POPULARITY
14 episodes with gold line
4 episodes with gold line
2 episodes with gold line
4 episodes with gold line
2 episodes with gold line
2 episodes with gold line
3 episodes with gold line
2 episodes with gold line
2 episodes with gold line
Goldline and Hardline CEO Pete Townshend joins the show to talk about the Goldline's acquisition of Hardline this summer and what the implications are for equipment development and recreational players. From brooms to shoes to headgear, we talk about how equipment is designed, what rec players should be looking for, and how to ensure you have the proper equipment when you take to the ice.For more, visit us at GameofStonesPod.com
In this special episode of SGV Connect, your hosts SBLA SGV Reporter Chris Greenspon and SBLA Editor Joe Linton take listeners on a tour of the newly opened Metro A Line (formerly Foothill Gold Line) extension. The trip begins at the new Glendora Station, where we walked to Finkbiner Park. From there, we go east to San Dimas for lunch at the cozy Rail Side Café. Then in La Verne, we take in Bonita Avenue's elaborate Halloween decorations. Try to see these for yourself before they're gone (photos below). The journey concludes in Pomona at the Pomona North, for now the end of the line, where commuter rail and light rail make for a key working-class transit hub. Along the way, we reflect on walkability, local character, and how to enjoy this side of the SGV without a car. Plus more recommendations in each town. A copy of the transcript is available below. SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. "Foothill Transit. Going Good Places."Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays! Chris Greenspon: Welcome to SGV Connect episode 143. I'm Chris Greenspon. Damien Newton has the day off for this episode because it's a special tour of the Metro A Line extension with our editor, Joe Linton, and me. We want to keep the spotlight on this new part of the light rail system in the 626. But first, a reminder that SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new A Line stations across the foothills and commuter express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit foothilltransit.org. Foothill Transit—going good places. Now, of course, the Foothill A Line connects SGV residents in the foothills to Pasadena, downtown L.A., and Long Beach. But did you know you can also ride it east? To give you a feel for what you can get up to in the area, we took a ride on the train and got out at each stop to explore and talk about what there is to see and do. Joe Linton: My name is Joe Linton. I'm the editor of Streetsblog Los Angeles. I'm here with— Chris Greenspon: Chris Greenspon, reporter for the San Gabriel Valley region, SGV Connect. Joe Linton: We're here at the brand-new Glendora Metro A Line Station. It's one of four new stations. Today we're going to take a sampling tour of the four new stops on the A Line—the former Gold Line, or Foothill Gold Line as they called it—and see what you can walk to near the stations, what's interesting about each one, and get a sense of what you can expect when you ride the new train. Chris Greenspon: Glendora, of course, is known for The Donut Man with its seasonal strawberry and peach donuts. But there's also The Hat's classic pastrami and JPM Comics, all within a short bike ride of the train. We walked past downtown Glendora's charming gumdrop trees and historic houses to reach the real center of Glendora life—Finkbiner Park. It's a nice green space with volleyball, a skate park, pickleball courts, basketball, and a band shell. But remember, it's Finkbiner, not Finkbinder. Joe Linton: Okay, Finkbiner Park—it's not a hop, skip, and a jump from the Metro station, but it's what, a 15- or 20-minute walk? Not bad. There was probably a more direct route. It's one of those things with transit—I tell people, "Oh, I like this restaurant or this park," and it's not like I'd drive across town to get there, but because it's within a few blocks of a Metro stop, it's easy for me to go. It's easy to take my daughter there. It's not always the most incredible destination, but it's close and pleasant. Chris Greenspon: That was a big reason why I started reporting on the San Gabriel Valley in the first place—even before anyone was paying me—because it's nice that there are regular, local places to go, things to do, and people to see. It's not like going to Griffith Park where you'll see 400 tourists from Norway getting off a bus. You can actually have some breathing room here and hear yourself think. Speaking of journeys that aren't just about the destination, next we headed to San Dimas Station. Get off in San Dimas if you're looking for trails or a bigger regional park like Bonelli. Check out the Antonovich Trail leading into San Dimas Canyon and Cataract Falls—a great place to watch the sunset. This wilderness between freeways must have inspired the carved walking stick art back up at the Metro station. These wildlife pieces are great—I like the salamander back there and the skunk right here. Our stop included a one-block hike for lunch at Railside Café, right beside the San Dimas Metro Station, where we even had train-shaped breakfasts—just kidding. Joe Linton: It was yummy. I'm a sucker for muffins and gravy, whatever—it scratched a certain itch. Not something I should eat every day, but very good, and it's just a block south of the San Dimas Station. Chris Greenspon: Yeah, with ample patio seating. Moving on—with Halloween on the rise, we took to Old Town La Verne. Every October, the million-dollar homes on both sides of Old Town get decked out with awesome Halloween decorations. On All Hallows' Eve, Bonita Avenue is partially closed to vehicles, and trick-or-treating begins around 5:30 p.m. There are also some great restaurants there if you want something besides candy afterward. Joe Linton: This one's got stuffed animals, blood-splattered sheets, and a sign saying "Free Horror Show." It's been taped over and rewritten—it's kind of awesome. Chris Greenspon: Yeah, I don't even know what game this is supposed to be—maybe you're supposed to throw baseballs at dolls or something? Joe Linton: Creepy—not just dolls, but creepy dolls, like the kind that might inhabit your nightmares. Chris Greenspon: This is the pièce de résistance—the Jaws-themed house with five screaming sharks coming out of the grass. Joe Linton: Life-size—what, seven or eight feet tall? Sharks with mouths open, sharp teeth, severed limbs in the mouths. So how does it look at night? Chris Greenspon: It looks great at night. See our pictures at la.streetsblog.org on the post for this episode. And while you're there, click the link to read about the pedestrian bridge that the City of La Verne is building over Arrow Highway to connect the Metro station to the Fairplex. Now, back on the train. This is your Metro. Let's keep it clean. Chris Greenspon: Pomona is the end of the line for now. For that reason, it's by far the most-used of the new stations, and it has great art paying tribute to everyday Pomonans—but it feels like something's missing. Joe Linton: We're not in the heart of Pomona. The station is called North Pomona. Downtown Pomona has the museums, cafés, City Hall, good food, and music. Here, we're at the north end of town—more of an industrial rail corridor, not much housing or retail. Chris Greenspon: There is some newer, more upscale housing on this side—it's a quieter part of town. This is the part of Pomona that people tend to associate more with Claremont or La Verne. Joe Linton: Yeah. So Pomona North doesn't have a lot to walk to today. The city is building new housing along Garey Avenue, and there's more in the works. There's also an old depot building the city hopes to turn into a café or coffee shop. So there are efforts to activate the area, but there's not much open yet. Let's walk over to the Metrolink Pomona North Station, which is about 40 feet from the A Line platform. Chris Greenspon: This connection between light rail and commuter rail makes Pomona North decidedly the most working-class stop on the A Line extension. Joe Linton: It's on the San Bernardino Line, which runs about every half hour during the day on weekdays. You can get to San Bernardino—all the way to Redlands via another connection. There's not much to do right here, but it's a worthwhile connection. You can get to Claremont, Montclair, and points further east on the Metrolink train. Chris Greenspon: There's also a shuttle here that takes people to Cal Poly, so it's a great connector. Joe Linton: Yeah, it's an end-of-the-line commuter station with a lot of parking. The hope is to extend to Claremont and Montclair, but that'll take a while. This is the end of the line for now. Chris Greenspon: And that's our little tour of the new A Line stops and their surroundings. Hopefully it'll get extended to Claremont before too long, but in the meantime, you can bike there from Pomona North. Some system info: trains run from 5 a.m. to midnight, and fares are $1.75 with free transfers. During peak hours, trains run about every six minutes, a bit slower in between. That's all. I'm Chris Greenspon—thanks for listening to SGV Connect.
Jordan is a second-generation Fiduciary Retirement Advisor and has dedicated the last 15 years to educating his clients on how to build and protect the assets they have worked so hard to accumulate. His family has now been serving clients for over 45 years and has helped over 1,200 families across the nation, spanning from Hawaii to New York. His diverse base of clients entrust him with their financial well-being, and he proudly owns a record free of any consumer complaints. This is a direct result of the core values at GoldLine Financial. This expansive industry experience has allowed their team to provide sound advice to their clients during both bull and bear / recession markets.He earned his Bachelor's Degree in Finance at UC Riverside. Personal finance, market trends, investment strategy, and wealth preservation is what drives Jordan's hunger for knowledge which he shares with his clients and incorporates regularly into his practice. Jordan's family has been a pioneer in the Christian-Catholic Ministries in Los Angeles for over 35 years. At a young age he was involved with his church's ministry which planted the seed for his leadership positions today.“As a Fiduciary Advisor, our clients trust us because we have a track record of putting their needs first at all times. My job is to foster a relationship of trust, both legally and ethically. Our expansive industry knowledge, experience during up and down markets, research, and world-class service is what forges our lifelong relationships with our clients. Our tenets of full transparency and a high level of communication are the pillars of trust that we build with our clients and the multitude of financial institutions we work with. Many of our clients have become like family and we could not be more grateful for them.”Learn more: https://goldlinewealthmanagement.com/Advisory services provided through CoreCap Advisors, LLC. GoldLine Wealth Management and CoreCap Advisors are separate and unaffiliated entities. Securities trades are not accepted through email, voicemail, or fax. Please contact your representative at the number listed above to place any securities trades. This e-mail message and any attachments are solely for the confidential use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, notify us immediately by return e-mail and promptly delete this message and any attachments from your computer.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-jordan-mangaliman-fiduciary-retirement-advisor-founder-of-goldline-wealth-management-discussing-building-a-retirement-plan-you-can-depend-on
Jordan is a second-generation Fiduciary Retirement Advisor and has dedicated the last 15 years to educating his clients on how to build and protect the assets they have worked so hard to accumulate. His family has now been serving clients for over 45 years and has helped over 1,200 families across the nation, spanning from Hawaii to New York. His diverse base of clients entrust him with their financial well-being, and he proudly owns a record free of any consumer complaints. This is a direct result of the core values at GoldLine Financial. This expansive industry experience has allowed their team to provide sound advice to their clients during both bull and bear / recession markets.He earned his Bachelor's Degree in Finance at UC Riverside. Personal finance, market trends, investment strategy, and wealth preservation is what drives Jordan's hunger for knowledge which he shares with his clients and incorporates regularly into his practice. Jordan's family has been a pioneer in the Christian-Catholic Ministries in Los Angeles for over 35 years. At a young age he was involved with his church's ministry which planted the seed for his leadership positions today.“As a Fiduciary Advisor, our clients trust us because we have a track record of putting their needs first at all times. My job is to foster a relationship of trust, both legally and ethically. Our expansive industry knowledge, experience during up and down markets, research, and world-class service is what forges our lifelong relationships with our clients. Our tenets of full transparency and a high level of communication are the pillars of trust that we build with our clients and the multitude of financial institutions we work with. Many of our clients have become like family and we could not be more grateful for them.”Learn more: https://goldlinewealthmanagement.com/Advisory services provided through CoreCap Advisors, LLC. GoldLine Wealth Management and CoreCap Advisors are separate and unaffiliated entities. Securities trades are not accepted through email, voicemail, or fax. Please contact your representative at the number listed above to place any securities trades. This e-mail message and any attachments are solely for the confidential use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, notify us immediately by return e-mail and promptly delete this message and any attachments from your computer.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-jordan-mangaliman-fiduciary-retirement-advisor-founder-of-goldline-wealth-management-discussing-trust-and-transparency-in-retirement-planning
Jordan is a second-generation Fiduciary Retirement Advisor and has dedicated the last 15 years to educating his clients on how to build and protect the assets they have worked so hard to accumulate. His family has now been serving clients for over 45 years and has helped over 1,200 families across the nation, spanning from Hawaii to New York. His diverse base of clients entrust him with their financial well-being, and he proudly owns a record free of any consumer complaints. This is a direct result of the core values at GoldLine Financial. This expansive industry experience has allowed their team to provide sound advice to their clients during both bull and bear / recession markets.He earned his Bachelor's Degree in Finance at UC Riverside. Personal finance, market trends, investment strategy, and wealth preservation is what drives Jordan's hunger for knowledge which he shares with his clients and incorporates regularly into his practice. Jordan's family has been a pioneer in the Christian-Catholic Ministries in Los Angeles for over 35 years. At a young age he was involved with his church's ministry which planted the seed for his leadership positions today.“As a Fiduciary Advisor, our clients trust us because we have a track record of putting their needs first at all times. My job is to foster a relationship of trust, both legally and ethically. Our expansive industry knowledge, experience during up and down markets, research, and world-class service is what forges our lifelong relationships with our clients. Our tenets of full transparency and a high level of communication are the pillars of trust that we build with our clients and the multitude of financial institutions we work with. Many of our clients have become like family and we could not be more grateful for them.”Learn more: https://goldlinewealthmanagement.com/Advisory services provided through CoreCap Advisors, LLC. GoldLine Wealth Management and CoreCap Advisors are separate and unaffiliated entities. Securities trades are not accepted through email, voicemail, or fax. Please contact your representative at the number listed above to place any securities trades. This e-mail message and any attachments are solely for the confidential use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, notify us immediately by return e-mail and promptly delete this message and any attachments from your computer.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-jordan-mangaliman-fiduciary-retirement-advisor-founder-of-goldline-wealth-management-discussing-trust-and-transparency-in-retirement-planning
Jordan is a second-generation Fiduciary Retirement Advisor and has dedicated the last 15 years to educating his clients on how to build and protect the assets they have worked so hard to accumulate. His family has now been serving clients for over 45 years and has helped over 1,200 families across the nation, spanning from Hawaii to New York. His diverse base of clients entrust him with their financial well-being, and he proudly owns a record free of any consumer complaints. This is a direct result of the core values at GoldLine Financial. This expansive industry experience has allowed their team to provide sound advice to their clients during both bull and bear / recession markets.He earned his Bachelor's Degree in Finance at UC Riverside. Personal finance, market trends, investment strategy, and wealth preservation is what drives Jordan's hunger for knowledge which he shares with his clients and incorporates regularly into his practice. Jordan's family has been a pioneer in the Christian-Catholic Ministries in Los Angeles for over 35 years. At a young age he was involved with his church's ministry which planted the seed for his leadership positions today.“As a Fiduciary Advisor, our clients trust us because we have a track record of putting their needs first at all times. My job is to foster a relationship of trust, both legally and ethically. Our expansive industry knowledge, experience during up and down markets, research, and world-class service is what forges our lifelong relationships with our clients. Our tenets of full transparency and a high level of communication are the pillars of trust that we build with our clients and the multitude of financial institutions we work with. Many of our clients have become like family and we could not be more grateful for them.”Learn more: https://goldlinewealthmanagement.com/Advisory services provided through CoreCap Advisors, LLC. GoldLine Wealth Management and CoreCap Advisors are separate and unaffiliated entities. Securities trades are not accepted through email, voicemail, or fax. Please contact your representative at the number listed above to place any securities trades. This e-mail message and any attachments are solely for the confidential use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, notify us immediately by return e-mail and promptly delete this message and any attachments from your computer.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-jordan-mangaliman-fiduciary-retirement-advisor-founder-of-goldline-wealth-management-discussing-building-a-retirement-plan-you-can-depend-on
Jordan is a second-generation Fiduciary Retirement Advisor and has dedicated the last 15 years to educating his clients on how to build and protect the assets they have worked so hard to accumulate. His family has now been serving clients for over 45 years and has helped over 1,200 families across the nation, spanning from Hawaii to New York. His diverse base of clients entrust him with their financial well-being, and he proudly owns a record free of any consumer complaints. This is a direct result of the core values at GoldLine Financial. This expansive industry experience has allowed their team to provide sound advice to their clients during both bull and bear / recession markets.He earned his Bachelor's Degree in Finance at UC Riverside. Personal finance, market trends, investment strategy, and wealth preservation is what drives Jordan's hunger for knowledge, which he shares with his clients and incorporates regularly into his practice. Jordan's family has been a pioneer in the Christian-Catholic Ministries in Los Angeles for over 35 years. At a young age, he was involved with his church's ministry, which planted the seed for his leadership positions today.“As a Fiduciary Advisor, our clients trust us because we have a track record of putting their needs first at all times. My job is to foster a relationship of trust, both legally and ethically. Our expansive industry knowledge, experience during up and down markets, research, and world-class service is what forges our lifelong relationships with our clients. Our tenets of full transparency and a high level of communication are the pillars of trust that we build with our clients and the multitude of financial institutions we work with. Many of our clients have become like family, and we could not be more grateful for them.”Learn more: https://goldlinewealthmanagement.com/Advisory services provided through CoreCap Advisors, LLC. GoldLine Wealth Management and CoreCap Advisors are separate and unaffiliated entities. Securities trades are not accepted through email, voicemail, or fax. Please contact your representative at the number listed above to place any securities trades. This e-mail message and any attachments are solely for the confidential use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, notify us immediately by return e-mail and promptly delete this message and any attachments from your computer.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-jordan-mangaliman-fiduciary-retirement-advisor-founder-of-goldline-wealth-management-discussing-the-transition-into-retirement
Jordan is a second-generation Fiduciary Retirement Advisor and has dedicated the last 15 years to educating his clients on how to build and protect the assets they have worked so hard to accumulate. His family has now been serving clients for over 45 years and has helped over 1,200 families across the nation, spanning from Hawaii to New York. His diverse base of clients entrust him with their financial well-being, and he proudly owns a record free of any consumer complaints. This is a direct result of the core values at GoldLine Financial. This expansive industry experience has allowed their team to provide sound advice to their clients during both bull and bear / recession markets.He earned his Bachelor's Degree in Finance at UC Riverside. Personal finance, market trends, investment strategy, and wealth preservation is what drives Jordan's hunger for knowledge, which he shares with his clients and incorporates regularly into his practice. Jordan's family has been a pioneer in the Christian-Catholic Ministries in Los Angeles for over 35 years. At a young age, he was involved with his church's ministry, which planted the seed for his leadership positions today.“As a Fiduciary Advisor, our clients trust us because we have a track record of putting their needs first at all times. My job is to foster a relationship of trust, both legally and ethically. Our expansive industry knowledge, experience during up and down markets, research, and world-class service is what forges our lifelong relationships with our clients. Our tenets of full transparency and a high level of communication are the pillars of trust that we build with our clients and the multitude of financial institutions we work with. Many of our clients have become like family, and we could not be more grateful for them.”Learn more: https://goldlinewealthmanagement.com/Advisory services provided through CoreCap Advisors, LLC. GoldLine Wealth Management and CoreCap Advisors are separate and unaffiliated entities. Securities trades are not accepted through email, voicemail, or fax. Please contact your representative at the number listed above to place any securities trades. This e-mail message and any attachments are solely for the confidential use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, notify us immediately by return e-mail and promptly delete this message and any attachments from your computer.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-jordan-mangaliman-fiduciary-retirement-advisor-founder-of-goldline-wealth-management-discussing-the-transition-into-retirement
This week's SGV Connect features a pair of interviews by Damien Newton. Don't worry Chris fans, the next podcast has already been recorded and it has a pair conducted by Chris Greenspon. The first interview this week is with Felicial Friesema about the big changes that have occurred in September with Foothill Transit Coverage. Of course, the SGV's bus agency had to create new routes for the A-Line stations that opened in Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne, and Pomona; but the transit agency also opened a new bus line, Line 295, to serve Cal Poly Pomona and Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. Sac). A transcript of that interview can be found below the podcast embed. Our second interview is a rebroadcast of last week's StreetSmart podcast from Streetsblog California. The episode features Transform CA's Zack Deutsch-Gross and we break down the recently concluded legislative session. To listen to that episode by itself, or for a transcript of the interview, click here. SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.” Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays! Damien We're here with Felicia Friesema from Foothill Transit. There have been a few big changes since the last time we talked—outside of the regular route adjustments—especially with the… I was going to say Gold Line. Am I allowed to say “Gold Line” here? Felicia Friesema Not anymore, dude. It's the A Line. Damien When I'm with the Construction Authority, they still let me call it the Gold Line. Felicia Well, because “Gold Line” is still in their name. But yeah, it's the A Line now. Damien Fine. The new “A Line” stations opened, and you also launched a new bus route. Let's start there. What can you tell us about the 295? It opened last week. And while it serves a Gold Line—uh, A Line—station… I'm going to let people in on something Chris Greenspawn knows well: I mess this up in our ad copy at least once a month and we have to re-shoot it. Felicia (laughs) Damien So if you ever hear Chris say, “Why don't you read that ad copy, Damien?” It's usually because I've already messed it up. Anyway, you launched a new bus line serving an A Line station, but you opened it before the A Line station opened. Tell us about Route 295. Felicia Yes! Congratulations to us. I'm really happy about it. Line 295 is one of our shorter lines—it only serves three stops. It runs between San Dimas Station, Cal Poly Pomona at Temple, and the Mt. SAC Transit Center. Service is Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., with 20-minute intervals. We opened on the 15th to introduce people to the new line. We honestly didn't expect much ridership at first—and we were proved wrong very quickly. On the first day alone, we had over 200 rides. We weren't expecting that at all, which means we've got a lot of non–light rail-oriented riders on that line. Damien Just to be clear: you weren't expecting ridership on day one until the rail station opened, right? Felicia Correct—thank you for clarifying that, Damien. We weren't expecting ridership to really kick in until the A Line opened on the 19th. We started the service early to get a sense of traffic patterns, especially on Temple between Cal Poly and Mt. SAC. That area can get pretty hairy at certain times of day when school's in session. We wanted to see how the schedule would run. Little did we know it would become really useful to a lot of people right away. And then, of course, ridership picked up again when the Gold Line—see, I just did it— Damien (laughs) Felicia —when the A Line opened on Friday. Damien This line mostly serves the college campuses. You're expecting students, professors, and people accessing the campus from farther away. It's not quite a first-mile/last-mile connection—it's a bit longer than that—but it's both a rail connector and a local route now. Felicia Exactly. Cal Poly Pomona and Mt. SAC have long been commuter campuses. Cal Poly does have dorms, but a significant number of students drive or take transit from far away—some from downtown L.A., some from Fontana. Having a smooth, easy transit option is definitely a plus for them. Damien As my kids get older, we're starting to look at colleges for my son, who's a sophomore. We've heard: don't sleep on local schools. People undervalue them—especially if they're used to traveling for college. I live in West L.A. and have heard plenty about people commuting to Cal Poly Pomona. I'm not as familiar with Mt. SAC—my kids' interests don't line up with their specialties—but I've already noticed the rail connection. My kid (or I) would only have to transfer twice to get there by train instead of driving. Felicia Exactly. Damien The big transportation story in the San Gabriel Valley right now is the four new A Line stations that opened on Friday. Joe did a Streetsblog story about it. We're going to go out and ride it together soon. How does this impact what you do? It's not just providing connections to stations—you've probably got some bus lines that can be almost replaced by rail. I imagine it's a lot of work every time a new station opens. Felicia It is, but it's good work. When the A Line—then the Gold Line—first started opening in the San Gabriel Valley, we had one line across the Foothill corridor called the 187. We've since split that into the 187 and 188, with Azusa as the midpoint. We thought we'd lose significant ridership along that corridor when the A Line opened… And—see, I'm going back and forth, too. Damien Yeah, it's not easy. Felicia Gold Line for history's sake; A Line for now. Anyway, we found that while travel patterns changed, our ridership wasn't heavily impacted by the opening of the Gold/A Line. Splitting the 187 into two lines also improved schedule adherence. We learned some people needed to get into Pasadena and others into Claremont, so having a transfer in the middle made the line more efficient. We still watch the area very closely. That earlier experience became our blueprint for how service might be affected by these new stations. We're not anticipating major shifts, but we're keeping a close eye on it. We've also worked to get our service closer to the stations for first-mile/last-mile connectivity. For the most part, it's just another great way to make sure people are getting on transit. Damien There's a post on your website—we've been linking to it in the SGV Connect newsletter. It's literally foothilltransit.org/article/foothilltransit-and-metrorail. It shows all the connections to the various stations for people who want to access them. And your website always does a little extra—like highlighting local businesses around the stations. I always appreciate that. Felicia Yes. Damien So it's probably too early to see how 295 has been impacted by the station opening. Friday was a special day, then you had a weekend. We're recording this Monday the 22nd—the second weekday the line and station are both open. Any interesting early observations from the A Line stations and your transit service? Felicia Yes, actually. We're very excited about this and keeping track of where ridership is growing. Fridays are usually low ridership days—people take off early or make it a three-day weekend. But we had really solid ridership on the 295 out of San Dimas Station the first day the A Line was open. We expect that number to grow. We're partnering heavily with the schools and relying on a lot of word of mouth. We're also looking at how other lines are impacted. It's hard to tell exactly how much ridership is shifting because you can't always tell if a boarding is from the street or a transfer from the A Line. We're sending people out to make sure connections are smooth and to help riders with questions. These are still early days, but we're keeping close tabs. Damien I was talking to a friend over the weekend—he's in the industry—and he suggested I ask: Do you think these new stations will mean more overall ridership, or less on the bus lines? I always assumed people would ride the train instead of the bus. His hypothesis is that you'll more than make up for that with people who weren't riding transit at all but will now ride the train and need the bus for the last leg. Felicia I think in the short term, yes. With something like this, you have to take a long view. Our surveys consistently show: the more transit service is available and frequent, the more people ride—period. Any new transit service—more connectivity, more frequency, more access—is good for all transit. In the short term, there may be some shifts as travel patterns change. But long term, anything that makes transit more familiar, accessible, and easy to use is good across the board. Damien All right. Any closing thoughts, or anything I didn't ask that you think listeners should know? Felicia Just one thing about the La Verne Station. We've seen a lot of chatter about accessibility—specifically about having a stop closer to the station or buses going directly into the station. Unfortunately, they weren't able to make the adjustments needed for a proper bus turnaround. We were hoping they could. The Construction Authority is turning the project over to Metro, so it'll be in Metro's hands going forward. We'll partner with them to make it more accessible. For now, bus service will be across the street rather than directly in the station. Damien I did notice on the map that there's a new stop on the 197 significantly closer than the previous ones. Felicia Correct. Damien But the hope is you'll be able to go directly into the station in the medium-term future? Felicia Correct. We'll say the “hopeful” future. Damien Obviously it's not happening next month, but hopefully Metro can make that fix reasonably soon. Felicia We hope. We hope, we hope. But yes, we've adjusted the line as much as possible to make it more accessible. Damien All right. Thank you so much for your time. We usually do an end-of-year check-in around November or December—let's plan on that. Felicia Those are fun. Let's make it an AMA. Damien Oh, we could do that. That'd be fun. Felicia Yeah, let's do an AMA. I loved the last one we did. Damien I always like when people send me questions anonymously, even though you and I can almost immediately guess who sent them. Felicia For sure. We know you guys. We do. Damien Anyway, thank you so much for this. We'll check in again. I've gotten more interested in how bus and rail work together—after watching the last Gold Line extensions and even locally with the Expo (excuse me, E Line) here—how that impacted Big Blue Bus and Metro Bus service. I started as a bike guy, but this has become fascinating to me. Felicia Yes, come to the dark side, Damien.
Chris Egert's final hour covering for Chad today starts with a conversation about the economy with St. Thomas professor Tyler Schipper. Later, we dive into a sports conversation about the Vikings and Lynx, a story from channel 5 about poor ridership on the new Metro Transit Gold Line bus route and a food question that leaves Jason DeRusha stumped for a great answer.
Recognized as a 2025 TSX Venture 50 company, First Nordic Metals (TSX.V: FNM | FNSE: FNMC SDB | OTCQB: FNMCF | FRA: HEG0) is advancing its flagship Barsele project in Sweden, which already hosts 2.4 million ounces of indicated and inferred gold and sits in a joint venture with Agnico Eagle.In this interview, CEO Taj Singh shares updates on recent drilling at Aida, upcoming Nippas results, and the broader Gold Line Belt strategy. The interview also highlights a $15.4 million financing and the acquisition of EMX Royalty, which strengthens First Nordic's growth and district-scale potential.Learn more about First Nordic Metals: https://firstnordicmetals.com/Watch the full YouTube interview here: https://youtu.be/D53Zc3-6lik?feature=sharedAnd follow us to stay updated: https://www.youtube.com/@GlobalOneMedia?sub_confirmation=1
Episode 137 of the SGVConnect Podcast is part two of our Olympics preview and focuses on the upcoming Olympic cricket tournament coming to the Pomona Fairplex. In the first interview, Streetsblog editor Joe Linton interviews Pomona Mayor Tim Sandoval. The far-reaching interview covers other topics, including Pomona's response to the actions of President Trump's para-military bounty hunters and the arrival of the GOLD LINE, but returns to a friendly discussion of the Olympics. Included is a challenge for the Streetsblog. You can read a full transcript of the interview here. In the second interview, Chris Greenspon talks with Abhimanyu Rajp, Director of Los Angeles Cricket and co-owner of the minor league team the Los Angeles Lashings. Rajip shares his enthusiasm for cricket, talks about what it means for the local cricket community to have it return to the Olympics in Pomona, and explains the rules of the variation of cricket that will be played here. If you're a visual learner, you can get another explanation of the rules in this video. A transcript of the interview with Rajp can be found here. The audio of the podcast can be found below the video.
Celebrating 100 Years of Innovation with Hayward – Lessons from the Past, Present, and Future of the Pool Industry In this special episode of the Pool Nation Podcast, Edgar, John, and Zac sit down with Justin Butler and Ryan Morson from Hayward Pool Products to celebrate Hayward's incredible 100-year anniversary.
Craig and Scott (@PirateTakes) discuss the needle that the Pirates have to thread in order to find success; including the possibility of resigning IKF, what trades could look like and how fans (and others) often value our players vs. their worth to the rest of the league. Brought to you by Sportsvival! Craig Toth previously covered the Pirates for Inside The Bucs Basement, but now simply sits down at the 9-foot homemade oak bar every week to talk Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball with his buddy Scott Jackson (@PirateTakes). Listen. Subscribe. Share. We are "For Fans, By Fans & All Pirates Talk." THE Pirates Fan Podcast found EVERYWHERE podcasts can be found and always at BucsInTheBasement.com!
This week kicks off a multi-episode mini-series at SGV Connect focusing on the LA 2028 Olumpoc games and what the events can mean for San Gabriel Valley Communities. This first episode features an interview with Alissa Walker, co-host of the LA Pod and editor of the Torched Newsletter. When not hanging out with celebrities and appearing on Netflix specials, Walker has become the go-to source of information about the upcoming games. The 2028 games will feature four venues in the San Gabriel Valley. Pasadena will host the soccer finals at the Rose Bowl, the Santa Anita Racetrack will host equestrian and dressage, the Pomona Fairgrounds will host the cricket tournament, and shotgun events will be held at the Shotgun Center in El Monte. Walker reports that San Gabriel cities are well positioned to host these attractions, as the venues all host major events (outside of the Shotgun Center) and know how to do so without causing headaches for neighboring communities. She is also excited for the possibilities that could occur with cities hosting official and unofficial events to bolster their profile and their coffers. It also allows for city and regional officials to think about creative ways to use the games to improve their transportation options in the short- and long-term. Transcript: Damien Newton - As mentioned in the pre show, I'm recording with podcast royalty today. Alissa Walker - Who is it? Who's gonna be on? Oh, me. Damien - , the LA Pod is the only podcast that I download and listen to when I run. Alissa - So you listen to it more than me. Damien - I almost never listen to this podcast unless it's one that Chris is doing completely on his own. So I understand what you're saying there. Alissa - It's not that I don't want to listen to it. It's just, , I've already listened to it. Damien - I relate. No, it's a great podcast. I was saying to you before we started recording that I ran into your co host in the grocery store this morning, and he referred to you as a unicorn. Because you're so much on top of things that when you guys are sending story ideas back and forth, he never finds an article on the story before you do. Alissa - Oh, I don't know if that's true. You're talking about Mike Bonin, my cohost, because I think Mike is actually pretty good at that stuff too, though. Damien - Yeah, he's pretty on top of things. When he was my city council member, both as a reporter and as a constituent, I never found him unprepared for a question, even if we were trying to catch him off guard at a neighborhood meeting. Alissa - Ohhhh, you were out there yelling at him about bike bike lanes. You were yelling. Well, that's what I said to him on the most recent podcast that I felt like he did in 2010 when I went on the John Mulaney show, having people yelling at me about bike lanes. I was like, now I finally understand what it feels like, Mike. Damien - Yeah, that was wild. They put me on the neighborhood council after they approved that project. So I got in. Everyone that Googled me knew who I was, so I just got to listen to people screaming at me about that. And honestly, I had had no input at all on it. Joe was the Streetsblog editor. I had nothing to do with it. Moving on,we're talking about the Olympics, because in addition to being the podcast royalty, you're also the editor and writer of Torched, a subscription newsletter that's covering the Olympics and Los Angeles. It is a must read. Torched is where we go if we need to find something out about the Olympics, which is why we're here today, because the Olympics are theoretically and hopefully coming in 2028. Alissa - Yeah, what will they be like now? We're not sure, Damien - Right? It's been a long time. It feels like it's been at least four or five decades since it was approved, two or three years ago. Alissa - More than that. It's been a while, 2017, that's a long time. And think of what, think of what Paris accomplished in that time compared to us. Damien - Oh, that's a hint. I think about the tone of this podcast. Some San Gabriel Valley cities are in line to host Olympic events. Some have been announced. Some are, quote, unquote, in the works. Having done some writing that I do for Santa Monica Next, I know that it's not necessarily a slam dunk for a city to host an Olympic Games, just be a smaller part of the game. So we wanted to talk a little bit about what these cities can be looking forward to, what they might want to be considering on their own, and all sorts of other various issues. If there's any breaking news, you would probably know it ahead of me. That being said, that usually takes us four or five days to get a podcast up, so it probably won't be breaking anymore. But anyway, that's the longest intro we've ever done. Welcome Alissa. Alissa - Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here. Damien - So let's start talking. Last I checked there were two or three San Gabriel Valley cities that were hosting events, shooting and horse events. What can you tell us about what's going on with the San Gabriel Valley and the Olympics? Alissa - Yeah, and you missed one: cricket. Well, I mean, does the Pasadena Rose Bowl also count as San Gabriel Valley? Damien - I mean, it's in... We always debate this, because geographically it is, but Chris always argues that it's culturally a very different city than the rest of the SGV. Alissa - All right. Well, you can, you can try to lump it in, maybe if needed. Most people know about the Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl is going to be used as soccer finals. And it's going to be the third time that the Rose Bowl has hosted Olympics events. They hosted events in all three Olympics, which is kind of cool, but the bigger announcements are definitely this last batch of announcements. The LA 28 did them in phased delivery. First, we got the big Oklahoma City events. Some things are going there. And then we got kind of a revised version of a few more events. And then this last dump was the rest of the venues, including, I believe, all three announcements that you just talked about. So the ones for your listeners to track will be equestrian events at Santa Anita, cricket at the Fairplex and shotgun shooting in Whittier Narrows. It's not just about the venues that are being officially hosted by LA 28 as I'm sure , there's all these plans for, like fan festivals and viewing parties and cultural events. There's a whole Cultural Olympiad that goes on top of everything else, plus all the Paralympic events as well. None of those venues have been announced officially. For example, Pico Rivera has already voted to have a fan festival in their city, just as part of what's going on. Because as you're moving from one venue to another, you might want to stop in Pico Rivera and have a drink or watch whatever sport is on the big screen. So there's going to be a lot more stuff happening. These are just the latest, like official announcements. Damien - One of the things that we covered with Santa Monica was that the Olympics have sort of a contract they sign with the cities that are doing these events that outline a lot of what you can and can't do. And obviously, Santa Monica is in a different situation, because they're already a tourist hub, and they're so close to LA. They're doing things like planning bus routes to get people from the hotels…but they said no to beach volleyball, so that they didn't have to abide by all the Olympics rules, thinking that they would get a better deal otherwise. Is this something that smaller cities in the San Gabriel Valley that maybe don't have a large beach right next to them, maybe aren't considered as touristy as Santa Monica should be, should be thinking about? With all the rules they're going to have to follo worth it or is it just having an event going to be good enough to make this a financially good decision for a smaller city? Alissa - The thing about beach volleyball is it can be played anywhere. In Paris, they played it just in front of the Eiffel Tower, if you remember. The matches weren't anywhere near a beach. It wasn't even done by the Seine. You really could have put it anywhere. The thing about Santa Monica's specific situation is they hired a firm to do this economic analysis of how they would benefit from the games or if they decided not to host anything. And I think the conclusion they came away with was that it was probably going to be a better deal for them for many reasons. They might have had to close the pier for the entire summer, or a large part of the summer to the public. It just didn't make sense for them. They could make more money by just being Santa Monica for the summer and then hosting some of these other little interventions that I was talking about. A really big opportunity for them are these things called hospitality houses. In Paris, there were like 30 of them all over the city. Every country that's bringing athletes there would set up in some kind of public or private building and have these viewing parties or VIP events. But a lot of stuff that was open to the public and you could go hang out. So they've been approached by a lot of countries to host those. So if you've got a few hospitality houses, and you have your own viewing stuff on the pier and then on the beach…you're pretty much set. But most of the deals that you're talking about signing are not public. You haven't been able to really go through them. Long Beach's, for example, is online. It's public. You can look at it and it describes this thing called “Clean Zones,” a square mile around every venue. That means you're delivering like a blank slate: there's no advertising, there's no signage. There's very specific rules about trash pickup, and all these other things that have to happen. No street vendors, it seems like. You are making a big trade off when you make a deal with LA 28. But for a place like Long Beach who really wants to be put on the map through this and has, to their credit, done a lot of work to prepare…they have this thing called Elevate 28 which is a huge capital program leading up to 2028. They're doing things such as improving infrastructure, not just for the games, but also fixing sidewalks, adding to their cycle ways, and improving parks. Improving fire stations, libraries, all sorts of great things that'll have legacy impacts afterwards. Can every city prepare for it that way? Probably not, and maybe not even the city of LA. But for a place like Pomona, to be able to put something at the Fairplex, it's probably not going to be that big of a deal to like the residents of Pomona. The Fairplex is very large and kind of self contained, and does these things all the time. Damien - I don't have a great grasp of all the geography of where the venues are, but the event centers aren't located in the middle of town like it would have been for Santa Monica. Alissa - The Zone would have encompassed all of downtown Santa Monica. So…what do you do in that situation? Damien - It would have been really intrusive. And yeah, the race tracks and the Fairplex… Alissa - They've got parking lots, just giant parking lots, yeah? Damien - Which raises a different point, though. There was the promise of the car free Olympics, and I don't know how you do that for the Fairplex. Alissa - They're having the new station opening right there. It'll be open. Damien - I'm sorry, yeah, the other one. Alissa - Yeah, Santa, Anita, The A line gets pretty close, and they'll do shuttles. You can walk there if you're determined, it's not the worst thing in the world to walk from that station. For Pomona, it's really exciting. I rode out there for the LA County Fair last year, and got to look at the station. I'm sure your viewers or your listeners are really excited about this too, but you've got a really cool, brand new station that's going to be opening later this year. It'll basically be right across the street. You got to walk through the parking lot, but you also have two different Metro link options as well that aren't that far away either. Santa Anita…it's not that hard to get there from the A line. They'll have shuttles. But the other thing that'll be really cool is there's these festival zones around all the venues. So you won't be walking through like a mile of parking lot. You'll probably be walking through a very cool fan experience with other things to do. And they want people to come and hang out and be in the environment, even if they're not necessarily ticket holders to that event. And on days where they don't have the event that day, they'll, it'll still be set up as a cool place to go. Damien - So this is not going to be as not going to be as, let's say, onerous for the existing residents, as some of the more urban Olympics events venues might be. We've covered the transportation. Is there any other sort of surprises that the cities might be thinking about, or the residents might be bracing themselves for. You're making it sound like a pretty good deal for Pomona and Santa Anita. Alissa - Yeah. These places are used to doing this scale of events all the time. The one funny one will be the Whittier Narrows shooting range. I guess you could, you can get pretty close. You can get pretty close. They'll be shuttle buses and stuff. But it's not the end of the world. Damien - Crowds at past Olympics…you have the shooters' family. I mean, it's not like it's just 20 people in a room (with guns!), but it's also not 20,000 fans. Alissa - It's not that far from the A Line station. And, like, they will have little shuttles to get people that last like a little bit. I wouldn't worry too much about the traffic impacts. These others are large venues that are used to absorbing large amounts of visitors. And I don't think it'll be spectacularly different. Some of these things are happening at the same time in different parts of the valley at the same time so that's a little different. The one thing I am super concerned about, and the reason that the LA County Fair is being held in the spring, it actually just ended, instead of in the summer, is the heat. The Fairplex made this big decision to move the fair out of the summer months and into, our May Gray veil of outside my window right now, it's perfectly misty and foggy outside, because they were so worried about not just attendees, but also their workers, having very adverse effects from some of the worst heat and also air quality of those summer months. So, sticking a bunch of people in the hottest parts of LA County in July and August is not advised. I was thinking that they were going to pivot towards more coastal choices. I understand why they picked the venues that they did, and I think I'm glad overall that they're more transit adjacent, and they're more…they're in LA. They're not in Oklahoma City. But I'm very, very worried about the heat. And you don't hear too much about their plans for that yet? Damien - Well, I mean, two years, maybe we won't have heat anymore, Alissa - Yeah, maybe it'll all be reversed, Damien - They got some time. I hear the government's very interested in reversing climate change. Alissa - They are very. They're going to take swift action and give money to help cities cope with it. It's their top priority. Damien - All right. Well, we are. We're starting to push 20 minutes, which for our dual podcast, is about how much we aim for. But you had mentioned in our pre-show that you had fun things to cover. Or are there more fun things to come? Alissa - One thing that's exciting is how groups like Active SGV can really get everyone thinking about how to move around differently, not just for the games, but in real life. The games offer this tremendous opportunity. And of course, we also have the World Cup coming up next summer. Even though all the action is going to be at Sofi, you will see fan festivals and viewing parties too. There's going to be things popping up around the area next summer as well. You've probably heard much about the car free games. The promises of the car free games have really started to walk those back from the top officials. There's a story in The New York Times that I was quoted in today as we're recording this, and they're basically saying, like, "Oh, we didn't really mean it. We didn't really mean car free." Damien - Aspirational! I haven't read the article yet. But I always love when government officials tell me "something was aspirational." Alissa - Yeah, I mean, but it's good, it's a good aspiration. I'm still gonna keep saying it, but now they say “transit first,” but now they're even walking that back even more. I think, because they're concerned they won't be able to get the 2000 extra buses to be able to move people around. Have things like Park and Ride, similar to what the Hollywood Bowl does, to get people on kind of these regional, dedicated bus networks that can move people from one place to another. But in the meantime, we've got to really be thinking about just the very, very small scale. How do we get from one place to another? And things like E bikes, and things like really good dedicated bike infrastructure. Active SGV is leading the way out there, really getting this stuff in the ground, but also getting people to think differently about how they move. You have some really cool kind of grassroots ideas that aren't official, things like the festival trail, this 50 mile car free Greenway type concept that's going to connect some of the venues. Now, we've got venues that are a little bit further away. How can you plug into that network from the Arroyo and get all the way to the Fairplex? People will be wanting to do those types of things, to move around during this time safely, even in the heat of the summer, of course, let's have a lot of hydration zones. I would really like to challenge everyone to think about alternatives. Can we get something like a month-long e-bike rental for LA County residents to get cars off the road? You don't want there to be traffic, right? So can we start to think of some solutions that shift people's behavior, as we saw in 84. A lot of people rode the bus to get to the Olympic events. It was a huge success. And a lot of people who hadn't taken transit before, took it during those weeks. So I think we could, we could really look to the San Gabriel Valley to be a leader in this. Damien - Well, that's a great wrap up. Anyone that's been listening to it for a while knows that there's actually a lot of really cool things going on in the San Gabriel Valley. And you outlined a lot of them there too. When you were talking about E bikes and how the cities have been reacting to them…I'm still going to call it the Gold Line…the Gold Line coming through. But thinking about this major event coming as a way to accelerate that transformation that we've been seeing going on is a very optimistic way to look at it. Alissa - And we don't need federal money to do it for the most part. So we don't have to rely on those jokers. Damien - I get the feeling that it's not coming. Alissa - I don't know why. I didn't know why. Damien - All right, well, anyway, thank you so much. We've got two more years till the Olympics, so we might try to check in with you again on this podcast. We generally don't do sports, but here we are. Alissa - You've actually got three so don't worry, three years. (Damien: Oh, yeah, right, it's 2025) but let's pretend just so we can get all this stuff done last year you're going to be very busy. Damien - You'll be on CNN and NBC. Where were you last week? Alissa - Netflix, Netflix. Damien - Thank you so much for spending time with us today, and we always look forward to getting to see you. And I'm gonna use the picture of you with “smart” written over your head that other Streetsblogs plugged in. Alissa - Perfect. All right, thank you. Applause.
Taj Singh, CEO, and Adam Cegielski, President of First Nordic Metals (TSX.V: FNM) (OTCQB: FNMCF), join me to discuss the institutional interest from Florida events, the recent BOT drilling results setting up diamond drilling next month for the Nippas target at Storjuktan, and anticipated drill assays that should be coming back soon from recent drilling at the high-priority Aida Target at their 100% owned Paubäcken Project. We start off having Adam outline the more bullish sentiment around the gold sector and gold equities, and the interest and institutional coverage that they are picking up on at some recent conferences in Florida. He points out that the value seen flowing into larger gold producers is starting to rotate down into the junior developers and explorers, and that they are seeing a lot of interest in First Nordic due to their district scale land package across over 80kms of greenstone belt in Sweden that already hosts a multi-million ounce deposit a Barsele, but with very large multi-kilometric targets across the whole Gold Line belt. Next we shifted over to having Taj outline the key priority exploration targets of focus for this year's 25,000 meter drill program across their 100% owned projects along the Gold Line Belt. There was news released on April 30th that announced base-of-till (“BoT”) / top-of-bedrock drilling results and the upcoming Q2 diamond drill plan at its high-priority Nippas target on the Company's 100%-owned Storjuktan project. Additionally, we review that there are 3 new large targets emerging in the south and 2 more targets in the north on the Storjuktan area that will be getting more ground truthing and data collection in the months to come. Then at the Paubäcken Project there has been a drill turning since late February at the high-priority Aida Target, so now multiple drill assays are anticipated to be coming back in the near future. It is planned that these assays will be released as a batch of multiple holes to provide more complete data on how the mineralization is connecting. While there is close to 5,000 meters that has been drilled thus far, the management team is ready to keep drilling here and is visually liking the mineralization being intercepted in the drill core thus far. Taj also outlines a second high-priority target at Paubäcken is at Harpsund, where there is still ongoing data collection and targeting, but there are plans to see this area drilled later this year. Wrapping up we shift over to more recent financial analyst coverage; recently from Roth Capital, and we had noted in our last discussion that both Haywood Capital and Ventum Capital had all picked up coverage on First Nordic with price targets at multiples higher than where the stock is trading today. Adam lays out the case for even more institutional coverage to be announced in the months to come, and Taj highlights the big picture value proposition for the Company. If you have any questions for Taj or Adam, regarding First Nordic Metals, then please email them to me at Shad@kereport.com. In full disclosure, Shad is a shareholder of First Nordic Metals at the time of this recording. Click here to follow the latest news from First Nordic Metals
(Note: this week's SGV Connect podcast is being broken into two parts. Part 2, which is a series of interview about The People's Cafe in El Monte, will be broadcast tomorrow.) Last week, news broke that bids for the next extension of the Foothill Gold Line - from Pomona to Montclair - would be delayed because the only bid to design and build the project was hundreds of millions of dollars higher than anticipated. Earlier today, Damien Newton sat down with Gold Line Foothill Construction Authority CEO Habib Balian to discuss the causes of the delay and how it impacts the timeline of providing rail service to Montclair. Meanwhile, major construction on the extension from Glendora to Pomona wrapped up earlier this year. Bialin anticipates that Metro will announce next month the exact date that extension of the Gold Line will open to the public - probably sometime later this summer. During the podcast, Bialin uses the terms “design build” and “construction manager at risk“ to discuss the different processes that agencies and contractors can use when making agreements on how a project will proceed and who carries which liabilities. For those interested, the links on the terms above explain what those processes are. A transcript of this podcast is available after the embed of the broadcast. Streetsblog's San Gabriel Valley coverage is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the A Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places. Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays, and catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, or Overcast. Transcript: This transcript is lightly edited for clarity. Damien NewtonSince the last time we've checked in, there's been a lot of good news, and then last week we had a little bit of concerning news. So let's get the "bad stuff" out of the way, and then we can talk about where we are with the project going forward. Last week, we heard that the next phase of the extension -not the one where the construction is completed, but the next phase - is going to be delayed at least a little bit because bids did not come in as low as hoped. Can you explain what happened there and what the next steps are for the Construction Authority? Habib Balian Over the last three years, in preparation to go out to bid for the next phase of the project from Pomona to Montclair, we did our own independent cost estimate. We brought in outside estimators - people that are very well known in the industry - to look at the project, look at our design, look at the specifications, and help us foresee what a potential bidder might bid on the job. We went about this process, as any owner would, whether you're building a billion dollar light rail or remodeling the bathroom of putting some feelers out there what you think the job is going to cost. We went after it three times over the last three years. We even had Metro look over our shoulder and look at our estimates to come up with a validation of that number. And we rounded out with these estimators and Metro of a range of bids of what we thought the project was going to cost. We then started this procurement. We got some feedback during the procurement that our process to build the project using "design build" was not favorably received by the industry anymore. They don't want to take on that risk. We, as the owners, want to shove that risk off on the contractors. And that's worked very well for us over the last 20 years and the three phases of the project using design-build. But that model was getting some resistance in the building community. We also understood that a lot of potential bidders for the job would not be interested in competing with Kiewit (who had been the incumbent contractor for three consecutive projects that we built on the job from Union Station to Pasadena, Pasadena to Azusa/Glendora, and then the Azusa/Glendora border all the way to Pomona). Bidders were saying, 'Kiewit, seems to know the job so well, we may not be interested in bidding a job and competing with them, since they know it so well and probably could outbid us or underbid us.' So we were very nervous about this. Going into it, we took what we thought were very conservative precautions. We did a lot of outreach to the contracting community. We hosted these forums available for people to ask questions. And we also incentivized potential bidders with $9 million worth of recuperance of the potential bid that any work that they put into it - the design that went into this, the cost of them bidding the job, they would, as a course of a participant, be able to receive a four, three and $2 million payment for the work that they perform. Any design that they had done in furtherance of a bid that they would be able to give that to us, we would buy it from them, essentially based on their submitting a good bid that was responsive to the procurement. So even with all those incentives, Bid Day rolled around and, going into it, we knew we were only gonna have one participant. Which made us very nervous that there would be no other bids coming in. We knew that through the RFP process, and basically held our breath for a couple months until the bid came in. The bid came in, it was substantially higher than we expected, I believe, 54% higher than what our estimators and Metro thought the project would cost. We talked to them, went through a best and final offer and were not able to reach... achieve any substantial reduction in it. Then I took it to the board with the recommendation that we cancel that procurement and instead go out and re-procure through a different contracting method - CMAR (construction manager at risk, as it's known in the industry) - and proceed ahead with the project. It will be a bit of a delay, but it is a plan to get the project built, which is our mandate: to Montclair. We are starting in earnest with that procurement. It'll likely be on the street in June, and we'll be able to hire that designer and then bring on a construction management firm as well, and begin that process. And in furtherance of completing the project, with probably about a year delay we're expecting. Damien So with the year delay, could you outline what the rough timeline looks like now, to get that phase? Habib So we'll go through a procurement process beginning in June, probably June to September or October. We're nailing down the schedule right now, we will go and we'll seek a designer. That designer will engage them. That designer will complete the design, take it from our 20-30% complete and to a complete design. About midpoint of that we will start a procurement for construction manager. That construction manager will look over the shoulder and work with the designer to prepare a bid and confirm that they can build the project for our budget. So that will take about two years from now, and then that'll be a 'thumbs up or thumbs down' with that design, with that builder. If it's within our budget, we'll award the contract to them. And then from that point, it's about a four-year construction project. So roughly, 2030-31. Just as a footnote, should that builder that we bring on - the construction manager - say, 'we need more money,' or 'it's an inadequate budget,' we then have the ability of going out and soliciting a new builder for that project and hiring them and going out for construction based on a new bid. DamienSo it sounds like a lot's going on, but the plan is still to move forward and to keep going. HabibAbsolutely. The mandate of the legislature...back in 2000 they determined that the project would go from Union Station to Montclair. Just so, you know, originally [it] was supposed to only go to Claremont, and then it was later amended by the legislature to take it from Claremont to Montclair. That is our mandate. It's very important for this project to work at its maximum. And that requires it get to these hubs. And the nearest hub for this project is, in fact, getting to Montclair - to the Montclair Transit Center, the bus center. It's very important for ridership and for moving people from the Inland Empire into LA County along the Gold Line route from Montclair. DamienAlright, so that covers last week's news. But since the last time we've talked, there was some good news involving construction of the current extension, so to speak. So why don't we talk a little bit about where we are in that process, which I believe is mostly done. HabibThat's correct: mostly done. We achieved substantial completion by the contractor in early January, satisfied with their work. It was turned over to Metro for them to begin their preparations for operation. They'll start, doing their own testing and training of operators for over the next several months, with the anticipation that they will put it into service some time this summer. Metro - once they get underway with their testing fully - they'll be able to determine, probably in the May period, when they're going to announce a operations date with exactly when they're going to operate it some time this summer. DamienI said "mostly" I know your part is mostly done. It's "Metro's part" now that is still worked on. I just wanted to make it clear that when we said completed, it doesn't mean it's opening tomorrow. It's opening in probably July or August, if things go well. Habib That's correct. And just footnote to that is keyword is "still on the job." There's a long list of punch-list items that they're completing, some landscaping, some wall improvements, fare gates, something that's been a design change. Metro has come up with different fare gates system that is being retrofitted in. Our design originally didn't have them. Now it does, and they're being built as we speak, and installed. So,some of those last minute details are being done. So if any of your listeners actually go along the line and take a peek at what's going on, you're still going to see construction workers out there. There's still activity, nothing to the degree, obviously, of when construction was at full tilt. But right now, there is work going on, some cleanup activities, and handrails and fencing and gating is still going on, DamienI think we covered the two big topics on the checklist. Was there anything else you wanted to say before we before we sign off until July? Habib We're very excited about July. This is going to be very big for the San Gabriel Valley to connect further into the San Gabriel Valley, into Los Angeles, and ultimately to Long Beach. It's going to be very exciting for passengers, I think, and people are really going to enjoy this ride. It's a great system, and the stations look great. The artwork looks great. So we have a lot to show off this summer. DamienWell, we look forward to talking then and when the first phase of the extension open. I got this cool pin set, so I still have my fingers crossed to get another pin… Well, thank you very much. And we will. We'll talk again soon. Habib Okay, take care. Damien, thank you. Bye.
HEADLINES:- A Dubai Metro Gold Line Could Be On The Cards Soon - Dubai Is Distributing 150,000 Iftar Meals- Dubai Influencer Sentenced To Jail For Assaulting Police While Intoxicated- Woman Accidentally Gives AED 1000 Tip In Dubai!
Welcome to Inside Curling season numberfive…..and our twenty-second show of the 2024 –'25 season……and joining us as always will beWorld Curling Hall of Famers Kevin Martin andWarren Hansen (both Martin and Hansen aremembers of the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame,Canadian Curling Hall of Fame and the WorldCurling Hall of Fame) Before we get into today's show there issomething I have to remind you of and that is theShow Down at the Saville Presented byVolvo that is coming this April and May ANDYOU OUR LISTENER CAN REGISTER TO PLAY The first event will be the World Open TriplesChampionship, between April 4 – 6, then April 24 –27 the World Open Stick Curling Championship andit will be followed by the World Open U25 MixedDoubles. Anyone can enter to play in all ofthese events. Then the big event that willdetermine the first-ever World Junior MixedDoubles Champion that will go from May 6 –11 all at the Saville so for more info and toregister just go to www.kevinmartincurling.com andclick on Saville Showdown in the menuAnd we would like to remind you to check out ourinterviews on You Tube @insidecurling. Please take a moment to subscribe to the channel - it's the best way to show support for the show.What's Happening Around the Curling World? The Brier is on in Kelowna and wewill bring you current with what is happeningthere. We have a big announcementabout the World Junior Mixed Doubles andKevin will be telling us all about it. Announcement from Goldline lastweek about its Pursuer brush foam we willdiscuss . World Wheelchair championship ison in Stevenston, Scotland and we will take alook at what has happened so far Mailbag and What is Happening on SocialMedia. We take a look at a couple of emails aswe have received quite a few this week In The House - Joining us today from will be the coach of theNorthern Ontario team in Kelowna TeamEpping , Mike Harris Curling Moments to Remember , A lookinto curling's rich history. Each weekeither Kevin or Warren will relate back tosomething that happened in curling's past that isalways interesting. Today Kevin will bring us agreat curling moment from his many years ofcurling experiences Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Exciting developments are on the horizon in Minneapolis-St Paul. We dive into the new Gold Line BRT and its potential to redefine transit in the area, exploring its benefits and limitations compared to similar lines. • Overview of the Gold Line and its dedicated infrastructure • Comparison of Gold Line with B-Line and their operational differences • Importance of transit-oriented development along the Gold Line route • Insights into ridership expectations and community impact • Discussion on how urban planning can influence future transit projects If you enjoyed this conversation and want to help us grow, please consider supporting our show via Patreon or checking out our merch store! Send us a textSupport the show
Taj Singh, CEO, and Adam Cegielski, President of First Nordic Metals (TSX.V: FNM) (OTCQB: FNMCF), join me to discuss the new addition to their board and the 25,000 meter exploration program in 2025 at their 100% owned Paubäcken, Storjuktan, and Klippen Projects, in addition to the work going on through their JV with Agnico Eagle at Barsele. We start off having Adam outline the news released on January 22nd about the appointment of a strong board member in Mr. Henrik Lundin and a little more about his background. Mr. Lundin has 19 years of technical and business experience in the natural resource sector and has held various executive and board roles with both private and public companies in the mining and oil and gas sectors. He previously served as Chairman of Gold Line Resources Ltd., one of the predecessor companies to FNM. Next we shifted over having Tag outline the key project areas of focus for this year's exploration initiatives on their 100% controlled land, along the 100km mineralized trend along the Gold Line belt in Sweden. Paubäcken has had the most historic work completed to date with clear drill targets delineated at both the Aeda and Harpsen targets. Storjuktan has had a considerable about of base-of-till drilling and geophysics completed where there are solid drill targets set up for 2025 as well; most notably the Nippas target. Additionally, the Company has completed a base-of-till, top-of-bedrock drilling program on the 100%-owned Klippen Project, located in the southern extent of the Gold Line Belt, where depending on results, it may also receive some drilling this year. Adam then shares a bit more with listeners about their Barsele Project, and that they are awaiting the upcoming announcement in a month or so from joint venture Agnico Eagle on this year's work program. We also discuss the initiative for the upcoming listing on the Nasdaq First North Growth Market in Sweden by the end of Q1. Taj wraps us up describing the larger company vision and 2025 work strategy. If you have any questions for Taj or Adam, regarding First Nordic Metals, then please email them to me at Shad@kereport.com. In full disclosure, Shad is a shareholder of First Nordic Metals at the time of this recording. Click here to follow along with the latest news from First Nordic Metals
Happy New Year and greetingsagain everyone and welcome to this SpecialEdition of Inside Curling.Right now in Liverpool, Nova Scotia weare getting close to the end of an eventthat will determine Canada's MixedDoubles representative at the 2025World Mixed Doubles Championship inFredericton, NB This team will alsorepresent Canada at the Olympics in2026 in Italy if Canadaqualifies and we will explain.Yet, another curling team has made achange and this time on the women'sside of things as Team Chelsea Careyannounced a change in it's lineup for thebalance of the year. This team wasalready qualified for theScotties might that be impacted wewill explain. On our show we announced a few weeksago that the brushing wars were cominginto the forefront again when onemanufacturer announced they werecoming out with a new broom using afoam that had previously beendetermined to be not acceptable. Lastweek, our sponsor Goldline announced itis now producing a new broom that willbe known as the Pursuer with a similartype of foam being used and apparentlyHard Line, the third big player in thegame is in the process of doing the samething what is happening here dowe have the start of anotherBroomgate? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Taj Singh, President and CEO, and Adam Cegielski, Chief Development Officer of First Nordic Metals (TSX.V: FNM) (OTCQB: FNMCF), join me to discuss the C$10 million “bought deal” private placement, and how this sets the Company up for a strong year of exploration at their 100% owned Paubäcken, Storjuktan, and Klippen Projects, in addition to the work going on through their JV with Agnico Eagle at Barsele. We start off discussing the private placement basis 30,304,000 units of the Company at a price of C$0.33 per Offered Unit for aggregate gross proceeds to the Company of C$10,000,320, highlighting the ability to raise capital in difficult markets. This will set the company up for a robust exploration program in 2025, so we dig into the different project areas of focus on their 100% controlled land, on the 100km mineralized trend along the Gold Line belt in Sweden. Paubäcken has had the most historic work completed with clear targets delineated for next year at both the Aeda and Harpsen targets. Storjuktan has had a considerable about of base-of-till drilling and geophysics completed where there are solid drill targets set up for 2025 as well; most notably the Nippas target. Additionally, on Oct 7th the Company announced a base-of-till, top-of-bedrock drilling program on the 100%-owned Klippen Project located in the southern extent of the Gold Line Belt, and Taj and Adam walk us through the prospectivity of this newer area of focus. If you have any questions for Taj or Adam, regarding First Nordic Metals, then please email them to me at Shad@kereport.com. In full disclosure, Shad is a shareholder of First Nordic Metals at the time of this recording. Click here to follow along with the latest news from First Nordic Metals
Nearly a dozen people were arrested yesterday evening after pro-Palestinian protesters occupied a building on the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus.Metro Transit said it's expanding the new Gold Line bus rapid transit route into downtown Minneapolis.This is the evening update from MPR News. Hosted by Emily Reese. Music by Gary Meister.
We connect with First Nordic Metals CEO, Taj Singh, for an introduction into the company and a look into the company's primary asset in the Gold Line Belt of Sweden. The Company's flagship asset is the Barsele gold project. Immediately surrounding the Barsele project, FNM is the 100%-owner of a district-scale license position of close to 100,000 hectares on Gold Line belt. Taj discusses this current drill campaign and what it took to merge two companies last year to get First Nordic on track.
Daniel Buitrago & Brandon Fifield are back in the studio with special guest James & Meredith Lewis of 907 Ammo in Anchorage The Northern Hunter Podcast, Swifty in Paris, the ol'Suzuki DT40, life threatening Tar hunt in New Zealand, the 3 for 3 Ram harvest, massive ram nuts, competitive collegiate rifle shooting, James & Meredith's history, Super Typhoon Haiyan, raising a family in Alaska, a career in remote IT work, an inspiration to start 907 AMMO, TCB Solutions, Supporting veterans, support by the community, most popular calibers, 9mm Blackhills Ammo “Honey Badger” the Gold Line, ammo brand selection, Supervel Ammo, running through the ammo cycle, the challenges of online ordering and shipping ammo, 10mm vs the 44 mag, Graphic Violence, Visit our Website - www.alaskawildproject.com Follow us on Instagram - www.instagram.com/alaskawildproject Watch on YouTube - www.youtube.com/@alaskawildproject $upport on Patreon - www.patreon.com/alaskawildproject
Erik Wetterling, Founder and Editor of The Hedgeless Horseman website, joins me to discuss three junior gold exploration companies with recent news out to the market; where he is attracted to the current value proposition. First Nordic Metals Corp. (TSXV: FNM) (OTCQB: FNMCF) announced on September 9 an exploration update on its 100%-owned Storjuktan project located on the Gold Line belt, northern Sweden. We discuss how this Storjuktan Project along with the Paubäcken project represent the kinds of blue-sky upside along the 100km of strike, while the Barsele gold project, with significant gold resources underpins the current value of the company. Headwater Gold (CSE: HWG) (OTCQB: HWAUF) announced on Sept 9th that the Company and Centerra Gold Inc. have agreed to a strategic investment under which Centerra will acquire 9.9% of the issued and outstanding common shares of the Company. Erik was surprised that their recent news of staking the two new projects in Nevada, that we discussed last week, or this news of bringing in a larger producer as a strategic investor didn't do much to change the company valuation and just speaks to the sentiment environment we are still in. Amex Exploration Inc. (TSXV: AMX) (OTCQX: AMXEF) announced September 5th, that it has completed a Mineral Resource Estimate ("MRE") on the company's flagship Perron Project in the northwestern Abitibi region of Quebec. The MRE showed open pit and underground stope constrained 594,100 of measured and indicated ounces at 4.28 g/t Au and 1,049,650 of inferred ounces at 3.80 g/t Au, for a total of 1.6Million ounces of gold in all categories. The stock sold off by over 40% initially, and then over 50% since releasing this resource estimate, and we discussed the potential overreaction by the market that was expecting a larger MRE and the potential value arbitrage. * In full disclosure, the companies mentioned by Erik in this interview, are positions held in his personal portfolio, and also may be site sponsors of The Hedgeless Horseman website at the time of this recording. * In full disclosure, Shad is also a shareholder of Amex Exploration at the time of this recording. Click here to visit Erik's site – The Hedgeless Horseman
Taj Singh, President and CEO, and Adam Cegielski, Chief Development Officer of First Nordic Metals (TSX.V: FNM) (OTCQB: FNMCF), join me to discuss the specifics on a few recent news updates announced to the market: FNM enters into an agreement to finalize the acquisition of the Oijärvi Gold Project in Finland, which includes the resource-stage Kylmäkangas gold deposit, a drill-ready, high-grade gold project with significant resource expansion and district-scale growth potential. Agnico Eagle to become a 13.3% shareholder of FNM. Already one of the largest mineral claimholders in Sweden with a controlling position on the Gold Line Belt, FNM continues to build its business in both Sweden and Finland with the control of 2 different greenstone belts in Scandinavia an aim of being a premier European gold developer. With regards to Sweden, the Company holds a 100,000-hectare district-scale position covering almost the entire Gold Line belt and a significant portion of the Skellefte VMS (volcanogenic massive sulphide) belt and covering a +100km belt position of regional first-order structural corridors. The majority of defined resources are at their flagship Barsele Gold Project with 2.4 Moz gold (NI-43101, all categories), in a JV with Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. Additionally, the exploration team has defined two other mineralized trends, each over 5kms, the Paubäcken Project and the Storjuktan Project, that both Adam and Taj provide exploration updates on. We also discuss how the in-the-money warrants have been starting to get exercised by investors, almost like a no-fee financing, bringing in more capital to the company to fund exploration this year, with more expected to be exercised moving forward. First Nordic Metals is also preparing to list it's shares on the Stockholm exchange, and that will be another driver of liquidity slated for this year. If you have any questions for Taj or Adam, regarding First Nordic Metals, then please email them to me at Shad@kereport.com. Click here to follow the most recent news from First Nordic Metals
I am joined by Taj Singh, President and CEO, and Adam Cegielski, Chief Development Officer of First Nordic Metals (TSX.V: FNM) (OTCQB: FNMCF), to introduce the new pro-forma Company. We review how the Barsele / Gold Line merger came together last month, to create a combined company with a leading gold portfolio; underpinned by the advanced stage Barsele Gold Project and one of the largest consolidated gold exploration portfolios in Scandinavia, both in Sweden and in Finland. The flagship of the portfolio is the 2.4 Moz Au Barsele Gold Project (NI-43101, all categories), in a JV with Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd.; and the 100% ownership of 100 km of strike along the Gold Line Belt surrounding Barsele Project. There are multiple exploration targets already identified, that have had significant work in the past, and a high potential for new discoveries. The Company holds a 100,000-hectare district-scale position in Sweden covering almost the entire Gold Line belt and a significant portion of the Skellefte VMS (volcanogenic massive sulphide) belt and covering a +100km belt position of regional first-order structural corridors. We discuss how this area of Sweden is a great mining jurisdiction, with proximity to multiple active mines, and just a few kilometers from a recently permitted gold mine. Adam also points out that the government has been making many positive changes to advance mineral exploration, development, and production in Sweden. Taj and Adam highlight the potential for drilling at depth atthe Barsele Gold Project, as well as a number of targets regionally around the main resource area. Additionally they review other prospective exploration targets, that have seen prior work, along the broader mineralized Gold Line Belt. We have both Taj and Adam outline their backgrounds in the mining industry as well as other members of the board and management team, highlighting a technically focused and capital markets driven executive team, with decades of natural resources and mining experience. Wrapping up we get into the capital structure, key stakeholders, and financial setup of the company. If you have any questions for Taj or Adam, regarding First Nordic Metals, then please email them to me at Shad@kereport.com. Click here to follow the latest news at First Nordic Metals
In this Evolutionary.org Hardcore Podcast for iTunes episode your hosts Stevesmi and Da Mobster from the UK Iron Den discuss - Euro Pharma Gold line Discontinued, Classic Blue Line back • Why Euro Pharma is one our our go to sources? • Why both the gold line and classic blue line has their fans • How few Gold Line products are still available • Stevesmi and Mobster discuss the whole The Classic Blue and Gold line s • Why if you love the gold line you gotta stock up asap!! Link to articles: https://www.evolutionary.org/euro-pharma-in-the-new-year-2024-psl Link to Evo threads: 1. https://www.evolutionary.org/forums/threads/psl-ep-goldli 2. https://www.evolutionary.org/forums/threads/psl-the-gold-line-is-being-discontinued-get-it-on-sale-right-now-before-it-s-gone-psl.97848/post-1478742 3. https://www.evolutionary.org/forums/threads/new-15ml-tren-ace-from-euro-pharmacies-trenbolone-acetate-at-psl.98224/ 4. https://www.evolutionary.org/forums/threads/new-lab-test-results-trenbolone-enanthate-150-mg-ml-15ml-vial-euro-pharmacies.98218/ 5. https://www.evolutionary.org/forums/threads/trenbolone-enanthate-150-mg-ml-15ml-vial-euro-pharmacies-new-lab-test-results.98227/ For 1-on-1 coaching/consultation/source help start conversation by contacting Stevesmi at: https://www.elitefitness.com/forum/members/stevesmi.219851/ or https://www.evolutionary.org/forums/members/stevesmi.85/ Where to get blood tests: https://www.evolutionary.org/forums/source-talk/bloodwork-private- d-5695.html Please note we're not doctors and the opinions are ours. It's our view and is based on our experience and views on the topic. Our Podcasts are for informational purposes and entertainment only. The Freedom of speech and the 1st amendment applies
"I Am a Woman of Almost 62 Years Old," writes Carla Sameth in one of the confessional poems from her courageous and nuanced full-length collection, Secondary Inspections, released in January 2024. For a voice this introspective and self-aware, Sameth's writing pours itself into the people around her--her biracial Black son and a mother succumbing to dementia as well as siblings, lovers, and her wife becoming her husband. As Eduardo C. Corral notes about Carla's work, "Blossoming and decay are the twin forces in these powerful poems. Addiction, death, raising a child blessed with more than one story, and queerness are the threads woven throughout the book, but they also vibrate with their own particular music." Particular, yes, but always leaning into the shared experience, several of these poems, such as "Love Letter to a Burning World," and "June 2020," decipher the intersecting perplexities of the pandemic, the intensification of racial unrest, and the fires--literal and figurative--that raged around us during that season. Sameth's gaze shrinks from none of the distress but does not linger in the emotions, arresting us instead with a captivating image or wry undertone. She says of her family, "We used to argue over the hearts and gizzards; now no one wants those parts." "Secondary Inspections invites us to take a second look at what we thought we knew and shows us how things are not always what they seem—identity can be questioned, provoke danger, and leave us impacted by how others see us; the bedrock of a family can be forever shifting and we too shift along with it. Through powerful narrative and vivid imagery, Sameth's poetry travels, searches, stumbles, and ultimately, returns. Even amidst heart-staggering moments, she reveals a rich cultural life that is both within, and that is further made possible by deeply being in the places you love with the people you love" (carlasameth.com). Carla Rachel Sameth is the co-poet laureate of Altadena (2022-2024) and a Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets. Her chapbook, What Is Left was published in December 2021 with Dancing Girl Press. Her memoir, One Day on the Gold Line was reissued by Golden Foothills Press in December 2022. Her work has been selected three times as Notable Essays of the Year in Best American Essays. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. a Pasadena Rose Poet, a West Hollywood Pride Poet, and a former PEN Teaching Artist, Carla has taught creative writing to high school and university students, incarcerated youth and other diverse communities. Listen to Carla read her poems and talk candidly with Geneffa about the experiences that informed them--a conversation relatable to those who are mothers or have otherwise had to learn to embrace while letting go. Secondary Inspections is now available for order.
This week's SGV Connect podcast is a special episode where the Streetsblog San Gabriel Valley team, Chris Greenspon, Joe Linton and Damien Newton, sit down and discuss the great success that was ArroyoFest 2023. All three were at the event but experienced it differently with Linton and his family biking the route, Newton completing the "Run the 110" 10k race and Greenspon walking along the 110 later in the morning. Of course, this is Streetsblog so we also discuss what the success of the event could mean for future open streets and open freeway events in the region and Newton even dreams of permanent freeway closures and replacements. A lightly edited transcript of the podcast appears after audio links. There's also one correction that's noted in the transcript but not the audio. At one point Newton states there were 1,700 people that completed the race. The number is actually over 4,000. SGV Connect is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the new Gold Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.” Catch past episodes of SGV Connect and #DamienTalks on LibSyn, iTunes, Google Play, or Overcast. Transcript: (Note: Text in italics is audio that was taken during ArroyoFest itself.) Chris Greenspon 0:09 Hi, it's Chris Greenspon You're listening to SGV Connect #120, our ArroyoFest after special. We're going to take you through our experience. We all did a different mode of transportation there. And we all recorded some on site narration of the things we were experiencing, seeing and hearing. You're gonna hear that kind of audio laced into the episode throughout. So anyway, Damian hit us with that ad copy. Damien Newton 0:34 Oh, right. Well, this and every episode of SGV Connect is sponsored by Foothill Transit. Offering car free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to go Gold Line Stations across the Foothill and the Silver Streak into downtown Los Angeles. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit at Foothill transit.org Foothill Transit! Going good places. Joe Linton 0:53 This is Streetsblog editor Joe Linton, reporting from the off ramp to the Avenue 60. On the 110 freeway on the morning of ArroyoFest. My daughter and I are here got up at the crack of dawn. It's colder than I thought it'd be but it's warming up, I can see the sun arriving. And it's not quite crowded yet with cyclists but there are definitely 10s...probably hundreds of cyclists. Damien Newton 1:26 Alright, so I am near the starting line now. And there are 1000s of people in front of me and we are 18 minutes away from the start. So this is going to be a pretty pretty big race, maybe the biggest 10k I've done attendance wise. I do look forward to seeing the final numbers for this, this is going to be a big, well attended race. Chris Greenspon 1:53 I'm walking towards the 110 on Orange Grove Avenue just past the cover band and a row of porta potties. Both are always an encouraging sight and sound at these open streets events. We're about to get on the 110. And now let's talk about what we and so many other people have glowingly said about ArroyoFest, Joe. Joe Linton 2:19 Yeah, I think I mean, this is some people have been saying this online, but I think it really had some of the energy of the of the very first open streets event in Southern California. I mean, actually ArroyoFest 2003 is sometimes as good as that. But CicLAvia itself started in 2010. And people didn't know what to expect. And just you know, 10s of 1000s of people, more than 50,000 people showed up and it was downright crowded. With bicycles, the walk side, you guys can probably speak to that but wasn't wasn't quite as crowded early on. It wasn't quite as crowded. But it really got to a point on the freeway, you know, where three lanes of three car lanes wasn't enough to hold lots of cyclist wishing by so there was a lot of slowing down and, y navigating space with other human beings, the things people do in cities around the world every day. Chris Greenspon 3:16 Yeah, it's almost like it should have been widened. Damien, what did you make of the vibe out there? And that was in jest, SGV Connect devotees? Please, Damien, and take over. Damien Newton 3:27 Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Chris, almost giving me a heart attack before you put the microphone out. Maybe if we had extended it instead of widening it. Anyway, usually when I do these types of events, I'm doing that with my family who is completely bored of hearing me drone on and on about the benefits for open streets events, or I'm doing them with other activists. So this was new for me, because I'm doing it with running groups, not just like my friends that run but like surrounded by people, and it was a different discussion. No one was talking about the broader impacts it was more "oh, it's gonna be cool, we get to run on the freeway." It was pretty much a vibe. But then when we were actually out there running there were "Oh, this is cool." There were people way more people stopping to take selfies, and I was...depending how you view it...I was either at the back of the fast group or the front of the middle group timewise. And so I was around people that were serious runners, and they were stopping and taking pictures. They were talking about how cool it was they were they were doing this race. This is not normal conversation for a race unless you're in like a themed race like a Disney Race or a Rose Bowl Race or something like that, where you're in a unique environment. And that's what it was. It was a unique environment. And if you're not a runner, most five and 10 k's are on streets that are closed. That's just that's how they do them. You're in downtown or you're in the west side or your wherever it is a lot of it's on the road...but on the freeway had a very different feel for people and you saw I see way more pictures from other runners than I'm used to for these types of events. Usually pictures are at the start of the end with your friends. They're not in the middle of the race. Joe Linton 4:55 Damien, can you can you talk about a little bit about like so what was the route? Also, I think something that's unusual on runs to is that they gave people tap cards right and forced you guys onto the train. So talk about like, where it started and where it ended and how it basically worked. Damien Newton 5:13 Well, it started. I'm about 200 yards away from the South Pasadena station and we ran onto the freeway. We actually ran north for a little bit just so that we could I guess, be at exactly 10k..runners don't want a 9.8k medal. So then we turned around and ran basically south to the end. And it ended at the activity center at the south end of the route. Joe Linton 5:32 Yeah, which is in the Lincoln Heights right? Cypress Park, close to Dodger Stadium. Damien Newton 5:38 It was. One of the theories that I had as to why...there was a lot of discussion online that we'll get into is...why are we doing this only until 11. I was like, well, when they were planning this, they didn't know if the Dodgers were going to be in the World Series. And that was probably part of it. I mean, it'd be really hard to have a Dodgers World Series game and have a chunk of the 110 close until just a couple hours before the game starts. I was thinking that that might have played into that decision making but yeah, it was right there. And a lot of runners got on the Gold Line to get there because between the heavily heavily heavily advertised lack of parking...I probably got an email from the Ron the 110 every day in the week before telling me not to bother to drive and park. Between that and the free tap cards not just free. tab cards unique tab cards, all I can show mine off to the people in the room with me. I would guess almost everybody that ran took Metro to get there. Joe Linton 6:29 And what was the run? Like? Was it quiet? Was it loud? Was it fast? What's what was what was actually being out there running on a freeway? What was your experience? Chris Greenspon 6:39 And downhill at that? Damien Newton 6:40 Well, I was gonna mention the downhill because I've well stated on this podcast and elsewhere, I was in a Halloween costume. And I was not expecting to have my strongest race day. But I did really well in large part because it was downhill. Also, I ran into one of my run partners who's in a lot better shape than me and she dragged me along with her. So that helps too. But yeah, it was a lot of it was downhill. There was more talking than usual on the race. But I mean, other than that, it was quiet. And I think the talking was people going "oh, wow, this is cool." Which I actually said a few times out loud to the people I was running with. My friend Juanna who I was out with, we talked about how this was like a really cool race. And she's the type of person that does like 40 mile races and stuff like that, like, you know, my marathons are wimpy. And she was like, "No, this race is fantastic. This is one I'm gonna remember." Joe Linton 7:31 The freeway is so crowded. Lots and lots, hundreds 1000s of bikes, people on bikes, escapes, wheelchairs, scooters, more people arriving by the minute. Chris Greenspon 7:46 Now this is a sight, we're finally coming down into the much more green area of the 110 just got under a bridge then of course, down straight away in the distance. You see Mount Washington, people waving Joe Linton 8:03 People getting lost people find each other. And it's it's I think it's one of the most crowded open streets events I've ever seen. And the walk side is just as crowded as the bike side. Damien Newton 8:14 Okay, so I am done the race. I have done the festival I have seen there were 1741 people registered for the 10k. (Note, this is wrong, there were 1741 people that had finnished the race when I checked my times on the app. There were actually over 4,000 people that ran the race). Of course, we saw plenty of people running along the route that were not signed up, which is great. You know, I wanted my fancy medal but not everybody does. And it was a it was a great time. It really was a unique experience. Got a lot of great pictures. A lot of fond memories. Hope I get to do this again before I'm 65. Now I'm gonna go back out and walk the route a little bit. Chris Greenspon 8:48 Okay, so now do you want to go into the wrinkles? of the show of the whole event? Joe Linton 8:54 Yeah, just some of the buzz online. A concern raised by some cyclist was...advocates...on you're not some cyclists called it a shitshow some some called the dangerous. There were a lot of crashes of cyclists here and there. I mean, and when I say a lot, it's probably, you know, 50,000 cyclists and you know, two dozen of them maybe fell or something. I should say 50,000 participants probably. That's a guess. But certainly 10s of 1000s of folks participating in any event and I'd say more than half of those. probably more than two thirds of those, would be bicyclists. So probably 30-40-50,000 bicyclists. I think that we we don't share space that well in Southern California and that's drivers, bicyclists, pedestrians, people taking transit. We're not used to these spaces where there's lots of people, and everyone's moving, and we need to really look out for each other. I talked to my daughter, "You need to know who's behind you and who's in front of you." You know? Every day on Southern California freeway's one or more people die. The freeway was safer than you know, every day in Southern California. But I think there were a lot of small scale crashes and probably a few broken bones. And anybody else want to touch on that? Chris Greenspon 10:35 I would say? One thing that maybe should have been a hard rule would have been none of the three wheeled scooters with the two in front. maybe I'm misunderstanding physics here, but it seems like those were easier to tip forward. I saw at least three or four kids fall straight forward onto the freeway. With those again, the the really flimsy three wheeled scooters, as opposed to like some of the more modern razors that look like they're set up pretty stable. What about you, Damien, did you observe any precociousness or precariousness? Speaker 2 11:10 Well, again, I was in a really different situation, almost a controlled environment as you're gonna get in that sort of event where you know, everybody was running. So there wasn't a lot.. I mean, we did see a person trip. But like, that's not unusual. I will say when, in the early morning when you're running, even if you're running fast on the southbound side, you're watching the bicyclists zip pass on the northbound side, some of them pretty fast. It wasn't very crowded yet. We were very happy for that separation. And I know some of the people that ran back the other way that I talked to afterwards said the same thing like that separation was great. As far as the people on two feet instead of two wheels were concerned...you two wheeled menaces you. So it was great. As far as we thought on foot. We didn't have the "Oh no, we're too crowded." It was like up there they are over there going much faster than we are. Chris Greenspon 12:01 Towards the end, I did see a few bikes on the walking side. Joe Linton 12:05 Yeah, I wondered that too:the speed differential. And so you had, four year olds on bikes with training wheels, and what they call MAMILS, middle aged men in lycra, fancy road bikes trying to get their miles in. And I think that there probably could have been some notice to...I hate to second guess the organizers did an awesome job...and this is sort of reaching for criticism, but it's sort of slow cyclists on one side. If you're going less than eight miles an hour or something, you're welcome to be on the walk side. If you're willing to be really chill. It's kind of like bicycling on a sidewalk in LA. It's often a good choice, if you're willing to slow down. And if, if you want to go fast, it doesn't really make sense. Anyway, I hate to dwell on the small number of crashes with the so many people and so many smiles and people what was fun as event got going. So there's a concrete barrier that's maybe three, two or three feet wide at the top. And a lot of people were climbing up on the barrier and shooting selfies and getting the pictures of the freeway signs, Downtown to your right or whatever. It was really was a great vibe. It was it was fun to be in that space. And it's something where I think, "every CicLAvia is fun for me." And it's sort of like church. I had my great Sunday's whatever. And yet, there was a feeling at ArroyoFest, sort of like the first CicLAvia, that this was something big and new, and actually media wise, that has borne out. Open streets now under especially funded under Metro, there's maybe a dozen a year. Not quite one a month, but they rarely make the news. And this one, we got front page coverage in the LA Times lots of gorgeous photos. And TV news covered it. And how was your feed? Every other thing on my Instagram and Facebook was people's people's photos at this event. So it felt like it felt like a real happening and a real newsworthy thing. And not just another sequel?. Chris Greenspon 14:36 I think considering that. It was the first time that probably almost anybody...the majority of the people who participated ever got to do a thing like that go hang out on the freeway. The turnout scale was bound to be legendary. And with that considered, I think safety wise, it actually went pretty well. And honestly It was kind of nice that despite the like you said, the proliferation of media coverage, it was nice to go do something like this. And I didn't see a single TV camera the whole time. And I guess it feels like you can be more yourself. Maybe that was what I liked most about it. The sense of isolation, even though obviously, there was 10s of 1000s of people. It felt like being in another place in another world at times. Joe Linton 15:28 Yeah, it does. I mean, the quiet in the middle of the city in a space like that, it did feel kind of uncanny in some way. So let's talk about the future. I'm going to preface this with in 2009, everybody was like "CicLAvia will never work in Los Angeles" In 2010, we did it! I was one of the people who was working on the first one, although there were a lot of people doing it. I'm not the author. But I'm one of the one of the folks. And I think there was a sense after CicLAvia that, "This changes everything. We've demonstrated that if you build it, they will come." And yet, here we are, you know, a decade later. And I think less has changed than I would have hoped for at the time. So what's the implications for the future for this event? Chris Greenspon 16:18 So I think this, without a doubt has to raise Active SGV's credibility with the entire San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments Consortium. I mean, they're already very well regarded. But in the towns where they haven't really done much yet. I think this gives them if not a blank check, a very, very, very strong resume point. I mean, being having a successful event on the cover of the LA Times makes me wonder whether we might see an event on on Temple, in La Puente,, in Baldwin Park over to Walnut. That's something I would enjoy personally. But I can't imagine that we will not be seeing more Active SGV open streets events, especially along the L line as those continued to complete in the coming years. Joe Linton 17:06 So I do think that yes, it will make Active SGV, who did a phenomenal job, getting all the permits and organizing them in and bringing it all together. I think it'll make them more in demand for doing 66 Golden Streets. Communities can see this, the success and the happiness of stuff like this and ask for more open streets. But I also wonder, going beyond events to permanent treatments of public space. I think that car free space is at such a premium in Los Angeles. And people go to malls and the beach and stuff like that. And they have this experience of sharing space. And I think we need to look at our downtowns, Los Angeles, of course, but Pasadena and all the you know, these A Line stations. You guys call it the L Line, I call it the A Line or the Gold Line. I think we do need to look at instead of, you know, widening streets and building massive parking structures around our transit stations, to look at where can we do Paseos and bike facilities and shared space that we keep cars out of that people can come together in? That's what I hope grows out of it. I think we've accepted, "we" being Southern California, we've accepted that we can come together for CicLAvia you know, for 626 Golden Streets, for ArroyoFest, once a month, twice a month, but I think we do need to look to can we do this, if not 24/7, even weekends. Why don't we close a few blocks of a street in historic downtown area in Arcadia for example. But why don't we do that, you know, every weekend for two months during the summer or something like that. So why don't we make this space proliferate? And if it's too hard to close the street permanently? Can we do it all weekend? Can we do it for a season? Can we do it for four Sundays in a month or something like that? So I think there's kind of so I'm talking about there's kind of two ends of the open street spectrum: one is massive event like Heart of LA orArroyoFest, you know, close and iconic area, bring lots and lots of people. But I think the other end is important too. It's a little bit more like a farmers market. Can we take an area and actually I mean, the folks you've written about...the Complete Streets plan in El Monte... and looking at revitalizing some of the downtown areas that are having trouble drawing in customers. Activate that space by keeping cars out of it, and bringing music and vendors and people into it. And I don't know I say all this and I'm not, I don't want to be naive that that's an easy task. That's against the grain of what of what we do in Southern California. But these carfree spaces are really are important, are precious, and are perhaps the future of bringing people together. Chris Greenspon 20:37 What I want to go out on is...nonstop we were hearing leading up to this, you know, in our previous interview with Marcus and Robert, about the history of ArroyoFest and people were saying, you know, just regular everyday people were saying, "Oh, who knows this isn't going to happen again, for 20 years." That joke certainly got beaten to death. But I'm wondering in your seasoned opinions. Do you think that within a more reasonable timeframe, we can do an open freeway event again, maybe not on the 110? And if so, where would you suggest but do you think it's within grasp? Joe Linton 21:16 Yeah, I mean, I think the wild rousing success of ArroyoFest says there's an appetite for this, that this is a fun thing, and that Angelenos will show up. I think you need to pick a freeway that's close to transit. A lot of freeways are really boring spaces that I think the Arroyo Seco Parkway, the 110 Freeway between downtown and Pasadena is probably head and shoulders, the most picturesque freeway on the west coast...maybe not the west coast, but certainly in Southern California. But I think you have to pick it well. I think you can't just say, "Hey, we're gonna close the, the 405 in Westwood, everybody show up." There's folks thinking about this at Active SGV at CicLAvia that could probably figure out where, where it makes sense to do it. But it is very difficult to work with Caltrans to repurpose Caltrans space for anything other than lots and lots of cars all the time. And I think there there are glimmers of change at that. But when you do a bike path project, and it takes three inches of Caltrans space away, it takes decades to get that project approved. And I think some of that's changing, but I mean, hopefully the success of a royal fast helps pull Caltrans into a more multimodal acceptance of this sorts of shared space. But I've perhaps been in the trenches too long to expect that we'll see ArroyoFest three anytime soon, and that we'll see other open streets events on freeways soon, but I hope I'm wrong. Damien Newton 23:03 Well, and there's the holy grail to have a freeway closure. I mean, on the west side, we had the 90 freeway debate briefly. We talked about possibly doing a study and the local advocacy group Streets for All was his was trying to get a federal grant to do a study and everyone seemed on board with it. And then a couple of neighborhood councils found out about it and flipped out because that's the role of our neighborhood council system to flip out and stop good things from happening. And they were successful. The mayor was, I believe one person said it might have been Ted Rogers, that she was "for it before she was against it." And she came out against it. And these freeway closures, though that I mean...that's after CicLAvia for a couple of years, we had pretty good momentum and building bike infrastructure. And as far as I mean, some of it was Sharrows. But 2010 We were happy just to get Sharrows some places. You know, Villaraigosa had, Mayor Villaraigosa the mayor of LA, had a goal for 200 miles of bike infrastructure year, including those dastardly sharrows. But still, it was happening and there was momentum and for whatever reason, maybe it's Villaraigosa got rid of the low hanging fruit. Maybe it's because Garcetti was too tactical, but that momentum really stalled and fizzled during the Garcetti years. So is the momentum here to do another ArroyoFest? Or is the momentum to go that big next step and look at the freeways that aren't seeing huge volumes of traffic, aren't seeing a regular influx of cars and say, "do we need this or can we do something else with this land?" The 90 may be off the table now, thanks to some crazy angry people. But they've been entirely... Joe Linton 24:36 ...It does look like it lost a lot of momentum. But I don't think it's a shut book just yet. Speaker 2 24:42 That's exciting for me. But, you know, the battle over the 710 extension was was decades and I think that ArroyoFest shows that maybe we don't need those freeways, especially the ones that aren't your commuter freeways. And that's a lot of land to do something else with. They always say, "we're not growing more land or making more land," but we kind of can if we repurpose land that's not being utilized to the best extent that it is. Chris Greenspon 25:06 Well, that's a fabulous note to go out on. Joe Linton 25:09 Well, actually one one more closing note. I heard at least a few folks showed up at a row fest that was their first open streets event. So there are regular open streets events, and the next one coming up is in South LA on Martin Luther King Boulevard, the date is December. Damien Newton 25:30 I think it's the 3rd but I'm looking at I think it's December 3, but I'm just double checking it, but it's definitely the first Sunday in December. Joe Linton 25:36 Yes, the first time in December. We think it's December 3 on Martin Luther King Boulevard in South LA. So check them out there. They're always a treat. And I think they do give you a sense of what NLA that's less totally festooned with cars might look like. Chris Greenspon 25:54 All right, well, that wraps us up for SGV Connect 120. In the meantime, listen to these sounds of ArroyoFest. Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Getting set for the Gamecock vs Bulldogs out at Gold Line Framing in West Columbia. The Gamecock Central Takeover Hour is presented by Firehouse Subs and airs from 11 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday, on 107.5 The Game. The best Gamecock sports and recruiting coverage is found at GamecockCentral.com Connect with GamecockCentral.com: • Newsletters • YouTube • Twitter • Facebook • Instagram Established in 1998, GamecockCentral.com is a fully-credentialed online media publication that provides insider and in-depth coverage of South Carolina Gamecocks football, basketball, baseball, and recruiting Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
#77: Brian's out today, so we're revisiting that time Evan took Meg on his bike route to work... and explored what it looks like to live Car-Free in Los Angeles. Please note, the Gold Line, as reference in this podcast, has been renamed the A Line. Lots of Angelinos live without a car – and hundreds of thousands of people here don't use a car in their daily commute. But... it is definitely NOT the norm. HTLA Producer Evan Jacoby recently joined the car-less when he switched to a bike last fall. Today, he's showing fellow producer Megan Botel his work commute. And they're talking with people across LA about how limiting their car use, or even going car-free, changed their lives for the better. Guests: Journalist Ryan Fonseca and carless citizens Fabian Santiago, Sahian Huesca, & Andrew McLeod
COVID-19 numbers are on the rise. A Charlotte City Council committee recommends an esports, concert venue and soccer fields proposal for the Eastland Yards site. And Queen Bey takes on the Queen City. Those stories and more.
The guys are joined by Pete Townshend (Goldline CEO) and Andrew Brett (VP of Goldline) to talk about how they got involved with Goldline (1:00), the international growth of curling, the head protection options that Goldline offers, they preview some new products coming out next year and they talk about how the Goldline crew got Kevin's daughter across the border!They get into the mailbag Jim (27:00) and we learn how Jim got the name “Jungle Jim”. Warren gives a few examples of curling in Canada being slow to adopt new rules over the years, including banning smoking on the ice! (36:40)In What's Happening Around the Curling World, the boys discuss the retirement of German curler Daniela Jentsch (42:10), talk about the recent European Div C Championships (43:40). In What Are You Hearing, the guys talk about the concept of not allowing stopwatches on the ice (53:00).This podcast is produced by Warren Hansen & Kevin Martin, recorded and mixed by Mike Rogerson, and hosted by Kevin Martin, Warren Hansen and Jim Jerome.Contact the podcast -- insidecurling@gmail.comThe views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Sports & Media or any affiliates.
#104: Gloria Molina was a trailblazing political figure and advocate for social justice. She made history as the first Latina to be elected to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, and she represented so much for the Latino community, and for Los Angeles as a whole. She spent her career fighting for environmental injustice in East LA, for women who underwent unauthorized sterilization at the county hospital, or to ensure the construction of the Gold Line for East LA. But she was also an artist, a quilter… and the stitching group she founded in East LA has achieved international recognition.She passed away earlier this week. Today, we remember Gloria at La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, which she helped found.
On this week's Let's Talk Dispatch episode, John Barney, co-founder of Gold Line Support and new director of Turarosa Basin Regional Dispatch Authority. John and I discussed their journey, non-profit, and exciting role as director of a brand-new center!Thank you for listening to Let's Talk Dispatch! Don't forget to subscribe and leave a 5 Star Review!Follow Us on Social Media Instagram | Follow Here! Facebook | Follow Here!Youtube | Subscribe Here! Interested in being on an Episode of Let's Talk Dispatch?Sign Up Here | Be My Next Guest!Find additional resources and Dispatch Merch at:Theraspydispatcher.com
Matthew Morales boarded the Metro Red Line at MacArthur Park as classical music blared over the station loudspeakers.It was rush hour on a Tuesday afternoon, and Morales made his way to a back corner seat and unfolded a tiny piece of foil with several blue shards of fentanyl. As the train started west, he heated the aluminum with a lighter and sucked in the smoke through a pipe fashioned from a ballpoint pen.Doors opened and closed. A few passengers filed in and out. A grain of the opioid fell to the floor. He concentrated on trying to pick it up, then lost track, as his body went limp. His shoulders slumped and he slowly keeled forward.By the time the train arrived at the Wilshire/Western station, Morales, 29, was doubled over and near motionless, his hand on the floor. The train operator walked out of the cabin, barely glancing at him as she passed — as if she encountered such scenes all the time.Drug use is rampant in the Metro system. Since January, 22 people have died on Metro buses and trains, mostly from suspected overdoses — more people than all of 2022. Serious crimes soared 24% last year compared with the previous."Horror." That's how one train operator recently described the scenes he sees daily. He declined to use his name because he was not authorized to talk to the media.Earlier that day, as he drove the Red Line subway, he saw a man masturbating in his seat and several of what he calls sleepers, people who get high and nod off on the train."We don't even see any businesspeople anymore. We don't see anybody going to Universal. It's just people who have no other choice (than) to ride the system, homeless people and drug users."Commuters have abandoned large swaths of the Metro train system. Even before the pandemic, ridership in the region was never as high as other big-city rail systems. For January, ridership on the Gold Line was 30% of the prepandemic levels, and the Red Line was 56% of them. The new $2.1 billion Crenshaw Line that officials tout as a bright spot with little crime had fewer than 2,100 average weekday boardings that month.Few stations compare with MacArthur Park/Westlake. The station sits next to an open-air drug market that's existed in this dense immigrant neighborhood for decades. About 22,000 people board the trains here daily.Support the showSign Up For Exclusive Episodes At: https://reasonabletv.com/LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for new videos every day. https://www.youtube.com/c/NewsForReasonablePeople
Gold Line Resources (TSXV: GLDL | OTCQB: TLLZF) CEO and Director Adam Cegielski shares the highlights of the initial drilling results at the Paubäcken Project in Sweden, their next targets, and how they plan to mitigate risks. Adam shares bonus insights on what investors should look forward to in 2023 and the years to come.
Ursula Villarreal-Moura is the author of Math for the Self-Crippling (2022), selected by Zinzi Clemmons as the Gold Line Press fiction contest winner, and Like Happiness (forthcoming with Celadon Books). A graduate of Middlebury College, she received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and was a VONA/Voices fellow. Her stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous magazines including Tin House, Catapult, Prairie Schooner, Midnight Breakfast, Washington Square, Story, Bennington Review, Wigleaf Top 50, and Gulf Coast. She contributed to Forward: 21st Century Flash Fiction, a flash anthology by writers of color, and in 2012, she won the CutBank Big Fish Flash Fiction/Prose Poetry Contest. Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, a Pushcart Prize, and longlisted for Best American Short Stories 2015. Recommended Books: Victor LaValle, The Ballad of Black Tom Patricia Highsmith, Deep Water Billy Ray-Belcourt, A Minor Chorus Alejandro Varela, The Town of Babylon Evie Wyld, The Bass Rock Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ursula Villarreal-Moura is the author of Math for the Self-Crippling (2022), selected by Zinzi Clemmons as the Gold Line Press fiction contest winner, and Like Happiness (forthcoming with Celadon Books). A graduate of Middlebury College, she received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and was a VONA/Voices fellow. Her stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous magazines including Tin House, Catapult, Prairie Schooner, Midnight Breakfast, Washington Square, Story, Bennington Review, Wigleaf Top 50, and Gulf Coast. She contributed to Forward: 21st Century Flash Fiction, a flash anthology by writers of color, and in 2012, she won the CutBank Big Fish Flash Fiction/Prose Poetry Contest. Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, a Pushcart Prize, and longlisted for Best American Short Stories 2015. Recommended Books: Victor LaValle, The Ballad of Black Tom Patricia Highsmith, Deep Water Billy Ray-Belcourt, A Minor Chorus Alejandro Varela, The Town of Babylon Evie Wyld, The Bass Rock Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Ursula Villarreal-Moura is the author of Math for the Self-Crippling (2022), selected by Zinzi Clemmons as the Gold Line Press fiction contest winner, and Like Happiness (forthcoming with Celadon Books). A graduate of Middlebury College, she received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and was a VONA/Voices fellow. Her stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous magazines including Tin House, Catapult, Prairie Schooner, Midnight Breakfast, Washington Square, Story, Bennington Review, Wigleaf Top 50, and Gulf Coast. She contributed to Forward: 21st Century Flash Fiction, a flash anthology by writers of color, and in 2012, she won the CutBank Big Fish Flash Fiction/Prose Poetry Contest. Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, a Pushcart Prize, and longlisted for Best American Short Stories 2015. Recommended Books: Victor LaValle, The Ballad of Black Tom Patricia Highsmith, Deep Water Billy Ray-Belcourt, A Minor Chorus Alejandro Varela, The Town of Babylon Evie Wyld, The Bass Rock Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
Ursula Villarreal-Moura is the author of Math for the Self-Crippling (2022), selected by Zinzi Clemmons as the Gold Line Press fiction contest winner, and Like Happiness (forthcoming with Celadon Books). A graduate of Middlebury College, she received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and was a VONA/Voices fellow. Her stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous magazines including Tin House, Catapult, Prairie Schooner, Midnight Breakfast, Washington Square, Story, Bennington Review, Wigleaf Top 50, and Gulf Coast. She contributed to Forward: 21st Century Flash Fiction, a flash anthology by writers of color, and in 2012, she won the CutBank Big Fish Flash Fiction/Prose Poetry Contest. Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, a Pushcart Prize, and longlisted for Best American Short Stories 2015. Recommended Books: Victor LaValle, The Ballad of Black Tom Patricia Highsmith, Deep Water Billy Ray-Belcourt, A Minor Chorus Alejandro Varela, The Town of Babylon Evie Wyld, The Bass Rock Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature
Gold Line Resources Vice President of Exploration Benjamin Gelber (TSXV: GLDL, OTCQB: TLLZF) talks about mineral exploration in the Gold Belt in Sweden and Gold District in Finland, historic explorations carried out in their Paubäcken property and the most updated resource estimates of their Oijarvi Project in an interview with Global One Media.
Gold Line Resources (TSXV: GLDL | OTCQB: TLLZF) CEO and Director Adam Cegielski sits with Global One Media for an exclusive interview. Adam talks about their large district-scale opportunities in Scandinavia, recent discoveries and upcoming drilling in the Paubäcken Project, the great potential of their Finland project, and more.
Here's your morning news: Supreme Court strikes down NY gun law restricting concealed carry permits; In another ruling, the Supreme Court determined that law enforcement cannot be sued for failing to provide Miranda warnings; Health officials revising timeline for when L.A. County reaches "high" level of COVID transmission; Work continues on extending the "L" line, or Gold Line, that will bring light rail to Pomona; L.A. Metro to dedicate Little Tokyo Arts District station in honor of former California congressman Norm Mineta; Man suspected of fatally shooting two last week in Hollywood now in custody; L.A. County DA George Gascon defending decision to seek probation, instead of prison, two years ago for the man who murdered two El Monte police officers last week. This program is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people. Support the show: https://laist.com
EP292- Quarterly Recap Sorry for the delay since our last show. We took a beginning of summer hiatus, and Jason upgraded to a new knee! This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the NYC Google HQ, for Zenith Basecamp. Key Topics discussed: Amazon's rate of growth declined in Q1, what lies ahead for them. Impact of App Tracking Transparency (ATT) on advertising platforms Shopify vs. Facebook Retail Media Networks Q1 2022 US Department of commerce data and trends Audience questions (including buy now pay later) If you'd like to follow along, the audience could see this deck during the discussion: JAS_ZenithDownload Episode 292 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday June 8, 2022. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:23] Welcome to the Jason and Scot show I'm Jason retailgeek Goldberg. This episode is number 292 being recorded on Wednesday June 8, the beautiful New York City Google headquarters for Zenith base camp and is a special treat we're recording the show in front of a live audience. Scot: [0:45] That was a super important. Jason: [0:49] That Applause is super important because I have no credibility with our audience so they wouldn't believe me if you didn't applaud thank you very much as I mentioned I'm Jason retailgeek Goldberg as always I'm here with my co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [1:01] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners. Jason: [1:05] I think I've met most of you but for those of you who I haven't mentioned a met yet thrilled to do so today I as was mentioned earlier I'm the chief Commerce strategy officer for publicist your, almost certainly going to hear from Scott that he thinks might title is super funny and, I'm a fourth-generation retailer back in the Dark Ages I helped launch e-commerce at some funny retailers like, Blockbuster and Best Buy and Target and today I get to work across all the Publicis groupe with all the clients that care about Commerce and I'm super interested to know which clients, don't care about Commerce at this point and so that's me but like I said many of you have met. My annoyingly successful co-host Scott you may not have met so Scott can you tell us a little bit about yourself as they flip the slides. Scot: [1:56] Sure and congrats on that a win at Blockbuster on the digital that was that was good you crush that one yeah. Jason: [2:03] It's super fun every presentation ever done a publicist starts with a big Blockbuster logo and a saying like don't let this happen to you. Scot: [2:11] Isn't there one still open in Alaska if you're gone to visit them. Jason: [2:13] Bend Oregon. Scot: [2:14] Okay then yeah I knew you know that have you talked to them about their digital strategy. Jason: [2:20] It's on the to-do list. Scot: [2:22] I'm a Serial entrepreneur from the Research Triangle Park area and so I started a company I have an engineering background started a company the developer tools. And then this thing called the internet came along and I have a lot of weird Hobbies one of my hobbies we'll talk about a lot of those today is I'm a Star Wars fan so I started I had this I sold my first company, said this dangerous combination of e-commerce has born and I had a lot of liquidity so I started buying really big Star Wars stuff, it stays at my office I have an agreement with my wife that it does not come into the house sadly I probably won't be married if it did so there you go, so that was there at the early days of e-commerce that company I parlayed into a company called challenge visor so started that in 2001 that's a B2B soccer as a service platform for selling on marketplaces are there any channel guys are customers in the house about 3,000 customers and then so Channel visors biggest partners are eBay and Amazon so I've been I'm also he's retailgeek I'm Amazon geek if we have to Brand ourselves maybe a little bitty big geek so I'm in the marketplace side and that's how I met Jason we were on a board together at shot dot-org, remember the first meeting I was there with Jason the CEO of NRF walks in and he's like does anyone have a question Jason raises his hand and says why do we have the worst website on the internet and I was like. [3:38] I need to get to know this guy so he called him out on the terribleness of the in R Us website which was kind of fun and then took Channel advisor public so that was one of my things is an option where I always wanted to do was do an IPO so I got to do that in 2013 that was a lot of fun got to ring the bell I'm a also a CNBC donkeys got to meet and Jim Cramer my wife calls him the guy that yells every night on TV and makes all the loud noises, that was fun and then my current startup let's go to the next slide next two slides yeah it's called spiffy and next slide. [4:12] So spiffy was actually good and go through this animation Jason was supposed to take this on and, so spiffy was actually kind of inspired by the podcast so on our podcast would talk a lot about consumer behavior and for me I'm also an Elon Musk geek and Elon talks about core principles his core principles are physics he's always talking about well if you want to send a ship from here to Mars you're going to have to you can't use let's see welds you have to like mix the atoms together and because of physics we can do we don't do that on Jason Scott show we talk about consumer behaviors so we spent a lot of time talking about the bifurcation in the convenience oriented consumer saw that was swirling around in my head I had my first Uber experience and the this the series of things that lit up for me was alright services are going to go digital we've seen products go digital in the form of e-commerce if you look at GDP consumer services are twice the size of consumer products and then the then as I looked out there there was a lot of companies in this space but none of them were going after the convenience oriented consumer. [5:15] Another hobby of I guess it was a shared one is we like to coin phrases, one of the ones that I coined was Zero friction addiction so when consumers have these low-friction experiences not only are they great. But they amplify the friction of previously previous experiences you didn't think we're friction e Starbucks mobile app for example how many of you use the Starbucks mobile, once you do that and then like the mobile app systems down it's like the worst day of your life because you have to wait in line behind three people and you're like oh my God I'm going to claw my eyes out. And before the mobile app existed you're like three people whoaa short line this is going to be a faster bruxism. So all that was swimming around in my head and I was like I wonder where I could participate in this idea and I was gravitated to car care because I previously invested in a car wash and then I researched and Car Care has a minus 85 net promoter score especially with women, how many of mean if you don't have cars in New York but how many of you have had a bad car experience especially. You're my people so another thing that fascinates me is the Auto industry is going to go through this digital change that we've seen e-commerce go through but it's also the car is changing so I've had a Tesla since 2012 since I've been living that kind of vehicle 2.0 lifestyle so next line so started spiffy in 2014 and today we're in 27 locations about a 50 million run rate doubling, we have 250 Vans across the United States and about 500 technicians so that's a little bit of background on me. Jason: [6:44] That's amazing Scott and so you know Scott mentioned we started this podcast that the joke is he and I met at a board meeting it shop dot org and he and. After the meetings we'd go to a bar and we would just talk shop about what was going on in Scotts Valley. You know we should record this there's like eight other people that would be interested in this conversation and the joke is that like the next day I showed up with like five thousand dollars worth of audio equipment I think. Scot: [7:10] This 90 is forget your mom. Jason: [7:12] That's true yeah. Scot: [7:12] 99.9 listeners. Jason: [7:13] Including my mom who gives me notes on every show hi Mom. So so that's kind of how the show started and you know that one of the topics that's most frequent in fact we often say it wouldn't be a Jason and Scot show without talking about Amazon. And so you know Amazon have their quarterly earnings last month and in the u.s. they're gmv growth rate they sold 6.7% more stuff than they did in q1 of last. Um so that is a alarmingly slow rate of growth by traditional Amazon standards and we click to the next slide. The. This month you've seen all these news articles about Amazon actually having too much warehouse space too much what they call fulfillment center space and how they're literally trying to sublease space to other people that they may have over-invested, as e-commerce starts to slow down and if you cook to the this next slide. [8:15] Actually graft my pandemic Hobbies I learned Tableau by the way if anyone super exciting other people are not a big bread. I'm a geek what can I say so I graphed e-commerce has growth rate versus Amazon's growth rate and historically in the u.s. e-commerce has kind of grown about 10% a year before the pandemic Amazon despite being. 35 to 40% of all e-commerce grows quite a bit faster as you can see the gold line above the blue line but when the pandemic. Um they their paths kind of linked and and you know for these last several months Amazon has grown at about the race. E-commerce and so there's a bunch of analysts that are freaking out. Is the gravy train over the good times done is Amazon selling off and so that's the first topic we want to talk about is what the heck is going on with Amazon Scott. Scot: [9:11] Yeah and it's been interesting another one of my hobbies is Amazon Fulfillment centers this one's riveting and so this started I think it's like 2005 I was driving to work and I saw some construction and you know you're later they put a big amazon logo on it that's like holy cow there's like a million square foot building, this is the Raleigh-Durham area so it's like I wonder how many of these there are so I went on to Amazon's website and they said something like we have around 10 fulfillment centers nice like that, that seems low and then what I discovered at that point time was no one was tracking. From the Wall Street analysts through Amazon fulfillment center roll out so so started working on that and quickly discovered that they had about sixty fulfillment centers built and they were building like another 16 so I started publishing data on this, and fun fact they always use airport codes so this was like RDU 3 soyuz rd1 and these numbers and this kind of thing so I get to know about the Amazon fulfillment center really interesting you know really deeply so I think then one of our most popular popular episodes I think we got till like 12:00 listeners on this one so a 30 percent increase this was February 18th we did episode 287 which is a deep dive into Amazon's fulfillment. [10:19] And to me it's just endlessly fascinating I haven't been to a fulfillment center but I have been able to sneak into some of the delivery stations and that's kind of a fun thing so what ties into this is what I think happened is Amazon was in front of their capacity needs before the pandemic and then the pandemic flip that upside down so I think what's happened is over that time where they're in line with e-commerce they were just out of capacity they literally couldn't ship the couldn't build enough fulfillment centers fast enough and whatnot so during the pandemic they have built an incredible amount of infrastructure so I'd have some data here the other thing you need to know is in 2018 another this was probably the most popular one Jason I coined the phrase ship again is even heard this one. And this is where we. Jason: [11:03] We got on like The Today Show. Scot: [11:05] Be on the Today Show they're like what is this ship again and should we be concerned that was us that was us we cause that and we take all the credit, and what happened is Jason has many of his Tableau slides he had this he has a slide that shows the FedEx capacity USPS and ups and then Amazon's growth and you can see that Amazon alone then you layer in e-commerce was going to we would run out of capacity for shipping well Amazon also saw those so in 2018 they started a program called, the DSP now this is confusing because they have two DS p– programs there's one in your world of ads I don't know what that one is, delivery service professionals is the one I focus on and what Amazon did is he basically took a page out of the FedEx Playbook and they went and they built a network of 1099 contractors to do last mile deliveries so whenever an Amazon Prime van comes to your house that is an Amazon DSP. [11:59] They've built that entire network since 2018 which is pretty crazy okay so the problem with that Network though is they started it out of fulfillment centers and very quickly it was obvious the Fulfillment centers were when you have these million square-foot buildings and you're just putting things through a door or a loading dock you can't reload Vans quickly so what they've done is they've come up with a new format called a delivery station, this is a smaller about a 200 thousand square foot thing and what it is it's largely attached to a fulfillment center and it's pretty wild at eight am the Fulfillment center doors open and these rafts of containers come down and there's these Vans all lined up, staged in line, where they go furthest packages away get loaded in the first Vans and then they're off and then it's like a military operation it's like D-Day it's like crazy to watch this happen hundreds of employees loading these vans that get deployed through the day. [12:49] So just to give you some numbers that started at zero and now they have built 487 delivery stations for small products 108 delivery stations for large so they built about 600 delivery stations in the last 3 years which is pretty crazy that represents so there's so nothing Amazon does each delivery station has four or five dsps and they play them off each other so they're small businesses and then they give them all these scorecards and if you score well you get more routes and trucks so there's like this gamification, and I've met some of these guys and they're just like constantly going at each other and and Amazon is very clever because they're like stuck in this game gamification they don't really realize it that Amazon just playing them off each other the thing that fascinates me is they're all run by this you know data in the cloud so everyone in this operation there's no real managers or anything they're just like all looking at their their their devices and it's telling them what to do every day that's kind of as a computer science guy that kind of fascinating we do have a i overlords that that just kind of run things so there's two 2500 dsps and 100,000 Vans and so they've invested a ton in that and then that's just the delivery stations so they've also added you know 88 sortable fulfillment centers. [14:08] Basically they've invested so much in infrastructure during the pandemic that I think we're going to see these numbers they're they actually have admitted they have too much capacity but I think it's going to give them the ability to re-accelerate versus e-commerce because they now have the capacity in this new world. [14:22] It was a long answer to that one but but you know I think what's key to me is if you buy into this theory that getting product to the consumer fast and efficiently is going to be key, they've gotten the cost to deliver a package and that last mile down to a dollar fifty with this. [14:37] You know so many of you that are shipping products and you're looking at FedEx at eight nine ten twelve dollars in different zones that's kind of the economics they've baked into that now for a long time thought one of the Amazons unusual playbooks is they'll build something really really crazy expensive and you're like this is insane and then they'll open it up which for most people in the old score world you're like, that doesn't make any sense because you used to build these proprietary networks like Walmart's Data Center and computer infrastructure, that was proprietary and gave them an edge Amazon's philosophy is let's open it up that makes the product better and we get third parties to help pay for the. So this is obvious now that the AWS and Amazon third-party Network I believe that there will be a day when I could ship I'm enrolling your in Charlotte I'll be able to ship you a package I'll just put on my front porch the Amazon DSP will pick it up and I'll ship you a package for three bucks right so it'll be half the cost of FedEx or UPS but don't make a hundred percent are 50% gross margin on it, so that's going to be really interesting and they'll be able to offer that they are actually offering a lot of that kind of capability to other Merchants so so that'll be interesting you'll have to face this decision of if you're your Cody or someone like that do you want to switch from FedEx to Amazon shipping your products and so there's a lot of real interesting things going on in the Amazon World those are some of the big ones. Jason: [15:51] Yeah yeah to kind of put that in consumer terms. Before the pandemic Amazon had invested something like 50 billion dollars in their fulfillment centers and so on. It wasn't that long ago I would talk to clients and they're like hey Jason we've got the secret plan to compete with Amazon where we're gonna buy a warehouse in Kentucky because that can ship to the whole us and we're going to compete with Amazon and I'm like. You realize Amazon has 109 million square foot fulfillment centers and 50 billion dollars worth of infrastructure and that was before the pandemic from. Mid 2018 to today they've invested another 50 billion dollars and literally double the size of their capacity so the likelihood of anyone in the u.s. competing with him in terms of. Capacity is next to know and as Scott mentioned in 2018 we had this bad holiday where we didn't deliver everything on time Amazon became you know aware that they weren't going to grow where they want to grow using third-party parcels and I think there's this famous quote from Fred Smith it FedEx like. Amazon's an amazing company but they're our partner they're not a competitor they never understand the competitiveness of the, the parcel business and back then Amazon delivered eight percent of their own packages that was 2018 today Amazon delivers over 60% of their own packages right and so in a very short period of time. [17:16] They they've created this phenomenal capability so the magic question is is this a blip like, is the are they going to start growing faster than e-commerce as soon as we get out of all this crazy economic Madness or like is this going to be the new normal for Amazon that they're you know so big that they can't grow as fast anymore. Scot: [17:35] My prediction is yes they will I think they'll get the capacity they'll turn on these other things another area that I think they'll get into and we've covered this on the show is where we call these things like to go Puffs the road you have a fancy name for. Jason: [17:47] Instant delivery or ultra-fast delivery. Scot: [17:49] Yeah Amazon part of this infrastructure they built out is in that similar vein so some same-day infrastructure where, you know these delivery stations are getting smaller and smaller and closer and closer to the consumer so that they can do same delivery in fact at the delivery station I was at they do 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. load out and then everyone comes back at to and they do another load out of a smaller portion of vans, for same-day delivery orders that have come in so so so I think I think what they're going to do is they're going to Crank It Up, Prime will eventually go to same day and then that's going to create a whole new stimulation of demand and then they will grow faster than e-commerce. Jason: [18:24] I feel like that's another funny one is talk to like there's a bunch of new startups that are like trying to do e-commerce fulfillment and they're like we're going to do two day delivery just as well as Amazon. Scot: [18:34] Yeah this is this is a good segue into Shopify so one of the things that there's defied explanation for me is the rise of Shopify shopify's a great platform great CEO but they got this valuation of like 50 times forward earnings forward Revenue which just never made sense to me and then they started poking the bear so they started to give Amazon and Jeff Bezos so hard time like when his pictures they were like making fun of him and I was like this you and I have seen this. Jason: [19:01] They're arming the rebels. Scot: [19:02] We've seen this play out we're like who was it the CEO of Macy's said Amazon will never get into apparel and if they do it'll be a bloodbath everyone that makes one of those statements they end up a you know ruining their career and then be very being very wrong so. Jason: [19:17] Terry Lundgren. Scot: [19:18] Terry Lundgren yeah thanks he was also in the in that in our f word me the so so so it's really interesting is Shopify has been poking at Amazon and then Shopify announced that they were going to. Arm the rebels with two day shipping and they're going to build a fulfillment center we're like. Okay this doesn't ever end well then in this then like literally 30 days later they announced and they were going to spend a billion dollars and build a fulfillment center are two billion which you know Amazon spend 100 billion so that's kind of a ridiculous and then they were going to get everywhere two day shipping and Beebe in parallel with prime which doesn't make any sense then they punted on that and they acquire deliver. And then at the same time and this is a good segue into our next topic they basically said, and this goes back to March of this year last year we saw that after Apple's WWDC that year last year, they announced IDF a and I-80 T which is next slide. Jason: [20:18] Yeah jump to slides actually one more. Scot: [20:20] So you and I were like this is going to change everything and destroy all these middle players so so basically you guys probably know what this is I'll let Jason describe it better these new privacy things basically you get rid of not only third-party cookies for web-based things but if you have an app based ecosystem you get rid of tracking it all together and we were like freaking out about it no one else was I, and I felt like Shopify was going to be worse because if you think about Shopify the bulk of their traffic comes from social then they sit in the middle and then they have the merchant well these things in the middle aren't going to really exist in a world where you can't track anything and sure enough this is really caught up not only to them but the social media guys. So we're entering this world where Shopify poked the bear Amazon has a bunch of stuff going on that hasn't even come out to counteract Shopify and when that stuff comes out, then I'll know if you've seen it but Shopify is down like 98% or something like that because they've lost you lost a lot of credibility with this fulfillment thing and then the overall economic has been a really interesting impact and then I think everyone realizes that they're really exposed to these IDF a changes. Jason: [21:25] Yeah and so I think most people in this room are probably painfully familiar with idea Fay but essentially. It's become harder to track a consumer across multiple website so all these advertising platforms that aggregate an audience and send them to third-party content sites used to be able to buy a super-efficient audience on that third party site and then they used to be able to measure how effective it was when they sent people to that site and what they ultimately bought and so because of the tracking deficiencies too bad things happen we can't buy as good an audience as we used to buy so the by is less efficient so the CPM is higher and we can't measure how effective it was right and so there's a lot of impacts certainly for all of you folks that are involved in advertising there's there's a very direct impact on those changes but the secondary impacts can I talked a lot about is before these changes it felt like Shopify and Facebook for example where cozying up, like Shopify has a digital wallet called shop pay which is very exciting successful and they actually made it possible to buy items not from Shopify sellers on Facebook. With Sharpay and you're like oh man it's very synergistic Facebook gets the audience and then they send them to Shopify seller to close the deal and it seemed like they had this partnership and we saw IDF a coming and were like oh man this is going to break up because in the New World. [22:47] The Facebook's of the world need to own that conversion they need to own the sale so they can see the conversion data so they can report on the efficacy they need instead of third party data they need first-party data and so now all these advertising platforms most notably Facebook and Google are doubling down on becoming Commerce platforms which you've talked for a long time about Google is secretly Marketplace. Scot: [23:13] Yeah and then I think ultimately Facebook has to buy Shopify or build show, so that'll be interesting now the price is down before when it was like 40 times for door like they'll never do that but I think now but they do seem, it's hard to know what's going to happen to Facebook because they're so focused on the metaverse that I don't know if Shopify fits into that somewhere inside of there you know someone watches Revenue versus like Ford things and and if you care about revenue and Facebook you would buy you would buy, Shopify the other thing that's really interesting another one of my weird habits is I love to listen to public quarterly calls. Probably the worst quarterly call I've ever heard and I have a lot of empathy for this because I've done many of these is this the Snapchat the last the q1 Snapchat call they basically it was like they just rolled in there, half drunk and had no idea what's going on in the business and like the analysts are asking them questions like do you think this is the bottom of i d f a and the last quarterly call they had said that was the bottom. They're like well you know last time we said it was the bottom we think this is a bottom Jason do you know if it's a bottom it was just like that kind of a thing so if you're an investor and you're sitting there like these guys have no idea how bad this is where the bottom is or how to remediate. And you know that that leg down I think that really big one there that was right after that quarterly call everyone there while she was like these guys have no clue what's going on. So it's really interesting. [24:33] Wall Street is very much awake that these changes that apple and then subsequently Google have made and the Android have really just clobbered these ad networks that kind of our sit between AD networks and kind of relying on on third-party data the converse of that so every time there's a there's a zero-sum game here every time there's a loser there's a winner the big winner here is retail networks and I heard that we're going to have talk about their ad Network I'm the Amazon guy so Amazon's ad network doesn't get a lot of play here but just as of last year it was 30 billion dollars in revenue and they're growing that 25%. And I know they have a massive amount of investment going on there they have a new marketing Cloud they're doing a ton of stuff in there because they realize hey thanks Apple and Google the you have created gold dust out of first-party data guess who has the most first-party data on buyer intent and conversion it's Amazon. But then if you're other retailer be at a Walmart or Target and even smaller retailers are getting into this and kind of more of a, I called a Battlestar Galactica kind of way but more of like a shared data kind of a way that's going to be real interesting. [25:41] You are yeah yeah I think you and I are the only ones to get them the, so that's that's really fascinating to watch this one change in mobile platform just cause these billion-dollar ripples down there and you kind of wonder who it Apple did they think about this where they like, you know that Mark Zuckerberg he's too big for his britches let's let's clobber him in the rest of these guys but you know they don't love app Amazon either so they have to be kind of frustrated that it has helped enable one type of competitor but that just clobbered the other ones. Jason: [26:12] Yeah it's I mean it's super fascinating I. The retail the emergence of retail media networks I think you know is a direct cause of this essentially that you know you now have all this first-party data it Walmart and Target and to your point like. Craziest retail media Network to me is Gap in the reason I say that like most retail media Networks primarily sell ads to endemic Advertiser so you know Cody wants to sell through Sephora so for launches retail media Network they have some leverage to get Cody to invest in, in add-on Sephora but Gap doesn't have any endemic advertisers like Gap only sells their own stuff right so they're now you know trying to go find. Advertisers that are synergistic with The Gap lifestyle and sell ad so I don't think that could have ever happened in a world in which you could really cost effectively by that audience from Facebook but today because it's harder for the Facebook's of the world I think this is a. A permanent shift we're seeing and another reason that it's really an imperative for Facebook to become a Commerce platform of Their Own. Scot: [27:20] Yeah this is probably a good time to pause and see if there's any questions yeah so Amazon or IDF a any questions on those two topics any other comments how many of you have felt some kind of an impact from the IDF a thing that's called you to change strategy. Wow I guess we're wrong yeah. Jason: [27:38] We usually are so there's that I feel like a lot of the success of the show is Scott and I rarely agree and I feel like people like to hear us debate right and so the last topic we put together is. Again one that's probably only near and dear to my heart but the, US Department of Commerce publish all this data about the health of the US retail right and I'm this dork that like wakes up at 8 a.m. I'm kidding I'm up at 8 a.m. right now I wasn't supposed to say that out loud, on the on the day the data is released to like load the stuff into Tableau and so may was a super exciting month because that's the first time we get the. Q1 quarterly data for all the retail categories and e-commerce and so I kind of put together a quick. Quick summary and week I just want to hear if you're surprised or not so first thing if sorry if you go back just one side for just a sec. From from January through April in the u.s. we sold 2.2 trillion dollars of stuff that's almost 10% more stuff than we sold in 2020. [28:42] 36% more stuff than we sold in 2019 so everybody talks about how hard the last two years have been and how challenging and difficult and that's all true. What doesn't get hit is it's been the greatest two years in the history of retail like we've grown, way faster than we ever have before and so if you flip to this next slide this is this visualization that's got an icon of created this is sales by month so that Gray Line is retail sales in 2019 and then the Gold Line is 20/20 so you can see oh my gosh we all panicked in April when the pandemic first happened we have this dip but 2020 we actually sold more stuff than we did in 2019 even with the the pandemic. What we sold changed dramatically we'll talk about that, and then we get to 20 21 and look how much higher 2021 was like 20 everyone was like oh my gosh was 2020 a weird year and growth is going to go down and instead, growth went way up and so at the end of 20 21 I was advising all my peers that worked at clients to retire right because your comps are going to be impossible from, from 20:21 so that was a great time to go out on top. And I was really worried that 2022 was going to come in below that and of course we're talking about all these economic headwinds and things that we may talk about but so far in 2022. [29:59] Even ahead of 2021 so you hear all this news about how like. Oh man the rate of growth has slowed we grew so much in 2021 and now we're only growing a little bit and doom and gloom and all these things. But when you see this picture you go wait a minute. With the best year in the history of retail last year and we're doing even better this year it's actually quite a Rosy story but if you flip to the next slide of course there are certain categories that did. Especially well right and so if you are a gas station and you got utterly creamed. During the pandemic and one was driving anywhere it was easy as to grow fast if you are restaurant that no one went to it was easiest to grow fast apparel that. Scot: [30:41] Miscellaneous that's my favorite yeah I wish I sold more miscellaneous. Jason: [30:46] It's the hardest category to buy. Um and so you can see there's categories that kind of outperform the industry average and there's categories that underperformed the industry average food and beverages grocery right so even though grocery had a really good time in the pandemic it's actually underperforming, the overall category because there were some of those other categories that were so much and whenever I talk about this people are like yeah Jason but all the growth you're talking about isn't, consumer changes or more spending its inflation right and so I actually tried this, experiment of taking the inflation out and I looked at the last three years of growth in 2018 dollars and as you can see, information used to not matter very much in the data so through 2020 and then we started opening up this Gap where inflation legitimately has an impact on our sales right now but even if you just look at the Gold Line which is taking all the inflation Outlook. Um the growth is still very meaningful in phenomenal so it's a like Well you certainly inflation is part of the reason that we're seeing a lift in sales it's a mistake to assume. [31:51] People are just buying less stuff and they're just having to pay more for that stuff in that there really isn't a consumer change the really is a consumer change here in so we want double click on a couple categories in the first category I grab because it's super near and dear to Scott's heart is Automotive right so they sold half a trillion bucks last year they're up 50% from the bed you have 20/20 and if you go to the next slide you'll see the. You know they're their shape that obviously the you know the pandemic gave him a temporary dip but again like most categories they we did slightly better in 2020 2021 was a phenomenal year and then it seems like 20:22 is having a little bit of trouble comping against that what's going on in the apparel or the automotive industry. Scot: [32:34] Was a guy that buys like 30 Vans a month you can't buy vehicles yeah so there are no vehicles out there it's pretty crazy I had to buy my daughter a vehicle and we had to wait like six months and then had to pay like over sticker. Against all grains of my being but had to do it yeah the things we do for our kids. Jason: [32:52] Combo of like there's increased demand and there's these supply-chain constraints and there's no chips right. Scot: [32:58] Yeah yeah so it went from chips now they seem to have the chips but then all the zero covid policy in China is made all the other inputs go to hell in a handbasket so-so so there was some Supply that got out because they had all these vehicles waiting for chips the chips have gotten there but now they can't make a lot of the other components of the vehicle as my understanding and we order we ordered 100 Vans and we got three delivered this year from from new which is just crazy. The other problem I'm up against his there's this other company buying a lot of ants called Amazon and they're buying I'm buying I'm buying what it feels like a lot to us 100 and they're buying like you know, twenty thousand so so they seemed to get a higher spot. Jason: [33:36] They're higher in the queue than you yeah so if you take nothing else out of this this segment if you have to sell a car right now do not use Blue Book value your car is way more valuable than Blue Book value. Scot: [33:47] And before you sell your car get a new car so it's kind of like yeah because you may be hoofing it if you don't you may be getting to know the Uber app really well. Jason: [33:55] Yeah and whichever card you get get it clean by get spiffy. So let's a lot of people in here in the cpg space so grocery super important this is a category that I follow really closely almost 300 billion in sales in the first quarter and again it's up its up. By the way a new coin we turned is your over 32 years ago right like that's the new the new black in earnings calls is everyone's talking about their silver says 2019 which was the. Quote unquote normal year so groceries up twenty Twenty-One percent from from that normally year and we've kind of had this 8% growth rate which is better than grocery historically grew if you go the next slide you see our shape again, grocery is a unique one right like. Yet average sales in 2019 and then 20:28 was great for grocery right because nobody went to restaurants like so all the calories that used to buy from restaurant you're buying from grocery so that Gold Line is way up and then, in 2021 they had trouble comping against it in the first half of the Year where all that growth happen but they still 2021 ended up. [35:00] About 10% from 20/20 and 2022 is continuing to be up so far, from from 20 21 and so the way I like to think about this if you jump to the next slide is Sheriff stomach so this gray line is how much. Calories you buy from grocery stores in the Gold Line is how many calories you buy from restaurants and historically over the last 10 years it's been almost a 50/50 split so then the pandemic happened and we got seventy percent of our calories from grocery stores thirty percent of our calories from restaurants and everyone's like wait how did we get any calories from restaurants they're all closed doordash, right it was all off Prem consumption and then we've been waiting to see what would happen could grocery permanently hang onto that lead would restaurants come back and you can see over the last year it kind of close the gap but then look what's happened these like this year restaurants are way above Grocery and so the magic question here is, was their pent-up demand and we're all rushing out to restaurants because we haven't been there and that's kind of a, a one-time Spike and it's going to normalize back to 50/50 or is the new normal that we're all so sick of being in the kitchen for the last two years. That groceries going to have a real decline because if you're you know a leading Grocer in the US this this is a really scary slide at the moment you have a guess. Scot: [36:21] Yeah I'll throw a Freakonomics curveball in here I think a one input into this is the work from home trend, so when you're working from home it's a lot easier to go to the grocery store prep the veggies between zooms or while you're on his Zoom or something like that or like chopping below below the line and just prepare a meal right but when you're in the office and you work late and now you're kind of gone back to that office lifestyle then I think that's going to be a big driver I think. I think we're going to go back to working in the office I think when everything's up into the right you're like okay everyone can work from home but if things get tougher and we go into recession one of the levers Executives can pull as well we need everyone back in the office so I think we're going to get back to that, it won't be the same so it's not going to be whatever we were at before it'll be ten to twenty percent lower but I think that's going to be the Big Driver of this one is that work from from home Trend and I bet it's spiking now, um because of that so I'm seeing and we have data at spiffy for this so one of the things we do at spiffy is we go to office Parks as an amenity if I look at Dallas the Raleigh-Durham area and Atlanta, we're almost back to 80 or 90 percent to pre-pandemic levels at office parks. Now you look at Blue States like California New York Etc you're like a zero so so ultimately I don't know if that separation remains or not but ultimately we're seeing people get back to the office park at least in this Southeast kind of region which is which is I think that's going to drive this more than what you show her. Jason: [37:47] And so then the the last category we're going to talk about is obviously most near and dear to our heart is e-commerce. So in March we sold almost a hundred billion dollars worth of stuff inside baseball thing this is data from the US Department of Commerce it comes out every every month there's better data that comes out every quarter this quarter we had a crazy thing happen, the US Department of Commerce restated the data that they had published in the past and they actually added 100 billion dollars of extra e-commerce sales last year they said we've been Under reporting how big e-commerce was so you may have earlier in the year seen these articles in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere talking about how the e-commerce craze is over and retailers caught up and it's a much more complicated story than that again e-commerce is up 55% from 20/20 so that's going to be tough to comp against the if we flip to the next slide. Scot: [38:45] Well I disagree with their methodology so we had them on the show and it was. Jason: [38:49] US Department of Commerce. Scot: [38:50] Here's the geekish I had to like break-in Jason was like you were just like. Jason: [38:53] It would be like if anyone mask was on the show. Scot: [38:55] Yes yeah you're just like slobbering all over yourself it was embarrassing and they God we're. Jason: [38:59] Tending that's unusual. Scot: [39:00] They got were Audio Only and the, but then as we got into it you know they count like curbside pickup is e-commerce and to me as an e-commerce guy I have to kind of throw the flag on that one because you know going during the pandemic you know, order online have it shipped to me and now I just go to the Best Buy and set outside they bring it to the store and now I've converted that to an e-commerce sale that doesn't really pencil for me so I think these numbers are overinflated because all the curbside pickup flipped over to e-commerce. Jason: [39:29] There's a common debate and you and I violently disagree on that one. Scot: [39:33] Digital influencer blah blah blah. Jason: [39:35] Yeah yeah exactly but yeah I mean if you so if you what's happening is e-commerce orders are being fulfilled from the store but you think about all these orders at Target that you place online and get delivered to your home from a shipped person or even from a u.s. post office targets fulfilling 96 percent of all their e-commerce orders from stores so curbside pickup is just another. E-commerce order that's fulfilled from a store and so again like to me. Scot: [40:03] But I had to get my car ready to go to Best Buy and I kind of blue shirts only difference is the blue shirt walked 50 feet to me versus me walking 50 feet in the store. Jason: [40:12] But so yeah we'll agree to disagree. Scot: [40:13] That's e-commerce more people can disagree. Jason: [40:13] Smart people can disagree and us so you see the shape again you know again 2020 accelerated e-commerce 2021 still did better although slower and so far in 2022 we're doing better again. Scot: [40:28] Boy what's the one that you hate so much what's the chart you hate the Goldman Sachs one. Jason: [40:33] Well yeah I mean there's a couple different. Scot: [40:38] Mackenzie or McKenzie yeah that's it. Jason: [40:40] Yeah so we'll talk. Yeah so jump to the next slide so Mackenzie is the early in the pandemic came out with this thing and said hey e-commerce has been perfect permanently accelerated by 10 years. Which is utterly wrong right like e-commerce. White kind of went three years ahead and now some categories are still three years ahead like grocery but a lot of categories are much closer to where we'd forecast which I'll show you in just one sec before I get to that though I just wanted to kind of show you pre-pandemic the Gold Line is have as retail grew this The Gray Line is how fast e-commerce grew again Scott and I would disagree about how to count e-commerce but still. [41:18] Retail tended to grow three to four percent a year a great year would be 5% e-commerce grew ten to fifteen percent a year, and and in the pandemic obviously e-commerce wildly accelerated and Retail kind of stayed flat people thought it went down but it kind of stayed flat so then we had this thing that's never happened in my lifetime, which is in like May of 2021, because retail had been so soft for so long retail actually grew faster than e-commerce and we're now having this topsy-turvy thing where the rate of growth for e-commerce and Retail are very similar and so you know I said hey. Well what would have happened if we didn't have the pandemic so this next slide is kind of showing the growth rate for e-commerce. And showing where we would have forecasted e-commerce to go and again in the Wall Street Journal they showed the blue line under the Gold Line. They have this old US Department of Commerce data and if you go to the next slide I zoom. Scot: [42:15] They don't wake up at 8:00 and put it into the table like it. Jason: [42:18] They don't know Tableau like I know tableau, and shout out to all my friends at Salesforce for the own table so you can see it's very noisy right now but it does seem like the pandemic permanently accelerated e-commerce. You know 122 years of acceleration not, not ten years and so then I think the very last slide I put together on the shape of e-commerce is in this is a scary one of me I'm curious what you think about this while e-commerce is continuing to grow well. Is Gary is this is traffic to the top 10 eCommerce sites in the US and this is a different story the gold on the grey line was before the pandemic the blue, the Gold Line was after the pandemic but you can see traffic went down in 2021 even though sales went up and traffic is down even further in 2022 and so what this means is fewer. Are going to e-commerce that the big eCommerce sites less often but they're buying more stuff when they go so. This will be our last question is we're way over time is, that like an inflation thing is that a change in consumer Behavior what do you have any hypothesis what's going on here. Scot: [43:30] So I think people were pegged at home for a while they bought everything they possibly could and they've bought forward so they feel like they got new laptops they've got their fancy exercise bikes. They've got all that stuff their peloton's and now they're just spin out on stuff and now they're wanting to do experiences and services so that's where the dollars are going if you know I think the Gainer of this traffic is probably, Airline sites hotel sites another we have visibility in this a spiffy because our largest customer set is rental car companies, we had a record day yesterday so people are traveling like. Pre-pandemic levels and which is really interesting so the dollars they do want to spend the discretionary dollars are going to experiences and not Services I'd call this a year to go I was a year early, I'm sadly many of our predictions. Jason: [44:16] We have a forecast every year and I get to cream Scott in the for. Scot: [44:19] Well I don't know what. Jason: [44:21] History doesn't show that but you guys don't know. Scot: [44:23] So I think that's what's going on so I you know but I feel like a really really interesting indicator is going to be Amazon Prime day so that's going to be in July of this year and we call it Prime day but every other retailer is glommed onto it and sees a bump from it so it's kind of this fabricated holiday not unlike singles day. That yeah that you know, that is going to be really interesting data point so that could you know the the bullish cases that's going to stimulate people to be like oh yeah I do need a couple other you know cables or a battery or whatever it is so we'll see that we'll be a nursing data point that I think will set us up for holiday and we'll get a pretty good indication of how this is going to go, will the consumer be like okay I'm all travelled out and I want to buy more things or will they continue down this Services dollars been passed. Jason: [45:11] I do think it's really complicated economy right now part of this is inflation and inflation I think is hitting e-commerce harder than than the sort of CPI numbers because the price of a lot of the goods that tend to sell on e-commerce are tend to be. Scot: [45:25] Their supply chain a lot of stuff you just can't get. Jason: [45:27] So there's there's constraints but also consumer Behavior has changed their categories that we would never sell on e-commerce before the pandemic that we are now so one of them that we talked about is Automotive that's a big ticket item right so you need less visits to sell a big Tesla then you then you did to sell a TV and another one is Grocery and when I say that people are Jason are you hi Grocery and I am hi I just had my knee replaced and I'm on some Good Meds the I wore it out going on store visits, the the grocery isn't that expensive but grocery sales and e-commerce are a week's worth of groceries it's 60 to 120 items so that. It is actually a lot higher per visit so some of these new categories becoming more important combined with inflation combined with the supply chain constraints I think off, aspire to do that and that's kind of our, our last take away because it's happen again if you go to the next slide we have used way more than our allotted time but there was no one that could put us off the stage and so. Appreciate it and Scott any closing words. Scot: [46:34] Did anyone have any questions. [46:49] How do you think is going to impact and trends that we're seeing right now. Jason: [46:53] So to repeat the question really quick big Trend in buy now pay later Apple just announced that they were going to have their own flavor buy now pay later built in the Apple pay this week at their event. Scot: [47:06] I've seen some interesting consumer behavior and I'm a little little incredulous on it because it's always sponsored when you dig into it it's like sponsored by a firm and so but what it what it shows is Millennials and gen Z they don't like to have as much open credit they kind of view that negatively and I see this I have kids that are in their 20s and they are freaked out by credit cards but they like to attach that credit to a thing and then pay it off and be done with it, so I think there's an argument to be made that there will be a generational the way we interact with credit will change and then people will after certain over a hundred dollars they'll interact with it in that way so I think that's a really fascinating thing and I want to see more data on that before 100% believe it but I was super incredulous that talk to my kids are like yeah that's how I think I was like well I guess there may be something here. Jason: [47:53] Yeah and as usual that's a really thoughtful and wrong answer. Scot: [47:58] For you yes. Jason: [48:00] No so it. Buy now pay later is huge right now it's the fastest growing form of check out and / Scott's point I would argue they've done an amazing job of branding right like oh it's credits evil credits bad this is not credit right and I talked to our traditional, um Financial customers and I talked to a family-run bank that's a fourth-generation bank and the CEO is like Jason, my family's been in the money renting business which I think that's an awesome way of calling the credit money money renting business for 100 years and that buy now pay later dog doesn't hunt, like it's just a bad version of credit that's been rebranded and. At the moment it's working like it's more expensive to sell something with with a firm or with a buy now pay later service than it is with a credit card but retailers are all doing it because they're selling more stuff because of it right so that's the argument at a firm. Best Buy you should pay more to use buy now pay later. Scot: [48:59] Conversion rates go up. Jason: [49:00] Because conversion rates go up. The scary thing that's starting to come up is guess what's happening right now 42% of all those buy now pay later purchases are now in arrears right so so kids haven't kept up with those purchases it's a. Scot: [49:15] What would a firm would say is that on the front end they can tighten the credit now so yeah that's what they all say. Jason: [49:20] The jury is out and I would say like this Amazon announcement is kind of an interesting nothing Burger because guess how you pay for the the Amazon the Apple buy now pay later service with a credit. Right so you're so it it's kind of like. If the buy now pay later services are rebranded credit and they kind of hide the fact that as credit that Apple buy now pay later is installment payments on a credit card. So so the. Is still out but there is a fear that that this whole bubble of buy now pay later is about to burst and whether it does or not I would say there's too many of them there's going to be a, consolidation retailers are having a lot of pain about. All the consumer requests they're getting to support all of them and we call it NASCAR in the checkout when like you have to you know have 57 logos on the checkout for all these different different ways to pay so I think it's kind of going away. Any other questions before they kick us off the stage. Awesome well thank you guys so much and until next time happy Commerceing! Scot: [50:20] Thanks everybody.
Pat Callis is an icon of climbing history in North America. His first ascents and early attempts span the distance from Southern California to northern-Alberta, Canada. While this conversation may not seem relevant to the topic of fitness, I believe it is because endurance is fitness and Pat is still climbing (and well) at 84 years of age. Our discussion will, I hope, become an important moment in the oral history of climbing. We discuss the first ascents of the Great White Throne in Zion, the Lost Arrow Direct, the north face of Mount Robson and early attempts on the Emperor Face, and the development of ice in Hyalite Canyon, among other events that have influenced climbing, especially in Montana and Wyoming. When discussing the Great White Throne (climbed with Fred Beckey and Galen Rowell) I wondered aloud if that was the same face climbed in 1978 by George Willig in front of the Wide World of Sports cameras. That was actually Angel's Landing, which Willig climbed with Steve Matous, whereas I recalled him being alone. Mike Hoover ran the camera for that and the riggers were a Who's Who of the best rock climbers of the time. Later I mentioned the "Retro" ascent of the north face of the Eiger using original gear, and again, my memory was inaccurate regarding Stephan Siegrest wishing to use a modern kernmantle rope. From the photos here https://stephan-siegrist.com/adventures/eiger-retro#gallery, it appears they did use old, laid rope, like Goldline (or similar).For a unique perspective on climbing and Pat and the impact he has had on individuals around him check out Blair's essay in the Journal on the NonProphet website. This conversation lasts 3hrs 45min. We could have broken it into two posts but that simply isn't our style — full send, wherever you are.
Shannon went to the Dodger game last night and shares her transit tale on the Gold Line. ABC's Jason Nathanson gives us a weekend entertainment report. #NineNewsNuggetsYouNeedToKnow.
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
