PPE Roundup (Safety Tales Podcast S3 Episode 2)

Intro Speaker:

Dave and Bacon Safety Tales, the only industrial safety podcast that brings you common sense advice on job site safety, standards, regulations, and industry-best practices without putting you to sleep.

Fred Radunzel:

Alright we're back again. Another episode of Dave and Bacon Safety Tales. Fred Radunzel here, with my partner Dave White.

Dave White:

The Blanco.

Fred Radunzel:

White. I'm like, "The Blanco?" Well, I always remember-

Dave White:

Being a smart a**.

Fred Radunzel:

I think it's Blanca was a character on Street Fighter. Remember the green? Did you play Street Fighter?

Dave White:

No

Fred Radunzel:

That passed you by? That missed you?

Dave White:

I-

Fred Radunzel:

Mortal Combat?

Dave White:

No, you gotta remember, I came from an Amish home.

Fred Radunzel:

Oh yeah, but I feel like-

Dave White:

I wasn't Amish, but I mean basically it was literally, I'm trying to think probably, about as savvy that I got with a video game would've been like Excite Biker Joust.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, see this was after that.

Dave White:

No, I know but I'm not-

Fred Radunzel:

You stopped it there.

Dave White:

Yeah I was gonna-

Fred Radunzel:

You hit Excite Bike, the Kung Fu?

Dave White:

Yeah, didn't make it to Kung Fu.

Fred Radunzel:

Not Kung Fu? That was a good game.

Dave White:

I mean literally, I could go over the hills with that stuff and now I have, there's not a prayer for me because I don't have the hand-eye coordination, because I literally had a driver stick and a fire button, and now there's like, I mean there's shit for every. I mean, some stuff you had to do twice things. You know there's firing buttons here and firing-

Fred Radunzel:

You have to look at your hands while you're looking at the screen.

Dave White:

Yeah I just can't do it, so it's literally like screw this I'll go do something else.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, well we appreciate you guys coming back for another episode.

Dave White:

I'm sorry we get off on a tangent there.

Fred Radunzel:

That's how it's gonna go. From here on out, we're gonna go down tangents. So, we're running out of topics, so we're gonna go down tangents every once in a while. So, once again thank you guys for listening. We really appreciate you being here. Feel free to reach out to us on any of the social media applications that we are on. So on Facebook-

Dave White:

That sounded really weird.

Fred Radunzel:

on Twitter. Social medial applications?

Dave White:

Yeah.

Fred Radunzel:

Facebook and Twitter, Linkedin. You can reach out to me fred@quadcitysafety.com. Go under the comments section onto our website, there's a 'Contact Us.' You can get a hold of us, so if you guys need anything PPE [crosstalk 00:02:30]

Dave White:

Can they technically Snapchat us? I've just recently started trying to figure out Snapchat.

Fred Radunzel:

No, I think we're gonna get into Instagram, so that's gonna be our next, and then by the time Snapchat isn't cool anymore we'll be on board. We gotta wait-

Dave White:

Yeah, we gotta wait for it to be uh-

Fred Radunzel:

Really uncool and dorky and then we'll get on board and we'll start snapping ya. Put the little kitty ears on.

Dave White:

Snapping ya.

Fred Radunzel:

We'll be there for snaps.

Dave White:

Safety snaps.

Fred Radunzel:

We can snap away, so I don't know. We're still in Omaha. We're doing our second episode here from the lovely state of Nebraska. It's wonderful this time of year.

Dave White:

I could live here this time of the year.

Fred Radunzel:

A bit humid, but there's not a ton in Nebraska that I'm super aware of, once you get past about Lincoln. Until you hit Colorado, there's not much, but and that's coming from Iowa.

Dave White:

Like Lincoln to North Platte is probably one of the worst drives on the planet.

Fred Radunzel:

You're like, "One is the loneliest number that you'll ever..."

Dave White:

Yeah, it’s Kansas [inaudible 00:03:31] kind of bad drive.

Fred Radunzel:

And we're from Iowa, so it's like, we don't have a lot to brag about, but there's a couple places.

Dave White:

At least there's like windmills and corn stalks to look at.

Fred Radunzel:

So, our day started off doing the Railroad Trade Show. I know we talked about a little bit our next episode.

Dave White:

RSSI, is that right?

Fred Radunzel:

RSSI, yeah it's the signals people. It's like the whole association's inside of that, so we at Quad City Safety are now a member of this association, so we're excited kinda to see what the future beholds with all these people. Beholds, is that right?

Dave White:

Yeah, s***.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay, it's good? Alright.

Dave White:

Good enough.

Fred Radunzel:

You looked at me like, "Beholds wasn't the right thing to say."

Dave White:

Well, I knew that's kind of a biblical sense. You know, a King James Version right there.

Fred Radunzel:

We'll see what the future beholds with us, but the day started off a little bit rocky here. We had to be there at 7:30am so Dave and I met down in the lobby about 6:00am... we had to be there at 7:00am so we met in the lobby about five minutes from where we needed to go at about 6:30am and headed over there.

Dave White:

It's been a real s*** show of a day.

Fred Radunzel:

We pulled up and they told us where to go park the van and then we ran inside with some of our stuff and realized...

Dave White:

Dave didn't run. My hips out and I stepped on a nail.

Fred Radunzel:

That's true. That was a rough start to the day.

Dave White:

I literally look like a...

Fred Radunzel:

75 year old man that just got hip replacement surgery.

Dave White:

Yeah, it's a bad mess.

Fred Radunzel:

So we walked in and our little booth that we're gonna display at, just there's a slab of concrete right there and nothing else, and come to find out we had to pay for the carpet, and you gotta pay for the table, and you gotta pay for the chairs that you're sitting at.

Dave White:

Fred missed an email on that one.

Fred Radunzel:

So we kind of looked at, so Dave scrambled to go get that stuff bought and paid for and while he was doing that, I went back out to load some more stuff out of the van. And all of a sudden, one of their security guys, self-proclaimed security guys-

Dave White:

Self-proclaimed, because he was also later the guy that put the carpet up.

Fred Radunzel:

So he came up and he said, "You need to move this van." I said, "Sir, I don't have the keys to move the van. Dave has the keys and he's inside looking for our table, and our carpet, and our chairs. The van's not moving right now." He said, "Well where's he at?" I said, "He's looking for a table, sir. I don't know exactly where he's at." He decided he was security today and I said, "Sir your people told us that this is where we needed to park." Well he said, "Now I'm security and I'm telling you where you need to move to." I said, "Okay well you mind if I keep picking up my shit here and taking it in or do you need me to stand here by the van?" And so he said, "I'd like you to move this vehicle." I said, "Well sir, I don't have the keys once again, so that's not gonna happen right now."

Dave White:

In that whole thing, they radio, you called me, so then I end up with...The Exposition Center gals there were awesome. I don't even remember which one it was, but basically they call out there and they finally had a manager go call him off I think, because later he disappeared and all of a sudden you're like, "The guy bringing the carpet up was the guy that was chewing my ass about moving the van or whatever."

Fred Radunzel:

So we got the van moved and then we came in. So now we're waiting for the guy that was security 25 minutes ago that was bitchin' at me is now the guy that's throwing the carpet down for us. So, I think he may have overstepped what his authority was around there.

Dave White:

Yeah, but I did get him back.

Fred Radunzel:

You did?

Dave White:

Yeah, 'cause when he came up, he was putting his two sided tape down to put the carpet down, he put his two sided tape, we stole his two sided tape.

Fred Radunzel:

We got that two sided tape. We're taking it back to Iowa. Anyways, that started, then we had display we put together and we realized that you needed Allen wrenches to do that.

Dave White:

Oh crap.

Fred Radunzel:

Dave thought he left those at home. Come to find out later we had them, but-

Dave White:

We had deemed they were in the regular bag that they're always in, but me being a dumb a**, I could find it, and I'm sitting there going, "Oh crap." And I'm starting to sweat because it opens at 9:00, we got plenty of time, but I'm just starting to freak out because I jammed everything I could try to get into an Allen wrench hole and couldn't get the stuff backed off. I did my peg leg act.

Fred Radunzel:

Wandered back to the same girls we ordered the carpet from and the chairs and decided, "Hey, you guys-

Dave White:

"Y'all got any Allen wrenches?" "All we got's metric." "I'll make that work." And it did.

Fred Radunzel:

And we made it work. So we got the Allen wrenches taken care of then we had to inflate one of our displays and the inflator device was not working optimally at the time.

Dave White:

No, not at all.

Fred Radunzel:

So we were thinking we weren't gonna have an inflated thing in our trade show that says what company we work for and kind of what we do and all that. So we were a little-

Dave White:

So we were gonna look like we were selling Girl Scout cookies or something outside of a Walmart or whatever.

Fred Radunzel:

Pretty much so. But eventually we got that going, and we had plenty of time left so we had it all taken care of. And then all of a sudden this guy pulled up in the booth like right across from us. Then this guy across from us, I just didn't like the color of his jib. I don't know if you ever see one of those people that you just look at and you're like, "I don't like that person." And I'm listening to him talk and I like him even less. And I see him interact with other people. Just the way he talks on his cell phone was bothering me, his pants were bothering me, his shoes. You didn't like the way his shoes hooked up at the end?

Dave White:

No, he had kind of those-

Fred Radunzel:

Elf toes?

Dave White:

Yeah, literally like, "What are you trying to prove here? I mean those look stupid."

Fred Radunzel:

So we had one of those starts to our day where everything was bugging us, but then it all calmed down and-

Dave White:

We were hangry.

Fred Radunzel:

We were hangr... oh I didn't eat any breakfast. Dave had a couple of Fig Newton’s.

Dave White:

No, I went down and thought, like I was getting like a Cliff Bar or whatever, but it was like this over-inflated air package. Then I opened it up, and was like two Fig Newton’s. And anybody knows me, I'm a big guy, so that and some black coffee's not gonna do me 'till noon.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, well I had zero things to eat, but I did get into Gandhi-mode. So about 8:30am, I thought I was gonna die. And then about 9:15am, I was past it. I was Gandhi, I was on my hunger strike and I was doing alright.

Dave White:

Luckily lunch was 11:30am.

Fred Radunzel:

11:30am, we made it through. Had a brownie, got us through the day. Met a lot of interesting people. [crosstalk 00:10:21]

Dave White:

You had more than a d*** brownie.

Fred Radunzel:

No, but I'm saying after lunch, had a brownie. Got me through the rest of the day.

Dave White:

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

Fred Radunzel:

We'll be gettin' dinner after this, so I'm gonna make it though. We'll be right there.

So what we kinda wanted to do in this episode was have a PPE Roundup. So some of the things we had at this trade show. I was like, "You know what? We have a good collection of stuff here, and I think this would provide some good topics to talk about, some technology that's going on out there. And some things that we're kind of excited about, and some products that we probably won't get too brand-specific on anything that we're talking about. But if you want more info-

Dave White:

But we tried to look at when, this is the first time we've done this show, so what's weird about it is a lot of times I think people think that stuff's the same everywhere and it's not. People's concerns and considerations, and some of it we'll get to it, and later is builds of stuff and what works where is different. But a lot of times we're trying to put together things that we think will fit within whatever they do, and it's always interesting watching people walk up and what they're drawn to-

Fred Radunzel:

See what they pick out.

Dave White:

And what they think's cool. 'Cause a matter of fact, I think per what you want to do tomorrow, I think we're just gonna reverse the table and go, "Do they really think this cool shit's the cool shit? Or is it just the stuff that's, you know-

Fred Radunzel:

Closest to the aisle, where they're at.

So, a couple of things that we had, you know, I've got a list of stuff, we'll just touch-point 'em all. Touch-point? Is that right? We'll just talk about 'em all, how about that?

Dave White:

Touch-point?

Fred Radunzel:

I don't know, we'll put a touch on each one of these. We'll briefly discuss. It's been a long day.

Dave White:

Like a Power Point with fingers?

Fred Radunzel:

Touch-point, it's like I'm gonna touch each one, I'm gonna make a point to touch each one. Touch-point, got it.

Dave White:

Okay.

Fred Radunzel:

So, first one I had written down was a hard hat, Bullard actually makes it. It's the Above View Hardhat, and so it's got a little lens-

Dave White:

So, communications is really big in these people, so there's a lot of tower climbers, and people that are doing that stuff. And so a lot of them were the, 'Ah shit, that's cool' factor was the fact that literally most full brim or just a standard cap-style. You have a bill, so if you look out there, and you're trying to look up to actually look up, you have to turn your head up to look up. And so this one actually gives you, would you say?

Fred Radunzel:

Fifty percent more.

Dave White:

Fifty percent more, I would love to see the math on that one.

Fred Radunzel:

The math come in. Nah, that's 46! But if you do throw the hardhat on, and you kind of look up, you can see what you can see. Like what you can see is what you can see if you didn't have on a hardhat.

Dave White:

But it had different s*** that you could clip into it.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, there's an amber shade, and like dark sunglasses shade and a clear shade.

Dave White:

I want to see the eccentric bastard that goes, "You know what? Now I'm changing the shield."

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, I'm taking out my clear, it's a little sunny today. Swappin' in my-

Dave White:

Here we go, I'm going to my indoor, outdoor one.

Fred Radunzel:

Basically what it is, and you guys can look it up. It's called Bullard Above View, and it's got a little maybe inch and a half lens, I'd say probably about four to five inches wide. It's just the front of this full-brim hardhat. It just allows you to see up, so it's something that's pretty cool.

Why don't you talk a little bit about the glove that we had that's got the, I don't even know what you call it, you said Phase 3 with the technology that's in it?

Dave White:

MCR, I was just hanging out with my homeboy from MTR, and he has, it's D3O. It's a compound. If you get on the internet, and you kind of Google around, you'll see these dumb asses put it on their head and having somebody hit 'em with shovels and stuff. I mean, it's really legitimate. But the D30 is kind of a nanotechnology so when you hit it, it kind of changes state. So it absorbs energy, and they have integrated that into the metacarpal as well as the palm so anytime you are having that impact, instead of that impact going, whether it's into your bones or into your palm, is the material absorbing all that energy. So, not only that, but how to say, they have done a really good job at making a really good fitting glove. It looks bad***, I mean, it looks, you know. The D30 is orange and the glove fits really well.

Fred Radunzel:

You actually have pretty good dexterity for a lot of things.

Dave White:

For all the s*** that's sewn onto it, a lot of times you don't have a lot of dexterity and stuff like that. But just a little bit of technology there  not to mention it's cool.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, that Halo light. I'm gonna talk a little about that. It's a hardhat light, so it's basically a 360 degree light that sits on the brim of your hardhat and goes all the way around.

Dave White:

Well, not on the brim. It will go on a cap or a full brim, but it just slides over the top. It kind of stops before it falls down, but it's got a lithium ion battery, it's got multiple settings so it can be high beam, low beam, or check me out, I'm over here kind of, how to say it, kind of circles itself or whatever. And you know, we've got some feedback from people that if you're working in a group, and there's like 20 of ya, you probably don't wanna buy it because you're gonna walk around and blind the s*** out of each other.

But if you're a guy, and you're working kinda Hans Solo or whatever, and you want to be visible, or whatever job you're doin', you just want some light around you, you know. A lot of the flashlights that you're seeing now are, flashlights have always been like, "I have a beam of light that I'm going to point at somethin'." And now you're seeing more flashlights that'll have the main beam, but they'll also have what's called a flood, so a beam that points down to the ground, you're actually lighting everything around you.

Fred Radunzel:

Right, and if you're wearin' it on your hardhat, and it's going 360 degrees around you, you have like a nice, whatever it is, ten feet around you in every direction. And it goes with you. It's like someone is shining a spotlight on you wherever you're working. So it's pretty cool, worth checking out.

Dave White:

It's rechargeable battery, so it's not like you're throwing a bunch of s*** in a landfill to try to keep it lit.

Fred Radunzel:

I thought that there's a lot of hybrid gloves that are coming out where it's like, "It does this, it does this." It kind of goes back to that MCR glove, but I know we had another one that was like "FR, it's very, very cut resistant, it's puncture resistant. It's got back-of-the-hand protection on it." And so it seems like there's a lot, like arc flash, [inaudible 00:17:40] just a lot of technology.

Dave White:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we had the Shmitz Mitz, and then we had, Global's got some kind of hybrid glove, and you look at, and it's rated for FR, but it's got metacarpal coverage. And I guess probably where we need to take the story is, we'll go with old Michelle Glucowsky told me, "If you're takin' your glove off to do your job, you got the wrong glove." And when she said that probably ten years ago, that was probably some bullshit because they didn't have as much stuff as they have out now. But we're getting, there's so many products out there and combinations, whether it's materials, or combinations of things. They're getting pretty close to where you can, unless you do some crazy shit, I mean, you should be able to get a glove that does or has the protection that you need.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, it's a winter glove, it's arc flash, it's cut-resistant, it's puncture-resistant, it's high-vis-

Dave White:

Yeah, they'll have stuff now, I have seen a chemical, cut-resistant glove with metacarpal protection. So I mean that's-

Fred Radunzel:

Winter.

Dave White:

Yeah, but-

Fred Radunzel:

You're making the winter gloves.

Dave White:

Yeah, but I mean there's these combinations that's just kind of mind-blowing, but you know, they're not free. They cost a little bit of money. But you go back to the adage, "If you take your glove off to do your job, you got the wrong glove." Well, they're gettin' pretty close to where as long as you can find what the hell you're doin', there's probably out there that will get you pretty d*** close.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, but there's a lot of cool things like that. Why don't you talk a little bit about the puncture-resistant insole.

Dave White:

Yeah, I mean, how to say puncture-resistant. There's some shoes that will have a PR or puncture-resistant, and you kind of flip up the tag on your shoe, you'll see the PR, I'm not gonna remember. Is it ASTM-2413? If I'm wrong on that, fax me and let me know. 563-445-2171. But as you stack up, and you look at what a shoe's rated for, puncture resistance. My dumb a** stepped on a nail this weekend, so we had an old deck, and the fence replaced. Excuse me, I had the deck torn out and I replaced the fence. I don't know what the hell I'm gonna do for a deck [inaudible 00:20:19].

Fred Radunzel:

Right.

Dave White:

But of course, there's a piece of wood that they left in there that had a nail, and I'm walking through in my Nike's and I'll be damned. Stepped on it. Couldn't kick it off, had to sit there. Actually, they did clear me, I did get a call, Fred was there when the Dr.'s office finally called and said, "Yep, you've had a Tetanus within the last couple years, so you're gonna be able to eat. You're not gonna end up with lock jaw."

But puncture resistant is getting really big. California sometimes comes up with this wack-ass shit that comes across, and this one makes a lot of sense, is in construction environments, where you have that potential to step on something like that, they require puncture resistant shoes or this one is an insole. So it's an after-market, so if I have 'XYZ' steel toe boot that meets whatever standards I need, but then they say I need puncture resistance-

Fred Radunzel:

Instead of tossing your boots in the trash.

Dave White:

Instead of throwing your boots away, you trot on over to us, and we can help you out with a puncture resistant out-sole that's actually a really nice out-sole. Cause everybody that kept picking them up today would go, "Man, that's really soft and it's cool." And for a guy that has plantar fasciitis, you remember that guy? He's like, "This would be kick-a**," and I'm like, "Yeah, but flip it over. [crosstalk 00:21:51] It's not why this is here.

But it's something that just to point out that there's things in safety that you can add to other things to make them more safe.

Fred Radunzel:

Cool. What do you think about that Smash Pad? We had that. That's something I had never seen before.

Dave White:

When you look, the Smash Pad is just a glorified knee pad. But the problem is-

Fred Radunzel:

I'd say more kneeling pad, right?

Dave White:

Yeah.

Fred Radunzel:

You say, "Knee Pad," it kinda sounds like it's on your knees.

Dave White:

Well kneeling pad, it's not, it's kinda like your granny throws down before she starts diggin' in the garden or whatever. But a lot of people that have to do a lot of work on their knees, they need it. Well, the problem is that most of those-

Fred Radunzel:

I mean, that's you after 6:00pm.

Dave White:

Yeah, right on. Lotta work that-a-way. You know, it's how I earn my side-money. But if you're welding or you're doing something like that, you throw some weld-splatter or something like that on a regular, most of 'em are open or closed-cell technology, you're gonna burn holes through it. Well this one's made to hold up to that. And like we were talking with a couple guys today that do some welding, and they're required that when they're down, you know kind of where, they gave it a name, I can't remember what the name. But the cowboy movie where they would ride up and they would pull the pin or whatever. They weld around there a lot, and they're supposed to have a knee-pad, kneeling pad or a knee-pad when they're doing that stuff. And it's like, "This is the perfect thing for that." And it folds up and it's got a handle and it looks like a cute little lunchbox. And you trot off with it, you know. Pretty cool.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, it's a cool thing. And the last thing I had down was the, I heard you spat your stuff about it about ten times today. It's about the wristband bug bug spray. You're talking about your-

Dave White:

Well, tell me what you think you heard.

Fred Radunzel:

Gerber daisies or whatever, the type of flower.

Dave White:

Gerber daisies. Nah, not-

Fred Radunzel:

Geraniums, right? Geraniums.

Dave White:

So, everybody's grandparents had window boxes. And if you don't know what a window box is, go ahead and press stop and go do something else. Long story short is that the planter boxes that you put flowers outside of your windows. Yeah, part of that was to have flowers, but part of it is old school technology.

People were a lot smarter than we give them credit for, it wasn't just, "Awe, the dumb a**** have flowers in their windows." Is that they opened the windows because they didn't have air conditioning. When they opened the windows, they didn't want the bugs to come in, so a lot of those window boxes were plugged up with flowers like Geraniums. Geraniums have a natural-occurring oil called Geraniol. So Geraniol, while it's not gonna repel every insect ever, that's not what I'm tryin' to go there and say, is they don't like it. They don't like the smell of it. And you smelled one of them today.

It smells kind of half between like bad grandma perfume and it's not the most appeasing thing on the planet. But they impregnate that oil into these wristbands, so the wristbands you can wear, well, first of all, a lot of the bug sprays out there, good Lord, you probably can't even take them in the state of, Prop. 65 the state of California. You probably can't even bring 'em in because they're carcinogenic, per se. So they don't hurt 'cha, it smells a little bit off, but you have a wristband to where you're not sittin' there constantly tryin' to reapply bug-

Fred Radunzel:

The stuff in your ears, in your nose.

Dave White:

You throw a wristband on and go do your s***. It's like wearing a citronella candle except you're not burnin' a candle, or something like that.

Fred Radunzel:

Yep, so anyways. PPE is changin' all the time, and so we, this kind of just what we do, so we don't spend a ton of time on this podcast talking about specific products, but I do think there's some value in talking about some of the technology. And no matter who ya buy from, whether you buy from us, we'd love it to be from us. But if you don't, I still think there's value in learning about some of these technologies that are out there. There's new products that are changin', so you gotta make sure you're talkin' to the people you buy your PPE from. Or you're doin' your own research or when you're listening to this podcast, that you know the thing that you did two years ago, there's probably somethin' that's better that's out there. It's whether or not you want to pay for it.

Dave White:

And most of the time, it's not that much more.

Fred Radunzel:

Right. The costs keep going down.

Dave White:

The costs keep going down, and the features and benefits are probably going up at a faster rate than the cost comin' gown. It's not just a perceived benefit, there's benefits in all this stuff. And the benefits are if you're not gettin' hurt, you're gettin' a benefit because there's cost to that stuff.

Fred Radunzel:

So if we nerd-out in this episode a little bit, talkin' about the products we're excited about-

Dave White:

I make no apologies.

Fred Radunzel:

There's no apologies comin'. Did I say I was apologizing? Maybe that's the way it looked like it was going? But yeah, no apologies comin' 'cause it's somethin' we're excited about. So we're talkin' about it on our own damn podcast. So listen up.

Dave White:

I do think it would have been funny to watch you fight that guy across the aisle.

Fred Radunzel:

He had it coming. I showed Dave the Terry Tate office linebacker, where like, "Hey, you need to change that toner, Steve!" And then tackle him across the aisle, just when I heard him say sometin' lame to a customer he was talkin' to on the phone. I just wanted to take the puncture-resistant insole and puncture him with it.

Dave White:

Every time I would hear him say somethin', and I would just start smiling, and I'd just see Fred over there grittin' his teeth.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, that son of a bitch! So, movin' on to the Dumbass of the Week this week. And I have another personal vendetta that I'm gonna talk about as-

Dave White:

V

Fred Radunzel:

As 'V For Vendetta?' As someone who works at trade shows, the Dumbass of the Week is gonna be the trade show person that attends. Whether you're going to a home and garden show or you're doing to the home builders show or anyone that attends the trade show. We've all been to them. Car shows, whatever you do. Don't be the dumb ass that goes around and grabs somethin' off of somebody's table because you feel like it's free. Don't be that dumb ass that grabs someone's business card like it's a $100 bill that's just sittin' there and just puts it in our bag of stuff. If you're not interested in the Dodge Stratus that they just came out with, don't grab the brochure of the Dodge Stratus off the table and put it in your bag. Then take it home and throw it in the garbage. Have some common sense when you go to these things, people.

We had enough of people. We don't have enough brochures and stuff like that when we come out, but I know that there's people that just grab a shoe catalog, put it in their bag, take it home, and then two years later, throw it in the garbage without ever having opened it.

Dave White:

Or they're like Extreme  hoarder, it's just another thing they've collected.

Fred Radunzel:

Or you can always bring up the kid that collects business cards.

Dave White:

Oh yeah, yeah. The kid on the internet that's dyin' of cancer or whatever.

Fred Radunzel:

He just wants a million business cards.

Dave White:

And the whole thing that I think Fred's also alluding to is, you know, pay attention to what's going on, because a lot of people don't want to make eye contact and have a conversation with people. But you can learn a lot from people. I mean, good Lord, every time I talk to somebody at these trade shows. Like we're sitting there looking at, how many square foot's that damn show?

Fred Radunzel:

I don't know, it's big.

Dave White:

It's frickin' huge, and it's literally just people that are working around rail signals. And you're sittin' there looking at these brand names, and everybody's out there to do a lot of good, but it's figuring it out and payin' attention to what's going on.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, so some Trade Show etiquette though. I was telling Dave earlier about-

Dave White:

Or when they walk past, and they're gonna try to look at your booth, but the only thing they do is make a cutout of your body without ever actually looking at you.

Fred Radunzel:

They just kind of look over, then look away. Then scratch their face and act like they don't see ya. It's like, don't act like, I don't know, a homeless person on the side of the street, like trying to ask you for money.

Anyways, so that's the Dumbass of the Week.

So, what did I have here, I'm tryin' to think. I had a couple email questions, and actually they're questions that we were asked today at the Trade Show that' I'm sliding into our email box.

So question number one. A guy was asking, "In railroad, majority of people are wearing high-vis orange.' So he was askin', "Has the construction standard changed to say that you can only use lime?"

Dave White:

You know that's, how to say, high-vis is this weird thing. There's Anti-107 that basically kind of talks about high-vis, but then there's a plethora of different ways people make it and take it. So certain states have a preference towards lime. Certain states have a preference towards nothing. They don't care as long as it's high-vis. You have industries, like we're at the rail show. They've got it right, because most everybody wears an "X" back. And to the people listening now, an "X" back, you know the little silver tape that usually kinda looks like a set of suspenders on a fat guy. Instead of that, it kind of crosses over the back and looks like suspenders in the front. So for that guy, you can look at him, somebody that's operating something, because usually you try not to strike somebody with an implement or a tractor or a train or whatever. You can look at him and you go, "That guy can see me. If there's an "X" on the back, that guy can't see me." And so, there's some best practices out there.

Certain places, you don't want to where certain colors where bugs are gonna attack ya. Certain stinging bees or whatever are attracted to different colors. So there's no best practice. I mean heck, we get asked all the time for, "I want a high-vis red vest." Well in Anti-107, it states that it can be red, but then it states that it's gotta be able to be laundered 25 times. And nobody makes one that meets that standard, so while it's in the standard, it doesn't exist in the wild, and so I took you down a wormhole to say, "Ask what everybody around you is using, and that's probably the best practice for the area, and they've decided that.

Fred Radunzel:

Right.

Dave White:

Whether it's, let's say, you're in New York City in the transit department. You're probably gonna have, they're probably gonna say, "You can have that vest, but it's gonna have to be a five-point breakaway." So that you don't all of a sudden have a train grab a hold of your vest, and tear you apart down the rail. And it makes sense. But you don't have to have that in Omaha if they're telling you to move your van off of the-

Fred Radunzel:

Right. And we did have a guy that asked us. He just started puttin' on spec after spec after spec on us, 'cause he wanted a breakaway-

Dave White:

He's like, "I work here, and I work here, and I work here, so basically, here I need an FR vest, here I need a Class 2, here I need a Class 3, here I need a lime, here I need an orange.

Fred Radunzel:

Here I need a breakaway.

Dave White:

And here I need a breakaway. So right now, we're tryin' to find a reversible, x-back-

Fred Radunzel:

Breakaway.

Dave White:

Breakaway.

Fred Radunzel:

FR.

Dave White:

FR.

Fred Radunzel:

Class 3.

Dave White:

Class 3 vest, and we don't think anybody. And to all you manufacturers that are listening to this, go f****** figure that one out. As we can find, there is at least one person in the Domestic United States-

Fred Radunzel:

That's lookin' for it, [inaudible 00:34:51] a customer.

Dave White:

And I think he's in a size large.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, I'm going medium on that guy. He's a little guy.

Dave White:

Okay, he's a little big, but I mean. But he'll buy one.

Fred Radunzel:

He'll buy one. So we got a customer, hook us up. We'll show it next year at the rail show.

Dave White:

Yeah.

Fred Radunzel:

Another question that I got that was written down was, "We're using polyurethane-dipped gloves. Is there anything better for handling small parts?

Dave White:

Yeah, this old boy was lookin' for just a GP glove, and there's a lot of these micro-porous polymers, so some of them, they'll blow. Basically, they just take a Nitrol or something like that and they blow air through it so it has some texture to it. So, when you grab little oily parts, you actually, some of them will almost act like suction cups, but some of them will absorb the oil off the top of the material and help you get grip on little pieces and parts. So sometimes changing the coating on gloves will get you to the answer that you're looking for.

Fred Radunzel:

Cool, alright, so next things I had on my list was I was reading a Forbes article, and it was the MIT named the top 10 breakthrough technologies for 2018. So we're talkin' a little bit about PPE technology, so I thought I'd throw some breakthrough technologies, and some of these, I'm gonna skip over because it's over my head, and we wouldn't be able to have a conversation about it.

The number one thing that was on their list was 3D metal printing, and I think a lot of stuff with 3D printing is getting crazy as to what they can do. You were mentioning buildings that are being erected like 3D.

Dave White:

They are makin', basically imagine a 3D printer that shits out concrete and can literally print a structure. Literally rooms and everything, and it just sits there and goes back.

Fred Radunzel:

It's just gonna keep gettin'-

Dave White:

And you sit there and you go, "It doesn't even sound possible, but heck.

Fred Radunzel:

3D printed houses.

Dave White:

I think it was last year, Maverick, was it last year? I think it was second semester last year, Maverick had a design class at West, and they had 3D printers that they were designing plastic parts. And they actually had printers in the high school that are printing these parts out. So before too long, you'll go into Auto Zone, and you'll say, "I need, whatever the hell it is," and they'll literally go up to a machine, and pull it up there and press Go, and this thing's gonna come out there and it's gonna s*** a bolt or a nut or a fat-

Fred Radunzel:

Those are like awesome things for it, like "Uh, this thing that we made in 1975, we're missing this part for it." "Oh, let's just 3D print it for them."

Dave White:

You just press a button, and it s***s one out right in front of ya. It's like to spec.

Fred Radunzel:

It's wild.

Dave White:

Yeah.

Fred Radunzel:

So, the next on the list is, I don't know, we'll go down the wormhole, artificial embryos? It's gonna get away from us quick.

Dave White:

Uh, I mean, I'd still have my bible, so I don't like that one.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, yeah. Cloud-based, artificial intelligence services.

Dave White:

That's coming. Allegedly, they have something now. Right before you die, they can literally suck your existence into a computer program where you can be alive on the web. I can't even wrap my brain around what the hell that even means, but that's sick s***. That scares me.

Fred Radunzel:

This one is awesome, and I've actually seen, I don't know if I've seen specs of this, and I don't even know how to pronounce this word. B-A-B-E-L? Babel? Babel Fish earbuds? I don't know if you have seen this, but you basically have a pair of earbuds in, and then you or I could go to a foreign country, and I'm talking to someone and they have earbuds in, and they're talking back, and I can understand exactly what they're saying.

Dave White:

You can already do it with the phone.

Fred Radunzel:

Through your phone, there's like a thing? But that's still a little bit clunkier.

Dave White:

No, I understand that, but I mean, how to say, they have-

Fred Radunzel:

The technology's there in the phone?

Dave White:

The technology already exists cloud to phone, but-

Fred Radunzel:

The earbuds-

Dave White:

They'll put it into-

Fred Radunzel:

And I'd just be talkin' to you, and now you're talking to me, and I'm hearing what you're saying in English, and you're talkin' in Spanish.

Dave White:

Makes you wonder if they've always had that shit in Star Wars. 'Cause I've never understood, cause the Wookie always talks to Hans Solo, and I'd literally go, "I don't know what he's sayin'" but Hans knows.

Fred Radunzel:

Zero carbon natural gas.

Dave White:

Nope, doesn't mean anything to me.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay, I'm like, "You're gonna have somethin' to say there, I don't know."

Dave White:

Zero carbon natural gas.

Fred Radunzel:

No greenhouse emissions.

Dave White:

Well, when you talk about natural gas, natural gas is a volatile organic compound and all VOC's are carbon chained, so I don't know how you'd pull carbon because anytime you burn and stuff, it's gotta have carbon to, I don't even understand that chemically.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, it's like in genetic fortune telling, like as you get into the 23 and me stuff and that it's only gonna get more and more.

Dave White:

Dude, I did the, what's the other one?

Fred Radunzel:

Ancestry Now? Or Ancestry-whatever?

Dave White:

I did the ancestry, and it's literally like, you know growing up they were always like, "Oh, you're mostly Irish," or whatever, and I found out while there's a lot of that in me, I'm more German than I am Irish. And it's kind of, and the whole thing is what gets really spooky, is they sit there and they're like, "You came from here," and it's very specific on a map, "And when your people got off the boat, you got off the boat here, and then you walked over here."

Fred Radunzel:

Alright.

Dave White:

It's kinda spooky.

Fred Radunzel:

But we're gonna get to the point where like, fortune telling will make it possible to predict like the chances that you'll be smart or below average in intelligence.

Dave White:

Yeah, but what scares me is that's where they're gonna start tweakin' it. It's, what's that movie? The Cloud Diaries, or it's got Tom Hanks and there's some spooky-ass movie I watched really late one night. It's-

Fred Radunzel:

Freaks ya' out?

Dave White:

Yeah, you literally sit there and watch it and you're like, "I don't think I wanna even be, I won't be able to deal with that s***."

Fred Radunzel:

So, and there are a couple other things on there, but I think that's a good enough wrap to blow our minds for the day.

Dave White:

But I think it's bringing back the fact that if we can do that shit with technology, we can come up with one glove that can do-

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, right. And they're gonna get better, and better, and better. They're gonna do more things. And it's pretty much gonna get down to the point where it's like, everyone's wearing 'The' glove. This glove is super thin and it does all things. It protects you.

Dave White:

But it will probably almost-

Fred Radunzel:

It's bulletproof.

Dave White:

It will probably look like a blue index glove.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah.

Dave White:

But it will be, "Ah, it's rated up to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit."

Fred Radunzel:

It will be like a doctor's glove you snap on, and all of a sudden, you're bulletproof in that thing.

Dave White:

But no, one of the things that they are starting to do though, is they are starting to put sensors into PPE to where they'll be able to tell how you pick things up, and where you may get hurt. There's already wearables that will go, "Oh, we were looking and there's not enough light in this area. Safety director, go light this area." Or this guy slipped here, somebody go take a look.

So, there's a lot of AI or smart wearable stuff. I mean it's coming, and it's gonna come quick. You should read up on it.

Fred Radunzel:

Yep, so hopefully this was a pretty cool episode. We've talked about some different things that I think, kind of a different format than we take in some of our other episodes, so. Hopefully let us know what you think. Definitely reach out to us in any of our social media things. Once again, Linkedin, Dave White and Fred Radunzel. We're both on there. Quad City Safety is on there, reach out to us however, whatever fits your schedule and whatever app-lication-

Dave White:

Yeah.

Fred Radunzel:

You want to hit us up on, so. Appreciate you guys listening, once again, we will see you next time. Safety has no quitting time, thanks.

Outro Speaker:

Thanks for listening in to Dave and Bacon's Safety Tales. Brought to you by Quad City Safety. Send us your questions on Facebook, Linkedin, or Twitter @quadcitysafety #safetytales. Or email them to Fred at quadcitysafety.com. He's the guy keeping this mess of a show in line. And if you like the show, please rate and review us on iTunes. It's a kick ass way to show that you care about safety.