Following a 2-week hiatus, Mike and Matt recap their Denver vacation — meeting Matt's family, celebrating his niece's 3rd birthday, and relaxing in rural Colorado. Mike discusses job applications and his pitch to integrate high-voltage transmission with high-speed rail, before takes a call from a special guest in Liverpool, England.
Good morning, this is Mike George here with your favorite gay truck driver, Matthew Gutierrez. It's been about 2 weeks since our last post, because we took a hiatus and enjoyed a weeklong vacation in Denver, Colorado. I got to meet almost everyone in Matthew's family.
Matt:
Yeah, Mike got to meet everybody from my family minus my father. We spent time hanging out, celebrating my sister's birthday and my niece's birthday.
Mike:
I got to meet Matthew's mother, Leah, and I survived! She is fantastic and reminds me a lot of the grandmother from Moana—a total free spirit who is deeply in tune with her spiritual zone.
Matt:
My mom is very spiritual. I get a lot of my strength, my humility, my hospitality, my wisdom, and my knowledge from her.
Mike:
She was such a sweetheart to us. She has a beautiful home out in the flat, rural, eastern farm country of Colorado, about a two- to three-hour drive from Denver, which was a great getaway from the city. In Denver, we also stayed with Matthew's sister, Claudia, and spent time with his other sister, Diamonte—or Dia for short.
Dia's daughter turned 3 years old, and we went to her birthday party with all the little kids. It's amazing how observant children are to little details around them that adults are too busy to notice.
Checking in on our comments, Maya James is watching from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where she runs a salon and is getting into Florida real estate. Derek also says hello from Liverpool.
Right now, we are driving along I-15 in Utah. There's an interesting oversized load in front of us carrying massive coils. I'm speculating they might be reactor or inductor coils for power systems, though it looks like a big, short cylinder.
Matt:
Leave it to Michael to look for the big short valve!
Mike:
We've been running up and down I-15 in Utah for the past week, but Matthew has some potential news and positional changes in the works.
Speaking of new positions, I submitted a couple of job applications recently. One really exciting role I applied for on Sunday morning was for a Power Systems Engineer position at Hyperloop One—the proposed high-speed rail system being developed by Elon Musk and his team.
The job description aligns directly with my master's studies, focusing on physical power equipment and machine control. I accompanied my cover letter with a proposal I drafted a year or two ago on pairing high-voltage power transmission line construction with high-speed rail corridors. By co-locating high-voltage transmission lines with high-speed rail lines, both systems can achieve mutual benefits in energy efficiency and construction cost savings.
Looking at our viewers tuning in: Ryan Yanick from my high school drama, band, and choir days joined; Chad Hos, a fellow electrical engineering alumnus from Wright State; and Christopher Stewart from Columbus, who is super savvy with database programming and backend IT systems.
Seeing Christopher online reminds me that I've been wanting to get more into iOS programming—not necessarily for commercial client work, but to build simple, functional tools.
I've been conceptualizing an app tentatively titled "Hello World". The core idea is a proximity-based social filtering app—similar in interface to Scruff, Grindr, or Tinder—that connects people nearby based on shared niche interests, hobbies, or activities rather than just dating. For example, users could filter by mutual interests to organize ad-hoc soccer practices, find local Pokémon Go players, or connect with niche communities when visiting a new city.
Beyond social connections, the app engine could incorporate emergency response tools. During localized crises—like wildfires, approaching hurricanes, or a dam break—emergency personnel could send targeted geographical alerts. Furthermore, during telecommunication outages where cell towers are down (like during Puerto Rico hurricane relief), the tool could utilize peer-to-peer Bluetooth and local Wi-Fi mesh networking between devices to transmit vital information.
The ultimate goal of "Hello World" is to use a virtual tool to materialize real-life situations, helping people spend less time staring at their screens and more time engaging organically with the world and people around them.
Let's check in with sexy trucker daddy over here! How are you doing, baby?
Matt:
I'm just letting you talk your talk!
Mike:
Another trucker shared a random joke with us as we were leaving a stop recently regarding a wrinkly female truck driver: "Why are elephants so wrinkly? Because they're too big to iron"!
All these truck stops and nights start blurring together, but we stayed at the Timberline truck stop last night and stopped by Travel America. We are currently driving along a scenic stretch of I-15 as we approach the southern tip of the Salt Lake City metro area.
Special Guest
Mike:
Let's see if we can connect live with our viewer Derek in Liverpool, England!
(Video connection connects with Derek)
Mike:
Hi Derek! Are you just getting off work?
Derek:
No, I'm studying contract law.
Mike:
Contract law is fascinating! In the UK, studying constitutional law must be unique because there is no single written constitution, right?
Derek:
That's right. When studying constitutional law in the UK, there is no written constitution. Parliament is sovereign and supreme, so the constitution is ever-evolving and can be changed by a simple Act of Parliament. Nothing the House of Commons does can be ruled illegal in court because Parliament makes the laws.
Mike:
That is so interesting! In the US, we often get hung up on outdated constitutional clauses, whereas the British system relies more on Parliamentary precedent and evolving social norms.
(Derek's video call drops)
Mike:
Looks like we lost Derek's connection, but that was our first transcontinental Facebook Live call! It's fascinating how Canadian politics acts as a hybrid between the British parliamentary system and the US constitutional republic model. I generally admire parliamentary systems because having more than two major parties creates a broader ideological spectrum.
Mike:
Carson from Columbus also checked in!
Matt:
I need to pull off I-15 for a quick pit stop and bathroom break at this petrol station.
Mike:
All right, we're taking a quick break to use the restroom. Bye, everybody!
