Byron Toma (ACBA) - BART

Louis Goodman / Byron Toma – Transcript

Louis Goodman 00:03 
Welcome to the Alameda County Bar Association and the Love Thy Lawyer podcast. I'm Louis Goodman. Today, we welcome ACBA board member Byron Toma to the podcast. Mr. Toma advises BART on a wide variety of governmental affairs. His work includes Media affairs, marketing, planning, engineering, and real estate matters.

Mr. Toma has worked for the City of Alameda, the County of Marin, the County of Sonoma, the City of San Jose, and Clark County, Nevada. He teaches law at Santa Clara University. He likes driving rented convertibles when he's on vacation. And despite his Japanese heritage, he does not like fish. Byron Toma, welcome to the Alameda County Bar Association and the Love Thy Lawyer podcast.

Byron Toma 01:02 

Thank you, Louis. I enjoy being here with you. 

Louis Goodman 01:07 

Thanks for coming. I always enjoy talking to people who are involved with the Alameda County Bar Association. And I know you have a long time Involvement with it. Where are you speaking to us from right now? 

Byron Toma 01:22 

Let's see. I'm in a corner of my bedroom at home. As is my work from home day. 

Louis Goodman 01:28 

Oh, well, that's good. When you are not working from home, where is your office? 

Byron Tomas 01:34 

Yeah, BART is located at 2150 Webster, so for decades, we occupied the Kaiser building. About two and a half years ago we moved to a much smaller building kind of across the street. So we're behind the state of California building on grand and behind the Pandora building that's right adjacent to that building.

Louis Goodman 01:55 

I spoke about it a little bit in the introduction, but I'm wondering if you could explain to us what sort of work you do, what type of practice you have as an attorney for Bay Area Rapid Transit? 

Byron Toma 02:11 

Some people don't know that BART is a government, but we're a special district. We're created under the public utilities code to operate sort of the transit backbone for the San Francisco Bay Area. We provide, I guess, one municipal service, but that requires a full complement of all of the other arms of government that you would normally imagine, we have a planning department, an HR department. We have a district secretary, very much like a city clerk or a county clerk to handle public records, act demands.

We have a police department to make sure that our transit system is as safe as it can be. We have probably well in excess of 400 engineers. More than any other government I've worked for, we have far more engineers than any place else. I've worked for public works departments, for county governments, for city governments, and usually you have maybe a half a dozen engineers, but BART is exceptional in that sense. We have many civil engineers, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers on staff. 

Our office only has, at the current time, 14 attorneys. 

Louis Goodman 03:27 

How long have you been at BART? 

Byron Toma 03:30 

Well, I've been here longer than anywhere else I've ever worked for 16 years. It's probably been the easiest and most pleasant job I've ever had.

I don't do very much litigation anymore. Sometimes I do restraining orders. Sometimes I respond to pitches motions. Earlier in my career, when I worked for county governments, I did a lot of nuisance abatements, some hospital collections work. And I generally appeared in court much more because I worked for the mental health department on LPS commitments and things of that kind.

Louis Goodman 04:05 

Where are you from originally? 

Byron Toma 04:08 

I was born in San Jose. My parents were born in California too. My dad was born in Fresno, my mom was born in Loomis. When I was born in San Jose, my dad had a little farm in Cupertino. We had a farm that grew strawberries, apricots, cherries, and some plums. So, Cupertino back then was very different. It was very agricultural. And, yeah, it was a very idyllic childhood. I got to run around in an orchard. 

Louis Goodman 04:39 

Did you go to high school in Cupertino? 

Byron Toma 04:42 

Yes, I went to Cupertino High School. I guess in my junior year, I got my first government job. I got hired into what they called the ranger program, which took kids in high school and gave them job experience.

So I worked in the various parks, mowing lawns and things. My supervisor, Tony Castro, asked a bunch of us to clean the public restrooms and I was the only one willing to do it. So he liked me. So, he brought me to City Hall and I actually realized, wow, this is great. You know, you could be in an air conditioned building with people in suits.

And so, I stayed on for a little bit after that summer, just opening City Hall for the city of Cupertino, getting the coffee ready and picking up the newspapers outside. And so, it was a nice exposure to government life. 

Louis Goodman 05:36 

When you graduated from high school, you went to college. Where'd you go? 

Byron Toma 05:39 

Yeah, I went to San Jose State for my first two years. I transferred to Stanford after my sophomore year. And then I went to law school at Santa Clara University. 

Louis Goodman 05:53 

What did you perceive as being the differences in experience between San Jose State, Stanford, and Santa Clara? 

Byron Toma 06:02 

If you go to a big public school, you have to be able to fend for yourself. You have to be in long lines there. Everything is kind of a struggle to try and just get the paperwork in place. I was astonished how much easier life is when you go to a private school that actually treats you on sort of a one to one basis. It was kind of a pleasant surprise that made the final two years of my undergraduate career quite easy. It was yeah, quite a bit different. 

One of my kids went to USC and I think she had a similar experience. She felt very attended to. My other child, my son went to the University of Texas. And he felt pretty much just as I did, kind of lost in the system, but by the same token, you know, it's, it has advantages being in a, a large university setting.

Louis Goodman 06:58 

After you graduated from Stanford, did you take any time off between college and law school or did you go straight through? 

Byron Toma 07:06 

Well, I just went straight through. 

Louis Goodman 07:08 

When did you first start thinking about being a lawyer? And when did you really make the decision, hey, I'm going to apply to law school and really do this?

Byron Toma 07:20 

State Jewelers, where my dad worked off of North, off of First Street, I think it's San Jose. It's just down the street from the courthouse. So my dad was always very impressed when he would meet judges when he said that, you know, he would meet District Attorneys and things like that. So I, I think that made me aware, you know, as, as we all do, we try and impress our dads. And so sometimes I would think about, well, maybe being a DA or something like that. So I think that may have been what planted the seed of my interest in maybe pursuing the law. 

I wasn't well suited to the law because I had a hard time in elementary school, even giving an oral book report, it just scared me. I had excellent high school speech and debate teachers. And because of that, I kind of overcame my resistance to it. And so many of my speech and debate friends were planning on being lawyers. I just kind of went along with it. Although I think I was always more interested in science.

Louis Goodman 08:24 

So really, you started thinking about being a lawyer at a very young age. 

Byron Toma 08:28 

I guess, at least I was aware of lawyers, because my dad would talk about the people who he would meet at his jewelry store. 

Louis Goodman 08:37 

And when did you decide, I'm really going to fill out the application, send in the money, and try and get into law school?

Byron Toma 08:44 

I guess after my junior year, when I had to start thinking about what I was going to do afterwards and start getting applications in place, I think these days people don't feel quite the same geographical limitations as they once did in applying to schools, but mostly I just applied to Bay Area schools, turned in the money, was on some waiting lists, but eventually just ended up at Santa Clara, just down about five miles away from my house where I grew up.

Louis Goodman 09:15 

Now, I know you have worked for a number of governmental agencies. I'm wondering if you could just briefly take us through your career from the time you graduated from law school till starting to work for BART. 

Byron Toma 09:28 

Sure. Well, initially I was working for a gentleman who always looked for law students to help him in his practice, John Callistra.

He had a law office on the Alameda in San Jose. So a friend of mine helped me get that job and then another friend of mine suggested that I come out and work for a judge in Las Vegas for a year. And I did that. I, during that time period, got my bar results and I tried to come back to California, but DA jobs, which is what I wanted, were hard to get.

So I did manage to get a job after my clerkship with the judge in the DA's Office. I sort of flubbed my interview by saying that I did have reservations about the death penalty, so I ended up in the civil division, but in the civil division, it was much more of a perfect fit. I enjoyed the work. It was the same kind of work as the civil division of a DA's Office in California. We represented the county clerk, county recorder, county assessor, public works, you know, the sheriff's department. So it was interesting work for me for five years, but I wanted to come back to California. So I landed a job working with police for the city of San Jose and San Jose even back then was expensive. So I didn't want to live at home again. And so I took a job working up in Santa Rosa for the county council of Sonoma County. 

When I was married and had kids, my wife wanted me to move closer to her home in Daly City. So I took a job with Marin County Council for about five and a half years, moved to the city of Alameda largely because it gave me an opportunity to be the number two in the office.

Then I took a job at BART really because one of my former interns had actually suggested that they had a job opening over there I would be interested in working for. So, I've been at BART now for 16 years. 

Louis Goodman 11:42 

You've had a lot of experiences, there's a lot of things that you could do. What is it that you really like about practicing law that keeps you in the profession?

Byron Toma 11:50 

Well, I enjoy the people. You know, one of the things that I think makes a difference in anybody's daily experience is having nice, conscientious, intellectual people around them. I like the fact that we're all trying to do good things on behalf of serving the public. And, you know, I find it's gratifying to work with people who have a similar kind of focus that I have, we're all sort of drawn to public service. We all want to do good things for the public and, you know, it's made my entire career quite refreshing. 

Louis Goodman 12:24 

If a young person coming out of college was thinking about a career, would you recommend law? 

Byron Toma 12:29 

Not necessarily. And I think it depends on a lot of things. I think young people often, just like I did, you know, had focused on things externally.

You know, the way people look, the way people behave, the prestige that they have in different roles, the money that they can make. The best advice I could give young people is really not to look externally, but to look internally at what they really need, what they want, to try and get a sense of themselves first.

And even for law students in their mid twenties, I tell them that, you know, the first thing they have to figure out isn't so much where they want to work, but what will make them happy. 

Louis Goodman 13:12 

Is there anything that you know now that you really wished you knew before you started practicing law? 

Byron Toma 13:17 

Well, I think what makes a job really refreshing is having people you enjoy being with. I always tell people that, you know, when they look for a job, you know, don't look just for a job. Look for a team of people that you feel comfortable working with them. 

Louis Goodman 13:35 

What do you think's the best advice you've ever received? 

Byron Toma 13:38 

When I used to do martial arts, I had an instructor who told me, you know, frankly, that he knew I wasn't going to be very good at this, but that if you keep working at it, you're going to get better.

And that's kind of the way I look at my legal career, that, you know, I wasn't very good at this in the beginning, but you know, the more and more time that I've spent with it, you know, the better you get. And I guess that's why they call it a practice, but yeah, I'm close to 70 years old now. So I've had a lot of practice and you do get better at it.

So I think that was always a very good bit of advice, you know, not to give up, to keep working to become better at what we do. 

Louis Goodman 14:22 

Well, given that you've worked for the government so many years and given that you're working for BART right now, and you're close to 70 years old. You could retire if you wanted to but you haven't. Why is that? 

Byron Toma 14:36 

Well, it's been a lot of fun. You know, I do like having the opportunity to meet people. I enjoy my role as sort of the intern supervisor in my office. That was what gave me a few guests lecturer gigs, and it led to three years working for Santa Clara University. 

Louis Goodman 14:58 

What sort of things do you like to do recreationally when you're not practicing law?

Byron Toma 15:02 

Well, you know, I don't have that much that I do. I sometimes go walking with some of my retired friends who, you know, tell me how great it is to be retired. But you know, pretty much I would prefer just to be active with interesting things to do. You know, I have a few things that I like to do that I still, I used to like astronomy as a kid, since I grew up on a farm, I used to go out into the fields and just look at stars and watch meteors and things.

I still enjoy all of the things I used to enjoy when I was 12 years old. I even enjoy just flying a kite, you know, it's one of those weird things, but what we like when we're, I think, pre teens, we rediscover sometimes when we're just about to retire. So I'm looking forward to riding my bike from time to time and, yeah, just simple things.

Louis Goodman 16:02 

Let's say you came into several billion dollars. What, if anything, would you do differently in your life? 

Byron Toma 16:11 

I'm pretty satisfied with everything that I have in my life right now. I often find that people, some of my relatives who have been fortunate enough to come into a lot of money, the happiest ones really haven't really changed their lifestyle.

I have farmer relatives who actually are quite well off financially because of the value of the farms that they eventually sold. But the happiest ones I think are the ones who just never changed their lifestyle. They still wear clothing that's, you know, decades old, they still, you know, pursue the same habits they had before they came into a lot of money.

I think contentment is the most important thing, you know, when you plan out your life and they were content even before the money. And so I think that's the unfortunate thing about money, sometimes it brings discontentment, you begin to compare yourself with other people and they'll always be wealthier people than you.

Louis Goodman 17:12 

Yeah. Three or four billion. It's just a drop in the bucket in terms of people with real money. Let's say you had a magic wand, there was one thing that you could change in the world, the legal world, the transportation world or otherwise. One thing. What would that be? What would you like to change with your magic wand?

Byron Toma 17:30 

You know, I think it makes a huge difference in the legal world anyway, when people are civil and reasonable with each other. I think, you know, having moved from different communities, it's always remarkable to me how the culture of different legal communities can be, you know, Clark County was a fairly nice legal community, we all knew each other. Likewise in Santa Rosa, the legal community was small and we knew we were going to meet each other again. Very different when you interact with attorneys sometimes from the LA area where, you know, attorneys are pretty confident, even if they encountered. One lawyer once in their careers, they may never have to see him again.

So, there is a nastiness in some relationships I've had with LA lawyers. I wish didn't have to have been that way. But I do think that it's important that, you know, the bar try and generate a community of respect for each other and, and civility. And I think we're fortunate in the East Bay that generally that's the case.

Louis Goodman 18:43 

Let's say someone gave you 60 seconds, 60 seconds on the Super Bowl so that you had a Super Bowl ad. What information, what sort of advertisement would you like to put out there to a really big audience? 

Byron Toma 19:02 

Yeah, you know, I'm always very impressed when I do see commercials that sometimes get to the heart of what we all are as human beings, people who need respect from others, need kindness from others.

I guess, you know, it's a time where we sometimes easily forget that when you come right down to it, political differences of opinion, religious differences of opinion actually shouldn't matter. We're all humans. We all have the same experience. We have the same needs. And I think making that extra bit of effort to identify that in the other is important, not to treat the other as always being different, somehow inferior, somehow being less deserving of things that we may have.

I think that is the struggle that we all have, you know, trying to understand that we are no different really than the person across from us. 

Louis Goodman 20:02 

You work for BART. I'm wondering if you could tell us what you see as BART's challenges going forward into the future over the next 5 or 10 years

Byron Toma 20:14 

Well, of course, ridership is the biggest problem for us. We depend probably 80 to 90 percent on fare revenue to keep our system going, that's very different from Santa Clara VTA that I think only depends on their fare box for about 15 percent of their operating revenue. So we've always been fortunate that people have been willing to pay in order to get to the financial district and therefore avoid 50 a day parking fees.

But I think in this period of history, when we're beginning to realize people can live remotely from their place of work, don't have to show up to the job site every day. I think BART has to anticipate much fewer riders or regular riders. I think that's going to be a challenge unless we have a different kind of financing scheme.

I think safety, public health, those are also challenges when you're talking about putting people together in very limited spaces. So I think it's a struggle for all of us to try and deal with some of the perils of living in an urban environment where, you know, you have very wealthy people living right next to people who are very desperate in terms of their life circumstances.

Louis Goodman 21:39 

Byron, we have a number of people on the call with us. I'd like to open it up at this time so that we can get some other questions and comments from some of the people who are with us. Let me start with Sonia Mehta. Sonia, can you unmute if you have a question or a comment for Mr. Toma? 

Sonia Mehta 22:00 

Hi, I thought this was an excellent interview with great questions and wonderful answers and I wanted to ask about Mr. Toma, how do you work with and train the attorneys at BART? Because it seems to me they must be working on sort of disparate practice areas. So how do you coordinate that? And then how does your team work together? 

Byron Toma 22:22 

You know, we have a number of areas in our office practice that are common to all of us. We all work on public works contracts. We all work on public records requests. We all may be assigned a small advisory bodies to advise. So we have to be familiar with the Brown Act. We always have to be vigilant to make sure that we can identify conflicts of interest or self dealing and the kinds of issues that present themselves at BART, so at least I, as one of the senior attorneys in the office, play a role in the training of the new attorneys. So I have a PowerPoint that I present to all of our new Attorneys with regard to the California Public Records Act, the Ralph M. Brown Act, the California Political Reform Act, and sometimes even CEQA and NEPA, depending on whether they're going to be doing work with our real estate department.

And, you know, we have other people who are the office experts, like Ray Pascal is our contracting expert, and he will train every new attorney with regard to what to be aware of with when it comes to public contracting. And then we have other people in the office who are specialists with other areas of the law.

So it's one of the reasons I enjoy our interns, it gives me an opportunity to keep doing regular trainings and, and introducing folks to what I think are the most marketable areas of expertise, you know, if I can train a person interested in being a government attorney and the California public records act I know that's going to give him a leg up in terms of being hired. 

Louis Goodman 24:11 

Thank you. Divya. 

Divya Masidipalli 24:13 

Divya Masidipalli. Hi, thank you so much for, for spending your time with us. This has been really interesting. I'm curious. I work for the city of Oakland and so familiar with public service and working at the at the local level.

I'm curious what's your experience with coordinating with other transit agencies around the Bay Area and other municipalities or public agencies, what that experience has been like, and if you have any ideas for improvement in terms of coordinating across different agencies and making sure that our work is efficient and effective.

Byron Toma 24:59 

I know there is a Bay Area Transit Attorneys Association. From time to time, you know, I've joined in those kind of get togethers. We lately haven't had too many get togethers because of COVID, so I think a lot of that kind of gathering together has kind of been placed on ice for a few years. It would be nice to resume that.

I think when I worked for city governments, I think the League of Cities is blessed with having the LISTSERV and having, you know, some really wonderful conferences through the League of Cities. The County Council's Association, likewise, I always enjoyed the County Council Association get togethers because they were kind of focused on specialty areas, whether it be mental health law, land use law. But, you know, it's always fun finding colleagues that you can bounce ideas off of. 

As the transit agency, you know, unfortunately, there aren't that many opportunities for us to get together, especially when you work for a heavy rail system like BART, you know, our most comparable governments are like WMATA in Washington, D.C. or New York Transit or Chicago Transit. And then you don't have a lot in common with them in terms of the law, because we're all in very disparate places. But it's always nice to network with city attorneys, with some of the city attorneys along the BART line. You know, I've enjoyed working with my counterparts who work for the city and county of San Francisco's City Attorney's Office.

So yeah, I think partnering is always a lot of fun. And in our office, we You know, share our expertise and our ideas on a lot of different areas of work, and it's always made it a pleasure. 

Louis Goodman 26:54 

Eric Camacho. 

Eric Camacho 26:55 

Good afternoon, Mr. Toma. Thank you for spending your afternoon with us. So, I'm currently a 3L, so I want to know what advice do you have for someone who's coming in as a, or will be coming in as a, you know, a first year attorney. 

Byron Toma 27:11 

Oftentimes when we have so many fine applicants, you know, we have to turn many people who would do a splendid job in our office away. But I think you have to be willing to keep putting yourself out there. I think that's what happened to me when I had very little experience. You know, I was just going from one application to the next, but don't give up successful people aren't successful because they avoid failure. It's just that they don't let them, those failures hold them back. You just have to keep applying and there are many jobs out there and sooner or later, I think, you know, you'll find the right fit, the right opportunity.

But yeah, just keep applying and at the same time, keep trying to expose yourself to opportunities and internships and fellowships and other opportunities that could flesh out your resume. 

Louis Goodman 28:10 

Eric, I just wanna follow up on that for a moment with you, if I might. Is there some area of law that particularly interests you at this point, or are you still looking around trying to decide where you might be a good fit?

Eric Camacho 28:25 

So I really do have a passion for family law. I know it's a little bit intense, but I think I've done a placement over the semester and the summer, and I think it's something that I kind of like to do. So I'm really firm on that. 

Louis Goodman 28:42 

Cynthia, you're joining us. 

Cynthia 28:45 

Thank you very much for your presentation. It was excellent. And I really loved hearing about your father looking up to the people. I think I really related to that. My father was a union representative for a warehouse or pulp and paper and he would come home and, and talk about congressional people he was meeting and stuff. And I think that that left a spot in my, my heart that I hadn't identified before listening to your comments there.

But my, my question is, my question is when you wake up in the, in the morning and you're having your coffee or whatever, and you're reflecting on going to work, what is it that you're most grateful for? 

Byron Toma 29:33 

Now I reflect on how fortunate I am in having a job that really doesn't consume me all the time. When I used to do litigation, I used to think about it all the time. My wife would get mad at me sometimes for, you know, being at the table, but not really being there. I was thinking about, you know, getting ready for depositions or getting an opening statement put together in my head, I would think about it all the time.

And I think that's one of the greatest features of my current job. I'm primarily a transactional lawyer now. And earlier in my career, I was mostly a litigator and I didn't realize what a difference there was. A huge difference in terms of just either being completely consumed by the work you have to do and the seriousness of the work you have to do, it's not that transactional work isn't serious. It's just that at the end of a workday, you could leave it alone and it'll still be there. It won't have migrated or evolved or changed in any significant way. So I think that's made all the difference in terms of my happiness over the last 16 years. Having a job that really allows me the time and freedom to enjoy family life, to enjoy outside pursuits without the stress of always having to think about it.

Louis Goodman 30:58 

Thomas Butzbach. 

Thomas Butzbach 31:00 

My comment is, I just love your perspective on life. You made me a better person today. So thank you for that. You mentioned your father got the GI Bill. How did he, this is World War II? How did he stay out of the camps? 

Byron Toma 31:17 

He was drafted. So actually, yeah, he was drafted before the relocation orders came out. So he was at Fort Ord, actually, when Pearl Harbor was attacked. So, it's funny because he was there on December 7th, when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He actually got transferred to Fort Polk in Louisiana for basic training. He also went to a place in, I think, Alabama for more training. My father was actually what they call a Kibe, he's a person who was born in the US goes to Japan for some of his education and came back.

So he had a rather significant accent. So when he was in Alabama, they put the folks from the 100th battalion, mostly Hawaiian Japanese Americans together with California Japanese Americans, but he had a terrible Japanese accent and the 100th Battalion Japanese soldiers beat him up together with a friend of his.

So, he was in the hospital for about two weeks after that, and he still, you know, was even when I was young talking about that one incident, about how a big guy stood up for him, it was one of my, one of my most interesting occasions when I took him to a 142nd reunion when he was in his 90s. When he was 90 years old I met the guy who stood up for him and got beat up with him and it was kind of nice, but he, he went from there to Fort Bliss, then from Fort Bliss, he went to Sicily, then to Italy, and then eventually up to Northern France, where I think on November 3rd, 1944, I think it was right before the Battle of the Bulge, he got shelled, he got injured by mortar fire, and then he went to First England and then to the hospital.

I can't remember what it's called now in the Presidio for Rehabilitation. So he was rehabilitated for about two years because he had hand injuries due to the fact that he had put his hands over his helmet when he was being shelled. And so he had mortar fragments in his hands, but that's why they trained him to be a watchmaker because he could still manipulate small things without causing hand pain. 

Thomas Butzbach 33:53 

That is just absolutely fascinating. And that's where you get your strength from. I can tell, a lot of strength from there. 

Louis Goodman 33:59 

Thank you, Mr. Butzbach. 

Byron, is there anything that you wanted to talk about that we haven't discussed, anything that you wanted to bring up here on the podcast that we haven't gotten to? 

Byron Toma 34:12 

No, I guess I will say that, you know, I do think, um, having an opportunity to work for local governments or state governments offer people, I think a number of different opportunities, you know, in terms of just the stability that they can make in their lives, you know, it's very rare that governments lay off people.

You know, I have nieces, nephews who work in tech, I think one of the things that I sometimes feel sad about, even though they get very well compensated while they do have jobs, is that employment has become more of a gig, something you do for a little bit. And so it's kind of sad when people are just sort of made to feel dispensable, you know, that, you know, they're good for now, but you may not be needed in the near future.

I think one of the things that we all want in life is a sense of being useful of having purpose and, you know, I'm kind of disappointed that the tech world, unfortunately, here in the Bay Area seems to discount the importance of stability in life. And I think if people do desire more stability, you know, careers in government offer that stability.

Louis Goodman 35:34 

Byron Toma, thank you so much for joining us today on the Alameda County Bar Association and the Love Thy Lawyer podcasts, and on behalf of myself and all the other participants, just wanna say thank you very much for being here. 

Byron Toma 35:51 

That's been a pleasure, Louis. Thank you so much. 

Louis Goodman 35:55 

That's it for today's edition of Love Thy Lawyer in collaboration with the Alameda County Bar Association. Please visit the lovethylawyer.com website where you can find links to all of our episodes. Also, please visit the Alameda County Bar Association Website at ACBAnet.org, where you can find more information about our support of the legal profession, promoting excellence in the legal profession and facilitating equal access to justice.

Special thanks to ACBA president Pamela Ross and Criminal Justice Chair Annie Beles, staff members Cailin Dahlin, Sayeed Randall, Valerie Brown Lescroart and Hadassah Hayashi.

Thanks to Joel Katz for music, Bryan Matheson for technical support, Paul Robert for social media and Tracy Harvey. I'm Louis Goodman.

Byron Toma 36:45 

I can't really think of too many things I'd prefer to do, so maybe if I became more imaginative I could figure that out, but for now I'm fine.