228 A Prepper Style Sit-Down - Listener Q&A and Talking Shop

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Tonight, Buddy and I are talking shop. We’ll hear from a few listeners who sent us voice messages through Speakpipe and play a quasi round of Stump The Prepper with long-time listener and TOPS Bunker Podcast contributor, Casey Lambert. We’ll also hear from Zach from Pennsylvania who’s got us thinking about motivation and spending budgets.

As y’all may know, Buddy has been booking the guests on the show and he’s got some great news about upcoming guests and the very busy schedule for the show this year.

Jeremy is not with us tonight but he’ll be back soon. 

So, I hope you enjoy this conversation between Preppers…

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Transcript

Tonight, Buddy and I are talking shop. We’ll hear from a few listeners who sent us voice messages through Speakpipe and play a quasi round of Stump The Prepper with long-time listener and TOPS Bunker Podcast contributor, Casey Lambert. We’ll also hear from Zach from Pennsylvania who’s got us thinking about motivation and spending budgets.

As y’all may know, Buddy has been booking the guests on the show and he’s got some great news about upcoming guests and the very busy schedule of the show this year.

Jeremy is not with us tonight but he’ll be back soon. 

So, I hope you enjoy this conversation between Preppers…

What is going on, man?

00:01:10.33
Buddy
Just another day in the neighborhood.

00:01:12.89
Keith
Yeah, what's the neighborhood like? It's cold as fuck.

00:01:15.29
Buddy
It's kind of chilly. Yeah, got a little bit of chill in the air. It's basically, you know, the world's going to shit. Noticed.

00:01:27.22
Keith
Yeah, let's talk about that for real quick.

00:01:27.35
Buddy
You're following anything? Okay, yeah. Looks like possible there was a possible, I don't know. i i'll so I'll say it was an attack on our communication systems.

00:01:41.98
Buddy
just by looking at it yesterday, because there was a lot of things down. Uh, the big one, the one that's catching all the attention is Verizon communications. Uh, I've had a lot of people contact me, you know, instant message, this and that wanting to know, what can we do?

00:01:58.97
Keith
How long was it down for?

00:02:01.11
Buddy
pretty much the whole day. There's, there's some places that it's come up and gone down again.

00:02:06.36
Keith
So is this your cell service? Is that what went down? Cell service?

00:02:10.86
Buddy
Verizon cell service went down pretty much mainly the South, the whole East coast.

00:02:12.86
Keith
Okay.

00:02:16.86
Buddy
It looked like now I'm going by down detector and people in areas that were, you know, reaching out to me. I've got a network of people and you know, East coast was down Florida. It looked like it was down Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania where the,

00:02:38.49
Keith
We used T-Mobile and we did not we didn't experience anything that we could tell. If it went down for a second or two, that may be something, but we didn't detect anything. Plus, we also have Starlink at the house, which is how we get our internet. And our phone is through that as well.

00:02:54.39
Keith
So I don't know if that matters, you know.

00:02:54.71
Buddy
Yeah, and Starlink was down for a little while. It's hard to keep it down because it's satellite. It goes down periodically, at least by down to,

00:03:04.57
Keith
Okay, so would you say that would you say that stuff goes down, it's normal for it to happen every once in a while and sort of quick think you know quick problems?

00:03:12.44
Buddy
there are, there are times where stuff does go down, normally, you know, they'll take it down for, you know, a few minutes and then bring it back up. And usually people don't, and they do it you got to look at the timing of it, you know, at three o'clock in the morning, you know, the timing, if if something goes down between three and, you know, maybe five, um, yeah.

00:03:30.49
Keith
Right, right. ah Who knows? I mean, most people are sleeping, you know.

00:03:34.52
Buddy
So it doesn't affect as many people. It's when, you know, at three o'clock in the afternoon, nine o'clock in the morning and stuff, people really notice, uh,

00:03:41.40
Keith
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

00:03:42.42
Buddy
Yeah, yesterday, I would say Central, Midwest, South, and you know East Coast was was hit um with the Verizon thing. And AT&T was down a little bit. I've had trouble with AT&T for about three or four days.

00:04:01.02
Buddy
And it's text messages. I mean, so for some reason, I can't send a text. It'll just get caught up, and I have to switch between messaging systems and stuff to get it to go.

00:04:13.06
Buddy
So I, it's in the internet's been down.

00:04:15.74
Keith
Well, that that's weird. it doesn isn't Doesn't the text it doesn't a signal the same, whether it's a text or a voice?

00:04:22.45
Buddy
when When you, when you send a text, it'll you, you've hit the button to send it and it goes into a loop until it sends. And so minor will come back saying failure said, and so I have to switch up the delivery method.

00:04:40.41
Buddy
And I don't to get into the weeds of it because I don't really understand it. I just know there's two different delivery methods and I just switch them up.

00:04:44.70
Keith
Sometimes I see SMS and sometimes I don't. i don't know what that means.

00:04:47.38
Buddy
Yes. Yes. And so I'll just switch it up and send it to the other one. And sometimes it works, sometimes it don't. But i had I've had trouble this whole week with stuff, you know, Monday, Tuesday.

00:04:52.73
Keith
Yeah.

00:04:57.69
Keith
So do they know what it was? Do they know what it was that meant to go down? you You said got hit.

00:05:01.88
Buddy
I...

00:05:02.28
Keith
Was it hit by somebody or is it just a problem?

00:05:04.92
Buddy
I personally think it was a nation state actor, possibly Iran, could have been anybody because, you know, we have a long list of people are pissed at us right now. But i a lot of that stuff, why, why would Verizon take down their own system?

00:05:22.81
Buddy
You know what i mean? And like AT&T a few years ago, was February 22nd, I believe a couple of years ago when AT&T went down and, the whole nation was on its knees and nobody could talk to anybody and everybody started panicking.

00:05:33.49
Buddy
And, uh, they said, Oh, somebody fat fingered something, you know, come on, you know, you why would you let a, uh, uh, intern go in and do programming or, or do anything like that?

00:05:33.94
Keith
Yeah. Right.

00:05:45.26
Buddy
You know what i mean? So it's more than, it's more than just a, uh, you know, a simple oops, you know, kind of thing.

00:05:47.22
Keith
I've never...

00:05:53.25
Buddy
So,

00:05:54.16
Keith
I've never dug into the whole entire, i mean, I'm a visual person. So in my brain, I'm, I'm, I'm envisioning a building. I mean, but is that how it works? Or we talking about multiple buildings all around the world that control with computers that control this stuff? I don't, I don't know how that works. I mean, somebody wanted to take down, say my, my thing, t T-Mobile, do they hit a building? Do they hit a computer? Do they have to hit a network, a line, an electrical line, a physical hardware type of situation? I mean, what are they hitting? You know?

00:06:24.22
Buddy
Yes and yes. I mean, you can go, you can take down a grid by hitting the right, the right electric line. You can, you know, communication towers are different, you know.

00:06:34.90
Buddy
You can hit one tower and take out a little section or you can go and hit a program.

00:06:39.35
Keith
Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah. Transmission.

00:06:43.03
Buddy
You might hit the computer system that, that, uh, actually you know supports it all you know hit it with virus hit it with this hit with that and you know there's countermeasures out there and we'll we'll probably never know and will they admit it you know who knows but uh one of the things i saw today was were going give every customer that was affected by a 20 discount on their next bill yeah it's it's good um but

00:06:49.08
Keith
Right.

00:07:07.34
Keith
Hey, that's cool. Yeah. They lose a lot of money.

00:07:13.37
Buddy
Yeah, they lose a lot of money, but that, you know, they're taking some, I guess, responsibility for it. But, you know, at the end of the day, what are what are you going to do? You know, we're we're in the business of preparedness. And so what what is your plan? What is your pace plan for this thing? And um we've preached it and preached it and preached it, you know.

00:07:36.45
Buddy
We've had, you know, guys on here talking about how a little hamlet or village and, you know, East Tennessee was was you know saved by the Balfang radio, you know, so it's a real thing and it's probably going to happen more now than it has in the past. So, you know, what is your plan to communicate with other people? You know, and it it might not be that you can communicate with them because they're across town outside of your Balfang radio range or your, you know, two way communication system where you have set up. Um,

00:08:08.17
Keith
Mm-hmm.

00:08:08.73
Buddy
So, you know, you got to have other ways of of contacting people. and And Starlink is up there and it's, you know, it's it's pretty reliable now. So... You know, ah satellite satellite phones are very expensive, but there's other ways you can communicate with like a Garmin, the Garmin Mini InReach or the Garmin InReach.

00:08:28.43
Buddy
Some of the Garmin products the satellite communicating products that are out there that you can hook your phone up to Bluetooth wise and still use your phone. Your phone just won't transmit the message, but your phone is the carrier and the device that you type out your message on your Garmin and then

00:08:46.61
Keith
You're saying it sends text.

00:08:48.34
Buddy
Yeah, so you can text back and forth. So one of the things that, and I have not done it, I'm kind of, you know, not practicing what I preach, but they're kind of expensive, the Garmin minis and the Garmin in-reach and stuff.

00:08:50.58
Keith
Okay.

00:09:00.98
Buddy
there I'd like to get my daughter one in Pennsylvania. That way, as long as their satellite's up, as long as Starlink's up, and I will have that ability to communicate with her.

00:09:12.02
Keith
Okay, so this goes this goes through your internet, which goes through a satellite, right? Not internet through your cell, internet through a satellite.

00:09:18.29
Buddy
It'll go, you're blue.

00:09:20.77
Keith
Like I have internet through my satellite.

00:09:23.41
Buddy
Yes, you can do it through your internet or you can you can do it from your phone. I can be out in the middle of the wilderness with my phone and the Garmin, because the Garmin acts as a receiver from the satellite.

00:09:36.63
Buddy
So I can text.

00:09:36.73
Keith
Okay, so it's it's almost like having a ah satellite phone in your hand for texting.

00:09:41.94
Buddy
Yeah, just use your own text. You're not gonna be able to voice communicate, but you can text on it.

00:09:45.11
Keith
Okay.

00:09:46.46
Buddy
And then you there's,

00:09:46.74
Keith
That sounds really cool. What's the price on those?

00:09:49.27
Buddy
Oh man. I, last time I looked, I, no, it's more like 300 and something dollars, but then you got to buy a plan, you know, for the devices around three, $600 and there's a plan and, uh, you know, it's, it's expensive, but it's a good peace of mind though.

00:09:51.63
Keith
We're talking on thousands.

00:10:07.48
Keith
What can you do with it without the cell phone?

00:10:11.26
Buddy
Without the cell phone,

00:10:11.38
Keith
Like, what are you getting? What are you getting for the unit itself? The Garmin itself?

00:10:15.16
Buddy
some of the garments have a little keypad on them where you can actually, uh, and we're talking different Garmin devices that you can actually type out stuff.

00:10:21.46
Keith
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:10:24.19
Buddy
They're more expensive. You know, you're getting into the six, 800,000, $1,200, $3,000 range. They there's devices out there that aren't Garmin. or You know, I don't get paid by Garmin or anything, but they get, they, I've used Garmin stuff all over the world.

00:10:39.61
Buddy
And i used to have, and it's, I still have it somewhere. I just have not been able to find it, but it was a Garmin. rhino 130 and it's been all over the world with me and uh it's a very good piece of equipment to have very reliable uh tracks 13 15 16 different satellites up there so i would always have

00:11:01.27
Keith
what does it do? Do you use it? Is it speak to talk or is it just texting or what?

00:11:05.21
Buddy
i use it for gps for waypoints um some of them have text features i don't believe mine ever did or at least i didn't use it yeah so

00:11:11.00
Keith
Oh, GPS. Okay. Okay. GPS. I got it.

00:11:14.74
Buddy
But the cool thing about it is I could have somebody like on my team, you know, in a different sector or something, and we could talk, we could see each other through the Garmin. I knew exactly where they were.

00:11:26.30
Buddy
They knew where I was.

00:11:27.48
Keith
Oh, that's cool. Yeah.

00:11:28.89
Buddy
So there was tracking involved too. And, you know, waypoints and and things like that. So it's ah it's a good piece of kit to have, but, you know, going back to it,

00:11:40.70
Buddy
That's probably, for most people, that's probably the best piece of communication equipment, minus all the testing. you know If you could get some HF radios, get a ham license and be able to talk that way, that's you know that's probably the the best overall.

00:11:59.32
Buddy
But you know how many people want to actually take the time to study for that test? you know There's a learning curve to it. The Garmins are... Low learning curve, you know, you're you're basically paying for, you know, not having to study, basically. You know, and the technology is catching up with, you know, eventually everything will be satellite type, you know, technology out there. So, but you know, even iPhones, iPhones are supposed to have satellite technology on them now, too. So that's something to look into as well.

00:12:35.67
Keith
What about this mesh deal?

00:12:39.05
Buddy
Mesh Network. I just know enough about Mesh Network to know I don't know anything about it. i' I'm learning it. I have people, you know, that know it well and got some training coming up on it to set up Mesh, you know, Mesh-tastic and the Mesh Networks.

00:12:56.25
Buddy
And there's all kinds of stuff out there to to use, you know.

00:13:00.79
Keith
I heard Frank and them talking about on their podcast at the very end, but I didn't understand. I didn't know if this was a European thing or if it was a world, you know, global thing.

00:13:09.11
Buddy
it's It's across the world. One of the things that's pretty cool that's easy enough to to get set up and use is called SDR. it's a It's basically, you put it in a nutshell, you take your computer, or as I would prefer to use ah ah an older computer or something that I don't use daily, and you put in a USB, it's called a dongle, on it with a little antenna, and you're able to to receive transmissions on it on your computer and look and and look at stuff you you're not able to transmit you're just able to actually see things so there's ways you can get reports and you know there's networks out there that people put out you know intel reports every day things of that nature so you know you go on at four o'clock and you get the daily news kind of you know you get the the back in the day you get the newspaper so

00:14:06.78
Keith
But it's it's kind of like you're talking about the mesh-tastic?

00:14:07.13
Buddy
There's a

00:14:11.22
Buddy
um mission, Mesh Tastic and the different mesh networks out there, they're able to communicate.

00:14:16.82
Keith
Oh, there's more than one. Okay. Well, the one I heard ah on ah the Prepper Network podcast with with Frank and them, they were talking about mesh-tastic, I think.

00:14:18.39
Buddy
Yeah, there's

00:14:24.41
Buddy
Yeah, it's a popular one to use.

00:14:24.41
Keith
um But does isn't that like one isn't that like a leapfrogging type of thing? It goes from one to another ah unit to another unit and just kind of almost like ah almost like a a repeater ah system.

00:14:37.50
Buddy
Yeah, like I said, I know enough about it not to know I don't know a lot about it. And I think they do use that.

00:14:42.84
Keith
yeah

00:14:44.05
Buddy
i I'm on a chat with them, and I see some of the you know them talking about it stuff. and it's great for people who know how to use it.

00:14:55.22
Keith
And if you have a network.

00:14:56.63
Buddy
And if you have a network, and then if you don't, if if you don't have all the equipment, you know something that you can actually see what they're talking about. you know they're They're passing information out. um go to the check-ins they have.

00:15:09.48
Buddy
but you know They might have a check-in at 7 in the evening, on a Sunday evening.

00:15:12.79
Keith
Right, right.

00:15:13.88
Buddy
Go to the check-ins, make sure your equipment works, test it out.

00:15:17.74
Keith
That's a great idea. Yeah.

00:15:19.29
Buddy
And so there's a lot of stuff out there. And you know this is a pretty good segue into something I was wanting to talk about tonight a little bit is we've got a lot of special guests coming on, and I'll just leave it at that. I'm going to tease it a little bit tonight.

00:15:36.45
Keith
No, don't leave it at that. Give a couple more teases.

00:15:38.81
Buddy
Well, yeah. yeah So stuff like the MishTastic Mission Network, I'm working on doing a lot of exciting partnerships with different places and people and things and you know kind of behind the scenes, working hard on getting a special guest on here. some Some guys that you might listen to on ah another podcast, some subject matter experts that you know we haven't dealt with in the past. you know I'm definitely just thinking outside the box.

00:16:09.33
Buddy
Staying within the prepper sphere, but yet, you know, we're kind of getting out there talking about not, we're not going talk about the bug out bag that often. You know, we're not going talk about this and that. I've i've got a lot of subject matter experts in gardening, you know, cattle, you know, whatever, you know, animal husbandry, um a lot of communication stuff, some subject matter experts in the security world. I mean, we're getting out there and we're going to take it to the next level.

00:16:37.82
Buddy
this year so strap in and make sure you have a notebook with you for just about every about every different you know all of our episodes so because you're going to need it

00:16:50.71
Keith
Okay. So you're not going name names.

00:16:53.82
Buddy
no names yet no no we're going to we'll do some teasers but um'm i'm going to say that that we've got some pretty powerful people coming right out of right out of the chute you know

00:16:54.55
Keith
Okay.

00:17:02.58
Keith
Good.

00:17:02.94
Buddy
and You go to the rodeo, if you ever go to the PBR, you watch them ride bulls, you know, they don't stick the worst bull out the first, you know, two or three bulls out there. They put their best ones out there and to get the crowd into it. So, yeah.

00:17:14.06
Buddy
We've got some pretty good and some spicy, some we got some good guests, we got some spicy topics.

00:17:14.51
Keith
Yeah. I'm excited. Okay.

00:17:22.10
Buddy
We're we're still going to keep you know going into not only the prepper homestead, we're going to have some check-ins with some old guests, and but we're going to get in you know a little bit more into you know what's going on with the world and and how to you know mitigate some of the the things that are happening out there, happening to you in

00:17:41.33
Keith
Mm-hmm.

00:17:41.56
Buddy
know how to how to navigate through them. So I'm excited. It's just going to be a wild ride for a while. And so I hope we can keep the steam going and people you know get out there and like the show, like the Facebook, you know you know do all the things you need to do and help promote and share it with your friends because you know we're going to get after it this this year because we need to. it's It's not getting any better for us.

What is up? Topps bunker friends and family. This is Casey down in Florida. Just want to wish you guys a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I had a question for the show.

00:20:57.65
Keith
It's curious if anybody has considered using video games with their Mag groups or just friend groups that they you know in the proper community to try to develop communication skills I Don't I just feel like it could be a good resource see what you guys have to say about it Anyhow you guys have a Merry Christmas Happy New Year.

00:21:18.46
Buddy
Yeah, I heard it that time.

00:21:20.92
Keith
Catch y'all later

00:21:23.45
Buddy
Wow, that's an interesting theory there. Yeah. ah

00:21:28.73
Keith
Yeah, I'm not sure what, as he was saying that, I was going was doing my visual thing in my brain. And I'm trying to think, was he talking about using video games where you play online with other people and you sort of communicate that way?

00:21:43.14
Keith
Or is he talking about doing like um like secret messages or something?

00:21:45.62
Buddy
A lot of the

00:21:47.46
Keith
I mean, what are we talking about here?

00:21:48.47
Buddy
Well, like for instance, my kids, they play, uh, they'll be in the same house, you know, same so separate sides of the house and they'll have headphones on playing the same game with friends, you know, down the street and friends, you know, across the nation and stuff, but they're talking to each other the whole time.

00:22:06.65
Buddy
And, uh, They found out that a lot of like Antifa uses a lot of those. There's different communication systems set up to where they communicate with each other.

00:22:18.68
Buddy
And it's kind of clandestine. Terrorist groups have used this stuff before. And it slips me the the big one that they use. It might come back to me. Who knows? But it's it's been used before. if that's If that's what he's talking about, you know,

00:22:36.98
Buddy
those different gaming communication systems would definitely be of a clandestine way to talk to each other because if you're, it's kind of closed in, in, in, in encrypted kind of enclosed communication systems. So yeah, definitely you could use them if in that kind of aspect.

00:22:56.70
Buddy
And I think, i think that's what he was talking about, but you know, I don't know Casey, if it's not, then, you know, come on again instant message me and we'll, we'll talk about it. And if, if you come on the show or or not, you know, we'll, we'll see if he will have you talk about it and elaborate a little more.

00:23:14.94
Keith
Yeah, he's good. He's going to come on for sure. We'll get him on.

00:23:17.11
Buddy
Yeah, he is.

00:23:17.38
Keith
ah

00:23:18.23
Buddy
I'll just tease it out there. He is.

00:23:20.02
Keith

Buddy
Yes. Some of them you can, the way i understand because I'm not a gamer, the way I understand it, some of them you can communicate through that, and then a lot of them will dial up on maybe Discord, a separate system.

00:24:57.56
Keith
Yeah. Yeah.

00:24:58.54
Buddy
we'll We'll call it something similar to Signal. That's what a lot of people are watching that.

00:25:01.94
Keith
i can't I can't stand Discord. I've had an account, and it's so damn confusing to me. and And a lot of the gamers I play with on my phone, they use Discord. And some of them, you know you join like different groups of people that you're, you know ah like right now I'm playing flying games, you join a squadron. Some of the squadrons out there will say, must be on Discord, join us.

00:25:21.18
Keith
And I'd stay away from them because it just confused the hell out of me. I think it's not a very easy platform to use.

00:25:27.99
Buddy
Yeah, and I guess we just need to have them come on and elaborate a little bit more, but it's definitely usable. Terrace use it. a lot of the

00:25:36.12
Keith
Yeah.

00:25:37.46
Buddy
lot of the Antifa, you know, different...

00:25:41.30
Keith
Well, I mean, think about this. think If you get if you get it on a PlayStation or an Xbox in the United States and another one, let's say, on an internet-connected platform, let's say, in Iran, mean, you could be sending signals in you know secret code just by talking in the game.

00:25:55.93
Buddy
Yeah.

00:26:03.06
Buddy
Yeah. And there's, well,

00:26:04.47
Keith
You know mean? like You could activate cells of people in in the U.S. just from talking to them, and nobody would know the wiser.

00:26:11.93
Buddy
and There's something called a one-time pad that that generates a random number system that you know you couldn't do yourself that would has no patterns in it. and You can you know give somebody the codes to that one-time pad and they have them you know previously.

00:26:28.92
Buddy
and Then you can send 11 means A, 135 means C and you can spell out, you know, messages this way. And, uh, it's almost impossible to crack.

00:26:42.33
Buddy
So, you know, yeah, like the, you know, your home comb, uh, hideout, you know, codes or whatever, but, uh, yeah, one-time pads.

00:26:42.68
Keith
like ah Like an encryption decoder or something.

00:26:48.05
Keith
Mm-hmm.

00:26:51.94
Buddy
Well, I've used them before. A military uses some similar stuff. Uh, but you know,

00:26:57.06
Keith
Are those digital?

00:26:59.00
Buddy
No, they're it's ah it's actually a standalone. light it looks kind of like a little It prints it out on paper or whatever, and it gives you numbers that mean something.

00:27:06.14
Keith
Mm, okay. Right.

00:27:07.86
Buddy
And it won't generate.

00:27:08.18
Keith
Right.

00:27:09.42
Buddy
you know it's it's Supposedly, it is patternless. So you have a non-pattern, so somebody can't crack it.

00:27:18.49
Keith
Oh, I think Croc could probably figure it out.

00:27:20.63
Buddy
But you can use your Baofeng, which is not end-to-end encrypted, and somebody's listening to you you know put out a code out there, but they don't know, they can't solve it. So you're, you're in the clear pushing an info, know, information in the clear, what they call in the clear, which is, you know, anybody can with a bow fan can listen to you on that channel at that time of you know day or whatever, listen to your message, but they don't know what you're talking about.

00:27:47.16
Buddy
So, but yeah, it, the, the communication thing, you know, we, we preached about it, you know,

00:27:55.29
Keith
And we will again.

00:27:56.50
Buddy
and And we definitely will again. and I got some people, some some people coming on to help with some alternative means to, you know, get information with the communication and we're going to get some people on you know, it's it's hard to teach you how to take a radio and talk on it and hit the right buttons and program it online, you know, on on a podcast.

00:28:16.28
Buddy
It's all virtually impossible.

00:28:17.02
Keith
Oh, definitely not on a podcast. And you can do a video podcast where you can actually show people it's still not user friendly, but you can talk about ah what you can do on them systems, how they're useful, what they're useful for, the different types of systems, the cost of systems, favorites and budget ones and expensive ones and, you know, all that kind of stuff, who uses them, you know, that kind of thing.

00:28:34.62
Buddy
Yeah. And even going on YouTube and watching people, you know, do it. Some people can look at that and go, OK, I understand. Other people can't. it I mean, we talked about finger radio to a lot of people. and I would say 90 percent of people we taught were 60 or older.

00:28:52.25
Buddy
And the learning curve was terrible.

00:28:55.80
Keith
well Yeah.

00:28:56.98
Buddy
You know, because there's a lot of buttons on there. You look at this little radio and automatically you get intimidated by it. they They're making it better and easier, but there's ways around a lot of that stuff.

00:29:08.90
Buddy
So what, you know, if we will talk about communications and and different ways of communicating.

00:29:15.96
Keith
I learn by doing, so I know exactly what you're talking about.

00:29:16.18
Buddy
is

00:29:18.36
Keith
When someone just say says, all right, see all these buttons here? Press this. I went through a whole discussion with Jeremy, who's not here tonight, with him on the phone. i think we were on the phone for 45 minutes, an hour, going through going through my Baofeng and all this stuff.

00:29:32.84
Keith
And I don't remember anything, not one single thing that we went over on the phone that day because I don't use it.

00:29:35.57
Buddy
Yeah.

00:29:37.88
Buddy
Well,

00:29:40.79
Buddy
and I was in a meeting earlier with our non ah about our nonprofit. We we we got a nonprofit going, and I'll tell you more about that one day. And we were talking about communication and stuff, and you know I hadn't talked on a radio in maybe 10 years. you know and In the military, you had talk all the time.

00:30:00.06
Buddy
And I remember that first time I picked it up to talk on it I was like, whoa, you know.

00:30:03.90
Keith
Yeah.

00:30:04.78
Buddy
do I know how to do this? You know, it, but it's like anything else. It's, it's a, a skill that, you know, is perishable and you got to keep doing it. And, uh, and what I was, you know, want to talk about mainly is, you know, go out there and find people in your area that can give you the training.

00:30:14.03
Keith
That's right.

00:30:23.37
Buddy
You know, I know guys on the East coast. I know guys in the Midwest. I know guys on the West coast that actually teach these skills. And, um,

00:30:34.46
Buddy
You know, it is pricey. They want money for their time and they're subject matter experts, but I guarantee you these guys will teach you how to use it. And by the time, you know, might be two days of training, might be one day training, three days training.

00:30:47.99
Buddy
By the end of the training, you're going to know that thing inside and out. Then going able to use it and you're going able to teach, you know, your family members or whoever how to use it. So it's a,

00:30:59.06
Keith
Yeah.

00:31:00.63
Buddy
Training is a key to a lot of stuff, and I'll be preaching that all all this whole year because this is the year of training for me. I'm bringing on trainers. I'm bringing on guys who who have you know teaching skills you know and teaching you know things you wouldn't think about.

00:31:14.88
Keith
Right.

00:31:18.52
Buddy
and They teach us stuff. and and you know we're go We're stepping into a thinking man's game, man or woman. you know, game to where you're going to have think, and you've probably heard me say before, you got to think your way out of a lot of these problems.

00:31:32.32
Buddy
So it's coming, ladies and gentlemen. So just strap it on.

00:31:36.25
Keith
Yeah. All right. So I got another, um, hold on. Okay. So I got another, uh, speak pipe and this is just from anonymous. Remember I told you that when you go on speak pipe, you can choose to be anonymous or not. So we have no idea who this is coming from.

00:31:53.54
Keith
I've not heard it yet. As the first time I'm going to click the button, let's see what it says.

00:32:09.69
Buddy
Yeah, I'm not hearing anything.

00:32:27.16
Buddy
Yeah, I hear nothing.

00:32:45.02
Keith
Okay, I think that's it. So, did you hear it?

00:32:47.58
Buddy
I heard not hear anything.

00:32:49.85
Keith
You didn't hear anything.

00:32:51.16
Buddy
Nothing.

00:32:52.47
Keith
How is that possible?

00:32:56.82
Keith
Um...

00:32:56.99
Buddy
Well, you you can talk about it.

00:33:03.38
Keith
Oh, okay. Hold on second. No, what no, because you have to, I think you know this person. That's right. I have to download it first. That's it. It just takes a second. All right. Click on that. And no, no, no, let's not do that. No, let's not do that.

00:33:24.25
Keith
Pause.

00:33:27.74
Keith
First, I have to go here and change to speaker. Okay. I'm going cut all this out. don't worry about it. Here we go. Good morning, Bunker friends. Zach from Pennsylvania.

00:33:40.02
Keith
Just listened to 226, and one of my shortcomings and plans for the year is to get a little bit more financially stable and start building my prep stuff.

00:33:51.13
Keith
Kind fell off the bandwagon for a little while, and

00:33:55.68
Keith
kind of became a slave to my job, so with the failing economy, fell behind.

00:34:05.01
Keith
Time to jump back on it and get to it. Tips, tricks, or suggestions, please throw them out there.

00:34:18.26
Buddy
Yeah,

00:34:20.15
Keith
Okay, yeah, that does that was it. Did you hear him?

00:34:22.39
Buddy
yeah yeah, and I think it's something, you know, what what he talked about was kind of what's happening out there with a lot of people, you know.

00:34:29.34
Keith
So that was who? That was

00:34:31.62
Buddy
Zach, I think he's been talking about.

00:34:31.73
Keith
zach for Okay, Zach from Pennsylvania. Yep.

00:34:34.36
Buddy
Yeah. And, you know, so what we talked about, I guess, last, on the last episode, it was like, you know, it's time to put your foot on the gas and not the brake, you know. lot of people got comfortable with, oh, we got our guy in office, everything's going to be great. i'm not going to have to pay my mortgage again or my car payment. Everything's going to be free, you know, everything, you know, there's going to be puppies and sunflowers and It's just going to be great, but, you know, I think we're we're all kind of, after a year of him being in office, we're seeing a little bit of things are getting a little better, but it's not going to be perfect. And then, you know, coming up in four years, bam, you know, we might be there right back where we were with everything, you know, overnight changing. So,

00:35:20.89
Buddy
and, yeah.

00:35:21.11
Keith
Yeah, so he said he he he kind of fell off the bandwagon and and tips, tricks, that kind of thing. I think we've been talking about that sort of on the past couple of episodes. And we'll, yeah, perfectly, exactly.

00:35:30.74
Buddy
Yeah, prep or fatigue.

00:35:33.34
Keith
and um and And we all have it. We all get it. And if you don't get if you don't have it, you will get it.

00:35:37.05
Buddy
Oh, yeah.

00:35:38.88
Keith
That's just how it goes.

00:35:40.98
Buddy
Well, the. the the

00:35:41.63
Keith
I say starts or stay stars small start Start with one thing.

00:35:45.37
Buddy
Yes.

00:35:45.85
Keith
And then you'll, it should prompt you. Someone told me a long time ago, i was having trouble. i was a big gym person and I stopped going and i wasn't terribly unfit at the time, but I was, I could feel myself getting unfit. And somebody said that was a gym or came to me and said, hey ah he said, all you have to do is just go, just do that one thing. Just get in there, get inside the door is your first step. Wake yourself up, do whatever you have to do, smack yourself in the ass, whatever you got to get inside the door, walk into the door. You don't even have to work out. If you just walk into the door, something is going to change. Something's going to happen.

00:36:22.23
Keith
And that is right. And that's, ah you can use that analogy for anything out there.

00:36:26.14
Buddy
Yeah, true.

00:36:26.47
Keith
Having trouble writing a book, just type the first sentence. That's it. And see what happens.

00:36:34.26
Buddy
Yeah. um

00:36:34.65
Keith
but You know,

00:36:36.18
Buddy
And the good news is it's never too late. You know, you you can pick up where you left off. But I would say if I give any advice, do an inventory of what you have right now, where you dropped off, what your inventory is now, and then sit back.

00:36:53.20
Keith
That's a good one. I like that one. That's a really good one.

00:36:55.61
Buddy
Yeah, inventory what you have and then sit back and think, okay, I haven't prepped for three years or I haven't prepped for a year. What's changed? Has anything changed? you know is it that Is the environment changed? you know Is there better stuff you know out there now that's more techie or you know better? you know Whatever it might be, there might be better kit now that's cheaper and lighter.

00:37:20.25
Buddy
you know but Look at what you have, inventory it, look what you have, and then think of what's changed. And then come up with a plan. What, what's my plan for getting back into the game, you know, and then set goals, you know? Okay. So I haven't prepped for a year and a couple years or whatever it may be.

00:37:39.78
Buddy
I'm going to start again, you know, like you said, take that first step. So he said he, he had, you know, a little bit of money to put into it or whatever. So, you know,

00:37:51.51
Buddy
work within your means. We've, we've preached about that too. You know, you don't have to go out there and, and buy, you know, thousand dollar food store or water storage containers. You know, maybe you can find something alternative, you know, go, go on Facebook marketplace and look for, you know, food grade, you know, uh, 55 gallon drums and use tap water and, and put a little chlorine in it and, and, you know, make it to where it's, uh, storable.

00:38:19.35
Buddy
and purify it a little bit and then go from there you know um eat that ah eat that whole elephant in small chunks it's it's but definitely start and that's what everybody kind of with the prepper fatigue and and people start prepping i've heard it many times i'm overwhelmed i don't know what to get you know well get something and then uh start from there you know if you need to start with just a bug out bag you know what what do you have available right there what what's You know, do you have a bag you can use as a bug out bag? Okay. So next thing, buy some cheap waterproof matches or buy matches. Go, you know, dollar store has a lot of stuff cheap. Uh, we've done those, um, challenges before, you know, give you, you know, $60 to go to a dollar store and see what, you know, what you can come out with for a bug out bag. I mean, you'd be surprised.

00:39:12.92
Buddy
So, um,

00:39:14.07
Keith
Yeah, and from what I understand, 2026 is going to be a ah much different landscape ah here in the United States. I don't know about you know our listeners around the world, but here in the United States, we're there talking about um ah possibly... ah incomes going up, ah taxes going down, which they're pretty sure about, and tax returns going up as well. The price of things are coming down. Gas is already starting to come down. That's your first thing. In order to have anything out there that you can buy, price come down, you've got to get the gas down first.

00:39:51.58
Keith
the The fuel is everything. If the fuel is high, it costs money to ship or make or produce or whatever. All the products that you go get in the stores, those products are going to go up.

00:40:01.74
Keith
When the gas comes down, the products start coming down.

00:40:04.70
Buddy
Yeah.

00:40:04.95
Keith
And i but I really believe in in um in the my elected officials that I've elected into office, and I believe what they're saying. And I think 2026 is going to be the year. This is going to be the year where you might have a couple extra bucks in your pocket. You might get a big tax return this year. You might get a stimulus check this year. If you do, and if you get $1,000 stimulus check, you now have your six-month supply of food.

00:40:31.77
Keith
Or you can spend that $1,000 on a gun and some equipment. Or you can spend $1,000 on a bag and tons and tons and tons of shit to put in the bag. Or you can take that $1,000, you can buy storable food.

00:40:45.03
Keith
Any one of the ones we've always talked about. And you can buy you could buy us a six-month's worth of storable food for $1,000. And you're done. That's it. You got your food done. Checked off the list.

00:40:55.77
Buddy
Yeah, I'd like to.

00:40:56.06
Keith
Is it great? Is it great food? No. Is it delicious? Nope. Is it going be something you're excited to eat? Nope. But you're going to live.

00:41:04.02
Buddy
Yeah, that's very true.

00:41:05.86
Keith
You're going to live.

00:41:06.94
Buddy
and I think I'll use that thousand dollars for just spices for that shitty food. And.

00:41:13.24
Keith
yeah and And drink packs. A lot of those too.

00:41:15.22
Buddy
And drink that. Yeah. But, you know.

00:41:16.69
Keith
There's water. Water sucks in the apocalypse, man. Water sucks.

00:41:19.73
Buddy
Yes.

00:41:20.69
Keith
ah

00:41:20.79
Buddy
Well, you know, i would like to put out a speak pipe challenge, you know. if you have a thousand dollars to use and you want to buy prepper stuff, what are you going to buy? You know, uh,

00:41:32.75
Keith
it's ah It's a reality right now in the U.S. because a lot of people who are working and you know paying taxes in 2025 are going to be doing their taxes right now. In the next couple of weeks, you're going to start getting your W-2s or all this stuff in, and going to be doing those taxes. and You might have a return, and and they're saying that the returns this year are going to be very high.

00:41:53.15
Keith
Trump's saying it. So we'll see. If it is, what are you going to spend that money on?

00:41:58.81
Buddy
Yeah. what I mean, if if you have debt, you know the the best way to me, you know prepping with food and water and bug out bags and ammo and guns and stuff is only part of the equation.

00:42:00.02
Keith
You know?

00:42:12.28
Buddy
The other part of the equation is you know you need to be financially prepped too. you know Going out and getting a bunch of debt is not really the way to go because you got to pay it back sooner or later.

00:42:24.78
Keith
That's a really good point. You're talking about getting out of debt as a prep.

00:42:28.44
Buddy
get out of debt as a prep because then you don't have those chains on you. You're not, you know, you go out and borrow a thousand dollars, uh, you know, from the bank to go buy the latest, uh, you know, machine gun or whatever you pistol that, you know, that looks pretty cool at the range.

00:42:45.34
Buddy
And everybody's like, Oh, you got that, you know, but what is it really getting for you? You know what i mean? Uh, being out of debt is,

00:42:50.91
Keith
Mm-hmm.

00:42:54.26
Buddy
you have the financial freedom to go out and do things. And that's, you know, they say that's a buzzword, financial freedom, but you do. It's freedom to do other things with your money instead of paying back, you know, the the interest and paying back the bank.

00:43:07.90
Buddy
And, I mean, take that take that money and go buy silver, which is very high right now.

00:43:09.92
Keith
Mm-hmm.

00:43:15.48
Buddy
Go buy some gold.

00:43:16.14
Keith
Yep.

00:43:17.40
Buddy
I'm not a big crypto guy, but I can know a guy that is, you know. Um, probably might have to bring him on the show and let him talk about crypto and he'll convince everybody to go buy crypto. But, uh, I just, I have to have something in hand, you know, if I'm buying silver or gold, I want to have it in hand.

00:43:27.30
Keith
Yeah. me, but okay.

00:43:31.60
Keith
Mm-hmm.

00:43:34.85
Buddy
Um,

00:43:35.78
Keith
It's a real possibility for everybody right now this year in the United States. you have but You have the chance, possibility of a chance of paying off some of that debt. I can tell you that I remember, I work for myself now, so I did not pay towards the government this past year. Everything I got was for me. So I don't have a tax return coming in.

00:43:53.82
Keith
um Anything that I claimed, it's lower than the amount, the the adjusted amount. So the thing is, I remember when I was working before, you know, for the for the man, making very, very good money, I remember at least $1,000 out of each one of my paychecks was going to bills.

00:44:14.65
Keith
Now, can you imagine if you pay off those bills, which I have now, can you imagine that? That's $1,000 a paycheck. And I was getting paid every two weeks. That's $2,000 a month you can do something with.

00:44:26.16
Keith
That's up to me. $2,000 a month is a lot of money. That's a lot of money. Now, maybe some people out there like, I had two grand and shit.

00:44:30.74
Buddy
Yeah.

00:44:32.70
Keith
No, two grand's a lot. Two grand's a new gun, a new really nice gun. two guns Two guns if you want. Hell, four guns if you want. You know, it's a lot of money.

00:44:41.01
Buddy
Yeah.

00:44:42.62
Keith
Pay off your bills.

00:44:42.89
Buddy
Well, know.

00:44:43.30
Keith
And imagine putting that money in your in your bank account rather than your then going to the you know going to interest.

00:44:50.94
Buddy
Yeah. I mean, it 2025, 2024 was a different. Year for me, I seemed like i had a little extra cash in hand in my pocket so I could do a few things that I i couldn't do in 2025. 2025 was, you know, gas prices went up, food prices went up. To me, 2025 like...

00:45:13.86
Keith
A shit show, man. I couldn't afford anything in 2025.

00:45:16.76
Buddy
No, and ah in my my dietary, yeah I would say I'm fixed income because, you know, I'm retired somewhat. And so, you know, that paycheck hasn't really changed.

00:45:30.46
Buddy
You know, my income and all the other incomes I have haven't changed at all. But the dollar didn't go as far as it went, you know, the year before and the year before that. And it just seems like kept getting worse. Yeah.

00:45:44.22
Buddy
It seems like with the gasoline, you know, and when you go to budget and some people don't budget, you know, but when I go to budget, I know, okay, I need this much for gasoline. Well, that's a high priority for me. It's like your prepper looking at your preps, you know, you got, you prioritize them and and set goals and stuff, but gasoline, I need to get to and from to to do things, you know? So that's a high priority. And then, you know, it's less priority, you know,

00:46:12.25
Buddy
am I buying, you know, I don't know. I'm just going to throw out potato chips. Well, I can't afford potato chips now, so I'm just going to bypass those. And, you know, if for something that if I get snacky, I'm just going to, you know, get a little snack attack later night. Maybe I'm going to eat some bread and peanut butter. You know what i mean? But that's the way, if I could put it into, you know, paraphrase 2025, that was, you know, the nighttime snack that, you know, wasn't,

00:46:40.15
Buddy
a nice snack, you know what i mean? You know, cookies and and this and that. It was, I, I, cause I didn't have the money for it and, uh, got a little skinnier too.

00:46:46.22
Keith
Oh, yeah, for sure.

00:46:48.10
Buddy
So that, that was,

00:46:48.57
Keith
And I know what you mean by the old peanut butter snack. when you When you're fixing, when you get that Jones thing happening, you're like, you need something really sweet. you know what I do? I grab a big old spoon and I grab a big old thing of of peanut butter and I close the lid and put it back in there. And then I take another spoon. And I open up the little jelly jar and I scoop a little bit of jelly and I put it right on top of that little thing of but peanut butter. and I eat the little top off it. And then what do I have? I have a smaller, but still delicious, a spoonful of peanut butter. What do i need to put on that peanut Another little scoop of jelly, put it right up on top of there.

00:47:16.95
Buddy
Yeah.

00:47:17.05
Keith
I make myself a little peanut butter and jelly sandwich on, on two spoons. And um I feel awesome.

00:47:21.62
Buddy
ah See, I would just use one. And so it would.

00:47:24.31
Keith
Well, I have other the people that eat out the bucket, so I don't want to double dip in it.

00:47:27.70
Buddy
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, but I have that luxury in my house. So, but anyhow, yeah.

00:47:32.79
Keith
ah

00:47:33.44
Buddy
So 2025, you know, it was, it is, it's in the books now. i 2026 with the gasoline and I got probably the cheapest gas in the, in, in the United States where I live.

00:47:46.99
Buddy
So it's been nice.

00:47:49.05
Keith
Oh, yeah.

00:47:49.14
Buddy
Um,

00:47:49.53
Keith
I mean, Rhonda said when she was driving back from Texas, she got gas in Oklahoma at like under $2, man. It was like $1.90-something or whatever.

00:47:56.02
Buddy
yeah, you, you, yeah, you fill up in Oklahoma if you're coming through, that's, that's what you do do.

00:48:01.11
Keith
It was pretty nice. Yep.

00:48:03.00
Buddy
Um, and when I'm leaving the state, I always make sure I top off before I leave the the border. Um, You seen...

00:48:09.95
Keith
we're seeing about like $2.13, $2.10, $2.13 right here, right now. That's still really good. Really, really good.

00:48:15.51
Buddy
Yeah, I've seen as low as 187.

00:48:18.49
Keith
Nice.

00:48:19.45
Buddy
But, you know, it is what it is. i don't I'm not really paying attention either. You know, I got to buy it. So it's like, here it comes. But, yeah, so 2026 should be... I've already seen a little bit of relief in just... you what We're 15 days in at this point, you know, at the time of this recording.

00:48:37.98
Buddy
So, you know... we're we're getting a little bit of relief. Hopefully the food goes down. I will say I've done some research on beef prices because I live in cattle country and I do follow beef for some customer.

00:48:51.38
Buddy
I call them customers, some people, um, that, you know, want me to track it. And so the, this, the beef in Oklahoma right now, they, the herds have been decimated in the last five, six years because, uh, droughts and, and the economy and they they had the war on the beef cattle because they fart and we can't have the farting cows out there killing the ozone layer and green and all this other shit.

00:49:20.76
Buddy
So, but the herds are now starting to grow back. They've they've gotten bigger. Prices of beef are starting to go down. So hopefully you see start to see that kind of thing in the next month or two at your grocery stores.

00:49:35.32
Buddy
and I'm in the heart of beef country.

00:49:36.06
Keith
Is it significant? Okay.

00:49:38.26
Buddy
It's starting to go down. The herds are getting bigger. The calves are, prices are going down on the calves, the steers. you know They're saying that herds are starting to grow grow again.

00:49:49.18
Buddy
We had some pretty good two years of good, you know trying to pull out of the drought. So we've had some a lot of rain and stuff, some grass is growing and people are starting to farm again. Some of the costs in farming has gone down.

00:50:03.37
Buddy
Hopefully they get the farmers some subsidies. and get them back on track instead of paying other countries' farmers. So then we get these guys back on track to produce more food and then you'll see it.

00:50:17.43
Keith
Hold on one second. i got to get these dogs. Just hold on one second.

00:50:20.06
Buddy
Yeah.

00:50:20.35
Keith
keep keep your thought Hold your thought. We're exactly where you were.

00:51:04.44
Keith
All right, I'm back.

00:51:33.53
Buddy
All right, back.

00:51:34.88
Keith
Okay.

00:51:37.59
Keith
Right. So what were you talking about?

00:51:40.20
Buddy
I was talking about cattle and and and food prices are basically, I see them going down. It all starts, like you said, with the gasoline prices. And so you know we're starting to see that downward trend with the food.

00:51:54.94
Buddy
And you know cattle herds are growing in cattle country here. um Prices are going down. Herds are getting bigger. So there's more out there driving individual steer and calf price down.

00:52:09.08
Buddy
And it's it'll be good. I mean, I've already seen, you know, grass-fed beef from local producers out here that sell off the farm, you know, $10 a pound.

00:52:23.40
Buddy
That's a lot. But it's grass-fed, you know. You know where it's coming from. It's all grass-fed. And...

00:52:28.91
Keith
Wow, $10 a pound. talking like

00:52:30.70
Buddy
it's gone down to eight now for most of them. Some of them have stayed up there around 10.

00:52:33.03
Keith
You're talking like $20, $25 a steak?

00:52:37.24
Buddy
Uh, some of it, some of us up there. Um, but you know, the, steak prices. Yeah. There's steak prices way up there. Um,

00:52:47.83
Keith
I don't mind paying some really good money for a steak because we don't eat it every night. So, you know, if I'm going have it once or twice a year, and it's expensive. It happens. You know, it just is what it is.

00:52:58.62
Buddy
Well, and I, I pulled the trigger for Christmas as a, as a gift that where I'm buying from a local, um, within a shit, it's within like two mile and a half of me. It's a local producer and they've been around since, you know, homesteading days.

00:53:08.63
Keith
Nice.

00:53:13.30
Buddy
Um, and I'm buying a beef box from them. So every month I get, you know, different, you know, ground beef, I get steak or, uh, you know, something's in there. So, and it's, it's,

00:53:23.99
Keith
Is that something that they ship out or they ship to people or you just go pick it up?

00:53:27.54
Buddy
I go pick it up. and I'm close. It's just right down the street. i could probably, you know, they, they do.

00:53:31.35
Keith
But do they ship them out?

00:53:34.28
Buddy
Um, they'll also deliver locally.

00:53:35.70
Keith
Or is it just, is it just for local, local people?

00:53:38.97
Buddy
No, they, they ship out. Um, I don't know that process because I haven't looked into it. But yeah, a lot of them do. One of the ones I'd like to, if I ever have that extra cash, you give that $1,000 stimulus, I might go do this, pull the sugar on it. But there's a bison farm I saw a few months ago in the state, but it's out towards the Texas Panhandle.

00:54:03.45
Buddy
And they actually come to Oklahoma City to a farmer's market every month and, or they come to a certain location and they sell the ground bison or bison steaks and stuff.

00:54:11.83
Keith
Wow.

00:54:16.65
Buddy
So, uh, yeah, I love, I love a bison burger, man, but you know, high protein is low in fat is it's, it's delicious.

00:54:17.69
Keith
I've had bison. It's good, man. Yeah.

00:54:27.15
Buddy
Yeah. But, you know, I guess what I'm getting at with all this is, you know, it's looking, looking, you know, a little better on the food end of everything.

00:54:39.06
Buddy
and I'm trying to, and I'm working out now, you know, as part of my new year's, I hate to call it resolution, but my new year's change of, of, uh, routine, uh, get out there and work out.

00:54:49.70
Buddy
Um, been pretty tenacious with it, you know, trying to make sure I eat better, take some supplements that, you know, help my old man, this going, you know, uh, got my Geritol, got a, you know, drink a lot of water and, uh,

00:55:07.05
Buddy
Got some creatine, some protein powder.

00:55:09.14
Keith
Weren't you doing the ah the mushroom coffee coffee or mushroom something? Weren't you doing mushroom something?

00:55:15.10
Buddy
Yeah, i still do some mushroom coffee. I won't name the brand, but around

00:55:19.32
Keith
does Does your gut feel better? it's supposed to be that gut thing, right?

00:55:23.16
Buddy
yeah, it's helping me clear up. And I didn't do it today, so I'm kind of foggy, but it helps my brain function, helps gut health. There's a lot of different things it does help with. The biggest thing I noticed was it it kind of helped, you know, just my gut. I mean, there was a, I used to kind of have like a, I'll say i'll call it pot belly or whatever, but it was like bloating. And so it's kind of taking care of the bloating, real, you know, i've had some TBI, traumatic brain injury.

00:55:53.90
Buddy
it's helped get a little clearer and think, you know, think a little clearer sometimes.

00:55:57.81
Keith
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:55:58.56
Buddy
Sometimes still get, you know, jumbled up in my words, which everybody knows, but, you know, we have the buddy moments there for a minute, but it, they're getting, you know, it's getting better.

00:55:58.71
Keith
hu

00:56:09.03
Buddy
And as long as I, you know, take it on a regular basis, you know, we we don't have the problems. There's, you know, sometimes I've traveled and didn't take it with me. And, you know, noticed by the end of the traveling, you know, week later, some come back and I'm back to where I started, but, You know, it does help out.

00:56:25.42
Buddy
i I suggest, you know, functional mushrooms to look into it if you have any kind of brain fog.

00:56:30.96
Keith
Functional mushrooms.

00:56:32.54
Buddy
Yeah, yeah. Everything is

00:56:34.20
Keith
So you're talking about ah not the kind of mushrooms that make you dizzy, so to speak.

00:56:39.32
Buddy
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. if If you see, I don't do the ones you see purple elephants and shit, you know.

00:56:43.67
Keith
Yeah.

00:56:46.07
Buddy
Uh, but you know, they're, it's over the counter stuff. Uh, reishi, turkey tail, uh, uh, gosh dang it.

00:56:49.89
Keith
Mm-hmm.

00:56:55.30
Buddy
Yeah. Now, now I can't think after bragging on myself, taking these mushrooms and I can't think, but, uh, Yeah, it's, it's kind of pricey. I look at it now as as something that's like almost like a medicine for me, you know, so instead of having to take all the the other medicines and, you know, I'm not getting too personal, you know, getting too personal here, but, you know i was on a lot of stuff for a while now, you know, I've, Learned a little bit about functional medicine and every the functional is the key word, the buzzword out there right now. you got a functional medicine, doctors, functional fitness. You got functional, this functional, that functional mushrooms and learn it. I've, you know, educated myself on a lot of these things where, you know, I'm feeling better, sleeping better, you know, less foggy and and life's just changed a little bit for me. So.

00:57:49.53
Keith
I am taking the Mars men. I'm on, I'm on my fifth or sixth week now. i think it's fifth. It's um supposedly within, within your third month of taking it, you're that's when you really start to see most of it, but your first month you'll start to, you'll start to feel the brain fog go away.

00:57:57.73
Buddy
Thank

00:58:07.97
Keith
And I can attest to that. Now I'm not saying it's a massive change, but I can definitely feel of the 30 days. I can definitely feel the brain fog. go disappear.

00:58:18.39
Keith
And, um you know, especially like I still get my late afternoon tired. That still happens, but that slowly, slowly exist this should help. Now I did do some ah deep dives and some AI searches and all this on ah Mars men.

00:58:31.84
Keith
And ah I'm sure everybody's seen Mars men on the commercials and in this and that. They say that there's no actual science saying that it it, it actually does anything for you, but the ingredients in them, which are tongue tongue cat alley.

00:58:47.83
Keith
think it's how you pronounce it. Zinc K one,

00:58:49.41
Buddy
uh yeah yeah it's good oh yes yes

00:58:50.47
Keith
Tunk and L, yeah. Good stuff, yeah. it's there's Zinc, K1 and K2, fenugreek, which i'm not sure what it is. I think this next one's a mushroom. It's called shalajit, I think. I'm not sure.

00:59:05.05
Keith
um

00:59:05.11
Buddy
um

00:59:06.46
Keith
not sure what that is, though.

00:59:06.64
Buddy
I'm just not learning about that, but it's some good stuff too. Mm-hmm.

00:59:10.14
Keith
uh, taurine, vitamin D and boron. And I take five pills a day at the same time, the red, you know, red at breakfast with a meal. I just take him with orange juice in the morning. And I've been doing that now. And I think it's like $50 a month is what I'm paying for it. And I'm on a, on a program where they automatically ship and you automatically pay. And I'm going to do the full 90 days that they, that they're asking for. They're saying this is what happens in 30 days. This what happens 60. And this is what happens by your 90 days. I'm going to give it the whole test all the way through. I think it's worth the money.

00:59:39.16
Keith
Um, so I'm doing that and I'm also, I just ordered and it should be coming in, i think tomorrow or Saturday. I should be, um, I mean Monday, sorry, tomorrow Monday should be coming in. It's, um,

00:59:53.74
Keith
aged garlic extract, which is supposed to be really, really good for your blood pressure, your circulatory system, all all of that.

00:59:55.62
Buddy
Yeah.

01:00:02.33
Keith
So I got that coming in. I'm going to start taking that as well. I've heard people, you know, because I take blood pressure medicine for hypertension. And I've heard people just not having to take any more blood pressure medicine because this stuff just works. I'm hoping for that. But even if it just helps a little, that's awesome, you know.

01:00:19.48
Buddy
Yeah. um Let's see. I had something there and now I'm gone. I'm having a buddy moment. There's a lot of things out there, um, that I'm educating myself on as well and trying to, trying to do, i take something, I don't want to go too far into it, but it's a natural supplement that, you know, uh,

01:00:42.49
Keith
A lot of this is homeopathic.

01:00:44.06
Buddy
Yes. And ah there's another thing ill I'll speak on it after I i've take it for a little while, but I've already noticed within a couple, a couple of weeks of taking this, it's like, Whoa, you know, as far as energy goes and, and, you know, I think it's helping with cortisol levels and things like that.

01:01:01.37
Keith
Yeah, I need to i need some work on cortisol. I need that big time.

01:01:04.92
Buddy
Yeah. And I'm, I'm learning about that, but you know, we have a couple of guests that I'm bringing on, you know, to transition a little bit that, already, you know, are studying this and and work in this area.

01:01:18.14
Buddy
So, you know, maybe they'll shed some light, you know, and I know what we're talking about.

01:01:21.43
Keith
That'd be nice.

01:01:22.64
Buddy
There's people out there going, Oh, you know, what the hell are they talking about? You know, this is a prepper show, but there's other people out there going, damn, you know, I, I have, yeah, exactly.

01:01:31.44
Keith
No, health is part of your preps, man. And we've talked about that before.

01:01:36.18
Buddy
And, and, you know, part of, part of my goals this year is to, I want to carry that 100-pound rucksack full of shit that you know that I have.

01:01:46.22
Keith
I'm already paying. I'm already carrying a hundred pound rucksack and I'm not carrying anything in my hands.

01:01:50.62
Buddy
Exactly. you know I'm working out with...

01:01:51.58
Keith
You know, I need to get rid of it.

01:01:53.53
Buddy
When I go to the workout... you know Four of the five days we're in the gym and people are looking at us like we're crazy. Now they're getting used to it. We're wearing plate carriers.

01:02:04.02
Buddy
You know, we don't have our ammo and all that stuff in there, but just strip down plate carriers.

01:02:04.06
Keith
o wow. No, no, no.

01:02:08.38
Buddy
A lot of, you know, patches in there. And we're we're doing functional fitness type stuff. We're doing CrossFit. We're doing we're doing things with these plate carriers on. and you know, people are, so I've noticed a couple people's bringing theirs now, you know.

01:02:22.68
Buddy
But it's I've been doing it for a couple weeks now to where one day we didn't work out with it on, and I was like, damn, you know should we put our plate carriers on?

01:02:22.71
Keith
Yeah.

01:02:31.43
Buddy
Because you know doing a burpee with a plate carrier on compared to not doing it with plate carrier on, it's tremendous. you know you You've got 10, 15 pounds of extra weight on you.

01:02:43.66
Keith
It's night and day, night and day.

01:02:45.02
Buddy
Yeah, and –

01:02:45.14
Keith
Well, each one of those plates are running what, like seven, eight pounds, 10 pounds.

01:02:48.44
Buddy
it It depends on the plate. I have training plates that I got 15 extra pounds on me.

01:02:50.30
Keith
Does it? Okay. Okay.

01:02:53.76
Buddy
And I guess it's a little heavier than than the normal, you know, stuff. But I, you know what, I'm wearing it. And, you know, and you might not go to the gym with it. But, you know, walk your dog around the neighborhood, you know, take the dog out for a walk or or go for a hike in in in the woods, put that plate carrier on.

01:03:10.71
Keith
Or start small, put ank ankle and wrist weights. i mean, start small.

01:03:13.54
Buddy
Ankle wrists. Yeah. I used to run with the, you know, back in the day with the wrist, wrist weights and ankle weights and stuff, you know, dude,

01:03:20.18
Keith
It hit adds a lot, but you think it's not heavy. It adds a lot to your workout.

01:03:24.41
Buddy
go run two miles. I was, you know, got to where I was running two miles and run pretty quick. And then threw those on one day and it's like, crap, half mile into it. was like, I'm i'm done. But, you know, but that was a big goal this year for me is to get physically fit again and, and work on my health because, know,

01:03:43.00
Buddy
You know, you only got one body. And I just had a sneaky feeling I'm going to need it real quick. And I want to be able to, you know, if I need to jump a fence, I'm going to jump a fence, climb a wall, climb a rope, do the things.

01:03:55.80
Keith
Look, man, it's, it's, our you're right. You're right. And it's our, it's our younger listeners, which we do have that are, that are listening, going, that are, that are glazing over right now. They're not listening because they're young and they don't get it. And when I was twenties and thirties and even 40, when I was in very, very good shape and going to the gym twice a day, five days a week, two days, uh,

01:04:17.85
Keith
I didn't think that, you know, I wasn't feeling the age yet, but when I hit the 50 mark and we have a lot of listeners that are in the upper forties, fifties, and even sixties as well. And they know exactly what the fuck we're talking about.

01:04:30.62
Buddy
Well, and I'll even throw the gauntlet down.

01:04:31.13
Keith
Uh, you, you start, you you start losing it, man. You just, it happens fast.

01:04:34.21
Buddy
I'm throwing the gauntlet down now. Some of our younger listeners, they didn't grow up like we did. You know, I looked at my dad at 70 years old and he could work my ass in the ground.

01:04:45.17
Buddy
And I was like still in the damn army.

01:04:45.59
Keith
Right, right.

01:04:47.09
Buddy
You know, I'm like really good shape. And he can, you know, go out and work with him on a weekend out, you know, with the horses and and doing fence and all.

01:04:54.33
Keith
My grandfather was still working a tractor in his 90s, man. Come on.

01:04:58.39
Buddy
Yeah, and but that's the kind of the functional strength that I want. I want to be, you know, they call it cock strong or whatever, you know. Just be that that farm strong guy, know, corn fed. But that's the things that you'll need when when it comes down to, you know, a shit hits a fan situation. You know, it's going to amount to...

01:05:17.94
Buddy
you know, cause it's going to suck. It's going to be hot. It's going to be cold. You know, environment's not going what you're used to and you, you need to be able to survive it. But, and another thing is you need to start conditioning yourself and get one out there and do putting yourself in a situation to where it sucks, you know, where you're, you're, you're not used to a situation. Maybe it's a cold day, go out for a walk and don't put on,

01:05:43.80
Buddy
you know, 15 layers of clothes and your, you know, your big warm jacket, go out there and get it a little bit uncomfortable, you know, get out of your comfort zone as much as you can, because you possibly, you know, I, I hope it doesn't have i hope. I'm lying. I hope I'm, I'm a fear, you know, porn in everybody here, but it,

01:06:02.79
Buddy
you're going to be in a situation where it's going to suck and you're going to be used to it suck. And you're going to either, you know, rise to the occasion with your training that you get, or you're going to, you know, crumble like, you know, milk toast or, you know, and it's just going to be a bad day for you. So.


My Prepper brothers and sisters…

… Prepping and Survival, Homesteading, Self-Reliance, and Foraging, Bushcraft, Homeopathy… Bugging In and Out, Urban Preparedness and Grayman Theory… these are not just terms thrown around from one Prepper Survivalist to another. No. These are Mindsets… and Skills… Life-Changing Actionable goals that get us from point  A - Slave to the System, to point B - Awake, Alive, and Ready, to C - Confident Hardened Leaders of our existence in this ever-changing world we occupy.

This coming year will be a journey… and we’ll take it with you every step of the way.  

Stay Prepped…

Stay Happy…

Thanks for Listening…

And Goodnight…