Harper Audio presents 13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don't Do. Raising Self-Assured Children and Training Their Brains for a Life of Happiness, Meaning and Success. By Amy Moran. This is the author. To all those who seek to make a difference in the life of a child. Introduction Early on in life, I decided that when I grew up, I was going to help kids in need. Throughout my childhood, my parents always helped anyone they could. Both of them were postmasters who seemed to have a special knack for recognizing an underdog. Whether they made anonymous donations to someone in need. Or they lent a helping hand to someone down on their luck. They were generous with whatever we had. It's no wonder both my sister and I became social workers. Both of our parents were unofficial social workers for years. But long before I ever got my social work license, my goal was to become a foster parent. I had grown up knowing that there were kids who didn't have families. Some of them didn't have homes, and many of them never felt loved. So I decided that someday, when I had my own house, I'd take in kids who needed a place to live. When I was in college, I met Lincoln, my future husband. He was an adventurous person who loved to travel, meet new people, and try new things. Early on in our relationship, I told him my goal was to become a foster parent. Fortunately, he loved the idea. Right after we got married while I was still finishing graduate school, we bought a four bedroom house and started the foster care licensing process. We chose to become therapeutic foster parents, which meant we would raise children with serious behavior problems or emotional issues. There were classes to take, a home study process to complete, and modifications that had to be made to our home to meet the foster care licensing requirements. But about a year later, just as we were finishing up the licensing process, my mother passed away suddenly from a brain aneurysm. At her funeral, I heard countless stories, many of them from people I'd never met, about how she helped them in some way or other. Hearing those stories of all the lives she touched reminded me about what was really important in life, the legacy you leave behind. My mother's generosity fueled my desire to help children more than ever. Within a few months, our therapeutic foster care license came through, and our journey as foster parents began. By then, I was working as a psychotherapist at a community mental health center. I worked exclusively with children, many of whom had behavior problems, and their parents. Becoming a foster parent gave me an opportunity to apply the principles I was teaching parents in my therapy office to the children who came into our home. Lincoln and I loved being foster parents, and we began to talk about adoption. None of the children who stayed with us were available for adoption, however. They all had plans to return to their birth families or to be adopted by relatives. So we started looking at the adoption waiting lists to see if we could find a child who might fit into our family well. But on the three-year anniversary of my mother's death, all of our hopes for adopting a child changed in an instant. Late that Saturday evening, Lincoln said he didn't feel well. A few minutes later, he collapsed. I called for an ambulance, and the first responders rushed him to the hospital. I called Lincoln's family, and they met me in the emergency room. I wasn't sure how to explain to them what had happened, and it all happened so fast. We just sat there in the waiting room until a doctor came out and invited us into the emergency room. But rather than take us to see Lincoln, he took us to a small, private room and sat us down.  I'm sorry to tell you, but Lincoln has passed away. And with that one sentence, I went from planning to adopt a child to planning my husband's funeral. The next few months were a blur. We later learned he died of a heart attack. He was only 26, and he didn't have any history of heart problems. But ultimately, it didn't matter how he died. All that mattered, and all I knew was that he was gone. Fortunately, we didn't have any children living with us at that particular time. I could only imagine how traumatic it could have been for a foster child to have been there. We'd actually had plans for a little boy to move in later that week. When his guardian heard the news, he found him a different foster home. For a while, I wasn't sure I wanted to be a single foster parent. I worked a full-time job, and with foster children, there are always lots of appointments, visits with birth... Sample complete. Ready to continue?


7 signs God is showing you the narcissist. Before I begin please give this video a thumbs up down below so that it will help to get this message out there to other survivors. While we're on the topic of God, you may be wondering how God could let this happen to you. Or why God didn't intervene. When the reality is that God will rarely directly intervene in anything. And in fact God's chosen ones may appear to experience more suffering than anyone else. Because that's what it means to be a chosen one. You're going to be tried and tested. You're powerful and strong. You were made in God's image. God may know that it is difficult for you. God would never allow you to go through a situation that you can't handle. That doesn't mean that God would put you through this. But God doesn't intervene because God is love. And love is not controlling. And the reality is that no matter what happens in this life, love always wins in the end. Because that is our higher nature. And there are no lower frequencies in the heavens or after this life. Which is why narcissists naturally try to keep us down. And a desperate attempt to prevent us from ascending to the heavens. Because they have this ingrained subconscious awareness that they are not going where we're going. But God would never do that. God is honest and fair. God is kind and compassionate. The narcissists did this to you. Because they are of a lower vibration. And they already know that they're not going to experience the ascension. They know this is it for them. Because they chose the path of evil. So they're against God. They're opposed to anything pure and good. They are devoid of light and love. So naturally these are the types of things that they will do. As people who are not of God. And although God does not intervene, God will try to reveal the narcissist to you. And God will do this by giving you signs. So here are seven signs God is showing you the narcissist. One, they're inconsiderate of you. You want the narcissist to value you and care about you. But they never seem to show any concern. And this is a sign from God that this person is not meant for you. Because narcissists really don't care about your feelings once or needs. It's all about them. It has to suit their agenda. The conversation must always revolve around about how they're so desirable, powerful or special. Because they need that constant stream of supply. They can't live without it. So they hate having to entertain anything outside of themselves. Two, they can't tolerate criticism. They only accept compliments and positive feedback. They can't deal with anything negative that you might have to say. Because they have a fragile ego. So they easily hurt and offended. And no one really likes to be criticized. But a healthy person will at least see some value in it. Rather than dismissing it completely without even considering what you have to say. Which is another sign that God is showing you the narcissist. Because it's like no matter what you do to try to fix things, you just can't get through to them. They're closed off. They're unreachable. They can never seem to understand. If you ever criticize them, it will cause a narcissistic injury. And they will get very angry. And in that moment, it's like they're possessed. It's like a spirit has taken control of them. And by that point, there's really nothing you can do to reach them. Three, you experience difficulties or misfortune. This is a clear sign from God that something is not meant for you. If something is meant to be, it's going to be good for you. It won't always be perfect. But it will show steady improvement over time. While with the narcissist, things gradually deteriorate.  Because then they leave you without any support. And you're left to deal with it on your own, which shows that they never cared about you. It reveals what type of person they are. Because by that point, they can't hide it from you anymore. You see signs of the emptiness inside of them. Narcissists have a void that can never be filled. They're like empty vessels. They can't be satisfied. And you may witness this emptiness just by looking into their eyes. They have this predatory stare. They don't appear to be friendly. They always look angry. Because they're constantly trying to take something from you. And they're just examining you to think about how they're going to get it. They may act friendly and agreeable in the beginning. But that's just to get you hooked as their source of supply. The reality is that they are self centered and insatiable. They only care about themselves. And yet no matter what you do, it will never be enough to fill the void inside of them. But we don't always notice this initially. We make up excuses and justifications in the beginning because we want to like them. So we do what we can in order to please them. Instead of accepting that it's just who they really are. Five, they're envious. They will act like they don't care about you or what you're doing. But then they will do anything they can to outdo you. Whether it's by building themselves up or by tearing you down. And they will even use that enablers or flying monkeys as a means of achieving this goal. But they cannot surround themselves with people who they perceive as being better than them. Because that would make them feel very insecure. And it will prevent them from getting the supply that they need. Sex, they're fake. They show a deceptive outward appearance. They falsely claim to be something they're not. And that is why you will have difficulty connecting to them. Because they have an insecure attachment style. And an inability to form healthy relationships. Which is why the healthier you get, the worse they get. Seven, you feel repelled.   They will make you feel sick. You will experience stomach pains and body aches. And it won't seem to make any sense. But it's because you're in the company of a predator, someone who is ruthlessly exploiting you. So of course, it's going to have an adverse effect on your body. Because they're feeding from you. And it's God trying to communicate with you to show you that you need to limit your contact with them because they are evil. And they will do extremely harmful things to you until it changes you in a negative way. Thank you all for watching. If you found this video helpful, please give it a thumbs up, share your thoughts in the comment section and hit that subscribe button to receive the notifications. If you would like to support the channel, you can donate at paypal.me.narchsurvivor. You can book a one-on-one with me on my website. It is narchsurvivor.co.uk. Thank you for watching and I'll talk to you soon.


Originally, I had never planned on being in a type of elected position. I had some folks come to me and ask me to. I thought about it, spoke to my wife about it. We thought about it for a few days and then decided if the people of Pike County thought that much of me, I should take advantage of that. I have a couple of programs that I've researched that will give folks in the jail something to look forward to. Obviously, the jail will never be empty. There's always going to be people who need to be housed in the detention center. That's just the truth about it. But if for folks who want to better themselves and have a new beginning once they serve their time, so to speak, in the detention center, I'm going to have opportunities for them to take if they choose to be involved in it.


Hi everybody. I play the music. He did know music where I'm a little discombobulated. Yeah, you might notice I'm not at home. I mean somebody else's house so I'm a little out of sorts, discombobulated, not organized, but that's okay. How about you Katie? Are you discombobulated? Yes. We're in fine shape then. Who's here? I haven't seen any comments yet. I know. Say hi. There's like three people watching. Yeah. They'll pop in in a minute.  Maybe they forgot about us because it's been so long. In a while. Yeah. It also said that it was scheduled for 6 p.m. What? Yeah. Did it really? Where on? On the G2G? Up in the corner. It said scheduled 6 p.m. But I don't know. Okay we have some comments now. Yeah, I just heard from K-Nite too. I don't know. It said that on the YouTube screen. From StreamYard next to the edit button up at the top, you know? That's weird. Yeah. I don't know. Okay we have Stephen. Well that would explain. Stephen, Tommy, Kathy, and Stephen. That would explain why there weren't many people here yet. They know what time we normally do it so they probably figured it was a typo or a system something or other or something. I don't know what happened. Kay says she's ready for the rabbit hole. I wish I could join in. I cannot this time. I do too. I've been craving genealogy research all week. I haven't had any time to do any. I know. I'm so busy. I haven't had like any time. Yeah. Has anybody have Christmas shopping done yet? Yeah, it's not Christmas, Julie. I don't have any done yet either. I think I have one thing that I bought. Oh, last year I was done before Halloween. Are you kidding? Yeah, it's crazy. I don't know how I did it. I wasn't quite on the ball this year but I can't think that far ahead. I'm sorry to say. I'm trying. They're a little better with that but it's hard. Kay's already been working. She's been hard at work. That's good. Oh, did you know that her dog's name was also Molly? I didn't but now she's extra super cool for having a dog named Molly. Stephen says Christmas should not be better not be canceled due to COVID. Yeah, I don't know. I guess we're gonna have to wait and see. We already have plans to stay home this year because we've got so many different family things going on. It's just not gonna work for us all to come together as we usually do. So well, that's a bummer. It is. It's just it's gonna be a very low key but our neighbors are next door neighbors are gonna be home. So they're kind of like we've been living next door to them for more than 20 years. So they're good friends and it's kind of fun to hang out with them. So it's almost like having family. My computer is left. Oh, what does she have? This is her hedgehog toy. Oh, to carry it around. Oh, that's so cute.  Totally just like that. There's Donna Bowman popping in. So I was gonna share something with you guys. Yay. Should I should we talk about some statistics first or do you want to share the video first? Let's do the video first. We don't have very many people here yet so I thought maybe I'd wait a few minutes. I don't know. We're five minutes in. So we'll just sit here. I'm all of a sudden having massive internet issues. Oh, really?  Or like, I don't know. It's my computer maybe. No, they're fine. Well, and that's asking about Charlie. Are you okay? Yeah, okay. Do you have any Charlie buttons during? Yeah.  Oh, no. No, it's like I'll say something and then you'll react. It's fine. It's fine. We've had that happen before. I was gonna tell Lynette that Charlie came to spend Thanksgiving with us though. So that was fun. And he did use his buttons while he was there. And he also ate things he shouldn't have eaten. Mostly his dog tried to use the buttons. He did. They our daughter left a couple of buttons for us to work with with our dogs. Casey has no interest whatsoever. She thinks that she's too good for that. And then Joey has used the outside button a couple times and we made a play button and he's used that a couple times. So he's learning. He's I don't know. He's a nut as everybody already knows. Maybe Molly needs buttons. Molly, do you want buttons? She just gave us the side eye when you said that. I feel like she would just be kind of like ambivalent about them. Yeah, like Casey.  I don't need buttons to tell them. All right, so we have a little bit of a surprise here to show you guys. I don't think it most of you have seen this yet. We have a promotion video that just came out for the wiki tree challenge. So I'm gonna share that with you guys because it's really cool. I can't stop smiling when I watch it. Alrighty. Do you want to? Did you add it, anyone? I did. Okay, you guys ready? Here goes. Get ready to smile. Wow, that's amazing.  I don't know what to say, but wow, the most magnificent example of genealogical crowdsourcing and generosity. I mean, I'm just blown away. That was so fun and fascinating. And you guys did an extraordinary job. I can't wait to tell the rest of my family about all their new ancestors. And let me tell you, that was adding 125 direct ancestors, Catherine Herebrant. I knew it was cool, but I didn't realize it was them. You guys are fabulous. I cannot tell you. I really just open to the greatest president all the 45 years of research. They have somebody actually helping mine. Thank you. It's quite a gift that you guys are offering to the world. That really is what I wanted out of this challenge. And I'm delighted. I have not seen this. This is wild. Wow. That's incredible. What a great lie. Oh my goodness. You have to go through that. No, I never knew anything about them. Pretty amazing thing for me emotionally to read about that story. So this is incredible just to see all of it. That's shocking. The new ancestors are what's going to be exciting is to follow through, you know, looking at them. It's remarkable what this community is doing really, really. I just want to thank you. It makes me feel good. Wish I had a bottle of wine in it. Oh yeah. It's blown away. Thank you. Thank you. I can't thank you enough. I'm just dumbstruck at how much has been uncovered. And I can hardly wait to go and look at my truth. That whole week. I'm so, so excited. What do you think? I hope everybody enjoyed that. That was so fun. I've seen it probably four or five times now and I just can't stop smiling when I watch it. I know. I was trying not to be like, I know. We've had some really awesome guests on there that just were so grateful and the participants that did the research, our volunteers were just, they're just so generous with their time. It just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. For sure. Yeah, I'm excited for 2022. It should be fun. Yeah. Yeah, it should be. And A1 has been working online and people up, haven't you? Yeah, five confirmed so far. All right. It's all a secret. I know. I'm just kidding. Are we starting on like January 1st? When does it start? 5th to the 12th is the first challenge with Jimmy Wales and then we're doing them every other week this time. Okay. And it's going to be a little bit different because we want to record and edit and make sure that they approve what we're putting out to the public before we put it out to the public. So the reveal will just be kind of a private interview between Mindy and the captain and the guest star. But then the participants, we're going to do a special viewing for the participants each time so they can watch the full reveal and we'll take clips from all the different things we've recorded and make one edited video and that's what we'll put out. That's very cool. But we've got, let's see, well Jimmy Wales and then we've got two musicians and we've got an actress and we have a podcaster. That's a good start. And I'm just saying that John Cleese's personal assistant wrote back and said she was going to share the info with him after he was finished traveling. So maybe. I have so many little quotes. I know. I have all these little quotes running through my head. So yeah, I'm excited to see who else is interested but it'll be fun. It'll be good. A little bit different. Same premise just presented a little bit differently but it'll still be really good. That is good. So I thought, I don't have a lot of, we don't have a prepared presentation this Friday since I was traveling a little bit. But I thought it would be fun to share the progress we've been making. So does anybody been out to look and see what we have, how many profiles we've improved through the Friday, well it's Friday date night. You guys have certainly taken a chunk of those but then we have other efforts that also help improve like the Jedi challenge and just sorcerers doing work and the data doctors. And I mean there's so many people that chip in on this effort that's just really, oh, anyone just disappeared. Oh no. Anyway, I know they were having a storm there some wind. So anyway, I didn't know if anybody had popped in and seen what our stats looked like. I want to be surprised on here. We've hit a pretty big number. This has been, so we're in December now. We've been doing this for a little over a year and it's not fast work for any of us who've actually been diving in there. So I just wanted to share with you here it comes. Here comes the number. That's how many profiles you guys have added dates to and improved in the past year. I know and that, I mean there are some that I still need to take care of that you guys have saved off for me to look at that I still haven't got it to. There's like two or three or four hundred. You have next year. Yes, yes. So that's a pretty amazing number, right? Yeah. And I, you know, we talk about this all the time how adding dates to something is just going to make a world of difference. But I also know you guys and you're not just adding dates. You're adding family members and sources more sources and stories and stuff like that. So I know there's a lot of good work going on out there, which is cool. That is very cool. Yeah. Very neat. So does anybody have any questions? I don't see any new people here unless they're just watching and following along. If you've got questions we'd love to hear them and see if we can answer them, but we're going to keep it a little short today because I am visiting some friends. So you have a very nice clock in your background. Isn't that pretty? It's a great big grandfather clock. Yeah. It's not running, I don't think. Oh, it says it's 1030. I get somewhere maybe it's about 30. I was talking to someone last night and they're here. They know who they are. I don't know if that person has any questions. We were talking about date night. So if so, right in the comments so we can answer. We would like to answer your questions if we can. If not, we'll always be on Discord. We're always there. Have you guys noticed the explosion of people that have come in there over the past month? I know you have, Katie, because you've been helping get people set up there. So that's cool. Yeah, it's been pretty busy. It's hopping. I was driving for a couple hours and I have like a whole slew of Discord messages to look at. During the last, what was it? The something or other, there was just so many. Oh, it was when the challenge server got merged in. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I brought some more people over. Kathy wants to know how to, do you want to do that? You can tell her. No, I would open and share my screen right now, but it is still doing that weird stuttering thing. Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I'm just trying to figure out what was going on. But so yes, I was talking to Kathy last night and she had questions about how to get to the suggestions for the day night. Right. So, Kathy, if you go to this free space page, there will be instructions on there for finding the four different errors that we work on. So that, that should help you get pointed in the right direction. They're all on wiki tree plus. So there are reports out there. I think if you go, if you want to work in the United States, you can go to the state category and I believe most states, if not all of them, have a table up at the top that shows different suggestions or errors that you can work on. And the date error should be included there on the table. Right. So I know Illinois has that. Go ahead. When Julie is saying the numbers, like 333 or whatever, each error or suggestion has a number to refer to it by. So she's just doing that as like shorthand. But when you go to the report, it will be listed by number on the side, I believe. Right. I will also bring up like the most recent data doctor report is going to have all of that, all of the data doctor errors and suggestions listed. Let me, let me post that up here for you too. Oh, she has an I use wiki tree plus. Well, I can walk you through that later. It is pretty easy. This is a space page where a lush has a whole series of these and they all have all of the suggestions on them. So you can look for number suggestions, number 131, 132, 133 and 134. Those are the four that we focus on for Friday date night. So if that, I hope that helps. And Kathy don't work. I mean, if you can't, if you don't know how to use wiki tree plus, there's plenty of people to help you get there. I'm trying to scroll to the, let me share my screen again. Take me just a second. Sorry. It's okay. So if we go over here, we can see that. Oh, I didn't have it. It's not on the, yeah. Yeah, there we go. So Kathy, this is from and others. That's the wrong one. If we go to the free space page Friday date night wiki tree Friday date night. This is the section that has how to find profiles without dates. This link here will take you to the report, which I can't show you because I'm only sharing a tab. And then there are also instructions related to that particular error number. So you can work on, you can look at both of those, but those will get you to, it won't take you directly into wiki tree plus yet. But when you go to the report page and you click on one of the links there, it will take you into the, into wiki tree plus. And please ask in Discord. Everybody that's in there is either brand new or have, or they've been doing this for a while. So plenty of people are in there that can help out. And Kathy, I know you're on Discord. So don't be shy. Hi, Joey. Joey's here. I thought that I heard him. Come on up. He wants to say hi as usual. It's not a live stream without Joey. I know. He thinks he's the star. Okay, he's done. There Lynette, there's your dog fix. All right. So any other, anybody else need help with anything? They all went off to look at the report. They all left. Kathy says, is there like a video that walks you through it? Some of them do have videos. I don't know. Let's see. I can link that to you, Kathy. I feel like some are on Instagram. Right? Let's see. Error number 131 and 133 both have videos. And if you go to the report page that's linked to from the space page, the free space page, the report page has a link to the video. I hope that helps. We can get you these links in Discord too. Yeah. Because that'll help to just be able to click over there. Actually, I'll go do that now. I'll do it while I'm sitting here. I told Kathy that I would show my my advent calendar off last night. Oh, it's very nice and big. It's so cute. Did you hold it up? Oh yeah, I held my camera out so she could see how long. Okay. It's cute. And and Katie's son decorated that all by himself. That's great. It's really cute. Yeah, I like it. All right. Anybody else got anything? Are we good? Because I'm going to go if we're not and we're good. Yes, I'm going to go to the store. Yes, Katie needs to go. All right, you guys, thanks for stopping in and we will see you on Discord. I'll be in and out this weekend. Squirrel. Yes, Steven, that's we have to spell that at our house. You should say it in different languages. We could I'll have to do that. I have to figure out the Swedish word is for it or something. That's what we do. We say things. A great idea. Cookies and Spanish. So. Oh, okay. But you know, my mom and my grandma, when they would talk on the phone at Christmas time, they would speak to each other in Swedish so that we children wouldn't understand what we were getting for Christmas. So that was always fun. I picked up nothing from those conversations. I was young. Lynette, that's that's the point. If he starts to figure out Spanish, we'd like French or German or something. And then you guys will also be learning. Exactly. Learning opportunities for the whole family. Part of the reason why I homeschooled my kids for a few years. It's like, hey, I could learn stuff too. Yeah, you do. It's true. Yeah. All right, you guys. Oh, wait, my grandma, Steven says my grandma used to chew out my dad in Polish. We we said, God bless you. That's funny. All right, everybody, I'm going to rock and roll. I hope everybody has a great weekend. We'll see you on discord. I'll pop in there once in a while, but I know that you are well taken care of with people like Katie and the other experts who are out there. So have a good weekend and have fun dating. It was nice being here. We'll see you later. What's that? It was nice being your date. It was. Thank you, Katie. I appreciate you being here. I don't know what happened to Aowyn, but I don't know. Everything's okay. All right. Good night. Oh, yes, Kate, Kate on the 24th, probably not. I'm going to decide that later this week, but probably not since it's Christmas Eve. Everybody's going to be with their families. So we're having a quiet Christmas at our house that I prefer not to have to break away to go do this as much as I love you guys. All right. Everybody have a great weekend.


Yeah, you're muted. You're muted. You're muted. I can't hear you. Can't hear you Hey, can you hear me now? I guess yes. I can't got it. Awesome. Okay, so we've got this I can only I can only see like your nose up. Can you tilt your camera down? How's that that's good perfect, okay, awesome so Yeah, we've got Oh zoom. All right, am I back? Yes. Yes, you're back. You're back. Awesome. Okay Got that sorted out So, yeah We've got this project where we have to have town meeting television have them show how we basically like Adapted to this new kind of coven virtual environments While maintaining our mission you got any ideas Well, we do have a lot of good content But I'm not exactly sure how we should present it Yeah, this is pretty tough Hey, who was that TV alleged champions of free speech and democracy What? You say your mission is to give the people a voice yet your studio doors are locked and cameras remain off How do you defend yourselves? Hey, our cameras are still on they've just moved lies. I see they lie dormant on the studio floor How could they have possibly moved? How do you know where our cameras are I? Drink local milk, but that's besides the point Well, for example, we haven't missed a local meeting. I Don't believe you Well, all the meetings have been moved to online platforms kind of like this All those in favor of our agenda, please say aye Hi All those in favor of approving the minutes of August 18th, 2020 you raise your hand For I Thank you so much for the opportunity to be heard. We'll move on to Comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda See How could that possibly be as good as an in-person meeting? Well, it's allowing counselors and the public to meet and have a discussion on local issues while keeping everyone's health in mind It even has a few extra benefits as well For example, we covered a Burlington City Council meeting where over a thousand people logged on to participate That then brings us to item number three, which is our public forum For tonight's forum, we do have quite a few people signed up In fact, the last I looked at the sheet, we were well over 800 people had signed up And with that public forum, so we're gonna have quite a bit of commentary from the public Plus this has given people the ability to share their screen and easily share their information That's fine for the government. What about the people? How can they get their voices heard with no studio? actually, we've been accepting submissions from community producers and We're also filming shows off location. You know, I read the article as well and I was really struck with the Difference between what happened in Britain and what's happened here in Vermont in response to to COVID Well, Taoming TV has not stopped covering public events. We have content from protest public announcements Today Burlington joins a small but growing number of cities Racism is a public health crisis We will never ever have an opportunity to seize a moment like this again, so remain committed Remain committed.  I've got some post-reduction to catch up on Yeah, man. I'll I'll talk to you later about this project See ya Damn it. How do you leave this dank thing? General 17 is transformed into town meeting TV Meeting the challenges of these difficult times with new ways of engaging the public and local government Thank you town meeting TV. I love local


All right. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our panel discussion on OER textbook development at Norquist. My name is Nicole Carrier. I'm the senior editor in curriculum development, and I'm also the copyright officer for the college. And our panel today, we're going to discuss the different experiences of Norquist faculty who have developed OER textbooks. And we hope you'll find it interesting, especially those of you who are thinking of starting your own OER publishing program. I'm going to start by introducing the panel. I'll start with Lisa Sturdy, who's, there you go. Lisa has a BSCN in a nursing degree and has been at the college since 2009. She's worked in various areas, including the healthcare aid program, the simulation center, and allied health. She's currently an instructor with health administration and technology. And she has a passion for teaching and is excited about OERs because they make education more affordable. Her partner in crime, Suzanne Erickson, is an instructor with health administration and technology in the medical office assistant and hospital unit clerk programs. She and Lisa collaborated to create the two-volume OER at the language of medical terminology. And volume one provides a thorough overview of not only medical terminology, but also other topics in the healthcare setting. And volume two focuses on pharmacology. Suzanne also created the communications 1001 OER with co-author Sarah James. Oscar Vergara has been with Norquist College since 2019 and is presently the chair of the settlement studies program. He has extensive experience working within the settlement sector and with organizations that shape the landscape of services offered in Alberta. Oscar has been involved with OER textbook creation for the settlement program from its initiation. In 2019, he helped assemble a team of talented writers to create five chapters that would ultimately lead to the publication of the textbook Canadian Settlement in Action, History, and Future, the college's first OER. In recognition of the success of that publication, Norquist College has supported the addition of three more chapters for the textbook in the fall of 2022 and further expansion of the textbook is planned. Oscar has said that the creation of the textbook is a highlight of his career but emphasizes the collaborative effort that took place to complete the project. And last but not least, Alexandre Calderaro is an associate chair and the program founder of the settlement studies diploma program at Norquist College. Originally from Romania, he has spent much of his life involved in movements struggling for socioeconomic equity and justice and working in occupations that support the integration of newcomers to Canada. He has a master's degree in educational policy studies from the University of Alberta and is currently also serving as the elected president of the Norquist College Faculty Association. Oh, he was. I guess he's the past president. So before we get into the panel discussion, I just want to give an overview of OERs at Norquist College. So beginning in 2016, the Norquist College Curriculum Development Department began encouraging faculty to use OERs in their courses and by 2020 more than 20 courses were using open textbooks. That number is much higher now. Since the average Alberta student spends at least $4,000 on textbooks during their studies and that number is taken from a 2014 government of Alberta report, the college believes it is imperative to further increase OER textbook adoption. Research shows that most students delay purchasing textbooks. 65% of post-secondary students elect not to purchase textbooks. 50% choose majors based on textbook prices. 13% have considered dropping their courses because of textbook prices. And these statistics come from the 2020 Horizon Report by the Nonprofit Association Educause. So in 2020, the Students Association of Norquist College asked that the college prioritized OERs and in 2022 Norquist adopted an institutional OER policy. This policy provides faculty with guidelines for the creation and adoption of open materials including license conditions for OERs released through Norquist and how faculty time and resources would be dedicated to OER development. That same year, Norquist continued to reach out to other provincial and international organizations involved in the development and promotion of OERs and joined the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources, an organization for colleges interested in OER development and networking. Norquist began to explore funding opportunities and applied for OER development grants from various organizations and foundations. The goal is by 2030 more than 80% of Norquist College programs will be Zed cred, meaning that they will have zero textbook costs to students. We're currently publishing three to four OERs per year and our OER textbooks have been well received at both Norquist and at colleges and universities across Canada. Our OERs are created using the PressBooks platform which we access through Open Education Alberta and both PressBooks and OER Alberta are hosted through the University of Alberta. So, I don't know who wants to start but we could start with Lisa and Suzanne.  What initiated your projects and what was the process of putting together your textbooks? The initiation of the project was actually our chair came to us and spoke to us about creating an OER for medical terminology. Suzanne and I at the time thought it was a wonderful idea but also a bit overwhelming idea because we kind of spoke about it in December and the plan was to have that project done by June. Suzanne and I are both full time instructors so we knew this might be a little bit of an issue and actually it was Andrew that said do not do it off the side of your desk you're going to need more time than that. So, fortunately enough we got funding and this allows Suzanne to work on the project outside of regular work hours and get paid to do so. So, she started the project ahead of time and then I joined her kind of in March and then we had April to June to finish the project. I'm not saying that it still wasn't a lot of work but it sure did ease the workload having the opportunity to have that extra money to allow her to do it. So, I guess our advice that was given by our colleague was appropriate otherwise you can't really do it alongside a full time position if you have a really strict deadline. I don't know if you remember the second part of the question. Maybe you could repeat the second part of the question. What was the process of putting the textbook together? Well, it was a lengthy process but a creative process nonetheless and it involved a lot of collaboration with other areas curriculum development or editor of course. Cool. And then of course our peer reviewers as well. So, a lot of it was chapter by chapter and kind of planning it out that way and kind of completing it in smaller chunks which made it more bearable. I think most of our time was spent looking for resources. So, if you can use what is already created because there's lots of OERs out there that teach on medical terminology we would look to those first and I think Susanna and I were talking about it was kind of like a puzzle. We would find one main one and that would lead you to another one because they would reference another OER. So, it was really cool to kind of find all these resources within one resource. So, if you can find that on your topic it certainly makes the project not saying easier but it does make it more manageable I would say. Thank you. Oscar and Alex, what initiated your project? It's okay. Well, we were a little bit different. We were lucky that we knew we were funded to do the OER for settlement studies and so that enabled us to work on the process and start really planning how we wanted to get it done, who we were going to hire because ultimately it comes down to the subject matter experts and writers who are already in the industry. Some of who we already employ in our faculty so we were lucky that way as well. So, for us it wasn't that much of an uphill battle for the funding but definitely getting the processes in place and hiring the writers and kind of putting it all together to ensure that it's a good contribution to the college and we're doing right by the learners. Yeah, I think for us in the SET program we have the benefit of still being a relatively new program so our program launched in the fall of 2019 and it launched as a result of a gap analysis that we had done as a result of an internal project at the college where we actually found a niche in terms of the labour market that this program could fill. It also identified a gap in a lot of the academic literature. There's not a whole lot of literature existing out there to deal with settlement workers or supporting newcomers to Canada from a settlement work based perspective and settlement work itself is interdisciplinary in scope but it is distinct. So you can't just pull from social work, you can't just pull from intercultural consultation, you can't just pull from community development, you pull elements of all that but the sum of its parts are something entirely different. So we viewed the creation of the OER as just an extension of the actual creation of the program itself which was to fill a gap not just in the labour market, not just in the student market but also in the academic literature as well. So for us because we already had done a lot of that work in building the program as a whole and we knew these gaps existed, it was a little bit easier for us than taking something that was pre-existing and adapting it and so forth. And we were fortunate in that way that it was fairly quick in the way it was able to come together and in our instance it was very, it was properly resourced which makes a huge difference. Yeah, what was your process? Because it was quite different from Susanna Mises. Yeah, our process was putting out a call for proposals, basically whatever people get from our website and based on the information on the website we would ask for people to give us proposals on the topics that they wanted to write about and of course internally we had faculty members that we thought would be really good at writing some of these pieces. So Alex has actually written two chapters which are on the OER right now. He's working on his third and so based on the content of settlement studies and what we actually learn about in settlement studies could be addressed in the OER through special topics. So right now it acts more as a supplement to the material and content that are in the courses but ultimately the goal is to have world domination and have our OER spread out universally and cover settlement work in general. And I think just to add to that I think one of the things that was touched on in the presentation prior was the team that extended beyond just the project leads and the SMEs. We were really well supported by instructional designers and the instructional design team that really kind of helped us navigate press books so that Oscar and I wouldn't have to fumble our way through it on its own and I know that that hasn't been the universal experience at Norquist so for us it was smoother in part because when I say it was resource not just money but also you know communal expertise to make this be you know a real team effort because I don't know where we would have been without the instructional designers I'll be honest with you they really worked long and hard and they probably don't get the credit they do for these OERs the way that the SMEs do but it wouldn't be possible without them so for those who actually do the design and the uploading the content and everything that's like three jobs in the one so extra tip of the cap. Yeah just to add to that it's press books for the platform that we use and it's really hard to find an expert in press books but we were able to find that internally through Robert Lawson and his team and people like Nicole who contributed and helped out with that because press books is not something that I use on a daily basis or would even dream of trying to do anything on it but I did have to learn the hard way and we all kind of encountered it in our own way and took it as it was and use it to our benefit. I think in the end if you go to the website or you go to the OER textbook you'll see not just a bunch of chapters put together it's chapters with interactive activities with all sorts of really neat things that you can do depending on your learning ability and it is geared towards adult learners so it's written with that in mind definitely the developers and the help that we got from press books people as well. Yes, Suzanne and Lisa how easy did you find it to use press books? I found it relatively user friendly but I did spend pretty much because I started on the project a bit before Lisa just because of the way it worked out. I spent like the first month watching YouTube videos on how to do it and finding resources and kind of figuring it out on my own and then playing with it so I did have to have that time to be able to do that in order to figure it out before we even started working on the project. But I would say the big playing in it once you playing it it's so easy to use and I did mention in our previous talk that we were kind of told not to do it on a Word document and bring it in to actually build within press books because we did talk about how on the dashboard which is kind of like your editing page it will look one way but then when you put it in preview which is what your actual students will see or whoever is using your textbook it will look different. So you just had to make sure that you played around with the settings in the textbook like maybe adding a space where an image is because it kind of can end up here or there but it's just playing around in it but once we got a handle of it it's actually very user friendly. So you've spoken about the advantages of having instructional designers to help you out and I edit most of the OERs at Northwest College as part of my role in curriculum development. Are there any other resources that you felt you could have had and didn't? Yeah I think that one of the things that in hindsight now going back is a little bit more on making things more accessible for students with disabilities. I don't think that's just for us. I think that's just for those of us who don't have disabilities that's a very obvious blind spot and it's one that we often have to be reminded of over and over and over again which I wish it wasn't so but it is. So I think that that's something that for me is a little more top of mind now and I think that those are just conversations going forward in OER development that we need to have college wide if not sector wide. We'll agree because we actually talked to Robert about our images and we went back in and edited them and made sure we described what the picture showed whereas when we first initially made the textbook and put it out we didn't do that. We did it on some but we weren't consistent but then we went back in and made it more consistent. Yeah and just for those of you who are wondering who the Robert is he keeps getting attention. He's sitting at the back of the room and Robert is an instructional designer and OER specialist at Northwest College and was instrumental in bringing the OE Global Conference to Northwest and to Edmonton so say thanks Robert. We couldn't do it without you. Not all heroes wear capes. Yes. How often do you do maintenance because OERs typically incorporate a number of multimedia elements embedded videos, links and sometimes these things go away or break or sometimes the OERs need to be revised which is one of the big advantages is they can be updated on a regular basis. So how do you keep track of things? How often do you do maintenance? For us we're teaching the course so we're constantly maintaining our current textbook that we're using both of them and I think I said it in my talk. Our students are great at editing and telling us if something doesn't work so if it doesn't we can fix it in not in preview but in the dashboard and then we just re-upload it if there's an issue or a concern. Thankfully we haven't had really any concerns with any of the videos but I'm sure it will come up because some of them are YouTube links so they'll let us know. Yeah I was going to just say that it's the next big question to address. It's the next big step because it's so new. We just developed our A chapters. We're adding three more but we know that coming around the corner at some point there's going to have to be some check, some maintenance and updates and so that's the next, that's our next phase. I guess you could say. So it's not forgotten. We don't go in there regularly to tweak it or anything but I do go in there once in a while to just read and to make sure and I do keep track if anybody alerts me to anything that might be out of sync or not working and so that's what we're relying on right now but hopefully we'll have a better formal process in place coming up in this next year after we add a few more chapters and then we'll take a look but very important that everybody who's worked on it has asked the same question so it's at the top of mind for sure. And the students, whenever we use it in class that is our learners are great at letting us know when things aren't working so like Suzanne and Sarah we haven't encountered any broken links yet because we're only about two years in after publication but it's coming. Do you have a review process in place to ensure the quality of the content? Yeah, for sure. For the settlement studies we have our subject matter experts come in to build the content and to work with instructional designers to ensure their activities are working. Then there's a couple of reviews that take place when the content is submitted so it'll get reviewed minimum I would say three or four times sometimes more depending on how much help the writer needs or somebody who's quite brilliant may not need too many interactions. So it really just depends on what the needs are of that particular chapter but definitely there's a few iterations and it's something that we work on when we're doing the development of the OER chapters it's something that we work on pretty much daily. It is a peer review and it's a blind process so part of the hiring process that happens is that there's been a call out that goes out for content editors that we've used in the set program and so when I submit my chapters I haven't really learned who my editor is they could be from the community they could be a colleague from within the college but the results are given. The results are given and we usually do that process two or three times before we're ready to publish. The process was a little bit different. We created the content ourselves put into press books then the other one of us would review it as a first review then of course through Robert in curriculum development, Nicole as editor and then we actually found two peer reviewers for each book and it was different individuals for both from other areas of the college then they'd review it and then we'd make changes as a result of that. Yeah one of the reasons I brought up that question is because there's a persistent myth that OERs because they are free are not the same quality as a print textbook and this is not true but like I say the myth persists. I come from a background in textbook or trade book publishing which includes textbooks and anybody can have it can create a textbook and have it published it doesn't even have to be peer reviewed as long as the publisher thinks they can make money from it. Textbooks are expensive to publish and a traditional print book publisher wants to know that they're going to get a return on their investment and so I just want to clarify that just because something exists well textbooks not only exist in paper these days but also as e-textbooks but just because they come from a big publisher like Nelson or Wiley does that doesn't make sure quality. There's some really bad textbooks out there. It also speaks I think to a certain form of elitism out there to assume that only things produced within the academia are you know valid forms of knowledge I think we've seen this at this conference here where you know some from our keynote speaker this morning you know land-based knowledge right land-based learning that is how does it how does it not get any more open than that right and we're at a point right now where we're we're reconciling the fact that community-based non-academic forms of knowledge have been marginalized and silenced and I think open ed or OER resources are a great way to tap into that and to kind of break down that that hierarchy that exists so you're always going to get pushback when you challenge things like that but I think it's well worth the effort. That's okay I think there are things that that need to be said because like I say there are there are some persistent myths around OERs that need to need to go away so lessons learned anything in particular? I think one thing that we learned is that building an OER is a big project and don't underestimate how long it will take to work on your project if you're offered to do a project make sure you stick up for yourself and know that you need the time if anything is going to be your best friend it's time and you need the time to work on it if you don't have the time then you may not make a product that suits your course your program or best suit your students and that's what we're here for is to build something better than a textbook for our students that you have to pay for that's free. Yeah I think one of the really on a lighter note one of the really neat things that we did that I'm particularly proud of but doesn't you don't really notice what what happened in the background but the the OER textbook cover was created by one of our students and we had a competition and they all got into groups or they did it on their own or in pairs and they created a digital artistic book cover and they were all great they were all excellent and we got faculty members and executive leadership to kind of vote on the the various book covers so we're really proud of that and that that's something that I had never done before I hadn't really engaged the students in that way and they took it to heart they did a great job and we're really proud of it and you can see it on on on our OER. That was a really great idea one of the things that that comes up occasion is that having having students assist in the in the the creation of OERs and have co-create help to co-create resources is that something any of you have considered? I think in a indirect way it happens with the examples that you use oftentimes in my own writing process I reflect on conversations I have in class with my learners and when you redesign your own course curriculum that's often a process as well so I think a lot of the activities that we use in the set OER are influenced by interactions we've had in the community in the classroom so I think that that is one indirect way I don't think we've done it quite as directly as of yet outside of the the textbook cover that Oscar referenced earlier and whatnot but but it is some certainly something that is always on the on the back of our minds about how to do there was something spoke about that this morning in one of the talks we were in about having the students build part of an OER for an assignment and using that way yeah so I think that would be a great idea but then again that takes time and you wouldn't you would have to know when you were putting it in the curriculum and when your big project was due so if you could do that way ahead and then you know do it that way I think that would be a great idea and what does the future hold in terms of your next project any or would you do another project having having completed a couple already so Lisa and I did one OER about a year and a bit ago and then we did another one last year together and I did it another one with another group last year as well so I would love to do another one anytime I love the challenge and the creativity like potato chips one is never enough exactly yeah and there's actually a Robert had sent us an email from a PSI in Ontario that was looking for a resource that went along with one of our OERs so that's something that would be great to do as well and if we ever get the opportunity or the time to build resources to go along with our OERs we would love to take that opportunity on so and we've slowly been getting attention nationally from other colleges who have decided to actually use some of the chapters in our OER for their studies as well so we're really proud of that and there's nothing to really stop that from expanding and so we'd like to we'd like every college to adopt some part of the OER that we've developed that would be the dream but I think ultimately we want to keep adding to our OER as it is as I said we're working on three more chapters so we'll be up to 11 chapters with the intention to ultimately allow that to replace the real textbooks we only have a couple of textbooks that are mandatory in in the program but that would be nice to eventually eliminate and replace not eliminate but maybe replace with a brand new OER that's completely functional and updated and really good reading for our students yes we're working towards Z cred does anyone have any questions is I've actually had students read them in the class you know as they're reading in the class annotate them with hypothesis and then that gives me an indication of sort of what is where it's it's it's a way that they can collaborate a little bit it's a way that I can get some feedback on quality control and and the gaps in the things that they will annotate also kind of suggest to me where they might where it might really not be communicating to them effectively so that's something that I found effective I'd like to go back they call it kind of got by me quickly how many do you want to have when of OERs how many how many courses what percentage we're looking for norquist recently published a document called reimagine a higher education and the goal right now is that by 2030 80% of the courses or 80% of the programs at the college will be Z cred meaning that the students will have zero textbook costs and I don't I'm unsure how many programs currently use OER textbooks but our curriculum development department one of the places we start with especially with new programs is to suggest to faculty that the first thing they look for for their courses are open educational resources we don't force people to create any but there are a lot there's a lot of things out there and I'm sure a lot of you are aware of you know open stocks and Libre texts eCampus Ontario BC campus so there are a lot of resources and yeah because of the licenses to instructors can pick and choose from different OER resources and combine them for their courses and I teach in our textbook free now as of us creating three OERs I think in hours we have 16 courses and only two textbooks in them so and one of those is a novel in the back no I thought we'll start with you and I think one of the it all comes down and I think Lisa mentioned it really was time right like I think you need to people cannot work off the side of their desks and produce good quality work and without the financial resources behind that time you're going to struggle I think that one of the things our sector is blessed with is really passionate talented educators who work themselves to the point of burnout to see a project through but we don't want to be in a situation where that happens because then we'll lose that passion that subject matter expertise for future projects so I think that that's a really really really big one and I think also it also spreads out the not just the workload but the responsibility and the ownership of the project you don't want it concentrated in one or two hands you want this to be a collaborative effort you want people to feel invested in in this because then all of a sudden then you have many people that want to see this thing over the finish line so I think you know that might involve you know a little bit of letting go of control which is never a problem for academics we're all we all we all have no issues letting go of things and trusting other other folks but that's that would that would be my how I would respond you had a question I'm gonna go backwards our our press books once they're published they live in a repository hosted at the University of Alberta called open education Alberta and so it's like a giant bookshelf and you can find in there you can find them just with an internet search to and I'm sorry what was the first question they're really interesting thing about the press books in the repository because there are no technical protection measures on them students can read them online they can read them on different devices they can print them up as PDFs if a student has a textbook from a typical publisher they have access to the textbook for a limited amount of time only either for the duration of the course or maybe for six months because even though if you pay for a print textbook you take it home from the store and it's yours forever but if you pay for an e textbook you're not paying for the textbook you're paying for a license to use the textbook and you lose access to that after a while students lose access to that textbook also their technological protection measures in place that do not allow you to print e textbooks and so OER just have a lot more access it's a huge advantage for students because you can like I say you can print them you can put them on screen readers and it's for me having worked in traditional publishing I think it's a huge advantage and so students can access them pretty much anyway they want so what we do is we offer a PDF and encourage students to print off their own copies if they want to so it's the in the libraries will also print on demand but we don't have copies on that for a couple reasons one that that is a cost-saving measure and also the environmental sustainability piece if you're printing off you know a hundred versions of 300 page textbooks that's a lot of forests right so we that's it's part of our commit of our colleges commitment as well to having a more paperless way of operating that that we kind of leave that open to students to kind of find their own ways to get hard copies but they are available for anyone who wants them I think we've got time for one more question do you mean about the exercises within yeah we don't actually we kind of do because I think Robert was talking to us about our medical terminology OER I think it's the one of the top five in the U of A repository so they must keep track all right so I don't know if everybody heard that but open education Alberta tracks the the user to the download rates or from books in their repository okay and I think we're at the end of our time so thank you all for coming thank you to everyone who participated in the panel and yeah


If you're here, you say, I wanted to use my life. I'm ready to surrender in the call of God. Lift your hands, close your eyes. Just begin to seek Jesus. This is the moment now. Get lost in your praise. And lift your voices and call upon His name. There's a strong anointing here right now. Lift your hands, receive it. Father, in Jesus' name, give Him a fresh anointing. Fill to my grave, Holy Spirit. Place an anointing on His life. If you want it, lift your hands and cry out for it. Receive it in Jesus' name. Touch Him in Jesus' name, Lord, let Him be filled. Thank you for watching EncounterTV. Don't forget to subscribe. Also, help me win souls by spreading the gospel through events and media. Make a one-time donation or become a monthly supporter by clicking on the donate link now.


We recently covered the impressive ancient dwellings known as Dolmets, which can be found littering most of the European countryside. Enormous ancient structures, which we feel were left by a surviving, less capable branch of an earlier civilization, still possessing advanced knowledge, allowing them to build with such stones. Being remnants of the group, we also believe were responsible for the masterfully constructed ancient ruins, which can be found upon the same continents. Additionally, this era within human history was the inspiration for an animated TV show, namely The Flintstones. Curiously, the Flintstones, dubbed the Modern Stone Age Family, could easily be mistaken for a lost advanced civilization. Did the makers of the Flintstones know something we are currently unraveling regarding the builders of the Flintstones' homes, namely the Dolmens? Or is it all a mere coincidence? Some of these Dolmens still possess as yet unexplained evidence which flies in the face of academics worldwide. Sites such as the Dolmen of Menga, found near Malaga in Spain. This massive Dolmen, one of the largest megalithic sites in Europe, is a prime example of the unexplained features which defy current explanation. The Dolmen is 902 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 115 feet in height. It was built with 32 megaliths, the largest of which weighing over 200 tons. Nearby is another impressive Dolmen, known as De Vira, discovered between 1903 and 1905 by brothers Antonio and José Vira of Antequera. This site also possesses some of the most impressive megaliths to be found in any Dolmens anywhere in Europe. Who built these incredible structures? How did they build them? La Rocha Fille, in the French department of Villeville, in the Brittany region, was named after a legend claiming that the stones were brought by fairies. This clearly inspired by their inexplicable nature. A name of fairy rock was given to many French Dolmens or covered walkways. Regardless of whether our own theory is correct, the still surviving features of many of these ancient Dolmens is clearly indirect contradiction with attested theory. Another alternative study is desperately needed of structures we find highly compelling.


Hi, my name is Danny and welcome to esoteric moment. This is just a quick video to say. Thank you I have surpassed a hundred subscribers this week and that was kind of my first milestone and goal that I was working towards So thank you to everyone who has subscribed and thanks to everyone who is stopping by the channel for the first time in honor of reaching that milestone I've decided to do a little giveaway and And there will be a couple items that will be in the giveaway gift for sure and a couple items that will be a surprise That i'm still kind of debating which ones I want to send out This giveaway will have a book a druids herbal for the sacred earth year by ellen evert hopman I've been meaning to do a review of this book But it's a fabulous read and a really great resource to have on hand Whether you're a druid or just interested in herbs in general or looking for more magical uses The book is organized by holidays. So yule emulc et cetera Each holiday has a set of herbs that are then alphabetized And each herb has a few sections. It has some common names and the scientific name It has what parts you might want to use the herbal uses The homeopathic use and magical use Every herb has really comprehensive information That doesn't take forever to get through but really gives you a great understanding of the herb The back of the book also features a really great index which includes One set that is by herb and one that's by subject. So let's say you're looking for an herb for bruises The subject index has seven different pages and herbs that would cover that topic area It's one of my favorite resource books for herbs and I think whoever gets it will be really happy with it I'm also including a crystal and that crystal is lepedolite Lepedolite is a great stone for Calming for working through emotional traumas It can be really helpful for maintaining concentration And kind of keeping your emotional center when dealing with difficult situations or tricky conversations This one in particular is also a really pretty faint purple I'm not sure you can really pick up how purpley it is But it has lots of shimmer and sparkle I've had a really great time working with this crystal But it's time for it to move on and I think this will be a really excellent way for someone else to Enjoy the love of this little fellow Finally the last known item that I'm going to put in the giveaway is a little bottle of perfume oil So I do this for myself usually just jasmine, but this is a combination of jasmine and cinnamon and peppermint And perfume oil can be used on your body as perfume. It can also be used in ritual. It has a nice little Roller top so you can just put it wherever you want without getting it all over the place And it's on a base of almond oil, which is really nice on the skin and very few people have allergies to that oil topically In order to win the giveaway, I would love it if you comment below with a question That you'd like me to answer in a future video So this could be a topic idea for a video or even just some like simple FAQ sort of questions Once you make a comment, I will put your name In a basket and I will do a drawing video in two weeks time when I was announced I will contact you on a message on youtube and then we'll ship it out from there So once again, thank you so much for subscribing and being a part of this channel I'm really looking forward to doing more videos more regularly and really getting to know everyone And being a part of the pagan community on youtube and as always may you find peace in the sacred grove


Our course effects is our opportunity as VLT-35, not just demonstrate that we can persist inside the weapons engagement zone, inside the first island chain, but also that we can execute our operations, intel, and fires via the command control that is light, mobile, and low-signature via four M-raisers. That's going to be a critical capability as we expand our influence and disrupt the enemy's targeting efforts throughout the first island chain. It also assures our allies because we can distribute and very quickly execute crisis response. It should have been required, should we end up going from the competition to crisis to conflict situation very rapidly. This exercise was designed to test Italian and EAVO environment using small units to combat a soft force in the jungle. This is our last field-op that we're doing here in Okinawa. The purpose of this field-op is to show the Marine Corps how a unit can respond and how fast they can respond and how they would fight in case of any actions from our enemies. We successfully infiltrated into the CTA and conducted an air assault into the NTA. Desperate spurs in small units throughout the NTA and engaged a soft force. We know we need to infiltrate, we know we need to seize key maritime terrain, and we know that we need to go immediately execute the war-fighting functions associated with the Italian, where we're not going to do a depointment model, but we're going to have to employ immediately from our bases and stations here in Okinawa. So our command and control, logistics, fires, and intelligence all needs to be executed and supported, while at the same time, if your company is in the tunes and moving out immediately for an operational employment. We just need to focus on being in the basics, squad actions, command control, we're asking a lot of squad leaders, how do they call for fire in the jungle, how do they get the patrols into place, how do they sustain, but they don't have the company's COC or battalion support that we're used to having throughout the last 20 years. The train is extremely tough, visibility is very limited, just the conditions really wear you down. It creates a really unique challenge operating in the jungle. It's really a rifleman's game, but I think as we kind of incorporate more ammunition, precision fires, and kind of shorten, you know, close the gap, I want to come to fire support in the jungle.


Andrew Gillman's book is the Data Scientist's field guide. It's the practitioner's book. Lots of the books that I've reviewed are more theoretical, but this one is something that you can actually use. Why is that? Well, it has code examples, some relevant exercises, and it even dives into some very specific fields. You'll see things like how to handle missing values, how to work with time series data. There's also some bits on causal modeling. Chapter one and two set the stage. Chapter three starts to introduce basic methods, mathematics, and probability. Here he starts with weighted averages, which naturally lead into a discussion on expectations. He also talks a little bit about vectors and matrices and gets the reader comfortable with some of that notation. He then goes into the probability distributions that you might see in other textbooks. One chapter I love in this book is chapter five, which delves into simulations. Simulations are crucial, but often overlooked, and so I was really happy to see this in Gillman's book. With simulations and some code examples and simulations, he then cleverly transitions from simulations to bootstrap methods, illustrating the use of bootstrap for simulating sampling distributions. He also has a little section on some warnings about using the bootstrap. The book flows really nice. This is something I feel like is rare in these kinds of books. I would almost have expected something that was a little bit more like a dictionary, but this book flowed from one topic to the next very well. You can tell that Andrew Gillman's been doing this for a while.  He'll even delve into simulating fake data. Here he emphasizes that models should generate data resembling the fitted data. As a Bayesian, Gillman views model fitting through the lens of understanding the underlying data generation process with simulation being a key tool. Part two finally gets into the meat of regression modeling. In the chapter on regression modeling, standard formulas are presented focusing more on practical application than theory. The book, again, is rich in code here, showing lots of examples and plots, offering a comprehensive view of model visualization. Topics like cross-validation, including leaving out cross-validation, K-fold methods, and then also AIC are covered in chapter 10. Chapter 15 builds on earlier foundations exploring the Poisson and negative binomial regression. He also addresses zero-inflated data. Again, this is just such a unique book. You get to work with these real problems that you get in data and you get to see the code he would use. The book also touches on some more advanced methods like thinking about using regression with the T model or the T distribution. The exercises in the book are approachable, requiring no advanced degree. And the book concludes with Appendix B. Normally what you'll find in the Appendix of a math book is some review of math concepts, which is great. It gets you familiar with the notation they want to use for math concepts you might already be familiar with. But in Andrew Gilman's book in Appendix B, he leaves you with a gift. It's 10 quick tips to improve your regression modeling. I'm not gonna show you all of them in this video. I'll just highlight my favorite one. He encourages the modeler to fit many models, emphasizing that the first model is not sacred and should be continuously improved. In summary, regression and other stories by Andrew Gilman is an essential desk reference for practitioners. It provides a comprehensive understanding of regression, benefiting even those working on non-regression models. This book is a must have for every data scientist enhancing efficiency and proficiency in data utilization. As a personal anecdote, those who understand regression better are better modelers in general. Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time.


Welcome to getting clean on the prairies. Today, I'm just going to do a quick video on planting up some peaches and cream corn that I started here from seed in some egg cartons. They've been in here about two weeks, I believe, and I think I'm going to go put them in the ground just to get them going and I'm going to put them under straw here in this area. This is my potato patch over here and I'm just going to plant them kind of in this area here. It gets, I think, enough sunlight during the day. The garden shed does kind of cause some shade here in the early morning, but I'm hoping there's enough sunlight for them to grow here and we're going to put them under straw and see how that goes. So I've raked back all the straw here in this area and as you can see, there's some nice dark soil down here. So this straw has been breaking down and decomposing into the soil and I think it'll be nice for planting this corn. So I'm going to separate these egg cartons and just plant them two by two. So there'll be two rows of five going down this area here. So I think I might just spread out a little bit of compost and maybe some worm castings here before we put them in the ground. Okay, so I just spread it around some of my sifted compost and some worm castings and I also added a sprinkling of bone meal. So I've got these torn apart in the egg cartons here, so I'm going to try and place them in here and gently cover them up with a little bit of straw and hopefully they can take off. The roots should break through these egg cartons. They're pretty saturated and you can see that there already is some roots kind of breaking through the bottom here, so they should be able to take off. I didn't actually look up what the actual spacing should be for the corn, but I'm going to try to just space them out a foot apart. Last year I planted corn in containers, large tubs, and they were pretty close to each other. They worked out really good. The only thing is at the end of the season when I was trying to clean out the tubs, they're really hard to get out. The roots are pretty massive, so this year I'll just go straight into the earth and see what happens. So as you can see here, I'm not actually burying the seedling too deep into the soil. I'm going to just set it in the dirt and surround it by straw and kind of keep it covered following the Ruth Stout method. Okay, so I have my ten corn seedlings in the straw here now. You can hardly see them, but I have put a good thick layer around them just to try and control the quack grass, because as soon as you expose the soil the quack grass just comes back very fast. So I will just keep kind of watching these seedlings, give them a little light so they can take off and then continue to mulch around them with straw as they grow. So this is how I plant corn under straw in my garden. So if you want to find out how this corn makes out, please don't forget to subscribe. Hit the notification bell so that you can be notified when I have another garden update video on my channel. Thank you for watching and have a great day.


But once we move beyond the emergency balance, we owe it to future generations to build back better and base our recovery on solid foundations, including a fairer, greener and more resilient global economy.