All or nothing! Or, failing that, a moderate amount.

I'm on the ferry coming back from whatever the name of the village across from the capital is. I just made a fairly short post to the channel.  That's something I don't normally do. I'm beginning to think maybe it's what I should be doing. I have to believe, on some level, that people don't click on hour or two hour-long videos. That's also why I started by making very short videos, but they were without content. They were just little compilations of shots I had taken in Hanoi set to music. I'm hoping the answer to getting people to click on videos is shorter videos with some content. Today's video was just a crossing of the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers on a ferry boat. it was rather impromptu and I could have made a higher quality video by planning a little. It's just been bothering me that the videos that I make may have some entertainment value and some educational value but they're not highly watchable. If, for no other reason, because of the length. So I'm hoping this will help fill in that gap between the super short videos that get watched if they're on the shorts reel and the super long videos that I think have potential for anyone interested but are not highly clickable.   Not just because of the length but certainly, but the length is not helping. So a 15-minute video seems to be a good cap for putting in more frequent videos that are still live streams but are not as long.

In other news: I'm highly stressed about finances once again. I know. big shock. Two friends just sent some money and it was very nice of both of them. I'm hoping I can somehow stay legal and get back into Vietnam or some other country whenever that time comes. I'm less than a month away from that at the time of writing. Just to put a finer point on my financial situation: before my friend sent money today I had $50 and I owed $150 for the hotel I'm living in. The unfinished hotel I'm living in. It's not so bad but there are frequent problems like no electricity and no water. To be fair, I've stayed in parts of the world where that was normal when the hotel wasn't under construction. But here in the capital, it's a little unusual. Anyway if I can get by cheaply and get some small contributions from some other people I should be able to make it to the last day here in Cambodia and be able to cross over into Vietnam. That's also with a little luck.

The last thing I wanted to talk about today was also about the channel: on the content to go along with the idea of posting shorter videos I think I want to start posting more frequently. I know I tried this before and decided it didn't work out and I don't like posting hour-long videos with just me in them but I think a shorter video with just me might be okay. If Scott can't join me and no one else cares to, then posting a video that I just host that's got a tentative cap of 15 minutes might be a good plan just to be able to produce some content of a watchable length that can draw in some more viewers. Another thing I thought about in terms of content is that maybe I need to be less structured and less attempting to show an episode of something for the show and more in the vein of showing how I travel. It never really occurred to me that I have shifted my thinking but I did start to plan things out in an episode format and try to show things like that but that's not actually how I travel. the show should begin with the great stuff I find when I travel, traveling the way I normally do which is to say a lot of wandering around aimlessly. Now I don't want it to be aimless for the show so there would be a little shift in that. like I would want to know where I was going but the episode should be more just an idea of what we're going to do and then we just start the stream and see what we find. I've had a lot of episodes where I had plans for the episode and then when the plans don't pan out I freak out and don't know what to do. That means the result is not very entertaining whereas if it were just me traveling I would just kind of shrug my shoulders and move on to the next thing. So I'm going to see if I can incorporate that kind of thinking in future planning. Assuming I don't get stranded in Cambodia in the next few weeks.

Kickstarter has kicked my ass

For the first time in years, I find myself sitting in an ex-pat bar in a relatively unfamiliar Asian City. I've been working for days now on creating a Kickstarter campaign with the hopes that I'll be able to fund the project in Ho Chi Minh City starting next month. Those hopes were dashed today when I find out that you have to have a credit card to use Kickstarter. It wasn't entirely a surprise but I thought that a checking account alone would allow you to do it, which I have. Unfortunately, that was not the case and without the Visa debit card that had been sent from the United States weeks ago, I'm not able to start the campaign. Furthermore, I reached the end of my stay at the guest house. Did that two days ago. And even though the guy is offering a great rate of $10 a night, I just can't afford it. The unfinished hotel is around the corner where I will be the only resident. The owner has assured me that the room will be finished. He said it will have AC, Wi-Fi, and running water. So, hopefully, that will work out. The guest house owner has told me I'm welcome to come back anytime and get the $10 a night rate. Of course, a lot of worries would go away if I came across some money.

For instance, I'm currently waiting on information about a Vietnamese Visa that I need to get next month. I'd like to get it as soon as possible but since that costs money that also won't be happening. At present, I'm not completely sure that they're going to allow me in. They were advertising for a long time that Vietnam had reopened and was and now welcoming visitors but the truth is coronavirus is still going pretty strong around the world and I know they're going to be cautious about whatever wave is happening, whether it's omicron or omicron the revenge. I'm not even sure honestly.

Other than the lack of certainty about whether I'll be able to enter Vietnam next month, the lack of certainty about whether I'll have a place to stay for the next month, and the fact that it doesn't seem I'm going to be able to use the online 'begging for money' service because I'm not rich enough, I'm doing good. 

I can say that it's been a long time since I've been this uncomfortable in a bar. To be honest, I'm not used to being around this many white people. They're creeping me out. I know it's not necessarily a one-to-one correlation but there is a relationship between the countries in the world that are whitest and the countries that have gotten and spread the most covid. It just does not seem like white people are taking it seriously. So now that I'm here in a bar with them, I'm not comfortable. I'm going to leave as soon as I finish this beer and just walk the riverfront until I hear from the guy who's supposed to be giving me the key to the new room.

Thanks for reading I'll try and make another post next week. 

One month later

 Forgive me Father it's been 1 month since my last post. a lot has happened and I'm not exactly sure where I was at when I made the last post but I assume I was waiting for the visa to depart Vietnam. That sounds about right.

Since then I've left Vietnam and arrived in Cambodia. I still have another week before my initial visa here runs out and I’ve renewed for another month so I’ll be here until April. then I believe I will be headed back to Vietnam but to be honest, I'm not making long-term plans at the moment. 

I don't know whether I'll need to fly or take a bus or whether there’ll be another surge in covid cases as there is currently a new Omicron variant. This isn't Omicron. This is the new Omicron. Who knows where that's going to be at.

Since I've been here we've been doing a really good job of doing regular streams and we've gotten two friends watching most of them. 

Before I leave we'll do a couple of weeks at three episodes per week. Scott has agreed to that, so that's great. I feel really good about the channel right now but not so good about my visa and financial situation. I'm still waiting on a work visa from China. The paperwork has many stages to go through. I guess I'll start you guys off by telling you about that. I've done it before and it took 5 months. I'm hoping and praying that it doesn't take five months this time because I have no clue how I would make it in the meantime. I'm not sure how I'm going to make it in the coming month but that's a month away so why worry about it now? To start the paperwork, I need a criminal background check.

There's always a question of where you get it from and how you do it. It never changes but there always has to be many weeks of back and forth, trying to figure out the right one to get because if you get the wrong one and submit it, then you have a lot of time and money invested in something that has resulted in nothing. You’d think that you need to get one from the FBI because it should cover the entire United States. However, the CYA policy of the federal government means that they write on the document ‘not valid for employment.’ The Chinese government looks at that and says ‘oh we can't use this. it's not valid for employment.’ The federal criminal background check in the US is useless because they won't give you one that does not have printed on it, ‘not valid for employment.’ The only option is to get one from your local police station. the local police station will do a computer check that will be valid for every Police Department in that state. The problem, of course, is that you could have murdered and eaten a family in Tennessee and as long as you get the criminal background check done in Georgia you are just fine. don't worry about it. But whatever. I’ve gotten the Georgia check done.

It's now at the state department in Washington. when they put their stamps and official signatures and everything on it, it will come back to Atlanta, and then they will send the thing off to Houston where the Chinese Consulate is, and they will put stamps and signatures and official mess all over it and it will be sent back to the Atlanta. Then they'll send digital photos back to China and start the paperwork process there. Atlanta will physically mail the stuff to China and when the school in China gets the paperwork back I will be able to apply for the Visa where I'm at. wherever I am. unfortunately, I have no idea where I will be. In April I’ll head back to Vietnam on a 3-month visa and that should cover the whole time. I can just stay in Vietnam and substitute teach.

As far as the channel, I am planning to keep doing episodes if we cannot find any alternate funding will just go with the two shows a week that I've been doing since I've been here and stretch that out while we're in Ho Chi Minh City. if we can find alternate funding we will 

try to increase the number of episodes per week. It’s partially up to Scott. I don't want to do any episodes without him. I think they're much better when he's in the episode but if I get more funding and he isn't willing to do more…

 

we're going to do a live stream to edit into a video and the video is going to talk about a Kickstarter Campaign that we're going to use to raise a little cash for the series in Ho Chi Minh City. 

If we can get the Kickstarter funding then I think it's going to be worth it to do 5 episodes a week. we'll see how that goes. another source of funding that will probably take more time is a program where YouTube provides loans to new channels. Not sure what they're willing to give or any of the details but I'm going to look into that.

 so anyway that's what's going on with the channel. it's mostly about my struggle to find somewhere to hang out while I wait for paperwork to be completed. if I had started this paperwork 6 months ago I’d already been there this has been 2 years of constant surprises. the good news is I feel much better about the channel than I have since I started it.

I feel confident that I'm going to say this at the end of every post but I'm going to try and post more frequently. a lot of action this time between the last post and this one. that's why I want to post more frequently. I'm going to try to do it again next week. I'm going to post a link to the blog on the channel so that people can keep up with the behind-the-scenes goings-on.