Welcome back to the Breakfast on Plus TV aggregate, that was today in history, we'll be focusing on fuel subsidy and of course electricity subsidy in this particular segment of the show and we have the former TEC chairman Peter Esela joining us in this discourse. Merci. All right thank you so much Peter Esela for joining us. Can you hear us please? Yes I can hear you. All right so the International Monetary Fund is here again, I mean I mean this is not the very first time prior to 1986 you also have the structural adjustment program which was also the initiative of you know the IMF. Now they are asking that you know the Nigerian government should you know take away subsidy, electricity and of course fuel subsidy. Do you think we should do that? Well good morning and thank you for having me. First and first is the IMF can advise you, the IMF can give you whatever theory they want to, it's your responsibility to either accept or reject it. So what the IMF is saying, they can talk but it's not left for those who are elected by Nigerian people to decide what is best for Nigeria. Now why is the IMF saying government should take away subsidy? The first thing they are looking at is first they feel that government is spending so much money on subsidy. Why is government spending so much money on subsidy? Why would they be producing 1.9 million barrels? OPEC have just reduced our quota which comes to about 1.5 million barrels a day and then you'll be importing PMX. So there are a lot of dislocations in our economic system and structure that is not in the best interest of our people because those in leadership have not been thinking. So whatever IMF says, I think it's irrelevant. Well fine, inasmuch as Nigeria has its own prerequisite and they can actually decide to do whatever suits them economically but looking at all that we have in the country, judging by the fact that you said we spend so much subsidizing fuel, subsidizing electricity, do you really think that going by the other decision will not be in the best interest of Nigerians? Now first thing you need to ask yourself is that when you want to do any economic policy that you are trying to put in place, you must ask yourself, you must look at the pros and cons, what would be the result of the social dislocation that may emanate from it. So you ask yourself, which other aspect of our life do we really feel government directly or indirectly? Now we're talking about subsidy, gas right now has been subsidized in the UK because why? Because the prices have gone up, they have a band for it. So once the prices go beyond that band, then the government kicks in with help for the people. President Biden during the lockdown, they brought stimulus, they spent over a trillion dollars putting money in the pockets of Americans to stimulate the economy. So if we are taking away subsidy, we are taking away electricity, electricity subsidies too, then we need to ask ourselves first, what is the economic impact on the people? Yes, you must also be able to look at the economic impact on the people. And if you decide to take it up, how do you mitigate it? No matter how you feel that this is expensive, yes it's expensive, but you must ask yourself, is education subsidized? No. Is healthcare subsidized? No. Is transportation subsidized? No. In other parts of the world, you pay even if it's 500 naira per litre, at the time you get three pounds per gallon in the UK, you pay. But you know, if you have alternative, the alternative is that you go by, they have an effective transport system. It's not just this government, since the advent of the civilian administration since 1999, if we have decided to build an effective transportation system that would ameliorate whatever challenges that the people will face, it will be easy for the government to wake up and say, yes, this is very expensive and it has to go. But government is putting the cut before the horse. That is why we keep talking about subsidy and so when your guys reached out to me yesterday, I said not again, I don't want to be talking about this all the time, but we continue to talk about it because those who were elected, those in economic space, don't have a clue on how to get out of this mess. I understand all of that, Mr Ecele, but looking at all of the issues around them, subsidy, since 2012, it's been almost 10 years when Nigerians came all out, you remember the protests back in the day. But then again, there's always this talk about racketeering, corruption, who actually benefits from these subsidies? Is it the average Nigerian or some select few? Yes, there are racketeering, there is corruption, but when the government complains about racketeering and corruption and the government has the power, they have the instrument of law, they have the law, and each time you keep hearing about corruption, racketeering, nobody has been brought to the book. In the same society, if things are not working out well, whoever is infringing on how the society should go is prosecuted. So all we'll be hearing is corruption, racketeering, I'm aware that is happening, yes. But if that is happening, how do you deal with it? Are you not going to make the ordinary man to suffer for it? Sometimes people say, okay, the ordinary man also do benefits.  If you have to go by the current price, the current Kudaiya price, it should be a little above 200 Naira, we should be paying right now. Now, if the ordinary man is buying less or paying less for that, that means he's also benefiting. So everybody benefits from it. But what we should ask ourselves is what is our long-term goal for that sector? How do we ensure that if I take away subsidy, normally what they're doing is civilized society, first of all, you take subsidy away, and you put it somewhere else that is more than you think would be more beneficial to the people. Now, before you take that subsidy away, do people have to feel your impact? Yes, this moment is working for us. From 1999, we'll be talking about this subsidy, Abbas Andrews did his own, Yara Dua did his own, Jonathan did his own, and the current administration have also borne his own, and they are still continually saying, okay, fine, we are going to do XYZ. But the money you've been getting all this while, what have you done with it? So what you have is a disconnect between the policy, the decision makers, and the ordinary Nigerians. So if I'm not feeling the impact of government, it's very difficult for you to not align yourself to whatever policies that government is bringing. It's not a civil subsidy removal, it's a bad thing in its own entirety. But the fact is, it's a heavy thing for you to lift without putting in place efforts to mitigate whatever fallout you will get. Peter Issele, Mr. Peter Issele, I would like to get your thoughts specifically. I know that you have given one or two reasons being that it's from the IMF and what have you. But do you think that the Nigerian government should remove subsidy? They have said that the plan is that in the second quarter, second half of 2022, subsidy will be removed. But you have IMF saying it should be done as early as the first leg of 2022. I want to get your position. Should subsidy be removed or not? My question is very clear. If you want to take away subsidy, there are certain things you must do before you take a subsidy. And this is what we've been talking about. These are what labor unions have been talking about over the years. So if you are not ready to put that in place, and then how do you take it up? And the people who accept immediately. But again, you also need to ask yourself, government says they will take it up in the first and second quarter of 2022. Now, I always talk about the structure and the process. The process for removal. Now, we can talk about the idea of racketeering and corruption. Now, we are paying subsidy, but subsidy is not captured in the budget. That in itself is enough for you to raise an eyebrow. Why will you pay subsidy that is not captured in the budget? So who is talking about the corruption and who is racketeering? Does it not have the sale and the stamp of government also encouraging it? So these are the areas that I keep talking about. It's not as if you take subsidy away and there is corruption or is racketeering, but it cannot happen without people in government also not acquaintance to it. That's my take in all of this. You are talking about electricity tariff. We privatize electricity. All the promises that were made during the privatization, I'm also privy to that negotiation. All the promises that were made, none have been met. None. And who is holding these private companies to be accountable? And the private companies are heavily subsidized between the Jonathan administration and this current administration. The subsidy that have been paid, that's the money that have gone to those companies, not to Nigerians now. It's over a trillion Naira. So it's as if you use your phone, you privatize telecoms. And then at the end of the day, you are also providing money for those telecoms companies to build base stations. Who is fooling who here? So those are the structures that I always talk about. Structures and process will bring out the enabling result for the people to follow through. When the process and the structures are not okay and you go ahead and implement it, we are going to have on our post-social dislocation. Okay, but let's look at what we currently spend. I mean 100. It's been, you know, put out that we spend 150 billion monthly for subsidy. And now prior to this time, if you look at statistics from 2006, between 2006 and 2015, it was reported that we spent 4.89 trillion Naira on subsidy. So my question is this, don't you think that this money or this resources that we have here probably would have been channeled to building more schools, road infrastructural hospitals? And what have you probably not even having to borrow because we constantly have to borrow to fund the budget? The question you also need to ask yourself is all your borrowings that you've been doing, where is the money? If you are borrowing money, first thing you want to borrow money for is that you stimulate the economy. Even if you are doing budget, budgeting is to create wealth. I don't know whether you've taken your time to go through the budget of the federal Republic of Nigeria. From reception, our budget is to spend. Our budget is not to create wealth. Okay, now you look at, go and look at the way budgeting is done in Europe or America. They look at the particular sector of the economy and say, this is where we are going to create wealth from. And the pumping money, whether it's IT, whether it's road infrastructure, but they are able to measure it. You have KPIs, key performance indicators. So what you need to do, if government says they want to take away subsidy, government must build the confidence of the people to do that. Now, how do you build the confidence of the people? It's that people must know that your budgeting, whatever you say you want to spend, is actually used for it. How do you borrow money? Who in the world borrow money for recurrent expenditure? Go through your budget. Recurrent expenditure is even higher than your capital projects. So how do you develop if your recurrent is higher than your capital project? So all of this is what government should do to make the people to believe and trust in the system. I work in oil and gas. So I know that there is corruption. I know that there is fraud in all of this. But I also know that there is also the political aspect. There's economic policy. Then there's the political aspect to all the economic policy that I want to put on the table. So it's for you to find the balance between the politics and the economics to avoid social dislocation. That is the only way we can move forward. So you don't think that we're spending so much and that all of these resources could have been channeled to basic infrastructure? You say we are spending so much. Why do you have government? Government is to make life easier for the people. If when we had a lockdown, did anybody send you any money to your account? No. But in other climes, people were in their house, locked down. They know they were facing challenges. People were getting $2,000 at the end of the month because government was being responsive. You pay your tax. Why are you paying your tax? So that government makes life easier for you. And so when you face your challenges, government will also be there for you. That is what happened in Europe. That is what happened in America. So if you say you are spending so much on subsidy, now if the subsidy is taking away, where would the money go to? Don't forget where we are coming from. 65, 75, 100, 145, all of these differences that have been coming in, that is in terms of increase in price. So if I got you correctly, Mr. Isel, if I just have to vote in very quickly, invariably what you're saying is that even the federal government went ahead and removed them subsidy and allowed them the factors of demand and supply to just hold sway. You're saying that over time, the price of our fuel will keep on increasing. Wouldn't we get to a position where there might be a reduction in prices? Of course, when we say there will be a reduction, yes, there will be a reduction. But you also need to ask yourself, is there also need to check the fact that you import petrol? So if we are not importing, if we are not in the business of importation, you will get like five, six, seven naira reduction that may come up from that. That's why I look forward to the refinery coming up and a lot of private refineries coming up that will also reduce pressure on products. So when we talk about the black market and the parallel market and the CBN rate, one of the reasons again is the pressure that comes from importation of petrol. So what government must do, my emphasis is on whether you want to take away the subsidy or not, you must find a way to find the balance between the economics of subsidy remover and the political aspect of the economy of subsidy remover. Specifically, Mr Issela, let's leave fuel subsidy for one moment and talk about electricity. In your opinion, because most Nigerians are actually arguing that they indeed pay so much for electricity, what with private metering here and there. That's a prepaid meter that is over time Nigerians still pay as high as possible. So if they indeed are paying this much, so how much exactly has been subsidized for electricity? Now, first thing is the government that will tell you that because now the whole thing is so opaque. It's opaque in the sense that you ask yourself, okay, why am I paying so much? I know I'm paying so much. I know I'm paying so much and I had to complain and they told me what they were telling me is that, oh, the transmitters possible that will get at least 20 hours of power daily basis. But we don't get that. So what you need to ask, why we need to ask the government is this sector has been privatized. Yes. Now, when you privatize this sector, are they giving us value for money? My answer is no. Who is providing the meter? Government is not the one providing metering. So government is the one providing the meter. Why would government be responsible in providing meter for a private company to not come and give to us? That's one. Number two, how many actually have access to meter? You can't, the metering is also something that is very, very, very problematic. Depending upon how knowledgeable you are, that's what matters or the influence you pull. That's what matters whether you get meter or not. But you have to pay for it. Why should government pay for the buy meter and give to those companies?  Why? So a lot of things, that's why I always talk about structure and process. If you don't do it the right way, you are going to have Nigerians asking questions. And even if the government means well, we are going to have Nigerians having to question the sincerity and integrity of government because the process is not right. Okay. We definitely come back to talking about, you know, the process and the structure that you have mentioned in details. But before we get to that point now, para-venture the government heats to the advice of the IMF and remove subsidy. What will be the implication? I mean, what will be a cost, the cost for a liter of petrol for an average Nigerian and of course a unit of electricity? Now I can be very, I will be very direct. I will be, I can, I'm able to calculate that of petrol, that of electricity because the electricity, the way is tabulated. You can, there's no document to back it up. For petrol, we'll be paying over 200 Naira. We'll be paying between 220 to 250 because what you must know is that petrol, you buy in dollars. And when you buy in dollars, you're not selling Naira. So the conversion process is where the problem is. So when you were talking earlier, you said the prices can go up and come down. I think that is based on how strong the Naira becomes vis-à-vis the dollar. Clue dollar is sold in dollars. So if you have a weak local currency, even if the prices is $50 from $80, the chances that you will pay less is slim because of your weak local currency. And IMF can also come up tomorrow and say you have to devalue because one of the things that I found out about the years is when the Nigerian government is broke, their first point of raising money is to devalue the currency. But in other parts of the world, when they are broke, the first thing they do is to look at the aspect of their economy as they less create wealth in this aspect so that they can export. Because when you have a weak currency, it's very good for your export. That is if you have an economy that is very, very productive, unlike what we have now. So I can tell you that we're paying 200 Naira above for petrol. But when it comes to electricity, I can't tell you because electricity, the way it's calculated, the way it's tabulated, is opaque. It's mysterious. All right, Mr. Eseler, let's do talk more. Because I'm wondering why we've not been able to get it right as a nation when it comes to fuel and the PMS, that of kerosene, it subsidy had been removed under Nigerians after leaving But what's with all the advice, all the inputs that have been given to government over the years, there have been talks of them looking in the direction of modular refineries. You talked about dangote refinery. How come we're not looking at stopping importation of fuel in the long run or in the short run that is and concentrate on locally refining our own fuel for ourselves? So we'll be talking about these foreign exchange differentials and all of the issues that we have, that are increasing the cost of fuel for Nigerians. One of the biggest challenges we have is the quality of people who are living. When we're a president or a governor, your responsibility, I don't want to have a president that I like. I don't need to like a president. I don't need to like a governor. What I want is a president who has the capacity, a governor who has the capacity, a senator who has the capacity. So what we've had is that we've not had this quality of people who have the capacity to look at it and say, hey, this is where we have to go. If you say you want to take away subsidy, for example, the first thing you ask yourself is, okay, fine, what do I need to do? 20 years, none of those refineries from NMPC is working. Over 20 years. Since 1999, I'm going to use just 1999, 1999 to 2021. None of the refineries are working. Why will the refineries not work? That's a system problem. Now, then you will have the private sector. Yes, could also see being very supportive of that refineries coming up our stream. We're hoping that that comes up in 2022. If that comes up in 2022, what you have is you are no longer going to be importing petrol. So the pressure on your forex will be down. But these are things that would have been done 15, 20 years ago. And even if we want to remove subsidy, we could have achieved this subsidy remover more than 15 years ago. When the prices were so low, I remember when I was paying gas to walk up to the president and then the minister of petroleum said, take away subsidy now. And they said, what they told me was that they want to recoup all the money they've been spending. And then in six months, the price of crude tank and the government was broke. And the next thing was that they went ahead to devalue. And then they now reduce the price of payment. And what you now have, we have scarcity. Because the marketers decided that, no, we cannot bring in at this price because the currency have been devalued. So one is get your refineries to work. What that will also do is that you also create more jobs. That would be refinery, for example, will create direct employment of even up to 3,000, 3,000 direct employment and indirect employment of over 50,000. So that in itself, the spin off from having that refinery is huge. So when you talk about modular refinery, why is it not working? It's still the process. It's still the process of man-to-man. If you want to set up a refinery, for example, you don't need to know anybody in Europe or America. You don't need to know anybody. You just have a process, stick to that process. You fill the forms, you do everything that is needed and it's done. But in this part of the world, it's tough actually running business here. So I will say to all those businessmen that are able to survive a very difficult climate like Nigeria. But if government decide they are going to take away subsidy, if government decide they have to make refineries work, they have to make sure that they have a policy. I don't even know this government's policy for that sector. What is the plan of the government for that sector? That is key. Okay. So I would also like to find that, apart from that, because other persons will also complain of the effects that this would have, that if subsidy has been removed, it would trickle down on almost everything. So you would have the fact that cost of transportation would be on the high. It would also affect the prices of food and services across the entire country. So in this regard now, what should government do or what can government do to cushion the effect? You don't have to be a rocket scientist or to have a page in economics to just know that once this happens, everything is going to skyrocket. And when it skyrockets, the first place government is going to look at is, okay, we are going to start discussing how to increase salary. But the workers we are talking about, if we are going to use the former sector, how many percent? So what government need to do is say, okay, you want to take away subsidy. This government must look at the aspect of where we are feeling the pink more from its policies. If government says, oh, we want to make transport system, government can come over, we are going to make a hundred Los Lios buses. Now, we've had that, it happened in Augustine Justine. It happened in President Yarra Dua's time. It happened in President Jonathan's time. Is any of those transport companies surviving today? No. The government is talking about the private. No, it's not surviving. So if government says, okay, we are not going to, we are going to take away subsidy. We are going to bring the money into the economy to stimulate, to stimulate the economy. It's not government business to be saving money. No. What do you know about another part of the world is that they put money in your pocket.  Those are states that live on taxes. So you're saying that government should print small monies. Money should be printed. If government prints more money, then we are in trouble. Government is not going to print more money. But what I expect government to do is, for example, if you say you are spending 200 billion, I'll just give an example, 200 billion for subsidy payment.  Say, you don't want to pay this money for subsidy. You are taking away subsidy and allowing demand and supply to take over that sector. Now, the question will be, where will you put the 200 billion? Where will be the most beneficial area to the citizenry that you put the 200 billion? That is questions which you ask the government. So you are not elected. We don't elect people to just enjoy the benefit of being in an office. People are elected to think. People are elected to think. So that is what we should ask the government. Where will we now put the money in the sector? Because you and I know that all the money that we are borrowing is going strictly more to the current than any other aspect of our personal life. Our attention is always on federal government. But I will tell you that the state government and the local government are even worse. They are worse. So what I expect government, what I will expect government to do is look at the area. Government have not even done that. They have not said that themselves to say which area of this economy is going to be beneficial to the people and let us put the money there. That also have to create wealth. So that people can spend money. If you can't spend money, you are not going to grow the economy. It's not even saving money that grows the economy. It's spending money for the money to go round. That is when the economy grows. Somebody is in the farm. Somebody comes ahead to buy a crate of egg and then a person uses to make mama put by the roadside. Somebody else comes and buys those food and eats and then the person is healthy. So those are the ways you grow an economy. It's not for you to just have the economy and you keep one billion. The very way the people don't grow economy is the middle class that actually grow the economy. That's why serious government all over the world look for every means possible to sustain the middle class. All right, Mr. Isil, let me just read out something to you from all of them. What the IMF said. I think we can take something away from that. The IMF noted Nigeria's past, noted that Nigeria's past experiences with a fuel subsidy removal which have all been short lived and reversed, underscored the importance of building a consensus, an improving public trust regarding the protection of the poor and the efficient and transparent use of the saved resources. The issue right here is that public trust. Do Nigerians actually trust the government to do the right thing? In case they are prepared to even remove all these subsidies? You see, I have got the worry that IMF report, what you've just said now, that is what we will be discussing. I made reference to trust. And what you have now is that Nigerians find it very difficult to trust the government. And the reason for this is a fallout from previous actions. I always say this, I say you can beat a child, but you don't have the responsibility to tell the child how to cry. So whichever way the child now goes ahead to cry, you can stop it. So what the IMF is talking about is the first protection of the poor. So if you are protecting the poor, then trust. Then whatever is coming out of that forms, how do you use it to mitigate whatever challenges that people will face? That's what we've been talking about. And that's what I've been emphasizing on, finding that balance. So that is also what the IMF is encouraging. The IMF is saying, okay, take away the subsidy. We need to take away subsidy. But you have to also build trust. You also have to put in place economy policies that protect the poor. But the IMF is not talking about that now. So the IMF is just telling you, take away the subsidy, but the IMF is not telling you how. It's not telling you how, when you take it off, how do you now protect the poor? How do you now build that trust? That is weird. The work is, but the IMF is not telling the government how to do that. Mr Aisaleh, don't you think Nigeria is actually going, maybe if I should say, on an overdrive? For how long can we actually sustain, subsidizing fuel, subsidizing electricity? For how long can we go and be a viable nation, looking at how it's done internationally? Now, even if we say we are going overdrive, yes, there are challenges. There will be challenges. Now, what I expect of this government, from when this government have missed three windows, three windows of dealing with subsidies, this subsidy problem once and for all. The first window was the very day the president was sworn in as the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. That's what they call political capital.  So they've missed it three times. They had the window three times, they missed it. Now, if they still want to go ahead, then they need to look for what are the poor economic policies that we need to put in place? How do we build trust? This government has enjoyed more trust. This government has enjoyed a lot of respect. This government has enjoyed more support from the labor movement than any other previous government. There have been increases in PMS, no protests, no strikes, nothing in the life of this administration. So what I would expect is that they would have capitalized on it to build that trust and then look out for the poor policies that they can put in place to ameliorate whatever fallout that will come. Of course, you are going to have a fallout. Prices are going to go off. When I negotiated $18,000 minimum wage, it was $120 at the end of the month. But now you have $30,000 minimum wage that is actually about $73. So you find that your $18,000 was actually the purchasing power of your $10,000 is higher than the purchasing power of your $30,000 higher. Those are areas government need to also look at. And if you want to subsidize, how do we spend money? Head care, education, these are areas that stimulate growth. The easiest way to get out of poverty is education. So why don't you spend money there? Thank you so much. We have to call it a wrap at this point in time. Quite an interesting conversation. And Mr. Peter Seller, we look forward to having you, so we can talk about this because it's almost endless. And we would always talk about this from 1979, 77 up until now. We're still talking about subsidy and its removal. Thank you so much for being part of the conversation this morning. We do appreciate your time. All right, Mr. Peter Seller is a former president through Union Congress. Once again, we say a big thank you for making out time to be part of the conversation. We'll definitely step on the brakes now. When we come through, we will be heading straight to our second conversation this evening. And indeed, we'll be talking about the Nigeria Corporation workers calling off its strike. They're back at work.


This is my second year doing self-tape may last year. I think I only did like one or two and it was just really poor planning. I didn't even start planning. I was just like, oh, I'm just going to do it. If I don't get ready for self-tape may right now, it's just not going to happen again this year because I am an actor who currently has a full-time nine to five job and I have a life. I have a full-time nine to five job that doesn't have anything to do with acting. I'm currently not actively submitting for paid work due to a few things in my life, but I would love to do self-tape may, which is a self-tape challenge. In May, you do 16 self-tapes and you can submit them if you want or if you just want to do them for yourself. It's created by Audrey from Audrey Helps Actors, the podcast. I think it's a fun concept because humans, we have a hard time holding our self-accountable for wanting to get better at certain things or having habits. One of the things Audrey says about self-tape may is to have a purpose for it. You want to fall in love with acting again and you just want to have fun with your self-tapes or you want to get really good at a certain kind of self-tape. I was thinking about what I wanted to do and one of the shows that I love, and I know a lot of people love, is Abbott Elementary. It would be pretty fun if I did all Abbott Elementary self-tapes. I want to finish all 16 self-tapes this year, but the purpose of my self-tape may this year, I wanted to be to have fun and to practice my acting, you know, all of the different parts as far as like getting good again at memorizing and getting good again at like really diving yourself into the story and the text and all of that, you know, theater kid stuff. If nothing else, I have myself to enjoy acting with at home. I didn't realize I was going to be so emotional, but right now this like, this acting, this self-tape is the only acting that I have. It makes me really sad because I love it. Oh no.  Okay, stop being, it's okay to be emotional, but I am trying to concentrate and instead of preparing for self-tape may, I'm like processing all of this other pain. Let's stop like having a therapy session right now and really concentrate on getting ready for self-tape may. What have I been doing? I've tried to sit down to read the pilot of Abbott Elementary so many times and then I get distracted and I do other things. So I'm almost to the point where I'm just going to print the entire pilot and then go from there. I don't have like that many days to get my scenes together because I really, really want to get my scenes together before me first because the rest is fun. It's memorizing, it's working on the scene, it's recording it. So I'm going to sit down right now and read it because I have time so I'm going to force myself to do it. I am not prepared. I'm feeling a tiny bit frustrated. Like honestly not that as frustrated as I probably should be that I don't already have all of my scenes. And now I'm not sure if I'm going to do all of my scenes from Abbott Elementary. I'm feeling a little bit indecisive, but also I wanted to just take a look at the self-tape may scripts from Castability because I know they give you 20 scripts, but I'm wondering if they just give you 20 scripts in the form of the scenes they put out every week instead of like giving you a whole PDF of all of them. So I logged on to Instagram on my laptop to try and find that and then I went on my app and I also couldn't find it. I'm on Instagram on my laptop and it looks like Audrey was she put what the thing is for self-tape main if you don't know every year so that you don't just submit a bunch of random self-tapes. She asked you to include something like a piece of tape or a sticker or a button. She said the thing you must wear or show or write down on a paper and show in self-tape every self-tape this May. So I know you are not a cheater, pumpkin eater, is a bobby pin. It's just a bobby pin. That's super easy. Also like I would love to do more scenes from the office and I also wanted to just have the scenes today so that I can get started tomorrow. I think I am making my life more difficult for no reason. I'm just getting very like flustered of like oh I don't have my scenes today and May is tomorrow but I have a scene that I want to do tomorrow. It's going to be a Janine scene from Abba Elementary. There's so many other shows that I am excited about and other scripts so I'm not going to do all Abba Elementary or at least that's not my intention right now if it ends up happening cool. I have at least this one. I'm going to start memorizing it and see if I can do it tomorrow. I'm definitely going to go into my planner and write down which of these I am going to be filming certain self-tapes because then I'm also going to upload it to Instagram and just have fun with it. I have my bobby pin because I am going to do a personality self-tape because I was really trying to rush a scene today that I chose yesterday. It's pretty short but I haven't even had the opportunity to have fun with it and do what I want to do the self-tape main which is complete 16 tapes and have fun doing it and just getting back into the process. I do very well with habits so I think if I continually have myself do all these self-tapes after my nine to five if I get a rhythm going I know that I'm going to enjoy it so much and feel so proud of myself and get so much better in acting again because I feel so rusty. And what I'm going to do today is a self-tape. I've booked jobs through doing this through answering a question. I just need to not put myself down and tell myself oh you're just lazy you just didn't prepare you just you know all of these negative things that I'm thinking I don't want to hear it me. So I'm going to do a tape answering the question of what my favorite item that I have in my home currently is and it'll show a little bit about my personality and my perspective in life. Let's do it. Let's do a self-tape. My first self-tape a self-tape may. Here's my pen and it's the sweater. It says I cry a lot. First day of self-tape may. If you want to do self-tape may too don't feel pressure to do all of 16 even though I feel very pressured to do all 16 because I really want to do all of it. But I'm going to go have dinner and work on my next scene for the week. Now it's time to do my second self-tape and it is a scene from Abba Elementary from The Pilot. Wonderful sentence structure. One of my biggest well one of my problems anyway. And then it took me a little bit to get back into it. I just wasn't finding scripts that I was excited about. A realization that I've had recently but really I've been feeling like this a lot is that when I am by myself or with like a non-actor I get really in my head about like oh I'm acting. Sometimes when I put on my self-tape audition gear up I get really in my head of like okay it's acting time where if I'm just rehearsing and playing around and like sitting here I feel more free but I feel the best when I am just able to like to really just get into the character and not think about what I'm doing really just like saying the lines and feeling it and that's why I like Meissner technique because to me that is a lot of what the Meissner technique is it's like being realistic in what you're saying and feeling versus like I have to accomplish this during this line which is fine too it works for people but but for me personally I think that's the best so I'm just going to play around with this monologue from Bridesmaids and have fun with it right here. I think you're ready even though I didn't necessarily do a self-tape that I would turn in for an actual audition I'm still very happy that I'm telling myself like keep doing self-tape mate like maybe we can still finish it even though it's May 26th because I just spent the last hour playing around with a couple of scripts one of which I've done before for fun on YouTube and the other one it just it just has like fun chaotic silly energy and it was it was fun playing around goal accomplished as far as what I had told myself that I just wanted to play around with scripts and have fun but I just did that for an hour. I decided to revisit scripts that I've done in the past but I was like I can still do it so I had done a monologue from it's the Regina George monologue talking about Janice Ian and I did that one in college for the KCACTF if you guys know those like college theater competitions but that was like one of my monologues I don't know why I decided to translate it into Spanish I just got off of my nine to five job and I am so tired I'm just debating whether I want to or have the energy to do some self-tapes right now and I feel like I should I feel like I should try because I know I'm going to have fun I know once I started doing it I'm going to have a lot more energy I mean just like a second ago I was like no I'm just going to go lay on the couch and drink water but even just talking to the camera right now I was already giving me more energy I should try to do at least one self-tape I have a few fun scenes and monologues chosen for this maybe after I do one I'm like hey this isn't so bad maybe I can do more I mean it's already up anyway well self-tape may is over and I didn't post two of these self-tapes that I did what I learned during the self-tape may and especially going through so much during self-tape may really was like feeding into my exhaustion of being stressed I'm really happy because I've missed acting so much and I'm so ready to get back to work and do commercials do tv film whatever in the last few days when I was reading script watching tv shows to see oh what characters do I remember do I like it was a lot of fun to find monologues or find scenes where I was like oh yes this in April and even at the beginning of May I wasn't really finding things that I was excited about so I wasn't going for it you know once I was like you know it's gonna be fine I'm gonna find things that I like and let's just enjoy it that's when I started really like playing around with the scripts and memorizing them super easily and just having a really good time that I just would not even though I was like I really should give myself grace I should take a break like what who am I trying to prove like I still didn't give up because I was really just trying to get back into acting and I was really just trying to have fun again with acting because I've taken about a six-month break because my best friend passed from cancer and I just I just didn't want to do it I wanted to do mundane things like a day job not have to feel so much I guess that's probably why like I was already feeling so much in my every day like non-artistic life that I was scared if I went onto a script and it had me you know feel more I was like exhausted of feeling so much but this self-tape me really has inspired me to get back into it so I'm gonna start up my casting networks actors access account again and start submitting and get back into it at the end of last year I had decided that I really didn't want to do like anything else other than theatrical work but I changed my mind this break that I took really taught me like I like acting and pretty much every form I am working collaboratively with filmmakers to create things and that's really really cool but also it's fun to audition for these commercials and it's fun to be in commercials so I changed my mind I'm still going to be auditioning for all kinds of work and I did contact my agency and let them know that I wanted to start auditioning again and within an hour they sent me another audition so I've already sent over my first audition in like six months and speaking of MDT because it was MDT who I contacted the winner of self-tape may is actually also represented by MDT so that was pretty cool and I messaged her and I was like hey we're both represented by MDT congratulations on winning self-tape may I'm excited to hear her interview because Audrey usually does if I'm assuming if the actor wants it they usually are invited to come onto the podcast and I believe that they post that like at the next season I want to keep practicing of course because it's so much fun and it really gets me into it and I want to improve to prepare for next year self-tape may because next year, Audrey next year I am doing 16 self-tapes I am going throughout the year to choose scenes that I'm going to do next year for self-tape may I'm not going to like record them or anything but I'm just going to be like oh that would be a fun practice I do want to still practice on my own so I have to find for that but there's going to be other scenes that I'm like okay that I really want to work and practice and have a really good self-tape a couple of July's ago though I did do a self-tape every single day so I know I can do it and if you want to see that it's right here it was the entire month of July


The Personnel Launch System, or PLS, is a vehicle which could provide future transport of people and small cargo to and from low-Earth orbit. Although not presently approved for development, the PLS is being designed to complement the space shuttle and is being considered as a future addition to the manned launch capability of the United States. In the era of space station freedom and subsequent missions of the Space Exploration Initiative, it may be important that the United States have an alternate means of getting people and small cargo to low-Earth orbit and back. The two designs being considered for PLS differ in their aerodynamic properties and mission capabilities. While the Johnson Space Center's approach uses a biconic-shaped capsule with a parachute landing, the Langley Research Center's design designated the HL-20 is a winged lifting body which could make conventional runway landings on return from orbit. Unlike the space shuttle, the PLS would have, as a design objective, a launch abort capability to safely recover the crew during ascent. Predating and influencing the design of the space shuttle, several lifting body aircraft, including the HL-10, were flown by test pilots during the period from 1966 to 1975. Over the past few years, the HL-20 has undergone considerable analysis at Langley and has evolved into a mature design with capabilities which adequately satisfy the PLS design and mission requirements. A lifting body spacecraft such as the HL-20 and the HL-10 shown here would have several advantages over other shapes. The spacecraft would fly over large land areas and the number of available landing opportunities would be increased. The runway landings would be possible, permitting simple, cost-effective precision recovery at many sites around the world, including the Kennedy Space Center launch site. The primary mission of the PLS would be to deliver passengers to the space station freedom. Typically, a space station crew of eight would be delivered by a two-person PLS flight crew. With an overall length of 29.5 feet and span across the wingtips of 23.5 feet, the HL-20 concept would be a much smaller craft than the space shuttle orbiter and will fit within the payload bay of the shuttle with wings folded. Using the extensive one-tunnel resources at Langley, researchers compiled a comprehensive aerodynamic and aerothermodynamic database on the HL-20 concept, spanning the entire speed range which the PLS will fly. Several models were built for testing the various tunnels, ranging from a six-foot model used for forces and moments test at low speeds to six-inch models used in hypersonic tests. Results have shown the shape possesses good flying qualities in all speed regimes. Computational fluid dynamics or CFD codes have been used at Langley to study flow field characteristics of the HL-20. These advanced computational grid techniques were used in conjunction with one-tunnel tests to study patterns of flow field phenomena, shock waves, stability and control, and heating on the windward and leeward surfaces of the vehicle. It was found that heating predicted by this concept will be within the limits of space shuttle-based high-temperature reusable surface insulation, except at the nose where shuttle-based carbon-carbon will be required. In addition to computer modeling of vehicle controllability during entry, a flight simulator has been set up at Langley to permit pilots to study the final landing phase of flight. Starting at 15,000 feet, the simulation presents a realistic view of the approach to a runway landing. Using a side-stick controller and a minimum of instrumentation, pilots including one who flew the X-15 rocket plane and the lifting bodies have demonstrated this configuration to be controllable and capable of pinpoint landings. A cooperative agreement between NASA and North Carolina State and North Carolina A&T universities led to the construction of a full-scale model of the HL-20 PLS for use in further research of this concept. With requirements furnished by Langley, university instructors and students designed the research model during their 1990 spring semester with construction following during the summer. The research objectives of the HL-20 model are to assess crew in-grass and e-grass operations, assess crew volume and habitability, examine fit checks of various subsystems arrangements, and determine visibility requirements for the crew during critical docking and landing operations. The model will be moved to the Langley Research Center where human factors or search will be conducted. Later, the model will be located at the Johnson Space Center where the research effort will involve members of the astronaut corps who will evaluate the HL-20 for operations efficiency. The Langley Research Center has defined a lifting body PLS for assured manned access to space for future U.S. space missions. This reusable vehicle designated the HL-20 has been designed for safe and reliable operations, improved operability, maintainability and affordability, and has the potential for reducing life cycle cost associated with placing people in orbit.


Everybody forced here ripping 2022 fanatics memorabilia silver box break number two random hit style So I got the box right here. We got three items in this box three spots of the break will type in the hits as we go We're gonna do the random at the end to see who's getting what? Good luck. I'll open the box leave it here bring everything over kind of one at a time show it off real quick Good luck everybody. This is break number two silver box. Hey, let's have got a helmet first It feels authentic to me. Oh, it is authentic. We got a fancy helmet wrapped up in a bag What's in the bag? All right, okay? Oh Man, oh my god Yeah, that's so cool alternate It's Saquan Barclay helmets the matte black with the blue a lunar speed, right? Is that what these are called? That is freaking awesome.  They'll get sent to you guys. Don't you worry? That's an authentic speed helmet right there Next uh You guys want to go I'm not letting you choose You don't got time for that. I Gotta choose though Let's go Let's go this let's go another box another box That way it is It is a Number 77 on the Dallas Mavericks Dude this paper's driving me nuts. It's a Luca Donchich sign Jersey Luca, baby Yeah, Luca Donchich, and he got a number inscription on that too These are sick this bag is a little open man. That's why it's stuck Yeah, dude Luca, and then you saw the hologram little sticker thing next to the name there They also have like other certificates too in there. Holy cow, man. These are awesome We're still on silver boxes, too. Heck yeah. All right last one It's a little box. Oh, I can only this could be I guess a puck or baseball Little little box little box So it's a puck or a baseball. It's a baseball. I have a name somewhere It says right there. Oh nice. That is a Johnny bench signed gold glove award ball He won a quite a few of them it looks like good. Yeah, look at those years 10-time gold gloves 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 and 77 77 That's all straight, right? We skip a number. Holy cow, man. That's a really cool ball Yeah, Johnny bench the arguably the goat catcher That is a crazy inscription 10 straight That is insane. That's insane Good hitter to yeah. Whoo. All right. Let's do the random now We'll put those away in a second That is an awesome inscription Doesn't even make sense in my head Dang, man Good luck, everybody three names three hits will randomize same amount of times put them side by side to see who's getting what And eight five and three eight times. Oh, yeah, we love inscriptions, man eight times on the names first one Two three four five six seven eight Rob H down to Hilton T and eight times on the hits now. Good luck one two three four five six seven and eight Got a sake one up top look on the bottom there Move them over making bold for you so you can see a little better And there you go Rob H with the sake one helmet Michael be the Johnny bench signed baseball and a Hilton with the Luca Donchich Jersey Congrats. Thanks for joining number three is up next


Hey guys, it's Jen from I Create Crafts. Are you looking for an easy but thoughtful teacher gift? Look no further. I will show you how to create and customize Canvas Teacher pencil bags for your child's favorite teacher using Canvas makeup bags and HTV that I purchased from Amazon. I will leave all of my supplies that I used in the description box below. I also created a few other teacher gifts, how-to videos in case you're interested in those. Now let's get started. Hey guys, so getting in with the school that's going to be starting back up again, I figure I would show you guys a few quick and very easy teacher appreciation or teacher gifts. You can use this any time of the year, but I thought with my girls starting this year again in actual school, I would make the teachers some cute little items to carry around with them. So I did a video previously showing you how to make Canvas bags for them. And today I'm going to be showing you how to make little handbags or little makeup bags that they can put their pencils in or anything that they want in.  But I love making things for teachers. I really appreciate them with all the hard work that they do. So I'm going to show you a few things really quick. So some of these SVGs I got off of Design Bundles. And some of them I found right here in Design Space. So I'm going to show you really quick for Design Space. What you want to do is go to Images. And then you can just type in Teacher or Teacher like I have here. And you can find any of these. It depends if you have the monthly or the yearly subscription for this. I have the yearly subscription. So these will be free for me. If you do not have that, I highly suggest looking into that, getting the yearly or the monthly subscription. I have not been angry with this. I've been nothing but happy with all the images and fonts that I can use throughout the year for free. So this is where I found these from. Oh, I really like this one too. So I'm going to pick this one too. This one's kind of neat. I just kind of go through and pick out which ones that I like. And then I just click the Insert button. So that's where I got these other ones from. Or also, like I said, Design Bundles as well. So here are the new ones that I just found. I do really like these. So again, it depends on what size your bag is. I'm going to show you really quick which bag I used. I bought them off of Amazon. Let me just pull it up here quick. So I bought two different kind of makeup bags from Amazon. I'm going to show you really quick where I got them and what they look like. So I got these little ones here. They're like a canvas bag. And then also these black ones here too. I'm going to show you quick. So I ordered this one back on June 10th, 2021. So I'm going to click on the order detail and show you maybe if it'll show how much it was. This one was $11.99 for $15 and I really love these. I've used these in the past with HTV and I really love how they turn out. It works really well on them. But you can choose from all these different colors. If you're interested in these little ones, oh, that would be cute for teachers. This one here, I didn't see that one before. But this would be really cute to give to teachers for anything. For starting teaching, starting for the year or the 100 day thing that always goes on in schools, anything like that. So it'd just be kind of neat. So I'm going to be using these fonts with those bags and I'm also going to show you one more thing. Sorry guys, I've got yelled at a few times for not showing what I use. So I'm going to be getting better at that. So this is also something I'm going to be using. I really do love this company. They sent me some vinyl and some HTV to try out and I'm always honest with you guys. You know, I hate the Cricut brand and I'm always trying to find cheaper places to buy HTV and regular vinyl. This place has it. I'm telling you guys, it's really good prices and it works really well. Like I said, I did a video on teacher bags and I used this HTV. It was the holographic one and I absolutely love it. It was the easiest to weed. I know, I know, HTV is always easy to weed but this one was really easy to weed. It was easy to cut. I didn't have to go over it twice like I normally do when I use my Cricut. So if you're interested in purchasing, I would recommend this company HTV Rant. I'm not sure if I'm saying that right. HTV Rant, I honestly don't know but I highly recommend this place if you're looking for something. So this is where I got the HTV from. So that's just the place. I'll leave the link below in case you're interested in that but like I said, last time a couple people yelled at me for not actually showing where I got this room. I always leave links below so I'm gonna show it from now on. So getting back to this. You can do a couple things with these. You can change the color if you want. Unfortunately, what I've noticed with some of these that you buy from design bundles like these couple of ones that I found, you can see on the right side here that they are all together and there's no way to ungroup it or detach it. So unfortunately, whoop, this one will. So unfortunately with some of these, like this one, you can't untouch these. It will be the same color. So we're just gonna go ahead up here to the color box and I'll show you. It'll change the whole color, which is fine because some of them that I'm going to be making will be one full color. Other ones will be different colors but again, I'm going to be using the HTV Holographic which I absolutely love. So the last thing pretty much on here is if you are able to ungroup it and you wanna change the color, you can go ahead and do it. Otherwise, I'm gonna show you something really quick. So I'm gonna do this one. I'm actually gonna duplicate it. So I have two of them and I'll show you why in a second. So if you select it and you go down to contour, you can actually get rid of some of the pieces on here. So I want the heart to be a different color and I'd actually like teach to be a different color. So I'm actually gonna do this a few different ways. I'm gonna get rid of teach and I'm gonna get rid of the heart. And I see that this is lighter now but I have to go in and click these two. Otherwise that will still be there. It looks like the H went away for some reason. There it went. So when you click out of it, you see, whoops, did not get rid of the heart. You see the teach went away but I still wanna get rid of the heart. So I'm gonna go back in contour and I'm gonna click on the heart so that should get rid of that. So now I can change the color to anything I want on here. So let's say I wanted a blue color. So now I have the original yet because when you get rid of it, you wanna have an original with so you can take the other part that you want. So I still want to get the heart and the teach. So again, I'm gonna duplicate it, go down to the contour button and now I wanna get rid of with love. So you can go in and click each one of these and make it the lighter color shade on here. So there we go. Now I got rid of with love so I'll still have the teacher and the heart. So there you go. So again, I know this is time consuming. We have one more that we have to do but I'm gonna get rid of that one and just work with this one and duplicate it because I just want the heart this time. So now I'm gonna go back into the contour button and I'm just gonna get rid of the heart on this one. So here we go. And then again, one more. Now I got you rid of the teach. So we're just gonna go in here and get rid of the teach. If you guys know of an easier way, please let me know but this is how I do it. If it's connected to each other, that's how I always just use the contour button. So now I have all of these and they're gonna be different colors this time. You didn't have to do this if you want it all the same color but I'm gonna show you quick. So let's make this a purple color, let's say and then the heart I want like a pink or a red. So we're gonna do this. So now you can do them individually. So we'll cut this piece out all as you see it and then this as all as you see it. So the only other thing I wanna do actually is change the size. So if I go back to this and I can see here it tells me my bags are 8.3 by 4.7.  So you wanna do it a little bit smaller. So I might do it, you know, a six by three and kind of see how it looks. So we're gonna close this and grab both of these pieces, all these three pieces and then change it. So I'm gonna change it six by three and we're gonna see how that looks. Whoops, I forgot to unlock it up here. So I unlocked it and I'm gonna change it to be a six by three and we'll see what that looks like. Oh, that's not too bad. So there it is. So it's gonna be just like this. But it's gonna cut out just like this. So I like it the way it is. I'm actually gonna change the color one more time just so I don't have to go back later. But again, I know this is going to be HTV. So I gotta figure out what color would look kind of good on the canvas of those. So I'm gonna change this one maybe to... And it doesn't have to be the same. You know what? I'm gonna leave it because it doesn't have to be the same. I just know that these colors are going to be HTV. So I'm gonna grab this. I'm gonna make my screen a little bit smaller and I'm gonna move it over here because this one is completely done. I don't have to do anything with this one anymore. And for whatever reason, it came back. Okay, we're having problems with my computer today. All right, so we'll just leave that one. I'm not sure where it went, but I can still see it here. Here it is. So for whatever reason, my computer is going wacko today. So we're gonna leave that guy way over there. So another one, I'm gonna do this one. So I'm gonna leave this one exactly the way it is and just change the color.  Whoops, that did not work out. Guys, my computer is going wacko on me today. Six by three. It's gonna be one of those days. So I like the way this one is. I'm actually just gonna change the color to let's say purple. It doesn't have to be purple, but when I know it cuts out, I know I'm going to be using a different color. So I'm gonna move this one over. Okay, it didn't move any farther. I'm gonna show you just maybe one more. I like this one. I did this one for one of the bags I was talking about and it turned out amazing. So go back and check out that. Unfortunately with this one, it's the same thing where you'd have to go in and do the contour button or you can just leave it all as it is. I'm just gonna leave it as it is, but just change the size really quick. So we're gonna do this six by three and do whatever your size of your bag is. You may not choose to use the bags that I use, but I like those. And it's smaller because my screen is shrunk to 50%. So I'm gonna actually change the color to this too. Let's see, a yellow. And again, it doesn't have to be yellow. I just, I'm gonna know when I cut it out that I'm going to choose a different color. So I'm gonna move that guy away. And you know what, one more I'm just gonna do really quick. So this one, so it looks like, although it's one whole piece, it's going to cut out separate. Oh, nope, I thought this part was black, my fault. So this is gonna cut out as you see it as well. So the last thing I'm gonna do is just unlock it and then change it to be a six by three. So there it is. So for the purpose of my video, I'm actually going to delete all of these because I'm not gonna use these for now. So I'm gonna select them and X out. So now I know that I'm just going to be using these four. So I'm gonna show you what it looks like. So I'm gonna go to the make it button and then it's gonna show me on the side here what each of them are going to look like. So like I said before, you don't have to use a specific color that's here. Like I don't like yellow very much, but I know I'm going to be using HTV. So when you do use HTV, there is something very important you need to do. Please make sure that you always mirror your image.  I like the brand that I have now because it has black on one side and then the pretty color on the other side. So you know that you flip the color on the bottom of the mat so it will go flat on the mat that way. So when I put this on the mat, I'm just gonna choose different colors. Obviously I'm going to leave some of them the way that they are, like maybe this purple I'll leave, but I'm gonna show you the next step. So since I did that and you have all of them mirrored, you're gonna push continue and use your settings that are gonna pop up here. So each setting is different. If you're using a regular vinyl, you wanna choose that. If you're using HTV like we are today, I'm gonna show you which one I use.  I don't like how it cuts. I don't like how it goes on. I don't like anything about it. So that's why when I find a store or brand that I really like, I like telling you guys about it. So for mine, I'm going to use this premium holographic vinyl setting on here and it cuts it out perfectly. Like I said, this vinyl cuts and it weeds like butter. Oh my gosh, I will show you guys. Another thing I got yelled at is I'm not showing people how to weed things out. I figured everybody kind of know how to do it. So if you know how to weed your stuff, please feel free to skip to the next part. I'm gonna put this on the mat and show you the next part of it and then show you the weeding process. So if you are used to it, you know what you're doing, please feel free to skip ahead. But I'm gonna go ahead and select this premium vinyl holographic. And this is my base materials. This is my materials that I use most often. So I save this. So you might have to look for it if you don't have it there. So I'm gonna make sure I have my fine point blade in. You wanna make sure that you have your HTV color side down. And I just realized that when I was doing this yesterday, I didn't catch it, but I'm using the premium holographic vinyl. It's not HTV, but you know what? It cut out perfectly for me. So you wanna always make sure you're looking for that. So actually when you use HTV, I would recommend using this heat transfer non-cricket. But because I know it cut well with this one and I'm using holographic, I'm actually gonna click on this one. So please make sure you have a fine plate blade in and then use a green sticky mat. It really helps when you have a clean mat. So I'm gonna go ahead and set my stop up and I'll show you the next step. All right, so I promised I would show the next part here of the weeding. So here is my mat. You wanna make sure you work with a really, really sticky mat. So my mat is clean. I just washed it. And here is the HTV holographic that I'm using. This is like a greenish color but I really like this because it's black on the back. So you always know that this color goes down, face down. So I'm gonna show you really quick. Some of you might know how to do this radio but I'm just showing the ones that are new to my channel and new to Cricut. So you just wanna lay it down and then rub it and make sure that there's no bubbles. Then I used to use a credit card or a Cricut scraper but I upgraded to this. It's just a roller and it's amazing. So you just wanna roll it and you wanna get all the air bubbles out and then you wanna make sure it's nice and straight and nice and tight on here. So now it's nice and sticky. So we're just gonna take this and put it in the Cricut and then I will show you the next step of taking this off and weeding it. Okay, so here it is finished. So I'm gonna show you a little trick.  So this way the mat is twisting and curling and the vinyl is not. So just like that. Then what I like to do, instead of cutting out the actual image itself, I like to leave it on the piece that I'm working with and then take my scissors and trim it that way. And I don't know if you can really see this but I'm going as close as I can so I can save some of the HTV. So instead of just laying it on there and cutting out a six by three or whatever the size was, now I can make it a little bit smaller. So here it is here.  So I buy these weeders from Harbor Freight and I think I get like six of them for three bucks and they do tend to get a little dull and sometimes the tip does curl over but you know three bucks for six of them rather than what is it for one actual Cricut weeder? Isn't it like 10 bucks or something? So I would definitely highly recommend getting these.  The next thing I'm gonna do is just show you really quickly how easy this is to weed. So again, the color side and here's the black side.  So I'm just taking the edge here and pulling it up. I'm gonna show you guys, this seriously is so easy to weed. Okay, like I said before, HTV is very easy to weed but this is like a no-brainer, so easy to use. So I'm just pulling it as I'm going. I don't even have to use the weeder anymore, just pull. It'd be easier if I had it laying down and I'm kinda trying to show you guys what it looks like, so just like that. So there is the first part. Now I need to go in with my weeder and go through these.  So here's the first part. Then you just wanna go in and then find the pieces that need to come out. But this is so easy for weeding. Like I said, it's as easy as this. This goes for regular vinyl as well. The weeding process, I had a comment a couple days ago saying, you showed the whole video but you didn't show weeding. Well, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that people wanted to see this. So I apologize for that and my videos might be a little bit longer than most people's but I like to show everything step by step. So I hope you guys stick along to this video. I hope you really like it and that you're learning something. So if you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button and hit that like button if you like this video. And I love hearing comments below. So please leave some comments below as I love hearing and reading those. It makes my day. So here this is. Oops, I forgot in the R there. But wasn't that easy? That was so simple to weed that. So I really love this HDV vinyl. So this is going to be going on it. I did make this one already. So I'll show you this one. This one is teaching awesome humans. I thought that was kind of cute too but I'm gonna finish up the rest of them on my Cricut. I'll weed the rest of them off and then I will get set up by my heat press for the next step.  Here's the black one. And here is just the regular canvas one. This one says teach and inspire. I love how these look and turned out. So if you're going to be using bags like these or any kind of bags, there's a couple of things I would suggest doing before you go ahead and do this. So I always put something in between here, whether it be a cardboard or some parchment paper, but I just cut it out to put it on the inside of here just because if you do this, your HTV might infuse and go through the middle of this. So I always have some protective thing on the middle. So that was one tip. So another tip is I'm going to take my file, put it on where I want it to go, making sure I get it centered. You can go ahead and take like a ruler or something and put it on here, but I just kind of eyeball it to see where I think it should go. But normally you would just go ahead and press this the way it is, right? Wrong, so these you cannot do that. You have to put them on the side here so you're not touching the zipper here. So you wanna make sure you have it lined up the way you want it and then you put it on the edge so that you're not getting your zipper. So I'm gonna go ahead and do that one and I have a black one here and I already put the parchment paper inside of it. So I'm just gonna line this up the way I want it to look. And then you can fill your whole heat press up and kind of go along that way. I'm just gonna start with these two for now and show you what it looks like. So I have it on the edge here. I have my heat press set at 380 degrees for 20 seconds. You always wanna make sure and figure out what heat press setting you need this at. So I'm using cotton bags and you always wanna make sure what the heat press setting should be at if you're using a heat press. I started with an iron. I upgraded to an easy, a Cricut EasyPress, I, Cricut EasyPress, yeah, I hated that. Again, I just, I lowered Cricut so for the Cricut Maker, I swear, guys, it's just me or what, I don't know. I would love to hear your guys' opinion. Do you guys have a heat press? Do you have an iron? Do you have a Cricut EasyPress? I would love to know what you guys are using. If you guys need to see a different kind of video using an iron, I can do that but I highly, highly, highly recommend and love my heat press. So going from there, I have it on the edges here so that I'm not going to be touching the zippers on here. You wanna take your Teflon paper and lay it over here flat that is going to save your files that you have so they don't burn. So I'm just gonna press this for the 20 seconds. And the reason I love this too is I'm not sitting here, I'm not pushing on it, I'm not watching the time count down. It does it all for me. It's counting on the time, it has the temperature I need on it and I don't have to do anything. I have six seconds left and then I'm finished. I'm not sitting here holding this down, trying to get the correct pressure on it. That's also why I love the heat press. So now it's finished, I'm gonna lift up. I'm gonna pull this away and you gotta make sure cause it's very hot so you wanna be careful this is where all the heat comes is at the top here. So here's what it looks like and I'm gonna carefully peel back the little plastic part on here is very hot. Peel back that and it is perfect. So here it is, teachers inspire. Sorry, teach and inspire. So I love that one. I'm gonna show you this one really quick. This one says chaos coordinator. You can also fill these with pens or gum or anything you want. You can fill it with stuff or you can just leave it the way it is. I think I'm gonna do a little bit of both. I'm gonna hand these out to some teachers. I'm also going to be selling these at the local craft store that I'm in. So here's this one, chaos coordinator. I love this. So I have the rest of these to go. Again, you wanna just make sure you take your parchment paper and put something on the inside of here that it will not stick through or burn. I've done that too many times where I forgot to put something in here and infused it where it just went to the inside and I couldn't even open it because it was all stuck together. So as long as you have something on the inside where it's gonna catch it, you're gonna be okay. So I'm gonna do this one and I'm just gonna finish these up. So again, just line it up where you want it. You can take a ruler if you want or you can just kind of eyeball it and see where it should go. It's handmade. So I say anything handmade is never perfect, right? That's what makes it handmade. So I'm gonna finish these up and I'm gonna show you what they all look like when they're finished, but I'm really excited about this. And I did do a video on canvas bags for teachers as well. So if you haven't seen that, go back and check that video out as well. I'm having a lot of fun making these projects for teachers. I think they would be really cute to hand out to any teachers this coming school year. So I'm gonna finish these up that I have left and then I'll show you what they look like. I had so much fun creating these personalized teacher canvas pencil bags.  If you're interested in additional teacher DIY gifts, please check my channel for more ideas and step-by-step teacher gift videos. Happy crafting, everyone.


Aloha, good morning. Here we are again with Stacey to the rescue. It just still makes you laugh. Anyway, my name is Stacey Hoyashi, and today we are talking to two boat owners, fishing crews, foreign fishing crews, and what's the real truth. So we have Kang Dang and Jim Cook, both of the Hawaii Long Line Association. Thank you. Good morning, guys. Thank you for having us on the show. Yeah, so let's assume that the people out there have seen that AP article about floating prisons. What do you have to say about that? You want to take the lead on this, Jim? I could. Well, there are very few prisons that you can get out of at your own free will. That you opt into. Perhaps it was a little planted in that way. And yes, of course, we have seen the articles, and we are very concerned about them. And we're in the midst of doing quite a number of things about them. So if you like, I could tell you a little bit of history of the use of foreign crews here. Sure. Yeah, that's great. So the fishery, the Long Line Fishery in Hawaii dates back to 1990, when Japanese immigrants started long-lining in Hawaii. And through all of those years up until the late 60s, it remained the fleet of 40 to 60 boats. And then people from the mainland became interested in the fishery. And between the late 60s and kind of the end of the 80s, the fleet grew up to around 45 boats. And then really in the next five or six years, they mustered up to around 140 boats, and that's where it is today. Crew members prior to 1987 have always been domestic hired here. In 1987, Coast Guard passed a law that allows us to use foreign crews on our vessels. And that was the time at which we started to do that. I think the real impetus for using foreign crews was that local domestic crews who were very difficult to get during this kind of work. And so over the period between around 1988 and, I don't know, probably up into the 2005 around in there, I would say somewhere around 90% of the vessels in the fleet converted to foreign crews as it has become increasingly harder to find domestic crews. Maybe you can share a little bit more about that. Why is it so hard to find a local crew? Fishing is extremely hard work. Fishing is dangerous work. These are documented facts. And our society has just become harder and harder to do. And in fact, when we look back at the history that goes into the early 90s and 80s, when we look at who was working on the boats, in many of those cases, they were compact people. So they were from Federal States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Pacific Island people who were able to get green cards and come to Hawaii and work in the fleet. And we very seldom saw what you'd call real local people, just not many at all. And then as the fleet grew and the amount of jobs grew, it became more and more difficult. And the nice thing about these foreign crews is they're well vetted by agencies and very professional. And so it's a lot nicer for the boats. But there are boats that have local crews, too, right? Yes. Probably, I'd say maybe up to 20 boats have local crews. I think John Viking, who has two boats with local crews, was interviewed the other day. And he is now in the process of transitioning his vessels to foreign crews just because it becomes harder and harder to find local people who can do the job. Right. So Kang, maybe you can tell us a little bit about your experience. So I mean, my family has been in the business for about 25 something odd years. So I've always been in and around the fishing industry growing up. But it wasn't until recently, maybe about five years ago that I kind of dove and head first into the industry and learned exactly how everything worked. You know, Jim was instrumental in kind of helping me get acquainted with what we do, not only on the boat owner side, but what challenges there are as part of the Hoi Long Line Association. So in my experience with the foreign fishermen, we've been using them for as long as I know. And personally, we have a lot of returning crew members. Just recently, I spoke with, as far as we go, most of our foreign fishermen are Filipino nationality. So I just spoke with our Filipino manning agent this morning and we just have the Philippine consulate come down, interview their nationals and just ask them generally how happy they were with the living conditions and the working conditions. And from what I've heard from our agent, he says they're very happy with the amount of food they're receiving, the fresh water, the pay and the working conditions, and they're all generally very happy. I think your people watching the show would be interested in the process of obtaining foreign crew. So the way that that process works is there are manning agencies in several different countries. In Hawaii, we use foreign crew from Vietnam, from Kiribati, from Philippines and Indonesia. And so the process is if you want to get a foreign crew, you contact a manning agency, you tell them what your requirements are, and they'll come back to you with a roster of maybe three or four times more people than you need, and then you can look at what the experience levels are and then pick an experience level. And so that's how you basically interact to get the crew. So these crews have a contract. So the owner of the boat has a contract with a foreign manning agency. And these manning agencies aren't only involved in fishing, they're involved in cruise ships, they're involved in oil tankers, and they're big. I think that the Philippines, for example, I don't know, but there's a really huge amount of Filipinos working overseas and all kinds of work. And it's a big source of income to the Philippines. So that's the process in getting them. Then to actually get them on the boat, maybe Ken can tell you a little bit about that. It's kind of an involved process. Yeah, so a lot of it is teamwork within the fishing community in and of itself. So a lot of times everyone, a boat will announce that, hey, we're going to go pick up crewmen based on U.S. Coast Guard regulations and what Customs and Border Protection prefers. You're allowed to pick up X number of crewmen for your own vessel. And on top of that, depending on when the boat was constructed, you can either carry up to eight additional passengers or 12 additional passengers to bring them back to Hawaii to distribute them to the different fishing vessels. So currently most of our crew pickups, we have a lot of the crew flying into American Samoa, which is about a two-week trip away from Honolulu. So the boat will head down there, pick up the crewmen, bring them back, and then upon coming into the United States, Customs and Border Protection usually meets us dockside to make sure that all the crews are vetted, all the crews are aware of their contract situations, and then they're picked up by their owners and transported to their vessels that they're going to be working on. And so as you know, the status of the crew technically is what is called detained on board. They don't have a visa, so they're not clear to enter into the state, really. But the Customs and Border Patrol people allow them free access to the piers at which you go, so they can go into our place, they can go to Nikos or PLP and buy things and visit. Very often they're visiting over on an adjacent boat with friends and that kind of thing. I think a lot of the focus or some of the focus in Martha Mendoza's AP article had to do with wages. And I'd really like the general public to sort of understand this if possible. So the crew member has a contract and the wage on the contract is usually low. It could be anywhere from $400 to $600 a month. And so the norm is that the vessel owners are paying a minimum of the crew contract and then bonuses on top of it. And it varies from vessel to vessel and I don't doubt that there may be vessel owners who are strictly paying that. So we come down to the issue of the wage and what you have to realize is these people are not admitted into the U.S. so all their money basically goes back to where they live. If you look at a situation with a regular domestic crew who say might be making $3,000 a month and you turn him loose into the Hawaiian economy, you know $3,000 a month will get you here. But you take these people who are working at these low wages and they interject their money and they make our crew members on our boats probably make at least 10 times as much as they would if they were in their native country. So when it comes down to how do you pay domestic crews? If you have domestic crews under IRS law, if you have 10 crew or less on a boat are allowed to work as an individual contractor on percentage of catch.  We go out fishing and we come back and I hand you $2.73. It's a nice day, entirely legal. And when you think about it in the long history of fishing, it's got to be that way. Because it's not as though we're going in and in the days where I know you're going to sew 250 pairs of jeans. I don't know if you're going to sew any jeans. Right, because fishing is fishing.  This industry is functions and for many days crew members will be sitting there doing nothing. We get on the fish and start fishing, it's fine. So we wake up in the morning at 6 o'clock, set gear, usually takes 4 to 6 hours. They eat lunch and pack fish from the night before and probably start hauling that gear back, maybe around 6 in the evening. And it could easily take them 12 hours to get the gear back. And if there are a large amount of fish or a large amount of challenges with current moving the gear around, it's not unusual to take 15, 16 hours to get a set of gear back.  The fishing industry, I don't care whether you're here, Alaska, China, the Philippines, California, that's how we work. And if you think carefully about it, that's how we have to work. And it's actually kind of similar to agriculture as well, right? I mean, you have these local people don't want to do those jobs. It's a lot of work, right? And I think to a comment about living conditions, to the best of my knowledge, the living conditions, the board, the boats are not a product of the nationality of the crew on the boat. So if I had a domestic crew, conditions are the same on my boat as if I had a foreign crew. And are they conditions that the general public would be clamoring to take a cruise with me? No? A fishing boat is a very tight, cramped place and you wouldn't want to go. Yeah, I have to agree with you there. I was with Carl Jellings on the Akulei boat. That's a day boat. I was just like, I can't believe these people do this. It's so tough. It's such hard work. And actually I'm going to end right there because we have to go to a break right now, but we'll be back in a few seconds. Hi, I'm Tyler Cevota and I was actually a guest host on Carl Campania's Think Tech Hawaii show, Movers, Shakers, and Reformers. And I think you should tune in every Wednesday to find out more about what it is. That's all. Take care. Aloha, I'm Kaui Lucas, host of Hawaii is my mainland every Friday here on Think Tech Hawaii. I also have a blog of the same name at kauilucas.com where you can see all of my past shows. Join me this Friday and every Friday at 3 p.m. Aloha.  Noon, thinktechhawaii.com. Watch the show. Be there. I'll pay you the full weight. Hello, this is Martin Despeng. I want to get you excited about my new show, which is humane architecture for Hawaii and beyond. We're going to broadcast on Tuesdays at 5 p.m. here on Think Tech Hawaii. Okay, Aloha, we're back with Stasis to the Rescue. We're talking to two members of the Hawaii Long Line Association, Jim Cook and Kang Dang. We're talking about these very serious allegations of that AP article and these floating prisons. I'd like to point out that the boat was never named. These are very serious allegations and it's having a very real effect on you guys. That's correct. They are very serious allegations and I want you to know that we take them as serious allegations. We're not sitting there just hoping for this to go away. We don't think it'll go away. We think we need to be very active. The Hawaii Long Line Association in combination with Hawaii Seafood Committee is really doing a number of things. One of the most damning allegations was that there was slavery and human trafficking involved in the fleet. We hired a lady who has international credentials in human trafficking, slavery and extensive experience in Southeast Asia on this very subject. We asked her to help us design something to assure that this wasn't a curse. She came up with a crew contract. The crew contract is designed strictly around those human safety allegations. If the crew is willing to work on this contract and sign this contract, it's a demonstration that no human trafficking is taking place. We are trying to have in this situation and really will have a zero-tolerance situation. Without the crew identification, that is their I-95 and their passport, without signed crew contracts, you will not be allowed to unload fishing. My vision is that if there's anybody out there that has some kind of a problem, we're shortly going to find out about it through that. Furthermore, the Long Line Association has created a couple of inspection forms. One of them deals with the allegation that there are substandard conditions on vessels, that people don't have food, that people don't have water. We have a special inspection sheet and then we have in the language, whether it's Vietnamese or whatever it is, we have a questionnaire for the crew member. Our intention at this point, we're in the process of hiring a third party to go and survey all of our boats. Admittedly, at this point, it's what I'd call kind of a wide filter. What we're trying to do is get out there very, very quickly, assess all of the boats and say, okay, we don't have a problem or we do, and here are the people that we have this problem with and we intend to go to them and try to get them to remedy them. I think it will probably take us probably 30 days to get all the boats. You have to remember that these aren't big fleets of boats, these are 140 individual businesses that you're talking about. And they're out fishing and they're back and so it takes time to get things. Once we're done with that, we have been working with some of the larger retailers. And the larger retailers are really asking for us to undergo operational audits using third parties. So we have been talking to United Labs, which I think is kind of the largest certification organization in the world, and we're working with their office. And what I foresee is that within a period of about six months, we will likely be under that kind of a regime. And that kind of regime means that these people will be auditing conditions on the boats and making reports. So it's been interesting for me. I've never done this kind of work. It's like that petal in the flower and just keeps peeling pieces off of it, but we're getting it. And we're on it and it's important to us. These allegations are important to us. And so we're taking action. Can you mention a lot of your boat crews, they keep on coming back? I think, yeah, generally because they're happy and a lot of them find this as a great way to make more money than they would otherwise if they were working in their home country. So yeah, sometimes they're making up to, I don't know, eight to twelve terms as much as they would back home.  And they're happy with their living conditions. And I think what's important to know is that our industry isn't free from current inspections. So for all of the boats that fish... Aren't you guys totally highly monitored compared to other countries, right? That's on the fishing sustainability standards, so responsible fishing in general. But as far as the crewmen, the foreign crewmen go, all of the boats that fish in and out of Hawaii are located within about three miles of each other between pier 16 through 18 and pier 36 through 38. So customs and border protection here locally actively monitor the crew situation. So they're doing tons of random inspections where they're making sure that all of the crew members that are supposed to be onboard are onboard and on the vessel. And then further, every time they come down, they're asking, hey, how are the living conditions? Are you getting enough food? Are you getting enough fresh water? If you need emergent medical attention, is that being provided for you? And lastly, if you want to go home, please let us know. So right after the AP article was released on September 9th, they actually had a meeting down at both of those main pairs where they gathered all of the foreign crewmen. And it was a meeting, it was kind of a forum where the owners and captains weren't allowed to attend so that the foreign crewmen can speak freely. So they re-emphasized all of these things one more time. Hey, are you getting paid according to your contract? And all those same humanitarian questions for living conditions and just making sure that they're getting enough food. And they gave them like cell phone numbers and there's already signs posted down at the pier saying that, hey, if you're subject to any kind of abuse or your appropriate living conditions aren't being provided for you, then please reach out to us and we will rectify the problem immediately. Have you heard of anything yet coming back? No, not at all. No one left? Not that I know of. Gee, so maybe. We heard us of what we're hearing back and all of the good stories. We're not going to sit here and listen to good stories. We need to uncover the truth for ourselves and we need to get into a monitoring situation and our energies are going in that direction. But it would help Bright to know which of these so-called boats are abusing Bright. You know, we're fortunate here and that pretty much 100% of the fish that's landed in Hawaii flows through United Fishing. And we're fortunate in having a business in United Fishing that's cooperating and that's where the choke point is. You're going to be a bad actor, you better figure out what you're going to do with your fish because you're not going to sell the United Fishing. Yeah, and I wanted to also re-emphasize that back when it all started, you know, the Japanese fishermen came, they were immigrants, right? You find that in fishing communities all over the country that immigrants, you know, you have on the East Coast, you know. And let's not forget that white people are also immigrants, right? A lot of Italian down in the Gulf, you got a lot of Cajuns and, you know, it's a funny business. You work really hard most of the time. You don't make that much money. Why do you keep doing it? Yeah, and people are kind of like, they're after you, too. It doesn't feel like that. I give you guys a lot of credit because I know it's a lot of work and it's very difficult. You mentioned about the observers. We carry observers on 20% of the Long Line trips for tuna and 100% of Long Line trips for swordfish. And if you look at observed Long Line trips in general, 87% of the observed Long Line trips in the Pacific are taking place on Hawaiian boats. And yet we make up less than 3% of the Long Line boats in the Pacific. Wow. So we are intensely observed. Our boats have mandatory Coast Guard inspections. There's a lot there. But nevertheless, we're not sitting on it. We're getting on it. So that's what we're up to. It sounds all very expensive, too. It is. That's a fissure I'm thinking. And the price of my pocky bowls is going to go up. Oh, gosh. Would we blame the AP for that? That's funny. Yeah, well, I don't know. Is there anything else you want to share with the public? I mean... Well, I don't know what more I can say. As we put out things, we do intend on releasing them to the public. So the public will shortly see these crew contracts so they can get an idea of what it was. And then as we get further down the line, most of these big retailers, the Sam's Clubs and Walmart and Costco's of the world, are into these social audits in countries that they go. And there are quite a few of them that are throughout the fishing industry. I expect that we'll go to that point or to some point near that. And this type of auditing will probably continue to the life of the fishery. I don't expect it to change over time. I think most of us understand that it's expensive. We know that. But we can't have bad actors in our business. Right. And I think to a large extent, you have your business and I have mine. I happen to be in the restaurant business as well. And I'd hate to see a story that was teed off on the worst restaurants in town and begin to indicate that that's the case in all of them because it's not the way that it is. So that part of Martha's article I think is somewhat unfair. Yeah. I mean, I've been to the pier. I've seen the unloading at United Fishing and the crew seemed happy. Well, you know, these are professional crew and they are with Manning agencies and they have come to the Manning agency asking for work. And I can tell you, 201, every one of them I've talked to is Hawaii is the premier place to go. And I don't think it takes much for you to imagine what crew conditions might be like on an Asian vessel operating in the Pacific. And in many cases, those are freezer vessels and the trips can be six, nine months long. And yeah, it's a different thing. We don't have any basic human rights like the United States. Yeah. Well, and on that note, we are out of time, but thank you so much, both of you, Kang and Jim, for coming in to give the fishermen side of the story and Stacey to the rescue. So, a hui hou.