Good afternoon. This is Guillermo Sabatier, your host for today on Perspectives on Energy. And thank you for fighting into the show. Today is just me by myself. I am going to be your host. And I normally am a Director of International Services for HSI, the Health and Safety Institute. We provide a training for the industrial skills, among other things, for the natural utility industry. And today, I don't have a guest. I wanted to go into a bit more of a discussion as a follow-up to last week's episode. We were talking with Dr. David Gatti on the issues of viewing energy as a national security perspective, right? How we're becoming highly dependent on just either renewables or natural gas. And that puts us in a uniquely precarious and dangerously unreliable stance when it comes to energy and national security. Not to mention the fact that it makes energy a little bit more expensive. But we'll go into more details to what that entails. I got the pleasure of meeting him back in early June when I went to a conference at the Association of Rural Electric Generating Cooperatives, where I had a chance to speak on the topics of renewable resources, their variability, and how that variable output impacts reliable operations on the grid. Today, we'll talk a little bit more about what that entails and what possible problems we're facing as an industry and what solutions that we may be applying as we move forward.  I have been in the industry for 30 years almost. And until recently, I had not seen the active subject matter experts that operate this grid and the system invited to the table to have conversations on how to best bring about these changes, right? One of the things that I was always concerning was the fact that, and just to get something out of the way, climate change is real. We are having issues with human activity that impacts the climate overall. We're seeing records setting heat waves. We're seeing one right now in southwestern Texas that, of course, had a severe impact for two days in a row where Texas nearly had to engage in a load reduction or feeder rotation. So that would have been a problem as well. But again, a lot of that has been exacerbated by some of these viable renewable resources and how that impacts reliability. So one of the things that we wanted to talk about, and if we go up to the first slide, Mike, if you don't mind, is that we're seeing a lot of quite a fast growth in the deployment of renewable resources. And of course, that major driver behind that obviously is to reduce carbon emissions. Now, and most of the country, the majority of the utilities have already done away with petroleum and oil as a source of a generation. But the majority of these power plants that are in the country are running on coal. And I won't say a majority, but I'll say a good percentage of them. I'll say a little bit less than half. And there is the pressure of the demand in the rush to get those retired. And what are we retiring and what are we replacing them with? Really, it's renewable resources, whether it's solar farms or wind farms. And as you can imagine, the problem with that usually has to do with the fact that these resources are not very, they're not based load, right? They have a lot of variability.  So until they get the battery resources, to the point where they're cost effective, easily deployable and reliable, we're not going to see a lot of positive changes in that regard. So what is it that they're using instead, whether they refit these coal power plants with something else, or they build a combined cycle power plant all together, and that's the next bullet there is a natural gas refit. So if a power plant happens, a coal-fired power plant happens to be fortunate enough to be near a natural gas pipeline, well, then it's fortuitous in the fact that they'll be able to refit that plant and have it bring natural gas. Mind you, it's still a fossil fuel, but the amount of emissions is a fraction compared to the coal, right? And now granted, those aren't as efficient. You're not going to see, you're not going to see it operate as cleanly, for example, as a combined cycle plant. Some of these are way more modern and a lot more cost effective. So you've seen the majority of these utilities across the country, whether they're investor owned, public utilities, or even co-ops, they're opting for these combined cycle plants, which is usually two or more combustion turbines with a heat recovery steam generator, and that, you know, all that's producing of course electricity, and it's a very efficient way to make use of that fuel. Of course, that's great until while natural gas is still cost effective, but we've seen the rise of natural gas and prices almost three or four times than what it was three or four years ago. So that's gotten a lot more expensive, right? So as we move forward, right, with this deployment of natural gas as being the main driver of transitional fuels, now we're becoming even more reliant on this one type of fuel. So we're also losing fuel diversity. And that in itself becomes a serious problem, not to mention the fact that it puts us in a single point failure situation, but we'll cover more of that later as I make a note of that as we move forward. The other really, really glaring issue with some of these resources and the way they're currently deployed is the fact that they have quite a bit of their dispatchability. They can't really control them like you can control a regular power plant. Normally you'll have a base load generation and then you'll have variable generation. And then on top of that, you have peak generation. These variable resources are forcing the dispatching of these peak generators, which of course are very expensive to operate, very expensive to turn on, shut off. And then of course add to that the maintenance cycle. So every time you bring one of those units online, you are incurring a significant cost. And then you're accelerating the maintenance cycle, assuring the life of these assets. So as you can imagine, now you, and they haven't properly accounted the cost of these renewable resources, right? When, since they haven't been taken into account, the effect that it has on the rest of the generation fleet. So in a lot of utilities, that's been changing. So now you're seeing like a little slowdown. And they're slowing down in the deployment of some of these rent and solar assets, because now it's not as, not as economical as it won't stop, or as it won't stop. So let's go ahead and go to the next slide and make your mind. Okay. So here's an example of year over year, right? I'll show a few of these tables. And you're seeing here in highlighted in pink, I guess the white, you're seeing how many of these generators were retired, you know, how many they added, how many they retired. So you're looking at net capacity of additions, which so if it's a negative number, it's really you lost that generation, right? So here's of just year in 2021, you notice that they managed to retire 25 coal plants, which is great for the environment, right? It's great for emissions. They're very dirty. The issue with coal is that it's one of the least expensive sources of energy, right? But again, the cost that that brings about on the environment is rather high. So in 2021, they got rid of 4,000 megawatts, right? Of generating resources that were coal. But they also got rid of 5,000 megawatts of nuclear. Now mind you, that's only five units. And we have not built a new nuclear plant except for one, since 1980s. So we've let go of 5,000 megawatts of baseload nuclear, which is zero emissions, very cost effective. But it has a there's a general issue with a the the optics, of course, when it comes to nuclear energy. And then of course, it's a lot of these nuclear power plants do have a licensing, which by the NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that limits how long they can their service life. So oftentimes, they have to extend these licenses. I know a few power plants that are that were built in the 70s that are starting running to this day. And they're they're under fourth or fifth license extension. So so I mean, they're efficient, they're maintained well. But at the same time, you know, you see you see the change. So what has replaced that generation? You see the next two roles wind, solar thermal affordable take and look at how many how many megawatts of generation they added 17,000 and 16,000 respectively. Now, this tells you, at the US total right of what they added net additions. That is that is basically the majority of the added generation in the last year was not combustion turbine or nuclear or anything of the sort, it was mostly solar, solar and wind. Now, you do see natural gas on their summer, right? Well, you see that they added, they added about the 5000 megawatts of generation, which is great. But it's still a fraction of when compared to the wind and solar. So that's great, great for the environment. That's great for the cost. Once the installation cost has been capitalized, you know, all of that output is doesn't cost you anything beyond that. However, now they're taken into account what the effect is for the impact that it has on the rest of the fleet. Now, as you can imagine, these these renewable resources, of course, have a lot of variability during some solar at starting at 9, 10 am is when they really begin to to give you a good solid output. If you don't have any clouds that don't give you solar up up until 3, 4 in the afternoon. And it's not a it's not a flacker, right? It's it's a nice nice like don't peak. And of course, that has an impact on on generation, right? Where where it's like, you're going to have more and more of that during the day. And then eventually, you will end up having to back down or even cycle off some of your generation between the hours of 10 and 3 in the afternoon. Of course, usually after four o'clock, you know, everybody goes home, the sun begins to set, they do the cooking and lighting peak. And by this time, sun setting, so you're losing all that resource when it comes to solar. So now you have to turn all those generators back on to be able to manage that lighting peak that happens in the late afternoon or in the evening. And that is a significant amount of of demand for energy at that time. Now, as soon as it comes, it goes away and eight, eight o'clock comes around, then you have to come back and cycle off all those plants. Now, when you take into account the cost of cycling, one of those combustion turbines, they say they're about maybe $7 to $8,000 per cycle. And some of them are more, some of them are less. In the end, that's a simple cycle CT. When you have to back down a combined cycle plant that is even way more expensive and you may not be allowed to bring it back online. So that complicates things further. So as you can see here, we're shutting down coal, we're shutting down nuclear, and we're replacing it with much more wind and solar. So that really keep those numbers in mind. We're looking at over 33,000 megawatts of added generation when it comes to wind and solar. And we've gotten rid of 9,000 of coal and nuclear. Taking away a lot of our diversity when it comes to generation, right, in this regard. So natural gas over there, you're looking at 5,000 megawatts. And everything else is just done. Now, here on the logo, we don't see it too well, but hydroelectric is not that much as well. So we haven't added much hydro conventional. So at least we're not getting rid of those. But nobody's building any new dams either in this country. So that's another aspect of the fact that, you know, those are clean zero emission fuel resources, but they're very environmentally destructive because now you have to create a reservoir, a lake where there was once a valve. So Mike, go ahead and go to the next slide, please. So let's look at 2022, right? We're already halfway through this year.  So that tells you where we're at. And as you can see, now we've gotten rid of even more coal, 14,000 megawatts, right? So far this year. So the pace has accelerated. We're doing this a lot quicker. And but you notice the amount of wind they're putting up is not as much. They did put a little bit more solar, but not quite the 33,000 megawatts that we saw the previous year. So that's slowing down. But however, we're speeding up the rate at which we're taking coal units offline. So that tells you two things, right? And if you take a look at Texas this week and what's happened over there in Ercut, they were experiencing this heat wave. And pretty soon it'll also be California, right? Where they forecasted, they NERC issued a statement earlier in the year where these different regions were going to have trouble meeting their load based on the fact that their generation is too variable and they're experiencing record heat waves, which of course leads to record peaks and load and demand. So this all is causing quite a stir when it comes to the industry in the East Coast, where it comes to the Eastern under connection. Fortunately, even though it's hot here, we've had quite a bit of mix when it comes to generation is a lot of hydro on this site as well. But there's also quite a bit of different generating resources when it comes to what we're creating, whether it's quite a bit of coal still, but mostly natural gas. So reliable, it's not too expensive. But the problem is that you're relying on one source of fuel for all of your priorities, which now brings me to my next point, right? This puts us in a very, very precarious position from a point of security, not just reliability. But as Dr. David Gaddy said last week, last week, I mean, last show two weeks ago, it will become a national security issue. From the perspective that if we, for example, that those pipelines for natural gas, so for a cyber attack, well, if they're vulnerable, then of course that puts the entire grid, not just in the region of the country, but across the entire nation, and along with that, right? Ultimately, these challenges also raise the cost of energy when it comes to our industry, which that in itself is another problem, because then now it aggravates all the other issues that we're seeing when it comes to inflation. So why am I complaining about all this today? And talking about the issues with renewable and viability. Mike, if you go to the next slide, I want to wrap that next point concisely. So we're looking at here, right? So 2021 through 2025, right? We're seeing how much solar and thermal, and then of course, wind that we've added, how much COVID got rid of, but we're adding a lot of natural gas as well, right? So sounds great when it comes to the perspective of getting rid of fuel sources that cause or generate a lot of carbon emissions. And natural gas is a fossil fuel, but it's a lot cleaner compared to coal, but at the same time, eventually we'll have to get away from natural gas as well. So as we're relying more heavily on these renewable resources, right? And we don't have the adequate energy storage facilities, right? We're going to have to find another way to actually create or serve a baseload demand when it comes to these resources, especially when we have the growing energies of our country. One of the things that Dr. Gatti pointed out was the fact that China, for example, is investing in renewables, but they're also investing in a whole host of other resources. They are investing quite a bit of nuclear, not just in a large scale, but small modular reactors. They're investing in storage, they're investing in different types of coal, not to have it dominate their industry, but to at least have it there for diversity. And when we say diversity, it's one of the things that matter is the fact that you don't want to be relying on just one major type of fuel, natural gas for example. So one of the things he proposed was to mandate at least a certain minimal number of megawatts to be fueled by a certain type of resource. And that at least guarantees you have that kind of diversity, right? So by all means, right, let's go ahead and move away from fossil fuels. Let's go ahead and move away from carbon emissions. But we also have to maintain the option of being able to fall back on any one of those should we have an emergency. As we're already seeing in Germany with the crisis in the Ukraine, we're seeing where they have to, they lost their natural gas, now they have to bring a lot of these old codifier plants back online, refit them, re-tool them and get them to burn coal so they can actually have, get through the summer, but more importantly get through this winter, not to mention the fact that the industries are suffering. So that's an example, right? But one of the things that we see as a potential solution to all this, right, is going to be nuclear energy. Some parts of the country, even in Hawaii, I know that nuclear energy is very taboo, but small modular reactors and micro reactors are starting to make quite a big impact. A lot of them have been deployed so far in military bases for testing. And some of these are small, 50 to 100 megawatts, quite small compared to the conventional nuclear generating plant, which is like a thousand megawatts, right? And there's usually two reactors on the site for a small or SMR, they call those, right? Those are the ones that are should bridge the gap when it comes to our energy needs and being able to meet those climate goals that we set for ourselves, right? Now, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the entire nuclear permitting, the process is almost set up to provide obstacles along the way for almost anything. So there's an interesting debate when it comes to the feasibility and the ease of being able to deploy these SMRs pretty much anywhere they're needed, right? And they contain their sealed, they're dispatchable, and one can power a town, several can power a city. So now this also creates the unique opportunity where you are now free of having to build larger transmission power lines to be able to transport all this energy. It can be more localized, right? So this creates an opportunity where you can have more resiliency, more reliability, and at the end, you have a greater amount of security, especially from a national security standpoint. Now, of course, we haven't even got into the issues of nuclear waste and all those problems, but in a small module reactor, all of that's contained, and it's easier to replace, swap out, and then they can put anyone in rather easily. And these are small, they're about the size of a 44 shipping container. So quite a few bases already have them. I know in at least two Air Force bases, they already got one of a couple of them running, and they shown to be pretty effective. Naturally, this, of course, is going to face a lot of opposition. But as you can imagine, it's easier to fight and defeat one large nuclear project than it will be to fight and try and stop and defeat thousands of small nuclear, small module reactors, right? So you'd be seeing quite a bit of those around. And again, it's what we get. They're also the energy storage, right? Those will ultimately be something that are still under development. Legislation was made hoping that we'd get there. The technology isn't quite there yet. There's some promise. I mean, we've had somebody from Hugh McDermott from ESS here, the Senior VP of Development, and we talked about his battery systems. And they're great. They're very promising. And they could do wonders for a place I call Hawaii, for example. But of course, Hawaii would also need to, Hawaiian Islands would need to have those undersea transmission cables to interconnect them. So until you have that done, you know, HIKO and the grids in Hawaii are going to have a really hard time to be able to integrate their renewable resources, but actually bring in economies to scale and be more reliable. So different changes have to be made, right? And they're all regional dependent, right? But to us, ultimately, it's my point here is that we have to view energy, right? As a national security topic. And then of course, with climate inclusion, we have to give ourselves diversity of resources when it comes to power generation. We just can't rely on natural gas as we transition from all these fossil fuels to renewable energy. And we also can't just solely rely on renewable energies. There are other countries like Russia, China, Korea, even the Middle East, they are now investing in nuclear power research, right? So to the point that they have different, five different types of systems and designs, we are at a point where we want to build one plant which is Vogle and Southern Company. And that is the only one we've built in the last, like it's 20, 30 years. Not to mention the fact that we're losing the subject matter expertise in this particular field, right? We're not creating new experts, whereas overseas they are. So we may fall behind from a geopolitical standpoint to these countries that are investing in a variety of energy resources where all we're doing really is focusing on solar and wind and not investing in anything else. So again, my takeaway here is that we have energy diversity. Start looking at small modular reactors as a potential solution to complement our transition away from coal. This could be one of the answers and then it would be a safe, reliable answer compared to having to deal with all this, you know, variability that really puts us at a great risk of facing another blackout. Texas, for example, again, I use that as an example. And pretty soon we're going to be seeing more of that when it comes to California and even places in the Southwest. So definitely a lot of things to consider. One last thing I wanted to bring up, right, when it comes to renewable resources, we, I mean, we all agree that climate change is real. And we agree that the human activity is causing a lot of this impact on our environment. So, but at the same time, when we mandate legislation that forces us to get to a certain point in these emissions, and we have to make these changes by a certain amount of time, it's seldom the engineers or the power system operators or the power system designers that are invited to these conversations and coming up with these decisions and these goals. Finally, we're seeing the engineers table, we're seeing the utility execs part of the process and conversation. And fortunately, I mean, sadly, we've had some hard knocks. I mean, we saw Gavin Newsom not long ago declare that natural gas was a zero emission transition fuel. And then not long after that, even declared that he will be remiss if he didn't look at every option regarding Diablo Canyon, which is the last nuclear facility in California. So at that point, it becomes more of a function of economics for the power company that runs that facility, as opposed to them staying on, you know, because they have a need for reliability. So again, thank you again for your time today. I really appreciate it. Hopefully, I didn't drone on by myself too much, but there's a lot of things to talk about next week. I mean, actually next episode, we'll have somebody on there about training in the industry and what we're doing at HSI regarding workforce development industrial skills and what we're expecting when it comes to a unfulfilled jobs for engineering in the next decade. So it's going to be a serious problem. But all right, so looking forward to seeing you all then. And again, this is Guillermo Sabateira, Director of International Services at HSI, and your host for today. And thank you for your time. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.


Welcome folks, we have the Dow Industrial Strait down at $14, as except 51 S&Ps up 4.5. Gold contract up $10.90, trading at $18.86 an ounce. We have Silver up 22 cents, $22.17 an ounce, Light Sweet Crew down $2.14, $83.83 a barrel, notes and bonds. Up 7 ticks, trading $107.30, up a full point, plus 10 ticks, at $113.12 and $Kingdala. Kingdala's down 9 ticks, trading $105.15, Euro at $106, Yen trading at $149, British Pound at $123.00 to $1.00, a U.S. dollar. Let's get on, we're going to look at the dollar first, so check it out, because the dollar's still running the market here folks, okay? Now that's what we did, the dollar's broken, it's uptrend, and when you break an uptrend like this folks, okay? This uptrend was going on since July 14th, so it was a heck of an uptrend man, I mean in a monster way. Now what you can expect on the way back, well it's going to be the breakout area, and the breakout area is $104.699, so we're at $105.87, $807, so you can expect this first leg down is going to be right into that $104.699, but now what that does, of course, that's going to give the market more breathing room, period. That's the bottom line. We're going to take a look at the spy, what are we taking a look at the spy is that you've been oscillating around now today, and that the dollar's been going up and down, that's where the oscillation comes from. That being said, you already had the spy reject $4.33 this morning, now we're at $4.3512. This thing is building cars to really get, you know, you're in upper range right now, and we did this morning is that we came down, we tested that lower range again. Okay, that's the $4.3301, we went to $4.3318, and guess what, the spy said, see ya, don't want to be ya, so that's telling me that you're going to probably see another sign of strength in the next couple of days. We take a look at the cues. What do you have with the cues? Same type of setup inside the cues, except the cues have been running things. The cubes right now sideways move really up at $4.43, but a sideways move, but the cues are just about approaching their last swing high. You're only 10 points away from it right now, you're at $3.70, $3.80 is the number. If you go into the note and bond market, and this is really crucial because you have the Fed minutes coming out at two o'clock, I go all for those, but even when the Fed minutes come out, the bottom line is that the bond market continue to say, I want higher price, lower yield, and guess what, that's where we're going. Stay right there folks, come right back.


Welcome to Practicum at York University's Department of Language, Literature, and Linguistics. My name is Tara. Hello, my name is Samuel. My name is Mega. I'm a fourth-year student at York University and a TESL student. Dr. Hussain, what makes your DLL and ESL stand out from other schools? Thank you for this question. I would say our ESL program that is different and distinguishable from other universities or the department's ESL program is that we offer credit-bearing undergraduate EAP courses. And also, most of our EAP courses that we offer in this ESL program are content and language-integrated learning model-based courses. So what it means that through our ESL courses, students get to explore some content related to the current humanity aspects and some foundational content related to social science. The DLL offers a variety of courses that are very much tailored to students' needs and they are grounded in the pedagogical frameworks of multiliteracies, experiential education, multi-modalities, content and language-integrated learning in the communities of practice. For instance, in our courses, in the ESL courses of teaching, students have numerous opportunities to participate in the collaborative projects that explore their transnational identities. They can research on the topics of interest and relevance to them and they might, through their research, contribute to the positive changes in their community. And I'd like just to talk about a few representative assignments in the ESL courses just to demonstrate how we ground our teaching in the frameworks of multi-modalities, multi-literacies and experiential education. For example, in ESL 1450, students are working on a collaborative assignment which we call multimodal identity text. For this assignment, they reflect on their experiences living in different countries, speaking multiple languages and then they create videos or posters or songs in which they explore their transnational identity. Okay, what's your name? Hi, my name is Habib. I am basically originally, I was born in Afghanistan. Yeah, but now I call this place Canada home. And the ESL class that I have here at York plays the main role. It helps me to boost my confidence level. In other classes in my major, I only have one more class in my major. When I am talking in the class, all the people, all the students, everyone speaks English so well. Most of them, their native language is English. And when I talk to them, I don't feel like very high in confidence. I'm not a person with low confidence. I have confidence, but I am talking to them English. I feel like my English is not as good as them. So it causes me to feel very, very down and demotivated and low in self-confidence. But when I go to ESL class, that's the only place that I feel very confident. I can speak well, I can speak loudly, I can speak without the fear of being judged by someone else. I was placed at York University's Department of Language, Literatures and Linguistics in a first-year ESL class. Simon, who was your professor, your mentor, teacher? I had Fernanda, who was my mentor teacher. She was so awesome. We had a meeting beforehand, so she was very helpful, very supportive, answered any questions I had. Really put herself out there to be a support to me. So how are you supported and did you give any tools to support? So I was very heavily supported by both my mentor teacher, Saskia, as well as the group who was placed at DLLL. In the Saskia's class, we were given a lot of tools, so we were given texts to read. We went through various methodologies throughout the course before we started our practical placement, so that we were prepared with what we might encounter in a real-life context. My mentor teacher, again, she went over the entire syllabus, she provided me with access to the E-Class, and she always stopped periodically to give me reason as to why she was doing what she was doing, just so that I could follow along in terms of her methodology. And then within the group, a lot of the other students who were also placed at DLLL, we shared all of our experiences and we could empathize with each other. And how did you feel in the beginning compared to how you felt at the end? Well, definitely at the very beginning, everybody would be nervous. It's not just me, everybody would be nervous. But after you have the practical, you get used to it. You know what each step you make, the timing, what material you use, stuff in the class. So you'll be fine. I'm all looking forward to actual teaching because you know what's coming. I'm still scared, but definitely know what to expect. So final question, so any advice for people who would like to do this in the future? I think that communication is key when it comes to practicum, especially if you're somebody who has little to no experience like myself. Just to get over any concerns that you might have. The best thing is to ask. That's all you can do. Thank you. Thank you for coming.


proudly we hail from New York City where the American stage begins here is another program with a cast of outstanding players public service time has been made available by this station for your Air Force to bring you this story as proudly we hail the fighter weapons teams of the United States Air Force story is entitled high target this is the story of Staff Sergeant Ted Edgerton his girl Mary and how the teamwork displayed at the fighter weapons meet affected their lives our first act curtain will rise in a moment but first announcing new opportunities for former service men in the Air Force if you're a veteran of any service and are seriously interested in a brighter future you should take a close look at the Air Force prior service program you'll find that your skills and experience acquired in the armed forces can bring immediate rewards in the Air Force if you qualify in one of many needed categories you can enlist in an appropriate grade immediately and enjoy a 30-day paid delay in reporting if requested and if you don't have a currently usable skill you can take an aptitude test before enlisting which if you qualify will guarantee the finest technical training today's airmen receive generous pay raises increased bonuses and allowances and extended retirement benefits this is just part of the picture see your local Air Force recruiter for all the facts there's no obligation find out why today and tomorrow you're better off in the United States Air Force and now your Air Force presents the proudly we hail production high target it was plenty of excitement in the air at Selfridge Air Force Base today the names of the maintenance crew for the Eastern Air Defense Force rocketry team were posted my name was there staff sergeant Ted Edgerton and my pal tech sergeant Wendy Walsh and about 40 other guys this wasn't exactly new stuff for some of us our team had won the 30th Air Division meet in May and a month later the 30th and 37th divisional shoot-off but this was real big time this was the world wide rocketry meet at Vincent Air Force Base in Arizona Wendy and I acted like a couple of kids we got the news a fellow we made it we made it we're going to Yuma to Mexico maybe to Las Vegas we're going to see the world eat tamales dance the Van Dango we're going to Vincent with the greatest team in the world we're going to win the meat naturally all those desert sands that desert sunshine and how I love to travel as anybody told you they're taking us along to keep the planes in the air windy we'll be handling things like fuel oxygen repairs sure sure that part I like to I've always wanted to go to a world series and this is the first time I ever made a world series sure Ted the world series of the air the sharp shooting as pilots the fastest planes the keenest competition the best in the world at the biggest meet yep and eastern air defense force is going to win it well windy and I calmed down a little after a while but from that time on every time I thought about it which was pretty often I got that same feeling of excitement and pride I couldn't wait to write and tell my girl Mary about it of course I didn't expect that she would really understand Mary was waiting for me to leave all this to come home when my term of enlistment ended in a couple of months open a garage get married settle down but I couldn't help some of the excitement getting into my letter hey Ted oh excuse me you were writing to your girl I was telling of the news about our going to the meet I mentioned it but I don't think Mary would understand what it's all about well she's not stupid is she certainly not she's smart sweet okay then I think you ought to let her know what you're giving up for her what I'm giving up not giving up anything you're getting out of the Air Force aren't you you're going to settle down when you could be seeing the world learning something new every day when you could be in on the big things the new adventures and all because you're afraid to tell your girl that you want to stay in the Air Force look Wendy will you kindly get out and let me write to my girl okay okay I'll go if I said too much you have all right I'm a clam from now on crazy fool where was I and Mary today one of the greatest things happened to me that's happened in my whole life outside of knowing you maintenance crew chief for the Eastern Air Defense Forces rocketry team that's going to the weapons meet out in Yuma, Arizona we've got the greatest team in the world Mary Captain Morena captain of the team is the greatest pilot and the greatest guy he's got skill and nerve and courage you never saw such fellas greatest team greatest pilot greatest guy mother yes Mary look this letter from Ted he sounds just crazy about the Air Force always said he liked it like working on those jet blades I know I know but this is different I thought we were both counting the month till he got out and we were going to be married now I wonder wonder what dear well I wonder if he really wants to leave the Air Force listen listen to this we're the Eastern Air Defense team do you know what that means Mary it means we're all part of a team that works day and night to defend the ones we love in the meat our boys will be flying fighter interceptor planes shooting at a target about the size of an enemy bomber trying to perfect themselves in case they meet a real enemy and not just some nylon target he never wrote to me like that before maybe he thought you wouldn't be interested but I am interested fact I want to know more I want to know what he really thinks mother how far is it to you my Arizona goodness Mary I don't know why don't you look it up on the map I could call the airport mother do you think it's too far for me to go and find out for myself I think it might be a very good trip for you to take Mary hey look down there Ted what a view it looks like some giant took a big brush and hey that's it yeah that must be the painted desert that I've heard so much about not a camel in sight you couldn't see a camel from 10,000 feet up windy well you don't know me I got 20 20 vision this year is pretty country I don't know why I wasn't born a western cowboy instead of a Michigan Avenue that I can see you and a cowboy and that's just what I'm going to buy when I get to Mexico and one of those cowboy shirts souvenirs that's for me you're not thinking of a trip to Mexico before the meet sure tonight we've got a lot of responsibility windy Ted that starts tomorrow hey hey fellas word just came through we're all invited to a big barbecue tonight a barbecue where we're on the base all the food you can eat Mexican music and pretty girls to dance with talk about everybody's invited hey listen you guys I got the news for you know what are you thinking that's it even before we land and throwing a party for us and I accept what about your trip to Mexico oh that can wait tonight I settle for barbecue beef and tamale pie with a little Mexican music thrown in it's a real great party do you ever see so much food in your life Joe they tell me this one hundred pounds of beef and a half a ton of potato salad maybe there was before we started in on it yeah hey hey where's Ted I said something about the owning his girl that's all yes operator I said Lisbon Vermont yeah the number is one five ring three hello Mrs. Peterson this is Ted how are you fine thank you I mean I speak to Mary please oh oh then I'll call later when you expect her I don't oh well if you'll tell me where she is maybe I could call her there I really don't know where she is Ted Mary's all right isn't she Mrs. Peterson oh yes now don't you worry Ted Mary's just fine you'll hear from her goodbye goodbye wait girls to jump jump no nobody ever understand the perspective mother-in-law or so they tell me come on Ted come on back to the barbecue the party's just getting good I think I'll turn in when now look fella don't let a little thing like a girl's mother get you down nobody's got me down I just feel like turning in we're likely to have a big day tomorrow and we'll be ready for it okay okay have it your way I'll see you don't I really was kind of upset about Mary but I tried to tell myself it was just the way her mother sounded on the phone anyhow I had other things to think about the meat began the next day and I wanted to be out on the flight line early as it turned out everybody else was there early including windy we were all kind of nervous keyed up rare and ago good morning Sergeant Edgerton morning Sergeant oh what a day for the meat sunshine blue skies it looks so clear you ought to be able to see what'll be going on up there instead of having to watch a radar scope or listen to the radio we welcome you to the USF fighter weapons me and particularly to the rocketry competition here at bits of Air Force Base 19 will participate in the fire interceptor base here comes Captain Morena he's scheduled for the first sortie for Eastern Air Morning Sergeant Morning sir it's like a great day yes sir it's gonna be a great day for us are you a prophet don't see how we can miss our teams the tops yes sir I second that you all set sir yeah okay ship looks rare and ago this morning she is sir this is the day you make a perfect score captain well I'll be up there trying there will be three levels of firing 9000 20,000 and 35,000 feet each pilot will fly six missions at the three different altitudes Captain Morena of the Eastern Air Defense Team will make the first sortie at 9000 feet our first man captain of the Eastern Air Defense Team was on his way the worldwide rocketry meet had begun we were listening on the radio with all the years when we got trouble the starter generator on Lieutenant Stanley's plane scheduled for a 910 takeoff conked out this meant removing the app section and rolling back the engine to replace the starter this kind of job usually takes seven or eight hours and we got real trouble here Sergeant we got no alternate plane for Lieutenant Stanley by the time we get this job done it'll be too late for today's competition who said that winning or losing the meat may depend on getting this plane in the air let's get out it okay all right come on fellas you heard what the man said yeah the man's right the enemy's breathing right down our neck so let's get going there she goes I never would have thought we could have done it if I had six pairs of hands and feet well how long did it take us to do that job Ted let me see three hours and 18 minutes nobody tells the general he might expect us to carry on like that every day it was a good job sergeant I get captain the only thing we were too busy to listen to what you were doing but we heard you had a hit well it's a probable the judge is the checking they'll find out it's a bullseye I'd like to be a judge up there on that chase plane taking pictures of the hits and I could really see what's going on if Lieutenant Stanley gets a hit that'll tie us with Faris Air Force Lieutenant Stanley gets a hit you boys can count it a hit for the maintenance crew a pilot can't score unless he gets a chance to shoot that's just with Faris Air Force what did I tell you we got the best shop shooters in the meat we've got the best maintenance crew in the meat more trouble over here Ted something wrong with Lieutenant Jones playing something wrong with the afterburner looks like we're gonna gonna have a new one a new afterburner how much time we got captain ten of Jones is due for another sortie this afternoon how we can do it give us three hours three hours what do you think we are Superman maybe not but we've got to act like we are we did it we got Lieutenant Jones playing back in the air in two hours and a half they told us it was some kind of a wreck we all felt bushed at the end of the day but excited and happy to Eastern Air Defense was tied with Faris Air Force for first you are listening to the proudly we hail production high target we'll return for the second act in just a moment are you a service veteran then listen carefully this message is for you you may be qualified to enlist in the United States Air Force in a grade that will surprise you if you possess one of the critical skills needed to keep America's air defense strong the Air Force offers you an opportunity to put your skill to work and at a higher grade and higher pay than you may realize the Air Force needs experience and know how gained in all the armed forces and now thanks to the new career incentive act you can put your service gain skills to work to your best advantage by returning to the armed forces as a member of the Air Force team write or visit your Air Force recruiter for the special prior service man's folder it's full of important details you'll see why today and tomorrow you're better off in the United States Air Force and now we present the second act of high target at the end of the third day our Eastern Air Defense team was still tied for first place with Faris Air Forces but the Western Air Defense team was creeping up on us I was heart and soul for winning but back in one corner of my mind was this nagging worry about Mary there was still no word from her so that evening I made another try at getting her on the phone once again I got her mother hello this is Ted Mrs. Peterson how are you I'm all right how's Mary is she there no she's not here Ted well where is she how could I reach you tell me what's going on Mrs. Peterson I haven't heard from Mary I can't get her on the phone maybe you're not calling the right number Ted what what's that have you tried calling the hotel in Yuma Yuma Arizona that's right well what would I be calling Yuma for I want to talk to Mary your daughter Mary I know well that's the best place I know to find her goodbye Ted operator operator wake up will you operator get me get me the hotel in Yuma which hotel I don't know the names of the hotels any hotel well all of them one at a time till I get the right one yes and will you hurry up please okay I've got change Mary is this Mary Mary Peterson is it really you of course it is well what on earth are you doing out here when did you come last night last night why didn't you let me know what happened well it was kind of sudden I guess I just thought I needed a vacation and well I wanted to see you well I want to see you Mary but of all the surprises I I don't get it you sure picked a crazy time to drop in on me honey I'm tied up with a meat all day and half the night I know what about tonight oh tonight's good I'll get a pass and come and pick you up right away I could come out there right now there's a cabin for the hotel well it would save time if you don't mind where do I meet you I'll be waiting at the gate hurry will you okay oh gosh it really is you kiss me like that with people who cares about people they're not bothering with us oh you're the prettiest I ever saw honey and the sweetest oh I love you I love you too Ted I still can't believe you're here well you've never been farther away from home than Albany and to come alone oh well when I look at you I stop trying to figure out anything Ted don't you think maybe we ought to go someplace where we can talk yeah sure we can go to the nco club or we can we can take a walk let's just walk you're sure you're not going to vanish if I shut my eyes I promise to stay till the meat's over that's not going to give us an awful lot of time together honey I'm busy all day I might have to work late at night if there's a big repair job on a plane you see the flyboys are putting these jets through some terrific tests up there and there's bound to be a lot of work to be done to keep them flying I understand that could I watch the meat oh well sure that could be arranged but that's another thing you'll have to watch it on a radar scope and that might not be very exciting why is that well you can't see it from the ground the competition takes place from three different altitude levels what actually happens to you well well let's say captain Morena is flying his F-80-60 that's a saber jet that's right well Captain Morena is flying at the 35 thousand foot level the ground controller directs him to the target so he's closing in at 300 miles an hour on the target towed some 5,000 feet behind a Martin B-57 well the target is a nylon rag nine by 45 feet roughly the dimensions of an enemy heavy bomber the jets carrying 24 rockets the mighty mouse a hit on the target on his first try means scoring 1,000 points on second try 800 points on the third try 600 points would you hear a radio squawking dialogue between the controller on the ground and Captain Morena the pilot high over the range and then suddenly the captain squawks Judy Judy now that means the interceptor is locked on the target and then 45 seconds and 20 seconds rockets away Captain Morena scores a probable I knew he would you're kidding no I'm not I'm serious then what happens well then a judge flying in a chase plane takes a picture of the target and he declares later whether or not the hit is official it'll be a hit if it's Captain Morena he's the high scorer of the meat well he sure is well how do you know I read all about it in the Yuma paper while I was waiting for you to decide to phone me well if I'd only known you were here I wouldn't have wasted a minute oh golly honey I missed you now I wish you could be with me all the time but in two more months yep two more months in two more months what I'll be out of the Air Force home again setting up a little garage won't it seem awfully quiet after all this maybe you won't like it well what makes you say that I was just thinking we're not going to change your mind about marrying me no that's one thing I'll never do all right don't you go thinking about anything just you remember I love you you hear I'll remember having Mary close by made everything complete I had my girl my team was doing all right what more could I ask I was out on the flight line earlier than usual the next morning only two more days to go nothing had better go wrong our crew was busy making last minute repairs and checks to ensure peak performance Lieutenant Harris flew the first sortie he had a probable hit on his third try good enough to keep even with the Far East Air Forces but we had a win Captain Morena was next everybody who could gathered around the scoreboard of the radio I feel as nervous as the guys on the bench at the Rose Bowl game Fred you're gonna be asked to go in the last quarter windy listen I tell you Ted it isn't funny this competition has got something so I wish I was up there anywhere but here it makes me so nervous not being able to shut up Wendy don't overdo it you are now directly in line with a total target Judy rockets away well is it a hit is it is it come on be it's gonna be what's that what do you say something wrong explosion I'm coming down going to land what happened he fired the rockets didn't coming down it must be something wrong with a plane was that about an explosion he'll make it all right he's got a he'll make it yeah here he comes now there goes the ambulance in the crash wagon planes not on fire he'll be all right he was down safe yes sir Captain Miranda landed as they without incident what had happened and defective fuse had exploded a rocket prematurely and pieces of the broken rocket had entered the engine damaging parts of the delicate mechanism but the important thing the captain was safe oh we sure are glad you're okay captain I kept thinking if we'd left anything undone I was one of those things that might have happened to anybody that looks pretty rough though over the team the plane that's right we've got no substitute aircraft it looks downright desperate what do you say Sergeant how long have we got to do a repair job captain till this time tomorrow maybe a little longer okay sir we'll have a ready for you but I believe you will Sergeant yes sir yeah I guess that's right if you can bring her down the way you just did captain we ought to be able to get her up for you this was probably the biggest job we'd ever had to do in a limited period of time it meant major repairs replacing the engine rebuilding the rocket pod I put two-thirds of the crew on it we worked straight through that day and all night I never did get word to marry I thought of her a few times but I wasn't sure just where she would be and I couldn't stop to find out when you're working on a jet engine and your team is tied for first place and the whole outcome of the meat depends on this one engine you keep your mind on your job till it's finished and we finished in time we were ready to hand over the jet to Captain Morena for a takeoff in 32 hours well if you fellas had any doubts before you know now who's flying these planes who's on this team you're a lot of tired-out guys I know but this means everything to eastern air defense what a job you've done and we're still crowding first place captain you go on up there and knock them cold that's just what I'm aiming at Sergeant and that's what he did Captain Morena had a perfect score that day it was high score for the meat I guess we found out what makes a pilot a fighter pilot it's wanting to win we found out a few other things too one that we were in a special league tough league and we were part of a pretty swell team well eastern air defense force won the rocketry championship and the cheers of her crew was still echoing over the desert when I went looking for Mary I found her waiting for me at the NCO Club I thought you'd be pretty tired and it'd be easier for you than coming into town and anyway I wanted to be out here where the air is so full of excitement I'm sorry I had to wait so long Mary look I've been waiting for you for two years now I expect to be doing it for a long long time and you're not sore at me for standing you up last night standing me up you were doing a terrific job I heard all about it who told you Captain Morena we found out I was here waiting for you and he took the time to look me up and explain about everything all that was done nice of him wasn't it I know they said he wasn't hurt when that rocket exploded yesterday but I was glad to find out for myself that he really was all right well what else did Captain Morena say to you well for one thing he said you were his friend he did he said you'd better be friends because his very life depends on you that was a pretty fine thing to hear you know Ted yeah I'm just beginning to understand a little about the Air Force and what it must mean to you you don't want to give it up do you well I couldn't ask you couldn't ask me to be a part of it please do you wouldn't mind being an Air Force wife traveling around the world meeting interesting people sharing your life while you did a job for your country and for us oh please ask me Ted say you former service men have you heard about the deal you can now get in the United States Air Force well if you're skilled in a needed job you're in clover choice assignments are available in the United States and overseas or if an aptitude test shows you could do a needed job the Air Force will guarantee you technical training and make this guarantee before you enlist also there's a paid 30-day delay in reporting if requested and listen to this today the Air Force will pay you more re-enlistment bonuses are also bigger than ever before you'll enjoy job security a guaranteed annual wage and 30 days paid vacation so don't miss these big benefits if you're a veteran of any service call or visit your local Air Force recruiter right away ask to see the new personalized prior service booklet yes today and tomorrow you are better off in the United States Air Force this has been another program on proudly we hail presented transcribed in cooperation with this station proudly we hail is produced by the recruiting publicity center in New York or the United States Air Force this is Ralph Roland inviting you to tune in the same station next week for another interesting story on proudly we hail


So, we've done my watch collection, my outerwear collection, and today we're going to take a look at my shoe collection. Actually, I should say that technically this is my footwear collection, not just a shoe collection because I am going to include boots as well. Many of you have asked to see this. I have lots of pairs of shoes. One of the perks of his spoke style is that occasionally I get things sent to me and that's one of the reasons my shoe collection is so large, though I do buy a lot of my own shoes as well. So, I'm going to break this video up into categories, which I'll index down below in the description so you can jump around if you want. The order will be oxford slash derbies, monk straps, loafers, boots, and finally sneakers. A lot of shoes to get through, so let's jump right in. The shoe I'm going to start with is this one right here. It's by Cole Han. It's a black captoe oxford. I've had these for a really long time, probably close to 15 or 20 years at this point. Obviously, they're very formal because they're black. I wear these primarily with a dark gray or a navy suit. Next are the classic Allen Edmonds strands in walnut. You're going to see a lot of Allen Edmonds in my collection. It's got a captoe, lots of beautiful broguing. These were the first pair of Allen Edmonds that I ever got. It was about seven years ago. They're extremely versatile. You can wear them with a suit. Because of the color, they also work really well with jeans. I have a narrow foot, and I like that Allen Edmonds offers a variety of widths. This is the Allen Edmonds Fifth Avenue captoe oxford. I believe the color is mahogany. Another really classic shoe has a little bit of broguing, gives it some nice style, makes it a little less dressy. Another really versatile shoe that I wear quite a bit. Up next, we have the McAllister from Allen Edmonds. I have them in a chocolate color, which I don't think is available anymore, and also in black. It's a wingtip oxford, lots of beautiful broguing. Again, I wear the chocolate pair quite often. These are shoes that I like best with a jacket and trousers look, as opposed to with a suit. Although, with the right fabric, I think they'd work with a suit as well. Another classic that's very versatile. Last pair of Allen Edmonds in this category, I promise, these are called the Broad Street. They don't make them anymore. It's a wingtip spectator. I haven't worn these in a very long time. I got them very early on when I started He Spoke Style. I wore them in a couple of different posts you can see on the website. My style's evolved over the years, and this isn't really the kind of shoe that fits my day-to-day kind of look, but I keep them around because you never know when I might find myself at a 1920s or 1930s themed event. Here's a real workhorse pair of shoes for me. These are by Todd's. They're in a dark brown suede captoe. These, as you can see, get a lot of wear. It's a really easy to style kind of casual shoe that looks awesome with jeans and also very nice with a jacket and trousers look.  These are by Enzo Bonafé. They're Derby's. Beautiful leather, rubber sole. I bought these when I was in Oslo, Norway at a shop called Skolmakker Dagestad. Please correct my Norwegian. I was told to check out this shop and they were having a huge sale when I was there, and these were actually 50% off. I've never worn a pair of shoes this expensive, and I can tell you that you really can feel the difference in the quality of a shoe at this level. It's hard to describe, but you know it when you have it on your foot. Here's another wingtip oxford. This one is by Johnston and Murphy. Oxblood color, broguing, got a rubber sole like the Allen Edmund strands. These were one of the first pairs of shoes I got after starting he spoke style. It's a versatile style. It's a versatile color, and they've held up pretty well. Final pair in this category are these hole cut oxfords by Paul Evans. Most pairs of shoes are made with multiple pieces of leather, but hole cuts are made with just a single piece, which gives them a very clean, refined and elegant look. Moving on to monk straps. And the first pair here are by Allen Edmunds. They're called the Warwick. It's a single buckle monk strap style, nice oxblood color. I don't wear these too often. Honestly, they just kind of got buried in my closet. But looking at them now, it's a very elegant profile, and it makes me want to find more ways to style them. Next are double monk straps from Tommy Hilfiger, kind of a medium brown color, silver buckle cap toe with some nice burnishing. I'll admit that the leather on these shoes does not feel super high quality. It's not terribly supple. I do really like these shoes, though. The color just makes them so versatile and really easy to pair with many different kinds of outfits. Here is a dark brown pair of double monks by Paul Evans. It's the Burton model, probably one of my most worn pairs of shoes. They're very simple and classic. Darker color makes them really easy to pair with suits. I think they look great dressed up. You see me wear these all the time on the channel. So when it comes to my shoes, Robin is always like, oh, look, another pair of brown shoes. So look, another pair of brown shoes. These are dark chocolate suede double monks from Suitsupply. I love these shoes. They're so nice. I love the color. Simple cap toe, they've got silver buckles, leather sole with a rubber inset and very comfortable to wear. So this is probably the wildest pair of shoes that I own. These are by Santoni. They're a double monk strap, but then they have this kilty aspect to them. It's kind of cool. It's kind of weird. I get it. It's not the most versatile shoe in the world. They are quite comfortable and definitely make a statement. That's for sure. I don't have occasion to wear these that often, but when I do, look out. Loafers. So I have lots and lots of loafers, you know, given the choice between a lace up shoe and something that slips on. I generally opt for the slip on shoe for one reason or another. I like that loafers sort of occupy that in between, between dressy and casual. There's like an element of stylish nonchalance with loafers that I really like. Maybe I'm just trying to justify why I have so many. But OK, first pair here are these by Alan Edmonds. These are called the Grand Cayman, another model that they don't make anymore. It's like a crocodile embossed leather with a horse bit, rubber sole. These have been one of my go to pairs of loafers in the summer going on about eight years now. Another pair that I've had for quite a long time.  I found these at either Sax off Fifth or Neiman Marcus last call. I can't remember exactly. But what I do remember is that they were very deeply discounted. They didn't fit quite right at first, a little too big. So actually, I ended up putting an insole from a pair of my running sneakers into these, and that totally did the trick. These penny loafers are by Carmina. I bought these when Robin and I were on vacation in Barcelona. They're a really beautiful pair of shoes, high quality for the price. I do have a small regret here, and that is that I definitely should have gone up a half size. I thought they'd stretch a little bit over time. That hasn't happened. We'll have to see if I can get them professionally stretched out a bit. Here is the Alan Edmonds Kenwood penny loafer. Obviously super classic in every single way. If you look closely, you can see that this is not broguing here. This is where our cat Linus, may he rest in peace, chewed on them a little bit. Also, these did not come in a narrow. So I do have a little pad on the tongue here to help them fit a little better. Moving on to some tassel loafers now. These are the Deerfield two by Johnston and Murphy. This is one of their more premium shoes. I don't think they make this model anymore, which is a shame because it's a really, really nice loafer. I wear these shoes a lot. You see them all the time on the channel between the color and the tassels. They just fit my style so well and they pair so easily with so much of my wardrobe. Another discontinued, I believe, model here by Alan Edmonds. This is the Palm Beach. There are a few sizes left on the website, but the pickings are very slim. It's such a cool shoe. I don't know why they would discontinue it. It has a woven leather here. As you can see, tassels. This is another loafer that I love wearing in the summertime. It always gets lots of compliments. Suede tassel over here by Morhouse. These are made in Spain. And like the Carmina shoes, these are an incredible value for the price. This pair is very versatile and works in any season. They look great with flannel pants. They look great with cotton pants. They look great with jeans. Dressier pair of tassels here. These are the Grayson by Alan Edmonds. I nailed the sizing on these. And as a result, they're super comfortable to wear. They're black, which means they're dressier. Typically I wear them with darker suits. For me, they have a very elegant and sophisticated quality to them. Here is a pair by Todd's. It's a little fancier, maybe a little more fashion-y than most of the pairs of shoes I have. There's a little bit of shine to the leather. We did a project with Todd's maybe like four years ago or so. And that's when I got these. I wear them quite a bit, but I feel like my styles changed since then. And they don't quite fit my style now. But every so often, I do put together an outfit that they look perfect with. Another pair by Todd's. These are the Gomino driving loafers. If you haven't already, I did a whole video on whether Todd's Gominos are worth it or not. I recommend checking that out. If you're considering these shoes, link is right up there. There are things I love about these shoes, and there are things I hate. Comfort, they're extremely comfortable. Value for the price, spoiler alert. I didn't think they were worth it, and I did pay for these myself. Interesting pair here by GH Bass. It's a Kilty Loafer, but it has a buckle on it too. GH Bass, obviously known for their Ouija loafers. I really like this shoe. I wear it a lot. You've seen it on the channel before. They're very comfortable and they have great style. Here's a suede loafer from a newer brand called Bowden & Lang. It's their Sagan or Sagan model. It's in a brown suede. It has a heel. It's a very comfortable shoe to wear. It's quite versatile. I really like this particular pair in the summer. I will say that if you are considering a pair of these for yourself, that I would size down by half a size. I took the size that I was supposed to here, but they've stretched over time and they are a little tricky to keep on my feet now. Up next we have a quartet of loafers from one of my favorite shops and that is Belgian shoes in New York City. They have a few different styles. I have three pairs of the Mr. Casuals and one pair of the Henrys. The Mr. Casuals have a soft leather sole and heel. I have a black suede pair, a brown suede pair and a wool tartan plaid pair that Robin got me for Christmas a couple years ago. These shoes are so comfortable. They're super light, so elegant and yet still very versatile. There's nothing like a pair of Belgian shoes, Mr. Casuals. The other pair I have from Belgian shoes are these, the Henry and black patent leather. These are my formal shoes. I wear them with a tuxedo. I wore them for my wedding. They have a hard leather sole and heel, which differentiates them from the Mr. Casual. You can get them with different bows, but this bow is the quintessential Belgian shoe style and that's why I like it. So here we have a pair of velvet slippers. These are by Stubbs and Wooten. They're called Scotch for obvious reasons. And then I have another pair from Stubbs and Wooten called The End. I wore these on New Year's Eve. Perfect opportunity for that. I like these types of velvet slippers as a way to add a little bit of fun to and take the stuffiness out of more formal looks. They're great conversation pieces. They can say a little something about you and your personality. And like the Belgian shoes, they're so comfortable. I actually wear these around the house.  These are by Del Toro, has that little strip of red on the heel, which is a signature of the brand. Got these a long time ago, kind of before I was comfortable doing something a little more fun with velvet slippers. Onto boots now, and we are starting with Chelsea's. This pair is actually the first pair of Chelsea boots that I ever got. They are by Jack Irwin. And you can see that they've definitely been worn, gotten a lot of use out of these. The color makes them very versatile. They look great with jeans. This is a pair of boots that I will miss sorely when they are gone. All right, this pair is new. They're by Scaroso, a little bit darker than the previous pair. So I feel like they're a little dressier. This is a pair I could definitely wear with a suit as well as with jeans. I want to point out the Leather Soul with the Anti Slip rubber inset. Really beautiful pair of boots, which I styled a couple of different ways recently on the boots video. Check it out with the link right up there. This pair is by Reese. It's an interesting kind of gray or stone colored suede. This is a pair that I have a little bit of difficulty styling, but they're a really beautiful boot. Another suede pair. These are by Grenson in a snuff suede color. Another great casual Chelsea boot that pairs really well with denim. I've been wearing these a lot recently. My first pair of Grenson's and I'm really impressed with the brand, both from a quality standpoint and a fit standpoint. This pair is by Stacy Adams Black Suede with some interesting detailing. We have a little bit of broguing and the wingtip detail. I like the contrast here between the dark brown and the black. This isn't the most versatile color or the most versatile boot, but this is one that I'm happy to have as an option from time to time. Moving on from Chelsea's to this boot right here. It's by Two Boot New York in a chocolate suede and it's a zip up boot. It has a rubber sole. I've had these for a long time. Again, this was a Saxoff 5th or Neiman Marcus Last Call Fine. The price was unbeatable and they were my size. So here we are, another boot that really classes up denim. These beautiful Oxblood color boots are by Bostonian, the number 16 cap. This one unfortunately is no longer available. It's a beautiful boot. The leather is so, so nice, very supple. They feel great on my feet, super comfortable, very easy to style. Just a great classic pair of boots. Speaking of classic pairs of boots, next we have the Allen Edmonds Dalton wingtip dress boot. Now I'm going to admit that my pair has seen better days. I've had these for a long time, probably six or seven years. And over that time, they've gotten tons of wear because they're an awesome boot. I have them in a chocolate color, but it doesn't appear that that color is available anymore. I've also ripped the pull tab in the back of this one. So they could use some TLC, but one of my all time favorite pairs of boots. Here's another new pair you've seen recently. These are by Scoroso, a lace up leather dress boot. These are a little dressier than the Dalton's, but I've quickly come to have the same affinity for them. They're very versatile. They're a little easier to wear with a suit, in my opinion. And they will dress up denim a little more than the wingtip boots. But this is a really, really nice pair of boots from dressy to more casual. Now we have these Jodper boots in an all suede by coach. They have a chunkier sole, very comfortable. They have a really interesting style, not one of my most worn pairs of boots, but from time to time they fit the bill perfectly. Two pairs of the iconic Clark suede desert boot here. We have a chocolate brown and one in a sand color. Really classic kind of casual boot. Have the crepe sole. Very easy to style with denim and very easy to wear. These are the Grenson Bobby hiking boot. It's more of a hiking style boot. I don't know if I'd actually go on a hike with these. They're kind of a little too nice. The leather is beautiful. We have the hiking style laces and that classic chunky white sole, which is extremely light. The whole boot itself is very light, which makes them very comfortable to wear. Now they call these duck boots, obviously they're a moccasin, but I'm putting them into the boot category because they're descended from the duck boot. You can complain in the comments if you like. Anyway, I've had these for many, many years from LL Bean. They're my bad weather dog walking shoes, and they're perfect for that.  They're the 8-inch version. Really not much to say about these. They get the job done and keep my feet dry. All right, here we are at the final stop, sneakers. And the first pair we have here are by Common Projects. They're the classic Achilles low-top, kind of an iconic minimal sneaker. This is the third pair that I've owned and you can see I haven't worn them that much yet. It's like getting a new car and trying to avoid getting that first ding. I've tried a couple lower priced options and since I spoiled myself with a pair of these a long time ago, $100 knockoffs just don't do it for me. Next, a very similar sneaker by Coyo. These are the Capri triple whites. Did a styling video with these not too long ago. They're very good. I was impressed with the quality. You have the same Margam sole on the Coyo's as you do the Common Projects. Full comparison video will be coming soon, so stay tuned for that. This pair is by Suit Supply. It's in a nice kind of tan color. I like the contrast between the sole and the leather. These are kind of like my day-to-day, if I just need to run around sneakers, I wear them a lot. They're not the most comfortable, I have to say, but they're not bad. Here is a pair of brown leather sneakers. These are by M. Gemi. I believe this is the Lucente, but I wasn't able to find the color combination on their website anymore as I was putting this video together. It has that Margam sole. Leather is a little stiff, but it is a very handsome looking sneaker. Finally, give yourselves a round of applause if you've made it this far. We have this pair by L'Amban. This was a splurge early on in my heat-spoke style career. They're suede with the patent leather cap toe, contrasting white sole. Not my everyday sneaker, but every once in a while, I do put an outfit together that these are perfect for. So that is my shoe collection, my footwear collection. I think I counted 55 or 56 pairs. I didn't include my gym shoes or my running shoes, but if you're curious for the gym, I wear the Nike Free TR8 Trainers. And for running, I wear the A6 Gel Chiano 26. Leave your comments down below. Thumbs up if you liked this video. Don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell to get notified every time we publish a new video. Until next time, everyone, thanks for watching and stay tailored. Ha ha. My shoe collection, actually, my footwear collection, I know someone will hammer me in the comments about that. But I do mention it. Take one. Ah, it's nice if I angle it down like that. Ha ha. If you look closely, you can see that this is not broken here.  I have a great style.


I cried over a broken nail yesterday. Who will want another baby first? Yeah. She wants. It's what she wants, but we're another baby. Okay, okay. So, see these lights right here? They're gonna change colors. It's either gonna turn blue or pink. It's gonna turn blue. Dressed. Ah! Hahaha. Oh, they are. Oh, they are. There we go. Hi guys! I'm gonna pass the phone. Let me show you guys my cake. The color is actually inside the cake. And remember my beautiful girl? She made my cake for me. It's from the salon, the prom video. You guys might recognize her. She's gonna do this live for me. All right, let's see what you guys said. Here are the votes. That's right! Team vote! No recounts. 20 votes, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21! Yeah! Who's starting to count? She is. Don't pay attention to the lights, y'all. It's all about the cake. So, here we are. See the tree. It's blue. It's gonna be a boy. So, comic books, video games. Not sports, because family doesn't do well with sports. We got bad knees. We don't have the knees. So, we're gonna stop that.  Have fun with this child. It's gonna do a lot of things it doesn't want to do. For my benefit. I can't wait. Now we know. It's baby boy. I am so excited to have a baby Brace. I love Brace so much. So, if I see his baby picture, I'm all excited. So, if I could have Brace on a little body, it makes me so happy. Play video games with Brace. All the comic books. I could definitely have a Spider-Man and everything. So, I'm thrilled with this book.


All right everybody, what is going on? Welcome back to another video. We're here in Townsville. This is the final day of travel, the third day of three. For any of you guys who've been here the whole way man, thank you. Thanks for all your support. I really appreciate it and I hope you've enjoyed coming along for the ride. You know this is, I wanted to, I could have just driven, you know, not made any videos but just like I did in the last one, this is nostalgic purposes man. I like making it, especially travel type vlog videos, I like making them, not to get so many views, not to get so many likes, make any money, it's more so to document my life man and to go and look back at it in years to come is going to be great and especially for big times in my life like this one, you know, moving cities, I had to do it. So I hope you've enjoyed. Oh my phone's ringing. Who is that? My sister. Hey buddy. What? I'm going good. Yeah, what is that? Not that bad. Little bit but it's doable. But I'm about to go up 400Ks or 350Ks so it's going to be even worse. Okay, talk to you soon. All right then. See ya. Bye. All right, anyways, whoops. Okay, so today's the day. We're heading off to Cairns.  I'm going to see my daughter for the first time in two months. It's going to be great. I'm not sure what part of Townsville I'm in but it's I don't know, I feel like I'm out of the, actually I am. I'm about 8Ks away from the city centre but that's what I wanted. I didn't want to, I wanted a free car park. There's two things.  It's a free car park and Wi-Fi and if you don't have both of those then I'm not staying. Sorry, three things. Under 100 bucks if I can, free Wi-Fi, free car park. It's been a good night. As per usual we've got the laptop out, we've got the HDMI cable to the TV. I'm just downloading a couple of things. A couple of videos for me to watch on the way. It should take about three and a half hours so I guess staying in the theme that we've been doing previously, I will turn on the camera when we stop for our eighth petrol stop of the trip. Okay and that'll be it. Eighth and final. Finally. All right so we're at Shell. Okay we're at the petrol station. Last stop officially 36.54 litres. We're paying a dollar 34 so that was about 49 bucks and before we go I'm pretty sure it's the seventh or the eighth stop.  I need to know exactly how many stops we've made. I've kept all the receipts. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Really? Nine. Nine stops. Well I missed one there. I'm not sure how, not sure where and not sure when. But I did. Nine. So at the end of this I'm going to count up how many litres the car took because I'm very interested to know exactly how efficient this car is. And I haven't been absolutely belting it at like 140, 150. I've been going at about between 120, 125 all the way so when I have been traveling at like 140 or 150 it just absolutely chews through the gas. So it hasn't been too bad this time but I want to know exactly if I'm traveling long distance 120 kph, exactly how many litres of fuel I can get per 100 kph. So we're going to work that out but for now I've got 333 kilometres to go. Sorry guys I tell a lie it's 331. Google is estimating four hours and I'd say Google would probably be right. So I'll see you in cans guys. You know what I'm going to do?  I hope. If she doesn't let me in the door we've got problems. Alright so wish me luck, cross your fingers, smash that like button, one like equals one prayer that today is going to end well. I assume it's going to end well but if she makes it hard for me to see my daughter it's not. Oh almost forgot. It's about that time. See you later guys. Alright so we stopped at a place called Caldwell and I thought you know what this is a good place to stop. I found a little coffee van on the side of the road. Coffee and cake it said and I was like yep that's me. So you know I've stopped for the first time by the ocean and I want to jump out of the car and have a look with you guys and see how humid it is. I'm not quite sure. Let's see what happens. If the camera lens fogs up it's humid. I've got to get a smaller camera that's what I've got to do. I've got to get an actual vlogging camera but here we are.   That water has to be 30 degrees. Anyways guys where's that coffee? I'm thirsty. We've got the coffee but no cakes. Man that's what I wanted especially after having that smoke that's all I wanted. I didn't really want a coffee anyways. I'll never say no although you do have to watch it. So we've got about two hours to go and I'm hungry now so I might get something to eat. Every time I put the camera down I think I'm not going to get it out again and then I want to you know. It'd be great to have a camera man that's for sure. In fact one thing I do regret about rushing into this trip to the US is I don't have anyone sorted to help me film which would sorry I'm trying to find my key which would you know that feeling when you're tapping your pockets and you don't know where something is. Yeah it'd be great to have someone to come around with me and video me doing stuff but it's just going to be me so we're going to have to deal with it. Tell you what it just feels nice. Feels nice seeing some green grass. I'm not going to lie. Alright guys you can't see it but we're officially like five minutes away and would you look at the weather. I can't see anything. There's like amazing mountains and green grass and hills and everything in the background but you just you can't see it because of the fog and the rain and I think I've just got to get used to this because there's going to be a hell of a lot of rain but man I'm so excited I'm here I'm like oh man 10 minutes away I'm getting nervous I'm getting nervous to see my own bloody daughter is that normal I don't know I've just got to get there I've got to start being a dad I've got to start being a father I'm not going to pull the camera out you know I'm just going to go I'm just going to go knock on the door and see what happens and I'll report back to you guys whenever man hopefully the next shot you see we're about five minutes away the next shot you see hopefully will be me and my own daughter I don't even know what to say I honestly don't I just got to I don't want to see I'm over analyzing things don't do that jacket just arrive be yourself look at this rain bloody weather's got worse how's that possible into a cyclone oh my god and I think this happens like every every afternoon same up with Darwin as well now ask me in six months whether I still love rain I might not but right now I have not seen rain in so long I frick it every time we talk about weather in Alice brings I always tell people yeah I love winter I love I love I love the rain I always you know as long as I can remember ever since I was a kid I've always loved the rain I've always loved that comforting feeling of being inside a car or being inside your house you know being inside your house just all snug and cozy and that's exactly how I feel right now you know everyone around me that lives here is probably sick of it but right now I'm loving it I'm loving it all right guys you can see that we're literally 350 meters away I can't help but bring the camera out honestly we've been driving for 2400 kilometers how many k's 2458 kilometers guys it's been a fucking mammoth task we're looking for number 40 bees in an apartment complex some sort of apartment complex uh looks quite nice take the next left then your destination will be on the right take the next left and your destination will be on the right okay uh I passed it let me turn around does look quite nice right then your destination will be on the right turn right what do you mean turn right where is that where she lives no there's a gate there I'm not going to be able to go in okay let's pull over here okay we made it in 300 meters turn left let's try again


Greetings fellow learners! Now before getting into this enamoring world of embeddings, I have a thought-provoking question for you. What is your strategy to increase your vocabulary? So when I see a new word, I try to use that in a sentence that I organically come up with, and this is so that I can retain that knowledge for future use. And this strategy was super helpful when I was trying to learn different words for the GRE exam. So please comment down below your strategy for how would you learn new words in vocabulary, and I would love to get to know you better. Now this video is going to be divided into three passes. In the first pass we're gonna start with an overview of embeddings in general, then we're gonna get into some details, and then some code to visualize embeddings. So let's get to it. Let's talk about embeddings in the context of neural networks. Computers and neural networks don't understand words, they understand numbers. Hence before passing any data into the neural network, it needs to be converted into some numerical representation. This data is converted into vectors, and these vectors are basically n cross 1 matrices, and these vectors are also known as an input embedding. Now while the primary purpose of these embeddings is to get a numerical representation of data, they have other characteristics as well. So they capture the semantic meaning of data, the embeddings are typically continuous dense vectors, and embeddings have a compressed notation to represent data. Now let's talk about each of these in a little bit more detail. So embeddings capture the semantic meaning of data. So let's consider three words king, queen, and apple. Now the words king and queen are more similar to each other than they are to the word apple. For the neural network to understand this difference though, each word needs to be represented as a vector. So let's say that each word is represented by a two dimensional vector. This means that two numbers are required for representing every word. Now let's plot these words onto a two dimensional space called an embedding space. It's a space for plotting word embeddings and you can think of this as the neural network's understanding of the words. So if we humans say that king and queen are similar to each other than the word apple, then we want the neural network to eventually learn that the numeric representation of king is closer to the numeric representation of queen than it is to the numeric representation of the word apple. Now if this is the embedding space of the neural network that we are training, then we are doing well. Let's not talk about another characteristic. Embeddings are continuous dense vectors. Continuous means that the two numbers of the vector can take on any real number in theory and dense means that these values are likely non-zero. So with this characteristic, we can have vectors that don't even necessarily correspond to a specific word. The next characteristic is that embeddings offer a compressed notation. So sentences are represented by n-gram vectors. These are large vectors where each unit represents the presence and the counts of a specific n-gram in the input. Now these vectors are very large and cannot be processed by computers with reasonable memory and CPU resources. Hence a fixed size word representation called embeddings become useful. And now this extends to images as well. Raw images represented by RGB pixel values alone can be difficult to directly process and learn by neural networks. Hence they are transformed into some smaller internal representations. Raw audio too is typically in the form of a stream of samples or data points. This is far too big to process. Hence some compressed notation like embeddings become useful. Quiz time! Have you been paying attention? Let's quiz you to find out. What is the primary purpose of embeddings in the context of neural networks? A, to visualize raw data in a two-dimensional space. B, to compress data. C, to convert data into numeric representations. Or D, to increase the size of vector dimensions. Comment your answer down below and let's have a discussion. And at this point if you think I deserve it please do consider giving this video a like because it will help me out a lot. That's gonna do it for quiz time and pass one of the explanation but keep paying attention because I will be back to quiz you. Let's talk about where we see these embeddings more in practice. So this is a transformer neural network. It is used to solve sequence-to-sequence problems. And in NLP sentences can be a sequence of tokens. So we can give the network an English sentence and have it translate to a French sentence. But the network doesn't understand text. So each word needs to be converted into vectors or an input embedding. At different points in the network intermediate vectors can represent the input word two. These two are embeddings. And while the embeddings of the same word in different layers may be different, the characteristics remain the same. That is that each embedding is a numerical representation of the input. Each embedding semantically represents the meaning of the word. Each embedding is some continuous dense vector. And each embedding is some compressed notation of the original data. Now here's another application, the vision transformer. It's a modified transformer architecture to process images. In this case, it is modified to take in an image and output some classification of the image. And this is done by breaking the input image up into 16 cross 16 image patches. This is then passed through the feed forward layer. And we end up with a vector in this pink rectangle, which is an embedding. Now these embeddings also have the same characteristics as mentioned before. To repeat, each embedding is a numerical representation of the input. Each embedding semantically represents the image patch. Each embedding is a continuous dense vector. And each embedding is some compressed notation of the original data. Quiz time. It's that time of video again. Have you been paying attention? Let's quiz you to find out for this transformer image. What does this embedding represent? A, it's a vector encapsulating the meaning of the sentence. My name is a J. B, it's a vector encapsulating the meaning of the word name. C, it is a vector encapsulating the syntactic structure of the sentence. My name is a J. Or D, it is a vector encapsulating the syntactic structure of the word name. Comment your answer down below and let's have a discussion. Now that's going to do it for quiz time and past two of the explanation, but I will be back. So keep paying attention. Now in this past, I want to load and visualize some word embedding so that we get an idea of what they are and how they look. So to do so, we're going to be using a library called Jensim, which we install, we then import some libraries over here. Now with Jensim, we have a bunch of potential embedding generators here. In this case, each of these, we have word to VEC models, glove models, and fast text models. These individual models are trained to understand word embeddings, which we will now later load and visualize. In this case, we're going to take the glove Twitter 25. So we load the glove Twitter 25 model. We then create some words that we want to visualize. And we're going to obtain their word vectors for each of those words. Now we're going to take the first word, which is King. And this here is the 25 dimensional vector that represents King. So this is the embedding for the word King. Similarly, this here is the embedding for the word Queen. And this here is the embedding for the word Apple. Now, what I want to do is because 25 dimensions is too much for us to visualize, we are going to squish the 25 dimensions into just two dimensions and then visualize that in an embedding space. And we do this squishification using teesney teesney will perform this compression into just two components, which after iterating over all words, we get an embedding space that looks like this. So you can see that we have dimension two on the y axis and dimension one on the x axis. And we can plot all of the words there. And one thing we notice is that similar words are actually grouped together. So we have the embedding for Queen, King and Jack very close to each other, the embedding for the numbers, you know, eight, nine, six, 10, seven, all those numbers are together. And we also notice that the embedding for apple orange cherry plum and banana are also very close to each other. So what this means is that words that are actually close to each other and meaning are visually actually close to each other in the embedding space, which means that this glove model represents what it should represent and it is trained appropriately. Quiz time. This is going to be a fun one. Which of these is correct for the embeddings of apple, pear and person? A, the embeddings apple and pear are closer to each other than to person. B, the embeddings apple and person are closer to each other than to pear. C, the embeddings of pear and person are closer to each other than apple. Or D, the embeddings apple, pear and person are equidistant from each other. Comment your answer down below and let's have a discussion. And if at this point you think I do deserve it, please do consider giving this video a like because it will help me out a lot. Now that's going to do it for pass three and quiz three in this explanation. But before we go, let's generate a summary. Computers don't understand words, image, audio, they understand numbers. So they need to be converted into numeric representations like vectors for input and processing. Now these vectors are also known as embeddings. Now neural networks can internally also learn embeddings to represent the data. The embedding space shows how a neural network interprets this data. Closer the embeddings are in the embedding space. That means closer are their semantic meanings. And that's all that we have for today. If you want to further dive into the world of embeddings and see its utility and natural language processing and large language models, I highly recommend you check out this video right over here. Other than that, thank you all so much for watching. And if you think I do deserve it, please do give this video a like and I will see you in the next one. Bye bye.