Please join me for a moment of centering silence, and please remain seated as we sing our in-gathering hymn number 377, which is also printed in the Order of Service. And welcome to First Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a community where curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical and social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian Universalism supports the freedom of consciousness of each individual as together we seek to be a force for good in the world. My name is Joe Kramer. I'm a member of the Board of Trustees, and on behalf of our congregation, I would like to extend a special welcome to visitors.  Newcomers are encouraged to stay for a fellowship time after service and to visit the library, which is directly across from the center doors of this atrium. Bring your drinks and your questions. Members of our staff and lay ministry team will be on hand to welcome you. You could also look for a person holding a teal stone wear coffee mug. These are FUS members who are knowledgeable about our faith community and who would love to visit with you. Typically experienced guys are available to give a tour of our building after each service, so if you would like to learn more about the sustainably designed addition or our national landmark meeting house, please meet near the large glass window on the left side of the auditorium. And we welcome children to stay for the duration of the service. However, because it is difficult for some in attendance to hear in this lively, acoustical environment, our child haven and the commons are excellent places to retire if a child needs to talk or move around. The service can still be seen and heard from those areas. And speaking of noise, this would be a great time to silence our all electronic devices that could cause a disturbance. So I'd like to now acknowledge those individuals who are helping our service to run smoothly. We have Mark Schultz on sound. Our lay minister is Ann Smiley. Our greeters were Hannah Pinkerton and Penny Morey. Our usher is also Ann Smiley. And for hospitality and the coffee that we will be drinking after service, Jean Hills and Trudy Carlson have been making that. Please note the announcements on the red floors insert in your order of service which describe upcoming events at the society and will provide more information about today's activities. In June, we're going to be saying goodbye to Reverend Michael Schuler and in August we will be welcoming a new interim minister. Why are we bringing in an interim minister? What's the process for choosing such a person? What are your hopes, dreams, concerns and questions about the interim period? Members of the interim ministry search task force will be in the commons after services this entire weekend. And we're eager and they're eager to hear from you. You can also read the latest update on the search process in the March newsletter. And I recently heard if you go up to the table and ask a question, there's a piece of candy that you'll be rewarded with, a little bit of an incentive. Also coming up in the next couple of weeks, the Reverend Tandek Deka is going to be meeting with us and within our community is going to be visiting us for about 10 days. So please, look at the opportunities that we have to interact with her. You can register online or find paper forms in the commons. We are going to be closing registration soon, so please, if you're considering doing it, do it soon. Again, welcome. We hope that today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart and stir your spirit. Now we have the team choir. For our opening words today, we're going to center together. This is a difficult sermon to deliver, a difficult one maybe to hear. So we're going to stop and take a breath and then another. And I want you to notice three things that you see and name them to yourself. And then take another breath and notice three things that you hear and name them to yourself. And then take another breath and notice three things that you feel. Name them and take a breath. Our words for lighting the chalice today come from Laura Wallace. If you can rise and body your spirit and join me in reciting them, they are found in your order of service. As frozen earth holds the determined seed, this sacred space holds our weariness, our worry, our laughter and our celebration. Let us bring seed and soul into the light of thought, the warmth of community and the hope of love. Let us see together, hear together, love together, let us worship. And before we sing hymn number 108, please turn to your neighbor and exchange a friendly greeting. I'm laughing because I can see my son through the door voting for coffee, although he hates coffee. He's just throwing in beans. There's coffee voting. We're trying out new coffee flavors. So after service today, you can go try out our new coffees. Story for all ages time, young and young at heart, come on up. Today we're reading The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. I'm going to ask questions of the kids and give them the mic. So if you do not want your kids to speak in public, do not send them up, I guess, I don't know. Come up with them. Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree. Okay, you do know this one. Yeah, this is a very popular book. You have it in your house. It's great. You read it yesterday. All right, so this is interesting. This is a book, very controversial. Some people really love this book. I'm actually reading this book because I don't like it. Like I said, some people really love it. Some people don't like it. I really enjoy the pictures. I really enjoy the words, but I don't like the message that it teaches. So I want you to listen today, see if you can figure out what the message of this book might be, and see if you agree with it. Think of reasons people might like this book and think of reasons that people might not like this book. Once there was a tree, the book begins, and she loved a little boy. And every day the boy would come and he would gather her leaves and make them into crowns and play King of the Forest. He would climb up her trunk and swing from her branches and eat apples. And they would go play hide-and-seek. Has anyone ever played hide-and-seek? We had an argument in the last service that says, trees can always see you wherever you go. Maybe if it's eyes are just on one side, then you can hide on the other side and it'll never see you. Yeah, if it can use its leaves to seek like that, if there's branches to seek, then it's going to find you wherever you go, right?  If you went in the tree, a hollow tree and hid in there, I don't know. Have you ever played hide-and-seek with your brother and then gone inside your brother to hide from him? Weird. Okay. So we had an argument in the first service whether everyone in the world has ever played hide-and-seek. We thought people everywhere in the world have played hide-and-seek. Then what do you think? If you go outside, you're in the tree's room. That actually, it talks about that a little bit actually. All right, so let's keep going. And when he was tired, he would sleep in her shade and the boy loved the tree very much and the tree was happy. But time went by and the boy grew older and the tree was often alone. Then one day the boy came to the tree and the tree said, Come boy, climb up my trunk and swing from my branches and eat apples and play in my shade and be happy. I am too big to climb and play, said the boy. Is anyone here too big to climb and play? Got in that point, you just don't play anymore? I want to buy things, said the boy, and have fun. I want some money. Can you give me some money? Can anyone here give me some money? Donation. I'm sorry, said the tree, but I have no money. I have only leaves and apples. Take my apples boy and sell them in the city. Then you only have money and you will be happy. Does anyone want to be an apple seller when they grow up? Think there's good money in apple selling? I worked at Target. This is a true story. I worked at Target as a produce person and sold lots of apples. It did not pay well. And sell them in the city. Then you will have money and you will be happy. And so the boy climbed up the tree and gathered the apples and carried them away and the tree was happy. And the boy stayed away for a long time and the tree was sad. Can you all be sad trees? Then one day the boy came back and the tree shook with joy and said, come boy, climb up my trunk and swing from my branches and be happy. I am too busy to climb trees, said the boy. I want a house to keep me warm. I want a wife and I want children, so I need a house. Can you give me a house? I have no house, said the tree. The forest is my house. What's a forest?  That is not a forest, that's a carpet. A forest, it's like a circle.  That's a forest. The forest is my house, but you may cut off my branches and build a house. Then you will be happy. I don't know if too many houses are built up with tree branches, but we can imagine. So the boy cut off her branches and carried them away to build his house. And the tree was happy. The boy stayed away for a long time. And when he came back the tree was so happy she could hardly speak. Come boy, she whispered, come and play. I am too old and sad to play, said the boy. I want a boat that will take me far away from here. Can you give me a boat? What do you think happened that makes the boy want to sail away? He was a sad. He wasn't a kid anymore, so he was sad. Cut down my trunk and make me a boat, said the tree. Then you can sail away and be happy. So the boy cut down her trunk and made a boat and sailed away. And the tree was happy, but not really. The boy came back again. I am sorry, boy, said the tree, but I have nothing left to give you.  My branches are gone, said the tree. You cannot swing on them. I am too old to swing on branches, said the boy. My trunk is gone, said the tree. You cannot climb. I am too tired to climb, said the boy. I am sorry, said the tree. I wish I could give you something, but I have nothing left. I am just an old stump. I am sorry. I don't need very much now, said the boy, just a quiet place to sit and rest. Well, said the tree, straightening herself up as much as she could. Well, an old stump is good for sitting and resting. Come, boy, sit down and rest, and so they did. And the tree was happy. The end. So now I'm going to ask you why you thought people might like this story. And we're going to ask, this has been a request. We asked that we know that laughing at children's comments is a sign of appreciation, but sometimes it's hard to have your comment laughed at when you make a comment in this. So unless you think the kid is trying to be funny, do not laugh at the comment, even if it's cute. And kids, if people do laugh, it's just because they think it's cute that you have comments. Why would someone like this story? Why do you think? Change your mind, Nico? Why would you like this story? Maybe because it's like a timeline of his life. It does. It shows the whole timeline of the person's life. It's nice to see him grow up and change and develop. Yeah, what do you got, James? Because it's a book. Because it's a book and Unitarians are supposed to like books. Why would someone not like this story? What do you think you could not like about this story? It's like about a tree who gives everything for a guy that doesn't like it very much and never says thank you or anything. That's the message. There you go. Okay. I don't like when the boy cuts down the tree's branches. You don't like it when it cuts down the tree's branches, yeah. Anybody else? Yeah, that's kind of sad. Because all the characters in it die. Because he gets really greedy. Because he cuts down the tree. Two more. Because he wants apples. Because he wants apples, yeah. The tree doesn't want him to love her and him to play on her, but he doesn't and instead he takes everything. So is it nice to give? Do you like giving? Is it a good thing to give? Is it a nice thing to get sometimes and to get gifts? Do you think it's a nice life only to take things? Do you think it's a nice life only to give things? So giving is good, taking is good, but not doing just one or the other is kind of why I think this book is a little bit wrong. All right, before we go to classes, we're going to listen to one more song from the Teen Choir, and then you are free to go. Thanks again to the Teen Choir. We're excited today also to have our friends at the Odyssey Project's return to share with us. Now in its 15th year, the Odyssey Project takes a whole family approach to breaking the cycle of generational poverty through access to education. Today our own James Morgan, an alumni of the program, along with Marisol Gonzalez, who graduated from the program last year, and Shar Braxton, whom you met last weekend, will be reading some of their own works. Please welcome them. So it's still morning. It's good to be home. I'm a member here, but I've been busy working recently, Mary, and I miss you all. So then again, you know, it's a privilege for me to be here. And I'd like to take a moment to thank you for what I know will be your generous contributions to the UW Odyssey program. Again, I'm one of its alumni, and I assure you that the wealth of knowledge, experience and support for every student involved is a life-changing experience. This day I've been asked to speak to you about emotional labor. And it is a term that, up until a few days ago, was very foreign to me. So I want to thank you, T.K., and I don't see our esteemed director here from the Odyssey project, but I'd like to thank Emily Auerbach as well for helping me to put this into some context. But emotional labor, as I have experienced it, has centered on social and community justice issues. For a number of years, I've been working with those in our midst who for all intents and purposes have been invisible. The homeless, the previously incarcerated, single mothers and fathers, looking for employment and other services within our community, who for whatever reason face difficulty in having their needs and the family needs met. I've heard of and witnessed people facing situations and circumstances on a daily basis that I guarantee you are heartbreaking. Many times I myself share those tears and that heartbreak with them. And until just a few weeks ago when I was hired by the Madison Area Urban Ministries, or a mom, being in the midst of other people's crisis was not something that the larger society placed any form of monetary value upon. Truth be told, I don't think the society can or will fully compensate someone who gives time and attention to those persons whose hearts, souls and minds have been damaged by our country's failure to live up to the democratic ideals most of us hold so dearly. Capitalism, at least as I understand it, does not take into consideration emotional impacts and outcomes relative to its individual citizens. Being emotionally present for others means having to know your own capacity to be vulnerable. To have an open ear, a heart and mind when helping others to cope or to learn how to cope with being depressed, angry, hungry, homeless, looked down upon and as I alluded to a few moments ago, invisible. Emotional labor is the cost in its totality for those who for whatever reason find their calling in service to humanity. They ought to be more recognized and compensated for the work and self-sacrifice in the service of those most needed. That is what touched my heart when the concept of emotional labor was given to me.  I didn't share this earlier but I want to share it now. I'm going to kind of set the foundation for him by simply saying to you all that some of the strongest men in my life have always been women. I'm Shaw Braxton, emotional labor, exhausted and tired. I put you to bed.  You had given me advice and shared World War II pain. Hamburger was only 12 cents a pound and it was day 175 since family members had been around. Friday I picked up my paycheck for $437.22. I looked in your room empty. I ran down to the dining hall empty. I went to the TV room empty. A staff member walked by and said, Mrs. Williams died at 247. Hi, my name is Marisol Gonzalez. Emotional labor. Some people think women are weak. Some people think women can do only certain kind of jobs. Some people think women should stay in the kitchen behind the reception desk, teaching in school, helping others as a nurse, caring for children in a nursery room, or doing all of those so-called easy jobs. Women are capable of doing those jobs and more. We have the ability to do the emotional labor that all of those jobs require. Women care a lot for others. We do those jobs with a sincere smile, a friendly voice, and our best attitude. We have the ability to change the mood of the grumpiest person. When we are cooking with tears streaming from our eyes, and one of our children notices and asks, why are you crying?  It's the onion's sweet heart that makes me cry, even though the truth is deep in our heart. It's our job to pretend that everything is okay in the world that we live on today. Even when we know it could be much better if we as women were the leaders, if more women were leaders. We will tear down the walls and build bridges. We want to spread families apart just for not having a green card. We will respect the work of all workers with a fur check and health insurance. We will never harass the undocumented immigrants by not letting them drive, work, or study. Instead, we will provide the tools for their success. It's in our shoulders to put out the big show. For getting our worries, desires, and dreams. Wherever we are women, wherever we do, ask mothers, mujeres, and madres. Let's keep up the good work with a big smile and the best attitude to keep running the big show. We are no weak, our jobs are no easy. You can feel lucky for not getting a bill for all of the emotional labor that we documented and undocumented women do for you. Please rise for him 140, hail the glorious Golden City. We're not to sing Blue Boat home to that tune, I guess, but you can't really get going. Weekend. I think we should give women like four or five day weekends for International Women's Week. Do you know why we don't? Because nothing would work. We are not survival of the fittest, but survival of the nurtured. Those are the words of attachment scientist Louise Cosolino that came to me by way of Tara Brock. We are not survival of the fittest, but survival of the nurtured. If you just want to tune out now and just contemplate that for the rest of my sermon, I understand. Of course, survival of the fittest is still true. It's just that fitness for humans most often means those who are part of a nurturing, supportive community. We are raised in community, we succeed in community, and we fail in community. Humans, all humans, even the most sociopathic, have a drive to connect. That's who we are. When Arlie Russell Hochschild wrote the Managed Heart Commercialization of Human Filling, thanks to my wife for telling me how to pronounce her last name, Hochschild, in 1983 she gave new and powerful words, she hates being called wife. My partner gave me those words. Sorry, I'll hear about that later. Hochschild gave new and powerful words to an alarming trend. In the years leading up to the publication of her book, she delved deeply into the lives behind one of the most iconic faces of modern life, the flight attendant. For most of human history, we kept close in tribes and complex networks of interdependence developed. Now globalization has fundamentally distorted our understanding of what constitutes a member of our human family. Building on the work of Russo, Hochschild was intensely interested in how personality had become a form of capital in this post-modern world. A whole set of human behaviors that were once a privately negotiated rule of feeling or display is now set by the company's standard practices division. In her research, Hochschild detailed not just how flight attendants were instructed to behave, to succeed at their jobs, how to smile, how to compromise, how to accommodate. They were actually instructed how to feel. They were taught that to be successful, they had to view the airplane cabin as their living room. And all the passengers is invited and highly valued guests, worthy of all the accommodations of behavior and desire that a good hostess would make. For this work of intentionally managing your own feelings to accommodate for the feelings of others, Hochschild coined the term emotional labor. Any functioning society, Hochschild reminds us, makes effective use of its members emotional labor. We do not think twice about the use of feeling in the theater or in psychotherapy or in forms of group life that we admire. It is when we come to speak of the exploitation of the bottom by the top in any society that we become more morally concerned. But who is it that does the bulk of emotional labor and is thus far more likely to have their emotional labor exploited, both at work and at home? Women. Both men and women do emotion work, writes Hochschild, in private life and at work in all kinds of ways. Men as well as women get into the spirit of the party, try to escape the grip of hopeless love, try to pull themselves out of depression, try to allow grief. But in the whole realm of emotional experience is emotion work as important for men as it is for women. And this is important in the same ways. I believe the answer to both is no. This of course isn't accidental. Men have been exploiting the emotional labor of women as far back as I can remember and read about. But the rapid expansion of both the commercial exploitation of this labor and the global reach of those in the position to most benefit from this exploitation has dramatically increased the immorality of the system. When Hochschild wrote Managed Heart in the 80s, she believed that those for our society most relied on for emotional labor were middle class women. But her continued research into the rapid globalization of the service industry led her to write further texts such as her essay Love and God, Gold. Arguing that women of the global south and the American lower class are increasingly being pulled into or coerced into this system of exploitation as cheaper and cheaper emotional labor is sought. This imbalance has been so great, this imbalance has been great for ensuring profits and privilege but awful for pretty much everything else. Yes, we are survival of the nurtured. Men, especially white, middle and upper class men have made sure that they own the rights to the emotional labor of an increasingly large number of women in an attempt to guarantee their survival and the survival of their privileges. But as the motto for one of my favorite books that I've read this year, Station 11 states, survival is not enough. The cult of masculinity that has developed to perpetuate this system systematically denies men the experience of their own emotions and the value of their vulnerability, not as a byproduct of its worship of power and privilege, but as a direct support to its agenda of commercialization and exploitation of the emotional labor of others. This imbalance is not only deeply unfair to the women at burdens, but also incredibly destructive to the men who never learn how to properly control their emotions or perhaps even more importantly who have never learned how to nurture in a sustained and meaningful way. That nearly every mass shooting is carried out by men is not necessary to prove the brokenness of this system. There is more than sufficient evidence for that conclusion. But it does bring the life and death results of this system into stark relief. Combine that with the knowledge that nearly every teacher that was on strike before their victory in West Virginia was a woman and soon to go on strike in Oklahoma, we see a fantastically shameful example of how the exploitation of emotional labor combined with the cult of masculinity results in great violence and greater suffering. We should do whatever we can, of course, to pass gun control, but until we learn how to appreciate emotional labor and teach it to our young men, violence will not stop. This isn't a problem in unitarian universalism, right? While combating sexism has long been a stated priority of UUs everywhere, progress has been very shaky. And I think the topic of emotional labor helps to really illustrate how a consistent uniform inequality continues to exist within the walls of this church. I know I bring this up in every sermon, but it's my favorite UU talking point, and it's this. I think we can all acknowledge that our denomination has led the way in transforming an organization that was almost exclusively led by men as little as 45 years ago into an organization where the majority of pastors are women. And with the service of Interim Co-President Reverend Sophia Bettencourt and now President Reverend Susan Frederick Gray, we are the only sizable denomination that I could find that has had more than one female president. I would be much more comfortable to be frank if that number were higher than two, and if that 55% of pastors was more like 75%, because I still think we have a lot to learn about truly hearing women's voices and allowing for women to shape these offices away from traditional patriarchal images of leadership. When it comes to the leadership of women, this congregation is no exception. Our members have benefited from the outstanding ministries of Reverend Kelly Crocker, Karen Gustafson, Mary Ann Macklin, Joni Armstrong, Ruth Gibson, Carol Taylor, and Colleen MacDonald, and recently by interns Sarah Goodman, Sasha Ostrom, and Julie Brock. And the executive leadership of Susan Koenig and Monica Nolan, and the board presidency of Susan Eskridge, Kathy Lucker, Vicki Jones, and Pat Anderson. Luca. Luca. Sorry. I'm sorry. While I am sure that each one of these women could tell of many times when their leadership was undermined by the sexism of others, these women have led the charge in a progress towards a more equitable pulpit and administration. When women see, when woman ceases to appear on the stage in the role of the other person, argues Danish social theorist Suzanne Broger, but instead steps aside and says I am, cracks appear in the patriarchal armor. For those who have tried it and not died of it, there is no going back. This is not a zero-sum game. Men are doing just fine in the ministry. But as we've diversified our leadership, our support system remains inexcusably gendered. Part of that gendering is that, as you can read in this month's newsletter, we, one of the largest and most stable UU congregations in the country, have consistently failed to receive enough pledges to compensate our mostly female staff at anything near the UUA recommended guidelines. We are more than $100,000 short of that goal. How we compensate all the caregivers and emotional laborers in our lives merits deep consideration. Our volunteer system isn't doing much better. Go to any social justice meeting in this building. I'm not talking about chalice groups, meditation groups as important as those are. Go to any social justice meeting in this building. You will see it being run and attended primarily by women. Go to our website and on the homepage. You will see three main pictures. One is this atrium auditorium when it is empty, which in its emptiness is perfectly gender-balanced. Is it a masculine auditorium? I'm not going to get into that. You can also see a picture of a full landmark auditorium, which also appears in its fullness to be fairly balanced, probably 60 to 65% female. Then you see our Black Lives Matter weekend action from last year, and there is not a man in sight. Women who are retired, women with jobs, women with kids and without are doing the daily labor that gives this place any right to call itself a social justice congregation.  That's not to say that men aren't also making contributions. They are. Every man that makes coffee, every man that joins the knitting group, every man that plants the details, plants the garden and picks up the compost I salute you. Yes, okay, you're just doing the work that women have been doing forever, but you're doing it when the other men aren't. And that means that you've been thinking and feeling and changing. Now maybe we could find some programs that directly appeal to male interests, to get men to show up more often and get a bowling team together or something. But when we can get men to show up for social justice, at the heart of what it means, at the heart of what it means to be a UU, we need to ask ourselves, is it the programs or is it the men? We are about to enter into a time of stress and growth for our church. My fear for this congregation is that when this gap opens, only women will step up to fill the void, overburdening the already overburdened. I know it might be a hazy line between social, between school violence and showing up for social justice events, but I believe the common connection of fear of vulnerability and disconnection from emotions tie those two together in a direct connection, a connection that must not be ignored. One of the reasons for the hope that is within me on this issue is that it seems like the generation coming up is getting pretty sick of this paradigm. When you look at the students from Parkland organizing, when you go to a Black Lives Matter organizing meeting, you'll see that the gender balances are shifting. Women are in charge, men are supporting. Not all the way, but they are shifting. We have today some very fine students from West High School tabling in in the atrium, in the commons. They're fantastic to talk to. I'm very grateful that they stayed for the second service. Go talk to them, listen to them, see what you can do to support their walk out this week in protest of gun violence. The generation that is coming up is also much more aware of the flexibility inherent in our human-gender spectrum and sexual identities. I know I've had a lot of man and woman talk today, and I think that's partly because I myself am still caught up in the old ways of thinking. It's essential that we recognize how this man versus woman problem exists, partly because we allow so much of our society to be shaped in exactly those terms. According to a recent study by the J. Walter Thompson Innovation Group of 13 to 20-year-olds, less than 50% of them identify as completely heterosexual, as opposed to 65% of my millennials. 56% said that they knew someone that used gender-neutral pronouns compared to 40% of people my age. They, them, Z, or others. And 70% said that they support providing consistent access to gender-neutral restrooms. Now, make no mistake. I take some emotional labor to do the work of living in a world where you can't assume the sexual or gender identities of anyone you meet. I take some emotional labor to work on learning people's preferred pronouns. But it is nothing compared to the emotional labor. It is nothing compared to the emotional labor that we have foisted on queer people who have to go through the world carefully guarding their true selves because they have no idea who they can trust. Any bit of the emotional labor that we can take on in meaningful and informed ways should be a welcome effort for anyone who cares about making this world a more nurturing place. That is why we are going to begin, as was announced in our newsletter, offering pronoun stickers for anyone, no matter their pronouns, if they wish, to put a sticker on their name tag. You'll find them today at the welcoming table after services. This is an increasingly common practice in queer-inclusive spaces, including already a few UU churches. It is a way to allow those who wish to invite others to do a little of the emotional labor of remaking the world to be a more inclusive space to do so. I know that I am not preaching to the choir here. I'm preaching to Amir. I'm not the most emotionally intelligent person around. I'm not usually great at sharing or opening up. One of the reasons I love this job is that it is one of those rare jobs where doing a significant amount of emotional labor is expected of the men that have traditionally filled the post. The only place growing up where I ever saw my dad get emotional or share his emotions was behind a pulpit, when he shared a brief glimpse into his spiritual life. Of course, these types of jobs are always better compensated in prestige and pay than similar posts held by women. But still, as I work here, I find myself often even less emotionally available at home. Shifting childcare burdens onto your partner while you struggle through writing a sermon on emotional labor that could properly be titled in Facebook and books my partner had me read is not going to do great things to your self-image. I can tell you that right now.  And that's one of the reasons why I'm so very glad to have the folks from Odyssey here today. Despite that, here I am preaching. Partly this is because, cynically enough, I believe that as a white man, some people will listen to me preaching better about the subject than they would a woman or a person of color. Now, I am a man. I like being a man. But, and this is the other part of why I'm preaching, I hate, I hate, I hate how masculinity, the cult of masculinity, has stripped us men of so many opportunities to practice emotional labor. Emotional labor is not a negative. In fact, it's quite the opposite. It is that our yin has become incredibly out of balance with our yang. And some people are cutting themselves in half so that some other people can have a boat. That's a reference to the giving trip. I know there are men and women and gender queer folks here today who need all the nurturing they can get just to survive. We welcome you. We bless you in your struggle. We support you. For the rest of us. Balance is the watchword. We are survival of the nurtured, yes. But we are also the thriving of the nurturer. What we have now is one group of people who do almost all of the work of nurturing but not being able to survive because their work is underappreciated and under compensated. And another group who is using all that nurturing to ensure their survival but are failing to thrive because they have never learned how to share anything back. I'm determined in my final months of this internship to help anyone interested in beginning to change the system. To find the resources and the companionship they need on this journey. So shoot me an email. Send me a call. You can tweet at me. I probably won't see it. And let's get this started. I am today with the words of Saljah Patel.  The adults living near the poverty line level are offered in the Odyssey Project a chance to start college for three for free through a six credit two semester evening course in South Madison introducing great works of literature, philosophy and history. Students improve their writing, reading and critical thinking skills, find a voice and obtain a new sense of hope. Graduates of the Odyssey Project have moved from homelessness to master's degrees, from incarceration to meaningful work in the community. Please be generous. You know we have work to do when there's no tissues of the pulpit. We're now going to have a very fine video from our annual campaign folks. Please enjoy. It's very nice. Thank you so much. Thank you. I feel like wherever I wherever I go Lorna would still find some way to be my internship advisor as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks If you have a deep scar that is a door, if you have an old story that is a door, if you love the sky and the water, so much you can almost not bear it, that is a door.  Go in peace and please enjoy the poster.


Do you want to get an insider look into my skincare routine and what I feel like is highly effective on this 53-year-old face? If you do, that's what we're covering today. Let's get into it right now. All right. So last video, I showed you this bag, this monster bag. This is the bag that I keep my skincare in. And yes, it's a huge bag. The reason that I keep my skincare in this is because it's so much easier for me to do skincare on my bed and my makeup on my bed because I have a hard time standing for very long because a few of you know I have POTS, which makes you feel very light-headed, dizzy, and sometimes you do pass out. So I do almost all of that kind of stuff on my bed. And having bags like this really helps me to achieve that. I will link the video where I talked about this bag and a few others that really are very convenient for me to be able to have everything together and to just put it on my bed and be able to do it. But I wanted to take a minute and just give you an inside look into what is in here. Did want to pan you out just a little bit to show you my top today. I usually try to do that and remember to do that. I love this top. It has this inset in it that's crocheted and the overlay goes all the way down. It's a very dark teal blue. Might look a little bit more blue on camera, but it is a very dark teal. And then of course, let me get you closer now. And of course, I tried to show you my earrings as well. I can link those today. I got them off of Amazon. I'll make sure that I link them for you. And my finger nail polish I can link as well. Okay. Now that that's out of the way, let's talk a little bit of skincare. I'm just going to go through this in the order of what I actually put on my face. So let's start with morning. In the morning, I'm going to use just a regular washcloth with warm water. And I've been using the Sarah Vital Comfort Bead Cleanser all in one daily face wash to cleanse, refine, and nourish, mature skin. It says it has vitamin E, hyaluronic acid, and exfoliating jojoba beads. So I've been using this and I do like it very much. I was sent this by the way. This is one that I really feel does help to just get any dead skin off or any dirt or anything that you've gotten on your face through the night. I mean, we sleep for what, eight to 10 hours.  So I just use a washcloth and that to take that off. And the washcloth does help to do some exfoliating as well. So I do a little bit of polishing and buffing with that. Now at this point, I add a little bit of extra water or moisture. You can splash your face with water, doesn't cost you anything. Right now, I'm trying this Mario Badescu Skincare Facial Spray with aloe, adaptogens, and coconut water, and I've been using that as the extra moisture or spraying it to get all of that extra water added to the skin so that the skin can start to get plumped up. Now if you have an allergy to coconut, make sure that you skip this. A lot of people, they can eat coconut, but they have a very strong allergy to coconut on their face. My mother is one of them, so she has to be really careful. The next thing that I do is this toner, which I have talked about probably since the dawn of the toner. This is from Good Molecules. It's the Niacinamide Brightening Toner. This has, it says, formulated with Niacinamide, Vitamin C, Arbutin, and Licorice root to brighten and improve the appearance of enlarged pores. This is amazing. I have talked about this all the time. This is the best brightener that I have had and the best sweep for your pores. If you have clogged pores, you're going to want to get some Niacinamide somewhere in your routine. Niacinamide just goes in and it just completely takes any gunk, any sebum, dirt, anything like that out of your pores. So this is so wonderful. And all those other ingredients, Vitamin C, Arbutin, and Licorice root, those are all brightening ingredients. So your skin is going to look so much brighter and so much healthier. This is my second step. Well, third step, I love that stuff. Now, I do use the Grande Lash in the morning on my lashes. This was one that I got during the holidays. I'm not 100% sold on this because some days I'll use this and it will irritate my eyes and sting a little bit. Some days I'll use it and it will be fine. So I don't know, have you guys had that issue yourselves with this? I don't know if I'm exactly completely sold on this. I use a different one at night. Then, after I have done my niacinamide toner, I go in with the Sukoyakosu Hada Urea Lotion. Again, this is an essence. You're going to find that I don't use anything thick on my face in the morning before makeup and except for my SPF. And that is because I find that I do layer a lot on there. I want my skin to be super hydrated, super plumped up because all those lines are going to be plumped up and they're going to be so much less noticeable with your makeup on. If you do have super hydration, even if you're oily, you're going to want more hydration than you think you should. So this one, it's just water-like. I put it into my hands and then I pat it across my face. And then I'll go in with the eye cream from them. Sukoyakosu Hada Urea Eye Cream Disclaimer. I always have to say this at this point. Urea, yes, is a byproduct of urine. However, that is not in these products. Urea that they put in here is made in a lab to mimic that. And the reason being is two-fold, Urea is antimicrobial, which means that it can help with acne. It also has a property of being able to exfoliate, which is huge in my opinion. Because this, we could put right up underneath our eyes, super soothing. But you get that minute amount of exfoliating that you could never do up underneath your eyes.  It's too irritating. You can't use one of the really AHA, BHA ones. It's just too irritating. So this has been my RitterDye Holy Grail. There's three products from them. I have all three. I love them. I forgot to tell you that right after I cleanse my skin and I don't have any of the other products on yet, I do use the ordinary glycolic acid 7%. This is my new one. I just got it again. I've gone through so many of these. This to me isn't irritating. I have used a lot of other glycolic acids that can be very irritating on my skin, but this one doesn't seem to be. And as I get into menopause more and more, it seems that I have a lot more irritation. So I'll use this maybe two to three times a week. And this is an extra boost for exfoliating as well. Once I have my eye cream on and the urea lotion on, I will go in with my very favorite Tinted SPF. This is a moisturizer from Dermatology. And it is an SPF of 46. This has fantastic ingredients in it. It has niacinamide in it. I've never had any problems with this. This has that little tiny bit of tint in it. If you've never seen it before, it just looks a little bit tinted, but it doesn't really give you any sort of coverage or anything like that. It just sinks really quickly into the skin. And I love this because you're getting your moisturizer, you're getting your SPF, and you're getting a little bit of good skincare. So this is one that I have bought over and over and over again, just because it plays so well underneath makeup. And I love it. All right, switching gears over to nighttime. At night, I switch things up and I go in all different directions. And you're going to think I'm crazy, but I'm going to start out with what I do first. And then I'll tell you the variations of them. I first go in with a cleansing balm right now. I'm trying the Neutrogena Makeup Remover Cleansing Balm. Melting Balm. I like this very much. It is a lot like the good molecules. I think I might like the good molecules one just a little bit more, but it takes off any eye makeup, any waterproof makeup, anything you have just completely comes off. It's very slick about that. And then I was also sent this cleanser from Kate Somerville and it's called ExfoliCake Cleanser Daily Foaming Wash. I don't find that this is very foaming really. I mean, I guess if I, you know, worked it through with some water, it would be more foaming. But I just use it to take any residuals of the balm off because I want my skin to be squeaky clean so that it can be ready to accept any serums that I'm going to put on it. Now on an average night, so this would be like probably four days a week. I next go in with my very favorite serum of all time because this is a dupe for Lancome Genifique and it's a dupe for Estee Lauder Night Repair. And this is the Krannis Cell Bifida Complex Repair. And I'll go ahead and I'll read this to you as well. It says, gives vitality to your skin, enhance skin protective, enhance moisture supply, whitening and wrinkle improvement. Excuse me. Now this has not only Bifida, but it has galactomyces in it and it has the vitamin C in it. It is just chock full of everything you need to help wrinkles and brightness and dark spots and all of those things. I go through a bottle of this maybe every two to three months. I love it because it is a fraction of the cost of those other high end skincare products. And it has a ton more Bifida in it, like something 60% or something. Whereas Genifique and Estee Lauder Night Repair, they have something like between 10 and 15%. So you're getting a huge powerful punch here with this one. I mentioned an eyelash serum, but this is my Ryder Die eyelash serum. This is from Xlash. This is what I have used for years and years. This is the double size tube that will last me anywhere from five to six months. So even though this is about $66, I believe it is, when you break it down to compare to the other ones, it is about the same cost, maybe even a little bit more cost effective. And this makes my eyelashes grow like crazy. When I was sent this originally, I think it was six years ago, they originally sent me a tube to try. And I tried it and the first two weeks I was like, are my eyelashes getting a little bit longer and thicker? And I couldn't really tell. By six weeks, I was like, this is darn amazing. And by three months, my eyelashes were fantastic. I wasn't even ever thinking again about using false lashes. So that was six years ago, and I've been through tube after tube after tube of this. And during the pandemic, when you couldn't get anything from overseas and whatnot, I was in a panic about this. I really, really missed using this. Such a good lash serum. I cannot be without that. I also skipped something else that I shouldn't have skipped. If you guys have not seen these, this is just like the makeup eraser, except for super inexpensive. You can get these off of Amazon.  They come in off different colors. I have one in my lap that's really dirty because I do my makeup with these in my lap. But this will take off your makeup so slick. If you have a problem with not being able to get off your eye makeup, this is your new best friend. I'll make sure that I link that as well. After I put that serum on, I'm going to go in with one of my new favorites. This is something that I was so happy to find because I really liked the Ordinary's Buffet with copper peptides. But I was finding that. I felt like I was going through that bottle really quickly and I didn't know when to use it. And I was just kind of confused about all the things because they say that copper peptides don't act well with a lot of things. Well, I found this DNA code. It says, for all skin types, copper peptides daily firming cream. This has Argyraline and Magtrixyl 3000, SNAP8, I'm not sure what that is. Hyaluronic acid, Pentrapeptide 18, and it goes on and it has like SYN-A-K-E, SYN-C-O-L-L, SYN-Tax. It has so many yummy, good ingredients. Okay. So four nights a week, I'm going to use the Prana Cell and then I'm going to use this cream on top of it. And I love it. It is, it has been brightening my skin. I feel like it's just helping my wrinkles so much. I really do like that.  This is the actual cream. This is very thick.  I don't think you could ever shake that out if you tried. It is really thick. It's just this side of Vaseline. And I love it because when I wake up in the morning, my forehead and around my eyes are like the Sahara. But if I slather this on at night and I put it all over, it's going to feel sticky. You're going to feel like you're sticking to your pillow. I get it. I know it's not the greatest feeling. But if I put it in a thin layer across the rest of my face, but slather it around my eyes and over my forehead, this will still be tacky in the morning.  And that's the reason that I use it. But again, I want to tell you, this is super sticky. It feels sticky, but it is so hydrating. It is beyond any hydrating, anything that I've ever been able to find. And between those three products, I feel like my skin is so hydrated and it's plumped up and it's beautiful for actually putting makeup on. So that would be a typical four nights a week. Now I can hear all of you going, where's the retinol? Where's the retinol? Well, let me tell you something. Recently, I have been really kind of hitting my skin a little bit harder with the retinol. And I've been using a few products that I was sent and then a couple of products that I actually bought myself. So this is Prescript Skin Retinol Toner. So this I will use on some nights. And then I will go in with this La Roche Posay. This is the Redermic R. This is the Inta Aging Treatment Intensive. That's the tube of it. And then they also sent me the Redermic's Retinol Eye Cream. So I have both of these and I will use this with it. This is like a triple punch of retinols that is really good, but it doesn't irritate. And that's why I love using them together. Maybe once or twice a week. I'll use all of these together. Right after I cleanse, I'll use the toner. Then I'll use these. And then I'll go in as a last step with this Sukoyaka Suhada Cream in order for the moisture to be held in tight. I feel like I've finally gotten this routine down. Even though there's a lot of products here, I don't use them every single night. I'm switching off. And you don't need to use all these all the time. You don't even need to have all of them. You can just use one or two or whatever you feel like. Really works for you. Okay, I got into the routine of doing this two nights a week. And that is, first of all, five drops of this City Beauty Ultra-Firming Dry Oil for your neck and your decollete. And then this one is from The Ordinary. It's Ethylated Ascorbic Acid 15% Solution. This is in oil. This is a vitamin C. And then I was using, I'm using The Ordinary's Grenactive Retinoid 5% in Squelain Oil. So I do five drops of each of these. And then I put them all over, let them sit. And then I go in with this on my eyes and on my forehead to keep the moisture locked in. That's one night a week. I only do this one night a week because if I do this more than one night a week, I'm going to notice a lot of irritation. Now, for the heavy-duty retinol or for the heavy-duty retinol that everybody talks about, I was getting, I was on the 1% of the retinol tube. That is the prescription, 0.1%, yes. And it was causing me so much irritation, seemed like once I got into menopause, I was just having the hardest time with it. And I was all the time, even though I kept it way away from my eyes, my eyes were burning, I was having a super hard time with it. So my good friend Sherry from Graceful Beauty, if any of you watch her, she's a skincare fanatic and her skin looks phenomenal. So she talked about this from Truth Treatments. This is the regenerating 5% retinol gel.  She doesn't use that anymore. So this is not inexpensive. This is very expensive jar. I will just tell you that up front. This is an investment into your skin. But I have had this for probably, I've probably had this for almost six months and there's a little bit of a divot in there, but not a lot. And I'll tell you why. On the nights that I use this, I will go in with my cranae cell. I will let that completely dry down. I don't want it to be tacky. I want it to be completely dry. Then I'll go in with my Sukoyaku Suhada cream. And I will put a thin layer of this on.  And I don't use very much.  The reason is, is because this is so potent. And if you're just starting out, please, I beg of you to start out with the 1% instead of this 5% because I was a mess. I mean, my skin, this works so strong. And my skin was just, it was doing exactly what it's supposed to, is that extreme turnover of your skin, building collagen and all of that. But I was using it every other night and I was killing my skin, my skin hurt to the point to where I couldn't put anything on it for days at a time.  She's like, that stuff is so potent. You need to step down to 1% or try putting on the cream first and then putting on a super light layer. That's what I do. And I'll tell you what, I only use this every 10 days approximately, maybe every two weeks. I don't use this once a week. I don't use it every day. I don't use it every few days, only occasionally. And my skin loves it. Absolutely loves this. I feel like Sherri does in that, yes, it's a huge investment. Yes, it does cost a lot. But wow, I feel like I bumped up into a different category with my skincare. I am not discounting tretinoin or Retin-A. I think that it's fantastic. It is that prescription. It is what most people need. I just couldn't use it anymore because it was too much for my skin. Now, I might have been able to only use it once or twice a week or whatever, and it not been as bad as it was because honestly, I'd used it for years and I'd used it every other night and I'd never had any problem with the prescription. But when I went into menopause, began to have a problem. So this has replaced it and I love it and I could not sing its praises more. But I have one more thing to tell you. It is so important as a mature aging woman to do some sort of a chemical exfoliant on your skin. We have something like 15 to 18 dead layers of skin on the top of our skin. So we need that pretty baby skin to poke through in order for our skin to look good. A couple of my favorites are the ordinaries AHA, BHA. I have to be really careful with that because it will make my skin very sensitive if I do it for the full 20 minutes. I can do that one for between five and 10 minutes. Then I have to rinse it off. I also have the City Beauty Dermal Reset Exfoliating Concentrate. This is my favorite one because I can put this on overnight.  I feel like it sloughs off very slowly and I really like this one. Now this one I did get sent very recently and I'm still testing out. But I do think this is a really great gentle product. If you're somebody that has problems with your skin being very sensitive, it's the Bare Minerals Ageless Fido AHA Radiance Facial.  This is really, really gentle and I really like that about it. So I can use this as often as I want to. If I want to use it every day I can. I usually use it a couple of times a week. So I know that was a lot to take in. Down below what I'll do is I will put the order of everything that I use and I'll also put whether it's morning or whether it's nighttime. And like I said, I don't use all of these products every single day. I switch off a lot. This is a skincare routine of somebody that does this for a living. You don't need all of this. If you want to go bare bones, do Cleanser Serum Moisturizer SPF in the morning. That's all you need. At night, clean off your makeup and do a serum. Do a Retin A, Retinol, whatever you want to do and a moisturizer. That's it. So if you really wanted to get down to bare bones, you could.  I know a lot of you have said recently that you feel like I'm aging backwards. Well, I took the plunge and I finally did Botox right here. And so I've got Botox in between my 11s right here. They were getting so deep and I was so self-conscious about it, especially being on camera here. And I know that that might upset some of you and I apologize if it does. I try to stay as real as I possibly can. There's nothing else going on around in this area over here and on my neck and everything. I've not had any work done. I've not had an eye lift or anything like that. I just have gotten some Botox in this area to be able to help those 11s.  When we get to a certain age, we have those things that we battle. I mean, my 11s were from frowning for years and years. I mean, I've been through a lot of trauma through my life. And so I earned my frown lines, but I didn't like them very much. So those are gone. And that is one reason I think that you feel like my skin is so much smoother now. It's that whole area right there that I got some Botox in. And I really love the results of it. And I'm really happy with that. I did it. And like I said, again, I apologize if that upsets any of you. I feel like the skincare is every bit as effective as it ever has been. Go back to some of my videos a year ago. I only started Botox about four or five months ago. Some of those videos back then, you were even seeing how great my skincare was doing. And I really believe it's some of these things that I changed up and that I did differently. And they're still helping so much, especially with the firmness of my skin. That's not something you can do unless you get fillers. I'm not going to get fillers, by the way. So I hope that you did enjoy this. If there are any skincare items that you can't be without that you feel like have really affected a great change in your skin, please let us know in the comment section. Please be kind in the comment section about the Botox. If you would, I understand that we have differing opinions, but I still feel like even though those opinions may be different, may differ. That we can be very respectful in the way that we deliver them. I hope that you do have a wonderful week or weekend wherever this video may hit you. I love you all so very much. Please take care of yourselves. Let's all meet back here in my next video, right here on my channel. Take care of yourselves. Goodbye, my friends.


125 million. That's how many Nintendo Switch consoles have been sold. So it stands to reason that 125 million Joy-Cons have been sold alongside that. There's a good chance that you watching this right now have a pair of Joy-Cons in your house. And there's also a good chance that you never noticed this little black bar at the bottom of the Joy-Con. What if I told you it's an IR reader that'll make unique new ways of playing games possible? This will make unique new control styles possible. The Switch has over 15,000 games in its library right now. So do you want to take a guess on how many of them use the IR reader? If you guessed 30, you were correct. Only 30 games in the entire library uses something that comes stock standard with every controller. And if you're thinking to yourself, wow, 30 games, that really isn't many. What if I told you I was lying? It's 11. So I think what I have to do now is obvious. I'm going to play every game that uses this camera. Funny enough, I'd already played a few of these games. The first one being Ring Fit. After every level you play, the game prompts you to check your heart rate with the bottom of the Joy-Con. This was just the start of me realizing how unique and how many different ways to play the IR reader really does give you. Because no two games use this thing the same way. But how accurate is it at checking a human pulse? Only one way to find out.  And then I'm going to measure my heart rate using the IR reader. But I also bought this professional grade heart rate monitor. So we're going to see how close the IR reader actually is to a real accurate reading. Let's go, let's get this heart rate up. I hope this level isn't too long. Wait, am I going, am I about to swim? Wait, that's the whole level? Okay, I'd be really annoyed if I was trying to work out right now. All right, we're starting again. Oh, so now it should ask for my heart rate. Yeah, check your pulse. I'm going to put this on this hand and then do this on this hand. So that says my heart rate is 129, just dropped to 128. That says my heart rate's 134. I mean, obviously the more accurate actually designed to do this job device is going to be the better one, but that's close enough, baby. It was in the ballpark. I was actually pretty impressed by the IR motion camera reader in Ring Fit, but we were only just beginning. This next game, I had never heard of this before and it makes zero sense to me. It's called Identify My Dinner. The game claims that if you hold the IR reader next to any plate of food, it'll tell you exactly what's on the plate. There is absolutely no way this works, but I have prepared a plate of food, so I'm going to try it right now. Okay, here we go. It's scanning, it's reading, match found. Wait, that actually worked. How is that so specific? How is that even possible? How did it know I was sponsored by Factor? Because I'm watching you at all times, Wood, I'm your biggest fan. Thank you. Thank you. You are welcome. Let me tell you a little something about Factor. I use it every single week. If you're too busy this fall to cook, but want to make sure that you're still eating well, with Factor, you can skip the trip to the grocery store because they'll deliver these meals, fresh, never frozen, chef-prepared meals that are dietitian-approved, straight to your doorstep. I also have never had their cold-pressed juices before. This one's apple, kale, and wheatgrass. Yeah, it's actually better than I expected when I heard wheatgrass. I like this. Factor's meals are ready in just two minutes. I can't hold this microphone and eat this. There are over 34 weekly flavor-packed meals. They have keto, chefs, choice, calorie smart, vegan and veggie options. I always go for calorie smart because they're like all the 500 calories for the entire plate of food. It's so good, but it's easy to keep track of my calories. I'm not even kidding. This is, I think, the best one. This is not a bit. I think this is the best one I've ever had. Head to Factor75.com or click the link below and use code beatemups50 to get 50% off your first box. I can't wait to try more of these juices. I wonder if the IR reader will detect the juice. Match found. This game isn't real. I made this one up. You want to see a real one? Let's get to it. Because next was Resident Evil Revelations 1. Apparently you can use it to reload your gun. The game never tells you that you can do it this way, which is wild to me because it's one of the 11 games that use it and it's almost like they were trying to hide the fact that it even exists. So you're supposed to be able to shoot a reload. That's actually sick. How quick can I do that? Yeah, it's super quick and responsive. Ooh, that one didn't work. Did you catch that? Oh, I'm out of bullets. Okay, well I'll give it a pass. What, two for two? Both of these uses of the IR reader worked great. I'm sure it can only get better from here. It doesn't, spy alarm. The idea I suppose is that you would set this up at night and point the joy con in the doorway and then if someone tries to break in and get ya, they would set off the alarm and let everybody know that there's an intruder, couple of small gripes. The switch needs to be on the entire time. You can't lock it or else it stops working. So I think the only way of actually testing if this thing is going to save my life in a perilous situation is to recreate that exact event. Okay, so here's the plan. I have a spy alarm over there.  And if you can beat the spy alarm, you win. You're gonna look the part, the burglar. And I had a black burglar mask and I lost it. So here's a good green one. I need you to go around this corner. I'm gonna set this up, activate. The device is on. You gotta get me.  I'm actually getting really scared. Okay.  It doesn't work the best. All right, let's try. Now it did. Yeah, cause I walked fast. I went like this the whole time. Oh, this time let's assume the burglar is in a cartoon character from the 15th. Ow. This thing is not working. I literally think it only has a distance of being able to pick things up of about like... Oh, it's not activated that time.  Activate your alarm if you don't want to get caught. I'm gonna...  Well, notice self, don't use this as a home alarm system. And that's what I would look like if I ever tried using this thing to arm my house. Dead. That didn't work. We're two for three. I mean, it was shovelware. What did you expect? Did you know? Because I certainly didn't. Ninjala uses the IR reader. It's a free to play Nintendo Switch exclusive game. It reminds me of Splatoon and its vibes.  That's a bad review. I probably have a better video of that on my channel. It really doesn't matter though, because you don't use the IR reader in the game. You use it as a QR scanner on Ninjala trading cards that give you in-game items and cosmetics. Oh, huh? Sadly though, they don't make these Ninjala trading cards anymore. And I don't think they even ever released outside of Japan. I tried to find some online, but 10 packs cost $50. Yeah, I'm not going to do that just for a silly video on YouTube. Is what I would say if I didn't already do that. I spent $50 on this. I'm gonna try and open it as carefully as possible. Whoa, look at that. It was horrible. I'm just tearing money. Oh, yo, these cards are actually kind of sick though. So I got a Trickball Red and then a Scrapsaber Super Robot. I wonder if you get what's on the cards or if it's totally random. All right, I think it was in settings, Ninjala code. This is a whole new use for the IR reader. Scanning code cards. All right, let's start with the non-gold. I don't know how to hold it. Do I get closer maybe? Oh yeah, I see it. Oh, it worked. Card successfully read beginning gum break challenge. Oh wait, no, I gotta do something. Break the gum with perfect timing. Oh, what? Okay, all right, that was easy, clear. You got 500 bonus tier points. I mean, that's kind of fun. You actually get to play a little mini game to kind of win your item. All right, let's go see what I got from those two. Oh yeah, gum break challenge reward. Scrap gum, Super Robot. Yeah, I do get what I pull, equipment. Yeah, there it is. That's it. I don't know if it's like rare or that has good stats or anything. I'm not really a ninja guy, but that's cool. I actually really like these cards and I'm gonna keep them and find a way to display them or just keep them safe. I really wish more games had utilized the camera in this way. I know we have amiibos where you can scan in these figures to get in-game rewards, but why not get more trading cards that you can scan in rewards for? But alas, I don't think Nintendo really cares for the IR reader, which is wild to me. They seem to care about it so much. They thought it was so cool and they barely even gave it a chance. Maybe that was because of One 2 Switch. One 2 Switch had a plethora of mini games, each less fun than the last, but the one that we're gonna be looking at is the only one that uses the IR reader and that Subway Munchin' Stuff. That's what I'm calling it. I actually have good memories of this one. Kim and I had just really started dating when the Switch came out and I remember playing this exact sandwich eating IR game with her pop and Kim and me and it's one of my most fondest memories of just the three of us being goofy and blah, blah, blah. But since that memory is only up here and can't be visualized on camera, Kim and I are gonna have to redo it. Oh, Kim! I know what we're doing. What do you mean? I have no idea what this is. You didn't tell me what it is. Oh, it's One 2 Switch. You remember that guy? Oh God, no. Are you ready? Never, but go on. This is the best use of this they ever did. There you go. Oh, it's not going. What the heck? Seven and a quarter.  Oh my God.  You're doing it with no teeth. You're like a grandma that lost her dentures. Bye. How was that? Horrible. I don't think this one works very well. It doesn't seem to be super receptive and picking up every munch and crunch. I think One 2 Switch is what scared Nintendo away from ever using the IR reader again. Thankfully, there are some other companies picking up that slack though because next we have Night Vision. It's another shovelware game just like Spy Alarm, but this time it lets you see in the dark. Although not really though. So clearly, oh, sorry. Hold on, let me talk into the camera. Clearly, for Night Vision, there's only one way to test it. It is very dark in here. I can't see much of anything. I'm gonna see if I can find Darla in the dark. Okay, so here she is. All right, Darla, I need you to hide. I'm gonna stand over here in this corner and count to 10 and then see if I can, well, you have to hide. I can find you too easy if you're here. 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four. I know you're right behind me.  That test might not work. It is kinda cool though. There's my table leg. I can kinda read in the dark, not very well. Oh, that says doom. Game of subs, use code, beat them up. Okay, that's horrible. You can't see that at all. The reflection is ruining that. This one's kind of a dud, but it was so kinda cool. If I was a kid and I had a Switch and I could kinda see in the dark, I could see myself having some semblance of fun. I'm not a kid though. I'm almost 33. I kinda feel like that money could have been spent on a coffee. Moving on. Game that uses the IR motion camera more than any other game is Nintendo Labo. When I built it way back when the game came out, there's a little remote controlled car. And not only does it use the HD rumble to steer, it uses the IR motion camera as a camera that you see on the Switch while you're steering. But also, Labo has a whole creator tech thing side of it where you could make your own games. If you want an example of this, I found a video online of someone who is very smart. He built Luigi's poltergeist vacuum cleaner. The IR motion camera is at the top of the vacuum cleaner. And when he points it towards the ghosts around his house that he made, it detects them and gives him points. I mean, that is brilliant. Sadly, I've told this story a bunch. My house flooded and all my labor was on the floor. And as cardboard do when it gets wet, everything's gone. There's about two seconds of footage of this remote control car in a video that I made from back then. So rather than me going online and buying another Labo kit, I guess that footage is just gonna have to do for now. Is what I would say if I didn't spend $100 on more labor. If you thought this overpriced cardboard was expensive before, now you can't seem to get it anymore and it's double the price. Yay. Oops, oh, oops. I just poked out a pot. That's for you guys, I guess. All right, let's get to work. There we go. Now this, I remember really, really impressed me. Hey, look at him go. I'm gonna drive him towards you guys. It's so loud. We haven't even got to the IR reader, which is here now. It's in the middle of the screen and it's a camera. It feels like they're pushing this camera to the limits with just cranking up the brightness so you can actually see ahead of you. This I never actually did, but can it detect these things? No way. Wait, wait, wait. I had no idea it could do this. It follows the thing. What the heck? I feel like every time I try out a new thing with this IR reader, I am floored by how cool it is and the weird and wonderful things that it can do. Okay, yeah, labor was great and all that, but have you heard of Game Builder Garage? Nintendo has a fixation on releasing video games that we just have to make ourselves. Labo, Game Builder Garage, Mario Maker. I think Nintendo's at the point where they've made so many games, they just would rather we do it. This game is complicated as a hell. I'm having an easier time learning Japanese, although emoshiroides, it's interesting.  Well, it's more like GDA 1. Doom Eternal is on here as well, which, dare I say, even better than the actual port of Doom Eternal. This was actually one of the better ones that I found.  Well, guess again? Jesus.  Oh, and Nintendo's.  Hot-tah-de-sute-iku-zuka-maru. Ooh, camera. I have no idea what the rest says, but that last bit says Kamara. None of these use the IR reader. I was trying to find something that did and I couldn't. So we're just gonna have to make our own. So I made a level and here's what it is. It's my VitaMubs logo with a little man. I've set it to the IR reader. So when it detects just any kind of motion, the guy will jump. And the idea is you have to get from one side of the logo to the other without touching the imaginary hot lava. Yeah, look, it's not fun, but neither's Fallout 76.  Game Builder Garage is one of the two games that doesn't really use the IR reader. It just allows you to access it. And another one of those is Smile Basic 4. I know, huh? I'd never heard of this either, but it looks like an actual programming tool on the Switch. It gives me a headache even looking at it, but look at it, we're gonna have to. Because I wanna try and find a game on here that someone has made that uses the IR reader. But there is hundreds of created games on here. And I have no idea which ones use the IR reader. There's also, as far as I can see, no search option in here. So I'm just gonna have to start downloading things at random, HD Rumble Test. The HD Rumble is so precise, they can actually play music. Right now my Joy-Cons are playing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. That was so much fun. It almost takes the sting out of the fact that apparently I can only download one thing a day and I wasted it on Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. It won't let me download any other games unless I buy the server ticket. It's a one-time purchase and apparently it lets me download unlimited amounts. Fire things the way they are sometimes. I'm not gonna lie to you guys, I've been scrolling for about 30 minutes and I don't see anything that looks like it might use the IR reader. Oh wait, what's, wait, I can't search specifically, but I can search by genre and tools is a genre. Sure enough, someone has made their own heart monitor. Yeah, akin to the Ring Fit, which is good.  Okay, according to this, which I'm sure I can trust, I'm not gonna die now. Anyway, that simple basic four and also $30 that I'll never get back again. Yeah, no, that last one definitely gave me a headache. I'm gonna need medicine or vitamins or something, which is lucky because the next game is called Vitamin Connection. This is the first game on the list that I had never heard of before, which is funny because it's developed by Way Forward who previously made 37 Shantae games. This one reminds me of Snipperclips in the way that it uses just all of the Joy-Con features. I thought I had to play through this whole game to unlock the one mini game that uses the IR reader. I was wrong. It was right there on the home screen the whole time I could have played it right from the start, but instead I slogged through an hour of Vitamin Connection to unlock the mini game. That shows how much I'm committed to making this video. Every single use of this reader has been so different, but in this one, you move it closer and further away from your hand to control a grabby hand that will move at the same rate on the screen to grab things. May a moto be damned? This actually works really well. I have absolutely no gameplay complaints with how this feels to control. The only thing preventing me from winning this mini game is the amount of enemies on screen and the fact that it just seems completely random and trying to find a gap in between any of this is different every time an impossible good luck speed running this one dream. Believe it or not, that's 10 games. Most of the IR capable library on the Switch is only one more brain training. My brain didn't hurt enough. Let's put it to the test with some math. Okay, there's a few different games here. There's quick brain age check, finger calculations and finger drills. Let's find out how well this game thinks I am. We're already going, I'm not ready. Try to lose. Okay, that's hard. Try to win, paper. No, it's gotta think I'm so old. Try to lose, paper. Try to win, rock. Try to lose, rock. It's gotta think I'm so dumb. Try to win, rock, rock. No, scissors. Okay, it definitely thinks I'm like 60. 20 is the best possible score. I'm really nervous. Oh, I'm not that old. No shot at 80-year-old is even figuring this out.  Finger calculations is the next one. Calculate the number of fingers using the hand sign zero to five as fast as you can. Four, five, four, two, three, two, three, four, three, four. Tell me my brain age now. Oh, I went at driving speed? I guess that's fast. All right, and then finger drills. Oh, okay. I mean, it might take practice to get good. You know what's really hard? Talking and doing it. Not bad, driving speed again. This 80-year-old has had enough of this for one day and that is all 11 games that use the IR readers. Okay, believe it or not, there was 11 IR games for Switch and there has been for the last couple of years and then we just had a Nintendo Direct. Nintendo themselves apparently remember this exists all of a sudden and added IR to Warrior Wear. I'm actually live on Twitch right now. Say hi, everybody. Say hi to YouTube. I'm gonna play the trumpet game right now on Twitch with all these fine people. I'm gonna see how that goes. As far as the Warrior Wear game, it looks like it's exactly the same as the brain training game where you hold up your fingers and do fingy stuff. That sounds wrong, but I've already done that in the brain training game and I don't wanna have to wait till November to release this video. So, can you just give me a pass on that one? Trumpet man.  Oh, like this. We're gonna pretend like I'm blowing. That does not look right. That does not, that does not. We are going to go this way for the purpose of recording. Okay. Okay. Okay, it kinda works. I'm actually impressed kind of. Nasty. It's saying nasty. Bum, bum. Oh, nasty. And, are you at a single point? That's impossible. Stars and stripes. Let's go right now. I'd like to report a moment. It's hard to explain because it's actually really precise. It's too smooth and it doesn't snap the way that it needs to to hit these notes. It is fun though and I'm really glad they included it as an option because it's goofy and it's hilarious. That's trombone champ. A late addition to this video. So what have I learned? Do I have the motion skills and the brain intelligence of an 80-year-old and I can barely do one level of ring fit without getting pooped? The IR reader was marketed as a unique device that was going to expand the way that we control video games and for the most part, it did that. It only did it 11 times but every time was certainly unique but almost every use of the IR reader had an easier and more accessible way of doing it instead. So while it is unique, it just doesn't make a lot of sense to implement it. I feel like I want this video to have a point or to mean something, you know? Like the IR reader was a metaphor for all of us all along. Sometimes it feels like we all have something that we don't use often but when we do, it's not good. I'm just mad that Nintendo got me to play one, two switch again.


Oh, welcome back to theCUBE here at AWS re-invent 22 as we continue our coverage here, the AWS global showcase, the startup showcase. John Wall is here hosting for theCUBE as we've been here all week. Hope you're enjoying our coverage here. This is day three by the way. We're wrapping it up shortly. With us to talk about what's going on in the kind of the hotel world in IT and what's going on in the cloud, especially at IHG is Eric Norman, Head of Infrastructure, Architecture and Innovation at IHG Hotels and Resorts. Eric, good to see you, sir. Oh, thank you and thank you for inviting me. You bet. Glad to have your board here on theCUBE. First time, I think, too, by the way, right? It is, and can I just to tell you who IHG is real quick? Yeah, one and a second. First of all, another guest I'm going to introduce too, Rod Stuhlmuller, who is the Vice President and of Solutions Marketing at Aviatrix. And Rod, good to see you, sir. Thanks a lot. Now let's talk about IHG if you will. Okay, well, great. Well, IHG is a hospitality company. It's been around for 200 years that has 17 brands globally in over 100 countries. We sleep up to 888,000 people a night. So it's a pretty large company that we compete with all the hotel companies globally. So let's talk about your footprint right now in terms of what your needs are, because you've mentioned, obviously you have a lot of customers' needs. You have a lot of internal stakeholder needs. So just from that perspective, how are you balancing out the products you want to launch as opposed to on the development side and the maintenance side? Yeah, I mean, we have focused our attention to our guests and our hotels globally and taking technology and from a foundation, getting it at the edge so that way the consumer and the hotel owner can deliver a quality product to a guest experience. We have moved a large deployment of our mission-critical applications over the last five years, really, of moving into more SaaS and infrastructure like AWS and GCP and leveraging their global scale to be able to deliver at the edge or get closer to the edge. And so I'm pretty sure you've seen people building mission-critical apps. Probably in the last three years, it's probably escalating and more of like a hockey stick of moving stuff. I'd love to hear what AVH is seeing. Oh yeah, no, we're seeing that quite a bit, right? As people move into the cloud, it's now business-critical applications that are going there. So good enough isn't good enough anymore. It has to be a powerful capability that's business-critical can support that, give people the ability to troubleshoot it when something goes wrong. And then multi-cloud. You mentioned a couple different cloud companies. A lot of enterprises are moving to multiple clouds and you don't want to have to do it differently in every cloud. You want an infrastructure management layer that allows you to do that across clouds. So how do you go about deciding what goes where? I mean, it sounds like a simple question, but if you are dealing in a lot of different kinds of environments, different needs, and different requirements, whatever, how are you sorting out delegating, you know, you're going to be working here, you're going to be working there. Yeah, so we built some standard space that says certain types of apps, transactional-based, going to go to this cloud provider and data analytics is going to go to another cloud provider based on our decision of key capability, native capability, and also coverage, because we're in China. Right. You know, I've got to be able to get into China and build not only a network that can support that, but also business apps locally to compete with compliance regulatory type activities. I mean, even in the U.S. market, I got California privacy laws. You know, you have globally, you've got to deal with getting data applications into compliance for those globally. Right. So you got that compliance slash governance issue, huge issue, I would think for you. We've got to decide who's going to get to what, when, and also we have to meet certain regulatory standards as you pointed out, and not just there, but you've got a European footprint, right?  So handling that kind of scope or scale, what kind of nightmares or challenges does that provide you and how's AVH helping you solve that? Yeah, in the early days, we were using cloud-native constructs for networking and a little bit of a security-type angle to it. What we found was, you can't get the automation you need, you can't get the scalability, because we're trying to shift, left our DevOps and our ability to deploy infrastructure. AVHRX had come in and provided a solution that gets us there quicker than anybody else. It's allowed us to build a mesh network across all our regions globally, able to deploy new landing zones or public cloud fairly quickly with my networking construct. We also, we found that because we are a multi-hybrid cloud, we introduced on the edge a new network. We had to introduce a performance hub architecture that's using Equinix that sits in every region and every public cloud and partner, because all our partners, we've moved a lot of stuff to SAS. Amadeus is our centralized reservation system, that's our key reservation tool. It's sourced out, I need to bring them in, and I need to get data that's closer to where, in a region, to where it needs to land so I can process it. Right, and it's a big world out there too.  Talk about, if you would, share some of the Aviatrix experience in that regard when you have a client like this that has these multinational locations and yet you're looking for some consistency and some uniformity. You can't be reinventing the wheel every time something pops up, right? Right, and it's about agility and speed and being able to do it with less people than you used to have to do things. You want to be able to give the developers what they need when they need it. There was a time when people were going around IT, swiping their credit card and saying, IT doesn't give me what I need, and so cloud is supposed to change that, so we're trying to deliver the ability to do that for the developers a lot faster than had been done in the past, but at the same time giving the enterprise the controls, the security, the compliance that they need, and sometimes those things got in the way, but now we're building systems that allow that to happen at the pace that developers needed to happen. What Rod said about, one of the big things, and you sparked my thinking, is it also, building a overlay of the cloud native construct allows for visibility that you didn't have from a developer or even a operations, day two operations, now you get that visibility into the network space and controls a management of that space a lot easier now. Yeah, I mean business critical applications, right? The people, the business does not care about networking. They see it as electricity, and if it's down, somebody else's problem to fix it, but the people who do need to keep it up, they need the telemetry, they need the ability to understand, are we trending in the wrong direction, should we be doing something so that we don't get to the point where it goes down, and that's the kind of information that we're providing in this multi-cloud environment. You mentioned Equinix, we just have a partnership with Equinix where we're extending the cloud operational model that AVATrix delivers all the way out to Equinix and that global fabric that you're talking about. So this is allowing the companies to have that visibility, that operational ability all the way globally. Yeah, because when you start building all these clouds now in multi-regions, multiple AZs, or different cloud providers, or SaaS providers, you're moving data all over the place and if you don't have a single pane of glass to see that entire network and be able to route stuff accordingly, it's going to be a zoo, it's not going to work. I was talking earlier with another guest and we were just talking about companies, in your case, IHG, kind of knowing what you have. And it's not like such a basic thing. He said, but yeah, you'd be surprised how many people don't know what they have. And so they're trying to provide that visibility and awareness. So I'm kind of curious because you were just the next interview up. So sorry, Ken, but do you know what you have? I mean, are you learning what you have or how do you identify, prioritize, how valuable is this asset as opposed to this can wait? I mean, is that still an ongoing process for you? It's definitely an ongoing process. I mean, we've done over the last three years of constantly assessing all our inventory of what we have, making sure we had the right road maps for each of the apps and products that we have, because we've turned to more of a product-driven organization in a DevOps and we're moving more and more product teams onto that DevOps process. So we can shift left a lot of the activities that a developer in the past had to go over a fence to ask for help and kind of the automation of the network and the security built in allows us to be able to shift that left. I did that interview saying too, three years, right? You've been on this path. Going back then to 2019, all right? Pandemic hits, right? The world changes. How has that affected this three year period for you and where are you in terms of where you expected to be and then what's your, what are your headlights seeing down the road as to what your eventual journey, how do you want that to end?  We were able within 30 days to be able to bring up remote desktops, workspaces and AWS and give access to globally in China and in Singapore and in the Americas. It's no small task there, that's for sure. So we built a desktop, certified it and agents were able to answer calls for guests. So it was a huge success to us. It did slow down, during the pandemic, it did slow us down from what gets migrated. Our focus is, again, back to what I was saying earlier is around our guests and our loyalty and how do we give value back to our hotel owners and our guests. And how do you measure that? I mean, how do you know that what you're doing is working with that key audience? We measure it by one, occupancy, and we, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How many people do we have in the rooms, right? But in terms of the interface, in terms of the effectiveness of the applications, in terms of what you're offering. Yeah, it gets back to uptime of our systems and being able to deploy an application in multiple regions elevates the availability of the product to our guests. The longer I'm up, the more revenue I can produce. We measure also guest satisfaction at the properties, them using our tech and that kind of stuff to be able to. Surveying just to find out how they feel about it. Because we have a lot of tech inside of our hotels that allow for, we have ISG Connect, which allows for people to go from one hotel another and not ask for passwords and that kind of stuff. That would not be made, by the way, I'd be begging for help. Let's talk about skills, because I hear that a lot. Talked a lot about that this week, hearing that the advancement of knowledge is obviously a very powerful thing, but it's also a bit of a shortcoming right now in terms of having a need for skills and not having that kind of firepower, horsepower on your bench. What do you see in that regard? And first off, what do you see about it? And then I'll follow up with you. Yeah, I mean, over our journey, it started off where you didn't have the skills. You didn't have the skills from an operations, engineering, architecture. So we went on, how do we build training programs? How do we get tools to do either virtual training, bring in teachers? We built weekly calls where we bring our experts from our vendors in there to be able to ask questions to help engineering people or architecture people or operations to ask questions and get answers. We've been on a roll of upscaling over the last three years and we continue to drive that. We have lunch and learns that we bring people to. And we tailor the content for that training based on what we're consuming and what we're using, as opposed to just a broad stroke of public cloud. It's almost like you don't have to be holistic about it. What do you need to know more to be better at what you're doing here, right? Sure. Yeah, and we have a program called ACE, which is Aviatrix Certified Engineer. And there's a bunch of different types of classes.  I'm one of them. One of them, right? Is that right? Yeah. And this is not necessarily about Aviatrix. What we're doing is trying to give multi-cloud, networking expertise, because a lot of the people that we're talking about are coming from the data center world. And networking is so different in the cloud, we're helping them understand it's not as scary as they might think, right? If your whole career has been networking in the data center, and all of a sudden there's this cloud thing that you don't really understand, you need somebody to help you sort of get there. And we're doing that in a multi-cloud way. And we have all kinds of different levels to teach people how to do infrastructure as code. That's another thing, you know, data center guys, they never did infrastructure as code. It was, you had to bolt it in and plug stuff in. But now things are being done much faster with infrastructure as code, and we're teaching people how to do that. Yeah, I mean, yesterday, one of the keynotes is about the partner in the marketplace. And they use the imagery of marathon runner. You know, a marathon runner, yeah, you could do a marathon by yourself. But if you want to improve and become a great marathon runner, you need a coach, you need nutritionists, you need people running with you to make that engine go faster and farther.  Yeah, exactly. And having a partner like A.V.A. Tricks helps the team to be successful. Well, it is a marathon, not a sprint, that's for sure. And you've been on this kind of three-year jog. You might feel like you've been running a marathon a little bit, but it sounds like you're really off to a great start and have a pretty good partnership here. So congratulations on that. Eric, thanks for being with us and Rod, same to you. Thank you. Appreciate the time here on the AWS Global Showcase. I'm John Walls, you're watching theCUBE, we're out in Las Vegas, and of course theCUBE, as you well know, is the leader in high-tech coverage.