The Common Sense Practical Prepper

Smoothing Life's Turbulence Through Practical Preparation

• Keith Vincent

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The power of preparation transforms stressful situations into smooth experiences, especially during international travel. I share observations from Frankfurt Airport that reveal how anticipation, systems, and self-forgiveness create practical preparedness strategies for everyday life.

• Witnessing unprepared travelers struggle with baggage weight limits and battery restrictions at check-in
• Speaking a few words of German to show respect to local vendors creates positive connections
• Airport chaos from people not understanding boarding procedures despite clear announcements
• Three keys to preparedness: anticipate what's coming, build systems that work, and give yourself grace
• Preparing the night before travel reduces morning stress and potential problems
• Creating checklists and routines makes preparation automatic rather than stressful
• Learning from mistakes improves future preparation instead of repeating problems

For questions or comments, reach me at practicalpreppodcast@gmail.com or on Twitter @prep_podcast. Be sure to subscribe, and help spread the word by leaving a rating and review.


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Speaker 1:

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. The National Weather Service has issued a severe thunderstorm warning. Welcome to the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast, where prepping doesn't have to be complicated or expensive. Coming to you from a well-defended, off-grid compound high in the mountains, coming to you from his florida room in richmond, virginia neither off-grid nor well-defended, unless you count as chickens and cats, here is your host, keith hey everybody.

Speaker 2:

This is ke Keith with the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast, september 13th 2025. Get a couple things off my chest real quick. Let's talk about Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk was assassinated for speaking his mind. Charlie Kirk was assassinated for exercising his First Amendment rights. Whether you like the man, whether you don't like the man, whether you agree with some things he said or none of the things that he said, regardless of who you are, where you come from black, white, left, right no one and I repeat, no one deserves to be physically harmed by exercising their First Amendment rights. That's all I'm going to say about that. I'll do my commercial plug real quick. Then we'll get into the meat of the podcast.

Speaker 2:

I've said a million times that I'm part of the affiliate program with Augustine Farms. I just got an email because I the subscribe to their newsletter. They have some tremendous sales. It's like 60% off because September is preparedness month. Do me a favor. I'm going to put the affiliate link down below. Use the affiliate link. Don't use the affiliate link. That's fine, but please go to their website.

Speaker 2:

All these different long-term food storage websites always have sales, but the sales that I noticed this afternoon are some prices that I have not seen before. So do yourself a favor, take five minutes and check it out. You may not like any of the food. You may purchase your long-term food storage supplies from other companies, and that is perfectly fine from other companies and that is perfectly fine. But later on this afternoon or later on this evening I'm actually going to sit down and see if there's anything that I need in my pantry, because 60% off and they're decent prices to begin with, 60% off is absolutely fantastic.

Speaker 2:

A couple stats, real quick. I've looked into some of the metrics and the number of folks that are listening in the UK has jumped up quite a bit, and I was watching the news yesterday and as well as today. Lord, that place is a hot mess. Over a million people were marching through the streets and I tell you what I hope the people that run these pubs. I hope they purchase some extra beer, because nothing makes a man thirsty than running up and down the streets of London shouting their head off for two and three hours. It appeared to be a mostly peaceful protest. I know we've heard that before, but I'm not sure of any significant injuries. I know some police officers got bowled over. Certainly no excuse for that, but, man, things are really kicking off there and they're kicking off all over the world. Kudos to you folks over there in the UK. Just keep it safe, don't hurt anybody. And again you have the ability to express yourself. I'm all for that.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I'm a people watcher, like most people are. I know a lot of people that are people watchers, and I was sitting in the airport in Frankfurt a week ago tomorrow yeah, a week ago tomorrow. I was flying out of Frankfurt for most things, but things sneak up on us and it's you know that stuff happens. But one thing, uh, that I really pride myself on is being prepared for travel, especially international travel. Show up two hours before your flight, passport control, customs, drop off your bags. Do you get a paper boarding pass? Do you have the boarding pass on your app, that sort of thing. So I'm at the United counter getting ready to drop my bags because my reservation got screwed up Again another reason why I got there a little bit early. The electronic boarding pass on the app was not working, so I showed up another 20 minutes early and I'm standing in line. I got three people like three people ahead of me, and over to the right there's this American family. I pretty much guess we're getting on my flight.

Speaker 2:

They weighed their bags and you get 50 pounds per bag. With United you get two bags free. Most people get two bags free and 50 pounds is the limit. So you put your bag on the little scaly thing and the United rep you know have you packed your bags? Has your bag been out of your sight? Do you have any dangerous items? Lithium iron, phosphate batteries, liquids they run through the whole thing and, as you know, whether you fly domestically or internationally, you cannot have lithium iron phosphate batteries in your checked luggage. If you ever purchase anything over the internet or from a company and it's shipped and has a lithium ion phosphate battery in it, it's going to come to you by ground. You've all seen the videos of people standing in line at DMV and, like a phone, burst into flames. There was a flight and I don't remember all the details a flight several years ago that crashed because there were lithium ion phosphate batteries in the cargo hold and they caught fire, severed the flight controls and the cargo plane crashed. Very unfortunate event. So because of that and for other safety reasons, lithium-ion phosphate batteries cannot be made part of your checked luggage.

Speaker 2:

Well, I know this, done this a million times, so I'm prepared. So I look over this couple couple and they weigh the bags One bag's overweight. So the United guy has to back up the little conveyor thing and it slides back out. And the wife kept saying I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, I get it. She apologized profusely and the United guy kept looking over and making eye contact and rolling his eyes Probably not the most professional thing. You know he's German and I apologize for saying this ahead of time.

Speaker 2:

The rude, obnoxious Americans and I'll tell you in a second another story about that. But you know what I'm talking about. It's the folks that aren't prepared. And they got their bag back and he says do you have any lithium iron phosphate batteries? The daughter says well, we have a battery bank. And again the United Rep guy wants to know if it's lithium iron phosphate. I have plenty of battery banks. They're not lithium iron phosphate. The dad then starts arguing with the daughter that it's a battery and it just goes back and forth and the United guy keeps looking over at me and again I just make eye contact, shrug my shoulders and I'm moving up in line and the guy's very, very frustrated. But I get it. He has to maintain his professionality. Professionality Is that a word? Professional demeanor I know that's a word. He has to maintain his professional demeanor as he gets the people checked through. Well, they finally, after digging through and they're trying to find these battery banks and he's trying to tell the wife that he put it in this pocket and the daughters know you put it in here.

Speaker 2:

And I finally dropped my bags and then I went on to the gate. When I'm at the Frankfurt airport, I just went to the gate, got through security, no problem. Been through security a million times. Take off the belt, the watch, the reading glasses, keys, wallet, all that stuff, put it in the little gray tote, basically breeze through security. Now, for some reason I got picked for secondary every flight that I took going to and from Germany this past couple of weeks. But that's okay. Got a little extra pat down, that's fine. That's how the security goes.

Speaker 2:

So I get to the gate plenty of time and I'm just hanging out, grab a water and I noticed near the gate was a hot dog vendor and this young lady. She's the same hot dog vendor that's been near this gate. I normally take the same flight, same gate. She's been the hotdog vendor for the last three years that I've been through. She must work there every day. So I ordered my schnitzelbrotchen in German a Coke Zero, which is a cola light, I guess. So I went ahead and ordered that and she remarked that my German was great. And in English I'm like no, my German is actually terrible, but thank you. And she said to me I really appreciate you taking the time to speak German to me because that shows a certain level of respect.

Speaker 2:

Now this is the same hot dog lady that last year I was ordering a hot dog from on a pretzel bun Fantastic pretzel bun, by the way and this American comes up and starts putting mayonnaise on her sandwich that she did not purchase from the hot dog cart lady. So the hot dog cart lady in English says ma'am, you can't have that. Well, again, I'm American, so I can call out obnoxious Americans if I want to. She tried to tell her oh, I'm just getting a little bit of mayonnaise for my sandwich. And she's like ma'am, no, you don't understand. You didn't buy this from me. I have to account for all of it, even the condiments. Now, a couple squirts of mayonnaise isn't going to hurt anything, but still, it's the principle. So the lady gets all huffy and puffy and she walks off. The lady looks at me and I look at her and I go obnoxious, americans, you can't take them anywhere. And she busts out laughing Again, kind of like the United rep at the check-in counter have to maintain your professionalism, professional ability.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to use professional ability from now on. You have to maintain your. A little over a year ago we had a quick conversation and again just chit chat, chit chat, thank you so much. And so she was the same lady this year as well, and that kind of that. That really hit me. And again, I'm in a foreign country. I barely speak the language, but I'm, I'm at least going to try.

Speaker 2:

So I'm at the gate just hanging out and there are people all over the place trying to talk to the I guess the, not the flight the gate people, the gate attendants, I guess. Ladies and gentlemen, you know this is a passport flight and make sure you have your passport. We're checking your passport. We're not boarding yet, we're not boarding for another 20 minutes and like 200 people stand up and start getting in line. So, folks, we're not boarding yet, but when we do board, you know we're going to board by groups group one, group two, group three and four.

Speaker 2:

You're over here and they have signs and there's tape on the floor, fairly organized, and everybody is just going bananas. They seem really worried about things. Like I said, they were digging through their bags, they were looking for paperwork, they were looking for passports, they were looking for boarding passes. Everybody starts getting up because they want to start boarding and now we haven't even started pre-boarding yet. So all these people are hovering around the lanes clogging up the walkway for other people to get to their gates. And I'm just there just shaking my head, and we all know that the flight is not going to leave without you. They're going to board. If you miss your group, they're going to go ahead. And you know, last call. And then they start calling names, like if you have a connecting flight, then they'll check your reservation. Oh, john is late. The plane just arrived at gate 17. We're going to give them about five more minutes. You know everybody such a long time to get on these planes, even your wide body jets. So I wait and they do the pre-boarding and we're going to board by groups group one and so I'm in group two, so I walk over there. I'm I don't know 50 people deep in group two. There are people that are not part of group one, that get in the group one line and when they scan their boarding pass, the gate agent sends them back.

Speaker 2:

You really need to be prepared, and this has to do with everything, because things go so much smoothly when you are prepared have your luggage weighed, know what you're going to have in your carry-on. Don't be digging through your bag at the check-in to put to have in your carry-on. Don't be digging through your bag at the check-in to put something else into your carry-on. Things go so much smoother when you're prepared and that's with anything, not just flying. It's less stress when you're prepared. I think I just hit puberty there for a second. Things are less stressful when you're prepared and things just go a lot smoother.

Speaker 2:

So now it's time to get on the flight. I know my seat, I know how to get to my seat, have my backpack as my carry on and we're slowly shuffling down the gateway gantry way, whatever you call it, and I get to my seat. Lord, I'm not sure what was going on. There were people running back and forth. People couldn't find their seats. I mean, it's pretty simple. You know you're either in Polaris, business class, premium economy or what I call cattle, I guess coach I'm not sure they call it coach anymore, but coach. Finally we get everybody boarded, and I said in a previous podcast, we had people getting up on other flights, not even to our gate, and people getting up and trying to go to the bathroom when we're on an active taxiway, taxiing to our gate.

Speaker 2:

So the reason I bring this up is, just like anything else, just be prepared, just take a couple minutes, go over whatever you need to go over and then you don't have to worry about it. So, number one anticipate what's coming At the airport. That means checking your luggage on time underweight or at weight downloading your boarding pass on the app or printing it out, the paper version. Do that the night before. If you still need to get something out of your suitcase that morning, grab a few things. But when I pack my bags, I pack them the night before and if I'm going to shower the morning of the flight, I'm going to have my clothes set out. I've already checked for Ubers. When I get up, I've already checked the Uber app to see if crazy conference going on and Uber is going to be an extended time to get to me and I go downstairs and I wait for the Uber. So in life and like anything else, it's about asking yourself what is the next step? What can I do now to make the next process just a little bit smoother?

Speaker 2:

Number two build systems. The most prepared people aren't just lucky, they've got habits. Again, maybe it's packing a checklist for your trips. I have family members that do that. Calendar app for deadlines, works for traveling, works for work, works for just general things in life, day-to-day activities. On Sunday is that the day that you do meal prep for the week. A lot of people I know Sunday afternoon is their day to do meal prep. Find out what works for you and just make it automatic. Make it part of your routine. I have travel apps. I have all sorts of things on my phone. Make sure that I am prepared and nothing. If something was to pop up at the last second, I'm able to take care of it and hopefully it doesn't throw too much of a hitch in my giddy up, and then I can, you know, continue on with my trip or continue on with my day. Number three give yourself grace. We all screw up. I've forgotten my paper boarding pass. I've had to have it reprinted before I had the app.

Speaker 2:

If you're unprepared, odds are you have the potential for more things to go wrong. When things go wrong, obviously preaching to the choir. The key is to learn from these things. So next time you're not scrambling to do X, y and Z and you say to yourself what could I have done differently, using as a learning opportunity. Whether you're getting ready to go on vacation and going to the airport, or you're at the airport getting ready to come home from vacation, you're still on vacation. So you want to try to make things as least stressful as you can. All right, folks, I hope everybody is doing well. Crazy, wacky times out there. If you need to reach me practicalpreppodcast at gmailcom On the Twitter prep underscore podcast, or go ahead and search Common Sense Practical Prepper.

Speaker 2:

Prepper Camp is in two weeks and, as it stands right now, I'm still going. There may be a couple wrenches thrown in the gears, but I'm trying to take care of those. So, as of right now, I'm still planning on going. If anything changes, I'll let you know. You know, it's not like my email box is full of people going. Are you still going to prepper camp. Can we get together and talk about things at prepper camp? Okay, nobody's asked me that, so I'm sure everyone's like. Well, keith, we really don't care if you're going to Prepper Camp or not, because you know. But thanks for the update. All right, folks, I hope everybody enjoys the rest of your weekend. A lot of additional people are tuning in, and I really do appreciate it and, as always, take care of one another, be safe out there and until next time.

Speaker 1:

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