69. The Sherlocking of Scott Edburg

In this special episode, Ben sits down with co-host Scott Edberg for an inside look at the history and future of the BCO Amendment Tracker—a project that started as a grassroots effort to bring transparency and accountability to the amendment process and has become a vital tool for the denomination.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:10

Well, hello and welcome to Polity Matters. My name is Ben Ratliff, and we've got a different kind of episode for you today. We are uh in the middle of a little break uh throughout uh January and February. Well, we're coming in in the middle of February, starting the rules of discipline, but we wanted to give you guys some different content, and so today I'm joined by one of my co-hosts, Scott Edberg, and we want to talk about the uh the mysterious and wonderful and popular BCO amendment tracker. Uh we've been we've been sort of piddling with the idea of of having Scott sit down and just answer some questions about this for a long time, and we're finally pulling the trigger. Scott, thank you for sitting down and doing this. I know that um you probably want to talk for like, you know, four hours or something about this with all the details of spreadsheet formulas and things, but uh try to try to tone it down just a little, uh if you will. Yeah. I'll try to. Well, I you know, just just for for because we do this when we interview folks, uh, and you know, it's been a while since we've introduced ourselves on the on the show. Uh why don't you just remind people who you are? Uh, how'd you get into ministry? What are you doing where you serve now? Uh just kind of g give us a a foundation, a baseline for where all this BCO stuff kind of comes out of.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Yeah, well, um I actually grew up outside of the Reformed faith. I was uh reared in a nominal Catholic home, and so my call to ministry didn't come uh in a Presbyterian context. It actually came in a Dutch Reformed context. Um my family, though we attended our Catholic Mass uh for Christmas and Easter, we didn't do much more than that. Um my mom did instill good habits of prayer uh in my early childhood development, but I came to faith after my parents' divorce. I was uh like a ship without a sail, um, no oars to paddle. I felt a sense of loss uh when I was in middle school. Um and that loss manifests itself in skateboarding and attending a Dutch Reformed church. It's an interesting combo. Um, but that's how I dealt with the grief of my parents' divorce was going to Dutch church Bible study and uh skateboarding, and they wedded themselves together. Uh but when I came to faith, because of all that was going on, perhaps some might question the sovereignty of God and all of that and say, why would God put me through it? It drew me to God, uh, which is perhaps a little different. Um it made me long for a family that wasn't broken and uh deterred or destroyed, but a family where I could find um true uh connectionalism with and true belonging. And so I found that in the church, and I when I came to faith, I resolved as a sixth grader that I would go into the ministry. And so it kind of was difficult for me because I I had longed since sixth grade to be in the ministry, and it took forever to actually get into the ministry. Most might seem like it doesn't seem that long, but when you're in sixth grade, you have to get to 12th grade, then you have to complete a bachelor's, then you have to complete a master's. And when I was in my elementary school uh age, I I committed myself to only finishing my high school diploma and then going into a trade. And so when I came to faith, I realized that I extended my sentence for education, and I did so to get a master's in divinity. Never even wanted a bachelor's, but I knew that in order to be a minister, you needed education and schooling and training. And so um in that Dutch tradition, I didn't really learn Dutch theology. Uh, we learned evangelical theology, and it was only when I was at Moody Bible Institute that I start to learn about Hermann Balbanck in 2013 and Louis Burkhoff and in reading them, uh, became convicted of Reformed theology. I saw Reformed in my church name, and I I decided to invest my time in that section of the library, and it turned me into first a Dutch Calvinist and then a Reformed Presbyterian, uh, who I am today. And so that's kind of perhaps my background. I've been married to my wife um for uh uh seven uh years. We're going on our eighth year, and we have three boys, um, and we've been serving at Providence Presbyterian uh for two years now, and it's been a joy. We've gone through a lot. We're hoping to have our own building here within the next six months, and things are going, seem to be going well for us here. We're in southern Illinois, and so I grew up in uh Chicagoland, and now we're in Southern Illinois serving. And so that's a little about me and my ministry.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Well, I know that you weren't interested in polity only because I called you one day a couple years ago and said, hey, let's do a polity podcast. So what where's the where's the interest come from? You know, where's the thread of of you know Presbyterian polity in there for you?

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Yeah, so I think that's probably incidental in some regards. Um if I weren't a minister, I'd probably be an engineer. Um my mind works in systems, and polity, for better or worse, is a system, uh system of government. And so my mind naturally thinks in systems, and so whenever you give me a system, I like to tinker with it and learn all that I can with it by taking it apart, by rebuilding it, by making it too complicated, and then simplifying it. And so church polity uh was a natural vehicle for that. Uh, how does the church structure itself? Yes, there's a theological underpinning to that, but there's also procedural processes that we implement. And those procedural processes are things that I tend to fixate on. Just ask my elders. My elders will they they love me and hate me for it because they ask, can we do this? And I say, No, we cannot. You know, um uh that would that would violate the procedure of the BCO or our standing rules or something like that. Um, and so it's kind of an incidental thing, it it kind of has worked its way out, it works its way out in church polity, uh, but I just have a natural desire for structure, whether that be tech structure in my workflow or government structure in our own church. And so it it was an incidental stumbling upon. Glad I did though.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah, me too. So what what's the deal with uh, you know, pretend like somebody doesn't know what the BCO amendment tracker is and kind of just lead us into it and let us know what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Yeah, so the the BCO amendment tracker that I created, it was um in the midst of the first round of uh sexuality amendments a few years uh back. It was created in order to help everyone publicly track the BCO um amendments as they went through the Presbyteries. Um it was basically made to the end of actually knowing whether an amendment passed or failed. Um before uh the information would come out so late it'd be too late to even draft a new amendment if one failed. Uh actually, it was so bad that uh that typically once an amendment failed, there was never a re-go at it because it was already too late to submit another amendment to try to try to fix the previous amendment's errors, and then you're two years out and everything's dead, and you don't even try again. And so it was meant to give up-to-date information to prepare um elders and presbyteries to, if necessary, to refine amendments if it failed, but also to give them an update on whether they would pass or not. Everyone during that time uh in 2019, 2020, and 2021, everyone wanted to know the numbers and they were just not publicly available. I mean, everyone was asking, how are the amendments doing? That was a common question I heard. And no one knew, um, at least publicly. And so that that was perhaps the problem I was seeking to solve is just to give everyone what the information they wanted. Everyone wanted the information. It was just not publicly available to anyone. Privately, it was available to certain individuals and groups, but not publicly to the denomination. And so that was kind of the perhaps the thought process for why I created it was to solve that problem.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Yeah, and just to just to kind of get more into the weeds, what you're talking about is that that that year in between the General Assembly is when an amendment is alive, right? The GA passes it. And we've we want to know what the presbyteries are doing with it. Aaron Powell Well, unless you have the personal phone number of every stated clerk, you know, all 90 of them or whatever it is now. There wasn't really no way to know, because I mean our presbytery doesn't publish anything on the internet. Uh we don't I mean our minutes aren't available immediately after the meeting. And so you think about how big the PTA is then after that, there was just no way to keep up. Um and so you so there's m there's several different things I guess going on here. There's the finding out the information and then publishing the information. Uh so where how how did how did that all sort of come to be? Like maybe maybe talk about your workflow. Like you just started making contacts, I guess, trying to reaching out to people. I know I got text messages from you back in those days, trying to figure out how to get in touch with our presbytery guys. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

So Yeah, you yeah, you were one of my contacts. I remember, and I don't know if I should say this publicly, but uh when when I first got your information for that first junior stated cleric randomly emailed me and said, How did you get this information? And uh I said, I don't know. Oh I didn't want to like I said I have a contact, but I don't know if I would be comfortable with sharing his information because it seemed kind of like uh burdensome and I didn't want to get you in trouble. Um so there was a taboo nature. There was a taboo nature when we first started. Um it seemed that gathering the information wasn't uh so much controversial. It was the choosing to publicly represent that information that was taboo in the PCA at the time. Um and I received calls, no death threats, no bomb threats or anything, but I received calls um of concern from various guys, guys who I've talked to since then and have no issue with the project anymore. They were just worried at about what the perhaps um motivations, like was I trying to divide the PCA or destroy the PCA or cause partisan division in the PCA? Um, but uh it was really just publicly publishing data. That was the whole goal. I created it because I was talking, I emailed a few of my friends at the time, um, and uh one John Bice in my own Presbyterian Providence asked him just how is it going? How are the, you know, how are the tallies going? Are they gonna pass fail? And he just sent me his collection of numbers, and I emailed another guy who sent me another collection of uh numbers and they didn't reconcile. And so I was like, okay, there's same presbytery.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

You're saying the same presbytery and they didn't reconcile.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Yeah, they didn't reconcile. And so because they didn't reconcile, I thought, okay, this is just terrible. How are we gonna know anything? And so what I did was I took their information and I just put it in a simple spreadsheet. Nothing, no, no automation at this point. It was just hard-coded numbers and hard-coded coloring, no conditional formatting or formulas. Um, it was just very uh low tech. And I compiled all of it and then reached out to where there was variances to men I knew in those Presbyteries to correct them. And I created that privately just for myself and for my friends. And when I shared it with some of my friends, they said, Why would you not share this publicly? And they said, and I said, I don't know, I don't I I don't want to, you know, I don't didn't think to create it for that. Um and yeah, I I gave a few thoughts on that for over a few days and thought, uh, I'll I'll publish it. But I remember in those early days, I was like, do I publish it anonymously or just put my name to it? Um because I didn't know the repercussions. I was actually just like uh I just was ordained as a TE. I was barely, you know, in the PCA ecosystem. I remember I have history in the Dutch Reformed Church, not the PCA. Uh and so Bebo Elkin actually, when I got my first call, he said, You Scott, you have one big problem. You don't know anyone. And you can't get a call a call on the PCA if you don't know anyone. And so I I didn't know if I should put my name to it or not. I decided to see at the end of the day that transparency would be better than no transparency, and so I think that probably was the better decision anyway. And so uh yeah, but in the first few days it was taboo in the in that first uh cycle, it was a taboo thing to do. I think the band-aid dripped off, and so it's less controversial now and a lot easier to manage.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

But yeah, transparency kind of became the main theme of it, so to speak. Like once those first interactions, I'm sure, got over, you know, why why are you doing this? Where where are you getting the information? You know, what's what's your aim and your goal? And once people realized, oh, he just wants the information to be available so we can have the have the information. That really has been the thread the whole time. Because I know guys all over the PCA that that look at the sheet um and have made use of it over the years. What um you've talked a little bit about the help. I kind of want to dial in there a little bit more though. So talk a little bit more about the way it would have been before a tracker like this versus the way it is now after. In between those general assemblies, what does this what does a a tracker like this make possible uh for example you said earlier for a failing overture? So an overture is gonna fail the Presbyteries. What's available now that we didn't have before something like this?

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Yeah, so typically um in the past, uh by faith would run an update, maybe an update or two a season, and the only number there'd be no one would know. Um no one would know the status of an overture, whether it passed or failed, until they got their first round from the clerk's handbook. Um unless it was so controversial that by faith would announce its passage or failure, you would find out whether an amendment passed or failed in the Stated Clerk's report. And so you'd have to wait to basically 60 days before the assembly to find out where the status of all these amendments. And so what that led to was uh behind the scenes different groups, well, whatever your group was, would track them unofficially. And in that unofficial tally, they would try to, you know, uh figure out whether they need to put something up or not for an additional round. Um, but it was highly unreliable. And having that many connections in the PCA is not not the easiest to maintain. Um, and so before you would just find out information so late, uh, 60 days out, and you you can't you can't do anything to perhaps better the situation and the church is at a loss. And so before it would you were at the mercy of the clerk's office, and it's not all the clerk's office's fault. Um sometimes, you know, getting to the regional side of things, Presbytery clerks might delay in it unintentionally submitting their votes, um, even more than that. Sometimes, you know, there's just communication errors where you send it to a wrong email, you forgot the M, and you put an N instead of an M at dot com, and it never gets sent, you know, all these sort of human errors that can be made. And so information would just be delayed and slow. I think it's gotten better over the years, and perhaps that's what the tracker has encouraged is perhaps a little more vigilance uh in that department. But information was delayed, and that delaying, in my opinion, can hurt the church in that there these some good attention amendments may need just a little more refining, and that's what we saw with the sexuality stuff. We just needed to refine it a little and then it would pass. If we didn't have a public um uh update, then we we would have been still trying to pass sexuality amendments or have given up on the whole thing altogether.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Because the 60 days before GA where we get the clerk's report is you you have to tell me, is too late to turn into overture for the BCO? Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

And so the It might be actually we might get the clerk's report actually a month in advance. I think it's a month and then two weeks. But the the the two months is with the deadline for um amendments to the Constitution. And so you get your your your deadline, you receive the update after the deadline. I think that's how it works. And so now you receive the update in basically January, you'll know if an amendment passes or fails instead of finding out in May.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

It gives you plenty of time to write another overture or redraft it or whatever somebody might want to do. Yeah, on a sort of thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Yeah, at a winter stated meeting, you could get that done.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

So I know, you know, I I heard about this early on. I've those those early versions of that document um were were floating around. But I I want I've never asked you this before. When when did it first kind of explode? Because that that's one reason we're doing this is because it became sort of popular. It wasn't just something that like me and you and our friends were passing around. It became something that like I, you know, my ruling elders who don't I don't know if they know about my relationship with you, but like they would say, Hey, have you seen the spreadsheet that's floating around? I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, how did you hear about that? You know? Um, do you know what happened, or did did somebody tweet it or share it or something?

SPEAKER_02 17:22

I mean, yeah, so it was kind of um real um on the ground, grassroots kind of approach. After I decided to make the spreadsheet public, I decided to go on all the avenues in which I could gather information. Information collection was the first important task I had to to collect. I had to have a repository of contacts and as many presbyteries as I could. And so the best way to do that would be to go to the Facebook pages for um PCA ruling elders and teaching elders. And that's what I did. I said, hey guys, I've decided to start a project. I'm collecting information on Presbyteries when they vote and the results of that vote. And so if you have any information on this, please give me your like the dates for that, give me the tallies, you can DM me or whatever. And so I started there. I actually didn't have a Twitter or anything like that. It was just Facebook, and uh I I created Twitter because of the project. I I never thought I'd have a Twitter, but here we are. That's all I have now.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

We're not here to we're not here to talk about your regrets in life, are we?

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Yeah, that is a regret, you know, dumpster fires. I just love them so much. Um, but it was that's how I gathered information, and then our friend and co-host Jared Nelson was my other personal contact, and when I had a hole in my data, I said, Hey, do you have a contact in this location that could perhaps validate something for me? And uh and he did. And so I worked closely with Jared uh in those first days, just trying to build up a list of people who I could interact with. And I think through the the Facebook groups and things of that nature is kind of how it just naturally started to get shared around. And yeah, it's kind of funny. I was watching and at the peak, at any given time, there were like 30 to 45 people looking at the spreadsheet. Thirty to forty-five people. Yeah, I wish it had I wish the I wish I could get the analytics, um, but Google Sheets at the time had no analytics, and so you couldn't see how many times people clicked to open it. And so I don't know how many people have seen the sheet. I I just know the max load was like 45 people all at once. All those anonymous little things in the top corner.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Uh-huh. All the little animals. Yeah, for real. Man. Uh so what um Maybe maybe you can talk about what this was like, what it's now or you know, in the at the peak. What what would it look like for you to maintain it? So you're you've got context, you're trying to get information. Did it ever become official information from clerks' offices? Like how did it work gathering and then and then producing? I I I want to talk a little technically, I suppose, maybe not so so technical. We don't want to turn people off, but uh you know, just the the functionality of it, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

The overhead at the beginning was astronomical. Um it took so much time. Fortunately, it was in the middle of like pandemic stuff where you kind of had some time like to like to fall out of all that. Um but and so it was a lot of time because of how hard-coded the nature was of it. Getting the contacts wasn't too too much of a headache, and maintaining those contacts, that's probably still the highest overhead on the project, is constantly reaching out to 87 people is a lot of work, which is probably why the slowness for the clerk's office to get this information. Because there's just a lot of people you have to reach out to. Um, and so the data collection um is probably currently the highest workload um for the project. Uh, but in the beginning, when I was doing it, it was actually maintaining the spreadsheet itself. Uh right now it's all automated. All I have to do is enter raw data and it does everything for me now. Um but at that time I was building the spreadsheet as I was collecting data. And so I didn't have the product ready. It was like a beta, as much of a beta of a product you can have. I mean, I was manually changing colors from white to red to green at that time. I had no conditional formatting. Uh and so it, you know, it I just didn't have the time. There's just so many parts of the project. And so after the lull happened, I was able to redevelop it uh with my friend Josh Tory. And I probably know more about Google Sheets and Excel than I probably need to. Um just in the development and R and D uh of that spreadsheet. But now everything's automated. I just enter the data, the like the numbers, like twelve to twenty, and it does everything on every sheet. It it's it cycles and pivot tables everything for me and it's Almost no maintenance. It's just getting the numbers plugged in. That's the work now. And so that side of things is really easy. At first it was the the largest headache. Now it's nothing. It's now just maintaining the contacts and having the interest um to actually collect the data.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Well uh by the way, we'll we'll put a you have a link we can share, I'm sure I'm sure, to the current tracker. I don't I don't have it handy. Um now I've got it somewhere. What stands out to you as you look back over the project? I want to talk future in a second, but as you look back over it so far, is there anything that that stands out in your mind? I mean, are there any good stories or what significance do you put to it? There's a I mean, I suppose I'm asking you a lot of things in in this one question. You know, what comes to mind I guess.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

And I would be no different than the average PCA person if it weren't for just this weird, weird thing. Um I I don't view myself extraordinarily gifted in any area. I'm kind of a renaissance guy. Maybe administratively I have some natural tendencies in gifting in. Um, but I would be a unremarkable PCATE if it weren't for this weird project. Um I'm not kidding. I I'm not kidding. Um I remember I was talking to Bebo Elkin um just a few months ago when I was up for nomination for the admin committee, and he was just surprised by how I was able to get on the committee given how few people I knew five years prior.

SPEAKER_03 24:01

Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

And so I I think I've juiced the tracker for all it's worth personally.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Um but uh we here at Polity Matters are trying to squeeze a lunar couple drops out, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Yeah, we're this is the last. You are uh you're hitting Ryan. There is no more juice in this thing. But it was it's an interesting project for like personal work. Um my wife often joked with me when I was uh participating in this. She called me like Icarus, you know, like Scott, you're flying way too close to the sun. And at one point you're gonna fly into it. And somehow I have not flown into the sun, and I'm I'm hoping that I don't. Um I don't want to burn. Um, but it was an interesting like personal career kind of work that I didn't expect, and I don't think anyone could imagine. Um, you know, it's just a spreadsheet. Um but one of the perhaps uh one of my favorite early memories was uh actually Brad asking me to be on Presbycast to like unveil some of the work. And so this is perhaps the bookend to that work. Uh we we talked about this spreadsheet, you know, three or four years ago, and now we're perhaps at the the end of its its life cycle in some regards. Um but yeah, it's been an interesting it well, what I've enjoyed about this spreadsheet is it's opened the door not merely to like have like influence or credibility or anything, but it's it's opened the door to create relationships with people who I'd otherwise not know. Um and I've enjoyed the just getting to know guys um and getting to know Jared Nelson better, um, getting to know you. I've gone to know Fred Greco and Brad much closer, some guys I would not know if it weren't for this odd project. And so, and even it's not even just like the confessional wing of the PCA, it's it's throughout the PCA. Um, I have friends that are across the spectrum in the PCA because of this little project. And so it kind of transcends the partisanship which has brought me joy. I did not want this to be a partisan work. Um, and so having friends on both sides of the aisle helps ground me regularly when in thinking. And so that's probably been the the greatest fruit of the labor is getting to know people and learning where um they stand on issues and how they passionately think about them.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

And so well maybe let's kick out a little bit and think future. Uh what can I mean, you know, things have died down a little bit from the sexuality overtures of the last, you know, five or six years. Um what what's what do you see as the future of the tracker? And I sort of ask this knowingly, right? I I kind of know where you're headed with it, but g give people a sense.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

Yeah, so the tracker, I apparently I alluded to it a moment ago as we were probably entering the end of the life cycle of the tracker. Um the band-aid has been pulled off as it relates to the taboo nature of maintaining and publicly presenting data. Uh, the main goal of the tracker was uh transparency and accountability. And I think it achieved those ends and to the betterment of the church. Hopefully, we will see uh the clerk's office and the AC implement some of those ideas more broadly speaking. And so I think uh I've been talking with the clerk's office uh just generally. Uh, we're hoping to sunset the project in hopes that they will take it over in their own capacity. Um and hopefully it'll be uh perhaps uh instead of an upgrade or a downgrade, sign of a side grade kind of thing that's more centralized according to um our own government. I I the whole purpose of the project was to fill a hole that was currently lacking. And so if the clerk's office overtakes this, which they have the data to, it's just a matter of presenting the data, then it kind of makes it null and void. If there's an official tracker, there's no reason for an unofficial tracker unless you need your data to be that up to date. And we'll see. We'll see if they can keep it up to date enough to make it helpful or if it's going to be too difficult, depending on clerks. Um, so my my hope, I guess, for the future of the tracker is to double down in those two fields, transparency and accountability. And I'm hoping as an AC member that I can perhaps invest in those areas. Um there should be the the issue currently with getting data out is the threshold for submitting that data. You need to lower the threshold for communication in order to get the information quickly. Um, and so the more the higher the threshold, the slower the information drip will be, the lower the threshold, the faster it will be. And so it's kind of like we have a church app. And do I want to sign it into the church app to email my elders, or do I just want to text my elders? Well, I'm just gonna text them every single time because it's the easiest. And that's the current issue with um communication with the clerk's office, is it's not that easy, and it's not really that cumbersome, but if it were the easier you can streamline things and submitting things, the faster and quicker the data collection will be. And that's why the data for me has been so quick, is because that's just a text message. I just text a friend and he texts me back, and I have what I need to know. And so that's the lowest barrier. And the closer that the clerk's office can get to that lower threshold, the faster they'll receive data and the quicker they can update their information. And so my hope is that as I sunset this, I can invest my time in that greater idea of transparency and accountability, um, at least in the committee position that I hold, but also throughout the PCA, other ideas. Because this is not the only place we can be accountable and transparent in. It was one that was helpful given the time, but there are other areas that we could be more forthright in that we're working on.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Have you ever you you've ever heard the term Sherlocking something?

unknown 29:56

No.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

From from a from a Mac standpoint. So there was a program that you could run on your Macintosh a long time ago called Sherlock, and it was like a a a big time search function, kind of like Spotlight is now on the Mac. And uh Apple uh basically created the same feature for their computer, and they say they Sherlock they they they stole Sherlock's kind of app and made it their own without really stealing it. And so now whenever Apple adapts a new piece of software tech, they call it Sherlocking. If it puts somebody so I I sort of feel I mean, I realize there's sort of a passing of a baton maybe going on here, but it does feel a little bit like you're getting Sherlocked uh willingly, perhaps.

SPEAKER_02 30:34

Uh yes, uh I want to be Sherlocked.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

I I I mean, I uh a year ago I uh I emailed uh by faith and I was hoping to start some sort of partnership. It never materialized. It was still too taboo, I think, um, at the time, and maybe it was a little over a year ago. Um, but I my whole goal with this project was to no longer need it, um and to pass it along as soon as someone would take it. And I thought the most natural person to take it would not be you or any other TE, but actually the clerk's office itself. And so it's always been my hope that I could offload this to the clerk. Um give him one more job, I guess. Uh but it's really not if you have the data, it's just a matter of getting the web UI to present the data. And so they have the data. My it's always been my hope to not have this for the next 20 years. Um it's a little too it's a lot, it's a it's too much work. Um, and this is why they probably haven't done it on the early side of things, is because it's a decent amount of work. But they have a little more institutional resources than I do or have. And so it's a little less for them. And so I'm happy to offload it. I've been hoping that they would Sherlock me since I started the project.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

It's just it's gotta happen. Yeah. It's gotta happen. Well, do you wanna do you have any I don't know the right way to say, do you do you have any final or closing or parting words as as you uh sort of watch your tracker off in the rearview mirror?

SPEAKER_02 32:08

Parting words for a BCO tracker, for a spreadsheet, you know. It's like I take it out back to the back of the barn and shoot it or something. You know, so tell my wife I sent it in. Oh man. No, I I don't know. Uh I'm happy. I I I'm happy that I don't have to buy a domain name again. I did that for the last year, and so I'm happy that I could save 20 bucks. And a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Yeah, so the link the link in the show notes will be good only as long as Scott maintains his uh domain domain ownership. Yeah. Risbyets.com, by the way. I think we figured that out. So well, good. Well, hey, thanks for doing this. Uh uh listeners, as as your friend and mine, Scott Spreadberg Edberg would say, this podcast is over. Thanks for joining us. If you're interested in learning more, which really is just a matter of going to the actual Beat CO tracker, the link is in the show notes. You can find those in your podcast player or at Politymatters.org. If you've enjoyed the show, consider following us on Twitter or Facebook, supporting us if you'd like to. There's links down below for all of that. Uh, if you've got questions or comments, you can contact us at Politymattersfeedback at gmail.com. Uh thank you again for spending time with us. Uh until next time, Scott, let's say goodbye. And keep in mind we're we're saying goodbye to the BCO amendment tracker at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

Saiyanora. Don't let the door head me on the way out.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Oh, that's good.