Welcome to the FAA Production Studios and the FAA Safety Team's National Resource Center located in the Sun and Fund Complex in Lakeland, Florida. Our next presenter is originally from the Nassau Bahamas, and with his wife, Pia, they own and operate Caribbean Sky Tours, which provides products and services to pilots planning to fly to Mexico, Central America, or the Bahamas. He is a member of the Mexico's General Aviation Council, the Bahamas General Aviation Council, AOPA representative for Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. He is based in Cancun, Mexico and travels GA and promotes GA throughout the region. He is going to share some of his experiences and good times flying in Mexico. Let's welcome Rick Gardner. Well, thank you very much. And good afternoon, everybody. We're going to talk a little bit about Mexico today, a place we call home, and we travel too frequently. As Walt said, I'm from, we live down in Mexico, but originally from the Bahamas. We are natives to the region and we have been able to develop over the years extensive relationships with the authorities, both in Mexico, Central America, Bahamas, which is very important because it allows you to get the facts and be able to answer all the questions. We are the official AOPA rep in the region, and as Walt pointed out, we are members on both the Mexican and the Bahamian General Aviation Council. I'm also on the Executive Council of the Mexican Federation of Pilots, which is an association representing Mexican pilots. And we're also the authorized distributor for the Mexican Charting Office, which gives us access to charts not commonly found outside of Mexico. And lastly, we have a license with the State Department for legally providing Cuban overflight permits. Mexico has approximately 1,500 airports throughout the country. 54 of them are international airports of entry providing tremendous flexibility for pilots wanting to travel to the country. Fuel prices are very attractive. We just fueled our Skymaster on Saturday and fuel was about $3.20 a gallon, with all taxes paid. The country has a network of 75 BORs, and the altimeter settings are still given in inches, altitudes in feet, distances in miles, and fuel is in liters. So if you're not familiar with liters, bring your E6B or just remember there's 3.785 liters to the gallon. And the other common question we get, air traffic control does speak English. Might have a little bit of an accent, but they are required to speak English to be a controller in Mexico. As far as the country's concerned, it's got 6,000 nautical miles of coastline, which includes the Pacific, the Gulf, and the Caribbean. So there's, if you are a beach lover, there's a little bit of something for everybody. It's got the world's second largest barrier reef that runs basically from Cozumel all the way down the Riviera Maya into Belize and Honduras. It's got jungle, desert, beaches, mountains, volcanoes. Pretty much there's something for everybody in Mexico from a destination standpoint. Very long and rich pre-colonial history with the Aztecs and the Mayans, as well as a colonial history with the Conquistadores en Nancortes. A country that's got a rich culture of regional customs and food, as well as tremendously attractive destinations for the eco-tourists. So all in all, it's a region that's got a lot to offer for everybody that's visiting. And if you have a small aircraft, we're going to show you how you can combine the aeronautical infrastructure with the destination to truly have a unique experience. Now, one of the things that I tell pilots, regardless of what your destination is, Mexico, Central America, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, one of the most important secrets that we've found to make any trip successful is to relax. Things are going to be different. That's not going to go the way you expect it. So don't expect a quick turn. Don't set yourself a really aggressive time schedule. All you're going to do is set yourself up for frustration. Just take it easy. Relax and things will go smoothly. Before you leave the United States, there's a series of documents that you want to make sure that you have. The first one, starting May 18th, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is going to be implementing the new rule for private aircraft leaving the United States. And the first thing we need to do is to sign up for an EAPIS account. The link to the EAPIS site is on our website. Go to the links page. You're going to log on. Enter your personal information. And within three to five days, you should receive an email from Customs and Border Protection with your username, password, and an activation key. So that you should try to get done as early as possible before you make your trip. You're going to need a passport. You don't need it to leave, but you will need it to get back. So unless you want to stay down with us in Cancun for a long time, you should get a passport process before you go. And for the pilot, you'll need the same documents you need to fly domestically.  If you don't, you can get that through the FAA for $2 and you can do that online. You'll need your airworthiness and registration as well as your aircraft limitations. Now the limitations, the main reason they're interested primarily in your weight and balance is that a lot of fees in Mexico and Central America are calculated based on the maximum takeoff gross weight of the aircraft. So if you have an aircraft that they're really not familiar with, that's what they're going to want to see so they know exactly how much they should be charging you. They're not worried about whether you've loaded your plane correctly. It's more about being able to charge you. You're also, the FCC requires us when leaving the United States to have a restricted radio operator and radio station permit.  You're going to be required to know not only your first name, but also your last name. But the most important question of all is your credit card number. If you're able to answer those key questions, then you are going to be capable of operating a radio outside the United States. And insurance. This is a topic that gets a lot of misinformation in the aeronautical community. About 2003, Mexico changed its requirements. Your U.S. issued insurance is valid in Mexico, provided that you have at least 56,900 days of minimum wage in the metropolitan area of Mexico City. At the current exchange rate, that's about $260,000 and most people have a million. The other thing it should say specifically that you're covered in Mexico. If your coverage has that, then just bring photocopies of those pages showing the coverage, showing the limits, and the fact that the policy is valid, is current with you, and that's really all you need. The other thing you should bring, if the aircraft is not registered in your name, if it's under an LLC or if it's rented or borrowed from somebody, then what I suggest you do is write a letter, whoever the owner of it is, the officer of the LLC, if it's yourself, write yourself a letter authorizing you to fly the airplane to Mexico on a private flight. So I authorized Rick Gardner to fly on November 1, 234 from January 1 of 2009 through December 31 of 2012 on private flights to Mexico. And that way they can make sure that you are authorized to fly the aircraft, and they don't mix you up with the charter company because you're saying private flights. So that way you kill two birds with one stone. And the last thing you should do, you really don't need an outbound, but you're going to be a whole lot more popular with customs on your return. If you go ahead and get your CBP decal now, and the link to do that's also on our website. Just go to the links page, and you can go ahead and get it. As well as the FCC license, we've got the links for that as well. For equipment, you need to bring current suitable navigation charts. There's a number of different charts. Mexico has come out with their own set of VFR WAC charts, one to one million scale. They are the most accurate charts out there. There's, by far, versus any of the other options. There's also DODONC charts for Mexico, Central America, and the Southern Caribbean. IFR and Root charts. We also, there are charts for IFR as well. Jefferson has some products, although they only cover airports that have instrument approaches. Your aircraft, to cross the ATIS, we need 12 inch N numbers. Now you can use, if you have the smaller numbers, you can get two inch vinyl tape, and go ahead and make temporary numbers, just as long as the numbers meet the FAR requirements. And you'll need a mode C transponder and two way radio to cross the ATIS, to be talking and squawking. And lastly, the FARs require us to follow the regulations of the country we're flying to. And Mexico requires, when you're outside of gliding distance, you should have life raft and a life jacket for each member on board. And I'm going to tell you, if you haven't been out over the water, it's a really good idea. So even though it may sound a little bit more stringent than what we're accustomed to, I'm going to tell you, if you're out over water beyond gliding distance, it's not a bad idea. And lastly, suitable survival equipment. Unless you have a burning desire to find out more about the Mexican legal system, these are three things that you don't want to bring with you. So if you've gone hunting, if you have had firearms in your plane, just make sure you don't have any loose rounds rolling around inside the aircraft, because that is a big no-no. So getting ready to fly outbound. First thing you want to do is select the Mexican airport of entry. Now, the nice thing about Mexico is they let you pick whichever one's convenient to you. So if you're leaving, say, Brownsville, Texas, and you want to fly to Veracruz, you can overfly Matamoros, you can overfly Tampico. All they care about is that your first landing is at an airport of entry, okay? Next, we need to file our EAPIS. On May 18th, this becomes mandatory. And basically, what we need to do is to file a notification that explains what aircraft is going to depart where, going where, on what date, and where is it going to cross the ATIS. And then a manifest, which contains the information of all the people, the pilot, crew, and passengers on board that aircraft. If you have questions on EAPIS, we've been working with Customs and Border Protection in Washington for quite some time now on the EAPIS. And we've got a lot of information and experience doing that. So if you've got questions, come over to booth A80, and we'll be glad to answer it. Next, what we want to do is file a flight plan. Now, if you're crossing Mexico over land from Texas or Arizona, you can do it with a domestic flight plan. But if you're going to cross into Mexico over water, if you're coming from Houston, New Orleans, Cancun, I'm sorry, from Key West to Cancun, you'll need to do it with a KO flight plan, an international flight plan. And you can do those with Miami Flight Service. And then what you want to do is file a plan. Make sure you've activated your flight plan. Don't forget to activate it, especially before you cross the ATIS, because that way your flight plan information gets relayed to the authorities in Cuba if you're going across through Cuban airspace and certainly to the Mexican authorities. You can ask for flight following. The Mexican regulations allow for flight following for VFR aircraft. And Cuban Havana Center will do flight following as well. So take advantage of that if you're VFR. But what you don't want to do is to make any unauthorized stops. So if, for example, you had decided to fly from Brownsville to Barracruz, but headwinds were greater than expected or something's not right, you just don't feel that flying to Barracruz is going to work out for you. Then try to select another airport of entry to make your intermediate landing. And then by all means, please let ATC know. But the key thing is to try to make that first stop at an international airport. And if you're flying VFR from Key West over to Cancun, what you want to avoid is that 12-mile inter-atis of Cuba. You don't want to fly inside Cuba's territorial waters VFR. Or IFR for that matter, unless you have an overflight permit. Now the first guy that's going to greet you when you come into Mexico is actually probably the most courteous people that we deal with, which is the Mexican military. Unfortunately, a lot of them don't speak English. So we have a little note in our pilot guide, a little sheet with the common questions that have been translated. So you can just fill in the blanks, pop it out, hand it to the soldier, let him copy the info and hand it back. Otherwise, it's a good opportunity to practice your Spanish, but it's a whole lot quicker if you give them the little form. The entry process is fairly straightforward, especially if you're familiar with flying to the Caribbean or the Bahamas. There's a general declaration. It'll be the first one that basically talks about who's on the aircraft and where it came from. The immigration form, which is what you would fill out when you fly commercial. And they're going to tear off the bottom of the form, that little stub that's outlined in red. They're going to give that to you. Don't lose it because you'll have to surrender when you leave. Next, a customs form, one per household, just when you fly commercial. And then an entry permit. Now this entry permit, there's two types. There's a single entry permit that costs 626 pesos, or there's a multiple entry permit that costs 626 pesos. The multiple entry permit allows you to enter Mexico as many times as you want during the calendar year without paying that 626 pesos again. Which prompts the obvious question, why would you not get a multiple entry permit? I don't know. I always get a multiple entry permit, and so I would suggest you do the same. You have a great time, you want to come back, you don't have to pay again. But regardless if it's a single or a multiple, you're going to get a form that looks like this. It's called a GHC-001. And it's going to be stamped by immigration. It's going to be stamped by customs and civil aviation. This form shows that the aircraft entered the country legally. And when you pay those 626 pesos, they give you a receipt. So staple the receipt to the form. That's the one you want to have with you. It's similar to the C7A that you get in the Bahamas that you take with you when you fly around the Bahamas. This would be the Mexican equivalent of the C7A. And when you arrive at a towered airport or an airport where there's a civil aviation presence, you'll fill out an arrival report which basically says your tail number and where you came from. And it's margarita time. So that is the entry process into Mexico, which is fairly straightforward and similar to other countries. But now let's go and do some flying within Mexico. First of all, we're probably going to need some fuel. So the people that distribute fuel is the government. Mexico is an oil-producing country. And ASA, Aeropuertos y Servicios Auxiliares, is the Mexican branch that operates the fuel. And 100LL is called Gas Avión, which is a literal translation in Spanish of Avgas. And Jet A is Turbocina. Now an easy way to remember is Turbocina, Turbine, that's for jet engines. Gas Avión, Gas, sounds like Avgas, that's Avgas. Getting weather, the official agency for getting weather is CNAM. I'm going to tell you what they're called. They're just called CNAM for short. And they operate the flight service stations. They operate the towers, the radar centers. They're the operational side of civil aviation. The DGAC, you'll hear about. The DGAC is the branch that does permitting, licensing, and enforcement. So they're more of the administrative side of civil aviation. You're also probably familiar with your own, you've got your own public, private sources of weather information. But we also have on our website a number of links that we use to help us with weather when we're traveling that specifically cover Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. So if you don't have, if you're not comfortable, you want some more information, take a look at our website. We've got some, possibly some additional resources you can use there. Airspace in Mexico is IKO, just like it is now in the US. They have Alpha, Delta, Echo, and Golf. They recognize them all, Bravo, Charlie, and Fox, but they, right now the airspace is in those four categories. Basically everything above 19-5 is A, everything below is golf, and Echo is going to be the airways. You're going to see a lot of brown on their charts because it's just tons and tons of uncontrolled airspace, which is really nice, it's nice and free. Airports and terminal areas, they use the IKO terminology, so you're going to see at airports, you'll see something called an ATZ, Aerodrome Traffic Zone. Just think of it as Class Delta in the states on steroids, 10-mile radius and it goes all the way up to Class Alpha. Okay, so around a towered airport there's going to typically be an ATZ that's 10 miles in radius going all the way up, and you need to get a clearance. It's Class Delta airspace. We also have in Mexico AFIS, Aerodrome Flight Information Service. Think of it as a local airport advisor in LAA. It's going to be somebody that's going to answer the radio, give you an altimeter setting, give you a traffic report, they're not going to clear you to land, and what you do at an AFIS is just self-announce. 15 miles out, get on the radio, they typically have their own discreet frequency, and just like you would in the states, do your self-announcement. Uncontrolled or non-towered airports, self-announces you would hear. Down there are terminal control areas called the TMA. Where the M came from, Montreal maybe, it's Class Delta, you need a clearance to get into it. And they also have special use airspace. The only thing down there, everything is prefaced with a mic mic. And that just says it's Mexican airspace. You've got danger, prohibited, and restricted, and look at the chart, because they could be permanent, they could be by no time, or might have a schedule like Monday to Friday, or sunrise to sunset, they might have some kind of schedule. You'll see that on the charts. And lastly, you have center airspace, as you would hear. So regulations, some of the most important ones that you should be aware of, is there's no night VFR. There are some very few exceptions at the US-Mexico border to help pilots get across into the US. But for all practical purposes, there's no night VFR. And if you've ever been out over water, or over the Yucatan jungle at night, it's IMC folks, because there's no cities, there's no horizon, it's dark. VFR is very similar, just a little bit higher ceiling for basic VFR. The common traffic frequency in Mexico, the official frequency is 122.5. That's what's in the regs. But from mid-Mexico north, you're going to find 122.8 is used at a number of airstrips. And it's just as you get closer to the US, it's just part of the US influence on aviation. So if you've ever in doubt, you don't have our pilot guide, you're approaching a non-tower, then what you can do is just transmit in the blind on both. And then when someone answers, now you know which one they're using. Experimental aircraft, a little noise about a year or two ago about experimental aircraft. So we petitioned the Mexican government directly. We wrote a letter, Caribbean Sky Tours, and asked for their position. We have a written response. And basically, as long as your airworthiness certificate does not prohibit you from flying outside the United States, you're welcome in Mexico. And IKO, they speak English, but they use the IKO glossary, which is not the same as the FAA glossary. And there are a couple of phrases that are pretty strange. The first one is, line up and wait. That doesn't mean you're at McDonald's or they're going to bring a burger or a pizza out to the plane. That means taxi into position and hold. The other one, which is a little bit more dangerous if you're thinking runway incursion, is taxi to the holding position runway 12. That does not mean taxi into position and hold. That means cross all runways and taxiways, but hold short of runway 12. So if you're ever in doubt, that's the key thing. Left-hand traffic patterns prevail. Cardinal airspace begins a little bit lower at 2,000. If you've got a turbine or turboprop, speed restrictions are a little bit different there. So check our pilot guide. We have the details. No deviations. If you file the flight plan to a destination and you aren't going to go there, then advise ATC because if they start looking for you, they're not going to be happy if they find out you went somewhere else. And flying within Mexico is very expensive in the sense that if there's civil aviation on the field, regardless of your VFR, IFR, you will have to file a flight plan. They're very helpful. They'll help you fill it out. But they will use the IKO format. We've got a simplified way, simplified instructions for filling one out in our pilot guide that kind of focuses in on the type of equipment that general aviation aircraft will have. And you'll need to get it stamped from the DGAC. Now, if you're at a remote airstrip for civil aviation, you don't have to do anything. But if there's civil aviation there, they typically will want it. It's kind of like the Bahamas. If customs is there, they want to stamp the C7A out. And then when you arrive, they want to stamp the C7A in. It's just a way of keeping track of where you're going. And finally, you close a flight plan with an arrival report, again, if there's civil aviation present. So that's pretty much it. Just the flight planning piece is a little different. And that's true for Central America as well. It's pretty common. Central America that process is pretty much standard. Now, coming home, planning your return. The first thing we need to do is to plan our route. We need to decide where we're going to leave Mexico from, and we have to leave Mexico from an international airport. And then we have to select the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Designated Airport of Entry. Now, there, it's not so flexible. We must select an airport, a designated airport from the official list that is nearest our point of border crossing. So, you can't fly to Miami from Cancun. You've got to land at Key West unless you have an overflight permit from Customs. You've got to land in Key West, clear, and then you fly to Miami as a domestic flight. Determine the route you're going to fly and when you're going to get there, and then file your EAPIS. Now, one of the tricks on EAPIS, one of the things that we had asked for and was approved when they did the final rule, you can actually file your return EAPIS before you ever leave home. So when you file your outbound EAPIS notification and manifest, I suggest you file your inbound. If you know where you're coming back and where you're coming back from, go ahead and file it. So that's one less thing to have to worry about when you're sitting at a remote airstrip somewhere in the Bahamas or Central America or Mexico, you've already done it. And now if you have to make modifications, it's just an exception.  You've got to get to the border and Mexico may not see all the FDC no-tems. So that's one way to be absolutely sure that you've got all the information. So contact flight service, we have the numbers, the direct dial numbers, because 800 numbers don't work for Mexico. We've got them all in our pilot guide. And they will give you the opportunity to give them the flight plan information. And that's very useful because sometimes, especially VFR, if you're near the border, by the time the AFTN, the information gets input into AFTN and it gets to center and then works its way through the system, you might be at the ATIS before your flight plan information. So if you give it to them ahead of time, when you pop up at the border and say, hey, I need a squat code to cross the ATIS, they already know who you are and they've got it all in the system and that way you don't have to start giving all this stuff over the radio back and forth. So that's a nice thing to do. So that's just a suggestion on our part.  Not my idea, folks, but that's what they want us to do. Get a name, badge number, or initials when you do that so you've got a record of that conversation.  As far as air concern, that's all they need you to do. Approaching the U.S., contact flight service. If you're IFR, if you're IFR, it's not an issue because you've already got it. Everything is, you've got your squawk and you're already talking to ATC. But if you're VFR, contact flight service before the ATIS and give them your tail number, get that squawk code from them before you cross the ATIS. And if you're going to be late, folks, if you're running late, contact flight service to update customs. If you're going to be more than 15 minutes late, call them up and say, hey, Miami Radio, would you please update my arrival time, Key West, my new arrival time is, so that they can inform customs and they're not sitting there at the airport waiting on you for an hour or half an hour or whatever. You're not going to be really popular if you make them do that. Very quickly, how to not be unpopular with CVP. Some airports, they have this big, nice ramp. But some pilots like to park right in the middle of the ramp with their Cessna 182, they'll come in, turn 90 degrees and boom, shut down. That's a problem because if the taxiway is right next to you, you might be blocking entrance to the ramp for other aircraft. So see where the blue aircraft, if there are boxes, you'll see that they paint boxes towards the edge of the ramp. Make room for other pilots because it won't go well if you're halfway through your entry process and the tower calls the customs agent saying, would you please ask that pilot to move the plane, or would you like to work on the taxiway? Some airports have the penalty boxes and they'll have a yellow line will lead you right up into the penalty box. Go all the way to the end. Make room for other pilots behind you, folks. Somebody else might be coming in from another international destination. Don't block the lane, just go to the end and make space for fellow pilots. You'll fill out a customs form, one per head of household. If you have not filed an EAPIS, you'll need to do a 178. If you have filed an EAPIS, you will not. If any of you file EAPIS but are asked to fill out a form 178, would you please let me know, call me, send me an email, I'll alert customs in Washington because they're trying to get that straightened out at all the ports. And if you came in VFR, don't forget to close your flight plan. What you don't want to do, and I know this is easier said than done, especially if you've got small kids and it's hot, which is yet another reason why to make sure you update your ETA. I'm telling you otherwise they expect you to stay in the aircraft, okay? Now some airports, Tamiami, Opalaca, I know for sure have a sign that says pilot and passengers, please grab your belongings and proceed to the customs building. Okay, if there's instructions to do that, you do it. Otherwise they expect you to stay inside the aircraft and definitely stay inside the penalty box. What I'd like to do now is give you some recommendations and safety tips based on our flying. We've been flying down, well, I'm like I said, from the Bahamas and a lot of remote flying for many, many years. And one of the first things that I always recommend is bring oil and spare parts. Okay, sometimes it's hard to find, but definitely the spare parts. Because it's sort of Murphy's law in reverse. If you bring an alternator with you, that's probably the part that's not going to fail. Okay, Murphy grew up in aviation. Prop, throttle lock, be prudent, some of the airports are remote, bring chocks, tie down. Sometimes there's not enough for everybody or they're missing or they're anchors but no ropes. So if you can bring your own a 406 megahertz PLB. 406 saves lives, there's no question. So get yourself a PLB and take it with you. They're great even for domestic cross-country trips in the U.S. A GPS with a moving map is another helpful tool. If you're out there over the water or you're out there over that carpet of green jungle in the Yucatan you get this little voice in the back of your head that says, you know, you start getting, well you have a GPS with a moving map that shows that yes, you are heading to the right place, that can help put you at ease tremendously. Machete is a good thing to bring with your survival equipment. If you ever get in a bind and you can't communicate because of range, you know, when you get outside the U.S. the distance between communications outlets can be very great and, you know, being that we typically fly at lower altitudes that can be a problem communicating. You can hear them on frequency, jet liners, and worst comes to worst, contact them on 12015, ask for assistance, and then transfer to an air-to-air frequency so you don't clog the emergency channel. When in doubt, clarify. As I said with the IKO speak, again, between the IKO glossary, accents, hey, any questions? Clarify it. Controllers in Mexico are fabulous to work with. They're very easy going, they're very accommodating. So take advantage of that. Give position reports to air traffic because that's a good way to get search and rescue. They have the towers are all interconnected. So when you call up, say, you're leaving Cancun for Veracruz, they're going to call Merida and they're going to tell you when able, contact Merida. Merida's going to let Gampiche. Gampiche's going to let Viermosa. It's kind of a daisy chain. So if you're departing a non-towered airport, the best thing to do is contact the nearest towered airport. That's the best way to get to the system. Flight following, we mentioned. It's available. Non-towered airports. Some of these airstrips are very remote. Kids use the runway for their soccer field. There might be goats. There might be dogs. So a good idea is to come in at 500 feet offset from the runway so you can see the runway and just configure yourself and go over to 500 feet, check everything is clear better communication distances flying early in the day less convective activity typically in the afternoon. There are places in Mexico that are high and hot so consider the terrain and density altitudes. Always plan on an alternate. A lot of airports have only one runway with no taxiway. Something's blocking the runway. Always have a backup plan and take positions of ships. This is something we've studied. We've hired consultants to come in money analyzing. If you're flying from Cancun to Key West and you see a ship you can hold that GPS button and create a user waypoint. Now, here's the tricky part. You're flying along and you see two ships and one is a container vessel and the other one is a Royal Caribbean cruise liner. Both pointed in the same direction and for whatever reason you have to put it in the water. We've had this proven scientifically folks. Sweaty crewmen, sweaty sailors, probably a two week trip to China. Royal Caribbean bars, food, swimming pool. Royal Caribbean. That's the one you want. Okay? All right. What we'll do now, I'm going to take you on a brief tour of the places we visit on our escorted trips. We do fully escorted trips. I'm going to take you to some destinations to show you. If you have a small aircraft, a private aircraft, what are the things we do to some places. Our tours, we typically depart Brownsville, Texas and Key West, although we do escorted trips for groups, associations and you just tell us where you want to go. But that's typically where we go. Our offices are in Cancun and this is one of the places we've got a trip coming up here in a couple of months to Olbosh. Olbosh is a Mayan word. It's a small island just off the northern tip of the Yucatan. What you see is what you get folks.  We spare no expense for our customers, so we bring in the limousines to whisk you off from the airstrip there to your bungalow at the hotel. That's the stretch limo folks there for one of our trips. This is a typical hotel. This is the one we use for our whale shark trip. Each one of those cuts is an air conditioned room. That's each one is a separate room right on the beach. And this is the highlight of the trip, the whale sharks. They congregate off the Yucatan in the summer so from there we go out to the world's largest living fish.  They are filter feeding animals and they're very, very docile. Another destination, Isla Mujeres, which is located off of Cancun. Isla is, I'd say it's Cancun's alter ego where Cancun's all that big hotels, glitzy nightlife restaurants. Isla is the exact opposite. Back, rustic, small hotels, fishing village. Cozumel, very popular with the scuba divers. If you like water sports, scuba diving, that's a great destination with all of the amenities. And then on the other side right across from Cozumel is Tulum. Now the neat thing about Tulum besides the archeological side is that there's lots of small boutique hotels. Many without electricity so they have their own generators or they use solar panels. So if you like really rustic off of the beaten path to Tulum, to the south of Tulum, there's some great destinations.  Largest underground cave system is on the east side of the peninsula. So you've got places like Actunchen, Hidden Worlds, Dos Rios, all sorts of cenotes, the sinkholes with springs. It's a cave diver's mecca. Further down the Yucatan is Siankan.  That little white strip there. That's it. That's the major highway. It was all the way. There's a whole lot of nothing. So you can go down there, go into this. There are some remote airstrips. Go by Jeep and you can have beautiful beaches to your own. If you want not quite so rustic, go down the Skalak, right on the border with Belize. There's a 3,900 foot I think it's 3,900 to 3,700 foot airstrip that's in our guide.  There's only three hotels there. One we use for rooms. But they have a dive operation there. Very, very nice one that'll take you either to the Barrier Reef or over to Banco Chinchorro which is a very large reef located 22 miles offshore. And it's a reserve, it's protected but they have the permits to go out there. And there you can see the view of the Barrier Reef going all the way down the Riviera Maya, down the east side of the Yucatan Peninsula. So beautiful, beautiful places to visit Some other interesting destinations when the archaeologists were exploring the Yucatan 50, 60 years ago looking at all these Mayan sites what they would do is they would cut out a 1,000 meter strip that they used Cessna 185s and 206s to bring people and supplies into these remote strips. Later the government paved some of these airstrips to make it easy to give them access or easier access to these remote areas. Next up Koh Hun Leech, this is what the runway looks like. You're out in the middle of the jungle, very remote but nice asphalt runway that you can go in and go to the archaeological site which is located about one to two kilometers from the runway. The neat thing about Koh Hun Leech here at the Temple of the Masks when they excavated it, you could see the original exterior of the pyramid. They weren't just big piles of rocks they were covered with stucco and carved and you can see the paint so it's you know, there's many places where you can see things and experience things that you'll never see at the more famous more popular touristic destinations like Chichen Itzu or Tulum. And there you go right next to Koh Hun Leech, there's this is how the archaeologists left it. It's not full of, it's not, you know, Disneyland for cruise ships. This is it. This is the real thing, the real deal. It's not Chichen Itzu or Tulum with the tour guides stuff. And you can go up and down and explore all the caverns of these buildings. As far as where to stay, you have extremes. You have on one end this is the Explorian located about a kilometer, six tenths of a mile from that Koh Hun Leech runway. Each one of those bungalows is an air conditioned room. You're right there in the middle of the jungle with the howler monkeys. Every day they organize different activities kayaking, hiking. It's a fabulous place if you want to go to all the amenities in Pamper. Or you have the other extreme, the place that we have the Echo Resorts with no air conditioning no electricity and the mosquito net. So whatever makes you happy there's something for you out there. And then from an archaeological standpoint this is one of the most adventurous destinations. How many of you have been to Tikal? Anyone here to have been to Tikal or heard of Tikal in Guatemala? Well, Tikal is considered one of the largest Mayan city along with Kalakmul. There's a debate which one's bigger. The difference is Tikal is very developed, a lot more like Chichen Itza the buses coming from Flores very well known, established more frequently traveled. Kalakmul happens to be located in a biosphere reserve so there's no infrastructure there's no highway, there's no buses. The roads so narrow the buses can't go down the road. But they have so far uncovered almost 7,000 structures inside the jungle canopy and if you fly into the Shpuhileh strip which is another one of these paved strips in Shpuhileh of all places fancy that but you go into Shpuhileh and it's a two-hour car ride through the jungle you come in under the canopy and you've got the place yourself and there you'll find the archaeologists are still there they were excavating the last time we were there they had found chambers inside the pyramid and since you're the only game in town you get a lot more flexibility space, time and attention when you've got the whole place to yourself versus places like Chichen where it's you and several thousands so this would be at the other extreme of the adventure scale of going to visit archaeological sites in Mexico. Somewhere in the middle is Palenque anyone here heard of Palenque? Palenque is located in the state of Chiapas on the side of Sierra Madre Mountains in a rainforest you'll hear the howler monkeys up in the trees this large pyramid here the pyramid of the inscriptions is where Pacal's tomb is one of the famous Mayan kings his tomb was built first and then the pyramid around it there's no way to get it out there's no way to get the slab out so you've got a tremendously gorgeous site here and there's the palace of Palenque you can go into the underneath the palace are caverns rooms where they where they would live you can tour all of that inside and then further up into the mountains is the waterfalls of Aguasula considered one of the most beautiful in Mexico because of the mineral content of the water which gives it a bright turquoise color and what we do is we do the archaeological site in the morning where it's cooler and then we hop into the vans we go up into the mountains and then we go a little path that leads up the left side of the picture up through those trees we go all the way upstream and then we go swimming with the local kids there's a nice area with the water there's hardly any current and you can go in and relax and cool off makes for a beautiful day also in the area is Yashilan Bonampac some other more remote archaeological sites again there's so much folks there's so much but if you have a small plane you can fly into the Palenque airport there's no commercial flights small relatively small 4,000 foot runway other places that are need to visit are the Haciendas these were the estates the working estates in the case of Temozón in Yucatan Peninsula they grew Cicel before nylon rope was invented they would harvest the Cicel and bring it to the Hacienda where they had all the machinery to process it some of the Haciendas have been converted into boutique hotels like Temozón others are working or living museums they literally this one ran until 1986 and then they shut it down and you can go there give the caretaker a tip he'll get this big key ring off the wall and you can go in and see the engines the shafts the machinery you can basically see exactly what it looked like when it stopped running so it's a great way it's a living museum and you can see the estate the houses the furniture the living rooms the bedrooms just see what life was like other archeological sites Ushmal, Labná, Sahil Edzna there's it just goes on and on you have a plane we can show you how to get to these places and then of course there's the granddaddy the most famous Chichen Itza seven wonders of the world if you have a small plane it's even great here if you want to see Chichen because you can get in before all those buses make it from picking up all the people of the cruise ships and all the people at the hotels you could get into the Chichen airport we can work it out to get in there before the tower opens have the transportation take you to the site and then by the time you see the big dust clouds where the herds start unloading from the buses you're out of there you can get it get in get out you've got a Cessna or Piper you're good another neat destination Campeche we visit Campeche it's then declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO the city was a very very important trading point a port rather and it kept being attacked by pirates so what they had to do is petition the Spanish crown and they built the wall with bastions all around the city put two forts on either side of the city to protect it from the pirates and much of the wall the bastions are there the bastions have been turned into museums the forts are museums and you can go up the wall they have a really neat view this is the land gate which is how everything entered the city through that gate and then they have the sea gate which is at the other end of that street you go all the way down and you have another entrance from the seaside this is what the streets look like your typical colonial city the Socalo the city center which is a very very beautiful place you can sit there relax read a book at night it's all illuminated it's a gorgeous gorgeous city and that's one of the forts, Fort San Jose that was built to protect it moving further up the Gulf Coast Veracruz where Hernán Cortés this is where he started it all this is where the conquest of Mexico began we stay right there in the historic city center and there's lots of interesting places to view and visit the nightlife in the Socalo is spectacular, mariachis, marimbas trios, there's food, there's drink it's very lively city very very beautiful and the people are wonderful the jarochos, as they call the people in Veracruz are just great people there is also lots of beautiful architecture this was the lighthouse the original lighthouse of Veracruz now we move further inland this is where my wife is from from Puebla de Los Angeles Puebla Mexico one of the most beautiful cathedrals in Mexico is located in Puebla the cathedral of Puebla the Mexican china the talavera handmade it all comes from Puebla nearby is Cholula Cholula is famous for all of these small picturesque churches you can go in and tour and visit this is my favorite Don Ancintla, each one of those is handmade, each one of those faces and it goes on the whole church with gold leaf the picture does not do it justice but it's just fascinating what the Spaniards were known to do is wherever they showed up and there was a pyramid first thing they do is they tear the pyramid they take the rocks from the pyramid, they strip it take their stones and they build a cathedral so they started burying these things they started burying their pyramids to hide them so these guys came along couldn't find a pyramid, what they do they stuck a church on the hill turns out the hill was a pyramid there we go but the neat thing about the great pyramid of Cholula is the archeologists have dug tunnels about six kilometers of tunnels inside the pyramid because it turns out every time the dynasty changed there was a new ruler they would build a new pyramid on top of the old pyramid so you always got to see the outer one so what they did is they dug tunnels and you can see, you're walking through and you see the steps of the first one and you go another 6, 8, 10 feet there you see the steps of the next one and then they've got tunnels that go parallel so you can look up and see the steps of the pyramid and see the layers beneath the one before it so it's a spectacular pyramid because you can tour it inside as well as outside that's in Cholula this is near Cuernavaca Cuernavaca is known as the Land of Eternal Spring it's south of Mexico City it's lower, it's altitude and it's location give it a very, very moderate temperate climate this is another one and then towards the center they typically grew sugar cane or they raised cattle our kids love this one because it's got dungeons they've got tunnels and rooms underground you can explore we love it, we're looking for a lock next time so we can leave them down there but it's fabulous it's got a working aqueduct beautiful place to visit and then Tascu Tascu is a mining town the silver mining town south of Cuernavaca and one of the things one of the questions I get from pilots and they say Rick, you know I just want to know one thing is it dangerous to go on these trips with you and my response is if your wife is with you it can be extremely dangerous and Tascu is one of the most dangerous because every other store is a silver store so if you go to Tascu on our group trips leave the wallet behind, leave it in the safe because they can get extremely dangerous for the budget moving over to the Pacific side we're now looking at Puerto Escondido, if you like rustic you like laid back Puerto Escondido is a wonderful destination if you like a little bit nicer larger hotels with more amenities Bayez de Huatulco is located next to it in the whole area these nice little secluded beaches where you can go and basically have it to yourself go snorkeling and of course all up the Pacific side Atlán, Puerto Vallarta and then of course the Sea of Cortez as you move up into Baja California we offer a number of things to help make it easy because one of those 1500 airports I mentioned only 85 of them are in Mexico's Aeronautical Information Publication which is in Spanish and you can only purchase in downtown Mexico City which is kind of self-defeating so what we did is we took that along with our local knowledge and we created this document and it tells you everything everything I've covered it goes into great detail shows you the airports of entry both in Mexico as well as the U.S. with the phone numbers how to get weather, go into more detail about weather and no-tems and unpublished frequencies in Mexico where to talk to a briefer in the air that's covered in our guide along with the frequencies how to get fuel, how to avoid unnecessary fees and then the airport information we fly to every single airport information we go in and we verify everything personally we also include a border crossing chart give you frequencies on both sides of the border as well as on both sides of the gulf to help pilots get that squat code we talked about that's where we put it to help you out we put all the frequencies that we can there we've got a website we have news that we update periodically with new stuff what's going on we have a tool, we have testimonials we have an online pilot shop where you can purchase charts we sell FAA charts, ONC charts the enroute charts, the Mexican whack charts the Mexican whack charts are great as I mentioned earlier far more accurate and updated than anything else out there if you're going to Mexico if you want to see what they look like we've got them at the booth we also do fully escorted trips a good way to go to Mexico to see how it's done you see how the paperwork is done you see how the filing of the flight plan this is a great way to do it as a first step and that's one of the services that we offer they're all inclusive we take care of everything even the ground transportation we're not going to let you loose in a taxi we're going to have vans or buses there to take you to the hotel you get a chance to meet fellow pilots to share similar interests it's great fun to see the dynamics of the crew procedures arrival what to do if you get lost we try to cover anything that could occur we give you also places of interest along the way with coordinates so you can go down and take a look at sites you get a chance as I said to see how the process works if you're a little bit more adventurous and you want to do it on your own we also do custom trips we do a personalized destination selection and itinerary we recommend hotels, restaurants we try to find out what your interest level your level of sensitivity for adventure is and then we try to match up what's available we also do the aeronautical review with you we look at what charts you should use we update fuel availability pricing and very important we advise the authorities at the airports that you're coming that you're a customer of ours so that way you're not a surprise when you show up at the airport in fact we will forward your documents and we give you a 24 hour number to reach us that way and it happens forget to turn off the master switch battery goes dead, blow a tire alternator dies on you who do you call you can call ghostbusters but I would suggest that you call us instead we also provide aeronautical planning we do overflight permits as I mentioned we've got the OFAC the Office of Foreign Asset Control we have a license from the federal government to legally provide human overflight permits and landing permits for Central America South America we review your documents we advise them, very similar this is the aeronautical piece of the vacation planning and update everything for you in advance so that kind of gives you just an overview that there are services and products and services out there that will help put this trip together so what I'd like to do now is open it up to questions and see if there are any questions from the floor as to Mexico or Central America Bahamas for that matter whatever I can answer I didn't do that good of a job now yes sir that's not a problem for me I can talk all day you probably figured that out by now the flight from the Keys to Cancun how far is that, can you do it in a little plane? yes you can it's from the Key West VOR to Cancun 360 nautical miles give or take a couple of nautical miles you can probably say 5 or 10 I can show you a little trick on selecting which route to go but consider 360 nautical miles the most common airplane we get are single engine airplanes and I know there's some apprehension of over water but that would be the shortest one if you are concerned about over water then you can always come around to the Texas Arizona border and enter Mexico over land you don't have to deal with the over water piece if you're concerned and you can always rent life rafts and life jackets at FBOs in South Florida there's a number of them that have emergency equipment we sell some on our website if it's something you plan to do frequently sometimes it could be I don't know if cheaper but certainly more convenient to have your own rafts so you know it's been taken care of when it was last packed other questions you can go to Miami direct to Cancun but then I had mentioned coming back you have to end Key West the answer is yes you can leave from Miami to Miami airport file a flight plan to Cancun that's not a problem but on the return unless you get an over flight permit then you do have to land in Key West first and then you can fly back to Miami you can get an over flight permit on single trip I don't think it's worth the hassle of going through all the red tape of getting an over flight permit plus customs in Key West I can't say enough good things about CBP in Key West we wrote the port director letter they're very professional very courteous they're great to deal with I would be very surprised if you have an unpleasant experience customs, officers or people you treat them with respect and you treat them as you should they do the same thing but Key West they just they go that extra mile any other questions you guys ready to go to Mexico now? alright we're in Hanger A in booth 80 if you think of any other questions or if you want to come in by and see more pictures my wife is the brains in the operation I'm going to be honest and she's the destination expert so if you want to find out more about places she's the one you need to talk to her name is Pia she's in the booth right now and you can certainly send us an email or give us a call we have US numbers that will ring at our offices in Cancun and we'll be glad to answer and help any way we can any more questions? okay thank you Rick, you're very welcome I keep talking about going to Central America but I think you've convinced me I need to stop through Mexico first there's a whole bunch of stuff in there I didn't know it was hitting under all those trees that's right, in fact if you will let us know ahead of time we'll make sure that your margarita is waiting for you right on schedule hey now you've convinced me I need to go there first there you go you have any questions you can come up


So what do you do when life falls apart? Okay guys, so this is a this is a video. It's for everybody really. It's kind of like about what life is like post-depression Okay, and actually this video is for a friend, someone who contacted me online this is for Lee and you know, Lee's I'm not going to get into the specifics of Lee's story here, but Needless to say it's a story about a life, a vision, a person had for themselves and it all falls apart Okay, it all falls apart in terms of a family relationships But I'm not going to get specific about it because to be honest with you guys You probably know at this point if you watched a good few of my videos Even in the psychotherapy videos or in the counseling sessions I do with people everything I do is based on this this book, which is A Course in Miracles and Lee is actually using A Course in Miracles now to You know determine well what does all this mean? How do I? Dissern how to move forward in my life But when I read Lee's story The thing that came to me, and this is for you Lee really for watching this It's kind of like you know when things fall apart in life We're left kind of picking up the pieces and it can sometimes feel like you know a Hopeless situation, okay, but the good news is Life after something like this and I'm saying life after depression So I'm saying really like a depression often comes with a huge huge Challenge in life right we can slide into a depression a sense of hopelessness that overtakes us So after this huge depression life is very very different on the other side, okay? So really what I'm saying here today is There's a huge opportunity. This is this title of this video could be something like You know the good side of depression Right, you might be thinking I can't really think of a good side of depression because it feels bloody horrible When a minute and yeah, that's very true But what happens is the exciting thing about depression your life is never the same again not a lot of people talk about this after depression You never see the world the same way again Because what is really taking place when the story you had for yourself or the life you thought you had falls apart What you realize is I Feel horrible. I feel like there's no point in going on in life So you have to re-evaluate What you placed value in Okay, in other words, what were the attachments I had? Because if you're attached to something that can end Or attached to something that will end Ultimately everything ends in the world I mean inevitably you're on a you know, you're in a collision course with pain, okay? And depression teaches you it's sort of like a crash course in Re-evaluating what's important and what's important really in life is What lasts? Not what's temporary okay, and You know, it's one thing saying this it's a very different thing Knowing what this means Like feeling what this means feeling what that reality is, you know, and that's what depression is That's when you learn it first hand so in Lee's story it was when I read it it was like a series of horrible events failed a breakdown in relationships and it's like It reminded me of our course the course miracles course miracles says about well, it doesn't explicitly say it actually It's it spells it out in sections. It talks about the script. We have in our life It really talks about the fact that everything here is sort of predetermined for us Even all the negative things all the challenges, right? And it all happens for a reason it plays out exactly as it's supposed to So the first thing you can take from that is nothing has gone wrong When things seem to break down or completely fall apart in life, right? It's almost like a cruel joke, but of course a miracle that says you're in on it. Okay, you actually You kind of played a part you agreed to this to go through this in order for you to get to the other side And on the other side of this experience Lee is emotional freedom Okay, I'll let him go of attachments. Does it mean that you become indifferent or Cold in relationships quite the opposite of that far more loving afterwards, but you begin to realize nothing here in the world I Can't rely on it You cannot rely on anything and if you do put stock and things in the world the core says It won't work and you figure that out sooner or later. It says Sooner or later everybody gets to the point where they say there must be another way and Lee I'm excited for you because it sounds like that's where you are right now You're at the point where you're realizing there must be another way to live So something else that I mentioned to Lee was okay after this awareness takes place You begin to say well, how am I gonna live in life? Course in miracles. Okay, it gives you a way of Discerning life how to make decisions. That's one of my favorite things about it. It tells you how to make decisions in life So how do you make decisions in life? Okay? We get into all this trouble We go through the depression because of our pre-depression Mindset, which is egotistical. It's it's where we run off to ego programming that we we have Inevitably that brings us to pain But so what we're doing is we kind of have we think we know it all okay We think we we know what's going to make us happy if I can just make this relationship work I'll be happy. Okay, and inevitably then Doesn't work breaks down and what comes in then is a bit of humility and humility is a very very good thing It makes helps us realize that the pre-depression stage that I was in I Was figuring out things by myself. I thought I had all the answers turns out. I don't have any of the answers I Was fooling myself about that and now post-depression What I'm beginning to realize is I need consultation Before I make decisions Okay, and who is the best consulate consultant you can get it's yourself. It's your higher self It's the person the thing part of your own mind that you can contact just by asking And it will help you make decisions going forward in life The interesting thing about it is The the consultant to your higher self your higher mind always tells you the same thing when you consult it Okay, and that is you're safe here. You can't go wrong There's not to worry about okay, and you might say to yourself well, well, that's great Now I know what it says. Why would I bother consultant it? You know if it's going to tell me the same thing all the time What's the big deal? issue is Because of our ego of mind we forget all the time so we go into new situations in life and we think I have a big decision to make here. Okay And if I get the wrong, you know, if I take the wrong choice here that could be terrible consequences Okay Your higher self just comes in and gently reminds you if you ask for the consultation There's not to worry about here Okay, no matter what you choose here, you're safe You cannot go wrong that opens you up the old sorts of new possibilities, but it's the reminder It's the reminder you get that's for big decisions in life and seemingly trivial or small decisions in life So I don't know I could talk a bit more about that, but I just wanted to make a video specifically as opposed for you Lee because by the way You gave a donation which was really nice you to do I wasn't even expecting that but I appreciate it. It was really nice to you But I just wanted to make a quick video about that because you know hopefully it'll help you But also hopefully it'll help other people because all problems are the same the answers all problems are the same Okay, that sounds sometimes we're eager to hear that it's difficult, but yeah, it's true Okay, every problem is the same and the answer is the same to them all so anyway It's food for thought and I hope it helps and I'll talk to you again soon. Take care


Welcome to another edition of Haiti. Haiti is a series of videos I do where I try to answer viewer questions and comments that I get on the comments of my YouTube videos and my library videos. Typically when I upload to YouTube and library I do read all the comments at least for the first two or three days after I upload. You can also send me messages on Mastodon. I am distrotube over at mastodon.technology. You can also message me on Patreon. Those of you that support my work through Patreon, you can message me anytime on Patreon. You can also message me on some other social media platforms. If you wanted to you could message me on Reddit. I do have a Reddit account. I actually don't hang out on Reddit or ever post on Reddit, but I do have a username distrotube on Reddit. I have a subreddit r slash distrotube and if you message me there I do actually get email notifications about it and I will read your comments on Reddit and that really leads us to the very first question for this edition of Haiti. Haiti, you talk so badly about Facebook and Twitter yet you have a Twitter account. What's up with that?  Really I don't like social media, social network sites in general, but some are worse than others.   If you value your privacy and your security you should never use Facebook or Twitter, not to mention that there are some really nasty and toxic people that hang out on those platforms especially Twitter.  So I actually deleted my Facebook and Twitter accounts about three years ago I think when Zuckerberg appeared in front of Congress to have to explain you know all the scandals that were surrounding Facebook at that time. I actually deleted my Facebook account. I went through the trouble of requesting them delete my account. It's kind of a hassle to delete your Facebook account. There's no guarantee that they're going to do it. Same thing with Twitter. I asked Twitter to close my Twitter account. You won't find DistroTube on Facebook or on Twitter but I do know that there are fake accounts out there. On Twitter you can go to DistroTube over on Twitter and there's a guy it's got my logo the DT logo and you would think it's officially DT's Twitter page. That's not me. I don't know who it is. I don't know why they have the page. I've asked them to take it down. I have contacted Twitter at least 20 or 30 times in the last couple of years asking them would they do something about it. They won't. Their response to me every time I contact them is if I want that page they'll give it back to me. I have to prove that I'm me and then they will give me back that page. But I don't want to be on Twitter and also I don't want to have to give them personal information like they want to prove that I'm me. I've just got to send them a copy of my driver's license and passport and you know whatever. But that's weird. Why do I have to prove that I'm me when I'm telling them that the other person isn't me? Why don't they ask that person that's already on their platform. Hey can you prove you're actually the person you're pretending to be? Wouldn't that make more sense? But as long as Twitter is basically going to force me to send them personal information to verify that I'm me, I'm never going to be able to get that account back. So just know that there is some weirdo out there pretending to be me on Twitter. There may be weirdos out there pretending to be me on things like Facebook and Instagram and all that other garbage as well. It's not really much I can do about it. That's one of the negatives. Once you become kind of a public figure is you're always going to have people that are trolls and pretending to be you. Some of them for nefarious reasons. I try to point out every couple of months I try to let you guys know hey that Twitter account is not me. I don't know why that guy is there. I know sometimes you guys actually retweet the tweets from the fake distro tube account and you're messaging that guy and things like that. I'm telling you right now that's not me. The next question is also social network related. It goes something along the lines of this. Hey DT, I saw you mention PeerTube on one of your recent videos. Why don't you have your own PeerTube instance?  And I've gotten this question thousands of times since starting my YouTube channel and I have answered this question thousands of times. It got to the point where I just quit answering the question because it's the same question over and over again and I don't know why I need to answer this question. Okay so PeerTube it's great the technology behind it it's this peer-to-peer decentralized YouTube alternative. But you know it's free and open source software and being a free software advocate. If this thing was worth using I would be out there championing that cause. I would have been the first person out there years ago when PeerTube first arrived on the scene. I'd been the first person to be on PeerTube promoting PeerTube telling all of you guys to start PeerTube instances. But there is one big problem with PeerTube and why you don't see any large YouTube creators using PeerTube it's because you have to host your own video with PeerTube. That's right in my PeerTube instance I got to you know pay for some web hosting rent a server and the server costs are going to be outrageously expensive because I have to store all of my video on that server. They have to be stored on that server locally and I have terabytes of video in my my catalog. I have made nearly 800 videos now on YouTube and on library and I can't put that much data on a web server and pay for that hosting. It would be hundreds of dollars a month probably just on the storage costs alone and I would go broke hosting a PeerTube instance when what's the point. There are other free as in freedom platforms that you can go watch my videos on. I am not going to go take a loan out from a bank. So I can start a PeerTube instance when I can just sync all of my content to library which is a much better platform. I don't have to host my own video on that platform and you guys for some reason if you can't use library I get libraries kind of a new platform. It's not perfect. But if you wanted another place you could go watch my videos. I actually do self store all of my videos on Amazon S3 because it's cheap storage. It's really designed to be long term storage.  So you can actually go watch my videos at distroutube.com because you guys are watching that though it does cost me a little bit because again that Amazon storage it's cheap storage as long as nobody's ever accessing those files but if a lot of you start watching those videos it will cost me a little money from Amazon too. Right now I'm paying about 30 bucks a month storing all of my videos on S3 and that 30 bucks a month it's not just the storage costs that's you know some of the bandwidth costs too because some of you guys I do know go to distroutube.com and watch my videos and that's okay if if I ever get large amounts of traffic to that site watching those videos it may be a problem to to fund some of that but Peartube for sure it's just not a viable option if Peartube was a viable option you would see people on it you would see creators actually migrating to Peartube you've never seen that and you never will see that as long as you have to host your own videos it's just not an option and the next question is along the same lines it's about library and it goes something like this hey DT how long does it take you to upload a video to library hey DT how long does it take library to sync your videos from YouTube to library how long do I have to wait after you post on YouTube to see that video on library so I don't actually upload my videos to library myself and the reason I don't do this is because they have a sync feature where when I post a YouTube library is supposed to detect it and it's supposed to go and sync that video that I posted on YouTube over to library automatically for me oh it'll grab the thumbnail and the title and the tags and the description and I do that just to save on work I don't want to have to go through the trouble of uploading all of that stuff myself because it's not like it's a ton of time but it would take me 10 or 15 minutes to do all that myself and I post you know a lot of videos I'm posting frequently right now there is a downside to this and I know there is it's that libraries syncing is not reliable there are many days where I will post on YouTube and within an hour that video is already synced to library but there are sometimes where I post a video to YouTube and it is not available on library until 2, 3, 4 days later that has happened a few times and I can't really control that that's out of my control the only way I could really control this if I uploaded to library myself I may eventually start doing that I haven't committed to it yet mainly just for being lazy and just trying to save some time you know if I can save myself 15 minutes of work a day you know that that's valuable because again I got so much going on and I'm just trying not to have to do that myself there is other options with library they do have a syncing option going the other way where I upload first to library and then they should sync my content to YouTube they'll post my content to YouTube I haven't tried that out and I'm kind of scared to try that out because if the syncing doesn't really work consistently the way it's way I'm doing it now YouTube first and then library I definitely don't want to do the other one you know post the library first and then hope they eventually sync my content to YouTube because what if it takes you know 2, 3, 4 days for them to get around to syncing that content over to YouTube because at the end of the day YouTube is the biggest platform people watch my content on it just is I get you know 10 times the views on YouTube as I do library so I definitely want to make sure that my stuff gets posted to YouTube so maybe as library the platform matures and their syncing gets better all of these problems will be solved if they don't eventually probably what I will end up having to do is just upload all my videos myself to both platforms I'll you know when I upload to YouTube as soon as I'm done uploading to YouTube I'll go to library and just upload all the videos myself the next question is distro related because I've done some distro hopping recently but I ended up back on Arco Linux on the main production machine I've been running Arco Linux for about a year and a half now on this main production machine and the question goes something along the lines of this hey DT why do you run Arco Linux instead of just running mainline Arch that's a good question what are the differences between Arco and mainline Arch well Arch is a command line installer but you know what the command line installer for Arch Linux doesn't take that long it's a pretty simple process I've done videos of Arch installs and I've run mainline Arch on physical machines even on main production machines not this current computer I have but the one I had previously for the YouTube channel I ran mainline Arch on it for a little while just fine pretty much all Arch based Linux distributions are the same most of them pretty much all of them I can think of are pretty much 100 compatible with Arch Linux meaning they're essentially Arch Linux and certainly Arco falls into that category it's 100 compatible with mainline Arch so what's the point of installing Arco rather than mainline Arch well for me it's because it does some of the stuff I'm going to install automatically for example I'm a window manager only user and Arco has window manager only editions they have editions for awesome Xmonad Qtile and i3 and BSPWM and every other window manager you can think of tiling window managers floating window managers they even have editions for full desktop environments I don't use full desktop environments personally but I do use a lot of the tiling window managers most Linux distributions do not ship tiling window manager editions very few do and as far as I know of Arco Linux is the only distribution that ships a Xmonad edition which is one of my favorite window managers as far as I know of Arco Linux is the only Linux distribution that ships a Qtile edition which again is one of my favorite tiling window managers and I suspect part of the reason they doing some of this is the popularity of these particular window managers are increasing thanks in no small part to some of the content that I do on my YouTube channel especially something like Qtile most people would have never heard of Qtile had I not focused so much coverage on my YouTube channel because it just was not something most people had ever heard of until me doing what I do on this channel and because of that I really want to give Arco Linux some credit and that's why I want to run it I want to talk to you guys about it because it is one of those distributions so many distributions out there really don't serve a point they have no reason to exist they don't do anything unique they don't do anything different Arco serves a purpose and it's just a fantastic distribution not only because it has these tiling window manager additions but the installation process is really fantastic and I'm not talking about it's just the Calamari installer and you click okay three times and you're done in 10 minutes it's not that kind of installer it actually lets you choose what you install before you actually install it you can actually tell it what packages you want what packages you don't want if you guys want to see this in action if you want to fire up a VM just to test any edition of Arco go grab one of the tiling window manager additions of Arco Linux B they have a set of ISOs called Arco Linux B and pick your favorite tiling window manager edition run through the installation in a VM and you'll see what I'm talking about the Calamari installer has about 10 software sections that you got to go through categories like development software gaming software office software web browsing and things like that and you choose there's tick boxes and you choose what programs you actually want to be installed during the installation process and it's fantastic it actually saves you so much time because you don't have to go through and do all that yourself in a mainline arch command line installer but at the same time you're not wasting time because you install this Linux distribution it installs a ton of packages you don't even need you're going to have to remove them later and then install the stuff you want because of the way Arco Linux does it you get to pick pretty much all the stuff you want during the Calamari installation and it's just fantastic I can't talk to you guys enough about how great a distribution Arco Linux is and the next question is along those same lines hey dt why don't you run Artex hey dt what are your thoughts on Artex I've actually looked at Artex on the channel at least once maybe a couple of times a couple of years back I haven't looked at Artex lately but Artex is another it's just arch it's just the arch based distro like one of the hundreds of other arch based distros they're all the same they're all pretty much 100 compatible with arch it's just different desktop environments or window managers and theming Arco is a little different because it does some special stuff or like Arco really stands out among the arch based distributions Manjaro does some interesting stuff too and why Manjaro's become such a popular distribution in recent years but most of the other arch based distributions they're pretty much all the same I don't see themselves really differentiating themselves in any significant way Artex has never been a popular arch based distribution I don't know how much development it sees because you know I do pay attention to distro watch and release announcements I can't remember the last time I heard of Artex seeing a release and essentially again it's just arch Linux so if you've run one arch based distribution you've run them all the only thing with Artex that really separates it is it doesn't use systemd by default you have your choice of either using run it or open rc as you're a knit system with Artex and if you are one of those kinds of users those systemd haters and you're looking for a protest distro you know you hate systemd so much I want to go use a protest distro the two protest distros systemd haters love to run are dev1 if you prefer devian based distros and Artex if you prefer arch based distros but I'm not a protest distro kind of guy I don't care about the init system I used Linux way before systemd ever existed so I've used other init systems other than systemd they're all fine cist via knit upstart was great systemd once it came along I have no problems with it I've used distributions that used run it and open rc and various other things that laptop behind me is running a new shepherd as it's a knit system I it's okay I guess but I don't know I'm not a protest distro kind of guy and if I don't care about systemd being installed or not Artex I mean what's the difference the next question is hey dt recently on video you commented that you wished we had a website or some repository where we could all go and put our dot files and share our dot files well I've recently stumbled across a website called dot share dot it that does exactly this all right so I did mention that on a video a while back is that we should have a website I should create a website or maybe a get repository where we could all upload our dot files and see what each other is doing in their dot files so we could you know share our bash rc our vmrc and various config files for our tiling window managers and he's right there's already this website that exists and when he mentioned dot share dot it this particular website I remember it I remember that URL and when I went to the website and and saw the website it has a very unique look to it really cool theme a dark theme anyway I remember this site and it functions great you upload your dot files and a screenshot and it shows you the source code for the dot files you uploaded and it's it's a really slick website there's no way I would want to recreate a site like that when this site already exists so I don't need to do this he's right dot share dot it I wanted to share this with you guys on camera go to dot share dot it and I'm here's what I would like to do is this site doesn't look like it's seeing that much activity it sees some activity but not much guys let's all go and start putting our dot files on that site I think that's what we need to start pushing and maybe we can make this site the go-to site for an archive of dot files config files and the final question for this edition of Haiti is Haiti your channel is the reason I switched to Linux were there any YouTube influencers that influenced you to switch to Linux that's a great question and I get thousands of comments like this on the channel too is Haiti I switched to Linux specifically because of you because of your videos or I switched to Linux because of your videos and a whole bunch of other Linux YouTuber videos too as well because really the YouTube Linux community is it's growing there's so much good content out there and I know that me and a lot of the other YouTube content creators really make a difference I know people are switching to Linux because of us and I think that's great that's one of the reasons why I work so hard at this and do what I do is the fact that I do know I make a difference you know in some small way in people's lives because this is a life-changing thing when you switch from Windows or Mac over to Linux very few people end up going back so who influenced me were there any YouTube influencers that influenced me making my decision to leave Windows and switch to Linux and it's a great question but if I had to answer this directly no there weren't any YouTube channels that influenced my decisions because I switched to Linux so many years ago when I switched YouTube was around but YouTube wasn't nearly the platform it is now there weren't it wasn't that big it wasn't that popular there weren't that many Linux YouTubers back then this was about 12 years ago and you did have some Linux content but not the kind of content you have now it was mostly introducing Linux to the world maybe some distro reviews very few tutorials you didn't have the kind of depth of content and the wide variety we have so many people doing Linux content now thousands of Linux YouTubers out there covering a wide range of topics nobody's doing the same thing and it's fantastic you didn't have all this back then so no there I wasn't influenced switching from Windows to Linux because of any YouTube content creator but along the same lines of when you switch to Linux it's a lifestyle change it's something that's going to change your life forever I there were some influencers that did influence me in a big way that I will say they changed my life for the better and I think one of those people was Brian Lenduk because I don't know if I've shared this story on camera before but Xmonad my window manager my favorite window manager I switched to it almost immediately after switching to Linux six months and I was probably already on Xmonad and then you know fell in love with Xmonad used it on and off forever tried out a million other tiling window managers and it's completely changed my workflow I could never go back to floating window managers I certainly would never run a full desktop infirmary and the reason I run Xmonad is because of Brian Lenduk and Chris Fisher and the Linux action show now specifically on the old Linux action show they had an episode where Brian Lenduk introduced Xmonad and he tried it out live on video of just a bare bones Xmonad just the default and figs all black screen and he was using the default key bindings which are a little weird you know alt shift enter opens up an x term and alt P opens up D menu you know just the standard Xmonad config but even just this bare bones Xmonad that didn't look good right it's just ugly no wallpaper he's just opening up some terminals and he's swapping the terminals as far as the placement on the screen and resizing the terminals and closing the terminals with the keyboard and opening more terminals with the keyboard I'm looking at all this and I thought cool I want that I want that I was watching that Linux action show while watching the program I installed Xmonad on my Ubuntu install at the time logged out of whatever desktop or window manager I happened to be using at the time I think I was using open box and logged into Xmonad to that black screen and thankfully Brian Lenduk told me all shift enter brings up an x term so I can get a terminal left and that's where the fun began you know from there you know I just started playing with this stuff and it was truly a life-changing experience I can't imagine you know where I would be now had I not discovered Xmonad and subsequently all the various other tiling window managers and related programs things like D menu had it not been for that single episode of the Linux action show now have there been other YouTube content creators podcasters that have gotten me to try out software or hardware of course but none of them introduced me to something that was a complete game changer for me the way Lenduk and Fisher did on that episode of the Linux action show with Xmonad one other YouTuber that I want to mention because he introduced me to something that is another life-changing thing like I can't imagine ever going back to the way I was working before XDSL those of you that don't know the XDSL YouTube channel check it out he does some Linux content Linux gaming content occasionally he does some stuff with tiling window managers and command line applications great channel great guy and hex DSL a couple of years ago did a video on the Ergo Docs easy keyboard and I had been thinking about buying that particular keyboard I've been looking at it and it was expensive it's like $400 US that's an expensive keyboard and I was looking for reviews for that keyboard and hex reviewed it on his channel and he gave it a positive review you know he really highlighted it he went into some detail about his experience with the Ergo Docs and once I heard his you know straightforward honest review and the fact that he just was blown away by this keyboard that was the selling point I bought my Ergo Docs I have been using the Ergo Docs easy now for a year and a half and again life-changing experience I would never go back to a standard 110 keyboard I couldn't do it I will forever buy Ergo Docs keyboards or things that are in a similar vein if Ergo Docs went out of business you know I would build my own programmable mechanical keyboards so I just wanted to highlight you know those particular creators so Brian Lundu, Chris Fischer, hex DSL whether you know it or not you actually influenced me in a big way and really have made some major impacts on my life now before I go I need to thank a few special people I need to thank the producers of the show I need to thank Michael, Gabe, Nate, Corbinian, Mitchell, Entropy UK, John, Devin, Arch5530, Chris Chuck, DJ Donnie, Dylan, George, Lewis, Omri, Paul, Robert, Sean, Tobias and Willie these guys they are my highest tiered patrons over on Patreon they are the producers of this episode of Haiti. I also need to thank each and every one of these ladies and gentlemen these are all my supporters over on Patreon because this channel is sponsored by you guys the community we have no corporate sponsors here at DistroTube it's just me and you guys Peace


The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Ipman, Western Zone, has attributed the increase in the pump price of premium motor spirits to the hike in private depot prices. Chairman of the Zone, Dele Tajedin, announced this in an interview with Newsman on Tuesday in Lagos. While condemning the increase, Tajedin said that there had been an increase in depot price of fuel from 148 naira per litre to 178 naira per litre since last week. According to him, none of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company limited depots have products, and the private depots took advantage of the situation to hike the price. The Ipman chairman said the marketers should not be blamed for the increase in pump price. Tajedin said that selling at 117 naira per litre is not realistic, however, a top official of the depot and petroleum marketers association of Nigeria, who prefer to be anonymous, said that the scarcity was as a result of a shortfall in product allocation from the NNPC.


Would you rather pay $650 or $66 for a smart phone? Simple.  Better service, bigger savings. That's today's Appalachian Wireless. I'm volunteering. I come up to help because I have green kids of my own. Actually, I got like 10 green kids and I got one great green kid. So I know I can imagine what the parents are going through. We had the pipe over here last night to which they went down with a camera to look back in the pipes. Nothing. Nothing. Well, you know that maybe that he's not here because I can't see a 22-month-old baby crawling up in these hills.  Be two days to be to 48 hours, I guess. So it's ain't much hope because it's been getting pretty cold at night.


US cartridge, 124 grade full metal jacket with the Walther PDP. Hey there friends, thanks for checking in. We find ourselves in an ammo crisis where ammo is scarce, it's hard to find and when we do find it, it is extremely expensive. Some of the times you put it in your cart and it's gone by the time you go to check out. It's frustrating and many of us are frustrated. But it is always nice when a new ammunition makes its way to the market and that's what this video is about. This is a 124 grade full metal jacket made by US cartridge. It's a 9mm and this is not remanufactured ammo. This is new ammunition exclusively sold from ammunition depot. Now the reason I know that is because I looked at each of the headstamps and I knew that going in but I looked at each of the headstamps and it says a US 9mm Luger on each one. So if these were different cases, you'd be able to tell that. That's one thing that you know is if you purchase remanufactured ammo, the headstamps are all labeled a little bit different. This is not. So I took it to the range. I did a couple of range reviews. I used this ammo. I didn't mention it at the time but then I took all the guns that I had in my range bag that day. It took a few shots with this ammo. I wanted to make sure it fed, fired, ejected just fine. And it did. It worked great. The 9mm round is very difficult to find. It's the hottest caliber handgun selling right now and has been for a while 9mm. And so this is available but it sells out quick. I will mention that. Just like we're used to with many of the sights out there, the stuff sells out quick. They also make a self-defense load called the Quadroshock. This is a 100 grain self-defense load. So I'm going to talk about that. But let's roll through some of that footage and we'll come back and talk about the self-defense Quadroshock. U.S. cartridge 124 grain full metal jacket with the FN 509, U.S. cartridge 124 grain full metal jacket, 92X performance. Here is another round that is brand new, not re-manufactured. It is made by U.S. cartridge sold by Ammunition Depot. It's a 9mm 100 grain QSHP Quadroshock hollow point. This has an all copper projectile. The bullet is all copper. What makes it unique is that it reacts very similar to the RIP G2 research round. Once it hits its target, five of the pedals will expand and separate off of its base creating various wound channels. So I'm going to dub in a picture from a gel test that demonstrates this better than I can explain it. But that is what you can expect from this round. And I also shot this at the range. I wanted to make sure this performed fine and I used the Springfield Armory Hellcat and it did. It performed great. I shot it a lot more than what I recorded. I wanted to make sure that I didn't get a lucky mag filled with rounds and the truth was it performed great. I took many shots with it along with some other handguns and I was very happy with the way it felt. I was happy with the way it shot and I was happy with the way it ejected. This is the box that they have available. It's 100 rounds. Now what I like about that is you're not buying a 20 round box where you load up a 15 round mag and then you want to make sure that it functions well on your gun and the next thing you know you have to buy more boxes and it's pricey. I'd rather get I guess a bulk package you know 100 rounds like that's considered a bulk package in today's market but you know you have confidence to shoot you know like about a half a bag that's at least what I shot I think. And so I shot about 50-60 rounds whatever the case maybe not 60 but I did have a good time with it. It was an impressive round and it felt great and if it does what it says it's supposed to do then you know it would make for a good self defense carry for your CCW gun. So here it is this is made by US cartridge it's new to the market it's new ammunition sold by ammunition depot I know I keep repeating that but they're also selling some remanufactured made by US cartridge so there's new ammo there's remanufactured ammo there's hollow points there are full metal jacket rounds all in 9 millimeter and it is new and it is available the price does fluctuate so I don't feel comfortable saying what it's going to be in case it changes and it does sell out quick but it is new and it will offer the gun community another choice another option to pick up ammo and have fun at the range once again and that is exactly what we need if you like videos like this please subscribe and share I always appreciate the thumbs up button thanks for watching and you guys be safe