So this is the EPA's Research Triangle Park campus, it is approximately 150 acres. We share a federal campus with the National Institute of Environmental Health Safety or NIEHS that the whole federal campus is approximately 550 acres. This is the EPA's largest site, it is by far the largest piece of property and building complex that the agency has ever built. Right now we're currently in building D of a seven building complex. This is a laboratory building and it's also an office administration building. We're currently standing in the atrium of one of the buildings, one of the laboratory buildings building D and as you can see it's a very well lit space. There aren't a lot of lights actually lit in here. You can see some of these decorative lights behind us. They're not even on right now, they're actually only on at night and that's just to keep the space lit because the sun does all the work. We call this passive solar. So the sun actually heats and lights the building during the day time. You can see some of the panels in the atrium rooftop above here. The color of the luminescence of that color actually helps ignite the light inside of the building here. This in fact lowers our electric load and our heating load in here because we don't have the sun burning through a glass into the space and at the same time we're also lighting a space without having to consume electricity to run the lights inside the building and an otherwise walled building. So this is the rooftop of building E that's actually the office side of this laboratory building and we have an amorphous silicon thin film array. This is more durable than the glass encased monocrystalline or polycrystalline solar panels you would see typically on the roof of a home. This is a 55 kilowatt array or 55,000 watts. I typically call this enough to power 8 to 10 energy efficient homes in the summertime and it adheres directly to the roof. Each of the strips that you see come as a 50 watt set. It just is a roll.  Once that's done, you connect it to either side of the electrical grid, the plastic sections that you see horizontally across here. And then those are sent into the building via the disconnect boxes at the end. So you can see a bit of the aging that's occurred in the eight years that these have been installed on this rooftop. So this is due to a couple of things. The sun is both good and bad. We're looking at both versions of that. So the solar panel is in taking the sun's energy. Sun's photons converting them to DC electricity for then later use as AC electricity within the building. But also the heating expansion and contraction because of the sun beating down on the top of the roof, you get an expansion of the solar panel. And at the same time, a different rate of expansion of the white rooftop. And all this expansion and contraction results in the wrinkles that you see of the shape of the solar panels on the roof down there. You can also see some slight discoloration. This is the sun degrading the surface and changing its chemical makeup on the surface of that particular solar panel. The sun's gonna degrade all substances, but it just matters the rate at which the sun will degrade that particular substance. So you see slight discoloration. Otherwise, even though you may see these wrinkles and this discoloration, this solar array is performing at 99% of its original rated capacity installed eight years ago. So a lot of media will tell you a solar panel has a 15 to 25 year life. That's typically what a company's media will state. That's the expected lifetime of a particular solar panel. But solar panels seem to be outlasting their expected lifetimes by two and three-fold. We see some in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden Colorado, where their solar panels are 40 years old, yet still generating at 70% of their original capacity. So we have effectively no degradation in the first eight years of the life of this array. One other thing to think about is that when you replace a rooftop, especially a flat roof like this, where you're gonna get a lot of settling of pollen, dust, and dirt throughout the year, that when you want to time a solar installation with a roof replacement. So when it comes time in 10 years to replace this roof, that might be a good time to change out the solar technology on the roof. But we won't want to do that before then. Because if we were to put new solar panels on one year before a roof replacement, then you have to spend a lot of money pulling off the solar panels, putting a new roof on the building, and then reinstalling the solar panels, and all of that labor adds up to an additional cost. But these are less efficient and more expensive than the typical types of solar panels you would see every day driving around your neighborhood. Because this type of solar panel only has one layer of solar cells, and you can't stack multiple layers on top of each other and then encase that in glass. So you have fewer solar cells per unit area, and that will affect the efficiency. Because the idea behind the efficiency of a solar panel is literally to cram as many solar cells within each square inch as possible. So because of that single layer design, you're going to have less efficient solar panels per unit area. And in addition to that, because it's made to be durable, the extra materials that are used in this to add to the sticky surface on the back, and the ability to roll it up, and then just toss it on a truck and deliver it to its site. These are actually more expensive per unit watt of generation, so less efficient and more costly equals a decision to go with another type of technology. We actually get a data point for every one of our solar arrays every 15 minutes. And all of that data is stored in a spreadsheet. We trend that data and report it to our headquarters. So each type of our demonstration scale projects here are reported side by side to show which ones are more efficient, which ones are working better for us and enable us to provide some data to present to the public about which technologies are better than others. So this is an inverter. This will literally invert DC electricity to AC electricity or vice versa, depending on which direction you need to go. If we were to store a battery, store electricity in a battery, we would do that. When it's DC, send it to the inverter. And then that inverter converts it to AC electricity for use in the building for the plug loads for all of the heating and cooling within the building. And also to light the building. So that noise, most of that noise is actually coming from the transformer. So we have a high voltage coming into the building, 480 volts to be exact, AC electricity. So we then want to transfer that voltage. We want to turn that voltage into 120 or 208 volts. And in that transformation, we're actually getting some both heat and electrical losses. So we're getting a lot of noise in here. We're having a lot of losses to the tune of about 20% in just one transformation of a voltage to another. So we want to minimize the number of times we transform one voltage to another level. So our entrance roadway between the gates that access the campus have approximately 70 solar roadway lights. They're not connected to the electrical grid. They have a solar panel atop them and then a battery which stores the solar energy generated throughout the day to power the lights at night. So we have currently have a CFL bulb installed with a lawnmower battery with a solar panel on top of that. We're trying to make a push to convert all of those to LED lights and lithium ion batteries which will allow the lights to last more than one night on the case that we have a cloudy day. So that after the cloudy day is done, we still have enough energy stored in the batteries to power the lights during the next night. Within the state of North Carolina, we see a great variance of wind west east part of the state. So in the mountains and at the ocean, we're averaging wind speeds of on the range of 12 to 20 miles per hour at any given time throughout the year. And in the middle part of the state, we have a lot of plain areas which don't have a lot of elevation differences. So the wind speed is actually lower and actually within the triangle of North Carolina Research Triangle, we have an average wind speed of about four and a half to five miles per hour. This is not enough to power a standard wind turbine which has a blade cut in speed, the speed to get blades moving of nine miles per hour, nine to ten miles per hour. New designs have come about to allow for both vertical axis and lower cut in speeds for the blades so that we can utilize wind turbines here as well. So we're currently looking at opportunities to install wind turbines with with blade cut in speeds even down as low as one and a half to two miles per hour so that somebody with a low wind speed such as the Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill area we could operate and renewably generate electricity in methods other than just solar power. So we're hoping to install some low speed wind turbines on our on our plaza area outside of our main entrance and as well as a hillside at the north end of our campus. So evaluation factors to think about when choosing solar or wind, the predominant renewable energies that would be supported in the state of North Carolina are what's the average wind speed around my house, how far above the trees do I need to be before I'm getting a good wind speed? Well if that's 300 feet then you're going to have to pay to install a 300 foot pole above above the tree tops in your neighborhood but you know if you have a very sunny area and you have some trees that are kind of offset from your from your rooftop then solar might be the better option there if you fill up your entire solar roof and you still have a windy area you know if you live in a windy area such as at the beach or in the mountains you can install both solar and wind on your rooftop and benefit from both types of renewable energy. A sustainability manager in a typical day job would work in stem outreach. We'd also provide ideas for work sites to increase their sustainable footprint through pollinator gardens, renewable energy, expanding energy efficient installations across campus such as LED light change outs, better HVAC systems. I am a mechanical engineer by education and also by trade here at the EPA but in serving as a sustainability manager that also required a bit of the belief system aspect to it. You want to be an ardent environmentalist to serve in a passion driven organization such as the EPA. So the environmentalist effort, the environmentalist belief system is one that kind of drove me to come here. So generally speaking a stem education would be an appropriate education method to to qualify yourself for a federal government agency working in environmentalist efforts.


Hey there friends, how's it going? My name is Kevin and today we're doing something a little bit different. I'm gonna try and actually be a successful person for the first time in my life and many, many other lives. For example, last time I was executed by electric chair. Ow! Kinda ironic that I went to spell perfect as their name, and I spelled it perfect. Yeah, there we go. Make them look sad. Just have pity. Okay, now that's just sad in a different way, but I'm going with it. That's apparently what the perfect person looks like. Oh my god, age two. Just nothing happened. That's new. Oh, now I'm suffering from the flu.  Wait, AI is rising up.  Reported to the principal, it's the right thing to do. Oh my god, AI, stop! Just blew a spit-wadding class when your teacher, Mrs. Seaman, had her back turned. Reported to the principal. AI is gonna end up killing me if I keep turning against it like this. Oh my god.  What would he do? Well... Max? I guess I'll report you to the principal. See what he has to say about it. He said he'd look into it. Well, Max, from what I can see, you are absolutely right. They are a teacher's pet. Case dismissed. Would the perfect person have a TikTok? I'm gonna say, uh... Oh god, my friend wants to cheat off me. Reported to the principal. The amount of people I've tattled on. I don't know, how are my grades? Oh god, they're not that good. And my popularity is not good either, understandably. Why does Mrs. Stone not like me? Compliment.  Alexa, why do you hate me? You seem alright to me. Only alright?  It's staring as a joke, but it ended up with real hurt. You told your English teacher, Mrs. Stone, that your uncle would find her really attractive. Great. Well, would you look at that?  What a coincidence. Interact with the brainy kids at your high school today. You must have high smarts and grades to join this special class. Maybe I should try and improve my grades a little bit first. Mrs. Stone, can I say you are absolutely magnetic today.  That's just creepy. Hey, Mr.... Mr. Principal, would you mind sitting with me for lunch? Like he's 16. But look at those grades. I got rejected. What? Why? I'm the brainiest kid. Oh, no, wait, I'm not. I just sucked up a lot. I didn't even study. Hold on one second. Let me, let me become smart. Oh, God, I don't know if that's possible. But does this road sign mean recycled oil? Just driving along and you're like, ooh, recycled oil. Circular intersection. Do you mean roundabout? Well, I passed. I'll floss to that. I'm going to make a TikTok post. I got 10 views. My popularity is empty. I'm too nerdy to even join the braini kids. I tried hanging out with them and they ignored me. This is embarrassing. I tried to compliment their leader. I said the leader of the braini kids is the best and they ignored me. And now my happiness is plummeted. Surely I can get a really good job now. I'm going to go into finance. 60,000, my parents will pay right? I'm the perfect child. Refused.   What? I'm not intelligent. What the?  Oh my God. My father died and he only gave me a dollar. Like, I'm fairness now. If you're giving me a dollar, that's worse than nothing. If you give me nothing, maybe I'll be like, nah, maybe he forgot.  But if he gives me a dollar specifically, that's pretty insulting. That's like, oh, here's a dollar just so you can't contest the will. Everything is going to your mother. I'm so dented to skip the funeral, but no, I will attend his funeral as I'm the perfect person.  Where did the dollar go? I needed that. Your friend and classmate, Goober. Of course, my only friend's name is Goober. Once you skip class with him, I'll just call the principal from the high school. Like, Goober's going to cut class. For the last time, stop calling me. It's 4 a.m. and you don't go to my school anymore. How do I become happy? That's such a sad question.  That might be nice. Oh, now I can seduce the teachers. I added my professor in Snapchat. That's actually probably weirder than seducing the teacher. Oh, my God, the Dean hates me. Oh, it's going to be like a 90s epic movie. You'll never stop us from having fun, Dean. I left her a gift card. She didn't like it.  Oh, my God, he's mortified. Look at him. 3% happiness because it's sucking up, got neglected. What are the highest paying jobs? Let's see. Bank. Work experience banker. But I want to, I want a job and I don't have any experience. I was studying for like 20 years. Is that not good enough for you? Oh, well, I guess I'll just become a fisherman then. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm committed to making a really successful person for a change. Business analyst, perhaps? Where do you see yourself in five years in a leadership role within your company? I'll be taking your job and you step one foot out of line. I'm telling the principal. Yes, I got hired. I got a job. Your friends are all joining YouTube. Trust me, if you want to be the perfect person, stay away from it. I have gout. The perfect person does not have gout. Yes, my gout is gone. Go out, gout. No, that was, that was very painful, I imagine. I'm sorry. The perfect person needs to become the perfect person in all aspects. So let's get some surgery. Yeah, hit me up with one of these. Dr. Dangle is a very fitting name. All right, let's go with that. Wow. Eyelid surgery. I don't even know what that is, but I like getting in this game because it tends to improve your looks a lot. What would I look like without eyelids? Do you think it would improve my image? Now he's happy. Look how happy he is. His depression is cured. His eyelids are forcibly open and he sees the true beauty of the world and he just got an increase. Who said money can't buy you happiness? How do I get surgery to make brain bigger? All right, I look fantastic.  He refused to hang out with me. You know what? That must hurt perfect person, but I got to say maybe asking him to go yodeling was the problem. Maybe you weren't the issue. Just pay him a compliment. There you go. What did I say? I called him wonderful. Everyone could use that. You know what? Everyone, you're wonderful. Did that help? I think that's a lovely compliment. Could I have a promotion? Ask for a raise. Never got back to you. Well, so much for being wonderful. We're going to have to work our way up the career ladder. It's important. We don't have much time.  I've literally never even spoken to anyone else at my job. I just keep talking to my supervisor. What kind of gift would Tyler Clarkson like a dead Daisy perhaps? I can use some money that my dead father left me.  The supervisor's just like, I've spoken to you twice and I wish it was less.  I didn't like it. Sorry. All right. The perfect person has his limits. I got a raise. I'm a junior business analyst. What if I just try for a business analyst? Do you handle conflict? Well, I usually just tattle on people. I got the job. Yay. Take that old supervisor that didn't like me.  And if not, I could introduce you to my doctor, Dr. Dangle. I'm the perfect person. Hold on. I better send my mommy gift. I haven't talked to her in years, but let me just send her. What do moms like an oil diffuser? Moms love essential oils and whatnot. Live, laugh, love. What? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want to give my mom money. Jesus Christ. Oh my God. Oopsie-daisy. Sorry. I was taught. I thought I was talking to my supervisor. No interest in sucking up to you. Give her a sonos once a month speaker. You know what? It's 200 bucks. Go ahead. She loves it. Great. Everyone is corruptible. Everyone has their price. My popularity is really going down. Oh, no, the senior internal auditor. Feckin' hates me.  They don't like me. What? Now I just had a conversation with her about our favorite twerkers. God, good thing I signed up for TikTok. You know, that insider knowledge really comes in handy. I have a headache. Go to the doctor. It's like the first time I've been confronted with an issue and I actually go to the doctor. I'm usually just like, just pray. Just pray it goes away. Why did you ask her to go cliff diving? Just hang out with your supervisor in a normal way. It doesn't have to be yodeling or cliff diving. Just say, hey, want to write some haikus? Go to the cinema? Whatever. Something normal. Honestly, I think I should just keep complimenting her because my guy can't screw that up. The only thing he's screwing up is the relationship with the rest of the entire office. But the supervisors love in it. Work on self-improvement. No, I just want like surgery to make me smarter. I don't want to put in any effort. How to win friends and influence people? Yes, read it. Oh, for Feck's sake. I forgot I have to actually turn the pages. 546. No, pick a different book. Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets. That's much better. How many pages is that? 133, I can do that. I just hear reading a children's novel at work like smoking a pipe. Hmm, this Captain Underpants. Quite insightful. What would we do if toilets attacked?  I just want to read Captain Underpants over and over again. Genre. Self help. The only way I could help myself right now is with like an auto clicker bot or something. I just want to go cosplay as Captain Underpants. Oh. We're halfway there. Whoa. That just made me 100% smart. My one thing I was missing was the ability to read and how that I have learned to read. I'm 100% smart. I'm going to go to the doctor. Just improve my health. I don't have anything wrong with me. I'm just going to see Dr. Hill over here. Oh, wait, I do have migraines. Could you fix them for me? No, fix them. No one can fix my migraines. Go to the emergency room. No expense spared. This is maybe see a doctor instead. Go to the emergency room in an ambulance. Like, ah, headache. I need paracetamol. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You discover through your research that your company will be more profitable if it eliminated all health insurance benefits. I feel like this could backfire given that I have health issues but recommend the benefits be eliminated. I want to move up the ladder. I don't think that my boss is even going to be that impressed. Like, I told my company that it would be more profitable if they cut health insurance for all employees. Like, I could go to them and say, do you know it'll be more profitable if we stop paying everyone? It is true, but is it practical? Most would say no. Jim Pickens would say yes. Look at that. My supervisor loves me. Everyone else except for the new person hates me. Oh, I'm so hated. It's hard being this perfect. You encounter a coyote. Take it to the shelter. Run for my life. I don't know how aggressive coyotes are. Why does it say dog as well? I got a raise at least, but this isn't good enough. The perfect person deserves more perfect wages. I think it's time for perfect person to find a perfect mate. No, not perfect enough. What? I misclicked. Fine then. We're breaking up. Love how it has the little wave emoji. I buy. Oh, this is a lot of green senior flight attendant. Perfect. Yeah, go for it. Yes. Good job. Your co-worker Robin started a rumor that you were the biggest gossiper in staff. No one's going to believe you. Nobody even talks to me. How could I gossip? Oh, no, wait, I've got a new supervisor. No. I work so hard. Not working hard. Your co-worker Penelope just informed you that she plans to sleep her way to the top and would love to sit at the bottom with you. Finally. Someone to tattle on. It's been so long. Report her to HR. Goodness gracious, honey. You wouldn't believe what happened at work. Give her a compliment there. Show her how much she's appreciated. It feels weird not making the bad choices. I got Robin again making some network marketing business opportunity reporter. Why is everyone a problem where I work except for me, the perfect person? God, I'm humble. I think it's time we bought her personal little, a little house, a little house in the suburbs where we can have little perfect people to get it. Pickens brother is jewelry. Oh, wait, hold on. I got to buy a ring first. A diamond ring for 50 grand seems something the perfect person would do. I was going to get this because it's nice and cheap, but it's a 161 dead end drive. Oh, there we go. A cottage for 100 grand. Buy it with cash. Oh, that's nice. My boss's performance is holding the company back. That could be my job. Report my findings. I got an increase. Yes, I got a raise. All right. No, let's ask. Let's ask the woman to get married, will we? At a marijuana farm. Wow. These are all bad options. Let's go with the music festival. That's the most fitting, I guess. She accepted. Always is that nice.  All your coworkers give you high fives or slash that happened. All right, now that I went shopping with you, could you give me like a raise? That would be lovely. What? Oh, you're promoted. Okay, that works. Your fiance, Julius, demanding you get married. Oh, I kind of forgot. Oh, yeah. Let's plan the wedding at a country club in the pyramids of Egypt. What last name will you choose? Keep Mr. Person. Never really thought that my name was literally Mr. Person. Imagine trying to make a reservation anywhere. Yes, I'd like a reservation for eight. It's Mr. Person. Hello? All right, baby time. I'm thinking cheaper by the dozen here. We have children in bulk and it'll make it cheaper per child. Okay, baby boy. First person. He's just gonna think that only he like sees the world in first person. Everyone else is like third person. Come on. Make another one. If I have to keep hearing him say, oh, yeah, and nothing coming of it, we need at least two. Will we try and adopt? That would be something the perfect people would do. He has my eyes, unfortunately. I don't know how he's such good genetics. Like all his stats are so high, but like my person's stats are high because of surgery. Oh God, my supervisor just come to how fashionable a coworker looks. I am jealous. Reporter to HR. She was reprimanded. That was the only person who was reprimanded for doing something that sounded pretty innocent. Did I adopt the child? I can't remember. I forgot. Maybe I shouldn't adopt the child. I don't seem ready for it. Oh, there's no children. Yeah, sorry. I completely blanked that out. I just immediately repressed it. I guess we'll stick with one child then. We'll have a cat. We'll have a dog. The cat will be named dog and the dog will be named cat. It's the perfect family.  What will you do? Apologize? Like what do you want me to say? Oh, I just inherited a quarter of a million dollars. Attend that funeral. Way better than that. And you're pregnant. Oh, this is wonderful news. Oh, he's depressed. Everything just went bad. It's the dog's fault, isn't it? I've been hacking up masterminds of mucus. What's happening? Why is it all going downhill? Fittingly enough, it's Dr. Hill I'm going to. No, my dog cat died. He's getting so angry. What's happened all of a sudden? No, my cat dog died. She's just unbranching a peri and diet from alcohol poisoning, putting a damper on an otherwise lit party. You don't need many of your things as you declutter your home. That's got to improve your mood. Depression is gone. Have I reached the top of my career? I think I actually have. My Jesus, I didn't see that coming. But I'll take the family on a cruise show. Show you've no dog or cat to look after anymore. Your wife does not want to come with you. Your child does. Okay. Your son first asked you to take him to hold up signs outside the TV networks. What do you mean? I didn't enjoy it, whatever it is. What did it say on the signs?  Post an ad with free golden retrievers and put my number on it. All right, I'm reporting you, Robin. Get back to work. She's been abusing me for decades. I know you're the perfect person, but even the perfect person has their limits. Look for a hit man. 19, yep, ran off with the money without pulling the hit. God dammit. You know what? I've plenty of money to spare. It's not about the money.  No luck. God dammit. All right, next year. Hit man. All right. Robin, where are you? Where are you, Robin?  You're not on the list? Where is Robin?   You're gone now. Maybe my hit man did finish the job. I was checking on the family to make sure they were okay. I had a conversation and apparently talked with Julia about how it's a felony to sell children in Florida.  I feel like they're holding us back. First is asking for a college education. Yep, I'm paying it because I'm the perfect person. Can I go double my money at the casino? I could bet half a million on Blackjack. Like if I win, then I double my money. I like my odds. Oh no. Oh no. How am I going to explain this to my wife? Wait, I didn't want to go again. Hold on. Hold on. Slow down here. Wait, I'm busted. I didn't want to go. Oh my God. Oh my God.  Leave the casino. Oh no, she's angry. I'm depressed. I've lost nearly my whole life's savings on one hand of Blackjack and I've never played it before in my life. Why did I think that was a good idea? Oh my God. His hairstyle is actually improved. What age is he now? 66. God, he's doing well.  Really? They're one flaw. You actually couldn't even find a flaw. So you just went with that. She wants 471,000. I don't even have that. I'm negative.  No, you're... Why are you sending me pictures? Oh, forwarded to my friends. Not a file or a straining order? Yeah, a restraining order. Even my son hates me. Why? Now he didn't mean to ask for money.  That's not going to improve her relationship. I meant to compliment him. I called him a god. That's not a weird compliment. He isn't interested in having a conversation. This is your fault, Julia. Where's that hit man? Why does it always come back to this? Pull off the hit on my ex, Julia, using a beer bottle. All right. Well, there you go. Oh no. Go to the doctor. Dr. Hill, I have another problem. All right, son. You've no one else except for me now.  Oh, now you'll talk to her instead. You think the hit man would take out a baby? You won't go to the movies with me. What do I need to do for you to love me? Do you want me to get surgery? Is that it? Look, son, I look absolutely litty. Will you hang out with me now? This is not interested in having a conversation with me. You forced me to do this, son. I am calling the hit man.   All right, next year. I've been feeling so good lately that I can't stop listening to happy by Pharrell Williams. Anyway, let's get calling that hit man. Yes. Fat Tony with the long sword. My son was murdered and I'm depressed. At least the granddaughter likes him. There's someone in his life. Give them 10 grand by their happiness. That's all we can do. I'm no longer depressed on your way to a Taylor Swift concert. I'm 80 something.  His years are so uneventful now. Nothing is going on. Wait.  He's made a ton of money. I'm going to get him something cool like a plane. But of course, I don't want him to crash it. So I'll get some training lessons immediately crashed by training aircraft and died. Oh, for fuck's sake, ribbon successful. Is that what you call success? That is so sad. But you know what?  All right, folks, we're going to end it there. I hope you enjoyed and I hope to see you tomorrow. Subscribe if you're new. Thanks. Bye for now.


All right, welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're talking to Miguel from Somos. Thanks for joining. For people who don't know, what does your company do? Hi, Diego. Thanks a lot for having me. So my name is Miguel Leal. I'm one of the co-founder of Somos Foods, and we make healthy and convenient Mexican food. We want to make Mexican food as approachable and fast, as healthy as possible. And before we get into your company, we've been trying to use this. I said this off airty. We've been trying to use this product Riverside for a long time, and I think they finally figured out a way to make this podcasting so easy for us. And so here we are using Riverside, and quality looks good. I wanted to start with your journey around, specifically around when you were at kind. And so what did you learn? What did you see in the marketplace working under Daniel? And what was your impetus for wanting to launch this brand? What did you see that was missing? Yeah, it's so funny that you ask it that way. I don't think I've ever been asked that question before. But kind was so important for the story of Somos. I would say just learning from kind was the role that a business should take in society. What is the responsibility of living the communities that you operate better than you found them? And that's something it's at the very center of Somos. Somos means we are. So it's about two cultures coming together. I think working with Daniel was also very important for me because kind is so successful. And Daniel is probably one of the most successful, is not the most successful founder in full. And I think what set him apart is that kind was not a three-year venture. It took 24, 25 years to build kind to where it is today. And he always bet on the long term. He never took any shortcuts with culture, with the product, with the relationships, with the retail. And that was something that was very impactful for me, second MBA for me working for him. But more importantly, that's where the idea of Somos came from. We were looking to what would we do next and we were pitching ideas to each other. And one day late at night in the middle of the summer, that's when the idea of Somos came about. I really love that. I mean, I think for, I mean, you could talk about this in some way, but usually when you watch an entrepreneur of that caliber that figures it out, it's like a couple things stick out. It's like the philosophy they have. And then it goes back to like the traction they're trying to achieve. And when you take shortcuts, you get cut short. It's an interesting thing to think about. But I think a lot of entrepreneurs, specifically young entrepreneurs, think, OK, I'm going to become a 100 millionaire in three years. And while certainly that can happen, it's very rare. More often is the chance that someone dedicates seven to 10 years, if not more of their life, to finding that success. Yeah, and I've been doing this for a while, Diego. And I think something that we try to do is we romanticize the early successes. And we discount the people that have put in the work and have been doing it for a while. We just, I think it's a matter of attention. It's much easier to talk, like you said, about the two, three year successes than putting in the time. But what we do in food in particular, it just takes a while. The channels, they take a while to feel you're doubling or triple in sales every year. And that has a lot of challenges with sourcing and with manufacturing. And just adoption for people to try it and repeat the purchase and then to share that and recommend it to other people. I think most of the time it looks like this. That's true. So when you first came to market, what were the first products you came to market with? Yeah, it's interesting. We wanted to make sure there was a product market fit. So we launched chips and salsas in September, I wanna say three years ago, September of 2021. And we had a lot of success. We had a lot of people buy them. I think we estimated sales to be X and it ended up being five X. We were still a little bit at the end of COVID. So people were buying a lot of things direct to consumer. And I also feel like maybe we have just big families, the three of us, the three co-founders. So we had a false read on the market and really push to do these boxes of D2C. And then coming in January, we were all outside, we were not in COVID, retail to cover again. And then we realized that maybe sending boxes of Mexican food that would last for a month was not the variety that people were looking for before the pandemic ended, right? Yeah, that's so funny. And did you get funding before you launched or how did you guys self-fund this? What was that like? Yeah, so the three of us self-funded it. We've been very scrappy when it comes on what we are doing and how we are building this. It's our money that we're putting together, the three of us, Prorada. And when I thought about starting the business, there weren't a lot of Mexicans doing CPG when I started my career. And two of my favorite people were Rodrigo and Daniel. And we started off as friends and we would just connect and share stories and help each other out. And then we started working together at kinds. So it just made sense that we would do it together. And as an added bonus, kind of like at the same time that we were doing Somos or putting the business plan in Somos, Daniel was starting Camino Partners, which really does this. They invest in brands for the long-term leveraging Daniel's team and expertise and capital for sure. So it was, not only doing businesses with friends that I really enjoy, but then also the infrastructure, we were very lucky that that came as a result of that. I wanna ask you a question. So for the listeners who might be thinking about starting their own CPG brand or their own company, what kind of time horizon are you thinking about as you obviously given your experience with kind of a commitment with them today? Just to give people a window into look, here's the game. Here's really, and you might not succeed, but here at least is what you need to prepare for. What would you tell those people? Yeah, so I am in my late 40s and I just where I am in my career and in life, you know, I really wanted to do something different, which was this startup and I wanted to do it for the next 10 years. So we made a commitment to each other and we said, hey, we're gonna give this a go. We need to be, you know, really very true to each other, very making sure that if things are not working out, we say it, but if we hit certain struggles and we have, you know, through the couple of years that we've been on market, that we see this as a 10 year project. You know, it took kind 15 years to really get going and we thought maybe naively so that we could leverage some of the experience from kind and maybe do it in five years less than kind to have this, you know, crushing it then. And now actually I think the opposite. Now that we've been doing it for a while, it takes more time and it takes more money to do it right, but we are at the point that the team is in much better shape this year than it was the year before. Our performance is doing better with relationships with the trade is doing better. Our cash flow profit, you know, looks a lot better than it last year. Why would I exit now? Like now we have a really successful business. I don't lose any sleep at night thinking, hey, what if Somos doesn't make it anymore? So now I might have been pushing, you know, my time in the company actually farther out than I did it before I started. In some way you guys are seasoned. So the second time you go around this, did you ever think about maybe you acquire some companies to get early growth or just, or even now, maybe are you thinking about the stage where you can sort of acquire one plus one equals three? Any rumblings? Yeah, no, I mean, we've looked at both of them, but we always, you know, reach the same decision. You know, we really want Somos to outlive us one day we will not be here and Somos will still be there on the shelves. And the more that we work on it, the more we realize the potential. Like we think there is a 30 billion addressable market that in the next five, 10 years more consumers are gonna cook Mexican food at home just like they do with Italian food. And the more that we do it, the more we realize there is nothing more important that we could be doing than this. And it goes back to the shortcut. Like at the beginning of our journey, we could have merged with another company and get us to profitability faster and, you know, things like that, but every time that that comes up, we always have the same thing. And it is, you know, Somos is gonna be one of the most beautiful things that we do professionally. And it should have all of our attention. I really love that. One of the projects we're working on here, I do real estate development. One of the things we're doing is creating a market called Juntos. And it's the idea of Los Angeles has a lot of Asian influence and a lot of Latin American influences. And so we're partnering up with the Taiwanese chef. And so he draws a lot of inspiration from the Asian cultures. I'm from Peru. And so naturally there's a lot of Latin American cultures. And in the LA there's both. And so we're starting this project that it's a way to sort of introduce the blending of the food, you know, we're calling it Juntos market. And of course we'll have products that we'll sell on the market. But it's really just like a time and I think obviously I can speak to it in LA but it's also a time I think in America in general where to your point, I mean, the addressable market of introducing Latin foods, Mexican products is massive. And there's a massive opportunity there. It seems like that's what you're aligning to which makes a lot of sense. I love it there when I love the name. Like I never thought of Juntos when we were coming up with Somos but all those, you know, community driven words. And I love Juntos so much because it has the hard J on it. Yeah, yeah. Which should at some point collaborate. Juntos and Somos. We can. We can do something for sure. It's gonna be a little, a part of the building is also gonna be for media. And so the idea there is chef is kind of a known person. And so the idea, you know, is like here we are making this dish. And then we sell tickets and people can learn in real time how to cook some of these products. But early days, but we'll see. Have you ever, this is kind of a funny question because Daniel's obviously been a guest shark on Shark Tank but have you ever thought about going on Shark Tank? I don't. Like I feel Shark Tank is great. And for the people that participate is fantastic. But I have Daniel and from all the sharks he would be the one that I would like to have on this business. So I would rather leave that opportunity to someone else, you know. What other products are you guys launching? I know there's a whole line of the plant-based products. I don't think you guys, you phrase it in the right way where I don't think you go vegan, vegan, you know what I mean? But it's a, what products are you guys working on now to expand the line? So, you know, our story, we pivoted a D2C portfolio into retail. So once D2C kind of like didn't give us what we thought it was gonna give us, we went to Expo West 22 months ago, a year and change. And we saw that there was this huge opportunity to innovate in the Mexican set of the store to bringing more mainstream consumers into the Mexican set. And we were very lucky because Rice became our hero product. We launched our Rices, Rices performed really well. And then we follow up with a great innovation which was the Mexican street corn rice which is our number one product today. Number one product, wow, okay. Yeah, and it's performed tremendously well where it is in distribution. It's a top five, top 10 skew in the rice set. And it was really great for us after the bad read that we had in D2C to have, you know, this line of products that just immediately from the get go performed with brands that have been in the market 30, 40 and 50 years. And right now, you know, we launched last year with Whole Foods, our enchilada sauces. And after six months in the market, in many regions of Whole Foods, it's already the number one and the number two skew in that set. So we think, you know, now we have this amazing one two punch. You know, and we are less about promoting products and less about promoting recipes. So think now that you have, you know, some cooking sauces and then a line of rices of all the different recipes that that unlocks, you know, we like to say that we like to market like a Lego set, you know, and now that you have all these new pieces, all the recipes that you can build from that. So that's really, you know, our priority right now. I love that. I mean, it makes so much sense. So basically you start with the recipe first, you start with the thing first, and then you go, not the recipe, but the product first. And then you see how, how many different dishes I guess you can, you can make from that. And so from a marketing perspective, how much like, what do you spend most of your time on? Like what do you attribute the success to? Obviously one part of it is clearly there's demand, but then the other part of it is in educating the consumer or informing the consumer. So how do you guys go about, what do you see? It's hard, but what do you see working in that space? Yeah, and that's exactly right. Like I think what we are doing, we are very good at that no one else is doing. You know, like I see a lot of people that a lot of other companies, the startups that are great at social or that they are great with influencers. With us, what we do kind of like our secret sauce is two things. So we start from the way that we look at trends because of the 68 billion addressable market of Mexican food, 82% is in restaurants. So most Mexican food comes from restaurant. Really only people like me that have a Mexican abuela go and buy groceries. Mexican food is, you know, the food that is presented today on the set requires a lot of ingredients and a lot of time to make tacos, you know, it's not simple. So we look at a lot of data on restaurants. We work with companies that aggregate changes in menus across thousands of restaurants in the US. And that's how we found the Mexican street corn. That was a trend that was happening. We were able to bring it into retail and that became our number one skill. So we are, you know, we work a lot of time looking at that and, you know, we do it ourselves. We buy secondary data. I think there's a lot of richness in those conversations. So for me, that is like the input piece. And then the output, you know, the biggest part of our marketing mix is working with retailers, putting brands together so we can create recipes of, you know, five ingredients, 10 minutes, $15. And we would go, you know, with a mass merchant and partner with certain customers with certain brands there, other manufacturers and create those recipes. So it's a little bit of category management and then there is a lot of shopper marketing that has to happen. And a lot of the beauty is when people have the finished product and they say, I can't believe this only took 10 minutes. I can't believe this food came out of the microwave. That is really the aha moment. There are other people that make Mexican food. There are other people that make pouches but no one is bringing all of it together in partnerships at the store like we do. A ton of people do it on social media but not at the moment of purchase. I mean, that's amazing what you just said there. And so you're aggregating menus to see what the restaurants across the country are trying to bring to the market. Then you're seeing what works and then always partnering with the retailers, the smart move. I don't think people understand that enough. You can't force them to do anything. I mean, you can try, probably not a great idea, but at least they have their own signals of the market of where things are heading. They have their own data set. And so those two paired together output some form of like, I think we should try this. And then you guys go ahead and work. That's amazing. I mean, I wanna tell people that's a bit of a masterclass that you just shared. And I hope people leverage the data, especially now with new tools in AI where those things become a little bit simpler in terms of aggregating and processing information. That's fascinating, really smart. Makes a lot of sense actually. We shared the data with retailers. They share back the point of view on us. And whether you are successful or not successful, you're never gonna bet a thousand. You're always gonna end up with better relationships. And I feel it takes all of us to make this move. The mission of Somos is to take out, take out. That less people are getting food from Mexican restaurants and more people are cooking at home, learning more about the ingredients, learning more about the culture. We have to meet them halfway and do simpler recipes. And you are not gonna do it by yourselves. It would be impossible for a brand of Somos to take it out. But the opportunity to close that gap is 30 billion of the 70 billion. That's the under index that retailers have. So if you go out and reach out to other brands and then you also work together with retailers between all of us, we can get it done faster. And it's like the tide that raises all boats, right? That's fascinating. I mean, it's exciting just to hear you talk about it. Cause I mean, the way you're approaching this is, it's a lot of chess. It's beautiful in that way. I mean, it's very methodical, very thoughtful. It speaks to the brand. The Somos name is a beautiful thing where it's like we're all together in this. We are partnering with retailers. That's really cool. What do you think is next? What do you think is next for the company? I mean, obviously you have success right now with the corn, the rice. Where do you wanna take it? What's the innovation that you see percolating? Yeah, I mean, I think we just need to get better. So we are on year two. So when we look at our execution, we have two, a couple of retailers where we've just done a really good job with these partnerships and they are big. I would say, maybe it's about a thousand stores between both of them that we are executing this the way that we wanted to do. So a lot of it is just, establishing relationships, showing the data on how much we're growing the category, how much we are bringing the mainstream consumer into the Mexican set. That is really our objective that we wanna do. We want more people to fell in love with Mexican culture through food, okay? And execute better this partnership. As you know, with Chopper marketing, it is not something that you can execute nationally. Every retailer has their own loyalty card data or some people really like to do coupons on some others like to do bogus. And you really have to tailor made, one of our partners in a Midwest chain is not as big in the natural channel. So we have to look to other partners there. So there is still a lot of meat on the bone in terms of activating these partnerships. I would like also to maybe get better and faster on the data side and start seeing a lot of those trends. You know, like you mentioned AI, we played a lot with AI. We actually have a, you know, if you go to abuela.ai, we have a Mexican grandma that teaches you recipes and you can tell her what you have in the fridge and she would come up with a recipe for you. And we would like to start aggregating a lot more of that data and maybe bring some technology to the shelves that we've been playing with for next year. So those are really the places where I think we could be doing a much better job. And yeah, I think, you know, like from where we started in the podcast, I think this is a 10, 15 year journey. And if we just get a little bit better every quarter of this execution, it really adds up over time. I love the abuela.ai. I'm gonna check that out. So you go on, it's a website. That's so cool. It's actually modeled after my mom, like my biological mother. So we did a 360 scan of her for a whole day and it's in the way that she talks. So it has a little bit of a Mexican item. We had her record. I don't remember how many thousands of words. And yeah, you know, you have to be a little bit playful with these things, right? That's a lot of fun. I wanna ask you a sort of a high level question. So I remember speaking, I went to an event one day and one of the secretaries that was working with Obama, specifically tailored to Mexican American relations was there. And he was giving us a window into how many, like how America, how dependent we actually are on Mexico in terms of, just in terms of importing. Here you are. And I don't know, obviously, between the three of you, you have your success. Is this an initiative? Can it be an initiative for the country? Cause it's a lot bigger than that, right? It's relationships. It's our closest neighbor. It's import. Is there a broader discussion here that's almost as thinking about in just in terms of American Mexican relationships? Yeah, I mean, we started the company where there was a lot of heat on immigration. And I don't think, you know, that has completely gone away, but I don't remember the exact number, but I remember just Daniel, Rodrigo and I talking about how much more Mexican food was more popular than Mexicans or Mexican culture. So here you have the number one ethnic food in the country. You know, during COVID, Mexican food surpassed Italian food to become the number one ethnic food.   I met my wife, who's American. I became a US citizen 12 years ago. Like I am in a lot of ways, very much in debt to this country, but you know, I do feel that there is a lot of room to become better in that relationship. And we, it's not gonna be done with Somos. It's very much like what we're trying to do. It's gonna take like a lot of people to do it, but I do want Somos going back to the question you asked in the beginning, what did I learn from kind? I would like Somos to play a small role in that. 70, 80% of all the dollars that come to Somos are spent either with Mexican or Latin communities, either in Mexico or in the US. And it's this just like beautiful cycle of Mexican chefs producing these great food so people in this country can enjoy it and can save money and can learn more about Mexico. And then some of those dollars go back and get invested in that community. And that's really back to the ethos of Somos on the reason we started the company. I think that is, you know, if we can execute that, then it was worth our time to do this. I wanna ask you this question because we've had Hector from Tia Lupita on the podcast after his Shark Tank debut. You guys are expanding the market together in some way, playing nice in the sandbox. Have you ever think about making an acquisition there? I mean, it seems... With Hector, I've asked him many times, he doesn't wanna sell. No, Hector is both one of my closest friends.  I was his son, little league coach for three or four years. So we worked together at Diamond Foods, like the two of us are from Monterrey. He's both, you know, one of my closest friends, but also an inspiration. I saw what he did, you know, with the company. He became an entrepreneur three or four years before I did. When he did his rounds of friends and family, my wife and I, you know, invested with him because we believe on what he was doing. So, you know, very much. Well, I think we actually, the way that we are doing advancing this together, and it's not only Hector, you know, we are now organizing dinners with Latin founders. We had 60 of them in the first dinner. We organized in New York. We're doing another one in March in LA. And I think there is a lot of room to do more, to be more supportive of each other through the whole ecosystem, not only the brand owners, but, you know, mentors and investment like Daniel and Camino partners and, you know, bankers and suppliers and the whole supply chain, you know, we should be, you know, I think working more closely together. Add me to that list. I do some angel investing myself. That'd be great to be there. Where can people find you? Where can people shop, buy the product, tell everyone where they can enjoy the deliciousness? Yeah, so I'm always worried about this question because I don't like leaving anybody outside. But, you know, Meyer, HEV, Sprout, Whole Foods, Albertsons, Safeway, Target, Walmart and Publix next month. And yeah, and hope to continue to grow that list with Expo West coming up the second week of March. So if you're in LA and if you can come and see us, we'll be having some, serving some amazing tacos at the show. Miguel, thank you for coming on the podcast and sharing the story. Really inspiring. And I hope our listeners take a lot of key. I mean, you dropped a lot of good bombs here. A lot of good pro tips. And I think I hope the next CPG founder sort of starts on second base or third base based on what you've shared today. Thank you, brother. Thank you, Diego, for having me and for your support of Somos. Thank you for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, share with your friends, your family or anyone you might think might benefit from the conversation we've had today. And if you haven't already, please take a moment to leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. We'd greatly appreciate it. Your feedback helps us improve and reach more people who can benefit from our discussions. The best way to stay connected with us and get the latest updates on future episodes is through our social media channels. You can find us at Startup and Storefront. We'll be back next Tuesday with another great episode. See you then.


It is now time for Member Statements. I recognize a member from Niagara Center. Thank you, Speaker. It is exasperating for us on this side of the house to continually raise the concerns of so many out there struggling on social assistance to no avail. People on OW and ODSP are struggling more and more every day, unable to support themselves and their dependents. Linda Weir lives in Welland with her two 14-year-old grandchildren. She is paying rent which eats up most of her ODSP, which is less than 1,200 a month. The child tax benefit helps, but she sleeps on the couch so the grandkids can have a bedroom. She knows that many in her position cannot even afford to eat. A taxi to get groceries when she can afford them is $35 a round trip. She knows that many in her position have become homeless and are living on the streets, and she knows that food banks are overwhelmed. This pandemic has hit us all hard, but for those on social assistance, the future is becoming more and more bleak as the cost of living rises and their benefits remain frozen. Folks like Linda are crying out for help. This government has not increased social assistance rates since 2018, even though inflation is at its highest in 30 years. It is true that this government inherited an ODSP program that was gutted by the former government, but this government has done nothing to improve it. Right now, Speaker, ODSP and OW payments are simply not enough. As Linda told me, she's making ends meet for her and her grandkids is a challenge every single day. If this is a disability support program, you'd never know it. We have failed those on social assistance and failed in our responsibility to care for those in need during and after this pandemic. Thank you very much, Speaker. On March the 12th, our daughter Heidi turned 41, but I didn't attend a party for Heidi. I attended a party for someone who was celebrating a birthday that Heidi won't see for another 59 years. I joined family and friends to celebrate the 100th birthday of Janine Mones. Speaker, 100th birthday is not as rare as it used to be, but it is still quite an amazing accomplishment. I've had the honour of attending a number of them over the years, but I've never seen one quite like Janine's. When I entered the hall, I expected I'd be saying hello to someone in a chair, perhaps even a wheelchair. I asked her son, Tom, Tom, where's your mum? The guest of honour. He pointed out to a young looking lady engaging with the folks attending the party, moving around in a way that would defy my age, let alone hers. Her son, Rick, managed to get Janine to sit down long enough for us to make a couple presentations and, of course, for me to sing a couple songs. Besides myself, presentations were made by Teresa Sabara on behalf of the town of Petawawa and an old family friend and former MP, Hector Cluche. After which, Janine jumped up, took the mic herself, regaling the guests with memories and stories that only a centenarian could pull off. She even treated them to an old wedding night joke that had everyone in stitches. Speaker, I don't expect to be around anywhere near 100 years, but it was a special treat to witness someone with that kind of vigor and vitality, even as she moves into her second century. In fact, I spoke to her son, Tom, today and he said she was out playing bingo yesterday. Speaker, may God continue to bless Janine Mones and her family. Thank you. I recognize a member from Windsor to come see. Good morning, Speaker. I'm sure you were watching the national television news when downtown Ottawa was held hostage while protesters were demanding the overthrow of the Liberal government. That occupation started in late January and lasted more than three weeks. And I'm sure you're watching when some of those same demonstrators blockaded the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit. They moved in on the 7th of February and it took a week to come up with a peaceful resolution. That illegal blockade shut down international trade over the Ambassador Bridge at a cost of more than $300 million a day. Manufacturing plants were shut down. Workers sent home. Businesses in the area of the bridge lost their customers. Speaker, a protest against the federal and provincial governments and the way vaccines against COVID were mandated brought our international trade to a halt for a full week. Now Windsor taxpayers are on the hook for $5.7 million, the cost of people breaking the law during that illegal blockade. The feds have put up more than $2 million on the table to help small business community affected during this bridge protest. Store and business owners can apply for up to $10,000. The feds did the same for businesses in Ottawa. And Ontario said they would match half of that up to $5,000. But, Speaker, here's the rub. Despite repeated requests, Ontario has yet to announce any money for the losses in Windsor. Fair is fair, Speaker. Windsor taxpayers are on the hook for more than $5.5 million. Our small business community is out more than $2 million. When will Ontario step up, do the right thing, help pay some of the bills in Windsor? Speaker, there's an election coming. Windsor's conservative candidates will have no place to hide on this one. Thank you. Member Statements, I recognize a member from Brantford Branch. Thank you, Speaker. It's such a pleasure to rise in the House today and talk about the amazing work and people from MyRiding of Brantford Branch. Liberty for Youth is a non-profit charitable organization supporting at-risk youth, providing mentorship, education-related assistance, and a safe and welcoming environment. In MyRiding of Brantford Branch, Liberty for Youth has a ranch, which has the goal of enabling youth to escape the city and develop new skills. Liberty for Youth provides a place where marginalized youth can find acceptance regardless of their life situations. Of particular interest is their basketball program, which seeks to direct the energy of at-risk youth to a positive team sports, developing skills of discipline, teamwork, and activity. I am so happy to announce that through the Trillium Grant Program and Resilient Communities Fund this coming Friday, April the 8th, Liberty for Youth is celebrating a grand opening of their new basketball court. The Trillium Grant funding received has enabled them to build a wonderful basketball court, which will allow them to continue reaching out to the youth in our community. Kudos to Liberty for Youth and all involved in this amazing project, and I look forward to the ribbon-cutting ceremony this Friday afternoon. Thank you, Speaker. Thank you. I recognize the member from Muskega Walk, James Bay. Thank you, Speaker. I want to bring your attention to an issue happening in MyRiding in other regions. Access to Francophone Residential Group Homes. Mr. President, in Ontario, there are very few residential centres that are only Francophone in Ontario, and that's a reality, especially for families like Miguel. I would put emphasis on the sad but true reality of what's happening in MyRiding because of the lack of access to Francophone. The mother of Miguel asked our office to help her son. He is now 21 years old. He will not be able to attend high school in September. He is nonverbal Francophone. Mr. Speaker, this mother is looking for a Francophone group home for an autistic son. She wants her son nearby. Erica Falls is the nearest residential group home that offers some French services, but there is no spot for him. This means she has either sent him down south, leaves her job to be close to him, or just drop him off and can't see her son. This is absolutely unhumane and not a decision a mother or family should be making. Mr. Speaker, I hope this government is aware of this situation and not ignoring such an important file, and if they have any plans to invest in creating Francophone Residential Group Homes in Northern Ontario. Thank you. I recognize the member for Orleans. Thank you very much Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, too many Ontarians are struggling to make ends meet. Under this government, despite promises four years ago, we've seen the price of gas go up. We've seen the price of hydro go up. We've seen the price of food go up and we've seen the price of housing go up. And at the same time, Mr. Speaker, we've seen access to health care go down. Access to OSAP go down. Progress on building the green economy go down. Autism services down. Mental health supports down. Everything that should be up is down and everything that should be down is up Mr. Speaker. And this government's upside down priorities are having a negative impact on the quality of life of Ontarians. Ontarians expect their government to have a plan to make life more affordable, to take strong actions and provide relief. To ensure that all Ontarians have the economic dignity they deserve living in the most prosperous province in the country. Whether it's the cost of a new home, the cost to turn on the lights, the cost to commute to work, or the cost of groceries on Saturday morning. This government has no plan to provide relief for middle class families. Whether it's the cost of home care, the lack of funding for ODSP, or the cuts to public health. This government has no plans to provide for those who are suffering the most. The government doesn't have a plan to make Ontario more affordable. And what's worse, they delayed the budget, the opportunity to provide that plan for Ontario families. They've announced a lot of gimmicks, Mr. Speaker, but a handful of gimmicks does not make a jobs plan. A handful of gimmicks does not make an economic recovery plan. A handful of gimmicks does not help families with inflation and the runaway costs of living. It's time for real leadership, Mr. Ontario, and Mr. Speaker, and a real plan for Ontario families. Thank you. I recognize the member for Mississauga, Erin Mills. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This past few weeks I had the pleasure to visit many businesses in my riding, Mississauga, Erin Mills. I toured restaurants like East Tikan, Taste of Village, Omda, Kiryoki, Masrawi. And I visited a convenience store like Stubborn Go Food Market. I visited food stores like Adonis, Arzen, and Nigma. And I spoke, I had the owner to spoke to the owners and the employees at those businesses. I have, Mr. Speaker, we are committed to giving Ontario small businesses and workers the tools they need to succeed. From reducing the business tax by 1% to covering the gas costs by 5.7 cents per litre, we will make sure more money stay in the buckets of Ontario. We also recently announced $5 million investment to help Black and Indigenous and other racialized and intravenous overcome economic obstacles. With funding, training, and culturally relevant services, no entrepreneur in Ontario will be left behind. Mr. Speaker, these measures will help businesses around Mississauga and across Ontario to grow, create new jobs, and adopt a future challenge. Mr. Speaker, entrepreneurs and workers alike are counting on our government to keep up with rabbit-evolving post-COVID-19 playing field. And our government is committed to answering their call and to get the job done. Thanks, Mr. Speaker. I recognize a member from Tremescom and Cochrane. Thank you, Speaker. I'd like to take the opportunity to make the houseware a tale of two restaurants. The Outfitter Bar in Tomogamy, high-end restaurant, beautiful on the lake. You can boat up to it. You can snowmobile up to it. It's a fantastic spot. I recommend it to everyone here. The Cafeteria in Sturgeon Falls. It is what it sounds like. It's owned by Carmen Benet and good, hearty food. It's affordable. But you always come out of the cafeteria well-fed and happy. Two totally different business models. Both successful, both extremely stressed. What they do share is both those businesses and many other restaurants across the province were denied the Small Business Relief Grant when they were closed in the last lockdown. Now, again, and in the case of the Outfitter, the Outfitter put in investments because they are qualified and were denied. The Cafeteria had never applied before. They had gone through the first two and thought, okay, we're being closed. This grant is there. There is no appeal process summarily denied. This government does not understand Small Business, though they claim to. Thank you, Speaker. I recognize the member for Stormwood, Dundas, Seth Glengari. Thank you, Speaker. The tartan of many color stands for the people of Scottish culture who carried the values of Scottish enlightenment to many distant lands and gave birth and meaning to modernism and innovation as we know it. A mere 300 years ago, Scotland was known as the poorest nation in all of Europe. But with the union of the two parliaments in 1707, the Scots became in short order the most educated and literate population of the time, casting their moral values wherever they traveled. The Highland clearance started in the mid-1700s and continued for approximately 100 years, forcing more than 100,000 Scottish citizens to emigrate, many looking to North America to create new life. There are many prominent Scots who impacted the world, the most notably in Canada, where people claiming Scottish ancestry are one of the most populous groups. Father Alexander McDonnell organized his place Highlanders into the Glengari fensimals, and after fighting for King and Country during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, their loyalty was rewarded with a land grant known today as Glengari County. As the first Bishop of Upper Canada and a member of this legislature, he went on to organize the emigration of tens of thousands of Scots to Ontario. All in all, the story of Scots in Ontario is one of harmony and respect for other cultures and religions, held together in the peaceful pursuit of abundance. Today's display of Scots around North America celebrate Tartan Day, the day of Cayleys and Singlesoft Scots whiskey. As you remember, 2,000 years of hardships and victories can protect in their harsh homelands from the Vikings, the Romans, and the English to the South. Mr. Speaker, Happy Tartan Day. I recognize the House Leader, Government House Leader. Thank you very much Mr. Speaker. Speaker, I believe if you seek it you'll find unanimous consent to immediately move Government Notice of Motion number 14, respecting expedited passage of Bill 111, an act to amend the Fuel Tax Act and the Gasoline Tax Act with respect to a temporary reduction to the tax payable and certain, clear fuel, and on gasoline, and that the Speaker shall immediately put the question on the motion without debate or amendment and that no deferral of the vote on the motion be permitted. Mr. Klander is seeking unanimous consent, Bill 111, immediate passage. I am seeking unanimous consent to immediately move Government Notice of Motion number 14, respecting the expedited passage of Bill 111, an act to amend the Fuel Tax Act and the Gasoline Tax Act with respect to a temporary reduction to the tax payable and certain clear fuel, and that the Speaker shall immediately put the question on the motion without debate or amendment and that no deferral of the vote on the motion be permitted. Agreed? I heard it all. For introduction of guests.


What up ladies and gents, it's been a little bit and this is going to be the updated tier list for PvP in SOD and as usual this is going to be for BGs and group play, so Blood Moon, things like that. We're going to do a separate video on duels, should be later this week, maybe next week, just trying to get all the info from other top players that have been dueling a lot, so getting their opinions on where their class stands in that. So I want to try and make the best dueling tier list I can for you at the moment as it's really been starting to pop off a little bit more as the primary, I guess, content the PvP is doing along with pre-made Warsome Gulch. Now for group PvP we're going to be starting out with Affliction Lock and this is going to be low down, this is in the D tier and it's been there for a little while. Next phase is going to start popping off a little bit more but right now the damage on it is relatively low and the survivability on it unless they run meta is also relatively low and the drawback obviously if they run meta is that they can't use fear and they're not going to have horn available to them so a lot of drawbacks regardless of which way they go along with that the AoE damage of the spec isn't that high so you either really need to be very tanky putting out a lot of single target pressure or putting out a lot of AoE pressure to sort of make it into the higher tiers of this list and I'll try and explain as I go but as I said this is an update so some things are going to be different to the last tier list I've done some things have obviously had buffs some things about nerfs when it comes to you know the most recent changes by Blizzard so I'm trying to incorporate those as best I can obviously things are changing all the time if you want the most updated version of this list then I suggest going over to my discord as I keep this as more updated than I do on YouTube in the sub channel obviously I can't make a video every single time with you one class going up a tier or down a tier it's just gonna be ridiculous next up we've got arcane mage and arcane mage has got not too bad single target pressure especially if they run arcane surge where you know they can potentially one shot somebody wants every two minutes but it does leave them relatively vulnerable since they'll be in afterwards and it is a kind of gimmicky gimmicky spec generally stronger in duels as the AoE pressure again isn't that high obviously you could do the AoE blood farm during blood moon but that now has been nerfed so that the AoE damage on the altars is significantly reduced so they're gonna be in the C tier next up we've got arms warrior now arms warrior again hasn't really changed that much over the course of phase two I would still say it's around you know be tier still providing good utility and you know health for the team good engage and I would say the good engage and the mortal strike are the main perks of this they're I guess rivalry or closest competitor for their niche right now I would say is enhancement shaman which is actually really really strong right now so warrior bit more of a secondary pick however you know taking both along isn't gonna hurt being able to put up that healing debuff is definitely gonna cause a lot of problems for the other team in terms of keeping people alive especially we've had burst dsod is right now so if they didn't have that they would be a little bit lower their damage isn't amazing but backed by a healer and you know with very very good gear they can definitely still dish out some some hurt while at the same time being very tanky so they're you know mid-beat here I would say something like that right now there are a couple of other specs that are ahead of them still we're gonna skip assassination and we're just gonna do one rogue spec as it really does over complicate things otherwise so we're gonna leave that one for now I'm gonna move on to boomy which is still firmly in the S tier although they had their star surge nerfed their casting is still really really strong with eclipse and even if they do get a target on them they still have good kiting potential with travel form and they have decent you know okay instant damage available to them plus obviously the opportunity to run wild growth as well to be a very good support healer leaves them very very highly valued in group combat so they are our first class in the S tier so next up we've got BM hunter and they have fallen a little bit off the top with changes over the kind of past two phases but they still are really really strong the pet is dealing out massive amounts of damage and obviously now is unfearable if they pop bees within you really do have to kind of focus down this pet otherwise you're gonna get massive pushback and damage from it and it's going to start causing you problems once the pet is dead however they are pretty vulnerable so this is what I think for me has put them down a little bit into a tier now next up we've got shadow priests and to be honest this phase shadow priests really are cooking and speaking of cooking this video is actually sponsored by hello fresh if you've been living under a rock and don't know what hello fresh is it's a meal kit that deliver all the ingredients pre-portioned for your chosen meals right to your house there's easy to follow instructions for each meal so that even if you're new to cooking you can make yourself high quality food that's healthier than just getting a takeaway this is hello fresh's biggest menu yet with over 45 recipes to choose from so that they have something for everybody there's low calorie options high protein options there's speedy options that take less than 20 minutes to cook I know there's some older lads watching too so if you have kids or just a picky wife there are family friendly options as well I've tried a few of them myself and my son always devours them when you sign up for hello fresh with my link and code you'll get a free dessert for life with each box as long as your subscription is active hello fresh let's do it once cooked drain this bad boy see this is the thing Lee doesn't like things too spicy and I like things spicy so what we do is we make things spicy oh that's not good though coconut milk that's gotta go next look even crack the chicken for you man it's good as well if you're uh if you're cooking for two if you have the misses or whatever and you normally just get takeaway or whatever or you just don't really know what to cook or you just 18 nothing happened so it looks pretty good could act bad boy I think that's decent oh mate the sauce though I might just eat the sauce dude there's no pasta rice combos are there what dish has pasta and rice in it gonna be honest got a bit carried away was enjoying doing the sponsorship a little bit too much uh forgot who we're doing a tier list getting back to it now though Ellie Shaman is in a tier I would say a little bit ahead of BM Hunter they are very very scary if they get to cast the saving grace is that flameshark is only 20 yard range but if you do get a flameshark on you and take a lava burst to the face you're gonna feel it so watch out for Ellie Shaman's gonna be very very strong in the back line if they are allowed to cast next up and this is this has been kind of like a dark horse coming up but they've received buff after buff and I actually think they're in sort of lower s tier now uh maybe maybe shadow is the top of s tier maybe boomie it is very close I'm gonna leave it there for now but enhancement definitely breaking into the s tier they're really really really tanky with way and if they get to you they really do dish out a lot of damage now so the the one thing that you can kind of count on is their mobility being a little bit bad so you really do have to try and kite them where possible but if they get to you and they stick on you there are a problem and they got tremor totem they got they got decoy totem to stick on you with the freedom they got purge they got shocks they got high amounts of burst damage they're a nightmare one so yeah enhanced shamans are really up there right now and probably the number one if you're going to bring a sort of tanky class to your group for blood moon enhancers probably got to be it at the moment next up we've got a destro in fact that's a lie we've got demo locks and demo locks this is obviously going to be the sole link lock with meta this is going to be I would say in the c tier just because they're kind of tanky and annoying they resist a lot but their damage is just not not great although it is instant with the searing pain the the overall pressure that they put out isn't that high so they're more like a front line kind of guy and then it's just like well why would you bring one over for example an enhanced shaman so they're kind of low down on the tier list for me next up we've got destro and destro again it plays kind of the same way as meta they're a little bit less tanky but the damage is just way higher with all the fire bonus damage talents in the destro tree they they make the searing pain spam in meta form a lot more problematic and and it's just really really obnoxious where you've just got this meta will look running you pressing one button and actually doing problematic damage so they're in the b tier for me potentially you know overtaking arms warrior even just a little bit I would say still very very annoying to deal with next up we've got the feral druid and feral has kind of this spec where they can play in bear form they can push in be quite tanky in the bear form obviously feral charging in and doing a lot of aoe damage in the group battles while being quite tanky so I think they're up in the b tier as well right now their main flaw right now is that they can't really shift that freely without going boom so maybe we'll see a little bit more of that when they get some more talents in future phases and they'll become a little bit more of a threat I think they're kind of again they're building up towards being a very very strong spec and next up we've got fire mage and fire mage obviously been I think slowly rising through the ranks I think I'm going to put them in a tier as well just a little bit behind ellie but their aoe damage is insane obviously with living bomb living flame even though it just got recently changed it's still quite annoying to deal with as long as they you know pop it from a relatively close range so they can almost use it defensively now and yeah if they are left alone they can put out really high single target damage as well with hot streak instant pyros coming out and all of that good stuff so yeah fire mage up and come in I'd say for sure and definitely worth grabbing one of these if you're running any kind of cast a cleave comp I would say for blood moon frost mage however is is dying for me in like d tier definitely has potential with duels but in group combat the single target damage isn't that high yeah okay you can bring one for implicit but then it begs the question well why wouldn't you just bring a survival hunter so yeah the frost mage not really putting out enough pressure for me to actually break into sort of higher tiers maybe that will change when they get deep freeze later on they have a little bit more control and you'll bring the frost mage for you know that control control class but their the their reward for actually getting frost bolts off isn't really that high compared to other classes where you know ellie if they get casted in boomy fire mage um even destroy log if you let them cast they will punish you and for frost mage just doesn't do that for me at the moment so that's why I've got them a little bit further down uh fury war I haven't really seen many of so I'm going to just leave that out for now mm hunter again you can have really like a biscuit mm hunter and they still won't cause you that many problems and it's just begs the question why would you bring an mm hunter over either a bm or a survival where the survival obviously has a lot more utility talents available to them and you know survival talents where they have a lot of hp um and can cause a lot of problems with things like entrapment whereas mm the single target damage just isn't high enough to justify bringing one over the other specs for me so I'm putting them in I would say a little bit ahead of of demo lock same sort of you know areas arcane mage where they do have a little bit of single target damage but not regularly enough to to make them worth bringing over other specs I would say next we've got ret and probably top a beast beat it for ret obviously very obnoxious running in and and having that bubble for uh survivability if they get low they can move out with it they can kill people in it they obviously have hodge they have pretty decent burst damage at the moment as well so they are a bit of a pain to sort of kill and deal with quickly if they do push into you and this allows if they have a back line the the back line to sort of turret on you and cause a little bit of pressure while this ret is just in your face uh and you know forcing you to deal with him before anything else can really happen in the fight so yeah I think ret's definitely a solid pick and and probably only second to an enhancement shaman in terms of like that melee getting in your face and causing problems uh subrogue is I think just eight here dishing out insane damage with the lower energy cost mutilate still and they have loads of utility loads of mobility with step uh sprint they got the stealth step as well so yeah they have a lot of options to move around and you know survive be slippery so a good rogue is definitely gonna cause problems however they are kind of squishy so if you do manage to catch them sort of pushing in onto you rather than appealing for their own team then you do have uh you know a pretty good chance of taking them down in in good time compared to something like enhance shaman but they they feel a slightly different niche I would say in that regard they're more of a lockdown speck compared to enhance which is more of a tank speck both obviously dishing out very good damage which is why they earn their high places in the tier list survival I think survival has fallen off a little bit especially since the melee nerfs survival I think now plays a little bit more ranged slash utility in terms of trap launcher and trap and uh overall slows and then some range damage and just pet annoyance so for me obviously bringing line as well is is pretty strong I'll probably put them around here as they are they are just a good group utility class to bring now similar to to arms warriors and they bring a few different things but they're sort of in the same ballpark I would say that I think is going to be our final dps class on the tier list right now and things shaping up quite nicely actually there really isn't that much in it for me between sort of like I think the s tier class is sort of stand a little bit above but like a tier down to beat here I mean there isn't that that much in it there is there is it obviously a difference but they are definitely closer than they have been previously and I think with the small amount of patches that blizzard has actually done okay yeah there are some things that aren't perfectly balanced but you know considering we haven't had that many changes realistically I think they've actually done a relatively good job with you know getting things in a rough roughly correct ballpark obviously some things need tweaking some things need some love but you know without doing sort of 10 20 patches to try and get everything you know perfectly right I think they're doing a good job so excited to see where it is going forward and I think we're probably about halfway through the phase at the moment so yeah we'll see how we go moving forward and and how things look maybe I'll do another one of these videos maybe another one won't be needed as I said I will update the the tier list in the sub channel on the discord if you want constant updates but they're likely won't be anything massive probably we'll see anyway thank you very much for watching I hope it was helpful I hope that my thought process makes sense if anything is sort of not sitting right with you if you play a certain class and you're like actually my class is a bit stronger than that for these reasons please do let me know in the comments I'm happy to discuss it and you know try and try and adjust maybe and get things looking a little bit more correct obviously this is my opinion and there's probably things that are not quite right but we'll see anyway have a great day