We're gonna roll right through to Top Secret, Top Secret this week. We have a video that we shot, this was your little music player playing thing. Yes, Jepler did the little music player appliance and he'll be writing it up this week and next. Yeah, so it's Top Secret for now. Okay Lady, what is this? Hey, we're just like chilling to some lo-fi hip-hop. I really like having this kind of background music and normally I'd have a YouTube video open where I'm playing one of these streaming like lo-fi trip-hop chill music and I was actually thinking I could have a Raspberry Pi do this. This is a Pi 4 with a BrainCraft hat and it's in Chromium kiosk mode. So it's actually playing this YouTube video. This is actually the YouTube video with the cute animation and then I'm using the really nice audio codec on the BrainCraft hat into this cool speaker you gave me. This is like something you got from Sony. Yeah, Sony makes weird stuff. I buy it once in a while. Anyways, it sounds great and now like I don't have to have this YouTube video and then open on my computer when I want to shut it off. I just turn off the audio which will just it's kind of a quick play pause switch. Works great. Cool. Very chill. And that is Top Secret for the week. Okay. We're going to do some questions. A couple of them lined up. Okay.


Okay, we're back. We're live. It's 4 o'clock. I'm Jay Fidel, and guess what? This is Think Tech. Yes, again, Hawaii, the state of clean energy. With Jay Griffin, one of the PUC commissioners. Wow. And co-host Jeff Ono. Wow. What a team. This is great. Let's have a schmooze, ready? Great. Thanks, Jay. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks for the invitation. You've got a lot of things going on at the PUC. We're so happy you'd come and talk about it with us. And one of the things that's in the newspaper the last week, or so, was Jennifer Potter, the new commissioner, reported by David Igay. And it must be on the way to a confirmation right now. All the signals I hear are positive. No problem.  Well, yes. I mean, the news came down. I commend the governor on his choice. Nominee has a very strong background and experience in a lot of the issues that the state and the commissioner are currently facing. So I'm going to commend him on his decision. As I understand it, the confirmation hearing has been scheduled for April 12th. So I imagine she is going around meeting with senators, fielding questions on her background. Good. It's good when you put the confirmation in, or the nomination in the middle of the session, because then you can get confirmation of that same session. That's a worry about next session, you know. Understand. The timing is important. So tell us about Jennifer Potter. You know her, yeah? I know her some. If you look at her resume in a lot of ways it speaks for itself. She's had experience working at Sacramento Municipal Utility District. Municipal and utility in Northern California routinely received some of the highest customer satisfaction grades and responses. She worked on a number of different programs there, but including one nationally recognized pilot project looking at innovative pricing design programs for their customers. So this was something that we were tracking closely here in Hawaii, because these were topics that we were looking at at the time. Back in 2013-2014 she had worked on another well-known nationally recognized demand response study while she was at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs. Getting something we were tracking closely. I had the chance to meet her a number of times and interact with her while she was attending conferences here. You know, our times at HNEI did not overlap, but have met the nominee before and gotten to know her. Yeah, and you know how things work at HNEI. I mean, you were there for a while. I was there back and forth between there and the commission. So we have two now, two commissioners coming from HNEI. Two wonks, may I say. Is that okay? Well, the Senate will have a say in that. I think here at my perspective on it, one speaks to the institute itself. The types of projects that are going on, the people that are attracted there. I think Rick has done a good job attracting people with strong technical backgrounds, but also because a lot of the work there is hands-on demonstration projects. The people working there come with a lot of practical industry, what I say, on the ground experience. So if you look across the staff there, there are a lot of decades of experience of former utility engineers working in the grid start program. When I was there, Mark Glick had recently come back. So somebody with experience running the state energy office, John Cole, a former commissioner. If you look a little more broadly, there's a number of people with experience in the hydrogen technology area, marine resources. So again, people, there's a premium place on people that maybe views analysts or wonky, but come with a lot of practical on the ground industry experience. That's great. Great to have that. We need that. P.S., you know, you guys, she's coming on our show on the Amina Marco and Me show on Monday, two weeks from next Monday. So you'll get to ask your questions in person. Well, how was your first year as commissioner, Jay? Can you tell us about that? Sure. It's been, well, it's a very, it's been an enjoyable time. It's a demanding job, challenging in a number of ways, but incredibly rewarding. I think I can point to some, I think we've made a lot of progress. We obviously have a large, large number of issues on our plate. Important matters before, before, before us at the commission. Well, we have made a lot of progress in moving forward on the plans that the electric companies had set, sent to us, you know, making decisions on those and allowing the implementation of a lot of the projects, the new programs, new efforts to procure renewable energy. So it is rewarding to, you know, personally be involved in making those decisions and seeing things go forward. You get to attend, you know, groundbreaking projects of things that we had worked on and signed to see go forward. So that part of it is very rewarding. It was encouraging to come back and work with the staff that we have there. Now it's a, it's a young, energetic, but experienced and very talented staff that we have there. So that part's definitely rewarding also. So, you know, you had a certain concept of it before you went in because you were looking at it. You watched the next era hearings and you saw that, you know, from various advantages over the years, then you have a certain, a certain model in your mind about how it works. So my question is, how surprised have you been? What has surprised you when you actually took the chair, so to speak, took the seat? Well, I think in a lot of ways the job's more fun than I might have imagined in the sense that I, no one I was on staff before, you have a lot of management responsibility, a lot of time working individually one-on-one with staff.  I get to probably spend more time diving deeper into the issues before us, you know, read extensively the findings. So to me that's the fun part, dive into what's before us, you know, think hard about what the decisions are, interact with my colleagues, and, you know, do the best that we have with the information we have and make timely decisions. I would imagine that all this helps you or even requires you to have sort of a long-term vision about how this is all going to, how the energy initiative and the development of energy is going to unfold in our state and that you, you know, when you sit there on the commission, you look ahead. You look way, way down the road and ask yourself, how is this going to fit in a larger development going forward? Do you? Sure. Yeah, I mean, I think we both internally and what we've asked of a lot of the regulated entities are to lay out a lot of those plans, analysis, you know, painting that longer-term picture, but the same time things change, technology changes. So we remain flexible and stay focused.   Is it going to go on the ground in the next year? What's, what changes to programs or new programs are we going to introduce? But I think one of the skills to have is to see how those individual decisions fit into the bigger picture that you're talking about both, you know, within the context of decisions for this company or is it fit within the larger energy landscape within the state, within the state's landscape. So I think that was something that I watched fellow commissioners do when I was on staff and something that, you know, I've tried to bring, I mean, bring to it, bring to the table myself. Is it, is it hard, Jay? What I mean is you're faced with complexity, sometimes contention, sometimes all kinds of new territory. I mean, you're cutting new territory all the time.  All these issues dancing in your mind and you have trouble actually making the decision.  No, I won't say nothing. It doesn't come easily. And yeah, I mean, the tough decisions often have all those attributes. I mean, a lot of them complex, you know, their long-term publications, oftentimes, many times controversial. And I think it's just you, you, we do the best we can with the information we have. I do, I do spend a lot of time thinking about what the right thing to do is. But at the same time, we can't spend our time thinking about, I mean, there's a time dimension to this where the time matters. And so we, at the end of the day, we ask our staff to review things, provide recommendations. And I work with my colleagues and review those and debate and discuss them by ourselves. And at the end of the day, we make a decision. Are you overworked? What I mean is, how's your workload?   Does it mean that you're staying too late? I mean, what's it like? Because, you know, we all may want to apply for this job, you know. Oh, well, if you guys have, you know, we can take resumes here. I'll take them back to the office.  I think we are near kind of our full allotment of positions. And again, I said earlier, we've been fortunate to hire good young people. But our workload has increased. I was talking before the show. I had to double check before I came out. We have 11 active rate cases before us. And, you know, these are very time consuming, complicated endeavors. So that by itself is takes a lot of time and effort. So we're, you know, we're our staff. It's one of the hardest working groups of people that I have ever worked with, you know, no matter what the sector.  I work pretty hard. You know, you talk about rate cases, you know, and you've distinguished it twice already in this short discussion. And I really wonder if you can tell people what, what is a rate case and why is a rate case different from other cases, other decisions that you have to make at the PUC? Sure. Yeah, I can speak generally about it. You know, this is traditionally what you would be referred to as a lot of the bread and butter of regulated utilities. So the utility comes in. They say that we believe it will cost us X amount of money to provide service to our customers. It's an estimate for a year. The consumer advocates office is always a party to these cases. They have a profession, their professional staff and consultants review all, and this, you know, for our bigger utilities, there's binder with walls of binders full of all the detailed estimates of what it costs to run their business, and as well as, you know, they're asking for an adequate return on their capital for capital invested by the company. And the consumer advocates office reviews all that information is often time involved in extensive negotiations and potentially trying to settle on the rate request. It's almost always a request for a rate increase. The commission will review all that information. There's questions asked of the parties. And again, at the end of the day, we make a decision and that decision establishes basically how much the utilities can collect to run their operations and how they do that. So it establishes the rates that the utilities can charge customers. You know, the business affairs of the utility, what it's costing them to generate or otherwise produce and deliver that electrical energy. Are there any other factors? I mean, the issue often seems to be whether people can afford it, whether there's going to be political pushback. In my own mind, the distinction between the rate case and all the other cases is the rate case has an immediate effect on my electric bill. It has an immediate effect on the plug and so did a calculation. Roughly the cases before us, the annual revenues of all those companies are about two and a quarter billion dollars. So this is a significant amount of money that affects the cost of living for all residents and businesses here. And our job in this is to balance both to determine what are just and reasonable rates for the service provided, but also allow for the opportunities for the companies to earn a reasonable return on their capital. So they need to cover their costs to invest in their systems. They need to remain an attractive place to invest capital, but we can't burden customers with unreasonable rates. So there's a balancing act of all those factors. They're often, you know, can be very contentious because exactly at the end of the day, there's an ask to increase everyone's rates. They never come in and ask for a reduction. Well, what's interesting in this most recent rounds with the impact of the recently enacted tax reform, where those, you know, those tax rates are factored into rates that they're considered a pass-through, with the impact of the reduction is basically offset the negotiated settlements. I think in the recent settlement with Wine Electric, the net impact is a slight decrease of about $0.75 a month per customer. So that's built into the rates? After all these kind of factors get after the settlement came in and the impact of the tax reform was factored in. So there was an agreed to increase and then the tax reform has offset that. And Wine Electric Light Company filed a motion yesterday asking to move forward on the impact of the tax relief. And it looks like that'll closely, largely offset the interim rate increase that we granted in August. So the reason I say it's not always necessarily an increase and that, you know, when you read the comments, everyone, you know, the commission, why does it, we end up as a rubber stamp for all these rate increases? What I can say, I mean, we take the serious, or that we take the process extremely seriously because we know something that affects everyone in the state. But it is that kind of complex balancing act that we're involved in. Jeff, you must have thoughts about this. I do. You were on this issue for the whole time as consumer advocate. This is your ballgame in many ways. And certainly our law firm is responsible for a number of those rate cases that are ongoing before the commission right now. But the question I had is, you know, the commission has been rather harsh in its criticism of Wine Electric. And, you know, and to the point where standard and poor, I think it was that came out about a couple of years ago that said that, you know, the regulatory environment in Hawaii is not conducive to, you know, for the utilities. And it's not just Wine Electric. I mean, KIUC had its decoupling application rejected. Hawaii Gas had the four G09 applications dismissed. Young brothers came in a couple of years ago for a rate case that finally agreed on about an $88,000 increase or just a very small amount. But do you see, you know, when you talk about a balancing, is there going to be some shift toward being a little more utility friendly so we can attract capital in the state? Or is the commission going to be still business as usual? Okay, we're going to take a short break now. And when we come back, Jay, we'll talk about that, right? Okay? One minute break. I'm doing this for the benefit of the engineer because we need to take a break. Yeah. We'll be right back. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Good afternoon. My name is Howard Wigg. I am the proud host of Code Green, a program on Think Tech Hawaii. We show at three o'clock in the afternoon every other Monday. My guests are specialists from here and the mainland on energy efficiency, which means you do more for less electricity and you're generally safer and more comfortable while you're keeping dollars in your pocket. Okay, we're back alive and we took a break. Not because that question was anything difficult, but because we take breaks in the middle of the show. Nevertheless, we're back now, Jay. And could you address Jeff Ono's question? So yeah, I took him outside and put him in a headlock. Well, so a couple of things. As Jeff knows, our active open cases are contested case hearings. I can't speak to the substance of the decisions, the open cases before us and pending decisions.  There's been a lot of things written about the environment here in Hawaii. I guess what I would speak to is I think if you look at the recent track record, you know, we are... These are all relevant considerations in our balancing act here. And I think I'll just leave it at that for now. Good answer, Jay. Look, at the end of the day, companies do need to remain an attractive place. It affects the cost of their raising capital. At the end of the day, that affects the rates that we set in charge for customers. These are all capital intensive businesses. What we're asking the state, I mean, the state as a whole is a massive transformation of the energy industry that will, you know, rely on a lot of new capital investment. So these are all part of that, you know, when we sit back at night and think about what the right thing to do is on these very individual decisions, it's a factor, important factor. Well, you know, that really takes me to this discussion. You guys were mentioning it took place in the Maui conference between Jeff McElina and Rick Rochelow about whether it's worth it, whether the cost-benefit analysis on reaching 100 percent, because it's very expensive and it requires a lot of capital. And can we do that? Or are we asking too much of ourselves to try to get down that track? And I wonder where that policy point fits. Let me add one point. I came back from Australia and I went to Melbourne. In Melbourne, they have these trams and the trams are free and they have achieved a fantastic increase in the amount of business in the central business district because of the free trams. And really the question is whether the trams need to be electrified. They're all old, see, the trams. They're not new. They're not high-tech, but they're free and they have had a huge effect on business. So you wonder whether it would have been, whether the cost-benefit analysis would have been as good had somebody said, well, we're not going to do this with the old trams. We need brand new trams. We need highly high-tech clean energy trams, whatever. And so sometimes the existing stuff works fine, I think, and maybe you don't need to go to clean energy to achieve a better community in some ways. I don't know what your thoughts are about that. Well, let Jeff start. You're the guest, Jay. Nobody wants to hear what the former consumer advocate is saying. No, no, no, come on. I'm just being former, yeah. It's a tough question. And when you have people like Rick Roscholo and Jeff McElvina from Blue Planet debating that question, it just shows you the level of... How we can disagree and yet there are certainly points that everyone can agree on. We agree that we need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel. We agree we should be more self-sufficient. We should be less dependent on imports. But how do you get there? And when Rick Roscholo says HNEI's analysis shows that at 50% renewable, that's when the costs really start to ramp up. And so we're getting close to that 50% area where costs are going to start to really go up. And Rick's point was it has to be fair to everybody. Yes, there are going to be costs, but we can't just be incurring costs to benefit those who can put rooftop solar on their homes. It has to be fair for all ratepayers, especially the low-income ratepayers. I see it that way too. I don't know how you feel, Jenny. So are you trying to put me in Jeff's position here? Well, no, but actually I would love to hear you take Rick's side. Well, look, a few points. Well, one, we were talking about this earlier. We both agreed it was a high point of the conference. It was a great debate between the two of them. Their moderator, Gavin Bade, I thought it was... I mean, most everyone stayed till the very end and it was engaging. But I look at a few lenses on this. One, I made the point we're engaged in a significant transformation of the system, but at the same time, a lot of the key fundamentals are all... the technical and economic fundamentals are aligned with that. We're continuing to see significant improvements in solar wind technology, battery storages right behind. We're seeing record prices. We have seen record prices initially here in Hawaii, but particularly as you look at new deals being struck for utility-scale renewables on the mainland and other parts of the world. So I think we have a lot of... I think all of the technical challenges that have been raised at some of these penetration levels, the kind of the optimist side of this is winning out for what you see in the recent deals. We have a new large-scale renewable procurement effort going, and so we'll see we will test the market locally and have a very clear idea how, you know, in this kind of the next point here, we get to the higher levels just how costly that's going to be on the distributed side. I think we're also seeing a lot of significant progress for both technology and how companies are coming up with new business models to take advantage of new rate structures and kind of new programs there. So I'm optimistic. One of my takeaways from that debate was that they... I think Rick said 50, but he also went up to maybe 50 and maybe 80. I think kind of the fundamental that you see in the economics profession, you'll see basically at some point, costs increase for these technologies for as you add more and more renewables to the system. I mean, just where that becomes steep, we don't know, and as technology improves over time, it will allow us to push further and faster.  It's a 2045 goal, so we'll see how innovation in particular helps us get there. This is driven in a way... The future of it is driven by how fast the technology moves and how pervasive and how smart it is. Let me ask you this, though. If there's one case that you've participated in the past year or so that you've been on the commission, the one that throws the longest shadow on our future that has the greatest leverage effect in Hawaii, what would that be? Oh, great. That's a good question. I mean, I think some of the decisions on the planning dockets are important both for providing kind of the near-term certainty but also the longer-term planning horizon and those capital investments are expected to be... These are 20, 30-year-type projects, so by design they have a long-term planning horizon, and so we'll see a lot of the discrete proposals and projects under those come in in the next 12 months. So I think those were important decisions and I think to get to Jeff's earlier point, there's been a signal out to the business community and the investor community that there's some greater certainty here on the near-term path ahead, and I think that's something people were asking for and interested in. A couple of the small points, well, I'm not so small, is in cybersecurity, two weeks ago there was an article and at times it had spread throughout the media in the country to express concern about Russian tampering with utility equipment, utility plants, generation plants all around the country and suggesting that there were many plants that had been compromised, I don't know exactly which ones, I don't think they said exactly which ones, but that's of some concern because you don't have to spend a lot of time thinking what would happen if we had no power and we woke up one morning. It would be bad. So the question is what is happening as far as you're aware, as far as the PUC is aware, to deal with that possibility and to be resilient about it? So I mean, it's what I think about some of the topics that do keep me up at night. This is definitely one of them. Kind of the protection of our critical infrastructure and what the services that are provided here in Hawaii are essential both for local residents but also the nation. I know through various efforts, state regulatory commissions have worked together to look at cybersecurity and protection and critical infrastructure at the national level. I think I have been invited at an upcoming briefing about some of those efforts, interaction with the Department of Homeland Security. I know there's a lot of interaction between those agencies and the electric utilities and all the essential service providers. So I would say that it's probably worth bringing some of the... The utility folks are actually the best prepared to answer some of those questions. I know when you deal particularly with their IT systems, they do employ a significant level of concern and oversight to this topic. One last thing that we talked about this before the show is the organization of the PUC. There was a bill pending. I wanted some level of reorganization of the PUC. Is it acceptable? And that bill has been deferred. That's not going anywhere. But is the way it's organized now acceptable at least to you? Yeah, I think I'll comment on a few things. One, going back a couple of years, there was a bill to restructure the commission, move it from between agencies where we would be attached. And I think that's been a... I was on staff at the time. I think it's been a significant success in that reorganization and restructuring has allowed us more autonomy and flexibility to be attached to and have a level of autonomy working with DCCA. And it's allowed us to staff up. And so our ability to operate under that to me has been a significant success. And I have said it to the senator that... Because I lived it. I, on staff, we were... We had trouble hiring people. And it was really kind of a... It was very much bureaucratic. And we would make commitments to staff and not be able to fall through. It's really challenging. And that... So that environment is significantly improved. I think we did... There was an audit of the commission that was recently released. The commission has supported the recommendations in there. So we will continue to improve on that front, work on our strategic plan, update the DMS. There were some recommendations on further... Retraining of kind of programs in place for retraining or new staff that come in. So we're working on all of those things. And the last... As I understand it, the bill that was pending has been deferred.  I mean, we're... I mean, we remain committed to improving our organization. I strongly believe that. Bill or no bill. I mean, we have to. Jeff, at that time, would you like so much? This is Jeff's favorite time in the show where he gets to summarize. And I always put it the same way. I say, Jeff, would you summarize? And then he does something else. Okay. Well, today, you know, our topic of discussion was supposed to be about legislation. It was supposed to be a midterm update on energy-related legislation. But we had the honor of having Commissioner Jay Griffin here. And we sort of broke away from that. And I thought that was a good thing to do. We got some insight from Jay on the commission and potentially our new commissioner, hopefully our new commissioner, Jenny Potter, who will be starting soon. So this is a great show. I think we should do this type of interview more often, Jay. Yeah. And we should have Jay come back. We'd like you to come back because you are very refreshing to be here. And it's great to have you here at this table. I enjoyed the time. Jeff and I are going to have to talk a little bit afterwards. No, thanks for the opportunity. Thank you, Jay. Thanks. Hello, hi.


It took me out of reality, you know, if I had a problem, it just, I forgot about my problem. If you had a problem, I could solve any world crisis on cocaine. I did a lot of drinking while I was a foot patrolman. I would drink in uniform in business establishments, usually in the back room. Drug addicts and alcoholics are so smart, and they'll really think these things through them and they waste more energy on hiding their habit. And so I was very careful as to not cross the same circles and no one ever thought that I could have a problem. I could go and buy the drugstore diet pills and take nine, ten a day just to get a bus to where I could clean my house. I used them everywhere. I used them in the operating room. I would go to the surgeon's lounge and when I was into the demoral, shoot-up demoral or when I was into the cocaine, snort cocaine before going to the operating room. Americans take drugs, alcohol, pot, coke, uppers, downers. We use young and old, on the street, at the corporate level, at home, off and on the job.  One out of ten Americans abuses alcohol. An estimated one in twenty is addicted to illicit drugs. Many more misuse prescriptions or use a variety of drugs. Consider the families, friends, those who work with the drug user and the figures of those affected are even higher. I did not want to be a mother. I wanted to do my dough and have my friends and do my drinking and I couldn't do that with a baby. Like my aunt who loves me, it was like this is one lady that I would never hurt. Took her TV and took her gas money. So all my nevers came true because it was like this copement so much to me. Within the workplace, studies indicate that drug abuse costs the U.S. economy $60 billion each year. This translates into higher absenteeism, increased accidents, sick leave and medical claim costs. There are mistakes made, the products poorly manufactured and the markets lost. I'm a welder and the steps are supposed to be strong off the whole elephant and I mean I've had steps break where people fell through. I would say they broke it. They tried to steal them and scrap them in the junkyard. Lying, it would be alright for me to kill somebody just to get caught. There were times I would take downers, sleeping pills and set the alarm and I could get to the phone but I couldn't crawl to the phone.  We found out that effective people use the health delivery system 13 and a half times more than those who do not have a problem or not affected. Their families use it two and a half times more. That's only the beginning. And I remember waking up in Buffalo and going to work and being on a rooftop with the worst hangover that I can remember in my life and standing on a cold rooftop in Buffalo with a Palm Beach suit and a raincoat with no line looking down at President Carter and wondering just when was he going to be finished making this speech so I can go get another drink. In a way, it's a very dangerous drug for a surgeon because it reinforces his God complex. When you're in that operating room, you better be God because you have to be able to handle anything that comes along.  With cocaine, if you take the drug acutely, you have increased energy, you feel more confident, you feel that you can do things you normally couldn't. I had a film to produce and I was on this set all the time and I thought, this drug makes me much more creative. This drug makes me feel good, makes me smart, makes me speak well. I think I'll do it more. And I did and so I just, within six weeks I was addicted to cocaine and I knew it. I was free-basing. I thought I couldn't think about anything but cocaine. Initially when you start using a drug, you feel this is something you can control. The, as you keep taking it, and that's what I meant by insidious, as you keep taking it, at some point you find that you cannot control the use anymore, that the drug is controlling you. Drugs at work. The costs are varied. The consequences can be devastating. It was a usual day of trying to get Saris off. She was just so excited about getting back to school and being there for her first round of exams and seeing all of her classmates again. But on January 4th, 1987, Amtrak's Colonial 94 collided with a Conrail locomotive that was on the same track. 16 people killed. 175 injured. 17 million dollars lost in damages. The Conrail engineer had been impaired due to marijuana use. The engineer of the Conrail train that caused the tragedy had a dozen convictions, several suspensions, and he had been arrested for drunk driving only about three weeks before the crash. He had not responded to a work call 51 times in the year before the crash. For myself, I thought drug abuse was limited to the people who were abusing drugs. I felt sorry for them that they felt that their lives were such that they had to try to escape from them in some way. But I thought if anything happened, it was going to be limited to them. What I did not realize was the enormous extent somebody else's drug abuse having an impact on society. Her enthusiasm for life was infectious. What makes her death seem even worse is that it was entirely needless. Other people's disrespect for their own safety as well as other people's safety killed her, which is absolutely senseless. Drug abuse, pervasive, costly, deadly. How do we start to address drug abuse at work? It begins by educating everybody in the workplace. The major stumbling blocks are people who operate on misinformation, stereotypes, or prejudice, people who look at drug abusers as criminals and people who should be not treated but instead thrown out of the job. We have seen a great deal of improvement in this area, and we hope that the trend will continue, that more and more employers will recognize that people with drug problems are ill and in need of services. If anyone told me in March of 1976 that I was an alcoholic, I would have told them they were crazy because I could drink with the best of them. My tolerance was great. When I was into the demoral, I carried loaded demoral syringes in my socks. I would leave the house with six preloaded syringes every morning, three in each side, and it never occurred to me that that was somehow a little bit abnormal. I kept doing my job. I mean, for me, and I think for many people who have had problems, that is the thing that they try to keep intact for as long as possible. It's their one way, if they can get to work in the morning, if they can do their job, then they don't have a problem. Over the course of the next year and a half, I had probably at least a dozen more overdoses, and these were usually when I was alone, and I'd come to with my face on the floor, my tongue kind of chewed up, and about all I'd learn from those episodes was, gotta be careful at dose. In the past few years, the government and corporate realms have taken action to address the problem of drug abuse on the job. In 1986, in a massive effort to establish a drug-free workplace, President Reagan initiated a comprehensive drug abuse policy for all federal employees. We seek to create a massive change in national attitudes, which ultimately will separate the drugs from the customer, to take the user away from the supply. I believe quite simply that we can help them quit. Within each agency, a comprehensive drug-free workplace program is underway. We really feel the basic purpose of any drug policy should be to get the substance-abusing employee into treatment, get them the help that they need, and get them back on the job. Therefore, it is absolutely critical that any policy, any program, have access to an employee assistance program. These are programs of health professionals where, if an employee has a problem, they can go to these programs by themselves, or the supervisor can refer the employee to the health professionals to find out what the problem is, to get them help, and to help to make them a better employee. There is employee education to inform employees about the health consequences of drug abuse. There is supervisory training. Training, not necessarily to recognize the signs and symptoms of drugs, but how to deal with the problem employee and how to get that employee over to the employee assistance program. And then fourth, there's a testing component. The testing component of any program is really an important one in terms of allowing the organization to cut through the denial process that is typically associated with substance abuse. In the 25 years I've been dealing with people abusing drugs, I could count on the fingers of one hand those individuals who felt when they started that they weren't getting into trouble. Normally people have this idea it isn't going to happen to me. This cocaine was so great that it would tell me I did not have a problem. See, the only problem I had, you know, and I found that out, I didn't have a problem until I ran out of cocaine. As long as I had cocaine, I was okay. I never had the problem with the drugs. It was the people around me who had the problems. You know, they're the ones who couldn't deal with things. I was fine. I was okay. I thought. I remember taking a sip of this little bottle of vodka or something and seeing myself in the mirror as my head came down from drinking and thinking, what is happening to me? This can't be normal. And yet I still, I went into the stall to drink so I wouldn't see myself in the mirror to begin with, but I still thought, no, it's this guy. It's this guy that doesn't know how to party. You can tell me all about cocaine and demoral and alcohol and all the difficulties it causes, and I could say, yeah, you're really right and I really feel badly for those people who have troubles with it as I put the needle in my arm. For one federal agency, the Department of Transportation, safety is of critical concern. Under the 1986 Presidential Initiative, DOT was the first executive agency to implement random testing as part of a comprehensive drug program for civilian employees. This testing applies to those in safety or security-sensitive positions. People like air traffic controllers, rail safety inspectors, anyone whose performance on duty could directly impact the safety of the traveling public or if his or her fellow employee is in the random pool. Drug testing starts from a very simple premise that the public has an absolute right to be protected from the consequences of alcohol and drug use in the workplace. I don't think you can have an effective drug program without testing. Testing is the incentive that puts the hard-core person into a voluntary program. If you don't have testing, you are saying to people, please address your problem, please address it. Some people will respond to that, but everybody won't. But the increased activity in testing is not without controversy. Some courts will decide that random drug testing is permissible because of the need to fight drug abuse while at the same time, under very similar facts, a different court will find that random drug testing is unconstitutional because it violates the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure. That has been the legal battleground. The Department of Transportation Drug Program goes beyond testing. It includes extensive awareness and education. There is counseling and rehabilitation provided for those who use drugs off the job. He gave me this memo that says that I've been using my leave to excess and I don't see it that way at all. At another federal department, Health and Human Services, education is a key element of the effort. Managers and supervisors are trained to be aware of the effects and signs of drug abuse and to refer employees to enter the employee assistance program. We had called security, we had called the health unit and they were prompt, they were there. He's in counseling now. What happens next? The first thing I think we've learned is you need a very active and well-running employee assistance program. The idea of rehabilitation should be the principal focus of a program. It should not be a program to say, gotcha, we're more concerned with trying to help people, putting them into a rehabilitation program and putting them back into a successful job performance. And I know it's drugs, I know it's drugs and I found it. And I see these supervisors thinking, let's try to pinpoint the employees and who has a problem. Well, the fact is they may have a problem themselves so you need to be really honest with yourself first and then start looking at your staffs. Take the disease out of the closet for one thing, that's one of the things that's really important. It's okay to be chemically dependent if you do something about it. Corporations are also taking action. Over 45% of Fortune 500 companies have adopted some form of drug policy. Employee assistance programs have more than quadrupled in the last several years. The first step that management and union should take is to decide that they do away with the adversary relationships and that they both should be working towards the common goal of survival of that person and survival of that job and economy. One corporation, Capital Cities ABC, a media conglomerate with over 19,000 employees worldwide, addressed this issue in 1984. I suspect that many of us were vaguely aware of the reality that, like all other elements of American society, we probably had a drug problem. But the specific impetus for our, what's become our program was the fact that we experienced a death during working hours on corporate premises from a cocaine overdose. We have operations, I suppose, in perhaps 25 or 30 of the 50 states. And it seemed we had essentially the same problem every place. Aware of the need and committed to the effort, Capital Cities launched an extensive drug awareness campaign which reached employees nationwide. A program is only effective if employees are aware of the services available. We need to be concerned because we all have families. Some of us are married, some of us are not, but we still have families. And if we don't look for each other, you know, somebody's going to get hurt. It is plainly stated in our rules that there will be no drinking, no drugs under the influence of anything. They just won't tolerate it, which is a good thing because we have lots of equipment, good possibility of getting hurt. So you're getting my work? Yeah. Every day? Yeah, just about what I was going to say, you know, and then I'll go for a couple of days and I'll just cool out a little bit, you know, I just won't use it at all. A hotline service was instituted in 1986. It has served over 650 Capital Cities employees. A single call puts an employee in touch with a counselor who can provide support and additional resources. I do believe there is a pervasive feeling now that wasn't there a year and a half ago that we were sincere about this, that to this day, if there are 650 people, I do not know by name a single one of them. I'm not interested in knowing that. I'm just interested in trying to see to it that they have some place to go to try to get help. They'll help you commit yourself to a drug rehab program and they will work with you all the way through. You don't have to worry about losing your job or anything of that nature. It will be here once you complete that program. Ultimately, this drug program is judged by the individuals it can reach. My desk was like a drug store. No one ever went through it, so they were not aware. I was buying some of my drugs from where I work. I was buying crystal, crank, whatever they had available. And a memo had come out at work that said several employees had already been terminated for drugs, you know, selling on the premises and things like that. One of the guys that had been let go was one of the people that I bought dope from. And I got very scared. So I went ahead and told my manager and my supervisor at that time that I think I might have a problem. I did not realize she had a drug abuse problem. And at the same time, then everything sort of tied together for me. I knew why she had the mood swings and I knew why someday she could do the work and someday she couldn't. And I knew why she had the attendance problem. They wanted, at first, I kind of talked to this man from the EAP off. And I kept really kind of putting him off and thinking, well, I can stop myself. I'll just stop. I won't take anything else. I won't buy from anybody else. I won't take anything else, you know. But I kept getting real depressed. I was getting more and more depressed. I was at home and I had taken, I guess at that point, it had been about three of the Tylenol with coating in them.  You know, I can't do this. I've had enough pain in my life and I couldn't do it anymore. And I sat on the end of my bed for a long time just looking at the, you know, into a barrel of a guide thinking, well, my arms are too short to actually, you know, pull the trigger. And then it hit me every time I'd ever stayed home being sick when my daughter got home. The first thing she would do was come running to my room, jump on the bed with me, put her arms around me and ask me how I was. She always took care of me. And I just, you know, cried and I just, you know, screamed and I yelled and just, God, I need help. You know, I need help and this isn't the way out. Rhonda, yes? Capital cities worked out the financial details. I'm very thankful for what they did for me. Basically what they did while I was in treatment is make me deal with why I drank and why I did drugs. A lot of people think they're going to come out of treatment and they're cured, you know, they're going to walk right in and it's going to be everyday living. It takes a lot of getting used to again. It's a whole new thing. Drugs at work, a reality we can no longer ignore. There are costs in productivity, dollars and lives. But there are solutions. It begins with awareness and education. In order to change an attitude, we need to begin with education. I don't think we can change an attitude otherwise. It takes working together, getting informed. This is a devastating, painful process for the employee themselves and they need to get the support that they need in order to get well. It means developing programs which ensure help for those in need. Productivity at work and safety for the public. The road is long, the issues complex. But the rewards incomparable. They've given me a chance to live. And I think of those little stickers, no thanks. I'm driving, you know, about the drinking thing. And mine's always no thanks. I'm living and I love it.


Hey guys, welcome to Archland. So, we're going over a couple of must quality of life updates. I've been playing for more than a month. So far, I've also been playing like what, three more times a day. So, again, these quality of life changes are a must. Because this will, you know, this will at least help the players move along, especially those who are free to play, especially for those who are beginning.  So, our energy, as you all know, doesn't grow in capacity even if we do have our team leveled up. Like for example, here I'm at 50, if I go to 51, it doesn't go up. It's capped at, it has a hard cap at 120. So, what do we do to augment this? We usually play multiple times a day, at least two. Or in my case, I play at least three, one in the morning, one in the afternoon to one in the evening, to maximize energy into at least have, you know, a fair amount of chance to catch up. Because I played late and I'm actually playing catching up as well. So, I was late for two weeks playing this game. So, right now I'm at 50, I'm catching up. Some I've seen are at level 58, 56. So, that high already. So, again, the things that they could also address is buying stamina. So, the stamina right now is this, when you buy stamina, it's the same currency as when we are summoning or let's say for the store. So, this is actually, hopefully, this is one of the proposed changes that I'm saying, I'm not saying that this is the only thing that they should do. So, probably change the stamina once you buy. And if you purchase this, the next stamina would be at 60. So, 40, 60. So, it's a big chunk that is taken off from you. That's 100 if you refill twice. So, I guess one is good enough. A second one, I'm not sure if you should do it. Just veer off from this currency, the diamond currency because we need that for our summons. Also, guys, the one that I have been, if they cannot increase the cap, might as well increase or decrease the amount spent in each of the challenges. Like, for example, this one is 10. The others might be 20 or even 30. So, this one is 20. When you go to, let's go to Mana Vortex. So, Mana Vortex is 30. So, it's only a few sweeps then you're out of energy. That is my point. So, increase capacity or lower cost. Increase the capacity for this one or lower cost. Okay? And more or less, this is the number one thing that they should change or they should improve on. Because again, this will give the player's ability to be more flexible in terms of clearing more stages. Because at this point, you cannot even clear all the stages. Sometimes you run out of energy. Sometimes you don't have time to play or you could play once. So, and that is my point. So, again, the energy issue should be addressed. Okay? It really should be addressed. And the next one is relating to your PVP. You have Battle Arena, which is your, not your real-time PVP.  Okay, both of these systems, especially for Night Brawl, when you click on this one, the Rank Mode, more or less it's going to be pairing you with an opponent. And usually the pairings are, sometimes are very far off that it's usually an automatic lose for you. Let's say, for example, it's, based on my experience, most of the pairings that I've gotten was five or up. The lowest that I've gotten here is usually higher than me by four levels or five. Or sometimes the pairing goes to the opposite direction, which is favorable to you. But again, the pairing system in PVP, the matching system should be fixed, should be more or less one level higher or one level lower only. Could be two, probably, to make it more challenging. But again, it should not have a plus minus of two levels. So one two, up or one two, down. This will highly improve the players who are, you know, who haven't, you know, at least you have a chance to win. Instead of, for example, being matched with a very high opponent, then usually you would really win.  OK, so that is the second one. OK, so the other one, let's go back to Secret Realm. So I tried this one. I tried this one, this stage. This is eight. And I've challenged this already. I am at level 50 as you've seen. My heroes are at 51, but I can't seem to clear this stage. This is really hard. Even if you're at the max level, you sometimes can't clear it. It's not only applicable for endless dreams, Secret Realm. It actually applies to other content that they have. So if they're suggesting you're at level 4 to 5 to 50, it should be an automatic clear. So that is what I'm expecting. But apparently at 50, you're still struggling. I'm more so my heroes are at 51 and they're still struggling. Even if I manual it, sometimes I just get one hit. I have maximized a lot of my stats. Even runes, even if you can see here. I just want to show you guys what I have. So the runes, not really maximized, but they're of high level already. My main characters or heroes, they're not a pushover. So they're nearly maxed. They're usually beyond 2,200 to 180. And more or less, they can be counted on to clear stages. But again and again, we still fail these stages even we are at the max already. So that is actually the third one. Stages should be matched with suggested level, with their suggested level. Because again, if they suggest and if the players cannot still clear, then what's the point of suggesting a range of levels? So let's say 35 to 50. So what's the use of that? So that is the other thing that I want them to improve. The other one is also the daily login. So for the daily login, these rewards are good. But I would like to see more of, let's say for example, the key to heaven. The key to heaven, if they put here at least one per week, it wouldn't hurt, right? I don't think it would hurt them instead of putting out diamonds, put out keys to heaven. So they could just replace this because 30 diamonds in a month is not even significant, right? We could farm these, so probably replace these two keys to heaven. And I'm sure the player base will be looking forward to login every day for a month. I'm sure of that. The four free summons is not going to affect everybody. Or it's not going to affect the developers, I'm sure. But it will really, really encourage the player base to play every day to login every day. And also a very obvious, what do you call this? Obvious change that you need to do is a counter for the summons you've done. Especially when the rate up, there is a pity system. You need to have a summon counter for your equipment, for your heroes. Please guys, we need this one. Let's say 10 out of 60, 30 out of 60. I'm actually doing this manually in my phone and I'm listing them down. But again, the developers can really put this here. It's a very small, minor change to your UI. And hopefully you guys have gotten all five. So just to recap, improvement in energy improvement in the matching system in PvP. Either the regular PvP or the real-time PvP. So matching should not exceed one or two levels up or down to give you guys a chance to win the match. Stages, that stage level should be accurate enough that when you're maxed out at a certain stage. Let's say 45 to 50, when you're 50, you can actually clear the stage without problem because you're already maxed out at 50. Right now, we're having a problem clearing stages even if we're maxed out. And daily login rewards is the fourth and this one is the fifth. So summon counter for equipment and for heroes. So if I missed something and if you guys want to add on what means to improve, please comment down on the comment section so that we can discuss and hopefully the devs can hear us out with our suggestions. But before we go, I'd like to divert you guys to the English patch. So for those who haven't installed the game and are planning to install the English patch, instructions are here. I'll put a link in the description. And also, there is an update down below on the English patch. This update is last updated on January 13. But I'll share a second link for the last update, which was January 29. So at least the skills are ready. So again, I'll share the patch, I'll share the link for the patch. Then I'll share the link for the updated patch for January 29. And as you can see, I'll show you an example. This patch has better translations actually. Let's go to skills here, traits. Let's just use one of the traits. So it's more understandable than the previous one. You almost don't need the translation in the website. The translation here is fantastic. I'm sure you guys will able to understand it. So it's clear, it's very precise, and it's accurate. I don't see a problem with this one. So even if you click on the link, the explanation is there as well. So that is it, guys. So that is for the quality of life improvements and also the update on the English patch. So again, if you're still here, please consider subscribing, put a like to this video, and probably share it to somebody you know who needs the shortcuts for the patch. So thank you guys for staying this far. Take care, stay safe, this is The Warden, and I'm out of here.


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an will have a crucial role. He will be filmed. It will be broadcast. It's going to be in retrospect because ACMI is going to have to put it together, but there will be stuff there to watch and it will be exciting. Super. It will be exciting. It will be exciting. I shouldn't be downplayed. It will be very exciting. And it is very exciting, by the way. It gives us all hope.  All right. Liaison reports. Announcements. Mr. Heiner. Brewery Club of Allington placed 158 flags up at the water tower on the top of Park Ave, recognizing heroes throughout the entire community. This function is thanks to Mr. Lundstrom and the workplace program and the students. They have been a key factor in this every year. They will be flags because of the weather. We'll stay up through 11 up. They'll be taken down at 11 o'clock next Monday. So if you get a chance, take a walk up there and walk through the flags. Get to see all the different heroes throughout the town of Allington. Thank you. Great. Future agenda items. Seeing none. Executive session to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with union and or nonunion personnel or contract negotiations with union or nonunion in which if held in an open meeting may have a detrimental effect to conduct strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation in which if held in an open meeting may have a detrimental effect. Collective bargaining may also be conducted. So what do we think? We need to vote to go into executive session. I so moved. Oh, sorry. I didn't hear. Great. And we are going to adjourn from executive session. And I'll second that. Thank you. The adjournment part or the executive session part? All the executive session. Okay. You're usually a fan of adjournment too. Ms. Exton. Yes. Mr. Cardin. Yes. Dr. Allison Ampe. Yes. Mr. Thielman. Yes. Mr. Schlickman. Yes. Mr. Heiner. Yes. And I am also yes.


Going on everyone Sam here with late and sports cards ripping 23 Bowman Draft baseball sapphire edition five box break number three random team style There's a look again at your random results as always you can find these on the website under the results tab as well as a link in chat I that's gotta be that it that should be the first thing the NCAA does in the offseason is give Reggie Bush his Heisman back Yeah, yes Reggie Bush needs to Get his Heisman back, dude, Sam Zavala 275, Nazan Zanatello That's on that Red Sox Johnny Farmillo tight Pete to 99 nice one their mirrors at Seattle built We like round these two like they're like chickens out there running around Montero the 50 well-been Francisco for the Guardians so they leave none of the tenders for us There's like Why don't you jump on any of them then well the day crew pounded twice today probably Dwarf ski Alberto Rios and Roman Anthony No, no, no love. No love There's one there for the astros There's a Celsius in the fridge If you don't I mean if you want it tomorrow, obviously Whenever you want to that's yours though close them out cover to 50 for the white Sox Probably early. Oh, we got a redemption Ready Smith and TJ Nichols. Clark is a redemption. Yes Chrome prospect autograph variation gold sapphire parallel of Max Clark congrats on that one Detroit. That is massive Phillip are Philip are congrats buddy Let's go Gold to 50 on the auto. That'll be straight into a mag. Thank you as well Troy selling us out on TC black now everybody Big hit right there, man Let's go Horvath Yeah, that is that is gonna work. That is gonna work just fine Yellow to 75 Brock Vreidenberg for the Marlins See whose name completes it. Oh God Charlie Soto Hans Montero. It's a good break so far. I Pete's nothing to scoff at either For a green auto Orange Camillo Diaz to 25 color match for the Astros Congrats on that Houston Blake Mitchell. Sorry Olsen box race Orange Jackson bowmeester to 25 color match for the Orioles again Brant Taylor and Ethan sauce more Johnson Max Clark and Carlson Reed Ethan Otano, it's a yellow Grayson hit to 75 Still in case that Nelson Arata got a yellow Landon Maratus to 75 going to the Lujays That's Toronto Conti Colton led better is first base auto Luke Kieschel go to the twins. Congrats on that one Minnesota Luke Kieschel on the auto Salamire Brian Acuna Paul DeMend, Ludwig Espinosa It's and base On to the next one Evan Y with a spot in Bowman's best. Thank you, buddy So after Bowman's best 12 is at six to go the next one that we have to fill are the mixers Here's a link to that one 14 to go Prism select gold Grant Taylor first to 50 for the White Sox First and first Jacob Gonzalez first base auto that's on that one White Sox. That's awesome. That'll play just fine first rounder Gorgeous auto. He's got of course. He's a nickels and base Stop Nathan Nathan. What up? How are you Lee? That is a yellow Trey Morgan Trey the ray for Tampa Congrats, Tampa to 75 first of all drip smart Juanita Blake Mitchell orange Jacob Cravey first To 25 for the Orioles another color match second Orioles color match of the break not to a shabby Alberto deos and Wilson Turco and Druze no No, they're not the low at the first numbered auto is going to be the green to 99 Chuck And then it just goes in descending order They're just base autos are just base autos Yellow Deon Jorge at a 75 for the rocks Levi Wells and Christian napkin Orange Paul schemes on the auto to 25 congrats on that one Good one there pirates going to uh There's Pittsburgh yeah, I kind of find Pittsburgh Bradley good stuff Bradley nice one there Are they oh, yeah, they're number to 199. Are they I guess they are yeah the hell man I thought good call on that one Kevin. I had no idea. They're number Kev Yeah, they're number to 199 perfect. That's good to know honestly Yeah, let me done boyfriend. Let me done boyfriend enough It's on the bond LDB LDB LDB I'm throwing some jumbos out tonight 24 jumbos coming out tonight. Oh boy 24 J's you're interested Let me know orange to 25 Brandon Maia Congrats on that one there yinx I know that's the first time I've ever seen a face auto. I think it's a fire number. Maybe I'm wrong. Yeah, I was gonna say that's I Didn't know that is a no higher sapphire selections The base autos and sapphire number to 199 did not know that Did not know that hell yeah, let's go F&S F&S putting him in jet Yellow Jack Weninger to 75 on the for the Mets A lot of schemes that This is the spurn is spurs is tonight. So I'm gonna be on one My soul of my own Brian Quick recap here everybody 275 this yeah Jack Weninger Tray Morgan Deon Jorge Grayson hit Landon Maraudis Brock Ravenberg chase to warsky this on Zonatella to 50 Well, then Francisco Grant Taylor Colson Montgomery to 25 Camilla Diaz Jackson bow me sir Jacob gravy Brandon Maya autos again, which is number to 199 Jacob Gonzalez Luke Kieschel 299 is Tai Pete We had a orange Paul Skeens to 25 and a gold sapphire variation parallel of Max Clark that'll do it for the Break everybody. Thanks again for the fell coming up next is


The stage is heating up at Lumen Repertory Theater. Their 2024 season starts next Friday at San Marco Church with playwright Adam Bach's drama, A Small Fire. Here with the behind the scenes look is Lumen's artistic director, Brian Nice, and actress Brooks Ann Hayes. Welcome both. Thank you. Good to be here. Thanks Ann. Yeah, we're glad to have you. So Lumen's theme for the 2024 season is bold. Why is that? And what can audiences expect from your lineup this year? Well, there's going to be bold content, fresher content like this play, A Small Fire, by the OB winner, Adam Bach. It's bold because it's not just a kitchen drama. It's a kitchen sink drama. You know, there are things that you don't expect happening. And it's bold in the way we're approaching it because we're treating it like a film, but it's a film that you're viewing in a theater setting. And so tech, light, and sound will be very film-like, cinema-esque. And then the rest of our content we're bringing back later this year, we're bringing back our Shakespeare productions, which is improvise Shakespeare in Brewery's, which was a huge hit last year. And we're retooling it with a new cast and doing some cool stuff. This is the Shakespeare. This is Shakespeare, yeah, yeah. And if you think you don't like theater, you think you don't like beer, come and you'll end up liking both. Brooks Ann Hayes, without giving away too much, and this is a really interesting plot, and as you were saying earlier, a very challenging role. Talk a little bit about your involvement in this, your decision to participate, and what kind of challenges it's presented. Well, Brian asked me a while ago to do this, and I was all in for it. And then time went by and I read the script several times. I was like, you gotta be kidding me. There is no way I can do this because it is challenging and it's bold. And after I spoke with Brian, after I dropped out, I realized, the reasons why I'm not doing this are the reasons why I should do this because it is a challenge. She is not through the entire play, but she becomes deaf and blind and can still speak. And so she can never look at anyone. She has to, she can't hear anyone, so their communication with her is just through hand squeezing. You know, and so it is a challenge to just have to do the physicality of that. Has it been rewarding? Extremely, extremely rewarding. Sometimes you gotta push yourself in directions that you don't really think you should or you would be right for in parts and that's what I'm doing. Brian, is this a play that you had seen performed or is it just one that you read and liked a lot? It's one I read and didn't like a lot, the first read, and then I read it slower. Well, because it's so quick, it's basically, it is a film. I mean, it's written to be filmed even though it's a play and it won some awards as a play. It's just over an hour long. Yeah, you read it and if you're thinking traditionally about theater, you'll miss it. And I think that's what I was doing. And so when I read it again, I was like, oh, this is why this is bold. This is why this is unique and this is exactly why it's the kind of thing Lumen Rep Theater should be doing. And so tell us a little bit about the idea of Lumen and what foundationally it stands for, what it aims to do and when it was founded. So it was founded the very end of 2022 and last year we just completed our inaugural season. But it was founded because until Lumen Rep came around, Northeast Florida did not have a fully professional repertory theater company. In an area this big in Greater Jacksonville, we have a great film community, great visual arts, ballet, symphony, all on a professional level. We didn't have a professional theater company that was a repertory company. So we wanted to change that.  So that's the idea behind it. But also to do pieces that as this season says are bold, can be subversive, can be challenging. But also the quality will always be exceptional. You'll know that even if you may not like the content and be challenged by it, you're gonna be like, but they did a really good job. Wow. I was reading about a review of this in the New York Times because this was an off-Broadway play. And it sounded like there was at least one scene that's maybe really difficult to watch. Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Well, if it's the scene I think you're talking about toward the end of the play, we've taken a very tasteful, made for TV movie type approach, which will still be a little uncomfortable, but we don't want to deter from the fact that this play is actually about those bridges that just don't burn between human relationships, between people who are trying to reconnect with each other.  And honestly, we're both older actors, ain't nobody wanting to come see us doing anything. You know, that would make them, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but this is a character exploration of a woman who's very closed off in some ways and then is sort of forced to rediscover and reconnect when she's losing her senses. Right. She loses her senses, but she gains so much more. Well, Brian Neese and Brooks Ann Hayes, thank you so much for being here. I know that this is gonna be a great performance and we really appreciate what you're doing in the community. Glad to be here. Be sure to come out February 16th at Historic San Marco Church. Thank you so much, Ann. Thank you for being here.


Last week Elon Musk took a massive L according to his own sycophants when he did the unthinkable by naming Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter who was supposedly going to help him transform the platform into X the everything app Which I'm sure the process for that transformation is going to go very smoothly and be welcomed by every single person on the app Now if you're a normal person whose brain hasn't been rotted by right wing politics You probably view Linda with skepticism considering that she's a former NBC universal executive and right wing hack Appointed by the Trump administration to lead the world economic forum and she also follows far-right figures on Twitter Including stochastic terrorist libs of tiktok and she's even liked tweets doubting the integrity of the 2020 election Which pretty much tells you everything that you need to know about her so to the average person This is change on the outside continuity on the inside But to right-wingers this is proof that Elon Musk is turning Twitter woke I wish I were kidding about that for example one of the most popular responses to musk's announcement came from none other than Cat turd 2 who responded writing Elon Musk the woke mind virus is a threat to the world also Elon Musk I just hired a far-left loon deeply infected with the woke mind virus to run Twitter Twitter 2.0 was fun While it lasted get ready for it to suck again now I get it cat turd 2 will never be pleased by anything or any one But he wasn't alone here in vocalizing his trepidation About this new ceo because youtuber the quivering excuse me the quarter ring also decided to speak up about this And this is somebody who was a fan of Twitter. He Basically begged Elon Musk to not step down from Twitter when he ran his poll But here's what he had to say about the new Twitter ceo. I cannot believe he hired this broad Like maybe the absolute worst possible. I mean why not just hire Jack again Like this is like, oh, I mean this is a terrible ceo to hire in all senses of the word You want to bring this person on to help you increase ad revenue and you want her to work advertising deals fine But as the ceo, that's the person that sets the vision for a company That's the person that you know is actually by the way. She's still in the WEF I mean, this is insane and I saw earlier this morning rip Twitter was was trending I mean, this is this is a disastrous hire for Elon Musk another huge misstep In his leadership at Twitter. I don't know I can't possibly think of a single reason why he would have hired this person if everything he said about the WEF about Globalist about you know the poke about masks if that was all the truth Then I don't know a single reason that that you would hire this person at all. It's it's appalling So there's a lot of outrage about her association with the World Economic Forum and also concerns that she will be in favor of censorship And as the Daily Beast explains quote people would have been much happier if it was not a WEF UN or who member but here we are a pussy hat WEF member that promotes vaccine propaganda Masking and lockdowns one right-wing Twitter user with over a quarter of a million followers wrote which had accumulated over 3,000 likes quote How fucking lovely former Newsmax host Emerald Robinson likewise wrote rip Twitter over on Donald Trump's truth social site The platform sent out a news notification after Musk's hiring decision was made public around noon with an attached story That attempted to expose Jacarino's quote woke ideology seems like someone who definitely won't cave to woke corporate censors truth Social communication staff for Matthias Wagner said far-right radio host Stu Peters in a text message to the Daily Beast Accused Jacarino of being close to a worldwide corporate run election theft syndicate Which he said is evidence that Musk's claim to hold freedom of speech as his top priority is a lie So that was a small sample of the outrage to Elon Musk naming this new CEO But what's amazing to me is that they're still not entirely sure if Elon Musk actually cares about free speeches If there's like some sort of a question there You don't have to wonder anymore. He does not care about free speech Twitter is literally censoring a documentary critical of India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi After they pressured him to do so and most recently he's censoring tweets at the behest of Turkey's far-right government to suppress Erdogan's opposition and he's failed so Measurably at protecting free speech that some of the worst people are even pointing out that maybe he should try to do better For example insufferable liberal Maddie Iglesias pointed out the Turkish government asked Twitter to censor its opponents right before an election and Elon Musk complied should generate some interesting Twitter files reporting now Elon Musk actually responded to that saying did your brain fall out of your head Iglesias? The choice is to have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets Which one do you want hmm? Take a principled stance to protect free speech or Sensor content at the behest of the Turkish government and lose ad revenue in Turkey will go with option B That's what Elon Musk did and someone who should theoretically be on Elon's side Former NBA player turned Republican Party shill and as Cantor freedom Sharply denounced Elon Musk's decision to cave to the Turkish government saying he doesn't want to hear Elon Musk Talk about freedom of speech ever again, and I don't know if there's a single issue that NS Cantor and I agree on But as a Turkish American he knows that the Turkish government is deeply authoritarian and Sensorious so he's right to be angry with Elon Musk here even if politically they probably agree on everything else I mean Elon Musk when he took over Twitter said that free speech would be a priority But yet anytime he's had the opportunity to put his support for free speech to the test He has failed every single time But the problem is that most of Elon Musk's sick of fans still haven't realized that he was full of shit And they're still wondering oh well maybe with this move he doesn't actually support free speech He doesn't support free speech, but thankfully some of them are waking up But this is a problem for Elon Musk because little by little the people that he won over by buying Twitter under the pretense of protecting free Speech are now starting to turn on him little by little more and more over time But lucky for him even if his Tradcon fans abandoned him He has managed to ingratiate himself with online conspiracy theorists because he himself is pretty conspiratorial For example, he went on a George Soros tweet storm after the billionaire sold his Tesla stock Saying that Soros reminds him of X-Men villain Magneto and adding quote He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization Soros hates humanity, but to be fair.  I think that elections should be publicly financed so that way wealthy donors Don't have this ability to corrupt parties, but this isn't a robust conversation that people like Elon Musk are having They're never discussing the broader issue surrounding campaign finance and money in politics But they will bring up George Soros and pretend as if him alone is the cause of all of corruption in DC politics When that's a little bit bizarre, right? He is a small problem. He's a microcosm of a broader issue, but yet you hyper fixate on this one person who happens to be Jewish Maybe they don't actually care about our corrupt campaign finance system Maybe they're just anti-Semitic and it seems as if George Soros is a mere conduit for their anti-Semitism And Elon Musk is appealing to them with these types of tweets either wittingly or unwittingly But this isn't the only conspiracy theory that Elon Musk has fallen for He was intrigued by conspiracy mongering over the Las Vegas shooting and the Allen Texas mall shooting And he also thought that an article supposing that the media was covering up black-on-white crime was Interesting and not to mention his conspiracy mongering about the attack on Paul Pelosi I mean as one Twitter user put it It really does reveal a lot about Musk's true intellect that despite setting atop the biggest pile of money in existence He falls down the same dumb rabbit holes as your dipshit Facebook uncle Who got caught having sex with the tailpipe of of his 1974 GTO and that is such a good observation because you can understand how a lonely Impoverished working-class person might fall victim to online conspiracy theories. They're desperate They want to know why economically they're suffering so they look for answers in all the wrong places and as a result They may end up finding some conspiracy community online and getting radicalized by that That's their excuse, but what's Elon Musk's excuse? He's a conspiracist when he may allegedly be part of real conspiracies that actually exist that we should all care about For example as HuffPost reports the government of the US Virgin Islands is trying to subpoena billionaire Elon Musk for Documents in its lawsuit seeking to hold JP Morgan Chase liable for sex trafficking acts committed by businessman Jeffrey Epstein now while Musk hasn't been accused of wrongdoing over the years they continue there had been Unconfirmed speculation encouraged by Epstein himself that Epstein had advised Musk on certain business matters The Virgin Islands where Epstein had an estate sued JP Morgan last year saying its investigation has revealed that the financial services giant Enabled Epstein's recruiters to pay victims and was indispensable to the operation and concealment of the Epstein trafficking enterprise They continue lawyers for the Virgin Islands said they hired an investigative firm to research public records databases For possible addresses from Musk and reached out to one of his lawyers by email, but received no response Hmm very curious now the specific documents in question are possible receipts for transaction fees that Musk might have paid to Epstein or JP Morgan and communications between the both of them back and forth But the point that I'm making in bringing this up aside from just wanting to talk about this because I find it interesting is That Elon Musk is possibly linked although there's no allegations of wrongdoing sexually speaking to one of the most Notorious sex traffickers in the world who claimed to have dirt on lots of powerful people And that alone is a very valid reason to be skeptical of all elites Because they use their wealth to abuse power and abuse people and there's ample evidence for that It's a real conspiracy. You don't have to make things up. It's right there in the open But what's weird is that people like Elon Musk they can connect the dots when it comes to someone like George Soros But they can't connect the dots to other elites and Elon Musk's fans can't connect the dots between him And the real conspiracies that exist with wealthy people But Elon Musk is an elite so for him to bind to these weird anti-semitic conspiracy theories It just doesn't make sense. It's bizarre, right?  It's just a joke And I um, I don't know what else to say about Elon Musk. He keeps taking l after l But that's gonna happen if you have no real principles and no integrity and you're just trying to ingratiate yourself With far-right people. They will be they will never be satisfied unless you Fully capitulate, but he doesn't realize that and um At the end of the day, he's still a businessman and that does conflict with His support for free speech. So yeah, not very principled after all. Are we Elon?


Let's go. Come on up. Your health bar is mine now. Say goodbye. Oh it didn't kill him? Well then this Kaio mix will. Grab it! How's it going everybody? Datodoi here back with some more Dragon Ball Fighters rank matches and this time to celebrate finally getting the UI Goku trailer I've decided to play once again the team of all Goku's. And it looks like we're going up against Vegeta here so that could not be better for the theme of it. Okay I mean I guess it could have been if he went all vege- I'm switching! Okay just the fact that he was watching me switch dude I was like oh I really gotta get out of here. Alright he has to hold that. Blocked the cross up it didn't oh man we actually could have gotten away with much more there. Man that UI Goku trailer was so cool by the way. Oh blocked that. Down heavy yes we'll take it. We will take it. Definitely not the cleanest but that's gonna get us Vegeta back and a snap mix. I mean we gotta do the snap mixes while we still can. Never mind. Never mind. We'll just take what we can get I guess. Oh it ended up being a read. Yo this guy must think I'm god like I was gonna say I did it by accident. Alright we'll take what we can get. That looked accidentally so godlike. This guy was like how did he know? Meanwhile I'm over here like oh damn these fingers dude I did not want to do that. He's just backing up. Backing up we're gonna see if we can't get a medium kick here. Why not go for the Kaio-ken? Why not spend the bar? Oh my goodness. Alright gonna be in the corner here he's open to a lot of stuff.  Dude that's a lot of damage. I should have done the actual optimal route but counter. Oh my goodness Goku Blue had another thing coming for him there. Man I don't know why I'm loving fighters right now. It's just I can't believe we're gonna be in like a different world here pretty soon. Season three is going to change things up drastically. Damn didn't get hit by the command grab. Base Goku uh can we kill here with two bars? Nah we're gonna make it three. That's a definite kill then. Kaio-ken get all three hits. As you know we gotta we gotta keep the hits coming. That should be enough actually. Two bars. Beautiful. On to the final Goku. Why not? Here's the thing. Why not make it optimal? He actually did go back. If I can just land one to him. Command I mean guard cancel that's negative on block if I would have blocked it. Okay there should be a delay. Too much delayed. That was unfortunate. The unfortunate downwards. Great match for us though. Power down go into base do what you gotta do Goku. Man I think I might actually now that Krillin has a beam assist it might be time for Super Saiyan Goku to go. UI Goku coming in as a as the new point and Krillin can take that's crazy. I never thought I'd be saying these words. I'm saying like stuff I only dreamed about Krillin mid. All right I'm gonna power up get the get the final bar. Oh I I don't know if he took that as disrespect it was supposed to be disrespect I was just I I merely wanted the bar. All right we're gonna knock him down here see what we can get done. Mix nope nope delay it again let's go for the optimal. Nope it's not gonna work yep that wasn't I dropped a second hit of it blue combo I did not hold down the tech button or any button never oh no oh I shouldn't have reflected at all. All right we'll take it again I'm just trying to get this Vegeta out of the way because one less assist is better for me in general. How did he know? Or did he know? All right let's get the combos going. One bar I might have been able to get away with zero bar spent on that but I'm gonna go ahead spend the bar keep it make make it drop proof. Damn why did he get knocked all the way over there? Oh nice down heavy. I was still cheering on the base Goku assist. Oh don't don't ex that don't yet oh I'm all over the place all right Goku blue deserves to die for that one but well I was so convinced he was dead that I didn't take my bad Goku blue it ended up being my fault all right jump I was a little late oh my goodness damn okay I see you base Goku not supposed to be the guy out here right now but no command grabs thank you very much we are not taking command grabs at this time oh but we will take five heavies we are open to we are open to the neutral heavies we do appreciate a good neutral heavy around here all right here's a risky strat hand spirit bomb one two three it worked we can practically take out whoever we want now I don't want to waste it on Piccolo though I'll be honest anti-air anti-air jab what is this street fighter fire oh no that's time to spark nice get him out of there okay do we start with the spirit bomb that would be the reed of a generation I don't know if it's that serious quite yet let's start with the beams to see where it goes no I wasted it I wasted it I wasted it that's fine that's fine we can make up for it we can make up for it get him base Goku get him let's go come on up your health bar is mine now say goodbye oh it didn't kill him well then this coyote mix will grab it it must be the money he never even saw it coming he didn't know what the coyote mix was he must not have heard of the potent mix all right let's go ahead for the third one must not have heard of the coyote mix dude all right beam assist to start off all right well actually he got the beam assist all right well now we're in the snap loop see what he does let's play a bit of defense nothing to be too worried about I managed to dodge the overhead but I you know me I can't take a dragon rush to save my life that's fine let's see if we can keep it optimal damn I'm doing it way too slow now all right that's fine take him back down see if we can't your turn your turn no please you don't got to do all this you don't got to do all this 30 fireworks he didn't have to do all that looking like his new assist am I no I'm dead oh my goodness that was a lot of bar that was a lot of bar that's a good 70% of my life gone and I can respect them for it we just got to get base Vegeta back out damn well that could have been it right there we're still gonna go for base Vegeta I thought about it a lot but we're just gonna take the Vegeta oh don't want to block all right I'll just I'll just kill you now I actually don't know if this is going to be enough damage this is going to take some real level five energy here to kill from this rage I don't know if this was smart no it's not going to kill that's fine it's a transmission oh my the one inch punch all right we kind of tied up the game if not taking the lead from that the raw superdash at the beginning is a very brave start okay nice vanish get off the boy no not nearly quick enough oh raw tag okay let up pressure for that long I love raw tag I wonder if they're gonna nerf that a lot of players have been complaining about raw tag so I could definitely see them doing something like that this is a dead piccolo right here I guess I just reset it that wasn't the point I tried to do the keyblast cannon and just forgot to hit the button superdash is he gonna superdash okay watch the dragon rush watch the dragon rush take that get him no we're helping Goku baby let's go let's let's go Goku's helping Goku's see you later you were strong I hope you come back is someone good someday that was sick the charge up that was like some anime that was like piccolo of a goku out right there that was amazing do I do one way let's do one more just because that was sick you just gotta do why not one more okay we are out of there we are gone one way or another all right let's pop up if you can't keep us there we don't gotta stay there Goku's gonna come in just a little you know a little bit of blue health off the old uh okay watch the dragon rush oh that was nice didn't expect he hasn't used that move all game okay can I you mind if I raw tag oh that sucked for him that really did suck for him oh I dropped it oh I didn't mean to ex that that was a big mistake man this game has been cinematic oh well not the tag we not the result we were hoping for from the tag but at least our character did get out counter I shouldn't hit a button bad button go base is this the first time base goku is dying I don't I don't think we've played without base goku available to us so we'll see how the rest of this game goes I think we should be fine on base Vegeta has entered the arena that this is fine come here bit you know what no key blast damn never mind that did not get the jump I was hoping for two bars we're real close to doing a raw level three right now don't ask me why I want to do a raw level three but uh I just feel like it would work let's test the hypothesis oh I didn't I didn't stay on the ground let's test the hypothesis well I mean I don't know if it's ready for the science fair but I think I'm looking pretty good oh what a tech I'll give it up that was a nice tech oh this might actually this might not be the best for my health not gonna die surprisingly oh airborne snatch what a dude this guy is playing like he has nothing to lose I like that I like this new I like this new guy dude this new game he's been uh snatching go for the risky strats I love it oh that that sucked for him let's not even let's not tell let's not tell any lies man's got a super dash cut off with a 2m super dash is not the not the most intense tool in the world okay notice he's backing off because we do have sparking okay oh nice reflect as well the super dash there was oh did he win no he has he can't win here he can't win here that was a nice hit good practically cut the tension with a knife but I'm gonna be the one taking the win here oh my goodness healer oh that was dude that guy was he definitely was playing with with a reason there that was patience nobody plays like that unless they really want it that was sick thank you so much to my opponent for the games that was a great last one and thank you all so much for watching if you have a favorite moment like always let me know down below and while you're down there hit the like button and subscribe if you're enjoying all the content here and want to stay up to date for season three as we will be doing a week of kefla talking about all the new balance changes etc etc it's gonna be a really fun time if however you want to watch more videos right away there should be some up on your screen just give any of those a watch if they catch your eye other than that I've been dr. do it thank you so much for watching this video and I will see you in the next one