had $200 million. Do you think that this will just drag out based on the fact that a lot of the big ticket free agents have already signed and they're waiting for that pitching market that bump for Rodin to happen? Well he's the number one free agent pitcher who's on the market right now so as soon as I would say Bob that it might drag on there could be a phone call or a text that changes everything so I'm always hesitant to say that. You see who Rodin has been since 2021 he has put together two terrific seasons heading into his free agency period but you look at some of the teams that might be interested in him that we've heard about the Red Sox are one of them the Twins are one of them the Cardinals have been mentioned even though the Giants have added Manaya and Stripling reports out of San Francisco say that they are still interested in Rodin are any of those teams going to seven years 200 million I'll repeat myself again it could happen we have seen the way that this offseason has unfolded we have seen player contracts of more than two billion dollars every time a contract is signed you say to yourself wow that's for a little more than I thought it was going to be but I think we have to remind ourselves the Yankees definitely have interest in this player they have interest in this player though in the financial neighborhood that they want to travel we'll see if those two sides can coincide. All right Michael in the meantime what else do the Yankees what are they looking at right now probably still focusing on left field well I'll tell you what I'm the one that reported that other than Rodin they were working on something even bigger than that and it looks like I might have an egg on my face although Brian Cashman is usually very stealth about what he does and when he does it and how he does it sometimes he surprises you I think left field is still the big play I can't imagine another play out there but that seems like it's cool just a little bit I'm sure they want to do the Rodin situation first but if they can't do it and it goes into 2023 then they might go for the left fielder I don't know if they're in play on on Brian Reynolds from the Pirates I know that Ben and Tendi is right there Ben and Tendi's market might have changed with the Japanese outfield that the Red Sox signed he's probably thinking I'm a legitimate guy who's proven in the big leagues that I could play I want a world series as well and he probably wants money like that I'm not sure the Yankees are going to go there for that. Yeah apples to apples I think is what his agent is trying to say if the Red Sox gave him that much money why not Ben and Tendi. Right and if you're Ben and Tendi's agent that's exactly what you should be seeking Bob I know when talking to two teams today that are interested in Ben and Tendi they both said that they're hesitant to go to five years and I always wonder how these conversations unfold because you know Ben and Tendi's agent is bringing up Yoshida whereas I'm sure there are teams were saying why should we pay for Boston's mistake because I had a team that said to me they feel that not only did the Red Sox overpay they felt that they overpaid by double that they had Yoshida as a guy in the 45 to 50 million dollar range but Michael I need to Bob I need to go back to Michael my my former baseball writing brethren he says he's got egg on his face Michael you gotta stand firm on your reporting if you believed in your source and you believe that the Yankees still have something brewing perhaps it's still simmering perhaps it hasn't percolated and reached the finish line yet


So, anyway I will repeat it for the benefit of the audience that here the small control property and the continuity of the control and at origin are connected by an if and only if relationship which means that if the control is not continuous you do not have small control property, if you do not have small control property the control is not continuous at the origin ok. So, it works both ways everywhere in fact yeah that is the power of an if and only if result alright anyway. So, the key thing is you now have a formula for a universal controller which will work I mean it may look like a funny looking formula, but it works ok it gives you a stabilizing control it is smooth everywhere but at the origin where it is continuous ok still pretty good I would say ok. Now before going to the rest of the piece of the proof which is now a little bit more mathematical and it really just talks about you know the fact that the controller that we prescribed is smooth ok. So, that is really what we will prove, but before we do that I want to look at this example ok and the fact that there are multiple controllers possible and so on and so forth ok. So, if very simple example alright very simple scalar example x dot is minus x cube plus u ok this is the system that we are looking at. Now one obvious control without doing any analysis or anything is to simply prescribe my controllers this x cube minus x ok alright. Then you can see that your closed loop system is x dot is minus x. So, this is basically what you would call a feedback linearizing control and we have not looked at feedback linearization, but basically what this control is doing is linearizing the system in a sense ok. So, this is what this control does yeah when you look at feedback linearization this is the kind of controls you will design you will cancel you will try your best to cancel the nonlinearity and then introduce a nice linear term in this case you got a linear exponentially decaying system ok. One thing that is obvious is if your when x is large control is large yeah that should be obvious right because of the x cube term which will dominate alright. If x is small control is small yeah seems intuitive also large very far away from the origin large control close to the origin small control seems intuitive. Now let us do what we call typically called Lyapunov redesign. We do not design a control first like we did here which is sort of a feedback linearization based control we just we choose a Lyapunov function first for the system. In fact what we choose is a control Lyapunov function, but I do not say it like that let us say it is a Lyapunov function I know it is a candidate Lyapunov function because it is continuous and positive definite and all the nice things. So, this is a good function. So, I take v dot and I get this now v dot obviously contains the control right because I have not chosen it yet. Now without going into any CELF theory or universal formula I just use this and look at this to design a control what will I do? I know that this two multiplied are not giving me anything bad they are giving me a negative term. So, I do not try to cancel it I do not try to cancel it I just introduce another negative term ok. So, my control is just u equal to minus x in fact it is a linear controller ok it is a linear controller alright. So, I get v dot as minus x 4 minus x square which is again negative definite. So, by Lyapunov theorem I have asymptotic stability great done. What is the nature of this control again large when x is large small when x is small. However important thing is it is not never going to be as large as this guy alright never going to be as large as this guy. In fact, I have made a small computation also just for our reference if I take x equal to 10 this one comes out to 990 magnitude ok magnitude is 990 magnitude of this guy comes to be minus 10 ok this is positive 990 this is minus 10 when x is value of x is 10 units whatever that unit is ok alright. Let us look at the universal formula ok universal controller we know that v equal to x square by 2 is already a CLF yeah why because you can see that if the control term is 0 if the control term goes away I just verify it like this then I still have a negative term here yeah that is all CLF means just this tell you the control terms vanish or are 0 then this drift term is still negative which it is right. What is the drift vector field in this case by the way if you if I ask you what is the drift vector field and what is the control vector field everything is a scalar field here but still what is the drift vector field in this case f 0 what is the f 0 yes you should be able to parse this that what is f 0 what is f 1 if you want to apply these results what is f 0 you think and what is f 1 for this system this right this is the system that we are looking at so there is of course just f 0 and f 1 and nothing more right because there is only one control number of control vector fields is same as the number of controls so there is only this much so what is f 0 minus x cube what is f 1 1 1 ok great. So it is a CLF because del v del x f 0 is negative yeah when the other part is gone alright I will start the universal formula computation ok. So I first compute a x which is what del v del x f 0 x ok so what is del v del x it is x del v del x is just x times f 0 x which is minus x cube so a x is minus x to the power 4 what is b of x it is del v del x which is x again times f 1 x which is just 1 ok so it is just x ok so it should anyway it should be evident that I mean although I checked I said it is CLF and all that it should be evident to you that if bx is 0 the only way bx can be 0 is if x is 0 ok and remember that we have to check all the CLF conditions only for non-zero x ok only for non-zero x therefore I am saying that the condition 2 of the CLF definition is trivially satisfied which means you can never get in a situation where your drift where the control vector fields do not contribute and x is non-zero ok. If your control vector field do not contribute then x is 0 that is the only possibility in this case so it is anyway trivially satisfied we do not have to check anything but it is ok in this case you also see that it is minus x 4 is there which is a nice helping term alright. So I use this universal controller ok I do not have to write this case because this means x is already at the equilibrium right so this case is irrelevant for us yeah because if bx is 0 x is 0 which means I am at the equilibrium so obviously I am not applying any control it is stupid to apply a control at the equilibrium ok right. So I just compute this formula ok and what is that I have just populated the terms minus a plus a square root of a squared plus b4 and that is what it is a squared b4 and this whole thing multiplied by b over norm b square which is just what is b over norm b square it is sorry this is b norm b square is this where b is a scalar so norm of b is absolute value of ok. So this is b over norm b square ok. So basically I have just you can just simplify it just comes out to this guy this is what is the control ok this is what is the control it is x cubed minus x square root of x 4 plus 1 notice that the expression for this control is significantly more complicated than both the other ones one is a linear control which is minus x other one is x cube minus x so simple expressions yeah this expression way more complicated but it is a very nice controller right better than the other ones why if x is large what happens this can be ignored this is playing a very small role so then this is x cubed this is almost 0 for large x imagine for large value of state you are almost applying no control for small value of x what happens this is gone this is also gone you are left with minus x so for small value of control it behaves like this one like a linear controller for small values of x it behaves like the linear controller for large values of x it almost applies no control in fact you can compute I if you take x equal to 10 this is like 1000 minus 10 square root of 10 to the power 4 plus 1 this is almost 0 yeah but it is evident anywhere right because if I ignore the one both of these are x cubed ok this is a very cool controller right because it is like it is applying very small control for large values of state ok now whenever I say thing like this it is your job to tell me nothing comes for free ok nothing comes for free remember this these controllers both these controllers in fact this guy gives you a x dot equals minus x this guy gives x dot is minus x cube minus x both of these are beyond exponential rate of convergence super exponential exponential or super exponential ok because x dot is minus x is already decaying at minus 1 t minus 1 rate exponential decay this is even faster than that ok so both of these are converging rather fast ok this guy there is no guarantee only converging very slow ok it is not necessarily converging very fast so nothing is for free yeah we design controllers they are actually not that useless it is not like we did a very shoddy job no in fact more often than not we use this method sorry we use this method of control design directly guess it from the v dot expression rather than go to the universal formula alright but yeah this is a nice control if you want to keep your control commands in check and you do not care about how fast you go especially there is a lot of applications when if the states are very large you do not care for to apply very large control one of the most common application is spacecraft detumbling ok when a spacecraft is you have the launch vehicle right in multiple stages they get released then it leaves the earth's atmosphere then it says it gets close to the orbit then the spacecraft is released from the top ok when it is released of course it goes into the orbit but it is it is rotating at a crazy rate very very large rates of rotation ok and remember in this case the states are angular position and angular rate ok angular position is whatever 0 to 360 cannot be more than that but angular rates are super large and that is also a state of the system right so the states are very large in this now for the detumbling maneuver if you start firing your engines like crazy to stop the detumbling ok then you lost all your fuel in the first 10 minutes of your mission ok then what will you do after that yeah so they usually folks do not care about the equipments are well enough well protected enough that for large angular rates also the equipment is not going to get damaged this is important your equipment is going to get damaged then you better detumble soon enough but if your equipment is well stacked and you have done a good enough design so it is not going to create a problem for you if you are rotating fast all you want to do is make sure that it stops after say 2 days it is fine yeah so the detumbling maneuvers are really done with very small intensity jets very small or in fact a lot of times it is not even they try not to use jets so you find a lot of results on using magnetic torquers for detumbling so they use the because if it is a lower lower torbit you can imagine there is a small magnetic field on the satellite and and outside the orbit outside the atmosphere there is no real atmosphere right to stop it so so even these small magnetic forces are enough to stop the satellite or or slow down the satellite so mostly your detumbling maneuvers will be done with magnetic torquers so very small torques very small so these are the kind of controllers you want in such a scenario that you do not care when you stop you just want to stop okay so but of course like I said if you are if you are time critical application then yeah but then you you better have enough you can see that trade off right if you want fast you better have enough fuel or enough actuation ability okay because you are burning at this rate this is huge compared to this which is almost zero right so a lot of applications are there where you do not care about applying like you know huge torques just to stop a vehicle or something they find a stopping when it stops yeah the only thing is you still have to apply something in the in orbit because there is nothing else stopping it so then you are you can do a mission right if you want earth pointing satellites then how will they point the earth they do not stop okay so that is what is important all right okay so so I hope you understand that the universal formula though it gives the funny looking controls it is a very useful control design secondly more often than not we do not use the universal formula yeah we directly guess the controller from this kind of a Lyapunov redesign so we start with the CLF ideas right but then we design the control using you know just by guessing at this stage okay now one of the other things that you know you folk should also see is that actually I can keep control to be zero in this case then the system is still a stable system okay the purpose of designing controllers for such systems would be to get a particular convergence okay so this system is already asymptotically stable without any control yeah the purpose of the controller would be to get a rate particular rate of convergence go at a particular speed yeah all right so there is a nice exercise for you guys find a control Lyapunov function and apply the universal formula to get a control this is the exercise all right any questions okay absolutely yeah everything is dependent on the V there is no except for feedback linearization there is no real method which gives you a control design without a V well you have things like model predictive control and so on where you sort of guess a control out of optimization but in those cases stabilization guarantees are not rigorous I mean there are guarantees but the guarantees are very conditional for stabilization yeah they work more on I would say intuition see it is more like I mean how would a typical predictive controller work is it would basically say that I will discretize this problem so I will have say I look at say 20 time step horizon so now I have a discrete problem right I have a discrete problem meanings meaning that I can write this whole problem as a if my state space is say 5 5th order 5 states then I will write this whole problem as a 5 state and 20 time steps so 100 so 100 by 100 order matrix and I can pose an optimization problem right what will be my optimization requirement it would be like say fuel consumption is low so something like a u transpose u will be 1 and u transpose not u u u will also be the control at every stage every time step time step 1 time step 2 all the way to you know time step 20 okay so you put one piece of optimization cost is this a u square not u transpose u the other piece could be you want the your state to shrink so you can put another cost as x transpose x where x is again the stacked you know so it is like 5 states in 20 time steps so 100 there is extra so now you have a optimization problem you solve this optimization problem and if the solution is good then you know that if you keep applying this this is a control sequence right you got a control sequence for 20 time steps if you apply this control sequence for 20 time steps you know that you will hopefully reduce the x x transpose x because that is what you pose as the optimization problem then you apply the first or two first two three steps of that control then you do the do it for the next horizon if this is the receding that is what it is the receding horizon you switch the horizons first horizon second horizon so you compute for this horizon apply control only until this point then you compute for this horizon apply control here this horizon apply control here so you do not apply all the 20 steps of control you apply only the first two or so and so there is some proof which shows that yeah you will converge to the origin and all that the proofs are very highly dependent on a lot of things yeah they are actually dependent on on existence of a controller so it is very odd yeah so so they are more optimization I mean and if you want to see such setup such a setup is way more useful if you want to put constraints on the states and things like that way more useful yeah but if you are looking for stabilization type or or you know tracking type results when you rely on v have to rely on some v yeah and again it is also non-linear problem right optimization non-linear optimization so you do not know what comes out of it yeah you put it into an engine then what you do not know just like a lot of you will also use learning algorithms these days right I mean it is like I just have a hammer and I keep hitting all my nails with it right so you do not know that if you learnt well enough or not and if it will then perform well it will give us particular set of data so that is a little bit of an issue but anyway different context in this context we are looking at stabilizing controllers or tracking controllers hard to do it without a v yeah very difficult to do it without a v absolutely absolutely yes yes yeah so it means but it sort of means that close to the equilibrium you will have less control doesn't necessarily say that away from the equilibrium what will happen close to the equilibrium these controllers will guarantee that your control magnitude will be small yeah away from the equilibrium no such guarantees this is guaranteed yeah that is not dependent on the small control property will hold yeah yeah all right okay so what I want to do is to look at the proof is a little bit I am not sure how many of you will follow but it is okay there is a quick proof of why the controller is smooth okay how we do this is by invoking the implicit function theorem okay if you don't know what is the implicit function theorem I will just tell you in words you can look it up later it basically says that if you have a function of two variables or two or more variables yeah actually it stated in two variables only if you have a function f x y such that f x bar y bar is equal to 0 say okay and you also have df I think one of the partials right I would I think it is the partial with respect partial with respect to the y variable this is full rank okay or maximal rank when I say full rank it means partial of f with respect to y may be non-square matrix I hope you understand that yeah f is not necessarily a scalar function could be a vector function okay the implicit function theorem can be stated for a vector function f is in general a vector valued function of two parameters two you know variables x and y okay again different dimensions not necessarily scalars and the partial of f with respect to the y bar or the y y variable is maximal rank yeah not full rank maximal rank then you can say that y bar in the neighborhood of so y can be written as a function of x smoothly in a neighborhood of x bar y bar okay basically you can it is that is why it is called the implicit function theorem this function is implicit but you can it is possible to write it in an explicit way okay you can give an explicit relationship okay lot of times that is not possible if I give you an implicit function of variables then you may not be able to write an explicit expression yeah in this case it says it is possible if the partial of the function with respect to the y variable is full rank then y can be written as a g of x a function of smoothly also smoothly yeah okay all right and of course we started f with f smooth you also started with f otherwise of course nothing is possible okay all right


Hello and welcome back to my channel. Today it is the 6th of April, so I'm starting week two of Camp Nanarimo. And one of the things I realized last week was that I was really struggling with long writing sessions for this book, so I thought the perfect way to address that issue would be to do some writing sprints. And the good news is that because I took a few months off writing earlier this year, I have a bunch to catch up on. So for the next one hour and 52 minutes and 56 seconds, I'm going to be going along with the recording of the live writing stream that Kate Kavanaugh did a month or so ago. Oh Christina was going to get ice cream before this started. What an excellent decision. So one of the issues I have is that over the past few days I've been writing in a combination of four the words and just a document. And because I've been struggling to get into this book, I've been writing whatever I can think of. So I'm taking a moment to organize it before we get into the first sprint. Sprint down. So it's now 7.20, which means it has been about two hours since I last filmed, but I have not been writing for two hours because I ended up getting contacted by work about another communication that had to go out. And it's actually really annoying because I'm like if a genuine emergency comes up, of course I'm happy to work out of hours to make it okay. Like that actually happened on Friday where we had to send out an emergency communication because OPEC had an emergency meeting and our trading terms were changing and basically this needed to go out to stop people from losing money. So that was fine. I was online for a good two hours after my work day usually ends. No problem. Today though, they wanted to do an announcement that we have new shares and it was supposed to go live today, but I didn't hear anything before 5, so I logged off. And then after 6.30, I get this message going, okay, we're ready to go now. This needs to go out today. And it's like, well one, even if I get it out today, it's not going to go out today around the rest of the regions where we have business because a lot of people have stopped working by now. It's too late in the day to expect them to translate everything. And two, it's not like this isn't something that could wait for tomorrow. It's not like this is something where there's been a big campaign and we've been announcing it for ages. No, it's just this happens to be the day when it was switched on. But there's no reason why the announcement couldn't happen tomorrow, so I was a bit annoyed about that. So what that means is of my two hour live write-in, how far did I get through the video? I'm going to guess maybe an hour and 10 minutes. Yeah, oh not even, so just under an hour. And in that time there were two sprints. One was 20 minutes and one was 22. The 22 minute one got split in half because of the aforementioned work. So when I add this to my spreadsheet, it means I'm going to be doing three mini writing sessions. And in that there was first sprint, productive time was 20 minutes, the second one it was 12 and then 10. And the word counts were 323 for the first sprint. I actually went through what I wrote yesterday and just fleshed it out a bit more, which I think worked really well for like getting me back into the book. Just I know I always find it easier to work when there's already something there, so I'm really looking forward to when I've got a draft and there's something I can revise. In the next sprint, I didn't split the word count into the two separate sessions, so I'll just do half in each. So that's 382 for each sprint, which is pretty good writing efficiency per minute. I was actually using four the words and some of the monsters you can fight based on word count, so you need to write 500 words in this amount of time to win the battle. There are others which are time challenges though and because I just had 10 minutes for the last sprint, I did two five minute challenges and with those you actually need to keep up your writing pace or else the monster catches you. So I think that's why the word counts quite high for that last one because I was, you know, keeping up the writing, even though I wasn't sure what I was writing half the time. I'm really struggling with the scenes completed one because it's all a little bit all over the place. I'm just writing snippets that I feel like at the moment, so I think I'll just do half for each of them. Scene length equals, okay, so that brings me up to 283 minutes in total, which if I divide it by 60, I know it's going to be under what it should be, but I'm curious about how much, 23, am I 60? So that's 4.71 hours and today's day six, so I'm 1.3 hours behind schedule, which isn't too bad. I think, at least I hope, as I get through this book and start building up momentum, then I'll be able to get some longer sessions in and hit my average of an hour a day. Now, if we go to the Camp Nano website and feeling pretty good today at home on a laptop and I'm going to just make this 40 minutes because that's how long I was actually writing for. For nanorhymo up to 4,828 words, so making progress. Happy Tuesday! So today I went for a walk at lunchtime and I discovered there is a forest 20 minutes from my house and if you're in Europe and this isn't a big deal, the reason this is a big deal for me is because in Australia, if I walk 20 minutes from my house, I am still surrounded by houses in the same suburb. So that was kind of cool. I think I'll go back there tomorrow and see if I can get some footage. Other than that, it is a bit after five. I finished on time today. I'm hoping there won't be any disasters tonight because I'm just a bit wiped out from the past few weeks. I feel like my job has been 100% doing communications about market activity and changes to margin and financial chaos and I just don't have the time to look at any of the regular stuff and you know it's been three, four weeks now and it's starting to catch up on me so really hoping the rest of this week has just come and I can write. So my plan for tonight is to finish doing the live write-in that I was working on yesterday. There's another hour left which I assume will mean another 30 to 40 minutes of writing time. After that I'm not sure if I'll continue writing or if I'll just call it a night. I think I'll see how I feel and the reason for that is even though I'm behind on my one hour a day target, yeah I don't think it makes sense to burn myself out especially this early in the month. I'm hoping though that because this is a long weekend then I can catch up. Also before I start writing can we take a moment to admire the collection of cups and bottles that have made their way to my desk so far? My desk at work does not get this messy I promise you. I am done. I've been in the write-in for an hour now or 58 minutes if we're going to be really precise and of that I spent 43 minutes writing and I wrote 1034 words according to for the words. So now I'm going to update the Nanorama website as well as my spreadsheet and I'm definitely not going to write anymore this evening. I am feeling a bit spent. However I'm considering spending a little bit more time to do some more brainstormy planning type work because that will help in the coming days and I have some really good questions that have come from one of my subscribers Dawn who I mentioned in a past video. So if you go and check out my Camp Nanorama Week 1 video you'll see she's written this essay with a couple of really helpful tips for writing and one of them was to use a visualization exercise. So what she's written is sit back, close your eyes and imagine the glare of the prisoner, the scent of the prison cell, the decay or cleanliness around the point of view character, the sounds from the other prisoners, the expression of the prisoner or the sound of the point of view characters heartbeat, the emotional impact you've seen as a person how their body language tells you or doesn't tell you something about something about them. Even though she suggested this as like a visualization exercise I feel like when I like when I close my eyes and imagine it everything's very vivid. Maybe it isn't if I'm struggling to write it though but when I think about things it feels like they're very vivid. I feel like everything's very much alive in my head. It just loses all of the details when I try to put it onto paper. So I'm going to write down some of these questions for the next scene that I'm working on and hopefully that means when I sit down tomorrow to start writing again I'll have a little bit of an easier time of it and hopefully be able to write longer. Maybe I'll even hit an hour. Who knows? I will see you then. Today is Friday the 10th of April and I've had a two-day break from working on my book. Actually technically I did do a little bit of work yesterday but it was just some thinking time. So Wednesday there was just a bit of personal and professional stuff going on and I was I needed the day off. Yesterday I was just being a bit lazy so I did like 15 minutes of going through what I already had with the intention of then sitting down to work once I got to the end of my work day but by the time I got to the end of my work day it was just it was the end of the week after a very long few weeks where everything's just been so chaotic and I've had so much to get done then.  So I've just finished a two-hour session. I started at three p.m. and finished at five p.m. and that was writing time but it was time I haven't actually written a new scene. I actually went through a couple of the things that I already have and just added to them and fleshed them out. Because I was trying to flesh things out though I actually spent a lot of time on Google Street View so this book takes place in New York where I've been there a number of times but obviously I'm not a local I can't just go out and pick the buildings I like and where I want it to be so I was on Street View basically exploring Chelsea because I know that's where Cara the object of our protagonist's affection lives and trying to add in all the details that I'd left playing last time like what the building looks like and so on. So in that two-hour session there were 68 minutes of productive time and I wrote 883 words. Word count per minute isn't very good at 12.9 but then again I wasn't I wasn't tracking really strictly it was if I started googling stuff realized after a couple of minutes okay I'm stuck in the googling stuff I'm not actually writing that's when I'd make a note because my very very sophisticated complex method of time tracking is to simply write down the time when I start something and write down when I finish something. So there's probably some leeway there it wasn't 68 minutes of solid writing but that's the information I have. In terms of scenes finished I'm not really sure how to do that because I was building on existing ones I'm just going to do zero I'll just make everything else zero. The time I spent yesterday was really helpful for realizing how much I have because every time I've sat down to try and write this I've felt like I'm completely out of my depths I don't know what I'm doing there's I have nothing to write I don't know what to say and it's easy to forget the fact that I did a whole lot of work on three different plotting methods over the last couple of months and I do have this list of scenes so one of the things I did was I copied that information from my spreadsheet into my word document where I'm working on my book and it's strange like I knew it was there I done I was there when I did the spreadsheet but I'd kind of forgotten how much there was so that's all in the document now which means I can simply go from one scene to the next it's all in one place and hopefully that'll keep me going. When it comes to results according to my spreadsheet I've done 409 minutes since I started this project and 7,594 words the actual word count in the document is 8,024 words and the reason for that is just because that includes the planning information. Now if we go to the NanoRymo website if I'm completely honest with you I'm not entirely sure why I'm updating the nano website because it's not tracking the goal I want to track but oh well so it was 883 words I really wish there was something between the expressionless face and the smiley face for how the session went because I don't feel like it's as smiley as the smiley faces but I don't think it's as expressionless as the expressionless faces and I'm going to make this 408 because I'm just going to count the productive time in the NanoRymo website rather than the full writing session so here we can also see that the word count is different again the reason for that is because my spreadsheet counts from the beginning of the project and I did do like two small days of writing before April so there's always going to be some discrepancy between what NanoRymo says and what my spreadsheet says. All in all I'm actually feeling pretty good after yesterday and today I by no means think that I'm going to produce a masterpiece in this experiment but I feel like I have more of a foundation to continue. One of the challenges I have though is that my goal is 30 hours and I've been measuring productive time so if like today I had a two hour session but half of that was spent on google maps looking at different buildings then that isn't two hours of productive time it was 68 minutes of productive time the problem is that that means it's going to be much harder to reach the 30 hours and I don't know if I'm going to catch up so if I okay I'm just going to include the first two days in my total because that's easier than subtracting them while I'm working on this video but we've got 409 divided by 10 which is 40.9 minutes a day so I'm 200 minutes behind where I should be so that's three hours and 20 minutes I and the thing that's a little bit challenging is I did two hours today I could do two hours tomorrow and two hours on sunday and in theory that should be enough for me to catch up but if they're not productive hours then it's not enough for me to catch up so I'm not sure if I should measure total writing time or not I need to think about this in any case I do want to be much more consistent and I'm hoping that just having this long weekend and being able to recover from the craziness that has been my professional life over the past few weeks over these coming days will help and will put me in a better place for the rest of April it is Saturday the 11th of April and I've just done an hour of working on reciprocal stalking and what's challenging is that it wasn't completely productive hour because I was you know occasionally looking things up but it wasn't like yesterday where I was spending half an hour at a time wandering the streets of New York with Street View so I am going to count it as an hour of writing but I think one of the things I'm realizing with this project is just that it's going to move a bit slower than the last one because I'm a little bit out of my depth and the further I get the more questions come up that I haven't really thought about yet so all in all happy with my progress so far for today I think I will try another writing session later today just to get my word count and my hours up but for now let's do the spreadsheet so my session was from 10 to 11 a.m time was spent writing 60 minutes and my word count was 856 words scenes completed one of the things I'm really struggling with with this is that and I struggled with this in my last book as well is that I tend to write sequences of scenes and it's hard to figure out when one ends and one begins so hmm in fact I think I if I make what I was doing now the continuation of the one I was doing earlier this week then it would be 0.25 of a scene done hmm I need to figure out how to calculate scene lengths uh time to complete scene is 240 minutes up this doesn't feel right I think I need to look at the formulas in this spreadsheet but anyway at least the information is there the charts are updated and I can complete the nanorama website so 856 words and progress is updated it is now about quarter past six in the evening and even though I had the best of intentions to get back to writing today I now know it is not going to happen so the day went I started with writing which was good but it then went to watching community and coming out to Peleosare with my husband there's like this national park slash wetlands at the tip of might be the tip of the country but definitely the tip of Tallinn so um we went there for a walk and then got back and decided to do some more thumbnail photos and suddenly it was six o'clock so no more writing for me today but I thought I would recap my stats from the last week as a way of signing off so if I look at my spreadsheet week one and I'm doing my week from Sunday the 29th of March so week one I did 176 minutes so that's just under three hours and wrote 3037 words and week two I did 203 minutes so about three hours and 20 minutes and wrote 3939 words so in terms of word count that's increased significantly compared to last week especially considering that I didn't spend that much more time so the word count has gone up disproportionately to the amount the time has gone up which would be great if a word count was my target unfortunately time is my target and that's not going up but I still have hope it has only been two weeks it's the 11th of April so there's still more than half of the month left and I think that at least I hope that as I continue getting into the book I will start spending more time on it I also have a bit of an experiment in mind for next week which I think is going to help me get some more time under my belt as well so I will see you then bye


One could tell a story the tale of Portland's pioneer courthouse would start here, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, long before Oregon became a state. For centuries, Native Americans inhabited this area full of nature's bounty. Then in the early years of the 19th century, Easterners dreamed of riches in the west and of a nation that stretched from sea to shining city to explore the promise of westward expansion, President Thomas Jefferson launched a journey of discovery. In the spring of 1804, Maryweather Lewis and William Clark departed St. Louis, heading for the Pacific Coast. Clark comes up the Willamette River in the spring of 1806, looking for a route actually into California and doesn't find it, but determines that this is an area that has the potential for a great port city. Settlers in the 19th century came here over the Oregon Trail and settled in the Willamette Valley just south of Portland, in Portland because it was a place that you could get to on the rivers and became the port for the entire Oregon country. The city of Portland was founded in 1843 on the claim of Asa Lovejoy of Boston and Francis Pettigrove of Portland, Maine, but there was a hitch. They both owned equal shares of the town and couldn't come up with a name. Each wanted to name it after his own hometown, so they tossed a coin and the man from Maine won the coin toss. Portland soon earned the nickname Stumptown. It was a lager's paradise, literally carved out of primeval forest. By 1846, Portland had grown to 16 small blocks, packed into a compact grid along the river. In 1859, of course, Oregon became a state and at that point Judge Deedy, who had been on the Territorial Court, became the first federal judge as he went back to Washington D.C. to urge that a courthouse be established in Portland. With immigrants streaming in, business booming in the newfound mantle of statehood, Portland was growing from Frontier Town to Western City. In 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant signed legislation for construction of a U.S. post-office courthouse and customs house in Portland. Alfred B. Mullet, then supervising architect of the U.S. Treasury Department, headed the design team. Portland is quite well known for designing some of the most architecturally significant federal buildings. For Portland, it was quite a spectacular building. It was a combination of Greek revival and Palladian, so it had some really interesting architectural details. Although in comparison to other buildings built by Mullet, at about the same time, such as in San Francisco and Washington D.C., it was much simpler. Topping the three-story sandstone structure was an octagonal wooden cupola that offered a panoramic view of the city. The distinctive feature was not merely decorative. Like Portland, it had a practical side. That was the principal way the customs inspectors found out which ships were coming in and out of the port of Portland. The courthouse was completed on October 1, 1875, the oldest surviving federal building in the Pacific Northwest. But this historic achievement had its detractors. The greatest criticism of the Pioneer Courthouse was its distance from downtown Portland. In the late 1860s, when the courthouse site was purchased by the federal government, the main part of the city was about four blocks to the east and near the river. The location was no accident. In the mid-1800s, fires were devastating America's cities. Mullet sighted the building away from the densely populated downtown for safety's sake. By the 1880s, the federal building once called remote was becoming the center of the city. As Portland entered the 20th century, it was time to celebrate both a pioneering past and a promising future. In 1905, Portland revealed its wonders to the world at the Lewis and Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair. The hope was to captivate visitors with this paradise on the Pacific so they would settle and invest here. Apparently, it worked. From 1900 to 1910, Portland more than doubled in size. But as early as 1889, postmaster C.W. Roby had complained that the post office was too small and needed a radical renovation. In 1902, Congress approved the remodeling. New wings spread to the west and the size of the basement and first floor were doubled. The room was completed in 1904. Just as Judge Charles Bellinger began to hear one of Oregon's most notorious cases, land fraud trials involving U.S. Senator John Mitchell and Representative John Williams. Portland's construction boom continued through the 1920s. The city's growth overtook the post office and courthouse again. Less than a quarter century after its expansion, a 1927 newspaper article described the courthouse as outworn and outgrown. In 1929, the stock market crashed and the Great Depression ensued. The federal building's fate remained as uncertain as that of many Portland residents. Like the Columbia River, Portland managed to keep rolling on through the Depression. In 1938, construction of the Bonneville Dam, the first of the Great Columbia River water projects, was completed. Woody Guthrie's folk songs heralded the cheap power from new dams that now lit up the rural northwest. But for Portland's federal building, the lights were off and the doors closed. In 1933, a new U.S. courthouse and post office had been built, now called the Gus Solomon Courthouse. In 1939, Congress authorized the old building's demolition. Only World War II saved it from the records wall. The government needed space. But by the early 1960s, the reprieve was over. The General Services Administration planned a new federal office building on the site. Federal agencies had pretty well come to the conclusion that we should destroy this post office or this courthouse and post office because it was too expensive to restore it. At that time, urban renewal was really big. Incentives for demolition of historic buildings were there, and so essentially large parts of urban environments simply disappeared, including in Portland. Free leading citizens took the fate of the courthouse into their own hands. GSA began a feasibility study to determine whether the building, which at that point had really been abandoned, could be used for another purpose. The courthouse that stood virtually vacant for years had been rediscovered. As the oldest surviving federal building in the region, and perhaps the most important in the Pacific Northwest, it was a perfect candidate for preservation. The project was completed in 1973, and the building dedicated the Pioneer Courthouse. Four years later, the courthouse was designated a national historic landmark. The impact of the renovation reverberated into the next decade, with Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square project just beyond the building's wall. Pioneer Courthouse Square was created in 1980 out of an international design competition to create a space in the heart of downtown that was open and active and vital. The square is the heart of downtown Portland, and it's frequently called Portland's living room. Our courthouse is one wall of that living room. With its prominent location, the courthouse was about to find itself on the frontier of historic preservation once again. In 2002, almost thirty years after the previous renovation, the courthouse was to be upgraded again. Parts of the building were now over a hundred years old, so there were certain aspects of, for example, the stone that was deteriorating on the exterior and on the interior. There were some plaster ornaments that had been deteriorating as well and wood, so there were items like that that needed attention. It was quite dreary. Many offices of the federal government had placed a lot of false partitioning and cubbyhole arrangements all through the building with all of the translucent and artificial lighting. No one had any pride in the interior, so it looked at best ordinary. But there would be more to this renovation than cosmetics. It would be retrofitted for protection from seismic events with the base isolation system. This new seismic structure is an interesting tie between historic preservation and modern engineering. Seismic isolation is a relatively new technology for protecting buildings from earthquakes, and we use it when we want to protect the building from damage. So probably there are in the order of 50 buildings in the world that are using these friction pendulum seismic isolators, and they're all special buildings in some way, like the Pioneer Courthouse. When we put seismic isolators under a building, we transform how the building responds during an earthquake. So all of a sudden, instead of shaking violently, the building will sway gently back and forth, as if it were a pendulum. We installed 70 of these friction pendulum isolators, installing one under each column in the building.  And this bearing here weighs about 9,000 pounds, and will support about 3 million pounds of building load. As for other aspects of the renovation, some parts of the building would be as new as the seismic isolators, and others would be restorations of the original. The main lobby is a totally new space, but the rich warm colors recall the 1875 Italian Renaissance tones discovered in a plaster survey of the original building. The former postal workspace is now an accessible law library. A new alternate dispute resolution room responds to 21st century court functions. Skilled artisans preserved wood wainscoting and trim, plaster ceilings and stone, using techniques that might have been familiar to the original builders. They even renovated the historic Otis elevator installed in 1905. But like the original courthouse, the project had its critics. Some Portlanders were concerned about a new secure vehicular access. People believed we were doing the project because of the parking, rather than we were having to do and protect the building by doing a base isolation, which lowered the building by 10 feet, which allowed for the secure parking, which is now required under the court's guidelines. Another concern touched Portlanders more. As a result of having to close the building for two and a half years, the post office made a decision that it would leave the building and relocate in the Solomon courthouse building, which is about three or four blocks down the street. Once the customers were aware that we were going to have a presence in the Solomon facility, it mitigated many of the complaints and the most harsh critics that we had. There were many customers who said, at least we have a beautiful facility we can be served at and it is close to where I work. But the loss of the post office raised another issue for a public who clearly loved this building. You know, one of the things about this project that alarmed the public was it was going to be completely shut away because the post office was gone and that people wouldn't be able to get in. So the project team devised a way to keep Portlanders involved. The CAP, or the Citizens Advisory Panel, was made up of a variety of representatives from different organizations and that was actually something very unique that hasn't been done before in a public project like this. The creation of the CAP has allowed us to establish a dialogue with the community, open up paths of communication to be able to invite in citizens, visitors, to be able to enjoy the building, learn about its history and relevance within the Pacific Northwest. With the renovation complete, the historic courthouse is once again open to the public and proves it is both a survivor and a pioneer like the first residents of Portland, the early preservationists and the current city planners. The courthouse celebrates a remarkable history and a future that builds upon the past while also exploring new frontiers. I think it really anchors the city.  You know, in the West there aren't a lot of old, old buildings. So to have this one thing that's been there almost since the city began and to have the city grow up around it, it really is very meaningful and something that we really do cherish. Everything that happens in Portland happens right around this building. It's become a beloved landmark for its architectural presence as well as for its history. These people that you knew or I knew who had been in the law, who had been judges, were part of the personality of that building. So I just didn't see it as stone that had been upgraded or painted or whatever. And I think that's the value of a building like the Postal, like the courthouse. How can you not be passionate about this wonderful place It has survived all of this time. It is the centerpiece for our community. We have something special, the chance to be in this architectural and historical gem. So it's something we all really have a passion about.


There's not much tools you need for a bloody job like this and we still it's not done yet This jam's staying in that's going to be cut down And we're gonna go that way. I think the openings three meters or something. Oh wow That's not a mistake 14 week vents Good morning. We are on route as you can see the robbies are in front of us with a big steel packed in the back of the van so But this one actually isn't for an extension. This one's actually just for Fitting into a wall Yeah, so Very nice, I don't think we can film a school too long. They look very fishy. Yeah, as long as nobody there but Yeah, so this is gonna be another big steel job. So but the robbies are here all day today, so they're going to help us, which is a very good so Cheating job this one. Yeah, I'll catch you when we're over there and there we are so plan is all them soldiers are coming out and obviously a few more and we're going to be extending this doorway into bifold doors, so It's gonna be a bit more fiddly than sticking on an extension, but All our tools in the robbies here, so I'll get you set up while we get all set out. The robbies are getting the scaffold over now We're just getting all our tools out so Very untimely. See you in a sec Robbies super scaffold a bit better look at the Nars, but we won't talk about that so There you go. That's a good look at how it's looking so far There's not much tools you need for a bloody job like this and we still it's not done yet, but We've got we've got our accros round. We've got accros in here and we've got four Inside as well because some is just clearing it out now Yeah, so in other words, the receiver won't cut it Yeah, right Oh, yeah, I'm prepared for that All right, but yeah, so Yeah, that's that's fortunate for us because of the one we're doing there's the soldiers There's some more underneath Because obviously once that steel goes back in we'll go get the soldiers back in Have you told them they're stopping there? Yeah Going that way with it. I'll give them a rough description. You know better, don't you so I'll pass it to you Yeah, that's this this jam staying in that's going to be cut down And we're going to go that way. I think they're opening three meters or something So um, yeah, we're all set up now. We're going to get get making some mess We're catching a bit Hang on, hang on, hang on There's one big ass steel moved so just like I give you a quick look at it It's not as big as the one on the extension that we just did recently But it's just as heavy bloody hell It's a it's a feat and uh It's going to be another feat to get it lifted up there But like I say we've got the Robbie so Hopefully it goes a bit okay wood back on wood So dad's just gone back to get some insulation because as you can see it's all spraised Spreeding so we're going to back it up make sure it doesn't pour out. So getting this sorted thankfully The mortise coming off the bricks quite well at the moment. It's very uh It's solid, but it comes off in chunks instead of like in little pieces. So That's always a plus. Anyway, enough talking. I'll see you when he's back so Top course is out. So there's our tray which we're going to tuck underneath There's our IG lintel With insulated blocks. So it was built with insulated blocks and it's been insulated after We've managed to get into the soldiers without breaking any so far. So I'm going to pop these out Luckily the mortise isn't too strong They've been pretty easy which is always a relief for Alex because that's his job As you see we always tuck some insulation up and it's injected by the way The telltale sign for being injected is I can find one It's the round holes generally poorly patched Different color motor. That's how you know it's got injected insulation in it Which means you've got to preserve it So I'm going to put another strip off there and get that in there Take that and that's a few charges out and get our next echo in here. We're putting them in every 800 There's quite a big span there. So Let's get cracking on with that. The Robbie and Robbie inside getting inside proper for us It's going to be a big all this So let's crack on It's a very humid day today. Right, what we've done is we've just moved all the echoes back Right as far back as we can get them. So now We can push this scaffold back that way and get a plank in this side down this side So we can slide the steel along and it's given us a bit more room to actually lift Opening because it's a bloody heavy piece of steel. As you see there's the existing lintel and we're going to the this brick here I think the steel is 3.7 and the opening is 3.3 So yeah, once we've got these last few out We'll get the scaffold removed back into the original position with the extra flank and then probably go And get a quick dinner before we get the heavy lifting done So yeah Get this last bit out and we'll get back to you There you have it That's all the front out all the soldiers and the bricks all propped up And it's that part's ready.  There's all the bricks All things considered we only had one breakage Which wasn't too bad and if you look it was quite damaged to start with so We're just going to take one from there, but that's not a big deal. Only one breakage is really good. So We need one brick fantastic community is still killing me, but I'll take you to dad and go show you what's happening inside and see you then Five past six and I've got five soldiers done It's been an absolute Drag of a day. We finally got the steel up heaven else has gone It took us ages to better to get this train and get this this top Joint bulb all them took points. It didn't take long long as I thought but it all adds up It took five of us to get it up. Yeah, we had to fiddle around getting it spun We then we had to um Fiddle around getting it back because it wouldn't move getting it in. Yeah getting it in and then getting it back We had to we had to dig out the back and put some padstones in The whole thing was fighting against us today really. Yeah, it's just been It's one of those things where it just you think well, what we've been doing all day and you think I don't know But we've been grafting all day It's like all the installations in there and Everything came out so easy. Yeah, it started off so easy just ground there ground there and it just popped out And then it all went perfect after that took ages getting the The block work in the back of the lintel out. Obviously I've got to get both skins out. There's the lintel over there But uh, yeah It's six o'clock so If we can get home for eight o'clock, I'll be happy Oh, yeah, I've been home three times Yeah, third time was to keep pick the vents up And I thought so I did so I picked the McDonald's up on the way so I've had our tea so at least I'm not Hangry. Oh, yeah, and the the soldiers because the steel On the house super tight beds Probably eight eight mil bed But doesn't work with the steel So we've had to cut 50 soldiers down down to 205 to get them to the line Yeah, so Alex just finished the rest of them off and I'm gonna get the rest of these in Right, let's get you set up somewhere on the timelapse for a bit so I can get the radio on I fed up today. She want to get home So I'll see you in a bit Because it was that winter it'd be pitch black. He's on the final stretch now I was getting there. I've been trying to tidy up as best as I can and get stuff cleaned up the All that underneath the robbies are taking care of that because they said They're gonna leave that scaffold up to finish up over there and they'll sort it all the mess so That's that sorted and other than that, I've just been making sure the mix is clean Getting all our rubbish in tools put away I'm almost done with that so as soon as that's finished I'm gonna go up there and help get some jointing done But it was very very very depressing before but now we're near the end Yeah, it was like a black hole at first but now that we're near the end On the job couch Yeah Which hour that's when you pass five? Yeah Yeah around about five o'clock it was a bit gloomy but now uh, I think we're just numb to it, aren't we? That's a good way to start So I'll pass you back up to dad on time lapse and I'll see you for the outro That's not a mistake that is quarter to nine There you go One 3.7 meter nine before stealing with an eight mil plate welder to it Combination frames coming out that's getting cut down and I've started the cut up here So I could get you wouldn't be able to cut this once the steel went in So we just put the first couple of course cut in So Robbie and Robbie can carry that cut on down the wall I think the eighth year bifolds are coming so it's going to go from there Three meters three hundred and fifteen to the So What's that it's actually 11 foot door in it So there you go you can see where we started We get to the Truck all the soldiers out only a one break on us And then we had to cut About 50 Yeah, we had to cut about 10 mil off 50 bricks because the steel lifts it up by quite a bit Having PTSD to be an e-job Yeah, all the bricks yeah bricks or this time. No So, um, yeah, you see there No bed So we couldn't follow that we have the steels the steels on a very very tight bed That's the best we could do And just to keep this this bed going across because this had to be right so we could get this top top breaking So, um, you'll see there's a weak vent every 300 So there's 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 weak vents 14 you go 14 A brand new tray And the back of the steel Went directly under the blockwork on the inside So all we had to do is put the tray on top of the steel and took pointed oil in so the tray is built in properly Insulated in the web of the steel inside the cavity Insulated above Covered the tray with vents done It's been expanded from to the back so it's also yield. Yeah, it's been because it's got not getting done for a while It's been filmed with the gappas And it's just starting to rain We've been very lucky with the weather. I'll be able to see that on the camera It's been trying like this all day and we just managed to get away with it So I'll hand you to us to do one of his fancy art truth Oh, so yeah, that was a very very long day, but It got done. So that made it worth it. We don't have to come back tomorrow now. So that's the main thing If you enjoyed our suffering Be sure to give it a thumbs up Because that's a massive help for the channel and greatly appreciate that If you're new to the channel or you want to keep updated on our Uploads and videos be sure to hit subscribe and tap that bell so you get notified every time Again, that's a massive help and we greatly appreciate all the positive feedback and all the support for the channel This has been Brooklyn with Steve and Alex I'm gonna go straight to bed when we get home and we'll see you in the next video


What's up everybody, Jason here for jasmiescasebreak.com. Another case of 2122 Panini Flaws basketball just sold out This is a two box case break picker team number three And again, we had three R&Bs just like the previous two So Let's show you guys the list So here's the customers that bought in straight up and we have Toronto Atlanta Utah PDX Washington R&B No, what is that one? Which who who runs that podcast and then this one is New Orleans Sacramento Chicago and Then the big mama Houston Detroit Cleveland. All right, and then here is another case Honestly, man, I don't listen to too many podcasts.  I mean Either we're out and about or relaxing binge watching some shows and stuff like that The only podcast I did listen to a couple times and still continue to listen to it where once in a while is the New heights with Jason Kelsey and Travis Kelsey But I know there's a lot of great podcasts out there I mean, I see a lot of them on my social media feeds, you know from clips and stuff I Just I just haven't really gotten into it too much But if I was like a sort of shipper, I'd be listening to all day Like I've been listening to that like listening to podcast like all day just to kill time, you know, I Know Rex our customer is like that too. Like he's listening to us or listening to breakers break or you know Well, he's like doing his job. He's listening to podcasts, which good way to kind of Maximize that time. I Know my wife's entire like reads ebooks While she's listening like on audible During during you know the day. All right, guys, here we go. So I was off a little Christian wood four out of five Patch here for the Houston Rockets Christian wood edition Houston Rockets and That's four out of 15 spot four is Michael We have a out of ten excellence ten of ten Duncan Robinson for the Miami Heat Heat is going to Sean straight up and I bought some more Duncan Robinson. What's going on here? I'm panini two out of ten three-color patch and autograph Good for Sean though. We got Walt Frazier 12 out of 25 That's New York Knicks Wayne with that one. I have a little RJ Barrett 17 out of 25 Two-color patch and autograph back-to-back Knicks as well Wayne and then for the Spurs Tony Parker four out of five San Antonio Spurs Raymond straight up. We have Magic Johnson five out of ten legendary scripts for the Lakers going to Tristan and Two-time MVP the Joker Nicola Yolkic three out of 25 momentous Looking to take a 3-0 lead Jamal here in LA Denver Nuggets that is Matthew straight up very nice man All right. Well, that was a little different I mean the beginning kind of started off similar like Duncan Robinson and Walt Frazier But that's kind of like normal but a lot of different like more vets on this side this time around so Let's see how different this is Our first one is A rookie and it's Trey Murphy little diamond an emerald diamond Five out of five for the Pels Pels is an R&B five Pelicans Joe Locust last spot mojo. There you go, man. And we got Cade Cunningham rookie autograph 11 out of 25 for the Pistons Detroit Pistons R&B One is going to Carl. There you go, Carl. Nice hit right there, man So spot one with that one So there we go a little different here little Cade Cunningham. There you go first case first box Dunzo, all right now now I'm gonna get a logo man Give me a logo man. I'm pivot to that. Just give me a logo man. All right, here we go One out of 20 little three-color patch on the right two-color patch on the left Julius Randall Nick's Nick's is going to Wayne. We have a RPA of Chris Dwarthe Pro duck right there 18 out of 25 for the Indiana Pacers Nicholas with the Pacers. These are pretty solid one Kevin Johnson That's Phoenix one out of 25 Phoenix sons autograph Matthew Silverstein with that. We have a Jerry Stackhouse for the Pistons 10 out of 25 Spot zero for the Detroit Pistons R&B is going to Matthew. We got a Earl Monroe Nick's getting some nice vets three out of 25 Nice little pickup right there Wayne And then we got an RPA Trey Man That is 23 out of 25 For the Oklahoma City Thunder going to Hilton go and Then we have a one out of three purple What a Carl Malone USA basketball, that's nice right there. So that would be Utah Jazz, I believe I Think he played the majority was correct even though the Lakers at the end of his career, but that's part of the R&B one Utah going to Carl, that's a nice one right there Very nice, and then we have a rookie autograph Jonathan Kaminga three out of five Well, we don't have them for that price thief. We're like a thousand dollars cheaper and three out of five Kaminga Golden State Warriors Yuji All right, here we go. Isaiah Jackson rookie diamond gold eight out of ten Indiana Pacers, Nicholas and here we go. I feel like this is gonna be a vet flexing if you got the rookie, but Who knows? It's nine out of 25. Oh my god, don't tell me again Stephen Curry, this is our second one dirt was is our second one like this This is our third Curry straight in a case although this one's nice This one has a two-color patch, but I guess we did get a cake though Stephen Curry Yuji getting the Warriors and all of our pick your team is just cashing in on a curry in every case nine out of 25 Good Lord, and there you go So again, this case a little different didn't have a Cade which is nice All right had another curry. Although this one was a two-color patch So I take that it's not a karma lone purple coming out of five I have to say this one's not a bad case a little bit better than what we've had so far So really really nice his coming out of here guys So again, we're still looking for some big global man stuff like that But I'm glad we got a Cade here and Carl you did good Or as well with the Cade and then that car Malone was really really nice USA basketball ones, of course Sell pretty well too. So that's the good thing But appreciate it folks. Like I said number four to the storage ask me skates breaks calm


I seek refuge with Allah from Satan, the accursed. In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful, the Merciful. In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Merciful. I pray to Allah for our master and our prophet, Muhammad and his people, the righteous. My dear brothers and sisters, Muslims today living in the West have to make strong efforts to increase interfaith dialogue with people of different faiths and religions. We see that Allah SWT instructs the Holy Prophet Muhammad, may Salat and Salam be upon him and his people. Say, O people of the book, come to a word that is in between us and between you. O people of the book, after Allah SWT directs towards the Holy Prophet by stating, say, O Prophet, O people of the book, let us come toward a common word between one another. Let us engage in dialogue with one another, speaking on our commonalities. Let's we see that interfaith dialogue is something that is founded within the whole Quran. It is something that is founded during the lifetime of the Holy Prophet, may Salat and Salam be upon him and his people, as it also occurred during the lifetime of the Imam of the Ahlul Bayt. We need to also carry upon this tradition in terms of living harmony, living a life of harmony with people of different faiths and different backgrounds and different traditions. We see that for instance, the Muslims, the Jewish community, the Christian community, they all share many different similarities. The fact that we all revere and honor Prophet Ibrahim, alaihi salam, that oftentimes we see that in Western circles that these three faiths are known as the Abrahamic religions because they all trace their roots back to Prophet Ibrahim, alaihi salam, who sacrificed a great deal for Allah SWT, who submitted toward him and we all oftentimes narrate different anecdotes about his life. Yes, absolutely. We see that there are certain differences in terms of theology in terms of jurisprudence between the three major religions. Yet at the same time, we also see that there are a lot of similarities in the fact that we all believe in Allah SWT, the fact that we all believe and hold close to us a large majority of the same themes and values which we honor amongst our own communities. We see that for instance, Judaism is a religion that is very strict in terms of the jurisprudence. It's presented and outlook in terms of these laws that Allah SWT has offered toward them are means to get closer to Allah. Similarly, the Islamic Sharia, very similar in the fact that we state that Allah SWT presents these laws toward us in order to channel our individual and communal progression closer toward him. In the religion of Christianity, for instance, we see that there is a great emphasis on the aspect of love of Allah SWT, on the aspect of doing good, on the aspect of charitable efforts. Yet we find that within the religion of Islam, we see a fusion between the two. There is a balance between law and jurisprudence and at the same time, etiquette and love and worship and spirituality of Allah SWT. And we see that when the Holy Prophet, Muhammad SWT presents his religion toward the people of Mecca and toward the people of Medina within the Arabian Peninsula, he comes and he presents that particular vision toward them. In the early years in Mecca, he spoke about actions of belief. He spoke about theology, spoke about the belief in one God, spoke about aspects of charity and of love and of obedience and of submission. But when the Holy Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and the Muslims, the early Muslims migrate toward the Holy city of Medina, he begins by increasing the laws and regulations and rules upon the community so that it would become a society that is founded in terms of finding a balance in terms of pushing and progressing closer to Allah SWT. And when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam preaches by means of this, we see that in the midst of his preachings, in the midst of the verses of the Holy Quran and the traditions of the Ahlul Bayt, there are a large number of anecdotes of the previous prophets of Allah SWT, the prophets of Bani Israel, Jesus Alaihi As-Salam, in the idea that he was trying to bring the Jewish community and the Christian community closer toward understanding the religion of Islam and demonstrating toward them that he is the final prophet and he continues the legacy of Noah and of Abraham and of Moses and of Jesus and all of the hundred thousand Samad prophets that preceded his Holiness, Rasulallah Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And specifically today, we have an extremely important responsibility for instance to project the vision of Isa Alaihi As-Salam toward all non-Muslims, demonstrate that the religion of Islam reveres and honors Prophet Jesus Isa Alaihi As-Salam and reveres him and honors him not only but also honors his mother Mary Alaihi As-Salam as we know the chapter 19 in the Holy Quran is dedicated to her name and toward her family. We see that Allah SWT mentioned several different anecdotes about Christians and the Christian community within the Holy Quran. Today we see that Christian denominations are upwards of 30,000 and they're founded in every part of the world and many Muslims who live in the West or probably all Muslims who live in the West, they have either worked with them, spoken to them, gone to school with them, made friends with them, been and engaged in dialogue with the Christian community. We have to make sure that we understand the perspective of the religion of Islam when it comes to Jesus Alaihi As-Salam and the idea that we can project our narrative toward them and see what common grounds we can find in terms of furthering and increasing our dialogue and furthering and increasing our discussion. We see that number one Allah SWT as I said before mentioned the Christian community several times within the Holy Quran. We see for instance in chapter 36 of the Holy Quran which many of us recite on a weekly basis at least Surat Yasin Allah SWT speaks about a Christian community. He narrates the story of a man by the name of Habib bin Najjar. Habib bin Najjar is from where? He is from a city known as Antioch in Northern Syria known as Antakya today. We see that Habib bin Najjar, he comes toward his community and tells these individuals to follow the messengers that have come to this community in order to in order that they follow the religion of Allah SWT and the religion of the Prophet that they're living under. The question is, who are those messengers that came to the city of Antioch? Number one and number two, which prophet to these representatives, to these messengers represent? We see Allah SWT or Mufassereen of the Holy Quran they state that there were three messengers sent toward the city of Antioch. These messengers are known as Simon, John and eventually Paul, Allah SWT states Initially Allah SWT orders Isa A.S. to send toward the city of Antioch two of his successors one of those is a man by the name of Simon and the other one is a man by the name of John that they rejected them and they say we don't want to hear what you have to say in the same way that the Holy Prophet SAW would send Amir al-Mu'mineen, would send other companions toward communities to go and preach the religion of Islam he will reject it. So Allah SWT directs Isa A.S. to also send a third by the man by the name of Paul these are all among the disciples of Isa A.S. We find that Habib bin Najjar after they rejected these messengers of Isa A.S. he comes toward that community of his and says make sure that you follow the instructions of what these people are saying but we find that they rejected him and eventually they killed him in a very gruesome way we speak about one example of the community of Christians within the Holy Quran. Secondly we see that Allah SWT mentions for instance Ashab al-Kahf in Surah al-Kahf of the Holy Quran those Ashab al-Kahf those people they were migrating away from their community because of the tyrannical king during that time who did not give them the ability to practice their religion freely what religion were they they were followers of Isa A.S. and they were Muslims and the fact that they followed their prophet Prophet Jesus A.S. We see that furthermore in the Holy Quran Allah SWT mentions Ashab al-Ukhdood for instance Allah SWT as we mentioned before he narrates the story of Isa and Maryam A.S. within chapter 19 of the Holy Quran but when we want to take a look and understand the perspective or the Islamic perspective of Jesus A.S. within the Holy Quran and within the narrations of the Ahl al-Bayt we see that we could take it threefold there is a theological understanding of Isa there is for instance a spiritual understanding of Isa and thirdly there is an eschatological role of Isa A.S. Let's take a look at each and every one of these very very briefly number one we see that the theological view is very similar to that in terms of the reverence that we have for all of the prophets of Allah SWT but the station of Jesus A.S. is unique from a lot of the other prophets from the fact that he is known as the Ul Al-Azm he is amongst the greatest prophets in the religion of Islam along with Noah along with Ibrahim along with Musa and along with Rasool Allah Muhammad and we see that within our narrations the narrations of the Ahl al-Bayt there are several different anecdotes about his life for instance we see on one occasion that Isa A.S. speaking with his Hawwari and the disciples and he's telling them that I have been gifted the ability to cure the leper I have been gifted the ability for instance to cure the individual who is paralyzed but there's one group of people that I have no way that I'm able to cure them it is said that at this moment his disciples they say oh our master Isa tell us you have been able to perform all of these different types of miracles what is that group of people that you're unable to cure? Isa A.S. unable to cure the fool they say oh Rasool Allah who is the fool? at this moment Jesus he responds by stating the fool is the one who doesn't take consultation and demonstrates arrogance by only following his own opinion thus we find that we can find a large number of different ethical and moral anecdotes from the life of Isa A.S. and in the Islamic perspective theologically of course we believe that Jesus A.S. is a prophet he is a messenger of Allah SWT who comes down with the injeel he comes down with the gospels as is often translated and though he is not God nor the son of God we see that even then Allah SWT has honored him as we mentioned by the fact that he has attained certain spiritual gifts we see for instance that Allah SWT mentions the fact that Isa A.S. has had the ability to speak while he was in the cradle he said that Abdullah gave me the book and made me a prophet when Mary was pregnant with Isa A.S. and she began to feel the pangs and the pangs and the pangs of childbirth in those final moments before she gave birth to her son that Allah SWT miraculously transports her from the city of Bethlehem toward a city on the outskirts of the holy city of Kufa and according to some narrations of the Ahl al-Bayt that Isa A.S. is born in the holy city of Karbala parallels with Abiyatullah al-Qasayn A.S. we see that when he was born of course Mary was very startled and wondered exactly how she's going to go back toward her community but at that moment Isa A.S. her son who was just a child consoled her and said do not speak when they enter back into the city of Bethlehem and all of the community of the family members and the entire community they come and they see Mary, Maryam A.S. with a child they go toward her and they say how could it be that you have a child and so on and so forth and they begin to make certain claims immoral claims against her Mary, she points toward her son Isa and Allah SWT quotes the verse Qala Inni Abdullah Atani al-kitab wa ja'alani nabiya while he was just a child while he was just days old he states that I am a servant of Allah SWT Inni Abdullah Atani al-kitab he said Allah SWT has given me a book and made me into a prophet in order to demonstrate the miracle of the birth of Isa A.S. and the glory of the mother of Jesus A.S. in terms of Mary We come forth and we see that according to different narrations that Isa A.S. on the 25th of the Qada a Tuesday and we come and we see that of course we reject many of these different narrations that state that Isa A.S. had been killed but rather we see that Allah SWT saved him wa ma qataluhu wa ma salabuh wa lakin shubhah lahum as Allah SWT states in the whole of Quran Thus when we want to take a look at the theological stance of the religion of Islam about Prophet Isa he is revered he is honored known as amongst the Ulal Adam and performed miracles even from when he was a very young child Secondly, we take a look at the spiritual role of Prophet Jesus A.S. in the religion of Islam We state that all of the the infallibles by means of the 14 infallibles the Ahir el-Bait A.S. they have a human dimension but at the same time they have what is known as a spiritual dimension the human dimension being known as what? the fact that they're able to converse with one another they're able to lead us they have similarities with the human being but they also have a spiritual dimension the fact that they have this intense insight and knowledge the ability to perform el-Mulqaib for instance have the knowledge of the unseen to have this type of foresight we see that in Christian theological circles as we mentioned there are upwards of 30,000 different theological circles within Christianity not all of them believe that Jesus A.S. was able to perform some of these spiritual miracles that even the religion of Islam accepts for instance we see for instance that there are a group of Christians who state that Isa A.S. it's just a metaphor when we state that he's walking on water in the religion of Islam we state no that Isa A.S. has been honored toward the greatest of heights the greatest of spiritual heights where he has been gifted the gift of what is known as willaya willaya to tequeenia due to the permission that Allah SWT has given him he has the ability to bring the dead back to life he has the ability to cure the leper he has the ability to cure the paralyzed and the blind and the deaf and the dumb this is of course out of the permission of Allah SWT but this gift is only given to those who have reached the highest level in terms of proximity and in terms of closeness to Allah SWT and thirdly whenever we're speaking about Isa A.S. especially to non-Muslims especially in regards to our Christian brothers in humanity we come and we see that we have to demonstrate toward them especially us as followers of the Ahl al-Bayt that Isa A.S. has an eschatological role a responsibility at the end of times according to narrations of course we know that the Christians believe that he has a messianic role in terms of coming back to the world and saving it and removing it from injustice and oppression but so do the Muslims we also believe that Isa A.S. is going to come and be at the support of Imam Al-Mahdi Imam Al-Zaman the twelfth Imam the progeny of the Ahl al-Bayt A.S. and he will vent toward them the ideology of the Holy Prophet SAW and offer different avenues of support to the Imam A.S. to create a government and a society and a community of peace and tranquility and we see that according to different narrations Isa A.S. will be the avenue to bring the religion and the faiths of others with the faith of Imam Al-Zaman and have everyone united under his banner my dear brothers and sisters as we mentioned the verse of the Holy Quran in the beginning which I mentioned Allah SWT he instructs the Holy Prophet Mu'ammad SAW to engage in this type of dialogue in this type of discussion with the Ahl al-Kitab with the people of the book Hul Ya Ahl al-Kitab ta'alo ila kalimatin sawa in baynana wa baynakum that come to a common word with one another if we made certain strides within our life to present toward Christian community and the Jewish community and other faiths about the similarities we have we see the differences and the barriers will fall down and we'll be able to create bridges for discussion for dialogue and avenues perhaps to present toward them the perspective and the narrative of the Holy Quran the teachings of the Holy Prophet SAW and the teachings of the Ahl al-Bait SAW if we make these certain strides to present toward them the teachings of the Ahl al-Bait perhaps there's an avenue for them a door for them to enter into understanding the greatness and the glory of Rasulullah the greatness and the glory of Ali ibn Abi Talib SAW we have to strive make our very best efforts to increase in dialogue but at the same time increase our knowledge of those specific figures which they might hold in reverence an example of those being Jesus Isa ibn Maryam SAW we pray to Allah SAW that we will become amongst those individuals who will have the opportunity to increase such dialogue who have the opportunity to engage others of different fates Walhamdulillah Rabbal Aalameen Wa sallallahu ala Sayyidina Wa Nabiina Muhammad Wa aalahat t'aybeen Al-Tahilin