Good morning everyone welcome thanks for joining us on this sub-optimal weather day here but we're going to forge through because this is an important announcement, an important day. Welcome to the site of the city of Burlington's McNeil generating station and now what is the UVM solar research and training facility. Climate change is an existential threat to everything that Burlingtonians value most our community our health the natural environment and a thriving local economy and we have a long history here in Burlington of treating climate change the climate emergency as an existential threat and we've demonstrated here in Burlington that through innovation and action we can turn that threat into an opportunity and we can make progress. The story of Burlington's leadership on climate is one of the best Burlington stories that we have it started back in the 1980s with a sustainability bond that launched a remarkable weatherization effort that has become a statewide initiative and had the rest of the country followed Burlington's lead back in 1989 and started on the trajectory that Burlington started then we'd have 200 less coal burning power plants than we we do today. The second chapter of Burlington's environmental leadership what started in 2004 when the community made a decision to end its reliance on the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant for about half of its electricity and moved made major commitment towards renewables just a decade later in 2014 we became the first city in the country to source 100 of our electricity from renewable generation and that inspired the current team current leadership of the city in the Burlington Electric and our commission to set what is now the most ambitious goal we have had on climate which is to become a net zero energy city by 2030 to achieve this community wide goal we need our whole community and every level of government working together on innovative climate solutions and this exciting project is an example of just that a collaboration amongst higher education public and private utilities a solar developer and with support from both the local and the federal government this is really you're seeing around you is an excellent example of the type of partnership creativity and leadership that allows us to forge meaningful progress on climate with that I am pleased and honored to be able to welcome to the podium today Senator Bernie Sanders who during his time as mayor played a pivotal role in launching this remarkable trajectory this remarkable narrative and it's an honor to have you with us again today senator thank you very much mr mayor congratulations for all that the city of Burlington has done in being the leader in moving away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy the mayor's right this has gone way back when through a number of administrations and I think we should all be proud of of where we are today in terms of energy uh I don't have to explain to anybody uh the climate change is an enormous threat not only to our state to our country but to the entire world and in my view the future of the planet uh basically rests on our ability to transform our energy systems away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy a number of years ago uh working with uh Sandia National Lab uh we helped create a project in Williston uh in order to do something really interesting to take a look at how solar panels worked in different climates it's one thing to have solar panels in Nevada or Florida where the sun shines all the time some of us know that that is not the case in Vermont apropos today so the question is what happens how do you best utilize solar in climates that are not 100% uh favorable uh to solar energy and that has to do with a lot of the world and a lot of this country so behind us we have a number of different types of solar panels and in a combination of UVM working with BED in the city we're going to learn what works and how to improve it so this is an important step forward in learning how we better utilize uh solar energy and I want to congratulate the city uh BED uh and UVM uh for their willingness to go forward on this important project thank you all very much so um that story going back to the 80s that I started with a again it's a remarkable story it's a story that would only have been possible with what we have here which is a city-owned municipal utility the Burlington Electric Department the uh this utility is now led by General Manager Darren Springer and Darren and his team are committed and relentless in pursuing new innovative policies partnerships and programs to advance the vision of electrifying everything which is our core strategy for becoming a net zero city and achieving our our environmental goals the way I want to just list a few examples of how Burlington the Burlington Electric Department has has worked towards achieving this um this vision first of all the uh a couple years ago the the Burlington Electric Department launched a net zero revenue bond the first revenue bond of its type in the country we have created the state of Vermont's first ever voter approved and legislatively improved carbon impact fee and we are now in the process of writing the ordinance that will make that uh impact the future of investment here in the city going forward it's going to be before the council very soon we created a new on-bill financing program for weatherization and electrification and recently may we are making major progress towards realizing district a district energy system using the waste heat from the McNeil generating station to provide energy to the hospital something that we presented at the city council just a week ago BD works well beyond the normal limits of what local government can do by galvanizing unique partnerships with private utilities partnerships with higher education and workforce training programs with local businesses with funders and financing institutions and community members to push the leading edge of electrification and climate action and the person leading all that is Darren Springer he's going to take over from here and tell you more about that thank you for your leadership there thank you mayor it's great to be here today with everybody this solar test center for me has been a personal odyssey because I was on center sanders staff and we're working on it originally with sandia labs and the department of energy and now we're really proud to have these panels and this equipment here in partnership with uvm so we can continue the good work with solar research um i want to offer a few really critical thank yous um a thank you to the senator and his team for all their work bringing this project here and supporting it and helping to fund it a big thank you to the university of remont president caramella uh kirk donbrowski dan harvey and the uvm team for their commitment to this partnership a big thank you to the bd and mcneil team and the mcneil joint owners for their work a special shout out to james gibbons who's put in an enormous amount of time on this project through all the regulatory hurdles um and a thank you to encore renewable energy for their commitment and partnership um this is uh not just the site of our wood chip electric plant this is step one in a multi-step process to turn the mcneil generating station into an energy innovation campus for the city of brolington we have a great opportunity of partner here uh as mentioned with the university of remont with students who are going to do research and workforce development with these panels we have a great opportunity with district energy to make this plant more efficient and we have other opportunities in the future to utilize this site uh the one thing i've learned throughout my career is once you have partnerships like this and a site like this uh the sky's the limit in terms of the future you can have all kinds of innovative things that we can't even imagine today that could come out of this so we're really appreciative at bd for this partnership we're really excited for the future we're excited to partner with uvm and we know that on days that are a little sunnier than today these panels will be producing a good bit of energy and just a little bit of the technical detail we have racking to support about 50 kilowatts of solar um we have uh roughly an expectation that that'll produce somewhere around 60 to 75 megawatt hours a year of electricity uh if you want to put it in these terms i think that's somewhere around like 11 houses worth of electricity uh consumption and for comparison the city of burlington uh we use in a given year roughly 330 000 megawatt hours of electricity um but what you may not know is we actually have been named for a couple years in a row now the top city per capita for solar east of the mississippi by environment america uh so these panels will add to that and we hope to have many many more panels on roofs and buildings around the city in the future so i want to thank everyone for being here today and i get the pleasure of introducing our next speaker uh who is president caramella uh from university of vermont they have been a great partner committed to sustainability committed to research and innovation and we're really proud to be working with them on this president caramella thank you darin i think everything in vermont works in partnerships and that's the nice thing about our wonderful community i'm i'm really thankful to sandia national labs and department of energy for working with us on these panels and of course enter sanders and it's very long-standing commitment to this this whole area of renewable energy and the work he and his staffers have done certainly i want to call out hailey perot as one individual who's been extremely influential in in bringing this project of fruition of course burlington electric department the city mayor weinberger and uh uncle renewables and the mcneil joint owners uh it's really been a great partnership among all of us you've got a good number of uh my colleagues from uvm and our students here as well and you'll hear from one of our students who works on this project um the name of this facility which has training and research in it is what is most exciting to me because we not only need to um have more panels more generation but we need to have a larger workforce that understands how to use this that that understands how to optimize this that understands how it works in mini grids and micro grids and things like that and that's what the work that madsen some of the others that are here do and and emily will be talking about but also training the workforce for the future so i think it's a it's a great partnership um of all these entities that come together that will ensure that we have a workforce also in vermont that um ensures that we can take advantage of efforts like this so thank you all for coming vermont always offers great weather when we're making these great announcements so i'm pleased that this is no different thank you the next speaker we'll have a few remarks from kirk nebrowski our vice president for research who's been the uh the the energy at uvm behind all this turk thanks rash yeah this was uh this was an interesting project that landed in my lap about my second week here and we had to figure out how to do a rush uh stevenson wilder agreement we were working on a a large doe project proposal out of electrical engineering uh and it kind of all uh started to circle around a new core facility and really sort of wrapping up our program in that space so the list of sort of immediate folks on uh that were involved in that i want to mention a couple again james has knows only too well how how long a process this has been dan harvey from my office i was really critical hailey again from senator sanders office um uh laury bernum from doe is i didn't see laury today but really was really critical part of uh making that connection with sandia and then our faculty folks matt's uh almasaki matt white uh and and someone from my office who you'll never hear much about but uh julie macy put in i want to say about a thousand hours of correspondence so far uh working with matt and dan and others to get the doe grant through so we're really excited about that i want to do a quick shout out also to a group that uh came together around partly around this project partly around the other doe projects and that is the vermont clean and resilient energy consortium chad is a member and burlington electric is a member and many more and we were able to bring uh a consortium of folks in the renewable space and the energy generation space velco has been a key partner and what we saw is that if we brought all of the uh energy producers and affiliated parties together we could really do some interesting projects so this is one of them uh the energy sheds project that jeff was the first one to bring to my attention but as john erickson matt's and others involved is a large one and our new uh energy simulation and emulation project that's coming together in the college of engineering is going to be a game changer for our students and really for the city as a whole so um and that project actually i think uh it is responsible for a number of these panels as well so thank you to doe for that funding and matt's and team for bringing that together we've done amazing things in the last four years through partnership as the president mentioned our research is booming we've doubled since 2018 and that makes us uh even more of a talent magnet for the region and we're really excited about our ability to sort of bring uh people together uh and bring uh talent into the vermont and burlington ecosystem around technology and a whole bunch of other things and as part of that my uh role is to introduce emily 19 uh she is a third year undergraduate at uvm working in our electrical engineering department and she's already done two semesters of research in the grid integration work for renewables working with dr almasaki so emily good morning as an undergraduate student studying electrical engineering with a focus in power and energy i'm incredibly excited about the launch of the uvm solar research and training facility at mcneil it's my belief that facilitating the transition to renewable energy is one of the greatest technological tasks of the century which makes a site like this especially significant for uvm we need creative and intelligent ideas to make the energy transition possible and this new facility will encourage curious minds to explore these problems at this stage of my life i realize more every day how important it is to care about the work that you're doing for this reason power and energy is a very special field a field where technical skills mesh with economics and social policies to solve problems that provide for people and protect the planet and this site will allow students to develop their passion in this field the solar array will not only enhance the classroom experience for students like me but it will unlock opportunities for research that until now have been confined to models and theory being able to explore research questions and confirm models with real data is critical to making progress and pushing the envelope of energy technology with the real world vermont data we can ground engineering education in vermont's rich and active history of energy innovation this site will unite bright inspired minds with the tools they need to solve problems which makes me feel hopeful and excited about the future of energy research at uvm and the future of vermont's energy industry as a whole thank you and before we turn it to our last speaker i just want to acknowledge a couple more folks who are here we appreciate ken nolan from vermont public power supply authority one of our mcneil joint owners who's here with us and jonathan dowd from renewable energy vermont we appreciate rev being here as well i want to turn it to chad ferrell our great local renewable energy uh partner from encore chad thank you darin and uh thank you everybody for being here my name is chad ferrell and i'm the founder and co-CEO of encore renewable energy a certified b corp and community scale clean energy development company located right here in burlington vermont um we're building a clean energy future and we're leveraging all of the excellent work that has been done in burlington and the state of vermont as a whole over the last 10 15 years so so we're all here to today to celebrate this facility you know but but standing here and listening to my colleagues speak so eloquently before me you know one word remains at the forefront of my mind here and that that is opportunity our industry the renewable energy industry in the united states is poised for exponential growth over the next decade two three decades fueled by the inflation reduction act um truly groundbreaking uh legislation that the senator who i know had to catch a flight um you know was was was very helpful in helping get across the finish line so we now have a once in a opportunity to realize the clean energy transition here in vermont and throughout the country the opportunity extends beyond this facility the impact of the training that will take place at and around this array will extend way beyond the electrons it produces for our future clean energy workforce every student that comes through this facility will be equipped with the skills required to fully embrace those opportunities associated with the clean energy generation our our our company is just but one example of this burgeoning field we have more than tripled in our in our workforce since 2020 so in three short years we've tripled our workforce and we need more people we need more young people coming up through the educational ranks to support what is going to be an anchor segment of the economy moving forward we need people to build the equipment that we want to utilize on these projects we need people to install the equipment that we're utilizing on all these projects and we need people to help us deliver that clean energy to our communities here in vermont and again beyond so meeting this moment and addressing the climate crisis will require innovation and as we've heard today collaboration and most importantly a new workforce ready to deploy solar and clean energy technologies at scale this new research and training facility at mcneil will provide that next generation of clean energy professionals like emily and a lot of the other students here today that are currently studying at uvm with a unique opportunity to prepare to work in the rapidly expanding clean energy economy so thanks again we we're thrilled to be associated with this project you know burlington has been our home market for years it will continue to be so i'd like to acknowledge a few of the folks that did the heavy lifting uh we got jake clark here amber lasard and sonia johnson from the encore team and we've got lauren as well who helped put this this event together so it does take collaboration to realize these projects and really want to thank uvm burlington electric department and the city and as well as as the senator for all the leadership you know it was remarkable that we were able to keep this clean energy research facility here in vermont you know it was originally out in williston darin and his team worked extremely hard uh uvm folks worked extremely hard to make sure that we could keep this asset here in vermont for vermonters and for uvm and others to uh to experiment with so um thank you very much for your time this morning and we look forward to continuing to work in collaboration with all of you thank you and i think we're going to have a little bit of a ribbon cutting right now if folks can bear with us we're going to everybody want to grab a piece of the ribbon come forward in front of the podium emily's in the middle it's probably the best the best idea others why we've got in case we've got to save it for the next one that's right we've got a few of these to go yeah no cookies well if uh if members of media have questions we're glad to uh take those as well yes yeah i'm in touch with kurt district energy would you like me so um with district energy we did present uh at a work session uh bed vgs the university of vermont medical center uh and evergreen um back in last week uh and we're hopeful to continue our work on that and hopefully bring it forward to the council uh for a vote sometime later in november i i think in terms of workforce for burlington electric i mean we're seeing very acutely the need uh we used to have positions posted for a lot of these technical positions electricians line workers and we would get a number of qualified applicants and with the labor market being what it is and with the need for clean energy being what it is and what it's going to be uh sometimes we're posting and we're not able to get a qualified applicant or maybe we're only getting one or two so on our team we're seeing the need for additional workforce not just only for burlington electric we think about things like weatherization we know there's a shortage of weatherization workforce we know that there's going to be as chad mentioned a lot more renewable energy happening and we need workforce for that too so that's from our perspective i don't know mayor chad if you want to share any thoughts i mean i would just add to that that um our issues are our i'd add to that uh how tightly related issues are um what i hear and i believe to be a case with our challenges like theron was just mentioning but every business i talk to the biggest workforce challenge in many ways is our our housing market and the lack of housing that we have the severe shortage of housing so um it's another reason why you know we we try to approach it from both both ends here we have these active you know proactive workforce development efforts training from young people in vermont i think the effectiveness of those efforts is going to be limited if we don't also dramatically increase the number of homes that are available and that's why we've been so focused on housing for years one of the reasons we've been so focused on housing for years sure i mean i would i would just remark that um anything and everything we can be doing for educational and workforce training is critical um we are going to have a need for housing as the mayor suggests to house all those clean energy workers um but literally every conference we go to uh every event we attend there are more and more people there specifically young people which is really encouraging we obviously are going to need to house them um and but we we have jobs for them if they uh can get the training yeah i think it's it's really exciting to be able to have a real tangible um project to work on um i've already been doing research at uvm for uh renewable energy in the electrical engineering department and a lot of what we do now is computer based and we do math and simulations but we don't get an opportunity to really see what we're doing and feel so connected to it so it's really exciting to have something that you can get real vermont data from so it feels like it's right here in our community and we're doing work that that really matters so yeah it's very exciting okay thanks everybody


Hi, I'm Tom Stewart with Clean Business Today and in this KPI tip we're going to demonstrate how to calculate the number of months it takes to recover your acquisition cost for a new client. We're going to go to the cleaning business today archives and use a couple of older videos that we've done to show you how to calculate the average lifetime value of a client as well as the cost to acquire a reoccurring client. So we're going to use the average lifetime value that we've calculated previously at $5,000. We need to find our gross profit off of that. So if we know our gross profit percent to sale, that's great. If not, just use your loaded payroll percent to revenue. That's a pretty good proxy. So in this case we're going to say that's 50%. That leaves us $2,500 gross profit. The $214 to acquire client is from a previous KPI video that you can see in our archives. Take the difference between the gross profit and the $214 that leaves us the amount of money that's left over after covering our direct cost plus the acquisition cost. We want to know what the average revenue per month is per client. And again, we calculate that in a previous video on how to calculate the average lifetime value. That's just revenue per job times the number of jobs per month. I need to know the number, the amount of gross profit per client per month. So I use my payroll percent to sale, and I'm going to multiply that times the revenue per client per month. So my breakeven per month is simply my investment to get that client, which is 214 divided by my gross profit per client per month, which is 1.8 months. But you could argue isn't too bad assuming that you can acquire a client for $214. If your acquisition cost is more than that, and in the example that we did in the magazine a couple of months ago, we were looking at some scenarios where your acquisition cost could be as much as $1,400, in which case it would take you over a year to pay off the acquisition cost of that client. So it's important to know how to use these numbers for a lot of reasons, not least of which is to make sure that you're making good investments on your advertising dollars. I hope that you find this KPI tip helpful. Thank you for watching Cleaning Business Today.


Hey guys, it's Monica. Thank you so much for joining me. In this video, I'm gonna talk about retina, retina, retina, and the eyeshadow I've been using. It's gonna be sort of a little mishmash of a little bit of everything. So if you're interested, stay tuned. Okay guys, thank you so much for joining me. First of all, I want to, I want to talk about the eyeshadow. I, as many of you, hopefully, maybe you remember that last week I had started, I actually, a couple weeks ago I decided I was gonna dig into my eyeshadow stash and I was going to use a palette for entire week and, I'm sorry, my hair's in my eyes. Anyways, I was gonna use a palette for an entire week and see how I liked it. So the one that I chose for this past week was the Naked 3 and I know this is a well-loved palette by many of you. So that has been my palette that I've used this week and I have surprised myself with being able to create some really nice looks with this.  And I have used almost all of the colors, including the second one in, which is a little bit of a darker color, and I used that to really darken out the outer V. So on a scale of 1 to 10, I really like this palette. I've used it all week. I'm glad I've been forcing myself to dig into my palettes and use my palettes because there's many that I haven't used. So I use this up and I'm debating, I'm debating which one to use next. Potomy was thinking of tackling this, but I would need to have a different color. I would need to have a different all over the base. I think I could work with all of the darker shades. This is the Lancome. This is the palette that is the eyeshadow palette, blush palette, glam edition that came in my Christmas gift that I've never used. I'm not too sure that I can pull it off. I will need to have an all-over lighter base. So I'm not too sure if it's gonna be this one, but I'll tell you the Naked 3. I can totally realize why people really like it. It's a beautiful palette and I don't remember how long ago it was that I bought it, but I bought it quite a while ago and I went and I looked. I must have bought it on a sale or something of that nature because I went and I looked at it and I was shocked at how expensive it was, but I like the palette a lot. I do. So yeah, I'm not too sure.  Also, I've been on a quest to really use up some of my foundations. I've used up two bottles of my CYO and I tossed them because they're empty and I've just been home and all that. So I've gone back to in this one. This was sent to me by one of my subscribers and you can only get this in the UK. This is the number 7 Hydro Luminous. I really like this a lot. I've used this a ton and I'm hoping that they carry this in the US pretty soon because I really like this a lot. So yeah, I ended up using the two CYOs. They're very similar than the Boots number 7 products and they're very similar than the Soap and Glory Kickass, but this still hands down is really awesome. The other thing that many of you've asked me this week and mostly on Instagram as well, a lot of times I'll take pictures and I have my glasses on like these. Like them? These are sure different. I really like them. They're kind of rounded with little cat eyes and they've got like a little bit of gold in there, but I also wear these a lot. These are sunglasses I got from Balzano. That is the handbag subscription service. These are Balzano sunglasses. I really like them a lot and the ones I've been wearing a ton of times when I get comments is this one. So these two glasses and a third pair that I don't wear as much because I'm not I'm not a fan of the frame. These two glasses I really like these. These are Sojos and I know you can't really see them, but these were sent to me quite a while ago and they came so super well packaged, really protected, really cool. They have a ton, a ton of glasses that you can look at. I'll dig in these. I love these. I love these shades a lot. So they were sent to me complimentary for review and I have continuously worn them and I will tell you I love them. They are sturdy. They have held up really well and they've gone with me to many many different places and of course the ones I got from Balzano. So those are the three that I've been wearing in most of my images that most of you ask about. The other thing I want to briefly mention is I got these headlamps from Vaunt. Do you guys know Vaunt? Anyways, I can't demo the brightness of them because they require batteries and I don't have the batteries. But anyways, I got four of them sent headlamps.  I'm hoping we get to go camping. I really am. So if you camp, right, these are fantastic and they sent quite a while ago this little lantern. I don't know if you can see it. It probably doesn't show as bright as it is but this is awesome. This is awesome. So these are almost indestructible. Jay did a review for me on this because these were also sent from Vaunt complimentary and we've used these all winter. One time we had a power failure. We lit up the whole place with these lanterns. They're so super bright. You can carry them. You can hang them on something if you want. They turn, you open them up, you close them down. Super super cool. Yes, they come by battery as well. They hit something like four of these and I love them. They're not even all that expensive. So when they reached out and said would you like to try the headlamps? I was like all over it. So I'm going to get some batteries and then I'm going to show you how these work. But these are like so cool if you're out walking or if like Jay said he's in the Bay of the Motorhome. He puts this on his head. He can be able to see what he's doing without having to hold a flashlight. So these were sent to me complimentary for review from Vaunt. I'll let you know how I like them but I'll tell you if there anything like these lanterns I am going to love them. The other thing I wanted to tell you while I was home, like many of us, I haven't done any shopping. I didn't buy a darn thing at the Sephora sale. I didn't buy anything from Ulta. I didn't buy... Well I only bought one thing while I've been home and that was a wig and that was it. Other than that, since I've been homebound, I've not shopped. I've not gone online shopped. I've done no hauls. I don't watch haul videos because I don't want to be tempted and really right now even though I'm still I'm employed and you know I'm very fortunate in that way but right now is the time to really try to conserve a little bit. So I've been like super super good and so I figured send some homebound. Who's going to see my skin up close right? So I have like been ramping up my retina use since I have been in isolation. The only one that can really see me is Jay. So I I've like whipped through half of this. I know it doesn't look it but I've whipped through half of this. This is the 1% tretinoin cream and I have a very little bit left of my two, my .25 and that's what I usually do down my neck. So I'm getting ready to, I'm going to be placing an order from and I do order this overseas and yes I've had some of you say do you still feel comfortable with the quality control because it is overseas. It is in India and all of that. As long as they're shipping I feel totally comfortable. I will place my order. That's my discretion. That's my that's just how that's how I feel. And also I have still been using this A313. I've talked about this in the past. I know recently there's been some more videos on it and people are finding they really like it. I'm going to stick to my initial thoughts on this. It's very very heavy. It's it's a thick thick consistency. My skin is super dry so a thick consistency actually feels good on my skin. Have I seen any any difference with this? No. Here's how I've been using it because I've been ramping up my retin A. I've been using my retin A 1% probably five times a week and then one night this. So I'm not using this consistently. I don't think once a week is going to tell you anything but the point is that I am still using it because I'm going to finish it and then I won't order it. It's not going to be a thing I'm going to order. I am ordering it ordering my tretinoin and I'm going to be placing that order. I figure in about a week maybe two. I'm going to gather up a few of my friends that want some as well because it could take a while. So even though I know I have plenty here I want to have my back up. I want to have my back up. To me this is my try and choose. So I have totally ramped this up. Totally big time ramped this up and what I've been doing to manage my flakes. That could be a whole other video but I have been doing some exfoliation and I have been using my CBD oil on my face and that is the Makoo CBD oil. I love that stuff on my face. So Jay and I argue over this stuff. We really, we really do. The the bottle that I'm currently using is a 2,500 milligram of the Makoo CBD oil. Full spectrum and I put a very little bit. I put a tiny drop of this on my hand and sometimes I mix it with another oil and then I put it over and I just kind of like really concentrate on my dry areas where my retin A is the most dry is down around my mouth. It isn't on my forehead at all. I mean I I use my retin A the most on my forehead and I don't very very rarely do I see any kind of appeal or flake on my forehead. It's kind of really weird but then a little bit around my eyes with the CBD oil. So that still is like fabulous for me. Fabulous. So anyways how are you guys all doing? You know what do we have to do now is we're at a stay-at-home order until May 31st. Our governor yesterday on Friday when I I'm filming this on Saturday. Our governor yesterday had extended the stay-at-home and parts of the state is going to be opening up very very slowly in very limited capacity. So I'm working from home and will continue to work from home for a while but you know I'm climbing the walls. I'm going to be very very honest with you guys. It isn't easy. It isn't easy and I'm not complaining because I'd rather be safe at home than not. So I'm not complaining but it isn't easy and I think that's one of the things that I learned that was kind of shocking. In the beginning when this all started I said all right I'll work from home. All right I'll work from home. You know only have to get halfway dressed because I do a lot of teaching on zoom. They don't see your bottom. So if you get okay no big deal I'll work from home. Well yeah that good novelties worn off on that. I kind of miss driving into the office. I I know I wouldn't miss it in the wintertime because I was hated driving in the snow but I do kind of miss driving into the office so yeah. Anyways yeah my youtube is one kind of like I've got some empties. I haven't bought anything but to me my youtube world is more than just what I buy or what is sent to me and yesterday I talked about some stuff that was sent to me but my youtube world is more than that and I really haven't felt the desire to watch videos where people are showing hauls. I just haven't felt the desire so it's almost like my youtube habits have changed too.  I know my views are down and I know that I was watching I think a sugar puff and fluff and in one of her videos she said the exact same thing so I think overall maybe in a larger channel you don't notice it as much as in a smaller channel like mine but overall I think everyone's youtube habits have changed. I know that when I go on youtube I bypass a lot of stuff that I might have watched before and I go to something happy and I don't want to I don't want to see a lot of misery you know. I don't and I don't want to see hauls. I don't.  Anyways on my head this is a very old wig that was sent to me. Gosh I just took her out of the box too because I wanted to I filmed a comparison video so she still has box hair and that's why I've got like the flyaways here but this is actually Lisa. No this is Liz. This is Uni Wigs Liz and this is Almond Frost and what I really like about this this particular cut is I'm going to turn around and show you the back for those of you that are interested. See how the dark wispy bottom. I think that's so cool. So this is kind of a wedgy look but this wig has got to be three years old. So right now you get a lot of the longer wedges that are in style but I think this is so trendy. You can kind of push this behind your ears and once I you know really train this little peace out cream I think the front will be super super cute. So anyways guys this is a whole lot of video about not much of anything but thank you for watching. Thank you for joining me and I hope you guys are all staying staying safe and I will I'll see you next week.


All right everybody what is going on welcome back to another video today's video we're going to be talking about What it took for me to reach a hundred and ten thousand subs on YouTube? We're going to talk about some real talk Okay, so it's taking sacrifice and it's sacrificed that I can't continue to make at this level its sacrifice With time Okay time Time is our biggest asset I've always said it in fact I had that line in my description box on my YouTube channel Three years ago, and I heard it from a great man the great the late great Greg Plitt Greg Plitt is an American was an American X X military who became one of the world's most famous fitness models and he had YouTube videos with quotes That he would give on his website People would grab the quotes make these quote quotation Videos and put them out on YouTube. I used to listen to them I used to get motivation from them and one of the things that Greg Plitt always used to say is that Our biggest asset is time and it's running out So with that said ever since I heard that I've repeated it to people and I've believed it and time is our biggest asset So with with that being said the amount of time But I've had to put into this YouTube channel to keep it going at the rate that it has and to try and Really really capitalize on that growth that I started receiving probably about five months ago now four months ago I Had to say right well, I've got to be realistic and I have to make sacrifices and the sacrifice that I've made is not one that I'm proud of and The sacrifice that I've made is time with the people that I love We're talking about my daughter here my newborn fucking daughter So I will always know That whatever happens with this YouTube channel wherever it goes however many subs I get For me to get from Let's say twelve thirteen thousand up to a hundred and ten thousand where we're at now The sacrifice that I've made is almost almost Not worth it, but it has been worth it because because of the fact that for the five years before my daughter was born I was still just as you know Into my YouTube channel. I was still just as committed to my YouTube channel I still wanted to grow it just as much so for my daughter to come along and make me stop that I Wasn't going to let it happen and it didn't happen But what that's meant is that my ex-partner and she has every right and feeling this way feels that I've been selfish with my time and the relationship between me and her has suffered because of it So, you know, I'm here today To just give you guys a quick update I know probably only five that you know a few thousand of you may view this video real talk at a hundred and ten thousand subs The ones that I really want to view this will view it and we'll feel What I'm talking about so I'm not saying that I'm going to stop making videos In fact, I'm most definitely going to continue making videos.  I love it I love the community. We're building. I love sport I love making videos about things that I'm interested in and talking and telling a story. I just love it and It seems that some of you guys love it too. So it's not going to stop But I did want to just mention The sacrifice the type of sacrifice that I've had and that is time with loved ones. So Moving forward, I want to try and make My YouTube channel and the growth of it more sustainable for me and my personal life I'm going to need days certain days of the week or certain days off that I can actually, you know set focus on making YouTube content because Literally every single minute of every day that I've had off of my normal job. Okay, I have a day job, right? I work four to five shifts a week 12 hour shifts.  All I have time to do is go to the gym at the moment eat and sleep as well as make videos It's like it's not sustainable forever But I needed to do that and I had to do that to get to this point or else we wouldn't be here I wouldn't be making this video right now. Would I we wouldn't be at 100,000 110,000 subs if I had of put out Couple of videos a week instead of the one to two videos per day Some days that I put out it just wouldn't have happened It just wouldn't have happened So I'm content. I'm very very content with where we're at. I'm very happy, you know the saying goes proud proud proud but never satisfied and I'm extremely proud. I'm proud of of of my YouTube channel I'm proud of the fact that I've got a hundred and ten thousand subscribers and I want to thank you all for being here from the bottom of my heart You know for a period of a few months there where I wasn't thinking like this and I was so into it I was just doing it not caring about anything else your Comments your likes It really really got me living on a high like I was I was jumping out of bed Every morning racing up here to get into reactions because I just knew that you liked them I knew I was having fun and I knew that fuck I just really wanted to keep this YouTube channel growing at the rate that it was obviously You know what goes up just it just cannot stay like that So we're not like this and then it's sort of gone like this and that's where we're at right now And I'm completely fine with that. So I want to say once again. Thank you for being here guys. I really appreciate it I'm gonna be doing my absolute very best to be spending More time with my daughter. She is crawling now. It's like nah.  I can't Ain't gonna happen. So I Assumed she'll probably be sitting here with me in a few reactions coming up, which will be fun Yeah, I love my daughter man take McDonald. She is a cutie. She is the cutest thing in the world Yeah, that's all they're gonna say so if you've liked this video as always Hit the like button if you want to subscribe, please do and I'll see you in the next one


Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage here in San Francisco at the GTC NVIDIA's conference for the era of AI. Dave Vellante's with me here. We've got a lot of great guests. We're unpacking the revolution that's happened in this new industrial revolution. We've got Anthony Dean of Field CTO for AI with Dell. Technology, Anthony, great to see you. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. So Michael Dell got a shout out, the keynote. Of course, we linked to it. Everyone else started linking to it. And then, obviously he's on the booth. I just saw him perusing through the booth. Sam Crocott, who runs product marketing, and he have all the CTOs are there. We've been chatting with a lot of the Dell folks. And it's been on the radar, at least on our radar, heavy AI activity. Matt Baker's on LinkedIn all the time, sharing his great discursion on RAG. We're both kind of from the same school of thought that we see great value in that. And we even heard Jensen say on our private one-on-ones earlier today that small language models are going to be on mobile and PCs as well. It's just with chatbots and agents where you're going to start to see inference training, context windows, these concepts. I won't say constrained, but use cases will drive a lot of it. You guys are doing so much. Let's jump into what are you guys up to now? Share with me the vision of what Dell's AI position is, how you guys are talking about it, and what you see customers using. Look, as Michael said once before, you can't have end-to-end solutions unless you have both ends. So leveraging the power of our portfolio and the relationships that we have with great companies like NVIDIA, we can deliver solutions. I hate to say that word, but we can deliver answers to some very complicated problems. Whether it's trying to help a developer data scientist on a workstation be able to take those models and port them over to a larger inference. And so we're actually demonstrating just today some RAG models, some data lake house.  And in fact, we're the first ever Ethernet certified super pot. I don't know if Sam or anyone else has talked to you about that. No, not yet. Yeah, so what that means is our... All right, that's great breaking news on the cube. That's right. Super pot, that's NVIDIA's... It's NVIDIA's tippy top configuration that handles the world's most difficult problems. And we think that NVIDIA piercing through protein folding and all these other really difficult science problems, AI has become an adjunct to this high level of intense compute. Now, here's the thing. We've been doing artificial intelligence with our PowerScale platform for a very long time. It's a parallel operation, streaming rights, streaming reads. And now, if you look at it, you're going to find a lot more Ethernet in the data center than you already find in Finneban. So we're looking to democratize AI by making that more readily accessible without new skills. I love how you mentioned Ethernet because Dave and I have been talking about Infiniband versus Ethernet. Even Jensen gave the shout out to Ethernet as long as it can have the interconnects that are smart and high-performance, highly available, scalable interconnects. That brings up the notion, though, okay, these are systems that have been working together with these switches. So you got GPUs, switches.  It's a clustered system.  It's not like you're new to this game. But at supercomputing last year, it was clear to me that if you guys are bringing HPC and AI almost mainstream, that's why I'm calling it clustered system is because HPC is usually a workload that's very unique. But mainstream enterprise needs with AI look a lot like those workloads, but have to be more resilient. Explain the difference between HPC and where the mainstream enterprise is going. Yeah, so HPC is, you know, working on the most intractable problems, the discovery of the universe, protein folding, weather modeling, these are very, very difficult. But this is called extreme sports. The Formula One of IT, if you will, and it takes a great degree of skills and intelligence to be able to solve those problems. The tech is there to serve. This is bare bone stuff. The data that's being put into scratch systems, they don't back it up. Why? Because it'll just rerun the model. But as we look about the requirements for an enterprise, to be able to roll back in time and find out where we made the decision is really important for regulators and really important for a lot of the enterprise customers. So relying back on these traditional enterprise features of snapshots and replays, super important. So the data center has changed, obviously. Now you're seeing a resurgence of distributed computing, public cloud, on-premises, and edge playing out. Now AI, we heard from Jensen and you guys have been talking about this, pulling forward the future by having an accelerated computing platform within video. So you get super pods. You get the AI foundry. Are you guys doing anything with the AI foundry? The NIMS, the NVIDIA inference microservices, I'm sure. NIMS is really very new. In fact, if you talk to the NVIDIA guys, I'm sure they'll share with you that they would like to get their hands on it as well. Yeah, but it's very exciting stuff to have this kind of portability and the whole idea of an AI factory. And this is really important to focus on. Look, we look at pictures of robotic arms. We look at pictures of empty warehouses and trucks moving around. But you don't have a factory unless you have output. And you can't get output unless you have input. And that inputs the data. And data is the most important thing. I want to make sure, we want to make sure at Dell, that everyone understands that the data differentiates them. And this is an interesting topic because every email that you write is part of the intellectual property of the company that you run. So I was talking, we commented, we had with Jensen, I was asked about mobile and PCs.  So now you got OpenGL for phones and PCs are kind of similar, okay? Sizes of reason, PCs have a big part of it. He also mentioned that they've had a lot of NVIDIA technology in Dell's for millions of units. So you almost have pre-existing Dell machines out there that have technology from NVIDIA, one. And then two, LLMs are going to spawn off SLMs, highly specialized models that are fine-tuned. And he said, you can see fine-tuning, confidence wins those rags, which is retrieval augmentation generation, prompting and then agents. This seems to me to be a sweet spot for Dell because you guys have all that data from where the customers are using it. So, you know, chat bots today turn into agents tomorrow. So this whole co-pilot way that's coming is going to be a huge opportunity for Dell because you have a lot of data. Dell data, but you also have customer data, but just the Dell data, whether it's product information, tools that you've built. I mean, Jensen said there's goldmine of data in the enterprise in these areas. Tell us what you guys see there and what we can expect. Look, one of the things that is incredibly important, no matter what industry you're in, you are in a relationship with someone else. And with that, that means being able to talk to your suppliers about the quality of the ingredients that we're getting, the variations. And so having that data and be able to have a real-time response is critically important. So when I look at it from the Dell lens inside of our own production systems, how we build physical products and software products, we have to connect and share with that information. And that's a really important attribute to this ongoing AI journey we're on. What is the customer conversation you're having on the field? Where are they in their journey? How's their mindset? They stare, enthusiasm's probably high. Maybe they kind of have an attitudinal scale that drops to a little skepticism, little challenge, competitive challenge there. Show me more. But generally, we can see people see the light. Yeah, I don't know. What's the conversation? enthusiasm is high, the board of directors wants to issue a check for more kit. But the reality is, the minute you start saying, so tell me about your data readiness for AI, the conversation comes to a screeching halt. That's because data is in silos. And the reason why they're in silos is because every business process follows a certain organizational structure who stores it, studies it, reports on it. And that's the reason why we're trying to bring solution architectures together like the Dell Data Lakehouse, provide a uniform, open, and full control democratization of data. Talk about the relationship with NVIDIA and Dell. Obviously, again, Michael got a great shout out on keynote. He actually, I think he might have said end-to-end PCs taking orders. I mean, it's kind of a nice, I mean. Yeah, he did say, Michael would be ready to take your order. So that was a comment had other meaning or, but obviously NVIDIA, I mean Dell has been increasing NVIDIA cards, machines. It's not like a stranger relationship. But what is the relationship? And with this new AI factory vision coming, it's going to create a renaissance in the data center. It's going to create a new renaissance in server, clustered servers. I call them clustered systems. You're going to see a lot more action for standing up big iron, in a big way, which is basically clustered servers connected with switches. Yeah, and look, we've got a press release or two about some really large purchases. But look, we're seeing such a brand new business model emerge where these small companies with big venture-back capital are landing mobile data centers in the parking lots of customers because they're out of space, talent, whatever it is. And so I would say that the enthusiasm's high, but the capacity is limited. And so there's some really interesting things that are happening in this market that none of us would have anticipated. The constraints in the past used to be the size of the motherboard, chassis, the box on the rack for you, 1U. Now it's power. Like you can have all the GPUs on a rack all you want. If there's not enough power. Yeah, power. So there's all new kinds of constraints happening. Yes, yes, absolutely. And in fact, sovereignty is a big part of it too. These mobile or floating data centers are now in the oceans. They're out of the reach of any national government. Final question, what's the vibe of the show? You've been around, been now two days in. A lot of dinners, a lot at meetings, a lot at social, a lot of hallway, chat. What's the vibe? What's the, for people who aren't here, share with them what your take is. What's the vibe? What's some of the conversations? Peg, the excitement levels in terms of hype and reality. Just share what's happening. Look, every business is going to be upended with artificial intelligence. I don't think there's anyone in any industry whether it's public or private or not going to do things differently. And so they're as much excited as afraid of missing out. And so the conversations we're having in the booth are both simple basic things like, wow, that's what an Nvidia board looks like. I can't believe you put four of those in a 3U chassis. So we had conversations like that, but we also have more sophisticated conversations like actually how does RAG work? Where does Dell Intellectual Property fit? Can I get the store system in the Azure marketplace? And the answer is yes, yes, and yes. Yeah. And then I need more help in actually getting figure out what data. I mean, one thing Jensen did say that the path, the enterprise was through the IT platforms, which is IT departments, and integrators. Yes. That's going to be distribution for him for the AI factor. You guys would definitely do both of those things. Yes. And our consulting practices has done nothing else but ramp up a tremendous amount of skills around the entire journey from prep all the way to outcome. Well, rising tide floats all boats. Anthony, thanks for coming on theCUBE. We appreciate you. All right, I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante here at the conference for the era of AI as GTC. This is what it is. That's what the big marquee on the front of the building will say. We'll be back with more coverage for theCUBE after this break.


Hello friends, welcome to the session. I am Alka. Let's discuss the given question find the area of a rhombus if it's vertices are 3045 minus 1 4 and minus 2 minus 1 taken in order Before starting with the solution, I would like to tell you the basic idea behind the cushion now since we have to find the area of of Rhombus, which is equal to half Product of X Diagonals to find the area from us we have to find the length of the diagonals So to find the length of the diagonal we'll use the distance formula. So distance formula is Sephora given line segment a V with coordinates of a r x 1 by 1 and coordinates of vr x 2 y 2 the distance formula is square root of x 1 minus x 2 whole square plus Y 1 minus y 2 whole square So this is the distance formula for finding the length of the Diagonal now, let's start with the solution since we know that the area of Rhombus is half product of its diagonal. So first of all, we'll have to find the length of the diagonal. So length of Diagonal AC Is now here we'll use the distance formula. So it is equal to square root of x 1 minus x 2 that is 3 minus of minus 1. So it will be 3 plus 1 square plus Y 1 minus y 2 that is 0 minus 4 whole square. So this is equal to 4 4 squared is 16 plus again 4 4 squared is 16. So this is equal to Square root of 32 2. This is equal to 4 square root of 2 Units now again, we'll find the length of the diagonal BD So again, here we'll use the distance formula. So that will be equal to 4 plus 2 Whole square plus 5 plus 1 whole square This is equal to 6 squared that is 36 Again 6 squared that is 36. So this is equal to Square root of 72. This is equal to 6 square root of 2 units Now Since we have to find the area of Rhombus. So area of Rhombus Is equal to half into Product diagonals So this is equal to the length of the cos diagonal is 4 root 2 and the length of the second diagonal is 6 root 2 Here we see that This is equal to half Into 4 into 6 into 2 2 to get cancelled out and we get the area of Rhombus as 24 square units Therefore we can say that Area of Rhombus is 24 squared units. So hope you understood the solution and enjoyed the session. Goodbye and take care


Ha ha ha nice here. We gotta catch it. This is a bonus dream. Thanks to Pokemon GoFest Okay, green spaghetti.  Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.  That's two Shinies in GoFest. That is two Shinies in GoFest All right, we got to catch it though. We got to catch it Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh Yes, yes, yes, yes, yo, let's go, baby. Oh Okay. Oh my gosh. We just got a shine. Okay. Let me do this calm. Let's do a raspberry And I'm gonna use ultra ball no matter what do that's another shiny Honestly from now on my name is no longer Philly beats you you shall refer to me by my new title Philly shines you With his own personal family thing Shiny metta night Types Shawnee in the search bar Let's catch it. Let's catch it. Let's catch it fall focus What it is. Oh, we got Shawnee snake. Wait, we didn't check it. I didn't check it


Free things you should never say to a narcissist There are certain things that you should never say to a narcissist Your words have power and when you speak certain words, it can either empower you or It can be used to give your power away to someone else Which is why it is very important to think before you speak When you are around a narcissist with normal people You don't have to worry about this You can have a normal conversation and allow your words to flow naturally But with a narcissist You do need to be very careful with what you say to them Because everything is a power game with a narcissist They're always competing for power and your words tell them whether or not they have power over you They're always looking for signs to see whether or not they ever hold on you And when you say certain things you're feeding into it You're strengthening the attachment Especially when you're trying to pull away Which is why when you're around a narcissist It's best not to say much at all Do not reveal your emotions Don't let them know how you feel Just keep it neutral Because that is the only way that you can keep your power That is the only way that you can stay sane when you are around them Which is why they're always trying to manipulate your emotions They're either trying to seduce you or they're trying to make you angry or upset Because whether it's positive emotions or negative emotions they get from you. It doesn't really matter The important thing is that they caused it They enticed you They provoked a reaction from you Which in their minds equates to them being powerful Because they influenced you in some way They caused a reaction So that must mean that they exist That must mean their false self is real Because if it was not real How could you respond to it? That's how they're thinking But if you remain neutral No matter what they throw at you Their false self will begin to crumble and then you can take back your power These individuals are power hungry They have a strong desire for power and Certain things you say Tell them that they have power over you It tells them what they need to do next It tells them what they can get away with Which is why you need to avoid saying these three things to the narcissist one I Hate you after everything the narcissist has done to you You may hate them and You may want them to know that you hate them Because you think that it will affect them in some way You think that it will bother them But narcissists are not like normal people If you tell them you hate them They're not going to take it as an offense It's not going to make them want to change or act right It's going to make them feel powerful It's going to tell them that they just need to keep doing what they're doing Because they recognize that your hate is keeping you attached to them and Narcissists want their victims to attach to them.  It's not going to make it stop. It's just going to make it worse So never tell them you hate them never tell them what's bothering you It's not going to solve anything It's just going to give them a map of your mind It's going to tell them where they need to strike To harvest the most gratifying response from you to I love you Never tell a narcissist you love them. I don't believe that anyone could really love a narcissist. I Believe that we think we love the false image Until we realize that it isn't real But I don't think that anyone could love the narcissist for what they really are Which is why we desire for them to change Love is about acceptance And I don't think any of us could say that we can accept the narcissist as they are But I'm not here to tell you how you feel If you feel like you love the narcissist Then maybe that is love for you But I do not recommend telling the narcissist you love them It is not going to improve your relationship It is not going to make them want to be close to you It's just going to tell them they've got you just where they want you They see love as a weakness They see it as something to exploit and they will leave they will use your love to hurt you They will use it to play games and make you jealous They will rip your heart right out of your chest and Kick it around on the floor Like it's something to be ashamed of They will never respect your love They just see it as a tool to get what they want and when you try to love them It tells them that this must be something wrong with them Because they don't feel that for you It just makes them even more envious of you, but at the same time They see it as a weakness They have to see it as something that's beneath them because that's how they cope With not being able to experience that which they truly desire Because deep down all a narcissist really wants is love and acceptance That's why they abandoned who they really are Because they thought that was not good enough They created this false self because they want to be admired and respected They want to feel like they belong somewhere and you may be thinking That's great So all you have to do is give them the love and acceptance that they want Maybe then everything will be normal But it never works out that way When you try to love a narcissist it just makes them hate you Because they needed that love a long time ago So now every attempt you try to make things right just makes it just makes it worse Because you just reminded them of things they never received Which reminds them of how in feather lives have been three I Feel happy or sad Never tell a narcissist how you feel Whether you feel happy or sad Angry or upset Never let them know because you're just giving them a roadmap to your emotions You're telling them what they need to say or do to get a certain response out of you And then they're just going to use that to manipulate you.  They love to see you going through it When you tell a narcissist how you feel You are giving away your power and Narcissists cannot be trusted with power They will only abuse it. They will only use it for bad things They're not going to use it to improve your relationship. They're not going to use it to make you happy They're just going to use it to play with your emotions and mess with your mind Thank you for watching. I hope this video resonates with you Please like comment Share and subscribe. If you would like to donate my PayPal link is in the video description Coaching inquiries, you can email me at coaching.narcsurvivor.uk Thank you for watching and I'll talk to you soon


Welcome to the third sustainable Sheboygan's spotlight program where we discuss sustainable activities in Sheboygan and we try to cover the topics that are discussed in Sheboygan's publication of the sustainability plan. You can stop by our sustainable task force meetings. The next one will be Thursday, March 26 from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. in the third floor of City Hall. And today's one of the topics in the sustainability plan is energy. And today's topic is solar energy. Solar installations have increased dramatically over the past decade, residentially and commercially. Here to discuss solar broadly and locally is Chris from Archaeologic and Plymouth. Thank you Chris for coming. Could you please introduce yourself and give us a little bit of background on solar energy locally in Sheboygan and in Wisconsin. Sure, absolutely. First of all, thank you Heather for having me. This is quite an opportunity. So as you said, my name is Chris Merklein. I'm a general manager and part owner of Archaelectric. We're based out of Plymouth, Wisconsin and we've been installing solar for over 10 years now. We got into the business before it was cool. We actually had to travel to California to get the proper training because nobody in the West really knew how to do it. But we went out there. My business partner and my boss Ed went out to California and got the proper training and he brought that back to Wisconsin and was quickly recognized as one of the only people in Wisconsin who really knew how to do this. So he's been one of the pioneers in Wisconsin and has been installing solar since 2014 with great success. Fast forward to now, 2015, we install solar every day, year round. Under normal Wisconsin weather conditions, we have guys on the roof even in the cold and in the snow. We've had great success in Milwaukee County, Sheboygan County, Fond du Lac, Manitouac. We've been as far as Florida installing solar. And now we're recognized as one of the leaders in the state of Wisconsin for installing solar electricity. Excellent. Could you tell us a little bit more about some specific projects in Wisconsin and in Sheboygan? Sure. Well recently, 2014 was a great year for us. We had a lot of fun but it was in Milwaukee County. There was a few neighborhood group by programs for example that we did 50 or 60 residential installs. And at the same time we're in Milwaukee doing 100kw install on the wall of the Milwaukee County Public Museum. So those are two big success stories for us and that's a good segue for later on. I'd like to talk about solar Sheboygan. Okay, great. And could you tell us about any installations that you've done here in Sheboygan? Sure. Well, not specifically. I'd rather not share customers' names but we have many solar installations in Sheboygan County. And more importantly, we have a lot of repeat customers here in Sheboygan. Okay, excellent. And just to back it up a little bit, could you tell us the basics of how solar energy works? How can we actually harness and convert sunlight into electricity? Oh, sure. Absolutely. Well, the slide will show you the basic PV system. PV stands for photovoltaics. It's an interchangeable word synonymous with solar. So the sun shines and the photons hit a solar panel. The solar panel, the electrons inside the materials in the solar panel get excited and we create a circuit and it creates a DC electricity. As you know, a home or a business, they don't know how to use DC electricity. Everything operates on AC. So that DC power first has to be inverted into AC power for your home or your business to use. So depending on which utility you're in, first and foremost, the job of the electrons that are created are to serve that building's demands. It's going to turn the lights on. It's going to run your refrigerator, your TV. In the event that the solar panels are producing more electricity than what the building needs, then it gets to send the electricity back to the grid and your meter will literally run backwards. Thank you. So how could a solar installation possibly impact the infrastructure of a home or business? For example, one I think of is the roof. A roof. Well, there's a couple of different examples. We have two different slides to show. This slide right here is a direct roof mount system, and that is where we do attach to the structure of a roof, and the panels themselves are attached to a racking system that hold it maybe five or six inches off of the roof. We want to have air flow underneath to keep the solar panels cool. The cooler, the better. In terms of impact to the building, it's very minimal. In most cases, the building is completely structurally sound, and we don't need to complicate things at all. But every now and then we'll run into a home or a business where it's questionable, or the homeowner would just feel better knowing 100% for sure that they won't have an issue with that additional weight or wind load up there. In that event, we have a professional engineer that we work closely with who understands solar, the live loads and the dead loads and so forth, and that person will walk through and take detailed pictures and measurements and provide us and the homeowner or the business owner with a letter with his professional engineer stamp on it saying, I've reviewed the structure and everything is okay. You can install this system and sleep good at night. Another option is ground mount systems. Some people, their roof maybe it faces the wrong direction, east or west, or perhaps it's shaded by too many trees. In that case, the other option is a ground mount system, which doesn't affect the building at all. Then we can go out into the yard and slide number four is a yard system which has three poles. These are actually trackers. There are positives and negatives to going out in the yard as there are going on your roof. The positives to going out in the yard is that normally there's 100% what we call solar access. The solar panels are going to see the sun all the time. The downside is that it costs a little bit more to drill the hole and to pour the concrete that's going to hold the pole and these solar panels up. And then two follow-up questions to that. What if a person's roof needs to be replaced anytime in the near future? And then number two, so you kind of think about the life of a roof or the waste jingles and then also what's the life of the solar panels once they're installed? Sure. Great question. And the roofing question comes up with everybody. If you've just installed your roof a year or two or five ago even, you're just fine. Don't worry about it. But if you're on the borderline where you're thinking, oh my goodness, my roof is 15 or 20 or 25 years old, I should maybe think about re-roofing. We'll be the first people to tell you. You want to take care of your roof first. And there are some clever things that we can do with the tax credits and so forth to help lower that cost or that impact if you do the project at the same time as the solar. But yeah, make no mistake. If your roof is reaching the end of its useful life, you should tackle that problem first. And then what's the life of the solar panel? Oh, a solar panel. They will live for 30, 35, 40 plus years. And that's been proven. And the manufacturing process is getting better. So we don't know exactly how long they'll last now, but the manufacturers of the solar panels are so confident in their product that it's industry standard now they have what's called a performance warranty. And they say that 25 years after you first install your solar panels, they're still going to be 80% as efficient as they were on day one or they'll replace them for free. Excellent. Okay. So you have my interest and I'm sure you have other people's interest. What is the next step? Or steps? Well, the next steps. That's a good point. Well, we have some information, neighborhood information meetings. Neighborhood info meetings is what we're calling them. And you can learn more at solarsheboygan.com. We have a list of the dates. The next one is tomorrow night actually on March 19th at 5.30 PM in the Sheboygan library in the Roka room, which is upstairs, I believe. But one of the things that you're going to hear about at a neighborhood info meeting, I'll just touch on it briefly, is slide number five. I talk often about the three limiting factors to any solar project. Any solar project, whether it's going on a business or on a person's yard or on their home's roof, there are three limiting factors. And I talk about this with everybody. The first is available space, whether it's on your roof or out in your yard. There's only X number of square feet, so we can only fit so many panels. Even if you had an unlimited budget, we can only fit so many panels on your property. So that's one limiting factor. The next is kilowatt hour consumption or KWH consumption on your existing facility. It's not a wise financial move to install a system that produces more energy than what you use. An optimum system designs to about 100%, and that's about it. And that is if you're grid tied. It's a poor financial move to overbuild because at the end of a month, if you end up sending more electricity back to the grid than what you've consumed, the utilities don't pay you very well for that. They pay you what's called an avoided cost rate or wholesale rate, which is just a small fraction of what the retail rate is, what you and I pay for when they send us our bill. And the last limiting factor, of course, is budget. We all live on budget, whether it's our business or our home. You can only spend so many dollars. So when I sit down with a homeowner or business owner, we'll talk about these three things. And we simply design our system to the lowest of those denominators. If somebody's budget is the limiting factor, they only have X number of dollars that they can spend on this, but they have a huge southern roof. Well, then we'll get to what that dollar amount is and we'll design to the dollar amount. On the other hand, if they have all kinds of money and they're not worried about that, but they've just got a tiny little south-facing roof and no yard, well, that's the limiting factor. We can only fit so many panels on that roof. So it sounds like what's included in this is an assessment. So that would be the actual next step. So if somebody's interested, say, hey, I want to know more about these solar panels, they would call you. You would come in to do an assessment, take all these things into consideration, and help the homeowner make the right decision for them. Absolutely, yes. Our onsite site assessments are free of charge and there's certainly no obligation. What a site assessment can be as quick as 15 or 20 minutes if somebody's on their lunch break and they just really need to get going. Or in a lot of cases, it takes up to an hour because everybody always has really good, intelligent questions about what is this solar system really going to mean to me? How's it going to change my lifestyle and so forth? But what we'll do is we'll essentially get to the bottom of those three limiting factors or those three questions. I'll take a look at their roof and we'll take some measurements. If there's a question about how much shading there is, it's important to not have too many trees in the way. If you're investing in solar panels, obviously you want them to see the sun. So in questionable areas, if there are some trees but still a lot of sky, I'll be very happy to climb on the roof and I use a piece of equipment called the Solometric Sun Eye. It's a digital camera that has a fisheye lens and it takes a picture of the skyline and through that fisheye lens it kind of bends everything and it puts a grid over the top of it. I import that digital picture or pictures depending on how big the roof is into my computer and we have some special software. And that software is smart enough to know, it recognized that there's a tree in the way. So in the winter months when the sun is really low in the horizon, from eight o'clock until maybe 9.30 in the morning, that tree is gonna partially shade part of this system. Well, through the software and through our experience, we're good enough to very accurately predict. What does that mean to you in terms of KWH, kilowatt hours that are produced? But most importantly, we translate that into dollars. What is that tree costing me ever you're being there? Does it really make financial sense for us to invest in this system? So all those things we go through in the free onsite assessment. Excellent, could you discuss a little bit of financial impacts, upfront costs, and then potential savings with a solar system for residential or commercial customers? Yes, absolutely. First of all, give a little bit of a history how solar has come a long way. 10 years ago or 15 years ago, the majority of people who were installing solar PV on their homes or businesses were those who just cared more than the average person about the environment. They really wanted to do the right thing, and the financial impacts didn't mean as much to them. Of course, they were hoping to get a return on their investment, but more importantly, they felt good about doing the right thing for the environment and reducing their carbon footprint and all of that good stuff. Things have changed drastically over the last 10 years, the last five and especially the last two. The cost of installing solar has come down so far that all of a sudden it's a really, really safe financial investment. What we always say is that you're investing in two different things with solar. Now, sidetrack for a second. If you're investing in the stock market, think of all the different variables that you're taking a risk on. When you're investing in solar, it's a much safer bet. You're investing on two things. First, you assume the sun is going to continue to shine as it always has, and two, you assume that utility rates are gonna at least stay the same if not continue to increase as they always have, which an interesting side note. We did a study recently on utility rates and how they've increased over time, and every utility is different. I'm not going to badmouth anybody, but on average, utility rates have increased at two and a half times the speed of general inflation. Take that in consideration. That is a huge, huge number. That's a big impact. I was blown away when we found out two and a half times the general rate of inflation. Wow. So, we have, in terms of the safe investment, again, you're investing in the sun and that the utility rates are going to continue to increase. Something else that our customers feel quite good about is reducing their dependency on the utilities. Now, the utilities are fantastic. I think it's wonderful that we can go to three little holes in our wall and plug in our refrigerator and it magically works. That's pretty cool. But nevertheless, if you look at the bigger picture, our customers are starting to feel good about keeping more of our energy dollars here in Wisconsin. 12 and a half billion dollars Wisconsin sends out of state recently to purchase coal and natural gas. Those are huge numbers. Wisconsin has zero coal and zero natural gas that we can depend on, but we do have people who install solar. So when you invest a dollar in solar, you're investing in Wisconsin's economy because you're putting somebody to work. Whereas when you send 12 and a half billion dollars out of state to buy coal and natural gas, that never comes back to Wisconsin. And last but not least, people are starting to recognize that. And I don't want to make it a political topic. Somehow it has become a political topic, but I should share that of our customers. We have the furthest left liberal Democrats on the whole spectrum as customers. Everybody in between. And I have the furthest right wing conservative Tea Party Republicans as customers of ours. And when it comes to solar, and when I'm talking to them one-on-one, again, you get them in the same room and maybe they'll argue over things, but when I'm talking to these people, the furthest left and the furthest right, they both agree that keeping dollars here in Wisconsin, keeping people employed, reducing our dependency on fossil fuels or whatever it may be, it's all a good thing. So the slide number six is, I'm kind of coming full circle to your question. I'm sorry. Slide number six shows a cumulative cash flow, whereas obviously on day one, you invest X number of dollars on a solar system. You're in the hole. You spent more than you would have on your monthly energy bill. And this is a typical, I'm not gonna share of exact numbers because your home is different than my home is different than your neighbor's home down the street. So investing in solar can be as little as six or $7,000 before any incentives, to as much as 20 or $30,000 we've done some homes for and even above that for businesses, of course. You get money back in three different ways or now four different ways with solar shabuigan. The first is a 30% federal income tax credit. Whatever you spend on renewable energies, you're gonna get 30% back on your federal income taxes. Next is focus and energy. That's a state slash utility run program where they give up to $2,400 for you to put solar on your home or business. Last in terms of grants is now solar shabuigan. There's a neighborhood group by that I'll segue into a little later, but that's another little incentive. We're depending on how many people participate in the program, we're gonna give money back to our customers as the collective savings type of a model. And last but not least, most importantly in fact is the value of the electricity that the solar system produces. After those initial grants are gone, those are one-time deals.  And slide number six again shows roughly what that would cost under the solar shabuigan model because we've driven the cost down so far. So in year number one, your expenses could be significant. Year number two, you will have realized dollars back through federal income taxes and your focus and energy check and solar shabuigan check and so forth. And then as it creates electricity every month, every year, on this example, right around year seven and eight, that's where those two lines cross and all of a sudden you're payback. You've reached payback around year seven or eight and then you're just money ahead. And now you'll notice if you study this chart, right around year 20, there's a little dip. Well, what is that? Why is the system costing me money? Well, these systems are virtually maintenance free but the weakest link in the system is your inverter. If you remember, we talked about how the solar system produces DC electricity. What's your home or the grid doesn't know how to use DC electricity. So we have to invert it to AC electricity. That inverter inadvertently will go out. They're warrantied for 10 years. We estimate somewhere around year 20, you should probably, you're gonna have to make another investment to replace that inverter. So your cash flow takes a little dip right around year 20, but still by that time, if you look at the chart, you're so far money ahead that that won't hurt your wallet or your financial performance too much. Excellent. So I know you didn't wanna touch on politics too much, but if you could just speak to some changes at the state level regarding a possible solar tax. Yes, one of the utilities, a couple of the utilities in the state have proposed, you have to pay your fair share solar owners because all of your neighbors are paying to maintain the grid, but you have solar, so you're not getting much of an electric bill anymore. You're not paying your fair share. That's been their theme. So they have asked for and they have been granted a solar tax. They're being sued currently saying that the way that you brought about passing this law was not legal and furthermore, you didn't listen to the people. The Public Service Commission is kind of the police force, the liaison between the utilities, the we energies and aligned energies and so forth and the ratepayers. You and I who pay our electric bill at our homes and our businesses every month. The Public Service Commission is supposed to be the sound board and kind of manage the best interests of the ratepayers in Wisconsin and the utilities. We want the utilities to be healthy because, let's face it, they're the backbone of doing business and living in Wisconsin. So one of the utilities we energies was able to get a solar tax passed by the Public Service Commission. Again, there's litigation in place that's trying to reverse that or stop it, saying you didn't look at the facts, furthermore, you didn't provide any facts on where you came up with these dollars but as of this moment in we energies territory, if you have a solar system installed starting this year, they're gonna implement a little bit of a solar tax on you. Everybody who installed prior to that is grandfathered in so they're okay for a while but any new installations, they're imposing a small solar tax which makes the financial projections look not as good as they did last year. But most of Sheboygan County is in, we have four utilities, we energies is one of them but they're one of the minorities. Most of Sheboygan County doesn't have this solar tax. Okay, thank you. So onto other exciting things, could you talk about other innovations that are happening with solar? I know they've come a long way and kind of what's on the horizon with solar technologies. Sure, thank you. That's a funny question. Every trade show that I go to, somebody comes up and they say, hey, what's the next big thing? I read this article, it always starts with, I read this article about this company that's pioneering this new technology where you're gonna be able to power your own home with one solar panel, it's gonna be so efficient. One of my favorites is Solar Paint. They said, you're gonna be able to paint your home with solar paint and it'll power your home forever. These press releases in these articles come out all the time. We've been in the business for a while and we have yet to see any of these huge giant leaps forward in the technology. We do see consistent improvements of two or three or 4% in the efficiency. Meaning if a solar panel, that's exactly this wide, that's exactly this tall, the dimensions are the same as last year, but instead of producing 310 watts, this year it's producing 320 watts. So they make a little bit of an improvement in their manufacturing processes and in the efficiency. I see that trend continuing in terms of the efficiency of the modules. Of course, there's some really smart people out there who are working on their inventions and trying to make these more energy efficient. I don't personally see that next big breakthrough where one solar panel will be able to power your whole house forever. But we do see continued two, three, four percent increases in efficiency. And with that, a topic that parallels with that is the cost of solar. In the past, we have seen the cost dive, dive, dive. Well, recently, over the last 24 months, it's kind of hit rock bottom. Some businesses went out of business. They couldn't figure out how to, the free market has driven them out of business. They couldn't keep up with the best companies in the industry. So the best in the industry have survived and the prices have actually come up a little bit. And now maybe we're starting to see them inch down a little bit, but we're done with the nose dive price crashes that we've enjoyed over the last 10 years or more. So the industry's kind of stabilized as the point. But one innovation that is out there are solar shingles. Most people can't argue against solar and the technology and what it can deliver for you financially and environmentally. But some people just can't get over the hump. I don't want those things on my roof. They're kind of gawky looking. I don't think that, I think they look great. And there's some black on black panels and racking that can really make it look slick. But some people can't get over that hump. They say, I don't want those things on my roof. I'd like to make this investment and I want to be green, but you're not putting that on my beautiful roof. Solar shingles is now a thing. There used to be three companies that manufactured solar shingles. One of them was one of those who wasn't smart enough or fast enough to survive. So they went out of business. Now there are two. Of the two, only one of them will do business in Wisconsin. Certainty, and as of this moment, ArcElectric is the only certified installer for certainty solar shingles. So I think it's a game changer. As soon as we start installing these, they're gonna perform the exact same as a regular solar module. They cost just a little bit more because it's a new technology and it takes longer to install. But they look wonderful. You no longer have to look at a traditional solar panel that's sitting six inches off of the top of your roof. Now you have this solar shingle that kind of fits in with the other architectural features of your building. So potentially a game changer. I think so, yeah. So you mentioned a couple of times the solar shabuigan. So I guess the idea of that is buying bulk and it's based on a successful model in Milwaukee, Milwaukee Shine. So could you tell us in detail about that? Cause I think that's exciting news and why you're here today. So yeah, tell us more about that. You bet. Yeah, Milwaukee Shine's put together a fantastic program down in the Milwaukee neighborhood, obviously. They have had four neighborhood group buy programs down in Milwaukee, of which we were part of three of them. We did Solar Bayview, Solar Washington Heights and Solar Layton Boulevard West. And the general concept is that one contractor is selected to be the contractor of choice for this program. And the more people that participate in the program, it drives down the cost more and more and more. And I could go into great detail. I know that we're running out of time here, but on the surface the model of collective purchase, collective savings. The more people that participate in the program, it allows our electric to operate more efficiently. It allows us to purchase our materials for less because we're buying in big quantities. And as part of that, we're able to share in that savings. We don't put all of the additional profits from being able to buy lower in our pockets. We share with that openly with every single customer who participates and they get an additional check back at the end of the program. So in addition to buying at rates, we're installing solar in Wisconsin right now at costs that have never been seen before. In addition to buying at that already low price point, at the end of the project or at the end of the program, we send a check back to every one of our customers directly proportional to how many people participated. And it has been a tremendous success in Milwaukee and I can't wait to see what we can do right here in our own backyard. Why should we drive 60 miles to the south to enjoy this neighborhood group buy when we can do it right here in our backyard in Sheboygan? And you mentioned briefly the neighborhood meetings. Can you tell us a little bit more about those and what folks can expect to hear if they attend one of those meetings? Yes, absolutely. Real quickly, you can learn more again at solarsheboygan.com. We have our schedule listed at solarsheboygan.com on the right hand side under the info sessions. But they're gonna learn about what is solar. We'll cover a lot of the things that we did here in this interview. How does solar work? We'll get into it in a little bit more detail. What does it mean financially for me? Show me some different pictures. Show me more pictures of what solar systems could look like on different roofs. And we'll really drill down. So the first half hour is a presentation from me or from someone at ArchElectric on how solar works and what does it mean to you or your business or your home. And then the last 20 minutes or so is usually question and answers. There's always really good questions that people have. Excellent. And when attending these meetings, they can follow up with scheduling an appointment for an assessment and jump right in if they'd like. Absolutely. Things, first of all, they're not hard sells. We're not pushing anything. They're an educational meeting. If you show interest under no obligation, then yes. You can sign up for a free site assessment. You can do that online or just talk to me personally and we'll get you on our schedule. Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Chris, for coming today. And thank you to our audience for listening. I just wanted to come back to the Sustainable Shabungan Task Force and that's what brings this program here to you. We do have our next meeting coming up on Thursday, March 26th from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. It's on the third floor of City Hall. Stop by and hear more about. You'll be a guest at that meeting and you can hear more kind of input from representatives throughout our county who are part of the Task Force. Talk to Chris about this exciting opportunity. And then I also just wanted to set the stage for our next program will be about multimodal transportation, bicycle and bike paths just in time for spring. So thank you again, audience for listening. Thank you, Chris, for joining us. And till next time, enjoy the weather.