The Apex Podcast

Global Escapades: Unpacking Travel Tips, Cultural Insights, and Tattoo Adventures, Plus Upcoming Podcast Excitement

September 15, 2023 • Apex Communications Network

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Come along as Jan unpacks the suitcase of his recent global escapades! From the charming streets of Slovakia to the historic grandeur of Italy, London, and Ireland, he has a few travel tips and cultural insights. Discover how Toronto can be your secret weapon in booking flights and why Google Maps is the ultimate co-pilot abroad. And if you've ever wondered about the art of communication in foreign lands, we share why mastering the native lingo basics is necessary. Then, fasten your seatbelts as we shift gears into RJ's latest tattoo adventure at Nimbus Tattoo in Atlanta.

The whole Apex Team is back home now, and the excitement hasn't ceased! James attended the prestigious Marine Corps ceremony, and we're already gearing up for a stellar lineup for our podcast in October. If you're trying to get the word out about an amazing non-profit or you're an entrepreneur, your story is the one we want to tell.
 
Excitingly, we're resurrecting our fan-favorite 3 Life Lessons series. And for those nearby, don't miss out on First Friday and the new BoJangles location in Belden Village!
 
We're thrilled about what's to come and even more thrilled to bring you along for the ride.

Follow Us on Social:

Jan Almasy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-almasy-57063b34

RJ Holliday: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-j-holliday-jr-b470a6204/

James Warnken: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswarnken

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/51645349/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ApexCommunicationsNetwork

Website: https://www.apexcommunicationsnetwork.com



Speaker 1:

Nice, all righty then.

Speaker 2:

Shall we get to the start.

Speaker 1:

Let's knock it out of the park.

Speaker 2:

Looks like it Too late. I already pushed the button. Oh no, no.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I know.

Speaker 2:

No, just kidding. What's up everybody? It's been a while. Welcome back to the Apex podcast. Thanks for riding with us as we kind of went through a little bit of a hectic travel season this is the first week.

Speaker 1:

This is the first week in like over a month and a half that we've all been in the same state.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, even when I got home from Europe, rj was traveling, james was traveling. We've all been kind of all over the place, so it feels good to settle back into like an actual rhythm for once.

Speaker 1:

Agreed.

Speaker 2:

Although are we ever really actually in a rhythm? I feel like we're always switching things up just by nature and how things go.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I kind of have to. It does feel nice that we'll be able to have an actual in person team meeting this Friday, so right, right, exactly Well.

Speaker 2:

So to give everybody like a summary of what I've been up to, if you've been paying attention to the IG or Facebook, I just got back from spending about a month and a week almost two living overseas. I started out the trip living in Slovakia with my grandparents. We actually did a whole episode on some of the cultural things that I noticed while living in Slovakia, rj and I recorded that I was in my grandparents' house when we recorded that episode. And then I hopped down to Italy, spent a week in Pisa living with my uncle, who's a priest there, linked up with my siblings, which was awesome and then we hopped over to London, stayed there for almost two weeks and then I ended with a long trip or not a long trip, but a long weekend in Ireland before flying home.

Speaker 2:

So a couple of little travel hacks. I've been traveling internationally since I was a kid. One thing, if you're from Northeast Ohio this is something that my family's done quite often when we're flying overseas is don't just look at tickets flying out of Columbus or Cleveland. Also, look at tickets flying out of Toronto, canada. Yyz is the three letter acronym for the airport. Typically tickets up there are hundreds of dollars cheaper to get overseas than flying out of Cleveland. So, like what I did on this trip is I used an app called Mamondo M-O-M-O-N-D-O and I scheduled my flights to fly out of Canada into Ireland and from Ireland directly back to Cleveland. So a lot of people think you have to book round trip flights from the same airport. That's not always the case. You can do multi destination is what it's called but a lot of times you have to book that through an app, not like the airlines. Mamondo is one of my favorite ones to do that with, so I only paid I think it was 850 round trip, really to fly from Canada to Dublin and then from Dublin directly back to Cleveland. And the reason why I do that is because you save the money on the front end with the trip out of Canada. But it is like a five hour commute up there. You have to have somebody that takes you, you have to cross the border at New York and everything like that, but you nobody wants to fly home after a trip and then drive five hours back. So I always fly home to the closest airport, which would be Cleveland, and then it's only a 40 minute drive home versus got you flying out of Canada. Yeah, so that's like that's one of the travel hacks. Another one is you're going to want to use Google Maps more often than not when you're overseas. Google Maps has a great public transport mapping system so you can see, like, what trains cost, where they're going, what time they're arriving, all that other kind of stuff. Apple Maps was a little bit sketchy in Ireland, not as accurate, not as accurate. Yeah, I didn't have as much information on the local stuff. So that's. Another thing is I would have Google Maps on your phone 100% of the time.

Speaker 2:

And then the last one is before you go over, find a podcast that educates you on the native language of the country that you're going to, for basic needs prior to going to that country, especially if it's a non English speaking country. So, like Ireland and London, obviously is not as bad, although understanding straight up English English when they're like talking fast, they do have different words and it's a thick accent, so sometimes you got to pay attention. But, like in Italy, for example, just knowing how to say, like good day, good evening.

Speaker 2:

This is, you know, understanding when the waitress asks you if you want white or red wine, how to walk up and ask for an espresso at a counter makes life a thousand times easier and a lot of times people in those languages will appreciate you at least giving the effort. And it makes yeah, it makes life a lot easier if the person's looking at you like I don't know what you're saying, and you can at least articulate and point or use hand motions, something else to get your point across. So you don't have to learn the whole language, but at least brush up on like the basic essentials and that's it. There's some quick tips for traveling international. You do have to plan a trip or something like that. Shoot me a DM. I'm always down to answer questions about that kind of stuff. I'll be at my sister's, the one that really does the majority of the world the worldly one.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, she's the one that does the majority of the planning and has connections. But I've learned a lot from the way that she approaches things and it's how I handle a lot of my international travel Pretty cool. Um, what about you? So you just got a new tap, I did, I did, got another one, yup my always flying out of state to get the finest artists with the pristine as needles.

Speaker 1:

Honestly, chris at Nimbus tattoo in Atlanta. Um, he by far has Not. I won't even just say the cleanest like tattoo shop I've ever been to, just cleanest place, period. That thing is as sterile as it could possibly be.

Speaker 2:

This is a surgical suite. This isn't a tattoo shop.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, I know the one time that they kind of filled us in that each state kind of has its own regulations on the way things need to be like it, because they're pseudo medical procedures or whatever they consider them by the book, that the walls have to be a certain shade of gray. They had to put extra plumbing in because each station can only be X amount of steps away from a sink, a working sink with hot and cold water. It's crazy that the amount of tediousness that needs to be in place to have like a by the book, like fully sanctioned tattoo parlor or shop down there, some of the ones that I've been around here in Ohio most definitely don't follow those same rules or they're just straight up ignoring them. I'll put it that way. But yeah, it was good.

Speaker 1:

I think I've talked lightly on here about the tattoo Facebook group that I'm a part of and the guys that I met there a little under a year ago. This was like this year's trip. We all met up and everyone got tattooed. Like three or four days in a row Got to hang out and see them. They're a pair of twins from Tennessee. Another guy, john, that I met for the first time. That's one of their roommates that came up and got tattooed. The last one is a kid named Logan and he's in the Army and stationed in North Carolina. We came from all over the place this time to meet up and be there Labor Day through Thursday.

Speaker 2:

That's good, being able to get everybody anytime you can have it excused to get a group of people together over some common interest. I think that's a lot of fun. Yeah, you get everybody sitting in a chair and you get to see the art at the end.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, it's interesting getting to see everybody get worked on and how everybody handles getting a tattoo. A little bit different, but they're really solid guys. I would have never met them if Chris didn't give me the opportunity a little under a year ago to all come down and meet up in November of last year. I'm super grateful for that, and these are a couple of fine young gentlemen that I talked to almost every single day or every other day. It was cool to get to see them again. I know they wanted to come up this summer, but they got some crazy work schedules. They weren't able to make it. It was nice to have an opportunity again where Chris worked with all of our schedules and was able to map it out in a way that we could all get tattooed back to back. That didn't screw up his plans, because I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but I'll have Jan, put Chris and the shops Instagram in with this episode as well, as I think you have some of the pictures from my arm, don't you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

Speaker 1:

We can throw those in there. But if you were to go and try to book with Chris right now, he's booking for September through December of next year, so you'd have to wait an entire year to get with him.

Speaker 1:

So him being able to work with us and move around his schedule or even, to some degree, working on days that he usually has off so that we can come down and meet up with him and meet up with each other, is a big deal when you have a schedule that's booked like that and he's a family man and he has his own life to live. So I know I speak for all of us when I say that we're super, super appreciative of what he does to get us in down there. Very exciting.

Speaker 2:

You love that. Yeah, I mean, it always seems like you have a great time when you go down into your stuff like that, and that's another thing, like I mean, whether you're you know, passion is tattoos, or you're a writer or a Pickleballer yeah, dude, I'm that's the one thing I'm upset about.

Speaker 1:

I'm gonna go back and play today for the first time in my arms. I'm still a little tender, so I'm a little, I'm a little concerned it gets.

Speaker 2:

But taking up, if you get an opportunity to travel out of state and like meet up with the group of people that are also Passioned about that thing, like do it go out there and take that shot. I'm gonna be doing the same thing in Chicago.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. I met them I met them in an anime tattoo group and they they recommended Chris at Nimbus and I went and met Chris and Chris is like well, hey, if you want to meet them, I got some open. I got an open date around when they're supposed to come next. Do you want it? And that's kind of how everything kicked off.

Speaker 2:

Look at that, yeah, look at that, I love that. Well, sweet. And then, like you said it, we're finally back to where we have everybody in the same state. James is a Brother retired from your Marine Corps so he got do experience going on the one Marine Corps base and seeing her tire Mr Ceremony, down in North Carolina.

Speaker 1:

He talked very highly of it. He said he said there was a lot of cool stuff.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but time and ceremonies are awesome and I mean you're like you're. You're giving gratitude and Appreciation to somebody that's done 20 plus years of service in so.

Speaker 1:

I was gonna say a third. Yeah, I'm not that old goddamn. So.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, excited to have us all back in the same state, which actually brings me to one of the other things like we're gonna be starting back up the podcasting and and other things, like now that we're all kind of back into a regular rhythm.

Speaker 2:

We typically try to book interviews like a month out, so I'm currently building the interview schedule for the month of October.

Speaker 2:

If you're listening and you think you have a good story or you have a business that you'd like to promote or something that you'd want to dive into, you know whether it's something to do with Entrepreneurship, it's something to do with something going on in your city that you're excited about, something you want to bring attention to. If it's your personal thing that you own, or you know somebody that has a cool story, they just recently accomplished something you know they ran a super long-distance race or they overcame some adversity or anything, feel free to shoot them into our inbox. You can shoot us DMs to either me or RJ on LinkedIn. You shoot me an email which is contained, I believe, in the bottom of the show notes, or you can submit a guest form, which is also contained inside of the show notes whenever we upload a podcast. So Any of those options are great, but yeah, like I said, we already got some that are booking in, so if you know somebody that needs to get highlighted, shoot them our way so we can get them on the schedule.

Speaker 1:

We would be very interested. We're not opposed to reaching out ourselves either if we think they're. They're a good fit for the podcast. So send your recommendations.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, yes, yes, trying to think what else we got going on. Um, I know another episode structure we're gonna bring back because Everybody was having a good time with it the listening numbers. You guys are still listening to these episodes on a weekly basis and we haven't even promoted them. So shout out to y'all Um are the three life lesson sheet. So I think we're on like.

Speaker 1:

Number 12 far, yeah, yeah, I think we're like number 12 or something like that.

Speaker 2:

Um, so we're gonna start bringing those episodes back as well and those will be scattered in between. Um, like the interviews and stuff like that more than likely it'll be our Um, you know, it'll stick to kind of like our more casual episodes structure and be an RJ just record at the beginning of the week and then the interviews will kind of be sprinkled in between those episodes. Yeah, I think that's it got first Friday coming up here in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2:

Make sure that you attend that if you're in the Canton area. Hi, she'span. No-transcript. Are you talking about October 6th? Yeah, october 6th, yeah, it's gonna be the next first Friday. I want to start announcing that more quickly because I feel like we never promote it and then it's like oh, it's first Friday today.

Speaker 1:

Well, the last first September is crept up on me. It being it, the actual first day of September, being on the first Friday, caught me off guard.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it'll do that.

Speaker 1:

The other big thing, belden Village. If you're in the area you can go Wait in a moderately long line to get bow jangles now and moderate I use very Loosely yeah, it'll continue to get more moderate as the weeks go on. It's the Belden Village experience dude, oh yeah absolutely packed there in in chicken Topia.

Speaker 2:

Yes, right there on the corner, that corner, that side, that side of every hour and ever hard, yes, but uh, no everything.

Speaker 1:

I went to the, so I Obviously wasn't here for the grand opening week, or the majority of it, the Tuesday the fifth, but I went to the FET friends and family day on the second and I was. They allowed me to try like breakfast. I was there in time. I just had to wait like 15 minutes for them to start serving lunch.

Speaker 2:

Everything I tried was exceptional, absolutely exceptional, yeah, I would agree I I was able to go and try their breakfast Because I've heard that's like really their you know speciality. That's their specialty. And the biscuits and gravy that I got, they were good. They definitely weren't like diner level. Yeah, this gets engraving, but for like what's considered fast food right, way better than any other biscuits and gravy that I've had from a fast food experience. And then I also got one of their chicken biscuits which was super, super good, like they really thick chunk piece of chicken. Oh yeah, the biscuit was good.

Speaker 1:

They don't promote it all that much, but for lunches they have a grilled chicken sandwich and it is awesome.

Speaker 2:

That sounds good. Oh, now I'm starting to get hungry. It's only 11 am, almost lunchtime. Oh, I guess, I guess I know where I'm going for lunch. Yeah right, exactly, cool, all right, well, um, that is all for right now. So if you have not subscribed yet, go ahead and click the subscribe button and we will see you next week.

Speaker 1:

Sounds good, see everybody.