Expert Panel Q&A – Epi-3815

[Music] Well, hi folks, this is Jack Spirco with another edition of the Sir Bommel podcast. There's always one man's view of the changing world, the changing times. And the things we can all do to live a better life of times get tough or even if they don't. Today is Thursday, March the 12th, 2000 in 26. This is the expert panel show of the week, Episode 3815. It's March the 12th, so a very special happy birthday to my wonderful wife who has somehow managed to put up with me for 29 freaking years now. Anyway, what are we going to talk about today? Well, we are going to talk about a bunch of stuff with the expert panel. Interesting thing to come out of the Liberty Report with Dr. Paul and Dan McAdams in a Christopher C. St. St. at the sober. There was a lot of things I expected to hear about today, given what's going on in the place they occupy in the Liberty space. This is really interesting one though. And I'm going to hear it with you because I didn't pre-screen this one at all. Is the draft of form of modern slavery. Dr. Paul and Dan McAdams, we'll talk about that. I don't know about how maybe it's a form of fractional slavery or maybe indentured served to because it does come with an end date. It doesn't make it slavery any less though. But I'm going to just ask a question when we're done with hearing them that applies to things in your life that you may not think apply to you because you're too old for the draft, you're a woman and you ain't going to go if they draft you're anything like that. Like, you're about to be so going on in your life that really kind of fits this whole fractional slavery or indentured servitude thing in your life. You don't even realize it. Some of you already know what I'm talking about. Patrick Roorman, we'll talk about choosing an EDC knife and choosing a vehicle knife. And I haven't listed to this one a fool yet either, but I have a based on the question I have a suggestion for this individual with the vehicle knife thing wanting a do-all thing when you have plenty in your room, room in your vehicle for more than one thing. Annie McCann will talk about recovering from an ACL injury and he's got a few links for you that are in the show notes today. And I've added one. I'll talk about it when we get there. Then Mike Malita will talk about frugal gun purchases that are great values. I might have an add-on there here or there. Ryan Steve will talk about life expectancy of a modern inverter for off-grid use. Like how long is that? It's one of the more expensive components in the system. And how long is it going to last? Then Doc Moons will talk about dealing with elbow tendinitis. And my add-on for Andy segment, I'm just going to say apply to that one as well. Jean Pogliano has a two for fours. Portable mortgages and the economic impacts of the conflict in Iran. That'll be an interesting one. And then I have one. It'll be very short segment for me today. I actually promise to do a segment on stalking pawns and I'm going to do that next week because the guy did get back to me for me yesterday and he gave me all the details and I'm like that's going to take some research to do right and to do it in a way that becomes a formula so that if you don't have his situation you can still fare what you would do. So I'm going to go totally different way today. I've been doing some research trying to find places on Google maps and satellite imagery from the Aguon River Valley in Honduras where I served in 1992 in the last phase of a seven year operation by a thing called joint task force Bravo operation for this Kaminos. That's brought up a lot of memories. I get a show about it in like the second year of this podcast. It wasn't even a full two years yet. It was 190 something was the episode. Then I ran it in 2017 as a rewind and I told that story and I have been digging into the operation and learning more about it because I didn't know the totality of what we were doing. I knew what we did at the end, right? It actually started in 1985 and I've been using a combination of Gemini and Google maps and Earth to find certain locations that I don't have names for but I know I was at. It's dug up a lot of memories and in asking about it I wanted to know were there any accounts, public accounts of life in these situations and the I came back and said the best public record available of these types of operations in Central America in the 1980s and early 90s is by a guy named Jack Spirka. So that was in my account. It didn't even know it was talking to me and I'm like oh wow that's my podcast and I started thinking about this and realized like maybe that shouldn't be the case. There's a lot of people that did a lot of missions like this around the world and so I have a piece today at the end. I'm going to ask for people in this audience that were on deployments like that or know somebody to maybe refer them to me. I want to do some interviews. I want to document long-term deployed non-combat missions that left something lasting in the world because there's a lot of them. When I asked for a list from AI it was overwhelming how many that I had no idea it happened and so I'll say more about that when we get to my segment but I think that some of those stories it'd be interesting to have at least a few of those stories told because especially right now when you say military everybody thinks of blowing shit up and make no mistake about it without blowing shit up without the need to defend without the need for offense as well without the need for weaponry without the point of the spear then you don't have a military but it's not the only part of the spear and it's not the only part of even the blade on the spear in the tip. Anyway with that let's go ahead and get on into it. I do want to real quick tell you about our item of the day today. I mentioned it yesterday and then I forgot to add it to the show notes and I'm like well help why don't you run it as an item of the day today because it's really cool. It is the E-Tech City laser grip digital laser temperature gun it's a really fancy way of saying it is a thermometer but it is a unique thermometer. You don't touch it to something you don't stick it into something it's like a little ray gun and it shoots a little red laser beam thing and you shoot it at a thing and then it bounces back into the receiver and it says this is the temperature of the thing and it can be used in so many ways. I talked about using it yesterday to find microclimates. Those of you that do things like yogurt making and cheese making can be instant surface temperature. I use it to determine how much water is in my poly tank so that I catch rain water from instead of climbing up and sticking a stick in it or something like that. I can literally shine that laser on the side of the tank and I start going down the tank and when the temperature abruptly drops that's the water level. You can use it to check the temperature of a pan if you want to get to a certain temperature before you throw your food in it. You can check to see how well is your air conditioner working. How much is it dropping the temperature from the ambient temperature and from the outside temperature. I actually tested this device. You're probably thinking this is going to be really expensive. 18 bucks right now. 18 bucks. I had a AC tech in my home one time checking my AC. He pulls out a fluke version of this and you guys know I used to work for fluke and that caught my attention. I said what is one of those costs? He's like they're really expensive and he gave me the number. I don't remember but it was a it was pretty damn expensive and like 200 bucks or something like that. So I point in mind right next to where he was pointing his and we were off by a degree and he said how much is that thing costing. I'm like 20 25 bucks spent on what day of the week it is and he said I would never spend my own money on one of these if that's that accurate. So that tells you something about the accuracy of this device. You could check it out. It'll be a link in today's show notes. It'll be at teespaz.com and on the website. Remember you can always help us out by doing your online shop and starting where teespaz.com and if you have any uses that you use a laser digital temperature gun for I'd love to hear about them. I'm going to say there's probably like maybe there's not a whole show in that but there's probably like we could probably put 10 tools together and all the very uses of them if people don't think of and make a whole episode on things you can do with tools you already have that you didn't know you could do that would be cool or things you can add to your tools kit for you know under 50 bucks in this case under 20 bucks and here's all the things that it can do that you didn't know that it could do. All right with that though let's dive on into let's hear from Dr. Ron Paul and Damick Adams on the question of is the draft an actual form of slavery? We're talking about something that makes me nervous and that is the that is the draft and I remember spending but practically a year on this in Washington dry and to prevent registration to return in 1980 because it had been suspended you know as the Vietnam War was ending so why was I so excited and determined to participate in that debate and it's occurring once again because I think it's the issue of cell phone worship and most most people know they know about the themselves of their boss and they should be responsible for themselves it's a very important issue but cell phone worship also implies that the government doesn't know you if they want to government us you're enslaved there's lots of lots of variations on total slavery or no slavery or what but I see it as seen is called a person of slave if they can draft you up, send you off to a war that you don't want and kill people by the thousands or hundreds of thousands and it's all because it is assumed and be patriotic for a minority to allow the government to treat their people as slaves rather than individuals who can make up their own mind. Now put this first clip up, this is on antiwar.com, this is Dr. Paul pointed out, US military threats and actions escalate. A coalition calls for ending preparations for a military draft. A diverse coalition is mobilizing opposition to a recently passed federal law that seeks to step up preparations for and readiness to activate a military draft. The new law authorizes the federal selective service system to begin using automated involuntary registration to increase the number of individuals currently listed in the agency's database of potential draftees. Now I got an email Dr. Paul from a good friend Eric Garis over at antiwar.com a few days ago and he brought this to my attention. He said there's a lot of groups signing on to a letter, this coalition letter about this and of course I know this is near and dear to your heart so I made sure to put us on it. But thanks to Eric and the people over there for bringing the attention. Now here's a little bit from that letter and you're not going to be surprised by this part if you go that next clip. Statement opposing the automatic registration of individuals for possible military draft. The organizations listed below oppose the recent change in federal law. Fared in the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. It's always in the NDAA isn't it? That's for sure. That's because it's a must pass bill. So they put the garbage in there. So they say it'll result in selective service system trying to automatically force men young men 18 through 25 for a future draft. And they make the argument in this letter. It won't produce accurate or complete list of potential draftees, et cetera, et cetera. Now go to the next one. The change to automatic registration was enacted with no hearings, no debate and no budget review. There's no reason to think a list constructed from other databases compiled for entirely unrelated purposes will be any more fit for the purpose than the current self registration. So no debate. No, nothing. No, no, no automatic. Unlike past US conflicts, the Iran attack is opposed by most Americans. Now you look at the support for these different ones. World War II, obviously 97%. Everyone was for Afghanistan very popular. First person golf or very popular down and down and down. We go at the very bottom of the barrel. Dr. Paul is the Iran war less than half 41% of the poster on X said the Iran war has the lowest level of public support at the beginning of any American war ever. Extremely unpopular yet they still kind of kind of claim the right to come get young kids and to force them to go into it. So I'm not going to even comment on the public opinions again. I only want to comment on the concept of the draft being a form of slavery and self ownership and how that applies. I think we have to modify the term slavery to be serious in our discussion of it. That doesn't mean it's not true. It just means it might require a modifier. And what I would call it is maybe fractional slavery or temporary slavery or maybe the right term historically speaking would be indentured served it to. And what I mean by that is it ends. Right now there's another thing about the military. A lot of people don't know. It's sort of ends. Whether you joined voluntarily or not, whether you're drafted or you joined, there are some small parts of the uniform code of military justice that depending on what actions you take do in fact apply to you for the rest of your life and do not apply to anybody else. Though you kind of have to go out of your way for that to matter in most instances. So we'll let that part of it go. But it is true. But what I mean by fractional or indentured is for instance my grandfather and at least two my great uncles that I can think of and my grandfather and the other side enlisted before the war started. But my grandfather on my dad's side and two my great uncles on that side. I know we're drafted into World War II. One of my uncles ended up in Italy in that conflict. My grandfather actually ended up in Panama where I ended up which was kind of interesting. He was not drafted into the Navy and that's just where they sent him. And my other great uncle ended up in the Pacific and my grandfather who wasn't drafted though ended up in the Pacific as an intelligence officer. But all that said by point is when the war was over like almost all draftees and even some in list days they were told we don't need you anymore and they were sent home. And so their service term I think my grandfather was it by the time he got drafted and all he was total a list was a little over three years. So three years of his life they took but then they sent him home and he pretty much did whatever the F he wanted for the rest of his life. You can't call him a slave at that point in relation to the draft even though he was drafted. So it actually historically fits more the term of indentured servitude which is another not and maybe a nice way or a soft way of saying temporary slave. I mean you can't leave you can't not go and they certainly will punish you if you don't obey I don't know how it's not a form of slavery or again at least indentured servitude. But then I have a question for you. So what's taxation which applies to you for your entire life on everything you own all the money you spend a lot of the property as you own forever. What is taxation if it's not a form of I think the term there would be fractional slavery. If you pay if we look all in at all taxes you pay to all government local state city county federal property taxes prop pass through property taxes on a renter because you're the one paying that not your landlord income taxes the Social Security Tax that you never get back. The Social Security Tax that you cause your employee to employer to have to pay that burdens your cost to your employer and results in you getting paid less when you added all together if let's say your total tax burden throughout the majority of your life is 35% without getting you know we're not going hyperbolic at all here we're not going to say something like 60% or 50% 35. Anybody argues with that is full of shit or never made any money and never owned anything and never spend any money right like let's say you that's your burden tax rate across the average of your years is 35% how does the government then not own 35% of your life. Well they they provide services to you with that money so if I have a slave and I make him work on my farm and he produces food that I sell and I take some portion of that food and I feed him with it and I take some portion of the money that I make on his labor and I built him a little house to live in and I let him live in there and I buy him some clothes is that not a slave still what's the difference well the difference is you have to care for yourself and you're allowed to make as much money as you want and you're master actually a part of the money. Master actually appreciates it when you make even more money I should say your masters you don't think that's true that's fine go ahead and be a blind slave that's the only thing worse than just being a tax life moving on let's talk about Edus EDC and vehicle knives with Patrick Roman. Patrick here with MT knives coming to you today with today's expert counsel segment of the week today's question comes from Brandon he says I'm looking for two knives and EDC knife and another from traveling in my vehicle what style and types do you recommend. And also I would like to carry a knife daily I currently carry a folding razor blade style knife I would like to have a stronger blade and wondering pros and cons of folding compared to a full tang knife. I would also like a larger knife to have in my vehicle for breaking down fish or game bones as well as being used to use for splitting kindling for fire is there is there recommended metal for being hard enough not to mushroom if a mallet is used on it so kind of locked and packed there. I'll start off by saying like recommendations everybody's going to have a different recommendation and I hate it when people give recommendations of things that they don't personally do or would do as far as an EDC knife as you know I'm a huge fan of a neck knife carry style knife like the Genesis or custom made knife just the ease of ability the ease of the ease of access the just it's always there when you need it you're not going to forget it in your other pants or not be able to get to it when you're sitting down or you know whatever any type of pocket carry belt carry any other carry is nowhere near as accessible as a neck knife and it's just my preferred method of carry so I'd recommend getting something like the Genesis or not. Or nice custom neck knife the key to it is is you want you want your knife to have good retention because you know a lot of people are concerned about. carrying a knife around their neck or one of it falls out what if this what if that and it's like there's always a possibility no matter what you know there's pocket knives come open and cut people when they stick their hand in their pocket or you know whatever there's always going to be some danger some level of danger with having a knife and getting cut by it so be sure that you have a good quality sheath and with the sheath that I now have on the genesis they have adjustable retention so you can dial that thing in as tight as you want or as loose as you feel comfortable with I set the retention on them where I would probably carry it I try to keep it about seven to twelve pounds of pull that's going to be secure enough that like if you jump down off a sudden the shock of you hitting the ground is not going to dislodge that knife from the sheath I've done a lot of different testing with my neck knives to make sure that they're secure but at the end of the day you're responsible for your own safety you got to make sure that it's secure you got to be careful when you pull it out you know you don't want to cut yourself or injure yourself so number one my best like recommendation for EDC knife is some sort of neck knife neck carry knife so and then as far as like one to have in your vehicle so what got me into knife making a long time ago was bushcraft survival type situations and like I was into learning about bushcrafting building shelters splitting fire wood all that kind of stuff and you really need there's a lot to be said about having the right tool for the right job and anytime a tool is good for anything it's not going to excel in it you know if it's good for everything it's not going to excel in one task so for example play knife you want a play knife to be nice and thin flexible sharp you're not going to baton wood with a play knife on the other hand a big bushcraft knife that's going to be good for splitting wood and stuff like that is going to make a lousy filet knife so you know there's really a lot to be said about having the right tool for the right job and sometimes the right tool for processing firewood would be an axe and a like a saw you know something that you could break the wood down into manageable pieces and split it so I say I like to say I don't personally carry a big knife most of the time I've got a knife that I call the Ranger it's a Bob Lovelace drop point hunter style knife and you know if you're watching on YouTube this is here is one that I bought from another maker actually my mentor who trained me on how to do the lovelace style knives nice stack handle beautiful blade I need to clean it up but I love this knife I've used it on deer and different things but I don't carry it every day and I don't keep it in my vehicle just because it's a knife that's really important to me I don't want to lose it or have something happen to it so it's kind of a safe queen somewhat but I wouldn't hesitate to have it in a knife like that in my vehicle there's lots of other options so this here particular knife I got from a friend and it's a I believe it's a bark river bark river knives like people have different opinions of these companies but they for the money like they're not a bad knife this one's been personally sharpened by guy in Japan just as a phenomenal job of a convex edge it's really good for like bushcraft style work I was really happy to get this knife because it was sharpened by virtue vise on YouTube you could check out his channel he's really passionate about sharpening and just this edge I didn't feel like felt extremely sharp but it performs really well especially in like batoning wood splitting wood that kind of stuff so I've had some fun with that knife to it's bushcrafting type stuff this one here is a f1 what is it? Falcon but there's there's a ton of different like bushcrafting options what's the other LT right knives I think makes a lot of like bushcraft style knives so there's a lot of different steels used and you know you can have a homogenous blade that is heat treated differentially so what they'll do sometimes like a high carbon blade the spine of the knife will actually be soft and the edge is hardened I wouldn't recommend a knife like that if you're gonna pound on it and beat it with a mallet and stuff because it's going to mushroom it's gonna deform that edge or could depending on how soft the spine is this is not a differentially heat treated knife in fact I believe it's like a sandmite style steel and then a lot of it too is your thickness if you're gonna be batoning wood you want a knife that has a pretty thick spine for two reasons one for the strength but two you know to split wood the thicker it is the more splitting action you get going if the knife is real thin it's not really gonna split the wood so but the problem is like this thing is heavy I don't know the weight on this but it's not light and so that's not a big deal especially if you're gonna be out in the bush for a few days or whatever and you're carrying it on your belt but I like to be light and mobile the more gear you carry the more it weighs down the more it slows you down so anyways those are a few recommendations I'm really gonna say a lot of it's just gonna be trial and area personal preference one thing I would say is when it comes to using a knife a lot of times people buy something that looks cool maybe it's got a lot of sharp corners or rough edges and when it comes down to actually using it you're gonna find that's gonna put hot spots on your hand especially if you're using it for prolonged times so I would look for something that has a good purchase good gripping handle but doesn't have a lot of sharp edges that may cause hot spots this handle here is nice the loveless drop point hunter kind of coat bottle shaped handles I really like this one here bark ribbers same it's a feels good in your hand you can really you know fish grip it and put a lot of work behind the edge and not cause hot spots if you do happen to have a knife that's giving you hot spots it has sharp edges I would not at all hesitate to taking it to a a sander or you know even just by hand with some coarse grit sandpaper and knock those sharp edges off and then sand it down finer a lot of times you're gonna find people that do a lot of work with their knives it's not uncommon for them to make modifications to the knife itself but a good design shouldn't need modified I'm currently working on a bird and trout knife it's not gonna necessarily be a knife that would be good for batoning however it would be good for processing fish and small game I'm finishing up trying to get my shot finished up and we're gonna be starting on a limited edition run of bird and trout knives so that might be another knife that would be good for your EDC or carrying in your vehicle especially if you're gonna be out fishing hunting processing game so check that out as well anyways I appreciate your question Brandon I hope this is helpful hopefully it kind of answered your question in a way that you find helpful if you have other questions feel free to shoot them to me Patrick MTknife.net and I'd love to answer them for you thanks again this has been Patrick Romer with MTknife stay sharp so I have a couple real quick add-ons and then we'll move on to our next segment from Annie McCann but number one I'm glad Patrick said what he did about like right tool right job when you if you're gonna go out in the woods and you can only carry so much I totally get carrying a really big heavy-bladed knife that can multitask into you know cutting down small trees splitting kindling and all that and to maybe not have to carry an axe or something or a hatchet or something that's more suited toward that when you tell me you want to for your truck right even if it's like a standard cab pickup truck with a seat that pulls forward a little area behind in the back which very few people drive those anymore by the way when you say truck there's a lot of space to carry a lot of shit in there and I would rather a person if you want a split and Wooden kindling have a tool made to do that than use a tool that's not really made to do that But can do that to do that whether you have a big heavy blade in knife or not doesn't really matter to me in that instance You know you carry Now I also do understand if you like I want this knife. I want to keep it in my truck It'll be there in my truck, but if I need to grab my knife and leave my truck for some reason I want it to do all the things. Okay, that's fine and I would tell you that you know Even just your standard issue usmc k bar will do a lot of what you're asking for bad There they there I think there's a demand for these knives that's not based on need and it's based on YouTube Every knife maker that comes out with some big knife puts us through some Ungodly amount of torture tests on YouTube today and that's been going on since about 2006 little rep cold steel really kind of started that whole Thing and then everybody was doing it and how many degrees can I bend the knife before it breaks and then how many degrees can I bend it Where it'll still go back and not stay bent and all this other like do you treat your knife that way? I mean it's great that these tools can be really tough and all but generally the ones that they try to sell on that Are not really high in knives. They don't really perform that great. They just don't break and so yeah Take that for what you want but if you just wanted a workhorse of a knife that's proven for decades upon decades again I'm a big fan of the k bar for for that type of of knife It's it's proven in so many ways that I like it even though it's not super expensive It's not super high-end. It's a workhorse. It is what it is, but I'd rather you have a good knife or three in your truck Plus a good saw and a good hatchet if you're worried about those things, but that's just me and Then you can always take that workhorse knife if that's all you can carry with you when you need to take it out of your truck But you also have the other things if they're available which most of the time where I go my vehicles not that far away unless it's hiking or something like that All right, so next up. Let's talk about a knee injury from a long time ago that's still causing problems with Andy McCann Hello and good morning. This is Andy McCann coming to you from Woodstock, Georgia where I own CrossFit garage So the question comes from Alex and yes, man here. I go. I'm gonna read it But you know reading out loud as my nemesis all right Alex says For Andy McCann I am 45 and tore my ACL about four years ago I can walk normally but have occasionally one to two times a year hyper extend that knee What are some exercises I can do what what I can add daily to my routine? Distraint in my knee beyond brisk walking on Elevation and squats. Okay, so while I can't read that out loud I can't tell you that I actually had very similar happen. I tore them in niscus in my knee And so I put myself in a couple other members at my gym onto this guy He goes by the name the knees overtoe guy or you can look him up online and I'll link these over to Jack But it's a TG athletic group or athletic truth group so it's a TG online coaching.com and Basically his whole thing is I was a basketball player blew up my knees They said you'll never play again. He said screw that. Let me figure it out So he's made a thing on just fixing people's knees and while it did not work great on the miniscus I still do some of his exercises and I have got a good good replies good stories or whatever From the members that have used this that had MCL or ACL tears If you go to YouTube you can pretty much see everything he's gotten get it for free So it's the knees overtoe guy. That's what he's called. He's got almost two million subscribers and He's got a lot of success so I would go there I would actually also just pay for the download So he's gonna give you a document and so say do these things. I did him for a very long time. I'm gonna describe him to you But I'm that's the route I would go. I would trust an expert. I would hire him I'd pay to 50 bucks to see the information I don't think you need a one-on-one coach. Nobody else did of course. I was there in the gym to help everybody But I had a weekly structure. I'm gonna read through some of the things that I did and had the other guys doing too so This was a like three times a week You wouldn't do it all the time But you would work it into it either after the workout or before the workout or whatever So it was things like Well, actually let me just go with this probably the biggest most impactful thing was Walking backwards while pulling a sled so for whatever reason that motion where you weren't really moving the knee too fast Or too far past the bend point was great and then you had a lot of Stress as you pushed away that worked great the other one was a super elongated Thamson stretch where your knee is jacked way out over your toe so super low and Here's the reason for that you want to train into the things that you want So if you want a super flexible knee or strength or stability then do the things that build that up so for example this way out over your knee Lunge and then I would hold on to a rig or bar and then help myself get out of that so it's creating a lot more stability in this longer movement or Movement pattern the mobility that I want the other thing you could do so anytime you want stability in a piece Operate it individually so for example if I was to get on a machine and do a bench press Let's say I could bench 200 pounds now I take that away and I go to a bar with just plates on the side I'm probably going to bench press 135 is gonna drop significantly because I have more degrees of freedom If I drop that then again to dumbbells I'm probably gonna be like 240 pound dumbbells trying to press those things up It's just way harder when you've got degrees of freedom and you're gonna notice the impact in those Muscle areas of joint areas with those muscles a whole lot more because they have to stabilize so for you saying I'm looking for more stabilization I would do some of these stretches and movements. He's got go ahead and pay him the money and just get it done And then the other is to add in One-legged things so you could do a single-legged dumbbell Deadlift you could do a get a bosu ball flip it over and then like try to balance on that going down Obviously don't do anything dumb where you're gonna hurt yourself So if you feel very unstable make sure you're holding on to a bar or the wall or you know a break piece or something to give you support So you don't do something stupid. So rule number one is always show up to the thing that you want to do rule number two is Don't do anything stupid today to prevent you from showing up tomorrow So be smart about it, but the stability is going to come in the working that capacity not avoiding it Avoiding that capacity is just gonna make it worse over time So you want to do something to build it up what that something is? I don't know you're gonna have to discover it. I don't know exactly what the problem is that the the Solution probably is going to look the same despite the problem Though you're going to want to narrow it down and I do remember when I bought his System that there were some things that I picked and took apart so I didn't do all of the stuff But I did do a lot of it. Let me go ahead and tell you some of those things So there's various types of calf raises and toe raises. There's knee over toe calf raises There's something he calls the Patrick step. There's the ATG split squat So he's got specific names for these if you look them up You would you know go through it's just I can't describe you new over the internet, but you can buy his thing He's got something called the elephant walk then an L-sit. I didn't really do the L-sits It wasn't something that I needed on my core So I didn't do that and the couch stretch couch stretches basically think put your toe on the edge of the couch And then put your knee on the ground so you've got your thigh like really stretched out so it looked like that But the one thing that I still do is that I think he's gonna call it the Patrick step so basically it's a huge lunge You're gonna try to get all the way down to touch your knee to the ground with your ball of your foot staying on the ground And then stand back up out of that I have to use the rig I hold on to two big metal poles to help me get down and up. I still have a hard time with it But I continue to train it so you this is a great question You don't have to suffer long term usually there is a way out of it How you just sign up to a training regimen and then do it every day, right? So this guy again is the knees over toe guy Let me see if I can find his actual name for you All right, looks like his name is Ben and in doing so I found he's got a whole lot more programs now That makes sense because it's been a while so he's got the ATG zero the neat ability zero the Back to ability zero the ankle mobility zero the shin ability and Look at that. He's moving the shoulder ability So I would check those out and if you have any questions or want to go back and forth simply email me or or give me a text My information is all over my website crossfit garage.com and of course you can listen to more episodes like this on fitness food and Finance for mostly cover fitness and food, but we need to go into finance some as you guys some of you guys know I'm a landlord and do other stuff so yeah when you have a broad topic like that you can talk about anything So it gives you the world is your oyster. All right guys you take care Okay, and I do have the three links the nandy sent one two that guys website one two is YouTube and one two The sled the power sled for pulling Exercise did is on Amazon so they're all right under there. There's a fourth link. It's for me It's for dr. Christopher's complete tissue and bone ointment Which is primarily based on confrey with a bunch of other things in it and I think this might help the person doing this some It I Years ago tore my MCL and LCL in the same knee on opposite sides It was a pretty serious injury. Most people would have had surgery for it I am fully recovered from that injury though Maybe not all injuries I've ever had and confrey was a huge part of that Any orthopedic surgeon that would have looked at that would have said, "Disneyed surgery," and I didn't do it, and I am fine, and I avoided very expensive, very painful, and very long recovery surgery by using that and doing some other things. But the one thing I'll tell you about Comfrey in that type of situation is it is best used immediately at the time of the injury while the body's recovering. The reason it may work with something chronic, though, is while you're going through training to rebuild your strength in it, you're creating the micro-terrorism, things like that, in the muscles that support around it, and I believe it can help age and recovery time. And if you're as you're training, if you're causing any additional injury, even small, imperceptible injury, that you would not notice until the totality added up, I think it might help. And as cheap as it is, and the fact that there's zero risk or side effects to it makes it worth doing. If you prefer to make your own comfort appointment, there's a thousand YouTube videos on how to do that, especially if you have comfort all over your house, we make it, but we still rely on this because there's other things in it, and sometimes I don't want to make it. Just do me one. All right, moving on, let's talk with Mike Mollito on frugal guns that are great values. Hello, TSP. Michael here to answer your gun-related questions for the expert counsel. I'm sure Jack will chime in on this, because for this one, the challenge is probably going to be to keep it succinct and in the time limit Jack likes. This question is from Darryl. What are some good frugal gun options and things to consider? Obviously, the major consideration is what are you going to use it for? It's not really frugal for you if you buy a gun you're never going to use. Are you talking about investments? Are you just talking about a good budget battery? Also, what's frugal for you? It may not be frugal for somebody else. But I think I get the spirit of this question. A couple of real good easy recommendations. A Ruger 1022, I mean, it's hard to beat the value of a Ruger 1022. They're fantastic. They've been around for decades. They won kind of the best 22 ever made. I think Jack might say the Marla Model 60, or I think he's got a bolt-backed Marlombo. They don't like those anymore. Ruger 1022 is a fantastic, fun, easy to shoot, easy to learn on. I don't think you'd ever regret having one. I've got one that I've had since I was a boy. I was just shooting it yesterday, day by Monday. I was just shooting it this week and I shoot a lot and I think still going. Ruger 1022, another one, Maverick 88. Is it the best shotgun on the planet? No, but it's a really good American made. Yeah, they are made in America. They're not some Turkish clone. American made pump shotgun. There's a bunch of different configurations based on what you want to make them in 12 or 20 age. This is not the place to have that debate or we'll really go over our time. But I think on a good basic battery, a good pump shotgun should be part of that. And a Maverick 88, if you're talking about frugal, that's like the epitome of frugal guns. Handgun is a little bit more difficult. The days of cheap surplus like cold war military firearms are kind of behind us for the most part. There are some decent values to be had in police trade-ins. So if you're looking for a decent gun that maybe a little bit cheaper than you would pay full brand new, you look for police trade-ins. And if you're not real picky, a lot of those on the market right now. They stick with 9mm if you're talking about frugal because you have to buy ammo and pretty soon also the ammo will override if you get some SOTARIC caliber or some like 357 sig, which I like that caliber. But if you're talking about frugal, that's not the one to shoot. If you're looking for a new in the box gun that's a fantastic value. It's been around a while that I know works. Is the Smith & Wesson SD9VE kind of their budget polymer striker fire, but it's made in America. They've been around quite a while, at least over a decade since I got my first one. There are no frills, but they're a workhorse. They're affordable. They're a good fighting handgun. They're a good value. So if I'm throwing the PSA daggers looking for a cheap budget handgun, I've heard varying things about their reliability, but if it's not a defensive gun, it's just for a shooting handgun. I would recommend that. And whether it's for defense or not, looking for a good AR to round out that battery, it's harder to beat PSA. Palmetto St. Armory, they do daily deals all the time. Look for a good M4's clone 16 inch, run of the mill, wait till one, you know, that's your favorite color comes as a daily deal. They're crazy, affordable, fantastic values. Okay, that's a good broad spectrum thing. I'm going to get a little bit more to this gentleman's question. It's a little bit more specific. So I wanted to answer a broad spectrum first. Oh, and I almost forgot. 22 handgun, hit a hairdresser, a drug rider, or now they make the Ruger Wranglers, little 22 single action, 22 long rifle. You want just a fun to shoot, affordable, 22 handgun. Those are fantastic choices. He says considering first gun options, but don't know entirely what to look for. I would like an affordable rifle that I can have fun shooting quietly in the backyard. Okay, well, this is pretty much, I don't know what you mean by quiet, but the pressors are not affordable. Even though they got rid of the tax stamp, you're looking at several hundred dollars for a gun that probably costs less than several hundred dollars. So that's not really an option. Now actual firearms, I don't know what you consider quiet, just a regular 22 rifle. If you want, get one with a 22, I recommend it to find it. If you want quiet, go with a bolt action or a lever action. Savage makes a good affordable bolt action. And it's just to me, it's legal to shoot a firearm where you live, then shoot CB caps, calibres, 22 shorts. Out of that long barrel, they're pretty quiet. And you don't need to spend the money on a suppressor because that's not frugal. Also said a pellet gun. Yeah, pellet guns are great for if you just want target shooting in the backyard for you and kids. pellet guns are good. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna align a pellet gun. They're fantastic for learning basic rifle craft to get a good one. Now it sounds like I'm not sponsored by our burgers. I'm not a show for a burger, but they just come up a lot for good value guns. They don't make the best of everything, but they make good affordable stuff. They make a line of air rifles, single pump, pretty powerful, decent for close, small game. If you want a affordable 177 caliber, if you want more effective, go 22 caliber. But pellets in 177 are gonna be your most affordable, but pellets in 22 caliber are gonna give you that more own if you mostly want it for hunting. But it sounds like you mostly just want it for shooting in the backyard. A 177 caliber, Ruger makes a good one, Crossman makes some good ones. Sounds like, and I'm glad you're getting in the guns. I don't know how we'll do our whatever, but even if you're 80, I'm glad you're getting in the guns. It seems like this here when you're closing up. Am I asking for a unicorn? There's a mostly pretty standard stuff. Is there anything else I should know or consider? Please let me know. And for what you're asking for, if you want to shoot quiet and it's legal to discharge a firearm where you are, because if you live out in the middle of nowhere, I don't know why you care if it's quiet or not. Assuming it's legal, just get a 22 rifle, bolt action or lever action or even a pump action, that will shoot short longs and long rifles. If you want it to be quieter or still pretty quiet, again, shorts, CB caps, calibris, or even sub-sonics will be a little bit quieter. One of those are particularly loud. Yes, still we're hearing protection, but they're gonna be much quieter than like a 30-ought six. And it's still a firearm. Still going to be more effective, a higher rate of fires than a pellet rifle. There's nothing wrong with a pellet rifle if you want to start there. I hope this was helpful to you, Darryl, and I hope this was helpful to people getting in the guns, you're looking for frugal gun purchases in general. I appreciate you guys, I appreciate you Jack and have a blessed day. I agree with every recommendation there. I have a few additional ones. Number one, he mentioned that they don't make the rifle that I own. I own a lot of 22 rifles. When he's talking about a 22 rifle, my kind of prized possession and the 22 long rifle thing is a circa 1984 Marlin Model 25 bolt action, that's definitely the micro-group barrels and all, that he's right, they don't make them anymore. Mine is that old. I don't want to do the math, I don't want to think about it because I was born quite a while before that. But they're still around. And if you can find one at a gun show, you can probably pick it up super cheap because they don't sell well and people do not appreciate them for what they are. And there's quite a few different variants of them. And when I say variants, they don't even have different model numbers on them. But I mean, you could just look at them and see the stocks a little bit different. The sites are different, etc. And I would buy any of them, any of them. They're a magazine fed, 22 bolt action. They are fantastic. And I agree the Model 60 is an incredible value to the Marlin Model 60. That has remained unchanged for decades and decades and decades in most ways. It is, I believe the number one selling rifle in the world all time. That said, it's a tubular magazine. I actually much prefer 1022s, which I'm by own several, including one that I custom made my own stock for. They are fantastic weapon. In fact, if you see any of my videos, there's a kid's BB gun and a rifle behind me in most of the videos since I've been in my wife's office. And that is the custom stock 1022 that I'm talking about. So obviously it's where I can get to it very quickly if I need it for [BLANK_AUDIO] reason because I rely on it because it's very reliable. So on the 22nd I just want to say that. So the other things though I agree with the law enforcement buybacks. I want to point something out. A lot of them are 40 Smith. I have actually never seen a 357 sig as a law enforcement buyback, but I see way more 40s than I do 9s. Both of them are great deals. Many of them have barely been fired. Cops do not go to the range anywhere near to the level you think they do. And they're often really smoking deals like gun shows. I have never looked into doing it with a clock because I am just not clock. I don't do clock. I don't like clock. I hate everything about clock. I hate the way they feel. I hate the way they point. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. You can say I'm wrong. That's okay. We can all choose what we want. But I still understand it's a very, very reliable, dependable platform. And that's that's a great thing. But I'm just betting that you can for very low cost, purchase a 357 sig barrel for your clock. Now again, I don't know this because I know very little about clocks because every time I pick one up, I'm like, I don't like this. So I have no incentive. I don't tend to learn about things I have no interest in. But I have a a sig that I got from a guy in a barter that was a 40 and I almost didn't do it. But I went ahead and did it. And then I was lamenting that and one of my buddies was like, Hey, man, you can just pick up for like 200 bucks. You can pick up a barrel for that. So not really for economy, right? But forever you listening, that is something that you need to know. And because the 40 and the 357 sig have the same parent case, you don't even need to replace the magazines. All you have to do is replace the barrel and put 357 sig rounds into the existing magazines. So just a little add on there. And then gun shows are a place where you can do really well. But if you're a new shooter for some gun owner, you might want to take something a little more experienced with you. But there's a ton of things that sell for very little money relative to the value they represent in my opinion. You'll often find older double barrel shotguns in all the gauges, both under and over and side by side. They can be very, very affordable. Some of them need just a little bit of love. And that's one of my passions is to find like, it's ugly, but it's not hard to fix. And it's, you know, when you find older ones, you look at that shitty look at stock, you realize that's walnut. And that's American black walnut under there. Like I can just take that shitty paint that they put on there for no reason off. And I can use a little bit of a little bit of elbow grease and some WD40 and take off some surface rust and a little bit of parmablu in a few spots. And I can strip down that stock and I can finish it with just pure ton oil or pure, uh, pure, uh, Bertwood Casey true, uh, true oil, right? And it can be this beautiful gun. And I can pick this up for $250. Are you kidding me? I'm love doing that. So, hey, I got to look side. I mean, we can talk about that again too, right? We need an episode finds at the gun show. So you don't have to do, I'm gonna have to go to a gun show. And I'm gonna go through it. I can't buy all the stuff to be good. Find something I'm gonna have to go and document. Now, what a dad gone hard thing to do. Hey, you know, we should do. We haven't done this in a long time. The next time there's a big Fort Worth gun show at the Army, I'm a Carter Center, wherever they tend to do it down there. Well, Rogers, what have you, uh, what we should do is another TSP meetup at a gun show. We haven't done that in years. That would be fun. I bet you my buddy, David will come and those of you that wonder who that is will get to meet them finally. Anyway, with that, let's go ahead and move on and talk about the life expectancy of an inverter and an off-grid solar system. Hey, TSP community. This is Ryan Steeva from the homestead consultant.com. And I'm trying to knock out a few of these in one day. So my voice is pretty bad with my cold. Uh, so if you listen to last segment I did, it's the same day. It's a few minutes later and I've still got a cold. So I apologize for that, but we'll get through this together. Uh, today I've got a question from Jason and his basic question is how long is the lifespan of a modern off grid inverter? Uh, he's looking at potentially going solar and he says one thing I've never been able to figure out is how long an inverter will last. I don't want to buy off-brand inverters. Likely, I will get an EG4 or grow lot, but is there a value in a different brand that may last longer? And how long should I expect that to be? Also, how would you consider using multiple stacked inverters versus less or larger one? Well, Jason, this is actually really interesting and a good question. Um, so I'm going to get, I'm going to give you the answer up front and then we'll talk a little bit more about the details and why the answer is what it is and what that means for you. So first of all, there's two types of, two typical types of inverters that you're going to use in a home snoo. First is the high frequency or transformableless inverters. These are going to be what you typically think of. Your EG4 is your grow lots. Um, they're all going to be a high high frequency transformerless inverter. The other type is a low frequency transformer based inverter, which have some really interesting benefits and specifically Jason for the situation you're looking at could be beneficial. However, there's some drawbacks that would make me unlikely to recommend them for your given situation. So the the basic answer is that the high frequency transformableless devices you should be able to expect between eight and 15 years out of them and that's going to depend largely on how you use them and how close to capacity you run them, how high a surge is you run through things like that. The low frequency transformer based inverters you can actually expect between 10 to 20 years plus. So they're a simpler device with a lot more robust parts that don't have to switch constantly. And so those can actually last quite a bit longer potentially if you are careful with how you run. So now that you know the rough kind of lifespan that's expected of these devices, let's dive into how you can increase that. So the first thing in the most important thing is going to be proper setup and then keeping them from being overstressed. So overstressed is going to mean too hot, too high of energy loads are going to be your two top killers. So making sure that there's proper ventilation or airflow around them, making sure that you've got enough headroom as far as power production so that these units aren't always or often putting out at close to capacity or dealing with very high surges. So making sure that you've designed your system with enough headroom is going to really reduce the wear and tear on these devices. Installing something like an EMP shield to protect from outside surges like lightning strikes and things is going to be really valuable in trying to make sure that your system lasts as long as it possibly can. Careful wiring, good grounding and just general being careful of what devices you're using on these systems will also really help extend the life expectancy. So hopefully that answers your question as far as life expectancy on these devices and how to get that to go a little longer. Now I'm going to talk about what I would recommend. So Jason actually has a fairly large geothermal system that is going to have a high surge and there's going to be some other larger devices on it. And he was asking about what I recommend stacking them or less inverters with a larger one. And the way I would approach that is I would probably steer towards the side of more inverters but stacked so smaller inverters. And what I would do is I build in enough headroom that if one of those inverters died, I could have another one waiting on a shelf and they're less expensive because they're a smaller unit. But in the meantime, the units that are there would still be able to keep up and handle the use throughout the day without any issue, but that extra one is going to give you some more headroom and keep these from getting taught being stressed. And that way you can swap them out if you have one die. So that would be my general approach. And that's obviously going to be with the high frequency inverters, not the low frequency inverters that you stack them like that, which brings me to one of the reasons that the low frequency inverters probably aren't a great solution or you're given the use case. Even though they are going to be more resilient for your use case, there aren't very many companies that make them and the few that do don't make them as stackable as many of these high frequency or transformable as inverters. What that means is you likely can't put enough together to have the headroom that you really need to run the system and make the system last. So for that reason, I'm going to recommend the kind of more standard transformable as high frequency inverters, but these low frequency inverters, they are really quite interesting. They're a bit harder to install because they're going to be standalone units. They're not going to have the charge controller built into them, which these high frequency inverters tend to. They're also less efficient than the high frequency inverters, especially at idle. So if they're just sitting there idling, the high frequency inverters can generally do a better job at being more efficient. The low frequency inverters are, they're actually better for things like well pumps, compressors, shop tools, because they have the transformer built into them, which actually gives them a much better and higher surge capacity than the high frequency or transformerless systems. But when I weigh out all the pros and cons, I think I would still stick with the high frequency transformable systems. I would stack smaller ones so that I had some redundancy and that's how I would approach that. So I hope that helps you Jason. Please reach out to me if you have any further questions on this topic or need anything, need any other help for everybody else. You can find my information at the homesteadconsultant.com. Thanks everyone. Well great stuff there from Ryan. He's the expert on that and I'm not but I realize there's something I have to figure out. It's going to be my general phrase when I talk about a solar system. Am I going to call it a solar power system or a solar powered system or something like that because I have to stop saying solar system. Every time I say solar system I think of a third grader with a little model of the solar system, you know, with a planet, it just sounds weird. I don't want to say that anymore. Anyway, moving on there. Let's talk about tendonitis of the elbow with Dr. Bones. This is a condition that affects a lot of people and it can be from anything from a minor annoyance to something that truly alters, you know, the quality of your life. Doc, take it away. Hi, Joel Almond MD here, also known as Dr. Bones of the survival website doomandbloom.net. Call author of the word winning, fourth edition of the survival medicine handbook and designer of quality medical kits at AlmondFirstaid.com. Today we have a question coming from Dan who writes, "I need some advice for dealing with tendonitis in my elbows. About 45 months ago I began having some pain in my right elbow. It was nothing horrible and went away with some ibuprofen. It's gotten progressively worse, however, over the last couple months and as was the first week of March, it's pretty severe. It's now in both elbows on the outer edge and really affecting mobility and strength in my arms. I just ordered a pair of arm straps, but other than that, I'm not sure how to treat this and recover from it. This is becoming a big problem since I run a welding business and do the majority of work and maintenance on our small homestead. Dan. Dan, I'm sorry you're dealing with this and given your profession, you're just a wrong person to get it. Elbow tendonitis, often referred to as tennis elbow, it's on the outside like yours, or golfer's elbow, if it's on the inside, is in medical ease, also known as epicondelitis. It occurs when the tendons that attach muscles to the bony part of the elbow become inflamed or torn. Discondition can affect just one arm as in tennis elbow, or both arms simultaneously. Either way, it leads to significant discomfort when performing activities that involve gripping or repetitive arm movements. It's often triggered by repetitive gripping, twisting or heavy lifting, some of which may apply to your line of work. People with tendinitis experience symptoms like pain and tenderness on the outer or inner part of the elbow, which may travel down the forearm. Fifthness is a common complaint, which can make it difficult to perform simple activities of daily living. Those with tendinitis, especially if it's long standing, may also lose strength in their grip, making holding household objects like tools an issue. There are several possible causes. Repetitive strain, those engaging in repetitive activities such as playing sports, typing or using tools are high risk. Faulty technique, I doubt, is your problem, Dan, but incorrect form during physical activities or during sports can increase the risk of developing tendinitis. Age, you didn't mention your age, Dan, but tendon inflammation is more frequently seen in older individuals, as tendin loses elasticity with age. And of course, underlying conditions. Conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, nerve compression, all these can contribute to tendonitis and caused by lateral symptoms. Elbows get a lot of action and we all know that moving parts can wear down. There are several treatment options. The most common sense one is risks. Resting the elbows may be problematic for you given your profession, but taking a break will help. Physical therapy, engaging in physical therapy can strengthen the muscles around the elbow and improve flexibility. Under the care of a physical therapist, you can learn new ways to relieve strain. Adjusting your grip while you work may help, but I'm not a welder, I don't know how possible that is. If the sharp pain is quite a down sum, you can do some light stretching and strengthening to promote healing. Always stop if it increases the discomfort. 10-15 reps, 3 times a day. You can do wrist bends, both up and down. Hold each position for 30 seconds if you can. Some use a rolled up towel and twist like you're ringing it out. Changing direction after several reps. Curls with light weights might help some muscle. Ice and heat therapy might work. My ice packs wrapped in a cloth for 15-20 minutes, several times a day, to reduce inflammation, and once you acute pain subsides, switch to heat, like a warm compress, to improve blood flow and relax muscles. Compression with straps? Well, these things you've ordered might help by offloading stress from the tendons. Wear them during activities positioned about an inch or so below the elbow. Swartha shot. Other options are padded gloves for a better grip. Models like ibuprofen can help manage pain and inflammation. If we're getting serious here, however, corticosteroid injections may be a stronger way to reduce severe inflammation. Worst case scenario, damage tendons? Well, they can be repaired with surgery. Dan, it sounds like you're at the point where some medical imaging might be a good idea to zone in on the problem. See in orthopedist, if you can, and find out what's what. This is Joel N.D., that old, dr. bones, wishing you the best of health and good times are bad. Thanks for listening. Hey, get your family medically prepared. Quality kits and individual supplies from our entire line at store.dumumloom.net or alt-in-firstaid.com. You'll be glad you did. Hello, TSP. I have two things for you today. Number one, I want to reply to a previous segment where Jack had a question about something I'd mentioned in regards to portable mortgages. I also want to come back with a quick comment on the economic impact of what's going on in Iran. As far as portability of mortgages, sounds revolutionary in terms of the way we do mortgages here in the US, but it's actually not uncommon. Our banking system is much different than places all around the world, but it is my understanding that portable mortgages are common, pretty much in the UK or British Commonwealth. Places like the UK itself or Canada or Australia, their system does allow for portability of mortgages. Again, it's a little bit different because their interest rates are not as long-term as ours, but in any case, it isn't something that's totally revolutionary. As far as mortgage portability, what is it? Think of it in these terms. It's the same as an assumable mortgage, but different. In an assumable mortgage, the collateral that backs up the loan stays with the original property, but the liability shifts from the original borrower to the new borrower. So in terms of mortgage portability, it's exactly the same, but it's totally opposite. The liability stays with the original borrower, but the collateral that backs up the loan that shifts to the new property. That's really the only change. Why isn't it more common or why hasn't it happened in the US before? Well, it's just the way that all of our laws have been written and the way that title insurance and leans on the property and such have been cleared in the past. When you traditionally do something a certain way, it stays that way until there's a major reason to change it. I think not that this is imminent to happen, but I do think it's going to be one of those changes that could take place in the near future because it doesn't require any new government money or really any type of subsidization at all to make it happen, and it would likely be a boost to the overall economy, basically, because it removes a lot of red tape. Now, again, I don't want to under-emphasize the hurdles that the legal system would have to absorb to make this happen, but it could simply happen by changing the laws. And the reason I think it could likely happen is not so much that it's good for the consumer, which it is, but more so that it's really a win for the banking system. These very low-rate mortgages that went in during the pandemic, they're an albatross around the neck of the banks. There's no incentive for homeowners to exit those loans for, like at least the next 25 years, and that's bad news for the banks because these mortgages are paying, in many cases, less than 3%, which is way below the market rate. And so by having mortgage portability, number one, the banks generate income because they're not going to do that for free, right? They're going to charge a mortgage portability transaction fee. And then also, it's likely that a lot of those loans will not be where the homeowner downsizes, but where they actually upsize, and they need another loan for more money, which would be either be, like a second mortgage at a higher rate, or that take the original one, dissolve it, and blend it into a new rate, which would be still higher than the original, thus the bank makes more money. So more than anything, I think it's being driven by the banking industry, and I think this is overall a bigger trend that we're seeing, not only with just the Trump administration coming in and having more deregulation, because effectively, that's what this is. But also, if you remember last year, the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron ruling, which was really just a rubber stamping of anything that government agencies did. Now, all those things are being challenged. And so I think going forward, especially if the Trump administration can maintain their momentum with deregulation, they're going to see a lot of challenges to existing rules on the books to cut through. red tape to make our economy more efficient. Now, speaking of an efficient economy, let's shift gears and go to a totally unrelated topic, which I think is actually totally related, and that's the military action that I ran right now. If you follow me, you know I haven't talked about it at all. It hasn't concerned me in terms of the overall economy or my position in the stock market. I won't get into all that right now, but I will say this. As an investor, I try and take emotions out of things and focus on the market and not the media. Because the media, whether it's mainstream media or alternative media, their ultimate goal is to create an audience and they do that by drumming up drama. And with all the gloom and doom and the apocalyptic worries about what's going on in the Middle East right now that we're hearing from the media, what's the market actually telling you? The biggest proxy for stability in the Middle East is the price of oil. And as I record this, West Texas Intermediate Oil is priced at $74.36. Now that's certainly higher than has been in recent months, but step back a little bit and remember prices during the Biden administration. Average price for West Texas Intermediate during four years of Biden was $77.40. And so you can see we're just not much off that average. And in fact, the spikes during Biden administration were extreme. In March of 2022, West Texas Intermediate got above $130. So this relatively stable price in oil is even more interesting when you really zoom out and look at the big picture in the Middle East because this is arguably about one of the worst situations we've ever had for stability in the region around the Straits of Harmuth, where all the oil comes out of. You know, 20% of the world's oil comes out of that area and yet West Texas Intermediate not even above $80 of barrel. This plays to the fact of the strength and diversity and resilience of the US economy primarily because many years ago, the US became nearly energy independent in terms of fossil fuel needs as a result of fracking and horizontal drilling. Now as we move forward with things like nuclear energy, our economic resilience will be even orders of magnitude more stable. But the bottom line on all this and why I haven't been concerned over the past more than three weeks as we've seen the naval build up in the Persian Gulf is the big point that the media is not telling you. You know, 20% of the world's oil comes out of that area very little of it though comes the United States anymore. Most of that oil is going to China and India. And we'll have to see how this plays out, but there could be some parallels between how the military action in Venezuela resulted in cutting off Cuba from their major flow of oil. And it'll be interesting to see what impact oil flowing out of the Middle East has on Asia. Hey, in any case, just my opinion, you can follow me over an investible wealth and the well-steading podcast. So before I go into my thing, I just want to say something about this oil stuff because we're hearing all this bullshit, the war, the war, oil, oil, that is just going to get choked off of the oil. Oh my god. Ah, shut up. Please shut the F all the way up. If you can't stay shut up about this without knowing anything about the truth and I'm about to give you, find some freaking like a stapler and staple your mouth shut and then throw some duct tape over until you learn to shut up because I'm about to give you actual facts, not feelings here about this. In 2025, the United States produced a full 91% of the oil used in the United States, in the United States. We imported a grand total from all nations, including friendly nations to us, despite what the TV says like Canada, because they're, etc, and Mexico and, you know, other places, 9% of our oil. And we exported more than we imported. We are a net exporter of oil. The only reason we import it at all is so refineries can maximize profits by having some of the exact type of crude they need at the exact right time. That's it. It is a profit maximizing balancing thing because if we export, let's say, 20% of the total oil we use and we import 9, we're at a net export of 11% of total. See how that works? And that's about where we are. These are facts. These are not feelings. We are not dependent on any country at all period for oil. Zero, none, zero, zero fucking zero. Oh my God, staple your mouth shut people that are talking about this. You know nothing. Okay, the other side of that. It doesn't mean there's not an impact on the global price of oil because US oil companies, of course, if they can sell their oil outside of the United States for more money because the global market pushed a price up. So that is a thing, but it is not the thing that people are making it out to be. And you know how much oil we imported from Iran last year? Not one drop. And I'm not even going to say more on that, but if you want to know more about that, go look up how much oil we've imported from Iran for the last 20 years. Get your eyes opened and your ears cleaned. Anyway, moving on. This one is totally different. I was talking about military service in a totally different way than it's typically done. And I want to throw out an invitation here for people to apply to be a guest on the show. I was thinking about doing a video of this segment and releasing it separately like as a short. I do that if I don't get enough response, but I that would just be some people that circulate it and go outside the community if necessary. I'd rather this come from the community or at least directly community adjacent like you know somebody type of thing. Hey man, this guy Jack, I know he doesn't podcast. Maybe you should apply to be on and talk about this. So like I said in the intro, I have been kind of doing some memory mining because you realize that what you think you remember is exactly what you remember about the things that you think you remember from 35 years ago or more. And I've wanted to know like, well, this road that we built is still there or did it watch out? Like is it still being used? Is it helping people? I'd like to see it. Like now when I got out of the military, you couldn't go on Google maps because there was no Google and there was no internet as we think of it today. That would have been 1993 to kind of date it for you. Back when it's even before I think you a good morning America was trying to figure out what the at symbol in an email was. That's how long ago it was. I am that old. And I realized I said it's just searching Google duh. Use what you always tell people to use Jack. Use AI. So I chose a Gemini for this because I know it's a Google product and therefore it might have more ability to help me with Google maps. And I started doing some research and it was actually really hard to find this road until Gemini and I together kind of figured out well like, yeah, this exists and it went from this place to that place. So I just went to Google maps and looked up one place and then said, how do I get to the other place and if the road's still there, they probably use it because it was better than anything at the time. And I was able to find it. And then I was able to trace all the way to the port where we put the trucks on the ships to go back to Panama and then we flew out. This brought up a lot of memories. And it also brought up a lot of curiosity in me is what were we really doing? Because I know the story that I told you guys several times but I don't know the story of the overriding mission of joint task force Bravo and Operation Fortis. Communists which again lasted seven years. I didn't really know we were the last part of it. I didn't know that a month after we left that the military had a great big fanfare and cooperation with the Honduran government and have a golden spike ceremony that our piece of the road literally linked to two pieces that have been worked on since 1985 together. It was the final link that made it all work and it was a shithole from a work standpoint. It was a very dangerous, very harsh environment. The whole thing was, but our last piece was last because of how mountainous it was and how remote it was. And that's why most of this was built by the National Guard. And those guys were all volunteers. And you know your two weeks of training in the guard, well these were like 17 to 28 day appointments is what AI says. And they were deployments that people volunteered to go do some several times because it gave you active duty time and it gave you more points for retirement or maybe it reduced your two weeks a month or two weeks a year you had to do or something like that. So people were excited to do it I guess. And they sent my unit in which was the 536 combat engineers. I was attached as part of something called an LSE to it. That's a logistical support element like we provided like their water, their food, laundry services, their shop vehicle maintenance. That's why I was there, etc. And this LSE was made up of a group of companies, a 220th aviation that I was out of the 23rd combat support unit as well and many other things. So that's why they sent us and this just again this cavalcade of like memories came out. But then Gemini without me asking, she just told me about the whole project and the results of it. And it was just you know hundreds plus miles of road over a, I knew we built some schools but over a hundred schools were built. And I know there's people out there that are kind of the purest anarchists, the special libertarians we should be sure to do. money on that, should the United States, that should be all private, let alone doing for other countries. I agree. But there is what is and what you think should be. And of all the things we do with our military, things like that have a dramatic impact. That last for generations, I built this helped build this road, a little tiny piece of the hole when I was 19 years old. And there's people using that road today in a place where frankly, I'm going to tell you right now about the United States or would not be a road. And there's people going to school in buildings that if it was not for the United States, those buildings would not be there. But what I think made that episode, I did all those years ago back in 2009. So popular was I tried to take you with me. It wasn't about all the things I just said. It was about being a soldier in this place and what the people were like. The story of the dog that was there. The story of the Honduran Infantry who were in general drafted at the age of around 16 out of disco clubs that were said to be our security for the operation. The animals that were there like the burrows, the women that watched the uniforms for us for very small amount of money in the streams. What it was like to live there, what it was like to have helicopter sling in. The army does take care or at least did. I think of doing it again. Take care of his troops. They sling loaded in with a shinnook, a giant satellite dish. Because this is before the days of your little bitty dishes, right? You had a big, good, they call them a seaband dish. So they sling loaded this dish and the engineers put it together. The tech guys worked it all out. And it was also we could watch the Super Bowl that year. Or when they sent in the USO to perform for us. When all the care packages were left over from desert storm that never got used because that ended so much quicker. And that came in. And the kids fighting over the candy like the smell of the burning diesel when we were getting ready to leave. The scorpions under all the sandbags at the fuel point when we pulled them up. The one that bit me stung, I guess, in my toe, in my shoe. And the fertilizers that were found and that the medics actually kept in a cage so that people could see one and know what it looked like. Like all of that stuff, the dust, the heat, what we did to shower, how we ate all of that. When I had this kind of research back into my own past and realized like all those things, I'll tell you there was a point where the AI unit said the port you're talking about where you put the ships, the trucks on the ships, it has to be this one. And I looked it up in the satellite image and I zoomed in on it. And when I zoomed in on it, I immediately recognized it. Like a lot of things are hard to recognize this many years later. This port being concrete and steel. I was like, that's it. That's the place. That's where we did this. And there's this big concrete drop off. Where huge ships can pull right up to the side of it like parallel park basically a ship you know. And when there wasn't a ship there and we were waiting to leave because this is at the very end, there were all these local natives that came in and they fished with hand lines. And these guys were amazing. They were in there and they had a hand line with a big silver hook. And they would jig the hook with no bait until and eventually they would either cause a strike at the flash or snag a baitfish. Then they would put that baitfish on and whip his ass out. And the main thing they were catching to eat with those baitfish was barracuda. And I remembered that like I was standing there watching them do it. And I remembered why I told that story and why all of it sticks with me. I remembered the soldier that had to be metavact out to Sudacano and then further on because he flipped a vehicle. He didn't really flip it. It just the road caved in and it went down and how I had to do an estimated cost of damage on that truck and the floor of that truck was full of at the time kind of like not dry but not wet like congealed blood and asking about what happened when I was when I this truck was brought to me. And all these other things and the fact that two service members were critically injured. That one and another one on that mission. And a third died on that same mission out of 600. Three out of 600 in a non combat operation. And then other pretty serious injuries like there's danger and there's stories of the people that were there to serve but the people that were there that were native to the place. It made me think of a story somebody wrote in about a cover it on the air many years ago. He was an Iraq as a contractor rebuilding there. And he had his whole crew that worked with him or Iraqis and only one of the Iraqi spoke English. And he was telling me how they actually listened to my show at lunchtime and the interpreter would tell the other Iraqis what I was saying. And stories like that even though that was not directly military. I want more stories. I want service members who were on deployments to places like this who didn't blow shit up. You know we blew up some stuff to put through to him but you know what I mean we didn't shoot anybody. We weren't there in a combat role at all. These are the forgotten stories. What hit me was when this AI doing all this research and with all its you know all GPUs running to trying to find everything it could about this one time in history about this last phase of the seven year operation said the guy that told the public story that's available with the most detail is Jack Spirick on the shit as me. And going how many of those are there? How many operations like that? How many places have we done these things for good? And they have left lasting impacts on the people that did the work and on the people that lived where the work was done. And you can be as critical as you want of the military. I don't really give a fuck at this point from some of you because you will criticize anything that isn't in the exact model of what you want it to be. And one of my laws of life that I talked about forever is what? What is and what will happen is more important than what should be and what should happen to reality on the ground. That's the pragmatism. And these things that I want to talk about they already happened. Some of them happened before I was born probably. There's probably still people that could tell these stories that they could tell a story of like when they did something like this in a different place and in every time. But it was the 1960s and Jack Spirick wasn't even an idea yet. Not junior anyway. Maybe senior was. Right? And the things that happened when I was coming up in the sales world and I was like so done with this and I was knocking down six figures and some other 19 year old was in a place like this. I want to tell those stories. I want you to help me tell those stories. If you don't have one of those stories but you know someone who might I want you to tell them about this. I had a kid on years ago. I can't remember his name now but he was documenting stories about the remaining World War II veterans and I thought that was really important. It never occurred to me that this was all not equally important because it's not equally important but it's still important. And I think there's a lot of people out there right in this audience. They will never tell their stories. Maybe not even to their friends or their children or their spouse of their time in places like this. It is actually like pulling a scab off a wound. It hurts. And the longer in the past it was the more it kind of is emotional to think about yourself because you're not just thinking about what happened. You're thinking about the time when you were 19 18, 20, 21 years of age and you were part of something that you didn't even understand. And then as you get old and you get gray and you realize like I have less years ahead of me than I have behind me, it doesn't matter what you're looking back at. There's a certain amount of emotion there too. And I think a lot of those people need to hear those stories even if they're not ready or willing to tell their own yet. And so if even a small portion of people in this audience who have done those types of deployments, which I know for a fact just based on the demographics of this audience is a lot. We tell those stories. I think it would not just help the person telling the story. And I don't think it would just help maybe the people you know that know you understand you better. I think it would help a lot of people that will never tell their stories because they just don't want to understand their own stories better and maybe make them more willing to share. Maybe not publicly, but with family and friends. And I think that's an incredibly important part of not just healing but maturing as a person because we think we're mature when we're 20, 25, you know, whenever the government says we're legal or whatever. But I've found that maturing is a lifelong process and that we should be maturing up until the day we draw our last breath. So I ask for your help humbly with this as finding people to do this. If it's you and you want to do it, just fill out the guest form. We will make you a priority and get you on the air because I think I think there's a lot to be learned by this. I've been doing this show for 18 years. There'll be 18 years officially in June of this year or is it yeah, it'll be 18 years because it's an even number. So it has to be 19 years. 18 years. I have done over 3,800 episodes. To this day, that episode of Leave It was 192, is 190 something and the rewind of it are still one of the most popular episodes I've ever done. And I think it's because it was not about what the military did. It wasn't even about what I did. It wasn't even so much about what other people did. It was about what it was like. It was I tried to make it tactile. I tried to make you go there with me. I tried to make you feel it with me to understand what it's like to be in a place that no one knows about. Did everyone forgot? That there is some real risk. And if you die there, the only people that are going to remember you're your own family and maybe a couple people that were there with you. It's a footnote in the footnotes of the footnotes of history. And it doesn't really matter except that it does. And I think it would be a useful thing too because there's so many people in this world and they get to that age 17, 18 years old and they're like, is this is this a path for me? And I have a very different answer to that question today than I did 25 years ago. Very, very different. But that decision is not mine to make. The decision that a young person makes today to decide to enlist in the military in some capacity is not my decision to make and it's not your decision to make. All we can do is be honest about its reality so that person can make a more informed decision. I think that's important too. So anyway, with that, the doors open, the invitation's open. I'd love to hear from some of you about this. With that, let's go ahead and wrap up. I want to remind you guys again as always you can help support us by doing your online shopping, starting at teasbaz.com. There's links for everything I talked about in today's show notes. If you want to apply to be a guest for what I just said or for any recent atelol story, the survival podcast.com, click on guests and you can you can send us a form right in. And if you do anything else, you won't get on. But if you feel the format completely, there's a good chance you'll get on. I bet you we approve more than 50% of all applications. Additionally, if you want to learn more about not my time and service, but what I learned in my time after service and how I built this business, many other businesses and great careers, then pick up my book, "Laws of Life", ditch the system, design your life. You can find that on Amazon and elsewhere. And if you've never told anybody about the survival podcast, you know, that's the genesis. That's where the whole thing started was people telling people. It's still important today. We still need to be growing because if you're not growing, you're dying. With that, it's been Jack Spearco with another episode of the survival podcast. I'll catch you next week on Monday and we'll start and do it all over again. ♪ The better way ♪ ♪ You don't have to be another face in the crowd ♪ ♪ You don't have to live the way it's here you two ♪ ♪ You get out of the way ♪ ♪ You get some little follow ♪ ♪ The better way it's here you two ♪