Hey there friends, thanks for checking in today. We're looking at a Springfield Armory XDM elite This model has the 4.5 inch match grade barrel. I check these out at shot show And I have to say I was really looking forward to getting my hands on one of these It's a full-sized gun with a four and a half inch barrel that holds 20 rounds in the magazine 19 are marked off and I could load 19 fairly easily But that 20th one I had to use a speed loader, but it holds a full 20 And this is the elite model you may notice that the slide serration cuts are a little bit wider both front and rear serrations Not a great difference, but that's what the elite models offer also a bit of a hump back here and That is for the grip safety that doesn't bother me a bit It forces the shooter to have a nice high grip on the pistol undercut here in the trigger guard also aids with a High grip on the pistol, but a very nice shooting gun You may notice that the rear sight which is all metal mimics the Hellcat It's a U sight there and a fiber optic front sight both metal Well the housing on the fiber optic front sight is metal and then the rear sight is metal aligned Very nicely, and then of course it has right there the striker fire indicator that will go away when the slide is No longer charged The grip is very nice. It always has been on the XDM models This one's no different it does come with two additional back straps This one here was installed on the pistol fits my average size hands perfectly. I see no need to change it out I Really like that sight picture and I also like the flat face trigger Which is new with this elite model now this also mimics the Hellcat All right It kind of has a rounded look to it with the trigger bar safety in there But when that is pushed in it is flat you can see that with a rounded edge Right here at the bottom. I'm measuring the trigger just a hair over Five pounds nice crisp pull. There's the wall and it breaks right there. Here's your reset Right there for the follow-up shots One of the things that is unique with the elite models is right here It has a flared out magwell for those quick mag changes You know if you're a competitor you certainly appreciate that and if you don't like it it is removable. I actually like it Gives a nice You can feel that you can feel your whole hand on the bottom of it You know you get a high grip you can feel the bit of that and I just don't see a downside to it. It does have a pick rail here for the accessories And I already mentioned 4.5 inch match grade barrel The unloaded weight is 27 ounces loaded with 20 rounds 37 and a half ounces So it's not overly heavy, but it you know has some weight behind it and You know, that's not a bad thing for a full-size pistol It does have the loaded chamber indicator bar right there And you know that'll pop up when you have a round chambered But let's go ahead and take a look at the internals First thing you're going to do is lock the slide back and move this lever up. No need to pull the trigger. We can drop the Slide and there's your polymer frame Nice feel on that grip I really do appreciate that and over here we have a dual recoil spring a full-length all steel guide rod and Then here's your 4.5 inch match grade barrel Very nice setup. I Mentioned I took it to the range on two separate occasions. I just got the gun recently and I really shot it well kind of got the same feeling that I had when I Received the Hellcat, you know right out of the case. I shot it. Well felt very comfortable with it and That's what you want out of a handgun. I've run steel case through it I've run, you know basic brass 115 grain 9 millimeter and everything was very nice extremely accurate too Taking it shooting one-handed, you know back up a little bit. Whatever the case the xdm Elite model right here shot excellent for me now the MSRP on this is 559 and I think that's a great price considering everything that you get with it you need to talk about the wider serrations the grip safety the flared out mag well the flat trigger That's what you're getting with this elite model The xdm elite is an extra has gone with both the slide stop and magazine release on both sides making it left-handed friendly Also has some checkering in the front of the trigger guard for those who use their weak side hand finger On that for stability and did I mention it comes with two 20 round magazines? xdm's are known for higher capacity magazines and This one certainly has that with two 20 round magazines But what I appreciate the most is the shooting it took into the range I was very happy with it the smoothness the accuracy the overall Function of the gun was exactly what I expected when I saw it at shot show and this xdm elite did not disappoint If you like videos like this, please subscribe and share. I always appreciate thumbs up button Thanks for watching and you guys be safe


Don't let me try, don't let me try. I don't even know how to start this. So jump in, shall we? Hello to you guys, welcome back to my channel. Can you hear hi hello? I'm Lydia. Today I'm lying down to film a video. I did originally have a different video lined up to go up, but I wasn't happy with it. Literally an hour before the video was supposed to be up today and I'm filming because I wasn't happy the first one I had. Today! Quick shout out to my good friend Louise, who has just done a video sharing her diary. Please go check out her channel, please go watch the video, please go show her some love, show her some support, and go through something that I haven't done on this channel. I thought I could go through my journal and properly dive in deep. Today we're doing another diary reading. Now this diary, this journal, is from my hospital admission this year. This was the one that took place in April. Get on with this, let's get into it. To be completely honest, my life right now is completely chaotic. I don't even know where I'm at at the moment or what's going on. All I know is life at the moment is really complicated. I think this is as good as an intro as I can give. I'm not a writer. What's up? What happened? I'm here. I'm from the future.  Love what she does, and I felt like giving her a shower in today's video. And with that, I'm going to disappear again back into the past and edit this into the past. My camera's not recording on me. I rude of it. So, the 27th of April 2019, at Northwood Park, A&A. So with this trial, I was in the seclusion. This A&A department, Northwood Park, has a mental seclusion room in A&A. I was in there for nearly two full days, and it drove me mad. And this is from that. So this is the 27th of April this year. I've been setting this room for over 24 hours, so it really has been a long time. A seclusion room is not where I thought 2019 was going to take me. But I guess it's where we are at.  You would give her a better bed when you're in police custody than they have in a seclusion room. So, yeah, no, this bed wasn't a bed. What's really been bothering me today is not being able to have my medication, the correct time, or even the right medication. I don't really know what this hospital have found so hard about getting the right medication. I've genuinely never had this much of a problem before. But hey, here I am. So let's take it as it comes together. This is our journey because I know a lot of people are going through this too. I just don't realise I haven't explained anything at all. It comes to... Why am I actually here or anything? So maybe it's trying for some free text. A few weekends ago, I lost my friend. Well, lost my friend, close friend, to suicide. And to be real with you, it's completely not all it brought me. There's a lot of emotion in these pages, guys. This time, the staff seemed a bit worried about me. I was telling them they couldn't wait to be rid of me.  I didn't say my mind was in a pretty dark place. The support staff, I resupported. I tried calling the Brent home treatment team and got hung up on proving even more to them that they wasn't doing their job. It supported me. And other people, something I have been saying since I first went under the latter year. On active April, Shore Ward, Park Rail. Last night, I got transferred back to the same ward I was on only five years ago. Honestly, this morning hasn't been easy. I've been away since around 7am. I had a massive anxiety attack because I don't know how to face people when I know they are going to be looking at me because I have massive cuts across my neck. And nothing to hide them with. So right into the wall of silence, got to the reception and got my medication. They asked me why my medication was so messed up. The discharge letter hadn't gone through properly. This morning I've had lorazepam and then the vaccine which result in my mood a little bit. Let's see where the day takes us. I feel really broken at the moment. I think at the moment so much when I write is ridiculous and I don't really know why. What I do is clearly my life is being really chaotic and so many things have happened to me. At this point I just can't deal with anything at the moment. I was like how many times do I say at the moment? I'm going to start writing for a bit. Why did I write that? For the rest of the day I have very much laying in bed. That's all. I did a good job at keeping like daily logs of what I was doing in that. I'm actually really bad at doing that. I forget to do that. I haven't written a journal entry. About 2 weeks. 29th April. I woke up in an okay mood today. Little stressed out. I don't have access to the intensive look that all I need to do for UNA. That's all I wrote. What? I've got this. Oh, what? What? I hope this is the one problem I'm doing in this age. I'm explaining to Marta. It's just a blocking page. There's nothing after that. It literally goes from that to that. Why is there nothing else? Thanks, Mia. Bye, guys. Go, Mia.


Good morning, welcome back to another vlog. I am so excited, this is gonna be a good one. So if you're new here, I moved about six weeks ago to North Carolina. I live in a one bedroom apartment, just me and my dog, Benny. And this place has slowly been coming together over the last month or so. And at this point, every room is pretty much finished except for the living room. I haven't been using this room much because I haven't had a couch, but my couch is finally arriving today. And I feel like now that the couch is gonna be here, I can finally finish decorating this room as well. Obviously, I have an idea of what my taste is and what kind of vibe I was going for in this room, but I feel like the decorative pieces, I really wanted to wait until I actually saw the couch in this space. So anyway, this is what the living room looks like right now. It's pretty cold out today, so I brought my plants inside.  I just didn't want them to freeze last night, but I have this bookshelf over here from Ikea and this dresser also from Ikea. I had styled these the other day, so I'm gonna insert that footage here. So I have this bookshelf over here from Ikea and I kinda just threw some stuff on here in the meantime, but I really want to style it and make it look nicer. And then up here on the dresser where my TV is, this I think I'm gonna leave how it is. This bowl is where I put my keys and my dog's leash and stuff since it's right by the front door. So this is very convenient and functional to have here, so I'm gonna leave it there. And that plant, I like it on that side since I have a plant over here and there's a lot going on over there. I feel like it just kinda balances it a little bit. This side though, I definitely want to, let me close these blinds. That's better. I love all of these pieces and I think they look nice together, but I feel like, I don't know, like having them placed there, it's just very small and I feel like I need something a little bit taller to balance it out and it just feels like they were kind of randomly placed there, which they were. It doesn't feel as like intentional. So I wanna do something different here and I think I'm gonna use these pieces on here somewhere. So I don't know, I'm just gonna like move things around and play around and see what I can come up with. Here's what I came up with so far. I think I like how this looks, but I do wanna go to Target. Their home decor section is so good and especially the Target that we have here. Amazing, A plus home decor is so good. So I kinda wanna just take a look there and see if there's any like little knick-knacky things I think would look nice here, but that I kept the same and then this basket is from Target. I have a bunch of games and like movies and stuff in here. It just hides it in a nice way. So it's like still out, easy to grab, but it's disguised and it just looks really pretty. And then this vase is from at home. So is that candle. This candle I got at a local shop but you could find similar ones from Etsy. So cute, I love it. And then down here I decided to flip the books around because I didn't love the look of all of the different colors. It just made it look too cluttered. So did that. I have this candle from Home Goods which I'm so frickin' pissed. I don't know why they would put the sticker right on the front and not just underneath. Like there's one on top too. First of all, why does there need to be two stickers and why put them in visible places? This little tray I wanna say is from Urban Outfitters. I've had it for a really long time but I just keep my extra camera batteries and SD cards in there. Those are some more books. That vase is also from at home. This frame I just got from Home Goods. I still need to put a photo in it. And then that candle is from the same local shop where I got the other one. And then I have my wifi stuff down there. And then over here I put that lamp that's from Home Goods. This is my essential oil diffuser which I originally had over here but I think this is better. That way it's also like out of reach for my dog. So yeah, I still might move a couple little things around maybe add some new things but I think for now I'm pretty happy with this general layout and how everything is looking. And I definitely like having that lamp there because I feel like especially with the TV there's a lot of black happening over here. So I feel like the plant with the white pot and the little wood bowl and then the white and the wood on this side. Like I like that. I like the balance. I feel like it brings a little life to this. It breaks up some of the black a little bit. So yeah, I'm pretty happy with how this is looking. I do feel like something is missing over here. I feel like I need a taller piece to just go right there. Like maybe some kind of faux plant, some dried leaves. I don't know, something neutral but I just feel like, I don't know, something is missing there. So that's what this side of the room looks like. And then this side is where the couch is gonna go. And the couch I'm getting is a fabric cream colored couch. So I was trying to figure out what artwork I wanna put on this wall here because it's a pretty big wall and the front door to the apartment is here. So as soon as you walk in, that wall is really the first thing that you see. And I was thinking like some big, bold pieces of artwork would look really cool, especially because the rest of this room I feel like is just very neutral. So I was measuring it out the other night. I didn't like completely tape it out because I didn't wanna waste tape. I just wanted to get like a general idea of how high up they would be and how wide it would be. But I think I really like the look of that. I feel like that fills the wall up really nicely. So I was gonna just do three prints side by side. So I was trying to figure out what artwork I wanted to put up there and what would be the most cost effective thing to do because getting large art can be very expensive. And when I eventually move into a house that I own that I know I'm gonna live in for a long time and I really am like established in my design style and all that, then I will invest in more expensive art. But I feel like in here, this apartment, I wanted to do whatever was gonna be the cheapest but still look nice. I was looking on Etsy and there's a lot of sellers on there that have digital prints that you can download and then print them out yourself or have them printed at Walgreens or something like that. And it's really inexpensive. It's like $15 and under.  So there was a couple prints I was looking at. This one I think is the one that I'm gonna do. I really like this one. There was also this coastal one because I do live by the beach and then there was this other one.  There's nothing dark on this side of the room and I feel like it's pretty unbalanced. So I wanted to get artwork that has a lot of black in it so that it would balance out the room and tie in the dark from this side. So I wanted to do black frames with a lot of black in the prints. And that way too, if I do black and white, it won't ever clash with my decor. So if I want to add in some pops of color, I can just swap out my throw pillows, my throw blanket, the rug. When I decorate for the holidays and stuff, I don't have to worry about it like just being too much. I don't know, like I do love color, but I just feel like in this space, I don't know. I've been feeling the more like neutral, airy kind of vibes. I also ordered a rug from Wayfair. I have carpet, so I technically don't need a rug, but I added a rug in my bedroom on top of the carpet. And once I put this, it completed the room. Like it, by the way, don't mind how messy this is, but it just didn't really feel finished until I added that rug. And I feel like it just makes the room look more designed. So I definitely want a rug in here and I feel like that one from Wayfair.  I just like my goal with this room is like I said, I like the neutrals, I like it to feel open and airy, but I also don't want it to feel staged. Like I want it to feel like a cozy home that somebody actually lives in. And then I also purchased another print that I wanna put in the bedroom because I have these two pieces from Target that are pretty old. I got these like two apartments ago, but I don't love them in this room and I don't love them in that spot. I feel like they just look really small there. Those frames that are above the bed currently, I wanna put in the bathroom right here on this wall. So I feel like this wall is very blank and it kinda needs something there. Especially since my towels are white, it's just all, it's a lot of white space. This is perfect timing. The rug just got here. All right, let's open this up. I really, really hope that I like it because I don't wanna have to deal with like sending it back and all that. I like it. Yeah, I think that's gonna work. Because like I said, it adds some color and it makes the room cozy, but the colors are muted so it's not like too over the top. But I definitely, I need to wait for the couch to come so I can really get the full picture and then decide what I wanna put on the walls. I really was not expecting that to come today because I think the expected delivery date was like sometime between Saturday and Monday. So that was a nice surprise. We officially have a couch and suddenly this room feels so much smaller than it did. This lighting really isn't doing it justice so I will show you guys tomorrow in natural lighting but the material of it literally just feels like a blanket. The whole thing, it's like, it's so deep and just huge and cozy and I had to get a light color because I have a white dog that sheds a lot. And I was considering getting a leather or like faux leather couch, but this was just so comfy. I couldn't pass it up and I got it for a really good deal. Anyway, these are the pillows that came with it. I don't hate them actually. They don't really go with the rest of the room. Plus I have some cream ones over there. So I'm gonna swap the pillows out. This is how it looks with the rug and the coffee table. Now the only problem is it might be able to fit there actually, I have this chair that I love so much but I don't know. I'm gonna try to see if it'll fit there.  It maybe looks a little bit cluttered because it's kind of a tight fit, but it works because that side of the door doesn't open, just this side does. So it wouldn't be blocking the door to the balcony at all. Okay, or do we like the chair over here better? It's not really blocking anything on here other than like my wifi, which I'm fine with that being kind of covered. But does that look like it's just kind of randomly placed there? Should I turn it a little bit? Cause then it's like facing the couch and it kind of just makes a little bit more sense like if people were all sitting, we'd all be facing each other talking. Comment down below and let me know. Should I put the chair back over there or should I leave it on this side? And if I should put it on this side, should I just have it straight flat against the wall or should I have it angled out a little bit more like this? You guys, Nespresso makes a carafe size pod. Carafe pour over style. It makes two to three cups of coffee. So I made some of that this morning, but I wanted to show you the couch in the daylight now on the camera. It's almost kind of coming off like a gray color, but it's a cream and then it just has like a little bit of a topy color running through it. So depending on how you look at it, it can look more cream, more tan, a little bit gray. I don't know how I feel about the rug. I feel like it just looks very blue and pink to me, which is not really my vibe, but I don't know. And I do like the chair over there. I actually was playing around last night after I stopped vlogging and I moved that basket over here. I should have got a clip of it, but I put the basket over here and then I moved the bookshelf over closer to the dresser and then I put the chair in the corner closer to the wall. And I did not like how that looked at all. I like this way, way better. It just looked off. Like I feel like that needs to be in the corner because having it just like randomly in the middle of the wall, it just didn't look right. I mean, I'm curious to see what you guys think, but I'm like 99.9% positive. This is my favorite arrangement. Okay, so I'm being super annoying, but I've just been sitting here staring at this rug like a freak and I really, it's just, it's not, it just looks very pink and blue to me. I was looking on Amazon and what's so cool is they have this see it in your room feature so you literally can like place the rug. Isn't this crazy? So I'm looking at this other one that has some warmer colors and I think that I like the way that looks better and they have free returns. So I ordered this one. I'm gonna wait for this one to arrive. Make sure that I actually do like it. Even when you look at a rug in person at a store, you just don't know how it's gonna actually look in your space, in the lighting, in the room you're putting it in and also next to the furniture that you have. Come on, you gotta stay here. Good boy. You stay here and I'll be back very soon, okay?  I really, really desperately need groceries and a few like household things and I'm gonna see about getting the frame that I want for the bedroom above my bed. The frames in the living room, I think I'm gonna wait on because what I'm learning is I am always in such a rush to get a space decorated and finished and I try to do like multiple things at once and then I always end up feeling like it's not right or there's something that just doesn't work. So I'm trying to like hit the brakes, take it slow. I'm gonna wait for that second rug to come in, decide which one I wanna keep, which I like better and then from there, I'm going to decide what I'm gonna do for the artwork on that wall. But I definitely do wanna get the frame for the bedroom and I'm gonna wait to get the artwork printed for it because I wanna make sure that they have the frame that I actually want in stock and I wanna be able to like see it in person first. Three trips up and down all those stairs later. So things that I needed that aren't super exciting, more laundry detergent, had a coupon for that so that was exciting, fabric softener. And then I saw this picture frame, which I love. I just love natural wood and this I am thinking about putting on the bookshelf. You'll see, I wanna swap something out and then I saw these, what are these called? Oh, it just says grass stem. But how beautiful and like whimsical. So I was thinking this I could put on the dresser behind that lamp. And then I got another Real Techniques makeup sponge because somebody should mine up yesterday. And then I got this basket to put in my closet because I have a few things that are just laying around that I don't have like storage to put them in. I also got this storage bin and then this was the frame that I got. Again, the natural wood finish, beautiful. I like this way better than the two smaller frames. So imagine that right here. I think that's the perfect size, the color of the frame. I mean, it's not the exact same color wood but very similar to my dresser. But I wanted to make sure that I was gonna like it up there and it was gonna look right size-wise and everything before I get the print because I can always return the frame but once I pay for the print, I can't return that. So here's the stuff I was talking about that needs to be put away in the closet. I just have a couple winter accessories and some extra purses. I'm thinking of putting the purses in this bin and then the winter stuff in this. And then I also have some hats. Oh, now that I'm looking at it, I'm like, where am I gonna put that bin though? Because the plastic bin I was gonna put under here but I don't know where that's gonna fit. Actually, okay, I think I know what I'm gonna do. I have my air mattress up there and an extra comforter and sheet there. I'm gonna put these in the storage closet outside off of my balcony and then that way this will free up some space there and then I can put that bin there where the blanket is. Perfect fit. I got hats, scarves, stuff like that in here. Fits perfectly. There was actually still room for the air mattress so that will stay there. Tucked the basket back there in that corner since that's not really stuff that I grabbed for on a regular basis, obviously, and it's more seasonal. And then that bin fit perfectly under there. I mean, it's not like the most aesthetic, perfectly organized looking closet, you know, but it works for now. All I care about is that my stuff is put away and at least it's organized. Now for the decorating pieces. I was going to buy a vase in Target and then I remembered that I had an extra one of these which is actually perfect because it has like the narrow spout up top so I don't have to worry about these like tipping over. I do have to cut them down a little bit. How freaking cute and perfect. I got this in a set from Amazon and I keep my dish soap in here and this one I wasn't using so perfect. Now I don't have to buy anything extra. That looks so nice. Beautiful. Now I'm thinking of swapping out those fake candles up there with this frame and then I'm thinking of putting the fake candles up there on top of the cabinets where I have that blank space right there. I don't know how I'm going to like that if they're going to be tall enough but we're going to play around and see how it looks. Yeah, I think I like that better than the candles. I still obviously have to figure out what photo I want to put in there so I'm going to see how these look up there. I feel like something taller would probably look better but I mean that works for now. At least it just fills in that gap so it doesn't look as bare. They did have like a taller vase at Target that I thought would be cute up there but it was like $30. I don't feel like it's necessary. If I'm ever at a thrift store or something and I come across something that's like really cheap that I think would work up there then I'll probably get it but for now that works. I'm not going to like spend a lot of time fussing over it and making that like a main priority. I'm just glad that there's something up there and it fills it a little bit. Oh, but I really love this a lot. It's so cute and I love that bottle for it as a vase. So cute. Hello, it's a few days later and the rug that I ordered from Amazon just arrived. So let's see how this one looks and if I like this any better than the rug I currently have. So here's what the second rug looks like compared to that one. I do like this rug but I just, I don't know. I just don't like how it looks next to the color of the couch. Like I said earlier, it just looks very pink and blue. I like more earthy tones, I guess. Yeah, I definitely like this one better. On camera it just looks very like cream and brown but in real life, can you see that? There's like a little bit of gold kind of running through there. Looking at it through the viewfinder it does not look the same as it does in person. In person I like the way it looks a lot better but I like the way the couch color looks next to this better than next to this. I don't know if it's gonna translate the same way on camera. So that's how the rug looks. I got the frames for the artwork above the couch. So I'm just waiting for the prints to arrive and then I got a print for this frame up here that I downloaded from Etsy and then I printed out this photo of me and Benny when he was a puppy. This is one of my favorite pictures. He just looks so funny in it. So the prints for this wall, I ended up going with the banana leaves that I found on Etsy. I was going to get them printed out at Walgreens.  So she was able to do it for me for free which is amazing which is obviously all the way in Pennsylvania. So she sent those in the mail a couple days ago and then she also printed out that pompous grass photo that's gonna go in the bedroom. So I'm just waiting for those to arrive and then I'm just gonna put them in the frames, hang them up then everything will be done. Finally got the prints. I'm really hoping that it came out good and that I like how it looks because if you can tell by now, I'm kind of indecisive. So I think I mentioned this but my mom printed these out for me. I got the prints off of Etsy and then I emailed them to her. She was able to print them out for me at her job so that I didn't have to actually pay to get them printed. Just paid for the shipping which was a lot cheaper. I think she said it was like around $10 or a little bit under that to ship all of these prints whereas if I had got them printed at Walgreens it would have been around $15 per print. So because I had four of them, obviously it was just way cheaper to have my mom do them. I just had to wait a little bit longer. Ooh, it looks so good. My mom made me a little nervous because she was like, oh, it looks kind of dark but this is exactly how it looked on my phone. So it's perfect. Oh my God, I'm so excited. And then here is the pompous grass one. I feel like it just fills up that wall perfectly without being too much. And honestly, I didn't do the best job of measuring so they're probably not like 100% perfectly straight or spaced out but from the naked eye just looking at it in person, it looks fine. I was a little worried because I was like, I don't know if these frames like look too cheap but now that the prints are in there I think it actually looks like really expensive. Big. They fit perfectly up there. It's funny how above the bed they looked so small and now in this wall they look so much bigger but I love how this looks. They fit perfectly on that wall and it just adds a little something now so that it's not so white and bland in here. And apparently I didn't hit record when I was putting this up but here's how that print looks on that wall but I do like how this looks better than the two frames and I was thinking like, yeah, I could do kind of what I did in the living room and do two or three really big vertical frames but then I feel like it would just look too similar to the living room and honestly when I'm looking at it through the viewfinder on my camera, it looks way smaller than when I'm looking at it in real life. Like in person, it does not look too small at all. It actually looks perfect but when I look at it on the camera, I'm like, oh, that looks really small but I love the colors of it. It works so well with the rest of the colors in this room. Very excited. So here's the aftermath of everything. So I definitely need to clean all of this up. I'm going to do a full official furnished apartment tour now that everything is done. I'm gonna show you guys all of the details in here, tell you everything's from, link as many things as possible in that video. So stay tuned. I'm so excited that it's finally done today. It's February 3rd. So in a couple of days, it's going to be officially two months since I have been living in this apartment, which is crazy. In some ways, it feels like I just got here.  It is completely decorated, completely furnished and I'm so excited to film my apartment tour video. So stay tuned for that. That should be one of my next few videos. Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope that you enjoyed this and maybe got some ideas for decorating your own space. If you liked it, please give it a thumbs up and I will see you in my next video. Bye.


Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for North Central Minnesota, produced by Lakeland PBS, with host Ray Gildow. Production funding for Lakeland Currents is made possible by Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. For information available at BemidjiAirport.org. Closed captioning for Lakeland Currents is sponsored by Niswa Tax Service, tax preparation for businesses and individuals online at NiswaTax.com. Good evening everyone and welcome to Lakeland Currents. The most important resource in the world today is not oil. It's fresh water and it's the thing that we probably as Americans and citizens of the world need to really be concerned about how can we preserve the fresh water that we have left because we know a lot of our water is impaired and a lot of it cannot be restored to what it once was. So tonight we're going to be talking about an organization that focuses on land conservation and water preservation sort of, fresh water preservation. And the organization is called the Northern Waters Land Trust. It used to be the Leech Lake Area Watershed Foundation, brand new name and full disclosure, I am a member of this board. So I want everybody to know that. These are some fellow members of my board.  Mary, what's your background? What are you doing here? Oh what am I doing here? My husband and I moved up to our lake, Ten Mile Lake in Hackensack about eight years ago and so we've been spending 24-7, the winters, the springs, the fall, the summer. No winter breaks? No winter breaks. Nope, we actually love winter. It's a wonderful time to trump on our lake and so we feel really blessed to be up here having what we call our lake chapter. And before that we were in St. Paul, Minnesota and I worked for several organizations that do good work for young people, youth development and was dean of students at McAllister College for many years and in fact worked at McAllister for 21 years, right? And you are involved in a number of issues with water, not just this particular organization. We are. So you have a real passion for what you're doing. We have a passion for water up here. It's a need to preserve as you mentioned. And John how about you? I know you have an amazing background and I've known you probably for 35, 40 years when I first started working with you but tell our viewing audience what your background is and what you do now. Well, I'm a true local native of the Leech Lake Walker area. I grew up there. I worked for 33 years for Cass County in their Environmental Services Department and at the last seven years I was the director of the department. When I retired in 2009 I went to work for this organization as the land conservation specialist and I worked on, well actually when I was still with the county I did the first lake shore conservation easement in the state and we'll get into talking about what that is here in a few minutes. So I've worked with this organization on easements, on acquisitions which we've either held or conveyed to another organization like the state of Minnesota. But I've always been interested in conservation. It kind of has run in my family. My father was a really ardent conservationist. So it's just something that's I guess come naturally to me all my life. We all attended a short workshop presented by Kent Montgomery from the Central Lakes College a while back and he presented a map showing where we have impaired waters and where the water quality is still very good. And it seems to me that if you cut a line from Fargo down 94, I know it's not straight east and west, it diagonals down to the southeastern part of the state, but most of those waters south of 94 are now impaired, which is really sad. It really is sad. And most of the waters north of 94 are still healthy waters. So organizations like this are doing what we can to preserve that water while we have the opportunity to do that. Mary, this used to be the Leech Lake Area Watershed Foundation. Why the name change? Well, it's a good question because name changing isn't easy. We're doing rebranding, but we're doing it because water became such an important issue. We are in the last 40% of Minnesota's water that is by the DNR standards called pristine or good water. We know that once water is impaired, it's very hard to get back. So we started looking at our strategic planning process at, okay, how do we connect the land preservation that we do with water? Well, it was a no-brainer because if you protect land, you're preserving water. So we started thinking in a new way about emphasizing water, and then we came to our new name, which is the Northern Waters Land Trust. We know that the four counties, Ray, that we serve, Crow Wing, Cass, Aitken and Hubbard are some of the most and best fishing, hunting, recreational counties in Northern Minnesota. In fact, I think our tourism numbers and the kind of tax revenue and job base that we have is only challenged by the metro area for tourism dollars and for what we bring in both in property taxes and service income. So we're in a place, the Northern Waters Land Trust, in a place where it's very important to protect our four-county service area. And we actually are allowing ourselves to go beyond the four counties, aren't we? We are. We are. Because the Mississippi watershed runs through much of this, the leech-aculary watershed. Well, many, many lakes that moved to the south. Exactly, and our name was Leech Lake Area Watershed, and people thought we protected Leech Lake or the Leech Lake watershed, one or the other. There are four watersheds in the counties that we serve, Ray. Right. So we're going to be involved with all of those. All of those watersheds. John, in addition to the name change, we have moved towards something called accreditation. Could you give us a brief overview of what that means and why it's important? Accreditation for a land trust is the same as a doctor's diploma on the wall in his office. You wouldn't go to a doctor that didn't have credentials and you shouldn't deal with a land trust that isn't accredited. There's a national organization called the National Land Trust Alliance. And this is the group, and they're affiliated land trust accreditation commission that certifies that land trusts, and there are over a thousand members, member land trusts in this organization that certifies that they are acting ethically, and they're doing their business according to the highest national standards which this organization maintains. So there's a set of 12 standards and practices and many, many substandards below that that regulate every part of a land trust operation, from governance to finances to actually the land conservation measures and the way they do work with landowners and other conservation partners. In fact, we think it's important for our viewers to understand what land trusts are. We're going to show you a short little clip of the National Land Trust Alliance, and we will be a part of that and we'll come back after that clip and talk a little bit more about that. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Andrew Bowman, President of the Land Trust Alliance. While you may have heard of the Alliance and you are aware that your land trust is a member, you may not know much about the Alliance. Today I'd like to provide a quick overview of who we are and what we do. The Alliance exists to strengthen land trusts and advance land conservation across the nation. Most of the country's land trusts are members of the Alliance with our most recent member count just shy of 1,000. Our members range from small all-volunteer land trusts to large land trusts with regional and even national service territories. We aim to serve all types of land trusts and to be a voice of the national land trust community. We support land trusts in three primary ways. First, we build the capacity of land trusts to be exceptional non-profit organizations. In coordination with the land trust community, we develop and maintain land trust standards and practices, the technical and ethical guidelines for the operation of a land trust. We offer a variety of education and training programs to help land trusts adhere to those standards. We also offer an accreditation program through the Land Trust Accreditation Commission to independently verify land trust compliance with the standards. We also offer myriad other services that develop land trust staff and boards and otherwise invest in the organizational health of land trusts. The second way we support land trusts is we ensure that they have the resources they need to accomplish their conservation work. We diligently protect federal tax incentives for conservation easement donations by working to end abusive tax shelters and also by making IRS administration of those incentives easier for land trusts and conservation donors. Federal spending on conservation is also a top priority and we advocate on Capitol Hill to ensure a strong farm bill and continued appropriations through the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Finally, we help land trusts understand the potential of state and local ballot measures to raise significant funds for land conservation and to get those measures across the finish line. The third and final way we support land trusts is by protecting them from risk and building their resilience. The best example of our work here is Terraferma, an insurance program created solely for the benefit of land trust members of the Alliance. Terraferma makes sure that land trusts have the resources they need to aggressively defend their conserved lands. We also have an entire department focused on conservation defense which, among other things, monitors court cases and policy making in all jurisdictions to ensure that the interests of the land trust community are heard and considered. And we are focused on emerging threats to land trusts such as climate change. Our Land and Climate Program trains land trusts how to plan with climate change in mind and also how to communicate about the issue itself. Of course, in addition to all these services, the Alliance is perhaps best known for Rally, the National Land Conservation Conference which is held each fall. If you haven't yet attended a rally, I strongly encourage you to do so. There's no better way to understand the strength of our unified land trust community and how the Alliance serves as the voice of that community. Before I sign off, I want to thank you for your commitment to conservation, the extraordinary work you do at the local level and for your partnership with the Alliance. Our organizations complement each other and advance our shared passion for private land conservation in America. We are truly stronger together. Thanks again for joining me today. So there's a good clip showing what the National Alliance is and we are part of that now at the state level. John, let's talk a little bit about what it means that we can hold property. Well, being nationally accredited gives people, gives land owners, gives cooperating agencies and organizations the assurance that we are operating under their standards and that people can feel good about the fact that they can donate land to us. They can interact with us when we have grant programs that allow the purchase of easements or actually the acquisition of property. We do hold both ourselves so that we have an easement that we hold currently and several properties. So it depends on a family's wishes or an organization's wishes, whoever we're dealing with. We're doing things the way that they're supposed to be done. I guess that's the best thing I can say. I know these terms are confusing to people probably if they've never been involved with this sort of thing, but to put it in a nutshell, if a person owns 40 acres on a lake and they want to put this into a conservation easement, that doesn't mean that they can't use it anymore or future family generations can't. Tell us what that means. You're right, Ray. The basic premise of a conservation easement is that all easements preclude development rights. In other words, they prevent the property from being subdivided and certain other activities can't take place in the lot, can't be used for industrial purposes, it can't be used for commercial purposes, things like that. But the family retains a number of rights. In other words, they can continue to use it for recreation, they might have hiking trails on it, they might have the lake access as long as they don't disturb the rest of the Sherlin property. So it isn't like they can't use the property, they just can't develop it. You can also, they can say, okay, well, we might, sometime in the future, we might want to build a cabin on this property. They can reserve those rights when the conservation easement is actually developed and then exercise those rights sometime in the future. Some of the things that are going to be visual as we're talking are some of the projects that we are involved with. Could you just talk about a few of the projects that we've done, for example, the musky spawning preservation on Leech Lake, Five Mile Point? Yeah, there's a couple of projects and both of those, that one and another one I'm thinking of, have been very similar. The one on Five Mile Point, a family decided that they'd like to see a piece of property preserved. And it's, again, the relationship between land and water. This, had this property been developed, it would have impacted a piece of critical musky spawning habitat on Leech. And we have a very similar project down between Emily and Outing on Roosevelt Lake, where 103 acres of property was conveyed through us to the state of Minnesota. In both of those cases, as I said, there would have been dire consequences for that spawning habitat because of upland runoff, because of sediment and nutrients delivered to the lake that would have severely impacted that musky spawning habitat. And so we were able, through negotiations with the families and the state of Minnesota in both of those cases, to secure that property so that it wasn't further developed. And it made a huge impact.  Once, that's why we're very careful when these are initially done, because it's forever when it's done. The only exceptions would be if an organization with, or an agency with the right of eminent domain, say, came in and they were going to build a road through it, or they were going to put in a power line or something, that can alter a conservation easement. If a natural disaster somehow destroyed an easement, destroyed all the things we were trying to preserve, sometimes they can be extinguished. But by and large, they are permanent as permanent. And we know for the most part that water quality is compromised when we have development on the water. And I believe the statistics on Gall Lake here in Brainerd are, there are about 27 homes or cabins every running mile of Lake Shore. And that has a tremendous impact. People mow their lawns right to the edge of the water. They're getting nutrients and chemicals in theirs. So what we're trying to do as a board and as an organization is to get to those areas before they get that developed? Well, and development done properly in the proper location is, it's inevitable. It's going to happen as long as people, we say people want to love the lake's death. And it's just that when we look and when we prioritize critical habitats, places like the musky spawning habitat you mentioned, or places that are really critical to the health of a lake and to a lake system, those are the places that we want to make sure are preserved. Some other areas are better suited for development. Obviously, all development has some impact on the lake. But setbacks and proper vegetation can make a difference. Exactly. What is the minimum amount of property that people need to have to get involved with this organization? Most organizations now, there are exceptions, but as a general rule, we're looking for properties that are about 10 acres in size, Ray. Or larger. That's the minimum size that it's really efficient to manage a conservation easement. And we've had some pretty good sized chunks, 100 and some acres, haven't we, in the past? Yes, we have. We've had parcels that are well over 100 acres. And there's nothing more satisfying than looking at that map and realizing that's going to stay that way for the most part forever. I mean, we've had small lakes where we've preserved almost 300 acres and three miles of shoreline. And now the people that live on the other side of that lake are always going to have the satisfaction of knowing that nothing's ever going to be developed across the lake from them. That's pretty cool. Now, we also have been involved with a project looking at tulips. Could you just talk a little bit about that? One of the main emphases of the grant programs that we're working with now, Ray, deals with what's called tuliby refuge lakes. And those are the deep water cold lakes that are required to maintain populations of tuliby or Cisco. And those are one of the main sources of food for the game fish that you love to catch. I'm talking muskies, walleyes, northern pikes. So, and they are a sentinel for environmental quality. And a DNR study that was done tells us that if 75% of a watershed is maintained and that development is done properly, that vegetation is maintained along the lake, and the nutrients are limited from entering that lake, that that ecosystem will be maintained and it's a buffer against climate change so that those lakes will be preserved. And that's a real sentinel to tell us that this is going to work. Mary has a vice chair of the organization. Now we have a new name, a new logo, getting that out to people, a new strategic plan. What's the general direction the organization is trying to do? You know, one of the things that we are wishing we could do more of is the education that you mentioned about lakeshore, keeping your lakeshore property buffered around the lake, vegetation, septic tanks are always an issue, Ray. What should I put on my lawn to make it green? Those kinds of things, we need to do more education and that's one of the things the strategic plan is is trying to pull up and emphasize for us so that we can begin working even with schools with more volunteers. We've never been able to really manage a volunteer program. Our strategic plan has us looking out a few years, hoping that we can get to have a team of volunteers that can do education, that can help people think about property transportation, those kinds of things, and it's a tiny organization. We're about to get a new executive director, we're in the middle of a search, but we are a very small organization looking to do big things. And we have a board very dedicated with a lot of expertise on that board. We do. Where are the offices located? The offices are now in Walker, right across from Reed's family outfitters, in what looks like a little cabin. And again, part of our goal is to maybe spiff up that little cabin a bit so that it will be more of a welcome center for people coming up to our area. We used to be in Hackensack and this should give us, the move to Walker should give us more foot traffic and more visibility for the public. John, I'm a guy that has 120 acres along Ponto Lake. What do I do when I want to put that in a conservation easement? What's the first thing I need to do to do that? Get in touch with us, really, or really we have a number of conservation partners that are involved in various programs. And we can, through a network of technical assistance, help you figure out what's the best fit for what it is you want to do. And one of the things we do regularly is go out and meet with landowners.  You tell me, we've got family that want to continue to use it, that we're interested in preserving the habitat along the shoreline. We've got some woodland, we don't really know what to do with that. I can direct you to people that can help you with a forest management plan. I can help you get together with the county. Maybe you need some erosion control done along the shoreline. Just pull all those resources together so that you get the best information that you can possibly have to make a decision. You might also tell me, well, we don't really have any kids that are interested, but we want to see this property preserved. Maybe the best thing is to arrange an acquisition by a conservation organization or say state DNR to make sure that the property is preserved. So it's just a question, a really a give and take with the family to figure out what works best. Do you have any idea how many acres have been impacted by the organization since you've been with it? We're, boy, we're running into the thousands of acres. And the last time I checked, we had preserved over 32 miles of shoreline. Wow. Isn't that incredible? That's that it really is incredible for a tiny organization. And for people who don't understand it, so much of that could be sunfish habitat, bass habitat.  And so it's so important to have that and to preserve it, not to mention, of course, that we are the source water for the for the whole metro area that that the preservation of this clean water is what gives people further downstream something to something to drink. I think the DNR has also said that we have 18 different wildlife species that are important and critical to maintain and keep. So that's another part of it. And some of the land that you've had and through conservation and easements have actually been turned over to like the Federal Forest Service, has it not? We've worked with other partners. Easements and acquisitions. We go out and look for people, where's the best fit? Who should manage this property long term? We also have worked very, very closely with what's called the Minnesota Land Trust. Another land trust, in fact, is the only other accredited land trust in the state that holds somewhere close to 600 easements currently. So we have worked with them in the past with these state grant programs like the LaSarde Sands Outdoor Heritage Council using legacy funds. And they've held a lot of easements that we've helped negotiate. So again, it's just finding where's the best fit. And when do you expect to have a new executive director on board? This will probably be airing sometime, I'm guessing, in December or January. I would guess we'll be in pretty good shape by then. We're hoping to have someone before Thanksgiving if we can make it work. And how does our organization get most of its money? How do we operate? An awful lot of our money is actually grant funded, which means we're doing projects for those dollars. And then we raise money however we can. We've got memberships, we've done raffles, we've done all kinds of things to raise money. But the majority of the money really does come from our conservation work and big grants that we're doing like the Tulabee Project and others. Well, thank you for jumping on board with us. It's, I think, a program that does really good work and it's going to continue to grow and get bigger and better. It's getting exciting. And if you're interested in becoming involved with conservation land easements, look us up on our new website, Northern Waters Land Trust, and you can probably still find us under the Leech Lake Area Watershed Foundation. I'm Ray Gildow. Thanks for watching. We'll see you the next time.


Branding yourself as a mysterious artist today is not the same way you would do it back in the day. You have to think completely differently in your approach and is mysterious branding even worth it. That's what we're going to talk about today. Let's get it. What's up I'm Brand Man Sean and my agency has helped over 100 artists grow their fan base and get millions of streams. That's not to sell you anything but to let you know who you're getting the information from. Let's get into this video. Branding yourself as a mysterious artist today is not the same as it was yesterday and if you don't understand these few key things that we're going to go over in this video and try to make yourself a mysterious brand you will fail. So to start the first thing you have to understand is the spectrum of mystery right. You have mystery you have known and you have saturated and there are some segments in between this right you have known you got a well-known but then you have saturated and actually you have something above that which is oversaturated right and everybody is so afraid of oversaturating problem is most people worry about that before they even are even known right why are you worried about being oversaturated when you people don't even know who you are yet which brings me to the dangerous part of worrying too much about mystery when you are in fact unknown all right when you're unknown that's actually a different path very similar effects and impacts it feel but a lot of people don't quite understand the difference right yes you know oh people know me or not but you don't know where you are on your path because a lot of times people think they're playing with some mystery but really they're impacting them being known in the first place and mystery looks like this right they have to at least get up to known right and then it could come back down to mystery right you could go up to saturation and come down to mystery but you have to at least hit known first why is that if I don't know you how can I find you mysterious mystery is a seduction dance of wanting more and not getting more I have to want to know your name before I find you mysterious right I have to have a curiosity about where you're from right what was the idea behind this song what was the concept behind the music video I have to be curious about that and not get that information until I find before I can find you mysterious if I don't watch the music video then I don't care about the behind the scenes I don't want to know more about the artist right mysterious is when people want to know more and they're not getting that right and how can they have that without this right here knowing being aware so first you gotta escape unknown right now with that being said there's a massive risk in today's marketplace when it comes to this social media era in trying to remain completely mysterious traditional mystery does not work anymore why because people want to know about you they want to have a certain amount of information right to be connected to you if they aren't connected to you to a certain extent then they'll just go to the next option there's another artist that they love right you don't have to be oversaturated but there's a middle ground between known and mystery on this path on the way back what is that called that is called hopefully you can read this this is called mystique that's m y s t i q u e mystique right now what's the difference between mystery and mystique mystery if you just follow the path is deeper right than a mystique mystique is that middle ground and it allows you to exist in today's era of be where people need more than they used to but you still can have and it allows you to exist in today's era where people need a little bit more than they used to have while still having much of the impact of mystery because mystery has always been a dangerous game all right if you look at an artist like prince back in the day he had a mystique about him right you could only be mysterious but for so long for people to wonder but you have to give and take and give them just enough for them to then feel like they've connected to remind them that you exist right over a long period of time you can't just stay completely mysterious because people you start to fall back into unknown or even worse right because mystery can go this path you might not even see that arrow but indifference people just don't care they're no longer wondering there's not enough connection so mystique has always been a thing but it's even more apparent now not to even fall deep enough into the mystery side of things so you can maintain the potency in terms of your relationship with your audience so let me use this as an example when youtube came out the internet started popping prince didn't want his music on the internet he owned his music right he's well known for getting that ownership of his music and then went to control of everything and wanted it to be monetized correctly right well with it not being on youtube for a significant period of time that prevented the newer generation from even being able to know him that prevented many of the people who already knew and loved him from being able to connect with him the same way especially the the the younger generations that were in that bridge they knew of them but they didn't fully like fan out on them just yet because they weren't those older adults who i don't need the internet to connect with him i've i've made all my significant connections with artists right so he was in a dangerous part of time where he had mystery all right because now you're wondering you want to hear more of his music but you can't connect with it and life is passing by for these young folks who have all the options in the world right now so what are some examples modern wise now you have her her she came out mysterious it's a very expensive strategy by the way if you want to come out the gate mysterious and especially in this day and age but her was able to do it because resources and capital all of these things if you pay attention though right over time she couldn't maintain that mystery because it will become novel that's another problem with mystery mystery has a novelty to it and it wears off right it's cool to do it first oh man nobody knows who it is it creates conversation that's great but after a certain period of time if you don't have any value beyond that it doesn't matter right and the stakes become higher and higher the more your mystery becomes a peak conversation for you to be able to match something that validates that level of conversation and interest so mystery becomes a high high risk game to play where people begin to even just turn on you have you ever seen when a song takes too long to roll out and people start to turn on the artist and say yo fine we're just gonna move on like you're taking i'm tired of it you keep giving me this roll out you keep saying it's gonna come out you keep pushing the album back or the song back i'm just gonna move on with life i've already heard enough that's it right that's the same effect of waiting too long to give more beyond your mystery so her she started to connect beyond that by giving a little bit of her face here and there small moments it wasn't like yo i'm a completely different artist now and now i'm gonna saturate you and go the traditional route but it was like okay i'm gonna remove some of this mystery in a traditional sense and open myself up more to connect that way that isn't a novel thing that i seem to be relying on now it's just like weekend cutting off his hair right he cut off his hair so he wasn't as reliant on it right he stopped being as mysterious and started to show his face like unlike what he was doing in the beginning because he wasn't relying on the novelty of the mystery because that easily goes away and there's far more benefits to actually being known and being recognizable than there is to being this complete mysterious character right so you want to be in that middle ground mystique mystique mystique you look at playboy carti right he's known by his fans and his niche right and he doesn't always put himself out there all the time but he comes out just enough for you to still feel like okay i know what he likes i know his style right he's just in certain places all right you're not gonna see me everywhere but you're gonna see me some places you're gonna have enough information about me to feel like you can connect with me relate with me feel like you can follow my style and how i move and mimic that yourself so you can buy into this lifestyle those things you can't get when someone's completely mysterious there's a lack of connection that exists there so mystique works far far better now whatever a couple strategies that you can utilize to make sure that you're an artist that has mystique well the main concept at the core of mystique marketing is you're not the person who's promoting yourself self promotion you can see that all across the board so many artists posting their own stuff right heavily talking about what they're doing a lot of radio interviews or other types of interviews but the mystique marketing push looks a little different instead of you talking and your face being out there as much it's more so other people talking about you you have to generate that conversation through others right whether that's a publication a youtube page an instagram page you have to have people talking about you versus you talking about yourself remember mystery what people get wrong right about this mysterious thing and mystique is they think oh i'm just not going to do as much and that's going to make it happen no the reality is the same amount of activity has to happen right funny enough you still have to hit this threshold known right it looks a little different though right they have to know that you're dropping a project they have to know who you are in the first place they have to know that you're working on a rollout all of that same amount of activity and energy has to be put out there but it's just coming from a different source right it's not coming from you so that can be more expensive that's why i referenced earlier that being a mysterious artist can be more expensive especially when you're launching right from the beginning beyond say or somebody who already has a following right can drop something out of nowhere and immediately social media takes off and all this marketing happens for them organically because they've built that brand equity where people are waiting on them people care but a brand new artist doesn't have that so you now have to pay people do all types of favors to appear on these pages since you can't rely on your own when you're doing mysterious brand and continue to make that investment every single time you want to generate some type of awareness right i can't just talk about my project 50 times on my own page i have to pay for 50 posts right and only talk about it three times on my page because like you still can have some outward promotion but it looks a little different it can't look forced right you have to make it feel like the world's talking about you and you're just doing your part dropping some water in a bucket versus creating the bucket or filling the bucket up yourself right slightly different nuance but again mystique is what lasts right mystery especially in today's era that can quickly become indifference right it can quickly become we don't care so you're not trying to be mysterious what you're trying to do is have a mystique where people care about you right you can think about frank ocean there's so many artists that have a mystique and they unknowingly right mischaracterize it as mystery when truly it's people care about this person that person can be strategic and do whatever they want but at the same time fans don't fault them for it the media still cares whenever they do whatever they want if i fall back right it's cool but when i come out there's a meaning assigned to what i'm putting out right there's impact associated with what i'm putting out all right so these are some of the things that you want to think about when it comes to being a mysterious artist all right which is number one today you don't want to be mysterious you want to have a mystique that gives you the freedom it allows you to move and do everything that you want to do from brand collaborations your face can be out there you can do a show but you don't have to do it at nauseam like so many other artists who are everywhere all the time having to move a shake having to go to every club or having to do every single radio interview that is what most artists don't desire right creating that feeling of annoying people and being oversaturated always having to be in them their faces that is what artists are trying to avoid mystique doesn't have any of those effects but they don't have the risk of people not caring at all like mystery and you can't afford to take that risk today especially if you don't have a massive budget to force people into caring again all right so that's mystery those are some of the things you should think about we have a lot of videos on mystery you can check them out over here or over there wherever we put the video right but we've got a tire playlist on mystery check it out and break it down


Hello, and welcome back to another broadcast of Understanding China. I am Xiaofang, coming to you from the ThinkTech station in beautiful downtown Honolulu. Through this series, we show China from the inside through Chinese ice. How is immense, complex, and a beautiful country of China developing and changing? How do Chinese people see themselves and their role in the world? What are their hopes and visions? Today, we are fortunate to catch Roger Epstein, a leading attorney and a legal expert, on a brief visit to Honolulu. Roger has been a guest lecturer in international law at Beijing Foreign Study University in the center of the capital of China for two months, and is returning there tomorrow to complete the spring semester. Roger has seen the big, dynamic slice of life in China, connecting with the bright mind of some of its leading students and has a lot to share. So Roger, thanks for taking time to join us. Hey, you're welcome, Xiaofang. So nice to see you here in Hawaii. So you come here very short time. You just arrived. I did. I came on Monday. I'm leaving Friday. My son-in-law is graduating from a master's program at UH, so I just dropped back for that occasion. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. My first question to you, you have retired. I have. You've been as a lawyer, tax lawyer, legal expert for over 50 years. Yes. Yes. All your life. Pretty much. You can go anywhere you want to. Five-sevenths of my life. Yeah. So my question is, why you choose to move to China and teaching student at Bay Y. Yeah. You know, somehow when I came to Hawaii in 1972, I almost immediately got involved with Chinese things. I had two big clients in Hong Kong, a British company and a Chinese company. I got involved with the acupuncture school and became chairman of the board of the acupuncture college. I started going to Hong Kong every six months and doing business there. And then 1982, I went to Beijing for the first time when it was still really a third-word country. And then I went back in 94. In 2007, I was asked to take lawyers from China to come to our office at the Cade Shuddy law firm where I was the head of the tax department and to help them learn about U.S. law and how things go in the United States. These were fairly seasoned lawyers. And the reason that this, I was asked to do this, I was told in 2007 that there were a number of Chinese lawyers who were really smart and hardworking. They were all 35 or 40 because there were no lawyers from 40 to 60 because of the cultural revolution. And so we began to mentor lawyers and take them there. Now we have 15 alumni from that program. And then I proceeded because of that to get involved with the Shanghai bar and the Suzhou bar. Suzhou is a small, second-tier city about half hour from Shanghai of 13 million people. And all very interested in what's going on in the United States, how to connect with the United States. And we were able to connect the Hawaii Bar Association, a collaboration agreement with the Shanghai bar and the Suzhou bar. Between Suzhou and Shanghai, they have the same population as the state of California. Isn't that incredible how many people they have and how interested they are in American law? So I think there's such an opportunity for collaboration with China. They're coming up, the United States is at a peak, kind of coming down. And they're becoming more of a balanced world, collaborators, competitors, partners. That's how I see it. Like a yin and yang. Like a yin and yang. And the world changes all the time. We've been at the top of the heap since really World War II, 70 years. And they struggled until 1978 after their revolution, after they came out of the Mao period of complete communism. Now China calls themselves, rather than communists, they call themselves socialists with Chinese characteristics. Exactly. Yeah. You know that. But I'm just telling the audience. And they have so much admiration for the United States, appreciation for how the United States has helped them and how they've been partners to a certain extent in developing manufacturing. And everywhere you go in China, people have on American t-shirts. And they may not even be able to read it. You couldn't even recognize it. It's overseas Chinese or American. No. You can't tell the difference. When I first went to Beijing in 1982, everybody wore a mall jacket and a mall cap. The only thing you could wear was blue, green or brown. Right. Today, everybody's wearing blue jeans and t-shirts. And in fact, the big fad there is the same thing here with the jeans that are all ripped up. I know. I know. And every shopping center features products from everywhere in the world. Louis Vuitton and American products, everything. Whatever you have here, you have it in China. And what you don't have here, China also have it. That's right. Right. That's right. They have so much. And things are so expensive there. So I've had this experience three times now, twice with friends in Hong Kong and once with somebody in Beijing. They said, we're going to take a trip to the United States. And my wife told me, bring two suitcases with nothing in it so they can fill it up shopping in the United States. Oh, my goodness. That's the other way around when I traveled to U.S. 30 years ago. Yes. You know, I bring empty suitcase and a full... For China. Because it was so cheap. Cheap. Everything was cheap. I used to stay at the Hilton in Hong Kong for $25 a night in the 70s. It was already, I think, $7,500 in Hawaii for a room, $25 a night and a dollar and a half for breakfast. So the question is, why do you choose to teaching in China? Well, I started a company with you called the Asia Pacific Group. And we're doing a lot of interesting things there. And Russell Liu, a Chinese lawyer who's been teaching at Bay Y for about 10 years, said, hey, Roger, why don't you come and teach for a semester at Bay Y? And I thought it'd be an opportunity to spend more time there. My Chinese is very rough. Maybe I'll learn a little more about the language. You've been learning your Chinese on your own. Well, we sure... A little bit of Chinese, I can speak. And I thought it'd be a good opportunity to spend more time with business, with the company. And learned a little bit about China, an opportunity to work with young children, young kids. And just get to know China a little better and to have some opportunity to work with, like I said, young children who are, I tell my kids in class, the Chinese-US connection is if you're going to be an international lawyer or an international business person for the next 30 years, this is going to be one of the most important connections, aspects of your doing business. How China goes with the United States? Yeah. So the Chinese is also expanding. The business is even law firm. They have opening branches, offices in the US and all over the... I have a couple of law firms now that want me to help them open offices in the United States. But we're going through a phase now where the Chinese are kind of talking out of both sides of their mouth. Their five-year plan is to go out and invest in more places around the world. But they have currency restrictions that keep people from bringing money out. So we're not seeing the kind of outflow that we will in a year or two when that changes. Well, I think that there is lots of people have question on that. There is a special panel, the procedure you need to go, whether you are a private investor or ISOE, you have to go through the, let's say, Ministry of Commerce and to file the application form and go into approval. Yeah. This is the way. If you're opening a bigger business or you're doing something that Chinese want, particularly a business that has IP, then you can get permission. But you can't buy a house and it's hard to buy a small business and you have to demonstrate that you really want to be in business, you're not just trying to get money out of the country or you're not just trying to get connected. So eventually you can move to the United States. So yeah, what was the most inspiring time you saw or learned in China during this past two months? Well, I've been devoting a lot of time to the students and I've been enjoying that. I have two classes that I teach in legal writing. Now these are classes learning American law, American case law in English. And so I'm amazed at how you could, you know, you've got to be pretty smart to learn a whole legal system in a foreign language. But the girls students, the women students are much more invested, much more focused than the men. So of the 22 students in each class, four men and 18 are women. And so I've been trying to help them a little bit. And I had a student who was not doing too well. So I've been there already. It's a girl? A guy. I've been trying to help the guys because they're struggling. I asked people why the guys aren't doing so well. He said, well, we're in a foreign language is a big part of these classes. And the women are just better in linguistics. And the boys get discouraged and they don't want to participate.  And so there's this one kid, his name is K.R.A.L. And he's kind of a, I mean the kid, they're only 18, 19 years old. They're second year undergraduate students in law program. So anyway, he turns into paper. That's really good. We've been doing this for six, eight weeks. And I said, K.R.A.L. This paper you turned in was really good. And he says, well, he said, I just listened to what you told us was wrong about the papers last week and I fixed it. And I thought, that's incredible. So maybe he doesn't need to help. And he doesn't now and he speaks up in class now. And interestingly, none of the girls will speak up. If you ask them a question, all 20 of them will kind of look down. Okay, who would like to comment on this? Everyone's looking down like that. So Roger, we take a break and it's for the commercial and we'll be right back. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea is on Think Tech Hawaii every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join me where my guests talk about law topics and ideas and music and Hawaii Anna all across the sea from Hawaii and back again. Aloha. Welcome back. So Roger, what are the young Chinese people are thinking about?  You know, stuff that we're young Americans think about. Yeah, I think the same. I think it's very similar in the sense that they come to college. They want to get an education. They want to have a career. They're very focused on career and money, making money. Remember that Chinese didn't have anything. Their parents had nothing. And China didn't really get going until after Tiananmen Square. They opened up out of total communists. You can't even own property in 1978, 1978, to beginning to have your own farm and then real estate development. A lot of people made a lot of money, but a lot of people didn't. And then starting about 89 or 90, things started to grow dramatically. Shanghai opened up, became a financial center. And so now 25 years later, the children of people who have made some money want to see their careers grow. They want to find a way to be successful. I think they need a lot of education. I think they need a lot of understanding as a lawyer about ethics. The law is not the same law. People in China don't look at the law the same way as we do. It's almost, well, the law is something you try to get around. So you don't have to deal with it. And so I see them interested, and they're phenomenally interested in the United States. Remember, I'm teaching legal writing, American case law, the kids at undergraduate school in China. It's amazing. And so I think they want to know about what's going on in the United States. And they want to understand how that relates to their career and what's happening in China. So that's what I mostly see. And I try to introduce them to some thoughts about ethical business and ethical law, and as well as understanding how to understand a case, how to read. China is a civil law country. And so the reason they're studying American case law is because international business is all done in English. And it's all based on the common law. Contracts are based on common law. Torts are based on common law. So if you want to be in an international program, you need to understand that. And everybody speaks English in the business world. And you might as well study American law or case law as anything else, because we're still the leaders in the world. So that's what I think. The Chinese still have a tremendous reverence for family. Everybody there pretty much is an only child because they had a one-child policy. I'm told by all my fellow teachers that all the kids are spoiled rotten. And yeah. And you need to give them responsibility. And you need to let them stand up and speak. And so I get them to do that. And they're very, I give some long homework assignments to write material for. And then they come to class and we go over it. And then I get them to stand up and present what we've talked. I also get them to go over each other's papers. So they learn how to critique another paper. And I make them, I tell them, you'd be hard on this person. They're not used to that, but that's what you need to do. And I also tell them that it's not all about competition. You learn to collaborate. When you practice law, you usually have co-counseled if you're in a big law firm. You may have three or four other lawyers working on this case. So make sure you get the best possible product. You do the best job you can. Take responsibility. Do the best job you can. You want to work with two or three people and it's fine. You guys work together. Get the best possible result you can. And I'm very, I think this is a good group. I think this is a good time for China. These are not people who grew up in the Depression era, like my parents did, in China. The Depression was kind of maybe through 1990, but certainly through the 70s, up until 80, 82. And so they have a different mentality. Different time. Different times. The world is the people seems come together. I think so. I think it's almost like the 50s and 60s in the United States. That's kind of how I see it. And they have the same opportunity in China that my generation had in the 50s and 60s. Life is open for them. Parents have enough money to give them an education. They're going to travel. The world is so much more global now. Everybody has two iPhones. So what do you see the motivation from the students? Why they picked the law? That's a good question. I think some of it has to do with economics. They see the law as a good way to make money. It's also a way to get an education that's usable. I mean, you get an undergraduate degree anywhere. What do you do with it? So if you want to be a lawyer, now you've got something when you come out of school. And I think there's an interest in that. So describe what is your day look like. You wake up in the morning. Well, I've got a nice situation there. Yeah, I wake up. My first class on Monday is 8 to 10. So I go to class and we have a breakfast before that. Yeah, I have breakfast in my room. My room is two buildings from where I teach. So I get up. I have a little room. Has a living room and a separate bedroom and a bathroom. It's right in the dormitory on campus. And then I go to the class. I teach. And then I have another class at 1 o'clock, a tax law class. So I'm teaching two legal writings and one tax law class. And then I'm finished for the day. I'm off Tuesday. And I have one more legal writing class from 10 to 12 on Wednesday. And then I'm off the rest of the week. But I got a grade papers. I got to prepare for the class. I've gotten into a routine that's much better. And then, of course, we have our company, which is on the other side of town. And as you know, go over there and do some work over there. And we have some meetings. And we've been to a couple of cities since I've been there. I did a great thing. This is a wonderful thing. I bought a bicycle. And I'm having so much fun on my bicycle. Yeah. So you write that to Summer Palace. I rode to the Summer Palace. I rode to there's so many nice parks in China. Oh, yeah. And Beijing is almost flat. It's so beautiful. It's a beautiful city. Well, it's not a fascinatingly interesting city because they've torn down so many old buildings and built new ones. But the parks are wonderful. But there is remaining. There are old buildings and walls. And they refurnish. In some places, they have refurbished. And it is nice. It is. It is. And I'm getting to know the city so much better on my bike. So now I'll work a cup. So after Wednesday, I'm off from Wednesday to Monday. But I'll always have papers to correct and prepare for the next class. So I can work a few hours, get on my bike, take a two or three hour bike ride around the city, come back. Now you're really actually living in China. And you're working in China with especially the young children and the young students. So what is the change? Is there any change of your view or learned or gained? There are better understanding about China? What's happening? I've been going to China regularly since 2011. Twice a year. Go there for two or three weeks. So I'm there for like a month, month and a half. Mostly in Shanghai and Suzhou. And Beijing's a little bit different. You're living in a hotel. You're meeting with the businesses. This is such a different setting, right? It is. It is. It's really living. And you see a lot what you didn't see when you were in business trips. Yeah. Well, I think you're on campus too. And that's a little bit of a special kind of world. But I'm really fascinated in the young people. And I think the young people in both our country and China really need help and guidance. And they have an opportunity to change the world. You see how difficult things are in the United States today. We're having so many confrontations. Does our kind of democracy work anymore? One person, one vote, when you can gerrymander, when you've got people who are so again, does it work in what goes on in China? I mean, China is up and coming. And everybody's optimistic because their parents had it so much worse. In the United States, I'm in my 70s now. We've got generations who are looking back two generations to me saying, you had it really good. I can't even buy a house anymore. So on the other hand, China's got all its problems with civil rights. People can't speak. There are people who are afraid to talk. And so that's not good. So I see that generation, the 20-somethings, up to 30 maybe needing to come together, being citizens of the world, maybe find a little better way to govern, find a little better social structure. And I like being a part of that. This is a small piece. I'm hoping to learn more. I'm working with some, I'm meeting a lot of interesting people in China who have the same kind of goals and who, here's something that bothers me. I mentioned to you how much admiration there was for the United States and how people all look, you walk down the street, you could be anywhere in the world, the United States and Europe. People are, the guy on the street is not happy with what Mr. Trump is doing. Right or wrong? Time is just coming to, I have a lot of questions, and I really feel that U.S. and China has so much to offer with one another. It's maybe not just the one answer, it's a collaboration. And this is a new time, new world, the new generation with a new mind. And I really looking forward to the more collaboration, but with a better understanding. So I hope you have a lot of fun. I know you're gonna be returned back to China very soon. And I hope that one day we'll bring you back for another interview after the completion of your semester. So that's all the time we have today. My name is Xiaofeng and we have been talking to Roger Epstein, who will be living for China once again. And we wish him a safe trip until next episode. Aloha. Aloha.