Hello everybody, welcome to another day of 100 days challenge. This challenge is about some easy projects to do. Something what you can do daily, something what you can create in short time. On the fifth day we do have a Rolodex card, altering the Rolodex card and I don't have Rolodex cards, but what I do have is this beautiful die. I bought it last year or year before and I, maybe I use that once. This is from Studio Light, I think it's three years old die. They released many types of them, many shapes of them, really beautiful dies. So I'm gonna be using this one and I'm gonna be using what we have created at the first day this collage sheet and I'm gonna cut my Rolodex cards from this collage sheet and as you can see this Rolodex card has three layers which is perfect. I'm gonna try to work with that somehow to do it somehow interesting for me and I'm gonna start to dig in my newspapers, I bought another one, already read them all so now I can scrap them all. And I'm gonna choose some words or some letters, so something T, here is one, two, three, T. So maybe T, what we have next, this is nice, I need F, families, F, I need some F, do I have some F, I will find some F. So second letter will be F because I do have here families, formula, hey, yes, so T, F and some O, one, O, do I have O here, do I have O here, O, okay, I need to find O. So I'm gonna find something in these two newspapers what I can use for these letters. Look at that, T, T, that's perfect. So T, O, F, now I'm gonna cutting pieces, find the pieces in my newspapers which can give me some kind of decoration and I will see, hey, look at him, Tim, I should use his picture, Tim Allen, I actually should use his picture. Okay I'm gonna try to find something tasty, I don't see anything for, okay, look at that, you can find in order, okay, I do have that, oh, I will find something, something the, so just have a look into your newspapers if you will find something. I'm gonna cut out images which I think they will go nicely with those letters, female, yes, forget, yes, I'm gonna find something. So I do have cut out some of the pieces, some of the words and I also cut it with using these dies, I cut it my collage sheet or a master board on pieces, I used the smallest part on the front then in the middle I do have just t-died paper and in the back like reinforcement I do have this one, if you watched my yesterday video I started to use their one old envelope to kind of scrap it so I'm continuing using that envelope so that's cut it from the envelope I destroyed yesterday, so I do have my base layer kind of like, ish, look how beautiful it looks like, I'm gonna keep it this way, I can finish the video, I'm gonna, I'm gonna cut, I will try to cut around the words nicely and because it's, you know, it's newspaper, newspaper it's very fragile, it's not strong enough so I'm gonna be reinforcing these words, maybe not all of them but some of them with the envelope, I'm gonna kind of make my little embellishments using all these little pieces first, fussy cut them out from the newspaper some nice way, hopefully decorative way, then glue it on the, this card, the envelope and fussy cut it again and I will hope that they will look cute, so I do have cut this from newspapers on the smaller pieces, I also found few labels on my sheet which I think I can use, I do have this sheet on my, on a buy me a coffee side so if you are interested to get some labels go to have a look, link will be down below and I also cut out using this die, this is Marianne design die and I'm gonna put name in the description box as well, so I do have pre-cutted the number here, I do have some small labels, I do have these three, I'm gonna reinforce these with that card stock and I'm gonna also use Distress Ink, I'm gonna be using today Spectrum Noir Harmony Line Seal Brown for distressing the edges of all my pieces and I do have here also my little photo album, not photo album, postmark, marks album and I think I'm gonna add here and there maybe some beautiful postmark because I just love them, I will see, so first I need to reinforce these with the same material with the same old envelope to make them more strong and kind of better for layering, I have bring back the old envelope which I used for these pieces and also for numbers, I think I'm gonna try to distress the edges here first, it's a very very thin paper, just like this and I'm gonna just add a little bit of color to the edges and when I am with Distressing, I'm gonna probably distress all of these pieces straight away, so I do have my pieces nicely reinforced and I really like the feeling of it now, it doesn't look like newspaper paper anymore, so I can start to do some layers, I'm gonna get up straight away some beautiful postmark, I'm guessing, I should keep these I guess, they are so gorgeous, look at that, look how beautiful postmark, so if I will use this one, I think I'm gonna make it somehow like this, just on these two kind of like last pieces, I'm gonna put here and there just one word, I do have here this, it's kind of like leftover from the T-died paper which I used for these small, this middle pieces, so I'm thinking that I'm gonna kind of write the newspaper here with that to make little strips of embellishments and I do have here this perforated paper, this is also edge from printer paper, this is actually edge from printer paper and that can give me another layer and texture, so then even I will don't have there too many, too many you know some dice or fancy stuff, I do believe this can looks good, one order or order one, I think I'm not gonna use this one, not sure, yeah well I do have here my little layout, so now I can take glue and glue my pieces, I do have distressed all the edges, I'm not gonna be distressing on this small piece, not yet, I will see how it will looks like, maybe later, if I will be not happy with that, I can always add some color with the brush, so this one, now this one, this one will be in the corner, so I think I'm gonna go from here and continue to the bottom and I will probably don't use this today, but I can save it and maybe use it in some next day as my embellishment, because I actually like it, I like the fonts and I like the colors, put this one here and I'm gonna keep it this way, I'm actually not gonna stamp on it probably anything else, I will see, I'm gonna keep it this way for now, now I'm gonna move till here, so here I can add this one just on the bottom and keep it as a writing note card maybe, so here on the bottom just one small scrap and my little decoration from the newspapers, here last one, so now I do have three stages and I'm gonna put a little bit of glue on these bottoms, on the middle card and on the top card and just glue them here and I'm gonna keep the top open and again just here on the bottom and glue it there, so then I do have kind of like a mini notepad, I don't wanna open it yet fully because the glue it's not dry yet, so with these two here I do have a letter F, so base from card, from T-died paper, this is from my newspaper collage paper, this February 2023 families formula 4, 5 and 5 and for T, oh I should drink a tea and get here some tea back, so I do have background, this T-died paper, this is from my collage paper travel, so I found their image of this sky flyer, like it's a pain, 2 travel time, number 2, 2 like 22 and number 3 in triangle, I think that goes somehow together, I will see what I will use, what I will don't use and then I will show you what I have created and here I do have my Rolodex notepad, mini notepads, I don't know how to call that, this is the one I have created on the camera and it's holding now, so I do have quite nice space to write on, you know, you can write here, here, something little, here, here and here and then I just can tuck it into some pocket, then I do have this, time to travel, I'm missing here some embellishment, probably some die cut number because I did use it in the next layers, this is not dry yet, so I'm gonna be careful with this one, so here I used only stamp and number 2 because T and here I do have that that it's a Berlin and I use that number 2 just to make sure that we are on the T and here I do have a letter F and it's, I know it looks plain but I think with all decoration all around in the journal, these decorations are kind of like what I would like to see there for now, maybe I will add some metal embellishment later when I will make some journal and I will want to add it there, so again this is hopefully dry already, I do have that February 23 here and here I do have four families, so these are my Rolodex cards from newspapers, not from news, from newspapers, I have to say I did enjoy it, I did enjoy to use my masterboard or that collage sheet and I do have beautiful index pieces to add to some journal so now I'm gonna add it to the things I already have created, so I'm gonna add it to my little file for folder here and I can continue in the next video, so this is my sharing for today, thank you so much for visiting me today, thank you so much for spending your time with me, if you found some inspiration I'm so happy and for all those who would like to start to do some papercraft these challenges are amazing, you can practice so many techniques, you can practice on small things, you can finish at the day, at the one day and all these little things can be later adds to your journals, so go to check it out, go to check out all these awesome channels and definitely go to have a look, it works at the time and the watching of all these amazing videos is awesome, it will give you so much inspiration to be creative, so once again thank you so much for visiting me today, have a beautiful day, take care of yourself and I will see you soon, bye


Hello everyone. My name is Charu Krishnan and I am with the Consumer Product Safety Commission. I am accompanied today by some folks from our communications group as well as some of our attorneys from our general council's office. I would first like to thank you for joining us today. We are so excited to be offering this funding opportunity for the Pools Safely Grant Program, or PSGP as I may refer to it in this webinar. Please use the question box you should see in the control panel on the right of your screen to let me know if you can't hear me well or if you're having any other technical issues, and we will try to address those immediately. If you do not see the question box, please click the orange left arrow to bring it up. We will be taking questions through the question box. We will answer general questions at the end of this webinar, and more specific questions such as your specific jurisdiction's eligibility would be better directed to our email address, grants at cpsc.gov. I will be repeating this information later. The webinar slides were included as a handout and should be available to you in the control panel on the right of your screen. Again, if you do not see it, please click the orange left arrow to bring it up. You can download the handout to have available to you after the webinar. This way you can use the links which you won't be able to click on during the live presentation. In addition, the webinar slides, call audio, and call transcripts will be posted to the poolsafely.gov web page within 48 hours. The goal of today's presentation is to provide potential applicants an overview of the PSGP program to give information on the purpose and applicant and application eligibility. You can find information on the application and review process. A heads up on the post award requirements as well as resources and contact information for you to utilize during the application period. The PSGP is authorized under Section 1405 of the Virginia Graham Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act, or the VGB Act. A total of 1.1 million is available for awards this year. An individual applicant may request up to 250,000 in federal funding. You are not required to request up to the full amount. The performance period of the award is two years. It is anticipated that the awards would be made July 2, 2018, with the project period starting July 16, 2018, and ending July 16, 2020. Here we have listed the CFDA and FOA numbers for this grant. There is a 90-day application window with applications due by April 2, 2018. This is a hard deadline. The funding opportunity will provide assistance to implement enforcement and education programs to prevent the drowning and drain entrapments of children in pools and spas. Funding is to be used specifically to, one, hire and train enforcement personnel for implementation and enforcement of standards under the state or local swimming pool and spa safety law. At least 50% of the funding must be used for this purpose. Some notes on hiring and training enforcement personnel include, hiring means to recruit, not to pay for the salaries of enforcement personnel. You use the grant for some portion of the salaries of those delivering or administering the grant, but not for enforcement personnel. Also, it does not need to be hire and train. Proposals can be geared toward either recruitment or training of enforcement officials. You will not be ineligible if you do not hire. Third, enforcement personnel need not be full-time. They can be part-time or seasonal or what have you. Lastly, officials with responsibility for enforcement may vary among jurisdictions. It may be the health department, building officials, or even the fire department. It is up to each jurisdiction to explain who the enforcement official is. The second purpose of the grant is to educate. That is educating pool construction and installation companies and pool service companies about the standards, as well as pool owners, pool operators, and other members of the public about the standards under the swimming pool and spa safety law, and about the prevention of drowning or entrapment of children using swimming pools and spas. What education means under number two may be broad. It is up to the applicant to demonstrate how the proposed method of education, whether formal training, water safety courses, PSAs, etc., will reach their intended audiences. Again, applicants do not need to educate all audiences listed, but audiences should relate back to the community population, and enforcement and education needs must be identified in the application introduction. The third purpose of the grant is to defray administrative costs associated with such training and education programs. Administrative costs associated with training and education programs under number three may be charged to the award, while administrative costs associated with the hiring and training of enforcement officials may not be charged to the award. Eligible entities are state and local governments that demonstrate to the satisfaction of CPSC that they have an enacted or amended state or local law that meets the requirements specified in section 14.06 of the BGB Act and provides for enforcement of the law. State or local swimming pool and spas safety law is referring to the requirements in section 14.06 of the VGBA. As you are probably aware, section 14.04 of the VGBA has requirements for drain covers and requirements for certain public pools to have secondary systems. These are not the relevant requirements for the grant program. Instead, the requirements are in section 14.06, and we will go into these requirements in more detail in the next slide. A state or local government meets the minimum state law requirements of the VGB Act if the state requires by statute four. The enclosure of all outdoor residential pools and spas built more than one year after the date of the enactment of such state or local law by barriers to entry that will effectively prevent small children from gaining unsupervised and unfettered access to the pool or spa and that pools and spas built more than one year after the date of the enactment of such state or local law have more than one drain, one or more unblockable drains, or no main drain and if the state or local government provides for enforcement of that law. It is very important to note that like the unblockable drain requirement, the requirement to enclose all outdoor residential pools and spas by barriers is within one year after the date of the enactment of such state or local law. That means the barrier requirement does not have to be retroactive. States that have adopted into law the 2015 or 2018 International Swimming Pool and Spa Code or the ISPSC may be eligible for this grant. So what does it mean to demonstrate the state law requirement? Applicants must submit a full copy of the applicable state or local laws. They must identify the specific sections of the applicable laws that meet each requirement in section 1406A1A and they must provide an explanation of how the applicable state or local law meets each requirement in section 1406A1A. Applicants that do not submit the above information or whose state or local law does not meet the requirements specified in the VGB Act will be determined ineligible. We strongly recommend working with your general counsel to put together this part of the application. Applicants may annotate their state or local law with the corresponding parts of VGB Act section 1406. Please do not reference materials that are not submitted with the application as these cannot be reviewed as part of the application and the application will be deemed ineligible. Also please send only the applicable sections of the state or local law, not your entire building code for instance. The requested amount of federal funding must be at least 50,000 and no more than 250,000. Documents counted in the page limits of the application may not exceed 80 pages and those include the application and budget narratives, the schedule, staffing plan, and other attachments that applicants wish to attach that are not specifically required or requested in the FOA. And applications must contain documents that are required for completeness and eligibility. That includes the SF-424 face page and state law eligibility documentation. Applications are due into Grants.gov by April 2, 2018 by 11.59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Extensions will only be considered for events such as the Grants.gov system being down for 24 consecutive hours or an extreme adverse event such as a federal disaster declaration. Having a family emergency or failing to complete your Grants.gov registration will not get you an extension. Only one application may be submitted for consideration from the same applicant organization. If more than one application is submitted by an applicant, CPSC will accept the applicant's last electronic submission validated by Grants.gov before the deadline date as the final application. Registration in Grants.gov is required and it can take up to one month so I suggest you start the process as soon as possible. In fact, start it as soon as you get off this call if you haven't done it yet. Incomplete registration in Grants.gov will not be a justification for an extension. The Grants.gov registration process involves these basic steps. The first is obtaining an organizational data universal numbering system or a DUNS number. Next, you must register the organization with the system for award management or SAM. Next, register the organization with Grants.gov. Then get authorized as an authorized organization representative or an AOR by the applicant organization with Grants.gov. Please refer to the link on the screen for additional guidance and the Grants.gov help line will also be provided at the end of this presentation. The following documents will be provided through Grants.gov. The first is the application for federal assistance or the SF-424. Next is the budget information for non-construction programs or the SF-424A. Then the assurances for non-construction programs or SF-424B. Then disclosure of lobbying activities, the SF-LLL as applicable. The Grants.gov lobbying form, which is required. And other attachment forms, which are attachments one through eight, which I'll explain a bit in the next slide. Detailed instructions for completing these documents are available within the FOA. Applicants will provide the following as other attachments in Grants.gov. Attachment one, which is a project narrative and is required for review. Attachment two, which is the budget narrative, which is required for review. Attachment three, which is the schedule, also required for review. Attachment four, the staffing plan required for review. Attachment five, the state law eligibility, which is required for completeness. Attachment six, indirect cost rate agreement as applicable. Attachment seven, the funding preference as applicable, which I'll explain a bit later. Attachments eight, which are other relevant documents as applicable. Please note, if attachments marked required for completeness are not uploaded, the application will be considered incomplete and non-responsive, thereby making the application ineligible. Ineligible applications will not proceed to objective review. If attachments marked required for review are not uploaded, the application's objective review score may be impacted negatively. The project narrative is comprised of four sections. The first is the introduction. Next is the work plan, which includes the scope of work, the schedule and collaborations, which are not mandatory. Third are resources and capabilities, which includes the staffing plan and budget narrative. And fourth, the project evaluation plan. The project narrative should address activities to be conducted over the entire project period. Please use the section headings for the narrative. The narrative is included in the 80-page limit. The narrative must be submitted in the following format. Line spacing should be single-spaced, 1.0. Font size should be 12-point. Paper size should be 8.5 by 11 inches. And the page margin size should be 1 inch. The funds requested and the object class categories between the SF424A and the budget narrative should match. Because there is no match or cost sharing requirements from non-federal resources, the budget should reflect 100% federal funds. The budget narrative must describe the scope of work to be performed within the project. Be sure to provide a detailed description for every line item on the SF424A form. Please refer to Appendix A in the guidance for more specifics of submitting the budget. Please note that because at least 50% of the total award must be spent on training and hiring of enforcement personnel, costs for these activities must be clearly identified within the budget narrative. Lack of a clear and detailed budget may impact your score or result in disallowed costs. The application review process can be broken down into three steps. The first is the initial review to determine eligibility. Did you submit everything? Do you have a state law, etc.? Next, applications that pass the initial stage are passed on to the Objective Review Committee, or the ORC, who reviews and scores applicants based on review criteria and determines whether the funding preference points can be applied. Then, CPSC creates a rank order list from the highest scores to the lowest scores. We will fund the application at the amount requested until there is no funding available. Those applicants who are funded will become grantees and receive a notice of award. An objective review of the applications will be performed to assess the merit of eligible applications based on the review criteria and the funding announcement. That includes the introduction, which is worth 25 points, the work plan, which is worth 30 points, resource and capabilities, which is worth 30 points, and the project evaluation plan, which is worth 15 points. For FY 2018 PSGP funding under this FOA, a preference shall be given to state and local governments with the greatest child drowning and pool safety needs. Each eligible application with the final ORC application review score of 70 or above will be assessed to receive a five-point adjustment. Priority will be given to state and local governments that have not received a grant under the VGB Act in a preceding fiscal year. It is important to note that an eligible application must receive a base ORC review score of 70 in order to be assessed to receive a funding preference point adjustment. That adjustment needs to be requested separately, and you will have to provide documentation for that. An application must clearly set forth accurate and reliable data demonstrating that the number of incidents involving child drownings, non-fatal submersions, and drain entrapment in this jurisdiction relative to applicable populations significantly exceeds comparable national statistics during comparable periods. Information on National Pool and Spa Injury Statistics is available at the link provided on the slide. This is just one source of data you are not obligated to use this particular source. If the application is funded, a notice of award or an NOA will be issued as the authorizing document. The NOA contains the following information, the terms of the award, the conditions of the award, the approved budget, the amount of federal funds awarded, and a project description. If you are awarded, do expect to complete quarterly progress reports, a site visit, and a final report to measure progress and performance of the grant's goals and objectives. Here are some essential websites for your reference. Grants.gov is where the actual application will be submitted, and as I have mentioned before, please register yourself there as soon as possible. The second website is where you will find the actual FOA and some other useful information about the grant opportunity. Please remember to download the handout to be able to use the links in this presentation, or look for these slides on poolsafely.gov in the next couple of days. For any issues related to Grants.gov, which could be trouble accessing the system, trouble uploading documents, that sort of thing, please direct your questions to the contacts at the Grants.gov contact center listed on the slide. If you have questions pertaining to eligibility requirements or clarifications on the definitions of things or anything else related to the FOA itself, please email grants at cpsc.gov, and we will try to get back to you as soon as possible. We'll now have a look at the questions submitted during the presentation. You can also continue to submit questions at this time as well. Please remember to use the question box on the right of your screen. Okay, we have one question regarding, will there be a report that provides outcomes for the last year Grants were awarded? So we do have some information about previous awardees posted on poolsafely.gov. So it is possible to look there and see what, we had five awardees in 2016, and there's a description of their programs and how they were able to use the funds. So I would refer you to poolsafely.gov for that. The next question is, what will CPSC do if they receive more than one application from a state, different organizations? So we generally want a jurisdiction to have one unified application. So it should not come from different organizations. So I think you should coordinate together to have one unified application. If you have specific questions though, I would ask you to email us at grants at cpsc.gov, and we might be able to give a more detailed response. Okay, the next question is, can you explain the five point adjustment and the documentation needed? Okay, so the five point adjustment has to do with the funding preference for jurisdictions that can show statistically that they've had more drowning cases. So as I mentioned, an applicant would first have to receive a score of 70 regardless of the funding preference to actually be assessed for this funding preference. I had a slide where I showed a possible source of information for statistics that you could include to show that your jurisdiction would have a greater need. So I would definitely look at that source and see if that's something you can utilize to make a case. You know, we don't have specific requirements necessarily for what has to be included, but you do have to make a compelling case for, you know, why you think you should receive that five point adjustment. If you have specific questions about your jurisdiction, though, again, I would email grants at cpsc.gov, and that's something we can probably help you out with a little more. Okay, one of the questions is, on page 19, you state, refer to Appendix A and the guidance for more specifics of submitting the budget. The Appendix is part of the actual FOA, which you can get on poolsafely.gov. So that's where you can find that information. Okay, there's some questions about the slides. How do we get the slides after the presentation? I don't seem to be able to download currently or go to links. We've been having a lot of technical difficulties today, and so I just want to mention, you know, why we had some issues in the beginning. Our internet and phones all went down within 20 minutes of this presentation. So if for whatever reason that handout isn't allowing you to access the links or actually download it, we can email the slide presentation out to all of the attendees, and we'll also be posting it to poolsafely.gov within the next two days. So we'll definitely get it to you, and again, I apologize for that. Okay, the next question is, for clarification on the budget, is the maximum $250,000 for the two-year, is it for the two-year period? Yes, it spans the entire two-year period. So you do not have to apply for the first and second year of the project period separately. It's all in one. The next question is asking, for enforcement, will all community pools need to be upgraded to comply with the VGB Act? I would say this is Barbara Little. So for the requirements of Section 1404 of the VGB Act, public pools are responsible for complying with that section, regardless of applying for a grant program, and specifically Section 1404 of the Act is the section that requires that drain covers be compliant and that pools that do not have an unblockable drain have one of five enumerated backup systems, like suction vacuum release systems, so that those requirements are separate from the grant program. Now, for the requirements for the grant program under 1406, we require that the state or the jurisdiction that is applying has a code or some law that requires barriers to entry on all residential pools, and the second requirement has the anti-entrapment requirement. And the enforcement in the grant program is intended to make sure that the state or jurisdiction is enforcing those requirements. Okay, the next question is, if we order pool safely materials in bulk, will there be a fee or any cost for shipping? This is Patty Davis with the Communications Department. Those pool safely materials are free for all of the participants, so you can use those. There is just a limit on the number that you can get, but we do make those available to you, free of charge. Okay, we have some messages regarding the handout. It sounds like we can, somebody was able to access the handout, but you just have to click on the arrow besides handouts so it drops down, so hopefully that's helpful to folks. Somebody else mentioned if it helps, the handouts are listed above the chat box. Okay, somebody noted that the pool safely.gov website says it is undergoing maintenance. Do you know when it will be back up, or where we can find the historical grant recipient programs? The website is probably down because of our internet. And so that happened sometime after one today, and so I'd imagine it's either back up at this point, I believe, or we'll be back up shortly, so please check back. Okay, we have a question regarding information about allowable education and drowning prevention activities. Is there any information about these activities to put funds towards, such as life vest loaner programs, signage for pools in natural water, purchased radio print material, pool alarms, props for training, et cetera? Yes, some of these are certainly allowable ways to use the funds. Anything you're using for training purposes, administrative fees such as for printing materials and that sort of thing, are permissible, but just please keep in mind that 50% of the funding does have to go towards hiring or training enforcement personnel. So you first have to meet that requirement, and whatever is left, the rest of the 50%, you could use for those sorts of things. If you have specific questions, again, I'd ask you to email us. So this is Barbara Little again, and we have a question about whether a nonprofit could apply for the grant or whether it needs to be part of a government entity, and the applicant must be state government or local government or part of a governmental entity, so the nonprofit could not apply on its own. And again, if any of our answers are unclear, or if you require additional information, please feel free to follow up with an email to grants.gov. We had another question regarding the limit on pools safely materials that each grantee can receive. We can't give you an exact amount right now. It depends on inventory and how many people are looking to receive those materials, so I guess that is to be determined. Okay, somebody provided a link which has the Pool Safely Grant Report to Congress, which is a PDF file, and it has more info from grantors, so thank you for that. That is on the poolsafely.gov website, and again it's called the Report to Congress. Okay, can you confirm what expenses the grant funds pay for and that they do not include salaries? So the distinction that is made here regarding salaries is that you cannot use the grants to pay for salaries for enforcement personnel. You can use it for people who are either delivering or administering the grant, and that's usually going to be people who are already on your staff and will be using some part of their time towards administering the grant, but you cannot use it for the salaries of actual enforcement personnel. So for instance, if you are hiring lifeguards or somebody to teach people about the requirements or even to do any of the training, that sort of stuff, those salaries cannot be applied. If you have specific questions about somebody that you're considering, then please email grants at cpsc.gov. Okay, somebody asked, can you email out the handouts later and email a link to the historical grants recipient program? Yeah, I can certainly do that. We will send a mass email out to everybody who registered and include that information. Somebody asked, can we use our own materials and not only pool safely materials? There are certain materials that we do require that you use, but I think you are allowed to use your own materials as well as long as you've used certain ones that CPSC provides. We can, you know, address specific questions through email if you have something particular in mind, but I believe that should be fine. So I think there might have been a few questions we didn't address and those are because we're going to have to do some research on a couple of those to get back to you. And like I mentioned, we have everybody's email address and the questions come out in a log, so we have all this information and we'll be getting back to you within the next few days with a response. Anything else that you've thought of, please email grants at cpsc.gov. Okay, and thank you so much for attending today. I hope this was helpful and again, sorry for the technical difficulties in the beginning. Thank you.


Welcome back to Yankees batting practice today presented by Audi. We are happy to welcome back to the show screen. Wilkesbury Railrider's manager Doug Davis Doug. We once again appreciate the time before your squad opens up a six game set with the Red Sox Triple A affiliate. And we talked last time you were here a couple weeks back about how cool your job is to let these guys know when they're down there in Triple A. They got the call up to the big club. So what was Louise's reaction when you told them. Yeah Louise is extremely excited about this opportunity. Obviously you know that's something for a young kid gets his first shot to go to the big leagues and actually get a start in a big league game. He's extremely excited about that opportunity. And I think looking forward to the challenges that come along with it. And we've seen his growth throughout the year in Somerset in Scranton as well. Back on July 21 six innings. He started that combined no hitter against Rochester. What made him so successful in that start Doug. Well Louise just pounded the strike zone. He located his fastball very well. He threw sliders off of that pitch. His velocity was up. He dominated that lineup. And you know he went right at guys. He was able to manage his pitch count. And get through six innings which can be a little bit of a difficult thing for some of these guys because we are a little bit limited as to how many pitches that they have. But you know he was able to stay on point. And each inning he sort of built off in the last one and it all just kept getting better and better.  But you know I think the circumstances dictated that and it was great for the rest of the guys to be able to finish it off. Absolutely. I mean that was just tremendous to see that. And even though it was a combined no hitter it's still a no hitter. His last start though with you against Syracuse just one in a third two hit six earned four walks and two hit batters. That's a stark comparison to that previous outing. Just what about that game had him struggle a little bit. Well I think Luis he he hit a couple guys and that seemed to throw him off a little bit. You know he tried to make an adjustment to get back. It's you know not necessarily stuff but get back into the strike zone and be able to throw where we wanted to. And he just used up an awful lot of pitches in that first inning. And then the second inning it was kind of you know it was a similar thing. He was just struggling to command that baseball. And that's been the thing for him. A young guy at this level. And I think those inconsistencies you see at times until they are able to you know gain enough experience where they're able to work their way through a game when they may not have their best stuff. And I think that was the case in Syracuse. He didn't have quite the stuff that he had the outing before. And it was a struggle for him to be able to try to adjust and get himself situated. So it was a short one. But again I think you know because of his age you know you're going to see that with the inconsistencies. And I think tonight he's rare to go and he's going to as long as he stays in the strike zone he's going to be very effective. Yeah he's pretty much rare to go where in those Yankee pinstripes for the first time you could guarantee that. But Doug what did you tell him what advice did you impart with him before he left to come up and play with the Yankees based on those last two starts that he had with you especially being that he's a young kid. What did you tell him what advice did you give him. Well I think the biggest message was that you know you just continue to do the things that you've done here. But it was all about preparation. All of these guys are here preparing on a daily basis for for a call you know and then we go through stretches where those calls come quite often. So I think that was the biggest message to him was just you're prepared for this. You've been preparing for this whole season whether it be in double air triple A. And now you're just going to a different level. You're still facing the same hitters. You just need to continue to go out there and do the things that you normally do and prepare for the game. And he's going to have a ton of help there. We know that he's going to rely on that help. And I think that's going to be a big thing getting him through this game tonight. Doug he has an electric fastball. We've seen it down in Scranton with you. What what else does he feature and what could Yankees fans expect. Give us a little scouting report on him. Well he does have an electric fastball and he's able to you know pitch up in the strike zone. He's able to command it at the bottom of the strike zone. And I think that's one thing that if if he's doing that that's going to set him up then to go to a slider which the slider has been a little bit of a work in progress for him but it continues to improve and get better. The command and location of that pitch is a big thing for him. And then over I would say the last three weeks his change up has gotten remarkably better. He's been able to use that pitch. It's got a little bottom to it. It's still firm because he throws his fastball firm. I mean it's going to be a high 80s low 90s change up. But with the action that he gets on that pitch it'll help I think help him face some of those left handed hitters and guys it'll get off that fastball.


Hello everybody, Hunter Cobra Commander 788 here, and it's the last video of 2015. 2015 is in the books, and it turned out to be a really great year, both for this channel and for me personally. It didn't start out as a great year, but it ended up being one of the best years ever, and 2016 has the potential to be even better. I asked you to ask me questions, and I have them right here. I'm going to go through these. If I missed your question, I apologize, but I think I do have everyone's question here. So let's get started. MG Villain says, I want to know two things. The Joe Toy you favor above all others, and the one you absolutely dislike and you would avoid. Well, as you probably know, Stalker is my favorite GI Joe character, and I do highly value that toy. But right now, the one I probably favor above all others is Steel Brigade version 1E. Because that one was just so hard for me to find. It seemed like I was searching for it forever, and I was ecstatic when I actually got the thing. So right now, that one would probably be at the top of the list. And the one that I dislike and I would avoid, that's actually probably Steel Brigade version 2, the gold hand Steel Brigade. Now I'll eventually get it and review it, because I want to review everything from the vintage line. But I don't really like the look of that figure. It's not a good action figure to me. I don't like the way they change the colors around. And they're pretty expensive. So I'm not really looking forward to spending a lot of money on a figure that I don't really like. So that one has a pretty low priority. Joe Eversole asks, do you know anything about the Mego three and three-quarter figures like Buck Rogers from the late 70s that had an articulated O-ring design practically identical to the 80s Hasbro GI Joe's? A little bit. I had some as a kid. I think I had some Dukes of Hazard. And I think there were mash action figures too. I'm not sure if that was Mego, but I'm pretty sure they also had sort of an O-ring design. So yeah, I am somewhat familiar with them. At some point, maybe if I wanted to do like a history of the three and three-quarter inch action figure, I might get some of those. I think that would be an interesting video. But I don't have any of them right now. And so I don't really incorporate that history into my reviews. But that is an interesting kind of part of the history of what made up GI Joe. Alamo Patriot says two questions first, do you have a favorite childhood memory associated with finding that one GI Joe that you had wanted for a while? The answer to that one is yes. And it's actually probably the Duke action figure. And I found that on the shelves as a carded figure. I was really excited about that because it had previously been available only as a mail away and I didn't mail away for him. And so I wasn't sure I would ever actually get to own a Duke action figure. But when it actually came out, it was in the stores and I was able to get it. I was pretty excited about that. Even though Duke is not my favorite character, I was just particularly excited about getting that figure. One question was, do you still have a few of your original favorite GI Joe's in your current collection? No, I do not. I don't have any of my original collection left right now. Everything that I have right now, I've gotten as an adult collector and I regret that. I regret letting go of my old childhood toys. Mark Kerouac says, do you have any memories of getting certain Joe's on Christmas or for your birthday? And what is your favorite year for the Joe's squad? The first question, I do remember, I think it was Christmas. I'm pretty sure it was Christmas when I got the 1983 headquarters command center. And that was a big deal. And we got a lot of play out of that play set. We used that a lot. In fact, my mom had this idea that we tried out. We got some glow in the dark paint and we painted the inside of the spotlights. So when we turned the lights out, the spotlights would glow. We thought that was kind of fun. So yeah, the 83 headquarters and what's your favorite year for the Joe's squad? Probably 1984. 1984 is a great year, especially for Cobra. Great year for villains. But 1985 is a really close second. I mean, 1985 is a great year, too. It's really hard to choose between those two. But I think 1984 just barely edges it out. I think because of some of the really sweet realistic military figures like Ripcord, I really like Ripcord. I got a lot of use out of that figure. And just great villains, Zartan, Wild Weasel and the Cobra Rattler. The first Cobra boat, the water moccasin, it was a great year. Great year for Cobra and a good year for GI Joe 2. But honorable mention for 1985, really also a really great year. War Machine Vengeance. What's your favorite kind of beef jerky? Mine's teriyaki. Get it? I'm such a stinker. See, I said I wasn't going to answer any jerky questions. So I don't have to answer that one. But teriyaki is pretty good. James Strickland says, have you ever made your own special Joe team or Cobra team? And will you ever do the Mission Brazil team? Okay, two questions. First is, did I ever make my own special GI Joe team? Yes. As a kid, we did sort of make our own special squad of Joe's. And it was called the Wolverines. And it was named after the group of kids in the movie Red Dawn. Remember that 80s movie? So we kind of borrowed from that. And then towards the end of our collecting, when we were starting to get older and we weren't getting as much GI Joe's, and then of course the GI Joe figure started to get kind of weird with a bunch of crazy colors and stuff like that. That's when we kind of started doing a little bit of customizing. So I mean, if they were going to give us a purple action figure or something like that, well, we just painted green and we switched the parts around and we kind of make our own guys and then they would be part of our Wolverine squad. Kind of like a guerrilla warfare squad or something like that. Let's see, what was the other? Ever do the Mission to Brazil team? Yes, I will eventually. I don't have it yet. But that I do consider to be part of the vintage toy line. So yeah, that at some point will need to be reviewed. Let's see, Ben Pensurga. I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name. But Ben asks. I'm going to ask too. What got you into YouTube and what's your camera editing setup? What got me into YouTube? I actually had an old channel in which I did video blogs about law and philosophy and political science. And that was kind of fun for a while. But I got out of it, especially when I went to law school. I just didn't have time to keep up with it. And I didn't feel like picking it up again when I got out of law school. But I felt like I wanted to do something on YouTube. I really like that format and that forum. And so when I started collecting GI Joe, I wanted to find something to do on YouTube. And it kind of led to this. As for my camera and editing setup, the camera is a Samsung HD camera. It's really not an expensive camera at all. And my editing software is Sony Movie Editor 13. It's like Sony Vegas Pro 13. I think that's what it's called. And I've had that for a while. I upgraded last year to the most recent version. And that's worked pretty well for me. Part of the problem that I had with some of my older videos is that I was using an old version that was starting to not be compatible with anything anymore. And it just wasn't working. But since I've upgraded, I think the editing has been a little bit better. Okay, John Byrd says, will you be reviewing any of the Sergeant Savage screaming eagle figures or vehicles from that line? I don't think so. I don't really consider that to be a part of the vintage line. If I ever do it, I'll kind of maybe do it as a side thing. But I haven't really thought about it. And it's not immediately in the works. So I don't think so. BigTragicOne says, can I have a steel brigade figure? Yes, yes, you absolutely can. Just go to eBay and buy one. The Skull Reviews says, do you collect anything outside of GI Joe? Well, I did. I kind of dabbled in Star Wars a little bit. But I've kind of gotten out of that. Right now, it's just GI Joe. I'm really trying to limit the scope of my collecting to vintage American release GI Joe. Because I don't want the collecting ticket out of hand. I want it to be fun. I don't want it to be an obsession, at least not too much. So I'm trying to keep it limited to that. Now, at some point, I may branch out into other things. But that's it for right now. Oh, except I do have, I did get this He-Man at a flea market for $0.50, just because I never had one. Let's see. A Foster79 says, what's your favorite Cobra figure and Cobra vehicle? The Cobra figure, that's hard to choose. It might be Zartan. It might be Storm Shadow. But that's hard to choose because there are a lot of really cool Cobra figures. I almost feel bad about leaving out some version of Cobra Commander. But Zartan and Storm Shadow, they're really great figures. They're original 1984 figures, really good. That's one of the reasons why 1984 is such a good year. And favorite Cobra vehicle would have to be the His Tank. I just think that's a nice design. I really like that design. And I like that it's black. That, just to me, is the embodiment of a Cobra vehicle. That's just what a Cobra vehicle should be. Let's see. Comic book nostalgia says, are you a lawyer? Yes, I am. I'll talk a little bit more about that later in this video. Kiriakos Vafiatis asks, is major blood equal to a Cobra officer? Well, according to their file cards, yes, they are equal. But I think that the way that major blood was used in really both the comic book and the cartoon, he was definitely higher up in the command structure. So rank in the Cobra organization. I'm not sure exactly how that works. But I do think major blood should outrank your garden variety Cobra officer. Let's see. Red, vitamin, blue. Two questions. First one, in an alternate universe, what vintage Joe member and or vehicle do you think would have made a better Cobra agent slash asset and vice versa? As my college philosophy professor used to request from his students, expand and explain. And two, will we get any more comic reviews in 2016? OK, the first one, a Joe character or vehicle. I'm going to stick with a character that would have worked, maybe made a better Cobra agent. I'm going to say snake eyes. I think snake eyes, if he had just gone left instead of right one day, would have been a pretty amazing villain, a great villain. And so as a Cobra asset, that really would have been something. You could have done a lot with snake eyes in Cobra. That would have been really interesting to see. And as far as a Cobra agent or asset that would be better as a Joe, maybe Destro. Because Destro did kind of have a sense of honor. And half of the time, he was trying to undermine Cobra. So he's worked with GI Joe before. So I think that he's someone that Joe's could work with at least. And you can't get much better as a strategist and as a fighter. Destro, Destro would make an interesting Joe. Your second question, any more comic reviews in 2016? I will try. And here's I have to apologize specifically to Mark Sardoni, who has been good enough to scan comic book pages so that I can do the reviews. And I've still stalled out. And it's mainly because of the editing. It takes longer to edit a comic book review than it does to edit just a video review, like a toy review. So it's just something that is hard to fit in my schedule and also get the other stuff done that I want to do. But I really want to, and I'm really going to try to, I want the comic book reviews to be part of this channel. It's just tough finding the time to do it. Roadbuster reviews. What is your least favorite G.I. Joe character? Not figure, but character. I'm going to say Galobulus from Cobra Law is just, I mean, that's like the worst of the worst. I mean, not just the figure, but in the movie, the way that he's portrayed with like the crab shells on his body and the, like he's in this like globe thing. And then he has a snake tail. I think he would have made a fine villain for He-Man if you put him in Masters of the Universe. But just the worst for G.I. Joe, it tears me apart just seeing him on screen. Bragminion says, do you follow any of the current comic book runs of the Joes? No, I don't right now. I'd like to eventually, but I haven't even gotten all the way through the original Marvel Comics run yet. And I want to get all of that before I look at anything new. So eventually I will, but I haven't yet. Jack Mayofer says, was your likeness used for the 1983 airborne figure? Yes, in 1983, I was eight years old and I looked exactly like airborne, not real. The Volition Society says, how would you pitch code name Snowjob to the boss? I would have the secretary do it. Matt in 69v3 says, what's your favorite episode of the old 80s cartoon? That's hard to choose. And oftentimes I rag on the cartoon. I definitely prefer the comic book over the cartoon by a wide margin, but there were some episodes that I enjoyed. The ones that I can think of, The World Without End, Two-Parter, I thought was pretty good, even though it had a lot of science fiction and fantasy stuff. I just thought the story was told in a very good way that was very dramatic and I did enjoy that. The episode, The Viper is coming. It's a quirky episode, but I kind of liked it. Not everybody liked it and I understand that, but I enjoyed it. And then the first episode of the original miniseries, a real American hero. I remember being very excited about seeing that. That first episode, the first time I saw G.I. Joe in a 30 minute animated cartoon, very excited. Of course I thought, I had no idea what would become of the cartoon that it would sometimes get as weird as it did. At the time, I was just very hopeful. I was seeing my favorite G.I. Joe characters in animated form. And I did kind of wonder if they were always gonna shoot lasers? Are they never gonna have real guns? But it was a good start. I was happy to see them on TV. Let's see, Mr. T.J. Bang. Any relation to T.J. Hooker? Mr. T.J. Bang says, which member of Ninja Force other than Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow is your favorite and why? I thought Scarlet was an unexpected but welcome addition, but it's pretty obvious who I'm a fan of. I think Scarlet, if I had to choose. And I'm not, again, I'm not a big fan of Ninja Force. I think that G.I. Joe went a little bit Ninja crazy in that era, but if I had to choose like a favorite other than Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, yeah, Scarlet. Although the figure, the Ninja Force Scarlet figure is a little weird, but I like the character of Scarlet and so I think she would fit in that team. So yeah, Scarlet. Let's see. Project Dark Corp has a whole bunch of questions. Let's start at the beginning. Number one, among all your reviews, what was the hardest toy to review you've done and why? It was the Cobra Knight Raven. That was the hardest to review. For one thing, it was a vehicle and a figure that makes it longer. There's more to do, there's more to research. It was a long video. My voice was hoarse by the time I was done and I made a lot of mistakes in it. I had to do a lot of takes. That one almost killed me. That one was really tough. Number two, how do you feel about the newer G.I. Joe toys that came out, like the modern era toys? I mean, I have a few, but not my thing. I don't really have any connection to the modern toys. I don't really see them as an extension of the vintage toys. I'm a vintage collector and that's pretty much it. They look nice. They look really good. I mean, the sculpting is pretty cool. The accessories are really cool, but they're just not that kind of emotional connection to them that I have with the vintage toys. Let's see, three. What is the total number of your entire G.I. Joe collection by Wave Release? What Joe's Cobra toys are you still missing from your collection by Wave Release, of course. I don't think I can break it down quite that much. Most of my collection is actually right here behind me. I have a few things here and there and a few things in some boxes. But for the most part, what you see is what I have. And I do have a list of what I have and what I don't have, but I have most of 1983, sorry, 1982 through 1985-ish, but I'm still missing a few things from each year. After 1985, when you started into 1986, I don't have nearly as much stuff. I still have quite a bit of work to do there. That's kind of how it breaks down, though. I still have quite a few gaps and I'm still a relatively new collector. There's a lot that I don't have. For what is the future plans for your show? Like, if you manage to review all the Joe's or what other goodies are you planning to do for 2016? Okay, I want to improve the look of the show. I want to improve the production value of the show and I just want to make the videos more interesting and more fun. What if I reviewed all of the vintage Joe's stuff? Like, I'm done. Nothing else to do. I'd like to do the comic books. I'd like to do all the comic books. Maybe after that, do all of the cartoon episodes. Just cover everything that has to do with vintage G.I. Joe. I mean, that's my passion. That's what I want to do. Maybe if all of that's done and I just don't have anything else to do for a vintage G.I. Joe, maybe I'll look at something else that's not G.I. Joe, but that's so far into the future that I don't really have to think about it right now. Del Noir says, what's your day job? Okay, this relates to the earlier question. I am a lawyer. I work for the public defender's office in the county in which I live. I specifically work in the civil division, in the mental health division, doing cases involving civil mental health commitments.  And I make sure their rights are protected and I make sure that they're represented. And that's what I do. I love the job. It's a great job. I really enjoy it, but I do see a lot of very mentally ill people pretty much every day. That's what I do. Let's see, Sonic 360 says, what vehicle would you have Hasbro update and release for the modern Joe figures? As I said, I don't really collect modern G.I. Joe, even though I do have a few, I don't consider myself to be a collector of them, but I don't know. I'm not really even sure what vehicles they have done. So maybe the killer whale, it'd be interesting to see that updated. It's big. I might even buy it if it were out on the shelves, maybe. But I don't know. That's the only thing I can think of. Other than that, I'm not sure what they've done and what they haven't done up to this point for modern. Let's see, Silo Wubby says, I kind of have two or three wrapped in one. Okay, what made you want to start reviewing G.I. Joe figures on YouTube and do you plan on reviewing almost everything that Hasbro had to offer in the original ARA line? Also, what is your favorite vintage Cobra Troop builder and how many do you plan on obtaining? Okay, that was four. Sorry, LOL XD. Okay, let's start at the end and work our way back to the beginning. Let's see, favorite vintage Cobra Troop builder and how many do I plan on obtaining? I still really like the old blue shirts, the original 1982 Cobra Trooper. Still, I just love staying a whole bunch of them. That to me is what Cobra looks like.  But a close second place would probably be the snow serpent. I really like the look of the snow serpent, really cool action figure and a whole bunch of them together looks pretty awesome. As far as how many that I would obtain, I really only need one complete example of each one. After that, if I pick up one here and there in a lot of other figures, that's fine.  I really, especially for review purposes, I really just need one that's complete with the file card. Okay, other questions. Do I plan on reviewing almost everything that Hasbro had to offer in the original line? Yes, that's the plan. I want to eventually, over the long term, review every G.I. Joe toy. Every vintage, real American hero G.I. Joe toy. All of them. That's the goal. You know, one week at a time, we'll get it done. The first question is, what may you want to start reviewing G.I. Joe figures on YouTube? Okay, my original plan for this channel was not to do figure reviews. That wasn't the plan. What I originally wanted to do was little action scenes or skips, kind of like what I'm doing now. It's a little action scenes that I sometimes put at the end during the credits of the video. That's what I wanted to do, just for the whole channel.  And I had part of it written already. And I actually got a little bit of it started. But I ended up not ultimately doing that for a couple of reasons. First, it's very time consuming to do the special effects, to create the sets, to make it look at least decent and make people want to watch it. It takes a long time. And then the other thing is, I read Justin Bell's diorama stories on Generals Joe's. And they're really good. I mean, they're really good. I mean, the sets that he builds are awesome. The storytelling and the stories and the characterization, I really enjoyed them a lot. And I realized that there is no way I would ever have the time in my day to commit to making anything even halfway as good as that. My best effort wouldn't even approach the kind of quality work that were in those diostories. So I kind of gave up on that idea. And so looking for something else to do, I know there were other GI Joe reviewers out there and I think they're really good. I didn't think I would necessarily be as good as them, but I decided I was gonna try my hand at that and see if I could do something different, bring something a little different to the table, not necessarily better, but just different. Maybe my own individual personality. One idea that I had was that maybe I should, instead of going for more entertaining reviews, I should just try to be very analytical and be very detailed and just get a lot of information and just be more informative. And that I think is why my early reviews are so dry and so slow and sometimes so long, because that's kind of what I was going for. I really wasn't trying to be entertaining in any way, but after a while, I wanted to have more fun. So I decided to kind of enjoy doing the reviews more and kind of try to make them better, try to make them more interesting and put a little bit more of my personality into them. And that's how sort of we got to where we are today.