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Keith discusses the new power shift in the housing market, where buyers now have more power in the Northeast and Midwest. Ken McElroy joins us to discuss the current state of the real estate market, highlighting a significant decline in apartment building values and a predicted further drop in home ownership rates, potentially below 60%. They note that while some states, like Arizona, have surpassed pre-pandemic housing supply levels, others, like the Northeast and Midwest, still face shortages. Ken emphasizes the importance of affordability and the shift towards renting, predicting a significant increase in renters. He also shares insights on strategic property investments and the benefits of buying at current market lows. Resources: Use the discount code "KEN10" to get a discount on the Limitless Expo event. Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/559 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, apartment building values have crashed about 30% in the past few years. Well, it's the opinion of today's qualified guest that it's going to get even worse from here. We'll also discuss why rents in the Phoenix area are declining, and a bold prediction on a collapse in the home ownership rate and the hordes of renters that that will create all 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 mark up 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 Speaker 1 1:59 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 2:15 Welcome to GRE from the Tigris to the Euphrates to the Mississippi and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold GRE founder Forbes real estate council member, Best Selling Author, look for my work in the USA today as well, and you are back inside for another wealth building week of get rich education. What's all that really mean? Ah, I'm just another slack jawed mouth breather with a mic here. Before we get to today's guest, Ken McElroy, let me tell you about housing's new power shift and where we're at today. Three to five years ago, sellers held all the power in virtually every market because the housing supply was so miserably low everywhere. So you had more one tours of real estate and few that were willing to sell. That is still mostly true on a national level, but the new power shift is about the fact that the Northeast and Midwest are replete with home buyers. Queues of buyers are lining up for the few available properties like I've touched on before, and look low available housing supply in these areas, the Midwest and Northeast, that's not a symptom of mass in migration. Hordes of people are not stampeding into Buffalo for the nightlife. It's all due to chronic under building, partly from strict regulation, especially in the Northeast. A big part of the power shift, though, is that we now have fully 10 states that are above pre pandemic supply levels, and you'll notice that none of these are in the Midwest and Northeast. The 10 states are Arizona, which we'll talk about more today, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Hawaii, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Washington. Here in these places, is where the tables have turned, because supply is catching up with demand in those 10 states. So that's where we're seeing softer home price growth and where buyers have the power, these are some of the states where you can find better deals. Motivated sellers and builders in these places will often buy down your mortgage rate, give you closing cost credits or reward you with incentives, like a free year of property management. In fact, our GRE investment coaches guide you for free to exact property addresses where builders will buy down your mortgage rate to 5% today, one of them will even give you a $9,800 post close credit instead, if you so choose. Often do. Those like that are in those 10 states. They're elsewhere too. You can get started at GRE investment coach.com, conversely, 40 states have less for sale housing inventory than they did as compared to pre pandemic times. This is where sellers still have the power some of the most competitive markets in the nation are buffalo, Hartford, Providence and Boston, where more than 10 active home buyers vie for every single listing. That's per Zillow. That's sort of the real estate equivalent of a Taylor Swift or Beyonce ticket queue. At the other end of the spectrum, shoppers have an easier time in Miami with only 2.6 shoppers per listing, followed by Houston at 3.4 New Orleans at 3.5 and San Antonio at 4.3 nationally active listings are up 31% over last year. That's quite a bit, but we're still 12% below pre pandemic, 2019 inventory levels. And is all this good news or bad news? It totally depends on who you are. If you're holding property in the Northeast and Midwest, you're pretty happy about this strong appreciation in the single family space, but in the southeast, appreciation is non existent. There's even mild depreciation, especially in parts of Florida. If you're looking to own more property in the nation's southeast quadrant, you're now enjoying less buyer competition. In fact, sellers are competing for you, and let's avoid being too assuming. Here I've been talking about things on the state level. States are not monoliths. Philadelphia is not Pittsburgh, Seattle is not Yakima. Cities have different supply situations. Even within one city, the scenario varies, of course, really the bottom line here is that today's recovery from 2022 national supply abyss has been an uneven recovery, where builders are frozen, appreciation soars, where builders hustle, buyers win. So if you're looking for deals, find that short queue. Today's guest is a familiar one to GRE listeners. He's based in Scottsdale, Arizona, which is the Phoenix Metro. Arizona, though it's fast growing, is still just the 14th most populous state, but Arizona is an interesting market, because we're going to get to see what happens when you have an overbuilt condition, like we do there. We'll discuss that market and the national market as well. Get a key gage on the direction of rents, occupancy and prices, first in the single family space, and then we'll talk about apartments. Anyone that's paid attention to real estate that past few years. Knows that when mortgage rates spiked in 2022 single family values have held up, apartment values plummeted due to their interest rate resets. We'll get insight on if the beleaguered apartment space has bottomed out price wise, or if apartment values still have further to fall. I'd like to welcome in frequent GRE guest, and he was also one of our earliest back in 2015 Ken McElroy. Ken authored a bunch of successful books, both within and outside of the rich dad series. He's also a well known, successful apartment syndicator with over 10,000 units across several states, and he's also in other parts of the commercial real estate sector, including billboards and self storage. So it's really great to have back on the show. Ken McElroy Ken McElroy 8:57 good to be here, Keith, thank you. It's been 10 years, man, since we've been doing Keith Weinhold 9:01 this? Yes, 10 years back in episode 25 since you were first here, more than a decade of this. So we know each other's work really well, and it's such an interesting time in the apartment space. I want to get to that later in our conversation today and really find out if you think that the apartment space has bottomed out. But before we do that, let's talk about the single family space. The audience should know that you can meet both Ken and I in person, as we're both faculty members on the spectacular real estate guys Investor Summit C, which is actually underway now. We're recording this just before the summit. So let's discuss the direction of rents and occupancy. We'll get to price later and Ken although most states still have a housing shortage statewide, Arizona's active housing inventory for sale is 24% above pre pandemic levels. That's what realtor.com tells us, and this. Deeply due to a lot of building, a lot of building usually does not bode well for price growth or rent growth. So tell us about rent, direction and occupancy in the single family space in the Phoenix Metro. Ken McElroy 10:15 There's a bunch of things happening in the Arizona market. First of all, one is we've had a lot of people move here right in the last 4,5,6, years. Yeah, post pre pandemic, post pandemic, all of that. We are a pretty small state. You got Phoenix, got Tucson, you got Flagstaff, a bunch of other small cities that kind of surround some of those. But it's not like a Texas or a Washington or a lot of these California, like a lot of states, and have a lot of cities to draw from. If people move to Phoenix, that's pretty much where they're they start a lot of times, not every time, but and so it's really interesting. When we have net in migration into Arizona, it really moves the needle for most of these cities. Is kind of the point. And so we're always going to be affordable, we're always going to have great weather, it's safe. We got pretty normal politics, I should say, as compared to some of the others, we really do have a growing population. And so what happened? We had a nice run on the real estate. As you do, you know, we had a nice run on the apartments. We had a nice run on the single family that tapered off when the interest rates went up, essentially, right? You know, we actually built too much. We built too many apartments. We built too many houses. When interest rates went up, people kind of pulled back. That's what you're seeing now. So right now, it's a great time to be a home buyer. It's a great time to be a renter in most of those cities in Arizona specifically. And why would that be? It's because they have a lot of choices. So on the single family side, the listings have gone up, and therefore some of the prices have you know, people are starting to negotiate a little bit more. Now here's the interesting thing, Keith, if you measure it on last year or the year before, it has huge numbers, like you just quoted, you know, 24% but what's happening is things are on the market like 40 days, you know, you know what I mean, like from a week or two, it's doubled or tripled, as you know, that's still not a very realistic market. The market is still, in my opinion, pretty healthy. It's not unbalanced, and before it was a seller's market, and so it's just normalizing. And normalizing, to me, if you go over year, over year, over year, is I think MLS says four to six months of inventory, right? I think things are just normalizing. But if you've been through the run, this is like the end of the world, right? But it's not. It's just things are settling down, and it's the greatest time because they're supposed to be a little bit of friction between the seller and the buyer. I believe there should be just about right. It's never just right, as you know, it's usually pulls on one harder on one side or the other. But we just went through an incredible time where the sellers pretty much got whatever they wanted and the landlords pretty much got whatever they wanted, and so this is just pulling back, you know, the tide's going back out. There's no cause for concern, at least in my world at all. It's supposed to be this way, and we need affordability. We need people to be able to buy homes. We need people to be able to rent. Yeah, I'm in the landlord business, but I don't want rents to run. There needs to be a balance there, even though it's good for me, if it does, but it's not good, because what happens is, then the government gets involved, and what they need to get involved in is adding supply, right? And not capping the rents. You know, what they need to do is just work with developers. And you know, because we're growing here in Arizona right now, we're seeing a pullback, but I think it's needed. There's nothing wrong with this. It weeds out a lot of, you know, realtors that weren't doing much, that just got their license, were hanging around, say, with mortgage folks and title people and lazy contractors and all that stuff. So whenever there's a pullback, the professionals win. Keith Weinhold 14:01 Well, this is some really good perspective here. We're all victims of the recency bias, and, yeah, you're talking largely about market normalization. What sure wasn't normal or healthy, in a lot of ways, was back in 2021 when you might have had 50 offers for one available property, and people had to bid 50k over the asking price, and they might have waived their inspection, which is typically not a good idea when we talk about rents in the direction of rents, especially there in the Phoenix metro with single family homes, which I know your wife, Daniil, is pretty intimately involved with. Typically, this new supply increases competition. It increases the competition for landlords competing for more of those tenants, which is something that typically is not good for rents. Have we seen declining rents in the local market there in Phoenix? Ken McElroy 14:54 Of course, yeah. And I'll tell you, there's a bunch of factors. So there's always cross currents. People want one. Answer, but there's not right, like, so let's just pick on a whole bunch of things that went wrong at the tail end of all of this. It was Airbnb. Like, Phoenix and Scottsdale are a huge Airbnb market. I've rented Airbnbs there. Sure. It's incredible, right? And so what happened was a lot of people said, oh, I can buy this house, throw some furniture in it. And, you know, I can get 10,15, 20 grand a month in rent out of these things. And they were right. And then what happened was, there just was too many, so became oversaturated. So you're definitely seeing those back on the market. And so interesting fact, Heath, all you got to do is look at the pictures. And if you see bunk beds. You know, it used to be an Airbnb like, you know what I mean? So that was the one, but two, let's don't forget this run that we just had put a lot of people into the rental market for the first time on the single family side too. So we never really had this many landlords on the single family side as well. And so there's all these mistakes that people made. They bought incorrectly. They had capex work. They bought with floating rate debt. And when rates went up, they weren't cash flowing. They wouldn't know how to manage them. So So there's all this stuff that was kind of going on behind the scenes, on the apartment side of the equation, which is where I hang out. Mostly, I watch all this. And because my class A buildings are competing for single family. They have single family typically wins because it has a yard, has a garage. Nonetheless, I gotta pay attention to it. So it's been interesting to watch. At one point you could not find a home in the Scottsdale area under 500 grand period like nothing. And now, of course, those are starting to come down a little bit more, and there's some softness in the rent, so the renters are have more choices. Now, why is that? There's a couple reasons. If you're a renter and you're looking for a place, you know, I'm sure you're considering a house, but not everybody wants a house, especially if you're single or maybe it's just you and somebody else, and maybe you don't have a pet. There's a lot of reasons that people just don't want to have to a home. So you've got condos and you've got apartments and you've got homes, and then you have school districts. So people definitely want to be in certain school districts based on their children. So you have all these cross currents going on, on where people want to be. And so what does all that mean? What that means is there are certain markets, from a rental standpoint, that are doing extremely well, still, both on apartments, on condos and houses. And then there are other markets that absolutely are not just depends on the concentration of all those things and all those factors that are going on. The one thing that's actually disrupting a market more than anything is apartments and condos. Because, for example, Danielle just had a condo that she owned, and the condo was worth, let's say, 300 grand, but it's probably 25 years old now, yeah, and there's apartments going up, you know, a block from there, right? So her renter is said, you know, I'd rather go over here. Brand new amenities, nine foot ceilings, brand new fitness center, all this stuff. So apartments really do reach into that rental market a little bit. And so there is some spillover between that. But primarily what's going on in Phoenix is there's a lot of new construction. And not just Phoenix. This is Tucson and Greater Phoenix. There's a lot of new construction that was started when rates were low. They were started in 2122 and you know, like, because I'm a builder, it could be a year to 18 months when we're opening a project from the time we put our the shovel in the dirt, we're not even open for a good 18 months. So there's a lag period. And those started opening in 23,24 and certainly 25 and these big projects, two, 300 unit projects, which I have several going right now, they're one to two year lease ups, so you could be looking at two or three year lag on some of the housing that's being provided. So that's all here now that is been good for renters. There's a couple horror stories going on, and I'll just explain. So downtown Phoenix, there was a whole bunch of apartment projects and condo projects that were built trying to attract people to live in downtown Phoenix? Well, there's challenges for downtown Phoenix too, and we won't have to get into that. I don't particularly think that there was ever the real demand for the amount of housing. So what you've done is people build a lot of housing in concentrated areas around the stadium in West Phoenix, near the Cardinal Stadium downtown Phoenix, you know, right in the heart of the business district. So if you were to rent something today, it would be four months free on a 12 month lease. Keith Weinhold 19:48 Wow, that's about the steepest concession I've ever heard of in my life. Ken McElroy 19:54 Yes, that's today. So all you gotta do is Google it and you'll see. And the only reason that happened, Keith, is. Is because there was too many units delivered at at a short period of time, and there was the demand, wasn't there? Gosh, now go 10 miles up to Tempe, go to Chandler, go to Scottsdale. No concessions, right? So again, you know, when you look at a market, you're going to see that it typically a lot of these concentrate in certain areas. And so there's a lot of areas in Phoenix where the consumer or the renter has an upper hand a lot. And so they're driving their choices based on their monthly rent. All of that plays into this thing, but the there's areas that are rock solid. And you know that would be Scottsdale, Tempe, Chandler, Gilbert, and there's areas that are over built that would be the west side, downtown Phoenix, the south side, there's areas that there's pockets that you know are in disruption you can kind of pick your poison, right? Like, if you're a landlord, there are areas that you want to buy in areas that you don't want to buy in. And as a renter, you have the same kind of choices. So when you blend it all together, you guys get the national news. But really it's pretty pocketed, just like it can be in any market. Keith Weinhold 21:12 Well, you bring up so many good points there. Some of these markets that have done more building than usual are in this situation where there is landlord competition for tenants. Now, nationally, we're still under built, so it's interesting to talk about one of these overbuilt conditions in that competition for tenants, like we've been talking about, in general, a tenant prefers a single family home, and it's privacy for sure. They can't always afford that, but the apartment market and the single family rental market are somewhat interrelated, because if there's so much new apartment supply, it's got the appeal of being brand new, and there might even be concessions given, like you've mentioned there Ken and that can make it very attractive for a potentially wannabe single family home renter to go ahead and rent an apartment instead. So this glut of new apartment supply actually can affect the single family rental market somewhat, and competition is really interesting. I mean, certainly in my real estate investment career, I've experienced that. The first time I ever experienced that was that I owned several doors, and they were about 25 years old, and they had garages, each one of them a new apartment complex was built close to those so brand new, and you had to drive by this new apartment complex. Everything nice, shiny new, painted new parking lot, everything a prospective tenant had to drive by that in order to get over to look to my units. That softened my rent somewhat. The one thing that saved me a bit is that my running units were in Anchorage, Alaska, I had the garages with my units. The new apartment building didn't. They only had carports, so I did have a differentiator to help soften the blow in a rental market that became more competitive. Tell us more about the competition for tenants there in Phoenix, whether that's on the single family side or the apartment side can with concessions. And does that mean that you're altering the length of leases there in the local market? Or tell us more about how you're doing that competition? Ken McElroy 23:10 It's a great question, yeah. So I would say generally, a home is going to be about 1000 bucks more on the average, like if you were just to put a number on it, three bedroom, Rambler type home with a garage in a yard. It's going to be maybe three grand. That apartment, the equivalent was is going to be maybe two grand. So roughly, those are kind of the numbers. But what happens if you're going to rent a house, you're definitely going to pay more money, that's for sure. And of course, depending on the area, depends on the on the rent. Now what's happening in a lot of these markets, like West Phoenix, for example, where you have 1000s of units being added at once, and you get this one month, two month, three month, and the extreme, of course, being four months free, if you're a renter and your rent is two grand, but you get three months free, let's say or four, you're going to take that deal, right? Because your your your average rent is, what 12,13, $1,400 a month, not 2000 so all of a sudden, it's going to impact those single families. So what's happening right now is the apartments that got delivered in in a lot of these geographic areas, these sub markets are definitely impacting the single family rental market. Now, if you're a family and you've got kids and you got pets and you want to be in a school district, you're not even looking you're basically just trying to find the best deal on a home. I get that. But if you have a choice, the rents are about the same, you're going to take the house, sure period I would, you would. So now what's happening is there's, there's such a difference between the rental price of a home versus the rental price of a brand new apartment that people are going to gravitate to the apartments, because those landlords trying to fill those things up are scrambling and marketing to anybody. And everybody and cutting whatever deals they can, because they're just trying to get out of those construction loans. It's a weird market right now. And of course, there are areas Keith that this does not exist at all, right, like you go into like Tempe, and you're not going to have because it doesn't have the available land, you know, which is around Arizona state for example, the Arizona State University. You go into North Scottsdale, you're not going to find this because North Scottsdale doesn't like apartments. And, you know, the homes are a million bucks and up, but there are definitely pockets where this is happening. So if you're a renter and you have choices, this is a great time for you and and to be honest, it's about time, because it was a seller's market and a landlord's market for a long time, and so it's just reverting back to the mean. Keith Weinhold 25:46 Let's wrap up the discussion about rents and occupancy with what's happening nationally. Ken, since in apartment buildings, you invest in multiple states there, we know, for example, that the home ownership rate recently fell from 65.7% down to 65.1% fewer homeowners means more renters. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're all going to be absorbed immediately, either. So talk to us about that. Ken McElroy 26:13 There's an affordability problem, right? We haven't seen a massive adjustment with house prices now you have in areas, of course, I saw your recent podcast on Florida. You know how right the price of a house is, is less than a car today? Yeah, you're right, like so, but what's happening is there are markets that are pulling back, right. There are markets that had a bigger bubble than others, and they're pulling back. And so there's great deals in those markets. A lot of areas in Florida being one of those markets, there are other markets where you don't have that. So we are definitely seeing the same thing. And so we're having, in my opinion, it's the greatest time, because you have people that are, I think, should be able to buy a home. But interest rates seem to be holding at Six 7% and the pricing, albeit, hasn't run like it has, but it's certainly not pulling back like crazy either. It's still over 400 on the average, you know. So if you look at the delta between what it costs to buy a home just mortgage only, and you look at what it costs to rent, it's never been bigger. So the difference between your rent, the rent and a mortgage, has never been bigger. And the other thing Keith, that doesn't get talked a lot about are everything non interest rate and everything non mortgage. So let's start talking about insurance. Let's talk about property tax. Let's talk about, you know, capex. So there's a really good survey that bankrate.com did that said that right now, the average cost to own a home, not mortgage, is 1500 a month. So now that's average. I'm sure there's some that's less. I'm sure it's some that higher. So when you take 1500 a month to own it, plus the mortgage you're talking about quite a bit. It's a heck of a financial commitment when you can just rent for 12, 1314, 1500 and call it a day, you're going to move the needle twice as fast, and you're going to be able to get out of whatever financial situation you're in twice as fast when you don't have all those other costs. So what's really going on now? And the reason why you're starting to see this home ownership rate go down, and I actually make a prediction, gonna do it right now on your show, I think it's gonna go down below 60. I think for the first time in our history, we're gonna see home ownership in the 5050 nines, which is a massive statement. But if you take a look at under Obama got up to 69 and then it was, first of all, it was Clinton, and before that, and then kind of ran, but then it kind of got pulled back under the Bush, and then Obama kind of took the brunt of it. You know, when all that stuff was falling out, but it's been falling, and it's falling. Why it's falling? Because people can't afford a home, and they need to be able to afford a home. So we can't build affordably. The single family market is not affordable, and inflation surpassing wage growth, so you have this massive shift of people, in my opinion, moving from home ownership to the rental side. And there was a time where 1% shift Keith was 1 million people, Keith Weinhold 29:27 1 million new renters, with every 1% drop in the home ownership rate Ken McElroy 29:32 was 1 million people. So imagine that it doesn't sound like much when you go 65.7 to 65.1 right? That's a lot of people. When you got about 142 million people in the US, or a billion, right? 340 Keith Weinhold 29:46 350 million in 300 Yeah, about 145 million houses, Ken McElroy 29:51 45 million, yeah, something like that. So you start to take a look at these numbers. They're massive. So these little 1% movement. It is a lot of people. I think we're going to continue to see it. People need to put their stake in the ground here and get on the landlord side of this, because we're going to see a massive shift of people because they can't afford they're going to be permanent renters, renters for life. And it's not good. I'm not advocating, but it just is what it is, with wage destruction, with inflation, with the affordability, the way it is, people are going to be forced into the rental side of the equation, whereas before, we were always kind of working on the fluctuations of the interest rates and the policies of the President, let's say, or whatever it was, to try to get people to be homeowners, or whatever it might be. Now, we might be in some kind of a permanent state unless something really changes, because we're four or 5 million houses short in the US as a result of the last 20 years. As you know, Keith Weinhold 30:54 I recently saw a media article that was titled The hidden cost of home ownership, and they were talking about hidden costs as things like maintenance, property taxes, property insurance, utilities. I don't know how in the heck those costs are hidden. Any prospective homeowner needs to be aware of those costs, and inflation impacts those costs, where inflation cannot impact your fixed rate, principal and interest payment. There we have it a brazen prediction from Ken that the home ownership rate will drop below 60% in this cycle and the hordes of renters that that's going to release, we're talking about the direction of rents and occupancy in both Phoenix and the nation at large. We're going to come back after the break and talk about the direction of real estate prices. You're listening to get rich education. Our guest is Ken McElroy. 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. 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So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds just sitting there doing nothing, check it out. Text family to 66866. To learn about freedom. Family investments, liquidity fund again. Text family to 66866 Naresh Vissa 33:25 this is GRE real estate investment coach. Naresh Vissa listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream. Keith Weinhold 33:32 Welcome back to get worse education. We're talking with seasoned investor Ken McElroy, and he's also been one of the most recurrent guests here on the show. He's just consistently got some of the very best perspectives in the entire nation on the real estate market. And Ken the Fred data, which pulls their numbers from Kay Shiller, it shows that the value of a mid tier single family home in Phoenix, Metro wide, has basically been flat for the last year and a half. I know your wife, Daniil, deals with single family rentals there in Phoenix. Can you corroborate Is that what you're seeing as far as values go there on the ground, or is it different in the sub markets Ken McElroy 34:20 it's definitely different in the sub markets, but I would definitely concur that it is flat, Keith, it's a very interesting time. People are used to selling things fast. Oh, I'm going to sell this and it trades, and then they're moving it right to something else. They're not used to the markets that you and I grew up in, right which is, you remember the old days where we would list something and it might be on the market for three or four or five months. These people, these kids, these let's last 10 years, they have never seen anything like that. So for me, I think we're just moving back to what I would consider to be normal. I don't see a problem with flat at all. In fact, I think homes are unaffordable and. And flat isn't necessarily bad. That means that both sides are kind of doing deals. That means the seller doesn't hold the cards, and it means the buyer doesn't hold the cards, and so right now is a great time to buy because if a seller is sitting on something for even a couple months, they're not used to it. There's deals to be had right now. And it's, I think, if you have the dry powder and you have the ability to move, is a great time to buy. Keith Weinhold 35:26 You had mentioned, when we were talking outside this show, that your wife, Danielle has made some interesting moves in her single Yeah, yeah, tell us about that. Ken McElroy 35:36 It's a fantastic move. I mean, one of the greatest, obviously, I'm doing these big apartment deals, she can't relate, and she's doing these small houses, which she loves. She doesn't like debt. She likes to pay them off, and she manages them all herself. And so she bought this condo years ago, and it's worth about 300 grand, and she paid like 164 years ago, and the rents have dropped. You know, per our last conversation, they were used to be around 1900 now they're around 1700 but the same time, rents have dropped. And why would rents drop? Because there's more competition. There's new apartment buildings being built around the area. The tenants have more choices. Again. There's, you know, rents came down a little bit. So she lost couple 100 bucks a month there, and the HOA hit her with costs. Our insurance went up, our landscaping went up, so all of a sudden their HOA fees started going up. So the rents came down, and the HOA costs went up, squeezes on, yeah, so all sudden she's got this squeeze and so she's looking at it. And I said, you really ought to take a look at your what we call imputed equity. In other words, she has no debt on this thing, so she literally has another way to say it is she has 300,000 sitting in a condo, an asset. What does it matter? What it is and she gets maybe, what does she make it 500 a month, maybe $6,000 okay? Net Cash Flow a year, right? Nothing. So you take your 6000 you divide it by your 300 and it's not a very good return. Yeah, eight. Okay, so she's looking at what we call imputed equity. What's your return on the equity you have? Okay, so she said, I'm going to start looking at these homes that have, like you said, the garages and the yards, because again, we know that should be able to get closer to $3,000 a month on those so she started scouring, and she found one, and it was about 450 grand. So she had to come up with another 150 grand. And so what she did was she sold the unit, the condo she had that had rising HOA and lowering rents for 300 she did a 1031 exchange into the $450,000 house, and then she had to come up with another 150 but her rent now is three grand, and she was able to increase her cash flow By almost $1,000 for a month. So that extra 150 generated about $12,000 of net cash flow gain. And so again, she just purely looked at the math on one and did a 1031 moved it into another one. And now she's super happy it's in a home. And as you know, in a lot of these homes, not always, but you tend to have people that don't move as much. So this the guy that moved in has his son. He has him in a local school. He's young. He's probably going to be there for years, so she's probably not going to have the turnover that she would in a condo project. That's really more like an apartment building. That's what she just did. And so don't forget, when prices are high, you're exiting high and buying high. When prices are in flux, a little bit like they are flat, you're going to be able to find deals. So it's a really good time to take a look at imputed equity and what's your real, true return, and is there a better asset class for you to be able to move that money into? Because this is truly about managing money and maximizing your return on your own dollars. And that's a move that she just made, and she's going to be on the cruise. She'll see you, and I'm encouraging her to actually do a talk on it, because there's a lot more detail to how she pulled it off. But it only took her, like, four or five months to do it, and it worked perfectly. Keith Weinhold 39:22 Yeah. Well, congratulations there. I'm a fan of debt around here, as you know, on the summit, Daniel and I'll have to have a chat, and I'll talk about why financially free beats debt free and all of that. But I would love to hear her reply. She probably has some really good, sound reasoning for that can nationally apartment values have followed perhaps an astounding 30% because the way I see it is that three or four years ago, there were tons of new apartment starts with those freakishly low mortgage rates like you touched on. Start to completion of an apartment building can be as long as two years. So those starts have now become completion. Dollars, and they need to be leased up. So that's the glut, and that's why apartment vacancies are common in a lot of American markets today, with higher mortgage rates now, we have fewer starts and with less new future apartment supply coming onto the market, which would have been completed in 2025 to 2027 I mean, that's something that could portend well for the future, but the current apartment glut still needs to get absorbed by tenants. So talk to us about that. Ken McElroy 40:29 That's a great, great tee up for me. Okay, so I'm going to do seven transactions this year. Now, that's all 200 plus units. So I bought 360 unit building and brand new in Las Vegas. We just closed on a 282 unit in north Scottsdale. We bought 152 unit in Phoenix. And on and on and on and on and on. We're really, really, really busy right now, because, to your point, why would we be doing that now? Here's why apartments are valued based on how they're operating period. So high vacancy, high concession, flat rents, high expenses. That's all bad if you own it, it's really good if you buy it. So you want to buy at today's numbers, and that's what we're doing. We're buying at today's numbers, and we think that there's a little window that we've got through 26 to be able to acquire a bunch of apartments at these low values. To your point, they've definitely dropped. There's another case as to why, because the next piece is when the mortgage rate's high, cash flow is less. So when your mortgage payment is higher, all things being equal, your cash flow is less. So when rates went up, then people could pay less, and that drove values down. So if we could lock in today with all this disruption, so that's what we've been focused on. And it's been a very exciting year for our company. And in addition to that, to your point, but you and I have never spoken about, we just broke ground on another deal, and we're just leasing up on a deal down in Tucson that we're we're a 300 unit building that we're just finishing, and we just broke ground on a 312 unit, and we got a couple more slated because we're trying to break ground today. And why would we would break ground today because there's not a lot of subcontractors bidding on the stuff. So we're getting better pricing. The interest rates are high. This is true. That's not necessarily a positive, but we're breaking ground in anticipation of opening in two years, when all this stuff gets absorbed, we're going to be opening and so, you know, if we could time it today with 25 we break ground, we're going to open in 27 this stuff will be absorbed by then the blood will be in the streets in 25 and 26 and maybe early 27 and then it's going to shift again, Keith, and you know, people are slow to react. And so we think we're going to hit this little window at optimal time to be able to open up brand new product in two years. Keith Weinhold 43:05 That's great. Ken we've been having these conversations for over a decade now, I know, and the way that I see it is that MC companies, your company, was built exactly for times like this. Is that to say that you think apartment values have reached their bottom, Speaker 2 43:22 so I actually don't think they have yet. That's a funny comment, and here's why, because we also went through this extend and pretend time with lenders, right? So the lenders, whoever bought something, was trying to hold on to it forever. But now, with this new administration and the battle with the, you know, Powell still in office for another year. Who knows really, what's going to happen with rates? Maybe a quarter here, quarter there, whatever. But the reality is, there's no relief in sight. It doesn't appear. Because now we have this high vacancy, we have high expenses, and I don't think there's going to be a lot of interest rate relief. And so I think the lenders are going, you know what? We're gonna start listing these. So we're starting to see just in the last few months, brokers call. I got a call the other day from a broker out of San Antonio. He said a lender called me. They gave me nine deals. He said the keys, they gave me the keys on nine deals now and then I got another one in Dallas. It was 35% occupied, and the loan was 25 million, and the guy said they would take 14, so that's an $11 million haircut to the lender. So you're starting to see these. These are coming into my emails, right? Because they flooded. We are kind of deal. Yeah, it's so good. Now I've passed on everything so far because I think the knife is still falling a little bit, and so I think we're in the first few innings of seeing these kinds of deals, and there needs to be a lot of them, right? Like they need to be everywhere. And then when they're everywhere, everything's listed, and people are looking at them, and there's all this interest, then I think we're going to be at the bottom, but we're darn close. I mean, we're darn close, I would say. Right? We're probably by end of the year close. That's why, if a prudent investor, is getting their dry powder together, now they're meeting with their broker relationships, now they're meeting with their lender relationships, now they're putting together their LPs, and they're starting to go out and look at deals. Now, even if it's no no, no, no, no, no, no. This is the time for you to build relationships and be ready to strike when you start to see stuff this year, toward the end of the year, will will be the bottom and then I also think next year is going to be rocky for a lot of things. Then you're going to see a lot of lender write offs. Keith Weinhold 45:37 This is really good guidance for what you the listener, can accidentally do if you are a prospective apartment building buyer. Great insight there. Ken. Ken, yes, you and I are about to be together on the real estate guys Investor Summit to see but there's another great event that begins at the end of next month that you put together. Ken McElroy 45:59 Tell us about that. This is great. I have now we have about 4000 investors. So these are all high net worth people that invest with us. And you know, this is our 24th year in business. So when I meet with all of them, we used to do these investor summits, they would say, What about gold? What about silver? What about oil? What about water? What about timber? What about self storage? What about Office? What about retail? So I'm like, I'm going to create a conference where I can have everything in one spot, and we can invite high net worth, accredited people be able to come there and listen to the best of the best. So no professional speakers, just people that are really doing deals. You know, like we have guys that are building wellness spas and hospitality. Obviously, we have some single family. We got multi family. Got a retail guy, industrial guy, commercial guy, office guy. We got a gold panel. And then we got these economists, and you probably know some of the names. So we got George gammon coming. We got Jeff Snyder, who's unbelievable Euro dollar University. He's coming. We got Brent Johnson, who created what's called the milkshake theory. And just Google it, you'll see it's all about the central banks. We got Jim Rickards, who wrote currency wars and a new case for gold. And we got Lawrence Lepard, who just wrote this book called The Big print. All coming as speakers unpaid, and they're just going to try to deliver the best value they can to the people. Because I tell you what, Keith, I don't know about you, but it's confusing. I'm reading about tariffs, I'm reading about inflation. I'm reading about unemployment. I don't know where interest rates are going. I'm feeling it at the street level, at the main street level, with my apartment buildings, they're harder to manage. The expenses are going up. I try to create this environment to where people can show up and hear real real things, and they can make real decisions and course correct, right, and also take advantage of of some other things. We're also having a manufacturing panel, and I got a whole panel just on the Trump tax bill, because the opportunity zones, the bonus depreciation, all the stuff, these are things that you can do to be able to take action. So this is limitless expo.com. Since we're on your show, they can do KEN10. KEN10, which is a discount, the prices do go up. Obviously they're the highest. They are in July, because that's when the event is but in June, they're still lower. So I would suggest that people go this year, especially with this new administration, and everybody's like, what is going on? Hopefully we can it's starting to clear up some of the confusion that we all have right now and try to figure things out. Keith Weinhold 48:36 It seems like all we do know is that we don't know limitless ought to help clear some of that up. It is July 31 to August 2. Tell us where it's taking place. Ken McElroy 48:47 Yeah, it's at the gaylord in Texas, in Dallas, Texas. It's called the Gaylord Texan. It's limitless expo.com. Now we did it last year. There'll be 2000 people. We have 50 speakers. We have five stages, 50 speakers. It's a really high end event. What I mean by that is these are real people doing real deals with real businesses, real investors. It's been fantastic. I haven't had to pay speakers because of the quality of the attendee. That says a lot. It's really been interesting and great. And by the way, I don't really think having big speakers to sell tickets is the way to go. I'd rather have a real quality event, and it's really interesting once you set your mind on something. Because my investors and other investors show up because they do more than invest in just what we do. Like real estate. Everybody wants a little piece of real estate, but they also want to know about Bitcoin. They also want to know about gold, you know. And these are things that I'm not that proficient in, you know. I want to hear from experts in those fields. So it's really been a great, great event. Keith Weinhold 49:48 You kind of crowdsource the need. You listen to what your audience was asking about, and then you delivered it for them. Limitless expo.com, use the discount code KEN10 to get. Get a discount. Ken McElroy, it's been great chatting about the direction of rents and prices in the both single family space and apartment space. It's been great having you back on the show. Ken McElroy 50:09 Yeah, for sure. Keith, always great. Man. Good seeing you. Keith Weinhold 50:18 Yeah. Ken, decidedly bullish on buying real estate, even calling it a great time to buy. He basically believes that because buyers have more power than they did three and four years ago, and they have more options, an emphatic prediction that the home ownership rate will fall below 60% there is profundity here. I mean, the census figures on this go back to the 1960s and the lowest it's fallen in all that time was 63% by the way, homeownership peaked in 2004 at 69% apartment values have crashed about 30% and It's probably going to get worse. So the worst isn't over, but likely will be by about the end of this year. So in Ken's opinion, most of the worst is over. I'm reading in between the lines there on that one. Hey, I hope you've been enjoying this show lately. Next week, we're going to change things up somewhat here. Recently, we've had rather prominent guests on the show, like the father of Reaganomics, David Stockman, then Russell gray last week, this week, the owner of 10,000 running units, Ken McElroy. And you know their perspectives and experience and influence, they are terrific. And I trust that you've learned from them. Next week, we'll have two GRE listeners here on the show, regular listeners, perhaps people more like you, because you can probably relate well to their stories. Until then, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream. Speaker 3 51:59 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 52:22 You know, whenever you want the best written real estate and finance info, oh, geez, today's experience limits your free articles access, and it's got paywalls 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 266, 866, 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, get richeducation.com
Welcome to another episode of Market House! This week, we're covering the latest Disney news — including a new Pixar project, Oogie Boogie Bash ticket prices, and more.In our main segment, we're counting down the top 10 attraction queues at EPCOT and Animal Kingdom. If you've experienced these lines yourself, you'd know how hard it was to make these lists! We have a Patreon! Support the show and receive exclusive content, here!Follow us on Instagram @MarketHousePodcastCheck out our website, here! Make sure to leave a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify! It's a great way to support the show.Use code MarketHouse10 to save $10 on your next Disney vacation package with Get Away Today!
Welcome to another episode of Market House! This week, we're covering the latest Disney news — including new Disney+ subscriber perks, a first look at the GEO-82 Lounge at EPCOT, and more.In our main segment, we're counting down the top 10 attraction queues at Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. Some of these lines are so immersive, we'd argue they're better than the rides themselves!We have a Patreon! Support the show and receive exclusive content, here!Follow us on Instagram @MarketHousePodcastCheck out our website, here! Make sure to leave a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify! It's a great way to support the show.Use code MarketHouse10 to save $10 on your next Disney vacation package with Get Away Today!
Welcome to another episode of Market House! This week, we're diving into the latest Disney news — including an incredible Disneyland ticket deal at Costco and a surprising F1 x Disney collaboration.In our main segment, we're counting down the top 10 ride queues at the Disneyland Resort. These lines are so well-themed and immersive, we'd argue they're worth waiting in — even without Lightning Lane!We have a Patreon! Support the show and receive exclusive content, here!Follow us on Instagram @MarketHousePodcastCheck out our website, here! Make sure to leave a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify! It's a great way to support the show.Use code MarketHouse10 to save $10 on your next Disney vacation package with Get Away Today!
New York Times reporter Matt Yan discusses his recent piece about the long lines that spring up around establishments in NYC that have recently become popular or gone viral. Plus, listeners talk about what they'll wait for, and how they feel about sharing sidewalk space in their neighborhoods with folks willing to wait.
Nikolay and Michael discuss ten dangerous Postgres related issues — ones that might be painful enough to get onto the CTO and even CEOs desk, and then what you can do proactively. The ten issues discussed are:Heavy lock contentionBloat control and index maintenance Lightweight lock contentionTransaction ID wraparound4-byte integer PKs hitting the limitReplication limitsHard limitsData lossPoor HA choice (split brain)Corruption of various kindsSome previous episodes they mentioned that cover the issues in more detail: PgDog https://postgres.fm/episodes/pgdogPerformance cliffs https://postgres.fm/episodes/performance-cliffsZero-downtime migrations https://postgres.fm/episodes/zero-downtime-migrations Queues in Postgres https://postgres.fm/episodes/queues-in-postgresBloat https://postgres.fm/episodes/bloatIndex maintenance https://postgres.fm/episodes/index-maintenanceSubtransactions https://postgres.fm/episodes/subtransactionsFour million TPS https://postgres.fm/episodes/four-million-tpsTransaction ID wraparound https://postgres.fm/episodes/transaction-id-wraparoundpg_squeeze https://postgres.fm/episodes/pg_squeeze synchronous_commit https://postgres.fm/episodes/synchronous_commitManaged service support https://postgres.fm/episodes/managed-service-support And finally, some other things they mentioned: A great recent SQL Server-related podcast episode on tuning techniques https://kendralittle.com/2024/05/20/erik-darling-and-kendra-little-rate-sql-server-performance-tuning-techniques/Postgres Indexes, Partitioning and LWLock:LockManager Scalability (blog post by Jeremy Schneider) https://ardentperf.com/2024/03/03/postgres-indexes-partitioning-and-lwlocklockmanager-scalability/Do you vacuum everyday? (talk by Hannu Krosing) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcRi8Z7rkPgpg_stat_wal https://pgpedia.info/p/pg_stat_wal.htmlThe benefit of lz4 and zstd for Postgres WAL compression (Small Datum blog, Mark Callaghan) https://smalldatum.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-benefit-of-lz4-and-zstd-for.htmlSplit-brain in case of network partition (CloudNativePG issue/discussion) https://github.com/cloudnative-pg/cloudnative-pg/discussions/7462 ~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
People are using third-party apps to skip the queue for a driving test. Internet bots are being used to go through the RSA website and secure cancellation slots to sell to people waiting months. In Ennis the average waiting time for a test is 5 months and 3 weeks. In Kilrush it's 4 months and 3 weeks and in Shannon it's 5 months, two weeks. Brenda Bolger, from Bolger School of Motoring, says it's understandable some people are turning to this option... To discuss this further, Alan Morrissey was joined by Chris Curran of Chris Curran Coaching in Ennis. If you wish to contact Chris, you can contact him via email chriscurrancoaching@gmail.com Photo(C): Getty Images via canva
What are the best ride Queues in WDW? Evan and Bryan review the best ride queues in WDW, these are some of the best theming that the imagineers do and at times it does not get the fanfare that it deserves. Listen in as they give their perspective as to which of the queues are best. They also debate as to when a queue starts and when it begins. What are your favorites? We want to hear from you! ------------------------------------------------------ If you want to join us and discuss your trip or any of the topics we chat about, provide a trip report or even just ask questions, please reach out to us on our Facebook page, Spoonie Nation, Instagram or Twitter all episodes, show notes, and everything about our podcast here
Join host Todd Conklin as he recounts a humorous and eye-opening experience at a Houston airport, navigating an empty TSA line designed for a crowd. Dive into the conversation about design choices and their impact on efficiency and effectiveness, guided by insights from Don Norman's work. Explore how our systems often dictate behavior, and why their design matters, especially when they seem absurd. This episode raises important questions about the balance between convenience and efficiency in safety and bureaucratic systems.
Queues have formed outside many early voting centres again today, as Australians choose who will sit in the next Federal Parliament.
Queues have formed outside many early voting centres again today, as Australians choose who will sit in the next Federal Parliament.
Queues have formed outside many early voting centres again today, as Australians choose who will sit in the next Federal Parliament.
This is the Live Call-in Show from this past Sunday night, April 27, 2025! Mike was flying solo for this show as Scott was a bit under the weather today. During this hour, we had plenty to talk about and lots of great calls! We talked about how this Disneyland Half-Marathon Weekend will be the last race weekend at the Disneyland Resort for the foreseeable future, new virtual queues testing on various Disney Cruise Line ships currently, some awesome quick trip reports, and additions to our WDW Quick-Service Draft restaurants! This and more on today's show! Come join us in the BOGP Clubhouse this week at www.beourguestpodcast.com/discord. Please visit our website at www.beourguestpodcast.com. Thank you so much for your support of our podcast! Also, please follow the show on Twitter @BeOurGuestMike and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/beourguestpodcast. Become a patron of the Be Our Guest Podcast over at www.patreon.com/BeOurGuestPodcast. Thanks to our friends at The Magic For Less Travel for sponsoring today's podcast!
In this episode of the Day 0 Update: We talk about Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, Ghost of Yotei's upcoming release date, and the latest Nintendo Switch 2 launch news. All this and more, up next!Full show notes can be found here.
Join us as we figure out what we think is the best Queue in Disneyland
Queues to file past the coffin of pope Francis will soon close ahead of his state funeral tomorrow that will see royalty and dignitaries from across the world, & hundreds of thousands of clergy & pilgrims attending. John Cooke has been hearing from those gathered in the Vatican.
Liquid Weekly Podcast: Shopify Developers Talking Shopify Development
In this episode of Liquid Weekly, Karl and Taylor sit down with Ole Thorup, seasoned Shopify developer and creator of Accentuate Custom Fields and now Shopify Apps Espresso Editor and Espresso Live Metafields, to explore the power and possibilities of CloudFlare in Shopify app development.Episode Highlights* Ole's journey from COBOL developer to Shopify merchant to app developer* Deep dive into CloudFlare's features including Workers, Queues, and Durable Objects* How to handle app scaling and performance optimization* Tips for managing large-scale Shopify stores with 100,000+ products* Insights into building Espresso apps and live metafields* The evolution from traditional hosting to serverless architectureAbout Ole ThorupOle is a developer with 40 years of experience who transitioned from banking and telecom to Shopify development. After creating and selling the successful Accentuate Custom Fields app, he now runs Espresso with his son, continuing to innovate in the Shopify ecosystem.Find Ole Online* Twitter/X - https://x.com/olethorup* Espresso Apps - https://espressoapps.com/Timestamps00:00 - Introduction05:30 - Ole's Background12:45 - CloudFlare Deep Dive30:20 - App Architecture45:10 - Scaling and Performance52:30 - Shopify Dev Changelog57:00 - Picks of the WeekResources:* Cloudflare - https://www.cloudflare.com/* Cloudflare Learning Center - https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/* Cloudflare Developer docs - https://developers.cloudflare.com/* Peacock's Serverless Apps of Cloudflare - https://pragprog.com/titles/apapps/serverless-apps-on-cloudflare/* Flared Up - https://research.cloudflare.com/outreach/updates/mailinglist/* How Shopify Uses Cloudflare - https://www.cloudflare.com/case-studies/shopify/* Tanstack - https://tanstack.com/* Shadcdn/ui - https://ui.shadcn.com/Dev Changelog* New opacity controls for theme colors - https://shopify.dev/changelog/new-opacity-controls-for-theme-colors* App ratings now factor in trust signals, with reviews from lower-trust shops carrying less weight. - https://shopify.dev/changelog/app-ratings-now-factor-in-trust-signals* New Inventory Transfers experience available for testing in Dev Preview - https://shopify.dev/changelog/new-inventory-transfers-experience-available-for-testing-in-dev-preview* Introducing PRODUCT_CATEGORY_ID_WITH_DESCENDANTS in CollectionRuleColumn for smart collections - https://shopify.dev/changelog/introducing-productcategoryidwithdescendants-in-collectionrulecolumn-for-smart-collectionsPicks of the Week* Ole: Black Mirror Season 7* Karl: King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard* Taylor: TalkingShop.dev PodcastSign Up for Liquid WeeklyDon't miss out on expert insights and tips—subscribe to Liquid Weekly for more content like this: https://liquidweekly.com/
The WDW Radio Show - Your Walt Disney World Information Station
824 · My 5 Favorite Outdoor Queues in Walt Disney World (That Are Worth the Wait) This week, we're stepping into the sunshine - and into the story - as I share my 5 favorite outdoor queues in Walt Disney World. These aren't just lines… they're immersive experiences filled with storytelling, hidden details, and atmosphere that make the wait part of the magic. Whether you've walked them a hundred times or never taken a closer look, this episode will help you see (and hear) them in a whole new way.
April Fools! We're still talking about queue lines!But this time, only the worst can be the best.Kali River Rapids vs. Astro OrbiterRock 'n' Roller Coaster vs. Soarin' Around thew WorldDon't forget to like, subscribe, rate, review, comment, share, and straddle your sweaty friends.SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PATREON:https://www.patreon.com/cticketpodCHECK US OUT ON YOUTUBE:https://youtube.com/@cticketpod?si=ig6ODv0zvbaXuFPhFOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA:TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@cticketpodINSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cticketpod/TWITTER: https://twitter.com/CTicketPodEMAIL US:cticketpod@gmail.comMERCH AVAILABLE NOW!https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-c-ticket-podcastThe C-Ticket Podcast: It's not the best theme park podcast, but it's probably somebody's favorite!Hosted by Nick D'Ambrosia and James PerlasMusic:Delightful D Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Circle of Parks Podcast: Talking all things Walt Disney World
The return of Disney's paid "skip the line" options has sparked heated debates among parkgoers, and for good reason. We're diving deep into the true value proposition of Lightning Lane single passes – those individually purchased front-of-line privileges ranging from $12-25 per attraction.Beyond simple time-versus-money calculations lies a more profound question: What experiences are you sacrificing when you bypass Disney's meticulously crafted queues? For Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, that interactive gem-sorting and barrel-spinning queue tells half the story. Skip it, and you might wonder why the brief coaster commands such steep prices. Meanwhile, at $20 per person, Tron Light Cycle Run's Lightning Lane represents the clearest value – minimal storytelling lost for substantial time saved.The most fascinating case studies emerge at attractions like Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, where the queue itself is essentially a fully realized Epcot pavilion celebrating Xandarian culture. First-time visitors who bypass this immersive experience miss crucial narrative elements that make the attraction truly special, including delightful nods to extinct attractions that occupied the same space decades ago.We break down each major attraction's Lightning Lane offering, considering wait times, prices, and – most importantly – what storytelling elements you miss by skipping straight to boarding. For families with dining reservations, multiple park days, or specific priorities, these decisions become even more nuanced. Our recommendation for Flight of Passage particularly stands out: purchase the Lightning Lane for guaranteed access, but also experience the breathtaking bioluminescent queue by entering standby just before park closing, when actual waits drop dramatically.Whether you're calculating cost against time saved or prioritizing Disney's legendary immersive storytelling, we've got the insights to help you make smarter Lightning Lane decisions for your next vacation. Ready to maximize both your time and experience at Disney? Listen now!Please Check Out Our Links Below: Our Sponsor:www.travelplannererica.com Email Us:circleofparks@gmail.com Our Website:www.circleofparks.com Facebook:www.facebook.com/circleofparks Instagram:www.instagram.com/circleofparks X:www.x.com/circleofparks Ad Music:Carefree Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music promoted on https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/Send us a textSupport the show
In this episode of The JDE Connection podcast, hosts Chandra and Paul, along with guest John Holder, discuss the concept and benefits of Virtual Batch Queues (VBQ). They explore how VBQ architecture is designed to enable elasticity, allowing for the dynamic allocation of server resources for batch processing, and how this approach addresses potential bottlenecks in system performance. The discussion further includes practical applications and configurations of VBQ, use cases for both new and existing JDE environments. 02:20 Training, Coaching, and Gadgets 08:55 Files to Database 14:01 Where to use VBQ 18:08 Single Threaded Queues 20:00 Managing Default Queues in Release 22 24:45 Default Logging Options 28:13 Midwesternism of the Day Resources Oracle Learning Library – Virtual Batch Queues - https://apexapps.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=44785:24:102875833166452:::24:P24_CONTENT_ID,P24_PREV_PAGE:29781,1 Virtual Batch Queues Technical Brief - https://www.oracle.com/webfolder/technetwork/tutorials/jdedwards/White%20Papers/VirtualBatchQueues_Tech_Briefing.pdf Oracle By Example – Understanding Virtual Hosts Setup – https://docs.oracle.com/en/applications/jd-edwards/understanding-virtual-hostssetup/index.html Understanding Virtual Hosts Architecture - https://docs.oracle.com/en/applications/jd-edwards/administration/9.2.x/eotsw/understanding-virtual-hosts-architecture.html Product Catalog - https://apexapps.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=103254:8:102112198098775::NO::P8_FEATURE_ID,P8_PRODUCT_ID,P8_LAYER_ID:215469822930181352957224698826660799571,208136276869697198410960926144257606832,208126803266040266183916346690997863598 If you have concerns or feedback on this episode or ideas for future episodes, please contact us at thejdeconnection@questoraclecommunity.org
Happy Friday! Mike & Scott are here today with a bunch of Disney topics that we discuss for a few minutes each including thoughts on Virtual Queues (and how they have worked with Tiana's and Cosmic Rewind), where Disney should put a sports bar & grill in the future for guests to enjoy, where the best live entertainment is on-property right now, which is better - a monorail or skyliner crawl, and much more! Please share your thoughts over on the Discord channel at www.beourguestpodcast.com/clubhouse. We hope you enjoy today's podcast! Please visit our website at www.beourguestpodcast.com. Thank you so much for your support of our podcast! Become a Patron of the show at www.Patreon.com/BeOurGuestPodcast. Also, please follow the show on Twitter @BeOurGuestMike and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/beourguestpodcast. Thanks to our friends at The Magic For Less Travel for sponsoring today's podcast!
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Paul Marden.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website SkiptheQueue.fm.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter or Bluesky for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast.Competition ends on 19th March 2025. The winner will be contacted via Bluesky. Show references: https://www.ajah.ae/https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-griffiths-63432763/Kelly's final episodeThe transformation of Painshill Park, with Paul Griffiths, Director of PainshillWhat it really takes to launch a podcast. With Kelly Molson and Paul GriffithsPaul Griffiths has worked in the Heritage, Museums and Tourism world now for nearly 30 years.After spending 16 years working in various role for English Heritage, in 2012 he moved to the Mary Rose Museum as Head of Operations to oversee the opening and operations of the multi award winning museum, welcoming over one million visitors before in 2018 taking on moving to the Painshill Park Trust in the role of Director of Painshill. Paul spent 6 years there before his move in December 2024 to Ras Al Khaimah one of the seven Emirates that make up the UAE. In this exciting brand new role Paul is Chief Executive Officer of the Al Hamra Heritage Village, part of the Al Qasimi Foundation. Transcriptions: Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in and working with Visitor Attractions. I'm your host, Paul Marden.Longtime listeners will remember my guest today, Paul Griffiths, when he was CEO at Painshill Park, from when he was interviewed back in season one by Kelly. In today's episode, Paul comes back to talk about his new role as CEO of Al Jazeera Al Hamrah Heritage Village in Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE. Now, I'm always interested in the first 90 days of people's experience in a job, so we'll be talking more about that and his for the future. Paul Marden: Paul, welcome back to Skip the Queue. Paul Griffiths: Hello. Thanks for having me, Paul. Great to be here. Paul Marden: Long time. Listeners will know that we always start with an icebreaker question and our guests don't get to know that one in advance. I think this one's a pretty kind one. I was pretty mean to Paul Sapwell from Hampshire Cultural Trust a couple of weeks ago because I asked him whether it was Pompey or Saints and for political reasons, he felt that he had to abstain from that.Paul Griffiths: Testing his interest. I'd have gone Pompey at the time because that's where we live. Well, did live. Paul Marden: Oh, there you go. There you go. So you've moved over from Portsmouth. You're now in the UAE. Tell listeners, what is that one? Home comfort that after three months away from Blighty, you're missing? Is it proper English marmalade? Paul Griffiths: Do you know what? I've been able to get hold of most things, but I've not been able to get. I know people who cook properly, so I should be able to do this myself, but I haven't. Cauliflower cheese, one thing I'm missing from home, that doesn't sell it anywhere in a sort of pre pack or frozen form. I can even get hold of Yorkshire puddings in Spinny's supermarket, but I can't get hold of cauliflower cheese. Paul Marden: Can you get cauliflowers? Paul Griffiths: Can get cauliflowers. I'm sure I can make cheese sauce if I knew what it was doing. But you normally. I'm so used to normally buying a pack of cheese, cauliflower cheese to have in my Sunday roast. Paul Marden: Okay. So if I ever get to come out, I need to bring out a plastic wrapped, properly sealed so that it doesn't leak on the plane. Cauliflower cheese? Paul Griffiths: Yes, please. Yeah, absolutely. Paul Marden: So your last episode was actually. Or your last full episode was back in season one, episode 22. So five years ago and the world has changed a lot in five years, but most recently it's changed a lot for you, hasn't it? So why don't you tell listeners a little bit about what's happened to you since you were with us in season one? Paul Griffiths: Wow. Yeah, well, season one seems an age away, doesn't it, now with all the wonderful guests youu've had since on Skip the Queue, it's been a different program completely. But, yeah, no, well, back then I was at Painshill, were coming out of a pandemic and I remember, you know, Kelly and I were chatting over all the different avenues that everyone had gone and what we've done at Painshill and that continued brilliantly. And however, my life has taken a change in. In sense of where I am, but I'm still doing the same sort of work, so. Which is, you know, when our industry, and it's such a fabulous industry, it's great to stay in it. Paul Griffiths: So I am now over in the United Army Emirates in the Emirate of Ras Alhaima, which is the third biggest of the seven emirates that make up the UAE, behind Abu Dhabi and, of course, Dubai. So I was approached, God, nearly always, this time last year, about a call over here. Yes. My recruitment company got in touch and went through, you know, had a good look at the job description and thought, well, actually, we'll throw my hat into the ring. And applied, went for a series of online interviews with the recruitment company, then an online interview with the people over here at various departments within the Al Kassimme Foundation and the Department of Museums and Antiquities. Paul Griffiths: So, yeah, looking at this brand new job, which I'm now lucky enough to be in, I then was flown out in August for a round of interviews, met all the team. You know, one of those things that you later discover, the whole real four days was one big interview, although there was. There was a central one. But of course, everyone you were meeting along the way was being asked to feedback, And I love chatting to people and enjoying people's company. So actually went for dinners and lunches and all sorts, which was just a lovely four days and almost felt like a free hit in many ways, Paul. Well, this is going to be a brilliant experience. Paul Griffiths: If I don't get the job, I'm going to have a great four days in Rasta Taima, seeing it, meeting everyone, enjoying the time here. And, you know, the more time I spent here, the more time with the team, the more time, you know, going and visiting sites. I just became more and more that this would be an amazing job. Obviously gave my absolute everything, did loads of research, gave everything in the interview. The interview took a rather unusual turn. After the sort of hour and a half of questions and my questions, I was asked to leave the room for a short period. Not unusual in that sense because I was, you know, I wasn't just going to leave and go because obviously I was in their hands for four days. Paul Griffiths: But the doctor, Natasha Ridge, the executive director of the foundation, came out the interview and said, “Right, that's all gone really well. We're really pleased. We're now off to the palace for you to meet His Highness Sheikh Saud, who is the ruler of Ras Al Khaimah and on the Supreme Council of the UAE.” So I was sort of, I went to one of the small meeting rooms you. Now I know that. Now I know where I was, where I went. But at that point I had no idea. One of the lovely. There's a very much a service thing here. Paul Griffiths: So, you know, we have in the Heritage Village as well later we have a wonderful member of our team, Geraldine, who does lots of cooking, prepares stuff and just had a wonderful fish taco lunch because we're four hours ahead of you, of course, here in Alaihi. So, yeah, so one of the guys came in with, gave me an English breakfast tea and sort of, you know, sat there reviewing what, thinking what on earth was I going to be asked by His Highness. And then was put into one of the drivers and we drove up through Rat Sahma City, through into the palace, up the long driveway and there I was sort of eventually, after about 20 minutes, presented with. Presented to Sheikh Sword who asked me, chatted, asked various questions. Paul Griffiths: I don't think there could be many interviews that you end up with His Highness in the second half of it. You know, it's sometimes a presentation. Yeah. So that was. I was there for about half an hour and that's your time over and off he goes. And off I went back to then go and have dinner with some of the team. So it was a very surreal afternoon. Paul Marden: Being interviewed by royalty. But when you're not expecting that as part of the interview process, that must be quite unnerving. Paul Griffiths: I had a heads up that at some point in my trip I might meet him, but there was no formal arrangements. I had me had to get in a diary. So it hadn't even crossed my mind that's what was about to happen. When I was asked to leave the meeting room, I just thought maybe they wanted to come back with more questions or, you know, say I hadn't gone well, whatever. But, yeah, no, that was the. I took that as a good sign. I thought, well, actually, if I'm being whisked up there, the interview must have gone relatively well because I'm sure they would present me to shake sword if it hadn't gone so well. Paul Marden: Yeah. You'd hope that he would be towards the end of the cycle of the interview round. Paul Griffiths: Yeah. Paul Marden: Not doing the early sifting of CVs. Paul Griffiths: No. He certainly had seen who I was because he asked me some questions about where I'd worked and. Okay, things like that. So he'd obviously seen a CV. He's a very. I mean, I've met him subsequently a few times. I've been fortunate to be a dinner hosted by him a couple of weeks ago. But he is a very, very intelligent man. Works really hard. I mean, work. He, you know, for him, he spends every minute working on the emirate. He ruled, he. He's the ruler. But he's almost a. It's a sort of combo, I guess he's all Prime Minister at the same time as being the ruler. So he is constantly working. You know, I'm really committed and I'm lucky in many ways that where I am working at the Heritage Village is his real. Paul Griffiths: One of his real pet projects that he's really driving forward. So, yes, we come with sort of royal. Royal approval, if you like. So. Yeah. Paul Marden: Excellent. So I. I've not been to the Emirates before, so for those of us that have not been, tell us a little bit about Ras Al Khaimah, of course. Paul Griffiths: Well, Ras Al Khaimah is one of the quieter Emirates mentioned. Sheikh Saud there, he's really driving a sort of, you know, a sort of agenda of bringing in more tourists. But he wants to use culture and territory as part of that. So, you know, it's a more relaxed, low level, if that makes sense. It's not Dubai, it's not full on, it's more relaxed Emirate. It's relaxed in cultural and many of the ways it's not, as you know, some of the other Emirates are, for example, completely dry. Ras Al Khaimah has given licenses to hotels and big restaurants in hotels for serving drinks. And there are a number of sellers where you can purchase for your consumption your own home, whereas Sharjah, you can't purchase any alcohol, for example, so it's a bit more chilled like that. It's a lovely place. Paul Griffiths: We're very fortunate to have the heavier mountains go through the far side of Ras Al Khaimah. So where I'm based is more on the seafront but then not, you know, I can see the mountains behind and there's a number of drives up into the mountains which are absolutely fabulous. Up to the Jebel Jais, which is the highest point in the UAE, we have the world's longest and fastest zip wire. I have not gone anywhere near that yet. Goes up to 100km an hour and is the longest over from the top of the mountain, whisking you off to the other side. I think it looks terrifying. But my. Paul Marden: I'm more interested in cables that take you to the top of the mountain. Maybe with some skis on my feet than I am attaching myself to a cable and going down the mountain. Doesn't sound like fun to me. Paul Griffiths: There's a toboggan ride as well up there as well.Paul Marden: Oh, I'd love that. Paul Griffiths: So that's the toboggan ride's on my to do list when the family get off, I'll save it for then and take my son Barney on that. But you know, there's all this sort of venture sports up on the top of the mountain and driving up there is remarkable. They put a proper road in. It's not the scary driving up the Alps, terrified what's going to come around the other corner. It's very like driving up a road, you know, normal sort of dual carriageway, two lanes each way and then right going through the mountains to the other side to one of the other Emirates for Jazeera , for example. So you're over on the Indian Ocean side Gulf Vermont. That road is just beautiful. There's no traffic on it, you know. Paul Griffiths: So Ras Al Khaimah is only about an hour and hour to an hour and a half from Dubai airport. And Dubai is a sort of people go to Dubai in the same way that we, you know, you'd go to London, I'd go to London when I was in Port Soviet, we would. It's now, you know, it's not considered a. There's always someone from work who's in Dubai every day almost for some reason. So nipping up to Dubai, I was like, I went to a dinner there last week and you know, it just seemed very normal that he jumped in a car and drove up to Dubai and came back that evening. Whereas. Seems remarkable actually to be doing that. But yeah, so because of where we are, Abu Dhabi is about two and a half hours away.Paul Griffiths: And we are the northern point of the Emirate, So we border on to Oman, split into a number of areas. Again, I didn't know any of this till I got here, but there's a part of Oman that's at the top of Ras Al Khaimah. And so, yeah, so it's a beautiful Emirate with nature, with mountain areas, which does get a bit chillier when you go up the mountains. I looked quite silly in my T shirt and shorts when I went up there on a Sunday afternoon. People were going past me like they were going skiing. You know, people wore coats and hats and looking at me as if I'm really daft. But I was still. It's interesting that because it's winter obviously everywhere here at the moment and at home, but it's. Paul Griffiths: People here are often telling me it's a cold day when I'm still standing. I still feel really quite warm. But yeah, finding that sort ofPaul Marden: Talking 30s at the moment for you, aren't we? Paul Griffiths: Yeah, it's a little bit. The last couple days have been down in the lower 20s, really comfortable. But when we last weekend, people were getting a bit nervous that summer had come very early because it was hitting the early 30s last week. So I don't know how for me, when we get to August, when it's in the mid, late 40s with real high humidity, I think I'm just going to go from aircon building to aircon building to aircon building.Paul Marden: I am such a Goldilocks when it comes to that sort of thing. Not too hot, not too cold, it needs to be just right. So I would definitely struggle in that kind of heat. Look, let's talk a little bit about where you are in the new job. So you've taken on the role of CEO of Al Jazeera Al Hamra Heritage Village. So tell me a little bit about the village. Why is this village so historic? Paul Griffiths: Well, it's a really interesting one, Paul, because it is very important, but it's not that old. And that's why what coming to me about making it more alive is something that's going to be crucial to us. So the village has been lived in for many years. It was a pearl farming village. So most of the people who worked here were doing pearl farming, which is pretty horrible job to do. You were, again, learning about this. You were jumping off boats, going to the ocean depths for up to three to four minutes. No protection really, apart from a very light shirt and some little bits on your fingers. But actually you're nothing on your eyes. Paul Griffiths: So you're having to look through the salt water, find the pearls come up and they were going up and down sometime 15, 16 times or more a day. And there's a fascinating exhibition in Dubai at the Al Shindagha Museum which really does focus on how this worked and how these guys were living. So, so it's a real. So that was the village. So the village had that, it obviously had then had fishing men, merchants making boats, merchants selling, trading wares. And Ras Al Khaimah has been quite a strategic part as all of the UAE really for the sort of trades coming from the Middle east and out into the Gulf. So the villages was being lived in up until the very early 70s. Paul Griffiths: Up in the 1970s the Al Za'abi tribe who were based here were offered I guess a new life is the only way to look at it in Abu Dhabi with new jobs, with land, with housing and it's just a better way like pearl farming was now being done so much cheaper and easier in the Orient in Japan mainly. So that was, that dropped away. There wasn't the other merchant trading going on. So actually the oil boom basically led the tribe to almost one up sticks and head to Abu Dhabi. And in many ways good story because we're still in touch with quite considerable amounts of the tribes people who were here. Lots of the elders have done wonderful oral histories, videos talking about their lives here. But this village survived as just fell into ruins, but actually wasn't developed. Paul Griffiths: And where it becomes important is this would have been what all of the Gulf would have looked like before the oil boom. The UAE wasn't a wealthy nation before then. You know, when I went up to Dubai and spent some time at the Etihad Museum, which is based around which Etihad Union is the not Around Man City Stadium should point out very much around about how the UAE had come together and how, you know, so it wasn't the wealthiest nation, but actually they discovered oil. They then brought seven Emirates together. It then has flourished in the ways that we now know what Dabi and ifwe looks like and even Ras Al Khaimah in some parts and really quite glamorous. But this village survived. Paul Griffiths: So although it fell into ruin, all the other fishing, farmhome fishing, pearl farming villages across the Gulf had become, just got destroyed, knocked down, you know, turned into hotels and high rises. And actually when you visit the other Emirates, lots of them are now recreating their historic areas or re purposing some of the historic buildings and they're doing it very well. In Dubai, Sharjah has actually completely rebuilt. It's what it calls the Harp Sharjah, which is. Which was its historic sort of areas, but. Paul Marden: Right. Paul Griffiths: But this survived. Many of the buildings had fallen into disrepair. And what we've been doing for the last few years, as the Al Qasimi Foundation and the Department of Antiquities and Museums is restoring a number of these buildings, we've then sort of gone into a sort of activation so you can walk around. So we've got, you know, carving now. Only a year ago it was mostly sand. We've now got a path going through it, so you can walk in. And the job that I've really been asked to do initially on arrival here is to really push that activation forward and really look at my sort of. What I've done in the past and what we've seen other places do and think about what can we do to bring this bit more to life? Paul Griffiths: Because it's the sort of storage village is around the 1970s. Well, it was abandoned in the 1970s. Well, you know, for us from the UK, from lots of other nationalities, actually, something in the 70s isn't very old. It's in our lifespan. You know, we are looking at this going well, actually. So when I was talking to a lot of. So RAK TDA's basically visit RAK tourism authority. So they are really supportive in wanting to push Al Jazeera Al Hamra Heritage Village, which will from now on abbreviate to AJAH to save me. Keep saying that. Long tanned. So they are really keen that we're doing more stuff. So why would a tourist want to come? What is there to see once you're here? Paul Griffiths: On top of some abandoned and now beautifully restored houses, mosques, you know, things that you would have expected in a village of, you know, a thousand or so population, 500 houses, you know, so more than a thousand people, really. So that's the sort of plan in that way. So in many ways I've got a sort of blank canvas to play with. But, you know, money's not unlimited, so it's about. So working closely with local communities, working with, you know, local traders, looking at what could we bring into the village on the back of the art fair. I know we'll talk about later, but it's, you know, this has been a. This is a real challenge for me to. How do I take this sort of place forwards.Paul Marden: In my mind's eye, we go to the Weald & Downland Living Museum so open air museum, lots of houses recreating life through the ages. Is that the sort of experience that I'm going to get if I come to the village of I'm going to see the properties and I'm going to see this previous way of life come to life in front of me?Paul Griffiths: Well at the moment you'll see you just see in the houses and the buildings but you're walking around looking at historic buildings but we have got a number of the houses we've put in. Each video is at the moment showing the audio visuals so you can walk around and listen to members of the tribes chatting about their youth and what's happening and you can see the buildings in real life. I guess what I'm looking for this is telling the story a little bit of the village which we don't initially do that well at the moment that's no criteria. Yes, this is what we need to do going forward. There's been several stages of activation When I came last August part not many the paths weren't all finished. We didn't have anywhere for visitor services to be at the front.Paul Griffiths: We only had a very small sort officey area which has now been built up to where I'm. Where I'm sat today. So I think what you're going to get is a multi as a blend of traders who will be in our suitcase. The Souk is fully restored sooke and shopping market area so that's my first point is to move some people in there. So I've already got a goldsmith and move to her studio in got some handicrafts we've got some textile people moving in the. Paul Griffiths: The main gallery of Nassau Heyman Design Gallery which is the one big gallery where artists can go is going to have a sort of satellite shop if you like not shop a satellite so there will be pieces of work there are in here with their little souvenir store which they sell because they get people a lot of what the design gallery does is making souvenirs of Ras Al Khaimah that are all handmade so quite special gifts. So what we're hoping is tying up with our local hoteliers who many of which have not been so it's bringing them in and they need something more to see to send their guests here. Paul Griffiths: So you know talking to some of them over lunch when I hosted some of them on Saturday it was a case of you know actually, can they send their clients and say, you can do all your holiday shopping because at the moment they're sending people to the shopping malls which are just, you know, nice, but actually merchandise them to go to a heritage village, get that experience of what the golf would have been like and bags of shopping at the same time. Paul Marden: So who doesn't love a. A museum gift shop at the end? So, you know. Paul Griffiths: Exactly. And we don't really have that here at the moment from an Al Jazeera perspective. So on my plan for this year is to put in. We've got an info booth, as it's called at the moment. It's not a world. It's not the best customer service friendly. It's like a caravan but with some windows. And yeah, it's probably a better. Now it's got air conditioning. Yes. But it doesn't work very well for customers. You're trying to talk through little windows because you can only have small windows to keep the air con working, not have too much open to. It's just passing out. Paul Griffiths: So, yeah, so I'm looking at building this summer, hopefully. Fingers crossed, touch wood, a visitor welcome centre, which is something we're really pushing along with, which will be lovely because that will be that proper visitor welcome with a shop with an induction into an introduction. Sorry, into the Al Jazeera story. And then let people go. And then when they get to the far end, they'll be the souk full of. He says again, hopefully slowly filling them out, but full of traders and local craftspeople and people who are. Even if they're not originally local, they're based in rack, so they are considered local. The UAE is built up of a lot of expat population. When I say expats, I mean just English people from around the world. It's a really accepting, welcoming community. I've been really. Everyone says hello to you as you're walking into the supermarket shops. There's no. Whoever they are where you're from. Paul Griffiths: Everyone's talking to each other because the local population know they've had to bring people in because there's thousands more jobs than there are Emirati population in Ras Al Khaimah. So, you know, it's always been. And when you look at the foundation of the UAE, it was about, we will need to bring people in to bring this. To build this nation with us. So, you know, it's been always a sort of welcome and melting pot of different people. Paul Marden: Yeah, amazing. Look, you mentioned when we had our initial chat. You've been there now three months, you've been doing lots of visiting of other attractions. Because I think you said to me, which I thought was quite interesting, that you were. There's lots that you bring with you from the UK in your experience, but there's lots of best practice and good practice happening within the Emirates already. So you've been kind of going out and visiting a lot of cultural venues and attractions in the Emirates. Tell me a little bit about those. Paul Griffiths: Yeah, so it's been a minute of a manic last month in February, because we've had the art festival. I know we're going to keep hinting at it, we'll get to it at some point, but when I've had some time away, what's been fabulous, it's just sort of. And I think as well, because the family aren't here in my own at the moment, said, “All right, I've got some time off, let's go and explore.” Yeah. So I've sort of driven across to Fajera, spent time in Sharjah and took myself up for a weekend in Dubai, which was fantastic. Booked a very reasonably priced hotel and just spent a weekend flowering around everywhere and just really immersed in my. So and only scratch the surface. There's so much more to see. So, yeah, so I've been going and looking at. Paul Griffiths: Well, you know, I don't want to do something that's not. There'll be alien to, obviously, the culture here. And that's been really. What's been great fun in the last few months is it's not just going into a new job, you know, and learning that. It's actually been a terrifying, at some points, fabulous experience. I was learning new cultures, new working lives. You know, things are working. It's done very differently here. You know, there's a different hierarchical process we have in the UK and permissions are needed in different places. And that's not. I'm not saying any of this is a bad thing, it's just learning those different things. So I've been learning all these different cultures. You know, we're just coming into Ramadan, which I've had no real experience with before. And that is. That is a massive thing here. You know, it's the month. Paul Griffiths: Every billboard you go past is someone trying to sell something for Ramadan, whether it be a new chest of drawers, you know, your family needs this new dining table for Ramadan. It's a bit like, you know, you will see at Christmas at home, everyone catching on, you know, IKEA will be saying, new table and chairs for Christmas. You know, it's. It's not. It's a sort of different repeating itself. You know, those sort of signs you have around the supermarket. Christmas back home. They're all up now in supermarkets here for Ramadan. Paul Marden: Right. Paul Griffiths: Encouraging what people are going to buy for when they break the fast at sunset Iftar. So, you know, so it's all sort of promoting. You need this for. So it's a real. We're going to a massive thing. And that's been a real sort of learning, cultural thing for me, which has been great because actually I've always enjoyed, when I'm traveling, learning about other cultures, you know, it's always been for me, I always try and visit museums, galleries, learn about the place I'm at. And so actually living somewhere and learn about someone who's been. I think it's added to the fun of the experience. But back to your question. Paul Griffiths: Yes, I've been traveling wherever the possibility to start to look at other historic venues, looking at where they've, you know, restored historic markets and souk areas and what sort of things are going in there, what are people doing there. Up in Dubai, there is a place called Al Shindagar Museum, which is where they've. Some of the historic buildings that have been saved by the creek of Dubai have been turned into the most amazing series of museums, is the only way I can describe it, because each house is a different gallery or different theme. So you have the story of the creek being built up, the story of Dubai seafarers. There was a faith and. Faith and religion room, talking about Islam and different cultures, how that's worked around Dubai. Paul Griffiths: Dubai being built up as a city, lots about the rulers and families, but every house you went to is a different place. What was so impressive there from a visitor experience perspective was the training that Stafford had was sensational. You know, you go into someone, you think they're obviously being managed really well because obviously this is. You don't just train. So obviously someone oversees this really well. But clearly the training, everywhere you went, the customer service was exceptional. People coming out from behind counters, giving you introductions, making sure you had everything needed, you know, as you were leaving. Have you got any questions? All those things we try and all have tried to teach over the years, and in many ways we've all been different levels of success of that. Paul Griffiths: But what was amazing was they also got the security guards in on the act as well, because there's a real culture here that there's a separate, they're secure, they're very different. You know, there's, we've got them here, they're in very much brown security, clearly marked, you know, protecting places. But what they've done there is they had clearly trained those security guards as well, because every security guard you came across was getting in the act of chatting to visitors, even if their English wasn't brilliant, they were really keen to direct you to the next. Come this way. So the next place, oh, you finished that room, you must go upstairs. And you know, that sort of. Paul Griffiths: And whether they, you know, really just said, look, you can have a much more interesting day than just standing, staring at people walking around. You can actually chat to visitors from around the world and get talkative. And I just had the most amazing. I ended up in this museum for over five and a half hours or something silly like that. And I thought I was going to be there an hour because it was priced very reasonably. You know, when you judge a museum on, well, actually I paid this, I'm probably going to be here for that amount of time. And actually it was just, you know, I found myself stopping for a coffee, stopping for lunch. But I was so impressed by the way the staff interacted. Paul Griffiths: They also had a number of cultural local guides as well, who really were, you know, in the full sort of Emirati national dress, but wanted to press on. This is where. This is what I'm doing. So I've some, you know, I traveled across to Fujairah every week and was in a, an old, what was the ruler's summer house. And the guy, and the guy who ran it just took me on a tour. I didn't ask for a tour. He just said, would you. Well, he said, should I take you around? Yes, please. And we had this great hours experience as he was just chatting about all the rooms. And I think people here are very keen to share their culture and their heritage and very welcoming. Paul Griffiths: So, yeah, so I've done quite a bit traveling around the other parts of the UAE. I can't go out of the UAE because I've only got a hire car at the moment, so I can't go out to Omar, that's on my list. You get yourself a car. I can travel north of the border into Oman and explore that. But for now, seven emirates to. So no shortage of places. And I've not been up to Abu Dhabi yet, so still with that on my list. So yeah, Paul Marden: Wowzers. Okay. So I guess, and this is completely, what would I feel like if I was in your position of going to this new country, immersing myself in this relatively new place that you're leading? How do I say this without flattering you? You were a well connected guy. If I went to events, everybody knew you. You had this wide network of people having worked in the UK in the attraction sector for a long time and you've now jumped over to the UAE. What's happened to the network? How does that feel? I mean it must feel slightly kind of worrying or nerve wracking. What have you done to build the network in this new place? Paul Griffiths: There's a number of points to that. Right, so let's answer in a few minutes. So the world's a smaller place so I'm still occasionally having teams call zoom calls with really close ex colleagues, friends, you know, I'm sure, I mean I always say I'm sure but everyone keeps saying, “Oh I'm really loving the journey so please keep posting. So I am going to keep posting and probably going to start to annoy people after a while”, but the feedback so far is everyone saying we're loving the journey and following you with it and feel like we're on the journey. So I will carry on. I'm sort of keeping writing stuff up and sharing it and also I don't know how long I'll be here for. You know, probation is massive over here. I have to keep my fingers crossed. Paul Griffiths: I pass probation which is a six month period because it's a real right the UAE all not just off and across the UAE. It's a real big, you know, much more than at home, much more structured. On day one was given a series and this isn't a bad thing at all, a series of probation tasks, you know, around reports that are around other historic parts because the job that I've come over will eventually evolve into a wider heritage role. But at the moment the real focus is on Al Jazeera Al Hamra, which is great. Get one site, get it going, then see where we go next. So I think I'm still connected to lots of people back home. I'm still looking, seeing everyone's posts and enjoy. Paul Griffiths: I mean my usual jealousy of not being part of the ALVA network anymore as they're all having that great time in Belfast in the last couple of days and seeing everyone's post, not just one or two, but everyone you know, Bernard down with you know everyone's post. I wish I was there with them.Paul Marden: The FOMO was real. So I had Andy Povey in the office with me yesterday and we're both saying the FOMO about that ALVAe vent was very real for both of us having. Paul Griffiths: Having spent. You know I was at the Mary Rose few years where we joined ALVA and go experiencing those council weeks and knowing just hey how much they are great for networking A. You get very spoiled because every host wants to really show off what they can do and I think the Titanic always do that because we go there before for a council meeting but it's. Yeah. So you still see this stuff. So it's still sit home and there's still people I can reach out to.Paul Marden: Of course.Paul Griffiths: If we need to and I'm still calling on people things, you know, different projects we're doing here. But then again it's about slowly building up that network here and I think there's a slightly. You know, there's a. Within Ras Al Khaimah I've started making connections with lots of other people in the Heritage world and. And outside that. So we're already, you know, connecting up with different people from different parts of Ras Al Khaimah, the work we're going to do moving forward and for me I think it's been just a. I'm sort of still pinching myself I'm here and that sort of. So many things keep happening and you know. The weather's been gorgeous because I've come out of a grim English weather to this quite nice winter here where it's mostly been late mid-20s. Paul Griffiths: You're in she and shorts when you're off duty. You know, there's other things. The thing that really surprised me is how smart actually the dress code is for business over here. Paul Marden: Okay. Paul Griffiths: So I had to sort of all the usual brands that from home Mount Marks is next everything here so you could order online and get it delivered quite quickly. So I had sort of came out of one wardrobe thinking I was going to be far more in polo shirt and linen trousers are sort of very sort of summer at Painshill look, you know outdoor. But actually yeah my colleagues are still. Because of the aircon atmosphere. Lots of colleagues particularly in the head office are in suits. A bit like where I would have been when back in my London days. When we're in the office you were in a shirt tie. So yes, I had to sort of buy A back home wardrobe almost once I got traveled out with very lightweight clothing. So yes, it's a bit different in that sense. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about life as an expat. How have you found the transition? Paul Griffiths: Fine so far. I say there's lots of bits around work and practice and you know, no amount of inductions will be able to help you on some little faux pas you can make about not realising where you need approvals for staff. And obviously coming from the. For the last six years of being director of Painshill and only from feeding into a board of directors, board of trustees who we'd see quarterly and you know, I chat to the chairman every week. There was a lot of me sort of making those sort of decisions instantly was here, you know, particularly as were part of the foundation and we are representing Sheikh Saud as his name's in the title of the organization now, making sure we're going through those tick sheets. Paul Griffiths: You know, if I want to do anything that needs to spend more money, that's out budget, that is going to his Highness to be signed off. So any projects we're doing, we're needing to make cases to the highest man in the country to actually get those, you know, sign offs and things. And I'm not, that's not a bad thing. But you know, it's just that from an expat I guess it's getting used to. Everything's available here. Not the big supermarket up the road sells Waitrose and Marxist products and has a room at the back for non Muslims where you push the button, door opens, it's like a little bit of a naughty boys room. Paul Griffiths: You push back door open, slides you walk in and there's the pork heaven, you know, there's bacon, there's pork scratching, patays, you know, all because it's a real, you know, it's not just there's so many expats here, particularly from the Philippines and stuff who obviously pork is a big part of their diet. So yeah, that's available. I said earlier on there's cellars where you can pick up a great beer or a couple of glasses of bottle of wine or whatever you want. So actually it's not that I found myself flying into this really different world and I'm not really. Paul Marden: It's a melting pot, isn't it? Paul Griffiths: Yeah. And I'm not someone who's ever been since very young, you know, going off to nightclubs or anything like that. But if you wanted that There is that. The hotels. So actually, if you're a younger person coming out and you wanted that nightlife, the hotels, particularly on Margin island and Minnal Arab, the tubing hotels have really nice restaurants, fully licensed clubs and stuff. But, you know, actually I found sort of the work is busy. Everyone's, you know, lots going on, actually, just going back to, you know, I was in a hotel for the first two months, which wasn't a dreadful thing because it was an apartment hotel. So, yeah, I had enough and now we've moved. I've moved into a villa ready for the family. Come out hopefully in about a month's time.Paul Marden: Oh, that'd be exciting. Paul Griffiths: Yeah. So that's nice. So we've got the back onto the golf course. It's quite, you know, it's a nice place to be. It's going to be nice and, you know. Paul Griffiths: Yeah, so I've not struggled adapting because it's not. It's not that, you know, normally I've got a wonderful team here, Asia, you know, so with one Emirati and some Filipinos and other people from around the. From around the world. So that's been nice. And it's melting pot of learning their cultures as well as the local culture and. Yeah. And then they eat rice with everything. So it's. Yeah. Every lunchtime there's a bowl of rice, big bowl of salad in the main course and there's me pouring on the one on the salad, everyone else on the rice. But, yeah, it's been great, Paul. I mean, I can't. It's been one of those. Every moment you think this is just a great place to be. Paul Marden: Good. Let's go back to Al Jazeera and talk a little bit about some of the events that have been going on. So I know you're coming to the end of the Ras Al Khaimah Art Festival. Tell me a little bit about that and how well that's gone. Paul Griffiths: It's been brilliant. I know. I had no idea what to expect. First time for this. So this is the 13th International Art Fair. It started off back in the small museum back in the city of Central Town, moved to here, I think, five years ago is what I'm saying, and slowly grown every year since then. So this is the biggest one we've done, really. Lots of massive sponsors on board from across the Emirates, actually fully supported by His Highness, who's been here at least four times, if not five, since we've had the vessel. He was here at the opening ceremony for the big launch, you know it was, and it was like a proper opening ceremony. Paul Griffiths: Everyone sat round with a band and speakers and you know like not quite Olympics but you know it was a proper event. This is the opening of it and it felt like a big event. Yeah. All my female members of my team had, were given time off in the day to do hair and makeup. It was proper. Everyone looked, everyone looked the business, it was lovely. You know everyone was scrubbed up from the maintenance team to, you know, our executive director looking fabulous in a brand new dress. You know it was really was. No, I've had a new suit, I got a new suit for the occasion. Paul Griffiths: So yeah, it was a lovely evening and then it's rolled ever since and for me it's been wonderful because I've seen people in this village which has been quite quiet since I'd arrived and it's sort of been okay, how are we going to get this? But actually clearly putting something on has attracted a complete cross spectrum audience. So you know, we have people coming in, absolutely fascinating, obsessed with the art, beautiful and it's artists I should say from around the world. It's all exhibited outside or inside the little houses. So you know lots of the pieces have been blown up quite big and quite impressive. I mean do look at it on the website, you know people, you know if you go to ajah.ae you can then click on from there.Paul Marden: We'll put the links and everything in the show notes so people be able to find that. Paul Griffiths: It's been, but it's been, for me it's been fabulous because we've seen so many people in, you know I was, you know, we've had, we've got pop up restaurants so this won't mean anything to people back home but the restaurant called Puro P U R O has a restaurant at the top of the mountain at Jebel Jais. Really almost impossible to get booking, you know you have to book months advance for lunch or dinner. It's the place that everybody, both locals, internationals and tourists want to see and often frequented by his Highness. They've got a pop up restaurant here which just is fabulous. Paul Griffiths: They we've had a lovely couple, Kelly and Paolo in running a restaurant called Antica which is a sort of the chef's Italian Paolo but he's lived in Australia so it's a fusion of Australian middle Italy, sort of historic villagey type cuisine with an Emirates twist. But you're just served four or five courses without there's not a menu. It's not a restaurant as such, so it's sort of a sharing experience. But you know, the food is amazing. So I was fortunate to have dinner. Well, I've actually been fortunate enough to have dinner in Antica twice and lunch there as well. But one of the dinners I was then wandering around the village about 10 o'clock at night was full of people, you know, families just. Paul Griffiths: There is a different culture over here that people do more stuff in the evenings because of the temperature and a different way of life because the local people aren't obviously, for obvious reasons, down the pub on a Friday night, they're doing stuff with the family and you go past cafes and even outside of the village, you know, 9, 10 o'clock on a Friday night, they're full of people sitting very beautifully dressed in their finest, drinking coffee and eating desserts. That's a big thing. People seem to love coffee and desserts. Paul Marden: Okay. Paul Griffiths: But, but then of course it's because because of the heat most of the year we'll spend more time indoors resting in the day and then ready to go out at night and do some more stuff. So yeah, so we've had this sort of here in the evenings. It's really fun. What was interesting is our hours for the festival were meant to be midweek. So Monday we always close. Tuesday to Thursday we're meant to be open till 6 o'clock and then Friday, Saturday, Sunday open to 11:00. Often struggling to get people out then the first night. So the Tuesday night was the first night. Medusa goes at 6:00. 5:45, I had a queue of at least 40 people trying to get in. So we just had to make an on the hooves decision. Paul Griffiths: We're going to stay open later. And then we just opened till 8:00 in the midweek. We didn't want to push it too much because of obviously from the staff welfare perspective, an hour's work. But actually that first night were just. Myself and Sikrat, who's the director of the festival, Emirati. Wonderful. Emirati has been my cultural bodyguard in many ways because he's been the person, my go to person for what should I do here? What about this person? How should I do this? So Spencer Crouch just stood there. Look at this crowd. We both just said, “Well we can't turf them away. This would be daft.” So yeah, so we've had. And we've had about 40, 000 visitors will have come through the door by the end of the festival in 28 days. Paul Griffiths: The artworks then going to stay up in place for Ramadan. So we'll be working different hours again during Ramadan and this is the first time Al Jazeera will ever do. Has ever done anything special for. Because before now it's just been a come and visit, walk in, do what you like, leave now. We're trying to structure that visitor experience. So we're going to be for Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, because Thursday's the sort of Friday night in many ways. Because a lot of people have Fridays off here. Yes, because of the day of prayers and so a lot of people in Ras Al Hamah go to Dubai and Abu Dhabi for work. So Thursday nights they'll travel back. So actually we're going to be open till midnight on Thursday, Friday, Saturday for Ramadan. Paul Griffiths: So people will break the fast with the families and then they want to do the sort of head top of activity. They've now got food back in them and an energy source. And out they come. So again, first time we've done it, hopefully see numbers with the artwork will still be in place. We're then working on some different options around cuisine, food, coffee and hopefully get some musicians in as well, just to give a bit of an atmosphere. But it is a holy month, so it's not. It's not parties, but it's enjoying the family. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So what does the future look like for the Heritage Village and for tourism and attractions more generally in RAK? Paul Griffiths: I think for RAK itself, we're trying to bring more tourists in then trying to get the most hotels. Interestingly, as they had a lunch with five of our local big hotels at the weekend using. Using our Antico restaurant, this is excuse to have another lunch there and invite some people in and just take on their views, which is great. So just chatting and getting their thoughts on it. They were saying what. What happens in Iraq a lot at the moment is people are finding the hotels through travel agents, through, you know, searches. I know when were looking before I came out here, I know Ras Al Hamra came up on a Thomas Cumbin telescope. Yeah, similar. What am I thinking of? Probably Tui, I guess, or someone like, you know, someone like that. Paul Griffiths: I was doing a search for when went to Canary, but up came Ras Al Khaimah as a hotel and what they were saying. A lot of people will book that and have no idea really what Ras Al Khaimah is, other than it's part of the UAE. Some people think it's part of Dubai, you know, actually, because it's not, they don't realize it's seven emirates, etc. So a lot of people are booking their sort of tourists, their hotels. Our job is to try and then get them out and attract them to do other stuff. So there's lots of adventure tourism going on at the moment. We talked about the zip wire and lots of hiking, walking, camel rail, camel riding, you know, trips to the desert where you can zoom around in 4x Fours and go karts and stuff. Paul Griffiths: So from my perspective of the Heritage village is about bringing it more alive, bringing more people in, promoting it, more linking up with these sorts of hoteliers, concierges. And this is really early days for us because this has always been sort of slightly done but not really pushed yet. And sort of listening to what their advice is and seeing how we can act upon it, you know, and what sort of stuff we can take forward because, you know, there's a lot to be done. And there's lots of other heritage sites across rat about 90 on the list of actual heritage sites. And some of those are real ruins that you're never going to be able to do anything with. Paul Griffiths: Those sort of English Heritage free sites, you know, the ones you stumble across with a little brown sign and you pull up with a lay by, have a potter around and off you go without seeing anyone. There's a bit like that. But then there's a number of sites that will work well with some activation. You know, we've got Dyer Fort, which is on the World Heritage site tentative list and we're working on projects to slowly take that forward to World Heritage status. Touchwood because it's a really important for, you know, and it's perfect for visits. You climb up to the top, you get the most gorgeous views. You know, really is a gorgeous little site. So more interpretation, more things there is what's needed. But you know, again, this is all early days. Paul Griffiths: So it's all about sort of, you know, each day's excitement. What can we do, what can we push forward, who can we talk to? And what's been great is as the festival's gone on, more people have been coming and chatting to me. Mine have become more, well known. That sounds wrong, goes back to your sort of earlier question about, you know, people are sort of learning about, oh, this person's here now. Paul said, although people can call me sir or Mr. Paul, which is fine. I can deal with that. Keep saying now, people, I keep saying, please don't call me sir. You really don't need to. But it's so culturally great. But Mr. Everyone see everyone externally, she's called Mr. Paul, so I can put up with that. But I was there. Although when we host his. Paul Griffiths: His Highness hosted dinner that I was invited to, I then got even pushed up to His Excellency, which was a title. I want to go. Paul Marden: That's quite nice. Paul Griffiths: Yeah, I love that. Apparently. I always thought that someone else I knew was his title. His Excellency was part of the family, but actually it's. Once you get to a CEO director level in royal that circle, you immediately become His Excellency, so. Paul Marden: Well, there we go. I will correct myself in future communications. Paul Griffiths: Please do. Yeah, but I thought it was wonderful. That's why it's just been lovely, the funny comments coming from people back home saying, oh, well, I've amended my entry in my phone to now shake your he status. But yeah, so. But there's a sort of cultural things. It's just. Okay, right, lovely. That's fun. Paul Marden: It's been a whirlwind for you. It's been really interesting actually, talking about it and understanding more about. About what's happening there, about how exciting it is, this huge opportunity that you've got to make a something out of this beautiful historic village and then that, you know, the remit will grow from there. So I think. I think this has been lovely. We always wrap up our interviews with a book recommendation and you've had this privilege once before. So have you run out of recommendations or do you have something ready for me? Paul Griffiths: Well, I was going to recommend the Red island, an Emirati story, because it's based on Al Jazeera Al Hamra, but I thought that might be a little bit too niche. This guy. So, again, little things have come across. This guy's written a book, Adil, and he's going to be coming to Al Jazeera to do a book reading signing. These little opportunities. I have read the book, I promise. It was actually fascinating because it's all about local culture. It went off in a number of tangents, but actually from a point of view of how the Emirati local culture works and families, it was actually quite a really good induction. But now I've decided to go with a more book for management or book for running. And I don't think anyone's given this before, but if they have, I'm nervous. Paul Griffiths: But this book, Fish!, which is one of my favourite books. I've actually launched this as the Al Jazeera Book Club for the spring. So all the team have a copy. Book clubs are massive over here for work. Every department has one here in the foundation. So this book, Fish, is based around the Seattle fish market. My colleagues who've worked me in the past, both. I can hear them groaning now because they've forced everyone to read this, but it's basically around having fun when you're at work. And it talks about the story of the Seattle fish market, how they were just flogging fish, but actually one day decided, we need to liven this up. We need to want to be here. So introduced, sort of involving the crowd, fish flying through the air. Paul Griffiths: But It's a more of a story about a woman joins, it moves up in a company into a department that no one's been able to manage. She gets to the bottom of using the fish market. And it's just a really fun, easy reading book. And so I recommend it to. To listeners and viewers. Paul Marden: That's brilliant. So listeners, if you would like a copy of Fish,Paul Griffiths: It's quite a cheap book as well, Paul, so please, you have to give one away. So it's not too much money. It's just 9.99 in the non fiction section. So, yeah, cheaper. Paul Marden: Bargain. Bargain. That's the trouble with. So I've been doing a few live events where we have panels, four people with book records, recommendations. That's going to bankrupt me. No, not today. We got a bargain this time. So I like this. Yeah. If you'd like a copy of Fish, if you'd like a copy of Paul's book, head on over to Bluesky and when Wenalyn posts the show note, go over there and repost it and say, I want Paul's book. And the first person to do that will get a copy of the book. Paul, delightful as always. Three times on the podcast, at least. Paul Griffiths: I think this would be number. This would be number four because we had the original episode where Kelly grilled me about life at Painshill. Then we did the Turn the Tables episode when I grilled Kelly on setting up podcasts. And then we did. Then we did the Goodbye to Kelly, whatever it was. 100 episode. And then this. Yeah, four Skip the Queues. Which is always a pleasure and I'm so delighted as you're my favourite podcast, obviously.Paul Marden: It's, oh, you say the nicest things. That must be a record. I need to go back and check that I think four times on the podcast is pretty impressive. Paul Griffiths: I think I should get to add all mine up into one as a total so I can beat Dominic Jones, who's always had the biggest number, isn't he? Paul Marden: So, yeah, so he does and he still does. So, yeah, I think aggregating the number of listens for across all of your episodes, I think that might be within the walls. Let me see what I can do and I'll add everything up and we'll see if you can take Dom's crown. Paul Griffiths: Sorry, Dom. Paul Marden: Because he's not competitive at all. Paul Griffiths: No, he's not, mate. He's a great guy, though. So, yeah, a friendly rival. Paul Marden: Exactly. Thank you very much, Paul. I would love to keep in touch. Paul Griffiths: Let's keep talking. Paul Marden: I want to hear what happens not just after the first 90 days, but I want to hear what happens in a year's time and two years time. So thank you so much for coming on and telling us about Ras Al-Khaimah and the Heritage Village. It's been lovely. Paul Griffiths: Yeah, thanks for having me. It's great. Been a real pleasure. Paul Marden: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others to find us. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them to increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcripts from this episode and more over on our website, skipthequeue fm. The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industryGain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion ratesExplore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performanceLearn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion ratesUncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversionsDownload the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
In this episode of the JDE Connection podcast, hosts Chandra and Paul are joined by guest John Holder to discuss virtual batch queues (VBQs) in JD Edwards software. The conversation delves into the functionality and benefits of VBQ, including improved scalability and elasticity for batch job processing. John Holder outlines the historical context and technical challenges that led to the development of VBQ, highlighting how it allows jobs to be moved more easily between servers, enhancing flexibility and efficiency. The episode also touches on the significance of Oracle's community engagement and volunteer efforts. 00:50 What's Happening in JDE Land 04:00 Introducing John Holder and VBQ 07:43 Background of VBQ 17:00 What exactly is Virtual Batch Queues 29:11 Midwesternism of the Day Resources Oracle Learning Library – Virtual Batch Queues - https://apexapps.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=44785:24:102875833166452:::24:P24_CONTENT_ID,P24_PREV_PAGE:29781,1 Virtual Batch Queues Technical Brief - https://www.oracle.com/webfolder/technetwork/tutorials/jdedwards/White%20Papers/VirtualBatchQueues_Tech_Briefing.pdf Oracle By Example – Understanding Virtual Hosts Setup – https://docs.oracle.com/en/applications/jd-edwards/understanding-virtual-hosts-setup/index.html Understanding Virtual Hosts Architecture - https://docs.oracle.com/en/applications/jd-edwards/administration/9.2.x/eotsw/understanding-virtual-hosts-architecture.html Product Catalog - https://apexapps.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=103254:8:102112198098775::NO::P8_FEATURE_ID,P8_PRODUCT_ID,P8_LAYER_ID:215469822930181352957224698826660799571,208136276869697198410960926144257606832,208126803266040266183916346690997863598 If you have concerns or feedback on this episode or ideas for future episodes, please contact us at thejdeconnection@questoraclecommunity.org.
We say goodbyes to Virtual Queues and speculate when they might return.Send us a textTwitter/X Handles:Dizhappenings: https://twitter.com/dizhappeningsShaun: https://twitter.com/rankingthemouseMatt: https://twitter.com/mattpetoBefore/After Watch Music in Dizhappenings copyrighted by Audio Jungle
Episode 247 for the week of February 24, 2025 ... and this is what is going on in our Disney World...RUMOR: Dynamic Ticket Pricing Coming to WDW- Strong rumors suggesting that a dynamic ticket pricing model is coming to WDW, meaning it would function like how airlines do it that the price for any given day will fluctuate based on demand.- How does this impact planning a WDW vacation?Starts @3:18 ...Virtual Queues are Gone at WDW- Disney announced that the virtual queues at both Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and Tiana's Bayou Adventure would be removed and replaced with traditional standby. Cosmic Rewind would also now be part of Early Entry.- How does this impact strategy for touring the parks, especially rope drop at EPCOT?Source: Scott GustinStarts @7:28 ...Universal News- A lot of Universal related news dropped this week including firework testing at Epic Universe (source: Alicia Stella), the IP released for the upcoming Universal Kids Resort in Texas, and tickets are on sale for Horror Unleashed in Las VegasStarts @12:34 ...Disney Quick Hits- Level 99 replacing the NBA Experience and a rumor that the track at Space Mountain will be replaced with a single trackStarts @17:56 ...Phil's Down & Back Trip Report- Phil is back from his quick trip to escape the cold and say goodbye to Muppets. Did the trip go as planned? - Also discusses the Pros and Cons of doing an After Hours event vs a regular park day.Starts @23:55 ...Construction Update- More details from the permits filed for land clearing related to Villains Land at Magic Kingdom - and lots of small improvements around the parks.Starts @1:19:47 ...DBC Engagement: Villains Dark Ride Ideas- The community shares their thoughts for what the dark ride in Villains Land should look like and we question if heroes should be present in the land at allStarts @1:25:08 ...* Reminder to like, subscribe, rate, and review the DBC Pod wherever you get your podcast *NEW! Landing Page for all things DBC Pod: magictravelonmain.com Send us an e-mail! .... thedbcpodcast@gmail.comFollow us on social media:- LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/thedbcpod - Bluesky: @thedbcpod.bsky.social- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/TheDBCPod/- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDBCPod- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDBCPod- YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/thedbcpod- Discord Server: https://discord.com/invite/cJ8Vxf4BmQNote: This podcast is not affiliated with any message boards, blogs, news sites, or other podcasts
This is a bonus Live Call-in Show from this past Wednesday night, February 19, 2025! Tonight, Mike and Scott discuss some fun topics such as the end of virtual queues at Cosmic Rewind at Epcot and Tiana's Bayou Adventure at the Magic Kingdom, "Level 99" coming to Disney Springs where the NBA Experience used to reside, Duffy getting lots of attention on the Disney Adventure, and much more! Come join us in the BOGP Clubhouse this week at www.beourguestpodcast.com/discord. Please visit our website at www.beourguestpodcast.com. Thank you so much for your support of our podcast! Also, please follow the show on Twitter @BeOurGuestMike and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/beourguestpodcast. Become a patron of the Be Our Guest Podcast over at www.patreon.com/BeOurGuestPodcast. Thanks to our friends at The Magic For Less Travel for sponsoring today's podcast!
Slow news over the weekend but we start out speculating what could come soon in terms of news and keeping on our eyes on the lack of virtual queues.Send us a textTwitter/X Handles:Dizhappenings: https://twitter.com/dizhappeningsShaun: https://twitter.com/rankingthemouseMatt: https://twitter.com/mattpetoBefore/After Watch Music in Dizhappenings copyrighted by Audio Jungle
PJ talks to Mairead Twohig from Corks 96FM News about the massive queues at New Look branches over the weekend for their closing down sale. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
On this weeks episode of The Theme Park Podcast, the guys bid a farewell to the virtual queue system for a few rides at Walt Disney World! Then they discuss ticket prices around all the Disney parks around the world, a replacement coming for DisneyQuest and much more!
On this episode, we have some news about Tiana's Bayou Adventure and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind not using virtual queue anymore starting next week and a new escape room type venue is replacing NBC Experience in Disney Springs. We also review our room at Port Orleans Riverside Resort in the Alligator Bayou section and discuss which moderate resort has the best theming.Join Club 32Help us to fund & grow the show by becoming part of Club 32! You'll get more additional content, CTM Apparel discounts, 1901 Candle Company discounts, private Facebook Group, private podcast & more! - head to ctmvip.com1901 Candle CompanyWe're excited to launch our brand new Disney Scented Candles & You Can Learn More at 1901candleco.com.CTM ApparelGet the best Disney, Universal and/or Pop Culture apparel that is hand made in our shop - shop at ctmshirts.comSubscribe To The Show & Leave Us A ReviewApple Podcasts - Click HereStitcher - Click HereSpotify - Click HereFollow Us on Social MediaCTM Facebook Group: @capthemagicTwitter: @capthemagicInstagram: @capthemagicVisit Us OnlineSubscribe to our YouTube Channel!Capture the Magic Podcast – find the latest episodes!Capture The Magic Apparel – you can find a great Disney-inspired t-shirt collection!Join Club 32! Our private group with access to exclusive livestreams, podcasts, and MORE! Visit ctmvip.comOur SponsorsZip Travel - visit vacationwithzip.com to see how they can help you have the vacation of a lifetime!
In the 240th episode of The Main Street Electrical Podcast, Jenn & Dave are super happy about the fact we can all ride Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and Tiana's Bayou Adventure as much as we want in a single day (of course, at the mercy of the lines...) First, Jenn is preparing for her Wish trip in a few days, while d$ is not only looking forward to his Disney Fantasy cruise in March, but also, gives a full review of "Captain America: Brave New World" -- the good and the not quite as good. Then, a quick look at some of the just-released itineraries for Disney Cruise Line in Summer 2026. And finally, they chat about Disney dropping Virtual Queue lines and allowing standby for Guardians and Tiana, and what it means for YOUR trip -- doing rope drops now, how those on the DAS Pass are affected, Lightning Lanes, and why this is all a fantastic thing!
In this episode of 'The Adventures of a Disney Dad Podcast,' Matt and Chip respond to listener questions and discuss significant Disney updates. They dive into the big news about the elimination of virtual queues at Walt Disney World, specifically for Tiana's Bayou Adventure and Guardians of the Galaxy. This leads to a comprehensive discussion on how this change will impact rope drop strategies and ride wait times. Following this, they address listener queries on split stays between Universal Studios and Disney, rank enchanting extras like the Keys to the Kingdom tour, and debate between staying at the Contemporary or the Grand Floridian. 01:06 Big News: Virtual Queues at Walt Disney World 01:43 Rope Drop Strategies for Tiana's Bayou Adventure 02:10 Impact on Other Attractions and Rope Drop Strategies 07:27 Guardians of the Galaxy: Rope Drop or Lightning Lane? 10:46 Epcot Rope Drop Strategies 15:17 Rivers of America and Future Changes 18:21 Listener Questions: Split Stays and Enchanting Extras 27:36 Resort Battle: Contemporary vs. Grand Floridian Looking for a free Travel Agent to plan your next trip? Want to plan with us? Fill our a quote form at https://www.adventuresofadisneydad.com/get-a-quote
Tony Jones spoke to callers who were reporting issues with Tuesday on-sale.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
FULL SHOW | We find out what you have queued for; Mick tells us about a possible upcoming job vacancy; We revisit Toast-gate; and Mick has details of sex pillow! Tomorrow James Young stops by to talk Bon Scott, And Jonathan Brown will be live in studio Catch Mick in the Morning LIVE from 6-9am weekdays on 105.1 Triple M. To watch your favourite new Breakfast Radio crew in action, head to YouTube. And you a laugh-fuelled feed, follow @molloy and @triplemmelb on Instagram. Remember to like and share!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Timeline et liste des sujets :00:00:00 Introduction : C'est quoi ce challenge délirant ?00:03:38 Une étrange hypersexualisation. 00:05:53 "Je suis très sexuelle." Mais nous aussi, connasse.00:08:15 La profonde hypocrisie de la famille et des amis.00:13:16 Qui a brisé le cœur de Lily : déflorée par un bad boy ?00:20:21 Lily : "Un idiot finira bien par m'épouser."00:24:35 La scène dérangeante du "Fake Taxi" : Je porterais plainte pour harcèlement
The Dubai chocolate bar first gained notoriety last year and is taking Ireland by storm at the Sugar Plum Sweetery in Mullingar. Queues have formed on the street outside such is the demand for the product. Denise Buckley of the Sugar Plum Sweetery speaks to Drivetime about the phenomenon.
This week: We're geeking out about the Fantastic Four teaser, DCU TV shows, and Battlefield 2025! Gaming State of Play Set For Next Week https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-playstation-state-of-play-reportedly-set-for-next-week Battlefield 2025 - first look https://www.ign.com/articles/first-official-look-at-new-battlefield-gameplay-as-ea-reveals-battlefield-labs Movies Brave New World Trailers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRg-T-6rDUg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju1COoyZ2y0 Fantastic 4 Trailer… Tomorrow https://www.ign.com/articles/first-teaser-for-the-fantastic-four-first-steps-confirms-new-trailer-release-date-offers-glimpse-at-retro-futuristic-setting Guillermo Del Toro Frankenstein Still In Works https://www.ign.com/articles/frankenstein-brief-timeline-guillermo-del-toro-netflix TV Cobra Kai S6 Pt3 Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPB6DuNB9L0 Blue Beetle TV Show Update https://screenrant.com/blue-beetle-dc-universe-show-update-xolo-mariduena/ Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPqXoKevOsA NEED PRAYER? geeksundergrace.com/prayer MORE INFO Send us your questions! podcast@geeksundergrace.com For more Geeks Under Grace: http://www.geeksundergrace.com http://www.twitter.com/geeksundergrace http://www.twitch.tv/geeksundergrace https://geeksundergrace.com/give For more Cody Armour: http://twitter.com/CodyArmour https://www.instagram.com/codyarmour/
In August 1995, Microsoft released a new operating system - Windows 95 – following one of the computer industry's biggest and most expensive marketing campaigns. Queues formed outside shops at midnight as people around the world waited to be among the first to buy it. The new software was designed to be more user friendly, easier to understand and aimed at ordinary people not professional programmers. Connecting to the internet would also be more straightforward. More than 40 million CD Rom copies were sold in the first year, introducing a boom in personal home computing. Sarah Leary who demonstrated the software on launch day – alongside Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and US talk show host Jay Leno – talks to Jane Wilkinson. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic' and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy's Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they've had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America's occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.(Photo: Bill Gates at the Windows 95 launch. Credit: Bill Nation/Sygma via Getty Images)
Emilie Williams Kimmerling started her t-shirt business in her bedroom in 2022 while juggling both a job and a full time college course. Now she has a built a thriving community of consumers itching to buy her latest Irish inspired designs.
In this follow-up to How Infinx Uses AI and Automation to Streamline Prior Authorization Workflows, Yagna Velu dives deeper into the practical aspects of managing work queues, tracking case updates, and ensuring accuracy with features like activity logs and escalation tools. Be sure to check out the previous episode for foundational context before exploring this hands-on look at optimizing prior authorization workflows.
In this episode, Marissa and Joey rank their top and bottom queues in the Disney World parks. From debating on whether Tower of Terror has a good queue or if Dinosaur is as cool of a queue as Marissa thinks. When you are waiting 60 minutes, you want a queue to be entertaining so listen in to find out the best ones!
Queues in front of govt hospital, inhalers, & husky voices are back. As Delhi breathes in poison, in Episode 1554 of #CutTheClutter, Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta, explains why November is so bad, how stubble burning is not the main problem & how the problem is pan-India & year-round.
*Queues up The Ballad of The Witches' Road on repeat*
When you enter a queue at a Disney theme park, you are entering the story the attraction will tell. This week the guys rank all the Hollywood Studios queues from worst to best. BECOME A PATREON MEMBER AND GET ACCESS TO THE PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP AND WEEKLY EXTRA CONTENT. If you would like to support all of the Disney Dads shows and help us bring you more content commercial free, click the link patreon.com/ddptoday Patreon is rated PG-13 for content and language It's time to "open a tab". On this patreon episode, the guys go through some of the open tabs on their phones and the funny things they have looked up over the last few months. Lots of great stories and laughs with this one! Join the Sorcerers Family on Facebook for a fun, interactive, motivational place to share your personal fitness journey. https://www.facebook.com/groups/214245055834071/ Join the DDP Sorcerers and let's support BASE Camp Childrens Cancer Charity. Click the link below and donate or create your own team today. http://basecamp.org/ddp4bc Book your next Disney vacation with Justin and Jamie at Away With Me Travel. Contact them today to start the magical planning process at show@awaywithmetravel.com
In this episode, the LTP discusses a recent trip report, talks about virtual queues and discusses the latest news!
In this episode of FUT IN REVIEW, the hosts discuss the launch of FC25, including server issues that players faced on release day. They share their first impressions of the game, delve into the new Road to the Knockout promo, and explore objectives and SBCs available in the game. The conversation also touches on player ratings, market impacts, and highlights a community team of the week. The hosts conclude with their ratings for the first week of FC25 and share their thoughts on the game's future. Here's the article John referred to: https://www.gamesradar.com/its-just-impossible-devs-explain-why-big-online-games-always-seem-to-break-at-launch/ Join the Discord Server for Free! Questions: futinreview@gmail.com https://youtube.com/futinreview https://www.futinreview.com https://patreon.com/futinreview
Marqueise Coleman was tragically murdered in St. Pauls, North Carolina when he was only 19 years old. It's been 3 years since that fateful day, and despite ongoing efforts, the police investigation has yet to yield substantial leads or bring his family any closer to uncovering the person or persons behind this horribly tragic crime. Anyone with information regarding Marqueise's unsolved murder is encouraged to call Crime Stoppers at (910) 865-8477 or the Robeson County Sheriff's Office at (910) 671-3100. Facebook page for Queues: https://www.facebook.com/justiceforqueise Click here to join our Patreon. Connect with us on Instagram and join our Facebook group. To submit listener stories or case suggestions, and to see all sources for this episode: https://www.inhumanpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Happy Father's Day this weekend to all of our Disney dads out there! We hope it is a great weekend for you! Today, Mike & Scott are discussing various queues around Walt Disney World! Which are the hottest in the summer? Which are the longest? What is a queue we wish we could experience just one more time? Were interactive queues a success or failure? What are our Top 3 Queues at Walt Disney World right now? This and more on today's show! Please share your thoughts over on the Discord channel at www.beourguestpodcast.com/discord. We hope you enjoy today's podcast! Please visit our website at www.beourguestpodcast.com. Thank you so much for your support of our podcast! Become a Patron of the show at www.Patreon.com/BeOurGuestPodcast. Also, please follow the show on Twitter @BeOurGuestMike and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/beourguestpodcast. Thanks to our friends at The Magic For Less Travel for sponsoring today's podcast!