The LOTS Project Morning Show

The LOTS Project
  • 5.0 (8)
  • Personal Journals
  • Updated Daily

Audio home of The LOTS Project Morning Show. Livestream morning show found on YouTube and Nostr every Monday at 6am central. http://www.youtube.com/@LOTSProjectMorningShow https://zap.stream/p/npub17wmfr6m9y2p8jjzp8hsa53zl3hmc70n4hn3juydw4avjf256tscs4lt5f4 https://thelotsproject.com

  1. 6d ago

    9/11 at 25, Designing Around Reality & a Missing Mitch | LOTS 905

    Twenty-five years after 9/11, social media apparently decided it was time to drag every theory, unanswered question and old argument back out of storage. I remember the day a little differently than most people: I was listening to a shock-jock radio show at work and genuinely thought the first reports were part of a bit. That leads into a much bigger conversation about 9/11, conspiracy culture, the questions that never went away and why I'm perfectly comfortable saying I don't know exactly what happened. Before we get there, the cabin update explains why progress has felt painfully slow. This summer has been relentless. I finally compared the numbers with recent years, and the sustained heat isn't just in my head. That has meant shorter work sessions, worrying about the dogs in the RV if the AC fails, and even sticking my overheating phone in a portable refrigerator so I could finish recording a solar video. That new solar video led to another realization. Most advice tells you to calculate your electrical loads and then design the solar system you need. But what happens when reality gives you the system constraints first? An RV roof only has so much room. Batteries weigh what they weigh. Budgets aren't unlimited. And at the cabin, I already own the solar panels—so I'm designing outward from what I have. Sometimes the theoretically “right” way isn't the way the real project works. We also get into an overpriced sliding porch-gate idea, Starlink after four years on the road and off grid, a Bitcoin deal from Cash App, the continuing mystery around Mitch McConnell, and a supposed local crime problem that turned out to involve a lost puppy. Basically, a normal Monday. Links mentioned in this episode: DIY Solar Hub: https://thelotsproject.com/solar Four-Year Starlink Review + Referral: https://thelotsproject.com/starlink Cashapp Referral Link: https://cash.app/refer/CZ4QSJS Food Forest Farms: FoodForestFarms.com Code LOTS10 saves 10%. Telegram: https://t.me/LOTSChat Amazon Shop: https://amazon.com/shop/thelotsproject Some links associated with The LOTS Project are affiliate or referral links. If you use them, I may receive a commission, service credit or other benefit at no additional cost to you.

    9/11 at 25, Designing Around Reality & a Missing Mitch | LOTS 905

  2. Sep 7

    A Sketchy Tree, Free Bitcoin & the Kroger Floor Incident

    The chainsaw getting pinched was the first clue that this tree had a different plan than I did. I had roughly 45 feet of Tennessee hardwood that was supposed to fall into my cleared solar field. Instead, it started loading in the opposite direction—with my chainsaw still buried in the back cut. So now what? Ratchet straps didn't quite do it. Wedges weren't going to work. Leaving the saw trapped in the tree overnight wasn't exactly appealing. Enter an 8-ton bottle jack and a 4x4. Yeah. It got a little sketchy. After surviving my afternoon of questionable forestry engineering, we get into two different opportunities for free stuff that showed up this week. Starlink is running a referral promotion that can get eligible new customers a free second month of service. I've been using Starlink for about four years through full-time RV travel, remote work and off-grid living, so I dig into what the service has actually been like—including speeds, reliability, equipment failures, warranty replacements and off-grid power consumption. Cash App is also running a Bitcoin promotion I received offering $20 in promotional Bitcoin after buying $10 worth. I've taken advantage of one of their previous Bitcoin offers, and we talk about how I use Cash App without leaving my Bitcoin sitting there forever. The DIY solar series is moving along too. The new solar panel testing video is live, the Solar Hub is taking shape, and I've put together a free six-page Off-Grid Solar Quick Reference for anybody trying to make sense of volts, amps, watts, panel labels and series vs. parallel wiring. Then we get to Kroger. Apparently someone decided the checkout area was also a bathroom. She allegedly dropped her pants, took a shit on the floor, walked through it and left employees to clean up the mess. That's apparently where we are now. We also squeeze in the weekly Bitcoin Price Guessing Game and a quick question about where the hell Mitch McConnell has been. DIY SOLAR + FREE QUICK REFERENCE: https://TheLOTSProject.com/solar COMMUNITY: https://t.me/LOTSChat COFFEE: Food Forest Farms — use LOTS10 for 10% off with free shipping. https://foodforestfarms.com STARLINK: My referral link is below. Eligible new customers can receive their second month free, and I may receive a service credit if the referral requirements are completed. https://starlink.com/?referral=RC-2049727-30228-61&app_source=share CASH APP: My referral link is below. Check the current in-app terms for availability and eligibility of the Bitcoin promotion discussed in this episode. https://cash.app/refer/CZ4QSJS ECHO RADIOS: The radios I carry on the property when cell service isn't an option. Use ECHOBRIAN407720 for $40 off. https://echoradios.com?bg_ref=Sv7Jdlw250 AFFILIATE/REFERRAL DISCLOSURE: Some links associated with this episode are affiliate or referral links. I may receive a commission, Bitcoin, service credit or other compensation when you use them, at no additional cost to you.

    A Sketchy Tree, Free Bitcoin & the Kroger Floor Incident

  3. Aug 31

    I Think All These Random Projects Finally Make Sense

    For years The LOTS Project has bounced between RV life, building a cabin, solar, land, animals, growing food, Bitcoin, privacy, tech and whatever other rabbit hole happened to show up. I'm starting to think they weren't separate rabbit holes at all. Something clicked this week while I was looking at the response to the new Solar Basics videos and working through what I want the website—and eventually this show—to become. But before we get there, we bought 110 pounds of paraffin wax. For $55. We already use firestarters for the woodstove, so buying cheap wax and making our own made sense. Buying enough wax to supply us for approximately 147 winters probably didn't. So now we're going to experiment with free sawdust, wood shavings and different wax ratios to see whether we can turn a stupid Marketplace deal into a product that actually makes money. The road trip to pick up the wax also involved a yard full of modified 55-gallon drums, some suspicious-looking chickens and an explanation I definitely wasn't expecting. Back at the cabin, the Tennessee heat continues to make progress painfully slow. We did manage more clearing around the solar field, continued attacking the floor bubbles and started fitting lumber for the first interior wall—which reminded me once again that absolutely nothing on this cabin is square, standard or interested in making my life easy. The Solar Basics series is another story. YouTube seems to be finding the right audience. TikTok is pushing the shorts to thousands of people. Viewers are saving them and following for more. Facebook is doing approximately f**k-all. That contrast has me seriously considering moving the weekly Facebook livestream feed over to Nostr. Eventually all of these threads come together: solar, water, land, Bitcoin, technology, the cabin and what Living Outside The System actually means to me. You don't need to move off-grid. You don't need to do everything. Learn the systems. Build what makes sense. Become less dependent where you can. Also included: this week's Bitcoin Price Guessing Game, questionable coffee opinions and the normal assortment of tangents. Some links associated with the show are affiliate links. If you buy something through them, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. That includes some of the solar tools and equipment I'm using in the current series, along with Blockstream Jade/JadePlus. Bocking #4 comfrey roots are also available through ComfreyRoots.com. ☕ Coffee of the Week Medium Light Guatemalan Food Forest Farms Use code LOTS10 for 10% off. Support The LOTS Project Fold Card https://use.foldapp.com/r/FANEWETX • Blockstream Hardware Wallets https://rewards.blockstream.com/thelotsproject • LogOX Forestry Tools https://tidd.ly/4y07Qhb • Food Forest Farms Coffee https://foodforrestfarms.com • ComfreyRoots.com https://comfreyroots.com • Echo Radios https://echoradios.com?bg_ref=Sv7Jdlw250 Save $40 with code: ECHOBRIAN407720 Join the Telegram community:https://t.me/LOTSChat

    I Think All These Random Projects Finally Make Sense

  4. Aug 24

    I Spent 30 Days on Nostr. Facebook Makes Less Sense Now. | LOTS 902

    Facebook knows exactly which people, pages and groups I've chosen to follow. So why the hell doesn't it show them to me? After deliberately spending more than 30 days using Nostr again, I've noticed myself opening it before the other social apps. The network is tiny compared with Facebook, yet I'm getting more consistent—and arguably better—interaction because I've actually been able to build the feed I want. That has me wondering why I'm still spending so much effort feeding platforms that don't reliably show my stuff to the people who specifically asked to see it. But plenty happened away from the internet this week too. We're still clearing the future solar field, moving logs and figuring out which giant trunks are simply getting split where they landed. I'm also starting to plan what happens around the array: swales, perennial plantings, propagation stock and eventually a productive food-forest-style system around the panels. Then there's the cabin floor. I screwed up part of the sheet-vinyl installation, and after weeks of injecting glue, weighting bubbles and experimenting with repairs, Kori and I finally decided we're done trying to make it perfect. Get it as good as possible, throw down an area rug and move forward. Sometimes fixing the mistake becomes a bigger problem than the original mistake. We also get into expectations—specifically whether expecting less from other people might make life a whole lot less frustrating—and how that idea eventually led me back to Stoicism and the question of what you actually control. Plus Bitcoin jumped roughly 23% in a week, my ridiculous Bitcoin Price Guess finally won, the solar video series is moving into series-versus-parallel wiring, and I've picked up some new meter gear that'll make testing the pile of used solar panels considerably easier. Links to the equipment and products I actually use are in the show notes. Some are affiliate links, so if you buy through them I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. ☕ Coffee of the Week Medium Light Ethiopian Food Forest Farms Use code LOTS10 for 10% off. Support The LOTS Project Fold Card https://use.foldapp.com/r/FANEWETX • Blockstream Hardware Wallets https://rewards.blockstream.com/thelotsproject • LogOX Forestry Tools https://tidd.ly/4y07Qhb • Food Forest Farms Coffee https://foodforrestfarms.com • ComfreyRoots.com https://comfreyroots.com • Echo Radios https://echoradios.com?bg_ref=Sv7Jdlw250 Save $40 with code: ECHOBRIAN407720 Join the Telegram community: https://t.me/LOTSChat If you enjoy these conversations, consider subscribing so you don't miss next week's episode or the ongoing off-grid cabin and solar build series. Affiliate Disclosure Some of the links in this description are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Those commissions help support the channel and allow me to keep producing free content. I only recommend products I actually use or would recommend to friends.

    I Spent 30 Days on Nostr. Facebook Makes Less Sense Now. | LOTS 902

  5. Aug 17

    Everything Keeps Breaking... Good Thing I Keep All This Crap | LOTS 901

    This was apparently the week everything decided to break. First the RV door handle snapped—and naturally it's an obsolete part that's basically impossible to replace. Then Starlink went down and looked suspiciously like another dead dish. Then my truck's tire-pressure warning came on and I discovered something I'd never seen before: a rock had actually punctured the tire. The good news? I had the old RV parts. I had a spare Starlink cable. And I had the tire plug kit and compressor in the truck. Check out my Amazon Storefront: https://amazon.com/shop/thelotsproject Or my Roadside Emergency Tools List: https://www.amazon.com/shop/thelotsproject/list/9D0I27UYYS33?ref_=aipsflist Maybe keeping useful crap around isn't such a bad idea after all. We're also hunting hornworms after dark with a UV flashlight. If you've ever tried finding those giant green bastards on a tomato plant during the day, you know how ridiculously well they disappear. Under UV? Completely different story. There's also progress on clearing the future solar field, plans for the wooden racking that'll hold 36–42 used panels, the continuing battle with bubbles in the cabin floor, and some thoughts about where the solar-build video series is going next. Then Kori found a box of deer antlers on Facebook Marketplace. So naturally we drove an hour to buy them. The dogs approved. Thanks for spending part of your morning with me. ☕ Coffee of the WeekBOB Blend (Bottom of the bags) Food Forest Farms Use code LOTS10 for 10% off. Support The LOTS Project Fold Card https://use.foldapp.com/r/FANEWETX • Blockstream Hardware Wallets https://rewards.blockstream.com/thelotsproject • LogOX Forestry Tools https://tidd.ly/4y07Qhb • Food Forest Farms Coffee https://foodforrestfarms.com • ComfreyRoots.com https://comfreyroots.com • Echo Radios https://echoradios.com?bg_ref=Sv7Jdlw250 Save $40 with code: ECHOBRIAN407720Join the Telegram community: https://t.me/LOTSChat If you're enjoying following the cabin build, off-grid systems, Bitcoin discussions, and the occasional rant, consider subscribing. Affiliate DisclosureSome of the links in this description are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Those commissions help support the channel and allow me to keep producing free content. I only recommend products I actually use or would recommend to friends.

    Everything Keeps Breaking... Good Thing I Keep All This Crap | LOTS 901

  6. Aug 10

    Dangerous Trees, DIY Floor Fixes & Digital Independence Episode 900

    Episode 900 feels like a fitting reminder that almost every worthwhile project comes with a few unexpected lessons. This week I spent another long day clearing the future solar field, including dropping several large trees and one rotten dead tree that decided to make things a little more interesting than I'd planned. Fortunately, everything—and everyone—ended up on the ground where it belonged. Back inside the cabin, we're still chasing the vinyl floor bubbles. After sorting through plenty of internet advice, we tested several repair methods, found a couple that were a complete waste of time, and one that actually looks promising. If you're installing sheet vinyl yourself, this may save you some frustration. I also talk about the latest video in the solar build series covering the tools I'm using to clear the property, why I've been intentionally rebuilding my Nostr habit after getting burned out on traditional social media, and finish with a discussion about how Flock license plate cameras are being used in ways that go well beyond simply finding stolen cars. Topics include: • Clearing trees for the off-grid solar project • Safely dealing with standing dead timber • Repairing bubbles in sheet vinyl flooring • The tools making land clearing easier • Rebuilding healthier social media habits with Nostr • Flock cameras and expanding surveillance • Cabin build progress • Bitcoin and the LOTS community Thanks for listening and for helping this show reach 900 episodes. Whether you've been here since the beginning or just found the podcast, I appreciate you spending part of your week with me. If you'd like to support the show, check out the affiliate links below. They're products I actually use around the cabin or in my Bitcoin journey, and using those links helps fund future episodes at no extra cost to you. You can also join the conversation throughout the week in the LOTS Project Telegram community, and follow the ongoing off-grid cabin and solar build over on YouTube. Support The LOTS Project Fold Card https://use.foldapp.com/r/FANEWETX • Blockstream Hardware Wallets https://rewards.blockstream.com/thelotsproject • LogOX Forestry Tools https://tidd.ly/4y07Qhb • Food Forest Farms Coffee https://foodforrestfarms.com • ComfreyRoots.com https://comfreyroots.com • Echo Radios https://echoradios.com?bg_ref=Sv7Jdlw250 Save $40 with code: ECHOBRIAN407720 • Amazon Storefront https://www.amazon.com/shop/thelotsproject Join the Telegram community: https://t.me/LOTSChat

    Dangerous Trees, DIY Floor Fixes & Digital Independence Episode 900

  7. Aug 3

    Coldcard, Cabin Mistakes & America's Geriatric Leadership

    Every off-grid project eventually humbles you. This week was our turn. The cabin floor is finally glued down... mostly. One overlooked detail turned into our first real construction mistake, and I walk through exactly what happened, what we learned, and how we're planning to fix it. Then we shift into one of the biggest Bitcoin stories of the week: the Coldcard security issue. If you self-custody Bitcoin—or plan to someday—there are some important lessons here that go well beyond one hardware wallet. We also spend some time asking why so many of the people making major political decisions appear increasingly unable to do the job, and whether our political system has any incentive to replace them before nature does. Along the way: Solar field progressBiochar updateFlooring lessonsBitcoin Guessing GameHardware wallet securityOff-grid planningWeekly cabin progress Support The LOTS Project Fold Card https://use.foldapp.com/r/FANEWETX • Blockstream Hardware Wallets https://rewards.blockstream.com/thelotsproject • LogOX Forestry Tools https://tidd.ly/4y07Qhb • Food Forest Farms Coffee https://foodforrestfarms.com • ComfreyRoots.com https://comfreyroots.com • Echo Radios https://echoradios.com?bg_ref=Sv7Jdlw250 Save $40 with code: ECHOBRIAN407720 • Amazon Storefront https://www.amazon.com/shop/thelotsproject Join the Telegram community: https://t.me/LOTSChat Some products discussed during this episode use affiliate links. If you decide to purchase through those links, it helps support The LOTS Project at no additional cost to you.

    Coldcard, Cabin Mistakes & America's Geriatric Leadership

  8. Jul 27

    More Cabin Progress, New Videos & Another Government Head-Scratcher

    One minute I'm talking about clearing trees. The next minute I'm listening to a government official argue that sheep need a permit to drink from a pond. That pretty much sums up this week. We also get into more real-world use of the LogOx, why election commercials suddenly seem to be everywhere, why I'm changing how I approach social media, and where this channel is headed as we get closer to Episode 900. If you're interested in off-grid living, independent thinking, Bitcoin, building things yourself, or simply laughing at how ridiculous the world has become, you'll probably enjoy this one. My buddy Erik's new book: Bounty Hunters' Craft https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HBLLZTYY Support The LOTS Project: Fold Card https://use.foldapp.com/r/FANEWETX • Blockstream Hardware Wallets https://rewards.blockstream.com/thelotsproject • LogOX Forestry Tools https://tidd.ly/4y07Qhb • Food Forest Farms Coffee https://foodforrestfarms.com • ComfreyRoots.com https://comfreyroots.com • Echo Radios https://echoradios.com?bg_ref=Sv7Jdlw250 Save $40 with code: ECHOBRIAN407720 • Amazon Storefront https://www.amazon.com/shop/thelotsproject

    More Cabin Progress, New Videos & Another Government Head-Scratcher
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About

Audio home of The LOTS Project Morning Show. Livestream morning show found on YouTube and Nostr every Monday at 6am central. http://www.youtube.com/@LOTSProjectMorningShow https://zap.stream/p/npub17wmfr6m9y2p8jjzp8hsa53zl3hmc70n4hn3juydw4avjf256tscs4lt5f4 https://thelotsproject.com

Information

  • Creator
    The LOTS Project
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    300
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    The LOTS Project Morning Show