This week on East Meets West, Nick and I had another fun hour talking about new rules in the Senate, our recent string of underemployment, and the ridiculous political treatment of refugees by governments.
I always have fun talking to Nick, and even though we’re both nowhere near our possible career potential at the moment, we both keep our heads held high and hopes are at peak values right now.
It only makes sense that exactly three years (to the day) after doing my very first video on YouTube, I would cross the threshold of actually earning real money from Google. Let me tell you the story.
For a little over a year, starting on July 4, 2011, I had been writing on my blog (which still exists to this day). December 1st, 2012, I made my first YouTube video, a Google+ Hangout live chat with my good friend, Carolyn Higman. You can go watch it, the quality of the video is relatively embarrassing, and a lot has changed since then.
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| The first time I exposed my face to the world, three years ago to the day. |
As a point of comparison, here is the latest episode of Future Chat, recorded this past weekend:
Over the years, a lot has changed. But one thing that hasn’t changed is that I still love teaching, helping, writing, and learning about technology. Here’s a brief timeline of my milestones on the internet.
July 4, 2011 – I start Living In The Future, my blog, on my birthday. I published the first post the following day.
December 1, 2012 – My first Google+ Hangout on Air.
January 14, 2013 – I agree to begin work with Sons of Pluto, a band with my friends. Work includes recording their practices, shows, building their website, making promo videos, and running their social media accounts. Those guys are now working on an EP!
February 7, 2014 – The first Future Tech Chat takes place. This is the spiritual successor to the first Hangout on Air from 2012, and the podcast continues on a weekly basis to this day under the more general “Future Chat“.
March 27, 2014 – I make the first Attrell Update video. My sister and I go on to exchange videos on a weekly (or almost weekly) basis until December of 2014.
May 20, 2014 – The first episode of Ottawhat is released, after Keegan, Amaan and I decide we should start an Ottawa-themed podcast about people.
December 14-16, 2014 – East Meets West and Feedback debut, also marking the formal launch of UnwindMedia.com, a media network that is the home of my Internet-related work so far.
November 5, 2015 – Ottawhat News, a satirical look at events around Ottawa, has it’s first viral post. In just a few days, over 65,000 people read about Peter Hayes and the Bier Markt.
December 1, 2015 (Today) – In an inevitability of time, math, and fortune, Unwind Media finally passes the threshold for being paid real money for ads on the sites I run. It is now just a matter of time now until a cheque from Google arrives. It’s not a lot of money, but it feels extremely good to hit that threshold.
I really love making things, and being creative. I’ve been doing it for over 4 years and I’m more excited now than I ever have been. I’m looking really hard for a job right now, and the stuff I do on the side is the only thing keeping me sane at the moment, as it’s one creative outlet I have amidst filling out applications and writing cover letters.
On East Meets West, Nick and I talked about Canada’s new Cabinet, how our applications to the Liberal Party are going, and follow up our conversation on toplessness. The episode makes me pretty happy.
This weekend, we had an international podcast on East Meets West. Matt “Tom” Staroste joined us from Australia to discuss the election that’s upon us today. And while you might not have time to listen to the whole 2 hour podcast today before polls close, I really encourage you to listen to Matt’s and Nick’s 3-4 minute endorsements of the NDP and Liberal parties at the very end of the episode. It’s how I decided my vote, and it’s really worth your ears.
This part of the conversation starts at 1:44:00 of the 10th episode, which you can jump to right here. The full episode can be found below as well.
On UnwindMedia.com this week, I finally managed to convince Nick to sit down with me for another East Meets West! Thank goodness beer exists to help make that happen! We also had great episodes of Future Chat and Ottawhat? as you’d expect, and those were no slouches either. I should note that in Future Chat, we spontaneously decided to do a moment of silence, which worked surprisingly well until Nick burst out laughing 5 seconds after.
I spent a lot of time on this blog talking about Soylent, the food product that is literally just a powder you mix with water. I really like it except for the sweetener taste, but I won’t discuss that in any more detail now, you can find out exactly what I think so far here.
It was another full week on Unwind Media, and I’m happy to let you know we finally recorded another episode of East Meets West, discussing, among other things, the recent NDP sweep of the Albertan Provincial government.
If you still haven’t gotten your #Taylorette1989 videos out, or at the very least shared your stories, now would be the time to do so! Taylorette itself is a little under 6 weeks away!
On a final, new note about Unwind Media, I’ve been working hard to bring you show archives, so you can now find those if you go to any of the show pages below. I have no idea if any of you will find that useful, but it was one of those fun learning experiences getting the code working properly, and it seemed worth it to me!
We also underwent a nice set of changes at unwindmedia.com, it’s a lot easier to follow and subscribe to shows as they have their own landing pages with show info now. We also added a couple of Twitter accounts and Facebook pages for East Meets West (@_emwFM/East Meets West) and Feedback (@_FeedbackFM/Feedback) this week (we also moved Future Chat’s Twitter account to @_FutureChatFM), you can follow or like those to keep up with news for those shows specifically.
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I don’t think posting EVERY thing I do on this blog and on its own site, so I’m going to give the “synopsis” type post a shot for a while. Let me know if you think this is a good idea, or if you think it’s a mistake. I’m all for the feedback!
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New on @UnwindMedia East Meets West #4 – I’ll Edit This Out – http://t.co/DGxrSwgQTo
— Unwind Media (@UnwindMedia) February 13, 2015
East Meets West #3 – They’re Called Soviets in Russia http://t.co/i3Bd1gP28d #politics #beerstore #carbontax
— Unwind Media (@UnwindMedia) January 30, 2015
