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Hello everyone, and welcome to it Could Happen Here, podcast about the world falling apart and people putting it back together. Today, I'm lucky to be joined by Margaret Kildury. She is a host of Live the World Is Dying, a podcast what feels like the end times, And we are going to talk about bug out bags, don't me, Margaret.
Woo bug out bags or go bags? Yes? Or I bet they have other names. Okay, wait, can I tell you my favorite? Yeah? I hate me Okay. The first preppers I ever met were these like weird cool anarchists twenty years ago. They had oh shit gear or OSG in their basement. I love that. Yeah, that's great.
It's basically what you're talking about, Like, it's the it's the thing that you go for when things are going to shit.
Yeah.
Yeah. And I think the reason we're talking about this right is, ay, because it's entertaining. It's always fun to engage in hypotheticals. B Because we've got Margaret here, because she's very nicement on this stuff, and that's what she covers on the If the World Is Dying. If you haven't listened to that podcast, you should.
It's very good.
It's got lots of like sensible preparedness focused content. It's that fair, fair summary, muggret.
I hope. So, yeah, our whole thing is that we're basically trying to talk about community prep I'm not the only host in one of three hosts. Yes, we try to talk about community preparedness rather than individual preparedness, or rather how the two are not at odds with each other, like how what's best for the individual is to be part of a functioning community, and how like the bunker
mentality will get you killed. So one of my favorite things in the world is talking shit on preparedness done wrong. And since most of the preparedness space skews at best center right but also far right, there's lots of it done wrong that we can talk shit on, Like, for example, this is me setting.
You up for Yeah, yeah, bug out bags there it is. Yeah, that's like a layup and a dunk. Be basketball, understand.
It speaking, We're really good at it. Yeah, there's nothing that we like more than supportsball.
Okay, So the reason we're talking about this today is because I have spent a lot of time recently in refugee camps helping out helping people, feeding people, giving them blankets, playing with their children, doing all the things. And obviously everyone who who enters these camps comes with a bag,
right they bring a bag with them. They can generally have one sort of carry on size bag when they enter custody, and that's generally all you can carry when you're moving across the desert mountain ranges of Baja California and Serve in California. And I was spend the day there and it was cold, and it was wet, it was miserable, and I was trying to keep people warm, and I was trying to build shelters all day, and I was trying to just do things along with my friends. Obviously,
this is by no means a solo effort. It's a great group of people who you've all heard about if you listen to this podcast. We've been out there all day. And then I got back and just because I hadn't you know, had a difficult enough day, I logged onto Twitter dot com, Hex dot com because your day to get worse, yeah, exactly, I thought, what can I do? Let's be pissed off at a fucking stranger on the internet.
You don't care about and you've never met, but let them make you angry anyway, That's what that's what I did. I loved on, and I loved on promptly to be greeted by some prick with I guess not your fault. I suppose it couldn't be a prick whatever, someone someone who hadn't quite like someone whose idea of preparedness was heavily influenced by the film Red Dawn and not by reality, which is like ninety percent of the people in that space.
But this person had, you know, this this kit with a with a gas mask, with a folding AR fifteen right with one of those law tactical folding things, so you can break the buffer tube with.
Seven or eight magazines of ammunition.
Like just like it just the sort of stuff that, yeah, sure you would need to do like one sustained firefight and then then are you gonna do? But like, it just really struck me that the the junctaposition between these two things that I have seen people have to quote unquote bug out or oh shit or whatever. I myself have have had to leave a place where I was go to a refuge camp for a few days a few years ago and I've never seen a situation where a folding assault rifle would be that useful to me.
And I have seen a lot of people who could really fucking use a sleeping bag or a war coat or a toy for their child because their child is crying to bring any toys, you know, And lots of people don't have any preparedness stuff at all. That's fine, you know, we'll start somewhere, but like, if you're going to do this, I want you to do it in a way that might be useful to you. And so that is why I have asked Margaret Kiljoy to come and help me.
And the right and the problem of course with this scenario that we discussed is that instead of having a folding ar, they should have a folding AK forty seven because then there's no need to break above.
Yeah yeah, and you can scavenge ammunition from the Cubans.
Yeah, I see what you're doing. Great, yeah yeah no. And although actually, if I was gonna fall deep into gun stuff and talk about how like people who are obsessed with AK forty sevens while living in the United States are also not doing preparedness right because anyway.
Yeah yeah, And actually ak's break all the time. I have personally seen that happen, and you cannot, in fact not maintain them at all.
Yeah. No, there's more parts available for a hares. But the point is that most of the time you don't need firearms for most crises. Many crises are made worse by having a firearm. And Okay, so, like a lot of your background is with refugee stuff, and you've had to you know, escape to a refugee center and work
in refugee situations all the time. One of my main backgrounds is that I lived out of a backpack for a long time when I was a crosspunk, right, I was a homeless hitchhiker who you know, hopped freight trains and slept under bridges and things like that. And I come from more of a position of privilege than a lot of people who do that. I chose to do it as part of an activism lifestyle and stuff, you know.
And so I'm not trying to like get stolen valor here, but I spend a very long time living outside, and the people who live outside all the time who have only a backpack know what goes in the backpack really well. And you don't see homeless people with guns, and it's not because they're not legally allowed to have them people. I mean, well that's part of it in some situations, right, it's you know, you don't have a safe place of
story and something. It is a lot more complicated, but like you're even talking about a group of people who often have to resort to violence to defend themselves and largely not using firearms to do it, because in most situations they're more trouble than they're worth. Because someone who's living outside is going to have to deal with cops all the time. Someone and this is what you were talking about when when we were talking about getting ready
for this episode. It's like, well, let's say you have your your ar and you approach the border.
Yeah, you're getting engaged really fast by like seventy five border patrol guy guys who have been training their whole life for this, not saying that they're particularly like a well trained or a fishing but they have been waiting for the one person with an assault rifle who they can fire at for a very long time.
Yeah, And the only purpose of having a firearm is if it makes you and the people that you care about more likely to.
Survive, yes, which is doesn't happen if the entire border patrol is shooting at you, right, that's bad.
That's a worse time. Yeah. No, it's like it's like I always carried a legal knife, you know. Yeah, like wherever I was, I have a legal length knife and that was fine. Yeah.
Fishing, Yeah, look into knife flaws though before you before, like a knife flows in America almost as complicated as gun laws.
And you live in California, you can have a cane sword.
Yeah, that's right. But I can open carry a large machete on my belt as long as I don't attempt to conceal it. Oh yeah, regularly.
I used to hitchhike with a machete, so yeah.
Yeah, yeah, there are times that I've been doing stuff with a machete. Yeah, exactly, I needed I was campaign. I did actually once get a I think that's a pod ranger of someone like I was coming in from free diving, and when you free dive, you always have a knife, because I've experienced this. Actually, when you dive and you get tangled in fishing nets and your breathold diving, you need.
To get out so you don't die. Yeah, you have a knife and you cut yourself out, You're supposed to have that knife. So yes, yes, I'm supposed to have that knife. So yeah, you can open carry a knife. It just depends on the county. You're in California, but Sandy a good county, Okay. So to talk about bugout bags, though, yes, what we do want them for is going to be
a different person a person. And what I recommend that any preparedness minded person or any person I hope more people become preparedness minded, is to think about the crises that could happen that are likely, and think about what you would want and how you would deal with them. And my argument up front is that this can reduce anxiety if you do it right, if you fixate on these things forever. Like a lot of people don't engage with barness because they don't want to be anxious about it.
They don't want to think about a forest fire. Right. But if you I've said this before, maybe even on this show, I'm not sure. It was like when I lived in a cabin really in the woods, like I currently live in a house in the woods, but there's
like a little bit of buffer. But I you know, built a twelve by twelve cabin and like in that, I cut down two small trees and built a cabin, right, And so I worried about forest fire, and so I thought about what to do, which was make sure that I always had like you know, some sort of radio and or cell communication available to me, keep a bag ready with all the stuff I need, keep, make sure that my car is half a tank of gas. And that's it. That's all I was going to do to prepare.
There's more you can do, That's all I was going to do. So I stopped worrying about forest fire, and so I think, done right, a go bag or a bug out bag or preparedness in general can reduce their anxiety. And the thing that I think people get wrong is that for mo most people, moving over land by yourself
and surviving in nature is not a likely response to crisis. Yes, there are some times where that will be true, and even like you're talking about, like working at you know, on the border, where people are having to like build shelters and things like that. But for most people, I don't even say put a sleeping bag in your go bag, because size might be more important than that. Yeah, having other warm stuff and emergency blankets and things like that.
I do absolutely advocate, you know, but then again, I often make sure that I have a sleeping bag around because I do live in the middle of the woods, and if my cars were broken and there was a bad thing, I would have to go over land ten miles to get anywhere. You know.
Yeah, because us situation is not the same as evidence, and I think that's right.
But for most people, I advocate that you think about your bug out bag as your get out of town for a weekend bag. It is the you live in a hurricane area. It is a a blizzard's coming. It is your stalker X is in town and you don't want to be around. It is a I decided all of a sudden, I'm going to go visit my family, and I don't want to pack, you know, it is just a it's you're more likely to spend a night in your car on the road somewhere, like in a blizzard.
Let's say, you know, so, what do you need to spend the night in the car in your car in the snow, And the answer is not that much. You need water and you need warmth. Food is like great, right, yeah, we can kind of. I mean, you should have a little bit of snacks to so why not have snacks around?
Yeah, it's in a stressful situation, having something to eat, it helps, it calms you down, It helps you do with that stress.
Yeah. And one of the other things that we were talking about is we're talking about how you know, Okay, so like the basic level that I advocate, I advocate actually even more than having like your your bug out bag is having a smaller pouch that is your emergency bag and that goes into whatever other backpack or purse or anything else you're carrying around. And I actually like make these and distribute them to my friends and stuff.
Oh here's a fun tip. If you're the prepper in your family or friend group when it comes time to holiday presence, if you give them preparedness stuff that has to be on top of whatever else you give them, I.
Guess you can't just give them your weird niche stuff. Yeah, like you have to give them what they want as well as the wind.
Up radio, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fair if sad and you can't just recycle gear that you wanted to try to just give it to your aunt till sent thing.
I mean, you can you just also give other stuff. You can just each a bad nissoor nephew or whatever. Yeah, non binary trying sibling. So I say that these emergency kits are three different things. They're a hygiene kit because like the thing that I need the most off and when I'm suddenly didn't prepare and I'm suddenly somewhere and I'm staying out late, is like a folding toothbrush, right yeah, or like some wet wipes in a packet or you know, I don't know, like nail clippers or something.
Yeah, Like if you I'm a person who used insulin, right, so, like I have a lot of bags insulin in and there it's in most of my bags because I'm up shit Creek without it.
Yeah, it is better to have it, you know.
Yeah, And I'm very lucky to have access to incilin and even have some spend what everyone does, because pharmaceutical industry is terrible.
It is. Yeah, that's actually one of the hardest things when talking to people about preparedness is like getting more of your medication is very complicated and a lot of the methods that people should consider are not legal and I'm not going to advocate them.
It is legal to buy medicine, I think for your own personal usage in countries that are not the United States when you're traveling there anyway.
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, So you want hygiene, you want a basic first aid kit, like kind of on the like booboo kit level, right, which is as if it's not important, but actually, like you just don't want infections can get real bad. So you just want to make sure that you have the ability to clean a small wound and treat it right. And uh, what is it.
It's hygiene, it's medical, and then it's survival stuff. And for me, this is just like tiniest amounts of One of the cool things about preparedness is that the little first things you do are so much more likely to be useful than the complicated things later, Right, Like having a big lighter is so much more likely to be useful than flint and steel and fire starter and all of the bells and whistles.
Yeah, do you left my flint steel? But you're right, it is, oh, I exponentially more useful. Like I've been so look, I've been at the border a week. Right, people are called it's very windy. I have a flint steel in my truck. I have used that zero times. I have gone through an entire eight pack of big lighters. I've refilled my Zippo twice, given away all my lighters. Yeah, because yeah, one you'll call in fact, you're not inclined to start shaving little pieces off a large metal rod.
Yeah, exactly, And like I keep little bits of fire starter and things like that in these emergency kits. Basically, anything that is like light and cheap and useful goes under these kids for me, you know. But the stuff that I prioritize is stuff like the first lighter is more useful than the second one, you know.
Yeah, yeah, Margaret, do you know what's probably not like, certainly not cheap and rarely useful.
Gold? God, that's right yet gold. You've knowed it. But let's hear about gold.
All right, we're back.
That was an ap something you don't need.
But Margaret was about to pivot, I think, to telling you some more things that you do need, right, if so, go ahead, Margaret.
Okay, so tiny little emergency kit put it in everything, and it's just like it's always useful, and it's like everyone I give these two is always a little bit like, oh thanks, And then about a year later they're like, oh, I was at this protest and someone cut themselves or just some really minor strange random thing. They're like, it always comes up that it's really useful that I have this tiny little flashlight in a bag always right, yeah,
you know, and and Okay, so there's that. And then if you want, you could have a designated bug out bag and you keep it in the front closet, or you keep it under your bed, or you keep it wherever is like kind of useful to you. Some people might keep them in their vehicles. That really depends on
where you live. I wouldn't necessarily advocate it in a lot of places because vehicles are more broken into and also have more temperature fluctuations, and things like advil and like over the counter medications aren't like they don't do so great with like wild temperature fluctuations. Okay, so you get yourself a bag, and what kind of bag really depends on what you're talking about. Like we were showing each other our bags before it. Yeah, that's what this
a little insight into our interactions off mic there. Yeah, and I'll describe mine, then you describe yours, okay, and I'll describe mine. You describe yours, and then say why you have it, and then I'll say I have mine. Okay, you got that. I basically have like a regular day pack computer bag. It just there's no waist belt. It's just it's designed hole the laptop. That's my bug out bag. What I have is say it's a thirty two liter bag.
It's called a scree thirty two for those of you who want to be just like me. And I have it because I really like the carriage system. Mystery round us is just like a yoke, so it carries like a frame backpack, but it isn't big and bulky.
Yeah, and that's cool. I've used it, Like I think I've used this bag on every continent in the world apart from the Antarctic. Like, it's just.
A bag that I can put stuff in that is a size that it's not obnoxious, and it works for me for almost everything. I day hike with it, I go on urban nights with it. I use it with my carry on on the plane. Yeah, it's just a useful bag that is not covered in molly and multi caam.
And such things. Yeah, and I know it works for me, Like I've used it for a long time, and I know that it's suitable for my body with heavyweights. Yeah no, And like I love I love bags, and I will happily geek out about bags, and like that bag is a me too. It's pretty nice. And this is like my least favorite backpack, right, I have like other backpacks, Like my day hiking bag is like a twenty five liter you know, actually has a waste strap, and I like really like it, but I keep it packed with
my day hiking stuff, you know. And so you do a lot of outdoor sports, yes, yeah, yeah, and so it really easily doubles as all of that, right.
Yeah, exactly, Like I'm you know, most weekends, you know, I try and sleep outside at least.
Once a month. So yeah, you know, I just sort of have that stuff anyway because it's part of my day to day life. And mine is designed from the period of my life where I basically would go to whatever anarchist coffee shop was in whatever town and just hang out there and work all day, right yeah, and so like and I was like, and I used to have a bug out bag that was like a little
bit bigger. It was like a tactical bag. It was a three day assault pack, you know, and yeah, perfect, And to be fair, I lived in a cabin in the woods and it was twenty twenty in the odds of major military crisis were much higher, and you know, but like, but right now, I'm just like, this is my bag that comes with me when I go to my friend's house or when I go see my family. And because it's the important thing is that you have
the bag that is available. Like it, the piece of gear that you have is always better than the piece of gear you don't have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't have to save up two hundred bucks for you know, a mystery lund urn, no spray bagay, right, but if your thing is being outside all the time, like you know, you should have those things, right yeah, And okay, so what I put in the Everyone's gonna have a really
different stuff in their bug out bag. But some of the lists that I have as my like kind of like core of it that I would recommend that most people would want to have some version of. And you should add things and we could talk about these things. Yeah, your passport and print copies of any essential records such as your animal's rabies vaccine card and medication and things like that. This is the stuff to help you ease
bureaucracy as you move through the world. This is actually a thing you need to be careful with because then sometimes you don't want to bring your passport everywhere you go, right. You don't want to lose it, you know. But if it's your bug out bag that's waiting for you in case of an emergency, I think that's a decent place
to keep it. Yes, I agree. You want an encrypted USB stick with copies of all these important documents such as your driver's license, your passport, house and vehicle titles or rental agreements, insurance information, contact information for family and friends, vaccination records for your animals, and the like. It clearly shows that I have an animal or nut kids. I'm sure there's other stuff that you would Yeah.
I mean, this is just making me think of I ran into a guy the other day who had come to the US with his dog or a patrol wouldn't process him alongside his dog, so volunteers kind of looked after his dog while he was protested, and then returned to his dog to him. Yeah, but now he's going to have to go through the process of certifying the
dog's vaccinations. Maybe the dog will have to get them again. Luckily, he and the dog are on a road trip to their final home or the place where they want to live, where they're meeting up with friends and families, so that they're having a great trip across the country right now.
Yah.
Yeah, that just having easing that transition through bureaucracy by having those documents to hand, I'm sure would have been great.
Yeah. And like, honestly, the more I read about people dealing with refugee crisis and like, oh, I don't know the right to return various places, the more you can prove like the ownership of the stuff you own and things like that, Yes, it can be very easy to.
Become Like I understand that lots of the bureocracy exists to make people legible and therefore taxable by the state. Right, if we're talking from an anarchist perspective, I understand why it exists. I've been reading James Scott a lot recently. If that hasn't fair enough there, but I in a scenario where the state exists, which is the one we
are in. Then there are advantages to being legible and then distendable by the state, and certain disadvantages to being eligible to the state when you're trying to get your house back and even like.
Again my time as a crusty traveler my twenties and into my thirties, the single most useful thing that I carried was my driver's license without warrants because I used to have my idea run every single day. Because actually it's actually part of the reason I have a stranger version to carry in a hiking style backpack around often is because I learned when you look like a punk and you have a travel like a hiking backpack, you
are now the cops main target. Yes, yeah, yeah yeah, and so like whereas when I have like a computer bag, I'm not the cops main target, and that makes my life easier. You know. Okay, small amounts of emergency food such as protein bars that you want to like swap out every couple of months. I recommend putting in the ones that you don't like because otherwise you'll eat them, because otherwise you'll be like, oh I could go tasty snack. Yeah yeah, this is sorry. Just before we recorded a
bar from this bag that I've been showing you. Yeah.
Yeah, there's a product called a Humanitarian Daily Ration, which is a vegan emory that they give to refugees.
Oh wow, Yeah, there's great. Everyone can eat them.
Yeah, They're very good to have, And I have those for emergency food because if one can eat them, ready, do I feel like I want to eat them?
So? Yeah, I've been recently keeping I haven't eaten one yet. I've been keeping these flavorless emergency ration bars, like the lifeboat rations. Yeah, they're just like I think, like oil and sugar and flour or something, oh towns. Yeah, and it's like, you know what, it's three days worth of food at twelve hundred calories a day. Barely three days, but whatever. Yeah, okay, So I recommend having that and
you know, making sure to swap that out. Overall, I advocate not putting in things that will go bad, because you are going to forget about this until it becomes a habit for you to check it every month or so. Yeah. Okay. A travel hygiene kit with toothbrush, floss, toothpaste, moist toilettes, foam, earplugs for sleeping in noisy environments that one is like way more.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I am. And it's a time in my life when I was mostly living in my car,
traveling around France racing bicycles. I got caught in a snowstorm along with a number of other people who would travel in various vehicles, and some of them were traveling in order to make an asylum claim, and we all got to this refugee camp where basically we're sleeping on the floor of a large building and I did not sleep for days because people had children and you know, it's loud, and like, yeah, those air plugs would have been the most important thing.
Yeah yeah. And it was like I actually started carrying them just because of going to shows when I used to do that more. And then I was like, oh, these are really useful in all kinds of situations. They cost like nothing, and the savior hearing the bang for your buck, the non bang for your buck is very good. Yeah, the buck is great. Nail clippers, your daily wear, makeup, and anything else you might need goes in your hygiene kit. Any prescription or over the counter medications that you rely on.
And one thing that came up from a doctor friend of mine recommended. When I was first started making these kids for my friends, I was like buying bulk aspirin and putting it into little drug baggies, you know, yeah smart. And my friend was like, you need to put blister packs in instead blister packs being the like little yeah, individually individually labeled ones. Yeah. Yeah, to explain this thing, Yeah, yeah, we're professionals because the police have less cause for suspicion
if you are searched. And this is clearly advil, it says, so it is packaged in a way that is not convenient for people to make their own packages and so and actually it's funny is that of all the ones that I put into people's things, the only thing I haven't been able to get blister packed is caffeine. Because I put caffeine into these things because a lot of people are addicted to it, and also because it's useful
to be able to stay awake in certain environments. And so I actually put in like different like caffeine powder drinks or caffeine gum or other things. Yes, yeah, it's going to say, get MRI caffeine gum. Yeah. And then also and I give them to my friends who are about to drive sleepy is like, yes, and that's the main use that I have had. It's amazing I don't drink caffeine. It's amazing how much caffeine I have on
me at any given time. Yeah, a change of socks and underwear, and these should be like climate appropriate, especially like wool socks are like the most useful thing in the world. Just as a general rule, I think that a packable rain jacket and or poncho is incredibly useful here. A lot of people like the ponchos that are sort of a slightly more military style because you can use them as a tarp and make a shelter if you need.
That might be overkill for your particular environment. You might also just have like your hiking rain jacket that goes in there. A puffy packable warm top is a little bit of a like bonus item. It's I think having a warm upper layer is really important for a lot of it's until you've slept outside without a sleeping bag, you have no idea how cold it is in the
summer to sleep outside. Yeah, on the ground, especially whenever I'm watching movies or really books, and like the kid runs away from home, or they're like on that and they go and they sleep in the woods. I'm like, the fuck they did if they didn't sleep that night?
Yeah?
Yeah, you lie on your side, holding yourself, wondering what you made these choices in life.
Yeah.
Yeah, I might add that if you're going to have a specific like a puffy jacket for this, and you don't own a puffy jacket, Yeah, a couple of things to consider that Germany compressing down will help make it lose some of its loft, so it will be less lofty. Yeah, So you don't want to keep that stuff compressed for a very long time or super compressed, right, don't cram
it into the smallest ball. Remember that when you buy down jackets or the baffles which are the sewing lines across it, like, those are areas that are not insulated, right, So you don't actually want the ones with the with one hundred little baffles going down them.
Oh interesting, that makes sense.
Yeah, and then synthetic insulation does a lot better with with with with wetness.
It retains some of its insulating properties. And my final thing with down jackets, I think a lot about down jackets, I'm sorry, is get one that is a size bigger than you would normally get for like, oh yeah, because you don't.
Really want to be taking stuff off when you're cold. You want a jacket that you can just put on over all your stuff. We call it a ballet parker in a sort of mountaineering community. But it's like a static thing, right, So you're hiking your mount to climbing, you stop, you immediately check that thing on over everything that keeps you warm until you start moving again.
That makes sense to me. I advocate personally. I advocate for synthetic. I advocate because it's cheaper, you can leave it compressed, and because it insulates better in the wet and it is much heavier for its and larger for its insulating value. But for me, like having spent a lot of my life like sleeping and sleeping bags with no tarp or whatever and just being like I'll just fucking deal whether it's not raining that hard, you know.
Like yeah, yeah totally, Like I have fucked some really expensive downsleeping bags, even the oil on your skin, and will actually eventually closet that down to Yeah, like that you really have to baby some ultra light down stuff, which is fine, Like if I'm mountaineering. If I'm not that i will baby my bag because I don't want to carry extra shit.
But this is not that exactly. Like if you are trying to do a through hike, you might look at this very differently. And there's a version of the world where your crisis might involve moving over the mountains in winter to get out of a country that has just elected a fascist who says that he wants to kill all the communists or whatever. Yeah, I've spoken to those people. Yeah, and so like in that situation, get the mountaineer and shit, you know, yeah, yeah, okay. Other stuff to have in
this bag a heavy duty trash bag. You can put all your stuff in it to keep it dry. Yeah. Yeah, there's like all these like arguments about how to keep your bag dry and overall. And I'm curious if this has been your experience. People have been moving away from like pack cover where you cover the pack and instead just put everything inside the pack into something that's waterproof.
Yeah, that's what I've done for a very long time. You can spend a lot of money on stuff sacks like the event ones that see to some make a cool because they have a one way breathable fabric, so you squeeze them and the egg goes out rules it doesn't go back in. It's pretty cool, but then you end up with these really hard bricks of clothing or whatever that like you can't kind of make them fill the space, right, They just end up being like solid, so sometimes they don't pack as well.
Yeah.
I have used three milimeter contract grade bin bags for years the mountain into the deserts. You can sleep in them. You can make them into a poncho, you can fill them with brush and make them into a sleeping pad.
Yeah, great items, and it's sketchy, but a lot of people who are stuck living outside in very cold environments will wear them close to their skin for like a really intensely heating insulating layer. But it's sketchy because then you sweat like hell and you can freeze it stuf if you really careful. That's some like that's some life or death ship. Yeah exactly. I'm not telling you how to do that on air here, you know.
Yeah, Google, But yeah, they have a lot of usage you to gather water too, I've done that before.
Oh that makes sense. Cash cash is really useful. The amount of cash you want to carry has to do with the amount of cash that you're willing to put into a bag that just sits there for it does nothing, you know. Yeah, gold of course, yeah, totally. Uh have so many thoughts about Golden Air. Yeah yeah, yeah. Anyway,
that's beside the point. That's where home prepping. Okay, you want to spare USB battery and charging cables, I would advocate an octopus cable that has like mini USB c and lightning charger all on one cable so you don't have to keep track of multiple cables for multiple devices. Yeah.
Right right here, I'm trying to look what the brand is of mine, because I got one recently. When I'm working in places that are conflict zones to suspect places where I think I might have to go like peace out to a bomb shelter for a few hours, days whatever, I like to have a little pouch with all my charging and medical and essential stuff.
Yeah. This is called a leave a cable, and I found it to be very handy, okay, because it's like stiff and it doesn't cables get twisted and frayed a lot, okay, doesn't do that. Yeah, Little Buzz Marketing for you there. Yeah, now I'm going to look into those later because I as much as I'm like, oh fuck all the gadgets, know what I'm trying to say, you don't need all the gadgets, but they're kind of cool and like, and the size of extra battery you have is depending on
what you're doing. You know, like, if you're reasonably sure you're gonna be around power, just have a little one and because like, you know what, you're gonna be the one who saves the night when everyone's drunk at the bar and someone's phone is dead and they're the only person who has uber set up right, and you know, yeah, Like I've been trying to advocate that per snacks are the best example of prepping and that everything that like men are trying to do is like catching up the
fact that like women are actually culturally in our society like better prep in. Yeah, but okay, I put a miler emergency blanket in. These are these like you know, they seem almost gimmicky. They are these incredibly light little plastic tarps.
Right.
One probably saved my life when I was thirty, like on my like twelfth or thirteenth birthday, when I like woke up getting hypothermia five miles from the road in a wet tent. So I'm just like, yeah, no, eyes are great, Like, yeah, they're great.
They that you can do a hypothermia wrap with them, use them for signing if you're in a different kind of situation. We can't use them in the refugee counts and working because one of them floated into a transformer and that oh wow that Yeah, so yeah, that's your that's your caveat there doing some around high voltage power. But yeah, there's things you're not going to get anything warmer for that size. It's the size of a couple of credit cards stacked on top of each other.
Yeah, totally. And like in mind, I have like a slightly nicer one because I don't have a sleeping bag. In mind, I have like an emergency bag sleeping bag. I've never used it. I don't.
Oh yeah, the like there's a company called Survive Outdoors, like funk. I'm saying a lot of companies today by autu you have a shit you want, I don't care. There's company called Survive Outdoors Longer that makes one that's like about the size of a beer can.
Yeah, that's that's yeah, I think, yeah, those are great. Yeah, I've sucked up at night one of those when I was doing like the like look how ultra light I could be stuff. It's not great, but like, but here you are recording here, I am not defintely with my full set of digits, so like I can't really complain, you know, yeah, exactly. And those things won't float off into a power transform. They're a bit heavier. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that would be yeah, it would be an advantage of it.
Uh yeah. And on the other side, so again, people will see you, right, which a contrary to what you might have seen on YouTube. You want people to see you most of the time. Most crises you're going to encounter, you're not going to be hiding. Right. Sometimes when you're like hitchhiking and shit, you do have to not be seen. And then I get really noticing how bright all the tents are, and so I kind of want one of the new bullshit Camo ultra light tents. But yeah, that's
I don't hitchhike. I have a fucking truck. It's bullshit. I'm fine a full water bottle. I think it's always worth having a full water bottle in your in your bag. This is the heaviest thing in your bag. Water is just fucking wonderful and you need way more of it than you think you do when you're exerting yourself. I have been historically advocating a single wall steel canteen so that the water can be boiled in an emergency directly
in it. But a lot of people have a preference for lighter weight and that makes a lot of sense. And also even having something that just looks a little bit more civilian also makes a lot of sense. The Ultra light I actually think the Ultra Lighters might be right on this one. And they use the to use a brand name. They all get those smart waters, but then they don't keep drinking smart water. They drink one and then they clean it and refill the bottle with tap water.
Yeah, we say the Sawyer filter fits on top of it, which is very handy, right.
Yeah.
The thing I do like about a single walls Chaine bottle. A the smart water bottles, you fill them up and then they freeze. They can break right and B I like to do like the analoge and baby, you know where you you boil some water put it in that thing and you are cold, that comes into bed with you.
Yeah, it's very pleasant experience. Yeah, no, that that makes sense to me. I don't know what happened to full water full full steel water bottle. Someone on the head with it. Yeah, they're not coming back from that. Even the guy with the folding ar, he's not getting up. You give him a couple with the well. And if we're going for cross punk, I also recommend a lack attached to a chain. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, well just so if you have a bicycle. True, that's true. Yeah, yeah,
areas of our interest. Yeah, okay, A but tane, lighter, a bit lighter, an emergency whistle. This is the most Like. I was at a firearms training and we were talking about a bunch of stuff and people were like, all right, and this is how you like signal the following, you know, like like range clear kind of stuff, like use a whistle, blah blah blah blah. And everyone's like, I didn't bring a whistle. I'm like I got three in my bag,
Like what are you doing? Yeah, amateurs, Yeah, if they're light and cheap and useful, Like the number of people who wouldn't have died in the woods because if they had a whistle, like more than anything else. Because people think that the solution to our problems is fix it yourself. Usually the solution to problems is get help.
Yes, yeah, yeah, and that's a great Like you're going to use a lot of energy whistlingly shouting. Yeah, and most if hiking backpacks will have a chest buckle that is also a whistle, and if they don't, you can probably change it.
Yeah, and that rules. That's the kind of shit I like to see. Yeah, it's well thought out, it's cover. Yeah, we love it. And when I when I lived on a LAMB project, I made everyone put the hurricane whistles by their door so that like we didn't always have a good cell reception or what of her, and so that there's an emergency, we can everyone has a whistle loud enough to be heard by everyone else on the
large product. Oh yeah, you know spot. Yeah, it's a lot less money than a ham radio, which is something I've been right and like I'm not anti having like you know, good walkie talkies and stuff, but yeah, yeah, sometimes you're just like, no I have I have a hurricane whistle or even I just have a regular whistle. Okay, a folding knife. You print them? What's that? You could three D print them? Pretty good ones. Oh that's cool, like three to printing me give them out, now, that's cool,
that's awesome. I keep a folding knife in these bags. I also usually just have one on me. But and you know, the least weapon looking knife you can get is going to be a bang for your buck in terms of like being able to go with you lots of places. Obviously this isn't going to your carry on luggage. Yeah, A rechargeable headlamp or flashlight, and then a basic first aid kit. That's my you know, there's a there's all
kinds of other stuff. If you're going to be hiking, if you're and if I know I'm going to be like in a lot of situations, one of the first things I would add as a tarp and a sleeping bag. That would be like, yeah, the next things to go in sleeping bags are pretty big. Yeah.
I generally have that stuff in a general sense, both for doing this and for generally enjoying outdoors stuff. It really helps if you can have your shit organized in stuff sacks and labeled so that you know if if you should you need to leave your house in an emergency, right, it's going to be more comfortable if you have a sleeping bag and inflatable pillow and at top you can grab them in ten seconds if you've got them labeled right, and it's this will also help you.
Like I like to camp. The worst part about camping is packing.
So if I have all my stuff, I can just be like, Okay, I've got a sleep system, I got to cook e system.
Yeah, twenty four hours of food. I'm ready to rumble. Yeah no, it makes sense. But you know what who else is ready to rumble? Oh? Yeah yeah, they're ready to fight at all times. Yep, here's an ad for fighting. We're back and we've now learned to fight thanks to the adverts. Yeah yeah, so Tye bj J. Actually that's it's fun. Yeah yeah, that's that's it's cool.
Kraft Maga Yeah yeah yeah, the.
The Reagan Gold of martial arts. Yeah okay, so what do you Okay, So I have other stuff that I keep in my ad my bag that is like more fun or I think incredibly useful, but not in the like dead basics that I keep. But what else do you keep. Do you have any like fun stuff or other stuff that I didn't mention, Yeah, a couple of other things. I think. One of the things I use the most.
This is my little bag that I have if I you have to go to area, shelter or certain thing.
It's very very small. It's like I don't know, Uh, it's the size of a small paper book. Is would go into a bigger bag.
But one of the things that I use, I take on trips with me and I use everywhere I go. And this is like a quarter inch bit driver. Oh nice, Yeah, and it spins, It spins, and it's just a tiny screw driver where you can change the bits.
Yeah, and then I have a set of bits. Ye.
So like I use this bad boy all the time. Right, I use it when I get water in my podcast equipment, which is a thing that I am wont to do.
Uh, you have to.
This is my this is my this is my laddism. Right, I'm breaking the frame of big podcast.
You keep a sledgehammer specifically for breaking frames?
Yeah, machine frames if you run out, Yes, Yeah, it's one thing I fucking hate. It's a weaving machine and I take them down whenever I can, but this this guy is really useful, right Like you know, you could be staying with you could be.
There are a million things right there. Your bed in your hotel is loose and you need to tighten it.
You need to take a part of your podcasting machine. There is you know that there's something wrong with your phone. Whatever it is like a screwdriver and a few little bits, super handy. You want to help your friend put together some my kea furniture, not a problem. So it's very very small. It's you know, the size of pretty the size of a cigarette and then the sort of bits and the size of another cigarette. Very easy to carry around with you everywhere. I am an appreciator of sporks.
Oh that's on my That was on my follow up list.
Tooh excellent good. Yeah, I'm a person who thinks about sporks a lot. You guys can read my sport reviews at backpacking dot com if you want to.
Yeah, that's that's not a joke. It's just a reflection on the sad person I am. So yeah, Okay, are you a long handled spork or regular spork?
See the long handled spook is nice for when you're going into an m e type meal. How often you go to no mo re type meal compared to like the pocketability of a normal spork Right now, that makes sense to me. Yeah, the MR spoon is the best bargain eating device. It weighs six grams, which is less than a titanium spork. Okay, you can dip into hot water. It doesn't melt, it doesn't break like a like a traditional plastic like. It's not like a fast food plastic spoon.
It's its best bang feed back when it comes to spoons.
Okay. And when I asked shape when I was, when I was more of a crosspunk, Yeah, always on my waist belt was a titanium spork with a P thirty eight can opener key chain to it. Yes, because no matter what I could get into a can of Amy's chili. It's the amount of people I've seen.
And I took camping a lot. Sometimes I'll go with my trucks, sometimes I go by myself on my feet. The amount of humans I've seen with very expensive overlanding setups, trying to open a can of food on a rock, It's a lot of humans. Yeah, I can opener is a very handy thing.
No and the P thirty eight or P fifty ones. These are the tiny military ones. They weigh nothing. They're like ten of them would fit on a credit card, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have six my truck. But yeah they're very small. Yeah.
Tens of other things I do, like zip ties, ziptize, very small, very handy. Yeah, you can always fix it with zip tize. I'm just looking at this bag in front of me and thinking what else I have.
That's remarkable. I save the day with ziptize when when I was driving in the woods with my friend when some part of her exhaust system fell off of her van, and oh yeah, I was like dragging on the ground. And I didn't normally carry zip tizes, but my dad had always been like, zip tize They're amazing, And I was like sure, dad, whatever, So like I had some in my truck.
Yeah, very hand jiptize and duct tape certainly in your vehicle. You can fix most stuff that wants fixing with zip tize and duct tape. I just like to wrap that handles of my stuff, like I have a little bit lighter here and I just wrap that in duct tape and then I have the duct tape yeah, and I have the bit lighter. Duct tape also is great tinder. You can start a fire with it, so okay, really has many many uses.
You can use one lighter to light the other lighter on fire. Yeah. Yeah.
You could also take the tape off your lighter if you wanted to avoid lighting your lighter.
All right. If you did light your lighter, you'll get a moment of excitement when it goes poof, unless you're holding it, which case you'll get a moment of pain, which could be exciting. Yeah, it could be exciting. Hopefully you're close to a hospital. Yeah. Yeah, I like to carry it like a little pre made There's a I like to. I do like to vacuum seal stuff. It's the thing that I enjoy.
I recently got a vacuum seiler, been getting really into it, so like I'll vacuum see your little packets of pills, little little plasters, band aids for American listeners into little packs and give them to people or keep them places. It maybe helps them with aging a little bit. But having having a bag at that you could just open in an emergency. It's super handy.
The other thing that I like and largely.
This is just because I go to places and I have these tiny little fishing chem lights. They like they're designed for certain fishing floats, so very good if you need to like see something and so that's.
Glow sticks for the non tactical crowd, yeah yeah, yeah, or silooms for the British tactical crowd. They're very handy.
You need to mark something at night, right, Like, They're not going to be great for like I have flares in my car. My car breaks down in the dark, grown and I don't want people to pile into the back of it.
For smaller things, you're going around.
A campsite and you want to be like, oh, like, you know, there's a a piece of rebar sticking out the ground here, right, you can crack one of those bad boys and light it up. That makes They're also just a way to bamboos or young children. If you're around kids at night and you can suddenly make light appear, just make sure they don't eat them.
Okay. But see, this actually gets to something that you brought up earlier. A lot of crazy situations, an awful lot of them you're not alone, and then an awful lot of them things like being able to entertain kids and things like that is like, yeah, a genuine need, like a very useful thing. And so like I know people who keep you know, like I mean usually people who have kids, but they keep a stuffed animal or something like that in their bag.
Yeah, Like I was, so there are a lot of children in these camps down the border, and that's very fucked up. But like I realized I didn't have any toys. So I got loads of these tiny little stuffed animals someone had donated. Dude, Like they're about the size of a golf ball, and it gave each child an animal right, so they could play with the little animals, and animals could be in community with each other.
Oh that's amazing. Yeah. Yeah.
They were so pumped. And it wasn't just that kids were like, yeah, I got a toy. The parents were like thank fuck, like yeah, they are so bored, right, or like I have a small finger puppet that using the other day to entertain them. I don't where I found it. I found it in one of the vans we were using. It's like a seal and something like that makes all the difference when you have nothing to do with your kids, and I guess like along those lines, when I am bored, I have a Kindlap on my phone.
I think it works with all the phones. Obviously, Jeff Bezos is a ball end, but like that's a it's a British word. Yes, it's a British word. We don't like beis. Yeah, it's always the end of a dick.
The tu messcent Park, Yeah okay, yeah, for those who weren't clear in the audience, but yeah, Jeff Besis is a dick.
But the kindlap is nice. You can also have PDFs of books on your phone, but it's again, like I'm telling you from personal experience, when you're sitting in a giant warehouse with nothing to do for a few days. Somewhere, I have a picture of building a fort with this little you know, she's like three or four, you know, and her folks who had come folks are refugees and we were just bored. So we built a four out
of my level. But someone had an inflatable ball which we just played with for hours because you're so bored.
Yeah.
So yeah, just having like an app on your phone where you can read books, it's probably going to be more useful to you than that shore barrowed rifle that you have to pay two hundred dollars tax stamp and that effects come into your house.
For Yeah, every every crosspunk I knew you always carry what you need, and then you carry something and you almost like set your personality around this, Like like I knew a guy who was not an ultra lighter and his name was Pogo Dave and a fucking pogo stick. Yeah, an old metal like rusted pogo stick and I almost broke my knee with that thing. Oh yeah, in the middle of nowhere. Yeah.
I don't know if younger listeners will be familiar with the pogos. I think that's like do you think the zoomer is in the audience?
I have no idea there. Yeah, they're probably looking up kids. Yeah and yeah, and so having something And it's funny too, because every like prepper manuals, like and a deck of cards and this is like technically true, but I'll tell you what. People actually plays hot dice, having some like six sided dice to play this really annoying game called hot dice, or like bring some D and D dice and just start playing like role playing games with people.
You know, Like there's like having the entertainment things and then the other thing. I think it's really worth considering having a small musical instrument. I find that, like there's a reason that crossbunks play music everywhere they go. Yeah, are you about to pull out the harmonica?
I have a harmonica in a pistol magazine pouch that I take on the side of my bag when I go to places.
Hell yeah, yeah, we took me.
So when Rubb and I did on the m Moo Trepe, I left my harmonica with the the people who you're going to hit singing at the start of our show, they played they guitar and song for us cool.
I left them the harmonica and they play it now. Yes, harmonica and then harmonica. The one thing that I have in my bug up bag that's all little bit extra, but I swear by I have a Nintendo Switch and a bunch of physical game cartridges for it. Because when twenty twenty hit, I lived in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. I was off grid. I barely had
any electricity. I basically had to walk half a mile to my car and like charge things in my car for a while until I like got together enough money to get some solar panels and some batteries and stuff, right, because I had not planned on having my cabin be suddenly where I lived well like full time, not going
anywhere else lived. And the first thing I got was a little tiny it's called a bit boy and it is a like tiny game boy that has every single Nintendo and Super Nintendo and Psychogenesis game pirated onto it. Oh wow, and.
Immediately ordering that off to the podcast and it costs like forty I don't know how much they cost now, but they're not expensive because they're little weird three D printed pirated.
Things and they like use almost no electricity and so it uses way less electricity in a cell phone. And that saved my sanity. And then when I finally got my shit together enough to get a Nintendo Switch and I could play Skyrim like and it's not that I had nothing to do. People are like, oh, you don't need to entertain yourself in crisis because you're busy. It's like, look, you can probably only physically work on building your house
to get it ready for the apocalypse. You think you're living in for maybe fourteen hours a day, you know, maybe ten to fourteen hours. Yeah, and if you don't do manual labor right now, then it might be a lottle less en. Yeah, like you have downtime, not always in every situation, but like injured need to sit around and do something or you'll you know, like entertainment is like actually really useful. Yes, And if you bring a paperback, and I recommend it, bring one that you've already read
because you know you like it. I like, normally don't reread books all that much, but when I need to turn my brain off, a book that you've already read for a lot of people is going to do better. And if you haven't, so you should get a jump start on this by reading my book. Is inul Island a magnificent All right? Thanks? Yeah? Yeah, So so you can do the tabletop roleplaying game that we did. Yeah, yeah, there's a Escape from Insult Island tabletop roleplaying game that's
coming out next to you. Well, there's this little zine version of it that I think you can download now, but it's going to be slightly better.
Yeah, I could keep that in your bag. The other thing I was going to plug that I forgot about was download the Google Maps on to your phone. Yeah, or whatever brand, apps you want, maps you want, and have a watch that that doesn't need a battery. I think that's super handy. You can use the watch to tell the direction of south, which we'll seek if you other compass directions if if you really need to, but
you can tell the time. You would again be surprised, how like people might imagine that I have to X happen, say it needs to tell the time, so it won't match. You probably will need to tell the time in most of your crises, you know, even to know if something has happened or it's not happened right, And so being able to do that it's very handy. And having a watch that powers yourself is a way to do that.
No, that makes sense. I use one that doesn't power itself, but it like lasts three weeks or so on a charge and like vaguely charges itself from the sun, but not very efficiently. There's also and I know there's like now we're getting into the ways. Okay, here's the other pitch. It's fun when besides doing the basics, you can nerd out about it, and you can do it cheaply because nerding out about it is free. You can find your other friends that want to talk about this bullshit and
talk about with this bullshit. You don't have to go out and buy fancy crazy shit. Sometimes you want the fancy crazy shit, but most of the stuff we're talking about is super cher and then you can have the joy of talking about the ship and getting into the weeds with it. But there's a there's an app I think it's called Keywicks, and it lets you download Wikipedia and read it on your phone offline. Yeah, that would be good.
I've just remembered one more thing that Mark and I talked about off Michael a while ago, because this is the kind of people we are. Yeah, it's called bank line.
Oh yeah, yeah.
So the tactical crowd a very into power cord because it's a little bit stronger and you can pick out the inside lines and stuff. Is also very shiny and could be annoying to not sometimes if you get some bank line and you need to construct a shelter, which is relatively unlikely, you can. If you need to repair your clothes and you have a needle, you can pick it apart and use.
It for that. But if you're bored, like every everyone should know a few knots. You know, if you know how to do like a I guess figure eight, not if you know how to do a truck has hitched a bowl and knot and you're probably pretty good if you could do those, honestly, Like, you can do a lot of stuff to justice prussic, maybe another friction hitch. You can practice those when you're bought. It's fun.
It's okay. It may not be as fun for you as it is for me because I'm that kind of person. But if you like to learn stuff and then you can share that with someone else, right, it's fun to teach people and then they can teach you. A couple I have taught and learned not from people from half a dozen nationalities in the last month, and it's fun anyway. It's cool to share.
It's also like when you're in a ship situation, being like, huh, having a moment where you're not thinking about the ship situation instead of thinking about that's cool. I learned that not it's very nice actually, and so yeah, like a Brazilian rodeo guy taught me a couple of knots.
That's the other day. Yeah, it was sweet. We were helping. We had dumpster dive some tents that Susan g Coheman was throwing away, and so we were helping put those up and in one case we had their fly sheet but not the tent, so we were trying to work out how to make them to top. Did some different knots. It was fun, and bank line is cheaper than para code.
Probably don't need the paracode with a fishing line inside in ninety nine percent of circumstances to get some bank line number thirty six bank line.
Okay, and then the other the crustpunk challenges. You just start fixing your clothes at dental floss. Oh yeah, Fluss is great for that.
Yeah Yeah, I get a sale needle and dental flosh and you'll smell minty fresh.
Yeah. And when I make my emergency kits, I take little there's sort of sewing needle vials. I like them better than the little slidey kits where everything gets lost all the time. Yeah, And I just get these little tiny vials. They're clear so everyone knows what's in it. And I put safety pins, regular sewing needles, and leather sewing needles into them. And then when you're sewing with leather.
The other thing that I recommend people carry it. Okay, like in two thousand and three, if you are a crustpunk, the things you need to have on you are at all times. You need a folding knife, you need a headlamp, you need a multi tool with pliers, and you need a sleeping bag and like and a spork and it can opener, and that's kind of it in a lot of ways.
Yeah, don't combine those things. It be the person with the spark multi tool. Now you'll get beans in your knife and fucking.
Well, actually that's called a hobo tool. There actually are multi tools that are but oh sorry, spork but then it's a spoon and it's a spoon and on one side and a forecast the other. Yeah yeah, yeah, those suck. Don't anything that folds. Anything that folds, you should keep it away from food. Yes, folding knife is going to get so gross. I mean you'll do it anyway, but I think we're kind of probably at time.
Yeah, yeah, I could keep going. That's going to get tweezers. But okay, yeah, this is enough stuff. Yeah, if you want to hear more of this kind of content, Yeah, Mago just a whole other podcast.
Oh I was gonna say that I'd trick them into having me on to talk about this stuff more. But yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll we'll have you back.
We'll do a whole other one film. But Margaret also has a whole other podcast which you should listen to. What's it cool and where can people find it?
Margaret? Well, okay, so the Prepper one is called Live Like the World Is Dying, your podcast where it feels like the end times. It comes out every Friday. And I also have a cool Zone Media podcast called cool People It's Cool Stuff, where I talk about history and about cool people who did cool stuff. And James has been on both of these podcasts. So if you want to hear us continue to banter about things, there's so many more available options available to you.
Yeah, maybe download them for those terrible times when you just need the calming voice of me and Margaret talking about bags.
That's right, Well, just like just to like it's okay, you're going to get through this. I know that things seem bad right now, and they are bad, but it's okay. We'll just still a big hour of that. Yeah, yeah, to an hour of that. I'm proud of you. Yeah, totally, yeah, yeah, we will be your anarchist affirmations. Yeah.
Cool, that's another podcast. This has been It could Happen here. Thank you, Margaret that it was wonderful time.
Fine. It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.