Join John Rush and Bill Anderson as they dissect the complexities of self-sufficiency in our modern world. They explore the impact of government dependence versus self-reliance and the critical role of skills over just having the right tools. In an age where convenience often trumps preparation, the conversation steers towards how you can start small in preparing your home and vehicle for emergencies, highlighting personal stories and real-life scenarios.
SPEAKER 06 :
This is Ready Radio, preparing you to be ready for anything, now. Here’s your survival guide for Ready Radio, John Rush.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, welcome. Ready Radio, KLZ 560. Appreciate you all listening, as I say that on a weekly basis, but I really do. Bill Anderson joining us today as well. Bill, welcome. How are you, sir? I’m doing well today, John. How are you? I’m good. Thanks for filling in last week. I appreciate it as I was out. No problem. The sun. All right. So as we head down this stretch, we’re getting ready to head into winter. We’ll talk a little bit about some things that we should be getting ready for, especially in regards to our vehicles and so on. But before we do that, and we’ve got plenty of things to talk about, but somebody had sent me actually got several texters yesterday saying, that sent in and said, hey, you might want to talk about this even on Ready Radio tomorrow. This was yesterday. The big power outage that happened, I believe it affected Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, and parts of Montana. And don’t know exactly the whole cause of that. I didn’t read, and I don’t know if they’ve even given enough details out yet on that bill to know. But, you know, bottom line is, as we talk about all the time in this program, stuff happens.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, especially with the power grid and, you know, just the age of it and, you know, the upcoming possible winter storms and, you know, get into the cybersecurity end of things and how vulnerable we are there and as things heat up. There’s just a lot of possibilities that could put us into that situation for sure, John.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. And again, it’s a reminder. And again, we talk about this a lot on Ready Radio. We want you to be ready for the what ifs of life and things can happen way beyond our own control. And sometimes we think, oh, you know, that’ll never happen to me or that’s not a big issue or I’m handled, Bill, or I’ve got enough of this or I have enough of that. And at the end of the day, the answer is, do you?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, you never really know until it actually happens. And then you find out what you’re lacking and what you’re really in need of. You think you’ve got it all together, plans, but then when something happens, you’re like, oh, I didn’t think about this, didn’t think about that. We were on a service change today, and I usually pull out a little generator to run our hammer drills and things like that. And for some reason, I couldn’t get it started today. And this is something that I use all the time. You kind of take those things for granted. And this is something that I use a lot. And I don’t know if I got a little bit of bad gas in there. I don’t know why I couldn’t get and keep the thing running. Eventually got it. But the point is, is even those things you think… you know, you can trust and, you know, have been very reliable in the past, there could be a time that it doesn’t work so well. And you definitely don’t want that to happen, you know, in a situation where you desperately need that thing for sure.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and again, Bill, we talk about even using things in the off times, I guess you could say. Practice makes perfect, as you say. We’ve got to make sure we sharpen our skills and all those things. And again, when it comes to especially power outages, we’re so dependent on it. I don’t know how else to say that. And again, we’re dependent on a lot of things, but water, instant delivery of food, electricity. I mean, those things, Bill, we become so dependent. Entitled over, I guess, is even the way to say it. We just feel like we’re paying for it. It should be there. It should be delivered. I want it now. And yet, when it’s not, it’s a big struggle for folks.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and then when it doesn’t happen, it really puts people in a very bad place, especially with their entitlement, like you said, and they really don’t understand. And this is what we mean by self-sufficiency, and we don’t mean self-sufficiency outside of total independence, especially self-sufficiency. The pastor side of me, a lot of Christians go, self-sufficiency means that I am getting away from God. In fact, when you look at the line of Cain, there’s several indications in there that The descendants of Cain there in Genesis chapter 4 show the path to the self-kingdom. And part of that is self-sufficiency. I will provide for myself. I don’t need you. And that’s not what I’m talking about. The problem we come into is self-sufficiency away from the dependency of the government. Because I’m sorry, John. I don’t care if you’re right, left, whatever you label yourself as. It’s really the citizen versus self. whatever state and the more control the government has over your life hey you’re depending upon the government for your income for your food for your your medical for all you fill in the blank you lose power john and then you get a you know a little tiff in the government like we just experienced with you know the big shutdown and now people are you know, literally handicapped because they have put all of their, you know, trust and, you know, livelihood, if you will, dependent upon the government funding it. And, you know, what if the government were to collapse or what if another party were to get in and take it all away? Now, John, we got to be careful because when we speak of these things, we understand there are people who need these things, right? And they’d, they rightfully so should be getting them. The government should be taking care. We as a society, we as a citizenship should be taking care of those who truly can’t take care of themselves. But one of the things I think I was texting to you earlier this week or something, you were in discussion with somebody, and I was like, you know, why don’t you look at the biblical model of what welfare is? And the biblical model is, hey, I didn’t glean the entire field. I left a little portion, and if you’re hungry, go pick it yourself. But it doesn’t work that way anymore. Now I want you to pick it, and I want you to bring it to me, and I want you to prepare it for me. And by the way, I might not like what you pick. I might not like what you prepare, and I’m going to now tell you what I want. And it’s so opposite, because there’s a good portion— of all the people who are really collecting, I should say, from these government programs that really could be taking care of themselves. And not only that, but as their family members that can take care of them, that’s really where the burden lies. And that’s why I always say collectively, if we all become a little bit more self-sufficient, even if it’s, hey, I grow some sprouts in my windowsill, and that’s one less thing I have to buy, well, then I’m not such a burden on society, right? And now I’m a contributor instead of a, you know, a consumer, a partaker, you know, I can contribute. And then maybe I grow two trays of sprouts, and now maybe I, hey, you’re hungry, here’s a tray for you, you know, and that’s really the model we should be looking at. And when we’re looking at power and That’s kind of the topic today. The same thing is kind of true. Are you so dependent, so relied upon or relying upon the government to take care of that because they always have? And I think people, John, are naive. I think they’re naive in the fact that they think, one, The government has their best intention in mind.
SPEAKER 07 :
The government always has its own intention in mind, by the way. Never someone else’s.
SPEAKER 09 :
Exactly. They think corporations have their best intention in mind. Nope. They think doctors, lawyers, you fill in the blank, have their best interest in mind. And the reality is that’s just not the way it works. I mean, I’m sorry to… to, to be so abrupt, but guys got to wake up, you know, even when I call, you know, a service technician into my house to, to, to do whatever their first intention is to, to make money. That’s their job to feed their families. I mean, yeah, they may help you out, but you know, as consumers, a lot of times we think, Hey, you’re here to do me a favor. And I’m like, yeah, I would love to do you a favor, but don’t forget, this is my job. What’s your job? oh, I do this and I do that, and that’s how you feed your family. Hey, this is how I feed mine, too. Now, I don’t need to go to the extreme. You know, we think, I heard a great comment today, we think that America is built on this capitalism, free market thing, and I would say, kind of, it’s actually become a monopoly. And you have now, you know, a handful of corporations that kind of run everything And it’s like, yeah, you’re getting a lot of trouble when that happens. Right, John?
SPEAKER 07 :
Somebody texted me and said that the Cowboy State Daily reported that basically there were two different utilities and two 500 KVA lines came together. And I asked how. I don’t know. I have not been able to read the article to determine exactly. I don’t know how that happens, Bill. That’s more in your department than mine.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I mean, I don’t know either. We would definitely need a little bit more to the story, a little bit more, you know, the picture painted for us, we can assume. Could be high winds that brought them together. I don’t know. It could be one of the arms of the pole failed and it came together. I mean, it’s just hard to say. We’re just, you know, assuming at this point. But, hey, the bottom line, John, is all things are possible. True. Right? Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
True. No, that’s right. And by the way, at any time. I mean, that’s the other thing is we get, again, we get really, and Bill, all of us, myself included, we’re all guilty of this. We get into our daily routines. Everything rolls along like it’s supposed to. There’s very seldom ever any kind of a hiccup. We’re just sort of used to rolling along, you know, day after day after day. We don’t think much about it until boom, something happens. Then all of a sudden it’s like, oh, great. Now what?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. And that’s what I say. And, and, I hate to be a broken record, if you will, but I continue to say we become overzealous and worrying about things we can’t control. We should be overzealous in the things we can control, right? Because the what-ifs are going to happen, John. That’s right. And it’s like, okay, well, you know, if the power goes down, I can’t sit there and get mad at the power company. I can’t yell at, you know, whatever entity that is, whatever installer that is, whatever mistake happened. You can’t control that, and you getting mad and angry and yelling and jumping online and calling in the radio stations complaining, it isn’t going to do nothing. So what you can really do is focus on, okay, these things can happen, so what can I do about it, John? And some things you can do about it, you know, is start small. We’ve talked about that. We’ve talked about the layered approach, you know, I’ve got a blackout box, if you will, that’ll cover me for a couple hours. And then if it’s, you know, approaching the end of that timeframe, it’s like, okay, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be fixed anytime soon. Let’s pull out the next layer, the next box.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. Great point.
SPEAKER 09 :
And then you come to the end of that and okay, now I need to go to the next layer. And we start small, right? In, in the integrated defense strategies, which last week that was our guest was, uh, Todd Fossey, he’s kind of the founder of that. And in his self-defense system, he structures everything on the percentage of what’s really going to happen. And you’re more likely to be slapped or pushed or hit way before being stabbed with a knife or shot with a gun. And so we need to deal with those things. There’s a lot of people out there that get all tuned up and all excited about, hey, I need to learn how to defend against a gun. And if somebody came and swung a punch at them, they wouldn’t know what to do. Good point. And you’re more likely. So I’m more likely to have to address with that, that one to two hour timeframe. So, so start there. Right. And John, guess what? it doesn’t really cost a lot of money for that. You could probably get some kind of a little blackout box for that one to two hour timeframe, you know, for, for 20 bucks. And in fact, I would probably say you probably already have enough stuff around, even handle it if you just think about it correctly. And even really, even if you just sat in the dark for a couple hours, you know, people don’t think that they can survive, you know, 20 minutes or 30 minutes without eating and without electricity. And the reality is you’ve got to give yourself a little bit more credit. Correct. The human body is a little bit more resilient than that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Correct. That is exactly right. No, that’s a great point. And like we always say, you know, chip away at this, start small. I mean, and I’ve read enough of these books, too, Bill, to know that even those that have every single thing they think they’ve got figured out the reality is something’s going to get thrown at you that you didn’t think about on the front side because you’ve never experienced it before so no matter how much you’ve prepared something else is going to come along so you know you have to be resourceful you’ve got to be able to read situations and know how to adjust yes have enough things on hand to be able to take care of your Your basic things, which we’ll talk about here, even in regards to keeping things in your car for the winter. I know we’ve done some of this in the past, but it’s really important because we read all the time of things happening where somebody runs off the road or whatever, and all of a sudden they’re stuck. And in some cases, and these are true stories, in some cases, they’re 50 yards from the road above them, but nobody knows they’re down there, Bill. So, I mean, there’s all sorts of stories and things that… I’ve read over the years and things, true things that have actually happened. But bottom line in this, what this program is about is keeping people ready for the what ifs of life. And it could be anything that comes along. And again, partially because we’re so reliant. I don’t know how else to say it, Bill, what other words to use, you know, entitled or reliant on the things that we have that make our lives convenient. And by the way, rightfully so. We pay for those things. We pay for those luxuries, if you would. You know, hear that old saying, you know, it’s a first world problem. You know, other parts of the world, Bill, they’re used to daily power outages. We’re not. We don’t live in those parts of the world, and in turn, we’re very spoiled.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, there’s something to be said about that. You could even re-term that, if you will. Let’s go radical here. We kind of become slave to it, John. We do.
SPEAKER 07 :
Good point.
SPEAKER 09 :
We really do, right? Great point. You know, even when you look into history and you look at the political scene, it’s the same picture over and over again, right? I’m going to make your life easier. All you got to do is vote for me. All you got to do is, you know, whatever. And I’m going to make your life easier. I’m going to provide you with the bare essentials, you know, food, safety, shelter. I’m going to provide you with these basic needs. And you’re all in on it, but at what cost, you know? And now all of a sudden you are now conformed. You’re now conditioned. You are now a slave to that. And you forget what life is outside of that. In fact, you’ve forgotten it so much that you really don’t know how to exist out of it. And then that’s when people start losing their minds. And so I texted you something. I don’t remember when it was, but. don’t have a backup plan, be the backup plan. And I think that is a great perspective that we have. And, you know, we have a tendency, John, and especially in this program and this group, if you will, of people who are like-minded with us, we get overzealous with the tools and, you know, I’ve got all of this stuff and I’ve got, you know, a closet of this stuff and I’ve got all this equipment. And it’s like, okay, that’s really great. But one of the most important things that you can learn is skill. And then you can start to cross over a particular skill and go, oh, hey, that works for fire making. That works for water purification. It’s kind of the same thing. And you start to learn to cross over because you’re starting to think in principles. Right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Great point.
SPEAKER 09 :
focused on the technique, John, like what’s the technique, you know, of a gun takeaway, right? Well, okay, I’ll give you the quick technique. And if you listen closely, you’ll pick up what I’m saying. First, redirect, right? I got to get that muzzle off my body, redirect, okay? And then I control the weapon because as soon as I go for the weapon or touch the weapon, what does that person want to do? take it back. And so I’ve got a control. So I redirect, I control, and now I’m going to do what we call an attack. Now I’m going to start to send my combatives in or whatever. But listen, if I haven’t redirected, I’ve gotten shot. If I haven’t controlled the weapon, they’ve taken it and shot me. So, you know, people are so excited about the takeaway, which is the last thing you want to do. And they really haven’t controlled the weapon. They really haven’t just to be blunt, beaten that person to the point where you’ve taken the fight out of them, that you can take that gun away. And then they take the gun away, and then they point it right at them within three to six feet, and the guy gets up and he does the same thing to you. And so you think in principle, stop thinking about the technique. The technique is important, but if you don’t understand why you’re doing something, It doesn’t matter. So in this context, John, we got to jump on a break here, but in this context, you know, even in what do I put in my car? What’s the principles? What are you trying to… And then… Then we start throwing in technique and tools that help us accomplish thus principle. Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
Great point. Great point. All right. That’s a great stopping point. We’ll come right back. If you’ve got anything you want to add, 307-282-22 is our text line. Give us a message. We’ll get right on that as soon as we come back. Stay tuned, though. We’ll be right back. Ready Radio. It’s ready-radio.com. Bill’s own website is Prep2Protect. That’s the number two. Prep2ProtectCO.com. We’ll be right back.
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SPEAKER 07 :
And we are back. Ready Radio, KLC 560. Thanks for joining us today. We appreciate it. John from Cheyenne, before we get going, we’ll take your call. Go ahead, John.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, real quick, the other thing, John, that people got to start realizing is since those Marshall Fire and XL being held responsible and getting sued, a lot of utilities have put in a public service power shutoff plan where If you’re in a wind-prone or a bad weather area and it looks like the lines could come down, utilities are going to shut you off in advance because they don’t want to be liable.
SPEAKER 07 :
True.
SPEAKER 10 :
And when, you know, it’s 100-mile-an-hour winds and they say, no, that’s not an act of God, that’s the utility’s fault for not doing enough maintenance or whatever, and you don’t know for sure, those utilities are not going to take those chances. Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
Great point.
SPEAKER 10 :
How many billions is XL probably going to have to pay out by the time everything’s over from the Marshall Fire?
SPEAKER 07 :
No, great point, and you’re right. They’re going to be more and more proactive as time goes by because of their risk factor.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right. Back when we were young, a lot of stuff that they want to blame companies and utilities for wasn’t active. A hundred mile an hour wind is an act of God. Right. You can’t build it, and then so they say, well, put the lines underground. Well, and Bill can attest to that. I know from when I worked at the utility, that’s about four times as much per foot to run that line underground as it is to have it up in the air. And, you know, Excel came out and said, we’re going to move all our lines underground, but we’re going to have to raise your rates. We’re going to have to double your rates. Is anybody going to stand for that?
SPEAKER 07 :
Great point. And, Bill, you being the electrician here, you understand this full well.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and that’s one of the problems that we’re actually facing right now is that is the weak link in the chain, if you will, of the grid, you know, because you can’t change that very easily, especially if they’re using direct-bury cable, which they do. Very rarely do they put that all in conduit where you can change that wire out. Nobody does that, right? It’s just too much of an expense. But all of those underground wires now, if you had to upgrade those, it’s nearly impossible. Think of the destruction of the tariff of all the earth. And what I mean by that is landscaping of people’s properties. That’s what I mean by that. That’s the weak link that you got. These homes now, guys, are requiring so much. In my load calculations, it’s like you’re over 200 amps. And if you’re over 200 amps, they’re now putting on their metering devices and they’ll start shunting things. Like, okay, well, we’re going to kill your air conditioner so that you’ve got enough power to charge your electric car. So that’s what’s happening. In fact, Douglas County, I have to turn in a load calculation for any of the work that I do, especially for EV chargers. And if you’re over 200 amps with the addition of that, They’re like, okay, you’ve got to put in these metering devices that will kind of shunt off certain circuits here so that you don’t get over that 200 amps. the underground wire, that transformer, all that, that is the weak point. There’s no problem. The overhead from the station or substation from the utility going out to the end of the transformers, that’s all fine with the exception of the age of the transformers. But it’s the underground wiring that’s going in. You get a little pinhole, John. I fixed hundreds of these. You go out there and you’re, hey, I lost power to my house. And so we’ve got the ability to you know, locate where that short is. And, you know, ironically, here’s a wonderful tip. I can find most of my underground shorts through the old witching methods with two pieces of copper wire. It’s amazing. People are blown away when I show it to them. And then I hand them the wire and they’re like, wow, that’s really cool because they think I’m manipulating it. I’m like, I have no idea what that wire is. But we’ll dig that wire up, and the aluminum will literally be turned to powder in there. And we’re talking homes that are built in the 80s and stuff like that. So guess what, guys? We’re getting to that age where this is going to start happening a lot.
SPEAKER 10 :
And when you do have to upgrade the cost of going to a 400-amp service as opposed to a 200-amp service, I mean, just the cost of the meter can alone is almost double to get that. And then, you know, you’ve got the higher amperage coming in to a different meter. Now, the utilities own the meter, so they don’t usually charge for it, but you’ve got to do everything else when you add above that. And, you know, we’ve had some people where they added air conditioning and EV charger, and they had it go above 200%. And it was $10,000 for them to update all the service and everything to make it safe for a 400-amp service.
SPEAKER 09 :
But the other thing is, if you talk to one and they grab the… John, you don’t get a true 400-amp service out of that either. That’s what they say it is, but it’s only… It’s 320. And I don’t know what they do up there in Cheyenne, but here in Colorado, the utilities do charge you to upgrade that can. If they’re upgrading their pedestals, they’ll charge you a ton of money. And right now, Core and Intermountain in Excel are about six months behind. Wow.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 10 :
And it depends. What are you upgrading? If it’s a company-owned equipment, yeah, we’re going to charge. But if most of your residential stuff is customer-owned, once it hits the weather head, if it’s above ground or comes in.
SPEAKER 09 :
Because the transformer has to be updated or the pedestal has to be updated. I deal with it every day, John. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
And that depends on the utility, too, whether they’re going to charge or not. Is it something that I know, like, in some cases, it was on the schedule for a transformer upgrade because it’s been out there 40 years anyway. So then they’ll say, well, we’re going to have to do it at some point anyway, quote, sooner rather than later.
SPEAKER 09 :
They’re not that nice. They’re not that nice. They’re not that nice. I’m telling you, I do it every day.
SPEAKER 08 :
I don’t doubt it.
SPEAKER 09 :
They want to charge you. They ain’t giving nothing away.
SPEAKER 10 :
He talked to a lineman, though. He said, I’d rather patrol 10 miles of above ground looking for an outage than a mile below ground.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, it’s a needle in a haystack. Makes sense. Yeah. Makes total sense. You too, man. Good stuff. Point being, Bill, you know, this point being is, you know, our demand, kind of like we were talking about before we went to break, our demand and what we’re used to getting continues to go up. And I mean, this is a whole nother conversation I mainly have on The Daily Show. We don’t have enough new power going into the grid to keep up, do we?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, we do and we don’t. And you got to remember. you’re having a big offset with the solar. But that’s only happening during solar production hours. And you’ve also got the wind. But they’re going to tell you otherwise. Again, it goes back to that same comment we kind of started off with. They’re not doing any of this for your best interest. They’re a monopoly. They make a ton of money. They’re not giving anything away. And they’re going to collect… billions and billions and billions of dollars and paint a picture. Oh my gosh, the whole thing’s, you know, we’re going to need more federal funding. We’re going to need this. We’re going to need that. And really it’s not really the case. Like I said, that the weak point is from your meter to the transformer that feeds your house. And you, depending on, you know, if you live on land or something, you might have your own transformer, but if you’re in a neighborhood, you’re sharing that transformer with, you know, probably up to four people. And that’s the weak link, you know, and the NEC continues to increase the demand of that load calculation. You know, you now have to have up to like seven circuits for a kitchen, depending on what you’re putting in there. Each bathroom has to have its own circuit. That’s been coached for a while. And now they’re putting in, hey, especially if you’re in Denver, can’t use natural gas. So now your oven, your dryer, all this stuff now has to be electric, where before it was natural gas. And that really kind of gave us a little bit. But it’s crazy. the demand. I go into old houses all the time and they’re like, I keep tripping on my breakers. I’m like, yeah, you got to understand the houses weren’t wired that way. Well, give me a service change. Service change ain’t going to help you. A service change is just the box on the side of the house, right? You’ll update your fuses, if you will, for lack of a better term, your circuit breakers, but that’s really all they are, is fuses. And the interior wiring, the branch, the circuitry is That one wire that leaves that 15 amp breaker and goes to your kitchen and hits your kitchen and hits your living room and hits your basement, because back in 1920, they didn’t have electrical stuff like we have today. And you plug in space heaters and all these new fancy kitchen appliances and stuff like that, and you’re like, oh, my breakers are tripping. People don’t understand. They think that that outlet right there is an endless supply of electrons.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right, right, right, right. Yeah, it’s not.
SPEAKER 09 :
It doesn’t work that way.
SPEAKER 07 :
Nope. All right, let’s switch gears, talk about, as we head in, we potentially have some colder weather coming next week. And I know a lot of folks think that we’re really late in getting weather. And, you know, maybe we are a little bit, although, Bill, typically we don’t have much cold weather until we get into Halloween. And every year is a little bit different. And I always warn people, too, being in the industry that I’m in and as long as I’ve been in it, you know, be careful what – You wish for. In other words, you know, we have really nice weather right now. And then I hear people talking about, yeah, we need snow. We need snow. We need snow. And we do. There’s no doubt about it. But just be careful because, you know, when that switch gets turned and we get into that season, you know, we can still get a few days like we’re having today throughout winter. But typically, as you know, Bill, once that. That switch happens. It’s a while before it comes back. Point is, it will switch. It is Colorado. We’re not going to have 70 degree days all through the entire winter. It just doesn’t work that way. And people travel and do different things. In fact, they’ll be traveling over Thanksgiving. Partly why I wanted to talk about this this week even versus next is there’ll be some folks that will even be heading out next weekend for the week after, which is Thanksgiving. So we’re getting really close to that. And point being, and I’ll throw this back to you, Those that are going to be not only traveling, but just, you know, folks that are just in their car a lot and you’re getting a distance away from home. Some of you travel a lot. Some of you are gone, you know, in some cases, depending upon what your job is, you may be an hour away from home at any point in time. Some of you travel the high country frequently. You go skiing, you know, you do different things along those lines. And I get, Bill, that with every circumstance, things are a little bit different. But in general, what are some things folks should have in their vehicle?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, before we start that, let me just say this, John, that the reason it’s so warm, it’s because Trump has done something. He shut the snow off.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER 09 :
I don’t know. He’s done something. It’s global warming. I don’t know. Right. That’s what it is, right? Right, right, right. So we need more electric cars, and we need, you know, so have fun with that one. But anyway. It’s always his fault. It’s always his fault. You know, people got to understand, I get so aggravated with, the climate change and global warming. And it’s like, do you understand? They’ve only been actually recording this for a short time. How do you know it’s true glory and glory? How do you know what the weather was like in the 1500s, the 1600s, the 1700s? You don’t. You don’t is the answer. You know, the Bible tells us that weather goes in cycles, and we have seasons. Not seasons like the four seasons, but we have time periods of hotter, colder. You know, there’s even some belief that after the flood there might have been a little mini ice age. But the point is this stuff cycles, right? And we’ve got to stop getting into that whole political garbage, if you will. Let me give you a real-life example that happened to me last night. And this will also get some listeners fired up. But I jumped in the car for dog training, which we drive from Elizabeth all the way to Arvada. So it’s about an hour and a half. It’s probably about 60 miles from my house. Yep. jumped in the uh the electric car that we have we have a little chevy bolt and i looked at the thing and it was like oh 157 miles i should be good cruised all the way up there and you know i had my daughter and my my son-in-law with me and they’re like um are we going to make it home and i’m like yeah yeah we got like you know 60 miles left and it’s starting to get cold and my daughter’s like does that mean i have to ride home in the cold because you can’t turn the heater on And then thinking about it, and after we got to Arvada, looking at it, going, I ain’t going to have enough juice to get home. And so we luckily found a charging station, you know, the local King Soopers there, and sat there for 10, 20 minutes and charged the car up enough to get back home. But the point is this, okay, again, principle, principle, principle. What was my error? I assumed, and I got complacent. Those were my errors, John. You know, I look in there and say, oh, we’ll be fine. Forgetting that, hey, it’s getting colder at night and I might need that heater. And if anybody owns an electric car.
SPEAKER 07 :
soon as you turn that heater on your range goes right well and just as you know just the sheer coldness you know the coolness i should say of what’s outside that has an effect on you know battery life range and so on driving habits how hard you drive in the car i mean there’s all sorts of other factors that come into play uh but no you’re right we you know we really we do get sort of you know used to things being a certain way and you know there’s gonna be folks out there listening say well why are you driving an ev if you drove a regular car you could put you know gas in and go home well you effectively did the same thing. You were able to find something, fill up. It only took 10 or 15 minutes, not a huge issue. You just stopped and got gas or whatever. I mean, at the end of the day, you’re still filling up with something, you know, to get you where you need to go. But, you know, to your point, you know, could we have done, you know, could you have done that a little bit differently on the front side? You know, in retrospect, probably so.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, probably so. I mean, I didn’t plan on taking that car. I took it over to my daughter’s. And her car became unavailable. So I was like, sure, let’s jump in. Let’s jump in this one and head up there. So, you know, I don’t want to get into that argument because I know a lot of people are so anti-EV. Listen, I’ve got an EV. I’ve got a diesel. I’ve got a minivan.
SPEAKER 07 :
You’re like me. I’ve got them all.
SPEAKER 09 :
You know, I’ve got a range that I can pick from and whatever. I mean, obviously… I got the EV for the tax advantages, and it has served me well.
SPEAKER 07 :
And like me, you’ve also been learning because you’re in that world as well like I am, and you’re learning by owning it some of the do’s and the don’ts and some of the experience that you can then pass on to somebody else doing that in a real-world manner where, frankly, Bill, I’ll be the first to – well, I say this all the time on my daily program. Both sides of the aisle are, frankly, pretty clueless when it comes to EVs. One side thinks they’ve got this pipe dream ideal about them where they think that they’re the best thing ever. The other side hates them furiously. The reality is there is some place in the middle there as far as how they actually work. And guys like you and I that actually use them on a daily basis understand all of the ins and outs, the good and the bad, and we can talk about it intelligently, where frankly, neither side, unless you own one, can talk about them intelligently. It’s one of those things where it’s like, you know, until you own one, shut up.
SPEAKER 09 :
It almost becomes a religion.
SPEAKER 07 :
It really is. It really is. And I’m not trying to get off track here, but the reality, Bill, is this is one of those examples of an item becoming just that. It really becomes either preached for or preached against, and unfortunately, the majority of people that are preaching for or against have zero experience when it comes to said item.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right, right. People hear something, or they’re listening to whatever group they’re part of, and they’re being programmed—
SPEAKER 07 :
that information and now that’s i’m like that’s their whole opinion you know for example i’ve heard even on this on this particular station some car experts claiming that if you own an ev and put an ev charger in your home you’re liable to either have zero insurance or your insurance is going to go way up or in some cases they won’t even write the policy and i’ve checked with the local insurance my you know my sponsors by the way bill and the reality is at least here in colorado none of that is true so there’s a lot of this stuff that gets passed around. There’s rumors around it that, frankly, just don’t end up being true.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. They’re like what Katie Couric just did. You know, some people say, no, who said it? Right. Well, some people know who said it. Unless you give me somebody who said it, you could be making it up.
SPEAKER 07 :
And by the way, a lot of what we’re talking about, Bill, involves the preparedness end of things as well. There’s a lot of hearsay in regards to what you should even do and be prepared for. And I think for us here on Ready Radio, the one thing we try to do for all of you listening is really dive into that. And let’s not just go off of hearsay, but here really is some of the things that can happen. And oh, if you’re If you’re relying on X to meet your needs, you’re going to be sorely mistaken. And on down the line we go, Bill. The reality is we try to bring as many things into context as we possibly can so that people then have the real idea of what’s going on, real-life experience of what’s going on, so they’re not just going off of hearsay or what some person somewhere said.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right, right. And, you know, we also practice the, I have lots of different tools, right? I don’t have all of my eggs in one basket. Now, if I had one car, John, if that’s all my family was able to provide, I don’t know if I would go EV. I wouldn’t. Because of the restriction.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, I would not. Even for me that owns one, Bill, that would be an automatic no, because if I’m going to rely on it to do long-distance trips and travels and so on, no, I would not own one. Unfortunately, I have other options and a lot of folks that own EVs actually do. Would I ever recommend it to somebody as being their only vehicle? Only if you never leave the area. I mean, if you’re one of those people that just no matter what, you’re not leaving a 50 mile radius. If you do, you fly or you’ve got other transportation means or you’re going to rent a car or whatever the case may be. OK, great. If that’s you, knock your socks off.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and again, it gets down to, you know, you can’t dictate everybody’s lifestyle. You can’t, you know, assume everybody’s situation. And we go back to that discussion I started with earlier. Hey, it’s about principles, right? And, you know, if I do have that EV and we’re getting into that colder weather bringing us back on topic, you know, understand my range is going to be limited.
SPEAKER 07 :
understand that when i throw that heater on that’s going to be a huge consumer of my battery power that heater you know and so i need to start talking about i have known people that for whatever reason they hop in the car there’s an eighth of a tank left they’re traveling a lot further than what they think they were going to at that point in time they’re no different than what you did the other night in the ev the reality is then they’re looking for a gas station and depending upon where they’re at in the time of night and where they’re located and so on, they may end up in the same predicament as what you had. So point being, it can happen in any vehicle if you’re not preparing on the front side. Right, right. Yep, absolutely.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, John, let’s grab that last break and we’ll come back and we’ll address the actual problem.
SPEAKER 07 :
Sounds great. We’ll be right back, guys. Again, Bill’s website, PREP, the number two, prep2protectco.com. Ours is ready-radio.com. We’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere. Ready Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 07 :
All right, we’re back. Radio, radio, KLZ 560. All right, Bill, let’s talk about a few things. In fact, for everyone, let’s start there. What should everybody have in their car at all times period, no matter how far they’re driving in the winter months?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, let’s talk about principles. Okay, John, let’s talk about that. The number one first thing, reliability must be mechanical reliability. We’ve got to make sure our fluids are topped off. We got to make sure that, you know, our battery’s in a good condition, our belts, our hoses, all of those things are in check. If you have four-wheel drive, you may not have used that for a season, you know, because nobody uses their four-wheel drive. Or I should say very rarely do people use their four-wheel drive in the summer. Okay, just go ahead and throw that in and make sure it’s working. Okay, so don’t take a questionable vehicle into a harsh environment. That’s one thing that we principle-based is, you know, that’s first and foremost, right? Because we can probably… eliminate a lot of potential problems if we have a good, reliable vehicle.
SPEAKER 07 :
Great point. Great point. And thank you. I mean, as a car guy myself, couldn’t have said that one any better. Probably sounds better coming from you than me. But yeah, make sure that all of your basics are handled, that you’ve got the ability tire-wise and everything else to go from A to B safely without any issues, Bill. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 1 :
100%.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s the number one thing.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yep, and then the next thing I would say is tires, right? We’ve got to make sure that we’ve got a good winter tire or a good all-weather tire. You know, I consider my shoes. You know, you can only run or walk as good as your shoes are, right? I don’t want to be running around barefoot and all those things. So getting my tires in check, making sure the air pressure is good because air pressure changes with temperature, John.
SPEAKER 07 :
It does.
SPEAKER 09 :
And also, too… Hey, do I have chains or some type of a thing to help me with traction if I do get stuck? I think that’s important, whether it’s chains or those straps that they have.
SPEAKER 07 :
Socks. They make tire socks now that are easy to put on. So, again, yeah, to your point, multiple devices made that help out along those lines, some of them extremely easy to put on. And in some cases, depending upon your vehicle and where you’re traveling, will be required by law to have also, Bill. Check where you’re going and what the laws are surrounding that.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yep, exactly. And, you know, I’m a big advocate of a jug of kitty litter because it can help you. A little foldable shovel that I got to dig out, all that. Number three, John, is visibility, right? How many times have we been in a storm? And I don’t know about you, but it seems like I got to replace my windshield wiper blades almost every year, sometimes a couple of times within that year. Correct. You turn those things on and, you know, if you leave your wipers down, And with the freezing and unthawing and stuff like that, that has an effect, if you will, on that rubber blade, and it will jack them up. So, you know, that’s why you see people propping them up at night or whatever to kind of help.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and not everybody’s able to park inside, although as a part of Ready Radio, ready being the key word here, I will say this, and I talk about this a lot even on my other weekend shows, Bill, if you have a garage, And you do have the ability to park inside. A, it’s much more convenient in the wintertime. B, it’s much more secure for the items that are actually in your car and your car itself. And if the only reason you can’t park in the garage is because you’ve got too much crap, no offense, Bill, there’s this thing called a dumpster that you can have dropped off and throw all that junk in or haul somebody and have them haul it off. At the end of the day, figure out a way to park inside.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right, right, exactly. Along with that visibility, hey, do your defrosters work?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
You know, have you had those checked? And snow brush, ice scraper. You know, those things make their way out during the summer. True. Let’s get them back in for this time of year.
SPEAKER 07 :
And really quick, too, I got another quick tip on the windshield washer fluid. For those of you listening, don’t buy the cheap, standard blue stuff. Step up and buy the Napa Celsa Purple or Rain-X is another brand that’s really good.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
up and buy one step above the regular blue what you’ll find is a it works way better you’ll lose you’ll actually use much less of it meaning in the end you’re actually spending less money than more yeah and that’s that’s good it’s a good tip there uh the fourth point is is power redundancy so we want to make sure that i have jumper cables or i have a jump box yep or something i have a
SPEAKER 07 :
portable thing to charge my phone if I have to you know keep that fuel which really quick to your point a lot of those portable jump boxes which I talk about a lot on the weekends as well they have dual purposes to your point you can either jump start your car or someone else’s car and the thing I like about those versus cables is they’re never hooked up backwards they’ll either only work one way so if you do it backwards they’ve got a you know computer inside that’ll say yep nope you’re backwards we’re not going to energize it basically will even tell you these things are hooked up backwards and meaning you don’t damage circuitry and so on in a car, which has a ton of electronics on it now, Bill, as you know. But on top of that, the majority of them have the ability to plug a USB, USB-C in and charge something else at the same time.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. And some of them come with tire inflators too.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 09 :
So, you know, you’re getting a lot, you know, and you can kind of jump real quick for a quick second back to the tire thing. You know, maybe you have a plug kit in your car. You know, I was with somebody yesterday, 7-Eleven, she had a flat and I was like, hey, you want me to help you? Nope, I got it. And I was like, okay, I can help you. I can help you change your tire. I don’t know if she was nervous or what, but I guess good on her for keeping her safety there, but she’s out there with a flat tire, didn’t take my help. But anyway, fuel, because this is part of the power thing, right? We never want that fuel to go below a certain charge on your battery in your car.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I’m one of those, Bill, that in the wintertime especially, I think keep a half a tank. I know sometimes that’s a little bit more difficult, but if you’ve got the ability to keep above a half a tank in the winter, do so.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and if you have a truck, then you can throw a, a gas can out in the back. True. You know, I don’t know what your opinion is about those, they come in like the quart size emergency fuel cans that you could probably throw up in the front. I don’t know if they’re really bad for your engine or not, but, you know, what do you think on that?
SPEAKER 07 :
Never used them. That is one of those items. I usually tell people for the cost, if you’ve got the ability, they make sealed cans. You can even buy gallon paint cans that you can put gasoline in. Don’t fill it all the way up. But you can even use an old gallon, like a paint thinner can. You can put gasoline in that and market gas so that you don’t get confused. That’s one of those things that’s easy to store. They’re basically vapor-proof. You’re not going to smell anything coming out of them. You’re as easy doing that as you are trying to buy the expensive pre-done gas in a can and so on. So if that’s something you’re concerned in, I would recommend doing it yourself. You’re saving a bunch of money.
SPEAKER 09 :
And if you do that, then you need to throw with that item probably a funnel. A little funnel. That’s right. Absolutely. Now we move into the warmth and survival inside the vehicle, which is principle number five. And I like to keep a wool blanket or some type of a sleeping bag or something. And they make these, by the way. They can fold down pretty compact. You know, with the puffy blankets and stuff like that will actually keep you pretty warm. You know, so I’d get a blanket in there. Hand warmers, right about this time of year, you can pick those up all over the place. Always have some gloves in there. Have a stocking cap, if you will. You can have some extra socks. This is all stuff that I have in mind. And you could do… controversial topic as we’ve had before. You can have some kind of emergency candles or some type of a heat source that you can plug in there. Flashlight.
SPEAKER 07 :
Also, make sure you’ve got that, which we’ve talked about many times. I mean, some of these things are pretty standard, Bill, and I’m on also. If you’ve got the ability, a lot of times, depending on what your work is, you might have a lighter jacket on or a suit jacket. Those of you that are in that situation, make sure you put a heavy jacket that you just keep in the car at all times. That way, if something ever happens,
SPEAKER 09 :
on especially with ladies because sometimes they’ll that’s right wear dress shoes or something like that that’s right have a pair of boots or something in your car that if you got to go hiking correct you know you can you can do that now we move on to food water and medical we want to make sure we have some high calorie snacks in there Water, you’ve got to be careful. I like the water. You should be carrying a water bottle with you anyway. But if you have the wider mouth bottles, it actually helps prevent freezing versus the narrow mouth bottles. A little first aid kit, trauma kit you should have in there. And if you’re on any kind of medications, you should have some spares in there for that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, that’s a good idea. That’s one thing I don’t know if we’ve ever talked about in the past. If you’re somebody that requires medication to stay alive, have whatever that is with you at all times. And if you’ve got the ability to have a little bit of an extra prescription or you can take two or three pills out and have that in a bottle in the car, Bill, absolutely you should do that.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yep. Seven tools in self-recovery you should have. We already talked about shovel, toe straps. You know, I’ve talked about that before. Yep. Traction boards that kind of fell underneath the tire thing. Maybe a folding saw if you need to remove limbs or something that may get in the way of your top. Flashlight, extra batteries, all of that as well. And then communication and navigation. Keep your phone charged. Have maps. I’m a big fan of old-fashioned paper maps as a backup. You can have some kind of a NOAA radio in there, something that can get you to the weather station. And then some type of visual communication. We talked about those fluorescent orange straps or something. So if somebody’s driving by or flying. And that really kind of sums it up there. But, you know, we got situational awareness. We should be looking at the weather, weather bug. If I’m going to go out, what’s the weather today? You know, this time of year, first thing I jump in the car, I throw my My ham radio on the NOAA station. I just listen to what the forecast is. Avoid unnecessary travel if we know a storm’s coming. Adjust your speed and drive appropriately for the weather.
SPEAKER 07 :
Good one.
SPEAKER 09 :
Don’t trust that other drivers are prepared, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
No, exactly. Drive defensively. Make sure that you’re on the ball. With that, Bill, we can continue on. We’ve got a few more things we can add next week. Not a problem at all. Those of you that will be heading out, please try to tune in. Bill, I appreciate it, man. Have a great weekend.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right, John, we’ll talk to you next week.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, man, and we’ll continue on next week, folks. Again, Ready Radio, ready-radio.com. This is KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 01 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
