Bruce Clark. I'd like to talk with you for a few minutes about the training, education, and skills development services available to court staff from the Federal Judicial Center. I'm sure that as a unit executive, manager, or a training specialist, you're well aware of the importance of training in keeping the federal courts running smoothly. You know that in an era of growing complexity and tight budgets, there's a real need for training programs that can help court employees hone their skills, learn new ones, and keep up with developments in technology. And you understand the bottom line payoff of successful skills training. It helps staff do their jobs better and saves the taxpayers money. And since you've worked with us before, we know you're likely to turn to the center as a resource, as a partner in training, as you consider creative ways to meet the training needs of your staff. You probably also know that we now conduct more than 90 percent of our programs for court employees in cities where those employees work, using instructors we've trained, or the latest video, computer, or satellite technology. But you might not be aware of the full range of programs we offer, or the precise ways these programs can pay off. And that's why we've made this video, to give you an overview of center services available to you and your staff, and how they can help. I'll be telling you about some of this, but we thought you should also hear from some people who've actually used our products. Clerks, managers, supervisors, probation and pretrial services officers, training specialists, unit execs, and judges. Let's start by looking at the range of programs that are available. As we do so, we'll also hear how the programs help staff do their jobs better. The programs fall into five broad categories. Developing non-supervisory staff, developing managers and supervisors, developing training at the local level, enhancing organizational effectiveness, and developing job aids. Programs in the first category, developing non-supervisory staff, help court employees develop job skills and enhance their working relationships with co-workers and managers. Working as a commercially produced program, the Center adapted for the courts to help non-supervisory personnel improve their work skills. The program really motivated our staff. It energized them. It delivered skills that they can use in the workplace and at home with their families. It's a tremendous program and it covers some very basic principles which we are pleased to see posted at most of the workstations today. Let's be even more specific about the benefits of working. One benefit that we noticed right away was that the clerks in our office, the deputy clerks, the people doing the docketing and intake section of the office were no longer afraid to ask co-workers for assistance, for help. And so we've seen an increase in productivity in the office, in the structure of the office because of those specific skills that they learned. Like many of the programs we deliver in home districts, working is what we call a packaged program. These programs are packaged in the sense that they come with a package of instructor guides, overheads, participant materials and sometimes videos. The majority of them are taught by center-trained court staff. Some can be taught by any court employee with training experience. Center education specialists work closely with subject matter experts from the courts in developing packaged programs. And when you put the two together, you get a pretty neat blend. I always felt that we were listened to carefully and that largely our program ideas were incorporated and adopted when we came up with something we wanted to tackle. Once the package is developed, it can be tailored to meet the needs of each court that requests it. Customer service is a packaged program designed specifically for intake deputies. It teaches them the difference between legal advice and procedural information, how to enhance their communication skills and how to deal with irate customers. Customer service in the courts made it very easy for our employees to dialogue with the attorneys that would come in or to answer the questions correctly or to steer them to where to get the right answers. Those kinds of things were immediate payoffs. Other center programs in this cluster focus on safety skills training for officers and support staff. Recently we had somebody who was carrying a gun, an offender, who was carrying a gun in our office. And if we had not taken the precautions that we were taught in the officer safety program, and that is that we should have secure offices and that the person, we should know what the person has on them, we would not have known that person had a gun. The second general category of center programs for staff is those that help managers, supervisors and others in leadership positions develop skills in planning, delegating, counseling and communicating. Frontline leadership is a program in this category that helps supervisors and mid-level managers enhance their leadership skills. Frontline leadership was introduced to our people. They learned how to take on a new assignment. They learned how to get their main ideas across. They learned how to do appraisals. They practiced each of those skills using the basic principles of frontline leadership. Instruction in our managing employee relations program focuses on legal issues in personnel management, solving employee relations problems and developing staff policies and procedures. We had been through a period of transition in our management in our district and several of the supervisors expressed the need for some additional training on how to manage their employees. I contacted the federal judicial center and asked if there were any materials available to put on an in-district workshop for our managers. They put me onto a program called Managing Employee Relations, which was one of the biggest successes that we've had in our district. What was it exactly that made the program successful? One of the great benefits of the Managing Employee Relations program was that our supervisors discovered that their problems were not unique, that there were creative ways that other managers within the court had dealt with the problems of a relatively flat organization where promotion may not be something that's available to everyone. This area also includes the center's leadership development programs for probation and pretrial services officers and for federal court managers. These are two to three-year self-directed programs for staff who want to enhance their management and leadership skills. Some participants in these programs have been promoted to positions of increased responsibility. I think the leadership development program helped me understand a little better what it means to have power and to not be intimidated by that but to also understand how it can be used in such a positive, constructive way. The power of a good leader is not to be underestimated and I think I really have a good sense of that as a result of my participation in the program. The leadership development programs are time consuming as well as challenging. Are they worth it? As it turns out, in addition to training future leaders, the programs benefit the courts in many other ways. For example, they require participants to design projects that propose solutions to management problems in their districts. These proposals often get put to use in the courts because they provide innovative solutions to pressing problems and because they save money. My in-district project was the development of a pretrial services social services policy to be utilized by the pretrial services officers within the district. Simultaneous with that in-district project was the implementation of an on-site urinalysis laboratory within the district. The utilization of that on-site laboratory and the implementation of it resulted in a cost savings of probably 40% per urine specimen and the turnaround time was reduced from two weeks to approximately six to eight minutes per specimen. You may well be asking, is this the exceptional case? The answer is a resounding no. Some of our in-district projects and out-of-district projects were so creative that the government ended up saving tens of thousands of dollars through innovation of the participants in the leadership development program. The Center's Probation and Pretrial Services Office Management Online Network is another program that helps develop management, leadership, and supervisory skills. It's a series of computer-based conferences for staff with primary responsibility for administering office operations. Participants learn new office management skills, share effective practices, and discuss ways of improving office operations all over the computer. A third cluster of programs help develop the training function at the local level. For example, the Center conducts programs for court training specialists that help them identify and meet staff training needs. I was a public school teacher for seven years before I became a federal probation officer and I think I knew how to teach but through the train-the-trainer program for the Federal Judicial Center, I also learned how to train. A Center packaged program structured on the job training teaches trainers and other court personnel skills for providing one-on-one training to employees. As far as on-the-job training has gone, I think we just tend to tell people what we do and how we've done it and there's been no formal process for it before. So the structured on-the-job training program allowed people to go through a process of analyzing whatever it was, the job entailed and actually writing down the processes that needed to be followed and the order in which they needed to be done. As part of this training function, Center staff work with courts interested in developing multi-year strategic training plans. We do this with individual court units or combinations of units within a district. Both Center staff and in-district court training specialists service facilitators for the program. The Center has also developed programs that enhance organizational effectiveness. For example, our maximizing productivity project helps court executives increase their employees productivity and work satisfaction by implementing management strategies like total quality service, team-based management and process improvement. It's the first time that supervisors and management from all the court units in our district came together to learn about how to more effectively manage employees, but also more importantly to learn from each other and develop networks within the court unit. You could have been working in the same building for years with other managers and never really had a conversation about some of your common problems. What happened after these managers got together, exchanged ideas and developed a network? They discovered that there were many things that we were duplicating as far as management was concerned, and as a result of this program, some of our budget issues, some of our supply issues, and some of our court management issues have been combined and therefore duplication of effort has been eliminated. Other center programs with a focus on organizational effectiveness include executive team development and strategic planning workshops. The last cluster of programs provides staff with job aids they can use in the office on a daily basis. These include resource documents like this effective practices guide, one of a series of guides containing descriptions of innovative practices that probation and pretrial officers have found to be particularly helpful. They also include our risk prediction index for probation officers and our discats and CD-ROMs on the federal rules of procedure. One nice feature of the federal rules interactive program is that it allows your staff to train when they need to train. So it's right there. It's not like you have to go down the hall even to get the answer. You don't have to go find the clerk or find another manager. You have available to you a resource that is fingertips away from the answer that you need at that time. In other words, making job aids like these readily available to staff increases their efficiency and productivity. I think what we've done is we've created a system by using this program that has increased productivity in the office, increased the professionalism of the office, and educated the entire staff on an area that before, in my opinion, was very difficult to bring people up to the level of expertise that we were looking for. Many of the programs in the five categories we've discussed include a video component, but the center also produces video programs that stand alone. For example, the center's introducing the federal courts video series teaches new employees how the federal courts operate and how their jobs fit into the larger picture. The series contains an introductory program and programs explaining how civil, criminal, bankruptcy, and appellate cases move through the courts. When we bring a new employee into the office, I think that this is the best, the videos are the best method of, first of all, giving the new employee an overview of the whole judicial system. As always, the question is exactly how did the video series help new employees? Did it improve their job performance? If so, how? A lot of them said after they reviewed the videos, gosh, I didn't know that part of it. That's really helpful and that makes sense now, why I'm doing some things. I think it really did improve their performance. When they could look at the overall picture, looking at a case from start to finish, it helped them to clarify the deadlines that they had to keep. It helped them to know what to expect next in a case. It helped courtroom deputies to keep up with timelines. They're good. We hope this gives you an idea of the range of programs the center can deliver to your district. Of course, as time goes on and needs change, we develop new programs to meet them. Ideas for new programs come from court employees like you, center advisory groups composed of court staff and managers, from the administrative office and the sentencing commission, and from members of the center's board. Congress also creates training needs with the passage of laws or reports of legislative committees. Other center programs help implement policies of the judicial conference of the United States or suggestions from conference committees. Let's turn now to center training that isn't delivered in individual districts. The center conducts national and regional programs in areas where it's important that court staff throughout the country receive training with a national perspective. The officers participating at this training are from all over the United States, from many different districts, with different policies on certain issues. And it's extremely important that at some point early in their careers, they do get the national policies, regulations, perspective. Very important. Like our package programs, the center's national and regional programs focus on substantive skills training. Participating in new office orientation will help new officers perform their job duties better because it gives them a foundation for skills that they need to perform their job duties. They learn guideline training, they learn testifying skills, things that will help them become a better officer throughout their career. Another reason the center conducts national and regional programs is that some training needs are best met when court staff from all over the country who are doing the same job get together, get acquainted, and exchange ideas on how to do that job better. I recently attended a workshop for newly appointed court unit executives. We were from various locations throughout the country. We had never met before. And because of the center staff's compassion for us, I think, there was a very special bond. I think one of the major benefits is meeting the training specialists from all the other courts so that we get a good group of people that we can call on for resources. The federal courts are really a very small group of people. And there aren't very many people who do the same job throughout the country. And to go to a place at a central location away from your office where you're not distracted and hear how it's done and meet the people face to face and establish the contacts with these people that you can call on and months and years to come is an invaluable resource and I always thought it was one of the secret ingredients that tied us together as a national system rather than just 94 separate kingdoms under the rubric of the United States courts. That completes our overview. Listings and more detailed explanations of center programs, products, and services can be found in our brochure, Programs and Services for Federal Court Personnel, and in our catalog of audiovisual media productions. If you'd like staff from your court to participate in one of our programs or to use one of our products, just submit a request following the procedures outlined in these publications. Or better yet, call us or CC mail us because the sooner we hear from you the sooner we can help you with your training needs. There's never been a time that I've contacted the Federal Judicial Center that I didn't get immediate help. I feel like I can call the Judicial Center now and they will help me work out a program that's customized for my court. I think it's just been a valuable resource and has proved the wisdom of having an arm of the judiciary that has as one of its primary focuses the training of court employees from the bottom to the top levels. We look forward to working with you. Remember, well, why don't we let one of our speakers from the court say it? Larry? To use the resources of the center is to address educational needs, training needs that you may have in your court system, and to bring to your individual court unit a environment that I would say promotes motivation and productivity. So give us a call and let's work together as partners in training to make the federal courts the best they can be.


OK, well, I think we should get started. And if other people come, we'll welcome them as they dribble in. Are you ready over here? Yeah. Cool. All right, so welcome to the Sacred Hunt talk. My name is Murphy Robinson. I run a company called Mountain Song Expeditions up in Worcester, Vermont. And my name line of work is teaching people to hunt and teaching people archery. So I thought I'd come here to the co-op and answer some questions for folks who were interested in this local sustainable source of meat. So this talk is designed for people who are curious about hunting, probably haven't hunted before, and want to know what it takes to get into hunting. We're going to really line out what you actually have to do to get into this so that you can understand the process. Because I was someone who was not raised in a hunting family. I was raised by vegetarians. And I didn't learn to hunt until I was 27 or 28. So I know how intimidating it can be to try and approach this whole culture and practice of hunting when you don't have a family mentor. So I'm going to try and demystify it. So probably one of the questions people have is, why am I calling this a Sacred Hunt? What's that about? And Sacred Hunt is a terminology I use just to talk about hunting that we're approaching in a really mindful way and a way that connects us from nature, rather than just connects us from nature. Some of the dialogue about hunting in the wider culture is a little bit about trophy hunting and dominating nature and that sort of thing. And so this is distinct from that. It's really about the attitude you bring to it. I think that anyone can do a Sacred Hunt and make up what that means to them. For me, some of what that means is being a really ethical hunter, following all the laws in your state, being safety oriented, not being reckless. Also respecting your prey as a fellow being and offering respect and honor to that creature and the sacrifice that they're making to help you feed your family. Also using every part of the animal that you harvest, every part that you know how to use and doing your best with that. Obviously, like using all of the meat on the animal and you can boil down the bones for bone broth, you can tan the hide. I have high tanning glasses for people who want to learn how to do that. And not everyone has all of the knowledge to use the intestines or certain parts. We may just give back to the forest, give to the coyotes, return them to the cycle. But continuing to learn about how to use all the parts so that when you're taking the sacrifice of a life, you're really honoring all of it as an important part of it for me. I also like to engage with the concept of consent as I hunt, which sounds really strange to some people because you're killing something and you're sneaking up on it to kill it, so it doesn't seem like a very consensual process. But on a kind of spiritual level, I like to think about putting forth prayer that is consent-oriented to the animal. A prayer that I do at the beginning of every hunt is, here in Vermont, it's bucks only for a great hunting.  May that buck come to me and if no buck like that is in this forest, then may no buck come to me. And just sort of put out an intent that like the right animal will come to me and will die in a way that's clean and that will feed the ecology of the deer herd in general. So that's how I'm kind of bringing in that concept of consent. And also the sacred hunt is usually accompanied with some kind of offerings or prayers. You know, some people offer some sacred herbs or they'll sing a song or they'll just take a little time to like grieve over the animal and mourn its death. And yeah, just being in touch with the emotional flow that you go through as a hunter or a huntress. As you're engaging in that cycle, it's a very intimate way of interacting with our meat. It's very different than just buying it in the store. So I'm going to go through seven steps of what you need to do to go from like zero to actually going out for a hunt. So the first step of course is to know the laws in your state. You need to take a hunter safety class in order to legally hunt anywhere in North America. You only have to take it once. You can take it in any state and it's good in all the other states and Canada and Mexico. Which is kind of amazing because the hunter safety that we do here in the states is much less involved than the one they teach in Canada, but they still have reciprocity with our class. And so it's just something you have to do once. It's free, at least in Vermont. I think some states might have a small charge. And most of the hunter safety classes are taught as a partial home study course where you do a bunch of material online and you take some quizzes and then you go in for just one eight hour day of a field day where they actually watch you shoot and make sure you can handle it gun safely. And those are offered by the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department for free. I'm a hunter safety instructor and a lot of other people are. It's all volunteer and they're really good programs. They do a good job. So when you've gone through this hunter safety class, you also need to make sure that you know the hunting laws in your state or in any state that you're going to hunt in. You know, I've hunted in five or six different states so you've got to like study the laws in the state where you're going. And you have to purchase a hunting license. In Vermont, there's a program where if you're the landowner, sometimes you don't have to have a license, but you still need to know all the laws and you need to make sure that you're legal in all of those ways. So, and this is a picture of me with a button buck that I harvested in Iowa in a shotgun hunt. My family lives in Iowa so I was out there. And this is an example of knowing the hunting laws in your state because in Vermont during firearm season it would not be legal to harvest a deer that didn't have antlers of a certain size. But in Iowa, the deer herd is much more prolific and they're just begging you to harvest all the deer you can so that they can keep the herd healthy. So, step two is to know your hunting weapon. I get a lot of people coming to me with questions about bow hunting with the belief that bow hunting is somehow more like ethical and fair. I like to challenge that a little bit and ask people to think about what is humane. And bow hunting takes a lot of skill, it's a very advanced skill both in terms of the practice you put in for marksmanship and also you need to get a lot closer to a deer with a bow than you do with a gun in order to harvest with a bow. So, that just takes a lot of hunting skill of putting yourself in the right place at the right time. So, it's harder to have the kind of early success that would keep you going in this fairly difficult pursuit and you also definitely wouldn't want to have a bad experience where you're wounded in the animal but weren't able to harvest it the first time. So, bow hunting is an amazing awesome challenge. I definitely encourage people to bow hunt but I do encourage people if you're just starting out to start with firearms hunting here in Vermont that kind of mean rifle hunting and start hunting with a rifle and then start shooting your bow at the same time and in five years maybe put the two together but build up your skill sets with both first because you'll learn a lot just from hunting for the firearm that you can then apply to hunting with the bow. So, there's a lot of choices. In Vermont we have a 16 day rifle season. Season timing and length varies in different states. We also have a separate muzzle loader season for black powder firearms which are considered a little bit more of a challenge for hunting because you only have one projectile that you're shooting. You don't have like a whole magazine with more that you can load quickly and you can also shoot a shotgun either with a slug which is sort of like a bullet that goes in a shotgun or with buckshot. And the city of Montpelier where we are right now is a good example of a place where you might use buckshot because that's the only thing away to hunt in Montpelier is to use shot. The reason is that shot does not travel very far and this is a very densely settled area so you don't want rifle bullets flying around because they go over a mile if they're not stopped where a shot will only go a couple hundred yards. So, you'll want to evaluate where you're hunting and what the laws are. For example, in Massachusetts you can only hunt with a shotgun. They don't have a rifle season. Same in Iowa where I harvested that button buck. They only are shotgun state. They have a few very strange like handgun and weird rifle calibers that are allowed but I don't own those guns so I had to get a shotgun to hunt there. So know the laws where you are and what would be appropriate and then you need to acquire a rifle or whatever firearm you're looking at and make sure you understand the safe use and get training and have a lot of practice with marksmanship so that you're not questioning yourself.  You want to know that it's good enough. And whether you're shooting with a bow or with a gun you always want to stay within your effective range and that's very individual. You know, maybe for you your effective range is 60 yards which is fairly close and, you know, for a rifle anyway and you just need to be able to estimate that distance and, you know, commit to staying within that distance and that as your marksmanship improves maybe you could shoot out to 150 yards or more and knowing that is the way to be ethical whatever weapon you choose. And if you are interested in getting into bow hunting there's a couple different types of bows you can use. I brought a few examples. I didn't bring guns because we're in the co-op and I didn't think they'd like that. But this is an example of a compound bow which is what most people are using for hunting these days with all the complicated pulleys and everything. These have a lot of advantages mostly that when you pull the string all the way back there is a way that it's geared that it's easy to hold back at full draw whereas with a traditional bow it's, you know, the most difficult to hold back at full draw you often have to sit there for a while and wait for the animal to turn correctly or whatever and, you know, you can exhaust your arm with a more traditional bow and this gives you an advantage there. You need to make sure you're hunting with the right arrows and the right tips they need to have broad heads in order to be legal for hunting. I'm mostly talking about deer hunting but for whatever we do... Oh, it looks like I took the broad heads out probably when I was hunting in Minnesota so I can't show you those. But there are also traditional bows that are wonderful for hunting. This is a Korean traditional bow that is a sort of smaller, shorter example of a recurve bow. Some people also hunt with long bows and this can also be very effective if you know your effective range and stick within it. Hunting poundages for bows... many states have a minimum poundage of like how much weight you're pulling back how much force the bow is putting into that arrow. In a lot of states it's 35 or 40 pounds minimum for deer hunting. Vermont does not have a minimum for deer hunting. There is a minimum for moose hunting, I believe. Either bear or moose. I believe it's moose. It's like a 55-pound draw. But most of my students... I work a lot with women and trans people and most of my students can't pull a hunting weight bow when they walk into the range for the first time. It takes building up some muscle. Unless you're someone who, you know, you work in a warehouse, you already have that muscle. Then maybe you can jump right into it. But usually you need to get a bow of a lighter weight so that you can learn on a bow that's correctly matched to your strength and learn good form. And then you can slowly work up to that weight. And some bows have interchangeable limbs and everything, so it's a little easier to make that transition. Or like this bow has adjustments in order to pull back and put more force into the arrow. But again, I usually recommend that people start with rifle hunting and also start shooting a bow, which is really fun, just as a fun thing to do. And then put the two together down the road after you've had some success with the gun. And there are lots of places to get training in safety and marksmanship with both the gun and the bow. Archie classes up in Worcester at my place. And for rifle marksmanship, in some of my longer hunting training programs we do have some marksmanship training over time. But another program that I recommend is the Apple Seed Trainings. They are put on by this organization that promotes U.S. Revolutionary War History and proper marksmanship. And argues that proper marksmanship was like why we won the war or something like that. I don't know, their politics are kind of interesting, but they offer really, really good marksmanship training that's based on military training models and has really helped me become much more confident with the gun. So you can look them up. And they're quite affordable. It's like $60 for a weekend. And they teach all over the U.S. So once you've selected your weapon you need to make sure you understand how to make a safe shot. Because especially if you're using a rifle, which is what I'm recommending people start with, those bullets can go over a mile if they aren't stopped by something.  The deer will to some degree stop it. So the basic principle is you're always shooting into the ground. And luckily in Vermont we have a lot of terrain so shooting into a hillside is not that hard to do. But there's something called skylining an animal where you see that beautiful big stag up on the hilltop with his back against the sunset and it's just silhouetted against the sky. And that is not a shot that you should ever take because if he moves or you miss then that bullet is going to keep on going for at least a mile, probably more.  There have been people in Vermont that have been killed by stray bullets and somehow wove their way through forests without hitting the trees for a mile and then killed a person. So you need to be very, very careful about that. And that bullet is your responsibility after you pull the trigger. One thing that can help with shooting into the ground is be positioning yourself in a tree stand which also helps for a lot of other reasons because it kind of gets you up out of the scent zone of the deer and it's just a little bit more hidden. But if you're in an elevated tree stand then you're sort of automatically shooting down towards the ground wherever you're shooting unless you have a very steep hill falling away from you. So I recommend them for safety for sure. Also gets you up out of other people's shooting trajectories which is nice as well. You should also be careful about shooting towards water. Water can actually ricochet a bullet using the surface tension because of the speed of what goes on. It doesn't always happen but it can happen and that would be very bad. And also rocks. There's a lot of big outcroppings of rock in our mountains and those could potentially ricochet a bullet a little bit too which is not going to ricochet all the way back at you. That would be very unlikely but you don't know where it's going to go. So you want to be in control of that bullet going into the ground or into a tree or hopefully into your deer. And that goes for practice as well as for hunting. You need to find a place to practice if it's not at a shooting range which is all set up for that. A place to practice that you're definitely shooting into a hill. And also being aware of lead if you're using lead bullets. You can invest in non-lead bullets which are better for the environment but they do cost more. They're harder to source and you are putting lead into the ground wherever you're practicing your shooting. So shooting ranges are set up for that. But your home spot you'd want to pick a spot that wasn't in a drainage. Now we've acquired our weapon we practiced with it we feel confident we understand a safe shot but there's also a lot of clothing and gear involved. You can see this is a hunt that I led in North Carolina and we are all extremely bundled up. And this is North Carolina it's not nearly as cold as Vermont you can see there's no snow on the ground but if you are being still and most types of successful beginning hunting involve sitting in a place where the deer will be passing by you on a deer which is very advanced. If you're sitting still early in the morning or as the sun is setting you're going to get very very cold so you need to dress in many many layers I usually have like seven layers on my top and three on my bottom and really big winter snow boots even though it's not snowing out you can kind of see I've got some like wool pants here and like a down jacket and a hooded jacket under my camo raincoat and all of that so coming up with a layering system that works for you is really important with special attention to fingers and toes especially for people who are assigned female tend to have worse circulation in these Japanese a little bit not always but for many people and so I get like arctic rated boots I like the ones made by Baffin they're really good and also use till warmers because one of the number one things that can prevent someone from getting a deer is if your toes are just too cold for you to stay in the tree stand and that has happened to multiple people that have come on my hunting trips they're just like I can't do it anymore and you know if there's no way you're going to get a deer you're not out in the woods and fingers too your fingers are pulling your bow or pulling your trigger and so they need to be warm and flexible and ready to go and so they make mittens that will sort of fold back and reveal your fingers so that you can have that dexterity when you need it or you can wear like liner gloves and put them inside some big fluffy mittens or some mittens actually have a trigger finger separate and the rest is a mitten there's all kinds of special things you can get but with a little creativity you feel it put together it works it isn't too expensive and then you're going to want to have a little backpack with you of some sort of stuff you need to bring both basic gear like map and compass knife, crochet kits, water food that sort of thing some way to communicate is good you know cell phones don't always work in the mountains but it's nice to have one in case you have a deer you're going to be dragging it out and you want to call some friends for help some way to communicate is recommended if it's possible and you also need to carry a certain amount of stuff that you wouldn't carry on like a day hike or something like that that's poor recovery for any animal so you need your hunting license to be on you you need your hunting tag to be on you because you're going to need to attach that to the deer before you move it you're going to need to have some kind of pen or a sharpie to like write down the date and time that you shot it that's part of the legal tagging process I like to bring some latex gloves or nitrogen gloves out in so that I can feel dress it and then just take off the gloves because it's probably not running water right there that I can clean my hands off with it's just easier and you know whatever kind of knife or the gutting hook or something like that you need for field dressing I like to bring some Ziploc bags for putting the organs in so we want to take all the organs out so the animal pools faster but some of the others are very good to eat so whatever you need to like again use all the parts of the animal and then whatever you need to haul that animal out like a rope or special harnesses for hauling deer and stuff like that so you need all that to fit into a day pack comfortable so that you again can stay out for as long as you want to and have a better chance of finding that deer step five is to really learn the ground that you're going to be hunting there's all kinds of different ways to get land access in Vermont state owned land is mostly open to hunting as state forest land is all open to hunting but then there's also private land and if that land is posted in Vermont then you need to have written permission in your pocket to be on that land hunting posted land can be some of the best hunting land you just have to have a good relationship with the land owner so that they trust you and they welcome you on to their land and you're not going to trash things and some people are you know just against hunting and will not say yes but many people will and they've just had bad experiences with people being rude on their land so you want that permission with you and then you really want to like scout the land that you're going to be hunting because you need to put yourself in the right place you know Vermont is only 16 days long and you can't just be wandering and tramping all around there you've got to be like deliberate and strategic about it so you're going to be looking for rugs and scrapes which are buck sign for the rut so like here's an old old rub that Meg is demonstrating she's a deer tracker here and they make scrapes on the ground where they scrape with their hooves like P&N it's sort of like a little voicemail box where they exchange hormonal messages with the bucks and the does and other sign like scat and tracks and whatever you can you know bends in the grasses that can help you figure out like where are the deer traveling between at different times of day like where do you want to sit in the morning where do you want to sleep in where is the general wind direction coming from because the smell is there number one sense for telling if they're in danger you also want to look for the food deer are going to go to the food source if you have access to hunting over an old apple orchard that's amazing you're going to have good luck deer hunting but otherwise you've got to figure out what are they eating in the forest going see where the sign is see where things have been nibbled try and figure that out where their travel corridors are and some people do use game cameras for this like find what they think is a game trail and put a camera out there and you can get a picture and it'll have a timestamp on it and there's passing through there a lot of game trailers only use it at night and we can't hunt after dark so you've got to figure out where they're going to be in daylight and then some people think that the game camera is kind of like a cheat but also most of us have full-time jobs and can't just spend all of our time getting to know the wildlife patterns of the land so it can actually be a really helpful aid in the modern world and you want to think about tree stand placement if you have permission to put a tree stand where are the places you're going to want to go most frequently and putting up a stand well ahead of time so that the deer get used to it and don't consider it a threat you want to give them like a month to get used to it at least so that's some of the steps to learning your hunting ground there's a lot of work to put into that and then you want to have a good plan for game recovery this is one of the biggest questions I get in my classes especially from women or anyone who has like a little bit less brute strength that are asking like well how do I get the deer in the woods it's a really good answer I actually like to think about this when I plan where I'm going to be hunting I like to hunt uphill from a road not downhill from a road because I don't want to haul a deer up the trail but once you've made a shot and you've connected with an animal often that animal does not just fall right where you shot but even if it's a very good shot it will often run us short ways there's just that much life left in an animal even if you shot it straight through the heart that it can still run a little ways so our bodies are amazing that way so you may have to follow a blood trail and that involves waiting a little while letting the forest calm down if it's a good shot the deer will probably expire in an hour just sit there and wait and then go down to the point last scene see if you can find drops of blood and start following that trail and find out where that animal has retreated to something that feels safe probably in some brush, probably a little bit hard to find you can see here this is one of my hunting students Cecilia recovering her first deer down North Carolina and it's kind of like managed to get itself way and under there we found a little spot surprisingly not obvious it's the same color as the leaves so you have to be prepared to do some tracking you may also want to bring some flagging tape so that you can flag your way back because you could track it for a while if it was a good shot it shouldn't be that far if it was not the best shot you've ever made you might be going a ways and you owe it to that animal to recover the body and to use it but you also want to be able to find your way home so bringing the flagging tape can be really good you need to confirm that the animal is fully dead sometimes they look dead but people have been very badly injured by deer that weren't actually dead that can kind of leap up and do the last fight thing so the way that we recommend to confirm death is to take a long stick and touch it to the eyeball of the deer and if it doesn't blink it's dead that's good for any mammal that I've tried to confirm death on and then you want to be able to field dress the animal unless it's right next to a road then you might just take it home first but most people are going to remove the guts and organs before they haul it out because A, it makes it a lot lighter like a pretty high percentage of the deer's weight is in its stomach and organs and it helps the carcass cool faster instead of the meatball and spoil so you want to have materials with you for that and then dragging strategies include having friends you can call I like to have a list of people that are available both in the evening and during working hours that I could call if I have a really long drag a lot of people will use a sled like a snow sled that even if it's like this and there's no snow on the ground it's still a lot easier to pull a deer on a sled than to pull a deer just on the ground so some people like to keep a sled in their truck or something and then you'll get it if they get a deer having rope is really helpful or even like little harnesses that you can tie to the deer so you can pull it away where you're not bent over and crouched potentially injuring yourself and then again that flagging is really helpful for recovering as well so step seven the last step in my personal set of steps here is to really spend some time reflecting on your personal ethics and your spiritual beliefs around this because the moment when you do harvest your first deer is a very emotionally intense moment and you want to be prepared for that you want to have done some reflecting and not let it catch you off guard grief is definitely a part of hunting it's very very healthy for us to grieve the death of a beautiful strong living animal even if we know that we're doing it for reasons that we're aligned with and that it's coming to feed our family and all of that this is JoJo harvesting her first deer in North Carolina with us she came on this hunt for her 60th birthday and was able to get her first deer on this hunt and she just made an offering and really just allow herself to feel those emotions flowing through her and had a really beautiful moment with this deer and the immensity of the gift it was giving many people like to prepare some kind of offering or prayers JoJo here brought some dried apple and kind of gave it a little last bite after death some dried apple that was from her land and for some people there's like highs and lows that come after this experience of like there can be a euphoria of like whoa I just did this really hard thing that I've probably spent years into repairing for and like the joy of success and then there's also the grief that comes with that and it's like this whole tangle of emotions that's very unique but anyone who's can understand what you're talking about it's kind of an initiation and there can sometimes be an emotional low that follows that afterwards after that initial rush of energy and activity around the harvest of like really sitting with that and one thing that that's brought me to is a lot of reflections around how do we live in order to deserve this sacrifice you know the deer is just giving us the ultimate gift and I don't feel especially someone who's raised a vegetarian I don't actually feel that I need meat in my diet to be healthy but I do feel like it's very sustainable local form of nourishment that connects me to the earth and connects me to the spirit of the deer and I know that if I'm going to be engaging in this practice I really need to be living my life in an authentic way where I'm like bringing my gifts to the world and I am doing everything I can can for positive change to care for the environment and everything in order to deserve that sacrifice so it's been a really good thing that sort of holds me accountable in my life I also personally have a practice around contacting the spirit of a dead deer a deer that I shot or sometimes I'll do this for Roadkill that I harvest as well and going through a practice of what has often been called shamanism called spirit journeying because that's a very specific term from Siberia for that culture but to do some kind of spirit journey and to really ask the spirit of that deer is there anything I can do for you what can I offer in exchange and to see if you get any inspiration or any guidance around what you can do to be in reciprocity with the deer for this gift that it's given and go out and do some acts of service that wants to get aloo about it but you can still think in your logical brain of like what can I do to give back to this ecosystem that's feeding me and try and do some service on the land or something like that it also really helps to have a supportive community around you many of the people that I teach are folks who don't have a hunting background in their family and may not have a circle of friends that are bought into hunting as something that you can do ethically and so it's really important to have community that is okay with this than you're doing and willing to support you through it that's something that I've had to develop for myself and there is a ton of supportive community and the more traditional handed down father to son hunting community that's sort of built in and those of us who are building this new hunting community for ourselves really have to look harder for it and find that reinforcement of community I also really like to honor the meat in special ways when I cook it I really like to have a gathering share it with people and to do some storytelling around it and make sure that that deer gets its story told like what was that hunt like what were the special things about it I think my computer has just died because I'm maybe not plugged into a live outlet so I'm just going to that was pretty much the last slide I'm just going to rip on the rest of it that you can that feels appropriate to offer as a gift in that moment you may want to think about it prepare ahead of time write a story about that hunt make a poem, compose a song just say some prayers do things that honor the of the exchange that you're taking part in and it's funny because anyone who eats meat is taking part in that exchange all the time but we're not mindful about it because we're moved from it it's an incredibly intimate way to engage with that cycle and to really understand what we're doing every time we put a bite of meat in our mouths and for me that's been really humbling and really feels like a healthy thing to look in the face and so those are the 7 steps and I want to give you a couple of resources about where you can learn more the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department is really excellent and very supportive of new hunters especially non-traditional hunters who are women or people of color or queer or trans everyone that I've worked with in the department has been incredibly supportive of all of that it's very excited about sharing hunting with new groups of people especially the people in the education part of the department which is who I mostly worked with and so you can go on their website and sign up for a hunter safety course that's a really good first step I also do offer some seminars on like different skills that people might want to learn that are taught by local folks who are really knowledgeable sometimes in those classes I find you have to go in like knowing what questions to ask because there can be just an assumption of a basic level of knowledge that not all of us actually have or have passed on in our families but people are really willing to help if you can take the time to figure out what words to use for those folks and then I also offer a ton of different programs around hunting and archery my kind of flagship program is this two-day hunting skills intensive that I offer in the fall there's one weekend that's just for women and trans people and there's one weekend that's for all genders so if you want to come with their boyfriends or their nephews or whatever everyone's welcome in that one and that walks through a lot of the skills that's designed to complement it so Hunter's H class is for all types of hunting it could be for waterfell hunting or for turkey hunting or stuff like that so they're not going to get into deer specific strategies they're just really covering firearm safety so my class is specifically about deer hunting and what do you need to know to become a deer hunter and practicing those skills and we do actually harvest an animal in the class we slaughter a goat since it's not a hunting season we don't hunt but we slaughter a goat and learn skinning and just experience interacting in a prayerful way with death during that transition and that can be a really good preparation for people and can help people discern whether or not this is something they want to pursue for people who know this is something they want to pursue and they know like I want to harvest a deer this year I offer an eight month training where you come one weekend a month for seven months and then you come on a seven day guided hunt down south somewhere and you get a lot more deer than they ever want and where you can shoot does and yearlings and everything so that people have had very good success rates but yeah I don't want to promise anything but so far we've had 100% success rate on those trips and a lot of the photos that you saw today were from one of those trips or several of those trips so that's like really it holds your hands through the whole process it takes you through a year of study and it also creates community amongst you and the other students and the supportive community of people you can talk to about it that have the same understanding you do and I also offer a bunch of archery classes and this year for the first time I'm also offering a sort of spiritual skills training for folks who want to develop more of a spiritual practice framework whether it's in correlation with a hunt or not of how do you do this like contacting the spirit of a deer and how do you develop these prayers and practices and stuff like that open source skill set that you can apply to any earth-based practice so there's flyers on the corner of my stuff and for folks watching the video or anything like that my website is mountainsongexpeditions.com and you can find the information on all the programs there so those are the main places where you can learn more information I hope this was helpful and I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have any I hope I covered things that were useful oh yeah you covered a lot it was great good well feel free to be in touch if you think of more questions later or want to have any more questions that come to you as you talk about those with others and things like that I'm going to sign up for your email that's awesome that's probably why I wanted to come I wanted to meet you I wanted to discuss because I'm interested in one of your classes and I just thought well I have a different spiritual belief than you and I just wasn't sure it would be a good match but I feel good about it that's good to hear and I try very hard to keep the Huntress classes really open to all spiritual paths I don't teach my own spirituality I create a space where we have conversations and I have people who are Christian and people who are Buddhists and people who are Jewish and everyone just brings their own perspective and is able to share from that perspective and that's the sense I have for you cool that's great I think it's a really powerful thing to include in our spiritual practice you know except for some of the kosher practices I've largely fallen to the wayside so it's the way to sort of bring some back cool alright well thanks for coming thank you


Hello everyone. This is Amit Dan of amitdan.com. Today I'll have another episode of living in Toronto video and I'm in search of toilet papers and hand sanitizers I'll take you to several supermarkets in Toronto to search these items. The first store we are going is the shoppers drug mart And I saw a line up here when I entered There was nothing left in the hand sanitizer section They didn't have even paper towel or toilet papers. I just saw a few paper towels and The hand soap or hand sanitizers section was all empty The next store is sobies and same here. There's a line up. I saw these markings to follow and they have Even markings inside the store to keep safe distance So they're paper towel and toilet paper section was empty. I was just able to find one toilet paper and one paper towel But they didn't have any hand sanitizers the whole section was empty The next store is Metro. So same thing here. There's a line up and They didn't have any hand sanitizers, but I was able to see some toilet papers and paper towels next store is Loblaws here there's no line up and Their whole section was empty. I was just able to see a few Toilet paper and paper towel, but most of them were gone and they didn't have any hand sanitizers as well No fields here. Same thing. There was a line up and they had some toilet papers and paper towels, but there was no hand sanitizers It was all gone Our next store is Longos. This is the store I go often. So I know some of the employees there They didn't have any hand sanitizers, but I made one of the employees Who I knew and I asked her for hand sanitizers and she said there's none But she was able to give me one, but she asked me to hide it and You know not to show But as you can see that you know the shelves is empty and she mentioned that they didn't increase the price It was six dollars before and still it was six dollars, but I was able to get only one And they had some toilet papers and paper towels Surprisingly the toilet papers even were on sale and I was able to get one I noticed that people were looking for Lysol here, but there's none and at that time a box came in However, it was gone very fast. So I was able to grab One Lysol as well Thank you for watching this video. Forget about subscribing to this channel.  So I'll see you shortly


Hello everyone, this is Alice Gao. In the next few videos, I'm going to use a running example to show you how to construct a decision network. The running example is about a mail pickup robot. So the robot wants to pick up the mail and there are two routes available. There is a short route and then there's a long route. On the short route, the short route is more dangerous than the long one. So on the short route, the robot might slip and fall and have an accident. So the robot has an option of putting on pads. Putting on pads won't change the probability of an accident. It still might or might not happen depending on the probabilities. However, if an accident happens, then putting on pads will help reduce the damage, so the severity of the damage. If an accident happens and the robot puts on pads, then the damage is less severe. So the robot is a little happier than if an accident happens and the robot did not put on pads. Unfortunately, the pads are heavy, so it will slow the robot down. Now the robot would like to pick up the mail as quickly as possible while minimizing the potential damage that could be caused by an accident. So you can see there are two different goals. One is to increase speed and the other one is to minimize damage if an accident indeed happens. So the question is what should the robot do? To model the story using a decision network, we have to first come up with the random variables. So there are two kinds of variables we want to come up with. The first type are the random variables. So these are the events that we have no control over. They are going to happen or not depending on some predefined rule defined by nature. And the other type of random variables are called decision variables. These are actually under our control. We can decide on what action to take. So decision variables also represent actions. Now given our mail pickup robot story, take some time and think about what are the random variables and what are the decision variables. Then keep watching for the answer. Here are the answers. We have one random variable which is about whether an accident occurs or not. Whether an accident occurs or not is completely not in our control. It's defined by nature. Let's use A to denote this random variable. Then we have two things that are actually in our control. One is whether the robot chooses the short route or the long route. So let's use S to represent the fact that the robot, so when S is true, the robot chooses the short route. And when S is false, the robot chooses the long route. Similarly, we have another decision to make is whether to put on paths or not. And this is going to influence the severity of the damage if an accident occurs. So let's use big P to denote the fact that the robot puts on paths and so P is true when the robot puts on paths and P is false otherwise. For the next step, when we're coming up with a decision network, we need to take these random variables, the random variables and the decision variables and convert them into nodes in the decision network. We have three kinds of nodes. So the first kind of nodes are called chance nodes. They correspond to the random variables. This is exactly the same as all the nodes we have in the Bayesian network, right? Again, these are things we have no control over. These are things that just happen. Then we have a second kind type of nodes called the decision nodes. These represent the decision variables or in other words, these are the actions we can take, right? So these are the things that are completely in our control. And the third type of node is called a utility node. This is used to represent an agent's utility function on states. So in other words, we can use this to represent an agent's happiness in each state. So how do these nodes relate to each other? Chance nodes, which represent random variables and decision nodes, which represent decision variables, both of these nodes can influence the current state the agent is in, right? In fact, both of these nodes will decide the current state the agent is in. And in a particular state, the agent will have a particular happiness, right? So you can see that many or all of the chance nodes and decision nodes will influence the utility node. And at the utility node, we need to specify the full utility function, which says, well, depending on what the state is, how happy is the agent in that particular state. Next, look at the robot story and come up with the chance nodes, the decision nodes and the utility node for this story. The next slide is blank, so you can draw all of these nodes on the slide. Do this yourself first, then keep watching for the answers. Here are the answers. We have four nodes in total. So we had one random variable that becomes a chance node for accident. Then we have two decision variables. So each of them becomes a decision node. So one for short and one for paths. So short for whether to choose the short route or the long route, and then pass for whether to put on paths or not. So far, these variables are all binary. And then finally, we have a utility node, which is denoting how happy is the robot in each particular state. Let me stop the video here. In the next video, we are going to look at the relationships between these nodes and start adding edges to our decision network. After watching this video, you should be able to describe the three types of nodes in the decision network and how we can draw them. Then given a story, you should be able to draw the three types of nodes in the decision network. Thank you very much for watching. I will see you in the next video. Bye for now.


Welcome to the first ever Virtual Global Outreach Conference hosted by the Society for the Study of Social Problems entitled, Reimagining Our Worlds from Below, Transnational Conversations on Resistance, Movements and Transformations. Hello, my name is Hector Delgado. As the Executive Officer of the Society for the Study of Social Problems and as a fellow scholar, I would like to welcome you to the Society's first Global Outreach Conference. We hope and trust that the conference will be an intellectually rewarding and personally satisfying experience for you. We are certain that your participation will contribute enormously to both. We also hope that the conference will lead to new collaborations and friendships across borders and that our work collectively will fulfill one of the Society's most important guiding principles, research and pursuit of social justice. As a social justice organization, the SSSP seeks to foster conversations between scholars from around the world and consequently a more concerted and coordinated effort to ensure social justice globally. This conference is one such attempt. Thank you so much for being a part of this effort and my thanks to our colleagues who organized this important event. Thank you. We'd like to take a moment to explain our conference model, answer some of your questions and help you get the most out of this conference. We are using the nearly carbon neutral model for this conference in order to not only reduce costs and impacts on the environment, but to facilitate engagement across all time zones. You can read about this model by clicking the link towards the bottom of the page below this video. Visit often during May 2022. There is no need to register. New things will be added during the month, so visiting more than once means you can make sure to see all the interesting presentations and opportunities to engage. Be sure to click on the links on this page to surf around the website and see all that is offered. There's a lot to take in, so revisiting will optimize your experience here. We have 10 panels with over 40 presentations and each panel has a discussion forum at the bottom of the session page. We encourage you to leave comments. You are asked to provide your name and email address, but that is to assist in keeping spammers away. Triple SP does not have access to that email information and your email address will not appear on the page. These discussion boards will provide presenters with feedback and encourage engagement between the presenters and audience. In addition, for nine of the panels, a live virtual discussion is planned and the discussion on the forum helps direct those live discussions. Also, if you can't make the live discussion, you can still participate in the session. So please consider leaving a comment and coming back to engage more in any discussions. From May 18th to the 21st, a number of live virtual discussions are planned. Zoom links will be available before then on the web pages. These include the nine panels, but also keynotes and conversations on important topics. Be sure to check out our keynote speaker, Swati Parashar, Professor in Peace and Development Research at the School of Global Studies of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and the keynote roundtable entitled Constructing Common Ground and Transformative Pathways through Decolonial Methodologies and Pedagogies. Schedules, descriptions, and Zoom information are available on the conference program page below this video. We also have transnational conversations planned. These sessions are also noted on the conference page below this video. All virtual live sessions will be recorded and the video will be available after May 21st. So if you can't make the discussion or you are seeing the website and video after May 21st, you can still benefit from the discussions and leave comments on the discussion forums. This conference model is designed to keep the conversation going. We are pleased to include an advanced screening of the Edmund Pettus Bridge to Climate Justice, a film by Dr. Richard Whittock. Be sure to follow the link on the page below this video to watch the film and join in a discussion about it. Also look for the link in the right sidebar on the film page to the Climate Justice Movement's resource page that has lots of information on how to get involved in global movements aimed at climate justice. This film is an important sociological ethnography of how these movements are growing throughout the world and becoming a truly transnational and multi-focused approach to addressing all the interconnected social problems that will arise as climate change continues to affect our planet. We hope that this conference will be more than an academic exercise for you. We encourage you to seek out others who leave comments or participate in the live virtual discussions so that we can continue to do more than talk. We need action. Triple SP has always been more than simply studying social problems. We want to engage in real efforts for social justice, and this conference is a recognition that social justice needs to be transnational and transformative in order to affect lasting social change in the 21st century. So we invite you to move beyond merely viewing these presentations to finding ways to act upon them together. In the spirit of this invitation, we will be providing a voluntary guest book. A link will be available on the page below. You can sign up to be on an email list dedicated to letting you know when triple SP offers opportunities for further conferences and activities related to this conference. We will seek to keep emails to a minimum, but we wanted to encourage connections and this is an opportunity to do so. This is not a registration requirement and is completely voluntary. You will be able to join this list at any time, even after May 2022. We also have available a link to an anonymous survey that you can take that will provide feedback about your conference experience. This is extremely useful to the conference planners and triple SP as it will help us improve our transnational initiatives in the future. We do hope that you will take the time to answer a few questions for us. All information will be confidential and will only be used by and for triple SP. Finally, we hope you will let others know about this conference and web page. Use our hashtag reimagining 2022 in any social media and feel free to share not only this program page link, but also any individual session page links. The more you share, the more the work will get out and the more potential this conference will have to fulfill its goals. We appreciate all who attend, contribute and share. Thank you for being here and being part of our conference events.


What's up everybody? Jason from jasperjakespakes.com 2020 Bowman Chrome HTA choice for box break round of divisions number three just sold out and Six spots everybody gets a random MLB division 12 cards all autographs You got three autographs per box the actual here. Here's a customer names Matthew Alex Jason James Leiva and our through the last Bob Mojo and a all East Central West and all East Central West So let's roll the dice and we got ourselves a 46 10 times. Good luck one two three four five six seven eight nine Ten Levi down to Matthew 10 times one two three four five six seven eight ten and I East That's a L West I leave that with NL East Jason with NL West Artura with a L East Alex with NL Central James with a L Central and Matthew be with a L West So anybody wants to trade give you guys About 30 seconds to a minute Artura just got two spots and in case basketball Yeah, he's for a L West Artura's proposing I don't have Matthews here. All right. John D also got spots in in case three left. Um, they are I think they're doing it more Near like Beverly Hills and some other cities where they've had like rallies For certain parties and stuff I don't think everywhere they're doing it, but I mean Regardless, of course Whichever one comes out on top, they're still gonna be some type of Bounds on both sides. I'm sure All right, there you go. And people are just gonna do it just to do it. It's all good. Thank you Daniel We got a bowman's first orange shimmer 21 out of 25 Ethan Lindow You got Terry First for Texas and sorry, I didn't say where the Phillies went to, right? uh Phillies is Where's the Phillies at? NL East, sorry Blank in there Levi with NL East And then Texas Rangers should be the AL West and AL West is Matthew And we got John and Stephen Chicago White Sox That's AL Central Swenna Alex Alvarez, that's NL East Going to Levi. I bought a Steve Gold this time That's 39 out of 50 Gold. The Gold looks really nice too. I'm not sure I love the Gold That is AL Central Diaz Miami Marlins Marlins should be NL East, right? Yeah Levi again Next box So guys, it looks like we're gonna sell out that uh encased Looks like we're down to like two left. So in case you'd be popping off. Thanks guys And that is hole-sizer for the Reyes. I think he's a good prospect as of all they say To $4.99, $2.18 to $4.99 And uh, that'll be Reyes AL East Arturo, last Bob Mojo man, there you go And Luis Macos for the Giants NL West Going to Jason And for the Red Sox Joanne Martinez Red Sox also part of the AL East Joe Buck already has so many haters Rex. That's just something else to add on to him So many people hate him anyways I'm sure he's not fazed anymore Antonio Coveo for the Yankees That's not the one for the AL East And Tyler Dyson to $4.99 National is going to the NL East going to Levi And the last one here is Alex Vesilla Miami Marlins that is NL East again And there you go guys All right guys guys It's more orange there. So there you go guys. This is the last four box ht I'm not sure if we have any more of these but if we do we'll post it up on jaspyscasebreaks.com for sure guys


going on MoparFam. Hope everybody out there is having a fantastic time. So today, you're probably wondering, what in the world are we doing here? So, long story short, Scott Long, some of you guys probably already know him. He has the little red express ram truck that's all over the internet. Can't miss it. It's a red regular cab ram and he's got the little red express stickers on the side of the door to basically make the truck look like the little red express. Anywho, this is his old 545 RFE transmission and this is his stall converter that was in that transmission as well. This is an edge racing stall converter and I believe this is a 3400 stall. So, I bought this whole package basically. He was selling it mainly for the stall converter. The stall converter is basically brand new. It's got very little passes on it and I wanted the converter to put in frostbite. But he threw in the whole transmission for the price of the converter which was basically a steal of a deal. He did have this transmission actually recently completely rebuilt. It has all brand new parts in it and after the rebuild he went out and he did a few passes with it and it actually failed. Second gear he said is slipping and that is why he removed the transmission and he actually did a GM transmission swap on his truck with a trans brake. Very cool truck, very cool build. So, what I want to do is we're going to tear this transmission apart and we're going to find out why it sucks, what failed with it and if we can fix it. So, my plan is I kind of want to put a fresh transmission in frostbite before I put the stall converter in. The transmission in frostbite as we speak right now is working perfectly fine but I kind of hate to pull that transmission down, put the converter in it and then something happens down the road. I have 150,000 miles on that transmission and it's still working good. We have a ton of drag racing on that transmission. I've towed my boat with that transmission and it's been great. But with that said it's probably getting close and with me taking it down I'd rather put either a new one in it or a fresh one in replace of it and then the old one we can go through have it rebuilt or rebuild it ourselves. That's my plan is I really want to take this thing apart, find out what happened. I kind of have a feeling that the second gear clutch pack probably failed in this thing but I have no idea. So, we're going to tear it apart, we're going to find out what broke and see if we can fix it. All right, so the first thing we're going to do guys is we're going to pull our input and output speed sensors out which are these guys right here. It's going to take an eight millimeter socket so let's get them out. The one closest to the bell housing, this is supposed to be the input speed sensor right here and just kind of wiggle it back and forth and it'll come right out just like so. So we're going to lay that down, we're going to do the same thing to the output speed sensor. That one's out, so let's get to the next step. All right, next thing we're going to do we're going to spend this transmission around and we're going to take the line pressure sensor out and that would be this guy down here, same tool, eight millimeter socket, about a bang and I like to thread my bolts back in just a little bit that way I know where they went but that is up to you.  So we're going to pop this snap ring out and basically what you're going to do is you're going to look around and you should see a gap and you're going to get on the edge of that snap ring with like a flat head screwdriver usually works and pop it out. So here we go. Once you get it popped up, then you just kind of work it around and one giant huge snap ring is out. All right guys, so the next step we're going to do is we're going to rotate the transmission over on its side and get the transmission pan off. We got it flipped over, so we're going to take the couple of screws out that's holding the pan on, eight millimeter as well and the fluid has been drained in this transmission, but no matter what, you will always still find more transmission fluid inside an automatic transmission. I don't care what you do, so it's always going to be messy, so just be prepared to have a bunch of rags, buckets and stuff to be ready to catch the mess. There we go. So we got the pan off and the fluid don't look terrible, but you can definitely smell, it's got kind of a burnt smell to it. All right, so the next thing we're going to do guys is we're going to take our filters off.  The big filter has a little T25 torch screw right here.  And with this filter being on, you cannot swing it down low enough to get it out of the bracket, so we got to remove this filter first. For that, you can use a big pair of channel locks. You can jab a screwdriver through it because you can be putting a new one on anyways or have some oil filter pliers. Go, got the filter off and we're just going to put it in our bucket for right now.  As you see, it's basically just a long tube and it pops into a seal. It kind of smells about like burnt rear-end fluid. I don't know if that justifies it, but I said the fluid's not really dark. It's not really black, but you can definitely smell it. Alright, so next step is we're going to undo the bolts holding our valve body in. So we're going to get those loose. Those are 8mm screws as well. And they're usually, if you look, you'll see them on the outside going around. You don't have to mess with any of these torx screws. That is what's holding the whole sandwich assembly together, so you want to take out the 8mm screws only. So here we go. So we've got those out. I'm going to move some tools and we're definitely losing some more fluid here. And that's why I said no matter how much you drain these things, the valve bodies are going to hold fluid. The pump's going to hold fluid. Just fluid everywhere, so just be prepared. Alright, so now that we have all of our screws out of the valve body, and for reference there was one, two, three, four, five, six screws. So now that we've got them out, we're going to pull this whole assembly down and you basically just give it a gentle pull down. The big wiring connector on the top side of the transmission where your harness plugs into, that will pull through as well. A little bit of weight shift there, so be prepared for that. So there we go. We have the valve body out and yeah, it definitely smells. Now that this is out, I can really smell these clutches, so definitely something in here got cooked, that's for sure. So for right now we're just going to lay this in the transmission pan. Alright guys, so the next thing we're going to do is we rotate our transmission a little bit and you're going to need a screwdriver, like a long flathead, or a small pry bar or something, and we're going to pry out this front cover right here that's in front of the pump. And to do that, there's a little access hole back here. Try to bring you guys with me. So right here we're going to stick a screwdriver in this hole and you'll actually pry the backside of that cover and it'll pop out. Alright, so here we go. A flashlight will also help. Make sure you're prying on the right thing. So we're going to get it in there and then we'll start prying and we'll just kind of watch it start moving out here. And don't be afraid to hurt this because if you're rebuilding the transmission, you're going to put a new one in anyway, so don't worry about tweaking it, bending it, or dingin' it or whatever. It's going to get a new one. So with that out of the way, I'm going to spin this guy so you can see it. Whoa, nearly. Alright, so now this is your front pump. This is your pump assembly right here. That's what basically makes everything happen, the pressure, everything, so that is the pump. Alright, so the next step guys is we're going to take out our pump assembly. There is some 10 millimeter bolts we got to take out. There's one, two, three, four, five, six bolts, so we're going to get our impact and take those out. All six bolts out. We're going to collect them up and we'll just lay them on that front pump cover. Now this technically should just kind of pop out. If not, sometimes you can in the same spot where we pried the front cover out, you can pry right there and push it out too. But it looks like it's coming out. Alright, so there is our pump assembly right here. Alright, so just checking this out real quick. I don't really see anything going on here, but you can take these apart and inspect them better. But for right now we're just going to put it to the side. Alright, so the next thing we're going to do guys is we're going to pull out this big drum. The first drum right here, we're going to pull that out. Got the drum assembly out, we're going to lay it on the table. So there's also, there's, you have clutch packs in here. This is going to be for your overdrive assembly. So we'll check those out. Most likely they're probably toast. So next on the list and with his complaint that he said second gear was slipping really bad, most likely is going to be this next assembly. So there's another big snap ring inside here. Right here it goes all the way around. And we're going to take that snap ring out and that is your two four clutch pack. So most likely that's going to be the clutches that's most likely burnt up or something's going on with that. As second gear he said was only complaint that was slipping. So we're going to get that snap ring out. We're going to get our big screwdriver and pop it out. This snap ring is much stiffer than the other one. It's a lot stronger so you do have to kind of take your time to get it out. But just work your way around. There's a bunch of screwdriver holes there for you to be able to pry it out with. Got that snap ring out. Like I said that one's much beefier, a lot stiffer than the one in the front. All right so now that we got our big snap ring out we're going to pull out this next section. It won't look like anything's bad there. It looks like the bushings, the bearings are still good. So we're going to have one more snap ring in here. We're going to have to pop out. This one is much easier to get out than the other one. All right so we're going to pull out this gear assembly in here. So this is the planetary gears. Kind of like a rear end, more or less. You can see the gear in the center here. Then you got three side gears. And then you got a gear on the back. Then you have a flat bearing right here so make sure that stays in place. I don't see gears seem to be okay. I don't see anything wrong with the gears. No chips or anything. And we should be able to pull out the first set of clutch packs right here. So we'll pull them out. And we're going to keep these together because they go one way. Yeah those got hot. So let's see what we got here. Houston I think we found the problem. So I'm going to take this apart right here. And you can see kind of the golding on that. Look at the backside of this. See all that purple color? Completely smoked. Definitely got hot. Some more smoke right there. I don't know why this transmission failed so quick with having a fresh rebuild. But yeah something did not go good. But these clutches right here are absolutely toast. They are fried. That is why it's slipping in second gear. And like I said again kind of like the rear end like an LSD unit. These are friction discs. They got basically like a clutch material friction material on them. And it makes a sandwich. And that's basically what applies the pressure to get your power to your tires. So when those discs wear out by by transmission it just starts to slip. So that's basically what's going on when your transmission takes a dump. And it starts to slip. It's because these clutch packs in here are worn out and they're not gripping anymore. So it cannot do what it needs to do. So I mean yeah this transmission can be fixed pretty easily. And you know if you did it yourself pretty cheap. A rebuild kit a master rebuild kit with new clutches seals everything you can usually get under 400 bucks from what I've seen. But that's what's going on with it. So yeah. So there you go guys. That is what happens usually to your RFE transmission when it starts to slip. Starts not to pull anymore. Starts to do the hokey pokey. Whatever you want to call it. The clutch packs are going to be toast. Not the end of the world. They can be rebuilt. But it's up to you. Again really tearing this thing down was not that bad. There's still some more to go. We still got some more sections to go to get to the other clutches. But I think I'm going to call it a day for tonight. It's getting late. And I got to the part that I wanted to which was what we expected. Clutch pack toast. So I hope that gives you a good idea of what's going on when that scenario happens. You know what kind of goes into taking an automatic transmission apart. What kind of tools you may need. And so forth. So other than that guys don't forget hit that subscribe button. Tap the bell button for the notifications. And we'll see you on the next one. Peace.