Fair warning to all: I’m getting married in April. Then again in November. That means to you the show will be a mix of shorts and full length episodes up through April. November shouldn’t be impacted though. I’m going to work hard to ensure their is at least one show a week for ya’ll.

In case you’re wondering why there’s two weddings. The short answer is the April wedding a is civil wedding just to get the show on the road. The second was due to coordinating the religious stuff and people flying in from the other side of the world.

Now, I did say at least one show a week. Which would allude to there being more than one episode a week. It’s something I’ve been kicking around lately.

I’m thinking about doing one episode a week strictly on personal and home security much like the Safe House show I was doing. And I’m thinking about a listener question show. But I want your input. YOUR input, not do you think other people would like it. Would you like ITRH to start doing either or both of these as extra weekly episodes?

Tell me today in the comments section of this episode. If there’s enough interest I’ll start ramping up to do one or both. My plan is to move another step closer this year toward ITRH being a full time thing.

Moving on…

For the last six months I’ve gone without TV news. What I consumed in the way of what was going on in the world was strictly from reading the headlines on websites like Drudge Report. Occasionally, something would peek my interest and I’d click on through to a story. For the most part I got what I needed to know from the headlines.

To get the Walking Dead and the small handful of shows we watch we just used Amazon and the Apple TV. And that worked well. Till about four weeks ago…

I was upgrading my internet speed connection while moving into the new house. In doing so Jen asked me to bring TV back. She wanted to watch the man hating channel as the women from Comcast said and laughed. Also known as Life Time.

So we have TV again. So I turned on the news for the first time in six months.

You know what I saw?

Nothing. Seriously. Nothing.

All kinds of stuff in the world is going on. Good stuff. Bad stuff. Weird stuff. Albinos are being hunted in Africa by witch doctors.

But what do we have in the news: A near literal dick swinging contest between grown men and one woman. If I understood it right, there was an actual who’s is bigger thing during a debate the other night. And this is for the most powerful position in our country—arguably in the world?

Recently someone asked me which lever I’d be pulling in the presidential election. I replied, “I’m not going to waste my time till they add an option that says boiling hot oil for all candidates.”

I’ve been getting emails from some of y’all that can be summed up as this: “Do you think X will happen if candidate Y is elected.”

I think this country is so far down the rat whole it doesn’t matter. They’re all clowns and it’s all a big circus in the Roman sense. Actually, they may be giving clowns a bad name.

I’m going to play you a short clip from a movie called Dinner with Andrea. For those unfamiliar with the film it may sound like something made today. I think this clip speaks to what most of us in the community, maybe beyond, are feeling. But this was made back in 1981.

Have a listen:

Kind of resinates, doesn’t it?

Now this may all seem defeatist in nature. You may have made up your mind that candidate fill in the blank name will save us all. IF that’s you, there’s no value in me trying to convince you otherwise. So I’m not going to try to.

Being done with the idea of a state is something you either come to on your own or never at all. And no one can really lead you there. Someone can show you the door, but you have to open it for yourself.

But the will X happen if Y candidate brings us to really the root message of the show as a whole: Stay safe and sound. You hear it twice in every episode.

A similar conversation came up recently with all the stuff most people aren’t paying attention to in the middle east involving Russia. Boiled down the question was this: Is World War III coming?

The answer to all of it is this: Perhaps. Perhaps not. But the question you should be asking yourself is this: What are you going to do about it outside your circle of influence?

I can blow three hours fighting traffic, finding parking, waiting in line, to push a button for someone I think will at worst do the least damage.

OR I can spend three hours working on my garden, working on personal wealth and independence, interact with my community, or do something to increase my knowledge. To me, that seems like a more productive use of my time because these are all things inside my circle of influence.

And you’ll only keep yourself safe by making sound decisions which impact your life. You can’t worry about the decisions you made yesterday; you can only learn from them and move on. You can’t worry about the decisions you’ll make in the future because you don’t know what the questions will be yet.

What you can focus on is today and setting yourself up with the clearest path to a good or better tomorrow.

So it all goes back to basics: Do your best to ensure your access to the things you need. And ensure that access for as far out as makes you feel comfortable.

Now I think you should have a minimum of three months. But if you’re just starting out, focus on three days.

If you prep from a stand point of the worlds going to end tomorrow you’ll only panic yourself. And the reality is it’s probably not.

Now what would be the things you need?

* Food
* Water
* Basic Medical Supplies
* Sanitation
* Security
* Community

But this doesn’t mean just buying and storing these things. This also means getting the skills and experiance to produce or procure these items.

With food we have hunting, fishing, and trapping. And experience acquiring a skill is something we touched on in the last farm update.

But I’ll give you a fresh example from something recent: I’ve tried fishing a few times out my back yard in the bayou. And I’ve tried just about every lure in my box with no success. (A bayou is a slow moving costal river for those not from the South.)

Now I make no claims of being an amazing fisherman. In fact, I’m not all that great at it. I just like casting a line and naval gazing between casts. But I would say in general I’m ok at it. Still, in five weeks of fishing twice a week I’ve caught nothing.

Yet, for five weeks I’ve watched good size fish maybe 12 to 16 inches in length jumping every day all day long. So I knew two things:

* One, there is indeed fish in this bayou.
* Two, there’s something really big chasing these other fish to the surface and making them jump.

Finally, the other day, I see a guy fishing down the bayou a piece. Probably six hundred yards away. My house is about 30 feet above the bank and the area is roughly 15 – 20 acres that’s just wide open. So I can see easily from my “I’m working” chair in the den that faces the water.

The first thing he does is start throwing a casting net. Then after fifteen minutes, I see him setting up four poles and a lawn chair. I think, ok this guys is serious and not just some kid fooling around.

After 30 minutes he pulls what looks like a fish the size of a five year old child out of the water. Another 30 minutes and another fish about the size of a five year old child.

Opportunity to learn. I set down the laptop, put on my shoes, and go down to talk to the guy. When I get there he’s happy to tell me all about it.

Turns out, the fish jumping were mullet—they’re vegetarians and a pain to catch on a hook. He was using the casting net to catch them. Then he used them for bait to catch two of the biggest catfish I’ve ever seen.

I wouldn’t normally eat fish out of this Bayou, but in a real pinch—I’d beat starving. And now I know what I was doing wrong.

The point though is just having a skill is not always enough. You also have to have the experience. Or you can borrow someone else’s experience to ensure success.

This is true of food production, emergency medical, water purification and sanction, and self defense. And community often gives you the ability to borrow from someone else’s experience. But to get that community you can’t be a passive armchair prepper.

You need to get out and do things that are going to keep you safe and sound whether tomorrow is the most amazing day of your life or the worst in recorded history.

I’ll leave you with that for the day.

Show notes and the ability to comment on this episode are available at intherabbithole.com/e160

As we close out today a few important things:

First, I am going through the slow process of converting each episode over two the URL format of /e and the episode number. In this process I’m also going through and replacing the show player of every episode with the newer fancier player. That also means all the episodes will be available on the site for streaming. Thanks to the support of the Roving Horde Armada we were able to put the show on a new server with enough bandwidth to make this happen all possible.

Second, if you have something to say about an episode, please put it in the comments section of that episode.

A lot of people email me comments about episodes—I enjoy emailing back and forth with y’all. But really, if it’s about an episode it should be a group discussion on the site. And if you say something about a guest they can’t really respond without a big rigmarole their not going to go through.

It’s not complicated. You don’t have to sign up for anything to do it. The URL to each episode is just /e whatever the show number is.

Next up, support the show by becoming part of the Roving Horde Armada. Find out about the cool benefits membership gets you by going to itrh.net. Do it today.

Members just got early free access to a 7 part video course I made. It’s all about getting prepared in the right way. I’ve got roughly 60 hours into the production of this series. You get access with you sign up to support the show. Again, go to itrh.net today.