Houseboat Termites to Fort Knox: Unpacking the Unexplained

This is episode number 358 of The Homeowner Show. Well, whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Greg Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We are so glad that you could join us for another live episode here in The Homeowner Show studios. How you doing, Kev?

You know what? I'm pretty good. I feel like I've been here before, but—

Understatement.

Yeah, understatement. Some of you may be wondering, it's been a while since Thursday has been our recording day.

Yeah, that's true.

It's been a while. I mean, we used to record on Thursdays all the time.

Thursday was the day.

Thursday was the day. And then it changed for Who knows why? The reason is unknown. But anyway, I'm good. Life's good.

I'm just gonna do a live check here real quick.

Okay. See if it's working. Yeah.

Okay.

All right. We got some audio.

There was a hiccup. That hiccup was big. That was a big hiccup. It was a big hiccup. It's like an hour and a half long hiccup. Yeah.

I don't, I don't like those kind of hiccups. I feel like there's heartburn attached to that hiccup. Uh, how are you doing?

I'm doing okay, man. I'm, uh, this, this week has been, uh, kind of crazy. I'll tell you, uh, you know, tales from Craig in the field. 2, 2 crazy termite, uh, things this week.

Okay.

Uh, one, We— this lady calls me and says, I think I've got termites. Okay. And she goes, but I'm on a houseboat.

Oh.

So once I got the whole story, what it was is this woman and her husband had bought a houseboat in Jacksonville, Florida, and they had it transported here to Conroe, Texas so that they could live on it on Lake Conroe.

Okay. I would not want to do that.

And it's like, it's a 55-foot houseboat.

Yeah, I mean, it's not, it's not that I wouldn't want to live on a houseboat. I wouldn't want to live on a bulkhead lake on a, on a houseboat.

Yeah.

That's just me.

Not my, not my cup of tea either, but there's actually lots of people out there that do it.

Oh, I know. It's just that, you know, if you're unfamiliar, bulkhead lakes are just way more choppy.

Sure.

Than a non-bulkhead.

Yeah.

But anyway.

Anyway.

Yeah.

Um, and sure enough, the thing was infested with termites.

Really?

Yes. And drywood termites, and not the kind of drywoods that we even have here. We don't even have drywoods up in Conroe.

You're gonna have to be a little more specific because I don't know what that means.

If you, if you have termites in, in Conroe, it's basically, it's going to be subterraneans or Formosans. Um, there's dampwoods and drywood termites. I mean, you might find them in downtown Houston, but you just don't find them up here in Conroe.

Okay.

Um, and but what it was is they had bought the boat. Drywood termite colonies are really, really small. And so like, if you just have one colony like living in your house, or— I found them in a piece of furniture one, one time, and they'd been in that piece of furniture for like 5 or 6 years before the homeowners even noticed.

Wow.

Um, and so like, they, they can exist for a long time before you even notice what's going on. Well, these, uh, drywoods started swarming inside the houseboat. And that's how they found out.

Oh, they saw them?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were crawling all over the place, dropping wings. I mean, and then I, I thought when she called me, I thought it was— we've been having tons of Formosan swarmers in the area, and I was like, oh, it's probably just Formosan swarmers landing on your boat.

Sure.

Excuse me. But she sent me some pictures and it got me concerned, and so I called an entomologist buddy of mine. I was like, hey, like, I think you might want to come with me on this one. And I explained it to him and he's like, I do want to come look at that. Interesting. And so like, sure enough, he put them under the microscope. They're drywoods. Um, and we're working with another company that apparently can fumigate over the water.

Really?

Yeah, it's gonna— I'm actually really interested to see how. And he was like, he was like, when I called him, he was like, oh, actually we're doing another one this week. And I was like, this, like, you, you've seen this more than once? And he's like, oh yeah, a few times.

Weird.

Yeah, super weird. The other one was an existing client of mine, uh, completely metal building.

Okay.

Infested with Formosan termites.

Really?

Yeah. What are they eating? They are eating the rubber expansion joints on the concrete.

Oh no.

And then there, I think there's, I haven't confirmed it yet, but I think there's a leak in the roof because they are going up a wall. They're looking for the water. They're looking for the water.

Yeah.

I mean, that's almost always what they're doing.

Sure.

Um, and, and so it was just, it was just a week of weird termite stuff, man. And it wasn't like the only termite thing, but the rest of them were just like normal, like going in the house. Okay, I see that. And then we'll go kill them and that kind of thing. But like on a boat?

Yeah, that's true.

I've never come across them on a boat before.

No.

So, but like, it wasn't— when I got there, it made a little bit more sense. The entire inside of that houseboat is wood paneling.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Is it beautiful?

It's pretty. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, it's, it's actually pretty cool.

Yeah.

Um, it's not, it's, it's basically just like a big rectangle going down the lake.

Oh yeah.

Um, yeah. But like there's all sorts of levels to it. And anyway, it's, it's a cool boat.

Yeah.

Um, I could see why they enjoy it if that's your thing.

Sure.

Um, but like it would, I mean, they basically sunk everything into this boat and now they're like, So you're telling me that they sold it to me knowing that it was infested? We're like, yeah, this thing has had— they knew.

They had to know.

They had to know.

Yeah. And like, that's not something that you're like, like, it's like, it's like I'm purchasing a boat. Let me get my termite inspection.

Well, that's what she said. She's like, well, we had the boat inspected. And I was like, there's not any boat inspector in the world that's going to be looking for drywood termites on your boat. No, it's just not, it's not even a remote possibility to them because it doesn't happen that often, right? But my entomologist friend was like, I'm gonna make a few phone calls, and like, I think this is actually a pretty regular occurrence in that part of Florida. Oh, and sure enough, it is. It's a thing.

Really?

Yeah. But if you don't know, if you're not from Jacksonville, if you're not from North Florida, sure, near the coast, you're not gonna know, man. So like, you, you would So what you would, you know, like if you're in Texas, I'm gonna buy a houseboat in Jacksonville and have it shipped to Texas.

Sure.

You're gonna hire a boat inspector from Texas.

Right.

You know, somebody that you know, somebody that you get a referral from.

Right.

They're not gonna be looking for termites on a boat.

No.

Everybody I've told about it, where was the tubes? It was like, there were no tubes. There's no tubes.

Right.

They were just on the boat. Just, they landed, they flew in through a window as a swarm and they just infested the boat. Man, that's crazy. It was crazy.

So like, how bad is it? Like, is this gonna be a—

It wasn't like— the damage I don't think is that bad.

Okay, that's, that's good.

But based off what we saw, we think there's multiple colonies living on that boat. So it's not— we, one, we don't know.

Sure.

Because we can't see inside.

Yeah.

And the only way we can see inside is if we start taking it apart.

Right.

They don't want us taking it apart.

I understand that.

I don't blame 'em.

No.

And so like, what can we do? Well, the only thing you can, I mean, to like effectively treat them and know for sure that they're gone is to fumigate the thing.

Yeah.

The problem is like before we talked to my buddy that actually knows how to do this kind of stuff, we were like, hey, just FYI, they're probably gonna have to pull the boat up outta the water.

Sure.

Well, for a boat that size, she was like, it's gonna cost us $20,000 to get the boat up outta the water.

Oh goodness.

And I'm like, oh my gosh, this could be devastating.

Yeah.

If that's the only way. And she's like, is there any other way? And I was like, yeah, but we'd be guessing.

Yeah.

I mean, there's no effective way to know for sure where we have zero evidence of trails. We don't know. We can find some stuff where they used to be.

Sure.

But we just don't know for sure. And so you can explore and you can best guess. And if you happen to get on them, trying to treat them with, you'll get rid of them. But at the same time, what we were looking at was going, there's probably like 3 or 4 colonies.

And, and yeah, what if we miss one? Yeah, how are you gonna know where, which one's where? Yep, all that. And so if you got a guy that can fumigate on the water, now we're talking.

And so what's cool about it is he was— and it made sense to me once he explained it to me— he said, you know, so typically what we do is we tent a house.

Sure.

And they put what they call like sand snakes at the bottom.

Okay.

Which create a barrier that doesn't allow the fumigant to get out.

Sure.

So he said, what we do on the water, the water surface, he goes, the fumigant actually can't get into the water. So we're not worried about killing any of the fish.

Okay.

So what we do is we actually put weights on the tent that take the tent below the water. And so the water almost—

The water is the barrier.

Yeah, the water creates the barrier.

Interesting.

And so you're not, because you know, with that fumigant stuff, if you smell it, it's already too late.

Yeah.

Like it will kill you.

Yeah.

Not just the bugs.

Right.

It's dangerous stuff.

Sure.

It's expensive work. And so like you have to be really, really careful. There's a special license for it. I don't even have a license. I don't want that license.

Right.

Um, but the guys that do it are really, really good at what they do. Sure. Um, so I'm, I'm interested to just be involved.

Yeah.

Like I want to watch this whole thing go down.

Not literally, but, uh, that would be bad.

Please stay buoyant. Right.

What kind of— how— when you say fumigation, how heavy is this fumigant?

Oh my God. She's a teetering—

Yeah, exactly.

Which, that would be really bad.

Oh.

I mean, like, if it tipped or anything while you're doing it, like if a windstorm came through and like brought that tent up.

Yeah.

If it's not deep enough, or if you're doing it like in shallow water, I'm sure that's what I'm saying. Like, like these guys, they know what they're doing. Yes.

I'm sure that they're, they're checking wind patterns. They're checking storm patterns. They're checking all that before they get in there.

They have to, man. I mean, like, you will kill people if you—

and right now, like, we've been having storms regularly over the last couple of weeks.

It's like living on a Florida beach here right now, man.

It's been weird.

So, I mean, like, we had a monstrous storm move through in about 20 minutes.

Today? Yeah. Yeah, no, I drove through it.

It was nuts.

It was. I was like, man. And it was, it was big, like, as far as the, the width of the, the storm. Uh, because we were, we were heading south on 45 and it was a, it was a doozy. So, and we've had multiple of those recently. So. Anyway, well, look, we've done this once before. What are we talking about?

We just had a bunch of stuff happening on sort of the back end of the show that we wanted to address a little bit. Just because we've, I mean, one, there's been like some new stuff going on that's interesting. But also just like old pieces of content of ours are like resurfacing, like people are commenting and sharing and I was trying to figure out why.

Right.

Um, so like the, the big one, uh, here recently was we did, we talked a little bit about how people go missing in national parks.

Right.

Um, we've had that conversation. We were going through the statistics on it, which are kind of weird.

They are.

Um, and, but it didn't seem like the number of people didn't seem weird. You know what I mean? Like the numbers are weird, but like the number of people that go missing nationally in total on national parks.

I mean, people go missing.

People go missing.

Sure. That, that's actually not the biggest weirdness about it.

People go missing, people get disappeared.

Yeah.

I mean, there, you know, there's, there's all sorts of reasons for that, I'm sure.

Yeah.

Um, but one of ours was like, people were commenting on and all of a sudden we were just getting gobs and gobs of views on it. And I was like, what's going on? Well, I was, I was doing a little backtracking and Joe Rogan had David Paul— I don't know how to say his name. David Paulides, I think. He's a former law enforcement officer that has become a documentary filmmaker.

Okay.

Specifically investigating the people who go missing in parks that aren't found.

All right.

And what was— and so I went and I listened to the, to the interview and I was like, oh, this makes sense why people are like listening and paying attention to like what we said. Because our— the, the clip that we had out was sort of downplaying a little bit, talking about like, okay, these numbers aren't that, that weird, right? But what he's talking about are people that go missing that they find like zero evidence for.

Like they, they have no clue where they went.

There's no body, there's no bones, there's no shirt, there's no— I mean, like all— and like every case is different where you'd be like, oh, we should have found something like this.

Yeah.

And, and he says what he was talking about is when people go missing and they actually put together a full-on man search, they bring in the dogs. And, you know, like, because people will go like, oh, a bear got them, right? And then the coyotes came in and then the vultures came in, right? And so of course there's not gonna be anything left. Well, there's like, there's some things that don't get eaten, right? There's some things that get passed through fecal matter, you know, like where you can find. And then he's like, the dogs always find something.

They, they're going to find something.

Yes.

Well, and, and not only that, like, when people go into national parks, they're typically— they've got— they're outfitted.

Yeah.

Somehow they've got things like water bottles and—

That are plastic.

Plastic.

Yeah.

Backpacks and, you know, cameras and things that just aren't going to be stuff that animals even vultures are gonna eat, right? You know, right? So where does it go?

Exactly. And they— and like on some of these, and the cases that he deals with, nothing's recovered.

Weird.

Nothing. And, and so he was talking about how that, that makes it an odd situation. Like, and he was, he was, he was even saying like, he recognizes that people go missing, um, and that some people are found. He goes, but the ones that aren't are the ones that are the weird ones.

Yeah.

And he goes, what makes it even more weird is he got into looking into cold cases for missing people in the parks. And this was years and years and years ago. And he was looking into one gal, and the case was like 46 years old.

Okay.

She had been out trail riding with her dad, uh, decided to go off and take some pictures down by the lake, and all of a sudden she wasn't there. And the only thing they found was like the lens cap to her camera by the tree line. Never— not a trace of her after that.

Weird.

So he puts in an inquiry to the Parks Department for the case files. He gets a phone call from a special investigator in the Parks Department. Apparently there's like—

What?

Yeah.

Okay.

And this investigator calls him and says, why are you looking into this case? And he sort of explains, like, you know, I'm documentary filmmaker, journalist, former law enforcement officer. I'm just looking into this case. Wanted to see if I could try and help figure out what happened.

Sure.

He's like, you're not getting that file. He's like, okay, why not? And he's like, well, you're just not getting it. You can't have it. And he's like, well, I'll just fee for it. And he goes, I've done that many times and I've always gotten the file. And he goes, well, you're not getting this one. So just stop messing with it. And this guy's being like really forceful with him and, and telling him like, you're not going to find anything. You can't look at that file.

Which is weird because typically, first of all, they do want these people to be found if possible. But also, once you go, once a reporter goes asking for those kinds of files, typically they get them. Yeah. It's not a big deal. They're just like here, right?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, unless it's an ongoing investigation.

But not 46 years later.

The people who were looking into it are probably dead. You know, it's like, what does this guy care? What does he know that he doesn't want this guy to know? What's in the file that he doesn't want him to see?

Right.

And so that's what makes it suspicious.

Sure.

And you know, Joe Rogan's pushing on him like, what do you think it is? Do you think it's aliens? Do you think it's a conspiracy from the government? And the guy's like, I don't know. I just know that it's weird.

It's weird.

Um, you know, and he, and he probably has his own opinions, and I, I think it pro— he probably leans in. I haven't watched his documentary. Sure. Um, I'm, I'm making aspersions here.

Wild assumptions.

Yeah, that I, I mean, just, just based off what I heard from in the interview, I'm like, he probably thinks that it's aliens, right? And I don't care. But like, you know, if he's a good investigator, he's a good investigator, and he's overturning some stuff that's like, okay, what, what's going on with these missing people? And it's not just one, there's a bunch of them.

Yeah.

And the other suspicious thing was he reached out to one national park and asked if he could get a list of all the people that had gone missing in that park. And they said, we don't have a list. And he's like, really? Like, that seems weird. Why wouldn't you have a list?

Right.

Um, he goes, well, do you think you could put one together? And they said, we'll get back to you. And apparently they got back to him and they said, well, if you want a list of all the people that have gone missing in all the national parks, we can put that list together. for you, but it's gonna cost you like $1.4 million.

Excuse me? What? What?

Yeah. And he, and then they go, but if you just want the list of the people that have gone missing in this park, it's gonna cost you like $36,000.

Also an absurd number.

And he's like, this is ridiculous.

Why? I don't know. That, that, that sounds to me, that sounds to me like go away money.

Yeah.

Like it's gonna cost you so much that you're just gonna walk away, right?

Probably.

You know what I mean? Probably.

Like, just go away.

Just go away.

Yeah, just leave us alone.

Right.

And he said like, he just, he was kind of like a dog without a bone and he just kind of kept going after them. And he eventually compiled his own list. And he said it was like 2 or 3 years later, the parks department released a list and it just so happened that it matched almost perfectly with his list. Yeah. Shocking. And he was like, you guys told me it was going to cost like millions of dollars and you just did it anyway.

Yeah.

So who paid for that?

Right.

Probably no one.

Probably no one.

Probably had it.

Yeah, that's weird.

Um, so anyway, our, our clip from that was popping, and I was like, why is it— this is like 2 years old. Like, it's just like no one— but anyway, um, so that's why.

Interesting.

It was an interview on JRE, um, which was interesting. And then the other one that was popping was, um, and I don't know why— I still don't know why this one's getting attention again, But do you remember the, the picture that showed up of the black jaguar in Huntsville?

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Where we're like, we showed the picture.

We did.

You can't really tell what it is. It does look like a big cat.

It does look black. Sure.

But you can't tell what it is. It's way out of focus and you can't tell. You can't tell the depth perception from the tree line. Yeah. And the cat. And so like, and everyone's like, ah, it's proof it's a black jaguar and our black panther in Texas.

Yeah. Yeah. And which don't exist.

According to biologists, does not exist. At one time they did.

Yeah.

But they're apparently, they're not here anymore.

Right.

According to biologists.

According to them.

But like, look, if you look on the comments on our clip from that one, it's like everybody and their uncle has one living in their backyard. Right, right, right. In Northeast Texas and Louisiana.

Yeah. A couple of people are breeding them over here.

Yeah. So now what, what, you know, and I think we talked about this in the episode back then, and I don't forget— I forget how long ago it was that we even talked about that, but like they, they say if there is one, it's probably a melanistic jaguar.

Okay.

That's a bit— and if you look those up, um, they look almost jet black, but when you get up close, their spots are sort of iridescent.

They, they have spots. They have spots. You can see them, but you have to Get close.

So because we, we have had like jaguars sort of cross over from Mexico into Texas.

Sure.

Um, what am I hearing?

Me. Oh.

Good.

We're good. Keep moving.

Okay. Sorry. Um, I was like, I think I hear me talking somewhere else. Yeah.

Yeah.

I turned on my computer. It's fine. Oh, okay. Um, they have said that like, that is a possibility.

Okay.

But again, we, we don't have any documentation of it. We have no evidence of it. Um, other than people saying like, my aunt has one on her property, my uncle saw one when he was hunting, I saw one in the dead of night. Like these, it's like the same thing over and over again. It's like, yeah, but like, no, you guys don't have any pictures or video. I mean, like, and I look, somebody would have shot one by now.

Oh yeah.

I would think.

I would think so too.

It would have been getting into somebody's chickens, you know, and We'd have had something. It'd have shown up on a Ring camera.

I'm just saying, Cletus is not happy about them chickens.

No.

He's taking care of that black jaguar.

He says something's happening.

Yeah.

Now, he may— if Cletus is slightly intelligent, well, he's gonna realize what he's done.

Yeah.

And be like, I ain't telling nobody.

Yeah, he's like, that's getting buried.

That's right.

I'm gonna get my, my backhoe out. That thing's going in the ground.

I would be so tempted to skin it.

Oh, man.

And tell no one.

Tell no one.

And tell no one.

Yeah.

I mean, that'd be my blanket from now to kingdom come.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that one that you have— oh, sorry. We shouldn't talk about that. Yeah, sorry.

Whoops.

That's like Hagrid. Whoop.

Shouldn't have said that.

Shouldn't have said that. Yeah, exactly.

So the, uh, the story, uh, here this past week, the one that's pissing me off, is this barrel racer gal in, uh, Las Vegas. Oh, that stabbed 3 horses. What the world? So she's 17.

Okay.

And it looks, it looks like she's gonna be tried as an adult. What? Okay. And they arrested her. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's looking like she's She's in deep kimchi.

Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's not good.

No.

But it's— I don't understand it. I, there, there, and like, I've heard interviews with people that know her. Mm-hmm. The gal that runs the, the Barrel Racing Association that she was a part of, that she was there to compete. It's a big, big, big event.

Right.

Um, I think it was like their national competition.

Okay.

That they were having in Vegas. And like, just in the dead of night, this gal just goes through and stabs these horses.

What?

And not just once.

3 times.

I think it was 3 times per horse. Yes.

It's like, look, I mean, the, my, my natural inclination, and I think most people's, is like, she's trying to eliminate her competition. Like, that seems like the most logical. If you're gonna do something stupid, mm-hmm.

I'm, I'm not—

there's a logical reason, right?

I'm a big believer in Occam's razor. Like the most—

Yeah.

The most obvious answer is most likely the answer.

Right.

And like, I think that that's true most of the time.

Most of the time.

I don't think that's the case in this.

Do you think she just like went insane?

But if it was for competition's sake, I don't think it would've been 3 horses.

Okay, you'd take out the first one, 1?

1, you know, like who's beating me, right? Or who's most likely to beat me?

And are these horses still alive? Yes. All of them are still alive. That's the other thing. It's like you, you, you maimed them, but they're still alive. Yeah.

Well, I mean, look, they're tough.

Sure. And I get that. But like, there, there's also, there's also a weird thing whenever it comes to, to this type of scenario. Like, there are some things that you just don't touch.

Yeah.

And another person's horse is one of those things.

Yeah.

You don't touch someone else's horse.

There's a reason it used to be a hangable offense in the state. Sure.

Yeah. And it's not necessarily just because, how dare you? That's probably the most obvious reason, but there's another code.

Yeah, there is.

There's a code to this.

The dirtiest lowdown scoundrel you could probably be in Texas back in the day was a horse thief.

Sure.

And that's not even harming the horse. That's just taking the horse from somebody that, you know, away from someone that it belongs to, their personal property. Yeah. Like, you steal somebody's wallet, you're not going to get hung, right? But you steal somebody's horse, you're getting hung.

Yeah.

And so, like, it's—

it's—

I don't know. I, I don't know all of the reasons why we treat them different than other things, but we do. I mean, like, I, I tend to believe that there's actually some sort of, like, spiritual connection between Man and horse, man and dog.

Sure, yeah.

You know, um, and, and all those relationships are different, but like there's something different about a horse and a man. And the minute you violate that relationship, I guess game on.

Yeah.

You know, and I, and I think she knew that full well. I think that's the thing that she was actually— I don't think she was trying to win. I think she was trying to hurt those other people.

Well, she did.

I mean, these are—

I mean, because these are not like Dogs are expensive. Horses are real expensive. Like, and not just to, to keep. I— horses are very expensive to keep. I mean, food alone.

Yep.

Will, will cripple you. But purchasing a horse is not an inexpensive experience. And if you're purchasing horses for that type of deal, barrel racing.

Yeah.

Like if you wanna, if you really wanna kind of understand this as, as well as you possibly can without digging too deep, just go watch like the last season of Yellowstone.

Sure.

And you'll see these horses and what they do. And they, they're not, these aren't barrel racing horses that they, that they're showing in Yellowstone, but they're—

No, those are reining and western pleasure horses.

Right.

Cutting horses.

Cutting horses and stuff. But you get the idea, right? These are not inexpensive animals. No. And then you gotta train 'em, then you gotta take care of 'em. Like, there are, I mean, is it unreasonable to think that there's 100,000 or more in these fields?

No, it's not unreasonable.

No. So like, this is a big—

I mean, like, just your everyday horse, man. I mean, like the cheapest horse I ever, well, that's not true. I got one for free. free ones. But that's why you breed them. Because, well, no, I just, I just had somebody give me one one time. Yeah, they're just expensive is my point. Yeah, but like the cheapest horse I ever bought was still like 5 times more expensive than any dog I ever bought.

Right.

You know?

Right.

I mean, it's just like, now you, I mean, you can, you can pick up a horse for like $1,000, $1,500 or something like that. It's just not a good horse.

Right.

Most of the time.

Right.

Um, but you know, you start looking at like $3,000, $5,000, $6,000, like a decent horse that's just like an everyday riding, sound, good horse. I mean, expect to pay somewhere between $6,000 and $10,000.

Okay.

You know, and that's just like a normal good, good horse.

Right.

You know, you start talking about a performance horse.

Yeah.

That's designed to go and win money.

Yeah.

I mean, you're, you're talking $20,000, $30,000, $50,000, $80,000, $100,000, quarter of a million. It's, it's not, it's not outside the realm of possibility, right? And it all has to do with the bloodlines, and it all has to do with like how much money they've won, right? You know, you, you get a horse that's won a million dollars, what do you— what can you sell that horse for?

Well, at least that. Way more than that, you know. They're worth, they're worth at minimum what they can make you, you know?

So, and I, I don't know all the calculations that go into that, but like, sure, it ain't cheap. No, I know that much.

Well, but like, if you go again, I'm talking about how you can kind of put this into perspective. Go watch Seabiscuit. I mean, the movie, it talks about that kind of stuff in the movie, right? And, or, or go like, I don't know, there, there's some really cool places. Like if you go to like Belle Meade in, in Tennessee, like, ah, it's a really cool place. And, and you, you start realizing, oh, these bloodlines are no joke.

No.

Like this is a, this is purebred, not just purebred. These, these horses continue to Perform. Sire, like, unbelievable horses that perform, that make beaucoup of money.

Yeah.

So yeah, so, so on top of the fact that, that we're at competition, there's a code with what you don't do. Something's up.

Well, I'll tell, I'll tell you this too, man. Like, when you, when you start talking about like horse bloodlines, like, in my, in my life, I've gotten to own one incredible horse. And my dad told me, he's like, most people get to do that one time.

Okay.

And I had one when I was a teenager.

Okay.

That, I mean, I could just whoop anybody. I mean, she was just outstanding.

Yeah.

And it has very little to do with the rider and the trainer.

Sure. That horse is good.

The horse was just fantastic.

Yeah.

You know, you could have put a moron on her and she would've won. You know, it was just— She knows what to do. Yeah, and it was like one of the most heartbreaking things of my younger life, and for my dad too, was that she was barren. You know, I mean, couldn't, couldn't, couldn't have a colt.

Yeah.

I mean, we tried so many times with like different studs, couldn't get one out of her.

Yeah.

Excuse me. And so like, that's, that's one of the more heartbreaking things. Sure. That you can experience is like when you have a really good one and you can't, you can't even come close to reproducing it because there's just, you know, yeah, sucks. Um, but all that, all that to say, like, good horses are just good horses, man.

Sure.

So I mean, like, don't get me wrong, like, there's an element of training.

Yeah.

There's an element of skill to the rider. Like, there— that is part of the equation.

Sure.

But a good horse is a good horse.

And, and I, I think, I think the same is true about dogs. I mean, you— well, this— the, the last dog we got Uh, he, he came from a breeder up in East Texas, and the breeder told me, said, we've gotten rid of multiple, uh, dogs because I didn't like the temperament. And, you know, we got to the point where we really like this temperament and it produces other dogs like that.

Right.

Right. And so like, and, and here's, it's a weird, it's a weird conversation because there's a lot of people out there that would just say, don't ever buy a dog from a breeder. There are so many dogs in, in shelters you need. They don't, don't perpetuate that.

Right.

Yeah. There's a couple things I would say to that. Number one, that doesn't stop the breeder.

Nope.

That breeder's still gonna breed a dog whether you get a dog from a shelter or you buy it from the breeder.

Right. Okay.

So I, I hear your, your heart behind that. I get it. It's not— you're not, you're not stopping anything.

I'm, I'm, I'm with that sentiment up until a point.

And I, I look, I'm not, I'm not saying it's the only— I'm just saying it's an argument. But I will say this. If you're looking for a specific temperament, specific Like skill set out of a dog.

Yep.

And you need that. I mean, they're, look, they're, they're ranchers that need a certain skill set out of a dog. There are hunters that need a certain skill set out of a dog.

Yeah.

And there are certain people that need a certain temperament out of a dog, whether you got kids or, you know, special needs kids.

Yeah.

There's lots of situations, right? You can find that, but you're gonna pay for it.

Mm-hmm.

Same thing's true with the, with the horse.

Yeah.

You get, you get what you're looking for and paying for.

If you need a skilled, temperamented dog, that makes total sense to me.

Sure.

The people that I think are morons are the people buying French Bulldogs.

I would totally agree with that.

I don't understand, like, oh, this dog's really valuable. It has a lot of respiratory problems and they can't even reproduce on their own. You have to have C-sections in order to have the puppies.

Yep.

Like, this is a dog that should just go away.

Go away. Should not happen.

Like, it shouldn't exist. It's a worthless dog. It doesn't provide any sort of like utility.

Right.

I mean, like—

And you're buying it.

Yeah, and paying thousands of dollars for it. I don't get it.

I don't either.

You know, I feel that, but like, I feel the same way about, I'm not opposed to people owning Chihuahuas, but like, if you're like, I got a purebred Chihuahua, why?

Congratulations.

Like, I don't— What'd you get outta that?

I don't get it.

It's like, and look, we had a Chihuahua when I was a kid. It was a great dog.

Sure.

Like, but like that dog has no utility.

No.

Other than companionship, which—

Yeah.

I'm fine with that. If that's what the dog's there for, great. But like, I don't care if it's purebred.

No.

I don't care about the papers. I don't, it just makes no difference to me.

I've had one dog that had papers. It's a great dog. It was Raider.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, he had papers. Great dog. I've had a lot of really good dogs that didn't have papers. And what did I ever do with those papers?

Mm-hmm.

Nothing. Yeah. I didn't breed him. I didn't show him. I didn't do anything.

Yeah.

I had him as a friend, like, you know, and it's like there, there comes a point when it's like, what does that matter? Mm-hmm. Unless you are doing those things.

Right.

If you're breeding or if you're, you know, showing or anything like that, like, I, I get it. But yeah. Well, animal— animals are just one of those things. And it's, you mentioned it, dogs, horses, that they're very similar in companionship and, and the way they, you know, they do lock into their person.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, it is very clear who a dog's person is.

Yeah.

And whether you like it or not, that you may be that dog's person.

Yeah.

And And I know horses are the same way.

Yep. So, well, and we've got a dog right now that, um, supposedly has papers. We just don't have them.

Sure.

But if I had them, I could probably be making some pretty good money right now.

That dog's the—

so I can make, I can make good money with that dog without the papers. Yeah.

Um, that dog's the most beautiful dog I've ever seen in my life. And he doesn't have a clue.

No, he doesn't.

No, he, it was so funny. I was walking up, uh, I just drove up and your wife was heading into the house and he comes out and he's barking. And she goes, oh, thank you for being so brave. I was like, well, he didn't do anything to me. He barked at me real loud and then he came right up to me, but he's—

Oh, she is sarcastically shaming him is what she's doing.

Oh yeah, she is.

He's such a baby.

He's such a baby. Yeah, he barks. He's got big bark. Big bark. But he just kind of comes up to you and he's like, okay, I'm gonna walk away now.

Like, that's, that's the extent of it. But a beautiful dog. But if you don't know that, I mean, it'll freak you out.

Oh yeah, it would me.

Because you think he's gonna eat you.

Because he runs at you. Yeah.

So, but yeah, like, he supposedly is papered, and good Lord, I wish I had his papers.

No doubt.

Um, he's beautiful. Frustrates me.

Yeah.

And I keep telling, I keep telling my wife, I'm like, we need to breed this dog. And she's like, why? And I'm like, look at him.

Look at him. He's Gorgeous, gorgeous dog.

And like, like, he's so good with the kids. Like, he's got a great— like, he's got all those things. Like, if we had the papers on this dog, man, like, I'd be breeding him like crazy.

No doubt.

So, and like, I mean, like, you know, spoiler alert if you couldn't pick it up from that, like, he's not cut.

Right, right.

And he still has the temperament that he has, right, as a 6, 7-year-old male, right? So I'm like, This is an unusual dude.

Right.

So.

Yeah, for sure.

I may do it anyway.

Yeah, why not?

Just 'cause I like him.

Yeah, I do too.

So the other weird one was this story that came out about Fort Knox.

Oh yeah.

And the CIA agent. And I think we were talking about that one before.

Yeah.

Super weird story. And I forget how much gold. And I think you looked it up.

We looked it up, it was like $40 million.

Yeah, $40 million in gold bricks.

Gone.

and a bunch of, uh, Rolex watches and like this. And, and no one knows where this stuff came from.

Like $2 million in cash, like 40 Rolex watches.

Right. Which all that did was stir up the conspiracy theorists about Fort Knox, which is warranted as far as I'm concerned. Sure.

So, so let's talk about it because I, I think I didn't know much about it until I started digging into it a little bit.

Yeah.

It's a weird situation.

Yes. Yeah. The last time a sitting president visited Fort Knox was in 1943.

That, that blows my— it's been almost 100 years.

Yeah.

That is bizarre. It's been 80, over 80 years.

Yeah. And it was something Trump actually ran on this time.

Yeah.

And hasn't done anything about it.

Nope.

And the last time a reporter asked him about it, he was like, yeah, we should probably go up there and knock on those big heavy doors and see what's going on in there. But, you know, they steal a lot, so there's probably nothing. And it was like, what?

Right. Like, can you imagine if he went up there and opened the door and it was empty?

That— see, this is the thing. This is why I think that they know that there's nothing in there, because they won't go.

They won't. Yeah.

And like, it's like, how difficult is it to just, hey, I'm the President of the United States, let me in?

Right.

What is that, a day?

If that.

If you really think it's that important, just go knock on the door. I promise you they'll let you in.

Sure.

I mean, they can't not let you in.

No.

And so just go. Just go.

And they haven't.

And you won't. And it's either because, like, it's really not that important and you were just trying to gin up votes, or you know, and you know that if you go and you expose what's actually happening in there, that everybody's going to freak out. The economy's going to tank, and you don't want that to happen on your watch.

On your watch. Yeah. So, and, and this is, this is weird because like the, the number of people that have to keep that secret is pretty large.

Is it though? Well, I mean, I mean, how many people do you know that work at Fort Knox?

No, there's probably not that many, but we've had multiple. There's not that many people.

How many people work there?

I don't have no clue.

That's, that's what I'm saying. I mean, I don't have a clue.

It's like, but. Like, how do you know? But you can figure it out, I'm sure. But yeah, like, I mean, there's 80 years worth of people though.

Sure.

Who know or should know and don't— we don't know. Like, that, that's a— that seems like a difficult secret to keep over 80 years. I mean, most of these types of things tend to leak after time.

Right?

Right. It, it's weird to me.

Well, we talked about this before though. I mean, like when we, 'cause I looked up how many people worked on the Manhattan Project.

Right.

And how effective they were able to keep that secret for years.

That number astounded me because it was over 100,000 people.

It's 133,000 people.

That's unbelievable.

Yeah.

That, that many people Could— now, now the, the reality of it is everybody's working on a little different piece, right? And they don't have all— like, I'm working on this little plastic part, or I'm working on this little, you know, part of the Excel sheet or whatever it is, right? Right. I don't get the whole picture, and yet we don't know.

Weird. Okay, so here's what it says. This is actually kind of interesting. So, I mean, did you know— you knew Fort Knox was an Army installation, right?

Yeah.

Okay. So roughly 22,000+ people work at Fort Knox as a full Army installation, making it one of the largest employment centers in Kentucky. Recent regional reporting says Fort Knox supports about 22,000 on-post jobs plus about 13,000 indirect off-post jobs. For the gold depository itself, the U.S. Mint does not appear to publish a specific employee count.

Of course they don't.

It says Fort Knox is not a production facility, does not allow visitors, and is protected by the U.S. Mint Police. So the safe answer is Fort Knox installation, about 22,000 workers. Bullion Depository only, not publicly disclosed.

Wow.

We don't even know. It could be like 5 people.

Yeah.

How hard is it to keep 5 people quiet?

Not. Very much so.

I don't think it's 5 people, but I'm saying like, if we were able to keep 133,000 people quiet for years building the most destructive bomb the world has ever known, could we keep 500 people quiet for the last 80 years?

Easy.

Yeah, it's like—

That's easy.

Yeah. And it doesn't— how many people does it take to watch gold? Well, yeah, when it's surrounded by an army base.

Sure. And my guess is that the presidents literally just don't know. Or if they do know, they're just not saying anything. Because it's almost like, I haven't seen it not there, which means my best guess is as good as yours.

Also, did you know that the US Mint had their own police?

No, I didn't know that.

Me either. I, I was under the impression that the people that did the currency policing in the United States were the Secret Service.

That's what I would've guessed as well.

Are they different? I'm going to ask that.

Well, I would think— I, I don't know. Like, so for years and years and years, we knew nothing about Area 51.

Right.

Nothing. Then over time, stuff started coming out, but we still know very little about that place.

Yep.

And not just about where, like what it is. We know where it is. Not just about what it is, but about what they do there and what they know based on what they do there. Very bizarre. But I, you know, there's plenty of people in the CIA that, that are just like, or, or FBI, you've either one. They're like, I, I cannot tell you what I do.

Okay.

And they do keep that quiet. So it's reasonable to think that people will keep things quiet. You pay 'em enough, you give 'em enough incentive to keep their job, they'll keep quiet. So what'd you learn?

John P. Brody is the, is the title, uh, acting chief of the United States Mint Police.

Interesting.

Uh, and his, uh, let's see, that sits under the US Mint leadership. Which is under the Department of the Treasury.

Interesting. Which, I mean, okay, that does make a little bit of sense, but I wouldn't have— you would've— yeah, I, I would've lost money trying to figure any of that out if we were betting.

Let's see here. So we were putting you on notice, John.

Yeah.

How many people work for you at Fort Knox? That's what I wanna know.

It's a good question. It's a simple answer.

Okay. And his boss is Scott Bessent.

He works for the Treasury.

He is this, uh, Treasury Secretary.

Okay. So, so, well, so you guys tell us how many people work at Fort Knox. At Fort Knox in the bullion department.

The bullion department. The bullion Treasury, whatever you want to call it.

You know what the number is.

Yeah.

Just tell us.

Just how many people?

Is it 1? Is it 479?

Is it just Mr. Brody?

Is it, yeah. Is it you? Is it none?

Yeah.

Nobody works there?

It like, I just like, if we know this guy's name, we need a reporter to just like man on the street, John Brody.

Yeah.

Hey John, how much gold is in Fort Knox? Is there gold? in Fort Knox? Like, just someone, like, just ask the question.

Well, because you know what?

Because, because if he in any way tries to sidestep the question—

Right, that's what I'm saying. Like, it— people, once, once a direct question is asked to you, most people are incapable of their face not giving it away. Most people.

Most people. Psychopaths excluded, but sure.

Sure. Or, or people that have been trained. Mm-hmm. But most people are not able to—

Most people who have been trained are psychopaths. Correct.

But those people are, are special cases. Most people, if you ask them a direct question, they're gonna stumble.

Sure.

If they don't wanna answer the question.

Yeah.

That answers the question for me.

Have you ever seen the, um, Oh, gosh. Do you know about the secret society that Mark Twain was in?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh-huh.

Somebody manned on the street a government official who was in that cult.

Really?

And it's— it was Alex Jones.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah. Alex Jones manned on the street some Oh man, this was years ago. And are you looking it up?

Yeah, it's the Freemasons.

No, no, no, no, no, not that one. No, no.

Okay.

No, he— this was like in the woods in California.

Golly, I don't know what it is.

Hang on, I'll find it.

Uh, the Bohemian Club?

Yes.

Okay. I found it. It was founded in 1872 by journalists, artists, musicians, and it later expanded its ranks to include powerful corporate leaders.

You say Bohemian Grove?

Bohemian Club.

Bohemian Club.

Male only. Their secrets. The club is famously known for its highly secretive 2-week summer encampment at the Bohemian Grove in Sonoma County, California. It's during these retreats that high-profile members are rumored to engage in networking, theatrical performances, and esoteric ceremonies. Okay.

And like, apparently Alex Jones snuck into Bohemian Grove and recorded it.

Interesting.

And they were like dancing naked around a big wooden owl or something like that. It was something weird.

That is weird.

Um, and, and he confronted one of the guys on the street that he saw there and started asking him about it. And we'll have to watch it after the show.

The guy was probably like, leave me alone, I want to talk about it.

No, no, no, he would, he would not deny it, but he would say, well, I think that's very ungentlemanly behavior and you're not supposed to be there. And it was like, oh.

And you're not supposed to be there. Interesting.

Yeah, it was, it was bizarre.

Huh.

And like, and then he released the video footage to show that, you know, he'd been there.

Weird.

It was one of the, like, that was one of the things that made Alex Jones famous before he went all nutbally and started, you know, right, you know, accusing frogs of being gay.

Yeah.

So that's weird. That was a weird one too. Like, he— that was, that was one where, like, he said it wrong, but he was right. You know what I mean?

Yeah, you accidentally stumbled upon something there?

No, he didn't. Like, he didn't— I don't know that he stumbled upon it like accidentally, right? Like, he knew something weird was happening with the frogs because of, uh, hormones that were getting into the water. And, and frogs have like the ability to actually change sex.

Sure.

And, and so he was, he was saying that the frogs were gay, but what it was is that they were frogs that were Yes. Uh, what do you call it? Transitioning.

Yes. Yeah.

In the middle of transitioning.

Actual transitioning.

Yeah.

The godly way.

The way the pharmaceutical companies intended.

Oh, how do you know it's getting late in the studio? I can tell you one reason.

Oh man, what else we got? Dude, I think that's where we gotta end it right there.

We ended on frogs changing sex.

Gay frogs and Bohemian Grove.

That's it. Oh man. Well, we have enjoyed doing this episode again.

100%.

And glad you tuned in, probably for the first time.

You couldn't hear it the first time you've heard it. It was better the second time.

It was better the second time. If you haven't already, go leave us a like and review. And give us some stars. I don't know what all you gotta do. Hit this, the bell. I don't even know what it is, but you know what it is. Tap it in. Just tap it in. A little tappy tap tap tap-a-roo. Until next time, guys, we'll see you later.

See ya.