22 Burst results for "English Park"
Capstone Conversation
Capstone's Jared Asch Welcomes Loella Haskew and Cindy Darling of Walnut Creek
"Jared Esch, the host of The Capstone Conversation. Today, we are joined by not one, but two awesome women from the city of Walnut Creek. And we are going to hear about what inspired them to run for city council. What are some things that they want to encourage in other candidates who are considering to run or not to run as you make the decision ahead of next year's elections? And that applies to people throughout the whole East Bay area. That's not just here in Walnut Creek. So hopefully their message will resonate with people throughout. So first thing we will do, Mayor Pro Tem Luella Haskiw, do you want to go ahead and tell us a little bit more about yourself? In my career, I was a CPA specializing in tax, but I also did family law consulting and other business consulting. And I was inspired to run for a couple of reasons, one of which is I was close to many of the people who were on council and I just absorbed a lot of what they could accomplish by talking to them and watching them work. But also, I believe that we were going into an interesting economic cycle and maybe somebody who had my experience would be a good addition to the council. And our next guest is Councilwoman Cindy Darling. Cindy, tell us a little bit about your background and what convinced you to run. Well, I'm one of the newest members of the council. I was elected in 2020. Before that, I'd served 10 years on the planning commission for Walnut Creek. So I'd seen a lot of the issues that were working in the development end of things kind of bubbling up that were going to council. And I was interested in having a bigger voice on those than you just have a planning commission. I'm also a small business owner here in the city, and I spent most of my career working on really tough, naughty environmental problems around the Delta endangered species. And I felt like I developed a lot of skills there in helping people work together and solve problems creatively. And I wanted to take those skills and bring them to the council and help move Walnut Creek in a great direction. That's great. I appreciate that. Luella, you've been mayor two times, including 2020 during the start of the pandemic. Pandemic issues, businesses shutting down and then lots of looting here in Walnut Creek. What was it like to be mayor during that time? Can I say that the first round was was sweet. I really enjoyed the first time when it wasn't quite so stressful. But I will say about 2020, whenever I've talked to anybody who have had been mayor in Walnut Creek the last year to have been assigned a job with mayor, there were so many issues. We had a police shooting that was under scrutiny. We had looting. And I'm not even sure anybody knows to this hour what triggered the big looting that was at Broadway Plaza. It could have just been the gangs that were beginning to form and take over other places. But we forgot about Walnut Creek has some really nice high end stores to do. And then they all came. I don't think it had anything to do with the political choice. Nevertheless, it was incredibly damaging to the people who were at Broadway Plaza and it didn't stop there. Other people were involved in it. I make a joke about the fact that when George Floyd had been killed and people were really involved in making protests, a whole group of people showed up at nine o 'clock at night on a Wednesday and had a riot in our front yard doing a significant amount of damage to our garage doors, burning flags, scaring the bejeebers out of our neighbors. The police did call us and say, get out of the house. So we were safe, but it was an ugly experience for the neighborhood trying to find the best of the worst. We did have to buy a new garage door and we now have a battery pack up. And then I made it onto the news the next day. So good spads, but it was tough and the fiscal issues were tough. We started out with anticipating a comfortable excess budget. It turned out that when everything had to close up, sales tax went away and then we had to figure out what to do about that. And we got lucky that we came upon the pop -ups, the restaurant pop -ups, and we tried every way we could to save all the businesses, did away with our now famous parking meters and let people park. There weren't that many people using the parking meters. And so it was a very difficult time. Nevertheless, a sense of proportion, a great council, a great staff got the city through probably one of the most difficult years the city had to survive.
Tech Path Crypto
A highlight from Bitcoin ETF Hype is Exaggerated w/ Andrew Horowitz | Investment Advisor
"All right, today we're going to be diving into some macro news, also get into a little bit of what's happening in DC and then towards the end, we'll get into a little bit of ETFs, some strategies and some things to look forward to in 2024. We're going to do it with a special guest. I think you guys will love it. My name is Paul Baron. Welcome back to Tech Path. Joining me today, of course, is a friend and a guest who's been on our show many times and that, of course, is Mr. Andrew Horowitz, president and founder, Horowitz & Company. Great to have you back. What's happened? It's been a while. How are you, Paul? It has been a while. I'm doing great. The markets are kind of a little crazy, but I think this is, with everything that's going on right now, not only in DC, but just globally from just the scenarios we're facing internationally, I think what's to be expected, I think it's at least, nothing's burnt down yet, so that's a good thing. At least yet. Good news. Yeah, good news. Success. Nothing's on fire that we know of other than, well, a few things. Let's talk about a few things that might be on fire and that, of course, is the U .S.'s credit rating, downgraded from Moody's, not necessarily looking that great and a looming shutdown right now. Obviously, Andrew, you being an investment advisor, you get a chance to work with a lot of high net worth individuals. What's their take on this? Are they concerned at all? What do you think is up? So it's interesting. I was watching, just to be clear, the Moody's move was really not a downgrade. It was more of a credit watch, which is equivalent to like a mini downgrade, if you want to call it that, but it's not a true downgrade. It's saying, it slapped us on it and it was all about just voicing the opinion of the bond rating agency of the dysfunction in Washington. And by the way, it doesn't take a genius or anybody that is doing anything in life to know that there is, that doesn't know that there's a severe dysfunction in Washington, D .C. Our political leaders cannot make a decision and they won't make a decision for any good reason other than the fact of what is politically expedient and good for themselves. And they're not really doing a good job for any of us, right? So okay, that being the state of where we are and the fact that we can't get a budget done, you know, we had to open the debt ceiling up for a year and a half to an unlimited amount of debt being pumped in if necessary, and the fact that they can't get the full resolution done on anything more than a continuing resolution to fund government is a problem, is that there's a functional dysfunction in Washington, kind of like the walking dead of politicians. So most people realize that they're not going to be terribly affected long term, even if we do shut down the parks, the various agencies. Those people are going to get their money when we reopen, eventually something will break and they will be a budget done. So it's this very strange time of a realization that there could be a downgrade. But in the end, what happens, what happens is, as Alan Greenspan would say, it doesn't matter what our rating is, we could always print as much money as we need to pay off all of our debts. The U .S. is not going to default. Yeah, well, but that's the truth. And that's what we've done. Well, yes. And of course, I think, you know, if you look at the spiraling national debt and the continued rise in that, I mean, at some point they have to be able to address this. Is there really any way out of this other than a complete pivot by Powell? There's no way. I can't see a way. You know, what do you do? You raise the, well, yeah, I'll give you the way, right? We all buckle down. We pay higher taxes. You and I are not in favor of that, are we? No, but that's what we do. We slow down the spending on excess and we spend, just like you would do as a business or an individual. If all of a sudden, you know, your salary is capped out at X, you don't spend X plus 20, unless you know you're going to get some money in the future, for whatever reason, whether it's, I don't care if it's an inheritance or whether you're gonna get a raise or a bonus or something else comes in, but that's not how the government operates. They operate on, listen, we're going to spend X, but that's what we plan probably to spend X times, you know, 20 % more. And then if it doesn't work out, what we'll do is just print money and figure our way out of it. And that's what we've been doing for a long time. We're debt dependent society. Sure, sure. With that being the case, you look at the potentials here. I was just looking at a tweet from Peter Schiff, obviously a big gold bug, Moody's lowered its rating, obviously, yes. Risks have been obvious for years on a treasury, it should be rated junk. If you hold them to maturity, guaranteed to lose, and the reason I want to show this is when you look at whether it's 10 -year treasuries or you look at something like gold or Bitcoin, obviously we've seen both of these assets in comparison to the S &P do very well this year. We're also getting ready to go into 2024, there's a lot of things happening in the blockchain industry and within the crypto markets that is probably going to shift around a little bit. You've also got a lot of technology that's been building over time. When you look at the markets like that and you see what people are expecting out of the S &P by the end of the year and through the first of next year, which people are, some analysts, anticipating an uptrend, what is your thought around the market condition right now? Do you feel like we've hit the bottom or is this something that we may see some more pain? Can we just go back to Peter Schiff for a second? Just for a moment. Peter Schiff, I know him well, he's been on my show many times. How many times is he going to be wrong with people just still believing him and wanting to believe him? I've known him for 15 years and it's been the same discussion over and over. The dollar is going to zero, the same thing. And why? He's talking his book. It's a good spiel and he has not been able to pivot off of that. Every once in a while, it looks like he's a flash of genius, right, that this is going to be. And it does make sense, by the way. What he says makes total sense. We haven't broken yet. We haven't broken anything yet. The Fed has been trying to tighten.
Crypto Altruism Podcast
A highlight from Episode 129 - Gitcoin - Elevating public goods with decentralization, quadratic funding, and community coordination
"You know, there are so many neat things that people are trying already. You know, like, for example, we ran around for a community group in Oakland, who had funding from their local government, it was basically all community organizations. You know, so really cool to see that play itself out. Even before we went down this road, Milwaukee was already doing some experimentation with quadratic rounds for very sort of niche applications, like helping people in Denver, Colorado, whose restaurants were struggling during the pandemic. We did a support for Ukraine round that was kind of a targeted approach at funding for that particular use case. But, you know, I think then another neat thing that's happening, which you may not even have heard about yet, is we now actually have a direct grants platform, which means it doesn't use quadratic funding. It's basically a way to use Web3 rails and all the existing tools, but just run more of like a traditional grants program. But I think we might start seeing things like people using quadratic voting to make decisions about how to give out the money amongst a smaller group of people internally. And so you might not be harnessing the wisdom of the crowd, but you can still have that transparency, that accountability, you know, all that kind of nifty stuff that comes along with using these tools. And also anybody who's created a grant proposal on builder potentially can apply to an even bigger number of different types of opportunities. So, you know, so I think, you know, we really, you know, are so just lucky to have such an innovative, creative, thoughtful global community. You know, like, we just saw a round run in Latin America where like the majority of the grant proposals were in Spanish, you know, and like we frankly, don't even have the resources internally to like provide support and documents and web pages. They just did it themselves, you know, which is so cool to see. And I think we're going to just see more and more of that. Like there's a Chinese community round that's happening. I've heard there's an African continent round that people are talking about, you know, basically any issue or cause you can think of, you know, there's probably somebody out there thinking about how they could run a grants program to do something about it. You know, and if somebody out there is listening and has some nifty idea, even without a big matching pool, like, you know, just like even a small amount of money that you put into a matching pool, or even just creating the space for people to give to something that matters, like even without a matching pool, I think can just be a really powerful thing. You know, there's something about just kind of creating the container for the conversation to bring the people together. And, you know, the neat thing about these grants programs is like the grantees are the ones who do a lot of that organizing, who bring their community with them, you know, and often do actually do a better job of supporting and onboarding people and creating guides and documentation and all that kind of good stuff in a way that makes sense to their community. So, yeah, I think it's super exciting and I definitely think about it a lot. Yeah, no, totally. I can see the excitement just as you talk about it now. And I think that, you know, what you said around the grantees is spot on too. It's just really cool seeing like how they've all kind of stepped up and contributed to the Gitcoin community in different ways, whether it's creating these educational onboarding materials, setting up one -on -one calls with people to walk them through getting a wallet set up and a passport set up, you know, which is fantastic. It's been really, really powerful. And, you know, obviously we have another Gitcoin granting round coming up November 15th, I believe you said was when it was starting, which is really exciting Gitcoin grant round 19. 56 million plus in funds allocated, really incredible. It's really been a catalyst for thousands of early stage Web3 projects. For those listening that haven't yet participated in a Gitcoin grant round, but are interested in maybe becoming a grantee, they have a really cool public good project, but maybe they're a little nervous. What advice would you give them? Yeah, I love this question. So a lot really depends on sort of what your starting point is, you know, so maybe slightly different advice, depending on like, you know, if you've already got a DAO that you're a part of, you know, you've got friends in the Web3 space, you know, I could definitely give some very specific advice for those folks, you know, versus like somebody who's brand new to the space, doesn't have an existing community. I think there's a place for everybody in Gitcoin grants rounds. And a big part of what we try to do as Gitcoin is like level the playing field, make sure that everybody has an opportunity to get in front of an audience, you know, that grantees can be discovered based on the kind of the quality and interest of what they're building. But yeah, I'd say the universal stuff, you know, it's very much like any community organizing or marketing. Like, you know, think about the picture that you put up as your picture, think about how you summarize the information in your grant proposal, think about the title that you use, good to have the name of your organization, and something to do with your value proposition. So people, maybe they're just looking for you by your name, and they know who you are, and they can find you that way. Maybe they've never heard of your project, but they're interested in your value proposition. So trying to be succinct and having both those things, kind of without needing to click away and go read it, you know, also that like, there's a bit of information that shows up kind of above the fold, as they say, like, you know, kind of in that little preview window, if you have a good little TLDR, that's like, this is what we're trying to do, this is how we intend to do it, this is why we're doing it, whatever you think is important for people to understand, like, I'm trying to raise this money so I can do this, you know, the more that you can be super clear about, like, by next round, or by six months from now, I hope to have accomplished this, and you can follow along and and sort of follow that journey. I think that's really important. Also, if you've been a grantee for more than one round, I know we're talking about new grantees, but updating people is super important, too. They sort of haven't seen that you've done anything with the funding, people start wondering, you know, like, you know, what are you really doing with this money? Should I give again? But I would say for like, people who in particular, who might be nervous, who don't have a web3 community, I would say like, there's a lot of people who are super supportive and helpful in our community. Like, so starting by coming to like our Twitter spaces, the Gitcoin hosts, which you can follow along at the Gitcoin Twitter account, and we're always announcing when the next ones will be. Also, you can usually find there's like a grantee support page, where we have like an event listing, which you can find linked to right off of the main Gitcoin website, gitcoin .co. So I mean, just follow along there, you know, and that can give you a sense of like, just if you just show up, you know, I can tell you that we are super friendly and supportive, you know, and you can just like come and talk about what you're working on, or even just listen for a while and see how other people are doing it and get comfortable, I think people will get a sense that it's a very welcoming and friendly space. You know, but also, like, there's a million, maybe not million, there's definitely tons of these Twitter spaces being hosted by people. If you're not already active on Twitter, I hear you, there's a lot going on in the world. And Twitter is not always my favorite place either these days. But, you know, it happens to be where a lot of the crypto community is, you know, definitely wherever your community is, like, try to bring them on board. But it's a lot easier to get donations from people who are already familiar with crypto, who are already familiar with Gitcoin than it is to like, you know, take somebody from never even having a wallet to like setting up their first wallet funding it, you know, connecting to passport going through all those stages. Definitely great guides out there. You know, I think it's a great idea to like host onboarding sessions or like office hours to help people in your community might want to support you. But definitely the lowest hanging fruit is the existing Gitcoin community that's quite active round after round. And you can find those people on our Twitter spaces, you can find those people, you know, in various discords, but also on the Twitter spaces that other people are hosting. And, you know, and I'd say one other thing I would throw out there is Telegram. All these tools that, you know, if you're from outside the web through space might be a little bit daunting. But you know, if you just join the Gitcoin Telegram group, there's so many people providing peer support, helping each other answering questions. Like if you just jump into that thread, which again, you can find it directly through our homepage, you know, you can from there, like find people who might want to help you with what you're building, or might have a similar project and want to collaborate with you, you know, or, you know, want to attend your Twitter space if you host one and invite other people. So yeah, I would say just like, focus on the people more than the technology. And like, figure out where the low hanging fruit is of like, where those people are that, you know, might be interested in working with you and supporting you. And don't hesitate to reach out and like DM people and, you know, and ask questions. You know, like, I'm always happy to chat if I can find the time. You know, definitely lots of people who are doing their project for the first time reach out. And like, you know, even share what you're thinking about posting in your grant proposal with others like, you know, there's no wrong time to do that. Even if you're listening to this right in the middle of an active grants round, and you missed the opportunity to apply, it's not too late to get involved to start listening to those Twitter spaces to join the Telegram. You can even post your grant proposal and then just apply three months from now in the next round. You know, so can't hurt to like, just moving start things forward, start onboarding your community, start playing with the tools yourself. Really helps to actually go and donate yourself to if you haven't before, because having done it yourself, you can then help other people do it more easily. Yeah, definitely. That's great advice. And you know, I think me personally, I only participated in two rounds, but was really kind of involved more as a community member and like just kind of listening in and being a part of the community before then, right. And it was a great way for me to learn and to kind of get my feet wet a little bit and to see what's going on before diving in headfirst. So great advice. Thank you so much for sharing that. As we near the end of our conversation, there's one thing I want to ask you about. I know that web3 can obviously be very stressful, fast paced, especially, you know, during Gitcoin grant season two, it can be feel like a bit of a sprint, especially for I imagine, the team that's working on the back end. You're also big, I know that you're a big advocate for getting outside for nature for laughter is the best medicine. I know you like to post some videos of you juggling, you know, by the lake is kind of a way to disconnect. Tell me more about how you stay grounded in this busy world of web3. Because I know that there's something that a lot of people struggle with. It's hard, man, honestly. And I can tell you, like, having spent much of my life working on, like, what feels like really life and death issues a lot of the time, like, this is definitely something I've struggled with for a lot of my life. I've definitely gone through cycles of burnout and like, you know, all that, you know, I would say just like, trying to not take everything too seriously, trying to take a step back and see everything in perspective, you know, surrounding yourself with like, friends and family that like, know you and love you and support you. You know, like, getting outside every day really makes a big difference to me. You know, my dogs are a big part of my life. You know, and they're, they're really a gift, because like, they demand that I take them outside. So even if I'm not feeling like going for a walk, they always do. And, you know, I feel like, basically, like, I having like a stressometer, you know, like, if you can sort of like monitor how you're doing, and when you get past like a certain threshold, like, just knowing that it's always okay to just like step away for a bit, you know, even just like, you know, just putting everything on pause and taking three deep breaths can go a really long way. But you know, like, I definitely feel like you really genuinely recharge your batteries by like going to a park or, you know, like the whole touch grass drink water thing like you have to take care of yourself to be able to like, you know, take care of business. You know, so like drinking lots of water or like, I mean, it sounds like, you know, sort of trite or soundbites or whatever, but I think it's really true. You know, and the older I've gotten, like the more just I haven't been able to just continue to like push indefinitely, you know, like that it used to be that I would just burn the candle at both ends and like, you know, it's like, I don't really need to go to bed at a reasonable time. I'll just stay up all night every day working and, you know, operate on zero sleep and not eat enough food and, you know, go for drinks at lunch and you know, like it just like all of that catches up with you after a while for sure. Totally. So I mean, like, as much as everything feels really urgent, like I think if you think back on what felt urgent, like six months ago, three months ago, month ago, even a week ago, sometimes, like a lot of the times things seem a lot more urgent and a lot more stressful in the moment that they really are. You know, so like just trying to have that perspective. And like, yeah, just, you know, take the time that you need to like pace yourself. That's, that's, you know, it's a marathon, not a sprint, that whole thing definitely can feel like a sprint. But, you know, even during the grants round, it honestly, it is a marathon. Like, you know, it's a, it's a couple of weeks with like, at least a week or two on either end of like, preparing and unwinding. And, you know, especially for our team, like, you know, I worry, even when I see like myself or other team members, like pushing a little too hard. And definitely, we see that with grantees too. But yeah, I mean, maybe just get off Twitter. I mean that, you know, the algorithms have a way of like, sort of sucking us back in, keeping us engaged. So, you know, like, you know, spend some time, more time on Farcaster or Lenster. You know, like, there's a lot of good vibes out there too, if you're in the web3 space. And honestly, I think there's a lot of alpha to be had in those social media networks too, that like, because it's a much smaller community, you can really focus on like talking to people who are working on similar things without a lot of the drama and chaos. And, you know, so like, even just making some little adjustments to how you're sort of spending your social media time, I find that pretty helpful for me. I actually hang out on Mastodon a lot recently, because it's an old school decentralized platform with all kinds of interesting people, and definitely different perspectives that I'm not hearing all the time in crypto Twitter. So yeah, I don't know. Everybody's got different things that are going to work different for them. You know, if you were having this conversation with one of my coworkers, you'd say meditation, you know, spend an hour at least every day meditating. You know, another coworker of mine would say, go dancing every night. You know, like, so I mean, you know, just like, I guess, like, figure out what it is that like, brings you joy outside of the space and like, force yourself to do a little bit more of it. And I think the end result is like, you'll actually find that your project is more successful, you're showing up with just like better vibes in general, and, and that resonates out and draws more people in and, you know, so, you know, there's even self -interested reasons beyond just like your health that I think, you know, people will notice if you if you make that little extra bit of effort not to burn yourself out. And if you are burning out, like, take some time away, like it, you know, might feel impossible. Like I definitely can relate to that. It feels like every time I take a week off at Gitcoin, I come back, it's a different organization that I left. But, you know, if you're in the right place with the right people, you need to trust that, you know, things are going to be okay. And, you know, if you're not feeling that way, like, maybe that's an indication that you should be thinking about if you are in the right place. And, you know, maybe there's a lot of different orgs, a lot of different, you know, things that you can get involved in, like, don't feel so trapped in the moment, especially for a lot of the younger people in this space, like, you know, don't have a mortgage or kids that they have to take care of, like, you can take those risks, you can make big changes, you can step away if you need to and experiment, explore other things, like, you know, give yourself that permission when the consequences are not nearly as severe as, you know, it will be like when you're, you know, in your 40s or 50s or whatever. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. That is some great advice. Well, thank you for sharing that, all that. And I can definitely resonate with a lot of that, especially the dog part. I have a very hyperactive black lab who I need to get outside at least for three or four walks a day. So it's been, oh, and there's my cat poking its head in the door right now, just on cue as we talk about pets. That's hilarious. So yeah, great advice. Thank you so much for sharing and so important in this, you know, rapidly growing, fast moving space. So it's been a pleasure just learning from you and hearing everything you've had to say. I've learned so much just from this short conversation. Obviously, we weren't able to cover everything. So for those listening along that want to follow you get in touch, learn more about Gitcoins work, what's the best way for them to do that? I am at Ben West on Twitter, because I was lucky enough to have a friend who registered my account for me in 2008. And I'm the same pretty much everywhere. I think Benjamin West on Telegram. I actually, if you go to my Twitter, I have like one of those link tree type things that you can click on it, I'll show you like a bunch of different places to reach me. But Twitter, Twitter definitely works. And probably most people listening to this are active on Twitter. So yeah, come find me there. That's probably the easiest one. Drew, thank you so much for doing what you're doing. By the way, I think you have crypto altruism is great. And the people the interview are super fascinating. And, you know, so so I'm, it's an honor to be part of your podcast. And thanks for doing what you're doing. Yeah, well, thank you. That means a lot. It really does coming from coming from you to hear that I really appreciate that. So thank you. And thank you for sharing all that information. I'll make sure to include that in the show notes for those listening along. And to wrap things up on this amazing conversation, I'm definitely going to have to take some time to reflect, you know, after after this conversation, because so many really cool things we've talked about. I like to ask everyone the same ending question. If you could name one thing that excites you most about the social impact potential of web three, what would it be and why? Hmm. And that's a tough one, because there's so many things that excite me about it. Truth be told, if I could pick one thing that excites me the most, but the thing that excites me the most is the opportunity for communities to empower themselves and accomplish their goals. Like I, you know, when I see projects come into reality that, you know, may not have otherwise that, like, are possible, because of, you know, whether it's Gitcoin grants, or just web three tools in general, you know, that excites me, there's, there's a lot of specific use cases that really are close to my heart. But like, I think the thing that's underneath all of it, you know, is that sort of cultural shift that, you know, that we talked about earlier, like that, you know, idea that decentralization really matters that, you know, individuals should not just be treated like cogs in a machine. You know, and I think for so many of us, we live in these worlds where like, our work day to day is not fulfilling. And, you know, we feel like we're not treated with respect. And to me, that just really sucks that that's fundamentally where we're at in our world. Like, you know, we've kind of democratized so much of our world. Yet, like, our work is this one place that is fundamentally undemocratic, fundamentally exploitative, often, and extractive. And, you know, and like, I think there's a way to change that, that's outside of these kind of old, like, left right socialism, capitalism paradigms. And like, to me, that's really exciting, because I feel like we've been trapped in this kind of debate that doesn't really go anywhere for a really long time. And like, there's a lot more nuance to be had in terms of like, how markets can be used by communities in positive ways, and how people can empower themselves, you know, by using some nifty tools and kind of working together. And, you know, really, just by all of us believing in this thing that we're doing all kinds of amazing stuff as possible. So yeah, I think that's really at the core of what excites me the most. Yeah, that's such a good one. And I couldn't agree more. I think that, you know, Web3 is such an interesting kind of confluence of so many different people and ideas and, you know, philosophies that it's really cool to just kind of be able to build and without kind of having to go through those same debates over and over again. So that's a great point to end on. Couldn't agree more. Ben, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much. Really enjoyed this conversation. And thank you for all you're doing to uplift public goods, Gitcoin and yeah, and to inspire so many early stage projects and builders. So thank you work you're doing. It's been an inspiration to me personally, and I know for many others as well. So thanks for being here today. My pleasure. Honestly, it's an honor and a privilege. And hello to your cat there who's joining us for the tail end. Yes, he always likes to make an appearance. Thanks, Ben. A huge thank you to Ben for coming on the crypto altruism podcast. Whenever someone asks me why I love the Web3 community so much, I typically point to Gitcoin grant season. It's a true testament to the power of decentralization and leveraging the wisdom of the crowd to fund what matters. Gitcoin is an incredible catalyst for public goods in Web3. And if you are listening to this between November 15, and November 29, then GG19 is live and you have an opportunity to participate by sending a VONATION to your favorite projects. So make sure to check out the show notes so you can follow along and get involved. And that brings us to the end of today's episode. Thanks so much for joining on the crypto altruism podcast. I had a great time and I hope you did as well. For more great content exploring the intersections of Web3 and social impact, check us out at crypto altruism .org. Also, if you love what you heard, I truly appreciate it if you rate, review, and subscribe to the show. You can also support the show by buying us a coffee or making a small crypto contribution. Crypto altruism runs on the support of community members like yourself and everything helps. Thanks so much for joining us and I hope you'll join us again for our next episode. Until then, let's keep showing the world the good of crypto. Thank you for listening to the crypto altruism podcast. Be sure to subscribe so you can stay up to date on new episodes as they're released and check out crypto altruism .org for more inspiring content.
Tech Path Crypto
A highlight from Avalanche Skyrockets Gaming Bull Run Begins
"All right, today we're going to dive into some blockchain game wars that I think you guys are going to want to listen to. We're going to be breaking down a lot of projects and also giving you some insights as to where maybe some of these game companies are going to be going. It's going to be a good one. My name is Paul Baron. Welcome back to the Tech Path. All right, let's get started. I do want to thank our sponsor today, and that is Tangem. If you are looking at a self -custody wallet, which you probably are, maybe jumping into crypto for your first time and you're thinking, I want to park some of my crypto off of exchanges. This is one of the tools that you can do it. All you have to go and do is go over to tangem .com. You can jump right into one of their cards. One of the things you're going to like here is the flexibility of both the card and the app versus using a hardware wallet. You know what I'm talking about. It's very simple. You get a three -card set, keep one with you, park the other two, hide them up, and then use it anytime you need to do a transaction right there on your phone, both iOS and Android. Make sure and check it out. You get an initial discount by just using our code, so we'll leave one down below. Make sure and check it out. It helps out. Now, I know everybody was kind of dogging us a little bit about my statement last week, a reference to the situation around Alluvium and them being on Avalanche. I just want to kind of clarify, there's a lot of research that comes, of course, across our desk here, and some of it is through things that we just are constantly perusing. One of the things that really kind of caught our eye was what was happening over on BeamHub. And BeamHub right here, as you can see, and our team tells me that this used to say coming soon, even though it says popular Alluvium Arena. And so the theory is that maybe there's going to be some action here of Alluvium on Avalanche at some time. So that's just, I just want to get that out there, kind of get it away because I know everybody was kind of freaking out about that earlier. I want to get into a couple of tweets. We'll kind of start right here, Coinbase Exchange, adding support for Solana and Avalanche Perpetual Futures. This course is in the international exchange. Now why is this? It's very simple. Both Solana and Avix, very active in the gaming ecosystem and the likelihood of moving and seeing a lot of growth, I think, in the coming months and years for blockchain gaming and Web3. Overall, this is a good move by Coinbase for sure, and I think eventually we may see some stuff like that here in the US, but right now we've got to deal with what we've got to deal with. And of course, that's just getting Coinbase past their lawsuit with the SEC. If you have not checked out our full playlist on Avalanche, go check it out. It's going to give you a full rundown of a lot of the projects, some of the games, some of the SocialFi experiences, all sorts of things that we've covered over the months and years with the Avalanche team, many of their devs, all that, executives, et cetera. Check it out. You guys will like it. It's a good playlist to get kind of indoctrinated into understanding what's happening in gaming, and why Avalanche is going to probably be one of the top ones out there. So why are so many crypto games are switching chains or calling it quits? And there's some reasons here. I want to kind of highlight a couple of points here. Let me kind of zoom out on this. There's a few things that I want to focus in on. 81 % of current blockchain games use non -gaming -focused layer 1s, so that's one reason. Early on, they're going to have to move into some of these layer 2s. 74 % of games are now choosing an EVM network, like Solana's virtual machine. Comes in a distant second, making up about 10 % of games, and this is in comparison to what's happening over on Ethereum and Polygon. ETH sidechain Polygon remains a top choice. You can kind of see the chart right here. And the number, Solana looks like they're number four, ETH number three, and obviously BNB and Polygon pretty much holding the top two spots, so something to be aware of. 65 of % blockchain games move networks, so this year, up from 48 games switching things up across all of 22. So a little bit of activity. Could be something happening there, I think, on the sense of urgency, meaning that people are probably realizing, okay, we've been building, we're at that time now where the market is going to start heating up, we need to be ready, and we need to be on the blockchain that we're going to be on. So I would agree that it's a good strategy move. 60 % of games that left a layer one network moved to a layer two scaling network. This is all based on fees. It's the situation that really kind of boils down to everything. As more people have migrated to Polygon, this is one of the developers, we just started to run into scaling issues with Polychain, and we're paying between $3K and $4K a day on gas. Just untenable, so this is preventing us from both scaling and the game. So that's a problem I think eventually will be solved with some advancements in Polygon tech that will eventually get that into a scalable solution for the growth that we're going to see around gaming in general. Also want to take a look quickly, just so you guys are aware, Polygon soared last week after IMAX Immutable, a Web3 gaming platform, shook hands with video game giant Ubisoft. So similarly, Solana has also been favored by institutional investors recently, getting some attention of top crypto whales, which I think both those tokens in general, but more importantly, the vision of what these tokens represent. That's the thing that I think a lot of people are going to continue to see happening for sure. So, very interesting, I'd love to get your feedback. When you look at all the chains, whether it's what's happening, or within the ecosystems, if you're looking at IMAX or you look at Immutable, you look at what's happening within Solana or even Polygon, maybe Avalanche. Is it something that you would focus in one particular area or games within one particular area? Let me know, drop some comments down below. Make sure and smash the like button is one of the ways that we understand what you guys really want here on the show. One other thing, I want to kind of go into a few tweets, this of course coming in from Sandeep over at Polygon. It's easy to price talk, this is obviously with the price changing and moving so quickly over the last few days. It's hard to discuss fundamentals, fundamentals have the last laughs, I always agree with that. And I think this is something also, hopefully we're supposed to get Sandeep on the show. He's been scheduled a couple of times, we're going to try to get him on the show, hopefully before year end to give you guys kind of an update of what's happening at Polygon. Here's Robbie Ferguson from Immutable. Are you getting it, Hanon? I don't know if that's a message or not. We'll see. Anyway, Assassin's Creed, Maker Ubisoft is building a crypto gaming experience with Immutable. And I think this is something that we're going to continue to see a lot of major partnerships really make their way into some of these projects that I think are good for the industry, but more importantly are good for this cycle. And what I mean by that is, and everybody always asks me, you know, what's going to be the big winners this time around? I totally believe that it is going to be gaming. We thought gaming was going to be the last bull run metaverse kind of play. Many of these projects just were not ready. Many of these, you know, blockchains weren't ready. Now it's a different story. And when you think about that, look at what is happening with Avalanche. Why are AAA game studios choosing Avalanche? They're on a full PR run right here, and you can kind of see some of the things that you have to kind of focus in on with Avalanche. Shrapnel, Gunzilla, build on Beam, we've been talking about that. Again, Beam, definitely one that I'm watching very closely just in reference to the token itself. Obviously Shrapnel, we've had Shrapnel team on our show. Great graphics. Gunzilla, just the ability for them to be able to kind of leverage both traditional and Web3 I think is going to be a pretty big deal. Now let's remember some guys in the moves that you guys will probably recognize. This of course is Ryan White. And Ryan was over at Polygon, and now he's moved over to Optimism. So I knew he wouldn't stay out of the business long. And the interesting thing since Optimism, this is just something that you have to look at, if you look at Optimism in general, a little bit of activity here, this is just on the price. Market cap right here as you can kind of see it exploding a little bit, 1 .6 billion currently. And if you look at the Explorer token unlocks, there are some things getting ready to unlock in a big way here. So I don't know, could be some action going on here. So I would just be very aware of that. If you are looking at or really analyzing Optimism OP as a whole, just something to be aware of. There's getting ready to be a pretty significant unlock. What does that mean? It means that we're going to see a dump. For some of you guys who have not seen or been around the crypto markets very long, if you haven't subscribed to the channel, eventually you'll start to get and understand kind of the vernacular that we use and what the industry use, follow crypto Twitter religiously and make sure and follow the projects themselves. Because a lot of times there's a lot within the projects and the devs within those projects that can be looked at that can kind of set you on a research role that I think you'll pay attention to. A good example, a tweet from Alexander from Scott Mavis, Axie Infinity, if you guys are, maybe you have been around crypto gaming for a while, you know Axie, but if you haven't read up on it, learn a little bit more about what Axie did because they were really one of the first ones out there. Now what he's talking about here was in reference to a show we did last week where we released a PBN exclusive and that was Roblox talking about introducing NFTs into Roblox. This was actually the piece that Alexander is talking to specifically. It was an interview with Squawkbox and the CEO of Roblox and it was all about the potential for NFTs. Short answer, yes they're going to be planning, it's coming into their roadmap and I think that was what Alexander of course is kind of referencing is that hey they've been involved with Roblox often and of course they've got investments from them and plans for Ronan and Axie and all that starting to play together. Point being is that there's a lot of intersection between what's happening in traditional gaming, Web 2, and what is getting ready to happen in Web 3, which is why everybody needs to be paying attention. This is a good example right here, Gala Games putting out a simple tweet, never short on Web 3. You'll notice this little icon right here guys, does anybody recognize that? I'm going to zoom in on that just for you guys a little bit. Right there, does anybody recognize that? Yeah, well that's IMX because they bought the hashtag and now every time that's being used, kudos to Robbie, you just punked everybody on crypto Twitter for sure. Interesting stuff out there. Games are being played in many ways right now and it's more than the kind of blockchain games that we're thinking about coming our way. Alright rolling out another topic, of course many of you guys have probably heard us talk about Zilliqa way back in the day. Well they're active again and guess what, they're making the Fusion Gaming Hub, the first ever Web 3 gaming platform available for download through the Microsoft Store. It's real guys, there's a Web 3 platform called Fusion, right there Fusion, on the Microsoft Store and you'll kind of get here Web 3, some of the things that are happening there. I don't know, I'm just, we'll see. But the point is, is that someone's going to be first and of course this is interesting that this was the case. Alright further into it, let's go over here, Chili's on the move again, likely to be on the move for some time with this move right here, announcing that Animoca Brands joins Chili. Chili's as a new validator, so they aligned the blockchain innovation with Chili's Sportfi, we've talked to Chili's before, we've went around Chili's and if you don't know about Chili's check out some of our videos because we do a full breakdown. Think of it really as a blockchain for the fans of a lot of these major sports leagues and this could be everything from MMA to soccer, etc, you know, European football for those of you in Europe. And then another one I want to hit on of course, this is Yat -Su right there, starting to rev up the engines with of course Torque. We had the Torque, well rev on their team on, so we were dropping a video this week, you guys are going to not want to miss it, make sure and check it out, this is just giving you kind of a precursor. Another thing that we've got coming is an interview with the HiveMapper team and if you guys don't know about HiveMapper, this is the company that is really expanding mapping in the blockchain and what that might mean for every kind of company out there in logistics, all that. This is the utility scenario that plays into a lot of that. So just, it's a good one to watch, we're going to drop a video on that this week as well. Alright, just as an example, this of course as everybody understands, Atlas was one of the first movers out and of course that as we've seen with in terms of their amazing development as a game overall. Others to watch this week, Uniswap we're kind of keeping a close eye on, if you're watching some of our videos you'll know why, go back and look at our video a little bit more on stablecoins tokenization and around that. Other ones to keep an eye on, I want to kind of scan down in here, this is Chiliz, this is the one that we just mentioned a second ago. This is another one to keep an eye on and a handful of others, there's obviously Wild, we've talked about Wilderworld before, over, a couple others you might want to take a look at. Anyway, the point is that we're starting to see a little bit of activity in Web3 around a lot of these games and eventual platforms of what's gonna play into the future of gaming as a whole. Alright, if you guys are not part of the Diamond Circle, make sure and get in right now, it's one of the best places that you can get additional alpha from us. Couple of podcasts, Kyle has his Web3 and business podcast over there, it's a great one, listen to that one. And if you want to follow me out there on X, it's at Paul Baron, catch you next time right here on Tech Path.
HASHR8
A highlight from Chinese Communist Bitcoin Miners? And Lobbying For Bitcoin Mining W/ Dennis Porter
"Welcome back to the mining pod on this week's show. We're joined by Dennis Porter of the Satoshi Action Group to discuss Bitcoin mining and Politics we're mainly focused on the national security concerns when it comes to Bitcoin mining So we discussed with Dennis about moving into state houses and lobbying on behalf of the Bitcoin mining industry as a note Dennis is throwing a dinner at the end of this week on Friday at the North American blockchain summit Be sure to use promo code mining pod to get 25 % off your ticket. We'll be seeing you down in Fort Worth Do you have dinner plans November 17th? Well you do now down in Fort Worth, Texas at the North American blockchain summit Satoshi Action Group is hosting a dinner along with a lot of our friends in the Bitcoin mining industry You can join us November 17th at 6 30 p .m By going to Satoshi dinner calm and using promo code mining pod to get 25 % off your ticket again That's Satoshi dinner calm use code mining pod to get 25 % off your ticket. We'll be seeing you there Did you know that you can make more money by merge mining other networks check out make more money mining dot -com for information on bits 300 and 301 a proposal to bring more revenue to Bitcoin miners through side chains and merge mining called drive chains increase your mining revenues And learn more about participating in Bitcoin governance by visiting make more money mining dot -com Are you a miner who wants to activate Bitcoin improvements check out activation dot watch see what Bitcoin improvements the Bitcoin community? Developers and miners are considering and show support by signaling for one of many bits up for consideration activation dot watch Is your mining operation happening ready take control of your own future with the right energy strategy Link coin energy training platform is a tool used by miners to design monitor and seamlessly orchestrate sophisticated energy strategies within electricity markets such as or caught New York and PJM avoid penalties Participate demand response programs and capture hundreds of thousands of dollars per megawatt per year by deploying the right block and index strategy secure your competitive edge at link coin calm Are you a retail or institutional investor interested in Bitcoin mining companies the minor mag brings you free data and analysis from all major Nasdaq listed Bitcoin mining operations to know who stands out check out visualize metrics and data dependent stories at the minor mag Welcome back to the mining pod. Dennis is joining me today. Dennis Porter. Welcome to the show. How are you today? I'm doing excellent. Just coming back from a break. So are ready to dive into a jam -packed week of back -to -back calls Yeah, nice and tan back from your travels, right? Yeah, this is as tan as I get too So it's like, you know, ten days ten days in the Sun and this is as good as it gets So just everyone's prepared for that Are you ready to jump back into the Bitcoin grind or did you like really stop when you were vacationing? I oh, I never really truly fully stopped working the tweets keep coming, huh? Yeah It's an unfortunate byproduct of working in a 24 -7 365 non -stop nascent ever faster moving Industry that is Bitcoin Bitcoin mining when it combines two crazy worlds the one that I work in which is Bitcoin Bitcoin mining side which is the 24 -7 365 thing and then it's the Political realm which is just a total mess all the time. So it's a great combo. Yeah, I remember talking I want to stay sane Yeah, exactly my point. I was about to make you took the words out my mouth I remember talking to you like a year ago about the political side of things I was like, I don't know why anyone would ever want to get in that world at all. You're like, oh, I love it I love the I love the pool. I love being in the midst of it and still today don't get it Probably won't ever but I'm glad there's people like you who care about it And we you know agree on most things when it's firstly when it comes to Bitcoin mining so glad that's there Okay was transition over to Satoshi Action Fund. So you're the president and CEO you founded it. It's been two years Or so, it's a little over a year. We launched in June of last year and I am yeah I'm the president CEO I say CEO and president of Satoshi Action I'm there are two organizations now actually one is Satoshi Action Fund and one is Satoshi Action Education one I'm the CEO of and one of the president of so for simplicity's sake we just say it's all under the Satoshi Action umbrella But yeah, it's been going really really well We've had a ton of success and I'm sure we'll jump into that But I launched that in June of last year and we've been off to the races ever since Yeah, let's go into a little bit and then we have much more talking to show specifically We brought you on to talk about all the recent headlines with like rural Bitcoin mining and like the pushback We had a New York Times article about that there's some stuff in Arkansas going on So we'll get to that probably towards the second half of the show But let's talk about Satoshi Action Fund some wins recently and then maybe like a little more Flushed out what you guys are trying to to work on is like the product if you could say that for I guess a lobbying organization Yeah, yeah I mean it's good and that's that's probably one good area to start though with when it talk what comes talking about Satoshi Action is The one big difference between us and let's say like a lobbying organization or even a trade association Is that we don't we don't actually like do most of the lobbying. In fact, we hire lobbyists and we don't have members We have donors like more or less the premise of Satoshi Action Is that if you believe in the mission that we have pursued which is to make the United States? One of the best places in the world to be a Bitcoin miner or to be a Bitcoin er Then you want to support us if you agree with you know having the opportunity to stay here in America That's thriving off of this new technology versus being forced to move abroad You know that again is why I created Satoshi Action I think it's why people buy buy into the vision and the mission of what we're doing but we're very very structured very very different from from any of these other organizations that you might see out there and Once we launched Satoshi Action, the first thing that we wanted to do was try to go out there and show Right off the bat. What could we do? How could we be successful? How could we show that we can be effective because one of the most dangerous things that you can do with a political organization is You know get out there do all this, you know, make all this noise and then you don't produce any results You can do that a couple times you can even do it for years But eventually people will grow tired and they will move on and they will want to hear from someone else They will want to see someone else produce results There's definitely two the unfortunate part about politics Is there sort of two things you have to do one is you do have to produce results and the other is you have to? market your results market even what you're trying to do so that you can get people to buy into that they should buy into what you're trying to accomplish and fund essentially fund your operation because 100 almost 100 percent aside from our like You know, two three little s19 miners that we have plugged in that were donated to us The vast majority of our money comes from either donations or people that we get to come to our events was essentially a form of a donation So we rely a lot on on our donors to support the work that we do on a constant basis But right away we wanted to make sure that we were proving to our donors that we were having success So we said, okay, what can we do? We we got to the drawing board right away We brought on Eric Peterson who is our current policy director. Who's a wizard on the policy world and We had my two co -founders Mandy and Syria and we sat down we were like, alright, what are we gonna do? We started crafting public policy model policy For the Bitcoin Bitcoin mining space and what that means is that we created sort of like this like, okay here is a Example of a bill you could pass in your state that helps you advance this industry You know what we would do is we'd go in we'd say okay We have this great bill that we wrote up and we think you should pass it It'll really help you and they'll say like, you know, why would you want me to do that? Like we go in we pitch we say okay Bitcoin mining is great for jobs Great for local investment grid stability environmental cleanup the ability to enhance green and renewable energy projects really any energy project But policymakers particularly like when you can help solve some of the problems with green energy And then we win then we give them that bill the most popular of those bills that we did We know we have four of them Two of them have sort of moved or I should say three of them have moved around like have been introduced Or been worked on at the state level So far only one has passed into law which is a very big accomplishment but not to say only one but yeah I'm pretty yeah, it's pretty big deal Yeah, just one. It's just one of dates. So yeah so in then, um that bill ended up being called our right to mine bill initially originally was called the Digital Protection Act and then it transformed into becoming the rights mind bill and essentially that bill just protects Bitcoin miners from various forms of discrimination We saw real -time discrimination taking place across the country and we created real -time protections for that form of discrimination And we ended up being able to pass that bill into law in two states, Arkansas and Montana in fact in Montana is one of the states where Two things happen one. We actually saw some of the discrimination taking place where I don't know if you heard of the Missoula County there Where they changed the zoning laws and they like went drove a twenty million dollar bank when mining operation completely bankrupt because of it so Completely wiped them out all because they were concerned about things that were not true about Bitcoin mining, you know environmental concerns Oftentimes we see at the local level not necessarily in Montana But a big one is a concern is around Chinese mining particularly CCP mining I should say not Chinese owned but just that they're concerned that the CCP controls them So we saw real -time discrimination taking place in Montana We solved that problem the other problem. The other thing we discovered while we're there that we learned is That we can add things to this bill And we'll get into sort of like where we got to from that point But it was an important moment in the history of Satoshi action We added in a ban on any additional taxes on Bitcoin when uses a form of payment Which is critical because in the state of Montana, you know If you let's say you sell me a car like they'll tax that like peer -to -peer transaction Let's tax it like right off the top. So if I just sell you some Bitcoin or pay you in Bitcoin They would do the same thing. They'd be like, oh are we you owe us a tax for that? So we banned that which was great. And um, yeah, we'll talk about a little later but that was our big initial success huge success a small tear came down my eye when I When I passed my first bill into law Eric was like, you know done 10 ,000 times So he didn't he didn't really care as much but it was it was a big moment But I was like, we've done it. We've done it, you know, like he was like, ah Alright now I'm time for the next one right? So yeah right to mine. How'd you guys come up with that? It's like a very it's very catchy right and it's hard to argue against that Yeah, I don't know. I just can't use Brilliant top ahead. Okay, I came up with it sent it to I sent it to someone and said hey You should call this right to mine. I didn't even we didn't publicize it a really large news account I said hey just call it right to mine. That makes more sense. Yeah, and they did and then it just took off. Yes It was interesting for sure it's very amenable in a good way Okay, so you guys have passed some bills you're creating like this donor network to be able to to move it forward You've told me about a few wins here. I want to hear about some of like the obstacles which you already kind of alluded to so and we'll get to that later in the show the discrimination which we're seeing pop up right now, whether it be Chinese Bitcoin miners who are being Unfairly maligned for being associated with the CCP or not. And then also just like other Bitcoin miners who are unwelcome in certain areas But to the obstacles, what are some things that you've sort of like learned about why you come through this process creating Satoshi Action Fund and moving forward into these different these different State houses to lobby on behalf of Bitcoin Yeah, I would say that an overarching theme to the work that we do is that Things can go wrong very quickly and can be can be unrecoverable. They can be recoverable, but they can also be unrecoverable You know politics is very much like the real world so when real -world actions occur, there will be Consequences or there will be you know, either good or bad, right? You'll have good things or bad things happen because of real -world actions I'll give an example of a positive real -world example that Leads to us to do where we are today having a lot of success and that is the current consistent worry and fear around central bank digital currencies, so for some reason Which I definitely am aware of I Can't share too much on the story but definitely aware of a lot of Americans became very very concerned around central bank digital currencies and so Eventually, what happened was you had governors across the country including Governor Noem and Governor DeSantis eventually Working to ban central bank digital currencies at the state level There was this big huge kerfuffle around it and everyone was like doing everything they could to like stake their claim Literally Governor Noem took out like a steel Stamp of like a veto stamp and was like like stamped it into the bill. Like it was very it was very cool Actually, I loved it. Um so all of a sudden this like firestorm picks up where central bank digital currencies become this thing that Generally, I would say conservatives are against or Republicans are against but like really really opposed to like hyper opposed to it more so than I have seen anything in the The crypto space broadly I would I would consider CC central bank digital currencies to sort of be adjacent to the to the crypto space and because of that fervent Fear and concern around central bank digital currencies we've actually been able to use it as an effective way to demonstrate the value of Bitcoin because What happened was initially when they said Oh central bank digital currencies are a problem people started to say oh Well Bitcoin is a digital currency Is that also going to have the same problems as a CBDC and of course, we know we started education right away No These things are like way way different and then we just started to realize that it was best to classify them as polar opposites because they literally are like one is You know authoritarian sort of at least you when used on the retail level go ahead Yeah, send a CBDC between a bank or an institution. I don't I don't care at all force it on individuals In the United States without proper regular regulations and regulatory frameworks and then all of a sudden you have something that could be used in a way that you know is Sort of unimaginable to some extent to manipulate human behavior. So We started saying okay, these things are opposite and now when we're going into these states and we're saying okay, you should pass this bill It's pro Bitcoin. Also, it's anti CBDC people are like, oh hell yeah, let's go like we want to pass that bill So that's what that's one positive example of like how real -world things have had a really positive impact on what we're doing There's a lot of headwinds around creating or doing anything that you can to oppose CBDCs and so and as we pitch Bitcoin Bitcoin mining and You know all of our digital asset policy where there's always that thought in mind of how can we tie this into? Concerns around CBDCs which are valid and are linked We are not making some sort of leap here Bitcoin and CBDCs couldn't possibly be more more polar opposite. Gotcha Tell tell me about the some other stories Involving I have one video in mind of you going to Montana and speaking in front of Yeah, and there was someone before you who was just like going off and like kind of rabid It was good. And then you came in after and like kind of calmly presented some is Counter information this typically how the process is? Because I just think you are basically working in like the Parks and Rec version of Bitcoin. You have to like go deal like these Officials and like they don't know anything about it and they're like China bad Bitcoin bad That's that's my understanding every time I see this which is a really unfair characterization of it, but it's also it's stuck in my mind So lay it on yeah. No, it's it's you got you got it. You nailed it, right? Is the funnest example of Just how wild that can be out there So we go and we are getting ready to testify and every time we testify You know Especially because it's around Bitcoin mining we do get some sort of pushback usually at the local level typically from environmental groups Which is unfortunate because there's so much. I mean everybody knows in the mining space There are so many benefits from the methane component to balancing renewables to balancing the grid there's so many benefits that the You know Bitcoin mining space can offer to those that have come from even staunchly environmental the staunchly environmental realm so Needless to say there was two Opponents strong opponents to the bill one was a gal from an environmental group. She didn't get too out of control but the second guy he was a young a young gentleman from from Montana not originally and he worked at UCLA and he Was very opposed to Bitcoin and he started to go on this like speech like this really long drawn -out like monologue and Eventually at one point he says that that Montana will will like Die on the cross of Bitcoin essentially, right? It'll burn on the cross of Bitcoin I can't remember the exact word he uses but it's like very extreme very dramatic and Then he goes on to say that people are dying because of Bitcoin mine houses. I wish the camera was on me There's these cameras in every single Hearing room generally speaking every state Capital building when you're testifying in front of these hearings like they have cameras just like DC but obviously a lot lower tech But I just remember when he said that people are dying because of it He was so people are dying because of Bitcoin. He was so serious about it I just remember looking down my notes and just my face looked looking up at him was like So confused and I just wish the camera would have caught it because it would have been a perfectly it would have been a meme Like forever, but yeah, fortunately, there's a lot of great policymakers out there and actually, you know sometimes you love to rag on these guys, but You know, they do a good job a lot of these guys. They do a good job one guy asks him he says You know, he tries to run out actually that's part of the stories and this is important part of the story So let me backtrack so he finishes his speech. He tries to leave right away, which you don't do never do very rude tries to leave And as he gets to the door one of the people was like hey before you go even you usually we do questions at the End let's have you do some questions right now. We want to be able to talk to you a little bit Bring him back up to the podium He's like now son You made some pretty egregious claims there around Bitcoin mining Do you have anything to back up the statement that Bitcoin mining is killing people and the guy just is like well I don't have it here with me, but I can I can get it to you and He just like this this guy just is like, I mean you gotta remember this you see you sell a guy's like 22 years old he's a kid. Yeah Great great on him though. Great. Love the love the getting active at a young age, but he's just like son if You're gonna come in here and make egregious claims. You better have something to back it up and The kid just was like so upset like cuz he just got he's gave this great speech And he wanted to just walk out like drop the mic and walk out So he just blew him up I was anyways, it was it was definitely the most entertaining moments in the entire history of my experience And it's only been a year and a half So I I'm really looking forward to other stories that I can tell in the future Please catalog all these because I just like very Specifically remember watching that entire video and laughing pretty hard because it was it was pretty funny Okay, let's keep diving into this a little bit more. What have you been seeing in a lobbying front? That's been sort of helpful that you would encourage other people to look at we've had the call lines We've had the emails. We've had people going speaking to people I Think for the Bitcoin community we can all take like a breather and be like a lot of what we've been doing has not been working What has been working to speak with these people in state houses who need to learn about Bitcoin because Bitcoin's coming their backyard What has been working from your year and a half of doing this actively and putting boots on the ground? The things that have helped the most are Well, first of all getting clear of FTX collapse. I mean that is this is what I just tweeted this out yesterday. It's like I Still can't believe that we passed two bills into law in the middle of that collapse and it was a very testy time in the space so getting clear of FTX is Only gonna help us the other is just the way we Approach the conversation around Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining the way we pitch it is that we really focus on the benefits We do not talk about the technical side We do not try to explain how Bitcoin or Bitcoin mining works We give a very brief overview if they want more information Of course, we will dive deeper with them and we are very good at doing that you always have to be ready for those questions, but It's very important to just keep it as simple as possible Most of these policymakers have not made up their minds at all about any of this stuff They hear it in the news over there. They're their nephews trading crypto You know, like they're it's like they've got stuff all over the place, you know, you got some hardline anti -crypto anti -bitcoin Democrats You know, you've got some vocal Republicans, but they're not really like hardline yet. Like there's just not a lot of like really built -in statements or viewpoints on this on this technology and So what we do is we just go in and we say okay like Out of everything you've heard a lot of some of it is true some of it is not but most importantly what we're here to do is try to explain to you the value of Bitcoin mining for your state so we pitch Bitcoin mining and we it's a five benefits I mentioned earlier it can bring jobs local investment great stability Environmental cleanup and the ability to enhance green and renewable energy projects and out of those five No one ever says anything bad about it But out of those five usually a policy maker will say oh What kind of jobs does it make or like, you know, oh I I didn't know it could clean up the environment it's like an instant like gateway to being able to have a conversation about something they care about because usually you're hitting on something there like if it's not the economy if It's not the environment if it's not energy like at the local state level like those topics are huge Because the vast majority of energy policy is set at the state level. The vast majority of job creation is done at the state level And then a lot of this these like sort of decisions around how much green energy they're going to be building done at the state Level a lot of environmental stuff done in the state level Yeah, DC throws around big pockets big buckets of money at everybody and they certainly have regulations But a lot of these decisions are made by local state policymakers And so they care if they care a lot about these issues probably themselves, but also their voters care a lot about those issues Particularly the jobs one comes up a lot because we we know in the mining space that we create a lot of rule And jobs and jobs and economically depressed zones where it's very difficult to create jobs nearly impossible to create like long -lasting jobs So the moment you say oh we create jobs in rural areas. They're like boom the brain turns on like well How do you do that? Because that's really important to me As an example in New Hampshire, we've I've been there a few times now In the there's an area called the North Country. There's like no jobs It's a whole thing like they call it jobs for the North Country is like one of their pitches So when we go there and we talk about Bitcoin mining, we're like jobs for the North Country jobs for the North Country It's because it's true and it's something they care a lot about so that yeah, that's that's generally how we pitch it We do not talk about Too much about Bitcoin in the past We haven't talked too much about Bitcoin to the extent that it's like oh you're gonna need this because it's good as hedge for inflation or XYZ like we sort of stay away from that and focus on things that Like mining that we know will deliver value now, we've expanded our policy. We've expanded the way that we that we talk about it But we haven't gone into this new legislative cycle yet So yeah, that was all done everything that we just talked about that we've done and that we have done It was done in early 2023. We prep for it in early 20 or in late 2022 Now we are prepping for 2024 in late 2023 So we got we sort of have an idea of where things are gonna go and what we're gonna do and we're in a really Great position. In fact, we could be active in up to 20 states we probably won't be active in that many but we have the opportunity to be active in up to 20 states and as a Form of context we only introduced law or excuse me introduced policy in seven states, so we were only able to actually convince seven states to Try to pass our bills Whereas like this cycle, I think that number will be closer to like 10 or 15 only seven states That sounds like a lot of airline miles to me so it can be yeah. Yeah, this seems seems like a lot of work Okay, so we got a lot of that laid out Let's go and talk about some of the more aggressive headlines We've seen recently and we're speaking about the New York Times article that dropped to believe a week ago for listeners Check out that in the show notes will include that I think we also talked about the news roundup last week Essentially, there's a Cheyenne Wyoming based Bitcoin miner They are owned and operated by a Chinese national group that has some ties according to the New York Times to the Chinese Communist Party essentially the story boiled down to Microsoft is near this plant it's Bitcoin mining plant the US government has a missile siloed nearby an Air Force base nearby and Microsoft is worried that this Bitcoin mining base could be used for foreign intelligence reasons Then we also have the story down in Arkansas, which we'll get down to in a second But let's start with this first one this this thing with Chinese nationalist groups Bitcoin mining obviously to to you and I is more of an energy game and it's very simple, right? It's just like plugging machine. Let it hash I'm gonna collect some Bitcoin and then there's those five benefits you talked about to outsiders though. They're not thinking about that They're thinking about all these people coming into rural areas and even foreign investment Has that been a struggle when you've been talking to lobbyists groups or talking to people in state houses have they brought this up to you? Yeah, definitely it's um, it's a major concern I would say Most Americans like average American especially rural Americans care a lot about the encroachment of the CCP on on the United States from from a physical perspective so like from a geographical perspective they don't like the idea of a CCP owned controlled or even highly influenced business You know being next to them and then definitely not being in and around me sort of military installations I believe the location in Cheyenne is near a Also, is that the one that's also near a nuclear plant or a nuclear missile site as well? So yeah, something like that Yeah, so I share the concern like that I think the premise is like Do you want foreign adversaries to be in and around any sort of? Military installation any sort of critical infrastructure You know generally I like my stance is like I'm very like pro people coming here starting their businesses You know trying to accomplish the American dream, but at the same time We also have to be concerned about whether or not those businesses have strong links to You know the CCP or you know A lot of people care a lot about also like Russian oligarchs and their ability to influence America American politics American infrastructure you know the big argument today is that the electrical infrastructure is a critical part of national security and That we need to be doing everything we can to protect it and I agree I think that's important all of those things are important that we should we should keep an eye on them The the thing that I don't like is when the New York Times tried to spin this article as if like Bitcoin mining was some sort of like really powerful tool in the hands of the CCP like next to these sites I don't think it really matters what business was there.
Fading Memories: Alzheimer's Caregiver Support
A highlight from Mindful Gifting for Caregivers and Dementia Navigators
"Remember the joy of unwrapping a thoughtful gift that was just the right fit for you? Well, being a caregiver doesn't diminish that need, it just changes it. Today, I have the pleasure of welcoming Elizabeth Miller from the Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast, who brings with her an array of gift giving ideas for caregivers and those living with dementia. Our conversation zigzags through a spectrum of unique gifts, focusing on both physical items and shared experiences. Welcome to Fading Memories, a podcast for caregivers of loved ones with dementia. I'm your host, Jennifer Fink. My mom had Alzheimer's for 20 years, and when I went looking for answers, I had to start a podcast to find them. Join me as we navigate the challenges of dementia caregiving together. This podcast is your beacon of support and empowerment. Let's share our experiences, find solace, and discover the strength within us. Get ready to embark on a transformative caregiving journey with Fading Memories. If you're looking for additional advice, be sure to sign up for our weekly email newsletter. It's brief, gives you great advice, you can read it in less than five minutes, and you know where to find the link. It's in the website, on the show notes. We're working on subscriber -only information and specials, so you're not going to want to miss out. When I learned that despite eating as healthy as possible, we can still have undernourished brains, I was frustrated. Learning about neuro reserves, Relev8, and how it's formulated to fix this problem convinced me to give them a try. Now I know many of you are skeptical, as was I. However, I know it's working because of one simple change. My sweet tooth is gone. I didn't expect that, and it's not something other users have commented on, but here's some truth. My brain always wanted something sweet. Now fruit usually did the trick, but not always. One bad night's sleep would fire up my sugar cravings so much they were almost impossible to ignore. You ever have your brain screaming for a donut? Well, for me, those days are gone. I believe in my results so much that I'm passing on my 15 % discount to you. Try it for two or three months and see if you have a miraculous sweet tooth cure, or maybe just better focus and clarity. It's definitely worth a try. Now on with our show. Hello, hello, you guys are gonna love today because we're talking about gifts and gift giving for people with dementia. And it's a perfect day to discuss that because today is my daughter's birthday. So I would wish her a happy birthday, but she's not a listener. So what I will do is thank Elizabeth Miller from the Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast for coming on and sharing her gift guide and her knowledge. So thanks for joining us today, Elizabeth. Thank you for having me, I'm excited to be here. Awesome, I know we haven't done one together. I was on your show a while ago, but you haven't been online. Yes, vice versa. Yes, I love Fading Memories and I love that it's part of the whole care network. Definitely, so. We're all part of the same family. So you've been podcasting for six years as well, right? Yep, I'm in my sixth season. I launched in November's National Family Caregivers Month. So happy National Family Caregivers Month, everybody. And that was a launch. I try to do some kind of special every year, but I think I don't really have a launch this year. Just keep on keeping on. I've been really focusing on the speaking part of my business and really trying to get out there as far as reaching different companies and organizations to scale the caregiving support. Yes, it's definitely something we need. So where should we start? Do you wanna start with gifts for caregivers or gifts for people living with dementia? Let's, I mean, I'm always one to put the caregivers first. So like - Sounds like a plan. Yeah, so I think when it comes to buying gifts for caregivers, anything is probably going to be appreciated, right? We're just so grateful that somebody has been thinking about us and has us top of mind. But there's a lot of different things you can do, I think, for a family caregiver. And of course I also like self -care focused ones because not only are you giving them a gift, but you're giving them a tool of something that can help them mitigate burnout. So anything from like stuff that they would use like every day, we just had this in the fall, we have a sister's weekend and we do this favorite things party. Have you ever heard of that? Where we decided we were gonna each bring three things. We were gonna be $25 or less. This might be a great idea for someone to do as a swap exchange for their book club or their caregiver support group or whatnot. But I brought three of the same things. We kind of presented them, they're not wraps. But I got a lot of good ideas there this year for things like we had the things to clean our glasses, which would be a good thing for, they're called peeps. They're good for caregivers and for care recipients. Anybody who's wearing sunglasses even because they get grody, right? Very practical gift constantly. And then we had things like I'm wearing it now, actually. I love this Maybelline Lifter Gloss. It's affordable, it tastes good. Not that you're eating it, but you're gonna get some in your mouth on something. Smells good, it stays on decent. So I had brought that as part of mine. And then there was some cool body scrubs and lotions from, I think it was called La La Licious. So I think anything that can help us, oh, a boom stick was another one. It was like stuff that, this would be a very handy little makeup tool for a caregiver because you can put some quick color on your face, you can use it on your lips. Like it's one of those try it anywhere type of things. That's something you could like throw in your purse or your bag and when you look in the mirror and go, oh, it kind of looks so painful. Emergency, emergency. Yeah, put it, throw it in your self care tote. So I think little things like that, everybody's got different budgets these days as far as stuff that you can use. We did this, I do a Happy Healthy Caregiver virtual cafe is kind of every other month I do different kind of support where I wanna do some kind of a unique event for caregivers and introduce them to something. We had a Zentangle consultant come and teach us how to Zentangle. And it's basically like you're creating patterns. It's an abstract art, but it's very meditative. And she had given away as part of a prize this Sakura Zentangle artist tool set, it's like $20. But the thing with Zentangle is you use these little paper and you use like a micro tip pen. And so it's the little kit for that. And I like it because it's portable. You could throw it again in a self -care tote bag and pull it out just to kind of like, I need a mindful moment quick. Cause I'm a journaler, I love my journal of course, but I got that here too, the Just For You daily self -care journal, it's a prompted journal. And this is one form of meditation and doing that, but the Zentangle and an art journaling is another type of where it just gives you calm and peace. I can tell you, I felt very differently at the beginning of that session than I did at the end of the session. So something creative there. But I think too, when you're given a gift for anybody, whether it's a caregiver or care recipient, like just thinking about that person and what they naturally like and what they care about or what they maybe have mentioned to you in conversation could be something that would spark something. I was thinking, unless you know for sure they have a green thumb, don't give people a plant. They don't need something else to take care of. Yeah, I think as caregivers, right, we crave less things to take care of. The only exception I have to that would be the, I did get an AeroGarden one year, it's like for herbs. Right now I have basil, my basil is like taken off. And even if I can't use it in what I'm cooking, cause I'm not like this huge culinary chef, I learned this tip from another caregiver, Lisa Negro, where she said, she rubs it in her hands and smells the basil on her hands. I've been using it to freshen up my garbage disposal. Like I literally take some leaves off of it and put it in there to make it smell better. That's a really good idea. And I have a good idea cause I have the same issue. I have two pots with basil in it. I mentioned the other day, we needed to do a pasta dish with pesto. My husband was like, why? And he's like, oh, nevermind, I know why. Cause the plants are like big. It's pesto time. Yeah, it's like, and that's not something we normally eat a lot of anyway, cause you know, a lot of olive oil, it's not the healthiest sauce, but it is tasty. But I have been making basil mayonnaise and you basically just grind up, I think it's like half a cup of mayo and a third a cup of basil. I just do it to taste cause when I did it per the instructions, it needed a little more basil and I had a little more basil, so I threw it in there. And I am telling you, that is, that makes lunch just - Oh yeah, it's just like a little extra special and all you need is, you know, food processor or you know, maybe a blender, I don't have a blender. So I just use the food processor, grind it up and - Sounds yummy. It is really good and it's, you know, I throw just a touch of lemon juice in it just to kind of give it, you know, a little extra, what do they call it? Brightness, which that's a very strange culinary term, but yeah, it's delicious and it's, you know, you just plop in however much mayonnaise you need and then keep adding basil until it tastes the way you want it to taste, super easy. Never thought to use that. I think like little things like that, where you take something that people are doing all the time and you can maybe elevate it a little bit. So think about like, if someone's a tea drinker, you know, how could you make that special? Like, you know, tea, splurging on teas that they might not buy for themselves or the presentation of it and packaging it all together, maybe with some biscotti or something like that. Like it just like treat them, treat them to something spectacular. I also think anything pampering, like a massage gun or a silk pillowcase or a obviously nail appointment for their, you know, find out from their person where they go for those types of things and a gift certificate to that. I'm a big reader. So like reading is really fun for me, but sometimes, you know, there's lights now that you can get. I don't wanna hold a flashlight at night. I don't necessarily like reading a Kindle book all the time. So, but there's lights that you can light up and I can think of caregivers using that cause sometimes we're doing those things in very precocious types of places. What else would be good? I mean, any kind of activity that you can help encourage. I'm into pickleball recently. Have you tried to explore pickleball, Jennifer? No, there is a big pickleball teams in our community. I have very wacky vision. So I don't have depth perception. I have blazey eye and it wasn't corrected until I was four. So I could very, very much understand my mom's visual processing problems because I have similar ones myself. I don't realize, I know I don't have depth perception, but it's been this way my entire life. So, it's not abnormal for me, but I don't like balls getting hurled at me cause I'm ducking and I'm not trying to hit it back. I could probably play with the hubby, but you'd have to hit the ball gently towards me or else it's not gonna be very fun. Yeah, yeah. Well, I love it cause it's an accessible sport. It's definitely geared, it's for all ages, frankly, but something like that could be fun. Like, hey, let's, I think experiences are amazing. Let's take a pickleball lesson together. Let me take you on a hike. I got you this fun little hat and I looked up a hiking trail, something where you can really be someone's self -care cheerleader and have some kind of an experience together, a cooking class, a lesson of some sort where it's kind of a twofer, right? They're learning something and they're getting away from the caregiving world for a moment. And if you're looking for cooking classes, I did one through King Arthur Baking. It was called Pizza Perfected and it was on Zoom cause they're in freaking Vermont. So I'm not getting there anytime soon. Totally want to go, I use tons of their recipes, but yeah, it's like, I don't know how we got into just really, we really like to make our own pizza at home. We haven't done it for a while cause life, but it's not that hard, especially when somebody walks you through it and they sent you the video after, you know, like the next day. So you got to do it live and I think it was like 40 bucks. It wasn't expensive and it was at least two hours. And I have the video, it's saved in my Dropbox files and I can access it if, you know, cause there's some techniques that you don't necessarily know, you know, and I mean, just learning that technique was worth the 40 bucks, but it was a nice experience. So if you can't get out or, you know, I don't, I live in the Sierra foothills, so I don't live near things, even though I'm only an hour north of the state Capitol. It's like, there's some pros and cons to smaller air, quieter areas, depending on the day, sometimes the cons outweigh the pros, but yeah, there's, and I'm sure there's other places that do online cooking. I bet there are. And even, you know, maybe your person, your caregiver is not a person who enjoys cooking at all. And then, you know, I know for me, I used to dread the question as a sandwich generation working caregiver, like what's for dinner? And I'm like, oh, why do these people have to eat all the time? So something like that could be, you know, a subscription to like the green chef or some kind of prepared meals, or even like a Uber Eats or a DoorDash gift card for those, what are we gonna eat emergencies? I think all of that, I mean, just putting yourself in the mind of all the things, if you're a caregiver listening, like what you wish you had and what would have been helpful for you, having someone mow the lawn, like, or I'm gonna do your laundry this week. Like there's a lot of things too that even if you don't have a budget, like just showing up for someone else and doing something, taking something off of their plate would be amazing. Yeah, you could offer to help put up decorations for the holidays or you could offer to help do some deep spring cleaning, which the only reason that's coming to mind today is my golden retriever goes to the dog park regularly and the dog park has its own lake.
Awards Chatter
A highlight from George C. Wolfe - 'Rustin'
"Monarch Legacy of Monsters, an Apple Original Series. The world is on fire. I decided to do something about it. On November 17th. This place, it's not ours. Believe me. The most massive event of the year arrives. If you come with me, you'll know everything, I promise. Oh my God, go, go, go! Monarch Legacy of Monsters, streaming November 17th. Only on Apple TV+. My guest today is one of the great storytellers of Stage and Screen, which is why it's only fitting that he's here at the Fest to collect the Storyteller Award. He's a playwright best known for writing 1986's The Colored Museum and co -writing 1992's Jelly's Last Gem. He's a theater director best known for directing the original Broadway productions of Angels in America Millennium Approaches and Angels in America Perestroika, two landmark plays in 1993, and a host of Broadway musicals, including 1996's Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Funk, 2004's Caroline or Change, and 2016's Shuffle Along. And he's a screen director best known for directing the 2005 limited series Lackawanna Blues and the films Night in Rodanthe from 2008, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks from 2017, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom from 2020, and this year's Rustin, the story of Bayard Rustin, the gay civil rights activist who organized the 1963 March on Washington. Over the course of his career, this 69 -year -old has been nominated 15 times for a Tony Award, winning three for best direction of a play for Angels in America Millennium Approaches in 1993, best direction of a musical for Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Funk in 1996, and best special theatrical event for Elaine Stritch at Liberty in 2002. He was nominated for an Emmy best directing for a limited series for Lackawanna Blues in 2005, and he has twice been nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award for outstanding directing of a miniseries or TV film for Lackawanna Blues in 2006, which resulted in a win, and for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in 2018. The New York Times' Ben Brantley has described him as a brilliant stage director, arguably the best now working in the American theater. The Los Angeles Times declared, there are few living talents who could be viewed as as much of a New York theater institution. Interview Magazine said it would be difficult to overstate his status on Broadway, and Tony Kushner proclaimed that he is the premier theater artist of my generation. And those are just the quotes about his work in theater. There are many more about his work in film. But without further ado, would you please join me in welcoming to the SCAD Savannah Film Festival and to the Hollywood Reporters Awards Chatter Podcast, Mr. George C. Wolfe. Mr. Wolfe, thank you so much for coming to Savannah. Glad to be here, glad to. Let's just start at the very beginning. Where were you born and raised, and what did your folks do for a living? I was born and raised in Frankfort, Kentucky. My mother was a teacher, and she later became a principal of the schools. I went to that school. She taught me. It was horrifying. My father worked for the state government, and that's that. For the first eight years of your life, the town in which you grew up was segregated. Yes. You have spoken about wanting to go see a movie, 101 Dalmatians, and not being able to do that because of your race. Well, my grandmother was this incredibly ferocious figure who would take on anybody. I telling remember her that I wanted to go see 101 Dalmatians at the Capitol Theater. I remember her calling and them telling her no. It was sort of startling and shocking and fascinating because it was the first time I'd ever see her come into contact with a no. So that was fascinating. But then it integrated, and then at one point, when I went to high school, I was editor of the high school newspaper, and I went and convinced the man who ran the Capitol Theater that I should go see movies for free so that I could write reviews. He said, but by the time the review comes out, the movies will be gone. I said, but it's cultivating a love of movies, and so that's what my column will do. It was my slight payback because then I got to go see movies for free. I love it. Let's talk, though, there's a moment you've described over the years. You were in fourth grade, and your, at that time, all black grade goes to an all white class. But that time, I think it was probably a little bit older, so I got about the PTA and the singing. Well, I think by that time, Frankfurt was integrated, but I still went to this black school which was connected to a university there. And the principal, this woman named Minnie J. Hitch, you told us, because we were going to be singing a song, and the lyrics were these truths we are declaring that all men are the same, that liberty is a torch burning with a steady flame. And she told us that when we got to the line that liberty is a torch burning with a steady flame, we should sing it with a ferocity and that we would shatter all racism in the room. So I literally remember these truths we are declaring that all men are the same, that liberty is a torch, you know. And then racism was gone. And racism was gone, exactly. They were all transformed. But it sort of was like so cluelessly wonderful for somebody to tell someone that young that if you say words and if you say them with power and conviction, you can change people. And that sense of potency of conviction and language was embedded in me, and it's never left. When did you see your first theatrical production that was done professionally? When I was 12 or 13, my mother went to do some advanced degree work at NYU, and she brought me a log, and it was one summer. And so I saw a production of West Side Story that was done at the State Theater at Lincoln Center. Then I saw a production of Hello Dolly with Cab Calloway and Pearl Bailey. And then I saw a production, as it turns out, from the Public Theater and Mobile Unit that Cleavon Little played Hamlet. Wow. And it was done in Washington Square Park. Wow. And some in respect, each of those three productions had, I think, a lasting impact on a kind of aesthetic. Right. And the thing interesting about the Mobile Unit, it was free. And so it was seeing the rawness of that energy of the audience was also very, it was very, very, really wonderful and really interesting and great. So the throughout rest of your time in high school, you were increasingly involved in theater and school. I don't know if it was specific, I think, was it writing, directing, acting? What were you focused on at that point? Acting and directing. And also it's very interesting because when I went to that high school, I stuttered really intensely. So this is one thing I was talking about earlier. So they decided that I was stupid because I stuttered. And so they called my mother over to the school to say, and they wanted to put me in remedial classes. And she says, are you crazy? No, that's not happening. And so I developed an Evita complex. So I said, by the time I leave this school, I will be running it. And so I was editor. I was drum major. I was the worst drum major since the dawn of time. I just, you know, I was editor of the newspaper, of the literary magazine. I just did all these stubs just to, you know, how dare you dismiss? I could tell. And I never heard the story about them calling my mother over, but I could tell I was being disregarded. Right. I sensed it. And I went, no. So you start college in Kentucky and then move to Pomona and California. What at that time? This is there. Oh, yeah. We're doing the whole thing. Exactly. What was the idea of going out to California? Was it just to have a change of scenery or did you were you already thinking maybe that's where you go if you want to be in show business? No, not at all. I had always dreamed of going to New York. I would I would watch, you know, TV shows that were set in New York, like the Dick Van Dyke Show. And I remember this is kind of neurotic and crazy. But I what I really I was obsessed with Disney and I wanted to have my own amusement park. But I wanted money. I knew you need a lot of money. So I decided that actors made a lot of money. This is when I was seven or eight. And so and I knew the actors starved. So when I was seven or eight, I used to practice not eating. So that when I went to New York, this is insanely true that, you know, that I so I could deal with it, you know. Well, little did I know one doesn't need to practice starvation. So you graduate from Pomona, go to L .A. for a little while to do theater, to do theater. OK, now theater, as I guess you quickly concluded, is primarily in New York. Well, yeah, I mean, at one point I did shows and I started to get some good reviews in the L .A. Times. And then I got called in. I don't even remember for to be a writer on a sitcom. And and I and I said something funny and they said, oh, he's quick. We're going to have to tie one hand behind his back. And I took that literally. And that's when I went I'm moving to New York. You know, I just was it was like time to go time to go time to go confront a whole bunch of other stuff and things I need to learn and get smarter about. Well, so, OK, you move. It's 1979. You're in your 20s. You moved to New York. Early 20s. Early 20s. Right, right, right. Very early. In fact, I was 19. I was just pretending to be 20. Something like that. Yeah. You moved to New York. There are a number of years then after moving there that were we can say lean. You got to put into practice not eating so much. You what said once quote, I came to New York to write and direct. And when I got here, a lot of my rage came out. Close quote. What do you mean by that? Well, it's so interesting because in L .A., it's you know, it's you know, there's more space. So so, you know, poverty and wealth are very much so separated. And then in New York, it's, you know, they're next door to each other. And the intensity of the inequity at the time, plus the fact that I had no real power over my existence, sort of magnified all of that. And I remember I remember seeing I remember at one time seeing this image of this of this woman in a fur coat. It was winter and eating chocolates and there was a subway vent and there was this homeless woman sitting there. And she had newspaper wrapped around her legs instead of boots. And she was like like crazy and was like and just seeing those two images next to each other. It's you know, it's the thing about New York. Every single time you step foot outside your front door, you see somebody who is worse off than you and you see somebody who is living a completely different life to you. So you have you get instant perspective whether you want it or not. So in those those leaner years, you are teaching a little bit. You're going to get your own MFA at NYU Tisch in dramatic writing, your... Dramatic writing and musical theater and a double MFA. And then there's a opportunity to have a work of yours produced for the first time at Playwrights' Horizon, which is a big deal. Playwrights? No. And how did that go? Well, it it was interesting. It was it was ultimately the best thing that could have happened for my career. I didn't direct it. I wrote the I wrote the book and I wrote the lyrics for it. And it and there were things that in the rehearsal process that I. And also, when I first came to New York, I said, I'm a writer and director, and they said, no, you can't do both. You have to focus in on one. I said, but I could do both. And they said, no, you can't. So I focused just on the writing. So then I there were things that were happening in the rehearsal room that I knew weren't right. But in the spirit of ra ra ra, getting along and being good guy and all this sort of stuff, I didn't object. And then I remember there was a tornado passing through New York City on the day my bad review came out. So I'm standing on the corner of 95th and Broadway with the winds blowing. I'm reading this hate review. And it was so very painful. But it was really interesting because it was very good for me because, you know, I went, oh, if this happens again, if I get another bad review. And of course, I've gotten bad reviews. But if it's going to be because it's my vision. Because it's I because I put every single thing I had on the line. Everybody, we're only in the room to make a very beautiful baby. And if we become good friends as a result of that, that's fine. But we all have a responsibility. The people that you're collaborating with to do their finest, best work. And you have to do your finest, best work. And it was interestingly enough, when I was at NYU, the piece that I wrote that bombed, I went, oh, this is going to be successful. And then there was this play that I wrote just for myself called The Colored Museum. And yeah, none of y 'all applauded when I said the title of the other thing, Paradise, did you? No. But that's what happened. It was the most interesting thing because I wrote one for success and I wrote one for myself. And that was the thing that succeeded. And so it was a very deeply, deeply, deeply valuable lesson. It was just like, and then eight weeks later, all those people who trashed, eight weeks, no, eight months were that it were eight weeks. Eight months later, all those people who trashed me were going, oh, where has he been? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And I'm so glad it happened that way. I'm so glad that the first piece was treated that way so that therefore it gave me a clarity and a sense of responsibility. And doing and doing work that I believed in and and that was that I believe mattered as opposed to something that was going to lead to success. It was just one of those slap you in the face and get smart, George. So you mentioned The Colored Museum, which let's just say, though, you know, you had you're coming off the rough review. How did you even get the opportunity to do The Colored Museum, which is going to as if you don't know, it was the first big success for Mr. Wolf. So how did that opportunity even come out of that? Well, it came out of that because I was at Playwrights Horizons because the guy named Lee Richardson, who was running a theater called Crossroads, said you're at Playwrights Horizons. And I don't think there's ever been a black playwright at Playwrights Horizons. Do you have something else that you've written? I said, well, funny you should ask. Dada, Colored Museum. And so that's how it happened. So there is there were they were both connected in a in a in a way that didn't seem so at the time, but was sort of brilliantly perfect. I want to ask you. So The Colored Museum is produced at Crossroads in 86 and then moved to the Public Theater in 87, which you'll notice the Public Theater, the great off Broadway institution, is going to come up quite a few times in this conversation. But for people who weren't around at that time or don't know or whatever, can you describe what The Colored Museum is about and what the controversy backlash that that provoked was? Because it was you you had to develop thick skin early on because it was not all fun and games in response to that one either. Well, but that was different. That was called pure unadulterated jealousy. So that was that was that was just, you know, I came from nowhere and all of a sudden I'm at the Public Theater. And Frank Rich wrote a wrote a review, a rave review, and said it's the kind of playwright who takes no prisoners. And people thought and that meant he kills people. The language kills them. And people thought that that meant I was soft. So it was just like that was just dumb cluelessness. That was very that was very easy to dismiss. And and, you know, and it was it was just jealousy. It was and that I, you know, I went, oh, my feelings are hurt. Oh, I'm over that. OK, go to hell. You know, it's just sort of like I didn't I didn't sweat about that. Well, tell us a little bit about the show, because this is your big success. First. Yeah, it was first. Well, it's it's interesting when I was at NYU. In the dramatic writing program, there are about three or four people writing plays about old black tap dancers, and they didn't happen to be old black or tap dancers. And so and I was just I was just I just thought about it. And I said, so somebody has figured out, has made a decision or dynamics have been created so that people have decided what black is. And I'm going, I'm black, I'm black my entire life. And I view it as this ever changing, complicated, insane, brilliant, amazing thing. So it was an effort to shatter, shatter any preconceived notions that I thought were going to stand in the way of what I wanted to create. So I wrote this play, which was eight exhibits set inside a museum. So I wanted to shatter all the perception, any perceptions that were in my head. So it's to liberate me to go in any direction that I wanted it to. And that's what happened. And it became this and it became this very successful show. It played, I think, for I think for 10 months at the Public Theater. Then it went to the Royal Court in London. Then it toured all around. And now it's it's high schools do it now and stuff, which is great. So it's in. And then as a result of it, then I started getting interesting from that. I went from, you know, being completely flat broke to then I met the kids of studios. I got Mike Nichols wanted me to write a movie for him. Robert Altman wanted me to write movies. So all of a sudden, you know, these job opportunities happened. But it wasn't for many years that you actually went into film. In the meantime, you were kind of seizing this interest in the theater, this opportunity now in theater. There was a person who is legendary by the name of Joseph Papp, who founded and ran the public, who took a great interest in you and, you know, brought you in there. And and we can say, you know, in addition to producing the colored museum, right. Named you one of three resident directors there offered to have a producing entity within the public for you. This was a big champion to have. He then passes away in 1991. He gets succeeded by a lady who was there for only 18 months. And then in August 1993, this institution of the sort of first thing that comes to mind when you think, at least for me, off Broadway comes looking for a new director. How did you become aware that there was interest in you for that position? And was it was that job, which you then spoiler alert, got and held for the next 12 years? Was it what you thought it would be? Nothing is ever what you think is going to be. But that's the point of the journey. It was actually it was I was I directed a Broadway show called Jealous Last Jab. And then I was then offered Angels in America. And and then I was in the middle of directing a seven hour play. And then they called up my lawyer and said, we want to talk to George about running the public theater. And I went, well, I'm kind of busy right now. Can they come back after? And they said no. And so they wanted to make a decision. So when I was in rehearsal, it was announced that I was running the public theater. It was I loved the thing which I loved. I loved, loved about running the public theater was giving artists money, giving artists money and spaces where they could go do work. It was that, you know, because I after after Jelly, I went, oh, this is hard. Surviving Broadway and dealing with all of these all of the dynamics and the money and the audiences and all of that stuff. This is really, really hard. And you have to be really, really tough. And so I knew all these artists who were really gifted, incredibly gifted people, but maybe weren't as tough. Can we can I just mention a few? Because these are shows that were given a spotlight by you in those years, which, in fact, several of them were just revived in the last couple of years. So decades later, people are, you know, coming back to them. But let's note, Twilight, Los Angeles, 1992. This was a dear, dear, very Smith and important show there. That was 1994. We had Top Dog Underdog, Suzan -Laurie Parks wins the Pulitzer for that 19 excuse me, 2002. Take me out again. Just revive. So these are the kinds of people who were talking about where you can. And this the public was not particularly known for its being inclusive prior to your tenure. Well, I'd say it was I think probably yes. I think it's also a place that gave us, you know, for colored girls and it's also a place that gave us for short eyes. So I'm so I would I wouldn't totally agree with that. And also these were very smart artists and these were tough artists. But there were, you know, it's just you people when you're beginning, you need a place to play, which means you need a place to fail so that you can get smarter. Like I had with Playwrights Horizons, you need you need to to do the work and not feel the pressure of it being the biggest hit in the world because you're growing and you're learning and you're getting smarter and you're getting tougher and you're learning more savvy. Just like the things that I allowed on the first production that was done, I didn't allow on the second one. And so you get, you know, so you're growing, you're growing all these muscles. It's not just your talent muscles. It's your your ability to defend yourself and to protect your work and to go, I disagree with that. And, you know, I remember one time there was a writer who was doing a play and a couple of things got really wonky at rehearsals. And I said, well, why didn't you speak up? He said, well, I was just scared that I was actually doing a play at the public theater and somebody was going to discover I didn't know what the hell I was doing and throw me out. And it's that fear you have to get. You have to realize that fear and doubt and other stuff, all that stuff is a part of growing and you have to have permission to grow. And so that's that's what I took on very much so, which is creating a space that was there. I wanted the I wanted the audiences and the artists there. I wanted it to look like the subway at rush hour in New York. I wanted to have all kinds of people there. So that was the thing that I loved after a while. It became very, very clear to me that as much as I was creating spaces for other artists, it was very challenging to be one. And while being in charge. Well, let's go back to, again, what you were doing when you got that opportunity to go there, because this was the beginning. While you're creating these opportunities for people off Broadway, you were making your first inroads on Broadway. As you mentioned, Jelly's Last Jam, 1992, you co -wrote and directed this about Jelly Roll Morton and the birth of jazz. Your first Broadway show musical with Gregory Hines and small role the first time you're working with Savion Glover. And this gets 11 Tony nominations, wins three and sort of leads to Angels in America. Now, this is it's been looked back at. I think the New York Times looked at it as the greatest show on Broadway of the last 30 years. It's an all timer, obviously, but you first saw it as a spectator in Los Angeles. It started at the Mark Tabor Forum. There doesn't sound like there was even a thought in your head that you might ever have anything to do with this. How did that change? Well, Jelly had opened up and I worked with a producer named Margo Lion, who passed away, who was a very dear friend of mine. And everybody, you know, and there were some changes that were going to be made from the Tabor to when it moved to Broadway. And she brought my name up and Tony Kushner and someone called me up and said, Tony Kushner wants to come and talk to you. I said, OK. And he came over and he talked and I had never read the play. I had only seen it. So I talked to him about it and just gave him my observations.
The Dan Bongino Show
Dan's Northvale, NJ Book Signing Was an Epic Success!
"That for this weekend special so a lot happened since I've been with you last first we had a book signing Friday in Northvale New Jersey I expected like 350 people 500 people showed up it was crazy the nicest people huge shout out to the cops and a lot of people showed up I I had some DEA guys FBI guys couple of 75 precinct guy ESU SWAT guys there and one guy came up to me and said Dan I love it when you give shout outs to the truckers and the HVAC guys and the carpenters and the electricians and the steam fitters but you got to mention this railroad guys shout out to the railroad guy and railroad guys out there we love you too but seeing everyone up close and personal is crazy we were there three and a half hours guy said the book signing was nuts our last book signing for a while little while probably not the last one but for a while is this week in Dallas so this is kind of a weekend update on Diana Ball here Dallas this Friday November 17th 2pm local time Grapevine Texas at the Books -A -Million don't miss it we will be there their WBAP audience Jim is saying this is going to be the most packed one yet we've had anywhere from 300 to 800 people these things they're always crowded I don't know we'll see Jim's saying yes WBAP audience represent Grapevine Texas this Friday November 17th 2 p .m. local time book signing at Books -A -Million and Grapevine if you want the deets it's on my Instagram Twitter and true social just scroll through you'll see a lot of them there that's pretty cool so that happened and I want to thank the guy who his gave up parking spot in front of the bookstore they forgot to save us a parking spot so we there was not a single spot in this entire parking lot and the guy in the black truck who he's I said listen if we get you line in first will you give us his spot I had
The Podcast On Podcasting
A highlight from Ep409: Top 5 Benefits of Hosting A Podcast - Nathan Payne
"It's kind of difficult to see like what works. So we just put out as much as we can. And I believe with consistency and with the right SEO titles, it's going to grow inevitably grow bigger and bigger and bigger. Most hosts never achieve the results they hoped for. They're falling short on listenership and monetization, meaning their message isn't being heard and their show ends up costing them money. This podcast was created to help you grow your listenership and make money while you're at it. Get ready to take notes. Here's your host, Adam Adams. What's up, podcaster? It's your host, Adam Adams. And today I'm joined with Nathan Payne. And he owns a company, Painless Flipping, the podcast Painless Flipping. And we're going to be talking about what he does, how he does it and how his podcast supports his business, because he also does coaching and mentoring to help people flip houses. First and foremost, Nathan, what is even flipping a house mean? Just start there. Maybe the listener doesn't know what a house flip is because they've never driven by and seen a house upside down. So for me, there's like two meanings to house flipping, right? There's like flipping a contract, flipping, you know, a house, right? Or actually like getting a hammer and flipping a house, like getting a hammer, doing the rehab, doing that. I look at both of them the same, right? Like it doesn't really matter the extra strategy. We look at real estate, we get a property and we determine the best way to make money. And if that's flipping the contract and wholesaling it, if that's assigning is another where a lot of people call it assignments or fixing and flipping yourself, like on HGTV. So to answer your question, either one of those. Okay. So HGTV is what we need to be thinking about if we want to know what you do, half of what you do. So I teach people how to flip a contract, how to assign a contract. But again, eventually what you're going to do is pick out which one is going to make you the most money. Sometimes it's going to make you more money to actually physically flip it yourself versus just selling the flipping the contracts or signing it. So, but I teach people that are brand new, how to flip a contract, assign a contract, wholesale it because it doesn't require any capital. There's this guy, his name is Matt Theriault and I used to listen to his podcast a lot. And then I joined a mastermind that he's in. So he's become somewhat of a friend and he's got frequently talks about the difference between a slow dime and a fast nickel. Have you heard that too? I have, yeah. In this case, if you're flipping houses or flipping contracts, like wholesaling a house, why would you choose the fast nickel sometimes or why would that make you more money sometimes? Well some people don't have the luxury to flip five and when I say flip, like physically flip and rehab five properties at a time, right? Because that requires money. So that's the slow dime, right? The fast nickel would be wholesaling it because you have three projects or you have one project and you need to keep the cash coming into your business. So that's the difference. I've had that happen in my business where it's like, Hey, I got marketing spend going out. I would like to flip this house. I just don't have the luxury to do that and on the money. So I need to get the money now. So basically another way to say it is like, you can make a third amount of the money in a 10th of the time. And so in a way you're making more per hour by wholesaling than flipping sometimes. Yeah. Again, it just comes down to what can you do? Like a lot of people overextend themselves and they flip more properties, they rehab more properties and they have the bandwidth to do and they get themselves in trouble. It's the same thing with people that buy single family properties, right? They follow the Kiyosaki model and they're like, yeah, let me just over leverage myself. I don't have all the money and if the tenant leaves or destroys a property and you don't you're in trouble. So you just got to be careful that you keep that cash coming in. Cause cash is what enables the business to keep running. And then you have a secondary business that coaches and supports other people to be able to learn how to make the fast nickel. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of what I teach is like how to get, yeah, the fast nickel cause a lot of people, they start in what I believe wholesaling, they start the wrong way. They just go and spend a ton of money on marketing and they're like, let me go find a deal. And it's like, Hey, you're jumping past a lot of steps here just cause you can pay $10 ,000 on mail. Like I did when I first started, it doesn't mean you know how to handle incoming leads. It doesn't mean you don't know what price to buy them or who to wholesale them to. So I try to get people to say, Hey look, before you jump into all that marketing, let's make sure you understand the process of finding a buyer to make sure you know what a deal is. Yeah. So that's what I teach people. I did a whole bunch of flipping and all sorts of random stuff, apartments, self -storage units. I did a flip on a mobile home and I learned that you can't sell mobile home parks that were older than a certain year to FHA buyer. And I learned the hard way, but I also tried wholesaling and I did it the wrong way. I didn't use your coaching. The painful way, huh? You did it the painful way, not the painless way. So we had spent five grand a week for three weeks. We got one deal out of it, five grand a week on direct mail, by the way, to the listener who's wondering, this meant that we did these little tiny postcards that I think costs us like 26 cents each ish to get them sent out. And we sent out thousands and thousands of these multiple times to multiple people. And one person called us back. We got their house under contract. We flipped it. We made six grand and then we quit. We never tried it again. We were like 15 grand to make six grand. So yeah, I definitely like that for your strategy, you're teaching people how to make the money without spending as much money, right? Yeah. Cause again, like when I first started, same thing with you, like I actually got a coach and they're like, Hey, mail unknown equity. So we're like, okay, great. He said to mail $5 ,000, let's double it because that will double our chances of getting a deal and making more money. So we spent 10, got about four calls or like five calls. You know, sometimes the response rate mail can be terrible, especially in Utah. It's not very good. But later to find out and we didn't get a deal. So it's like a lot of people starting out when they spend 10 ,000, they're not able to really recover or don't want to recover from that. So for me, like my mission is to be like, Hey guys, you can do that. Just don't start off that way. A lot of good stories saying that they did well, but they don't tell you that they spent 50 K and got a 60 K deal, but really their profit will 10 ,000, but really is a 10 ,000 like after all the time and the heartache and all that stuff. Well, yeah, we had two or three of us that we need to split six grand with doesn't make very far. Does it? I love that you're doing that. Another mistake that I made is I didn't have hire any coach, so we just went and did it on our own just from listening to a couple of podcasts only. I really suggest that if somebody is going to want to do something like that in the real estate industry, like they probably ought to have a coach, a mentor in their corner that could really support them. So you started doing that and I want to understand like how this all works with your podcast.
Veteran on the Move
A highlight from Meet Chicago Northwest with Mario Farfan
"Army veteran Mario Farfan is the account executive of meek Chicago Northwest an organization that is bringing Conferences and meetings to the northwest Chicago suburbs coming up next on veteran on the move Welcome to veteran on the move if you're a veteran in transition an entrepreneur wannabe or someone still stuck in that Jop trying to escape this podcast is dedicated to your success And now your host Joe crane Service isn't just what Navy Federal Credit Union does It's who they are That's why Navy Federal created tools to help you earn and save more learn more at Navy federal org slash join Hey today, we're talking with army veteran Mario Farfan from meek Chicago Northwest Mario welcome to the show We're looking forward to hearing which good things you're doing up there in Chicagoland So before we talk about all that takes back to us what you did in the army Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Joe. Thank you for inviting me here today Excited to be on your podcast to share my story a little bit So, uh, well, I joined our military right at the high school literally after the graduation party the next day I was in the car with the with the recruiter Headed to all the preparation and in the other paperwork administrative stuff. So that was 19 night August 1994 I ride the South Carolina for Jackson for basic training Awesome, and you're looking through your bio your parents were Guatemalan immigrants, right? Yes. Yes, they were going from Guatemala to Chicago I came here after a long wait a wait time back in the 70s and They started their their journey in Chicago in Chicago the west side of Chicago actually humble park And that's where I was born But then they ended up moving closer to the north side And I speak in street corners because I'm from that era in Chicago is something about Chicago I know you I know you from Kansas City you mentioned as we talked earlier So we grew up on Winnipeg and Broadway, which is essentially the north side. They call it Edgewater now Back in the in the early 80s a very different area there that it is now a lot of Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees And immigrants that came after the Vietnam War. I did not know this Obviously as I got older I went back and there's a digging around how I grew up Why was there so many, you know different ethnicities? So I yes, I grew up in Chicago border ways in Chicago, correct? Yes, and so Tell us a little bit about some of the things you did while you're in the army Yeah, so I was I chose my MLS was 94 Bravo back then I think it's changed 92 golf now, which is a cook essentially my thinking a 17 year old person getting Advice from many different people that weren't an army They were like Mario choose a job that it's gonna you know, not be too strenuous or dangerous So you're not gonna so I wasn't gonna be an infantry or Airborne Ranger. I knew that right away So I decided that you know, and I was interested in cooking my mother She you know love to cook so I said to myself it would be something interesting to venture in So I was a I was a cook in the military Definitely had a lot of friends because we were out in the field You know, we had the nice kitchen trailer set up with hot coffee and grill and all my military friends had to eat those MRE So they were like, hey Mario, you know, hook me up with something hot stuff like that So I definitely gained a lot of friends which was pretty cool because I started doing networking back then. I just didn't know it Yeah, great experience. So talk about your transition out of the army. Was it something you're expecting to come on quick? Were you prepared unprepared? I would say I was policy. I'm prepared to be honest So I got out on night 99. I was in Germany my last stop At the time so it was more of a pressure to stay in. That's what I remember the most It was a lot of fear a lot of you know, high pressure to stay in like what are you gonna do? So then life is not great You know stay here, you know, you can retire which I know many people do I know many people Friends that I have still they retired in Germany. They ended up just living to staying there, but my family at the time Was going through a struggle financially and I felt like I need to come home and just be back with them and support them as much as I could so I They gave me my paperwork and I was on my own. Basically. I got back to Chicago, which is very difficult right because Chicago Back, this is like 1999 2000. So just trying to you know, figure all of it out It's a lot right because it's benefits. There's paperwork. There's things that we just don't know about and I'll be honest the last Ten twenty years. I'm learning more and more, right? I Know too recently. There's just many benefits of veterans have that. We just don't know about especially when it comes to entrepreneur small business Something that I want to mention in in 2015 I started a Hispanic chamber out here in the suburbs and part of that was just thinking about how to look out for you know Hispanic business owners So now I'm thinking about better veteran business owners because I do run into them Hispanic or non -hispanic and they talk to me and say you know what? We we need better resources for our for our veteran business owners that are either starting a business On the middle of their business or just trying to figure out how to take their business to the next level So I'm always thinking about that. I'm always thinking about that. I am I am on me Chicago Northwest. That's my full -time job So so that that I'm able to incorporate it because I am I still continue to meet People from from that walk of life and as a veteran myself, I didn't have my own business, right? But If I had that information, who knows right 20 years ago Whatever 24 years ago who knows what would have happened to me when I came back, but I did what most veterans do I enrolled in college right away. It just tried to get out there in civilian life I began a 20 20 year career in banking. That's what I ended up doing so But so yes, I was a banker Assistant manager branch manager for 15 years and a regional manager up to a business banker So I did all facets of banking retail banking when it comes to helping small businesses and that's where I end in my career and and And then I decided to take a another a different Turn in my career into the what I'm doing now with me Chicago Northwest is you know working with us so still working with businesses right because associations nonprofits Diversity clubs sports clubs. Those are all businesses, right? So now all we do now in Chicago, Northwest we talk to them We we bring we try to invite them nationally, right or even internationally to the Northwest suburbs They come out and see what we have to offer so they can have the conferences the conventions or their meetings here. So That was a long answer. I know Back to what you said if I just one of five my transition If I had to rate it, I'll probably give it a one or two. It was it was it wasn't it was not great Yeah, it was not great. So sounds like you ultimately landed Well now I don't I'm not real familiar with the Chicago suburbs But is the Northwest Chicago suburbs primarily Hispanic or have a heavily Hispanic influence or I know she says something about you were targeting more Hispanic Since you're probably fluent in Spanish targeting the Spanish business network Yeah, great question so Chicago in itself state of Illinois itself has a large Hispanic population in itself city Chicago obviously is the largest city which is a heavy heavy Hispanic presence in the suburbs is starting to change, right? You have also an Asian presence Middle Eastern Indian presence, so it's starting to change very very a lot of Backgrounds and cultures Polish as well are out here in the suburbs It's all a mix but I would say definitely in the last 10 20 years the suburbs people have migrated Either to work out here in the suburbs to live out here go to school out here Public schools is a challenge, right? I I went to public schools. So hey, I made it I mean, I made it but it's not it's not easy Joe. I'll tell you that especially when I grew up in the 80s was definitely not easy, but So the answer to that would be yeah Yes, the the suburbs are being more diverse across not just Hispanic so the reason I started the Hispanic Chamber Joe because there's this Hispanic chamber in the city downtown on most people that live in the suburbs don't want to travel You know, it could be an hour for traffic an hour into the city just to go get resources and help So I figured why not have something here for them where they can go and get resources Find out about grants or how to start a business or get the paperwork in order So that's kind of how why I started to need I need that I saw in the suburbs in the middle Which wasn't there awesome? As a member owned not -for -profit Navy Federal puts members at the heart of every single thing that they do low fees and great rates Resources to help you crush your financial goals 24 -7 access to stateside member service representatives with award -winning customer service members can enjoy earnings and savings of $472 per year by banking with us an average credit card APR That's 6 % lower than the industry average a market leading regular savings rate nearly two times the industry average Learn more at Navy federal org slash offers Navy federal is insured by NCUA If it reserves a right to change or discontinue promotions and rates at any time without notice Dollar value represents the results of the 2022 Navy federal member give back study credit card value claim based on 2022 internal average APR assigned to members compared to advertise industry APR average published on credit cards comm value based on 2022 internal regular savings rate average compared to the 2022 industry regular savings rate average published on the FDIC gov Experts say that China is hoarding a massive amount of food They will soon have over two -thirds of the globe's corn reserves over half of its rice and over half of its wheat But when asked about it channel eyes One China expert says they of course will never admit to something like that Well, what is trying to know that we don't when it comes to the global food shortages China is the canary in the coal mine.
What Bitcoin Did
A highlight from Is the Bull Market Back? With Alex Thorn
"During the bear market between 2013 and 17, it was like, you know, bitcoins for criminals. Now it's like largest asset manager on earth as part of a flight to quality trade. It's truly remarkable. Hello there. How are you all doing? We've got a good weekend planned. We've got a big weekend here in Bedford. Lots of football. We've also got Robert Breedlove in town for our Bitcoin meetup at McMullen Park in Bedford. So if you want to join us for that, if you're in or around Bedford, we're kicking off at 12. But we're meeting at 12 for a 12 .30 start. We will have pizza, beer and soft drinks for everyone. And we'll be talking to Robert about Bitcoin and various macro things and what's going on in the world. So come and join us down at McMullen Park and we'll have a football match afterwards. Anyway, welcome to the What Bitcoin Did podcast, which is brought to you by the massive legends at Iris Energy, the largest NASDAQ listed Bitcoin miner using 100 % renewable energy. I'm your host Peter McCormack. And today we are back with Galaxy brain Alex Thorne to get into everything from hip hop to ETFs. Now, a few months back, we had Alex on the show to talk about the potential for a BlackRock ETF to trigger hyper Bitcoinization. And since then, we've had a few bits of news. So we asked Alex to come back on the show and update us on everything so we can get behind the speculation. What may happen to the price after the SEC finally approves a Bitcoin ETF? Now, Galaxy Research, headed up by Alex, recently released a report suggesting that in the first year following approval, the ETFs could see inflows of $14 .4 billion. And this is a conservative guess. So I'm feeling bullish right now. I know you are. The price is moving. It's a bit frothy, which is pretty cool. But if you have any questions about this or anything else, please do hit me up. It's hello at whatbitcoindid .com. All right. On to the show.
Mutually CoDopendent
A highlight from Adam and Jen Vs the Apocalypse
"Hey guys, welcome to Mutually Codependent with Adam and Jen. I'm Jen. I'm Adam. Welcome, welcome, welcome. How is everybody? I hope you're doing well. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, we're going to enjoy this strain of the show, which today is Mac one, uh, which is a short for miracle alien cookies. Yes. All right. Um, Mac one, according to this is an out of the world experience with powerful mood lifting effects and a bodily relaxation. That's cool. Yeah, that's cool. So, uh, it's a labeled as a hybrid. You got another spilled drink. Nope. Just a couple of drops, just a couple of drops. It's just like six counted, um, T H C a 23 .6 % plenty. Little dab will do you, uh, the, uh, Delta nine is a barely legal 0 .29%. That's about as close as you can get. Did you know you can actually go slightly above 0 .3 if it's within the, um, the, the minimum quantification of the tool that you're using. Oh, so, uh, cause there's, each tool has kind of a margin of error, if you will. And if you're within that margin error, then they're like, yeah, it's fine. It makes sense. Yeah, it does. It's, uh, one of the few things that I've been like, oh yeah, that did make sense. Maybe they do know what they're doing. But, uh, yeah, so that's our strain of the show. Mac one, miracle alien cookies. How do you like it? We've had this a few times. Yeah. Not on the show, but we have on the show, but we've personally had it a few times. It's a, it's a good string. I like it. It's a solid hybrid. A solid, it's a solid hybrid as opposed to a liquid. No, like it's a good hybrid. It's not a weak ass hybrid. It's a, it's a good one. I am just looking for my lighter. Cause I want to smoke some. Yeah, you should tell people what, what, what we have coming up for them. Okay. I will do that. So today on mutually codependent Adam and Jen are going to talk about the apocalypse. No, seriously guys. Like a lot of shit has happened in the past three years, like since COVID hit. And like, I don't think our world is ever going to be quote unquote, normal again. And just with everything that is going on with, I mean, for the past year with Ukraine and Russia to Israel and Gaza and the Palestinians, like all the sadness and death and destruction, like I feel as if, and I've seen it on social media. Like there's a lot of people that feel like the apocalypse is inevitable. Like it's coming. The people who aren't crazy. People who aren't crazy, like normal people who are not preppers. They're not people who are just becoming preppers or they're like just normal everyday people that don't buy into any conspiracy theories and stuff. That's what I've been seeing. Like all of those people are starting to be like, what the fuck is happening in our world and should we be afraid? And yes, I think everyone should be, to be honest, I always have trouble getting raps King size lit. So it's taken me a little longer than normal. Not to, not to take away from what you were talking about. That's kind of what the weed does though. Yeah. So we're going to talk about that and we're going to, we can just, we're going to talk. We got a new shit. The kid did. Yeah. We got a new shit. The kid did. I'm going to, I'm going to start with that cause that's super happy. Not that this isn't a happy episode, but cause it's kind of silly, but yeah. Um, so Landon on Saturday, our middle son Landon, he's 17. He has an electric bike that he rides to and from work and going to and from work. He passes by the skate park, which he frequents because he's a skateboard. Um, and he has friends there. Well, their internet was down at his restaurant job on Saturday night. So door dash in like Uber eats, couldn't come pick up their orders. So he took like over well over a hundred dollars worth of food and he just took it and he went to the skate park on his way home and he passed it out to some of the people that he knows that are there staying the night because they're homeless. They don't have anywhere to go and he knows they're hungry. So he went and he passed out this food to them because otherwise it was just going to get thrown away. Yeah. So cause they couldn't come get it and I was really proud of him for that. Cause I feel like, yeah, not all, not everybody would choose to do that. Certainly not every 17 year old, right? He's a good, he's a, he's an amazing kid. Sometimes kids, the shit the kid did is good. It's a good thing. We wanted to have a good, yeah, the kid did good shit. The kid did cause I got a short other shit. The kid did. I went downstairs to make some tea and our coffee maker rinsing out the little bowl, make sure and get all the coffee grounds out so that don't affect my tea. And, uh, I, I, there was a precariously perched pan on the drying rack atop several other pans, all of which was being leaned on by a cutting board. Oh, yeah, that sounds, yeah. And on top of the cutting board was one of my knives. So when I bumped the pan, the knife fell and almost hit my foot. Was that Ben? Yeah. Yeah. He heard me cuss him out from the other room. I didn't even know he was in there the first time. Yeah, no, I didn't cuss him out. I just said, Ben, like you heard that just happened, right? He's like, yeah, it was like, you need to not stack the shits dangerously. Like I need you to do things in a safer way, please. That's what I actually said. That's not what I wanted to say. I wish, I wish we could see both sides of our children. You know, like if, if we had just like, okay, we're in the middle, right? We make these choices back and forth regularly. We're, we're on the mean side. Sometimes we're on the nicer side. Most of the time I want to, I want to view, I want to see what our kids would look like if, if we chose one side strong or the other. Like your light side, dark side child. Um, well, I can tell you how different would your kids be? You think, um, well, if I only chose the dark side, their anxiety would be like way worse and they would hate me probably. Um, but if I only chose the light side, they would just be dirty slobs out of control, like because they wouldn't have learned any kind of discipline, no discipline, no manners, like, so no, that wouldn't have never worked. Yeah. Oh, but I mean, for a lot of, to see what, how bad would they be if we were just like assholes all the time? I don't know, but like people who are terrible to their kids and the kids grew up with like complex PTSD, like it's pretty severe, like it's a constant fucking cycle, like that person then treats their kids shitty and so on and so forth and their friends and their coworkers and the people around them. And so, you know, you have one shitty person, you know, breeds, and then they have a shitty kid and if a person is raised shitty, then they become a shitty person, which affects everybody around them. What I've seen though, like in the past few years, as I've like, as I've spent a lot of time on my personal growth is that a lot of people are breaking that curse, that generational curse of treating their kids badly or being the cycle. They're, they're breaking that and they're trying to be that parent that wasn't there for them because they grew up into this person realizing how desperate they were for attention or love or support or somebody being proud of them. So there's actually a TikToker who is one of my favorites and I've sent her, she has POTS, which is a dysautonomia disease condition. That helped. Um, yes, I know I was going to go. So dysautonomia is a disorder that some people have and it causes like, you can't breathe in the heat, you can't walk upstairs, you'll just randomly faint because of blood flow issues. You're, you're dizzy a lot. It's, it's a, it's pretty severe. It's usually, it affects women, usually younger girls like teenage years, but if you get it when you're older, like you're kind of fucked, which is what happened to my mom and why she's had so many issues. But so this girl named Kimberly is, she has POTS, but she does skits as her cigarette mom. Her mom, both of her parents are dead, but she uses a straw and she acts like her mom did. And it's her way of therapy because she said, I had a horrible childhood. It was abusive. And my parent, my dad was a drunk, my mom was a drunk and they smoked constantly. But like she uses it as like therapy to not, she'd be like, I will never be this shitty person. Like my mom was. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's kind of sad, but I have seen that. I mean, and that's, I thought about that as a kid. Like if I ever had children, I would be the kind of mom that I wanted as a kid. Cause I mean, for lots of reasons, your mom just didn't understand you, let alone have a good idea of how to, you know, raise you. But yeah, I was different. Yeah. Now, now that I'm diagnosed with autism, I look back at my life and I'm like, how in the fuck did people not know? Like my own self, my therapist knew two and a half years before I did. Yeah. Well, and they were pushing for it. They were asking to get a different diagnosis from the beginning. Yeah. I don't think you're bi -boliced. She keeps saying, I just, I don't think you're bi -boliced. Have you ever had a manic episode? No, never got the good stuff. When I was 19 and I had to leave it. We come to, we don't even think it was mania. We just think it was maybe a 19, a little out of control, a little party girl. It wasn't technically like, yeah. So I don't know. Yeah. You, you were just a, a monopolar instead of bipolar. Yeah. Monopole. Monopole. So any who, but yeah. But I think that people are kind of changing that and being better parents now, I hope, I mean, I know some people are still absolutely terrible parents. You know, so I think, uh, our kids' generation are going to be some of the most prepared parents. Well, yeah, I agree. No, but it's not just the most recent magazine that you may or may not have grabbed at the grocery store or picked up at the doctor's office. You know, like that's literally, you know, reading a book on how to raise your kid was like looked down on. Yeah. And, uh, you know, but with us, we've encouraged that kind of behavior and our children will, will encourage it even more. And it's because our world is fucked and our generation and the next generations are seeing that firsthand, how the people before us really screwed things up and not just financially. I'm not talking about economy and politics. I'm talking about mental health, mental health, ethics, the way we live life, the kind of human being you're supposed to be like, that is so much more important than learning some, you know, I wish that that was what was taught to people, like the common sense to be a decent human being that should have been health class. That should be other side of health. I mean, that should, I've always told my boys and you know, I know that you're, you're the same way, like being a good kind person and being nice to people is more important than being right or being really smart or, you know, having a lot of money. I mean, all those things are great, but at the end of the day, the kind of person you are when you go to bed at night is what really matters. I feel like, yeah, your happiness and how appreciative you are of your life or not. Cause it, that reflects outwards. So yeah, I want that for our kids and for people in general and for the future generations, for our grandkids and great grandkids. If we get there. Yeah. Or if the apocalypse comes. Yeah, fun, fun fact. When I was in like sixth, seventh grade, I was so obsessed with Buffy, the vampire Slayer and the apocalypse that I wasn't allowed to say the word in my own home for a few months. The word apocalypse or apocalypse. She, how often were boards banned for certain amounts of time? Like, what is that a regular thing? Yeah. How many words do you think got banned over the years? About 20. Oh yeah. How many of them do you remember? Exuberant. Oh, that's a weird one to say a lot. Five was five. Why your mom started banning words at five? I was younger. Oh gosh. I wasn't allowed to say, um, diaphragm. Oh God. Which I've probably, I may have told you about this. But when I was seven, I drew like a head and like a neck and a chest, like of a person and I drew body parts in it and I was labeling it because I wanted my own little like human poster of somebody. So I like copied it out of the world book and I went to show her and was explaining how your diaphragm works. And she told me that we didn't have a diaphragm in our body, that that was a word again. Who was that? My mother. Your mom. Yeah. Dang. And so that I wasn't allowed to say diaphragm exuberant because I, I looked it up in the dictionary and then I would use it all the time. Um, was your dad upset by these words? I don't think, no, I don't, I, he, he worked so much when I was little. Like, I don't remember him and I have been like a whole lot of heart to heart conversations. I get that. Um, I like, I don't remember what else it was. Lackadaisical. I wasn't allowed to say that for a while. Lackadaisical. And none of these were small words.
Conversations with Coach LA
Reprogramming Your Brain With Affirmations
"Of the things I took from that book about atomic habits was to pair it. What I'm constantly encouraging people to do is that your brain is already telling you this is hard. It's too much. You already got too much going on. You can't do it. I don't got time. How do you start to reprogram yourself is that you have to give your brain messages that this is going to help us. This is easy. We got this. That's where the affirmations come in at. When you're sitting in the bathroom, instead of looking at your phone, be quiet. When you go in the shower, say your affirmations. Try to find ways to incorporate it into what people already are going to do. When you're brushing your teeth, do your visualization. It's not like this extra thing, but it's something that you're already building in. Say you can't work out every day. Park a little bit further away. Take the stairs when you get to the office. Anything is better than just being sedentary all day and not moving at all. Finding ways to create movement, stretch your legs, get up, walk to the bathroom that's maybe further away from your office. Don't go to the one that's right there. Go to the one that's down the hallway and up the stairs. Get you one of those smart watches that can monitor your steps. Find ways to move your body. Turn on one of your favorite songs and just dance around in your office. I try to really give people more simpler ways to incorporate it, just to get going. This is like a jump start, easy way to get it going. Then once you get that going, we add something else. I think for a lot of people, it's just that they can't even phantom how to incorporate it so their brain just shuts down and they do nothing. Then people go, I never thought about doing that. I said, listen, if all you did this morning was had a moment of silence and you did your affirmations and you did some visualization, guess what? That's more than you did yesterday. The goal is to be 1 % better than you were the day before.
Telecom Reseller
A highlight from Decoding AIs impact on IoT with Sam Colley, CEO, Pod Group, Podcast
"This is Doug Green, and I'm the publisher of TR Publications, and I'm very pleased to have with us again, Sam Coley, who's the CEO of Podgroup. Sam, thank you for joining us today. Thanks for having me, Doug. Well, we're going to be talking about the dynamic intersection of AI and IoT. I think this is a topic we've been talking about AI all year. We've been talking a lot about IoT. I don't think we've done a lot of work on where these two meet. So I'm really excited that we're able to do this. Thank you, Sam, for joining us and being able to expand our knowledge on this topic. Before we dive into that, could you just tell us a little bit about Podgroup? Yeah, so Podgroup has been in the IT now for over, well, since 1999 in various forms and its most recent form as a global MVNO since 2011. And in 2001, we were acquired by Giskindebrin, GND, a German security company who have kind of led in the field of eSIM and remote provisioning and SIM cards for over 30 years as well. So now kind of managing to combine all of the latest security technology alongside, you know, connectivity to deliver kind of solutions to the IoT to try and help them obviously evolve in a secure manner as possible. So you have a front row seat to the IoT world. Yes, I think it is middle row because I think the connectivity piece is pivotal in all of it. Without connectivity, you can't connect the device and you can't get the data to the cloud to do wonderful things like AI. So I feel like we get to sit in the middle and see all of the sides, which is a good vantage point. So with that, how is IoT changing the way we interact with our devices and the world as you're describing it around us? Well, I think IoT, you know, it's one of the things that kind of it's often unseen or, you know, it wasn't really until maybe five years ago you started to see billboards with IoT written on them. And as software and things became, you know, designed specifically for that vertical. But, you know, it's been around for, you know, 30 plus years probably in what used to be machine to machine. And I think the way in which we now interact with it as consumers has also evolved in that time. I think originally, you know, it was it was mainly for, you know, some sort of industrial applications, etc. I think old SCADA systems and things would be classified as IoT or M2M back then. But now, obviously, there's consumer IT in our in our homes with our smart devices, you know, with your Alexa's, to some extent, or your smart fridges. But also in terms of how you interact on a day to day basis, in terms of where you how you pay a store, how you consume advertising, in terms of digital signage, how you pay for your parking on the street. You know, all of its IoT and essentially it's kind of everywhere and we interact with it all day, every day, more or less if we're out and about or even at home. So I think, you know, it's it's something that maybe we don't recognize as much as we should, but it is pivotal to the way we live our lives today.
What Bitcoin Did
A highlight from Bitcoins Full Potential Value with Jesse Myers
"This sounds crazy, and I get that, $10 million per Bitcoin is what this resulted in, and I think it's kind of conservative in its estimates, and that's crazy. Good morning, everybody. How are you all doing? It is raining here in Bedford. It feels like it's rained every day this year, it's a nonstop rain. Anyway, it was a late night, I went out to watch Railbit for last night, and it won again. Still top of the league with a little gap opened up, as MK Irish were not playing. That's our men's and ladies' top of the league. And listen, if you've got nothing on this weekend, on Saturday before the football, we have got a Bitcoin meetup, and we're going to be joined by Robert Breedlove. Yes, I am getting Breedlove in Bedford, and we're going to do a meetup before the game. Talk about Bitcoin, money, a few other things. So come and join us, that's from 12 o 'clock at McMullen Park in Bedford. There will be pizza, beer, and soft drinks provided. Anyway, welcome to the What Bitcoin Did podcast, which is brought to you by the massive legends at Iris Energy, the largest NASDAQ listed Bitcoin miner using 100 % renewable energy. I'm your host Peter McCormack, and today I have Jesse Mayers, aka Crocius, from OnRamp Bitcoin on the podcast. Now in this interview, we get into his article, Bitcoin's full potential valuation, and we discuss what is causing Bitcoin's value appreciation and just how high it can go. Now, it was a very interesting conversation, and I've been following Crocius on Twitter for a long time now, and I really like his writings, so it was cool to get him finally on the show. Now, if you've got any questions about this or anything else, then please do hit me up. You can reach out to me as hello at whatbitcoindid .com.
The Tennis.com Podcast
A highlight from Executive Director of The Bush Tennis Center Tim Stallard Talks Bringing The Pros The Texas
"Welcome to the official tennis .com podcast featuring professional coach and community leader Kamau Murray. Welcome to the tennis .com podcast. I'm your host Kamau Murray, and we are here with all things tennis. Mr. Tim Stoller, Tim is the general manager and director of the Bush tennis center down in San Antonio, Texas. And they are hosting a really cool tennis event this weekend. It is the, Tim, go ahead, give us the name. Yes, the San Antonio International Team Tennis Championships, and it's at Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio. However, the Bush tennis center is way out in West Texas, about 300 miles away in Midland, Texas. So that's kind of an interesting dynamic of this event. Yeah, we want to hear a lot about that because I'll be honest with you. You know, I built 27 tennis courts in the city and the Bush tennis center has the exact same mission as I do, and I'd never heard of it. So we want to dig into that. But first, let's dig into your background. You have put on more than 50, you know, ATP, USDA, Pro Circuit events, assistant coach at University of Texas, spent time on the court with Andy Roddick. Tell me about your pedigree, where you come from, how you got in the game, and how you were able to travel through so many different levers of the sport. Well, I actually, it started in Rockford, Illinois, way up north, and started playing tennis and just, it was one of those things after my parents got divorced a couple of times. I love baseball, but trying out for baseball teams was more problematic than just entering tennis tournaments. So I kind of fell into tennis through that and loved the sport. And you know, like you said, went on to coach at University of Texas and started, you know, just had some great players. And that's really how I got into starting to run events is I was trying to get wildcards and help out players that I was coaching. And way back in the day, I had two really great players in Texas. One was Julie Scott, who is an All -American at Stanford. And, you know, I couldn't get wildcards. And the other one was Elizabeth Schmidt, who played at UCLA and went on, now she's a head coach at Rice. And very deserving kids. And the USDA said, you know, if you start running tournaments, you get the wildcards. So at one point, I had 13 challengers across the U .S. And some of those challengers, like Champaign -Urbana, are still moving along. So it was an interesting process. So we've held calendars the last two years. And it is a tough business model. To have 13 of them, you know, they struggle to make money. They break even at best. To have 13 of them, you must have had a model that worked because no one would ask for it 13 times if you don't. So tell us about your experience with challengers because we see challengers in the U .S., you know, come on and off the calendar, right? And it hurts our U .S. players from, like you said, creating that vertical for where they're in, you know, the collegiate pathway, they want to try to hand it to Pro Tour, they can't get a wildcard, not enough events to spread the wildcards out. How did you make the challenger model work? Yeah, you know, I was able to get national sponsors. I mean, it covered everything. So I had great sponsors, AOL, Porsche Cars North America, Bear Stearns, HealthSouth. So I just went out. I had a great mentor, a big advertising company, GSD &M. The founders of that really kind of showed me how to put media value behind packages. And I found a kind of a good formula. So you know, I would have literally just, you know, Porsche would say, we need these markets and I would jump on a plane and go to Miami and find facilities. But it was a nice problem because I had all the financials together. You look at the challenger that was in Dallas for years, that was over 20 years that they had it at TbarM. So lots of great challenges throughout the years. Now when you would sell those packages, would the sponsor take all 13? Or like the major sponsors take all 13, then you add on locals? Or was it, you know, and the people would pick off whichever ones they wanted in the markets? Yeah, for the most part, you know, we'd have our major sponsors would take all the markets and then we'd sell kind of patron, local, because you always want the local community involved. So we'd have local patron packages. And we really did our best to make it a fun event, you know, pro -ams and music and access to the players. And, you know, for me, a big part of it was telling the story of the challengers. I mean, I love challengers because you have the veterans that are hanging on that come to get the points. You got the top juniors in the world and they clash at the challenger level. And you know, I'll never forget, I was in a drive -through at McDonals in Austin, Texas, and I got a call from Andre Agassi's brother asking for a wild card into Burbank. And at that time, I'd already, I'd committed, I had a player, Brandon Coop and Robert Abendroth, I committed my two wild cards, so I couldn't give him a wild card, but I was hoping the USTA would. And you know the story, I mean, he got a wild card, he played against Sarga Sargisian in the finals. They called it the Battle of Armenia. And it was a great tournament and it was great to see him come back a year later. He was already back to number four in the world. So it was really just an inspiration to see Andre. Yeah, so, you know, I think that one of the things we us to underestimate is like really the job of these challengers, right, especially in the US soil, is to help promote the next generation of player, right? So I always like to hear a famous story. So our challengers, our wild cards went to Ben Shelton last summer. That's awesome, man. I always hit the semis, obviously got to perform, got a wild card into, got to upgrade a wild card, got originally got a wild card in the Qualities of Cincy because he was in Chicago so long, upgraded to the main draw. And this year, Alex Mickelson wins our event, goes on and plays Newport, right, gets the final to Newport, loses to Manarino, I think. So tell me about another famous wild card story where you see, you gave a wild card to someone that has some potential. And then other than the story you told us where you're like, you know, we had a hand in that person's career. Well, a couple of them, one in Rockford, Illinois, back to Rockford, Illinois, I had a challenger there in February following the Midland, Michigan challenger that's still going. And I got a call from one of my idols, Nick Boletary, and said, I've got this girl, she's number one in the world. And she's not going to make the cut for the challenger. And we think she has a lot of potential. It was Anna Kournikova. So I gave her a wild card and she won it. And you know, I believe, you know, five months later, she was in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon. And what's cool about Anna is Anna came back and we've done a lot of charity events. And following, we did an event in Beaumont with Pete Sampras. And she flew after that over to Horseshoe Bay to do a free clinic with my wife and kids. And it was the first kids courts, it was the Andy Roddick kids courts out at Horseshoe Bay. But she flew over, you know, did it absolutely for free to give back to the kids. And she's amazing. But it's really funny that, you know, that started when she was 13 years old in frigid Rockford, Illinois, in February. So you mentioned your wife and kids, do your daughters play at all? They did. They're older now. They're once graduated from A &M. She's an architect and my other daughter is about to start her master's in communications at A &M. Now, did you tie your hand at coaching them? You know, obviously, I'm trying to coach my kids. And I'm trying not to let what happens on the tennis court blend into the car ride home or blend into the dinner table. But sometimes that's really hard. Did you try your hand at coaching them? And how did that go? Yeah, I did. My wife was really their primary coach. And my wife was a great player, all American at Texas, coached at Texas. She's number one in the Southerns, finalist at the Easter Bowl, just a great player. And we are very different coaching styles. My wife is very, you know, very, very fired up with the girls. I was a lot more laid back. And you know, when I go to their matches, I'd have the newspaper, my Starbucks, and they go, Dad, you're not even watching my match. Of course, I'm watching every point. But when they look at me, I've got my newspaper up and my coffee is kind of downplaying it. But they were great, you know, we're really proud of our daughters. And we officially became grandparents about a little over a year ago. But, you know, tennis was just a great experience for their life. And it, you know, for me, it changed my life. You know, growing up in Rockford, Illinois, my dad was an automaker, tool and die maker, neither one of my parents even know how to keep score in tennis. And like I said, after a couple of divorces, I had a wonderful coach, Pat Wicks, that gave me a lot of free lessons and I just worked my butt off and it opened doors. And, you know, that's what we're really inspired to do with the Bush AIDS Outreach Program is create that opportunity. And I mean, we have 100%, any kid that comes, we provide full scholarships, partial scholarships, we turn down no one. That's our mission. So we're real proud of that and we've helped a lot of kids and we're expanding that throughout the state of Texas and then happy to really help, you know, great foundations like the Ryan Brothers Foundation, John Isner. My wife and I, we went out and helped Sloan. Sloan had over 300 kids bust in from Compton at USC. My wife and I went out and helped with clinics out there to help Sloan, but she does amazing work year -round. So there's a lot of great stories and a lot of great things that, you know, people see these great players on the court, but I'm really inspired for a lot of things they're doing off the court. So tell me about the Bush Tennis Center. I would say I didn't even know it existed. I didn't know that the Bushes were big tennis people. I knew the Koch Brothers were big tennis people down there in Texas, but didn't know the Bush Tennis Center existed. So tell me about how the Bush Tennis Center came along and how you ended up taking the job. Oh, it's, in 2015, I had John Isner, Sam Querrey, and the Bryans, and we did a four -day run where we did Atlanta, Nashville, Midland, and then Camarillo, California to do something for the Bryan Brothers for their foundation. So those four guys, 2015, went through just to do a one -day event and just started talking to the people that founded the Bush Tennis Center and they were having some challenges with the business model, asked me to, hired me as a consultant initially. And I just said, you know, here's all the things that need to be done. And they're like, well, we want to hire you. I'm like, well, I don't live here. I live in Austin. My wife's director of tennis at Horseshoe Bay Resort. My company's in Austin. They're like, well, we don't care if you live here, just come and check into the Double Tree Hilton downtown Midland and come and figure this thing out. And you know, it was really neat because at that point I was working, I was trying to build a similar facility next to Dell Diamond with Reed and Reece Ryan, Nolan Ryan's kids. They owned the Minor League Ballpark there and we were kind of going down that road to maybe buy the ATP event in Memphis, build a facility like this. And you know, we're going down that road, but there was a lot of politics and just dealing with governments and stuff. I go out to West Texas and they're like, you know, here's the keys to the place. How much money do you need? Let's get it going. I mean, it's just an amazing opportunity. And we're on 35 acres. We've already on the far west side, we just opened a $4 million park designed for special needs children. So we've got zip lines. Everything is set up where kids can play just despite, you know, physical challenges. They can play side by side with all kids. We have a $4 million park. We just broke ground on a new 90 ,000 square foot athletic center, which will have five indoor basketball courts, 15 volleyball courts, a 75 yard turf indoor field. And then Lance Hooton, who I actually met through Andy Roddick, who's traveled with Andy. It's going to be a sports performance training center. And Lance Hooton's coming in and using his expertise to develop that as well. So, you know, it's a big campus and it's all set up as a nonprofit. It's a legacy for the Bush presidents. And you know, I feel like to some degree I get to be Santa Claus because I get to really help a lot of kids. And that's super important to me. And we've got a staff that is just amazing, that just cares so much about helping kids and really developing a great event, a great product. Now you're also building indoor tennis courts. And what people don't know is like in these southern markets, right, places where you just say California, Texas, Atlanta, Florida, even, he's like, why do you need indoor courts in those markets? Sometimes it is so hot, right, that you just need the, you need the roof for the shade, right? Or sometimes like in Florida, it'll rain all day, right? And you need the roof for the rain. So tell us why you would need indoor courts in West Texas. Well, a lot of times it's just too windy. I mean, we're just out in the middle of nowhere. It's flat as can be. And, you know, as they say, there's not a lot out there, but there's a lot under there. I mean, we're on the biggest reserve of oil on planet Earth, the Permian Basin and the Delaware Basin, you know, come right out of right out of Midland, West Texas. And but it's flat, high winds. So we lose a lot of days where, you know, the wind gets up above 25 miles an hour. It's not playable. Dust is blowing. And then, you know, we have one hundred and one hundred and ten hundred and fifteen degree days in the summer, and then it drops to twenty five degrees. That's just all over the map. So indoor courts will definitely help us. We're looking at doing eight indoor hard and four indoor clay, and there's no way to do outdoor clay. It would just blow away. So it would be so dry and you'd be you know, every year we bring in twelve tons of clay to sort of re -top off our red hard shoe courts. I mean, I would only imagine how much money you spend on. Oh, yeah. It wouldn't last.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
A highlight from Uncancellable
"In his book, The Consequence of Ideas, R .C. Sproul told a story of how when he was a college student he got a summer job at the maintenance department of a hospital. He was a philosophy major and he joked of how none of the newspapers in his day had a single want ad for philosophers. So during his first week on that job, he's doing some sweeping and he noticed another man sweeping in the adjacent parking lot. The two, they exchanged names and pleasantries and R .C. told the man that he was a philosophy major and when he did, his fellow co -worker lit up and offered to him a barrage of questions about different philosophers, about Descartes and Plato and Hegel and Kant and others. It seemed kind of incongruous to R .C. that there was another man in the maintenance department of a hospital who had a passion for philosophy like he did. But then as he spoke to the man, it started to make more sense. This man was from Germany. He had his Ph .D. in philosophy and he had been a professor of philosophy in Berlin. And as R .C. recounts the encounter, he said that this man was saying to him basically when Hitler had come to power, the Nazis were not content to find a quote unquote final solution for Nazis and Gypsies, but they also sought to eliminate intellectuals whose beliefs were at odds with the quote unquote values of the Third Reich. His new friend, as it were, his co -worker was removed from his position and when he spoke out against the Nazis, his wife and all but one of his children were executed after having been arrested. This man who ended up working in the maintenance department of the hospital doing sweeping like R .C. had been doing, he escaped from Germany with his young daughter. Now this story reminded me of how throughout history there have been those in positions of power who have feared the power of ideas, who have feared the free exchange of information and most ultimately the truth that refutes their lies. I think recent years have provided many who were blissfully ignorant of this reality a Such things still are. Those in positions of power, whether they be in big tech or whether they be in big media or whether they be in pharmaceutical companies or whether they be in government agencies have sought to squash and suppress information that has been contrary to their agenda. There are many examples of this, many, but one glaring example of this has been with regards to COVID. The maligning of treatments like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, which were shown early on in the pandemic to be literally and legitimately safe and effective and are still being shown to be with studies that are coming out. One recent French study with over 32 ,000 people involved in this study looking back on treatments of people with hydroxychloroquine showed that it was very safe and effective in treating people who were very ill.
Game of Crimes
A highlight from 123: Part 2: Rikk Rambo Survives Two Shootings, An Assassination Attempt, and an 800-Pound Grizzly
"Yeah, we did not because, you know, since they were part of, they were in probation and all that with the juveniles, and we didn't really have anything to do with them unless we were investigating them. And I was out of there pretty, you know, pretty shortly after that but never, you know, not able to track, you know, whether that was effective or not. Just don't know. But I do notice watching them. Let me ask you, after going through that, did you think about breaking the law after that? Nope. Nope. Nope. I'm good. Nope. You know, I thought back to all the things I did as a juvie, you know, that might have been, you know, and I'm like, yeah, I think I went the right, I think I went the right direction. Yeah. Well, so you said you did that, you hurried because you had to, you know, you had paperwork to do at Pittsburgh. So how long did it take you from the time you applied to the time you got on Pittsburgh PD? I would say it probably took probably close to about a year, almost like with DEA. DEA was very methodical, very slow and very good with the way that they hired you. But Pittsburgh Police, yeah, but when it happened, it happened in a whirlwind. I waited about a year. When I went to take the test at Pittsburgh, I drove all the way from over in western Ohio, so about a five hour drive, showed up at the convention center, you know, going back to when we're talking about how popular policing was, how difficult it was to break in. Went to go take the test. It was at the convention center, like a Van Halen concert in 1984. There must have been probably close to, I think they said 18 ,000 people for 200 jobs. So I mean, I took the test and didn't think anything was ever going to happen with that many. And being an out -of -towner, because, you know, there's a little bit of nepotism in some of those back east towns, but yeah, about a year. But boy, I'll tell you, you could tell they had a protocol in place to keep the out -of -towners out and to keep the, you know, the people who knew people inside or whatever, to keep Pittsburghers, Pittsburghers. The gal calls me from Pittsburgh out of the clear blue and she goes, you're considered for the job. You have two and a half days to move here. And I'm all the way over by the Michigan border, working over there. And I found out later on this gal had some issues with people like, anyway, yeah, so she had an issue with out -of -towners and some other things. She's been on the racist side. Let's go ahead and say it. This gal was very racist. But yeah, she said, you have two and a half days to get here and she says, this is what you have to have. Now I'm in Ohio. You have to have a driver's license, proof of residency, like a lease or whatever. You have to have a telephone, subscribe to your name and power. And you have two and a half days to do it. It's, I mean, but luckily for me, my secret weapon was my mom and dad lived within an hour of Pittsburgh. So I'm back that night. The next day we head up there and luckily mom and dad were Uber before Uber was cool. They drove me all around Pittsburgh. Thank God I passed the test on the first try and didn't screw up any of the questions and what have you. But I passed the driver's license test. So I got my PA driver's license, ended up finding an apartment, did everything in one day. Ended up having everything I needed in one day. And I totally baffled her. I could tell when I showed up at the public safety building with all my stuff, all my gear, you could tell she's very disappointed. Her name was Cookie. Anyway, yeah, I showed up and had it all. And so that's how it all went. And it kind of bolstered what I thought too when I went to the academy, because when you walk through the door of the Pittsburgh Police Academy, it's also very old. I mean, it smells like history when you walk in there. Old, old building. Walked in and there's this old disgruntled, this is my indoctrination into Pittsburgh Police. I walk into the building and you smell that history. I walk in and there's this old pissed off cop sitting there. And he's like one of those big city, old pissed off stereotype cops. He's got an unlit cigar chomped in his mouth and whatever. And I remember he was very voluminous, big guy, sitting there just angry looking. And he had the tea sitting at a table. There was a container over here with nightsticks and a smaller container on the table with blackjacks. And if you're not familiar with blackjacks for people out there, they were an impact weapon that was your backup if you couldn't use your full size nightstick or once they went to Asps, the expandable batons. But a blackjack was basically a leather wrapped, about a foot long. It had a steel spring in the middle wrapped in leather. It had a handle. It had a lead ball also wrapped in leather on the end. It's kind of sproingy. You could kind of give it some spring. It was meant for close quarters stuff. But yeah, it was like a 1900 Keystone cops blackjack nightstick and this pissed off old cop sitting there. And he says, name, sign here, get downstairs and get your uniform. And like I said, there was no friendliness. So I go down, I get into the locker room and the first thing somebody said, and this is the first thing in Pittsburgh that anybody said to me from the PD, I get down there and one of the other new recruits looks over at me and he goes, so who do you know? And I'm like, I don't know. I'm just that token out of town kid and whatever. But I mean, that was really not a big deal. The rest of it wasn't nepotism or anything. That was the first thing it said. But you could see a degree of people that were there that had been, you know, that were like legacies or they had known somebody. But for the most part, it was a bunch of good guys and gals. And that carried on all through Pittsburgh. You know, I think a lot of the times for us, you know, we're our own best critics when it comes to not wanting a dirty cop, not wanting a bad cop. Not even somebody that, you know, is even halfway, like doesn't treat people the right way and whatever. I mean, so I mean, most of us are our own best critics. And I can honestly say, like with Pittsburgh Police, I work the second worst part of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh's north side. It's called Zone 1. But all through my career in Pittsburgh, I met like maybe, maybe two or three guys that I'm like, oh, boy, I wouldn't want to work with that fellow. But that's out of hundreds of people. And we'd jump zones and go over to their zones and help them out. It would work special details like events and work with detectives. But yeah, my experience for the rest of the time with Pittsburgh was very, very good. It was truly a family. One of the biggest problems we had when you'd have a serious call where you had to call back up, like you had a gunfight going on or you had like a really serious foot chase. One of the biggest problems was trying to sort out who all had showed up at your scene when you write your report. Because, you know, Pittsburgh had a whole bunch of agencies going on that were kind of like on top of each other. And even though Pittsburgh police was the clearinghouse for like a robbery or a shooting or what have you, you know, we had Allegheny County police, Port Authority police, sheriff, school, and they could come back you up if necessary. And so it just looked like a carnival if you had like a really serious call. And so my experience was, though, that the people we worked with were unbelievable. Never, never had a bad experience in the field. Very lucky. Well, yeah, you had a bad experience in the field, weren't you? Didn't you tell us something about two weeks after you got released? You're out on your own. Didn't something happen? So I guess we'll tell a couple of these. For the first two weeks in Pittsburgh when you get out, they didn't have a field training officer program. What I tell people that even 15 years ago, 20 years ago, I tell people, yeah, Pittsburgh didn't have a field training officer program. You'd graduate after your six -month academy and they're like, here's your badge, kid, go out and be good. And that was the way they did it. Wow. So you had no FTO. You got a badge and a gun, go get them, Tiger. But what they did do for your first two weeks is, for familiarization, they would put you in all the different, they don't call them precincts in Pittsburgh, they're called zones, but they would put you in a different zone in Pittsburgh for like a three -day period. And that way, during the two weeks, you could experience every one of those zones, know where their stations are, if there's a court, whatever you need to know about. And you'd also do patrol work with another officer. Yeah, so my first week on the job, so many things happened in one and a half weeks that kind of like shows you the quantity over quality when it comes to, you know, street law enforcement in a big city. But I remember my very first call for service, I was in Zone 2, which is our downtown area. That's the big sprawling downtown and then the Hill District. And my first partner, he was an older guy, a little bit gruff and what have you. You could tell he's kind of like, he's not real happy being saddled up, you know, with the rookie, but that's what he had to do. And it was nine o 'clock in the morning and they get a call of an unknown disturbance from Point State Park. Point State Park is where, if you look at Pittsburgh proper, you have two rivers called Monongahela and the Allegheny River. They flow together and form the Ohio River. Well, right there where that point is, they have a really, really nice park right there. It's huge, absolutely huge. But nothing ever happens there usually because you can't escape. It'd be like Snake Pliskin trying to get out of New York or whatever, you can't get out of there. So it's unusual to have that call. So we get down there, we just drive right through the park in the patrol car, right down through the green lines, we get down to where the problem was, was a park bench. And there were several business people, a couple ladies, a couple guys, dressed very nice, and they're kind of standing back just like watching this poor thing unfold. It looked like it was a homeless guy. He had that Obi -Wan Kenobi homeless look to him with all the multiple layers of clothes where you can't really tell what's going on. And so he's laying on the, I don't know if it was a he, but we found out later on, the hard way. We found out the hard way. Yeah. So he's laying on the park bench and he's kind of like in the fetal position, but you can't see anything but like that Obi -Wan Kenobi rap going on. Nothing. Can't see hands, but he's in, it looks like to me as a young, brand new, fresh out of the box, fresh -faced kid, I'm thinking this guy is going into convulsions. And he's making the sound that's like, grrr, grrr, grrr, grrr. I mean, he's making these like animalistic sounds. He's in convulsions. And so I'm just kind of like, huh. And this cop, without skipping a beat that I'm with, old timer guy, he gets out his big old Micarta nightstick. He goes over in front of all these business people, takes it and just jams it right into the area that's probably going to be this guy's sternum or ribs or stomach or whatever. And just, he doesn't hit him with it. He just sticks it in there to give him a little, you know, hey, pride. He sticks it. Well, the guy never misses a beat. He stops. Well, he does. He stops for like maybe a second. Like he stops the convulsing and the gurgling sounds. And then he goes right back at it again into the convulsions. And I'm like, oh man, it's like our first day and this is going on. And these business people are like all shocked. They're like, oh my God, because of the nightstick. And the cop, my cop, he goes dirt and jams the guy again. He goes, hey, I said, get the F out of here right now. And the guy stops making the gurgling sounds and then sits up. And now you can see it's a dude. He's dirty. His face is really, really dirty. And robes his and whatever he had going on comes open. And there's no easy way to put this. I'm going to make the sound effect. If you heard that sound effect, that's what fell out of his robes. He had this thing that looked, it didn't look right. You know, when you see something that doesn't make sense to you, and just for like maybe a two second period, your head is trying to figure this, like, what am I looking at? I don't even know what I'm looking at, but you know what you're looking at. This guy had a monstrous monster dog. Yeah, he had a monstrous dog. And he had been performing fellatio on himself. And I'll be honest with you guys. I'll be honest with you guys. You know, I've told this story ever since from Pittsburgh on, like when you're sitting in a surveillance van, you're like, what's the weirdest thing you ever saw? Or like, what's the most thing that ever made you the most jealous? Anything like that. But yeah, so we're, I saw, but before we did our podcast today, yesterday, I just wanted to see, I want to make sure that I haven't misremembered this story. So I went online and I typed in, I typed it in. I hope my, yeah, don't look at my browser for this one. I typed in, can a man perform fellatio on himself? And you know what? I was totally justified in whatever, in telling the story the way it is, because according to Men's Health, and hey, you know, Men's Health says that it can't be wrong, 0 .2 % of the male population in America can actually do that to themselves. So you don't have to break a rib, I guess. You don't have to do anything weird. You're like a fetishist type thing. But anyway, so that guy sits up. I know it makes a lot of mental, you can't help, but just get the mental images. I'm sorry, but if you do that, are you automatically gay then? I mean, how does that work? I don't, you know what? I'm not here to judge. I'm not here to judge. All I can tell you is, I guess I, you know, if I had to, I'd have to say, I would probably be homeless too. You know, if I had that going on, I might be homeless, or at least never leaving my house. I don't know. But yeah, so that comes out and flops down and what have you. And the business people, and not just the men, I mean, not just the women, the men too, it was like, you know those 1950s movie screams? Yeah. Like the over -the -top, like from all the old horror movies, like, ah! That's what universally happened to that small little crowd of business people. They were nowhere to be seen in about 25 seconds. They were gone and whatever. And you know, the guy, the park bench guy, he reels it in, or I'm not sure how that spools it up. I'm not sure what he did. If he had a holster, I'm not sure what he did. But anyway, yeah, so he gets it back in there somehow and gets himself bundled back up, and he just goes trudging off. And he never did say one word that you could understand. It was all just like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, just total nonsensical gibberish. And he just kind of wandered off into the sunset. I guess that's what heroes do. Ah, jeez. Yeah, he wandered off into the sunset. And I'm thinking to myself, huh, I went through five years of college and 70 years of military, and here we are. It's great. It was absolutely great. I would not trade my time with the things we saw in this world.
TuneInPOC
"english park" Discussed on TuneInPOC
"Home, they say it's where the heart is. They also say it's wherever you make it. They don't say it's where you unload your stuff get tired halfway through unpacking, use some boxes as furniture, realize your elements in a box that doubles as a nightstand. Don't want to buy a new night stand and use a towel as an oven Mitt instead. But no matter where you call home, Geico makes it easy to bundle and save on renters and car insurance. Easier than grabbing a piping hot pan with a tall, it's a bit too thin and trying to quickly get it to the counter. Macy's one day sale is going on now, with great deals of the day to update your rotation. Like 40 to 50% off fall essentials and must have styles for him, and for her. 30 to 50% off the perfect shoes and bags to match, and get 40% off your new favorite designer fragrances. Plus, get your order even faster when you pick up curbside, in store, or get same day delivery. Now it may seem, savings are sale and clearance prices exclusions apply. Are you ready? Bonus days are back for pros at Lowe's. Power the possibilities with the dual 12 inch dual bevel miter saw. Buy it at Lowe's now and get a free compact work stand. Plus, MVP pros can earn bonus points and select dewalt tools and accessories. Become a Lowe's MVP today to earn points, and redeem for products to help level up your business. Offer ends ten 31 while supplies last selection varies by location. We all know someone who's all work and no chill, trust me, that used to be me. But then, I found galaxy Z fold four, which allows me to do more things at once. Ah, much better. Now I can take video calls from my phone and use it to take notes at the same time. Wait, are you in spa? Or check my shopping list? While ordering more scented candles and face masks on the foldable expansive screen. Don't take your to do list one line at a time, multitask so you can relax. Click the banner to get your galaxy Z fold four. Wireless headphones. That'll be $200. I'll use my Capital One quicksilver card. Now that's a hit. You used the Capital One quicksilver card, which makes you the hero of every purchase. With quicksilver, you earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase everywhere. I wanted running music that unlimited 1.5% cash back is pretty heroic. Good instincts. Every hero needs a theme song. Hey, Capital One quicksilver card. What's in your? Turns apply. See capital one dot com for details. More news, more views, more debate. It's the Mike asking breakfast, with the all electric Jaguar I-PACE. This is news talks had been used. It's 6 o'clock and 7° in Christchurch counter. I'm clear show what. Staggering numbers coming out of London as they prepare to bury our queen. 2000 dignitaries and guests from around the world will fill Westminster Abbey from tin tonight our time. It is thought to be the biggest collection of global leaders in years. Prime minister Jacinda Ardern will be in the Abbey tonight and as the leader of one of the 14 realm countries will also attend the smaller committal ceremony ceremony rather at Windsor. The group includes people from particular sports, business and cultural backgrounds who represent a diverse range of New Zealanders. She says it was important to also include people of mana from tier Maori. It was incredibly important to have the likes of kingie to Haiti at present. He has had a relationship as his household with the royal household if they're having their representation, I think, was key. New Zealanders attending Queen Elizabeth II's funeral say they feel honored to represent our country, a delegation will be attending today's funeral starting as a safe from tin our time, while attending Nathan and a London Maori club honorary president fay ista jessop says King Charles has been a very involved person. I've been struck over the years by how as Prince Charles. You kept popping up in all places and for all things. Also today, closer to home, firefighters have spent the night at the scene of a large fire at what's believed to be a scrap metal yard and Christ judge, fire and emergency services were called to the fire on kennaway road woolston at about ten 30 last night. It comes just four and a half weeks after a separate scrap metal yard went up in flames just a couple of kilometers away. Canterbury police raise horses are going towards up to 20 mental health and suicide call outs a day. Figures released under the official information act reveal crisis calls in the region have risen by 37% between 2018 and 2021. Officers attended more than 9000 mental health related call outs last year alone, superintendent lane Todd says they do get training and advice on how to deal with these situations. So I'm not trying to that level, but I see the air trained in deescalation and trying to make the people safe. Staffing shortages are hitting a small, south island, tourist town. Hannah springs is calling for a fresh supply of workers with ray town tourism and hospitality venues all needing staff. Braemar lodge and spa has been forced to close completely on Tuesdays and Wednesdays but because of acute staffing difficulties, had annoyed tourism marketing manager Shane Ed Cox says there's a lot of pressure on businesses hitting into summer. He says it's always been a challenge to bring in staff, but it's been exacerbated by the tight labor markets. And almost 7 decades on aired across your home is getting a new owner. Jane Pullman, June Pullman rather has pulled, put her 54 shares straight home up on the market, as she moves to be closer to her husband Charlie and a nearby retirement home. Now, 89 June has lived in the area since she was just 8 months old and built and moved into the house after marrying in 1954. Ray Wyatt town and lifestyle agents Fiona shiri says June has a lot of memories in the home. She's told me it's going to be hard to walk through those days one final time. So it's a very full on time for her at this stage. The properties did line sale, closes September 28th. That's news talks they'd be news, with Hitachi heat pumps. Sport with John Ryan funeral directors continuing a family tradition since 1881. And new stocks he'd be sport good morning and to rugby first, Canterbury had secured top spot in the evens NPC pool with two rounds remaining after a 44 39 win over county's Monaco. They'll face Auckland here in Christchurch on Friday nights before their final regular season game away to atago. And Canterbury made it two from two over counties at the weekend winning 26 18 in the right league premiership and Napoli, the Canterbury bulls are unbeaten through two weeks of the competition. The candidate women at national hockey champions, the cad speeds north harbor to one in the final in dunedin. The main one, the sud and fourth playoff three two over Auckland. The Canterbury pride of opens their women's national league campaign on a winning note they've beaten central three nil at English park. The fallout from Jamaica's disrupted New Zealand netball tour may be found long after the visitors of returned home passport issues mean a three test series has been reduced to two with Pullman arena in Auckland stepping in to house the second test on Thursday night. The potential to sanction Jamaica if the failing to meet the original shijo has been raised, Ned born New Zealand commercial boss David Cooper
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"english park" Discussed on TuneInPOC
"On arrival. A large amount of cars were involved in the fire, they stacked about three high, so it took some time to extinguish the two to the nature of how they stacked and where they placed. Norris says the fire has now been extinguished and a fire investigator is due on site today. It comes four and a half weeks after a separate scrap metal yard went up and flames just a couple of kilometers away. Canterbury Pelé started dealing with the highest rate of mental health callouts in any policing district of New Zealand. Figures released under the official information act reveal crisis calls in the region have risen by 37% between 2018 and 2021. Officers attended more than 9000 mental health related call outs last year alone, superintendent, slain Todd says these calls take a significant amount of policing time. We earned the range of 45 to 65% of the front lines called the services around that needle here through a temperature suicide. I am rich. Hopes a new government policy will make it harder to turn highly productive land in two subdivisions. The new rules aim to provide security for our domestic food supply and primary exports. It will remain counsels will only be able to raise on highly productive land for urban housing if less productive land is not available or if certain tests can be met. The plan will be transitioned into the two acts to replacing the resource management act by a protection altira director professor Amanda black says it's something that's been on the cards for decades. She says people have voiced their concerns about good land being gobbled up for development since the 90s, when subdivisions first became a thing. And queen sounds in for one of its most significant election 6 candidates have put their head in the ring to replace Queenstown likes outgoing mere Jim balls and next month's local body election, the new mayor will be tasked with leading the district through an economic recovery being set by critical lack of staff, lack of affordable housing, and Meryl hopeful John Mitchell says right now, leadership is key for Queenstown. I think it's the most important election that coins down likes has ever had. Where the pivotal time and we need real experience. That's news talks they've been used with Hitachi heat pumps. You'll affordable premium heat pumps. Sports with John Ryan funeral directors continuing a family tradition since 1881. Nissan exhibit sports, good morning, netball, New Zealand's are trying to remain philosophical about impending financial loss from the Jamaican tour, the three test series has been cut to two after passport issues disrupted the visitors arrival near born New Zealand commercial boss David Cooper has rationalized the situation. We will lose money on where we thought we were going to be for the series, but I think equally we are nipple organization and playing nipple games as what we're about. So we're happy to take that on the nose to a degree. The jamaicans arrive in two waves over the next two days with tests now on Wednesday and Thursday night. Beach volleyball Joe Alice aman and Shauna Polly will get a significant left in their world rankings after claiming gold at the Asian championships in Thailand, the peers should move from 44th in the world into the 20s after a series of wins against higher ranked pardons, including world numbers three Australia, zamin speaks continued 6 years after finding the right formula for tournaments play. We just have a lot of fun on court and try to enjoy every moment and you know we're always like, oh, I'm so grateful to be here today and just trying to frame it like that. Hide and patterns tasted success in his second ounce with his AV car at the Ashley forest rally sprint in north Canterbury. The 35 year old steered his all electric Hyundai around the course in a winning time of 55.64 seconds, aging retro is Sloan Cox by .3 of a second pattern will give the EV a demo run at rally New Zealand at the end of this month, but revert to the Hyundai I 24 the race itself. And arsenal of back on top of football's Premier League after a three zero victory at Brentford, the one ahead of Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur after 7 matches of peace. If it's in Bates West Ham one zero, meanwhile in football closer to home, the Canterbury pride of open to the women's national league campaign on a winning note. If beaten central three nil at English park. I'm Nick buley, then snooze talks he'd be news and sport to 24 away from 8 my costing his next. Weather with ryman healthcare, pioneering a new way of retirement living. Daddy with a few spots of rain to get your Monday underway, then find the afternoon some high cloud will hang around. Fresno east Elise will ease the afternoon as Christchurch makes its way to a top of 21° then down to 8 tonight. Tomorrow, Tuesday, cloudy, clearing, and becoming fine, later in the day northerlies will ease across the afternoon atop of 20°, then overnight down to 7. At the moment, we're just creeping up to 12°. You're up to date on news sports and weather on news talks it be. Do you still exhibit Christchurch? Time saver traffic. Good morning now with get a heavy run this morning on John's at road at southbound at Sawyer's answered as heavy on cranford street southbound to approaching Ennis, brougham strait, a spell between Barrington and ambigua heavy, looking pretty good there though on mission road approaching the altars, north get road eastbound between Gregor's road of Maine north road, flowing relatively well of with something O 800 jammed as our number. The timesaver traffic. Challenging opinion and the honest facts, the Mike hosking breakfast with radius care, caring is out calling. News talks at B uh, my surf an offender is damaged by crappy childhood they get much less jail time than one who had a great childhood do the reduced sentences fix the crappy childhood. Or do they just mean they get more time in the community to act out their damage? It's not a bad way of putting it actually and so it goes ridiculous sentencing when enabling excuses if you're a grown adult adult crime at all time, no excuses, Mike. I saw him are also had a rough upbringing and saw a lot of crap which turned him into a terrorist time, Mike love you show you often express wonderment at our crime rate, your interview with the KC finally provides the answer. Mike, shouldn't Mac people go to prison for longer and rehab and keep them off the street for longer because they pose a higher risk to re offending Mike. They should get the full sentence and if they reform reduce it then who will pay when they reoffend Mike, anyone dealing in drugs that destroy other people's lives should get maximum sentence. And so guys, I mean, just goes on and on and on. And so can I just point out that Osama was privileged? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But he saw a lot of weird stuff and that's how you get right right. So a gang scumbag ripe somebody then caused bad childhood, but the woman he raped also had a bad child and get zero recognition or help or discount or anything. Mike, based on the sentencing rule should have sentenced increase if you are from a good background. So I am a member of a church. Mike, so you can see forgot to say all about the criminal, says it's all about the criminal, the victim, not justice, and definitely not punishment, might cry me to him. So I guess, see, the point of this is, is this is the disconnect with the system. So what you and I might think are expect or want isn't being delivered, and the people within the system defend the system as being a good system, and there's a mess of kism in between. I think that's in a nutshell, isn't it? 22 minutes away from me. Every several guy have felt interesting old weekend of sport to cover up after 8 o'clock the morning. Now meantime, another crack at that great debate over productive land do you plan stuff in its or do you whack a house on top? The government announced new rules to enhance protections environment minister David Parker's withers very good morning. Morning to you too mate. Why is it taken us this long to get to this and does it actually solve the problem as far as you're concerned? Well, I hear someone else saying the deals in the detail of the sort of instrument and they're right. So we came to power in two 1017 saying that we were going to both enable more housing development because you need to house our people, but we've also got to restrict the urban sprawl that eats up too much of these land that we need to grow vegetables. So the reason that it's taken three years is because it's been a couple of exposure drafts and we've consulted with the
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"english park" Discussed on TuneInPOC
"Family history of colon cancer. Most insured patients pay $0. Ask your provider or an online prescriber if Cologuard is right for you. Or visit Cologuard dot com. I'm in. When the news breaks, here at here, first, it's the Mike hosking breakfast, with Bailey's real estate, this is news talks in the news. It's 6 30 and 10° in Christchurch counter. I'm clear show what. A monumental moment in history, Queen Elizabeth II state funeral will be held at 10 p.m. New Zealand time tonight. At 5 30 our time, the lying in state periods ends, and at 9 45, the coffin will be taken in procession on a gun carriage to Westminster Abbey. New Zealand here will reporter Ed and Pearce's in London where he says there's incredible anticipation that accompanied by a somber feeling. He says people have bursts into tears as they see the coffin in person, and it's been very surprising to hear from people how confronting its being. Meanwhile, naita who lead at Tiffany o'regan will be one of those representing the Al Maori and the queen's funeral tonight. He has huge respect for the light monarch. Your majesty was a vibrant and keen into the well read and well informed about our own evolution within New Zealand King Charles of the same ill. Also today, closer to home, another fire has broken out set another scrap metal yard in the Christchurch suburb of woolston, fire and emergency New Zealand were called to the blaze on kilauea road at about ten 30 last night, initially there were more than 20 firefighters at the site. It comes four and a half weeks after a Cypriot scrap metal yard when tump and flames just a couple of kilometers away. Plans to ensure the country has access to healthy food for years to come. The government announced a new rules to protect highly productive land from becoming housing estates. It'll require counsels to identify math and manage that land, and only be able to rezone it for subdivisions in limited circumstances. Bio protection altira direct professor Amanda black says, it's better late than never. As I say that diesel's on the detail and positive tend to be quite general and broad. And that's how you implement them truly legislation and how those, I guess, managed. Counsels have three years to work out we're highly productive landers and then two years to change plans to make it clear where you're not allowed to subdivide. A Merrill hopeful believes a lack of affordable accommodation is holding down Queenstown. The queen sound likes mayoralty is wide open with incumbent Jim boltz stepping down at October's local elections. One of the 6 candidates will end up with the tasks of dealing with the districts critical lack of staff and affordable housing. Former lawyer and startup Queenstown chief executive Olivia winsley says accommodation is a pressing issue. We have people hot building in town. So during a day shift and the other one's doing a night shift that revolting is just not good enough. And a collection of notable New Zealand artwork says sold for 13 and a half $1 million. The bank of New Zealand collection includes pieces from the likes of Conor McKeon, Rita Angus and Robin white. However, there have been some critics of the sale one as former prime minister Helen Clark, who says because the pieces were born when the bank was state owned, the collection shouldn't be sold to private collectors. Webb's director of art, Charles Nino, says he can see why people want to speak about it. It's a great thing when artworks foster debate. And it's been a good thing to hear. What we have to say about the collection and to also have to express their love for the collection and the view of its importance. That's news talks they've been used with Hitachi hate pumps your affordable premium heat pumps. Sport with John Ryan feudal directors continuing a family tradition since 1881. In New York City, sport good morning, New Zealand has secured medals at the world of venting championships for the first time in 12 years. Tim price on falca has taken bronze just outside Rome and clear show jumping round, left him with 26.2 penalties overall, three behind winner yasmin ingham of Britain. The team with the addition of Janelle price and tints and debits on Monica Spencer in 21st also earned bronze behind winners Germany and the United States Tim price is the performance was uplifting with an Olympics on the horizon. Almost like the beginning of what, you know, we are so close to a gold medal at tangible. We can taste it and you know this here is a market point for what we are capable of as a little nation in the sport and it's only two years now to Paris. To Rowling and four advances from 5 for the New Zealand cruise on the opening day of the world championships in the Czech Republic wins from imma twig in the single skulls and Jackie kittle in the lightweight version led directly into the semifinals. Second for Matt McDonald and Tom mcintosh in the pierce saw them do the same and seeking for single scholar Jordan parry took him into the quarters lightweight double scullers met Dunham and Chris stockley missed the quarterfinals. To local headlines in Kenya, Canterbury women are national hockey champions, the cat spate north harbor two one in the final in dunedin. The main one, the third and fourth playoff three two over Auckland. The Canterbury bowls are two from two to open the national rugby league premiership they've beaten counties Monaco, 26 18, it's not for a while. The candy pride is open to their women's national league football campaign on a winning note. They've beaten central three goals to nil at English park. And a bright story result for Christchurch's Alice zeeman alongside Shauna Polly at the Asian beach volleyball championships in Thailand, the duo won the competition beating the heavily favored Australian two sim in the final. I'm not guilty. That's news talks he'd been news and sport to 24 away from 7 might cost him. He's with you next. Weather with ryman healthcare, pioneering a new way of retirement living. Currently with a few spots of rain for your Monday, then finding up with some high cloud for the afternoon fresh nor east delays will ease at the south as crash church makes its way to a top of 21° then down to 8 tonight tomorrow Tuesday cloudy, clearing becoming fine in the afternoon, nor the latest will ease across the day 20° our maximum then overnight down to 7. As for later in the week, it does start to cool down from about Wednesday through to Friday temperatures dropping back to about 12°. At the moment, it's 10°. On news talks it'd be. You told zippy Christchurch, time saber traffic. Say hello, holidays with Christchurch casino, good morning. Now taking a quick look at right across the garden city, we've got no delays on bronze street spout at selwyn light flows Richardson road westbound
WHAS 840 AM
"english park" Discussed on WHAS 840 AM
"40 w H A s Your news now. Good morning. I'm Will Clark News radio 8 40. W. H A s will start in Frank for where In about 30 Minutes. Critical race theory will be discussed in an interim edge. Occasion committee. Among those testifying will be J. C. P S Superintendent Marty Polio will be monitoring that hearing will have coverage throughout the rest of the day. We're headed to Western Kentucky. Now we're no one's borough father's credit. It was saving his daughter's lives after the car they were in started to roll into the Ohio River. Early days as he stepped out for a second in English park just before the fireworks display when his youngest child shifted it into neutral up, sending it rolling towards the water. He was dragged and run over by the vehicle but went in the water and pulled the girls out before the car completely submerged. The American Red Cross is addressing the blood shortages hosting a blood drive at the KFC Yum Center that starts today and runs through Thursday. The stars, stripes and Pints Blood drive will be held 11 a.m. until 6:30 P.m.. Through Thursday. The Red Cross says it needs all blood types, especially typo in a tennis grade is in hot water over some Wimbledon commentary. CBS is Steve Catherine has that howls of protest after John McEnroe on a BBC broadcast suggested 18 year old British sensation Emerita Kanu retired from her Wimbledon fourth round match because she couldn't handle the moment. She appeared to be suffering from stomach cramps and breathing problems. Right account his opponent who advanced called the comment harsh one journalist tweeted. Is there anything more annoying than a man telling a woman she's not hurt? She's just emotional. Steve Cave in CBS News Your next news updates and 30 minutes I'm Will Clark News Radio A 40 W H A s Use radio 8 40 w H A s and I heart radio stations available everywhere on our free I heart radio app number one for music, radio and podcasts,.