I released the latest episode to my YouTube channel this evening. While the main purpose of the episode is to highlight my hike to Hope Camp in Saguaro National Park here in Tucson, I also talk about my feelings around the content moderation changes/elimination at Meta, which will affect Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
I left Threads about a month ago when the place went crazy with bots and MAGA folks. While I’m not abandoning Facebook and Instagram, they have been removed from my phone and I have decided to no longer promote my YouTube channel releases on Meta owned platforms. If you’re curious as to my reasoning, see the first 90 seconds or so of my latest episode.
I’ll probably write more about it this week. I’m in a mood.
I have produced a new trailer for my Youtube Channel. This one is a little shorter than the previous version and I feel it gives a great overview of what you’ll find on my channel.
In the spirit of all things New Year, I put together a recap video of some of my hiking and storm chasing adventures in 2024. I enjoyed going through some of my older video to see how much my style has changed since I started the YouTube channel earlier this year.
This video includes some footage from the Eldorado, Oklahoma tornado back in May.
I felt really off center at the end of the work week, especially Thursday night and all of Friday. I had been paying closer attention to politics than usual during this election season, especially around the response to the debate on both sides of the aisle. Unfortunately, I also got sucked back into my Twitter account and I was really being pulled down by much of the rhetoric on there. After re-activating my Twitter account to defend Gus Walz after the convention, I went and re-deleted it yesterday morning. Any views of my YouTube channel that I garner from Twitter would probably be from bots, so I decided I don’t need that exposure.
All of this consumed turmoil was bubbling around in my head and quite frankly made me feel very burned out by Friday night. For many, it’d be just a matter of “just ignoring it”, but my brain doesn’t quite work that way. The chaos had fallen into the over processing department.
So, I decided that my hike on Saturday would focus on seeing and enjoying the beauty of Mother Nature in these parts. I brought along my camera without any real script or plan. I wasn’t going to spin the video into tips for a great hike or talk about what equipment works best for me out there. If I shot some video, it’d be just what I was seeing. I wanted to share what I hoped would be a positive experience with anyone that wanted to see it.
The hike was amazing. I feel much, much better as I write this on Sunday morning. It was a good workout, both mentally and physically. I’m feeling good.
I hope you enjoy seeing what I’m sharing here in this video.
I decided to go for a short hike yesterday morning. I hiked some of the Butterfly Trail on Mount Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains. It was a great little hike.
I’m finding my groove with my hiking videos and the approach I’m taking to video editing and design in general. Not only am I enjoy the hikes, I’m also really enjoying sharing my experiences in this way.
In this age of Constant Chaos, especially in too many areas of the Internet, I feel a positive contribution like this helps keep things at least approach some sort of equilibrium. I hope you enjoy this latest venture with me. Photos follow the video in this post.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
