Tell me about those early days with Boudin.

So my mom was a Toups from Thibodaux, and the Toups are as Germans.

And in fact, when I was growing up, I thought of my mother's family as Cajuns because they spoke Cajun French, they cooked Cajun food, they danced the Cajun touche, all that sort of stuff.

And they were totally attuned to the foodways at the time.

And I remember...

Visiting my mom-and-pop in Thibodeau, and there was a discussion about going to get some boudin.

And so they went down the street to a little store, which I think was an Italian-owned store at the time, and came back with blood sausage.

But

Ken, can you give us a little more background, perhaps, on where we've been and where we hope to go with A-Value, please?

Yeah, this is something that probably everybody that's been in the insulation industry for a brief period of time has thought about.

For me, I identified this as an issue in the insulation industry just very early on.

Especially with spray foam, R-value just doesn't tell the whole story.

And it does great at what it does, but it just leaves some facts out about insulations.

And when you evaluate fiberglass using R-value only, you don't get the whole picture.

And the same goes for foam.

Looking around the industry today, what gives you the most hope for where this trade is headed?

For the contractor out there on a hot job site right now, why is our value alone no longer enough? And what are we trying to accomplish with A value?

First, I'd like to say, let's use supplement to R-value as opposed to alternative because- Sure, sure.

Actually, A-value will use R-value in the calculation.

So still a very important metric, but for what we need, it's just not enough.

It's a supplement, sure.

Anyone who's involved in building science or insulation- or the industry has known for a long time that while our value is a very important metric for thermal transfer, it just doesn't tell the whole story.

When it comes to measuring real world performance of various types of insulation, we've just been using our value.

Ken, can you talk about the specific evaluations being done right now and what we can hope to expect near term and long term?

I was thinking about the addictions and the awareness that we have of all the different addictions.

You know, the world continues to evolve and it's a very sophisticated, it'll continue to unfold and we'll have different challenges throughout the days of time.

I'm not so sure back 100 years, 200 years ago, there weren't obsessions, there weren't, I mean, certainly when you read historical accounts, certainly obsessions have to show up.

just not as much insight.

So I think obsessions, I think addictions, what we call addictions today, were likely present back then.

It's like abuse, child abuse.

Through a powerful blend of strategy, mindset, and expert guidance, you'll finally create a business that works for you,

not

So for our listeners who haven't been competitive fishing before, can you just paint a clearer picture of what fishing was like with and without forward-facing sonar?

Well, in the old days, you learn from your father, your grandfather, your grandmother fishing skills.

And for example, if you're fishing freshwater and you see stumps coming out of the water, you would cast to those spots, what they call blind casting, basically, and hope that there was a fish there.

But you had no idea, unless the water was crystal clear, whether there was a fish there or not.

Now, with forward-facing sonar, you, you know not only where the fish are, but how many there are, how deep they are, and based upon the blobs on the screen, where the big ones are.

It also tells you, by the way, where the fish aren't.

So in the old days, you might waste an entire day fishing in a spot where there are no fish.

Have you tried out these technologies?