Live from the JSA Podcast Studio, presenting Data Movers, showcasing the leaders behind the headlines in the telecom and data center infrastructure industry. Hey everybody, welcome to our podcast series, Data Movers. I'm your host, Jamie Scott-O-Kataya, CEO and founder of JSA. Along with my fabulous co-host, you know him, love him well, as I do top B2B social media influencer, Mr. Evan Kirstel.  Welcome to Data Movers, where we sit down with the most influential men and women of today's leading teleco and data center world, supporting the network infrastructure requirements of this new normal. Jamie, have you been had a quiet August? How are you? Really well, honored, humbled, excited. This has been an incredible August. And my friend, you and your amazing community are a huge reason why. Well, enough about me.  Where do you put all these trophies? There's just so many awards and recognition. What's the latest one I was reading about the Inc 500? Yeah, yeah. For the second year in a row, we are so honored, excited to announce just yesterday actually that we made the Inc 5,000. This is the list of fastest growing private US companies.  The amount percentage growth that you need to show that you've had in the past three years is staggering. And to be part of this list, which includes some of the most amazing companies before they went public, we're a part of this list. So to be on this list is so exciting. So such an honor. We came in at number 3700, which is exciting for us. We moved up a couple of spots from last year, 3810. And again, it's because of our team, our GSA team members, family members who have been with me for some of them 15 plus years on this wonderful journey. It's with our clients. Some of them we've been with us for 12 plus years. So amazing support along the way. And of course our community, that critical network infrastructure community that just keeps rolling with all of our wacky ideas keeps listening to data movers, keeps attending our virtual roundtables, keeps reading our books, greener data, just really so honored and humbled. Just thinking about the hundreds of thousands and millions of small, medium-sized businesses across the country. That's quite an elite world of the Inc. 5000. So congratulations. So that's just so cool. But we also have a cool guest speaking of cool. Shall we introduce ourselves to Link? Absolutely. Absolutely, guys. Get ready. We are very honored today to have Link Kroger, the president of Night Moves with us today joining us. And Night Moves, if you haven't heard of it yet, is a company working to really empower the next generation of elite technology professional through training. And there's a real interesting focus here too, guys, on including Native Americans and those folks in rural underserved communities. There's something that speaks to our hearts. Thank you. Welcome, Link. Well, thanks for having me on. Yeah, thanks for being here. So I guess you would call yourself a social innovator, empowering rural and urban underserved communities, but you also have a deep enterprise tech and software background at the Green Computer Science. So tell us about that journey. It's not an obvious one for the viewers. Yeah, so one of the advantages of being old is you have an opportunity to have a lot of experiences. So I started writing software back in 1979 when the initial like Atari 400 came out back in that era for those who remember Atari and Commodore. And back in the good old days when you could, the magazines would come out and you'd find code in the magazines and then type it in, you'd learn how to code from all the magazines. So people- We're the same generation, so I love it. And I started with the Department of Defense. I grew up in a little rural town. So I just go into college, my older brother and sister, they went to college, got their degrees, came out with this massive debt. And I was like, I saw that commercial on TV where you do the GI Bill and you go and you spend some years in the military then you get your college paid for. It didn't quite go as the advertisement on TV went, but it had a good ending and I did get a computer science degree and it launched into a great 35 year career of from starting in the Department of Defense to consulting, to working for a Seattle based software company, small business, a lot of consulting, a lot of Fortune 500, Fortune 50, enterprise data shops that primarily custom development and package, but a lot of networking in the early years. And well, but the early years were really back in the good old mainframe days, right? We won't even get into all the vernacular of that technology but then it morphed into networks and internet over those years. Amazing, amazing. And I love hearing life journeys, those experiences that led you on this path to make sure really today's generation of high schoolers learn these necessary tech skills. There aren't those magazines anymore that we can learn code from, right? So that these high schoolers really can get the jobs here in America instead of say outsourcing them abroad and be able to afford this crazy economy, afford living. So tell us a little bit about your life experiences that have led you to where you are now. Yeah, unfortunately, I didn't plan it this way but it worked out is I've been fortunate to be part of very high growth companies. So when I was in the software industry back in the early 90s, working for commercial software companies, a little company I started at was about a 20 million a year in revenue and within a few years were 130 million. And when you get to go through those growth spells, you really get an understanding of what it takes to scale an organization, right? And then I went to work for a Fortune 500 company that was a 900 million a year in revenue company. And when I left, it was over four billion. My last company I was at, I started as a COO. It was about a $8 million technology services firm. And then we sold that about two years ago for 55 million. So when you think about these high growth, but all in tech and working with a great span of just from startups, Silicon Valley startups to Fortune 50, Fortune 500, enterprise transformation, any kind of project you can be on. When you're consulting, you do everything. And in that time there, I got a real passion because I saw just how much companies struggled at really, we talked diversity and inclusion, but companies really don't know how to solve it is my experience, right? And so I just kept, and I'm more of a pattern engineer, architect kind of person. So I just naturally see patterns and want to put in frameworks of architecture. And I'd see, okay, well, here's the commonalities between where the companies are not doing well or where the education system isn't. And then, well, how do we patternize that and create scalable approaches to solving these things? Because businesses aren't going to do it, education isn't going to do it, government's not going to do it. So there needs to be that social benefiting layer in the middle, which is what I do now full time is trying to live up to my name of link, right? Of being that glue that pulls it all together, but fills those gaps and helping people that need the most. Awesome. So you are right in the heartland in Iowa, not typically known for the leading edge of tech. And you have a mission of nurturing and keeping jobs locally in Iowa and other rural areas across America. Tell us about that mission and what excites you about it. Yeah, so our top three demographics we focus on are very, very unique contextually and how we work with them, but Native American, which we'll talk about a little, if we'll talk, we can go into any of these that are interesting and talk more, but urban underserved, which would be low income immigrant people of color, right? And then rural, displaced rural communities that we refer to as place equity now, just because you live there, there's a lack of equity because of proximity, right? And education and maybe broadband. So each of those areas we have unique approaches in, but in a lot of areas people go, why do you have an urban underserved focus? The other two make sense because you don't hear anything really about what's happening there. But really, when I say urban underserved, I mean, how do we reverse junk for case, right? So we wanna be in the neighborhoods that are the most distressed. So like recently I was in North St. Louis standing on a corner where four gangs, right? Their areas meet, right? And I mean, and it feels literally like, it feels like a third world country in the area I was in, right? You're walking down the street, buildings are collapsed, right? I mean, this is a common street, classes on the sidewalk, right? You see what's happening and you say, okay, instead of the traditional approach of gentrification, right?  Let's take the people in those communities, uplift them, upscale them, get them to be the people to invest in their community and build it out. Cause if you look at most urban technology training programs, it's they're not in those areas, right? They may bust people out of them, but we wanna be in them. We're not interested in being in the wealthy suburbs or so send us to the areas that need to help the most in urban. And then Native American, people have a hard time understanding, people understand there's a struggle, but until you really go, like state of Washington, I toured with the US Department of Agriculture on a rural prosperity summit tour and we went to all these rural communities in Eastern state of Washington.  In our Native American community. And it's people that are way out, right? That are disconnected. When you're in a tribe, they typically, when they graduate high school, they typically don't leave to go to college. And really the tribe discourages in many cases because when you leave and go to college, you don't come back. Now think about, right? There's approximately 374 tribes, federally recognized tribes in this country. You can say Navajo, Cheyenne, Comanche, Wright, Sac and Fox, Kiowa, you can go down. But in reality, if you're talking to them, there's only 4,000 of us, of our people left on the planet and we're out in the middle of nowhere. So for our young to leave and then go to college and then they don't come back, we're ending our population. So it's such a different until you go and meet people. It's the challenges of it. And then when they say, what are you gonna do? Work at the casino, work at a gas station. So now you get into this, there is no hope these people are so creative just like everyone, right? The abilities are no different, but there's just no way for them to get the education and then to express themselves. And rural is pretty easy to understand, right?  But then you get into a whole spiral in rural just to summarize this, right? It's people don't realize when you're in a community that's rural and the population shrinking and the youth all leave, right? What happens is the local hospital can't get enough. People to keep it open, the local grocery store closes. And once you start that type of like in Iowa, even 88% of rural Iowa shrinking in population, right? Iowa's a very prosperous state and that's pretty normal in high rural states is you're gonna see 10, 20% doing well, you know? And then another larger percentage shrinking and the ones that are shrinking are really struggling with how do you stay on? I mean, it's just such a momentum, right? How do you reverse it? It's once it starts going that direction and that's our mission, those three areas. A lot of detail there, sorry about that. No, I love this. Yeah, I love this. So how do you guys help over at Night Moves? I know you're the president there. Yeah. So the first thing we do is if there's roughly, you know, a million, million point four jobs a year that go and fill computer science related to jobs in the United States. So our mission is to fill them with people that are better prepared than four year degree computer science graduates. And when I say better prepared, companies that hire graduates will say things, excuse me, like when we hire your graduate, that's like hiring a four year degree graduate in computer science after they have six months experience on the job. So what we don't wanna do is be the, you know, back to how do you see the gaps in the system, right? You don't, we're never gonna go to a company and say hire our people because they need your help and do the right thing. We're gonna go, we have the best product of the market for entry-level talent. And by the way, this is your chance to support diversity inclusion. So they're not taking, I mean, it's a benefit, right? We still look at it as how do we benefit the company with a better product or service? But then the people to start, imagine having the opportunity to be, say 20 years old, start at 60,000 a year to 70 and have no doubt to start your career, right? And a full support structure that got you there. So we will have a very, we have a very heavy emphasis on getting younger people in technology. When I say younger, we partner at the high school level. So we're gonna be talking to freshman, sophomore, junior, right? Cause like in Iowa, statistically, if you don't get into computer science by the time you're 18, you're 36. 36 is the average age of someone attending like a code camp. Because, you know, if they missed it when they were there.  We come in in 30 minutes, almost none of you have a clue of what a career in technology is like. We ignite a spark in you to say, wow, that is so interesting to me. I had no idea what's my next step. And then it's to sign up for a actual computer science, like front end web development course, for them to kick the tires.  You discover what you love, right?  So we say, hey, you know what? Take a course, just take one course. If you like it, here's the next six courses you need to take that are prerequisites to our program.  You'll have had a software development course. That'll help you your whole career. Everybody needs to understand technology. And they go, well, so we'll get 30 to 40% of the youth we talked to to say, I'm interested in signing up for it. And on our Native American outreach, we'll get 58% of all the kids we talked to to say, I'll sign up for that one course. And with 48% being female, just saying I'll try it and see if it's for me, right? And the way we do that briefly is, so we have these seven prerequisite courses they take, but then when they actually graduate high school and they complete the seven courses, you know, like, you know, like Java, advanced Java, you know, C sharp advanced, you know, database, you know, that kind of seven core computer science you'd see in any program. And then our program is six months long minimum. But what you do in our program is, it's all real world-based, which is, and I kind of prepped you guys before this, we're very genuine and real. So when you talk to like a young African-American man and you say, why aren't you gonna in the inner city? And you say, why aren't you going to college? You know, the number one answer I hear is not remotely, I can't afford it. It's, there's no way I'm going to sitting through four years of memorization and taking tests, I'm gonna die, right? I can't do that. So when, you know, relatability-wise, hey, well, let's look at our program. So for the time you're being trained, all you're doing is working with a team of seven to 12 people and creating real-world solutions. So nothing you do is like college, where you write a program, you give it to a professor, they grade it and throw it away, right? Not a lot of hard on that.  So what we do is we team up with nonprofits who need technology and build the technology they need, a technology software product that advances and multiplies their mission. So imagine we're working with homeless or sex trafficking or food hunger, right? But now they're actually working with real people being affected and the leaders of those nonprofits and everything they create goes into production. And they learn all of the commercial, like secure codes, scalability, right? Continuous integration continues to deliver all of the modern software practices, software craftsmanship, right? Test-driven development. So they walk in with experience at most four-year college degree students don't even learn about in college because it's just commercial software development. So that was a mouthful, but again, to give you a spectrum of kind of how we do this that give you enough to dig in some different areas that are interesting. Oh, that's so incredible. And I do have a question. What inspired you to name your organization NightMove? That's K-N-I-G-H-T, like Night and Shining Armor. So nightmoves.org. Are you a chess player or what's happening there? Yeah, that's the background. So it's NightMove's like the chess piece, not like the Bob Seager song. So if you look at, like talking earlier about companies and them just knowing, I mean, not really knowing how do we really support diversity? Because diversity inclusion in companies is really moving diverse people between companies and not adding more diverse people to companies, right? That's such a great observation. Yeah, I will totally agree with that. So our focus is on adding to the group. So the night is representative of if you play chess, a night is the only piece that moves non-linearly and it's the piece that jumps other pieces or barriers to get to its destination. So it's that strategic piece that's just not gonna conform to the linear standards and it's gonna jump over barriers to get things done. And that's my brief, there's a lot of other, if you're an experienced player in chess, the night is also the piece that plays from the center of the board. Like I said, we wanna be in them. And you put a king in a position where they're either gonna lose a king or another piece.  And it's night moves, not night sets. So we are gonna be actively and kind of like data movers, right? We're a good match there. Yeah, yeah. Data sitters. No, that's right. That's right. So tell us also about these night moves, code camps that I was reading about, what sets them apart from traditional coding camps that night moves produces? Yeah, so I've described it, I touched on it a little earlier, but one thing we don't do is we're not a code camp at all because code camps are still about curriculum and teaching language, right? They've already had seven computer science courses before they come. Everything you do in our training program is building real world software. Think of it as a six months plus like capstone project that goes live in production, right? So that's what's different is you're working as a team, like an agile software craftsmanship team, building real product, using build servers. I mean, you could be, you would not know a difference between a team working for us or a team working for Google or Microsoft or a modern tech company, right? It's the way that they build software. I mean, in fact, Google's education department has reviewed our program and said your graduates meet or exceed the requirements of a four year computer science degree graduate. So you can send them right, because they have two programs at Google. One is an apprenticeship program for like associate degree grads, which is what most diverse candidates go through, right? Because they're not gonna have a four year degree. And then they have a pathway that's for four year degree graduates and our graduates go the four year degree path with them because, right? I mean, you're literally walking out of our environment and day one, you can code on a commercial team. You're just gonna say, what's your source code system? What's this? What's that? Let's rock and roll. Let's start coding. And it's- Amazing, I love it. And tell me, how do you spark that initial interest or curiosity with those freshmen or sophomores in high school to, you know, get into tech?  And my kids obviously are quite privileged and I couldn't get them interested in learning to code or develop software at that age. What's your process for sparking that interest? Well, it's really sparking what they're interested in.  The generation of today is cause driven, right? It's making a meaning, having a meaningful career, making a difference in society. So when we come in and we, when we talk to students, we don't talk about, we don't start off with, we're training, we don't start with it. We say, hey, we're night moves. We're the Silicon Valley of social innovation. And then we just give them examples. Like, let's look at what we do in disaster relief or how we would support this cause. And then we wow them with, it's kind of like the green piece of technology, right? Of, wow, you guys are actually doing this. And then, and that's where we start reeling them in because they're excited about looking at, you know, mobile solutions and these different kinds of, how do we solve these real problems, right? In society. And they're like, it's amazing instead of somebody investing money in Silicon Valley become a billionaire, you do it to enrich other people's lives. And then they're excited. And then we go, yeah, well, why don't you, why don't you be part of it with us? And they go, well, I don't know anything about technology. Great. Next semester of this course, it's free. Sign up for it. If you like it, keep going. If you don't, gosh, you've had that one course. It'll be great experience for you. Can you make it easier than that? Just part of your normal next semester schedule. Take one course and see if you like it. So it's such an easy sell to kids. That's why, you know, Native American kids would say 58% would say, I'll sign up for a course. I've got, why wouldn't I? I got to sign up for some course next semester. Let's see if I like it. Just a side note, not on the script per se, but, you know, when we were learning programming, it was Pascal and Fortran and Basic, and then you get into Assembler and all the advanced stuff. It looks like this next wave of coding will be citizen developers and low code and no code and all these kind of platforms. Will the current approach to learning software development be obsolete by a lot of this new technology or do you have to sort of learn the basics before thinking about those platforms? Yeah, so if you look at really getting into how we help people learn how to think, right, and approach problems, it's, we're gonna go after low code.  It's all about understanding you've got a system talking to a system and what do you expect that data to look like, right? And how do I, you know, data quality and it's not just crapplication. So we're teaching them software craftsmanship, which you can take those skills, like test-driven development, right? Like, why do you write tests before you write the code? Well, you know, here's all the reasons, right? If you really, you know, we won't break all that down on your show, but, you know, it's not just about writing the test first. It's, you know, there's a long list of very valuable benefits you get from doing that, right? So by teaching them, you know, what is security? How do you write secure software? How do you write scalable software? All of that translates to whatever technology.  Meaning poly, meaning many, glot, mean language. We don't care what technology you use. You're solving a business problem or a problem that benefits society with technology. And a polyglot mindset is what value am I producing and what technology best solves it? Whatever it is, I'll learn it. And I can learn it. So we teach them that no matter what technologies, you know, I started out with Fortran and Basic and Pascal myself. So, you know, whatever the language is, they come and go, but in the end, you're creating something of value and there's an approach to doing it that no matter how the technology changes, you still need to understand those. I love that. Software craftsmanship. We can have more developers and, you know, shift a few of those plumbers and electricians and carpenters may be into crafting software. Fantastic. Absolutely. And I want to shift the conversation a little bit here too, Link. We've been talking a lot about inspiring the next generation, but there's so much inspiration, passion that we're hearing from you personally. So my question to you would be, you know, what inspires you to just jump out of bed every day and do this work? And how has this inspiration perhaps evolved throughout your career? Yeah. Well, you know, we, that should be an easy question. You know, we all have our deep, what drives us, what makes us wake up? Well, for me, it's, you know, and while this is a techie background, right, this is actually a photography backdrop, but the reason this is in my office every day is it reminds me of why I'm here on earth, right? It's, you've heard the metaphor on earth as it is in heaven, right? So to me, it's, if it's in whatever your spirituality is of what heaven is like, you know, there's not poverty, there's not racism, there's not, you know, all these things that whatever there is in heaven should be here. And if, and vice versa, right, is there shouldn't be poverty and there shouldn't be these problems on earth. So that's my mission every day is to say, how do we create that experience on earth for people, right? How do we walk in love for each other? Like one of our videos that, one of our training approaches that we use for kids is kindness. And this sounds really simple, right? But we start out and we say, hey, you all have physical needs, right? I have physical needs. Like I need to eat, I need to drink, you know, share your physical needs, right? Well, the kids start chiming into kids, right?  Well, what are your emotional needs, right? This is kind of like Maslow's hierarchy, right? As you kind of go through that. And then people share that. And then they share, well, you see, what are those deeper spiritual or meaning? Well, I need a life with dignity. I need meaning, I need purpose, right? And then you say, okay, simplistically, what kindness is is when you see another human being who doesn't have one of those things or who is not going to have them and you do something about it, you move, that's what kindness is, right? And everybody goes, oh, right? And you just see this pause of, I didn't know that's what kindness was, right? We've got a lot of divisiveness now. We were politically, whatever side you're on or not on, which I'm not on either side is, you know, creating wars with our people to divide each other. How do we come in and get back to commonality, kindness, love, right? So that's my mission and what motivates me is in the end, if we can come in and just say, how do we help each other, right? We're, and actually do something and not just pontificate it, right? That's what motivates me. Oh my goodness, I love that. Awesome. Yeah, and that's actually a good segue into our rapid fire section here at Data Movers where we just wanna learn even more about you as a person, Link. So we'll ask you a couple of fun facts type of questions and go ahead and respond with the first thing that comes to your mind. So first question up, when you first started coding at 14, what was your earliest coding creation? Well, I fit the profile of the typical male who gets into software development. I wanted to be a video game developer. So I was coding games and starting with out of, you know, magazines and typing a manual and just like little simple shoot each other kind of games or stuff like that back in the days of very minimal graphics, right? Yeah. I love the one where you just kind of bounce the ball on the two sliding. Long. Yeah, right. Breakout, long. Well, you and Elon Musk, you know, had similar start. So that's pretty funny. Well, still the number one reason we ask, we get from men, young men on why they wanna do this is I wanna be a video game developer. It's still number one today. That's one of our surveys. What is it for women just out of curiosity? Do you know? I couldn't give you one for women. It's just it's so dominant and prevalent with male it stands out. Interesting. But we have time, I will share a female insight on how we recruit though. Please, yeah. Well, so I was listening. So Avid podcast listener and I was listening to a podcast of an individual talking about, you know, equity with jobs between men and women. And I'm more of the type of just, I just sit back and parking lot everything and just listen to it and don't make beliefs, don't make decisions and just kind of let the data sit there. And he was sharing and it was Jordan Peterson and he was sharing that, you know, that women are more motivated by relationships and men are more motivated by things. Therefore, you're going to have more men and jobs like engineering and fewer women because engineering's related to men. So I listened to him, but I didn't believe his conclusion but I wanted to, because, you know, he's someone who has a lot of data, a lot of research, but I was like, I'm gonna listen to this and I go, well, I'm just gonna change the way we present. So whenever we present in all of our training materials, we always train with both my, with things and relationships. So when we speak and present to classrooms of high schoolers, we will always talk about when you do this, this is how it affects other people. This is the relationships, right? And we're very focused on software developments, not about things, there's things, but it's to help people. And we're always connecting relationally on the impact. And I can just say that one thing I learned while the conclusion of men and women may not all choose the right jobs, some of that to me is marketing, right? Like software development today is really a team-based collaborative approach, right? This solves problems for other human beings. It's not a, when I started, it was put somebody in the basement, slide a pizza onto the door once in a while and code pops out, right? Today it's a very collaborative process. So we get, normally we'll get around 38 to 40% female participation rate, which is off the charts. If you're from here, it's normally seven to 10%, like in high school participation and in the Native American culture to 48%. So I will say that I think it's a technique that works, but it's really just sharing the truth, but in a way where you've just consciously thought about it, right, of making sure we're talking about how this affects other human beings, right? Anyway, I don't know if there's truths to that, but I can tell you our numbers on women being interested increased when we took that approach. Brilliant, brilliant. Yeah, I love that. Love the approach and the whole girls who code movement and similar ones like yours, it's fantastic.  Tell us about a recent tech purchase or piece of software or gadget that you bought or plan to buy. What's on your mind? Oh gosh, I waste so much money on tech gadgets. My wife just laughs at me. Well, the one I'm probably gonna buy that I'm putting off is the metagoggles, right? Because there's so much advancement around training and we do work in rural communities and distressed communities that you just physically can't get a person to. So I think it's time that I really delve into it. I've just intentionally waited for it to kind of mature and develop some on its own, but that's gonna be the next gadget I'm sure is diving. Yeah, I have Oculus and it's kind of a cool platform. If you have some rudimentary developer skills you can create apps as well, which is so fun as a way to get started. Well, also Facebook Meta did these sunglasses with a sunglass company that's famous I'm blinking on the brand. Yeah, I had those Jamie, but I was wearing them to meetings and kind of people freaked out when they realized. Freaked out, people noticed? They, well, eventually they're like, are there cameras in your classes? Yeah, why do you keep taking my picture? Are you recording this? So what was awesome though is the other day we went to a concert and a new trend is they force you to put your phone into this digital pouch that keeps them quiet and so you're not taking photos of the performer. Oh, so now we have the glasses, you can't escape. So it was like, oh, we can't do any selfies. We can't do, I went with another couple and he had his glasses on and he was like, so we actually got some picks out of an experience that was totally unlocked down, which was kind of neat, but yeah, probably not what it was tended for, but. Anyway, back to you, Ling, so sorry. So as someone with a software development background, what at the top, say two to three software programs you just can't live without? So for me, YouTube's number one, because I'm listening to six hours of other people's thoughts. And when I say other people's thoughts, you don't know diversity of thought until you've looked at my YouTube feed, right? Of I don't care where it comes from, I'm at least gonna chew on it and think about it, but not listen to their conclusions. I wanna hear what their data, right? And then think about it. I'll link then just because it's, you're connecting with people all the time. And then I'd say my current like, if you wanna call it FAD is health related type thing. So I'm just totally enamored by traditional healthcare and functional medicine like Dr. Mark Hyman and all the people that are out there. So like I have a FitTrack Pro, which I've lost over a hundred pounds in the last two years. Oh, I can show you my fat link pictures and this, but it's, I get obsessed, which is why I haven't gotten the Oculus or Madagoggles, right? As I know, as soon as I get them, I'm gonna get obsessive compulsive about it, which is what I do until I master it and then get bored and then move on to something else. But right now my current is really bridging because I have both doctors I work with is like traditional and functional. And I work with ones that say, it's okay to work with the others, but like the tests they do and they're a thought approach on it, it's like two different planets, but they're gonna come together. And when they do look out because they're both not succeeding individually, but they both have elements of working together. So the answer of the FitTrack Pro and the reason is when I started, I had 18% fatty liver, right? And I was taking two types of insulin every day, the fact that I was on two high blood pressure medicines, high triglyceride, high cholesterol, two insulins for being type 2 diabetic. 11 months later, after starting intermittent fasting and getting into all the new understandings, I was off 100% of all meds and have been off all meds for 13 months now. And the whole focus was on how do you not reduce your body fat but your liver fat, right? Because that's what's making you insulin resistant.  So all of those little devices that can give me sensor feedback on things like that would be my current kind of fad or study area. Or podcast. Oh my God. That's a whole nother podcast episode. I wanna hear a little bit more about it. Okay, we're gonna do a part two. We're gonna do a part two of this episode because it's too fascinating. Unbelievable, yes. Not too. So I'll hold that thought because I wanna share what I'm doing with my aura ring and my Apple watch and my Wu Band and all that stuff. And I'm fascinated by speaking of OCD. I guess final question for this round.  PG-13, please. So only... Well, it would be Link, but with an L-I-N-K because that's what I do is just what's the piece that's missing and how do I link and bridge together for that to happen, right? How are you named Link? That's a question I'm curious about. That is not a usual name. So a short funny story with that. My dad named me Link, right? So growing up as a little kid, I'd say, Dad, there is nobody named Link, right? And it's Link, it's not Lincoln, it's just Link. And I said, Dad, why did you call me Link, right? Mom said, you name me. I mean, that's a cool name. I like it. I love a one syllable name too. It's easy. And he goes, when I was stationed in Germany, it was popular in Germany, you know? And I thought it was cool. And I did the exact same thing. I said, oh, that's cool. And then when I was in college, I was taking German classes. The instructor was actually from Germany. I mean, this is a long time later, right? I said to the instructor, I go, oh, I'm Link. You've met a hundred links. And he goes, never heard of it. So I go back to my dad, right? He's now in his like sixties. I said, Dad, he told me when you're in Germany that you named me Link was popular. I go, that wasn't true. Why'd you do that? He goes, God, remember that? I didn't know what to say. I just panicked and I made something up. I don't know why I named you. I just went, I go, you look like Link. And I go, why didn't you just tell me that? So anyway, that's the funny story around it is I lived like 15 years of my life thinking it was because it was popular in Germany. And here my dad just was like, it was the pizza he ate. He thought it was cool, right? Well, it's cool. You're cool to us. So thank you so much for joining. And you're quite the Renaissance man. We're really excited by what you're doing. And I'm inspired to volunteer. So I'd love to chat after the show about how you might be able to leverage a washed up Fortran developer. But I'd love to help with the mission at Nightmove. So let's chat. Well, thank you. I can say, hey, telecom and data center, tech, tech business owners and leaders out there. If I hope you're as inspired as we are with Nightmove's and you're looking for some great talent that really true embraces the DNI mindset that I think we're all really striving for these days, check out link. Yeah, thanks. And we also do full spectrum in the DevOps space, which is overlaps in your space in that area. Awesome. Because you've got to know DevOps if you're going to be a software craftsman, you can't not know it. Absolutely. Wow. So fascinating. Thank you so much, Link. And Evan, thank you guys for joining us here. And if you've enjoyed our Data Movers podcast today, as much as we did, go ahead and check us out at jsa.net slash podcast for more episodes releasing every other Wednesday morning. And follow us on Twitter as always at Evan Kirstel and Jay Scott, are you on Twitter? Are you a Twitter guy? Just LinkedIn. Okay, we're going to change that. So follow us all, Link will soon be on Twitter. And until then, everyone take care. And as always guys, happy networking.


Jack the Hat comes up and me said there's a party. He said are you going? I said well first I've heard about it And the next thing I know is I'll get an invite to this party So it's got it must be about our past 12 now so my car was Chocker blocked in there was no way you could get out But Jack's car was able to go in his car. We got in his car. We got in the Regency Club Sorry every road Which is maybe two or three streets away?  Where's the birds? Where's the pie? And then an argument starts Reggie K pulls a shooter out which he's admitted in his book. He did and it didn't work I thought it was a frightener But I didn't like what was going on Because this shouldn't Be happening you understand what I mean so Let's turn round to a guy called Connie Wyatt. I said Connie. I don't want none of this. I'm going and he went Ronnie Craig came out. I said what's the matter with Chris?  I'm sitting there with my dad. I'm having a cup of coffee and I think Tony's there And I've always been very careful about Tony detective protective from a small baby You know up to an adult so I just shoot at their 38. We've got it pretty mid pocket and Got a taxi down to Regency got my car and went to ever in road And I went back to that house. I Went back there with murder in my mind Because if they'd have hurt Tony Do you think going back to that party? Yeah, which act the house mother?  Yeah, I could have done. Yeah He just I just I Would have had to do it. He's my brother. You understand what I'm saying. I would have had to do it Jamie


And we're back, we're live on a special show. This is America Finding Its Way with me and Tim Apochella. I'm Jay Fiedel and today we're going to remember 9-11. It's coming up a couple of days and it's very important that we spend a little time evaluating where we were then and where we are now. Tim, welcome to the show.  Can you talk about it? Sure. I was prepared to discuss with you a different topic, depending on September 18th rally at the Capitol that's coming very soon. And then we switched gears to talk about 9-11. And I really didn't want to deal with it. And so about two in the morning, I'm wide awake and all the memories start flooding into my head and not able to go back to sleep. So I started writing my notes for the show. So memories kind of odd. You remember that what you remember and you try to categorize things in different places of your mind and you push away some things and you try to recall other things. And I think sometimes our memories are directly attached to smell and taste, but also emotions. And it's true. And 9-11 was a horrific emotional day for all Americans. There's no two ways about it. And I think we all remember things differently. It was personal. For me, if I can tell you how it all came to my attention. So if this is, what, 9.45 in the morning, something like that when they hit the first tower, I was sleeping and the phone rang and it was my brother. He was living in Washington at the time. And he said, go to your television set. I said, what? He says, I'm not gonna say anymore. Just go to your television set. I'm gonna hang up, go to your television set. And there was a certain urgency in his voice and in that message, I knew there was something really serious happening. So I went to the television set and lo and behold, there was a burning tower and a perfectly blue sky. It was unbelievable, it looked like fiction. And I woke my wife up. Now there's a picture of it. I woke my wife up and it was at this moment, this very picture that I saw, the second plane. And I said, oh my God, this cannot be an accident. The second plane removes all doubt about that. This is terrorism, really deadly, lethal, terrible terrorism. I called him back and I said, wow.  That was my reaction. The world will never be the same. When we agreed the world will never be the same. And that opens the whole inquiry as to how the world changed and it did. And it's hard to remember things 20 years ago. It's hard to un-vary history, if you will. But for this accumulation today, it seems to me that's a fundamental point. The world has never been the same. It isn't the same. Somehow that event unraveled us, all of us. That's the way I felt that day. I can see it in the future. Sometimes you see clearly. Where were you when you saw, when you heard? Well, I was living in Seattle and so we're three hours behind time. And by the time I got up and stumbled into the bathroom, I'm sure it was around seven o'clock Seattle time. So that means the first tower was well under fire. The plane had done its damage. The second plane had not arrived. And I got the similar message, get out here. You better come and see this. My wife was telling me, come and see this now. And the first thing I knew, or the first thing I saw, what flashed in my mind was, oh, they finally did it. Because remember in 1993, there was a truck bomb that hit the North Tower. And my father happened to be working right across the street when that bomb blew up and did some horrible damage to the Twin Towers. And I said, they finally succeeded. That was the first thing that kind of ruled through my thought. And then as I'm watching this unfold, I'm watching and I'm thinking Pearl Harbor. Now, I know it must feel like back in 1941 to be informed or witness in Honolulu, Pearl Harbor, or hear it on the radio. There was no television that broadcast that. And so those things were, from a historical perspective, were rolling through my mind. And then like you, when I saw the second plane, I said, we're at war. And things as we know it will never be the same. So I have a very, very similar thought that you did. I try to vocalize it to my wife at the time. And I remember everybody was watching television and comparing notes and commiserating and then thinking, this is awful. We don't know the end of it. Who's to say that these three planes were the end of it? Like that four planes. Who's to say that this attack was over at any point? Who's to say that it wasn't gonna happen again? And although we learned to be complacent in the months and years that followed, you could ask yourself the same question today. Who's to say that it's over? Some reason the United States is a target and it could happen again. In fact, shockingly enough, it could happen out of Afghanistan again. Al Qaeda or ISIS could use places of base of operations. We don't have a lot of control over that. Interestingly, that the greater likelihood is a terrorist attack coming from the Middle East or Central Asia. That I don't think we're necessarily safe. And furthermore, it doesn't have to happen in the way of an explosion. It could happen by cyber terrorism. Any number of things by cyber terrorism extended to social media terrorism is happening. It was an article yesterday's paper about it. If you thought that Russia and the Internet Research Agency and Vladimir Putin was attacking the United States was cyber attacks, so is China. Our intelligence agencies have revealed, so is China. I thought the Chinese were relatively innocent about that but they're not. So it made us less secure and to the point where we are complacent as a country, we don't realize we're in a global mind field. The fact is that we are vulnerable and that hasn't changed since 9-11. I wanna tell you one more story, Tim. And this was a very interesting experience. A year or two after 9-11, I was in the High-Tech Development Corporation. It's now called the White-Tech Development Corporation. It's an attached agency to debate. I was on the board there. In fact, I was the chair of the board there. And I urged the directors to take a trip at their own expense to China. And so a number of them went to China with me and we took our executive along and he organized people for us to meet in various cities in China. If you remember, China was ascending then and everyone liked China. They wanted to have a better relationship and so forth. So one of the people he introduced us to at a breakfast meeting, her name was Valerie Yee. I'll never forget that. Make that Lee, L.I. And Valerie Lee was a lawyer. She had a graduate degree as many Chinese lawyers have. And she told a 9-11 story at the breakfast meeting which I will never forget. After they graduate law school, they take graduate law degrees anywhere in the world. And she took a graduate law degree at NYU, which is my alma mater. And NYU is very real estate rich in the southern part of Manhattan. So they put her up in a dormitory at NYU in what happened to be right down next to the Twin Towers. And she arrived there on September 10th. And she unpacked her stuff and was so excited. Remember September, that's when classes start, right? And she unpacked her stuff. She's ready to go to class the next day. And lo and behold, the next day is 9-11, the attack. And her building had to be evacuated. It was right across the street. And so she didn't speak a lot of English. Nobody around her spoke Mandarin. She has just arrived in the country. She doesn't even know where NYU is. So she gets out on the street and all the cinders and the smoke and things falling off the building. And she starts working uptown. Lost, completely lost and terrified. What an experience, you know? She's in her early twenties.  And she says, yes. He says, I'm with the alumni of NYU and we are here looking for you. You know, Jay, 9-11 was the worst. You know, it's almost cold dickens. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. And for everything that was horrific and horrible and devastating and the deaths and the firemen, the police, all the people in the building, we had the tragedy of the death. It was also a shiny moment. Just that story you just relayed. It was a shiny moment. And I started thinking about what the shiny moments were. And there were heroes everywhere. The firemen rushing into the building, the police rushing into the building. Those heroes, the people that came down to try to help however they could. A bucket brigade here and there. A lot of people don't know this, but 500,000 people were evacuated off the island to New Jersey. Dunkirk was 300,000. These boats came in without a clue. Where to dock? How to dock? Just taking on scores of people left and right all day long and ferrying them back to New Jersey. There are countless stories of heroics and it is touching. It's, you know, they say 9-11 was America's finest moment. Too bad those days are gone right now. Well, let's talk about that. You know, I don't know if you saw this one called Turning Point. Turning Point was about 9-11. It was on, I forget what channel. I think it's on Netflix. And a remarkable documentary and it focuses on 9-11, but at the same time, its mission is to show you 20 years before 9-11 and then of course, 20 years after 9-11. So it gives you historical context, which, you know, we really, we all really need to appreciate it. Not just that day, as you say. And, you know, it was predictable. Not only the first attempt on, you know, the Twin Towers back in 93, but, you know, the whole degradation of the relationship of the U.S. with the Middle East and how we made all these foreign policy errors and how they got to dislike us and how we kind of messed up on the wrong, riding the wrong horses all the time. So we should look at that, the 20 years ramping up. We could have seen it coming. No question. You know, I mean, they argued at the time about how one government agency didn't tell another, but it's much more than that. We didn't see it coming. We were being complacent and isolationist, relatively speaking. After Vietnam was understandable, but we were not globally thinking. After 9-11, and this documentary turning point goes into this, I find this the most interesting part. As you say, it was our finest moment. People came from all over the country to volunteer. Firemen, the 3,400 firemen were killed knowing that they were putting themselves in harm's way and being crushed in the building. These beds lined up on the street by volunteer hospitals awaiting people who were injured and never receiving people who were injured because nobody was injured. They were all just killed. It's so shocking. Anyway, that was 9-11. And for the week or two or three or even a couple of months after that, we were the finest generation. It was the high point of at least after the Second World War, the high point of American courage, American togetherness, but somewhere between then and now, we became complacent. We forgot, we lost that togetherness. No one can say we're together now. How did we lose that? How did we lose that special patriotism that 9-11 gave us at least for a while? You have any thoughts? Yeah, the one that keeps coming to my mind, I can't let go. And it was one of my least favorite presidents and that was George Bush Jr. If you remember up to 9-11, we started getting all sorts of violence against the Muslim community, specifically the Moss and they were being targeted for vandalism and in the streets, Muslims were being attacked and harassed. And to George Bush's credit, and I'll never forget it, he met at the Islamic center in Washington, D.C. And he quoted from the Quran and he said, in the long run, evil in the extreme will be the end of those who do evil. And then he said, in the face of terror, it is not true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.  What George Bush did was uncharacteristic of politics of the day and that is, fuel it, milk it, expand on it, take the hatred and the propensity for discrimination and use it for political purpose and means. You have to remember George Bush's favorability ratings before 9-11 were pretty poor, they were in the dump. And he didn't do that. He actually went out there to protect the Islamic community and he put a face on it that I never expected he would do. And I was proud of my president. And it was touchy that he would probably go against many people in his party that, I'm sorry, but over the decades, there's always been a dog whistle about race-baiting and phobias against Islam and all these things. And he didn't take the political bait and he did what I thought was a admirable thing to do, an honorable thing to do and he did it. Yeah, but I think of him, I think of WMD. Yeah, I do too, that came later. I think him going into Afghanistan was the right thing at the right time for the right reason. American people wanted him to do that. It wasn't for punishment necessarily, it was to cut the root of the poison plant, so it wouldn't happen again. And he was there, we were there. We had actually beat the Taliban. We were in a position where we could really make something of that adventure into Afghanistan, but we failed and we stayed too long. And we didn't achieve what the original mission was and should have been.  I don't know what was on his mind.  It was not appropriate and he should have known from his staff that it was not gonna work, but they all lied about WMD. And then you get this recurrence of people out there in the community starting to disbelieve the government, starting to lose confidence in the government. So what Bush, what the federal government gained in the days and weeks after 9-11, they soon enough, they lost it. And the tragedy of WMD and the war in Iraq was not so much that there was no WMD. It was that that lie, you know, took away the togetherness, the solidarity that had been foisted on us, that we experienced as a result of 9-11. And that has put a shadow over all the years since. I know you can't forget that because it was the same kind of thing that we experienced during Vietnam, government lying to us on a regular basis and the press, the media not vetting the lies.  You had a wave of, you know, I'm sorry, but after George Bush was on that mound of rubble and there was the fire chief next to him in the American flag as a backdrop. And remember, you said, I can hear you. I can hear you. The rest of the world can hear you. And the people and the people who knock down these buildings soon they will all hear from us. Remember that? That was in that one video op. He gathered a nation's patriotism to exact revenge. And that first, that first entree was in Afghanistan. And there was overwhelming support in Congress. I think only a few didn't want to go there. And maybe Joe Biden didn't want to go in there. I can't remember. But the bottom line is he had the nation in the palm of his hand as far as their commitment to approve a military action, a war. How often does that happen? Not a lot. He got Congress to approve the use of violence in a very vague resolution. And then he misused that. And he used that for other adventures as well. And so Iraq was much more dangerous and deadly and ill-conceived than we even thought at the time. I don't know about you, but I smelled a rat on WMD right there. And then you got guys who seemed to be heroes at the time, Rudy Giuliani. I mean, he was really at the top of the heap. And a lot of people thought he was a better leader in those moments. He became America's mayor. Yeah. And look how things have changed.  And it's like 20 years is a long time. Things change. And it's tragic to see how great opportunities for coming together, for healing the wounds of Vietnam. Those opportunities were essentially lost and squandered. And of course, Trump has no concept of history or connecting the dots or foreign policy. And he squandered it further. So here we are 20 years later. And I think we've lost the lessons of 9-11-9. Hate to say that. We still have the pain. And there are still families out there missing a loved one. And the media is daily giving us more documentary remembering of what happened. But as a country, it just seems a very long time ago when we went together over that issue. What do you think? Well, I always refer to history and how cause-effect plays into history that affects our future. And for me, 9-11 was a cause-effect issue to a certain degree. And you have to remember, we trained Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden was one of the Mujahideen. And we helped the Mujahideen force Russia out of Afghanistan. And so this says that when you make an ally, when you make a partner, if they don't have the same maybe ideals and values that you do and you're making a deal with a party that is the antithesis of what you're all about, that partnership may come back to haunt you. And 9-11 is an exact example of that partnership that went south, went sour on the United States. So cause-effect and as we move forward with our foreign policies, for God's sake, let the military, let the Congress realize that for every policy, there's a reaction to it, maybe a ego or a greater reaction to it. So let's enter our policies carefully. Let's enter war gingerly in the last effort that should ever be done is to enter war without first exploring diplomacy and working with your allies and working with the other nations in the world to try to resolve and dampen down a conflict rather than jump to war. And I agree with you, Iraq was a jump to war. Afghanistan was probably a very war to think to knock Al-Qaeda out of the caves and tried to hit Osama bin Laden. But after this first six months, we should have realized, A, he wasn't there and B, there's nothing left in there. So we should have just pulled out. What did you think when Barack Obama announced that he had been, Osama bin Laden had been killed? Just desserts. This man caused the destruction and death of many souls. And not only that, but the consequences after that. How many Afghans died? Civilians died from indiscriminate shelling and bombs. The man set out to do what he did. He was a terrorist and he basically was hunted down as a terrorist and he was killed as a terrorist. And so it was a just thing to do. Unfortunately, it took way longer than I thought it would to actually find him and capture and kill him. Yeah, one of the documentaries I saw suggested we had opportunity to find and capture him before but we didn't take advantage of it. Well, the Afghans actually said, we know where he is. We can give him to you.  And we didn't really, we're so arrogant. We said, we'll get him on our own. We don't need your help. And we could have ended this conflict 19 years ago. So one of the other things that comes to mind, Tim, is that we now have to pass through TSA and that flying is a whole different experience. Sure is. And not only here, but around the world. The world has changed because of that. And when you think back to the good old days of coming to Hawaii and having somebody in a hula skirt offer you pineapple juice until you burst, those days are over. I mean, it affected all kinds of travel issues and still does, although COVID has had another effect. But I feel that the travel issue is at the superficial level because there are all kinds of other things that have changed in our world since 9-11. There's a distrust, there's a racism. There's an opportunistic and dictatorial leaders that have come up. And somehow, if you take my point, that 9-11 that has changed everything and that the world would be and is different and you start examining the world beyond TSA, the world beyond TSA, you find that so many other things have changed and not for the better. I think one of the things I would add to that is that, you would think as a matter of learning a lesson that the US would recognize how important it is to be global leader and not turn its back on issues elsewhere, to try to impart the values of democracy and morality everywhere. But somewhere along the line, and it was not just the leaders, it was the people, we turned isolationistic. And I think the isolationism comes from 9-11. Let's just turn our back on this, it's so unpleasant. And if they do it again, we'll meet them at the past.  But we forgot about the real lesson and that it's that Thomas Friedman world is flat. We're all in this together, we all have to cooperate, including countries that have different ideologies. And it seems to me that we've really lost touch with that. And so instead of 9-11 making us recognize a global role, it had just the opposite effect. I could even add to that, Jay, and say that it's made us isolationists within our own country. 9-11 was the greatest moment for all Americans to come together as one. And like you said, we've lost that in 20 years. But I guess in my mind, I think, if you could take politics out of the subject, out of any conversation, those who I disagree with, I'd probably like to go out and have a beer with them, go fishing with them, and maybe play a little poker with them. But once the conversation and their isolationism and our polarization comes from our political beliefs, which we all seem to have to talk about it, there goes the problem. And somehow, some way, we've got to be able to argue and disagree with one another as Obama would say, without being disagreeable. And the greatest tragedy of 9-11 is what's transpired in 20 years that we have become polarized, we've become isolationists with our own country. And I'd like to see Americans come back together. And whether it be over COVID or not, whether it be over abortion issues or not, immigration or not, let's identify the policies and keep them as policies that we disagree on, but let's keep the personalities out of it. And the second we can do that, we may come back together again where both sides of the aisles of Congress can talk to one another and go to lunch with one another. Hell, have a cocktail with one another, rather than scratch each other's eyes out in front of the cameras every day, every week. That's my eternal hope. Yeah, smart power, soft power, right here at home among constituent groups right here at home. I wanna add a point though that you made me think of and it's this, the cell phone, the modern smartphone was only introduced in I think 2008 by Apple. And until that time, we didn't really have social media to speak of, we didn't have all the power of the smartphone. And people were more in touch personally, but somewhere along the line, when the smartphone and social media were introduced, somehow I think the environment set up by 9-11 made us welcome those things. We didn't really have to get out there with strangers and we could learn from the internet and from the smartphone and engage that way and we didn't have to take any risks. So that became our way of doing business together, of connecting with each other through electronics, more than, much more than before. And I think that has had a huge effect. I think that was somehow a ripe possibility because of 9-11, but I think it really took off after, everybody knows it really took off after 2008 when the phones became available. And this has changed the way we communicate in this country. It has changed the way we do media that we distribute information and news. It has changed credibility of sources. It has changed information to misinformation and disinformation. It has changed the social compact where we respect each other and have a kind of an assumption of credibility with each other. And I think our society has really, really changed over the last 20 years. And when you take into account the fact that a lot of people in the demographic were not born then, not only here, but everywhere. I mean, what are they saying that in Afghanistan, most of the people in Afghanistan didn't exist at the time of 9-11. They weren't born yet, but that's so in many places in the world. And so people in general, don't have the kind of memories that you and I have. They don't see the lessons. They don't connect the dots from 9-11 till now. Their lives have nothing to do with 9-11. So I guess I wonder what you think about what the average person who wasn't even born yet or who was very young at 9-11 thinks about it now today. How important is it? How important are its lessons? Or are they of no consequence? Oh, you don't ask easy questions at all. My answer would say it depends on how they value history and the effects of history to the present and the effects of history to the future. And if they understand the value of history, then they say, I understand the value of 9-11 and the lessons to be learned from that. We look at, I wasn't around for the attack on Pearl Harbor, but I certainly realized the lessons that were involved in that. And that was letting your guard down and not looking at the signals and not looking at the points of data that were being reported in different agencies, but they were being missed. Not unlike the history lessons of 9-11, as far as security and learning the lessons of security and data and information and consolidating it so it doesn't fall through the cracks, but also the social issues. I mean, no greater event brought Americans together than Pearl Harbor, as did 9-11. And if you could see what brings us together, what commonalities we have as a nation, as a people and focus on the commonalities of what we believe in and what we hold value to versus then and focus and emphasize and amplify our differences. There's hope for us. There's hope for this democracy, for this nation. And whether you were born in 9-11 or not is irrelevant to recognizing that which we have in common as fellow Americans and the bright future that we can forge together if we choose to forge together. Yeah, and you know, the end of our engagement in Afghanistan is kind of closing the book in a way on what happened in 9-11. It's kind of now, if you look forward, done with that chapter, we only have to close one time, about two by the way, but we can look forward to a better time, a time of better thinking, a time of better cohesion. So at the end of our show, which I think is really special, and thank you for joining me in this discussion, this reverie, I would like to play that same graphic that we started with and offer at least a few seconds of silence in memorial. Thank you, Tim. Thank you, Jay. And for everyone that looks at 9-11 with a broken heart, my heart goes out to you. The same. Aloha. Aloha.