What's up guys, Joe Holland here. I am getting ready for another ice fishing season up here in Maine. Super, super jacked about it. It's coming really slowly. Our winter has been crazy mild so far. We've seen a lot of rain, seen a lot of warm days, so there's not much for ice. So in the meantime, what I've been doing is getting my ice fishing stuff ready and spending a ton of money because I'm not out there fishing. If I was out there fishing, I probably wouldn't be spending all this money. But I have a lot of new gear to go over and show you and put to the test this year. And you're gonna get a nice, honest report on all this stuff by the end of the year. I'm not gonna open a box and tell you how good something is before testing it and trying it and really putting it through the hard winter test of ice fishing in Maine. I'm super pumped up for this season. Feel free to put a comment in there on what type of stuff you wanna see this year on the channel. And for those of you just tuning in to the channel, thanks for tuning in for the returning subscribers and returning viewers. Man, I really appreciate it. As you can see, the channel is a lot of fun. Let's go over the new stuff and talk about why I bought it and how I'm gonna use it. Little disclaimer here, guys. None of this stuff is at all sponsored. I'm not affiliated with any of these companies. I've been through the sponsorship game in the past and it's really hard to get a real sponsorship and a full sponsorship. Product sponsorships or discounts are not really sponsorships and they don't really help the industry that much. It might help a company, but it turns out a lot of guys end up spending their own hard-earned money on it and then promote the heck out of something that they don't get any ownership in. So anything that I have here paid for fully with my own money out of my pocket, let's go over the new stuff. So this, as you've seen before, I've run the 40-volt StrikeMaster lithium auger for two full seasons now. I've probably drilled over 4,000 holes. I get a ton of holes out in the first year. I ran it with one battery, the original battery. No problems at all. Second year I thought it'd be a good idea to pick up a second battery and I was really surprised with how well the second battery did compared to the one-year-old battery. So I figured this year I might as well have a third battery so I'll be running three batteries this year. Won't have to worry about charging at all on these long trips out there, ice camping and ice fishing. So another 40-volt. I'll get that thing charged up before the season starts. Alrighty, I picked up four of these beauties this year. These things are huge. This is the Big Bob by JackTraps made right here in Maine. I fish both Heritage Lakers and JackTraps and I have several different sizes and models of the JackTraps that I use. But I figured it'd be a good idea whereas I'm getting a little bit more into the Togue vision. I got a trip plan for Moosehead. A trip plan for East Grand. Another trip on West Grand. And there's a lot of ice and we set these things really far away. So having the taller flag, the taller trap and a little bit deeper under the ice with the four-inch spool, I thought it would be a great idea. So while I was down at Sobego Bait for their open house, Wayne had some incredible deals going on and I picked up a set of four JackTraps. Now why four, why not five? In Maine we're allowed five lines but almost all the time you're gonna catch me jigging and jigging with the electronics. So I'll have four of these babies rigged up for Big Lake Trout or a Cusk. I'm pretty excited to use those. I got different color flags. You'll be seeing those put to use this season I hope. Oh yeah, another thing about JackTraps too is absolutely incredible quality. I have a set of JackTraps that I probably got in the mid to late 1990s that I've beaten on. My little buddy Gage used them for probably the last five or six years. And after 20 years we finally went through them and just did some general maintenance on them. But the quality on these JackTraps is really unsurpassed. They are a trap. If you buy them, you got them for life and you could expect them to last at least one lifetime if not more along with the auger. For some reason I keep cracking these StrikeMaster blades. Last year I drilled through and hit rocks going for Brook Trout and blew out a pair of blades. And then I think another two times I actually cracked the blades out of one of the screw holes. So I always like to have at least one extra set of these on hand, maybe two. I'll bring one set on any trip I go on. So I have them there and then usually have another set in the truck or at home. Late last year for the very last trip of the year I ended up picking up an Otter XT Pro Cabin tow behind Flipover Shack. So I thought that'd be an awesome idea because I'll set my Eskimo tent up and sleep in my tent and when I go out to fish, it's really hard sometimes when the winds rip in or the weather conditions are just brutal. So it'd be nice to have that little one, one for shooting videos in and two for beating the weather and being able to fish wherever I want to, whenever I want to and tow it behind. So I picked that up last year, assembled it. I got to use it for one trip, the very last trip of the year and then I bought a lot of the extras that I need for it. I bought this year. So some of those extras are a cover. I love the Otter covers. They go over them and just they keep all the weather and the snow and everything else. So there's the cover for those, for that second one I have. There is the actual shack I have right there. That's what it looks like. So there it is. Along those lines, I also got the hitch pin with a cotter pin. Those are always good. And then I got a universal rear sled hitch receiver and pin. Oh, it's got a little tiny pin but I'm gonna use this one. This one's a lot better than that little tiny one. But that's a plate right there and the hitch so I could tow both of my Otter sleds together, tandemly. Is that a word, tandemly? Or in tandem. So I'll have two sleds behind my snowmobile and that's what's gonna allow me to do that. Runners, now I highly recommend these. I bought the large Otter last year for ice fishing and I put these on right away and I'm super glad I did because I ended up dragging it over rock, sometimes over dirt road, sometimes over pavement. And rather than wear out my awesome sled and wear the bottom of that out, you just wear these runners down. And last year, I didn't wear them down too badly but I was really glad that I didn't wear my sled down and I wore these high-fax runners down. So that kit will go to my cabin pro. All right, something I'm really excited about that I've never had before. I got to use Wayne's from Sobego bait. He had the K drill and I got to use it last year. I was super impressed with it. This is an eight and a half inch model. Really excited to use this thing this year. I have the Milwaukee drills. Let me get this maybe open up. That she cuts pretty nice. I already have my Milwaukee drill set. So I figured it'd be a good idea to have one of these for whole hopping, for pan fishing, for jumping around or just a half when there's less ice. I've had no problems with my strike master. It's been great, but I really kind of thought it'd be a good idea to have one of these too. Alrighty, that's what it looks like. And I am gonna put that baby to use this year and give you guys the honest review after using it for a full year. K drill. My clam auger drill plate. There we go. I got one of these because I heard people were actually breaking their hands or wrists when the Milwaukee drill catches for snaps and there's just so much torque on these that you could actually get hurt. And rather than lay the drill down and the battery down on the ice, I used one of these last year too and I really liked it. So I decided to pick one up. So it feels a little bit more like an auger and it doesn't add too much weight. It feels like five or six pounds. And with that, I got the auger adapter too. So we'll put that baby together pretty soon and give that a try, spin it on the Milwaukee. Also with the auger house, I got this little side kick I picked up the other day. It's a Bego bait. Well, kind of cool. You could, you could mount it on a bucket on the top of a bucket, but the reason it has a slot right here is it can go inside of that sled and tent lock down. Three rod holders, a couple like cell phone holders, bait holders, coffee holders and probably other bait holders too in there. So I think that thing's gonna be handy in that little tow behind the shack. Let's get into the big stuff. Now this is not something that's new on the market this year, but it's new to me. I fished with one of these up at West Grand with Brandon and the boys and was really impressed by it. So decided I'd pick one up for the viewers' pleasure of this channel for not only myself to become a better fisherman and see what's going on down there, but also for the viewers. And I'm hoping the LX9 sonar on it works really good in 150 foot deep or more when I'm down on the Tobago Lake jigging for a lake job. So this is the camera, it's underwater camera with 75 foot of cable and also a sonar unit as well. So that's the Markham, pretty excited about it. We're gonna see, hopefully it records to a card so I can upload that footage for you guys. With that, I have the wireless camera panor. So that way you could spin your camera with a push of a button and really lock it into where your jig is. Another big purchase for this year is the Garmin 1022. This one I got, I had no problems with my 93SV for the live scope, but I got tired of putting a GoPro mounted to the front and didn't get like awesome footage. You know, and it's really hard to get the GoPro mounted just right, not be in your way so you could still see your unit and also record without like a glare or without losing any of that clarity. So with this unit, we could actually record right to helm. So with an iPad or a cell phone, we should be able to record the screen onto a cell phone and I should be able to upload it to videos for you guys. So I haven't gotten rid of my 93SV, the touchscreen one. This one does not have the touchscreen just in case this doesn't work the way I'm hoping but I'm really hoping that this is gonna be a game changer for getting that live scope footage up on the screen for you guys to view at home. I picked up another one of these rods made these clam Mac Jason Mitchell rods. I really liked the ones that I used last year for Lake Trout, they were strong. This one is a 38 medium heavy. It's pretty stiff. It's got some backbone. So I'm thinking this will be good for like your average size to midsize Lake Trout that are in 70 foot or less and it should be a decent bass rod as well. So it's got some backbone. We'll put that to the test this year but I've been happy with these rods so far. Another big purchase. I bought the Frable Magnum Bait Station 30. This one is the 30 quart. It comes with two aerators built right in to the back right here. Let's see are they locked in? Those are locked right in. Two aerators built right in. They have a plug that I could plug it into my truck. They also can run on batteries too. So I'm excited about that. Inside it's the big size for my big bait. It's got a tray, a divider tray that you can put in a couple different slots. If you want it, you know, if you got smelt over here and shiners over there or suckers so they're not beaten up on your other bait or you could take it right out and have that size there. I'm excited about having an awesome bait bucket. I know that doesn't sound like anything that should be getting me excited for but when you're fishing like 20 below zero or anywhere around zero, your five gallon pails freeze up and it just becomes a mess. And with the price of bait, I thought it'd be a good idea to have one of these. Now my friends that have owned the Frables in the past have really, they've really done well with them. The bait does extremely well on them but my buddies had trouble with these clips breaking. I don't know if it was the last generation or if these clips are gonna need to be replaced too but they replaced theirs with rubber ones that they got from the hardware store. So if I end up replacing those or breaking them, you guys will be the first to know but I'm pretty excited about having that great big bait cooler right there by Frables. New traps, new line. That's the wax nylon right there. I like the wax stuff. Let's just tip up line. This one's 36 pound test, 1,000 yard spool. I usually like orange but that tan's gonna be pretty good right there. So I picked up one of those. I got a handful of these things somewhere in the house but these are the ones by 13 fishing. It's basically just a tiny, tiny rattle trap. I've done extremely well on these for brook trout and even for lake trout when they're finicky. It's just got enough rattle to get their attention and the flash and size is good too. Little treble hooks catches even the smaller trout. I picked up a couple small things of line. There's three and four pound test for my pan fishing. All right, these tubes I'm pretty jacked up about. These are made by Mission Tackle. As you can see, they have a kicker treble hook behind them. Probably gonna have a chunk bait on the back of those. These are for, these are what I'm gonna use for big lake trout. These are three quarter and half ounce. I kinda would like to see them a little bit heavier but this is what they had in stock down the Sabago bait. I like the colors on them. Can't really go wrong jigging a big five inch tube for lake trout or a four inch tube. All right, these were the ones that I did really well with last year on Crappy. Most pan fish just can't resist these things. I like the perch color. I couldn't remember the name of it last year but Northland Tackle makes these. They're called Slurpee Small Fry. It's basically a little tiny tube. It's got the jig head in it and a small hook. This year I got it in three different colors. I got the perch, I got the Crappy and I got the Golden Shiner or Silver Shiner. They don't weigh much. They're a 16th of an ounce but they work really well on Crappy and other pan fish when the bite is super light. Then on the other side of the spectrum you got your bigger jigs for jigging. These ones I have two ounce. I have one ounce, two and one ounce big jigs with a kicker hook, treble hook to throw some chunk on. These I'm gonna use down to Sabago Lake going for those lake trout in anywhere from 170 to 120 foot deep. Get down there quick and just hopefully get into a pile of big lake trout. So that's the small and the big. All this stuff's pretty much Northland Tackle. It's a company I like a lot. They make some really good stuff in the winter. Once again, I'm not affiliated at all with them. They don't even know I exist. So these are some more perch. These will be good for bass or really big pan fish and these go down to quarter ounce, three eighths and quarter ounce. Hair jigs work awesome in the winter. You can trim them, make them a little bit smaller if you want or you could leave them that long. These are quarter ounce and three eighths ounce with a great big eye on them. Bucktail jigs. I'll be using those on most anything that swims in Maine. Always gotta get sounders. I don't know where all my sounders go. They're probably on every shirt I've ever worn or in the bottom of the wash machine or still in my pockets from last year. And then I seem to loan a lot out and you just, once you loan out a sounder you never get it back. So I always grab a couple sounders whenever I get the chance. There's already, there's some custom jigs and spins by Flu Flu. These are really tiny that I'll be using for pan fish this year too. So I got a bunch of different colors on those. They are marabou and hair jigs. Some hooks that I really like to use while I'm ice fishing with bait are the Drop Shot, the Gamakatsu Drop Shot hooks. These are the number twos. Have some octopus in four and eight as well. They work really good for your trout and your smaller stuff that you're using live bait on. Some Lindy fuzzy grub jigs that has the grub and the hair on them. Should be pretty sweet for pan fish. They're pretty big size, but I'm gonna be going for Monster Crappy this year. So we're gonna put some bigger baits in the water. Got an Exo jig, kind of looks like a smelt. One of the primary bait fish in Maine. Gonna use that for lake trout, vertical jigging. And then a couple Lindy darters. They make a lot of noise and a lot of rattles. Should get a lot of attention there. Two more items for this year's ice fishing season. Which I'm not sure, I'm not sure what I think of it yet. It's a little bit bigger than I was expecting. My old trusty Coleman that I thought you could never be the last couple times I've used it. The burners have been acting funny. I don't know if I'm running bad propane through it. If I got a couple bad bottles, if that's a thing or if it's clogged up. So in the market for it, I got this one. I got a really good deal on this one. This is the Fire Champion, three in one stove. The thing I like about it is it doesn't have the side shields, it's got the shields built right in. And you could fit a lot bigger pan or a griddle on it. It's a little bit heavier than my other one. So we'll see how that goes to start. But it comes with the Hyperflame, the Instastart. And hopefully we'll do pretty well with it cause I'll be doing a lot of ice camping this year. And then last but not least, I got a new chair. And I'm really excited about that. It's a very large aluminum chair that folds out because I am also very large and it's super, super comfortable. I went and got a snowmobile trailer this year at Scott's Recreation. While I was there, they had this chair set up in their camping department. And I sat in it and I was like really impressed by it. So I'm kind of excited about that. And cause while you're ice fishing, you end up using a chair a decent amount. So I'm excited about that too. That is pretty much it for new stuff this year. Other than a new snowmobile and snowmobile trailer, which the snowmobile's not here yet. We're running like already three or four weeks behind delivery on it. Snowmobile trailer's here. It's ready to go. I got the decking all down in it. And the auto behind shack is ready to go. I got a couple attachments for that. I'll let you know how that goes this year of fishing with that. I think it's gonna be really good. And I'll be able to get some even better footage by using that. That's all the new stuff for this year so far guys. I'm gonna put this stuff through the test. You know I'm gonna put it through the test. I'll give it some abuse and some use. And I'll let you know how it works out. If you guys have any questions on any of the stuff that I bought or why I bought it or how I'm gonna use it. Or if you have any comments on what you wanna see this ice fishing season, let me know. I'm super jacked up about this ice fishing season. There'll be a lot of winter camping, a lot of new lakes and a lot of new people in the videos.


You know they asked the question should men comment on women's bodies, right? In American society has kind of created that system where men are always talking about women's bodies and vice versa. Like this is the home of beauty pageants, Miss Universe, Miss USA, Miss America, Sports credit swimsuit edition, Ebony, Jet Beauty of the Week. You know what I'm saying?  He didn't do that because he didn't want y'all to comment on his body, you know what I'm saying? So it's just like, I guess in a lot of cases you gotta take the good with the bad, right? So if somebody sees a body they love, like a J-Lo or a Trina, whoever it is, they commenting on it. If you see a Michael B. Jordan or D'Angelo back in the day, you comment on it. But if you see something you don't like, eh, and it goes both ways for men and women.  You know what I mean? That's why you see a lot of guys getting in shape. It's guys right now that clown to old Gucci man. I mean, it's girls that clown to old Gucci man because of how he used to look. But Gucci looked at himself, it's like that's not what I want to be. I want to get in shape. So I don't, I think that's just kind of the American way to judge people by their bodies. I think it's a human way. I think it's a human way. I think that we sexualize things that we want to have sex with. That's just natural. And I think maybe women do it in a little bit different way because they can sexualize certain parts of the body that maybe we don't care as much about. But women are very picky when it comes to height. Women will just straight up say on their dating profile, nobody under five, six. McKayla, McKayla is five, 11 and we'll say that all day long. I don't date no short men.   Exactly. There's a double standard. But the reality is we do have standards, right?  Like we like certain things.  All these things represent, I think when a woman is ready to produce children, I think fertility, right?  Even that is a judgment of a woman's body.  Supple. I'm about to say subtle. Quietity. She's got subtle, she's got subtle breasts.  Oh, whatever it is, you know what I mean? 100%. That's judging a woman's body. She is ready. Yeah, yeah.  I don't talk about that on Black History Month.   Come on. What are we doing? What are we doing here? I'm just saying, it's kind of, it's just weird, man. Dude, this is interesting.  Everybody should go to Hawaii. Outside of the natural beauty of the culture is super unique and interesting. And, but they were talking about the sugar cane plantations out there. And there's these documents that you can read where they're looking at the type of people that they want to bring in to work the fields. And they're going through the different countries and seeing how they would work and wouldn't work with the fields. For example, they brought the Irish in. The Irish can't take the heat. They're too tall to bend down and do the whatever. Black people, they can take the heat, but they're too tall to go down and picking up the cane so they don't work as well. And then the Filipinos, perfect height, their shorter leg, they've made it a science. Judging people's bodies. By judging people's bodies. It's literally like the NFL Combine or like the NBA. They had the exact same look at it. What is the most efficient group of people that we can bring in here to get that job done? Let's be honest, the only reason we don't like when somebody judges somebody's body is when they're saying something negative. 100%.   They do that, but she's still judging each other's bodies? No, you know what, this is not fair, because Sim and, what's the other girl's name? McKayla. Sim and McKayla, both like pussy. No, not Sim. Oh, so McKayla, my bad. Label me a lesbian. My bad, my bad, Sim.    Because if you would sexualize, if you sexualize someone, that's sexual harassment. It's like, and anything that you find sexual about someone else, don't you think that we should equate this?  For example, if a girl goes up to you, if a girl values financial success and she goes up to you, she goes, okay, Charlotte, I see that, watch you got on us, a nice little Rolex.  Sexually, really? It turns a girl on, a guy that can buy a watch like that. Financial security. There's a point here, is there not? A little bit.  I think it's why we're the brilliant idiots, baby. That's why we're the brilliant idiots, right? You know what I'm saying? Whipping dicks out. We're the buckets out. I'm trying to fill one. And if the buckets don't work, I'm gonna stick my fist in it on the rolling attach to it. That's what turns her on anyway. Let's go! You tell me what time it is. No, all I'm simply saying is the judging of people's bodies has been going on before us and it's gonna go on way after us. Yes. That's just the way it is. And I'm not saying it's a good thing. I'm not just saying it's a bad thing. It's just a thing. So to say should a man comment on a woman's body? I don't know. I really don't have an answer. I just know that's the way things are because women do it to men. Men do it to women. Men do it to other men. I learned from women.  That's why I objectified men. So how you do it to men? I do it all the time. What do you say? I killed M.E.Z. and N.V. and drama.  Like what? I'd be like, I told drama's drama's got a beard. Yeah.  You know what I'm saying? It just seems nice. It's just like the nice thing to do, I don't know.  It's the shroop, though.  Why, because he's flirting? I'm tired, exactly. Tired of seeing your little red box of briefs that I've been watching for the past nine years.  Do some squats. Yeah, no cheeks, no cheeks. You got no cheeks, yo, N.V., do some squats, bro. No cheeks, long back, long back, long back, you know what I mean? How you gonna bust it wide open when you got nothing to bust? Nothing. And that's why he shows it off so much. He like to do push-ups, you know what I'm saying? With his pants sagging. Bro?  Come on, bro. You know what I mean?  That's it. What are you wearing, N.V.? What are you wearing? Why would you wear that? Because you don't want me to say something. Thank you. You're welcome. You're all missing the real point of it all. What's the point? What's the point? Because, like, for me, Sam McKellar to do that, we're all... See, that's what's wrong with y'all. We ain't talking about y'all. We talking about dicks over here right now. Yeah, yo. See, why would you even jump into this conversation? Real talk, man.     Dicks, man. Let's go. Exactly. Let's go.  Come on, now.  But y'all are friends, too, though. You're not gonna do it to a random guy on the street? Oh, who says who? Sam won't walk up some random guy on the street.  Are you saying you need me to push this culture forward? Are you telling me I need to take this to the streets, Taylor? Is that what you're telling me?  Let's go. Tell me about these Timbs and these jeans on and start cat-calling, motherfuckers.  Black man on T. Black man on T. I read that in a book a long time ago, though, from Niggas the Gods, man. What?  What would you do? You got it, Mike. You guys never get guys do that to you? Yeah, but not as crazy. They usually lock in with some eye contact. That's all. And then they try to see where you're at. This is what they guys do. They'll be like this. They'll be like... Then they wait for you to do something back to let them know it's okay. Not to get guys out there.     Did you see that? Please tell me we got... I'm Sharla. I'm Sharla. I see you got rips in your jeans.  Is there a teapot short in stuff? Where is my dick? Here is my mouth.


I was struck by something ran wrote in the letters book where she said that the relationship between wine and gal wine and and Howard Rourke was is the strongest. You know, the friendship is the strongest relationship in the book. In the fountain it in the fountain it and it's interesting because gal placates them up. And Howard does the opposite. Where do you see like how did that nexus form how did that bond form so strongly given that they came at it from such opposite points. I think it forms around. Whoops. Yeah. I missed that. Choices were made oppositely. But they're both, they're both in some sense seeking their own well being, even though wine and of course defines it wrongly, and ultimately it destroys him. And so all his actions actually not achieving his well being but he believes it is so he's motivated by that he's motivated by some sense of selfishness even though he doesn't define selfishness. He's he's a man of immense ability and who drives to get his way in a way that I think work does as well in that that kind of bonds them. They are, they have this immense confidence and you call itself esteem. And they both have an immense purpose, even though one of them has a flawed purpose and a flawed self esteem, right they both they both have it and embrace it and a driven by it. They're not, they're not doing halfway stuff they go all the way. They become fully committed. Sadly, you know, the relationship can be complete because even though it's a strong relationship because wine and can live up to work and he knows it so he's the weak link. And, and work and it's the same with that with Dominique right, but Dominique can rise up to to work and for waiting it's too late. And for her it's not partially because of the way I read views from an entity I think but but for her it's not too late she can she can still weighs up and and and reach works level so yeah I mean it's it's and Rand has a very distinct view of psychology and a very distinct view of what appeals and and when it was so non dogmatic about objectivism right and so non dogmatic about human relationships. It wasn't like, yeah, you know, so many objectives I know who if you if you think of yourself as a hard work. That's a problem to begin with but if you think of yourself as hard work, you're immediately looking for Dagny, right, you're looking immediately for Dagny, and and how to look is is loves Dominique and and I don't think I don't think 99% of objectives could handle Dominique.  Well, he sold out he second handed, you know, how can I have anything to do with the man who second handed. And there's this attitude towards, I don't know, Steve Jobs of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, even a lot of it's like, well he's not perfect so I can't even admire him for fun ever be best friends with him. And if you think about a man and you think about the characters and how flawed they are, and how much respect she has for flawed character like gain wine and Dominique, or read and at the beginning of the novel, and how much he loves these characters and how much admiration she has them for them.  Then you're not getting it you're not getting you know you're not getting in our first handed way and you're not getting what it's about to live this. And what it means to be a value or which is the essence, it's not about following the prescription of a philosophy it's about being a value it's about loving life and loving values and, and to see somebody who is the value or who might not be might not agree with you and a lot of other things, but who is a value is creating and building and making and changing the world. And to disdain that person. As so many objectives disdain CEOs who they disagree with on politics. Something very wrong, something very wrong in, in, and I think I read would reject that. It seems to me of she in the hundred the voices book I forgot the exact title, but there's, there's a person who got interviewed who was like her editor or something like that, and said, they talked about politics and this person was a died in the And said, I don't really care about your politics as long as you're going to represent the book, the way that I want the book represented. Exactly. Exactly. And think about how many people in my chat would like a leftist. I can't deal with a leftist. I can't even talk to leftist.  And now they're granted leftists are worse today than were back then but you know, it's not everybody. It's not everybody. So, very interesting. Yeah, absolutely. And it takes a while if I think it's going to take it takes a few generations of this philosophy for people to get it right and to get it right psychologically in terms of applying them into their lives and to the value systems, not just intellectually. It takes practice. Bro, please consider sharing our content and of course subscribe. Press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live and for those of you who already subscribers and those of you who already supporters of the show. Thank you. I very much appreciate it.


Hello my friends and welcome to my show, Elderhood, Aging Gracefully. Thank you so much for joining me. I extend to you an Hawaiian spirit of aloha. Hawaiian spirit of aloha means that we all share in one breath, we share in one endeavor. And I'm glad to have you here sharing in this endeavor with me a man named Wilbur Butler Yeats, I think was his name, also said something similar. He said, you know, there are no strangers here. They're only friends we have yet to meet. And that's the way I consider all of us too, especially as I do my online coaching, friends that I only have yet to meet. So I'm glad you're here to start that relationship. I hope you'll follow through. And if there's an interest that you have in coaching, personal coaching online, contact me with Larry G at live-connections.com. I'll repeat that later. I'm also serving as here in Hawaii on Honolulu in the Oahu Island as chaplain with Bristol Hospice Hawaii. And I'm proud of Bristol Hospice Hawaii because I think they live their tagline, which is living a reverence for life. We really do share in a reverence for life at Bristol Hospice. And we're joined together in this mission of providing the highest level of compassion and personal care and medical care for our families and friends and terminally ill patients across the island of Oahu in their homes and in facilities. But in addition to my chaplaincy work, I also do online, the online coaching for personal life and faith. I'm particularly focused on elderhood. You know, we have a childhood. We have adolescence. We have an adulthood. And most of us don't want to talk about it, but we have an elderhood. And I look at it as a stage because looking at it as a stage of life gives an opportunity for us to think about the tasks that are involved, just as there are tasks involved in growing and maturing in childhood, adolescence and adulthood. There are tasks, particularly applicable for our consideration in adulthood or in elderhood, excuse me. And so I have five spiritual tasks that I haven't identified that kind of come up in our lives. They insist on being considered. And if we pay attention to them and respond to them, I believe we can make our elderhood really real and wonderful. And so my coaching is to enable people to do that because I have a passion for life and living fully until I die. And so I'm committed to that and I want to be with people in making that happen as well in their own lives. So the five spiritual tasks that you see here are grieving the first. We've touched on that in our first program here. The second is sorting out stories. There are stories that we sort out that tell us who we are, by which we tell ourselves who we are, and we can sometimes rewrite those stories and create a new life. It's really a powerful, powerful tool. The third is forgiving. We touched on this the past Friday. And we're engaged in forgiving because it just becomes a personal human need. It's not necessarily a solely religious tenant or a religious demand. It's something that comes up from within that we need to wipe the slate clean. We need to get forgiveness and give forgiveness. The fourth thing is preparation. And by preparation, I'm thinking of the external preparations. We have an exterior external life. We have wills, we have finances, we have preparations for how we're going to have medical care done, what kind of options we have. We want to research all of that. And that's going to be very extensive in this program. Take up many, many Tuesdays. And then there's an internal preparation also that goes on. How do we handle that internal life, that interior life, and what comes up in the interior life as we move through this stage of life? It's very much important. And I want to focus on that today. The last one is letting go, another powerful, powerful event to consider. To focus on the preparation today, and particularly internal preparation, I've asked one of my colleagues, Stefan Prusinski, if you'll join at the table. Steven, welcome. Wow. Thanks so much for being here. Yes. And thanks for having me on your show today. You're welcome. Steven and I have had a special bond, a special relationship as we work together, providing spiritual care to our patients, Terminalio, and to their families, offering it to them. One of the things about preparation is that I'm concerned about, Steven, is that people don't get a chance to see the internal workings of some of these institutions. Even hospitals, we don't really see the internal workings necessarily. We may go to a hospital and get treatment, but then we leave, but don't always get to see the whole system. And hospice care is a unique opportunity for people in this time of life to have a particular kind of medical treatment, medical care that goes on, palliative is the word we often use. And in that, the subset of spiritual care is even less well-known. So I wanted to invite you to share with our audience some thoughts about that.  Sure. Sure. Thank you. First off, I'd like to say I am truly living my dream as a chaplain. That's great. I had a former careers engineer. I moved from Wisconsin to Arizona. Did clinical training. I did seminary training. And I had a series of events that really helped me feel led and empowered to be right where I'm sitting today. It's been a wonderful journey. And we have a saying in chaplaincy, you really can't help somebody else go further than you yourself have gone and inwardly to understand what's involved with that. So I've had about 18 years working in hospitals and nursing homes, retirement communities. And then it's really been this last year that's been specifically hospice. And as you say, I agree that very much in hospitals, the clinical path is to keep you alive. It's to do extraordinary measures. I was working at Mayo Clinic where they had world-class doctors there that would do all sorts of transplants, also at a tertiary hospital in Arizona, worked at Banner Health, which is a big system between some states. And then when we moved to Hawaii, was also the chaplain at the main psych hospital for Hawaii. So I had a real background in psych. And now this last year is been in hospice. And as it pertains to elder care, it's very important. I've had really years of experience working with senior adults. And it's all contributed towards me moving forward in helping seniors move forward through these very facets that you're describing. And Stephen, you were a chaplain at a retirement community here on the island? Yes. Which one? So I spent almost a year at Pohanani. And prior to that, I helped pastor in retirement communities, also for homeless shelters. It's been real broad. Wide range of population, people in a wide range of situations, that's great, great background experience. And all of which really is present, those same populations are present in the hospice care. Yes. So spirituality, what is spirituality?  If you went to the dictionary, you'd probably maybe find nine or 10 definitions. And it's so I wanted to bring up an aspect that would be easier, I think to understand spirituality. It's just like we have a body, the doctors take care of our physical health. And maybe you see a counselor or psychologist for your mental health. Well, in chaplaincy, we believe we have a spirit. And so chaplaincy and spiritual care are about how we care for our spirit. And specifically today as we go through the different stages or phases of life, spirituality in general has to do with a sense of how we make meaning overall. We all are wearing a pair of glasses where we have a worldview. And in that worldview, we have beliefs. We have passions. We have values that are really emanate out of our beliefs. We develop attitudes of which we create a life. We also assign meaning to symbols. Spirituality also has to do with the things that are transcendent, things that are above and beyond us. For example, like nature, some folks connect with nature. And that's the, I think the last piece is it has to do with the of how we connect in relationships. How do I connect with myself? How do I connect with those around me? And then when it comes to transcendence, how do I connect as I'm going to say a higher power, a divine being? And when we do our work as spiritual practitioners, we are really assessing for the degree of how a person is connected inwardly. Maybe the short definition of spiritual care would be how a person, we come alongside or enter into their journey to help them find strength, inner strength. So the doctors and nurses, the healthcare is fixing or working on the body. Yet in chaplaincy, we like to say we are spiritual beings having a physical sort of experience. So Stephen, if I am coming into hospice care and I am a Latter-day Saint, or I am a, what, some denomination that's not, you're not familiar, you're not, are you going to talk to me about your denomination? No, as a board certified or a chaplain, we are trained to be inner faith. And what that means is our work is to inductively play detective on how you make meaning. And so you mentioned one religion. You could look at the major religions of the world. And so religion is really like a subset of spirituality. It has doctrines and has specific ways a person believes that they make meaning and they have rituals. As a chaplain, we honor those. I'm ordained, you're ordained. We have to have ecclesiastical endorsement to be where we are. Yet we're there to journey with them to help them often validate their pain and assess the spiritual connectedness that they do have, or even sometimes help them discover what it is, and to find that inner strength to get through whatever it is they're going through. And in hospice, it does involve a lot of suffering for not only the patients, but the families. So you're coming alongside to help me figure out how I'm making meaning, how I'm using my resources internally to make meaning out of what's going on in my life. Is that right? It's just true. However, we understand they're not thinking that. We do our work often without folks even knowing it. So and yet by the time we're done with our visit, we've basically established our relationship, which begins to develop trust that we can be with them. And often they will begin to, I say, open the virgin soil of their heart about things that are deeply meaningful to them. And they're trying to firm that up, because perhaps their struggles or pain is testing their previous beliefs or assumptions about reality. There are somewhere between 15 and 20 different practices of Buddhism on the island. And are you comfortable going into a Buddhist family? Well, sure. Sure. So we serve with our training. And it doesn't mean I'm an expert Buddhist. It doesn't mean if I'm with a shaman who's in the bed that I have to know everything they do. No. What I'm tuning into, though, I'm working with a Buddhist patient right now who basically is name only, and she likes to keep it that way. And she likes to really just talk about her family. Our work is to go where we're invited, where a person is asking for more exploration. If they're very content, then we're with them in that. So yes, there's a myriad of Buddhist denominations I'm aware of. If I was at a Buddhist person who died recently at the bedside, we're there to be with them in that moment. Wonderful. We're going to take a minute break and then return. I'm going to ask Steven to get a little more specific about some examples of spiritual care in hospice. Thanks, Steven. Hello, my name is Becky Sampson, and I'm the host of It's About Time on the Think Tech Hawaii, a digital nonprofit organization that's raising public awareness. Join us on Wednesday at 2 p.m. where we talk about real issues. Some of the topics will include entrepreneurship, health, life skills, and growing your business. So once again, this is Becky Sampson on It's About Time on Wednesday at 2 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. Mahalo. Aloha. This is Rob Hack. My show is exporting from Hawaii every other Thursday from 12 to 12.30 p.m. where I bring in people involved in the entire exporting infrastructure in Hawaii, including government, academia, and manufacturers and shippers themselves. Please join me every other Thursday, 12 to 12.30 p.m., and exporting from Hawaii. Mahalo. Welcome back to Elderhood, aging gracefully, and I want to give my thanks to Think Tech Hawaii and the wonderful job that they do, all the staff here, all the equipment, everything is given really a gift to the community and gives the intellectual community here an opportunity to think about things that otherwise we might not get a chance to explore. So thank you to them for providing this, and thank you to you for joining with me and with Stephen this morning, too, or with this afternoon to explore the internal life and internal preparation for our life for Elderhood and our journey through Elderhood. It strikes me, Stephen, that most people think they really don't need any kind of spiritual help. Now, some people have a great deal of background in spiritual life. I had one friend, you know, the phrase that's popular these days is, I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual. I have one friend who's a pastor in Denver, Colorado, who used to say, I'm not very spiritual, but I am religious. And the two go together, and certainly when we have, my position is when we have any kind of religious exposure, it affects our inner life, our orientation, our sense of making meaning and transcendence. But I wondered if you would more specifically focus in now on sharing a description of just general terms, nothing personal, but I mean, no names, of course, but something that's about a spiritual care experience that you've been involved in in hospice care. Okay. Well, I'm just going to use the one I had yesterday. I've had somewhere over 130,000 visits and encounters with patients and families. And before I describe how this works, I would say as a board certified chaplain, we need to go through a commissioning, a written and oral certification process that involves demonstrating competency in 31 competencies that involve, it breaks down everything that you're talking about, age, stage, development, psychologically, spiritually, we look at how we begin a relationship. How do we bring closure to a relationship? How do we honor and respect the person's different worldviews? Maybe they're religion or their brand of spirituality is something that might cause an internal reaction within me. Does that mean I still am able to be present? And if not, do I need to get another professional chaplain? So there's a series of competencies to work through to truly be able to be present with a person. So I'll give you an example. I think in chaplaincy, I'm going to resist saying a typical example, because we know better. There is no typical. The first rule in chaplaincy is we don't assume the moment, and I tested this and it was true, the moment I assumed I was wrong. So we do have our preparation before we begin a relationship, have a visit is to be a blank slate. It's really to wipe the board clean and go in and truly be with this person in a nonjudgmental way. And hopefully, we create the context of unconditional regard in law, because we feel this is evidence shows that this is the environment that helps people be relaxed and begin to open up to what they believe or what is their concern. So because we're in a clinical setting, we have competencies, then we identify spiritual needs, we identify a person's spirituality through assessment, and then based on what we see the needs and assessment is, we craft interventions based on evidence based outcomes. Palliative care is palliative, the word palliative means to cover. So palliative care covers pain. And we think of it mostly of course as opioids or something to cover the pain of the physical pain. What about spiritual pain? What does spiritual pain look like? That's a great question. I think the long and short of it is as we do our assessment, we're following a pain trail. We're listening for where are those connections between myself, my relationship with others and my higher power, where there's been breaks, where have there's been breakdowns of that. Where you find those breaks is most often where you'll find a level of distress of separation, something maybe between a loved one, maybe especially for seniors as they've lost their significant other of many, many years. They feel like a part of me is gone, part of my identity. But we're looking, we're sensitive to that. And then how do they recovery involves a part of letting go and also finding how do their beliefs, their spiritual beliefs, support them in that? Will they, so for some in the Christian world, they believe I'll at least see my spouse, my significant other again as we grieve, it gives them a source of hope. Hope is part of our spirituality. I've seen that there are four basic stories in human culture about afterlife. And I don't mean to jump to afterlife necessarily, but in terms of preparation, one of the things we think about is what is going to be after I'm dead. One is that there's nothing after the afterlife. Second is that we live on in the legacy that we leave of people remembering us of people. There was a village in Kenya that said, as long as one person in our village remembers you, you're still alive. There is a notion of a total rebirth or reincarnation or revivification of the body, a resurrection motif. And then finally, there is going to live with God in eternity or with a divine presence. So somewhere, I find that all of my patients fall within those four stories, narratives in some way, if they've given any thought to it. But then one of the things that's so great about your experience, even with people is that you give them a chance to explore that, where they are in those stories. Sure, sure. And what's part of the journey, if you will, of spirituality itself, of how it unfolds. And I'll just back up when I'm doing an assessment. I am thinking, is this person spiritually at risk? Or do they have, sometimes I'll chart, they have a robust spirituality. They have experience that's really working for them.  And horribly difficult to be with the family and grandparents came in, extreme pain. Certainly, everyone's beliefs were being tested that day. And I sat with them. And this was in the beginning of my clinical training. And of course, I felt inept inwardly from me, my own story was playing. And yet at the end of the visit, the patients, the family, rather the parents, I sat with them and asked them, I said, really, I said, how may I, how may I be of support? And I had been present and hadn't quite realized that just my presence with them, without offering trite phrases or somehow some antidote for how to fix this. What they said to me, no chaplain, we're atheists. And we believe our child has gone to a better place. And it was very interesting to me, and I'm going to use this as an example, because in spirituality, spirituality is as part of us, that we're also trying to understand that we're coming to terms with, and it informs our worldview, it informs how we make meaning. And sometimes it gets tested. But for them, an atheist is traditionally a person who says very concretely, there is no God and agnostic says, well, there might be, maybe there isn't, I don't know, I'm working it out. So they had moved from being atheists to agnostic, because they, through this pain of the death of their child, they now knew, experientially, no, there's something greater, without even knowing it. Yet as chaplains, we pay attention to those kinds of things.  And we're working it out. It's a given. I mean, our assumption is it's a given. And I don't say everyone agrees with that. But we are alert. And I do this in my coaching to be alert to the fact that it is given, their spiritual life is a given. And my clients, my patients, are working out to discover what its significance is. Very good. And how they, well, you said it beautifully. I think that's the givenness of it. And being alert to the givenness of it, puts us in a position of, of service and servanthood that we, that not many other people will get into that position. Yeah. And I would add, so for us, one of the outcomes that we're looking for is an increased sense of love. We talk about these connections, love and surrender. These are things that when we've done our interventions, hopefully we're going to see a little bit more of that. And I'm just going to tie it back now to the elderhood and seniors. So often seniors have so many losses. They just have so many losses, spouses, good friends. Sometimes they're feeling all alone, even though they have children there. And like with the person I was with yesterday, they feel, now I'm a burden for my children and the children love them. And there can sometimes be a separation from themselves because I don't want to be a burden to anyone. Right. And we want to help close that gap. We want to be present with them in a way that they can realize, no, you're still, you're of extreme value. You are lovable. And, and though things have changed, your life has changed, you're experiencing these losses. We're there to be with them. We validate that pain, help them to understand, know what you're experiencing. It's painful. And, and we're with them in it, in a way that really dignifies their humanity to realize they're worth loving. So the experience of pain is an opening to the faith. It's an opening to the spirit. It's an opening to that internal life. But otherwise, we may not pay much attention. Thanks, Stephen. Thank you so much. We're having to close now. It's going to be, it's been a wonderful, wonderful show with you. And thank you so much for your help. Really appreciate you coming. Appreciate being on the show. The show will be on in two weeks again, next two weeks of, from this Tuesday, two o'clock Hawaii time. And I will welcome you back then with aloha spirit, the spirit of Hawaii. Thank you so much for being a part of this. And come back, join us again. We've only begun to scratch the surface of these sick, these five important spiritual tasks.


ows the discussion to get going and and get wrapped around sort of the needs of the community around so I think that balance that that it allows you to get at with your meetings I think it's important so I would I would suggest that it's removal by Mr. Fleming's you know potential motion here decreases the availability of the tools and the flexibility which your group and your board currently has thank you for putting up with my you know I absolutely appreciate your perspective on that because it it is interesting because it's one of the things that we sometimes consider as the residential design guidelines and the residential design guidelines only come in if somebody has a special permit or a variance request and you know if we don't have that to force it then you know if somebody doesn't need to consider the residential design guidelines at all they can do it by right not that we have ever pushed very hard because the residential design guidelines but it's certainly something that we are allowed to do and this time is going by there's more acceptance of those guidelines and use of them I've heard more and more reference over the past two years has gone by so I think it's a good thing yeah I don't want to belabor this particularly but you know if the residential guidelines are good to have then they ought to we ought to be able to figure out a way of applying them but the notion that they should or shouldn't apply depending upon whether you can come up with 25 foot square patch seems arbitrary and capricious to me and I don't think that's a good way to organize a government. So James have we given you any clarity whatsoever? I thought we were out of board members and then Roger spoke and I can't see you all once again one thing I do one thing I do want to get your your collective take on is the notion of how useful open-case provides a additional what's the word an additional form of a setback from one neighbor taking this at this case as an example yeah so I could build an addition over here and be in compliance this neighbor may not be very happy about that but I can do this by right I could also put it over here and make this neighbor happy and both of those cases I can do by right so in a case like this to some extent it doesn't really help you it only helps you when you're forcing someone to go through this because they don't have enough or they would otherwise become run into a variance and this this addition unless it's what is it 50 percent or seven whatever it is the partition provision you'll only see that if it's 750 square feet or larger or 50 percent they're granted this example doesn't have that but yeah but to some extent you the neighbors may not like it but there won't be an avenue for them to go down it to go and air their grievances unless they your property happens to be nonconforming right I mean in this case too they could you know add five feet onto the back of the entire house and still be compatible or make their addition 10 by 20 and still be compatible it does sort of enforce a little bit of extra dimension somewhere in the around the house right but you're guaranteed that at least one neighbor has the possibility of being upset by what you're doing you're not and in that case you're you're like I mean maybe I guess maybe that you could argue that that's something but you know which neighbor maybe it's the number you like less or maybe it's the number you like more yeah any other feedback in general I think that's I think that's about as much as you're going to get out of us at this hour it's late so so the takeaways that I'm hearing are probably useful limited situations it depends on the case that you run into is that fair to say I think so I think so and I think it would be interesting to know what medford's experience is with like I mean I don't even know that like you know it's possible that they've never had it for residential but if they made the change I'm curious what what they did and why they did it but that may not be something that's easily researchable or understandable okay I think I can put in a hopefully they'll take their message from random outsider yeah so your recommendation would be to learn more about what medford if they've just kept it for the same for however many decades or if they've made the conscious choice to make it this way yeah I think it's just it's curious that they they did it that way so I'm you know half of it is an academic curiosity and half of it is you know what it what is the policy implication yeah okay that's useful be back anything else from anyone right thank you very much no you're welcome thank you and then as far as other things that may come up zoning wise all the you know James's proposal is a citizen article I have no idea what's been filed for citizens but I think tomorrow it's the application deadline so um we will you know as soon as the select board gets around to putting together their list which will probably be in about two three weeks we'll see what else is what else made the cut uh mr chairman yes I had the pleasure of ending the meeting last night and uh you you do need to be aware there are a couple of things they've decided not to move forward oh okay I think there were perhaps two at least one maybe two and so check check on that it's okay it's really important thank you for that I'll definitely check in with them um next on our agenda was about the hybrid meeting dry ground session so I've been trying to sort of coordinate a bunch of different people it looks like Monday February 13th at 4 p.m to see if that worked for everybody and so it would be in the town hall annex or at home would be a good to split us up a little bit but that would be the date and time so Monday February 13th at 4 that'll work for me excellent so great you as well wonderful so unfortunately we have to put it on the town calendar um because it is technically a meeting so we have to put that so rick if I could put that on you yes I'm sorry I'm sorry ask mr. more what are you available at that time as well no I've already been through the hybrid dry run with my own committee it went very well as long as you have someone who knows the system you don't have no problem you don't need my help that is okay I appreciate the offer though so I laid you said you could make it but probably remote yes exactly perfect mr. chairman I was only going to add that if you need to know the system if that's their technical expertise requirements if you're on site in person I'm not the guy so again I would I would suggest that uh one person be designated as the the technical person and other than the chair because there is some work that has to be done that one no committee I mean all right so I will let everyone know everyone at the town know that that date works for us we'll keep that then update on the zoning assistant position so town meeting had voted to allow an expanded zoning assistant position and we had been looking through the fall we had a few candidates who we interviewed remotely and then we had an in-person interview with somebody the last week of December who we made an offer to my understanding is that they have they are in negotiations now with the town to uh take up the position so we will be having a new zoning assistant I feel always really awkward talking about this with with rick because we're it's sort of we're getting rick's replacement but uh really rick has rick has served us so well for so long I hate to hate to see him go in any fashion now thank you mr chairman I'm indifferent about the whole thing I'm probably the least informed about uh somebody taking over my position don't even I haven't even met the person I I just requested that if this thing does go down I need time to train him I mean yeah not rocket science but there's a lot to it as far as dates and what has to be done and absolutely quite honestly without the help of my wife I couldn't even get those notices out um so yeah um we will uh stay posted perfect I'll be here for the next few anyway absolutely thank you mr chairman mr handlin just wanted to point out that just just just to say that the last time we actually did have a zoning assistant mr valer at the came to our meetings anyway so it doesn't necessarily mean that this is like thanks mr handlin I appreciate all right and then the last piece here just our calendar where we'll be together again in two nights to talk about the 40b uh traffic and architectural there was that big slew of documents that got got dropped um last night uh thanks to to vin and rick for getting those up on the town's web on the at least to attach to the agenda we did have to try to reduce the size on a bunch of those files and I think we got them all to the point where they're they're up and I know marisa was working on getting them up onto the town's website this evening so hopefully all that stuff will be up and posted um I've only seen one piece of public comment um that's come in so far for the next meeting but uh no problem will be a couple others trickling in um and we'll keep moving forward mr chairman before you break any off on apology uh oh for having rudely mangled elaine hoffman Hamilton briefly and uh I was curiously trying to see find her name because I knew I was saying it wrong so I apologize no problem I appreciated that uh people seemed to pick up what I was saying even though I was sort of babbling so no no it was good thank you um and then just on our calendar it looks like to the after the 26th the next is February 9 which is another Thursday night comprehensive permanent hearing we are trying to keep February 14th clear it looks like we are safe for that now so February 14 we will not be meeting we'll be meeting again on the 23rd so the next three hearings will all be for 40 b and then we're back on the 28th for regular stuff all right anything else thank you all for your participation in tonight's meeting of the arlington zoning board of appeals I appreciate everyone's patience throughout the meeting I especially like to thank rick valerally vincenly kelly line of marisa allow for all their assistance in preparing for and hosting this online meeting please note the purpose of the board's recording the meeting is to ensure the creation of an accurate record of its proceedings it is our understanding that the recording made by acmi will be available on demand at acmi.tv within the coming days if anyone has comments or recommendations please send them via email to zba at town.arlington.ma.us that email address is also listed on the zoning board of appeals website and to conclude tonight's meeting I would ask for a motion to adjourn mr chairman mr hanlon so moved thank you second thanks dupont vote of the board to adjourn mr dupont hi hanlon hi mr holly hi mr rickadelli hi mr hopman hi and the chair votes aye we are adjourned thank you all very much


It's a collection of publishers findings, so I have two colleagues here today that are going to talk to you about that. So why don't you guys just introduce yourselves and talk a little bit about what you do here at Alden? Sure. I am Maryam Interchpore, responsible for Special Collections Librarian, responsible for rare books and for the Documentary Photo Archive. I've been here for about three and a half years, and I primarily do a lot of instruction related to the collections that I'm responsible for across departments all over campus. And I'm also responsible for managing all aspects of the rare book collection primarily. I'm Cameron Becroft. I'm Digital Projects Librarian for Digital Initiatives. So I take the stuff that you get me, Stacy, and that you give me, Maryam. And I create digital images of it. I describe them, and then I make them available online. Cool. Okay, so, but talking about this specific project, Maryam, could you tell us a little bit about what publishers findings are and why they're significant? Yes. So publishers findings are book findings that were designed sometimes by but more often for a publisher and then manufactured and used in quantity. So they're significant because they are, they illustrate the moment in the history of bookmaking, book collection, which occurred about 1830 when publishers needed to increase the speed and efficiency at which they were producing books for increasing demand in the marketplace. So publishers findings, primarily of cloth, created a way for publishers to make books fully available as a complete product more quickly to the marketplace. Because originally, or during the 18th century, books were generally bound later in the process by bookbinders or by consumers themselves who wanted very specific findings for their books. But that was more expensive and a more time consuming project. And so in order to make them, again, more affordable and more readily available, came the turn to publishers findings with the turn to mechanization and mass production distribution. Awesome. Okay, so these books, Carmen, what parts of the books are you capturing for the digital project? Well, I will demonstrate with a book. We have the microscope here. And so we would generally photograph the case. So these are the cloth findings that are put on during the manufacturing process. So the front cover, the back cover, the spine. We would also take a photograph of the front fixed fly leaf or end paper, and then the first free fly leaf, especially if they are patterned in some way, or show evidence of that manufacturing process. We'd also take a photograph of any inscriptions that you would see. Sometimes those would be in these, in this front matter here. This is called the frontist piece. It is often opposite the full title page. And it's also was used in advertising. This is what was going to catch someone's eye when they open up the book. As you can see, it's protected by a little piece of tissue paper that has been pasted in by the manufacturer. So you can see how much they value this. And then also the full title, mostly for our reference. And then we do the same thing for the last free fly leaf and the back fixed end paper. So this is Miriam and I came up with this set of images because we didn't want to address the whole page block because the text of this book has already been evaluated by Google Books, Hotty Trust, some of the other huge digitization initiatives that took place beginning in like 2005, which have tons of millions of public domain works already available online. So we didn't want to reproduce that, but we did want to highlight the physicality of the book as an exemplar in the Montcenter collection. And to show these manufacturing processes and the art specifically of how they appealed to this rising middle class and new educated population. Great. And you're planning to connect the pictures that you take of our specific books with the digital scans that already exist of the content as well, right? Yeah. So we have links in the records to similar editions that are already available online. They might not be exactly the same publisher, the same date, the same format, but the text is going to be as similar as we can get. And in some cases, they are exactly that. And if you want to see exactly what this text looks like, you just come to the Montcenter. It's true. Okay, so how did you, Miriam, select the books that are in this collection? Because I know it's just a small subset of what we have. So we started focusing a little bit on the juvenile collection just because those tend to have really wonderfully illustrated publishers' findings. And some of the other things we were looking for were condition. We want bindings that are in pretty good condition so that they show up well online or still beautiful objects. And also just showing a variety of the different types of images and stamping and typefaces and different things that you might see on covers. And it's important also to get sort of a range of time periods because what is on the cover can tell us a lot about what was popular at the time. Some of these have people in clothing, but that's something that you can see. What was the style? What was the fashion? What was appealing to people? These were very much meant to appeal to the general reader. And so, and something else that we wanted to show, like as with the microscope that Carmen already talked about, also the romance of modern astronomy is that publishers' bindings were not just used with literary works. This happens to be poetry, but we have a lot of history of science books in the collection and that's something else that we wanted to represent is sort of how broadly these were used. And some of the different materials you can see right here. So often in the earlier ones you'll see not too many colors or no color at all. You'll just see blind stamping which might not show up here, but there is decoration. It's just not colored in with either the aluminum or palladium or gold or other colors like black or red or any other color that you would see a little bit later. And most often you'll see the front cover being most decorated and then the spine and then the back is often totally blank or has the same pattern as the front cover, but just not filled in. So blind stamped again as we would call it. So we're focused on good condition and just getting a range of styles and times and subject matters also. And I think something else we're going to do moving forward is maybe focus a little bit on Ohio imprints. So bindings that were created by publishers in Ohio and for Ohio readers. Okay, great. I did not know that. So that was my next question was to ask you a little bit about how your plans for growth. So definitely focusing on Ohio and Ohio publishers. To the extent we can. Yeah, I think that will be a good focus. And there's other projects out there similar. So I think that we're creating this, you know, again to represent our collections physically and the types of things that we have and so that it can be used also, you know, as a teaching. Teaching tool is a research tool, but also just as sort of the enjoyment of looking at these as beautiful physical objects that are representative of a specific moment in history and time in the history of technology and bookmaking and mechanization and manufacturing. Great. Okay, so switching gears to talk about the digital project. Carmen, can you give us some of the details of digitization, higher capturing images, what kind of descriptive information that's going to be included in the collection. So we have a digital camera. It's the camera on a stick model of the coffee stand, where the camera is photographing these items from above it's screwed onto a plate that is on another cross piece that can be adjusted up and down. Based on the size of the object and what the kind of image that you want to get. And so we have two commercial photography students who work during the regular school year, who have experience with capturing objects specifically. And that's important because, for example, this gold stamping has reflective properties. So they're using two soft boxes to get the best image of the item and work with the item in order to get the most accurate and also the most visually appealing image. So they're gently manipulating the book. And we have a variety of braces and stands and weights from our head of preservation here, Miriam Nelson, in order to hold the book while this is going on. Right. So how long would you say it takes probably for a student to capture a book? I think a student takes about 10 minutes to photograph it, and then they do a lot of processing work. And then there's another student who's capturing the metadata, the description from the catalog records, then that is embedded in the digital files. The files are changed to a different format from the raw files that they're working in when they're doing color correction and other editing in the image itself. And then I take all of that and ingest it, I add it to our database. And then it appears to be end user. Great. So when users are looking at the digital collection online, are there any specific, and I know we've talked about some of the different things that you're capturing, but specific features or specific items that they should be on the lookout for? So we have been trying to specifically highlight the artists that are involved in this process. So a lot of these designs on the front cover would have a small monogram on there. So it's a little symbol that particular commercial artists used in order to, unfortunately it's not one of these, used in order to cue people in that this was their work. So there's some collaborative groups such as decorative designers, which are very famous. There's a lot of women actually who would not otherwise have been surfaced in the advertising for this product versus the interior artists who often got credit by name. And so it's much more likely to see a signature or other identifying information on the front desk piece or other plates inside the text block. So we're really eager to see what threads we can pull out with that and give people a sense of all of the different personalities and decisions that went into bringing this all together. Right. So just to follow up on that a little bit, I think that often, like Carmen was saying, the book or the cover designer might not be actually attributed anywhere inside of the book. So the things that we're looking for like initials or sometimes a little monogram and they're often very small and sort of hidden. So you do have to look for them. Some that are very well known, Margaret Armstrong, for example, she has a very recognizable MA that you can usually find pretty easily. And they are often women but also they were often well known at the time, you know, painters and designers who are also doing book design and they often had relationships with specific publishers and so if you see a design that looks sort of familiar and it's not fine and it's a publisher that you know this artist regularly worked with. You can, you know, you can guess or wonder if perhaps it is that artist because they were working with this particular publisher. Right. Okay, so just the kind of the last thing and we touched on this a little bit when you mentioned using this in the classroom and instruction and research. But just what are what is your ideals for how you would like to see this used. I would love for it to be used as a complement to the actual books in the classroom on when we're on talking about on campus instruction. I think it'll be very useful for the students to be able to see the books and then in class as well as on their own time and spend a little bit more time with the website and look at their own book and compare it with other designs that they wouldn't necessarily have time to see in class. So there'll be much more on offer, basically, when they when they go to the website and there are several instructors, professors who are teaching increasingly with history of the book kind of in mind, either the main thread in their in our course structure or as an underlying thread. So this will give them an additional tool to use with their students and in creating assignments and projects. And there's a lot you can do just with the images, you know, as Carmen was describing, because we're capturing different elements of the book. So if you're interested in those signed bindings and covers you can focus on that if you're interested in the book place and provenance and the history of ownership and usage, you can focus on the inscription signatures and other markings left behind by people who have previously owned and use these books. If you're interested in the content, then you can, you know, either follow the links to the digital versions or come to the month center and look at the books in person. So we hope that there will be multiple possible uses and potentially also that student work on the books will allow us to perhaps add metadata that that will take the research beyond what we have been able to do on our own, just based on resources. So that's another possibility that is very exciting. Well, it sounds like a really wonderful collection and we'll add a link to it in the comments.  Yeah, I just want to say there's currently about 56 items in this collection. So it's a soft open.  This process will be continuing indefinitely. We have thousands of publisher findings in the month center and we have this process pretty well streamlined so we can continue this as long as we have more books coming down. So this will grow quite a bit. Great. Well, thanks you guys.


Hi guys in today's video I want to talk about the time that I got a needle stick and how it felt how it happened What I did afterwards and all of the above but before we get started You need to know that this video is sponsored by Dynavax a manufacturer of vaccines So it was a couple of years ago when I was for kind of a new nurse in the ICU when I got my first needle stick It's actually my only needle stick and I hope it's my last But this was the first time that I stuck myself with a dirty needle and how it happened was I was giving a patient an Insulin injection like a subcute insulin injection and I was holding their skin In my left hand and administering in the injection with my right and I was just going too quick I was like in the motions of things and not being as careful as I should have But what I did was when I pulled the needle back Instead of doing what I should have done which was slide the safety gauge up with the hand that I administered with I decided to bring my hand that was holding the skin back and I was going to slide the safety gauge up but because I Kind of at the same time was coming back.  What do I do? What if this patient, you know has had be HIV now? I just exposed myself to those things I was newly married at the time and now if I have it then I have to worry about exposing my husband to it And we were talking about potentially starting a family. So now I got to worry about my future kids Just every single thought was running through my head and I was like What do I do next and my first thought was like I was kind of embarrassed like I was embarrassed to speak up and say anything because I was like I'm a newer ICU nurse are people going to judge my nursing skills based on this Are they going to think I'm reckless or careless? But I knew that like I needed to say something because like the patient needed to get tested now for HIV Be all of those different things and I wanted to make sure that like Whatever I stuck myself with that I potentially was going to get treated or covered for it So I immediately went and told my charge nurse what happened She was very understanding and then we went ahead and contacted occupational health and notified them of the event I drew some labs on the patient so that way we could test them for all the different things and those lab results came Back very very quick. I want to say like within six hours or so and fortunately the patient was negative for everything So I could not get anything if the patient, you know, didn't have anything But I still had to follow up with occupational health and I wanted to get my labs drawn to make sure like that I didn't have HIV that I didn't have Hep B or any of those things at occupational health. They drew my labs to test me for Like HIV Hepatitis B and C and also my antibodies to like Hepatitis B because I had received the traditional three-dose vaccine for Hep B and Unfortunately, I wasn't positive for you know, like an active infection of anything But I was shocked to find out that my Hep B antibodies were actually negative I didn't even realize that this was a thing because I had received the traditional three doses of the Hep B vaccine and a timely matter. I didn't realize that I could still Test negative for antibodies and I actually learned that there are a lot of people that are considered non-responders to the Hep B vaccine Meaning that if they get the vaccine They still potentially don't form the antibodies which means that you're still at high risk for Contracting these things if you're exposed to them. So occupational health offered me a booster vaccine and I got that but then recently a couple months ago, I got my labs routinely drawn for something else and Come to find out that I am still a non-responder for the Hep B Vaccine and I have no antibodies against it This makes me a bit anxious and definitely extra cautious knowing that I am Exposed to bodily fluids and whatnot in my profession like every single shift and that now I'm at higher risk for Hep B and learning this made me wonder like how many other health care workers are out there who are either One non-responders like me or two didn't receive all three doses of the traditional Hep B vaccine It's estimated that around 40% of health care professionals did not receive all three doses of their Hep B vaccine Leaving them potentially at risk to contracting Hep B and Hep B has been on a 11% Increased rise over the last five years. This should be very alarming to those health care professionals who are working because Even though we're vaccinating against something It's not showing to be adequately protecting health care workers. Also health care professionals experience 600 to 800,000 Potential exposures to hepatitis B and other diseases through needle sticks and splashes as a nurse myself I would like to encourage you guys to Ensure that you are protected against Hep B the traditional three dose Hep B vaccine can fall short and leave nurses and other health care professionals in a very vulnerable place and Nurses need to know that there are newer vaccine options available We also need to demand a closer look at the Hep B vaccination options that are being currently offered to us If any of this strikes a chord with you I highly recommend going to the link question my protection calm Which will be in the description box below to learn more about hepatitis B there You can also sign a petition to encourage decision makers to better protect health care workers against hepatitis B Thank you guys so much for watching this video I know so many of you probably have clicked on this because you also have experienced a needle stick or it's a fear of yours I think any health care professional is always Nervous about potentially being exposed to things and I know that I was and I am and I forever will be extra cautious and careful Please know that if you get a needle stick or have an exposure like It happens it doesn't mean you are a bad nurse a bad health care worker But please let your charge nurse know or whoever the next appropriate person is to let them know so that way You can make sure that you're safe and the patient can get tested and whatnot and most importantly Please know your vaccination status to make sure that you are Adequately protected against any potential exposures that you may have make sure you visit the link in the description box And I'll see you guys in my next video. Bye


Grace has a couple of great questions here. One is, how do I help my clients understand that hiring me doesn't equal results? I already say this to them, but sometimes I feel like they might say, okay, what am I hiring you for? I totally appreciate this question because obviously you help your clients get results, but I say this all the time. We can't ethically promise results. And when I say that, I mean by ethically, but also just strategically we can't promise results because that's how we build a questionable reputation in the long-term when we're promising results and then not everybody, everybody's different. Every client's different. How they implement what you advise to them, they could screw things up too. It's not anybody's fault, it's just, everybody has a different stage in their work. And anyway, so really appreciate this question. So a long time ago, I stopped promising results. I used to do that too. In the very beginning of my business, I thought that was what we're supposed to do. And then over time, I realized why, wait a second, I can't make my clients do things or do things the way that I think it should be done. And also the market, the audience, the world has many factors that we can't guarantee results for anybody, okay? Because of anything that happens in people's lives and in society. So therefore what do we promise if not results? We promise to show up with care. We promise that we have experience, that's what we can promise for sure. And we promise that we are gonna walk them through a particular process. That's what we can promise, to do it with care, to do it with our experience. And we can share testimonials obviously, right? So, but then once they are in the conversation with us, if they're gonna say, all right Grace, so if I hire you, you're gonna get me a six figure, five figure launch, six figure launch, right? They say, wait a second. No, that's not, nobody can promise you that. And in fact, if you are literally in a conversation with them, right? So, if you are actually in conversation or messaging with them and they ask, can you get me a five, six figure launch because you're a launch strategist, your answer, my answer would be, my answer would be, has someone been promising you that? Because if they are, they're using a sales strategy that is unethical.  Are they literally going to work for you 24 seven, 365? Even if they work for you, even if I work for you, I can't promise you results because I can't even promise myself results, right? Also, I would also say to them, I can promise, well, I mean, I'm not gonna say promise, but I would say, let's look at your recent launch history. We will try to at least match if not exceed that, but no matter what, I don't know, I'll literally say, but no matter what, you're going to have a more structured and less stressful launch process going forward. I mean, that's what you've been promised, that my gosh, I'm gonna put my experience onto your launch so that we're gonna create a system where you can keep launching in the future. You have less stress because you're more streamlined with your process, you're using better strategies.   So how do we, so really the question is, the real question, okay, I think the real question is how do we attract the clients who understand, right?  So how do we do that? We educate them through our content. So it takes time for people to understand that the process is more important than the results because if you look at like my Instagram or mine, you frequently see comments, right? Like example, look at my social media and you know, e.g. Instagram and you, you'll see people's comments, you know, comments say, wow, I never thought that way. You know, that's a great example that guess what? I am, we are making a difference and we are changing minds. And the person who says I never thought that way, they're going to keep reading, watching and now they'll understand, you know, going forward. So then when they come talk to you, they'll be ready, you know. And the next one, get more interviews on podcasts, video channels, you're great on video and you should do that more that have your ideal audience. People who are more like, if we're trying to draw an audience that cares more about process, you know, who cares more about process than results, we want to be interviewed on channels that care about personal growth, who care about longer-term thinking, you know, and who care about more holistic values. So you can find channels like, we don't want to be on channels.  You could be on channels like that to shock them, to say, I know you're thinking you can get this, but let me tell you the truth from my years of experience, okay? So in your interview, talk about the process and why the results shouldn't be the focus and you will be a really unique voice in that channel. So Grace, that makes sense? Yeah, okay, cool. Yeah, you know, it does take time. I mean, I, well, you know, it doesn't have to take a lot of time. When you start communicating something, you know, let me just say this, you know, be bold in communicating your true thoughts, especially if they are against the mainstream or popular ideas in your industry. Because when you start doing that, you don't have, it doesn't have to take that much time. People will get surprised by what they're seeing and then they will share it and then they will think about it and then they will look at more of your stuff and then before too long, you now have at least a small dedicated following and then you could share as, hey folks, if you wanna talk about this, you know, let's talk kind of thing. So, yeah.