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All right everybody, let's get started. Didn't do a video last week because I was busy.
That's right. I was working the first half of the week, and then the second half of the week I was in Missouri.
Pastor Jared Sparks, you may know him from Gab. He does the Shepherd's Crook. Is it a podcast?
I'm not sure. It might just be an organization, but he's a solid dude, solid brother.
He's on Gab. He tried to come to Twitter a few months back, and he just could not last here at all.
He just did not like it, and I don't blame him. So there you go. But in any case, he does this.
It's sort of like a men's retreat, but he doesn't call it a retreat, which I appreciate because I always thought that was a little weird.
He calls it a men's intensive, and it was in Eminence, Missouri, and it was awesome.
I mean, this is the kind of ... It's like a conference for people who don't want to go to conferences. You know what I mean? He invited me to speak very graciously last year.
I said, yes, of course, as long as there's fishing, which there was. And it was awesome.
We had some good sessions. Matt Reynolds, the CEO of Barbell Logic, was there as well. He did a quick talk.
I did three quick talks. Just overall, highly, highly recommend it.
I'm thinking about going next year, even though I'm not going to be speaking. I'm thinking about taking my son, my nine -year -old.
He'll be 10 then, to this thing. It was just fantastic. I mean, a lot of time spent just in nature and just doing things, right?
And it was funny because he actually ... One of the things he said in the beginning was that he started doing these intensives because he wanted to create an event, like a conference -type event, that he would want to go to.
And it was definitely throwing shade at sort of like the normal conference things, which I appreciate because I go to those kinds of conferences, but not really my cup of tea in general.
But he said, I wanted to create one where I would be interested in going. And it was great. I mean, it was like we had ...
There was a strongman competition and the kids had their own little division where they were doing the strongman stuff and the adults had their division.
I did not participate because I have an issue with this tendon right here, which was awesome because there was a bunch of strength coach types there.
He said Matt Reynolds was there. He had a few of his guys there as well. And it was amazing. One of the guys grabbed my arm and he pushed down.
He's like, where is it? Where is it? And I told him, well, it's right there. It's right there. Then he had me squeeze my hand and it was hurting a little bit.
And then he had me open it kind of just slowly. And it definitely kind of relieved a lot of the pressure that was there.
And my arm, it's still not perfect, but it's a lot better than it was when I walked in. And he told me some exercises to do to sort of help the tendon there, which
I didn't know, but apparently the whole thing comes all the way up. I don't know. Lots of crazy stuff. There was a lot of advice given.
But in any case, that was awesome. And then there were these things, I didn't even know what this was when I first started.
He said, we're going to do two floats. You want to go on these floats, these float trips? And I don't know what the heck he was talking about, but it sounded like it was interesting, you know, there'd be fishing and stuff like that.
So I assumed kind of what it was, but apparently everyone is just doing floats out there. And all my life,
I didn't know what a float was. I wasn't doing any floats, but people are doing these floats. And it's just amazing. Basically this, this, this bus takes you like 20 miles up river, drops you off with a canoe, and then you float back.
And this river was fantastic. It was just pristine, you know, looking down into the water.
And it looks like a Bass Pro Shops Aquarium. It's idyllic. There's rocks. It's just amazing.
Crystal clear water, all of that kind of stuff. And we were fishing off the canoes. I didn't do that well.
I caught two fish the first day, two fish the second day. One of the brothers there, man, he caught 20 the first day.
And he was just trolling behind the boat and the entire float. But it was just fantastic.
And, and, and one of the things that, that Jared had said in the beginning, he said, you know, I wanted to create an event where maybe you could possibly die.
And he, he meant it as a joke, but the first float, man, there was a situation there.
And, and I got to say, I think I went to my first white boy summer event. You know, I've always, I've always said, I don't really know what this white boy summer stuff is.
It sounds kind of weird to me. I don't know. It sounds a little scary, but this was like white boy summer. I'm telling you we're on this float.
And, uh, there was an older gentleman, a solid dude. One of these, like, uh, he does like abortion ministry and like sidewalk counseling and stuff like that.
Um, just a solid, solid brother, but he's an older gentleman. And, and, uh, he had a rough time. I mean, him and his partner, they tipped their canoe,
I don't know, four or five, six times. And, uh, towards the second half, me and my partner, uh, we were pretty decently strong at the canoe.
Uh, we didn't flip at all. Um, but we hung back to kind of make sure that they were all right. And, uh, so, but at one point we got a little further.
And so we both look back, we're saying, all right, do you see him? Do you see him? And we, then we saw one of the guys, we only saw one of them and he was in the water and it looked like he was kind of trying to get the canoe out from under a tree or something, whatever.
And we didn't see the other guy. So we, you know, and we were in a section where it was difficult to get back upstream.
So we were, we're trying to get back upstream. Luckily there's this white family, you know, kind of a redneck family that was right there.
And there was, there was miles and miles that we didn't see anyone. But, but at this moment, providentially, there was this whole family, a bunch of young guys and a couple older guys, uh, and, and, you know, their girlfriends, whatever.
And they, they had just fallen in the water themselves because this part was a little treacherous. And, uh, one of their kayaks was upstream and they saw us turn around and they thought we were trying to help them.
They're like, no, no, no, we're okay. We're okay. And we're all of a sudden pointing and they turn around and then we see them all run.
And so we're like, oh no, man, like this is not good. That old guy is in trouble. So we're getting upstream, but luckily they're already up there.
And, uh, we finally, you know, we get as far as we can. We park the boat on the side of the, of the river and we run up there and they're trying to get this guy.
And he's like shaking, you know, he, he had fallen a of times and he was getting a little disoriented about this all.
And it looked like he was going to go hypothermic for a bit. He was shaking. And like I said, this was like a treacherous part of the river.
Luckily we could stand, like we didn't have to swim it, but it was powerful. So the guy wasn't going to get across this white, this white family, you know, like, look, you meet a white family in the middle of the woods,
Puerto Ricans like me don't know what's going to happen, but they were so helpful. So they all like the younger guys, five, five of them, a couple of girls, they basically carried this guy across this raging river and we set them down.
And then I guess their father or something came and he's walking with him. He's trying to figure out if he's going into shock, if he's got heart issues, whatever.
Um, we ended up having to call 911, which we did. And he seemed like he was okay, but we didn't want to take any chances.
Um, but we called 911. It took forever because we're in the middle of nowhere. And so the park rangers had to come eventually a boat that was designed to go up, up this like shallow river came and took him away.
And he was all right. He came, he joined us later that night, but, uh, providentially, you know, there was always someone there to help, which was, which was awesome.
If that family was not there at that moment, I don't know that the three of us could have, could have figured that out because there was his partner and then the two of us, um, it would have been dicey because the river was,
I mean, it took five or six of them to get them out of there. So I'm just very great. My phone was barely working too.
So I, I couldn't get through to people that well. Um, in any case, it was just very providential.
So I was telling, I was telling Jared like, yeah, maybe next time don't joke that you might die because maybe, maybe you will.
Um, but in any case, uh, it was a lot of fun. And, uh, you know, I think that, um, if, if, if you're the kind of person that's looking for some, you know, camaraderie looking for connections, but you're not really a conference type, this is an event that you definitely, definitely want to go to.
Um, a lot of fun, just a great, great time. My highlight of it was
Matt Reynolds talk. Apparently Matt Reynolds has written this book that's coming out. Forbes is publishing it, uh, about leadership and things like that.
Just solid. And he spoke on the almost the same topic that I spoke on my second day. And we didn't communicate about this at all, but it was all about joy, right?
Finding joy in the battle. Um, and it was just, it was just absolutely fantastic.
Highly recommend the shepherd's crook men's intensive. Definitely do it. Definitely do it.
But yeah, you know, like white boy summer, man, this is what, I guess this is what white boy summer is all about. A bunch of white people just going out there floating who knew white people have been floating all these years.
And I didn't even know about it. Absolutely fantastic. The second day of floating was, uh, was a lot easier than the first day.
The first day definitely had some dicey moments, uh, for sure. A lot of down trees and, and just obstacles and stuff like that.
There were a couple of times where we thought we were going to tip, but we never did. So that was good. That was good.
But, oh, and then the, then the last day I was, I was at an, I was at a hotel and, uh, I figured
I could easily get a ride to the airport. No problem. It was like three miles away. Um, but it, and I asked the, you know, the front desk, you know, how, you know, what's the best way to get to the airport?
Oh, there's taxi services, whatever. So I call these taxi services the day of, and nobody picks up their phone.
This is in Illinois, Marion, Illinois. No, no taxi company works to, I guess ever.
And then I tried to get an Uber. There was no Uber. So I figured, okay, you know, I'll, I'll just walk it. I'll just walk it.
And it was weird because I had messed up the timing of the flight. I thought it was earlier, which I think it was earlier, but then they changed it kind of like last minute.
So anyway, I, it's like the middle of the day. It's like, you know, high noon kind of thing. And so I said, you know,
I guess I'll walk it, you know, I can do it. Yeah. I've got the endurance to do this. No issue. So I got my backpack on, got my, uh, my, my roller, you know, kind of thing.
And so I'm walking it and I'm making some good time. And I feel, I feel great. Like I don't feel overly hot.
It's like 90 degrees, but I got my shorts on, you know, everything. I'm feeling good. I've got water. I've got electrolytes.
I feel great. And I get like three quarters of the way, maybe a little less than three quarters of the way.
And all of a sudden I start to feel like dizzy, a little dizzy out of nowhere.
Like it didn't progress. It just like out of nowhere. And I'm like, Oh no, I'm going to pass out.
Like, I'm like, I'm not going to make it. And I'm thinking like, this is my game. I'm having a stroke.
Like what's going on. And so I, I find a tree, like there's like no trees in this town either.
It was like, there's just like no shade whatsoever. So I find a tree. I sit down under it. I start to feel a little better.
And I'm thinking to myself, man, I know I can make it. I'm so close. I can make it. And then something tells me do not walk anymore.
Do not walk anymore. And, uh, so I called Jared. It was like just after church had let out,
I think. And I said, Hey man, I hate to do this to you. Can you come pick me up? And he goes, where are you? I'm like, oh, you know, I'm at Subaru dealership or he goes,
Oh man, you're almost there. He goes, I go, yeah, I appreciate it. Like, but can you please pick me up?
He's like, yeah, sure. No problem. I'll be there in 10 minutes. So he comes and drives me the rest of the way and I'm fine the rest of the day, but I'm looking up like symptoms of like stroke, heat stroke, stuff like that.
And I was definitely experiencing some of the heat exhaustion symptoms, not quite to the stroke level, but along those lines.
And so I'm glad I stopped. I'm definitely glad I stopped. And there's like nobody around. That was the other thing about Marion, like hardly anyone's around.
So like, if I did pass out at the Subaru dealership, nobody would have found me. You know what I mean? So, uh, yeah.
So Jared's barks. Yeah. Go to this conference. You might die. That's my, that's my, uh, that's how I'm going to sell this.
The Shepherd's crook men's men's intensive. You might die. We had a great time, man.
A lot of just solid, solid brothers. There's a, here's a funny one. Uh, he was telling me about, uh, this guy at his church.
He's ethically a Jew and, uh, and, uh, he's a solid dude. He's a great guy.
You know, I got to meet him, whatever. And he goes, he goes, yeah, he's in charge of our finance.
And I thought, I thought he must be telling a joke, but he wasn't, he really isn't. Lots of jokes like that.
Lots of jokes like that. Oh man. Good stuff. Good stuff. But, uh, yeah,
I guess that's all I have for today. I'm just kind of easing back into the video process. Oh, I've got a, I've got a read on who the next speaker is going to be at the next
Shepherd's crook intensive. This is like a Shepherd's crook men's intensive commercial today. Um, I cannot recommend this thing enough.
It was a beautiful location. Just everything about it was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.
But I know who he's thinking of for the next speaker of this conference. And I got to tell you, it's a, it's a big win if he, if he says yes, because I think he's going to, and, uh, it's going to be an amazing, amazing time.
So yeah, if this, if this is what white boy, summer's all about, you know, like grilling burgers, you know, just floating, like again, like who knew you just float, you just go out there and float for 20 miles.
Um, you might die too. That's the other thing about white boy, summer, you might die and, uh, and everyone's okay with it.
You know what I mean? You go to this conference and you might die and everyone's like, yeah, that's just part of life.
You might die. We got kids out there floating. The kids did a great job too.
Like the youngest is probably a nine year old with some teenagers there. And they were like floating on their own. And you know, they were like jumping from canoe to canoe.
Like they didn't care. Oh, there's another part where there's a, the river meets another river, which is coming from an underwater spring.
And he's like, look, it's your first time to write a passage. You got to jump into that spring water because it's freezing and you have to do it.
And I was like, well, you didn't even, you don't even have to threaten me. I was going to do it anyway. Cause I want to see what it's all about. So it's, it's amazing.
Like the two rivers meet and you're walking along the river and it's like, Oh, this is not that cold. And then all of a sudden it's like, there's a wall right there.
You step into this freezing cold, but it's like the same water, like an invisible wall.
And it's like this freezing cold water. And I'm like, Oh, this isn't so bad. So I throw myself in and it is so like, once you get a, but like into your neck of this water,
I try, I got up and I was like, Ooh, and I couldn't even talk. I couldn't even say anything. It was so cold.
It was just amazing and good time. Then it came back into the warm water and it felt like a bath. Oh man, that was good. That was good.
I don't know what else to say about it, but, uh, highly recommend the highly recommend while I was there, the
Rangers, they made it to the Eastern conference championship. I did not watch the game and, uh,
I'm lucky I didn't cause I'm usually a bit of a jinx when it comes to this kind of stuff, but, uh, all good stuff all around good stuff all around looking for, let me know what you want me to do for videos this week.
I'm thinking about finishing up the, uh, the Sean DeMars, Doug Wilson interview. There's a lot of other things to talk about.
You know, Michael Fallon's out there running his mouth, like always lots of good stuff out there. Lots of good stuff.