Travis Rosbach | Water Bottle Trend-Setter and INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

You know that super-cool water bottle that all the rich kids have and cover with stickers? In this episode, the inventor of the Hydro Flask, Travis Rosbach, gives us tales of corporate intrigue and perilous plane events, and also talks about tattoos and talking to trees. One of the most full episodes of Sketch Comedy Podcast Show ever.

This episode’s sketch: “The Peaceful Sounds of Nature”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

© Copyright 2023 Stuart Rice

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MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Capt. Rosbach has spent the last thirty years studying and practicing all things business, and the previous ten years as an advisor, consultant, public speaker, and business coach to a wide range of industries, celebrities, individuals and even countries.

He not only shares his tradecraft with others but also practices it in the many startup's he is currently involved in.

He is the founder of Hydro Flask and other highly successful business endeavors.

Prior to entrepreneurship, Mr. Rosbach was a:

• SCUBA dive Master/Instructor (PADI 158190)
• US Merchant Marine Boat Captain (50 Tons)
• Commercial Airline Pilot (ATP)
• and a world explorer.

Links

The Tumalo Group - Travis’ company where he helps other entrepreneurs sharpen their axes.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Stuart: In this episode, International Man of Mystery Travis Rossbach and I came up with a few sketch ideas. You uh flew this plane through a category one storm, right? Hurricane, right? Yeah, it's not a storm, it's a hurricane. All right. So I was thinking like, how does it, how does it get crazy as it ramps up? What is the thing that, that really sets it to a category six? I love that. You hired a six, a six ft four felon to help you out with chopping down trees and you said like found out I was faster than he was, right? But he's a six ft four felon. Now, I don't know if you're 100 and 88 to £205. Like you're probably a little, a little bit taller than me, maybe right around the same. But this is someone you're gonna be ok. So you're gonna be looking up at this guy and you gotta tell him, yeah, you're not very good at this. Like how do you have that conversation? I should know this but Blue Dream is probably a strain of the marijuana that you like to smoke that you go out and chop down trees. Ok. So you say that you can hear the trees talking to you. What conversations are they having with you? Yes, you're chopping them down. Like I think that that would be really interesting to find out, hey, the trees maybe aren't so cool with this. Like, hey, go to the gym, you don't have to come out here and do this. So
[00:01:34] Travis Rosbach: that's my man. Leave them.
[00:01:37] Stuart: Which one did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of it is a sketch comedy by welcome to sketch comedy podcast show. The one of a kind show where I Stuart Rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what we talked about. It's the only show like it on the internet. Travis Rossbach made his claim to fame and riches by developing the Hydro Flask. Uh you know, the metal water bottles that high school students use and cake with stickers. But Travis is much more than the purveyor of high end drink wear. He's also a high flying hero, uh an adventurer and one that communicates with trees. On a side note, this is one of my favorite episodes I've ever recorded and this conversation was so much fun. I hope to have Travis on again. And now my conversation with Travis Rozak, creator of the Hydro Flask and an ironic international man of mystery. Travis
[00:02:58] Travis Rosbach: Stewart.
[00:03:00] Stuart: Thanks so much for joining us. Today. I've got a quick question for you if you, if that's ok.
[00:03:04] Travis Rosbach: As long as it's not a hard one, I'm ok with that. Well,
[00:03:07] Stuart: we'll see it, it goes in waves. What makes you interesting?
[00:03:12] Travis Rosbach: It is a hard one right out of the gate. Um, this morning I was down at the Tumolo country store slash gas station and I was thinking about that because I listened to your show and, um, I had to pay cash and I realized last Monday, um I had to pay cash also because their servers were down and I was hungry and I didn't have any cash. And so the woman bought it for me. And so I was thinking, I would tell that story about me getting hungry. But then I thought of another time where I landed a commercial airplane in the Caribbean in the middle of a category two hurricane. Um So I, I thought maybe I'd talk about either one of those, but I'd let you kind of decide which one was more interesting. Let
[00:03:59] Stuart: see, someone's gonna buy you lunch or you were a hero. Let's go with uh one of them is, is the narration of someone else being a hero for you because low blood sugar is pretty good. But let's, let's, let's go with your, your story, your little story about an airplane.
[00:04:21] Travis Rosbach: Ok. Ok. How does that situation happen? Yeah, we go with that one, I guess. Um So I was a commercial airline pilot down in the US Virgin Islands. I flew through uh Seaborne Airlines. We flew twin otters on floats. So, basically, um, these, these big propeller planes that we take off and land in, in Saint Thomas in the harbor and Saint Croix. And these
[00:04:46] Stuart: are the ones that come into the water. Right. They, they land on water.
[00:04:50] Travis Rosbach: Mhm. Yep. Yep. And, um, we would take turns who would fly which leg? So I was, we were flying back and forth to Saint Thomas trying not to fall asleep because it's so hot. We were about 600 ft off the, off the ocean. And, um, oftentimes we'd kind of look over and, you know, see somebody sleeping next to us. And so it was my turn to fly to Saint Thomas. We knew that there was a storm, a Bruin coming and yet the chief pilot made the decision that, nope, we're still open for business. Please fly. So we went to Saint Thomas and, um, we, we went to take off and it was like the storm is really, really upon us. And I don't, for the life of me, I can't remember the name. I'd probably have to look in the, in the log books. I don't remember the name of the storm, but it, it came in as a category one. And, um, you know, we've been through category fives before not flying, but we just recently had, had a uh hurricane Lennie come through as a category five. So, one didn't seem all that intense.
[00:06:00] Stuart: What's involved with a one, if you don't mind me interjecting,
[00:06:05] Travis Rosbach: it's just windy as hell. It's just, it's really windy. A lot of gusts. The seed gets real choppy. Um, you, you're probably not gonna lose a rough, it's nothing like your garbage cans are gonna fall over, stuff like that. Not a real minor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mere flesh wounds at that point. And so, um, it was my turn to sit in the right seat and, and be the, uh, the copilot and I did not like the man I was flying with, he, he just was not a, a good dude. Um, later he got arrested, so I didn't have to worry about flying with him. But I had a girlfriend who was sitting, um, this, even though this was after 9 11, we still had an open cockpit because, you know, it was in the Caribbean and we weren't really concerned about that kind of stuff. And, um, so I have this girlfriend in the back and she's got her headset on so she can hear what is happening and he takes off. We start flying and we hear on the radio it's now a category two. You guys need to turn around. Well, we'd already passed the point of demarcation, which means we were closer to Saint Croix than we were Saint Thomas. And so we just kept going and I had just recently got out of flight training up in, uh, Canada and one of the coolest things that I, well, I, I shouldn't say it's cool, but I found it really interesting was, especially after 9 11, this was really top of mind if the, if the pilot next to you seems to be out of sorts and, and doesn't seem like he's able to or they are not able to continue, you need to say, hey, look like I'm gonna take over. You just chill. I got it from here and if they continue to not be cool and they don't respond, then you have to basically disable them. And we were told not,
[00:08:07] Stuart: not their controls, you have to disable the person, the
[00:08:12] Travis Rosbach: pilot. So you punch him, you grab the fire extinguisher, you take, you disable the pilot. And so, and so as we're flying, this guy starts going into just la la crazy land. I mean, he just starts showing signs of insanity. Now, I'm maybe not always the most sane and rational person myself, but thank God I had my, my girlfriend at the time behind me, uh kind of checking back at her and she's like, well, this isn't good, you know, like this guy is not doing the right thing here. So I was like, ok, well, if she gives me the thumbs up, I'm gonna just, you know,
[00:08:50] Stuart: I thought you were gonna say she had a piano wire in her in her purse and she was just gonna
[00:08:57] Travis Rosbach: would that be cool? Um That would have made the headlines, right? So we're getting closer and closer and um and, and, and man, it was rough like the, it was really, it was, it was, it was now a full blown category two and we're coming in hurricane category two. We're coming in and we had these little white um the basically PV C posts like pipe in the ocean in the harbor that we call the goal goal posts because our goal was to land in between them. So he's coming in and he's like, I can't see him. I can't see him. I can't see the goal post. I can't, and he's starting to freak out and, uh, we, we come down and I can see him. I'm like, you know, well, I can say his name now because the Statue of Limitations is up like Allen, you know, they're one o'clock, one o'clock, one o'clock and he's just not getting it. You're too high, you're too high. Ok. Now Allen, you're too low, too low, too high, go around, go around, go around. So he, he decides, instead of going around, he's just gonna crash us into Christians ST into the town and he's like, we're just going in,
[00:10:08] Stuart: he's like, I know there's a mattress shop there. We can just, it'll be a nice soft landing.
[00:10:13] Travis Rosbach: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I give it just a quick look back and now my girlfriend's just white as a sheet. She can't talk, she can't move. She is holding on and mind you, we've got a full plane full of people. I mean, like we've got passengers on board that are screaming, crying, freaking out. We're, how
[00:10:33] Stuart: many, how many people are we talking?
[00:10:35] Travis Rosbach: Not a lot. I think there was maybe, but there was probably about 10 souls, maybe 10 of us told them on board. Um maybe a few more, but I, but I can't recall. I have to check the logbook. We're coming in. Alan's like we're going in, we're going in and I can see we're headed right into either a sailboat or the harbor into um into the uh the pub. And I was like, OK, it's my plane. I've got the plane and he's like, no, no, I got it. I was like, I'm gonna grab the can I swear, can I say fuck you do whatever you want? I'm like, I'm gonna grab the fucking fire extinguisher, take you out Alan. And I think that, you know, I will and, and he kind of gave me a look and I was like, I, I, I am, I'm gonna take you the fuck out. And so he goes, all right, fine, you're playing and, and we go around and boy, I gave it everything we had and we just barely missed the sailboat, we just barely missed town. And then as we're flying, there's a big ass mountain right behind Christiansted and we're flying right into a house, like right into this house and they were doing construction on it because of the hurricane Lennie. And I could see the people's eyes and faces seeing that they were gonna get hit by a scene and I don't know how, but we missed it. We come around, we come in and I put us down in between the goal posts. We flowed over and uh we power in and uh I, I went to the chief pilot and I said, I will never fly with that man again. I said, you know, like he's not safe, yada, yada. Um And about a week later, he got arrested for being drunk and he had been at the pub at two o'clock in the morning and seven o'clock, he shows up to fly and he saw that the people who he was drinking with, saw him on, you know, walking down the board ramp and they're like going into the plane and like, we know, five hours ago you were just as drunk as we were. And so they called the police. They got him out two weeks later, he was back on the job. But at that point, I, I uh I shouldn't talk more about Seaborn. But yeah, so that was kind of a interesting afternoon.
[00:12:52] Stuart: That's um what's the first thing you do when you get off the plane? Like when you're in that situation. I mean, obviously your adrenaline is through the roof and I, and I, what, what happens, what do you do when you get right off of that plane?
[00:13:08] Travis Rosbach: I, I think my first instinct was to take Alan out still. I, I still really wanted to kind of hit him. Um, but my girlfriend was there and, and, and I think what, actually, I, I remember helping the passengers down the gang plank and they were so distraught, they were crying and there is, you know, you know, fairly larger Saint Tom and women and Rusian women and men and they were, they were visibly shaken. And so I think I i it was like, ok, I got to step up and, and deal with Alan later, but I gotta help them and, you know, then I, then my mind goes into business mode where I'm like, ok, liability here. Like we probably shouldn't have taken off in a category one and landed in a category two. So, you know, it was just like, uh like pr and putting out fires at that point. Ok. Yeah, I just go talk to the customer service, they'll take care of you. And I, I kind of went into that mode and then I, I got angry with Alan. Um but I, I, I, I, I never did touch him. So
[00:14:11] Stuart: that's, but yeah, because I can imagine that would not be, it's not a hug, that's not a hug.
[00:14:20] Travis Rosbach: Oh, dude. Yeah, you almost
[00:14:23] Stuart: got us killed. Um, holy crap. Well, uh, that is, that's definitely a story you can tell at any time and you definitely have the best story in, in the group, I'm sure, uh, holy smokes. All right. Well, besides being a, uh, flying superhero, you're like the Caribbean Sully if you will. But, uh, but I, so besides that, what else makes you interesting? What, what are, what are other things that you've done? Because I, you know, we posted up the, the, uh, title that you Like the International Man of Mystery, which is not far from the truth. You've done a lot of different things. What's some other things that people might know you for?
[00:15:06] Travis Rosbach: Um, well, I was a, a dive master and dive instructor for quite a while in
[00:15:11] Stuart: Saint. So you were in the air and underwater? Yeah.
[00:15:14] Travis Rosbach: Yeah. And, and, and Saint Croix, um, and I was also a boat captain for quite a while and, um, I, I just had a really, really good time, um, underneath and on top and, and above the, the Caribbean. And then I, I really realized that, um, you know, I had read this theory that and, and I don't know that it's just a theory, but to be nice, I'll just say theory that people who live in warmer environments go a little bit soft, mentally and physically because it's, it's lethargic, you know, to live in a warm environment you don't have to work hard. You don't have to shovel snow and ice. And so I, I realized that, like, my life was really good and so it was time to move back up
[00:16:00] Stuart: to the, how do you screw it up to make yourself stronger?
[00:16:04] Travis Rosbach: Yeah. Well, so I moved to the Icy Northwest and, and start shoveling snow and ice and, and then I, I, um, I ended up buying some property and some chainsaws and I learned how to cut down trees, uh like big ass trees to give me that same sort of excitement of near death, um experience on a regular basis. And so that's kind of where I am now is I, I'm, I'm at the point where I don't ride my motorcycles anymore. I don't fly jets fast anymore. I used to and then, and then after the airlines, I moved up to Florida and flew, um private jet charter. Um But so yeah, now I'm, I'm, I'm cutting, cutting big ass trees and that keeps me on my toes and keeps me mentally sharp and, and focused. Any,
[00:16:50] Stuart: any stories there, the, like we've all watched those like lager shows on, on whatever channel. But like that, that is, that is one of those things we never thought we'd ever think about as a society other than the people that go out and do the like lumberjack work. Uh What do you have any stories like did a tree go the wrong direction or probably the better stories are the trees didn't go in the right.
[00:17:15] Travis Rosbach: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, I, growing up in Oregon, I always, like, flipped off the Lumberjacks in the, in the log trucks and I always thought, you know, fuck you for taking all of our trees. I had no idea how a sustainable forest actually works. I always thought the more trees the better. Right. I mean, if one is good five or even better than one. Well, when I bought the property, it was all completely overgrown with, with juniper trees, which can be fairly big. I mean, like, like really quite large trees and um they suck up all the groundwater for the Ponderosa. So the faster I cut the juniper, the better and healthier the Ponderosa grow and the ponda are much more beautiful trees. And so I, I got on Craig's list and I found this felon who can't find a job anywhere else. And he says he loves cutting trees. He's six ft five. And um he comes out and I really like to cut the trees and he likes to limb them because he's, he's like this big jolly goon giant. He just goes and it, they're limbed and, and, and I found we, we found he, I that I'm 10 times faster than he is. And the reason why is because he cuts it the way Lumberjacks cut it, they cut this wedge and then they cut it from the back and it falls that direction and you know, where the tree is going to be. Well, I cut mine flat and then just hope that it doesn't hit me or that I can get out of the way before it starts to fall. So I used to smoke a lot of Blue Dream, which I don't recommend because it, it makes you, it made me crazy anyway. Um, but I'd smoke a lot of Blue Dream and I'd just go out and just, just cut and cut and cut and then he'd come along behind me and limb and limb and limb and we had quite a few times where um damn it, if I almost just didn't get hit by a big ass juniper tree, you know, but um I didn't, so that's good. Yeah,
[00:19:21] Stuart: I like that. You knocked on wood because wood did not knock on you.
[00:19:25] Travis Rosbach: That's, that's, yeah,
[00:19:30] Stuart: that's uh oh man. Um So was that part of the experience was just like cutting that tree and just being like, let's see where it goes. If it comes at me, I just gotta move out of the way. I gotta be
[00:19:41] Travis Rosbach: fast and not to sound, you know, out there or anything. But as I get into the zone and I find this with a lot of things that I do, I kind of, I have a tendency to get my head down, get myself in the zone or the zone gets into me really is more of it and I just fucking go. And with the trees as the zone happens as that zone time is happening, the trees will, will talk to me and they'll say, or it could be the blue dream, but the trees talk to me and they say, you know, hey, come cut me or hey, cut that guy or you know, this one's ready to go or that one's ready to go or, um, you know, they have this, these various things that they'll communicate to me. And so when I come up to the tree, I almost, it's, you know, not 100% of the time, but I'd say 95% of the time I come up to just the right side to cut them on. And I, I worked the saw around enough to where I have a fairly good idea as to where they're going to go. Um, but there's been days where I've had like six or eight and they're called widow makers because they'll hit you and kill you. But they fall, they're cut and they hit another tree and they're so big, you can't physically push them. So you have to either cut more trees which gets really dangerous because now you got two trees falling somewhere or you gotta hook a line up to it and pull it with a truck or a machine. Um, and then you've got, of course, snow and mud and slippery conditions and roots and stumps and just shit everywhere. That, as you, as I try to run away, I, I try not to trip over in, you know, in the, in the interim. So, holy
[00:21:28] Stuart: crap. That, I mean, that's, that is an insane amount of danger and that's just like, that's a Wednesday.
[00:21:37] Travis Rosbach: Yeah. Oh, it's a Wednesday at two o'clock. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I, I, um, I have a daughter now and so I don't take as much risks as I used to. I don't ride my motorcycles. I don't fly jets. I don't, you know, I don't do stuff. Not the jets are dangerous. But I, I just, and I, and I don't even cut as many trees as I would like. But, um, it is, it is chainsaw season right now. And so I'm, I am out there cutting, yeah, it's just a good workout, man. I just feel so good getting that physical full body mental workout and just, you know, I, I get so sore at the end of the day and just covered in grease and gasoline and just shit, you know, and I just fucking love it.
[00:22:23] Stuart: Well, to me that's way better than if you go to the gym because basically you're just going to the gym and you're just like lifting some weights but nothing gets done. You're actually, you get the result afterwards. You feel like you've accomplished something afterwards. I think that's a much better workout
[00:22:37] Travis Rosbach: and I can tell the difference between the store bought muscles and the real muscles. You know, living here in Tumolo, we got a lot of cowboys and Cowgirls and, uh, you can tell their, their country is strong. You know, it's like you, you cut down a tree and then that just is the beginning of it. Now you got to buck it and, you know, chop it up and you gotta pick it up and you gotta throw it and move it and you're squatting and lifting and throwing and then there's a rock in the way, you gotta pick up the rock and throw it and, um, and, yeah, but back in the old days I used to go to the gym and it, it's, it's night and I mean, they're not even comparable almost. Yeah.
[00:23:14] Stuart: Yeah, because they don't have the fear of death in them. Yeah.
[00:23:16] Travis Rosbach: Right. Yeah.
[00:23:18] Stuart: I mean, it's amazing what that does for the physical body is when you experience that like, oh, you gotta, you gotta be on your, on your game like it's, and, and it is, it's a mental acuity as well as a physical acuity. That's impressive. Um Do you, do you post up videos of you chopping
[00:23:34] Travis Rosbach: down these trees? No, I try to stay away from the social media because when I go to social media, it, it takes up a lot of my time and then a lot of people start coming in and they start asking, you know, for stuff or, you know, whatever. But, um, I, I'm going to be getting a skin steer, which is like a whole another topic. But it's, it's a really cool little like micro mini machine that I can pick up trees and dig holes and move stuff around. And I'm thinking I probably will post a couple go pros in out and around and then kind of start doing that because it's really rewarding to go up a thicket of forest that you can't see through. And then, you know, four days later there's a park and a little park bench and a place to eat lunch and, and there's like, really, you know, like a beautiful little area. And so I'd love to just, even if, for myself, if nobody even watches, I'd love to get a video of that and, and time lapse it, you know.
[00:24:35] Stuart: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, and for someone like myself, I like the amount of times I've got an opportunity to go out and chop down a tree is pretty low. Like, I don't have that many opportunities to do that. None, opportunities to do that. So it'd be kind of cool to be able to watch, watch you do that. I, I think that's awesome. Plus, you know, I, there's got to be some blooper reels there. Yeah, I hope, I hope not.
[00:25:01] Travis Rosbach: I only have one. It
[00:25:05] Stuart: was a great blooper though. It was the final blooper. Is what it was. I know. I,
[00:25:11] Travis Rosbach: I will, I appreciate you saying that because it's been on my mind. But then I think, well, I don't know, like it's a lot of time, energy and effort, but I think even just for my daughter, for in the future to see what, you know, and, and just for the historical reasons for the land, I'm really into the history of this plot of land in this area. And so just to show the natural progression of, um, you know, how, how it's progressing I think would be, would be really rad.
[00:25:41] Stuart: Yeah. And where you live is Milo. And you actually tumolo, I keep doing that. But tumolo, I, I think I've been through there too and I can't believe I can't say it right. You actually, um, now you have a, uh, a company that you just started, right? Few years
[00:26:00] Travis Rosbach: ago, few years ago. Yeah.
[00:26:01] Stuart: Well, yeah. Ok. Well, tell, tell, tell everybody what that is because it's interesting. It, it, it, it seems like this amorphous thing, but I'm sure it's very focused when it needs to be. So why don't you probably do a better job of explaining it than I would.
[00:26:17] Travis Rosbach: I, I like the word amorphous though. That was a good one. Um It's basically, it's Travis and my rolodex and for anybody under 40 who doesn't know what a rolodex is. It's my contact list and myself. Um, I tried after Hydro Flask to retire and uh just do absolutely fuck all except for travel the planet and everywhere I would go, people would ask me, how do I do this? How did you do that? What happens now, how do I connect with who I need to connect to? And so I started the Tumolo group just to help brands and businesses grow. I really enjoy. Um I get the same sort of rush cutting down a tree and starting a brand. I love to see a brand go from its infancy or, or the back of a napkin as they say all the way through to fruition and people buying a product. And so I help small startups and I help large massive fortune X number, you know, fill in the blank companies, corporations source products. So I have a lot of factories that I've worked with for decades now and, and I trust them, I trust them with IP, I trust them in our uh intellectual property. I trust them with um ideas and I trust them for prices and to keep their mouths shut and not knock us off. And um and then I also have graphic designers and engineers and, and people that are like just way, way, way smart and we help put together a brand or a business. And so, and then I also do, I mean, as a part of it all, it's, it's business consulting, business mentoring coaching. If you will, I don't have any kind of like buy now button or a, you know, three weeks to, you know, optimal business practices. I don't have any of that shit. It's just more real world. Let's just get your brand up there.
[00:28:16] Stuart: So I, so a couple of years ago I tried to start AAA company a brand and I could have used your advice so badly because I did, I went and paid for marketers. That, that, that was their big focus was you got to have a time frame, time stamp on it and blah, blah, blah. No, it's really about building building value within that brand and, and making it more real. And I I am 100% with you on that and you have a, you have experience with building a, a pretty decent brand like you, you mentioned it like you invented the hydro flask, right?
[00:28:53] Travis Rosbach: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:56] Stuart: So yeah, I mean, I, I've definitely spent hundreds of dollars on those, but um,
[00:29:04] Travis Rosbach: I think you actually bought the fish aquarium right here. It looks
[00:29:08] Stuart: like that definitely looks like a Christmas from a couple of years ago. So, um when you talk about stealing IP, that is the one of the biggest things when you're doing manufacturing. I'm, I'm just going to go down this path because I'm interested in it. How do you find places that, that you can trust for, for IP because honestly, like we see knock off everything like within days of something getting announced. There is a knockoff including Hydro Flax. So, how did you, how did you build those relationships so that people wouldn't steal that?
[00:29:43] Travis Rosbach: Because, yeah. And can you show
[00:29:47] Stuart: the bottle that you just bought? Because it's so
[00:29:52] Travis Rosbach: crazy. I won't show the logo. But yeah. No,
[00:29:55] Stuart: no, no, don't show the logo. But look at that thing. It's a monster. Is
[00:29:58] Travis Rosbach: that something? It's got a serious. Yeah. Well, and I'm glad too and it feels nice. It's a nice material and it feels stout and I'm gonna get ripped drinking it because it's so damn heavy. But, well, it's 8.5 pounds or £8 for fresh water, I think 8.5 for uh salt and this is fresh, obviously. Um And, and then the metal on top of that, it, my theory is, is if I have a gallon next to me throughout the day, I'm gonna drink a lot more than just I try to drink half of my body weight and ounces every day. Um So I'm between 1 88 and 200. So I say about 100 ounces. And so I figure if I have a gallon, I may drink at least hopefully my 100 ounces. And so this is kind of my, my theory for that. Um Yeah. So as far as the knockoffs go, you know, with Hydro Flask, we were very fortunate that we were the first doing double wall vacuum in slated water bottles. It just wasn't happening. And then, um I had a, a fantastic, awesome friend of mine who was also just happened to be a, um, a patent attorney named Michelle in Salem Michelle. And um Latching, actually, she just got married. It was Michelle. I just call her Michelle E but um she's now a hyphen. But anyway, Michelle did a great job of getting us design patents and those the, the design patents gave us the, um, the right to advertise, patented and patent pending. And so that gave us a, I feel that gave us about a 3 to 6 month buffer where the honest stayed honest and the dishonest and not dis it's just the opportunists really. The opportunists were like, oh, ok. Well, wait a second, let's check into those patterns and they were still kind of, you know, kind of up in the air and still kind of vapor at that time. But that gave us just enough lead time to go out and, and, and sort of, you know, do our magic as it were. And, um, and then our first knockoff came from the guy who was, um, screen printing for us and he was literally two doors down, three doors down in the same little strip mall complex. And, um, and he knocked us off. And so it's not always just, you know, the foreign countries that are maliciously knocking people off. In fact, a lot of times it's Americans finding other factories in other countries to knock you off. It's not just, you know, oh, that country damn it, they knock everybody off. No, that's not actually true. A lot of times it's those damn Americans going to those damn factories then knocking you off. You know, and that's the part that I didn't realize and I think a lot of people don't really know or talk about much is that it's, it's the asshole neighbor who's gonna steal your idea. Not and knock you off. Not necessarily the asshole on the far side of the world. Yeah, I do. Yeah.
[00:33:05] Stuart: Sure. Absolutely. But that's, that's really interesting because I think everybody looks at like, oh, you have a factory, you're working with a factory in China. They're the ones that are stealing it, but not necessarily because it's, it's literally your graphic designer was like, oh, I see an opportunity here. I can put a different wrapper on this thing and call it something else and all of a sudden. Yeah.
[00:33:26] Travis Rosbach: Yeah. And that's what he did, you know, and he was hiding behind, you know, this dogmatic religion that he was in and him and his father said that they were upstanding citizens because of this and that and the other and, and then they were, you know, moonlighting as a, as a bottle company and he knocked us off like, like fair dinkum. Like he cut the bottle open, cut it in half sent it off and said, make me exactly that and they made exactly that and that was what we had patents for. So, um, he's now since morphed into larger contraptions and, um, you know, Karma has, has, um, done what it will with him.
[00:34:07] Stuart: Oh, my God. That's terrible. You almost want to take a fire hydrant to his head, a fire extinguisher to his head.
[00:34:15] Travis Rosbach: But, you know what's funny is I saw him at a coffee shop, um, I saw him at a coffee shop probably about four or five years ago, six years ago now. And, uh I was ordering my coffee and I kind of look over and he's, the guy is such an asshole. He was sitting at a for top. It's a busy coffee shop and he's on his computer and he's got three open seats around him when there's groups of people everywhere trying to get a fork top and he's taking up the floor full for top. So, of course, I get my la lavender latte and I sit down right next to him and I, and I just gradually start scooting over closer and closer to him until finally my arm was touching him and, uh, he got up and he bolted and then I got a lot of, a lot of four tops, sit down.
[00:34:59] Stuart: Uh, always the hero. That's, that's you always the hero Travis. Um So, ok, so you, at some point you said fuck it I'm out of Hydro Flask for whatever reason, you built a very successful brand. Like that's, that's incredible. And you decide I'm taken off, you're just gonna go travel. How many countries did you actually get to get into? I,
[00:35:26] Travis Rosbach: no, I haven't. I need to. Um, there's, and the reason why I kind of want to is there's a, and I don't know the name of it, but I think it's like a Centurian Club, not for 100 year old pluses, but for 100 country plus people. And so I really need to count and, um, see if I can get a free for or, you know, I'm sure I have to pay 100 bucks or whatever, but I wanna see if I can get a, a free shirt from this, this, um, people who've been to over 100 trees club membership thing. Um, but, but it, I kind of cheated because when I was a pilot and I was living in the Caribbean, I would fly to all these different islands that were like right there or just, you know, just over the, I, I say over the horizon, we don't actually live on a round ball, but just, just past that island is another island and those are two countries. So I had to hit three new countries in, in three days. Um It's kind of like Europe. You go to Europe. My, my first wife was British and we could go Ryan air back in the day for like, 15 quid. We could be in another country, we could rent a car and be in seven countries in the afternoon and, and, and be home and, and have put 10 countries under our belts. So, you know, Europe and the Caribbean, I, I kind of, I kind of cheated a little bit but, um,
[00:36:46] Stuart: I never,
[00:36:47] Travis Rosbach: they do, they, I mean, it's probably not in my belt, I guess. But, yeah. So, yeah, I love to travel.
[00:36:55] Stuart: Oh, that's cool. That's very cool. What's a, what's a place that you would suggest? Someone go and what's a place you would not suggest somebody go?
[00:37:02] Travis Rosbach: Well, I, that's a good question. I suggest people go to Africa, any country thereof and go check it out. Like, I think the Americans, there's a lot of snowflakes. There's a, and I just love that term because we've got snow on the ground. There's a lot of just soft ass people who just don't know what the real world's like. You go to Africa. I was in Kenya. I went to Nairobi. I was in the, you know, million and slum and there's way more than a million people there and that just put my entire life into perspective. I've been shot at, I've had knives pulled. I've been in all kinds of crazy scenarios but physically being inside in the slum, um, it, it really hit, I suggest people go do that kind of stuff. Just if you want a real world experience, go to the Million man slum in Nairobi. That shit will wake you up quick. That, that's a sobering thing. Um I suggest people do not go to Iceland. It's the most beautiful country ever and I don't want anybody to go there because eventually I may want to retire there again. So I, I suggest do not go to Iceland. Please go to Nairobi and uh those are my two.
[00:38:23] Stuart: Ok. All right, good. Um I, I do have to make this comment real quick. Um I your facial hair is amazing. Like I, I wish that you got that good Northwest like full beard thing going on. Um I, so as far as that goes like that's really on Fleek. Now, do you do all the other Portland things where you have lots and lots of tattoos? Is that a thing that you also do?
[00:38:50] Travis Rosbach: I am covered? Yeah. Yeah. Are you ok. Yeah, I, I would say probably, you know, I don't know, a percentage 70 to 80% of 70% of my body probably. Yeah. Not on my
[00:39:03] Stuart: face though and not on your arms.
[00:39:05] Travis Rosbach: No, no, I I've kept it above my um t-shirt lines. Um But yeah, I've got, yeah, you know, and I, I think they, they just sort of come to me and it's like I'm going to get a tattoo of this or that or the other and, and then I, I I think about it for, I ruminate on it for months and months and then if it's still with me then I'll do it others. It, I'll be in a foreign land and, oh, you guys have a tattoo parlor. Let's go check it out. And next thing I know I'm there for four hours getting tattooed. And, um, I, I, I pointed to my ribs. I was in China and the only tattoos I'd ever seen was with the mafia because that was all that. There was, it was mafia tattoos and, and if you saw tattoos, you knew you were looking at a bad ass motherfucker, right? Like you don't. And so I would always go fuck with the guy with a tattoo. Like we'd be in a bar and I'd see guys with tattoos and I'd, you know, go show him my tattoos and I'd see theirs and the people I'd with would just be like, fuck like we don't want to hang out with Travis anymore because he just hangs out with the mafia. Um But then they kind of opened it up to the general public and um yeah, my first tattoo I got in China. I, I, I um I asked as like, can I see your autoclave where you sterilize the needles? And he's like, no, we don't have one. We don't, we don't clean the needles. And I was like, OK, obviously my translators have done a terrible job here. Let me you know, like draw a picture and see. He's like, no, no, we don't, we don't do that. Yuck. Why would we clean the needles? And then I realized, oh, it's because you use a fresh needle every single time. Ok. I'm good. Let's go a
[00:40:50] Stuart: little bit on edge there for a second. You're like, maybe we need to go someplace else. I don't want to offend them.
[00:40:56] Travis Rosbach: But yeah, they wanted to go see the newest Marvel comic movie at the cinema. And I was like, yeah, we could do that or we could get a tattoo. But then I was like, well, maybe the Marvel movie would be better and safer. But I ended up getting a tattoo instead
[00:41:11] Stuart: and you got a tattoo of
[00:41:14] Travis Rosbach: um well, fuck if I know what it actually says, right? But um I, but I asked him, I was like, look at me, look at my tattoos. What do you think? And he quick? I mean, he was just Johnny on the spot quick. It came to him. It basically says be content with what you have but always strive for more. And then he put my um my name in China is I have a, a like official name. And so he put my hu stamp, you know, my little um you know, when you dip it in the ink and
[00:41:48] Stuart: wax and do the whole thing. Game of Thrones style. Yeah. Yeah,
[00:41:52] Travis Rosbach: exactly. So he put that in red and then the be content with but you have, but always strive for additional or more, uh, in, in just the traditional black ink. Yeah. Oh, that's
[00:42:05] Stuart: cool. Um, do you go for more? Like, that's kind of like a, an inspirational, like, meaningful tattoo? Do you go for, is that mainly what you go for or do you go for? Do you do wacky stuff too?
[00:42:18] Travis Rosbach: I do a stuff too. Um, when I traveled throughout the South Pacific, I kind of collected just little scraps of paper. This is before cell phones and, and photographs on our cameras on our phone and stuff. But I, I collected, collected little scraps of paper, of tattoo and ideas and drawings and things and then I would come home and then get them here because I don't, I haven't really wanted to spend most of my holiday or, you know, I'm only in a place for two or three weeks so I don't want to spend three or four days in a tattoo parlor where, you know, I may not feel good or well afterwards and things. And so I, I, I brought those, a lot of, a lot of my tattoos. I brought home with me to get done here. Um, but, uh, yeah, like I've got a Lorax flying on my shoulder because, you know, the Lorax is all about protecting the trees and they've got him who, um, one that, um, my dad, I've got a fairly good buddy Chris Callister here at Iron Elephant Tattoo and Ben and he's done the majority. He did all of my back and my ribs. Um He's done a lot of, a lot of my tattoos. A lot of my work. Um But one of the, one of his favorite ones is um I've got a little UFO with the H guy, the Hydro Flask guy parachuting out of it, basically saying fuck it. I'm out. And so I've got that, that's kind of one of the funnier ones. I guess
[00:43:43] Stuart: that's good. That's good. I like that. I like it. If you're gonna have like um a bunch of tattoos definitely have some, have a narrative somewhere, right? Like that, that I think that's really cool is if you can have like different stories with different tattoos. I got this one here. I got that one there. I love, I love that. I think that's really great.
[00:44:00] Travis Rosbach: It, I feel that when they find the body they'll be able to look at it and go. Who the fuck is this guy? Well, he's got this one and this one and this one, he's obviously lived here and he's done this and he's done that and um I, I don't know if anybody who's got the H guy tattoo. So that must be the hype guy. I don't know, but that they'll be able to identify the body. Yeah, it's like,
[00:44:23] Stuart: it's like it's body hieroglyphics, right? So like that's, that's exactly what it turns out to
[00:44:28] Travis Rosbach: be and, and there are times where I'll be like, at a hotel where there's like these really cool mirrors and, you know, like, and I'll, I'll just kind of catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and go. Oh, shit. Oh, yeah. Oh, I've got that one because I did this back then and I forget that. I forget that I even have tattoos. Like I see people with tattoos. I'm like, huh, you're a tattooed person. I got you. Um, but when I see my own, it's like it, it brings back a memory. It conjures up past events and past lives. And so it does work like that. I don't have to have as good of memory if I have a good tattoo for it,
[00:45:08] Stuart: it's a good, I mean, it's a, that, that is the best reason to have tattoos. Uh, and they can look cool that, that part too is pretty cool. Yeah.
[00:45:16] Travis Rosbach: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:45:17] Stuart: Um, well, this has been delightful. Uh, Travis. Uh, we do need to record a sketch though. Travis. You almost have me convinced to go get a tattoo. Um, while I'm considering this huge life change. Do you mind telling everybody about the Tumolo group?
[00:45:37] Travis Rosbach: Why they should visit the Tulo group? Yeah. I, I, I don't know that people should visit the Tumbler group. It's not a great website. We're not really doing anything of any massive interest over there, I think. That if people want to reach out to me, they can, but I don't want to force them to. It's, I don't have any buy now button or anything, but it is tumble group dot com. T U MA L O G R O U P dot com. And I'm also on linkedin Travis, Rossbach. I, I don't know how to do linkedin coding but it's T R A V I S R OS B Ach on that linkedin thing.
[00:46:14] Stuart: Awesome. Well, it'll be in the show notes. Sometimes people like to reach out. So maybe someone's coming up with the brand and needs your
[00:46:20] Travis Rosbach: help. I like it. Yeah. And I will, I have a big project. I'm, I'm getting close to and I will let you know um because I'd love to come back.
[00:46:28] Stuart: Now, I present our sketch. The Peaceful Sounds of Nature in three
[00:46:36] Travis Rosbach: two. I just absolutely love smoking my blue dream outside, clear blue sky, the trees, the rocks, the twigs, the stumps, just love it. I love the dirt. I love the snow. I love the ice, whatever it might be. I'm just loving going out smoking my blue dream and cutting my junipers.
[00:47:11] Stuart: I should see what those dirty junipers do to our land.
[00:47:15] Travis Rosbach: I can tell and that's why part of my mission in life is to take out as many damn junipers as I possibly can eradicate as quickly as I can. That's
[00:47:25] Stuart: cool. Can you make sure you get that one over there next to the creek.
[00:47:31] Travis Rosbach: You mean the, the, the big one that has got the chipmunk in it. That one?
[00:47:38] Stuart: Yeah, that one, can you make sure you get that one next and make it slow and painful?
[00:47:44] Travis Rosbach: I had, uh, that sounds a bit kind of dark and sinister. Pass
[00:47:51] Stuart: down with the Junipers. Get them
[00:47:53] Travis Rosbach: off. I should get a t-shirt made with, down with the Junipers. That'd be cool. People would buy it. I could sell down with the Juniper t-shirts.
[00:48:02] Stuart: That Juniper tree. You have to get that Juniper
[00:48:05] Travis Rosbach: tree. But if I get that one, I'm gonna have to get the one next to it also. Oh yeah,
[00:48:10] Stuart: that one is also really bad.
[00:48:12] Travis Rosbach: The, the big one. But what about the chipmunk
[00:48:17] Stuart: collateral damage? But you need to make sure you get that Juniper tree
[00:48:22] Travis Rosbach: all is fair in love and were I guess, and I could say that this is an all out assault and war against the Juniper. Fuck that chipmunk. Let's go
[00:48:32] Stuart: fuck that shit also. Fuck that Juniper Tree.
[00:48:37] Travis Rosbach: Fuck them, fuck them both. I'm gonna take him. I'm gonna take that Juniper and the other three Junipers around it.
[00:49:01] Stuart: If you love it so much, why do you cut us in half?
[00:49:06] Travis Rosbach: Whoa, whoa whoa. I was told that the Junipers were not friends of the Ponderosa and that it was OK to cut you guys down. The
[00:49:15] Stuart: Ponderosa are racist. Thank you for joining us for sketch comedy podcast show. We hope you enjoyed listening or watching as much as we enjoyed making it. And now for a little bit of legal sketch comedy podcast show is protected under creative commons attribution, non derivative four point oh international license. And if you can say that five times really fast, you win um also copyright 2023 Stuart Rice. Um And really the reason for that is uh if you want to reproduce anything from the show, the sketch or any part of the conversation, I would like you to reach out to me so I can get you a good copy of it. Thank you so much. And until next time, go and improvise a comedy adventure of your own. Maybe try not to get into a plane that's gonna crash though. Yeah, I saw you. That was my wife. You motherfucker like, so do
[00:50:28] Travis Rosbach: any of those three in the next life.
[00:50:34] Stuart: Do any of those three sound really good.
[00:50:36] Travis Rosbach: I like them all. Yeah, I can imagine like one additional shingle flying off and somebody's like, ok. Yep, there's the 417th shingle. It's not a cow to Gary five. Um I can also imagine his name was Arrowhead Rob because he went to prison for having Arrowheads amongst other things. And um ok. Well, um I, I really appreciate the, the talking with the trees though. I think that sounds good. I
[00:51:04] Stuart: think, I think that one will turn out really, really good. Um, all right. Well, let's do that one then. So this would just be like you going out, wait a second. He got arrested for owning Arrowheads.
[00:51:17] Travis Rosbach: Well, that was the story that I originally heard. Yeah. Was that every, I, I don't know, a number of maybe five years, I think it is. The native American tribes go to the government and say, hey, you guys owe us money. Pay up. The government goes, we don't have money for you. We're not paying you any money is there and they say go get the money or else. And so the government goes out and they're like, ok, well, let's just arrest a bunch of people for taking um artifacts from public lands. And so they go out and they arrest a bunch of people. What happens when you get arrested? Well, court fees and you know, the whole system starts propagating money and then they, they make the money, they go to the tribes and they go here, they'll shut the fuck up, fuck off for five years. Five years later they come back, give us our money. You said you'd give us, they say we don't have it. And then the whole thing starts again. I have. Is that real? Yeah, I had no idea that was taking place.
[00:52:14] Stuart: Why isn't anybody making a documentary about that? That is
[00:52:18] Travis Rosbach: the really crazy is um Arrowhead Rob icon because his name is Rob and he, he, you know, has arrowheads, he had the largest Arrowhead collection in, like the world and they took it from him and they put it on display at the, instead of giving it back to the tribe, they gave it to the federal courthouse in Eugene, Oregon, which I guess is where it is today on display. So, yeah, I don't want any black S U V s following me for this, but that's the way it goes. Holy
[00:52:48] Stuart: shit. That's, huh. Well, that's like a dark turn. Um.

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