This week, Ken and John talk about:

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How John and Ken handle difficult situations (OM263)

Modern life doesn’t afford many opportunities for doing anything heroic or having a moment of glory, especially now that society has found a way to make sure only poor and underprivileged people even go to war. John has dreamt of an opportunity to do something heroic and if he were in a situation where his life was at stake in order to help others, he would not cower at the challenge.

John handles a crisis pretty well, he keeps a cool head when there is a flat tire or a blown fuse he is calm, cool and collected, even in situation where crowds get squirrelly. He always finds a place where he can see everything. He doesn’t get restless and he wouldn’t get caught in a stampede. He is always looking for exits and he always positions himself in a situation where he won’t get trapped and he think all the time: ”If this turns…” It is why he never wears high-heeled shoes because you cannot climb a chain-link fence in high heeled shoes.

Ken wonders if he would be like the dad in the Swedish movie Force Majeure who when he sees an avalanche, he in the moment runs instead of staying with his family. Despite of Ken’s fiercely protective love of his kids he never had to see what that looks like if he were faced with an explosion.

Ken is pretty calm when the chips are down, but he doesn’t know if he is a good decision maker. He does make the right call, but he doesn’t feel that this is his time to shine. Earlier this year they were going over a bumpy road in Central America and knocked a panel off the bottom of the car and something was leaking and Ken couldn’t tell what it was. It turned out to be condensation from the air conditioning and everything was fine.

Mindy does not think of herself as having a cool head in a crisis and she let Ken make the decisions. He proposed to drive back to that place and see if somebody could look at it or if anybody there had a phone signal. It was the safe choice and Ken didn’t feel panicky or had any physiological reaction, but he did think that he had no idea if he was doing the right thing and he wouldn’t vote for himself in some plane crash scenario.

John buying a truck from a guy in New Hampshire (OM263)

One time John flew his 4-year old girl across the country to buy a truck he had never seen before from an unscrupulous person in New Hampshire and then set off across the country with her in a car seat because he felt like: ”What an adventure! Come on, sweetie!” The truck caught on fire multiple times and they were stranded on the side of the road in the middle of the night. John’s daughter ended up flying home from St. Louis afterß her mother came out and got her because it was clear that John did not have good judgement.

John also bought a vintage RV (see GMC RV) which also caught on fire.