Mastering Survival Preparedness: From Bug-Out Bags to Off-Grid Tactics with Expert Matt Mallory

Hi, welcome to the Art Guardian Podcast, season 2, episode 1. Today, david and I will be talking with Matt Mallory from Mallory Unlimited. We'll be discussing basic prepping and survival preparedness for short-term events. So sit back, listen and enjoy. Today's sponsors of the show are Right2Bear Self Defense Protection and Blackout Coffee. There'll be more information during the show and in the show notes, so feel free to check those them out.

We have Mr Matt Mallory from Mallory, unlimited.

Matt, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. Great thanks for having me.

You're welcome. I thought this would be a good episode first to have when we talked about it before, but with the day and time that we're in, you just don't know what could happen. It's not going to be a natural disaster, so I figured we'd just open this up and take some questions and I had some questions, but we'll be good for that. Why don't we let you introduce yourself?

Sure, I appreciate that. So, Matt Mallory Mallory Unlimited is my main company, with a bunch of different businesses that I have, but PSNED Public Safety Education is my training company, as well as Meet the Pressers, which is our TV show, and in our podcast YouTube platform show that we record and meet people and interview people that are shooters.

Cool, cool, david. You want to start off with questions, and so you have a first few that you emailed me.

Yes, sir, yes, sir. So, matt, in general, when it comes to survival, disaster preparedness, what are the most things? You have, items to keep around your home? I know most people, of course, spend a lot of time in their homes, so, yeah, definitely.

Well, I think, if we look at and this is something that I've been reevaluating too, when it comes to what's going on out there and I think you alluded to it a little bit, brian as far as the state we live in, and when I say Vegas and country Western concert, shooting everybody knows what we talk about, what we're talking about, right, that in law enforcement made us reevaluate shooters from above, which we always knew they could happen and they've happened in the past. But when it doesn't happen for a while, then we kind of like, oh yeah, that's right, that does happen every once in a while. And now it's not 360, because you always hear in the training 360, keep your head on a swivel, it's really 720, right, it's really in all directions. And then also you got the Buffalo tops, the Buffalo top shooting, same kind of thing. We know where you're vest, we know that you shoot to the chest and then the Mosin beak drill, the failure drill, the ballistics vest drill, two to the chest, rest of the head, or two to the chest, rest of the pelvic girdle. Well, I tell my students, why shoot to the chest? Go straight for the. You know, if you see that their chest is compromised and you're justified in shooting them there, go straight to the pelvic girdle. Why waste your time on the chest? And that's proof of the Buffalo tops once again. So now we start seeing stuff like China balloons flying over the United States, right, things that happen in Israel, with people storming in and chopping babies' heads off. I think it makes us reevaluate where we stand and what things could change and how close we actually might be to a nuclear attack. We haven't been in that situation since back in the 80s with Reagan, and you know, get under your desks because of Russia. It was a Cold War, but I think we're closer now than you know then. We've probably been since then. So, that being said, and that's, I wanted to set that stage to your question, david, because you know that what recently has happened with the China balloon and so on and so forth since then has really made me rethink. Like, okay, am I prepared enough? And we think, food, food. You know, store food, get food, keep food, as much food as you can. Now there's survival items in your home. I mean, you could bulk up on that stuff, but you still like we're going to discuss later you still want to have other stuff in your vehicle and on your person as well. But at home a lot of people say, well, I'm just going to, I'm just going to can, buy cans at the store and throw them in the shelf. Yeah, okay, you know they'll last for a little bit. Then you get people that'll say, well, I'm going to buy MREs and I'm going to stock a bunch of MREs Well, okay, I've got both of those in my pantry but truly, if you can plant your own garden, harvest that food and then can that food process that food, pressure cook the food, even meats right, if you can, you can, I can meats. I mean, that's something that we've picked up on and we've been doing for quite a few years, especially since we've purchased this property where we're at. So, being able to be salt-sufficient, then, once you harvest that food, take the seeds and then use those seeds next year. Now you're not relying on somebody else, you're not relying on, maybe, gmo seeds getting into your inventory. So it's a lot of work, it's a lot of costs, a lot of tending to it. Some years you have failed years. This past year we had a failure on pumpkins. We usually do pumpkins every year. We use a one-acre pumpkin patch. We sell pumpkins at our farm stand and this year we didn't really do too good on pumpkins. We actually didn't do any pumpkins, but the rest of the garden worked out really well. So there's cash crops, there's crops that we put at the farm stand, but then there's crops that we plant specifically. So my wife can can them and put them in our canning room. So the canned food's a great place to start because it's cheap but it's not going to last as long and there's tons of preservatives and additives in that to help it last and that's just not as good for you and not as healthy. The MREs from my Army days I'll tell you right now those things. If you don't want to go number two, eat an MRE. That'll back you up. Not sure how safe that is for a survival situation. When the shit hits the fan, you want it to also hit the fan. There right Now you can be backed up in you. So I really think and like I said, it's a lot of work my wife will spend. She's got a bunch of squash that we traded with the local farm that harvests hay on our property and we get meat from them every year. So they give us a bunch of meat and trade for letting them harvest like six acres of our land. So we do a little barter system and we get meat from them. Well, we had a lot of acorn squash left over so they ended up swapping out some other types of squash and now my wife's going to process that tomorrow if she's not too tired from eating too much. So anyways, the food aspect. But then you start looking at the water and are we prepared for water contamination? I mean, we see, with all the smoke that's going on and then the trains crashing and those liquids and fluids getting into the ground and into the water system, I mean that should be a big concern to everybody. And one of the beautiful things we have here is a well. But that's also a negative thing that if we have a well, that our water system could be contaminated more. So we have a reverse osmosis as well as UV system with salt to take out the hardness for the whole house and that's fine and dandy inside the house. But we also have a pond and we have water falls, but all that could be contaminated with E coli. So we got to have a way to process that and filter it. But if it's contaminated with radiation then it ain't going to happen. So at this current time we got water that's purified from natural bacteria, but if it gets infiltrated with something worse whether it's a chemical attack or it is radiation or whatnot so store water right 55 gallon drums of water and clean the drum, seal it up and then put some preservative in there. Some people just use bleach, just a little bit of bleach, to keep it from going bad. But regardless if it goes bad or not, it gets nasty. You could always boil it and you're good again. So the water is really a really good thing we need to start thinking of, because you're only going to be able to. You know what does it live three weeks without food, three days without water and, most importantly, if we're not late right, three minutes without air. And I don't know. I've never tried to help my hold my breath for three minutes. I never make it that far. But my army days we used to have NBC nuclear, biological and chemical suits and masks and everything, and I hate to put those things on. You feel like you're claustrophobic.

Oh, so hot sweating like a sieve especially in the gas chamber.

right, you get into the CS, the tear gas chamber, and you got to recite your name, soldier, remember these things for a long time. Geez, that was that was. That was a tear jerking day, right. So now I mean, we really haven't. We've gotten like masks that filter, but they're more like the respiratory masks for painting. Now we broke down, we actually bought some some. Well, the new term is what? Cbrn is the new term for it. So it's what? Chemical, biological, nuclear radiation. So they added another letter there to it, I guess that's the new term for it. So we added some of them with some extra canisters, some, you know, nbc canisters, cbrn canisters, you know. And then you got to have the suit and the boots and the gloves and then duct tape, duct tape at all shut. And do you want to go as far as having a you know thick mill plastic to tape on the windows tape over the windows? No, I mean, I'm so I don't want to say paranoid. I like to think that I'm in some sense it's kind of fun to do this, to think of, like, the ways that bad guys could hurt you or bad countries could invade you and try to find ways and the best ways to offset that. You know, then, that that instead of going to the movies and, you know, going out to eat as much, I like to come up with ways to fortify that. So I got ballistics film on the windows. You shoot through it but you throw a smoke grenade and it can take a little bit longer to get that smoke grenade into the house, or a flashbang, flashbang grenade or something. So yeah fun, creative ways but items. So you see, the question was in the house, right, I would say in our area might be different from you guys, because you guys are down in the in the Georgia, but me being in New York right now it's like 29 degrees outside. So you know, I got a pellet stove on right behind me to keep it. So I've got alternate heat sources. We've got three pellets those between the two houses, one in this bottom part of the basement, my office, one on that side of the basement, on the other side by the, the homeschool room, in the kitchen. And you know, and I get usually about six pallets of pellets a year that I that I distribute between the three spots where the three pellets stoves are, you know, having backup power sources because you know, something goes out. We've got a generator outside that I I wired into the house and put a 50 amp breaker actually a pain electrician to do the end parts, but I ran the wire and set up the generator and scope it out. But we got a 50, 50 amp breaker there. It's not as fast as like a Generak where I could just go and flip a switch or it kicks on itself. Right, that would be ideal, but you know it's. It was kind of me double purpose. If I need the generator for something else, I could always use it for something else, or Generak, you really can't. So we've got the generator, which we've had to turn on a couple of times because we've lost power over the past couple of years since we, since I, installed that. So, having a backup power sources, backup heat sources for us definitely, because we you know we would not, we would not do too good if we lost power here in New York, it's like you're in a nice box, yeah, you know, but heat producing stuff, you know something to be able to create a fire matches, lighters obviously waterproof ones like that could be beneficial. If you move outside that and bug out bags and stuff, obviously you'd want to have that even more ability to create a fire and with wind and water and the elements around you, but then also water you run into water, you can just drink it out of the stream. It's definitely going to have, you know, bacteria and E coli and stuff in it. So, having like a water straw, a UV some there's some UV lights out there that you could, you could just put it in a water bottle and stir it around. Use that sometimes, sometimes when you hike but the the life straws or any kind of straw that would be like that, where you could hook into a water bottle or you could suck it right out of a stream where it's going to filter it. You know something?

like that.

But boiling it's going to be, you know, another good, another good way to do it, so kind of dovetailed off of the home thing. But you know, I honestly think at home you have the luxury of being able to to work on the food, water and air, and those are really important because most of us are going to be at home, right. I mean, most people are not going to bug out more. More than anything, people are going to try to stay home, where they feel safe and where they think you know. I mean you look at Katrina, hurricane Katrina how many people died in Hurricane Katrina because they didn't want to leave, they want to stay home, they don't want to leave their home behind. I think a lot of people have that mindset more. So, if you take that and then package that into a backpack, a bug out bag, so you can, you know, x fill, that would be that would be that that next iteration. That would take a little more forethought for people. So without sorry, sorry, I went off on a tangent.

No, no, no. That's the next thing you know, moving on, kind of getting out. So you know what items, what must have items, would you keep in your vehicle In case you have to leave your home. Of course, a lot of people you know drive, so that's going to be their first means of transportation. I mean, I think keeping things in a vehicle would be a prudent thing to do, I guess.

What items would you recommend. Once again I'll go off on a little bit of a tangent to start because I want to set the stage for this. So my job in the military, when I was in the Army I was the third doing uniform. I was a radio radio communication, radio communication maintainer and it was. It was kind of neat because you know we have air and land and how they communicate because of us. And when I was in the desert in Egypt Brightstar 94, I was in a five ton controlling all you know, all the the radio stuff and everybody laughs yeah, you're, yeah, you're, kamau, kamau, weenie. Okay, yeah, who's in the air conditioning in the desert? Ha ha ha, who's laughing now? So going back to that, I would say communication and all, because we've seen this in 9-11. What happened at 9-11 in New York City? All cell phone communication was down, those towers were not working and people couldn't communicate. So you know, having communication, shortwave communication, even, even CB radio or walkie-talkies, direct connection, right Uh devices, is going to be better than relying on the cell phone. Now I can't say that we don't rely on the cell phone, even in our home, like if somebody's breaking into the house. We got one of my old cell phones on a charger in the master bedroom, which is our safe room. So if my wife has to run to the bedroom or I, we all have to run to the bedroom and my cell phone I left it in the other room or her cell phones dead, which could be frequently. So we get into the bedroom. I got a cell phone that is, you know, 911, you can use any old cell phone to call 911. It's always on, it's always on a charger, batteries always full. Pick it up 911,. You ain't going to worry about booting it up or is it going to work or whatever. So yes, cell phones can be beneficial, but having ham radios get your ham license right. I've had my ham license for over 10 years. I don't use it much, but I have radios. I, you know, I test them out every once in a while to make sure they're working. Ham radios, line of sight, and if you jump off repeaters, I mean you're at the luxury of the. You know at the, the, the crux of the repeater if the repeater goes down because of the MP or power outage. But you know, having those, those ham radios, a base station at home, a mobile station in your vehicle, and then obviously portable ones that you can shove in your bag, bug out bag so you can communicate between family members and maybe other people out there that are just as just as prepared, so that right off the get go I would say you got to be able to communicate. And if that's too much for somebody, I would say you know, have other things. Signaling devices, road flares would be a great thing to have in your, in your, in your bug out bag or your vehicle kit, if you will, so that you you know you're able to shoot a flare start, you know you can start a fire with a road flare. So you could be double purpose right, if you get, if you get some nice dry tindering set up, which would kind of be a good thing too, because if you're in the middle of a rainstorm, you're not going to necessarily easily find something too dry out there in the woods. So maybe have some things that you could burn, some things that would be able to get the get the smoldering, the fire going a little bit. You're kindling, if you will, but the single singling thing may be able to make a fire, to stay warm, to be able to boil water and cook food. You know how long you're going to be there. But here's something how many people do, you guys know, hop in a car just to go to the? I'm just going to the store just down the road, just going to go to the gas station, quick, like here in New York? I know, I don't know how many people do that and they don't bring a coat, they don't you know. They go out and just like one layer of clothing, like, yeah, but my car is warmed up, I'm going to hop in a warm car. Yeah, but what if the car doesn't work? Well, well then I'll just wait for emergency services. I'm like, yeah, in the freezing cold, with like sneakers, flip flops on or crocs on, and like no gloves, no, no, no hat, no coat, and they're like, yeah, but it's. You know they don't think about that. And then, when you think about what happened, where was it? Was that in Pennsylvania, where they had that like three mile long car back up and multiple people died because nobody could get to them because of the snowstorm I passed through that? I think that was. Was that the time I was down there coming back from?

your place.

Yeah, I think it was coming back from teaching down there for you and on my way back I just got through that and then I heard that there was a pile up on 81 North in Pennsylvania, if I'm not mistaken, that's where it was. And you know, I mean, how many people are not ready for that car not to work. They think that heat source is going to work and it may not work. So have I have in our car. I have a wool blanket my old, one of my old army blankets, and one of those old wool blankets shoved in the back for warmth. I've got fire starters. I got a flare, you know, to be able to purify water, and I've got those items can be hugely beneficial to be able to purify water, start a fire signal for things. You know, in my personal kits I'll have a little signaling mirror, but in that I don't think I have one in the car, but I definitely have road flares. Definitely have ways to make water and drink water, because those are important things. The clothing we're good clothing, we're layers of clothing. You can always take it off, just like hunting you guys, you hunt right. You know where layers of clothing. You can always take it off. You can't add more layers you don't have. So no matter where you are, because it gets cold in Georgia, right?

Yes, it's very cold right now. Actually, it's probably about, I think the nose is like 36.

Yeah, I mean that's that's. That's summer for us.

Yes.

Something too about your vehicles is.

You know, we all know we had some of those family members, or some of us, that you know they don't keep eyes on the gasoline level and you know if you don't keep your vehicle popped off or have reserved on your property, whether it be a tank or gas cans or something. That's something else you got to consider.

Yeah, I am. During the the COVID times I actually filled up about two or three 55 gallon drums I think it was two, two five gallon drums and I've got one of the old pumps, because what if you don't have electricity, right? So I had one of the old hand pumps that would pump it out into a five gallon can. But I did that and I put some treatment in it to keep it from going bad. And vehicles are usually pretty good at that. The smaller two cycle things like we've got an ATV and a snowmobile, and those don't really do too good with with stuff that's been sitting around a little. While they're a little, they don't run as clean or run. They don't run dirty gas easily, I guess. So you know, throwing it like my plow truck, whatever. Okay, yeah, it's a 19 or 2008 plow truck, I'll throw some in there, it'll eat, it'll eat it up and spit it out, no problem. But yeah, no, that's a great point Having that and having that gas excess, because when I was in Fort Steward, georgia, when I was stationed back there in the 90s, we had Hurricane Fran. I don't know if you remember Hurricane Fran, if you were down there. So during Hurricane Fran the lines were huge. The line gas to get gas, the lines were huge. So, being able to have a little bit of reserve, you know of your own and make sure it's safe, make sure it's far enough away from your house, don't have it like right in your garage next to the house. Everything blows up and now you know you at least you started a fire, but that's not the kind of fire you want to start. Yeah, I mean, that's not a bad idea Having that. And then if you have other items like we got a tractor so you know some diesel fuel for that might not be a bad idea. But yeah, you make a good point with that. When you're out and about, don't just be like, oh well, I got, I got a half a tank, I got a quarter of a tank, I got plenty, top it off. Top it off before you go home, because you never know what could happen that night. You wake up the next morning and the world's gone to crap. I mean, shouldn't that happen at COVID? They shut everything down Like, go try to get gas. It's like where?

Yeah, and then go back to the home point. You know you talked about the impump for your gasoline, your, you know, for us to move in the rural area that aren't on city first water or something, and having that well, having that manual access, that hand pump or something that you can pump and get water in case you don't have electricity or you don't have first water going in, that's something that I have out here is a manual system on my property just as a backup. That's smart.

I don't have that for our well. I mean, we've got the pipe coming up out of the ground and we've got a like, a looks like a lighthouse over top. It is a decoration. But, yeah, no, that's a good point and that's something I'll make a note of. That's actually a great idea. I was thinking about putting. I was thinking about putting another well, somewhere's on the property, maybe that's maybe that's what I'll do is I'll make that a the farm well, with a, you know the old cranking point.

Exactly.

So good.

Matt, um, and you kind of already alluded to this. But what about? Items must have items that you keep on yourself, or maybe in a go bag kit, you know, like your everyday carry kind of thing, or even in a go bag kit, whatever Top thing, that if you have to, maybe in your car, your home, that if you have to leave quickly to move out on foot, just that you can grab and go.

Yeah, I mean I, we have back, we have bug out bags and I I guess something that I need to do more of and I think that probably somebody else might be able to to gleam from this is I need to actually take my my go bag, my bug out bag, throw it on my my back and walk around the house with it, because I think that'll make me go through it and revisit how much I got in it, because I think I probably got more than I need in it. I have a so this is something. I have a vest that goes over the top. It's an ammo vest. So I've got rifle, pistol, shotgun Glock mags, rifle mags 30 round, my rifle mags, six rifle mags, six Glock mags and then I think five shotgun show double up buck shell 12 gauge on that vest. So I can, you know, take that off, keep it, put it on, but then that's separate from my actual bug out bag, which has my gas mask and and such. And then my wife has a, basically a duplicate would just maybe not as much heavy stuff in it, because you know I want to be kind to her. She's got to carry my load as it is. Yeah, carry me, but so you know, throwing that out and testing it out, just making sure because if you're not going to be able to walk around it under normal conditions, where you know you're, you don't really have to walk around about it or with it. You're walking around with it and I'm going to be complaining on. This is heavy, it's bugging my back. What's going to be when I'm having eaten for eating well, for three days, haven't slept good, haven't taken a shower, not going to feel good, I'm going to be edgy, I'm going to be upset, I'm going to be frustrated, fatigued, stressed out, you know, in fear, so that I think that's just going to exasperate it, make it worse. So always, you always want to make sure you have enough right. Better to have it, better to have it, not needed then need to not have it. Two is one, two is one, one is none. But at some point, is it? too much, right? So I think I think that's probably one thing that I personally know that I need to revisit and make sure that I'm not overpacking the backpacks. But that being said, you know food way to make food. You know way to make a fire, way to signal people having that radio. Usually I try six months, but it's one year. I'll pull the radios out and I've got a solar charger that has a USB port on it, so I'll charge that up. Make sure that's charged up. The EMP stuff I'm starting to think more about EMP because that's more and more realistic depending on how high they drop a nuclear bomb above that could take out a lot of the electrical stuff. So old microwaves laying around you're not using, you could just throw some stuff in there, put a Faraday bag inside of an old microwave and those are supposed to keep right. I mean, it's a microwave, so it's microwaves. If you got a box that keeps the microwaves in it, it's going to also keep microwaves and EMPs out. So right makes sense. And a good way to test that would be to take these old microwaves. You stop using it because it's maybe it's not as safe because it might be emitting some microwaves that you don't want out. A good way to test it throw your cell phone in a Faraday bag, throw it inside it, close it and have somebody call it. Do you see a light go off inside there? Does it ring or does it go straight to voicemail? And then you can tell and see if that microwave and Faraday bag are doing the job. So I got a couple of microwaves. We got some stuff stuffed in it. They're old ones we've took out of commission or ones are our son's old microwave. I took a little bit more to clean that one up. So, out and out though, because that was the question you asked on a bug out bag, I would think something to be able to, obviously a good, sharp knife, and that should go for your vehicle as well and at home. But at home you could probably go to the kitchen and grab one that you're going to. You know that you'd be used to. But you know, like something you could skin animals with, something you can cut rope with that kind of thing In a vehicle you have the luxury of bigger things, like maybe a machete or an axe in your bug out bag, maybe, depending. I mean you got to kind of look at it and say you know where's the? Where do I draw the line on weight and size of items Like I, you know, I, we've got our AR and I've got my hand done? I mean those are things that I would definitely, you know, each of us would be rocking. And you know if? What? If I run out of the upstairs because somebody's breaking in the house and I run downstairs and I forget my AR upstairs, you know, or my handgun. So you know I have backups, but I also have a 22 breakdown, the Henry AR seven, 22. Right Now, that's something small that you could use to get a rabbit squirrels, you know. I mean, if you had to, you could shoot a deer, and I was supposed to do that in New York, but your life's in danger, I mean you're going to work out exactly. You're going to worry about being prosecuted or you're going to have dinner Backstrips, baby yeah. So I mean I think that's you know, energy, energy foods. So nuts, and you got to be careful, like the slim gyms and stuff, because they got a lot of extra stuff in them. But you know, venison, if you, if you hunt and you make your own venison, that stuff's, you know, it lasts for a while. So if you can make some venison jerky, throw some venison jerky in there. That could be hugely beneficial. Anything with high energy that's going to, you know, give you a boost of energy. Peanut butter is great. We got lots of peanut butter, except for the Peter Pan stuff that has salmonella in it. That happened a couple of years ago. That was terrible. We got hit with that. So peanut butter yeah, peanut butter in the house, you know. Peanut butter in a vehicle, I mean just peanut butter. Peanut butter go bad. I mean as if it's sealed, it's going to last. It's going to last quite a while.

Yeah, yeah, I love peanut butter.

And when we were. It's funny because we talked to our kids about being broken, poor, back in the time when I was in the military and getting out, and it's like you know, what'd you guys do? I'm like I don't know ramen and peanut butter and you know pop tarts. I mean, what else? What are you going to do?

Yeah, Like, yes, peanut butter and graham crackers, that's, that's one of my favorites.

Yeah, Wow Ramen potato staple in the in the barracks, when I run out of the barracks. You know if I, especially whenever I was an MP and sometimes I'd work a night shift and everything else on post would be closed, so I had to ramen it. Yeah, yeah, sorry, you're good. You're good, go ahead.

But another thing, and you've kind of already alluded to it, on the communication. So if there's anything else you want to add, you know, on the communications, you know, or a disaster prep and top situation.

Yeah, I mean be in the know In our industry. I don't know about you guys, but I hate the news, I hate watching the news, I hate listening to the news. I got more important things to do and listen to the news, but in some sense that's also you shoot yourself in the foot, because if you don't know what's happening outside, you know in the news. Then how do you prepare for what's happening? Right, you're behind the curb. Yeah, I mean be up to date on what big things are happening. You know COVID and railroad trains going off the railroad tracks and China and balloons, and you know all that stuff. Hurricanes and tornadoes, yada, yada, yada. You know be aware of that. So if, if anything, watch the weather and, like students that I tell in my classes, you look at the news stories of what's happening out there and you're not going to know that people are coming into the and this is one thing that we had happened here during COVID. They were saying they were going to go out into the, into the rural areas, and start robbing houses and stuff because they weren't finding stuff in the stores. I'm assuming it's everywhere in the country, but I know it was here. We're having reports of places being broken into that had never been broken into in like ages. It was like once a year, once every six years. You maybe have like a bear sighting right, like you. Very rarely have it happen here. Now we're getting we're getting messages that pop up. I get an email of any local crime that's popped up on the blotter and I get the email like weekly we maybe every two weeks if I'm lucky. We've been here six years. We'd be lucky if we'd seen something every three months and now we're seeing stuff almost weekly. So crimes becoming more constant and it's spreading out further into more rural areas that you really wouldn't expect it as much. So be mindful of that. And we have too many people put their faith in glass. Glass only keeps good people honest. Everything between you and the outside world is glass. It's nothing right, it's. We don't live in castles anymore with little portholes or shoot arrows through and let a little ventilation, and we don't have drawbridges and moats and dragons if you believe in them. So you got to be mindful of that. Have a room that's fortified, that you can get to if the crap hits the fan, that you know that you can retreat to lock down the door, arm yourself up, call 911 for backup. They might not be coming. I mean, I'll tell the officers I train and I'll tell my students law enforcement is the cleanup crew. They're usually there after everything's happened, so you're lucky if they come and stop it from happening. There's only in more and more. We're seeing that more and more law enforcement are one, because you've all been Texas, they don't have to right, they have no duty to protect you. One and then two, they're short staff. So if they're short staff, they don't have enough officers, then it's going to be. I haven't looked at the recent response times, but my assumption is it's definitely gone up a lot. I think it was eight to 15 minutes years ago and it's probably a lot more than that now. At least the reports I've had from other officers and other agencies has gone up quite a bit. So once again, I think I danced around your question a little bit, but one thing I did think of was write stuff down. So write stuff down, put it in paper. A battery's only going to last for so long. If you have a generator, that's great. If you don't have a generator, you don't have a way to make power solar's kind of. I'm not a huge fan of solar but you got sun. That might not be a bad thing to invest in if you can afford that, especially if you have sun, and it would be worth it in your area and you could recoup your investment. But print stuff off. So write it down. And or print it off. So if you have notes that you've put into electronic format, print it off, throw it in a safe, put it somewhere, put it in your microwave, put it somewhere where it's safekeeping, so you can get to it that you know that would be pertinent information in a survival. If you say to yourself you know what I remember in Boy Scouts I learned how to do X, y, z, but I couldn't remember. Now I get that Repetition is how we remember things. It becomes, it becomes rote, rote memory by repetition and if we're not continuously doing it, something we're going to forget. So if it's something that's important how to make a fire, or you know directions to some house that you're going to have to walk there through the woods, you know, maybe get a topographical, topographical map of your area and that's, that's not a bad thing to have access to. Yeah, anyway.

Yeah, that's great and you know, even talking about the rotten stuff down, I think one of the interesting things to me is, you know, I have a Kindle now and I love my Kindle. My wife's happy with it because I don't have so many books and bookshelves. But I mean, you know, if everything's on your Kindle and you don't have any power, even with the little portable charging stations, I mean, depending on how long you're without stuff, written down is important. So yeah, I think that's a that's a great work of advice.

Cool, yeah, I think part of talking about power. You know, like you said, having the ability to have a generator or either, like you said, solar is expensive. But in some areas, like in Alaska, in a certain period of time you don't have any sunlight, so you're not going to, it's not going to be beneficial for you. But I also think about room energy. It's another avenue. And you talk about the cell phones health, health and brain. We are to have our phone in our hand pretty much most of the time doing something with it, and I've actually got a cell powered backup. You know, one of those small power packs that you can set up on a dash and stuff. To a large extent. If I got into a situation where there's no electricity, I got that to kind of charge up the smaller things. It wouldn't charge up or do anything for running the microwave, the refrigerator and stuff like that. But yeah, that's some of my thoughts. I haven't got onto the similar wind energy, but it's something that I've been considering. I just don't know cost wise.

Yeah, it's expensive. Here we've got a nice big hill out back. We could probably put a wind turbine on, but then we'd have to clear it and then it's a ways back so we'd have to run the line, so that would be expensive. We did look into solar before COVID and then, unfortunately, we didn't pull the trigger. And then after COVID we looked into it and it was like triple the cost and I'm like I forget that. But something that you were mentioning too, that got me thinking if you have a generator and then you have a store of fuel, well, there you go. You don't have to literally leave because you're going to need fuel and you're going to need a continuous supply of fuel to keep that generator going and test it, like we did when I first got it all hooked up, we tested it. I went over and turned off the breaker to the main house, which kills the power to both houses. We have two houses here on the property and then we and I've got directions, because if I'm not home, I want my wife to be able to do it, and if she's calling me saying, hey, I'm, you know we're without power and I'm in Georgia, where it's nice and you guys never lose power, right. Then I made directions on the front of the breaker panel and color coded everything. So she literally all she has to do is read the directions on, flip this switch, go out, turn the generator around, come back in, flip this switch and all the power comes back on. And don't use these devices because, like the hot tub, you know we got a hot tub. You don't need a hot tub and a power outage, turn that thing. So there's certain breakers that you know we won't even utilize because of that and don't you know, don't you don't need a vacuum? And you know certain things that take huge amperage that spikes the. That power you know we don't want to have, we don't want to have an issue with the generator. You know, tripping a breaker going out when it's, you know it's vitally important. So it but it ran. Everything I bought that was it's a Harbor freight generator. I bought it it's the biggest generator, harbor freight cells. So you know they're most expensive one and I've had it for three, three, three, four years I think it's been, and we used it down at the pond to keep the aerator going for a little while and I you know it's, it's work good and we just now just have it hooked, mainly for the house If we need it. Like I said, it's only been a, you know, a few times. But another thing you mentioned, and I'll mean to hog hog all the time. You got me going, man, I'm all I'm going to rip my bug out bag out and say, okay, what did I do? What am I missing A NOAA radio. So you mentioned hand crank. I've got in my bug out bag and I've also got a. So I've got a plastic tote that we call it like our bug in box and then there I've got a lot of the same stuff we have in the bug out bag, but maybe a little bit bigger, a little bit heavier thing. You know home things that you wouldn't care about the weight, the size of it. But in both of those I have a little crank radio with a light on it, got a solar panel on it, the USB port you can charge things and it's a radio, so you can, so you'd be able to at least listen to the news and what's going on, the weather report, and so that's another little tidbit there that I think could be beneficial to some people. And then you're keeping up on content that you need to keep up on in a natural disaster.

The timing of the seas? I think there was a question that you had. What David? I think yes, sir, but they're coming more, but minor, more thought provoking I guess. But kind of resources are out there for people to keep handy, like websites, emergency notifications, books for prepping and survivalist activities that are good, reputable or no at-line high-type material so people can start, if they haven't done anything or haven't planned anything, that they can start looking into things and getting information.

That's actually a great thought. I like any, so I read books. I know how to read. The hard part is trying to find the time to read. So I'm big more on audio books than audio books. So when I travel and I'm teaching I'll try to pop on an audio book. And I'm a big fan of mindset trying to have the right mindset going into any kind of situation but also homesteading any kind of homesteading content books. There's one and I can't remember the name of it, but it's a big manual and the ads came up a few times. I bought one, put it by my chair, was planning on reading it and then forgot about it. Saw the ad again, bought it again. It came in and I'm like wait, my wife goes, wait, you already have one of them. I'm like now I'm starting to sound like you. She's got like five of the same books on the shelf. But anything that would give you put it this way, macgyver it, if there's a way that you can think of ways to repurpose things, to use things in a different way. To bring example, our chicken coop. Our chicken coop has gutters on it. It's a metal roof that has gutters. Well, why am I going to let that water go to waste. That water runs into a 55 gallon drum and there's six or eight little cups on the front of it that the chickens drink from. So probably two, three times a year I'll dump it out, scrub it out really good, make sure that there's no, you know. But it's got a lid on it, 55 gallon drum with a lid. It's heated. So I've got a floating heater in there because when it gets cold here in New York it would freeze, and so there I repurpose the water into a 55 gallon drum to be able to utilize that for the chickens and all I got to do is make sure it doesn't freeze in the winter. I've got a 300 and I think 300 and some on gallon vat on the side of the house, side of the lodge, our guest house, where I've got pex hose running down from that five feet off the ground runs down into the garden so I can use that to irrigate the garden. So I'm not having to use the water that we've purified in the house and you know the resources that we've done there, because the garden doesn't need, you know it's rainwater, it's just repurposing the rainwater from the roof of the lodge because the lodge is, you know a three story building, 2500 square feet, so that's pretty. A lot of gutters that I can pull the rainwater off of that from. So you know just things like that where you can say, you know, I didn't think about that, I could reuse that water. I could, you know, plant my own garden. I can harvest the seeds, I can have my own chickens. We've got, I think we're at about 40 chickens that we have that we get in four roosters and you know like 30, 36 hens that we'll. You know that we get our own eggs from on a daily basis and the excess we sell. We sell the people in the area, friends and family, and chickens, bees for honey, and we're going to start our maple syrup again. That won't be this season, but next season we're going to start doing maple syrup again. So just be resourceful. Find ways to be resourceful. Find ways to do things if you don't have power, if you don't have electricity, if you don't have the internet, because when all that stuff goes if it does it may never but better to be prepared right. But if it goes, you don't want to be sitting in a car wanting to drive somewhere and not knowing how to use a map. Don't rely on the GPS. Know how to use an atlas.

We're going to talk about cars and being prepared. Just going back to what happened here in Georgia a few years ago with the big ice storm up in North Georgia. There's people stranded out on the interstate for 18 hours, if I remember right, and you know no one out in the middle, no, where, nothing to just hey, let me walk over here and get a drink or something like that. So just being prepared for anything, especially if you know you're going to encounter bad weather, like in the wintertime, or know that during the summertime, you've got, if you live in a tornado prone area or a hurricane prone area, that you're prepared whenever you are out in the powder, even at home.

So yeah, you know, as you were saying that, it made me think of something and I wasn't expecting to say this, but it's something that just recently happened to me. I just had to have my first colonoscopy and the whole fasting prior to that I thought that was good. Yeah, I was thinking to myself I'm not going to be able to do this. I eat, I like eating. I don't think I overeat, but I definitely like food. If I'm hungry and I see something I like, I eat it. I've got a good metabolism to getting worse and worse I get older, but it's still a fairly good metabolism and I'm thinking to myself there's no way I'm going to have problems. Honestly, I didn't. I didn't. I drank a lot of fluids, I ate Jell-O and all the stuff they said I could, you know, didn't eat any solids and I was pretty impressed that I got through that. And if you, if we get to the point where you don't have food on the shelves in the store and you don't have stores in your house, you're, you know, you're pushing yourself into a corner where your body's going to have to start eating, eating itself, to be able to survive and that's going to give you headaches, it's going to make you not feel good. You're not going to be thinking straight. So I don't know. I mean, I'm not. I guess my wife does it every once in a while. She do a cleansing fast. Yeah, when she does it I'll be like you're nuts. No way, I ain't doing that. Well, I had to do it for this colonoscopy and, by the way, so far it looked good just one small polyp. So hopefully that comes back fine. But yeah, it's just stuff like that. Just, you know, I didn't think about it. I'm like, eh, but in sense you know you're, you're stranded somewhere and you you're hungry, you're used to eating, your accustomed to eating, and then you're not eating anything automatically and you're being forced that way. That could put a toll on your mind and your body.

Like you said, the first thing that whenever I had my colonoscopy and I had to do the fasting and everything, the headache was the biggest thing that popped me first. And same thing whatever, I don't drink enough caffeine, as I'm a heavy coffee drinker. If I don't drink enough, I get that caffeine headache.

Yep, yeah, we switched to tea and it still has caffeine, but we don't put as much creamer and stuff in it, because I would drink coffee and it would just be cream and sugar. I like a little bit of coffee with my cream and sugar, please. And now my wife's been switching us over to some healthy teas with just a little bit of, you know, cream in it, I think, but that's it. So it's. It's been a little bit, a little bit better, trying to wean off the caffeine a little bit, but I'm right there with you.

Any websites. I know we kind of talk about books and everything, anything that people might want to sign up for and kind of, while they may still have internet and power that would give them notifications. I know most of our phones these days are set up to where, if something, we've got the national notification system. But anything that you know of that people might want to.

Yeah, I'm sure there's definitely ones out there. There's none that I really subscribe to. If it comes across the phone, that's definitely a good note. I do have the one there and I can't even think of the name of the actual website. I could probably pull it up to my email, but the one that'll give you a crime statistics in your local area. That might not be a bad thing. To see what's going on, to keep abreast of what's happening in the neighborhood. I honestly find a lot of. I just Google it, like I say to myself okay, I want to know how to do this, I want to see what other ideas people have out there, what they've. You know, what they've done, how they've made this, how they've made that, you know, just to get some some thoughts on it. I mean, I built the chicken coop. I've. You know I've done so many things, so many different things around the property that that I just don't even think about anymore. I just know, okay, I got to do this. I turn around and do a quick Google search, find two or three different ways that people have done it and then be like okay, and put my notes together on which way I want to do it. There's many, many projects. Building my reloading bench, that's another thing. Learn how to reload ammo. You know, I built my own reloading bench. What?

lost him.

I'm going to go plug in my jet pack real quick, okay, okay.

All right.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

Sorry guys.

And the man didn't realize that his hot spot needed plugged back in to to Charcot so he wouldn't lose internet.

Yeah, it was. It said it was battery was low. I plugged it in, but it the power cord into the, into the brick, wasn't in all the way, so it died fast. No, it was going down but it went down fast. But anyway, where were we, where'd you, where'd I cut off? It was my last word.

Ah, steve, we were talking about the websites, and there's a couple of apps or places that you got information from.

Yeah, yeah, so I always I love doing projects on my own. Um, if I, you know, I'm I'm installing a septic system now for RV. Um, you know, I try to do as much of my own stuff that I can. It's my wife and I've had the conversation a few times over the past few years. Like, did you ever think you would have done that, you would have built that, you would have done this, you would have came up with this? You know, the chicken coop roost and the water and the door. I mean, there's so many little projects and I'm like you know what, I'm going to do that myself. Not that I can't afford to hire somebody, I could. I'm just, you know I'm, I'm thrifty, I like to save money. I'd rather spend money on more guns and ammo and and and take classes from other instructors than necessarily paying somebody to do some. If I can do it, does it take longer? Sure Is it. Is it come out as good. Actually, in some, a lot of sense comes out better, because I put the extra time and effort into that project, like our, our hot tub that we installed. I did the whole base for it. Um, you know, other than the electric, having the electric hooked up. I did everything for that and everybody that looked at it goes man, nobody would have done it as good as that, you know. Eight inches of concrete, it's like. It's like what six in four or six inches is typical. It's like eight inches overkill. So I guess one thing I would say to people is is try to be that way. Try, you know, try to say can I do this? Don't be intimidated by not doing it yourself. Try to do it. Try to do it yourself. Do a lot of research, or you got to do it. You're gonna have to do a ton of research, right? I? You know I build guns myself. I'm in the process right now. If I got my my class two SOT, I'm in the process of building nine machine guns. I'm between full auto and three round burst. I've got nine guns in the process. I'm building them right now. I've built guns in the past but you know this is my first time doing machine guns, which is which is cool, Right Um be a MacGyver. Try to try to see if you can do it yourself. Challenge yourself. It might not come out right, but YouTube is uh, you know, could be a great resource, even if there's a um, you know podcasts uh or or even just uh uh newsletters or and or some sort of uh uh let um article somebody has written on how to do something. Those would be great ways and get multiple sources, like the news was supposed to have three sources before they run stuff. They don't adhere to that anymore, they just run it and apologize later or wait to get sued. Um. So you know, look at multiple sources to see if there's different ways to do it, so that you know you don't screw it up, because there is information out there such as eat tied pods and cook nightcloth with chicken, and that's not good advice. Um so we, you know, we want to make sure that we're we're not doing something. Where we're going to, you know it's going to meet our demise. But, you know, as far as a specific newsletter or a thing to sign up for, um, you know, I, uh, I don't have one specific one. I jump around, I get a lot of information from a lot of different places and then I try to, you know, apply them to each other and see which one, which way I want to go, see if which ones match or come closest to it. Okay, all right, and it goes from there.

Okay, um, next to the ask for views, is there anything that consumer needs to know as far as how to vet out products that are out there on the market? You know like we're talking to places, people, people, because it's cheap, or they Amazon and certain things that you know. You have to be careful of that, for you order stuff from and the quality of as far as a survivalist uh, home studying how can people get the products that are out there on the market to know that they're getting quality stuff?

Yeah, I guess there's a few thoughts on that. And you mentioned, uh, one thing that just made me remember something that I forgot. In medical right, I mean, there's something that I call it you probably have heard me say this in classes, brian uh, the trifecta of tools. So lethal knives and guns, edge weapons and guns, leslie, they'll have, you know pepper spray, tasers, flashlights, coupon, know how to use your hands, your MVP of tools, mind, voice and physical. So those Leslie tools, have those on you. And then medical. That third trifecta is medical have, like I have on my ankle right now and I carry around me anytime I'm teaching, or I'm, um, I'm teaching here on the property, or I'm teaching out in public, or anytime I'm in public, you know, have have the, uh, the tourniquet, quick clot so that he must that, a gauze, chest seals, accident entry wounds, so two of them, and then a pressure bandage and then a boo, boo kit wouldn't be bad either to be able to stop, stop the bleeds. But the, the medical on you at all times. You don't, you're not going to be able to live a really deep knife. Cut it's, you know you're. Six to 12 seconds You're, you're bleeding out. 15 to 30 seconds You're, you know you're, you're not going to make it past that and your, your muscles still have oxygen but likely likelihood of survival. You'd be brain dead. So have the, have the medical stuff. Um, how to vet it? I like some harbor freight tools. Yeah, if I was a carpenter, I know I wouldn't be using harbor freight tools on a daily basis in what I do. All right, there are certain things where you could go on the cheap. If it's not going to be something that you're going to maybe rely on, you rely your life on, and or something that you're going to use on a daily basis as a professional, but it could work if you're careful with it. You know that you got to be delicate with the tool and not beat it and beat it to hell Right. Flip side of that is if you spend good money on a tool and it has a good warranty, then you can beat it to hell. You know it's going to last under pressure and if it doesn't, you can get that warranty as long as the business is not a business or the world hasn't gone to shit. So I would say that that's the flip side of that. Be thrifty I am, I buy harbor freight stuff. I you know I do but also Amazon. I really don't like the company Amazon, but I definitely find that usually a lot of the stuff on Amazon you got reviews. Look at the reviews. What are the reviews Say? That's one thing I like about the Amazon platform is you can look at a review and I try not to buy anything with less than a four and a half star. If it's got less than four and a half stars, then I it's got to be something I can't find that has better or better rating and I really need it. And then I look at the reviews and I read them and I say, ok, what are they saying negative about it? Oh, I got it late. Oh, it came. The package came damaged. The product's fine, I don't care about that, I get it. I don't delay gratification, right, I don't if I need it right away. Then I got to go to the local store, but I prefer to give to local businesses. But also Amazon just makes it so easy to earn policies and then on top of that, the warranties and then on the free shipping and then you get to deliver to your house. You're saving on gas. You don't have to go out into the society and deal with people. So there is that benefit. Look at reviews. Be careful of online reviews. From a company that's selling you something and the reviews are on their website. They're only going to put up the perfect reviews, they're not going to put up negative about the item. Oh, we've got five thousand five star reviews, great. Well, we got fifty thousand negative reviews, because you know there's no way somebody's going to have five thousand perfect, five star reviews. Somebody in this day and age, somebody's complaining about something. So look at the reviews. You know, my daughter, my wife, they love Timo, but I haven't bought a thing on it. I got the app. I look at the stuff. I'm like, yeah, I just haven't pulled the trigger yet on it because I'm just so, I'm not sold yet. And the commercials are, all you know, china commercials and I'm assuming, just like wishcom. Yeah, I bet you everybody that buys something from wishcom right after wishes. They didn't.

Yeah, I've got some people that have bought off the wish and some of them tried to team and they were really, you know, they were smitten by the stories getting a prepaid credit card and stuff not linking it to their personal bank card and all that stuff, and they were the buying just for the fear of the stolen information. But, yeah, yeah, and that's a good point that I tell people, if you're buying online, have a prepaid card and don't keep it loaded up with a lot of money, just load it up as you plan on using it. That way, if somebody does steal information or the security breach, they're not going to get a hold of it.

Yeah, that's, that's not a bad idea, because it is a pain in the butt to have to change all credit cards that you've got all your regular bills going to. We had that. I don't know what hit our account, but something somebody in Texas, florida and California all within hours like charge like five hundred dollars worth of stuff and I'm like what the heck's going on. So I canceled the card. Actually, I think the bank did. They got wind of it after a little bit and canceled it and we got it all returned back. But we had to cancel the card, reestablish the card with all new people we had to. You know we were out the money until the bank decided that, yeah, this looks like it was a. You know it was a theft. So they provisionally credit us back the money for a little bit, but that took a few days. Yeah, it's just. It's just that I mean that's good advice with the, with the. You know the gift card. I hadn't thought of that. But that's another thing. Like with Amazon, if you got it in Amazon, it's in Amazon. So whatever you buy, here's another one for you. That kind of goes along that same line If you buy something in your leery of the website. If they accept PayPal, pay with PayPal and if PayPal is attached to your bank account, now it goes through PayPal. They don't get your credit card information. They just PayPal filters that credit card information and pays it through the PayPal account. One other company that's not very gun friendly is PayPal, but you know them and Stripe and there you know it's, it is a. It is a benefit. But one thing on the the Amazon is be careful of the buying tourniquets there, because tourniquets on Amazon could be fake or not not great quality. Just just because it is Amazon doesn't mean it's. You know it's, it's perfect, you know. Buy stuff like that. Tourniquets from reputable companies that are that it's a cat tourniquet. You know it's a North American rescue. It's not going to be some some cheap fake tourniquet that you're going to, you're going to use and then it's going to snap when you don't really need it. Want it to snap. Okay.

All right. The last question is how can you, if, should you, if there is a recommendation for changing out items, which I know different things have different self lives, but that's a good view of them as far as we're visiting your, your supplies, and go bags and stuff like that?

Yeah, if you do like I think it was four teams we bought some of the the food rations. We bought that a few years ago and I think it's good for like 10 years or something. I mean you should be. I was actually just talking to to. Actually I think it was somebody I know here said, said something about doing an inventory at the end of the year and yeah, I mean you've got to put it on the calendar so you don't make a mistake and forget or just put it off. Yeah, when was the last time we did it? If you ever go to a restaurant, you go into the bathroom. What do they have in the back of the door? Quality?

control, check, yeah, a cleaning checklist.

When was it clean last? So do that in your storage room. Have some sort of like you know, quality control thing If you're not good about having it in your calendar to remind you every you know, every year on my birthday or every year on January 1st which that might not be the best time to do your inventory, depending on how you celebrate January 1st, you know but every year on your birthday or every year on, you know, july 1st, whatever. Pick a date that you're not going to forget, that you're going to remember. Just like doing trash, you know, every Tuesday night I got to put trash out. Have that date in your calendar, or and or have a list in the, in the, in your storage room, your canning room, your root seller, whatever you call it where you're putting down when you inventory everything. On top of that, when you go in there to get stuff out, make sure that you know well, hey, I'm getting low on this. Just like you open the fridge, you know, hey, I'm going to the store next time. I got to add this to my list so you could do a shopping list in that room where you go in and you grab a can of peas and you're like geez, we're down to two cans of peas. Probably should buy some more peas because we want to have X amount of cans of peas. So just have an idea of how much, just like water. How much water does a person use on a daily basis? How much is, yeah, with three gallons a day? I think, is what they, what they say. So three times how many people you have in the house times, how long do you think you need to survive on that food, on that water, before it goes out, before it's depleted, and as far as the expirations you can, if you're, if you're cycling it through and you're not using up all your stores and forgetting about it, then that's the best way to do it and rotate it on the shelf. You know in and out on the shelf, so you know what, whatever's newer you put into the back and whatever's older you have to the front and then at least I'd say, probably once a year, go in. you know, once a year is probably a good not too much, not too little to go in and look through everything and just be like man, that can's kind of. That can's rusting, or why is there a stain on the shelf? And oh shoot, you pick it up and the whole bottom of the cans rusted out and it's been leaching out or leaking out. That's the stuff you want to look for and I think an annual basis probably would be, you know, would be wise for something like that.

Okay, all right. Final question and I kind of spring it on to you because I forgot to put it in the notes, but asking everybody that's a guest, what's the need for relaxation or, in your fulfillment, away from, to get away for your, I guess, to get back to your pincers, to have a get away from the stress of the daily routine. That's a good team.

That's a. That's a great question. I appreciate you asking that because I think I think we're all stressed out in our own ways and I think COVID really helped, helped me realize what's more important the family and and I call it the pyramid of priorities. It's you, your family that you love, your friends that you care about, and then complete strangers that you owe nothing to. I'm not saying don't be a good Samaritan, just be a smart good Samaritan if you're going to come to the aid of a complete stranger. So you know, if I'm, I have the, the I'm blessed to be able to do pretty much what I want, set my own schedule, even on the law enforcement side. It's part time and I'm the chief, so I can. I can schedule the. I schedule like I got to work tomorrow but, I'm sorry, tuesday. So, that being said, if you know, if I get stressed or frustrated, I'll try to change the scenery. So if I'm on my computer doing scheduling or replying to emails and I'm like you know, I'm just, I'm tired, I'm fatigued, I'm frustrated, stressed out, put the laptop aside. I'll go out and work with the chickens, I'll go to the pond and feed the fish, I'll walk, take a hike out to the waterfalls on our back property. I'll go to the range and shoot. If I, if I, if I want to do something like that, maybe, maybe I'll go on, go on, go on a run. You know I just try to do something. You know that takes my mind off of that one thing that was frustrating me, or, or flipped, or maybe I'll go mow the yard. I've done that before you know what the yard needs to be mowed. I'm just going to go mow the yard. It's mindless. Just put my hearing protection on and around the yard, my zero chart. You know I've always got projects going on so I can always switch from technology to a project or vice versa. I'm out in the yard working and something's just not going the way it is, or the weather turns bad and I want to get this done, but the weather's beaten me. I'll go in clean up and, you know, maybe it's time for lunch and my wife's, my beautiful wife's, got lunch ready. Or I'll hop on the computer and get some emails caught up on, you know. So I really don't play games. I really don't, you know, do anything like that. I do invest. I do have some investments. I crypto, do some cryptocurrency stuff as well. So that's kind of fun. But the farm stuff, the shooting stuff, the, the, the lodge or rental, you know I've got lots of different things I can jump back and forth to as things start frustrating me, and one, one type of industry that I'm in and I can buy, bounce over to the other one.

Many hats, many hats, all right, well, pretty much joining us tonight. Matt and we're going to have a handy back home, as we already talked about some other topics. So encourage people to come back and we'll have these topics recorded here, hopefully within the next little bit where we can have those coming out. But thank you and enjoy your new receive with your family and be safe and have fun.

Thank you Appreciate having me have a good day All right, thank you.

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