Welcome back everyone, theCube's live coverage here. Mongo, local, New York City's packed house. End of the day, we're doing a wrap-up keynote review analysis, we've got an analyst panel here. We're going to break it down. Nothing's, everything's on the table. Stephen O'Grady, Principal Analyst, founder at Redmonk. Deep in the developer ecosystem, open source coverage for over 15 years now. Too long. Congratulations. We have a Lovers founder and principal analyst, Lopez Research. Guys, we've been around the block on these events we've seen in the movie before. We're kind of at this new inflection point, Maribel. We're seeing kind of like this next wave come and it's kind of building on the wave we've been in. Like open source, you know, cloud native, cloud growth, but it feels a lot different with the AI stuff. It just feels more, I almost say dot-com bubble-ish in a way it does, but like, it's got legit legs. I think, what's your opinion? Hey, you know, data's all the rage right now. We've been talking about it for a while. AI has really got everybody enthused about the opportunity with data, but the fact is, if you're looking at AI, you're looking at large volumes of data, you're looking at the need for really performing systems. We're talking a lot about integrating that with the cloud, but also being able to make sure that you can connect with your on-prem data sources. So it's a really complicated environment, but it's nice to see companies like Mongo try to step it up and add things like stream processing, add vector. We saw a lot of good announcements today that are really related to helping the developer out, helping make this process of actually moving to real-time actioning work. Steven Open Source is the real driver here. I mean, I was, they have a vector database. Everyone's bolting on all this stuff. I'm streaming natively in there, but Milvus is a project in the Linux Foundation that does the same thing, no mention of that. So you've got other Open Source projects, probably like, what, seven vector databases out there in the market. It seems like everyone's kind of like in this new world from a, on the fence standpoint, like, which community's going to get all the AI? LangChain's certainly doing great.  Right. Yeah, it's, as you say, it's crowded field, right? And AI has been probably the most transformative sort of macro trend that we've seen in a couple of decades at this point, right?   This is sort of the, I think one of the first waves where, you know, when we go talk to companies now, when we talk about what they're doing, it's actually real, it's real work, right?  Whereas in years past it'd be potentially jumped up, you know, linear regression or, you know, it was not what we today think of as AI. So in the vector space, you know, because that, you know, is a facet of that market, there's a lot of interest, there's a ton of talk, a ton of chatter, and now it's just going to be, you know, to your point, like, who hangs out with who? And, you know, it's one of the reasons, like, we like what we do. We get to figure out and track this stuff and try to understand what are developers using and why they're using it.  Just a way in on that though, right? I think it's really exciting that we get to have a lot of companies, because you get to have a lot of companies, you can't make a market with one, right? So you need a lot of competition, you need people to push the ideas forward. I think what both of what we're seeing is it's moving really fast, like faster than it's ever moved in our careers. And I just think that's really good for enterprise IT buyers. I think it introduces a lot of confusion though over how to figure out who to work with and, like, how long they're going to be ready to work with them. Out of control. Yeah, totally. Well, the thing that gets my attention, I agree with you guys both, it's that, but the applications are impact. You're seeing apps being built. And so to me, what gets me excited, I want to ask you guys how you see and how you're framing it in your research, because I don't think the puzzle's complete, but you can put the borders together, is that the people are building apps. Yeah. And you know, Amazon's like, we have bedrock. No, we don't care what to run on yet. Right. Or what the GPU, I want to build my apps. Right. So building and then running them kind of going on. It feels like cloud early days, where I had EC2 and S3 and SQS, that was good enough. Yeah. Do my SaaS app in the cloud, and then I was good, got better obviously, but similar moment here. And what's different though is that there's really use cases that people can see. Yeah. And you know, the old expression, beauty's in the eye of the beholder. Right. Every company has that look, like I see three things I could do tomorrow. Right. And this is the dynamic. Will open source drive that? Will proprietary models leak? Because they got the GPUs already secured? Yeah. Or does it matter? Who cares? I guess my question is, how do you guys see this market developing? Because apps are involved. That means that's going to impact the business model of the company. Well, I'll just all throw it quickly that I think one of the biggest issues that I see currently is that in the AI space in particular, companies are misusing and misapplying the open source label. Right. So in other words, we have a bunch of models that have come out. The source of these models is available, but the license is under a non-commercial license. Right. That is essentially not, that is fundamentally not what open source is about. And the difficulties is that you now see people going off and building apps on this. It's been billed as open source to them. They feel that they have the same rights that they've always enjoyed with open source software. And yet, at some point, somebody's going to look at the license underlying and say, uh-oh, I can't build a business like this. Right, so the first thing to me that has to happen in all this is that- GPL had that same problem early days, remember? Well, the GPL, it was difficult to understand. But in other words, we've had 30 years. And even the most conservative enterprise license people now, they understand, okay, this is what it is. And the challenge now is you see these brand new licenses come out that prohibit things, they ask for royalties and everything else, and it's like, all right, we need to sort that out first.  They're young innovators. Meta did this last week. So Meta released a model, and they themselves on Twitter call it open source, it's not. It comes out under a non-commercial license. So like I said, that needs to get sorted first. Yeah, that's a head fake, by the way, too. Big time. And it's one of many, right? So the other side of that, if you take a look from the enterprise buyer side, one of the things that we're starting to see happen is, you know, there's open source that has more commercial grade security and manageability around it, and then there's just open source, right? And understanding what you're using, how that's going to be supportive moving forward, if you're going to be able to have all the regulatory compliance and other things you need, do you have to go buy a service from like Azure for Azure services for open AI or something like that? That's really complicated. And I think after everybody went all like chat, GPT, GAGA, happy and thought that AI could do everything on the planet, right? It went from though we can't do anything with AI to like, oh yeah, we're going to do everything with AI. And then it came back to hallucinations of people were like, oh, put the brakes on, right? And now people are putting their proprietary code into a system that is open and they can't get it out. So all of a sudden there's a lot of nuancing and I think this is the opportunity for technology vendors to come in and say, okay, here's what you actually need to make AI work in a secure and compliant way that leverages open source, right? And that's still really fascinating. What's interesting about MongoDB, I'd love to get you guys thoughts around the economics. Okay, they're about a billion in change right now. They want to get to, I think he said 1.5, or he said, I think two is the stretch number. I mean, to get to $10 billion in revenue, they got to actually be commercial. Okay, and they're an open source company right now and Atlas is doing great. So if they're going to be a data platform, they got to solve these problems, right? So that means they got to be, they got to, I won't say relinquish their open source roots, which is organic bottoms up. They have a really good bottoms up mojo going on, but they want to be $10 billion in revenue. You kind of got to get up to the ivory tower and work on some of those top down issues, compliance, licensing, I don't want to get sued. What code are we using? This is kind of the, I think the dilemma or my IP's being, who's using that? Kill ChatGPT, no one, no more open AI. I mean, seen that right now. So I see this top down, bottoms up, not challenge, but more of, this is serious. We have to kind of rein it in. Let the chaos reign, reign in the chaos as Andy Grove's famous line is. So the question mark, what do companies do? Because you don't want to foreclose the innovation and then more creativity. So are you guys seeing that, are you advising companies on how to think about it? Is there any kind of visibility into a playbook? Well, you know, one of the things that happens is the customers are going to take Mongo to where they need to be, right? So Mongo's already got, I think in the keynote, they were talking about 43,000 companies. They had a lot of really impressive logos. They also talked about working with the startups on the AI side. So it's not like they don't have enterprise buyers using them. So the question now becomes is, there's that kind of co-innovation of like where we want to take you next. And if you look at some of the stuff that was announced, clearly it was things people asked for. So I think that Mongo's at that point in their journey where every company has to like cross their own enterprise IT chasm, right? That's where they are right now. And they have a lot of opportunity to do so. They have a lot of license to do so. And I think that the good news about that is there seems to be enthusiasm around adopting the platform and making it happen. If we were talking a year ago, maybe there was slightly different discussion around it. But once you get to that point, you kind of think it's a go and I feel like it's a just don't screw it up, right? Like you can make it happen, just don't do anything to screw it up. What do you think, Steve? For me, I think it's just, we've been advising open source companies for a long time. And what we always tell them is that, particularly in this day and age, the simplest model for you is as a service, right? In other words, Dave said it in one of the sessions today where when the company IPO'd, Atlas was 3% of the revenue, it's now 65% of the revenue, right? So it's no secret, the money from all these services is coming, running them as managed services. And if you are the company who is best in the world at producing a particular service, guess what? People will pay you for that. And Albongo has had two companies, two very large competitors clone the API and yet they're still here and they're still growing. And it doesn't matter at the end of the day that their source code is available. So that's the thing. If you focus on what customers want, customers don't want the source code, they don't want the product. In most cases, what they want is somebody else to run it for them. Yeah, and they have the experience on this trajectory. They've been doing it, the platform for multiple years since they took them, what? Four years to build Atlas. And then it's been in marketing now for what? Six years, roughly so, give or take. So they have a little bit of an increase of scale there. But it brings up another good point. If open source is going to continue to thrive and you're seeing more software being built, I mean, you look at some of the things that the Prometa Llamas stuff got, it's getting repurposed in other open source projects that's lightweight, super fast.  Now they don't have any data. The data holders have the value, right? So back to the app integration, I see this whole programming model where data is like, feels like the security shift left kind of mindset of, get the developers something quickly. So they can code at the point of coding in the CICD pipeline. And I don't know how to call it yet. I can't put my finger on it, but it feels like it has to happen fast. Your reaction to that? Nothing, nothing burger? You can say it. You can say it. I don't know. I guess I got a couple of different reactions. The first one back on your last point is I think the multi, you mentioned as a service and the multi cloud thing is actually really important there as well. If you look at anything, they're trying to create a platform. So what do you need around a platform? You need things like app marketplaces and integration and other stuff to go with that, right? Because the more people that are leveraging your platform, the more powerful and strategic you are to an organization. So I feel like that's another iteration of talking about what has to happen for them to be a real big enterprise player. And we've got my attention from the conversation I heard with some of the people today was the CTO said to me, yeah, we have a sub millisecond failover on our databases distributed. And I could roll my workload right over to BigQuery. And I'm like, hmm, that's interesting, moving workloads around that fast and to take advantage and consume other services. Yeah.  I know, but the idea of it, but remember in the edge, we had the big debate about move compute to the data. Data's strapped right now. Moving data is your egress killing the people. But the point that's really well taken there is the point that you've taken that whole set of concerns off the table, right? So they're not worried about like the ability to failover. They're not worried about like specific cloud lock-in to use stuff, right? So once you get to that point, you know, the customer can focus on the innovation and they don't have to focus on some of the things that are really important, but aren't the things that are going to differentiate the business, right? And the numbers show as a service works. So integrating services, whether it's consuming new things from other people, it becomes an integration game. It feels like, it just feels, I think it feels hyped up for sure, but I just feel like it's the gen AI stuff is legit value. It's legit. Well, AI is happening. I mean, there's just no doubt about that. AI is happening. And the only question for organizations is, how do you make it happen fast and secure? And how do you pivot it if you got it wrong, right? That seems to be the- We got the beer out here, rings rocking, we're getting into the day. Okay, final question. Your two-part question. Give them a grade, letter grade for the show. They're positioning, they're messaging what they're doing. And then what advice would you give leadership on what to do, change, double down on? I'm going to let you get it for sure. I can take that. I think for me, the show is definitely, it's an A, they get high marks, because in other words, the key insight I think that they've had, which a lot of vendors struggle with, is that it's not necessarily a marketing event, it's about developers and bringing people in and getting them using their software. And that's been the focus, it's been the focus on the keynotes, it's been the focus here, it's sort of down on the floor. So that is something, I don't want to say that, you know, sort of Mongo lost that, because that certainly was its roots in the early days was easy to use, easy to pick up and get going with. But as they built up as a company, it sort of went, you know, sort of after enterprise customers, you know, it's harder to hear that developer message and they've refocused on that here. And as far as a piece of advice I'd give them, you know, honestly to me, it is really sort of more of the same and trying to, so if your market is developers, how do you make their lives easier, right? How do you put these pieces together? Because the database is a, it's an important piece of the tool chain, but it's just one part, right? So in other words, you know, you talk to them about the work that they're doing, integrating with partners like, you know, for sales and so on in the world, who are doing things with the developer experience, like more of that, right? Smooth out those rough edges, make developers' lives easier, and if you do that, they'll be happy and they'll use your stuff. I'm going to give them two grades, because I'm going to break this up into two parts. Part A, developers.  The reality is, is developers aren't going anywhere, you need like really good developers for certain things. I think that, I'm with Steve, we're going to give it an A for the developer, because there was a lot of talk about what the developers care about, how they're making things more simplistic, there was actual news around that. I'm going to give it a B for the second category, which are the check signing people. I think Mongo needs to do a better job of appealing to the check signing people, because right now there's a lot of organizations that are out there trying to figure out what sort of things do I need to make this AI transition happen. And you know, Mongo's not going to be the first person that comes up to the list. They had some good, in the innovation awards, they had some good insight there. I think more of those customer case stories really needs to be told to kind of bring it to life for everyone. You're a tough teacher, you're bringing down written composition, different sub-categories of the topic. Why make it easy? I'll give them an A minus, mainly because I do agree with, I think they get an A for the developers, but I want to see more meat on the bone on cloud native as it relates to the enterprise. Application, fidelity on what the delivery is, what they were going to bring to the CXO level. Security, we heard reinforce, authorization is a big part of scaling out, privileges, access has been a problem. So these are a little in between the toes details that I didn't hear much of here, so I give them a little ding on that. Other than that, I love the developer angle. If they can nail this developer-led innovation, I truly believe that developers are going to come up and influence purchase decisions, and I think they have to connect that with either the business case or manage some of the compliance stuff and just create global entry. Love your developer, how many people say it, but don't do it, so it's nice to actually see it, yeah. Is it good or bad? This sounds like, I think it's good, I think it's really good. We talk to people all the time, they say they want to build a developer community and then they don't have anybody, right? You talk to them a year later and nothing's happened, they didn't do anything. Who's that targeted towards? Developer or the CXO? Both, in other words, you're talking about, you're trying to sell the CXO on that as a vision, and you're trying to advocate on behalf of the developer. Absolutely, love it. It's a lot of band bottom, you got it. Developer, developers, developers. Yeah, developers are the standard. Steven, Maribel, thanks for coming on. We're getting the hook. Thank you for breaking down all the action with the analysts here on Mongo. They're getting good grades on this panel, A's across the board. There you go. The database guys all gave them a B. No surprise. Different perspective. There you go. All right, we got all the angles covered here. We'll be right back with our last interview here after this short break.


Global meat production has skyrocketed over the last half century, with pork and poultry meat now exceeding 100 megatons a year, 100 million tons, and this growing demand is unsustainable. The reduction of animal products is arguably one of the most impactful ways in which individual consumers can alter their diets to possibly impact individual and societal well-being. There's definitely growing interest in plant-based diets and meat reduction, but even just something like meatless Mondays requires dietary change, and sadly, neither sustainability or health approaches are likely to work with those who love their meat. But swapping in plant-based meat substitutes may help kind of disrupt the negativity about reducing meat, but for hardcore meat-eaters, it's gotta taste like it and look like it. It's interesting, the more people consume meat substitutes, the less likely they are to care that it has a similar taste, texture, appearance, or smell of meat. But to appeal to those who really need them, the meatier, the better. This has certainly been accomplished with the spate of new products on the market, with all studies agreeing that they're healthier for the planet, but what about healthier for us? Comparing labels of the burgers and looking for the worst components of the foods that supply trans fats, saturated fats, sodium, and cholesterol, the plant-based burgers win hands down when it comes to trans fat and cholesterol. We all know trans fats is a serious potential risk factor for cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes, but it's also been recently associated with symptoms of depression, lower testosterone in men, even just like 1% of calories, and dementia. Higher levels of trans fats in the blood is associated with up to a 50% higher risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer's. Now that partially hydrogenated oils have been phased out of the food supply, the only major source of trans fats left will be from animal products. What's the tolerable upper daily intake level for trans fats? An upper limit was not set for trans fat by the Institute of Medicine because any incremental increase in trans fat intake increases the risk of heart disease, the number one killer of men and women, as in any intake above zero. Because trans fatty acids are unavoidable in diets that contain metered dairy, consuming zero trans fat would require significant changes in patterns of dietary intake. One of the authors to the report from Harvard's Nutrition Department offered a memorable explanation for why the Institute of Medicine panel didn't cap it at zero. We can't tell people to stop eating all meat and all dairy products. He said, well, we could tell people to become vegetarians, he added. If we were truly basing this only on science, we would, but it is a bit extreme. Wouldn't want scientists to base anything on science now, would we? No. But anyways, that's a big advantage. And of course, no hormones, no antibiotics, hasn't been designated as probably cancer-causing by the World Health Organization and on and on. Now, I'm not happy with the added salt, which is about a quarter. The American Heart Association's 1,500 milligram daily upper sodium limit or the saturated fat thanks to added coconut oil. But these two seem to be outliers. I'm in the largest study of the nutritional value of plant-based meats today. Saturated fat levels of similar products only average about two grams per serving much better than the animal-based equivalents. Sodium remains a problem throughout the sector, though, like nearly any other processed food out there. How processed are these products? Well, if you look at the fiber content, for example, yes, I mean, to see any fiber in a burger, that's a good thing, but I mean, compare that to a whole food, right? If you ate the same amount of protein from yellow peas, for example, the primary plant protein in Beyond Burgers, there'd be almost no saturated fat in sodium and a whopping 20 grams of fiber. So yes, processing plants in a processing plant can eliminate 90% of the fiber, but processing plants through animals eliminates 100% of the fiber. So of course, as the chair of Harvard's Nutrition Department put it, nutrition policies and dietary guidelines should continue to emphasize the diet rich in whole plant foods, such as nut seeds and legumes or pulses, which are rich in protein and many other nutrients, but require little industrial processing. But we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Not everyone can go all kale and quinoa overnight. The choice on the Burger King menu isn't between this and this, but between this and this, and in that case, it's a no brainer.


NCHA Non-Pro World Championship and that was Caitlin Wimberley. She rode light and lily in the finals. Congratulations to you Caitlin. Thank you so much. How did you feel coming into the finals event? You were leading by some $23,000 so a good lead. Pretty confident? I was confident but I was also concerned. I had a little bit of stress after the first night but all in a way thank goodness because I was second the first night and that definitely sealed it and the stress that was taken off my shoulders was huge and it felt so good to know that it was just going to be fun the last three rounds and I didn't have to worry about how we placed and how we did and my secondary goal was to be the average champion so that all worked out and it was surreal. Well it looks like you probably got the top score of the event, the 227? No ma'am. The 229 was the highest score. That was the first night because when I marked the 227, Judy marked the 229 that night so I was second that night. Judy, that horse and her are phenomenal. They're such a great pair. There's so much fun to watch so I was happy for her. Tell us about Light and Lily. You had not just this mare, you had some other horses throughout the year. Tell us firstly about the mare and who else you had. Lily, she's bred at home, raised at home, RL Chartier, he keeps her going for me. He does a great job. They take such great care of her. She's part of their team too and so I'm very fortunate to have them and she's just outstanding. That mare has taken me through so much. In 2013 we were a reserve horse of the year with her, showed her a lot. She was great. She's been great the whole time. She's so much fun to show. And then I also have two geldings, Laredo Montana who's also home bred and raised and Sir Stylish Lizzie who I bought from Michael Cooper and his family and they're both great geldings and all three are so different to show. It's like I have to reset and retrain myself every time I set on one because they're all three so different. But they're so much fun and they mean so much to me. Those three horses have gotten me where I am today. They really, they mean so much. So when I set out for the world this year I wanted to show those three and do it on those horses because they're just, they're my favorites. You know, everybody's always asked me to pick a favorite and I don't have one there. I can't, I can't choose between the three of them. So you had a bit of a strategy with your horses coming into the year. How did you choose which horse and when? A little bit with the situation depending on the ground, the pen, the cattle, where we were. But for the most part I showed Lily at the Mercurias. I showed Sir Stylish Lizzie and a couple as well. I was reserve on him twice. But yeah, it kind of just depended on, on the situation, the circumstances. I tried to be as smart as I could about it and I think for the most part it worked out like it needed to. Lily was phenomenal at all the Mercurias. I mean, she couldn't have been any better and I really, I just enjoyed, I enjoyed the strategy part of it because it was, it was, that was the most stressful part was the planning, getting where we're going, which horse we're taking, how we're getting there, where we're going after. So much of it has to do with the calendar and, and how you organize and, and plan all that. There's a lot more to it than just showing up and showing. I think that's the easy part really because the horses are so good. So the hardest part for me was actually the planning and, and figuring out where to go, when to go, who to go with, you know, that's, that's the, that's the hard part. That's the key. That's obviously a big part of your success. Would you say being smart about the planning? Definitely, definitely. I think, you know, when I hauled the last time, I wasn't, it was my first time to try and I think that that was, I learned so much that year and, and if it hadn't been for that year, I may not have come out on top this year. I think, I think doing it twice, for somebody that can just go the first time and win kudos to them because I think it's, it's a really, really hard thing to do. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. Hands down, I mean, and, and the most stressful and the most work, I mean, it is so much work and so much planning, like I said, so much goes into it, so much more than just those two and a half minutes. There's a lot to it. So it, it means so much. Did you do a lot of it on your own or did you have help or people traveling with you? I had, I had help along the way, but for the planning part of it, the working part of it, most of it, I did myself. I had some help, like I said, from RL, like he keeps really tuned up for me when I was on the West Coast, so I was working her myself. And so that was kind of stressful because she's, she, she's so special. I have a hard time working her myself because it worries me that I'm gonna mess her up. But, but the gildings I work myself. And, but yeah, for the most part, you know, I pick my own cows, I do my own thing. And, and I think, and that means a lot to me as well, you know, I don't have it going down the road with me. I'm not under somebody's wing. I, I handle most of it myself. And with a lot of help, don't get me wrong. I mean, it's a team effort. And I have so much support and so many people helping me along the way. But when it comes down to it, yeah, it was kind of kind of a, you know, by myself kind of situation, you know, but, but there's so many people that I could mention and think if I tried to, I'd miss somebody. So I'm not going to. But, but yeah, there's so many people that helped me along the way. And I'm so thankful for them. When you say it's the hardest thing you've ever done, what stands out in your mind when you say that? Oh, man. I think, I think channeling the thoughts, you know, keeping yourself at an even level and not getting too high or too low, like just to stay consistent. Consistency is definitely key for all of this. And there were lots of high times. I was very fortunate that, that for the most of the year, we were on a good role most of the year. But there were definitely sometimes when we were on a bad role and to stay even and to not get too emotional about it is really hard to do. And the first year I did this and really any year up until now, I just at the beginning of the year, I kind of, I tried to train myself to just, to just go show like it is what it is and is what it isn't, you know, and it's just hard to, it's hard to stay mentally game. And I think I did that this year. And I'm really proud of myself for doing that. And then that was hard. It's very challenging, very challenging to stay focused and stay even and, and to just go to your job. Yeah. Well, as you say, it might only go two and a half minutes, but you have to do that repetitively in different places throughout an entire year. So, staying focused is, is not the easiest thing when you've got life happening as well. Ultimately, what would you say this, this championship means to you? Oh man. That's, that's a hard question. It means so much. I mean, obviously I can't, it's something I've wanted for a long time. And I've looked up to all these people that have hauled for so long. And the respect I have for the people that do this, you know, especially you can't understand or appreciate what it takes until you do it. And, and that's something that I think everybody in this industry should, you should have a goal, whether it be to haul for a world championship or, you know, to go show you three year old, well, whatever it is, those goals, you know, you set them and you work hard. And sometimes you achieve them, sometimes you don't. But just because you're second doesn't mean that you didn't do a good job. I mean, I've come up short in this industry a lot. You know, being reserve world champion, it was hard to be reserved, but at the same time it doesn't take away from, from the accomplishment. And the same thing with horse of the year, I was, I was reserve horse of the year. And it seems like I've always been second. And, and exactly, you know, I'm there and I'm competitive, but I've always, I've always been second. And this year, I was so happy to be first. And finally, what did you learn about yourself hauling this year and winning this title? How strong I am. I'm stronger than I thought I was, I think. I'm really, and, and aggressive. I didn't know I had so much grit to me, I think, you know, and I'm glad. I think that I've learned, I've learned a lot about myself and, and I'm excited to see where, where I go from here. Because I think that I'm kind of a new, new mentality, new focus on life. And, and I'm excited to see where I can take it from here. I'm excited to show my age now, really get back to the, back to the big fans. Well, congratulations and good luck with all that.


It is the iSquared-C QT Rotary Encoder Breakout with Neopixel. You can plug this in over the Stem-AQ-T cable, add a rotary encoder to it. So this plugs right into here. But by adding this board, you get a really convenient way to add a rotary encoder to your project. So I've plugged this into one, two, three, and four of our rotary encoder breakouts. And then you can see we're getting an update on the encoder values of three of them. That's just what fit in the code here over iSquared-C. So these have up to eight of them chainable on a single iSquared-C port because they have different address jumpers on the bottom side of them. That's my product pick of the week. It is the iSquared-C QT Rotary Encoder Stem-AQ-T with Neopixel Breakout Board.


Good afternoon pastor David. Hey John. Welcome everybody to a random moment with pastor David unfiltered You know pastor a while back you gave a message and it's really Stuck with me all this time in and you were speaking at it. You're teaching at a second Timothy chapter 4 and you came across Demis and at one time Demis was Considered fruitful for the ministry and then later on when we look at 2nd Timothy chapter 4 verse 10 It says for Demis has forsaken me having loved this present world and has departed for Thessalonica You know pastor in all the years as doing ministry even as you're raising up men in our mentoring class You you you disciple men The Demis's are there still Demis There are always going to be Demis's in the church always You know funny thing about it. I was recently sharing on this topic in in Florida. I went I Was I went to a men's conference. I was teaching at a men's conference in West Florida by by Tampa in a place called Brandon and This was one of the messages I gave on Demis. Yeah There are Demis's that are in the church, you know Paul speaks about him and Shares of him more than once he's mentioned more than once in scripture and he's looked at and recognized and identified as a fellow worker a fellow Minister of the gospel. He was somebody who visited Paul when Paul was in in prison. He was aware of the conditions Paul lived under and He was somebody mentioned To to churches and the churches will remember his name when mentioned, you know the churches of that age and I was sharing how it was a blessing for him to be Remembered throughout church history. I mean every time you read Colossians and and a couple other portions of scripture that refer To him every time you read it. You you read the name of Demis. So his name was was It's been recorded in the history of the church and so Demis was somebody who was a traveling companion of Paul Demis was an individual who was known as a servant As I've mentioned in the past Demis was so well known that the people would recognize the name once it was was mentioned and It would be like this it would be like if you were having a church service or perhaps you're having a conference and and people would look into the back of the room and they'd see a little bit of a commotion perhaps somebody's about to come in and They would look and they'd say to one another That's Demis Demis is he travels with Paul.  I mean, it's obvious. He was a man who had great credibility And yet Paul's epitaph for him the last statement you ever hear of this man Demis is Demis has departed. He has abandoned me. He has forsaken me. He has left me holding the bag He said and has departed to Thessalonica. He said Having loved this present world. He departed. He abandoned me So there are men that we can think of right now Who had very well-known ministries men if I mentioned their names? People would instantly recognize their name. They'd say oh, yeah, he had a great work great ministry There are men like Demis who having loved this present age departed Abandoned completely for sook and left Paul there, you know Demis had the opportunity to travel with Paul. He he may very well have Never traveled much before because during the time of Paul not everybody had a chance to get on a ship and travel from one point To another not everybody went to Rome not everybody went to some of the major cities Ephesus and all Not many people had that opportunity Demis did Demis was able to see various things went to various places and he was able to see How the other other half lives used to we used to say that how the other how the other half lives Those who are rich and those who are well known and and so on the one hand he Sees all the riches and on the other hand he sees this old man in a jail cell All he wants is a cloak and some parchments and Eventually he begins thinking apparently Where's it get you where to get Paul? I've seen some of the other better things in the world and now I just see an old man Saying I'm cold. Can you please bring me? Parchments, please Bring me the scrolls bring me the word of God. I need these things and for Demis I know I love this present age. I don't care about the age to come I don't care about heaven. I don't care about the pie in the sky buy and buy I want what I can get right now. So are there men like Demis? Absolutely. Have I encountered them indeed? Do they go to church even in this fellowship? I'm certainly do What are they looking for something beyond? The promises of the kingdom they're looking for something that that will be more Right now for them more pleasant right now for them and and they walk away What do you do? You've got to set your sights On things above and not on things that are on the earth. You've got to hold fast to what is true and Not let go of it. You need to you need to Move towards gaining the prize of eternal life through Jesus Christ and actually and actually value that above everything else because What we have right now is temporary but what we lay ahead in heaven is is eternal And you need to cultivate this in your mind. You need to actually believe that And you need to pursue that with all of your heart And learn the lesson of Demis because yeah, there are there are many people in the church Who it wasn't hard for them to stop attending church It wasn't hard for them to stop going to bible studies You know, if I look back at this fellowship, john, I've been here for 40 years and And there were young people at one time in this church who who were at every bible study, you know, you have a midweek They're there you have a uh Our retreat they're there you have a sunday night. They're there you have regular church services They are in attendance. They get caught up in dating and they start Not coming as often to church not growing like they once not serving like they once did and They get married and then they have their children and and now you hear them saying well, you know I've got kids to raise and then after the kids have Growing up a little bit. We're going to be back You know, and then you you never see them again because they They love this present age that doesn't happen to everybody and yes, there are times that you need to To focus on certain things. Of course, I'm not saying that That you you shouldn't take care of the obligations and needs that you have but It's kind of easy for us to Forsake the things that got us to where we are To pursue other things. So yeah, I see that I see that often. I've seen that Many times, you know over the over the years. I followed the lord, you know having loved this present age It's still there pastor as a senior pastor I'm sure you've experienced the hurt that Paul must have gone through in some ways and and that You know, I didn't realize how Impact impact how much impact that demas had Were you pointed out that he would be a for example a conference and He would walk in and there'd be commotion because he was there. He was Paul wouldn't pulse guys And you know, as you're sharing this I I'm reminded when Jesus said even my familiar friend You know, uh, the demas is it was like he lifted up a heel against me That could imagine out of all the years that you've been a senior pastor You you gave that message of and it was almost like a bone chilling When you said demas, are you here? Yeah, I was speaking at a pastors conference and I was sharing with the men And I stopped for a moment. I said demas. Are you here? Where are you? I said, I know you're here I know you're here. Where are you demas? Because you're here right now And yes, and these are pastors and leaders in the church who will very definitely there will be some Who will having loved this present age depart. There's no doubt about it. I've seen it. I've been a christian 50 years I've been in ministry for 48 and I've been pastor ordained pastor for 40 42 years and I've pastored this church for 40 Can you imagine how many demas is can you imagine even here on this staff? How I've had demas is who who have Betrayed my trust as the pastor betrayed the trust of this church who have Gone off into areas that uh That have broken my heart to be honest with you that have disappointed me And hurt me in in in ways that um, then only a pastor would understand So, yeah, I've I've met my share of demas is I've even employed them and And it's still a warning It's still a warning that needs to be heated Don't love this present age Because it's all going to one day just Turn to nothing and god is going to create the new heavens and the new earth and And the only things that that matters are the things that you do for the lord and If we understood that john This church the church Would be making a better impact But because people they say well, you know, I can't go to church because I'm afraid of this or that or I can't this or that and The church I think is Is has been exposed and it's it's underbelly is very weak But then again, there are those who who say, um, you know what I'm I'm going to serve god No matter what and and they do whatever is necessary in their own context to do that and in this fellowship, we've seen many people who have Decided to do something else or go somewhere else and god bless them as they do I pray that wherever it is that they went that they're being fed That's all I care about for their sake john and then there are others who simply said, you know what? I don't need church anymore. I don't need to go there anymore I don't need to go anywhere anymore. And those they're the ones that break your heart but then They'll always be There will always be those that receive the the seed on the wayside or in In uh thorny ground or in the shallow shallow ground rocky soil. They'll always be that Then they'll always be a demas But then again, they will also always be a timothy very tight as Maybe even someday somebody like a paul Well, thank you pastor that we've been talking about this, you know off off camera For a little bit of time and and it was something I wanted to hear your heart on And so thank you and thank you guys for tuning in Joining us join us this sunday at 8 30 and 10 45 As pastor dave you're taking us through matt um mark gospel of mark. We're looking at the The parable of the mustard seed And want to invite your friends and family to come out and join us and then those who are going to israel We have an information meeting after second service this sunday in the sanctuary Even if you're thinking about going to israel, I know you may have questions come join us pastor david will be there bill for for liana will be there from inspired travel and uh and again pastor david Thank you for your time and friends. Thank you for tuning in. God bless you and pastor. We'll see you soon. Okay


That's sick Yeah, that's fire. This is fire, man. We told y'all yeah, we have a one-of-one Prime jumbo patch for Michael McDowell fire suit manufacturer That is sick One-of-one Let's go that's a race worn Yep race worn on the fire suit patch That's sick. We'll get that magged


The Seven Star Charizard event is dropping in literally two days of recording this video. We are going to go over the best Pokemon you can use, all the preparation you're going to need, and a mysterious item that not only breaks this Terra raid, but every single Terra raid after this in today's video. But before we get into today's video, please subscribe to the channel. Remember you can always unsubscribe later if you would like to. Now the Seven Star Charizard raid event is kicking off on the 1st of December. It is starting at 7pm Eastern time which works out to be about midnight Greenwich Mean Time over here in England. And it's going to be the first Seven Star raid that any of us in these new games have experienced. By now most of us will have played five star and six star Terra raids and have a good idea of how strong the Pokemon within these Terra raids are going to be. But this one is a little different. It is going to be a lot stronger. The Pokemon company are saying that you're not going to be able to take this on by yourself and you're going to need friends to be able to defeat this Charizard. Now we all thought the same when six star Terra raids were kind of first introduced but by now we've got a bunch of really solid strategies against these and you can even run through these solo if you've got the right setup. By the way if you want to check out the video on that I'll link it up in the top right hand corner now for you. But getting on to today's video we've got a bit of information about Charizard and what it will be in this Seven Star Terra raid. We know that it will have the Dragon Terra type so that instantly gives us a big advantage. We can use the type match up and use something like a Fairy type to hit the dragon Terra type super effective. The other thing that we're going to need to think about is obviously it is going to have those big fire type attacks because it's base typing is partially fire so you're going to need something like a water type. Now what fits this mold perfectly it is a zoomerill. A lot of people have been chatting about a zoomerill and I've seen a bunch of content about a zoomerill and it having the Assault Vest item to give it a bit more staying power against something like Charizard and this set is a great way to approach this match up because Charizard obviously going to be more specially based so it's going to hit on that special defense side of a zoomerill. For the Assault Vest you're going to be able to chunk things you're going to be able to disrupt and with huge power as its ability doubling its attack you're going to still be able to hit it for some big damage. But when I first looked at this raid and kind of started thinking about it I said a zoomerill but I wanted to play the belly drum set. Now we've recently seen how good something like Ironhands has been in the format at being a 5 and 6 star Terrarid destroyer. The issue is and the difference between Ironhands and a zoomerill is Ironhands has access to Drain Punch which gives it a form of recovery whereas that is something that a zoomerill just doesn't have and it lacks. It's going to have maybe a citrus berry but once you've got that initial recovery you've got nothing after that and that is where the problem lies for me with the belly drum set. So looking at all the options that a zoomerill had access to there was literally nothing but this got me thinking about other options outside the box and I remember the item Shellbell. Now the item Shellbell for those of you who don't know it recovers one-eighth of the damage done to an opposing target at the end of that turn and we know that Terrarid Pokemon have a HP multiplier on them. We know that 5 star Terrarid have a 20 times multiplier on them which makes HP absolutely ridiculous you know something like Gnyleb on level 75 is going to have like over 5000 HP if I'm getting my numbers right. So the natural thing to think of if you're doing big damage after you've boosted your attack you're going to do even more HP damage so it means that that eighth of recovery that you're going to receive is going to be huge and which results in most of the time after my testing that I did you're getting most of if not all of your HP back after one attack after that initial belly drum which just solves the whole issue with the belly drum a zoomerill set in the first place and I don't think this will just work for this specific Terrarid I think this is going to work for every single Terrarid be it a 5, 6 or 7 star in the future the Shellbell item is something that can be really utilized against these Terrarid bosses who have these huge HP multipliers an eighth of health recovery of the damage you've done especially if it's coming off a boosted damaging attack is going to be just enough to keep that Pokemon healthy and in a good attacking position where you're safe in Terrasilizing knowing that you're not going to get knocked out because you've got that constant recovery helping you stay topped up where you're going to be able to keep that Terrasilization for the entirety of the battle after you do Terrasilize whereas if you get knocked out you lose it and you're not able to do the damage that you quite need before the timer finishes so if this sounds like an enticing idea to you I'm going to go through next the step by step process of how you can get in a zoomerill train it up and get this item Shellbell so you can get a battle ready for when this Charizard then drops on the 1st of December a zoomerill can be caught as a wild terror Pokemon with the Fairy Terra type in Casaroya Lake between the large island you can see here and the smaller one in the north area of the lake this wild terror a zoomerill will be at level 55 and when you catch it it will have at least three perfect IVs the other added bonus here is it will have the Fairy Terra type which is something you're going to want to have on this particular zoomerill for the match up against Charizard now once you've caught this zoomerill take a quick trip to messago the west and visit the deli bird presents store where you can buy every number of bottle caps you need to max out its IVs obviously you can discount the special attack IV because this is going to be irrelevant no matter what you do so as long as you've got five perfect IVs for HP attack defense special defense and speed then you're going to be fine so just pick up whatever bottle caps you need to max out the remaining IVs that aren't maxed out already after you've caught it after this you're going to head up to montana vera and visit the chancy supply store in this town here you're going to buy an adamant mint if your nature isn't adamant already if it is that's a bonus for you and you've just saved a bit of money and you're also going to buy a bunch of vitamins for zoomerill's IVs you will want 26 HP vitamins and 26 protein vitamins and one zinc for the remaining four IVs that you'll have left over after these two now this will be an expensive step of course you're going to need a bit of money to be able to do this and you can always just go out into the wild and EV train through power bands and other methods of EV training that's a bit more affordable but this is the quickest method and this is what i'm putting in the video for you today after you've bought your vitamins and your nature mint you will stay in montana vera and then you will head back to the pokemon center and go behind it and head towards this npc character that is standing next to your bomber snow he is the hyper training npc character if you speak to him and your pokemon is above level 50 then he will hyper train your pokemon using bottle caps now these will be the bottle caps that you've just purchased just make sure that you use them on the right stats to get the flawless IVs that you want in those stats after he's finished you can then use your vitamins the HP vitamins and the protein vitamins and that one zinc and then use your nature mint as well to optimize its nature with an attack boost next up if you are going for this bellydrum set you will need the mirror herb item you will need to head to cascara for city and here you can pick up this item from the deli bird presents store for this step you will need a pokemon that knows the move bellydrum iron hands in pokemon violet is a very good option or harry amma is an alternative if you don't have access to iron hands now what you want to do is give the mirror herb to your azumarill and make it forget a move in your summary screen so azumarill only has three moves next put your bellydrum user in your party with azumarill and set up a picnic once you've done this you can exit the picnic pretty much straight away after setting it up and if you check your azumarill and its summary screen and its moves it will now have bellydrum that will be transferred over using the mirror herb from the pokemon that had bellydrum in your party and also if the azumarill you catch has thick fat like the one i caught in leg casserole then you are going to need to use an ability capsule to change this to huge power because huge power is the ability that you're going to need against this raid and to just maximise azumarill's potential out completely now the ability capsule is a rare item drop from five and six star terror raids but if you do enough for them it is an item that you're going to get quite quickly once you've used this and you have that huge power ability i would also recommend using pp ups on play rough this move can miss and the seven star raids will last a lot longer than other raids that we've done in the past so having more pp to compensate for both of these aspect is the best thing to help your preparation the final thing is to level up your azumarill and once it's at level 100 you will have a fully trained ready to battle pokemon and the stats will look like this you can see on this screen and you can see its evs are maxed out in its hp and attack so this is what it will look like have the huge power ability and an adamant nature which might not be apparent on its summary screen but you'll be able to see on the sat screen where the plus stat is by the red icon and the minus stat is in the blue icon and that'll tell you what nature this one is this one has a adamant nature and the final thing that we need to do is pick up the item shell bell the item shell bell can be received by visiting this pokemon center here in the south province area three you want to speak to the pokemon league official at this pokemon center and after you've beat a certain number of trainers in the south province area three area he will award you the shell bell item after you've got this attached to your azumarill and it's ready to go against this charizard when the event drops on the first of december so i know a lot of this is speculation going into this event because we don't know what to expect from it until it actually drops but we've got a good idea of what to expect knowing that six star terror aids are that level 75 you've got to assume that this seven star terror aid is going to be level 100 it is going to have an even higher multiplier on its hp number than the six star raids are going to have to make it that much more difficult but we know the typing we know the pokemon that is going to be we don't know the moveset just yet but we've got an idea of what it will use based on the strongest six star terror aid pokemon that we've seen and experienced already in these games i honestly think this azumarill will do good work the shell bell is a perfect option against pokemon that you're going to be doing big damage to with huge hp means you've got that recovery it means they're not going to be able to knock you out and you can continuously use this throughout the battle until you hopefully beat it and also with the belly drum as well you're going to have the damage output to keep up with the timer that was the one issue i think i had with the assault vest set was that i just wasn't convinced that you were going to have the damage output even with huge power to to beat the timer in these seven star raids but with the belly drum the plus six attack and the terastralization boost on top of that i do feel like you'll be able to keep up do enough damage to the seven star raid and potentially even beat it solo with this specific azumarill so i hope you found this video useful will be covering the charizard event when it does drop will go on all over all the details all the item drops everything you need to know about it but to help you prepare for this event that is dropping in literally two days i hope you found this video useful and this new item tech i think is going to be big in all future terror raids so i hope you find it useful if you have drop a like on the video if you're new to the channel do subscribe and until next time friends take care of yourselves and bye bye


Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks so much for joining me for this book talk. I'm Rick Herrera, and I was professor of military history at the School of Advanced Military Studies. I am now visiting professor at the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Before I begin, a little bit of boilerplate. Nothing that I say reflects the views of the Army War College, the U.S. Army, or the federal government. These are strictly my own. So, let's talk a little bit about beating Washington's Army, surviving the Valley Forge winter of 1778. Next slide, please. You know, this whole, this book project came out of a teaching moment. And when I was, oh gosh, must have been 12 years ago when I was on the staff ride team at the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth. And I'll talk to you about a little bit about what a staff ride is. I was building a staff, a staff ride on the Philadelphia campaign of 1777. And part of that means that you absolutely have to go to Valley Forge. It's such a meaningful and central location, both in terms of American identity, our national tales, but also for the campaign itself. Now, staff rides are a form of instruction, a form of learning and teaching that are used very much by the Army and the Marine Corps. And what we do in doing a staff ride is use the battlefield or the campaign area in which an engagement or a campaign took place. We walk the ground. And what we do is use the ground as our evidence to analyze. We also use the ground as our classroom. And so students will examine and discuss what took place at a particular time during the campaign or during the engagement. And staff rides are very much predicated upon movement. The problem, though, with Valley Forge is it static? So I wondered, what is it that I can do to try and introduce some movement in a largely static location? Well, I thought about Valley Forge and recalled some works that I'd read. And I also was thinking about the ongoing US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And instead of using Valley Forge in its more traditional understanding, the way that most Americans grew up with it, I decided to reconceptualize it as FOB Valley Forge, Forward Operating Base Valley Forge. And so rather than envisioning the Continental Army as this group of starving noble soldiers, the stories that we hear about bloody footprints in the snow and all of that, certainly there are some kernels of truth to all of that. What I wanted to do was to convey the vital, vital image of the army as an active field army, doing many of the things, much of the stuff that armies today do, doing many of the things that armies in World War II did. And so that that would help convey the much more of the reality of Valley Forge and to try and get a little bit out of the more mythic construction that most Americans have. And as with all myths, our general understanding of Valley Forge is a way that helps us understand it, helps make meaning of it. It helps in the construction and understanding of our identities as citizens of the United States, as Americans. And there is, of course, some truth to it, as I said. So Valley Forge, FOB Valley Forge, it's the home of an active army. Why Valley Forge though? Well, Washington, who was much more than a general, he had also been a politician and that's not a bad thing. He understood how to work with groups of people. He understood how to balance the needs and interests of disparate groups. And so what Washington did as a general was carry on a series of conversations through letters mostly. And there's a wonderful collection of edited letters that is constantly being worked on. Many of them held by the federal government, other entities as well. Washington works with the governors and governments of Pennsylvania, of New Jersey, to some extent, of Maryland and Delaware. He's also working with the delegates of the Second Continental Congress. And where should the army go? What should the army do? This all comes about in the aftermath of the Philadelphia campaign. Now to kind of refresh our memories, the British army had landed at Hedavellic, Maryland, and I'll show that to you in a forthcoming slide, landed at Hedavellic, Maryland in August of 1777. Under the command of General Sir William Howe, the British as well as German auxiliaries, better known to most of us as Hessians, began their march on Philadelphia, which was the capital of this, this erstwhile United States of America. In the campaign, the Continental Army lost more fights than it won. Still though, the army held together, which is a testimony to the soldiers' dedication to what they were doing, their officers' capabilities as well. By December, after having lost the battle of Brandywine, the battle of Germantown, the army draws up on a ridgeline just outside of Philadelphia called White Marsh. Washington's soldiers fortify it. They dig in trenchments, fortifications, things called readouts. And Washington, who was an aggressive commander, was spoiling for a fight. He wanted Sir William Howe to bring his army out and launch attacks against these fortified positions. Howe marched his army out. He looked at the positions and he thought, this is not a good idea. Howe had to be cautious. He recognized that his army was essentially the bulk of the British army. And Britain had commitments not only in North America trying to suppress this rebellion. It also had commitments in the Caribbean. It had commitments on the Indian subcontinent. It had commitments elsewhere. And these are British regular troops or were British regular troops, rather, in garrisons all across the globe. And so these were stretched thin. Howe could not risk this most valuable of commodities, his soldiers' lives. He marched back to Philadelphia. Washington now faced a dilemma. What do I do? He talked to his generals and councils of war and queried them. What should we do next? Washington thought very, very seriously about launching a winter campaign, taking the army out of White Marsh and attacking Philadelphia. Now that might seem like madness given that the army had lost a series of battles. Here it is the early days of winter or it's about to become winter. But think back what had happened the year before toward the end of 1776, around Christmas time, in fact, when the Continental Army launches its attack at Trenton and captures nearly an entire brigade of Hessians. That, in turn, incited an uprising of the local militia in New Jersey, which forced the British army to fall back on its bases of communication almost as far back as New York. New Jersey was virtually reclaimed for the American cause. So Washington wondered, why not? My soldiers can do it again. They've done it before. Moreover, the army's got another year of experience. The officers have another year of experience. They're ready to do the impossible. Well, Washington queries his officers. They have a series of discussions. And it comes down to a matter of, if we succeed, then what? If we fail, then what? So Washington and his generals were thinking about the next steps, always thinking a couple of steps ahead. Very sophisticated stuff. And when I taught my students at the School of Advanced Military Studies, they helped me address all of these things. They helped me understand that these are things that they, in turn, do as staff officers, things called branches and sequels. We do this, and then what? What are the options that we can do? So Washington was going through what would be very familiar things to modern-day soldiers, to modern-day staff officers. He decides, after close consultation with his generals, to select a camp location in what was called the Great Valley. And that's Valley Forge. Valley Forge is ideally located. And you can see here on the map, Philadelphia circled in red, Valley Forge circled in dark blue. Not too far away, but far enough away to allow Washington ample time to allow his soldiers ample time to prepare themselves should the British march out and seek battle. Also, it turns that ground between the both armies into something of a battlefield. What takes place throughout this Valley Forge encampment from December of 1777 through roughly May of 1778 is a contest for the people's wills, their affections, but also for the food, the supplies, the horses, the cattle, the swine, you name it, everything in between these both of these armies. So food and supplies and people's hearts and minds become battlegrounds. They also become weapons of war for both armies. Next slide, please. Washington rode out and he surveyed the lines. You can see here a map of British defenses at Philadelphia. There's a strong across the narrow part of the neck. You've got a strong chain of fortifications. If you look off to the left where the Skoolkill River is a series of readouts, small forts in other words, guard the crossing sites across the Skoolkill River. And in fact, if those of you familiar with Philadelphia, the 30th Street train station, but also the IRS office located in the old post office, British fortifications were located are located underneath those things. So you can see how all of this looks. If you go to the right along the Delaware River, doesn't show up too well on this map, but all along the waterfront is a squadron of British warships anchored there or should say tied up. And these ships have got more firepower in terms of the artillery, the cannon they carry than both the British and continental armies combined. So Washington looks at these things and he decides, well, this is not a good idea to attack this place. So Valley Forge happens to be where he decides to go. Next slide, please. So I was talking to you a little bit about Valley Forge. Take a look at this map. You've got the Skoolkill River to the north. You have what you can see Sullivan's Bridge.  That's a fort rather that guards the crossing at Sullivan's Bridge. Go down to the bottom of the map and you can see entrenchments and you can see where all the various brigades of the Continental Army were positioned when they would be called to battle. So what Washington has done is have his engineers, and he's got a wonderful French engineer, Brigadier General DuPortier, who instructs the preparation of the grounds. These entrenchments cover the major roads entering Valley Forge. And if you think about Valley Forge, it sits on high ground and the ground to the south of it, as well as to the east of it, slopes away. So that means that any enemy approaching is forced to attack up ground, uphill rather, and that gives an advantage to the defenders. Now, if you go to the right and you'll see Fort Folly, and then work your way to the west, to the left, you're going across the parade ground, you'll see traditional Burrian ground, and then drop a little bit southward and you'll see Mount Joy. A line of entrenchments was built by the soldiers along Mount Joy. So what Washington has got is something that in modern military parlance would be called a defense in depth. So were the British to attack, were they to carry the line of entrenchments covering the forward positions, the Continentals would have a place to fall back and continue their defense at Mount Joy. So Washington has got, as I said, this armed camp. But there's more to it. Next slide, please. So you can see circled in blue the various locations where some of these actions take place. Philadelphia circled in red, go a little bit to the northwest, you'll see Valley Forge. From Valley Forge, go a little bit to the southwest and you'll see a smaller circle. Out in that location is the position of Captain Henry Lee. Lee commands 5th Troop, 1st Continental Light Dragoons. And Lee's troop of Light Dragoons was part of a much larger operation, a security operation really, wherein Continental Light Dragoons, cavalry in other words, as well as infantrymen, manned a series of posts to the south of Valley Forge that could allow them to guard against any British approaches, against any loyalist approaches. Also besides their patrolling, these soldiers were going out seeking information about the enemy, passing this intelligence on to Washington and helping him develop his understanding of what was taking place to his southeast in Philadelphia. Again, all very modern things that modern-day soldiers and Marines and airmen sailors would understand. So Washington is running this active operation. Now, when the Grand Forge of 1778 begins, it's going to take it as far as Maryland. So if you go down to the southwest, you'll see a couple of circles, one that says Hollingsworth and that's basically where Head of Elk is located. And that's the home of the Hollingsworth family. And the British will march on that. That was also the home of a major supply magazine for the Continental Army. When the British landed, they marched on it and they were able to capture a number of supplies. Things of the Continental Army had not been able to evacuate before the British got there. Off to the left, you'll see another circle and that's for Charlestown. Toward the end of all of this, as the Contanettals begin to re-establish their supply magazines, they'll establish a new one at Charlestown. It makes it a good spot, easy approaches along the river. The roads have a gentle slope. So that makes a lot of sense when you've got horses and wagons and you have to be concerned about winter. So let's go ahead and cast your eyes to the east. And you'll see Salem, New Jersey is located there. When Washington launched the Grand Forge of 1778, it's led by Major General Nathaniel Green. Green marches out. He goes south into Chester County. And so if you go to Philadelphia, work your way a little bit to the southwest, you'll see the town of Chester. So it's in and around that area a little bit to the northwest. After a while, Green decides, I'm going to detach somebody to cross into New Jersey. New Jersey has not been touched very much by the war. I understand there are quite a few supplies there to be had for the army. So he determines that he will send Brigadier General Anthony Wayne and roughly 300 soldiers. Some of the places that they'll visit, Raccoon Creek, and you can see that to the northeast of Salem. You'll see Gloucester and right around in that area is also Cooper's Ferry, modern day Camden, New Jersey. Another place where the actions take place. Finally, going up to the northeast, you'll see Burlington. And that's roughly the spot where Wayne will cross over with supplies when he ends his part of the forging expedition. Let's talk a little bit more about some of the actors. Next slide, please. So here we have Washington and Howe. They're both in their 40s, both vigorous men. Washington, we know, had, or Washington, not everyone knows, Washington had served as Colonel of the Virginia Regiment in what Americans know as the French and Indian War, what most Europeans would call the Seven Years War. He had experience as a regimental commander. He also had experience as a politician. He sat in Virginia's House of Burgesses. Howe, on the other hand, extensive experience as a soldier. He had fought in the Seven Years War in America. He'd also taken part in the British attack and capture of Havana, Cuba, in 1762. Now, Howe gets appointed as commander of British forces in North America in 1775. He's a good tactical commander, but when it comes to the higher order stuff, strategy, coordinating much larger movements, thinking about the really big picture, Howe's got a number of problems. One, he's not terribly comfortable with it. Two, he's not that talented when it comes to that sort of stuff. Howe's real Fort is at the tactical level, at the operational level, so battlefield movements, but also linking these tactical actions to attain somebody else's strategic purposes. He is very good at that. In fact, in every battle in which he faces off against Washington, or just about every battle, Howe will best Washington. He is Washington's superior when it comes to that. At the strategic level, however, Washington proves himself a master. Now, Washington is very much learning on the job. He's trying to develop himself into a good general, a better general, and it's rather uneven, but by the end of the war, he pretty much proves himself as a pretty solid strategist. Does he need to develop more? Of course, who among us doesn't need to learn more? So there you've got these two opponents. Next slide, please. So who are the men that Washington sends out? He's got major general Nathaniel Grain on the left. Grain, for those of you who don't know, is actually a Quaker. He's from Rhode Island. What do we know about Quakers? They're supposed to be pacifists, not Grain. Now, Grain was brought up in a business atmosphere, an iron foundry made anchors and chains for shipping. He understands business. He understands how these things work. He's also very much a self-taught man, incredibly bright. Now, no offense to you, Hamilton fans, but when Washington wants something done, it's Nathaniel Grain who's his right-hand man. Grain again, Grain, like Washington, is also learning on the job. He makes some pretty serious mistakes, but when Washington wants something accomplished on a large scale, it's generally Grain that he turns to. In fact, not long after the completion of the Grand Forage, which is about, which is in March of 1778, Grain will be appointed quartermaster general of the Army. So basically, the senior officer in charge of getting supplies for the Army, Grain doesn't want it. He wants a field command. He's going to have to wait for a couple of years for that to happen, but Grain does a pretty good job. In fact, when he goes to the Southern Theater in 1781, he will fight an incredibly complex and successful campaign against the British. He never wins a battle, but he wins the big campaign. He wins at the strategic level. Now, who's serving under him? To his right is Brigadier General Anthony Wayne. Now, at first, Wayne was supposed to command this expedition. Wayne's a local boy. He's from Waynesboro. He's been a politician. He's a surveyor. He knows the area. He knows the people, but Washington decides, you know, this is a pretty important operation. I'm taking a gamble because he has to collapse his security line, bring in all of his best armed, best prepared, best equipped soldiers to send them out on this expedition. And so he decides that Grain has to do it, but he wants to make sure that Grain has got his own right-hand man. And that's going to be Wayne. And so Wayne will be in charge of the expedition when Grain orders him to do so, to cut across the Delaware River and head into New Jersey. Now, somebody who's operating as a part of this much larger effort, but reporting directly to Washington, is Captain Henry Lee, Jr. And that's the fellow third from the right, that handsome fellow, that portrait is taken of him when he was a Lieutenant Colonel. But Captain Lee comes from Tidewater, Virginia, aristocracy, the gentry. Washington has known him since he was a young boy. Washington's familiar with him. Lee is probably one of the finest light cavalry officers in the war, both sides. He has initiative. He's smart. He's a careful observer of things. He makes quick decisions. He's something of a hothead. And he does make his own mistakes, but Washington selected right when he picked him. To Lee's right is Captain John Berry. Berry, an Irishman who emigrates to America, he commands what is left of the Continental Navy on the Delaware River. He had previously had a frigate, so a three-masted ship armed with, oh, say, 30 guns designed for scouting, but also attacking enemy shipping. With the British approaching up the Delaware River, he decided to scuttle his ship, in other words, sink it purposely. What he's got now are a bunch of whale boats, essentially large row boats along the river that he can use. And Berry has got a real take charge attitude. He's also incredibly aggressive. Throughout all of this, or even before this expedition, he and his men had been going up and down the river attacking British shipping, not the warships, but the supply ships. They tended to be lightly armed, often un-escorted. And so his men would attack them, take what they could, and set fire to them. They'd take the supplies and forward those to the army. Well, when Green sets out in February of 1778, and after a couple of weeks of going around, he'll decide that he's going to cut Wayne loose. Now, before that happened, Green had been very scrupulous about giving receipts to local farmers. Nobody wants to have their goods taken from them. So Washington had ordered him to give receipts so that people can get compensated. Still, nobody likes to have anything seized from them. One of the problems facing everybody is the fact that continental money was pretty worthless. So people took to sequestering, in other words, hiding their goods. This gets Green rather annoyed. So Green decides, if you sequester, if you hide your goods, and my men have to search for them, I'm going to seize them, and you will receive no compensation whatsoever. He writes to Washington, I hear their cries, but like Pharaoh, I harden my heart. Green proves himself a pretty tough customer. At one point early on, a couple of farmers try to bring supplies into British lines. Some of his soldiers capture them. He orders them triced up, in other words, seized by their wrists to trees or perhaps to spawn tunes, which are short spears carried by officers as badges of rank. Has their shirts stripped off, and he orders each arm to receive 100 lashes from a whip. Why? Because Green wants to send a message. Thou shalt not supply the British. He cuts Wayne loose. Wayne makes his way to Wilmington. When he's in Wilmington, Delaware, he meets up with Captain Barry. What a great coincidence. He talks to Barry and asks him, hey, would you mind ferrying my soldiers across the river to Salem? Barry says, sure, why not? I'd be happy to. He then asks them, would you also do me a favor, seal that marsh hay along the river banks? That's good stuff for feeding cattle and horses. Would you set fire to it while my men are across the river in New Jersey gathering supplies for the army? That way, that will help distract the Royal Navy from coming after me. Barry says, I'd love to set fire to things for you. So those two work incredibly well together. As Wayne is marching his way northward, he will have some close scrapes. It's at this time that finally General Howe decides to dispatch soldiers against these Americans who are out. Howe had not moved while Green was out in the field, but with Wayne across the river, he decides, and these are the words of one participant, to have a slap at Mr. Wayne. So he sends the elite of the British army, the Light Infantry Brigade. These are the most intelligent and athletic soldiers that the army has. They're ferried downriver by the Royal Navy. They land at Salem and they start going after Wayne. Wayne is at Raccoon Creek. He gets out just ahead of the British Light Infantry.  They were well disciplined. They didn't steal things. When the British army came in, all of them uniformed, well armed, looking like soldiers, they had to be watched. He determined that British soldiers were little better than petty thieves. They had to be watched by their own officers.  Colin really got to experience some of the harm, some of the dangers and the fears that accompanied armies being near him. Let's go ahead and talk a little bit more about Henry Lee. When Lee heads into Delaware and Maryland, he sends close observations to Washington, letting Washington know that there are deserters by the hundreds in his estimation hiding along the riverbanks, deserters from both armies, also people he referred to as the disaffected, people who didn't support either the American or the British cause, people who just wanted to be left alone, which was probably most people living during this conflagration, the American War for Independence. Lee maintains an account book, and I'll talk to you about that a little bit later, which was a great source of information for me. Next slide, please. So who are the people that General Howe dispatches? You'll see on the left, Colonel Sterling. He commands the 42nd Regiment of Foot. Most people will know it better as the Black Watch, the Royal Regiment of Scotland today. He's got a large outfit, and they will land at Cooper's Ferry, today's Camden, and work their way south, well actually work their way inland before they're supposed to turn southward. Now, to his right, General Abercrombie, or Colonel Abercrombie then, who commanded the Light Infantry Brigade, he's landing to the south. So now it seems that Wayne is sandwiched between two more powerful forces. He's outnumbered probably somewhere like eight to one. Wayne has got to rely on his wits. Under Sterling, you'll see John Graves Simcoe. He's the fellow with a silver epaulet on his right shoulder. Now, for those of you who watch the series turn, I've got news for you. Simcoe was not a homicidal maniac. He was actually an incredibly smart, thoughtful, intelligent soldier, and he commands the Queen's American Rangers. His outfit is probably one of the best provincial, in other words, loyalist units in the British Army. And in fact, Simcoe thinks his army is unit, rather, is just as good as any regular outfit. What about the fellows who can, who ferry them across the river? Well, they're under the command of Captain Andrew Snape Hammond, the gentleman on the far right. Hammond's a competent officer. He is an experienced sailor, and he does bang up work for the British Army. Why do we refer to them as the B team? Each one of these soldiers was a fine soldier in his own right. The thing that's lacking for them is somebody to control everything that's happening, just as how needed a higher authority, a viceroy, really, someone to coordinate and control and craft strategy in America. So, too, did these soldiers in New Jersey need somebody, a general officer, to coordinate and control and craft the operations that would take place there? They, unfortunately, did not have that. So, once the Light Infantry and the Scots land in New Jersey, they'll make some short approaches. They'll come close to capturing Wayne, but they start doing what the British Army had been doing all winter, and that's foraging for their own supplies. One of the British Army's rules of thumb at this time was to have six months of supplies on hand. There were only a couple of times, however, throughout the war that the British Army ever had that. So, General Howe spends most of his time sending his soldiers out looking for supplies rather than actually looking for battle. And this is a pattern that his subordinates fell into once they got into New Jersey. And because of this, Wayne was allowed really to escape and to make his way northward with several hundred head of cattle. I don't have the exact numbers. I have not been able to find any actual accounts on this. So, they'll move along. Let's go ahead to the next slide. Now, soldiers rations, and I'll talk about this slide in just a minute. Soldiers rations were roughly 2,000, 3,000 calories. That's a lot, but you're expecting a lot of physical exertion on the part of soldiers. For the Continental Army, this happens more often in the breach than in actuality. One of the things that we see is that Continental soldiers, when they're out on patrol, they're constantly looking for food just as much as they're looking for British soldiers. So, this foraging expedition was incredibly important. Washington is trying to feed the army. He had written actually just before launching it in February that he's afraid that the army is going to have to disperse. In other words, it will have to lead Valley Forge. By doing that, he would have to surrender control with the ability to challenge the British for control of southeastern Pennsylvania. He doesn't want to do that. That seeds way too much advantage to the British. So, this whole search for food drives much of this. And as I noted earlier, food becomes something of a weapon in all of this, in this struggle for the contest of people's affections. Now, I'd like to get back to Captain Hammond for just a moment. You've got a couple of navigation charts. Now, if you look on the left, you'll see a chart of the Delaware River. And it's a little bit difficult to make out, but if you zoom in with your eyes, you'll notice the soundings. And that tells you just how deep the river is. You can see it's a winding river. Now, if you go to the right, you can see much more closely the approaches to Philadelphia. The shipping channels were incredibly narrow. One of the things that Hammond wrote in 1779 during parliamentary testimonies was, I don't know any river so difficult of navigation. And this is particularly so at Edtide. The Delaware River, because it is so closely tied in with the Atlantic Ocean, is an estuary. So it's subject to the rise and fall of the tides just as the Atlantic Ocean is. And so when the river was flowing much more fastly as it was ebbing out, this meant that it was difficult for his sailing ships to maintain position. It was really difficult to sail upriver in particular. He also noted that just about everywhere along this river, his ships were within artillery range, in other words, cannon of the enemy, so very dangerous. So while the British did have an advantage of movement along the river, they also, some of this advantage was mitigated by Mother Nature and Mother Nature assisting the Continental Army. Next slide, please. So to get back to rations, you can see here the Continental Army, and the same goes for the British Army, was probably one of the most conspicuous engines of consumption that anybody could imagine. You can see how many millions of pounds of food that it needed. Now, each soldier gets a daily ration. Washington at most commanded perhaps 10,000 to 12,000 soldiers in December. The reason that it shows 23,000 and 61 rations is because officers received extra rations, and that's to take care of servants and also for senior officers. They're expected to host junior officers at the table, part of the customs of being an officer in the 18th century. Not all of the numbers are known, but these are the best ones that we have. Next slide, please. Guess what? Animals need to be fed as well. So besides looking for food to feed soldiers, these foragers were also looking for supplies to feed the cattle, to feed the horses. You can see what experts of the era recommended that horses and cattle be fed. In one case, 20 pounds of hay daily for a horse. That's a lot. Multiply that by the number of horses that are in the area. One of the things that Washington orders is that officers get rid of their horses, except for the senior ones. So no junior officer was to have a horse because it meant too much of a strain on the supply system. Let's go to the next slide. So I've mentioned Captain Lee's account book. One of the things that I think is vital for us as students of American history, and even though I've held my degree for over 20 years and I've been a professor for over 20 years, I consider myself a student of history. I'm still learning. This account book really spoke to me. And you can see these names that I've circled. Negro Joseph, Negro Sam, Negro Henry, Negro Jack, Negro David, Negro Cuff. These are the names of enslaved wagon drivers. This really brought home to me the fact that these were the unfree in service to a cause for white political freedom. So it adds to the complexity and I think the richness of the American story. It's more than just black and white. There are so many shades of gray. It's kaleidoscopic. And so the past, in other words, is very much as complex and as complicated and as challenging as it is in everyday life for all of us. When I was looking at the rations to kind of go back to that subject, I did not encounter any records of rations for women. One of the things that you would have found in the camp were camp followers, women who served as laundresses, women who helped serve as something of nurses for soldiers. There's a larger community of this. But nothing really that in terms of what I was looking for. Next slide, please. So what we see here is a wonderful painting held at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia. The Return of the Foraging Party. It conveys everything that I've talked to you about this afternoon. It conveys so much about this. So I hope that you'll keep in mind that Valley Forge is more than just the mythic tale that so many of us as Americans grow up with. It's actually a story of a maturing army, a maturing commander in chief, George Washington, a maturing set of commanders like Nathaniel Green, Anthony Wayne, also Henry Lee. This is an army that was not just there suffering in silence. It was an army that was going out and doing the stuff that modern armies recognize that modern armies do today. It's part of our story as Americans. And I'd like to thank the National Archives for hosting me this afternoon and all of you for tuning in and joining me and listening to this little bit about feeding Washington's army, surviving the Valley Forge winter of 1778. Thank you. If there are any questions, I'd be more than happy to take them. All right, well, thank you very much and I wish you all well.