We will now interrupt the regularly scheduled program for this good old blades micro podcast. It probably wouldn't surprise you to know that I make knives, but it might that given my big hands, I make small knives. I was recently at a show in Oklahoma City, and out of all of the uh forge blades and things like that, uh a lot of customers came by and looked at my small blades, and I will say that there's always it shows a mixture of people who look at small knives and scoff and say that's dainty or that's a woman's knife or things like that. And uh Oklahoma City was no different, but then there's a compelling amount of customers that also come through and really appreciate the small but form-factor knives that I make. And I thought more about this, and the difference between small and large knives to me is uh really not much of a dispute. I don't like big knives. Um I come from a background of farming and hunting and fishing and hiking, and I can tell you that it doesn't matter how uh light a large knife might be uh when it's you know in the you know eight to ten to fourteen ounce range, uh to carry it that far, it it adds quite quite a bit of weight to your pack. And they say, especially in the military, that uh that ounces are pounds, and it's true. Um I've I've gone hiking and hunting in a lot of different places and a lot of different elevations, and the marginal extra weight makes a humongous amount of difference to the point sometimes where if I'm hunting uh out in the backcountry, I might not even actually carry a fixed blade, I'll just carry a pocket knife and allow that to do the job. Now, there are a lot of merits to the larger knives, and I think, especially post-crocodile Dundee, a lot of people attribute large knives to menacing or manly or whatever, but I would encourage everybody to think a little bit more about utilitarianism in knives and that small knives and form factor are points of interest, and anytime I see a s a smaller knife, I immediately go to its uses and its applicability for uh a myriad of jobs. I don't do the same thing with buoys, I don't do the same things with big choppers. Um, it's pretty much understood that with a big knife you can clear brush and uh you know chop things down and you know stab through seven people, I guess. But uh with a small knife, it really comes down to what is it being used for and its applicability. Uh for instance, my scalpel edition of knife uh actually is used in a lot of areas. Uh EDC is one, uh I can't tell you how many times uh my scalpels have cut open boxes, um hunting and uh and fishing, but primarily hunting as a skinning knife, yeah, leather work and so on and so forth. And I I don't in some ways understand the ridicule of small knives or that they are women's knives, because uh you don't really need a very long blade for self-defense, and you don't really need a long blade for utilitarian tasks like open opening packages or boxes or even skinning game. In fact, a small palm knife that I make in D2 has been used to break down three consecutive deer in a season without needing to be stropped. And those things are important to me. That you know, the the function of a blade and the durability of its edge are considerations in being able to handle a bunch of tasks. And I can't honestly say I think that much about those functions in large blades because, well, I don't know. What are you going to do with a large blade? Again, uh chop things down, carry it around for you know seeming uh seemingly self-defense type of situations. I think it's important to know that the small to medium size range, so blades that are under four inches, are probably the most used knives in the entire world. You have chef knives, obviously, in the 8 to uh 12 inch range, but otherwise, most of the blades that are actively seeing use are pretty much under four four inches. Uh it's important to note that because we have a culture right now uh that I see around large, useless blades, and I'm not trying to be critical about uh large forge blades or stock removal blades or fighting knives or things like that, but um it's difficult in the court of public opinion to fight the uh perception that small knives are dainty knives or women's knives or whatever, like this the idea of femininity, uh when in actuality the majority of knives that are out there and actually being used are of that same nature. So I just thought it was something to think about small knives versus large knives, um, form factors, functions uh of blades, and really getting down to making knives uh utilitarian in in some way, so that way when a customer asks, what is this used for, well, it makes perfect sense. Anything. Uh that's really kind of the answer that I give is even though a blade might be ideally designed for this type of function, in the small range of blades, there are a lot of options and a lot of uses. And uh really I could go on and on about those with with potential customers and people who are interested in um you know utilitarian knives because you can slap a name on it, it can be a bird and trout, it can be an EDC, it can be any number of names, but really uh those utility style knives uh can be used for just about everything, and we need to apply our imagination more uh to those type of tools, uh uh the same way that everybody does with I mean, what are you going to do with a 12 inch buoy or something of that nature? So food for thought. Hope that helps.