Special Guest: Lindy Bryant from Northwoods of Idaho

Preparedness is for everyone—whether you're solo or part of a family. In this episode, I talk with Lindy Bryant from Northwoods of Idaho about emergency preparedness, survival kits, evacuation planning, and the importance of community. From grab-and-go binders to communication strategies, we cover everything you need to be ready for any situation.

Transcript

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but what if it's just you The Solo Prepper though has some things that they have to consider that most people don't there's four types of security it has a shopping list you need to get together a binder you need to have dividers page protectors what and on the inside is a signal mirror and a waterproof compartment that's large enough to either hold matches or medicine I could take down a squirrel from the time I was about 7 or eight yeah I I actually give a class called what is have radio cause what we see is that a lot of people perish or are close to you know expiring because of exposure to the elements and lack of preparedness yeah even in the back country and I wanted to touch on that because your back country kit solves half those problems well first and foremost thank you so much for being here we finally got you scheduled after you and I were both sick um I have both of your books here which which we'll talk about in a little bit um I'm gonna include a separate video on each of these the grab the do it yourself grab and go binder and then the Single Person's Guide to preparedness we also have your all in one emergency preparedness kit I've actually um this is actually a gift that I'm giving somebody because I thought it was so awesome that I had to give it to a friend of mine who's always talking about being prepared so I'm gonna be purchasing a few more of these um because I think they're cute little little gifts for a lot of my friends were like I wanna be prepared I don't know where to start like well I have a couple books for you haha well let's start off with um talking about you let's introduce yourself and then uh where are you from and kind of go from there okay well my name is Lindy Bryant um grew up well born in Wisconsin grew up though in the Indianapolis area rural area outside of Indy um back when I was growing up dating myself a little bit here uh we used to call it India no place because there really wasn't much going on in Indiana at the time it's it's a much nicer place to live nowadays um but I grew up in kind of a rural area um with you know a lot of a lot of hard hard work um we had horses we had uh we would always have a cow or two that we were raising a bottle babies that we would then butcher uh chickens uh we if we had a pig it was either named bacon or Ham um my dad made sure we knew why they were why did they they were there and we always had large garden um um so we would you know uh freeze and can and put things up so I grew up that way um and thought that was perfectly normal um going hunting you know I I could take down a squirrel from the time I was about 7 or 8 um and it wasn't until I got into high school that I found out that not everybody lived that way you know that kind of what happens um and I I kind of swung the other direction I went and lived in big cities I've I've you know lived in Los Angeles and and you know other large cities and good things about those areas they're just not necessarily where I wanna be right now um when and when I was in my mid twenties decided to go into the military um and I was commissioned in the Air Force in 86 long time ago um and spent time in a variety of areas when I initially when I initially went in I was in what's called personnel which we now call HR um switched over to logistics supply fuels um commanded an aircraft maintenance squadron for a few years um I was a liaison between Defense Logistics Agency and FEMA for a few years which was a really interesting DLA always is so is oh I got FEMA stories I could tell you oh wow um and I also then spent a few years as a liaison between the reserves and Civil Air Patrol cap out in California and Learned I spent a lot of time in several of those assignments dealing with emergency response disaster response things of that nature um and found that I really had um I I valued those areas and then I felt I really had something there that that drew me to those areas so when I got out um I actually you know we all have to make a living um so I I actually went into HR and worked there for many years um until it was time to step away from HR that had gone somewhere away from what I had originally wanted to do um and when I retired um started my own business and so I have a small business called Northwoods of Idaho and its focus is on helping individuals families and small businesses um be better prepared to handle emergencies and disasters so kind of made my own my own corner of of disaster response yeah that's I mean it sounds like you have a vast history and experience in this industry in this field so uh we need that um I wanted to talk a little bit I wanted to go through each of your books so the first thing I wanted to talk about was the Single Person's Guide to preparedness yeah cause I think this feels such a niche I I think that a lot of um a lot of my friends single both male and female they associate disaster preparedness with you know having to protect a family and if you don't have like other people to protect then you know they kind of put preparedness on the back burner and I when I yeah your book is awesome so if you want to talk about kind of how this came about sure about that um you know I've had a lot of people ask why a book about single people and I said well for the same thing you just said here a lot of preparedness is focused on families groups communities neighbors neighborhoods what have you but what if it's just you um you know a lot of people are on their own whether it's by choice or not they can be divorced they could be a long haul trucker they could be a student they you know they could be a widow they could have they could have a family but the family lives on the other side of the country you know whatever it's the solo prepper though has some things that they have to consider that most people don't um you can't stay awake 24 7 you just can't um so what do you do about security um do you really need to be buying 100 pounds of rice at a time uh you know uh how big of if it's just you how big of a garden do you really need to plant yeah you know um and you plus let's face it you can't be an expert at everything um you could be really good at gardening and food preparation but are you a blacksmith um do you know how to repair your plumbing you know you don't you can't be an expert at everything so the idea is how do you build community and still have a secure environment for yourself so I talk about all of that in the book I I also talk about things such as sharing spaces I mean with with today's economy more and more people are in either multigenerational households or they're sharing a property or sharing a house with somebody who might not have the same preparedness goals that you do so how do you do how do you deal with that a lot of people have have gone to living in RVs they may even travel full time they could be a long haul trucker um they and nothing else they could live in a location where the laws restrict what you can or cannot have let's put it that way right yeah so I've yeah for all those reasons um you know I had I had been involved in preparedness and had gone from preparing for a household back when I had a household full of people um to being on my own and now I have my elderly mother that lives with me um who is mobility challenged so there's again all these things we talk about in the book about at what how do you how do you prepare when it's just you when you're the you know as I put it you may not have any assistance but you also don't have any resistance so you can you can set your priorities you can set your goals and go forward yeah I love that as a single person um I agree you definitely can't be an expert in everything like I'm learning the garden this is my second second season with a full on garden and I have my little seedlings growing inside right now and it definitely took some you know coordination with my neighbors and seeing how they grew their stuff and um no I agree and I love this because honestly you you touch on everything not just getting into the right mindset but from comms to security to first aid to water like I just put in a rain um like a rain gutter system to rain collection rain water yeah and um you know I didn't know that there was rebates that which you never guess California would do this but California will give you a rebate if you do sort any sort of rain collection where you can get like a discount on not only the gutter system but on the rain barrel itself um no there's a ton of really good things in here I took a ton of notes I don't wanna make this a book review but um well the the one of the things I do wanna point out because a lot of people have been asking me I've been talking about this book variety of places and usually they say well where do I start right and I said you'll note that the very first chapter of the book is about attitude right attitude and mindset um because as the saying goes you know if if you think you can't you're right yeah um it's your attitude your approach and you'll notice also in the book I start every single chapter with at least one quote that is is relevant and the first chapter on attitude is um Teddy Roosevelt um and no pardon me no the first the first the first chapter I'm trying to remember who the first chapter is the introduction is Richard Cushing plan ahead it it wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark when it yeah it wasn't it wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark people say well why should I plant why should I prep because yeah um because you may go to the grocery store at some time and there isn't any more toilet paper you know yeah yeah we're seeing that with eggs right now I live in North Idaho okay world area eggs are $7 a dozen at the local grocery and I'm like no yeah fortunately I I don't get my eggs at the grocery I I buy them from a friend who has chickens yeah um and people have said well why don't you have chickens I said because I have a German Shepherd that thinks that chickens are lunch yeah um you know we we refer to chickens around here as Molly morsels because Molly thinks that chickens are really yummy um so I can't have chickens right now um but yeah what stop and stop and think about what just happened in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee think about what happened in Los Angeles you know we're talking about areas where people lost everything and you you have to stop and think about how can I prepare for this how can I prepare for that well there's certain things you can prepare for and certain things you can't can you prepare to offset the high price of food yes that's gardening that's having chickens that's things of that nature can you prepare for a thousand year flood that comes down a mountain probably not um so we but every every single thing you can do to prepare is one less line you have to stand in for a handout yeah I mean it's so eerie because um back in one of my very first episodes was an emergency preparedness kit cause I live in a fire zone so I went through my emergency preparedness kit for a fire zone and then like a few weeks later the LA fires happened and I live in the fire zone that it ended up the because of the winds it shifted it west instead of east so I was prepared for another fire season another you know potential evacuation and now I look at that video and I'm like gosh if and it was a fire specific video and as a matter of fact there was a guy who lived in the Palisades Army veteran into preparedness reasonable amount because of his him preparing his house and his family he him his house is still standing he was actually able to stop the fire from progressing so because he was prepared it reduced the damage and potentially saved everybody everybody's home and lives from the houses that were essentially downwind from him yeah and I'm like that mentality should be applied to preparedness in general that you you're not digging a bunker in your backyard you can if you want to but like there are levels of preparedness that are easier to digest for someone who might just be getting into this yeah I mean like I said I live in North Idaho uh we joke that there's three seasons here winter MUD and fire uh and it is simply a given when you live in this area nobody has brush within 50 feet of their home that's just a given everywhere you go in this area nobody has brush when you drive down a country road and you and you've got woods on both sides you'll also notice that all of the underbrush has been taken out right that's one of the differences between here in California we have very vigorous um Woodland management around here um when I lived I lived in California for a number of years um and they were constantly saying no no you can't thin you can't thin out the you know the underbrush and everything because it's it's a habitat for small animals I'm going yeah but if you if it catches on fire you're not gonna have any habitat left right um so part of being prepared is is being practical stepping back and looking at things from a wider viewpoint um and and that's whether that's fire whether that's flood um preparing for tornadoes um what have you you know I I look at my I look at my property from a variety of ways it's it's my house yes but how can I make sure that it is as fire resistant as possible I have a metal roof you know things like that that in the book we talk about being being proactive um and you can't do it all in one fell swoop I mean as you know money is not endless neither is you know and there's only 24 hours in a day yeah and if it's just you you're gonna have to set some priorities yeah no agreed I mean for me I had a list of stuff that I wanted to do to make sure that I was you know prepared and obviously as a security professional security was No. 1 on my list is more of a bias than anything else so I made sure that I installed my security system at a time and I just put in solar with a backup battery system and I chose to go with a backup battery that's portable because I also bought a very capable off grid RV I'm having a Mercedes Sprinter converted nice so I'm thinking like if it's just me and I have to evacuate because I am in the middle of a fire hop in and go yeah I need a vehicle that's capable to get through whatever hazards might be out there but also I have a dog you know I can't just check into any hotel I can't just go to any you know rendezvous point or shelter so it's you know and I'm not putting him in a shelter so you know it's it's what do I do and for me having the ability to do that I was like this is my course of action because that evacuation line gets closer and closer to my house every year last year it was only a few blocks away so and now we're being affected by power cut offs so whenever winds get too high they shut down the power in my area because of potential fire hazards if you know a line were to go down so I I lived out like I said I lived out in California um in I lived in uh basically Ventura County for three years and in the three years we lived there I was evacuated three times for fire yeah um fortunately never lost our place but I mean it happens and power outages I mean I don't think there's anywhere in the United States that is immune to power outages um but you also mentioned security and you know somebody asked me if if if there were you know where where do you think the individual the single individual needs to to start their focus I said two things communications and security um security especially um you know going back to the you can't be awake 24 7 um there's four types of security okay there's physical security which is the security of your home that's where you're looking for false force multipliers like driveway alarms and uh motion sensor lights and big dogs you know so there's physical security there's um also then you you go to and with with with physical security it's how what do you do about your home you know and I mean that's part of something I know that you've you've worked with um the try to I had a note here I wanted to to touch on um but yeah physical security then you have operational security Ops sec which is basically it goes back to the old loose lips sink ships yeah I mean yes you you wanna build a community but you don't necessarily need to give everybody a tour through your food storage room yeah um you know like I said I'm I'm extremely involved with my community but I can count on my fingers the number of people who've actually been in my home yeah exactly and what you post on social media is a big one that well that's that's that's the third so you've got physical security you've got operational security the third is cyber security um that's protecting your personal information and that includes social media and being aware of what you post on there and the fourth is personal security or a purse sec um which is basically developing your situational awareness um when you're an individual when I'm walking down the street I am not looking at my phone I don't have earbuds in my head is on a swivel I'm aware of what's going on around me um and I won't go into all the details but in the book I talk about Cooper Color Code the Cooper Color Code anybody who's been in the military is is familiar with it um Jeff Cooper was a lieutenant colonel in the Marines and back in the 60s he was tasked with developing a model of to be able to explain and teach situational awareness to people and so he had it all the way from white which is yeah you're just kind of hanging out you're not paying attention you're relaxed the only time you should be in that state is when you're at home where you're someplace secure and then it goes on up to you know you're aware that you need to be aware of what's going on around something happens and you can extract yourself from the area so that's that's personal security doesn't mean you have to carry a weapon all the time it does mean that if you're standing in line at an ATM that you're paying attention to who's around you it means that if if you're in a store and somebody starts going berserk and pounding on somebody you leave yeah you don't stand there and stare get out so and that's more important as a single person than it is when you're part of a group yeah I think that for me as a single person and everybody in my neighborhood if you just observe for more than a few minutes you know that I live by myself so for me it's taking what the average person might include as physical security measures for example and I take I step that up a notch because now the way I see it is hey I'm I could now potentially be the victim of a crime of opportunity a group of guys for example see that this girl is just living by herself and she just has a couple dogs like that's the target so I wanna make it as difficult as possible for them to not only get into my home without me knowing but to then cause any damage while they're here but no 100% 100% this is a phenomenal book I went through the whole thing and yeah yeah it's it's a great for anybody even if someone is already you know kind of in the preparedness world even if they aren't single I definitely recommend that everybody reads this if you're a sing especially if you're a single parent I've had a number of people people who said okay yeah I have two or three kids but everything in the book applies to her because she doesn't have a spouse or she doesn't have a significant other that she can offset to split chores to stay up and and watch when something's going on um and in the book you talk about security I I talk about exactly what you were just talking about that I physical security is you you first of all you want to um you want to deter the bad guys you know right and that means things like making your house less attractive um you know and then the second is to basically deter them um you know delay them into getting in if the bad guys want to get in they're gonna get in yeah but you can delay them by things such as steel reinforced doors and you know things of that nature and the whole idea there is to give you a chance to react and that reaction may be to get out you know if there's call the police yeah if there's six bad guys coming in my house I'm not sticking around to discuss it with them I'm going to I'm gonna leave it you know live to fight another day nothing in that house is so valuable that I need to stay so you know it it it's entirely up to how you want to handle it um and it some of that depends also on the laws of your area um I live in Idaho yeah if a bad guy breaks into my house in the middle of the night um there's not gonna be a problem if I choose to exercise the Castle Doctrine yeah yeah yeah you know but if I lived in California or New York or someplace like that the law is not always as friendly right no 100% I mean I'm fortunate enough to live in a um in a community in a county that um is a little bit more conservative compared to the rest of the state but it is still a worry of mine because and I'll give an example I wasn't home I was married I had some I had step kids and someone tried to get into my house and my dog who was a puppy at the time uh he he bit them now he's 6 months old the guy saw my dog ran away my dog chased him because the kids didn't know what to do and uh bit him on the back of his arm he was a little chubby so it was uh what you might call he bit like fat and flesh um I got sued and my insurance had to pay that guy $250,000 because the screen door wasn't locked so it in California if you forget to lock your door and someone walks in and you shoot them I can't even imagine what would have happened to me my insurance paid out so I hate USA cause of that cause I wanted to fight it but uh they claimed like emotional damage and whatever else and the court gave it to him but that's the that's the state that we live in like I got my house broken into and I got sued so as someone who has that firsthand experience I agree I'm gonna make sure that if it comes to that I can tell the court that they went through my steel door they went through all these things I called the police immediately I had them on camera and my last line of defense if I couldn't escape was to engage well and the other thing I will that I've talked about in the book too if you choose to have a firearm I strongly recommend that you have insurance specifically through either um you know U s law shield or U s c C a someplace like that that will ensure you for self defense um it's it's a few hundred dollars a year but it is well worth it because if you have to use a firearm you will be sued hundred percent because yeah those those three heavily tatted gang members breaking into your house are all choir boys on Sunday and they've never done anything wrong and their grandma loves them dearly you know so yeah no I I and I have two types of insurance and I think another thing is and I know you touch on this um and I wanna get into your next book too but another thing is training and not presenting yourself as someone who's trigger happy because if you're open openly expressing it kind of getting into OPSEC on social media and everywhere else that you know you're gonna take out your you know your cordless hole puncher right yeah and you're gonna you're gonna engage no matter what no one's breaking into my house well that shows intent so it may sound funny but do not put a sign on your front gate that says ignore the dog beware of owner no yeah and I have so many signs on my house and it says things like no trespassing um that's fine do not do not enter property so no I I you 100% but I'm I saw some signs like some of my neighbors have and I just shake my head where it's like a firearm like a picture of a gun and it was like security system in place and it's like remove that haha I don't well I mean the things like the signs that I see around you know are like we don't dial 9 1 1 we fire 2 2 3 I'm going no yeah I'm sure a lawyer would have a field day with that yeah but but yes I mean it is even putting up um a a you know this house protected by a d t you know security yeah that's actually fine because that's showing that they ignored yet one more warning yeah yeah so the lawyers have told me that that type of thing is fine but nothing that threatens physical violence don't put something up even though you're as a single person you want to do everything you can to to deter somebody from coming in the first place you need to be aware of the law you need yeah especially as a single person be aware of your surroundings your neighborhood your state uh plus the federal law but especially your community and state laws yeah no hundred percent I mean I I had a conversation with a friend of mine who is um a defense attorney and even some of the language on some of the signs are things that you have to look at so I bought signs that I thought were the best ones possible but I still went and like put tape over certain words that would imply any sort of threat of violence um if they were to enter my property so and I and I have that on every entry to my house every window every door every gate says do not come here unless you are with the homeowner or unless you've received permission um again that that um deterrent essentially like there's proper signage posted but anyway I'm sure we could talk about that all day ways to protect your house and signage and that's definitely a a conversation that we can go on forever I wanted to talk about your do it yourself grab and go binder because I thought yeah this one was also this one was awesome so uh this one has like some fill in stuff it's essentially everything you need oop everything you need right here you don't need any other papers I bought two of these one of them is in a fireproof um envelope that I have that I carry with all my important documents well let me explain kind of how the different ways you can use that book the book is called the do it yourself grab and go binder in the if you know there's three scenarios that I talk to people they say why do I need an emergency binder three scenarios No. 1 middle of the night pounding on your door the sheriff says get out get out wildfire or flood or what have you okay and you got to grab what you can and leave in five minutes the second somebody in your immediate family is injured they're being rushed to the hospital the doctors are asking you questions such as have they had their you know what immunizations have they had what's their blood type who's their doctor you know things like that and you're going and the third scenario is very simple somebody steals your wallet do you know how to contact all your credit cards do you have a copy of your driver's license to use until you can get a new one okay for those reasons you need to have an emergency binder with all your critical documents and information in it yeah so what and I when I was in the military we have this for military people but when I got out I realized we didn't have anything for the civilians so what I did the book only has 16 pages of instructions it's short and sweet and it's even in large print so that those of us who are a little older can read it yeah then it's followed by 43 fillable P d F's okay so in the instructions it tells you it has a shopping list you need to get together a binder you need to have dividers page protectors what it has a shopping list then it says okay pick the categories that are important to you such as personal finance yeah um inventory pets livestock whatever is important to you and then it has forms that will give information in each of those areas and a list of documents that you should copy and put in those sections now what's important is I recommend you do a binder a physical binder that you fill everything in and put it in your safe and that you do at least two flash drives with all of that scanned onto it one of them you hold on to the other one you put with somebody family or friend out of the area now the reason for this is stop and think about what just happened on the coasts people lose their house your your your safe could be gone if somebody else has that flash drive now you still have all of that information into that binder um and so what what what I do is when somebody buys the book on page 16 if you look at on page 16 at the end of the instructions there's an email address and it says send a request to this email address and what you receive back is a zip file with all 43 of those forms as fillable pdfs you can open it up type all your information in there print it off and put it in a binder or save it to a flash drive yep so because you'll have those forms you can now update them every 6 months or however often so everyone you get a new credit card you get get a new driver's license you update it and put it in there what it does is it lets you start from scratch but you've got everything good example with what happened out in in Western North Carolina I've got a couple friends who were involved in the initial personal responses you know the the emergency response that happened out in the Carolinas was not government it was individuals it was churches and organizations I have a couple friends who are involved in that and a guy came up to them he said I lost my house my car my phone stop and think about how much information you have that's only in your phone all the phone numbers of your family and friends he says I lost all of that he says when I finally got a hold of my insurance agent the first thing they did was they said okay send us copies of pictures of everything that you lost and he went yeah wait a second let me explain this to you again cause he says I lost my house I lost my car I lost my phone they lost part of their property the the actual physical land is no longer there oh wow you know and yet the the insurance companies I mean it's been how many how many months that happened in what October November yeah and people are still living in tents yeah people are living in hotel rooms people still don't have cars because the insurance company won't pay out because they can't prove what they had so with the grab and go binder there's a lot of things that I recommend you have and one of them is for instance do videos take your phone and you're gonna you're gonna walk through the house and videotape everything especially those things of high value and then you're gonna go out you're gonna walk around your cars your ATV your snowmobile your camper everything and when you're doing that you're going to make sure you get in part of that video a copy of the Vin number and with a car you're gonna walk around the outside you're gonna get in you're gonna show the that the the condition of it uh you're gonna do the same thing for anything of value and that also includes things such as generators on the outside of your house it includes your garage it includes you know you name it riding lawn mower those things are expensive and an insurance company is not going to want to pay out right so this is Protection for you and you put it on that flash drive all those videos I also recommend that you have a color picture of everyone in your household and your family um a couple reasons No. 1 hate to admit it but you may need a picture to give to search and rescue here's who we're looking for the other is if if any of them are children you should update that picture at least once a year because kids change you know you're looking for your 12 year old niece and the last thing you have is her birthday party when she turned four yeah you know so all of this is in the instructions there's lists of all of that and this is a great project for the winter especially um putting together an emergency binder is not something you're going to do it in an afternoon yeah there I have some people who are totally untech savvy and all they want is the book they want to just fill out the form in the book that's what that's what I did I got the pdfs but I filled out the book yeah right but you'll notice for instance in the personal section in the personal section there's one page that says personal information adult there's one that says personal information child well what if you got two adults and four kids in the family you're gonna need that's why you want the PDF so you can fill them out and you can update it because the kids for instance it's it lists who what school are they in you know things like that um there's a section for pets one for each pet um there's also one for livestock if you've got you know if you've got a bunch of chickens and you got you know a horse or whatever you want to have documents of that you want pictures of them in the back of the of the book is what I think possibly the most important section and that is a set of checklists there is an there is an evacuation checklist in the back of that book that lists if you only have 5 minutes here's what you do if you've got 15 minutes if you've got 30 minutes or an hour there's also a pet evacuation uh checklist including information about what to do ahead of time and there's also part if you have to leave them behind um people go I'm not leaving my pets behind if you've got 100 gallon fish tank you're not taking it with you yeah um if you've got a terrarium full of poisonous spiders there's no place that's going to take you in um if you've got you know 50 chickens and a herd of cows they're not going with you yeah so what do you what do you do how do you prepare what's the best way to protect them um and leave them behind so all of this stuff I think is is it takes pre planning but evacuation is so critical um and sometimes sometimes in the event of a Hurricane you've got days worth at least notice that you have to evacuate so there's time for you to go through all of those checklists um if you do if you work ahead of time and you put together a go bag emergency grab it go bag in the five minutes there it says grab your bag grab your grab and go binder with those things you've got what you need to be able to start over if you absolutely have to um I think it's so it's so important and any if if go go on YouTube and watch some of the videos of people who fled the fires in California and they were they were interviewed the next day or so and they they were asked what did you grab when you left and you hear them say things like well I was in flip flops and I grabbed I I grabbed a couple pictures off the wall and I grabbed the dog's leash and that's really everything really yeah you didn't grab you know people say well I didn't even grab my wallet I forgot yeah you know so yeah these are people who did not plan ahead right and that's I mean even if I mean it might seem a little daunting at first cause you think about all of the things that you have to do to prepare but if you at least start to familiar familiarize yourself and go through each section at a time or one PDF at a time in like an off season yes it really starts to winter that stuff down yeah I mean so for me every season so in California we have like fire season and then we have like a small little window in between where there's no fires then we have flash flood flooding and then we have fires again so every season my emergency kit changes to tackle that and then um I there was actually some things that I had not considered that I realized I had it considered um after I read your book cause there were for example the the flash drive I didn't I had a old CD from when I got out that had my my medical record on it and I was like I should probably nobody at my computer doesn't have a CD burner so I had to like buy a CD burner make sure I uploaded that to a flash drive and then you know I had sent a little kit to my mom saying hey god forbid something happens in California this is my life in a box basically um but yeah there's a lot of things to consider and that's why I think for someone as me who's been in the preparedness space for for a long time it's nice to have resources from someone who's been in it maybe a little bit longer or is thinking outside of the box to help kind of guide you cause again there were a lot of things I didn't consider until I read this I was like oh that's a good idea well the the binder idea I think is valuable because you can put not only the pages from the book but you also put copies of your driver's license your passport and you can put the originals of some things like your Social Security card your DD two fourteen things like that you gotta put him someplace you might as well put him in there and just as a heads up I have the binder that I use I got it on Amazon for 30 bucks it's waterproof and fire resistant yeah oh that's see I didn't know that I know they had a fireproof box yeah and it's it's 30 bucks I mean I was thinking oh you know 80 hundred bucks for something like that no you get one for 30 bucks put everything in it and then I put it in my safe between the fireproof safe and that binder my house could burn down and it would probably still be in one piece yeah no that's that's really good I mean in my emergency kit video I talked about like I have I pretty much have a I don't call it a get me home bag I call it a get me to safety bag and I have one in my house and in that like get me to safety bag I had a fire retardant um envelope that had all my important papers in it and things like that not any sort of like organized faction fashion so the binder and going that route really help me organize some stuff and there's a lot of things that I didn't have that I have to get so yeah I definitely think between these two books I think you're off to a really good start for anybody who I mean whether you're preparing or not um I think this is a really good start that kind of is a great Segway into into this now I took it apart it was actually really easy to take apart put back together all the stuff that's on the inside so do you want to talk about this phenomenal invention that you have here like sure I would I want to hand these out on Halloween as candy like this is amazing so yeah let's talk about this this kids for the listeners I'm holding what's essentially kind of like a water bottle a stain this is stainless steel yeah it's single walled stainless steel for a reason they're called survival in a bottle and there's three different three different kinds uh the one you have there is called the Urban Stash uh all three of them are in single walled stainless steel bottles the reason for it being single walled is that in an emergency you can boil water or cook in a single walled stainless steel bottle um do not try using a cotego or something like that it will explode if you put it over a fire because of it being double walled um so there's three different types of survival in a bottle the one that you have well they all have some of the same things they've all got a flashlight a lighter a first aid kit a sewing kit a glow stick you know a multi tool which is a really nice little multi tool it's pliers knives screwdrivers all of that sort of thing all together um then there's three different types the Urban Stash like you have has a power pack for recharging your phone um it has a um it has a snack a snack bar that's gluten free nut free um it has a variety of other things in it that are focused on the person who probably commutes a lot and is in a more urban environment there's one that is called the Backcountry Cash um it instead of the power pack and all that type of thing it has a water filter straw and a stainless steel spork things of that nature it's aimed more at the person who's backpacking or outdoors the third one is called the Everyday Carry and it doesn't have some of the more expensive items in it but it has all the basics um and I mean everything from you know it has the first aid kit the sewing kit the flashlight the glow stick the lighter um tissues all of that sort of stuff just to be able to have that and on the outside is a uh carabiner with 6 feet of paracord yeah so the idea with these is to be able to stick it in your glove compartment put it in your backpack put it in your locker at work put it in your kids locker at school and you have it if you need it yeah um there's nothing in any of my kits that is that is hurt by normal heat or cold so you can have it in your car you're around and it won't affect it um it's important because in the event of emergency oh also in all of them is a an emergency blanket an extra large emergency blanket that is large enough that it could be used as a lean to tent right or a blanket that will cover two adults so in the event of an emergency you've got a flashlight you have a lighter so you have a way of making fire um the backcountry cash also has the water filter straw uh you've got you know you've got a compass you've got an emergency whistle you've got all of those things if you have it in the car you don't have to remember do I have yes you do have a flashlight yes you do have an emergency blanket yes you do have a way of making fire um to keep warm so I I created these because I was absolutely appalled how many people in an emergency didn't even have a flashlight yep it's like seriously I've got one in I think every room of my house yeah but I had one lady she bought one for each of her grandkids she said I've got a bunch of grandkids they're all learning to drive I'm putting one of these in every car um she says and another another parents bought one and it was part of the gift to their child who was leaving for college and so they said yeah we want to make sure that he's got that in his vehicle um and I have another lady who bought one because she put she had her kid take it with him to college and put it in his dorm room you know yeah and it's amazing all the you know there's there's if you go to my website which is northwoodsofidaho com you can see the three kits you can see everything that's in them it has a list of everything that's in there uh and you can pick the one that fits your lifestyle the best um you know my the the way they came about was I live in it I live in a rural community I I need to carry a water filter straw if I'm out hiking my daughter my my son in law is active duty Navy they are stationed on the east coast just outside of DC my daughter and I were talking about what do we carry in our cars at all times what she needs to carry is very different than what I carry she has been stuck on the 95 around DC so many times it's not funny you know and she talked about things such as needing to charge her phone and uh you know things like you know she dropped something she can't find it she needs a flashlight so that is what was the birth child behind the kits yeah I so I'm gonna be doing a review on each of the kits I'm gonna start with this one and then I'm gonna be grabbing the other two to do that as well cause I really do think that they're phenomenal I have I've always wanted an all in one kit and I you know I go into the back countries like exactly like you're saying like it would be nice to have something like this where I can just throw it in the in the you know water bottle holder of my backpack and just go like I said it and forget it and for me what I do is any kit that I have whether it comes you know pre made or not I go through it every season make sure everything is still good does everything still work do I still remember how to use these things and then oh I will I will say one thing that is a couple people have asked when you get the flashlight out the first time you need to open it up and take the little cardboard piece out people go it doesn't work no it's because I'm leaving it in there so I don't use up your batteries yeah and like I left that piece in there because I don't need it right now but if you want to take it out you can and then you know making sure the power bank is charged yeah the you need to recharge the power bank about every 3 months that's I'm finding that it holds a charge for about 3 months oh that's good to know yeah cause mine mine was fine but that's also why I include the instruction manual with it yeah so if you if you pull it out it's got the instructions with it there yeah I have a thing with the water with people if you buy the one that has the water filter straw the instruction manual comes with it so it shows you how to to uh back blow it to clean it out in the event that it gets clogged up yeah no absolutely I mean I I think that something like this for someone who just wants some sort of peace of mind that they're gonna have everything that they need and it's you know it's not the only thing you need to carry but it's a majority of the things that you should be carrying um I always cause so for me for example when I have to drive into my office I have to cross a mountain range and I think to myself there's no service on that mountain range at all if anybody's if you're familiar with the Ortega Highway um going from Orange County to to Riverside County and like back and forth there there's no service whatsoever it's a national forest there are a couple of like Forestry Service offices but if god forbid something happens on any stretch of that freeway you know or that any stretch of that highway you have very little access to anything so yeah yeah so I think to myself like God forbid something were to happen to me or God forbid I need to get home and I grab my bag and I have to go cause let's say my car is compromised or whatever you know do I have everything I need to potentially walk that walk that road and it's completely doable it's not a terribly long distance but it might be an overnight trip you know and having this just grabbing this and not having to worry about grabbing a ton of crazy things is um it's just a it's just a peace of mind I guess anybody who's ever been threatened or ever been kind of a part of any sort of natural disaster in particular um those are sort of things you think about so no I think this product is phenomenal um I wish I wish it's something like this existed I remember as a kid after 9 11 I'm from New York City I remember just the pure panic and like chaos cause we didn't have anything we didn't have I remember my parents going through trying to make sure they had all our documents running out and trying to get water there's just everybody was taking advantage of everything people were breaking into you know stores and robbing them like it wasn't safe outside let alone the fact that we just you know went through a terrorist attack and it all you needed was just something like this you know you know I I lived in the Los Angeles area for a number of years and um we we had I went through several earthquakes obviously living there for a few years but we had one big one I lived in the in the Burbank area at the time and it was a sizable one knocked out the power all of that sort of thing now my neighbor comes and knocks on my door and she goes do you have a flashlight she says I I I don't have any I don't have a flashlight I'm trying to see where this water is coming from and I'm going okay wait a second you don't have a flashlight no okay and you've got water coming from where she goes well I'm not really sure but I think it's somewhere and I'm like oh my gosh yeah you know so I realized that even people who are in if you live in earthquake country you should have an earthquake preparation kit if you live in tornado alley you should know what you're going to do where you're going to go if a tornado comes at you I grew up in tornado alley so I got you okay I understand that so that's part of what this kit is for it's small it's compact but it's got a lot of good stuff it a lot of good stuff and it's it's just it's like I said it's survival in a bottle yeah and also in every single kit is a 1 gallon Ziploc baggie the reason for that is if you need to use it as a water bottle open up that big baggie dump everything into it now you have your water bottle and everything else is still coralled yeah in a baggie and that baggie can also be used for gathering water yeah no I think this is great like I said I'm gonna do um kind of like an unboxing video that is gonna go through everything that's in it I'll do a brief little like how to use stuff um I think this one is great yeah I did I did get the urban one um I'm gonna be gifting this to a really good friend of mine her um her and I have conversations all the time about preparedness she is a cyber security professional so she's got that front covered but she was a little bit more concerned because uh this is the first time in a very long time that fires had actually like she had been threatened evacuation cause she lives she lives like a couple miles from the beach so they're not thinking about that and she was she it realized like she realized how unprepared she would have been if they would have told her to evacuate because she has three dogs and she has a son and his girlfriend and you know other people she has to care for and they had nothing really prepared so and even they would have to leave it would have been a lot of scrambling to get stuff so um I told her about this it wasn't like a surprise gift she knows I'm giving it to her haha um I told her that I was gonna grab one for her because uh I think it would give her a little bit of a peace of mind I mean I might have to show her how to use the compass but um she's not prior service but yeah just I think it's a phenomenal kit so um I guess my next question is uh I wanted to talk a little bit about the um the other two kits that you have because you you've already mentioned them but I want to talk about the back country kit in your thought process for some of the um differentiation cause I don't think people realize that not every kit not everything's cookie cutter right so I just wanted to dive into that a little bit more and discuss why it's not cookie cutter cutter other than the differences and let's say threats well like I said I live in North Idaho um around here everything is judged by what what hunting season it is is it deer season is it yeah is it pheasant season is it Turkey season what have you a lot of people around here go hunting I am surrounded by mountains on all four sides we have mountains to the North East west and south okay it is very common for folks to hop on an ATV or on a horse or hike and go into the mountains and things happen um I have one 1 guy bought 2 of the backcountry cash kits he put one in each of his Atvs he says that way he knows if he's out and he gets stuck he has a water filter straw so he can drink from any stream any puddle wherever he can drink and get fresh clear water that's not something that is as much of an issue if you live in an urban area you're going to be able to find water someplace you know at a store or someplace if you're in the middle of the Los Angeles National Forest however it might be an issue um another thing that's in there is a stainless steel spork um it's fabulous people people pick it up they go oh I wanted just for this it's stainless steel it's got a fork a spoon and a serrated edge so you have the knife it's got a lid lifter a bottle opener and a twist it's all in one and it's metal you can stand on that sucker not gonna hurt it you know um it's got like all of them it has a multi tool the multi tool people people come they buy just the multi tool from me because it's it's only about yay big but you open it up it's got a set of really nice pliers it's got three knives it's got a whole set of screwdrivers you know all that sort of stuff you never know when you're going to need something like that uh whether that's moving into a new apartment and you realize you've got to pull you know you got to pull a nail out of the wall or whether you've got to to tighten something um the emergency blanket of course again if you're stuck out someplace you know you may need to make a lean to you may you know it starts raining you need to get underneath something use it as a tarp um those kind of you know that kind of a scenario you don't have to be Bear Grylls you know and you know naked and afraid it can simply be as simple as you were going on a hike and you got caught in a rainstorm and you need to take you know you need to take take shelter um and there's things in there like the first aid kit it's not an extensive first aid kit but it's got it's got Band AIDS um antibiotic ointment um sanit you know um alcohol wipes you know all of this type of thing it's a nice little first aid kit there's also a sewing kit people go why if you've and that's also why it's in the Urban Kit when I worked in the office it never fails just as you're about to go into a meeting the button here pops off and you're like okay you know um and it's the same thing if you're out someplace and you get a tear if you or if you need to you need to you know sew something together a hole in in your a hole in your tent what have you a sewing kit can be very valuable um flashlight of course lighter of course um in the back country cash also there's what's called a 5 in 1 survival tool it's orange it's about yay big and it's an emergency whistle it's a compass on the side is a ferro rod which you can use to to strike to make fire cause you should always have more than one way to light a fire and then also it opens up and on the inside is a signal mirror and a waterproof compartment that's large enough to either hold matches or medicine so all of those things are together and it's on a lanyard so my we my 12 year old granddaughter carries one around her neck when she goes hiking um for the emergency whistle yeah uh you know kids get lost yeah no I do and around here we even have a Nexus thing that are that we get emergency alerts probably at least once every few days lost kid you know they wandered into a woods someplace and they say if you live anywhere near such and such look in your woods and see if you see if you see this kid wandering around um there's also a glow stick I love glow sticks I I'm I'm a die hard glow stick fan um you know you can use it for so many purposes you can use it for you know break it you can you can read by it if you're checking your map but you can also hang it in a tree so somebody can see where you're at and come find you um tissues obviously um cause everybody needs Kleenex um trying to think um what am I forgetting yeah it had a lot of really good stuff in there I remember oh I went back and forth like I don't know which one I should get one one of the things every single kit that I sell on top you're gonna find a single piece of hard candy yeah there's two reasons for that one is it is a peppermint which means it's good for aiding digestion um if you are stuck someplace you may be eating something that isn't your normal food yeah and you may need some help with digestion the other is um it's a nod to some friends of mine who are diabetic um if you ever run into somebody who's diabetic and they're having a diabetic episode taking that peppermint and putting it under their tongue will help them regulate their glucose level um so it can literally save a life um and worse comes to worse you know it's it's a great snack yeah I uh no I think I think this contains everything I just recently went and got certified as a medic because one of the things that I realized that I was missing was a capable first aid kit I a big proponent of having the first aid kit that you are capable of maintaining so if you are not trained medic you don't need a suture kit right I have friends who have these like crazy robust medical kits I'm like have you ever sutured anything in your life like why would you have a suture kit well I I do actually have one in my in my closet yeah and the reason for that is if I needed it hopefully I could hand it to somebody who does know how to use it yeah and that's a big piece of the community part cause maybe you're like hey I know that they're a medic I'm gonna have a suture kit just in case I have to give this to somebody else I have never I hopefully never will need to insert a nasal pharyngeal airway yeah but I took a class this last weekend and that's part of what we Learned was how to insert a nasal and how to insert the oral you know airways um because you know God forbid I actually need to do it and would I know how yeah now I do now I do and that's and that's really important that's why I say like if you're gonna have a first aid kit what's your plan because if your plan is to suture somebody that's a terrible plan if your plan is to give it to somebody that's a good plan I I just have friends who I'm like you know what maybe go out and get a better training uh so for me yeah I went through I went through uh medical school and uh well it was EMT class and then I have paramedic school at the end of the year but it was mostly because I realized that in my community in my network I don't have anybody who has anything outside of um basic first aid you know I have a I have a neighbor who has some t triple C or tactical casualty combat care uh training and that helps but I felt like it was something that I needed to do as well but that being said from my experience being on the mountain search and rescue team kind of seeing some of the things some of the potential um issues I guess you could say um the that we see subjects have and again I'm not having been on the team a terribly long time I'm still in training but from what I've Learned so far is that something as simple as this cause what we see is that a lot of people perish or are close to you know expiring because of exposure to the elements and lack of preparedness yeah so if it does start raining you have what you need to create a temporary shelter to get you out of the elements you have something to help you get that filtered water and that's pretty much all you need until you can call rescue between the emergency blanket the 6 feet of paracord the lighter and a few of few of those things you've got what you need for shelter water and fire yep and right there you can now survive to be rescued the next day yeah you know and then I mean yeah and then that gets into the communication piece which is can't you have the ability to contact you know emergency rescue I know iPhones now have a satellite feature where you can call for help even if you don't have cellular service I think that will eventually become a paid a paid thing but for someone like me who's an avid backpacker I also am a big bush crafter um I have a garment in reach and that's also something to consider if you're going into the back country but um urban comms is something else I wanted to touch on cause you and I well you are a ham certified operator yeah there's your ham radio back in my corner is my my ham radio setup I actually just bought a I'm going for my test here soon I just bought my uh my general license but um I for example for me until I get certified um I have an atack system set up where I can think they're calling it Civ TAC now um I have a save tax system sorry my dog got something to say about that I guess uh but for for general for generally so for people who are establishing a communication plan what um what is your best advice to them for someone who might not get into comms the way we are yeah I I actually give a class called what is ham radio um because you know first of all most people go oh does that still exist yeah actually does but you don't have to become a ham um around here in in my area we do lose power from time to time um so what we have been talking to people about is what's called G m R s radio stands for General Mobile Radio Service these are the radios you can buy at Best Buy or on Amazon and they they will reach 2 to 5 miles you know they're great for setting up neighborhood communications they're great for you know going from one side of the city to the other and around here we have whole neighborhoods now where everybody has gotten a G m R s radio and you can you get your license it's an FCC license you go on the FCC website no test you pay 35 bucks you fill out the form you get a call sign it's good for 10 years for everybody in your family so you your kids your grandparents everybody can use the same one it doesn't cost so it does cost very much it's good for 10 years and you can use those little handheld radios and around here for instance we have groups that we have what's called a net a net is a pre-planned get together on a radio um and we have for instance the Priest River is a town near me we have the Priest River G m R s net

it's Thursday evenings at 6: 1:11:11

30 everybody grabs their radio and just you know we all check in make sure count how many people are checking in and then it's things like okay does anybody have any news yeah my dog is missing you know it can be something as simple as that but it's also been very handy when people keep that radio in their charger and they keep it on all the time and about three months ago everybody's radio went off one afternoon and they said there's a fire that has started behind so and So's house we're evacuating him now 9 the fire department's been called but it's going to be 15 to 30 minutes before they can show up we're in a rural area yeah it can be 30 minutes before help shows up we had one guy who had a fire suppression system on his pickup truck he said I'm on my way another person said I'll get his horses and get them out of the way so the whole neighborhood jumped into action based on what they heard on those little radios yeah that's incredible yep we another we had another guy two months ago maybe um his wife got on and she said um she said I've called 9 1 1 but I think he's having a heart attack well one of the guys on the loop is a retired EMT he grabbed his stuff and he was there in five minutes he was there and was able to stabilize the guy until the medics got there so that kind of a radio is cheap you can get them for 30 bucks on Amazon yeah they're called G m R S yeah it's so valuable and it it's so easy to have those but you need the thing that I talk about on all of these radios is people go well I'm going to get a ham radio and I'm going to put it in the closet until you know if if something really bad happens I'll pull it out and use it it's gonna be nothing that but a paperweight cause you don't know how to use it um with with GMR s comes pre programmed you have channels like 1 through 1 through 40 okay and that's all that's on there everybody knows in your neighborhood turn to channel 12 yeah okay fine but you get a ham radio and it has frequencies yeah and it has tens of thousands of frequencies yeah and you turn on your ham radio and you go how come I don't hear anybody well because that's not a frequency used by anybody in your in your state you know yeah yeah and it's you know can you use that you can listen but you can't transmit there's I'm learning a lot yeah that the one thing that will get you arrested is deciding that you're going to get on the same frequency as your local police department and talk to them no no no don't do that yeah uh that's why you know you have to learn the etiquette you've got to learn the the physical aspects of of the radio and the etiquette of what's acceptable and what isn't but yeah I mean it's a lot of fun um most people are not not aware the fact that there are more than three and a half million licensed ham radio operators alone yeah uh you know that doesn't count all the G m R s folks that don't have a ham license they just they just use use it for local purposes so yeah it's a lot it's it can be a lot of fun it's a great hobby but the important thing is is in an emergency we have a small town near me called Blanchard Idaho about 5 years ago now they had a wildfire that approached the town and they were evacuating everybody they could as fast as they could but there's a lot of people there that have horses that have cattle things of that nature and they were like how do I get all my horses out you know and everybody was grabbing their radio and piling on top of each other nobody could hear anybody because they didn't know what etiquette was they they just grab that thing out of the closet and turned it on it was such a nightmare and we lost homes we lost we lost people um and afterwards the this the town came together and said we need to know how to do this right yeah so they now have what's known as the Blanchard Radio Group and they practice they've got over 150 families that now regularly check touch base with each other the other part of that was is that the county realized the crisis that could that could happen um so our county emergency management office is it's the bomb I mean these guys have it together now uh other counties are are coming in and finding out how we do it our county our county emergency management uh leader said okay if you have a large stock trailer horse trailer whatever and you're willing to help with evacuations we want your contact information we will contact you and let you know where to go and what to do so they coordinate it now right so when we have a major fire all of the people willing to volunteer go to a certain place I'm part of a group that we go over and we open up a local Rodeo ground and large animals can be brought there and we can corral them we keep track of them we track you know everything we have the veterinarian on staff the whole bit we're organized now um we have a group that's called 7B Cares and the 7B is the prefix on our license plate so it means our county we have a group of I think it's 11 churches that in the event of an emergency they will open up as shelters they provide food shelter some of them will also accept animals like dogs cats things like that so we're organized yeah emergency happens he makes a couple phone calls everything starts happening not all counties are that way no but they could be yeah they could be and that is that is driven by the individuals it means that you got to get off your duff and volunteer yeah um and so that's that's something I I talk about in my single person's guide is find out what organizations are in your area and volunteer I guarantee you there are food kitchens there are emergency operation centers there are cert teams that are begging for volunteers they're always in need of another set of hands be the be that person that also puts you on the front line of communications you will hear about things before other people do yeah I'm a I'm an instructor for our cert class out here we've done a lot of youth cert which was awesome I go in and I talk about the I'm a terrorism liaison officer so I talk about identifying threats and noticing you know what to do in the event that you know this happens especially for youth it's like you know we want you on a certain side of the line kind of thing but um I've definitely seen uh less adults volunteer so it would be nice especially since um you know it's California we have all sorts of weather out here but um yeah thank you so yeah around here around here we're the other end of it we have a lot of senior citizens that volunteer oh yeah that's I see that with the with the sheriff's department the sheriff's department has a lot of um you know retirees they just want something to do and they wanna give back to the community so they volunteer with the sheriffs who host the cert um a couple of the other instructors are um you know retired military some of them retired law enforcement um on the search and rescue team we have like retired emergency room doctors um so one thing I I should mention to on my website I have a tab that says blog and I would encourage you to take a look at some of the articles I have there um there's ones there about evacuations about how to prepare for evacuations there's one there also that's called how to talk to your kids about preparedness without freaking them out yeah oh that's a big one yeah you know and there's ref there's suggestions there of of books and and other things uh to get your kids involved without terrorizing them yeah yeah getting paranoid yeah but there's also was there about you know how to evacuate with your pets you know so I would encourage you to take a look at the blog page um there's you know number of things there um that people may find useful there's some links in there to to articles and and all for for people to dig a little deeper yeah I will leave a link to that in the video description along with a link to everything that we talked about both of your books um I'll leave a link to all three of the um survival in a bottle I have the EDC so I'll leave a link to that as well um I wanted to thank you for being here I uh really appreciate what you're doing I look forward to the reviews of these things I had nothing but positive things to say about this but before we wrap up I wanted to give you the opportunity if there's anything else that um you wanted to talk about or potentially convey to our listeners who are all you know in the preparedness space yeah well I mean I guess the the big thing that the people ask me a lot of times is how do I find other people who are like minded how do I find other people who who are preppers you know and and that's that's a good question I mean you know you could try putting it you know add in the paper hi looking for other preppers yeah I wouldn't suggest that um when I moved up here to Idaho little over 10 years ago I knew nobody um and in fact here I'm not exactly the shiest person in the world um but what I did is I started looking for things such as gardening clubs and you know like I said calling and saying do you have a cert team can I volunteer um talk to your neighbors get to know your neighbors um I bet my neighbors because their cows got loose came down my my driveway it's not a bad way to meet them yeah but I went to county extension go to the county extension office and find out find out they've got canning classes and they've got you know I made 1 to 1 on how to butcher a pig I don't have pigs never butchered them probably won't but I knew that there would be people there that would be like minded that they're looking at things such as farmed a table um people who are looking at food preparation and food storage um I I I actually saw an ad in one of the local the local papers it said we're having a group that's getting together to talk about beekeeping and gardening I went bingo there's my people yeah so that I would say look for people that may not live next door to you but are like minded start there and then build your community from there agreed no the 100% I'm actually working on putting together a group out in my community as well cause I I think there's more of us I just think that we're all hidden away so but I'm starting it from like a who wants to learn about how to put security cameras on your house and teaching that class I'm hoping will bring um like minded individuals but um yeah neighborhood watches uh a lot of lot of sheriff's departments support neighborhood watches and they'll even come out if you get a group of people together they'll come out and talk to you about lowering crime rates which improves your insurance rates yeah you know things like that yeah no agreed thank you so much for being here I know you and I I mean our first call we were on the phone for like an hour just talking about this stuff you know once you find somebody who who knows about it for me I'm always trying to learn so it's like me too yeah so it's like let's have this conversation I'm sure there's something that we could both take away from this but thank you so much I look forward to having you on again because I definitely wanna talk about some specific areas of preparedness but I thought this would be a good welcome to the podcast episode one thing I'd love to talk to you about in the future uh class that I'm starting to give is preparedness for seniors oh yeah that that would be see I live in a retirement community um where I'm at in wine country yeah so I think that's a big one as well um yeah thank you so much um you're welcome again thank you for being here