Back in July (link) I wrote that I had just purchased a new Jeep, a Jeep JLU to be exact. As the salesman told us, I purchased a “Lego”. True to the Lego designation I have been busy customizing my Jeep. One of the customizations is a dash cam video.

Orlando drivers have yet to meet a turn-signal that works. I witness all sorts of crazy things drivers do on Orlando streets. Rather than selfishly take them in all by myself, I thought I’d share them with you.

But first a quick explanation of my plans.

Although I previously owned a Jeep Cherokee, this is my first “real” Jeep, at least according to Jeep purists. I did some research before purchasing my Jeep and learned a few interesting things, like the difference between the JK and the JL. But I never expected the learning curve of owning a Jeep that comes with driving an actual Jeep.

I’m not saying a Jeep drives differently from other cars. However, the Jeep community is a very cool community with unwritten rules that owners learn as they go along. The most obvious is the “Jeep wave” when encountering another Jeep on the road.

Of all the cars I have owned before, including semi-exotic cars like Porsches, this is the first time I’ve encountered a community like the Jeep community. It has been inclusive and fun. It seems to have all the cool things of a close community without the snobbishness of who has the fastest car or the best trim.

I bought the Jeep because I needed something to pull a fishing boat with and we have been thinking about doing more outdoor things.

But the hiking has evolved into overlanding. Also, as Dorian was threatening Orlando, I decided it was time to prepare for disasters. No, I am not becoming a prepper. But I am looking into prepper techniques for family safety. I’ve decided that we should have a 72-hour survival plan. Obviously, mobility is important and in my plan the Jeep is front and center.

In the meantime, I have also been preparing to take the HAM, or Amateur Radio test so that I can get my HAM license. That also has some interesting things and a cool community. For example, the term Ham is not an acronym, but a disparaging word used in the past to label poor Morse Code coders as “hams” for poorly hammering out Morse Code over the airwaves.

Tying the Jeep community with prepping, HAM radios, overlanding and my work in photography/videography and digital art, not to mention technology kind of makes for some interesting topics that I can share with you all.

So, I am in process of launching the Border Bandit Jeep channels on Instagram, Twitter and Youtube. Obviously, there will be a website tying everything together.

Don’t worry, my political border security blogging will continue as always. The Jeep channels will be just another outlet for me. I’ll update everyone as the channels come online.

But of course, life does not wait for me to catch up with all of the items on my to do list. So today, I am sharing with you the first Border Bandit Dashcam video:

And, here is the close up:

Some of you may be wondering what dashcam I use. I will be covering my Jeep “build,” including all the technology I am using in the Border Bandit Jeep online in the near future. I believe some of my builds and the decisions I make about what to add will be of interest to some of you.