Nigeria has overtaken Iraq as a country with the highest number of attacks by the Islamic State ISIS. This was captured in a global and cyber Jihad date published by Jihad Analytics. The company which processes data on global and cyber Jihad noted that half of the attacks claimed by ISIS since the beginning of 2022 were in Africa. Jihad Analytics also said the Islamic State in West Africa province iswap and affiliate of ISIS is now more active in Nigeria. While Nigeria has recorded a total of 162 ISIS operations since January 2022, Iraq has recorded 120. Joining us now, former Assistant Director of the Department of State Service Dennis Amakre. Good evening Mr. Amakre. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. I can hear you. Okay, so where does this new report take us to from where we were before this report came up? Well, the new report is telling us that there is a concentration of iswap activity in Nigeria. And then I think it's a good sign for us to now rearrange our house, put our house in order, so to say, to deal with it. Because after Iraq, Nigeria is becoming, you know, the major area where iswap is going to operate means a lot. And it means that for the objective of ISIS in West Africa is succeeding in the attempt that they now recruit a lot of people and at the same time they also want to take over certain places, if possible, take over lands, you know, which they call caliphates. But put our house in order, you say, Nigeria has sent a whole lot of attacks, you know, on her citizens and the security architecture of the country has been questioned repeatedly by Nigerians home and abroad. And what I would like to find out is you are the former assistant director of the department for state service, the DSS. To what extent is the DSS involved in the security of the country? Well, the DSS is the primary security agency in Nigeria. The primary law enforcement agency is the police. And I've been the primary security agencies, they are responsible. That means that's the DSS responsible for gathering information and then, of course, converting it into intelligence and then, of course, preferring countermeasures for other services to carry out as actionable. Primary security agency. So you're saying, as Nigerians are saying and feeling and seeing that the military has not been able to protect them, that the DSS is also culpable? Well, the DSS is doing their job. And I will also tell you that the military is also doing their job. The problem here, or who dropped the ball, is the politicians. It's a chain. The military cannot stand up today and go and do certain things. They will say it's a coup. If the DSS provides intelligence, it cannot go and operationalize it. So we have the political leadership. Which, you know, as far as I can see, has even abandoned the security sub-sector and are busy with campaigns and elections. Instead of going ahead and seeing that this particular security problem we have in Nigeria is solved. So you're saying that Nigeria does not have the political will to fight, even though the security, the military, the DSS, the police are willing to. So on whose desk is this failure falling on? Is it the presidency? Well, you know, we have the commander-in-chief, of course. And then, of course, we have the governors, too. And all of them are in executive positions to do certain things, you know? And the security agencies and the military law enforcement have been doing all they can. And if I let me remind you, there are too few, either. There are very, very few. They might not be able to cover all the problems that a 200 million population country is facing, you know? So in fact, they are doing their best. They are doing their best, because I remember when somebody sees mechanics dealing with broken down vehicles. It only takes the ingenuity of a good mechanic to put a broken down vehicle on the road. And I think that's what the security agencies are doing. OK, well, this latest report by the Jihad Analytics, which says that the Global Terrorism Index also named the ISIS as the world's deadliest terror group replacing the Taliban. And Nigeria are ranking the sixth place in the growing spate of insecurity. Should we be looking in the direction of getting foreign mercenaries involved in this, in this fight? I strongly don't believe in mercenaries, because I don't know which other special training they have. The United Nations have not been very positive in dealing with mercenaries, because they don't believe in human rights. They don't have rules of engagement. They will come and do the job for you, you know? And of course, there are some countries that have actually engaged them. The United States have engaged them. Even Nigeria has engaged them. But at the end of the day, there are abuses. And that's why many people want to stay away from them. And now for one, let me tell you, the Nigerian military is one strong military in Africa. And they can do whatever any mercenary will do. But as long as they are not empowered, as long as they are not jingered to moralize, to do what they want to do, we are not going to get anywhere. So instead of looking for the foreign mercenaries and paying them that huge sum, give it to the security agencies and the military, and let them go and do the job, because they can. Well, let me serve as an advocate for the Nigerian military somewhat. How do we empower them to see to it that they do what they are supposed to do and what they want to do? We've had of budgets. We've had of monies allocated for the procurement of special sort of ammunition and all of that. Did they get stolen? Is corruption an issue here? Well, the military are not from outer space. We, in fact, this is public information where even a general was caught with 400 million Naira. And of course, I think it's having a jail term right now. So of course, corruption will come into play where certain Nigerians will want to corner what is meant for the public good, instead of using it for what it is meant to. But I believe strongly again. When we say political will, and when we say command and control, this command and control should be one where people are giving key performance indicator, whereby if you don't keep, if you don't perform according to the given rules, then you should be sanctioned. But I don't think we have any KPIs for the military or for any law enforcement agency Why don't we? So something is wrong with the architecture then? Well, of course, definitely something is wrong with architecture. Otherwise, we should be able to, we would have been able to take care of this problem long time, 10 years ago. So how do we fix it? The way we have to fix it, I think it's for us to be honest with ourselves, come to the drawing table, get all the military chiefs, the service chiefs to sit in a room. And then of course, forget about tribes and terms, which are different, you know. And then let everybody be in Nigeria and say, okay, this is a problem we have to solve. And I can assure you, everybody sitting down there and saying that look, without any interference from politicians, because politicians have their different agendas, you know, without interference from politicians, the security agencies can go ahead and do what they have to do. Without interference from the politicians, the security agents can go ahead and do what they have to do. Yes. Sometimes I wonder, who did they owe allegiance to? Is it to the Nigerian people that they have, you know, they have sworn to protect all the politicians with the pie, so to speak? Ah, well, I don't want to go into a long history with you, but one thing you have to also realize here is that when the military and the police and the DSS, which was originally the Nigerian security organizations, all of them were formed. And if you look at the present constitution of Nigeria, you know, where they look at the objectives and you will see that all these bodies were formed to report to the president of the federation. You know, in other countries, like the United States, you have a situation where the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the CIA, all of them have their allegiance to the constitution of that country. In our own, our allegiance is to the president. It's like the department of the presidency. So you have to, you cannot go ahead and do any other thing except what the president tells you. But if you have, if the constitution itself has been amended, whereby the military will still be under the president, of course, because that is one of his major thing against foreign invasion. But the police and the DSS should be seen as independent so that no politician is going to use them. And they will be there to carry out their job according to the national interest. And these are some things that many people are not aware of. So you can blame them sometimes for not doing their job, but they cannot do their job outside the purview of their boss. So until the constitution is reviewed to give them the hand to do what they are supposed to do, their hands remain tied, remain tied, as we say in local parlance, their hands get tied and remain tied. So right now, their arms are tied. They can't do beyond what we see them doing, even though they tell us, oh, we defeated Boko Haram. And then two days down the line, we hear some striking Kaduna or Yola or somewhere. And Nigeria has been taken for a ride. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it's a Nigerian issue. I don't think that because they are not independent, they still do their work. And let me tell you something. If the security agencies are not doing their work, we cannot be sitting down and having this interview right now because they still do their work, whereby the country is secured, where people can wake up and go to work and come back. But we have problems, where when coming back from work or going to work, you could be attacked. So what we want to do is to eliminate that area where you will be attacked, when going to work or going to work for work. So the security agencies are still working, but we need to give them more powers in doing their work. Indeed, the Nigerian military had received accolades for their international feats. They're among the best in the world. There's no doubt about that. And that's why people like us are clamoring for them to be better equipped so that they can do what they are known to do well. So thank you so much, Mr. Dennis Amakere. Mr. Dennis Amakere is the former assistant director of the Department of State Services. Thank you for your time. Thank you for having me. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


My heart has broken into pieces Where does each piece reside? Will I a peaceful moment Before my soul flams in I am Zainab One segment lives in my home Drowning in sorrow and grief It recalls and the loss of an unborn But that peace feels as my mother said O Zainab, a segment lives in the city Where a king lays with prophets straight Head and days of poisoning One father too But that peace feels peace As my father, masha'Allah A segment lives in the regurgitation O Zainab, cannot be shared But that peace feels peace As my brother Zainab One more time A segment lives in the tomb Which housed my own two sons The first words of two young innocent But that peace feels my two sons say Segment lives next to that On the hot bloodstained sand It recalls the kiss upon the neck Which I cannot describe With twelve pieces Feels peace when my brother One segment lives in the tomb Recalls the sleep that's never stopped On seeing that heavy visits But that peace feels peace When my dear niece said O auntie


Thank you for coming this evening. I'm Cheryl Sprates and I'm the co-president of the Longmont branch of the American Association of University Women. Tonight I will be introducing our esteemed panel members. I think we're very fortunate to have a group like this assembled together. So I'm looking forward to all we can learn tonight. I'll introduce our, oh please hold your applause until the end of the whole presentation. And I also have cards here for anyone who's interested in asking a question. We'll have a little bit of time at the end but we can also get you an answer by email. So if you are interested in asking a question please raise your hand. The first person I'd like to introduce is Marsha Martin. She has represented Ward 2 of the Longmont City Council for six years. She holds a master's degree in computer science and enjoyed a 40-year career as a systems engineer before retiring in 2013 from the clean energy sector. She finds that serving on the city council is a natural continuation of her career. Her strongest interests now involve re-engineering cities as sustainable systems of distinct but interdependent components just as we are doing with the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity. In both systems failure is not an option. Marsha, thank you Cheryl. Can everybody hear me okay? I don't have, I don't have houses on my face or anything. So I was asked to talk about Envision Longmont which is the City of Longmont's comprehensive multimodal and land use plan. And it was adopted by a former city council. I don't think there's anybody left from that city council in 2016. And then if you think about how a document like that gets written, that means that it was under construction in 2014 and 2015, which means that they were working from a flood-wracked destroyed city because of the flood of 2013. So they were looking instead of just an extension to the old plan, they needed repair, recovery and rebirth. And they saw it as a method of getting a fresh start and being created. So that was the intent of Envision Longmont. I should have been on this slide the whole time. So it's expected to live for 10 to 20 years except that this summer we will enter year nine. So it's been our guiding principles for a long time, maybe for longer than was reasonable. Because I'll talk about a number of things that have already changed, even though we didn't formally update the comprehensive plan. And also some things that really need to change in order to keep Longmont both livable and equitable and economically viable. Because for the city to work, all three of those have to remain true. So the comprehensive plan identified these policy elements and I'll let you read them while I yabber. Certainly the main elements of urban design and planning are here, with one notable exception. And I'm going to let you guess until the end of the presentation what the left out piece is because it's a really important one. It didn't seem important in 2016 and it really didn't seem that important in 2013. The bullets above are direct quotes from the front matter in Envision Longmont. It's in some ways a marketing document. What I, when I began learning it, I was puzzled that it doesn't seem to communicate a sense of urgency. It doesn't seem to have any impact analysis. It doesn't seem to, you know, just get into the process of how we're actually going to get this done. And I can only conclude that the community was shocked and that it was mostly a marketing document. And the biggest goal was to have a message of hope. And certainly that is true of Envision Longmont. It is a beautiful little book with great photos of Longmont in it. But, you know, it's hard to use it to get behind the city and push. So growth is one of the policy elements of policy and then growth that Envision Longmont looks at.  And really the real estate development market in those early years was the only commercial economic engine we had. So I think that those developers may have gotten away with some stuff. But they're still important to Longmont. What I think people are mistakenly doing now is that they are equating that kind of sprawly suburban development that happened between Main Street and the foothills as what growth means. And it doesn't, you know. And if you look at the needs under growth, you'll notice that population growth isn't in there. We don't have any particular aspirations for population growth. What we do have is we want housing for several sets of people. We want housing for children of residents that are either aging out of foster care or just reaching adulthoods put in their own families. And they want to have their own place to live and work, but they don't want to leave the town where they grew up. That's kind of a nice sentiment, isn't it? And that's how we're going to keep Longmont from being one way. We're going to keep Longmont from being an aging community. Families who are inadequately housed because the family has grown or because the family has not been able to upscale their residents from, you know, they bought or rented the cheapest starter thing they could find and they're outgrowing it. Those people need to be able to change housing to justice. Seniors need to be able to downsize. And it would be great if you could rotate housing among those groups except that downsizing is so expensive that you don't end up with any retirement fund out of doing it, which used to be the expectation that you downsize into something less costly and provide big houses for families at the same time. And we have a lot of people who have jobs in Longmont and these tend to be the lower wage earners in the tax region. But they have jobs in Longmont, good jobs in Longmont, but they have long commutes because those jobs are not good enough to live in Longmont and especially not to own property in Longmont. So that's something that we need to change because if you think about what a tax community is on those people, you know, $10,000 a year on the car, maybe two hours a day, five days a week out of their lives. You can't count the cost of the time not spent with families and hobbies and just general relaxation, self-care. And the other side of that coin is that workers who have not studied that, suffered that stress are happier, more interested in their job and giving you the Longmont residents better service on that account. So it's really an important thing to have as many of Longmont's workers live here as possible. But that's not really growth, not like population growth because, you know, those people still drive in Longmont, they still may shop in Longmont and it would be better if they did.  They have employment slots in the city. So they're really already part of Longmont. And then, you know, we may have support our primary employers, you know, the big guys from left-hand brewery to Seagate who occasionally want to really hire from outside the area because they want to hire a specialist. And we've made that a difficult problem for them because it's hard for them to buy houses, almost everywhere in the United States. Housing is less expensive and easier to find than it is here. So that's going to be a trickle of people. It's not going to be a vast impact on the population of Longmont. I want everybody to understand that. Implementation strategies. You know, there's really only two big implementation strategies for squeezing 120% of the city into the same space that you had the original city. You can change your land use policies, which means squeezing more dwellings into the same place and stacking up your amenities so that the land is used, you know, the same footprint of land is used for multiple purposes. We're constrained by our open space policy. And you'll see in a future next slide that that ring of constraining open space is just about complete. So there's not really much opportunity to expand Longmont's footprint. We're in the process of annexing the things that are still annexable right now. So you change density and you have to find ways to put what's needed into the space you have. And what that does is it requires you to improve the design, the mobility design, the design that it takes to get people around your city. And one of the best things that you can do is make it possible and encourage people to drive less. Now, this is the United States. You can't outlaw automobiles. You can't take them away from people. You can't really tax them, except for things like sales taxes. But, you know, we don't have road taxes or anything much like that. And people who have driven all their lives and don't, trust me, they don't really imagine that there's any other way, a lot of them. But what we want to do is make the people who are open to changing their habits able to change their habits. Because you have to be really tough to buck the system and become, for example, a bike rider for your commute and everything. If the city isn't designed for cyclists, right now our city isn't designed by cyclists. And I will submit that, although we are adding to the multimodal network, is what it's called, a pace. We aren't doing it in such a way that gets all of the bike lanes well connected. So, you know, you're fine on a nice bike path and then all of a sudden you're taking your life in your hands to get to the next buffered bike lane in the city. So, we need transit corridors. What does that mean? We didn't explain it. I know, I didn't. Do I have any more minutes to it? I have a minute. Oh, boy. Okay, so... That means speed up. Yeah, it does mean speed up, actually. So, oh. Sorry. Well, now I lost half a minute just giggling. So, you know, we have to do these implementation strategies smart and we have to really think harder about what they mean to our community. This is the long line planning map in 2016. This is the one out of Envision Long Line. And so what you want to think about is you can see the green periphery, that that's the open space buffer, and you can see that there are very few ways to do it. And there's a line that... There's a blue line that's hard to see, which is the long line planning area, and that means long lines are going to have a hard time expanding out of that and probably shouldn't expand out of that. The yellow is all single-family zoning. And then the red areas of change are commercial areas where we can make major improvements with code and parking and land use and stuff like that. And then the peripheral red are also things that weren't hand-exged yet in 2016, and some of them still aren't. So, this is actually the slide that I wanted to spend most of my time on. And it shows, so if you put your speed readers on, it shows what it says in Envision in the left-hand column and what has changed since then or what needs to change since then. So, we've already made some changes in density, and the slides will be available to, at least mine will, if you ask. And, you know, we've allowed building on smaller parcels of land. We've allowed narrower streets. But we need that space for bike lanes. We've changed the parking rules. All of that stuff is really essential to, you know, squeezing 120 pounds of long fondant into a heating tank bag and making it work. That's making it work with good urban design. It can work, and it has to work because all of these things are needed for a robust economy that will continue into the future. And the one word that was not mentioned in Envision Long Lawn at all and everybody just needs to think about that is energy. Because the city didn't really have any serious energy policy in 2016, other than, you know, keeping the water clean and stuff like that. But now we do, and it's a big deal. And amazingly enough, it's one of the ways we regain space that we can repurpose it. So, I'll be around for questions. Oh, we can't be around for questions. Can we? People have cards and things that we can give them to you. Okay. Thank you. Welcome. Did you take my paper with me? Okay. Thanks, Marcia. I never quite understood Envision Long Lawn. I understand that better now. Thank you for that. It's been two years. Yeah, I'm sure. Our next panelist is Brian Dunmar. He's Executive Director of the Institute for the Built Environment, IDE, and Professor of Emeritus at CSU, who has taught courses in construction management, interior architecture, and sustainability. He holds degrees in architecture from the University of Michigan. Through IDE, he has guided project work for the National Park Service, cities, universities, housing authorities, and school districts. He is co-author of Wholeschool Sustainability and 147 Tips on Teaching Sustainability. His research and teaching about sustainable building has been honored by the Colorado Governor, communities, and businesses. Brian will help us understand the promise of design surettes and how surettes benefited the recent bond farm conceptual development. It's been floating on over. Thanks. Good evening, everyone. And Sarah and Cheryl, thanks for the invitation to be part of this. It's a pleasure to be back in Montmont. And you're doing some really good things in Montmont. And so it's nice to be able to see that evolution. So what I'm going to quickly talk about is this strange word called surette. And it's a word that architects have used for a couple centuries now. And it really, it's a French word. And as you can see, it means carts. So why am I talking about carts today? Well, architecture professors used that term at the Occult de Beau Arts in Paris. And now we have brought it across the pond and we use it often, both in architecture school and in community planning and architectural offices and others. So it really just means a community design workshop where everyone's voice matters. Early on it meant that the professor was going to give you 24 hours to get your design done and he or she was going to bring the cart and you're going to finish your work. So like that drawing there, the student jumped into the cart and finished their design work as the professor came along to grab it. But why are we talking about that and why does it matter? Well, surette is a good way to kick off a process, to bring everyone together and hear different points of view. And it does end up providing some really nice alignment and finding common ground. It helps to form collaboration, collaboration teams, and then to allow the best design ideas to come out. And it really ends up kind of like that. Here we are, all kind of networking and working together, even if we started different places. So I wanted to also just say that our institute at Colorado State has used the surette process since we were created 30 years ago. This is our 30th anniversary. And we've been helping communities in Colorado and other states and sometimes other countries using this process to help them advance both a building project or a development project or sometimes just an organizational change like strategic planning. So it's that idea of bringing people together. And we set out the goals early on so everybody knows where we're trying to go during this process. It might be four hours, it might be a whole day, it might be a few days. And then the bond farm project, we had one surette that was two days long and I think it needed to be to end up with some of the results that came on. So we set out the goals by buying common ground and understand what's coming next but what are other goals that the group believes in. And another really important thing is early on we set out the rules of engagement. And when we do this, this helps us all work together. Like I might have come into the room saying I have a certain purpose for being here and I'm going to make sure that my idea is brought out. But once I understand this and I start behaving as a group process it changes the atmospheric culture of the room to allow people to say okay this is a big project and we're working together and I can contribute to it rather than I can get my one point across. And so those rules of engagement really come out. And we often say let's have a good time. It's important work and let's have a good time. We smile while we're doing the work and I bet the work comes out better. And I show this because what happens a lot of times is we start a project and you get some ideas and then people want to say okay now we're done. But what I emphasize during my when I facilitate a shred is this grown zone and we can smile and laugh about it is the time that the ideas, the best ideas continue to come out. Some good ideas might have happened here but don't shortchange the process and we really want to get a great result. Let's go through that grown zone together. And again so many new ideas are brought out if you have the time and that's why we like those longer shred ideas. So we start out as a larger group and then we break into smaller sub-topic groups. And this is where everybody gets to be involved.  But when we get into the smaller groups six to eight people that's when everybody has their voice and we can come out. And I always ask for table facilitators to make sure that everybody is being heard and no one is dominating the conversation. And that really helps the process move along as well. This is an example of during the bond farm the second day. So the actually we had we had three different major shreds during the bond farm process. We had what we call a visioning charrette. Let's get the big ideas out. Let's hear what the developer had in mind in the first place. Let's hear other visions for the project. And then we end with the design charrette. I want to say that the planning and zoning department and planning and zoning authority in Longmont was very wise during this project which had a contention to say let's have a sort of a middle charrette called a compatibility charrette. It was the first time I've been involved in that process and it was the right thing to do. It helped to bring more ideas together. Compatibility, hey let's be compatible. And it was compatibility between a new development and surrounding older neighborhoods. As I said we've been doing this process for 30 years and I had a student Catherine who was a graduate student. She had been on the volleyball team at CSU and that's a really successful volleyball program. And Catherine knows the importance of teamwork. So when she was asked to do a thesis she said I'm going to do it on the charrette process because that's all about creating teamwork. And so what she found during the process is that charrette's a lot more ideas to be generated. It actually speeds up the process. It sounds like it might take a while if I'm asking everyone to spend a day or two but it would be drawn out without the charrette process. So it adds up saving time and money and it really creates a nice project awareness. During Catherine's research she also found because she surveyed projects across the country and found that these were the ideas that came out as really important ideas. Like obtaining buy-in, certainly that's an important thing in the process. And then at the end of Catherine's research we did remember David Letterman. It's been a while. Well Catherine was a student a while ago. So these were the things that came out of Catherine's research. Remember you always did it from 10 to 1. But let's have many charrettes. Make sure your ego isn't part of this. Understand the local resources. Make sure everyone's participating. Make sure we have clear goals. Someone's got to be in charge of taking it from that time. So it's not just a fun event that had good ideas but it keeps it going. And then the facilitator must be versed in this process of planning and design. Make sure all the voices are there. If they're not there I sort of want to pause the thing and say we got to get more of those perspectives in there.  So those are the main things that came out of our process. And so to conclude I give a couple thoughts. One is when we finish the compatibility charrette for the Bond Farm Project the planning director for the city of Longmont said we should do this process for all or most of our projects. And so I was really pleased to hear the director of planning say that. And then when the planning the project was presented to planning and zoning and then again to city council. I don't know Marcia if you maybe heard the word charrette before and you knew about it but some of the people both in planning zoning and city council had not really used the word. And during the evenings and they were long evenings I kept score of how many times the word charrette was used and in both the planning zoning and city council it was over 60 times that people said charrette mostly came from city council and the planning zoning people and I think there was an acknowledgement that yeah this really helped the project go on. And so I want to encourage all of you to consider this process whether it's for a remodel of a home or a new building or renovation to a school in town or even something like a strategic plan for a business or for a neighborhood you never know the results of a charrette before you go in but I can say you will always know that it's synergistic. And another way to say that that I heard from someone wiser than me once I was no one of us is as smart as all of us. And I think that the charrette really brings that out. And I just want to as I leave I want to say who was involved in the bond farm charrette processes.  So we have as you can see three of our four of our speakers and Dan and Sarah that's one of the reasons that we're here is because Sarah participated and then Katie is a student at Colorado State University she lives in Longmont and she helped to facilitate the process and then might nice to see you. Anyway that's all I have to say and let me know if there's questions along the way. Thank you Brian. Our next speaker is Drew Sorals. Drew is a seasoned interior designer specializing in creating sacred lifelong places that honor both body and soul with a strong emphasis on connecting interiors to the natural world. Drew's career has largely focused on residential and commercial design along with a few community driven projects. Drew's first neighborhood development involvement began serendipitously with the bond farm project located just a stone's throw from her home. Today Drew will share how the organic involvement and concern for her community has opened doors to numerous other opportunities. And you're all clapping. We are. Hi everybody and thanks for adding to my little bio there that was great. So thank you all for being here and speaking. I want to share my experiences in my involvement in the bond farm development and also as a way to encourage all of you women to get out there and be a part of your community and how this project has actually really opened doors up for me. So I am a Colorado native. I have lived in Longmont for about 28 years and my interior design firm has been in existence over 40 years and I pretty much just worked on residential and commercial design and kept my nose to the grindstone focusing on sustainability and it really wasn't until I heard about this bond farm project that I started getting really involved in my community. I knew a little bit about the bond farm and what was being developed before Mark Young started developing this property. It was being developed as a co-housing project and so I knew that one of our neighbors had invested in that project and a recent friend that I just met through Brian Charles Irvin also invested and Charles is a mortgage lender for focus on rural housing and health care and he was sort of coaching me along this way when he found out that I was really interested in making a difference in this project and basically he was agreeing with me that we need to find somebody to snag up this land and buy it from Mark because his concept plan was really pretty mercenary like just rows of townhomes with no character. So we actually looked for somewhere to buy the property and it was a dead end and so I asked him, Charles what are we going to do and he said the only way you're going to make a change in the direction of this development is to work with somebody like Brian who understands the process and can help the community understand the potential of this development. So my husband and I, he's in the audience Dan, joined the neighborhood, we had been part of the neighborhood group and we felt like it was a good idea to create a liaison between the neighbors and the developer Mark Young and Mark Young with his kind of tainted reputation it was really hard not to just lean into that bad reputation and see him as a criminal guy but we ended up having many meetings with him and Brian had a meeting with him and we decided that everybody has a good side and he was doing the best that he could in this development so we basically twisted his arm to engage in a charrette he wouldn't even pay for it but he agreed to do it with conditions and one of his conditions was I'm going to limit the amount of people that can come to this thing and want to get bombarded so then it's the day of the charrette and he's calling Brian Dunbar in the morning and he's saying Brian, why do I have to do this? and Brian is like Mark, it's okay we're in this together you know what your goals are it's for the greater good this is going to be fine and Mark showed up with spells and whistles at the charrette so the visionary charrette was, I think, very successful so we created a mutual ground for people to express their opinions and desires and how they wanted to see the neighborhood there were outside professionals invited that gave a different perspective to Mark's development team and one of the funniest things was I had sent out all the invitations I knew who was coming and there were four people showing up that I had no idea who they were and he's one of them and he's one of them and it ended up being I was like I got to just let this go and it ended up being a really good thing because they brought a different perspective which was pro-density and we had a lot of people that were anti-density and it kind of balanced out the group so after the charrette Dan and I my husband decided, you know I think we need to take a pretty neutral position here we decided not to be really for or against anything that was going on but more take a supported position continue the charrette's support the whole activity that's going on and let the outcome be the outcome so there was such opposition for this development and Mark Young presented his concept plan to Planning and Zoning and he didn't pass and Brian talked about how the Planning and Zoning was recommending that he define compatibility in a second charrette and that's exactly what we did and then had the third charrette that was the design charrette and voted on the winning concept plan which the architect was actually part of that team that came up with the winning concept plan and Mark presented that to the Planning and Zoning City Council and he introduced it as I like this concept plan better than what my architects came up with which was pretty remarkable so one of the things some of the things that we gained from that exercise is a variety of housing types instead of just rows of townhomes single family homes, duplexes townhomes more open space sensitivity to the scale and the design so that the design is more compatible with the existing neighborhood some opportunity for live work situation in the housing it ended up actually with less density which some of the neighbors really wanted walking paths, players for kids safe streets the opportunity for community gardens and we talked a lot about mature landscaping and meeting that so that the neighborhood could fit into the existing neighborhood the bond farm could fit into the existing neighborhood so Planning and Zoning passed City Council passed and it's not over so that was a big hurdle to get over and now Dan and I are part of Shekel's organization Launched Long Long Housing and we can join forces in supporting the development of this of this project for Mark Young and other projects too so we're not just two people doing this, we're in a bigger community in Launched Long Long Housing making these efforts so I can't wait to hear what Shekel has to say tonight so the beauty of all this is I am not a spring chicken and at my age most women would be thinking about retiring but for me I have flipped a coin and pretty much started a whole new slant on my career and a lot of that has opportunity has come about because of working for the first time with Brian Dunbar I've joined a membership with the United States Green Building Council I've gotten my lead, Green Associate Prudential I am working with Brian's Institute for the Built Environment in their Lifelong Communities and Lifelong Homes initiative which is so important it's basically guidelines and a certification process to teach developers architects and builders how to create communities that support aging in place so accessible and accessible dwelling parks and walking pathways in the neighborhood and also the health care service is coming to that neighborhood so super important to have like people thinking about I don't have to ever go to a nursing home and live in this community for the rest of my life so and one last little thing I want to give you for all the women, solid men you can go couple weeks ago I was at the United States Green Building Council sponsored event called Women in Green and we were all there to be to learn about what these women are doing in the world of sustainability with the government and fiber practices and it was also addressing some of the insecurities that women have in this field and so anyway long story short one of my favorite quotes that was given during that meeting is women stop thinking about how your words might impact everyone in the room and speak your mind openly thank you Drew I love all these different perspectives it's wonderful our next speaker is Doug Jones he and his family have long lived in old town long month formally trained as an architect at CU Boulder he now works for architects and other small businesses to help guide their way through information technology Doug sees the design process as a community investment and is always thinking about ways to bring about great designs good evening and thank you for having me thank you Cheryl and Sarah and all of you at AAUW I'm happy here to speak about my experience as one of Bonn Farm Neighbors group people can you hear me okay is that better okay thank you so I'm immensely proud of our neighborhood organization and caring that went into understanding and shaping the current iteration of what happened with the Bonn Farm I think we did a good job and the health of all these people over here we had some really good involvement some really good some really good conversations and understanding what's going on there having lived in the neighborhood for over 20 years I'm not just invested in my neighborhood in long month but it's my home who cares deeply about design I want to see any changes that happen there the good changes right so in a nutshell that's what brought our core group together is all these people wanting something better for our neighborhood and as Ju kind of alluded to in the beginning what we first saw was a little scary when we first saw that we were not impressed we were shocked that such a drastic change could be happening in our neighborhood we were rightly concerned what might end up in our backyard we felt uninformed about the process and about what could that possibly go there we didn't know anything we were typical neighbors we didn't want change we don't want more things happening that we don't understand in our neighborhood we wanted to protect our investments we wanted to do what we saw to look like a peaceful neighborhood that we thought into we understood long month was growing however and we needed to change and adapt to that really me this one house with a couple of people and a couple of cars we're going to turn into hundreds of houses with hundreds of people and 100 more cars you know that's daunting and an exciting prospect too and we didn't understand the development process or the planning process all that stuff we just had to kind of take in and say well what are we going to do so like every like minded group of people do we got our meds together we talked about it we researched it and we came up with some ideas and the first thing we did was we took a look at all the information that we had at hand so like the vision long month code precedence of other developments historical data there's the council the planning department and we just humble those people and those sources for information constantly and we learned as much as we possibly could the main document that we looked at was the vision long month because I was supposed to inform and guide us to that and we came to realize very quickly that vision long month is well it's a great one like Marcia said I think it's just that we are somewhat in agreement on some things that that document is it's a great picture book and it's a great vision it's kind of a wordy vision statement for long month but there's no design in it there's no game plan inside that document and that is what long month is severely lacking in Marcia alluded to that and that's where we I completely agree with her we we also helped Sharetz as Drew and Brian was very informative for our group our group was highly resistant to the Sharetz idea as much probably as Mark's group was there were some of us that were knew that that process could really mark me being an architect I was an old cart idea I was one of those kids on the cart during going through school we did that right and then what we did was each time the development came up in planning your council we were all there armed with our 5 minute speeches ready to just give them help right so that's that was my experience with this whole process and it was a really good experience but we were left to wonder kind of is all this really sinking in are we making a difference here are we actually doing what it is that we need to make this process change for example is the planning commission and city council actually reading all those emails that we sent to them are they reading and seeing all of the documents that we're sending into them it turned out to be hundreds and hundreds of pages of information and the poor planning commission they get that information about 4 or 5 days prior to the process so they have mere days to process all that information is this the best way that we can do to go about putting projects out there do we need to be sitting here debating and vision long month and the interpretation of that plan on every single project every time we come up there's a different group of people listening to you every single time do we have to sit there and debate where's the traffic we need in long month and this is kind of the point of my speech tonight we need to have a design in place at least some basics that say here's where we're going with long month we don't need to figure out where you know what the what the parking size looks like in long month we need to figure out a true multi-mobile plan for long month envision like 10 or 12 east west 10 or 12 more south bike lanes that people can use to get to and around long month why don't we plan that stop development or do anything have a suret process and plan all that out so that we can figure out those basic core bones of the city and then build around that kind of thing because we're spending our precious 5 minutes playing sitting there going well do I talk about the parking space or do I talk about the fact that I want to have my kid go say to the school right so these are things that the city as marsha said we have we're coming up on what is it 9 years for envision long month every 10 to 20 years the city does this sure let's revisit envision long month let's enhance it and make it better and expand that vision but then let's take that next step and let's design something that the city can be proud of and move forward so that is my goal for this for this group of people to kind of get that bug under your bonnet and really go out there and find something to hang your hat on and push long month forward in that direction there's two reasons why that's really important we all kind of bounce back to bonn farm so the first one is that when bonn farm property was annexed in well in it let me back up just a little bit in the long month code it says that park space for for neighborhoods needs to be one acre for 200 single family homes so in the bonn farm area we're about 300 homes give or take lots of single family lots of multi-family things like that we're about at a three acre deficit of parks so when that when that property came in with its six acres three acres really should have come into the city as a park and that never happened they allowed 0.85 acres to do that had we a plan, a design that already said here's multimodal here's parks, here's the things that we adhere to we could have already had a park ready to be designed and accessed by the time that came in and that thing could be under development right now not having to wait for this development to pass and then wait another 10 years for it to be funded so that's one thing that we could could help the other thing is the annex of Francis Street down from Spruce Avenue it's that dirt road if you're not familiar with the area it was right up the Spruce Avenue going north, south going south down the road and that was annexed in because the property at the bottom of the street adjacent to Bonn Farm wanted to tag in an annex into the Bonn Farm when that happened the city chose to annex in Francis Street itself and that created an access point potential for Bonn Farm property so Mark has done all this work we've done all the charrette work everything's pushed through the city everybody's pretty much at a happy place for this and now we have a new piece of information coming in that takes the park that Mark put on the west side of the property and wants an annex through that so it takes that .85 paper park and it slices through it and now Mark has to change his design so again that's my point about let's get something together we have to have designs we just can't have visions visions are great we need to push through designs and that's just two areas and just one property that has now we don't know what's happening with the Bonn Farm put it up on the market right now it might not just don't know so that's my point thank you all for having me we've got lots of good people here to put all this into effect so that's the good news our last speaker is Shaquille DeLau he is the president of Launch Long Mine Housing a grassroots organization convincing the public of the power we have to make housing affordable and transportation options available. Shaquille is passionate about community service serving on the board of trustees of the Long Mines Community Foundation the City of Long Mines Police Review Board as an opinion writer for the Long Mines Observer from 2018 to 2020 and on the board of advisors of Long Mines Public Media until 2023 Shaquille sorry I needed a second I'm shorter than that good evening it's a pleasure and a privilege to be here tonight the organizers Sarah and Sheryl for inviting me and to extend this invitation to speak to you about my vision for the future I would like to ask you a simple question and convince you of its radical implications my goal is to leave you this evening to build determination and evenness for change why does Long Mines exist? humans have been building cities since before history was recorded their scope and scale has changed as we have changed but the concept of a city is one of humanity's greatest technologies on the scale of fire or the wheel humans are social creatures who rely on each other for survival we cooperate and we compete and through the relationships that we establish with each other we thrive the city is a social and relational technology it is the ecosystem that humans construct for themselves as a beaver builds a dam and ant builds a colony or a bird builds a nest the smallest cities may have just 10 people our largest cities have millions but as ecosystems they have many features in common cities provide safety from wild animals and the elements they provide venues for trade and opportunities to find mates there are places where we can gather food they provide communal support they raise our children and they improve our quality of life why do cities exist? the answer is simple cities are for people and if cities are for people then my simple but radical belief is that we should design them in ways that improve the lives of people the core insight of city as technology and ecosystem is no different than the other ecosystems of animals unique among animals in terms of the complexity of the ecosystem that we build for ourselves but our reliance on environment is the same all life relies on its environment the interconnected webs that make life work are mind bogglingly complex relying on cooperation between an unbelievable diversity of plants animals and structures that combine to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts these interconnected webs bring an adaptation of the passage of time when ecosystems are stressed from natural disaster or population growth or epochal climate change the strongest ecosystems are capable of changing to meet the needs of life within it ecosystems are always changing whether through the seasons or the constant cycle of life and death or birth and decomposition what happens when stress occurs is that change happens this is just a question of what type of change in the early 20th century humans undertook an experiment unlike any other in our entire recorded or unrecorded history industrialization changed the very nearly every aspect of human life and changed a couple of the ways that we had conceptualized cities we radically transformed the way that we thought about cities and changed the way that we designed and constructed the ecosystem that we live in many of these changes were for the good electricity fire safety and sanitation were worth the effort but one of the results of that experiment is that we created systems that arrested the ability of cities to change to our needs we stripped them of the diversity of form and function in the name of standardization we created rules for zoning and street widths and established places that were reserved only for cars for people we built entire subdivisions all at once with a monoculture of identical modular financializable homes and powerful HOAs to enforce petty design standards for those who can't or won't comply we grudgingly allowed tents under bridges with a constant threat of displacement through violence these are symptoms of the most ironic version of humanity's dereliction of responsibility to protect the environment for all life on earth if cities are ecosystems for humans then what we have built for ourselves is a factory farm is it any wonder that we are a society in distress our levels of physical activity are at an all-time low and so is our physical and mental health the surgeon general of the United States recently declared loneliness and epidemic we spent more time inside or in private spaces like our homes or in cars because other people seem far away the community groups that once defined American life are growing smaller and grayer and 20% of men report that they have zero friends our neighborhoods are structured for nuclear families and are so expensive that living near extended family is mostly for the rich or the crowded we commute long distances in single occupancy vehicles to a job where we spend one quarter of our working hours just to pay for the car that we use to get there our cities especially our best ones have become unaffordable for the very people who they should best serve we salted the earth requiring young people to flee the places that they were born or raised just so they can find somewhere they can afford to put down roots 41,000 people were killed by motor vehicle crashes in the United States in 2023 if Boeing had killed 41,000 they would already be bankrupt so why do we allow our streets to be designed for slaughter at the hands of GM, Ford, Chrysler and Tesla everyone recognizes the moral abomination of living in a country where the leading cause of death of children is gun violence so what does it mean when our transportation system usually kills more children than guns our level of outrage should not depend on whether a child dies from malice or neglect our cities must change Longmont must change and we must act with the same sense of urgency that we wish we would have had 20 years ago Longmont should have lots of people from lots of different walks of life just as diversity brings strength to our prairie grassland it brings strength to a city that means anyone of any income should be able to find a home here those homes must be affordable they must come in a variety of shapes and sizes ranging from studio apartments with supportive services for those who need them to multi-generational homes with private and shared spaces for four families we will have to change laws we will have to build more homes it should be possible to live a full life in Longmont without owning a car, home, work play, school and groceries whether that's because of how much owning a car costs or because it's good for the environment or because cars are isolating every person should have access to nutritious food in their neighborhood within walking distance of their home we will need to build bike lanes and public transit systems and neighborhood grocery stores and coffee shops and veterinarians and parks we need to thoughtfully and deliberately integrate nature into our neighborhoods Longmont should support families on a beautiful spring day the air should be filled with a laughter of children playing in the street because their parents aren't worried about them getting hit by a car when those children grow up they should be able to afford a place to live so that they can raise a family and grow old in the same place their parents did before them finally, and perhaps most difficult of all we must change the culture we must challenge the notion that a better quality of life for someone new diminishes the quality of life for someone old we must challenge the notion that rigid engineering requirements are the best design guide for the places that we live we must challenge the notion that Longmont is the private property of anyone person or neighborhood or constituency that seeks to protect its own interests at the cost the rest of us must pay we inherited Longmont from those that came before us and we have a responsibility to those who will come after there is much work for us to do and it will take time but we have done hard things before Longmont is today a great place to live if you can afford it it got that way because the Longmonters of the past invested in the future having our own electricity utility, a green belt and next life, these things did not happen on their own their faith in us created the high quality of life that we deserve the people who can afford to live within city limits the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago the second best time is today


The other thing about string theory, you know, it's actually really... How many of you have heard of William Lane Craig? He's a famous apologist. I'm kind of with Bill Craig on this. And that Craig has done a lot of work showing that there are significant theological problems with God being outside of time. And that actually is a serious debate within evangelical circles. This is an illustration. If God knows no difference between the past, the present, and the future. In other words, if he is divorced from time, that those concepts don't apply to him, past, present, and future. How can we take serious things in Scripture like God being moved emotionally by someone's prayer or someone's fear of something in the future and someone's pain from something that occurred in the past? Because if God looks at this pain person's life and doesn't make any distinction between what happened to them, what's happening to them, and the glory that awaits them as a believer, how can he be troubled and be sympathetic with what this person's going through? Because those things require time. And again, that's one sort of small illustration. But what Craig's view is, and I would share this perspective, is that at one time, pardon the pun, God was outside of time, but when God chose to create, he chose to participate within time. He is not bound to it. He could leave it if he wants to, but he is nevertheless in time with us as created beings. And so maybe there's an issue of dimensionality because string theory requires there to be multiple dimensions. That might be a reasonable analogy as to how to parse that, but I would frame it a little different. Because again, I think he has a good view of that.


Hello everybody, welcome back to another Adobe Photoshop 2022 tutorial. In this one I'm going to show you how to create the cinematic look or the Hollywood blockbuster scary movie type look that is so commonly seen in big movies and in a lot of photographs now. And you'll see here that I've already gone ahead and done that. So this is the after image and we've got a Jason Momoa lookalike but bit of a no-name western family off-brand Jason Momoa here.  And then we've added in some adjustments to give it that nice bluey orange look. Now this again is a very common look in blockbusters. So let's go ahead and Hollywood. So let's go ahead and do it. I'm going to delete these two. I'm going to delete both these layers here. And we're going to start from scratch. Okay so the first step here is we're going to go ahead and create a new adjustment layer. So we're going to go over here to the side properties. You'll see adjustments. And then the next step is we're going to create a selective color adjustment. So let's go ahead right here. Left click, left click on selective color adjustment layer. Alright now it didn't do anything of course but it did open up the properties here. And you're going to see I'm just going to move this down a little bit that we can make some changes. Before you touch any buttons though or move any sliders make sure that absolute is selected here. You want to make sure that is checked. Okay great on our way. The first step is we are going to work on the neutrals. Now right now I've got it set to reds but we do not want that. We want to start with neutrals. So I'm going to left click on neutrals or drop it down until we're working on the neutrals. Neutrals is a nice way of saying mid tones. It's basically the same thing. So if you're not sure there you go. We're working on the mid tones. We're not working on the skin color right yet. So we're working on the mid tones. The first step you want to take your yellow slider and move it to about 12 percent minus. Okay so we're taking out some yellow in the mid tones. We're also going to now bump up the cyan. We're going to bump that up to about 12 percent and we're already getting that nice little bluish look in the background colors which is very very popular. Do keep in mind that this is the blue orange look and it's based around skin tones. It's not based on the blue. The blue is basically the diametrical opposite of orange. And what that basically means is that we want the orange's yellows reds to pop which is the skin tones. Then in order to get the highest contrast value and the highest pop as they say in design you need to work on the blues because they're opposite each other on the color wheel. All right that little trivia aside let's keep going. So we've adjusted the neutrals. Now we're going to work on the reds. So we're going to click on this colors here and we're going to switch to reds. Now the reds is where we're working on this skin tone. So we want to be careful here and we're going to add let's go ahead we're going to add in some yellow so we're going to increase the yellows up. We're going to go up 12 percent and then we're going to decrease the cyan about 12 percent. Again you guys can flavor this any way you want to but this is the look that I'm going for in this one here. So we've worked on the neutrals and we've worked on the reds. Now we're going to work on the yellows. I'm going to click on the colors drop it down to yellows. Under yellows we basically just want to pull out some yellow. That's it. So we're going to minus the yellow about minus and in this one we're going to go down to about minus 18 percent. Okay so we're kind of there but we want to increase the contrast a little as well. So what you want to do is you want to create a second adjustment layer. So we're going to go up to the adjustment layers here and now we're going to go ahead and add in some vibrance. So let's see if we can find the vibrance guy there she is. Click on vibrance add in a vibrance adjustment layer. It doesn't do anything by default but that's okay. We're now going to increase the vibrance from zero up to about well let's go right over the top. Let's really sell the look here. So we're going to go up to about 70. At 70 and I'm going to go ahead now and reduce that size so you can see we're going to go back and take a look at the start. So this is the budget mimoa at the default picture and now this is him with the adjustment layers clicked on and that is the Hollywood look the cinematic look and that's all there is to it guys. Thanks for watching this tutorial. I have a ton more stuff coming up. Stay tuned. See you back soon.


Bear with me one second. So the question is, Jonathan, how did your date go goes this weekend, goes this weekend. How did your date go this weekend? All right, folks, I shared in my previous live stream that I shared a story that relates to anxious attachment style and how that can manifest itself because I was experiencing this, I was experiencing anxiousness prior to meeting someone for the first time. Now, I want to give a little bit of context to this. And by the way, this, the video or the, the, the clip of what I shared is going to be aired in a few days. So just a little heads up, but give a quick backstory. I connected with a woman through a dating app. We had about four or five text messages, exchanges that led to, to a phone call. First off, it was very attracted to her photographs, which is rare because I got to tell you most of you women put shitty, horrific dating profiles out there. I can't believe how terrible 99 out of 100 dating profiles are, but she had, you know, quality photographs of herself and I liked what she wrote.  And then we got on the phone and I really clicked with her.  I mean, I was like, I was finding myself unusually attracted to her. And I went to bed that night actually rather anxious going to bed because I was thinking about this person. She happened to be traveling. So she wasn't going to be back in town for about a week. And so I shared this publicly, but I got really incredibly anxious about meeting this person. Now my anxiousness was based on two things. I was incredibly excited, incredibly excited. In fact, I was in a state of limerence. And limerence means extreme infatuation. I was experiencing a high level of infatuation. But then I did the most, the worst thing of all, I started to project an expectation on a potential future with this person. I started to project a potential future with this person, an expectation of a potential future. And that was creating a tremendous amount of anxiety for me. I was experiencing a ton of anxiety. Now, part of that anxiety we, because as we were text messaging in between the telephone calls, and we spoke four times cumulatively a couple hours each time, our text messaging communication style was rather different than one another. I'm very demonstrative. I'm very effusive. I'm very flirty. And she's very matter of fact, very blunt, current matter of fact. That's just the way she communicates. And I was feeling like she doesn't like me. Was she even interested in me? And I was experiencing what so many of my female clients experienced. I was living this and at an intense level, at an intense level. Now, as I explored what was coming up for me, I will say this after Connor passed away, I can tell you my heart is far more tender now than it was in the past. I feel especially when you've had one experience after another after another that doesn't work out, it wears on you emotionally.  And then it goes nowhere. And you make effort and it goes nowhere. And you make effort and after a while, and I've been feeling a lot of what my clients feel. Now, what I think makes me unique is that I'm aware of my feelings. I'm aware of my feelings. And I'm certainly, you know, I do my best to manage my feelings. In other words, everything I'm sharing with you was an internal dialogue going inside of me. It wasn't anything outwardly happening. It was inwardly happening. I then found myself wishing she would cancel the date. I was literally wishing she would cancel the date because the anxiety was so intense. I wanted the anxiety to stop. And if she canceled it, that would have stopped the anxiety.  It isn't it isn't who I am per se at my, well, on some level, it is my core. But yet, like I said earlier, we're all experienced. I'm not good enough. I'm not lovable. I'm not likable. This is why this whole narrative of, you know, men are so strong and confident and everything. Most guys, believe it or not, by the way, men with extreme bravado, they come off oftentimes like assholes. They're insecure as well. It's just there's so much masking going on. There's so much masking going on that you can't even see what's really happening on the inside. I just happened to be aware of my emotions as I shared in the previous video and I could manage it. So let me fast forward because the question was how was the date? So it turned out we got together Sunday, which happened to be yesterday. And we got together just after lunch or shortly after lunch and we got together for, we actually went out for a late after early dinner. And as we were connecting with each other, we had the blessing to spend quite a few hours together. I think we can't remember if we spent five or six hours together. I shared with her what I was experiencing, what I was feeling. Now I shared a little bit this before, but what I didn't share with this, I literally had, I had this wish of canceling the date because the anxiety was so high. And because I was experiencing that fear of not being liked, that fear of not being liked. And what's interesting is confident as I am, and I've got thousands upon thousands of women on YouTube that reach out and say they date me in a heartbeat and everything, I was experiencing a very normal, I'm afraid I'm not being liked in this moment because our communication style was a little bit different. Well, the first thing she said to me when she saw me was, oh my God, you're so much better looking than your pictures, which I really was flattered and appreciated. And she looks stunning. And as I said, we went out and had lunch and we, or a bite to eat and we shared what was coming up for us. And we really had a great time. I'm so grateful that I overcame that fear. Part of that fear was, because I created this entire story or an expectation on a future before I ever met someone. Now, this isn't common to most men, it's certainly common to a lot of women who do this, but this is common whenever we feel attraction, whenever we feel infatuation, when we're feeling that little bit of limerence. And it's a very common feeling to get that way. What's most important, and as I shared earlier, was just the awareness of what was going on inside of me. And, and ultimately, how do we overcome a fear by facing it head-on? I didn't allow my fear to stop me from wanting to see what could happen here.  And it's very difficult to feel emotionally safe when you're meeting a stranger. And let me say this, dating is putting your heart out there. It takes a lot of courage to put your heart out there over and over and over again, and not be unscathed. It takes a tremendous amount of courage. And many people, particularly women, give up on the process of trying to find a mate because of that fear. All I can say is this, and I've learned that, and who knows, this might be the last first kiss I ever have, or it might be someone I just used to know, somebody I used to know. What I know most important is when you fall off the horse seven times, you get back eight times. And my invitation for everyone is to hold that space of hope, hold that space of knowing that there is a person out there that's aligned to, that shares your values, that your lifestyles are blendable, and they have the emotional maturity to have those deeper intimate conversations. And what I appreciate the most about this person is she has a level of depth, a level of curiosity. She loves psychology as much as I do. We seem to like a lot of the same things, but more importantly, she has that deep desire to go beyond the surface of a relationship instead of, how's your day going? I hope you had a good day. Did you have a good day? I hope you had a blessed day because most people these days are focused on the surface of attraction, and they're not getting to the heart of what matters most. And through radical honesty, and that's what I invite everybody to do, is be radically honest with one another without compromising a boundary. Okay, I'm not suggesting that. But radical honesty is how we build intimacy into me you see. And so that's the update on the date. We do hope to see each other maybe once before the holidays is over, but certainly after the holidays, because each one of us is traveling a little bit. I'm hopeful, but at the same time, I also recognize, and by the way, my anxiety level has dropped dramatically. My anxiety level has dropped dramatically. In fact, I now feel in my empowerment, because we had this great chat with one another, and we opened our heart from a compassionate place, and not the, not the place of dominance, not the place of, you know, of romance, but a place of heart. And if you're not familiar with the book, if the Buddha dated, if the Buddha dated, I highly recommend reading this, because it throws out all the bullshit gender rhetoric, and says, how can we connect at a heart centered space. And she did watch a number of my videos. And she thought it was adorable that she recognizes that these and by the way, she has a great collection of books that are also personal development books, which I appreciate.  I invite everyone to come from a heart centered way of dating. So again, I want to thank that person for the question. Let me find it real quick. Well, anyway, I think you get the gist of where I'm going. Oh, here it is. Hey, thanks so much for that question. Jonathan, how'd you date go? I really appreciate it. All right, let's scroll through here.


We hope all of you are having a very Merry Christmas from Babitos. Merry Christmas, babe. Merry Christmas. Wish you a Merry Christmas. We wish you a Merry Christmas. Wish you a Merry Christmas. And a Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Wish you a Merry Christmas. And a Happy New Year. What are you eating? I'm eating turkey. First time ever eating turkey in my life. Since it's first time you're eating turkey, that's your Christmas gift. Thank you. I love it. I'm glad she loves the Christmas gift. So what is happening today? I just want to show you how Christmas feels like in Babitos. It's my first time in here and I want to share this experience with you. I've been invited for a church service and I'm late. I'm late because she has to use 50 hours for makeup. How long did it take you for that makeup? I didn't even do really good makeup because I was being brushed. This is what I go through every day. If I'm supposed to go out at 8, I go out at 9. Because she has to do that makeup. I'm sorry. Anyway, I've been invited for a church service. I'm just going to have a quick breakfast and head out. The car is waiting for us outside to come along with us. This is just more like a fun vlog day with my wife in the streets of Babitos. Just get to see how the people of Babitos celebrate Christmas. Welcome to Babitos. Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart to you all. But one thing that you need to know is that don't just celebrate this day all by yourself. Cook some food, go out there and go give to the people that needs the food.  I mean, if you don't have money, go share gifts. If you don't have gifts, share this video to your friends and family. As a way of wishing them a merry Christmas. But it seems he's the one enjoying the Christmas more than all of us. Why are you wearing red red? It's just an African attire. African attire? And the color that I like. Wow. Anyway, you look good babe. Thank you. Is that your Christmas outfit? It's my Christmas outfit. It's not in the color of Christmas but it's African. And you know we represent Africa all the way. Okay, so it seems that I'm the only one who is not wearing his Christmas outfit. And what is African? I'm just wearing something. Anyway, we are on our way to Queen's Park. When you go to the Caribbean, everything is about the Queen. When I was in train of that, Queen's Park. And I'm in Barbados and I'm still hearing another Queen's Park. So the festive season is happening at Queen's Park. So come along with us. And as soon as we get there, I will let you know what's happening. Is Christmas so special to Belgians? Christmas is a very special occasion to Belgians. Because Belgians are part of a Christian society. And they are actually believing in Christ. So yes, for us, we celebrate on this day. And not only celebrate but many years have become a very big tradition. In terms of Christmas here in Barbados. Okay, so are you a Christian yourself? Well yes, I'm a Christian, I'm a firm believer. But I haven't been to church in a while. But that still doesn't mean that I'm not a believer. In the more side. Yes, I am. I'm taking you to church today then. No problem. I even go to church. We made it. Ah, that's the woman for the last time. Hi. Nice to see you. Nice to see you all again. Tell me your training. Miss Trudy. Trudy. Hi, Merry Christmas. How are you celebrating this day? Yeah, I'm just going to have some lunch. Lunch? What? Stay in bed. Stay in bed? What? It's Christmas, you don't have to stay in bed. You don't have to watch Home Alone. Alright, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. So you're going to have lunch with us today? Definitely. Wow, look at that. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. So, Marsha? Yeah. I've been in Nigeria for 40 years. 40 years in Nigeria? Yeah. You're now in Nigeria? I am in Nigeria. Which part of Nigeria were you staying? I lived mainly in Lagos. Lagos. I was also in Bouchie. Oh, Bouchie. I went to Port Harcourt because last time my son is based as an electronics engineer there. Wow. How was life in Nigeria? At that time it was beautiful. Because that was prior to the independence. It was just as the Colonials were going out and it was beautiful. It was clean. It was peaceful. And then of course we discovered oil. And that was a curse. It brought everything to us. Oil should not have been a curse. But it was a curse.  Then you had the various schools. And I lived through all that. My goodness. So you were in Nigeria even before they discovered oil? Oh, yes. I was in 65. Wow. That was the year I was born. That was the year I was born. That was when they were making preparations for our independence in 1966. So you're from Accra? Yeah, from Accra. Actually, my aunt seems to be in America. She's a Ghanaian. And her name is Nana. Okay. She's a Ghanaian. Yeah, she's a Ghanaian. They're both women. They call her the Queen. I forgot where exactly she's from. But Nana and Ali, they were my staff. That was so nice. So I'm so glad to have met you. Okay. Good to see you too. Welcome. Are you also from Ghana? No. She's from Kenya. Oh, you're from Kenya? Yeah. Sorry. I love you. But you know, they look so Ghanaian, right? Yes. My sisters. I live here. You live here? Yes. But I was in the UK originally. Oh, wow. Nice to meet you. So I have, what, 18% Nigerian. I did my DNA test. Oh, really? That's 18% Nigerian. No. Sorry. 27% Nigerian. 18% Ghanaian. So, hey! That's African. That's African. How are you? Yeah. How are you? I'm good. Welcome to Barbados. Wow. I'm here with this wife. Hi, wife. How are you? Good to see you. I just to see you. I saw your way on cruise. I saw your way on cruise. It's good to see you. Yeah. Good. I've been following you. Wow. Of course I've been following you. And everything that you all have been posting. Thank you. You're actually Dad. You're at the Tobago. I've been following you. Wow. So this is the place to be. Yeah, exactly. That's why I'm here today. This is the place to be. Why is this place the place to be? Why is it to be? Every year, it's a tradition. It's a Barbados tradition to come to Queen's Park. And it's something that the older generations love to do. Come to Queen's Park. Dress up. Love fancy. And I don't know if you saw up your dress up to there. Very, very fancy. You didn't see anyone dress up. Hi, how are you, my sweet darling? Good to see you. Good to see you. Did you see anyone dress up to there? Fancy. I'm here to enter. Good. So we're ready to Christmas in the park. And before we enter, I can see that it's going to be a very vibrant event. It's not like an event. It's more like people coming together. To just have Christmas in the park. And it's exciting to experience this for the first time though. It's so cool. I've never seen anything like this before. And the fact that you've seen both the younger and the older generation at one place. I know. I wonder if other countries also have things like this going on. I think we should take this culture back to the model. You don't think so? 100% man. We can't do it. But before we take you guys in there, there's a church service that we want to attend because we always want to start this day way. With God. So yeah, come along with us. And subscribe to our channels if you haven't already. Make sure you like this video. Can we get 20,000 videos in the way of wishing us a Merry Christmas? 20,000 videos. Did I say 20,000 videos or 20,000 likes? 20,000 likes. Alright. So that is the church place. It's called the Barberos Table Tennis Center. Huh? The Table Tennis Center has been converted into a church. I'm sure the pastor is a Ghanaian. I trust me. The pastor is a Ghanaian. Let me get there and I will let you know. Because in Ghana, we convert everything to church. The school, everything. Oh my goodness. The service is over. Yes. Oh my goodness. Oh, truly. Yes. That's truly. Yeah. Yeah. Ah, pleased to meet you. Nice to meet you. Oh my goodness. Please come in. No. Oh my goodness. Are you a pastor? I am. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Oh my goodness. The service is over. How? Happy Shapo. Happy Shapo. Happy Shapo. Happy Shapo. Happy Shapo. Happy Shapo. Happy Shapo. Happy Shapo. Happy Shapo. Happy Shapo. Happy Shapo. If you don't know what a Fischapo is, what is a Fischapo? Is it Merry Christmas or Happy New Year? Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Yes. Oh my goodness. So if you come to me, when it comes to end of the year, a Fischapo. Yes. A good year, end of something like I think. Yes. So more like end of new year. Right. A Fischapo. Yes. Wow. Good to see you. Oh, so some introductions are in order. So this is Mr. Kovina Behto Akun. Otherwise known as Mr. Ghana Baby. Otherwise known as Woody Maya. Wow. And this is his wife, Mrs. Trudy Akun. Oh. The two of them, I don't want to say YouTube stars. I feel like that's like a demotion. Yes. They are a conic list of contemporary African culture. Wow. That intro deserves a round of applause now. Wow. Oh my goodness. This is my wife. Hi. Hello. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. This is Abisola. Abisola. Abisola from Nigeria? Yes. She's a medical student here. Oh, okay. Oh, wow. And you met Elizabeth? Yes. She is the high-five in the house. Hi. This is Deborah. Hi, Deborah. How are you? Paulie. Paulie is lost to them from Belize who's part of our channel. Oh, Belize. I can't wait to visit. This is Pastor Priest. He's an Australian from Jamaica. Oh, wow. Walk on. Walk on. Oh, and now there's Mr. Stephen. Mr. Stephen. Yes. Nice to meet you all. Wow. I can't believe that the church is over because I live far away from here. Oh, yes. Our son David. David, how are you? Yeah. Good to see you. David, do you speak 3? Yeah. Do you speak 3? I'm just saying. No. That's it. Yeah. Nice tree. Christmas Day service is usually just about an hour, an hour and a half, and we do start earlier than usual. Wow. Yeah, so that's it. Yeah. Because I was telling the driver I really want to go for the Christmas service.  I almost started to 45 minutes away from here. Yeah, the window. Since Phillips. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, since Phillips. So it's quite far. Yeah. We're doing like that.  Okay, yeah.  It's like, and that shows someone who has devoted a lot of time into his craft. Yeah. And we're all very proud of you and what you're doing. Thank you. Yeah. Wow.  And I do that everywhere I go to. So it's more like a tradition. I think I met Pastor Appenton in Tobago and he prayed for me. So since I'm here, the tradition must go into it.  I'm sorry, Pastor. Like this is...  The hams are actually real. Yeah. Heavenly Father, I pray for Coppina. I pray, Lord, that as you have started with him, I pray for Coppina. Hey! I'm really enjoying this part of Africa. Whether they like it or not for me, this is Africa for me. It has been declared already by the African Union as the sister region of Africa. Yeah. So you're actually in Africa. Wow. Oh, you didn't know that? I didn't know. We didn't know. You didn't know? We didn't know. So we call it the sister region. So we have the north, south, east and west and the central of Africa. And all the Caribbean countries are the sister region of Africa. So we call it the African diaspora, which they have their own flag that represent in the African Union office and all of that. So yeah. So I'm still in Africa for me. So like Africa is the free travel? Yeah, because when you're going to Africa, you don't need visas. It's just the connection. You have to pass through the UK or Netherlands. That's why. But going to Africa, there is a direct flight. Because I didn't apply for visa to go to Africa. All the countries that I've been to, I don't need visas. Yeah. So the Christmas in the park thing is a long-standing tradition. What happens is that on Christmas day after church service, people would come to the park in their findery to show up and to also admire the people. And it was even a lot more big back in the day when people could barely afford nice clothes. So at least once a year, you get to wear your nice clothes for Christmas day and then you come to show. And it seems it's like that, even back in the house because most of us, we get new clothes during Christmas. Yeah, we get new clothes on Christmas day. But I feel like it's so big because there is a car park where everybody has actually parked their cars and coming in here to... I mean, take photos. I don't know what happens there until I get in there. So come along and... Man of God, thank you so much. Thank you so much. I appreciate you so much. Thank you. I appreciate you. All right. This is beautiful. Just see all the melanin representing them right in here. Ah, there you are. Okay, there you are. I love your suit. Hi. Merry Christmas. You from Congo? No. Where are you from? From Barbaris. Oh my goodness. You dress like a Congolese, man. Are you aware that you dress like Congolese? So in Congo, they wear exactly the same suit that you wear in the same dressing. Look at that. Damn. Hi. Can we take a photo together, three of us? Because I feel like you guys are representing the continent. You guys, have you been to the motherland? No. You've not been to the motherland? You've not been to Africa yet? No. Never. You're looking for where to visit? One of these days. One of these days. Can I tell you something? Like your outfit? Yeah. If you are from... If you are in Africa, I might think you are Congolese. Yeah. Because it's the same culture. Yeah. Same style. How do you feel being here? I am very excited. It's such a beautiful experience. Very new. Never seen anything like this before. So I am thrilled. You look lovely. Thank you. Wow. I love the feather on your heart. You look good. Thanks. Oh wow. Have a good day. Oh my goodness. Have a good day. Wow. Nice to see you. How old are you? 96. 96? My goodness. 96 and stronger. I love your outfit. Wow. Look at that.  What is that one thing that has kept you going for 96 years? It's fantastic. I mean, an electrician should claim a lot of polls. An electrician should claim a lot of polls. Oh wow. He's an electrician and he's been climbing a lot of polls. So the polls makes him stronger. Yes. Wow. Wow. That's awesome. Nice to meet you. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. I love it here. Yeah. Oh my goodness. He's 96 years old. You amazed? Yes. Today's my birthday. Today's your birthday. Can I sing for you? Yes. Thank you. I'm going to sing for you. I got a best voice in the whole world. Yes. Thank you. Can we all sing for her? Yes. Can we all sing for her? Yes. Can we all sing for her? Yes. Happy birthday to all of you. You love me. YouTube. On your cheese. Yes. I'm going to hide it on YouTube. Yes. I love the place. Nice to meet you. Yes. It's a pleasure. Pleasure. And you look good. I've been walking for years now. For years. For years I've been walking for years. Wow. Thank you. You're very welcome. Now we're going to subscribe again. No. Again. Oh hi. How are you? I'm a baby. I'm meeting a Ghanaian. Oh wow. This lady here is the manager of pirates. Send my daughter. Hi. Hi. How are you? Are you the guy who's in Rwanda sitting in the gutter? I'm the one. My goodness. Yes. So my uncle follows you. I actually message you. I never heard about you. I invited you to come to Barbados. I said I'll find you a accommodation. I told you come to Barbados. So I'm very happy. Nice meeting you. Nice meeting you. Nice meeting you. I'll see you again. I'll see you again. I'll take up my invitation but I'm so happy to have you here. You sent an invitation. I did. I sent you an email. No. I'm here. I've accepted an email. Let me tell you something interesting. I don't know if you've noticed. Within the city of Barbados, you will see Christmas trees everywhere. And all the Christmas trees represent a country in Africa. No. Not a country in Africa. A country in the world. And I'm so happy to see that the country right opposite of me is an African country. Burundi. Look at that. Are you from Burundi? Wow. Look at that. So it's not just writing Burundi. They educate people about Burundi. So this is the currency of Burundi. The people of Burundi. The national animal of Burundi. It's more like educating people about every country in the world. And excited to see that this waterfall in Burundi, I have been there before. So it's exciting to see what is really happening in here. I would love to take this flag and then wave it up. But I can't touch it. I'm honored to meet you, my brother. It's an honor to meet you too, man. I'm good. Yeah, and maybe you will be walking together. I was in Tobago and I heard you just left. You came the previous day. The boat you went to the forest where you made that video. Yeah. I went with that guy too. He was telling me about it. I'm telling you. Where are you from? I'm from Nigeria. Wow. Thank you. Good to see you, man. I love your aunt. Thank you. And your Ghana map right on your neck. I'm saying Ghana map, African map. We have to show our people the culture. Anywhere we go, we advertise ourselves. Exactly. Because I look around and there's not much culture around the Caribbean. So this is one way of advertising ourselves. Our people ask questions and then we start talking. That's the only way we can unite ourselves. That's beautiful, man. For the honor to meet you, my brother. Thank you for all you do. You're doing an amazing job in the community. And you're exposing Africa to the world. A lot of people watch these videos and they have no idea. But with your videos, people are seeing and they are visiting. We have a lot of Ghanians. Yeah. You also, Enes? Yes, please. Oh, wow. Are you part of the first or second batch? Second batch. Please, someone wants to see me. Someone wants to see me. You're his favorite. Masa. Hi, Mami. Yeah. How are you? I'm fine. Wow. I'm fine. Good to be here. I've got a friend. I've got a lot of friends. That's amazing. How old are you? I'm 87. 87? Yeah. Wow. He's so strong. Thank you. That's amazing. You look so beautiful. Thank you very much. You look nice too. Thank you. Thank you. This is your friend. That's my wife. You're my best friend. Yeah. Yeah. You look so much better. Thank you. Beautiful wife. Thank you.  Oh, rings. He's asking where are the rings? Oh, where are the rings? Where are the rings? Biggs? You don't always wear rings. Yeah. You don't always wear rings. You know? You know? I'm from Ghana. Ghana? Africa. From Africa. You know about Africa? I hear about it, but it's never been. It's never been. It's a beautiful place. Yeah. It's a very beautiful place. It's amazing. It's amazing. They're not so beautiful. What? Okay. I live in the United States from the Barbados. Oh, okay. I am from Ghana. Uh-huh. I want to visit Ghana. You got to give me some interesting points about Ghana. No, you have to visit us. Yeah, I have to. Yeah. I would love to. I always talk about it with my family. You got to go to Africa somewhere. Why do you want to go to Africa? That's where our ancestors are from. That's where our ancestors are from. So I want to see where my... Maybe I got some lineage over there. Yeah. I never know. Nice. Wow. Thank you. Our ancestors came here to slay us. Yeah. We are still the generations of... We're down, you know. Yeah. So I want to go back. I want to go to Africa. I've never been there. People talk about it. I see you on YouTube all the time. So it's nice to see you. In person. In person. Yeah. Welcome to Africa any day, any time. Yes. I love your African clothes. I'm from Ghana. Ghana. Yeah. You won the last year. You won the last year. I just came back from Malawi. Malawi. And... Oh my goodness. Nigeria. Nigeria. Thank you so much. And thanks for watching. My name is Maya. Maya. Maya. I do videos about Africa. Trying to connect Africans in Africa with Africans in the diaspora. You ate with your hand in Africa? Yes. Was it your first time eating with your hand? Yes. And how did you feel listening with your hand? I started to say the food is the sweetest. I didn't like the dish in Malawi. It was kind of like the... In Seema? Seema. Yeah. I really enjoyed that. Roll it up. So when you use your hand, the food tastes better. They told me that the food is taste better. Because of the different things. We have to really touch. We made it back home. We are here to rest. And we'll go out again in the afternoon. But I just want to say Merry Christmas to you all once again. You don't have gifts for me? No. Why? Are you not for the Christmas? No. You don't have anything in your bag? No. Come on bro. Give me something. I'll take your mask if you don't give me. We just got here and apparently my hotel is even more lit. I'm dressed up like I'm going to the beach because that is the main intention of going to the beach. But apparently we have to stop by in someone's house to experience Christmas in a local Beijing home. I have to say hello to everyone. Nice to meet you. My name is Maya from Ghana. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. This side. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Enjoy your food. Christmas meal made with rice and green pigeon peas. Is it like friends and family meeting? Friends and family here. Oh okay. Not a restaurant. Not a restaurant.  Absolutely. I think... It's over there. We wish you a Merry Christmas. We wish you a Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Jingle bells. Jingle bells.