Hi guys this is Jason here from the Nathaniel School of Music and in this lesson let's learn about slash chords and how you can use them to make the triads you already know be it major or minor sound a lot more interesting have a lot of purpose and tell better stories. In this lesson we are going to look at the D major scale and just use chords within that scale. So let's build the scale together first of all D major F sharp and C sharp isn't it two sharps F sharp and C sharp now we are going to play some chords and the chords are just going to be the one chord the four chord the one chord again and then the five chord that's the chord progression. So what is the one chord the chord built out of the first note or the root note D the four chord G the one chord D and the five chord A and that's pretty much it. So before we get started with the usage of slash chords if you guys haven't already please subscribe to our channel and turn on the bell icon for notifications whenever we release a new video let's begin. So the whole idea of using slash chords is to change the base note of the chord so you need to focus a lot on this hand on the left hand for this exercise in order to do that I guess your subconscious mind needs to really get done and dusted and bank on the right hand to deliver so for that you can use the appropriate chord inversions to shift between the chords easily so D major for instance the first chord of the D major the scale D major can be played either as D F sharp A F sharp A D or A D F sharp all these three options exist similarly the G chord G B D B D G D G B and in all these instances I'm just playing the true root or the root note of the chord or the name of the chord in the base hand or the left hand last chord for the exercise a major a C sharp E C sharp E A C sharp now why do you need to know so many positions or so many shapes really helpful so that you can shift well between them so if you start with let's say a D F sharp which is the second inversion of D major you can so easily glide to a major almost blindly right see I mean I'm able to do this just by looking at you guys so ADF sharp AC sharp E so you do one four back to D major G major which is B D G B D G ADF sharp AC sharp E so I'd advise you to practice this on different starting positions ADF sharp then you could start with D F sharp A which is D F sharp A D G B D F sharp A C sharp E A then you could start with F sharp AD which is the first inversion F sharp A D G B D F sharp A D AC sharp there we go so each either of those ways of playing it could work for you depending on what vibe you want but the actual vibe is created in the left hand so if I played all these chords with their root or their bass note all chords feel very stable right also sort of feels like the person who you're writing the story about like or the lead actor or the hero sort of not doing much just in the house just chilling out on a sofa or something now if you want to make it come to life or tell us a story what I really like is to use slash chords so a slash chord is a normal triad like a D major chord with a bass which is not the name of the chord or which is not the root of the chord so if I take D major normally you'd be playing D that creates a very stable resolved kind of a base right something complete but now if I change the note it's going to create a rather different sensation and how do I change it well you could change it by adding a variety of base notes but in this lesson I'm going to focus on adding the other chord tones which are nothing but the third D's third D major is what now F sharp isn't it F sharp or you can even add the fifth which is A and what's going to happen is we are going to play that down below in the bottom in the bottom so the sound is going to be built from a note which is not the root so if I take D major with F sharp bass right I'm sure you feel this right it just doesn't sound very stable this is like you've come back home you've relaxed while the chord with a different bass note just feels like it's yearning for something more you know it's asking a question where do I go next and it's a great way to kind of tell a story all stories have a journey which you try to set up so this particular chord D with F sharp bass seems to want to go to the G for some reason the G even though it's not the root chord of the D major scale feels a lot more homely than the D with F sharp bass you know so D with F sharp is what you could say is an anticipation it's anticipating to G okay you may ask why you can observe the the semitone or the steps between the notes if you take the closed step which is F sharp going to G it sort of creates a nice magnetic lock locking effect so actually if you play it up top can really hear it well and it serves as great voice leading but now we are also reinforcing it in the left so I'd also advise you to sing these moving notes to connect the chord so your ears also get a lot stronger so you could go to maybe lower maybe even lower I quite like that so just get acquainted with F sharp going to G which is that half step which creates that magnet okay and the remainder of the chord progression will have you playing D with another base which is its fifth what is D's fifth again a so D the fifth or the third note of the chord so again if you if I play D forward slash a which is another slash chord again it's like yeah this is wanting to go somewhere and it obviously should kind of want to go to the fifth because the fifth note of the scale a is already in the base so if you play a major after that sort of completes the puzzle you know or you reach a conclusion so the whole chord progression again D with F sharp base G major normal D with a base A normal so you create the sense of tension resolution again tension resolution and then the ultimate resolution which is D forward slash D which is just written as D D major okay so I hope you guys have followed that so far and I also hope that you follow the purpose of slash chords it's not just something you can stick in and do for fun it's something you do so that you're creating this nice embedded emotion of tension following resolution which is how most stories want to be told in any case right then you enjoy it it becomes entertaining right in all of our opinions I'm sure so let's go through this one more time just so that we haven't forgotten anything the chord progression is the one four one five play that really well get your right hand to be absolutely subconscious and then in our base hand we are trying to not play the true roots of the chords namely D G D a we are messing with the one chord which is the D in this lesson so the one first goes to the D with F sharp base which is its third yearning to go to G then D with a which is its fifth base yearning to go to five create a nice loop of this and to close the job don't forget to make some music around this so use your voice and sing a melody and just see where it takes you I'm quite certain that this will really help guide your story you know or point you in a direction where you want to go as a songwriter so see how I'm able to sing and it creates a nice connection and as always also practice the base of the chord so hope you guys have understood this lesson and I hope you can use this in your music and if you have made some music or if you do make some music with this do share it with us without fail right so as always this is Jason here from the from the Nathaniel School of Music thanks for watching and I will see you in the next video and do not forget to subscribe to our channel if you have it already turn on the bell icon for notifications and please share the YouTube video with all of your musician friends out there cheers


Everybody forced here riffing two boxes for Kerry M. Kerry has a box of 2021 Chronicles football hobby hybrid and a 2022 top scrim update sapphire edition baseball Thanks, Kerry appreciate it. We'll start with the hobby hybrid Chronicles football 2021 Smith Anthony Schwartz to 199 on the crown Royale rookie Ron Delmore Marshall book. There's an Elijah Moore to 399 elite rookie Mandre Eli Mitchell Chavante Williams to 50 on the gold zone rookie auto from score Etienne the 399 rookie Chronicles base parallel there present black rookie base Chuba Hubbard silver dining on Canderia's Tony Jones there and a prism black gold rookie Chuba Hubbard Five of ten on the Chuba Hubbard. That's nice there. We'll Herbert Fields on the flux Lawrence crown rookie base Remandre Stevenson at 399 good stuff. They're got an auto in the hobby hybrid, which is a Not easy to do. It's like one of every ten boxes or so 2020 update sapphire near All stars there Yoshi Satsuga rookie Devin Williams Joe Kelly time to party Griffey Owings Surveille de Grom Fraser shower time and Gatorade shower. Alex Avila Scherzer Walker Jimenez Auto pack here. There's a verlander. The auto is a Brian O'Grady rookie base auto Michael Hermosillo Hermosillo Garrett Richards Mike trout Rich Hill, we're out of Thales Lewis but tree a green starlin Castro numbered 13 of 45 Drill cotton Brett Anderson Greg Allen Yosemite Grandal Andrew Palmer ends That'll do it. Thanks again, Carrie. We'll get those cards out to you


Do you think an investor will give me some money? Uh, if you have a well-thought-out business plan. I will now, thanks to this video. Yeah. It's going to be brutal.  Business up and running. It's the first year. Now what? What do you do besides maybe celebrate? Celebrate. Well, after celebrating, right, you really want to really figure out what the foundations are of your business.  It gets tough. You have to remember to give yourself some self-care, right? It's- Get your Zs.  You're probably working, I don't know, 40, 50, 60, possibly more hours a week, right? And you can forget about you and you are important. If you get burnt out, then that business suffers. So, Em, what do you do to get that self-care? Do you sleep for 20 hours a day? What is it? Okay, that's excessive. But I'm all about the eight hours, also eating a well-balanced meal. I'm a big plant-based gal for all you vegans out there. That keeps me refreshed, feeling healthy, spry. Also, making sure to balance my social life as well. Because I know, like, I work remote personally, so I'm at home and it's easy to get, you know, the clock strikes 5.30, and you're still working because it's just like, you're in that work mode zone. So you've got to make sure to really schedule out your days and ensure that you get exercise in a social life. Yes, absolutely. Social life is huge, right?  It's bedtime and when we wake up and then we work on the business and we go to sleep and it's just never-ending cycle. Yeah, and then you get burnt out. And then your business is also going to experience that, which brings me to, I know you have a lot of info on this, the team that you cultivate as well. Because those are the people you're going to be around day in and day out fulfilling your goal and your mission.  That's why I surround myself with Nealey. So many of us, again, solopreneurs, we don't have that team, but there are lots of places where you can find those like-minded people like M here, right? There are meetups you can go to. They're absolutely free and you can find people that like the same stuff that you do or check out. Maybe a local co-working space, right? There's a ton of people. And free coffee. Free coffee, usually free beer with membership. I may know. What's next? What should I consider doing next? So my first year of business. Yeah, so stick to the foundations. The foundations are never any fun. It's not the fun side of running a business, but they are so, so, so very important. And probably the first thing that you should do, even just starting a business, is to register your business with your state. Many people do this by filing as an LLC or a sole proprietorship. Probably the most common though is LLC. It helps protect your business from your personal assets. Question? Yes. Okay, LLC. I've seen this and my friends are doing their taxes and I would start to brainstorm, okay, I see LLC. Why are you LLC versus Inc versus Co? How do you decide on that? Does it matter the type of business you're running or the state you're in or? It really depends on the business that you're running, right? And the team that you have behind it. So what I would recommend is your state will have some information on how to file your business and give you some information on what's right for you. Should you be an LLC? So should you be a sole proprietorship or a partnership or a corporation? What does that look like? All right, Nealey. So I'm having flashbacks to my childhood when I wanted to be an entrepreneur and I think about having a business plan and that's what my parents would ask me. They're like, okay, so you want to own an amusement park, cool. But like, what's your business plan? And so I'm thinking about now as an adult and the entrepreneurs listening in in their first year of business, real talk business plan. Is that something you need to be doing right now? And how do you go about that? How do you organize that? How much information do you need to know or can you wing it? I definitely don't wing it, right? There's a lot of business owners, like especially just starting out as solepreneurs, they're like, cool, I'm just going to start my business and go, right? But the business plan keeps them locked in, helps them really find that foundation that they're going to need to stand on when they start to really grow their business. Now, business plans are pretty lengthy and it does take a ton of time to create. There are plenty of sites out there that'll help you generate those, but we're going to go over some of the different sections of a business plan and hopefully help you out a little bit. All right, so the first section of a business plan is the executive summary. Now you can really think of this as the cliff notes for the entire document. It's going to give a little bit about what that business is, the market it serves, and some other information. So if anyone were to read this, like potential investors for your business, they know what they're going to get into. Okay, so number two, don't worry, I got this one nearly. You want to have a business description. What is your concept? So let's go back to my amusement park. Okay, let's do it. I think it should be a pizza park because what else would you want to eat? And possibly throw up after a roller coaster ride. Pizza, of course. Oh, those tilt worlds are just... It's going to be brutal. But that's my, that is my concept. All right, so number three in your business plan is the industry analysis. Now going back to your pizza park, right, it's really just an overview of your industry. Like who are the major competitors in your industry? How do you rank up in that list and just the market itself in that industry? All right, so with your competition, can you give us a little insight of who your competitors might be and how you would stack up against them? Yeah, so no big surprise in the amusement park world. A few that are my competitors would be like a Six Flags or Disneyland, or what's one of your favorites? I think as a kid, I used to go to Busch Gardens a lot in Florida. They had the Chikurai, the 9-needry straight angle. Scared everything out of my mom. It was fantastic. He threw up pizza. So back to my amusement park, what makes me unique is that it is this pizza-themed park. So not just the best slices of pizza from all different kinds of themes, like we have the New York style, the deep dish Chicago style. What's your favorite style? This is a little embarrassing because it's really boring, but I just like a good cheese pizza. Like I'm Kevin off of Home Alone. It's just, I prefer Dairy Free. Chicago style or New York style? In between the two. Okay, you heard of her first. And then also what's unique about the park is that everything is pizza-themed, even the rides. So there's a bunch of really bizarre-looking rides because they're shaped out of like pepperonis and dripping cheese for the slide, but it really sets me apart from everyone else. And fun fact, all the prizes that you can win too are also pizza-themed. Heck, yes. I'm here for it. Cool, come on down. Could you just deal on yourself? Come on down to Pizza Park. Okay, so another thing that comes up. You know, here I'm just one person. I'm gonna have an amusement park to draw in a lot of people. I need a good team. How do you go about organizing that? Who's gonna do what? What's the organization of this Pizza Park? Right, and that's number four, right? That's the organization in your business plan. Who's gonna run it? Is it just you? Are you going to have a team? Are you gonna have a board of directors and investors and all this good stuff? That's where you map that all out.  But you can't be running from ride to ride to ride, stopping it, starting it, plus running the business, plus eating the pizza. I get it. You need people. Yeah, I worked at an amusement park. Fun fact, when I was 16 and it was just enough doing one ride and you just pull a lever and then you stop it, but kids are, yeah, mind of their own. Mind of their own. All right, so number five is your financial projections. Now, I'm not saying you're gonna go, I'm gonna make a million dollars and that's it. What are you talking about? My projection. No, this is what your budget is, how much you're gonna be spending, what you're projected to make, right? Not every business is profitable in their first year of business. That's more like two, three, and five years, right? You really want to have that plan and that projection of what you think with the industry and the competitors and the market and your customers and how much you're selling tickets for all in that little projection there. So do you have projections on your business? Are you gonna make a million dollars that first year? What are we doing? Well, maybe we should sit down over some pizza and talk about this, but I just kind of feel really confident about my business model. I'm just thinking put it together, however much money it costs to put this on, what have you, that's fine. The customers are just gonna come rolling in. If you build it, they will come? Yes, a little field of dreams, right? Oh, yeah. Okay, that's a good movie trivia point, Emma. So, yeah, I just, I hadn't really thought about the exact numbers. We'll go over that. Okay, thanks. All right, so with everything we've talked about, now we're at number six, which is investor. You have a great idea. You have a well thought out plan. Now you gotta go and get an investor. Get that money, right? Absolutely, that's a whole point. Show me the money. Give me the money, right? But you want to, you're building this business plan to get investors. That's one of the main key points of this, right? The investors don't wanna just hand out their money anywhere. Have you seen Shark Tank? They're not just saying yes to everyone. They have a plan. They're very picky. Very, very picky. And that's why you have your business plan as well thought out, well written. That last part, that investor request or that finance request is really to say, here's exactly what I'm asking for and then let the negotiation continue. So with my idea being Pizza Park and what we've discussed, the themes, the uniqueness, the vibe, the fun, do you think an investor will give me some money? If you have a well thought out business plan. I will now. Thanks to this video. Yeah. So let's say good news. The investor likes my idea and I did in fact get the money to pursue my idea. Next thing I'm thinking of is keeping track of how much I'm spending, right? Where, how do I look for a return on investment? How do I keep that all organized? So I'm gonna be dishing money out in all sorts of places. What are your recommendations though from your experience nearly with keeping track of ROI? Yeah, especially in your first year, you have to keep track of literally everything. And now what a lot of people do is they go gung-ho and crazy and start spending their money on a bunch of things because they think they need everything right now. But what I would recommend is go lean and really focus on your ROI or your return on investment. Make sure the money that you're dishing out to your amusement park, you're dishing out with your business is actually getting customers back.  So focus on that. You can do that with some bookkeeping software. Like QuickBooks is the main competitor out there. There's GoDaddy Bookkeeping. There's many, many other ones as well that'll help keep track of your income, your expenses, and even help you with tax time or tax season rather. I love that. Help you stay organized. Definitely check out the resources you have. It will make your life a lot easier and your bank account happy. Yeah, we gotta keep the bank account happy.  Otherwise you'll just be at home sitting on the couch eating cheap pizza and that's depressing. So imagine with everything we've discussed and I know this comes up a lot with social media when I'm educating on best purchases, trial and error. Expect it. It's going to be definitely something that you need to embrace trial and error. Also just keeping in check with how your team is doing and make sure they're on board with the goals and the success and your struggles. So open communication is key too. But expect to have some trial and error. Would you agree? Absolutely. One of my favorite little quotes or whatever is failure is feedback. Failure is not the end of the road. It's something that you learn to kind of grow and just become just a better you or a better business. So fail early, fail often, but always keep learning. Oh, I love that. And if you love this, be sure to like this video. Also subscribe to the channel and ring that bell and comment below on what you learned to do for your first year of business. This is The Journey. We'll see you next time.


None from staff. Any requests from board members? Okay, not here in any minute. Let's move on to public to be heard. Public to be heard is a, actually I wanted to explain, I've been identified as a contact or a direct contact, somebody who later tested for COVID. So I'm following the protocol and we're in the mask. I will do my best to enunciate and try to speak clearly. So anyway, moving on to public to be heard. Public to be heard is a time when attendees of the meeting can speak to the board on items, about items that are not on the agenda. If you'd like to speak during public to be heard, you can either raise your hand using the raise your hand feature in Zoom, which you can find by floating your cursor around the bottom of the screen and clicking on reactions and there'll be a raise your hand icon in there or you can raise your hand in the room. If you'd like to speak during public to be heard, please be brief, please be civil. Please address your remarks to me as chair of the select board and thanks for being here. So, and we have one hand in the room. Come on up, introduce yourself. Good evening. I'm Alan Nye, your rep on the Chittenden Solid Waste District Board and we have a couple of capital projects that are underway and I just thought it would be good to come in and update you as to where we are and where I think we're going and what my thoughts are and if they're contrary to yours, I need to get that information from you so I can represent you as the governing body of the town. So the first one is the new materials recycling facility or MRF as we call it. We are moving forward with the vote for the bond in the November election. There's an interesting twist in that we cannot get our question on the ballot that the secretary of state's office is putting out. For some reason other municipal bodies can't work that issue. So we will be working on a couple of others. One is of course to have the ballots available at all of the community's voting places for that day and also for early voting here in the office. So we'll be working that. The staff is looking at trying to find a number of ways to get money other than the bond so that the bond is not as big as initially was being thought to need to be and we're hopefully going to get a positive vote as this does not add anything to the tax payers bill or the town's bill. It will be paid through the dollars that people pay to drop off recycling or it will be paid with the money that we get for the sale of materials. So it's been, I think it's been like 18 years since the waste district has asked for money from the communities the first couple of three years that was the way it went. Then that the number right now is like 20 something million 20 to 23, the vast majority of that is equipment that will be installed. The second item is an administrative office building and our staff prior to COVID was in a modified raised ranch. Ventilation is very poor. One person would get a cold and six or seven people would get a cold in the building. Just, you know, there was just no way to put in a adequate ventilation system in that building to meet the needs of the numbers of people that were working there. So we were looking at trying to build a administrative office close to the compost project close to where the new Murph will be and the drop off center for Williston. But the estimates came in pretty high and the board has stepped back a little bit and taken a look and having staff take a look at some other options, renting, leasing, purchasing an existing building, you know, some other options there. Nothing has been decided. We had quite a meeting a couple of weeks ago on it for information and direction to staff. But that isn't out there right now, not moving forward with it. So, but I'm assuming that you guys are in support of the Murph and the new Murph and the project that will be built with that bond and stuff and so I'll continue to, you know, work in a positive vein down those roads unless I hear differently from you. All right. Thanks, Alan. Yeah. You are aware that the ballots are being mailed for the November election. You may now get a very big turnout actually coming to the polls. Yeah, there's, we may be able to, if the town gets a request to mail the ballot, it may be able to be put into your package. I just cannot believe that the Secretary of State's office, you know, can't, you know, whoever wrote the legislation on mailing ballots didn't include other municipal bodies. Something that we need to get the legislature to look at. But yes, I do realize that, Tom. Oh, so there's a possible, oh, that's weird. Everything's being mailed, so people aren't going to be here. Right, right, general election, everything gets mailed, you're right. So. So is, yeah, go ahead, Tracy. I was going to say, so if some people get a ballot and some don't, I mean, is that, is that an actual binding vote? If not, everybody gets the ballot? Yeah, because they're going to know that they can come in and get the ballot at the town office or go, you know, vote in person, you know, our lawyer says everything is copacetic, you know, with respect to it, if there are people that, you know, did not get a ballot in their package and mailed their package in, we're still okay with the results of the election. Okay, that seems a very odd situation. Yeah, yeah, wow, wow. So with regard to warning the vote on all that, that will all happen through your board. The town doesn't need to warrant any kind of vote. We don't need to. We'll be doing that. Right, but then the question of whether we can somehow assist with getting the ballots out, I don't know how that, if there's anything that can be done. They are going to be talking to all the clerks of our administrative folks. Wow, because are they being mailed from? I'm thinking, they're coming from the Secretary of State's office, it's my understanding. I don't know why if they had their ballot there, it couldn't be included with whatever they're mailed from. It's not on the ballot, it would just be a separate ballot. It's automated. They've been many conversations with Mr. Contos and our lawyer and our executive director. I'm so sorry to hear that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, wow, wow, okay, okay. All right, and if you have, if you hear that we're going in the wrong direction, please give me a call and tell me to make, so. Okay, all right, thanks, Alan. Thank you very much for all you do. All right, yeah, thank you. Okay, anybody else for public to be heard? See any hands in the room? Anybody online? I don't see any hands, so let's move on to the first business item, business M5A, consider appointment of volunteers to the Economic Development Commission. We've had a number of discussions about this and I believe Don, you have the motion there? No, you don't, I thought we did. Yeah, I did, but wait just a minute. All right, then maybe I will go ahead and make the motion. I move that the select board appoint Ray Garofano to the Economic Development Commission with term expiring June 30, 2023. And appoint Rebecca Robinson to the seat expiring June 30, 2025. Thank you, Don. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes 5-0. Let's move on to business item 5B, discussion about budget goals for fiscal year 2024. You Greg? This is me, staff is starting to put together budgets for fiscal year 2024. We always try to check on the select board about this time of year to get your thoughts. If you have any particular goals that you want us to focus on as we put the budgets together, we're working on bringing the manager's budget to you by October, so we can have the budget day in early November. So yeah, just wanted to have an opportunity tonight to hear from all of you about what's on your mind and what you would like us to focus on. All right, great. Thanks, Greg. Any, remember comments? Anything you want? Hey, Ethan, you're good at that. Smile, Ethan. You gotta start. Go ahead. I don't always start. I got a couple things. I know we've all had this conversation and we've all been thinking about it a lot. One of the biggest things to me is, and when I say this, I don't mean cut services, but find, you know, polls and things like, you know, public works and positions that aren't filled and then really assess the need for the positions and, you know, look at things like mowing and other things and if it's worth having our staff do it and they can be doing other things. And, you know, my main goal was obviously to not have a large budget increase, not a tax increase, but a budget increase for the next year from the budget that we're at and what we plan on being when we reduce. So, there's a few things that I have to say about it. Thanks, Ethan. What else? I know we talked about this a little bit last year as part of budgeting, capital planning, but really making sure, I know Tom has done it, Tom Yando has done a great job with our facilities, but really making sure that we are appropriately planning for maintenance upgrades, things of that sort so little problems don't become big problems as time goes on. Why not just the excess spending because some of the stuff I see in the warrant is questionable to limit the tax increase to as low as we can make it. We know we're gonna have one, but make it as least painful as possible and to really, oh, I word this, not add staff that we don't need.  Well, I've been sharing a number of ideas with the town manager directly. I do think there are some areas of the budget that you could potentially see some big savings in by bidding out some services that haven't been bid out for quite a while. My personal goal is I don't think that the town should be doing any private work on private lines if you're a public entity and we should only do public work. There are plenty of businesses and things out there to do private work and the town should not be in that business. So that'll be what I'll be looking for in the budget. Thank you. Thanks, Kendall. I mean, my list has about 12 things on it. Well, share it with us. I guess things that I'd like to see is some understanding or a discussion about whether to ask for an increase in our capital tax. We currently or we have our current, our most recent past practice has been about half of our capital comes from our operating budget and half comes from the capital tax. I think it would be more transparent if we got more of it from the capital tax. That would be essentially shifting money from one place to another, but it would I think be more transparent. And there's also a full disclosure, right? We've probably got, we definitely have a reassessment coming up. And interesting fact that the last time the capital tax was touched was the same year that the last reassessment was done. But the reassessment will increase that capital tax. We got to keep that in mind. I think that needs to be part of the discussion. I'd also like to see a true five-year capital plan. Our charter requires a five-year capital plan review every year. And I think a lot of our out years are very empty. In many departments, and I think it'd be good to be able to, I think it would help us to understand what our capital needs are. We have a more filled out capital plan. There's been a lot of discussion about whether and about the fact that this building we're in is in the city. I think we need to start planning for a municipal center. There've been discussions in some of the discussions we've had about how to spend ARPA money and what our town finances, the two sessions that we had, there were suggestions that we make a land purchase with the anticipation of building a municipal center at some point down the road when we're able to. The pool also needs some, Ali keeps reminding us it's the same age as she is. And so it is, I hope Ali has many, many years ahead of her, but I'm not sure the pool does. I think I've asked for a couple of years in a row is access to the river. Be nice to have a boat launch in Essex. We've talked about this before is the indie book rate structure. Is it appropriate? Should that be looked at? See another thing is we have a scenic overlay corridor. I'd like to see if there's things that we can plan for to make sure that we're focusing on that. Housing is an issue for a lot of people. I don't know what we can do. There's been talking about establishing a housing trust or housing fund or whatever. This may not be the first of the right year to do that, but if there's anything that can go on there. Communications and outreach, continue what we're doing or expand that. I think that's always an important thing. Senior center, we need to resolve what our plan is gonna be or what our path forward is gonna be with that by the end of next calendar year, given the agreement we have with the city. A lot of discussion about climate change. Are there things that we can do there? I know this year are, what we've done is we're planning to purchase either hybrid or electric police vehicles. If there's other things that we can do. Equity is a big thing. Either continue what we're doing or expand that. Like to have, I think it's helpful to have it as a front-up item in our planning. And then trails, we've had comments over the significant amount of time about connectivity, wayfair marking or, my wife and I did the outer loop at Indian Brook on Sunday. I had the map, but I wasn't really sure where I was kind of thing. And I know that would make some people uncomfortable, we were okay with it, but it was, I don't know, those kind of things. I think if we can do it, there's been a lot of comment about those kind of things. And that's my list. Thank you both. I did send you a written copy of that. Is this where I could add two things? Yeah, go ahead. I would like to add that I think our delinquencies are too high and that we should focus on getting those down, especially when you're looking at increasing taxes. And I would also mention that I've read quite a bit that, and I'm not sure if this is accurate, that there are some sidewalks that do not get plowed and don't get taken care of. Other than there are public sidewalks, I think that the town should focus on making sure that all of our sidewalks are usable. Thank you. All right, any other board member comments before we open up to the public? I've also thought about the Indian Brook passes and just for comparison, I went and I looked up the rates for daily passes, the motor vehicle rate, which allows all access to all passengers in the vehicle. So if you have a van with eight people, it's just $5 in comparison. If you go to Sandbar State Park, it's $4 per person. There's no limit. So I don't think that it's keeping up with the actual cost. And I would like to see that at a structure that's more self-funding rather than pulling from tax dollars and being funded by tax dollars. Thanks for anything else, Ethan? I haven't been up there, but I just heard things from before and after the normal season or when it first starts to cover. But is there like a port-of-body or anything up there yet? And a cab accessible port-of-body? The one you mentioned, Sandbar just popped into my head that, you know, there's bathrooms at Sandbar. There are port-of-bodies up there. Okay, awesome. I just wanted to double check that because I was gonna throw that on the list. I haven't been there. All right, any other? Any other board member comments? Hey, I see Patty Davis's hand up. Patty, do you have a comment? Yeah, I just wanna say kudos to Kendall and to Tracy for mentioning the sidewalks and maybe charging more for, I think, money is to be had with our recreation and the fact that a couple of facts. One, the population's getting older and so many people use trails, get lost and use all our steep areas to bike and walk and I get lost at Saxon. So I understand how you feel, Andy, but not only do the sidewalks need to be plowed because our population's getting older, it's dangerous, but they need to be like on Allen Martin Parkway, that sidewalk or paved path hasn't been changed in 30 years. And I like what Tracy had to say about maintenance and we are going to have to pay people more to retain them, to have people to plow and to have people maintain our sidewalks and our buildings if we plan on growing. So yes, housing is a crisis, but we shouldn't be growing if we're not paying people to maintain what we have. And then one other thing, Andy, I really liked what you had to say about the access for canoeing, for kayaking. If you go like from my house down Sandhill Road, take a left onto River Road, then take a right onto what is it, North Williston Road and you just go over the bridge, just go over the bridge. There's a little tiny hut of a restaurant. It's like people are sitting outside. It looks like a little trailer type thing I don't know what they serve, but there's this little tiny road just before that hangout where you can buy french fries right there on the left. And right at the end of that road, my neighbor across the street, Scott Turnbull, takes his canoe and goes right down that road. I don't know, there might only be one or two parking spaces, but you can go right there and slide your little banana right in the water. Yeah, that's- Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, that's the Fontaine access, yep. Is that something that's public? It is public, it is. So maybe there's money that we can spruce up a little, maybe make a little wider area to park. It's in Williston, it's in Williston, though. Oh, it is. Oh, I thought it was just over the bridge, still in Essex, no? No, that's Williston. That's Williston. Oh, bummer. Did you cross the bridge there as Williston? Okay, I was just trying to help. Yep, yep, thanks. Yeah, there used to be, there is also a, there's two other accesses and maybe, maybe that's a different discussion. Shouldn't go there. One of them is where the Woodside used to be, but the parking is about a quarter mile from the river, so it's a big lug to take two kayaks down there. And the other one is the one that Green Mountain Power is supposed to maintain at the end of the Global Foundry, at the access to Global Foundries. And it's not very well, it's very difficult to navigate. Well, something we should look into, recreation is our biggest way to make money, three billion the state made in 2019 with recreation. And a significant portion of our southern border is waterfront and we don't use it. Yeah, we don't, yeah. Right, thank you, thank you, Patty. Any other public comments? Seen any hands in the room? Seen any hands up and online? So Greg, do you have what you need? I do, thank you very much. All right, thank you. And let's move on to the next business item, which is 5C, consider adoption of updates to Town of Essex personnel guidelines. And this is here. I am. Thanks, Travis. Yeah, so we've got some small proposed changes to the personnel guidelines. The predominant one, the reason that we're putting this out here today is that we felt we needed to define the per diem employee classification now that we are utilizing per diem employees in the fire department. So we did develop a employee definition for per diem staff that was run by the town labor attorney, Sue Gilphillon as well. In addition, the other significant of sorts change in here was adding a vehicle use policy that actually came up with a lot of the fire personnel work I've been doing with Charlie Cole that we're not really properly vetting individuals who are operating municipal vehicles in a bare minimum. We should be upon hire, at least confirming that they have a clean and valid driver's license. Understanding it's not necessarily practical to do driver's license checks on any sort of a regular basis, but we should at least be checking upon hire and then putting the onus on employees to notify us of changes to their license status. So that would be police, fire, or anyone really operating. We already do it for our CDL drivers, but anyone operating even one of the town cars at 81 Main Street just to help minimize liability there. The rest of it was primarily some general cleanup. We tried to change unified manager to town manager throughout. And there were a couple other clarifications. I think in the health and wellness section we clarified that that benefits for full-time employees. That's always been the practice and what we've budgeted for, but it wasn't necessarily spelled out there. So I believe the rest was pretty much just general cleanup. So that's all I've got. Happy to answer any questions as well though. All right, thanks Travis. Any questions from board members? Comments, Tracy. In section 6C, which deals with sexual harassment and discrimination, I was curious about the language involving... Now let's see here.  I was curious whether that should be changed to gender identity or sexual orientation. That would probably be a good addition to the policy, yeah? And there are a few places where that shows up. Okay, Greg, would the best option be to make some of those changes and put this back at a future meeting or how would be the best way to handle that? If you're comfortable with it and the board's comfortable, I'm happy to take a motion to approve the amendments plus whatever's discussed tonight. And the board's amendments, yeah. I'm okay with that. My question's got answered, so I'm gonna let it go. All right, any other questions or comments? Board members, anything, Ethan? No, I'm a very good reader, so it doesn't drop out at me. Kendall, any comments, questions? Oh, it's good. I wish I worked for the town of Messicks. Okay, any comments from the public? I don't see any hands in the room. I don't see any hands up online. Oh, there's a hand. Oh, Lorraine, go ahead. Very quick question. Just thinking about what Travis said about personnel and vetting, having worked for a number of different companies. In terms of vetting, is there any cost-saving for liability in terms of how we vet or train or any of that? And has that ever been explored in terms of saving on insurance? That's a good question. I would need to run that by VLCT, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, but I can certainly run that question by them and get back to you. All right, thanks, Travis. Thanks, Lorraine. Any other comments or questions? Okay, bring it back to the board. What's your pleasure? Make the motion that we adopt the updated version of the town of Messicks personal guidelines with Tracy's recommendations. Second. Thank you, Don. Is that a second? Second, yep. Thank you, Ethan. Any further discussion? So just a question, we are adopting. Does this mean we need to approve it later, or is this final, the final? This is intended to be the final one, considering it's not a new policy. Yeah, it's not a new policy, okay. All right. Okay, any other discussion? Any hands? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes 5-0. Thank you, Travis. Thank you. Okay, moving on to the next agenda item, 5-D, which is discussion and potential action on nominating a delegate for the Vermont League of Cities and Towns 2022 legislative policy and annual meeting. This meeting runs concurrently with the town fair, which this year is gonna be held in Killington. I have been the delegate a number of times in the past. Happy to do it again, but also would like to offer it to, if there's anybody else who is shopping at the bit to do it. Yeah, that's good. I make the motion that we appoint Andy Watts as our delegate to the Vermont League of Cities and Towns to the LCT 2022. Second. Thank you, Don. Thank you, Ethan. Any further discussion? Opposed? Yeah. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes 5-0. I'm glad you retired. I will contact Tammy and let her know to sign me up. Also, if anybody else wants to attend the meeting, she can just let Tammy know and make arrangements for you. Yeah, I was looking at this meeting in the only head in Burlington with the regional planning. But you have to be vaccinated and double-boosted in order to attend both of them. Just a heads up for anybody who wants to try and attend. All right. All right. Great. Okay, let's moving on to the next agenda item, which will be a executive session we come back to later. There's no discussion we need to have at this point around that. Then the next one is real estate lease options, similar situation there, and then discussion about contracts. So moving on to consent agenda. Make the motion we accept the consent agenda. Thank you, Don. Second. Thank you, Ethan, for the second. Any further discussion? Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? I didn't hear you, candle. Aye. Okay. All right. Okay. Motion passes 5-0. All right. Moving on to reading file. Any... Go ahead, Don. Are we going to have a chance to discuss something in the reading file? First, building policy, use policy. Yes. So it's in there. It's right. It's in there to give us a heads up that it's coming. It wasn't intended to be discussed tonight. But it is coming. So we will have input into it. It will come to a meeting in the future. And having the fact that you have it available, the first draft is a rough draft at this point. If you have anything you'd like to comment on, you can do it outside of this meeting because we didn't want to have a discussion here. And then when it comes back around, we'll have a full open discussion with the public and so forth. No problem. And I know that we've gotten a number of comments about it already that we'll certainly play into where we go. Okay. Thank you. Ethan. I have a board member comment. And it's kind of a question. But I was just wondering when and what we are going to do about changing and finding an ordinance for the town. If that's an idea. If it's coming back or if that's something that just. So the public nuisance ordinance that we talked about before. Yeah. Yeah. My understanding is that the police staff, the police department are working on a language. I just wasn't sure what was. And we'll come back when they're when they're ready. I suppose we could ask for an outlook.  If you have, if you have comments you want to make, you can go ahead and make those to pass them to Greg. And he can share them with the staff that are working on it. Okay. And then we can have an open, we'll have a discussion about it again. And, you know, our process is we have to have a public hearing. And then, yeah, so it takes a couple of meetings actually. I forgot to say thank you to the Essex Police Department and to Greg for Essex Night Out. Oh, it was really the police. Yeah. Wonderful. Turn it. It was a good turnout. Good. Good event. Thank you. So I had followed up with Marguerite about the ARPA survey. I was assuming that the scoring was golf rules, meaning the lower the score, the higher it ranked. She did indicate that she's going to update the X and Y axis and update in the next few days. So those who, like me, they've been a little confused based on the larger bars actually being lower scores that an update is coming. Okay. So I guess for clarification, does it mean that they're in the wrong bigger bar? Other ranked higher than anything and it didn't have as much. Yeah. But if you look at the, like one was the most important, 10 was 10 weight. But it turned. Yeah. It was off. It was back. Yeah. It was upside down. Yeah. It has to do with like survey, the survey output of the data. It was, yeah. Just of course ended up being the opposite of how we scored it and made it very confusing. And I'm sorry. I did not catch that on that PDF. So we'll fix those and repost it so that it's way more clear for everyone. I'm not so weird. Thanks, Marguerite. So, so Marguerite, then can you clarify that the category that was other that as the, as the chart appears now, it looks to be the most important. Right. So it's the opposite. Or is it? No, exactly. It's, and if you, right, if you really want to see the hot, there is another image there on the ARPA page, excuse me, where you can at least see the top because I ended up pulling one out, you know, we did it ourselves just so we could give more data. And that was just for our public info sessions. So you can see what the actual top four are. And you'll note other is not on there because it does. It's not important just as you said. So, yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you for that clarification. Thanks for asking the question. I wanted to comment on the explorer Essex thing. I think that's a looks like it's an amazing thing. Very, very happy to see that. I'm getting pulled together. It'd be an awesome event. And it's on my birthday. So it'll be good. Isn't it three days long? Well, yeah, my birthday is three days long. The other thing I wanted to point out is that the upcoming meeting schedule does include a budget day on November 4th, which is that first Friday of November. Kendall, I saw you nod your head, but I haven't yet heard that you're okay with that date. It's hard to say that's like forever from here, but I should be good. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. It goes on all day. That's a Thursday. It's a Friday. That was a Thursday Friday and that was too many dates. In person or is it hybrid? It'll be hybrid. We'll be here. Everyone can be here. Great. But we, I think it's just in general, are doing the hybrid as an option these days. I heard Andy was buying donuts and coffee, so I'm coming in. There will be something. Maybe I will make something. That's a good idea. I'll make some homemade muffins. These cheese breads that I made. There we go. In my neighborhood, I can't go to a party unless I bring them. There you go. All right. Anything else I wanted to comment on here? Okay. Then I guess we're moving on to executives. I got one more comment that I was thinking of, but I just wanted to point out about the Essex Night Out. Super awesome event for the community. But I was really disappointed to see that there was no Essex municipality there besides the police department. I was there. Marguerite was there. Tanya was there. Public Works was there. There was no public works there. There were trucks there. Most public work was there. In the fire department, but it was the only one that didn't show up then. Playing fire trucks. I don't have a full list, but it's a town event. I just didn't understand why there, and all the pictures I saw, I didn't see a lot of town involvement versus the events. My apologies for not seeing the municipal trucks because I didn't see any pictures online. A national event. Put them by the town. All right. Hi, Zia. Hi, Zia. I move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss the appointment for employment or evaluation of a public officer or employee in accordance with one BSA section 313A3 to include town manager and deputy manager. I also move. How should we do that? Anyone do that one first and I'll go the other one. I'll do that one first. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Don. Thank you, Tracy. Any further discussion? Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, thank you. I move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss the negotiating or securing of real estate purchase or lease options in accordance with one BSA section 313A2 and to include the town manager, deputy manager, and director of parks and recreation. Thank you, Don. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Tracy. Any further discussion? Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes 5-0. I move that the select board make the specific finding that general public knowledge of contracts would place the town at a substantial disadvantage. Motion one. Do you want me to do a vote? No, thank you. Tracy, you seconded that? Yep. All right. Thank you. Any further discussion? Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 5-0. I move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss contracts pursuant of one BSA 313A1A to include the town manager. Okay. Thank you, Don. Thank you, Tracy. Any further discussion? So I guess the question I always ask when we get to the final thing is, are we going to come back? Thank you, Will, tonight. Okay. Okay. There's a chance of it. There's a chance that we'll come back. Okay.  So we won't have the television access. We'll not continue, but we will. We will go into a breakout session with Kendall to have the executive discussion, this executive session discussion, and then we'll come back to the room to adjourn and potentially make the motions. Right. Thank you, everyone, for attending. And if you'd like to hang out, we'll be back.


The United States is the only country in the world that has this kind of global military reach. It's outrageous how much money we are spending on the deaths of people around the world. We have a war going on right here in the U.S. against our own citizens. You can't talk about militarization unless you talk about the psychological toll on so many people. How we're thinking about violence also has to be shifted.


What's up navigation traders today is Friday November 9th. Welcome to this week's video update Before we jump into the alerts I want to give you all a sneak peek into something that we're going to be rolling out here in a couple weeks and As as pro members I want to give you the first look and Because I like you I like you you're my people so what I am showing you here is it's kind of a Inside peek at our new navigation trading community We're calling it the trade hacker community where we can hack each other's trades and and just kind of get to know other members and Interact with other members super excited about this This is the this is kind of the home screen and this is going to be available for everyone and so You can come in here. You're gonna see different posts that we make You know, we've got our blog posts and some other things here and so if you said Came in here and you could just say hey, you know, why do we enter trades? with high IV and Then you can post that you can enter it as a specific topic like options know-how for example to kind of keep these Segregated in different topics and hit post I as the host can notify everyone on a post but in this case, I'll hit don't notify and That will pop up and then you know, we can answer as the host You all can jump in and make suggestions or answers as well so you could say because we make more money and And Comment and then, you know us or somebody else could come in and say yes, we like that answer hard it So this is kind of like a private Facebook group without the distractions of Facebook and we did that on purpose because we want to have a place for just traders just navigation traders to come and interact ask questions and And get to know other other members as well So there is there's gonna be a what's called a discovery tab where you can search, you know Some of the top posts some of the top topics view the different members There's a member section so you can you can classify yourself as a new trader intermediate or advanced trader You can you can look at other members near you So if if you are in a specific area and you want to find other like-minded traders to potentially interact with or potentially even meet up with You're gonna have that ability now if you don't want to put your name out there You don't have to do that either you can remain anonymous if you want But here's what I'm really excited about specifically for you as pro members is we are gonna have a specific group specifically For our VIP pro members, which is all of you listening to this right now And if you click on that it takes you into a different section that's only accessible by pro members And so in this section, I will not only be posting the alerts So it's another area that will be posting the alerts and then it allows you to ask any questions about that Sometimes I'll post an alert and I'll get a ton of questions on that specific alert So this will be an area where you can post that get answers from myself as well as other traders in the community and The other thing that I'm super excited about is I'll be able to jump in here into this VIP Pro members groups and do live broadcasts So if there's something that I get a lot of questions on I can jump in here shoot a quick live video You can join live. I'll send out an alert saying hey, I'm joining. I'm Broadcasting live in 10 minutes in the VIP pro member group area. You can jump in here check that out Obviously if you aren't able to join live, it'll be automatically recorded and posted in this area So you can check that out You just doing all kinds of cool events and in broadcasts and different things. It's gonna allow us to get to know each other and And and allow other traders to interact with with questions You might have allow you to answer other questions, you know, we get bombarded by by emails and so this is gonna really help us be a little bit more efficient in getting your questions answered quickly and So anyway, super excited about it. So that's kind of the sneak peek Stay tuned for more information coming soon All right, let's jump into the alerts for the week starting with Monday the 5th and The first trade alert that we send out was on our friend Natty gas, which has been having some big moves and So let's take a look. We we did a rolling adjusting trade. So remember when we do options on futures It's two separate transactions. So we bought that one back and then we rolled out to the next cycle so we rolled from December to January and And so we we went ahead and rolled that out and we went inverted on that one So we've got the three point one calls and the three point three put so anytime our puts are higher than our calls That's what we call inverted and then we've got our other short strangle as well So let's take a look at Natty gas first of all big move today. It's up over 6% On top of already being up a few days ago So big move there, but if we take a look at our trade here is the strangle that we have that's unadjusted You can see implied volatility has gone up, but it's still well within our range even though we're down on that trade So nothing to do there Then let me reset these So we can take a look at the other piece and then this is our inverted strangle, which I just mentioned in the alert And so you can see Price has moved up. It's it's testing our break even but remember after we make an adjustment That break even point is not necessarily the trigger to make another adjustment What we look at is we want to see what the value is left in those premiums on that untested side Which in this case would be the put side and as you can see there's there's still a ton of premium left We've we've got about almost six hundred dollars of a potential 1,420 so we're not making any adjustments at this time, you know if price bounces back into range That's great. If it does continue higher then we will stay mechanical and roll our our puts up again and collect that more additional credit and And typically when it makes a huge move like this just understand that you're going to be in the trade a little bit longer now There is nothing that says Nat gas can't snap back and come back down into range and we'll be we'll be good to go But we'll just stay mechanical stay calm remember on these contracts like Nat gas and oil.   So we added an iron condor in IYR in The December cycle IV percentiles up at 90 at that point And so we still had our our short put vertical on with which is part of a previous iron condor And we were just waiting for price to kind of bounce back up before we did anything It did it did end up coming back up and we closed that piece out for a profit Which I'll get to you on a future alert But for now, let's look at IYR and take a look at where we're at So this is the new iron condor that we added so we're already up a little bit of profit on that not near enough to take off yet So just looking to continue to manage that we had that other short put vertical in November with price moved up And we were able to book a profit on that November piece So now we're just still holding the December trade Next trade was an opening trade in 6e so we got back into the euro IV percentile got up to 70 at that point And so we sold some premium in the euro and we're still in that trade Nothing much has moved since then So you can see we're still pretty dead centered with no just a little bit of profit in there at this point Next trade was a closing trade. So we bought back our strangle in six B Which is the British pound booked over 30% of max profit on that trade And so we are out of the British pound nice trade there and we may look to enter You know, I don't want to get overloaded in currencies because these The pound and the euro are fairly correlated meaning they move together. So Excuse me, so if we take a look at FXB Which is the the pound ETF you can see implied volatility is super high But we we might make it wait till the euro makes a move So it's not dead centered and and we may add on to we may add a 6b Position FXB the the ETF is really just not tradable So we're gonna we're gonna look at the options on futures if we do enter a new trade there So but we are flat. We are out of the British pound at this point Next trade was a closing adjusting trade in wheat. So our friend wheat has been playing nice as of late We're still in a royal battle with wheat before we get out of this one with a profit But we booked over 50% of max profit on that piece of the trade and then we're still holding our iron condor in the January cycle So if we take a look at wheat, you can see we're still still well within range here You could use a little bit of up movement and it's just more time to pass before we do anything else in wheat Next trade was rolling adjusting trade in gold So we had a short strangle on in gold that we had adjusted and then we got under that 21 days to expiration So we wanted to roll out to the next expiration cycle So we rolled from December to January and we kept the same strikes I mean, it was still pretty centered. So we didn't we didn't move the strikes around But we just went ahead and rolled that out to extend duration So you can see what we got here now. It's almost a straddle where these short strikes are pretty close But price is right here. So just looking for some more time to pass before we do anything else in gold Next trade was a closing adjusting trade in EEM So we closed out one of our short strangles in EEM booked around 30% of max profit on that piece And then we're still holding our other short strangle in EEM and you can see we've got some profit here about a hundred and fifty one dollars of a potential five hundred So just waiting for some more profit before we before we do anything in that one next trade was opening trade in Netflix, so I was looking for a Stock or an ETF to add in some short delta on so this is a bearish trade to add some short delta into our overall portfolio And basically the reason I was looking at this as a potentially good candidate was because Let's go to the chart real quick So we saw this big flush down after earnings and then price had popped back up And so I was just looking at this as a good Entry point, you know a lot of times after a stock makes a significant move in one direction and then pops up Sometimes it'll continue on in that original direction So we're looking for a continuation to the downside We did take a little bit of heat it started to move up on us even more, but then it's rolled over the last couple days Giving us a little bit of profit We're gonna wait for a bit more before we take this on it's keeping that short delta exposure in our portfolio that we want and And we're not quite to 50% of max profit. So we'll look for around that 50% mark potentially You know if that comes pretty quick. Otherwise, we'll just kind of hold on hold on to this for a little while As far as our overall short delta exposure, we're still a little bit under one-to-one on our ratio So we've got about three hundred fifty dollars of theta and we've got about a little over a hundred dollars of short delta So we are under that one-to-one Remember we like to be about one-to-one to five-to-one But after this big down move that we've been seeing in stocks We're kind of hovering around that one-to-one ratio and that's and that's fine at this point Obviously if if the market continues lower, we're gonna wish we had more But if it rips back higher, you know, we're gonna be in a good situation So we are set on that for this point And and you know if we see the opportunity to add some more short delta we might but at this point We're just kind of hovering around that one-to-one range Next trade opening adjusting trade in CL and oil. So we added a short strangle and oil IV percentile up near that hundred range And oil has been making a big move here. I got a couple questions about this From members today. So here's real quick here. Here's the short strangle that we added So it's still pretty dead centered here down just slightly on that one And then we've got our other piece which is an adjusted short strangle And you can see price has come down. It's come through the breakeven But remember this one has already been adjusted so that breakeven point isn't necessarily the point of making a net another adjustment We look at the value of the untested side, which in this case is the calls And you can see we still got a decent amount of premium left in those calls So if price continues lower then we will roll those calls down again But at this point we've got a lot of time. We've got 35 days left in that January cycle So nothing to do yet except for hold and wait Oil has been just making a huge move down though. I mean we've had what is that one? I think ten days one two three four five six seven eight nine ten days down in a row Which obviously anytime you have a massive one directional move, of course, that's gonna, you know test your Rangebound trades like your iron condors and short strangles But you've got to stay mechanical and and you've got to wait I mean oil is not gonna go down to forever oil is not going to zero. There's always gonna be value in oil So, you know, we're just we're gonna stay mechanical and play the probabilities. Let the probabilities play out and Hopefully it bounces back a little bit and we get back into range and we continue to manager manage as necessary Similar to that gas just keep in mind. You're probably gonna be in that trade longer. We're gonna extend duration As we get closer to expiration, but again, we've still got 35 days left in January So we're not looking to roll out or or or roll our strikes in any way at this point Next trade a closing adjusting trade in SMH. So we closed out one set of our short strangles in SMH this was our 99 straddle and Originally was a strangle, but we had adjusted into a straddle and we booked over 20% of max profit on this piece and so I got a couple questions on that because We did have We're still down on the trade So we didn't it's not like we were profitable We just booked 20% of that 99 straddle after we rolled and so it was just it was dead centered Premium was getting sucked out of the market after the after the mid-term elections implied volatility was really contracting So it just made sense to reduce our exposure in SMH And so we we booked that piece of the trade now. We're still holding our other piece, which is An unadjusted strangle you can see we've got some profit there Not quite enough to take off yet If we do get to 50% of max profit will end up being about break even on the trade overall So if price moves Significantly one direction or another will probably add on another piece to collect some more credit But just holding in SMH for now Next trade closing adjusting trade in FXI. So we had a couple butterflies on in FXI We got a nice move up Which allowed us to book a over 25% profit on that piece of the trade and And then we still had our other one and then right after that we sent out another alert adding a new Butterfly and so we so now we still have two butterflies. So let's take a look at FXI So here is our Call butterfly and you can see now price. Let's just take a look at what price has been doing So we got that move up. We were able to close out of our November piece and it's moved back down We added another December piece and so we've got these two butterflies. This is our call butterfly You can see prices hanging out right down here near our break even and then we have our other Put butterfly where you can see prices hanging out near the upper end of the range Now if we put these both together just to kind of look at the trade overall You know that looks basically just like an iron condor, right? And so it's dead centered between the two. It's on the upper range of our Put butterfly in the lower range of our call butterfly But we're just continuing to manage this and hopefully the price just kind of ping-pongs around and we can get out of one get out of the other May may look to kind of add and remove depending on what happens But just in holding mode right now for FXI Next trade was an opening trade in EWZ. So wanted to get back some exposure in the Brazilian ETF Ivy percentile at that point was at 77 So we take a look at EWZ You can see price is still pretty pretty dead centered in our short strangle here in EWZ Next trade was a closing adjusting trade in IYR. So that's the other that's the one I mentioned We had we had that short put vertical in November and price made a nice move up We're able to get out of that and booked over 35 percent of max profit on that November iron condor And then we're still holding the the IC in December that I already mentioned Next trade was an opening a trade that we did today in Facebook. So I was looking to sell some more premium We've we've got a lot of it the indexes the indices covered as far as positions on so I was looking at some different stocks Facebook just had earnings last week So we don't have to deal with earnings or anything like that implied volatility has popped up The last couple days. So we sold some premium in Facebook. We're getting a really good risk reward for the amount of buying power used here. So we we put on a Two-contract short strangle in Facebook and you can see it's still pretty dead centered where we put it on and Lastly we did a rolling adjusting trade in EWW So price came down and moved past our short strike to the downside So we just simply rolled down our untested side, which is our calls and We rolled that down from 50 to 44 and Then we're still holding our other piece our other short strangle in EWW as well So here is let's just go to the alert first. So here's here's where that stands. So we just rolled down Our calls were way up here at 50 and we just rolled those down to 44 Collected some more credit and so now we're just playing the waiting game to get some theta to decay there Eventually, we'll probably roll that out to January. But again, we've got we've still got 42 days left So we've got a lot of time For some theta to decay in there. So we're just holding that and then we've got this other piece Which is another short strangle. We have not adjusted yet However, we are down on the trade because implied volatility has really spiked since we put this on You can see we put it on I think on this day and then the next day. I just implied volatility spiked up So that made the options more expensive. So we are down on that piece. However, we're still well within our range here So just waiting for time to pass in EWW and Those are all the alerts. So let's take a look at some of our other positions. I Mentioned six E. I mentioned oil Yes, so we've got this long put vertical on that we've been keeping for some of that short Delta exposure You can see with the recent uptrend after the midterm elections. It's broken out of our range here So just looking for some downside to benefit that we've got 42 days here, so we're not looking to roll that one yet We are getting some negative theta because it did break way out of our range. However, you know We're still, you know playing the probabilities We're still gonna wait till this potentially can move back into range if it doesn't then we'll look to potentially roll out To January once we get closer to expiration, but nothing to do there except for hold. I Mentioned gold. I mentioned natty gas bonds. So we've got a short strangle on in bonds And you can see that one is it's pretty centered We've got some profit in there but not enough to take off yet So just in a holding pattern waiting for some more time to pass some more theta decay In bonds and we do have a lot of short strangles on right now I mean with implied volatility the way it is Selling premium, you know is the name of the game and so that's why we have so many of those on right now. I Mentioned wheat Apple we've got this Long put vertical on that we've had for several cycles that we've been rolling Initially put this on to keep that short Delta in our portfolio and continuing to do so after earnings apple moved down and So that benefited our trade here and then it kind of bounced up and it's starting to look like it's gonna roll over again So just holding on to this. We'll probably roll this one again. We're in December though We've got 42 days. So if it makes a sharp move lower, we'll probably roll our Strikes closer to price and just continue to kind of collect that credit and keep that short Delta exposure If we get closer to expiration, we may roll that out to January, but a lot of time left DIA kind of the same story as the ES trade where prices has moved out of our range, but just holding on to this for short Delta exposure So still in December with a lot of time left. So nothing to do there EEM I mentioned EFA another short Delta exposure play This is a short call vertical and we're still barely within range here, but just looking for some downside to benefit that trade EWW I mentioned EWZ I mentioned Facebook FXI IWM. So we've got an iron condor in IWM Pretty well centered here with with some profit in this piece of the trade We're still we're still down a bit on the overall IWM trade, but battling back nicely. So just playing the waiting game there. I Mention IYR Netflix we put on a I mentioned that one we put on that short Short call vertical for some downside and we've got some profit. They're just waiting for some more QQQ's These were two sets of short call verticals that were originally part of an iron condor and We've continued to roll those for a few cycles to keep that short Delta exposure So just looking for some downside to benefit that piece. I mentioned SMH SPY we've got a short strangle on an SPY it was moving up here close to you almost close to needing an adjustment, but bounced Bounce back lower nicely. So we're up a little bit on the trade just waiting for a little bit more down movement and or time to pass Before we do anything there VXX, okay, so this is so VXX is obviously inversely correlated to the market And we put this on when implied volatility is high We got that big pop in in that initial drop in the stock market and then it continued and it ripped higher I was looking to put on another one here to add to this But I wanted I was wanted to see if it was gonna get a little bit higher meaning the market was gonna continue lower It never did so I never got it on and of course it just dropped So we we would have had a nice trade there playing the hindsight game a little bit Which I don't like to do but you know just just kind of giving you guys my thought process And then and I mean this thing just contracted like crazy After the mid-term election Price was right here. I mean it was right almost back to break even and I put in a couple orders Briefly just to see if we get filled at break even it not didn't quite get there and then with the market drop The last couple days it's bounced back higher. So this is in November. So we've only got seven days left So we will be taking this off Regardless next week winner or loser. Obviously if the market goes higher and we get some more contraction here We might be able to squeak out a little profit. If not, we we may just book a loss on this one But we'll see what happens next week XLK we have this on for some additional short delta exposure. See price is pushed up Barely out of our range here. So just looking for some downside to benefit that and then XRT We've got a short strangle on here hanging out near its upper end of its range So just looking for a little bit of downside to you benefit that piece So those are all the alerts. Those are all the trades We are we are using pretty close to the maximum amount of capital right now that we want to use based on the overall account size so You know, we started this year with the alerts portfolio with a little under 70,000 and we are up to well with Today, we're right around 95,000. So we're using a little under $50,000 in buying power for all of our positions And so probably won't be adding any until we take a couple off. So Still in a good position. I mean with high implied volatility That's where you want to be you want to have a higher allocation of your account But you don't want to we don't like to go over that 50% of capital used At any time regardless. So we're kind of at that max point of the amount of capital we want to be putting to use at this time and Hopefully things cooperate and we get some contraction and or moves in our direction in the different symbols And we can book some profits and then continue to add and that's the that's the name of the game Just continuing to add positions book profits add positions book profits make adjustments as necessary Remember to stay small stay mechanical and and everybody have a great weekend and we'll look forward to some more trading next week Talk to you later