Hi, I'm Sibiran Kumar, I'm the Academic Director of FX School, which is in Mumbai. We are a digital training institute. Basically, we teach a lot of stuff, filmmaking, photography. And of course, we are teaching Blender, and this is kind of our story. So, I'm kind of like to tell you something about how we became the biggest Blender Training Institute in India. Something about my own background. I've been a light wave and 3D studio user for a long time. I created an animation series called Jungle Tales for Cartoon Network, that won the National Award. It was the first 3D animation series ever made in India. And then I also did India's first animated item girl, which is called Lady Chatterjee.  And at this time, we were using Max. In 2009, I shifted from production to starting the school. I was the Academic Director and Co-Founder of a school in Mumbai. That's our school. And FX school was an all-Max school, you know. So all our machines were I-Max. So it was kind of bye-bye Max, hello Maya. And I was never very comfortable with Maya, you know.  And for the first time, I didn't know the software that we were teaching. And so we had the instructors teaching it. And that's when I got very curious about Blender, because I said, ah, Blender works on my, you know, I had that 17-inch MacBook Pro then. I used to work on that. So I said, oh, this is really cool. And I was fiddling with it and I was fiddling with all the various versions. And, you know, I really couldn't get anybody else that interested in it. People were not, you know, ah, no, no, you know, Maya, what's this? It's like free, it's cheap, it's not good. And it went on for a while till, you know, we had tears of steel. I kind of, you know, paid for the DVD, supported it. And, you know, eventually I said, okay, the only way we can do it is that we have to take a hard decision. Do we keep teaching Maya or do we make a change? And that's what I did on, you know, in April 2014. I took what was probably a very radical decision in India. I said, I'll shift our entire CG pipeline from Maya to Blender. Okay? Yeah. Entirely. No, no more Maya. We'll just teach Blender. And I could do this because I had the full support of my, you know, my director, Abhidhe Muraka. He said, yeah, if you believe in this, do it like it's okay. You know, he didn't know what he was saying in that sense. So we became the first school in India to say, no, we don't teach Maya because people don't come and say, I want to learn CG animation. They say, I want to learn Maya. They don't say I want to learn editing. They say, I want to learn Final Cut Pro. You know, this is how people are. They want to learn the software. So we said, no, we don't teach Maya. We teach something better. It's called Blender. Blender. Okay.  They have Maya, Max, Flames, more cluster, the whole works. And they spend mega bucks advertising it. You know, it's a lot of money spent and everybody's told, you just learn the software and you have a job for life. And, you know, that's not kind of true. But it's a dream. They can sell it, you know, to lots of people. And they come from poor families. They spend a lot of money learning a software and they feel, you know, we can make it work. So in six months, we completely phased out Maya instruction from our school because there were students who were already learning Maya, so we had to phase them out. And by the end of 2014, we were only teaching Blender. So this is kind of our story and I'll let you know what all we did and how our students are doing. But first of all, in order to learn Blender, my instructors were also Maya people. So we said, let's make a small film using Blender. And you'll all see how easy it is. Of course everybody said, ah, right click, left click, you know. But we don't know what to do. But I said, no, you lose your job or we learn Blender. You know, sometimes that's the only way to do it. So we created this small test film, you know. Very simple little film. But people said, yeah, okay, at least we can make it. I mean, it is kind of symbolic. You know, we are escaping the Autodesk police. So we did that and we said, okay, we can start teaching Maya. And currently we have two instructors who are mainly teaching Blender. There's Ruth Mubgonga who teaches the Blender foundation course. That's a three month course. And we have Atenu who teaches the specialization course and the pro courses. So what happens in our school is that everybody has to do this foundation course. So everybody is kind of forced to learn Blender. Anyone who wants to do CG or VFX or gaming. So it's the base for our visual effects, CG pipeline and for gaming.  And we also teach Unreal. So for everything, all our modeling is done now in Blender. So that's the Blender three month foundation course. And okay, this is the number of students we have taught Blender over the three years since we started. And it's an accelerating figure. You know, we taught 566 students. It's going to be like 800 students the next time we meet. In fact, when I spoke to Torne and SIGGRAPH, we had taught 440 students. It's become 566. So it's accelerating. So I mean, I hope it's going to accelerate to a great degree. And this is what they do. They make, they're supposed to create still images. Okay. At this point in three months, learn the interface, create some stuff. So they do concentrate on creating, you know, static images, rendered images. They encourage to create whatever they like in Blender. So some of them are inspired by Tron. Okay. Some are inspired by Minions and 300. And of course, Transformers. And who can miss out Game of Thrones? So, but all this they do from zero in three months. And this is a part-time course. We're not a full-time course. They come twice a week to learn Blender. And in this much time, they learn it. And you know, one of the things we've realized is nobody could produce stuff like that with three months of training in Maya. Not even in six months. People are so much faster when they learn Blender from zero. When we try to teach people who already know Maya or Max or something, Blender, you know, they have to unlearn so much. There's so much resistance, it takes them longer. But fresh kids just master it in no time. It's really simple. And they love the fact that it's all, you know, cool. They don't have any preconceptions. So some people want to do like crazy science fiction stuff.  And people who have some arts background, you know, this is Ajinkya. He created this beetle. And in the next phase, the specialization phase, he actually animated it. Check that out. That was zero to about eight or nine months all part time. And we don't have a render farm in our school. You know, so this is tough work. So he's rendering it on his laptop. He was rendering it. Please, your machine is free. I want to render it on this. And everybody would suddenly find this beetle is rendering somewhere on the other, you know. So, and that's it. And, you know, students really want to do stuff, do stuff. So again, what really happens in the specialization course is that students start, you know, refining. They start creating more complex stuff. Now the problem basically, it's not a problem. It's just that it's a natural progression. We don't have that many students doing advanced blender. We have about 170 students who have completed advanced blender courses. And since that takes a bit longer, they're still doing it. So I would say one in two or three students actually do advanced blender. Others shift to using it. They're still using blender. They use it in games. They're using it in VFX, but pure CG, you know, about 170 students. So these 170 students are hoping to make their living off blender.  What did you make it in Maya? No, blender. No. But you have to learn Maya to work with us, you know. So there's still that problem. There are some companies in India now that's, you know, they are in blender, but it's still a bit of a thing. And this number, the good thing is it's accelerating. It's a lot more people are working with blender. And blender itself is getting faster and faster. And we are hoping that when we have hands-on with EV, students will be able to render that much more stuff out because, you know, that's what's stopping them from making animation. Currently with cycles, you know, it's a bit tough. So here's some work that these students do. So this Hugo-inspired image the student created. His name is Sayyam Jain. He created this and he said, oh my God. And then he realized, oh, I don't know, you know, how do I animate it? So he said, okay, you have to animate something. So this is what he did. He just moved the gears. Okay. So, you know, I said, okay, cool. He did the smoke effects and, you know, stuff like that. So he said, okay. So it's, so that's that. And another student created the shoe. Okay, Bhargav Prajapati. And we said, okay, can you make a shoe commercial with it as your project? You know, since you model the shoe, shoe commercials are big. Can you do it? So he said, okay, let me, let me do that. So that's that. Yet others, again, you know, they take on complicated things. And the thing that's stopping us from creating a lot of stuff, obviously, is that they're not able to render. But still, you know, here's another example. This is Jinnay Kumbhat. So some students create nice stuff. Okay. And again, they run out of time to do animation. So this student, we said, okay, why don't you make a making off? So she created the making off. Her name is Anugia Golcha. So one of the things they have figured out is that all students who can do this kind of elaborate modeling, they're able to plug in into the gaming, this thing, and they're able to provide their assets for the game guys. So that becomes really very useful. This was not something that was there three years ago when we started. We started teaching only gaming, gaming only a couple of years ago. We started with Unreal and now we are doing Unity. So suddenly Blender is that much more useful because you can open the file. You can take it to Unity or you can take it to Unreal and it's seamless. You know, it's pretty good and it's getting better. Again, some students do really complex stuff like this one. You know, this is by Priyanka. She made this train in a station. And boy, she couldn't get a computer that could do anything to animate it. It was stuck. So she said, okay, we said, okay, fine. Others also do them. So, you know, this is another stuff. This is more stuff. Now, here is a really ambitious project. This was supposed to be ready for us to use here. But some of the test renders they've done. But as usual, the student could never complete it. So, you know, we are hoping, when will you do this? It's pretty long and, you know, it has to be rendered. So the final thing that a lot of students do is the digital film project. Now, here, there's no escape.  And that's what you have to do. You have to make this film in Blender. Now, the first student who made his digital film, his name was Nishad Patil. And he had originally studied in Maya. And, you know, he was part of the students who were switched from Maya to Max. Sorry, from Maya to Blender. And he said, oh my God. And we said, no, it's easy. You know, start. We can do this. And he created his little film. And he never did the foundation in Blender. He had done that in Maya. He did the entire film in Blender. So this is his film. So the student did this from beginning to end in three months, flat.  Because, again, like I said, the biggest problem we have as a school is rendering. You know, a lot of students have this problem, how do I render my animations? And we have these students who got all these projects that just need to be rendered because they render a bit of it, then they realize textures are crawling, problems are happening, blah, blah, blah. Okay, you know. And nobody does the thing, okay, render it out in a small size. No, no, no, we want to see full HD. And it takes half an hour, 40 minutes. And cycles is not exactly fast. Okay. So that's it. And that's one of the things. So here's another 30-second commercial on which some two, three students work together on it. This was kind of different because a lot of the stuff is very modeling-based. This is quite a bit of, you know, FX-based. Let's check this out. So the idea is every student has to create some kind of an animation like this, or if they do that. And sometimes we say, okay, you can get together and do it, you know, so that you can all take a few shots each and do it. And I think this was pretty decent for. The last film is by a student, Deepthi Rajan. This is a part of her, you know, film. A curious dog finds an unexpected midnight visitor, raiding the refrigerator in the house. This is the story. So here goes. So her film is much longer. She hasn't yet finished it, but, you know, we thought, okay, great.  But nonetheless, you know, it's really cool that they do it in a part-time course. You know, and this is, I think, one of the really strong things that we've been doing. So that's what we've been doing. And that's some of the, you know, stuff that students were doing while learning Blender. But many of us and the instructors, we come from a really, you know, advanced. I was working with Pixion, which is one of the biggest post-production houses was in India till it was, you know. Now we have Prime Focus, which is like the biggest, but whatever. So the next thing that we wish to do, and we've started pre-production work on it, is what we call the FX Cool Short Film Project. So we have a name for this story. It's called Dirty Business. And what we are doing is we'll be creating a short animation film, and we've been so inspired by all the films that Blender Institute is creating. So we said, all of us, not just a single student, team of five or seven people, we'll get together to create this film at possibly the highest production value that we can do, and we'll get it rendered and we'll make a nice stuff. And it's an action-packed comedy series. It's like something like Spy vs. Spy kind of thing. So we've got to do that so that we have it ready for the next Blender conference. And we'll hope to see you then with another 500 students and a lot more stuff. That's what we have been doing in our little way. We have been trying to put Blender out there. There are a few studios in India that are doing really good work and you see their work regularly. But very few schools teach Blender, and the students still have difficulty going and finding jobs in Blender. And sometimes what happens is the people need the student and they come and ask us for students. At that point, the student is gone and joined somewhere else. It's a bit of a mix-and-match problem. There is a perception that, oh, we want to work with Blender studios, we want to work with Blender, but they've got a lot of senior people who are very uncomfortable actually shifting the pipeline. So the more, it's been two and a half years, three years now, the more and more students we turn out as you're seeing they start creating really good work on their own. And I'm assuming a lot of them will end up changing things in the industry. A lot of them are already doing that. So, you know, we are hoping to see a much more Blender-filled future in India. So thank you, everybody. That's that. Thank you.


Happy Friday everybody. Welcome back. Hope everybody's doing good. This, uh, wonderful, uh, 18th Day of January. Good to see you all. Good to see you. I got good news. I got bad news. I don't know what you want me to start with. I mean the good news is we're all off on Monday. The bad news Looks like it's gonna be spilling into maybe today into Tuesday, which you know I hate holidays. Really really messes things up on our trading But it's so far this morning kind of seeing a little bit here and there on that But uh, we're good to see you all. Everyone's looking here to brighten early and listen.  I traded this morning It has it's hitting a brick wall right here at 25. You know, I got in around 22 23 and Got out around 20 and it dropped all the way down to 15 now it's going back up But you know, if you notice it has it really, you know, it's a lot of the stocks out there Not really moving the way we're looking at it. So the pre-market this morning guys. Listen Not like it was on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday.   But you got to be there every day and you will hit a home run Talking about tunas. Anybody anybody anybody anybody watch the tunas the wicket tune or anything like that Anybody will watch those shows And see how hard those guys work pretty crazy be on the freedom was any big fisherman out there, but sometimes me Wicked tunas and other ones like when these guys go out and in the ocean they go for for tuna Even like the king crabs legs and stuff like that. Well, anyway, the reason I bring this up If you see how hard they work just to make to catch that tuna There was a tuna that sold in Japan a 500 pound tuna they got $3 million for it now if we knew we can go out and go out there and Get three million dollars for a tuna every time we went out there and we all go out there, right? Do it all day long. That's why everybody wants a day trade I'm just bringing this up, but just remember not a little time You're gonna get that $3 million tuna not every day. You're gonna get the PCG trade not every day You're gonna get the emba trade, you know, like we trade this week Yeah, I mean I can go on and on and on so you got but you got to keep putting you you got to keep Putting your work in there and just can't just show up But the great thing is you guys got some great traders in here. Everybody's doing great We're a team effort because remember CTU. I just want to remind everybody it's just not more of a training school It's more of a a trading community and that's what it's all about But how did you get the 500 tuna out of the water? Well, you got to watch the show for that one. How about this how to get a 1200 draw a 1200 pound tuna I can't believe those things get that big which is absolutely crazy But anyway, let's get back in what's and see where the action is let's talk about what's moving Obviously the is not really that much.  It's doing a little bit of a bottom fish right here It's coming up a little bit stock to get the nasty haircut, but let's talk about what happened yesterday There were a couple of stocks that did pretty well Not the greatest but the PCG Let me just tell you a little bit about the PCG trade. So I got out. I thought it was gonna be a good swing trade You know looking at it stock taking a major major hit but I did cover it and I covered it yesterday and let me tell you something thank God I sold it yesterday and if you remember as a market result was let me just bring up yesterday's chart This is one of the overnight positions that I did and If you look at it, it had it just took off it went to 840 I got out right at $8 Okay, and I had a huge profit in it, but and the reason why I got out of it. Let's think I make the chart a little bit small He's gonna make some Okay, so you what happened was the stock kept breaking Lower lows and what's it started doing that? You know we cover that in class and I and remember I know we have a lot of new people here and everything And we have people just starting to learn and go through the classes and stuff the biggest thing that we try to teach you Okay, the biggest thing is not how to make money It's how to control losses if everybody was making money Believe me, you wouldn't have you would have to be here or you wouldn't have to go through training But it's controlling losses and let me tell you if I didn't get out of that trade and all of us didn't get out of it It dropped the way down to 640 so that several thousand dollar profit We had would have been you know could have been several thousand dollar loss and that's one of the big things So anyway, I thought that PCG trade was a phenomenal trade and let me tell you I told you go into the close We don't hold overnight positions here But time to time I would if I got the confidence Knowing that hey, I know I could lose all this money tomorrow and know what I got myself involved in But you know what just close so damn strong and sure enough it did exactly what we thought it was gonna do So that one did pretty well the other one LM F a trade let me bring that one up So that one was nice little cheapy yesterday that one just popped out right out of the gate And a lot of us were pretty much done on that one. You can see our nine o'clock this morning It just went from my two dollars shadow way to three bucks Where you find that where you guys find winners like that? And you know what another thing to break broke higher highs then it started breaking the lower low Everyone should at least made least 50 cents on this trade minimum 50 cents We were you gonna make that 50 cents on a thousand chairs $500 $100,000 a salary. There you go. So that one was a good now. There was another one, too LPCN Just bring up that one that one was a just getting crushed great short I don't put on your short list, but that one gapped up pretty big, but then just took a huge huge hit IOC Bring up that one That one was pretty good, too That one just had a nice little trend going up the only thing I didn't like the BIOC had some nasty shakes You can see it's really taking a nasty hit right now Listen, whatever goes up must come down. So I mean we trade that stock at a dollar ran away to four bucks Look where it ended up right now. So, you know the big thing I also want to keep you want you guys to hold on there was one more to I want to bring up The biggest thing I want you guys to remember and this was actually one of the morning picks In the pre-market it just was a little more an expensive side and not a big fan of it But you could see right here at the gate when we found this in pre-market. It was a great great short I know some of you couldn't get the stock on it was on you was not on your short list But but the big thing you guys got to remember is that and I want you to take a tip for the day You know something very important We traded it we every single day is a new adventure And a lot of you here seen some great winners and they slipped away from you and that's okay You saw it you were there is always tomorrow. Okay, and if it's not there, it's it, you know It's like getting back to Wicca tuna, you know, just because you didn't catch You know just because you didn't get your tuna doesn't mean you're gonna quit They have to spend all that time and money to prepare for it You got to keep putting in your time and you're gonna hit and remember it's not about home runs This week was But it wasn't like that last week, okay the week before and I told you that and how do I know that because with experience That's why you hear so remember it's all about us going out there seeing it Monetizing it and don't get jealous from everyone else, you know, if somebody else got there you didn't get there You'll you'll you'll get your tuna. You'll get your tuna. You'll get there You know just gotta be patient and you just gotta sit back and just as long as you could see it happening That's what all it matters now regarding about this morning You know, listen, I went through the watch list. There were a couple of stocks. I'm making some big moves You had the GEV you had the GEVO Shockingly now it's starting to make a move. I didn't like it now It looks like she's starting to make a big move right now So that was in the morning watch list already kind of funny how she started making a move right now, so The GEVO is gonna be on the watch list you could see some of you remember this stock We traded this stock going from five all the way to 20 remember that one go back to your journals Check it out, you know, so but it's got to break these resistance levels where it's at UPL You know, I just don't like it I'm I'm if I need to see what's gonna happen at 930 with this thing and remember at least got to give it till give it like five minutes, but Pretty much where I was where I had it where I got out of it Another one right here, you know, it's got 15,000 shares 13% not really sold on it You got an ETF right there Time this one right here E Y M E Trying to start to go back up a little bit Let me just fix this time slot right here You can see it's got a little bit of a trend going up trying to make back a little bit of a dead cat bounce But remember the stock had a nice little push, you know, it's up already I would be a little careful on this one up to daily chart on this one. All right, and what else got killed? Oh, I am em you remember that one at the I remember that stock. I am M you another one getting crushed Love those bottom fishings the only thing I don't like about remember one thing we've learned about what we teach you here It's Cybertrain University regarding about anything in the medical pharmaceutical industry when they get crushed. They don't come back So just be very careful trying to Monot benefit from the dead cat bounces. All right And all these ones that you notice that they're all biotech stocks. All right anything. I'm missing. I did not call out guys Anything out there?     All right. Well That we're looking too good. All right, everybody Leopard doesn't change his spots. There you go John. There you go. All right. Thanks for sharing that Leopard does not change his spots Pretty cat. I love cats. I got a cat on my own best thing I ever had I don't think she'll have a change, but I don't think I would get a leopard All right guys, so listen good luck today. Happy trading. We'll see you We'll see you back at 2 30 for the afternoon meeting Just remember we don't we got a lot of new members here most important thing Talk to education advisor watch those videos We have a lot of new students that upgraded from being a trial member now. They want to be our new students You know a lot of them Just for you guys remember class starts next week make sure you review your lessons get ready for the live class next week Remember the most important part of being of this team. It's not about being in the room. It's being in class Trading is only an hour job. You know day trading is a living But it doesn't require you to be here eight hours a day But when you do need to require is really want to learn and know how to play the game and learn from those mistakes Most important thing out there. Sorry.  So you might get some action Doesn't mean you should just pack up and leave but listen. It's okay No one you are your own boss. See you come and go what you want Don't worry the stock market's not going out of business. I'll be back here on Tuesday We will be open up on Monday, by the way So just to let you guys know Cybertrain University I know some of you guys got some coaching and stuff like that. So we will be open on Monday We'd be limited staff, but you know a training department be closed but but we will be here on Monday and You know with the long weekend, I don't know about where you guys are But there's a major major snowstorm coming here in the Northeast. So I think it's going to shake up a lot of things I know people want to take the long weekend. So let's see what happens on Tuesday. So just don't get too cocky out there today All right, just be very very conservative. Remember nickels and dimes. Don't try to hit home runs. All right, everyone When did you do the teaching for trade station Ted? I did it yesterday So it was recorded. You can go back and review it. Whatever you missed. It was a really really good lesson I really took the time to really kind of explain that matrix platform. So You know, you can go there and review it. All right guys. Good luck everyone Happy trading. See you back at any afternoon meeting. So let's get ready for the opener, right?


A tulip doesn't strive to impress anyone. It doesn't struggle to be different than a rose. It doesn't have to. It is different. You didn't have to struggle to make your face different than anyone else's. It just is. You are unique because you were created that way.


Energy issues, energy use, renewable is really going to be the major issue over the next 20-50 years for our country, for our state, for our city. Projects like the district heat plant that the Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee has helped to bring online demonstrates the sort of breadth and depth of the innovation that's really happening at the local level. So this process has been more than 10 years and coming, the idea to have some kind of a district heat plant at all. My very first meeting ever that I attended the Montpelier City Council was in January of 1995. And at that meeting they were talking about district heat and this idea of connecting the state's heat plant to the city's downtown. And I remember thinking, wow, that's ambitious, maybe even crazy. So the original heat plant was constructed in 1946 by the state. They operated the plant on coal at that point in time. When coal was going out of favor they switched to number two fuel oil. Then from number two switched to number six. Then in the 80s we went to a chip system and basically we've been on chips ever since. Our chip deliveries come at night and you're between half to five o'clock at night and seven in the morning. The operators have the truck back all the way out and the truck can offload about 20 minutes. So this way by backing the truck up they can start pushing out of the back of the truck and then pull forward and the whole 18-wheeler offloads here. And in weather like this we're going through a tractor trailer load and a half when it gets sent about 20 below. So 40 plus tons of chips in a day. So it's going processing quite a few hours. This is the first system of its type that's been built in Vermont, in New England, in the northeast. It is a modification of an existing building. As part of the tour you can see where the old wood chips came in and sort of the lower level. But everything that's sort of at the upper level is mostly new. Many, many people in Vermont have converted to wood stoves in their own house and minimized their use of oil, their furnaces as a backup. And I like to think of this project as putting downtown on a wood stove. What's your footing? The floor will be slippery. Behind us here on the other side of this concrete wall was the walking floor that we were just at. So as the chips get processed off the walking floor they come through here onto this vibratory conveyor. This piece of steel on here, this bed vibrates and actually moves the chips along the floor to an area over here. So there's roughly two inch squares cut into the vibratory conveyor. As it shakes across the right size chips will fall down into another conveyor to the storage bins. Anything that's oversized continues on to two additional conveyors. Those conveyors take it to the hog, to that hog with the chips through this system. This thing right now because it's moving all over the vibratory conveyor goes to an auger to a bucket elevator. And that brings it to yet two more auger systems that'll send it to either storage bin one or storage bin two. So now we are in the old section of the plant.  And then it takes them out from down below, puts them into another vibratory conveyor and has a system of augers that gets us over to the biomass room. But it's not a constant delivery, it delivers them to a metering bin which is based on the storage area out there. It stores the chip right at the boiler and then it advances from that point as it needs to. You know like any project you have to evaluate the pros and cons. I think the benefits of this project really fall into two specific areas. One is environmental, the other is financial. The environmental benefits I think are somewhat obvious. We are going off of oil and onto wood chips. It's a renewable source. In the long run like this is probably one of the best things that we can do for the city to make sure that we are sustainable from an energy perspective. The financial benefit is that it's going to be a very steady predictable cost over the next 20 plus years for the users.  What we do with our oil and energy resources now is critically important to set ourselves up for that time. And so this just feels like good stewardship on our part for that future time. I would say that, you know, the state of Vermont has ambitious, you know, climate goals, it has ambitious renewable energy goals. We've set those goals because we understand, you know, that there's urgency around climate change and we also understand that there's opportunity in helping our communities get off of increasingly expensive fossil fuels. This is boiling number one. The black horses, the bottom of this boiler is nothing more than a wood stove. Everything above it is where our water tubes are. So as the chips make their way across over here, the drop in the metering bin up here, they're stored here as they're used. And we just have two just odders here pushing their way into the top of the grate. The grate is sloped, the hydraulic is driven, so as the system burns up the chip, the gas is sent down the slope. So as the grates inside are automatic and based on the chips coming in, the combustion range, they're just proved down below here that automatic is taking that back. Now if you continue over here, after you go through the process of the heat exchanger for your combustion air, you come down through here and reflect the fly ash. So the fly ash is what usually goes up the chimney or in a fireplace, whatever the little parts you see or anything else. That gets re-injected back in the system so it's fuel that's not burned yet. So we're recapturing that, dumping it back in the system. Once it comes back through here through the induction fan, it goes overhead to the ESPs, the electrostatic precipitators. So what they're doing is they're taking out down here in ash, but taking out the finer ash that would normally be going up our chimney. In past years we didn't have this, this is new to our plant. So now it's collecting finer ash that would have been normally going out of our chimney and does a good job of it. That ash is picked up and brought over to a dumpster, automatically dumped in there. Let's go in the city room. This is the heat exchanger for the city. So we've got steam coming in through a faceplate, heat exchanger, which is right here, steam on one side, water on the other side, transfer the steam energy to the water, send hot water out to the city. When the city is operating off of this, they're on these pumps. But it's a hot water system just like a house coming out of a boiler. Relatively simple, certainly a lot simpler than all the moving parts you saw in the chip plant. I'm proud of the district heat project because I think, first of all, it was an important project to do and has a lot of benefits. And it is something that will set the city up positively for the future. But second of all, it did set, I think, a tone and I think it made more things seem possible. That was a big mountain decline getting that done. And I hope that it has inspired the Net Zero effort. Net Zero Montpelier is the idea that we are hoping to renewably produce as much energy as Montpelier consumes on the whole. We're not just talking about the municipality. We're not just like the city buildings. We're talking about everything, including heat, electricity, and transportation. The solutions that the city of Montpelier is going to be embracing through Net Zero I think are going to set its citizens up for savings over the long term as well as doing what's absolutely essential for our planet. If we're going to try to get the whole city to move towards Net Zero energy, this really sets us pretty far ahead on that moving towards that goal.


Over 1.5 million Armenians were killed in and around Turkey by the Ottoman Empire between 1914 and 1921. Those murders are known as the Armenian Genocide. Turkey has long denied committing the mass killings. As part of that decade's long denial, Turkey has pressured other countries not to officially recognize the genocide. For 40 years the U.S. did what Turkey wanted. There were numerous chances to pass legislation, but Turkey and its allies, including many in the U.S., managed to stop any bills until 2019. That's when both the U.S. House and Senate defied the pressure. They passed a bill declaring that the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks was a genocide. Scholar Eldar ben Aron says that now that the U.S. has officially recognized the Armenian Genocide, the next question is how it will memorialize the genocide beyond the vote in Congress. My name is Dr. Eldar ben Aron, and I specialize in the field of modern Middle Eastern studies and the region diplomatic history during the Cold War. My research focuses on the late 70s and 80s when the Armenian made their first request that the U.S. recognize the Armenian Genocide. And in this context, how these diplomats try to influence the U.S. policy on the Armenian Genocide. And it works during the fall, the help of their regional holgo allies, Israel, Turkey pressured Israel to influence the concept of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and those to make sure that the Armenian bill will be rejected by the Congress. So for more than 40 years now, the U.S. was reluctant to contradict the Turkish account of 1915. But a lot of things happened in 2019. An arm trade between Turkey and Russia and the Trump-Alduan alliance, and it was also, of course, the operation against the Kurds in all of Syria. All of this together work against Turkey. It seems like Turkey crossed the line, and the Armenian Genocide bill seems like part of the sanction package against Turkey. In the 1980s, how to frame the exhibition of a Jewish memorial regarding the Holocaust, of course, were highly contested. And it is likely that some of the heated discussion will happen here again. And lastly, we need to think some questions about the U.S. responsibility during the genocide period, during the First World War, will be framed with the Holocaust memorial. For example, in the late 70s, the Carter administration had an agenda to show how the American combats liberated their concentration camps and how the U.S. defeated Hitler. It was a really important narrative in the museum. It was not a core narrative, but it was definitely framed in the narrative of the museum. However, in the case of the Armenian Genocide, there are open questions. The United States, back at the time, decided not to intervene, even though there were clear evidence by the American ambassador, Henry Mogantau, that the genocide is taking place. So it will be quite interesting to wait and see how these angles will be framed in the Armenian Genocide.


Hey, I'm Drew and you are watching or just listening to The Anxious Truth. This is the podcast where we talk about anxiety, anxiety disorders, and recovery. So if you're dealing with things like panic attacks or agoraphobia or OCD or health anxiety, well, you're in the right place. This week we're going to hear a success story. This is a success story from my friend Andy who has dealt with sleep anxiety and insomnia for decades and found a solution. She came by to share it with you, so let's check it out. And welcome back to The Anxious Truth. This is episode 231 of the podcast. We're recording in October of 2022. And this week we're going to talk about Andy's Andy Lyons. My friend Andy Lyons is here and we're going to talk about her success story when it comes to anxiety about sleep, not sleeping, and her struggles with insomnia for 30 years of her life. And she managed to get some good help and learn some good habits and overcame all that stuff and she's doing much better now. And since sleep is a big problem and a big issue with a lot of you guys, I thought this would be a really useful episode. So I asked Andy to pop by and she was gracious enough to do that and tell her story. So we're going to hear from Andy. Hopefully it's going to be great. Before we do, we have another new sponsor on the podcast this week. This week we are sponsored by Dr. Magic Fingers Special Mental Health Scissors. Now these might look like regular scissors, but they're infused right at the factory with positive vibes and gratitude. So if you use the special mental health scissors, you can just cut the anxiety right out of your life with these scissors. So yeah, these also come in multiple colors. This is the green one. This is Dr. Magic Fingers Special Mental Health Anxiety Scissors. I don't know what color the green is for. It might be for OCD, I'm not sure. But check them out and thank you, Dr. Magic Fingers, for supporting the anxious truth, our brand new sponsor. Really good. But not our brand new sponsor. That's not real. The anxious truth is actually just sponsored by the anxious truth. That's me. And you can find all of the stuff that I have for you guys at theanxiestruth.com. That's all the free stuff. And it's the three books that I've written that are really helpful for people and it's free video workshop and it's a monthly webinar I do with Daryl and the Hardis about distress tolerance and all the social media stuff and all the rest of the podcast episodes. So go over to theanxiestruth.com and check it out. There's a lot of good stuff there that I think you're really going to like. So this podcast is actually really sponsored just by me. So there you go. All right. Let's get to Andy's story here. She was a great guest. I think you guys are going to like her. She's super sweet and she was nice enough to share her story about sleep anxiety and overcoming insomnia and some of the lessons she learned along the way. So let's get to it. I'll be back afterwards to wrap it up. Andy. Andy Licious. Welcome. Drullicious Drew. I'm so grateful to be here sharing time and space with you. Yes. For those of you who have never seen Andy Lyons before, which why would you? Because Andy and I share no shared audience really in the end. Andy is in the world of startups and financing startups and she's just got a ton of experience and she's well respected in that. And she is I would like to thank a friend of mine. Yes. Oh 100% and a fan. A devoted fan. Oh well thank you so much. That's very sweet. So Andy's a kick. You guys are going to like her. Like I said in the intro, Andy has an amazing story about sleep and anxiety around sleep that I heard for the first time a year ago kind of. You were still working on it. Well, you know, I was reaching out to you and said, you know, given all the conversations you have around anxiety, which I've been living with most of my life as well. You know, what do you know about sleep? And you gave me the usual response. Yeah. Right. You know, and different ideas that you had heard. And I was like, well, okay, over 40 years, I pretty much have tried it all, including that wonderful advice. But thank you, Drew. Yeah. But that did not do it. And so what happened folks is that I came to a point where I said, look, either I'm going to figure this out or I'm going to learn to accept it because sometimes you have to accept things about our lives, right? Yeah. Now you are just to give people a quick read as I just background, this was years of sleep issues. Right. And so, and I've done EMDR because I did have trauma, everybody. When I was six years old, I got really sick with mononucleosis and it was during a time period where when they brought a child into the hospital, you left it there. Yeah. No parent stayed in the bedroom, it was a two-year window, lots of mea cupos after it. So I got left in a private room by myself and I thought, oh great, you know, when you're six and you're really sick and you're alone in the hospital and you think everybody's left and no mommy or daddy, can you imagine, I was afraid to go to sleep. Sure. That started, you know, the whole afraid to go to sleep. But it really kicked in and I had, I had plenty of other trauma later too, but when I was 26 years old and I had a routine in life, I was getting up and playing tennis for an hour or two and working and you know, very active 26-year-old and all of a sudden I couldn't sleep and that's when it started. And now I'm on, you see the sign behind me, Route 66, I'm on Route 66 NASA, 40 years and I mean, my husband, we've been together 37 years, waking up at night, you know, just tiptoeing, hoping he wouldn't wake me up because if I startled awake, that would be it. And I learned for 40 years how to take finals in graduate school, getting my MBA, taking an accounting final with virtually no sleep for night after night after night.  And then I, if I can go on to tell the story on how I solved it. You can. I just want to interject one thing. For those of you, you don't know Andy, I have seen Andy do her thing. Because much of my audience has anxiety centered around sleep, primarily based on if I don't sleep enough, my anxiety will be horrible and I will be incapable. 100%. You would not believe what Andy Lyons looks like in a live stream, you would never in a million years know that that was a sleep deprived person. Right. And I learned it. It was just a coping mechanism I put into place. But I will say, you know, I have held back on so many things over the years because of my being, you know, am I going to be so tired? And so I decided, you know, I've solved so many problems in my life. Let me see if I can't solve this one or come to a point where I can accept it. And now that I was on Medicare, I thought, well, let me get a therapist who is covered by my Medicare and supplement. And so I found a woman locally and got into therapy with her. It was very clear what I was there to solve. The third session, she said, you know, I do a lot of work out of Dana Farber and there's a guy there named Eric Zhao, Dr. Zhao, and he works with adult and pediatric patients on sleep. You should give them a call and check out his work. I said, okay, I check them out. We have our one, you know, our consulting call, 15-minute call. And he's like, four sessions. I'm like, you know, it's all I could do not to go, uh-huh. But what he said was the first time I'd ever heard this, and I have been hearing things about sleep for forever, he said insomnia is its own thing. It is not about the trauma. It hasn't been about the trauma for decades for you or additional trauma. It is a pattern in your brain that we need to shift. And he says, so it's like, you know, when you have snow tracks, let's say, and it snows and the snow tracks get filled in, it's that kind of thing. My brain was grooved. Neuro pathways were grooved. And he said, you know, there's, everybody is locked into this, you have to have eight hours of sleep a night or you're going to, and I got that message going up, you're going to get sick, you're going to be tired, all this stuff. Well, he had to keep a digest. I went off all meds. Only one med would be lunesta. Keep a digest of my sleep for two weeks before we met. And then he said, Andy, you know, you clearly only need six hours of sleep a night.  And he said, and he said, I said, well, what about this average? He goes, yeah, but, you know, he had my husband with me on all the calls. He said, your husband's six, three. That would be like saying all the average height of men in the U.S. is five, 10. So we better cut something off of chat. You know, it's, this doesn't work that way. And so we got started. And the whole thing that he used for me was to, he saw that I spent a lot of time in bed. I mean, I just would go to bed early hoping I would fall asleep, right? And then I'd, you know, have coffee in bed in the morning. I'd be dangin' and going to take naps. There was a lot of time spent in bed. I was not allowed to go to bed until it was time to sleep. And we chose the time of, I'd be in bed by, I'd go to bed at 1130 with an alarm sitting, waking me up at 6 a.m. And so I was like, okay, great. And he said, but if you can't fall asleep within 15 minutes, get up and do something fun. So I was all ready to do that. First two nights, you know, I got up and did something fun, watched something or whatever, went back. And from then on, cause his whole theory is that you're gonna get tired and we're gonna get you to sleep in this time period.  But we don't care about caffeine.  Meditate, oh my God. I get wired when I meditate. I, you know, all of these things, he didn't care. You know, have a Starbucks, I don't care.  And the message that I'm hearing is you might be tired and you'll figure out a way to cope. You've been coping for 40 years, clearly. Yeah, it's not a disaster that you're tired and sleep deprived that day. Huge message, huge, right? Huge message. All of a sudden my life had this shift from constantly being focused on sleep. Am I getting enough sleep? Am I tired? Am I, you know, all of those things. It shifted into, and I told him, oh my gosh, I can't. So I told him when I first met with him, I said, well, I do this affirmation, it's so easy for me to fall asleep because, oh, forget that. Your new affirmation is just gonna be, it's so hard for me to stay awake. See, I love this. This is perfect. Even though you're addressing a specific issue, which was insomnia, I love the approach to sleep. Like you'll sleep, it's leave it alone. Stop trying to engineer your sleep. And so all of a sudden it's like, someone said, hey, can you meet, yeah, go to this event that's happening at seven o'clock at nine. I'm like, I gotta stay awake till 1130, absolutely. Let's do it, sure. Whereas I'm guessing previously, you would have like, no, no, no, I need to try to get to bed early so I can sleep enough. Right. Yeah. Okay. Oh my gosh, literally folks.  Getting my circadian rhythm and something into shape. But literally, he was $275 a session and we barely made it to 45 minutes each time.  Plus it's like, I'm up at six and I would crawl and I have to get out of bed. So I'd crawl into the living room, set up shop out there. And all of a sudden it was like, I have all this time in my day. I didn't know what to do with it because I spent so much time about sleep. So the rule now, if I can paraphrase here that you've built with the help of the doc was bed is for sleeping.  Or, you know, for some reason. Right, for what other things, sure. But bed is, you don't lay in bed trying demanding to sleep at every moment. So when you're tired, you go to bed. If you don't fall asleep, you get out of bed. When you wake up in the morning, you get out of bed. You don't lay in bed in the morning, sounds like. Okay, not allowed to do that. And when I go to sleep now, folks, I often fall asleep within 15 minutes. Maybe my sleep will be light some nights, you know, but I always go back to sleep. And at my age, you gotta get up and go use the bathroom once or twice. And still I go back. And it's like astonishing to me that I fall right back to sleep. Like this is not my behavior. Yeah, was that the difference? And what I'm hearing here is I'm going to drop the demand to sleep. I must sleep now. Yeah, I honestly, and this is six months later, folks. So I mean, this is really into my seventh month and getting ready to go away for a few days would be, oh my God, I definitely need a sleeping pill because I don't want to be tired for the trip. You know, so I'm having a Starbucks at six o'clock at night. And that's the other thing. I have caffeine after a certain time. Doesn't matter.  And the fact that it was that simple, I'm almost a little peeved. I didn't find out this 30 years ago. Well, I think it's so interesting. And we've had these conversations before because Andy and I do speak. So I kind of knew what she was going to talk about. And that's why I invited her on because we knew it would be useful. But so much of the information when we find a problem and now I have to solve it. So this is a problem I must solve. And you get bombed. I did a podcast episode a month or two ago on this. If you guys want to check that out. It's the, no, no, no, you must have this much sleep. You must have this kind of sleep. If you don't, there will be health ramifications, mental health ramifications. You'll be less than optimal. You'll be failing. You'll be all of these things, right? And in the end, humans have been sleeping for a million years, you know, in our current form, generally speaking. And it seems to sort itself out. So how are you on days when you're, there are days when you don't sleep that well, I'm guessing, or lighter and you're tired, more tired than other days, I'm guessing. Yeah, so I go, wow, I'm a little tired. But then I have to laugh because I'm pretty sure I got at least four hours of sleep. Like that's like, yeah, mind blowing still. I have a deep appreciation for it. But also it's the, it's just how I view the day.  And if I have another tough night, for some reason, light sleep tonight, then I'll be even more tired the next day, you know? It's okay. So at some point your body's gonna catch up and you'll go to sleep. Yeah, you will go to sleep. And here's the other thing too, that for years, again, I read every book felt even worse about myself because of not, you know, eight hours of sleep or I'm gonna die. You're gonna have a shorter lifespan.  But also how about the, get the room prepared, get the, this, get all of these things, sleep hygiene. Yeah. Well, I mean, and in some way you are practicing some very basic sleep hygiene. The bed is for sleeping. I go, I don't lay in bed. I don't, okay. That's right. That's fine, but it didn't take all kinds of extra special rituals and routines.  But, you know, just, so I, as I start to wind down at the end of the day and I'll be reading in the living room or working on jigsaw puzzle or something. And then I'll say, wow, it's 1130, I can go to bed. And sometimes I'm definitely, I'm never gonna make it to the 1130. And I have to, I do go to bed earlier. So you'll have to go to bed earlier. If you're falling asleep on your jigsaw puzzle, it's okay to go to sleep. It's okay, absolutely. And now six months in, I am actually able to take a 10 minute power nap and still get to sleep. Like a nap would have thrown me off completely. And so, and this is for me personally, I don't know what it would be depending on who, you know, what your anxiety is, but I'm pretty sure this is how he does it for everybody. He follows your sleep for a couple of weeks and then he sees what looks like your needed sleep. And so much of that is, I mean, which is great because there are behavioral modifications there. And then a little bit of old school CBT and reframing the thoughts around sleep. Now I don't know this particular doctor. And by the way, Andy's in Boston. So for those wondering- He only has his license to practice in Massachusetts and I think New York state. Cause he's a PhD doctor. He's a psychologist. Psychologist, thank you. And there is a thing called ICBT, which is CBT specifically for insomnia. And this sounds a lot like what your doc was talking about. So there's parallels there. Right. But some of the reframing and the dismantling of your thoughts and beliefs around sleep and the ritual of sleep and the demand of sleep. And then coupled with behavioral changes. No, no, no, go to bed at 1130, set your alarm for this, get out of bed if you can't sleep. And there you go, things reset. Yeah. And here's the scope.  Yeah, yeah, we talked about that. Four days later, I was still awake. You know, that, that didn't work out. You know, because I wasn't set up with that time period. You know, I feel that that was what was really important to get out of bed. Here's the time period that you'll be sleeping. If you don't, you don't. Yeah, yeah. But if you're consistent with that every day in the end, it's going to work out and you're going to get your average needed amount of sleep. Exactly. And folks, I've been living with anxiety too for most of my life and it's also definitely in the DNA of my family genetics. And so, you know, I understand how that, you know, lizard brain can get completely freaked out. Yeah. And anybody who's suffering with insomnia, I have a deep appreciation. And yes, it did get worse as I lost my hormones. So, yeah. So, so much is going to impact our sleep for sure. But you're right. All the information around sleep, I'm guessing. I hate to even mention the book because it was super pop. Yeah, I bet you know the book I'm talking about, too, came out about five or six years ago. It's called Why We Sleep. Did you read Why We Sleep? Nope. Good. Don't. It caused so much consternation in my community because there's a lot of really overreaching stuff and really well-respected research or two. We decided I need to sell out of books and made some statements that he had to walk back afterwards that the World Health Organization kind of stomped on him for. We never said that. Why did you write that? But there's so much self-information, self-help, air quotes about sleep that can really fuel that freak out. I'm not sleeping right. I'm not sleeping enough properly, right? Exactly. And some people expect to go into a coma when they sleep. That isn't it either. Now, I will say that our youngest son, I took to neurofeedback. And it was for his learning, some of his learning challenges and he had a bit of a twitch as well. And neurofeedback is where they study the brain and then they use stimulus to retrain the brain. Well, they found out with him that he wasn't getting REM sleep because they used to say, he woke up after 10 hours of sleep still yawning. I'm like, what's that all about?  So sometimes it is physiological, folks. But anyway, so certainly take a look at neurofeedback. But for me, it was absolutely dissolving the indoctrination and changing the neuro pathways. And I am still in shock. Talk to me in a year, because I'm still like highly skeptical, even though it's happening. Seven months in. Is this really working?  I think it's so important. Sure, could it be physiological? Yes, but I also, it's really important to recognize here that Andy's telling a story that took 30 plus 40 plus years. Many people watching today are experiencing sleep disturbances for the last two weeks and jumping to the conclusion that their sleep is forever aft and they're gonna die early of cancer because of it. This is walking, living, vibrant, lovely proof, right? It's 66. That it did not kill Andy and she, you know. And I raised kids and I've had four businesses. That should have killed you, really. The kids and the businesses. Forget the sleep part, so. But I appreciate you taking the time to share that story. It's not a complicated story, as you could see.  No. It's amazing. It is and it's not about what you eat, what you drink, how you exercise, none of that. See for me, that was the beauty of it all. Yeah. Let's talk before we wrap it up for a second about flexibility. And I mean, behavioral and psychological flexibility because when you learn the lesson that maybe I'll sleep really well tonight. Maybe I'll sleep light tonight and be tired. It doesn't matter. Do you find yourself, and it's so interesting to hear you say things, I have a Red Bull, I have a Starbucks, I have a cappuccino at six o'clock at night. Most people will be like, no, you can't do that. You'll never go to sleep. Okay, so now you can do that. Do you find that you've become really flexible and gauging? Well, I can do that, but should I tonight? I'm a little extra tired. I would like coffee, but I'm not gonna have one tonight because I do wanna sleep. I don't feel like having your coffee. So is it ever a debate? It's just whatever I feel like doing, I do. Isn't it? You know, not even thinking about it. I tested it out because we were visiting our son in Brooklyn and we're going to see a Broadway play and it'd been a busy day driving down. There are all sorts of excitement seeing people and everything and I wanted to be awake for the play. So I had a Starbucks at eight o'clock at night and I was still able to fall asleep at the hotel room about one o'clock, you know, got up. It's, I mean, really five hours of sleep. Come on. Which you're saying is good though, five hours continuous sleep. I was like, yes, like you won the Super Bowl.  Yeah, it's great, right? Yeah. That's the flexibility I was aiming for. So great answer. Like you don't even think about it. It's just whatever the situation is, I deal with the situation and everything works out in the end. That's flexibility right there. And it's the relief of it all is amazing. I mean, I just, it's a miracle. I am super happy for you, my friend, because I know when we talked about it, I know you were a little bit at its end and looking for answers and I'm so happy that you found them and things are working for you. I'm pretty sure it's working. Seven months. No. I'm feeling confident. That's just me. Now, if I could just solve some of the biggest world problems next, that would be great. Okay, next. Yeah, we'll work on that next, so anyway. But thank you so much for coming. And for those of you who want to, this is not a thing that Andy talks about. This is not her spiel on social media, but I will, if you go to the show notes at the anxioustreat.com slash 231, which is in the link, I will link all of Andy's stuff. And you can just go to andylines.com. I'll put that up too, if you want to see these stuff. Oh, thank you. Andy's worth checking out. Thank you, everybody. Please know my heart is with you. If you are suffering from sleep challenges like this, I, 40 years, I understand. And now look at you. Drinking coffee at eight o'clock at night and getting five hours of sleep.  Anyway, thank you, my friend, I appreciate it. I'll be back in a minute and we'll wrap this one up. Okay, we are back. I hope that was useful to you. I hope you enjoyed listening as much as I enjoyed having that chat with Andy. Couple of quick takeaways. You can see where the irrational beliefs and the distorted views of sleep, I must sleep this much. I must sleep this way. It has to be this way or it's not right. You can see how that caused the problem for Andy for so long. And it was really just abandoning those irrational beliefs and just letting the process get a little bit more natural and organic with just a couple of very basic guidelines to go on changed everything for her. But the power of those irrational fears and distortions remain strong because even six months into it, seven months into it, you heard her say, I'm still not entirely convinced that this is working. But she's still at it and clearly it is working for her. So I hope that you were able to take something out of that. Normally this is the time when I would tell you to go follow our guests on social media but Andy does not really live in the mental health world. She lives in the world of finance and startup businesses and she's just expert in that area. So if you want to Google Andy Lyons, feel free to do that and follow along if that's your thing. But yeah, unfortunately, she doesn't have much more in the way of mental health to share, but this share was a good one. So if you're gonna share something, share this. Thanks Andy, appreciate it. That is it. Episode 231 of The Anxious Truth is in the books. You know that it's over because music that is afterglow by my friend, Ben Drake who wrote that song several years ago, inspired at least in part by this particular podcast, which I find amazing even to this day that he did that. And he's let me use the song ever since. It's a song you hear most of the time at the beginning of the podcast, always at the end. So you can go and find Ben in his music at bendrakemusic.com. If you're listening to this podcast on Apple or Spotify or some platform that lets you rate and review the podcast, leave me a five star rating and then take a second to review the podcast. It helps other people find it. If you're watching on YouTube, subscribe to the channel, like the video, leave a comment, you know the deal. And that's it. I will be back next week to do another episode. I do not know what I'm gonna be talking about, but I will be here. And as always, and until then, remember, this is the way. This is these feelings that you never show. Yeah, you're doing fine.  This is where you start.