Podcasts about Plymouth Rock

Mark Johnson grew up in Sutton, Massachusetts which was rural at the time and his family can trace their roots back to the folks that landed at Plymouth Rock. Mark and his family have been in Virginia for over 15 years and told Paul they had to make some changes when it came to the difference in pace between New England and the South. They talked about Mark's brushes with the music industry. He made it clear to Paul that it was not due to musical talent, but to the work he did and a house that he owned in Worcester. Mark went to school, got in the optical field and told Paul about his career and they discussed the difference a good leader can make in both your work and personal life. Mark described a tragedy that happened to their family when his young son Alec died. This led the family to the decision to get an emotional support animal. Due to his wife's allergies, they couldn't get a dog, but instead got a Kunekune pig and they named him Tucker. Mark talked about Tucker and all the good he did not only for Mark and his family, but the local community as well.

Founder of the Raising Capitalists Foundation and previous co-host of The Real Estate Guys Radio show, Russell Gray, joins Keith to discuss the historical and current devaluation of the U.S. dollar, its impact on investors, and the broader economic implications. Gray highlights how the significant increase in interest rates has trapped equity in properties and affected development. He explains the shift from gold-backed currency to paper money, the role of the Federal Reserve, and the impact of the Bretton Woods Agreement.  Gray emphasizes the importance of understanding macroeconomic trends and advocates for Main Street capitalism to decentralize power and promote productivity. He also criticizes the idea of housing as a human right, arguing it leads to inflation and shortages. Resources: Connect with Russell Gray to learn more about his "Raising Capitalists" project and his plans for a new show. Follow up with Russell Gray to get a copy of the Beardsley Rummel speech transcript from 1946. follow@russellgray.com Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/558 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”.  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai  Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, what's the real backstory on why we have this thing called the dollar? Why it keeps getting debased? What you can do about it and when the dollar will die? It's a lesson in monetary history. And our distinguished guest is a familiar voice that you haven't heard in a while. Today on get rich education.   Mid south home buyers, I mean, they're total pros, with over two decades as the nation's highest rated turnkey provider, their empathetic property managers use your ROI as their North Star. So it's no wonder that smart investors just keep lining up to get their completely renovated income properties like it's the newest iPhone. They're headquartered in Memphis and have globally attractive cash flows and A plus rating with a better business bureau and now over 5000 houses renovated. There's zero markup on maintenance. Let that sink in, and they average a 98.9% occupancy rate, while their average renter stays more than three and a half years. Every home they offer has brand new components, a bumper to bumper, one year warranty, new 30 year roofs. And wait for it, a high quality renter. Remember that part and in an astounding price range, 100 to 180k I've personally toured their office and their properties in person in Memphis, get to know Mid South. Enjoy cash flow from day one. Start yourself right now at mid southhomebuyers.com that's mid south homebuyers.com   Russell Gray  1:54   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Keith Weinhold  2:10   Welcome to GRE from St John's Newfoundland to St Augustine, Florida and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith weinholden. You are inside get rich education. It's 2025. The real estate market is changing. We'll get into that in future. Weeks today. Over the past 100 years plus, we've gone from sound money to Monopoly money, and we're talking about America's currency collapse. What comes next and how it affects you as both an investor and a citizen.   I'd like to welcome in longtime friend of the show and someone that I've personally learned from over the years, because he's a brilliant teacher, real estate investors probably haven't heard his voice as much lately, because until last year, he had been the co host of the terrific real estate guys radio show for nearly 20 years. Before we're done today, you'll learn more about what he's doing now, as he runs the Main Street capitalist platform and is also founder of the raising capitalists foundation. Hey, it's been a few years. Welcome back to GRE Russell Gray.   Russell Gray  3:19   yeah, it's fun. I actually think it's been maybe 10 years when I think about it, I remember I was at a little resort in Mexico recording with you, I think in the gym. It was just audio back then, no video.    Keith Weinhold  3:24   Yeah, I remember we're trying to get the audio right. Then I think you've been here more recently than 10 years ago. But yeah, now there's this video component. I actually have to sit up straight and comb my hair. It's ridiculous. Well, Russ, you're also a buff of monetary history. And before we discuss that, talk about the state of the real estate market today, just briefly, from your vantage point.   Russell Gray 1  3:55    I think the big story, and I'm probably not telling anybody anything they don't know, but the interest rate hike cycle that we went through this last round was quite a bit more substantial, I think, than a lot of people really appreciated, you know. And I started talking about that many years ago, because when you hit the zero bound and you have 6,7,8, years of interest rates below half a point, the change when they started that interest rate cycle from point two, 525 basis points all the way up to five and a quarter? That's a 20x move. And people might say, well, oh, you know, I go back to what Paul Volcker did way back in the day, when he took interest rates from eight or nine to 18. That was only a little bit more than double. Double is a far cry from 20x so we've never seen anything like that. Part of the fallout of that, as you know, is a lot of people wisely, and I was on the front end of cheerleading This is go get those loans refinanced and lock in that cheap money for as long as possible, because a loan will actually become an asset. The problem is, when you do that, you're kind of married to that property. Now it's not quite as bad. As being upside down in a property and you can't get out of it, but it's really hard to walk away from a two or 3% loan in a Six 7% market, because you really can't take your same payment and end up getting more house. And so that equity is kind of a little bit trapped, and that creates some opportunities, but I think that's been the big story, and then kind of the byproduct of the story. Second tier of the story was the impact it had on development, because it made it a lot harder for developers to develop, because their cost of funds and everything in that supply chain, food chain, you marry that to the 2020, COVID Supply Chain lockdown and that disruption, which, you know, you don't shut an economy down and just flick a switch and have it come back on. And so there's all of that. And then the third thing is just this tremendous uncertainty everybody has, because we just went from one extreme to another. And I think people, you know, they don't want to, like, rock the boat, they're going to kind of stay status quo for a little bit, whether they're businesses, whether they're homeowners, whether they're anybody out there that's thinking about moving them, unless life forces you to do it, you're going to try to stay status quo until things calm down. And I don't know how close we are to things calming down.   Keith Weinhold  6:13   One word I use is normalized. Both the 30 year fixed rate mortgage and the Fed funds rate are pretty close to their long term historic average. It just doesn't feel that way, because it was that rate of increase in 2022 that caught a lot of people off guard, like you touched on Well, Russ, now that we've talked about the present day, let's go back in time, and then we'll slowly bring things up to the present day. The dollar is troubled. It's worth perhaps 3% of what it was 100 years ago, but it's still around since it was established in the Coinage Act of 1792 and it's still the world reserve currency. In fact, only three currencies have survived longer than the dollar, the British pound, the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc. So talk to us about this really relentless debasement of the dollar over time, including the creation of the Fed and the Bretton Woods Agreement and all that.   Russell Gray 7:09   That's a big story, as you know, and I always like to try to break it down a little bit. One of my specialties I'd like to believe, is I speak macro and I speak Main Street. And so when I try to break macroeconomics down, I start out with, why do I even care? I mean, if I'm a main street investor, why do I even care? In 2008 as you know, is a wipeout for me. Why? Because I didn't think anything had happened in the macro I didn't think Wall Street bond market. I didn't think that affected me. One thing I really cared about was interest rates. And I had a cursory interest in the bond market. We just try to figure out where interest rates were going. But for the most part, I thought, as a main street real estate investor, I was 100% insulated. I couldn't have been more wrong, because it really does matter, because the value of the dollar, in other words, the purchasing power of the dollar, and usually you refer to that as inflation, right? If inflation is there, the dollar is losing its purchasing power, and so the higher the inflation rate, the faster you're losing that purchasing power. And you might say, well, maybe that matters to me. Maybe it does. But the people who make the money available to the mortgage community, right to the real estate community to borrow that comes out of the bond market. And so when people go to buy a bond, which is an IOU, they're going to get paid back in the currency that they lent in, in this case, dollars. And if they know, if they're making a long term investment in a long term bond, and they're going to get paid back in dollars, they're going to be worth a whole lot less when they get them back. One of the things they're going to want is compensation for that time risk, and that's called higher interest rates. Okay, so now, if you're a main street investor, and higher interest rates impact you, now you understand why you want to pay attention. Okay, so let's just start with that. And so once you understand that the currency is a derivative of money, and money used to be you mentioned the Coinage Act Keith money, which is gold, used to be synonymous with the dollar. The dollar was only a unit of measure of gold, 1/20 of an ounce. It was a unit of measure. So it's like, the way I teach people is, like, if you had a gallon of milk and you traded, I'm a farmer, and I had a lot of milk, and so everybody decided they were going to use gallons of milk as their currency. Hey, where there's a lot of gallons of milk. He's got a big refrigerator. We'll just trade gallons of milk. Hey, Keith, I really like your beef. I you know, will you sell me some, a side of beef, and I'll give you, you know, 100 gallons of milk, you know, like, Oh, that's great. Well, I can't drink all this milk, so I'm going to leave the milk on deposit at the dairy, and then later on, when I decide I want a suit of clothes, I'll say, well, that's 10 gallons of milk. So I'll give the guy 10 gallons of milk. So I just give him a coupon, a claim, a piece of paper for that gallon of milk, or 20 gallons of milk, and he can go to the dairy and pick it up, right? And so that's kind of the way the monetary system evolved, except it wasn't milk, it was gold. So now you got the dollar. Well, after a while, nobody's going to get the milk. They don't care about the milk. And so now. Now, instead of just saying, I'll give you a gallon of milk, you just say, well, I'll give you a gallon. And somebody says, Okay, that's great. I'll take a gallon. They never opened the jug up. They never realized the jug is empty. They're just trading these empty jugs that used to have milk in them. Well, that's what the paper dollar is today. It went from being a gold certificate payable to bearer on demand, a certain amount of gold, a $20 gold certificate, what looks exactly like a $20 FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE. Today they look exactly the same, except one says FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE, which is an IOU backed by nothing, and the other one said gold certificate, which was payable to bearer on demand, real money. So my point is, is he got money which is a derivative of the productivity, the beef, the soot, the milk, whatever, right? That's the real capital. The real capital is the goods and services we all want. Money is where we store the value of whatever it is we created until we want to trade it for something somebody else created later. And it used to be money and currency were one in the same, but now we've separated that. So now all we do is trade empty gallons, which are empty pieces of paper, and that's currency. So those are derivatives, and the last derivative of that chain is credit. And you had Richard Duncan on your show more than once, and he is famous for kind of having this term. We don't normally have capitalism. We have creditism, right? Everything is credit. Everything is claims on wealth, but it's not real wealth, and it's just when we look at what's going on with our current administration and the drive to become a productive rather than a financialized society, again, as part of this uncertainty that everybody has. Because this is not just a subtle little adjustment on the same course. This is like, No, we're we're going down a completely different path. But fundamentally, your system operates on this currency that is flowing through it, like the blood flowing through your body. And if the blood is bad, your body's sick. And right now, our currency is bad, and so it creates problems, not just for us, but all around the world. And now we're exacerbating that. And I'm not saying it's bad. In fact, I think it's actually it's actually good, but change is what it is, right? I mean, it can be really good to go to the gym and work out before we started recording, you talked about your commitment to fitness, and that if you stop working out, you get unfit, and it's hard to start up again. Well, we've allowed our economy to get very unfit. Now we're trying to get fit again, and it's going to be painful. We're going to be sore, but if we stick with it, I think we can actually kind of save this thing. So I don't know what that's going to mean for the dollar ultimately, or if we end up going to something else, but right now, to your point, the dollar is definitely the big dog still, but I think it's probably even more under attack today than it's ever been, and so it's just something I think every Main Street investor needs to pay attention to.    Keith Weinhold  12:46   And it was really that 1913 creation of the Fed, where the Fed's mandates really didn't begin to take effect until 1914 that accelerated this slide in the dollar. Prior to that, it was really just periods of war, like, for example, the Civil War, where we had inflation rise, but then after wars abated, the dollar's strength returned, but that ceased to happen last century.   Russell Gray  13:11   I think there's a much bigger story there. So when we founded the country, we established legal money in the Coinage Act of 1792 we got gold and silver and a specific unit of measure of gold, a specific unit, measure of silver was $1 and that's what money was constitutionally. Alexander Hamilton advocated for the first central bank and got it, but it was issued by Charter, which meant that it was operated by the permission of the Congress. It wasn't institutionalized. It wasn't embedded in the Constitution. It was just something that was granted, like a license. You have a charter to be able to run a bank. When that initial charter came up for renewal, Congress goes, now we're not going to renew it. Well, of course, that made the bankers really upset, because bankers have a pretty good gig, right? They get to just loan people money. They don't have to do any real work, and then they make money on just kind of arbitraging, you know, other people's money. Savers put their money in, and they borrowed the money out, and then they with fractional reserve, they're able to magnify that. So it's, it's kind of a cool gig. And so what happened? Then he had the first central bank, so then they got the second central bank, and the second central bank was also issued by charter this time when it came up for renewal, Congress goes, Yeah, let's renew it, right? Because the bankers knew we got to go buy a few congressmen if we want to keep this thing going. But President Andrew Jackson said, No, not going to happen. And it was a big battle. Is a famous quote of him just calling these bankers a brood of vipers. And I'm going to put you down. And God help me, I will, right? I mean, it was like intense fact, I do believe he got shot at one point. I think he died from lead poisoning, because he never got the bullet out. So, you know, when you go to up against the bankers, it's not pretty, but he succeeded. He was the last president that paid off all the debt, balanced budget, paid off all the debt, and we got kind of back on sound money. Well, then a little while later, said, Okay, we're going to need, like, something major, and this would. I should put on. I got my, this is my hat, right now, I'll kind of put it on. This is my, my tin foil hat. Okay? And so I put this on when I kind of go down the rabbit trail a little bit. No, I'm not saying this is what happened, but it wouldn't surprise me, right? Because I know that war is profitable, and so sometimes, you know, your comment was, hey, there's the bank, and then there was, you know, the war, or there's the war, then there's a bank, which comes first the chicken or the egg. I think there's an article where Henry Ford and Thomas Edison went to Congress. I think it was December. The article was published New York Tribune, December 4. I think 1921 you can look it up, New York Tribune, front page article   Keith Weinhold  15:38   fo those of you in the audio only. Russ started donning a tin foil looking hat here about one minute ago.    Russell Gray  15:45   I did, yeah, so I put it on. Just so fair warning. You know, I may go a little conspiratorial, but the reason I do that is I just, I think we've seen enough, just in current, modern history and politics, in the age of AI and software and freedom of speech and new media, there's a lot of weird stuff going on out there, but a lot of stuff that we thought was really weird a little while ago has turned out to be more true than we thought. When you look back in history, and you kind of read the official narrative and you wonder, you kind of read between the lines. You go, oh, maybe some stuff went on here. So anyway, the allegation that Ford made, smart guy, Thomas Edison, smart guy. And they go to Congress, and they go, Hey, we need to get the gold out of the banker's hands, because gold is money, and we need money not to revolve around gold, because the bankers control gold. They control the money, and they make profits, his words, not mine, by starting wars, because he was very upset about World War One, which happened. We got involved right after Fed gets formed in 1913 World War One starts in 1914 the United States sits off in the background and sells everybody, everything. It collects a bunch of gold, and then enters at the end and ends it all. And that big influx created the roaring 20s, as we all know, which ended big boom to big bust. And that cycle, which then a crisis that created, potentially a argument for why the government should have more control, right? So you kind of go down this path. So we ended up in 1865 with President Lincoln suppressing states rights and eventually creating an unconstitutional income tax and then creating an unconstitutional currency. That's what Abraham Lincoln did. And then on the back end of that, you know, it didn't end well for him, and I don't know why, but all I know is that we had a financial crisis in 1907 and the solution to that was the Aldrich plan, which was basically a monopoly on money. It's called a money trust. And Charles Lindbergh, SR was railing against it, as were many people at the time, going, No, this is terrible. So they renamed the Aldrich plan the Federal Reserve Act. And instead of going for a bank charter, they went for a constitutional amendment, and they got it in the 16th Amendment, and that's where we got the IRS. That's where we got the income tax, which was only supposed to be 7% only affect like the top one or 2% of earners, right? And that's where we got, you know, the Federal Reserve. That's where all that was born. Since that happened, to your point, the dollar has been on with a slight little rise up in the 20s, which, you know, there's a whole thing about whether that caused the crash or not. But at the end of the day, if you go look at St Louis Fed, which you go look at all the time, and you just look at the long term trend of the dollar, it's terrible. And the barometer, that's gold, right? $20 of gold in 1913 and 1933 and then 42 in 1971 or two, whatever it was, three, and then eventually as high as 850 but at the turn of the century, this century, it was $250 so at $2,500 it would have lost 90% in the 21st Century. The dollars lost 90% in the 21st Century, just to 2500 that's profound to go. That's right, it already lost more than 90% from $20 to 250 so it lost 90% and then 90% of the 10% that was left. And that's where we're at. We're worse than that. Today, no currency, as far as I understand, I've been told this. Haven't done the homework, but it's my understanding, no currency in the history of the world has ever survived that kind of debasement. So I think a lot of people who are watching are like, okay, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And then the big question is, is when that when comes? What does the transition look like? What rises in its place? And then you look at things like a central bank digital currency, which is not like Bitcoin, it's not a crypto, it's a centrally controlled currency run by the central bank. If we get that, I would argue that's not good for privacy and security. Could be Bitcoin would be better. I would argue, could go back to gold backing, which I would say is better than what we have, or we could get something nobody's even thought of. I don't know. We don't know, but I do think we're at the end of the life cycle. Historically, all things being equal. And I think all the indication with a big run up of gold, gold is screaming something's broken. It's just screaming it right now, not just because the price is up, but who's buying it. It's just central banks.   Keith Weinhold  20:12   Central banks are doing most of the buying, right? It's not individual investors going to a coin shop. So that's really screaming, telling you that people are concerned. People are losing their faith in giving loans to the United States for sure. And Russ, as we talk about gold, and it's important link to the dollar over time, you mentioned how they wanted it, to get it out of the bank's hands for a while. Of course, there was also a period of time where it was illegal for Americans to own gold. And then we had this Bretton Woods Agreement, which was really important as well, where we ended up violating promises that had to do with gold again. So can you speak to us some more about that? Because a lot of people just don't understand what happened at Bretton Woods.   Russell Gray  20:56   What happened is we had the big crash in 1929 and the net result of that was, in 1933 we got executive order 6102 In fact, I have a picture of it framed, and that was in the wake of that in 1933 and so what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in signing that document, which was empowered by a previous act of Congress, basically let him confiscate all The money. It'd be like right now if, right now, you know, President Trump signed an executive order and said, You have to take all your cash, every all the cash that you have out of your wallet. You have to send it all, take it into the bank, and they're going to give you a Chuck E Cheese token, right? And if you don't do it, if you do it, it's a $500,000 fine in 10 years in prison. Right? Back then it was a $10,000 fine, which was twice the price of the average Home huge fine, plus jail time. That's how severe it was, okay? So they confiscated all the money. That happened in 33 okay? Now we go off to war, and we enter the war late again. And so we have the big manufacturing operation. We're selling munitions and all kinds of supplies to everybody, all over the world, right? And we're just raking the gold and 20,000 tons of gold. We got all the gold. We got the biggest army now, we got the biggest bomb, we got the biggest economy. We got the strongest balance sheet. Well, I mean, you know, we went into debt for the war, but, I mean, we had a lot of gold. So now everybody else is decimated. We're the big dog. Everybody knows we're the big dog. Nine states shows up in New Hampshire Bretton Woods, and they have this big meeting with the world, and they say, Hey guys, new sheriff in town. Britain used to be the world's reserve currency, but today we're going to be the world's reserve currency. And so this was the new setup. But it's okay. It's okay because our dollar is as good as gold. It's backed by gold, and so anytime you want foreign nations, you can just bring your dollars to us and we'll give you the gold, no problem. And everyone's like, okay, great. What are you going to say? Right? You got the big bomb, you got the big army. Everybody needs you for everything to live like you're not going to say no. So they said, Yes, of course, the United States immediately. I've got a speech that a guy named Beardsley Rummel did. Have you ever heard me talk about this before? Keith, No, I've never heard about this. So Beardsley Rummel was the New York Fed chair when all this was happening. And so he gave a speech to the American Bar Association in 1945 and I got a transcript of it, a PDF transcript of it from 1946 and basically he goes, Look, income taxes are obsolete. We don't need income tax anymore because we can print money, because we're off the gold standard and we have no accountability. We just admitted it, just totally admitted it, and said the only reason we have income tax is to manipulate behavior, is to redistribute wealth, is to force people to do what we want them to do, punish things and reward others, right? Just set it plain language. I have a transcript of the speech. You can get a copy of you send an email to Rummel R U, M, L@mainstreetcapitalist.com I'll get it to you. So it's really, really interesting. So he admitted it. So we went along in the 40s and the 50s, and, you know, we had the only big manufacturing you know, because everybody else is still recovering from the war. Everything been bombed to smithereens, and we're spending money and doing all kinds of stuff. And having the 50s, it was great, right, right up until the mid 60s. So the mid 60s, it's like, Okay, we got a problem. And Charles de Gaulle, who was the president of France at the time, went to a meeting. And there's a YouTube video, but you can see it, he basically told the world, hey, I don't think the United States is doing a good job managing this world's reserve currency. I don't think they've got the gold. I think they printed too much money. I think that we should start to go redeem our dollars and get the gold. That was pretty forward thinking. And he created a run on the bank. And at the same time, we passed the Coinage Act in 1965 and took all the silver out of the people's money. So we took the gold in 33 and then we took the silver in 65 right? Because we got Vietnam and the Great Society, welfare, all these things were going on in the 60s. We're just going broke. Meanwhile, our gold supply went from 20,000 tons down to eight and Richard. Nixon is like, whoa, time out. Like, this is bad. And so we had inflation in 1970 August 15, 1971 year before August 15, 1971 1970 Nixon writes an executive order and freezes all prices and all wages. It became illegal by presidential edict for a private business to give their employee a raise or to raise their prices to the customers.    Keith Weinhold  25:30   It's almost if that could happen price in theUnited States of America, right?    Russell Gray  25:36   And inflation was 4.4% and it was a national emergency like today. I mean, you know, a few years ago, like three or four years ago, we if we could get it down 4.4% it'd be Holly. I'd be like a celebration. That was bad. And so that's what happened. So a year later, that didn't work. It was a 90 day thing. It was a disaster. And so in a year later, August 15, 1971 Nixon came on live TV after Gunsmoke. I think it was, and I was old enough I'm watching TV on a Sunday night I watched it. Wow. So I live, that's how old I am. So it's a lot of this history, not the Bretton Woods stuff, but from like 1960 2,3,4, forward. I remember I was there.    Keith Weinhold  26:13   Yeah, that you remember the whole Nixon address on television. We should say it for the listener that doesn't know. Basically the announcement Nixon made, he said, was a temporary measure, is that foreign nations can no longer redeem their dollars for gold. He broke the promise that was made at Bretton Woods in about 1945   Russell Gray  26:32   Yeah. And then gold went from $42 up to 850 and a whole series of events that have led to where we're at today were put in place to cover up the fact that the dollar was failing. We had climate emergency. We were headed towards the next global Ice Age. We had an existential threat in two different diseases that hit one right after the other. First one was the h1 n1 flu, swine flu, and then the next thing was AIDS. And so we had existential pandemic, two of them. We also had a oil shortage crisis. We were going to run out of fossil fuel by the year 2000 we had to do all kinds of very public, visible, visceral things that we would all see. You could only buy gas odd even days, like, if your license plate ended in an odd number, you could go on these days, and if it ended on an even number, you could go on the other days. And so we had that. We lowered our national speed limit down to 55 miles an hour. We created the EPA and all these different agencies under Jimmy Carter to try to regulate and manage all of this crisis. Prior to that, Nixon sent Kissinger over to China, and we opened up trade relations. And we'd been in Vietnam to protect the world from communism because it was so horrible. And then in the wake of that, we go over to Communist China, Chairman Mao and open up trade relations. Why we needed access to their cheap labor to suck up all the inflation. And we went over to the Saudis, and we cut the petro dollar deal. Why? Because we needed the float. We needed some place for all these excess dollars that we had created to get sucked up. And so they got sucked up in trading the largest commodity in the world, energy. And the deal was, hey, Saudis, here's the deal. You like your kingdom? Well, we got the big bomb. We got the big army. You're going to rule the roost in the in the Middle East, and we'll protect you. All you got to do is make sure you sell all your oil in dollars and dollars only. And they're like, Well, what if we're selling oil to China, or what if we're selling oil to Japan? Can they pay in yen? Nope, they got to sell yen. Buy dollars. Well, what do we do with all these dollars? Buy our treasuries. Okay, so what if I got this? Yeah, and so that was the petrodollar system. And the world looked at everything went on, and the world is like, Hmm, the United States coming back to Europe, and Charles de Gaulle, they're like, the United States is not handling this whole dollar thing real well. We need an alternative. What if all of us independent nations in Europe got together and created a common currency? We don't want to be like one country, like the United States, but we want to be like an economic union. So let's create a current let's call it the euro. And they started that process in the 70s, but they didn't get it done till 99 and so they get it done in 99 as soon as they get it done, this guy named Saddam Hussein goes, Hey, I'm now the big dog here. I got the fourth largest army in the world. I'm here in, you know, big oil producing nation. Let's trade in the euro. Let's get off the dollar. Let's do oil in the euro. And he's gone. I'm not sure I should put my hat back on. I'm not sure, but somehow we went into Afghanistan and took a hard left and took this guy out.   Keith Weinhold  29:44   Some credence to this. Yes, yeah, so. But with that said,   Russell Gray  29:47   you know, we ended up with the Euro taking about 20% of the global trade market from the United States, which is about where it sits today. And the United States used to be up over 80% and now we're down below 60% still. The Big Dog by triple and the euro is not in a position to supplant the US, but I think China, whose claim to fame is looking at other people's technology and models and copying it, looked at what the United States did to become the dominant economic force, and I think they've systematically been copying it. I wrote a report on this way back in 2013 when I started really paying attention to it and began to chronicle all the things that they were doing, this big D dollarization movement that I think still has legs. It's the BRICS movement. It's all the central banks buying gold. It's the bilateral trade agreements where people are doing business outside the dollar. There's been not just that, but also putting together the infrastructure, right? The Asian Infrastructure Bank is an alternative to the IMF looking, if you have you read Confessions of an economic hitman. No. Okay, so this is a guy that used to work in the government, I think, CIA or something, and he would go down and he'd cut deals with leaders of countries to get them to borrow from the United States to put in key infrastructure so they could trade with the US. And then, of course, if they defaulted, then the US owned that in the infrastructure. You can look it up. His name is Perkins, right. Look it up confessions of economic hit now, but you see China doing the same thing. China's got their Belt and Road Initiative. And you go through, and if you want to trade with China on that route, you have traded, you're gonna have to have infrastructure. You can eat ports. You're gonna need terminals for distribution. But you, Oh, you don't have the money. We'll loan it to you, and we'll loan it to you and you want. Now we're creating demand for you want, and we also are enslaving borrower servant to the lender. We're beginning to enslave these other nations under the guise of helping them by financing their growth so they can do business with us. It's the same thing the United States did and Shanghai Gold Exchange, as opposed to the London Bullion exchange. So all of the key pieces of infrastructure that were put in place to facilitate Western hegemony in the financial markets the Chinese have been systematically putting in place with bricks, and so there's a reason we're in this big trade war right now. We recognize that they had started to get in a position where they were actually a real threat, and we got to cut their legs out from underneath them before they get any stronger. Again, I should put my hat back on. Nobody's calling me up and telling me, I'm just reading between the lines. Sure,   Keith Weinhold  32:23   there certainly are more competitors to the dollar now. And can you imagine what rate of inflation that we would have had if we had not outsourced our labor and productivity over to a low wage place like China in the east? Russ and I have been talking about the long term debasement of the dollar and why. More on that when we come back, including what Russ is up to today. You're listening to get rich education. Our guest is Russell Gray. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your pre qual and even chat with President Chaley Ridge personally while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lendinggroup.com that's Ridge lendinggroup.com. You know what's crazy? Your bank is getting rich off of you. The average savings account pays less than 1% it's like laughable. Meanwhile, if your money isn't making at least 4% you're losing to inflation. That's why I started putting my own money into the FFI liquidity fund. It's super simple. Your cash can pull in up to 8% returns, and it compounds. It's not some high risk gamble like digital or AI stock trading. It's pretty low risk because they've got a 10 plus year track record of paying investors on time, in full every time. I mean, I wouldn't be talking about it if I wasn't invested myself. You can invest as little as 25k and you keep earning until you decide you want your money back. No weird lockups or anything like that. So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds just sitting there doing nothing. Check it out. Text family, 266, 866, to learn about freedom family investments, liquidity fund again. Text family, 266, 866,   Garrett Sutton  34:36   hi. This is Rich Dad advisor, Garrett Sutton. You're listening to the always valuable. Get rich education with Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.    Keith Weinhold  34:52   Welcome back to get rich education. We're talking with the main street capitalists Russell gray about this long term debasement of the dollar. It's an. Inevitable. It's one of the things we actually can forecast with pretty good predictability that the dollar will continue to debase. It's one of the few almost guarantees that we have in investing. So we can think about how we want to play that Russ one thing I wonder about is, did we have to completely de peg the dollar from gold? Couldn't we have just diluted it where we could instead say, Well, hey, now, instead of just completely depegging the dollar from gold, we could say, well, now it takes 10 times as many dollars as it used to to redeem it for an ounce of gold. Did it make it more powerful that we just completely de pegged it 100%   Russell Gray  35:36   it would disempower the monopoly. Right? In other words, I think that the thing from the very beginning, was scripted to disconnect from the accountability of gold, which is what sound money advocates want. They want some form of independent Accountability. Gold is like an audit to a financial system. If you're the bankers and you're running the program, the last thing in the world you want is a gold standard, because it limits your ability to print money out of thin air and profit from that. So I don't think the people who are behind all of this are, in no way, shape or form, interested in doing anything that's going to limit their power or hold them accountable. They want just the opposite. I think if they could wave a magic wand and pick their solution to the problem, it would be central bank digital currency, which would give them ultimate control. Yeah. And it wouldn't surprise me if we maybe, perhaps, were on a path where some crises were going to converge, whether it's opportunistic, meaning that the crisis happened on its own, and quote Rahm Emanuel and whoever he was quoting, you know, never let a good crisis go to waste, and you're just opportunistic, or, you know, put the conspiracy theory hat on, and maybe these crises get created in order to facilitate the power grab. I don't know. It really doesn't matter what the motives are or how it happens at the end of the day, it's what happens. It happened in 33 it happened in 60. In 71 it's what happens. And so it's been a systematic de pegging of any form of accountability. I mean, we used to have a budget ceiling. We used to talk about now it's just like, it's routine. You blow right through it, right, right. There's you balance. I mean, when's the last time you even had a budget? Less, less, you know, much less anything that looked like a valid balanced budget amendment. So I think there's just no accountability other than the voting booth. And, you know, I think maybe you could make the argument that whether you like Trump or not, the public's apparent embrace of him, show you that the main street and have a lot of faith in Main Street. I think Main Street is like, you know what? This is broken. I don't know what's how to fix it, but somebody just needs to go in and just tear this thing down and figure out a new plant. Because I think if you anybody paying attention, knows that this perpetual debasement, which is kind of the theme of the show is it creates haves and have nots. Guys like you who understand how to use real estate to short the dollar, especially when you marry it to gold, which is one of my favorite strategies to double short the dollar, can really magnify the power of inflation to pull more wealth onto your balance sheet. Problem is the people who aren't on that side of the coin are on the other side of the coin, and so the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. Well, the first order of business in a system we can't control is help as many people be on the rich get richer. That's why we had the get rich show, right? Let's help other people get rich. Because if I'm the only rich guy in the room, all the guns are pointed at me, right? I wanted everybody as rich as possible. I think Trump and Kiyosaki wrote about that in their book. Why we want you to be rich, right? When everybody's prospering, it's it's better, it's safer, you have people to trade with and whatnot, but we have eviscerated the middle class because industry has had to go access cheap labor markets in order to compensate for this inflation. And you know, you talk about the Fed mandate, which is 2% inflation, price inflation, 2% so if you say something that costs $1 today, a year from now, is going to cost $1 too, you think, well, maybe that's not that bad. But here's the problem, the natural progression of Business and Technology is to lower the cost, right? So you have something cost $1 today, and because somebody's using AI and internet and automation and robots and all this technology, right? And the cost, they could really sell it for 80 cents. And so the Fed looks at and goes, Let's inflate to $1.02 that's not two cents of inflation. That's 22 cents of inflation. And so there's hidden inflation. The benefits of the gains in productivity don't show up in the CPI, but it's like deferred maintenance on an apartment building. You can make your cash flow look great if you're not setting anything aside for the inevitable day when that roof is going to go out and that parking lot is going to need to be repaved, right? And you don't know how far out you are until you get there and you're like, wow, I'm really short, and I think that we have been experiencing for decades. The theft of the benefit of our productivity gains, and we're not just a little bit out of position. We're way out of position. That's   Keith Weinhold  40:07   a great point. Like I had said earlier, imagine what the rate of inflation would be if we hadn't outsourced so much of our labor and productivity to low cost China. And then imagine what the rate of inflation would be as well, if you would factor in all of this increased productivity and efficiency, the natural tendencies of which are to make prices go lower as society gets more productive, but instead they've gone higher. So when you adjust for some of these factors, you just can't imagine what the true debased purchasing power of the dollar is. It's been happening for a long time. It's inevitable that it's going to continue to happen in the future. So this has been a great chat about the history and us understanding what the powers that be have done to debase our dollar. It's only at what rate we don't know. Russ, tell us more about what you're doing today. You're really out there more as a champion for Main Street in capitalism.   Russell Gray  41:04   I mean, 20 years with Robert and the real estate guys, and it was fantastic. I loved it. I went through a lot, obviously, in 2008 and that changed me a little bit. Took me from kind of being a blocking and tackling, here's how you do real estate, and to really understanding macro and going, you know, it doesn't matter. You can do like I did, and you build this big collection. Big collection of properties and you lose it all in a moment because you don't understand macro. So I said, Okay, I want to champion that cause. And so we did that. And then we saw in the 2012 JOBS Act, the opportunity for capital raisers to go mainstream and advertise for credit investors. And I wrote a report then called the new law breaks Wall Street monopoly. And I felt like that was going to be a huge opportunity, and we pioneered that. But then after my late wife died, and I had a chance to spend some time alone during COVID, and I thought, life is short. What do I really want to accomplish before I go? And then I began looking at what was going on in the world. I see now a couple of things that are both opportunities and challenges or causes to be championed. And one is the mega trend that I believe the world is going you know, some people call it a fourth turning whatever. I don't consider that kind of we have to fall off a cliff as Destiny type of thing to be like cast in stone. But what I do see is that people are sick and tired of monopolies. We're sick and tired of big tech, we're sick and tired of big media, we're sick and tired of big government. We're sick and tired of big corporations, we don't want it, and big banks, right? So you got the rise of Bitcoin, you got people trying to get out from underneath the Western hegemony, as we've been talking about decentralization of everything. Our country was founded on the concept of decentralization, and so people don't understand that, right? It used to be everything was centralized. All powers in the king. Real Estate meant royal property. That's what real estate it's not like real asset, like tangible it's royal estate. It's royal property. Everything belonged to the king, and you just got to work it like a serf. And then you got to keep 75% in your produce, and you sent 25% you sent 25% through all the landlords, the land barons, and all the people in the hierarchy that fed on running things for the king, but you didn't own anything. Our founder set that on, turn that upside down, and said, No, no, no, no, no, it's not the king that's sovereign. It's the individual. The individual is sovereign. It isn't the monarchy, it's the individual states. And so we're going to bring the government, small. The central government small has only got a couple of obligations, like protect the borders, facilitate interstate commerce, and let's just have one common currency so that we can do business together. Other than that, like, the state's just going to run the show. Of course, Lincoln kind of blew that up, and it's gotten a lot worse after FDR, so I feel like we're under this big decentralization movement, and I think Main Street capitalism is the manifestation of that. If you want to decentralize capitalism, the gig economy, if you want to be a guy like you, and you can run your whole business off your laptop with a microphone and a camera, you know, in today's day and age with technology, people have tasted the freedom of decentralization. So I think the rise of the entrepreneur, I think the ability to go build a real asset portfolio and get out of the casinos of Wall Street. I think right now, if we are successful in bringing back these huge amounts of investment, Trump's already announced like two and a half or $3 trillion of investment, people are complaining, oh, the world is selling us. Well, they're selling stocks and they're selling but they're putting the money actually into creating businesses here in the United States that's going to create that primary driver, as you well know, in real estate, that's going to create the secondary and tertiary businesses, and the properties they're going to use all kinds of Main Street opportunity are going to grow around that. I lived in Silicon Valley, when a company would get funded, it wasn't just a company that prospered, it was everything around that company, right? All these companies. I remember when Apple started. I remember when Hewlett Packard, it was big, but it got a lot bigger, right there. I watched all that happen in Silicon Valley. I think that's going to happen again. I think we're at the front end of that. And so that's super exciting. Wave. The second thing that is super important is this raising capitalist project. And the reason I'm doing it is because if we don't train our next generation in the principles of capitalism and the freedom that it how it decentralizes Their personal economy, and they get excited about Bitcoin, but that's not productive. I'm not putting it down. I'm just saying it's not productive. You have to be productive. You want to have a decentralized currency. Yes, you want to decentralize productivity. That's Main Street capitalism. If kids who never get a chance to be in the productive economy get to vote at 1819, 2021, 22 before they've ever earned a paycheck, before they have any idea, never run a business. Somebody tells them, hey, those guys that have all that money and property, they cheated. It's not fair. We need to take from them. We need to limit them, not thinking, Oh, well, if I do that, when I get to be there, that what I'm voting for is going to get on me. Right now, Keith, there are kids in ninth grade who are going to vote for your next president, right?   Keith Weinhold  45:56   And they think capitalism is evil. This is part of what you're doing with the raising capitalists project, helping younger people think differently. Russ, I have one last thing to ask you. This has to do with the capitalism that you're championing on your platforms now. And real estate, I continue to see sometimes I get comments on my YouTube channel, especially maybe it's more and more people increasingly saying, Hey, I think housing should be a human right. So talk to us about that. And maybe it's interesting, Russ, if I take the other side of it and play devil's advocate, people who think housing is a human right, they say something like, the idea is that housing, you know, it's a fundamental need, just like food and clean water and health care are without stable housing. It's incredibly hard for a person to access opportunities like work and education or health care or participate meaningfully in society at all. So government ought to provide housing for everybody. What are your thoughts there?   Russell Gray  46:54   Well, it's inherently inflationary, which is the root cause of the entire problem. So anytime you create consumption without production, you're going to have more consumers than producers, and so you're going to have more competition for those goods. The net, net truth of what happens in that scenario are shortages everywhere. Every civilization that's ever tried any form of system where people just get things for free because they need them, end up with shortages in poverty. It doesn't lift everybody. It ruins everything. I mean, that's not conjecture. That's history, and so that's just the way it works. And if you just were to land somebody on a desert island and you had an economy of one, they're going to learn really quick the basic principles of capitalism, which is production always precedes consumption, always 100% of the time, right? If you're there on that desert island and you don't hunt fish or gather, you don't eat, right? You don't get it because, oh, it's a human right to have food. Nope, it's a human right to have the right to go get food. Otherwise, you're incarcerated, you have to have the freedom of movement to go do something to provide for yourself, but you cannot allow people to consume without production. So everybody has to produce. And you know, if you go back to the Plymouth Rock experiment, if you're familiar with that at all, yeah, yeah. So you know, just for anybody who doesn't know, when the Pilgrims came over here in the 1600s William Bradford was governor, and they tried it. They said, Hey, we're here. Let's Stick Together All for one and one for all. Here's the land. Everybody get up every day and work. Everybody works, and everybody eats. They starved. And so he goes, Okay, guys, new plan. All right, you wine holds. See this little plot of land, that's yours. You work it. You can eat whatever you produce. Over there, you grace. You're going to do yours and Johnson's, you're going to do yours, right? Well, what happened is now everybody got up and worked, and they created more than enough for their own family, and they had an abundance. And the abundance was created out of their hunger. When they went to serve their own needs, they created abundance forever others. That's the premise of capitalism. It's not the perfect system. There is no perfect system. We live in a world where human beings have to work before they get to eat. When I say eat, it could be having a roof over their head. It could be having clothes. It could be going on vacation. It could be having a nice car. It could be getting health care. It doesn't matter what it is, whatever it is you need. You have the right, or should have, the right, in a free system to go earn that by being productive, but the minute somebody comes and says, Oh, you worked, and I'm going to take what you produced and give it to somebody else who didn't, that's patently unfair, but economically, it's disastrous, because it incentivizes people not to work, which creates less production, more consumption. I have another analogy with sandwich makers, but you can imagine that if you got a group if you got a group of people making sandwiches, one guy starts creating coupons for sandwiches. Well then if somebody says, Okay, well now we got 19 people providing for 20. That's okay, but then all the guys making sandwiches. Why making sandwiches? I'm gonna get the coupon business pretty soon. You got 18 guys doing coupons, only two making sandwiches. Not. Have sandwiches to go around all the sandwiches cost tons of coupons because we got way more financialization than productivity, right? That's the American economy. We have to fix that. We can't have people making money by just trading on other people's productivity. We have to have people actually being productive. This is what I believe the administration is trying to do, rebuild the middle class, rebuild that manufacturing base, make us a truly productive economy, and then you don't have to worry about these things, right? We're going to create abundance. And if you don't have the inflation is which is coming from printing money out of thin air and giving to people who don't produce, then housing, all sudden, becomes affordable. It's not a problem. Health care becomes affordable. Everything becomes affordable because you create abundance, because everybody's producing the system is fundamentally broken. Now we have to learn how to profit in it in its current state, which is what you teach people how to do. We also have to realize that it's not sustainable. We're on an unsustainable path, and we're probably nearing that event horizon, the path of no return, where the system is going to break. And the question is, is, how are you going to be prepared for it when it happens? Number two, are you going to be wise enough to advocate when you get a chance to cast a vote or make your voice heard for something that's actually going to create prosperity and freedom versus something that's going to create scarcity and oppression? And that's the fundamental thing that we have to master as a society. We got to get to our youth, because they're the biggest demographic that can blow the thing up, and they're the ones that have been being indoctrinated the worst.   Keith Weinhold  51:29   Yes, Fed Chair Jerome Powell himself said that we live in a economic system today that is unsustainable. Yes, the collectivism we touched on quickly descends into the tyranny of the majority. And in my experience, historically, the success of public housing projects has been or to mixed at best, residents often don't respect the property when they don't have an equity stake in it or even a security deposit tied up in it, and blight and high crime rates have often followed with these public housing projects. When you go down that path of making housing as a human right, like you said earlier, you have a right to go procure housing for yourself, just not to ask others to pay for it for you. Well, Russ, this has been great. It's good to have your voice back on the show. Here again, here on a real estate show. If people want to connect with you, continue to see what you've been up to and the good projects that you're working on, promoting the virtues of capitalism. What's the best way for them to do that?   Russell Gray  52:31   I think just send an email to follow at Russell Gray, R, U, S, S, E, L, L, G, R, A, y.com, let you know where I am on social media. I'll let you know when I put out new content. I'll let you know when I'm a guest on somebody somebody's show and I'm on the cusp of getting my own show finally launched. I've been doing a lot of planning to get that out, but I'm excited about it because I do think, like I said, The time is now, and I think the marketplace is ripe, and I do speak Main Street and macro, and I hope I can add a nuance to the conversation that will add value to people.   Keith Weinhold  53:00   Russ, it's been valuable as always. Thanks so much for coming back onto the show. Thanks, Keith.   Yeah, terrific, historic outline from Russ about the long term decline of the dollar. It's really a fresh reminder and motivator to keep being that savvy borrower. Of course, real estate investors have access to borrow giant sums of dollars and short the currency that lay people do not. In fact, lay people don't even understand that it's a viable strategy at all. Like he touched on, Russ has really been bringing an awareness about how decentralization is such a powerful force that reshapes society. In fact, he was talking about that the last time that I saw him in person a few months ago. Notably, he touched on Nixon era wage and price controls. Don't you find it interesting? Fascinating, really, how a few weeks ago, Trump told Walmart not to pass tariff induced price increases onto their customers. Well, that's a form of price control that we're seeing today to our point, when we had the father of Reaganomics, David Stockman here on the show, five weeks ago, tariffs are already government intervention into the free market, and then a president telling private companies how to set their prices, that is really strong government overreach. I mean, I can't believe that more people aren't talking about this. Maybe that's just because this cycle started with Walmart, and that's just doesn't happen to be a company that people feel sorry for. Hey, well, I look forward to meeting you in person in Miami in just four days, as I'll be a faculty member for when we kick off the terrific real estate guys Investor Summit and see and really getting to know you, because we're going to spend nine days together. Teaching, learning and having a great time on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Until then, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.   Speaker 3  55:13   Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively.   Keith Weinhold  55:36   You know whatever you want, the best written real estate and finance info. Oh, geez, today's experience limits your free articles access and it's got pay walls and pop ups and push notifications and cookies disclaimers. It's not so great. So then it's vital to place nice, clean, free content into your hands that adds no hype value to your life. That's why this is the golden age of quality newsletters, and I write every word of ours myself. It's got a dash of humor, and it's to the point because even the word abbreviation is too long, my letter usually takes less than three minutes to read. And when you start the letter, you also get my one hour fast real estate video. Course, it's all completely free. It's called the Don't quit your Daydream letter. It wires your mind for wealth, and it couldn't be easier for you to get it right now. Just text. GRE to 66866, while it's on your mind, take a moment to do it right now. Text, GRE to 66866   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, getricheducation.com.

A few years before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock, San Miguel Chapel was built in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Its adobe walls have withstood centuries of war and wear.("Cradles of Catholicism" series, no. 38, New Mexico)

In this special Memorial Day  of The Christian Car Guy Show, host Robby Dilmore explores the powerful themes of sacrifice, remembrance, and faith through the enduring symbolism of stone. Drawing connections between America's founding at Plymouth Rock, the traditions of Memorial Day, and biblical references—including reflections from a recent trip to Israel—the episode weaves history and spirituality into a heartfelt tribute.

A singular stretch of untamed wilderness lines Calirfonia's Northern Coast. A landscape so rugged and dramatic that the state's infamous 'route one' avoids it's sheer cliffs and crashing waves.My dog Noodles and I spend three days along this coast - while there we hear a love story. -We answer listener questions at the end, which include: How do you know where you're going next? Does your van get messy?Was there anything that surprised you in researching Plymouth Rock? What cryptid are you most scared of? Recommendations: Black Sands Beach near Shelter Cove: https://sheltercovecalifornia.com/the-lost-coast-trailBeer and Food:https://www.gyppo.com/Backpacking for the brave - make sure you reserve in advance: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/california/lost-coast-trail-mattole-to-black-sands-beachWorks Cited: https://www.savetheredwoods.org/project/lost-coast-redwoods/https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=28172https://www.aspireadventurerunning.com/the-lost-coast-the-ancestral-lands-of-the-sinkyone-people/https://sheltercovecalifornia.com/the-lost-coast-trailhttps://michaelbass.media/THE-LOST-COASThttps://www.visitredwoods.com/listing/shelter-cove-on-the-lost-coast/138/https://www.visitcalifornia.com/experience/lost-coast/Noah and Noodles here! We want to extend a heartfelt thanks to every listener of Backroad Odyssey. Your support fuels our passion and inspires us to keep sharing stories and discover overlooked locations. Follow each adventure visually at:https://www.instagram.com/backroadsodyssey/

The Beach Boys' SMiLE was abandoned by Brian Wilson in 1967 and eventually performed at an emotional gathering of the faithful in London 37 years later. For writer and lecturer David Leaf it became an obsession. He made a documentary about it in 2004 and has just published ‘SMiLE: The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of Brian Wilson' drawn from detailed conversations with the people involved. He talks to us here about his discoveries, which include … ... the Rolling Stone story that kick-started his obsession. … “a bicycle ride from Plymouth Rock to Hawaii” and other early plans for the album. … how Leonard Bernstein, the Beatles and Derek Taylor racked up the pressure in the studio. … why the other Beach Boys – and Capitol and Murry Wilson - felt the new music was a threat to their livelihood. … how Brian composed the “teenage symphony for God” that became an albatross around his neck. ... “Ray Davies needed a deadline”: the perils of endless recording time. … the magnetism of Van Dyke Parks, a man who “talks in paragraphs”. ... the imagined impact on the world and the band's career if SMiLE had come out in 1967. … the birth of “art rock” versus the strictures of the music business. … the value of the SMiLE myth in the eventual rebirth of the Beach Boys. … the reaction to its long-awaited performance at the Festival Hall in 2004. ... why Brian thought shelving the album would save the group yet “they went from a No 1 single to an act nobody cared about in under a year”. ... and the greatest Beach Boys record of all time. Order SMiLE: the Rise, Fall & Resurrection of Brian Wilson here: https://omnibuspress.com/products/smile-the-rise-fall-and-resurrection-of-brian-wilson-published-10th-october-2024?_pos=1&_psq=smile&_ss=e&_v=1.0Help us to keep the conversation going by joining our worldwide Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Beach Boys' SMiLE was abandoned by Brian Wilson in 1967 and eventually performed at an emotional gathering of the faithful in London 37 years later. For writer and lecturer David Leaf it became an obsession. He made a documentary about it in 2004 and has just published ‘SMiLE: The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of Brian Wilson' drawn from detailed conversations with the people involved. He talks to us here about his discoveries, which include … ... the Rolling Stone story that kick-started his obsession. … “a bicycle ride from Plymouth Rock to Hawaii” and other early plans for the album. … how Leonard Bernstein, the Beatles and Derek Taylor racked up the pressure in the studio. … why the other Beach Boys – and Capitol and Murry Wilson - felt the new music was a threat to their livelihood. … how Brian composed the “teenage symphony for God” that became an albatross around his neck. ... “Ray Davies needed a deadline”: the perils of endless recording time. … the magnetism of Van Dyke Parks, a man who “talks in paragraphs”. ... the imagined impact on the world and the band's career if SMiLE had come out in 1967. … the birth of “art rock” versus the strictures of the music business. … the value of the SMiLE myth in the eventual rebirth of the Beach Boys. … the reaction to its long-awaited performance at the Festival Hall in 2004. ... why Brian thought shelving the album would save the group yet “they went from a No 1 single to an act nobody cared about in under a year”. ... and the greatest Beach Boys record of all time. Order SMiLE: the Rise, Fall & Resurrection of Brian Wilson here: https://omnibuspress.com/products/smile-the-rise-fall-and-resurrection-of-brian-wilson-published-10th-october-2024?_pos=1&_psq=smile&_ss=e&_v=1.0Help us to keep the conversation going by joining our worldwide Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Beach Boys' SMiLE was abandoned by Brian Wilson in 1967 and eventually performed at an emotional gathering of the faithful in London 37 years later. For writer and lecturer David Leaf it became an obsession. He made a documentary about it in 2004 and has just published ‘SMiLE: The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of Brian Wilson' drawn from detailed conversations with the people involved. He talks to us here about his discoveries, which include … ... the Rolling Stone story that kick-started his obsession. … “a bicycle ride from Plymouth Rock to Hawaii” and other early plans for the album. … how Leonard Bernstein, the Beatles and Derek Taylor racked up the pressure in the studio. … why the other Beach Boys – and Capitol and Murry Wilson - felt the new music was a threat to their livelihood. … how Brian composed the “teenage symphony for God” that became an albatross around his neck. ... “Ray Davies needed a deadline”: the perils of endless recording time. … the magnetism of Van Dyke Parks, a man who “talks in paragraphs”. ... the imagined impact on the world and the band's career if SMiLE had come out in 1967. … the birth of “art rock” versus the strictures of the music business. … the value of the SMiLE myth in the eventual rebirth of the Beach Boys. … the reaction to its long-awaited performance at the Festival Hall in 2004. ... why Brian thought shelving the album would save the group yet “they went from a No 1 single to an act nobody cared about in under a year”. ... and the greatest Beach Boys record of all time. Order SMiLE: the Rise, Fall & Resurrection of Brian Wilson here: https://omnibuspress.com/products/smile-the-rise-fall-and-resurrection-of-brian-wilson-published-10th-october-2024?_pos=1&_psq=smile&_ss=e&_v=1.0Help us to keep the conversation going by joining our worldwide Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What's the real story and legacy of Plymouth Rock? Did the so-called “Pilgrims” REALLY step upon that particular rock that fateful Autumn of 1620? Why and how did Plymouth Rock become the defining “Founding of America" Myth?My dog Noodles and I visit the rock in Plymouth Massachusetts to find out! Works Cited: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1wxsdq.7?searchText=plymouth+rock&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dplymouth%2Brock%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A613af71a7850d2e61fbd659b9b9eb5f9&seq=6https://www.jstor.org/stable/41779364?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contentsThey Knew They Were Pilgrims, Plymouth Colony and the Contest for American Liberty by John G Turner https://www.history.com/articles/the-real-story-behind-plymouth-rockhttps://www.studentsofhistory.com/comparing-jamestown-plymouth-colonieshttps://www.britannica.com/topic/Plymouth-Rock-United-States-historyhttps://www.history.com/articles/william-bradfordhttps://www.history.com/articles/king-james-bible-most-popularhttps://www.history.com/articles/mayflower-compacthttps://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lawes-divine-morall-and-martiall/https://www.neh.gov/blog/plymouth-colony-and-beginnings-liberty-america-qa-neh-public-scholar-john-turnerhttps://plimoth.org/for-students/homework-help/mayflower-and-mayflower-compacthttps://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdfs/The%20Mayflower%20Compact.pdfhttps://www.potawatomi.org/blog/2020/11/25/the-true-dark-history-of-thanksgiving/Noah and Noodles here! We want to extend a heartfelt thanks to every listener of Backroad Odyssey. Your support fuels our passion and inspires us to keep sharing stories and discover overlooked locations. Follow each adventure visually at:https://www.instagram.com/backroadsodyssey/

EPISODE SPONSORS & PROMOS: Get your CPAP products here: www.cpap.com Listen to the podcast: We Learn Italian Step-by-Step ********************** Access over 90+ Ad-Free episodes of Calm History by becoming a Silk+ Member (FREE for a limited time!) and enjoy over 600 total episodes from these relaxing podcasts: Calm History (90+ episodes) Sleep Whispers (430+ episodes) ASMR Sleep Station (50+ … Continue reading Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony: Mayflower, Plymouth Rock, Survival, Squanto, Thanksgiving, & Weapons | Relax & Sleep with History

Ben and Andrew lament a dreadful defeat at Plymouth that means it'll almost certainly be the playoffs for United this season. We look at where it's gone wrong, what we'd like to see next, and whether there is still more than a glimmer of hope for the top two... Thanks for listening, and UTB!

This week, the guys talk about old times, cigars, balloons, national monuments, and much more. Tell a friend, tell a hobo... As always, send questions and comments to theretrohale@gmail.com Check out the after show at Patreon.com/TheRetrohale  Thanks for listening, ENJOY IT!

So, Trump secures his Panama deal! Guess who now owns it...? Duped on Epstein by people who were NEVER going to release the truth. And MAGA is being drug into a Bad, Bad place with one particular MAGA "influencer". How is this happening?

In this episode, we go through a fun tier ranking activity focused on New England staples, including CVS, Del's Lemonade, and Whoopie Pies, while sharing personal anecdotes and opinions on each item. We discuss the beauty of fall foliage, the tourist appeal of lighthouses, and the infamous Plymouth Rock. We also debates the merits of roundabouts and the cultural impact of Stephen King, culminating in a lively discussion about Dunkin' Donuts and its place in New England life. dontpanic.io Proud member of the Coffee & Beer family of podcasts, streaming at coffeeandbeer.tv.

On the Insurance Coffee House Podcast this week, we welcome Allison Keavey Luther, Deputy Chief of Human Resources at Boston-based Plymouth Rock AssuranceAllison talks about her career journey from TV producer at CNBC to catching the start-up bug, working as General Manager for early-stage businesses. From there she rode a massive wave of growth at Wayfair, where she was ‘pulled' in to HR.She joined Plymouth Rock in 2023 to work alongside CHRO, Mary Strong, and support the next phase of business growth. Allison gives an insight in to Plymouth Rock's 40-year history, with the business now managing over $2 billion in auto and home insurance premiums, across Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.She highlights the top-down culture, embodied by founder Jim Stone and the desire to create an environment where employees are happier than they would be anywhere elseAllison discusses some of the initiatives in place to drive culture forward, including being intentional about how they work together in the physical environment. On-site gym facilities, drop-in meditation sessions, online recognition program all contribute to creating a culture of friendliness, good citizenship, integrity, loyalty, hard work, and the pursuit of excellence.She shares her one recommendation for insurance leaders coming to interview there at Plymouth Rock. “Let us see who you are. When we are making a hire, particularly at the senior level, culture matters just as much as technical qualifications.Our culture statement is such a critical part of our success that we need to have folks who can advance our culture in the right ways.”Allison urges her HR peers to set the bar high and not to make short-term trade-offs when looking to fill roles. She shares some of the tools and technology Plymouth Rock are using to support talent and help people do their jobs better. As for the one lesson her job has taught her, she wants everyone to learn, Allison emphasizes the power of active listening. “Whether it's a talent or a business challenge, taking the time to really get the full picture. Hear whatever sides of the story are there to make the best decision for the business and the people in it.”And for anyone considering an insurance career move, Allison concludes by advising people to consider how they feel at work every day. “Sometimes we don't check in regularly enough with are we feeling valued? Are we feeling respected? Do, do we feel like there is growth for us ahead? At Plymouth Rock, those are the standards for our people and for our leaders.”Connect with Allison Keavey Luther on LinkedIn or find out more about Plymouth Rock Assurance The Insurance Coffee House Podcast is brought to you by Insurance Search.We are a global Insurance Executive Search Consultancy, supporting Insurance and Insurtech businesses to attract and retain the very best insurance talent.Find out more about showcasing your employer brand as a guest on the Insurance Coffee House Podcast or sign up to our News and Insights. Or follow us on

We all know the story of the Pilgrims arriving on the "Mayflower," setting foot on Plymouth Rock. And then the first Thanksgiving, sitting down to a feast with the Native Americans Except, most of that isn't true. In this 2006 intewrview historian Nathaniel Pohilbrick reveals the darker, more nuanced story of the "Mayflower." Get your copy of Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick As an Amazon Associate, Now I've Heard Everything earns from qualifying purchases.You may also enjoy my interviews with Richard Shenkman and Eric Foner For more vintage interviews with celebrities, leaders, and influencers, subscribe to Now I've Heard Everything on Spotify, Apple Podcasts. and now on YouTube Photo by Nathaniel Philbrick #Mayflower #pilgrims #colonies #histoy

Many have heard of Plymouth Rock, the famous landing spot of the Pilgrims.  But at the northern tip of Michigan, you'll find another rock, larger...

Send us a textWe've spent seven episodes looking at the formation, the deformation, and the reformation of the church in Europe. In this episode, we look at how both the Protestant and Catholic Churches made their way to America and what their impact was. Why did the Reformed Protestants  split into different denominations? What is the difference between a Puritan and a Separatist? What denomination were the Pilgrims who arrived at Plymouth Rock? Which church was the first to arrive in American? How did they interact with the natives? Thanks for tuning in! Be sure to check out everything Proverbs 9:10 on our website, www.proverbs910ministries.com! You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Rumble, YouTube, Twitter, Truth Social, and Gettr!

The Red Nation attended this year's 55th annual National Day of Mourning in Plymouth, Massachusetts. In 1970, Indigenous people and organizations of New England and the American Indian Movement protested at the settler colonial monuments of the Mayflower 2 and Plymouth Rock, disrupting and disproving the myth of so-called Thanksgiving and providing a counter-narrative that cuts the myths of colonization right to the core. Today's episode is an edited version of the line of speeches from this year's event. Watch the video edition on the Red Nation Podcast YouTube channel Watch our report on our TikTok page and social media platforms! https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTYAggXcL/  For more information on the event, visit the United American Indians of New England website. http://uaine.org/  Thank you for supporting Red Media during Native American Heritage Month! We are continuing our fundraiser through the end of the year. Empower Red Media this Giving Tuesday! Our podcast is a collaboration between The Red Nation and Red Media and is produced by Red Media. Red Media exists to fill the need for Indigenous media by and for Indigenous Peoples'. On Indigenous Peoples' Day 2024, and the 5th anniversary of The Red Nation Podcast, Red Media launched its GoFundMe to gain support for operational costs; please consider contributing. You can also continue to support Red Media on Patreon where you will gain access to bonus episodes of The Red Nation Podcast and other benefits. Your support empowers Indigenous media and our podcasts, thank you!  GoFundMe:  https://www.gofundme.com/f/empower-red-medias-indigenous-content  Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/redmediapr Subscribe to The Red Nation Newsletter: https://www.therednation.org/

Patreon Preview. Unlock the full episode at:  www.patreon.com/crackpotpodcast   We hate to break it to you, folks, but here we are.

WGN Radio's Dave Plier and Dave Schwan share the history of the very first Thanksgiving and the traditions that have developed over the years.

WGN Radio's Dave Plier and Dave Schwan share the history of the very first Thanksgiving and the traditions that have developed over the years.

Ryan plays 'Thank You' by Dido returning from a break and Dan is inspired to add it to his romantic playlist for Aimee. Dan mimicks 'Gobble Gobble' and it was good enough fro Ryan to find the song by Matthew West online. Also, a flashback to 2010 and Rush Limbaugh telling the real story of Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock.

CP418 Happy Thanksgiving!INTRO424 years ago the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock with the express purpose of creating a new society where God was central and no king would tell them how to worship. Since then, our country has seen countless issues trying to pull us away from our worship of God. Today on ChurchPublic we are taking a break from current events to focus on the story of Thanksgiving.I hope you enjoy!..---At Church Public we create compelling content to equip you to follow Jesus and engage in the public square including Current Events from a Christian Perspective.Thanks for watching! Thanks for listening!Support the Channel on Substackhttps://substack.com/@churchpublicListen on Apple Podcastshttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/church-public/id1520119356Listen on Spotifyhttps://open.spotify.com/show/3cWx1g4WfSOVs8MX05cSvH?si=8ajf5wFVSjakXiYS7HkmhgListen on GooglePodcastshttps://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xMTc2MjU0LnJzcw?sa=X&ved=0CAYQrrcFahcKEwiI_4eugrbwAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAgFind Me:www.churchpublic.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChurchPublic/Twitter: https://twitter.com/churchpublicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/churchpublic/Support:on PAYPALwww.churchpublic.com/supportToday is a great day to start your own podcast. Whether you're looking for a new marketing channel, have a message you want to share with the world, or just think it would be fun to have your own talk show...podcasting is an easy, inexpensive, and fun way to expand your reach online.Following the link in the show notes let's Buzzsprout know we sent you, gets you a $20 Amazon gift card if you sign up for a paid plan, and helps support our show.https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1132064Support the show

You probably think you've heard the story of the first Thanksgiving – but did you know that the weather was a major factor in both the Pilgrims leaving England, and landing at Plymouth Rock? Or that trees can tell us what the weather was actually like during the winter of the first Thanksgiving? This week we're going Off the Radar with Paleo-Climatologist Dr. Curt Stager and Historian Rebecca Fraser to learn the real story of the first Thanksgiving in American history. Put away the leftover turkey and settle in for a history lesson over 400 years in the making!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

**It's the Radiotopia fundraiser! We can only make this show with your support. Give now and help support This Day and all the independent shows at Radiotopia. Thank you! https://www.radiotopia.fm/donate**All this week, we're joined by Nate DiMeo of The Memory Palace to talk about his new book, his long-running podcast, and the art of history storytelling.Today: Jody, Niki, Kellie and Nate discuss how the legend of Plymouth Rock got worked into US history, more than a century after the actual pilgrims stepped off the Mayflower.Be sure to get your copy of Nate's new book "The Memory Palace" now! Sign up for our newsletter! Get your hands on This Day merch!Find out more at thisdaypod.comThis Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.comGet in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypodOur team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

In this episode of the Long Blue Leadership Podcast, Cadet First Class Andrew Cormier opens up about his inspiring journey from growing up in Massachusetts to becoming a squadron commander at the U.S. Air Force Academy. He reflects on the early influences that shaped his values, the value of community service and service before self, sharing the leadership lessons he's learned along the way.   SUMMARY Andrew also talks about launching his own podcast, designed to help fellow cadets explore their career paths and grow as leaders. Throughout the conversation, he highlights the importance of understanding diverse career opportunities, the personal growth that comes from podcasting, and the power of community engagement. With a focus on national pride and perspective, he emphasizes that true leadership is about serving others—putting the team first rather than seeking personal recognition.   5 QUOTES "It's not about you. It's not about you. It's about the team." "When you're a leader, it's your job. There shouldn't be any extra, you know, kudos given to you. Everyone has their own piece in the puzzle, and just because your face is more prominent than others does not mean that the mission is any less doable with like one piece missing or another piece missing." "I just really urge people to try to understand other people's perspectives and listen more than they talk, because those pieces for me, like I'm a Pretty staunch capitalist, but I recently bought the Communist Manifesto. I want to understand where these ideas stem from." "American ideals are amazing, and they need to be protected. And in order for me to have any say in that, I need to have skin in the game. And that's what I look at my service as is me gaining skin in the game." "It's not difficult, it's just super time consuming and kind of annoying. And so, I mean, it even like stays true to today, everything I have to do isn't necessarily difficult. I'm a management major. I don't know what the Astro or aero people are going through. I'm sure that's very difficult. But for me, it's more just like getting the reps in it, and it's very gradual." - C1C Andrew Cormier '25, October 2024   SHARE THIS EPISODE LINKEDIN  |  TWITTER  |  FACEBOOK   CHAPTERS 00:00:  Introduction to Cadet Andrew Cormier 02:52:  Andrew's Early Life and Background 05:52:  Discovering the Military Path 08:46:  Community Service and Humanitarian Efforts 12:10:  Transitioning to the Air Force Academy 15:07:  Experiences in Basic Training 17:57:  Leadership and Followership at the Academy 20:47:  Becoming a Squadron Commander 24:11:  The Role of a Squadron Commander 27:12:  Starting the Podcast Journey 34:54:  Understanding Career Paths in the Air Force 39:30:  The Impact of Podcasting on Personal Growth 44:45:  Engagement and Value in the Cadet Community 52:36:  Navigating Post-Graduation Decisions 01:00:05:  The Importance of National Pride and Perspective 01:04:53:  Leadership Lessons: It's Not About You   ANDREW'S 5 KEYS TO LEADERSHIP SUCCESS Leadership is not about you, it's about the team. As a leader, your job is to represent and protect your people, not focus on personal privileges. Seek to understand different perspectives and listen more than you talk. Don't take American ideals and freedoms for granted - they need to be actively defended. Balance future planning with living in the present. Don't become overly fixated on the future at the expense of enjoying the moment. Perseverance, critical thinking, and resourcefulness are key to success. Rely on these core strengths rather than trying to control everything. Diverse experiences and mentorship are invaluable. Seek out advice from those who have walked the path you want to follow, and be open to learning from a variety of backgrounds.   ABOUT ANDREW BIO C1C Andrew D. Cormier is a cadet at the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA) in Colorado Springs, CO. Cadet Cormier is the commander of squadron 15, the Mighty War Eagles. C1C Cormier is originally from Fitchburg, MA and entered the Air Force Academy in June of 2021 following his lifelong passion to “serve others.” Throughout his cadet career he has held the squadron position of Diversity & Inclusion NCO and Spark Innovator, but on an unofficial level has hosted the “For the Zoomies” podcast interviewing over 75 officers to better understand their experiences in the Air Force for the sake of helping cadets make career decisions, as well as been a widely trusted barber in the dormitories. C1C Cormier plans to complete his Bachelor of Science in Business Management in May 2025. Immediately following graduation he intends to commission as a Second Leiutenant in the U.S. Air Force and become an Acquisitions Officer. - Copy and Image Credit: Andrew Cormier    CONNECT WITH ANDREW LINKEDIN  |  INSTAGRAM  |  TWITTER   RECOMMENDED LISTENING:  FOR THE ZOOMIES PODCAST with C1C Andrew Cormier   LISTEN NOW!     ABOUT LONG BLUE LEADERSHIP Long Blue Leadership drops every two weeks on Tuesdays and is available on Apple Podcasts, TuneIn + Alexa, Spotify and all your favorite podcast platforms. Search @AirForceGrads on your favorite social channels for Long Blue Leadership news and updates!          FULL TRANSCRIPT SPEAKERS GUEST:  C1C Andrew Cormier  |  HOST:  Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz '99   Naviere Walkewicz 00:00 My guest today is Cadet 1st Class Andrew Cormier, USAFA Class of '25. Andrew stands out among the finest examples of those who have taken the service-before-self aspect of their work as developing leaders very seriously. In Andrew's case, he helps and supports his fellow cadets by guiding them to their optimal career paths through the guests and their experiences on his podcast. This is a new approach for Long Blue Leadership, and one we think you'll appreciate, because we're looking at leadership through the eyes of one who both follows and leads, thriving in both spaces. We'll talk with Andrew about his life before and during his time at the Academy. We'll ask where he's headed when he graduates. We'll discuss the role he's taken on as a podcaster, and we'll ask how he's successfully led and followed. We'll end with Andrew's takeaways and leadership tips. Andrew, welcome to Long Blue Leadership. We're so glad you're here.   Andrew Cormier Thanks for having me, Naviere.   Naviere Walkewicz Absolutely. So it's got to be a little bit different being on the other side of the podcast mic.   Andrew Cormier Yeah, no, it's definitely interesting to be here. I've done a few before, but they weren't in person, and this was like the highest quality, so I have a little bit of imposter syndrome, not gonna lie.   Naviere Walkewicz Oh goodness. Well, we'll learn from each other, right? I think that's the best. We can always be learning; we can always get better. So, I'm excited to take in some of the things that you do as well. Feel really good about that. Well, one of the things we like to do on Long Blue Leadership is we rewind the clock a little bit. Some clocks are further rewound back than others, and so I'm really excited to kind of get to know. Where were you before the Academy? Where'd you grow up? What was life like?   Andrew Cormier OK, I'm not as chronologically advanced, like, relative to maybe my experience in high school. I grew up in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, lot of pride coming from the East Coast. My parents, my dad, he worked as a general contractor, so I spent a lot of summers laying tile, you know, doing framing houses, all that sort of stuff, just like, you know, a general laborer. Honestly, just like sweeping up a lot of dust and mess, as he actually did all the hard work. And then I went to a tech school, Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical High School. That's a mouthful, but I went there mostly because my brother went there. I wasn't a huge decision maker back then, like I consider myself somewhat now. And I studied machine technology, and working on metal pieces like running lathes and mill machines and electronic discharge machines, just to — I didn't really know what preparing for the future was like, but that was the kind of path I was on. But then, I grew up playing hockey and lacrosse, and I realized that I had an opportunity with that somewhat, and I was traveling the East Coast playing lacrosse. Think it was after a tournament in Ashton, Pennsylvania, me and my dad got a phone call from Coach Wilson, the Air Force Academy lacrosse coach, saying, “Hey, we saw you play this weekend. We'd love to have you out.” And so that's like a really quick rundown of where I come from, but I guess moral of the story: I really appreciate the background, the kind of blue-collar experiences that I've had when it comes to growing up in Massachusetts.   Naviere Walkewicz No, that's awesome. And I think it's, it's great know that you're not afraid to get your hands dirty, to work hard and grit. I mean, that kind of is also synonymous with hockey. I feel like you work hard, you dig. So let's talk about that a little bit more. Older brother then. So you're one of two? Any other siblings?   Andrew Cormier Yeah, just me and my brother.   Naviere Walkewicz OK, and so what was it like growing up with an older brother? You know, were you always the one that he got to test things on? Or what did that look like?   Andrew Cormier No, my brother — he's about three and a half years older than me, so we never really were in school at the same time. He was always, four grades ahead. So we went to all the same schools, but he was leaving just as soon as I was arriving. But no, he was a great big brother. I was more of like the wild child, me and my mom will sometimes look at the family videos, and it's me kind of just being this goofball, like not appreciating things, like complaining, whining, all this stuff while Zach's over here, trying to help me. Like, I remember this video: We lived in this house where the driveway was very steep, and so we would just like drive our little like plastic carts down the driveway right, and my brother was over here, like, trying to push me up the hill, and I'm over here, like yelling at him—   Naviere Walkewicz Go faster!   Andrew Cormier No, I was like, “Stop, Zach, stop!” Like, looking back, I'm like, wow, I was just a goofball. He's over here trying to help me, right? But no, he was. He was a great big brother. And to be honest, growing up, I consider myself to have, like, a really spongy brain in terms of, I want to learn things through other people's experiences so that I don't make the same mistakes myself. And so when I would see my brother do all these things, he got into lacrosse. I got into lacrosse. He went to Monty Tech. I saw what cool opportunities there were with that. I went there. And so it was kind of like he tested the waters for me, and then I ended up, following suit. And it's, it's kind of changed since then, I've come to a little bit more of like an independent person. But, you know, growing up, you kind of always look up to your big brother.   Naviere Walkewicz Yes, I love that. And so, aside from being recognized through your lacrosse sport, how? How did the military come into play? Was that something always on the radar? Is it somewhere in your family, maybe not with your dad or your mom, but elsewhere?   Andrew Cormier Yeah, um, my family wasn't big on the military, not that — you know, we grew up pretty disciplined, but the on my mom's side, her parents are immigrants from Canada. There's not a whole bunch of military history there. But on my dad's side, my Pepe, his dad, was drafted for the Korean War, and so he did communications for four years, and then he got out. But beyond that, I mean, he passed when I was young, so I never really got to really — he never really had the opportunity to instill lessons into a sentient person, more or less. So, yeah, I felt more or less like I was doing this for the first time, like it wasn't a huge military thing. But in high school again, my brother, it was an open house. I was in seventh or eighth grade. I get brought to the Marine Corps Junior ROTC program at my high school. And I was really like, what's going on here?   Naviere Walkewicz In an excited way, or?   Andrew Cormier Kind of. It was more like, intrigued, not super— my first question after he gave his little pitch was, “So do I have to serve?” And he was like, “No, no, no.” And I was kind of relieved. So that's kind of my initial impression. I go to school, I'm not enrolled initially, and to be honest, I don't remember what urged me to enroll in the program, but I ended up enrolling. I loved it.   Naviere Walkewicz What year was that?   Andrew Cormier It was freshman year, so I did all three years, because I transferred to a different school my senior year, but I did it all three years, and I loved it, mostly because of the service aspect of it. We did a lot of — it wasn't like, I feel like ROTC, especially at the Academy, because, you know, if other cadets see this, they're probably gonna flame me for it. But this has, it has this perception of collecting badges and ribbons and, cadet general, all that sort of stuff. And that was so far from what my program was all about, we were doing a bunch of community service. Like, you know, in Fitchburg, we would go near the Boys & Girls Club and pick up trash in the area. Obviously, picking up the trash wasn't fun, but just like, going out and do something with your buddies on the weekend, that was fun. Countless Salvation Army collections, like we'd sit outside the grocery store—   Naviere Walkewicz Ring the bell?   Andrew Cormier Yeah, collect money. All those sorts of things were what really pushed me on. And then I think the culminating thing that really pushed me to want to pursue this was, my sophomore year, we did a humanitarian trip after Hurricane Harvey hit in Texas. So we went down to Wharton, raised a whole bunch of money, took 50 of the about 100 cadet corps, and we posted up in this Boys & Girls Club gymnasium, all on cots. We'd march to breakfast at Wharton Community College, and then we'd spend the day going back and forth in teams, in our vans, either bringing cabinetry to houses, flooring to houses, drywall to houses. And then we'd install it, because it was all flooded up to pretty much the knee from Hurricane Harvey. And so that week that we spent down there was super impactful to me, especially at the end. There was a bunch of little projects, but centrally, there was a big project, because this house was basically destroyed. And coming from a tech school, we have a bunch of plumbers, carpenters, cabinet makers, all the all these different trades coming together, and they ended up doing something really good for this one family. And so they left for a week, and then they were able to reintroduce them on that Friday, and it was super heartwarming. I don't know how I feel saying that word, because I emasculated myself, but, that sort of feeling. It was like, “Wow, we really, like, helped a family,” and it was impactful to me. And so, you know, now at the Academy, I'm like, I haven't had time to do community service, and I feel bad about it, but that's kind of what really got me interested in it.   Naviere Walkewicz Well, I think it's fascinating how, you know, your ability — you worked with your dad, so I think you brought some of those skills, and then again through school. But I think a heart of service is kind of the theme that we're hearing early on in this conversation. What I think we're going to even talk about more. So you were discovered through lacrosse, the little — you went on a, probably an intercollegiate, tour of the Academy. And were you like, “Yes, this is it,” or was it still like a “Well…”   Andrew Cormier Yeah, so backtrack a little bit. My senior year I ended up transferring to Northfield Mount Hermon. It's a college preparatory school, so I was boarding there. And I say that because when I came here, I was really interested in old schools that have a lot of heritage, a lot of tradition. My school, it was like, I — all my fellow “Hoggers” are going to be disappointed that I forget the year that it was founded by Dwight L. Moody, but it's a very old school. Lots of traditions, a lot of fun stuff to like, you know, students are looking forward to and seeing what a lot of the freshmen had to do in my trip here, despite it being a relatively younger school compared to West Point and Annapolis, I was like, “That's cool.” Like, I like the hierarchy structure of it. I really like seeing it. The chapel was out, so I got to see, ya know, it was one of those sort of situations where I was really looking for a school that had fit the criteria of getting able to, you know, serve tradition. And I really wanted to play college lacrosse and at that time it looked like it was gonna fit those descriptions.   Naviere Walkewicz Yeah, so the Academy it was, and what was day 1 like for you?   Andrew Cormier 12:41 A few disclaimers: I want to say that, one, I didn't end up making lacrosse team, so I don't want to be, you know, claiming I made it and I didn't. And two, so…   Naviere Walkewicz …so let's pause there a second. So you were initially recruited, but you got and you had to do the whole application and get in on your own, because you ended up not being a recruited athlete?   Andrew Cormier Yes, and I got denied my first time.   Naviere Walkewicz OK, let's talk about that.   Andrew Cormier Yeah, so I, I applied Well, trade school, education, trade one week, education, other week. So you can see I might be slightly deficient in in certain academic realms. And so that's why I transferred to college Preparatory School, because I wanted to, you know, go all in on my academics, hopefully, you know, get me in. It worked in terms of really opening my perspective, but didn't work in terms of getting me into the Academy the first try, which I was initially a little bummed about, but now looking back on it, I'm like, that was, you know, the Falcon Foundation, shout out to him, or shout out to them, and Gen. Lorenz, everyone. We actually had the dinner last week that was super fun. But I didn't get in. But I got offered Falcon Foundation Scholarship, and I ended up going to again, picking schools off of tradition, Marion Military Institute, which is the oldest one on the list of options. And yeah, I went there for a year during COVID, and that's where I guess the gap is because I'm a Class — I was Class of 2020 in high school, graduating Class of '25, there's that gap. I hope I answered your question.   Naviere Walkewicz That's fantastic, actually. And, and I think for those listeners who may not be aware of the Falcon Foundation. You know, we have a number of different college preparatory, military preparatory programs that are affiliated with our Academy. And I think it's a wonderful testament to — you apply for the Air Force Academy. You don't apply for a preparatory school, but the Academy recognizes when we have areas that are maybe just under the cut line, but someone we're really interested in, and how do we get them there? And so I think it's fantastic that you were able to get a Falcon Foundation Scholarship. And I don't call that a gap. I call that just an extra year of preparatory So, yeah, it's wonderful.   Andrew Cormier I was definitely prepared more.   Naviere Walkewicz Yes, OK, so you came in on day 1 feeling pretty good then, because, you know, where others might have been the whole basic training experience, just kind of, you know, knock their socks off. You're like, “All right, we know this military thing.” Is that true?   Andrew Cormier Yeah. And, I mean, I guess in terms of, I know how to make a bed, I know how to wear a uniform, that was less daunting. I'm a management major. I don't know what the Astro or Aero people are going through. I'm sure that's very—   Naviere Walkewicz I'm glad you put that caveat in there. OK.   Andrew Cormier Yes, I'm a management major. All the assignments are more or less easy, but it's more just like getting the reps in and it's very gradual. So I don't want this to make it sound like the Academy is easy by any means, because what's difficult about it is the task-saturation they have you doing. It's like stuffing 10 pounds of sand in a 5-pound bag, that sort of deal. That's where it's difficult, at least for me. And so coming into it with hearing those sort of perceptions, that's how I went into it feeling, and I was kind of right. I mean, basic training wasn't super rigorous.   Naviere Walkewicz You were fit.   Andrew Cormier I was, you know, I was able to memorize things.   Naviere Walkewicz Good, your mind is a sponge, so that was probably helpful.   Andrew Cormier Yeah, I had all my— my bed making skills were already down pat, so all the really tactical things were taken care of, and I understood that I was going to get yelled at no matter what. And coming into it with that, I was just like, OK, this is a game of attrition, and I just can't quit.   Naviere Walkewicz I love that. So how did you translate what you felt was maybe not as difficult and you saw others struggling? Have there been times where you've had to step up and take on a role of being more of a support or a leader amongst your peers?   Andrew Cormier Yes, of course. I mean, in my baby squad, we had — I wasn't the only, not only preppy, but also they call them prepsters. I was technically a prepster because I didn't go to the “P” but, you know, I was still did a prep year, and we had a prior enlisted person, and so the four or five of us had already seen all this stuff before. And when it came to studying the Contrails, showing people how to, you know, make their closet and all those sort of things. And also when it came to just being away from home, I had been away from home since I was about 17, and I got there when I was 19 or 20. And so acclimating to living away from home is kind of difficult challenge. And so just being there for the people that are like, “I miss home, I miss my mom, I miss my dad, I miss my home food” and all this sort of stuff. You know, there, there aren't a lot of opportunities for chit chat during basic training, at least towards the beginning, but towards the end, I'm like, you know, “You got this, let's power through.”   Naviere Walkewicz And yeah, I love that. So let's talk about, while you've been a cadet, maybe some of the ways that you've been a follower and some of the ways that you've been a leader, aside from the one you just kind of shared, what have been some ones that have stood out to you as you're continuing to develop your leadership skills?     Andrew Cormier 18:48 OK, following — very much freshman year you're following. Trying to think of some concrete examples. I think credibility, like understanding where you fall on the credibility hierarchy is somewhat a dictator, an indicator of where you should be in terms of leading and following, and I understood that relative to the rest of my baby squaddies, I might have been slightly above the average in terms of credibility, but in terms of the entire squadron, lowest of the low.   Naviere Walkewicz Tell me why. Let's talk about that. What do you mean?   Andrew Cormier Well, I mean, I remember freshman year when we were getting quizzed on our shoulder board rankings. It's a ground-cloud horizon, and freshmen just have the cloud because their heads in the clouds. They're, very unfamiliar with this place. And you know, it's true, not only do you not know what it's like to have a bunch of GRs in a week as a freshman, just coming out of basic training, but you also don't know what it's like to understand an organization. I didn't understand what a reporting structure like — you know, I didn't understand a lot of these intricacies, and I tried my best to have some humility and understanding that and just keeping my ears open for it. And with that credibility spectrum I was confident in the sense that I could be self-sufficient NS take care of what I needed to take care of on the academic front, the knowledge, the K-test front, athletic front. But when it came to, oh wow, I've never been in a 100-person organization before and at the bottom of it, this is a time to take some notes. I think that's definitely a theme's that's definitely followed through with the podcast especially. I kind of avoided giving a concrete example of the followership.   Naviere Walkewicz 25:00 You had mentioned you thought it was a whole bunch of KPP, so what is the role really like as a squadron commander?   Andrew Cormier 25:07 It's different than I thought it would be. You know, I think there's this perception of leadership at the Academy, amongst cadets, that leadership is land-naving through the athletic fields and like Jacks Valley. You know what I mean? Like, leadership is these super tactical things, like, how can you be as close to George Washington as possible? But, one, there's not many opportunities. And if you're doing that, opportunities for that sort of stuff, and if you're doing that stuff, you're probably not delegating as you should. And so I think the biggest takeaway that I've gotten from this position is like representation of your people and protection of them.   Naviere Walkewicz Talk about that.   Andrew Cormier 25:57 So even this past week — I don't want it to be tainted that he's a very good friend of mine, because I would have done this for anybody in my squadron. But he received some paperwork from somebody else, his supervisor. He works a group job, so the paperwork was coming from a wing person, and it was outlining how he had failed to do this and all this stuff, and then at the end, it had said something about his like, — I'm super cool. People mess up all the time. I mess up all the time. That's understandable. Mistakes are gonna happen. But the last paragraph rubbed me the wrong way, because it said something about his character, that, knowing him, well, I didn't really — it seemed very out of character. And so, you know, I've had cadet squadron commanders in the past that are just like, you know, hey, I'm going to trust everything that that the wing person said, issue all of the demerits, tours, paperwork that comes with the recommendation and leave it at that, but my attempt to really take this position seriously is to get the perspective of my friend, see what his opinion on it was like. Maybe let me gather a little bit more evidence. And upon doing that, the statement that was at the bottom of it was completely not apparent in the evidence. And this really raised an alarm for me, because if I weren't to do that, not only was it sent to me, but it was sent to permanent party. I'm like, this is, you know, kind of throwing some dirt on his reputation, and it's not true. And so what happened was I immediately texted the guy. It was cool. I worked with him over the summer on wing staff, and I went to his room, and I was like, “Hey, so, you know, just trying to get some understanding. I'm not here to press you about this, but I want to understand what's actually going on here. This is what is outlined in the Form 10. This is the evidence that I gathered from my friend, and they don't really seem to be congruent.” And then he starts giving his case, and I don't disagree with any of the things where he actually, you know, failed to do things. But then, when it came to the part about his character, he was like, “Yeah, so that's the issue. I did that out of anger of somebody else.” Because I remember seeing the group chat and the message was sent, and then my friend responded super politely, super respectfully, and then his co-worker was like, you know, kind of escalatory, aggressive. And then, as a result, both of them got negative paperwork. And I believe that only the negative character should have been put on his co-worker, not on my friend. And he admitted to that, and he was like, “I'm willing to walk that back, because it doesn't give an accurate representation of his character.” And so, you know, my friend was super appreciative, because, you know, we ended up having a permanent party conversation the next day, and we cleared everything up, and they were like, “Thank you for investigating this a little bit more. Because if you didn't, we probably would have just ran with the guy's recommendation and maybe thought a little bit less of him.” So, um, I guess when it comes to protecting my people, maybe that's now thinking back on it, maybe that's a first sergeant job to handle, like the discipline stuff, but maybe that it was my friend that took a little bit more ownership of it, and wanted to make sure it's correct. But that's more or less an example of protecting my people, or representing my people, I guess they kind of go hand in hand on. I guess, another note of protecting—   Naviere Walkewicz Or even what you've learned since being in the role of squadron.   Andrew Cormier 30:04 Yeah.   Naviere Walkewicz Peer leadership is hard, wouldn't you agree?   Andrew Cormier 30:04 It is very difficult. And I think maybe part of the reason why I was selected was because I have a relatively good reputation in squadron to be friendly. Last semester I was D&C. So, you know, I'm outside of the formation, making corrections –   Naviere Walkewicz What is D&C?   Andrew Cormier D&C: drilling and ceremonies. So I'm outside of the squadron making corrections as people are marching. And it's not an easy thing to do when it's somebody older than you as well. And I'm over here cracking jokes with them and making sure that I do it to everyone, not just certain people. I dig in a little bit more to my friends who I know can accept it, and then it might ease the tension of all the other people who might be not doing it right. And then I go talk to them, like, “Hey, chest up a little bit,” or, like, “'Fix your dress.” But yeah, I think that that was a big piece of me getting picked for it, because I have to uphold a standard, especially in today's Cadet Wing. I don't know if the listeners are privy to all the change going on in the Cadet Wing, but there's a much larger emphasis on standards. “Hey, I'm low key doing you a favor by correcting you so that you don't end up in a three-star's office.” And so as much as it's made cadet life as a whole, somewhat more difficult, it's made my job as a squadron commander, supposed to enforce these standards, a little bit easier, because they know that I'm not like the highest person that's like enforcing this. This isn't me power tripping. This is me trying to look out for people. That perception makes a big difference.   Naviere Walkewicz No, that's really helpful, and probably more than you thought we were going to be talking about, because you were probably thought we spending a lot of time talking about For the Zoomies, and I'd like to get there. So let's, let's talk about that right now. So, when did it start and why?   Andrew Cormier The reason changed over time, but I started it. I came out of CST, combat survival training, after my freshman-year summer. So it was approximately July timeframe. And I've always been an avid podcast listener. Loved hearing conversations, new ideas, learning, you know, while I just drive. I might think I'm a little bit more productive, like multitasking. And so I've always wanted to start one, but I wanted to be meaningful, not just me and my friends just yapping in some microphones. So what I did was, after freshman year, all of the fever dream of it was over. I could start projecting into the future, not just living in the present. I started projecting into the future, and I'm like, “Oh crap, I have an active-duty service commitment. I actually have to think about that decision for a little bit.” And I was scared because I didn't want to be a pilot. We had Career Night, which is one night every year, and then Ops, which was a whole year out. So I'm just like, I'm not the type to just sit back and let things happen to me. And so to address this issue, I went ahead and was like, you know, Col. Rutter. I went asked him, “Hey, is this feasible? What sort of problems you think I could run into? You know, like, PA, whatever?” And he was like, “Dude, go for it.” And so I started off just interviewing AOCs around base, getting — he was my first episode, talking about A-10s, even though I didn't want to be a pilot, you know, even though I don't want to do that, I'd like to learn more about it. Same thing, maintenance, acquisitions — being a management major was something I was very exposed to in the classroom, and then, you know, it just kind of like expanded. I covered a decent number of AFSCs, and then I started getting to the point where I had this better picture of not only what job I wanted, but also a holistic understanding of how these jobs and career fields intertwined, and it gave me a better picture of what the Air Force does as a whole. And so that was like a big learning piece for it, but it transitioned to, “OK, I don't want to just interview people and like, “Oh, this is what a maintenance officer does the entire time.” People get out after five years. And the reputation right now is that if you want to be a president, go to the Naval Academy. If you want to be a CEO, go to West Point. If you want to be a FedEx pilot, go to the Air Force Academy. And I heard that joke plenty of times, and as funny as it is, I'll admit it, I laughed at it, but like, I don't want that to be the perception of this place, because we produce much, much better leaders than just, pilots, not to poo-poo pilots, but like, CEO versus pilot, like it's, a different game. And so my idea was, how can I highlight that being an airline pilot, a cargo pilot, whatever it is, is not the only avenue to take after commissioning, what else can we do? And that's where I started picking up more perspectives, both on leadership, “What is it like to be a consultant?” I did, you know, definitely lean more towards things that I was interested in, but like equity research, private equity — all these different things, like podcasts, specifically about getting an MBA out of a service academy, all these sort of, like, super tangible things that, because I'm the target audience, I felt would, felt like it would resonate with the cadet wing, and so that was kind of like the motivation moving forward. And you know, it's had so many opportunities for me, like last week. Shout out Ted Robertson behind me, invited me to interview Dr. Ravi Chaudhary, and I'm getting all these super cool opportunities to expand my network and learn what it's like to do things at a more strategic level. And so it's been this really interesting, evolving project over the past two years, and I'll even share this little story. So this summer, I worked a cadet summer research program at Lockheed Martin in D.C. And one of the last days that we were there, they had this quarterly face to face, because it's a global, the corporate strategy arm is a global thing. So they have a like an in person thing every year — or every quarter. And how they started it was, we're gonna talk about just things that you've picked up, whether it's personal life, listen to a podcast, read a book that you wanna share with people. And so I was at the end of this big circle, and I was like, “What am I gonna say?” You know, like, all these people are spouting off this knowledge and wisdom, and I'm sitting here as this intern, trying to come up with something that would be useful to them, and then I actually started thinking. I was like, you know, this podcast changed my perspective on a lot of things, and I get a lot of praise for it, but as much as, like, you know, I acknowledge it was a good thing to help other people expand my own knowledge base of this, it had some downfalls and drawbacks as well. Namely, being I became super fixated on the future, and I was unable to really focus on the present, living in the moment like, get a little dark here, I was a little existential at certain points of time, because I was just constantly thinking future, and I'm like, What am I doing like right now? And it became like a frustrating thing for me, because not only was I interacting with a lot of older people, it was kind of making me feel unrelatable to my peers, and that was bothersome to me, because, you know, I never want to be perceived as this person who's a sycophant, like, just brown-noser and all that sort of stuff. And so it was definitely some drawbacks. And then I, like, brings me to the point of the reason why I started this was that fear. I started because I was scared of not knowing what the future was going to entail. It was this fear of uncertainty. And, you know, reflecting upon that I came into the Academy this, like this confident person and like, where'd that go? Am I not confident? Like the two things that I think if anybody can have will be successful in any realm of life, is perseverance and critical thinking. Those two things, in my opinion, will carry you anywhere. And I felt like I had those things, but I was just discounting them so heavily, to the point that I was like, I need to figure all this stuff out, or else I'm gonna be screwed, when in reality,why am I not just relying on these two things that I know, that I have, you know, maybe you can work in resourcefulness, but I have these two things. Why am I discounting those? And I think that was the big reflection point that I was able to share with the people in this room at this, you know — face to face. And I was like, you know, I had this really big pendulum swing to trying to control everything. And I really don't perceive myself to be a control freak. As, like, a micromanager. I think if you talk to anybody in the squad, they, they won't perceive me that way. But when it comes to my own future, like I want to — in the past — I'm trying to correct it. I'm still not perfect, but I was trying to correct for this. And I'm like, No, that's it's not right. That's not a long term, feasible thing I'm gonna end up burning out, never really living in the moment, never really enjoying things. And so, like that was a big learning lesson from this whole idea.   Naviere Walkewicz And you learned that when you're sitting in that circle, or did you learn that — was that when it kind of culminated into how you articulated it? Or had you already felt that way?   Andrew Cormier 41:40 The cadet experience, like I said, is very task-saturating, and so I never feel like I have a time to reflect during the semester. This was about July, like this past July, and so although I was working, it was like four day weeks, so I had a decent amount of time to reflect. I always treat my Christmas breaks and my summer breaks as points to reflect, and because that's the only time I have, like, the bandwidth to. And like that whole time period, like I was just so locked in on — like all this work I have my my notion planner and checking boxes, Life is checking boxes. And it took me, you know, shout out to Cylas Reilly, 100% because as much as we're different — like, he's much more, like, happy go lucky, like super high energy guy — being with him on the C-SERP at Lockheed, he, allowed me to put my hair down a little bit like, just take a little road trip, talk about stuff, not be so analytical about everything. And so I guess that's that point where — I had about month, because this was at the end of it. I was leaving the next day. And so we had about a month to talk about things. I had a month to reflect on it, and then this was something that was — like it had been the first time I'd ever put it to words, I'll say that. It wasn't the first time I was trying to process it, but it was the first time that I was putting it into words.   Naviere Walkewicz How did you feel after you said that?   Andrew Cormier Uh, slightly cathartic. I don't know it is. It's weird because as soon as you put something to words, then you can, like, I feel like understanding is like, if you can talk, if you can think about it, that's like, the lowest level of understanding. If you can talk about it, that's slightly higher. But then writing about it is the highest level. And so, like, I always keep a journal, and I've been trying to write about it, to put it into more concise words. But that was a big — it was kind of like a breakthrough of like, I'm having a higher understanding of this lesson that seems to be apparent in life.   Naviere Walkewicz Wow. And I think that's something that our listeners can — and those watching too — can really gravitate toward, because, you know, sometimes we get so caught up in the churn of the “what's next?” and the “do this” and “get here.” And I think an important lesson you just shared with us, and I love that you've learned it earlier on, is the key of reflection and really assessing “where am I?” and “how do I feel about that?” and “what's next?”. So For the Zoomies. Let's talk about that. First off, I mean, you've gotten a lot of praise for it, because they're fantastic, your episodes. What has the cadet wing — how have they embraced it?   Andrew Cormier 44:31 You know, I wish Spotify had a little bit better of the data. I can't attach an IP number to a listen. But to be honest, I was never looking for listens. But then as soon as I started growing, I'm, you know, a little bit more tied to it. It's kind of like seeing a lot of likes and stuff on Instagram or whatever.   Naviere Walkewicz Affirmations are wonderful.   Andrew Cormier 44:53 Yeah, but so I think it was received somewhat well. And I always try to add value to the cadet wing. Some of them I admit are a little bit selfish. They're mostly for me, like I really want to talk to this person. But then I had an episode with the Office of Labor and Economic Analysis about a change in how cadets were going to get matched their AFSCs, and I was thankful that — shout-out to Maj. Ian McDonald. He's the person who reached out for me. He is a representative from OLEA who was like, “Hey, I heard about your podcast. This might be a good episode idea.” And I'm like, “You're a genius. You're a genius.” And so we sat down — him and Col. Joffrion in the economic department. They were—.   Naviere Walkewicz Justin Joffrion?   Andrew Cormier Yes, classmate, my upper-classmate. He's '98.   Andrew Cormier OK, OK. And so we sat down and we walked through how cadets — because the initial, or I guess the legacy system, was OPA, your class, rank, your major, and then your preference. Those were the three things that would get put into this algorithm, this black box, and then you'd be spit out your AFSC. Now, and I think it's still in pilot. Maybe it's confirmed for a Class of '26 but at least for the '24/'25 those were, you know, where it was being tested, and it was much more like an open job market, where you actually able to submit a narrative about things that you projects that you've worked on, capstones, research that you've done, and it was super impactful. Because one, I really appreciate the new system, to be honest, because the military can be very — I've studied a lot of Austrian economics in my time, so I'm very of the mind, like, free markets, don't tell people what to do, like, they'll pick what's right for them. And so seeing this moving more towards a market structure, I was like, this is a good idea. But being able to share that with the Cadet Wing — that's the highest-listen episode, because I think it really, like, drives value. People don't want to, they want to know how the system works so that they can game the system. And one of my questions on the episode was like, “So, are you worried about people gaming the system? Because they know how it works?” And they're like, “Do it. We want you to get the right job.” And so, yeah, it's been super impactful to me that cadets valued the product that I put out there. And they would value it because it was useful to them. I wouldn't want it to be artificially inflated just for the sake of that affirmation, even though it feels good, but, yeah, it felt good to be able to contribute in that way.   Naviere Walkewicz I love that. So that's the most listened from the cadet perspective, what was been the most rewarding from the podcast seat, from your side of it?   Andrew Cormier Like, most rewarding in terms of—   Naviere Walkewicz Either a guest episode or just the experience of podcasts, okay, I'll let you take it where you'd like.   Andrew Cormier I have a lot of people pose this sort of question to me a lot about, like, who's your favorite episode? Like, who's your favorite guest? And, you know, they, like, kind of hint at, like, all, like, Gen. Clark, like, or anyone with stars was probably a really cool episode. And, you know, it is an honor and a privilege to be able to get an hour on their calendar because they're super busy. They're strategic thinkers. They don't usually have a whole bunch of time on their hands, but they were able to open up their calendar to me, and so it's an honor, and usually I do come away with a lot of practical knowledge from those things. I shouldn't say that those are always the most enjoyable. One of my favorites thus far has been with Julian Gluck, Cosmo. Because, you know, we sit down, same thing with Sam Eckholm, we sit down and we just — it is a little bit of yap-sesh, so maybe it's more for the people who are looking for entertainment than advice or information on the Air Force as a whole. But we just sit down and talk about cadet life. And I really enjoy the evolution of the Academy experience, year over year. And Sam Eckholm, being a relatively recent grad. Cosmo being — I think he's 2010, so it's like, you know, in these sort of 10-year chunks, and then even…   Naviere Walkewicz Is he ‘08 or ‘10?   Andrew Cormier He might be — in that timeframe. Yeah. And even Dr. Chaudhary, which was super fun, because for the first half of the episode, we were just talking about spirit missions. And so usually, with these senior leaders, it's more of “What's the strategic landscape?” “What can cadets take away from this?” But with him, it was like, you know, talking about chickens on the freaking football field and like, going up on Flat Iron. And so I always enjoy those episodes from a personal perspective of really having institutional pride, is seeing the evolution of this place and seeing the ebbs and flows of it. And it's like telling that — it makes me understand that the difficulty of this place and like the perception that the cadet wing is getting softer. It's not something that's been this ever since '59 it's been this gradual decline, persistently. It's a thing that comes and goes and honestly, we're more-or-less on an uptrend than not, relative to the adversaries that we're facing. So I guess that's a big piece of it is, as much as I really enjoy learning and getting different people's perspectives on, “Oh, what base should I choose given these goals?” Or, you know, “What does a maintenance officer do at Red Flag?”   Naviere Walkewicz Yes, oh, my goodness. Well, I think one of the things that you've highlighted in and this journey of yours is, yes, it's about impact. Yes, it's about, you know, taking care of one another. But there's also this intrinsic piece which is really about relationships, and that's what I hear when you talked about the ones that you really enjoyed most. I think it was that human connection. That's that thread that connects us.   Andrew Cormier Yeah, I think you hit the hammer on that thing. You know what I'm trying to say.   Naviere Walkewicz Yes, no, I'm with you. So, Andrew, what's next for you? Upon graduation, we know you're not going to be a pilot. What are you going to be doing?   Andrew Cormier 52:29 I dropped 63 Alpha Acquisition Manager.   Naviere Walkewicz And that's what you wanted?   Andrew Cormier Yes, first pick.   Naviere Walkewicz So you gamed the system properly?   Andrew Cormier Yes. I gamed it properly, yes. And I think the narrative piece of it, I included how I went to Lockheed, and they're very — the project I was working on, was very acquisition-oriented, so I think I really put a lot of emphasis on, “Give me this.”   Naviere Walkewicz “I really, really want this.” I'm so happy for you.   Andrew Cormier Thank you. Thank you. But so we just put in base preferences. That was a pretty long conversation with a lot of people that I had to have.   Naviere Walkewicz Including Chloe. Is she…?   Andrew Cormier Yeah, no, she was the main stakeholder outside of me. We probably had three different conversations about it. I'd talk to her first, go get some other input from grads. Talk to her again, more input. Talk to her, and then finally, input. And so, you know, I talked to my sponsor, Maj. Bryce Luken. And the reason I talked to a lot of people that I wanted to be somewhat like, like, I envision myself as them somewhat in the future. You know, they're reservists, entrepreneurial, very like — not sit back 9 to 5, but how are we gonna, you know, improve national security and have our own spin on things, have autonomy over, you know, what we do and our time and so, like, those are the criteria over, like, who I was talking to, so I had a conversation with him. He's like, “You should go to L.A.” I'm like, “Air Force people aren't going to L.A. That's Space Force…” Like, Boston. And so he's like, “Dude, you should go to Boston, MIT, Lincoln Lab.”   Naviere Walkewicz Hopefully you talked to Cosmo as well.   Andrew Cormier I actually haven't, but yeah, I should let him know I ended up putting in Hanscom. But you know Col. Misha, I saw him at the Falcon Foundation dinner, Forrest Underwood. Yes, they were giving me the same like urging me go to Boston. You're a young professional who wants to get his hands dirty. Don't go to, you know, Langley, where — you know you can still be industrious down there, but you'll be under-resourced compared to if you went to Boston.   Naviere Walkewicz See, and that's great feedback that you know maybe others aren't thinking about in their decisions. So I think that's a really great process in the way you approached it. People that are in the ways of where you want to go. And also the important people in your life that you want to make sure stay important.   Andrew Cormier Yeah. I mean, at the end of every single episode on the podcast, I always ask for advice for cadets looking to pursue a similar path. Emphasis on “pursue a similar path.” I get a lot of advice, and not that I think anyone is, you know, basing their advice off of maybe an incomplete conclusion. But when you're getting advice, you really have to understand, what are what is their envisioning or like, how are they envisioning your outcome, and is their envision outcome the same as like, what you want? And so I think getting to your point, I really look — I got the advice. Same thing. This past Sunday, I called up Chase Lane, who went to Langley first. And I think that's why he really stuck out to me. But he urged me to go to Boston. And also, kind of like, walked me through. He's like, you know, Chloe works at Space Foundation. She really wants to be in the space world. And so, she's like, “Let's go to Patrick. Right near Cape Canaveral, Cocoa Beach.” Super cool location, you know. I mean, prayers out to the people in Florida right now. I hope that they're all right. But like, you know, that'd be a good spot. Uh, relative, you know, Boston, wet snow every single day. But you know, he kind of like, Chase, walked me through how I should approach a conversation like this. And so, you know, the other night when I sat down with Chloe, as much as you know, I want to value her perspective and wanting to value all inputs, understand where those inputs come from, and find a middle point, a middle ground for everybody, because the team won't last if we're only valuing certain inputs. And you know, it does take a little bit of convincing, but also more of like, open your eyes to what the opportunity really is. Are you making assumptions about this? Am I making assumptions about this? Let's clear those up. And so that's a sort of conversation that we ended up having. And, you know, she's on board with Boston now and so.   Naviere Walkewicz I think that's wonderful. I think communication is key. Luckily for you, you're big on communication, And no, I think that's wonderful for our listeners, even. You know, yes, there's probably times when you have to make a decision, there's a lead decision maker, maybe in in a partnership or in a relationship, but when you take in all of those perspectives, like you said, I think the end of the day, when you're coming to that decision, you're in a place of transparency and, yeah, you kind of go for it together. So I think that's great lessons for all of our listeners. Andrew, we're going to get to some of the key thoughts that you have, and I also would love for you to share, and you have a limited to think about this, but something that is, you know, unique to you, that you would love our listeners to kind of hear or learn about you. I think that's one of the things that we've been able to pick up in Long Blue Leadership, is it's kind of neat when people just know what's relatable or what they think is really cool. So, give you a second on that. But before we do, I'd like to take a moment and thank you for listening to Long Blue Leadership. This podcast publishes Tuesdays in both video and audio, and is available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Watch or listen to episodes of Long Blue Leadership at long blue leadership.org   Naviere Walkewicz 58:38 So Andrew, here we are, and we can go in either order. I think, you know, we always like to make sure our listeners kind of have a way to encapsulate the leadership lessons you want to leave them with that's close to you. But also just kind of, what's the thing you want to leave them with that's all about, Andrew?   Andrew Cormier It's weird talking about myself, to be honest, because I bet I'm always on the other side of the microphone.   Naviere Walkewicz Yes. It's much easier asking the questions.   Andrew Cormier Yes. I think one thing that I really wanted to talk about that I guess wasn't outlined in this, was the regular question of “Why'd you come?” versus “Why'd you stay?” And like I mentioned before, the service piece was why I came, but seeing how I haven't done community service really since high school, the reason why I've been staying is because American ideals are amazing, and they need to be protected. And in order for me to have any say in that, I need to have skin in the game. And that's what I look at my service as, is me gaining skin in the game. And, you know, I just, I am by no means a scholar of American history. Massachusetts Public Education did not teach me about the Alamo, unfortunately, so when I went to San Antonio for the first time, I was learning it. But what they did teach me was about our founding fathers. And, you know, being from Massachusetts, Plymouth Rock, it's where the Pilgrims landed, and what it really took for people to come across an entire ocean, fight tyranny. Like ask me, “How do you think I like my tea?”   Naviere Walkewicz How do you like your tea?   Andrew Cormier In the harbor. You know what I mean? Yeah, like, there's this sort of state and then largely national pride as — it's audacious what has transpired over the past 250 years, and I just want Americans not to take that for granted. I recently watched Civil War. Have you seen that movie? It's like, kind of a journalist's take on what would happen if, you know, states seceded. And it's like a, it's like a reminder of, “Oh, this actually happened. There was a civil war,” but like, you know, we were able to remand it, and like those reminders, tell me that this, this should not be taken for granted. And so, you know, with the kind of, like national landscape, the whole climate, I just really urge people to try to understand other people's perspectives and listen more than they talk, because those pieces for me, like I'm a pretty staunch capitalist, but I recently bought TheCommunist Manifesto. This is probably gonna get clipped or something, but I bought it, and I still haven't started reading it yet, because this semester's been crazy. But I want to understand where these people are coming from.   Naviere Walkewicz Critical thinking.   Andrew Cormier I want to understand where these ideas stem from. And I want to listen, and I want other people to listen as well. I want a more general understanding of the ideas that are guiding all of this change. What are they actually rooted in? And I think that understanding will make it much more clear as to like, a direction that we should all head in rather than, you know, all this public descent over very more or less menial things that are petty and not worth having the uproar that is ensuing. So I don't know, I guess. I don't know exactly where I was going with that, but my national and state pride gives me this urge to go, in some way, shape or form, defend these ideals and to encourage other people to look at — you know, I didn't mention a whole bunch about Northfield, Mount Herman, but I went to four schools in four years, Monty, Tech, NMH, Marion Military Institute and then here, all four different years, Massachusetts, Alabama, Colorado — in, you know, Massachusetts, my hometown, it's blue collar, NMH, super liberal. I was very international. I was in class with a Malaysian prince. I was exposed to very different perspectives there than I was when I was in Alabama. Here, there's people from all corners of the United States, and so there's this expanding perspective that allows me to be like, what we have here really shouldn't be taken for granted. I think I'm just beating a dead horse at this point, but I just really want Americans to think a little bit more and, like, listen a little bit more and understand a little bit more. I'm off my soapbox.   Naviere Walkewicz 1:04:27 I'm really glad you shared that perspective. I mean, I think it's an insight into you know, your deeper calling, and, like you said, why you stay but the threads of everything you've shared have played into that part of that of who you are at the fabric of Andrew. So, any additional leadership nuggets you want to leave with our listeners?   Andrew Cormier 1:04:53 I don't want to defer to other things that I said earlier in the conversation, but it's not about you. It's not about you. I have a couch in my room. It's like,   Naviere Walkewicz Tell me more about that.   Andrew Cormier It's a squadron commander privilege. I have my own room. I have all these like privileges. I have up top parking. It's very like ivory tower-centric. And that's like the perception of this. But it's not about me at all. It is about going and defending my friend. It is about when permanent party is directing frustration towards me, how do I not pass that frustration onto them? How do I make sure that the voices below me are heard. How do we reopen Hap's? Those are the jobs that are mine, and that involves no, like — it's my job, that I think that's the main thing. When you're a leader, it's your job. There shouldn't be any extra, you know, kudos given to you. Everyone has their own piece in the puzzle, and just because your face is more prominent than others does not mean that the mission is any less doable with one piece missing or another piece missing. So I guess it's not about you, it's about the team.   Naviere Walkewicz 1:06:23 So, For the Zoomies, just to kind of recap, where is it headed, and how can they find it, our listeners?   Andrew Cormier 1:06:33 Spotify podcasts, or Apple podcasts, I guess that's where you can find it. I'm not gonna lie; it's been on a little bit of a hiatus. I've been returning to posting, but had to give myself a break at the beginning of the semester. To be honest, I'm looking to just get to 100 episodes upon graduation and calling it a repository. I'm looking forward to some of the upcoming guests. I reached out to Gen. Mike Minihan the other day on LinkedIn, and he got back to me, and I was like, wow, so maybe he might be on the show by the time this is released. But yeah, I kind of want cadets to understand more. There's a lot of things that are advertised about pilots, but there's more out there. And I want this also be a testament of you don't need to do something in your extracurricular time that is an Academy club. Cadets can do their own thing. Yeah, I hope that answers the question.   Naviere Walkewicz That's outstanding. Is there anything that I didn't ask you that you want to share before we close out this amazing episode?   Andrew Cormier No, I think, I think I'm good. I've been talking way too long.   Naviere Walkewicz Well, it's that, well, we want you to talk because you've been our guest. But Andrew, it's been a pleasure.   Andrew Cormier It's been a really — I didn't say this in the beginning, but really, thank you for having me on. It means a lot to me that, you know, I'm the first cadet here, and I don't know what the plan is moving forward, but it means a lot to me that you saw enough in me to put me in company with all the other guests that you have on the show so far, and so I just hope you know it's pressure for me not to do anything to let you guys down.   Naviere Walkewicz Well, I think you being who you are, you've already not let us down. You're amazing. Thank you so much.     KEYWORDS Air Force Academy, leadership, cadet experience, community service, podcasting, military career, personal growth, mentorship, squadron commander, humanitarian efforts, Air Force Academy, leadership, career paths, podcasting, personal growth, cadet community, national pride, decision making, leadership lessons       The Long Blue Line Podcast Network is presented by the U.S. Air Force Academy Association and Foundation    

In this week's episode, Lizzie and Arden delve into the intriguing story of Plymouth Rock, the iconic symbol of the Pilgrims' arrival in America! Join them as they explore the myths and legends that have surrounded this stone, how it has changed over the years, and why it all can be traced back to an old man named Thomas!  Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @letsgetcivical, @lizzie_the_rock_stewart, and @ardenjulianna. Or visit us at letsgetcivical.com for all the exciting updates! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week's episode, we spotlight the beautiful Silver Penciled Plymouth Rock chicken and we discuss Fall tasks that will help you get ready for cold weather. Our recipe this week is Pumpkin Rosemary Drop Biscuits, and we share some retail therapy with chicken harnesses and leads.Grubbly Farms - click here for our affiliate link.https://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-100963304-15546963Pre and Probiotic and Vitamin and Electrolyte Powders!Nutrena World Poultry Feedshttps://nutrenaworld.com/count-on-a-difference/?utm_source=coffee%20with%20the%20chicken%20ladies&utm_medium=audio&utm_campaign=poultry_evergreen_podcastBright and Early Coffee - use code CWTCL15 for 15% off of any bagged coffee. K Cups always ship free!https://brightandearlycoffee.com/Chicken Luv Box -  use CWTCL50 for 50% off your first box of any multi-month subscription!https://www.chickenluv.com/Nestera UShttps://nestera.us/cwtclUse our affiliate link above for 5% off your purchase!McMurray Silver Penciled Plymouth Rock Chickenshttps://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/silver_penciled_rocks.htmlBreed Spotlight is sponsored by Murray McMurray Hatcheryhttps://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/Metzer Farms Waterfowlhttps://www.metzerfarms.com/Roosty'shttps://amzn.to/3yMDJPumpkin Rosemary Drop Biscuitshttps://coffeewiththechickenladies.com/farm-fresh-egg-recipes/pumpkin-rosemary-drop-biscuits/CWTCL Websitehttps://coffeewiththechickenladies.com/CWTCL Etsy Shophttps://www.etsy.com/shop/CoffeeWChickenLadiesAs Amazon Influencers, we may receive a small commission from the sale of some items at no additional cost to consumers.CWTCL Amazon Recommendationshttps://www.amazon.com/shop/coffeewiththechickenladies Support the show

I don't claim to speak for anyone but myself, and maybe it's a generational thing, but America, to my way of thinking, is less of a place and more of a belief system; a way of looking at the world and the people in it.Americans believe in opportunity and equality.Americans believe, “Treat others as you would like others to treat you.”Americans believe in defending the weak from the strong who would abuse them.Americans believe in lifting people up, dusting them off, giving them a big smile and telling them to try again.Americans don't scare easily, and we don't leave anyone behind.Shortly after the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620, men and women from every corner of the world began meeting here, mingling here, and producing mixed-race children here.We've been doing it for 400 years.This place has gathered people from every nation that has ever flown a flag. Some of these people came voluntarily. Others were brought here against their will. But none of that matters because children do not get to choose their parents.Americans are not purebred showdogs. We are mixed-breed puppies born in a howling wilderness.Alexander Hamilton was born out of wedlock on the island of Nevis in the Caribbean, but he came to this country and became one of its Founding Fathers. We have printed that man's face on 27 billion ten-dollar bills and the Broadway play about his life was a stunning success.That play, by the way, was written by an American whose DNA is Puerto Rican, Mexican, English, and African. His parents named him “Lin-Manuel” after a poem about the Vietnam War.Is America portable? I believe it is. America is kindness and generosity.If you believe in opportunity and equality, defending the weak, lifting people up, dusting them off, smiling and telling them to try again, you are an American.If you don't scare easily and don't leave anyone behind, you are an American.If you believe in love with its sleeves rolled up, you are an American.Take America with you wherever you go.Be an American today, okay?Roy H. WilliamsPS – Do you live outside the U.S.? Not one of the virtues I mentioned today is exclusive to America. Most people-groups believe in exactly these same things. I wrote directly to the people of America today – calling them out by name – because we have been fighting about some really stupid things for a long time.The virtues I wrote about today live in the hearts of the people of your nation, too, and of every other nation on earth. Wouldn't it be great if we focused on our similarities instead of our differences?*At any given time, there are about 2.5 billion ten-dollar-bills in circulation, but the average ten-dollar-bill is replaced by the Treasury Department every 5.3 years. We have been using Hamilton's portrait on the ten since 1928 (96 years).96 years/5.3 years = 1818 x 2.5 billion = 27 billion portraits of good brother AlexanderHow would Walt Disney run your company? Even though he died in 1966, his company and his disciples continue to spread his beliefs. Among these disciples is Brian Collins, a former Disney Imagineer who helped create the magic for many of the world's most beloved theme parks and is today teaching brainstorming and innovation and the cross-pollinization of technology to large and small companies around the world. Roving reporter Rotbart tells us that Brian Collins is a living example Walt Disney's statement, “It's kind of fun to do the impossible.” Put on your Mouse Ears and get ready for a Disney

. . . .Well, we seem to have not remembered and this story may have tested our patience. In this episode, we re-read the first Dear America book, set on and off the Mayflower in 1620-1621. Protagonist/diarist Remember a.k.a."Mem" experiences a lot of hardship and seasickness in this 1996 ribboned classic. She gets jealous when her friend is the "first" to step on Plymouth Rock and that's just the beginning. In our coverage, we talk about life in the 1600s, the limits of historical fiction, and representations of indigenous life in "pilgrim" stories. Want to learn more re-indigenizing education? Check out the Akomawt Educational Initiative -  @akomawt on Twitter. Original air date: September 28, 2020

Salem, the North Shore city with a long and complicated history, is now in the midst of a new chapter: Halloweenmania! Beginning before the first leaf even turns, its annual Halloween Happenings attracts tourists from around the globe, packing the streets and causing headaches in surrounding towns. How did it get this way? To chat about this spooky phenomenon, I'm joined by brothers Adam and Art Antczak, a couple of dudes who have lived in and around Salem for decades. We talk about the time Bewitched came to town, the title of "official witch," the Hocus Pocus of it all, and why they can't visit their mother in October. Plus, Gritty, Plymouth Rock, and somewhere called Misery Island. Here is a link to the scariest haunted house setting imaginable. Here is the 2024/25 Celtics City Jersey. "A reject from Sesame Street" — the initial reaction to Gritty. Have feedback on this episode or ideas for upcoming topics? DM me on Instagram, email me, or send a voice memo.If you're a local business who'd like to advertise on the podcast, please drop me a line.Send us a textPremium Q Moving & Storage: Get free boxes and 10% off your move by clicking HERE or call 781-730-6180 for a quote.

A recent “ice cream” incident at a restaurant got me thinking about my immediate reaction when I first saw Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts. Spoiler alert: my two words were, “that's it?” In this episode, I talk about managing expectations as a deliberate communicator. The post Ep. 349 – Managing Expectations (Two Words When I Saw Plymouth Rock) appeared first on Just Saying.

Thank you for tuning in to Episode 282 of the Down Cellar Studio Podcast. This week's segments included: Off the Needles, Hook or Bobbins On the Needles, Hook or Bobbins Brainstorming From the Armchair Knitting in Passing Crafty Adventures KAL News Events Contest, News & Notes Life in Focus Ask Me Anything On a Happy Note Quote of the Week Thank you to this episode's sponsors: Imagined Landscapes, Fibernymph Dye Works, BellaFio Yarn Off the Needles, Hook or Bobbins Wool Ease Hexagon Blanket Pattern: Basic Crochet Hexagon Pattern & Tips from Make Do and Crew Website & YouTube Tutorial Yarn: Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick & Quick. Centers in colorways- Fern, Coney Island, Seaglass, Slate. Borders- Wheat & Oatmeal Hook: 10mm (N/P) 96 total hexagons + half hexies to square off the edges. Border: 1 round of sc (used nearly 1 skein of yarn), 2 rounds of hdc, 2 rounds of Dc on short sides and sc on long sides 4,499 grams used 1,728 grams of multi color yarns / around 10 skeins 2,771 grams wheat used. / around 16 skeins used Total for Stash Dash: 2,567.6 meters Berry Bliss Socks Yarn: Hypnotic Yarn Plush Sock (75% SW Merino/25% Nylon) in the Berry Bliss Colorway (May 2024 Yarnable Box) & Legacy Fiber Artz Glitzy Toes (pink mini from 2023 Advent Calendar) Pattern: OMG Heel Socks by Megan Williams ($5 knitting pattern available on Ravelry) Needles: US 1.5 (2.5 mm) Ravelry Project Page Cast on July 12 About the yarn- lemon yellow, sherbet orange and pink. I worked the first heel in a pink sparkle yarn from Legacy Fiber Artz because I have some spiral striping going on and didn't want to disrupt it. Stash Dash Update Jasmin (of the Knitmore Girls Podcast) & I competed again this year. Check out my Stash Dash Spreadsheet here. Here's Jasmin's Spreadsheet. My 2024 Stash Dash Total: 12,088 26 projects- 16 knit, 8 crochet, 2 spinning 2 blankets, a cowl, 3 hats, a book holder, a pair of mitts, 11 pairs of socks, 1 Christmas stocking, 2 tops and 4 skeins of yarn Jasmin's total: 29,811 with the meters for a finished spinning project not yet on her spreadsheet. I always knew if she buckled down and finished one of her massive spinning projects she'd annihilate me and she finally did! One of her spinning projects was 23k! Nicely done, friend!! My hat is off to you. On the Needles, Hook or Bobbins Static Musselburgh Pattern: Musselburgh Hat by Ysolda Teague (7 GBP Knitting Pattern available on Ravelry & Ysolda's website) Yarn: Knit Picks Static Fingering Weight Yarn in the Peppercorn colorway Needles: US 2 (2.75 mm) & US 2.5 (3.0 mm) Ravelry Project Page Note- the pattern just got some updates About the yarn: blues, grays, cream and a bit of a salmony orange. Self patterning yarn. I'm loving how its working up so far. Let the Mystery Unravel 2023 Blanket of Calm Pattern: Blanket of Calm by Casapinka (free crochet pattern) Yarn: Woolen Women Fibers- Let the Mystery Unravel subscription + Cascade Heritage Sock yarn in the Forged Iron Colorway Hook: 3.25 mm (D) Ravelry Project Page You can find my Let the Mystery Unravel Unboxing Video on YouTube in this Playlist This subscription is not available to new subscribers but there's a new one coming in the Fall. Blanket Pre-Orders for the Murder She Knit club are available now! Please consider using my Affiliate Link. Progress: I finished 9 my July squares & seamed them. I started my August squares and have 1 package waiting for me to open- the last batch. Stranger Things 2 Socks Yarn: Desert Vista Dyeworks Viso base (75% SW Merino/25% Nylon) in the Stranger Things 2 Self Striping Colorway Pattern: OMG Heel Socks by Megan Williams ($5 knitting pattern available on Ravelry) Needles: US 1.5 (2.5 mm) Ravelry Project Page Cast on the morning of Thursday 9/5 for the Pigskin Party. I didn't get to join in the round until that night, but now its well underway. About the colorway- stripes of: orange, hot pink, purple, navy blue, medium blue and red. Progress- almost to heel of the first sock. Brainstorming Autumn Doodle Cup Cozy by Jamie Lomax ($2 knitting pattern- Ravelry) . Quick  fall colorwork project with DK yarn. From the Armchair Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah.  Bookshop Affiliate Link. Amazon Affiliate Link. Listened to this because I want to watch the Netflix series based on this starring Sarah Chalke & Katherine Heigl Note: Some links are listed as Amazon Affiliate Links. If you click those, please know that I am an Amazon Associate and I earn money from qualifying purchases. Knitting in Passing During Marta's visit, the kids turned the living room at my parents' into a craft room. Millie knit on the hat she's making for her dad. Riley worked on crochet hexagons for our matching blankets. Roc crocheted on a crab and eventually started a giraffe amigurumi and a baby hat. Riley taught Roc to make a crochet hexagon. Even Max & Garret got in on the action and did some drawing. One of the first afternoons, we were sitting at the bar at my parents' pool. Marta was sewing up a hole in Max's shirt, I was finishing some socks and Roc was crocheting his crab. Throughout the trip, Roc (age 12) was crocheting constantly- in the car, at the table, at the park, anytime he had a few free minutes. He was incredibly adept at chatting and keeping up with his pattern working in increases and decreases. We ended up going to 6 craft stores- Plymouth Harbor Knits, Michaels, Joann, The Craft Loft, Hobby Lobby, Gather Here. Roc also got a crochet kit at Dollar Tree (the same dinoaur my niece Aila bought earlier this summer). We had a campfire at my house one night. Roc, Millie and Hattie spent most of the night crafting in my studio. We visited my house after kayaking & ice cream one afternoon- Hattie also did a bit of knitting on my Musselburgh hat. I found a few dropped stitches the next time I picked it up but that's ok. Crafty Adventures Marta, Roc and I did some resin projects while they were visiting. Roc put resin in the bottom of a small wooden crate and then we worked together on a pumpkin lazy susan. KAL News Pigskin Party '24 #DCSPigskinParty24 Event Dates: Thursday September 5, 2024- Monday February 10, 2025 Find everything you need in the Start Here Thread in the Ravelry Group Official Rules Registration Form  (you must be Registered to be eligible for prizes) Enter your projects using the Point Tally Form Find the full list of Sponsors in this Google Doc. Coupon Codes are listed in this Ravelry Thread Exclusive Items from our Pro Shop Sponsors are listed in this Ravelry Thread Questions-  ask them in this Ravelry Thread or email Jen at downcellarstudio @ gmail.com Playoff Prediction Contest:  Check this Ravelry Thread on 9/4 for post. Choose the NFL team you think will win the Super Bowl this year (before the thread closes on 9/19). Correct guesses will get you extra points. Tailgate Talk Challenge– Click here for Ravelry Link Great way to get to know your team. There will be daily prompts from 9/5 through 9/16. Answer them in your Team thread in the Ravelry Group. If you answer them all, no more than 2 per day, you'll get 150 points (as long as you enter them on the Points Tally form by 10/1).  Stay Tuned for our October Challenge hosted by The Little Wolf Knits. Commentator Mary: The season is off to a great start! The first Monday Night Football game was still on and there were already 18 projects in the end zone dance thread! There were lots of hats and dishcloths, of course, as these are often quick projects. But one player went above and beyond! Shellylynnknits already completed a blitz in 4 days!  She crocheted a scrap yarn basket that is super cool! https://www.ravelry.com/projects/Shellylynnknits/scrap-yarn-basket  That pattern looks like a really fun idea for using up scraps! The September chat thread is in full swing. There are lots of old friends reconnecting after some months away and new players introducing themselves and getting warm welcomes.  There is a lot of chatter about life events, plans for pigskin, and an interesting discussion about why people like knitting socks. In addition, if you are a reader or a cook, be sure to check out that Pigskin Book Talk (Ravelry Link) and Pigskin Recipe Ideas (Ravelry Link)! threads as they are quite lively too!  Don't be worried about falling behind on any of these threads…you can jump in at any time! Events Adirondack Wool & Arts Festival; September 21 & 22, 2024 in Greenwich, NY (GREEN-Witch) Vermont Sheep & Wool: October 1 & 2, 2024 in Tunnebridge, VT NY Sheep & Wool Festival (aka Rhinebeck): October 19 & 20, 2024 in Rhinebeck, NY Sierra Nevada Yarn Crawl, (CA and NV) – Sept 12-15, 2024 Cape & South Shore Yarn Haul (MA) September 14-17, 2024 Lambtown, Dixon, CA – Oct 5-6, 2024 For more West Coast (US) event- check out the Seattle Knitters Guild Site. Know of an event I should spread the word about? Let me know! Contest, News & Notes My friend Linda is looking for donations of warm handknit/crocheted items for adult and youth homeless in Massachusetts. They set up tables on Thanksgiving and put all of the handmade items on the fence outside the First Church in Woburn, MA. Calling for all makers who want to donate. PM me on Ravelry or email me at downcellarstudio at gmail.com and I'll give you the address to send them to. Any fiber type welcome. Hats, scarves, mitts, shawls, blankets. Anything warm is welcome! This year they're especially looking for men's things. Life in Focus 2024 Word of the Year- Heart Thank you Emily for sending me a knit & embroidered heart pin! Its so beautiful and it made my day! Update on Mom: Mom had a couple good days while Marta was visiting. Grateful we were able to spend time together even when she couldn't leave the house. The sound of the boys laughing brought her joy. She had the catheter removed from her lung. Began having throat issues that worsened day after day. On Thursday 9/12 came for scans and chemo, but only had scans and then was admitted. She's had a whole slew of tests and so far they haven't found anything wrong which is good news, but we still need to get to the bottom of things. One bit of good news, she should be having an injection of filler into her paralyzed right vocal cord that will allow her voice to come back. Ask Me Anything Herdofhills asked about: fall project plans, books, favorite fall recipes I am looking forward to: apple picking, apple sauce, wood chopping weekend, oven baked oatmeal (here's a recipe I like to use), a Better Off Dead movie party, I've already enjoyed watching Hocus Pocus (1 & 2), pulling out the wool socks and wearing those at night, decorating, overnight oats for breakfast which I tend to eat more in fall/winter. Even better for fall is warm. Deborahjay- Love is blind UK I was watching but got sidetracked with Marta's visit. For the first time, I found myself fast forwarding through the pre-wedding stuff to hear yes/no. Liked that it seemed like folks were actually there for love and that the cast was far less dramatic than the US participants. kjkcrochet- I'd love to know a little bit more about your job I'm a Project Manager in the Nursing Dept of a big boston hospital, supporting a communication system and other projects thank involve communication, responsiveness (to patients) and technology). Tune in to hear more. On a Happy Note Max's reaction to Plymouth Rock! Teaching Roc some new crochet stitches and seeing his enthusiasm. He's definitely my new buddy. My heart almost burst when he sent me a screenshot of his Home Screen- photo of us outside the Craft Loft in Cambridge. Handpicked sunflowers from my friend Eileen's garden. Laser tag Going on a Duck Tour 2 whole weeks with Marta. We haven't been together that long since 1998! And all of the funny moments and inside jokes that come from it. Connections at work making tough days a little easier. Quote of the Week Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night. ~ Hal Borland —— Thank you for tuning in! Contact Information: Check out the Down Cellar Studio Patreon! Ravelry: BostonJen & Down Cellar Studio Podcast Ravelry Group Instagram: BostonJen1 YouTube: Down Cellar Studio Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/downcellarstudio Sign up for my email newsletter to get the latest on everything happening in the Down Cellar Studio Check out myDown Cellar Studio YouTube Channel Knit Picks Affiliate Link Bookshop Affiliate Link Yarnable Subscription Box Affiliate Link FearLESS Living Fund to benefit the Blind Center of Nevada Music -“Soft Orange Glow” by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/ Note: Some links are listed as Amazon Affiliate Links. If you click those, please know that I am an Amazon Associate and I earn money from qualifying purchases.

Spoiler alert, we love the story of Plymouth Rock even if it isn't exactly true history! This week we look at some important historical places on the coast of Massachusetts including Plymouth, the Mayflower and New Bedford.Links The True Story Behind Plymouth Rock Mayflower Descendants Search New Bedford NHPContact Chris Websterchris@archaeologypodcastnetwork.com Rachel Rodenrachel@unraveleddesigns.comRachelUnraveled (Instagram)ArchPodNet APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet Tee Public Store: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/archaeology-podcast-network?ref_id=5724Affiliates Motion

Spoiler alert, we love the story of Plymouth Rock even if it isn't exactly true history! This week we look at some important historical places on the coast of Massachusetts including Plymouth, the Mayflower and New Bedford.Links The True Story Behind Plymouth Rock Mayflower Descendants Search New Bedford NHPContact Chris Websterchris@archaeologypodcastnetwork.com Rachel Rodenrachel@unraveleddesigns.comRachelUnraveled (Instagram)ArchPodNet APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet Tee Public Store: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/archaeology-podcast-network?ref_id=5724Affiliates Motion

[This blog will always be free to read, but it's also how I pay my bills. If you have suggestions or feedback on how I can earn your paid subscription, shoot me an email: cmclymer@gmail.com. And if this is too big of a commitment, I'm always thankful for a simple cup of coffee.]Love of mythology is central to the American experience. We'd be much less happier—or perhaps, less entertained—without it. Mythology permeates our country: George Washington axing the cherry tree, the sweet but apocryphal story of the first Thanksgiving, stacking back issues of The New Yorker near our desk with the false implication we've read any of them.Here's another one: the Pilgrims didn't first land at Plymouth Rock. In fact, the Rock itself—yes, there is a literal rock—had nothing to do with the Pilgrims. It marks a spot long claimed to be the landing area of the Mayflower, the Dutch cargo fluyt that carried the Pilgrims across the Atlantic, but the claim was originally and erroneously made by 94 year-old Thomas Flaunce more than 120 years after the landing. Flaunce, of course, was not an eyewitness to this.And the Pilgrims never mentioned the Rock. They would be very confused by the importance placed on it today and may consider us all a bit weird (actually, it's guaranteed they would consider us all weird).No, in reality, the Pilgrims first anchored in the harbor of what is now known as Provincetown, a gorgeous seaside community of less than 4,000 residents at the southern tip of Massachusetts.The other myth about the Pilgrims that was beaten into our heads from an early age is that they absconded from Europe in pursuit of true religious freedom, a core tenet of the American Experiment. But in truth, the Pilgrims were religious conservatives who wanted to be completely separate from the spiritual influence of outsiders — perhaps “aspirational purists” might be a more apt description. They weren't seeking true religious freedom for all.The area where they first anchored already had residents: the Nauset people, closely related neighbors of the better-known Wampanoag, who were almost certainly the opposite of the Pilgrims in terms of social attitudes. Although there isn't substantial scholarship on the topic, it's fairly likely that LGBTQ people were accepted on that land long before the Pilgrims arrived with their strict outlook on gender, sexuality, and family.And so, it's quite fitting that Provincetown is today considered one of the premier vacation destinations for LGBTQ families. The season reaches its celebratory apex every year with LGBTQ Family Week, organized by the organization Family Equality, this latest being its 30th year of celebration.For three decades, LGBTQ families have traveled from throughout the nation—some crossing an ocean from other countries—to enjoy what can only be described as one of the safest places in America (and the world) for the LGBTQ community.During a long, wonderful walk through town, I ran into a friend and caught up on life. She and her wife have been bringing their son ever since he was a baby. He's now 15. He's grown up surrounded by love and joy in Provincetown.Last month, Nissan (North America) reached out and asked if I would join them as a guest for the festivities. They offered to cover travel and lodging, only requesting that I write about my experience if the spirit so moved me. I was not paid, nor would I have accepted payment.My sole motivation was quite simple: while anti-LGBTQ laws are being passed in dozens of states and children are being attacked and books are being banned and fear campaigns are being waged against trans people by elected officials, I wanted to draw attention to companies who are walking the walk (or driving the drive, in this case).If you're pleasantly surprised that Nissan is so invested in LGBTQ equality, allow yourself to be further delighted. As a number of other large corporations, from Target to Tractor Supply, have quietly moved away from LGBTQ outreach in the midst of backlash from anti-LGBTQ extremists, Nissan has doubled down.For years, they've achieved high marks in the Corporate Equality Index, an annual report released by the Human Rights Campaign to assess the commitment of a wide range of companies to LGBTQ equality. And this year, they increased their sponsorship of LGBTQ Family Week, desiring to send a message that all families deserve and should expect kindness, respect, and dignity.Of course, I immediately agreed to join.There are two ways to get to Provincetown (“P-town") after landing: you can take a long drive from Boston or catch a much shorter ride on the Bay State Cruise Company ferry across Massachusetts Bay. I took the ferry, and it was lovely. It was about 90 minutes, but it felt like half an hour, I kid you not. I spent the week with the lovely group from Nissan going whale-watching, singing karaoke (enthusiastically and badly and hilariously), laughing at a drag show based on the Devil Wears Prada, eating at several of the many charming restaurants in town, and generally enjoying the festive and welcome atmosphere. And that was all great, to be sure. It was wonderful. But the parts of the trip that stick with me most were seeing hundreds of LGBTQ families gathered together in such safe and joyous celebrations. There was Family Night at Motta Field, in which many a parent could be observed cleaning sticky fingers with wet wipes and cheering on their kiddos dancing in front of the stage and toddlers walking around with watermelon wedges bigger than their heads. Everyone just seemed happy and at peace. Nissan's Don Hayes delivered brief and moving remarks during the gathering, which included this heartfelt offering that got huge applause:“You know, there was a time when I didn't feel comfortable to be myself at work, concerned for my ability to advance…but I'm happy to report, that is no longer the case.”Nissan also displayed their Ariya, an electric crossover, which I only mention here because it's truly a gorgeous piece of machinery. (Again: they are not paying me to say this. I just think it's pretty.)And, of course, there was the Parade. Oh, the Parade. If you haven't experienced the Provincetown Family Week Parade, you're missing out. I've been to countless Pride parades in my life, and there's something particularly special about this one. LGBTQ families, as far as the eye can see, who weren't so much marching as they were joyously promenading through downtown, proud parents and energetic kiddos, amused and cheering tourists on the sides, a collection of excited humanity slowly enveloping the streets. Love upon love upon love.At the Parade's end, I caught up with Alexis Cantor, who recently took the helm as President & CEO of Family Equality. I had seen Ms. Cantor around all week, always spreading good cheer and having a kind word and smile for everyone she came across.I asked her what Family Week means to her. She said:“Being surrounded by queer joy and a sense of belonging and families just feeling safe, protected, loved, and celebrated is all we can ask for… I would remind people that we need joy with our justice, and at the end of the day, families come here because they don't always feel safe. They do have worry in their hometowns, and here, they can find their community… everyone gets to show up authentically as they are… we're here to celebrate it all.”At the end of our conversation, she summed it up about as well as anyone could: “How can you not want to create a world where every single child, every single adult, every single human, gets to feel that unconditional love of family?”I couldn't agree more, and as I headed back to Boston on the ferry, I found myself immediately longing to return to P-town and feel unreservedly safe and accepted, walking its streets and simply existing as myself, beautifully and unapologetically and in communion with no shortage of kind souls.My everlasting gratitude to the folks at Nissan and Family Equality for offering a bit of heaven in a time when so many desperately need it.I only wish everyone could have that, too. Affirmation shouldn't be a mythical concept.(To donate to Family Equality and help support their amazing work, go here.)Charlotte's Web Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Charlotte's Web Thoughts at charlotteclymer.substack.com/subscribe

How America Got Divorced from Reality: Christian Utopias, Anti-Elitism, Media Circus ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Since a boat of religious fanatics with buckles on their hats hit the shores near Plymouth Rock and claimed that this was their utopia, America has always been a little bit crazy. It's this kind of wide-eyed "anything can happen if you believe" mentality that, at its best, can produce incredible art. But at its worst, it can be cruel and conspiratorial. We live in a country where people refuse to believe vaccination can help you and where a White House is spinning "alternative — but Kurt Andersen is here to say that this is nothing now. At the time of the Civil War, society had become split by two sides that refused to listen to each other. Back then, the political and social divide is stoked by a hyperbolic partisan media where anyone could publish whatever they wanted in a pamphlet without fact-checking. Sound familiar? It definitely should. Kurt's latest book is appropriately titled Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire. ------------------------------------------------------- KURT ANDERSEN: Kurt Andersen, host of Studio 360 on NPR, is a journalist and the author of the novels Hey Day, Turn of the Century, The Real Thing, and his latest non-fiction book Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History. He has written and produced prime-time network television programs and pilots for NBC and ABC, and co-authored Loose Lips, an off-Broadway theatrical revue that had long runs in New York and Los Angeles. He is a regular columnist for New York Magazine, and contributes frequently to Vanity Fair. He is also a founder of Very Short List. Andersen began his career in journalism at NBC's Today program and at Time, where he was an award-winning writer on politics and criminal justice and for eight years the magazine's architecture and design critic. Returning to Time in 1993 as editor-at-large, he wrote a weekly column on culture. And from 1996 through 1999 he was a staff writer and columnist for The New Yorker. He was a co-founder of Inside.com, editorial director of Colors magazine, and editor-in-chief of both New York and Spy magazines, the latter of which he also co-founded. From 2004 through 2008 he wrote a column called "The Imperial City" for New York (one of which is included in The Best American Magazine Writing 2008). In 2008 Forbes. com named him one of The 25 Most Influential Liberals in the U.S. Media. Anderson graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, and is a member of the boards of trustees of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Pratt Institute, and is currently Visionary in Residence at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He lives with his family in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As we approach Hanna's 100th episode, we return to her first, where she tells Fish & Andy about Plymouth Rock's dubious origin and its critical role in the American Revolution! Intro music is from "Across the Line" by the Wellington Sea Shanty Society.

The opening monologue is about football. Stories are told about Lou's Uncle Mike. The boys do a play about the Pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock in 1620. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/iloveoldtimeradio/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/iloveoldtimeradio/support

Did you know that the generation that declared independence from Great Britain were closer to the Mayflower generation than we are to the Independence generation?  150 years after the landing of the Mayflower with 102 passengers on the tip of Cape Cod, their descendants were leading 13 Colonies in a spirited and armed defense of the rights and liberties of mankind. Now, 250 years later we talk with Mark Schmidt, Executive Director of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, on the lasting impact of that first generation of Colonists, how their descendants saw themselves connected to the empire and how tens of thousands of modern Americans help preserve, promote and commemorate the lives and legacies of their ancestors, passengers of the Mayflower.https://themayflowersociety.org/

If you got something in your eye, you should rinse it with water or eye drops to try and wash it out. Fair warning: there is not enough over-the-counter eyedrops in the world that would help with today's story. On this episode: we'll learn all the ways your car wants to kill you, we'll learn which member of the original Thanksgiving feast ended up with their head on a pike for 25 years, and we'll find out what happens when you play rock paper scissors bumper plow. This is the first episode we've done where the site of the catastrophe later became an annual sporting event recreating the event. The Frank Rockslide Disaster of 1903 stands as one of the most devastating and tragic events in the history of Alberta and was claimed to be the worst disaster that has even befallen any community in Western Canada.Celebrity guests include: my wife, aggrieved driver; highway enthusiast, Dwight D. Eisenhower;  historical revisionist, Abraham Lincoln;massacre enthusiast, Massachusetts Bay Governor, John Winthrop; and holiday-travel enthusiast, Dante of Dante's Inferno fame. And if you had been listening on Patreon, you would have enjoyed an additional 10.5 minutes where we discussed:•  landing planes on highways•  how bizarre the Mandela Effect is•  we look at the weird, dark origins of Thanksgiving•  we found out why TripAdvisor and Yelp reviewers hate Plymouth Rock•  we look into why people suck at driving •  and the history of the Cannonball Run If the idea of getting episodes a little early and ad-free with ridiculously interesting extra material strikes you as a good thing, you can find out more at: www.patreon.com/funeralkazoo All older episodes can be found on any of your favorite channels Apple : https://tinyurl.com/5fnbumdwSpotify : https://tinyurl.com/73tb3uuwIHeartRadio : https://tinyurl.com/vwczpv5jPodchaser : https://tinyurl.com/263kda6wStitcher : https://tinyurl.com/mcyxt6vwGoogle : https://tinyurl.com/3fjfxattSpreaker : https://tinyurl.com/fm5y22suPodchaser : https://tinyurl.com/263kda6wRadioPublic : https://tinyurl.com/w67b4kecPocketCasts. : https://pca.st/ef1165v3CastBox : https://tinyurl.com/4xjpptdrBreaker. : https://tinyurl.com/4cbpfaytDeezer. : https://tinyurl.com/5nmexvwt Follow us on the socials for more Facebook : www.facebook.com/doomsdaypodcastInstagram : www.instagram.com/doomsdaypodcastTwitter : www.twitter.com/doomsdaypodcast If you like the idea of your podcast hosts wearing more than duct tape and bits of old Halloween costumes for clothes and can spare a buck or two, you can now buy me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/doomsday or join the patreon at www.funeralkazoo.com/doomsday

Let's take a Meyer Moment to introduce our Birds of the Month: the Barred Plymouth Rock, White Plymouth Rock, and the Rhode Island Red! This month, we're shining a spotlight on these production breeds, focusing on their prolific egg-laying capabilities. Check out more of our High Production Layers here.Join Linda as she talks more about these favorites!

Big Rocky fans, those pilgrims.  Chicago's best morning radio show now has a podcast! Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and remember that the conversation always lives on the Q101 Facebook page.  The Q101 Morning Crew is live every morning from 6a-10a on Q101.    Subscribe to our channel HERE: https://www.youtube.com/@Q101 Like Q101 on Facebook HERE: https://www.facebook.com/q101chicago Follow Q101 on Twitter HERE: https://twitter.com/Q101Chicago Follow Q101 on Instagram HERE: https://www.instagram.com/q101chicago/?hl=en Follow Q101 on TikTok HERE: https://www.tiktok.com/@q101chicago?lang=enSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Brett sits down with his good friend and Anfield alumnus, Pepper Uchino. Pepper is now the President of the Florida Shore and Beach Preservation Association, but he has a wealth of experience from his days as the staff attorney, and then Staff Director, of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee. Pepper is unique in that he's the direct descendant of Japanese Samurai as well as Mayflower passengers who landed at Plymouth Rock. They discuss his early life in New England as the son of an environmental activist; the health struggles that nearly derailed his future early on; the successful and growing Resiliency Conference he hosts; and they commiserate on the life of legislative committee staff and how laws are made from the perspective of someone on the “inside”. Did we mention his childhood home was haunted? More about that as well. To find out more about FSBA's 37th Annual Conference on Beach Preservation Technology National Conference coming up in February, head here: https://www.fsbpa.com/tech-conference.html And save the date for the 3rd Annual Florida Resilience Conference coming in September. To learn more and get registered, go here: https://floridaresilienceconference.org To keep up with Pepper's old Senate Committee and their deliberations, visit the Senate's website here: https://www.flsenate.gov/Committees/Show/EN/ Pepper talked about his work with the Trust for Public Land before he joined the Senate. To find out more about what they do, go here: https://www.tpl.org/state/florida When you're in Connecticut, why not visit some of New Haven's most haunted sites? Perhaps Pepper's childhood home is on the list somewhere. To learn more about that, go here: https://blog.gardencommunitiesct.com/blog/most-haunted-places-new-haven-county-ct/ This episode of Water for Fighting is brought to you by my friends at Sea and Shoreline. Sea and Shoreline is the Southeast's leading innovator in protecting coastal communities from devastating storms and restoring ecosystems that once faced ecological collapse. Visit their website at www.Seaandshoreline.com. This Episode is also thanks to my friends at Resource Environmental Solutions. RES is the nation's leader in ecological restoration, helping to restore Florida's natural resources with water quality and stormwater solutions that offer communities guaranteed performance and outcomes. Check them out at www.res.us Please be sure to check out the Florida Specifier Podcast hosted by Ryan Matthews and myself as part of a new venture where we're striving to become Florida's first source for environmental news, educational tools, and unique perspectives on our state's natural environment and the events that shape it. To learn more about its flagship print publication and more, visit The Florida Specifier. You can follow the show on LinkedIn and Instagram @flwaterpod, and you can reach me directly at FLwaterpod@gmail.com with your comments and suggestions for who and/or what you'd like to know more about. Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance. And finally, a very special thank you goes out to Bo Spring from the Bo Spring Band for giving permission to use his music for this podcast. The song is called Doing Work for Free, and you should check out the band live, or wherever great music is sold.

The Dean's List with Host Dean Bowen – As we delve into America's rich history, I share tales of early pilgrims, the fervent hope for liberty, and pivotal battles led by George Washington. Our journey from Plymouth Rock to Trenton reveals a legacy of courage and determination. Join me in celebrating the indomitable spirit and foundational moments that define our nation's enduring quest for freedom.

The Dean's List with Host Dean Bowen – Discover the remarkable journey of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, their struggles, and perseverance in the harsh New England elements. Learn about their encounter with Samoset and Squanto, pivotal figures who bridged cultures and aided their survival. Explore Squanto's intriguing backstory and the first Thanksgiving, reflecting on the profound faith and resilience that shaped early American...

Are you yearning to venture back in time and uncover the riveting story of the pilgrims' perilous journey to America? Let's journey back together, as we explore the profound impact of these pioneers on the shaping of American values - religious and civil liberty, rule by law, and their use of government documents. Let us explore the roots of the pilgrims during the Reformation era, highlighting the instrumental roles key figures like Wycliffe and Tyndale played in making the Bible accessible to all. Join us as we set foot on Plymouth Rock and reveal the threads of history.Who can resist the allure of a tale of tenacity and courage, of men and women braving the odds to journey to the New World? As we trace the path of these brave souls from England to Holland and eventually, to America, we delve into the challenges they faced. We talk about their adaptation to a different culture in Holland, the technical issues with their ship the Speedwell, and the voyage that led them to Cape Cod in November aboard the Mayflower. We explore their survival through the harsh winter in New England, and the creation of the Mayflower Compact, a cornerstone in the history of America.As we navigate through the trials faced by these pilgrims upon their arrival in America and their life-saving encounter with Squanto, an English-speaking Indian, we remind ourselves of the essence of Thanksgiving and the freedom we enjoy today. As we look back at the sacrifices made by our forefathers, we stress the importance of standing together as a nation and engaging in respectful dialogue. So, tune in for an enlightening journey through history and an engaging conversation about unity, gratitude, and freedom. Let's learn from our past to shape our future.Support the show

Happy Thanksgiving, you beautiful gamblers! Action Network hosts Chad Millman and Simon Hunter have a loaded single episode this week for Feast Week, combining all our picks and segments into one LOADED show! We get Sharp Calls, the Executive Decision, Simon Says, Foxhole and the Big Balls Bet of the Week! Plus we have a moneyline underdog round robin, survivor picks and so much more. So enjoy a cornucopia of betting content, and let our picks be your Plymouth Rock this Thanksgiving! And behalf of the entire team here at the Action Network, we wish you and your families a healthy, prosperous Thanksgiving! Best of luck with all of your bets, large and small. Wanna join Chad and Simon recording the show LIVE on December 3rd in New Jersey? RSVP now to reserve your spot. 7 - THANKSGIVING GAMES & SHARP CALLS 21 - BLACK FRIDAY 26 - NE NYG 28 - TB IND 33 - NO ATL 35 - CAR TEN 40 - PIT CIN 44 - JAX HOU 48 - LAR AZ 53 - CLE DEN 56 - LV KC 60 - BUF PHI 66 - BAL LAC 70 - CHI MIN 72 - ROUND ROBIN Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

New York Times best-selling author Nathaniel Philbrick joins Tim to talk about the story behind those pilgrims and the Mayflower in a way that covers much more than that first Thanksgiving. Nathaniel has authored many best sellers, but the one we'll focus on in this episode is must-reading for anyone who wants to get the full story of Thanksgiving's origins in America. The book is called simply, “Mayflower.” This episode marks the 400th anniversary of that world-changing voyage. This episode was originally released on November 23, 2020. https://traffic.libsyn.com/forcedn/shapingopinion/Encore_-_The_Real_Story_of_The_Mayflower.mp3 It's been 400 years since the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in the New World. The world was a much different place then than as it is now, in many ways, but for the sake of this episode the place to start is the practice of religion. Keep in mind, this is long before 1776 and the Declaration of Independence. The Pilgrims lived under a king. King James, to be precise. And that king did not allow for freedom of religion. The Church was the state. The state was the Church. It was the Church of England. And for all intents and purposes, the king was god on earth. If you did not recognize his church's absolute authority over your life, you were persecuted, perhaps imprisoned and sometimes even executed, all because you did not believe in that church's doctrines and teachings. There were two groups who opposed this. The Puritans wanted to create change from within. And the separatists wanted to flee. They just wanted to leave England for a better place, where they could practice their religion according to their own conscience. So, they did. In 1608, 12 years before the Mayflower, a group of separatists sailed from England to a town in Holland called Leiden.  They went to Holland to worship their God the way they wanted. And while they did experience religious freedom in Holland, they also found the rules had changed from what they were used to. The Dutch craft guilds did not accept them because they were migrants.  They found themselves on the lowest rungs of the caste system. They worked the lowest jobs for the lowest pay. The separatists also felt that the secular culture of Holland provided too much temptation for their children and worried it would lure them away from their faith. That's when the separatists decided to uproot and sail to the New World, where they could live and practice their faith on their own terms. They returned to London to organize and get funding from a successful merchant. The separatists then hired a merchant ship called the Mayflower and 40 separatists boarded it in September 1620.  The 40 separatists were joined by others. A total of 102 passengers sailed on the Mayflower for the rugged shores of that New World. In November of that year, they arrived at a place where a huge rock dominated the shore line. A rock they would dub Plymouth Rock, and that is where life in the New World – for them – began. Nathaniel Philbrick's book about the Mayflower is about more than one voyage and eventually the Thanksgiving story, though that is our focus today. He followed the separatists – the Pilgrims – through a 50-plus year history in the New World. Links Nathaniel Philbrick, author page Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War, by Nathaniel Philbrick, Amazon The Mayflower, History.com The Mayflower Compact, Yale.edu Pilgrim Hall Museum See Plymouth (tourism), Plymouth, Massachusetts About this Episode's Guest Nathaniel Philbrick Nathaniel Philbrick was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he attended Linden Elementary School and Taylor Allderdice High School.  He earned a BA in English from Brown University and an MA in America Literature from Duke University, where he was a James B. Duke Fellow. He was Brown University's first Intercollegiate All-American sailor in 1978,