That's maybe quite a big sentence. Yeah, say a bit more about that. Are you talking about like therapy in the past as in dealing with the hurt child that experienced it maybe? Yes, because the problems why people function unhealthily in the present isn't to be found in the present. No. It's to be found in the past. We demystify what goes on behind the therapy room door. Join us on this voyage of discovery and co-creative conversations. This is the therapy show behind closed doors podcast with Bob Cook and Jackie Jones. Welcome back to episode 66 with myself, Jackie Jones, and of course the wonderful Mr Bob Cook, as always. And what we're going to be looking at in this episode is the importance of retrieval of memories in the therapy process. Well, thank you for those kind words. Always, Bob. That's very nice of you. Now this subject area is very dear to my heart and I think retrieval of past memories is so central to the development of the therapeutic process and people's change that is imperative to talk about. Yeah. Okay, so is it okay if I just start? Yes, absolutely. Okay. So I would lose counts about how many times clients have come in in the assessment processes and often when I work privately with them and say what's the difference between counseling and psychotherapy. And it's a very, very big subject and I usually give a very superficial reply in a way. And for people listening here, counsellors, this is, you may have different versions of what you see is the difference between counseling and psychotherapy and also the similarity. So bear with me. So I will say very briefly because I didn't have that much time in an assessment process usually. It says with counseling and psychotherapy, number one, they're trained differently. So for example, psychotherapies are trained how to deal with disturbed people and counsellors aren't. But the most important thing really I think in the domain of psychotherapy is psychotherapies will look at how the past affects the present. But counsellors are more likely to stay with the present. Of course I know there's been the rise of therapeutic counsellors so I think the whole conversation can get overlapping there. I want to talk about psychotherapy in depth clinical psychotherapy where the major focus is how the past affects the present. And transaction analysis, the way I use transaction analysis and think about transaction analysis is a psychodynamic model, which is primarily looking at how the past affects the present. Now you can use TNA in a very different way, in a much more short term way, where you're looking at the present much more and you're looking at behavioural change. How it burned was very much 70 years ago talked about how you strengthen the adult and not go particularly into the past. But for me, in-depth psychotherapy is how the past affects the present. Would you see it that way? 100%. It sounds quite obvious really to think about it but the past and the future is where all I was suffering is to be in the moment is where we should all try to be. But I was passed as a wonderful way of coming into our present through memories, through feelings, experience, through all those things. So as a therapist I would always be interested in how people are enacting out their past, not only with me as a therapist, but also in terms of functioning in the here and now. TNA, you might simply want to say concentrating on a person's script and how they play out their life plan, if you like, in the present with me. And also looking at how their script or their past hinders their healthy mechanisms in the present. So most people I've ever seen through the door, this is what therapy is about, because otherwise they wouldn't be coming through the door. If they didn't have any problems in their functioning or present, they wouldn't be coming through the door. And it is the issues in the past with their enacting out of the present which causes the problems. So the therapy is to be found in the past, not the present, from my position. OK. That may be quite a big sentence. Say a bit more about that. Are you talking about like therapy in the past as in dealing with the hurt child that experienced it maybe? Yes, because the problems why people function unhealthily in the present isn't to be found in the present. No. It's to be found in the past. Yeah. See that's what I think with counselling is the difference between counselling and psychotherapy is that maybe the talk techniques to deal with the symptoms of their past. They don't necessarily deal with whatever happened in the past, but the talk techniques have to deal with it. So psychotherapy for me is to help the person reflect, visit. Talk about the wounded parts of their history or the traumas, if you like, that happened in the history, which they've defended against or moved into survival mode, if you like, to get by in the world and often quite successfully, by the way. And perhaps doesn't help them anymore today, maybe in personal or emotional relationships. Yeah. And that's often why therapy is quite difficult because you are going back to some places that hold a lot of hurt. And it's a very slow process. It's not like we, you know, I suppose I do do a timeline, you know, of certain points in people's lives when I'm first seeing them just to get a feel for them. Yeah. But you don't just dive in straight away into those hurt places. No. So when I'm talking about memories, I need another statement about trauma. I need help along the way. Yeah. So most people I have seen and are still in a couple of groups come into therapy because of past trauma. Now that could be really massive trauma, which will abuse. It could be high degrees of sexual abuse. It could be physical abuse. It could be abandonment. It could be neglect. We could go through trauma. Yeah. So it's hard to say a continuum of minor trauma to tennis trauma. So I'm just using the word traumatic moments here if you like. Now the major way that people defend against trauma and memories of the trauma is to lock the trauma away in compartments, if you like. Metaforon people's psychological spirits and not to revisit again either emotionally or through memory. Yeah. And then they find coping mechanisms to deal with life in a so-called if you like healthy way. Until the trauma is visited or the compartments are opened a bit, then all the energy by the person, if you like, is all about keeping those compartments closed and denying their memories emotionally or actually physically. So this is where the defensive denial comes in. And they deny their memories as well as their emotions. So when I say retrieval of memories, I'm talking about going into the trauma and dealing with the memories that people have denied through dissociation or disavowed mechanisms. So they can actually move towards integration instead of fragmentation, find a healthy way of living. Yeah. And that's a real journey to go back to look at it. Do you know what I mean to bring it all together to move forward. It's a long process for people to be able to do that. It's not something you can do in six weeks or two months or something. It is when I'm talking about this type of work, which is deep trauma, we're talking more in years rather than months or weeks. So people who've had may come in for post traumatic stress or come in with challenging histories. We'll have what in the trade we call dissociative processes. And that might include amnesia, denial, flashbacks, depersonalisation, all ways of movements away from the self and memory. So when I talk about memory retrieval, I'm talking about helping a person finding parts of themselves, which have been safely put away so that they can function, but actually doesn't help them today. Yeah. Somebody once said to me, and it might have actually been in supervision, I'm not sure. You know, when I look at myself and my earliest memories, I think my earliest memories, I was probably about four or five. Like, you know, things like my first day at school, I've got flashbacks of my first day at school and everything. Is there a point where we can start to lay down memories? I think it was in supervision, somebody said that until you've got the power of language, you can't lay down proper memories. Well, there's a difference between implicit memories and explicit memories. So it depends what that person meant by lay down memories as well. But a lot of memories are held in the body. Well, that's it, somatic memories and just that feeling and that sense of something rather than natural playing out of film or however a memory. I went through a massage the other day in a place I hadn't been before actually, by the way. Annoyingly, the massage therapist talked from the beginning to the end. Eventually said, well, actually I've come in here to relax rather than not. But in this talking phase of hers, I did make that sort of, I think it was on the born therapist. I did sort of talk about a few things, but one of the things she was talking about was because she knew I was a therapist. About emotions being held in the body.  Part, yeah. Yeah. No, no, she said. So I said, well, I think all massage people are going to work in the way that, you know, even in the way you work, which is quite light. She would have had some basic training if a person regresses in front of you. And I believe that because there's a tremendous lot of emotions, especially if you've had a lot of trauma, which is held up and held in the body. And, you know, therapists need to tread very lightly. They certainly don't do massage, obviously. But, you know, I think that massage therapists should have some sort of information about this. So what I'm saying around the way about saying, I don't know what you mean by lay down, but I do know that a lot of early feelings and memories are locked up in the body. Yeah. It's called somatic and the user words somatic. Yeah. So my memories can be triggered through all of our senses for me smell is a really strong trigger for memories if I smell something it can, you know, transport me back to something in my past memory to go of course. Yeah. So, sorry, sense. So if you're working with somebody, if you want to do retrieval of memory work, please remember the sense is the last sense is one of the most keenest senses of all. And it's a very important one for people being abused usually are very triggered by smell and that type of sense. And often then for out of that can come memory. Which again in the therapy room, you know, we don't want to depersonalise it all together but it is something to be aware of. If you've got, you know, a candle with a certain smell on it or if you've got a certain picture in the room or whatever that can be.  Of course, if you're doing trauma work with people traumatised and you need to take them back there, that needs to be done in a contractual safe way in context of the development of the therapy. That's okay, because that's all being, you know, you might use visualisations to get back to sense to actually trigger memories by the way. But what you're talking about is when it what you're actually talking about is when these things have not been contracted for at all. And the therapist hasn't thought about triggers and hasn't thought about particularly thought about the things that you and I are talking about. So they can be triggered very easily. I was somebody assessment and only the other day and something in the room, he said, he said, you know, this certain object in the room triggered him back. And this was in the assessment. Now, I said, well, let's stay where we are in the here and now, and I'll pass this on to the therapist that you I'm passing you on to. Are you able to will pass this object to the to the offices has happened, and he said yes, and we went out. Right, I think therapist you want a really interesting point here, because I think therapists need to think about how how the actual office or therapist room is. Yes, yeah. Cycra analysts way back in the day believed in having no pictures having nothing that would stimulate or trigger these memories or these associations until the right time upon their walls. So it's a very good conversation to have about with therapists. So today, in fact, only today. One of these therapists came into the room said to me at my Institute I was in there said oh, I'm starting my therapy up and they're working from home and it's not there and show me pictures and they're lovely. I can see it was a lovely. I think therapeutic space. I said, oh, you know, that's really good and maybe you'll be able to show your supervisor that. Right now in terms of this conversation. I think the supervisor would do. It will be very good to look at these pictures because there could be a discussion about. Well, you know what's in the room, how can we put this in the room.  You know, have you thought about how that might stimulate anybody coming in the room in terms of a aggressive way. Yeah. And it's a really good point that you touched on that if a client is triggered to know how to ground them to bring them back into the present to get them back into the here and now. Oh, I clearly told in the case I've just said, I clearly took to the person look. I'm glad you know what triggers you. We're not going there now. Are you okay to move out of the room. From a very adult way. Yeah. The very directive way. So looking at retrieval of memories in the therapy process. Talk me through how you would use that in therapy with somebody. Well, just let me say why we would use it said a little bit about why we use it. From where I come from, which is a, you know, a relational integrative perspective using TA is a major model, but integration is the aim of the game. Yeah. People who threw trauma fragmented off or disowned parts of themselves so they can function and survive in life. But of course, as I said earlier on in this podcast. Today might have a high cost in terms of healthy living, and they come into therapy because they want to deal that trauma and to have a more unified, you know, integrated sense of self if you like. Yeah, that's where we're heading. Now to get there. We have to go back to help the person. You know, through inquiry through achievement with the person to involving yourself as a therapist. We need to go back to find out what their defense mechanisms were to look at, you know, the fragmentation to help them look at the different parts of the self to help them to actually debrief their trauma if you like. In that, we are always mindful of the retrieval of memories that often are being locked away, which may be so central to the trauma memories such as what the abuser said to them. Memories such as what the abuse actually was, what actually happened in the talk, for example, and how the therapist defended against ever remembering that and what the cost of that is. Yeah. For example, so I forgot what the question was was the question is how I do it. Well, yeah, how would you use memory retrieval in the therapy process. Yeah, I've just explained the reason why I would explain the path, the methodologies very general. Number one, very slow. Number two, using inquiring questions about their history rather than interrogational close questions. When I say hypnotic induction, I mean, I don't mean him not induction any sort of negative way. I mean, sentence constructions was just slower and lower. Yeah. So the person relaxes. So the defences go down more so we can get the person to maybe talk about the trauma in ways they've never talked to anybody before. And out of that might come when this. And it's again about that holding safe space so that they can and an hour or 50 minutes, which is a therapy hour, isn't a very long time to do that. No. Do you know what I mean? Very, very true. That's you've kind of got, you know, 10 or 15 minutes going into it and then an hour before you've got to make sure the ground did enough coming out of that session. Yeah, so what I did when I when I was going to work in a what was what Thurbs called a regressive way, which means going back into time to where the trauma. Ray would either be an hour and a half session. Yeah. Or two sessions in the week. Right. Yeah. So I will build up what you're talking about here, which is protection and a safe place to actually be. I also also always check on support. Yeah. Now they're going to get home. Yeah. All these things. And the client's agreement to doing it rather than think, you know, the therapist thinking, right, we can choose. I'm going to do this with them and just, yeah. This will be very planned out. Yes, yeah. So I would call it retrieval of memory work, which is really actually Jackie. I could call it retrieval of trauma stroke memory work because it's actually helping a person, you know, talk about their trauma. I'm not talking about reliving or, you know, anything like that. I'm just talking about talking about the flavour of the trauma. And even if the person only gets in touch with a segment of it, then we might go a bit deeper another time. Yeah. It's a process, never an event. Yeah. And I think like you said it, you know, we need to be so mindful that it is a very slow process and it's not rushed and it is sometimes dipping in and dipping out rather than going in and experiencing it fully, which can be re traumatising for a client. Yeah. And what I'm talking about is in-depth psychotherapy. Yeah. And not all therapists are trained to do it, be even know how to do it and see, may never do it. Yeah. Yeah, I think the first time it happened for me, it wasn't a planned thing. It was something in the room that triggered a client that suddenly brought up overwhelming feelings. It was something we hadn't even spoken about. So, yeah, I was very conscious of that. Yeah. And it was for me just a matter of having that safe space and grounding the client. And then we went back and discussed it the week after. Yeah, it's a very good point. It needs to be very slow. Yeah. And you don't have to deal with, you know, what the trauma was in the moment. You can deal with it next session. Yeah. Come back to it and at the pace of the client, otherwise you're going to overwhelm the client. So it's really, really important to be a tune to the client and go with the pace of the client and have the safety and security for the client as the top priority. Yeah. For me, it is really important that the client feels in control in the session. Yeah. They can say stop or no or I'm not ready at any point. And the therapist would only do this sort of work way into the therapeutic process. In other words, they would have to know the client well. Yeah. The client would have to know the therapist well and feel they can trust them. There needs to be quite a lot of sessions where the therapist understands the client and needs to be done developmentally in the therapeutic treatment. So we are talking about quite a long way in. Yeah. Six months, seven months, eight months before you do any of this type of deep progressive trauma retrieval of memory work. Yeah. That actually helps me a lot with that client because, you know, the next week we did have a discussion about, you know, if that happens again. What do you want from me? Good question. Do you know what I mean? Do you want me to sit with you? Do you want me to touch you? You know, you say what it is that you want me to do if that does happen again? Which made me feel a lot calmer in that space as well as the clients. And I'm assuming I might be completely wrong here that it helped the client remember more things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It opened up a whole new, you know, it wasn't the reason why they came to therapy in the first place, but it opened up a whole new realm that we dipped to towing obviously, you know, over time. But for me and the client to know if this did have this overwhelm happened again, what do you want from me? That's right. So we all talk about retrieval of memory. Yeah. We're doing it in a way where the client is safe and secure and in control. And there can be a transparent discussion and inquiry about where we're going and what we're getting from it and, you know, how this is aiding therapy. Yeah. And in a way almost like sessional contracts. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Because I think clients do, you know, I can honestly say 99.9% of sessions with clients don't always go the way that I have them planned in my head. You know, the direction changes and there will be surprises in the therapy room and certain things will come up. So we've got to be adaptable and be able to, you know, to re-contract with the client. Well, we have to have that level of flexibility. Yeah. Of transparency. Without a shadow of a doubt. But until we can help clients remember things that they don't allow themselves to remember because they need to keep themselves safe. Yeah. Then change may never happen. No, I agree. And like you said, it's not reliving the trauma or it's not talking in depth about the trauma. No, it's just simply touching. Yeah. The, the, the experience, but not reliving it. No. And it's validating it as well.  But it's validating the response and reaction and feelings. Because, you know, Mo, I don't know, a high number of clients, many, why would they want to remember what was so horrific for them? Yeah. They don't. No, I agree. They put it away in a compartment, they dissociate, they deny, so that they cope and go with light. And that is fantastic. And if that's, if it works for them, you know, we'll never see them. Yeah. That's fine. But if they come for therapy and there's a contract to actually look at how the past effects are present and be able to find out why they are so defensive in relationships, why they have intimacy issues, why communication breaks down and all these things. I don't believe it's to do perhaps some of the tumors in the history. Then we have a contract in the third big duty, I think, to help the person remember what perhaps was so by definition hard to remember. Yeah. And, you know, I think it's important as well that locking it away when they did was the best thing they could come up with at the time. If there was an easier way or a more healthy way, they would have done it, but a lot of the time, that's the best solution. Just don't think about it, lock it away. That's right. And I've said this in many podcasts and say here again, one of the major reasons most people come to therapy is to understand. Get the wanting their therapist to help them understand what has been so understandable for so many years. Yeah. The only way that can actually happen, contractually of course, is to revisit challenges in their past and help them understand what maybe was so understandable. And then they start to realise that in the context many, many years ago, it was made perfect sense. Yeah, yeah. And then they're not going crazy. No, 100%. Yeah. And that's a big thing with a lot of people, I think.  I think it, you know, I know that it's coming up to the end of the podcast, but I know for me in my past, there's been times, you know, where things have happened. And I can remember talking about it in a therapy session when I was training that I don't ever remember my mum being there. I know she was in the house, but I don't remember her being there. And it was said to me that maybe that's because she was in the house, but she wasn't emotionally available to you. So my memory on certain things is quite skewed, which again is something that can happen. Yeah. And it's helping the client understand what perhaps has been so ununderstandable. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. And it's a privilege to work with those clients. Oh, it's probably the biggest privilege of my career. Yeah. When I look back at my career, I think I'm very proud of the impact that I've had in helping people transform their lives. But we can only do that if the two of us have the transparent contract and courage to visit these parts of the self, which have been so understandable and troublesome for people. I love the way that you put that, Bob, and courage to do it for the therapist as well as the clients. Oh, both. Yeah. And the other thing about this is, and I said it earlier on the podcast, is we need training. Therapists need training. I was very, very fortunate. I did a whole training in transactional analysis for seven or eight years in a more cognitive behavioural type of training. I then met a person who became my mentor, which is Richard Erskine, who worked in this relational developmental way I've been talking about in this podcast. And I sat in many, many, many therapy intensives or groups where I watched in works, and I became trained, trained me how to work this way. And I was being so fortunate because many, many, many therapists may not want to be trained in that particular way of working. Understand that. But they haven't had the training. So I really hope people listening have some sense of understanding what I'm talking about now because I may not have been trained in this particular way of working. But for me personally, it was such a gift in my career to have that type of training. Definitely. So I would say people who perhaps want to develop their skills of working in this type of way to look and see if there's any training on how we can work with clients in a relational developmental manner. I was very, very, very, very fortunate.  Which is amazing. And when I talk this podcast, I think, oh, I must come out of retirement. I know I'm not going to. I need to go back. It's a big part of me, but I know how much I help people. And I know I maybe some of the things I talk about myself with being indispensable. I know I'm not or anything. So I know I've retired, but I also know, you know, I love that type of work and, you know, what I can give to the professional career. So there is a grieving. I don't know which podcast I think podcast before this. There was certainly a grieving and a loss when I ended my career. I can imagine. This podcast stimulates that in me. Yeah. Yeah.  I'm proud of that. Yeah. I've really, I know we've come to the end of class, but I've very much enjoyed talking about this and I hope I haven't. I hope it's been clear to people listening. Because retrieval of memory work, I think does need more training, but I also the biggest thing is to do this in a safe, secure, transparent way. So, if you have a client, then class won't feel overwhelmed. Yeah. And if they work in the way you talked about where you said that wonderfully, you know, if this this type of regression or this type of flashback happens, what would you like me to do is such a wonderful adult statement. I think it's a very protective way of working. Yeah. Thank you. So until the next time Bob, do we know what we're doing next time. I'm going to, I'll, I'll text you some.  So once again, it will be a surprise for everybody what we're doing. I mean, life is about surprises. Life's about curiosity, enjoyment, spontaneity. So yes. And adapting. It depends what happens between now and then. Right. Until next time, Bob. Yeah. Thank you very much. Bye. You've been listening to the therapy show behind closed doors podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. We'll be back next week with another episode.


Welcome back MechanicalEI. Did you know that invention of bearings in the form of wooden rollers may predate the invention of wheels? This makes us wonder, what are bearings? Before we jump in, check out the previous part of the series to learn about what couplings are. Now, bearing is a machine element that constrains relative motion to only the desired motion and reduces friction between moving parts. The design of the bearing may, for example, provide linear movement of the moving part or free rotation around a fixed axis. Or, it may prevent motion by controlling the vectors of normal forces that bear on the moving parts. A slide bearing is the simplest type of bearing, comprising of just a bearing surface and no rolling elements. Wherein, a journal which is the part of the shaft in contact with the bearing slides over the bearing surface. The simplest example of a slide bearing is a shaft rotating in a hole. Plain bearings in general are the least expensive type of bearings. They are also compact and lightweight and they have a high load carrying capacity.  The relative motion of races causes rolling elements to roll with minimal rolling resistance and with little sliding. They require fewer boundary dimensions and can transmit heavy and variable loads of various forms. They can easily be installed, serviced and replaced. Fluid bearings are bearings in which the load is solely supported by a thin layer of rapidly moving pressurized liquid or gas between the bearing surfaces. Since there is no contact between the moving parts, there is no sliding friction. Allowing fluid bearings to have lower friction, fear and vibration than many other types of bearings. When compared, a fluid bearing can be as simple as two smooth surfaces with seals to keep in the working fluid. In contrast, a conventional rolling element bearing may require many high precision rollers with complicated shapes. Hence, we first saw what bearings are, then saw what simple type of bearing is and finally went on to see what rolling element and fluid types of bearings are. So like, subscribe and comment with your feedback to help us make better videos. Thanks for watching. Also, thanks a lot for those constructive comments. You helped the channel grow. So, here are the top mechanical EIs of our last videos. In the next episode of Mechanical EI, find out what conventions in bearings are.


Hello everybody to the NFCore infrastructure group. We are mainly working with the tools, NFCore tools, but also NF validation and some parts of NF test and also the website. So it doesn't matter if it's in the Python, Groovy or JavaScript and HTML or CSS, you will find stuff to work in this group, all these skills. And we have everything nicely gathered and our project board, it's the infrastructure project board and we have different subgroups, so if you feel lost, just like try to stick to one subgroup and work your way through it, we will have enough issues for everybody there. But yes, talk more about NF validation, please Nikolas. So if you want to work on NF validation, you can pick one issue from words you see there. For example, the one, link to the Slack channel on the website, on the docs. If you want to do that, you can assign yourself by clicking on add assignees, like so. And that way you will tell everyone I'm working on this issue so we don't do double work, etc. If you want to add a new issue, you can also click on add item in the overview, a bit down, yes there, add item. So you can do what you want. If you want any help, you can hit any of us up, especially I will be working on NF validation, so you can ask me if you want anything. So next. Good, yes. Dan, we have many subgroups for the tools because there are many ties we touch with this and Julia will talk about this more. Yes, so for working in NF card tools, you have for so easy issues and for beginners, we have some issues about documentation or then also some good first issues. For example, we have this one where we would need to change how GitHub changes between dark mode or light mode images and then other different things you can work on. For example, some bugs that we have selected that would be interesting, like small projects to work during the hackathon and you can also work on adding new commands, for example this NFCore sub-workflows patch that we already have an NFCore modules patch, but we would need to implement this one for sub-workflows and then also adding some new features and working on linting tests or CI tests for tools and so just pick one issue that you like. Yes, or if you don't like command line but like web development, we have also quite a few stuff, a few things with the website, especially because we just launched a new one and one thing for example, which would be if you are OK with regular expressions, we have these admonitions but also GitHub has these admonitions and the syntax is not the same, so it would be good if we could still use basically the same syntax, especially for the read maze to render them nicely in both sites on GitHub but also on the website. So this is just some regex work and I think a good first issue for that. And then we also have things about the schema or NF test, but more about that you will hear about in the NF test group and that is pretty much it or NF core infrastructure. So yeah, if you have any questions, just drop by on our Slack channel, the hackathon, or up to us if you're in Barcelona. Cool, thank you very much. Bye. See you.


And another one. What's up people? Manuat here coming to you with a video. This time we are going to be unboxing and reviewing a USB condenser microphone. It is AU PM422. This is the serial number. These are the device specification. These are the frequency information and it uses USB and these are the features of the device. This is the support information for the device and this is the company's website. The product came in this box itself. The label was printed right on top. So I had to remove that so that's the reason why there is a little bit of blemish over here. Let's start with the unboxing experience. Right of the bat a pretty happy logo and also a frowny face if you need help. And this is the information for the website. We also have user manual and how to set that up. The mic cover so it can negate the sound that might be coming in or distortions that might be coming in. The technical terminology of this is a windscreen cap. So this is the cap for your microphone. This is a pop filter. It's a cloth mesh kind of a thing with a pretty snazzy looking logo. Not too bright so it's not going to distract you. And this is all metallic construction. So once you set it into place it is not going to go anywhere. Pretty strong, pretty well made and even the assembly knob thing they are also metallic. This is plastic board. This is plastic. But this is a metallic piece that is connected as a pretty heavy sturdy device. Let's continue. This is the base assembly for the mic and to minimize vibrations there are springs so the mic will just get tethered, screwed in over here and it does rotate. This is the adjustable thing. So you can tighten it, loosen it, get the mic to your liking and then tighten it. So it's actually going to be sturdy. Hey, the Gurukul silicone pack.  The base stand for your mic and again very solid construction. And as far as the depth is concerned about three fingers wide. So if your workstation or if your bench is about three fingers it will just clamp right in. And this is the other part that it houses onto. Pretty sturdy, metallic, all metal construction. A USB cable and it is a pretty heavy duty USB cable. And it's almost seven foot USB cable. So pretty long USB cable. It is pretty well made. It's about seven foot cable. So it will definitely connect properly and it's pretty heavy duty. So it will take care of any electrostatic interference that might be taking place. It's a Velcro strip thing. That way you can and that also has the company brand, the logo on it. And it's two of them. So you just don't get one, you get two of them. So that should allow for a better cable management experience. And the arm assembly. Pretty nice metallic. And it is pretty nice and metallic. Nice connectors. And it is QC passed. Springs are pretty tense. So pretty nice quality spring. And you do have adjustable options here. So you can tighten it, loosen it at multiple spots. So you can tighten it, loosen it once you get it to your preference. And finally the cream of the crop. The mic. It has the volume function and it does have the headset option. So you can plug in your headset into this. That way your headsets are not connected to your computer. You don't have extra cable going in. You can have your headset plugged into the mic itself and the mic can act like a mic. So this is everything that is included with your mic. It's a great value for the money that you're paying. Because you're not only getting the mic, you're also getting the stand. You're also getting all the accessories that you need to complete your gaming rig setup. I am going to be connecting it. I am going to be testing it. And this is the audio that you're listening to. Once I assemble this, I'm going to connect this to my PC. And you can hear the mic audio and you can determine for yourself how great the sound is. So now without further ado, let's proceed with the installation. So first things first, we need to connect the copper connector part which is this thing to the base of the mic. So we need to connect the microphone stand to the shock mount. That is the technical term. So we need to connect the microphone stand to the shock mount first. Pretty simple operation. You take the shock mount which is this and connect it to the mic. And keep on rotating it. It'll start tightening up. And once it's fixed in place, it will still rotate. That way you're able to rotate the mic. So now that this is done with the spring side up, we need to now connect the mic to the shock mount. So hold this steady and just straddle it through. Pretty snug fit. Now we need to connect the pop filter to the base of the microphone. So open this up and connect it. The pop filter is connected. Now for extra noise dampening, we are going to also connect the windscreen cap while you do have the pop card. If you have a fan running, this is going to prevent any extra noise from coming in. And now the base of the microphone stand is just going to get connected right here. Temporarily I'm going to just secure it on this table. And the installation of this is fairly easy. Just mount it flush. It should be completely perpendicular like so. So that should be a 90 degree connect. And hand tighten it. That way it doesn't move. Now we pick up our assembly and just drop it in here. And this is flush now. And we hand tighten it. Now we have moved the arm back and we are tightening this. We have oriented the mic right side up. And now we are going to adjust it and tighten that up. The screen filter thing is also adjustable. So you can mount it anywhere you want. Tighten the screen filter and I've tightened the arm. Now we have the noise gate in front of it. Now we need to connect the USB to the bottom of the microphone. Just rotate it left and connect it. Snug fit. Take the wire. I'm just going to braid it like this. Take the velcro straps. And keep in mind there are two of them. Feed it through. Make sure it's not pinching in between the arms. So when you're moving it, it doesn't get damaged. And take it and just plug it in here. And you still have a good four feet of cable. So you can connect it to your audio equipment. And it's a USB connector. This my friend is the final view that you will have. I personally feel this is a great microphone for live streaming, podcasting, video recording and any to all of your video production needs. Based on the specifications that are listed on the manual, this mic is definitely going to make a great addition to my streaming setup. And it's going to take my podcasting, my streaming. This is a test of the mic. As you can see it is coming in pretty clear. Thank you. And my video production to the next level. Definitely a big thumbs up for me. Thank you so much for watching. And I will see you guys and girls in the next video. Take care people. Bye.


Hi everyone, Joe for Jaspy's casebreaks.com coming at you with a little team random To help fill up Sterling pick your team, too, which is coming up in the next video This is a unique one because it's a 12 teamer But the top spot is gonna get a box of Sterling really nice value right here So let's flip back over here. So we're we're not gonna random out We're just randomizing your names not this right here big. Thanks to this group for getting in on it. Appreciate it Let's roll it. Let's randomize it six and a one seven times lucky seven for someone one two three four five six and Once more seventh and final time Whoo, Jeremy congrats a box of Sterling going right that loose box right here.  I'll see you in the next video for the break itself. Jaspy's casebreaks.com


An early morning fire at an assisted living facility in Blackduck. No one was injured, but everyone in the building at Serenity Living Solutions was evacuated at around 1.45 a.m. Fire remains under investigation, foul play is not suspected.


Displaying YouTube videos. In this screencast we'll look at two ways to display YouTube videos in your course. Moodle's Ato text editor has a Moodle media icon which you can see here which makes it very simple to display directly in line that is embed sound or video files. We're going to embed a YouTube video. The process would be the same if we were to for example upload and display in line a recording as an mp3 file. We can embed media anywhere we see this text editor and so we could do it in the course section summary but instead what we are going to do is add it to what Moodle calls a label some white space which you can add anywhere on your course page. This makes the video a YouTube video or a sound file or your own video displayed directly when you access the course. However be aware that if you do this with a lot of media files it might make your course slower to load and you might prefer to add media to a page resource instead. So with the editing turned on either by clicking the button top right or the link in the administration block we then click add an activity or resource to get to the activity chooser and we scroll down to resources because label is a resource and when we click to add the label you can see that it's basically just a box with a text editor and when we click the Moodle media icon we then prompted to browse repositories and go to Moodle's file picker which we've met in a previous video. If we wanted we could upload a file such as an mp3 or our own video or we could find one in our private files or server files but we are actually going to go and use YouTube and this enables us to search YouTube for a video of our choice sorting by relevant states, rating or view count. I add a search term and then when I click search Moodle goes to YouTube and tries to find appropriate videos and when I've chosen the one that I want I simply click on it and select it. Notice that we've done all this without needing to understand any HTML embedding code so it's very useful if you're not technical. This is the correct video so I click the insert button to insert it into the label. Don't worry that you only see a link once we save and return to course the video will appear embedded and if it doesn't it's worth checking that you have your filters enabled something which we'll look at in a separate video and there it is a YouTube video embedded in a label on our course page. However if you already have the link of your YouTube video another way to display it is simply to paste that link that URL into the editor. Here for instance I've gone to YouTube and found the video that I want so I click the share link to get its URL and then I paste it in and again as long as the appropriate filters are enabled once I've saved the page this link will display as an embedded video.


Today's presenter has done something all of us probably have dreamed about doing. After 15 years in a corporate life, after going through school and doing a lot of things we all do, he said to himself and to his wife, is this what we really want to do? And then he didn't. He went to Mexico and has developed a way to share that dream with you. Rick now lives in Mexico and he has written articles about flying in Mexico and runs a service where he can actually escort you to Mexico. It's a beautiful country and it's one right near our borders that makes flying that much more exciting. Please welcome Rick Gardner. Thank you, Kathleen. Thank you, Kathleen. I'd like to thank Obi Young, the FAA, and the crew of volunteers here at the FAA Production Studios for this opportunity and I'd like to thank all of you for coming this afternoon to listen to the presentation. We've got a lot of information for you so I'd like to ask that we try to hold questions until the end. So bring your seat backs to the full upright lock position, fasten your seat belts, we're clear for takeoff and we're going to Mexico. A little bit about us, the agenda we're going to cover a little bit about us, some facts about Mexico and then we're going to get into the procedures which is the heart of the presentation and then I'm going to take you on a little tour of southeast Mexico which is where we call home and then give you an overview of some services that are available for pilots visiting Mexico and then have some time for questions and answers. I'm actually from Nassau, Bahamas. My wife is Mexican from Puebla, Mexico. We are based in Cancun. Now we've made that sacrifice for you fellow pilots that we've done this so that we can provide you with all of this good information. We're both bilingual which helps tremendously in communication in Mexico. Flying has been my passion, always has been and I've had the opportunity to be put on the General Aviation Council in Mexico which gives us tremendous access and a good relationship with the federal authorities there and I'm also on the Bahamas General Aviation Council so we're very proud of that and we're proud to be a resource for AOPA when technical issues or questions rise or members have problems say contact us and we help any way that we can. Some interesting facts about Mexico, 6,000 nautical miles of coastline which includes the Pacific Gulf and Caribbean coast so there's three completely different types of beaches and coasts, second largest barrier reef in the world and they've got about 1,300 airports. The only problem is only 92 of them are in the aeronautical information publication for Mexico. There's no AFD so we're going to talk a little bit about one of the things that we've done to try to address that. 75 VORs, most of them work most of the time and the altimeter settings are in inches, altitude is in feet, distances in nautical miles but fuel is in liters so be prepared to convert if you're going to Mexico because they don't use gallons but ATC does speak English, does speak, I don't but the ATC does and a lot of questions that we get from pilots are just that is how do I communicate, they speak English some better than others but very understandable. Gilberto López Mayer who is a pilot and is the director of Mexico's civil aviation organization, the DGAC, has made a commitment to continue to facilitate the arrival of general aviation pilots to Mexico, the committee that I'm on, we are looking at ways to simplify and continue to streamline the process even further but we do have the support of the top guy of Mexico's FAA which is very important. Now having grown up in the Bahamas and living in Mexico for many, many years, one of the things that I have found that helps to make your trip successful, any international trip for that matter is relax, don't set yourself an aggressive agenda, timetable, don't expect quick turns, just take it easy, build in plenty of time and things will be, will go much more smoothly. Now as far as documents are concerned to travel to Mexico for the US you need all of the documents that you would need to fly in the United States with the addition of the restricted radio operator permit. This is a topic that always gets a lot of discussion. It's actually an FCC regulation and if you go to the links page of our website it takes you right to where they say that you've got to have it. Now getting a restricted radio operator permit is a grueling process but if you can spell your name, remember your address and fill out your credit card information and other similar devious tricky questions you will have passed the requirements to obtain a restricted radio operator permit. So it's really not that tough. Passenger documents the United States Customs and Border Protection now requires US citizens to reenter the United States from Mexico and the Caribbean to have a passport. Mexico doesn't care, they'll keep serving you margaritas but if you want to go home you will need a passport so you'll need to get one and if you're traveling with minors and one of the parents is not traveling get a notarized letter from the the parent not traveling. Aircraft the same thing you need to fly in the United States with the addition of the radio station permit. Again if you go to our website there's a link that takes you to the FCC website where you can get that information. Insurance coverage in Mexico this is another topic where there's a lot of conflicting and misleading information. Around 2003 Mexico changed the requirement and now your US issued insurance is valid in Mexico provided three things. One that it specifically states in the geographic coverage that you're covered in Mexico and number two there's a formula that's 56,900 days of minimum wage on and on and on but it's basically $250,000. So if your liability insurance your liability coverage is at least $250,000 US or greater that covers the second requirement. They don't care about Hull it's the liability and the third thing is you need to bring a photocopy specifically of those pages that show those first two items because you'll need to leave that with your entry permit when you arrive. Notarized if your aircraft is borrowed or you've created a corporation just whoever owns the aircraft bring a notarized letter authorizing you to fly it on those dates and before you leave I recommend you try to get the customs and border protection decal you can get it upon arrival but it's just one other thing you're going to have to deal with. So plan ahead go to our website you can there's a link to take you there and you can obtain your CBP decal before you depart and if you're going to use ferry tanks you'll need your 337 navigation charts as simple as this sounds you'd believe you wouldn't believe the number of times I've run into pilots in Cancun or other other places trying to travel within Mexico or across to other countries and they don't even have a charge they're using their their GPS or something and they don't have current charts so make sure you you do bring them to cross the air defense identification zone we need 12 inch numbers and a mode C transponder and a radio to contact ATC and although the FARS don't necessarily require you on a private flight to carry life jackets or life raft I strongly urge you if you're going to be over water there's lots of places that rent life jackets and life rafts do it folks it's it's it's it's a very little expense and a tremendous safety equipment that you can have on board and of course your survival equipment adequate to the terrain oil and spare parts getting oil and parts in Mexico can be somewhat challenging especially if you use a specific type of oil so if space and weight allow I encourage you to bring it with you when I bought the 206 that we fly I saw the previous owner had changed the starter two times and I thought okay I know what I'm going to get first thing I did was buy a brand new starter for four years now I've been hauling it around in the back of my plane it's like Murphy's law in reverse you know and if I hadn't got it I would be in the jungle somewhere wishing I had and any country you go to I think it's proven even in the US I put my throttle lock on I think it's just it's prudent to have it in our neck of the woods we've not had any thefts or break-ins but it's always good to do but what you don't want to bring to Mexico do not want to bring firearms ammunition or any illegal drugs that's a big no no now to cross to depart the southeast of the United States towards our neck of the woods we've got to cross the air defense identification zone and part 99 tells us that unless I'm otherwise authorized no person may operate on aircraft into within or across an aid is unless that person has filed a flight plan and also in part 91 it tells us to fly to Mexico we've got a file so we've got a file flight plan so what you want to do is you want to select the Mexican airport of entry and I'm going to show you one of the places you can find what those are but you want to select an airport of entry it doesn't have to be at first border crossing or first coastline crossing it can be 500 miles inland they don't care all they want you to do is that first landing is to be at an airport of entry file a flight plan now coming out of Florida you'll be filing an IKO international flight plan Miami Flight Service will help you prepare that and but if you cross into Mexico from the border there is an agreement between the U.S. and Mexico and you'll actually can file a domestic flight plan if you're departing Texas Arizona into Mexico so be aware that if you're accustomed to crossing at the border and you come down to south floor and try to go across from here the process is different and the flight plan is different then make sure you activate your flight plan you can ask for flight following Havana Center provides it then the Mexican Centers provided I encourage you to do that Mexico request that when you cross their borders or their coastline you contact the nearest tower approach or center and identify yourself and who you are and where you're going okay it's also good for for safety so somebody knows where you are if you're vfr and then close the flight plan in the case of Mexico they do it automatically upon arrival coming across from Key West there's a number of different routes the three most popular points are Merida Cancun and Cozumel and some of the if for those of you that are IFR, Kanoa, Vinca, the two critical intersections outbound and then pick the appropriate airway from then on but what you don't want to do if you're vfr is you don't want to go inside the Cuban a interatis that 12 mile zone unless you're in contact with Havana Center they've approved they've given you clearance and they've given you a discrete transponder code okay and sometimes they will do that if you're vfr but what you don't want to do is make any unauthorized stops prior to an airport of entry because they will assume that you were doing that to drop off some type of illegal contraband so if you're flying let's say you're flying from Key West and you're flying to Merida and you have a problem somebody needs to go to the restroom whatever something happens that you can't make it then pick another airport of entry pick Cancun pick Cozumel pick something else but try to avoid landing of course if it's an emergency you've got to do what you've got to do but if you can certainly pick another airport of entry that's what you should do and then again don't cross that 12 mile um uh atis the interatis of Cuba unless you've been cleared to do so okay when you arrive in Mexico you will more than likely be greeted by a soldier uh the uh Mexican army and in some cases the navy but typically the army has been empowered to provide security at most airport so guy's going to come out and he's not going to speak real good English if at all now we have in our pilot guide a little page a cheat sheet that you can fill in with your information hand it to him and he'll copy it down and give it back but basically they want to know where you're coming from where you're going and the names of the people on board uh your aircraft and once you uh passed that step then the entry process is very similar to that in the Bahamas for those of you that have flown to the Bahamas you've got to complete the general declaration uh an immigration form now in the case of Mexico they tear off the bottom part of the form and they give it to you don't lose it that just shows that you entered the country legally and they're going to ask you for that when you depart just as if when you fly commercial those of you that have flown in Mexico and commercial airlines the next step is the customs declaration one per family again just as if you were flying commercial and then the entry permit um there are two types of entry permits into Mexico there's a one time entry permit that costs five hundred and sixty seven vessels which is about fifty fifty fifty five dollars and then there's a multiple entry permit that allows you to enter Mexico as many times as you want during the calendar year which costs five hundred and sixty seven vessels which prompts the obvious question why wouldn't you get a multiple entry permit I don't know but I suggest you do the multiple entry permit is a two page letter basically says you can fly within Mexico but you can't do any commercial operations and a receipt in either case if you get a one time or a multiple entry you will you will receive a form it's called a ghc zero zero one the ghc zero zero one is similar to the c seven a in the Bahamas it's the one you take with you on the aircraft but the most important thing is that those three blocks are stamped by immigration customs and civil aviation okay there's the reason for the ghc is that it's basically says these are the three federal entities that recognize this form so whatever you do you want to make sure that you leave the airport with that form okay and the north some some pilots refer to that as the green sheet many years ago they used to be green and then complete an arrival report just as you would say in Freeport or Nassau Bahamas any towered airport in the Bahamas there's only two you fill out an arrival report arrival report Mexico is the same so that's the entry process very similar to the Bahamas and you're there so it's time for your margarita or your corona on the beach now once you've entered Mexico has a lot to offer and so you'll need to get around navigate you probably need fuel so here's a tip a hundred ll and it is 100 ll it's blue it's called gas avión which is actually av gas in spanish gas avión av gas and jet a is called durable sina so remember those two words when you need fuel say i need gas avión and they're going to exactly what you're talking about typically they're provided by asa which is a part of the mexican government they drive these bright yellow trucks and i recommend if there's an fbo on the field pay asa directly because many fbo's market up 20 30 percent and it's still asa fueling your plane all they're doing is financing you at a very steep price so you can pay these guys directly without having to go through the fbo they accept vessels many times credit cards and right now it's running about three dollars and twenty cents a gallon for av gas i just fueled our 206 getting weather in mexico uh is done by cinam cinam is a branch of the government similar to atc in the united states the dgac is the administrative part they handled permits uh administrative functions cinam are your tower controllers briefers radar operators so they both report into the secretaria de comunicaciones y transport de their transportation and communications division of the federal government and at some airports they have like the old flight service stations where you walk up to the briefer they'll give you your weather you file your flight plan with them just as we used to do years ago and they also have some rco's for in-flight weather and we've got a chart where we show what those are unfortunately those aren't published but we do have them in our pilot guide then of course there's public and private resources available most of you know and then we'll be talking about this we have some free weather information off of our website mexico has prohibited airspace and restricted just like in the united states the only difference you'll see they start with mic mic that's the only thing when you look at charts that's all it is is just saying that's mexican restricted airspace cta is center and uh rather than class d airspace of what we call class d around towered airports they have aerodrome traffic zones atz so if you look at a jeb chart you see an atz what's that it's class d just think of it as class d airspace in the u.s because it is um and you'll need to get clearance into the atz just as you would into class d airspace here the other thing that they have are tmas now these are terminal control areas where the m comes from i have no idea when they just ask the folks up in a montreal at ikeo what that is but it's what we know as a tca and all you need to know is that you need clearance to get into it to enter it now they look ominously like class bravo i have never know i've personally never been denied nor know of anyone that has been denied access into a tma what happens is many airports don't have radar and so consequently what they do is they want to know where everybody is and that's why they want you to report especially if there's a lot of commercial traffic they want to know where everybody is so they can maintain vfr and ifr separation and they do a lot of traffic reporting so just make sure you get clearance there's also another strange creature called an aphis aerodrome flight information service and it's similar to the laa's in the us where basically it's someone from cinnam someone from flight services on the field on a discrete frequency that can help you with traffic and weather information just be aware that some aphis or some uncontrolled airports may underlie a tma so that when you depart again you need to if you want to enter the tma you need to contact and get a clearance then otherwise you can just fly underneath it without having to talk to them one thing that's different in mex outside the us is that vfr flight is not allowed after sunset so no night vfr just like in the bahamas i'm going to tell you if you've ever been out in the ocean at night or if you've been out over the jungle at night there is no horizon so it makes from a safety standpoint it makes a lot of sense basic vfr in mexico is a little bit the the ceilings just a little higher than what we're accustomed to and here's an important one the official ctaf for airports in mexico is 125 however as you get closer to the us border you'll find 128 becomes more and more popular and i think it's just basically because of the uh the proximity to the united states left hand traffic patterns predominate cardinal altitudes just a little lower if you're fortunate to have a turbine speech restrictions are a little different we've got those in our guide and again if you file the flight plan you need to follow it unless you advise atc that you're changing modifying your flight plan in mexico if you depart a towered airport and some non-towered airports even if you're vfr you'll need to file a flight plan and they use the iqail flight plan format and it needs to get the dgac approval now we are rolling out a number of airports and continuing to roll out a telephone radio version of this where rather than have to fill out all the papers and get the stamps you can actually call in or radio from your aircraft saying i'd like to file a flight plan from cancun to chichen itza and they'll start giving asking you the information and they'll say flight plan received contact tower for departure no paper no stamps no fuss uh and same for the arrival i've arrived from gozumel i'd like to close my flight plan and you'll be queried for the information and and you're done okay so that's it's really pretty straightforward getting in and flying within except for the the flight plan piece and we're working to make that easier but when it gets time to go home you need to plan your return and and here we need to pay special attentions because after 9-11 things have gotten a little bit more delicate you need to select the mexican aoe for departure you're the mexican regulations say the last departure from mexico should be from an airport of entry and i know there's a lot of uh misleading information i can tell you the immigration law just like our laws in the u.s clearly says that it's in the law so make sure your last departure is from an airport of entry they're going to ask for that ghc 001 they're going to ask for your immigration card back and then you need to select the u.s customs and border protection designated airport for arrival and there they want you to land at the closest aoe or designated airport to border or coastline crossing so if you're flying back to the u.s from cancun you can't overfly key west up over naples and land in tampa they will you will not be very popular when you arrive so you need to land in key west clear in key west and then continue on if you're coming in from the bahamas obviously one of the east coast airports the appropriate one for your route you'll need to determine your route eta and the eightest time they're going to ask you for that when you file your flight plan now here's a tip for those of you that are ifr certified there is one airway over cuba airspace that you can fly without an overflight permit if you're departing cancun or kozumel you can file direct mises it's actually upper juliet 18 mises and intercept green 765 it's an ndb airway goes from kozumel direct to fish hook ndb in key west and there is an agreement between havanna center and marita center that for ifr routing you don't need an overflight permit so if you're in a single and you are ifr certified you may want to make that return ifr and that way puts you within just a few miles of the cuban coast beautiful view and puts you much closer to land also if you are coming down ifr and you once you reach canoa and you're talking to havanna center i always start asking direct nosat or wherever the fear boundary point to cut off having to go to vinca so if i'm going to kozumel i might start asking for direct i think it's nucan for kozumel where it where the havanna center and marita center airspace is meet so just little tips there to cut off the distance call flight service cineam does not have access to local notams and also i would be concerned if i was vfr about any tfrs in the key west area for example so it always is a good idea call flight service get a briefing from them now depending upon whether you're re-entering the u.s. from into florida or on the border they may even allow you to file a dvfr flight plan to speed up getting that transponder code that squat code miami is a little bit more hesitant about doing that let's say because they they're correct saying the ike mexican i ko flight plan is the legal flight plan that you're under but on the border many flight service stations allow you to place basically a duplicate flight plan to be able to cross the adis and get the transponder code so if they let you do it take advantage of it the key thing is talk to flight service and get a briefing and then call customs and border protection they've gotten a little bit picky before a lot of times we just put adcus in the remark section and then flight service would call some ports have gotten a little bit more demanding and they want the pilots to call directly so i suggest don't get caught in the middle of that call cbp and get a name a badge number or the initials of whoever you spoke to because it has happened to me i've called i've done everything i've arrived and i get the look like i've got three eyes and gills and you know what are you doing here and it turns out that who the fortune i had the person's name had mis-entered the information so once i gave the name they looked it up sure enough there i was and then all of a sudden everyone started smiling again departing mexico is is just uh is very straightforward for those of you the flight of the bahamas it's it's the basically the same process you need to file your flight plan in this case with cineam don't forget to put adcus doesn't hurt complete a general deck your outbound general declaration and turn in that immigration form and once you've done that you're good to go as far as the mexican side is concerned on the u.s. side you need to file and activate your flight plan 15 minutes prior to crossing the aides now coming in from cancun into florida that can be a little challenging i'm going to show you a little trick here and you need to get that discrete transponder code okay that's the very important thing they need to know who you are and where you are now if you're arriving into south florida from mexico and you have a hard time sometimes flight service is busy and the rco and key west uh there's only a couple of frequencies there and and the distance from the aides to key west is is considerable here's some tips try miami center you can call them up 133 explain your situation you're inbound you've got you know you're trying to get your your code you've got a vfr flight plan that's been activated try havana center havana center is actually great to work where they speak very good english and they've been very accommodating they could relay they've got a landline to miami center they could pick it up try key west approach 124 45 and worse comes to worse there's a lot of commercial airline traffic up there 125 get an airliner ask them to relay for you and i've done that too so there's lots of different avenues don't get uptight don't get nervous out there there's many different ways of getting in contact with the the atc in the us and letting them know who you are and where you're going now when i arrive in the us airports i always ask customs and border protection okay if i when i make these presentations what would you like me to tell the pilot community so let me tell you how to become really unpopular at customs and border protection some of the airports have these big ramps in front of the building okay and some pilots like to pull in in their 182 right in the middle of ramp do a 90 degree turn and shut down and then what'll happen is you're about halfway through your procedures inside when the phone rings and it's the tower saying would somebody please move because i've got a citation out in the ramp who's blocking my taxi way because he can't get into your you will become very unpopular at that point with customs and border protection so what they like you to do is to come in taxi to the edge of the ramp and they've got spaces there into one of the spaces and then shut down okay some cbp have these lanes and what they want you to do is they want you to get into the lane and go all the way down to the end because they they do first in first out so they want you to go to the end so that when they're done with you you pull out the next guy behind you can pull out sometimes people come in and they just do a 90 degree and boom there you are they've locked the whole lane because they really want you to be inside those boxes i call them penalty boxes okay so don't do that just go to the end of the lane shut down um the other thing that you want to do is don't let people start wandering around as far as they're concerned only the captain can get off of the airplane okay now some airports will have signs that say passengers you know crew and passengers unload your baggage and proceed to the building okay great do that but if there's no sign like in key west for example they want you in that penalty box and that can be a real problem if somebody has to go to the bathroom you've got little ones so again another reason to call customs and border protection ahead of time and let them know exactly when you're coming once you're in you'll need to fill out your forms the customs declaration just as if you were flying commercial and then your form 178 is what we call it the enforcement system form and we've got a link on our website where you can download those uh and fill it out ahead of time i found that there's a direct proportion or correlation between the more you have ready and the easier you make it for customs the nicer and the faster it goes for you it seems funny how that seems to work but if you go in and you go duh i got nothing you know what do i do what you know then it'll be a little longer but i always try to go in i always try to get a declaration for my next trip i get a blank one take it with me i've got my 178 in fact i put it into power point or word i fill in all the stuff that never changes your address your tail number print out a bunch of those even if i always fly with my family their names you know you got to put is the date and the time so there's a lot of things you can do just have blank ones with you you know your takeoff time fill it in and and it just saves you a lot of time and if you were vfr don't forget to close your flight plan so again the key thing here is don't when you arrive you still have not legally entered the united states so don't let people start running around in different directions go don't go talking to other people you recognize on the ramp that are coming in they get really upset about people doing that so again there's no sign stay in the penalty box but if there are signs then do as instructed some safety tips what i tell folks is it's better to have a bad plan than no plan at all okay some people like i've told you earlier you know go out there no charts nothing don't have a plan they just woke up one day and said i'm going to go to kozumel and off we go with my Garmin 396 have a good plan or at least have a plan i recommend strongly the plbs i saw that we got some great deals here at sun and fun on them they're great over water over land anywhere you go for those of you that aren't familiar i encourage you go find out more about them they're terrific a gps with a moving map if you've ever been out over the ocean or over the jungle there's not a whole lot of pilotage you can do because there's no landmarks unless you can tell one way from another there's really nothing to go by and a lot of times people start getting this little voice in the back of their minds that haven't done this before am i going where i think i'm going you know jeez i should have seen land by now all those little thoughts start to go through your head if you have a gps it can really help uh allay your fears life jackets and a life raft there's many fbo's that rent them i encourage you to get them because it's the best insurance you can have kind of like murphy's law in reverse i've got mine in my plane never had to use it pack a machete and survival equipment especially if you're over the jungle make sure you've got appropriate equipment and over water here's another tip what i do when i'm over water if i see a ship i just hold the enter key on my gps you know you do the waypoint does the current waypoint and just program it in so if i had a problem i have to do is hit my uh my nearest button nearest user waypoint that's going to be where it's going to take me now if you see a freighter and then you see a royal caribbean cruise ship here's another important tip pick the cruise ship they got the food they got the entertainment you don't want to be with those guys on the freighter so that's the one you want to take uh take note of and also other aircraft 125 the commercial guys do a good job of monitoring monitoring guard i always do and i encourage you to do that do so as well try to get another aircraft and if you're over land remember mexico only has two ctafs so 120 you can't get anyone 121 5 chances are you might get someone on 122 5 or 122 8 i k o english is a little bit different from what we're accustomed to here's a trick question what the somebody want to tell me what this means taxi to holding point means taxi to runway 11 okay taxi and hold short i've been in situations where people have missing misunderstood that as taxi into position and hold so this is basically taxi to runway across all runways and taxiways but don't enter across the active runway line up and wait is taxi into position and hold doesn't mean go to mcdonald's and get a fry at this tax unit position and hold but whatever always ask for clarification if there's ever any doubt in your mind whatsoever stop and ask for clarification they aren't going to get upset make position reports if your vfr they have microwave and landlines connecting the towers so when you're in route if you especially if you took off from a non-towered airport and you're going to a non-towered airport well you probably didn't file a flight plan because there was no one there to take it and there's no one there to know that you got there so contact the tower and just say hey i just took off from playa del carmen and i'm headed to kohundic and what they'll do is they'll let the next tower so once you're out of radio range they'll say you know frequency change approved contact chetum al tower 50 miles out and let you know and report and that way somebody knows where you are and what you're what you're doing flight following is available marita center mexico center masatlán all of those guys will provide it so i encourage you to take advantage of it and get as much as done on the ramp there's very few airports have parallel taxiways it's basically a runway in a ramp and there's nothing worse than being in a foreign country you're already probably a little bit nervous if you've not done this before and you're sitting there holding short and then you hear turbines behind you know somebody you know and then you get even more nervous so try to get as much done on the ramp as possible so that you can be more relaxed use your checklist again when you get nervous you tend to overlook things so just just a tip verify airport data and conditions again sounds pretty straightforward but sometimes in the in the nervousness we forget to do so and overfly runways of non-towered airports before landing so we're going to have a little quiz now and i'm going to ask all of you to participate the quiz is can you identify which one of these runways are open all right hands for open no hand this was an easy one that one's pretty obvious how about this one open or closed how can i see hands for open okay about half the room it's open very good how about this one hands up for open about half the room it's actually closed there's actually ditches dug across this runway not conducive to a smooth landing unless you're me and all my landings are bad but certainly it won't help yours open or closed hands up for open all right very good and last open or closed ends up for open and about a third of the room there's actually a nylon rope and a steel pipe sticking out of the middle of that runway and the point with this folks is from traffic pattern many times you can't see these things so what i do and in fact the mexican regs encourage you to do is overfly the runway at 500 feet what i do is i'm offset to the right so i can see the runway out my window 20 degrees of flaps or whatever the appropriate uh go around position is i configure slow the plane down get my flap setting and then i fly the right edge of the runway and i look at that entire runway and make sure it's clear of any obstacles another tip make your run your landing short many of these runways that we use on our trips are 3 000 feet i treat them all as a short field you never know when a dog or a goat or a cow or something might come out of the bushes so i treat all my landings a short field just to minimize my time rolling out airborne weather there's a number of ways to do that from san am you can also get them from atc asca tower or or a radar operator and other aircraft mexico's got a very modern fleet of commercial aircraft mexican or mexico and the pilots are great guys and gals they they're real great to work with and they'll be more than glad if they're anywhere near they're on an airway they'll say i'm flying west of many of them 20 miles out and whether that's good or i'm painting a cell 10 degrees to the left of course they can they'll be glad to share that with you and then there are some rco's unfortunately they're not published but this is one of the advantages of being from there living there for so many years and being involved in the aviation and what we've done in our pilot guide we've got a chart where we try to show you where you can actually talk to a weather briefer in the air and get information so if you're coming in from brownsville texas headed to veracruz you can talk to victoria dispatch and they can look up new meet our taff information for veracruz and all the airports along the way another thing we recommend fly higher it's cooler more gliding distance better communications range early in the day try to avoid the convective activity in the afternoon especially you know we're in the tropics here consider terrain there are peaks in mexico up to 18 000 plus feet so unless you are a turbine or have a turbocharger those could be somewhat challenging and density altitudes there are a lot of places in mexico that are high and hot so make sure you take density altitude into consideration when you plan and always plan on an alternate as i said there's few airports have a parallel taxiway so there's nothing worse than being low on fuel and having a stranded aircraft on the runway that could really ruin your day so i always even if i'm vfr and it is completely you know clear day i always plan on an alternate just in case and one of the things that we spent most of last year working on and they're in the printer uh they're coming out mañana is uh mexico whack charts this is important folks because the do d charts are going away the onc's and the low altitude and root stuff after october they're gone so this is very very important for traveling to mexico uh and we should have them before october other resources one of the best resources i found is right here the f a a production studios if you get on their website and look at their catalog there's a a wealth of information on survival ditching all sorts of stuff depending whether you're flying over land over water there's lots of important stuff and i encourage you to use it uh and then a number of other websites where you can obtain good information well now i'd like to quickly take you on a tour of where we call home which is the southeast mexico where we conduct guided tours and show you a little bit of the things that mexico has to offer the general aviation community uh there's tremendous colonial history the spanish conquest of mexico uh veracruz this is san juan du lua the fort and veracruz which was very important in mexico's early colonial history they have a beautiful socalo which is the city center square uh at night it's it's beautiful it's lit there's all sorts of music food drink it is it's one very very uh pleasant place to to visit in the evenings uh and of course veracruz has its own unique folkloric history the marimba which is like a xylophone that makes a rattling noise it's about the only way i know to describe it but you've got them all over the place you can see here and they go you'll be you grab yourself a little table and they bring your food to you they bring you your margaritas your coronas and these guys go up and down they play you a song they ask you what do you want to hear and they'll play you something nice tremendous architecture uh in the city of veracruz another one of our favorite stops is the city of gambitche and gambitche was walled by the spanish to protect it from the pirates because it was a key point of trade and much of that wall is still there you can still see it uh and uh the bulwarks to protect it you can see the the city center is in the background uh the bulwarks where the troops were uh were garrison to protect them and then of course the socal of campetches fabulous place to walk around in the evening and visit explore uh beautiful one of our favorite personal favorites and many little boutique hotels that we have found that are truly remarkable outside the city you have forts that are still there they've been turned into museums that you can visit and tour and climb up and let the kids run around and burn off some energy and then there's medida which is another well-known colonial city a little bit further north the white city as it was known with spectacular architecture and little cafes boutique hotels to visit outside of these colonial cities were asiendas and asiendas were estates and they either raised cattle or they raised and again which is sisal and before nylon rope was invented ropes were made out of sisal fibers and these places cultivated the plant they harvested them and brought them into the main buildings where they were processed and of course with nylon these all went away and some of these were were turned into boutique hotels and some were just basically abandoned and shut down and in the case of those that were shut down this one just capoe which we visit uh ran up until the mid 80s and they basically just flipped it off and locked the door and so if you get there at the right time and get the caretaker and give him you know 30 pesos three dollars four dollars you'll get this big key ring off the wall and he's going to take you on a tour and you'll get to see the original machinery just as it used to run this is a single cylinder diesel engine that flywheel is about as tall as i am so you can imagine what that vibration must have been like and the original machinery for combing the fibers and producing the sisal all still there so it's kind of a real life museum and others have been turned into beautiful boutique hotels where you can go and pamper yourself spend the weekend relax and just completely get away from it all it's a fabulous place and then of course there's always shopping my wife's favorite pastime and a lot of folkloric dances and mexico wouldn't be mexico without the mariachis archaeology is another thing that's very impressive in this part of mexico we've had lots of articles written about it but there's numerous sites to visit uh to loom in this case which is right on the caribbean sea and many small airstrips located nearby palenque which is one of our stops uh spent spectacular on the side of the sierra madri mountains and and these are truly unique and you see all the carnival cruise line people there with a small airplane you can get to visit places and be the only people there if you go to chichen itza after 10 11 o'clock forget it you won't do it but here i am with my two kids there in the foreground with one kid my my son's up with my wife taking the picture and you can see this is very typical day in usman so you've got a small aircraft we can show you how to do this uh ekbalam as they uncovered these pyramids uh you know people think of the mayan pyramids as a pile of rocks they were actually covered in either carved stone or stucco and as they excavated ekbalam you can see they uncovered sections of the original exterior surface of the pyramid so you can just give you an idea of the detail another popular place is kohun lich it's not even on the charts so don't look for it but we have access to this airstrip and another pyramid where you can see the original exterior and you can even see the original paint you can still see the red tint of the the the pigment came from plant the pigments that were used were plant-based sivan che and it's i'm connect this is where they believe at nancortes uh had the last astic emperor uh kowtemok assassinated and again we had the place to ourselves so truly there's a wealth of things to do uh this is another interesting spooheel you can see there's an archaeological site right off the runway but it's our access point to calakmul which was the tikal's rival in the mayan world there's over 6 000 structures hundreds of stela which are the carved obel obelisks and right in the middle of the jungle no lights no no phones no nothing it's an hour and a half by car because the road's too narrow for buses but it's a spectacular place it takes you back in time you can almost imagine what it was like back then so there's a tremendous wealth of mayan archaeological sites to visit natural beauty mexico's got tremendous amount of of mountains deserts jungle beaches you name it but these are some of the places that we go to visit on our tours the candelaria river it's got unique structures underwater there's different theories because this whole region is completely unexplored no one really knows they some say that nan cortez these were the the foundations to bridges that he built others say these are mayan dikes no one really knows what we do know is that this whole area is just wide open to those that have a small aircraft okay we have the largest underground cave system in the state of quintanarro with just some spectacular places to go visit some are dry some are wet and different caletas beaches some populated some not and of course swimming with the dolphins deep-sea fishing scuba diving you name it we've got it lots of wildlife there's many places in that place calakmul there's jaguars wild turkeys all sorts of wild animals running around flamingos my kids and of course in the yucatan the iguana is everywhere okay last topic on our destinations we do some island hopping and isla mujeres has got a nice little runway that we use and tremendous nightlife it's a great place to get away from it all and just relax and unwind disconnect again more shopping then we go to more remote islands like the island of old bush and this is one of our favorite getaways not a hotel in sight see that beautiful beach for miles not a road not a house nothing this is the island of old bush and this is where we go for our whale shark visits the runway's been resurfaced and recombacted it's 2100 foot it's in great condition there's the international terminal of the old bush airport and there's no paved streets in old bush you get around by foot or you get around in a golf cart that's the two modes of transportation the hotel that we use each hut is a little room you're right there on the beach the beat when rays comes in off of the golf and restaurante pizzeria delin is our favorite for lobster pizza you ever had lobster pizza that's where to go and this is the attraction on that trip is when we go out and swim with the whale sharks no teeth they don't have teeth but they are filter feeding animals and we go out there with the fishermen and these small boats and put on some snorkeling gear and take a plunge and those aren't sharks they're dolphins there's pods of dolphins everywhere around old bush dolphins manor rays and beautiful sunsets gosumel is another attraction of course most of you are familiar with that the beaches the scuba diving are well known we do catamaran tours is one of our group activities and then this is our home cancun and again if you like to pamper yourself there's plenty of places to do that on cancun as well now mexico is a very child-friendly country many of the hotels we use have kids clubs and when we go with our kids all they want is to go to the kids club and they do a great job of keeping them entertained during the day and at night as well if you want to find out more about this there was an article that was done by pilot getaways magazine and we have some reprints of the article in our booth we're in hangar a booth 80 if you want to read a little bit more from another you know from an unbiased source of what it's like to fly down there there's an interesting article now there's some other services that we have we have an interactive website and on there we have a map where you can go to and you mouse and click on one of those airports and it'll tell you what there is to do there we also have a weather page where we have programmed all the links for you so if you're traveling in mexico and can get access to an internet cafe go to our website click whether it's all free and you can get mexican doppler radar surface analysis international sigmets etc and then we have useful links to get your decal FCC license all the things that we talked about and then a pilot shop you can buy our pilot guide and the necessary charts to travel there one of the things that we did because there was so much conflicting information is produced the pilot's guide and right now our territory goes from the texas border around the gulf the eastern part of mexico in the entire yucatan peninsula and it contains general information who to tip who not to tip what to do before departure entering mexico the whole process basically everything that we've talked about today but in much more detail takes you by the hand through the whole process differences in airspace shows you the most common documents and how to fill them out airports of entry that we verify personally and some useful information and emergencies airport information we show you where the general aviation ramps are the buildings what kind of fuels available method of payment services at the airport aerial shots to help you acquire the runway a shot of the building that you need to go to once you're on the ground and a sketch of the building and very important where the bathrooms are after a long trip that can be probably the most useful piece of information on any airport diagram one of the things that we do are fly-ins which are guided tours we meet the group in the united states and scorch you through the trip we select the accommodations we provide most of the meals we leave some open for people to go explore on their own all the transportation from the airport group activities entrance fees equipment anything that's required and then special fairway dinners we think it's important to speak the language which we do and understand the culture we want you to leave with more than a sunburn so we try to always integrate the cultural aspect into the trip and we pick out all of the hotels and restaurants ourselves and we'll work with ATC to make sure that our fly-ins are being monitored by them and again for us living in mexico flying to and within mexico is as natural for us as it is for you traveling to and from your local airport we also do vacation planning services for people that want to do it on their own we can do a lot of that stuff we just don't go with you you just tell us what you want to do when you want to go and what type of accommodations that you want so with that i'd like to take the remaining minutes and answer any questions that you might have if you want more info you can also come by hangaray booth 80 where we're located but i'd like to open it to questions yes sir turning the 12 inch n numbers we just have the small ones would something temporary like black duct tape work yes the answer is yes you can use temporary duct tape try to make it look as professional as possible just so that because i've seen some times i look at it a little bit funny but yes we've we've seen people use it it's not a problem yes sir could you say something about maintenance at any of the aoe's what kind of maintenance facility they might have down there maintenance facilities at aoe's uh it really depends which one some have us a and p's us registered a and p mexican a and p's but with the us a and p and some had don't even have a hanger so it really depends on which one what we do is if you have a problem and like in our vacation planning we give you a 24 hour number depending where you are what kind of problem we can try to we'll get help moving to you we can we'll find the parts in mexico that are yellow tag and if necessary we'll have them imported from the us either from if it's a special airplane from whoever you get it from or from banyan air service in port lauderdale you you were in hangar a booth 80 80 thank you any other questions well i hope that means i answered them okay well i want to thank everybody for coming i hope it was beneficial again i want to thank the faa production studio staff they're wonderful to work with as always and if you some if you think of anything else give us a call visit our website and most of that information although the weather information is free so even if you're not on one of our trips please take advantage of it okay thank you okay i got it in an hour