Podcasts about todd you

I'm not a financial advisor; Superpowers for Good should not be considered investment advice. Seek counsel before making investment decisions.Watch the show on television by downloading the e360tv channel app to your Roku, AppleTV or AmazonFireTV. You can also see it on YouTube.When you purchase an item, launch a campaign or invest after clicking a link here, we may earn a commission. Engage to support our work.Devin: what is your superpower?Chef Todd: You're going to love this. It's pretty simple. I have amazing parents, amazing grandparents. My superpower is that I care. I have a big heart, and I care.In today's episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Chef Todd Manley, the founder and CEO of Mutiny Island Vodka. Chef Todd's journey from culinary innovator to environmental advocate is a testament to the transformative power of creativity and passion. His unique venture is not just about producing vodka; it's about leveraging the underutilized superfood, breadfruit, to drive significant social and environmental change.Breadfruit, a fruit native to Oceania and Polynesia, has been criminally underutilized despite its vast potential. Chef Todd discovered its benefits while searching for an ingredient to create the world's first island vodka. This journey began in 2007, shelved temporarily, but later resurrected in the aftermath of hurricanes Irma and Maria, which left the Virgin Islands without power for months. Chef Todd and his business partner experimented with breadfruit, leading to the creation of a unique breadfruit ethanol. This innovation laid the foundation for Mutiny Island Vodka.What makes breadfruit remarkable is its ability to sequester carbon dioxide and provide food security. As Chef Todd explained, “By using breadfruit products, we incentivize the planting of breadfruit trees, which sequester hundreds of tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and produce abundant food.” This aligns perfectly with the mission of Mutiny Island Vodka: to create jobs, feed people, and better the environment.Beyond vodka, breadfruit's versatility extends to various food products, such as flour, hummus, and even gluten-free cheesecake. Chef Todd's vision goes beyond just making vodka; he aims to make breadfruit a staple in combating global hunger and environmental degradation. “One breadfruit tree will feed a family of four for life if they have nothing else to eat,” Chef Todd highlighted, emphasizing its potential to address food security.Today, Chef Todd is raising capital on Start Engine through regulated investment crowdfunding. You can invest.Chef Todd's story is a compelling blend of innovation, resilience, and a commitment to making a difference. His work with breadfruit is not just a business venture but a movement towards a sustainable and equitable future. Through Mutiny Island Vodka, Chef Todd is indeed leveraging the power of breadfruit to change the world, one tree at a time.tl;dr:1. Introduction to Chef Todd Manley and Breadfruit Vodka: Chef Todd Manley, involved with Mutiny Island Vodka, introduces the project, which aims to create dramatic social and environmental impacts by using an underutilized fruit called breadfruit to make island vodka.2. Discovery and Development of Breadfruit Vodka: Chef Todd shares how he came across breadfruit, initially considering it for his restaurant menu. The idea evolved after hurricanes hit his region, leading him and his business partner to experiment with breadfruit, eventually creating vodka from it.3. Breadfruit's Versatility and Environmental Benefits: Breadfruit not only provides food security due to its superfood qualities but also sequesters significant amounts of CO2. It's being used for various products, including hummus, flour, and Goya brand tostones, endorsed for its numerous health and environmental benefits.4. Caring as a Superpower: Chef Todd highlights his superpower of caring, emphasizing the importance of recognizing and addressing community needs. He shares a personal story about mentoring an employee, pushing her to realize her potential, which later resulted in significant career success for her.5. Community Investment and Future Potential of Breadfruit Products: Chef Todd explains the benefits of using Regulation Crowdfunding to raise awareness and capital. He invites the community to learn more about their project on StartEngine and connect via Instagram, aiming to turn everyone into breadfruit advocates and boost sustainable agricultural practices.How to Develop Caring As a SuperpowerChef Todd Manley's superpower is his profound capacity to care deeply about people, the environment, and innovative solutions to problems. His empathy and compassion drive his actions and decisions, allowing him to connect diverse ideas and achieve meaningful, win-win outcomes for the community and the world.One story that illustrates Chef Todd's superpower is his exploration of using breadfruit as a sustainable agricultural product. After two hurricanes devastated the Virgin Islands, he and his business partner experimented with breadfruit to create the world's first island vodka. This initiative not only provided a unique product but also promoted environmental sustainability and food security by incentivizing the planting of breadfruit trees. As Chef Todd explained, "By using breadfruit products, we incentivize the planting of breadfruit trees, which sequester hundreds of tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and produce abundant food."To develop and strengthen your own caring superpower, Chef Todd suggests a few actionable steps:1. Pay Attention: Be mindful of your surroundings and the people around you. Notice problems, big or small, and think about how you can help.2. Be Creative: Use your creativity to connect diverse ideas and find innovative solutions to problems.3. Empower Others: Recognize the talents in others and help them harness those talents, even if they don't realize their potential initially.4. Embrace Learning: Keep learning from various fields and experiences. The more you know, the better you can connect the dots and make a positive impact.5. Take Action: When you see an opportunity to help, take it. Even small actions can lead to significant changes over time.By following Chef Todd Manley's example and advice, you can make caring a skill. With practice and effort, you could make it a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.Remember, however, that research into success suggests that building on your own superpowers is more important than creating new ones or overcoming weaknesses. You do you!Guest ProfileChef Todd Manley (he/him):Founder / CEO, Mutiny Island VodkaAbout Mutiny Island Vodka: Mutiny Island Vodka is the world's first award-winning Island Vodka handcrafted from the superfood breadfruit. By using breadfruit as our substrate, we incentivize the planting of breadfruit trees to create food security, economy and benefit the environment by producing a world-class spirit. We get our name from the historic Mutiny on the Bounty. The corporation that owns Mutiny Island Vodka is Twin City Island Spirits, located in the USVI. The 20,000 sq. ft. distillery gets its electricity via solar and has a commitment to zero waste production.Website: mutinyislandvodka.comCompany Facebook Page: fb.com/MutinyIslandVodka/Other URL: startengine.com/offering/mutinyislandvodkaBiographical Information: Todd Allen Manley • CEO & Board MemberBefore moving to his new home of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Todd ran multiple restaurants with average revenues of $1.4M per year per each restaurant. He has been honored to receive numerous awards, from "Chef of the Year" to multiple recognitions of his restaurants as the "best" in several categories, and nominated for an Elby Award in 2012 as a restaurant visionary. He has largely been self-employed his entire life, loving the challenge of taking ideas out of thin air and turning them into tangible, profitable realizations. He is a graduate and former graduate school student of Virginia Commonwealth University.Since making the USVI his home, he has opened 5 successful businesses in a short four years, continually reinvesting in Christiansted and the USVI, effectively pulling up the town by reinvigorating interest in Christiansted during an economically gloomy period of time. In 2015, the community honored him through the Chamber of Commerce, awarding him "Business Man of the Year.” The same year he received the U.S. Congressional Award for contributions to community and betterment of society for his achievements and helping the community of St. Croix. His commitment to bettering the global community through his work with breadfruit and the breadfruit community resulted in him being honored at the Global Breadfruit Summit in Hawaii in 2018 and 2022 for contributions to the community and innovation. Mutiny Island Vodka also received an endorsement from a charity, Trees That Feed Foundation, for using breadfruit as a substrate, incentivizing the planting of breadfruit trees. Mutiny Island Vodka was also featured in an article in Forbes.When he has free time, he can be found with his wife from Dominica, playing a guitar, scuba diving, or on a beach! Personal Facebook Profile: fb.com/todd.manley.182Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/todd-manley-3a40051aa/Instagram Handle: @mutinyislandvodkaUpcoming SuperCrowd Event CalendarIf a location is not noted, the events below are virtual.* SuperCrowdChicago, June 12, 2024. This in-person event at Columbia College Chicago features some of Chicago's prominent citizens and community leaders, along with crowdfunding experts. Use the discount code “SuperCrowd” to save 50 percent! Watch the recording here!* Superpowers for Good Live Pitch, June 26, 2024, at 9:00 PM Eastern. We'll host a live pitch right here on Superpowers for Good. If you would like to be one of the companies pitching, apply here.* Impact Cherub Club Meeting hosted by The Super Crowd, Inc., a public benefit corporation, on July 16, 2024, at 1:00 PM Eastern. Each month, the Club meets to review new offerings for investment consideration and to conduct due diligence on previously screened deals. To join the Impact Cherub Club, you must first become an Impact Member of the SuperCrowd.* SuperCrowdHour, July 20, 2024, at 1:00 Eastern. Each month, we host a value-laden webinar for aspiring impact investors or social entrepreneurs. At this month's webinar, Pooja Mehta, crowdfund investor and advisor to entrepreneurs, will join us.* Recently, we created an AI GPT to help you learn more about The Super Crowd, Inc., a public benefit corporation, and our upcoming events. Click here to try it.Community Event Calendar* Successful Funding with Karl Dakin, Tuesdays at 10:00 AM ET - Click on Events* The Reg A & Crowdfunding Conference, June 20, Westchester Country Club (Save 20% with the code Super20). We have a few free tickets; let us know if you want one.* How Small Businesses Can Raise Capital from the Crowd, Thursday, July 11, 1 – 2 pm ET: Explore transforming your community connections into capital to start or grow a small business through regulated investment crowdfunding.  Learn more about how this type of crowdfunding works and the benefits and challenges of raising capital from the crowd. About our Presenter: Author and journalist Devin Thorpe has over 25 years in finance and a rich background as a former CFO and investment banking firm founder.  He's also a champion for social good, publishing his Superpowers for Good newsletter and show.* Crowdfunding Professional Association, Summit in DC, October 22-23* Asheville Neighborhood Economics, November 12-13.If you would like to submit an event for us to share with the 6,000+ members of the SuperCrowd, click here.We use AI to help us write compelling recaps of each episode. Get full access to Superpowers for Good at www.superpowers4good.com/subscribe

Take a moment to catch your breath before the Stanley Cup Final, with referee Kelly Sutherland mic'd up, the referees and linesmen working the Cup Final, the first female on-ice official enters the IIHF Hall of Fame, ECHL refs have an easy night, and the CHL looks at three major rule changes for the 2023-24 season -- all around penalties and power plays! More on these topics, including video clips and rule breakdowns, at scoutingtherefs.com Visit www.scoutingtherefs.com and follow @scoutingtherefs and @toddlewissports on Twitter and Instagram. Email us your questions - heyref@scoutingtherefs.com Call the RefLine at 585-484-REFS!   Episode Transcript #166 Scouting the Refs is an unscripted audio podcast, designed to be heard. It's a whole lot more interesting to listen to the audio, but we're happy to provide a transcription below. This transcript has been generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain textual or typographical errors.  Full transcript: https://scoutingtherefs.com/2023/06/40183/scouting-the-refs-podcast-166-making-the-cut-for-the-cup-final/   Todd: So I know we're all excited about the Stanley Cup final beginning and finally getting underway, Florida Panthers and the Vegas Golden Knights, but you know Josh? I'm thinking I want to start planning now. What we're going to be doing in the next few weeks when there's no games to watch, because no matter how much I prepare mentally at this point in time in the season, I always suffer from withdrawals after the Cup final is completed and the trophy is handed out. Josh: It's such a challenge, right? We go from the first round where you've got multiple games every night and just there's something going on everywhere at every hour. And the NHL even figured out scheduling this year, so with the games spread out, we could watch a lot of the action. And then it dwindles down a little bit more and now we've had this break of days without hockey, at least at the NHL level, and now the most we'll have is a game every other night. It's starting to feel real, Todd. It's starting to slip away a little bit. The hockey season is leaving us. Todd: It is and that's the hard part. I know the theory is that you start big and that it seems as though like you're kind of being weaned off the drug but it doesn't really work that way. You still suffer from the the withdrawals when it's gone.  Josh: And, you know, the warm temps outside don't exactly help you. The weather's warm. You want to be outdoors doing things, especially with these games on the weekend. You're out and about it's it's hot outside. You've got shorts and a t-shirt on, and then you come back in to watch some ice hockey. Yeah, I I love the length of the season. I love that we have all these games, but when you start to get into June, especially the middle of June, it it feels like maybe we've gone too far. Todd: You know, we'll, we'll get through it. We always do. And there will be the anticipation before long of the new season. This is the Scouting the Refs Podcast. Please make sure you follow us on the social channels. Josh, of course can be found @scoutingtherefs on Twitter and Instagram, you'll get me at @toddlewissports on Twitter and Instagram as well. Coming up on this week's episode: Kelly Sutherland mic'd up, who made the cut, a Hall of Fame career, and new rules the NHL should be considering. I am very excited to discuss this topic, Josh. Josh: New rules are always interesting, sometimes they have unintended consequences, so you never know how it will play out, but it will be interesting to see. Todd: Okay, so let's get to some of the other stuff before we talk about the potential for for new rules. Four-star review for the video of the Western Conference Series game One. You hear from players, you hear from coaches, but most importantly you hear referee Kelly Sutherland at work out on the ice. We've seen these  videos pop up semi regularly. They provide great insight into what is happening on the ice during the games, and conveniently enough, the bad words are taken out for you. That's why it takes a couple of days to get them out. So Kelly Sutherland, as you've perhaps seen before in some of these videos, is one of the most vocal referees out on the ice. He's explaining to players what he sees after a play. He's telling goaltenders that he's watching for the goalie interference. He's explaining to coaches what is happening out on this. It's it's as if he is a coach out on the ice at times. I think it's a great job that he does. Josh: Absolutely. It's one of the reasons that when they've had the player polls in the past that Sutherland scores so highly as one of the league's top officials. It's not only about positioning and judgment and comportment and all of the things that go in from an officiating standpoint. But from the players point of view, here's a guy who's actually helping you understand where the line is, and he's giving you advance notice before he's calling the penalty. And as a player, that's what you wanna have. You want to know where you stand and and when you're getting too far over the line. And that's what Sutherland does. I think one of his greatest strengths is the communication side of thing of warning guys and when they're getting too close and putting pressure in the crease. Or when it's a potential interference call and things he's seeing out there, so he tries to set that up front and then stick with that standard the whole game. And it's great when you have the mic'd up videos, because then we get to hear some of that dynamic and you see what goes into it before a penalty's actually called. Because he might have been chatting about it for the whole first period, halfway through the second period and a guy keeps at it and now all of a sudden he's blowing the whistle because he's warned him and he's had that conversation and it's one of his strengths. And it's really interesting to hear the types of things that go on. But you're right, Todd, it's almost like he's the second coach out there advising these guys. So he's not just enforcing the rules, but he's he's warning them he's giving them a heads up. He's reminding them of where the line is and when they've gone to far, that's when he has to send them off to the box. Todd: I I love it too. It's not just after the play that he's explaining calls, but as you mentioned, when two players are tied up, he's telling one like, okay, let him go. You gotta let him go now otherwise. You get the interference call and it's just like I don't want to penalize you, but I'm going to have to pretty soon. Josh: Yeah. And it's great in this video, you can hear a nice exchange he has with Keegan Kolesar about a hit that happened and there was a cross checking why he didn't call it and Kolesar's great, super polite there. Just thanking him for it. ‘I appreciate it' is what he says afterwards. So you might not always agree with it, but just giving that explanation and. Letting the guy understand why the call was or wasn't made in a certain situation is immensely helpful. But I don't know if you noticed, Todd, in the clip one of the coaches is on there saying, ‘Nice chat, Kelly.' We don't actually get the content of that conversation. So I don't know if it was something they wanted to keep quiet, or if there were just too many four letter words to include it. Todd: Yeah, that that sometimes the editing can be a little bit tricky on those. Again, I think it provides great insight and good job, I believe for putting those out even if it's 3-4 days after because of all the all the approval that has to go through. So with this video and hearing Kelly Sutherland at work, it is not surprising that he was one of the referees named to work in the Stanley Cup. Final he'll be joined by Steve Kozari, Wes McCauley – no surprise there, Dan O'Rourke, and Chris Rooney. The linesmen are Steve Barton, Scott Cherrey, Brad Kovachik, Kiel Murchison, and Jonny Murray. Congratulations to all for reaching the final. There's no real surprises with any of these names, is there? Josh: No, everybody's been here before, so I can't say that any of them come as a total shock. You've got tons of veteran experience there, McCauley, Sutherland both working their 10th Stanley Cup Final, Rooney with six. Even Johnny Murray, with six. So everybody's been here plenty of times. They all know what it's like, what the pressure entails, what the big games mean. It was not a shock.   I was hoping that some of the younger guys might have made it. We saw Jean Hebert make the Cup Final last year, thought he might have a shot at returning this year, but he and Trevor Hanson, looking to make his Cup Final debut, both left off of the rosters. I thought either one of them could have made it, but who do you cut in their place? This is such a a challenge here. Figuring it out. So you think of – from an NHL standpoint – everything that goes into it and it's your full season, it's your mid season grade, it's your season end evaluation and then it's what you've done each round in the playoffs. So all of that leading up to it and I I think you know, we see and expect who's going to make it. And I I'd say these are like you said, Todd, no surprises here on these crews. Todd: Now, as you explained nicely in a piece on the scoutingtherefs.com website, the final works a little bit differently in that there's not specifically a backup referee at each event and the whole procedure of pairing guys together works a little bit differently as well. Josh: It's interesting to see because all season long we get this rotation of refs. Everybody works the next game with a different partner, typically because of travel, maybe they'll have a back-to-back together, but you're typically working each game with an entirely different crew. Through the first few rounds of the playoffs, that changes a bit because we do see ref pairings and linesman pairings, and often we see that quartet move together through some games. We definitely saw in the conference final where Kelly Sutherland's crew, the same four of them, worked together each game. Once you get to the Stanley Cup Final, they throw everybody back in the hat and basically draw numbers again. So you've got an odd number of referees, which means we're no longer having that pairing; we're having a rotation where the first two guys will work game one, the second two guys will work game two and then they'll start to mix it up after that because of the odd number. So your partner being a standard guy and and maybe at some of them that you've worked together the entire postseason up until now, now you're gonna get a new partner every night. So back to how the regular season works with the rotation. Obviously you're hoping these are your top officials. These are the best of the best. These guys have been consistent throughout the postseason, so it shouldn't matter, but it definitely shakes things up a little bit, so it'll be interesting to see how those tendencies translate when we see a guy where maybe two guys have worked together the entire postseason and now they get to work with different partners in the Stanley Cup Final. Todd: One other note on the referees who are and are not working the Cup Final, and you and I were exchanging messages during this game. But for those that say there is no accountability for officials, yes, there is, because there was one particular game with the Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes, where not one, but two goals were overturned on offside challenges and those two linesmen are not working in the Stanley Cup Final. Now, they were so close. It was microscopic that they were offside plays, but this is the price that they're paying. Josh: Yeah,  and we don't know. For sure if that happened to be the reason or the straw that broke the camel's back, or if there are other contributing factors here in making that decision. But, certainly, it's one of those things that you look at from an officiating management standpoint when you have guys that are frequently involved in coaches challenge or you have referees that maybe are calling major penalties, that they're downgrading after review, maybe it makes you question their judgment a little bit. I'm not saying it's right or wrong and and like you said, these are really close plays, so I'm not even going to point fingers at the officials or or find fault in how it worked out, but certainly the optics of having a call that had to be overturned on such a public stage and in such a critical juncture in a key moment for a goal to be scored or not, you can't help but think that that did put the spotlight on them a little bit more and may have influenced Stephen Walkom's decision. Todd: A couple of non-NHL notes that we should mention as well. Congratulations to Sandra Dombrowski, who now goes by Sandra Frye. She has become the first female on ice official inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame. Congratulations Sandra on a great international hockey career.  Josh: Yeah. Very nice to see that honor there. The class of 2023 was inducted. We have lots of players from all over the place and another official making it in. And there's very few in the IIHF Hall of Fame. Only eight now, with Dombrowski's edition and mostly European, we don't have an American or even a Canadian official that are yet in the IIHF Hall of Fame, so there's there's still boundaries to hit there, but nice to see Dombrowski get in. She broke plenty of boundaries coming in and making her way up. Even as a hockey player, when she was younger, she couldn't find a team to play with as a woman, so she founded her own and it went from there and she was involved in a lot of firsts. The first unofficial women's game at the World Championship and then the first woman referee of a Women's World gold medal game. So nice to see her recognized for all the contributions to hockey, both as a player as an official and then coming off the ice, working as a supervisor and then part of the IIHF officiating committee. So she's given a lot to hockey and nice to see them reciprocate and and give the honor of putting her into the IIHF Hall of Fame. Todd: So the first North American referee that could go in potentially maybe a few years down the road, you know if that was Wes McCauley, I got to think that the acceptance speech is going to be out of this world because they they let them do that at the presentation, don't they? Josh: They do and they did, and Dombrowski gave a great speech. It was wonderful to hear from her and you could tell how much this meant to her; how much hockey means to her. So it was a great honor, but I just picture Wes being most comfortable with just want to give that speech with the mic on, at center ice in full uniform. Todd: Five for fighting! Josh: We've got an induction! Todd: Perfect. Love it. Okay, also non-NHL-related. Congratulations to the Florida Everblades for their win over the Newfoundland Growlers. They win the Eastern Conference final in the ECHL. They'll move on to play Idaho in the final. That series also opens up on Saturday, June the 3rd. Congrats to the Blades who are going for back-to-back titles. It is the second time these two teams have met. In 2004, it was the Idaho Steelheads that prevailed . It was an interesting game summary in this one. It was a double overtime game as I mentioned, but barely a whistle blown for a penalty. Josh: Yeah, quiet one for the officials, which is —  It's funny, we joked last week on the podcast about how things tighten up and saying that when you get into game six or game seven, we see fewer and fewer penalties and things really tighten up and I think it's on both sides, right? I think it's on the officials. Maybe I don't wanna say pocketing the whistles, cause that becomes a a negative, but maybe calling that standard tightly and making sure everybody knows where it is. But we also see it on the players trying to be on their best behavior because they don't want to be the person sitting in the box that's responsible for a power play goal against, especially when goals are so critical. But this one, Todd, referee Sam Heideman and Alex Normandin called a clean game effectively because they didn't hand out any power plays. They had some penalties. We had a holding minor that was accompanied by a diving penalty, so that washes out; we have no man advantage there. Only one other penalty in the game. And you can thank the linesman for it because it was a bench minor for too many men on the ice. Todd: Now those of us that are familiar with the ECHL and have, you know, seen a few games, is this a first? Josh: It's a relatively well behaved game for these guys. Nice to see how well-mannered both clubs were. I got to watch part of the game didn't see the whole thing, but you know it's one of those things where you don't want to be the guy who messes it up. You're trying to keep it clean. You don't wanna get whistled for anything. You're kind of playing a little more careful, a little, a little safe there, especially in a game that spent a lot of the time tied. I mean from the second period on, the whole third period, the whole first over time, you've got a tie game there. So you definitely don't want to be the guy who puts your team shorthanded. Todd: I'll just end by saying go Blades. That's my hometown team. Okay, now we talked about some potential rule changes that are going to take place. They are taking place in the Champions League in Europe and I think that there's some some of these –  in fact, I like all of them – that could and should be considered by the National Hockey League. Okay, so let's go through them one at a time. First, being minor penalties dealt with the same as a major penalty in that a team that has caused a minor penalty will remain shorthanded, even if the opposing team scores a goal, so you're serving the full two. Josh: Yeah, not a radical change here. This is one of those ‘everything old is new again' kind of moments because this is how it was in the National Hockey League up until 1956. You sat for the whole 2 minutes; you served your time. If they scored once, twice, three times, however many they score in that 2 minutes, you're staying in the box. So I think the Champions League is looking to boost goal scoring here and they also say that they want to make sure punishments are consistent. So yeah, you did the crime you will do the time, no matter how many goals get scored during your sentence. Todd: I don't think that's an unreasonable thing. I know that we had an exceptional power play this year with the Edmonton Oilers, but it still was, what? Just over 30%. So it's unlikely that you're going to score two or three or four goals, but maybe that helps as a deterrent. Josh:  It could because those penalties become a bit more valuable. And right now you're looking at it as you're either short handed for two minutes or you've given up a goal and then you're back to even strength. Now you're definitely going to be shorthanded for the whole 2 minutes, and you aren't capped at just giving up one shorthanded goal, so it does put a little premium on those penalties, which hopefully doesn't put more pressure on the refs when it comes to not wanting to decide the game or factor into the game. You need to call it the same way, it's just that the each penalty call becomes a bit more impactful, potentially. Todd: Okay, also with a delayed penalty, a minor penalty will be served even if a goal is scored while a delayed penalty is pending. Josh: Yep, and I'm good with this one. This is one of those interesting situations where many of the leagues wipe out the goals on delayed penalties. NCAA College Hockey in the US actually has this rule currently where a goal scored on the delayed penalty does not wash out the penalty. If you score on the delayed call, you still get a power play afterwards and the player still serves his time, which now under this other rule will also be a full 2 minute power play coming out of that. Todd: Right. Josh: It's it's pretty interesting at the NHL level and others that penalty just disappears. It never happened. The the guy doesn't have two minutes associated with any infraction. He doesn't serve any time in the box; the entire penalty isn't even recorded.  At the USA Hockey level, it is recorded but not served. So I think it's interesting. I mean, I've rallied before in the past to say they should consider at least booking the guy for the two minutes and making him sit in the box even if you don't give the team a man advantage, but I think this is the most honest way to do it. The delayed penalty isn't a power play. It's an opportunity where the other team can't touch the puck, so it it definitely comes to a benefit to the attacking team. They get to pull the goaltender, they get to maintain possession. So there there's definitely a benefit there, but I've always been amazed that it offsets the power play there. And again I think this is just try to keep balance and keep scoring down, but now you're going to see more scoring because not only will you score on the delayed penalty… or if you do, you'll still get a 2 minute power play. Todd: I like it. I think it's a a good idea and the other one that's being implemented by the Champions League is that a short handed goal erases a current minor penalty. If the team shorthanded scores, then their minor penalty will come to an end. I'm okay with this. I guess it's a bit of a ‘get out of jail' free card. Well, even more of a bonus than that, but I think it will encourage teams to maybe try stuff on the penalty kill. Josh: This is the most radical of them, right? Because everything up until now has been ‘Delayed penalty? You're still going to serve the time', ‘Other team scores? You're still gonna serve the time.' Well, your own team scores. Now you get out of jail free — so you worded it properly, Todd, I think that's exactly what it is. And this one's not looking at the change from a punishment standpoint. This is purely around goal scoring because you're you're hoping that you can get that team to stretch things out a little bit and think offensively, which could open scoring the other way and make those short handed teams a little less defensively conscious because now they want to score. They want to get that time back, especially if it's late in the game, you're trailing, you don't wanna wait out the whole 2 minutes. If you can get this goal, you can get back to even strength. So I think it's an interesting move. I think it's definitely the most radical of the ones that are coming in here and the one I'm curious to see what types of changes that makes to how teams approach being shorthanded and and what the power plays look like. And remember with those other changes, you will be shorthanded the entire time, so you've got that two minutes you can be scored on multiple times unless you do this to end your short handed situation by scoring a shorthanded goal.  The combination of these three makes it really interesting. I feel like it's gonna take some time for teams and coaches to adapt to what the strategy is here and how best to take advantage of this and and how to work it properly. So I'm glad the Champions Hockey League is putting these in place, since these are ones that we've talked about at the North American hockey level and it's the right place to test it. It's this the specialty league. They have limited scope, limited teams, 24 teams this year coming in from all over Europe. So because of the way they're set up, I think it's a great proving ground to see how are these going to work when we first put them in place and then by the end of the season, is it still doing what we thought it would? Or have we seen things change dramatically?  And you know what they then they take a break, they can change it for next year, but at least this is the right place where you can actually try that and see how it plays out before you implement it at a larger scale or at the AHL, ECHL, NHL level. Todd: I have one more that's been suggested, I think by a few people, but I think would be an interesting to be part of this experiment as well. If the team that has is getting the penalty has a choice between being on the man advantage for two minutes or taking a penalty shot. Josh: That's an interesting one. You know, we've, we've seen that come up before in discussions on especially late in game situations. Should it be a power play? Should it be a penalty shot? Todd: Right. Josh:  In the past you look at penalty shot, success rate versus power play success rate and it's not that far off. I mean we've we've seen maybe the penalty shots are a little bit higher, but statistically speaking it's not a huge difference where you see a big swing there, I think it'd be interesting to give teams that option, especially when you've got the full 2 minutes because now. Do you want 2 minutes on the power play where you can score multiple times, or do you want one shot at a breakaway? In this situation, you know if you're trailing in the game, maybe that 2 minutes is valuable and you you'd rather have the penalty shot. Or maybe the opposite is true and you just wanna kill time off the clock and you'd rather have the two-minute power play. I think that'd be an interesting strategy driver there, too, Todd, on how do you approach it because now you've got a power play that could result in multiple goals, or you get to take the penalty shot, which is only one – uses no time on the clock – but do you think your team has a better chance on the penalty shot than on the power play? Interesting dynamic there. Another one where I think it takes time. You you'd have to put that in and coaches would figure out how best to make it work for their team. You know, if you're the Edmonton Oilers this past season, you're taking the power play every time. Some teams with limited success or with a really strong breakaway scoring player there, you might want to take the penalty shot and I think that it just changes things up from a strategy standpoint. Todd: Now you mentioned the downfall.  Coaches ruin everything.   Thanks for listening… or reading. Please like, share, and subscribe to the Scouting the Refs Podcast wherever you get your podcasts:  

PromEvil part 4, "Home Before Curfew" See who lives, who dies, and who finds romance at the Polk High prom, in this, the final installment...   A lot of people put their heart and soul into producing this memorable event: STUDENTS Hal - Mathias Rebne-Morgan Lyn - Molly Tollefson Todd - Eli Nilsson Gee - Melissa Bartell Barb - Beverly Poole Andy - Mike Campbell Bud - Jasper Loovis Tina - Chandra Wade Missy - Jade Thomson Jake - Michael Faigenblum other students - Sky Iolta, Shelbi MacIntyre, Henry Mark FACULTY Principal Peabody - Reynaud LeBoeuf Mr. Ervin Carpel, Woodshop - Gene Thorkildsen Ms. Angela Wellesly, Crafts - Gwendolyn Jensen-Woodard Mrs. Snodgrass, Lunchroom - Robyn Keyes P.A. Announcements - Julie Hoverson Rent-a-cop Bob - The Caretaker OTHERS Cop 1 - Glen Hallstrom Cop 2 - Joel Harvey 911 Voice - Julie Hoverson STAFF Writer - Julie Hoverson Doll Wranglers - Julie Hoverson, Kimberly Poole (Warp'd Space) Sound and Mastering - Julie Hoverson Stock sound effects - Soundsnap.com; sonomic.com Music - Prom - Sinkhole Music - background - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) ________________________________________________________________   Prom Evil PART 4   1. Craft shop SOUND          [under] POUNDING INSIDE THE KILN LYN            Hal? HAL            It's just a scratch.  I really thought the heavy foam of the Polky would-- LYN            Well, it didn't!  I need something-- SOUND          TEARING FABRIC GEE            It's not sterile, but this muslin's better than nothing.  You'll have to wrap it-- SOUND          [DISTANT] GUN SHOT ANDY           Holy shit! BARB           [gaspy scream] ANDY           Ow.  Okay, okay - lighten up there!  you're Choking me, babe!  Let go!  BARB           I'm being vulnerable, dammit!  Appreciate it! HAL            Whatever else that shot means, there's someone else in the school.  So the door must be open again. ANDY           I'll check the hall. SOUND          FEET AND HAND TRUCK, DOOR LYN            This really needs proper attention. HAL            When we get out.  BARB           [interrupting] WHEN we get out?  Don't you mean IF we get out? MUSIC   2. punchbowl AMB            GYM PEABODY        Miss Harrison, have you seen Bob? ANGELA         Not since he went to check out the school.  He was going to try and find Marge. PEABODY        The school?  It's locked. ANGELA         Well, that's apparently debatable. MUSIC   3. hallway SOUND          STRIKER CLICKS, TORCH LIGHTS SOUND          WALKING, WITH HAND TRUCK ANDY           Stay behind me, babe. BARB           Well, duh. LYN            Tsk. SOUND          GUN SHOT [Everyone reacts at roughly the same time.] ANDY           Shit! HAL            Holy crap! LYN            Oh. My. God. TODD           [gasped] Laurel? SOUND          FIVE MORE SHOTS BARB           Fuck this! GEE            Wow! SOUND          FEET POUNDING, HAND TRUCK ROLLING FAST BARB           Andy!  God! HAL            Don't!  Shit.  Stay together. SOUND          HAL LIMPING, RUNNING AFTER ANDY LYN            Hal! MUSIC   4. outside gym AMB            OUTSIDE, RAIN SOUND          MUSIC STILL AUDIBLE FROM DANCE SOUND          CLICK TO TALK NOISE PEABODY        Bob?  Where in hell are you, you moron? MUSIC   5. hallway SOUND          [close] STABBING NOISE BOB            [DEATH RATTLE] PEABODY        [on talkie] Bob?  I don't care if you're-- SOUND          BUTTON IS PUSHED, MACHINE CUTS OUT LEDERHOSEN GUY  [chuckles] SOUND          RUNNING FEET AND HAND TRUCK APPROACH ANDY           [off, barely winded] Holy shit!  HAL            [off, gasping]  Rent-a-cop Bob! LEDERHOSEN GUY  [eager noise] SOUND          DOLL FEET RUN AT THEM ANDY           Shiiiiiit! SOUND          TURNS UP THE FLAME HAL            What're you doing?  Get back here! ANDY           No.  This little shit's going down! SOUND          ROAR OF FIRE HAL            Got him! ANDY           Die, fucker! SOUND          BURNING CRACKLING WOOD LEDERHOSEN GUY  [chuckling] SOUND          WOODEN FEET RUN, DRAGGING KNIFE HAL            It's not stopping!!!  Come on! SOUND          LIMPING RUNNING FEET ANDY           [frozen] What the fuck, man!  What the fuck? SOUND          FLAMING WOOD HITS THE METAL CYLINDER ANDY           Shit!  Get off the tank you little-- SOUND          METAL ON METAL LEDERHOSEN GUY  [chuckles, but losing to the flame a little] HAL            [distant] Andy! Just drop it! SOUND          METAL CLANG, GAS HISS, EXPLOSION ANDY           [Screams] HAL            [distant] Noooooooo! MUSIC   6. gym AMB            GYM SOUND          FIRE ALARM GOES OFF. SOUND          MUSIC TAPERS OUT CROWD          [uncertain what to do] PEABODY        [annoyed] Give me strength. SOUND          QUICK FOOTSTEPS, STATIC SQUAWK PEABODY        [on P.A.] Do not panic.  Until you are informed otherwise, assume this is a false alarm.  I'll personally go and check into this.  Again, until I return and inform you that this is an actual emergency, please assume it is some idiot playing a dangerous, unfunny joke. SOUND          APPLAUSE MUSIC   7. hallway SOUND          SPRINKLERS, ALARMS SOUND          DISTANT SIZZLING BARB           [hysterical] I never thought I'd be glad to hear a fire alarm!  The firemen'll save us! LYN            The water's already putting it out. TODD           Which one was that?  Did you see? HAL            Which what?  TODD           [fierce] which doll, dammit? HAL            I just saw a pointy hat. TODD           Oh.  OK.  Good. BARB           [coming off tears] What now, Sherlock?  You blew up my boyfriend-- LYN            Hal's not responsible for that! BARB           Oh, really?  GEE            If this spell I found requires a human sacrifice, I know who I nominate. TODD           Spell? GEE            Does no one ever listen to me?  I think I can freeze up one of those things, by reciting these words-- SOUND          PIECE OF PAPER GEE            But I think someone will have to hold it down while I do.  So you guys need to pull it together. HAL            [quietly serious] That's three. LYN            What? HAL            The one in the oven, the one in the kiln, and that one.  Three down.  Only two left. LYN            [quietly] We could get his keys.  Bob's.  But we'll have to go around.  HAL            [agreeing humph]  No more fire.  SOUND          SMALL TORCH DROPPED IN METAL GARBAGE CAN MUSIC   8. OUTSIDE AMB            OUTSIDE SOUND          RAPID FEET ON GRAVEL PEABODY        Oh, please!  I've TOLD YOU it was just a prank!  SOUND          KEYS, UNLOCK, DOOR OPENS PEABODY        As I've complied with your guidelines for canceling a false alarm...if anyone shows up, don't even try charging the school for it! SOUND          DOOR SLAMS SHUT MUSIC   9. HALLWAY AMB            HALLWAY, SPRINKLERS, ALARM SOUND          ALARM CUTS OUT BARB           [freaking] What?  But it's - they have to-- What about the firemen?  [sobs] SOUND          SPRINKLERS CUT OUT, DRIPPING LYN            Let's go this way - Not so wet. GEE            It's a different sector.  They only go off one at a time. BARB           This is, like, the worst damn prom ever! MUSIC   10.         OFFICE SOUND          SWITCHES.  FUSE BOX CLOSES, FOOTSTEPS PEABODY        Huh!  Eat me, you degenerates.  You're not pulling any more-- [cuts himself off]  What? SOUND          QUIET CLICKING NOISE PEABODY        [calling, annoyed] All right, who's out there?  Is this some kind of joke? SOUND          THREE QUICK STEPS PEABODY        [ugh!  As he kicks] SOUND          HITS WOOD, DOLL FLIES ACROSS THE HALL, HITS WALL MAJORETTE      FURIOUS CLICKING PEABODY        You cretinous troglodytes!  Cowards!  Why don't you show your ugly little Morlock faces? SOUND          WOOD NOISES - TAPS AND CREAKS - AS MAJORETTE STANDS PEABODY        What the...? SOUND          WOODEN FOOTSTEPS PEABODY        Oh my god... SOUND          DOLL RUNS AT HIM PEABODY        Yahh! SOUND          DOOR SLAMS SOUND          CLICKING PEABODY        [effort] GET...OUT OF... DOOR SOUND          TRYING TO SLAM DOOR ON DOLL MUSIC   11.         HALLWAY AMB            HALLWAY GEE            It's not exactly the quickest way to get back to Bob's keys- BARB           Maybe we should make you watch while we barbecue your boyfriend...oops, you don't have one. GEE            Survival overrules sentiment.  Besides - LYN            Cut it out.  We agreed it was probably still too dangerous, anyway.  We don't know how much damage the explosion did. HAL            Shh! SOUND          CREEPING AHEAD HAL            Ok.  Nothing moving.  All clear-- [cuts himself off] Hold on. SOUND          HIS FEET GO OFF SLOWLY LYN            What?  Hal? HAL            [off]  Bud!  Oh, Crap!! LYN            Come on. SOUND          ALL MOVE FORWARD LYN            Oh, heck.  Hal, I'm so sorry. HAL            [ignoring her] [muttering] Bud?  Bud, man?  LYN            I don't think he's-- HAL            Back off! LYN            [gasps, wobbly]  I-I'm  sorry.  But... [firming up, fiercely] But I don't want to die too, and we need you. HAL            I - I don't... [trails off] TODD           It wasn't Laurel.  She wouldn't do that. SOUND          HAL STANDS SUDDENLY, GRABS TODD HAL            [furious] It doesn't matter which one did it!  They're all dangerous! TODD           Ungh! HAL            See?  Look at that!  That was my best friend. TODD           You can't just burn her! GEE            We can try the incantation...it's supposed to make them harmless. SOUND          DISTANT SCREAMS [Peabody] and SLAMMING NOISES HAL            Maybe you'll get your chance. MUSIC   12.         OFFICE SOUND          THUMP OF WOOD MAJORETTE      CLICKING SOUND          WOOD CREAK PEABODY        How can you be getting through?  How can you be moving?  MAJORETTE      CLICK AS IT THRUSTS SOUND          SQUISH OF A STAB PEABODY        [screams in pain]  My arm! SOUND          CREAK OF WOOD AGAIN MUSIC   13.         Hallway outside office HAL            [coming on] Right up ahead.  One of them is stuck in a door.  Whoever's screaming must be inside. GEE            This is the faculty area.  BARB           What, did you draw the maps for the school, too?  LYN            What did you see, Hal? HAL            Start the chant, Gee.  It's time to see if that stuff works.  Let's get this sucker... GEE            I think the doll has to hear the chant.  I may have to start over if it gets far enough away. LYN            It won't. GEE            [under throughout] [chant] SOUND          FEET MOVE SOUND          DOOR NOISES, DOLL NOISES, GET CLOSER HAL            [noise of effort as he grabs the doll] MAJORETTE      FURIOUS CLICKING, SOMEWHAT MUFFLED HAL            Open the door...I've got it! MR. PEABODY     [muffled]  Open the door?  Are you an idiot - Wait - Is that you, Farnesby?  You are in big trouble-- HAL            Just open the goddam door, Peabody!  We're rescuing you! SOUND          DOOR OPENS A BIT HAL            Ungh! [effort]  Wah! [doll pulls harder] SOUND          CREAK, FINALLY SNAP AS DOLL LETS GO, IS FLUNG ACROSS THE HALL - WOOD IMPACT SOUND          DOOR SLAMS HARD, LOCKS HAL            Mr. Peabody! LYN            Hal!  It's getting up! GEE            [continues the chant.] LYN            Barb!  Be ready with the broom! BARB           Goddam right! HAL            Just keep it in the hall here - don't let it get away! TODD           [muttered in relief]  The majorette.  Laurel's still all right. LYN            Knock it over here! SOUND          IMPACT ON WOOD, RATTLE AS DOLL SKIDS ACROSS THE FLOOR HAL            I've got it!  [effort noise as he kicks it] SOUND          KICKING WOOD HAL            Ow!  Little bitch is hard! LYN            It's heading for Gee!  The chant must be doing something!  Todd, you're--- Todd?  That little rat!  Barb!  Get it! BARB           [screaming in fury, and beating at it with the broom] SOUND          BROOM HITTING WOOD BARB           Shit! HAL            It's climbing!  Drop the broom! LYN            Barb! BARB           Ahhh! [throwing] SOUND          BROOM GOES FLYING  LYN            Gee!  Get out of-- SOUND          WOOD CLATTERS SOUND          DOLL SCAMPERS GEE            [speeds up, but keeps chanting] MAJORETTE      CLICKING EXCITEMENT SOUND          THRUST, BLOOD GEE            [gasps, then finishes chant] SOUND          DOLL TURNS SOLID LYN            Omigod!  It went.. right through her! SOUND          BANGING ON DOOR HAL            PEABODY!!  Call an ambulance!  DAMN YOU! GEE            [whimpering, breathing hard] LYN            We can't just leave her! HAL            There's one more out there.  We can't DO anything... GEE            [whispered]  Did it work? LYN            The doll froze!  But it's baton thing is... is-- GEE            [strained whisper] Don't pull it out. LYN            What? GEE            [whimper of pain]  LYN            I won't let you die! GEE            Not much you can do to stop it.  Go!  [long sigh] BARB           Is she dead yet?  Can we go? LYN            You! SOUND          PUNCH IN THE FACE BARB           Ow!!!  LYN            And where's that little toad? HAL            Lyn?  We could get out now. LYN            There's only one more.  And I have this-- SOUND          CRACKLE OF PAPER LYN            She handed it to me right before-- [sob] HAL            You're the one who said we should get help.  That we can't handle this on our own. LYN            [with mounting hysteria] I was wrong.  There's no one we can go to for help!  How could we even ask?  "No, really, officer, there are killer dolls in our high school.  We have this magic book with a spell to de‑animate them, but we need someone to help us hold them down while we chant."  There's just no one else! MUSIC   14.         Hallway away from office AMB            HALLWAY SOUND          RAPID WALKING TODD           [loud whisper]  Laurel!  Laurel, they're going to try and get you!  You should come with me!  Laurel??? MUSIC   15.         Hallway leaving office SOUND          WALKING HAL            You're upset.  Not thinking right.  These things are deadly.  We've both lost friends, and I don't want to lose ... any more. LYN            There's nobody left to lose. SOUND          FEET STOP HAL            There's you, and I don't want to have to face that. LYN            [realizing]  Ohh! SOUND          FEET APPROACH BARB           I'm bleeding and you don't even care.  You just walk off and leave me.  You think it's my fault your stupid Wednesday Addams clone died.  You want me to die, too. LYN            [sighs] No, I don't want you to die. BARB           Oh, please.  Like I believe that.  You just want to be alone... and I don't even have anyone to be alone with any more. HAL            Come on.  We'll get the front door open and you'll be fine. BARB           What if I don't want to come along?  Maybe I want to leave YOU behind for the dolls to kill. LYN            You're not making any sense, Barb.  Calm down.  We all just want to get out of here alive. SOUND          RUNNING TINY WOODEN FEET BARB           I'm not going to calm down just because you tell me to! LYN            We can argue outside!  Come on! SOUND          IMPACT BARB           [oof!]  [screams!!] HAL            Shit!  Lyn!  Read!  I'll grab it! BARB           [screaming and running] HAL            Get back here!  Dammit! SOUND          STABBING NOISE, GURGLES BARB           [stops screaming abruptly] SOUND          BARB STUMBLES, FALLS BARB           [death rattle] SOUND          DOLL STEPS CLEAR HAL            Right over here, you little monster-- LYN            [begins reading the chant] SOUND          DOLL TAKES A COUPLE OF STEPS TODD           [running on]  Noooo! SOUND          RUNNING FEET DASH UP HAL            What the--? TODD           Laurel!! SOUND          RUSTLE OF FABRIC, CLUNK OF WOOD HALL           [astonished and upset] Todd?  [up] What are you doing? TODD           [going off again]  You'll never get Laurel!!! LYN            What is wrong with him?  Oh, shit!  Barb! HAL            She's ...dead.  MUSIC   16.         office 9-1-1 VOICE    What is the nature of your emergency? PEABODY        Um, I - there's been an accident at Polk High.  YES, I am serious! This is the principal.  9-1-1          Where are you sir? PEABODY        [choked up] Locked in my office. MUSIC   17.         Hallway away from office TODD           [panting for breath, swallows nervously]  You can out of my coat now. SOUND          RUSTLE OF FABRIC TODD           You wouldn't hurt me would you? LAUREL         [slight awww noise] TODD           I didn't think so.  Oh!  I have something for you! SOUND          GETS CHAIN OUT OF POCKET TODD           I hope you like gold.  It's a locket.  It was too small for much of a picture, but anything bigger wouldn't fit you. SOUND          CHAIN AGAINST WOOD LAUREL         Awww noise. TODD           Perfect.  I knew it would be. SOUND          WOOD TAP LIGHTLY ON THE GOLD TODD           What's on your hand?  [upset]  Ohhh.  Blood. LAUREL         slightly creepy awww noise. TODD           [starting to collapse into tears] No.  You're not evil.  You can't be evil! LAUREL         Awww? TODD           [sobs]  Oh, hell!  [gets ahold of himself, talking to distract her] I've always known you wouldn't hurt me, Laurel.  I put so much into you when I carved you.  I'd never let anyone burn you up...I promise!  you're so beautiful. SOUND          RUSTLE OF FABRIC LAUREL         [muffled annoyed] aww!!! TODD           CRYING, RUNS OFF SOUND          RUNNING FEET MUSIC   18.         hallway LYN            We should go after him! HAL            There's nothing we can do. LYN            Why'd he do that? HAL            He's in love with the darn thing, haven't you noticed? LYN            No.  ...I guess I'm kind of dense when it comes to romantic stuff. HAL            A lot of us are.  I know this isn't the time, but after we get out of here...  Well, keep me in mind, will ya? LYN            I - [smiling a bit] I think I can do that. SOUND          RUNNING FEET APPROACH HAL            Grab the broom! SOUND          CLATTER TODD           [coming in, panting] Quick, before I change my mind!  Start the incantation! SOUND          PAPER UNFOLDS LYN            [begins chant] TODD           Ow!  Don't struggle Laurel!  If they can freeze you, then they won't try and burn you! HAL            It's getting out! SOUND          CLATTER to FLOOR TODD           No! SOUND          THROWS COAT OVER IT HAL            Hold the coat down! TODD           Laurel!  It's for your own good! LAUREL         AWWWW! HAL            It's climbing out through the sleeve! TODD           Laurel!  Look at me! LAUREL         [angry Aww] TODD           Laurel? LAUREL         [nicer] Aww? SOUND          DOLL FREEZES LYN            Whooo.  I'm feeling dizzy. HAL            We should still burn it. TODD           No! SOUND          SHOVES HAL AGAINST A LOCKER TODD           [screaming] She's harmless now.  She can't hurt anyone. SOUND          RUSTLE AS HE GRABS HER AND RUNS OFF AGAIN LYN            I don't know what happened, but that sure... it really ...wasted me.  Did we win? HAL            Yeah.  We're still alive, anyway.  We should get out of here, though.  Now that we've finished them all... LYN            What are we going to tell people?  The police? HAL            I say we don't know anything.  Let them figure it out for themselves...that's what cops are paid for. LYN            Todd? HAL            He'll... he'll find his own way out. SOUND          [DISTANT] SIRENS COMING! MUSIC   19.         HALLWAY OUTSIDE OFFICE SOUND          DOORKNOB TURNS QUIETLY, DOOR OPENS PEABODY        [gasps] Todd? TODD           Oh, Mr. Peabody.  Um...  I think she's still breathing.  I was trying to help. PEABODY        What do you have there? TODD           Just a book.  [defensive]  It's mine. SOUND          BANGING AT THE OUTSIDE DOOR PEABODY        Stay right there.  You need to tell them what's going on. SOUND          DOOR CLOSES, TODD RUNS OFF MUSIC   20.         Leaving the building AMB            OUTSIDE HAL            You know, just this afternoon, I was sitting right over there, thinking that the only thing I wanted in the whole world was one dance with you tonight. LYN            [tired chuckle] HAL            I guess I missed my chance. LYN            It's not too late. HAL            The music's over.  Besides, neither of us is dressed for-- SOUND          KISS LYN            [breathy] Let's dance. HAL            But- LYN            Can't you hear the music?  [hums] HAL            Yeah. SOUND          THEIR FEET MOVING TOGETHER ON GRAVEL SOUND          FEET RUN PAST HAL & LYN      Todd? MUSIC END CREDITS  

Welcome to Life in the Leadership Lane where I am talking to leaders making a difference in the workplace and in our communities. How did they get to where they are and what are they doing to stay there! Buckle up and get ready to accelerate in the Leadership Lane! This week, I am talking with Todd Watson, Chief Executive Officer, The Armstrong Company… How did Todd get started in his career? What led him to the world of Leadership? What does Todd share about mentors in his career and how they made impact? What story does Todd share about starting in sales leadership? How does Todd define leadership? What does Todd share about “The Armstrong Company” rebrand? What does Todd think about when it comes to workplace safety and risk? What does Todd share about “taking initiative”? What three rules does Todd practice and live by in his home and the workplace? What does Todd share about “balance”? What is some advice Todd shares to help others in their every day? …and more as we spend “Time to Accelerate” with a few more questions. Interview resources: Favorite quote from Todd: “You don't have to be the CEO or head of a company to be a leader.” “Anyone who is taking initiative, I admire that.” Connect with Todd on LinkedIn Learn more about The Armstrong Company Check out Bruce's books Life in the Leadership Lane Moving Leaders to Inspire and Change the Workplace Find Your Lane Change your GPS, Change your Career (“Book Authority” Best Books) Milemarkers A 5 Year Journey …helping you record daily highlights to keep you on track. Subscribe to Bruce's Blog “Move to Inspire” https://brucewaller.com/blog-2/ Connect with Bruce on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/brucewaller/ Connect with Bruce on Twitter https://twitter.com/BruceWaller Connect with Bruce on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bruceww300/ Connect with Bruce on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/brucewwaller Need relocation support for your office or employees? https://www.armstrongrelocation.com/ Visit www.brucewaller.com for more information on Life in the Leadership Lane podcast and more!

PromEvil Part 3:  "What a doll!" Trapped in Polk High with some kind of murderer, Hal, Lyn, Gee (and all the rest) must fight for survival!!  Find out who's doing the killing!    A lot of people put their heart and soul into producing this memorable event: STUDENTS Hal - Mathias Rebne-Morgan Lyn - Molly Tollefson Todd - Eli Nilsson Gee - Melissa Bartell Barb - Beverly Poole Andy - Mike Campbell Bud - Jasper Loovis Tina - Chandra Wade Missy - Jade Thomson Jake - Michael Faigenblum other students - Sky Iolta, Shelbi MacIntyre, Henry Mark FACULTY Principal Peabody - Reynaud LeBoeuf Mr. Ervin Carpel, Woodshop - Gene Thorkildsen Ms. Angela Wellesly, Crafts - Gwendolyn Jensen-Woodard Mrs. Snodgrass, Lunchroom - Robyn Keyes P.A. Announcements - Julie Hoverson Rent-a-cop Bob - The Caretaker OTHERS Cop 1 - Glen Hallstrom Cop 2 - Joel Harvey 911 Voice - Julie Hoverson STAFF Writer - Julie Hoverson Doll Wranglers - Julie Hoverson, Kimberly Poole (Warp'd Space) Sound and Mastering - Julie Hoverson Stock sound effects - Soundsnap.com; sonomic.com Music - Prom - Sinkhole Music - background - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) ____________________________________________________________________   Prom Evil - part 3 PART 3 1. LOUNGE SOUND          MUFFLED PANICKED SLAMMING AT DOOR SCREAM MEDLEY BARB           [PANIC!] ANDY           [PANIC!] LYN            Do something! GEE            Help Me! HAL            Don't - don't come in here! BARB           [PANIC!] ANDY           [PANIC!] MUSIC   2. hallway [silence] BUD            DEATH RATTLE SOUND          TINY TAPPING FEET MOVE AWAY MAJORETTE      clicking SOUND          BLOOD DROPS MUSIC   3. lounge AMB - LOUNGE BARB / ANDY    [still screaming out in hall] LYN            That sounds like Barb!  Something terrible could be happening! GEE            We can dream. HAL            Shh.  I'll look.  Stay back. SOUND          DOOR QUIETLY OPENS SOUND          SCREAMING AND SLAMMING GETS LOUDER BARB           Get it open!  Let us out! ANDY           [just screaming hoarsely and incoherent] HAL            Hey?  Who's after-- SOUND          ANDY STOPS SLAMMING ON DOOR, TURNS AND SLAMS HAL INTO WALL ANDY           [attack noise] SOUND          SCUFFLE, LONG TEAR OF FABRIC HAL            Oof! SOUND          LYN RUNS OUT LYN            [worried] Hal?   [yelling] Stop it! Andy! GEE            Here! LYN            [to gee] Thanks! [yelling]  Stop it! SOUND          HITS HIM WITH GEE'S UMBRELLA BARB           [collapsing into tears] Have to get out! LYN            [calming] Shh, Barb!  [sharp] Andy!  Hal's on our side! SOUND          SCUFFLE, LETS GO. SOUND          STRAIGHTENING CLOTHING, MORE RIPPING HAL            Man, the drama club is gonna be pissed. ANDY           The drama club can kiss my ass.  We're locked in, you stupid fuck! HAL            Locked in?  But we just came in.  SOUND          A FEW STEPS, TRIES DOOR - LOCKED HAL            [worried but quiet] Hmm.  [deep breath, then up, trying to stay positive] What a time for the teachers to realize they left the darn door unlocked. LYN            [hopeful] D'you think that's what happened? HAL            [false confidence] Had to be.  Who else could have locked it? BARB           Maybe... the murderer? LYN            Oh, gosh, did you see it too? BARB           [becoming less coherent as she continues] Oh, man... she was dead, and it was all gross, and I was right there!  She was all making these disgusting noises, and I didn't even know she was being killed... LYN            [completely baffled] What? HAL            She needs to sit down. ANDY           [growls] I got this.  [softer] C'mon babe. MUSIC   4. hallway AMB            HALLWAY SOUND          QUIET FOOTSTEPS TODD           [distant, whispered call] Laurel?  MAJORETTE      [close, clicking angrily] LAUREL         [clearly negative noise] [laurel is protecting todd from being attacked by the others] MAJORETTE      [CLICKS AWAY IN A HUFF] MUSIC   5. lounge AMB            LOUNGE LYN            We need to do something constructive.  Could we phone the Gym, maybe, and get someone to come unlock the door? GEE            Nah.  All the regular phones are turned off at night.  Too many calls to 1-800-H-O-T-T. HAL            How do you know that? GEE            [smug] I broke that story three weeks ago. ANDY           Man, we should find some weapons...if Barb's right, Tina only just died, so I bet the fucker's still around. SOUND          DOOR SLAMS OPEN BARB           [screams] TODD           The door's locked! ANDY           [yelling] Tell us something we don't know! HAL            [to Andy] Chill!  [to Todd] Last time I saw you, you were gibbering by the punch bowl... suddenly you're coherent-boy again.  What's up with that? TODD           It was awful, but...I... I just got over it.  That's all. LYN            Mr. Carpel and Missy?  We saw them too. TODD           [comes to a decision] You saw the bodies.  But... did you see the dolls? ANDY           Dolls?  What the fuck?   6. flashback TODD's FLASHBACK [NOTE:         Much of what Todd says is misleading, so some of what happens contradicts the Voice Over] TODD [VO]      I went to the Wood Shop this evening... [clearly lying] Mr. Carpel was expecting me. SOUND          LOCKPICKS, DOOR UNLOCKS TODD [VO]      The door was...uh...unlocked.  I opened it and... saw Mr. Carpel's body. TODD           [under] Ohmigod!  Laurel?  SOUND          DOLL FEET APPROACH LEDERHOSEN     [threatening noise] DUDE           huh-huh-huh TODD [VO]      And then THEY ran at me.  The DOLLS. TODD           [under, intrigued] You're... alive! SOUND          STICKY NOISE AS AWL IS PULLED OUT SOUND          SMALL FEET APPROACH MAJORETTE      [clicking and approaching] TODD [VO]      [choked up] They attacked me.  They knocked me down. SOUND          BODY DROP MONKEY HEAD    [screech] DUDE           [huh hu huh] MONKEY HEAD    [screech] SOUND          WOODEN THOK TODD           [under] Ow! SOUND          METAL BEING DRAGGED CLOSER TODD           [under] No, I don't--  Please!  I love you, Laurel! SOUND          THE DOLL NOISES CLOSE IN TODD           Ow! LAUREL         [sharp noise] SOUND          DOLL NOISES STOP SOUND          CREAK OF L's HEAD TURN LEDERHOSEN     [angry query] LAUREL         Uh-uh [no] TODD           [in the flashback] Laurel? LAUREL         [rueful noise] SOUND          ALL THE DOLLS RUN OFF DOWN THE HALL SOUND          TODD BREATHING.  SLOWLY GETS TO HIS FEET [End of flashback.]   7. lounge TODD           I don't know why they didn't kill me.  Maybe I'm just lucky...or they realized I wasn't any kind of threat. SOUND          STRUGGLE, BODY SLAMMED AGAINST WALL TODD           [gasp] ANDY           So YOU let them out, you little shit! LYN            Andy?  Andy!  [calming him] Weapons - like you were saying - is a really good idea.  [frantic, looking for support] Hal? HAL            Yeah!  C'mon, Andy.  We'll hit the-- GEE            Kitchen? HAL            Yeah, the kitchen!  You all stay here...it's safer in a group. BARB           [sullen] If it's safer in a group, why don't we ALL go? LYN            [under her breath]  Todd's in no shape to go anywhere.  We can't just leave him! BARB           [disgusted noise]  Fine. MUSIC   8. hallway AMB            HALLWAY SOUND          METAL FILE SAWING ON METAL LEDERHOSEN     [EXASPERATED NOISE] SOUND          CHAIN SWINGS BACK AGAINST DOOR SOUND          SMALL WOODEN IMPACT AGAINST DOOR LEDERHOSEN     [snarl] SOUND          HIS FEET TAP AWAY MUSIC   9. kitchen AMB            KITCHEN SOUND          DOOR SLOWLY OPENS HAL            Hello? ANDY           Shh! HAL            [urgent whisper] The lights are on!  Someone must be in here! ANDY           Why aren't they saying anything? HAL            Cuz we're whispering?  [up, but cautious] Hello? SOUND          DOOR FARTHER OPEN, A COUPLE OF FOOTSTEPS HAL            Looks clear.  Come on. ANDY           Dude, I'm guarding the rear. HAL            Fine.  [sigh] SOUND          DOOR STARTS TO SWING SHUT, BUT IS STOPPED ANDY           [sniffs, then sharp] What's that?  HAL            Dunno.  Alcohol? ANDY           [long sniff]  Smells like bourbon.  [a bit happier]  Dude.  Just point me at it! SOUND          WALKS IN WITH CONFIDENCE HAL            We're not here for-- ANDY           [screams] SOUND          RUNNING FEET LEAVE HAL            What is it--?  Where?  Hello?  [angry sigh]  [muttered] I better see what-- SOUND          SLOW FOOTSTEPS HAL            [gasp]  Mrs. Snodgrass! SOUND          SCUFFLE, PATS, TRYING TO WAKE HER HAL            [revulsion noise]  Oh man! SOUND          TINY HANDS TAPPING ON GLASS HAL            [scared gasp] What the hell? DUDE           [muffled huh huhs rising] SOUND          FIRE IN THE OVEN HAL            [awed whisper]  Dolls.  MUSIC   10.         lounge AMB            LOUNGE SOUND          PACING SOUND          PAGE TURNS GEE            This is one weird book.  I can make out bits of it, but I think it's really old, and the words are all mixed up and spelled wrong... kinda like middle English.  Is there such a thing as middle French? LYN            Where are they? TODD           [duh] The Kitchen? LYN            Not them.  The police! SOUND          PAGES TURN BARB           [spacing out, talking to herself]  Andy is cute... TODD           Police?  [worried] Oh... GEE            The motivating...or maybe moving... of the ... unmoving? BARB           ...and he's pretty well off. SOUND          CHAIR SQUEAKS TODD           I have to go. SOUND          FOOTSTEPS - HIS AND LYN'S BARB           He would beat the crap out of someone for me. LYN            What? TODD           I have to go.  And... and get something. SOUND          PAGE TURNS GEE            [musing] Preparation of the mannequin? TODD           [lying] I... I think there's something in my... locker that I can use as a weapon. LYN            We need to stay together! GEE            [louder, but not in a different tone] Anointment of the offering. LYN and TODD    What? GEE            I think I mighta found something... Anointment of the offering.  [unsure] Maybe.  I REALLY need my dictionary.  SOUND          BOOK SLAPS SHUT GEE            [excited and a little creepy] And I want to see the bodies. MUSIC   11.         hallway AMB            HALLWAYS SOUND          FOOTSTEPS, WOODEN CLUNK ANDY           Don't tell 'em I was all getting sick back there, will ya? HAL            Huh? ANDY           With the dead lunch lady and all.  It'd make me look kinda ...you know. HAL            [exasperated]  Yeah, whatever.  It's our secret. MUSIC   12.         lounge LYN            Look!  Both of you!  Wait til they get back.  We don't know how many of them [not quite believing] ...the dolls... there are. TODD and GEE    Five. TODD           Why do you know?  GEE            Who do you think takes the photos for the annual? BARB           I thought you were a reporter for the nerdletter. GEE            [pissed] I wear many hats. LYN            Too bad we don't have the photos-- GEE            Oh, that's easy. SOUND          PURSE OPENED, CAMERA ON, BUTTONS PUSHED GEE            Oh, good.  I haven't overwritten them all. BARB           If that's a phone, can't we call--? GEE            It's not.  I prefer not to wear a tether. LYN            Let me see. GEE            Besides, where's your phone? BARB           [muttered] I dropped it...somewhere. TODD           Do you have one of Laurel - um, my project? GEE            You can look after Lyn's done. SOUND          CLICKING THROUGH PICS LYN            And these ...dolls are somehow up and running around? GEE            Shh!  [beat, then whispered] Something's coming! SOUND          VAGUE TAPPING, MUFFLED AND DISTANT LYN            Shit! SOUND          A MOMENT OF TENSE SILENCE TODD           [whispered] Can I see the camera? LYN            Ssh! SOUND          ANOTHER DISTANT WOODEN CLUNK LYN            There must be something in here we can fight with! BARB           Yeah, lotta pockets on a prom dress! GEE            Stand back. SOUND          DOOR THROWN OPEN SOUND          FEET GEE            Yaah! SOUND          THUMP OF UMBRELLA ANDY           Ow!  Crazy bitch!  That's my kicking leg! SOUND          STICK SWINGS, MISSES, SMACKS WALL LYN            Andy! HAL            Dude! GEE            [gleeful] Stee-rike! BARB           Andy?! SOUND          CLICKY HEELS DASH ACROSS THE ROOM, IMPACT, SOMETHING WOOD CLATTERS TO THE FLOOR BARB AND ANDY   [mushy kissing] HAL            Can you guys move that ... um... touching reunion out of the doorway?  I'd rather not just stand around in the hallway ...by myself... like this.  [sigh] TODD           [petulant] Can I see the camera, now? MUSIC   13.         punchbowl AMB            GYM, MUSIC, CROWD SOUND          PUNCHBOWL POURS PEABODY        What in heaven's name is all this, Angela? ANGELA         [snarky] Someone called the cops.  Again. PEABODY        If it's a question of the noise--? COP1           Sir, we had an emergency call-- PEABODY        [sigh]  Officer [reads] Trask?  You have to understand my position-- RENTACOP BOB    what's all this? PEABODY        sh-sh-sh. COP2           We received a report over 9-1-1 of a possible homicide in the school. PEABODY        A what? COP1           A possible double homicide. RENTACOP BOB    [huffy] Inside?  School's locked up tight.  Ain't nobody in there - live or dead. PEABODY        Calm down, Bob.  [to the cops]  May I make a suggestion, officers?  Prom night is a notorious time for practical jokes...and though I realize you MUST take any such report seriously-- COP2           We can't just-- PEABODY        Yes, yes.  I understand completely.  [confidential]  However, if we can prove to you that the building is secure, and there's no possible way anyone might have managed to get inside, will that be acceptable?  COP1           Well... COP2           As long as it's all locked up. PEABODY        You're more than welcome to return in the morning, when the school is open, to perform a thorough search.   14.         Hallway AMB            HALLWAY SOUND          LOCKER SLAMS SHUT GEE            You coming? LYN            I'll watch the door. GEE            Hold these, then. SOUND          LOADS HER DOWN WITH BOOKS, UMBRELLA LYN            Oof! SOUND          TURNS ON CAMERA TODD           Don't erase the picture of Laurel! GEE            Chill, dweebula.  I have them all on my hard drive. TODD           Oh! SOUND          DOOR OPENS, CLOSES SOUND          ANOTHER NEARBY DOOR OPENS SOUND          CLANKING OF METAL - ROLLING OF HAND TRUCK ANDY           Sweet.  SOUND          CLICKING OF STRIKER ANDY           Nuke 'em from orbit! TODD           You're not going to burn them all, are you?  Not ... Laurel? HAL            Laurel? TODD           She's... it's... the doll I carved.  She wouldn't hurt anyone. ANDY           Well now they're all living, breathing Chuckeys, and I say fry every last one of them. SOUND          STRIKES THE STRIKER MENACINGLY ANDY           [explosion noise] TODD           [Weakening] No! ANDY           No, that's "Nooooooo" [bruce willis running scream] [chuckles] HAL            Let's focus on getting out of here.  Gee? LYN            In... there. SOUND          WHEELING OF HAND TRUCK ANDY           I'll take the big truck.  You get the value menu. HAL            Whatever. SOUND          HAND TRUCK PARKS, FEET MOVE, DOOR OPENS A CRACK HAL            Gee? GEE            [muttering] This is just like that game I was in last week... HAL            What? GEE            Just thinking... Extreme case of short-timer's curse. LYN            What? GEE            Poor bastard was this close to retirement. MUSIC   15.         Outside AMB            OUTSIDE SOUND          FEET ON GRAVEL COP2           Are you sure this Mr. Carpel isn't in the building?  His name was given as one of the victims. PEABODY        Ervin Carpel?  Nonsense...he's already turned in his building keys.  We had to let him go, you see.  As of the end of the school year.  His safety record was ... unsatisfactory. COP1           So he might have a good reason to participate in a prank?  I see. MUSIC   16.         Hallway outside wood shop AMB            HALLWAY ANDY           So do we just wait for those tiny sons-of-birches to come to us? SOUND          DOOR OPENS, FEET COME OUT GEE            Now I need a place to do some reading. MUSIC   17.         Outside, parking lot AMB            OUTSIDE SOUND          POLICE CRUISER DRIVES AWAY RENTACOP BOB    I'll go take a look around.  No problem. PEABODY        [dismissively] Nonsense.  No reason to justify our merry degenerates by taking their ploy seriously. SOUND          THEY WALK MR. PEABODY     We can perform a complete walk-through before we open the school in the morning to make sure there are no ... surprises.   18.         Hallway AMB            HALLWAY SOUND          SNEAKING FOOTSTEPS, SQUEAK OF HAL's SNEAKERS HAL            [cautious, but trying to be heard]  Hello?  [louder, but still muffled]  Hellllooo? SOUND          FEET AND VOICE STOP, LISTEN SOUND          DISTANT TAPPING HAL            Oh, shit.  [sucks in a breath, up]  Hello? SOUND          ONE FOOTSTEP TODD           Which one is it? HAL            [completely stunned]  Yah!!!   [coming down]  Oh, shit!  Todd! TODD           Why are you in the polky costume? HAL            I have my reasons.  Get your ass back to the craft shop. TODD           I'll... uh... watch your back? HAL            [quiet] I don't trust you. TODD           Why not? HAL            Forget it.  Look, just stay the hell out of my way or I'll run your ass over. TODD           I can run. HAL            I'll bet. SOUND          SNEAKING FEET BEGIN MUSIC   19.         Craft shop AMB            CRAFT SHOP LYN            [pleased]  Oh!  There it goes!  I thought it would never warm up. GEE            I told you it would just take some time.  A kiln isn't a microwave. BARB           Oh, Andy, you're so strong and protective. GEE            [quiet gagging noise]  You guys!  Someone made that quilt, and they won't appreciate you getting it all sticky. LYN            Anything? GEE            Apart from nausea? LYN            The book? GEE            Well, I'm pretty sure this is the "spell" he used to animate the dolls.  I may even have a clue why they turned on Carpel... the spell says the master's supposed to carve the dolls himself.  LYN            Todd says... Todd?  Oh, hell, where'd he get to? ANDY           Dumbass wants to get himself killed, who are we to stop him? SOUND          IDLY CLICKING THE STRIKER GEE            Anyway, there's this other incantation thing which... [very dubious] if I'm reading this right... should make them freeze back up. LYN            [plaintive] You're not sure? GEE            I'm having to make a lot of guesses, here. The dictionary just don't cover everything. I mean, the incantation isn't even FRENCH... just... gibberish, far as I can tell. MUSIC   20.         Hallways TODD           I heard something over there! HAL            Stay the hell back! TODD           Do you have a plan? HAL            Well, it was to sneak up on them, but there's this person talking. TODD           Oh. SOUND          FOOTSTEPS SOUND          [DISTANT] SCRATCHING NOISES MONKEYHEAD     [distant] annoyed screech TODD           Do dolls make noise? HAL            I'm dressed as a giant purple polka-dot.  Do I look like an expert? TODD           Uhh... HAL            Shh! SOUND          SNEAKING STEPS MONKEYHEAD     screech, closer TODD           Soon as you see it, tell me-- SOUND          RUNNING FEET, GOING AWAY TODD           What it looks like... MUSIC   21.         punchbowl AMB            GYM ANGELA         Bob?  Can you do something? RENTACOP BOB    [swaggering]  I can do anything.  Whatcha need? ANGELA         Marge went into the building for something, and she's been gone for just ages.  [simpering]  Could you go and look for her?  As long as I'm stuck at the punch bowl, I can't even get in one itsy bitsy weensy dance. RENTACOP BOB    I gotcha covered, babe.  [clears his throat]  That was a quote.  Not meant in any sort of harassing way.  ANGELA         I understand.  SOUND          DOOR OPENS, HE GOES OUT AMB            RAIN, CRICKETS BOB            I'll check it out, but first...  [chuckles] MUSIC   22.         hallway SOUND          PELTING FOOTSTEPS TODD           [breathless] wait!  I need to know if it's Laurel! HAL            [panting, stays ahead] [yelling] Get ready!! SOUND          DOOR OPENS, AHEAD LYN            Come on! HAL            [gasping mutter] God I hope this works. [up] Out of the way! SOUND          BATTERS THROUGH DOOR LYN            Over here! SOUND          LID OPENS TODD           [still outside] No!  Check first! SOUND          DOOR SHUTS SOUND          POUNDING ON DOOR GEE            Do it quick!  We have to know if this will work! SOUND          RUSTLE OF HEAVY FABRIC, CLATTER OF WOOD MONKEYHEAD     [SCREECH] SOUND          POUNDING OF WOOD ON METAL TODD           [from outside]  Don't leave me out here by myself! GEE            [to him] Just a sec!  Come on! LYN            It's climbing out! HAL            [groan, slump] MUSIC   23.         Parking lot AMB            OUTSIDE SOUND          RUMMAGING IN STUFF RENTACOP BOB    [chuckles] Not on MY watch. SOUND          ZAPZAP OF TASER.  PUT IN CASE. RENTACOP BOB    Little shits deserve a scare. SOUND          REVOLVER CYLINDER SPINS, GUN INTO HOLSTER RENTACOP BOB    Let's see your little pranks now. SOUND          TRUNK SLAMS HUT SOUND          FEET SET OFF ACROSS GRAVEL MUSIC   24.         Craft shop LYN            Oh!  [noise as she smacks the doll]  Uh!  Uh! UH!!! MONKEYHEAD     [SCREECH, dwindling] SOUND          IT FALLS BACK, SHE SLAMS LID! LYN            [Breathing heavily]  Done. SOUND          DOOR OPENS, TODD RUNS IN, DOOR SHUTS TODD           Noooo! GEE            Did yours have a monkey's head? TODD           Huh?  [gasp of relief] No!  Ahhh. LYN            You could have helped. HAL            I - I don't.... LYN            Oh no!  He's bleeding! BARB           [screams] END OF PART 3  

Our first big release of the year was working with Apple. We now integrate with Apple Podcast Subscription shows for easy publishing directly from the Blubrry platform. Anyone producing a premium subscription based Apple Podcast can now publish their premium episodes directly through our platform and we're very excited about it. Tune in to hear more on that feature as well as some cools tools in Slack and for Podcasting 2.0. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Podcast Insider. Looking to be a guest on the show? Let us know. Emails are listed at the bottom of show notes. News Apple Podcast Subscriptions integrated into the Blubrry platform PRX using V4V in a new way Levar Burton is launching his first kid's podcast, Sound Detectives Slack now produces a transcript if you upload an audio file. Not sure how useable it is yet, but we discovered that last week. Other chat services have this too. True Crime podcast listener now a murder suspect Best Practice Reach out to be a guest on your favorite podcast! We don't mean your favorite podcast that is not relevant to insights or expertise that you can provide, but you should reach out to be a guest on a show you're familiar with for a meaningful conversation. Blubrry News Lots of Podcasting 2.0 features are now in the Blubrry publisher. Learn more here and here. Location Transcripts Chapters Person Live Item TXT Podping Value (V4V) Coming very soon PowerPress will be updated with the same tags very soon Todd will be keynote speaking at Podfest Expo in Orlando Thursday and Friday -   If you are in the area, we have some expo-only passes available. Reach out to MacKenzie. Todd will also speak at Podcast Movement Evolutions in Las Vegas in March. Blubrry Pro Tip First Impressions Artwork Question of the Week Question:I use an AudioTechnica ATH-M50 headset for my podcasting, but I need to buy three more pairs for guests, and I don't want to spend $200 on each pair. Can you recommend a "decent" headphone option that sounds neutral and easy to listen to for long periods of time that's under $100? Answer: (Mike)I have a set of Sony MDR 7506 headphones that I like a lot. They are around $80 and seem tough as well. At least I haven't broken them yet :)  (Todd) You could likely go cheaper than that for guests. As long as they can hear you and the headphones are comfortable, it shouldn't be an issue. Sony Headphones at B&H Got a question you'd like us to answer on the show? Drop an email to mike@blubrry.com (audio, text, video) and we may use it. You can also post a question on the Blubrry Podcasting Facebook group. The best place for support with any Blubrry product or service is our ticket system (https://blubrry.com/support/). Tickets give the whole team access rather than direct emails or calls. Coming to you this week from The New Media Production studio in Coldwater, Michigan & Mike Dell's World Studio in Traverse City, Michigan. Produced by the Blubrry Pro-Production team. Fill out our listener survey at surveys.blubrry.com/podcastinsider Schedule a one-on-one with Todd (hosting customers only). Email todd@blubrry.com Schedule a tech checkup with Mike (hosting customers only). Email mike@blubrry.com Send us your podcast sticker and a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) and we will send you a Blubrry care package. Our mailing address: Blubrry – MacKenzie 150 E. Campus View Blvd. #180 Columbus, Ohio 43235

Today I'm joined by Todd Cherches, CEO of BigBlueGumball, a NYC-based management consulting firm specializing in leadership development and executive coaching, and author of "VisuaLeadership: Leveraging the Power of Visual Thinking in Leadership and in Life."In this conversation, we talk about Todd's book, the power of visual thinking, and how visual thinking can be applied through visual images, mental models, metaphors, and stories to be more effective in your thinking, decision-making, and communication. Visual thinking can help us lead more powerfully both at work and in life.Todd - You've packed so many useful tools into your book! And, you give more depth of insight in this conversation. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us.Resources MentionedFind Todd: https://www.toddcherches.com/Get the Book: https://www.toddcherches.com/bookLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddcherches/Twitter: https://twitter.com/toddcherchesTodd's article, “Can You Draw What Your Company Does?”: https://www.inc.com/todd-cherches/can-you-draw-what-your-company-does.htmlThanks for Listening!If you liked this episode, please rate, review, and share the episode. Thank you so much!Get show notes for this episode at https://sustainableambition.com/podcast I'd love to hear what's on your mind! Take the Sustainable Ambition Listener Survey: http://bit.ly/sapodcast-survey Submit a question or comment for future episodes at podcast@SustainableAmbition.com Get my curated bi-weekly Sustainable Ambition Forum newsletter. Sign up https://sustainableambition.com/subscribe

“I often talk about it as God's work because you may interpret it that way, but I think it is about connecting people,” explains Todd Nilson, Owner, Digital Strategist with Clocktower Advisors. Before starting Clocktower, a consultancy firm specializing in building online communities, Todd tried out multiple careers. Proud to say that this is the career that stuck, Todd shares his entrepreneurial journey and the importance of taking a risk.   Todd was working the highest-paying job of his career when he decided to leave and start his own business. Wanting to highlight his strategist skillset and needing the flexibility to take care of his parents, Todd knew it was time to take a chance. By creating online communities for his clients, Todd connects human beings and starts honest conversations.    If there's something you want to do, do it. Otherwise, you're going to regret it. Learn more about Todd's impetus into entrepreneurship, the benefits of an online community, and the importance of a curious mindset.   Quotes • “I often talk about it as God's work because you may interpret it that way. I think it is about connecting people.” (12:21-12:30 | Todd) • “Our neighbor is not necessarily the person living next door to us anymore. Our neighbor is the person who is somewhat similar to us or has something they're trying to learn or something they need. And we find them in some place of affinity. And that's often online.” (12:33-12:55 | Todd)  • “Having that curious mindset is a gift, and being able to create curiosity is an even bigger gift.”  (30:49-30:56 | Todd) • “If you're going to get a tool, make sure it's not just for one specific thing, but it's going to help you in a couple of different ways.” (47:22-47:29 | Todd) • “You don't want to look back with regret and say, “I have this great idea for a business, and I just stuck with the job. I stuck with the job because I was making money for my family.” There's nothing wrong with that, but I think that kind of regret is poison to you.” (49:57-50:15 | Todd)   Links Get in touch with Todd Nilson: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tnilson/ Clocktower Advisors - https://clocktoweradvisors.com/ Get in touch with host Jeff Meyer: www.jeffmeyer.org Book a FREE 30-Minute Dream Discovery Call with Jeff: https://calendly.com/d/dk6-mzr-dsq Schedule a Discovery Call with Jeff: https://go.oncehub.com/DreamAcceleratorDiscoveryCall   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Looking to monetize your podcast? Luckily, Blubrry has programmatic advertising coming soon to our platform for all hosting customers. Mike and Todd chat about what this will entail with our podcasters and lots on Spotify, as they had lots to say in a presentation earlier this week on their future, RSS feeds and their active monthly users. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Podcast Insider. Looking to be a guest on the show? Let us know. Emails are listed at the bottom of show notes. Live Facebook recording. News From Podnews: Maya Prohovnik, who oversees Spotify's creator tools across podcasting, described RSS as “outdated technology”, and said they have been able to replace it for their on-platform distribution. She also claimed that every new Anchor show brings 2.5 new monthly active users to the Spotify platform. Ashley Carman's Twitter thread on it here.  Spotify Investor Day recap here. Spotify, a 20 billion opportunity, including insight into advertising Apple Podcasts changes some of their user agents (very geeky) but good news Blue Wire says its studio at the Wynn Las Vegas is helping it stand out Clubhouse loses 4 executives Bob Saget's final podcast interview to air on Til This Day podcast Why so many TV shows have podcast companions Best Practice Instagram Stories: Great for promoting episodes specifically, and use posts to promote the show overall. When new episodes are released the 24hr story option is an easy way to share new content or content that is currently relevant. Posts tend to be more useful for the long haul. Blubrry News Blog Post: Why you need a template for your podcast by Jen Thorpe Todd will be speaking at PodStock in New Jersey this weekend Want to monetize? Programmatic advertising coming to Blubrry soon! Email MacKenzie@blubrry.com if you'd like to be June's Pride podcaster of the month. Blubrry Pro Tip Podcast environment   Question of the Week Q: From Janet Lewis on Facebook. “Since the pandemic, I have been recording my podcasts online using zoom BUT my podcast editor just shared with me that my guest and myself are speaking at different levels. If you are recording a podcast via zoom are you just using the output from zoom OR are you using additional tools to ensure you and your guest are speaking at the same level?” Answer: I [Mike] would recommend you run the file through Auphonic (Auphonic.com) It will auto-level your episode file for you so both parties sound at the same level. The Blubrry Pro team uses it for Podcast Insider and it works very well. Todd: You may also want to consider not recording in Zoom. You may want to consider something like a Rodecaster that integrates with Zoom but will allow you to control levels. Got a question you'd like us to answer on the show? Drop an email to mike@blubrry.com (audio, text, video) and we may use it. You can also post a question on the Blubrry Podcasting Facebook group.  The best place for support with any Blubrry products/services is our ticket system (https://blubrry.com/support/). Tickets give the whole team access rather than direct emails or calls. ______________ Coming to you this week from the New Media studio in Coldwater, Michigan & Mike Dell's World Studio in Traverse City, Michigan.  Produced by the Blubrry Pro-Production team.  NEW! Fill out our listener survey at surveys.blubrry.com/podcastinsider  Schedule a one-on-one with Todd (hosting customers only). Email todd@blubrry.com Schedule a tech checkup with Mike (hosting customers only). Email mike@blubrry.com Send us your podcast sticker and a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) and we will send you a Blubrry care package. Our mailing address is: Blubrry – MacKenzie 150 E. Campus View Blvd. #180 Columbus, Ohio 43235

Looking to monetize your podcast? Luckily, Blubrry has programmatic advertising coming soon to our platform for all hosting customers. Mike and Todd chat about what this will entail with our podcasters and lots on Spotify, as they had lots to say in a presentation earlier this week on their future, RSS feeds and their active monthly users. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Podcast Insider. Looking to be a guest on the show? Let us know. Emails are listed at the bottom of show notes. Live Facebook recording. News From Podnews: Maya Prohovnik, who oversees Spotify's creator tools across podcasting, described RSS as “outdated technology”, and said they have been able to replace it for their on-platform distribution. She also claimed that every new Anchor show brings 2.5 new monthly active users to the Spotify platform. Ashley Carman's Twitter thread on it here.  Spotify Investor Day recap here. Spotify, a 20 billion opportunity, including insight into advertising Apple Podcasts changes some of their user agents (very geeky) but good news Blue Wire says its studio at the Wynn Las Vegas is helping it stand out Clubhouse loses 4 executives Bob Saget's final podcast interview to air on Til This Day podcast Why so many TV shows have podcast companions Best Practice Instagram Stories: Great for promoting episodes specifically, and use posts to promote the show overall. When new episodes are released the 24hr story option is an easy way to share new content or content that is currently relevant. Posts tend to be more useful for the long haul. Blubrry News Blog Post: Why you need a template for your podcast by Jen Thorpe Todd will be speaking at PodStock in New Jersey this weekend Want to monetize? Programmatic advertising coming to Blubrry soon! Email MacKenzie@blubrry.com if you'd like to be June's Pride podcaster of the month. Blubrry Pro Tip Podcast environment   Question of the Week Q: From Janet Lewis on Facebook. “Since the pandemic, I have been recording my podcasts online using zoom BUT my podcast editor just shared with me that my guest and myself are speaking at different levels. If you are recording a podcast via zoom are you just using the output from zoom OR are you using additional tools to ensure you and your guest are speaking at the same level?” Answer: I [Mike] would recommend you run the file through Auphonic (Auphonic.com) It will auto-level your episode file for you so both parties sound at the same level. The Blubrry Pro team uses it for Podcast Insider and it works very well. Todd: You may also want to consider not recording in Zoom. You may want to consider something like a Rodecaster that integrates with Zoom but will allow you to control levels. Got a question you'd like us to answer on the show? Drop an email to mike@blubrry.com (audio, text, video) and we may use it. You can also post a question on the Blubrry Podcasting Facebook group.  The best place for support with any Blubrry products/services is our ticket system (https://blubrry.com/support/). Tickets give the whole team access rather than direct emails or calls. ______________ Coming to you this week from the New Media studio in Coldwater, Michigan & Mike Dell's World Studio in Traverse City, Michigan.  Produced by the Blubrry Pro-Production team.  NEW! Fill out our listener survey at surveys.blubrry.com/podcastinsider  Schedule a one-on-one with Todd (hosting customers only). Email todd@blubrry.com Schedule a tech checkup with Mike (hosting customers only). Email mike@blubrry.com Send us your podcast sticker and a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) and we will send you a Blubrry care package. Our mailing address is: Blubrry – MacKenzie 150 E. Campus View Blvd. #180 Columbus, Ohio 43235

This episode of The Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Todd Eastman, Vice President of Business Development (Enterprise Sales) at Logikcull. Todd shares how a desire to take control of his earning power attracted him to sales. He talks about joining Logikcull 15 years ago and the highs and lows of his career with them. They lead with integrity, cultivate a culture of collaboration, and promote the health and happiness of their people, which they are very proud to do.  HIGHLIGHTSSaaS over service: Riding the startup wave for 15 years runningLogikcull celebrates employees' 10 years of serviceTake a risk and don't settle to find longevityA culture of collaboration at LogikcullQUOTESTodd: "What if we cut out ourselves and build a product that lives on the web that you can just log into, drag and drop in your data, it's all automated and it's as easy as using the internet."Todd: "If you have just an inkling, just go for it. If the first sales job doesn't work out, there's plenty of sales jobs out there. A lot of people think sales is scary too but you start selling from infancy. You're selling your parents to buy you stuff."Todd: "I don't think you can ever stop being hungry and curious for knowledge. Don't have that ego. What can I learn from anyone? Junior, senior, peer. And we really cultivate a good environment there where I think people really embrace that."Todd: "You don't have to be cutthroat and cheat, lie, steal to win deals. And that's really a big thing for us like one of our company values is do the right thing. So we have a lot of alignment to that."Find out more about Todd and check job openings at Logikcull in the links below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddeastman/Website: https://www.logikcull.com/You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

01:09 - Todd's Superpower: Advocacy For Accessibility * Getting Started * Designing With Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman (https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Web-Standards-Jeffrey-Zeldman/dp/0321616952) * The A11Y Project (https://www.a11yproject.com/) * W3C (https://www.w3.org/) 06:18 - Joining The W3C * The W3C Community Page (https://www.w3.org/community/) 07:44 - Getting People/Companies/Stakeholders to Care/Prioritize About Accessibility * Making A Strong Case For Accessibility by Todd Libby (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2021/07/strong-case-for-accessibility/) * Diplomatic Advocacy * You Don't Want To Get Sued! / $$$ * “We are all temporarily abled.” 15:20 - The Domino's Pizza Story * Supreme Court hands victory to blind man who sued Domino's over site accessibility (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/07/dominos-supreme-court.html) 18:21 - Things That Typically Aren't Accessible And Should Be * The WebAIM Million Report (https://webaim.org/projects/million/) * WCAG (https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/) * Color Contrast * Missing Alt Text on Images * Form Input Labels * What's New in WCAG 2.1: Label in Name by Todd Libby (https://css-tricks.com/whats-new-in-wcag-2-1-label-in-name/) * Empty Links * Not Using Document Language * Triggering GIFS / Flashing Content * Empty Buttons – Use a Button Element!! * Tab Order * Semantic HTML, Heading Structure 26:27 - Accessibility for Mobile Devices * Target Size * Looking at WCAG 2.5.5 for Better Target Sizes (https://css-tricks.com/looking-at-wcag-2-5-5-for-better-target-sizes/) * Dragging Movements 28:08 - Color Contrast * Contrast Ratio (https://contrast-ratio.com/) 33:02 - Designing w/ Accessibility in Mind From the Very Beginning * Accessibility Advocates on Every Team * Accessibility Training 36:22 - Contrast (Cont'd) 38:11 - Automating Accessibility! * axe-core-gems (https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core-gems) Reflections: Mae: Eyeballing for contrast. John: We are all only temporarily abled and getting the ball rolling on building accessibility in from the beginning of projects going forward and fixing older codebases. Mandy: Using alt-tags going forward on all social media posts. Todd: Accessibility work will never end. Accessibility is a right not a privilege. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: JOHN: Welcome to Greater Than Code, Episode 251. I'm John Sawers and I'm here with Mae Beale. MAE: Hi, there! And also, Mandy Moore. MANDY: Hi, everyone! I'm Mandy Moore and I'm here today with our guest, Todd Libby. Todd Libby is a professional web developer, designer, and accessibility advocate for 22 years under many different technologies starting with HTML/CSS, Perl, and PHP. Todd has been an avid learner of web technologies for over 40 years starting with many flavors of BASIC all the way to React/Vue. Currently an Accessibility Analyst at Knowbility, Todd is also a member of the W3C. When not coding, you'll usually find Todd tweeting about lobster rolls and accessibility. So before I ask you what your superpower is, I'm going to make a bet and my bet is that I'm 80% positive that your superpower has something to do with lobster rolls. Am I right? [laughter] Am I right? TODD: Well, 80% of the time, you'd be right. I just recently moved to Phoenix, Arizona. So I was actually going to say advocacy for accessibility, but yes, lobster rolls and the consumption of lobster rolls are a big part. MAE: I love it. That's fantastic. MANDY: Okay. Well, tell me about the advocacy. [chuckles] TODD: So it started with seeing family members who are disabled, friends who are disabled, or have family members themselves who are disabled, and the struggles they have with trying to access websites, or web apps on the web and the frustration, the look of like they're about ready to give up. That's when I knew that I would try to not only make my stuff that I made accessible, but to advocate for people in accessibility. MAE: Thank you so much for your work. It is critical. I have personally worked with a number of different populations and started at a camp for children with critical illnesses and currently work at an organization that offers financial services for people with disabilities – well, complex financial needs, which the three target populations that we work with are people with disabilities, people with dementia, and people in recovery. So really excited to talk with you today. Thanks. TODD: You're welcome. JOHN: When you started that journey, did you already have familiarity with accessibility, or was it all just like, “Oh, I get to learn all this stuff so I can start making it better”? TODD: So I fell into it because if you're like me and you started with making table-based layouts way back in the day, because what we had—Mosaic browser, Netscape Navigator, and Internet Explorer—we were making table-based layouts, which were completely inaccessible, but I didn't know that. As the web progressed, I progressed and then I bought a little orange book by Jeffrey Zeldman, Designing with Web Standards, and that pretty much started me on my journey—semantic HTML, progressive enhancement in web standards, and accessibility as well. I tend to stumble into a lot of stuff [laughs] so, and that's a habit of mine. [laughs] MAE: It sounds like it's a good habit and you're using it to help all the other people. So I hate to encourage you to keep stumbling, but by all means. [laughter] Love it. If you were to advise someone wanting to know more about accessibility, would you suggest they start with that same book too, or what would you suggest to someone stumbling around in the dark and not hitting anything yet? TODD: The book is a little outdated. I think the last edition of his book was, I want to say 2018, maybe even further back than that. I would suggest people go on websites like The A11Y project, the a11yproject.com. They have a comprehensive list of resources, links to learning there. Twitter is a good place to learn, to follow people in the accessibility space. The other thing that, if people really want to dive in, is to join The W3C. That's a great place and there's a lot of different groups. You have the CSS Working Group, you have the accessibility side of things, which I'm a part of, the Silver Community Group, which is we're working on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 3.0, which is still a little ways down the road, but a lot of great people and a lot of different companies. Some of those companies we've heard of—Google, Apple, companies like that all the way down to individuals. Individuals can join as individuals if your company isn't a member of the W3C. So those are the three things that I mainly point to people. If you don't really want to dive into the W3C side of things, there's a lot of resources on the a11yproject.com website that you can look up. MANDY: So what does being a member entail? What do you have to do? Do you have to pay dues? Do you have to do certain projects, maybe start as an individual level, because I'm sure we have mostly individuals listening to the show. Me as a newbie coder, what would I do to get started as a member of this initiative? TODD: Well, I started out as an individual myself, so I joined and I can get you the link to The W3C Community Page. Go to sign up as an individual and someone will approve the form process that you go through—it's nothing too big, it's nothing complicated—and then that will start you on your way. You can join a sub group, you can join a group, a working group, and it doesn't cost an individual. Companies do pay dues to the W3C and if your company is in the W3C, you get ahold of your company's liaison and there's a process they go through to add you to a certain group. Because with me, it was adding me to The Silver Community Group. But as an individual, you can join in, you can hop right into a meeting from there, and then that's basically it. That's how you start. JOHN: What are the challenges you see in getting not only the goals of a W3C, but I'm assuming specifically around accessibility? TODD: Some of the things that I've seen is buy-in from stakeholders is probably the number one hurdle, or barrier. Companies, stakeholders, and board members, they don't think of, or in some cases, they don't care about accessibility until a company is getting sued and that's a shame. That's one of the things that I wrote about; I have an article on Smashing Magazine. Making A Strong Case for Accessibility, it's called and that is one of few things that I've come across. Getting buy-in from stakeholders and getting buy-in from colleagues as well because you have people that they don't think about accessibility, they think about a number of different things. Mostly what I've come across is they don't think about accessibility because there's no budget, or they don't have the time, or the company doesn't have the time. It's not approved by the company. The other thing that is right up there is it's a process—accessibility—making things accessible and most people think that it's a big this huge mountain to climb. If you incorporate accessibility from the beginning of your project, it's so much easier. You don't have to go back and you don't have to climb that mountain because you've waited until the very end. “Oh, we have time now so we'll do the accessibility stuff,” that makes it more hard. MAE: John, your question actually was similar to something I was thinking about with how you developed this superpower and I was going to ask and still will now. [chuckles] How did you afford all the time in the different places where you were overtime to be able to get this focus? And so, how did you make the case along the way and what things did you learn in that persuasion class of life [chuckles] that was able to allow you to have that be where you could focus and spend more time on and have the places where you work prioritize successful? TODD: It was a lot of, I call it diplomatic advocacy. So for instance, the best example I have is I had been hired to make a website, a public facing website, and a SAAS application accessible. The stakeholder I was directly reporting to, we were sitting down in a meeting one day and I said, “Well, I want to make sure that accessibility is the number one priority on these projects,” and he shot back with, “Well, we don't have the disabled users,” and that nearly knocked me back to my chair. [laughs] So that was a surprise. MAE: There's some groaning inside and I had to [chuckles] do it out loud for a moment. Ooh. TODD: Yeah, I did my internal groaning at the meeting so that just was – [chuckles] Yeah, and I remember that day very vividly and I probably will for the rest of my life that I looked at him and I had to stop and think, and I said, “Well, you never know, there's always a chance that you're able, now you could be disabled at any time.” I also pointed out that his eyeglasses that he wore are an assistive technology. So there was some light shed on that and that propelled me even further into advocacy and the accessibility side of things. That meeting really opened my eyes to not everyone is going to get it, not everyone is going to be on board, not everyone is going to think about disabled users; they really aren't. So from there I used that example. I also use what I call the Domino's Pizza card lately because “Oh, you don't want to get sued.' That's my last resort as far as advocacy goes. Other than that, it's showing a videotape of people using their product that are disabled and they can't use it. That's a huge difference maker, when a stakeholder sees that somebody can't use their product. There's numbers out there now that disabled users in this country alone, the United States, make up 25% of the population, I believe. They have a disposable income of $8 trillion. The visually disabled population alone is, I believe it was $1.6 billion, I think. I would have to check that number again, but it's a big number. So the money side of things really gets through to a stakeholder faster than “Well, your eyeglasses are a assistive technology.” So once they hear the financial side of things, their ears perk up real quick and then they maybe get on board. I've never had other than one stakeholder just saying, “No, we're just going to skip that,” and then that company ended up getting sued. So that says a lot, to me anyways. But that's how I really get into it. And then there was a time where I was working for another company. I was doing consulting for them and I was doing frontend mostly. So it was accessibility, but also at the same time, it was more the code side of things. That was in 2018. 2019, I went to a conference in Burlington, Vermont. I saw a friend of mine speaking and he was very passionate about it and that talk, and there was a couple others there as well, it lit that fire under me again, and I jumped right back in and ever since then, it's just then accessibility. MAE: You reminded me one of the arguments, or what did you say? Diplomatic advocacy statements that I have used is that we are all temporarily abled. [chuckles] Like, that's just how it is and seeing things that way we can really shift how you orient to the idea of as other and reduce the othering. But I was also wondering how long it would be before Pizza Hut came up in our combo. [laughter] MANDY: Yeah, I haven't heard of that. Can you tell us what that is? TODD: [chuckles] So it was Domino's and they had a blind user that tried to use their app. He couldn't use their app; their app wasn't accessible. He tried to use the website; the website wasn't accessible. I have a link that I can send over to the whole story because I'm probably getting bits and pieces wrong. But from what I can recall, basically, this user sued Domino's and instead of Domino's spending, I believe it was $36,000 to fix their website and their app, they decided to drag it out for a number of years through court and of course, spent more money than just $36,000. In the end, they lost. I think they tried to appeal to the Supreme Court because they've gone up as high as federal court, but regardless, they lost. They had to – and I don't know if they still have an inaccessible site, or not, or the app for that matter because I don't go to Domino's. But that's basically the story that they had; a user who tried to access the app and the website, couldn't use it, and they got taken to court. Now Domino's claimed, in the court case, that he could have used the telephone, but he had tried to use the telephone twice and was on hold for 45 minutes. So [laughs] that says a lot. JOHN: Looks like it actually did go to the Supreme Court. TODD: Yeah. Correct me if I'm wrong, I think they did not want to hear it. They just said, “No, we're not going to hear the case.” Yeah, and just think about all these apps we use and all the people that can't access those apps, or the websites. I went to some company websites because I was doing some research, big companies, and a lot of them are inaccessible. A little number that I can throw out there: every year, there's been a little over 2,500 lawsuits in the US. This year, if the rate keeps on going that it has, we're on course for over 4,000 lawsuits in the US alone for inaccessible websites. You've had companies like Target, Bank of America, Winn-Dixie, those kinds of companies have been sued by people because of inaccessible sites. MAE: Okay, but may I say this one thing, which is, I just want to extend my apologies to Pizza Hut. [laughter] MANDY: What kinds of things do you see as not being accessible that should be or easily could be that companies just simply aren't doing? TODD: The big one, still and if you go to webaim.org/projects/million, it's The WebAIM Million report. It's an annual accessibility analysis of the top 1 million home pages on the internet. The number one thing again, this year is color contracts. There are guidelines in place. WCAG, which is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, that text should be a 4.5:1 ratio that reaches the minimum contrast for texts. It's a lot of texts out there that doesn't even reach that. So it's color contrast. You'll find a lot of, if you look at—I'm looking at the chart right now—missing alt texts on images. If you have an image that is informative, or you have an image that is conveying something to a user, it has to have alternative text describing what's in the picture. You don't have to go into a long story about what's in the picture and describe it thoroughly; you can just give a quick overview as to what the picture is trying to convey, what is in the picture. And then another one being another failure type a is form input labels; labels that are not labeled correctly. I wrote a article about that [chuckles] on CSS-Tricks and that is, there's programmatic and there's accessible names for form labels that not only help the accessibility side of it, as far as making the site accessible, but also it helps screen reader users read forms and navigate through forms, keyboard users also. Then you have empty links and then a big one that I've seen lately is if you look up in the source code, you see the HTML tag, and the language attribute, a lot of sites now, because they use trademarks, they don't have a document language. I ran across a lot of sites that don't use a document language. They're using a framework. I won't name names because I'm not out to shame, but having that attribute helps screen reader users and I think that's a big thing. A lot of accessibility, people don't understand. People use screen readers, or other assistive technologies, for instance, Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice input. But at the same time, I've got to also add accessibility is more than just deaf, or blind. I suffer from migraines, migraine headaches so animation, or motion from say, parallax scrolling can trigger a migraine. Animations that are too fast, that also trigger migraine headache. You have flashing content that can potentially cause seizures and that's actually happened before where an animated GIF was intentionally sent to someone and it caused a seizure and almost killed the person. So there's those and then the last thing on this list that I'm looking at right now, and these are common failures, empty buttons. You have buttons that don't have labels. Buttons that have Click here. Buttons need to be descriptive. So you want to have – on my site to send me something on the contact form, it's Send this info to Todd, Click here, or something similar like that. MAE: Can you think of any, John that you know of, too? I've got a couple of mind. How about you, Mandy? MANDY: For me, because I'm just starting out, I don't know a whole lot about accessibility. That's why I'm here; I'm trying to learn. But I am really conscious and careful of some of the GIFs that I use, because I do know that some of the motion ones, especially really fast-moving ones, can cause problems, migraines, seizures for people. So when posting those, I'm really, really mindful about it. JOHN: Yeah, the Click here one is always bothers me too, because not only is it bad accessibility, it's bad UX. Like HTML loves you to turn anything into a link so you can make all the words inside the button and it's just fine. [laughs] There's so many other ways to do it that are just – even discounting the accessibility impact, which I don't want it. TODD: Yeah, and touching upon that, I'm glad you brought up the button because I was just going to let that go [chuckles] past me. I have to say and I think it was in the email where it said, “What's bothering you?” What bothers me is people that don't use the button. If you are using a div, or an anchor tag, or a span, stop it. [laughs] Just stop it. There's a button element for that. I read somewhere that anchor tag takes you somewhere, a div is a container, but button is for a button. MAE: I love that. The only other ones I could think of is related to something you said, making sure to have tab order set up properly to allow people to navigate. Again, I liked your point about you don't have to be fully blind to benefit from these things and having keyboard accessibility can benefit a lot of people for all kinds of reasons. The other one is, and I would love to hear everybody's thoughts on this one, I have heard that we're supposed to be using h1, h2, h3 and having proper setup of our HTML and most of us fail just in that basic part. That's another way of supporting people to be able to navigate around and figure out what's about to be on this page and how much should I dig into it? So more on non-visual navigation stuff. TODD: Yeah, heading structure is hugely important for keyboard users and screen reader users as well as tab order and that's where semantic HTML comes into play. If you're running semantic HTML, HTML by default, save for a few caveats, is accessible right out of the box. If your site and somebody can navigate through using let's say, the keyboard turns and they can navigate in a way that is structurally logical, for instance and it has a flow to it that makes sense, then they're going to be able to not only navigate that site, but if you're selling something on that site, you're going to have somebody buying something probably. So that's again, where tab order and heading structure comes into play and it's very important. JOHN: I would assume, and correct me if I'm wrong, or if you know this, that the same sort of accessibility enhancements are available in native mobile applications that aren't using each HTML, is that correct? TODD: Having not delved into the mobile side of things with apps myself, that I really can't answer. I can say, though, that the WCAG guidelines, that does pertain to mobile as well as desktop. There's no certain set of rules. 2.2 is where there are some new features that from mobile, for instance, target size and again, I wrote another article on CSS-Tricks about target size as well. So it's if you ever noticed those little ads that you just want to click off and get off your phone and they have those little tiny Xs and you're sitting there tapping all day? Those are the things target size and dragging movements as well. I did an audit for an app and there was a lot of buttons that were not named. A lot of the accessibility issues I ran into were the same as I would run into doing an audit on a website. I don't know anything about Swift, or Flutter, or anything like that, they pretty much fall into the same category with [inaudible] as far as accessible. JOHN: I also wanted to circle back on the first item that you listed as far as the WebAIM million thing was color contrast, which is one of those ones where a designer comes up with something that looks super cool and sleek, but it's dark gray on a light gray background. It looks great when you've got perfect eyesight, but anybody else, they're just like, “Oh my God, what's that?” That's also one of the things that's probably easiest to change site-wide; it's like you go in and you tweak the CSS and you're done in a half hour and you've got the whole site updated. So it's a great bit of low-hanging fruit that you can attach if you want to start on this process. TODD: Yeah. Color contrast is of course, as the report says, this is the number one thing and let me look back here. It's slowly, the numbers are dropping, but 85.3%, that's still a very high number of failures and there's larger text. If you're using anything over 18 pixels, or the equivalent of 18—it's either 18 points, or 18 pixels—is a 3:1 ratio. With that color contrast is how our brains perceive color. It's not the actual contrast of that color and there are people far more qualified than me going to that, or that can go into that. So what I'll say is I've seen a lot of teams and companies, “Yeah, we'll do a little over 4.5:1 and we'll call it a day.” But I always say, if you can do 7:1, or even 10:1 on your ratios and you can find a way to make your brand, or whatever the same, then go for it. A lot of the time you hear, “Well, we don't want to change the colors of our brand.” Well, your colors of your brand aren't accessible to somebody who that has, for instance, Tritanopia, which is, I think it's blues and greens are very hard to see, or they don't see it at all. Color deficiencies are a thing that design teams aren't going to check for. They're just not. Like you said, all these colors look awesome so let's just, we're going to go with that on our UI. That's one thing that I actually ran into on that SAAS product that I spoke about earlier was there was these colors and these colors were a dark blue, very muted dark blue with orange text. You would think the contrast would be oh yeah, they would be all right, but it was horrible. JOHN: You can get browser plugins, that'll show you what the page looks like. So you can check these things yourself. Like you can go in and say, “Oh, you're right. That's completely illegible.” TODD: Yeah. Firefox, like I have right here on my work machine. I have right here Firefox and it does this. There's a simulator for a visual color deficiencies. It also checks for contrast as well. Chrome has one, which it actually has a very cool eyedropper to check for color contrast. If you use the inspector also in Firefox, that brings up a little contrast thing. The WAVE extension has a contrast tool. There's also a lot of different apps. If you have a Mac, like I do, I have too many color contrast because I love checking out these color contrast apps. So I have about five different color contrast apps on my Mac, but there's also websites, too that you can use at the same time. Just do a search for polar contrast. Contrast Ratio, contrast-ratio.com, is from Lea Verou. I use that one a lot. A lot of people use that one. There's so many of them out there choose from, but they are very handy tool at designer's disposal and at developers' disposal as well. JOHN: So I'm trying to think of, like I was saying earlier, the color contrast one is one of those things that's probably very straightforward; you can upgrade your whole site in a short amount of time. Color contrast is a little trickier because it gets into branding and marketing's going to want to care about it and all that kind of stuff. So you might have a bit more battle around that, but it could probably be done and you might be able to fix, at least the worst parts of the page that have problems around that. So I'm just trying to think of the ways that you could get the ball rolling on this kind of a work. Like if you can get those early easy wins, it's going to get more people on board with the process and not saying like, “Oh, it's going to take us eight months and we have to go through every single page and change it every forum.” That sounds really daunting when you think about it and so, trying to imagine what those easy early wins are that can get people down that road. TODD: Yeah. Starting from the very outset of the project is probably the key one: incorporating accessibility from the start of the project. Like I said earlier, it's a lot easier when you do it from the start rather than waiting till the very end, or even after the product has been launched and you go back and go, “Oh, well, now we need to fix it.” You're not only putting stress on your teams, but it's eating up time and money because you're now paying everybody to go back and look at all these accessibility issues there. Having one person as a dedicated accessibility advocate on each team helps immensely. So you have one person on the development team, one person on the dev side, one person on the marketing team, starting from the top. If somebody goes there to a stakeholder and says, “Listen, we need to start incorporating accessibility from the very start, here's why,” Nine times out of ten, I can guarantee you, you're probably going to get that stakeholder onboard. That tenth time, you'll have to go as far as maybe I did and say, “Well, Domino's Pizza, or Bank of America, or Target.” Again, their ears are going to perk up and they're going to go, “Oh, well, I don't really, we don't want to get sued.” So that, and going back to having one person on each team: training. There are so many resources out there for accessibility training. There are companies out there that train, there are companies that you can bring in to the organization that will train, that'll help train. That's so easier than what are we going to do? A lot of people just sitting there in a room and go, “How are you going to do this?” Having that person in each department getting together with everybody else, that's that advocate for each department, meeting up and saying, “Okay, we're going to coordinate. You're going to put out a fantastic product that's going to be accessible and also, at the same time, the financial aspect is going to make the company money. But most of all, it's going to include a lot of people that are normally not included if you're putting out an accessible product.” Because if you go to a certain website, I can guarantee you it's going to be inaccessible—just about 99% of the web isn't accessible—and it's going to be exclusive as it's going to – somebody is going to get shut out of the site, or app. So this falls on the applications as well. Another thing too, I just wanted to throw in here for color contrast. There are different – you have color contrast text, but you also have non-text contrast, you have texts in images, that kind of contrast as well and it does get a little confusing. Let's face it, the guidelines right now, it's a very technically written – it's like a technical manual. A lot of people come up to me and said, “I can't read this. I can't make sense of this. Can you translate this?” So hopefully, and this is part of the work that I'm doing with a lot of other people in the W3C is where making the language of 3.0 in plain language, basically. It's going to be a lot easier to understand these guidelines instead of all that technical jargon. I look at something right now and I'm scratching my head when I'm doing an audit going, “Okay, what do they mean by this?” All these people come together and we agree on what to write. What is the language that's going to go into this? So when they got together 2.0, which was years and years ago, they said, “Okay, this is going to be how we're going to write this and we're going to publish this,” and then we had a lot of people just like me scratching their heads of not understanding it. So hopefully, and I'm pretty sure, 99.9% sure that it's going to be a lot easier for people to understand. MAE: That sounds awesome. And if you end up needing a bunch of play testers, I bet a lot of our listeners would be totally willing to put in some time. I know I would. Just want to put in one last plug for anybody out there who really loves automating things and is trying to avoid relying on any single developer, or designer, or QA person to remember to check for accessibility is to build it into your CI/CD pipeline. There are a lot of different options. Another approach to couple with that, or do independently is to use the axe core gems, and that link will be in the show notes, where it'll allow you to be able to sprinkle in your tests, accessibility checks on different pieces. So if we've decided we're going to handle color contrast, cool, then it'll check that. But if we're not ready to deal with another point of accessibility, then we can skip it. So it's very similar to Robocop. Anyway, just wanted to offer in some other tips and tricks of the trade to be able to get going on accessibility and then once you get that train rolling, it can do a little better, but it is hard to start from scratch. JOHN: That's a great tip, Mae. Thank you. TODD: Yeah, definitely. MANDY: Okay. Well, with that, I think it's about time we head into reflections; the point of the show, where we talk about something that we thought stood out, that we want to think about more, or a place that we can call for a call of action to our listeners, or even to ourselves. Who wants to go first? MAE: I can go first. I learned something awesome from you, Todd, which I have not thought of before, which is if I am eyeballing for “contrast,” especially color contrast, that's not necessarily what that means. I really appreciate learning that and we'll definitely be applying that in my daily life. [chuckles] So thanks for teaching me a whole bunch of things, including that. TODD: You're welcome. JOHN: I think for me, it's just the continuing reminder to – I do like the thinking that, I think Mae have brought up and also Todd was talking about earlier at the beginning about how we're all of us temporarily not disabled and that I think it helps bring some of that empathy a little closer to us. So it makes it a little more accessible to us to realize that it's going to happen to us at some point, at some level, and to help then bring that empathy to the other people who are currently in that state and really that's, I think is a useful way of thinking about it. Also, the idea that I've been thinking through as we've been talking about this is how do we get the ball rolling on this? We have an existing application that's 10 years old that's going to take a lot to get it there, but how do we get the process started so we feel like we're making progress there rather than just saying, “Oh, we did HTML form 27 out of 163. All right, back at it tomorrow.” It's hard to think about, so feeling like there's progress is a good thing. TODD: Yeah, definitely and as we get older, our eyes, they're one of the first things to go. So I'm going to need assistive technology at some point so, yeah. And then what you touched upon, John. It may be daunting having to go back and do the whole, “Okay, what are we going to do for accessibility now that this project, it's 10 years old, 15 years old?” The SAAS project that I was talking about, it was 15-year-old code, .net. I got people together; one from each department. We all got together and we ended up making that product accessible for them. So it can be done. [laughs] It can be done. JOHN: That's actually a good point. Just hearing about successes in the wild with particularly hard projects is a great thing. Because again, I'm thinking about it at the start of our project and hearing that somebody made it all through and maybe even repeatedly is hard. TODD: Yeah. It's not something that once it's done, it's done. Accessibility, just like the web, is an ever-evolving media. MANDY: For me. I think my reflection is going to be, as a new coder, I do want to say, I'm glad that we talked about a lot of the things that you see that aren't currently accessible that can be accessible. One of those things is using alt tags and right now, I know when I put the social media posts out on Twitter, I don't use the alt tags and I should. So just putting an alt tag saying, “This is a picture of our guest, Todd” and the title of the show would probably be helpful for some of our listeners. So I'm going to start doing that. So thank you. TODD: You're welcome. I'm just reminded of our talk and every talk that I have on a podcast, or with anybody just reminds me of the work that I have to do and the work that is being done by a lot of different people, other than myself as well, as far as advocacy goes in that I don't think it's ever going to be a job that will ever go away. There will always be a need for accessibility advocacy for the web and it's great just to be able to sit down and talk to people about accessibility and what we need to do to make the web better and more inclusive for everybody. Because I tweet out a lot, “Accessibility is a right, not a privilege,” and I really feel that to my core because the UN specifically says that the internet is a basic human and I went as far as to go say, “Well, so as an accessibility of that internet as well.” So that is my reflection. MAE: I'll add an alt tag for me right now is with a fist up and a big smile and a lot of enthusiasm in my heart. MANDY: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Todd. It's been really great talking with you and I really appreciate you coming on the show to share with us your knowledge and your expertise on the subject of accessibility. So with that, I will close out the show and say we do have a Slack and Todd will be invited to it if he'd like to talk more to us and the rest of the Greater Than Code community. You can visit patreon.com/greaterthancode and pledge to support us monthly and again, if you cannot afford that, or do not want to pledge to help run the show, you can DM anyone of us and we will get you in there for free because we want to make the Slack channel accessible for all. Have a great week and we'll see you next time. Goodbye! Special Guest: Todd Libby.

Todd: OK, Keith, if you won 1,000,000 dollars? No, wait, 10,000,000 dollars.Keith: 10,000,000.Todd: If you won 10,000,000, what would you do?Keith: Well, first thing I'd do, I'd probably buy a nice house for me and my wife.Todd: OK, where would this house be?Keith: Oh, I don't know. We'll have to talk about that with the wife but probably somewhere near Tokyo.Todd: OK. Would yo buy a house in the city or the country?Keith: Well, a little further out of the middle of Tokyo.Todd: So, it'd be in Japan.?Keith:Yeah, in Japan, but some place not too crowded.Todd: OK, would you have animals at this house?Keith: Not if I could help it.Todd: Really. No dog?Keith: Well, maybe a dog, but an outside dog.Todd: You got to have a dog, man.

Todd: OK, Keith, if you won 1,000,000 dollars? No, wait, 10,000,000 dollars.Keith: 10,000,000.Todd: If you won 10,000,000, what would you do?Keith: Well, first thing I'd do, I'd probably buy a nice house for me and my wife.Todd: OK, where would this house be?Keith: Oh, I don't know. We'll have to talk about that with the wife but probably somewhere near Tokyo.Todd: OK. Would yo buy a house in the city or the country?Keith: Well, a little further out of the middle of Tokyo.Todd: So, it'd be in Japan.?Keith:Yeah, in Japan, but some place not too crowded.Todd: OK, would you have animals at this house?Keith: Not if I could help it.Todd: Really. No dog?Keith: Well, maybe a dog, but an outside dog.Todd: You got to have a dog, man.

Todd: OK, Keith, if you won 1,000,000 dollars? No, wait, 10,000,000 dollars.Keith: 10,000,000.Todd: If you won 10,000,000, what would you do?Keith: Well, first thing I'd do, I'd probably buy a nice house for me and my wife.Todd: OK, where would this house be?Keith: Oh, I don't know. We'll have to talk about that with the wife but probably somewhere near Tokyo.Todd: OK. Would yo buy a house in the city or the country?Keith: Well, a little further out of the middle of Tokyo.Todd: So, it'd be in Japan.?Keith:Yeah, in Japan, but some place not too crowded.Todd: OK, would you have animals at this house?Keith: Not if I could help it.Todd: Really. No dog?Keith: Well, maybe a dog, but an outside dog.Todd: You got to have a dog, man.

Todd: OK. Daisuke!Daisuke: Yes.Todd: You work at the fish market?Daisuke: Yep.Todd: OK. What's the fish market like?Daisuke: It's, I'm working for Tsugigi Fish Market, which is quite big and it's of course the two place, which is inside and outside. I work for outside.Todd: Outside?Daisuke: Yeah. Inside is for, um, for professional people, like restaurant people, chefs cause the inside to buy better fish and outside fish market is for normal people like us, like everybody can go and buy fish.Todd: OK, well what do you do everyday at the fish market?Daisuke: Normally sell the fish. It's the main job. But I also have to carry fish, and you know, um carrying ice and put, put ice, um, yeah, and preserve fish.Todd: Wow, what time do you start work?Daisuke: 5:40.Todd: Wow, that's pretty early.Daisuke: Yeah.Todd: Wow. What time do you have to get up to get to work?Daisuke: About 4:30.Todd: 4:30. Yeah, do you get fish for free?Daisuke: No.Todd:No? Well, that's too bad.Daisuke: Yeah, it's no good.Todd: OK. Thanks, Daisuke.

Todd: OK. Daisuke!Daisuke: Yes.Todd: You work at the fish market?Daisuke: Yep.Todd: OK. What's the fish market like?Daisuke: It's, I'm working for Tsugigi Fish Market, which is quite big and it's of course the two place, which is inside and outside. I work for outside.Todd: Outside?Daisuke: Yeah. Inside is for, um, for professional people, like restaurant people, chefs cause the inside to buy better fish and outside fish market is for normal people like us, like everybody can go and buy fish.Todd: OK, well what do you do everyday at the fish market?Daisuke: Normally sell the fish. It's the main job. But I also have to carry fish, and you know, um carrying ice and put, put ice, um, yeah, and preserve fish.Todd: Wow, what time do you start work?Daisuke: 5:40.Todd: Wow, that's pretty early.Daisuke: Yeah.Todd: Wow. What time do you have to get up to get to work?Daisuke: About 4:30.Todd: 4:30. Yeah, do you get fish for free?Daisuke: No.Todd:No? Well, that's too bad.Daisuke: Yeah, it's no good.Todd: OK. Thanks, Daisuke.

Todd: OK. Daisuke!Daisuke: Yes.Todd: You work at the fish market?Daisuke: Yep.Todd: OK. What's the fish market like?Daisuke: It's, I'm working for Tsugigi Fish Market, which is quite big and it's of course the two place, which is inside and outside. I work for outside.Todd: Outside?Daisuke: Yeah. Inside is for, um, for professional people, like restaurant people, chefs cause the inside to buy better fish and outside fish market is for normal people like us, like everybody can go and buy fish.Todd: OK, well what do you do everyday at the fish market?Daisuke: Normally sell the fish. It's the main job. But I also have to carry fish, and you know, um carrying ice and put, put ice, um, yeah, and preserve fish.Todd: Wow, what time do you start work?Daisuke: 5:40.Todd: Wow, that's pretty early.Daisuke: Yeah.Todd: Wow. What time do you have to get up to get to work?Daisuke: About 4:30.Todd: 4:30. Yeah, do you get fish for free?Daisuke: No.Todd:No? Well, that's too bad.Daisuke: Yeah, it's no good.Todd: OK. Thanks, Daisuke.

Todd: OK. Jessica, we're back. We're gonna talk about your future. What do you want to be when you grow up?Jessica: Well, I want to be a physician's assistant.Todd: OK. What is a physician's assistant?Jessica: Well, normally when you go into the doctor's office, you wouldn't usually get-- well you would get your doctor all they do is check, give you check-ups or you know maybe take out stitches or something, not surgery.You just go in and do the little things. So the doctor does not have to do them.Todd: Oh, OK. So that is what you want to do?Jessica: Yeah.Todd: OK.Jessica: And make lots of money.Todd: You want to make lots of money?Jessica: OK. Nothing wrong with that.Todd: How do you become a physician's assistant. I can't even say it.Jessica: It's a lot of schooling. You have like six years, four or six years of college and you obviously take like nursing and other kinds of classes like that, and then you do like two or four years at like a hospital as a..Todd: Like an assistant, or..Jessica: Like you're actually doing the work.Todd: Oh, an intern.Jessica: An intern, yeah! An internship for two or four years at a hospital.Todd: Then, that's it. You finish.Jessica: And then you hopefully go on and maybe have your own little doctor's place and open that up or something.Todd: Well, best wishes on becoming a physician's assistant. I'm sure you'll make a good one.Jessica: Thank you.

Todd: OK. Jessica, we're back. We're gonna talk about your future. What do you want to be when you grow up?Jessica: Well, I want to be a physician's assistant.Todd: OK. What is a physician's assistant?Jessica: Well, normally when you go into the doctor's office, you wouldn't usually get-- well you would get your doctor all they do is check, give you check-ups or you know maybe take out stitches or something, not surgery.You just go in and do the little things. So the doctor does not have to do them.Todd: Oh, OK. So that is what you want to do?Jessica: Yeah.Todd: OK.Jessica: And make lots of money.Todd: You want to make lots of money?Jessica: OK. Nothing wrong with that.Todd: How do you become a physician's assistant. I can't even say it.Jessica: It's a lot of schooling. You have like six years, four or six years of college and you obviously take like nursing and other kinds of classes like that, and then you do like two or four years at like a hospital as a..Todd: Like an assistant, or..Jessica: Like you're actually doing the work.Todd: Oh, an intern.Jessica: An intern, yeah! An internship for two or four years at a hospital.Todd: Then, that's it. You finish.Jessica: And then you hopefully go on and maybe have your own little doctor's place and open that up or something.Todd: Well, best wishes on becoming a physician's assistant. I'm sure you'll make a good one.Jessica: Thank you.

Todd: OK. Jessica, we're back. We're gonna talk about your future. What do you want to be when you grow up?Jessica: Well, I want to be a physician's assistant.Todd: OK. What is a physician's assistant?Jessica: Well, normally when you go into the doctor's office, you wouldn't usually get-- well you would get your doctor all they do is check, give you check-ups or you know maybe take out stitches or something, not surgery.You just go in and do the little things. So the doctor does not have to do them.Todd: Oh, OK. So that is what you want to do?Jessica: Yeah.Todd: OK.Jessica: And make lots of money.Todd: You want to make lots of money?Jessica: OK. Nothing wrong with that.Todd: How do you become a physician's assistant. I can't even say it.Jessica: It's a lot of schooling. You have like six years, four or six years of college and you obviously take like nursing and other kinds of classes like that, and then you do like two or four years at like a hospital as a..Todd: Like an assistant, or..Jessica: Like you're actually doing the work.Todd: Oh, an intern.Jessica: An intern, yeah! An internship for two or four years at a hospital.Todd: Then, that's it. You finish.Jessica: And then you hopefully go on and maybe have your own little doctor's place and open that up or something.Todd: Well, best wishes on becoming a physician's assistant. I'm sure you'll make a good one.Jessica: Thank you.

Todd: So what are you doing this weekend, Adrianna?Adrianna: I'm going to Fukuoka with...to meet my friend.Todd: Oh cool, how do you know her?Adrianna: She went to university with me.Todd: What's she doing in Fukuoka?Adrianna: She's on the Jet Program, teaching.Todd: Oh, cool. Does she like it?Adrianna: Yeah, she likes it. She renewed her contract so this is her third year.Todd: Excellent. Do you know what you are going to be doing down in Fukuoka?Adrianna: I think she's going to take me to a pub.Todd: You've not been to any of them in Japan?Adrianna: No, not.. first time. And we are going to...What are we going to do? Oh, we're going to have a Thanksgiving celebration on Sunday and we're going to go to a Karaoke.Todd: OK, have you been to any Karaoke bars here?Adrianna: Yeah, I went to a Karaoke bar in Roppongi.Todd: Did you sing?Adrianna: Of course.Todd: Excellent. In English?Adrianna: Ah.. yeah. My Japanese isn't too great.Todd: What has she told you about Fukuoka?Adrianna: How do you mean?Todd: Like, do you know about the city?Adrianna: Not much.

Todd: So what are you doing this weekend, Adrianna?Adrianna: I'm going to Fukuoka with...to meet my friend.Todd: Oh cool, how do you know her?Adrianna: She went to university with me.Todd: What's she doing in Fukuoka?Adrianna: She's on the Jet Program, teaching.Todd: Oh, cool. Does she like it?Adrianna: Yeah, she likes it. She renewed her contract so this is her third year.Todd: Excellent. Do you know what you are going to be doing down in Fukuoka?Adrianna: I think she's going to take me to a pub.Todd: You've not been to any of them in Japan?Adrianna: No, not.. first time. And we are going to...What are we going to do? Oh, we're going to have a Thanksgiving celebration on Sunday and we're going to go to a Karaoke.Todd: OK, have you been to any Karaoke bars here?Adrianna: Yeah, I went to a Karaoke bar in Roppongi.Todd: Did you sing?Adrianna: Of course.Todd: Excellent. In English?Adrianna: Ah.. yeah. My Japanese isn't too great.Todd: What has she told you about Fukuoka?Adrianna: How do you mean?Todd: Like, do you know about the city?Adrianna: Not much.

Todd: So what are you doing this weekend, Adrianna?Adrianna: I'm going to Fukuoka with...to meet my friend.Todd: Oh cool, how do you know her?Adrianna: She went to university with me.Todd: What's she doing in Fukuoka?Adrianna: She's on the Jet Program, teaching.Todd: Oh, cool. Does she like it?Adrianna: Yeah, she likes it. She renewed her contract so this is her third year.Todd: Excellent. Do you know what you are going to be doing down in Fukuoka?Adrianna: I think she's going to take me to a pub.Todd: You've not been to any of them in Japan?Adrianna: No, not.. first time. And we are going to...What are we going to do? Oh, we're going to have a Thanksgiving celebration on Sunday and we're going to go to a Karaoke.Todd: OK, have you been to any Karaoke bars here?Adrianna: Yeah, I went to a Karaoke bar in Roppongi.Todd: Did you sing?Adrianna: Of course.Todd: Excellent. In English?Adrianna: Ah.. yeah. My Japanese isn't too great.Todd: What has she told you about Fukuoka?Adrianna: How do you mean?Todd: Like, do you know about the city?Adrianna: Not much.

Todd: All right. Tennessee, you were talking about how you like movies.Tenn: Yes, I'm a big movie buff.Todd: OK. What kind of movies do you like?Tenn: I kind of like most genres of movies. It's just-- what I look for is a good story and good characters is the main thing. So even if I like the genre, if like whether it be science fiction or historical drama, if the story isn't good then I don't like it at all.Todd: OK. Off the top of your head, what's a movie that you really liked?Tenn: Well, the Lord Of the Rings they've been doing I really have enjoyed.Todd: Uh-huh.Tenn: They did a good job.Todd: Did you read the books?Tenn: Oh, yes! It was one of the first adult books I've read when I was in elementary school.Todd: OK. Well, what is the last movie you saw?Tenn: The last movie I saw, Pirates of the Caribbean.Todd: OK. Was it any good?Tenn: Ah, it wasn't bad.Todd: It wasn't bad.Tenn: Yeah.Todd: Alright, thanks a lot.Tenn: I like pirates.Todd: You like pirates. What? You like pirates?Tenn: Oh, yeah! You know, when you're a kid, pirates is the thing to be.Todd: Yeah!Tenn: Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!Todd: OK. All right. Thanks, Tennessee.Tenn: OK.

Todd: All right. Tennessee, you were talking about how you like movies.Tenn: Yes, I'm a big movie buff.Todd: OK. What kind of movies do you like?Tenn: I kind of like most genres of movies. It's just-- what I look for is a good story and good characters is the main thing. So even if I like the genre, if like whether it be science fiction or historical drama, if the story isn't good then I don't like it at all.Todd: OK. Off the top of your head, what's a movie that you really liked?Tenn: Well, the Lord Of the Rings they've been doing I really have enjoyed.Todd: Uh-huh.Tenn: They did a good job.Todd: Did you read the books?Tenn: Oh, yes! It was one of the first adult books I've read when I was in elementary school.Todd: OK. Well, what is the last movie you saw?Tenn: The last movie I saw, Pirates of the Caribbean.Todd: OK. Was it any good?Tenn: Ah, it wasn't bad.Todd: It wasn't bad.Tenn: Yeah.Todd: Alright, thanks a lot.Tenn: I like pirates.Todd: You like pirates. What? You like pirates?Tenn: Oh, yeah! You know, when you're a kid, pirates is the thing to be.Todd: Yeah!Tenn: Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!Todd: OK. All right. Thanks, Tennessee.Tenn: OK.

Todd: All right. Tennessee, you were talking about how you like movies.Tenn: Yes, I'm a big movie buff.Todd: OK. What kind of movies do you like?Tenn: I kind of like most genres of movies. It's just-- what I look for is a good story and good characters is the main thing. So even if I like the genre, if like whether it be science fiction or historical drama, if the story isn't good then I don't like it at all.Todd: OK. Off the top of your head, what's a movie that you really liked?Tenn: Well, the Lord Of the Rings they've been doing I really have enjoyed.Todd: Uh-huh.Tenn: They did a good job.Todd: Did you read the books?Tenn: Oh, yes! It was one of the first adult books I've read when I was in elementary school.Todd: OK. Well, what is the last movie you saw?Tenn: The last movie I saw, Pirates of the Caribbean.Todd: OK. Was it any good?Tenn: Ah, it wasn't bad.Todd: It wasn't bad.Tenn: Yeah.Todd: Alright, thanks a lot.Tenn: I like pirates.Todd: You like pirates. What? You like pirates?Tenn: Oh, yeah! You know, when you're a kid, pirates is the thing to be.Todd: Yeah!Tenn: Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!Todd: OK. All right. Thanks, Tennessee.Tenn: OK.

Todd: Hello, Ann! How are you doing?Ann: I'm fine.Todd: Ann, could you introduce yourself and tell people where you are from?Ann: Yeah. My name's Ann Hutchingson and I'm from Montreal, Canada. Right now I'm an English teacher in Tokyo, Japan.Todd: OK. What's Montreal like?Ann: Montreal is a really nice city. It's just very cold in the wintertime. It is.. it has four seasons and the nicest season is the summertime because it's really warm and people play a lot of sports. There are some parks in Montreal and you can go swimming and hiking and biking and rollerblading. It's a very interesting city.Todd: Wow! Were you born in Montreal?Ann: I was born in Montreal and I can speak two languages. English is my first language but I also studied French in high school.Todd: So, were you in a submersion program, or all your subjects in French.Ann: No, I went to an English high school but a lot of people in Montreal are in immersion programs.Todd: OK. Since you learned French, what do you think is the best way to learn a language?Ann: I think that you have to like learning another language and if you have a positive attitude then you can find learning another language fun rather than stressful so I think that I had a few French friends and we would practice. They would be very patient and I liked the fact that I could communicate using another language because then you have another identity.Todd: You have your French identity?Ann: I do.Todd: OK. So what's your name in French?Ann: "Mono e Ann"Todd: Wow! I need to get myself a French name?Ann: Todd.Todd: OK. Thanks a lot Ann.Ann: You're welcome. Nice speaking with you.

Todd: Hello, Ann! How are you doing?Ann: I'm fine.Todd: Ann, could you introduce yourself and tell people where you are from?Ann: Yeah. My name's Ann Hutchingson and I'm from Montreal, Canada. Right now I'm an English teacher in Tokyo, Japan.Todd: OK. What's Montreal like?Ann: Montreal is a really nice city. It's just very cold in the wintertime. It is.. it has four seasons and the nicest season is the summertime because it's really warm and people play a lot of sports. There are some parks in Montreal and you can go swimming and hiking and biking and rollerblading. It's a very interesting city.Todd: Wow! Were you born in Montreal?Ann: I was born in Montreal and I can speak two languages. English is my first language but I also studied French in high school.Todd: So, were you in a submersion program, or all your subjects in French.Ann: No, I went to an English high school but a lot of people in Montreal are in immersion programs.Todd: OK. Since you learned French, what do you think is the best way to learn a language?Ann: I think that you have to like learning another language and if you have a positive attitude then you can find learning another language fun rather than stressful so I think that I had a few French friends and we would practice. They would be very patient and I liked the fact that I could communicate using another language because then you have another identity.Todd: You have your French identity?Ann: I do.Todd: OK. So what's your name in French?Ann: "Mono e Ann"Todd: Wow! I need to get myself a French name?Ann: Todd.Todd: OK. Thanks a lot Ann.Ann: You're welcome. Nice speaking with you.

Todd: Hello, Ann! How are you doing?Ann: I'm fine.Todd: Ann, could you introduce yourself and tell people where you are from?Ann: Yeah. My name's Ann Hutchingson and I'm from Montreal, Canada. Right now I'm an English teacher in Tokyo, Japan.Todd: OK. What's Montreal like?Ann: Montreal is a really nice city. It's just very cold in the wintertime. It is.. it has four seasons and the nicest season is the summertime because it's really warm and people play a lot of sports. There are some parks in Montreal and you can go swimming and hiking and biking and rollerblading. It's a very interesting city.Todd: Wow! Were you born in Montreal?Ann: I was born in Montreal and I can speak two languages. English is my first language but I also studied French in high school.Todd: So, were you in a submersion program, or all your subjects in French.Ann: No, I went to an English high school but a lot of people in Montreal are in immersion programs.Todd: OK. Since you learned French, what do you think is the best way to learn a language?Ann: I think that you have to like learning another language and if you have a positive attitude then you can find learning another language fun rather than stressful so I think that I had a few French friends and we would practice. They would be very patient and I liked the fact that I could communicate using another language because then you have another identity.Todd: You have your French identity?Ann: I do.Todd: OK. So what's your name in French?Ann: "Mono e Ann"Todd: Wow! I need to get myself a French name?Ann: Todd.Todd: OK. Thanks a lot Ann.Ann: You're welcome. Nice speaking with you.

Todd: OK. Kevin, we're back here in the forest. We're gonna talk about sports.Kevin: OK. Great. I love sports.Todd: What sports do you like?Kevin: Well, my favorite sport is baseball. Obviously, I grew up and my father was a baseball player so I was always aroundbaseball.Todd: Wow.Kevin: My whole life.Todd: You mean your father was a player in the Major Leagues?Kevin: Yeah, exactly. Not only was he a player in the Major Leagues, he was fortunate enough to play in the World Series twice with the New York Mets.Todd: Wow! That's amazing.Kevin: Yeah, The Amazing Met's. 1969.Todd: Wow, that's great. Did you play baseball yourself?Kevin: Yeah, I played baseball pretty much my whole life up through college and university.Todd: OK. Why did you stop?Kevin: Well, it wasn't exactly by choice. I wasn't drafted high enough in professional baseball to.. in order for me to sign, so I ended up retiring from baseball and pursuing other things.Todd: OK. Great. Do you like any others sports?Kevin: Yeah. I actually, I enjoy all competition. You know I enjoy the other typical American sports of basketball and American football and so on, but I also try to learn about and enjoy the national sport of the countries that I'm in. For example now I'm in Japan and I've actually gotten quite into Sumo wrestling.Todd: Oh, really?Kevin: Yeah.Todd: Nice. Have you ever seen a sumo match live?Kevin: Yes, I have. I've been to two sumo bashos as they call them, or matches in Tokyo.Todd: Nice. Yeah, I wanna go. I wanna go myself.Kevin: Yeah, let's go sometime.Todd: OK. Let's do it.

Todd: OK. Kevin, we're back here in the forest. We're gonna talk about sports.Kevin: OK. Great. I love sports.Todd: What sports do you like?Kevin: Well, my favorite sport is baseball. Obviously, I grew up and my father was a baseball player so I was always aroundbaseball.Todd: Wow.Kevin: My whole life.Todd: You mean your father was a player in the Major Leagues?Kevin: Yeah, exactly. Not only was he a player in the Major Leagues, he was fortunate enough to play in the World Series twice with the New York Mets.Todd: Wow! That's amazing.Kevin: Yeah, The Amazing Met's. 1969.Todd: Wow, that's great. Did you play baseball yourself?Kevin: Yeah, I played baseball pretty much my whole life up through college and university.Todd: OK. Why did you stop?Kevin: Well, it wasn't exactly by choice. I wasn't drafted high enough in professional baseball to.. in order for me to sign, so I ended up retiring from baseball and pursuing other things.Todd: OK. Great. Do you like any others sports?Kevin: Yeah. I actually, I enjoy all competition. You know I enjoy the other typical American sports of basketball and American football and so on, but I also try to learn about and enjoy the national sport of the countries that I'm in. For example now I'm in Japan and I've actually gotten quite into Sumo wrestling.Todd: Oh, really?Kevin: Yeah.Todd: Nice. Have you ever seen a sumo match live?Kevin: Yes, I have. I've been to two sumo bashos as they call them, or matches in Tokyo.Todd: Nice. Yeah, I wanna go. I wanna go myself.Kevin: Yeah, let's go sometime.Todd: OK. Let's do it.

Todd: OK. Kevin, we're back here in the forest. We're gonna talk about sports.Kevin: OK. Great. I love sports.Todd: What sports do you like?Kevin: Well, my favorite sport is baseball. Obviously, I grew up and my father was a baseball player so I was always aroundbaseball.Todd: Wow.Kevin: My whole life.Todd: You mean your father was a player in the Major Leagues?Kevin: Yeah, exactly. Not only was he a player in the Major Leagues, he was fortunate enough to play in the World Series twice with the New York Mets.Todd: Wow! That's amazing.Kevin: Yeah, The Amazing Met's. 1969.Todd: Wow, that's great. Did you play baseball yourself?Kevin: Yeah, I played baseball pretty much my whole life up through college and university.Todd: OK. Why did you stop?Kevin: Well, it wasn't exactly by choice. I wasn't drafted high enough in professional baseball to.. in order for me to sign, so I ended up retiring from baseball and pursuing other things.Todd: OK. Great. Do you like any others sports?Kevin: Yeah. I actually, I enjoy all competition. You know I enjoy the other typical American sports of basketball and American football and so on, but I also try to learn about and enjoy the national sport of the countries that I'm in. For example now I'm in Japan and I've actually gotten quite into Sumo wrestling.Todd: Oh, really?Kevin: Yeah.Todd: Nice. Have you ever seen a sumo match live?Kevin: Yes, I have. I've been to two sumo bashos as they call them, or matches in Tokyo.Todd: Nice. Yeah, I wanna go. I wanna go myself.Kevin: Yeah, let's go sometime.Todd: OK. Let's do it.

Todd: OK, Conrad.Conrad: Yeah.Todd: You're quite the jock!Conrad: Thanks Todd.Todd: Yeah. So, we're gonna talk about sports.Conrad: All right.Todd: What sports do you like?Conrad: Well, I like a lot of sports but basketball is my favorite. Definitely.Todd: Oh, really?Conrad: Yeah!Todd: OK. How long have you been playing basketball?Conrad: Let's see.. Probably about thirty years. I'm thirty seven now and I think I was in elementary school when I started to play at first.Todd: Wow, at what age were you your best?Conrad: Let's see.. Probably around 20 maybe. Sometime when I was in college. Yeah.Todd: What position did you play when you played basketball?Conrad: Guard. A little bit of forward, depending on what kind of team I was playing on.Todd: Yeah, were you mainly an offensive or defensive player?Conrad: Defensive. Yeah.Todd: OK. Do you still watch a lot of basketball on TV?Conrad: Well, now living in Japan I don't get many chances to watch the NBA but I do follow it on the internet.Todd: OK. Do you still play basketball?Conrad: Yeah. I play about once a week with my-- at the university I work at with the club team there.Todd: OK. Great. Alright. Thanks a lot Conrad.Conrad: Sure. No problemTodd.

Todd: OK, Conrad.Conrad: Yeah.Todd: You're quite the jock!Conrad: Thanks Todd.Todd: Yeah. So, we're gonna talk about sports.Conrad: All right.Todd: What sports do you like?Conrad: Well, I like a lot of sports but basketball is my favorite. Definitely.Todd: Oh, really?Conrad: Yeah!Todd: OK. How long have you been playing basketball?Conrad: Let's see.. Probably about thirty years. I'm thirty seven now and I think I was in elementary school when I started to play at first.Todd: Wow, at what age were you your best?Conrad: Let's see.. Probably around 20 maybe. Sometime when I was in college. Yeah.Todd: What position did you play when you played basketball?Conrad: Guard. A little bit of forward, depending on what kind of team I was playing on.Todd: Yeah, were you mainly an offensive or defensive player?Conrad: Defensive. Yeah.Todd: OK. Do you still watch a lot of basketball on TV?Conrad: Well, now living in Japan I don't get many chances to watch the NBA but I do follow it on the internet.Todd: OK. Do you still play basketball?Conrad: Yeah. I play about once a week with my-- at the university I work at with the club team there.Todd: OK. Great. Alright. Thanks a lot Conrad.Conrad: Sure. No problemTodd.

Todd: OK, Conrad.Conrad: Yeah.Todd: You're quite the jock!Conrad: Thanks Todd.Todd: Yeah. So, we're gonna talk about sports.Conrad: All right.Todd: What sports do you like?Conrad: Well, I like a lot of sports but basketball is my favorite. Definitely.Todd: Oh, really?Conrad: Yeah!Todd: OK. How long have you been playing basketball?Conrad: Let's see.. Probably about thirty years. I'm thirty seven now and I think I was in elementary school when I started to play at first.Todd: Wow, at what age were you your best?Conrad: Let's see.. Probably around 20 maybe. Sometime when I was in college. Yeah.Todd: What position did you play when you played basketball?Conrad: Guard. A little bit of forward, depending on what kind of team I was playing on.Todd: Yeah, were you mainly an offensive or defensive player?Conrad: Defensive. Yeah.Todd: OK. Do you still watch a lot of basketball on TV?Conrad: Well, now living in Japan I don't get many chances to watch the NBA but I do follow it on the internet.Todd: OK. Do you still play basketball?Conrad: Yeah. I play about once a week with my-- at the university I work at with the club team there.Todd: OK. Great. Alright. Thanks a lot Conrad.Conrad: Sure. No problemTodd.

Technology is great and terrible for our families. Millions upon millions of families have come before us with little to no technology. And they did pretty well for themselves. But here we are with too much technology and what are we supposed to do now? Todd Watson, CEO of Showit (the sponsor of our podcast!) and Chris' cousin, is on the podcast! This interview is packed with so much incredible info on how to keep our families safe in this technological world. Where to start We cannot expect to protect our kids from everything. That is a truth pill we have to swallow, right off the bat. But let's also remember that as adults, a lot of us need this info, whether we have kids or not. A lot of us grown ups are just as bad, if not worse, than kids with their devices!  In episode 31, we talked with Robert Watson about porn and sex. One thing that he told us was that your kids are not always looking for porn, but porn is looking for them! So teach them that there are just so many things they should not click on. And talk to them about staying safe online. Todd also mentioned that simply having a phone, and having texting capabilities is a form of social media. So even if your kids are not on social media (which we strongly recommend that they avoid it til they are at least 16, if not longer!), you still have to check up on them! If they can text, they are not getting a break from school life, or social life. When we were younger, when we left school for the day, that was it. We didn't bring the drama home with us. Make sure your kids are doing ok with who is texting them, and what people are texting them. Even deleted texts can haunt you forever - so be careful. And tell your kids to be careful.  Some tools Here are some of the apps and tools that Todd mentioned in this episode - qustodio.com - bark.com - Griffin Wifi router - set pins on Netflix Best parenting advice As always, our biggest pieces of advice for having a healthy home are to eat meals together and build your relationships! If eating dinner every night together is out of the question, then eat bowls of cereal together in the morning. Just make sure you have time to look each other in the eyeballs and say "how was your day? how is your heart?" Good Word of the Day Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. -Proverbs 22:6 Todd talked a lot about training our kids for character! SO GOOD! We can't control our kids and their actions. We can try to help them make better choices, and we can try to protect them from certain things. But if we train them to have good character, they will make a lot of those good choices for themselves! We mentioned that Rules Without Relationship Lead to Rebellion. Work on your relationship with your kids and your loved ones. Help them to understand the rules, and even have ownership in them! Hopefully this will mitigate some of the rebellion! Friends, none of us are going to get this right 100% of the time. Our kids will slip up. And so will we! So let's have grace, AND wisdom! Connect with Todd You can hear more about Todd's journey as a foster family in episode 6!  You can connect with him on social media, even though he is rarely on it. (So, good luck!) Connect with Us! Fostering Voices on Instagram You can also email us here! AND we would LOVE it if you would SUBSCRIBE and leave us a review on iTunes! This helps others to find our podcast so we can share these voices from the foster care and adoption community with more people! If you want to see how to leave a review, check out this handy little video!  

Todd: So, Anthony we're talking about bitcoin. Now you've invested in bitcoin before?Anthony: Yeah, yeah, a bit.Todd: Do you still invest a lot now?Anthony: I haven't recently.Todd: Okay, so why did you stop?Anthony: I stopped because I was getting a little anxious about seeing my portfolio swing up and down by 5, 6, 7 thousand dollars in a day. I kind of decided that I would take out the money that I invested in it and just let my profits ride, basically.Todd: Right, so basically originally then, you were using bitcoin for speculative purposes. Not to actually buy things. You weren't using it as a means to actually make transactions.Anthony: That is correct. I've only bought one thing with bitcoin, and that was, it's called a hardware wallet, which is basically, it looks like a USB stick, but it's a way to secure your funds.Todd: Do you think that in the future we will have people using bitcoins more, like it's going to become a viable alternative to actually, for commerce to pay for things?Anthony: Yeah, that's a good question. I don't think bitcoin will be what we all use, but it's definitely, in my opinion, the archetype for what is coming.Todd: It's the pioneer.Anthony: Yes, the pioneering technology. There's going to be something that is similar to bitcoin that we use as a digital payment system.Todd: Yeah, so a lot of people are freaked out about bitcoin. What are some reasons people are skeptical against it?Anthony: That's a good question. One question that I've been asked before is, who controls it? Everyone always wants to know who's in charge. Right. Who's the CEO? Right? Because we're so conditioned to this kind of system, but that is the thing. It's kind of scary for some people, but there is no control over it. It's a program at the end of the day. And there's no governing body. There's no government organization that really has a say. I mean governments, specific governments, will try to regulate the markets to a certain extent. But at the end of the day, the power is in the hands of the people that use it, really. And as long as people use it there will be some kind of value to it. Just as long as we use paper money, there's value to it. As long as it's exchanged, right?Todd: Right. And some people have made some good points. For example, nobody foresaw the use of ecommerce or smart phones, or social media. But these things adopted and ramped up quickly. So, do you think this could happen with these crypto technologies?Anthony: I think-Todd: Is that the right way to say it? Crypto technologies.Anthony: Cryptocurrencies.Todd: Cryptocurrencies.Anthony: Or block chain technologies.Todd: Block chain technology, okay.Anthony: I think it's very rapid right now. It's kind of becoming a household word. Whereas, when I first got into it, if I talked to someone about bitcoin, they would look at me like I was crazy. They would look at me like I had a hole in my face or something. But now people know. Even older people who aren't really so in touch with technology, know what it is or have at least heard about it.Anthony: I think the biggest hurdle to mass adoptions is as it stands now, it takes a lot of knowledge and a lot of know-how in order to safely, because the reason why I say safely, is because if you're dealing with bitcoin, you're in charge of securing your funds. So, if someone hacks into your funds, or something, then it's your fault. You don't have anyone to blame. Where as if you have your money in a bank-Todd: You can't call customer service.Anthony: Exactly. You can't call customer service, so there's a big hurdel as far as the knowledge you need to safely and effectively maneuver in that space. So I think until some second party or third party comes about and makes it more user-friendly, I don't really think it's going to be ready to really take over until that happens. Either more people need to be educated and know how to use it and how to purchase it and how to store it, etc. Or there needs to be some huge company that going to say, "Look, we'll manage it for you. You just need this app, or something." I don't know, something like that.Todd: Yeah, it's going to be interesting in the crossover. They always say be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. If bitcoin or some crypto-Anthony: CurrencyTodd: Currency becomes the primary source of transactions, I think a lot of the ills and the dodgy stuff we have with banks, will seep into it. It'll be interesting if they could keep it out. If you know what I mean. But one thing that's interesting about the currencies is that, I think a lot of old people will go for it. I think a lot of old people usually are hesitant about technology and change, but the thing, they have a lot of money that they're sitting on, usually, older people. They also don't trust the government. They've been around a long time and so I think these cryptocurrencies are going to be very attractive to a lot of tech un-savvy people. What do you think about that?Anthony: I think you have a point. I think that probably more so than young people have money to invest, but I think that's, like I said before, I've spent so many hours reading about these kinds of technologies and just really obsessing over it, and I still feel like there's so much I don't know. So.Todd: Well, I guess we all got to learn.Anthony: Yeah. Alright.

Todd: So, Anthony we're talking about bitcoin. Now you've invested in bitcoin before?Anthony: Yeah, yeah, a bit.Todd: Do you still invest a lot now?Anthony: I haven't recently.Todd: Okay, so why did you stop?Anthony: I stopped because I was getting a little anxious about seeing my portfolio swing up and down by 5, 6, 7 thousand dollars in a day. I kind of decided that I would take out the money that I invested in it and just let my profits ride, basically.Todd: Right, so basically originally then, you were using bitcoin for speculative purposes. Not to actually buy things. You weren't using it as a means to actually make transactions.Anthony: That is correct. I've only bought one thing with bitcoin, and that was, it's called a hardware wallet, which is basically, it looks like a USB stick, but it's a way to secure your funds.Todd: Do you think that in the future we will have people using bitcoins more, like it's going to become a viable alternative to actually, for commerce to pay for things?Anthony: Yeah, that's a good question. I don't think bitcoin will be what we all use, but it's definitely, in my opinion, the archetype for what is coming.Todd: It's the pioneer.Anthony: Yes, the pioneering technology. There's going to be something that is similar to bitcoin that we use as a digital payment system.Todd: Yeah, so a lot of people are freaked out about bitcoin. What are some reasons people are skeptical against it?Anthony: That's a good question. One question that I've been asked before is, who controls it? Everyone always wants to know who's in charge. Right. Who's the CEO? Right? Because we're so conditioned to this kind of system, but that is the thing. It's kind of scary for some people, but there is no control over it. It's a program at the end of the day. And there's no governing body. There's no government organization that really has a say. I mean governments, specific governments, will try to regulate the markets to a certain extent. But at the end of the day, the power is in the hands of the people that use it, really. And as long as people use it there will be some kind of value to it. Just as long as we use paper money, there's value to it. As long as it's exchanged, right?Todd: Right. And some people have made some good points. For example, nobody foresaw the use of ecommerce or smart phones, or social media. But these things adopted and ramped up quickly. So, do you think this could happen with these crypto technologies?Anthony: I think-Todd: Is that the right way to say it? Crypto technologies.Anthony: Cryptocurrencies.Todd: Cryptocurrencies.Anthony: Or block chain technologies.Todd: Block chain technology, okay.Anthony: I think it's very rapid right now. It's kind of becoming a household word. Whereas, when I first got into it, if I talked to someone about bitcoin, they would look at me like I was crazy. They would look at me like I had a hole in my face or something. But now people know. Even older people who aren't really so in touch with technology, know what it is or have at least heard about it.Anthony: I think the biggest hurdle to mass adoptions is as it stands now, it takes a lot of knowledge and a lot of know-how in order to safely, because the reason why I say safely, is because if you're dealing with bitcoin, you're in charge of securing your funds. So, if someone hacks into your funds, or something, then it's your fault. You don't have anyone to blame. Where as if you have your money in a bank-Todd: You can't call customer service.Anthony: Exactly. You can't call customer service, so there's a big hurdel as far as the knowledge you need to safely and effectively maneuver in that space. So I think until some second party or third party comes about and makes it more user-friendly, I don't really think it's going to be ready to really take over until that happens. Either more people need to be educated and know how to use it and how to purchase it and how to store it, etc. Or there needs to be some huge company that going to say, "Look, we'll manage it for you. You just need this app, or something." I don't know, something like that.Todd: Yeah, it's going to be interesting in the crossover. They always say be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. If bitcoin or some crypto-Anthony: CurrencyTodd: Currency becomes the primary source of transactions, I think a lot of the ills and the dodgy stuff we have with banks, will seep into it. It'll be interesting if they could keep it out. If you know what I mean. But one thing that's interesting about the currencies is that, I think a lot of old people will go for it. I think a lot of old people usually are hesitant about technology and change, but the thing, they have a lot of money that they're sitting on, usually, older people. They also don't trust the government. They've been around a long time and so I think these cryptocurrencies are going to be very attractive to a lot of tech un-savvy people. What do you think about that?Anthony: I think you have a point. I think that probably more so than young people have money to invest, but I think that's, like I said before, I've spent so many hours reading about these kinds of technologies and just really obsessing over it, and I still feel like there's so much I don't know. So.Todd: Well, I guess we all got to learn.Anthony: Yeah. Alright.

Todd: So, Anthony we're talking about bitcoin. Now you've invested in bitcoin before?Anthony: Yeah, yeah, a bit.Todd: Do you still invest a lot now?Anthony: I haven't recently.Todd: Okay, so why did you stop?Anthony: I stopped because I was getting a little anxious about seeing my portfolio swing up and down by 5, 6, 7 thousand dollars in a day. I kind of decided that I would take out the money that I invested in it and just let my profits ride, basically.Todd: Right, so basically originally then, you were using bitcoin for speculative purposes. Not to actually buy things. You weren't using it as a means to actually make transactions.Anthony: That is correct. I've only bought one thing with bitcoin, and that was, it's called a hardware wallet, which is basically, it looks like a USB stick, but it's a way to secure your funds.Todd: Do you think that in the future we will have people using bitcoins more, like it's going to become a viable alternative to actually, for commerce to pay for things?Anthony: Yeah, that's a good question. I don't think bitcoin will be what we all use, but it's definitely, in my opinion, the archetype for what is coming.Todd: It's the pioneer.Anthony: Yes, the pioneering technology. There's going to be something that is similar to bitcoin that we use as a digital payment system.Todd: Yeah, so a lot of people are freaked out about bitcoin. What are some reasons people are skeptical against it?Anthony: That's a good question. One question that I've been asked before is, who controls it? Everyone always wants to know who's in charge. Right. Who's the CEO? Right? Because we're so conditioned to this kind of system, but that is the thing. It's kind of scary for some people, but there is no control over it. It's a program at the end of the day. And there's no governing body. There's no government organization that really has a say. I mean governments, specific governments, will try to regulate the markets to a certain extent. But at the end of the day, the power is in the hands of the people that use it, really. And as long as people use it there will be some kind of value to it. Just as long as we use paper money, there's value to it. As long as it's exchanged, right?Todd: Right. And some people have made some good points. For example, nobody foresaw the use of ecommerce or smart phones, or social media. But these things adopted and ramped up quickly. So, do you think this could happen with these crypto technologies?Anthony: I think-Todd: Is that the right way to say it? Crypto technologies.Anthony: Cryptocurrencies.Todd: Cryptocurrencies.Anthony: Or block chain technologies.Todd: Block chain technology, okay.Anthony: I think it's very rapid right now. It's kind of becoming a household word. Whereas, when I first got into it, if I talked to someone about bitcoin, they would look at me like I was crazy. They would look at me like I had a hole in my face or something. But now people know. Even older people who aren't really so in touch with technology, know what it is or have at least heard about it.Anthony: I think the biggest hurdle to mass adoptions is as it stands now, it takes a lot of knowledge and a lot of know-how in order to safely, because the reason why I say safely, is because if you're dealing with bitcoin, you're in charge of securing your funds. So, if someone hacks into your funds, or something, then it's your fault. You don't have anyone to blame. Where as if you have your money in a bank-Todd: You can't call customer service.Anthony: Exactly. You can't call customer service, so there's a big hurdel as far as the knowledge you need to safely and effectively maneuver in that space. So I think until some second party or third party comes about and makes it more user-friendly, I don't really think it's going to be ready to really take over until that happens. Either more people need to be educated and know how to use it and how to purchase it and how to store it, etc. Or there needs to be some huge company that going to say, "Look, we'll manage it for you. You just need this app, or something." I don't know, something like that.Todd: Yeah, it's going to be interesting in the crossover. They always say be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. If bitcoin or some crypto-Anthony: CurrencyTodd: Currency becomes the primary source of transactions, I think a lot of the ills and the dodgy stuff we have with banks, will seep into it. It'll be interesting if they could keep it out. If you know what I mean. But one thing that's interesting about the currencies is that, I think a lot of old people will go for it. I think a lot of old people usually are hesitant about technology and change, but the thing, they have a lot of money that they're sitting on, usually, older people. They also don't trust the government. They've been around a long time and so I think these cryptocurrencies are going to be very attractive to a lot of tech un-savvy people. What do you think about that?Anthony: I think you have a point. I think that probably more so than young people have money to invest, but I think that's, like I said before, I've spent so many hours reading about these kinds of technologies and just really obsessing over it, and I still feel like there's so much I don't know. So.Todd: Well, I guess we all got to learn.Anthony: Yeah. Alright.

Todd: Okay. So, Anthony, I thought we would talk about bitcoin.Anthony: Okay.Todd: So, you are kind of the expert about bitcoin.Anthony: I wouldn't say I'm an expert, I just, maybe a hobbyist, bitcoin hobbyist.Todd: How long have you been involved with bitcoin?Anthony: I first heard about bitcoin in probably 2012, and I really, I'm really kicking myself that I didn't buy some then because it was about $20, but when I-Todd: So $20 per bitcoin-Anthony: Yeah, per bitcoin was about $20.Todd: Okay. So how much is it worth now?Anthony: Right now, it's about $8,500, somewhere around there.Todd: You've got to be kidding me.Anthony: No. I wish I was, but-Todd: Wow.Anthony: I got into it as a hobbyist around 2014, a little before I moved abroad, and I got into what is known mining. To briefly explain what that is, is miners, people who call themselves miners, they buy special computers which are called ASICs, and that stands for application-specific integrated circuit. The application-specific part means that the chips that you're using in that computer can only be used for one purpose, and that purpose is to solve cryptographic problems thus creating bitcoin. So that's what I was doing, I was running a mining computer.Todd: So you say mining, like mining, you're getting little bits of bitcoin-Anthony: Yeah, exactly.Todd: And it's tiny, tiny fragments.Anthony: Exactly.Todd: You have this chip in your computer. Your computer finds this cryptographic problem, so your computer, you get the reward by getting a small bit of bitcoin.Anthony: Exactly. It's called solo mining. You can do solo mining where you're only working with your, with whatever computers you have, but what's a lot more popular is pool mining where you join a pool and you work together with a group of miners to solve one problem. Once the block is discovered, as they say, each block contains 50 bitcoins. So depending on the computing power that you were giving the pool, you get paid out in equal measure. For people, that's a lot more profitable than solo mining because you could solo mine for years and never find a block.Todd: Yeah. For somebody who has no concept of this, the first thing they're going to ask you is, well, who creates these blocks of ... Who makes this?Anthony: That's a good question.Todd: It's like a "Where are we from?" It's like a chicken and an egg thing, so-Anthony: Exactly, and that's a very interesting point to bring up because allegedly the creator of bitcoin is someone called Satoshi Nakamoto. And he is the alleged creator, as I said, but the reason I say alleged is that no one has ever met this person. He's kind of a mystery, so no one knows his real identity. Some people have had made theories that it could be a group of people. It could be a specific person that, and that's just an alias, but no one really knows who this guy is and where he came from. Yeah, it's this really interesting concept.Todd: So, then how did this take hold? How did this get a foot in society? You know what I mean, like get a foot in the door, I should say.Anthony: Yeah.Todd: So somebody creates this system. This person is a mystery, but then the internet grabbed onto it and said, "Hey, this is a really cool thing. I want to buy this." It's just it's quite interesting that this market came out of nowhere and now it's challenging traditional currency systems.Anthony: Exactly. This was before the internet was even really what it is now, but I think in like 2007, I think, 2007, 2008, there was a group of people called the Cypherpunks, and they were kind of like anarchistic programmers that were anti-establishment. They ran this email mailing list, and they were just collaborating together talking about creating some kind of digital cash. Satoshi Nakamoto was a member of that mailing list, and that's where it kind of gained the underground movement and ... Really, I think there's what is called the white paper and that's the document that details everything about bitcoin, and it's really big. I'm not sure exactly how large, but it's like a book, and a lot of the reason it took off is people would read it and they would believe the technology, and they would try to sell it to other people because they believed in it really.Todd: Wow. That's an interesting history, and so basically this community read this white paper and then it took off-Anthony: From there.Todd: And gained momentum and then that here we are today.Anthony: Yeah, but I think a big part of it, as you mentioned, is really just convincing people because really fiat currency, I mean, if you break it down, it's just paper, right?Todd: Yeah.Anthony: It's just paper that the government makes.Todd: It's an illusion.Anthony: Yeah, and the only reason that it has any value is because we trust in it. So, if I give you a $100 bill or whatever, you're going to trust that you can spend that to buy something. It's the same thing with bitcoin. It's a process of convincing people that because this technology makes something that is scarce, it cannot be replicated, it cannot be ... Without the proper means, it cannot be moved or taken, that it is a valid way of transferring value digitally. So that's a really big part of it and a lot of people have bought into it.Todd: Wow. Very interesting.

Todd: Okay. So, Anthony, I thought we would talk about bitcoin.Anthony: Okay.Todd: So, you are kind of the expert about bitcoin.Anthony: I wouldn't say I'm an expert, I just, maybe a hobbyist, bitcoin hobbyist.Todd: How long have you been involved with bitcoin?Anthony: I first heard about bitcoin in probably 2012, and I really, I'm really kicking myself that I didn't buy some then because it was about $20, but when I-Todd: So $20 per bitcoin-Anthony: Yeah, per bitcoin was about $20.Todd: Okay. So how much is it worth now?Anthony: Right now, it's about $8,500, somewhere around there.Todd: You've got to be kidding me.Anthony: No. I wish I was, but-Todd: Wow.Anthony: I got into it as a hobbyist around 2014, a little before I moved abroad, and I got into what is known mining. To briefly explain what that is, is miners, people who call themselves miners, they buy special computers which are called ASICs, and that stands for application-specific integrated circuit. The application-specific part means that the chips that you're using in that computer can only be used for one purpose, and that purpose is to solve cryptographic problems thus creating bitcoin. So that's what I was doing, I was running a mining computer.Todd: So you say mining, like mining, you're getting little bits of bitcoin-Anthony: Yeah, exactly.Todd: And it's tiny, tiny fragments.Anthony: Exactly.Todd: You have this chip in your computer. Your computer finds this cryptographic problem, so your computer, you get the reward by getting a small bit of bitcoin.Anthony: Exactly. It's called solo mining. You can do solo mining where you're only working with your, with whatever computers you have, but what's a lot more popular is pool mining where you join a pool and you work together with a group of miners to solve one problem. Once the block is discovered, as they say, each block contains 50 bitcoins. So depending on the computing power that you were giving the pool, you get paid out in equal measure. For people, that's a lot more profitable than solo mining because you could solo mine for years and never find a block.Todd: Yeah. For somebody who has no concept of this, the first thing they're going to ask you is, well, who creates these blocks of ... Who makes this?Anthony: That's a good question.Todd: It's like a "Where are we from?" It's like a chicken and an egg thing, so-Anthony: Exactly, and that's a very interesting point to bring up because allegedly the creator of bitcoin is someone called Satoshi Nakamoto. And he is the alleged creator, as I said, but the reason I say alleged is that no one has ever met this person. He's kind of a mystery, so no one knows his real identity. Some people have had made theories that it could be a group of people. It could be a specific person that, and that's just an alias, but no one really knows who this guy is and where he came from. Yeah, it's this really interesting concept.Todd: So, then how did this take hold? How did this get a foot in society? You know what I mean, like get a foot in the door, I should say.Anthony: Yeah.Todd: So somebody creates this system. This person is a mystery, but then the internet grabbed onto it and said, "Hey, this is a really cool thing. I want to buy this." It's just it's quite interesting that this market came out of nowhere and now it's challenging traditional currency systems.Anthony: Exactly. This was before the internet was even really what it is now, but I think in like 2007, I think, 2007, 2008, there was a group of people called the Cypherpunks, and they were kind of like anarchistic programmers that were anti-establishment. They ran this email mailing list, and they were just collaborating together talking about creating some kind of digital cash. Satoshi Nakamoto was a member of that mailing list, and that's where it kind of gained the underground movement and ... Really, I think there's what is called the white paper and that's the document that details everything about bitcoin, and it's really big. I'm not sure exactly how large, but it's like a book, and a lot of the reason it took off is people would read it and they would believe the technology, and they would try to sell it to other people because they believed in it really.Todd: Wow. That's an interesting history, and so basically this community read this white paper and then it took off-Anthony: From there.Todd: And gained momentum and then that here we are today.Anthony: Yeah, but I think a big part of it, as you mentioned, is really just convincing people because really fiat currency, I mean, if you break it down, it's just paper, right?Todd: Yeah.Anthony: It's just paper that the government makes.Todd: It's an illusion.Anthony: Yeah, and the only reason that it has any value is because we trust in it. So, if I give you a $100 bill or whatever, you're going to trust that you can spend that to buy something. It's the same thing with bitcoin. It's a process of convincing people that because this technology makes something that is scarce, it cannot be replicated, it cannot be ... Without the proper means, it cannot be moved or taken, that it is a valid way of transferring value digitally. So that's a really big part of it and a lot of people have bought into it.Todd: Wow. Very interesting.

Todd: Okay. So, Anthony, I thought we would talk about bitcoin.Anthony: Okay.Todd: So, you are kind of the expert about bitcoin.Anthony: I wouldn't say I'm an expert, I just, maybe a hobbyist, bitcoin hobbyist.Todd: How long have you been involved with bitcoin?Anthony: I first heard about bitcoin in probably 2012, and I really, I'm really kicking myself that I didn't buy some then because it was about $20, but when I-Todd: So $20 per bitcoin-Anthony: Yeah, per bitcoin was about $20.Todd: Okay. So how much is it worth now?Anthony: Right now, it's about $8,500, somewhere around there.Todd: You've got to be kidding me.Anthony: No. I wish I was, but-Todd: Wow.Anthony: I got into it as a hobbyist around 2014, a little before I moved abroad, and I got into what is known mining. To briefly explain what that is, is miners, people who call themselves miners, they buy special computers which are called ASICs, and that stands for application-specific integrated circuit. The application-specific part means that the chips that you're using in that computer can only be used for one purpose, and that purpose is to solve cryptographic problems thus creating bitcoin. So that's what I was doing, I was running a mining computer.Todd: So you say mining, like mining, you're getting little bits of bitcoin-Anthony: Yeah, exactly.Todd: And it's tiny, tiny fragments.Anthony: Exactly.Todd: You have this chip in your computer. Your computer finds this cryptographic problem, so your computer, you get the reward by getting a small bit of bitcoin.Anthony: Exactly. It's called solo mining. You can do solo mining where you're only working with your, with whatever computers you have, but what's a lot more popular is pool mining where you join a pool and you work together with a group of miners to solve one problem. Once the block is discovered, as they say, each block contains 50 bitcoins. So depending on the computing power that you were giving the pool, you get paid out in equal measure. For people, that's a lot more profitable than solo mining because you could solo mine for years and never find a block.Todd: Yeah. For somebody who has no concept of this, the first thing they're going to ask you is, well, who creates these blocks of ... Who makes this?Anthony: That's a good question.Todd: It's like a "Where are we from?" It's like a chicken and an egg thing, so-Anthony: Exactly, and that's a very interesting point to bring up because allegedly the creator of bitcoin is someone called Satoshi Nakamoto. And he is the alleged creator, as I said, but the reason I say alleged is that no one has ever met this person. He's kind of a mystery, so no one knows his real identity. Some people have had made theories that it could be a group of people. It could be a specific person that, and that's just an alias, but no one really knows who this guy is and where he came from. Yeah, it's this really interesting concept.Todd: So, then how did this take hold? How did this get a foot in society? You know what I mean, like get a foot in the door, I should say.Anthony: Yeah.Todd: So somebody creates this system. This person is a mystery, but then the internet grabbed onto it and said, "Hey, this is a really cool thing. I want to buy this." It's just it's quite interesting that this market came out of nowhere and now it's challenging traditional currency systems.Anthony: Exactly. This was before the internet was even really what it is now, but I think in like 2007, I think, 2007, 2008, there was a group of people called the Cypherpunks, and they were kind of like anarchistic programmers that were anti-establishment. They ran this email mailing list, and they were just collaborating together talking about creating some kind of digital cash. Satoshi Nakamoto was a member of that mailing list, and that's where it kind of gained the underground movement and ... Really, I think there's what is called the white paper and that's the document that details everything about bitcoin, and it's really big. I'm not sure exactly how large, but it's like a book, and a lot of the reason it took off is people would read it and they would believe the technology, and they would try to sell it to other people because they believed in it really.Todd: Wow. That's an interesting history, and so basically this community read this white paper and then it took off-Anthony: From there.Todd: And gained momentum and then that here we are today.Anthony: Yeah, but I think a big part of it, as you mentioned, is really just convincing people because really fiat currency, I mean, if you break it down, it's just paper, right?Todd: Yeah.Anthony: It's just paper that the government makes.Todd: It's an illusion.Anthony: Yeah, and the only reason that it has any value is because we trust in it. So, if I give you a $100 bill or whatever, you're going to trust that you can spend that to buy something. It's the same thing with bitcoin. It's a process of convincing people that because this technology makes something that is scarce, it cannot be replicated, it cannot be ... Without the proper means, it cannot be moved or taken, that it is a valid way of transferring value digitally. So that's a really big part of it and a lot of people have bought into it.Todd: Wow. Very interesting.

Todd: So, I'm here with Jerri, and she's Thai, and we are in Bangkok. And we are going to talk about fashion. So, Jerri, Bangkok is a very, very fashion-conscious city.Jerri: Yes, absolutely.Todd: Shopping is huge here. So, let's talk about prices. So, first we'll talk about jeans. You are wearing jeans today. So, how much are an expensive pair of jeans in Bangkok?Jerri: Well, that's funny that you ask because the price range for clothes here is quite wide, so you can go from 200 baht - Thai baht - for a pair of jeans up to 4000 Thai baht for a pair of jeans in a, like a, like, one of the top brands.Todd: Wow. So, just so people know, 200 baht would be - in U.S. dollar that's about six dollars. And 4000 baht would be about 130 dollars.Jerri: Yes. Yeah.Todd: Wow.Jerri: So, it's quite a, quite a difference there. But I would say that generally it will be in the range of 500 to 2000 Thai baht.Todd: Okay. 500 to 2000. That's still pretty a wide gap.Jerri: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.Todd: Okay, cool. So those are jeans. What about, for women, a blouse?Jerri: A blouse? I would say...for, like, a nice quality one, like, 500 Thai baht.Todd: Okay. That's not bad.Jerri: Yeah. That's alright.Todd: Fifteen dollars, about. Okay. What's the most you would pay for a blouse?Jerri: No more than 1000 Thai baht.Todd: Okay.Jerri: Yeah.Todd: That's your, that's - what about the cheapest?Jerri: The cheapest? Like, 300 Thai baht. Like, if you started going lower than 300 Thai baht, then you have to accept that the, you know, the quality - you might get to wear it not more than three times.Todd: Okay.Jerri: So, that's the price you pay.Todd: Nice, alright. So, what about shoes?Jerri: Shoes? It's - it also depends on where you go. So, Chatuchak market is known for affordable clothes, so the shoes there would be from 200 Thai baht to 500 Thai baht. But if you visit the more well-known stores and the department stores, then they can be from 500 Thai baht to 1000 Thai baht.Todd: Okay, that's interesting. So, you mentioned Jatujak market - can you kind of talk about Jatujak market?Jerri: Yes, so, this is one of the main activities for tourists to do when they visit Bangkok. It's a weekend market, so it's only open on Saturdays and Sundays. It's quite crowded, but it's definitely something you should do. There's a lot of souvenir stores, a lot of local shops, and, yeah, a place to shop for clothes. And it's not just for tourists, you also see a lot of Thais go there because all the stores there are reasonable - reasonably priced and they're quite trendy. Yeah, they have, like, different styles...stores that you won't find anywhere else.Todd: Right. Oh, yeah, I've been there a couple of times. It's massive. It's really, really big.Jerri: Yeah, it's massive. It takes about half a day to do the entire thing.Todd: It's easy to get lost right?Jerri: Yes.Todd: If you go inside, you kind of don't know where you are.Jerri: Exactly, exactly. Which I guess is also the fun part of it. It's like an adventure in itself, right?Todd: Right, exactly. Okay, so, what about things like, like belts or, you know, like accessories?Jerri: I would recommend going to Platinum Mall. This mall is located near Siam BTS station. It's known for its accessories that are, like, reasonably priced. So, at that - at Platinum Mall accessories can be from two - 100 Thai baht to not more than 1000 Thai baht, but usually in the range of 100 to 500 Thai baht.Todd: Okay. Oh, wow.Jerri: Yeah. But there's a whole floor, like, two floors that's dedicated to accessories. So, you can find necklaces, sunglasses, rings, earrings, about ten shops for each category, yes.Todd: Oh, that's fantastic. So, Bangkok's quite interesting because it has so many different ways. You can buy things on the street...Jerri: Yes.Todd: You can buy things at the markets. You can buy things at the nice, air-conditioned malls.Jerri: Yeah.Todd: Yeah. What about online? Do you Thais shop online very much?Jerri: Yeah. Online - online shops are becoming more and more popular now because it's quite convenient. You just get it delivered to you. Yeah, there's a lot of - a lot of more fashion brands that are online. On Instagram, for example. Yeah, so it's becoming a thing.Todd: Oh, cool. Alright, thanks, Jerri.Jerri: You're welcome.

Todd: So, I'm here with Jerri, and she's Thai, and we are in Bangkok. And we are going to talk about fashion. So, Jerri, Bangkok is a very, very fashion-conscious city.Jerri: Yes, absolutely.Todd: Shopping is huge here. So, let's talk about prices. So, first we'll talk about jeans. You are wearing jeans today. So, how much are an expensive pair of jeans in Bangkok?Jerri: Well, that's funny that you ask because the price range for clothes here is quite wide, so you can go from 200 baht - Thai baht - for a pair of jeans up to 4000 Thai baht for a pair of jeans in a, like a, like, one of the top brands.Todd: Wow. So, just so people know, 200 baht would be - in U.S. dollar that's about six dollars. And 4000 baht would be about 130 dollars.Jerri: Yes. Yeah.Todd: Wow.Jerri: So, it's quite a, quite a difference there. But I would say that generally it will be in the range of 500 to 2000 Thai baht.Todd: Okay. 500 to 2000. That's still pretty a wide gap.Jerri: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.Todd: Okay, cool. So those are jeans. What about, for women, a blouse?Jerri: A blouse? I would say...for, like, a nice quality one, like, 500 Thai baht.Todd: Okay. That's not bad.Jerri: Yeah. That's alright.Todd: Fifteen dollars, about. Okay. What's the most you would pay for a blouse?Jerri: No more than 1000 Thai baht.Todd: Okay.Jerri: Yeah.Todd: That's your, that's - what about the cheapest?Jerri: The cheapest? Like, 300 Thai baht. Like, if you started going lower than 300 Thai baht, then you have to accept that the, you know, the quality - you might get to wear it not more than three times.Todd: Okay.Jerri: So, that's the price you pay.Todd: Nice, alright. So, what about shoes?Jerri: Shoes? It's - it also depends on where you go. So, Chatuchak market is known for affordable clothes, so the shoes there would be from 200 Thai baht to 500 Thai baht. But if you visit the more well-known stores and the department stores, then they can be from 500 Thai baht to 1000 Thai baht.Todd: Okay, that's interesting. So, you mentioned Jatujak market - can you kind of talk about Jatujak market?Jerri: Yes, so, this is one of the main activities for tourists to do when they visit Bangkok. It's a weekend market, so it's only open on Saturdays and Sundays. It's quite crowded, but it's definitely something you should do. There's a lot of souvenir stores, a lot of local shops, and, yeah, a place to shop for clothes. And it's not just for tourists, you also see a lot of Thais go there because all the stores there are reasonable - reasonably priced and they're quite trendy. Yeah, they have, like, different styles...stores that you won't find anywhere else.Todd: Right. Oh, yeah, I've been there a couple of times. It's massive. It's really, really big.Jerri: Yeah, it's massive. It takes about half a day to do the entire thing.Todd: It's easy to get lost right?Jerri: Yes.Todd: If you go inside, you kind of don't know where you are.Jerri: Exactly, exactly. Which I guess is also the fun part of it. It's like an adventure in itself, right?Todd: Right, exactly. Okay, so, what about things like, like belts or, you know, like accessories?Jerri: I would recommend going to Platinum Mall. This mall is located near Siam BTS station. It's known for its accessories that are, like, reasonably priced. So, at that - at Platinum Mall accessories can be from two - 100 Thai baht to not more than 1000 Thai baht, but usually in the range of 100 to 500 Thai baht.Todd: Okay. Oh, wow.Jerri: Yeah. But there's a whole floor, like, two floors that's dedicated to accessories. So, you can find necklaces, sunglasses, rings, earrings, about ten shops for each category, yes.Todd: Oh, that's fantastic. So, Bangkok's quite interesting because it has so many different ways. You can buy things on the street...Jerri: Yes.Todd: You can buy things at the markets. You can buy things at the nice, air-conditioned malls.Jerri: Yeah.Todd: Yeah. What about online? Do you Thais shop online very much?Jerri: Yeah. Online - online shops are becoming more and more popular now because it's quite convenient. You just get it delivered to you. Yeah, there's a lot of - a lot of more fashion brands that are online. On Instagram, for example. Yeah, so it's becoming a thing.Todd: Oh, cool. Alright, thanks, Jerri.Jerri: You're welcome.

Todd: So, I'm here with Jerri, and she's Thai, and we are in Bangkok. And we are going to talk about fashion. So, Jerri, Bangkok is a very, very fashion-conscious city.Jerri: Yes, absolutely.Todd: Shopping is huge here. So, let's talk about prices. So, first we'll talk about jeans. You are wearing jeans today. So, how much are an expensive pair of jeans in Bangkok?Jerri: Well, that's funny that you ask because the price range for clothes here is quite wide, so you can go from 200 baht - Thai baht - for a pair of jeans up to 4000 Thai baht for a pair of jeans in a, like a, like, one of the top brands.Todd: Wow. So, just so people know, 200 baht would be - in U.S. dollar that's about six dollars. And 4000 baht would be about 130 dollars.Jerri: Yes. Yeah.Todd: Wow.Jerri: So, it's quite a, quite a difference there. But I would say that generally it will be in the range of 500 to 2000 Thai baht.Todd: Okay. 500 to 2000. That's still pretty a wide gap.Jerri: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.Todd: Okay, cool. So those are jeans. What about, for women, a blouse?Jerri: A blouse? I would say...for, like, a nice quality one, like, 500 Thai baht.Todd: Okay. That's not bad.Jerri: Yeah. That's alright.Todd: Fifteen dollars, about. Okay. What's the most you would pay for a blouse?Jerri: No more than 1000 Thai baht.Todd: Okay.Jerri: Yeah.Todd: That's your, that's - what about the cheapest?Jerri: The cheapest? Like, 300 Thai baht. Like, if you started going lower than 300 Thai baht, then you have to accept that the, you know, the quality - you might get to wear it not more than three times.Todd: Okay.Jerri: So, that's the price you pay.Todd: Nice, alright. So, what about shoes?Jerri: Shoes? It's - it also depends on where you go. So, Chatuchak market is known for affordable clothes, so the shoes there would be from 200 Thai baht to 500 Thai baht. But if you visit the more well-known stores and the department stores, then they can be from 500 Thai baht to 1000 Thai baht.Todd: Okay, that's interesting. So, you mentioned Jatujak market - can you kind of talk about Jatujak market?Jerri: Yes, so, this is one of the main activities for tourists to do when they visit Bangkok. It's a weekend market, so it's only open on Saturdays and Sundays. It's quite crowded, but it's definitely something you should do. There's a lot of souvenir stores, a lot of local shops, and, yeah, a place to shop for clothes. And it's not just for tourists, you also see a lot of Thais go there because all the stores there are reasonable - reasonably priced and they're quite trendy. Yeah, they have, like, different styles...stores that you won't find anywhere else.Todd: Right. Oh, yeah, I've been there a couple of times. It's massive. It's really, really big.Jerri: Yeah, it's massive. It takes about half a day to do the entire thing.Todd: It's easy to get lost right?Jerri: Yes.Todd: If you go inside, you kind of don't know where you are.Jerri: Exactly, exactly. Which I guess is also the fun part of it. It's like an adventure in itself, right?Todd: Right, exactly. Okay, so, what about things like, like belts or, you know, like accessories?Jerri: I would recommend going to Platinum Mall. This mall is located near Siam BTS station. It's known for its accessories that are, like, reasonably priced. So, at that - at Platinum Mall accessories can be from two - 100 Thai baht to not more than 1000 Thai baht, but usually in the range of 100 to 500 Thai baht.Todd: Okay. Oh, wow.Jerri: Yeah. But there's a whole floor, like, two floors that's dedicated to accessories. So, you can find necklaces, sunglasses, rings, earrings, about ten shops for each category, yes.Todd: Oh, that's fantastic. So, Bangkok's quite interesting because it has so many different ways. You can buy things on the street...Jerri: Yes.Todd: You can buy things at the markets. You can buy things at the nice, air-conditioned malls.Jerri: Yeah.Todd: Yeah. What about online? Do you Thais shop online very much?Jerri: Yeah. Online - online shops are becoming more and more popular now because it's quite convenient. You just get it delivered to you. Yeah, there's a lot of - a lot of more fashion brands that are online. On Instagram, for example. Yeah, so it's becoming a thing.Todd: Oh, cool. Alright, thanks, Jerri.Jerri: You're welcome.

Todd: Did your kids work when they were in school? How did you feel about your kids when they were in high school?Angela: My kids had to work for their pocket money, so they would have chores to do and they would get pocket money. They would help with the washing up, sweeping, cleaning, whatever. They worked hard to earn their pocket money. They thought it was really hard.Todd: So did you ever withhold their wages?Angela: Yeah.Todd: You did? Really?!Angela: Yeah.Todd: You'd be like, “No, you didn't do your chores. You don't get the money”?Angela: Yeah, you're not having it. Yeah.Todd: Really?! How often would you have to do that?Angela: More so in the beginning. Once they get the idea, you know, if you don't work for your money, you don't get your money. And that's a life lesson, isn't it? If you don't do your work, you don't get money.Todd: That is great! Because I think a lot of people just assume, even me, like I've never had children, but the parents just spoil the kids. They don't want to have the hassle, they don't want to have the fight, they just give them the money.Angela: But you look at the difference between the Western kids and the kids out here. You can go on a bus trip with the kids out here. You can go on a six-hour bus trip. You don't hear a peep out of the kids. They stop there. The mom's asleep, maybe the kid's asleep as well. If you put Western kids on a bus for six hours, you'd have to have a PlayStation or a tablet or something. They'd be crying. You'd have to feed them things. It's a totally different way of acting.Todd: Yeah.Angela: I miss that. When I came to Asia, I noticed that the kids were happier with less, much less than we have. And it wasn't until I spent the year in Asia and then I went to Australia, landed in Sydney, noticed one thing, that the people were much bigger, but also the kids were just so spoiled. The parents were just giving in to them.Todd: So you think that maybe we need to rectify that situation, that we should stop spoiling kids.Angela: Yeah, I do.Todd: Take away the PlayStation.Angela: Yeah.Todd: Just stick them outside, yeah.Angela: You can get stalls today with - a place where you can put the kids' tablet.Todd: Yeah, it's crazy.Angela: Why won't the kid just look at the world?Todd: Yeah. It's so funny you mentioned that because before we were talking about potential business ideas, and I have an idea called “Camp Boredom.”Angela: Boredom is good.Todd: Yeah. What happens at Camp Boredom is you send your kid to Camp Boredom and it's just a camp in the woods or on a farm. The kids come and they go, “What do we do?” and I go, “I don't know. Nothing. Go outside. Just find something to do.”Angela: No Wi-Fi.Todd: Yeah, because I grew up no Wi-Fi, no nothing. I grew up on a farm and I'm really blessed. I had no idea how blessed I was at the time. But I grew up, I spent all time on my grandfather's farm, and we had nothing to do. I mean, nothing. But we had this farm, like, so we had everything to do. So the rule was, you had to be up for breakfast at 7:00 and then once you finished breakfast, you had to be out of the house, like you could not be in the house. It was almost forbidden to be in the house unless it's like raining outside. And you would be outside from sun-up to sundown.Angela: Yeah, climbing fences, climbing trees, haystacks.Todd: Right, having the best time of your life. And your imagination is going and you just… Oh! The little things that you would do. Oh, we're going to build a tree fort. Oh, we're going to do this. Oh, we're going to do that.Angela: We're going to stop the river from flowing.Todd: Right, right. So that's my idea. I think Camp Boredom. So maybe we have to…Angela: I think boredom is good for kids.Todd: Yeah. How so?Angela: Because, as you say, you know, if they're always entertained and always fed, then they don't get to learn how to entertain themselves.Todd: Yeah.Angela: If you sit them in a car with nothing for six hours…Todd: Right.Angela: Then look out the window.Todd: There was a great thing recently with Jerry Seinfeld, the comedian. He has a bit where he talks about how his mother would take him to the bank when he was a kid, and like a bank or department store was the ultimate space of boredom. Like there's nothing you can do. You're so bored, you just want to like flop down on the floor type of thing. But you're right, like I don't know if kids have that anymore.Angela: No, they don't.Todd: Where they hit that wall where there's nothing for them to do, you know.Angela: No.Todd: So do you think that maybe we should limit the devices, the smartphones, all that, that kids use?Angela: I do think we should but I think it's too late now. I think we're past the point where you can get Wi-Fi and it's that… You know, if we took off the kids now, what would they do? They'd be bored.Todd: Well, you can just never give it to them, right?Angela: Yeah, in the first place.Todd: Maybe that's impossible.Angela: It's impossible.Todd: Okay, cool.

Todd: Did your kids work when they were in school? How did you feel about your kids when they were in high school?Angela: My kids had to work for their pocket money, so they would have chores to do and they would get pocket money. They would help with the washing up, sweeping, cleaning, whatever. They worked hard to earn their pocket money. They thought it was really hard.Todd: So did you ever withhold their wages?Angela: Yeah.Todd: You did? Really?!Angela: Yeah.Todd: You'd be like, “No, you didn't do your chores. You don't get the money”?Angela: Yeah, you're not having it. Yeah.Todd: Really?! How often would you have to do that?Angela: More so in the beginning. Once they get the idea, you know, if you don't work for your money, you don't get your money. And that's a life lesson, isn't it? If you don't do your work, you don't get money.Todd: That is great! Because I think a lot of people just assume, even me, like I've never had children, but the parents just spoil the kids. They don't want to have the hassle, they don't want to have the fight, they just give them the money.Angela: But you look at the difference between the Western kids and the kids out here. You can go on a bus trip with the kids out here. You can go on a six-hour bus trip. You don't hear a peep out of the kids. They stop there. The mom's asleep, maybe the kid's asleep as well. If you put Western kids on a bus for six hours, you'd have to have a PlayStation or a tablet or something. They'd be crying. You'd have to feed them things. It's a totally different way of acting.Todd: Yeah.Angela: I miss that. When I came to Asia, I noticed that the kids were happier with less, much less than we have. And it wasn't until I spent the year in Asia and then I went to Australia, landed in Sydney, noticed one thing, that the people were much bigger, but also the kids were just so spoiled. The parents were just giving in to them.Todd: So you think that maybe we need to rectify that situation, that we should stop spoiling kids.Angela: Yeah, I do.Todd: Take away the PlayStation.Angela: Yeah.Todd: Just stick them outside, yeah.Angela: You can get stalls today with - a place where you can put the kids' tablet.Todd: Yeah, it's crazy.Angela: Why won't the kid just look at the world?Todd: Yeah. It's so funny you mentioned that because before we were talking about potential business ideas, and I have an idea called “Camp Boredom.”Angela: Boredom is good.Todd: Yeah. What happens at Camp Boredom is you send your kid to Camp Boredom and it's just a camp in the woods or on a farm. The kids come and they go, “What do we do?” and I go, “I don't know. Nothing. Go outside. Just find something to do.”Angela: No Wi-Fi.Todd: Yeah, because I grew up no Wi-Fi, no nothing. I grew up on a farm and I'm really blessed. I had no idea how blessed I was at the time. But I grew up, I spent all time on my grandfather's farm, and we had nothing to do. I mean, nothing. But we had this farm, like, so we had everything to do. So the rule was, you had to be up for breakfast at 7:00 and then once you finished breakfast, you had to be out of the house, like you could not be in the house. It was almost forbidden to be in the house unless it's like raining outside. And you would be outside from sun-up to sundown.Angela: Yeah, climbing fences, climbing trees, haystacks.Todd: Right, having the best time of your life. And your imagination is going and you just… Oh! The little things that you would do. Oh, we're going to build a tree fort. Oh, we're going to do this. Oh, we're going to do that.Angela: We're going to stop the river from flowing.Todd: Right, right. So that's my idea. I think Camp Boredom. So maybe we have to…Angela: I think boredom is good for kids.Todd: Yeah. How so?Angela: Because, as you say, you know, if they're always entertained and always fed, then they don't get to learn how to entertain themselves.Todd: Yeah.Angela: If you sit them in a car with nothing for six hours…Todd: Right.Angela: Then look out the window.Todd: There was a great thing recently with Jerry Seinfeld, the comedian. He has a bit where he talks about how his mother would take him to the bank when he was a kid, and like a bank or department store was the ultimate space of boredom. Like there's nothing you can do. You're so bored, you just want to like flop down on the floor type of thing. But you're right, like I don't know if kids have that anymore.Angela: No, they don't.Todd: Where they hit that wall where there's nothing for them to do, you know.Angela: No.Todd: So do you think that maybe we should limit the devices, the smartphones, all that, that kids use?Angela: I do think we should but I think it's too late now. I think we're past the point where you can get Wi-Fi and it's that… You know, if we took off the kids now, what would they do? They'd be bored.Todd: Well, you can just never give it to them, right?Angela: Yeah, in the first place.Todd: Maybe that's impossible.Angela: It's impossible.Todd: Okay, cool.

Todd: Did your kids work when they were in school? How did you feel about your kids when they were in high school?Angela: My kids had to work for their pocket money, so they would have chores to do and they would get pocket money. They would help with the washing up, sweeping, cleaning, whatever. They worked hard to earn their pocket money. They thought it was really hard.Todd: So did you ever withhold their wages?Angela: Yeah.Todd: You did? Really?!Angela: Yeah.Todd: You'd be like, “No, you didn't do your chores. You don't get the money”?Angela: Yeah, you're not having it. Yeah.Todd: Really?! How often would you have to do that?Angela: More so in the beginning. Once they get the idea, you know, if you don't work for your money, you don't get your money. And that's a life lesson, isn't it? If you don't do your work, you don't get money.Todd: That is great! Because I think a lot of people just assume, even me, like I've never had children, but the parents just spoil the kids. They don't want to have the hassle, they don't want to have the fight, they just give them the money.Angela: But you look at the difference between the Western kids and the kids out here. You can go on a bus trip with the kids out here. You can go on a six-hour bus trip. You don't hear a peep out of the kids. They stop there. The mom's asleep, maybe the kid's asleep as well. If you put Western kids on a bus for six hours, you'd have to have a PlayStation or a tablet or something. They'd be crying. You'd have to feed them things. It's a totally different way of acting.Todd: Yeah.Angela: I miss that. When I came to Asia, I noticed that the kids were happier with less, much less than we have. And it wasn't until I spent the year in Asia and then I went to Australia, landed in Sydney, noticed one thing, that the people were much bigger, but also the kids were just so spoiled. The parents were just giving in to them.Todd: So you think that maybe we need to rectify that situation, that we should stop spoiling kids.Angela: Yeah, I do.Todd: Take away the PlayStation.Angela: Yeah.Todd: Just stick them outside, yeah.Angela: You can get stalls today with - a place where you can put the kids' tablet.Todd: Yeah, it's crazy.Angela: Why won't the kid just look at the world?Todd: Yeah. It's so funny you mentioned that because before we were talking about potential business ideas, and I have an idea called “Camp Boredom.”Angela: Boredom is good.Todd: Yeah. What happens at Camp Boredom is you send your kid to Camp Boredom and it's just a camp in the woods or on a farm. The kids come and they go, “What do we do?” and I go, “I don't know. Nothing. Go outside. Just find something to do.”Angela: No Wi-Fi.Todd: Yeah, because I grew up no Wi-Fi, no nothing. I grew up on a farm and I'm really blessed. I had no idea how blessed I was at the time. But I grew up, I spent all time on my grandfather's farm, and we had nothing to do. I mean, nothing. But we had this farm, like, so we had everything to do. So the rule was, you had to be up for breakfast at 7:00 and then once you finished breakfast, you had to be out of the house, like you could not be in the house. It was almost forbidden to be in the house unless it's like raining outside. And you would be outside from sun-up to sundown.Angela: Yeah, climbing fences, climbing trees, haystacks.Todd: Right, having the best time of your life. And your imagination is going and you just… Oh! The little things that you would do. Oh, we're going to build a tree fort. Oh, we're going to do this. Oh, we're going to do that.Angela: We're going to stop the river from flowing.Todd: Right, right. So that's my idea. I think Camp Boredom. So maybe we have to…Angela: I think boredom is good for kids.Todd: Yeah. How so?Angela: Because, as you say, you know, if they're always entertained and always fed, then they don't get to learn how to entertain themselves.Todd: Yeah.Angela: If you sit them in a car with nothing for six hours…Todd: Right.Angela: Then look out the window.Todd: There was a great thing recently with Jerry Seinfeld, the comedian. He has a bit where he talks about how his mother would take him to the bank when he was a kid, and like a bank or department store was the ultimate space of boredom. Like there's nothing you can do. You're so bored, you just want to like flop down on the floor type of thing. But you're right, like I don't know if kids have that anymore.Angela: No, they don't.Todd: Where they hit that wall where there's nothing for them to do, you know.Angela: No.Todd: So do you think that maybe we should limit the devices, the smartphones, all that, that kids use?Angela: I do think we should but I think it's too late now. I think we're past the point where you can get Wi-Fi and it's that… You know, if we took off the kids now, what would they do? They'd be bored.Todd: Well, you can just never give it to them, right?Angela: Yeah, in the first place.Todd: Maybe that's impossible.Angela: It's impossible.Todd: Okay, cool.

Todd: So I'm here with Angela and she is a writer and a traveler, a teacher, a businesswoman, and you're also a mother.Angela: Yes. Twins.Todd: You have twins! That's amazing! Wow. And so you also are now what's called an empty nester. Can you explain what that means?Angela: It's the feeling that you get when you realize that you've worked hard for your kids all those years and now they're ready to leave. Because they're twins, the nest is going to be emptied completely at once.Todd: Yeah.Angela: And I would be in a house by myself. I did think though that my son would have stayed home forever, so I would never have gotten to a position of having an empty nest. And my daughter, she left a little bit earlier. But it was just the thought of, you know, you're in a house that your family's grown up in, what do you do now? Do you take in lodgers? Do you rent the house out? And that's when I made my decision to travel. It was a gap that I spotted because my kids were 18 at the time. It was likely that my daughter would have grandchildren at some point or I would have grandchildren, and she'd have children, and then it would not be possible to go away again. So I saw the gap.I rented the house out. And my son who was the last to leave the house, he said, “Mum, are you renting my room, as well?” I said, “Of course, I'm renting your room. You don't get a house with a teenager resident in it,” and he was absolutely flummoxed but he found somewhere to live. He's working. She's found somewhere to live, she's working. And I think that one of the things you can give your kids actually is independence. I think it's the biggest thing that you can give them.Todd: Yeah, back in the day, you know, it used to be that you would get kicked out of the nest. That was another phrase, you know.Angela: Yes.Todd: They'd say like, “Okay, when you're 18, your parents would give you that push like a mother bird. Go fly. Go do your thing.” And I think it's still a good thing, actually.Angela: I think it's a very good thing.Todd: You know, that you go out, you… I was not really kicked out but I did leave right away and it was a good experience.Angela: It's the best experience. You know, those years when you've got freedom, you got your friends. You're growing up. You're learning about the world. You should be out there by yourself.Todd: Now, you've done something against the grain. You went and traveled by yourself.Angela: Umm-hmm.Todd: And your gap year. Now in Asia where we are, this isn't really an empty nester culture. Like I don't know if they… Especially Thailand, they don't really push kids out of the house. People stay and live a little bit more. Have you noticed a difference like in the family dynamics now that you're in Bangkok?Angela: I think in Bangkok, in Thailand, and certainly at the other Southeast Asian countries I traveled, I've been amazed at how families operate and live together. I think I'm very saddened by my own circumstances in the UK, and lots of people in the UK where families are divided and they don't live together. They don't support each other. When I was living in Isaan, it was very obvious that families, because there are no social services, people have to work or they've got no money. So the parents would have to go to Bangkok or Phuket, or one of the tourist areas, and the children would be left with their grandparents in the village. So it was obvious, there were lots of children who were growing up with grandparents, aunties. But I looked at this and thought, “Well, these kids are living out in the village where it's safe, they're happy. You know, they grow up as a gang and they're loved.”Todd: Yeah, that's really nice. And since you mentioned that, one of the saddest things I ever saw unexpectedly was when I was in the Philippines. I was flying out, I was in the Philippines. I had a great time and when I was going, at the airport, they had this long line, and I didn't know what was going on. It was all these children and their mothers. I mean, we're talking dozens and it just… It seemed strange. And then it hit me, “Oh, because the Philippines have so many people that work overseas.” These were all mothers that were saying goodbye to their children.Angela: Yes.Todd: Because they had to go work overseas. And it's like I even get choked up now like thinking about it. It was just really powerful that like the people that have that situation, that those mothers, you know they don't want to leave their kid.Angela: Yeah.Todd: That's got to be really hard but they have to.Angela: But they have to.Todd: They have to go to wherever they're going to go in the world. Yeah, that was something. I'll never forget that.Angela: Yeah. I find families over here are just so willing to share. They share their food. They share their beds. They share their houses. In a way, that is just so different to what I've experienced in the UK.Todd: Yeah. That is true. That is true.