Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Iron Culture podcast. It is me, Eric Trexler, joined. I was going to say, as

always, joined as occurs on occasion by the Dr. Eric Helms. I feel terrible. We had the countdown going, I had to cut you off.

We were just talking cats, and I was so enthused about hearing more about your cat,

but we'll have to chat about that after the episode maybe.

But Helms, it is so lovely to see you back on the Iron Culture podcast,

where you belong as one of the original founders of

the culture itself. Helms, you've been away a while. You've been doing things. You've maintained

your love for the iron and the culture for which it stands. So I'm not going to disparage you,

but I do want to hand you the floor and the microphone and say, Helms,

what in the world have you been up to and what are the updates?

You know what?

This is one of those episodes where it's good vibes only and any banter is going to be good

natured.

And I like that we're not even keeping the pretense up of there being this, this problem,

this fissure in the cult, because we are united. And I want to first express that, well,

I have been away. I have greatly appreciated that you have held down, not one, but two solo episodes

as we had some scheduling issues with guests. And I felt bad, but I was also just impressed at how well you did and your willingness and your calmness with rolling 100% solo on episodes because it's not easy.

I've done it a few times and kind of monologging and talking about a topic.

It's difficult to do to make that still feel conversational and like a fireside chat with

the listener and buddy you pulled it off so first off excellent work you know what's well I appreciate

that but you know what's really amazing to me Helms I don't know if you've ever like you know

some people usually just comes down to like what your occupational history has been,

...