Good morning and welcome. Town Meeting Television continues its ongoing coverage of elections, they always seem to be happening here in our community and on the 7th of December, Burlington will have a special election on two ballot questions. One is a general obligation bond and one is a revenue bond. And here today to talk about them, our city council member, Joan Shannon and Jack Hansen. Joan is the South District City Councilor and Jack is the East District City Councilor. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you Lauren Glenn. So there are two questions that people will have no doubt seen if you're in the city of Burlington, you've received your ballot and everyone is encouraged to vote early. Of course the polls will be open on the 7th of December as usual, but there is an extra push to encourage your participation. And so you have this in your house already if you haven't voted on it. And the first question is the approval of a general obligation bond for city capital plan, city capital plan projects. And I'm just gonna read it so folks know what it is. Shall the city council be authorized to issue general obligation bonds or notes in one or more series in an aggregate principal amount, not to exceed $40 million to be borrowed in increments between fiscal year 22 and 25 for the purpose of funding capital improvement infrastructure projects of the city and its departments in furtherance of the city's 10 year capital plan. So actually why don't we contrary to what we discussed let's talk about this one first because it's number one. So Jack tell us why voters might want to support this GO bond to support the city capital plan up to $40 million. Great yeah so this bond is really asking the voters to finance a continuation of the sustainable infrastructure plan that we've been operating in for the last five years. And what that plan really is is about investing in the city's infrastructure. So everything from streets, sidewalks, intersections, bridges, fire engines and other city fleet vehicles a number of civic buildings. Memorial Auditorium has got it in a lot of attention but there's over 60 buildings that the city owns many of which have deferred maintenance needs. Our parks, our information technology infrastructure, public safety infrastructure like the radio dispatch system for fire and police. The list really just it goes on and on. Those are some of the big ones that I wanted to call attention to but there's a very large amount of need in our community for infrastructure and I think infrastructure is what really holds the community together allows the community fabric to hold strong allows people to get access to the resources they need and to move throughout our community and so approving this bond would allow the city to make those investments in that infrastructure to really keep the city functioning at the level that it is today. And can you remind us did the voters approve bond funding for the first five years of the capital plan? Yeah, exactly. So in 2016 voters strongly approved the initial five years and then this is to continue this for the next five years continue that level of investment. And I would say a lot of people, myself included, feel that even the current level of investment that we've been in is still leaves a lot on the table and anytime you hear someone complaining about the sidewalks being in disrepair, all we're asking now is to continue the level of investment in sidewalks that we've been doing. If we don't approve this bond, we would even do less sidewalk repair than we are now. That's just one example but there's really decades of deferred maintenance to catch up on in the city and in a lot of these areas of infrastructure. And so I think it's really critical that we continue at the level that we've been at and try to build, try to play catch up and also move into more proactive investments to really move our city into the future to try to address our net zero goals, to try to reduce inequality in the city and kind of level the playing field and give people access, make sure that everyone has access to the resources that they need in our community. Thank you, Jack. Thanks. Counselor Shannon, you have a view on this first ballot question, the GEO bond for city capital plan up to $40 million. How would you vote? I did vote no. I voted no at the council and I have voted no on the ballot. I was the only no vote on the council, I'll acknowledge but and actually I think it's, I can't ever remember not supporting a capital bond before. I'm generally very supportive and certainly recognize that we have in the past had a lot of deferred maintenance and we've needed to make headway on that and we have been making headway on that, which I appreciate. However, I believe we can still continue to make headway on that without this bond. So really the number one reason that I voted no on the bond was that we're looking at a school bond coming forward and we don't know what that is. And we just went through reassessment and the, I mean, I've had so many calls from taxpayers who just do not know how they're gonna pay their taxes. So when you add a small amount on the camel's back that's already broken, that's not gonna work. I don't think that it's fair. Everybody knows that we have, we cannot continue to not have a high school. We have to pass a school bond and the unknown is how much that is. But just to renovate, we passed a $70 million school bond to renovate, then it turned out the cost of doing the expected work was something more like $95 million. Now, renovation's not gonna work. We need an entirely new high school. Labor costs have gone up.  And I think we, I don't know what the number is. We haven't been told that. But just referencing the ballpark of the previous numbers, this is gonna be a big number. You know, South Burlington went for a school bond vote for over $200 million. And they certainly weren't in the dire position that we are in. So that's my number one reason. And the other thing is we just don't need this money right now. Like why are we having an emergency vote? Why could we not wait until town meeting day for this vote? But ultimately, we should be waiting until we know that the school bonding needs are. And when I say we don't need this money now, we have a lot of money other than this school, other than this capital bond available to us. We just passed the Congress, passed the infrastructure bill. So when Councilor Hanson, he references the sidewalk repairs. Without this bond, we have, according to the information we received, we have $7.4 million to spend on sidewalks. So the bond would be $1.7 in addition to $7.4 million. We have a severe labor shortage. How many sidewalks can we put in in the next year? You know, we have more money than we will be able to spend. We have, for bridges, what they gave us for infrastructure. The feds, the feds. Well, actually the city anticipating the infrastructure bond. They had... Anticipating the bond or the... I'm sorry, the infrastructure bill. Got it. Yes. Anticipating the infrastructure bill. So without this capital bond, we have $4 million for bike infrastructure. Actually, no, that's wrong. $6 million for bike infrastructure without the bond. We have $4.3 million for bridges. $2.7.4. There are different sources, so you kind of have to add all of these things up. So you're arguing that the feds will provide us with infrastructure money making this bond not necessary? Yeah, when we passed this at the council and put it on the ballot, we didn't even know if the infrastructure bond would pass. And... So can I just pause you and give Chuck a chance to respond? Yeah, thank you. Thanks. Can I briefly go through the two other things? So Jack has a chance to respond to the whole thing. We don't know what we're paying for with this bond. We have received a list of things and dollar amounts associated with them, but the council can change that. So it's fungible money with the exception of the $10 million that's reserved for Memorial Auditorium. And this capital plan exceeds our target debt ratio, which starts to impede on the financial health of the city. Now, that debt limit is really kind of how Wall Street looks at Burlington. That may be higher than how Burlington taxpayers perceive their ability to pay. So I'll let Jack respond. Thank you. Thanks. So according to the head of capital projects in the city, Martha Keenan, the infrastructure need for the city is 151 million. What we're asking, over the next three years, we're asking for 40 million of local taxpayer dollars, but the idea is we would leverage the local money to get the state and federal money that Councillor Shannon's talking about. There's some state and federal money you can just get, but typically, especially for these construction projects, you have to have a local match ready to go in order to win that money and to get the state and federal money. And so as we are competing with all these other communities for the state and federal money that is now flowing, having local money available and ready to deploy is gonna make us more competitive and it's gonna allow us to capture more of that state and federal money. So I think the fact that there is the state and federal money available, I don't think is a reason to not move forward. I think it actually is a reason to move forward so that we can really fully take advantage of that, be competitive and utilize as much of those state and federal dollars that are available right now. So I think that's a reason to move now. The other reason of sort of why now in that question, that the initial five years did run out this summer, from my understanding, the administration's plan was to come back this March so that the next round of money, the next five years would already be there when the initial five years ran out. I believe the administration delayed due to COVID so we're actually already a little bit behind and we're already in that gap period where the first one is run out and we don't have the next five years of funding in place. We also have right now, there's really low interest rates that we can take advantage of and lock in. So I think there's plenty of reasons to move now. I think the biggest underlying reason to move now is that if we continue to defer on some of these needs, the cost, I think, is going to be higher when systems fail or when infrastructure collapses or when things get more critical. And this happens on a micro level all the time. Like think about the last few winters when you had big snowstorms and the sidewalk plows were continually breaking and the city had to spend a lot of money over and over repairing these sidewalk tractors, paying people over time to use one tractor for longer. Just all of these things that we have to react to, whether it's fleet or all the way up to bridges and bigger infrastructure that from time to time does fail and then we have to spend a lot of money solving that crisis. So preventative maintenance is always more cost effective than repair and responding to collapse. And so I think we need to continue on the path of preventative maintenance. And I don't think by deferring that we're gonna save money. I think we're gonna actually spend more if we delay. So I guess I have two follow up questions. Are you concerned about Burlington taxpayer's ability to absorb the cost of this bond? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's why I bring up that point is that to vote no on this isn't going to save money in my opinion. It's actually gonna have a higher burden on taxpayers when the maintenance gets further delayed, further deferred and more problems arise. We're gonna spend more money later on. We might delay briefly that spending, but then the spending's gonna be at a higher level, especially if interest rates do go up. I think we are facing a huge problem of affordability and the tax burden is a huge part of that affordability crisis. I think we need to take that head on by addressing our property tax system. The state level, that's obviously, even more important than the local level, but as we're trying to do with this recent resolution that we passed to look at not only reappraisal, but also how we do local property taxes, I think we're trying to find ways to lessen that burden, especially on low-income Burlingtonians, and there are things that we can do with the local level in addition to pushing at the state level for property tax reform. So that is a critical, the tax burden is a really critical issue, but my two points on that are, let's address that issue head on through reforming that system, and two is that voting no on this, I don't think we'll save taxpayer, Simone. So my second follow-up question has to do with the level of indebtedness that the city is carrying. I know that the mayor has really made it a sort of centerpiece of his administration to regain the confidence of the markets in effect and that our bond rating is pretty good. Are you worried about that being affected by this combined with potentially the high school? Well, the administration's saying that we would still be under the debt limit that we set, and that's a voluntary debt limit that the council set in order to control that and stay below that. That's not, we don't have to do that, but that's the policy that the council set in order to try to be fiscally responsible and keep that good bond rating. So Councillor Shannon's saying we wouldn't stay under it, the administration's saying we would, so I'm not sure, I would need to hear what information Councillor Shannon's going off of for that. Thanks for your response, do you have a follow-up? Sure, we can go to the- Slide? The slide, because that's what I'm talking about, which I think is consistent with what the administration is talking about.  Then you also go down, so that's just the city side, not city and schools, you go down below that and you see city and the school debt, the target is 4%, and it goes up to 3.27 in 2026, but that is without the school bond. So that is giving some allowance on that total debt for the school bond, but that total debt, we haven't been told what that will allow for a school bond when I have asked somebody who's got real financial expertise, both in the school finances and generally in finances, I'm told it probably leaves in the $110 million to $120 million range for a school bond, but I could foresee the school bond being well above that. So this is an unknown how that's going to affect the overall debt policy. However, remember that this debt policy was set with our old grand list. So one of the reasons why it's within our debt policy at all is because our grand list increased with the reappraisal. So most people don't feel more flush after reappraisal. Reappraisal has put additional tax burden on people, not given us more ability to pay, that's the reality. In the Wall Street world, maybe it gave us more ability to pay, but in terms of our home finances, it did not. To say that we're going to reform the tax system to address this problem, I think is really unfair. I mean, we've had a problem with how we pay taxes, property taxes and property tax burden forever. And 70% of the property tax, I'm sorry, 70% of the property tax bill in Burlington goes to the state. So that has to be solved at the state level. It's not within our control how we're doing that. And also as far as the preventative maintenance and not having money and to say that we're not going to be doing these things, Jack did point out that the overall need in the city is 151 million. 40 million of this is this bond. All that other money is still available to put towards these things. So I don't think in the next year, we are necessarily not going to have the money to do the things that we need to do. In fact, there's what, six million for the fleet. You mentioned snow plows and stuff. Actually, I'm not sure to line these things up, but there's, we have an annual bonding ability without going to the taxpayers. So that can still address our most urgent needs as well as other grants, annual vehicle leasing that we have. So can I just clarify, so this GO bond to complete to further the city's 10 year plan, and we're in the second five years or the second four years, is this bond going to cover the next, the completion of the whole plan, or do you anticipate that we go back to the voters in a couple of years to finish up the 10 year plan? Is this meant to wrap it up or is this just meant to further it? My understanding from the administration is that it's meant to wrap it up, that this would be the last, yeah. So, last major ask around. Sorry to interrupt. So if I was just to sum up your views on the subject, you feel, Jack Hansen, that a yes vote would enable the city to continue its infrastructure improvements that are needed, and would make us, you think that it's important and it actually is more cost effective for us to approve this now? Yeah. And you're concerned that the cost of the taxpayers is unsupportable and that the need hasn't been fully demonstrated? Yeah, if we don't pass this bond, I'm not sure what exactly we're not going to do that we would, if the vote on that bond is no, what is not going to get done? Because there's a lot of other money here on the table. Okay. So it's unclear what it will go towards and what are we not doing if we don't have that bond? Exactly. Last word on this. I don't agree that it's not clear. I think we're laying out line by line what this $40 million would go to and folks can look at that, that's in the presentation, that's available online. I listed some of the key areas, but it goes line by line and accounts for the $40 million and how we would spend that and that's spending that, without that $40 million doesn't happen. Could you bring up that slide, Joan, on that of the list of things? Yeah. This... It's the next one. That one would do it or the other one, yeah. Yeah, let's bring it. Well, this one shows, this is, the bond proceeds is what the bond is being spent on, but this shows all of the other money that is available, it shows the total lower right corner of 151 million and then the other sources of money other than the $40 million capital bond. So, we do have this list of things, but we're not bound by this list. The resolution that we passed says, except with explicit city council approval of the reallocation. So we can reallocate all of this with the vote of the city council with the exception of the $10 million funds for Memorial. That's the only part that is not fundable. Yeah, and I would just, so that's the $40 million and how we would spend it. In terms of the other money, the state and federal money in particular, I think we would lose out on some of that money as well as the $40 million because we're leveraging the $40 million to get more of that money. I understand. Well, thank you both for going through ballot question one. I hope this has been helpful for our viewers. It's certainly been helpful for me. There is a second question. The issuance of revenue bonds for BED Burlington Electric Department projects up to $20 million to achieve a variety of goals, capital additions and improvements to the city's electric system and energy conservation systems in furtherance of the city's net zero energy goals, including improvements to the city's technology systems, customer and financial information systems, electric grid upgrades, generation plants and dams and funding a debt service reserve fund and paying costs of issuance. So that's $20 million revenue bond, which is different than a GEO bond. And maybe Joan, you can explain what's the difference between a GEO and revenue bond and your position on this second question. And then we'll go to Jack. Thank you. A general obligation bond pledges the full faith and credit of the city. The revenue bond, we have different enterprises, kind of different businesses within the city. And the airport is one enterprise, and BED Burlington Telecom at one point was an enterprise. BED is an enterprise. It's a business unto itself. And so this is asking for money to invest in the business that's going to be paid for out of revenues, not from your property tax dollars. However, of course, the city property tax payers are also the rate payers for BED. But this is an investment in what we, I think, all agree is really important infrastructure that can actually lower rates. So, you know, as we're converting, Jack actually can probably explain this better than I can because I know you follow all of these kind of things very closely, but these investments, our rates may go up a little bit, but they also have the potential to lower rates, right? So you're supporting the question, Joan? I am, yes. Yeah, I mean, the big difference is the first valid item is really asking the taxpayers to give the city money to make these investments, whereas this is allowing our electric department to borrow money, and we think that that money will be used in ways that will save money over time as well. The city's done this before with Burlington Electric Department in the 1990s with energy efficiency, and that was a wildly successful program that did save a lot of money, allowing the electric department to make investments in energy efficiency that then saved everyone money and really went on to inspire and create efficiency for Vermont, the statewide program, to do the same, which now is consulting all over the world on similar programs. So we've done something like this before. This is a little different. It's not as much on the energy efficiency side. It's more on the pathway off of fossil fuels than net zero, 2030 plan. So it's really about two things. It's about the infrastructure of our grid itself and making those investments, and it's also about moving the city off of fossil fuels, and a lot of how we do that is by converting things to electric. So for example, with this borrowing, Burlington Electric Department could offer greater incentives for someone to switch out natural gas heat in their home for electric heat pumps, and the benefit of that is not only on the climate front and a health and safety standpoint for that person as well, but it's also when that person switches over to electric heating, instead of spending money on Vermont gas and spending money on fossil fuels, which come from outside of Vermont anyways, they're spending money into the electric department system. So you have more revenue coming in to our electric utility. You have more customers paying in. That means what each customer, each customer's share of the overall infrastructure that they have to pay to keep the system running is actually pushed downward when you bring in those new revenues and those new customers. And so it sounds like you'll be supporting this valid question for the revenue bond for BED. Absolutely, yeah. I think this is millions of dollars additional that we can invest in not only the grid infrastructure but the pathway to net zero, and I think it's really critical. Thank you for explaining that. We have about a minute left. Did you have? I just want to thank Jack for picking up the ball there because as I was talking, I realized I'm playing with something under the table here and it's a mic. So I got a little distracted. I guess we don't need this. No, it's another mic. Yeah, I guess that's why I'm checking. I'm like, where did that come from? Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I can't really see any reason to justify not supporting this net zero bond. And it's exciting work that they're doing there. It's, you know, Darren Springer is just amazing in terms of his financial management and moving us towards our climate goals. Well, I want to thank you both, Counselor Shannon and Counselor Hanson for joining us today to talk about the December 7th vote for the city of Burlington. That is December 7th. If you have not found your ballot, I'm sure it has been mailed to you. So be careful with it and vote it or come into the polling places on the 7th of December to vote on two questions. The first, the approval of a general obligation bond for city capital projects, up to $40 million. And second, revenue bonds issuance for BED, up to $20 million. Thank you so much for watching and stay tuned here at TownMeetingTV for continuing coverage of all things municipal government.


come on come on alright oh my god it's like how we do it come on, we need this we need this all over Jesus Christ what am I not there? that's great that's great you can look special fantastic we need a few more things see the same see the same what are those things oh my god let's keep going oh no that's not right a few more things we should be ready to go we're safe yeah yeah we got it we got it to the shook out let's get to it ok we got it we got it to the shake out


The New Colombo Plan is bringing Australia and our neighbours closer than ever. It provides Australian undergraduates from diverse backgrounds a unique opportunity to live, study and work in the Indo-Pacific region. I did a semester of study at the University of Hong Kong. And I moved to Bangkok. Japan and the Philippines. Through study and internships you'll have the opportunity to build knowledge, skills and networks vital for today's workforce. There are a wide range of work environments to choose from, including business, international organisations and not-for-profits. I studied at the City University of Hong Kong under their Creative Media Department. In Nepal I interned for the United Nations focusing on the use of technology in the post-earthquake disaster setting. I went to South Korea where they're doing cutting-edge research in machine learning in the field of medicine and surgery. There are a range of short-term international mobility grants and long-term scholarships available. We're helping young Australians to build meaningful international connections, developing friendships and professional networks that can last a lifetime. The highlight of my New Colombo Plan scholarship was definitely the language component. A broader and deeper university experience and something that I will always sell to anyone I can sell to them because it is one of the best things you'll ever do. It could change your entire life that's for sure. It's definitely changed the trajectory of mine. And the journey continues after you return home. As an alumnus, you'll join a diverse network of future leaders with a shared passion for the Indo-Pacific and opportunities to continue to build on what you've learnt. The New Colombo Plan has given me access to a huge network of people across the Asia-Pacific, especially in China.  I am now more than ever very passionate about the development of our region and the health of the people in that region. I will go back to the Philippines to continue this work and hopefully it will be a lifelong pursuit for me. To find out more, search for New Colombo Plan or contact your university's international or mobility office today.


St. Lucia's legislators have sought approval from Parliament to authorize the Minister of Finance to guarantee a line of credit from First National Bank St. Lucia Limited to the Millennium Heights Medical Complex in the amount of EC $23 million to finance various operational expenses. Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Hon. Philip J. Pierre, during a lower house sitting on March 14th explained EC $11.4 million of the credit amount will be used to settle a debt accrued from a consultancy contract with Health City Cayman, a subsidiary of Narayana Health. Narayana Health is a private healthcare service provider based in India and currently operating in the Cayman Islands. And the good name of our country was under tremendous stress because it was being said that we will not meet in our commitments and we will not pay in our bills. So this government wanting to maintain the integrity of St. Lucia's good name, wanting to maintain the integrity of St. Lucia as a client that we can do business with, we've decided to give a lot of the Millennium Health facility to borrow the money and the government is guaranteeing it. So if there's any default in payment, the government will meet with the speaker. So it just shows you the responsible manner in which we approach government. Health City Cayman was awarded the consultancy contract in 2020 to oversee the transition of the Victoria Hospital to the Owen King EU Hospital. The terms of the contract obligated the government to pay Health City Cayman for a range of administrative services close to one million EC dollars per month for two years. Remember the mood of the country, remember the threat we faced during the pandemic. People could not eat, 15,000 hospitality workers laid off. Just think about it, let's go back, let's go back. Remember how everybody is in focus on fighting the virus? But in the middle of that, you signed a contract for 25 million dollars in the dead of night. What was the thinking going on in the cabinet, how do you sit in the cabinet? Well, I've since learned that it never went to the cabinet, didn't even know about it. The lower houses examination of Health City Cayman's contract with the government prompted appeals to strengthen St. Lucia's checks and balances. How is it that a country could have been held to ransom by a prime minister and a minister of finance to the extent that occurred in the last five years? What happened to the checks and balances that we created over the years that it could not stop that kind of abuse, that kind of recklessness in this country? The recklessness, Mr. Speaker, that will allow you to pay 22 million dollars to issue, among other things, press releases about what is taking place at the Owen King U hospital. Prime Minister Pierre has signaled to the House his administration's intention to allocate additional financial support to improve St. Lucia's public health infrastructure and also strengthen national security in the upcoming 2023-2024 budget. From the Office of the Prime Minister, Rihanny Isidou.


I'm a regular Roblox user, spouting over the game's page to find one that catches my eye, although I have a hard time since usually there are none that interest me anymore like they did in the past. What had happened to me started with a rumor by Redacted. They narrated that a suspicious user called, Captain, roamed the Roblox servers at random times ranging from 5pm to 1am. He would friend random users he encountered and ask them to join his game, and would develop into a rage the more time the friend and user spent on other activities on Roblox. If the user did visit Captain's Place, in their site would usually be a red house far away from their spawn location. It was said that most users would feel forced to enter the house, and upon doing so the house would catch fire, leading to the user's character being deleted, and their account would suddenly vanish. In rare circumstances, Captain's Place would consist of something different, sometimes even related to an unusual topic he would sometimes discuss about to the user if they were to say something to him in the website chat. Some accounts describe the randomly generated features of his place to be quite disturbing and somewhat even related to the users themselves. I didn't believe this because I depended on my common sense to what said that all myths and rumors are fake. I got home after a long and boring Friday at school and logged on to Roblox. I was relieved to have reached the weekend. I decided to play Death Run as it was one of my longtime favorite games. However, as soon as I clicked the play button, I saw in the corner of my eye that I had a friend request. I usually ignored these as many of these arcades trying to get attention and look cool by having a lot of friends by randomly sending a request and never doing anything with you once you accept it. The gray screen on the Roblox blind vanished and my character appeared in the lobby. I played for some good few minutes until I dot bored and quit the game. I decided to go to the friend page and typically ignore the person's request. As soon as my browser loaded, I couldn't believe who sent it, the user was kept thin. I ignored it in a panic because I didn't want to suffer the consequences of the previous users that were foolish enough to accept it. To my surprise, the ignore button didn't do anything. I repeatedly clicked on it, but to no avail, it still didn't work. I just decided to leave it in the end. Eventually after about three hours the request icon turned red. I was confused since this of course didn't happen before, but I shook it off as a Roblox update. All of a sudden, I got an urge to accept it and so I did. His user appeared in the chat box and he messaged me immediately with the typical dialogue of a regular Roblox user. Captain. I redacted. Me. Who are you? Captain. I just want a friend. Me. Don't play with it. No users. Leave me alone you creep. Captain. Please. I grew tired almost instantly of chatting with him and went to play some games. After about another hour of place jumping, I came back to see this. Captain. Come to my place.  I will make you vanish. Now. I ignored him. He was talking like an obnoxious five-year-old. I logged off of Roblox for the day. When I woke up the next morning I logged back on and saw that Captain's chat box was red. This, I had also never seen before. How could a user's chat box turn red? I got disturbed, and I grew more cautious while playing Roblox games.  His game was titled, For User, and just looking at it gave me goosebumps on my arm. It had no description. I joined the game and my character spawned on a great path with white fog surrounding it. I did want any gamer would do and followed the path. On the grass there were lots of white pillars surrounding my character. What had been annoying me as soon as I joined was that there was some sort of deep whispering or breathing noise that would loop every time it played. As I walked on, the pillars started to get more and more distorted, cracked and broken. There was a message in black text on the ground that said, Aquamuck, which to this day I still don't know what it means. I kept on going until I came across some more red text, but this time it was in Morse code, which I wasn't able to translate since I had never studied it before, only heard of it. I looked up and saw a rather disturbing feature that the previous users had accounted. There were multiple wooden pikes that stuck out of the ground, and my character was impaled on them. I was disgusted and horrified, even though it was just virtual. I immediately went to the X button on the client, but it didn't work. Nor did Alt plus F4 or even Task Manager. I tried to turn off my computer, and even that didn't work.  I breathed a sigh of relief and sat down in my chair. Luckily, I had an old laptop that also had Roblox on it, so I grabbed it and logged on. My account had vanished, which meant that the rumor was actually true. I logged on to an alternate account and searched up Kephyn again, but he had also vanished. I was confused and scared, so I decided to contact Roblox's support in efforts to recover my account. A few days later they had returned the email and I got my main account back, so I logged into it and Kephyn had been removed from my friends list. It was a relief to have finally gotten the situation over with. I saw in the tab I got a message, and it was from Kephyn. There was one half of my mind telling me to view it, and the other telling the opposite. I decided to view it, and the message said, I'm coming for you. I brushed it off, since you can't find a Roblox user's address just by looking through their account. Anyways, I played some more Roblox games, and nothing's happened for a few days now. I made it clear that Kephyn doesn't like attention or even being mentioned, but the reason I'm writing this is because I want to tell you that Kephyn is real. I just heard something outside, I'll be right back. Police investigation report. Name, Jackson White. Date of birth, redacted. The 15-year-old was found dead in a bush outside his home at approximately 10 p.m. yesterday. Reported markings are multiple lacerations around the neck and arms including bruises around the torso and forehead, meaning the subject was most likely beaten and drained of blood. The killer was never caught, and these murders have been ongoing since late 2019. Another investigation will commence shortly.


Everybody forced here ripping three boxes of 2022 Chronicles baseball hobby for Kyle P. Kyle. Thanks for the order, buddy Let's see what's inside Let's do it. Let's see a big card Silver Aaron judge crusade It's funny how you hope for redemptions in this Kyle Spencer Torkelson on the zenith Nick Fortes Rookie certified auto a little bit thickie here Could be something nice. That's what I have to see Wander It's an America's pastime rookie Jersey Shane boss 23 of 25 just a relic another thickie Okay Seth beer Soto silver Sean Murphy a Kristyny yellows deep space auto Love those deep space Ronnie Dawson. I thought Ronnie Dawson was an astro Zack Wheeler Hunter green Marquis rookie auto Zach Louther Jacob de Grom Deep space you're done.  All right, Vicki right here thickest yet That's got to be something right Andre Jackson silver rookie Kyle Muller from Phoenix And it is 9 of 16 RPA neon splatter Jake Myers Thick There we go 9 of 16 Jake Myers nice one there Jaren Durand Josh Donaldson Josh Cheslem Curtis Terry Contenders auto here draft ticket auto to 99 Rizzo Louise Frias Ricky silver Irlander Wander obsidian Yeah, one-on-one will be pretty sick here. Another thick pack Wander essentials That's new bar to 50 and see me And this time it's a Connor Wong rookie Jersey out of the 199 I do like how all the the spectra's have been on card though See like most of the spectra in cards in this are on card. Most everything else isn't All right, last one Aaron Ashby on the building blocks auto 3 out of 10 Building up blocks tickets Whoa, look at that big crease and you can't really see it from the front. I'll send an empty box and wrapper. That's crazy Well, that's from I need to all right You've got a Kyle Subarookie Tyler McGill Rizzo Vicki let's save this. Let's save that Pushback pushback Hope it's big. Hope it's big one when you'll cruise marquee Manuel Rodriguez to 199 Bobby wait junior on the America's pastime rookie Jersey Peter Lonzo silver Freddie Freeman That's thick too. Well, I can't keep pushing these packs back. So We're just rolling with it. We're rolling with it now Josiah Gray Silver Tatis Soto to 99 on the Soto Matt brash to 199 rookie Jersey auto Yeah, they got a lot of them. They got a lot of those the Justin Dems like that the non numbered last one Joe Ryan Lucius Fox wander obsidian and a Luis Frias RPA to 99 on the back A good amount of spectra RPS for three boxes pretty solid Hey, appreciate it Kyle. We'll get these out to you shortly


Saturday, on Memorial Day weekend, we decided that we weren't going to go out of town. The boys and I, they were three and five. We thought we'd just relax for the weekend. So my youngest son, Billy, and I had laid down for a nap and my other son, JJ, who was five, was playing in his bedroom and the doorbell rang. I wore the pin for my husband, Dan. He was killed May 29, 2004 in Afghanistan. He was a special forces soldier. My oldest son actually answered the door. He saw the lieutenant colonel in his uniform and he immediately ran and got me from my bedroom and said, mommy, there's somebody here to see you. And I got out of bed and I opened the door and I saw a lieutenant colonel from my husband's unit in his uniform and I immediately knew. The only thing I thought of immediately was to find out if my son was okay. And he said, I know why he's here, my daddy's dead. He had recently gone on a mission to chase some of the Taliban out of a nearby city and on the way back, his vehicle ran over an IED, just not having somebody around. The person who's supposed to teach their sons how to catch a ball, how to get dressed, how to go fishing, how to drive a car, it's all those milestones that you imagine that a father would be doing with his sons have completely changed. I leave my pin on my uniform. I'm active duty military and so my pin stays on my uniform so that I don't forget that when I'm in uniform that it's a part of me. I wear it to allow others to see that there are people who are in active duty that have lost a loved one in this war and that we're not just people who are a mother or a father but there are people among their ranks that still have sacrificed as well. I think it's important for people to realize that there's a life behind that pin. There's a life that was lost behind that pin and that pin is essentially a physical representation of the freedom that America has and will have. I can go out, I can get a job, I can not work, I can go to the grocery store, I can buy whatever car I want, I have the right to say whatever I want, I have the right to own a weapon if I want and all of those are defended by the person that I lost and that's whatever the ghost are in.


Well, here we are another year has passed 2019 has come to an end and I always love to do these recap videos Because sometimes you don't really know how far you've come until you take a look back So that's exactly what we're going to do in this video We're going to take a look back and look at some of the highlights of 2019 So after my exhausting light up the world tour in Europe from November onwards Retreated to a place in Indonesia to find cheap Accommodation where I could sit down and edit all of my footage, but because it was veganuary back in the UK I received a lot of emails from TV shows wanting me on their show this morning show Pierce Morgan's show good morning Britain. I actually got a call from Jeremy Vine. Is it wrong if I don't Bear in mind what happened to the animal that created it Is that the problem here? willful ignorance is kind of what drives these industries and it's what they rely on so I would be more conscious of what you're consuming and the animal that lost their life for that Saucer drill and just go for the vegan stuff. There's plenty of vegan options in the UK now It's absolutely blowing up over there. It's great. So I thought to myself well I've just done this exhausting Europe tour, but I think it's more important for me to be in the UK I decided to reply back to these emails and say I'll be in the UK now Specifically wanted to have another row with Pierce Morgan. So I flew flew back over now I didn't receive a reply from good morning Britain. They didn't get me back on the show So I was like well, you know pierce Morgan's being pretty mouthy They won't get me back on the show to debate with him So what I'll do instead is start a campaign Against Pierce Morgan.  I don't care. You hypocrites. I'm coming for you So Pierce Morgan What are you defending? So I got some help from one of my comrades in the movement Chris Hines and we set out on a little journey to expose Pierce Morgan and show exactly what he is defending when he opposes veganism We went to dairy farms gas chambers pig farms. The argument about milk is murder is a fatuous one This baby here Chucked in the bin of a piece of garbage. It's a beautiful angel. I'm in the UK right now This is what you defend when you oppose veganism. This is exactly what you defend this This is a British farm. Okay. This is where the majority of pork is coming from places like this exactly like this I'm here in the UK now You can bring me on the show right now to talk about what we're seeing in here The biggest mass murder in British food production history is insects murdered to make bread You ask yourself Pierce Morgan. Is there a moral distinction between this place here and vegans eating bread So the idea was to leverage off of the controversy Pierce Morgan was creating towards veganism and Do a little bit of advocacy of my own set up a website called what is Pierce defending now in this time as soon as I arrived Back to the UK. I was in a radio debate He did radio debate with a BBC presenter Are you opposed to animal cruelty? Am I opposed to animal cruelty? Yes I'm not opposed to what reason if they don't have moral value if I Because I don't want to torture something. So why do I don't why don't you want to torture animals if they don't have moral value Why don't want to torture? I didn't say animals don't have any moral so it's wrong to torture an animal Why is it wrong? Why isn't it wrong to shoot them in the head? I then was involved with a meat is murdered debate at Cambridge University, which is quite interesting. What is that difference? What is the morally significant difference between an infant baby and a lamb like you suggested that gives us justification to stab a lamb in the neck with a knife take their life from them and For some reason killing that baby child that human child would be considered murder Chris Hines was able to hook up a very controversial slaughterhouse tour Which ended up getting a lot of views how far does the bolt come out? You can show on my head, that's okay Okay, so the top of the forehead So it has to go to pierce through their brain was one of the more interesting interviews I've been a part of and she took me as a through a tour through her slaughterhouse Very very bizarre that was for me. So whilst campaigning against Pierce Morgan I released I was releasing the Europe tour videos There was some daily male controversy that stirred up in Australia after I responded to dairy farmers Who were upset that they were losing their dairy farms? We've had to make the decision that it's it for us rely on their practices being kept secret They like to perpetuate this humane dairy fairy tale and that's all coming to the light now You're feeling that get over it and find a new job is it sort of how you look at it? Well not that simply but I think it would be what I don't think they should just get over it and get a new job I mean, I didn't say it that bluntly in the video I think I gave a little bit more context than that There are victims who are suffering more than the dairy farmers and those are the cows and the calves who are separated and Sent to slaughterhouses and killed I then completed the eight part video campaign against Pierce Morgan and Channel seven from Australia the Sunday night show Contacted me to film a piece for them. So we went for about I think two or three days something like this gets out to enough people Good compassionate human beings wouldn't want to be funding a place like this And we could get millions of people to be on board with this and we have The only way a holocaust can take place is for good people to stand by and do nothing After these exhausting few months of campaigning I retreated back to my editing space to try to complete the tons of editing for the rest of the Europe tour now whilst I was there in Indonesia I was contacted by the today show who flew me out to be on their show to discuss my advocacy to Discuss some of the more controversial things I said and I had quite a successful in my view interview with the two ladies on the today show There's obviously absolutely nothing wrong with being a vegan Can you understand though but that perhaps some people find your approach to extreme? Or do you feel you have to take such measures to get your message heard is? Being a vegan who is against the exploitation and harm of animals extreme or our slaughterhouse is extreme our gas chambers extreme or Maserating one-day old male chicks in the egg industries in a big blender on the first day of life little baby chicks is that extreme Well, it gives you a lot to think about and obviously this reached millions of people not only in Australia But across the world via social media so another highlight for me was releasing the Vienna slaughterhouse footage This happened in November the year prior, but I only released the footage in 2019 We sat there with these pigs for hours and then followed them into the kill floor And we watched these innocent animals be hung up and murdered right in front of our eyes very distressing It was quite a traumatic experience, but the video reached hundreds of thousands of people across my platforms and hopefully had a positive impact It was one of the the most viewed videos of that Europe tour. So thank you to Lena for organizing that so shortly after that I've got news that the Sunday night show we're about to release the piece that we filmed for let's have a watch of this together and See how biased it is.    It was a complete hit piece It was so suspicious and later on we found out that Channel 7 is privately owned by a billionaire beef tycoon named Kerry Stokes It's kind of making sense now this crazy media buyer story coming out of this guys The chairman of that that media company now. That's not even a conspiracy. This is just follow the money Follow the money. So it all came together Channel 7 is privately owned by a beef mogul I then began a crusade of videos Exposing Channel 7 and their lives calling the producers exposing Kerry Stokes and their connections It is the most cringiest piece I've ever seen and it's it's embarrassing It's really embarrassing Journalism with the help of a good friend Joanne from Australia and this took up a lot of my time like these are big players, man These are big players a multi-billionaire Meet industry media moguls. I'm telling you mate.  I was not comfortable, but I thought I'd take a risk They promised me they would be unbiased that they were not going to Be malicious in the editing. They're gonna be truthful. I had more trust in them than I did with Channel 7 I did three and a half weeks filming with veganville It turned out to be a very character building experience for me. The hardest part was leaving my platforms for three and a half weeks I'm very dedicated to spreading the vegan message on my platforms and to leave my platforms is like leaving my baby to Contribute to a project that I had no editing power with but it turned out for me to be a risk That was worth it. Now after this three and a half weeks of filming with veganville was done I was absolutely exhausted and I spent a bit of time on self-care So this was around the time my six-year sober video came out. It's been a journey I'm not gonna say staying sober for six years has been easy. There's been times where I've wanted to drink alcohol There's been times when I just wanted to let loose and party But I think when you have something to wake up for every day a purpose in your life And you've you really got to make that decision You really got to ask yourself has the actions you've been taking in your life up to this point led You to the point where you want to be at. So this was my six year of being sober. I had a bit of reflection I've been working with a therapist for my PTSD and we made big breakthroughs in my PTSD I really feel like I've put to bed a lot of my demons Went straight to the source of my trauma and we released a lot of it and I've felt so good ever since So therapy for me was amazing and I really love my therapist. Thank you so much with all my heart my mental health Has gotten Magnitudes better than where it was this year I also focused a lot on my physical training getting in shape being a good advocate in terms of You know looking my best. I've been having a bit of a a break a bit of a self-care break and I've been focusing on Myself and getting my mental state nice and clear of quick caffeine. I've been training every single day So my mental health that has improved vastly through therapy my physical shape hasn't proved a lot I really have started to you know show how you can be fit build muscle and also You know later on in the year I was showing how you can you know do athletic feats like run marathons without training Ultra marathons, you know with no running training just doing crazy stuff like that and that will continue that will continue So I'm adding another level to my advocacy when it comes to the my physical shape and athleticism So after releasing the last of my Europe tour which took six months for me to get up I mean there's a lot of editing that last video You know it really shows the highs and lows of the tour Really tough like this is a tough tour. I don't think this is sustainable So I don't think I think this is some sort of sustainable activism But thank you so much to Abdullah and have everyone helped organize that tour Abdullah was my sidekick camera man He went through it all with me. He realizes now how hard some of these tours can be I released the last video of my tour, which was a real highlight of the year I really wanted to get that last video up and I needed a new beginning a new beginning What was I gonna do? I was gonna get a team together and start campaigning in London So I've got a team together. I've got camera guy some editors and An assistant I got together in London started campaigning and setting up tables Doing some stunts Obviously I have obviously you have I can't I can't do this discussion with people here not here You can't okay. Where's the nearest public land public land to be outside the gate Looks like we did a last five minutes before being kicked out. So Really pumping social media Smashing social media's face in with vegan content going hard Going hard. I was putting in the work hours and hours and hours and grew my social media platforms We reached over a hundred thousand on each of the platforms this year. It was great. My platform has ticked over 100,000 subscribers It was a real milestone for me. I come from humble beginnings had a little iPhone 5 when I first started, you know and So it really meant a lot to to reach these milestones I put in a lot of work on my platform some heart and soul and I talk about very controversial issues on my channel I really do hit the hardcore topics on on my channel about the gas chambers and the rapes in the dairy industry I don't I don't skip out the animal message. You know, I was just it was just really Heartwarming to reach, you know, this milestone on my channel amassed millions of views this year on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube tens of millions of views reaching tens of millions of people on on Social media as well as actual media reaching tens of literally tens of millions of people So had a really big impact this year and you just cannot really measure the impact you're having on people I mean I get emails and messages all the time But there's people that don't email and message you and they go on to impact other people and so thank you so much for those Who have shared my videos watch my videos and sent me messages that you know, I've influenced you or my videos have inspired you This has just been an amazing year. So rounding up this year has been massive I mean I've transformed my body my mind my emotional mental state of my character I thought was so much wiser than when I first started. I want to be more systematic now with my activism I've never been planned.  I want to be more organized and You know, I want to develop as an activist and a public speaker and a fitness and health advocate I want to be more researched and set more goals and be more systematic and Now that I've got I'm under new management now And I'm really hoping to step it up a notch and be a more professional advocate and really take this to another level Seriously, you know, I don't want to be caught slacking or become complacent. That's just not me That would eat me alive inside so I want to keep stepping it up and keep pushing and pushing and pushing with this and I hope that that inspires you to to keep pushing yourself, you know Don't ever become complacent.  Don't stop there. Don't rest on your laurels That's what you used to do I want to see what you're doing now and what are you continuing to do in the future to make an impact and to live Your life of purpose. What is that for you? What values do you possess? Are you living in alignment with your values? Do you sit in there becoming complacent and becoming comfortable? Don't ever become comfortable in life Okay, so let's keep pushing ourselves and that's what I'm gonna do that now the end of this video I'm gonna say thank you Thank you first and foremost to my donors and patreons who have been with me Supporting me financially. I couldn't you know It's just you need finances to be able to reach lots of people It's just the way it is and thank you so much to those of you who do that for me This this year would not have been possible without you all and like since I've started patreon I've been able to reach millions of more people millions more people literally so it's been an amazing Gift really has been a gift and also want to thank everyone who's worked with me in various ways I know there's a lot of in-fighting in the movement and we don't all have to be friends But the fact that people cooperate with me and you know have really helped me out Whether it's been sending me research or you know I've rang for help and you or you've helped film with me or you've been there to help me edit Or you've helped me do do some captions here and there you've helped take the weight off in some way You've helped me organize something or you know You've given me a tip or you've left a comment or you've you've shared some of my videos Whatever it is whoever has helped me in those ways just the support in the comment section means so much to me Advice that you've given me whatever it is my therapist things like that just Whoever has helped me. I want to send a big heartwarming. Thank you to you all and I really cannot describe to you what it means to have people that have are there to support me in whatever way To help me get this message out there because I really am dedicated and I really want to Leave a lasting mark on the world and in the hearts of of people and I really do want to see animals liberated. So here's to an amazing 2019 and an even more amazing 2020 let's all step it up. Let's not become complacent. Let's all keep grinding work hard Stay committed live in alignment with your purpose Make an impact think of the animal suffering think what they're going through and what would you want if you were in their position Do you want someone like me fighting for you? Do you want to be the person to fight for these animals and get out there and do it? One foot in front of the other keep moving forward and arm in arm together as a movement. We can change the world peace


Cool. So, uh, hey guys, my name is Chris Cologne. I'm a software engineer for indeed.com. For those of you that aren't familiar with Indeed, we're a job search site, or the number one job search site worldwide. I've been with Indeed for four years. Before that, I actually just went to school at University of Illinois. Any, Alina here? Yes, cool. Awesome. Me and you. And you go over there. Um, so yeah, I've been working for Indeed last four years in the last year and a half. I've been working on, uh, Indeed's newest products called Indeed Prime. Um, and so I'm going to talk a little bit about that later, but, but right now I just want to talk about something that we kind of, a lot of us in this room probably experienced, which is recruiters and recruiting messages and stuff like that. So, uh, just to show of hands, who here has gotten a message from a recruiter like daily, weekly? Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I see we got some engineers in the room. Awesome. Okay. So, uh, show of hands. Who here has gotten an awful recruiting message from? Yeah. Okay. Cool. See, we got some engineers in the room. Yeah. So this, and this is, I was actually talking with some of my colleagues about some of the messages that they get. And, uh, one, one of my colleagues said that she would had a recruiter contact her once or twice a week, but always after 10 p.m. And I asked her, you know, what was happening. Was he in Tokyo or something? Like, what was there? Time difference? What was going on there? And she said, no, actually, he would leave her voicemail messages because he was drunk and would leave her these drunk recruiting messages. That's not the type of recruiter I want to talk to. I'm not really going to be interested in working for that company. Um, I had another coworker, uh, who, uh, here depicted here, um, who would get contacted by one recruiter. Uh, he got a couple messages. The first message was something like, hey, Juan, we saw your resume. We think you'd be a great fit for the company. Let us know, uh, reach back to us. And my colleague didn't respond back to that first message. Recruiter sent another message a couple days later. Hey, Juan, we really looked at your resume. Think you'd be a great fit for the company. Just talk to us five, 10 minutes. Still didn't respond. Third message from the recruiter. Hey, Juan, don't mean to bother you. If we could just get five or 10 minutes of your time, that'd be great. Thanks. And so those messages don't sound that bad. If it was an interesting company, probably maybe Juan would respond. The only problem was Juan wasn't Juan. Juan is actually Amanda. And so they got the name wrong and they got the gender wrong. Not really a recruiter. You want to kind of message back, right?  Also, if you looked at the resume that much, how did you get the name? And so, uh, the other thing that happens with recruiting messages, let's say you get a good recruiting message, you might have low quality companies reaching out to you, right? Tundra Mifflin, yeah. And so what makes a company low quality could be several things. They could not be able to afford you, right? So I had companies contact me, give me offers that were half the salary I was currently making.  I don't really want to take that pay cut. And then you also have companies that are just kind of cold calling, right? So you're just one of the 100 engineers they try to reach out to.  I've heard of a friend who's a game designer and he gets contacted by like finance and bank companies and has nothing to do with his experience. Once again, because they're just cold calling, right?  You're just an engineer. The next thing that happens is you get unresponsive companies and this can happen at different parts of the recruiting process, right? So what happens to me is I'll get a message from a recruiter and it's actually a good one and I'll respond back and I'll say, Hey, I'm interested. Give me some more information. And I think that's when they go and play like ping pong at their tech office or something because they never respond back to me. And so I just get that unresponsiveness, which is a huge turn off, right? You can also get unresponsiveness later on in the process. So a colleague of mine right before he started for indeed got through the whole process. He interviewed phone screened everything like that and was told that he was going to get an offer. A couple days go by he doesn't hear anything tries to send a message they don't get back to him. A couple weeks go by he starts looking for another job, right? He starts interviewing with indeed. And a month goes by he's working for indeed and he gets contacted again by this company. And they finally say, Oh, sorry, by the way, we didn't have the budget to hire you. At which point he's just he's like, That's fine. I work for another company right now. Anyways, and so there's this problem right with with recruiting messages right now. And it causes a lot of us engineers to have to sift through all this noise, bad recruiting messages, low quality companies, unresponsive companies. And it makes it really hard when you're actually trying to find a job. I was actually interviewing a really awesome candidate for indeed. He had a great resume and he I noticed he wasn't working anywhere the current time. So I asked him, What are you doing right now? And he said, This is what he's doing. He's looking for a job looking for a job is his full time job, right? He has so many phone screens and interviews and emails to respond to that it's just too much. And so there must be a better way right. So I work for indeed. And indeed helps people get jobs. So couple of us got to thinking, you know, a lot of us in this room, a lot of the engineers in this room, especially, we don't really have to apply to jobs like we don't have to go find jobs, we just have to start paying attention to the recruiting messages and figure out like who's good that's talking to us. So let's make this thing, we'll call it indeed prime. And let's have it help top talent get jobs. And it's slightly different. So at the most basic level indeed prime connects top talent with top employers. So but we were building that when I was trying to figure out what I wanted from from a tool or a product like this, I had to keep in mind a couple things. So the first thing is I wanted an easy apply flow.  I don't know if any of you guys like it, but I definitely do not. So I wanted something where I could just give some basic information and someone somewhere would do work for me. I also wanted a portal with quality employers. I wanted a place where I didn't have to worry about low quality companies reaching out to me or unresponsive companies reaching out to me. I also wanted transparency and messages. So I'd get contacts or recruiting messages that are really cryptic, like we want a junior developer who doesn't have the company name or doesn't have any other information or even where they're at. They just kind of want to get like a foot in the door and have you respond back. So I want to transparency and messages. I want to know who you are and kind of what your offer is. And then I also wanted an easy way to reply to messages. So when I am interested and I do get it like an email or something, I want an easy way to say I'm interested or I'm not interested. So these are the things I kind of had to keep in mind when, oh, by the way, I didn't really say this, but I'm actually one of the two founding engineers for Indeed Prime. So I was the one trying to like keep all this in mind when I was building this product. So how do we deal with this easy apply flow? Well, what I did was I built super simple, like just give me your basic, your name, your email information. And why don't we just create and have this team of people whose job is to basically create your profile and work with you and do all of that for you. If anything, use Indeed Prime to get like an awesome tech written thing of your profile and then copy and paste that wherever you want. So we have this awesome team that is going to work, that works with engineers and stuff to make sure they're getting pushed along the process as well. So they're there helping you build your profile, evaluate offers, making sure you're not getting stuck anywhere in the process with any company. There's this awesome quote from a user of Prime that I love. So he says, I really love the coaching and monitoring from the Prime liaison. Just knowing someone's in your corner helps a lot. And I think that's something that the that awesome candidate I interviewed for Indeed would have benefited a lot from. Something that I want, if I'm considering like looking for a new job, just someone to help me manage all this. Someone to help me sift through a lot of that noise. So quality employers, how do you get quality employers? It's actually really simple. Just vet and screen all the employers, right? Be exclusive. And so that's what we do. We don't just let any employer see your profile. We vet and screen them. And then we also have a team that works with employers specifically to kind of make sure you're not getting stuck in the process. So let's say you get contacted by a company, you're interested. We go ahead and we work with the employer saying, Hey, look, Rebecca is really interested. She has a couple other offers on the table. You should really push her along. Get that phone screen and get the interview in. And that helps a lot with the unresponsiveness that we kind of get in normal recruiting. So then transparency messages. That's also pretty simple, right? So if an employer is going to reach out to you, let's make sure they give their company, which is automatic. And let's make sure they provide a salary, some information they can provide relocation and equity. Relocation equity are optional because not every company offers that. But that's great. So now I get messages knowing exactly who I'm talking to, what the company is, and kind of what their base offer is, right? They're using this. They know I'm a prime candidate. They know I'm a great engineer, so they can they should be able to make me at least a base offer. The next thing is that one that easy reply that I want to basically express interest or disinterest when I get messages from from recruiters or employers. And so that's also turns out to be really simple. Let's just when the emails that you get through prime, we just add two buttons that say interested or not interested. Simple as that. I can easily respond and say, Hey, look, I'm actually interested. And so all of this together leads up to this 90% response rate. So 90% of the time our candidates are responding to employers, which is awesome. I get so many recruiting messages daily, weekly. I respond to like 2% of them, if at all, right? So 90% is amazing. And there's this quote that I really want to credit to you, which is at the end of the day, a single indeed prime interview request is worth a dozen traditional applications. And I get excited every time I see one in my inbox, which is exactly the product I wanted to build. I didn't want to have to sift through all this noise. I didn't want to have to deal with all this, you know, I have to evaluate if this is a good recruiter or a good company. This is this is this is the product working, right? Yeah, so I'm really happy with what I built. You guys should totally try it out. We are going to have a booth tomorrow and Friday to check us out. We're going to have a HTC virtual reality setup, which is super, super cool. I'll be there. I can tell you a little bit more about the indeed prime tech stack. We're also going to have another session on Friday kind of diving in a little bit more of what indeed prime is, how it works, and also some resume tips as well.  So feel free to reach out to us if you all want to sign up or just talk to us for information. So yeah, thanks. Have a great Rails conference and may the fourth be with you.


Hi everyone, this is Jason here from Nathaniel and in this lesson I am going to show you three ways to creatively explore scales, be it the major or the minor scale, creatively explore it but at the same time improve your technique with regards to three important technical aspects which are sometimes forgotten when you practice scales in this approach. Which is just ascending and descending, the ascending and descending approach may not may be great for a technique or for an exercise to kind of you know get by or get started with understanding a scale but it may not serve a few other technical as well as musical goals. So, this lesson basically talks about three ways to practice the scales which are extremely creative. The hope is whenever I say creative is that you can make a song or a melody line using the concept because it allows you to grow further into the process of making music and at the same time each of these three techniques which I am going to share with you are also very important for your finger alignments and for various finger motions which we do very often on the piano keyboard. So it will be awesome if you get your keyboards out and practice this with me, stay till the very very end of the video because it is going to really go all over the place in terms of what we are going to create and perhaps get a notebook out whatever you need to absorb the lesson if you will. Let's get cracking. So, I am going to take the key of E for this entire lesson and usually we are biased as teachers and students towards the major scale so in this lesson let's just do both. We will do E major as well as E minor. You could do the E natural minor but I am going to prefer the E harmonic minor which I feel is a bit more commonly used melodically that's minor third, minor sixth, raise seventh or just major seventh. So it's very important to note that a major scale is determined, the sound is determined by the major third while the minor scale is determined by the minor third that's what gives it that melancholic or that pensive or that sad or serious kind of sound okay. So the first technique to practicing scales more creatively will basically be to play the scale as well as the most important harmonic element or tool or construct of that particular scale which is the default chord. So if you are taking the major scale E major okay. So these are the first five notes E F sharp G sharp AB but from the purpose of the sound of the scale the root, the third and the fifth are the most important notes to give you the flavor of the scale. The moment you play this it's a major scale isn't it or yes it's going to be a major kind of scale. There are many other scales which share the major third but the major scale is a very popular one. So the moment a person plays this chord which is the one, three and the five of the given major scale you just know that you're going to play your entire song on those seven notes which is E F sharp G sharp AB C sharp D sharp E. So E G sharp and B become the most important notes of the scale okay.  So the first set basically will go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 3, 5, 8 or 8 means the octave in this case. So this exercise is great because it allows you to play the chord 1, 3, 5, 8 which are the representing notes of the scale and it also allows you to move linearly which is what we call as horizontal motion or scalar motion or linear motion and then immediately we stretch out the hand to play a chord or the representing notes of the E major scale which is 1, 3, 5 octave. Let's do that again okay. Again swaras and look at another very interesting technical thing which this is helping the piano player right. Your hand is sort of compressed in this particular movement when you do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2 or sare gama pama gari. Your hand is in closed shape but then when you have to play sag pa sa, your hand has to stretch out right. So this expansion and compression of the hand is crucially important when you are playing the piano. So when you learn your scales you need to learn it with a closed hand and a spread hand. This is a very important technique. So what I have tried to do in this lesson is basically to give you a creative workflow along with a technical workflow which are super imposed in the same exercise. So you go keep the pulse. So when I do scale our movements it's a bit faster so I double the speed 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1, 2, 3, 4. When you go up the chord we slow down the speed. So up the scale, double speed, chord, single speed. And the left hand is showing that with a simple but steady pulse. And you can even do the descending version. Since your pinky is already here, when you descend you just move your entire hand here. You started with shape 1 here, ended here. Now bring your whole hand towards the pinky, play that from the descend and then come back to the root. So your hand has gone through this compressed state and the expanded state. And even at the top when you descend, compressed, expanded. Then you come back to the top or rather the root and then you start the whole journey again. Keep the pulse. And remember what I said it's important to practice this exercise on different scales. So if we take this on the E minor, for now what has changed? Just the G. G sharp became G. So it's major 3rd becoming minor 3rd, creates that melancholic sound and when you descend observe you don't hit a C sharp, you hit a C instead. You could also keep your left hand busy. You could either play a single E which is the root of the scale that works really great or else you could just play the chord E minor in this case. You could just hold it. And why does this chord work? Because it's playing the representing notes of the scale, the important notes if you will, which is the 1, the 3 and the 5. In this case in the minor scale the 3rd is flat 3. So you go, if you can't hit the entire chord just hit a single E, maybe with an octave but keep the pulse. And if you'd like, you can change the left hand, I love that. So any note in the scale pretty much, C in this case, A, end on B which cycles very well to the root. So the right hand is doing the same exercise but the left hand is sort of driving the vehicle outside the neighborhood if you will. It's really going on an adventure. That's the power with the left hand. So hold a steady pulse in the left hand, start with E then graduate to maybe the chord still on the pulse and then try to change the left hand to play different notes of the scale and explore and see where it goes. If not just hold the pulse, that's more than enough because the right hand is already doing some very creative stuff and some very technical stuff. So let's break that down again. The right hand is going scale R motion and then chord L motion or harmonic motion. So scale, chord, descending scale from the top, chord, descend, scale, chord up, scale, chord down. Okay, on the major again, faster when you do linear motion, slower when you do chordal motion, faster when you scale, yeah. So this exercise is training your hand to expand, compress. It's also giving you the idea of playing linearly as well as harmonically and it's also testing your sense of timing because the linear motion is faster. The harmonic motion is a bit slower. There's a lot going on. So spend some time with this exercise. Also let's look at the left hand to maintain a steady pulse. So in this part of a three part series, we've basically learned expansion compression. So in the next part, we're going to look at another approach which I think is really incredible and will hopefully give you a different perspective to how you practice scales. So practice this one hard and I will see you in the next one. Head over there as well. Cheers. Again, if you haven't already hit the subscribe button, turn on the bell icon for notifications. Like the video, share the video and anything you'd like to do to help our channel grow. See you around.


So, if a woman is thinking about getting pregnant, I always have the conversation looking at if there are any pre-existing medical conditions. We do recommend preconception testing before you get pregnant just to make sure you're as healthy as you can be before you start a pregnancy. That can be things like blood work, having a full physical examination, testing for STDs, testing for anemia, cholesterol, testing for communicable diseases that could affect the pregnancy. Actually, just prior to our wedding, my doctor and I started talking about things that we could do just to make sure that I am at my best if we do get pregnant. Mostly we're focusing on your general medical health, making sure you're not anemic before pregnancy, making sure your cholesterol is normal, making sure you're immune to certain communicable diseases which could cause problems in your pregnancy. If those elements are controlled prior to conception, it means a healthier outcome.