I Walked Away From Algorithms And Started Over

I disappeared on purpose and then came back with fewer opinions, fewer notifications, and a lot more clarity. After months away, I’m back on the mic to explain why I deleted social media, how the algorithm-fueled anxiety was showing up the second I woke up, and why I’m choosing a slower, quieter way to share what’s going on in my life. No DMs, no highlight reel, no pressure to perform. Just honest reflection and the parts of overlanding that still feel real. 

I also tell the story I didn’t expect to be telling: more than 100 of my older podcast episodes are gone. Losing years of work stings, but it also forces a question we don’t ask enough: what are we holding onto, and what would it look like to just move forward? That theme ties into bigger changes too, including how COVID pushed me out of strength coaching and into corporate life, and how that shift has affected my mental health, identity, and sense of fulfillment over time. 

Then we get practical and personal: resetting my truck and gear, resisting the constant urge to buy upgrades, getting real about how outdoor communities can turn into a status race, and even obsessing over the most unglamorous camping topic of all, toilets. I also share a surprisingly meaningful tip: printing your travel photos and putting them on a wall, plus cleaning up old Gaia GPS pins so your map actually helps you. If any of this hits home, subscribe, share the episode with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review. What’s one thing you’ve quit that made your life better?

Transcript

Coming Back To The Mic

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everybody, this is Charlie, and um I'm back to the podcast. This will be the first episode back. Um, I'm not gonna say outskirts overland. Obviously, that's the name of the podcast as it's listed. We'll see what I want to talk about, and we'll see if the name changes slightly, what I want to do with it, how that all goes. Um, a lot has been happening in my life. Not that you guys all care. I'm going to touch on it some. But I want to touch on first, those of you that have listened for a long time. The podcast had 114 episodes total. Um, a hundred and fourteen or fifteen with that little excerpt I put out. I decided to step away from the podcast, as I did many things. Um, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. Um in a lot of ways, I cleared myself from the algorithms of things. I I just needed a break. I still am using that break. I'm still living that break, I guess you could say. But I needed a break from it all. And by going through and doing all that, I let the podcast software go. I let the podcast host go. And it took me quite a while to come back to, you know, wanting to do it four months, almost five months since my last podcast. And that podcast was essentially just letting everybody know that I was stepping away. I got rid of all the social media, I got rid of everything. I, you know, kind of that I couldn't tell you this was a planned transition of things. It wasn't. I just knew that I was waking up every day and I just felt anxious from the get-go and rushed, and you know, social media was just making it worse, showing me things to buy and that that that it thought I needed based off things I'd looked at. And then almost everything I saw was either one of two things. It was confirmation bias on what I already think, or it was like the exact opposite of what I think. So it was either like it was just a consistent mental up and down, and not that that's everybody, okay? Like people like social media and people love social media, but this podcast will continue to exist without any um without any social media support. I'm not gonna get an Instagram just because I have the podcast, because the podcast can be this one-sided self-expression. It can be this thing where you guys could communicate with it, but it's not gonna be at an immediate, it's not gonna be at an immediate response from me. It's not gonna be at, you know, here's these pictures of my stuff, and here's these things about my truck and my travel, and in pictures, like that's just force-fed to you. You're gonna have to come here, you're gonna have to listen, and you're gonna wanna have to care what I have to say to do that. So I felt like that was worth touching on. I now to say all that, all but eight of my podcast episodes are gone. Um, the last eight I'd done. I got a hold of the host and said, Hey, I think I want to kick this back up. Are these, you know, these aren't there, but are they even recoverable? And the answer was simply was no. Now, prior to this, when I was in a world of constant anxiety, you know, this is just a testament to what I'm doing being the right thing for me. Prior to this, in a world of constant anxiety and social media, not that I think it's the worst thing that's ever existed or the best thing that's ever existed, but just due to the fact that I got away from it, I just kind of looked at it like, you know, that all did exist. I worked hard for years. I mean, I don't even want to act like at this point, I don't wanna I don't want to shortchange it. There was years. I lost over a hundred episodes. I there was a lot of stuff that I'll never remember doing. And you know, and the the software or excuse me, the uh host was like, well, if you have back episodes, you know, recorded, you can repost them. Well, as things work in the podcasting world, you don't just get you know unlimited upload hours. So it would have taken me like months of only posting my old stuff, using up those hours to even begin to put out anything new. And so I just looked at it and sat with it. I found all this out, you know, I don't know, around, you know, it was it was probably like four hours after I put out the last podcast, four hours, maybe it was a day later, I don't know. It was around the time I put out the last little extra excerpt, and I was like, man, that sucks. That sucks real bad. And uh I worked with them and they were like, oh, I show eight episodes, is that how many you had? And I was like, I think I had like 120, and they were like, oh, you know, it's not it's not very common that I think that people get that far and stop, or they let it go far enough to where they lose it. So that was a tough pill to swallow, but it nonetheless, you know, in a time where I'm making a lot of changes and seeing what I want to do and how I want to move forward just in life in general, not podcasting. I mean, this is something I do um but or have done. I let's not say I do it at this point. Let's let's let that reinvent itself here, or let me reinvent it here, but you know, outside of that, but I was like, you know, it just is what it is. The last eight episodes are the last eight episodes, and that's what's there, and that's eight episodes I don't have to do and restart all over. So I was like, you know, we're just let's uh let's just call it a let's call it a win there. Like I don't there's eight episodes I don't have to I don't have to start from nothing. Um do it did my stats stay, I don't know. Did my reviews stay? I don't know. I I actually made a conscious effort to not look anymore. I was like, I gotta just get away from this, um, because it's gonna probably upset me or make, you know, and I don't mean upset me like oh well, well, well, like piss off. And I've been doing a pretty good job of eliminating those distractions from my life. So that being said, I uh I did go camping in December and January, or November or December and January, I don't know. Went up to Minnesota with some friends. I think their podcast is Deliberately Lost Outdoors. I did do a podcast with them, so I'm on that podcast. Uh, if you guys want to hear about that trip, go over to their podcast and and we talk about it. It was fun. Those of you who've been listening a long time, if you don't listen to their podcast, I'd been talking about wanting to camp on a frozen lake. Um, we're a mile out on a frozen lake, and I camped out there in the truck with the diesel heater, in the rooftop tent, and uh I did it. That was a bucketless item for me. That those guys didn't, I mean, it didn't seem like a big deal to those guys, it was a huge deal to me, and I'm greatly appreciated for them and the opportunity to go do that. They essentially took care of the logistics of that so that I could just come and do it. Now, there was definitely logistics on my end of you know, surviving it and such. It was cold, but really cool, really cool, and I was happy to go do that. Um, but over the last, I don't know, four months, five months now, I've really just started to I don't want to say I went through a crisis, you know. I don't want to say crisis, but it definitely don't know how else to say it, but forced change. I've been going through a forced change forced by me, not forced by something else. Because I was just unhappy, you know. I told you I've said it before, but I was a strength coach, a nutrition coach. You know, some would have called me a life coach at one point in time for many, many, many years. And through the lifestyle I was able to lead by being someone showing people a better lifestyle. I was allowed, you know, a lot of autonomy and like schedule and things I did. And I I actually enjoyed what I was doing. You know, I never went to work and thought, man, I hate this, this stinks. Um, so those of you that are going, yeah, why'd you quit doing that? Um, COVID happened and being a strength coaster or a trainer or a nutritionist, those weren't essential jobs. And if you guys have forgotten, um, you know, they classified things in essential and non-essential, um, at least where I live, you know, I don't want to go back and rehash that time in everybody's life, but at least in the city and county I live in, they did. I don't know if that was a national thing or not, but it doesn't really matter because it's what happened to me. Um, during that period of time, you know, it it was a acting on, you know, acting on fear, maybe. I I couldn't articulate the right term or the way in which that I came to it, but I thought, man, this isn't consistent. I have three kids. This is not gonna be like what happened, you know. At that time we were also unsure. I was like, I don't know what's gonna happen again or what's going on. So I left being a strength coach um to change jobs and I were went to the corporate, you know, side of things, corporate structure. And I've been doing that for the last six years, but it's far less fulfilling from what I was doing, you know. Like it's not like it's not there's not positives to it, you know, at all. It's not like it's doomsday or I think it's a bad thing to do or a bad place or anything like that. It's just not it's not living and teaching a life that, you know, that's what I was doing. I was living and teaching other people like a better way, you know, and it sounds maybe even guru-like or something like, oh, I'm teaching these people a better way to live. Like you can eat healthy, you can exercise, you can share it with your kids, even though your kids, you know, maybe not aren't bought in. But let's teach you how to how to navigate that your kids aren't bought in and just making choices to do a little better and things like that. All that to be said, I'm not back to doing that. Um, I'm not even headed in that direction. That's not something I'm gonna try and go back to. That's not nothing like that. Just explaining that for the last six years I haven't been doing that, and it has that in itself has taken its toll on me as well. Physical health, mental health. Everybody sees me now and they know what I look like, but uh I was an extremely um, how do I want to say, I was an extremely fit and intuitive person, I think with a lot of positive wisdom. I would say that would that would sum me up if I was to describe myself, you know, not the last six years, but pretty much every year prior. I was extremely fit and smiled a lot. Pretty happy person, lots of positive wisdom, ways to shift your brain around, you know, this is a good thing, not a bad thing, or let's make a good thing out of a bad thing. And I was real intuitive with, you know, reading people and reading myself and reading the room, you know. I still am good at that. But I've made those, you know, I've made some changes just finally recognizing, you know, once I got past all of the chaos um from COVID. And I've been overlanding and I've been camping and I've been enjoying it. And I stepped away from the podcast simply because it started to become um overlanding camping, building trucks, car culture, uh, outdoor culture, as far as vehicles are concerned, or camping is concerned, at least in this space, just started to become like, I don't know, like negative. Negative. Like, and and it was making me negative. So it just like anything else, it was like politics, or it was like it was like anything where two people just don't agree. And and it's a thing I love, and the community in which I kept being around, I didn't, you know, it it seemed like it was there's just a lot of friction there. So I need to take a break, you know. I took a break from the podcast, I didn't take a break from myself. I haven't camped, I haven't camped since January. My truck's still here. Um my truck's gotten some maintenance. Uh by no means is it sitting and I'm like depressed and not taking care of it or anything like that. It's detailed and in my driveway today. It's it's very nice outside today, and my truck's there. Like the oil's changed, like everything's good on the truck. I didn't like let the world burn by any means. I more or less was instead of the world had already burned, to be completely honest with you guys when I stepped away from the podcast. My world was it was rubble, you know. Um, so I've been spending time trying to, you know, make the sun come out again, for lack of a better term, for myself. So I've just been in not even investing in like picking up another hobby or or learning about something new, just like trying to find out what I even really want to do with my life. And not what I want to do for work, not what I want to do for a place to live, not what I want to do for my next trip, not what I want to do next to my truck. Like, what do I just want? Like, what happens at the base of it all if I'm if I'm an empty, you know, if I'm if I'm empty and I'm looking to everything else to fill me up in some way. I used to be a real full person for this metaphor or analogy. I used to be a real full person, so things I did were just a were just an extra benefit. And that's where overlanding and camping and off-roading fit. Um, and over the last, I don't know, man, just many few years here, you know, going back to the event in which we all lived that changed the scope of many things. I just don't know, you know, and I even said it, I I haven't listened to any of my old podcasts, but you know, I say like, just because you can get it doesn't mean everybody should have it. And, you know, whether I I don't want to spin a negative on this, but I just felt like a lot of people I was around, you know, and I want to say, and I say around loosely too. I mean, whether I was physically around them or not, like they were around groups I was in and Facebook groups and Instagram posts, and these were people that were familiar with me and I was familiar with them, and maybe we've never even shook hands or hugged or smiled at each other in real life. But these were people that were that were around, whether they were digitally around me or physically around me. And there's no specific person. I'm not gonna say it's a person or it's a group of people, but it just turned into a rat race of its own. Overlanding turned into a rat race of its own. Now, I say all these things to say I've been away from it for six months now. I have no social media at all. Um, I disconnected myself from like Google and all that. So I mean I still have YouTube, but it's very, yeah, I mean, for lack of a better term, it sucks. Okay. So YouTube basically recommends things for you to watch based on things you search and look at and all of these and all that. And based on that, I don't have anything that it's connected to anymore. So it's just real weird. Like, and I went through and deleted all my past, you know, history. So like search history and watch history and all that. You know, I felt like that was a necessary piece to seeing, you know, what am I being fed that I like and what do I actually like in a way, you know? And YouTube sucks now. Like, I don't I search out a couple channels I used to watch, and I like them because I like the people and just in general, they're fun. Um but there's not a whole lot of overlanding content. There's really not a whole lot of I don't know. I'd say the majority of the content on my YouTube now is like lake backgrounds that's just like water noise that I let play while my dog's at home. Um, you know, like brain on a window type stuff that plays for like 10 hours that I leave on for Marvin when I would go to work. Um so that's that's where that's at. But it's like if I got rid of social media, if I'm not watching YouTube, if I'm not camping, what have I been doing? Well, guys, I've been sitting a lot. Not sitting on my butt, like mentally sitting, you know, just trying to figure out what the hell happened and what I'm even doing and what do I want to do. And uh I didn't spend too much time on what happened, actually, because that's gone. And one thing about time is I'm not gonna get more of it, so it's it's coming gone. But I did spend a lot of time with the fact that, like, okay, how do I move forward? Overlanding is a huge part of my life. It has been before it was cool. Um, it was cool to me, you know. Like before it was cool, uh it was real cool to me. Before it really had a name, I was doing it, you know, and it's been in my life, so it's gonna be in my life. But now that it's popular, how do I navigate it? How do I navigate everything? Like, how does this work? And so here we are. This is the only thing I thought to come back to was the podcast. Um, and for many reasons, not for anybody else, for me. This is a selfish thing I want to do. I like to do, I feel like it's good a good thing for me. If it's good for you two, that is fantastic. And now that I'm away from social media, hopefully it's a completely and totally fresh perspective on everything. Because if I'm talking about it, I've read it somewhere. In real life, Reddit, like text on a page. So I don't I quit watching the news, I quit doing a lot of things. And what have I been doing personally? Like for personal growth? Well, I'll die with those, you know, that information, and it doesn't need to be shared here. But a lot has changed. Um a lot has changed, and it's not done changing, and I'll tell you later if it was for the better or not, but it's definitely different. So um, you know, but there was no event that occurred that made me go, you know, not a breakup or a I don't know. There's no like there's no big life event that caused me to choose to start figuring it out. It's not like I woke, you know, I didn't wake up one day. It's been slowly burning on me. And those guys and girls that have been listening to the podcast for a long time, you know it's been burning on me. And really at the end of it, I just needed to get away from it. Um, because it was not nice. And I am, and I am, and I am nice. So, and it was just not good for me. And some people that want to, I'm sure, will find a way to be grumpy about what I'm saying right now, but it's not about you. And if you think it is, then that's your demon to deal with, um, because it's not, it has nothing to do with anybody but myself, um, nothing that anyone did or comments made or whatever. I subjected myself to those things. You know, I take my own accountability for what was going on there. You know, but there's a lot of there's a lot of that going on in the space, at least when I have six months ago, and I'm here to maybe, hopefully, possibly be something different. So um I'll that's where we'll that's where we will begin. That's where we will begin. That's that's where we'll start from. So um, all those things being said, I have um, you know, I like I said, I went camping. I I want to, you know, it was diesel heater season. It's 80 degrees here today. Today on April, oh April, March 19th, March 19th, Thursday, March 19th. We're here. It's 80 degrees outside today, or will be. Um, it was 10, like 10 degrees on Monday. It's Missouri. I'm in Missouri, it's crazy. But summer's coming. Um, spring break's coming. You know, holidays are coming. So, you know, to get back to, you know, what we're talking about here: cars, trucks, camping, gear, things along the those lines. I've went through all my things, you know. Well, I rearranged my house and made some changes and you know, just going through things, selling clothes, like just I just went through the whole thing, like unattaching from things. I've had that I wasn't using, adding things that I value, or at least, you know, finding things I value that I'd lost, or things along those lines. I went through the truck. Um, that's where I'm headed with it. I went through the truck. Trucks packed and done and all is well there as far as gear is concerned. I think I've not bought anything for the truck. I don't think the truck's gotten anything but new oil and rear shocks. And it has rear shocks because I blew a rear shock out. It didn't get new rear shocks because I want to be cool. Um, I blew a rear shock out, it was leaking. Um well, it leaked until it didn't leak anymore. It was gone. It was all gone. Um, so I got new rear shocks and they're on it. And that is it for the truck. Truck's been good. I drove it today. I probably drive it, I don't know, once a month, maybe twice a month. If I'm not camping. I mean, I took it all the way up to, you know, I don't know, middle of Minnesota, northern Minnesota. So it got quite a drive there from where I'm at. Um, but yeah, nothing's going on with the truck. I still have my Subaru. And I don't think I bought anything for it either. So yeah, I don't think I got anything for it either. But it has stuff. I got power, I got secondary power in it and a fridge and storage, and I mean it's not like it's inept or not equipped. So it always was. So there's that. So yeah, the truck's good. I got rid of a few things that were in the truck. Um, I'd been going through it, you know, just dumb, stupid things. Like I had like just extra bolts and stuff, and I was like, I've never even once used these. I got all the stuff out of the truck and like cleaned it. It was all dusty. Like the back of the truck. I have a deck system in the truck, guys, for those of you that are new. Um, and that's just essentially a two-drawer, plastic two-drawer system that you can buy for uh trucks. So, anyways, it was full of dust, and I cleaned all my stuff up and charged it and went through and threw away all the little trash. Those of you guys that go a lot, you know how you'll end up with this little wrappers. It's like finding Starburst wrappers in your pockets, you know. There's just little crap everywhere, trash and half, you know, like plastic, little, the little, I don't know, clear plastic that comes off like salt and pepper shakers and stuff, just everywhere. Shit's just everywhere. So I went through and got rid of all that. And uh yeah, so that was good. That was good. It's all like I feel happier about it when I open it. It doesn't look like I am a very organized person. It doesn't look like a rat's nest, or excuse me, it never looked like a rat's nest. Now it just looks like a like it's on purpose, like everything looks on purpose again, and that makes me very, very happy. I like things to look on purpose, and that is, you know, really the uh the goal there. So, and it all does look like that again. I took it all out and like actually physically touched and cleaned everything. You know, I have an impact in there and it's got a case and just all that stuff is clean now. Um, it's been it's been wiped off, and you know, I took care of it. Um something I was not doing so much before. Uh, because I was traveling. I mean, and that's a given, but you do have to take some time to do those things. So that's all done, which is awesome. And I got the truck realigned, which it needed. I threw it out of alignment wheeling, and it was uh hilarious like it was hilariously out of alignment. So uh it was pretty funny. I mean, it's just pretty funny. It's like it'd been in I mean, it hadn't been in an erect, but it was like out of alignment, like bad. Like I would always be going down the road and it just look at the like I couldn't even, I like had to consciously not look at the steering wheel because it was like such a weird, it was so jacked. But anyways, I was wheeling and I I don't know where or when. I couldn't tell yet. I wasn't doing some epic rock climb and I know exactly what happened, but it was out of alignment for sure, and I don't know how. You know, it may be even just excuse me, sorry for yawning, but it may have just been a maybe my tie rod bolt even license loosened up and like I don't even know. Who knows? I took it in to get aligned, I found a shop local to me that that does like all off-road jeeps and trucks, and so they've been doing me very solid uh doing those things for me. Little stuff that I can't do myself, like alignments, and uh so it's been good. That's been good. Trucks, trucks good, you know. Um I yeah, I mean it's good. I'm ready to get out and go camping again, but I haven't really found I'm not there yet. And and when I say I'm not there yet, I've like got I'm I'm just now starting to get things, you know, in a place where I'm like happy with where they're at. Just all most things, sleep schedule, you know, kids, food, just stuff, just regular stuff. So camping's definitely gonna fit in. I know for sure positively I will be at rendezvous in the Ozarks in October. It's a long way from now, but I will be there for sure. I think I said it before, and I'll you know just say it again. I'm gonna go to that one until it's not until you can't, until it goes away, or or I do, you know, one or the other. I'll keep going to that. So I'll be at that. I've actually already had a couple of friends text me. Um Brian texts me and Jonathan Hines. Um, I think Jonathan's gonna try and make his way out, hopefully, this year. Jonathan actually just talk about my friend Jonathan. He just went on like an ex super epically crazy long road trip. I think he said it was, he'll probably text me after he listens to this, but I think he said it was 7,000 miles. He sent me, he was in California and Idaho, and I don't even know where all he was, but man, it looked awesome. And he sent me pictures, and I really appreciate vicariously living through him because he is doing it while I was, you know, for lack of a better term, figuring my life out. Um, and that's awesome. I love Jonathan, man. Such a super awesome dude. And uh and that one thing too, I got off all social media and all that, and that's how a lot of people contacted me. I got a hold of people I wanted to stay in contact with and gave them my phone number. So, like my friend, my friends can text me. Like, these aren't people that message me or DM me, they have my phone number. They also could call me, um, but I still have no messaging uh ability on social media at all. I don't plan for that to change, probably ever. That was not good for me. But I also haven't bought, man, let me tell you guys how much money I probably have not spent. It's just not being on it. I don't know what's new, I don't know what's out there, I don't know what the heck is going on. I can tell you I got something for everything, and if it's not broken, I'm not trying to buy something different. Uh so that that's where that's at. Um, but man, I was, you know, I was caught up in it like all you guys probably are too. And it was just a it was just a it was just a deal. I did one thing I did that I think is was super awesome, really, to pat myself on the back is you can go online and there are print shops very inexpensively, guys. I'll say this very inexpensively. I've taken so many pictures on my iPhone of just trips. I went online and uh I mean, I think Walgreens does it. I think like just a lot of places do it. If you look, you can go on and they'll print pictures for you that are a print size made for iPhone pictures. I don't know how else to really explain that, but your iPhone picture comes out to X by X size, and these print shops know that size, and you can print these pictures, and I printed out all my favorite pictures, and um I made a collage and put it in my kitchen, and it's just so cool. I find myself looking at it all the time. Man, it's so cool. I look at it so much, and and and I only put the last two years of trips up, uh, and I hope to add to it, and the wall has a lot of room to add to it, and I bought more board, which I made the collage on to add to it, you know. So the intent is, you know, that's not the that's not it, and I don't plan to get rid of the pictures that are on it. I plan to only add to it so I can keep those things. And man, I look at it so much. Like I find myself just looking at it. It's so cool. I would highly recommend if you guys do take pictures, like even just you and your friends, like I got all kinds of pictures, me and friends, just landscape, just friends. I got some pictures of just other people up there that are funny pictures that that mean something to me. You know, this isn't on my social media, it's not for the world, but it is does reside in my kitchen. Um, and it's cool. I think it's really cool. And I would, you know, I'd taken all these pictures and I've gotten, you know, um pretty good. You know, I went to school to do drone, you know, for unmanned aerial systems, so I can make a I could take a pretty mean drone picture. You know, I took a I I went and took a class on iPhone photography, so I can, you know, take a above average, you know, iPhone picture and edit it and such. So I mean, I got some really cool shots, and they're it's just so cool. I would highly recommend if you take a lot of pictures, man, there's something too printing it out and putting it somewhere. I don't know. I'm like more proud of it. Like I'm proud of those trips now where they just kind of lived in this black box of my phone. Now they're like somewhere I can just like walk past in my house. And man, it's just it gives me feelings, you know. I don't know how to say that. Like, I'm just like, man, that's so cool. And my kids too. My kids, they're so they're up there, and I don't show my kids on my trips, and there's like pictures of my truck like half buried in water, and my kids are like, I didn't know your truck could swim, or I didn't know your truck could go underwater like that. That's cool. I want to do that. And and I feel like it's it's shown them a piece of me that maybe they didn't have the full context of, too. Just because when I do go with them, I try to not do anything crazy. I try to not do anything, you know. I try, I I really when I go with my kids, I'm trying to spend time with my kids, not time, you know, feeding that adventurous spirit because they're kids and their attention spans are shorter, and I'm trying to cater to that. So it's been really it's been cool for me for them to see that too. Like, oh my gosh, your truck drives up mountains, like stuff like that's stuff they've said. Those are quotes. And I'm like, oh man, yeah, like, yeah, a lot, like all the time. Yeah, like like they've regularly. Um, so it's just been cool. It's just been cool. You know, anybody that comes in my house could see it. Um, a lot of people, you know, my truck sits in storage. I don't know if you guys know that. I have a shop and my truck sits in the shop. So my truck, you know, it looks like I have company when my truck's in the driveway, to be honest. My truck is not in my driveway. The Subaru, my Subaru Forster's in the garage, you know. So if the truck's here, it's either because I'm going somewhere or washing it or something. Um, so it's not like it's here all the time. So peace people don't, that's not a part of there are people in my life that don't know that's a part of my life, is what I'm getting at. So it's not like uh in everybody's face all the time. Uh in my real like personal life. Some people know it, some people don't, you know, a lot of people still know me from like fitness and stuff, um, which is not a huge part of my life now. Um, and and for a lot of reasons why I stepped away from this too for a minute. Just like the culture became I hate the terms that are used. The culture just became negative for me, and it was not good for me. And I probably, you know, looking back on it now, man, social media just could I'm not a good person for social media. Um, and podcasting, you could say, is I it's I don't think it's social media. I'm gonna go ahead and say it's media. Uh, I don't want to call it social media because I want to define that within Instagram and Facebook, you know, and TikTok and whatever else there is, Twitter or X or whatever. Um, those to me are social media or whatever else exists. Um, as far as those things, social networks. This I see as media. You guys can consume it, but it doesn't require interaction. And I don't I know nothing about anybody listening to this. It's public. Like you could take this in, and I can never know a thing about you at all. Uh so I just look at it as media, and that's how I that's how I see it. So that's just where that's at. But yeah, so I'm just getting back to it. I cannot wait to get back out camping. One thing that's been I've been researching and trying to figure out, man, toilets. Dude. Toilets still like, I don't know. Such a dumb thing to be like continuing to stumble upon. But man, I am not got toilets figured out for camping toilets. Because I want it, you know, I want something that's easy, that's not too loud, that I can do a bag with. But man, there's so many different things out there. It's like it's like you can go from the most basic to the most advanced advanced. You can spend$15, you can spend$1,500. I mean, I would never, ever, ever, ever spend$1,500. But I will tell you, I have seen what a$1,500 camp toilet will do. And it's nothing short of crazy. Uh so, but yeah, camp toilet's been kind of been my my the bane of my research at the moment. I have two. I have two. They do work. Um, I haven't bought anything else, but I don't love how either of them works. It's about to be at the point where I make one, um, to be honest, and then adapt that to something I like. Because it's either like insane, you know, like heat wrap your poop, or or it's like, oh, here's a circle on a bucket. Like it's it's the that's how vast the difference is. Um, you know, you got shrink wrap and airtight, and then you got five-gallon bucket or just squat, you know. And I don't want to be on either sides of those spectrums, but I also don't want to have like anything on the thing I'm carrying around. And I also, yeah, I don't know. I can go on about it. It's ridiculous, but I still am just like, I don't know what to do with all this crap. This ah, funny. That was funny. Uh I didn't mean to do that, but it's that was funny. Um, anyways, uh, so yeah, that's that's something that I've been thinking about a lot. I broke down, and um, this is hilarious, actually, to me. Um, outs, you know, I got Starlink Mini. I got it, I set it up in my driveway, it works, and I put it in a freaking Harbor Freight case. Used it one time to start it and see if it worked, and it is in my closet, so I haven't done anything with it, but man, I got a smoking deal on that sucker. So I was like, I gotta freaking do this while I could do it. I think I got my Starlink for like$160. Starlink Mini, the kit. And I was like, yeah. I had to look at it and I was like, yeah, if it got cheaper, I'd still be okay that I spent$160. Like, I that's how I look at stuff. I'm like, if it got cheaper, would I still be okay with what I paid? And at$160, I was like, yep, yes, I am fine with that. So it's in my closet. It works. I couldn't be the person to tell you guys how it works anywhere but my driveway, because I haven't done it anywhere but my driveway. But I did, I did break down and get it. And the reason I could do that now, again, I'm gonna beat this horse till it's dead for sure. But the reason I could do it now is it's like, you know, before I'd be like, oh, I'd just be on my phone. Well, now I'm not on my phone at all. With I'm in my house with Wi-Fi, I'm not on my phone. Like I've I've like detoxed the phone. So now if I had Starlink, all it's gonna do is allow the people trying to get in touch with me the ability to do it. Because I've eliminated the thing from myself that would have created the um temptation to just be on it all the time. You know what I mean? So like I'm not gonna scroll because they don't have anything to scroll. So it'll just, you know, heck, you want to know one thing that's crazy is my phone's on loud all the time now. You want to talk about something that is weird is when your phone's on loud all the time. Because there's I mean, if if my phone's going off, you are physically calling me or you texted me my phone number. Um, yeah, so it's like, you know, I get the whole like I l I feel like I'm living in a time previous to now. So I it would just be a way for people to get in touch with me that need to get in touch with me or trying to get in touch with me seamlessly. And and you know it was$169. And right now, it sounds like an ad. And right now with four payments, but I think you can get like your first six months of Starlink for like$39 a month, a month, not$39 total, but$39 a month, and that's like very feasible. Um, I haven't been camping for a few months now, but you know, it's coming back around. Like that's gonna be well worth it. Um, you want to know one thing that I've done a lot lately, and I think this will apply to camping too. Man, I've watched some movies. I have gotten back to watching movies. I don't watch any like uh I I don't have oh well, here we go, guys. I just the other day, meaning yesterday, got my first streaming service back. So I got rid of all those too. And it's not like a money thing. I mean, it is a money thing, but it wasn't a money purpose. I was just like, yeah, F this. Like, what do I want to do? You know, like that's really what it boiled down to. Like, what do I want to do? What's that? Um, and so yeah, I just got one back the other day and it was uh Disney Plus, Disney Plus. I got Disney Plus back. Um but spoiler alert, my youngest kids like Bluey. So that's where that came from. And uh so yeah, and I told you guys earlier, my freaking YouTube sucks. So if you got multiple hours of Bluey going through YouTube, um your YouTube starts to think you're four. So so I had to I had to do something with that, and so I got Disney Plus back. So Bluey doesn't, you know, the the rare occasion I want to watch something on YouTube, it's not showing me cartoons. So there's that's why I did that. Hopefully that gives anybody a good chuckle. So I got Disney Plus back. And yeah, so I've been going to hockey a bunch, lots of hockey, lots of hockey. Football was going on, all the football. I love my sports. I watch the world baseball classic, America got United States, got second. Um, I'm very into sports. I like my sports. I appreciate it a lot. I watch that, but I watch it on like TV, like you know, TV TV. Um for those of you that are of my age, you'll remember a time where that was a thing. And it still it still very much is. So other than that, I've been reading and you know, I still use the internet a good bit, read stuff, read it, you know, go look at stuff I want to look at. Um but yeah, it's been good. Definitely ready to get back to camping. And gotta find a toilet that I want. Been been uh been trying to get my Gaia, you know, organized. I would recommend, not only would I recommend printing out all your pictures and putting them somewhere where you can like walk past them, organize your navigation thing. Like, and I don't mean organize it like it organizes itself, but like go through and label it better than you did like at the time. Because I mean, maybe you're all way better than I am, but I'll label it and be like, I'll just put the date and put like river, you know? Like so, so I got stuff in there that's like 718 2022 river. And I'm like, What the hell is this? Like, what even is it? So I kind of went through and Google uh Map or Google. satellite like figured it all out and then was like kind of cross-referenced with my pictures and was like okay I know what this is and like attached a picture and that's well worth doing guys man that's really worth doing because then you can yeah man I was translating a foreign language trying to figure that thing out with six years of stuff ten years of stuff I don't you guys I don't even know how many years of stuff's on there probably many many years and I had about 65 places that said like river or large spot or big enough for four rigs or with just a date and I'm like what the but then there's like a bunch of other ones around it I'm like I don't even know what this one is like I don't even know what's going on here. So I started to uh Google like Google satellite and uh figure them out and rename them and add pictures if I had them and stuff like that. And it was a process of elimination to some extent like adding pictures of other ones to be like well this one doesn't have a picture I don't remember it. So I put like stuff on it like can't confirm XYZ you know check again next time something something uh because it was a place I definitely saw or thought I saw but it might not even be there anymore. I had a conversation with somebody I think they were Jasper Jeep Jam and they were asking me about how to get to Bub's cabin and I was like man it just rained a bunch like I mean yeah it might because they were trying to they they were like I don't want it to be too wild for my my girlfriend and I was like yeah I just don't know like it could look one way on a Monday and it could rain two days and by Thursday it's a totally different ball game. I don't know like I was like I I was like I either be prepared for it to be a little scary for her maybe maybe not or just don't go um because stuff does change. So probably some of the stuff I even have mapped or labeled I mean probably some of it's not there or isn't what it was when I mapped it even maybe so that's worth paying attention to as well. So but yeah that's what's going on I just wanted to this is like the real like here's what I've been up to um here's what I'm doing a little bit of here's why I did it and what I've got to come what that will be we'll see how where it goes. I don't know it'll go where it goes and if you guys want to listen you will and if new people want to listen they will and we'll go from there. So I will catch you guys another time and I hope this finds everyone well and everybody's doing really well those of you that have my number text me I have had more than one person go through my friend Tyson and ask how I'm doing I didn't die you can text me you can call me still I know it's real 1997 of me but I'm still here and that's still okay to do so just FYI um and for those of you that don't have a way to contact me you can still text the podcast and spoiler alert I might just give you my phone number I know it's wild wild times so I will catch you guys later hope you have a good one hope you're planning to get out um over spring break I know that's like the next couple weeks for most people the next you know this week or the next for most people so enjoy it get out with your family the weather seemingly gonna be nice and uh for those dads out there get ready to bust out those Nike monarchs because grass cutting season is upon us. I'll catch you later bye