Hi, I'm Dan O'Coombs and November's What's Neat starts right now. The What's Neat Show is sponsored by Caboose, sharing our passion for trains since 1938. This is What's Neat for November 2017. I'm your host Ken Patterson and this month we interview George Bogatec from Soundtracks and we don't talk about one CV. We just learn about George and his modeling and his model railroad layout that he's got. He's a modeler and he shares all of that with us this month in the interview. We also have Ron Pair come by all the way from Canada and he builds an ITLA scale model, a laser kit and he shows us his techniques and he builds his kit in less than about three hours. We also build a locomotive cradle for holding our models when you repair them. I show how to build one in HO scale and I also show one in N scale and one in large scale that I've used in the past that works really well for me. We take a look at the Intermountain Tier IV locomotives just coming out within the last few months. These beautiful models with sound. We run them outside, photograph them. They're a real treat to look at this month for What's Neat. Also I show you how I shot this gorgeous nighttime shot with a full moon for after and using their F units and I take you step by step through that nighttime photography project. Our podcast is doing extremely well. We're already past show 13 at this point and the audience keeps building and building. We're pushing close to 7,000 views on the highest viewed podcast at this point. So with that I want to thank Caboose, that wonderful hobby shop in Denver, Colorado that sponsors this The What's Neat show and also I just want to thank all the people that have purchased videos at KenPatterson.com in this past year. Thank you very much and with that let's continue on with the rest of November's show. November's segment for What's Neat, we're going to talk about building a locomotive cradle. A tool that's instrumental in helping you repair and change katie couplers on any kind of an HO scale model, cradles can also the same technique applies in end scale. Here I took a simple piece of foam and carved it out with a little felt on the inside and I've got a very free end scale cradle for working on a model or cleaning the wheels. I also do the same principle with large scale. Here I've got a locomotive carrier and generally I simply line this with a towel and then I'm able to put the models in without doing any damage at all to any of the detail and these are some pretty heavy locomotives they can do some damage but today we're going to build a locomotive cradle in HO scale and this is one that we're going to build for the show right now and I'm going to show you the process on how to go about building something like this. The most important dimension to keep in mind is you've got to be able to clear your sunshades and an HO scale it usually translates into a width of about one and three quarters of an inch. That's the minimum width that you've got to calculate when you start figuring the thickness of all the materials in the woods you're going to use. Now for today's project we're simply going to use some scrap wood to build the one that we're going to build. Using a scrap one by four for the base I measured with the width of the locomotive and the sunshades and then I figured the dimensions for the cradle walls along with the thickness of the drawer liner material which is made from the synthetic rubber material. Once I had the side dimensions I measured the longest model I had on hand to figure the length of the cradle which this turned out to be about 15 inches long. I made the sidewalls about one and a half inches high and then proceeded to cut the base on the circular saw which is again 15 inches long. And then the sidewalls in order to cut these scrap pieces of wood I ran them through the band saw carefully measuring the one and a half inch measurement and then running these wood pieces through the saw. After test fitting all the pieces together I used wood screws to assemble the new locomotive cradle together. I used a box knife and a straight edge to cut strips of the drawer liner material which will ensure a soft cushioned interior lining for our cradle. I stained our new tool with red oak stain and then applied a few coats of polyurethane just to give it a nice professional finish. I spread clear coat silicone to the inside walls of the cradle using one of these Ross painters knives which then I glued the rubber like drawer liner material to this along the bottom and the sides wrapping it just a little bit around the top. I also put actually two layers of material fitting it into the bottom perfectly just to ensure soft roof no details broken you know what I mean. After this dried flat and smooth I applied felt self stick pads to the underside of the cradle acting as a feat. Then with all of that what I've ended up with is a new tool for gently holding models which helps facilitate katie coupler installation and overall locomotive customization and repair. It's a very simple process to build something like this costs virtually nothing you can do it in just a few hours and a tool like this is going to go through use for years. The one that I built here is probably going on 15 years old and it's worked great but now I've got two and this one manages a shop so it's kind of cool a neat tool build one yourself and that's this segment for What's Neat for this segment of What's Neat I've got George Bogatuck now every time you see George he's pitching a CVs about the wonderful soundtracks tsunami two decoders that have come out but today we're not even going to talk about anything about sound digital or anything else today I want to get to know George because quite honestly George is a very accomplished modeler as you've seen from his challenger locomotive and his 440 that he's shown us in previous videos but today we're going to get a peek at his layout a little bit of insight into who is George Bogatuck at soundtracks George welcome to What's Neat tell us about you your layout let's start with why is it you're in the hobby you've been working for soundtracks now for how many years about eight and a half years now it'll be nine years November 1st so I haven't worked today in almost nine years now so having a lot of fun doing it that's awesome when your job feels like play now you've been in the hobby pretty much since you were a child you got your start yeah I started around the age of 13 and I originally grew up in Arlington Texas between Dallas and Fort Worth and there was a hobby shop that was next door to the grocery store my mom went to all the time and so I would go over there and you know Google at the trains or just stare at them just fascinated with them and she would do her shopping and then every now and then she would pick me up something and I got to the point where I had a few models that I would take home and started running them on at that time Atlas sectional track on the carpet trying to run things and I started at about age 13 I had my first athern blue box GP 38 dash 2 which interestingly enough I still have it kind of a sentimental thing but I was lucky enough at the age of about 16 15 somewhere around there to kind of start part-time at that hobby shop they were moving across the street and they needed some extra bodies to help carry stuff so I was able to work there for a few years through high school to be able to get into the hobby and into the industry a little bit and I kind of got a feel for the retail side of it and granted I was very young so I didn't know everything but I thought I did and but I had a good time and then and then college came and spent some time there and then after that I ended up working at a auto parts store an independent chain of stores bounced around the Dallas-Fort Worth area with a few different stores and then the opportunity opened up to work at a Chevrolet dealer doing parts so I worked there for about six seven years something along those lines and then when I got laid off there I decided you know what I need to find something I want to do not something I have to do and it's amazing how much you enjoy your job when you actually enjoy what you're doing and it doesn't feel like work and and every day I kind of dreaded going into work working at the dealership because I knew everybody was upset because their cars broken it's gonna cost them money they didn't have or didn't plan on it and of course whatever they needed usually was out of stock or had to special order so now it's going to be a few days and I took the brunt of all that because of course I was the salesperson out there on this the floor so I kind of got frustrated by that because I'm trying to help people and they're still yelling at me so so yeah the opportunity came up Nancy had soundtracks opened the door and said well if you happen to be in town we'll talk to you and then a month later I was on the doorstep knocking on the door and at that point she couldn't avoid me we walked in and had an interview and after interviewing four or five different people in the office six seven hours later she sent me home and told me to pick up the real estate listings and I had basically walked in and talked myself into a position because they weren't actually hiring at the time but they realized the value and the assets that I could bring to the company okay as a you know a modeler interested and with of course my sales background so sales background and enthusiasm were the key point exactly now you've got a home layout now tell us a little bit about that so my small switching layout is just renting a house right now and so I don't have a whole lot of space that I can dedicate to a layout but I have a it's about 20 21 feet long by two foot wide it's a small shelf switching layout for now I personally model in 1978 Missouri Pacific I chose 1978 because it's kind of in that area of changing over from first generation diesels to second generation diesels so I could have a good mix of both on my layout and modeling the Missouri Pacific of course I grew up in Texas so that's what I saw Missouri Pacific the Mopac and so I've done some research and learned a lot I've joined the Missouri Pacific Historical Society and learned a lot from those guys about the history of the railroad and I've decided not modeling East Texas I want to do the White River route which is southern Missouri northern Arkansas nice beautiful scenery and and it still runs the route the railroad that I enjoy that I've got so many models of that I couldn't change over if I wanted to but for now I've got a small switching layout just based on a generic town I'll call it southern Missouri just because I don't have any dedicated space for it it's not based on any track plan or anything but it gives me something to play with something to keep enjoying and keep testing my skills and so I can still learn so when I do get that space that I'm able to build the layout that I want yeah five years from now yeah what you're gonna have I'm hoping so I'm hoping it's shorter than that but we'll see okay so I'm you know it gives me something to play with and it's of course using DCC and with the tsunami twos I've been able to include a lot of that into my small switching layout so I've been able to play around and have it sort of a test bed as well as my own enjoyment for the layout so what kind of DCC system do you use I mean we have one that you like I have two or three actually at home I have the CVP easy DCC and I also have the NCE power cab and a couple other small ones and it just depends on what I'm doing what with what which one I choose currently the NCE is hooked up to my to my layout because it does have access to the higher functions functions 14 there are 12 13 14 all the way up to 28 so I can have all access to all those functions when I'm doing my switching a lot of really cool stuff going on so the next time we're at a swap meet and we see George we can shake his hand and know a little background about him other than just soundtracks as much as I love my job and enjoy it yeah it's fun to get to talk about me for a little bit most people want to know all about the decoder and everything and I'm always happy to do that but it's good to get to know the modeler and other friends in the hobby because I really look at this job as much as I enjoy it to a certain level I feel like I'm paying back to the community nobody in this world is born knowing how to model railroad and so when I was at that young age a lot of people took me under their wing and taught me a lot of talent a lot of skills taught me what I was doing quite frankly and I can you know thank those people for years many of them are still good friends of mine right now that that I've known for more than 20 years give a shout out but so when I'm talking to modelers and trying to help them understand DCC and the decoders and things like that I feel like I'm trying to help them maximize their enjoyment as a way of paying back to the community as opposed to just simply trying to sell the name on my shirt or try to sell the decoders so I genuinely enjoy helping people and I'll be happy you know patient because like in nobody's born knowing how to do this everybody has their own way of learning things and I'm always willing to help and and able to help anytime again awesome man thank you for being on what's neat no problem thank you to talk to everybody this is one of my favorite segments on the show where we say what's Ken doing at 3 30 in the morning and tonight I'm doing an athern photo shoot using some gorgeous f units here a Southern Pacific shot I've got the headlights of the locomotive lit using a AA battery it's actually just taped in the locomotive the bulbs are glued into place to give me the effect that I need for the shot I have no idea exactly how these photos are going to come out I've been shooting for about two hours so I've got some moon shots with the moon in the background and some other shots that are tighter on the locomotive where the moon's not in the background but through the magic of video I can now show you how the actual photograph came out for this photo shoot should be pretty interesting with the moon and the lighting I lit the locomotives with a flashlight for just a few seconds I'm sure Chris Palomero's may have had just a little bit of a hand in photoshopping on this but otherwise this is another cool athern photo shoot that I'm doing here at 3 30 in the morning and this one was a nighttime shoot and I'm shooting out here with exposures set the camera for bulb so I've literally been shooting about maybe two to three minute exposures and just licking the whole scene with just a flashlight to give it some light plus I did have the lights on on this side of the house up here as some fill light and the main lights on the back of the house that are lighting me up now for this videography were in fact turned off but otherwise that's just another quick nighttime setup be creative try this on your own it's a lot of fun to do and that's this quick photography segment on what's neat for this segment of what's neat I'm doing another outdoor photography photo shoot today and I'm shooting these inner mountain ET 44 AC locomotives otherwise known as tier 4 locomotives and Dirk Reynolds picked up three of these locomotives from inner mountain and I ran test ran them last night but right now I'm doing a photo shoot I'm working a few athern models in and just trying to set up something really nice just just to make a good shot to have some illustration photographs for this segment of video that we're shooting but the fact is these models are actually quite beautiful they run very similar to Kato units there's a lot of detail on them look at the chain rigging here on this you need Pacific truck and also I noticed that the journals the roller bearings they spin on the wheels which is kind of cool so when they're running you can actually see those spinning neat design a lot of thought and work must have went into these locomotives I think they come with low sound the way they are right now but we're just going to shoot just a few more photographs of these pretty impressive models can't wait to take them inside and run them on the layout but I just wanted to share them with you because this is the first time I've actually got the touch and work with these beautiful tier 4 locomotives from inner mountain and they're kind of worth a look so that's this quick segment of what's neat so we've brought Dirk's tier 4 inner mountain locomotives inside to try to run them here and see how they run on the layout so I'm going to duck out of the way and run the camera and Dirk tell me what do you think about these beautiful models that you've picked up here do you like them? I think they're tremendous the biggest thing that I want to point out are the grills when we shot these at the RPM meet it was rather dark in there you can't really do a lot with fluorescent lighting but once you bring these inside and boy we took them outside and shot them those grates underneath those grills just popped and really really looked good so I'm pretty impressed with this right now ball bearings I love that that really looks just like the the Kato's did or do no they did a good job they're nice models thanks for picking these up and letting us play with them Dirk appreciate you sharing these inner mountain locomotives with us on what's neat for this segment of what it's neat I'm actually taking off a little private time to enjoy running some trains if you can believe I've worked that into my schedule and I wanted to paint the wheels on these freight cars these are some of the nicest tank cars these are new ones from athern and I just love these I want to put some Katie couplers on them and get them to run on the layout and just have them run perfectly all the way around the room but the problem is if I put a tank car like this into my locomotive cradle to put Katie couplers on it I'll probably end up breaking things because as soon as you take the tank car and you put it into this hard foam liner and then you start putting any amount of pressure on it at all to do any of the decals they're just totally going to end up with handrails that are just destroyed and at this point you're going to cry because you just ruined your freight car so I've come up with a solution a few minutes ago I was looking at this microfiber cloth this stuff is so soft and I was thinking why couldn't I take a piece of this cloth and cut it up into some long strips about three or four inches wide and then cut those strips in half and then I'll roll each one of those strips up and put them into the locomotive cradle which would then create about a half of an inch of a gap so that when I put the tank car into the cradle I can easily change the couplers and avoid damaging any of the parts so I've done that and I think this is a good way to go and I can also paint the wheels while it's in this cradle and I'll get these cars to run nice without any damage at all to the tops of them which you know how that works out you just don't you don't want to do it so that's this segment on what's neat for this segment of what's neat I've got Ron Perry who's come all the way from Canada just in Trudeau territory thank you for being here Ron I'm glad to have you on the show and today we're looking at these ITLA scale models we've checked out their website they've got a great variety of laser cut kits available and the first thing that Ron pointed out to me that I've noticed is these aren't necessary laser kits as much as they are a puzzle they're about an eighth of an inch thick the walls are very dynamic and robust and I would really equate this to building a puzzle wouldn't you think rather than just a laser kit because it looks very simple I think that a kit is very daunting when you look at it especially when it's nicely done and finished and stuff like that but when you see it in the part sheet like this it becomes like very you know you wrap it in your mind very easily this kit appears to have three sets of parts so to me this looks like a one-night project so we're gonna attempt to build this right now Ron has got a great experience with building these kits from this company already and that is I want you to check it out on their website ITLA scale models this is a brand new kit they've just come out with so we've got the very first one to show off on this the York Industries and the one that we're building today is the Olympia tool and die company so we're gonna get started on that we're gonna pull out some craft paints and Ron I guess you've got your work cut out for you for the next couple of hours so we pulled out a few paints then we want to put into this kit now we don't have all the colors that we need which I think is nice I like to mix my own paints I'm going to make the windows this nice army green we're gonna put some red on the door we're gonna put some red bricks in but I like to mix my paints a little bit so that there's variation in the color and then we're gonna make ourselves some aged concrete with these two colors to add a little bit of warmth to our gray and that's gonna be our cement and stucco just get a little bit of paint on the brush and paint while the parts are in the sheet and this makes it easier for you to visualize what colors are gonna go on which and it also makes sure that you don't get paint on other pieces and many amateur modelers you'll see little colors of paint where they couldn't quite get the brush into the edge nice enough and by doing these separately on the sheet you'll never get that errant paint all over the place I'm just gonna try to dry brush you don't want to get a lot of paint onto these windows you just want to kind of dry brush it just to get color on we don't want to glob it on just want to get a little bit of paint so very light very gently too because these are very delicate parts I don't know if the camera can really see how thin these moneys are very very thin so be delicate even though I look like I'm pounding it we've got a few parts here that are going to get a few different colors and I'm going to start with the wall capping at the top of the roof it's got some you know in the picture here I like to follow the pictures in the model sometimes they make the model look the same as on the picture of the instructions so I see a little bit of that this is copper up there so I'm gonna mix a little bit of gray just a wee bit of gray so using a very light gray I don't want to get a green that's on the same green as the windows I want to make it look like it's the the patina of copper I don't want to make the copper gold or anything like that just want to add a little bit of gray on it to get a tinge of green like that paint it on and then later we'll add a little bit of gray on top just to give it the variation we're looking for now I'm going to let this dry over about an hour because if I put the gray on right now it's going to mix with the green but if I allow this to dry a little bit and then I put the gray on then it will sit on top of the green color which is important so we're mixing some darker gray again with our really light gray here to get our concrete walls a little bit now this is going to be our stucco on these boards you know I've got a little bit of green on it that's okay again I like to have this variation come through on the boards because you know really gives a nice character to the model I think it's really important to mix your own paints there's nothing worse than stopping a project because you don't think you have the color we're just going to highlight this after we've dried it off and the handy-dandy oven so our red iron oxide paint here is a little bit bright for our doors and we don't really want to have a brand-new red paint on it anyway so we'll bring over a little bit of gray tone down the color a bit we'll bring the color back up again just want to tone it down first build it up to where we want it to have where we want to have it just gonna paint this door with the etchings on the wood it's gonna change the color of the paint a little bit and of course we can come back and and touch things up if we don't like the color which I might change it up later who knows some of these parts have both sides that you have to do kind of like this billboard frame and these railings that go on to the outside so paint them gray on both sides while they're in the sheet again just makes things easier for painting them you really don't want to be handling these parts while you're hitting them with a brush and stuff like that so being in the sheet keeps them safe here we're going to paint our walls a red brick color however in our fantasy world when we got the windows bricked up the contractor came in with the yellow bricks so what we're gonna do is we're gonna pull the yellow brick out we're gonna put it to the side and then we're gonna paint the wall with red brick we've got ourselves some burnt sienna and raw sienna here and this is some oxide red we're not really gonna use any oxide red but we're gonna use the raw and the burnt sienas and those are great brick colors they're basically brick in the jar paint on this gonna leave some brick dry there and when I dip my brush again grab some raw sienna start mixing these colors because our bricks really are pretty lively now by adding pewter gray to our chamomile beige color here we're putting it on the wall as our stucco and as you can see we're adding just a wee bit of gray and it's really changing the color a lot mixing your colors to get the color you want is the best way to build a model the best things I'd like to point out about the design of these kits is something that I really appreciate is that these these micro plywood windows I don't know if you can see them here they're in the sheet here and and they're they're made out of airplane wood airplane model wood it's a micro plywood however what I would like to point out is that the lintel on top and bottom are both on the sheet so that when you put it in the wall itself the the window is pushing our lintels out a little bit so you can see the profile on the edge of the building with no trouble at all if you're building red big brick burnt sienna and raw sienna are the colors that you need to do these two colors together are every color of brick that you can find from yellow brick to red red brick yellow brick here doesn't have any paint at all on it as you can see this MDF board is really lightly colored but when the laser patina hits the wood and you start adding other colors to it brings out the life of this yellow brick and really no other kit on the market looks like yellow brick like this okay what color paint did you use on that yellow brick there's no paint that's not paint that's patina tell me what that means because I'm probably gonna edit this out but maybe I won't but what a patina is is that when you burn the laser all the burn marks color the brick a little bit and that's that's the color it adds a little bit of yellow to the brick color itself and the only thing you need to do is add a dull coat to this at the end to seal the wood up so you put a nice dull coat finish on that and it makes it look like yellow brick just plain on the material yep that's another benefit to using the material from these kits wouldn't you say definitely that's really great before we glue all our walls together I would like to point out that this building can be a four-sided structure or a background flat and because it can be a background flat ITLA scale models has put in these extra pieces so that you can make it into a background flat but we're not going to use those we're gonna take our walls that have been fully assembled and painted we are going to be in the tab and slot section here because we want to have a nice connection between the walls themselves wipe it off the back so we don't glue ourselves to the table and just push them together now if some glue squeezes out you wipe off the access really don't worry about it though because we have these covers that go over the joining sections so I'm gonna go over these walls and put them together this way and then we'll be back when we stand the structure up and glue all those walls together now one thing I like to do is take one of these 90 degree edges and throw it in a corner just to make sure we've got a nice corner in there only takes a few seconds for each of these corners does to to to form up to you know to stick together so we leave this for a couple seconds this one's already been glued so we'll put this one on and I'm in the back here I'll use my piece to make the corners 90 degrees another way to do this is to take put the roof together I guess we're going to try to put the roof in and I'm going to prop the roof up with these pieces that came out of the parts sheet they're kind of the scrap and these are going to put make sure the roof isn't flush with the top it's kind of inset a little bit just gonna add a little bit of glue here pop it into the top my handy dandy applicator it's gonna be a little bit messy but the stuff will take and those are wooden spacers to give you space between the roof for your offset yeah that works nice like that so we just let it dry now and do this corners putting some color on this roof here so that when we get the details on we can make them the show of the roof because these kits really have a lot of nice details that go on them the great thing about these these strips as they hide all your tab and slot corners and joiners just put a little bit of glue kind of like to put a lot of glue on and then wipe it spread it out that way it doesn't really squeeze out the edges of your your wood which is important because it leave mucked up stuff now another reason why we painted our model first if we got our glue on the wood the wood wouldn't really accept the paint like it does properly sign that refers to another kit of theirs check it out it's really nice looking Ron I gotta tell you just looking at the kit the way you've got it right now it almost looks like you're finished done today and you've done that seriously you we've been doing a lot of goofing off but you don't have any more than just about two hours two and a half hours in this building until construction time and the coloring treatment all of it I think looks great which is a testament to the ITLA scale models and so far what they've done with this Olympia tool and die casting building I really appreciate you come in here and building it let's take it and set it up on a diorama and take it outside and shoot some photos of it and see how good this looks but I gotta tell you what we're just about done with this segment so after working on this building again for about three hours I would say that this thing came out pretty darn nice judging from these outdoor photograph that we just shot of this ITLA scale model building it's literally a puzzle it just fell together your color treatment was really nice as it shows here in these photos thanks for coming thanks for doing this Ron say something wrong thank you Ken and you know I think it's a testament to how easy these kits can be built and they shouldn't be intimidating to anybody no that's a fact because you can be a rank this could be your first kit and it could be the best kit you ever do and make you feel good so check them out under $50 ITLA scale models and we're gonna build some more of these because I really like how they go together and that's pretty much this layout building segment on what's neat all of the model railroad products seen in this episode of what's neat are available through caboose in Denver Colorado or order online at my caboose.com


I love a good dinner party. It combines all the things in life that I love the most. So bringing people together, cooking, home decor, hosting, card games. Dinner parties are really creative. So today I'm taking you through every step of the way. We're getting very detailed, sharing tips that I've learned, easy go-to recipes, tablescape preferences, how I craft the menu, everything down to exactly when I send out my invites. I hope you all enjoy and be sure to subscribe if you guys have not already. We're a week out from the dinner party. Something in 2024 that I'm trying to do is to invite less people, essentially. And what I mean by that is I just wanna have more intimate dinner parties. I can seat 12 people comfortably at this house because I have my outdoor table and then I have my indoor table, which I love. And it's really nice for bigger things. But I don't love when I invite someone over for dinner and I don't even get to really talk to them at all. So I would rather just keep them smaller and more intimate because sometimes I feel like when they're bigger and you're so separate, it's harder to curate the vibe if that makes any sense. So for this dinner party, I'm actually only inviting three people. So there's gonna be four of us. This is my smallest dinner party yet. And I'm such a go-picker at home that I feel like that's just not enough people. But really it is and we are doing a vision board dinner party and we're kind of doing some business stuff. So it is better if it's smaller so everyone feels more comfortable to like talk and open up. You have to think about what you're actually doing at the dinner party.  Like I feel like if we had 12 people we were doing vision boards, we maybe wouldn't get as into it. People wouldn't feel as comfortable just because there's so many people. Like vision boards are honestly like a pretty vulnerable thing. So anyways, there's gonna be four of us for dinner. This is gonna be a very simple, easy dinner party. I send all my invites out on party full. If you guys don't use party full, you need to. It's amazing, this isn't sponsored. I wish I used them for everything but it's a link that you can just text or send or email or whatever. So easy to make the invite. And then you do the RSVP list on there and then it has all the information. One of my like host pet peeves. And I don't know why I feel like this has bothered me my whole life is when someone asks you like who all is going. And I think just because I know when you're a host there's so much going on that like sitting there and thinking about it and sending the list to everyone day of is just like kind of annoying. And also to me, I think it just feels kind of rude because it's like, are you only going depending on like someone, you know what I mean? I don't know. Maybe I'm just like ridiculous. I just feel like it makes people feel like they're not good enough to go and they're trying to see if other people are cool. And like, you know what I'm saying? I don't know. But it is nice to know who's going for car pulling reasons and other things and like talking about what you're wearing. I get it. Party full is really awesome for that point because it shows the guest list and it shows who all is confirmed. Who isn't coming, who's a maybe, it says the time. And then it also says the address. And as all the details, everything you need to know at that link. So I love it. Anyways, I'm sending out my invites. I typically do this around one to two weeks in advance. It depends on how big the dinner party is. So if it was a bigger, maybe friend's giving or something, I would send it out two weeks in advance. But just because this is something that's a smaller group and we've been talking about it, I'm just doing it a week in advance. We are five days out from the dinner party. I should also go through and decide how I'm going to design the table. With hosting a dinner party, you want to get as much done as possible beforehand. So the day of, it's the least amount of stress. So like I said earlier though, this is going to be one of my smallest dinner parties. I'm really not stressed about this one, but still I'm doing all my normal steps. Guys, look at how cute my mug is. I got it from Texas Treasures. To all my Texans, you know, the store in the mall that you think no one goes to. I do, I do. It actually closed at North Park. Are they still in business? So anyways, let's go to the hosting closet and we can at least decide on our recipes. Our menu, if you will. Also, for bigger dinner parties, I typically will have menus made. I don't know if I'm going to do that this time. We'll see. And I like to do place cards and stuff as well because it's cute, it's a little out of touch. It's fun. The issue right now is that I don't know how to use my printer. So I've been going back and forth to FedEx all week already, so I think I might just do it. So I like host. So it's H-A-U-S-T-E. I think it's host.co. I think it's their website, I'll link it below too.  It's really nice. And then I know there's someone at Sea and they're all over. Okay, now we're going to the hosting closet. Here we go. Ignore all the frames, y'all. I'm actually working on making a bit of a gallery wall in here. I want to get photos and frames from every single dinner party and then hang them up, do a little gallery wall. But I haven't decided if I want to do this wall or I want to do this wall or I could just do bulletin board and pin them up, but I think I want to frame them. So I don't know. And I'm really preferring more of an antique-style frame so I don't even know if I'm going to use all of these. You guys let me know what you guys think. I also kind of want Macy to paint me something. Maybe I'll commission our favorite artist. If y'all are new to my channel and you guys haven't seen this or if y'all just haven't seen my TikToks recently, I just reorganized my hosting closet. This is the most extra part of my house and I was really saying something because I'm just extra in general. So like everything I do, I would be like as extra. Maybe not like, maybe no, my house do my closet. Okay, you know? To give you guys an example of what I was talking about though, this is a menu from host. So my cousin, she didn't make it to this one. So I still have hers. I want to start saving the menus as well and framing those and just using those as inspo. Maybe I could put these on a bulletin board and I could do that up here but it's a little cute bulletin board. And I've also thought about wallpapering this entire room. So we'll see. It's not a room as a closet, but you know. Again, like I said, extra. So I was able to customize the actual menu and then change the names, which is awesome. Down here is where I keep all of my cookbooks. Reading cookbooks is actually one of my favorite things. I'll bring them to hair appointments and go through them and decide. And then I'll typically, if I like the recipe, that's when I write it down in the recipe journal and then that's when I grab for every single day. We're out of stock on the recipe journals right now, but get on the wait list and follow our Instagram because they're selling like crazy. So if you want one, definitely stay tuned. Okay, so I want to go through this dinner party project. I got this in anthropology last year and I haven't even used it yet. If I'm being honest, I am so desperately want to make Ida Gardening's engagement chicken again. And that is my favorite thing to make for a dinner party. If you don't know the story of the engagement chicken, it basically Ida Gardening, which was an editor when she was working for the magazine. She had this chicken roast recipe. She gave it to a bunch of like, I think four different girls at work and all four of them got engaged within like four months of making it for like their significant other. So that's the story behind it. But honestly, it's just a really good chicken roast and it's so easy to make. But it's like my, it's one of my favorite things. Actually, if not anything that I cook, it's just the best recipe. Like it's the first one I wrote down in my recipe journal. I'm doing wine for this dinner party. I normally would do like a cute little cocktail, but I'm also doing dry January. So I'm going to have like non-alcoholic wine options and then wine options for the girls. My favorite wine brands are Winey Baby and Abilene. And I have one here right here and Abilene, literally right here guys. See, no joke. Oh, you know what? And I love, oh my God, I don't even think about this. I'm actually not a Rosé girl, but I am a Rosé girl for social bird. I love their stuff. And I feel like Rosé is more of like, I have that at brunch, you know what I mean? Abilene Rosé wine, social bird Rosé. I don't have any right now because I love it. And I also have Winey Baby and this is Rosé, I see. Because it's like the ones that I grabbed for the least. I like white wine by the way. Not that any of you guys asked or cared, but I love white wine. Anyways, so goes through appetizers, mains, cocktails, salad side, pizza night, tacos, breakfast for dinner. I want to do a book on like all my different tables games, but I would need to get like even better, you know, like I'm like good at it, but I'm not like incredible, you know? And I feel like with my design for this dinner party, I'm going to go neutrals and then just go crazy with the flowers. This year I also want to challenge myself to do like themed dinner parties of like five people I don't know. Like we, it's like invited for like a friend of a friend or I like the idea of like a five star weekend. If you guys have read that book by Ellen Hildebrand, basically in that book, this woman invites four different women from four different phases of her life to a weekend at her house on Nantucket. And I just think that was such a good dinner party theme too. And like since I'm home, I could do it. I just think it'd be so fun. Oh my God, this book is awesome guys. Like a what should I make for dinner flow chart? I will link this book. I can't believe I haven't done it yet. Oh my God. And it's all sectional. That is amazing. We literally have like many of these laid out for you. I'm still stuck on doing a chicken roast though. That's just really what I'm feeling. So I think I'm going to stick to my anegard and roast chicken.  This looks so good. And it's a great vegetarian option. It's the braised garlicky eggplant with chickpeas and tomatoes. And it says it's very easy and you can make it ahead. And it's vegetarian. So it's a great option to have if you have vegetarian. But also just in general, I love eggplant. I love cooking with eggplant. So I think I'm going to try that recipe this week just in general and see how that goes. Okay, so I also hate making salads. Like I'm trying to become a salad girl. So I need to push myself to make a salad. This one actually. Okay, I like these roasted carrots. And then there's this brown rice. But again, brown rice is something you can store and make it in advance. I can start doing these long videos for every single dinner party that I host. And I can do one where I'm hosting like 10 people and you guys can see a more stressful one. Figured this was a better one to start with. This charred with the broccoli. I love that. Looks so good. And then for desserts, the convenient part about having a fire pit is that we just do spores. So after dinner, we can just go out, have hot chocolate and do spores. And it's just an amazing experience. And it's the one last thing that I have to worry about. But I will say I just made a peanut butter pie that's essentially a no bake peanut butter pie. But I love filming these videos guys. I'm obsessed with this woman Ruth who it's hungry for a home. I found her on the HomeWorthy YouTube channel which is like my current obsession. I love it. She has her Pennsylvania like farm basically but I bought her a cookbook and there's a peanut butter pie there. It is so good. It's literally only 10 minutes of baking because you make a spores crust which is so easy. It's crushed up spores and butter and it's the easiest thing ever. And the rest of it you just mix it all together and then you put it in your store in the fridge for an hour. It's amazing when there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen for like holidays. I mean it's good for anything because it's so easy to make and it tastes amazing. But like my family on the holidays there's too many people in the kitchen and it gets really stressful. People want you out and the right parents are like please get out. So that's an amazing thing to do because you don't need it all the time. So it makes it so much easier and then you don't have to worry about it being warm and whatever. It's an amazing, amazing dessert. So if I didn't have the spores I would probably just stick to that. I'll definitely be doing that this year. Okay I found the salad I'm gonna make in here. It's the Carol King salad which you can tailor seasonally which I like. I would like to have just like a go-to salad that I make that is great with every single meal for dinner parties because I hate making salad and if I just find one that's like my solid go-to my tried and true, I would appreciate that. So if you guys have good recs please leave them below. So our menu. I'm a garden engagement chicken. The Carol King salad. The roasted carrots and the charred broccolini. Now for alcohol we're gonna have wine and we're gonna have non-alcoholic wine. For dessert we're gonna have hot chocolate and spores. I always think it's better to have more food than not enough so I could probably go without one of the vegetable sides but honestly like I'm feeling, I kind of wanna do it selfishly because I just wanna try it on your recipe too so. Anyways, okay our menu is set. I'm gonna make a grocery list and I will do the grocery shopping a day before because there's a couple things that I can prep before. So I'll prep probably all the stuff for the salad, the dressing and I have to look and see if there's anything else I wanna prep. It's the night before the dinner party. It's 4 p.m. I just finished work for the day and now I'm in dinner planning prep mode. So I have all of our recipes written down but I didn't have written down from the book by the way. Last night I actually did end up, I don't know if I mentioned this recipe already. Recipe testing this for a future dinner party just in case I invite the one single vegetarian that there is in Texas over my house. I am prepared and honestly incredible. I made a TikTok about it and it's the bravest garlicky eggplant with chickpeas and tomatoes. I just heated it up. It is so good. Like I'm having it for dinner too. I'm just so hungry today but honestly, highly recommend. I love this cookbook, I'll link it below. So I just wrote down all of my recipes in my recipe journal. I'm gonna go through the pantry before and just see what I need to get. And I'm so excited. This is like my favorite part is the grocery shopping. Well honestly, maybe not, I like doing it. Making the flowers and stuff. I also just got this new bag and I'm gonna take it. I don't know if this clashes or, you know, it's good enough. I just am such a brown suede girl these days. We're heading off to Trader Joe's and a lot of the recipes that I am cooking tonight have prep options so I can fully do the rice tonight. I can prep the salad and then I can prep part of the like charred broccoli if I want to. I don't think I will but I have the option. These recipes I feel like are just really good staples for gender parties, that's why I chose it for this week for this video. And I'm really excited. Again, always Trader Joe's because it's cheaper. So I'm packing my recipe journal. I'm packing my camera, my actual person here. I might even do my rabia and metacosses to fill with. I need business, okay? Bag is massive. This is time to prep for this dinner party. I mean, it's stunning, right? Hey guys, I'm obsessed. Not only am I rewatching Gossip Girl, I'm also listening to Scott Patterson's podcast. It's so weird to see like Luke Daines, not super like Luke Daines. I don't know how to describe it. I think going to a grocery store with headphones on is the most therapeutic thing. I'm also really craving the Trader Joe's like chocolate covered peanut butter, Reese's Cup things. They're so good, I need to get some. Comment below what team you are on Gossip Girl. I am rewatching, I haven't rewatched it fully since I was like a kid.   Anyways, off the Trader Joe's we go. Made everything besides Dill. And I can't remember one more thing that I'll need to stop for tomorrow. Okay, so these are the matted glasses. Y'all just saw some footage that I filmed with these glasses, right? I totally forgot they also have speakers. So I had my headphones on for literally no reason. And it's so nice because when you're in the store, wherever you're recording, you just hit this button. You can also tell them to do it, but I wish you'd hit this button. Do my voice just crack? Okay.  And then the second that it stops, it immediately plays that there's no lag. They're so nice. And it's so fast. I can't, I really just like cannot get over it. It's really impressive. I also booked myself a blowout for tomorrow morning. I typically will get a blowout on Thursday mornings anyways.  So to have like an hour and a half, two hours that it's knocking out from the blowout chair, worth it. Okay, I'm gonna try something new with my floor arrangement too. We're gonna see how this goes. Okay, back home. I'm honestly exhausted tonight. This week has been a really wild week. But I think what I'm gonna do first is lay out the table just so that's all set. And then I can decide what actual like bases I wanna use so that I can work on the floor arrangements. Thank God, you always deserve a little treat, you know? I just haven't had these, which I'm sure if you have a trader's rose you have because they're so popular there. They're so good. Also, I don't know, I got some pitted dates because I love peanut butter and dates. They're so good. All you do is stuff them with peanut butter, put them in the fridge in like a sticker's bar but like a healthier version. Unreal. They're basically this, but like healthier. We last minute might have one other person coming. I think I actually wanna use my grandparents wedding china. I just got passed down. They got divorced, so I got the china, okay? They got divorced years ago, but the china's still good, you know? So, I'm thinking, how old do y'all like best? This one's bigger, I think we're healthy with this one. I thought I had a cool toned salad bowl. I definitely did. I feel like it's kind of a weird vibe with that though. This is like really crazy. This is a very large salad bowl though, so this is going to work. I don't know if I'm gonna regret that. I think I'm gonna be, I'm into this. I really do. It's just like really nice, really classic looking. A simple fold, correct. But I like this one. Simple, it's decadent, crazy dinner party by any means. I think this is the way to go. Obviously, I'm gonna replace these. I can keep using this, and that's the vibe. I've replaced these, but I also even have this like mini dish that I haven't used for all this tomorrow. It's a little appetizer, and now I can use this for something. I don't remember if these fit in here. Oh, they do, perfect. Okay, candlesticks are also from Amazon. I'll have all of that, most of my vases are also from Amazon. Yeah, perfect. Okay, we're finally getting somewhere. I think it's actually gonna end up looking good. Pretty sure. I'm gonna get the utensils so much that I think I'm just gonna go buy another set. I've been meaning to do this for so long, tomorrow and at home. So I'm not even gonna get the utensils that tonight, but normally I would have everything set completely to the point where I don't even touch anything. The day of, it's all about taking off the workload on the actual day. Like doing everything slowly throughout the week because it is a lot of work, but it's manageable if you split it up. Also, you can always ask people to bring things. I recently have come to the realization that I have to start asking people to do that, but for this one, I did it just because it's a lot less people and I wanted to film this video. So in front of mine, the cockroaches are super cute. I might use those, they're pink. These match this display better and they each have a name on them. It's from Marga Lee's brand, No Particular Order. I got that for my set mom for Christmas and they're so cute, but I think that, that's cute. It's good to have like, cop to not do anything question-wise, that's fine. But always, always, always have something to do at the dinner party, like dinner party and something and it doesn't need to be like something crazy, but like a dinner party game, like the card games that I have, midnight cat card games, like all that stuff. By the way, if y'all are waiting and wanting to buy it and it's just out of stock, stay tuned, we have a lot of upcoming things. They are coming back in stock. Yeah, I think that's cute, I like those. So we'll do that and then I'm gonna wash all of these. I'm gonna end up washing all the dishes as well. And then I have cards that's literally perfect with playing with them with my cousin last night when she was over, so. We're really messy and just kind of all over the place and also that's like all I can do. And then I have this one and this one which I'll mess with because that's not the vibe, but I need to cut it once I actually put it on the table. The only thing is you really should have lower floral arrangements and not like this massive one for dinner party for a bunch of reasons on the other conversations. So we will probably end up moving this one because like you can't see diagonally, you know? But I do think it's really pretty. I mean it may be like the move of tomorrow, but we'll see, this needs to be cut. Like that's ugly, but I'll do it throughout. I like the green. My thought process was like the green and my thought process was like, you know, new year, green, new. This is what we have. I'm liking it. It's easy, it's simple. I'm gonna get new use since it's tomorrow. I'm a fan. And the last arrangement I'm doing, I just always do some hydrangeas for the bathroom. The other thing about Trader Joe's flowers that makes them the best is that they last the longest. Imagine once I have my own cut flower garden, which by the way, I did garden bed was built a couple hours ago, and I can just cut flowers from my own backyard. That's gonna be so amazing. You typically really need four and they only ever give you three, but it's okay. Oh, we have extra, so I'm just gonna like kind of mess with this a little bit. So I'm at least gonna make the salad dressing tonight. I don't know how much I have in me to prep, but also honestly, the recipes that I'm making are pretty simple. The, well I can't even make the rice because I need to. Anyways, starting with the salad, the Karel King's salad, this is the winter version. The dressing is just three tablespoons lemon juice, one tablespoon Dijon mustard, two garlic cloves, one tablespoon salt, one quarter tablespoon pepper, one tablespoon honey, two tablespoons white wine vinegar. I actually can't because I didn't have white wine vinegar. And all right guys, well normally I really would prep at least like one thing the night before, but I guess I'm just doing all my cooking tomorrow, which is fine because I did mark off tomorrow afternoon to prep. We're gonna be cooking them, but it's kind of nice because I'm like really crushing today. And I need to rest before my guests arrive. Good morning, it is dinner party day. It's 7.30, I'm on my way to my blowout appointment. I have to run a couple errands this morning. I've been waking up at five a.m. every day and getting so much that I cleaned my entire house this morning, so we're pretty much good to go. But I'm gonna go work from the chair. My favorite place to work, dry bar, obviously. And we're gonna get going. I like these and it's a good deal. Well, I don't like them, that's the issue. It's a really good deal, but I don't like them. I love that it comes with a caddy because I also have to buy one of those. But I really wanna get a silver flower set, like antique silver. I'm actually gonna try to organize with this and just see how I like it. Because the other one I have that actual organizer, but I feel like this would just be easy for actually serving and bringing out, like from the table to the closet. Here's my blowout, by the way. It's extra curly right now just because I want it to last for a week.  I think I'm gonna prep a little bit of the food now just so I can prep, then clean. I need to take a quick 30 minute nap. I'm waking up by now, I'm just so tired. And then get going with cooking and stuff later. It is currently 2.20 PM and I'm going to do my makeup. I was just getting some work done on the couch and I also made a little menu. No, sorry. I made a little schedule for cooking. I can show you guys how I made it, but it's important to work backwards. So when I started doing dinner parties, I feel like the really overwhelming part is like not knowing when to put what in the oven and like getting it the timing right so that it's still warm when the guests arrive. So I separate it by like warm foods, hot foods, warm foods, cold foods, but I used to wait until the last minute to do my makeup and get ready and honestly that is a horrible thing to do. Do it hours in advance because typically things come up and you don't want to be stressed and you want to be ready. And I'm always like rushing to get ready and it ends up just not being the vibe. So, okay, this is not the best thing ever. There are brands that literally will do all of this for you like host, H-A-U-S-T-E. You can buy, guide, and it'll tell you everything you need to do schedule-wise will be good. But this is just easiest for me right now. If I had a printer, that's probably what I would be doing, but I do have a printer. I just can't figure out how to use it. I need this stuff and I need less technology in the kitchen. Anyways, cooking schedule, the key is to work backwards. I know that I'm serving food at seven.  Chicken rolls, char broccolini, brown rice, served warm. Carol's thinking salad obviously not served warm. So this is my general schedule. It really helps. And I used to put all the food out here and I would separate it with like post-it notes on like what ingredients are for what meal. Like I would put them in groups, but I'm not going to do that this time because I'm kind of cooking things one at a time. So I'm just going to grab everything we use in place. Is that how you say that? Guys, I don't know. It just means put all of your ingredients out and measure them before you start cooking because it really makes the biggest difference and I ignored that for pretty much my entire life until this year. I love you to tell you it makes cooking 5,000 times easier. So I'm going to make this. I'm going to put all the recipes in the description. So I don't necessarily need to go through it exactly here, but I'll give you guys like tips and stuff as I go through. But I'm going to start with the salad just because I can chill the dressing and things like that. It's going to be easy. It's now 3.30. I have prepped the chicken. Have my recipe journal here. This roasting pan, by the way, I just got from Amazon. It's only like $16 and I really like it so far. I think everyone needs to have a good like go-to roasted chicken recipe. Just because it is such a staple and this is so good. Ignore the water. I'm heating it up right now, but I cleaned and dried all of my greens. I have the salad just been prepped and I'm going to chop up some stuff for the salad just so it's ready. But this is pretty much prepped. Put my apron on. These are still available, by the way. I brought my housewife aprons. It's fabulous. I love it so much. Okay, it's now 4 p.m. and I just chopped up the toppings that I need for the brown rice. I'm really excited to try this recipe. It's literally titled Brown Rice That Doesn't Suck. So if I do end up liking it, I'll also do like a whole TikTok and everything, but all of this stuff is going to be, you know what, actually instead of, I mean, I know my handwriting is ugly, but instead of putting it all in the description, I'm actually just going to take photos of the recipes and put it on the front of my Instagram or my Instagram. So I'll have that linked. The chicken is pretty much good to go. It actually is set. At the end of the chicken, you do a little stuff, like you add some flour and some, we'll get to that point. But the salad is pretty much good to go and the rice is going to be easy and the broccoli, each hard broccoli needs to be easy too. So I'm going to take a little, maybe like hour break, get back to work. But I'm feeling good about this. These are really doable recipes, like very, very easy. It's five, 10, I just put the chicken in. Okay, so it's five, 30, and I'm going to add the rice in. This, I can just kind of reheat later. What I thought was interesting about this recipe, I've never done rice this way, is that once you turn the heat off, let it sit before opening the lid for 10 minutes and then adding everything. So I'll keep you guys posted on my thoughts on the recipe. This salad, by the way, is so good. I doubled the pair so I had extra. I haven't even topped it with the rest of the stuff. It's amazing. Like, wow, I thought I could have made salads. Here I am, chopped candy pecans. And then I'm going to grate some gouda. 623, I'm going to get changed. I already put on my outfit. It's very, very casual. Same jeans I was wearing earlier. And then I'm just going to do a little turtleneck and boots, maybe a belt. Very, very casual. This top is Oritzia. These are my second favorite pair of jeans that I own. I don't know, maybe a tie for first. My top two are Abercrombie. These are obviously Abercrombie. They're so good. If y'all ever need links to outfits, I link everything on LTK. And I wear a size 28 in Abercrombie jeans. And I get curve love though, important part. Okay, I feel like my hair, I need my hair to fall, but I feel like this is a great fit where I'm comfy. Oh my God, I have to show you guys these gloves that I got last night. By the way, I've been having my candles burning for a bit, but the guest bathroom is ready. So fluff, okay, floral arrangement, a little candle. The house smells amazing. Okay, time for some fire. I normally have this going all day, but I was comfy today, so I didn't. Back to the apron I go and then wait until y'all see the gloves that I got, okay? They're called hosting gloves. They're from Go-Heart World. They're so extra. I look to the point where there's even like a pearl on the ring finger, but I mean, they're so amazing. So I think it's time. Anyways, I was gonna say the Charred Broccoli is actually, or the Charred Broccoli, I was gonna say the Charred Broccoli is an amazing thing to make with this chicken because they're both at 425. So at the very end, you can just put that in there at like 15, and it like works together really well. The rice is definitely, it's been 10 minutes, I should put the stuff in. Let's see how much chicken's doing. It's looking pretty good. All right. Guys, thank God I'm so easy going in chill, you know? We're gonna have this. Let's see how this goes. It's almost seven, but I put on a Nancy Meyers playlist. That's always what I do. This one's on YouTube. It's on Spotify. The food is looking amazing. Salad is so good. Chicken's amazing as always. Rice, so good. Introduced to this woman, Ruth, okay? And she is from, I think, Hungry for Homes blog. But if I can recommend anything to you guys, like go watch this home-worthy video. It was so inspiring to me. She basically, she lives on land in Pennsylvania. She has a garden. She has all this stuff. And like the way that she just has her life is like my dream, like my goal.


I'm Theresa Gillian. I am the District 6 Community Resource Officer. My partner and I were conducting proactive patrols within the Ballpark neighborhood, and we had contact, a mail for trespass, which was a very low-level offense. We may not have even issued him a citation. At the time, he kept lying about his name and giving us false information, so we had decided that we were going to take him downtown to get him fingerprinted and see what else was maybe going on with that. The minute we grabbed him, we each had an arm, the fight was on. Those are the things that we can't control on the street, and you go from what seems to be a routine contact, and then it turned into a complete melee. The next thing I knew, my head had come into a forceful contact with the police vehicle, with the large trash can, and then ultimately I got knocked off my feet and my head hit the same end. My partner had gotten knocked over onto his back, and the suspect was on top of him, and I didn't know this at the time, but he was trying to take his gun. He had a hold of it, and he was, you know, pulling on his weapon, and I was able to get him off of my partner, and we were able to pan him down on the ground. He was bigger than I was. He was high, but all that was was getting the right angle and then using my body weight to pan him down. I was covered in feces. I mean, he was sweaty, and it was a mess. It was disgusting, and I mean, it could have been a very different story. It could have been an officer involved shooting. He could have shot my partner. I mean, if he would have got that weapon out, so I feel like being able to use that leverage and those angles and my body weight in the right position is really, I attribute that to what I learned from Jujitsu, but I believe that it saved my life.