So, an important distinction in structural equation models is between what we refer to as recursive and non-recursive models. So all the models that we've looked at in these videos so far are recursive models. And a recursive model is a model where all of the causal effects are going in the same direction, a unidirectional, and the disturbances, the error terms are not correlated with one another. And we can contrast this with a non-recursive model which is a model where we have some kind of feedback loop where two variables are causing each other and therefore we have what we can refer to as reciprocal effects or where we have correlated disturbances. So this difference is important because it has implications for model identification and it has implications for whether we can, how we interpret and trust the correctness of the estimates that we get from our models. So here's an example of a recursive path diagram model. We have x1 causing x2 and there's a disturbance term for that equation. x2 in turn causes y1, we have a disturbance term there, and also in that equation we have x3. So y1 is regressed on x2 and x3. But here we see that all of the causal effects are going in one direction and none of the disturbances are correlated. So this would be a recursive model. A non-recursive model on the other hand will have some kind of feedback loop and here you can see that there is such a feedback loop between y1 and x1. So x1 we have here is causing y1 and y1 is causing x1. So these are reciprocal effects and this is actually quite a plausible kind of causal mechanism. There are many examples of situations where we would expect two variables to be causing each other. We can think for example of economic perceptions. The more people perceive that the economy is doing well, the more that they will support the government and the more that people support the government, the more that they may think that the economy is doing well. So there are many examples where we would want to estimate this type of equation and we also see here that we have a correlation between the two disturbance terms, the errors in those structural equations. And that's indeed implied by the fact that we have this reciprocal causal effect between y1 and x1 means that the disturbances must be correlated. Now there are some gray areas and this results in what we refer to as partially recursive models. Here we see that we have a correlation between the disturbance terms but we don't have any direct effects amongst the endogenous variables in this model. The endogenous variables here being y1 and x1. So in this case we can treat this in terms of identification as a recursive model. But here we do in this diagram we have a direct effect amongst the endogenous variables. We have a regression of y1 on x1 and we then also have this disturbance term correlation. So this would be treated as a non-recursive model. Now I said that recursivity or recursive versus non-recursive model status is important for identification but that's not terribly interesting from a sort of analytical perspective. Recursivity is also important really because a recursive model is always identified and it's simple to estimate. We can estimate recursive models using OLS, using a set of OLS models. But that simplicity is also rather restrictive. It means that we can't estimate the more complex kinds of models that we would often want to. So introducing a non-recursive model means that we have more flexibility in the kinds of model specifications that we can use. And these are actually a lot of the reasons why many analysts want to use structural equation modeling, structural equation modeling software because it's actually very easy to specify this kind of model. But we have to be aware that just because we can specify a model as a path diagram and we will generate some parameter estimates that doesn't mean that we can always trust them as being valid estimates. So non-recursive models despite being more flexible also can be challenging in terms of identification. And we'll often require in order to achieve an identified model we will need to use other variables in the model that which may not be of direct substantive interest in the model but we need them nonetheless for identification purposes. So as I said if we have a model it may be empirically identified doesn't mean necessarily that we can trust the parameter estimates. And in particular if we want to have unbiased and consistent estimates for reciprocal paths, these are when we have arrows running between two variables in a model, we have to make some quite strict and some would argue often plausible assumptions about the variables in the model. So in particular in this sort of context with reciprocal effects we need to assume that we have some exogenous variables in the model that we can treat as instrumental variables. And this is another important idea for understanding and implementing this kind of non-recursive model, the idea of an instrumental variable. And to understand what we mean by an instrumental variable in this context it's useful first to understand another concept which is that of an endogenous regressor. And here we've got a simple path diagram to help understand what we mean by an endogenous regressor. So we have here y1 regressed on x1 we want to estimate beta where we'd ideally like to treat beta as the causal effect of x1 on y1. But we also see here that we have a covariance or a correlation between the disturbance term in this equation and x1 which is the predictor. Now we know from our OLS classes that this is an assumption that we have to make in OLS that we don't have a correlation between the error term and the predictors. If we if we find that there is a if there is a such a correlation then we have what's referred to as an endogenous regressor. The x1 is an endogenous regressor and this is because it can be for a number of reasons but will often be because of some unobserved variable that we should have in our model that maybe is related to both x1 and y1 or it may be because of simultaneous causal effects that x1 is causing y1 and y1 is causing x1 the sort of reciprocal effects that we're interested in here that would generate this this correlation. So when we have this kind of a situation we need an instrumental variable for x1 if we are if we want to be able to interpret the beta coefficient as the causal effect of x1 on y1. So an instrumental variable is a variable that's going to deal with this endogenous regressor problem and it does this by introducing exogenous variability into the endogenous regressor and to have the properties of a of an instrumental variable then which we'll refer to as z our instrumental variable will be z in this context and the the the instrument must cause the endogenous regressor but not cause the outcome. Now there are lots of different examples of of instrumental variables that have been used in the empirical literature and we'll come on to some of those but one good way of thinking about an instrumental variable is the assignment variable in a randomized control trial. The randomization which determines whether someone is allocated to the treatment or to the control condition. This is a perfect instrumental variable because it's very strongly correlated with whether you are in the treatment or the control group but it is uncorrelated with whatever the outcome is in the randomized control trial. So that's a good way of thinking about what an instrumental variable is and the sorts of variables that we will be looking to use as instruments should come as close as possible to that sort of randomization type of variable. So this is what we're looking for in terms of a path diagram here. We've got an endogenous regressor x1 and we need an instrument which is z1 here which causes x1 but doesn't cause y1 other than through its effect on x1. So you can see it has an indirect effect on y1 but not a direct effect. So this would be an instrumental variable. As I said there are many papers particularly in economics which have used natural variability, natural experiments if you like and one example is the Vietnam lottery draft which determined whether US citizens were allocated to go to Vietnam or not. This was done on the basis of a random lottery. So if you want to assess the effect of going to Vietnam on later outcomes like your earnings, your education, your mental health and so on then you can use that initial lottery draft as an instrument for going to Vietnam war. Another one that's been used is proximity to your nearest college for studying the effects of education on earnings. Obviously if you just look at the relationship between education and earnings there are many unobserved variables that would mean that you couldn't just take the the simple correlation between education and earnings as a causal effect. But if you can use something like proximity to a college that can have a direct effect on education but not a direct effect on your earnings other than through its effect on education. The third example might be variability in the compulsory schooling age. This can vary across geographic boundaries in US states for example have different compulsory schooling ages or in the UK there was an increase in the compulsory schooling age from 15 to 16 in 1973. And this can be used to as an instrument for again the effects of education on later outcomes such as earnings because the policy change introduced random variability into how much schooling people obtained but it wouldn't have had any direct effect on earnings. So those are some examples of instrumental variables and it should give you an idea that you have to meet some quite strict requirements to be a good instrumental variable and even for these three quite well known examples there have been criticisms of these as whether they really are valid instruments. So again this is something of a caution because non-recursive models are easy to specify. Here's an example again using the European Social Survey data where we're looking at the relationship between life satisfaction, happiness and social trust. Scholars have been interested in what the relationship is here and this model specifies reciprocal causality between these variables. Now if you just try to estimate that model without the two exogenous variables at the bottom of the diagram whether you're married and your earnings it would be unidentified. So these variables are acting as instrumental variables in the model but it's not really plausible to assume that they are valid instruments because we have to assume that neither of them has a direct effect on the other latent variable in this model. Each one only causes one latent variable but it's not really reasonable to assume that your income is not related to your level of social trust. We know that's an implausible assumption. So we have to be careful just because we can estimate a and we get parameter estimates for a structural equation model which is non-recursive we have to check our assumptions that are needed to make that identification and assess whether we can really trust the estimates.


Hi friends, welcome back to my channel and a very special welcome. If you're new here, my name is Jen. I'm a certified weight loss and nutrition coach and it is Saturday, so it's grocery haul day. I have a Troy haul today. I did a lot of shopping for Troy as I am currently out of town and I stocked up on his meals and some healthy things for when I return.  Subscribe if you're not, turn your bell on because I do a grocery haul every Saturday and I actually upload five videos every single week. Don't forget to check out the description box down below for nutrition coaching. Highly recommend personalized macros and calories. This is what I have followed to lose and maintain a 140 pound weight loss as well as one-on-one coaching for accountability to ask questions or talk with me directly. Links and discounts to my favorite things are also down in that description box. Lastly, come join my Facebook group. You can keep up with me on my little vacation there and we would love to have you. So let's head into the kitchen for the grocery haul. For this week's groceries, I shopped at my local fry store which is a Kroger store, picked up a lot of Troy food as I'm going to be gone on a little trip. I grabbed everything that he would need for healthy meals and snacks while I'm gone. So let's go ahead and jump on in. So all of the fall stuff was 50% off. So I picked up this candle. This was actually $5.99. This smells amazing. It smells like apples and spices and you can't beat it for $5.99 plus I really love the fall coloring. And then they have these little wooden signs for $2.50. This one says pumpkin season. There was one that says gobble gobble in Thanksgiving, just really, really cute. I couldn't pass it up for $2.50. And then I also picked up a towel. I have a lot of Halloween towels, not a lot of fall and Thanksgiving towels. And this one says fall, turkey, give thanks, autumn. Really cute. I want to say these were only $3.99. Speaking of $3.99, they had their 93% ground turkey for $3.99 on a digital coupon. So I grabbed three pounds. That is an incredible, incredible deal. I've been using a lot of ground turkey in recipes and substitution, sometimes of ground beef or even chicken breast, just because I like ground meat a lot better. So I did pick up three pounds and then I also saw the 93% ground beef reduced for $4.82 a pound, which is really, really good. They only had two. So I did grab both pounds since that were on sale. I grabbed this pudding king for Troy. I thought this would be perfect for him. While I'm gone for something sweet, it actually looks really, really delicious. $2.50, so not a bad deal. I also picked up pizzas for him. I thought this would be really easy for him to do while I'm gone. And these are on coupon for $2.99, which is a great deal. So I have a sausage and pepperoni. I have a supreme and a four meat. Their Thomas English muffins were buy one, get one free. So $2 a pack, we know how good of a deal that is. I did pick up a buttermilk and a sourdough. Troy loves making breakfast sandwiches. I also eat English muffins pretty regularly. I just toss these in my freezer until we're ready to use them. As always, two gallons of skim milk. And then I was out of quite a few baking type of things, including breadcrumbs. So I picked up these plain breadcrumbs to refill. And then I also grabbed two more cans of pumpkin because these were two for $3. That's the lowest price I've seen so far. And they don't go bad. So I went ahead and picked up two more cans. And then Troy asked for ravioli.  To me, it's disgusting, but he loves it. So I got him four cans. That'll be easy for him to make for a meal. And then he also requested that I make his favorite pasta salad. It is on my recipe website under Troy's Pasta Salad. Now it's not WW friendly, calorie friendly. It's a decadent pasta salad, but it's actually really good. And he loves it. So it calls for olives. And then I picked up some cottage cheese. I will, I do fly out. I am gone in a day, but I thought I could have this as a snack. And then Troy also loves cottage cheese. So if he doesn't eat it while I'm gone, it is good until the middle of November. So I grabbed that just to have a healthy option on hand when I return. And then I picked these up too. I love these. Troy likes these. These are really good. They're the little turkey sticks and cheese packs. They have 10 grams of protein and only 140 calories. So not bad. A really good, easy portable protein snack. I needed a big block of cheese for his pasta salad. Colby Jack is his fave. And then also diced up ham. That goes in the pasta salad as well. He prefers macaroni, elbow macaroni for the salad. So I grabbed a box of that. And then we were almost out of saltines. And again, he has ravioli, soup, chili, things like that for while I'm gone. So I picked up another box of saltines. I was out of regular flour. I love my fiber gourmet flour. But if I'm baking something for someone else or that I don't want to use that flour in, I wanted to pick up some flour. And this was actually on sale for $2.99 or $3.99, which is a really good deal. And then I also picked up some light brown sugar because I was out of regular brown sugar. A little bit of produce. Again, not a lot. He doesn't need a lot of produce while I'm gone, like in the way of fruit. And we have raspberries and blueberries and mini oranges in the fridge. So I did grab him another veggie tray. This is his fave. He loves this. He ate the entire thing in less than a week. So I thought he could snack on that while I'm gone. And then for the pasta salad, it actually calls for radishes, celery and green onions. So I picked up those. And then I did grab some whole mushrooms. I thought he could dip the mushrooms in the ranch and just have another veggie on hand. I also grabbed some diet coke. So that's everything for the week. That'll get Troy by while I'm on vacation and give some healthy things on hand when I return. There is no meal prep on Monday and there's no meal plan. So that is going to end out today's grocery haul. Thank you for joining me for this week's grocery haul. She was small, but she was mighty. If you enjoyed it, give it a big thumbs up. Again, subscribe, turn your bell on because we do a grocery haul every Saturday. And again, I do upload five videos every single week. Check out that description box for nutrition coaching, links and discounts to my favorite things. And don't forget, follow me on Instagram, join my Facebook groups. You can keep up with me a little bit more day to day. I'll be posting on both of those platforms on my trip. Thank you so much for watching. Happy Saturday, happy weekend. And I'll see you in the next one. Bye.


An organization that uses technology and human ingenuity to help document our shared history. A non-profit that helps other non-profits, schools, local government, and ordinary citizens share information, build capacity, and foster transparency. This is Davis Media Access. Formed in 1988 as a single public access television channel, Davis Community Television gave rise to KDRT-LP in 2004, and by 2007 we became known as Davis Media Access, or DMA. Today DMA is a place where people come to connect, a trusted community partner, and a leader in community engagement. Access is the foundation on which DMA was built, access to equipment, facilities, and expertise. Technology has radically changed over the past 30 years, and DMA has changed with it. Training and camera operations, green screen, basic lighting, and post-production, we have that. Workshops in podcasting, digital storytelling, and intro to filmmaking, we offer that too. DMA works with unemployed people to help them develop media and technology literacy. We mentor college graduates and young adults who struggle to find meaningful work. We work with students in K-12 schools, with international students and visiting scholars, with disabled individuals, elected officials, candidates, other non-profits, local businesses, and many others. And we record thousands of hours of local programming every year. Increasingly the national media scene is driving home the importance of local, non-commercial independent media. A handful of large corporations controls nearly all of the media in this country. The result is a homogenous perspective that sacrifices localism. Contrast this with what happens all year long at Davis Media Access, from video and film work to community coverage to local radio. Local content is what we do. This fall, we'll celebrate the 15th anniversary of KDRT LP 95.7 FM, our low-power community radio station launched in 2004. KDRT boasts programmers of all ages playing what they want. The station highlights local voices, non-profits and events, and helps local musicians develop an audience. KDRT's volunteers participate in this community, from annual events such as Big Day at the Doc and the Davis Music Festival to ongoing commitments like Thursday Live at Davis Odd Fellows and Second Friday Artabout at Armadillo Music. We're grateful to the city and DJUSD for long-term partnerships and to our many volunteers and supporters for helping to create and sustain this organization. Find out more at davismedia.org.


All right, so this video is going to be a little different. I didn't set up my chair the way I usually do in front of my puzzles because I know that if I went through that whole process to film this I probably changed my mind. This is just like on the spot right now. So a little backstory. I have been procrastinating on working on a particular puzzle for a second time. And quite honestly it's because I'm terrified of it. But since then I kept telling myself that I was going to complete it one more time. You know what? I'm talking a lot of garbage here. Let me just get straight to the point because I'm already procrastinating. But the puzzle that I am actually talking about here and if you've guys been following me for quite some time then you probably know which one I'm talking about. This puzzle is called Ghoulish Delight and it is from Disney Park's Signature Puzzles and it's the Haunted Mansion's 50th anniversary puzzle. It is 1,000 pieces and it is 27 by 13.65 inches when it's completed. And the artist is Darren Wilson. Now I actually worked on this last October. This was my Halloween video. And as you may know, after taking an eternity trying to complete it, instead of saving it like a smart person, I destroyed it. And to this day it still haunts me. And as punishment, I told myself that I would have to work on it again and do the smart thing and save it. We've done the unboxing. We've gone through the pieces. So we're not gonna go through all that this time because this video is gonna be about my journey to completing this beast for the second time. But I'm curious how much of this will come back to me when I start piecing it together. But you know what guys? Here I am again procrastinating talking garbage. Let's put on the big girl pants and let's get this started. Oh, I can't believe I'm doing this again. All right. Let's finally open this up. What am I doing? We're just gonna get right into sorting because I still have a little bit of daylight right now. And I do remember working in the natural light was much easier when I was last working on this. So I may only have an hour of some sun.  All right. So far this is driving me a little nuts. I'm kind of hoping that as I go through these pieces, I kind of get a little bit of like I guess you can call it muscle memory. Does that make sense? Probably not after a year, right? But I don't know. I'm being hopeful or unrealistic. I don't know. One of those two things. But anyway, let's continue. And just a heads up, guys. The lighting throughout this video is going to kind of be all over the place. All right. Step one is done. How do I feel about it so far? Not at all good. But I managed to beat the beat the sun and get all the pieces, you know, how to look through them kind of, I guess you maybe I sorted it. I don't know. I don't know actually what I put in these trays here, because to be honest, I forgot how they pretty much all look the same. It's so hard to figure out what the details are in these pieces. You know what? Let me let me just show you. Of course, finding the edge pieces were the easiest. But I mean, just look at these. Where do I even start with this? Let's move on. So, yeah, first tray edges. Next tray, who knows? This is just completely dark. They have some different kind of tones to them in some some of the pieces, but mostly just very dark pieces. And depending on the kind of lighting you have, you might be able to see what's going on in these pieces. I think that does not belong there. Actually, you know, it doesn't matter. Next tray, we have I think these are more dark pieces that kind of have a little bit more distinct differences within the pieces. It's not just like a full. Well, no, that does look dark. I don't know. I think I put some in here that have kind of like little smoke from from the candles. Those are really, really hard to figure out. But between these two trays here is what I did was I kind of set aside pieces that were either solid black or just solid color, or ones that kind of have like these little differentiation within the tones. They're still pretty dark. You really can't make out anything between these two trays. And to be honest, you can't make out anything on any other trays. With this tray, I put outside pieces that I believed had anything to do with objects. So we have the clock, the candles, the harp, more candles. And I think I even did flames in there as well. And maybe some pieces with the smoke. Who knows? Next tray, I set aside any pieces that were more of the bluey green tones. So, for example, we have Leota. We have the hitchhiking ghost, I believe, in that tray. This tray, I believe I set aside here pieces that had anything to do with letters, words, these kind of intricate designs. I think I even put like pieces that had like the banner and these two bits in there. This tray, I set aside any pieces that had brownish tones to them. So it's going to be anything, at least I think, that has to do with this creature here, this gargoyle. I'm pretty sure I mixed in some brown pieces from the clock as well, and probably some from around this area here here. But yeah, that's that's what I try to do in this tray. And this one, I have no idea. This is just pieces that I kind of gave up on and didn't feel like loading up the other trays. Yeah, this is kind of like my give up tray. I just I just threw pieces in here because, you know, I got a little frustrated. But that's OK. At least we kind of have everything kind of separated, not in just one big pile, which would be extremely overwhelming for an image like this. I'm hoping for the best here. In terms of what to start with, I don't know. I think I'm just going to pull a random tray and see what I can put together within those pieces and then go from there. But what I do need to figure out first is how I'm going to go about putting this puzzle together, because it's a vertical image and my table is horizontal and it doesn't tilt the way I need it to. It only tilts one way, but I do have a phone board. So, yeah, I'm probably going to pull that out and see how that's going to fit on this table. I don't know how I'm going to secure it to the table because the last thing I really want is for this to slide off the table. And then I have to start over again, which would probably make me rage quit. But I'm determined. I should have started this days ago, so I'm already very behind on this. But my goal is to get this done before Halloween. Let's continue. Now, for some reason, my phone board had warped at some point, but it actually kind of helped it sit inside the groove of my puzzle table pretty well. But of course, not having any sort of clip on it was just asking for trouble. But at some point, I did end up using the clamp that holds my camera. So that definitely made it much more secure and lessen the risk of any accidents. You know, sometimes you just got to get creative and use what you have around you at the moment. But anyways, once I figured that out, my approach was different this time. I started putting together the clock and then figured probably the next best thing would be to put together the words and any other details that were under the banner. Then Leota's ball. And quite honestly, I felt like I had a great start compared to when I first tried to complete this puzzle. Maybe it was the way I started or just how I approached this in the first stages. I kind of feel like I completed these sections way quicker. I was quite impressed with myself. All right, so I just got back from work and I just started working on it with the little time that I have left before I have to head back out. And surprisingly, I got a lot of pieces popped in. I'm feeling pretty hopeful right now. I don't know. I opened the window, got some good light today. So we'll see. I don't have much time left before I have to head back out again. But progress is progress, even if it's little bits. Oh, geez, that's a lot of pieces on the table. Now, I know this looks like a disaster on the table, but, you know, I try to keep it as neat and as organized as possible. And it's funny because I always get mad at myself when I put pieces everywhere, like surrounding the actual puzzle itself. And as much as I hate when I do that, I still keep doing it. I don't know why. Anyways, I'm sure as you're looking at all these pieces, you can see the struggle. I mean, there's really no telling the difference in any of these pieces. Look, I got those two there to put together. That's a candlelight, so that at least I know that. So, you know, he's almost done here. We just got to finish his hands. The clock is nearly finished. The hitchhiking ghosts, I only have two of them set up so far. And the other one, he's somewhere here. We have an eye, two eyes, actually. I'm kind of just switching up which sections I'm working on.  So just move on. At least that's what I keep trying to remind myself. But anyways, let's see how much we get done today. And just as I had expected, as soon as I got more of the main areas done, it quickly grew into an even bigger nightmare. I wasn't really looking forward to the rest of this puzzle because this was when the real challenge began. Well, it is late now. I am extremely exhausted. My head hurts. I'm kind of feeling under the weather as well. My back hurts. My neck hurts. This puzzle is destroying me. I haven't really been on the computer very much. I haven't really done anything else around the house because I'm just so hyper focused on trying to get this done. It's it's once again, it's become an obsession. Lighting started to become an even bigger issue here because you couldn't make out anything in these pieces. I ended up using the light on my puzzle scoop so much that the battery started dying towards the end. But it sure did come in handy.  My back is killing me. My neck hurts. Probably going to run out of hair soon. But I'm going to keep going because I can't give up on it. I spent too many hours so far on it that if I quit now, it'd just be insane. It'd be all a waste of time. I've never been the type of person to kind of give up on a puzzle no matter how hard it is or how unenjoyable it is because I kind of feel like I've spent so much time on it already that I just I might as well finish it just to say that I accomplished something within all those hours. But are you guys like that? Let me know down below. What do you do when you get to a puzzle where you just you just can't take it anymore? Do you crumble it up? Do you put it away? Do you throw it out the window? Actually, don't do that. This was definitely a real test of my patience. But I must say it really did test my puzzling skills and really made me think about different ways and methods to go about finally completing this beast. So I figured one of the best things I could do was to sort them by shape, but grouping them with similar color tones. With all the pieces I have left here, like, I don't know why I can't seem to just get these in place. There's just so many areas that I feel like shouldn't be a problem. I'm losing my mind. What doesn't help is that this puzzle really only has three distinct shapes, but different variations of the same shapes. This is really, really consuming me. I haven't really done much else aside from a few chores this morning. And I got right to working on this after lunch. I don't know how much longer this puzzle is going to take me. It's it's really like it's eating all my time. And I have to finish it. I it's hard for me to work on anything else when, you know, I have something like this on my mind that I have to finish and have to get the video going at some point. I I don't know. But anyways, I need to stop wasting time and focus on this and try to get this done. OK, let's continue. Eventually, I figured why not just put the edges together and see how far I get with that. And quite surprisingly, I feel like I finished that way quicker than my first time completing this puzzle. So that was quite motivating. But anyways, in regards to the overall quality of Disney branded puzzles, if you've worked on them before, then you know that they don't actually have the greatest hold to them. So trying to complete little sections on different areas of the table and then moving them was an issue, of course, even when I was trying to use my puzzle scoop, that that wasn't easy to do because they just crumble to very crumbly puzzle. And I'll leave a couple of links down below to other Disney branded puzzles that I've done before. So you can hear what I have to say about the quality on them in more detail. All right. So it's the next day. I just got back home from work and whilst I was at work, I got a text message with some some bad news. Long story short, my puzzle table had to be moved and it had a bit of an accident. I know it could have been a lot worse, but at the same time, it's a little frustrating considering how long it is now taking me to pop in a single piece because it's really gotten really difficult now. So all the pieces that I had lined up at the end of last night are all scattered up now. They're they're not in order anymore. And from what I heard about 10 pieces came out of the puzzle. Now, some of them were put back, but I don't know which ones from these scattered pieces here actually were on the puzzle originally and fall out and what was, you know, already set here, organized. But all I can do now is reorganize these pieces back down on the bottom here. Try to piece back what was there and, you know, obviously continue piecing on. But I'm hoping that, you know, I will get some sunlight because it's been going back and forth between clouds and sun.  So hopefully that'll take a turn for the better. But anyways, enough being frustrated. Let's just continue on and see how much we get done today. So I think I've pretty much gotten all the pieces that I believe popped off during the accident in place. Oh, geez, I just realized I have another tray of the same dark black brown pieces. Anyways, I kind of reorganized this a little bit again as best I could. What's also really frustrating is that there are some pieces here that kind of have little distinct details to them. But I still can't seem to figure out where the heck they go. It's super frustrating. But I'm trying here. We really don't have a lot more to go. This is nearly done. There's really just a couple of handful of pieces here. Like this is this is everything. Oh, and then those few there too. But anyways, yeah, this is this is like a slow torture. But anyways, let's move on.  All right, we're pretty much at the final stretch here. I had breakfast for dinner. I'm having a cup of coffee right now. I feel like we're going to do this finally. We got the whole bottom half done. We just have these two areas here to finish. Let's see if I can finish this before the sun is completely gone, because I mean, this is this is this is it. That's all I have. Oh, my God, this is too exciting. All right, we're down to the wire now. When it gets to this point in puzzling where you have like barely a handful of pieces, I feel like that's the most like suspenseful, most nerve wrecking part of the whole experience, because you just got to hope that you got all the pieces that you need to finish this. But we're going to do this, guys. So we still are doing good with some light outside. This this is practically over. Let's finish it. This monstrosity took me, if my math is right, 23 hours and 33 minutes to complete in a span of nine days. Oh, my goodness, it's a miracle. I can't believe I did it. It was so painful. But how does this completion time compare to my very first attempt exactly one year ago? And if you saw my first video on the Haunted Mansion puzzle, then you might remember that I didn't actually give a completion time because I just didn't bother doing the math, but I did this time. And if my math is correct, that nightmare lasted 25 hours and 10 minutes. And that was within a span of 11 days. It's interesting because I genuinely felt that it took me way less time. I didn't think the time difference would only be about two and a bit hours. But you know what? That's OK. It doesn't matter. It wasn't like I was racing. The whole point of this was to put a period at the end of this chapter. This was all about me finally putting it together one more time and saving it and it's never coming apart again. And you're probably wondering, you know, because considering the hold or lack thereof, does does it stand up to the pickup challenge? And I have to tell you, I didn't bother checking because there was no way that I was going to risk any kind of puzzle tragedy with this puzzle. Literally, as soon as I put that last piece down, I went right into gluing it. I wasn't taking any chances here. I wasted no time and I think I nearly finished the bottle of glue that I had because, you know, I just wanted to make sure that it was super secure. And how did it turn out in the end? Well, you tell me, this is a fantastic image. It dried up very evenly. It looks fantastic and I cannot wait to hang it up on my wall. But another thought that I had was I'm trying to figure out what do I do with the box? I don't really know if these are considered like collector's pieces or what. But let me know down below. What do you guys tend to do with your puzzle boxes? If you if you glue your puzzles and display them, do you keep them?  Do you sell them on eBay? And I don't know. I got to think about this one. Now, when it comes to trying to figure out what you should do, if you come across a puzzle that's kind of giving you a headache and is, you know, not not fun, the only thing I can really recommend to you is just just do what's best for you. And I know that's probably really not helpful, but I'm the kind of person that if I come across a puzzle that is a true nightmare, but I love the image, I'm going to do whatever I can to try to finish it. Don't stick with one method. Change it up. Move on to another pile or a tray of if you sorted it, maybe work on putting colors together, try organizing by shape.   At the end of the day, do what makes you happy. But I do encourage you to throw yourself a challenge every now and then because you never know. You might really enjoy it. I'm not saying that I enjoyed this one particularly, but considering that I have kind of like a connection to this image, I love this image. I love the haunted mansion. You know, to me, that was enough motivation for me to give it my all. I don't know. It kind of makes me feel like I do actually have some, some good puzzling skills that probably not. But you know, I'm just happy that this is over and done with. Whether it's 10,000 pieces or the colors are dark, whatever challenge it throws at you, don't be afraid to go after it. And if it takes you nine days like this took me or if it takes you 90 days, it doesn't matter because at the end of the day, it's all for fun. And to be honest, you know, you do learn something from every puzzle that you put together, whether it be a method or, you know, something you realize you're really good at, you never know. So don't be afraid to give it a shot. But anyways, guys, if you're looking for a place to share your own horrific puzzling experiences with other puzzlers, I do have a puzzling community that you can join. And I'm going to leave a link down below if you're interested. And if you want to see me put together any other terrible, horrific puzzles or, you know, mostly good ones, I prefer good ones. But if you want to see that, be sure you're subscribed. But anyways, guys, I'm going to move on to a more fun, colorful puzzle. So I hope you're all doing well. Thank you all for watching and I will see you in the next one.


Welcome to the sports playbook where we discuss solutions to issues that impact sports. I'm your host, Angela Hazelett. Today's guest is Rob Taylor, the head coach for Auburn University men's wheelchair basketball team and the U.S. men's national wheelchair basketball team. We are here to discuss wheelchair basketball, collegiate and national team competition. Let's get to it. Welcome, Rob. I'm doing great. Thank you very much for having me on today. Rob, you have a really interesting background, so I'd love for you to tell us what led to your current role as head coach of the Auburn University men's wheelchair basketball team and also the head coach of the U.S. men's national wheelchair basketball team. Those are two pretty important, prominent positions. So how did you get where you are today?  It can be a long story. Yeah, great. You got time. Let's do it. So my journey in adaptive sports and wheelchair basketball has been about 20 years. Started out as, really got into adaptive sports because of my uncle, Jim Taylor, who played wheelchair basketball in the Chicagoland area. He coached a women's team in the Chicagoland area as well. And as a young kid, I would go to his practices and kind of help out and jump in a chair and shag balls and rebound and help out wherever I could. Then went to school at the University of Illinois and introduced myself to the head coach of the team there and got involved with that program there and slowly worked my way up from towel boy and water boy to assistant coach of both the men and the women's team that they had on campus there. Following graduation, this is where it kind of diverges in the two different paths. One that leads to the U.S. team and one that leads to Auburn. So I'll go the Auburn path first. After graduating from the University of Illinois, moved out to Arizona and started working with the women's team, women's wheelchair basketball team, the Phoenix Mercury, coached them for a couple of years. My wife and I had started a family out there and we wanted to move back to Chicago. So we moved back to Chicago and I started coaching a junior's team or a high school team in the Chicagoland area, the Windy City Warriors. And then after coaching that team for a few years, the Auburn opportunity opened up and I was able to land the job here at Auburn and this is where kind of the U.S. team plays into that. So while I was at the University of Illinois, I helped out with the U.S. women's Paralympic team and was kind of the stat boy for them and helped out and did a number of different tasks that were needed to help the team prepare for. At that time it was the Games and Athens in 2004. After the Athens game, an assistant coaching position became available. So I applied and was named assistant coach of the U.S. women in 2005 and served that role through the Beijing Games in 2008 and was proud to be part of that team that won a gold medal with the women in Beijing. So in those games, there was a point where I took some time off away from the U.S. program and then came back as an assistant coach with the men and have been with the men since 2013, served an assistant coach role from 13 through the Tokyo Games and again very proud of the fact that we won a gold medal in Rio with the men in 2016 and then followed that up with another gold in Tokyo last year in the postpone 2020 games and it was through my involvement with the U.S. team that Auburn found out about me and actually it was a teammate of my uncles from college that had let Auburn know that I was an up-and-coming coach or a coach that was interested in getting back into the college ranks and that's how those paths kind of converged again. So I've been here at Auburn now for we're in the middle of my seventh season and also along the way after this past year the head coach from the U.S. team decided to step down and I got promoted to the head coach of the U.S. team so right now it's balancing two different teams which fortunately happened in two different parts of the year although with COVID it has kind of put a wrench in the U.S. team in terms of when we qualify and when we play so there's a little bit of overlap right now but it's been a long journey taking me a number of different places taking me all around the world and I'm excited to be here at Auburn and excited to lead the national team as well. Great it sounds like a lot of timing and opportunity that all stems from your involvement with your uncle and the start that you got in the sport so no longer in Chicago but no longer in Chicago but in Auburn. Let's talk a little bit about your role so the U.S. men's national team position led to your opportunity at Auburn University you've been there since 2016 you are the first coach in the program's history so what is that like starting a program growing a program talk to me about some of the challenges and opportunities that that creates creates being at the beginning of the building of the program. Yeah so I mean our program started a few years before I got here and we regularly started as a wheelchair tennis team we had one student athlete on campus it's easy to have a tennis team with one student athlete it's hard to have a basketball team which is one student athlete and it kind of grew from there where we're able to add additional people into our program so prior to my arrival it was grad students that were running the team and the grad student did a great job of helping to kind of get us started but I was tasked coming in with not just growing the wheelchair basketball team but growing our adapted sports in general so really the biggest challenges or some of the biggest challenges that we have with starting a program or even starting a new program is educating people about adapted sports it's a little different than the name than the able-bodied running game that people are used to so it's the education piece and and helping people understand that our student athletes are just as competitive as our able-bodied counterparts and then it's working on the exposure as well to make sure that more people across campus know about our athletes or student athletes about our sport and partnering with them to help us grow and push the outreach part of our program and really getting the powers that be to come out to a tournament to check us out whether that is advisors, provost, presidents, people of power within the university that can help us with that change are the ones that we'd love to get out to the game and we've been fortunate to have some great support from our university and we've had some great support from our athletic department I know my counterpart on the men's team Bruce Pearl has come out and supported our team so for us that's that was our challenge at the beginning and it's still a challenge today I would love to be able to sell out the Beardies Memorial Coliseum and by sell out I mean our games are free so anyone can come to our game for free you know our facility sits about 12 to 13,000 seats you know if we can get 500 people at a game that's huge for us but that's where the outreach and the exposure piece really helps with that and and the more we can get the students here at Auburn to buy into it the more we can get the families in the Auburn area to come out to the games the better it'll be for our student athletes to play in front of a large fan base but also helps with exposure to our sport because who knows you may have someone in your family or you may know someone whose neighbor has a kid with a disability but this is a great avenue for them to get started in their adapted sports you've talked about a lot of great details and maybe opportunities to get some key individuals in to promote the sport as well as growing the fan base a little bit further I would imagine being a Paralympic sports that's probably helped provide some kind of education into the competitive nature of wheelchair basketball but you you emphasize that maybe it's still a little bit of a challenge so what steps are you taking to help with that education to make sure that Auburn community at large understands that this is a great sport to watch yeah I I think it helps that aside from my position here that I also coached the national team and we we can use that to help push and promote our team but more important to add is we currently have five athletes student athletes within our program that are also part of the US national team pool of athletes we had three or four of them that were part of the under 23 national team that just competed this past year at their zone qualifier they want a gold medal at world championships they fell short of meddling and then we do have one of our athletes that was with the US senior team this past year down in Brazil where we want a gold medal down there and I think it's important to have those athletes help with the education piece as well across campus students get things done students are the ones that are seen more so than other than the coaches and the faculty so having five student athletes have success on a national team level and be part of the national team pool really helps when it goes to talking to different people across campus it's one thing to talk about my history with the national team the success that I've had with the national team but it means so much more one is your student athletes that have a gold medal where you know hanging around their neck and they can speak to their experience and we can show back to the Auburn family how much it means for the Auburn students to have that experience on the national level let's talk about the opportunities and challenges that arise from you straddling coaching positions with Auburn and the national team all right what do you mean challenges it's easy to keep all the mission calls at the same time I mean you're coaching five of these athletes right and in both spaces so yeah so I mean really the the challenge has come down to is really time management and making sure that um what I have to be focused on Auburn and the Auburn team and preparing for tournaments that that's solely my focus but at the same time currently there's stuff going on with the national team as well that we're dealing with uh you know the budget for this next year and figuring out tryouts and training camps in this next year we have two major tournaments for the national team one of which will take place in november which is the middle of the Auburn season so how do we balance um tournaments for the Auburn team if I'm going to be out of the country I'm very fortunate that I've got a great staff that works with me and it can cover for me when I'm out of town but really it's trying to balance all those things at once never mind the fact that you try to balance being a husband a father of two young boys that are involved in their own sports so it's definitely a challenge there but that's where making sure that the schedule is locked in and there's enough time built in for family time and and everything else is important but it's I think it's one of those things where it's always a challenge and it's just about surrounding yourself with the right team both here at Auburn and on the national team and on the home front to make sure that all responsibilities are taken care of sounds like a little bit of time management as well and do any of your athletes get caught up in having a conflict with their schedule some of them that are performing on the national team and Auburn as well so that did happen this past year with some of our U23 guys that went over to Thailand that tournament was near the beginning of the school year so they missed you know two and a half to three weeks to go to Thailand to compete in that tournament great experience for them and their teachers here on campus were great about allowing them to to make up their work later I think only one of them had to take an exam while he was over in Thailand and he was able to do so but being away for that long and missing class for that long you know set them back a little bit in their classes where it took them a while to make up in those for those classes so and that's not just a concern here with with the guys at Auburn it was a concern for any of the U23 guys that participated in that team and quite honestly is something that's in the back of my mind as we prepare for you know we have world championships coming up in June luckily no no school there for any of the guys but November is the Parapan America Games down in Santiago Chile so that's definitely a concern when it comes to selecting that team and making sure that if we do select any current collegiate student athletes that they have clear communication with their advisors with their professors with their grad student or with their grad assistants to make sure that they are able to miss the amount of time that is going to be required to participate on a national team if not the other option for them is they may have to look at taking the semester off from school so that way it doesn't keep them from graduating or impact their classes too much yeah absolutely and i mean that the time piece is challenging for any student athlete that traveling and the time away from from the classroom now collegiate sport is typically provided on a college campus through the athletics or recreation department wheelchair basketball at Auburn is a little different they're under the office of accessibility so what are the advantages and challenges with competitive wheelchair basketball kind of operating outside of athletics and recreation departments on a college campus yeah i think it's one of those things that if you talk to all the different coaches within the collegiate division for wheelchair basketball we're all kind of housed uniquely within our university in terms of whatever fits best some are within rec sports some fall within club sports others fall within their athletic department some smaller d3 schools fall within their athletic department we're probably one of the few schools where we're kind of away from sports all together we're part of the office of accessibility so we roll up to the provost office it we we have a great relationship with the athletic department and maybe someday we'll be part of Auburn athletics but where we're housed right now works really well for our program in terms of the office of accessibility is there to support any student on campus that has any sort of disability or needs any sort of accommodations and that's every single one of our student athletes so anything that happens across campus that they need assistance with that gets taken care of within the office of accessibility and they know all about our student athletes you know the the other great part is that within the office of accessibility the office of the provost it does give us exposure to the provost to the assistant provost to people that sit up in sanford hall the president so it allows us to have I guess closer exposure to those individuals than we would if we were housed in a different area and we get great support from the office of accessibility it's that's where adapted sports was born here at Auburn we're very proud of the fact that we're housed within the office of accessibility our director and assistant director are very supportive of us and I think it would be a hard day for them if we had to move on and moved into the athletic department but I think they also realize that as we continue to grow that that's probably the right place for us to grow into but for now we love where we're housed and the support that we get I would love to hear a little bit of a comparison of the the resources that are available to you under Auburn's model and under the national team model so let's talk about facilities financing staff support talk to me kind of compare and contrast obviously I'm not sure there are comparable but you know what what are you what do you experience between these two different programs sure I'll do my best to try to hit on each one that you talked about but I may forget something so so jump on me if I missed something from a facility standpoint here at Auburn I love the facility that we have we're housed within the Beardies Memorial Coliseum which is the basketball arena that Charles Barkley played in when he was here at Auburn the men and women's team moved up to the Neville arena about 10 years ago 12 years ago I guess and that's when we slid into the facility here so we've got a massive I mean when you hear the word Coliseum it's not a small building it's it's a massive building and and within the walls here but we've got a locker room for the team we've got our own strength and conditioning facilities here in the team and our athletic training office here is in the building as well so for our guys the Coliseum is is a one-stop shop for everything that comes or that has to deal with the basketball standpoint with the national team somewhat the same a little bit different we try to do most of our training out in Colorado Springs at the Olympic and Paralympic Training Center out there and once you get on site there everything is taken care of you've got basketball courts you know top of the line fitness equipment in the Ted Stevens building you know there's housing there there's dining option there some of the best food in the world you can eat is in the dining facilities there so you I mean you're treated like an Olympic and Paralympic athlete when you're out there in Colorado Springs we've also gone out to Lake Placid and trained at the training center out there and then there's a training center up the road in Birmingham Alabama Lakeshore Foundation that will do training camps there as well so from the facility standpoint uh court weight room athletic training it's not quite what we have here at Auburn is not quite national team level but it's not that far off either uh and our student athletes you know they're their residents here they've got their own dorm or apartments here the food can be top notch if they want it to be or it can be a bag of ramen it's whatever they decide to uh to make that day so it's really up to them so the Coliseum that you play in at Auburn is a bit of an older facility I think it was built in 1969 I believe and uh talk to me about accessibility challenges in that space I mean you're a team that needs accessible spaces has it been modified and updated to accommodate the needs of your athletes and your spectators yeah this that's the great thing about being housed within the office of accessibility and where we're at if there's anything that's not accessible either here in the building or any classroom that our students go to the office of accessibility works to make sure that that things are accessible for our student athletes so yes the building here is accessible the court is accessible on the outside we've got ramps that you know spectators or even our student athletes can push up to the top if they want to sit up top and every now and then we do conditioning out there on those ramps but yeah everything here in the facility is accessible uh to them our weight room is accessible the locker room is accessible so yeah we've we've made the accommodations here on campus to make sure that what our student athletes need they have and they feel as as they should be as true student athletes here on campus not student athletes with a disability so compare to uh compare for us that the funding model and opportunities between the two programs yes this is where it kind of diverges just a little more you know with the with the national team most of our funding just about all of our funding comes from the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee they fund our program for the year that funding goes to most of our funding their covers travel that's where the bulk of our expenses are from a national team and when we get to Auburn we'll talk about that too but it's not cheap to fly everybody in for our training camps it's not cheap to fly to Dubai for a tournament or down to Chile for a tournament later this year so that's where the the bulk of our expenses go and it's quite honestly the same way here at Auburn you know our funding comes from the Office of Accessibility we also do different fundraisers throughout the year we try to find different sponsors to help offset some of the expenses but we're in the same boat we don't we don't fly to our tournaments here at Auburn we bus everywhere we go so we've got some close bus rides you know three hours to Tuscaloosa our next closest is about eight hours up to Champaign Illinois and then we get to our some of our longer bus rides which are about 15 hours long but that's where the bulk of our expenses come is traveling to tournaments you had your bus expense your hotel expense your food expense and then we've got other odds and ends here equipment expense in terms of getting spare parts for the guys so yeah the budgets are a little different a little bigger from a national team standpoint but we've got the opportunity here at Auburn to raise additional funds through fundraising through sponsors to try to I guess close the gap between us and the national team but you know I think the national team is always seen in in a brighter light with it being the national program different funding but different funding models the travel piece is really interesting because you have athletes that need their competitive wheelchairs and then you have some athletes who have a personal wheelchair as well talk to me logistics how do you get athletes and all their equipment that they need to the different competitions that they're traveling to yeah so with uh with the team here at Auburn if you play Tetris growing up we do a lot of touches when it comes to loading the bus you know we've got those giant bays under the bus where we've got a store not just their competition chairs but also their their everyday chairs plus luggage plus any other equipment that we need to bring with so I've got a great support staff that has mastered the skill of turning chairs or taking wheels off so our chairs our competition chairs don't break down in a nice small little boxes they stay the same rigid size so what we can do is we can take the wheels off but that's about as much as you can take off the chair so a lot of trial and error at the beginning but we figured out how to make that work now from a national team standpoint that's where it gets a little tricky our team leader does a great job of communicating with our airlines before we fly to training camps or tournaments mostly tournaments when we have to notify them that hey the national team is traveling on this flight we're going to have you know we'll have a total of 17 or 18 people we're going to have a total of 24 to 25 wheelchairs depending on how many extra competition chairs some of our guys bring and that early communication with the airlines really helps out because there's been times where they've had to bring bigger planes with bigger cargo areas to hold all of our chairs but if we're just trying to get together for a training camp two or three guys can be on the same flight and there shouldn't be an issue from a transportation of chair standpoint so Auburn does that impact where you travel to competitions so you can take a bus rather than an airplane it's something that is a little closer in proximity or is your opportunity to travel for competitions unrestricted so our opportunity is unrestricted however for the ease of the team we try to stay within probably no more than a 14 or 15 hour bus ride it's not that we're opposed to to flying we just don't have a regional airport here in Auburn so we would be having to take a bus to Atlanta fly from Atlanta to wherever that competition is get rental vehicles or another bus so the logistics of it is just a little more of a challenge where it's just easier if we can jump on a bus fall asleep and wake up in Columbia, Missouri you know 12 hours later if you get on a bus absolutely having no local airport that kind of makes things a little more challenging for sure so 14 15 hours that's a long that's a long bus ride and the recruiting of athletes talk to me about recruiting so I know some teams recruit international students others are recruiting the Paralympic athletes what's your philosophy when it comes to recruiting for for Auburn? Sure so as a national team coach I want to be able to recruit and develop young U.S. talent high schoolers that are here in the U.S. I'd love to bring them down to Auburn and teach them what it takes to play on the national team and play at that level so for me I'll go out to different junior tournaments throughout the country usually stick around here to the southeast but I'll go to the national tournaments and and meet different athletes that way every summer we host a summer camp here on campus which is a great opportunity for any high school athlete to come to Auburn what I tell them is it's like a test drive in a car it's an opportunity for you to come down here for three to four days you're able to see if you and I vibe from a from a student athlete to coach perspective but it also gives you an opportunity to check out campus really inexpensively while you're playing basketball and you can see whether you see yourself fitting in here at Auburn whether Auburn is a place that you see somewhere where you can call home for the next four to five years so that's kind of one way that recruiting happens but also we have kids from across the country that reach out to us throughout the year expressing interest and want to know more information about Auburn or more information about our summer camps and that's how we begin to develop relationships with those kids as well are you able to provide scholarships for athletes to compete at Auburn we do have a pool of scholarship money we're definitely not swimming in money and offering out full-ride scholarships to anyone as of yet but that's always one of our goals is to get to that point so we're raising money for scholarships we do have some scholarships to offer out to student athletes but not nearly as much as they think or as much as they would like absolutely absolutely and I'd love to hear a little bit more about the COVID impact that you've had you mentioned delays in tournaments things being rescheduled but how did this impact both your team at Auburn and the national team yeah I mean that COVID year here at Auburn and here with our I guess our collegiate program was one that was kind of up and down all season again a lot of it fell back into where was that college program housed you know we're very fortunate that we had the support from Auburn to continue to play that year but there are other colleges that didn't compete that year so their athletes were on campus they were training but they didn't have the opportunity to play in games which I know was frustrating for many of them for our guys we were able to compete we we played through the rules of having to wear masks on the sideline and you know sit six feet apart and COVID test before every tournament so our guys were a trooper that year just going through all the protocols and I think we became a stronger team because of it we got an extra year to be able to compete even if we only competed against two teams the whole the whole year but but our guys enjoyed being able to play from a national team standpoint you know it pushed Tokyo back a year which threw a wrench into a lot of people's plans that were planning on retiring and the postponement of Tokyo then postponed you know our zone qualifier that was supposed to take place in 2021 got pushed back to early this year in 2022 a world change or sorry this past year 2022 our world championships was supposed to take place this past November that got impacted and shifted back another year so it really compounded everything and it really impacted a lot of guys on the team that wanted to retire some of them are thinking about retiring or not retiring and then all the different protocols we had to go through traveling to different countries and the COVID test and we had to do beforehand and do we need to get vaccinated should we get vaccinated is it required to be vaccinated go to Tokyo that played into a lot of guys' decisions in terms of what direction they wanted to go and then once we were in Tokyo it was COVID testing every single day and then as we got near the end of the tournament there was a COVID scare within the men's pool that forced our guys to go through some more stringent testing from a COVID standpoint so it was nice to win a gold medal and kind of put you know a nice finish to the tournament a nice finish to an extra year that really stretched on for the guys wow this persevering through all that adversity and those challenges that's amazing well Rob we really appreciate your time are there any final parting things that we should know about wheelchair basketball that you think is important for our viewers to understand but I think it's one of those things that if you know someone that has a disability wheelchair basketball may be their sport it may not be their sport but reach out to someone within the wheelchair basketball community and they'd be able to help guide you in the right direction whether it's a disability that happened at birth or something that you acquired later on in life I think everyone within the wheelchair basketball and the adaptive sports community is about making sure that opportunity is there for for anyone so if you're watching this and you have a disability and you're interested reach out to me or anyone in your area and we'll do anything we can to help you get involved in the sport of your choice but I want to thank you for having me on today and to share about Auburn wheelchair basketball and about the Paralympic team and about everything that's going on from an adaptive sports standpoint so thank you very much for that. Rob it's amazing I'm excited to see how your season will come out this year so good luck as you're heading into that with your student athletes and thank you for being here. Thank you and War Eagle. This was the sports playbook and we appreciate Rob's insight on the wheelchair basketball collegiate and national team competition so thank you to our viewers for joining us today we'll see you again in a couple weeks. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.


Welcome to 1833 Coffee. I'm Virginia Lindsay. I'm Karen Eilman. This is where our shop is going to be. Let's take you inside. This is the before. This will be where the coffee bar is going to be right here. We're going to remove this carpeting and underneath there is beautiful maple floors. We're really hoping to bring out the charm of this old building. And this is the after.


The streets of Boston remained quiet and calm Monday afternoon as the first flurries of winterstorm Juneau began to fall. Traffic moved swiftly throughout the city and pedestrians remained on the streets despite cold temperatures. Inside local supermarkets, however, was a more hectic scene. Stores were running low on milk, bread and even cookie dough, with customers waiting in long lines to complete their purchases. With classes and work closed for many, people stocked up on the essentials. Now I've got plenty of heartier things at home that will last a little while longer, but I'm going for some lentils, some high protein things, mostly just to stay warm. I'm going to be making a lot of soups for us and stuff. Traffic at the supermarkets remained steady as local residents packed buses and trolleys to head for home before nightfall. Despite treacherous conditions, grocery stores like this star market on Commonwealth Avenue say they will remain open as long as the roads remain open. Reporting in Boston, I'm Haley Krumblehold.


If one of your New Year's resolutions was to help out around the community more, one group is in need of volunteers year-round. Our Cheryl Moore tells us about opportunities with the community table.  Community table serves food four days a week and is always looking for volunteers. We operate basically like a restaurant. We follow all the same health guidelines and rules and regulations. Just seeing the amount of people that are in need in the community and being able to help them is a feeling that I can't describe. It's something that I feel like everyone should experience for themselves. Monday and Tuesday the meal is served at Mount Zion Church. Then Wednesdays and Thursdays it moves here to the Methodist Church. Doors open at 4 30 and then the meal is served until 6 p.m. Part of volunteering is to serve but the other aspect is you're part of community in doing that and being able to eat with people but also being able to serve with people. There are a few requirements. You have to be 12 to work in the front and 16 to work in the kitchen. And while most people give sporadically, community meals says the help is needed year-round. Yeah we have we have gaps in our volunteerism particularly summer. During the school year we get a number of college students who come and volunteer. We have volunteers who once they come they don't I mean they come back every week. Frequent volunteers say the best part about the experience is you never know who you're going to meet. Community table has served as many as 200 people at a time. One of the things that's important about the people who come here is we do have homeless folks but we also have folks that are facing challenges and in other ways. Sometimes it's a financial challenge and providing meal for them. Sometimes it's older folks who are who are isolated. And another thing to mention is everyone is invited. There's absolutely no requirement to take a seat at the table. We don't receive a paycheck. We receive rewards from the people here. I mean they're they're they're thanks, they're smiles. Some people might be kind of scared to volunteer but it's not as as scary as people think people aren't mean or anything that are coming here. They're really appreciative of everything anyone does. Reporting in Bemidji, Sheryl Moore, Lakeland News. To volunteers simply show up at either Mount Zion or the Methodist Church. You can also sign up online at volunteerbemidji.com. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


Good evening. Let's see if we can get everybody seated or we can get started. It's great to see so many people here tonight. It shows that smart contract and smart nation can really capture the imagination of a lot of people. What I'm going to do is I'm going to take just a couple of minutes to introduce what we're doing at DPS and introduce the main speaker. Vitalik obviously knows so much more about smart contracts and blockchain, technically, than I could ever do. So I'm going to talk about a slightly different issue for a handover, just very briefly. So I'm assuming that all of you who are here today know everything basic about blockchains and smart contracts. I'm an expert so you can tell them from the slide here that I've done my own investigation and I can tell you almost everything you need to know. But seriously, a basic level of blockchain, I'm assuming that Vitalik will also not go through any of that in detail. What I want to talk about is within the financing industry. I think there's so many people today who can see the promise of blockchain, the promise of smart contract, and yet it seems that it's not really happening. It's happening in a lot of places in the ecosystem and Han and I were discussing it before. But in the financial industry, there are definitely steps, but what is that stopping it from happening? And you can ask a lot of people what it is. I have my own view and I just wanted to share it with you before we hand it over. So what's the vision of this here? And just being slightly funny about it, you imagine this future world where you wake up, the refrigerator that you just bought. It tells you that it was been trying to buy something from the supermarket, but your credit card was turned down. And therefore you can't get the beers that you need for tonight's football match. So what do you do? You call up the bank on screen and you realize it's an overdraft issue. And immediately you settle this with the bank online, maybe with a smart contract, whatever it is, you get your overdraft. And then maybe the next things that happen is that your insurance guy comes by, he realizes you have a problem with the car. He looks at your insurance claim and immediately he improves it on his iPad and with the smart contract, all these things get flushed through. Is that the future? It surely could be. Is it something that is coming tomorrow? Maybe or maybe not, but it's within a realm of possibility. And I guess that's why we can all get excited about this, especially in a smart nation. I'm sure some of you have much bigger thought that I could ever come up with. But there are obviously also those who have this view of the world, which is that maybe that's not such a fantastic place to go to. I personally think that it's the way we want to go. And I think in the panel today, later on, we'll have some of the good discussions around how we could possibly get there and where smart contracts would fit in. Okay, so what is the problem? I think we'll hear a lot about the technology problem and Vitalik will know that they're better than anybody else. We hear about capacity issues and a lot of things that I'm not smart enough to really understand the details of. I also think there's a different one, which I think is one of having the right incentives in place here. And what I see is for some of these things to really work, you've got to have a large group of people coming together. You've got to have these people who really want to work together, either through a consortium or whatever it is, because individually as bank, the incentives might not be quite as great. And so the question for any bank is do I wait with the risk of being rolled over, or do I try and get in early? And I think banks, including ourselves, are still trying to find our feet there. So I think that issue of how do we get from where we are now, but we can all see the promise into something which is a successful launch, it's not such a clear path. So I've been thinking about it. We all want the best of both worlds. What do you get if you marry this banker and this innovator, the metallics of the world or these type of people? Because a lot of people say today that those are the type of people we need. You know, we have technologies that can't be banking language and we've got bankers that clearly don't understand what is out to hit them. So one view is that you get the perfect bank CEO. You know, you get the one who really will buy into this and he'll put his investment dollars around it. You could have the view that all those people will actually go and start up their own startup companies. But unless you're unfortunate you get any of those, I think you get some kind of miscreature unfortunately, who can see the promise but can't really make it work because you don't really have the right mechanisms in place. So it's good that David is coming up here and I'm going to talk about him next. So if that is one of the problems, what is not the solution? The solution is not that bankers just go and hire more consultants and ask them to say something and then philosophize about it. They've got to do some action. They've got to try and get into the sandbox. They've got to try and do some experiments. Equally I think the solution from the start of one of you is not to think that all bankers are dumb and the best thing that we know of an Apple computer is something like this or maybe something like that. That's equally not the solution. The solution therefore to me lies somewhere where we do need a smart nation. We do need a government that can help bring the parties together, try and launch some of these things, get the people in the ecosystem to come together and I'm very encouraged that some of the science that we've seen with MAS that launched they did on Tuesday and I'm going to of course introduce Vitalik in a second but before I do that I'll just introduce David Lee who some of you hopefully know. David is too shy to say these things himself so I have to do it because I think he's really been a trailblazer for Singapore in many of these aspects around fintech and it's these types of things that we do need to get people to start to work together. So what are we doing at DPS around these things? In a certain sense we're doing the same thing as all the other banks are doing. We're trying to figure out which one. I think if I could say something that we do differently is that we involve our people more and we involve our businesses more. When we look at business cases we do have an innovation there because we needed to spur the spirit of this but really without the business unit seeing a case without our own people trying to get involved it's never really going to work. So the first thing we do is we get people involved. We get them excited, we get people like me, I'm from finance which is probably why I'm clueless about all these things. We get them to get a chance to get involved with these technologies try hands-on and play with these things and see if they themselves can make them understand and we get a lot of great feedback. It doesn't need to the next big thing maybe immediately but it surely is a step in that direction invigorating the organization and become more a tune of the digital age. Then as most of you know we do have an innovation lab because we do need to have a playground to play and experiment with some of these technologies and we are experimenting with different blockchain technologies some of you have seen them, some of the news that has come out and there are obviously a little bit more than what you've seen in the news right now we are trying to be selective, I think you have to there are so many different things out there and some of you here are great examples of locally bred blockchain technology solutions Tom is obviously being one of them but not the only one here tonight I have the fortune of knowing some of you who have really done something which could be the next big thing then we have run a number of accelerators, we've run hackatons these types of things you've seen run by other banks as well but again I want to come back to the one big thing people have to be involved without people getting excited about it without them wanting to engage we're just going to be like everybody else so with that I'm going to say this last thing let's just try and see because if you look at these math here we just take small incremental step forwards and David will help us get there eventually this is what it looks like the progress we can make in Singapore for the free digress and the other companies and the other countries take over this is also what it could look like and those numbers are pretty staggering if you start to think about them in many, many aspects of life now with that I'm not going to bore you anymore I'm going to hand it over to the main speaker Vitalik who says he's just another guy I'm not sure he's just another guy but he is a guy and I'm sure he's going to tell us a little bit more about Ethereum and smart contract Vitalik