3 Guys in a Basement

Episode 3, and for the first time we're outside, around a fire on a July night in the Chicago suburbs. Pepper's out for a birthday spa day, so the three of us cover a lot of ground: whether it's ever okay to recline your airplane seat, mountain biking the Whole Enchilada in Moab, hitting a deer at 5 a.m., a busted ankle from sand volleyball, and a homemade ahi tuna dinner off a two-pot recipe. The back half digs into the good stuff, curiosity and going back to school later in life, a price-aware smart thermostat built on a Raspberry Pi, and why staying curious might be the whole point. Password of the day: make everything fun.

We did something different for Episode 2 — we left the basement, set up around a kitchen table, and brought in our first guest: Pepper. She's married to Nick and has been a close friend of all three hosts for over twenty years, which made for an unusual challenge. When you've known someone more than half their life, a normal interview falls flat. So the whole night became an exercise in pulling out the stories we'd somehow never heard.

And there were stories. How she got her name (hint: there was a dog first). The college night a quiet campfire turned into thirty-some squad cars tearing onto a farm with guns drawn. The slow-motion way she and Nick actually got together. Building a marketing company from a few inherited clients into her own LLC. Along the way it turns into something bigger — saying yes when your gut says don't, why hard conversations beat avoided ones, how a person can genuinely change, and where AI is pushing all of us back toward plain human relationships and critical thinking.

Woven through all of it is Kimberly, whose way of meeting everyone where they are still shapes how this whole group moves through the world — and the two words that became the night's mantra: be the light.

Recorded around a kitchen table. Thanks for listening — all 30 of you, and counting.

In the first episode, the guys figure out the microphones, remember high school radio days, talk about teaching and parenting after COVID, compare old jobs, dig into fire service stories, travel sports, music, AI, and why it might be worth recording the kinds of conversations friends usually only have off-mic.