Hot or Not Winter Preps Edition w The Common Sense Practical Prepper

You're listening to. You were passed back. Just ability shirt. Good evening, PBN family. What is up? Snowpocalypse has passed. There have been a series of effects throughout the nation. I got I got it all in front of me. I got Alabama, I got Arkansas. Who got it bad? Tennessee Man Tennessee took a took a lashing Tennis. I saw three hundred thousand people without power, some crazy number like that. Power outage is over three hundred thousand outages? What are disruptions? Yeah? And the Grizzlies game postponed? Of all things? How in the hell can we manage? How can we endure? So? I want to show you guys something. I want to show you guys to be prepared. I'm sorry the Ready Plan app. I read the big bolt that I got tricked by the big bold text. You're gonna hear about the Ready Plan app this week. You were gonna hear it about it last week. But we were busy planning, we're busy executing on plans. But the Ready Plan app is pretty sweet. You may have seen things like it. When it comes to preparedness apps. Here's the ones that I use you ready, I use the preparedness apps that are made by the people I know and trust. And that's it that simple. If you're gonna use preparedness apps. I know some people out there really against ever putting any information into a phone app or whatever. I can't help you with that. All I can tell you the Ready Plan app gives you the ability not just to build out your plan, which is great, but it gives you ability to share that information with all the people who don't want to sit and listen to you talk about your plan at the dinner table. And you know, you have those people in your life that are like, ain't no way, dude, we're talking about what to do to prepare for the next winter storm. But if you have the plan, then you can share it out through the through the Ready Plan app. And largely the functionality the Ready Plan app is free. What really got me excited about it, and the first plan that I filled out when I got the app was the Wartime Preparedness Plan. Yeah, they got a wartime preparedness plan and it sort of helps you along the way. Right, Nothing in it is permanent, nothing in it is Everything is sort of custom misable, but it helps you along the way and you start to go like, oh, yeah, that's a good thing to consider. Boom boom boom. This is from our friends from mad Gear. Mad Gear has been like on the periphery of PBN for years now. They've been in our Preppers Black Friday catalog I think three out of the four years it's been in existence with first with their mad Gear Planner and then with their mad this year with their mad Gear. What they do with this with the ready Plan app. Yeah, they were in with the ready Plan app this year and they do a lot of great comm stuff now too. I mean the mad Gear guys or guy he's awesome. So when he put the ready Plan app a planning you know phone app out, I go, okay, yeah, I'll check it out. And you know. The other thing about using the products and the services in the apps of people you know and trust is they're usually pretty good, you know what I mean? So check them out. Ready Plan available on Android or iPhone. Check out the ticker below Ready Plan app. The ticker is by the way, if you guys want something on the ticker, let me know. I didn't even know the ticker existed. I popped on here. Jay Ferg who is just like she is a Category ten hurricane right now in a really good way, like just doing stuff. Just stuff is happening. But I got on here and she had the ticker running for a Goldbacks interview. I hope you guys saw that great, great show. A little choppy on the audio. The audio was a little messy, but if you can weather the storm, there's a lot of good inform them. Gold Backs are amazing, man. We've had them on here a couple times. If you want to buy gold and you're like, I don't got no money for gold, dude, you got money for gold. You just got to get goldbacks, so tonight, so check them out. Ready, play an app Android iPhone downloaded. Check it out. It's free. It's one hundred percent free. You can build that plans for free. If you hate it, delete it. You can do whatever you want in this life. Man, I'm telling you so. Without further ado, folks, we're gonna bring Keith on again, the common sense practical prepper, one of the first people I would have called should things gone really bad, to see how bad he was suffered too. But yeah, Keith, thanks so much for joining us. Man, fellow Richmond, do we weather this storm. Congratulations. Yeah yeah, congrats to you too that I appreciate you having me back. Yeah yeah, no problem, no problem. We had a pretty pretty expansive list of things we talked to the audience about when we last had you on, and you know, plans and all that kind of stuff, and kind of thought we'd come back. We're gonna have Dave Jones on with us too, but he actually is is laid up with some nasty bug and listen, I'm gonna tell you. I think I've seen Dave Jones only lay down like twice in my life, and that was only because I was in the tent with him, sleeping in the tent with him. So when Dave calls you up and says, hey, man, I'm in bed sick, it's it's a big deal. So it's me and Keith tonight. It's the Richmond perspective. And I thought we'd talk about some things that were sort of really worked throughout the whatever it was twenty four or forty eight hours that kind of mattered, and some things that didn't work or maybe wouldn't have worked had things got worse, right, because we kind of largely dodged the bullet. If you didn't have anywhere to go today or tomorrow. Did you ever where to go today? I was able to work from home today, so that done. I lucked out there. But when I was doing the preps, everything that I was focused on was under the assumption that I was going to lose power. Same and the fact that I did not lose power, it just it made the situation. I mean, I'm staying in the ovis. It made the situation so much easier. I agree, but I age with you. Yeah, I mean I was ready to go. I mean at any moment, you know, once that you know the I heard the freezing rain hitting the you know, the skylights and the Florida room, and I was like, oh boy, here we got Now that was late last night. That was about six or seven pm last night. So we didn't get as much snow as predicted, nor did we get as much the freezing rain. Now I learned a very important distinction between sleet and freezing rain. Sleet is good because that comes frozen out of the sky and it bounces around on the ground. The freezing rain is the bad stuff. That's just when the rain falls of the atmosphere, it freezes instantly. Once it hits your deck, your trees, your bushes. That's that's what you need to avoid. So the fact that we barely got any freezing rain or any ice accumulation at my house was I just think we lucked out. They definitely ran out of time. It felt like they were running out of time around the like three or four o'clock hours when I started to get like a little spark of we're gonna be warm because I was going outside a lot. I was one of the things I was doing. One of probably the biggest flaws for me early on was realizing that in the winter weather, in the severe winter weather, I don't know how to manage the HVAC unit. In other words, I don't know what critical is. I don't know where like this cannot happen with snow or with I mean, like obviously if the whole thing's encased in freezing rain, then that's a problem. But we almost cut We almost built like a tarp shelter over it the night before because I was thinking like, yeah, my wife actually had the idea, and then I was like, yeah, that makes sense, right, we keep the sleet off it. We get the phrasey freezing rain off and dig around it and all that kind of stuff. But I just I felt by the end of the thing that I really need to learn more about the critical areas of that, you know, that whole unit, and understand like we kept it clear of ice and all that kind there was no problem with it. But I just was looking at it going like, I don't understand this thing. I don't know. You know, I know it can get wet, obviously, but I don't know the whole shebang. So that's I got to do. Yeah, I'm not an h VAC expert by any stretch. There's the there's the unit that's outside, and then there's the air handling unit that could be in your basement, could be in a closet. Mine is an addic. So there's two two integral pieces to this. How they work, I don't know. I just know that when it gets you know, when it gets down into the teens tonight normal with my HVAC system, it gets below eighteen to twenty degrees, it's it's not able to keep up. So it's really not going it's not going to get my house seventy two degrees. You know, when it's fifteen degrees outside, gotcha and the unit is it's sized correctly for the house. But you know, my house was built in fifty nine. You know, skylights is you know, big floid room with windows all over the place. So you know, I'm kind of fighting a losing battle, especially when it's really windy and really really cold. Yeah, yeah, I will say my we did before the storm came because of the cold, cold temperatures, not necessarily for the insulation of oh no, the power went out and this is going to keep us warmer, but for the just for the sake of the cold that we never see in Richmond, we did some further insulation on the doors. But what my wife did that really was I mean, this is my kind of prep because it I just liked it. I like cheap stuff, to be honest with you, you know what I mean, And if it's re reusable, it's even better. And I think I mentioned this on the show we did previously, but she I don't know where she saw it. I didn't even ask her, but she put the kid's old bedspreads on the doors. Absolutely yeah, she wrapped. The back of the doors with the kid's bedspreads. Man, and that made it a tremendous difference in the doorways. It really did. I was blown away at how good it did. I mean, our doors are pretty well insulated to begin with, but that really pretty much there was nowhere coming through anywhere after that, and it was big, and it was free. It's even better, right. Well, I took my laundry room that the door from the laundry room goes into the garage, and of course the garage is always cold. So I just took a hoodie that I was going to throw in the new laundry and I just kind of threw that down as a draft snake or whatever you call it, just to keep just that little bit of cold air coming from the garage into the laundry room. And I was really surprised, you know, it didn't raise you know, it wasn't like five or ten degree difference, but I was really surprised on how much warmer it was in the laundry room just with that that just that simple simple hoodie, just throwing it, throwing it down on the at the threshold. Yeah, yeah, they do make a huge difference. We got we went out and bought those also cheap those foam and cloth there were you know, the one foam roll on the outside, one phone role on the inside. Yeah, that made a huge difference. All that little insulation stuff. The curtains tremendous, The thicker curtains really made a big difference. I mean I think, yeah, I remember years and years ago our unit we had an older unit though too, really struggling when it got cold. And uh, I think all those little things really do add up. Sure, Oh, absolutely absolutely yeah. I Uh we staged a bunch of light that we didn't wind up using, but I think that was really big. That was a huge help. I use these and I've talked about them on air million times. But if you're a prepper, I mean really, if you own a home and you ever get power out of just ever, you should buy I should have linked to him in the show description, but you should buy the Uh they're LED lights, but their battery pack power, so they're three double A batteries. I think they're like ten If they're ten feet, it might be like eight feet or six feet of LED lights on a battery pack with a light switch, not a light switch, just a press button switch to turn them on and off. And those things stay in our house all the time, Like if you go into my bathroom, you'll be like, why does this sink have led lights over the top of it? What is that all about? But what that's all about is man, when the power goes out and we go click. I keep one in the pantry door, on the inside of the door, so you don't even know it's there. Like if you wrap the inside of your pantry with one of these, like just follow the doorframe and then stick the battery pack right there next to the door, it's bad. I mean, your pantry gets it's way easier to find things in your pantry, and when the power's out, you have a pantry. Otherwise you just have a dark hole until you put a flashlight on in there. The other thing you can do with these that's really great. That's probably my favorite, besides putting them. You know, I bought them and initially put them behind the wooden banister that runs up the steps to light the stairway. Yeah, because we've got one of those inclosed stairways. But one of the best things you can do covertly is you can put them behind your televisions so that TV's hanging on the wall. You run like a rectangle with the LEDs and stick the you know, the power to the the switch to the wall also, and nobody even knows it's there. And then when the power goes out, you click it on and they're powerful. You know, it's not like, oh my god, we got our lights back on, but it's way better than not interesting. Yeah, they're they're great, and they're cheap. You know, they're China made. I'll tell you what, though, I'd say I'm going on. I'm going on at least three to four years with these same units, right. I don't think I ever placed any of them. One ripped apart, but that was because it was the one on the banister, and I have kids, you know what I mean, So you know that's gonna go. But that was a great one. That's always a great one. Light was a was a big deal for us. I don't know what you guys were doing for light, but we were definitely like, let's have lights staged in a few different spots because we don't know when it's going to happen. If it happens, yeah. I've got a I've got a junk drawer, so I've got a flashlight and in the junk drawer, I've got one in the I guess the lit in closet. I guess you keep all your towels and stuff like that. And I've got one in each bathroom and yeah, just a little rechargeable flashlight in the office. So yeah, so pretty much any I can get to one just pretty much at arms length. And obviously you've got the flash light on your phone in case you're you know, you're away from it. But yeah, I've got I think I've got another an alternate lighting source pretty much in every room in the garage. I can forget how my damn flashlights and lanterns and everything's in the garage. Yeah, yeah, we definitely pulled. We definitely stage like a number of things on the mantle just to have right there. And I told everybody, you know, take what you want to have in your room if you want something. Headlamps, of course, you know what I mean. They're just to me, they're the clutch of clutch. The head lamp is where it's at. I got a neighbor he like lives with a head lamp on our How you came up to me today, you're driving the car, just testing the roads out he has head lamp on there you go, it's great. I love it. I mean there's so much better than like, let me hold a flashlight with one let me just dedicate a whole hand in arm to a flashlight or stick it in my mouth because I need two hands, you know. And they're not that expensive. Shoot, you get like a three pack for you know, fifteen twenty bucks. I mean just depends. I mean sometimes they go on sale. I mean they're dirty. Yeah, you get them on Amazon. I think you get a three pack on Amazon for like probably ten bucks. I bet. I don't know if they'd be great, but if you had none, you know what I mean, could you could probably Let's take a look real quick, just out of curiosity. You go, you get a five pack led head lamp ever Bright nineteen ninety nine. That. Yeah, those areas. USBC or watch battery or they have I guess it. Depends on these These are looks like double or triple A. Okay, yeah, I prefer that. I don't want to charge them. I need them now, that's the that's the deal with there. And these are cool. They got the little strip over the top, the mohawks strip strap. Yeah. Man, they're cheap. They're another insanely cheap. Prep They're awesome. Grab one for your go bag or you get home bag. Yeah, definitely, we burned a lot of wood. We were cranking. We were definitely crying. I was I was half I was half creating something that I never really finished creating because I didn't have to, but necessity had me. Uh. I have these USB fans that I never really use, but I have them. Mm hmm. They're like small, tiny, they're probably about I don't know, maybe like six by six fan the plugs USB style into a computer or power bank yep. And I found that like if I held this USB fan maybe I don't know, I had it. I had it pointed almost like tilted towards the ground a little bit and just a few inches above the top of the fireplace, and it was pooling hot air. And I was just like eight up. With it, you know what I mean. I was like, how do I say, how can I attach these? I want to attach these. I can hook them through the power bank. If the power goes out, I'm gonna have a blower. But what I never knew about it. What I never knew about blowing it. We talked about this too, remember, but what I never knew about. It was like, above is the is the way to go? You know, that seems to be the thing. I'm going to figure that out. That's going to become a thing. But it was. It was definitely like an aha moment. But I never used it because the power the heat never stopped or it didn't matter. But it was kind of a cool little little thing to play with. Yeah, but we're not out of the woods yet. I mean, we're talking these single digits. I looked at the ten day forecast and it's I think what eighteen for like a high, and that's that's this weekend. I mean it's we're not out of the woods yet. I mean even super duper low temperatures can cause can cause brownouts and you know, all sorts of all sorts of infrastructure failure on the grid. Yeah, that's a great point you're also dealing with. My wife said that we could get six inches on Saturday. Oh Lord, don't tell me that. Yeah. Yeah, so it's it's a real winner here in Virginia, at least in Virginia. Yeah, these low tempts are going to put a really big stress, you know, on the grid. You know, Virginia Power, Vepco, Virginia Prower, what do we call them these days? They do a fantastic job, you know, don't get me wrong with that, you know, Lake Anna. And then we got the coal fire electric plants. I got one about fifteen minutes from the house. But I mean that's I can't imagine the stress on the grid right now, especially over the next next six or eight days. Easy, it's gonna be tough. Everybody going back to work hopefully, you know, starting to go back to work tomorrow. You know, everybody back in the office. They're gonna crank the thermostat up and uh yeah, it could, it could go sideways pretty quick. Let's put that up on the screen for everybody to see, because that is people should so as they hear us talking about it. It is pretty pretty un I mean, it's way out of characteristic for well. Weather Underground seems to be playing it kind of higher than I thought they have Monday night. Can everybody see that? Yeah? Ten yeah, ten tonight for a. Low ten tonight for a low twelve. I mean this is still terrible for Richmond, virgin It's absolutely horrendous. But yeah, yeah, we're not seeing above freezing until potentially Monday of next week. Oh my goodness, Oh Tuesday, I'm sorry, Tuesday, they got us at thirty three sunny. Oh that could make a world of difference. But after that, yeah, one degree, one degree. But yeah, see there's Saturday. We got four point six currently. I mean, who knows, right, but right right, I'll tell you. I've had years in Richmond where we've had zero point zero inches of snow all year. Yes, yes, yep, yeah that happens. So to your point, far from out of the woods. Definitely, uh, definitely got to keep it all tight. But it's you know, this was a big one to find out. Kind of The other thing was like items that we brought into the home to prepare. Did you guys do any like pre pregame shopping that kind of stuff? No, No, I was pretty much. I went out and got a few snacks and stuff like that, But other than that, I was, I was pretty sad. I picked up some I bought the last three propane cylinders that the Lows and Chester had. That was Friday, Friday morning. I didn't exchange which, then bought two full ones, got some kerosene, and then filled up my little Jerry cans with fuel just in case. But no, I was, Yeah, I was, I was. I was pretty much set nothing nothing I was really missing, just you know, just waiting for the power to go out. And that was the that was the big thing I was waiting to happen. Yeah, we bought some water. We bought more water, bottled the easy stuff, you know what I mean. Brain barrels are kind of a lost cause at you know, twenty degrees out anyway. Yeah, I've drained mine, drained mine a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, there you go. So the having some more of that bottled water on hand, I liked that. That's good. That's easy, you know what I mean. It's it doesn't help when it comes to cooking, so you're back to water storage when it comes to cooking. But we also did a bunch of filling up with water too, pregaming. Yep. We did some snack buying for sure. You know, I don't know how to make a solon vinegar. Miss Vicki's he had from scratch, so we had some of that. It was pretty good. So yeah, that oh yeah, way to go, Phoenix. That's a great point. So for those of you who are just tuning in. We're talking to Keith from the Common Sense Practical Prepper podcast and uh, that's up the buzz sprout. I will make sure that that link is in the show description for the podcast itself. All right, folks, if you want to listen to more from Keith. Thank you for bringing that up, Phoenix, because she recognized your voice. But I didn't tell everybody who it was except for at the beginning of the show. Ah, gotcha. So now we know where to find that that smooth voice in the evenings. Our man, Yeah, our man, KEI, Yeah, you said that the uh what was it the gas logs you weren't too blown away with. Yeah, I mean, you know gas logs and just your regular wood burning fireplace. You know, they are terribly inefficient. I mean eighty eighty five percent of the heat goes right up to chimney, right up the flu And you know, my gas logs they look great. And you know, on chili days, you know it gets down into thirties and the forties, throw those on for a few minutes, stakes to chill off the room, and it does fine, you know, for what it's made for, but you know, it's it's tied to I think I've got to and I'm gonna mess this up again. That the hundred one hundred pound or one hundred gallon pro paint tank in my yard, it goes through that gas pretty quick, and I went out and checked it. This is this is a mistake that I made. I should have checked the level on my large propane cylinder in the front yard. I should have checked that before Thursday of last week. No one, you know, the apps and everything we're calling the storm, you know, a good seven ten days out. I should have checked it and then called who do I use, James River or no Woodfin. I should have called wood Fin and say, hey, you know, put me on the list that top me off because I'm at forty percent and you can only run it down to about twenty, you know, but they don't want you to run it empty because of condensation and that sort of thing. So you know, I could keep the gas logs on, but you know, next several days, I don't want to run out because I also have a hot or on demand hot water heater and I definitely don't want I don't want to be taking cold showers. But to your point, you know, I'm thinking about I'm going to do some research on either a pellet stove insert or a wood burning insert for the fireplace. It just and just get rid of the gas logs. When I was growing up, we had a a insert, a wood burning insert, and yeah, oh my gosh, that thing. But it would it would run you out of the house. I mean there's sometime we had to open the windows. I mean, my dad had that thing cranking. But then I looked into pellet stoves and I really, you know, not too not too familiar with them, but there's like a hopper and you put in thirty forty sixty pounds of these wood pellets and it kind of just auto feeds it and keeps it at a I guess the regular temperature. There's thermostats, there's you know, of course, there's an app for it. So I'm gonna look and see, you know, and see what's what I think. I'm gonna have to get the chimney swept, get a chimney, oh inspector out there to you know, because who knows. I mean, I've been in the house, oh geez, I think eleven years now and only had the gas log so never really had a reason to do a chimney sweep or to do it, to do it detailed inspection, so you know, I'll do the inspection and see what the h the interior looks like, and then I don't get a few quotes and see and see how much these things are gonna run me. I think it'll be in the long run. I think it'll be worth it. We use a company called A step in time. I think they're called I know that's a weird that's a weird name. That might not be the exact name, but it's something along those lines, okay, And they do our chimney cleaning it you know, every few years they've done They've done good repairs for us too. They took care of some things that were messed up inside and we actually got a new covering for the flu up top. They do good work. Actually, the one dude who replaced the flu fixed my roof for me too for like six hundred bucks. It was great. I was like, what could you do for me? Would He came down off the roof and was like, dude, you get all like a hole in your roof. It was like right at the corner there was a I guess there was a tree that was rubbing right on the top of the a you know what I mean, it's rubbing back and forth, and it took the well you know that. So I want to say, Tyle, what the hell is it called up there? Not the siding the part of the roof that you nailed down or stable down shingles, the shingles. Yeah, it just took the shingles right off. Yeah, it was crazy. I'm glad he saw that. No, I know, it was crazy. So yeah, long story short. They we they've we've worked with them probably ten years. So if you're looking for somebody reputable in the area, I think it's called a step in time or something like that. The first time we did it, we thought they were going to show up with like the coke tails and the top hat, and I was like, Oh, this would be cool. They let's try it. Chitty chitty bang bang or something. Yeah or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I'm not sure, but I think our fireplace, once we got it really cranking, was a big help. It felt like it to me. Mike. I loaded my brother in laws car with wood and he told me something I had never considered before. Another of the audience feel free to laugh and mock at your leisure. But he was like, you can close the flu off a little bit and it'll keep a lot more of the heat in in the in the house. And I was like, oh, no, idea. Had no clue, just keep that thing wide open all the time. I had no clue. Nor did I try it either this time. I didn't just give it a try. I guess there's a fine line between you know, I guess the type of wood that you're burning and how well, you know, how good of a fire that you have, because and I remember as a kid, before we got the insert, the same thing happened, but like a really a really stiff breeze came around the corner of the house and before you knew it, the house was filled with smoke because the wind just came right down the flue and forced a lot of that smoke out into the house. So yeah, yeah, he's probably right. There's probably a fine line between you know, getting it just right and trying to get you know, the maximum amount of heat you know, from your from your fire. Yeah, I'll have to try it. I don't know, I don't know if it could be I guess, I guess it makes sense that it could be a lot better, but you know, just is what it is. It's one of those weird things. I'll tell you what's a huge help for all the fireplace users out there is to gas especially in a snowstorm or any kind of storm, because everything's going to get wet. Is I get like two five gallon buckets full of you know, your yard what they call it, yard, trash, yard whatever the yard waste. Like, go get your all the fallen sticks, bark, all that kind of stuff that falls, and just fill two five gallon buckets up with it and sit on the porch. And having that basically kindling, you know what I mean, gives you the ability to start a fire real quick in the fireplace, because I mean, you'd be surprised, man, how many people have no clue how to start a fire in a fireplace or a fire at all. To be honest with you, Like, I sent my brother in law home with a whole eighteen pack of I called an eighteen pack. It's just an eighteen dozen, I mean a dozen and a half an egg carton filled with dryer, lint and wax. And I just sent them home with that whole thing. I said, take these they burn for like ten minutes, and you know, gave them a quick you know, mock up on starting a fire in the fireplace because he was like, I don't know what to do. I can put a blow torch on it, speak it never know. And speaking of starting a fire in your fireplace, a lot of people and a lot of people don't realize this that if you're going to clean out the ashes, either from the fireplace itself or the ash trap if you have one of those, don't put those ashes in a five gallon bucket from a home depot and sit it on your deck. I was a police officer for twenty six years and I can't tell you the number of assist fire calls that I went on for a deck that was on fire. It may look the coals they may make, they look cold, they may feel cold to the touch, but deep down in there, I don't know how many houses burned down because people just they just shoveled it into a plastic bucket, through it on the deck, went to bed, and next thing you know, the at least the deck is on fire. Yeah that's a rough one, man, That's a definite rough one right there. But yeah, it's important, guys. I want the quickest way into uh into fire as possible when I'm depending on fire. That's always my thing, right, you know what I mean? Because I because legitimately like it can take especially if you're just splitting your own wood, and maybe you're like, well maybe i'll need it, maybe I won't. I cover it. Sometimes sometimes I don't whatever, Like it can take half hour, maybe even an hour if you're not paying a good attention to it to really get the fireplace rocking. Oh yeah, oh yeah. And you don't want to be in a situation where it's like like we would be tonight, ten degrees power goes out and you're coming downstairs and the family's going it's cold, and you're like, well, give me an hour and we'll get this. We'll get this thing warmed up, you know. So you got to be careful about that. That's a tough one for sure. Yep. So what else, man, what else popped up? Or was it pretty uneventful for you? No? It was. And you know, I'm not sad that I didn't get a chance to use my preps. I'm certainly not sad that I didn't that I didn't lose power. But you know, like I said before, it's it's all about the peace of mind. It's all about you know, when you look at everything and you're like, I'm set. I'm set for a little bit of snow or the power going out again. It's to me, it's about prepping for a particular situation, whether it's oh, we're gonna have a flood, or there's a hurricane or a nasty thunderstorm. It was a situation where I probably had eighty percent of what I needed and then given the low temperatures and the potential power outage, I just needed, you know, tweak a few things, get the propane, get the kerosene, get the extra gas for the car in case I needed it. But yeah, it was. It was uneventful, and that's fine. I'm not I'm not complaining. You know, the old attite. You'd rather have your preps and not use them than need them and not have them. Oh yeah, that's the one. That's definitely the one. And you know the other thing about the wood is it goes back to that sort of prepping as a as a lifestyle enhancer, as a quality of life enhancer. Like it's really nice to have firewood burning when it's snowing out. You know, it's a good it feels nice. Uh, the Jones family. I was joking with him that this is what got him sick. I know it's not, but it was just a funny joke. He has this really great stove that you can it's a wood stove that you can cook on the cook top and bake in the bottom. M and Maria with his wife, Maria baked two loaves of bread in that bottom section while the you know, while the firewood's doing the work to keep the house warm, because they were out of power. In fact, I got a message from Dave. I don't remember when it was. It was the morning of the storm, I think, and he was like, yeah, power came on four hours ago. Because he's in sort of in like northwest Virginia, right, Yeah, power came back at four pm. This was yesterday, So he was out of it from the from from you know, early on. But he's he's a big champion of I think it's five or six different ways to heat the home. That's his his go to. Oh man, yeah, he said, I have five different ways to heat. He's talked about them all on the on the show before, I don't know interesting pro paye kerosene wood burning stove. I don't remember all the other ones. Ah fac I mean that's four right there. It really is a problem that can is one hundred percent solvable with a wood burning stove though the heating of the house. Yeah, yeah, let's tell you something something, you know, well, I was, I was sitting there watching TV waiting for the power to go out last night, and you just you think about things. What if you know, I'm a big what if person? Well, I assume most preppers are, because that's I mean, that's how you get yourself prepared for these situations. But what if this was a severe situation where we were going to be without power for let's just say three weeks, and then you just you know, that's a whole nother set of preps. If you know that it's going to be an extended period in these temperatures, I mean, that's it's that's life threatening. I mean, you can't get around it. Even though you're inside your house and it's ten degrees outside. If you don't have a way of heating your house, it's going to be ten degrees inside your house. You know, maybe a day or two, depending on you know, how well your your house is you know, draft draft proof. But yeah, man, I'll tell you what, if there was a serious SHTF situation and we had winters like this, I would properly find myself migrating to Florida or Arizona or Texas because it it would be tough having to be you know, on your own with you know, in a really bad winter with an extended you know, grid down situation. I mean, that's like worst case scenario for me, to be honest, I really I have these conspiratorial moments where and it's happened to me ever since I first read that they spray you know whatever it is, ionized silver in the atmosphere to block the sun. Like the moment I read that, I was just like, Oh. We're doomed. They're gonna they're gonna block the sun out, you know, to try to per save us. Yeah, and they're gonna screw it up like we always do, right, And that's always been like my worst fear. Like when they were like, all the planet's warming up, man, it's getting hot, I was like, sweet, let's do it longer. Fishing season longer, growing season, like I got I do. I'm not seen downsides here, right, I love it hot. And then it's you know when these sort of events happen and they're like this never happens, I'm like, oh no, don't, don't do it. Don't turn it into snow piercer on me, man, I will lose my mind. But yeah, three weeks off grid winter, I can tell you right away, I'm definitely out of fuel. Definitely. I'm not even gonna plague the prepper card and pretend like I got that much kerosene to burn or that much gasoline to burn if I'm burning it all day and all night, because I don't. No, no, I'm the same way. Like, you know, I've got those extra propeane cylinders. I can, you know, put the little heating element on top. I forget what it's called, but you know, And I've got you know, the one pound cylinders for my little comban stove. I've got some the butane canisters for my buttane stove. But you know, you can those are gonna go out. And those bututine stoves, you know they burn mutine quick, oh yeah, and you know, and it's you know, before you know it You're back to you know, opening a can of Bush's Big beans and just shoving a fork in it, and you know, there there's your lunch. But it just, you know, you think about stuff like that, just like you said, you this, your mind just tends to wander and you're like, well, what if? What if? And you know, like you said, an extended situation two three weeks out. Now, I'm not as far as you know. A severe winter, that's that's a toughie. And the folks in Nashville that are without power, I mean there, I saw some of the videos. My goodness, I mean that looked. I mean, that makes Katrina and some of those other really bad storm the way those I mean folks can't even get out of their neighborhood. Just trees down all over the place, and that's gonna, that's gonna that's gonna take a while for them to get back up and running. And I'm not I haven't checked their weather hopefully. Well no, they might be getting just as cold as we are. So that's that's a that's a bad scene, especially in Nashville. Yeah. Yeah, you never know who's gonna get walloped, you know, that's the scary part about it. I'd love to put it up. I haven't really looked at the pictures in Tennessee. I would love to look at them on air. But I gotta find the right kind of website that won't have a seizure. The Tennesseean is probably a good start. But yeah, that's I mean, it's weird because there's probably a saying in there, and I in a year or so, I'll get it and write it down and capture it. But for me, it always feels like the longer the disaster, the further back in time you need to be prepared to go, you know what I mean, Like I got you, yeah, yeah, like all the cool technology, all the cool modernized fuel sources. Like before long, you're back to wood, you know what I mean, you're cooking over wood because like it just it all runs out. You know, you can only store so much gas, like I know if you guys who store serious amounts of gas, But I don't know a lot of people who's and and even storing a lot of gas. If you run, if you decide like I'm going to hook the generator up to my to my uh heat pump mm hmm, Like you're gonna burn so much gas you're not even gonna be It's it's not a long it's long story short, it's not a long term solution. There's no long term solution for petroleum and uh, you know, kerosene and that kind of stuff. It's like it's back to wood. Mm hmm. It just always feels like that. The longer the situation goes, the further back in time, you better be prepared to go, you know, because that's what's going to keep you going. Yeah. People talk about, you know, the how how fragile you know, our electrical grid is, and and I you know, I've read several several different articles and I don't know really if if it's that fragile, but you know, it's it's very antiquated and they could certainly do certainly do for for a big upgrade. Is that that's Broadway, it's downtown. Down Sure, I never been so I don't know. Yeah, you know better than me. I was there a couple of times. Yeah, that's this was at the beginning. It looks like, oh yeah, front end of the storm. They say, I just want to see if they hell yeah, they got their warming centers open. That's when you know it's bad. Yep. Oh this is early on because they said three hundred thousand people without power. Yeah, this is just straight out of the Tennessee, and so this is trying to help people get through it and also give you an intelligence test while you're at it. Yeah. I bet it's bad, man, I bet it's ugly. It would have been the same here though, would have been the exact same. Oh yeah, absolutely misery. I mean there are people on my street. I was like, literally on my block that I was like if this, not only is it going to suck for me, but there are people I gotta like go see to make sure that they're alive and going to be able to stay alive. You know, we outfitted my father pretty well, thought. I don't think he'd have had much of an issue, and in a short term one. But yeah, to your point, the longer it went, we'd have had to connect. I think I felt like overwhelmingly powered for the recharge. I don't know about you, but I felt like the recharging of phones and batteries and radios and stuff was probably like where we were strongest in terms of power beyond just wood fire. Oh yeah, I've got my goodness. You and I collect battery banks because you're on Oh that one's on sale. Oh look at that, a ten thousand milliamp for twenty bucks. It just oh yeah, They're just all different shapes and sizes. You know. Some are had the you know, the mag the maglock or whatever for the iPhone. But yeah, I think I've I've collected probably four or five in the last couple of years. And I made a little a little charging station that you know, has a little USB hob I get whatever you call. It has several of the USBC adapters and I plug in, plug in all the battery banks. Plus my phone sits over there by the coffee pot in the kitchen, so I know where everything's at. That's great. Yeah, that's phenomenal. My wife found and I don't know what the brand is, so I can't even tell you, but it was about a month two month, maybe two or three months ago she found these power banks that have and this is like, I can't believe it's the first time I seen it. You maybe you've seen them before. It has all four wires built into the all four connectors built into the power bank. They sort of clip into the face of it right, and then the opposite side has the percentage that it's charged. So it's got USBC the iPhone charger that weird flat bottom charge. YEP. I don't know what the fourth one even is. Is there four to three? I'm pretty damn sure there's four, But I don't know what the fourth one would even be, to be honest with you. Maybe a micro us B. I don't know, because yeah, most of most phones now. I think I think everybody decided just to go USB C eventually. Yeah. I think I think everybody was so so ticked off that they're like, oh, worst, all that's the wrong cable. Well what, oh that's for an Android? Ah crap. You know, you're just going through your drawer and you have cables flying all over the place and you can't find the one that you need for that particular phone. So I think I think they're going USB C. I mean they definitely should. They definitely. My son has an iPad and that needs a lightning or whatever they call the stupid eye charger thing. My older son has a iPhone thirteen or something like that, and he's got to have an iPhone charger. So, and my wife has an iPhone work phone. So having those things, man, it's that's sweet, you know, because you don't got to go like, oh I got a power bank and now I got to go a rifle through quarts. Yeah, so those are sweet. I don't know, you know, I'm sure if you search them up on Amazon or something, you could find them. But we didn't use them. We didn't touch them. We didn't charge your damn thing. Actually we charge I mean, we kept everything charged, so we weren't in a position where it was like, oh god, we got to recharge some So that was kind of a That was a good one. I wish that people over at Point zero Energy were still in business, I really do. I would recommend those points zero energy generators because mine never even made it to ninety nine percent. But it's such a beast. Well it's a titan. It's called the Titan. I don't want to tell you about it too much because you can't even buy it. They're gone, they're gone. But it's so sweet. It's all metal. It's way better. It's like way it just is. It's way heavier too than any jackery, but it's it's like, you know, it'll probably last. I don't know how much longer than the average you know, power big whatever they are, big PAP battery, pat bank, I don't know what to call them. They're called solar generators, but they don't generate anything unless you plug them into something, right, But they're awesome, and yeah, that one's awesome, but you do have to be strong, there's no getting around it. Like it's not a senior option with the battery attached to it. I'm sure the Titan weighs ninety two pounds. I'm sure because I've moved that thing and I'm like, oh wow, so it's you sit it somewhere and leave it. But I don't know. I don't I don't have a and I've never messed with like a three thousand watt solar generator before. I don't know if they're heavy or not. I know the blue eddies are like on wheels, so I guess it's heavy. Yeah, yeah, the larger ones are. I have Eco Flow, I've got the I've got a Delta Pro and then two extra Delta Pro batteries. I like Eco Flow man. Yeah they do okay. And you know, and I'm I'm kind of a solar DIY guy, just kind of just you know, putts it around here and there. So I have a healthy respect for electricity. I was electricut to when I was in college, so I you know, yeah, I screw in a light bulb and I get nervous, you know, if my palm starts sweating, I'm just changing a light bulb in the kitchen. But but the eco flows do do a really good job. And it's three point five kill a watts, so thirty five hundred watts, and then each battery is the same, so you know, you're up to about twelve thousand you know, killo watts, which is you know, which is a lot. That's a lot, and and mostly it just runs, you know, stuff in my garage and chicken coop and and and that sort of thing. So if you're handy with di y stuff, or you're you know, you're you're confident in your electrical skills, you can put together a DIY version of a Blue Eddy or an Eco Flow or Jaggery for gosh, probably one third of the price. And it's it's convenient, I mean the Eco Flow and all the all the companies, it's convenience here. It is boom that you know, ups fed X drops it off and hit it with the solar pan. Know, then you're you know, you're good to go. It doesn't It takes all the guestswork out of it. But now you go Flow, They've they've done well, They've they've done well by me. Customer service has been fine. It's like anything else. You know, you'll go online and they'll say, you go flow, customer service is terrible, or they'll say say the same thing about Jack, you your blue Eddy. Every everybody has their detractors regardless. Yeah, the Internet is the home of complaining, you know what I mean? Oh my gosh, yeah, it's everyone's just it reminded like I was thinking about the other day, how when what was it Yelp? I don't think yelp was the first one, but there was a there was an initial forum or website or app or something like that that came out where people started reviewing restaurants. And it was such a crazy thing. I remember looking because I was in the restaurant industry, and I was like, who are these people that are sitting down and writing these reviews? And now it's the whole internet. That's the whole Internet is every I mean, my kids behave that way anything that comes out, they automatically tell me the good and the bad about it, you know what I mean. And it's crazy. That's like, it's like this weird thing that we do now, like we have we have to react to it. We can't just be like I was good. Exactly. You know. It's so weird and it's everything. It's everything from solar generators to movie trailers to whatever. Yeah, it's a crazy thing. But everybody has an opinion. Yeah, there's no bout doubt. But that's really what it is. Everybody has an opinion, and thanks to the Internet, we all think. People care about it. Yes, like they want they want to know what I think about it. Yeah, exactly, and we could really. Care less exactly, right. I don't. I don't base my daily activities on you know, your review of the you know, the broupub down the street. So yeah, I was going to go in there, but I saw it's a three star. I don't know. Yeah, oh okay, go there now. But so, well, I guess there are some people like that. Probably, I don't know. Life's too short for all that business. That's true. Well, I appreciate you coming on, Keith to talk about the things that worked and didn't work. We may be doing this next Monday, after we get another six inches of snow, if you're up for it. Absolutely, yeah, I'm I'm happy to report that I did not lose power, and I'm happy to report that I did not have to break into the pantry. So it's kind of a you know, kind of a win win situation. But yeah, I was ready for it. I was set for it. That's not I'm not gonna lose sleep tonight that I still have that I still have power. I'm glad, I you know, glad I kept power. And you know, thoughts to everybody out there who's gonna freeze their butts off tonight. Because there is a ton of them, man, truly. Still two hundred thousand in Tennessee. I just looked at power outage dot com and those folks, Oh. My gosh, get the sleeping bags out, the bivy sacks, the emergency blankets if you have them. All that stuff can make a difference. But yeah, yeah, I remember Katrina came through and then what gastone, and especially Katrina it was it must have been one hundred gosh, it was hot. I'd I'd rather sit there in bed and sweat with the ceiling fan off. Then I have to throw fifteen quilts on top of you in the bed. Oh yeah, I take the heat over the cold any any day of the week. Oh yeah. It's just it's it's not even like a question. There's just the background of the show right now is just making me angry just looking at it as I get Then once February kicks in, Keith, I get really hostile towards winter, I'm like, I'm done with this man. Yeah, it's time to see some green. Absolutely, But I do appreciate you coming on, my man, and we'll link back up again. Yeah, thanks for having me on. I really do appreciate it. Thank you. Where do we Where can we catch the Common Sense Practical Prepper podcast? Well, I you can find me on the twitters. You can search common Sense Practical Prepper or the official handle I think is prep Underscore podcast. And I'm on all the different I don't know. It's Google podcasts, and iHeartRadio and about sixty or about seventy percent of the traffic comes to Apple podcasts, so you can you can find me on Apple podcasts and yep, you're. Listening on Apple podcast Do me a favor. Go to the Common Sense Practical Prepper podcast and leave a nice review, and then do the same thing for PBN because we have terrible reviews at PBN. What our iTunes reviews are are nightmare? Oh my goodness. Yeah, I don't know what it was. I don't know that. We need some help. We need somebody to go there and say these guys are not insane. Well, there's always the same people who leave the bad reviews on Facebook. There's always a sniper out there that you said something they didn't like. Oh, I show this. Guy, Yeah, you might be able to give him a one star. Yeah. There, I've got a few of those out there. They didn't appreciate something I said. Whenever, but no, yep, comment Sense Practical Prepper, I come out, come over and take a peek, take a listen. Do appreciate it? Yeah, check him out. You'll definitely be hearing more from him here on PBN. All right, folks, Oh firewooll forge man you popped in as we're popping out. Sorry, dude, the man behind the Hammer Talk series here at PBN. Oh well, there's always next time you can re listen. It'll be up in just a second, all right, folks, talk to you soon. Don't forget check out the Ready Plan app and definitely check out our host, Keith the common Sense Practical Prepper. I'll talk to you guys tomorrow, all right, see you All right,