This is the first time I've seen a person who has a lot of experience in the field. I've seen this go really pretty well. She's got a shot of a bullet in her eye. She's got a lot of bullets in her eye. I think that would be great. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. One point. One point. She's got a shot of a bullet in her eye. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. I'm seeing her going through her eyes. It's like, yeah, yeah. And also, Is there a way? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Please join me in a few moments of centering silence. And now, Please remain seated as we sing our in-gathering hymn, which is number 295, and the words appear in your order of service. Welcome to First Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a community where curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical, and social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian Universalism supports the freedom of conscience of each individual as together we seek to be a force for good in the world. My name is Karen Rose Gredler, and on behalf of the congregation, I would like to extend a special welcome to visitors.  Newcomers and others are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service and to visit the library, which is directly across from the center doors of this auditorium. Feel free to bring your beverages and any questions you may have. Members of our staff and lay ministry will be on hand to welcome you. You may also look for persons holding teal-colored stoneware coffee mugs. These are FUS members knowledgeable about our faith community who would welcome visiting with you. Experienced guides are generally available to give building tours after each service, and I believe we will have John Powell doing that after this service. So if you would like to know more about this sustainably designed addition or our national landmark meeting house across parking lot or through the indoors, please meet over on this side, your left of the auditorium right after the service, and John will meet you there. We welcome children to stay for the duration of the service. Sometimes it's difficult for some in attendance to hear in this lively, acoustical environment, so if your child wants to hop around, talk a lot, or whatever, and it becomes a little bit loud, you may visit the, excuse me, you may visit the Child Haven, there's some folks back there right now already, or the back of the auditorium, and the services can be seen and heard very well there. This would also be a great time to turn off any devices that might cause a disturbance during the hour, especially your cell phone ringers, please. And now I'd like to acknowledge some individuals who are helping our service run smoothly this morning. David Brails is our sound operator. Tom Boykoff is our lay minister. Mary Elizabeth Kunkel is the greeter, and our ushers are Dick Goldberg, Liza Monroe, Paula Alt, and Mary Hollis. Back in the kitchen, Fixing Coffee for us are Rick DeVita and Nancy Kosseth. I believe that John Tooze worked on taking care of our plants, and especially the piece of lilies this morning. So thank you all for your service. Please note the announcements in the red floors insert in your order of service for things that are going on today and upcoming. There's lots of information in there, and it's important to remain aware of everything that's going on. Again, welcome. We hope today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart, and stir your spirit. Thank you. This morning may it be a place for you to find meaning, to choose justice, to remain faithful to your highest values. Here may we reaffirm our conviction that truth brings freedom, that freedom inspires reason, that reason fosters tolerance, and that tolerance reinforces the search for truth. With true collegiality, we welcome all who would travel with us along this road of interdependent thought and worship to this hour of search and celebration we welcome you. I invite you to rise in body and spirit for the lighting of our chalice. The words of affirmation printed in your program are responsive in nature today. Please join your voices in reading the bolded sections. We have gathered here in search of answers to life's riddles. We have come in search of hope and healing. Let this be a place not only of inquiry, but of insight. Let this be a place where healing fosters giving and hope fosters service. And in the spirit of that circle of love, please turn to your neighbor and exchange with them a warm greeting. Leslie Ross, director of Children's Religious Education, and I have the pleasure of introducing our banner parade today. Every year our children create banners as expressions of what they do in class during the year.  Between our three service times we have 29 classes and over 450 kids. So there has been a lot of banner decorating going on here. If you see glitter and sticky things on the floor, you know why. And we're really thrilled to be able to have them share this part of their experiences here with you. During the service, we'll be hanging the banners up in the commons area. So when you come out of here, it's going to look extra beautiful. So let's begin now with our parade. Religious Education, we're always looking as the beginning of the year commences in September, always looking for teachers and people who are willing to work with our kids. We recruit for that purpose in April. So be kind of thinking about maybe what you might want to contribute next year. So we continue with a couple of selections from retired or deceased Unitarian Universalist ministers. Randy, lovely, the author of this first reading was actually an individual who taught at a seminary I attended back in the early 1970s. He writes that simple direct observation leads me to believe that, especially in religious matters, most people do not want to think they do not want to judge for themselves. Most individuals expect the minister, priest, guru, rabbi to be the religious leader who knows the saving truths and the moral oughts. He or she tells the people what to believe, how to act, and points out who the heretics and the sinners are. This expectation is widely held not only by churchgoers but also by those who completely ignore organized religion. There are only a very few individuals who take religions seriously and are also willing to take the responsibility of thinking and feeling it through for themselves in concert with other thoughtful caring individuals who are involved in the same process. Now, some religious liberals think that we should do more to attract multitudes, positioning ourselves as the church for all people, but I think this is misguided. If we attracted multitudes we would be unable to practice our faith. Our task is to attract curious, independent religious seekers and there simply are not hordes of them. The purpose of our movement is to serve our uniqueness and our religiously nurturing and spiritually expanding. Most people could care less about this kind of a church. What we need to do is to accept the reality of this situation. Forget that inane myth that we ought to have universal appeal and conscientiously seek out those who like us are willing to doubt, to test, to think, to affirm and to live their religious values day by day. The second selection comes from Judith Walker Riggs, a retired Unitarian minister, and she says that some years ago, some friends of mine, including the dean of one of our theological schools, the president of the Unitarian Universal Association and a philosophy professor from Canada, they were midway through a trip to our sister Unitarian churches in Transylvania. Now, this was before the end of the Cold War when travel in Eastern Europe was a little difficult and, at times, pretty risky. And so as this party was leaving Hungary where they had visited many descendants of our Unitarian churches in the 1600s, they were about to enter Romania and, of course, they had to go through customs. Their belongings were thoroughly searched. Why do you want to come into Romania? They were asked. To attend a religious festival of our faith and meet with local religious leaders was the reply. That answer provoked an even more thorough search of the Westerners' luggage because the guards were looking for Bibles, for religious tracts, the importation of which was strictly forbidden by the repressive Ciescu regime. Our Unitarian Universalists felt secure, however. They were not hard-shell revolutionary Baptists trying to smuggle in seditious religious literature. They relaxed. Fine. Here. And indeed, nothing was found, not a single Bible, not a single religious tract, which led my friends to being detained for four more hours. Are you trying to tell us that you are religious officials and you are not carrying any Bibles? Who are you really? Some days you can't win for losing. You see, it's not easy to explain to a border guard that your religion is connectedness to the power of life itself, one that constantly challenges us to love and to think in an ongoing search for an ever-illusive truth. This doesn't pack very well in a suitcase. It's hard to communicate in a few simple phrases, but it's no less valuable or tangible for that, for the occasion. Many moons ago and with a newly minted PhD, I accepted a call to serve the Unitarian Universalist Church in Binghamton, New York. Now after the holidays, that first year of my service, I became aware of a long-standing custom of pulpit exchanges among clergy in the Protestant community during what was called a Week of Christian Unity. So hoping to build some bridges for local colleagues, I submitted my name and looked forward to participating in this annual event. The coordinators duly matched me with the Presbyterian minister, and so a few Sundays later, I preached what I thought was an engaging but inoffensive sermon to a rather smallish crowd in that large ornate sanctuary. I came away feeling pretty good about the morning, and my own congregation seemed to be just ecumenical undertaking. It was not an opportunity that my immediate predecessor had ever taken advantage of. So when the next year rolled around, I exchanged again, this time with a Methodist minister, and I was beginning to feel like one of the gang. But before the third round, something shifted. Shortly after applying, I was informed that, as a Unitarian Universalist, this is a week for Christian unity, I was told, and you and your congregation simply do not meet that criteria. To be honest, the coordinators did have a point. The Binghamton Unitarian Universalist Church was comprised primarily of humanists with a few Pagans and cultural Jews thrown in. Although its lineage, like this one, was Christian, only a minority still self-identified as Unitarian Christians. And frankly, my own convictions have always aligned more closely with Buddhism than with Christianity, but it was a slight. And so I appealed the decision to no avail. There would be no comedy between Unitarian Universalists and the Protestant community. Some of the sting of that rejection was softened, however, as the Jewish rabbi down the street and I developed a warm relationship which led to our own single exchanges. Which made good sense, because from an historical standpoint, Unitarians have long been criticized for being more Jewish than Christian, owing to our opposition to the doctrine of the Trinity. Indeed, our detractors several centuries ago called us Judaizers. I found a much different religious climate here in Madison when I arrived in 1988. One of the first calls that I received was from our near neighbor at First Baptist Church over on Franklin Street. And he welcomed me to the community and invited me to join him at the next gathering of the downtown clergy group. Lutheran, Episcopalian, Methodist, Jewish, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Baptist and Unitarian leaders from Madison Central Core all participated in 1988 in this informal body which had been formed originally in the tumultuous 1970s. And the founders of the downtown clergy group included my predecessor Max Gabler and they had come together initially to act as mediators when violent clashes broke out between Vietnam War protesters and local law enforcement. But then after things quieted down hey, they kind of liked getting together. And so this band of clergy brothers and they were all brothers back then continued to meet weekly for coffee and conversation. I became a regular and I grew to appreciate how much we all shared in common despite our theological differences. And since that time I've spoken at any number of local Protestant churches at their invitation. And First Unitarian Society now collaborates with many faith-based organizations on a host of social justice issues as many of you know. And in 29 years here no one has rejected us to my knowledge for our lack of Christian credentials. But in matters of religion Madison is a remarkably tolerant and accepting community. And the First Unitarian Society for years has enjoyed a great deal of respect. And yet we are the quintessential heresy. At least if words have any meaning. You see our English word heresy comes from the Greek heresis which literally means to take for oneself to choose on one's own. And this is of course what we Unitarian Universalists do in our non-cretal non-doctrinaire tradition where the right of individual conscience is held sacred we each choose what to believe or to disbelieve. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once put it no facts to me are sacred none are profane I simply experiment an endless seeker with no past at my back. Now in confessional religions one does not choose one submits at least with respect to the essentials of the faith. And so on doctrines like the trinity the virgin birth, infant baptism the vicarious atonement choice is not allowed but the question these immutable truths is to invite an accusation of heresy. Now from the standpoint of the world's great religions this is a rather exceptional stance to take. Heresy is a foreign concept in Hinduism, Buddhism Taoism, Confucianism and even Judaism. These days one can profess atheism and still be considered a good Jew. The Hindu philosopher Sarapali Radhakrishnan fondly speaks for many in the non-Christian world when he writes this principle of unity in variety is both a profound spiritual truth and it makes abundant sense. Religious exclusivism has been a frequent source of fanaticism and strife. A little less missionary ardor a little more enlightened skepticism he writes would be very good for all of us. But even within early Christianity it was very little uniformity of belief and thus no grounds for labeling somebody a heritage. Those ancient Christians argued strenuously among themselves about the nature of God, the status of Jesus the significance of the sacraments they disagreed about many things Richard Rubenstein writes but there still was a closeness among and between them but then eventually some powerful figures within the church decided that this unity in diversity thing wasn't such a hot idea that it posed an existential threat not only to the individual Christian but to the Christian movement as a whole and so these powerful figures argued successfully that salvation and belief were indissolubly connected if the correct doctrine was not observed if it was not imposed then millions of souls would be lost and Christ himself would be dealt a terrible defeat and so in 325 AD the reign of orthodoxy began the Nicene Creed made belief in the trinity obligatory for all adherents of the Roman Catholic Church on this question the possibility of personal choice was forever eliminated and to ensure that the faithful told the line a list of anathemas was added to that Creed but those who say there was a time when Christ was not and he was not before he was made and he was made out of nothing or he is of another substance or essence or the Son of God is created or changeable or alterable these are all condemned by the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church by the 6th century deviation from doctrines like the trinity infant baptism all of these were made punishable by death needless to say that proved to be a pretty effective deterrent for many centuries people dared not even think about such things or privately to imagine possible alternatives as the historian Steven Greenblatt points out the church had also rigorously condemned curiosity as a mortal sin it would be almost a thousand years before anyone successfully challenged the main tenets of the Roman Catholic faith and those who dared like the 13th century Cotters the 15th century Hussites a few willful theologians they were all violently suppressed the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century broke the Catholic Church's monopoly on sacred truth and it saw the rise of numerous religious innovators but certain age-old doctrines remained inviolable those who questioned the trinity were condemned as heretics by Catholic and Protestant leaders alike one of the few things that they agreed upon and thus Michael Servitas one of our forebears was burned at the stake in Geneva, Switzerland by a Protestant his insightful book on the errors of the trinity was banned and all but a handful of copies were destroyed a few decades later the non-cretal Unitarian-oriented minor reform church of Poland was decimated by a coalition of Roman Catholics and Lutherans a remnant from that church fled to the mountains of Transylvania where they joined the one Unitarian movement that was able to resist this war on heresy on choosing for oneself throughout history then Unitarians and Universalists for that matter have been regarded by mainstream Christians not just as your garden variety heretics but as arch heretics with the 18th century enlightenment that began to change penalties for disavowing the trinity were relaxed Unitarian congregations began springing up in England in Wales and here in the colonies and although our forebears were still decried as heretics by defenders of orthodoxy a state of uneasy coexistence slowly began to emerge now with respect to the 18th and 19th century Universalists not the Unitarians but the Universalists the story was a little different John Murray was one of our early Universalist evangelists and he was often pelted with eggs and sometimes with rocks when he came to a new town to preach the good news of universal salvation because they were not sufficiently God fearing the universalists were barred in our own country from testifying in a court of law or holding public office as Max Coots Riley observes by reading themselves of hell the Universalists scared the hell out of everybody else even the Unitarians similar to the Universalists in so many ways had qualms about the latter's blithe dismissal of eternal damnation many Unitarians back in the 19th century agreed with their orthodox rivals that only a just harshly punishing God could deter a humankind from acting sinfully but for both of these denominations Unitarian and Universalists freedom of conscience was a hallmark and yet we were not wholly consistent on that score ourselves when it was thought necessary in both instances to curtail people's ability to choose we did so and so in the early 1800s when the transcendentalist movement was gathering steam two of its most notable spokesmen Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker found themselves suddenly on the outside looking in in the wake of Emerson's 1838 Divinity School address at Harvard Andrews Norton a distinguished Unitarian professor at that same institution rebuked him saying words God, religion, Christianity have a definite meaning well understood but how shamefully they have been abused in modern time by infidels and by pantheists and should preachers like Mr. Emerson abound and grow confident in their folly we can hardly overestimate the disastrous effect that they would have upon religion and the moral taste of the community well in time temper is cooled Emersonian thought prevailed transcendentalists within several decades had gained acceptance in our movement followed in short order by humanists and pagans and a number of other chosen faiths and by 1894 the association had revised its constitution emphasizing that no doctrinal test was required and that membership in the Unitarian association was open to everybody the universalist church showcases a slightly different story the universalist were very afraid of losing their distinctiveness losing their bearings and so they clung to their Christian identity much longer than the Unitarians and at one point the universalist even placed limitations on their members freedom of conscience and for a short time imposed a creed and it was during this stressful time that the church conducted its first and last heresy trial yes the universalist conducted a heresy trial the Reverend Herman Bisbee of Saint Paul Minnesota was called on the carpet for promoting transcendentalism and a post-Christian universalist vision of religion natural religion he said is an all embracing religion it recognizes the religion of the atheist as well as the Hindu and the Muslim it opens the door to infinite expansion in natural religion all information is welcome there are different theories to maintain truth is the great requirement and all that helps the truth helps religion he wrote those words in 1872 and he was convicted of heresy and he was drummed out of the universalist church he subsequently became a Unitarian but Bisbee's perspective about this universal religion a few decades hence would become normative for universalism but in 1872 he became a Muslim now those words are almost a century and a half old and they feel kind of innocuous to us today they have a decidedly modern ring and perhaps for a goodly number of Americans they don't seem nearly as outrageous as they did to those who condemned Bisbee in 1872 and yet I would guess that when most people pause long enough to think seriously about religion this is not where their thoughts lead them like those Romanian border guards that I alluded to earlier they probably say you call yourselves a religion where are your bibles repeat for me your church's creed now many of us who have chosen Unitarian universalism have found it to be a refreshing change a welcome alteration from the traditional orthodoxy that insists on enforcing certain doctrines and yet heresy isn't for everybody we are a small movement still because as Brandy Lovely remarked there are only a very few individuals who take religion seriously and are willing to take the responsibility for thinking and feeling it through for themselves Reverend Lovely wrote those words some 35 years ago a lot has changed since then yes ours is still a small denomination now that many mainline Protestant congregations are actively encouraging spiritual investigation and they are much less invested in imposing creedal conformity I see a parallel here by the late 19th century universalism the old universalist church before the two denominations merged the universalist church was declining why was it declining were there a number of reasons but the main reason is because the universalists had pretty much stopped preaching fire and brimstone you see the universalists had succeeded in converting their opponents today the whole concept of universal salvation is just not nearly as controversial as it was a century ago and now we see much the same thing happening with respect to this whole concept of heresy the right of conscience the freedom to choose it's a principle that more and more Catholics are agreeing to and actively practicing so yes we have throughout our history been the quintessential heretics but I would hope that today if I return to Binghamton New York and I ask to participate in that pulpit exchange for the week of Christian unity things would be different I might be allowed to participate because the stigma of heresy may be on its way out for that we can take a deal of credit for we have helped to lead the way blessed be and amen and it is at the time now for the giving and the receiving of her offering and as you can see from your program we are going to be sharing your gifts today with a worthy community organization that is doing much to improve the quality of life in the greater Madison area please be generous this week is a community of memory and of hope to this time and place where we have our broken selves we carry with us the joys and sorrows of the recent past seeking here a place where they might be received and celebrated and shared two entries in our cares of the congregation book this morning Paula and Bob all write that their great nephew who is a freshman in high school is struggling with obsessive compulsive disorder newly diagnosed and truly frightening and so we send our warm wishes and hopeful thoughts to Paula and Bob's great nephew and their family and then an unidentified entry here migration crisis stupefaction we must use the judicial process and our collective strengths and if you are concerned about the presidential directive and the migration immigration refugee crisis there is a monoteros this afternoon as many of you know a forum that begins at two o'clock in addition to those mentioned we would also acknowledge any unexpressed joys or sorrows that remain among us as a community we hold these with equal concern in our hearts let us sit silently for just a moment or two in the spirit of empathy and hope and so by virtue of our brief time together today may our burdens be lightened and our joys expanded I invite you to turn now to our closing hymn join your voices as we sing hymn number 131 dated for the benediction and the post-loop defined as a set of right beliefs and ritual observations religion becomes divisive and absurd religion as walking with others listening to others sharing with others that's not a creed it's a way of life to be religious is to be grateful for what we have been given and to give in return as much as we can religion is a way of life with sympathy, responsiveness reverence for sacred potential respect for one another and for the miraculous earth and all it's creatures religion is a way of life that love makes beautiful


today's presentation. Welcome everyone to this virtual community meeting for the upcoming Arlington Heights and Greater Como Street's improvement project. My name is Sandy Pupretty and I'm the project manager with the city of Fort Worth Transportation and Public Works Department. This presentation is meant to provide you with some information about the project scope improvements and to seek community input during the development of the project. Here is the agenda of what I hope to cover in my brief presentation. I will be talking about the project as a whole, providing a summary of improvements on each street associated with this project and discussing the expected schedule moving forward. Then we'll open up for any questions or comments regarding the project. First, we'll talk about the overall scope of the improvement associated with this project. The scope of project includes 15 street listed here. They are at the avenue from West Dixon Street to West Pavard Street. Carver Drive from Prevost Street to Harvey Street. Hernandez Drive from Prevost Street to Harvey Street. Fraser Avenue from Cleven Road to West Bidison Street. Fraser Avenue from West Bolt Street to Flint Street. Townsend Drive from West Drew Street to Flint Street. West Side Avenue from West Drew Street to West Bolt Street. Bolt Street from McCart Avenue to East Railroad. Carver Drive from Prevost to Merrick Street. Dixon Street from James Avenue to Ryan Avenue. Drew Street from West Side Avenue to Fraser Avenue. Prevost Street from Carver Street to Vickery Boulevard. Townsend Drive from West Drew Street to Pavard Street. West Side Avenue from Bidison Street to Butler Street. West Side Avenue from Dixon Street to Vangaman Street. In the next couple of slides, I will show you the existing condition of this street and give you a breakdown of the proposed improvements. Here are the representative photos of the existing condition of the streets. On the slide, we can see Fraser and intersection of Townsend and West Bolt Street all with deteriorated pavement. On this slide, you can see similar conditions of deteriorated asphalt pavement all along the roadway. You can also see damaged driveway and sidewalk, garbage and garter on Fraser Avenue. On this slide, you see similar condition of deteriorated asphalt pavement on 8th Avenue and West Dixon Street. The highlighted section includes the 2022 Bond Funded Streets for this project. The improvement of streets number 8 through 15 are funded by Water Department. The improvements your street is getting depend on whether the street improvement is a Bond Funded or Water Department Funded. The Avenue from West Dixon Street to West Pafford Street is a Bond Funded Street and will have the improvements at soon. A typical Bond Funded Street. In addition to upgrading the water and sewer lines, the pavement improvements include new pavement with concrete curves, replacing your concrete driveways with a minimum of 11 feet or matching the existing width of your driveways and five foot sidewalk on both sides of the streets when possible. The next couple of slides, street number through 127, show the 2022 Bond Funded Street improvements. The proposed improvements among these Bond Funded Streets are similar. We can revisit to discuss this later if needed. Proposed improvements for Carver Drive and Pribost Street, it's on. I'll move to another slide. Proposed improvements for Fernander Drive from Pribost Street to Harvey Street. It's a Bond Funded Street and the improvements are very similar. Proposed improvements for Fraser Avenue from Clavern Road to West Bedisson Street. Again, it's a Bond Funded Street and the improvements are similar. Fraser Avenue from West Baltic Street to Flint Street. Townsend Drive from West Drew Street to Flint Street. West Side Avenue from West Drew Street to West Baltic Street. This is the last Bond Funded Street on this list. All seven Bond Funded Streets will have new paving with concrete guards, new driveways and a five foot sidewalk on both sides of the street when possible. Now I'll go through the street improvements funded by Water Department. West Bowl Street from Maccard Avenue to East Railroad is within the scope of the Water Department. The proposed improvements for West Bowl from Maccard Avenue to East Railroad include new asphalt pavement and will replace the curb and gutters and driveways only that are in bad shape. The next couple of slides, so the Water Department Funded Streets. The proposed improvements for Water Department Funded Streets are similar. So I'll just show you the slides. We can revisit to discuss this later if needed. Traveller Drive from Pivots to Merrick Street is in the Water Department scope. Proposed improvements are shown. Dixon Street from James Avenue to Ryan Avenue is a Water Scope Street. The proposed improvement is same. Westview Street from Westside Avenue to Fraser Avenue. This slide, so the improvement for Pivots Street from Traveller Street to Vickery Boulevard. So Water Department Funded Street. Proposed improvement for Townsend Drive from Westview Street to Pafford Street. The improvement includes upgrading existing six-inch water to eight-inch waterline. And the paving improvements include new asphalt pavement. Westside Avenue from Bethesda Street to Butler Street is also Water Department Scope. Westside Avenue from Dixon Street to Wagamon Street. This is the last street that is in Water Department Scope. The improvements include upgrading existing six-inch waterline to eight-inch waterline and new asphalt pavement. So this is an example of what newly constructed street looks like with new pavement, new concrete, garden garter and new driveways. Additionally, we have pictures to give everyone a vision of what the new sidewalk and pedestrian ramp crossing will look like. Now we'll be moving on to the project schedule and upcoming milestone. There are many milestones in this project. In particular, the anticipated construction date is November 2024, ending in February 2026. I also want to mention that we will be having a pre-construction public meeting to give detailed information before construction starts and what to expect. Similar to this meeting, you'll receive mailer cards with assigned date for the pre-construction meeting. If you would like to stay updated on this project, please go to the first link below. You can also go to www.fortwardtexas.gov and enter the project number 104212 in the search bar on the homepage. This will allow you to be directed to the official web page which will contain updated information throughout the course of the project. If you want to know more information about the 2022 bond, you can access this by going to the link below. Now we'll go ahead and open up this meeting for questions or comments. We have a question. We wanted to see if there was a way or if it was possible to put like speed bumps because at times. The cars are driving too fast and sometimes there's children, you know, and just so we can see if we can put if that's an option. Yes, what street are you? It's on West Side, sir. Pardon? West Side Street. West Side? Yes. Do you have a microphone? Juan, please turn off the microphone. Yes, we'll definitely look into it. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. We cannot install these bombs without a study. This request needs to go to transportation management. It's not up to us. Yeah, that's why we said we'll look into it. We'll do research and. We would recommend the request to install the speed hump after we finish our project because whenever we reconstruct the streets, we will have to remove them. So you may want to wait until we finish construction. This is only design meeting. We'll have another one before we start construction. But after we finish construction, the streets will be also more smooth. So they will have to conduct a study and see how many cars be being and all of that. And based on that, we can decide if they can install a speed hump or a speed cushion, what we call it now. So this needs to be done after we finish our construction. We cannot do it as part of the project. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. There's a question in the chat. And the question is regarding bond funded streets and what that means to be funded by bond. And so what that means is that the city. We have a bond proposal back in 2022. It was voted on by the city, the residents of the city of Fort Worth to provide funding for. Street improvement projects around the city. And so the streets in this project that are designated as bond funded streets are receiving funding from that bond. And they make those improvements. So that's what that means. Also, I just placed a link to the webpage for this project in the chat so you can link to it from there. Is there any question. And if it looks like there's another one in the chat, can you please go back to the schedule slide. Okay. So the question was when they could expect construction to start. We are anticipating the construction to begin on November 24. Please let us know if that answers your question. Is there any follow up question. It looks like there's one more in the chat. So the question is, is that the date for all the streets getting improvements. So the answer to that question is that's the start anticipated start date for construction for the entire construction package. So, at this point, we don't know what order the contractor is going to go as far as which streets will go first. We'll have better clarity on that once we. Have a contractor on board and have their schedule and we'll have a pre construction community meeting to address just that once we get a little closer. Okay, here is my contact information. Feel free to reach out to me by phone or email. If you have any follow up questions or comment. I will leave this slide up for a little while so that you can have chance to copy the information. And if there is no additional question. Then I would like to add in the meeting. Thank you everyone.


Okay, big question here. Is it a sin to have a tattoo? God commanded certain laws in the Old Testament for the Israelites to follow in order that they distinguish themselves from other nations. Okay, so let's talk about tattoos and piercings. The reason that God didn't want the Israelites partaking in these things was because people generally were doing them in worship to other gods. That was something that God wanted his people to have no pardon whatsoever. Today, God calls us to be wise with what we do with our bodies. Me personally, I don't think I'll ever get a tattoo just because my taste in art is continually changing and I don't wanna get something on my body that I have to keep there forever. I would ask you guys to not judge other people based on their tattoos or piercings. You don't know where they've been. You don't know what they've been through. Extend to them the same grace that God has extended to you. Follow for more Christ-centered content.


I RNG'd the comments. That would be the exception of one. It was in the trick or treat, too tricky to treat hard. Somebody commented like, that's what kids are for. Something like that. Don't slid that part, John. Yeah, none of that goes in. Hey guys, it's us from Door Monster. We're on the blue couch, which means we're going to read some community comments. Yeah. Yay. Haven't done that in forever. Thanks for community commenting. Thanks for commenting, community. If you don't like what comments we picked, we didn't. I rolled random number generators. Comments 1 through 40 were eligible. So if you were comment 41, man, maybe work on getting a few more likes on that comment. From ride sharing is caring, Joseph Taylor Base says, I laugh, but I think that guy eating in the car is going to be me one of those days. Wasn't that John? It was John. John did such a good job with that. You know what's really great job about that shot? That meal, because I ate it afterwards. Oh. He's crazy. How many times is that that we've eaten our props now? That seems like a recurring thing. Probably a couple more than you're counting. Every chance we can eat a prop, I will eat a prop. This tradition started back at the Mr. Johnson video where our cave Johnson stand in, and he ate the extremely overheated lemons by the end of the function. I also ate the lemons. He ate the lemons? Because we were starving. He ate the lemons. No! It was also 97 degrees out. And we just nearly died. We were all dying. What? Not enough from the heat, from the police. Different stories. Next on it, from dork your face. Dork your face. Dork your face. Wait, does Uber rate the customers? And then there's one of these faces. What? I tweased. What? I tweaked. Oh, yeah. Uber drivers can rate their customers.  I can see that you're a one star and have been reported for puking in cars. And I can see that and go, no thanks, not tonight. It sounds like, yeah, you just make five accounts. And then you can puke all you want. All you want. All you can puke buffet. Don't puke in my car. So from the Area 51 video, we have Coda Mission says, Air Force General, no, I don't want to buy a knife. How did you get in here? My high school friend Royce came to do it, right? Yeah. He had this knife. He's like, can you fix this knife? And I tried and went, this is like a cheap, crappy knife, right? Where'd you get it? He goes, oh, got a parking lot sold to me. How did he sell it to you?  Oh my god. He had never seen the video. I think there's a real life you running around somewhere. I just imagined like hobo Naruto running straight into Area 51 with like two, like dual wielding knives. Why is that not the video we made? That would have gotten so many more views. Naruto running hobo guy. I missed these. Yeah. We should do these more. Oh my god. G-Storm says, so you say we should also bring our fidget spinners and throw them like shurikens? I did not say that. You didn't hear it from us. No. I will not tell you to not do that. I think at this point, since we're past a certain watershed, that watershed being, it has happened. Yeah, go ahead. So from Kett, I would love to see a skit of someone actually using the DND and D-Law firm consultation during a game. I think at that point, you just call them in and they become the big bad, right? Yeah. Like 37 minutes in the phone call, the entire party is like, I roll to attack them. So every time anybody goes DND and DND, I just keep expecting it going and then eventually just turn to, I had a stroke. I had a stroke. So for mysteries no one cared to solve, Luke says, does anyone know how to contact the model for the blue speed mouse costume? I've never seen a model convey such a wide variety of emotions. It is still image before. Go to twitch.tv slash barmasterTV. You can see it every single week. I was going to say, here's Joy's phone number. Here's his phone address. We're just going to dox Joe either way. John put text for Twitch right there on the bottom of the screen. It better be the word text for Twitch. That's all I want. This is Ash Lyons on mysteries no one cared to solve, quotes, and who's buying it in the first place.  We did seem to offend lots of candy corn They deserve it. Confession, I never watched this video. This is my number one least underrated door monster video is this one. It's pretty good. It's really good in the fact that it pretty much perfectly references the show that is making photos. Sure, it does. And our b-roll is so great. That mall was so haunted. That mall was haunted. There's a slot car track in there. You can race through the slot cars. If you've ever been there on We Have Boo Wednesday, it's much better. We Have Boo Wednesday? If you get it before six, it's just great. I've used a certain metaphor to describe San Antonio before, which is basically anytime something is deleted from another part of Texas, it shows up in San Antonio. Right, I see that. San Antonio is just the recycle bin of Texas. You can turn a corner and it's completely different. Stuff that has been gone for years is here. So there's just like tons of abandoned malls everywhere. And the best one is one called The Wonderland of the Americas. Because the name is just so much more grandiose than that all ever could have been. It's better than The Mall of Americas, which is like the biggest mall, right? The best store was the Spirit Halloween store. Right. And that's gone now. All right, from Jess Lee, Los Angelos says, I see the problem now. It really would have worked better if she used the bowl. It's a reference from the original video. Is it? There's a line in there that I'm talking about. In the first Cup and String video, Tim says the reception's bad and I said, oh yeah, it really works better if you use a bowl. Right, right, right. It's your comment, actually. On accident. This is actually my favorite, like, surprise character appearance video because we actually didn't have to give away what was gonna happen before. It was like, nothing gives it away and then suddenly it just switched to Cup and String again. Everybody was really excited about it because no one saw it coming. There's a shot of Ricky, like if the shot keeps continuing, he just like keeps walking outside into the middle of the sidewalk and then just like leans back and does this like zombie-grown thing. Oh man. Like Ricky, you're scaring the children. Oh my God. He's standing there menacingly. Menacingly. It's hard to pull off no budget spook, but you did it. Yeah. From Yon's Avatar, Ion. Alison Edgemeter, one. What? I'm surprised to see her falling for such a classic wonder. She's using a phone number under those circumstances. She gets an automatic one for being herself. For one thing, I don't think you know her very well. I have her, Alison is much higher than a one. I think you exude Final Girl. Yeah. I agree. If you were in horror movie, you would definitely Final Girl. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. You and me, we're dead.  It really depends. Like get something before I go. I agree, we're both dead. We're both dead. Like if Rachel is Final Girl, there's certain context where I think Rachel can be Final Girl. Then I die, but I die second to last. I don't think Rachel can be Final Girl. She's much too interesting and much too like working and entertaining to watch. Rachel would get got, like she would get got by some like, like some runic etching or something and she'd like going close to read it and she gets got. I don't even have it. She'd stay behind for someone she cares about. Oh, it's me. Oh, it's my fault. Kyle is revealed as the killer at the end. Yeah, obviously. Obviously. Yeah, okay. Homemade Lemonade says, go to Party City, get some cheap discount candy November 1st. Thanks. Everyone actually said that. That's a million comments down there. Odd's where we were gonna hit that comment. All right. You can't because I've already bought it all. I bought the November 1st candy and it was a mistake. I got Reese's Peanut Butter Cups with Reese's Pieces inside. Gross. And now I know why that candy was not purchased. It's because peanut butter isn't a candy.  Oh my God. I can make it. It's all bad. Peanut butter and chocolate taste exactly like stomach bile. No, that's just the chocolate. That's just American chocolate. All the worst. Okay, pumpkins. Candy corn, pumpkins. Yeah, the middle cream pumpkins. You can't buy just those though. You sure can. We live in America, the land of decadence. You can buy just the right chips from Chex Makes Now. It ruined the entire point. What? Yeah. Science has gone too far. And finally from Too Tricky, Too Treated, we have Howling Snail says, instant like for Kyle dressing as Beast Morphers Red, Beast Morphers, our best Power Ranger series in quite a while. Okay, here's what I want. You're the Power Ranger. I wasn't the Power Ranger. I was John, actually. I was John. Power Ranger costume. I like that comment. Insert shot of John dripping the costume off himself. That we got for no reason. John's not gonna do that, but I wish he would. Give me all the Sinti drama in the comments. I need to know which Power Rangers are good when which ones are bad. I can tell you, the most Power Rangers is Lightspeed Rescue. I want somebody to argue about this with Ricky. I need to know. I have no information on this. Pink Power Rangers, worst Power Ranger.  I went to go watch it and I said, I want to be the blue one. And you know what they told me? That's a boy. Be the pink one. It's actually really sad because the blue ranger got he was the game's just being bullied because he was gay. So actually the entire original Power Rangers is kind of shady because some people were, it took people way too long when people eventually were like, hey, wait a minute. The black Power Ranger is the black guy and the yellow Power Ranger is the Asian one. Eventually. Thank you guys for watching. It was cool to come back for community comments. Maybe it'd be worth doing like one of these a month now or something. Just like, we put this up for this week just because we didn't have time to get black pants filmed school up. But we have another one of those coming out. I'm working on the guards themselves script right now. Ricky's doing sketches and- We're getting costumes in. On Monday, we have a Magic the Gathering video with the professor coming out from the University College. That should be awesome. Also, we wanted to give a quick plug for our producer from Sky Vault made this book called Get Realisms. And I may take some close up photos and send those to John so he can actually like get it in there. No, John's busy. Say, this is a book full of on set film industry lingo so that you know how to speak filmmaker. Honey wagon. Fossa. It's all the different weird terms that film makers use on set. I know, it's got really well animated. We don't use any of these. I use all of these. But like if you actually go into a professional film set this is like the shorthand for all the different things that have to do with it. Points! Oh, it's just about to be there. You did it for me. We actually make fun of some of it in one of our finales, right? But yeah, these books are available for sale on Ithinkgetrealisms.com. It is a- Yeah, this is made by Christine Chen who produced the Sky Vault pilot and is helping us get it sold right now. So if you're interested, go check out that website and maybe pick yourself one up. Yeah. It's a great book. It's actually, it's made really well. It's really fun to look at. It's an amazing illustration. It's like illustrated and- Turn it around. Look at those legs. Look at those legs. Okay. Not sexualized, the book. The book was sexualizing itself. I was just- All right. Anyway, thanks for watching and we'll see you later. Bye.


Back in 2020, I purchased a first edition Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon box for $6,800. At the time, this was by far my most expensive Yu-Gi-Oh purchase. I decided to open the box and attempt to pull one of the iconic Yu-Gi-Oh monsters from that set. First edition Red Eyes Black Dragon, Dark Magician, Exodia the Forbidden One, and of course, the legendary Blue Eyes White Dragon. I attempted to weigh the packs in order to grade the non-hollow packs and to open the hollows in a YouTube video. But everything went horribly wrong. I opened 23 of the 24 packs and had only pulled a single Ultra Rare. Boxes tend to come with two. And that Ultra Rare was not one of the four monsters I was looking for. And then I opened the final pack, which had the lightest weight of them all, and this happened. Sandstone. Oh! No. No way.