Hello everyone and welcome to Inside Leather History, a fireside chat. I'm Doug O'Keeffe, the host and producer of the chats. And this evening, I'm joining Alan Stroke, who is in California. Where are you located in California exactly? I am in Redlands. Most people in Southern California just know that as a place you pass through between LA and Palm Springs. Okay. And we are doing this on Zoom because we are still having too many COVID-19 issues for me to be able to travel to California to interview you. So it's very gracious of you to join me here. I'm happy to be here tonight. Okay, and it is Thursday evening, August 27th, 2020. So Alan, tell us a little bit about your growing up and a bit about your family. Well, I grew up in a suburb outside the city of Milwaukee. I was just a pretty small, quiet town. Not a whole lot happened there. Pretty much a nondescript city. I am the fifth of six children. And I have had an older brother who was also gay. I was pretty much just your basic childhood. Nothing exciting, nothing unusual. Kind of like what most of us experienced growing up. And what suburb were you in? It was called the city of Franklin. Okay, okay. That's relatively near to where I am in Chicago. Yes. All things considered.  Do you mind telling us a little bit about him? Yeah, he's no longer with us, unfortunately. He came out before I did. I was about, oh, maybe 12 or 13 when he came out. And when he came out to the family, none of us believed him. Because up until that point, he was a womanizer. It seemed like he was always with another woman, or I guess teenager, I guess, at the time. Cause he was about three and a half years older than me. So we, I didn't believe him. I thought he was just joking with us at first. It was just really hard to believe that he was gay. He just didn't, there was nothing about him that he would have thought. Okay. What happened to him? Unfortunately, he died, going about eight to nine years ago. He died actually in a bath house in Phoenix. He occasionally dabbled in substances. And when they found him, he had passed out in the sauna. And he had been chewing gum and that lodged in the back of his throat. Sorry.  Oh, okay. It was, and I, yeah, I still miss him. I'm pissed off at him for dying. He had a very big influence on you though. Well, he was older brother. He was there for me when I had my own problems growing up. Nothing major, but influence in many different ways. When we were younger, he was one of most of my siblings that liked to tease me and torment me. But once we got older, when I finally was able to accept who I was and decided to come out to the family, I just told them, I said, Paul, I got something to tell you.  I think that's a pretty common reaction in most families. They always know before you tell them. They have a good idea. So he knew, and he's been there for me. He helped me out of a few, nothing serious, but just a few jams and problems in my life. Paul, we teased him. He did not have the most book smarts, but when it came to common sense and mechanical ability, he's the kind of person who could take apart the entire engine of a car and rebuild it. And it would run better when he was done. Wow. Did you two ever go out cruising around together? Not very often. He had his circle of friends, I had mine. It was, I don't know, it would just seem to, we'd meet and hang out in one bar in Milwaukee occasionally, but most of the time we went our own separate ways. Well, speaking of Milwaukee, you, tell me about the scene that you encountered when you came out. Well, Milwaukee, Wisconsin is known for its beer, its drinking. It's considered to be one of the highest consumption of alcohol states in the nation. I think it's up there in the top three, if I'm right. I think it might be behind only on Nevada. So growing up back in the 80s, the running joke in the city is there pretty much was at least three bars on every corner in town. There's a lot of truth to that.  There was plenty of places to go to drink. That's where you went to socialize. That was the social scene back then. What were some of the bars you visited? The first bar I went to was called Shadows. I can look back at it and say that it was definitely a fluffy sweater bar. You know, that's where it went. But after that, places like the rec room, the boot camp saloon, occasionally we go to the drag dance bar called Lacage, but those were the primary places that we would go. How was the clientele at the time? Bars were always crowded, lots of cruising, always busy, so there was definitely plenty to see and do. So yeah, it could be fun. There's a little more restrictive because you did have, you couldn't get a little too crazy because you could get shut down if anything illicit happened in the bars. So they were a little bit strict on that. Well, I recall when we were preparing for this interview, you mentioned you were out in the community at the time of Jeffrey Dolmer. Yes. And for the audience, would you please explain who Jeffrey Dolmer was and what did you or the other people know about him? He was, is a notorious serial killer.  He would take them home. Pretty much what he was trying to do was create a zombie boyfriend that wouldn't leave him.  Obviously from what I'm saying, you can tell he had a lot of his own issues too. And that's an understatement? Yeah, no kidding. So it was, when it broke, it was this huge shockwave, not just through the community, but through the entire country. People were, it was headline news and they called it gay overkill, which people started to push back going, what is the difference between killing and overkilling? I mean, it was like, they were sensationalizing it. Then everybody was little freaked out and when the news broke, it was kind of weird. I got a call from my sister who was living down in the Memphis area and she's just calling me up to tell me, talk and say, we saw the story on the news and she says, I was sitting here with Ron, my husband and we looked at the guy in the pictures on the news and we both looked at each other and said, he looks just like Alan.  Well, do I correctly remember he preferred men of color? Isn't that right? He did pray more on the Latino, black and Asian community. He didn't primarily go after white males. Wow, how did the community there react? Was there fear, panic? The biggest, I never met him. I don't recall ever seeing him, but those who did were kind of just in shock going, oh my God, that could have been me. So that was the general reaction. Other than that, we were all kind of like the rest of the country. We were just in shock that it happened, that it could have happened, that it happened in our own neighborhood and our places that we hung out.  That was in the mid, isn't that right? Yeah, I don't remember exactly the year, but between like 81 and 83 or 84, I think. Okay, yeah. But taking a quick step back, he's growing up, that you loved the wild, wild West movie news and TV programs, what's about that? Well, I didn't realize it at the time. I was just a kid, you know, 8, 10, you know, thereabouts when those shows came out, but I just remember watching it and knowing that anytime somebody was getting tied up in any of those shows, I was really liking it. There was something about it that was kind of exciting. You know, as a kid, you don't think anything about it.  So I can look back now and connect the dots and say, aha, there was an early start. I just didn't know it yet. So you might say that in many ways those were my formative leather years. I just didn't know it. What were some of the programs or movies that you liked? Well, you mentioned wild, wild West. That was probably my favorite because there was always somebody getting tied up on that show. So, and then of course there was James West, who was, you know, back then he had the perfect body. So, you know, you put the two together and well, I was done. But moving back into sort of the Milwaukee scene, you mentioned the Beartown Badger's Club. Yes, that was the first leather club that I ever joined. A friend introduced me to them and I eventually pledged and became a member. The leather club scene back then was, especially in the Midwest, was a lot different. Every larger city, even a lot of the middle-sized cities had leather clubs and that's where you socialized with your club brothers and all the different cities, they would always once a year have a club run and they would invite people from the other clubs and GDIs which called Goddamn Independence. They would just come in and it was a chance just to meet club brothers from out of state, friends, make new friendships, get drunk, get laid, you know, that's what it was all about and you just go throughout, almost like the leather club circuit and just all the different cities. It was really a lot of fun and I kind of missed that scene because there was the sense of community and camaraderie that I don't think exists the way it did back then. So it's one of those things, I wish there was a way to bring it back but who knows, I don't know if it's possible. Tell us a little more about the club, how big was it? Had about a dozen members at the biggest. It was one of three clubs in the city and each one had a group of about 10 or 12 members and there were some rivalries and some different, didn't always get along with every member and some clubs really didn't like the others but and that was true of almost every city. There was always, I guess you'd say rival clubs but I knew most of the members and most of the clubs and we all got along pretty well. What made you comfortable with that particular club? It's just the guys who were in the club. You got to know them. They were people that you see them and you're just an instant friendship and there were the bonds and we just really got along well together and knew how to have a lot of fun. Do you recall the other clubs? The, yeah, one of them was the Oberans. There was the Castaways. The Beertum Badgers was a spin-off from the Castaways. There was some sort of a split before I joined so there was always a little bit of rivalry there. Those were the three main clubs while I was there. What sort of activities did the Beertum Badgers club do? Mostly we would just have a bar night usually once a night just to raise funds to help us pay for our club run. Back then it was really, everything was about socializing. It wasn't the same as it is today where now the clubs are all designed around usually doing charitable things. You could not actually be a leather club and be a 501C3 back then. It just wouldn't have gone through. So it was just a chance to socialize. The bar nights, we'd raise a few hundred dollars. It was never a large amount. But that's pretty much we just saved it and used it as needed for different events to help fund our annual club run. Well, in the 80s, a couple of hundred dollars was a lot of money. I suppose that's true. From perspective looking back, yes. Yeah, so. But you also explored the Chicago scene at that time. Tell us something about that. That was definitely, you could definitely have a lot more fun in the bars there. All the Chicago bars at the time, they all had back rooms. And yes, I know, shocking. Most of the time the back rooms were more crowded than the front bar. And so yeah, there was always things going on.  Sometimes. Well, if you can think it, they would probably do it. I've never sought, but I heard that there were, sometimes guys were back, they're getting fisted, but lots of sucking and fucking.  And sometimes it would get a little more intense. But usually it was just sex. What bars did you visit at that time? The one that I remember the most was one called the double A Meat Market. Yes. It was built in a former meat market. And then, God, I feel real bad because there was another one up on the north side and I just cannot remember its name. The girls, speakeasy. No, it was a leather bar. Touche. Touche, that's the one. And I should remember it, but I just couldn't. But yeah, those were the two primary places that when we ever went down there that we would do our little bar crawl. And the other nice thing about a lot of the Chicago bars is some of them were open almost 24 hours. So we could do last call in Milwaukee, get on the road, drive for about 90 minutes, still have time to go to the bars in Chicago and have a couple more drinks before we would sloppily drive home. My gosh. Yeah, it was bad but good. You mentioned at that time that you experienced mummification. Yes, this was, today it would have been considered to be an extremely risky and dangerous thing. Was out at one of the bars and met this guy and we just kind of hit it off and didn't know him, didn't know anything about him. And he said, let's go back to my place. And I was there with my friends and they all looking going, yeah, just go, go, you'll have fun. The bartender was like, somebody said, one of the bartenders said that they knew him and it was okay. And so fine, went back there and yeah, discovered that mummification was a hell of a lot of fun. And I really enjoyed it and in retrospect, I have zero regrets. It was a great first scene and I had a great time and I'm still alive, so it's all good. What made it so great? I just found out that it was something that I really, really enjoyed. There's something about being mummified that can create this, a sense of security and safety. You're kind of like cocooned and wrapped up. And for me, I've learned since then that when I am mummified, I can get very, very relaxed. Relaxed to the point that sometimes I will fall asleep. Wow. Yeah, it just brings that relaxation really out there and makes it easy for me to just let go and zone out. So this is an activity you frequently enjoy? Not as much as I'd like to, but yes. When I have a chance, I will do it. It's fun to be mummified and it's also fun to mummify other people. What sort of facilities do you have where you're located now in California to be able to do this? We have a, at least as far as the family knows, a spare room, but it does have enough equipment. There's a cross, a sling, a bondage table and many shells full of various supplies to play with. Wow. Yeah, we do have enough that if we wanna play or have people over, we are able to keep them entertained or vice versa. So you're keeping it in-house a bit? Not all the time, but sometimes in-house, other times out-of-house, it just depends on the situation. What took you to California? Well, the man who is currently now my husband. When I was living in Milwaukee, I knew I wanted a little more in Milwaukee being a small town community. There weren't a lot of people there and I pretty much knew everybody that I was going to know. And I was sort of seeing somebody, but he had a boyfriend. They'd been together for about five or six years and it wasn't going anywhere. There really wasn't. I didn't see any chance of things changing. I did not see that they were ever going to split up. And yes, they both knew about me. It was not something on the side. Everybody knew what was going on. Occasionally we did play together all three. So I decided to see what else I could find. And back then, of course, we didn't have the internet, but we did have magazines with what were called Pink Pages. And I placed an ad in Drummer Magazine. And my now husband responded. He was one of many. And we just started talking, conversations over the phone. Sometimes it was for a couple of hours, came out to visit and after meeting him, decided, yeah, there's definitely something here. This could work out, visited another time and then had one winter where everything seemed that could go wrong in my life was going wrong. My roommate at the time announced that he was going to buy a house. And so he was moving out. So I was now gonna be without a roommate. My job was not going well. I did not like it. It was just not a good time. And Mike, my husband had said, if you ever wanna come out here, you're welcome to come out. He made it very clear that if I did this, it was on my own. He was not going to pay to have me move out. He wanted me to make sure that if I'm doing it, I mean it. And I was gonna make it happen on my own and I did. And we've now been together for over 27 years. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. And for our 25th anniversary, we first decided to hold just a 25th anniversary party and invited all our friends over and family just to have this huge celebration. We did not tell them, it was Mike's idea that they were going to be guests at a surprise wedding. Oh, wow. We decided this is where we're gonna do it called one of our friends who was very dear to us. And we asked her if she would officiate the wedding. And she was thrilled. She shed a few tears because she was just so shocked and pleased that we asked her.  And it was pretty cool because most of Mike's family lives here in the area. And his, actually his sister who was, her and her husband live in Hungary, they've been there for about, I think, seven years. She was back in town at the time, so she was gonna be there. My mom and my sister from Phoenix were there and my younger brother, who still lives in Milwaukee, flew out. None of them had a clue what was going on. So it was, when we finally did announce what was going on, actually it was Olga who made the announcement and it was very, very loud and happy cheering. So it was something special. How wonderful. Yeah. It's really beautiful. It was, yeah, I'd like to say it was my idea, but it was all Mike's idea to do the wedding. He's the one that kind of said, you know, it's been 25 years, let's make it official. And since the Supreme Court had said gay marriage is legal, we decided to get on the bandwagon with a lot of our other friends who've been together for a while. Yeah. But you said when you moved out there that there was a bit of a challenge trying to find a community and what did you call it, the inland empire? Yes, yeah, the whole, pretty much Riverside, San Bernardino County has been called the inland empire before I haven't got a clue how long. Because we're about 70 miles east of LA and about 35 miles west of Palm Springs, we're kind of stuck in the middle and there are bars here, but there's not a lot. Most people, when they want to go out and they wanna do something, they will drive to LA or to Palm Springs because both of them have much larger established gay communities. And you've got West Hollywood and LA and Palm Springs is kind of like the new gay capital of the world, it seems. Everybody is moving there now, but it's always had that huge vibrant community. There's lots of bars, lots of events, lots of things happening in both cities. So we would invariably always go to those cities to meet, to hang out. So yeah, that's, there's just, I've been to the bars here, they're nice bars, but they're not leather bars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I should think they'd be more community type. Very much so. And yeah, when I moved out here, San Bernardino had two or three bars, now it has none, Riverside has two, and there's a very small handful of bars in other cities in the area. I think probably totally inland empire might only have about four or five gay bars. And with this whole pandemic going on, who knows how many of them are gonna survive? I know. I know, we're seeing that all over. Yeah, it's a shame. But what did you find there for community then? I mean, if you had such limited resources, what did you do? Well, it started through somebody that Mike Met came over for a play date. At the end of the night, he, you know, I know we were just talking about the lack of community out here, and he told us about this organization actually down in Orange County. They had monthly programs where they would just meet and talk about different subjects and do PG rated demos. It was called Orange Coast Leather Assembly. OCLA, and it was actually started if I remember correctly by Brian Dawson. And so a lot of people know who he is. He's a very well-known and well-respected Leatherman. And actually, I know it was Brian and there were a couple of others involved. And sadly, I cannot remember all of their names. But we went down there and just started going to the meetings, met people there. They used to hold an event called Sampler out in the desert in Palm Springs. They would take over one of the gay resorts for the weekend. They would invite guest presenters out to teach. They would be one-on-one hands-on classes. They usually were about 25 presenters. Could get about a hundred people would attend. And so it was a chance really just to try things, to learn things. And again, it was small community. You'd spend the whole weekend with the same group of people. And again, you would develop friendships. And after a while, we decided to start getting involved and helping with the weekend events. And one of the members, or guys who would attend those a lot was also a member of Avatar Club Los Angeles. And through all of this and watching how Mike and I would work and interact and got involved in everything, we decided that he was going to nominate us for membership in Avatar. And through that, we did get nominated. We were invited to join. And we've been members of that club ever since. Well, for that benefit of the audience, what is Avatar?  Part of our mission is to teach safe, sane, consensual BDSM. So we hold, held, we will eventually do it again, monthly meetings on all different kinds of subjects.  Every month would be a different subject. Sometimes it would just be a talk. People would just come out and talk about different things. We had a hypnotherapist come out once. Midori has done a few classes. We try to get a lot of different subjects and people to come in and teach. One of the fun little facts that kind of blows some people's mind is that we hold our meetings in a church. Yes, it's part of it's one of the metropolitan community churches, so it is a gay-affirmed church. But just knowing that there is this type of stuff going on in the church, it blows a few people's minds. It's cool because all of the different pastors who we have had at this church throughout the years, they treat the church as an affirming place, as a place of sanctuary and home for anybody. And so they welcome everybody. Any part of the community is welcome there. So it's nice because there have been members of the church who were very offended that we were there. And the Reverend at the time said, well, you know what? I'm sorry you feel that way. And if you do and you choose to leave, we'll miss you. So he supported and backed all of the different organizations that met there. Wow, what were some of the other ones that we're meeting? Well, there was lots of AA groups, of course. There's different transgender groups that would meet there. At one time, they did have, they have this very small building. Literally, it is a one-room schoolhouse at the back of the property. And so they did have some school classes going on there. Very small ones, of course. But so it was all kinds of stuff like that. And everybody was welcome. You were president of the Abatars. Yep, I'm one of, well, now it would be three people who has been crazy enough to do it for two terms. You're allowed to be president for two years and then you have to step down. Does not mean you can never run again, but you have to step down after two years and let somebody else take the reins. So I was president twice. And I do tell people that I probably was, must be a little crazy because I was willing to go back and face that kind of abuse a second time. Well, that's a strong statement. Why do you say that? It's said ingest.  It is a lot of work and a lot of effort that you have to put into it because it's a volunteer organization. These are not employees. They're here because they wanna be, but you also have to keep them motivated. You have to nurture them. You have to run the organization and keep it functioning. And it's a lot of work. It takes a lot of effort, willpower and definitely a lot of love. So when I say I'm crazy enough to do it, it is said ingest, but there's a little bit of truth to it as well. But you really have to be dedicated and care about an organization to wanna do that. What would you say were your greatest challenges? Volunteer coordination. That what with any volunteer organization, I love you, you've heard of what's called the 90-10 rule. It's 10% of the people do 90% of the work. Yes, yes. So, and that's the hard part is trying to have enough volunteers and enough people who are willing to do that work. And now, because it's always the small core that does the large work. That's really been the biggest challenge. And- So did you face that both times you were in that position? Definitely, definitely. The first time I had been the program chair for many, many years prior to this, a friend of mine in the club had approached me once and asked me to do the volunteer committee for that to help recruit the presenters. My first response was, I haven't lived here that long and I don't know that many people. I have no idea where I'm gonna get these people to volunteer to teach programs. And I was right, it was hard, but I had the president was there to help me. Other members would help me. They would give me names and offer suggestions. So I was able to get them to do it and to find presenters. But after a while, I just had to step back because I did that for like five years and that was more than enough. And it was time for other people who, and new ideas, fresh ideas to come in and let somebody else take over the reins for that. What would you say was your greatest success within our avatar? Well, it was the second year or the second set of terms that I took. When I took it over at the time, the club was having a lot of problems. The, I'm trying to say this politely. It was shrinking. Our finances were, we were almost broke and there was a lack of motivation in the club. And so the hard part at the time, it was almost nobody wanted to run for president at the time and nobody wanted to be on the board. So the president said, if nobody runs the board, if we don't have enough people, we have to fold.   So we're about five or six of us, we decided that this is what we're gonna do. And so we did it and it was hard because the first year we had a struggle. The club had not been meeting regularly like it used to. So people were starting to forget about us.  So we would start holding meetings, instead of doing them every month, we started doing them by monthly. We didn't bring back our boot camp classes, which is our small one-on-ones hands-on classes where you can go into a small group and we'll teach you things in a more intimate nature. We didn't do those for the first year. And we just needed to get our feet back on the ground and we started to rebuild our finances, get our name back out in the community. And then the second year, we just started doing the boot camp classes, started holding monthly meetings again. And we got ourselves back on track and we've been going strong ever since. And I'm really, really happy that the club is still around. I believe this type of an organization that offers this type of education and training, it needs to be out there. I don't think there's enough groups throughout the country that do this. You can learn a lot on the internet. You can learn a lot that's not correct, that's not true, that's wrong information. But when you're actually able to see it and watch it happening and do the hands-on occasionally, you get a lot more out of it. You can learn so much more in person than you can by watching a video. Doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with that because I truly believe there's a lot of videos put out there by different organizations that are really good and powerful. And they are necessary as well. But hands-on I think just adds that much more personal element to it. How many years has Avatar been an organization? 30, I'm gonna get it wrong. I think it's 37. Fantastic, okay, very good. It was formed back during the height of the AIDS crisis. Pretty much the guys who formed it, it was a chance for them to kind of bond and come together and it was sort of a little bit of a safety net for everybody. There's a whole lot more history to it, but that's really the Cliff Notes version. But you also enjoy rubber. Yes, I do. I don't remember exactly what it was that I first saw that intrigued me by it, but I know I saw a photo of it somewhere, of this guy in rubber, and there was just something really sexy and hot and erotic about it. And it was something I just looked at that going, I really wanna try this. I need to find out what it's all about. And so I found a place that was selling it online and I ordered a pair of rubber shorts and a tank top, got it in the mail, tried it on, and I absolutely loved it. It was everything I was hoping it would be, and then more. There really is something about the way rubber feels on the body. It's tight, it's clingy, it's very sensual and erotic. When you touch somebody or somebody touches you when you're wearing rubber, it's a totally different feel than just skin-on-skin. It just really, the senses and everything is much more erotic-sized, and you can almost call it a tingle when somebody does it right. I really like it. I see. You said you still have your first outfit. Well, I would say I have what's left of it. Well, rubber doesn't last. It's gonna degrade over time. We're talking about a piece of rubber that's gotta be pushing 40, not quite 40, but 35 years old. It's not gonna survive. It's just now it's more a clump of stuck together pieces of red and blue rubber that I just don't have the heart to get rid of it because even though it's really completely useless, it means a lot to me. So I just cannot get rid of it. Is there no way to keep rubber from doing that? Yeah, never wear it. Keep it covered, protected, stored away in the dark with a lot of tissue paper and stuff. And yeah, it'll last longer, but there's no fun in that. Rubber is meant to be worn and enjoyed and anybody who wears rubber knows that at some point, it's gonna break, it's gonna tear. It's just not built to last. That's just the nature of rubber. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, it's unlike leather. Leather will last a lot longer. It's an animal hide, it's designed to last. Rubber comes from more of a liquid beginnings, I guess. And eventually it's gonna go back to that. Wow. So, but still I just can't get rid of it. Wow. I mean, excuse me, knowing how much money people spend on some of that. Yeah. Can't imagine losing it after a while. Yeah, you go into it knowing it's gonna happen. I mean, I had a rubber catsuit, which I won, and I was helping a friend do a fundraiser at the Eagle LA here in Los Angeles. It was called the Wheel of Torture. And we had the spinning wheel where you would spin it and whatever it landed on is what we got to do to the guy was helping do the fundraiser. He was the current Mr. Los Angeles Leather. So all kinds of stuff that we could do to him. At the end of the night, as we were starting to tear down, the wheel had these little spikes on it where the little plastic thing would slow it down so it would stop. And I just barely grazed that and the rubber tore. I stopped, I moved just a little bit and that's all it took for the whole back from the butt crack halfway up the waist it all just blew apart. Oh, no. Yeah, everybody who was, this was right close to bar closing and everybody who was there saw it. And you could see everybody just sort of stopped and looked and they were like, oh my God. What can you do?  It was too badly torn to save. There's just no way that that could have been fixed.  I truly did not know this about rubber. I just did not know. So Bob, you still owe me a new cat suit. I've been joking with him for years. He felt horrible about it too, but you know. Which Bob, do you mean? He was one of the Mr. L.A. Leathers. He's living back in Michigan now. Okay. He moved there with his husband. So I will just tease him. But you also won Mr. West Coast Rubber. Tell us about that. Yes. A friend of mine decided he was going to, he wanted to create a rubber contest so that they could send somebody to compete at MIR, Mr. International Rubber. And he approached me and he asked me if I would just enter the contest because they needed a couple of people at least to be in the contest to make it viable. And at first my reaction was, I'm not that kind of a person. I'm not, you know, I don't look good enough. I don't have the right body. I didn't want to do this. And he kind of cajoled me a little bit, did sort of remind me that I did owe him a favor. And finally I relented and said, okay, fine. I will run in a feeder contest for West Coast Rubber. It was the Gauntlet II at the time, which is now the Eagle LA. And so they were going to do the Gauntlet II Rubberman contest. And I entered and there were three contestants and very much to my surprise, I won. I really was not expecting it. Why not? I just didn't think I would win. I just didn't feel I was the person that they wanted, but I was wrong. And so the next one was the West Coast Rubber, held in August in Palm Springs. And yeah, it was 110 degrees during the day and nineties at night. And you've got about 75 to 100 men in rubber in the summertime. And it was one of the best times. And again, held the contest. And again, much to my surprise, I won. So I'm kind of going, hmm, there's something going on here. This is kind of cool. Went to MIR and then complete exact opposite weather conditions because now we're talking Chicago in November for a rubber contest. So we go from this, you know, 100 plus degree heat to having to wear almost parkas in the winter time in Chicago because it does get cold there at that time of year. And I didn't win, which I was first runner up. So I was still pleased about that, but the guy who won was this 20-something dancer from Germany, really cute, super sexy body, nice guy, you know, he won. Hard to compete against that. Yeah, what year was that? It's about 16 or 17 years ago. So early nineties, 91 or 92. No, I'm sorry. Right around the year 2000. Okay. See, I'm getting my days all wrong here. But right around 2000, 2002, I think. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, I've attended MIR a couple of times, but I don't regularly. I was a little younger then. Well, mm-mm. Yeah, I know, we all were. Yeah. But yeah, it was fun. I liked it. I know MIR has dramatically grown over the years because I personally know rubber Willie, I've interviewed him. So you get a different perspective that way. Yeah, he is definitely very, very passionate about the contest and it's pretty much through his sheer will and force of nature, I guess that it's been going for all these years. He's the person who has kept it alive and he is definitely driving force behind that contest. I agree. But switching gears a little bit, what are your thoughts on mentoring in the community? What? For me, it's definitely very helpful and beneficial. It's gotta be the right fit, but that's a big part of what Avatar does. So mentoring is part of who many of us are and what we do. We're happy to share our knowledge and our skills and to pass on this to other generations and other people who are willing to learn. There are times when Mike or I will have somebody over just to let them learn and try something. It can be very satisfying when you do this and just with the bootcamp classes, when you have somebody who's been to those classes at Avatar Holds and they come up to you a few years later and say, I remember that class and I really got a lot out of it and I learned so much and I appreciate that you did this. So in a lot of ways it is just paying it forward, helping other people learn and grow. But as a mentor, what have you learned about mentoring? That's tough. It's, it can be fun and rewarding. You've got to whoever you're doing it with that gotta be here. They have to be interested. You definitely cannot force it on somebody. If they don't wanna learn, they're not gonna wanna learn and you can't force them to learn. And different things will work for different people. There's things, you cannot teach the same thing the same way to everybody because we all have a different skill sets, our different backgrounds, our different knowledge bases, different abilities. We're all gonna learn differently. And there's some people who, they will never get certain subjects. Maybe because they just lack a skill, maybe because they in the end decide, I don't really care for that. That's not for me. That's fine. Nothing wrong with that. Yeah. You're also a member of the LA Leather Coalition. Yes, I've been on the board for about 10 or 11 years or so. Okay. It is the umbrella organization that puts on the Los Angeles Leather Contest. And we've had some incredible title holders. We've had a number of them that have gone on to win International Mr. Leather. Yes. And so that's three of them. So that's pretty good track record. And so we're very, very pleased with that. But it is a lot. Again, it's another one of those things. It's a lot of work. The LALC is an organization that's built with community partners. So we are responsible to those partners. The board puts on the organization, but the membership, the board membership, it's our job to make sure all the community partners are involved and feel involved. And we try to give them all a say in what's happening. So it's, again, it's another one of those organizations because you're bringing in all these different groups. There's clubs, there's businesses, there's nonprofits. And we have to balance and work with everybody. That can be a challenge at times. Well, maybe you know that I teamed up with LA Leather Coalition last year in March to do a series of these fireside chats in Los Angeles. Yes. And that was, for me, very rewarding. I very much enjoyed it. There are some really, really good members. And they're people who are extremely passionate about the organization, about the leather community, just really about fostering the whole leather community and helping to keep it growing and alive and vibrant. A lot of people look at what we have in LA, the fact that we've been able to bring all these different groups and organizations together and work for the most part, cohesively, I won't say always, because like any group you're gonna have issues, there are other cities that have as many groups and organizations and they're too busy fighting amongst each other to see common ground. And somehow, and I really couldn't tell you how we did it, we were able to put the egos and everything aside and find that common ground to make something special. And any city that's able to do this, they're gonna be truly blessed. Yeah, it is wonderful to see, truly. I wish it were something you could market. This is how you do it, people. You can't, it all comes down to, I shouldn't say all comes down to, but a big part of it can come down to ego, the ability to set your own goals aside, your own wants and needs aside and work towards one common goal. And if you can do that and find a way to find this common ground, you're good. You're gonna do well. How do you think and why do you think LA Leather Coalition was successful in preparing three IMLs and other people that did very well in the contest circuit? You asked about this earlier, it's mentoring. Okay. A big part of it is mentoring. If you have a group of people who are willing to mentor and coach potential title holders, because you really don't know what you're in for when you're going on to compete at these events. And if you're not prepared, you're not gonna do well at all. So we have all these people who have competed and they know what it's like, they know what to expect and they're able to pass on their knowledge and they're willing to take the time to help these men and women and help them to be successful. Cause there are a lot of women in the community too who go on to compete at IMZO International in this Leather and they do very well there also. So there's a lot of, that's part of it. We do have, because the way the LALC is set up for the contest, there are feeder contests. And in any given year, there can be anywheres between eight and 12 feeder contests to the Los Angeles Leather Contest. Some cities are lucky to have one contest and get two people to compete. So, but it takes a lot of work. It's all of these different organizations and bars and businesses, they have to go out there and look for people who are interested in running and they have to help them. And sometimes you have to convince them, they wanna do it like what happened for me. And for many of them, they have the most amazing experience of their life. They develop these friendships and bonds that last for years, the ones who go on to compete at IML, you can talk to a lot of the people not just here, but throughout the world. When you're a member of a class at IML, there's a bond there that forms. I've never done it, but this is what you always hear. There's these bonds and these friendships that develop and they can last for years and years. And you talk to the people who've competed and this is something that one of the probably the most important thing they bring back is that sense of brotherhood. And I think it's credit to IML because they help foster that as well. Yes, it's true. But LA Leather Coalition's had some, would you say growing pains or some recent challenges? What's going on? Yeah, a lot of people heard last year, we tried a combined contest for a Mr. LA Leather, Ms. LA Leather and LA Boot Black. And there were problems, there were parts of the community that were not excited or happy about it. And there were different organizations that really did not like it, they didn't want it. I personally liked it, I thought it was a great idea, but the majority of after one year, we decided we're gonna try it for one year, see what happens and then we'll vote whether or not we're gonna continue or not do it again. And unfortunately, a slight majority decided not to do it. And it was, I, very disappointed by that vote, but it was the vote of the community. And well, that was the end of that brave experiment. I'm hopeful that someday we'll be able to find a way to do it again, I guess only time will tell. Why were you disappointed? I just don't understand why you can't do all of these. I understand there was a logistical issue, having 10 men's contestants, two women and a boot black contest as well, doing all of this in one night, the logistics were crazy. It took super precise timing, everything had to go perfectly according to schedule. There was no room to deviate, no room for anything to go wrong. Overall, I'd say like 98% went like clockwork. There are always gonna be some glitches, there's always gonna be some issues, but it went well. That was one of the things. Some people complained that it was hard to follow and I would agree with that. The way the contest was set up was a little disjointed and so it was difficult for the audience to follow all the time, but that was the first year that would have been a lesson learned and I know we would have done it differently if we'd have done it again, that was part of it. But I don't know, there are just different reasons and in some ways I really don't want to go into to speculate on what some of the different organizations were thinking when they decided not to do this. That's really not my place. Well, I know this year, 2020, the contest had to be canceled due to the, of course the COVID issues. What are you thinking for 2021? Well, what we did, because there's no, you can't do contests this year, there's nothing. So we're basically gonna call it it's pretty much gonna be like a 2020 reboot. All of this year's contestants are being held over. So when, and I'm hoping that everything gets back to normal in March, it's starting to look more and more not likely and I'm hoping I'm wrong about that. But whenever we do decide to get back to this, all of the current class of 2020, they have committed at this time that they will compete for the Mr. Los Angeles Leather Contest. And we're just gonna hold them all over and roll them in and keep rolling them until we have a contest. All the different organizations have put this year's contest on pause. So we're just waiting. Yeah, I know many that are just gonna hunker down until we don't have a choice really. Right, right. Well, and it also is a detriment if you can't allow your title holder to go on to the IML or IMSL or whatever. It's not fair to them to say, oh yeah, it's, you know, you couldn't compete too bad, best of luck to you. That's not very nice. Nice. And the class of 2020, they've been able to bond over this too and they've developed those friendships. They're from everything I've been able to get, they're pretty close knit. And so they're all sticking together on this. They're all committed to wait. Good, good. Yeah, this is certainly a bad time, but hopefully another time will come. We just keep sitting back and saying, please somebody stop playing Jumanji. It's just, I was joking with some of my employees saying, okay, the next thing we're gonna see is the murder hornet zombies. That's next. Well, you'll see. I sure hope not. He was crying at this point, nothing. Yeah. But what advice can you offer people who are trying to enter the leather, the rubber, whatever community? Don't be afraid to put yourself out there. You never know what you're gonna find, what you're gonna see.  I think that's why I chose to go there because it was safe. The first time I went to a leather bar, I was scared. I was half afraid and half hoping that somebody was gonna grab me and drag me into a back room and do all kinds of horrible things. Didn't happen. Damn it. But just, you've gotta step outside of your comfort zones once in a while.  You've got to sometimes take those chances because you never know who you're gonna meet, what you're gonna find, how your life could change. And it may not even happen the first time you go there. You might go there and just be that fly on the wall for a night, but that's okay. Look and watch and see what's happening. See how people behave. See what they wear. Maybe you're not dressed appropriately. I won't say properly. Maybe you're not dressed for the bar that you're in and look at what they're wearing. If you're wearing a T-shirt and a sweater, you're probably not gonna have a lot of people talk to you in a leather bar. So next time, find yourself a pair of black shoes. They can still be sneakers, a pair of black jeans and a T-shirt, white T-shirt. You might get a little more attention. The more often you go, the more you see, you'll meet people. Don't be afraid to say hi. Cruising is still alive in the bars. It may not be the way it once was, but people still cruise and you never know what's gonna happen when you go there. So put yourself out there, take those risks and chances and you could end up here.  What's the biggest misconception about you? Oh boy. I've thought about that. I know you had mentioned this that you were gonna ask it and I have thought and thought and thought and it is, I think, a lot of people think I've got this confidence and in a lot of ways, like a lot of people, I feel the same way that everybody does. I'm still a little bit scared and a little bit nervous and I wanna make sure people like me and they'll accept me and it's, yeah, there's always that scared little kid inside of all of us and I think no matter how confident you are or even appear, I have no problem getting up on stage and MCing and sometimes making a fool of myself up there but you're still always a little bit nervous. Yeah.  Well, Alan Stroke, thank you for participating in Inside Lother History of Fireside Chat. It's been a pleasure. I thank you for having me.


What inspired me to become a councillor? Well my grandfather had been a councillor for Pettworth Royal District Council and I thought the time had come when I would like to do something for my community and help with the community's future. There was an election and I stood and got on as a representative for Pettworth and I've been there ever since. What do I value most about being chairman? Well I value the honour, I value the opportunity I have to go over this wonderful county of Ayres, I value being able to tell people what we do that's good in the county, I value listening to the people of the county who have problems or good points that they want to give me to bring back. One of the best jobs that I enjoy is the thing called citizenship ceremony. We do once a fortnight meeting all these people who have put a lot of effort into becoming citizens of the United Kingdom. I present them with their certificates and we have lots of photographs together, family come as well and then I hand over to the Lord Lieutenant or the deputy of the Lord Lieutenant and they give them a history lesson on the position of Lord Lieutenant in the county and what it's all about. How do I manage balancing my life? Well it isn't always easy because the most important thing in my life is my family. It's one of the reasons that I do this job not just my family but everybody's family but I do have a lot of support at home. I don't physically work on the farm anymore, what physical work there is is left mainly to my husband and contractors nowadays but when I get back from council work I'm very keen to sit in the garden but not just sit I actually work in the garden. In fact my daughter and I are both in the plowing match associations best kept garden competition I do think she'll beat me but that's another story. My role as chairman of West Sussex County Council is a varied one and for instance just recently I had a royal visit with Prince Charles in Crawley at L3 where they've just installed new simulators for airline pilots and that was followed the next day with 22,000 children at Ardingly Showground on a connect with the countryside meeting for all of them to experience different aspects of the countryside. This being chairman of the County Council the pinnacle of my political career locally absolutely absolutely I have no doubt of that it's an honor it's an honor it's a privilege and I intend to work hard at it for the time that I am chairman of the County Council because it is a privilege to do so


Hi, it's Flair. So if you've been watching my gaming streams lately, you'll notice that I've started playing a lot of haunt showdown, and I'm really not great at it. However, in my 100 or so hours of playing so far, I've noticed that my heart rate fluctuates like crazy playing this game more than any other game I've ever played. It got me thinking, what if I could show my heart rate in a widget on-screen? Fortunately, it turns out that this is very easy to achieve with the help of a heart rate monitor of some sort, the Polsoid app, and a browser source. The folks at Polsoid very generously sent me a heart rate monitor to use to try it out, and I've been super pleased with the results and how fast it was to get it all put together, with very minimal tech experience required. And I look forward to diving in and building some more complex integration with Streamerbot, but for now, we'll just talk about how to get the thing set up and running it all. Obviously, for this to work, you need a heart rate monitoring device. On-screen, you'll see a general list of the supported devices scrolled by, but as this list is subject to change, I'll put a link in the description to Polsoid's most recent page. If you're an Apple Watch or Wear OS watch user, those devices are supported as well, but a dedicated heart rate monitor is recommended for accuracy. The device I'm using is a Cuspo H808S, and in my testing, I've had absolutely no issue with it. To get set up, you'll first want to go to the Polsoid website at Polsoid.net and sign up for a free account. I'll put the link in the description. You can do most of what I'm going to show with a free account with no issue, but there are some really cool advanced things you can do with paid plan. We'll get to that later.  Once you've got your account set up on the Polsoid website, you'll also want to download the mobile app, which is available for both iOS and Android devices. The heart rate monitoring device will communicate with your mobile app, which will then relay the information to Polsoid servers where it can be delivered to your stream with a browser source or through direct integration with platforms like Streamerbot. Next, you'll want to assemble and put the monitor on. Instructions are going to vary based on the device, so consult the user manual. In the case of the Cuspo, I just had to remove a little plastic film from the battery compartment to activate the battery and then snap the monitor onto the chest belt before putting it on. The instructions say that for better accuracy, you want to moisten the chest belt a bit so it makes a better connection to your body. In my testing so far, this hasn't shown to be necessary. I haven't really noticed the difference. I've done it both ways, but that's what the instructions say to do, so that's what I did for my first couple tests. Once you're wearing the device, you can load up the Polsoid app. I made what I imagine is a fairly common mistake and actively connected to the device in the Bluetooth menu from my phone, which made it so that the app couldn't find the device. This was counterintuitive to me, but the instructions are very clear about this in the app, so it was a lesson in actually reading the instructions instead of just bumbling through. You don't actually want to connect directly that way, but you do want to be sure that the device is showing up in the listed devices in your Bluetooth menu. Then load the Polsoid app and log in using the credentials you established earlier, and it should scan for available heart rate devices. Click the appropriate device and it should connect, show a current, beats per second, and a battery level indication for your device.  If you have any trouble with this step, the app itself should have some pretty good troubleshooting steps, and the Polsoid Discord is a friendly place to ask for help as well. I'll put a link to their Discord server in the description. Once you're connected, you'll notice that as you move around and breathe, a BPM in the app will fluctuate. Now let's get this number onto our stream overlay. Polsoid has a whole bunch of widgets for this right out of the box, so we'll get set up with one of those right now. In your web browser, go back to the Polsoid site and make sure you're logged in and go to your dashboard. In the dashboard, click widgets on the left. There's a huge range of free widgets available here, as well as a ton that are only available through the paid version. There are simple widgets with just the number displayed, themes for particular games, ECG animations, and so on. For the purpose of this guide, we're going to grab the basic BPM widget and click Add to My Widgets. The widget will move up to the My Widgets section at the top of the page, and we can now configure it and get ready to put it into our streaming software. Click the Configure button and we'll take a look at how this is done. Depending on the widget you chose, there may be fewer or more options here, but you can see that you can adjust things like the font size and the color, the alignment, the color of the icon, all sorts of things. Once you're satisfied with the settings, click Save Settings in the bottom left, and then click Copy at the top, next to the displayed browser source URL. Click the little info icon next to the URL and you'll see some instructions for adding this to your streaming software. Most important in this pop-up are the dimensions recommended for a browser source to match the widget's size. In some cases, it'll use the default 800x600, but others will recommend a larger canvas size like 1920x1080. Now we go into OBS and add a new browser source. This works on Streamlabs desktop too if you must. Just use a browser source there in the same way. In your browser source, set the size as indicated in that pop-up we just looked at and paste the URL into the appropriate field. That should really be it. You can use the Clear Cache button in OBS on the browser source if you make a configuration change in the widget and want to test. Changes made in the widget won't show up until you clear the cache with that button. You now have a dynamic widget in your overlay that displays your present heart rate and will change as your heart rate accelerates or decelerates. You test it by standing up and doing some jumping jacks or whatever you want. I tested by loading up Hunt Showdown and getting in a fight. Here's a scene I set up with a test and you can see me playing Hunt and getting pretty amped because I'm bad at the game and all my decisions are made from panic. This whole thing is exactly what I was looking for and it's great. There's a lot more we can do with Falsoid itself with the premium features and we'll dig into some of that in another video. But where the possibilities get really interesting is when you start looking into integrations. You want to change your background lighting based on your heart rate? Done. Lumia stream integration. You want to have clips created automatically when your heart rate spikes? No problem. Want your heart rate to show on your stream deck? Easy. I'll be tinkering over the next few weeks with integration between Falsoid and Streamerbot so keep an eye out for a more advanced video about that. Feel free to leave a comment about what you would like to control based on your heart rate and I'll do my best to point you in the right direction. Enjoy having your heart rate easily visible on stream and have fun. Now go check out this other cool video.


Two men, twin sons from different mothers, with a passion for voiceover recording technology and the desire to make recording easy for voice actors everywhere. Together, in one place, George Whitton, the home studio engineer to the stars, a Virginia Tech grad with an unmatched knowledge of all the latest gear and technology in voiceover today. Dan Leonard, the home studio master, a voice actor with over 30 years experience in broadcasting and recording and a no-holds-barred, myth-busting attitude for teaching you how easy it is. Together, to bring you all the latest technology, the superstars of voiceover today and leading the discussion on how to make the most of your voiceover business, this is VoiceOver Body Shop.


Preliminary dissection video I'm reflecting the scalp normally when we reflect the scalp we reflect the first three layers together namely the skin the dense connective tissue and the aponeurosis but here I'm doing something different I'm going in the connective tissue layer itself and that's what I have done here and you can see can we see these close-up fibers here these parallel fibers these are the dense connective tissue this acts as a glue like a cement which connects the skin with the underlying aponeurosis and therefore the three layers are considered together if you watch me closely I'll be dissecting a little more and you can see the texture of this as I'm dissecting I'm splitting the dense connective tissue layer right now with my scissors this is the unique thing about the dense connective tissue layer which densely connects the overlined skin with the underlying aponeurosis this is the skin that we are reflecting here this is the gallia aponeurotica so therefore this is layer number one this is layer number three in between if you look very closely we can see these dense fiber strands this is layer number two the dense connective tissue layer which acts as a glue connecting the skin overlying with the gallia aponeurotica below and under this is the loose aerial tissue layer and you can see my finger can go very easily and it can separate it and this is where a version of the scalp takes place and on the skull move we have the epichranium or the periosteum which covers the skull bone so therefore the five layers of the scalp are skin the dense connective tissue which we can see here aponeurosis loose aerial tissue layer and periosteum so these are the five layers of the scalp


And what do I always say when it takes a long time to sell if it's a big money bolo? Who cares? Who cares? Who cares if it takes a year to sell? You just flipped four bucks into a hundred and seventy pretty much. That is worth the year wait in my opinion. I got this at a tiny Wednesday flea market in Arizona for $5 sold for full price in a half an hour. $299.99 plus shipping in a half an hour. Hey, Bolo buddies, thanks for watching. Amazing, right? All right, let's get started. Hey, Bolo buddies, thanks for watching. All right, you guys, in this video we are gonna talk about big money bolos items that sold in February for big money. I'm gonna tell you where they got it, what they paid for it, and what it sold for. These items come from my Bolo buddies Facebook group. They come from members of the group and also members of my YouTube channel. If you join memberships at level two on my YouTube channel you will get perks. What that means is you will get a mention in this video and I will link you down in the description. So if you hear me call out or shout out a YouTube channel or an eBay store that means they are a Bolo buddies YouTube member at level two. No pressure to join memberships. It's really just there for those of you that are trying to grow a YouTube channel or want to get eyes on your eBay store. It is completely free to share Bolo. It is completely free to watch this channel. Memberships are for perks. So thank you all so much for being here. Let me know down in the comments how you found the channel and we're gonna get started. I'm gonna tell you where they got it, what they paid for it, and what it sold for. This first one comes from Leo's Treasures and she is a Bolo buddies member. No YouTube channel but has an eBay store. And she said my nephew asked me to sell his Lego mini figures for him. The cost to him was nothing as it was a gift. This one mini figure sold for $60.75 and the buyer paid shipping. It's a Star Wars airborne clone trooper mini figure. Episode 3 Rare 212. Wow. You know who's selling mini figures? Is Donatella and she is Donatella Bottolino on YouTube and this is her YouTube channel but she is now selling on what not under just Donatella and she has been selling mini figures just like this. You want to know who else is selling mini figures? Is Rachel Strickland's son over on her what not channel. Rachel Strickland, her name is her what not. Go and follow both Donatella and Rachel Strickland. You can also follow me. I am Bolo Buddies. There is a link down below where you can get $15 to shop. It's my referral link. If you join with that what not link. Speaking of what not, this one comes from eBay Store Impressions Created and this is from Donna2445 and she bought this sweater from my what not show and I was doing a bunch of vintage clothing. She paid $22.53 for this including tax and shipping and she was asking $79.99 for it. The buyer was all in for $91.44. She said it sold quickly and she put St. Patrick's Day in the description. It's a vintage Allen Payne men's sweater, Shetland 100% wool Kelly Green cable knit and it says size 46. So this came from my what not show. So she flipped it. She bought it on what not and sold it on eBay. So definitely a big money Bolo vintage item. So very, very cool to see items that I brought to what not selling on other platforms. So thank you so much Donna for sharing that. Here's another one from Donna. My her eBay store is Impressions Created. She paid $16 at an online estate auction and asked $89.99 and took a best offer of $70. Buyer was all in for $82.45 and it took a long time to sell because it was an extra small size. It is an Indiana Jones hat fedora Robert Reed Gentleman Hatter original box vintage and this is what it looks like. The next item says I am new to reselling and watch all your videos. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Learning so much from them. I went to an estate sale and walked by this small clock to get a box and have to get it. It was $5. I looked it up on worth point and the latest I saw was early 21 and it sold for $99. I was curious. So I listed mine at $99.99 on a seven day auction. It went for 107 and stayed there till last morning and my phone went crazy. I couldn't wait to see. Happy dance for me. My largest ever sale is sold for 225 plus shipping. Thank you Courtney. Oh you're welcome. I'm so excited for you. Yeah I always tell you guys like if you have an item and there's no others listed start it at what you want to get out of the item. Do an auction and then you'll know. I mean the worst case is you listed high. Let's say she listed it at $99.99 and it doesn't sell. Well then you know that you have to put it on a buy it now. But look what happened. It's sold for 255. So it is worth. I mean there's no risk by doing an auction. None. It is a good morning sir Jeeves or I don't know if that J. I don't know how that J is pronounced. Stephen Fry talking alarm clock and this is what it looks like. So that is awesome. I bought these brand new steel toad browning boots at the Goodwill for nine dollars and ninety five cents sold on eBay for 175 plus shipping and this is what they look like. So their Army Green Vintage Army Green Boots got this at a tiny Wednesday flea market in Arizona for five dollars sold for full price in a half an hour. Two hundred ninety nine dollars and ninety nine cents plus shipping in a half an hour. I'm always like did I sell it too low when things sell fast. It is a tea out and out 10 and dark. All right. We always have to have at least one word I mess up per video out and Dara and da la la and sons. That's what it looks like. Anyway it's a drafting drawing architectural tool set kit in the box and it is vintage. Wow. Wow. Wow. Sold in a half an hour. That's incredible. I picked up this door frame fan for two dollars at a garage sale. Door frame fan. Would you have walked past it or would you have picked it up. The older couple hosting the sale was downsizing in advance of a move from PA to SC and had for some reason decided to have their sale on a Thursday at 10 a.m. Not surprisingly I was the only shopper there. You got to love those Thursday sales right. I sold this item at my asking price of fifty dollars. I sold it within a day of being posted. It is a Suncourt door frame fan. I would have looked at that and been like where's that go. I would not have known it was a door frame fan. That's awesome. Bought a large bin of vintage pencils for four dollars at an auction. So I have pennies in this NFL pencil set found I'm sorry sold for full asking price of forty five after about a month of listing them still have many more pencils to list. This is what it looks like. Vintage 70s and 80s NFL pencils set of and it's cut off. I don't know how many but it looks like quite a few. But yeah vintage pencils can definitely be about a low. I got him for free at a yard sale. I thought he might be something but I had no idea. It turns out he's retired and hard to find is sold for full asking price within minutes. It's a rare hard to find retired Douglas Cuttle toy Huskin Huskin Husky Aspen and this is what it looks like. It is a cutie pie little plush. Oh my goodness. Anytime you can find plush that is realistic looking definitely pick it up. I do have a video on realistic plush. Definitely check that out because it is just incredible what some of them go for. The ones that are life size and really big have a tendency to go for more. But even these smaller ones can do well also. It looks like she sold this on McCurry for ninety dollars plus shipping. Also if you have not seen my video about comparing what Build-A-Bear are selling for on McCurry compared to eBay you have got to check that out. Number one there are some Build-A-Bear that go for crazy money and number two in that video I show you that a lot of them are selling for more on McCurry. It's just unbelievable. This is what that video looks like. I'll try to remember to link it down below. If not you can search it but just it's crazy and if you guys are not selling on McCurry I highly recommend it especially if you sell plush but if not selling it is a great platform to buy and a lot of times you can find things that you can buy on McCurry and flip on eBay because a lot of the sellers on McCurry are hobby sellers and they're just moving stuff out of their house. You know I mean just trying to get rid of stuff that's in their house and they'll just price something without really researching it. So you may be able to find a nice little Bolo. There is a link it's a referral link down below if you click on that it's going to take you over to McCurry and you can join and you're going to get $10 to shop when you join with that link and then you're also going to get $20 additional to shop once you sell $100 on the app and it's just a really easy user-friendly app so definitely check it out. Purchased at an estate sale on my street for 50 cents sold on eBay same day listed for 225 and took an offer of 195 unfortunately oh I lied he put a big picture here but there's also the actual sold so I can read you the title that's what I was looking for incredible 1893 antique photos San Francisco Wentworth store people rare and it looks like it might be um maybe it's an album it looks like maybe more than one I'm not really sure because the first picture looks like it's just one but it says photos in the description or the title so I'm not sure on that one but sold it for 195 that is just great purchased at an estate sale for $10 and sold it for full asking price in an hour with a small disclosed flaw so can things that have flaws or bumps and bruises sell for big money yes this sold for $119.99 plus shipping it is a rare M&M's Danbury Mint Holiday Easter Egg Stravaganza rare and this is what it looks like I was browsing the flatware section at the Goodwill and saw the name Finland on a knife and a baggie of flatware hmm Scandinavian flatware is often desirable so always check it out this is a stainless pattern by famous Danish designer Jens Ouh Quiskard who designed many assorted home pieces his collaboration with Dansk especially in the 1950s and 60s era produced several highly collectible items his pieces will be marked JHQ check out the education here right stainless flatware finds don't need to be full sets just look for quality brands and interesting patterns buyers are looking to replace or add to their existing patterns so there is a great market out there I paid $6.99 and sold for $200 individually could have brought more but I like to move things quickly as flatware this was definitely a fun took a while to sell I had it priced at $129.99 then I lowered it to $89.99 plus shipping and it sold I purchased at a garage sale for $1 it is a vintage 1999 Pokemon Charmander Pillow Pal plush full body 90s large and rare $89.99 Pokemon plush got this empty candy box for free it in a state sale I was asking 65 for it because it had some stains on it took an offer of 50 sold on the same day it was listed buyer was all in for $60.60 yes these vintage valentine's day candy boxes definitely a bolo if I ever find one of these I'm gonna put it on an auction vintage Whitman's valentine empty heart candy box pink lace ribbons and roses beautiful got this from a curbler on facebook marketplace so it was free sold on mercury for $48 plus shipping it is a step to up and down roller coaster replacement car and this is what it looks like curbler purchased this at the goodwill outlet paid 28 cents sold within 10 minutes of listing for the full asking price of $69.95 plus shipping after selling another user reached out to me asking if I had any others hazel village plush definitely a bolo this is what it looks like it's a hazel village 2013 loosey 13 inch gray owl plush stuffed animal with outfit this next one comes from Ray Nathan rz and this is her mercury store she is a bolo buddies member bought at a thrift store for 99 cents started listing at 69 was on the job when got an offer for 49 was just going to take it but wanted to wait till I got home from the job got home and saw another offer and took the $55 sometimes it's good to wait sold in under a month on mercury vintage san rio planners sell well for me so it's a san rio hello kitty cat choco cat six ring binder planner organizer from 2007 and I will 100% agree with her sometimes if it's an item that I just listed or I've had multiple offers on it sometimes I'll sleep on it and wait until morning to decide if I'm going to take that best offer because in the meantime you may get another offer if it's a harder to find item this has been up for over a year bought at the thrift for $3.99 was complete with some extra pieces I was the only one on the web with the box and complete at the time listed at 199 and gradually lowered the price sold for full asking price of $169.99 plus shipping on ebay and it's Ray Nathan rz 09 and that is the ebay store she said just two bolos this month but anyway $3.99 into $169.99 but took over a year to sell and what do I always say when it takes a long time to sell if it's a big money bolo who cares who cares who cares if it takes a year to sell you just flipped four bucks into 170 pretty much that is worth the year wait in my opinion I love saying that I'm like who cares so I've now done it I think in three videos and it may just be like thanks for watching I'm gonna say it every time every time you sell tell me that a big money bolo took over a year to sell I'm gonna say who cares and you guys are gonna start doing it I betcha I betcha all right this one comes from grinning grandma and it is a real remy human hair clip in extension open box dark brown and this is what it looks like she said this box of hair extensions came from an estate sale on half price day so I paid two and a half dollars list um listed them late yesterday afternoon for $70 received an offer for 55 and less than an hour I countered with 60 and she accepted and paid this next one comes from farm girl scavenger noelle she purchased at an estate sale that she went to during the summer with terry mindful recycle and she sold this for $119 and she shipped it out today it's a franklin meant william casmar the golden carp porcelain figure bohemian artist vintage noelle finds some awesome stuff so noelle farm girl scavenger noelle and mindful recycle terry are both moderators of this facebook group I highly recommend both channels they are bolo finders they helped me out so much with this group keeping it under control and I tell you guys all the time if you see something in the facebook group that is mean or that is not following the rules if you are on your phone hold down on the comment and report if you are on your computer there's three dots click on those three dots and report it please do that to help us out there's almost 85 000 members in this group and there's a lot that goes on that I don't approve of but I can't keep up with everything and my moderators cannot keep up with everything we all work full time at our reselling businesses and we can't be on facebook all the time so your help is so appreciated when you guys can report those posts okay so in advance thank you to everyone that is reporting but anyway check out farm girl scavenger noelle and mindful recycle I will link them down below go sub them up and pick a video watch it and tell them thank you in the comments all right bought for $1.99 at a thrift store it had damage on the binding sold overnight it is a vintage pink waffle weave baby blanket nylon binding and the last item I'm going to share is the biggest bolo of the day of the show found these in a storage unit for $30 sold them to the same buyer sold within hours of listing couldn't believe it when I looked up the comps on worthpoint all right first off before I show you the bolos if you're not using worthpoint I love it it took me a long time to get it because I'm cheap but what I realized once I got it was this is making me money and I should have gotten it a long time ago I have a few videos that show you how to use worthpoint and how it's made me more money it pays for itself you guys um but anyway so if he would not have had worthpoint and look these up he may have sold these for way less so worthpoint is it worth it I say yes I do have a referral link down below if you guys want to click on it check it out there are different levels you can join at there's like a level that only searches for older listings and then there's another one that looks at like marks for I think markings on things that helps you with identification and then there's the third level where it incorporates both of them you can pay by the month or you can pay by the year if you pay by the year it is discounted so I pay by the year because I'm cheap and I want that I want that discount so what did he sell all right this comes from cage and reseller and he is not a member of my channel but I am going to shout him out because he has been super helpful for me and he has an awesome youtube channel and I want you guys to go and sub him up so he's getting a shout out even though he's not a member this is what he sold diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders first edition remember he got it in a storage unit and he paid $30 for the storage unit it sold for $1,100 can you believe it the next one it gets better well not better than that but better better in combination DSM-2 diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders 1968 $550 so between the two $1,600 I had to figure out the math $1,650 from a $30 storage unit and I'm guessing there was probably other items in that storage unit that he sold so that is a wow right incredible so shout out to cage and reseller for an amazing find and I'm not sure if he has a video on that storage unit or not but I need to go look so he specializes in plush if you want to learn about plush definitely check out his channel thank you guys thank you for being here let me know how you found the channel leave me an owl emoji if you can't find an owl emoji just write the word hoot and thanks for watching oh be sure to subscribe like comment and if you be so kind share that would be awesome thanks for watching


I think beyond all short-term prognosis we will definitely be influenced by the macro trends, by the known macro trends, things like changing demography, like climate change or further globalization. Secondary, I think we will see significantly more volatility. We live in a world which is more interlinked, which is more global, which is more complex and therefore more volatile and more dependent on each other. So volatility will also be something in that arena. Third, I personally strongly believe in the rebound of the US. I think we see a recovery of the US economy already relatively soon. And I also think that we will see finally the emerging of Africa, at least some African countries as players on the global scene. My industry is not specifically touched by this. We already work with the globalization, with global clients. I think it has more to do with going back to traditional things in our industry, like forward leadership, who want to be the winners in our industry, have to be global and have to be forward leaders. I think the two key words for companies for the next generation are globalization and technology. The gravity shift, which we will see, which goes into the Asian direction, will impact nearly all large companies. So we will see headquarters of traditional companies in Asia, organizations changing their governance models towards, let's say, Asian style, at least partially. And we will see even increased impact of the networked media world. As we have seen in the recent political developments, this will not stop in the political world. It will also impact significantly companies. To improve the state of the world is a very big word. At the end of the day, I think that corporations, companies in the consulting world, as many other corporations in the world, have to make doing good an integral part of their strategy and their DNA. For us at the Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, this means that we focused all our corporate social responsibility work on the Roland Berger Foundation, which is dotated by nearly 100 million euro, which is spending nearly 2% of our revenues, not our profit, on improving education for those who deserve good education but don't have the means for that. This work is also an integral part of programs within the company and all in the company contribute not only by financial means but also by their daily work to the success of this venture besides doing normal business.


So my name is Pam and my entire life changed this year In the spring of this year my Heavenly Father called me out of the darkness and gave me the gift of faith He gave me this gift of faith not for a grace not based on my condition or of anything. I've done For Scripture says in Ephesians 2 8 For my for by grace you have been saved through faith and that none of of yourselves. It is the gift of God. I Was not raised in any church or In a home with any kind of Christian values I was raised in an environment where alcohol and drugs and abuse was normal and accepted. I Grew up around motorcycle gangs drunken parties and violence. I Learned at a young age that people what people did when they were drunk was quite different than what they did when they were sober And that drunkers were not held accountable for their actions. I Never felt loved from my mom only rejection and I didn't know who my dad was But my grandma my grandpa showed me love, but it always came at a high cost I learned at an early age that the only way to survive was to build walls to become strong. I Learned to depend on myself alone. I Was a bracing crass hateful and untrusting of anyone and everyone. I Want to the church for the first time in my late 20s charismatic And even though I didn't seek God I honestly believed I was a Christian in every sense of the word regardless of not attending church a lack of communion with the father and The absolute obscene one I can send all I want today and ask forgiveness tomorrow and be forgiven. No big deal Since there's always somebody sitting worse than I am Oh, how wrong I was Easy believe is him taught me that God was only about love. I knew nothing about the God being just and Why would I I never studied the word? I read a little here and there, but never really understood it The desire and the hunger was not there The worst thing is that I thought Jesus died on the cross only because of what the Romans did to him. I Had a false understanding of salvation and how it was obtained one of my co-workers Rebecca my Rebecca Had been evangelizing to me for four years, but I was unresponsive to the gospel nine months ago. I was at work when the Lord used a conversation between Ryan to be in working in me I remember telling him that I never doubted Jesus was real since the day I heard about him years ago Looking back at my life.  I never sought to know him Ryan showed me that I wasn't truly trusting in God in any aspect of my life and that I needed a savior Three days later. I began attending cornerstone. I began to read What is the gospel? Which was given to me my first visit and listening to Paul Washer sermons Tested truth faith and not ashamed of the gospel when I understood the sacrifice Jesus made for me This is when I realized Jesus for the weight of my rebellion disobedience and sin on his shoulders While he was nailed to the cross I did not know that God and his holiness turned away from Jesus and disgust just prior to crushing him with his wrath Jesus who is perfect and sinless Love me so much that he became the atonement for my sin How does one comprehend such a love to understand the sacrifice Jesus made for me hit me deep down It took my breath away. I can't explain the hurt. I feel in my own heart but what I have done and Careless and how I carelessly lived my life how I'm the one that put Jesus on that cross When this realizing Realization came to me. I couldn't stop crying for the longest time. It was the moment. I finally realized how wicked I am and how deserving I am of Hell This was a scary and very defining moment for me and that brings me to tears when I think about it I am not ashamed of my feelings Or the gospel. I'm not ashamed of who I have become and will share with anyone who will listen. I Am not who I was eight months ago And I'm not even the same person. I was a couple weeks ago I am continuing to grow steadily in my faith and God is constantly changing me into the Christian He created me to be The day I was truly introduced to the gospel was the day my eyes were open to the Lord and I never knew that I'm sorry The day I was truly introduced to the gospel was the day my eyes were open to the Lord I never knew and in turn the God opened my heart My entire life changed that day By God's grace I say I was saved From the moment it happened I knew that something was new and that something had changed. I felt completely different I no longer felt broken and I knew instantly that it had nothing to do with me. I Don't know why God chose me Or why he changed me so quickly, but he did I can in no way claim any merit from my salvation or Sanctificate and sanctification What I do know is that my life is no longer mine and that I need to trust God at all things I no longer desire to please myself, but to please God. I Do not want to gather worldly possessions, but only build treasures in heaven All I want to do is glorify God and everything I do Apart apart from God's grace. I can do nothing and everything I do. I just I desire to do in faith I want people to see Christ when they look at me I trust the Lord will finish the work he has started in me Now knowing what God did for me. Why would I ever want to do anything other than serve and glorify him for the rest of my life? I desire to serve the Lord in everything Every way I can and pray that my hunger to do so never ceases For though the Lord for through the Lord. I am finally living my life to the fullest with such joy I have a new mission and i'm very excited to see where the father will use me All praise honor and glory to the Christ who gave himself for me Amen Commit to the terrible lord of the number four so bad for church Join the baptized each day and the baptized you will be the father For this time with the holy spirit Be the Christ of baptism