Ep 40: Meet Ed Kaiser, the Man That Keeps Us Out of Trouble

William Huffman  0:00  
Hey everybody, William here and Sarah and we just need to let you know that we are licensed real estate agents in the state of Minnesota with REMAX results of Good Life Group and that's our legal disclaimer. Everybody, William here and today we're speaking with Adam. Man we go from Duluth to Eau Claire to law school and Menards. It's amazing. When I'm

Ed Kaiser  0:24  
zealously defending the interests of rematch results. That doesn't mean I necessarily go to fisticuffs with every single person who comes across sometimes sometimes doing with the best interests we match results with being polite and being nice. Why

William Huffman  0:39  
am I getting this side? I

Ed Kaiser  0:40  
apologize. You know, like, you know, that

William Huffman  0:43  
I am feeling

Accouncer  0:47  
welcome to Life behind the highlight reel, the podcast that takes things beyond the curated life we all see online. Join hosts, Sarah and William Huffman, as they dive in with their friends to talk about the good and the hard things that come with a real not perfect life behind the highlight reel.

William Huffman  1:06  
Everybody will hear and Sarah and ed ed. Oh, Ed, thank you for joining us today. Happy to be here.

Sarah Huffman  1:15  
We are in the presence of Ed, that Ed stir the editor Rooney, the ED Kaiser,

William Huffman  1:19  
so say,

Sarah Huffman  1:20  
actually, I'm really excited that you're here because not only are you the amazing REMAX results, legal counsel, but I think you're also a pretty cool guy. Wow.

Ed Kaiser  1:29  
I think that's debatable, but mostly we should

Sarah Huffman  1:31  
have had your wife on Yeah,

Ed Kaiser  1:33  
we can tell you the truth. She really

William Huffman  1:34  
no, no, he's not. Don't Don't don't float his ego.

Sarah Huffman  1:37  
If our listeners would like to hear from Mrs. Kaiser, please let us know.

William Huffman  1:42  
That's awesome. All right, man. We'll hear. Yes, you're our legal counsel. That's super cool. Great. But we want to hear about you like Where were you born? Where did you grow up? Tell

Sarah Huffman  1:51  
us about things that aren't on the resume.

William Huffman  1:53  
It's super fun stuff.

Ed Kaiser  1:55  
Born and raised. Duluth, Minnesota. Oh, yeah.

William Huffman  1:58  
Don't you know really?

Ed Kaiser  2:00  
Yes. The frigid

William Huffman  2:02  
burr I just thought for okay, it's not

Ed Kaiser  2:05  
that I thought no, I thought it was normal. Like growing up, you know, swing Lake Superior and you're you know, and then down south and it was like south to the cities. Yeah. And oh, seasons. Interesting. Like summer. That's cool. Yeah, so that's a fun thing.

Sarah Huffman  2:19  
Because you don't get spring in Duluth.

Ed Kaiser  2:21  
And when I first when I was getting finishing up law school, you know, trying to find a first job I did interview at a firm up there and we were kind of out there my wife and I just like I don't think we can do this another backup here. I don't know if it's gonna work for us and okay.

Sarah Huffman  2:39  
I knew well was jumping in Yeah, we gotta

William Huffman  2:40  
we gotta back it up. We already talked about law school. Come on. We haven't even gotten into first grade yet. So where did you go to school? Where do you live? What your parents do any siblings?

Ed Kaiser  2:49  
Yeah. Oh. So I My parents are both educators. Fire teachers. Okay. And then my dad got his master's degree and he was a administrator for the Duluth public schools. Okay,

William Huffman  3:02  
what's the what's the mascot for the school you went to?

Ed Kaiser  3:05  
For high school was the Duluth East greyhounds fighting greyhounds? The ferocious greyhounds? I don't know. But yeah, I grew up on the east side of Duluth I guess there's east side and went to the the cake eater school Duluth

William Huffman  3:23  
east. Well, isn't the east side of Duluth Wisconsin?

Ed Kaiser  3:27  
Well, it's it's northeast it goes it goes up across up the upper the shore. What's your favorite

Sarah Huffman  3:32  
kind of cake towards

William Huffman  3:33  
Betty pies?

Ed Kaiser  3:34  
Yeah, towards Betty's pies. And as a anything with ice cream?

Sarah Huffman  3:38  
I'm sorry. So now you live in.

Ed Kaiser  3:42  
I know. I know. I went from one one to the next cake eater of the of the north shore to the real the true

William Huffman  3:49  
that you can we do need attention. Okay, so going to school folks are educators.

Ed Kaiser  3:56  
No older brother and a younger sister. Oh, yeah. My brother now lives down down in the cities to my sister and it's with his family. My sister and her family are up in Duluth.

Sarah Huffman  4:05  
So you're the middle child? Yes. Is it what they Is it true for you? The middle child?

William Huffman  4:09  
What is what is the same for middle children? Their pains in the ass?

Sarah Huffman  4:14  
It all just kind of depends. I'm the baby. Yeah,

William Huffman  4:17  
but you don't get treated like the baby. No, no. I don't know.

Ed Kaiser  4:21  
I would you'd have to ask my siblings. What? What is your older brother do? He is in sort of in the graphic design tech space. You kind of I actually don't know what he does anymore. He keeps getting promoted and doing different things. Okay, just boss level. Yeah, you know, a lot of UX UI type of and then not just the graphic design of websites stuff. Now he's involved more in the building.

Sarah Huffman  4:47  
Infrastructure. It's a different mind. They didn't have a sister.

Ed Kaiser  4:51  
My sister is a Youth and Family minister for the church that we went through growing up with Tinker church or the Good Shepherd club into the was

William Huffman  5:00  
awesome good old Lutheran boy from up north dairy. All the lutefisk

Sarah Huffman  5:05  
Minnesotan Minnesota in the Lutheran? Yeah, dish.

William Huffman  5:09  
Yeah, you literally fit the mold for every stereotype from Minnesota. It's fantastic. Well done.

Sarah Huffman  5:17  
Where'd you go to college?

Ed Kaiser  5:18  
So then I went to college at UW Eau Claire.

William Huffman  5:21  
Oh my can i So what did you What did you do in high school? Do you play any sports? Were you a nerd? Were you a job? Like,

Sarah Huffman  5:26  
were you travel? Do ya? Are

Ed Kaiser  5:28  
you a rebel did not get in trouble. I did play a lot of sports, basketball, football baseball rack. Oh, I was probably one of the few people who are from Duluth who never picked up a hockey stick. Yeah, that's actually quite surprising. So we skied my parents were ski patrollers spirit mountain, so we would spend the weekends and a lot of time in the winter skiing. So

William Huffman  5:47  
they have Did you ever get in trouble for that? Or did you sometimes get out of trouble because of that? Oh,

Ed Kaiser  5:51  
yeah. Yeah, well, between that and then be administrators. I was, you know, bulletproof. Or whenever I was gonna get in trouble. My dad probably knew first before I got the laptop, or whatever.

William Huffman  6:04  
Wow. Okay, cool. So that's, that's the that's a cool fact that your parents were ski patrol. See? That's what I like to hear. That's some Cooper's super cool. Yeah. So ski patrol, they

Sarah Huffman  6:14  
have like the cones do they set up like, pe like phys ed like activities in your yard?

Ed Kaiser  6:20  
Well, yeah, I mean, we always had we always had a surplus of bouncy balls. Yeah, like ridiculous just random things like images. I can just picture like our garage had like a we have a like a unicycle and pogo sticks and stilts. And just all these activities, random stuff. Like flat, you know, flags for flag football, something we still have to this day, which is something that's just amazing to have is one of those big.

Unknown Speaker  6:48  
parachutes. No, you doll. My popcorn.

Ed Kaiser  6:51  
Yeah, weirdly. And when you know, my kids and my siblings, kids and stuff, it's just like, there is nothing that is more hilarious for them to

Sarah Huffman  7:00  
do when you could like popcorn or just having that thing and then you get to go under. Yeah,

Ed Kaiser  7:05  
exactly.

William Huffman  7:06  
Or when you play shark? You guys replay shark? Oh, yeah. And yeah, Sony pulls it. Yeah. And then you'd have to try them as life you would have to try and save you before you get pulled in.

Ed Kaiser  7:14  
Right? No way. Yeah. So just having like, stuff like that, because they had they had access to to the fire teachers.

Sarah Huffman  7:21  
Closet, right. Yeah.

William Huffman  7:23  
It just, we retire and this does walked out with us.

Sarah Huffman  7:26  
I'm taking my parachute. A

Ed Kaiser  7:28  
little little like, pieces of square plastic with the four wheels on the bottom where you sit on it? Oh, yeah. No. Yeah. Stuff like that. And so we always had plenty and things like that.

Sarah Huffman  7:38  
And is that how they met was like through like, good question.

Ed Kaiser  7:41  
They met at UMD. Okay, my dad was a football player. And my mom was a cheerleader. Of

William Huffman  7:47  
course. Okay. Wow. All this all the stereotypes. Just fantastic. He's from

Ed Kaiser  7:52  
he was born and raised in New Hope. Okay, so he went up and he went up to Duluth and our crystal sorry, Crystal. Yeah. Right. Next up, went up there and played for velocity we Oh.

William Huffman  8:08  
That's, that's freaking awesome. Okay, so high school. Bulletproof teachers administrators doing awesome. We graduated high school like Were you a good student and average student

Ed Kaiser  8:20  
that's pretty good. Pretty good. I could have done better I think but I you know, I was having fun do my own you know, doing doing other stuff playing playing sports and everything.

Sarah Huffman  8:29  
Where did your family go for vacation?

Ed Kaiser  8:33  
We would, you know, educator salaries so we would not let we look back in this and laugh we would go we would drive out to like Big Sky Montana and go skiing in the spring and we'd all have to sit there as we'd go through one of those condos spiels for a couple of hours. And when we did that we got you know, three or four nights stay at the resort and Big Sky and you know, skiing or being resourceful I like it or we pile into the van and drive to Florida or, you know, my relatives live in DC so we go to drive out there it was road trip and yes, when we have a big Astro van no seatbelts.

William Huffman  9:09  
Oh, the Chevy Astro van or night

Sarah Huffman  9:12  
we had the station wagon with the two seats that looked out the back. Yeah, that was and then we had the minivan where my brothers would never give me a seat. So like, you know where like you would shut the door and there was like that little spot. Yeah, that's where I could sit.

William Huffman  9:26  
No. Are you serious? Yeah. Rude.

Sarah Huffman  9:31  
All the way to tell you ride safe.

William Huffman  9:33  
Safe. super safe. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Yeah. So many laws that were broken. Alright, so used to used cars

Sarah Huffman  9:39  
used to carpool or you guys we did. My mom was a teacher as well. And my dad was a heavy equipment mechanic. So everything we did was where his family and we always drove Colorado and New York City. That's where we went.

William Huffman  9:53  
All right. So now we're high school. And did you did you like when you got out of high school were you like I'm gonna go straight to college or you're like, I'm gonna bomb around the US what happened right out of high school.

Ed Kaiser  10:05  
So, being the son of a football player who was also he was also one of my football coaches. I had some grand designs to go to to play football in college. My senior year, 18 year old kid, first day of practice was Captain the football team. I tore my ACL.

William Huffman  10:23  
Okay, hold on, you were captain of the football team. So how do you skim over that?

Sarah Huffman  10:29  
I mean, we should get Ed's autograph now. Yeah, well, so yeah,

Ed Kaiser  10:33  
I had some aspirations I don't even know if there were if I was gonna pan out but to go just get a to get a scholarship go play football somewhere. Yeah, right. I kind of that was my plan. I had good grades. And I was just banking on why wasn't necessarily banking on like a full ride, but I just wanted somebody to, hey, come play football for us, even if it was recruited, including UMD. My, my dad's alma mater, and everything else. So that was that was the plan. Didn't you know,

William Huffman  10:59  
but didn't want to have seen your practice that went to shit? Yep.

Ed Kaiser  11:03  
And that was tough. Right? I mean, so I missed I missed both my senior year football and basketball. And kind of threw my whole plans out the window, because I hadn't really been doing any research on colleges, because I had been waiting, you know,

Sarah Huffman  11:19  
they were coming for you. Yeah,

Ed Kaiser  11:20  
I was, you know, big everybody get everyone who put a lot of people play football, get the letters, but I had just like all these stacks of letters from, you know, from universities and stuff saying, hey, we'd be interested, let's set up, you know, something to talk about. It was very, very, very, you know, all of them. Were waiting to see what happens in your senior year. Yeah. And so that fell apart. And, you know, had to get surgery and everything else. And fortunately, some some schools still did reach out and UW Eau Claire with a coach, there was one of them. That just said, Hey, get, you know, get your knee right and come come down. It's a division three schools. It wasn't necessarily, you know, there wasn't scholarship options involved. And it wasn't not necessarily as high stress. And I'm glad for that, in hindsight, does that little art related back, I at that point in my life, that was just like the most important because it had been something that would have taken away from me after all those years of get back and be able to play again. So my goal was to just play like that was that was a priority, and then willing to you know, went into it. Oh, Claire, and there. It's a very good school. It turned out I had some friends that wanted to go there that didn't qualify, you know, didn't have the grades and have the AC t score. And I did so I was like, Alright, I guess I'm going Auclair do this. And it was far enough away. It was warmer, and

William Huffman  12:44  
it was just called Claire. Wisconsin. Warmer,

Ed Kaiser  12:47  
warmer than Duluth. It's

Sarah Huffman  12:48  
true. I liked that. It was warmer, I went south.

William Huffman  12:54  
I just want you guys to know that when we're in when you're in Duluth, you're farther north than the up of Michigan. I just want everybody to know that. That here and that sinkin here in Minneapolis, we're almost as high up as the start of the up of Michigan. Well, really

Sarah Huffman  13:13  
loves like geography, geographical, like latitude and longitudes, because we're on the 45th parallel so as Traverse City, Michigan, okay. It's Ed's turn, will

William Huffman  13:21  
and will more

Ed Kaiser  13:23  
and more so than the latitude or the longitude. It's the gigantic icebox of a lake that is sitting there that yeah, this is the the weather to be so yeah,

Sarah Huffman  13:33  
you mean the one where people don't float?

William Huffman  13:36  
Yeah, like the Yeah. Right. Yeah, dead bodies don't float in Lake Superior. In case you're wondering why because the bacteria required for decomposing to happen does not happen in the lake. So therefore, because it's the average temperature like 3435. So therefore, like the Edmund Fitzgerald, the soles are still down there. Like the song the end of this year old.

Ed Kaiser  13:59  
That is a banger of a song.

William Huffman  14:00  
It's a pretty darn good song. Yeah.

Sarah Huffman  14:02  
Okay, so wait a minute. I'd like to get to the juicy details. How did you meet your wife?

William Huffman  14:06  
Was it in college? It was okay. Now we can keep talking about it

Ed Kaiser  14:10  
in a little place called Applebee's?

Sarah Huffman  14:14  
No, it wasn't

Ed Kaiser  14:16  
sure we both work there. Applebee's in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Sarah Huffman  14:19  
I hate Applebee's.

Ed Kaiser  14:21  
Now I do too. Very much so.

Sarah Huffman  14:24  
So do you ever like go there and no date night?

Ed Kaiser  14:26  
We have not gotten there. We

William Huffman  14:28  
should all four of us. We've never been to Applebee's because she hates it because eat it and extroverts used to love Applebee's. Oh, God,

Sarah Huffman  14:35  
that'd be a bad decision in life.

William Huffman  14:38  
I'm a good one.

Sarah Huffman  14:40  
Today you are Yeah, isn't Apple be so like? Yeah, like did you like like have like, mozzarella sticks and like $5 Margarita? All in LA or what happened? Well,

Ed Kaiser  14:53  
you know, we just we, like all basically college kids work in there and I can't remember what I was doing at the time. Eventually I was bartending and stuff. And she was a server there. And

Sarah Huffman  15:04  
classic. Who asked you out?

Ed Kaiser  15:10  
We kind of went out as a group. She admitted initially, she thought it was a jerk or something. She's like, Oh, Jesus, you're just one of those dumb football players. And it took a while for us to, you know, you could show her your smarts and yeah, I had to, I had to win her over a little bit. She had just gotten back from, like, a three month not a mission trip, but like a volunteering thing in Ghana. Okay. So when I first started working there, she wasn't there. And then she came in, and it was talking like, oh, Katie's coming back. And I was like, who's Katie?

William Huffman  15:42  
Who's the new foods? Who's the fresh blood that doesn't know who I am?

Ed Kaiser  15:46  
And then yeah, and then, you know, just working next to each other for quite a while, like or not didn't take actually that long. And yeah, things happened pretty quickly, I guess. And the

Sarah Huffman  15:55  
rest is history.

William Huffman  15:57  
All right. So you're going to school, you're playing football? What are you going to school for at this time? Football.

Ed Kaiser  16:07  
I initially was going to be go to school for education. And I did you know, that was my major for a little while. And then, and now I just decided I wanted to do focus on what I liked, which was English. Really creative writing.

Sarah Huffman  16:21  
No, shoot. You changed your mind. Yeah,

William Huffman  16:26  
we keep it PG 13 We could drop the

Sarah Huffman  16:27  
creative writing, so they should see the look on his face right now. She's

William Huffman  16:31  
almost like just FIOS. This is fantastic. Amazing.

Sarah Huffman  16:34  
Okay, like which part of Creative Writing was like,

Ed Kaiser  16:37  
like prose. I wanted to, I want to write a book. I still want to write a book at some point. Yeah. But that was that was my I got I did a few like screenwriting. Okay. courses as well, you know, when it was a comprehensive English degree, so it was also a lot of literature and other stuff. And I know, eventually go to law school, and we can get to that point, but the reality is, I have no, I have no problems reading. Right. And it's my much preferred writing papers for grades as opposed to just taking a test for you know, just show yeah. comprehension. So

William Huffman  17:14  
what's your favorite type of reading?

Unknown Speaker  17:17  
Nonfiction fiction?

William Huffman  17:18  
Yeah, what type of fiction?

Ed Kaiser  17:21  
Yeah, sci fi. Okay, fantasy. I mean, the Game of Thrones. The series was was excellent. I do. I'm just like rereading some Isaac Asimov books, the foundation, stuff like that. And doing that kind of stuff

Sarah Huffman  17:34  
for Game of Thrones. Do you like the books? Or the TV show better? That's silly.

Ed Kaiser  17:38  
Well, the the ending of the TV Yeah. Yeah, the books are amazing. I was pretty excited when that?

William Huffman  17:44  
Have you read the books? Well, no, but I know people who have, like Big Mike. He's read the books, and I watched a lot of it with him. And he would explain the differences or if I miss something completely new and show yeah, you're a horrible human being for that. Come on, go. It's amazing.

Sarah Huffman  18:01  
So when you write your book, is it going to be fiction or nonfiction?

Ed Kaiser  18:05  
Well, I'm gonna have to write about real estate. I just, I think at this point, I've got too much. I'm too far into this at this, you know, it's gonna have to somehow be involved in this.

William Huffman  18:15  
Can it be it has to be a comedy. Yeah. It has to be a common because Good Lord, if we if we take this, I mean, yes, we take it seriously. But if we take this career any other way? I might cry.

Sarah Huffman  18:26  
I think you have. Yes. Okay. So you're gonna do something on real estate? And then would you would you ever write a sci fi? Or oh, man,

Ed Kaiser  18:37  
I don't I really don't think I have the chops to be able to, you know, just try to just throw together something that complicated. I think I'd have to, you know, because I think the thing the thing is, is like, like any other skill, it's like it's a, it's a muscle that you have to exercise and I have not exercise it enough. Have you ever really tried to sit down and write something like just freehand? Write something for

Sarah Huffman  19:00  
I have a book for Edie? I'm gonna give it to him today. What book? The one I just ordered on Amazon? Oh, gosh, of course. Yeah. Give it it's called the artists way. And it's about like finding your creative like writing creatively. I'm gonna give that to you. Well, you read it first, on all sorts of metrics. Yeah,

William Huffman  19:17  
we have multiple copies. We want

Sarah Huffman  19:18  
to Deena too, because we're it was one of those things where we just were talking about it and it's like, we need to find that creative. flow again. Alright,

William Huffman  19:26  
I'm bringing it back. Sorry, Ed. It's your turn ever right Katie? A poem or a love note or something like that?

Ed Kaiser  19:32  
Um, yeah, I think I wrote or some whenever I write or like, like a card or something like that. It's always something personal. She likes to hold on hold on. Yeah,

Sarah Huffman  19:44  
those are keepsakes. Will stopped on the day of our wedding doing that. Yeah.

William Huffman  19:51  
Oh, yeah. See, boom.

Sarah Huffman  19:53  
I got like cards. I got really nice like keepsake cards every day for like a week leading up to our wedding. Same day, and then it dropped.

William Huffman  20:02  
Yeah. Because he got me.

Sarah Huffman  20:07  
Okay, so sorry. How did you ask Katie to marry you?

Ed Kaiser  20:13  
We went, we were living at the time and Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Give you the backstory. We're living with her parents at the time because at this point, we also had a one year old.

William Huffman  20:24  
Whoa, hold on, we got a backup that we skipped. Okay.

Ed Kaiser  20:28  
You didn't You didn't bother to ask did you have any

Sarah Huffman  20:31  
children? I think I do. Remember this now that you mentioned it. Okay,

William Huffman  20:34  
so we're going to UW Ew,

Sarah Huffman  20:37  
they're working at Applebee's on Friday night.

Ed Kaiser  20:39  
Let's go Let's go.

William Huffman  20:42  
Writing love notes Super 20 Moving wooing the Katie. What happens you graduate? What you decide to do? You will live in together

Ed Kaiser  20:50  
prior to graduation. A gift arrived for us an unexpected little girl named we named Amelia. Okay. So, you know, we were in our early 20s and needed to finish school actually then took a year off from football to just work on school and work and save a bunch of money. And but you know, and then that's what happened when we moved to Chippewa, which was just the town outside of Eau Claire worked on finishing up school. And, and I had one semester left. And, you know, it's kind of important for me to not miss another one of my seniors, you know, my second the second round, so it was then it was five year finish off my last semester. Playing football. You know, and, and yeah, and then I think it was like the winter before that, that I took her on a walk. It was wintertime Chippewa Falls into this park called Irvine park. There's all these they put up all these Christmas lights and proposed to her on this pavilion where we got married. Oh, the yes, a year and a half later.

William Huffman  21:52  
Are you a sentimental softie? Oh, yeah, yeah, big time. Yeah. I'm not.

Sarah Huffman  21:59  
As you are telling me, buddy,

William Huffman  22:00  
I'm a hardest

Ed Kaiser  22:02  
I have trouble, like throwing anything away. Because I'm like, Oh,

Sarah Huffman  22:06  
okay. I have to ask, how was that like, being such a new parent at such like, a young age still in school? Like, were you in the dorms? Were you in an apartment together? Like, how did that work?

Ed Kaiser  22:18  
We were both living at the time when we're dating and everything else. Now that happened. We're both living with roommates in different houses. And so that was us moving in together. And, you know, figuring out, you know, for nine months getting ready to be parents, and then yeah, and and then being new young parents. That was, I don't know, I mean, I don't I don't know how to. It was be it is now very normal to me that that's just what the way our life was. I mean, it was it was real eye opening. And I think it just caused us both to grow up very, very quickly. You were already adults, but but we weren't adult adults. And then we had to become adult adults, we had to start really thinking about the future. That is the point. By the way, when I decided maybe going all Jack Kerouac and everybody and just traveling the world and writing books was not going to work out. Let me figure out what I shouldn't do with my life. And oh, how about law school? Like that's that was essentially when that decision, you know, was made as well. Your 2021

William Huffman  23:22  
At this time can be 22. Right? When the 23 Yeah, what? Amelia Amelia

Sarah Huffman  23:30  
Amelia and I like her name. How did you pick her name?

Ed Kaiser  23:36  
We I think we all we always kind of knew was going to be like an E name. And I don't know we we just it just sort of happened that we were trying to figure out it was Amelia and we liked the in short named me. i It was just it was really last minute. We were we were with our other two kids. Like when we when we wanted when we we knew that we knew our my son's name honors, like before he was even conceived like you just knew that that's where we're gonna call him. But yeah, it just sort of we heard it. We heard that somebody and like maybe Mike my extended family had that name. And then we're just like, oh, there it is. That's it. Yeah, it just, it just kind of No, yeah, just gonna happen.

Sarah Huffman  24:16  
So when you were young kids like that. How was that telling your parents?

Ed Kaiser  24:21  
Terrifying?

William Huffman  24:22  
I was gonna go there to like, Hey, Ma, you know, this football player who's a bartender at Applebee's?

Ed Kaiser  24:29  
Yeah, I went to my mom first. And I told her, and you know, she gave me a big hug and said everything be fine. And then she went told my dad and you know, like, just kind of like, it was. Yeah, that was a that was an interesting time and then had to have the parents meet and everything else. And I was obviously now like, everything's great. Yeah, they're in LA as my parents and Katie's parents are, you know, we hang out all the time. And you know, it's, it's all good, but it was where her parents from they're from Chippewa Falls.

Sarah Huffman  24:59  
Well Scott's Okay, okay, because they moved in with the parents.

William Huffman  25:03  
Are they still there? Yep. Okay, no, you're right. If I would have been focusing on the detail, I would have remembered that.

Sarah Huffman  25:09  
But your parents, they're still in Duluth,

Ed Kaiser  25:10  
they are still in Duluth.

Sarah Huffman  25:11  
So you like for holidays? Sorry. I know. I'm moving along here but like for holidays, do they come to you? Or do you travel to them?

Ed Kaiser  25:18  
We swell especially in the summer, we do a lot of traveling up to go up to up there. Well, we're starting a actually kitchen remodel Monday at my house. So hopefully that will mean more of the holidays events will be at our house. Nice. That would be that's that's kind of one of the goals. Do you like the holidays? I love the holiday. Okay. And it'd be, it'd be fun to you know, we are, you know, siblings, Kate, like Katie's brother and his wife coming to town and they're in the military. So they're moving around all the time. But they're always, you know, come crash with us. And yeah, and they hold us for some holidays and stuff. I would like to start traveling for more holidays. Like, instead of just sitting at home, like go to somewhere warm more often in the wintertime. So we'll see if we can pull it off. I heard that other people do that, too. So yes, it can

Sarah Huffman  26:10  
get can be done. Yeah, it can happen. Yeah. Okay, so now, I had a question. So Katie, your is your wife. You've got Amelia, you get married? How where'd you go for law school?

William Huffman  26:22  
Yeah. When did you get married? This is before law school after law school. What did she do for school did she graduate.

Ed Kaiser  26:28  
And she had graduated around the same time she she was going to school to be a CT technologist to you know, getting a CT scan. Okay. Yeah, yep. And, you know, I remember applying for law school doing all that stuff. We got married. And in August 2007. We went on a little short little honeymoon, up to shore for a couple of days. And I remember coming back, and then just looking at my email, it was like August 15, or something like that. And I was like, holy bleep. Law school starts on Monday. No way. I just, I had just in my mind thought it's going to be after labor or something like that. And so we're still living Scots, like, we hadn't looked at where we're going to, like, you know, oh, we're gonna move or anything else like that? Fortunately, kind of. Yeah. No, just obviously the wedding and everything else. It you know, it all just happened, like, and then I was suddenly driving to St. Paul. William Mitchell in St. Paul. Yeah. And then, you know, Katie got a job. Her first job was in. What does that it's not Redwing. What is a male River Falls, River Falls hospital there. And so we were just trying to figure out when we landed a, we found a nice little rental in St. Paul, right off right near the university off of some other kind of Summit Avenue area. And we were there for I don't know, a couple of years before we bought a house but and then started with law school. Katie was working. She was supporting us, you know, through that whole time. And yeah,

Sarah Huffman  28:04  
gosh, that's amazing. So what did you learn from all of that? Like? Law school getting married? Parenting? Oh, man. Well, I mean, even back to your like, injury? Yeah, like, those are a lot of things that happened in a very compact time. Yeah. And

Ed Kaiser  28:20  
Katie, Katie will tell tell anyone that about it like that. She would always be like, I would just go to law school, like it was my job. So I would just get up in the morning. Nice. Bring it bring me to daycare, go to school study. There's a couple of classes every day, but you know, lots of study time and I would be home by dinner, and then be done. Yep. Right. And you talk to all these other people, like they're cramming last minute for exams and doing all this other stuff. And I just didn't have the I didn't have the energy first of all to stay up late and study, but I also just didn't. When he got a little two year old, like, tugging on your pant, like you can't you can't study like you just you just can't. So that was just the way I approached it. I will sort of somewhat I think credit like things like playing football and stuff, because it just taught me that daily discipline, you know, and I just had, I think way more energy than I do now. But I mean, it was just sort of get up every day and grind and, and do your thing. Right? And, and it just it was I don't know, it's I don't just I didn't I wasn't a like a 4.0 student by any stretch and Mitchell but I did just fine. And it was once you figured out what you're supposed to be doing in law school. It was it took me a good semester, the first semester to figure it out. I was I was I was like, Okay, I get it. I get it. Now I understand the purpose. And I can explain that in a little more in a second. But then then it was, you know, full full ahead steam ahead and I just I knew what to do. I knew how to focus and then and I end up graduating early semester early because I just kept taking took some summer classes and some other things but but so so so to elaborate on that point about law school, it takes you a while to figure out because your read you all you all they do is they give you a book that's full of cases. And you read this case, and then they do this the Socratic method where the law professor will just like call on someone at random and say, what was the what was the, you know, tell me about the facts of this case? What was the legal issue? And then you're supposed to sort of be able to because it doesn't, it doesn't spell that out, you have to articulate interpret and what that is, they purposely don't in these books, like just tell you the legal issue in this thing is in contract formation is whether or not it was the mirror image rule. And those two contracts were identical, right? They just give you a case. And you have to read it and sort of interpret not Intuit, but figure that out. And then the other part of the Socratic method is that a lot a lot, professors will just push you on an issue, maybe tweaked the facts a little bit, well, what about this, but what about this, and they're trying they their, their whole point is to make it ambiguous and see where you see how you handle being challenged. Right?

Sarah Huffman  31:10  
They handle that pressure? Yeah.

Ed Kaiser  31:12  
And, you know, you're doing it in front of your type class, and everyone would, you know, get done with like, oh, my god, that was so scary or whatever. And but it was like, it took me a while because I would see other people studying and writing down like, all these notes and stuff like that. And, you know, and then I, we had to contract midterms and I did, okay, but not great. One of my first first midterm exam, and then I know then I did we have this other exam was torts, which is torts Are they like assault and battery and theft? You know, just all the

William Huffman  31:46  
all the crimes? I totally know what you talking about? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And that

Ed Kaiser  31:48  
one, that one, which I had for, I don't know, for whatever reason, I was not a part of any study group. For that class. All the other group, I was like, studying with other people and trying to do what they were doing. And in that class towards I got an A, like, a perfect score. And I'm like, okay, so forget what they were doing. Yeah. Stop focusing on them. Do what I did in that class. Yeah. And then and then, like I said, that's when it kind of just clicked. And I got law school. I mean, it just kind of understood the point. Yeah. Right. And, and then, you know, a couple years later, I'm studying for the bar exam, which was really fun. Being dead serious. Yeah. I enjoyed it.

Sarah Huffman  32:30  
Well, because you like to read Yeah, like, rule, but because at that point, it's a puzzle, you didn't figure it out?

Ed Kaiser  32:36  
Well, at that point, when you're when you go to law school, you can pick so many classes, you can focus on certain things. But as a general matter, you just get a general degree, you don't even necessarily study all of the different elements that are going to be on the law bar exam. So for example, if you really wanted to be a criminal prosecutor, you could focus on criminal law and evidence and those things. But at the law bar exam is going to ask you about real estate, real property, they're going to ask you about constitutional law, they're going to ask you about like, you know, probate and like just different elements that a generalist lawyer would want to know, right. And so when you're, when you take a bar exam prep class, you pay for it, they actually just teach you everything, you don't have to read the cases, they just teach you the things, which is like, well, this would have been nice.

William Huffman  33:22  
I should have took this prep class in a semester, but

Sarah Huffman  33:25  
the bar exam, yeah.

Ed Kaiser  33:27  
Oh, so these are, these are just the these are the cheat codes. Like now you've finished all the reading and everything else to learn which the purpose is to learn how to be a lawyer, to learn how to read a case, analyze it and apply it in a given situation. But once you have that skill set, because you've been doing it for a couple years, then they then they're like, oh, by the way, if you want to learn how, you know basic, the basics of any element of the law for bugs, I'm just here you go like so, you know, all those different things that you maybe you didn't necessarily study. Once I had that. It's like you cracked the code, a couple had a couple of stacks of flashcards about, you know, foot and a half high. And I would just study those and prep through those. And then and then the other part about bar exam is kind of like the LSAT or other standardized testing, they're a little bit of what they do is they teach you how to take tests, yes. Which would be something that would be really nice for a lot of kids to learn. But the multiple choice exam, like how they try to trick you, you know, with certain things like there are different types of types of questions. Some questions are straightforward other ones they're trying to buy as starting the sentence in a certain way. They're trying to get you to think that that test questions about the nature it's and so when I'm taking the bar exam, like, Oh, I got you on that one. Like I was just like, Nope, not gonna trick me on that one. No, no, no. And then the most disappointing thing was they don't tell you what your score was. They just tell if you passed or not really rude. I know. And I was just like, I frickin nailed it. I really wish I could figure out a way to just to just to know, because

Sarah Huffman  35:03  
so did you know that you were going to go into real estate law?

William Huffman  35:05  
No. Okay, so that was a good question. Sorry. That's what I was going. That's what I was what? No, don't be sorry. That's great question. Well,

Ed Kaiser  35:11  
it's interesting, because that was my favorite class Real Property Law. Professor Edwards was one of his great teachers. One of my favorite classes, I just found it fascinating. Because it was real, like real, what it was like, Yeah, you were talking about these, this made up concepts, we're just talking about land, it was very easy to just understand that and be able to visualize that. So I liked it. But I Well, in law school, I started as a clerk for the Ramsey County Attorney's Office in their civil division.

William Huffman  35:40  
What does it what does it clerk

Sarah Huffman  35:42  
do? They're just runners

Ed Kaiser  35:44  
unpaid are not very well paid half lawyers, like you do certain things that you you know, I did some hearings and things like some pretty low stakes, procedural hearings and stuff like that. A lot of studying just are like research things like hey, go find out about this, or do do some research about that. So just a lot of grunt work stuff, but it was, you know, based upon your legal expertise as a second year, second, third year, law student how

William Huffman  36:12  
many how many years? So you get your Is it a four year degree? Then you go to law school?

Ed Kaiser  36:16  
Three, Oh, yeah. four year degree, just a bachelor's degree. That took me four and a half. And then and then a three year generally a three year degree I got done a little bit early.

Sarah Huffman  36:26  
Alright, seven years, and I just want to like go back like that is really impressive. Not only to like, just finish it so quickly, but then also to like, have finished it with a baby. Like, that's a lot to manage. And to do well and to do quickly. It was so weird. It wasn't there fun in

William Huffman  36:45  
there. Slept

Ed Kaiser  36:48  
anything that didn't involve expending a lot of money. Yeah.

Sarah Huffman  36:52  
Yeah, we didn't even talk about the finances of any of this.

Ed Kaiser  36:56  
Student loans or they're a real deal. Yeah, real thing. But now, we well, we lived in St. Paul at the time and it's a great community we you know, we just, obviously we little little kiddos just everything, just lots of walks and parks and all that stuff. And we definitely leaned on our parents a ton. Yeah, we would. Any chance that we could get we were going to one of their places so that we could, you know, get a little bit of a breather for like, here. You

Sarah Huffman  37:23  
take a nap. Yeah,

Ed Kaiser  37:25  
exactly. And so and then they were to definitely come to visit every everybody in the family really rallied around us. And

William Huffman  37:30  
that's really cool. That's awesome.

Sarah Huffman  37:32  
Yeah, that was I love that.

William Huffman  37:34  
Okay, so we've graduated a law school early. Even you may meet up for years, your second senior year in your four year. You're doing some clerking, which is basically poorly paid grunt work. What's what happens next? Were you so you're living in St. Paul? Yep. When do you buy your first house? Because you said 2007 That's pretty close to a time that we all know and recognize.

Ed Kaiser  38:01  
Yeah, it was 2000 I think it was 2009. So you're still in loss. I was still in loss. I think I was still in law school. I must have been. Or maybe it was just after I graduate kind of time. kind of runs together a little bit. So I still and I still after I graduate. I still worked for Ramsey County for a year as but it was 2010 ish at that point. Not a great time in general matters. Not a great time to be a lawyer necessarily either. And so my position as a assistant county does a temporary assistant county attorney it wasn't a formal job. Basically just ran its term it was a year year long thing and then they just said you look we're you know, we're not hiring permanently. So good luck to you go you know, good luck.

William Huffman  38:48  
You out. Deuces.

Ed Kaiser  38:49  
Yeah, so are in Yeah, well say 2000 I remember because we qualified as first time homebuyers for what what was it like a $7,000 tax credit used to buy appliances so we bought this you know two story kind of tutor type house you know, you see it very standard, you know, built in the 19 early 30s in in in the east side of St. Paul near Milton. You're like feeling

Sarah Huffman  39:18  
the nice built ins Yeah.

Ed Kaiser  39:20  
Stuff like that. Yeah, so just had big brick it was stuck on the exterior big brick fireplace on the front of it you know you just you see those houses are all around there. Yep. Very very commonly designed. So we bought that house and we were there I don't know three four years so and then what happened was first my time it Yeah, it was definitely before that cuz remember riding the bus down from on down arcade street all the way down to downtown St. Paul did my job. And and then when that that job kind of vanished than Next job I got was for Menards. And their legal department weighed the save big money at Menards. It was it was pretty tough going to find work. Okay. And, and so this is this is 2009 2010 and you say something like that. Yeah, maybe No, it's 2011 at this point because an 11 Still not the greatest not great time. And so got it, you know, interview and they offered a job at Menards in Eau Claire. Right. That's where their corporate headquarters.

William Huffman  40:30  
So obviously, you moved to our Claire? No,

Ed Kaiser  40:33  
of course you did drove every day, have a drive was that 90 minutes each way? Oh, my God, were the hours that that job they you know, they were they have their own structure, which was eight to five, eight to five. Yeah, every day. So I was, you know, up and up and driving way before and this was around the time my son was born in 2010. And there was, I worked for Menards for less than a year. But during that time, I basically didn't see him except for weekends. But at the time, my wife at that point was working, which was called the baler shift, which was for Northwestern Hospital, which she worked. She stayed home with the kids all day, every day. And then she worked overnights on the weekends.

Sarah Huffman  41:21  
So then you saw you never on the weekend, I had my

Ed Kaiser  41:24  
kids, but I did not see my wife at all for about a year. This was

William Huffman  41:30  
this was the dark time, but at least you are making that fantastic lawyer money. Right? Well, I

Ed Kaiser  41:35  
won't get into that. But it wasn't it wasn't great.

William Huffman  41:37  
I you told me he told me having over a cocktail before,

Sarah Huffman  41:41  
but I think this is what you pay for gas. I think so many people see like lawyers, like what that title and they just assume oh, they just blah, blah, blah, like no, you don't know what it took to get where you are because a lot of people won't sacrifice a 90 minute commute each way. A lot of people won't sacrifice. Like not seeing your kids until the weekends. Oh, and by the way, now you see your kids but you're not going to see your wife because she's sleeping. Yeah.

Ed Kaiser  42:08  
Wow. A lot. Yeah. And if I would have gone a different route, like I mean, a private practice route, which they weren't hiring it very much at the time. But they you know, you build over many hours, you're working 80 hours a week anyway, probably the same thing, right? Instead of driving. I'm just we've just been working. Yeah. Medicare paid better. But

Sarah Huffman  42:27  
did you when you drove like, so people say to us all the time, like, Oh, you guys drive all the time? Yeah. But I actually now listen to books. Like,

Ed Kaiser  42:34  
you know, full circle. You know, what I listened to, like, got me through that. That was when right when they announced the Game of Thrones was going to be a TV show. That's when I got into it. Yeah, that. I don't know, eight months stretch where I was working for him. I was listening to those books on tape name and you know, and reading it on my breaks. And it was just like it was that was that was one of my like, emotional like releases because it was just a really hard time. Yeah. And I just remember like, that was the only thing the only things that got me through that was those books. Yeah.

William Huffman  43:07  
I have a feeling when you when you say it was a really hard time, you're downplaying how intense of a time that was in your life. And I'm not asking you to go into that just kind of knowing you a little bit. Yeah, like if it wasn't really hard time. A lot of us would be like, holy effing crap. I'm freaking out here. That's kind of what I envisioned when you say it was a really hard time. Yeah, it was. Yeah.

Sarah Huffman  43:30  
So how'd you make it out of that really hard? Yeah. What

William Huffman  43:32  
was next?

Ed Kaiser  43:33  
Then what net? Well, next I actually, you know, I interviewed I was offered a job and I was going to take a job just in just some workers comp law firm, but it was back in the cities it was going to pay better. It was just anything. And then by some miracle, and they've told me this I have a stack of this high like a foot high of resumes. I was one of the finalists that was selected in different interviews and I end up getting the job at a diner Realty. For what is one of their in house counsel. Okay, yeah. So. And it was crazy, because it was just like, I walked out. I remember walking in with that first interviewing, like, this is like, I just knew it was gonna happen. I just knew it. Just it just you could just feel it. It was just almost inevitable. It was just the universe's kind of telling me that this is this is going to happen. I still was terrified that I was like wasn't going to get the job. But it was, but it was just was perfect. The legal team there, Mark and CJ. They're they're both excellent guys, great lawyers. They're great partners to and I learned a ton from them. And that's really I think having a commercial real estate background that I did. And then I think they definitely just saw I've got the right personality. Yeah, for doing this job. Absolutely. Which is not something that everybody if you just having a law degree doesn't make you do it. It wouldn't make you necessarily good at certain things. Right. And, and so yeah, it kind of the rest of us. history. I was there for a while I was in as in house counsel for a diner for seven years. And then I became a broker and managed an office for a couple of years. And then about a year and change ago, someone called me and, you know, offered offered a job here at REMAX results. And

William Huffman  45:19  
so I want to talk more about about this because you said that Mr. Edwards or your favorite professor was the law guy or the was the real estate guy. And it was it was last name? Edwards. Edwards. Okay. All right. So when you got this job, did it is real estate law now that you've been doing it for a very long time? Anything like you thought it would be back in school? No,

Sarah Huffman  45:49  
I wouldn't. I wouldn't. William Hoffman, that would be like storytime.

Ed Kaiser  45:54  
Based upon what I learned about in real property law, I thought it would have been all sorts of eminent domains and adverse possessions and you know, yeah, yeah. The rule against perpetuity is another kind of crazy, legal things that you have to learn, but they're the only things that lawyers would need to learn that in reality don't happen anymore. Because of things like modern technology. Yeah. But no, and there, there was actually a residential real estate class that I never took. Because it was at I think it was at like, 730 in the morning.

William Huffman  46:25  
Yeah. No. It's too early.

Ed Kaiser  46:30  
But, but it was, but it actually in reality, it's more a lot more contracts law. Yeah. Right. Which I'm so mad that I threw I threw away my old law school books I would kill to have my old contracts. law book still, just because there's so many little nuggets in there. They're like, in cases and stuff like that. I think that as a nerd law nerd I have to have access to, but I'll go

Sarah Huffman  46:57  
to Amazon and re Oh, yeah,

Ed Kaiser  46:59  
I mean, I'm sure I can find, like a US law school book. Next. We're worth next to nothing.

Sarah Huffman  47:04  
I mean, when you need them, they're probably like hundreds of dollars. Right?

Ed Kaiser  47:06  
Yeah. You want a new one? Yes. They're quite expensive. Because they update one, like one case or something like that. But But yeah, and then and then that's all the rest of it, actually, I mean, the torts and, you know, the civil procedure, and all the rest of it's just those general concepts that, you know, people call me because they don't know what to do, right. Whether it's like a dog bite, or, you know, probate or god knows what else, right. And so the I think the idea is knowing what, knowing where to look for things, and then just having a general general understanding of everything is, is really, you know, what I rely upon, right? So just, I'm not an expert in copyright or patent law, but I know enough to be dangerous. Yep. Right. And that's, that's, that's kind of, so that's everything that you learned, you know, in.

Sarah Huffman  47:51  
Okay, question. Question. Question. When in law school, how do they teach you how to like, keep your cool during trial? I should take, like riled up like, how do you like balance your emotions when you when you see things? Or?

Ed Kaiser  48:08  
Yeah, well, that's knowing that well, in the no, they don't teach any of that. Right. And they also don't really talk about I don't think I don't remember, the fact that a lot of people will end like, becoming a lawyer is a as a business owner. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Understand? And, you know, I don't know that a lot of people go to law school. I certainly didn't, with the idea of being an entrepreneur. Now, plenty of people failing, and people do, right. Yeah, you get into criminal law, you get into certain things, you hang up your own shingle, and you start figuring that out, are you by necessity, you just sort of have to, but, and maybe I'm completely off base, but just sort of that whole component of it. But thinking about, like, how would I do this, whether it's starting a firm or if you're a litigator? Like how do I play the character in a trial? And the reality is that's, like, that's something that's not talked about, but the great ones, they are actors. Yeah, they're they're performing on stage right? Doing the thing like half of winning a case is looking like you're the winner. Right looking like you're in control, because juries will pick up on that type of

William Huffman  49:20  
stuff. Glove does not fit you must acquit Mr. Cochran. So so

Ed Kaiser  49:25  
they don't really I mean, not certainly not my school, I mean, basically, they just taught you the basics, but that allows you to figure the rest out for yourself and be the kind of lawyer that you want to be you can be sort of as flamboyant or not as you want to write if you're going to be a litigator you can be super feisty, you can be an ST and it's again, same truths with like real estate, you can be a bulldog and not give an inch ever. And you're gonna be known as that person. And if you think that that's the best way to serve your clients, go for it, right. You can go a different route to you're just we like, as real As attorneys, we have our fiduciary duty we have we have the duty to zealously defend our clients interest. And then that gives you a lot of flexibility in how you approach that. Right? When you're when I'm zealously defending the interests of REMAX results, that doesn't mean I necessarily go to fisticuffs with every single person who comes across sometimes sometimes doing what's best interests, ReMax results as being polite, you know, being nice.

William Huffman  50:27  
Why am I getting this side? I

Ed Kaiser  50:28  
apologize, you know, like, you know, that I am feeling person outside.

William Huffman  50:35  
I feel personally attacked, I'm just,

Sarah Huffman  50:37  
I'd like to file a complaint. Okay, this might be more of a woowoo question. What do you do to like, when you when you see people going through things? Because obviously, there have been times where we've needed an attorney, or people might need an attorney, and there's like fear? Yeah. And they're scared and all of that, how do you like, protect your own well being while serving these other people with going through maybe some questions, tough stuff?

Ed Kaiser  51:03  
I don't know, if I can I get I get pretty attached, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's a lot easier to Nyjah to read, it's easy to focus on the numbers, when it's about numbers. Like if it's a lawsuit, it's like, okay, it's gonna cost us X number of dollars to defend this bubble. You know, just like, we just had to make some hard choices, but it's basically it's just about money. At the end of the day, it's almost always about money. But occasionally, there are other things that are a little bit more difficult to deal with. And especially when it comes to defending like, you know, whether it's a consumer who's starts posting, you know, offensive things, I bought an agent like on social media or trying to, you know, or you know, whether it's an ethics complaint, commerce complaint, anything things like that, which were a real tour, one of our one of my people was being attacked and their livelihood is being threatened. That's a little bit more difficult to remain objective, because you see it, you just see it and, and part of it is like, we're not perfect, we do mess up sometimes. And I do try to intervene and fix those issues when I can. But other times when there's just, whether it's someone I think, who is overplaying their hand, or is or is maybe doing something in bad faith, maybe just because they want to say people will do crazy things to save $1,000 It's things that they wouldn't, you know, deep down they know they would be ashamed about but they will do just about anything for my man. Right. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. And and you see that happen. And it's like, you know, how can you do that and then walk into your church and

Sarah Huffman  52:39  
yeah, it's like, I have things to say about Yeah, it's

Ed Kaiser  52:43  
what's but but also it's, we deal with we deal in a setting real estate transaction, which is probably the most frustrating and scary and confusing person we'll deal with. And so we can't we can't be surprised to see that we're on the we are on the bleeding edge of of a lot of raw motions a lot of time so just a little stuff but

Sarah Huffman  53:04  
I just wanted to close out a circle real quick before we close it out as soon as we you have Amelia, you have Anders under honors honors Sorry, sorry, Anders. And but there's one more one more dime that the third I am not gonna leave out the

Ed Kaiser  53:23  
LC LC Patricia is now seven. So we had her on seven years ago, I guess so. Okay. Well, I'll see why that was well as we're gonna done at the time, we had, by the way, moved from St. Paul to Bloomington. And that's right. I forgot about that. We the day. The day we closed on his house in Bloomington. Katie told me she was pregnant. We were literally walking out of this out of the closing. And she just said she well then she she she stopped me. We're in the parking lot. She stopped me. She just grabbed me my arm. And she just looked at me and I said no way. Because at that point, the house you knew that automatically became too small. The house we just bought, we needed an extra bedroom. So but we were there for a couple of years. It was everything worked out. It was fine. But it was just sort of like it was it was hilarious. Like, okay, we just we just bought this house and it's like now we are she didn't want to tell you before the condo which she didn't know either. I mean, she I think she kind of was worried. But she actually went and took a test and she's like, Hey, like, there's like all these things always seem to like revolve around real estate. It's just like, why it's one of these things. It's like it's it was meant to be that I love.

William Huffman  54:41  
That's such a cool story.

Sarah Huffman  54:42  
Yeah. Was it hard to find your house that you're in now?

Ed Kaiser  54:46  
Yeah, it was. Yeah. So it was we've been in there for four years now and I might I comparatively speaking the last couple years it was a cakewalk, right. But we sold we sold our house and the wonderful eaten in two days over you know over asking price and having beat being in the industry sort of every single day looking at Mrs. I'm like I was like, oh, there's no there's no doubt we're gonna find a house so we didn't actually I never thought it was gonna be necessary to actually make it contingent, you know? On finding another home

William Huffman  55:19  
please take legal advice from

Sarah Huffman  55:23  
I feel like there's a demand coming Yeah. Oh, you guys read like there

Ed Kaiser  55:28  
we were, we were down we were you know, we were they gave there were very few buyers are very flexible and everything else but we were literally down to our last weekend before we were going to just sign a lease for a year because we just weren't finding things were coming up but they weren't either what we were looking for we really wanted all of our all the kids be on the same

William Huffman  55:47  
and this is your third home. So I mean, you're a second time move up buyer. You have some you have some boxes that must be checked all the time.

Ed Kaiser  55:53  
And the biggest one was we wanted to be in a diner because our kids were going to the diner schools were living in Bloomington. So every single day, I had to drop three different kids off at three different schools and then make it to work on time. And it was

William Huffman  56:08  
gonna give me a you didn't also tell me you were a bus driver for several years. Yeah, I

Ed Kaiser  56:12  
was gonna I was gonna have an anxiety breakdown at some point. Yes. Because you needed to get them on the metal kids. And

William Huffman  56:18  
you know, give me the 90 minutes back to Eau Claire over that right? At least

Ed Kaiser  56:22  
I was at least as quiet. Yeah,

Sarah Huffman  56:23  
yeah. Chapter Six. Oh, it was

Ed Kaiser  56:27  
also like school started like three a half hour parts. It'd be like, we drop off one kid and just like sit there for a while. And that's every day I have to like entertain them with something, you know, there's a whole thing. But so the critical critical factor was just getting into a Dinah. And then the house that popped on the market. We saw that like we it came on the market on the MLS on Friday. Like I think we both texted each other at like the same time. Did you see this one? And we went and saw it right away? wrote an offer us an escalation clause.

William Huffman  56:56  
Nice. Probably one of the first ones four years ago. Yeah.

Ed Kaiser  57:00  
And it was a it was believed it was a dual agency situation. But being in house counsel for the company that I was with at the time, who was listening at I think maybe helped like, hey, this this buyer is a pretty good buyer.

William Huffman  57:12  
They're solid.

Ed Kaiser  57:15  
And so and so yeah, we we got it and my goodness was it was it was a smart move. Because that I don't know that the neighborhood is just ridiculous night now.

William Huffman  57:27  
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, good for you guys. That's super cool. That's a great story. I love that. So

Sarah Huffman  57:30  
working overnights.

Ed Kaiser  57:32  
Oh, no, she she she you know everything we she's kind of continuing to kind of change while she was at one hospital Avenue Abbott Northwestern Minneapolis for like 14 years. But oh, wow. She right before the pandemic, she shifted her career. And she started working for Medtronic. And she got to work from home. So she actually got out of the hospital. Right. Yeah, perfect timing. Good timing. And then now she's just starting a new new career because she's also finishing her bachelor's degree in healthcare administration. And she's starting to get in more involved in a company that's based in a Dinah small company that does some healthcare, kind of administrative stuff. So that's also a remote one. So she's, she's right now getting to just kind of focus on that and just spend time a little more time with the kids and stuff. Yes. Which is very helpful,

Sarah Huffman  58:21  
because it'd be before we wrap up. I have one final question before our final

William Huffman  58:25  
final question. If you were

Sarah Huffman  58:27  
to give advice back to little Edie and little Katie at Applebee's, what would you tell them?

Ed Kaiser  58:34  
Well, boy, I mean, I sit back and wonder like, man, should I have done? What like, what would have happened if I had known a realtor, though? Doesn't that answer his question? But I think it's I always think it's funny. It was like, if I would have known anybody in real estate, I wonder, right? If maybe not going to law schools or anything, but I can't say that because I love. I love what I do. I love being smarter than everybody else. And

William Huffman  58:59  
it's true. It's true. I mean, that hell yeah. You're You're very intelligent. But

Ed Kaiser  59:03  
I mean, I really enjoy what I'm doing. I don't know. I mean, I just tell him, you guys stick together. Everything's gonna be fine. Yeah. And it was you know, like we've been through a lot and you know, it's I don't know, it's nice having a good partner on your side because it makes everything a lot simpler. So

William Huffman  59:22  
Katie's gonna listen to this and be like, Oh, you didn't tell him about this? Did you? I heard that. Why did you talk about this?

Sarah Huffman  59:26  
Yes. Is your invite Yeah.

William Huffman  59:29  
Yeah, the the the end Katie story, the real side. That's awesome. Excellent. Awesome. Well, thank you for coming on. And what we like to do to wrap up the podcast is we like to ask our guests which is you to give us your top five restaurants and they can be anywhere in the world that can be for any reason. We had one person say that Applebee's because actually may not have leaves. But they said I'm Olive Garden because he used to go there with their mother. lot so it's very nostalgic for them just to have you know the food so what do you got for us? Start at number five and more can we up to number one?

Ed Kaiser  1:00:08  
I'm gonna I'm gonna hold on Applebee's in case I need it

William Huffman  1:00:11  
yeah All right there you go

Ed Kaiser  1:00:15  
hmm wow that's a great question. Well number five I'm going to say right now Town Hall Station in a Dinah because that is the currently the where's that thread off Valley View?

Sarah Huffman  1:00:26  
Was it over by

Ed Kaiser  1:00:28  
another quarter Valley View?

Sarah Huffman  1:00:29  
What Dale

Ed Kaiser  1:00:30  
yeah used to be a gas station? Yeah. That is currently where when we have half an hour an hour Katie and I go on dates we just scan zip over there from our house. You know what table what is it tacos and burgers and the good beer town? It's Town Hall brewery right over it. So that their beer okay. Yep. And they have trivia pub trivia every once in a while on Tuesdays and it's not often we can make it there but when we do it's amazing and yeah, so that's that's there's fantastic

William Huffman  1:01:00  
trivia that was a Currently she's not I was

Sarah Huffman  1:01:03  
gonna say oh, that's over by corral ease. So back in the day in Edina Corellas was I think we're Snuffy's is okay.

William Huffman  1:01:11  
Nobody cares. No.

Sarah Huffman  1:01:15  
schoolers, like we all know where Carell is. And Baskin Robbins was

Ed Kaiser  1:01:21  
number four. I don't know they probably should be higher on the list. Borlaug rasa is is what's your order? The gnocchi, lobster and eggs and carbonara

Sarah Huffman  1:01:33  
interesting yeah, okay.

Ed Kaiser  1:01:35  
Nokias Have you tried

Sarah Huffman  1:01:36  
the tuna? The tuna pasta?

William Huffman  1:01:38  
Oh, man, it's ridiculous.

Sarah Huffman  1:01:40  
Get a sitter? Yeah.

William Huffman  1:01:43  
Yeah, we'll go Yeah, because they do the raw she made tuna that's cold on top of the pop up the it's not a penny made it here's a penny good

Sarah Huffman  1:01:50  
Tony. Me

William Huffman  1:01:51  
whatever. No. Big hollow pasta with a kind of like a little spicy sauce on it that served hot. So the raw cold tuna on top of the hot pasta. I thought our server was bananas. I hugged her she was amazing. Yeah, it's so good. Yeah.

Ed Kaiser  1:02:09  
Oh, number number three and number this might have to be number one, but I'm just gonna I'm just no particular order In and Out Burger out animal style. Every time I have anywhere near I will drive a ridiculous distance

William Huffman  1:02:22  
is it? Is it because you actually just thoroughly enjoy the burger or is like, what is your story behind it? Well, I mean like we

Ed Kaiser  1:02:29  
go to California or something like that everyone talks about and we first time we had it was like oh my god. This is amazing. It's not I guess it's not amazing. Amazing. But you know, it's it's pretty dang

William Huffman  1:02:38  
it's a thing. It's a thing.

Sarah Huffman  1:02:39  
We went to Vegas. We drove to go have one in Vegas. We did. Yeah,

Ed Kaiser  1:02:42  
we did. Burger. Yeah, that was good. Yeah,

Sarah Huffman  1:02:45  
it was good. Yeah. And the most polite workers Oh,

William Huffman  1:02:49  
I I made a post about the guy take the kid taking our order as it if anybody's in Vegas. And they need to hire somebody come to this In and Out Burger and hire this kid. Yeah, yeah, cuz he's going places. Yes, absolutely. Now. Number two

Ed Kaiser  1:03:07  
place in New Orleans called shuffle, Leia.

William Huffman  1:03:10  
Oh, tell me more. I really

Ed Kaiser  1:03:14  
I can't even tell you how to spell it. It starts with an AIDS like AR teacher. Sometimes when you go to New Orleans is like every everybody will tell you like a million places that you gotta go eat. Oh, shoot. Not chavalla It's called the blind parrot. Oh, that is the place so you go to New Orleans. You can go to Drago is which is like right on Canal Street and you can order child char broiled oysters and it's like 20 bucks for oysters. Or you hop on the trolley and you go to the magazine district and you go to the blind parrot. And it's a sort of this open air kind of island themed place and they're just sitting there shucking oysters just right there and it's the food's amazing. It's not nearly as expensive and the drinks are cold and they go down well, we went there and we went back

William Huffman  1:04:05  
so it was a to visit on the trip then the blind.

Ed Kaiser  1:04:09  
Now New Orleans is a place that I have to go back to more like I've only been there once it's never been there it is the food experience. It is something amazing.

William Huffman  1:04:19  
All right, number one number

Ed Kaiser  1:04:22  
one. Well then I'm just gonna go with Applebee's because yeah, just brownie points there. That's

William Huffman  1:04:29  
even though you haven't been back. Applebee's or Yeah, back in the day. What was it?

Ed Kaiser  1:04:34  
Either the physios or the chicken fajita Rolla there's really no chicken feeder roll up is is pretty much the only thing that's edible I think

William Huffman  1:04:44  
I used to and that was a case of year for but that was that was before

Ed Kaiser  1:04:47  
like Chipotle was even like a thing. So right now, I don't know if

William Huffman  1:04:52  
we really should we should all go to Applebee's. No, we should just get everybody is a bad idea. And we should just go for dinner. Do it. results. Did you work there when they have $1 beers after nine? Yeah, I believe

Ed Kaiser  1:05:06  
the beers were about like as thick as like, doesn't matter. They were just maybe like eight ounce beers or so.

William Huffman  1:05:14  
So at the Applebee's in the Burnsville mall, that's where that's where I worked for a very long time. And my boy Santos and there was a bunch of others. I think Santos might still be there. He's been there for a very long time. We would go in there after work. And it didn't matter if we close at seven on a Sunday, we would start getting the nine o'clock. Happy Hour beers, we dropped down 20 bucks. And we never saw Bill. The only time we saw bills when we ordered food because we had to pay for that because it was, you know, the kitchen or whatever. Yeah, yeah, but oh, man, because they were in those cold. They were the cold little frosty mugs. It's five

Sarah Huffman  1:05:50  
pound I have not been in an Applebee's since 2008.

William Huffman  1:05:55  
Yeah, I wouldn't say you're missing out. But you're not

Ed Kaiser  1:06:00  
seeing what what's even on the menu these days, but yeah. All right. Well, here's your chance. Number one, but you know, there's a there's a decent chance I will never ever, ever stepping foot in that again. Unless we do an event.

William Huffman  1:06:13  
We gotta do something. We got to do something. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you. Edie. We really do appreciate you coming on today. And as Joe

Sarah Huffman  1:06:21  
being a resource for us in general, you just totally aka being a resource for will.

William Huffman  1:06:25  
I just like to throw things at you and see what you say. Sometimes you're like I'm not responding. And we don't blame you. Nope. Awesome. All right, everybody. We out deuces.

Accouncer  1:06:38  
tune in each week. For more in depth conversations about life behind the highlight reel. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform to make sure you never miss an episode. For today's show notes head over to lb thr.com