Welcome to Longmont Voices and Vision, a project of Longmont public media. In the midst of the darkest period in our lives, when we're bombarded 24 hours a day with news of the coronavirus and the human and economic carnage it's causing in our society. We're challenged to cope with our fears and anxieties, while remaining hopeful about what lies on the other side of this crisis. This project presents an opportunity for Longmont residents to share with others how they're adjusting to new realities of social distancing and the kind of future they hope to experience on the other side of the crisis. I'm Tim Waters, host of these conversations in a Longmont public media volunteer. In this series, I'll be asking Longmont residents, many of them your friends and neighbors, three questions. What are you doing to get through this crisis? Even though we cannot be together right now, how are we staying connected to friends and families? And what's the future you are hoping to see and experience on the other side of this crisis? I hope you'll stay with this series and enjoy listening to your friends and neighbors and learn from them how they're getting through and what they're looking forward to in a new reality on the other side. Don Wood, thank you for your willingness to contribute to the Longmont voices and vision project. Each of these interviews have begun by giving listeners or viewers a chance to learn something about the interviewee. So tell us about Don Wood, who you are and what you've done for decades in this community. Well, thank you Tim Waters. It's a beautiful spring day in Longmont, Colorado. Wouldn't rather be anywhere else. Don Wood, born in Boulder, Colorado in 1955, moved all the way from Boulder, Colorado to Broomfield, and at the rich age of three moved from Broomfield to Longmont. Been in Longmont ever since, other than a few years in San Jose, California after he graduated from the University of Colorado. Married to Karen Kanemoto, best thing I ever did in my life. I'm going to remain that and progress my life. And Karen and I have two wonderful kids, Julie and Eric, who graduated from Skyline High School here in Longmont. And we have three grandkids in ages six, four and three. Two of them, two boys in California and one lovely little girl right here in Longmont. What questions you have for us, Tim? Just talk a little bit about, among your contributions to the community, have been over generations, kind of the go-to organization or service for travel. And I know that you're in a transitional period, but I think people would enjoy knowing that connection as well. Our probably our largest tie to Longmont is my wife Karen and I and our son Eric have been running goal key travel for Longmont. Karen and I have been in it for 40 years, Eric for 11 years. My mother Mitzi Wood started goal key travel in 1966 in the lobby of Longmont National Bank. And we moved from the bank in 1984 to a nice little house of 328 Kauffman Street, which we've enjoyed for the last 35 years. And quite a transition. It's, you know, this, this time of, of downturn in our economy and our timing is unusual. In February of this year, our son Eric came to us and said 11 years has been long enough. I'm ready to start a new path. Perfect timing. This has been the best year goal key travel has ever had. Everything was lined up. The stars were aligned. And this darn COVID-19 came to town. Travel was hit as hard as probably any other industry. I know many industries have been hit and worldwide everybody's feeling the effects of this. You just, I just can't imagine somebody not feeling the effects of this virus. The travel, especially at hard when you think that air travels down 97%. That's a pretty big number. And so that's that set goal key back for the year.  You sell everything and then finally the people travel and that's when we get paid. Well, the last two years worth of work, we're not going to get paid because our employees have been with us. We have a family, a goal key team that's been with us 30 plus years. It really is a family 15 people working for gold key travel and 10 of those people also were close to retirement and when they heard that we were going to be leaving, they were deciding they leave as well. So it's quite a quite a change for long month because it's certainly the largest agency at one time there were 10 agencies in long month and now there's there's gold key travel and then a couple other smaller agencies but decided to keep our staff. I know many people in long want to appreciate what gold key has has represented into to them into their families. So I have three questions. You know, the first one is in this time of that's extraordinary that none of us have ever experienced in all of the unknowns that go along with this and a lot of fear that goes along with what's happened to the world. How are you getting through this period of time. Our family has had the luxury of being raised by Tom and Mitzi would and beat into us. You save for a rainy day. And we can't thank them enough and I'm sure their parents did the same thing for them coming through the depression and knowing that things can happen you just don't know. So you you prepare for that and you live within your means and it's not raining it is pouring out there and it's a it's a good time to have been saving for so we're not going to be as affected as as other people are and I really do empathize for everyone out there because everybody has a different story and these are really difficult times. This is my new favorite word unprecedented. Yeah, you're here every day. Optimists and I know we'll get through it, but there will be people that feel the pain and some some will not survive. And that's very sad and and lives will be changed forever by this, but we will come out of it. Historians will talk about this 2020 year of 2020 for a long time. I hope it's only 2020 I don't want them to be talking about 2021 2022. But right now we're and it's an unknown and that's part of the problem the unknown people do not like the unknown. And but that's where we are right now and so if any kids are out there. Save save save. One of the things that that we do know right now is that we're living in a time of physical separation and social distancing that we've never experienced along with the other things that we're experiencing. So in this time when you can't be together with your family and your friends, how you stay connected with your family and your friends, only because this is not going to be viewed by anybody for another 30 years. Right, Tim? No, people are going to do this next week or the week after. Darn. Well, I'll admit we've been cheating a little bit. And we have a large family and the family works in the business and the office lends itself to the ability where we can go into the office and stay socially distant from each other. And so we have been able to go into the office. And so there is some interaction that maybe other people aren't afforded. So as much as we would love to, you know, shake hands and hug and see our friends, like we would like to see them, we see them on Zoom and that you need the physical interaction and face to face. So we look forward to getting back to that. John, the third question for you and for others in this project is based on the presumption that whatever was normal, whatever life was, our normal routines, life's going to be different on the other side of this. We just don't know how. So the question is, assuming life is going to be different, what's your preferred future? What would you like to see and help create on the other side of the pandemic? So as far as things that are going to be different, and here's the positive sign, I think people have been placed in their homes with their families with more time than they've ever had before. And I hope they're cherishing that time and maybe we come out of this with families being stronger because they now see that there's so much worthwhile interaction within the family. I'm really hoping that families are a stronger unit. Our lives are so busy and we have so many, so much stimulation out there with, you know, the screen time and everything else that's out there. I'm hoping that families are back to playing games and with each other and really connecting. So that would be the positive side. I think the, it's going to be a negative side and difficult for us is how we're going to pay for this. How is our government going to stay? Well, there's never been on budget, but we really need to make sure our dollars are spent wisely by our government and by ourselves. And so I'm hoping that we can figure that out. I know people will now know, like I said earlier, the importance of savings. I hope our government can learn that as well, though it's going to be, I don't know how it's going to be a very expensive time coming through these next few years. Lots to anticipate and lots to learn from this experience. Don Wood, thank you again for your contribution to this project and a decades of contribution to the community from the Wood family. Tim Waters, thank you and thank you for your contribution. I'm just a bit player and I listen, stay safe, take care of yourself and in all your family members, both professional and personal. You do the same. Thank you. Nadine Lester. Thank you so much for your willingness to contribute to this project by lending your voice and vision to the long month voices and vision project. To begin this interview, it would be helpful for all of us to learn a little bit about who you are. So tell us about Nadine Lester. Nadine Lester, I live in Southmore Park, lived in Longmont for about 40 years. I'm a retired teacher. I taught in Longmont Public Schools for about 12 years. I worked in adult education for the school district and at front range for about 14 years. But now I'm at home. Love the Longmont community raised our children here. My husband works for IBM. He's not retired. We raise our children here. Both of them graduated from Iowa High School. I feel very connected to this community. I appreciated living here. You know, all this time. That's me and I, and I, I really enjoy the way Longmont is organized and the way our government works here. And I, I'm happy to make a contribution. You are making one today and we appreciate it. So, you know, I'm going to ask you three questions. And the first question is that in this period of time, if we go back and look historically, there have been times where humanity has been distanced and isolated from one another, but not in our lifetimes, not like this. So in a time where we're physically separated and socially distanced, how are you getting through this period of time with all of the unknowns and uncertainties and concerns associated with it? Well, that is an interesting question. And I, I enjoyed kind of reflecting on that. I had to ask myself, how am I getting through this? And, you know, in all honesty, I really had to pray about it. I don't like idleness. I don't like feeling a lack of purpose. I don't like feeling disconnected. So, you know, this quarantine is all about serving others precisely by being isolated. And, you know, that was challenging for me. So I started by tapping into all the productive things, or things that I consider productive that I do on my own. So things like my hobbies and clubs and association. Anything where I could see some results from my efforts, no matter how small. And then what I did was, I came up with a daily to-do list that I share with my sister who lives in Omaha. This was really the answer prayer for me. We go on record with each other about all the things we're going to accomplish during the day. And then we tell each other what we actually did accomplish. And I really like paying attention to the things I do where I can see results from my efforts. And we always start our list with something that we've already done, because it's so important. The first item might be write a to-do list check, you know. So today's list says things like coffee, prayer, study Italian, get some exercise, dress for success, zoom interview, that's on there. And some days are busier than others, but I say that my list and sharing with my sister Christine, that's the number one thing that's getting me through this. Nadine, I've tried to make very few editorial comments as we go through these interviews because it's really about the interview. But I will, based on what you just said, is a Stephen Covey and his seven habits of successful people, that one of them is starting with the end in mind. And it sounds like that's exactly how you're approaching this period. So, in addition to figuring out how to get through this as an individual, in a time when we can't be together physically, we're all trying to figure out how to stay connected with family and friends. So how is that working for you? How are you staying connected with family and friends? Okay, well I'm just going to say thank you next light. Yeah. I'm not on Facebook or Twitter, but I have been using technology and YouTube has been great. I subscribe to the city of Longmont YouTube channel, which I don't know if I would have gotten around to that without, you know, I usually watch on TV or show up at council meetings myself. So that's been great. I actually feel better connected with some of the things going on in the city. And then, you know, I've been doing phone calls and emails and texts, FaceTime and Zoom, but you know what, one good way in a state connected, I think, has been the postal service. Because I had time to think about Easter, I said gifts to family members, and I made cards and sent them to people and they have really enjoyed that. You know, my cousins, little kids were so thrilled to get Easter gifts and I don't know that I would have been able to connect with them in that way, unless it was under these circumstances, it's really been a silver lining, good old postage. And stuff like that, that Thunderbird flyover on Saturday. That was just great. All the neighbors came out in their yards. And we didn't, we didn't see it here, it was too cloudy, but we had a great time looking for it. And then we've been doing random stuff like that in our front yards and watching the kids on their bikes or doing cartwheels and stuff has just, it's just been a joy. And I have wonderful neighbors and this has just made that even stronger. Well, there's some themes that we're hearing these interviews that are real consistent with your experience. And a lot of us stood out looking for those, for those jets on Saturday. We didn't see if we went out and look for them as well. And finally gave up and we heard them go overhead about the time we came inside. You know, my third question for you is this with a based on a presumption that whatever normal was on the front side of this pandemic, there's going to be a new normal on the other side of it. Life won't be just like it was before the pandemic. That's the presumption. So, given that, my question for you is what's your preferred future? What would you like to see? And what are you willing to help create or would like to create as the new normal? I feel so powerful. Well, you know, I thought about this and I asked my daughters and my neighbors to and and something came to mind for me. Remember a year ago, it was on April 15, 2019 that Notre Dame in Paris was in flames. And it was a terrible disaster and it was absolutely appalling and heartbreaking that this was even happening. The fire got put out and people pulled together, people have raised money and that church is being rebuilt, restored and improved. I was thinking in some ways it's going to be unchanged from the building the world has known and love for centuries and in some ways it's going to be better because of advances in construction capabilities. And those improvements probably would have taken a lot longer without the disaster. And I think this pan virus is a disaster, which is an action of undoing by the stars, you know, it's not something we asked for it's not some it's something that happened to us. I'm really seeing the coronavirus epidemic in that same way. It's a disaster. We've been forced to stop our usual routines. We've had some demands put on us that some would say are burning down our economy, our normal way of life, our expectations about the pursuit of happiness as our modern culture has to find it. As a result of this fire, I say some good thing, and I firmly believe that most of the time people can't see the goodness in individual actions, though it's something we all long for. I'm so hopeful that the world will remember that personal actions add up and that they are in fact more important than anything else. Will we go back to criticizing and complaining? Will we prefer to see the bad in things that we don't have any control over? Will we see that something is going on that isn't politics or economics and there have been some results that are. The virus hasn't spread as fast as it could have. Dolphins came back to the canals of Venice. For the first time in 18 years, the month of March saw no school shootings in the United States. A bald eagle flew over my neighborhood yesterday morning and it was quiet enough to hear mallards in the creek behind my house because there was no traffic. It will be harder to argue that humans can't hold off on some of their frantic activity because we're doing it. It will be harder to say that our individual actions don't add up to something. So in the future, I am so hopeful that we will have a better conversation about the power of collective action. And I'm hoping this event will help us lift up our hearts. Nadine, let's do that. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to think about this beforehand. And thank you for your contributions to this project. My pleasure. Stay, take care of yourself, stay safe. And our pasable cross when we are able to be out and about again and remembering the lessons that you've just suggested we need to take with us. Thanks. You're welcome. Bye-bye. Seth Miller. Thank you so much for lending your voice and your vision to this line of voices and vision project. As you know, we're starting these interviews by learning something about the people being interviewed. So tell us about Seth Miller. So I am, I work from home and I've worked from home for the last decade, decade plus as an independent consultant in science and technology sort of innovation management. So I help companies figure out how they're going to build their next products and how they're going to invest their money for their future. And it's been, it's been a lot of fun. I have a background as a PhD scientist, but I haven't done lab work in over a decade. Well, that's, that's great preparation obviously for what you're doing and way over prepared for this interview, I think. So I have three questions for you as you know. The first of those questions is in this time of probably not, I was reminded by someone in one of these interviews. We're not in an in an unprecedented moment in all of human history, certainly unprecedented time in our lifetimes. So given that in the distancing associated with it, how are you getting yourself through this unprecedented period? You know, for me personally, it's been interesting because for me, a lot of this is welcome to my world. I've been working out of my house since 2008. You know, I got let go by a company in November of 2008. And, and it was not the best time to be unemployed. And yeah, I had a few months of savings, right, but I didn't have enough. I had, by the time I was really quite lucky in able to get my first gig in the middle of 2009 where I actually my income started to exceed my expenses by by June 2009, which is incredibly fast, especially for that era. But you know, I had less than a month of savings in the bank at that point. This, this is hard. So, you know, for me, strangely, this has been less, because I went through that 12 years ago, this has been less traumatic for me, I'm used to this idea that I'm working from home, my pace of work hasn't changed. My daughter who was in college has had to come home and that's been a change. And as her dad, I will selfishly say that it's been wonderful to have her back. She would rather not be here, but it has been spectacular to have her presence. And, you know, I honestly, I'm trying to focus on welcoming the opportunities that this creates this there's there's a lot of disruption in everything and I've absolutely lost clients and there are people who are not going to be able to pay me that for work that I've done because their companies are in tatters right now or that at least maybe it won't be it won't be for months now. And that's, and that's hard for everybody and I respect that. But, you know, I'm just trying to focus on recognizing that all of this is going to wash over us. And there are some good things that are going to happen. And I get an extra few months with my daughter is is at the top of my list.  So how are you staying connected with friends and family during this time of isolation. Yeah, so I did on Thursday so today is a Saturday that we're doing this interview and on Thursday I did a happy hour with some friends from college which was really neat because I you know, we don't accept on Facebook, you know, we'll comment on each other's posts, but I haven't seen many of these people in decades, or at least since you know since a college reunion and five however many years ago. So it's really kind of wonderful to be able to just stand there and I will I chopped dinner for family while everybody else was talking. And it's kind of cool and I'm going to do the same thing next weekend with another set of friends who I haven't gotten together like that with.  We have all of these friends, all of us have friends who have moved away, or we've moved away from them. And so this is really kind of neat being forced to think about how to connect with them, having the technology and having everybody have familiarity with it. I don't think these habits are going to change. I think I'm going to keep doing this because I really, really like it. So that's a nice segue to my third question. In the presumption that underlies the question is that whatever was normal for all of us before we got into this period of social distancing. And in the drama and the some of the trauma that goes along with the economic and financial implications. Looking on the backside of this life, whatever the new normal is going to become is going to be different than it was before. So the third question is what do you want to see in the new normal. What's your preferred future. And I'll attach to that preferred future that you'd like to help create. So, I don't know yet. Um, and that's something that I'm trying to save some time to think about, because when you're forced to change like this, you know, all of us at all, I'm going to give you a very simple answer, all of us, except for you, Tim, are considered whether or not we have the right now.  So whether or not that is, that's a good thing or a bad thing, but you are actually forced to answer these questions that you hadn't, you can just ignore you can just go every month to the same person to get the same haircut and it doesn't matter whether or not that's optimal. And we can, we have this opportunity to take that to a lot of different aspects of our lives. Right. Are we spending enough time and are we, you know, now that we're forced to hang out in different ways with our family. Are we doing it right. I mean, is there a way we should be doing it better. Right. Should I really be spending so much time looking at Twitter, probably not. Right. Not while not while I have children that I really should be paying attention to having just graduated and then adopted back my my eldest. I recognize that I only propo hopefully I'm going to do this once and damn it I should be paying attention to her at dinner. So, so that's one part of it all of our human relationships we have a chance to sort of sit back and we're being forced to reevaluate them and remind ourselves what is giving us the most pleasure. So this is a great opportunity. In terms of the world, you know, I think that we can say some of that push forward, you know, out into the world, you know, how are we investing our time how are we investing our money in order to be able to to maximize what we most get out of this. So, you know, I on a personal like mission, like I'm very much interested in renewable energy. And then, and I see there's a global climate crisis which feels a little bit like the coronavirus just spread out in time. The disaster it's happening on the course of years rather than the course of weeks. Um, but we can learn, we can take what we're learning from this and ask ourselves what habits did we're just habits. And, you know, which things were important, some of these things that we think that we need to change are going to be very difficult to change for global warming just like we're trying for coronavirus. Some of the things we're going to find out are like a new haircut. It's like, Oh, I didn't realize I could just fall into this new thing. I want to be able to find those opportunities. This is a great excuse to search. And hopefully we'll be able to all of us, enough of us will have the mental space right now to be able to find a few of those things. We don't have to find all of them. But if we can all just find a few things about our lives in our world that we can make better and more sustainable, then that will be something positive we can take out of this. Well, that sounds like a pretty aspirational view of where we are and where we're headed. And I very much appreciate your sharing those aspirations, your voice and your vision with this project. Take care of yourself, stay safe and take care of your family. Tim, thank you for inviting me. Sherri Malloy. Thank you so much for lending your voice and your vision to this Longmont voices and vision project. Tell us a little bit about who you are. So whoever watches these, these interviews will know who they're hearing from. Well, as you said, my name is Sherri Malloy. I'm originally from Chicago. I've lived in Colorado since 1984 in Longmont since 1986. So a good long while now. I'm a retired special education teacher, public education taught here in St. Frank. And Kara swings before that in Chicago before that so total of 35 years I retired about five years ago. And I have two grown children, Brian who is 30 and his sister Colleen who just turned 29. I have 11, Brian's in Lafayette, Colleen's in Durango, and I have a wonderful husband JD Glites who I married two years ago after a very long time being single after being divorced with my kids were very young. And yeah, just happy to have this opportunity in this most unusual time. Yeah, so building on that this most unusual time. I was reminded one of these interviews that there probably were periods in human history when there was this kind of isolation, but not any of our in any of our lifetime so in a time that we've never experienced of physical separation and social isolation. With all of the drama and the fear goes along with that how are you getting yourself through this period. You know, I'm pretty well very well I would say I have. It's just the mixed bag it's the mixed bag of what life is on steroids, super, you know, intensified in terms of fear and uncertainty and, you know, health concerns and economic concerns and future concerns you know just all of that. And at the same time, I'm really sort of enjoying the slower pace and the time to reflect and the time to just be. And so I'm personally doing, you know, pretty well I did write down my three questions. But yeah, it's it's it's just you know that mixed bag that life is you know it's really sweet and terribly scary and we are you know, are incredibly fortunate. We have a home, we have electricity we have power, you know, heat we have food where we're very well provided for and so to know that and to be aware of you know people in refugee camps in Syria and you know in our own community who are really struggling you know with the loss of jobs with health separation from families loneliness. You know, addiction homelessness. You know, domestic violence I mean there's a lot of suffering and so holding both of those things has been personally challenging to you know sort of know that and yet my life is great I'm looking outside we've got chickadees making a little nest I mean it's you know it's it's it's all really surreal. But we are terms of self care you know taking the guidelines very seriously very much aware that are what we do impacts others and what they're doing impacts us and so sort of you know really taking that very very seriously and and then you know really enjoying the time with JD he's a United pilot and so there hasn't an international pilot so there has not been any flying he took a voluntary leave for the month of April with reduced pay and he does have a couple trips. Scheduled in May, but that's not looking like that's even going to happen and so so we really enjoying the time together. We are Buddhists so we are doing. We have a daily practice of meditation so we're doing that we're doing reading and we're reflecting and we're studying some Dharma that's the Buddhist teachings and you know really enjoying that we're started a gratitude journal. And yeah you know so you know on that front. It's kind of kind of really sweet I did hear this report on NPR recently about what to do in times of trauma you know in terms of self care and and it was for m's so the first one was my mindfulness meditation or prayer you know some sort of stillness. Second one was movement so especially outside so we have an old dog who still likes long walks so you know getting movement every day. The third one was mastery finding projects and little things I'm working on this big wall hanging, you know, like to get going on some closets and things like that but I haven't really found that motivation yet but you know kind of doing that you feel a sense of accomplishment, not huge, you know, could be baked in bread. And then the last one was was the last one. Mindfulness, mindfulness movement mastery and, and, oh meaningful connection. So this, you know case staying in touch with people which has no end next question as well as to the greater community, you know, giving money where we can I've done some volunteering at hope with their showering.  So that you know just kind of, yeah so those are the things and then I added a fifth one and M, because we're also listening to you know James Taylor and Carly Simon and music sorry that last one was music so. And that's kind of the things. You know, in terms of resource cooking, helping our local restaurants with getting take out you know trying to at least once a week. And, yeah, just really mostly enjoying the time to read and reflect and reset. Great, we watch Netflix and we're really into and with an either story of and being gables and so we have tea every night and watch a episode of that. Big question is to popcorn tonight. And of course doing the zoom, you know, and all of those kinds of things so. So, you know, so far our health is good and we're doing okay kids are good. So your reference to zoom kind of sets up the second question is a nice segue. And that is in this time where we can't be together. How do you stay connected so how you stay connected to family and friends. Yeah, so JD's mother is an independent living situation at Balfour in Louisville. And so they are for a while for a couple months haven't allowed people in or out. But they are so calling her every day, you know, if she's safe there and the skill nursing they've had a couple of cases but it's a separate facility. And so we call her every day and she's been trying to zoom but hasn't worked so I signed up to be a host now so we're going to do our practice zoom where we can walk her through it tomorrow so. She's very sharp very, very sharp much sharper than me, and you know she's doing well so we call her talk to the kids, you know, more regularly I mean that's one of the nice things that you're actually, or I'm actually having some more contact with people that, you know, not been in much contact with. Of course, texting my kids more texting than emails maybe, or I mean, phone calls, but. I do the zoom for some exercise I do my yoga now with the zoom and Nia, which is another exercise program I love and we have in two medication meditation groups so we're doing that on zoom we're listening to some Dharma talks by some teachers on zoom. Some community meetings kind of thing that are happening on zoom like Tuesday there's a meeting for. I think it's Tuesday the 21st for with my dirty around people who are homeless. So, you know, really kind of take an advantage full advantage of that, and then staying connect with friends. So that's, yeah, just, you know, using all the technology and at the same time sort of limiting, trying to limit that a little bit. Oh, and that was another thing for self care kind of limiting news morning. Maybe PBS news hour at night we had some Dharma talks going on there but that's going to three times a week next week so that we can get back into the channel six. PBS news hour and that's it limiting news is I think, kind of especially helpful for mental emotional and spiritual health. So, that's the question. Well, given these conditions right in the stay at home order and you know all that we're dealing with with this pandemic. The last question, the underlying assumption is or pre assumption is that whatever life is like on the backside or when we come out from underneath the state of order, and the pandemic center control, whatever life is like, it's going to be different life. When we turn to what it was before. So the last question is, what would you like that life to be, what's your preferred future, and what's the future you'd like to help create. You know, and that's of course the most important question and the one I've been reflecting on a lot, because you're right, you know it's going to be life before COVID and after COVID I mean it's a defining moment individually, collectively, and on time and I think it's continuing to evolve. But it's, it's, it's a huge opportunity and I was, I've really become so much more aware of how interdependent we are, you know, everything the lights are on, somebody's doing that you know the food I eat, my dog food, you know furniture. I haven't built any of it you know all of it has been done or set in place by others, and then he's even brought to us by truckers and you know people out in the fields harvesting which of course we all know that but you know just the, the, the giantness of how interdependent and interconnected we are and how our planet is just one giant terrarium if you will and so you know they had a they had an astronaut a woman astronaut on the other day on the radio and she was saying I look at the earth and she's been up in space for seven months and she was actually coming home Saturday and you know she said I look in the earth looks exactly the same it's still this beautiful stunning, you know, planet, and yet she knows that everything has changed and so yeah I think I think you know how what we do with this is, is the challenge, you know, and I've had chat personal challenges as we all have in our life losses and and our own traumas and early on and I think it's true now to I sort of realized you know there's we really come down to a choice are we going to be which path are we going to take are we going to become bitter are we going to harden our hearts to you know fear and you know and and us and them or scarcity or you know I mean it's it's a path to and bitter is just about self protection or are we going to soften and become better and so it's my sincere hope of course that we that we become better and softer and more tolerant and kind and recognizing that interdependence that we all do better when we all do better and you know and just kind of seeing things in a whole new light because to not do so is to our own peril you know in terms yeah so so that's I don't know you know what that will look like but I very much want to support you know an effort to to make us better not better. I mean we can see both kind of starting to play out already you know kind of people feeling tired of this and you know questioning and demonstrating and you know and just and really pushing back and you can see that it's all coming from a fearful place so I don't know if you know if you've heard this beautiful poem by Katie O'Meara but it really tells says speaks for me of you know your final question so I just don't know that I've heard it but I think we should all hear it. Okay so it's by Katie O'Meara who I believe is Canadian and she wrote a poem called and the people stayed home and the people stayed home and read books and listened and rested and exercise and made art and played games and learned new ways of being and were still and listened more deeply some meditated some prayed some danced some met their shadows and the people began to think differently and the people healed and in the absence of people living in ignorant dangerous mindless and heartless ways the earth began to heal and when the danger passed and the people joined together again they grieved their losses and made new choices and dreamed new images and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully as they had been healed. So, that's my hope. Sharon Malloy. First of all thanks for all your contributions to the community. And especially thanks for your contribution to this project. Thank you. Let your voice and vision to this project. Take care of yourself, JD and all your extended family members. You do the same. Thank you, Tim.


Hello everyone, thank you for coming here. I'm Stefano from Datastax. Today, I'm going to show you a library which was built with the purpose of making Cassandra more easily accessible to generative AI folks, which as you will see, does not always coincide with Cassandra people. So we know that Cassandra 5 is coming, packed with very good new stuff, AC transaction, SAI, vector search, vector search. So vector search, in case you don't know it, is a big thing, which is basically the workhorse of this generative AI revolution, which is taking place. So looking at the timeline, you notice that CEP 30, which is the Cassandra enhancement proposal, introducing vector support, happened during the course of this year and was very quickly made its way to Cassandra 5, which is about to be released. And you probably know that vector search is a big deal and it, so you know vector search probably, but just as a quick reminder, it is a way that it is a search method that enables retrieval of basically anything as long as you can turn it into a vector. In particular, it's very useful for retrieving pieces of text because there are now embedding methods to very cleverly make text into points in a space and then vector search basically translates the hard task of semantic similarity search into a geometric task. So you can have a sentence and you can look for similar sentences and that has become a problem of geometric problem, which is great because we know how to treat that. So developers, especially generative AI folks, there might be an overlap with people familiar with Cassandra, but you probably can imagine this overlap right now is not that big. And since Cassandra 5 is so great and it starts to pack support for all of this gen AI oriented thing, I think we need a way to enhance this overlap, especially because in this picture, Cassandra and gen AI people are not drawn to scale and they are not drawn to scale even in this picture. So generative AI practitioners is a notion of people and if we find a way to make Cassandra more accessible then it's a big win, right? So there is a concept which probably DevRel people know very well, which is the time to hello world. And today this has to be very short. I'm speaking minutes. Many times if, let's say someone lands on your website on your quick start and in five minutes they do not see anything working yet, that might be enough to make them flee to someone else, some other vector search database and we don't want that, right? So raise your hand if you feel familiar with CQL. Of course, we are at the Cassandra Summit. Can you imagine how would CQL feel to someone used to a two line of Python code? You can admit it might feel intimidating a bit. Verbose, I mean, I love CQL, don't get me wrong. But we need a way to make at least the time to hello world much shorter, much easier. And this is where Casayo enters the picture. We want to make using Cassandra easy and quick for folks who don't have time to learn the ways of CQL. But still they want to exploit the various, very awesome technologies that are behind Cassandra and its vector search support. So let me show you a quick start. I'm sure you have seen plenty of rather quick starts and this is no exception. Actually, this is two quick starts in one. So let me jump to, okay. I have a notebook, by the way, sorry. You will see there is a link here. You can run it yourself either with Docker, Cassandra 5, beta image or with Datasux AstroDB. If you don't want to get involved with the local running your database, you will find all links in here and in the presentation online. So this is a very standard rug quick start. I'm not here to show you how rug works, but so I have already executed the setup steps which are starting a Docker, Cassandra, checking the contact point, okay, standard stuff. So you see here, this is Python code, of course. This is where I create a session. This is all done. I create a key space, so this is already. Now, I also set open AI key for later usage. And now, this is how the Casio part works. There's one line where I set up a session for later use. We can skip the AstroDB case because today I'm running with Docker. You can see it here, Docker, Cassandra 5.0, Alpha 2. So I can run a SQL just in case it wouldn't be needed here. So this is where I create. Well, a vector store, but it's a table. It's a table directly made the right shape to serve your vector needs, directly made with your indices, ready to be queried, and this is everything it takes. A bit easier, a bit more Pythonic than SQL. So behind the scenes, a lot of things have happened. Table creation, indices, all that. Then we will populate the store with a few vectors. This is a sample dataset with 30-something fake insect descriptions. Let's look at one of them. So there is a name, an order, and a description. Like this is some kind of made up butterfly. So you see, this is how I put my entry in the vector store. There is a put method that takes care of everything. It will take care of prepare statements in search from everything, schema, translation, pre-post-processing, everything. The only thing I have to do is I have to make, to create an embedding vector. So this is not a library, this is not a long chain. This is not a library that makes JennyI things for you. This just makes it easier to use Cassandra as if it were exactly the shape of your JennyI needs. So, okay, let me run this one insertion. This is it. So we can maybe just for the fun. We can try desk tables. There is a Casio demo. Let me, so you see, this is my row. I'm not showing the vector because it's very long, but this is what ends up in the database among other columns. Let me go back to the demo.  So that's it. Now, how do you do search? Again, you don't have to deal with the SQL full syntax for vector search, which I'm going to show you later. You see, again, this cell is what, where the vector search is run, but the vector search is this line. So it's exactly a method built in Casio exactly with the shape that you need. So you have a vector, a number of entries, and possibly a metric to measure similarities, and there we go. So I started with a sentence describing some kind of dragonfly. I make it into a vector because that's where, that's what I need for running the search, and there we go with the results, or assorted by similarity score. I can do something more. I can run some metadata filters because the appropriate indexes have been built for me by the Casio table creation. So we are only about, this is only about bugs, and there we go, colioptera, colioptera, colioptera. Again, results. Okay, so the last part of this demo is the full rug thing. So it's not only retrieval, R. We also want to do AG, so full rug. And in this case, I don't, I think we have seen so many of this chat with your docs things. Okay, so this is a bit different just for the fun of it.  You spot some insect in the fields, and we use rug to retrieve entries from this fake textbook about biology, and we help the entomologists with identification of the species. So we have a prompt, which says, you are an expert entomologist assistant, so and so, and then we will stuff this prompt with the observation by the user and the candidate found by the retrieval, just for the fun of it. So I have a function here, suggest observed species, and you see it's basically doing a vector search, then to find the relevant matches according to the observation, then it formats the prompt template with observation and matches, and then it will ask an LLM to come up with a final identification and degree of accuracy. So this is how it works. I just call suggest observed species with some description. It will, of course, here you see it takes some time, but that's the LLM interaction that takes some time, because the retrieval is very fast. And you see, after a bit of text, there is a, the why and the how this observation matches this insect with a moderate degree of uncertainty. So this is basically it. Of course, again, I can run it again with a different remark, and I can also run in debug mode and you will see how the prompt is created. That's, of course, not specific to Casayo, but it might be fun to see. So this is the actual prompt that is then sent to the LLM, and the answer is, again, based on your observation because of this and that, this is the insect yourself. So that's it. There's nothing specific to Cassandra here in the rug part, but that was to give you the sense of how you get all the way to a working application. By way of comparison, I have here, I happen to have here a similar notebook with the same application done with pure CQL. And it's nothing extremely verbose, but still you remember the one line to create the vector store, that's it here. So it starts here, if you do CQL, and it goes all the way here. I'm sure everyone in this room has no trouble doing that, but again, try to put the head on of someone new to Cassandra. This is a big difference. This fosters adoption, you know? And besides, it already packs the best practices in a sense, it will do prepare statements, it will do optimization, it will take care of all of the right schema, and let's say it makes it more difficult to shoot you in the foot. And the same for when you run the search. So again, this is where you insert, again some CQL that might scare people away. This is where I do the search and so on. So this is somehow, so Casayo has a mission of trying to get, trying to hide away what is avoidable at least in a first interaction with Cassandra while keeping the goodies. So Casayo is more than just a vector store abstraction. It's actually a family of tables, which from a GNI perspective look like vector store, chat memory, LLM cache, so very specific and whose purpose is specific to individual typical needs of GNI application. But actually what Casayo does is a more abstract kind of thing. So Casayo is offering abstractions for a table with a vector, a table with metadata support, searchable metadata support, a table which is just a key value store and so on. And then you can use them for GNI purposes or anything actually. So there's nothing specific to language, there's nothing specific to GNI actually in Casayo. Indeed, the principle are just to show no CQL unless it's necessary and use the best practices in Cassandra but trying to avoid showing them to the user unless it's necessary again. Because GNI people don't have time to, they don't like boilerplate like many. They don't have time to learn a new language like CQL if they can avoid that. And they might like to see their GNI language being used in the API. But still, we don't want to compromise the best features of Cassandra so we still expose partitioning, we expose TTL, we use prepare statements and whatnot. Okay, so how long do I have? I might spend a bit, yeah, okay. I should be able to spend some time and a bit of dive into how Casayo is structured. So there are basically three big modules. One is, I'm starting from the ones on the right. So there is a logic to easily read from several tables at once doing client-side join to fill a prompt typically. So it's a very typical task in a prompt-based LLM application that you read from, let's say you read from, you want to try to convert a set of primary keys into the actual values with stuff in the prompt from user ID to names or name and date of birth, something like that. So this is a one line to do that. And then there is a config module to easily configure your session before you start using Casayo without having to specify it anymore. But the biggest part is what you see on the left here and that's a tree of classes built on a base table class which act like a mixing. So you can mix and match your classes and create the abstraction for your table that suits your needs, no more, no less.  You can just mix these mixings and you will get a table that works. And this is based on a tower of methods that might optionally do something and defer to the higher method in the hierarchy. So let's say the vector table that you have seen in the demo is this metadata vector Cassandra table on the upper right. And that's a base table with vector on top, with metadata on top. So every time you run something like an ANN query, you see this second line in the yellow block. There is the ANN search in the vector mixing which asks the metadata layer to handle some of the input arguments to make them into the where close. And then the thing goes back to the vector support which runs the query. And then again, so every data input and output goes through all the layers which potentially might have something to say in it or not. So this is how you can get full composability of these abstractions. So where is Casayo used right now? You probably have heard of LungChain and LamaIndex. These are the two most used frameworks to write applications with LLMs. Their support for Cassandra in both cases is built on top of Casayo. And even though users would not see Casayo directly, the rationale behind is that there are so many patterns that are best captured once in Casayo. And then the integrations for LungChain and LamaIndex are just thin wrappers specific to the idioms of LungChain and LamaIndex. We just defer for the bulk of managing the table to Casayo. So which opens the way to easy integrations with more frameworks. Not only that, but there is even a legitimate usage of Casayo itself because not everything is language. I keep forgetting that, but you might have needs for vector search even outside of language, right? So sound similarity, image similarity.  Again, easier than doing all the CQL. So the project is evolving. We hope to have zero to out very soon. And yeah, you can see here the features that are being added at various stages now. I invite you to go to casayo.org for quick starts, docs, tutorials and everything. And of course it's an open source project and we welcome contributions and issues and everything. I close by reminding you that if you prefer to work with a cloud database built on Cassandra, we have AstraDB of course. And Casayo has a first class support for that as well through a very easy authentication method. So you are invited to try it again. And I think I can stop here and I thank you for your attention. Thank you. Any question? Sorry, there is one there. Yes. His talk, sorry. Yeah, Casayo is Python specific. That was built out of the need of offering something to Python practitioners. There might be, of course, the same could can be built in different languages but as things are now that would be an undertaking from scratch. But see Jeff's talk later today at five, right? 450, there is a very enticing way to cut the shortcut and get to the point of multilingual support. You had a question? Okay, it's okay. Okay, thank you.


What is going on guys welcome back to the channel and I appreciate you being here today I bring you another destiny to a video and today I'm going to show you how you can glitch into the black armory area and actually see the black armory vendor Add that one which is crazy glitch But before we go any further guys if you do enjoy the video and would like to show you support You can by hitting that like button if you're new around here and enjoy daily destiny to videos be sure to subscribe Okay, so massive shout out to Inception over on Twitter for showing me how to do this So you can glitch within the tower into the black armory location, which is crazy as I thought within the law They've been hiding from the vanguard for some time now Hiding plain sight it seems yeah So firstly to get to the annex area if you'd like to explore this place as you can see me doing it on screen now You need to activate the floor is love the challenge by pressing this switch Right here then jump into one of the three lights which spawn in front of you trying your hardest not to hit the floor Once you've done this you will then get a buff which allows you to jump extra high, which I'm pretty sure you all already know about This buff is needed to glitch into this area. We are going to so you definitely need to grab this buff So once the buff is obtained follow the path I take towards Icora and Hawthorne now once Yeah, jump up and follow the exact route I take taking the exact same steps I do as it's important as you take a wrong step You can lead to your death meaning you have to go and get that buff again, which is a pin. Yes Now following the path I take you will eventually come to this right here Let's call these two pillars the forks here at the fork simply drop down to the left So this little platform then run to the end and then jump on to this other platform and then just jump down You are now in the annex area now interestingly if you explore this area you will come across this door right here Which is kind of a weird force field It's behind this door, which is the black armory room and the exhale vendor called add a one Now if you do want to get close to her so you can actually see her but not close enough So you actually face-to-face but pretty close you can see it's her you will need to do the glitch again So let's do that. So firstly get the buff then make your way back to Icora's area Then do what I did before following exactly what I did Once you get to the folks people jump down and run to the end and jump and mantle this little ledge in front of you This is important as it spawns in what you have to then travel back on yourself and jump to So turn around and jump back towards those folks and make your way to that same ledge you were at before You will straight away notice there are more things here, which you can see and jump to so what you got to do from here guys It's followed the exact route I take and go to straightforward from here to be honest people not gonna lie So once you have made it to this point you can actually see the black armory room from the trailers, which is pretty cool And if we take a closer look You can actually see at a one two, which is even cooler Now I've tried for hours to glitch into this room, but I just can't do it seems there's an invisible barrier here Which just basically bounces you back But try it guys see if you can glitch in if you make it in be sure to hit me up on Twitter links within the video Description, but yeah guys This is where add a one has been hiding all this time from the Vanguard right underneath the bastards But on that note guys we have come to the end of the video We enjoyed it leaving a lot really does help out if you are new around here Enjoy daily desk in the videos like top fives guys gameplays with you use just about everything make sure you subscribe And if you never want to miss a video I upload 10 notifications on by hitting that bell button, but again Thanks for stopping by and hopefully I'll see you on that next one


Hi everyone, Joe for jaspyscasebrakes.com our last random number block randomizer for Bowman transcendent right here I Think everyone gets how this works by now, right? Random number block four. We've seen this before in previous transcendent breaks right there anyhow Ryan and glow bug That's it Ryan and Alex. Thank you for getting in there and the numbers right there. Let's assign you a number Randomly seven times four and a three Lucky seven for each list one two three four five six and Seventh and final time we got Alex Ryan Alex Ryan Alex Four and a three seven times been a long night folks one It's only Wednesday two three four five Six and a seven in final time lucky seven two down to eight All right, Ryan you have six and four Alex you have the rest And everyone knows about the zero rule right here and all that so pretty nice Let's order these so six and four for Ryan even numbers Let's order those by number and then you still have six and four right there and there you have it coming up next Will be the break itself check it out jaspyscasebrakes look at our separate list of videos for the transcendent break That's what we're looking for. Bye


get over here size of health probably not I don't know I really wish you could look up the challenges um while out how do I get out of here so basically it's directly behind me hey overheat so much hey bonnie how you doing man I am go back here what's this over here let's go help this guy any obvious changes from the demo flying it's better swimming is better some of the UI changes are nice the obvious changes a lot more to do in town that's for sure nothing's unlocked everything's unlocked all right nothing's locked everything's unlocked all obvious things all obvious things so I went way out of my way for that um um that was on my way to this let's go southwest let's kill these dudes I'll get credit for this prime of first chat yeah flight controls got updated uh it's a lot tighter now oh I like the sparks coming up gosh he actually blocked me that's so lame the pain chat it's like it sounds give it up I have the high ground now he's like recovering smashed up here down with that so why can't you do the first mission you get kicked or something is there network problems that we don't know that all right still trying to go southwest giving distracts like that oh look a penny he's a candy does the matchmaking loads does the matchmaking loads then boots me back in the main city saying I lost connection for the tutorial mission you've been here and I've been in our team yeah so let's go to this one see what they want me oh it's the one out there oh yeah right it's supposed to be nearby according to princess sim put your friend fey we'd really like you to find if possible I think this artificial wind is saying you can't go to yeah okay so I want to go over this so I think I have to go around what am I facing I'm facing west so I gotta go east and then south basically the long way around that's not according to the terrain I'm gonna hit a wall here so I need to go back southwest somehow I don't I don't understand this you guys are overthinking it it's simpler than that I don't need help this is rhetorical stuff I'm saying you guys gonna make me more confused by trying to help I'm talking out loud so you guys won't see complete silence or hear complete silence so that's why I'm inner monologuing out loud otherwise I just be sitting here going and he killed me how these elites just blend in and you don't know you're fighting in the lead until you just hover over them they just like come out and then two shot you for the things that are killing people now anybody here aspirant you stand before the resting place of legionaire artinia I need to feel the leads you have been in world events this is the one I went to here you go the other one that one I can't mark it as a way sucks before there was another one so we'll go south I'm going to arrange it because it's a great all around javelin and I think it's a good one to finish the story to farm stuff with and then you got the specialization javelins but you can always use the secondaries or you know eventually primaries once you get enough gear reports outlaws in the area we should investigate how I gotta stay focused here I can't pass up a fight way I showed that police boss and he stepped in front of the elite guy not elite but he stepped in front of the shot kind of like the president or something all right back on track where we're going south maybe it's through that this water maybe I go that way gimme gimme stranger what are you doing here isn't a major ranger may lay a prime yes it is that's what I tried to do earlier I don't know if that's what you're talking about but he didn't even though he shields me doesn't proc 100% this is it the tomb of a veneer the fortress aspirant you stand before the rest treasure chest harvest javelins repaired and collectibles you have been judged and found wonderful wanting I'm glad it was tracking that stuff before I found that otherwise that would have been kind of frustrating boom boom boom boom boom boom fortress of dawn wow I'm a little pissed all right we're gonna look for some dudes to shoot hey look I found some oh just like you over here cropped in my grenade in combo I think somebody beat me to it run through molasses there buddy event that'll trigger like a lot of these challenges up there wait that detonator I don't know my e was a detonator I was relying on my grenade to be a detonator but I can use that as a grenade grenade is not up does this count towards a repair I hope towards the thing appreciates is that it where's my chest hey look there's dragons wyverns and declare the lineation between wyverns and dragons I would take a person of your stature one I would know the difference between a wyvern and a dragon who is you funny trying to watch me prime this guy what's this guy's weak spot is it hit I have any bullets in the other gun I don't oh crap


Good morning, welcome to CMC markets on Friday the 10th of June and this quick look at the week ahead beginning the 13th of June with me Michael Houston, I think one of the key concerns that investors have had this week has been inflation and If you look back to say two weeks ago, I think there was some optimism that we could well be near a peak As far as US inflation is concerned I think there was always a belief that inflation in Europe was slightly lagging behind But certainly I think as a leading indicator that perhaps there was this perception that US inflation was always Slightly ahead of everything else and certainly in recent numbers. We have started to see some evidence that PPI in particular had started to top out in the US and If you look at the the PCE numbers in the US They've been on the decline since the March peaks But and I think that is I think one of the reasons why we started to see equity markets roll over this week is that Inflation is likely to become a much more persistent As we head towards the end of the year if you cast your mind back to say for example Six months ago at the beginning of this year. I think there was an expectation that while These current inflationary pressures were likely to be high They would probably trail off Fairly quickly towards year-end that is becoming increasingly less likely We've got oil prices back at three months highs above 120 dollars a barrel. We've got talk of food shortages supply chain Problems and obviously the we've also got China Well second biggest economy there was some early optimism on Monday that the loosening of COVID restrictions in Shanghai and Beijing might prompt a fairly decent rebound and economic activity and certainly I think in the context of April the main numbers should show an improvement when it comes to retail sales and industrial production but The fact of the matter is China zero COVID policy will mean that we won't get a V-shaped rebound in the Chinese economy within two days of These restrictions being relaxed. There's been reports that We're getting isolated COVID cases in Shanghai prompting new lockdowns So I think any China recovery is going to be very stop-start in nature. It's going to be very difficult to determine a Clear trajectory for a recovery Unless or until China drops its zero COVID policy and at the moment that doesn't look likely given the low vaccination rates amongst its population So where does that leave us? Well, certainly in terms of US 10 year yields We've rebounded off the 50-day moving average and we're now back above 3% Now that doesn't necessarily mean that we're probably going to go back above the highs But certainly the direction of travel here Shows that we're probably at risk of more upside than we are downside If we want to have confidence The top is in for inflation We need to see a break of this key support area here as well as the 50-day moving average And that doesn't look very likely if we look at the dollar index. It doesn't look dissimilar We've seen a fairly decent rebound over the course of the past few days again of The 50-day moving average I think one other thing that has shifted over the course of the past two weeks is the willingness of central banks to Deliver outsized rate hikes. So we've seen the Bank of Canada Embark on a 50 basis point rate hike last week with the intention that they're probably going to do more We've seen the RBA this week follow suit with a 50 basis point rate hike of its own with again the Expectation that they're probably going to deliver more and let's not forget the the the RBA is behind the curve Pretty much like the European Central Bank, which yesterday Indicated that it intends to move its headline rate Up by 25 basis points in July with the potential for another 50 basis points in September We could get 25 in September. It really depends. I think on the overall Stickiness or otherwise of headline inflation, you know, and if you look at headline inflation rates CPI rates in The euro area. Yes, the headline rate for a year is 8.1, but in places like Lithuania And it's an Estonia. It's above 16 17 18% and yet in France is a 5.4 so It was very telling that Christine Lagarde was asked a question about where the ECB saw the neutral rate for Inflation well, I suppose that really depends on where you are in Europe because the neutral rate is going to be a lot higher in the Baltic states Then it is and say somewhere like France or Germany. So That I think encapsulates the big the big challenge That the ECB faces when it looks to raise interest rates or when it starts to raise Interest rates and is reflected. I think most starkly in this chart here Which is a spread between Italian tenure yields and German tenure yields and the ECB won't want to see this graph here Go back to the levels that we saw back in 2018. That is the spread between the 10-year Bund and the 10-year BTP and 10-year BTP rates are 223 basis points above German rates and the ECB won't want to see that blow out and they call that fragmentation risk fragmentation between 10-year yields across the bond curve and that in itself is going to present enormous challenges for the ECB Going forward and that's why Euro sold off quite aggressively yesterday. So If we look at the euro dollar We look at the down if we look at the daily chart that I've drawn here We can see that we did try and break that trend line from the highs this year We briefly broke above it, but we weren't able to get back above this 107 70 80 level and we've drifted back down again so the challenge I think for the moment is all the The bias for the moment is for further euro weakness and for further dollar strength to really undermine that If we look at say for example the dollar index and we look at the euro dollar We need to see correlation between the two. We need to see a break above 107 80 108 on The euro to suggest that we've got a short-term base in the bigger bigger level on on this particular chart That's 103 40. So I think while we're below 108 the bias remains for Euro weakness and further dollar strength on a charting basis In terms of the pound pound certainly facing its challenges over the course of the next few days It's been trading in this window here on this chart with a very big barrier around about 126 50 day moving average is also acting as a fairly decent cap on that But it is finding a fair degree supported around about the one twenty four and a half one twenty four twenty area So we need to see where and how that Breaks out over the course of the next few days and weeks But certainly I think bearish bets and pessimism over the pound is starting to become the overriding narrative when it comes to listening to people Talk about the direction of travel for the pound and in my experience when people get start getting overly negative on sterling That's the time to buy it peak bearishness I call it and generally it tends to be fairly reliable If we look at euro sterling, that's pretty much a snooze fest Like watching paint dry. We are still very much Cat to the round 86 That remains the key resistance level with fairly decent supported around about 84 and a half But we remain very much in a range for that and I really don't see I don't see really much indication that we're going to break out of that range when you look at the euro and you look at sterling It's really trying to make a choice between two drunks at a bar neither a particularly Attractive, but if you have to choose one you tend to chop and change between one and the other Certainly in terms of the footsie 100 again here. We found very very difficult To break above seven thousand six hundred and we are now slipping back down to The mid part of that range 7400 we've dipped below that we could get back to as low as seven thousand two hundred But at the moment in terms of value if you're going to be long of any index Then it's really the footsie 100 you have to be long of because it's very much a value index as opposed to a Growth index of which you find the DAX is rolled over We did break above this trend line here. I've now removed it We weren't able to consolidate back above fourteen thousand eight hundred. That's the next key resistance level for The DAX and we could we'll see a retail we could see a test down towards this trend line here Which currently comes in around about thirteen thousand seven hundred thirteen thousand eight hundred So certainly I think the bias at the moment is for a little bit of a return to the lows of The recent range the S&P We tried it to I've drawn some new fib lines in here So bear with me I've taken the highs of January this year taken the lows of last month and we've retraced around about thirty eight point two percent of that Also got the 50 day moving average Which looks as if it could well as act as a resistance level as well So I think there's a good chance we could see a revisit of the lows and around about 38 turn Certainly, I think this is probably a bear market rally I think we're probably going to see further declines in US markets in the short to medium term Just to sort I think wipe out Some of the optimism that is still round just about there. I think when it comes to Start market direction. I think when you've been buying the dip for ten years solid It's a hard habit to break So we haven't actually as yet Reached peak pessimism that doesn't and I think until we do I think there's a good chance We could see a retest of the lows on the NASDAQ and the S&P and potentially a move Even lower before we find the short-term base certainly the direction of travel Still appears to suggest there's more downside in the short term when it comes to equity markets And I think much will depend on the messaging that we get this coming week from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday The Bank of England on Thursday the Swiss National Bank on Thursday in the Bank of Japan on Friday So it's a big week for central bank decisions and I think a Large part of the market direction could be determined from the messaging that we get from those central banks We've also got Chinese retail sales for May On the 15th of June And I think it's fair to say the last two to three months have been difficult ones for the Chinese consumer Covid restrictions lockdown measures As Chinese authorities fight a losing battle to implement their zero Covid strategy and it is a zero It is a losing battle. You will never Be able to completely eliminate The Omicron variant or the variants of Omicron that are currently affecting Chinese population The Chinese growth target for this year still remains a five and a half percent That is big that one. I mean that was optimistic a month ago It's looking even less likely now in March retail sales in China declined by three and a half percent And in April we saw another steep decline of minus eleven point one percent And that was bigger than the minus six point six percent decline that was expected Industrial production also slowed sharply Falling two point nine percent in April as well. Now we could expect to see an improvement in May simply because When the world while the Chinese economy grounds will hold in April there was some relaxation of restrictions in May And that should be reflected in the overall numbers Nonetheless, we're still expecting to see a decline in retail sales for May of around about seven percent And as I outlined earlier, I think it's highly unlikely we'll get a v-shaped rebound When it comes to the Chinese economy on the basis that if you have stop-start measures when it comes to Easing restrictions, then you'll get a stop-start economy now. We have seen a softening in Chinese inflation In May that came in below expectations inside of PPI But that's not really altogether surprising because you've got demand destruction people can't go out and buy stuff if they're stuck indoors, so I think part of that weakness in inflation is likely to be as a consequence of the fact that People haven't been able to go out. They haven't been able to go out and spend money And they haven't been able to go out by good services eat out or do anything that they would really want to do Over the course of the past few weeks So I think when we look at the Chinese economy q2 is likely to be You know and even in a very very weak quarter and I would be very surprised if we don't see an economic contraction in q2 Away from China. We've also got wages data for the UK for April And I think that for me is going to be a big deal because I think for several months now People have been concerned about how strong or otherwise wages growth in the UK has been and certainly I think if you look at The March wage numbers average weekly earnings For March wrote rose by seven percent that was including bonuses Excluding bonuses was four point two percent Now in April an awful lot of those rate than all right was all a lot of those salary increases that were basically rolled out by various retailers Started so they will appear in the April numbers. So even though we got a very high inflation number CPI number In April for the UK. We could also see a significant uplift in wages as well as the six percent seven percent eight percent nine percent Pay rises that were rolled out by various retailers Get included in those numbers now at the moment There aren't any sort of there isn't a consensus for what that number might be as Just as a reminder In March weekly earnings excluding bonuses were four point two percent I will be very surprised if we don't see a number in the region of five for that particular number when the April numbers are released on The Tuesday the 14th of June Unemployment is still very low at three point seven percent. And I think that's another reason why Central banks will feel emboldened to be much more hawkish when it comes to raising interest rates and I think that sort of brings me on to This week's Fed meeting and the Bank of England meeting, which I'm really going to focus on more than anything else So we're going to get 50 basis points this week to one and a half percent And we're going to get 50 basis points in July and as a good chance We could get 50 basis points in September as well if the data warrant it What warrants it? Also the bomb buying know the balance sheet reduction program has also started this month with 47 and a half billion Dollar, so the Fed is now actively reducing the start of its The size of its balance sheet starting this month and that will rise to 95 billion dollars a month Yet by September Now, I think the bigger the bigger question here is not so much about What the Fed do or don't do? When it comes to this week, we know they're going to do 50 basis points is what they do with their inflation Forecasts and their growth forecasts so that will be The the key component for me So as a reminder in March the FOMC upgraded their inflation forecast for 2022 To 4.3 percent from 2.6 percent So it's currently 4.3 and in 2023 they upgraded to 2.7 percent from 2.3 Well downgrading GDP to 2.8 in 2022 So 2.8 is the GDP forecast for this year from the March projections and 4.3 percent is the inflation projection from March This inflation get adjusted up probably will big question is by how much and how much Will they downgrade their GDP? Forecast and I think a lot of that could determine how the markets react to this week's Fed policy statement We've also got US retail sales for May Which are also due on the 15th the same day as well And on that score the US consumers actually been doing pretty pretty okay We've seen retail sales growth in every single month this year I think the main numbers could be the weakest number this year Given the fact that we are seeing consumer confidence still at very very low levels and The US consumer has also gone on a borrowing binge over the course of the past three months To the tune of around about 40 billion dollars a month So that I think that's a concern going forward So it'll be interesting to see how that is reflected in the May retail sales numbers As well on top of the Chinese retail sales numbers. So So that's the Fed Now we have the Bank of England as well. Now the Bank of England's Yeah, I mean my my views on the Bank of England no secret I think they've been absolutely rubbish when it comes to forward guidance The fact that Andrew Bailey Actually came out and said that there's little this central bank can do about supply chain problems while true It's not something the central bank should be openly admitting, you know Throwing their arms up in the inside in the air and saying, you know, there's nothing we can do We're helpless, you know, try and show an element of competence when it comes to setting monetary policy Now the expectation is we could we'll see a 25 basis point rate hike this week at the very least Unfortunately for The Bank of England it tends to lack the Cajones if you like to do more than 25 basis points even though we did have three members vote for a 50 basis point rate hike at the last meeting central bank needs to do something about the inflationary impulse that's been caused by the weakness in the pound over the course of The past year or so if you look at where the pound is now it's at 124, but look at where it was You know, look at where it was this time last year, you know, it was at 140 So that in itself has exacerbated the inflationary impulse into the economy given the fact that commodities are all priced in dollars And we import an awful lot from From abroad so there has been an inflationary impulse caused by the fact that an awful lot of our We import an awful lot of stuff So that needs to be they need to give an indication that they're prepared to really get ahead of the inflation narrative and try and tamp down on it Now whether that will support the pound or not is another matter, but certainly I think they need to try and at least keep track of the Fed or You know at least hang on to the Fed's coattails And you know and the argument is well that will impact growth You know that will impact the economy were already at stake inflation and so on and so forth You know, what do you think inflation is doing to the economy if not strangling the life out of it? You know, so you get the damned if they do and the damned if they don't but what they don't want is The pound to fall below 120 and head towards one one fifteen 110 that is the last thing we want to see so giving the air of a certain amount of competence would be a start and Certainly, I think 25 basis points at the very least But they need to be I think much less dovish and focus on their core mandate Which is basically inflation at 2% that is their core mandate. That is what they're employed to do so What you know, whatever that means for the pound I think the Bank of England will do what it normally does and do pretty much the very least and And Then the bigger question will be how many more rate hikes can we expect to see? By the end of the year, but certainly I think that they need to hike The base rate the base rate needs to at least double from where it is now So we need to see something in the region of a base rate of around 2% By the end of the year, of course that won't happen, but you never know Anyway, I'm digressing ever so slightly so the Bank of England Rate meeting. We've also got the Swiss National Bank We've got the Bank of Japan which brings me neatly on to dolly in because we're back Almost within touching distance of 135 dolly in the Bank of Japan has got a big problem because the decline in the end has brought it back to levels last seen in 2002 when it hits 135 and only this morning We've had a statement from the Ministry of Finance as well as the Bank of Japan Are they are concerned about the decline in the value of the end? Well, I mean, it's not really a surprise if you come out and basically say that Your monetary policy bias is for lower rates not higher rates So be very interested to see what sort of pivot if there is any by the Bank of Japan certainly inflation in Japan is Still very low. It's two and a half percent In April or rose to an opposite in April. It was at 0.5% in January The decline in the end of 13% is likely to exist but exacerbate a Significant inflation reimpulse into the Japanese economy at the moment It doesn't appear to be reflected in the headline CPI numbers even though PPI is around about nine and a half ten percent So be interested to see what sort of narrative the Bank of Japan comes out With in the coming few days, whether or not they decide to go down the intervention route or whether they just they just Settle for jaw-boning the yen higher and The dollar lower I think much will depend on what happens to equity markets when it comes to that in terms of The overall numbers looking at Brent crude here These are obviously the highs that we saw in March We're below one twenty six and a half. I think that's going to be a significant Resistance level, but at the moment the direction of travel for crude oil Doesn't look particularly promising if we're looking for lower Fuel prices and on the earnings front. It's been a Significantly challenging week for retailers this week declining consumer confidence some of the retail sales numbers that we've seen Over the course of the past week or so have shown weak consumption patterns Consumers are issuing More expensive household items furniture and what have you for cheaper items We've heard we've heard profit warnings from Target this week in the US Too much higher margin inventory, which they can't get rid of and they're looking to focus on Some of the low margin stuff and it's not surprising that people are prioritizing food over pretty much anything else So yeah, that's why when we see Tesco's numbers Which are due Which are due on the 17th their first quarter numbers will be interested to see what consumption trends Tesco's come out with certainly I think in terms of the share price movement that we've seen over the course of the past Few few months there. I think there is can significant concern about margins as costs For doing business go up fuel costs logistic cost delivery costs Given the current costs of petrol that's going to be a significant. It's going to have a significant impact To an awful lot of retailers Tesco's has already pledged to increase Wages staff wages in its efforts to retain the service levels. It's raised salaries by six percent Rising fuel prices are likely to increase the cost and maintaining delivery and logistics Cost saving measures will go some way to mitigating that but they're not going to mitigate all of it So that's a big challenge for Tesco's JD sports There is an expectation at some point JD sports will issue its full year numbers at the moment There's not a drug dead day for that It could be some time this week. They've been in the news for all the wrong reasons. They'll find five million pound by the CMA For breaching an order that barred it from further integrating foot asylum into its business Last week it also Got fined another two million quid for Anti-competitive behavior when it came to the sale of Glasgow regions Glasgow Rangers merchandising So and the departure of its chairman Peter Calgill has also Seen significant amount of weakness in the share price recently not back to the lows that we saw in 2020 But certainly I think there's a concern about margins not only in its UK operations, but also in its US Operations and we've also got boohoo Fast fashion fast fashion is falling out of favor. Well, obviously the headlines with respect to misguided The fact that fast fashion isn't particularly environmentally friendly Has been has hurt the share prices of companies like boohoo and ASOS obviously misguided went bust I don't think there's any chance that boohoo will do that But certainly I think in the context of where we could go to next The big the big level on boohoo share price is the lows that we saw earlier this year on the 8th of March It seems to be very much a case of a dead cat bounce when it comes to boohoo's margins For this year boohoo saying that it hopes to consolidate its market share gains And expect to see revenue growth in the low single digits and adjust a d-bit dial margins between four and seven percent As it looks to raise its prices to convert the erosion in its margin Certainly, I think the collapse of some of its closest competitors will help in that Whether of course or not it will be enough remains to be seen So I think that's pretty much it for this week ladies and gentlemen once again Thank you very much for listening. I hope you all have a great weekend and I'll speak to you all same time same place Next week. Thank you for listening


Chemical reactions often need a solvent in order for them to take place. Can you remember what a solvent does? Pause the video and continue when ready. The answer is that a solvent will dissolve a solute. This means that two or more soluble compounds may then react with one another to form a new product. The issues are that a lot of chemical processes involve organic solvents. That is those containing carbon and hydrogen and sometimes halogen groups. Organic solvents are usually obtained from the fractional distillation of crude oil. This is an environmentally unfriendly process which uses a lot of energy and produces greenhouse gases. Also the solvents themselves are usually environmentally unfriendly and need to be disposed of carefully. Chemists around the world are looking towards green chemistry and the development of safer solvents. It may sound surprising but these safer solvents include special forms of water and carbon dioxide which exist in a supercritical state. Essentially this means that at a certain temperature these solvents will exist as a solid, liquid and gas simultaneously. You may be wondering why this is important. The reason is that non-polar compounds traditionally needing organic solvents can be dissolved in a safer solvent. More importantly, carbon dioxide and water are not flammable like most organic solvents and are very easy to obtain from other chemical processes. Imagine, instead of releasing carbon dioxide into the air and it contributing to global warming, we can collect it and use it as a solvent instead. This has been especially useful to the dry cleaning and textiles industries.


Dude, I so I can't make purple punch cross a dosy-doe, too. I don't get it Especially if it's a half your line in the thing Right.   You got to be one or the other because that's how patents and trademarks work Yeah, it's not It's I mean, you know, I think hypocrisy is the the a lot of people's motives, so whatever it's fine. I mean miss education leads to it and it's


Hello and happy Earth Day! I have this drawing that I did in 1971 when I was a wee girl. Yes, this is one of my early artworks and I'm going to redraw it today in my modern style. Yes, I am weird enough to have a first grade drawing of mine framed in my house. And there's a number of reasons why this drawing means so much to me. One is that it's on that crappy manila paper and it just really reeks of childhood drawing. But two, this drawing tells me a lot about my skill as a kid and the fact that really I was built to be an artist because there are things in there that not all kids do. The biggest one to me is the fact that I saw the sky going from the top of the page or at least under the headline of my poster and it went all the way down to the tops of the buildings. Most kids do a strip of sky and even at this young tender age, I was busy doing that. There's also lots of crazy detail in there. There's all sorts of fun things going on in this. I don't even know what half of it is.  I won a ribbon for this. I believe it was a first place ribbon and it was really cool. I mean I was a graphic designer back then. I was putting type on my drawings. That was just wicked cool, right? Well, I decided to redraw it in my urban sketching style and I'm doing it in the book that I showed you last week when I talked about making my own custom sketchbook and this is on Kansan XL watercolor paper. It's a mixed media paper. It's not great for watercolor but it's going to work good enough for this and I'm using two different ones of my fountain pens. I am going to have a video soon on fountain pens in general and giving you more information on them but if you're like dying to find out which pen to send you recommend, this purple one is, I mean it comes in different colors but it's a twizby eco. I don't know if you even say twizby that way. There's not enough vowels in twizby. It's TWSBI and the pen type is called an eco and it's around the $30 range or thereabouts and it's a really nice pen. It writes well. There's just a lot of things I like about it for a nice mid-range pen. There are some cheap ones that I'll go through in the other video very soon and that's going to have a lot more about the different kinds of piston converters they have and that sort of thing. This twizby eco doesn't need one. That's one of the reasons that I recommend it because you just put the ink into the pen itself and not into cartridges and all that so it's kind of an easier pen to function with and the other pen that I rotate back and forth in between is my Visconti Mirage. Now that pen I would not recommend. I love it but it's like $149. I wanted to see whether or not a $149 pen was very much different from a $30 pen or a $10 pen and I discovered that it is. It's a very nice pen. It's got some very nice features to it and it's yellow which is like my favorite thing about it. I bought it before the pandemic when I was feeling like I could afford to buy expensive things and I'm glad I did back then because I do love it but it was a little challenging to sit here and look at myself thinking the things I could have done with the money that I spent on all these pens in that first part of the year. There you go right? We make these mistakes as we go. Anyway the drawing that I am working on was one that I decided to change the angle on because as someone who does perspective when I go out and do my urban sketches I just thought well I'm going to turn this whole thing as though I'm standing at a different angle and give it some overall perspective so I was sort of translating from what I saw in the buildings to try to make buildings that would look a little more realistic add proper windows and proper perspective on everything all that sort of stuff and then I was stuck with like trying to figure out what to put on the sidewalk because I couldn't see much of the crayon goobers that were on there. There's some parts that even look like there was something that got stuck on there. One of them looks like a dog shape but it's actually more like a door or a window but it's a tiny door and I wasn't really sure quite when it was but I decided to put some garbage cans and mailboxes and things and then on the left there's just very definite kind of forklift thing that I had drawn in there. I don't know I must have seen a forklift as a first grader and decided to put that in there. I don't know what the deal was but there you go and just added a whole bunch of different things to this. I had a couple little people walking down the street because there was a little person there. It looked like the person was jump roping but I don't think anybody would jump rope in a city like this necessarily so I did not include the jump rope but it also could have been headphones for all I know. The next part was to put some color in it because my original drawing of course was in color. It had all sorts of crayon color all over the place for my buildings and I discovered something as I was doing this which was that one of my two pens I believe it was the Twizbeco still had some non-waterproof ink in it and so it started doing some bleeding here and there which kind of helps with the grunge look and that's kind of fine. I decided I would just let it go and and not squeal about it and I just kept plowing forward but there were some places where I had a little little bloopage of the art because of that but I still think it worked out well anyway it is in my sketchbook it's not some big old finished thing so I didn't worry about it and it was a really fun process to go through though to try to take this drawing from my childhood and turn it into something really cool. Reimagining what I thought I might have seen in my mind as a child was just an interesting experiment to see if I could somehow figure out how that would have looked if it were a drawing that were in perspective. If you're looking for something to do as a little challenge to yourself as an artist that could be a really fun way to go just find a drawing that you did when you were a kid go through your stash of stuff I have a scrapbook full of drawings I might do this again sometime because it was really fun imagining a city that I saw in my head as a child so thank you very much for joining me the supplies the pens and stuff are in the doobly-doo as well as a link to that other video about the sketchbook on the screen and I will see you later have an awesome day an awesome earth day maybe go plant something or recycle something and I'll see you later bye


Hi guys, so today I want to do a video on balance and nursing. Again, a lot of people that asked me this question, so I said, you know what? I'm just going to do a video on it and talk about how to balance your nursing life with your home and personal life. And you know, really, this is going to be different for everyone. Everyone's going to have different ways, but I'm going to talk about my personal kind of approach on this topic.  You see a lot of things at your job. You're learning a lot of new things. It's overwhelming and it's hard to come home and just like not think about it. And I'm not saying that you need to come home and not think about it because we do need to process things that we see at work, especially when we're dealing with really sick people or dying people and just really difficult things that the normal person sees.  I know one of the things that I like to do on my days off besides sleeping because I'm really tired is do things that I enjoy for myself, whether that's doing a project around the house, cleaning, not that I enjoy cleaning, but I like the feeling of having a clean house, doing YouTube videos, working out, cooking new recipes, taking my dogs to the dog park. I enjoy doing, you know, those things and so on my days off I tried to do those things for myself. If you're working 12-hour shifts as a nurse, it's almost impossible to do anything for yourself on those days.  Like you don't have time to really watch a two hour TV show or, you know, really it's hard to unwind because you have to come home and basically go to sleep. You don't even really get a process the day. But it's important to find those things that you enjoy and also have healthy outlets, healthy hobbies that you enjoy doing. So that way on your days off you have healthy outlets for doing things like working out, making sure you're eating healthy.  Not saying that you can't take those those days for yourself every once in a while. But I think it's important to find that healthy balance between, you know, healthy lifestyle, work and then having those lazy days. It's also important to make sure that you take time off of work or not overwhelm yourself with picking up too many extra shifts for overtime.  It's very tempting to, you know, pick up extra shifts and try and get overtime. But you know, really be careful on how much shifts you're picking up because it does take an emotional and physical toll on you, which then you're not available to be there for your family as best as you can or want to be. Now I'm not saying like everyone go out and take a vacation. Well, I am saying that if you can go out and take a vacation. But I know it's hard to take vacations. It's hard to take time off bills. You have debt. You have the family to take care of to provide for and it's hard to just go and take a vacation, take time off. But of course we should all strive in a perfect world to have that time off to get away from work and just step back and, you know, relax. Thank you guys for watching this video. If you have any other tips on how to balance your home life and your work life, leave those tips in the comments below. Make sure you give this video a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel and I'll see you guys next time. Bye.