Matter of Facts: Calling All Preppers w/ Rick Austin

[00:00:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to the Matter of Facts podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network.

[00:00:10] [SPEAKER_00]: We talk prepping guns and politics every week on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify.

[00:00:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Go check out our content at MWFpodcast.com on Facebook or Instagram.

[00:00:18] [SPEAKER_00]: You can support us via Patreon or by checking out our affiliate partners.

[00:00:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host Phil Raveley.

[00:00:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Andrew and Nick are on the other side of the mic and here's your show.

[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_00]: So welcome back to the Matter of Facts podcast.

[00:00:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I swear to the listeners that one of these days I'm going to revise that audio in

[00:00:36] [SPEAKER_00]: for this show so that it actually notes that we have a second co-host, third hooligan, however

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_00]: we call Nick.

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Hooligan works.

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_00]: But you know, it's on the to-do list someplace.

[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_00]: But we're also joined by Rick Austin who I affectionately call the godfather of prepping.

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And you haven't shrugged that title off yet.

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm assuming you enjoy it or you at least tolerate it because you haven't

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_00]: told me not to.

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I wear it with pride.

[00:01:00] [SPEAKER_02]: It was like, oh yeah, yeah, because I do way more than gardening.

[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So it sure makes sense.

[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, I mean, Rick, for the audience that doesn't know who Rick Austin is, like

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_00]: one time reality TV star, author, creator of Prepper Camp along with your wife, survivor

[00:01:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Jane.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like I feel like the two of y'all have really been like the gateway drug for

[00:01:29] [SPEAKER_00]: a lot of people that got into preparedness over the years because I feel like y'all

[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_00]: were you were trying to make preparedness more about the free exchange of information

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_00]: and educating people and less about come to the convention center so we can sell y'all

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_00]: stuff.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we were, you know, because we were on all these reality TV shows and doomsday

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_02]: preppers and that sort of stuff.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Promoters wanted us to be at their events in these large convention centers where

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_02]: they'd have five thousand people in charge, five bucks to get in.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_02]: It was a weekend type thing and people would come to the show just because, oh, what's

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_02]: this prepping stuff all about?

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_02]: They weren't really there to buy anything.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_02]: But we did realize that people were there to learn stuff.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's kind of where Jane and I came in and many of the speakers that were

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_02]: on that circuit at the time were guys that were just really trying to teach stuff.

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And we were there because we were a marketing draw for these promoters who weren't even

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_02]: preparedness people themselves.

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_02]: But so we decided we'd like to do an event that we would want to attend in a venue

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_02]: that's conducive to preparedness and trying stuff out and bushcraft and that sort

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_02]: of thing. And so that's how we came upon the idea of starting Prepper Camp.

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And we found this great campground in the Appalachian Mountains 12 years ago.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And we're in our 11th year this year for Prepper Camp, which is kind of hard

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_02]: to believe because after the first one, I wasn't sure I wanted to do it again.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_02]: It was there was a lot I didn't know that I didn't know.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_02]: But but it worked.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I know that because I was thinking about this afternoon and Nick, you

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_00]: haven't made it to Prepper Camp because it's halfway across the country for

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_00]: you. That's true.

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_02]: But I want to say that's no excuse because we get people coming from British

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Columbia and British Columbia and Washington State and Australia and New

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Zealand. I know for a fact I was about to say I was about to say I know for a

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_00]: fact you're going to have an Australian there this year.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_01]: No, New Zealand, I think.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, no, I know an Australian who's going to be there.

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I think one of the other patrons are saying he was going to try to make

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_01]: it. He's from New Zealand.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I am going to try to get down there.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I've been wanting to get down there for a couple of years.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, it is one of the same weeks as a family vacation that I

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_01]: usually go on with my grandfather.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So sorry, man. Rick, you lose out to grandma.

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a family. It's a family.

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, yeah, I mean, you could always bring Graham bought a prepper camp.

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I can try to convince him to give up some walleye fishing, but that's a

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_01]: hard sell.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_01]: That is a hard sell.

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Comments coming in.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to do a version of Prepper Camp in the north.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I've I've I've said before that, like, Prepper Camp, like anybody that

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_00]: wants to do something in the same vein as Prepper Camp, like I would

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_00]: wholeheartedly celebrate.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I would just say to those people that, like, I think the most important

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_00]: things to capture from what Rick and Jane and like dozens upon dozens of

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_00]: volunteers whose names y'all probably never heard, but they work

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_00]: tirelessly to pull this event off.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_00]: But the thing that I've always seen is that, like, it really is

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_00]: focused around the education and not just that, but it's it's focused

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: around bringing together like minded people.

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I've met I've met people who listen to this podcast, who live

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_00]: within an hour and a half of me, who I've never met before.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_00]: But like they they recognize my face.

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_00]: They recognize my voice.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_00]: They showed up at Prepper Camp.

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_00]: We're like, dude, I live like an hour away from you this and the

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_00]: other, you know, I've been in preparedness for all these years.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, it's just this is this is the place where you can

[00:05:26] [SPEAKER_00]: meet these people who are into the same stuff you are.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And even though they're not in the same stuff, they're into different

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_00]: stuff for a lot of the same reasons.

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_00]: So like, I think that's the thing to capture from Prepper Camp is

[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_00]: that you're trying to bring together all this knowledge so it can be

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_00]: freely shared with the community because everyone has to be able to

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_00]: self rescue or you can't help anybody else.

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's amazing to me because I, you know, I lived it for so long,

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_02]: but I had one woman come up to me from Seattle, Washington.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And she said, well, she I asked where she was from.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_02]: She said, from Seattle.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I said, Seattle, what are you doing here?

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And she said, when I walked through those gates at Prepper Camp,

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I felt I had gone to heaven because I can't talk about what I feel

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_02]: and what I think in Seattle.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And here I just felt free suddenly.

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just, I never thought that that was, I mean, that just never crossed

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_02]: my mind that people would feel that way.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_01]: It can be hard if you don't have a community around.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm, I'm an Illinois man.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I'm a gun guy in Illinois.

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_01]: You know how that goes?

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, even, even like for me living down here on the

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Gulf Coast where like things like survivalism and things like firearms are much more

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_00]: relic tolerable.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I still find that like, I find myself in a lot of the social groups that I'm kind

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_00]: of like sideways related to mostly because my wife's more social than I am.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_00]: But I find that me being the crazy prepper winds up being almost like a

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_00]: sideshow attraction.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I'm saying?

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, oh, that's cool.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_00]: But like there's, I'm not speaking to a near peer.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not talking to somebody who's that interested in any of the things I know,

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_00]: where I know how to do.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just, oh, that's a cool hobby.

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, yeah, I don't know that I would call this a hobby.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Not when I have, you know, heavy equipment shelves behind me and stacks

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_00]: of barrels, stacks of barrels and buckets in the garage.

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Like this is we're a little bit past the hobby stage here, but yeah, I mean,

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_00]: it's, it's a great opportunity to meet your tribe and it's the thing I tell

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_00]: people is I go to, I go to North Carolina every year to recharge.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Like just spend that three, four days with, you know, with listeners of the

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_00]: podcast, with patrons, with friends, with people that have become family at

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_00]: this point, that three days is my recharge every year so that I can go

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_00]: home and, you know, deal with the fact that I'm kind of sitting on

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_00]: island by myself afterwards, which incidentally I know Rick is like part

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_00]: of what you want to talk to about, talk about today.

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_00]: It was like, how do we not be that one prepper on an island by herself?

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Because I know I've personally struggled with this.

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I've, I have tried my best to like latch onto some of my neighbors

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_00]: and be like, Hey, y'all really ought to think about doing some of this

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_00]: stuff and it just seemed to go in winter and out the other.

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And like even after hurricane Ida, I had this experience and y'all forgive

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_00]: me for a moment, but like I was, I was on Facebook marketplace

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_00]: about two weeks after hurricane Ida.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was furious at the number of chainsaws and generators being sold

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_00]: because I was thinking to myself, I'm like, did y'all just go through

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_00]: the same thing I did where I had, you know, like two trees, one tree

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_00]: land on the house and two in the front yard, and we were on a

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_00]: generator for eight days straight.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, did we not have those same shared experiences?

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Why are you selling all this stuff?

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Put it in your shed for the next year.

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And I like, I feel like I have attempted unsuccessfully to bring people

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_00]: into the fold that have no interest in preparedness.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe I've gone about this the wrong way and you can try to

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_00]: give me some insight because like you said before, like if we're,

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_00]: we're not going to lone wolf this by ourselves, it's not going to work.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, okay.

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_02]: I guess there's a segue where I can go into kind of what we did.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, you know, we've, we've laid low Jane and I, we, we, in our local

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_02]: community, we don't talk about who we are in their preparedness end of things.

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Just because I don't want 50,000 people showing up at my doorstep

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_02]: coming up my mountain, um, when the shit hits the fan.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So, um, we haven't really made that we've kind of get a totally

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_02]: different persona locally, uh, versus, you know, what people know about us

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_02]: worldwide who are in the preparedness sort of thing.

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, but, uh, we look at where things are going and my concern with 30,000

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_02]: plus Chinese communist party, CCP military age males who are coming

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_02]: over the border with the same kit, same backpack, same clothes,

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_02]: uh, looking fresh and refreshed.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, don't look like they've walked 3000 miles to get here.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, there's no females there.

[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just all these Chinese nationals.

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And if you know anything about Chinese communist party, they don't let

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_02]: anybody leave without their permission.

[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_02]: So they're here for a reason.

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, I think, you know, since the Chinese communist party has

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_02]: declared war on us years ago, uh, and unconventional warfare, we're

[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_02]: seeing all of that stuff happen right now, and, um, it wouldn't take much

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_02]: for them to take out our power grid.

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And if I was the Chinese communist party and I wanted to take over the

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_02]: United States and my stated mission was to be the number one in the world

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_02]: and knock us off our pedestal and, um, really take us down.

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I would take out the power grid because the DOD war game this

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_02]: years ago, if we had an EMP and we had a nationwide power grid go down

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_02]: and it was a long-term thing, uh, in, in two months, 80% of the population

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_02]: will be dead by not having resources because they aren't prepared because

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_02]: they end up killing each other because their son's hungry and they're

[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_02]: not going to look at his son's eyes.

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And suddenly good people become bad people.

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, you saw what happened to Hurricane Katrina.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, it became just a chaos in a matter of hours.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_02]: So I see that kind of thing coming.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And I know that maybe there's nothing I can do to stop what's happening

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_02]: in Washington, DC or nationwide, but at least I can do something

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_02]: in my neighborhood precinct County.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, I might be able to take some control there.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we looked at, um, really just kind of took a GIS, um, tax

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_02]: of the people around us and started putting Xs, red Xs on the people that

[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_02]: we knew we couldn't trust and green Xs on people that might be.

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And we looked at their voting records, um, to see if they were like-minded.

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And we started reaching out to a few people here and there and saying,

[00:12:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, you know what's going on.

[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And our County is 600 square miles.

[00:12:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And at any one time, our sheriff's department has only seven chair,

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_02]: seven deputies out there.

[00:12:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's not seven, it's not 600 square miles.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_02]: That's flat land.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_02]: It's 600 square miles.

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_02]: It goes up, down sideways, up, you know, around hills, round, round mountains.

[00:12:59] [SPEAKER_02]: So at, at best there's a 15 minute, um, response time from these guys.

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_02]: So we started approaching people and saying, Hey, why don't we set

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_02]: up a neighborhood watch and so we can see what's going on.

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's kind of innocuous as opposed to, Hey, let's start being preppers.

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just a neighborhood watch.

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, there's been a lot of meth heads that are going into the rural

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_02]: areas because they got cars and they're much easier targets than trying

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_02]: to knock over a convenience store.

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, there've been a lot of home invasions and that kind of stuff.

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So we're, we're getting people to go, Oh yeah, you know, that makes sense.

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So now we, well, how are we going to communicate with each other?

[00:13:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know, what we could do is we could get on this, this signal app

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_02]: and it's end to end encrypted and we can create little groups and it's much,

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_02]: much more versatile than just doing a text message chain.

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And so when somebody sees something, they can say something to the group

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_02]: and we can all share that.

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And we had about 15 people in our immediate area and selfishly I'm

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_02]: looking at the more I can expand my view out from where we are, the more we can

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_02]: deal with a potential problem when it's not on my property and out there.

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_02]: So we can respond to it out there.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_02]: The further away they can, we can, we can deal with it.

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_02]: The better off we are.

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So, um, and time and distance is a huge advantage.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And seeing what's coming.

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So, so, you know, we started with just kind of this neighborhood watch

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_02]: and, um, when we, after we started within, I think three weeks, we had already

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_02]: alerted everybody in the area.

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Now our neighborhood is rural, so it's, it's not, it's not a neighborhood

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_02]: in traditional sense, it's not suburban whatsoever.

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So lots of land, lots of people.

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And these people generally don't really want to know other people.

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's what was interesting to me.

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_02]: They're, they're kind of looking at it like, well, you know, maybe if

[00:15:04] [SPEAKER_02]: we band together, we might be able to protect each other or at least alert

[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_02]: each other to what's coming earlier so I can get ready for it.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So in a matter of three weeks, we've alerted people to, um, you know, a

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_02]: bear, uh, knocking over trash cans in somebody's yard.

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't supposed to be there, uh, to a home invasion just down the road

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_02]: to a forest fire that was headed our way and to a tornado warning.

[00:15:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And that was kind of, um, proof to everybody that, Hey, maybe this is a good idea.

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So we, um, expanded that out a little bit and actually, um, worked with one

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_02]: of our mayors here in the County and we approached the sheriff who is very

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_02]: like-minded to come to find out, um, listens to a lot of prepping stuff.

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, we talked about, you know, how can we help?

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_02]: What can we do?

[00:16:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And he's, he understands full well that at any one time he, at the

[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_02]: most he's got seven deputies.

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_02]: So he can see some stuff coming too.

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So he is fully in support of what we were doing.

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we started talking about comms with him and what we can do.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, we eventually expanded it out to our local precinct area, our

[00:16:25] [SPEAKER_02]: little township area and enlisted more people, and now we've got something

[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_02]: that's County wide and we've moved from just being kind of a County, um,

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_02]: operation to being officially a cert, a community emergency response team

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_02]: and doing the training that goes with it.

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_02]: So people were, we're teaching people stuff that they can use

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_02]: just for their own families if they need to like, um, comms and, and

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_02]: like, um, you know, stop the bleed trauma type stuff so that people can take care

[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_02]: of problems there and they can be their own first responder.

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And they feel now like they're part of a group of people who can

[00:17:10] [SPEAKER_02]: now have their back, um, when they need to.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And because we've got medics that are part of what are, you know, our

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_02]: group, um, you know, we've told people, Hey, you know, just,

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_02]: just give us a call, let us know what's going on.

[00:17:23] [SPEAKER_02]: If you need help, we're going to be there faster than an ambulance can be.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we'll let them take over.

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_02]: So, um,

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_00]: so you, you started off just to kind of recap all this for the audience.

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_00]: You started off by doing what, um, Oh Jesus, Mike Shelby,

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Helby would calmly call an area study.

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_00]: You looked at your surrounding area.

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_00]: You figured out who was in your surrounding area and what they were

[00:17:50] [SPEAKER_00]: about.

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you started organizing basically it amounts to a very large diversified

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_00]: mag and then you added human or human intelligence into your area study

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_00]: because now every single one of every single person in that mag that's

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_00]: reporting to the whole group, what's going on around them becomes an ad hoc.

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And they, and they have found and they go, well, I know this guy who,

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_02]: who flies these drone helicopters and he's interested.

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_02]: He's, you know, he's cool.

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Like we are.

[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So let's bring him into the group.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, having, having some, some aerial assets that can see what's

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_02]: happening even further out is even, is he's even a better thing.

[00:18:33] So,

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_01]: especially someone with a lot of exactly those things are not,

[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_01]: you're not going to pick it up in five minutes, but

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_00]: well, but that, I guess, I guess that that's the benefit though of like

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_00]: bringing in like-minded people and then they bring in more like-minded

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_00]: people is that what you're doing is you're, you're, you're connecting skill sets.

[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Because you know, like I learned, I learned this dipping my toe into the

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_00]: comms world and Nick and I were talking about hyper fixation earlier.

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Like if you had that personality where when you get interested in

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_00]: something, you learn everything about it in the first 72 hours, like

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_00]: that's, that's a great asset, but most people don't have the attention

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_00]: span to master something that fast or master that many different disciplines.

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_00]: So what you do is, is you say, Hey, I know how to grow food.

[00:19:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:19:20] [SPEAKER_00]: That's fricking important, but she may not know everything about comms.

[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_00]: You may not know everything about intelligence gathering.

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_00]: You may not know everything about any one subject, but if you grab people

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_00]: and bring them into your orbit now, you can all cross share those skills.

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_00]: So now the whole group benefits from having a whole bunch of

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_02]: subject matter and they've already seen the benefit of it.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:19:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Instead of, instead of basically relying on what my family does a lot of time

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_00]: where I want to be in the subject matter expert for a lot of things.

[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_00]: So if something happens to me, there's kind of a lot of knowledge

[00:19:54] [SPEAKER_00]: and like a leakage real fast.

[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you not have a, like a book put together Phil for like the basic

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_01]: how-to's on how to utilize that stuff?

[00:20:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Basic.

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Sure.

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, how base, how big, how basic do you think you can make all

[00:20:11] [SPEAKER_00]: this stuff I know about?

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, no, I'm not talking about comms necessarily.

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, sure.

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's, let's just take it from very basic level.

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_01]: How to hook the Jackery up to various things.

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_01]: How to hook your generator up, how to turn on and set the radios

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_01]: to whatever channel you need.

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Cause you've got the radios all pre-programmed, right?

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Yep.

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[00:20:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And so every radio in this house is programmed exactly the same.

[00:20:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So it should be pretty easy to write a fairly basic, say five or six

[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_01]: bullet point summary of here's how you power the radios at the grids down.

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Here's how you turn the radio on.

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Here's how you set to whatever channel you need.

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Here's how you change the channel if you need to.

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And thing, you know, you could get, you can get shockingly basic and have a

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_01]: pretty good say just hand it to your teenage daughter and she'll be able to

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_01]: at the very least be able to pick up the radio and use it at a bare

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_01]: functional level.

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_01]: She's not going to be able to program new frequencies into it with

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_01]: chirp, but she doesn't really need to.

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_00]: No, I mean, that's a good point.

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_00]: It's, I think, I think a lot of times and I'm ha I'm happy to take my lumps.

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I think a lot of times I fall into the classic trap that a lot of people

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_00]: in the preparedness world do where like they are either the only prepper

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_00]: in the family or they're just the primary one.

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And most of us in this lifestyle have this mentality of it's not getting

[00:21:33] [SPEAKER_00]: done, I'm going to take care of it.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Like rather than rather than sub that workout to somebody else, I'm just

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_00]: going to get it done.

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And I fall into that worse than almost anybody, I would say, in that if I see a

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_00]: hole, I'm going to fill the hole.

[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes what I forget is to, to, to go deal with the other two people

[00:21:50] [SPEAKER_00]: that are in my group by default and be like, Hey guys, y'all need to know

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_00]: that this whole list plugged and what was used to plug it.

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_02]: That kind of leads.

[00:21:57] [SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, even, even my wife has admitted that is that like the hard

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_00]: part about the hard part about this family's preparedness lifestyle.

[00:22:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's the fact that like she happily admits that she relies on me

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_00]: to do a lot of things, things that she doesn't want to do.

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Like when we go, when we go out, I am always carrying a firearm

[00:22:14] [SPEAKER_00]: period in discussion.

[00:22:16] [SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't, she's not comfortable carrying it or carrying a firearm.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_00]: That's like we've she's hell on wheels with a deer rifle.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I have no doubt she could put a bolt between your eyes at a hundred

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_00]: yards or better, not worried about her ability to shoot, but the idea

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_00]: of carrying a gun on her person every day just makes her nervous.

[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's not, and she relies on me for that, but she's even flatly admitted

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_00]: there have been situations where I couldn't be there with her and she's

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_00]: kicked herself and said, God, I wish I could get over this so I can do this.

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, back to the comms thing with what you were talking about earlier, Phil,

[00:22:49] [SPEAKER_02]: um, you know, we, we went from signal to figuring out how we could use

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_02]: GMRS radios and, and most of the people in our group, um, their eyes

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_02]: glaze over when you start talking about channels and you talk about the

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_02]: frequencies and it's just like, okay, you have to dumb it down for them

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_02]: and you have to make it easier for them.

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And you guys know Chin right?

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Chin Gibson.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So he's kind of like a comms guy.

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And I told him, look, you know, we've got to dumb this down for people.

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So he, he came up and he did all the programming for these TID radios

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_02]: that are GMRS and ham and basically can listen to everything.

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_02]: So he did programming for all that.

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And the beauty of these particular radios is you can, you can have one

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_02]: that's programmed and make that the master and then turn the other ones on

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_02]: instead of a couple of settings and they become slaves and suddenly they

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_02]: copy over all the channels.

[00:23:47] [SPEAKER_02]: So now we've got a list of channels and give them a piece of paper

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_02]: and say, here's the ones that we're going to talk on and when we need to

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_02]: use it.

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So all you have to do is turn it on and push the button and let it off

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_02]: so you can listen to people.

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_02]: So it, it really kind of dumbed it down so that because all I want to

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_02]: do is this is a device that has a purpose.

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I have a problem.

[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_02]: I need to be able to use it as a solution.

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't need to know how the channels work.

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't need to know what's the difference between FRS and GMRS

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_02]: and MERS and all that stuff.

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't need to know.

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Just, just tell me what channel to, to, uh, to turn it onto.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_02]: I can, I can push oh three.

[00:24:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I can do that and then I can talk to somebody if I have a problem.

[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Rick, do you know what radio that is?

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd be curious to look at it.

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a TID.

[00:24:44] [SPEAKER_00]: It's either the H3 or the H8.

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_02]: I can give you guys a link later.

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't remember off the top of my head, but, uh, it's amazingly easy

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_02]: program and it's like, it's like 65 bucks for two of them.

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_00]: So I would venture it's the T it's the T radio.

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_00]: It is the history.

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Yep.

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Probably exactly.

[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Probably, probably the ham version though, because they don't

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_00]: distinguish the model nor between ham and GMRS and the GMRS ones are

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_01]: locked down from the ham radio ones are about seven to $10 and you can,

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_02]: you can select all to have all, all.

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_02]: So you can do that.

[00:25:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And even though you're not supposed to be using a ham radio, if you're

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_02]: using GMRS, um, you know, it's there so you can listen to what's going on.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_02]: If you don't have a ham license.

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and of course in the shit hits the fan scenario,

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_02]: all bets are off anyway.

[00:25:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, but, uh,

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_00]: but the thing you mentioned, Rick is the same thing.

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_00]: It's the same response I've gotten from some of our listeners when they,

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_00]: when I talk about off grid comms and they're like, Phil, I don't

[00:25:54] [SPEAKER_00]: care how you build an antenna.

[00:25:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I just want to know how to talk to my wife a mile and a half down the road.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's, it's like, it's like, you don't have to know

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_00]: how to assemble an engine to drive a car.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's, I think that's what a lot of these subjects, like

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_00]: when you get really, really involved in and realize how complicated they

[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_00]: are, I think sometimes we forget that not everyone is going to be the

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_00]: expert at that subject.

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And we do have to, I don't, I don't like the term dumb it down, but

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_00]: we have to simplify it so that it's a tool, not a doc, not a

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_00]: doctorate to be pursued.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like you said, you don't need to know everything under the

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_00]: sun about radios in order to be able to use one like that's personally,

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_00]: that's what kind of corralled me into GMRS when I looked at ham

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_00]: versus GMRS is because I'm content to take the time to learn how, learn how

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_00]: ham radio works and get a license.

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_00]: If I decide to my wife or daughter not going to do that.

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_00]: So I needed a, in GMRS because it's channelized is because it is more

[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_00]: constrained, it is so much simpler for the lay person that just needs

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_00]: a tool in the toolbox.

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's why I've started kind of leaning on people about, Hey,

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_00]: if you want to get a ham license, get a ham license, but get a GMRS

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_00]: license too, because that license covers you and your entire media family.

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And I can teach my 12 year old how to use GMRS radio in 30 seconds

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_00]: without having to like, you know, it's just, it simplifies things to me.

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_00]: If I'm going to, if I'm going to say what's the use of GMRS, it's

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_00]: because I have a very small group of people that I need comms with.

[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And if I need to reach outside a small area, then I might be in the

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_00]: realm where I need to be fooling around with ham radio.

[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Although the thing you brought about having something as simple as a

[00:27:40] [SPEAKER_00]: signal chat is something I've always also pointed out to people.

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Cause I tell everybody, I'm like, you know, as it is, we all have

[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_00]: a long range communication device sitting in our pocket.

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_00]: It's called a cell phone.

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_00]: There's no reason not to use these things as long as they

[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_00]: work because they work fairly reliably.

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, and two, you know, even if you don't have cell coverage, say

[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_01]: the cell towers are down locally.

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of times the, the internet lines and the old phone lines that

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_01]: runs over at least out by me and the boonies they're buried.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_01]: They tend to be a little more resilient than the, than the power

[00:28:14] [SPEAKER_01]: infrastructure and the cell towers.

[00:28:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I've ran a lot of the cell towers around here because we're out in

[00:28:19] [SPEAKER_01]: the boonies do have backup generators on them, but I think

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_01]: they're only good for like eight to 16 hours without refueling.

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know about.

[00:28:27] [SPEAKER_00]: So there was, there was a particular day and I don't remember

[00:28:31] [SPEAKER_00]: what the issue was, but we had an issue in this local area where

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_00]: AT&T cell circuit started acting up one day.

[00:28:39] [SPEAKER_00]: You couldn't make a phone call.

[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Like if you tried, it would just dead, it would dead end you.

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And if you tried to text, it would just sit there and spin and spin

[00:28:46] [SPEAKER_00]: and spin and wouldn't go anywhere.

[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And yet, because my wife and I both have signal and she has

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_00]: wifi at her workplace and I have wifi here, I was able to

[00:28:55] [SPEAKER_00]: just shoot her, shoot her messages through signal and be like, Hey,

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_00]: phone lines are down, hit me on signal if you need anything.

[00:29:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Just after, you know, let just keep it in, just keep in touch.

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And if you don't want to signal Snapchat, believe it or not.

[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Fantastic for that.

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_00]: But I guess like, you know, that's the joy that's the, that's

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_00]: the benefit of having a lawyer coms, coms plan where it's like we have

[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_00]: this, this, this, this, and this, and this, we, if all five of these

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_00]: things don't work, then we have a whole different set of problems

[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_00]: deal with right now, but the odds that you're gonna get the odds

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_00]: that a mesh network's not gonna work and a GMR radio isn't gonna work

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_00]: in your cell phones, you're going to go down and the internet's

[00:29:38] [SPEAKER_00]: going to go down and a landline phone goes down when all of those

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_00]: things go down at the same time.

[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_00]: There are probably aliens landing, landing on the white house

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_00]: front.

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Probably did a long time ago.

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm convinced that they're lizard.

[00:29:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah.

[00:29:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Without a doubt.

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_00]: No one's going to convince me otherwise, but I digress.

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_01]: A couple of things.

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_00]: It would definitely explain some of the loose skin and the crazy looks.

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's just the elderly now.

[00:30:12] [SPEAKER_01]: What's the average age of Congress?

[00:30:14] [SPEAKER_01]: 63.

[00:30:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I thought it was closer to 80.

[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Nick, if you start me down this road, I'm going to get people mad at me.

[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, so we, you know, we said, okay, we're anticipating a really bad,

[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_02]: if we're anticipating a bad situation and we need to be able to communicate,

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_02]: um, and let's say we don't want to be doing it over GMRS, which can be

[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_02]: triangulated and people can hear what you're saying.

[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, what else can we do?

[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And so let's say the cell towers are down and let's say there's

[00:30:42] [SPEAKER_02]: there's the grid is down completely.

[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and so we ended up with, um, setting up a mesh tastic network,

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_02]: um, which is basically these little, these little radios.

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Let me see if you can see this.

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_02]: These little radios and this Bluetooth to your phone, which you use all the time.

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And you can send text messages.

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_02]: You do everything that we're doing, um, on signal.

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_02]: So we can set up groups in different groups for different places.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, we can set up a master group for everybody.

[00:31:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And every one of these little radios is also a repeater.

[00:31:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's encrypted end to end.

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_02]: You're sending something through maybe through 20 of these other things and

[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_02]: you're sending it to an individual person.

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, the people that you are going through as a repeater never know

[00:31:34] [SPEAKER_02]: that that message went through.

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, only the person that you specifically or the group that you

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_02]: specifically targeted gets that message.

[00:31:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And, uh, one of the other great things about it, in fact, besides

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_02]: texting, um, people is that even when your phone doesn't work, cause there's

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_02]: no cell service anymore, um, you can see where all of your people are on a map.

[00:32:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So you can see who's moving, who's whatever.

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the great things about this for Jane and myself and anybody

[00:32:06] [SPEAKER_02]: else on the mountain that's working.

[00:32:09] [SPEAKER_02]: If we got 55 acres and, um, I don't respond and there's something wrong.

[00:32:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And I've got this little radio in my phone with me.

[00:32:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, they can find where I am.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's say I caught myself and you know, I'm bleeding out.

[00:32:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So the, the more of these things we can get out there, the better.

[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and that makes more nodes, more repeaters.

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And when we told the sheriff about this, he said, well, how much are those?

[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_02]: He said, my guys, my guys, my deputies ought to be using that.

[00:32:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And I said, it's 65 bucks, 65 bucks for this little radio.

[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And they're carrying around their cell phones anyway.

[00:32:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So, um, that's a standalone kit.

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Like you, that you just buy that little thing box there by this little thing.

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, I'll be talking about it at prepper camp Saturday night, telling

[00:32:58] [SPEAKER_02]: people they need to be on this mesh, mesh-tastic thing.

[00:33:02] [SPEAKER_01]: So is there, what is the model of that little device you have there?

[00:33:07] [SPEAKER_02]: If you go to Muzee works, that's M U Z I dot works.

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_02]: W O R K S that is a website and it's a guy that we have been working with now.

[00:33:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And he's, he's made probably a hundred radios for us already.

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And he turns it around quickly.

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So that one I'm guessing looks like it is the H1.

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, if you're, if you're a, if you're a techie nerd and you

[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_02]: want to put your own together, you can do that and you can buy the boxes

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_02]: and you can buy it all, the little Laura radios and do all that kind of stuff.

[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, but again, I'm dealing with people that just want to, Hey, I

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_02]: don't know even, I don't even know how to set this up and set up the,

[00:33:52] [SPEAKER_02]: the groups and that sort of stuff.

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So we do it for them.

[00:33:56] [SPEAKER_02]: We set up the groups for them.

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_02]: So it could be a local group for their own little neighborhood watch.

[00:34:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And it could be, you know, part of a master group that we're doing for the entire

[00:34:05] [SPEAKER_02]: county and now everybody can talk to each other from far out.

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And in these little things you can put in a box, um, in a waterproof box,

[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_02]: and you can put a little solar panel up on an antenna and this thing will

[00:34:21] [SPEAKER_02]: stay charged all the time.

[00:34:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And the sheriff actually has a huge tower that he uses for all his comms.

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_02]: He said, I'm just going to put one of these things up there and I'll use the

[00:34:33] [SPEAKER_02]: long antenna or a longer antenna and, um, I'll be able to talk to everybody

[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_02]: throughout the county.

[00:34:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:34:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I have a small little, it's like a rural subdivision with about 20 homes

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_01]: within about half a mile of us.

[00:34:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Most of my neighbors are elderly 65 plus.

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, there's a few younger couples that are moving in with kids now as the

[00:34:56] [SPEAKER_01]: older couples age out and move into retirement communities.

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_01]: This is a fantastic solution for that because we had an ice storm a couple of

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_01]: years ago where our neighborhood lost power for almost a week.

[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was cell service was kind of spotty.

[00:35:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, it did go down for a day, but it was up after that.

[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was very hard and kind of unsafe because of how many down

[00:35:20] [SPEAKER_01]: power lines that were to go knock door to door and find out what

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_01]: elderly neighbors had a gen set and which ones did.

[00:35:27] [SPEAKER_01]: This would be phenomenal because if it's a plug and play solution that they can

[00:35:31] [SPEAKER_01]: just tap a Bluetooth on their phone, they already do that for their car.

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_00]: To add a curiosity, what's, what is roughly the range from one of those

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_00]: mesh tech has to ignores to another?

[00:35:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Cause I was Googling while y'all were talking and I see this thing operates

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_02]: at about 900, which makes it almost impossible to find because it's

[00:35:52] [SPEAKER_02]: basically at the same same megahertz as all the smart devices in people's

[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_02]: homes and that sort of stuff.

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like, it's like a needle in a haystack if someone's trying to

[00:36:03] [SPEAKER_02]: find you because everything runs off of that.

[00:36:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:36:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I was going to say like cordless phones for those of us who still have

[00:36:10] [SPEAKER_00]: not a cell phone, but a cordless phone in the house.

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_00]: They all operate on 900 megahertz.

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, most things do it's a, it's, it's about it.

[00:36:18] [SPEAKER_00]: It is one of the most congested radio bands in a neighborhood in

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_00]: the United States of America.

[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Like there is, there's no shortage of stuff.

[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_00]: If you were to look at this on a waterfall, like a radio nerd,

[00:36:30] [SPEAKER_00]: there's no source shortage of things blasting RF around.

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Which makes it fantastic if you're trying to be hidden.

[00:36:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, if, if one, if one node goes down, somebody in your

[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_02]: group goes down and they get captured or whatever it is,

[00:36:46] [SPEAKER_02]: whatever that scenario is, you can still bounce around to through other

[00:36:52] [SPEAKER_02]: nodes to get to somebody else.

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So you're talking to, or your group.

[00:36:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's, it's really a beautiful system.

[00:37:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And the real testament to this thing is almost the entire city of Austin,

[00:37:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Texas, if you can believe it is hooked up somebody, some multi-billionaire

[00:37:10] [SPEAKER_02]: said, I want these things out everywhere.

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And they, they've hooked it up and done proof of concept for a whole, for a

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_02]: whole city where people have these things.

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So again, you know, it's 60 feet.

[00:37:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Looks like line of sight is 10 miles.

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And of course depends on your terrain, you know, that sort of stuff.

[00:37:30] [SPEAKER_01]: But absolutely your mountains are going to be in the way.

[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Structures are going to be in the way.

[00:37:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Hill Valley.

[00:37:36] [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I've got one of these on my truck.

[00:37:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I carry one in my pocket.

[00:37:41] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's, you know, the one in my truck is going to be able to be a repeater for,

[00:37:46] [SPEAKER_02]: get me if I'm in side Walmart or whatever.

[00:37:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I've got one in the attic of my house.

[00:37:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's at a higher point.

[00:37:53] [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, you've got an opportunity to bounce off a lot of people and,

[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_02]: and see what's going on.

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_01]: So I've got a big antenna in my backyard.

[00:38:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to be turning into a ground plane ham antenna.

[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So I could mount one up there.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_01]: That'd be pretty great.

[00:38:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd end up being like, I think it's 40 feet above the highest hilltop in my area.

[00:38:16] [SPEAKER_00]: So 40, 40 feet.

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_00]: If I remember right from doing line of sight math recently, 40 feet of antenna

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_00]: height is supposed to be like eight miles.

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's that's eight miles.

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_01]: If I'm not already on a 250 foot ridge.

[00:38:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's assuming, that's assuming like, you know, the earth had the

[00:38:35] [SPEAKER_00]: earth has nothing on as just curvature and flat.

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So actually lying above the general elevation, it'll be like 190 feet.

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I will tell you that there's, there is an open channel on the mesh-tastic thing.

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's, it's the long fast channel and everybody can use that channel.

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And we got, we got a plane going over and we got a message on all of our

[00:39:03] [SPEAKER_02]: mesh-tastic saying hello down there.

[00:39:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm going, what the hell is that plane?

[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_02]: What, you know, how does he know we're down here?

[00:39:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And chin looked it up.

[00:39:14] [SPEAKER_02]: The guy was 536 miles away and three of 3,500 feet up.

[00:39:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm like, holy crap.

[00:39:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I actually saw some guys who were, they were experimenting with a

[00:39:35] [SPEAKER_00]: radio fang, just a UV five bar ham radio hooked up to an origin data

[00:39:39] [SPEAKER_00]: systems, SR one simplex repeater, which just, you hook it up to a radio.

[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And I've actually got one running in my pack, but it just takes,

[00:39:48] [SPEAKER_00]: takes in a message and then parrots it back out.

[00:39:50] [SPEAKER_00]: That's how, that's how it works.

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, they put one of these things in a waterproof case, hooked it up

[00:39:55] [SPEAKER_00]: to a drone and then put it up in the air as high as it would go.

[00:39:58] [SPEAKER_00]: I started doing range testing on it.

[00:39:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was, I was impressed at the incredibly nerdy display.

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I was saying, cause like, I mean, I don't know how long you keep a drone up in

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_00]: the air while it's hauling a payload like that, but I did think to myself.

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, well, let's take, let's take this out of the drone and let's stick it.

[00:40:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, but yeah, but I guess I'm saying is like, you could put one

[00:40:22] [SPEAKER_00]: in a frigging little bitty weather balloon and then tether it to the

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_02]: ground and just talk to the sheriff about doing that very thing so

[00:40:28] [SPEAKER_02]: that he can reach the entire county.

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, as long as it's over the higher.

[00:40:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Cause this is like three ounces.

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_01]: What I'm seeing here with batteries, three ounces.

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_01]: That's that's nothing.

[00:40:39] [SPEAKER_01]: The, the go pros wait three times, two or three times that.

[00:40:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And they mount those things on drones and flying for hours.

[00:40:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and conversely, if you wanted to do something like this with

[00:40:48] [SPEAKER_00]: like, do with like GMRS, I mean, even a light, even a lightweight

[00:40:52] [SPEAKER_00]: radio is going to weigh a pound and a half.

[00:40:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:40:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to drop the, that webpage comments for everybody.

[00:41:04] [SPEAKER_02]: If you use a prepper cam 2024, um, I think they get a discount too.

[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Nice.

[00:41:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Very cool.

[00:41:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is, uh, this is rapidly moving to the top of my to do list.

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, one thing is, and you can, you can, you can, if you have a series

[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_02]: of channels that you want to use, it actually has a QR code for those channels.

[00:41:37] [SPEAKER_02]: All the other person just needs to take a picture of it on their phone.

[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And suddenly all those channels they've got.

[00:41:42] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you're talking about older people having them program

[00:41:45] [SPEAKER_02]: that that's never going to happen.

[00:41:47] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you can do that for them.

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_02]: No, but I can program it five minutes that way.

[00:41:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, yeah.

[00:41:54] Okay.

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_00]: So your layered comms plan is, you know, like basically cell

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_00]: phones, signal groups, chats.

[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_00]: GMRS mesh, tastic.

[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Interesting.

[00:42:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And I love that you've gotten the support of your local sheriff.

[00:42:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I, I, I wish I had a good warm fuzzy feeling that I might be able

[00:42:17] [SPEAKER_00]: to pull up that hat trick in the suburbs where I live, but it sounds

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_00]: to me as though you, you've, you've stumbled upon or directly targeted

[00:42:27] [SPEAKER_00]: a way to bring together a pretty decent cross-section of your local

[00:42:31] [SPEAKER_00]: community into basically what amounts to a big old, I don't even know

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_00]: if I would say a mag like, I don't know.

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know if you know what the technical capabilities of these people are,

[00:42:42] [SPEAKER_00]: but the simple fact that they can, that y'all are all in communication

[00:42:46] [SPEAKER_00]: and sharing information that by itself is a huge step forward.

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that at least that at least lets you know what's coming up on the

[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_00]: horizon and I'm hopeful that as they're able to reap the benefits of

[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_00]: knowing other people who can help them out in an emergency, maybe it,

[00:43:04] [SPEAKER_00]: maybe it tilts them towards, maybe I should do this myself next time.

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Now realize that, you know, where they have spent years here in the rural

[00:43:15] [SPEAKER_02]: community that we're in, not knowing people and not necessarily wanting to

[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_02]: know people now there are people that they can reach out to that they've

[00:43:24] [SPEAKER_02]: been communicating with regularly on signal.

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, so there's that habit is started already and there's an issue

[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_02]: or a problem or somebody sees something suddenly everybody knows about it and

[00:43:38] [SPEAKER_02]: they see the value in that.

[00:43:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And now there's some camaraderie that would never have been there before.

[00:43:44] [SPEAKER_02]: So when the shit really does hit the fan, there's a lot more people

[00:43:48] [SPEAKER_02]: they feel like they can rely on.

[00:43:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And to be totally honest with you, there's a lot fewer people that I

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_02]: feel I have to shoot to protect my family.

[00:43:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's always nice.

[00:44:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, it definitely beats the old strategy of taking your dogs for a

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_01]: walk and your dog and accidentally run loose to meet your neighbors.

[00:44:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:44:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and, you know, we, we in the preparedness world say kind of tongue

[00:44:18] [SPEAKER_00]: in cheek, but we kind of mean it like the more prepared, the fewer

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_00]: people I have to shoot, even though it's a little dark.

[00:44:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, the less people you have to rescue at the very least.

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And, and that, and this is the thing that I latched onto during her

[00:44:31] [SPEAKER_00]: during a hurricane Ida was because like during Ida and Ida was not like

[00:44:38] [SPEAKER_00]: world ending EMP power grid down forever.

[00:44:41] [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't that, but it was a cat for hurricane that wiped out five zip codes.

[00:44:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Punted the power grid around here for eight days and dropped a pine tree on

[00:44:55] [SPEAKER_00]: the water storage tank that services this entire subdivision.

[00:44:58] [SPEAKER_00]: So we woke up the next morning with no power, no, no water pressure and

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_00]: living like it was a little house on the Prairie.

[00:45:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Now what my family did was we grabbed the Jackery and the solar panels.

[00:45:11] [SPEAKER_00]: And we'd used it to like run a box fan just so my wife and daughter

[00:45:14] [SPEAKER_00]: would keep cool that night.

[00:45:15] [SPEAKER_00]: It was, it was the end of August.

[00:45:16] [SPEAKER_00]: It was screaming hot around here, but I was blowing a box over the two

[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_00]: of them to keep them cool that night.

[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_00]: The next morning I brought all the solar panels out in the front yard

[00:45:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and start recharging that put up a pop-up tent out of our camping gear

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_00]: to keep the sun off of them.

[00:45:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Pulled water bottles out of the stash started cooking.

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Like we just set up camp here at the Rabelais house.

[00:45:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And we, we really didn't, there was other than the trees on the house,

[00:45:40] [SPEAKER_00]: which was a serious problem that had to be dealt with with chainsaws and help.

[00:45:44] [SPEAKER_00]: We didn't have any immediate concern for our wellbeing.

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Our immediate needs were net needs were being met even to the point

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_00]: where we had like a, we had a 35 gallon trash can tapped in one of the dowd

[00:45:56] [SPEAKER_00]: spouts on the house.

[00:45:57] [SPEAKER_00]: So we had 35 gallons of non-potable water to give ourselves bucket showers with.

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_00]: We were fine, but our neighbors were screwed.

[00:46:06] [SPEAKER_00]: So my wife had the goodness of her heart was walking around the

[00:46:09] [SPEAKER_00]: neighborhood, like checking on people and even some people we didn't know.

[00:46:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And found like one old couple had literally no water in their house.

[00:46:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Found a couple that are a woman that we know very well who had like six,

[00:46:22] [SPEAKER_00]: six little 12 ounce water bottles and a couple of bags of chips to her name.

[00:46:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And here we were like, okay,

[00:46:28] [SPEAKER_00]: we legitimately have enough stuff to take care of others.

[00:46:32] [SPEAKER_00]: So let's do that.

[00:46:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's like,

[00:46:35] [SPEAKER_00]: that's the lesson I came out of hurricane Ida with was, you know,

[00:46:39] [SPEAKER_00]: there is an emergency bad enough where I'm going to tell my neighbors

[00:46:42] [SPEAKER_00]: you're screwed because it's every man for himself at a certain point.

[00:46:45] [SPEAKER_00]: But if we're not at that point,

[00:46:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I know we're going to be rescuing a lot of people because we have a heart and

[00:46:53] [SPEAKER_00]: we can't just sit here and watch neighbors that we know just do without

[00:46:57] [SPEAKER_00]: because we're just too stubborn or too proud not to help.

[00:47:01] [SPEAKER_00]: But like that was a lesson I came away with was whether you want to be,

[00:47:05] [SPEAKER_00]: whether you want to be the rescue or not,

[00:47:07] [SPEAKER_00]: you might end up being the rescue at a certain point.

[00:47:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Just like a car accident.

[00:47:12] [SPEAKER_01]: You might be the only one there.

[00:47:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, how many times have I told that story about,

[00:47:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I've pulled a handgun on one person since I got out of the army in anger.

[00:47:24] [SPEAKER_00]: One.

[00:47:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I have been on,

[00:47:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I've been the first on scene at four different car accidents in 20 years.

[00:47:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Four times, no ambulance, no police, no one on site.

[00:47:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I either watched the accident happen or I just pulled up on it and there's

[00:47:40] [SPEAKER_00]: a smoking car on the side road. I'm like, oh Christ.

[00:47:43] [SPEAKER_01]: That's the thing about living out in the boonies where I do.

[00:47:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Chances are at four 30 in the morning when I'm driving to work,

[00:47:49] [SPEAKER_01]: it's me and two other cars on the road.

[00:47:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you find out really,

[00:47:55] [SPEAKER_00]: really fast who's ready to deal with an emergency and who isn't because

[00:47:59] [SPEAKER_01]: right past.

[00:48:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I will say that there was one, there was one time I saw an accident happen

[00:48:04] [SPEAKER_00]: as I was on my way home from work.

[00:48:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And when I parked and like, you know,

[00:48:10] [SPEAKER_00]: jumped out of the truck and went running to run to the vehicle,

[00:48:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I got to the vehicle at the same time.

[00:48:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I want to say an off duty paramedic and an off duty nurse,

[00:48:20] [SPEAKER_00]: all three of us showed up. That's a lucky day,

[00:48:23] [SPEAKER_00]: but I was the only one that had the presence of mind to like snatch my

[00:48:27] [SPEAKER_00]: IFAC off the roof of my truck as I ran out the door.

[00:48:30] [SPEAKER_00]: So fortunately the person wasn't hurt. You know, they got burnt.

[00:48:33] [SPEAKER_00]: They got banged around by the airbag and everything else.

[00:48:36] [SPEAKER_00]: But if they didn't need an attorney kit or anything,

[00:48:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I was the only one that had care. Yeah. And thankfully I had a,

[00:48:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I had a nurse and a paramedic to be like, here's my bag of toys.

[00:48:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Y'all are the experts. Have fun. I'll buy new ones.

[00:48:49] [SPEAKER_02]: We had one of our cert members, our community emergency response team members.

[00:48:53] [SPEAKER_02]: She came up on an accident and so the guy in the car

[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_02]: was really bad off and it was,

[00:49:01] [SPEAKER_02]: it was a really bad accident and he was bleeding and just

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_02]: looked terrible. And she's trying to keep him calm, trying to relax,

[00:49:10] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, him, get him to relax and, you know,

[00:49:12] [SPEAKER_02]: waiting for the quote professionals to show up.

[00:49:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And some lady pulls up behind her and she comes over and she sees the

[00:49:20] [SPEAKER_02]: condition of this guy and she starts screaming, Oh, it's so awful.

[00:49:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I'm like screaming.

[00:49:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And she had to actually pull the woman away and say,

[00:49:30] [SPEAKER_02]: you need to get away from here. You know,

[00:49:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm trying to keep this guy calm and you're making it worse. So yeah.

[00:49:40] [SPEAKER_02]: That is not helpful at all. No.

[00:49:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Spectators are not welcome in emergency situations. You can either,

[00:49:49] [SPEAKER_00]: you can either help or you can go sit over there away from me.

[00:49:52] [SPEAKER_01]: You know,

[00:49:53] [SPEAKER_01]: there's one thing that I have learned from my buddy who is a,

[00:49:57] [SPEAKER_01]: who was a nurse is that if someone is in critical condition,

[00:50:03] [SPEAKER_01]: the last thing you ever do is tell them how bad off they are.

[00:50:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Tell it to their family, tell it to the professionals.

[00:50:11] [SPEAKER_01]: You do not tell them how bad it is because half the time people die because

[00:50:16] [SPEAKER_01]: they gave up.

[00:50:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly. Yeah.

[00:50:19] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just kind of like the story of why little kids can be walking around

[00:50:22] [SPEAKER_00]: with like a finger,

[00:50:23] [SPEAKER_00]: a finger stand sideways or an arm hanging out sock and have no freaking

[00:50:26] [SPEAKER_00]: clue cause they haven't seen it yet.

[00:50:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So it doesn't hurt.

[00:50:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. We'll be having a,

[00:50:31] [SPEAKER_02]: we'll be having a class on that in the prepper camp about mindset.

[00:50:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And you know,

[00:50:36] [SPEAKER_02]: the, the, the greatest survival tool you have is a positive mindset.

[00:50:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And yet the hardest thing to teach like, like before,

[00:50:47] [SPEAKER_00]: before Nick joined us on this show,

[00:50:49] [SPEAKER_00]: like Andrew and I a couple of times over the years have tried to unpack

[00:50:52] [SPEAKER_00]: that, that subject of how do you teach that survival mindset?

[00:50:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And I keep coming up blank because I don't know how,

[00:51:00] [SPEAKER_00]: like I had a beat into me by the department of defense. Like you don't,

[00:51:04] [SPEAKER_00]: you're not allowed to quit. You're not allowed to give up. You're gonna,

[00:51:06] [SPEAKER_00]: you're gonna get through this one where they're still have a mission to

[00:51:09] [SPEAKER_00]: accomplish,

[00:51:10] [SPEAKER_00]: but I don't know short of beating the crap out of somebody for 10 weeks.

[00:51:13] [SPEAKER_02]: I think, I think hearing stories,

[00:51:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I just know stories about people who most people would have given up,

[00:51:19] [SPEAKER_02]: but they didn't. And they just,

[00:51:21] [SPEAKER_02]: they ended up lasting long enough until somebody

[00:51:25] [SPEAKER_02]: could find them and help them. And, um, you got to,

[00:51:30] [SPEAKER_02]: you gotta want to live. You can't give up.

[00:51:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of it comes down to those is teaching a person just

[00:51:39] [SPEAKER_01]: basic skills to build the confidence in themselves.

[00:51:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Cause yeah, you can,

[00:51:46] [SPEAKER_01]: you can take an eight weeks and throw somebody through bootcamp.

[00:51:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely. That's the expensive way to do it.

[00:51:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And you can only do that with willing participants,

[00:51:57] [SPEAKER_01]: but you can definitely take your kids and teach them some basic life

[00:52:01] [SPEAKER_01]: skills and some basic problem solving skills,

[00:52:03] [SPEAKER_01]: and then let them apply them in non life threatening situations.

[00:52:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And then throughout their life to be like, yeah,

[00:52:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't really know what I'm doing,

[00:52:11] [SPEAKER_01]: but I've got enough basics that I can probably at least it's not going

[00:52:16] [SPEAKER_01]: to end catastrophically badly until I can get to somebody that can help.

[00:52:20] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, yeah, the kid might only know how to change a tire.

[00:52:24] [SPEAKER_01]: They don't know how to put a jack stand under a car that the,

[00:52:27] [SPEAKER_01]: that the has had a terrible blowout,

[00:52:29] [SPEAKER_01]: but they might be able to muddle through it.

[00:52:33] [SPEAKER_00]: No, you might be honest on there that confidence sometimes can give way to that.

[00:52:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I have the confidence and I've confidence in what I'm doing.

[00:52:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Therefore I'm not prepared to give up yet.

[00:52:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Or at the very least you have confidence in the fact that you've gotten

[00:52:45] [SPEAKER_01]: out of other situations before on your own,

[00:52:49] [SPEAKER_01]: or at least you've persevered through a difficult situation before.

[00:52:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. And I've also had the experience. I've also had this experience,

[00:52:57] [SPEAKER_00]: which to me, like very clearly, very clearly identified that like society

[00:53:02] [SPEAKER_00]: as a whole is very much bifurcated into two groups. But several years ago,

[00:53:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I was, I was actually parked in line waiting,

[00:53:11] [SPEAKER_00]: waiting at security checkpoint to get into work.

[00:53:12] [SPEAKER_00]: We have to go through a gate guard and all that.

[00:53:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And while I'm sitting there in the oncoming,

[00:53:18] [SPEAKER_00]: in the oncoming turn lane come to find out it was one of my coworkers

[00:53:22] [SPEAKER_00]: that I didn't realize at first,

[00:53:23] [SPEAKER_00]: but she went to make a turn across traffic and apparently didn't see the 18

[00:53:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Wheeler that was coming down the road and hit her,

[00:53:34] [SPEAKER_00]: like clip the back of the back of the car.

[00:53:36] [SPEAKER_00]: He kind of skittered on down the road.

[00:53:39] [SPEAKER_00]: She spun around and wound up in a ditch.

[00:53:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Now I don't yet realize this is a coworker that I've known for like four

[00:53:45] [SPEAKER_00]: or five years at this point. I don't know that yet. I'm just,

[00:53:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I saw a car get hit by 18 Wheeler going to the ditch.

[00:53:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So I yanked my emergency brake,

[00:53:54] [SPEAKER_00]: turn the car off bolt across the street down into the ditch.

[00:53:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm there with by the end of time it takes me to do all this.

[00:54:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm down there with four other guys who were all like trying to,

[00:54:06] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, like yank the door open, cut the airbag,

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_00]: get her out because she's literally in a ditch.

[00:54:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And none of us even stopped, like none of us coordinated with each other.

[00:54:17] [SPEAKER_00]: None of us said a word to each other. We literally,

[00:54:19] [SPEAKER_00]: we're all just focused on the immediate problem of there's a person in a ditch.

[00:54:24] [SPEAKER_00]: We need to make sure she's okay.

[00:54:25] [SPEAKER_00]: We need to get her out of this car that's in this ditch so we can assess her

[00:54:30] [SPEAKER_00]: and know she needs medical attention.

[00:54:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And it wasn't until we got her out of the vehicle up the bank of the

[00:54:35] [SPEAKER_00]: ditch and on the side of the road that I looked at her face and I said,

[00:54:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Holy Christ. And that's when I realized it was my coworker who works,

[00:54:41] [SPEAKER_00]: who sits 15 feet away from me that I known for years.

[00:54:46] [SPEAKER_00]: But I look back on that moment and I think about the fact that here's me and four guys in this ditch.

[00:54:54] [SPEAKER_00]: None of us knew each other.

[00:54:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And I look back and there's that line of cars still waiting in line for the

[00:55:01] [SPEAKER_00]: security checkpoint,

[00:55:02] [SPEAKER_00]: driving around my car that's parked in that lane because I jumped out,

[00:55:08] [SPEAKER_00]: just going on with their lives. Nobody stopped.

[00:55:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody stopped to help. Everybody said, Oh, they got it.

[00:55:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of people don't do that.

[00:55:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Don't stop to help wait for the professionals. And that's a problem, I think.

[00:55:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. First of all, that can really be a problem because what do you,

[00:55:26] [SPEAKER_01]: what are you telling kids in elementary school? Raise your hand and wait for the teacher.

[00:55:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Don't solve the problem on your own.

[00:55:32] [SPEAKER_00]: If you, yeah. And that just, that does not,

[00:55:34] [SPEAKER_00]: that accomplishes nothing but breed an entire race of people who are,

[00:55:40] [SPEAKER_00]: who are just spring loaded to wait for the expert class to show up and fix the problems.

[00:55:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Do you think that's accidental? I mean, it's not.

[00:55:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh gosh no. Of course it is intentional.

[00:55:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean the Germans figured it out prior to world war one and everybody in the

[00:55:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Western hemisphere uses their education model.

[00:56:00] [SPEAKER_01]: It was done to create good little subservient citizens.

[00:56:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody that is under 35 really,

[00:56:06] [SPEAKER_02]: those people just don't have critical thinking skills. They just don't.

[00:56:11] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not everyone. It definitely depends on how well they grew up for sure,

[00:56:15] [SPEAKER_01]: because we've definitely had a couple of interns and they are rare come through

[00:56:20] [SPEAKER_01]: that you set them to a task. And if you don't watch them,

[00:56:23] [SPEAKER_01]: they're going to do the wrong thing. Cause at least they're going to do something.

[00:56:30] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I mean that's,

[00:56:35] [SPEAKER_00]: that whole conversation about like people just sitting around waiting,

[00:56:38] [SPEAKER_00]: waiting for somebody to save them or waiting for somebody to save somebody else

[00:56:41] [SPEAKER_00]: just always makes me the craziest. Cause again, like I came into this,

[00:56:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I came into this lifestyle preparedness from the perspective of like,

[00:56:50] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, the day after hurricane Katrina,

[00:56:54] [SPEAKER_00]: there were only a couple of police around and they had a whole lot of

[00:56:57] [SPEAKER_00]: problems deal with.

[00:56:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And like I was in the Louisiana national guard at the time and we were

[00:57:02] [SPEAKER_00]: well briefed that if you get into a gunfight anywhere,

[00:57:05] [SPEAKER_00]: you better be able to fight your way out of it.

[00:57:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Cause NOPD is not coming to save y'all.

[00:57:09] [SPEAKER_00]: They don't have enough people to come and save y'all.

[00:57:13] [SPEAKER_00]: So we literally got sent into the New Orleans metro area being told,

[00:57:17] [SPEAKER_00]: act like you're back in Iraq.

[00:57:19] [SPEAKER_00]: That was the mentality where they sent us in with.

[00:57:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And then I look at that situation and I apply it backwards to all the

[00:57:28] [SPEAKER_00]: other emergency situations that like could have happened or have happened to

[00:57:31] [SPEAKER_00]: my family. And I keep thinking to myself, no one is coming to save us.

[00:57:35] [SPEAKER_00]: If someone does, that's great.

[00:57:38] [SPEAKER_00]: But I have to assume nobody's coming to save us because we've been in the

[00:57:42] [SPEAKER_00]: situations where nobody could.

[00:57:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And like that's,

[00:57:47] [SPEAKER_00]: that's the thing I wanted to try to cross off a list with you Rick before

[00:57:51] [SPEAKER_00]: we wrap start wrapping this up. But like,

[00:57:55] [SPEAKER_00]: how do you,

[00:57:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure you had to have encountered a couple of neighbors who are

[00:58:00] [SPEAKER_00]: probably like, they'll call you on a radio. They'll send you a text,

[00:58:04] [SPEAKER_00]: but they're not preparedness minded people.

[00:58:07] [SPEAKER_00]: They're not going to do something to prepare

[00:58:12] [SPEAKER_00]: for a bad time.

[00:58:14] [SPEAKER_00]: So how do you reach those people? Because I have people all around me that,

[00:58:19] [SPEAKER_00]: like I had these conversations after hurricane Ida about, Hey,

[00:58:22] [SPEAKER_00]: you didn't have a generator. Wouldn't your life have been so much easier?

[00:58:25] [SPEAKER_00]: If you had, you didn't have a chainsaw.

[00:58:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I had to come chainsaw some stuff off your lawn.

[00:58:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Wouldn't your life have been easier if you had a chainsaw?

[00:58:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I've tried to plant these seeds in people's heads and then watch the seeds

[00:58:38] [SPEAKER_00]: not get watered and shrivel up and die because they just weren't going to do

[00:58:43] [SPEAKER_00]: it. And I don't, I don't know how to reach those people,

[00:58:46] [SPEAKER_00]: but I have a whole neighborhood of people around me.

[00:58:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I would love to be able to depend on an emergency,

[00:58:51] [SPEAKER_00]: but I know I can't because they can't even say.

[00:58:53] [SPEAKER_02]: We have regular cert meetings. So the community emergency response team.

[00:58:58] [SPEAKER_02]: So we're meeting regularly and I always,

[00:59:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I always buy pizza that always makes it,

[00:59:03] [SPEAKER_02]: makes it good for people to show up. And I learned that, you know,

[00:59:06] [SPEAKER_02]: when I was in business to keep people at work instead of leaving at lunch

[00:59:09] [SPEAKER_02]: time. And you know, we're teaching them,

[00:59:15] [SPEAKER_02]: your first aid stuff and we're teaching them calm stuff and we're teaching

[00:59:18] [SPEAKER_02]: them what to do when you come up on an accident and how you can be

[00:59:22] [SPEAKER_02]: helpful in a, in a, in a bad situation. And, and there's,

[00:59:26] [SPEAKER_02]: there's training that's required of,

[00:59:31] [SPEAKER_02]: of the people at the airport. You know, every year they have to do a drill.

[00:59:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Something, something happens. You can,

[00:59:37] [SPEAKER_02]: you can go there and you can be one of the injured subjects and

[00:59:42] [SPEAKER_02]: you can see how they treat you and you know, understand, oh, wait a minute,

[00:59:46] [SPEAKER_02]: why do I have a black tag in my foot? Oh, I'm, I'm dead.

[00:59:52] [SPEAKER_02]: But you get to see them in action.

[00:59:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So you're learning really by watching them.

[00:59:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's helpful too. And then there's others that, you know, said, yeah,

[01:00:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I'd like to be part of this whole neighborhood watch thing and okay,

[01:00:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I'll, I'll sign on and you know,

[01:00:09] [SPEAKER_02]: you'll help me with a radio or something, but that's as far as they go.

[01:00:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And if that's as far as they go,

[01:00:15] [SPEAKER_02]: that's at least one more person in one more location that can let me know

[01:00:19] [SPEAKER_02]: something's happening before it gets to me or anybody else in the group.

[01:00:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah,

[01:00:26] [SPEAKER_02]: there's going to be some that just don't do much and some that aren't capable

[01:00:30] [SPEAKER_02]: of doing much just cause they're that in that stage of their life.

[01:00:34] [SPEAKER_02]: But we're trying to help people do stuff that, you know,

[01:00:40] [SPEAKER_02]: if they're not capable,

[01:00:41] [SPEAKER_02]: maybe there's something they are capable of doing and that they get,

[01:00:44] [SPEAKER_02]: that they're good at. And like you said earlier, Phil,

[01:00:46] [SPEAKER_02]: there's people with certain skills that we didn't know until we started

[01:00:49] [SPEAKER_02]: talking to people. It's like, oh yeah, I knew how to do that.

[01:00:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the guys is a former special up Delta Force guy.

[01:00:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Well guess what? When we need that kind of next expertise,

[01:01:02] [SPEAKER_02]: we're going to have it and he can train us. You know, when,

[01:01:06] [SPEAKER_02]: when people from Charlotte say, okay, we got to get out of here.

[01:01:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's head for the Hills. We're on the way.

[01:01:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So we need to stop them before they get there.

[01:01:17] [SPEAKER_02]: We've had people talking about the sheriff talking about, well,

[01:01:23] [SPEAKER_02]: maybe we need to think about taking out a bridge because we can't handle

[01:01:28] [SPEAKER_02]: 2 million people coming, coming our direction.

[01:01:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So people are starting to think probably be hard to handle.

[01:01:35] [SPEAKER_02]: People are starting to think more.

[01:01:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and the hard part of it is,

[01:01:43] [SPEAKER_00]: is that you're going to run it you and everyone else that tries to go

[01:01:46] [SPEAKER_00]: down this path is going to run into two primary problems is that there's

[01:01:51] [SPEAKER_00]: going to be those people who don't believe it ever could happen.

[01:01:56] [SPEAKER_00]: But then you're going to run into the people that know damn good. Well,

[01:01:59] [SPEAKER_00]: it could, but they're going to tell themselves it can never happen because

[01:02:02] [SPEAKER_00]: like it's like the kid that the kid whose arm is hanging by a thread,

[01:02:07] [SPEAKER_00]: but they haven't seen it yet. As long as I don't look at the problem,

[01:02:10] [SPEAKER_00]: it's not a problem yet. And like, that's,

[01:02:13] [SPEAKER_00]: that's the experience I've had with a lot of people where I'll sit there

[01:02:17] [SPEAKER_00]: and talk them through something and be like, or Hurricane Ida.

[01:02:21] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not, is it going to happen? It's when the wind,

[01:02:23] [SPEAKER_00]: is it going to happen again? Cause we've already had,

[01:02:25] [SPEAKER_00]: we've lived through this experience together people, but they just say, Oh,

[01:02:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I can, it wouldn't happen again.

[01:02:30] [SPEAKER_02]: There are the people that have normalcy bias and just don't want to know.

[01:02:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I actually listened to a podcast today from John Lovell,

[01:02:37] [SPEAKER_02]: the warrior poet society. He was talking about people look at you

[01:02:42] [SPEAKER_02]: and you're prepared and they downplay you belittle you and say,

[01:02:47] [SPEAKER_02]: you're stupid because in reality they're afraid

[01:02:51] [SPEAKER_02]: that they're not prepared. And that's just a,

[01:02:55] [SPEAKER_01]: well fear can be paralyzing. It absolutely can.

[01:03:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:03:01] [SPEAKER_00]: My wife and I are actually not friends with a couple anymore because every

[01:03:06] [SPEAKER_00]: time we would get me and the husband were we know each other since high

[01:03:10] [SPEAKER_00]: school, but every time we would go over and hang out with them,

[01:03:14] [SPEAKER_00]: his wife would start putting her little lips in my wife's ear about,

[01:03:19] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, your husband's doing all this and it's stupid and blah, blah,

[01:03:22] [SPEAKER_00]: he's wasting money and my wife is finally like,

[01:03:27] [SPEAKER_00]: our retirement accounts plumped up. Our bills are paid. We have no debt.

[01:03:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Money's in the savings account.

[01:03:33] [SPEAKER_00]: My daughter and I aren't suffering for anything.

[01:03:36] [SPEAKER_00]: So if my husband,

[01:03:37] [SPEAKER_00]: if my husband buys a couple buckets of beans and a couple extra cans of

[01:03:41] [SPEAKER_00]: ammo, what businesses of yours? And I explained,

[01:03:45] [SPEAKER_00]: that's exactly what I explained to my wife. I'm like,

[01:03:47] [SPEAKER_00]: the problem is she doesn't want me to be right because if I'm

[01:03:52] [SPEAKER_00]: right, then she's not, she's wrong because she's not doing the same thing.

[01:03:56] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's easier for her to convince herself I'm the nut job than it is to

[01:04:00] [SPEAKER_00]: admit if I can't go to a grocery store for six months,

[01:04:03] [SPEAKER_00]: we're not going to lose any weight. Yeah.

[01:04:06] [SPEAKER_00]: As long as I don't run out of Tony Sashire's, then my wife,

[01:04:09] [SPEAKER_00]: my daughter will refuse to eat anything.

[01:04:10] [SPEAKER_02]: The good news is that preparedness is becoming mainstream

[01:04:15] [SPEAKER_02]: to a large degree and people are looking at it and going, well,

[01:04:19] [SPEAKER_02]: maybe those doomsday prepper guys weren't,

[01:04:22] [SPEAKER_02]: weren't that freaky or weird after all, you know, maybe they,

[01:04:25] [SPEAKER_02]: maybe they figured stuff out before we did.

[01:04:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, Rick, I'm pretty sure I've told you this story and Nick,

[01:04:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I've told you some of the listeners have probably heard it

[01:04:37] [SPEAKER_00]: before, but a couple of years ago, I had this experience at Prepper Camp.

[01:04:41] [SPEAKER_00]: So I can fairly say in this company that there are certain people that

[01:04:47] [SPEAKER_00]: dress the part, look the part, you know,

[01:04:50] [SPEAKER_00]: scraggly bearded prior service military guys stick out like a sore thumb at

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Prepper Camp. The people in the camo stick out like a sore thumb.

[01:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: But I was sitting behind your, your small,

[01:05:02] [SPEAKER_00]: small units tactics class taught by former army ranger.

[01:05:06] [SPEAKER_00]: I was sitting behind an older lady, probably like mid late fifties,

[01:05:11] [SPEAKER_00]: wearing no crap, low heels and fricking the string of pearls.

[01:05:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Like she just come from PTA meeting.

[01:05:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And she had a note and she had a notebook and was taking notes and drawing

[01:05:22] [SPEAKER_00]: diagrams. She's there. I, I,

[01:05:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I literally like I didn't know when no one gave her a crazy,

[01:05:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I gave her a crazy look, but it wasn't intentional. It was just like,

[01:05:33] [SPEAKER_00]: wow, this was not on my bingo card today. But like,

[01:05:36] [SPEAKER_00]: that was the moment in which I tell people I'm like,

[01:05:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I saw Prepper Camp start to change. It, it had,

[01:05:42] [SPEAKER_00]: it started out from my perspective, like five, six years ago.

[01:05:47] [SPEAKER_00]: It started out as a place that people that were already in the lifestyle were

[01:05:50] [SPEAKER_00]: coming for more information.

[01:05:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And over the years I've seen more and more and more people who are brand

[01:05:56] [SPEAKER_00]: new. And I know Rick, you and Jane have done that where you say,

[01:06:00] [SPEAKER_00]: how many of y'all this is your first time at Prepper Camp and the

[01:06:03] [SPEAKER_00]: proportion of hands going up has gone from like maybe a 10th of the class

[01:06:08] [SPEAKER_00]: to more like 89% of it. It's just,

[01:06:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Prepper Camp is morphing more and more into the first stop, not,

[01:06:17] [SPEAKER_00]: not a one-stop shop,

[01:06:18] [SPEAKER_00]: but the first stop that people are making when they say I need to get prepared.

[01:06:22] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a place to get my feet wet. And like that's been,

[01:06:26] [SPEAKER_00]: that's been encouraging for me because most of us,

[01:06:30] [SPEAKER_00]: like a lot of us got into preparedness for our own, our own devices,

[01:06:33] [SPEAKER_00]: our own means, but a lot of us, they got into like, you know,

[01:06:37] [SPEAKER_00]: organizing event and content creation and all these different things we got

[01:06:41] [SPEAKER_00]: into it because we wanted to share that information.

[01:06:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm finally seeing people waking up to the reality of what preparedness

[01:06:48] [SPEAKER_00]: is, that it's not bunkers and MREs and you know, tinfoil hats,

[01:06:53] [SPEAKER_00]: but it's just an honest admission that, Hey, sometimes life sucks.

[01:06:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want to suck quite so bad.

[01:06:58] [SPEAKER_00]: So we can do some things to make life not suck as bad.

[01:07:02] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, one of the great benefits to the COVID pandemic,

[01:07:05] [SPEAKER_01]: true, that right there.

[01:07:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't tell you how many people I know that complained to me about not being

[01:07:15] [SPEAKER_01]: able to find things in grocery stores, simple stuff, canned food,

[01:07:19] [SPEAKER_01]: and stuff like that.

[01:07:20] [SPEAKER_01]: The things that they would normally have for comfort food for a little while

[01:07:23] [SPEAKER_01]: there. It didn't, it never got to the point where you couldn't eat,

[01:07:27] [SPEAKER_01]: not even close,

[01:07:29] [SPEAKER_01]: but it got to the point where your favorite brand of cookies were out of

[01:07:32] [SPEAKER_01]: stock.

[01:07:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And that was enough of an inconvenience that they started considering having a

[01:07:38] [SPEAKER_01]: deeper pantry.

[01:07:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And if all they do is have a little bit deeper of a pantry so they can go a

[01:07:44] [SPEAKER_01]: week without grocery shopping, if they have to, that's a huge win.

[01:07:48] [SPEAKER_01]: That's seven days where they're not panicking.

[01:07:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Not being able to wipe your ass because you don't have toilet paper.

[01:07:54] [SPEAKER_02]: That, that affected people too.

[01:07:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh yes it did.

[01:07:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Wait a minute.

[01:08:00] [SPEAKER_01]: It absolutely did.

[01:08:00] [SPEAKER_02]: How can there not be toilet paper? There's still trees, right?

[01:08:04] [SPEAKER_01]: It is the hardest thing to ship in stock because it is light.

[01:08:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It is big and people don't have to buy a lot of it most of the time.

[01:08:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Not that anybody cares.

[01:08:18] [SPEAKER_00]: It's actually a loss leader at almost everywhere.

[01:08:22] [SPEAKER_00]: That's the reason that paper goods, paper towel,

[01:08:25] [SPEAKER_00]: and toilet paper have gone up so much in price is because following the

[01:08:28] [SPEAKER_00]: COVID pandemic, all the stores realized we can't sell this stuff as cheap as we

[01:08:34] [SPEAKER_00]: have been because we've been losing our butts. No pun intended.

[01:08:39] [SPEAKER_00]: We've been losing our butts on the unit price cause you know,

[01:08:42] [SPEAKER_00]: it takes up so much space and everything.

[01:08:44] [SPEAKER_01]: The shipping cost kills the profit margin.

[01:08:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Well, and recall what it is. There's never been profit margin in it.

[01:08:51] [SPEAKER_00]: People just, you have to have it in stores cause if not,

[01:08:55] [SPEAKER_00]: people will go get their entire order somewhere else rather than go to your

[01:08:58] [SPEAKER_00]: store and then go somewhere else for toilet paper. But anyway,

[01:09:04] [SPEAKER_00]: so I guess like let's start wrapping this up. I mean,

[01:09:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Prepper Camp is, was it three weeks away?

[01:09:10] [SPEAKER_00]: September last weekend, November.

[01:09:12] [SPEAKER_02]: So what is it? 25th,

[01:09:15] [SPEAKER_02]: 6th and 7th or I can't remember exactly what it is,

[01:09:18] [SPEAKER_02]: but that weekend Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So, um,

[01:09:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Yep.

[01:09:25] [SPEAKER_00]: So I know that you and Jane and your merry little band of nut cases are

[01:09:30] [SPEAKER_00]: absolutely going ballistic right about this time of year because y'all,

[01:09:34] [SPEAKER_00]: y'all still have to pull together the, uh, the class list.

[01:09:38] [SPEAKER_00]: You still have to organize everything.

[01:09:39] [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to have at least three people drop out on you in the last

[01:09:42] [SPEAKER_00]: second.

[01:09:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I've already had that happen. I had one guy,

[01:09:45] [SPEAKER_02]: one guy who's gone out of business or going out of business and just

[01:09:50] [SPEAKER_02]: decided that he's not going to teach two classes. So, okay, see ya.

[01:09:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, but at least he told me now instead of the day before.

[01:09:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And we had somebody else, somebody else who, um,

[01:10:02] [SPEAKER_02]: who really is what they say they are.

[01:10:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And he said he get called up by the state department so he can't teach,

[01:10:10] [SPEAKER_02]: um, to go someplace. Um, so do something.

[01:10:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So that does happen. I mean, I had,

[01:10:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I had my speakers and all the classes really nailed down in February.

[01:10:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So, um, it's,

[01:10:24] [SPEAKER_02]: that's the kind of stuff that makes me tear my hair out cause now I got

[01:10:28] [SPEAKER_02]: to find replacements and now I got to put up new speakers and

[01:10:33] [SPEAKER_02]: new classes on the website, which is a pain in the ass and takes forever to do.

[01:10:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, and I still, I was just telling Jane today, I said, I got,

[01:10:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I get people who are, who want to be speakers here.

[01:10:44] [SPEAKER_02]: We are five weeks from the event,

[01:10:46] [SPEAKER_02]: something like that and people that want to be speakers and want to be

[01:10:49] [SPEAKER_02]: vendors suddenly. And I'm going,

[01:10:54] [SPEAKER_02]: don't have a lot of time to do is I get two or three vendor spaces

[01:10:57] [SPEAKER_02]: left, I think. Um, but, uh, we've, you know,

[01:11:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I've really tried every year, I try to look at what's,

[01:11:06] [SPEAKER_02]: what's coming, what I think is coming, what's going to happen.

[01:11:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And I try to, to, you know,

[01:11:14] [SPEAKER_02]: game that out and I try to have classes and speakers that are

[01:11:18] [SPEAKER_02]: going to teach stuff besides the rudimentary stuff,

[01:11:23] [SPEAKER_02]: like, like growing your own food and first aid and those kinds of things.

[01:11:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Stuff this year is more like, um,

[01:11:32] [SPEAKER_02]: how do you survive martial law? Um,

[01:11:36] [SPEAKER_02]: what's guerrilla warfare like, um,

[01:11:40] [SPEAKER_02]: some mesh-tastic comms when there's no grid. Um,

[01:11:45] [SPEAKER_02]: so stuff like that, that, um,

[01:11:48] [SPEAKER_02]: is in addition to because we have at least 20 new classes every year.

[01:11:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So I try to find stuff that I would like to know about and that people

[01:11:55] [SPEAKER_02]: probably need to know about before, before it happens. And, um,

[01:12:01] [SPEAKER_02]: so it's, you know, those are the kinds of things that we're,

[01:12:03] [SPEAKER_02]: that we're offering this year that we didn't have before, but, um,

[01:12:08] [SPEAKER_02]: 64 classes a day, eight classes an hour, eight days,

[01:12:12] [SPEAKER_02]: eight hours a day. There's just,

[01:12:14] [SPEAKER_02]: there's no way anybody can see all that stuff. Plus,

[01:12:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I was talking to Jane today about it too. You know, I said, I said,

[01:12:20] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, really nobody can do what we're doing. It's,

[01:12:24] [SPEAKER_02]: it's just amazing. The stuff that we have, aside from all those classes,

[01:12:27] [SPEAKER_02]: we've got demonstrations every day. Um, you know, the, the,

[01:12:32] [SPEAKER_02]: the guy with the, um, with the military train, uh,

[01:12:36] [SPEAKER_02]: defense dogs, you know,

[01:12:37] [SPEAKER_02]: doing demonstrations and bite work and all that other sort of stuff.

[01:12:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, I bought two dogs from him by the way, uh,

[01:12:45] [SPEAKER_02]: who are doing great with, uh,

[01:12:47] [SPEAKER_02]: with protecting my goats from bear and other things. So, um,

[01:12:52] [SPEAKER_02]: and, uh, you know, we've got all those demonstrations going on.

[01:12:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And we've also got four movies during the event.

[01:12:59] [SPEAKER_02]: What other place has all that stuff and all that information? And then we've,

[01:13:04] [SPEAKER_02]: we've got, uh,

[01:13:05] [SPEAKER_02]: our keynote speaker is professor David Clemens, who is a guy that, uh,

[01:13:10] [SPEAKER_02]: has been on, um, you know,

[01:13:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Mike Lindell's pod podcaster Mike Lindell's thing where the,

[01:13:15] [SPEAKER_02]: the stop the steal, the, the election fraud stuff. And he's got, uh,

[01:13:20] [SPEAKER_02]: a movie, um, that he's just done, which is let my people go,

[01:13:25] [SPEAKER_02]: dealing with the J six people. Um, so he's going to be,

[01:13:29] [SPEAKER_02]: he's going to be really good. And, um,

[01:13:33] [SPEAKER_02]: five times August is coming back, um, to,

[01:13:36] [SPEAKER_02]: to play and, uh,

[01:13:38] [SPEAKER_02]: he has literally been around the world and then,

[01:13:42] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, had audiences with some pretty high level people,

[01:13:47] [SPEAKER_02]: including somebody whose name starts with a T. Um,

[01:13:52] [SPEAKER_02]: so it's just, uh, you know, it's,

[01:13:54] [SPEAKER_02]: it's pretty amazing that he, you know,

[01:13:58] [SPEAKER_02]: toward a little bit before prepper camp came to prep camp and now three

[01:14:02] [SPEAKER_02]: years later,

[01:14:03] [SPEAKER_02]: he's been literally all over the world and you saw it after. And in fact,

[01:14:07] [SPEAKER_02]: after he gets done playing at prepper camp on Saturday night,

[01:14:10] [SPEAKER_02]: he has to leave to go to Washington DC for an event. So,

[01:14:15] [SPEAKER_02]: um, it's, it's,

[01:14:17] [SPEAKER_02]: it's amazing that the people that we have and the speakers that we have who are

[01:14:22] [SPEAKER_02]: the,

[01:14:23] [SPEAKER_02]: the very best in their skill sets, um,

[01:14:27] [SPEAKER_02]: that are teaching just because they believe in what we're doing.

[01:14:31] [SPEAKER_02]: They want to give back.

[01:14:33] [SPEAKER_02]: They are trying to help people out and it's so different than any other

[01:14:40] [SPEAKER_02]: event. And then there's the, just the aura of the place,

[01:14:44] [SPEAKER_02]: just, just stuff that I have nothing to do with that.

[01:14:47] [SPEAKER_02]: You can just feel God's presence there in so many ways and people feel it.

[01:14:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's, um, and this is why it's Jane's in my ministry.

[01:14:58] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we're doing it.

[01:14:59] [SPEAKER_02]: It's 10 months of work for us on top of everything else that we do every

[01:15:04] [SPEAKER_02]: single day with 130 animals in a homestead and you know,

[01:15:08] [SPEAKER_02]: a full garden that right now needs to be harvested. Um,

[01:15:13] [SPEAKER_02]: but, uh, we're,

[01:15:15] [SPEAKER_02]: we're trying to give back to people and um,

[01:15:17] [SPEAKER_02]: we'll see what happens come November cause we may,

[01:15:21] [SPEAKER_02]: we may be more of a in a civil war at that point than not.

[01:15:27] [SPEAKER_02]: So, um, God forbid,

[01:15:30] [SPEAKER_02]: but could happen.

[01:15:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I think we're all going to have to hold our breath and wait and see how

[01:15:36] [SPEAKER_00]: that one pans out.

[01:15:37] [SPEAKER_00]: But that's why I wanted to kind of end the show talking about Prepper

[01:15:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Camp because you know,

[01:15:41] [SPEAKER_00]: the first year that me and Andrew came,

[01:15:44] [SPEAKER_00]: we didn't know much about the event other than kind of what we saw on the

[01:15:48] [SPEAKER_00]: website. And that first year it was just me and him and uncle Randy.

[01:15:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And every year we've come,

[01:15:57] [SPEAKER_00]: that group that comes gets bigger. You know,

[01:16:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Randy started bringing his entire family,

[01:16:02] [SPEAKER_00]: my wife and daughter have come with me one year prior and they're coming

[01:16:05] [SPEAKER_00]: back with me this year and the group keeps growing.

[01:16:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And then when Andrew and I brought matter of facts into Prepper Broadcast

[01:16:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Network, the big dysfunctional family got even bigger.

[01:16:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And now like Gillian and I kind of regard going to Prepper Camp every

[01:16:22] [SPEAKER_00]: year is like going to a family reunion almost like that's,

[01:16:25] [SPEAKER_00]: that's the feeling I get. And even if you don't know anybody there,

[01:16:29] [SPEAKER_00]: if you're just, I mean,

[01:16:31] [SPEAKER_00]: like to the listeners who are going for the first time,

[01:16:34] [SPEAKER_00]: if you literally are just like the tiniest little bit friendly and open,

[01:16:38] [SPEAKER_00]: you're going to start to meet people that you're going to vibe with because

[01:16:42] [SPEAKER_00]: we're all there for the same reason. We're all there to learn.

[01:16:44] [SPEAKER_00]: We're all there to improve our preparedness.

[01:16:47] [SPEAKER_00]: We're all there to learn,

[01:16:49] [SPEAKER_00]: bring things home that we can use to take care of ourselves and our

[01:16:52] [SPEAKER_00]: family. And like that is,

[01:16:54] [SPEAKER_00]: that is the event that Prepper Camp is.

[01:16:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And I just hope that like,

[01:16:59] [SPEAKER_00]: I hope that everybody that attends has a real appreciation for, you know,

[01:17:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Rick and Jane and the army of volunteers,

[01:17:06] [SPEAKER_00]: just Chin being one of them that are going to be running around like ants on an

[01:17:10] [SPEAKER_00]: anthill to make this thing happen. Cause like,

[01:17:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I know from watching that none of y'all rest the whole,

[01:17:17] [SPEAKER_00]: from about two days prior until the day after it's,

[01:17:21] [SPEAKER_00]: it's all hands to battle stations the entire time.

[01:17:25] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm looking forward to it though, man. I, uh, like I said, I'll,

[01:17:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I'll have my, uh, my man portable GMRS repeater.

[01:17:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I'll be standing up out there,

[01:17:34] [SPEAKER_00]: see if I can get anybody to jump onto it. And like, you know,

[01:17:38] [SPEAKER_00]: like matter of fact podcast going there has always been to

[01:17:42] [SPEAKER_00]: kind of commune with the tribe.

[01:17:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And since we're inhabiting a vendor's area, we,

[01:17:48] [SPEAKER_00]: we don't go there to sell stuff.

[01:17:50] [SPEAKER_00]: We really go there to like run a podcast and record content and invite

[01:17:53] [SPEAKER_00]: show growers to sit down with us and be part of that podcast,

[01:17:57] [SPEAKER_00]: which then turns around and informs the rest of the public about what goes

[01:18:01] [SPEAKER_00]: on there.

[01:18:02] [SPEAKER_00]: So we're just trying to like bring people in and give them a little taste of

[01:18:07] [SPEAKER_00]: like, well, you know what, what this world really is.

[01:18:10] [SPEAKER_00]: If I can just get a couple of new people not to be scared off by the big

[01:18:14] [SPEAKER_00]: guy, the big loud guy with the beard, but maybe my wife's coming this year.

[01:18:17] [SPEAKER_00]: She's she's prettier and warmer than I am. So I'll use,

[01:18:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I'll use her as bait.

[01:18:24] [SPEAKER_00]: I just have to hide them from my daughter cause she's spicy.

[01:18:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Well now that I'm on here, I probably ought to make it up next year.

[01:18:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we can start bullying you now.

[01:18:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I got 12 months to really pour it on.

[01:18:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And my wife is halfway interested in coming too. So shouldn't be too bad.

[01:18:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Yep. I was about to say, I just saw the tail happy puppy.

[01:18:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. The wife just got home speaking of.

[01:18:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So the pups doing laps around the house.

[01:18:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I guess we'll go ahead and punt this episode out the door, Rick.

[01:18:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate you coming on.

[01:18:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, prepper camp.com secret garden of survival.

[01:19:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And yep. And good, good luck with that.

[01:19:08] [SPEAKER_00]: That group you're setting up there, man. I mean, it's, um,

[01:19:12] [SPEAKER_00]: it yeah, it's what's super encouraging to hear that you've actually had

[01:19:15] [SPEAKER_00]: success with that because like,

[01:19:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like so many of us have either not managed to get over the

[01:19:20] [SPEAKER_00]: mental hurdle of I have to out myself as a crazy prepper to do this

[01:19:24] [SPEAKER_00]: or just haven't had a lot of success.

[01:19:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Cause maybe we're going about this the wrong way,

[01:19:28] [SPEAKER_00]: but like maybe that's the way to start is just to use,

[01:19:32] [SPEAKER_00]: use the gateway drug of neighborhood watch to lure them in and then buy pizza.

[01:19:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Pizza.

[01:19:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Who wouldn't want to know what's going on in the neighborhood? Oh,

[01:19:40] [SPEAKER_02]: there's a, there's a criminal, there's, there's a meth head. There's whatever.

[01:19:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to know. I would, yeah,

[01:19:46] [SPEAKER_02]: I'd like to be tied into that. Sure. No problem. But you're right. It's,

[01:19:50] [SPEAKER_02]: that's, that's what's getting them in.

[01:19:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And now we're talking to each other and we're taking classes together and

[01:19:55] [SPEAKER_02]: they're learning stuff and they're learning prepper stuff in spite of themselves.

[01:20:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, you know, it's,

[01:20:02] [SPEAKER_02]: it's working beyond what I hoped it would, would do. And,

[01:20:06] [SPEAKER_02]: and hopefully if we do have that end of the world, as we know it scenario,

[01:20:11] [SPEAKER_02]: there's going to be a lot more people that we can rely on and we can rely

[01:20:14] [SPEAKER_02]: on each other and fend off the really crazies and psychopaths that'll be

[01:20:18] [SPEAKER_02]: left.

[01:20:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And you know what best case scenario, Hey,

[01:20:24] [SPEAKER_01]: maybe you find a new car mechanic.

[01:20:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly. You're actually friends with you. Exactly. Yep.

[01:20:29] [SPEAKER_01]: You always need people with skills you don't have even on the best day.

[01:20:33] [SPEAKER_02]: For sure.

[01:20:37] [SPEAKER_00]: All right, let's send this one on out to the listeners. If you haven't,

[01:20:41] [SPEAKER_00]: if you haven't got tickets to go to prepper camp yet,

[01:20:43] [SPEAKER_00]: the window is shrinking extraordinarily fast.

[01:20:48] [SPEAKER_00]: If you have already kind of made your mind, you can't make it this year,

[01:20:51] [SPEAKER_00]: you should start thinking about coming next year and you should make that

[01:20:54] [SPEAKER_00]: decision right now so that you can start making arrangements as soon as

[01:20:57] [SPEAKER_00]: prepper camp wraps this year. If you miss it this year,

[01:21:00] [SPEAKER_00]: I can assure you that we will be recording episodes out there in the

[01:21:05] [SPEAKER_00]: vendors area and they'll be posted on YouTube and rumble in this podcast

[01:21:08] [SPEAKER_00]: afterwards so that y'all get a taste of what it's like.

[01:21:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And if my wife like can keep me on task,

[01:21:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to try to do a better job of like taking pictures and videos

[01:21:19] [SPEAKER_00]: and everything of what goes on out there.

[01:21:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Cause last year she wasn't there with me and I just got overloaded, you know,

[01:21:25] [SPEAKER_00]: had one too many things in the brain pan and that one slipped out.

[01:21:29] [SPEAKER_00]: But matter of fact podcast going out the door. Good night everybody.