Hi, guys. Can you hear me, everybody? Yes, OK. So let's get started. I'm here to talk about new material design patterns in Android L on the web everywhere. So I'm Soham, a little bit about me. I'm the founder at Trivius, also the creator of this Android application called Skyro. It's on the Play Store. We have a lot of users and also an organizer with BLRDroid. How many of you have heard about BLRDroid? Great. So we organize meetups. We meet almost once a month and you should come at our meetup. So we're at BLRDroid.org. Here's how you can reach out to me. I tweet at S0H4M. Here's a little bit about the agenda for today. We'll begin with understanding more about material design. So how many of you have heard about material design? So how many of you have seen a phone running material design or seen material design? So cool. A lot of you have seen that. So we'll begin by understanding what is the philosophy behind material design. A lot of you have seen material design. But how many of you have kind of understood what material design is and why it's been created? Next, we'll look at the concept of bold, graphic, and intentional, and some of the design principles behind material design. We'll also have a look at motion, animation, and how that's done. And finally, we'll also have a look at some of the elements in material design. That's the kind of takeaway that you can have from the session. You'll understand how buttons and some of the other elements are different from KitKat and how you can change that in your application. That's the takeaway. So what are the goals of material design? So this is the first question that you should come. That should come in your mind. So the goals of material design are, we've had design for a long time. Design is not something that's new. Design is there in print, in magazines, in newspapers. Design is there in almost everything, in architecture, even in software. So design is there everywhere. So the goal of material design is to create a visual language that combines these classical good principles of good design that's everywhere, and combine it with technology and science. So you have design principles everywhere, like I talked about architecture, about magazines, a lot of other places. The idea is to combine that with a new medium, which is technology, science, and so on. Goal is also to create a platform that works across different form factors.  Goal is to create a visual language that works uniformly across different black problems. So a lot of the stuff that I talk about today will be on google.com slash design. A lot of the presentations are from assets and stuff are from there. We'll just be covering a subset of the whole feature set of material design. We'll just get started. And if you want to know more, please go to google.com slash design. So what is material design? That's the first question. So material design is a comprehensive guide for visual, motion, and interaction design. So to understand that, let's look at something called affordances. How many of you have heard about this term called affordances? One, two, OK, cool. So when you look at this, what is the first thing that you kind of understand? That comes to your mind when you look at this picture. What's the first thing that comes to your mind? Tea? What else? Boiled water. Simplicity. The idea here is, when you see a cup, or a kettle, or anything like that, the first object that you note, that your brain notes, is the handle. Intuitively, nobody teaches you to look at the handle. But you know it's a handle. And that's how you identify this thing. If you didn't have a handle, it would be a completely different kind of an object. You see the handle, and you know that it's something that can be lifted, or something that can be held. So your brain, just by looking at the shape of it, by sensing it, it knows that it can be held, and you can put something in it. It takes it one step further, and it knows that you would rather put something like tea or coffee than put wine in this. The idea here is that, intuitively, without any kind of teaching, your brain knows how to use this device, or this object. That is called an affordance. An affordance is a situation where an object's sensory characteristics intuitively imply its functionality and use. What that means is, for example, if you have a door which has a handle, just by looking at the handle itself, your brain knows how to use the door. Nobody teaches you how to use the door. You see the handle, you know how to pull it, or push it. In a similar way, if you have a knob, you know that you're supposed to twist the knob. The idea is that we're trying to create devices, objects, that you already know how to use. That's called an affordance. So a knob affords twisting. That's the action that is afforded by the knob itself. So in a very similar way, you see chairs. They are a certain shape. Just by looking at the shape of the chair, you know that you're supposed to sit on it. A chair affords sitting. So this is the concept of an affordance. Coming back to material design. So material design really tries to enhance this concept of an affordance. So we have the affordance of a material. And the material here is paper and ink. So how many of you have interacted with paper before? Everybody? You've either read something, you've written on something. So everybody's familiar with the concept of paper. So we already know how to interact with paper. And that is what material design tries to use. So what happens in a virtual medium, like a TV or a tablet or whatever, you don't really know how to use that. So the first time you're using that, you have to learn a lot of new things. Like this is how you go back home. This is how you interact with the paper, interact with the medium and so on and so forth. But with material design, everything is basically a sheet of paper. So they're trying to tell you that since you know how to use paper, and you know how paper affords different kinds of characteristics, the same thing will happen to you when you use a virtual medium that uses paper. So they're trying to bring this paper concepts in a virtual medium, which is on a tablet, on a watch and other places as well. So you'll have surfaces, you'll have edges, just like a piece of paper has surfaces, edges. You'll have the same thing in a virtual medium. So let's talk more about paper. So here, typically in Android before this or in the web, all the objects that you would create are created very haphazardly. So you would create like a button and action bar and 10 other things, right? In material design, we encourage you to think that each object, each button, each action bar, each list is a separate element. It's a separate set, it's a separate piece of paper. It's very thin, it's about one DP thin, and all of those are separate sheets of paper. Is that clear? So you can have different objects over here, you have different action bars and lists and so on. All of those are different pieces of paper. And the cool thing is here is, if there are different objects, independent sheets of paper, you can assign different properties to those pieces of paper. So for example, you have a button, you have a background. So let's say we are designing a music player application. The background might be an album art. So the album art is basically the base sheet of paper. On top of that, you might have a list of the songs or the list of albums that you're playing. That is another sheet of paper. On top of that, you might have multiple other buttons, like let's say playing music, pausing, rewind and so on. Those are again separate sheets of paper. And on top of that, right, you have the system navigation bar and the status bar, which are again separate sheets of paper. So these are all arranged vertically and they have different heights. The most important thing is closest to you. Or it's at a very high level. So for example, the background is at Z depth. It's called Z depth in material design. It's a Z depth of zero. And buttons on top of that have different Z depth. So the object that's very important that you really want to give the most priority to, for example, your notifications.  So that's at the very top. So you have separate objects and each of those objects have different heights in material design. So this is an example of a simple button or a simple square object. So what we've tried to do is, you know, when you press that button, the height of the object increases, the importance increases. So because you're pressing, the object that is being pressed has more importance at that particular point. So the height of that increases. So here is an animation of how that works. As you click on the button, the button kind of increases in height. The importance of that increases. And that's shown by a shadow, which is generated in Android L as well in Polymer. And you can see the shadow looks very natural and it can be varied. You can have different levels of height. So that's the first concept of material design, which is called paper or material. So what we've tried to do over here is create a simple email application based on the concept of material. So on the left hand side, what is this called? Navigation drawer. So this is where you would keep a lot of navigational elements. So you have a list of the emails that you want to see, but at the same time, you want to have a list of navigation items. So as you pull the navigation drawer from the left hand side, you can see how it is above all the other elements in the page. You can see it's above the list of emails. It casts a shadow on the emails and everything is in the back. This is the most important thing and this is at the very front of the screen. This is a material design or a material-based email application. What's the most important thing that you do in an email app? What's the most important thing? Read email, right? That's the most important thing. So you can see 70 to 80% of the screen is reserved for just showing the email, okay? That forms our base sheet of paper, okay? What's the next most important thing? Writing an email, what else? Yeah? Searching. Starring and so on and so forth. So there are different actions. So the most important thing is reading. So we have devoted most of the screen real estate for that. On top of that, we have a button which is dedicated for composing a new email, which is very important action, right? You want to be able to do that at any point in time. So see how the new compose email button is there at the bottom right and it's floating on top of everything else, okay? It's got a different height and it's a separate sheet of paper, okay? So when you scroll the list of emails, the object itself, the new email button, doesn't float with the other items. It doesn't kind of scroll with it. It's a separate sheet. It's floating on top, so it stays in place. Now a very similar way, you can see, you know, it casts a shadow on the surrounding area and you can see at the top also, the action bar also has a slight shadow. So it's also at a different Z depth or a different height. So objects like this, right? You have different heights and material design. You kind of bring on the principles of height and importance to it. Finally, this is the example of composing a new window. So in this case, right, you don't have a particular action. Like in the previous case, you had a very clear action which is super important, which is composing an email. You want to highlight that, okay? Over here, we don't have that very important action that you really need to highlight. The only thing that you can do when you compose a new email is either send the email or discard it, right? So there's no need to kind of highlight that. So when you highlight an action, it's called a floating action but not FAB. We'll be talking about that in a little more detail. But it's not always necessary, as in the case of composing an email, it's just not necessary. So you can just go away and just be done with an action bar. So that was the concept of material, okay? Concept of paper and that's the first principle of material design. Second principle of material design is called bold graphic and intentional. It's inspired by print design, okay? So it's inspired by stuff like magazines, newspapers and so on. A lot of concepts of print design are really good, like typography, grid, space, scale, color, imagery. So these are very common principles in print design and these days, right, in mobile applications, we don't necessarily bring those principles onto a mobile design. So for the first time, Google has kind of put these guidelines together. So you use those concepts over here as well. It's like a set of guidelines that have been put. And using these, you can create hierarchy, meaning and focus. And once you do that, it'll be like a guide to the user. It'll be like a waypoint. Like this is what you're supposed to do. This is the first thing that you're supposed to understand. So let me illustrate that with an example. So this is the email application that we looked at before. You can see that it's using the first concept, which is material, okay? But if you use the second concept, which is the best practices of print design, it looks something like this, the same email application. You've transformed it from the first case to the second case, okay? Which do you think, according to you guys, is better? The right one? For a lot of you, right one? Why is that? Why do you think the right one is a little better than the one on the left? Color contrast, what else? Readability, that's very, very important, right? It's easier to read. You feel like, you know, it's much easier to read. It's very easy to kind of understand what's going on in the email. What else? Font and typography, very, very good point, right? The typo, like you can see how different elements are in different font phases. So for example, the subject is a little bolder font. The color is different and so on and so forth. There's imagery, right? You've seen the image of a person. Let's quickly see why that's better. So in print design, we typically read from top to down and from left to right, okay? So as you're scanning this piece of email, right? The first thing that you notice in a row is the image of a person. Okay, that's a common behavior. Go from top to down, left to right. Now you see the image of a person, the first thing that you see. So it's very easy to know that this email is from this person. Okay, you don't have any questions about that. So as you're scanning the email, you know it's from this person. You know the context right away, without having to read the subject or at times without having to read anything. So you go down, you see this email is from Ali Connors and you're just, okay, I don't have to think about this email. I know what to reply. I'll look at this later, right? Other things like the title, the subject of the email and how the person's name and all are in different font faces. They've not used a divider to say, okay, this is the title, this is the person who's sending the email, this is the body of the email. They've not used all of that. They've just used typography, color, and position along with imagery to kind of bring all these elements out. And you keep the most important content on the left-hand side, which is the most distinguishing content, and the least distinguishing content, which is on the right-hand side. And the color of that is also the least distinguished color. Most of the times when you're going through this email, you'll not even notice that there is a time, like 15 minutes or something there. But it's just there in case you want to notice it. Another important principle of print design is grids. When you're designing an Android application, unless you have a very good designer, they will not typically use a grid. The first time, Android has created very clear guidelines for grids. Okay, there are key lines, there are illustrator files that you can download and kind of use it to make sure that your whole application, the different elements are in grid them, right? It's in a visual rhythm. And you will not notice this while kind of developing the application, but once your users kind of use it, they've noticed that these grids and the spacing and the width and margins and so on help the user consume the text in a better way. So that's about the second concept, which is bold. So that's about print design and all the concepts around print design. Next we look at authentic motion. So, till now, right, till before material design, motion or animation has just been used very loosely, right? There's not been any guidelines around motion. So people would use it whenever they want. So if you're using, if you're seeing a slideshow kind of an application, you'd see a huge explosion happening and you know, the slide, next slide comes in and there's a huge explosion and you see, okay, wow, it's really cool, but it doesn't serve any purpose. It's just some random animation that's there. There's no guidelines for that, right? For the first time, Android and Google have kind of brought this concept of authentic motion, where animation is designed to kind of bring in the spatial relationships, functionality and intention of the system. Lots of complex terms. Let me quickly give you an example of what that means. This is a music player application in Android, okay? There's a mock-up of that.  Okay, let's say I click on the album on the right. You can see how it animates and goes into the full album view, okay? When you click back, it goes back into the place wherever it was designed, okay? So this kind of animation has a very clear purpose, okay? When you click on the particular album, it expands. That element is shared between that screen and the detailed screen. So this animation has a very clear purpose. You're helping the user navigate from one screen to the other screen and there's a relationship between both the screens and you're building a relationship based on the transition elements. So whenever you're designing animations, especially in Android L or in Material Design, make sure that there is a certain purpose for those animations. So this is the first one where there is a relationship between two elements in different screens. It's called activity transitions in Android. This is the second kind of animation. It's very, very common. I'm not sure if you can see it, but when you click on any element, there's a small ripple that goes out that goes to show that this is the place where you've clicked and gives instant feedback to the user. The second example, you can see a button. Whenever you click on the button, it kind of, the height kind of increases, okay? And that's also a Material Design animation. So whenever you're using animations here, it has to solve some problem. Don't just randomly do animations. That's the key takeaway here. So we covered the three basic principles of Material Design. Let's understand what is the implication of that. Let's understand what are the elements that were there in KitKat and how they change in Material Design. We'll look at a couple of elements. If you have more time, we'll look at more elements. The first thing we look at is some code. In case you're designing any Material Design application, first thing in Android that you have to do is change the theme of the application. So whatever theme you have, you make sure that it's derived from the Material theme. Okay, it's android.theme.material. And you can really style your themes in a very comprehensive fashion. You have primary colors, you have primary dark, you have accent colors, and tons of other colors. So what does this mean? It means that this is my application. It's the settings of my application. This, on the left-hand side, is the old settings. It's using the Holo theme. You can see how it looks very nice and very sober and so on. And on the right-hand side, it's a new Material Design-based setting screen. I have changed all the colors. You can see how the action bar, the status bar, everything is colored differently. And you can see how the titles and the buttons and all are, all color differently. All this has just been done because I've customized the theme and I've changed the colors. This is the first thing that you absolutely need to do. Next, we'll look at some buttons. So these are three buttons in Material Design.  In Material Design, you have three separate kinds of buttons. The first is called a floating action button or a FAB. This is something important. It's a new concept and it's a button which is really, really important. You can only have one FAB in an application and this kind of floats above all the other content in the screen. You also have another button, which is the raised button. This is very similar to the older kind of button, but again, this has a shadow which is cast on the remaining screen. And the final thing is a flat button, which is again a completely new concept in Material Design. Let's look at some examples. On the left-hand side, you see Google Maps-like application. Again, the map itself is the base sheet of paper. On top of that, you have information about the point you're interested in, which is, let's say, a chocolate place. So that's a separate sheet of paper. It casts a shadow on the base sheet of paper. And on top of that, the most important action that you need to perform in that place is navigating to that particular place. So that is elevated and it's given a lot of importance and that is a navigation floating action button or a FAB. See how it floats above all the remaining content and it's bringing out the importance that this is the most important action that needs to be performed at that time. In the second case, you have the raised button, which is like a button which has a shadow on top of text itself. And it's your regular button and you can click it and it elevates when you click on it. The final option you see over there is a dialogue. It's a normal dialogue in Android L and you can see how the disagree and agree buttons are just flat buttons. The problem here is that many times the flat buttons don't have any kind of border or guidelines to show you that this is a button. So the only thing that differentiates the text, the content from the button itself is just the typography, right? It's in blue in color, it's at the very bottom right hand side and it's all in caps. So there's a certain spacing between the content and the button itself. So that's how you know that this is a button, not part of the content itself. So when should you use any of the buttons? So if you're using most common use cases, you would use the raise button, which is like a typical use case. If you want the content to be very close to the actual button itself, you would use a flat button. So it has the lowest importance. It's almost part of the content. Then the next most important thing is the raise button and the most important out of all of them is the floating action button. This is an example of a dialogue again. And you can see how they have removed all the dividers, right? A completely divider free world. So you have the title. The only way to differentiate that this is a title is by the typography. It's dark black and the font face is different and so on. And the actual content is lighter in color and the buttons have a specific height and width and padding and it's at the bottom right of the screen. So this has been designed very, very carefully. If you change this, the buttons will be very close to the content. You don't know which is the button, is the content and so on. When should you use a flat button as opposed to a raise button? If you have a clear dividing line, right? Between the content and the button itself, then I would recommend you to use a flat button. If you don't have any clear dividing line, if you have the content and you want to show something within that content itself, then use a raise button. Some examples. So what is wrong in this picture? On the right-hand side here, you can see here. Buttons are? Yeah? Yes, so you don't know if this is a button or not. You know, you can't make out if this is an action or not. So if you say morning pizza and just below that, you have first stop and uninstalled. These two are supposed to be buttons. But in this case, these are flat buttons. So you don't know if this is content or this is a button. So it's a very common problem, right? In this case, what should you do? Raise button, simple. You can see how easily you can distinguish between the content and the button itself if you use a raise button. So whenever in doubt, right? Whenever you have any problems understanding the content itself, just use raise buttons. In this case, okay, we have a card. So cards are very complex objects, but you have this clear area at the bottom, which has been dedicated for actions, okay? Over here, you have a dividing line and you have these two raise buttons. So in this case, it's not nearly necessary to make it a raise button. If you make it a flat button, which is all capital, you know, you still, the user can still make out, okay, these are actions because these are at the bottom area of the card itself. So you can just play around with all the three types of buttons. Let me show you some quick code of how to use a flat button in Android L. Only line to make it go from a flat, from a normal button to a flat button is you have to add the style, okay? The style line that you see at the very end. It's called a borderless button style. You add this one line and it becomes a flat button. This is very, very straightforward. The last kind of button is a floating action button. This is when, as I've discussed, it's the content is there and you have some action. There's one action which is very, very important. You want to highlight it. So it's floating on top of all the other content. You can have different sizes of the floating action button or FAB in short, you have a bigger FAB and you have a mini FAB, which is on the right-hand side. And the FAB can float on top of the content. It can be part of any part of paper element. So there are different guidelines around how you can place the FAB. But remember, you can only have one FAB at any time. So some code around the FAB itself, there's no direct way of creating an FAB. You have to, there's no FAB tag in XML, okay? So what you have to do is you have to create this circular element yourself. Or the other option is use any of the libraries that are available. So there are two libraries that I'd like to quickly highlight. One is called Future Simple. Creates a very nice FAB, as you can see on the right-hand side. You can specify the color of the shadow and of the element itself, the ripple color, when you click on it, what happens and so on and so forth. This is the library. It's called Future Simple. The second one is called Macaw Star. And it's also a very simple library. The cool thing about this is, you can attach it to a list view. And as you scroll the list view, the button might hide. So you can have those options of hiding the button and so on, okay? Any questions about FAB? Any general questions? Okay. Let's quickly go on to cards. So before Android L or Material Design, Google had a lot of guidelines around other design patterns, but not around cards. Google now was created, but there were no guidelines around how to use cards. Google Plus was using it, Google Now was using it. My application was using it, but then I thought of the design pattern of my own and kind of improvised on top of that. But for the first time, you have very clear guidelines around how to create a card, okay? These are again guidelines. You can completely use your own discretion in creating cards. You can see, you can have a normal card and you can have rich media at the top. For example, a picture, you can have content at the bottom and the whole card is clickable. This is one type of a card. You can have another card where you have actions at the very bottom. So for example, the multiple actions. So if you're building a music player application or a Instagram application, so if you wanna like the card, you wanna share a content or a couple of actions, you can do that at the bottom. At the top, you have the content area where you have the image or the text and so on. You can have more complex cards with grids and you can have horizontal actions if you want to have multiple options as well. You can have simpler cards where you have just title, subheading and so on with a couple of actions. So these are guidelines. I'm just covering a couple of them. The details about these card patterns are there on the Android side, the multiple card patterns. Best part is there are illustrator as well as sketch and Photoshop guidelines for these. Like there are files that you can download and modify them to create your own designs. So to create these cards, right? There's this view called a card view. So it's there in the support library and you can create this card view. You can specify the radius, the corner radius and you can specify the shadow, the elevation and how it should animate when you click on it. A lot of those things are there for you. You don't have to create this card from scratch. Lots of libraries which are creating cards but in Android L, you don't need to do that. You can just use the card view. And of course, this is the dependency. You have to use the card view dependency. It's in the support library. And you can use it from version seven onwards, API level seven. So this is a slide, okay? With some content, let's say a news content. So you have news content and which do you think is better over here? You have a normal list on the left-hand side and you have a card on the right-hand side. On the right-hand side, you have the same content in the form of cards. Left-hand side, it's just a simple list. Which looks a little better or which do you think is easier to read? Everybody thinks right? Left? Okay. So a lot of doubts over there. The actual fact is that most humans right can read the left-hand side, like a screenshot over here, the content over there in a much easier fashion. Why? Because a card is a very complex element. So if you see the right-hand side, the brain sees one card and it has to process that card and then move on to the next card. It's an individual element. So don't overuse cards. When it's nice at some places, but when the elements themselves are not that complex, it's recommended to kind of use a normal list view because in a list view, the brain just reads the list and quickly goes down bottom. It's not a separate element. So the readability and the perception of speed is much, much faster. The user will not quickly notice it, but over a week or a month, they will feel that they are reading less and less. The amount of content that they can read very fast is actually going down. So if you don't have a lot of complex elements, stick to lists. They are very good. It's been designed in a way the brain can kind of calculate and read it faster. Some quick notes about progress. So lots of progress bar modifications have been made. There are now really nice progress bars for determinate, indeterminate, buffering and so on and so forth. And you should use it very, very generously. So for example, this is a YouTube application when the content is ready to be loaded, you just load it and then there's a buffering indicator. So you have, first time, you have a separate buffering progress bar, which works really, really well in videos like this. You can see it buffers and then you load the whole thing. The buffering progress bar, these are again completely ready to use. You also have different indeterminate progress bar. So right now, you don't know how much time it'll take. So initially you show the indeterminate progress bar at the top. Then once you have the internet connection, you know how much time it'll take. So show a determinate progress bar. Again, all of this is there in the framework itself. Another kind of progress bar. You click on an element, you can show the progress bar at the bottom itself. So again, you click on an element, it breaks into another separate piece of card and then you load it and then it expands to show more content. Again, you might also have infinite scrolling in your application. For the first time, there are very clear guidelines around how to use these infinite scrolling progress bars.  That's a new design pattern again. Content comes in from the bottom. And again, for the first time, there is a push to refresh framework inside the application itself. Very clear guidelines and a couple of good apps that I've seen that have implemented this. Very, very clear progress bars for this as well. So that's it about the presentation itself. Lots of resources that you can use to better understand what is good for you and what is good for your application. Lots of design icons, templates, sticker sheets and icons. A lot of the elements that you've seen here are available on Google Design site and they're available in Illustrator format, Photoshop as well as Sketch. You can go and check it out. I would also highly recommend looking at a couple of the Google IO 2014 design sessions. There are about six or seven sessions. If you want to know about the science, the animations and the physics behind it and so on, lots of good talks around that. Especially recommend Roman Gees and Chet Haas's talk. It has a nice video with an actual implementation of all these things that I've talked about. The source code is also there on GitHub. Love to take some questions. I'm not sure how much time we have and this is my email address. That's my blog and the slide is available at speakerdex.com slash so on. So, happy to take some questions. Kirsten's? Thank you. Any questions on how to implement or buttons or anything? So these things are available in Android L. So I know cards like there are a couple of card libraries available for pre-Android Ls. So are these things, are they third party libraries for other elements also? For KitKat or like say, because most of the devices currently are running that, good question. So for cards, card view is there in the support library that's there from version seven. You can use the official one now. Good thing about that is there are shadows and there are different animations which they take care of. For the other stuff, ripple animation and the other animations, there are third party libraries but I wouldn't recommend using it because all the Android L animations they run on a separate thread. It has its own render thread which makes the animations really, really smooth. You use the same thing like ripple animation. You can see how it ripples out, right? You click multiple items, there are multiple ripples. So if you don't have a dedicated thread for kind of doing that, it's very difficult. So there are two or three libraries for ripples, for buttons and so on but I wouldn't recommend using them. But for cards and all, you can use the official library. What else? Buttons, again, buttons will work only in Android L. There are the libraries I've talked about floating action button. Those are for version seven and on. You can use those. Okay, thanks. Any other questions? Yeah, sure. So very good question. So a lot of these things are also there for the web, especially for the web. So for large screen devices, if you're using Android TV all the same things just carry over because you're using Android essentially but if you're using the web, this polymer, right? Which is a great project. This is something called the polymer playground. Just look it up. You can create, there are readymade dialogues, the action bar which is now called the tooltip. So lots of other elements are predefined for you as web components. So you can use that. The design elements are also there on Android Wear, the cards and all these things. So those kind of carry on everywhere. Any questions? Cool. Thank you guys and you can check out the slide over there.


nd particularly the hospitals that fund us to develop a budget every year. And really I think what's been characterized as over budgeting this year to me is actually sound like it's my job to make sure that we are using the funds they offer to us efficiently. And if we have an expense that we don't think we critically need for a year, we will shelve it. Additionally, I also think it's important to note that through the pandemic business was disrupted for many people and organizations and one care is no exception. We transition from a highly active workplace with a lot of travel to a lot of organizations across the state, which in many ways is the most important part of the remote structure. And through many of those years we did not know whether or not we would revert to a full in person model again and as the pandemic lingered on and on, we decided at one point to make a decision to shrink our office base and really just adopt the remote structure over the long haul and that's the way we continue to operate today. So some of the characterizations of over budgeting are really important to note. I will also note that the conclusion of every year, we present to the one care finance committee and the board the results from the budget year. And we analyze and show them a presentation of here's what we budgeted and expected to spend relative to what we actually spent during the year and we ask of them, what's your preference? Is it to retain those earnings at one care to Vermont to build reserves so that we can return the funds back to our funding hospitals. So I just think it's important to note this is a very collaborative arrangement that we have with our hospitals to make sure that one care is a good and sound steward of the funds made available to us by them to support value based care programming across Vermont. And to echo Abe's comments, I think there's a real paradox between asking the organization to take on more risk, which as he said, I think it's important to take on more risk while also reducing the resources. We're a small business in Vermont. We don't have a huge staffing workforce to be able to integrate into every practice and organization across the state. So it's a really careful balance to take on more organizational risk with fewer and fewer resources. Again, we just like to make the point we complied with the budget guidance intentionally. I was very intentional about that, but I really think carefully about the decision on this matter. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Rader Wallach and been asked to introduce people if they're associated with a regular identity. So I believe you're still the chair of one care, but I don't know for certain. And I hope you're doing well. Great. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yes, I'm here as the chair of the one care board. I'm here. Basically, since it's inception and one care was created as a result of the Affordable Care Act federal law. It was organized under federal law to have a broadly representative board as is required, including having a diverse array of consumer representatives on our board. That board takes we take our job very seriously and we review annually both the budget and the operations of the organization and the goals that we set as an organization. And in fact, just voted at our last meeting last week on strategic goals for the coming year. And I think you'll see reflected in those strategic goals for the coming year. Precisely the kind of enhanced focus on core capabilities and efficiencies that some of the board members have been talking about here today. But I want to first emphasize that we're a private organization organized under federal law. No other ACO in the country is regulated the way that we are. And I want to suggest that this is one tool in the state's toolbox. And one way that we can achieve the lofty goals that we set out to achieve 10, 12 years ago. But it's not the entirety of the Green Mountain Care Board's job. And it's not the entirety of One Care's job to achieve health care reform on behalf of Vermont. And so focusing on the success or failure of One Care I think is kind of taking your eyes off the ball in some ways in terms of what the overall goal of health care reform is. And I challenge you to find a place that's done better. One Care has not been successful in all of its endeavors. But it's been a great thing in Vermont. It's achieved a lot. And so I think it's sort of unfair to equate One Care's achievements with has Vermont achieved health care reform or not. But it's been a great thing in terms of what Vermont achieved, something that nobody else in the country or frankly in the world has achieved. So that's just one point I wanted to make in terms of risk. One Care has both Abe and Tom have stated was never meant to be a risk bearing entity. It was meant to be financially fragile. Could assume some risk but not too much. Not so much that it would imperil their financial health and risk them going under in communities that depended on their services. But the idea was always to pass through risk to providers because that is the fundamental concept underlying the organization that providers should assume risk should have some financial risk for the cost and quality of the care they provide so that they'll try to improve on both of those fronts. So the idea that you hold that at a corporate level and don't pass that through to providers just is kind of antithetical to the whole underlying concept and as Abe mentioned it seems inconsistent with where the federal government is going in terms of their next model. I think that's about all I'd like to say except that I think as we enter into the next phase of the all pair model where we have to analyze what is what are the federal what is the federal government proposing and what's the potential impact on Vermont and Vermont's healthcare providers. I think one of the only sources of really good knowledge about this and one of the only places where providers will be able to get together and discuss this and shed light on is this a good deal or not is it one care so I hope that you don't discount that value the fact that one care pulls providers together to discuss these things and to aggregate the knowledge of the folks who actually are on the ground receiving money taking risk providing services about the impact of these models and then last thing is I think in terms of getting into the operational budget I just think you're out of bounds that's the only way I can put it I think we complied the board of one care reviewed the budget we complied with your budget guidance and for you to go beyond that and say as as Abe said that you're going to now move the goalpost is not fair play and also makes me question why is there a board of directors of one care if you're going to get into line item editing of our budget thank you and I appreciate your comment any other public comment on the motion why don't we take just a we'll take a three minute break oh sorry Sam I'll turn to you I'm sorry to have not called on you please go ahead no worries and I apologize that I've not turned on lights in my house I'm not broadcasting from a dungeon I just wanted to say that we support the motion that the staff recommendation that was proposed and I think the board knows where we stand I mean obviously we submitted an extensive public comment so I won't resummarize that I just wanted to make that clear thank you thank you and thank you for submitting a comment any other public comment okay um we have a little bit of scheduling things to deal with and I'll take a five minute break till 427 we'll come back at 27 thank you okay I think we can resume and we made a couple adjustments I think a couple folks can stay a little bit longer so we can see if we can resolve this today or not and we've checked some calendars we should have a little more time um so I don't know if any other board members have any other thoughts they want to share but I'll open it up in the event that there is I just want to ask the staff a question um Mr. Berman mentioned a substantial reduction in operating budget in 2024 can you comment if there was a substantial reduction in the operating budget in 2024 my memory is is actually increased compared to 2023 so you're muted can you hear me now I was double muted um I did look at this I don't have the slide in front of me um maybe Matt can pull it up or we can get it but my understanding from the one-care hearing on November 8th is that they presented a budgeted to budgeted look and that is a decrease um in their operating budget we looked at an actual to a budgeted so their actuals for 23 projected to their budgeted 24 is an increase okay that exact numbers I don't have in front of me okay that that's helpful that's helpful um my only other comment is I think that sometimes we you know there's questions about what the board's role is in evaluating one care specifically it seems to come up and my impression of the funding from of one care is that there's basically a pass through from Vermonters or people who paying for healthcare on behalf of Vermonters commercial rate payers federal payers state payers and I guess if you one care does mention the cost shift so it would be commercial rate payers have a pass through hospitals to one care for their operating budget so while hospitals allocate that money to one care it is really Vermonters money that's going to one care and I think that that when I think about evaluating one care's budget I think about our responsibility as a board to ensure that Vermonters money is being spent in the most optimal way to meet the goals of improved access, improved quality reduced cost, improved equity those things that's just my one comment on that but thank you Marissa for that clarification. Any other board members have any questions or thoughts? Right so I think the folks with the public comments are really helpful in sharing their views and I think one of them was similar with what member Lungen said and I think it is more comfortable to think of it that way as an opportunity to put some of this more in guidance next year to be more prescriptive. I know the board had asked or I think Dr. Merman had asked or staff had asked for programmatic costs and what I'm hearing from Dave and Tom is that you have concerns that this cost more than what we needs to. Some of these programs are working and we're paying for them and you have an obligation to take care and be responsible stewards of that money in this role and I understand that completely. I think maybe what we could do is put in guidance next year that we need to understand those programmatic costs better and to have a better ROI on the programs what is working and what is not working. I don't know if it's so binary as you know pass through versus not pass through because it has all these programs that help really care for monitors in significant ways but I think we need to kind of drill down on that a little bit before I think we should make a very large reduction. I think we need to understand that before we do and I think the right place to do that at this time would really be in guidance. I think there is over budgeting I mean it's over budgeted every year whether it's a pandemic or not it's more the guidance isn't binding it's more important for us to consider beyond the guidance including the statutory factors I had concerns about frankly some of the administrative costs but also the resources for primary care and some of the public comment that was shared and also B1D and some of what we saw and some of the claims regarding savings I had concerns about some of that so I would ask members to consider this more measured and moderate reduction at this time and that we can take a really hard look at what's more appropriate next year so I think what I'll do in the interest of time and I do want one care to have a decision today if we can is I'm going to ask Russ to take a roll call vote and I ask you guys to think about this and if we can't get it we can't get it go ahead Tom before we vote would you please remind me the wording of what we're voting on specifically Jack I don't know if Marisa you have that Marisa do you have the um I wrote it down somewhere but the the actual dollar amount that was put up in the recommendation I believe it's $957,000 I can go back to a previous slide okay well while you do that Chair I just wanted to say that I understand your position and what you've just said and I am willing to compromise there were in the public comments some comments made about asking to increase risk while decreasing budget and that that created some discomfort I like what you've talked about trying to help programmatically figure out how much it costs to do different things because on slide 16 there was nothing mentioned about risk bearing tolerance being part of those budgeted items talking about executive salaries marketing etc purchased services so it's difficult for me to just accept that argument the increasing risk while decreasing the budget is an impossible ask without knowing what is needed to take more risk so I like the approach that you've outlined a moment ago where we could understand with a little bit more detail what's needed to take more risk to deliver these programs what's needed to fulfill the pass through what I think of as the essential component of the ACO and I'd also like to say that I some board members noted that they want this to succeed I'm one of those I'd like this reform effort to work so with that I'll pass back to you yeah I guess I would just say in response that any vote I make on any of these things is so that it works and then it succeeds and that's I think the goal okay so Russ I think he can take a roll call vote with I didn't have the exact numbers when I made the motion but it was $957,245 dollars okay I'll do a roll call vote on that motion in alphabetical order so board member Holmes yes board member Lunge no board member Merman yes board member Walsh yes and chair Foster can you go to the other motion I move to approve fiscal year 24 budget is modified today by the Green Mountain care board and subject to the conditions presented today by GMCB staff I'll second then sorry did we have any additions or modifications that need to flag Russ I don't believe so Marissa jump in if I'm wrong but I don't think there were I think this the way this is written it's inclusive of the ones that were new since last week I didn't hear any motions in addition to that of things that needed to be added okay yeah that's correct so it's all the it's all of what was on the slide that Misha the slides that were walked through okay right so I move to approve the one camera mod fiscal year 24 budget as modified today by the GMCB subject to the conditions presented today by GMCB staff Robin already second second second all right all those in favor please say aye aye aye and the motion carries is there any old business to come before the board any new business and is there a motion to adjourn so moved then second all right all right all those in favor say aye aye Marissa Michelle and Russ and Matt and the teams thank you this is never easy and thank you for a lot of really really really helpful analysis last second questions all kinds of information you guys did a really great job as always so thank you very much for helping us work through this naughty and difficult issue and have a really nice holiday everybody thank you


Welcome back to ITW Extra, powered by JSA. We are here live at ITW 2023 in National Harbor. This is the official broadcast of ITW 2023. And joining me today is Roy Hillard. He is the SVP of Sales and General Manager of the Telco Infrastructure Division of Externet. Roy, welcome back. Good morning. I was just gonna say, it's Groundhog Day. Right, we're back, it's two weeks later, but different outcome, different things we can talk about. So it's just good. Different outcome, I mean, we just saw each other just a few weeks ago in Las Vegas. Exactly. For channel partners. And here we are back together again at ITW. Exactly. Such a pleasure to see you again. We're looking forward to it. Yeah, it's exciting to be what, that was about bringing more partners on board for all the exciting things we're doing. And here we're a whole different ball game in terms of our clients and partners here. So it's great stuff. Yeah, I mean, the floor is buzzing. It is. This is the biggest ITW to date. I hear there's over 9,000 attendees here and we're happy to have you back. So, I mean, Externet has created a great name for itself in sports and entertainment. We won't go there. We talked a little bit about that debate last time, but the company promises connections for life. Where you live, where you work and where you play. Indeed. Yeah. And you're more focused on the work side of it. Exactly. For our point of view, our partners and our clients, and that goes across the wholesale side as well as the enterprise and the content and gaming and healthcare and things of those verticals. So absolutely, where they work and that work is their premise and they're working through or obviously the cloud adoption that's going on. And then that extends out to our partners within, it could be a wholesale play for the carriers that are here or obviously the large data center providers. And so yeah, we spent a lot of our time in the work side of it, but what I've seen in the course of the last six to eight months as we've been chatting, is as you look at what live, work and play, the key part of that common theme is the dynamics that live in that. And especially when you look at the last two or three years, the dynamics across what all those represented have changed dramatically. And what Extenet does is we're uniquely positioned to help our customers and clients adapt to those dynamics. And that's what we're talking about today. And that's what between large enterprises that I've taught you and the wholesale carriers and the data centers, that's what they need. They need that flexibility, they need elastic bandwidth. They need that type of being able to ebb and flow and work through things and that dynamics. And that's what separates Extenet from everyone else. It totally does. I mean, it all kind of combines together now where you live, where you work and where you play. So the things that you're doing is definitely bringing that all together. And there's some new information about this Manhattan market. Exactly. A little bit north of the Big Apple. Can you tell us a little bit more about what Extenet is doing there? Exactly. It's a prime example of what we're talking about in terms of that dynamics and how we change the market. So yeah, the Orangeburg data center market is exploding. We're building a fresh route into there that's gonna be not only diverse but also give the type of capabilities and bandwidth that everyone needs and the clients need in that large burgeoning data center market. But it goes to a better kind of broader approach that we're the ones that can do some customized building. We can do some customized offerings that others aren't gonna be able to do. And that's hype in with it's layer one encryption type services coming out of there that that's the key. And that's what everyone's looking for. And that's the new new and that's what we're working on. And so we're excited about that. It's a precursor to expansions in Dallas and Las Vegas and some other things that are coming down the way that it just continue in the exponential growth that we're on. I mean, you are growing so rapidly and this is a very critical important market. It is. For sure. What are you trying to tap into in addition to everything you just talked about in that market? Are there tax incentives? What else can you tell viewers today? Absolutely. Absolutely. So the market up there, there's several large data center providers up there that are doing some work. And they're getting what they need from the local market and the power and the ability to build in that market. And it's just far enough removed that it's close so it can be off-prem for the New Jersey, New York, key metro area, but it's also close enough that if you need to go service it. So that's the idea. And so we have a variety of customers doing different scenarios. And then also proves as more and more things moving to the cloud and the data, it's just a huge amount of space that you need to have. And we're going to then interconnect that with our vast number of data centers that we have in New Jersey, New York. So that connectivity come down and then we'll look to extend that across the country as well to other data centers. And when is it going to launch? First quarter next year, first quarter 2024. So that's when the go live, it's actively being built right now. So big news coming out in 2024. Absolutely. We're talking to customers and clients right now and doing contracts. So everyone's on board and excited about it. Yeah, it does sound exciting. I mean, I live close by, so I'll have to journey up there and take a tour when we launch that. Indeed. Super exciting. Is there anything else you want to add today? No, I think what we're really focused on, besides obviously that project and as we're talking to the wholesale carriers and everyone around here, it's all about being that last minute mile provider and that the dense metro fiber that we have. So a lot of the conversations with the carriers here, it's like, what can we do to help you out? And a lot of times, again, going back to that kind of common theme of dynamics, they're looking for flexibility and they're looking for ability to do different lengths of contracts or different types of contracts. So that's where I think the changes and that's a little bit different. I've been doing this long enough that the old style, there's always this swings the market. Now it's, there isn't no, there's no one size fits at all. So that's what we're trying to solve that and that's the conversations we're having. And we're seeing the large enterprises show up to this event and others, they're acting more like large carriers, right? Because they've got the breadth and depth and so that's what we're asking. So fantastic meeting so far, still looking to talk to more folks today and everyone can reach out to me here or of course, xsinet.com. There's more and more coming out of there all the time as you see and more announcements and more venues as well coming down the pike. So I think that's the other, the big differentiator for some of these wholesale carriers and things of that nature is the venues that we're into, how we can help them connect to those as well. So that market and as we, as the telecom section start stitching that all together, again, a strong differentiator for xsinet versus everyone else. And it's a huge differentiator for sure.  I mean, I think I might know, San Antonio is better. San Antonio is for those cowboys. Dallas Cowboys and MGM, right? There's an MGM here as well. There's an MGM here right over there. Yes, that's in the list that we're working with MGM and then you have the F1 situation in Las Vegas, which is out and we do other circuit in America is at other scenarios like that. So venues are changing and there's other things that are coming in New York to soon to be announced as well, which are gonna be exciting. So that's the, there's more, there's more on the way. So again, the expansion will continue. And again, it's all about that. It fits always into that live, work and play because we're all doing pretty much all of those all the time anymore. And so we fit into that. So that's why we're excited about the connections for life that we bring. And that's what we're exemplifying here with our customers and our clients. We'll definitely change in the game here. We're doing all we can. At Externet and the viewers can go to externet.com to learn more. Absolutely. Roy will be here until tomorrow. Yep. So if you'd like to meet. I'm here all day tomorrow. So yeah, absolutely. At externet.com. Thanks again Roy, always a pleasure. Are we gonna meet again in two weeks? Or are we, I don't know. We'll see. To be determined, Buffy Harakitas and Roy Hillard, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Telco Infrastructure Division of Externet. Indeed, that's a mouthful. Change in the game. Live, work and play. Absolutely. Externet.com, live from ITW 2023. ITWXR powered by JSA. Thank you. Thank you viewers for tuning in to another episode here at ITW 2023. Happy networking.


So how have you been doing this year? We haven't talked for a long time Really good really really good. I mean ever since the The quarter opened in July. I mean I was doing good before that I did good the whole week before of the last quarter And two and this quarter I've been doing great and the only thing that was frustrating was when I couldn't get into Netflix Which drove me crazy. Yeah, that's right. Whatever the explanation with that price Supposedly I'm supposed to go on spider arca and not arca and He said that that's they locked they they were having problems with just plain arca the connection And so they closed it, but they didn't let me know well Maybe if you can't get in something you just try a different ECN Yeah, well that's and actually he went he was we spent like like a half an hour and We reset it up. So he said that if I use anything with this sb Sdb are spider in front of it. It'll work. He said that's strictly for our platform Yes, yes, yes, because you it was it was Netflix that day and it was Was it DFS? There were there were two But it would have been a whole huge day A huge day. Yeah. So anyway, you can't look back. I mean I can only forward and I've had a great two weeks Yeah, well I like today I said as soon as I get out of this J&J. It's gonna go to 165 165 yeah, but it's a 166 I like it's going to 165 so I'm laughing well. I'm glad you're having a good year Yes, I am having a good year and I'm having a really good third quarter Did you increase your risk or you're still keeping your risk? No, I'm still keeping it because I'm doing well and I just and then I don't I don't sweat it so much like like I always figure if I can make one between one and two hundred dollars a day That's still five hundred, you know to maybe seven fifty a week and that's a pretty good chunk of change Yeah, you know what I mean, you know that can be like a two thousand dollar month Which is great for me. So Well, yeah, that's terrific And I learned ever like every day. I'm in I learn more and I would never sometimes I like I I have to tell you I was a little days ago. Yeah, but I liked it. I liked it and there was so that I thought today was a short play I couldn't get behind it alongs. You liked along today. I like the Look at it. Did it go did it go initially? But then it then it dropped off I mean if we could have done it the first five to seven minutes We probably might have made money, but no J&J was the better which is why I'm still in the room It's so funny I mean, you're usually pretty good about getting there on time or one of the first people there So I know that you are scanning and looking at your own picks, but it is good to have Me yes double triple check it to see what I like to narrow it down. You know what I mean You know like I always love when I write they were like like cuz I never know if he's like I don't want it I don't want to be there and telling you what to do or anything in fact I I don't have expertise, but at the same time like I wonder if she saw this I wonder if she saw that It's great. Put ideas in and just don't get upset if I don't like it Yeah, no, I don't I don't because sometimes I'll still keep an eye on it and see what it does and a lot of times It doesn't work I Like oh, she was right like today. She was right Honestly this market. I'm what I'm noticing the last couple of weeks. Like you said we've been on quite a role here is like Again unlike earlier in the year Things are starting to have some more follow-through here to the downside Like where I did watch like I saw Tesla today. Tessa was falling again Was like a neutral open it wasn't down But I was like, oh, this is fun Like some of the things that we've been doing even love was down again today I didn't go back on that did but a Ford was done again today So it is nice that things are following through now finally Whereas that has been, you know, not always the case when we started out the year so bullish And and that's what I think that's what bit us was the fact that it wasn't having follow-through And we're so used to follow-through that you almost have to like then you have to change your whole mindset, you know Like things aren't following through so we'll get out of 50 cents and we'll just call it a day The thing that was positive I think about this trade today was that although it bounced it never really even got up to the open Yeah, yeah, that's so that made me feel that made me feel better because we could have actually put stop a break Even maybe with five or ten cents and we would have been all right. So so that that Made that's why I stayed in it too. So what was your biggest trade so far in the last month? And you didn't do the Netflix could you didn't do that one? But what was your biggest one? E-bay and CVX. Oh and well When I went back in spot and love both were good for me and then XP right we did XP on Friday July 20th, right? Yeah, ebay was a big trade Yeah, ebay ebay was good and and it went really well. You know I mean it went fast. Yeah I say that I'm doing an ad. Are you doing ads now or not? Yes, but maybe not double but like if I go in I won't double it, but but I'll take more yeah I'll take more unless my price was so good then I let it ride I Mean like I just kind of evaluated as I do it, but I did take more the ebay. I did well, that's good Yeah, because look wasn't love a little bit of a slug initially. Yes, but then it went. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I did I mean we could have doubled up on both of them, but then like you said that's being a pig You've been doing good, which is great. I have to check in. I just got so busy to check in with people But I'm glad I know doing good I was surprised of the market was up today when you emailed me yesterday about that other bank going under I wish or Saturday whenever you sent me that email I was I was like, oh, we're gonna be down a lot on Monday, and then we weren't ever miss being a nurse No No No, you know what for 30 years work so hard Years ago I stopped work. I retired what three or four years before COVID so in 2019 I retired and I just I started in 83 and And you know what they it's all a lot of it's a computer stuff And I just miss them, you know, you know me. I'm a talk or my people person So that's the thing I loved about nursing was getting to know the patient and getting to talk to the family And that's really when you when you find out things like you find out really that they something they forgot to tell the doctor about their history or Maybe a symptom that they didn't disclose because they didn't think it was relevant And just in a chit chat you can find out so much about them You know what I mean like I used to find out about like especially I had a pow from World War two And he was actually behind Nazi lines. He had infiltrated the other side. He was Jewish And when he had a raging fever after surgery And he thought he was back there and he felt like just so knowing that he was a pow What just gave you you know some things that you would never You know and the interesting people I met I met somebody that was there on D day You know, I mean and and the and the boat opened up and he was six foot eight He was huge and he said that it opened up too far from the shore And the guys that he was in the in the boat with he said we're gonna drown and because he was six foot eight His head was above water and he carried like six guys to shore with him. Yeah So things like that that I you know, so I miss those kinds of things, but Yeah, it's hard trading what year and then when did you retire? Oh, when I start trading him, um 2015 And I retired in 2019. Yeah. Yeah And I love it I love it gives you it gives you A reason to get out of bed every morning and something fun. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's my job, right? So so for an hour or like, you know from nine to ten. That's my job Like that's what I think and then I'm free to hang at the pool You know do errands, you know, I have my whole life in front, you know, rest of the day So and that's great. Great. Yeah, it is So I love it. Yes You don't need any help I do My friends parents like want to train. I like I always send them your open houses. You know, come on Just send them my way if they're interested. Yes, I will. Well, it's funny. I have I have another girl that's just started. She didn't do the class yet. She's doing the class in august and she's new, you know, and she's asking all these questions about How to set up her charts and just to kind of follow along and everything and She was just asking me to explain About the shorting. She's like she just doesn't doesn't understand the concept of shorting. Do you know what I mean? So it's again for somebody that's never traded before they don't know even understand What is a short? No, I had no idea either You know, my thing was I like the company or like like I like lululemon and so I bought a few shares of lululemon And so that's that's been very good But then I bought a shares of BYND and that didn't do well. So like for the long Yeah, that did not No, that did not for sure.  I think you did the BYND option. I did. Yeah And other one that I love Do you remember the day trade we did when tesla was just starting out and I remember you said It's it's gonna stop drop and it's then it's gonna take off. So just and you said It was a day trade and you said it was like 11 30. You said hang on hang on. It's gonna go And it went I remember it was the biggest Day trade of I think a still of my career. I didn't even remember that. What year was that? Yeah, that was it was even before it split. That's how long ago it was But you knew I you know, it could have even been 75 dollars a share. I mean, that's how low it was at the time But I remember that one and I remember BA was the gift that kept on given So, yeah, yeah, which now we could have done last week and I didn't do it I didn't do we could have gone long that last week. Actually it had the air We did other stuff, but You can't get well when lockdown when love went down that day BA also changed I don't know if it was in conjunction. You know if it was in sympathy, but Well, I'm so glad you're doing it. It's always on my rate. Well, if you keep in touch with me, I love your emails You always keep me abreast. I will Yeah, okay I will you too. Bye


Dita, you easily have some of the best photos and videos inside of a big league clubhouse. You ready to take a look at some of the top ones? Sure. All right, baby, let's do it. The feed is brought to you by Untucket, the shirts designed to be worn untucked. Visit untucket.com. First one. This is awesome. Oh, some of the shirts. Nerdsharks, so we're good. So all the people that don't know is the Nerdsharks. They don't buy. They don't have tea. All they do is suck. And this is back at home? No, this is in Bahamas. Okay. Man, and check out all those fish swimming around too. Yeah, so they don't say it's fake. It's real. Next one. So you also go snorkeling a lot. Yep. And you take the camera down under the water. Yeah, this is curious. Swimming with girlfriends, friends, and a lot of people. I think I just got a GoPro right here, so that's why I decided to check it out. The new one. Now, when you go under the water, how long you stand there for? It all depends. I don't know, I've even checked how long I've stayed, like the longest down there, but I can stay probably a while after I take some good bread in. You mentioned how you brought the GoPro under the water. Yeah, this one was sweet. Yeah, this is the 360 fly. I got it. I got it on my drone, and I decided to do something different with it, and that came out. Well, it came out actually pretty good. I didn't know it was on the water until I threw it on the water, so I tried it out that way. And what's our boy doing right there? He's actually looking for shark teeth. Oh, yeah, so like the small ones. We ended up finding, I think, 20, 20 small ones in there, so it's good that we had nothing to do with it, so I just go out and do something different. Cool, nice little collection. Yeah. All right, so we mentioned all these angles.  You got the huge yacht and the jet ski. This is awesome. Yeah, so this is also Bahamas. This is the same clip as before. This is actually a couple of hours before the shark swimming.  This will make anybody want to go to the beach. Yes, definitely, definitely. Which, this is a mood right here. I think that was last year, I think. In 2018, yeah, just sitting in a pool, just waiting. I don't know how you kept a straight face.  And above it too, you look really good too. Another mood. Yeah, this is CC's party. This is 2017, if I'm not mistaken. Okay.  I saw the photo, I was like, I'm going to be the first guy in, and after that it was probably what I jumped in. You did chillin' on the cherries. All right, so you have so many different talents. And this is definitely one of them. Yeah. Not just creating the video, but editing the video as well. And this is a Halloween. Yeah, this is Halloween right here. Started to go as an end man. Started my best. It's actually my first time putting, like, something all together and posted on Instagram for Halloween. So it actually came out pretty good for the first time. So it was pretty fun. Yep. Got it. He said this is gonna work. Supposed to turn into a hand. I love how you ended in the tub. And you also love other things and other hobbies. Yeah. Like this golf right here, which you had started learning not all too long ago. Yeah. But what, two years now? Yep. It's only in the off season. So I only get like three months of playing time. And I still don't go every day, but even though I should go every day because it's like 86 all year round in Curacao. And this is at the Blue Bear Resort where we stay at. This was after, like, when we worked out in the morning and then came back and played golf. Now, not from you, but just from all the golfers. I'm curious to know how many balls are sitting in that ocean floor right there. That's a difficult shot. You get the thumbs up. I get the thumbs up. I made it on the first try, which I was happy because normally I hit it right in the water.  For me, there's way more. Happens to the best of us. And there you are. This is New Zealand. You're going ziplining. No, this is Costa Rica. This is Costa Rica. You did it in New Zealand, though, too, right? Yeah, I did it in New Zealand, too. Let me see. I think this is Costa Rica. That's how we know you're an active man. We're trying to figure out where exactly you were ziplining here in two totally different spots. This is, yeah, this is Costa Rica. It was last year after the surgery. So people that freaked out on Instagram when I posted this, some months after. And as you can see, I'm holding my phone with the arm that's in the brace. And I'm holding it with my left hand. Yep. This is one of the reasons why we do this, to give more context to the videos and photos.  How am I ziplining? Why am I ziplining? But they don't see that. I'm in the harness all the way. And I'm holding the zipline there with my left hand. But yeah. Wait a second, record straight. Yeah, I mean... So people can get it. Let's go back to spring training. This is 16, I think. The shoot that we had yourself, Carlos Paltron. And this was a unique situation because this is you showing tips and teaching the veteran. So vice versa. What's the skill that you know and somebody who obviously did that here on the baseball field, but this is a memorable day. He told me that he started drawing with his darts and everything. So it's something pretty cool. And we exchange some tips about drawing and get more into details. That's what I do when I draw. I put way too many details in there. But it's something great. It comes out awesome. Yeah. All right, here we go. DJ DD. This is the 80s event at Veltron's charity day. It's what we had. And I went, he said, oh, it's the 80s. You can come with everyone. And already had the flat top. So I was like, well, might as well just bring glasses with the headphone. So it ended up bringing me actually a pretty fun night. See, look. You guys wash each other's hands. Good teammates. Good teammates. And from the Netherlands, there's a lot of really good DJs.  What would be on that cassette right there? On that cassette right there. What you got? I go with Skrillex, Avicii and somebody from the house. I don't know. I can't remember another name. This guy's got good taste. All right. So we're coming down to home stretch. And here you are, dressed in a nice suit. You put it together really well off. Yeah. Yeah. This is the Indochino commercial that we did. They told me to bring a suit or whatever you want.  So decided to wear it for that commercial and surprise people. Like, hey, I'm just trying to help you with all your stuff. With my glasses on.   They didn't recognize me. So I took the glasses off. So I looked like Superman for a second. So when will this next item be added to the outfit or seen inside this clubhouse as a home run chain? What happened? We've seen it in some clubhouse. They're locked in so far. Nah. I don't really wear this to the feel. You know, this is not something you're playing. So it's nice stash. I have it though. It's nice stash. Yeah. I don't wear it all the time. Just keep it simple. I could see it's something like the home run chain, though, kind of like how the white socks add. Turned over chain hurricanes, right? Yeah. This is a small one, though. That's not as big as people dance. It's probably like this big. All right. So we'll work on getting you bigger ones. Yeah. Next one, your mom. Yeah. Is this where you get your speed from? She is still flying. You know what's funny? Because I've been running with this.  I can do it outside. All right. Go ahead. And she actually went and run. So they're building a hospital on this side right here. And she was like running. And my trainer goes, just keep going. Just run all the way to the door. Get to the hospital. You're fine. Something happens. You'll be right over anyway. So it was actually pretty fun. And here she is. This is her mom. Still getting after it. So she runs. She hits. She's even on the Netherlands softball team. Softball team. She was here on Cece's event playing. She went one for one here. So it's actually pretty cool. She reps the family well. And so does her dad. Yeah. Man. That's cool. He looks like a ball player. Oh yeah. He pitched professionally in the Netherlands for a long time. So he runs in the genes I guess. Will we ever see you pitch? No. Probably not. Probably not. I'll go. Probably not. All right. So not only does it run your family. Yeah. It's my nephew. But dude, you got some more on the way. There's another dude he comes. Oh yeah. This is my nephew just hitting line drives. And awful homers on this one. Yep. But yeah. And you give some cool angles of yourself. Yeah. So he shows the rest of the family. So we got to show you some love. At some part with some of your own. Yeah. This is my camera glasses that I wear. People don't really know. So until now. They should do this more often in broadcast. I'm not like this. Like I don't know if you want to do it in broadcast. But this like helps me wear a look when I'm hitting. So once I figured out like where am I looking. What I have to change. That kind of made me a better hitter and see like, Okay, this is where you have to do a look at all the time. If you want to be doing right all the time. You know, you still got to make adjustments. But it's, it's, it's fun stuff. It's really cool how you find a lesson in everything that you do.  So that's one thing. Pay attention. And also too. Here's the video of the judge. Yeah, this is why I always say, I don't know if you have the voice on here, but I said it was illegal swimming. He was hitting the boat too. And what's funny too is that you're obviously like. Yeah, I look around to see where he's at.  And you also got to get ready for the next one. You don't want to get hit. Imagine pitching against him. Yeah. Probably won't be too fun. And you also have it going on inside the clubhouse. Yeah. Can't do much inside because there's rules. But I show what I can. And it's a pretty fun moment when people get to see this side of baseball to not just what goes on on the field. You're the go-to guy inside the clubhouse for anything post game related I feel. And we're going to wrap up with these photos that you've taken. And these are all really beautiful. This one sticks out. You always deliver a different perspective than anything that you do. I try to change everything. And dude, you got the sea foam in there. Yeah. With the sunset. There's some more pictures on the same day too. I was shooting like sunset, sunset, sunset. And then I changed it because everybody shoots sunset. You know, I wanted to do something different. And you got the foam. Not everybody thinks about let me get that low to get the foam and the sunset in the back. So that's why I did that. Dude, one day you're going to have an exhibit, a gallery, something. But that's a cool goal. And I feel like that's something that you might set. I might. I might. But we got to see how everything plays out first. You know, one step at a time. So we see all these fun posts. You do a lot of fun things. And you're always looking to learn. What is it about Instagram that you love most? Because you show the fans a lot. I mean, it's a different perspective. People see things differently. All they see, we play baseball. And that's it. But we have a private life. And we have a life that we can show people on Instagram. That's why I try to tell a lot of guys that you don't have to post everything. Because you don't want people to know everything about you. There's some stuff that needs to stay personal. And that's how you got to go by it. And for me, I post off on Instagram. But it's mostly about somebody else instead of me. Like if I post something, sometimes you see me. But it's mostly nature. Other people. I barely post it with family too. Because personal stuff. But it's what you want people to see. Because that's the platform you can control. That's how I go by it. That's a great answer. Yeah. Wow. Shoot. So not that you need a plug. But now's the time for the plug. I mean, something different. I always try to bring something different that people don't get to see every day. And I won't say that you'll follow me. But if they want to follow, they can follow. Like I'm not going to force you to follow me. You can do whatever you want. It's on your phone. It's on your computer. It's wherever you go. You hit the follow button if you want. If not, it doesn't matter. So for me, it's just more what I bring. What I post. Bring positive stuff. And then, you know, get excited and stuff. Like all that type stuff. Mix it into my Instagram. I don't want to stick it just one thing. Just add a lot of diversity in it. Shoot. I'll do it for you. Make sure you check him out. Give him a follow. He's got a lot of fun stuff on the way. Yeah.