know, it's expensive. And my sister, she's younger than me, but she went straight from high school to college and she was a sax state, and she's like, SAC State's actually really good. This and that. They just uh their college program is newer, so it's impacted, meaning like they have to choose you, don't just get in automatically. So I get this job with the state accounting, and I apply to SAC State for the I get in, and then I reapply for the business program with a focus on accounting, and I likely got chosen to get in. My coworker didn't, he got rejected. So, anyways, so like it's not like you just get in, but I got into the business program, and then I just continue doing accounting and business now at SAC State. I have an accounting job as a student assistant for the state, which is really cool because I got it through the school. It's a program called University Enterprises Incorporated, UEI. They help you get a job within your major, what you're studying with the state. So if the state has budget cuts and that to cut students, I don't get cut because the state doesn't pay me. UEI does. And it they they it's like it's like a school first thing. So when you're in school 24 hours a week, when you're on break 40, but I think it's super beneficial because you get experience in your field. Like if I want to go work private firm, I apply for Deloitte, I can be like, I've done accounting for two years uh at the state level. Yeah. And if you stay with the state, once you finish the required classes or you graduate with your degree, about 98% of the students get hired on automatically.

SPEAKER_03 28:19

Man, set yourself up real nice, man. Congrats on that. That's what I do. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Which I'm sure you guys probably have some experience in this. Speaking two languages, as soon as I got in the office, I made it known to every employee I speak Spanish. We deal with all of California, San Diego. You know, I said, any Spanish speaker translation you need, let me know. So right now, I am the guy that translates all the calls, all the emails in span and phone uh in Spanish. I make calls to people, I make the invoices, I send out uh payment agreements, all in Spanish, but I translate it from English to Spanish. So when the when they ask me, like, oh, like why should we hire you? I'm already trained in the accountant trainee position. With everything they do, I just don't have access to everything on the computer. So when people hire, they don't want to retrain. Right. So that gives me like a whole leg up in the hiring process with two languages, too.

SPEAKER_03 29:11

Yeah, absolutely. That's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

That's really good. Um yeah, having being bilingual, especially in Spanish in the state of California for state jobs, that's a huge advantage.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Yeah, it's a little pay increase too.

SPEAKER_03 29:26

And what was your like coming out of you know, senior year or late junior year, they're always you know, they're they start telling us like, okay, you know, no pressure or whatever, but start thinking about what you want to do. Like, is this something you always wanted to do for yourself? Did you always picture yourself in like a in the in the numbers uh world?

SPEAKER_00 29:45

That actually happened in high school. Before high school, I thought I want to be a chef, you know. Oh, okay. Culinary school. I always I still to this day I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. I love to cook. I just have no like real like culinary uh uh background or anything. I just go on YouTube or whatever, but it was always a chef. And then as I got older, I was like, I'm pretty good at math. Uh something with numbers, like I don't know, like economics, right? And but when I got to high school, when I took econ in high school, I was like, oh, you know, economics has to do with numbers, but really it doesn't. But uh going into college when I first did GEs before I chose business, I was between doing business and then fit finding where in business I want to go or sports broadcasting, sports journalism. Yeah, because I did that in high school. We'll get to that. And one of my a guy that was older than me, his uh Miss Mark Powers. Yeah, yeah. So his mom was the uh Miss Powers or Dean. I asked her about Mark, and she's like, Oh, he's actually at this college studying sports journalism. And that I was a senior and I was like, Oh, so that's like a real something I could go into. But but when I got to college, I was like, I'm gonna go business, it's broad, and I'll figure out which way I want to go from there. But that really happened in college, and when I chose like the finance and all that, I was like, okay, I'm I'm good at math. I can I can work with numbers. I tutor kids in college and math all the way through calculus. And I was like, I I can do I can do numbers, so I'm gonna stick to accounting. Just there's some concepts you gotta learn, but I can do the numbers really well.

SPEAKER_03 31:12

Yeah, that's awesome. That's a blessing to be able to know, like not only, you know, what you good at or what you're good at, but also that you like enjoy it, you know. That's something that I feel like a lot of people struggle with. I'm speaking for for myself, I know I do, you know. Uh so it's for sure a blessing to be able to know that like not only am I good at this, it makes you know a lot of sense, but it, you know, if you enjoy it as well, dude, that's that's all I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

And really like something that people should know the hardest part is the schooling. Because I'll tell you what, I work in accounting. I've used about one percent of my accounting school knowledge at my job. They'll train you. Like, if you like something, go for it because the hardest part would be school. Once you get through it, the blessings that come afterwards are insurmountable to lose.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

And did you ever like imagine um like an ideal scenario for where you would implement this? Like um, you know, right now you work for for Caltrans, correct? Correct, yeah. Um, did you is that kind of um what did you envision what you envisioned, like, or did you maybe did you imagine using your knowledge in like in the family business?

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Or yeah, I I thought about like getting my degree, taking over the family business, and implementing the stuff that I learned, perhaps to make things uh more cost efficient or something. Right, yeah. Maybe I I'm doing so I go to a college of business, so I had to a little bit of every class. So I got some marketing knowledge, I have human resources, uh, management, I have a little bit of everything, so I figured I could do that. But my parents are always like, go for the state, it's a nice job. Monday to Friday in a building, this and that. I was like, ah, it sounds nice. Uh I'm I'm there now, I like it. But my my original goal when I started doing finance, uh, have an uncle who's a CPA, which is a charter public accountant. Okay, and he works for Deloitte Comp, uh, which is one of the big four accounting firms, and he's a partner there. So he's like top dog. And I was like, CPA license, that's what I want to do. So I'm at the state, I might stay there, I might get a CPA license. That because with a CPA license, you can move up in the state, and when you start getting to these managerial positions, they start paying pretty well. So there's really no need because Deloitte, he was said he's like, you're gonna work 80-hour work weeks, like you're it's gonna kick your butt at first until you move up. At the state, no matter what level you're at, you're 40 hours a week, you know, you're Monday to Friday in an office. So as long as you're like you don't stay at the entry level, you move up and you try to advance, the state's a good place to be at. I think for me personally, that's it, may not be Caltrans, but a state job with accounting. Because I get you could be accounting trainees are throughout every department, so you could go work anywhere as an accountant for the state.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

So I'm curious for your current job right now. Are you in an office or do they let you, for example, do it through a home home situation?

SPEAKER_03 34:02

So hot topic right now among the state workers, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Big, yeah. So I'm actually in the office as a student, they don't allow us to telework uh through the program that I hire through UEI. If it was through the state, it's different. But I need to be in the office, and a manager needs to be in the office. Okay, so like for example, uh before they had more people coming into the office on Mondays and Fridays, there's only one manager and they got there at 6 a.m. and they left at 2 30. So if I wanted a full eight hours, I had to go from 6 a.m. to 2 30 because I can't be there after the manager leaves. So that was kind of tough at first. It wasn't too bad as I got out, I got out early. But now that uh my office is four days a week, the people someone's there till five every day. But for a long a lot of employees, there's even a protest at the Capitol, don't want to come back because now they're only offering one day telework when when my office at least and most, they were doing three days minimum telework, two days in the office. And now four days a week, people are in. Some go Monday to Thursday, some do Tuesday to Friday, but you can tell they don't want to be there because I can tell you from experience Mondays and Fridays, when I was in that office communicating with some of the accountants, I didn't get a response till the end of the day because they definitely were not doing work at home, and now they're almost required to do work because they're in the office. Managers are watching.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

So it sounds like a lot of people got lazy.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Oh, yeah, yeah. And a lot of people that are still lazy, like the ones that are like two or three years away from retirement, they're we just had like four people retire because we came back to the office, so like we don't want to, we retire. We're only two years away, so they still get a big pension. And a lot of people are doing that. So there's a lot of turnover right now, at least in the state departments.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

Okay, interesting. I heard a kind of a big point for that is like, well, we've seen now that we can do it, you know, from home. There's really like not a huge need for us to come back. Like we're you know, we're making it work.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

Like see, I didn't I didn't mind going to the office, but I understand. See, I'm a student, I don't have a I don't have any like requirements to be, but I always thought if I had a kid, like young kids, right? I wouldn't want to be in the office eight hours. If I can that's a big thing, if I can prove that I can do my work in a timely and efficient manner from home, what's the need? You know, I'm still coming twice a week, I still know what's happening. Again, I don't I makes no difference to me. You want me at home or or as long as I have the job, I'll do the job. But I feel like for people that have families and like family needs, they should be given a little bit of leniency. And I'm sure they still do, but it's not the same anymore.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

Of course, man.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

Well, yeah, that's how yeah possibly again using the word lazy, maybe the lazy people will make the people who actually want to do the work look bad because um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

I mean, some of the people like this guy Justin, who works at the office, he must have started less than a year ago. He's already moving up in promotion because people are leaving the jobs and he's doing a good job. And I work with I know him really well because he does a lot of Southern California. So I okay I translate a lot of stuff for him. So me and him work together a lot.

SPEAKER_03 37:02

Yeah, yeah. And you you mentioned um where where's the where is your intruder? Um where's the office located?

SPEAKER_00 37:12

It's on Alahambra and S Street. Allahambra and S? S, yeah, like Sutter. So you know where Sutter Medical is? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's across the street. Uh like when you're driving on by the cannery. Yes, yeah, it's literally a block away from the cannery. Okay. Yeah, it's it's these two like glass buildings, and uh there's a little uh like daycare in there and a little cafe, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:31

Okay, yeah. Man, okay, yeah. I'm familiar with with the area.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Um it's not downtown, but it's not far from downtown.

SPEAKER_03 37:39

Right on the border of like um it's midtown, downtown, and like bordering into Esac. Like almost you keep heading down that way to like the Fab 40s.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Yeah, because I I uh when I go to work, it's halfway through my house in school.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

Um other specific questions?

SPEAKER_03 38:00

Uh well uh so tell me about the so you said your first location, you guys' first location at the rest, just because I mean this is like kind of a pivotal thing for you. Um the first location of the restaurant, uh E Street.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

E Street, yeah. I don't remember the exact number, but my my grandparents' house, they're on between 23rd and 24th and E. So my my parents, you know, going through on the neighborhood, they spent a lot of time like it was the like 80s or whatever, so you know, kids are outside actually doing stuff. So they spent a lot of time in that neighborhood. And although when my parents were growing up, my my dad at least when he was growing up, it wasn't a good neighborhood. It was kind of considered like dangerous to ghetto or whatever, but that's where he grew up, so he didn't want to like shy away from his areas like this my area, you know, like there is good people here. We want to we want to start on our roots, so that's why he he started the restaurant there and never like you know shied away from this is where we come from.

SPEAKER_03 38:54

Okay, I understand. Yeah, and that that's like yeah, that's like I'm looking at it on the map now.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

I mean, shame on me for not knowing, you know, it's all you're it's it's um it's not an area where people go a lot per se. Like it's very residential, but at first it wasn't really a restaurant, it was deli. They just had uh, you know, simple menu, tacos, burritos, whatever. Uh and it was almost like a cafe, cafeteria type type of thing. Small little hole in the wall, it wasn't big. That's why and the line was out the door, and they're like, oh wait, we're doing good here. Like, maybe we should expand to a restaurant. And that's when they got the one on 14th Street. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 39:31

That's the one I'm familiar with, which you know, forgive me again. I I haven't I haven't been there yet. I gotta go on, maybe we'll head over there immediately.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Yeah, you guys you guys go on to throw a party for for a long time, and we were like and we had the uh we were one of the first restaurants uh to do the Cinco de Mayo block parties. So we had closed the whole block off. We had like uh tacos vendors, we we used to host like uh firefighter, which is policemen boxing boxing matches. What we had dude, huge block parties. Yeah, I remember when I was a kid, to me, it was like crazy because we had the whole block blocked off. We had security, we had the rent security. Like my dad made like Vajos currency so people could buy that and then buy tacos or whatever. Like it's cool. I remember my dad would come home late at night because these parties would go on all night, and they were huge. They were the first people in Sacramento to do it. Later, more restaurants started doing it, and so like our crowd diluted. But we would come in and it was a jam-packed DJ music, food, drinks, and they did this at 11th and 0 Street. That's Posey's uh like shopping center. So from there you can actually see the Capitol down the street. So that's one of the locations that we had at that time when we were doing these big parties. We had 11th and 0, uh, we had 14th and 0, and we had 4th and S, four locations. And uh, you know, as time went on, you know, some were getting less customers, so we you know shifted, and now we're down to fourth and s, but fourth and s is you know, the inside is renovated, it's bigger, the the patio is getting renovated, the the kitchen is all new. So we you know, we focused everything into that business and made it what we have now.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

Yeah, I like the um the art the art that was painted on the yes, on the walls of the restaurant. Uh I forget his name. What is his name?

SPEAKER_00 41:16

He's a Sacramento guy, Gustavo Reynoso.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Gustavo Reynoso, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:20

Um so he's actually also from Halos, where my family's from. Like when we go out there in the summer, he's there. Right. And uh yeah, we he's always been into art. He always claims that Bob Ross is what has inspired him and kind of taught him to do art. So we've known him since we were young, or my dad has known him, I've known him since I was a little kid. He always did art. We have some of his artwork at my house, but when we redid the restaurant, my dad's like, I want like Mexican cultural art along the walls, like murals, right? And so they came up with some ideas. And if you go to the restaurant now, the whole like corner, the three walls is murals with like the Azteca calendar, el Madero, last time I went, I saw Mexican cultural stuff, really cool, and then little frames all around him of his art. And uh, and then we have this uh it's not his art, but it's from Jose. It's a it's uh wood like uh frame. I forget what it's called, madera artística or something like that, artesanal. Yeah, and it's uh it's like it's brown wood, but with white pieces of wood, like birch, and it's all handmade. Like they don't just paint it, you know, they're actually carving out the letters and putting in different color woods, and it says Vallejo Vallejos established, whatever you hear. And like along the border, it's all brown wood and white wood, but each white piece isn't painted, it's uh carved out and put in with birch wood. Um that's what makes art so cool because you know it's in Halisco, like it's it's a thing that's in this this wood art, like this art in the form. Yeah, that's it. It started in Haliscool. Wow, that was beautiful. Um so we we actually brought our uh frame from Halos. We had we had a commission there and we brought it back.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

It looks like they did a news report on it. Yeah, they did.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

There's a YouTube like documentary of they actually interviewed the guy in Halos that made our our frame because that's one of the places where they uh it started. That's awesome. That's super cool.

SPEAKER_03 43:16

Yeah, I'm looking at pictures right now on the I wish I could turn the computer around. Um I'm gonna unplug everything here. Uh, but yeah, I'm like looking at it's like the chest exactly how you described it. It's like the the white inlaying, like it looks like a treasure box.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

Yeah, that well, that's the thing. The they traditionally they make these little chests, like these boxes with key and they lock. And a lot of times they have your name on them, but they do all sorts of other work. So I have a little box with my name on it. My mom, everyone in my family has one. My dad's like, I wonder if they could do like a frame with vehicles. And they did, he asked, they did. He got it made, brought it back. I mean, a lot of stuff in the restaurant is like that's from Jalos. The Castles, which is where you make carnitas, yeah. They're they're copper, they're brought from Mexico because here they don't traditionally make. Copper vessels anymore.

SPEAKER_03 44:02

Hard, definitely hard to find, man. That's awesome. Yeah. I love that. That's um, you know, a big thing that I like about like going to Mexico, like you're over there pretty frequently, is like every town has its own, like, or every like region has its own, like you know, um specific art like that they're known for, right? Yeah, like you said, like Jalos has this, the the the loss muebles or like the madera incrustada. Where my dad's from, they have the uh cinto pitiado. Yeah, which is right.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

The the leather belt with uh it's stitched in. I have I have one with my initials on the buckle.

SPEAKER_03 44:39

There you go. Yeah. Um, yeah, and like some uh some places, what's the name of that place? Even the culture, I mean guitars.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

They got the dancing, the the food. The food's different everywhere. It's it's so interesting. People think, oh, Mexican food's like, but you when you go to Mexico, that needs to be made. Like, for example, up here, you go to Jalos, that's Jalisco, the mole they make is a spicy, uh not super spicy, but it's more spicy, it's not a sweet mole. You go up north or a little south, they start making a darker, sweeter mole. It's different. And that's just one example, but every region in Mexico has their own type of culture, whether it be food, music, dance, uh uh customs, you know, it's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

I really like the um we made we made um menudo blanco. Yes, uh that's right. And um, when I look it up on the internet, it's always the red pozole from Halisco, right? That's right, the bosole menolo drojo, yeah. But yeah, it's uh different regions, different, different recipes for sure.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

They may have green mole or uh green posole.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Green posole.

SPEAKER_03 45:40

Oh yeah, yeah, I've seen that too. Yeah, and you guys have been uh kind and generous enough to share that with here here in Sacramento, our community here, our city, dude. I love the flautas.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

I love the flautas I always heard that last time.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

Yeah, we're blessed to have customers that keep coming back. You know, it it's the people will keep us around. I mean, we love to do it, but if people don't come, we can't. So we we're really blessed that we have some loyal customers and people that come out and try it for the first time too.

SPEAKER_03 46:08

Absolutely. And so remind everyone one last time, if you haven't heard it before, this um the name and the address.

SPEAKER_00 46:17

Name is Valejos Restaurant or Valle Vallejos, it's just spelled just like the town with apostrophe S. And it's on the corner of Fourth Street and S Street. SS and Sam.

SPEAKER_03 46:28

Pull up, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

Yep. We got we had the World Cup games. We're gonna have the last two. If you're trying to see those, we have them uh two two big TVs, you know. We got a patio area, indoor dining, and we're happy to have you. We got deals going on, and uh, you know, we we have if you follow our Instagram, Vallejo's restaurant, we have events going on uh very often there.

SPEAKER_03 46:50

Awesome. And um one thing I did want to touch on is like you know, your location. I was asking about your location earlier, being there in the heart of town and in in midtown, you know, um, I think you guys have a very uh you know deep personal perspective on on the city, yeah, you know. Um and so one thing that I would like to make a point to ask, you know, everybody, you know, is um in in in your perspective, right? Uh what are some challenges like in in the city that we live and what are some challenges that we face, some shortcomings maybe that you might I mean things we can work on as like a city.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

I mean, alone there in downtown, we've had to deal with in our in our area homeless issue. I mean, in downtown is a lot of homeless, and they move around. At one point, we had some down the street from the restaurant that would sometimes like come in, and if they want to come in, you know, we're not gonna shy them away, but sometimes they would steal or they would people would come and like they would be vandalizing like people's property, like cars and stuff. Yeah, so we had to like we unfortunately in call the city, like they need to be removed from here, it's causing disruptions, right? Yeah, uh, there was even one uh one homeless person that started a fire and it hit the fence of the restaurant. Luckily we got to it right away, but like they're just yeah, they they cause they don't that's not their area, so they don't have that perspective. But maybe I should be respectful of this area, and it's not just the restaurant, really, it's all downtown Sacramento. It's a big issue. Uh a lot of them are fine, they're mind their own business, but when downtown is like it's been kind of gentrified in some sense. It was at one point not a nice area, but now it's really nice, and the homeless still stay there, and you know, you see like waste on the ground, you they're causing mess, and the as much as you want to like make the city look nice, that's a that's one big issue, you know. That's one shortcoming that we could uh we try to work on, but I mean I feel like as a state, uh being nothing wrong with it, but a more liberal state, we tend to look out for the people that are on look on down with the luck. And I don't want to make it sound like all homeless are bad. Like I've seen people that are veterans and they can't get a job and they end up homeless, or people that are just coming on tough times losing their jobs. So it is tough to just say, Oh, all homeless are bad. But some the few that bad apples that make things look dirty and just cause disruptions make it like a blanket statement, homeless are bad to happen to town.

SPEAKER_03 49:26

Right. I suppose that's like, I mean, I I'm with you 100%. Um that's kind of uh I myself like I I work for uh for a beambo, you know. I'm I'm I'm in my truck. Um Fridays, I'm I'm kind of in in the area of downtown midtown, and it's definitely I I agree with you there. It's like the homelessness is like it's rough. And it's like you said, it's not it's not to say like, oh, they're all you know bad, and it's all it's like it's unfortunate to see. And I feel like that kind of infrastructure like can definitely be improved upon. It's definitely lacking the like get people the help that they need, you know. Whether it's like you said, if it's just someone who's like circumstances were rough, even like shelters.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

We there's not a whole lot of shelters in Sacramento because I don't know if you guys have been to Lowe's and Fishes. We have some of the people there when you're serving the food, they're dressed nice, like they're they're not homeless, they're just down on their luck, but they're living paycheck to paycheck because some financial hardship happened, and immediately you're like, oh, like all homeless are no, there's just people down on their luck, and there's no there's some shelters, but there's really not somewhere for them for them to go to like take a shower or like get some good rest, you know.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

And sometimes the shelters have rules like you can't bring your dog in, yeah, and that's a big thing, you know. Like, you know, if a homeless person has their dog and they have to leave the dog, or who knows what they want to do, want them to do with the dog. So, yeah, that's one reason I've heard of homeless violence is a thing too.

SPEAKER_00 50:50

Like, yeah, some of the ones, not all, but I I've I've you know, I worked at the restaurants, so I've been when on my break and I go walk around or whatever. There's some homeless on like maybe drugs or something, some sort of substance. Like I've had homeless people yell at me saying, like, hey, F you, like, are you starting to start problems when I'm literally just walking? You know, I ignore them because I know that they're not in their full six senses uh right of mind, but they're they they cause like violence sometimes. You see homeless people fighting each other, like it it's just uh it's a tough situation.

SPEAKER_03 51:23

Yeah, absolutely. Um yeah, it's it's like you said, there's not enough like help that we need, I think, more shelters. I mean, and get people that the help that they need. Definitely. And uh yeah, it's unfortunate. I think that like like you said, with California, I mean we are inclined to do so. I think the state is like, you know, it's a sanctuary state. Absolutely. Um and you know, I think I I think we all have like personally the opportunity, you know, like like you said, you know, it you know, you don't go and like cause problem, like you just go and just say hi and like just be on your way. I don't know, something about that, like it's it's always felt to me like just acknowledgement, yeah, it can go a long way.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

Some of them that's all they want. I mean, right there's times where I uh I'm sure you guys know the gas station on Freeport Sinclair.

SPEAKER_03 52:15

Hell yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

Uh oftentimes there's homeless people walking around there, and there's times where I'm pumping my gas, my sister's in the car, you know, and a homeless guy walks up like right up to me. I have a conversation with them and they're perfectly fine. Sometimes all they want to do is just say what they got on their mind, and like it may be nonsense, it may be real, it but they just want to be heard, you know. Yeah, and just being there, hearing them, they're like, Oh, thank you, God bless you. I'm uh I'm glad you were like respectful, whatever, and they just keep going. Like human interaction, a lot of them just want that. And when a lot of times they're like, Hey, so and so, whatever, and you just ignore them, that's when they get frustrated. Like, I'm I'm a human too, you know. Right. I've had a homeless guy uh sing to me one time. He's like, you know, boys, uh uh boys to men. I was like, Yeah, and he just started singing boys to men to me. And like he didn't want any money, he just wanted to like sing to someone as like it's it's a nice thing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 53:03

Yeah, it's yeah, we shouldn't uh dehumanize the homeless.

SPEAKER_03 53:06

Yeah, definitely like just kind of like you know, there's situations obviously where you're like ignoring is like yeah, there's definitely cases, you know. Right, but like you said, uh you know, acknowledging having a conversation, just talking, you know, it's not it's not gonna kill you, and it's it's it won't hurt them, like you know, be safe, of course, in doing so, but you know, they're like you said, they're they're humans too, man. And that's yeah, it's definitely something you know I think that every person can do to help.

SPEAKER_00 53:38

Definitely, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 53:40

Well, um you have any more any more questions?

SPEAKER_01 53:44

Anything um how long how long have you um been doing accounting now?

SPEAKER_00 53:50

I've been doing it for two years actually. Just uh congratulations, yeah. Thank you. Beginning of July was uh that two-year mark, and I do accounts receivable, which is pretty much we send the bills out and receive the money. But uh yeah, in the state they departmentalize everything, so I really I'm only doing one thing. Once you get to like a private firm or something, you start doing more. But for now, I'm comfortable where I'm at, you know. I like it.

SPEAKER_03 54:14

That's great, very nice. Um I I just I thought oh, because of um, you know, I was thinking like, you know, what what else is there? I said that we would go over this. You did sports broadcasting, like that's yeah, I just completely glossed over that. Like, that's not something that everyone does, dude. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

Yeah, well at our at our high school Christian brothers, we have an awesome uh news team called KBFT. So we do like uh morning news at the at the school, we go to competitions, but additionally, they added a sports broadcasting class. Uh it's like sports journalism. Yeah, so what we do, uh everyone that's in the class is assigned to sport. You sometimes it's two people, and we have cameras and we go take pictures of the sport, you know, maybe some videos, and then uh, for example, like I did volleyball one year. The volleyball game is on Thursday, Friday morning. I'm writing a report of like what the score was, some highlights, you know, and then we post that on the CB Talon, which is our our newspaper uh um website from the Christian Brothers. So really it's a lot of journalism, like writing, but since we have that news team, we brought some of our equipment to like the football stadium, and we actually live broadcast on YouTube our football games, and we have people commentating just like they do, like on Fox and MBC. Uh and it's students that do it. It's not like we hire anybody, we just have students in the booth, you know, people on the roof with the camera. It's all student-based. The only thing is we have adults that are you know as chaperones, but it's completely student-based, and we just we broadcast our football games, we've done basketball, we do uh volleyball. And I mean, in that class, not only do you do the broadcasting, we have people that go and announce the games, like you know, you have that mic on the mic guy at Rivercats. We do that at our basketball games. I got to do also uh a lot of people don't know this, but our school had like a mini jumbotron. Our scoreboard area had four screens on the front, and in the class, uh, me and Nathan Hertzler, we made graphics for the sports teams where we had sports player cards, we had go to concessions, and I operated the whole jumbotron for uh the second half of my junior uh year, all of senior year, and partially my freshman college year because uh nobody wanted to be trained in it. But you know, I got to So you were still working at CD after a little bit, and it it was cool. I mean, I got to do the Jumbotron, I got to go to the games and sit right there on the booth and interact with the players and the teachers, and I got to do some announcing, some broadcasting. It was I got to do camera work too. It was it was really cool.

SPEAKER_03 56:49

That's really cool. Sounds very exciting. Again, that's like uh interesting opportunity that like a lot of people don't even know.

SPEAKER_00 56:56

Yeah, we were I mean, I was really blessed for that class, and it's uh I fell in love with it really, and I mean it's cool to have it in high school because you don't really get that experience until college, but what if you don't end up not liking it? So having that experience in high school kind of I know someone that went to study that his name is Mark Powers, as I said. The dean's son, he was in class with me and he really loved it too. He went on to study that in college, and it was, I mean, it's a great class. I liked it so much as my as a junior, my second half of junior year. As a senior, I only enrolled for one semester, and my second semester I had no first period, no A set. But I was student council, so I was on campus always like an hour before school at meetings and stuff. So I ended up going back to the teacher. I said, Hey, like I didn't sign up for your class, but could I? He's like, I never forget his words. He says, uh, I can say bad words, right?

SPEAKER_02 57:47

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:47

He says, he looks at me, he's like, you know what, Elias? There's a lot of motherfuckers in this class. We're we're cool. But I know you get your shit done, so I'll squeeze you in. And he put me in the class. Who said that? Mr. Hogan. Mr.

SPEAKER_03 57:59

Hogan, shout out to Mr. Hogan.

SPEAKER_00 58:01

He is the guy in charge of all the KBFT, the news, and all that.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

He's a I remember um somebody in our shadow day before we were even freshmen. Someone was messing up at the video room, and he got mad. He was so mad. He was like, just let the shadows do all the work. Yeah, he's like he's a funny guy.

SPEAKER_03 58:17

Let them take charge.

SPEAKER_00 58:18

Yeah, he got when we were there, he won La Salian LaSalle and Educator of the Year.

SPEAKER_03 58:22

Yeah, it was a hell of a teacher.

SPEAKER_00 58:24

Big honor, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:25

Very real teacher, in my in my opinion. Like, um very honest. Yeah, super like from the experience that I you know came to have later. He seemed very much like a college, like level teacher, like very, like you said, very real, very honest, very important blind, very no, like no bullshit, but like also more relaxed, like yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:46

He was he had that, like you said, like that professor vibe. Like when you get to his class, it's like all right, uh, Adobe premiere. These are the functions, the rest, figure it out. It's all there, you can figure it out. Uh, when me and Nate are making graphic cards for the players in basketball, he's like, I gotta go. You guys lock up, make sure you close the doors and lock everything. Like he was very college style. He was very much like very real. He's like, I I trust, he didn't let anybody stay there, but like people that he trusted, he's like, I trust you guys will do it, you know. And he was very much like, no bullshit, like, hey, you're fucking up, fix it, you know. Like he would and I think it's good, you know. It kind of you can't have someone holding your hand the whole way, you gotta be a little independent. And he may he very much enforced that in his classroom.

SPEAKER_03 59:27

Definitely, yeah. Shadow of Mr. Hogan. We're I think we're hoping to get a few of our uh fine LaSalle educators. We have a few, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:36

There's on our mind. There's some, yeah. I mean, the sound educator of the year and stuff. There's some uh that are known in the Sacramento community too, like Senor Capogreco, he's Esac known.

SPEAKER_03 59:47

Capagreco's definitely on the list. Yeah, yeah. I'd like to get him, Mr. Hogan, Delgado.

SPEAKER_00 59:53

Delgado's very well known, yeah. My my dad actually went to school with Delgado's brother. No way, yeah. Cross country runner.

SPEAKER_03 59:59

Sacramento's small, man. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:01

The brother-in-law Mr. Eccle, if you guys want some good stories, Mr. Eccle has a lot of those. Okay. I don't want to share any if you guys had a mom, but he has a lot.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:10

Oh, yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna write it write it down right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:13

In fact, um, before I mentioned the uh how long you were counting, uh you said you wanted to talk about something the sports broadcast, but also I have uh some questions for you guys if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:25

Oh, okay. Uh it's very broad. I kind of like want to uh I was gonna ask you guys, we'll get into Mexican food after, but just so take Mexican food out of the equation. When you have people that visit Sacramento, in your opinion, what's like some staple restaurants, whether they be like like you know, been historical or delicious, what's some places like restaurants, just locations, things that you would take these people to see as a tourist of Sacramento?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:52

So my brother-in-law and my sister niece came to visit um not too long ago, and we went to this place uh at Freeport, it's called uh Sushi Cafe. I'm pretty sure you know. Yeah, and I don't know, I don't know if you know our former classmate, her name's uh Queenie. She she works there, yeah. And um, yeah, they they have really good sushi, they have really good bento boxes. I have their their ramen, their ramen's really good. Yeah, so like Japanese food, like yeah, it's it's really good.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:20

That's uh local too to Sacramento. I mean they have a location in Folsom, but it's not like a chain or anything.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:24

No, I I think that same family runs uh Izakaya right down Freeport, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:30

I believe, I believe someone sold it. Um from yeah, that's what Queenie told us. So um, but they did revamp everything, they uh they put in new new designs. It looks really different when you walk in. Okay. Same workers though, very nice workers in Isakaya for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:47

Hell yeah. Um I think when I uh well when I have you know family or like you know uh people coming in the sack, I think a big one, and it's it's pretty well known um not only within sack, but you know, also without uh the tower, tower tower is very the tower.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:06

And the theater, yeah. That's uh um you go for the breakfast? It's I love the burgers, bro. It's just five because uh it's been in the newspaper and like won awards, the French toast from Tower Cafe. Yeah, I've had it once, yeah. It's very good, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:20

Yeah, I was very sugar high after I loved it. Good stuff. Uh yeah, Tower Cafe, and then oh, I had another one. It it seems like a lot of people know like these um, you know, not to piss anyone off or offend anyone. I I've always felt like um Noviero and Socalo, those are like the two like big ones that everyone knows.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

I I've always competition.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:44

I was gonna say I I didn't want to mention it either because I don't know if it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:49

They're you know, they're they're good. They're just yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:51

I I always felt like it was a little um a little bougie, a little kind of more like uh I I don't know, you know. Um I don't know. I I I prefer high society.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:03

Not so authentic. Yes, thank you. Yeah, they yeah, they're they're good. I I haven't had their food, but I hear it's good, and what they're good at from what I've heard is like innovation. They do modern spins on classics, so it's not like they're completely abandoning the culture heritage, but they're putting a new spin on it, yeah, and a lot of people like that, right? So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:22

Uh it's also oh yeah. I I was just gonna say I never uh understood the hype. Like it's it was always like a I don't know. It those kind of places that like uh I don't know. Um I don't even know what how to how to express it, but like uh every time I pass by the Sokolo on my on my bread route, yeah, it's it's like a very like big kind of ostentatious, like very in your face, and like you know, I've passed by you guys' restaurant as well, and it's not like super, you know, um yeah reach I think Sokolo has a very strong nightlife and like bar.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:00

Yeah, we're more I was gonna mention we're more family friendly, kind of like we have you know, a bar, we have drinks, but it's more like family oriented, and these newer places, the ones that are big competition are really popular, they have nightlife, they have bars, these innovative bar foods that incorporate the Mexican culture, yeah, which is fine. I mean, you know, everyone has to work for what they want, and I I no no hate to them. I'm sure it's good. I have personally haven't been there, but you know, they're competition and it's a friendly competition. My dad knows the owners, you know. It's it's it's all it's all love, you know. We're all from the same background, so it's it's it's fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:37

On that point, uh, like you said, like that nightlife kind of centered focus, like that that new spot over there in it's not new really anymore, but um Polanco. I don't know it looks cool, but it's it's exactly the same kind of thing. It's like I think you guys have like a nightlife sort of thing. I go in more for like what you said, that family, uh family-oriented, you know, focus. I think that you know, personally, I that's those spots, those are the type of spots that like you know won't fail.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:07

Right now, when you said family oriented, it it reminded me. I want to say I was a freshman or sophomore in high school, so fuck like 10 years ago. Uh Guy Fieri was doing a show on the food network called Guy's Next Big Project. So, what he did is he brought a bunch of people that were like chefs or whatever, or like in the food industry, but they weren't famous, and he gave them an opportunity to go kind of like shoot a show, like a little like preview, right? And then cook or whatever. It was like a competition. The winner got their own show on the food network. And one of the people there was this uh Hispanic lady, and she actually brought Guy Fieri's camera crew. Guy wasn't there, she was there to Valejos, and she recorded her her little like pilot there. She was very focused on like family recipes and this and that. So, since we're like a family business, she brought us there, like interviewed the family, and did a little like promo at the restaurant. Restaurant and that actually aired on the food network. We were on TV for a little bit. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:04

Yeah, that's that's the sort of thing. That's those are the spots like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:09

Telemundo had us on too. Oh, Telemundo, okay. Just before the World Cup uh started, Telemundo was for money. Oh, the World Cup is happening. Where are some places in Sacramento where you can go watch the World Cup? And they came to Vallejos and shot a whole like story in the restaurant about where we were gonna have the games, what the restaurant's about, and it was aired on Telemundo Live.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:31

Man, that's that's sick, man. Uh congrats to you guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:35

Every once in a while you get a little cool uh highlight here and there.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:38

Yeah, man. More, I think. I mean, you guys and that means I may be a little a little biased. I mean, I've known you for I yeah, like a long time. Ten years, no. I mean yeah, I I from everything I hear, man, it's that's the spot to be at.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:56

Yeah, it's it's nice. I mean, like I said, there's a lot of places and it's all love for everybody, you know. But I I definitely do think that uh every place, including Valejos, has their own special little uh touch on something. And I I I have no problem, you know, trying out other place Mexican restaurants, even though I have my own, you know. I think it's good to get a taste and just uh experience Sacramento, you know?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:15

Yeah, man, absolutely. Um absolutely did did I I think I I did I cut you off saying something? No.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:25

Man, next question, bring it on. Well, I was gonna add on to that. The place I like to take people is old sack.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:31

I think oh yeah, it's it's kind of too.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:34

We like uh shooting pool.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:35

Yeah, we go shoot pool in LSAC, but uh what I really like, I like taking places where like you know, the capital, all that that's like the tourist, but I like going to like places that like they're well known, but like they're not super famous, like Sampino's next to Tower, dude, Joe Marty's, it's like a historical place. Oh, yeah. When I have older cousins that come, I'm like, let's go to the trap. The trap's a little bar in in uh Green Haven.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:58

They wanted to tear it down, but they're like, no, it's historical.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:01

The National Historical Monument. It's it's funny because they built a school behind it. Exactly. And the school says, We'd like to like purchase or get rid of the trap, and like you can't, it's a historical monument. It's this little old hole in the wall, new owners now, but it's like a I like taking people there to that bar.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:17

You said it's a hole in the wall, right? So it's it's kind of a new owner now.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:20

Like when I went the first time, there was no beer on tap, all bottles, and they had pool tables, but it was funny because you walk in, the floor isn't even straight. They have you have to step down into the straight floor for the pool tables. And it's I don't know. I I think places like that that are like kind of historical and not super touristy are fun to take people when they come to SAC.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:40

That trap, the trap's been there since the 1860s. That's right. I think it was like 1800s. I was like, damn, 1860s.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:47

That's I'm not sure if it was the trap, but I'm gonna tell this story anyways. Me and my me and my or no, no, my dad and his friend Jorge Santana, which was a colleague when they were uh professors, they're like, hey, we're gonna go here, um, dress up as a cowboy. Oh and they both dressed up like as cowboys and they went in, and you know, they're it's a small place, so you walk in, they're gonna ask like who you are right away. Yeah, and they're like very like, you know, they're drinking, but they're like they're good people, and um, yeah, and my dad mentioned like you know, like pretty girls, it's a hole in the wall, but pretty girls still show up there. Oh, yeah, they do, and and it's just yeah, they acted like cowboys, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:26

That's the perfect spot for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:27

Yeah, um I hope I'm not lying.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:31

I think he said who was at the trap, but it fits the description, fits the description perfectly, man. Shout out to the trap, man. Um, I'm not a huge bar person personally, like, but I love love the trap. Uh shooting darts and a little pool back there, man. I watched a Niners game last year, last season.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:52

Join it Q's been around forever, too. That's a pool place with a grill, yeah. They have tournaments and stuff there, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:58

Yep, that it's so cool. Like uh, you know, going into the very back and seeing like the the tournament all like tournament room, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:05

And they were gonna shut down when COVID hit. Yeah, but someone bought it and revamped it, and it's it's popping off every night now.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:12

Yeah, and they they kept all that like old school original.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:15

Yeah, they didn't do anything new. I think they might have red the redid the lights on the sign, just so you know the sign. Yeah, yeah. But the they revamped the menu a little bit, but it's the same like menu to the most part. It's legendary burger. All all the tables got re-felted, but it's all the same, the same layout, the pinball machines, the tournament room is the same. Yeah, the jukebox, they got the old uh art and like uh posters of like professional players on the wall.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:40

They got like that. Uh I think it's 73. Like they have an old tournament bracket, like yeah, on the wall on the wall, dude. It's so sick.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:49

Um, yeah, it's a cool place.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:50

Absolutely, right across from uh from the Swiss Buddha, man. Yes, shout out the Swiss Buddha. Yeah, oh man. I love I love me some South Sack, man. Those those are my stomping grounds.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:03

Yeah, um, that's our area, that's right. We grew up a street away from each other.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:07

Yeah, man, absolutely. Uh I always say like Freeport and uh or excuse me, Fruit Ridge and 24th is like the the intersection because yeah, I grew up for those of you who you know who know the spot, the the executive airport off Hogan, and that's where I like grew up from very young. And I crossed that intersection to go to St. Roberts.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:28

That's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:28

And then when I moved out of that house, you know, I I grew up uh I was living, well, you know, yeah, for for a long time. I was living over there of closer to five. Um and then I crossed that intersection to go to Christian Brothers, you know. So all throughout my uh my early life and like you know, my life uh until uh you know 20 or so, I was crossing that that intersection, man, for origin 24th.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:53

Yeah. A lot of ashton over there.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:55

Yeah, yeah, it gets hot in the summertime.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:58

Oh, yeah, there's a 7-Eleven there now, too.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:00

Oh yeah, that where that tire shop, that tire shop, man. Tell me there forever. Yeah, tell me, tell me if I'm wrong. I never saw a soul go in or out of that tire shop where that 7-Eleven is now, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:11

It never saw anybody there, but it was always oh there, and it was always open.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:15

And same, there's a building right behind it that's been there for a minute.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:19

California upholstery, the one that does like the vacuums and stuff, the z is up.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:24

Oh, Zad Zadjic is up. Okay, so my bad. So I said behind, I should have been more specific, but if you continue down 24th, um, continue north on 24th, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:35

Oh, uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:36

There's the California Upholstery building, which again, I see it, it's always open. I never see anyone in it. It's been 25 years I've been on this earth. This business is still there. Yeah, shout out to them.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:49

Yeah, those loyal customers, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:51

Absolutely. Zajic too, man. Yeah, Zagic too.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:54

They've always been there. Oh, I've never seen I always see a few cars here and there, but like, yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:00

Do you guys know Pancake Circus? Yeah, Pancake Circus. So sometimes when we're driving by, my dad's like, I never see anyone there. It's funny. My they say all day breakfast, right? Yeah, but no one's there. I've been there a few times. Yeah, good.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:15

My uh one of my dad's old workers worked there for a while, and so I we go see her or whatever. That's cool. It's just like a generic breakfast, like I hop, Denise, but it's like a Sacramento place, you know, and it's fun for the kids. They have a little like i hop. Yeah, it's it's bigger in the building, and they have like little like placemats where you can draw and stuff. Yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:33

Classic stuff. I feel like a lot of these businesses we're talking about, like, yeah, you know, you might not see people go in or out too much, but like if and god forbid, if like they close or something, that like that's a business that you're like, damn.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:48

It's a big, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:49

I mean, yeah, like you you don't know how much it for the bowling alley, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:54

Do you guys know the store or not around anymore? Wishing well, yeah. So there was one familiar right by my dad's restaurant, blocks away. And after we'd go to the restaurant, whatever, we'd walk to the wishing well, my cousins and me. And we love the store. They just had all sorts of like decorations and stuff. And one day, out of like they had a huge sale, and we're like, Oh, huge sale, whatever. Next day was closed, it was gone, and it was our favorite store. We would always go there.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:18

Picture, I how do I how could we even explain it? It's like I I always associated wishing well and evangelines, like maybe like they sell little trinkets, little toys, little like 25 cents.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:29

Like you remember the spider rings when we were like that sort of thing, a little like rubber hand, yeah, like and then bun bins of it, like 25 cents, and then they had like bigger stuff. It was like a yeah, like an evangelines, like a G Wilkers, and little gag gifts and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:43

Yeah, it was right by um kind of not far at all from Southside Park.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:47

Like, yeah, it's it's it uh because we would go to the restaurant, which is not far from Southside, we'd go play in the park. My my sister called it the blue park because everything was blue. I call it the alien park, so the little mother chips, and then we'd go to the wishing well.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:01

Man, that's that's a throwback. That's a cut. Yeah. Um, the rusty duck, man. Well, I don't I like which one's that one. If you if you're driving on um on five and you pass it's I mean, it's gone. I think which is one day after COVID, uh, I just realized it was not there anymore. If you're driving down uh I-5 uh past downtown, if you're driving south, or excuse me, north.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:31

North, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:32

You you pass downtown, you pass the rail yards. Yeah, and it's on the it used to be on the right-hand side down by Richards Boulevard before you cross the river. Really? I never noticed before you before you go over like into Discovery Park.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:46

Like by 160 by like pipeworks or something. Pipe works. It's over by heading towards Arden Lough once the 160 highway.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:56

No, it it's on Oh, off five.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:59

No, yeah, that's the other side. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:00

Yeah. So it's like if the rail yards are on the right hand side where now there's a whole lot of construction for the for the new uh Sacramento, that's gonna be big. I'm excited for that. Yeah. But yeah, if you're driving down five and you pass those rail yards and those big empty lots that just sat empty for years, and you pass the Richards Boulevard exit, yeah. Um, kind of over by where the river access was at. Um, if you're passing, you know, if you're over uh off Richards, there used to be, I guess I think it was a restaurant called the Rusty Doug.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:30

So it sounds familiar, but I I'd never even been there.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:33

I I'd never been either. I just remember because I had family out in um in uh uh off Garden Highway. Okay, yeah. So, you know, going from South Sack to Northgate, I'd always see that damn building. Yeah, and I never went in. I just I just it was like another fact of life. Yeah, you know, it's like, yeah, I guess, you know, and it's one day it looks like after COVID, I drove by and it's like it's gone.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:56

You know, it's interesting, all these little hole in the walls, like you never go to them, but every once in a while, like I'll be like, Hey, I see this place all the time, and you go try it, and it's like really good food. And like I never would have imagined this from this little shop or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:09

Yeah, man, and uh another one similar to that, and I think you you might you guys this might ring a bell for you guys, is that um it became I want to say no, not Flores, excuse me. I'm misspeaking, it was right behind where there was a blockbusters on the corner of Sutterville.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:27

It's uh um Vallarta Prime now.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:29

Vallarta Prime, okay. It used to be the Fords, Fords Burger, Fords Burger?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:34

The Ford, but well, that was way back before this. It was another Mexican place, it was an Asian place before that. Yeah, I think it was Dahlia's kitchen before that, and then it was Fords Burger.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:45

Yeah, I remember it being a burger spot. I don't think I ever stopped in after uh it was, you know, no longer was a Ford, but Scottsburger Shack's really good.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:57

It's by like Broadway. Um yeah, I'll I'll look it up actually. Yeah, man, please by all means.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:08

Are you talking about Willie's? Yeah, Willie's.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:12

I had a had a debate with our friend Diego one time about Willie's where we're we're going to Willie's, right? He's like, Oh, the one by Land Park. I was like, nah, it's downtown. So if you guys don't know, Willie's is right between downtown and land park because you can you can take uh literally land park drive and you pull up to it, or you can take 16th on the other side and pull up to it. So we had a debate in the car. I was like, dude, there's only one Willie's in in uh there's not one by Lamb Park. Because when I thought Land Park, I thought like Southland Park, the area where I live. He's like, no, there's one in Lamb Park, and me and Tony are like, no, dude, there's one in downtown uh and in Carmichael, and then we had this whole debate, and we pull up, he's like, This is the one, Lamb Park. I was like, downtown's right there. So like we had a whole debate about where it is. So both of you guys were kind of right. Yeah, it was right on the edge, it was right by Tower Records.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:01

You guys were nah shout out, man. Speaking of right to Tower Records, man, rest in peace.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:06

Rest in peace Temple Records, Temple Markets.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:09

Oh my god. And there used to be a Willie's, like they had a second location in Old Sack, right? Three.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:14

They had they had uh Carmichael by Jesuit, but apparently that one didn't get a lot of business unless it was like after a dance or a game, right? So that one closed down and they opened the old sack one, and apparently they were having like people steal and not enough customers coming in. Really? So the only one left is the one uh on 16th and South and LM Park. And I know this because the ladies that have worked in that one have worked there at least like 20-30 years. That they're old, old, these old Mexican ladies, and when we go, we talk to them. I mean, my my dad knows them or whatever, and we asked, like, oh, how's like, oh, this is the last one? Like the owner shut those down because they weren't getting enough business, and this one just keeps getting business.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:55

Yeah, it's surprising that the one in old sack kind of closed out because that place was always popping.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:59

It was open late too. Yeah, I used to go there at night and get uh get a burger.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:04

Uh place that one place we went to after uh that one bar at the Oh, there's a few bars in Old Sack. Uh well, we went in Old Sack and then we went, we uh we went to this burger. No, it was the chicken place. It was a chicken place after it was like really late.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:20

Oh, it was uh the kids were outside. World famous Hot Boys, Hot Boys, yeah. That one's actually not Sacramento. Uh it's it's here now, but it's uh if I'm not mistaken, it started in Oakland. Yeah, it's okay spot. Yeah, it's uh spicy chicken sandwiches, very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're uh they're huge at night because when the bars close at two, they're still open serving food. So there's only two places that or three places that I know of after the bars close that are still open. It's Maryland's Pizza. It's over downtown, and it's it's a line out the door at 2 a.m.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:55

Is that the one on J Street? That's like uh just like uh just one, two tables inside.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:00

Yeah, it's it's just a window. You just order the pizza, you take it out. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:03

One table outside as well. Yeah, Maryland's Pizza. We stopped in there one time. It's all at 2 a.m.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:08

around 2 a.m. the line starts getting big out the door. Bam. Uh World Famous Hot Boys, same situation. Same situation, and then one that's not as famous, but it's also open at two, is uh Honey and the Trap Cat in Old Sack. And they serve food late. And I remember one time after a bar I went there and they had a bacon-wrapped hot dog with all the peppers, like the like the people outside, but in the restaurant or the bar, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:35

Bacon wrapped.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:36

Yeah, so we've been to Honey and the Trap Cat to put uh shoot pool in Old Sack, and then uh we've been to this one place, I don't know what it's called. The red one was the last one we went to? No, no, the one's all red, and had like the nice pool table up where the lady grabbed my hand and put it on her neck.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:50

Oh yeah, that one, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:52

And then uh I'll go to that story. Tell that story, and then recently we've been going to O'Malley's a lot. It's a Irish pub in Old Sack.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:59

Yeah, right there in uh K Street.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:01

Uh yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. So uh Ice Rink Yeah across the street. Well what we were talking about though is uh went to Old Sack one time to shoot pool. It was uh Adrian, JJ, Argentine myself, and uh Diego. So we go to Honey and the Trap Cat, we're shooting pool. Uh some girl is like at a table next to us. We don't know this lady, and she's significantly older than we are, and she walks over to our table and starts flirting with Adrian. So we leave the bar. Uh we were like, let's go somewhere else. We're outside. That same lady finds us and looks at Adrian and says, So what? Can I get your number? And Adrian had the best response instead of being like, No, the fuck, he's like, Have a nice night, and we continued walking, and we just walked away from her. So I I I hope she doesn't remember the next day. She was whatever. And so we get to this next part. I don't even know what it's called, but uh I think JJ took us there. It's like it's all red inside. The pool tables are up. This like staircase. We go in, we go to the pool table, and some other significantly old, already drunk late white lady comes up to us and starts flirting with JJ. JJ doesn't want it, so he very uh convincingly ad uh says that he's in a relationship uh homosexual relationship with Argane and like grabs Argentine and the girl's like, Okay, yeah, fine, whatever. She she goes to flirt with Adrian, and Adrian kind of like just like ignores her. So I'm at the table and she comes and sits by me.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:26

They left you out to drive, bro.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:28

No, so she comes to me and I was like, Oh, I see you're flirting with my friends, or whatever. She's like, Yeah, like the tall one's cute. That was Adrian. I was like, Oh, uh, what do you think about me? And she looks at me, oh dude, she is it was a nice way of saying you're ugly. She says, I probably wouldn't flirt with you, but only because you're too young, and I was like, That's a nice way of saying I'm ugly because we're all the same age, or whatever. Anyways, so we're there and we're talking. I didn't really care. She was old, I was just like messing around. And at some point, for no reason at all, she's talking to me. I'm I'm drinking or whatever. She takes my hand, my my free hand, puts it on the back of her head, and starts rubbing up and down her hand, her like the like the back of her neck and like the lower part of her head. And I like take my hand away, and I was like, What are you doing? It's like, oh, your hand's warm, my neck feels cold. Her neck was not cold, but anyways, so we're like, let's get the fuck out of here. So we start leaving. I still have to close my tab. They all walk, all my friends walk out, but I had to close my tab. So I go to close my tab, and she walks up next to me. Ah, where are you guys going? Oh, we're going home, dude. We had three beers that were we left at the table. She took all three in her hands and was drinking the beer. What the hell? Yeah, I was like, Oh, she had hepatitis or some shit. Like, I mean, we were clean, but we're clean, but like she's just grabbing random drinks and drinking then.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:48

That's wild.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:49

Yeah, she just took my hand, like, put it on her neck, and we went to the next place. So Mallie's like, I gotta go to the bathroom, wash my hand. I don't want to touch anything with it. I don't know what's on her, you know. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:58

Gotta be careful out there, bro. Man, this this pod we made this podcast to uplift Sacramento and all hear me out though. Sacramento has its fair share of uh characters, man. Just like any city, two blocks.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:14

It's a lot of fun though, you know. Oh, hell yeah. There's I mean, right now they have uh free concerts in the park. I mean that's cool. We got that old guy out there dancing, you know the one I'm talking about. Kenny the dancing guy. I saw Kenny and Arden running the other day. Yeah, I was running. I was like, hey dad, that's Kenny, he's famous. I was like, really? I was like, he's downtown dancing all the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:32

He's got moves, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:33

And the these he'll he'll I think someone told me, I think Argane told me to get him on the podcast. Dude, it would be cool as that would be cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:40

I I've never seen anyone interview him. Yeah, like because he'll come out on like TikToks on the news, but I've never seen him like talk.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:47

He's always rocking that like uh uh V neck denim, yeah. Or or yeah, the V neck. I was gonna say the denim like vest with no shirt.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:56

That's right, he does that one too, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:58

Man, hell yeah. Kenny the dancer, I'm gonna write another name, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:02

Um what do you guys think are uh some oh well I already covered the town celebrities, Kenny, but uh what are you uh think are like some like you know when someone's like oh you know you're from LA when what are you what's something like you know you're from Sacramento when you guys are any of those I feel like no one's a tough one.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:24

No one is a Sacramento Kings fan by choice. Or excuse me. That's true, that's true. Like like outside of Sacramento.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:30

So if you're like a like we had a good run in like 2002, and then ever since ever since, man, you got what you're saying those like they're Sacramento natives.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:39

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:40

Like like if you're gonna go to LA, like you're not if you find a Kings fan, bro, in like LA and if you find a King LA anywhere, if you find a Kings fan anywhere else other than Sacramento, bro, it's like oh you're you're from there, aren't you? Yeah, you lived there at the time. Yeah, you weren't you, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:56

No one, no one chooses, like you know, I'm I'm a Cowboys fan because my dad was, but like no one goes, Hey, you know what? I live in Texas, I'm gonna be a Kings fan because they got a cool name and code, you know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:06

I'd I I'd love to meet them if they're out there, man. If you're out there, we gotta talk I've never met one.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:11

Everyone, I mean a lot of people here in SAC are Golden State Warrior fans. It's like we have a team here.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:16

Yeah, yeah. I think I heard a song someone said, I'm gonna ball like the Kings, like on D D D Aaron Fox. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, that was that was uh didn't age too well. Yeah, that aged pretty badly.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:29

I this is not a Sacramento question. I got a question for you guys. Please uh prefer uh if you do energy drinks or coffee? Right now, coffee. Coffee.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:39

Uh energy drinks.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:40

Energy drinks. You have a favorite one?

SPEAKER_03 1:27:43

I I used to love Yerba. I used to love Yurba. I still think you put me onto Yerba. It wasn't bad. Yeah, I love myself a mini.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:49

That one's like kind of natural too, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:27:51

Yeah, so it like has barely any caffeine, right? It's I I think it's a little bit more like mild, and like you know, you drink a monster or something, like you.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:00

gonna be buzzing or whatever yeah man and then like you know and then after you crash personally with with like Yerba you you you you know knock out a Yerba and it's like you don't get like an overwhelming rush of like energy but you also don't crash afterwards I it's always been like for yeah I like that kind of vibe because I drink coffee I drink black coffee but for me coffee's never been like an like I'm gonna get jumping off the walls it's been something that gets me through the day without having to take a nap. Like I had a class with a very monotone teacher that lectured for hours and I was like putting me to sleep right so I and I literally nodded off one time in class and he's like you okay I was like oh yeah I'm sorry so I what I started doing is I take coffee in the morning and I take it to class and I'll stay awake through the whole class and I won't scan it's very energy for me personally yeah for me personally I don't have a crash after I mean coffee's effects on me are yeah keep me awake without having a nap and run to the bathroom but you know the the big thing is keeping me awake so I prefer a nice black coffee I remember when uh I mean the bangs were more prominent especially you know um you know in Home Depot lumber department oh yeah some of these dudes working in the warehouses they they just chug a bang and then just rain too rain was big rain rain yup and that's like 300 milligrams of cafe I knew a guy who would drink a rain or a bang sometimes more than one a day back when we were about 20 years old and I was telling him like hey man like that stuff's like really bad for you and like for your heart is like and he's like I know I'm trying to like get off of it but he's like I literally cannot stay awake for the whole day if I don't drink one of these I become reliant on it cooked so that person like they're off of it now they still drink coffee or whatever but they for a while they were like I can't go a whole day if I don't drink one of these never I mean yeah caffeine you can have your withdrawals but the way the way like that he talked about it made me like oh maybe it's nicotine to him or something. You guys seen when Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn talk about monster energy no I haven't it's uh it's it's like it's it's a clip on YouTube or whatever like uh um Joe's like I've been drinking a lot of monster and he's like that thing's a piss magnet and Theo's like yeah man makes you piss makes you want to beat your wife too and Joe's like Joe starts laughing he's like what do you mean what do you mean by that Theo's like yeah I see people drinking monster I know they're going home to hit I seen some people they're going home to hit or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:30

Jesus I was at the gym and they were handing out free like pre-workout like samples.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:35

That stuff gets you wired too and I was I was drinking it and then they're all like oh um like because you know they asked like oh what what muscle group are you hitting so someone was like oh uh what are you hitting and then the employee he was like he's hitting women bro he's hitting so I was all like what comes in the wife beater yeah no no I remember uh the first time I heard of the term wife beater you know like the undershirts yeah yeah it confused me me too I've always worn them because my dad wore them so I wore them at Holy Spirit school a lot of the people there are predominantly American white and they called it a wife beater I always called it an undershirt tank top whatever right and I guess it was popping out of my collar one time and some like kids like oh look at Elias he's wearing a wife beater and I was like and it was it was the color a gray one right I was like it's not white it's gray I thought he said white whatever and I was like he's like no a wife beater I was like what he's like that that's a wife beater I was like why people that wear that beat their wife I was like no they don't my dad wears these he doesn't hit my mom or whatever right I mean if you watch live PD and then see the like the the um domestic violence cases yeah almost always the dude is has is wearing a wife beater you know it's funny though because they call it wife beaters but I feel like like it's a cultural I I personally everyone in my family Mexican wears them and I see a lot of Italians wear them too like when I was in Italy I feel like it might be like a cultural thing too it's probably just a US thing maybe yeah the wife beaters more of a I'm more of a under short guy. Yeah oh shorts short shorts under the pants are always I don't know I don't I typically don't wear a tank it's good when it gets too hot too like when you would pull off your pants or whatever yeah yeah absolutely right now man just this this weather was like what's up I love the sun here yeah I mean I stepped out of my car and walking over here I I think I started sweating a little bit like it's hot man I I I asked the uh my Alexa this morning like what the weather was like oh today it's sunny blah blah blah uh 90 she says 90 feels like 112 degrees because of the humidity and the dryness I was like oh my god like yeah that's crazy yeah and it's surprising because like usually when it's this hot I mean Diego would text me and be like hey man it's kind of hot today I'd be like yeah it is he's like I'd love to I'd love to cool off like yeah man that'd be nice he goes so uh can I come over and uh help hop in the pool I was like yeah I'm already in the pool come over and they'd come over doesn't Diego like jump the fence or like he'll just that was in high school dude dude he was doing that to me and like okay started college dude high school we were uh juniors I think we went to Hellbull McClatchy versus Kennedy and I was like yeah you guys can come to my house before like I I'll drive this person this person this person right so I told them just go to my house wait for me outside I gotta take a shower so I get home a few minutes into my shower I'm done I'm out I hear voices in my house I was like my parents are at work my sister's at school who the fuck's in my house so I'm I'm naked in my towel I peek out and I look I look downstairs I'm like hey who's there they was like what's up bro I was like what are you doing here he's like oh I let myself uh Mina and Louisa and it was kind of hot outside we wanted some water I was like my door is locked how did you get in he's like oh no dude I want to I want to run the back I know how to get into the back door I was like I was like yeah you know because I've known you since kindergarten I don't want people knowing the way to get into my house you know Diego's done that to me too bro I was like I don't know what I was doing I was on my table like doing some homework and then I hear a tap on the window and I look up and Diego's in my backyard I'm like what yeah like no like boundaries whatsoever I was like so I get out I'm like get out of my house it's cool bro we're just gonna get some water and then we'll step outside bro shout out Diego man I would you know he's a he's got if you guys ever get him on he's got a lot of stories I don't want to share them because he's he's a I told him I told him he she he should be on this podcast let me give you a a quick one just a little quick one uh he was in a Thomas right so I'm I wasn't there for this one but Diego JJ and Tony were in a Thomas hanging out they went to Intercom right and uh for whatever reason they're walking the halls or whatever and I think they found a snake on the ground what yeah like a little craft snake I don't remember if it was Tony or Diego I think it was Tony started pissing on the steak and they were like fucking around they went to a classroom and the door was unlocked and they opened it the alarm went off bro they they booked it out of the school and four cop cars show up they were already out of school so they were fine but cop cars showed up has like opened up these like you know like those like things that have water those water pipes in the street he opened one fucking shooting water in the air he we went to uh mcdonald's and like he we he might get a case if yeah if you if you continue statute yeah statute of limitations allegedly it was statute of limitations and allegedly there's no proof but this is yeah he's on a lot of stuff like he had a he had a tray one time at a McDonald's by uh Nathomas you've seen that video I have fantasized as well there's a little there's a little kid walking towards Diego and walking Diego's walking out with a tray of food and he purposely trips himself and like eats shit and is like oh oh on the ground or whatever no he was all like oh shit yeah he goes he goes oh shit throws the tray up in the air and completely falls over oh my god bro chaos I I do remember that man yeah we used to go to the Thomas and just fuck around like I remember he was trying he was like um he was trying to get some drive thru but we were just it was me Ray oh yeah I I know this one yeah and like he was like oh man the people were rude bro back to Diego he's like what the hell like yeah he was in a shopping cart trying to go through a drive thru because I said you need a car or whatever we were in a Thomas one time money's money bro it was uh yeah for real argyne JJ Diego myself we went to I think uh like some gas station to get an ice uh icy or whatever yeah jj had twenty dollars arguing had money but he also had a bunch of change that he just wanted to get rid of so like I'm talking pocketfuls of like dimes and nickels and like he just wanted to get rid of it so JJ goes hey Argent I don't have any money can you buy me my thing Argyne brought money for himself he's like I got change dude the funniest thing when JJ puts his items and the guy tells the price and Arguine scoops into his pockets and dumps out a bunch of change on the counter and is counting out pennies and nickels and like getting to the like three dollars that they needed and he's all right that's it and takes the rest of his change and then JJ later is like hey I just had a 20 I didn't have any change or whatever and we were at uh what is formerly Arco Arena okay it was already closed out at the time and Argon got mad so he picks up a cone that was there and he throws it at JJ and we were like ah he's getting mad so we run into like that field like the big like field of Arco Arena and we lost Arguine in the dark and then so we were like where's Arguine? And we see like a little shadow coming towards us and then it speeds up it's Argonne so we run we get to like the end of the street and Argonne calls us hey where the fuck are you guys I got I lost you we're like oh we're like over here on this street man fuck you guys he shows up with like a rock in his hand tries throwing a rock at us he's like fuck you didn't hit us he's like fuck you guys man I got lost in there did you know over there in that he went like this he went I was lost in there bro I uh you guys lost me he bent like sideways yeah the side stair oh my god bro over there by Arco there is um gotta get arguing on the podcast yes man everyone's got good stories to tell man um in that field in those fields by Arco Arena there's like the foundations of an old baseball field oh really an old baseball stadium yeah it's like it's very old like yeah it's just like concrete structure that um I guess you know back in I want to say the 80s they were trying to court a uh a baseball team like over here in the Sacramento.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:02

Yeah um I'm not super familiar with like all the fine details but uh I believe the Raiders ownership like the Davis family Al Al Davis um they had started the construction on like a uh on a baseball stadium like a multipurpose facility I guess oh like a sports complex yeah well it it was you know it's similar to uh to candlestick and like it it was used as like the purpose was baseball but yeah you know you could use it for a football field if you did it diagonally and to my knowledge uh that concrete is still all out there I don't know if it was demolished along with the rest of uh Arco they're making a uh medical facility out there for Arco Reno yeah yeah okay interest yeah but um there was even uh a tunnel leading from what used to be arco to this uh to this to the stadium like construction oh wow I don't know if they were trying to get like uh I the Giants were gonna leave San Francisco a lot of like uh that's like uh the A's and the Warriors are sitting just to be next to each other right yeah uh uh this uh this guy that I I've been following for a little while his name is Dylan Cesco he does like these kind of urban exploration and like sports history like local stuff here around northern California he did like videos of after Arco Arena closed down like um you know allegedly he was in there like you know he he showed videos of like what it was like in there after they shut everything down and took everything apart and there was still like a lot of memorabilia there was chairs outside like uh seats my my cousin Tony took two seats from there to his house he had them in his room for a while I saw a bunch go for sale like for crazy prices man you got them for free dude yeah they were just out there yeah but like before like people were like selling it well yeah they're just out there he took two home and they were like in his room yeah that is tight man yeah rest in peace to Arco Rita you you mentioned it and like that gave me flashbacks of like freshman year I remember I think it was the women's basketball Christian brothers they played in our I don't know if it was like the section championship it was it was one of the championships yeah dude and that was the last time I went there yeah and they just you mentioned they what's funny is they did that years before too my brother when he went there yeah the girls were good then too they went to Arco Arena for section champs and they won't our girls basketball team was good like our whole four years it was our best one of our best sports teams yeah seriously that and like I I remember shout out to Mr.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:37

Delgado cross country was cross country was good yeah Isa Isaiah was a star yeah man uh our girls volleyball wasn't bad either uh baseball when we were all the way through our junior year we had we were beating Jesuit we were going to uh we were going to the through the playoffs and stuff man yeah football was the only team I just couldn't and so we graduated yeah we but we won the year after we graduated one beat Jesuit that's how funny it's funny though back uh in the 80s when my dad went to Christian brothers he actually went there uh when they were all boys he says it was more back and forth like it wasn't like Jesuit domination yeah and we were like go to the playoffs and stuff but uh after we got girls you know the you dilute the boys to half and they get a bunch more so they have a bigger pool to choose from but my dad says he never forgets Jesuit uh they did uh their football team won like sections or whatever so they they decide instead of stopping there which you could they decided we'll go further to states we're gonna we got a good team their first team they play is de la salle which is a Christian brothers not christian brothers but de la salle school yeah and they got rocked like 50 something to zero it was a horrible loss for Jesuit and we're like yeah that's de la sal maybe yeah man de la salle's got crazy crazy sports history going back like it's always been I mean in our time it was like Folsom de La Salle um I mean Jesuit was up there but it was grant grant was always like crazy I'm I'm wondering if like back then at the time they were because back I know in like the 80s and 90s Grant was like always going crazy yeah you know and they they're still good I mean like you said it's a little bit more on and off now um but I know they're still they're still rocking out there. Um yeah they're still good yeah man it's funny though like teams change like I I I I have these um kids I used to tutor that are now in Christian Burrows and Jesuit and I was telling them like oh yeah back when I played like we'd always like volleyball wise I was like oh Rio Americano and uh Mira Loma we love playing them so we'd beat their ass like easily and they're like they're good I was like no when I was there they're like they're like no they're they always beat us in every sport yeah I was like what happened I was like we beat them all the time right man yeah how how those things I mean that's been like what four years since then no it's a track yeah yeah I mean when we were there I'm talking no you're you're right yeah like the people that are there now it's like a year away a year back but wow yeah it it's good don't remind me of how that time has flown bro it's been 10 years since we're freshmen yeah it's been a long time not more dude it was like 12 because I'm 25 yeah so 11 years man uh well man we've been going for like an hour 45 minutes dude the time it's a good one it's a good one absolutely man um you're right um there are you know in our friend group Diego for example and uh argain I think they have their stories to tell as well dude Argain I met him summer of eighth grade year going to be freshman he was in summer school with me uh we we met a lot of people that time but uh since then we just like clicked immediately but the story I don't want to share too many in case he's on here but right the amount of stories I have just most of them is messing with Argain but like I have so many dude like I'll share one quick one like uh we did uh the lip dub our senior year oh yeah yeah and Diego wanted to mess with Argain he thought it'd be funny that we had these little like cups of like powder paint they all thought it'd be funny if when we throw it into the air everyone throws them at Argain. I wasn't granted I wasn't part of the prank because I was more involved in the school than these guys I was I was more like into it messed up so so they're all over here and they're all behind Argain. Now Arguine heard Diego say it to someone or someone told him oh so Argent turned it around Diego says he says to everybody except Diego let's throw it at Diego instead so they're all standing there and they're all about to throw it and Diego's looking at Argene and as soon as the thing goes they all chuck their paint at Diego he's covered in all this powder paint and he's like what the fuck I thought we were throwing it at Argyne Arguine's like nah man we turned it around on you switch yeah it was funny because Arguine didn't always mess with people but when he did he got him something I can't even repeat man the Mel Diner one the Pavan thing the Mel the Pavon thing I don't know that one you remember the uh remember the uh look at this dude with Aiden bro dude that one was crazy bro those memes back then were magic we used to make memes man in class what were we doing instead we were doing Javi was adding some wild stuff man dude we were getting the world class education like nah yeah remember class education airdrop during class man he I mean do you want to explain it should I say it I don't think we should actually I mean it's not illegal or anything but like yeah I don't want to expose anybody we have we've been going on for a cool minute it's almost two hours high yeah we still have a while till this place goes I think we cut it here I think we my phone turned off like halfway through uh mine should still be going they they might still be going oh okay okay I just didn't see the red light no you you're chilling oh I did not have a red light oh interesting yeah oh I see okay well I think we we we told some good ass stories yeah thank you for coming to us yeah I loved it this was awesome I mean like I said we we had to Sacramento ups and downs but you know this is a Sacramento podcast so yeah it's good we told the truth we didn't just say the good stuff you know we don't shy away from our history but Sacramento is an awesome place i i I always say if I can live here when I'm older I'm I I plan on staying here yeah life likewise absolutely um I have here my plan moving forward like how I want to end this I want to end it on a positive note like I want to uh and I we might have already spoiled it for ourselves uh you asked us and I think it's our turn to ask you what do you like to do here in the city me personally or like when I bring people oh both well I'll go for me personally so it's changed throughout the years but something that's been recent that I like to do Adrian knows I like to go play pool wherever it be whether it be a pool hall a bar I like to play pool I play with these guys from Mexico here in Sacramento but really uh playing pool or uh sometimes I go to BSP with JJ we play sports out there I mean and the one that I think a lot of people like to do when there's nothing to do really just go downtown downtown's been they've brought a lot of new stuff there that to just walk around downtown is alive now they have uh concerts in the park that are pretty cool but the number one thing is I like going out to play pool.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:54

I go to uh recently I've been going to O'Malley's on K Street got a nice little bar and pool in there love pool man hell yeah and then question number two call somebody out I think you already did but in case there was any call somebody out name drop someone you know that you would like to see come and on the pod yeah man I mean besides the my parents my dad and uncle from my co uh someone like that we all know um I think argument be really cool yeah because I may be wrong but I think he has a story of coming to Sacramento.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:30

I don't think he was born here so that would be really cool to see that perspective of someone our age how they got here.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:36

Yeah man absolutely I think I yeah I got his name down here um and I have a feeling this won't be the only time we'll chat yeah I'd love to be back yeah man I'd love to come back I still got more to say I mean I and I'd bring more topic next time I know I was a little no this was great and uh like you said it would be cool to have family members you know love to hear them out love to hear uh you talk more if you ever want like some rapport with someone who has like stories that like me or me and our Diego or something like because we grew up together since kindergarten that could be cool too hell yeah I got I got you think Tony will be his names yeah Tony he could tell you his his path to becoming a firefighter it's about uh you know this this podcast is about the people that that make Sacramento make Sacramento great man yeah and there's a lot there's a lot hell yeah man well thanks again thanks again for thanks for having me man that was awesome um lies vallejo check out Vallejos by um man uh look at it appreciate you coming here bro yeah happy happy to be here yeah man thank you very much and uh everybody this has been the stories of Sacramento podcast appreciate you tuning in and uh catch you next time absolutely