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Now let's get this show started with our host, Eric G. And John Dudley.

Welcome to the around the House show, your trusted source for home improvement information.

Thanks for joining us today.

I'm here with John Dudley.

Brother, good to see you, my friend.

What's happening, my man?

Beautiful sunny day here in the freezing mountains.

Dude, it looks beautiful out there, but I see you're in a jacket and scarf, so.

Yeah, that's a down jacket.

Sometimes two.

Yeah, man.

It's.

Think about it.

It's coming into.

It's coming into Thanksgiving week.

And that's why I thought we had some great topics for both the shows this weekend.

Because next week being Thanksgiving, I think half of us are going, what the heck happened?

How did that sneak up?

Wasn't it just Labor Day a few weeks ago?

Yeah, I'm in that half.

Wasn't it just February?

Man, that's great.

And I thought, let's help some people out because this is the time of year that my inbox at least fills up with questions and all that.

So I thought, hey, this first hour, let's talk about the top 10 things to do and maybe not do before Thanksgiving in your home.

Because so many people have the crazy family coming over.

There's so many movies about this, right?

Of just how many crazy things are happening out there.

And you get the uncles, you get the kids, you get the.

The mother in law doing damage.

You got uncle doing damage to the bathroom.

It's all the drama.

People are talking politics.

Half the side doesn't argue with.

Argues with the other side on it.

And it's just always a hot mess.

And everybody thinks that their family is the only one that does it when most do it.

I like just listening.

Yeah, no, it's the best things to sit back.

And for me, it was usually sit back, grab a glass of whiskey and just watch it play out.

It's kind of watching a reality soap opera.

It's impressive.

The same arguments come up every year for decades.

You're like, really?

You guys are still arguing about when you were 13?

Like my mom's brothers or what?

Yeah, yeah.

It's like there's the first round, which is talking about the subject and then peels in all the history behind it.

And you immediately have a table full of six year olds going, I did not.

Did two.

Wow.

Absolutely.

It reminds me of.

I just.

And you didn't want.

Probably watch it down there and streaming, but there's a show up here, Landman, which I love, and Billy Bob Thornton in it, and he's got a crazy ex wife that's now with him, that's now his wife again kind of thing.

And I don't want to ruin it, but last week's episode here, they.

She grabs the tablecloth in the middle of dinner and just rips it out in front of everybody.

All the dishes, floor, she's throwing plates.

And I'm like, nice.

I think we should talk about Thanksgiving.

That was my motivation the other night here on that.

So is that a reality show or is it.

No, it's just.

It's a movie about him being a.

If you haven't seen it out there, it's a series, Taylor Sheridan series about him being an oil guy.

So he's the landman.

He's the one that goes out, finds the land so they can drill oil and natural gas and that kind of stuff and.

All right.

He's what I'd call an oil cowboy.

Gotcha.

So pretty.

Way better as a reality show.

Absolutely.

There's a lot of real to it.

It's pretty funny.

And he reminds me a little bit about you in this, which is funny.

You need to now watch it because I'm like, there's a lot of Dudley in that character.

Oh, yep.

So it's pretty funny.

It's pretty funny.

Hey, let's talk about some of the things you should do and not do before Thanksgiving.

And one of the ones that I think is an important tip before you got company coming over and your days are counting.

Now that you're listening to this on the weekend, Thursday's coming around the corner.

But I always say deep, clean and declutter those countertops, right.

Get the crap out of the way if it's not there for a reason.

The kitchen right now in Thanksgiving to me is a work zone.

Now you can have your tchotchkes out there, but maybe put a lot of em away in the closet until afterwards because you got a work zone going.

And at least at my house, when I've got all this stuff going, when I had a lot of people coming over this year, I've got five or six People coming over, not a big deal.

Over the years I've had 20, 25 coming over.

I got two turkeys going on and everybody's showing up with dishes.

And man, getting that dialed in and getting stuff where you can at least put it someplace is key and wire.

Table that folds out.

Dude.

Yeah, I was using workbenches out in the garage and keeping it cool out there so we could plywood and a.

Couple of solid horses.

Yeah, absolutely.

Just going through, cleaning up.

I'm not a big thing about using a lot of the nasty cleaners out there, but just a good all purpose cleaner, some cloth, sponge, clean it up, sanitize it, get it going.

And then what I like to do too, man, is if you got a lot of turkey prep going, create an area on that so you don't get those turkey juices everywhere.

Make everybody sick later that dialed in and get it good to go.

Now one of my favorites though, especially in the kitchen is to dive into the maintenance.

If you're like my bane of existence over the last number of years was my ex mother in law coming over and no matter what garbage disposal I had, up to a point she'd get that thing and she'd demand on cleanup.

I don't know if she was throwing the kitchen towels down the garbage disposal or what, but she found a way Insinkerator should hire her to test new garbage disposal.

Every time I'm like, how did you plug that up finally?

Salmon and a bag of marbles.

Yeah.

It was just like, what are you doing?

Finally I went out and bought.

When I did my kitchen, I put a new one in.

And this thing is a one horse.

It was a massive disposal.

And yeah, she might be plugging up the city sewer out the street, but she wasn't plugging it up there.

So that's one of those ones with the crocodile inside, right?

It does, yeah.

Crocodile.

Crocodile hunter yells out stuff at you like the Flintstones.

Absolutely.

But I love that.

Yeah.

So finally I was just like, just.

I just let the faucet run, let it wash down.

But in my mind I almost, couple times, almost went under there and just unplugged it went, hey, don't put anything down there.

The garbage disposal is broken.

And then just plug it back in.

That was the easy fix.

Hey, don't use that.

Just put it all in the trash.

But that's one of the big things.

Fix the leaky faucet, get some of those basics fixed up there.

Sanitize the garbage disposal.

They make little tablets for that.

You can buy these little tablets to put down in there.

But my trick for cleaning the garbage disposal is if you're eating lemons, limes, oranges, any citrus skins, what I do is I take a. I jam the garbage disposal full of ice and then put in those skins in there like from an orange or a lemon or whatever.

And then I turn it on and run it for just a second.

And then I turn the water on cold and let that just sanitize because the orange peels bounce around.

The ice fills it up.

So it gets the top of the garbage disposal and all that citric acid just goes through and actually cleans it up.

It's just a great way to do it.

And then it's perfectly sanitized.

It smells like citrus.

Whatever you put down there.

And you don't have to buy out.

Go, go buy any crazy cleaners and stuff to make it work.

No, the citrus is a natural degreaser that'll scrape that thing clean.

Right?

It's just awesome.

It works.

It works and it works well.

And that's the cool part.

And then if it's really bad, you could put in there like baking soda and stuff like that to see if you can really get it to.

To clean up in there.

If you really got some stink in there.

But really that kind of does it.

And if it's going to get stuck, just throw the little tool.

Like the insinker's got that hex tool that comes with it.

Throw it under the sink, tape it to the side of the cabinet, you know, so it's there so at least you can fix it.

If you've lost it, go buy another one.

Go to your home improvement store.

They're sitting there.

So many times those leave the job site in the box.

Right?

Huh?

Exactly.

That's why I said it.

You're like, where the heck is that?

Yeah, the other one.

When we come back here in a minute, I want to talk about.

There's a couple here and I've got a really good trick for getting your oven dialed in.

But you want to do it now versus Thursday and it's.

Yeah, you brought this up.

Same kind of thing.

This is how to tune it up.

The self cleaning function.

Unless you want to get a new range, don't touch it between here and Thanksgiving.

If it's dirty, let it go.

Clean it afterwards.

Because Murphy's law says if you turn that thing on right now, you're gonna burn out the control board or something.

Because I was so shocked when I tested my oven a couple Years ago, I put my oven thermometer in there.

We'll talk about this trick.

It was 75 degrees off.

Well, when I'm following a recipe that screws things up badly a little bit.

Yeah, yeah.

And I'm not the greatest cook.

I'm using the directions, and if it's not working, then it's not working.

So, yeah, we'll talk about that here when we come back.

Just as soon as around the house returns.

And make sure you hit our website over there@aroundthehouseonline.com.

we got some new stuff will be coming up over there soon, so stay tuned to that.

And of course, tune in to our social media channels that are right at the bottom of the page.

Around the house.

We'll be right back.

To find out more information, head to aroundthehouse online dot com.

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We'll be right back after these important messages.

Come back to the around the house show.

The next generation of home improvement.

Thanks for joining me, I'm Eric G. Johnny Dudley and I are sitting here talking about some stuff you might want to do before you have everybody over Thanksgiving.

And if you're one of the lucky ones traveling the family's house, you could pretend that you don't have anything to do.

Some of these still might be good before the next holiday when it's your turn for him to come over.

Right, Johnny, Pay attention.

Pay attention.

It hits you sooner or later.

Yeah, yeah.

Your number comes up.

My number came up next night with the girlfriends.

We got stuff coming up this week.

And it's like, all right, we're dialing it in.

We're dialing it in.

It's.

To me, Thanksgiving is like a sporting.

It's okay.

It's first down.

Here's my play.

It's like, I got.

It's a four down thing.

It's like, all right, this is what we're gonna do.

This is how this is gonna map out.

That way we're not both looking going, I want the oven.

Yeah.

They again, you get into kitchen stuff with me, and I've always been excluded by election and not allowed in the kitchen.

Maybe I got to be in charge of margaritas.

There we go.

The rest are like, no, no, no, no.

You don't.

Go sit down.

Go sit down.

Watch football.

Go entertain.

Go watch football.

Exactly, exactly.

One of the things we were talking about before we went to break was checking out that oven.

And one of my tips for that.

So the first thing I recommend is go find the model number for your Range.

Now this can be difficult sometimes.

It could be on the inner door frame.

It could be on the inside of the, the oven where the door meets the body of the stove.

You know the range.

It could be on the back.

That model number is listed someplace.

So if you've got like an lg, jump online and find it.

Right.

This could be a treasure hunt for a half hour trying to find this thing.

Could be in the drawer full of owner's manuals for every appliance you ever bought.

Fair.

Or where that file folder is.

Right.

Yeah, that was me.

I'm like, nope, this drawer is for all these things.

I'll never read that.

Tell me how to be safe with appliances.

Yeah, absolutely.

Great example for that one, man.

I it's when I moved, I had this probably 12 inch high stack of things like that.

Yep.

The washer guide from LG that was in 42 different languages.

Yeah, catalog.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's like the old phone book.

And some people don't know what that is, but it was like the big yellow pages out of Seattle or something.

But really checking that to make sure it works.

Once you get that figured out, then look up the directions to basically calibrate the oven.

So get yourself a oven thermometer.

Sometimes you can use one of your barbecue meat thermometers or whatever.

Put it in there where you can get an accurate temperature kind of in the middle of it and see what it is.

So then I go through and set it at 350, let it get up, let it get settled in.

So it is just to leave it there for 20, 25 minutes and then take a look at the temperature.

Now an oven swing usually is probably 40 or 50 degrees from the low end to the top end.

So if you're at 350, sometimes it'll go to 325, 300 all the way up to 400, depending on what it's doing.

There's a swing.

But you're going to find that kind of median happy temperature that it's set at mine.

On my first range that I had when I first moved in here recently, that thing was 75 degrees off things.

I had no idea about this.

Let me calibrate an oven.

Some of it is so stupid.

Some of it's electronic where you can sit there like on of the GEs and stuff.

You can go in and touch the electronic arrow on it.

You hold a couple buttons down and then you could adjust it.

Plus 30, minus 30, plus 40, minus 40, whatever you want that temperature swing to be.

But here's the problem.

If you.

Yeah, the problem is now you're going to screw everybody else up that cooks on that range because you're like, oh, throw it in for 25 minutes and it's golden.

Now you have to reset all that.

So maybe be careful with this because all of a sudden it's going to be accurate.

And you've been modifying for the last number of years you've been using that thing, you've been modifying those cooking instructions for that.

So it's going to be like cooking in a new range.

But you'll figure it out.

But it really keeps it accurate that way.

So then you can actually plan and go, oh, that says cook for 25 minutes.

Sometimes you're going, I'm at 40 and it's not done yet.

Going on.

That works.

And it'll keep you from ruining stuff.

If you're, especially if you're cooking a bunch of new stuff, it's maybe handy because you can actually follow the directions.

And it saves you a few trips to checking on it every 10 minutes because, oh, this oven's so unpredictable.

And that's why I like using some of the meat thermometers like for my turkey and things like that I'll put in there.

They're like a little probe like meter, for instance, is one.

I can put it right into the bird or whatever a steak or whatever I'm doing and I can walk away because it'll sit there and I've got on my phone, if there's a flare up, it'll beep and scream at me and go, hey, man.

Hey dummy, you got a fire in there?

You might want to go take a look at that.

And that's how it works.

And it works well that way.

So these are things that are little tricks you could do for cooking like that.

And this year I'm cooking on the barbecue outside.

Nice.

It's gonna be fun.

So, yeah, good way to go.

And the same rules apply for the bar.

I can do.

I'm a barbecue guy.

Barbecue all me kitchen.

Stay out, stay out.

Yep, there you go.

There you go.

The next one here is important too.

Take a minute and get your knives sharpened.

If you want to go down to your local high end grocery store and have the guy there do it.

Or if you have a knife sharpening company or if you know how to do it yourself, I always recommend if you've got some really nice expensive knives and you really don't know how to do it, go watch the professionals do it.

But the Last thing I wanted to see is you'd go ruin a 200 knife.

Yeah, by jacking it up.

But having those things nice and sharp.

I don't use the electric sharpeners.

That was your grandma's.

Those are pretty rough around the edges.

It might work good on an ax, but I wouldn't be doing it for a surgical blade on your.

Just take the old dewalt grinder to them.

Johnny, we're not doing lawn borer blades, buddy.

Come on, man.

Belt sander.

Belt sander.

That does work for rough stuff.

You see the knife sharpeners?

It was so cool when I was.

Where was that?

Over.

I was over at Gerber and I was watching one of their guys because they're literally 10 minutes from my house, Gerber Knife Company.

And I was watching them go through and sharpen knives.

And the guy just grabs one off the line and goes, let me hit that real quick.

Hands it back.

And I'm like, that would have taken me 25 minutes.

And in literally six minutes, he had that thing just dialed in.

And I'm like.

And that's why you've done probably 10 million of those things.

Yeah, nice.

But there are a lot of cool little things like that.

But really getting some of those things functionally dialed in makes a huge difference and really gets things dialed in.

Now, I want to jump over to another room here real quick while we're talking about this stuff.

Let's.

We talked about this a few weeks ago, but I want to talk about it again, brother.

Because this is always the embarrassing moment of the holidays.

It's that person that plugs up the toilet in the bathroom.

It's always the one close to.

Could be a kid, it could be the uncle.

But get that dialed in.

Make sure the toilet's working great if you need to.

If it's always running, replace the guts.

If it's always just one that plugs up, go buy a nice one, like a toto.

Spend a couple hundred bucks on it.

Get something nice, get it dialed in, get it replaced so you're not running around in the middle of dinner trying to go find the plunger.

Make sure you know where all these things are.

Because Murphy's Law, every single time when you ought to be fine, and it never is, right?

Especially older houses.

And if you've got some of those cheaper brand toilets out there, the home center brand or the mains field or some of those other ones, the builder grade stuff, sorry, guys, that's just what you are.

And if you've got one of those in Your house, getting that dialed in can really make a difference and it'll save you money in the long run because it's going to save you on water and it's just a good way to go.

And embarrassment.

Yeah, totally worth it.

Places you can skimp, that's not one of them.

That's an important one to me right there.

Now, when we come back, brother, let's talk about some of the stuff here that we want to make sure our guests, if we have people staying over, have that dialed in because we want to be comfortable at the same point.

I just don't want them to stay too long either.

Turn the heat up.

Exactly.

Turn the heat up.

Don't make sure the mattress is that comfortable.

We'll talk about that when around the House returns.

Don't change that.

D. Foreign.

Welcome back to the around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

I'm Eric G. And we got Johnny Dudley sitting here.

And you know something, guys?

If you want to find out more about us, if you're just new to joining the show, make sure you head over to our website, aroundthehouse online.com over there.

And if you're a pro, check out around the House Pro Insider.

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You could click to the links right there and it'll help you run your business even better than you are now with our tips, tricks to keep things going better for you and how to plan for 2026.

Dudley and I are sitting here talking about some of the things to get ready for the holidays.

And one of my favorites is you got to plan a little bit ahead for air quality.

You know, when everybody's sitting there, everybody's done eating, you're exhausted, you got a house full of people are falling asleep on the couch.

If you want those people to roll on and get on out of there, make sure that you have a skylight.

Open up some windows a little bit, because most of the time it's not the turkey.

You've loaded the house up with carbon dioxide of people breathing.

People are getting a little tired.

So make sure you turn on the bath fans.

Make sure you crack a window someplace and get that new, that new fresh air coming in.

I don't care if it's cold.

Get some fresh air coming in and you're going to be a lot better off.

And those people are going to wake up a little bit and you can keep them in the conversation or mosey on to the next Thanksgiving party they go to.

It's right, Johnny.

It's like football comes on, everybody's done eating, it's four o' clock maybe or whatever, and all of a sudden everybody's out.

Like, you just drugged them.

Yeah, dude, I'm the napper.

That's my favorite part.

I am totally the napper problem, though.

Johnny, I know this about you.

Opening the windows ain't gonna change nothing.

You're just an app.

Yeah, no, man, it's.

Yeah, I'll be the last guy off the couch.

Dude, you're the guy.

You're the guy.

When we were going to rock shows, everybody's pumped up.

I look over and you're just gonna nap on the drive to Everett or whatever we were doing, I'm like, dude, you're out over there.

I can sleep anywhere, man.

And when my body says stop, it's pretty much stop.

It's.

Yeah, like that time we're out with George Lopez and those guys and you were trying to sleep at the bus.

Yeah.

In Vegas.

Yeah.

Good night.

Good night.

Yeah, you can sleep anywhere, man.

I'm jealous of that, actually.

I can't.

And I wish I could.

It's.

I go and I go.

And then my body just says, nope, no more.

It's.

And back then, geez, in those days, I was working 30 hours a day and doing rock bands and.

Yeah, when it.

When the gas was empty.

It was empty.

Yeah, no, it was like the car.

It was like the red lights on.

And then for the time from the red light to having no gas is quick for you, and it's.

You're just done.

And I'm jealous because I'll just keep going.

I'll just keep going.

It's never good.

It's never good.

Yeah.

So really just air quality.

And guys, when you're cooking in the.

Cooking in there, just turn the vent fan on, get the air outside.

Make sure you got good air quality in there.

You know, that stove range, whatever you're cooking on there is your source for the worst air quality, indoor air quality in your home.

If you want to jump on Amazon and get a little meter, it's fun to check it out.

It was funny, Johnny.

I was down at the.

Oh, this was probably seven or eight years ago, maybe.

I was at the International Building show in Orlando, Florida.

No, actually, this was in Las Vegas.

This was in Las Vegas.

It was so funny.

This.

They're doing a remodel now to make this better.

But this was right before COVID I had the.

I had a bunch of Veloc skylights in my model there in the afternoon.

The Air quality was so bad, they were automatic.

Where if they had bad air quality, they would open up.

I couldn't shut them because the air quality was so bad in there that they would open up.

Open.

And I'd shut them and they'd go, no, you should vent this place out.

This air is really bad in here.

Because we had 150 people in the convention center, and they're like, yeah, there's not enough oxygen.

We need to open this up.

Wow, impressive.

Yeah.

In the casinos, they surely pump oxygen in there to keep you up all night drinking.

Absolutely, they do.

Oh, there's a lot of magic to that.

A lot of magic to that.

It's crazy.

It's crazy and it's funny, and it's interesting, too.

You're a smoker, but smokers out there, depending on which casino where you go at, air quality can be awesome.

I went up to Seattle and I got my truck, and I was at this casino up there.

You walked in through the smoking area first and then got into the rest of the casino, but you had to enter through the smoking area when you're coming out of the parking garage, Boy, you walk into this.

Look like you're in Cheech and Chong's van when you walk into this place.

And then the other side, you walk out and you're like, ah, fresh air.

So the worst is those fish tanks.

They put you in the airports.

Oh, my God.

Oh, I can imagine.

It's just like watching people die.

It's horrible.

It looks like a torture chamber.

Awful.

Just awful.

Just awful.

Yeah, I get that.

I get that.

But really, guys, that indoor air quality is important.

And now I wanted to talk a little bit here, too, before we go out to break again.

But to me, making sure your shopping is done early now, this was hilarious.

I was online looking because I was sitting there talking with my girlfriend here the other night.

Had the phone out.

I went, hey, let's check online and see the difference of what a turkey costs online to the grocery stores.

I was just poking around, right?

Sonoma had a 250 turkey they were selling that was pre pepped ready.

I'm like, what was it?

Was it raised on a pillow?

On a golden bed?

Come on.

In a magic cave amongst dragons.

And there was another one in there.

There was this kosher one that was 100 on Amazon.

That was like 175.

I'm like, good Lord, what did you feed this bird?

Hey, I'd love to sell a turkey for 175 or 250 bucks, but come on.

You're throwing a bunch of stuff from the grocery store at it.

It's not pre cooked, so there's no magic here.

No, that's radical, dude.

That's.

Yeah, maybe we go into the turkey business, right?

I'm like, where's the free one that you used to get when you buy enough groceries and they just toss one in the cart for you?

All the grocery stores had that.

You'd sit there and you go, wow, I'm going to spend $75 on groceries, and they'll throw a free turkey in.

Tell you what, it's not a bad gig if you can raise $1,250 turkeys and sell them all in a week.

Fair point.

You're good.

You're good for the year.

You're like, all right, cool, Cool.

Yeah.

It's kind of like the Christmas tree farmers out there.

You know, you got the land, right?

Trim up a little bit.

You let the rain and the forest and stuff go, and then you chop them all down and send them out and get one big check.

But the problem is you got to wait eight to 10 years to get that check.

But when you get it.

I considered it years ago.

I was looking at property on the Key Peninsula.

I was like, I'll grow Christmas trees.

That'd be great.

Yeah.

Not much I haven't considered, Eric.

No, I know.

You think about it.

You go, okay, this is something that.

That all the Christmas tree farmers are out there going, you have no idea how hard this is.

And you're right.

We have no idea how hard this is.

We're making it sound like it's easy.

Yeah.

It's just, oh, I'm gonna raise cows.

How hard can it be?

Cowboys look rough for a reason.

Yep.

It's what it is.

But those are things that I just get your shopping done early.

I'm actually getting mine wrapped up this weekend here.

Just getting it done because I want to have it done.

I don't want to be.

To me, the worst thing is running up to the store Thanksgiving morning.

The people in there are not happy at the grocery store that they're having to work.

Everybody's grumpy because they had to go in there to get something.

They had to get off the couch and get dressed.

They're missing the game, whatever's going on.

And people like you are always the runner.

You're not in the kitchen, so they're, johnny, go get some milk.

Oh, yeah.

But I kind of like the chaos.

I'm the guy that shops on the day Before Christmas.

Oh, I forgot about that.

You're the Christmas on the way to grandma's house.

I'm like, gotta go to the mall and start grabbing calendars and stuff.

I'm like, ah.

Then I get there and then I'm late, and then I'm in the room wrapping presents.

So I'm like, yeah, I was always the black sheep.

Yeah, I get that.

Online shopping for me has made it easier because when I go to the mall, I tell you what, it is one of those things that to me, it's like a seal team surgical strike.

How do I get in?

How do I get out?

And can I do it in under 60 seconds?

Yeah, I used to, like I said, I liked the chaos.

I used to kind of like just watching everybody scamper around and be crazy and chaotic and I don't know, that's more my ilk anyway, and that's how I functioned.

And I got a little then in one day about it.

Didn't worry about it for a month before I just knew that I would go that night and find enough coffee mugs and nonsense that nobody needs to foot the bill.

And in five years, you can go get the stuff from Goodwill and use it again.

Right.

All right, guys, when around the House comes back, we're gonna wrap this conversation up on getting ready for Thanksgiving.

I got a few other little tricks of the trade for you and probably another quick little rant as well.

We'll do that just as soon as around the House returns.

Don't change that.

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Head over to aroundthehouse online.com and shoot them a message on the contact us page.

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We'll be right back.

Welcome back to the around the House show, your trusted source for home improvement.

Thanks for joining us today.

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Johnny, you got a party going on over there.

I can hear it.

Yeah, apparently they're blowing some stuff up.

Thought the fireworks had died down, but here comes another round.

I don't know.

Good, man.

It's ambiance.

It's ambiance.

It's ambiance.

Gorillas in the B.

That is awesome.

Here's one thing I learned, man, about Thanksgiving here.

About just right after Halloween, we decided that we were gonna go, all right, let's go.

Let's go get our stuff.

Since we're doing Thanksgiving in our house, let's knock this out.

You don't find.

You don't find anything Thanksgiving after Halloween because the retail stores have skipped this holiday.

Yep, it's all Christmas.

All Christmas.

So they have now officially lumped in the fall pumpkins and the turkey all at the same time.

And I mean, it was like November 1st and I'm walking around a couple stores and it's all in the clearance rack and I'm like, are you kidding me?

So now you're stuck going to Amazon or one of those online marketplaces because that's the only place you're going to find that kind of stuff.

So if you're out looking today, you're going to be getting red and green, not going to be getting anything Thanksgiving, turkey wise.

So crazy how they get so far ahead.

I don't understand.

I was seeing Christmas stuff before Halloween.

I'm like, come on, dude.

I walked into.

Where was I?

Costco, I think.

And it wasn't even Labor Day.

And they started having some Christmas stuff.

And I'm like, okay, that's excessive.

I'm wearing shorts and a tank top.

But I just got off the river, the lake, and yeah, you got that out there.

Come on.

So it's tough, it's tough.

And we'll talk about some of that stuff here in the next hour.

But really planning ahead on this stuff is key.

And I think one of the biggest things is food safety as well.

When you're cooking that turkey, make sure you're not getting those juices around.

Make sure that you're not getting that raw chicken stuff everywhere.

That's one of the biggest mistakes with turkeys is they'll go out there and they'll pre wash it in the sink.

And they tell you now not to do that because all of a sudden you're just spreading those germs everywhere.

Yeah.

It's got to clean.

Don't rinse chicken.

Same thing.

Same thing.

And it's one of those things.

And then don't serve it too raw.

That's a key.

That's a key.

And then, of course, my YouTube favorite.

This is my YouTube favorite.

The people that are boiling them in peanut oil.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That is so huge.

And it's such a common Thanksgiving fire.

They'll be out on their wood deck.

They got it set up out there.

Maybe they put a piece of tin foil down and they go drop that frozen turkey smack dab in the middle of the boiling peanut oil and you've got a Mount Vesuvius reincarnation.

Every year, every year there's new videos, disastrous videos of the genius that thinks that's a good idea.

It's so bad.

And I love the taste of it, don't get me wrong.

But risk be a reward on that.

If you don't know what you're doing.

If you could do it successfully a thousand times, if you're doing it wrong with a frozen turkey or if it's even partially frozen.

Yep, it just erupts.

And then, of course, when you've got that hot oil coming over the top, there's an open flame underneath.

Now you got a real hoot.

Yeah.

Now you got a flame going on a torch.

And now you got to feed the firemen.

Not with that turkey, you don't.

Oh, man, it's.

And we've all seen it.

It's.

If you're gonna do that, go do it in the driveway.

Make sure that turkey's not frozen.

Make sure that thing is just ready to rock.

Yeah.

And there's safe ways to thaw that turkey out, too.

There are safe ways to do.

You throw in the fridge a few days early.

I have sat there and I know that they don't recommend this, but I.

To me, it works.

If you do it quick, is I'll put it in one of those kind of brine bags and then I'll soak it in water sealed up, and I'll put it in warm water just to get it thawed out real quick.

If I do that within an hour, then I can throw it on there and cook it really well and you should be fine.

But again, leaving it out for two days in the countertop is not how you want to do it.

Please, man.

I tell you what, that was when I was in El Salvador working down there.

And again, cultures are different.

How they eat, food are different.

Perfect Example down there where you are in Columbia, Johnny.

American.

Us dumb Americans go down there, and all of a sudden we're eating food, and all of a sudden we're not feeling well, but everybody down there is cool with it.

But they don't have refrigeration in this village.

And so we were eating chicken that was three days old.

Ugh.

Yeah.

And that's not gonna work for us Americans.

Doesn't end well.

No.

You definitely build a system around it.

After being down here for nine years, I can stomach some pretty hearty stuff.

Yeah.

And there's been a few times we've been in places where there's no fridge, and you're like, is that gonna be okay for two days?

You're like, maybe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I usually err on the side of the caution after a few food poisonings in my life.

Yeah, there's nothing worse, man.

You just want to die, man.

And this is how bad it was down there.

They literally sent us down there and said, I went to University of Washington travel medicine because I was in Seattle, and they literally said, okay, you're gonna get food poisoning down there.

You will get sick.

Here's some Cipro.

Bring it with you.

You're gonna.

You're gonna get sick.

And they weren't wrong.

We all did, but we all had the medication to make it a little bit easier, take the edge off.

Yeah, man.

My little brother got it bad in Peru one time, and it messed up his stomach for 10 years.

Yeah.

Maybe more.

He'll still have a little problem once in a while, but, yeah, that stuff's no joke.

Kombucha really helped him.

But, yeah, he.

He was sick.

Sick.

Yeah.

In the hospital.

Dead sick.

Kombucha, man.

I can't drink that if that was the last thing on the face of the earth.

To me, it's like tasting water out of the bottom of the grass recycle bin.

Not my thing.

It's vinegary and yucky.

But, man, if it makes your stomach feel better and you feel like dying, you drink it.

Yeah, I know.

I get that.

I get.

I haven't been to that bad where I'd have to go to that.

But that's.

Yeah, that's probably about.

For me to drink that stuff is probably right before I go to the hospital.

That's where that's so I get it.

But, guys, just when you're planning ahead with this stuff, and this is the key, just like anything, like, it's a project, plan ahead, get it there, have that extra table or two, and Be a good neighbor.

If your neighbor next door.

I'm gonna make up a name.

Mrs. Smith.

And she's over there by herself.

Go knock on the door, invite her over if she's hanging out by herself over there.

How many friends do you have out there that you know are newly single or just went through some hard times and they're probably sitting at home pulling something out of the microwave and watching the game?

Invite them over.

I've had people that have done that to me in my life in the past.

And how fortunate was just to be at some place where people are caring and having a great time?

Drag those friends and neighbors in.

Tube.

Johnny, you've had that as well.

I was just gonna say I spent.

I don't know, I bet I spent a couple Thanksgivings at the Lobo, one at the off ramp, like.

Yeah, exactly.

But it's one of those things.

My buddy Ty, one time he'd tie, he turned around and grabbed me and went, man, you're coming over to my place.

I'm coming to get you.

You know, because he's worried about me.

This is 20 years ago.

And he wasn't wrong.

I was just gonna sit home and be doing my thing by myself.

And I wasn't driving over eastern Washington.

The passes were closed or whatever.

And I'm like, I'm just gonna hang out.

No, you're not doing that.

And he come and snagged me.

And.

Yeah, important to be a good neighbor, good to be a good human.

Write your friends over, fill that extra chair or two up if you need to, and just make sure that everybody's got a loving place to be so they can have a good time and.

They can watch the arguments.

See, I think what we need to do.

And here's our.

Here's another new money making thing for us and I'm going to let it out for everybody.

I want to start an online betting site for family arguments.

And then you can have everybody bet against each other who's going to win, but the two people arguing can't know that they're part of that.

That's not a bad idea.

I like that.

It's completely, like inconspicuous.

Yep.

You can just text them the link and then you go, bet 20.

This one's gonna win.

Or I bet even better.

I bet you $20 that this person's gonna use this keyword in this argument.

That'd be fun.

Okay, Ramp it up.

Money on it.

I'm excited by that.

Okay.

All right, guys.

I guess we have a new project Coming up out there.

When we have that up, I'll let you know.

It won't be for this Thanksgiving, but maybe if you get on, we get on it, we can do by Christmas.

Yeah.

All right, guys.

Hey, if you have any questions out there, if you're like, hey, Eric, what do I do for this on Thanksgiving?

Or oh, my gosh, how do I fix this?

Send us a message.

Just go over to around the house show.

We want to hear from you guys.

Just go over to aroundthehouse online.com.

there's a contact us page right there.

Send us a quick message.

It happens all week long.

We answer.

And we're really here to help you and to serve you and help you get those answers.

Because as Johnny, you go on YouTube or grab some stuff, there's plenty of people on there that are giving the wrong answers and making money off that.

So we want to make sure and get you dialed in with the right answer.

That's thoughtful.

That'll help you get through your project.

Yep, exactly.

All right, Johnny, we got to get ready for the second hour.

Thanks for tuning in, guys.

I'm Eric G. And you've been listening to around the house.

Have a question for Eric and John.

Head over to aroundthehouse online.com and shoot them a message on the contact us page page.

They are here to help.

Thanks for checking out the around the House show.

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