I just realized I haven’t posted anything here in a week. I’m not dead! This week my online time has been mostly consumed with dealing with my newfound unemployment situation. The Arizona website for this is terrible. It created a username and password for me, but never actually TOLD me, so that slowed me down a bit. Then it forced me to recreate my entire resume through their poorly designed website before I could even qualify for benefits. That wasted a lot of time, but it’s done. I still don’t know how much I can expect to get per week, or if I even qualify at all.
I’ve been doing a lot of writing for ADVRider, as well as following up on leads through connections and friends. At least one of those seems to be going somewhere serious, plus I’m going to start contributing to one of ADVRider’s sister sites, ATV.com. There are some other possibilities in there as well.
It’s just seriously time-consuming, especially since there is no routine right now, and I never know what I’ll need to do from one day to the next. That’s pretty much been my week, which is the main reason I haven’t written anything here. Plus it’s pretty boring for you to read about. I also haven’t managed to shoot my “triumphant return to YouTube” video. I’m hoping to do that this weekend so my audience there knows what’s up and to stay tuned for more.
The reason for the time crunch on the video is I showed off my van, trailer, and motorcycle at the RTR open house this morning. I gave away a lot of cards and stickers, and it looks like I already have a few new YouTube subscribers today, so I’d better give them something new to watch!
The only picture I got during the whole thing was this one of Lister, perched on his throne, soaking up all the attention he could get. I had an endless stream of visitors and never got away to check out anyone else’s rig. But that was okay. I came here to show off what I’ve done and give other people ideas. I saw some old friends and made a few new ones, as well as a good connection or two. Let’s just say that you may eventually get to see a tour of my setup on one of the biggest van life YouTube channels…
I took a bit of a breather this afternoon. It was a nice day, and the constant stream of visitors to my camp continued with my neighbors. It’s the first real break I’ve taken since hitting the ground running with job-hunting stuff at the beginning of the week. It likely won’t slow down much over the weekend, either. The Dakar Rally ends this weekend, and multiple websites are looking for coverage and related articles from me. If I’m lucky, I may even get to shoot my next video.
Hopefully, things will settle into a new routine pretty soon. If at least some of these work prospects end up working out, I should be just fine in the end. It’s just a matter of getting through an awkward transition right now. At least I don’t have to simultaneously figure out where I’m going to travel and spend the night for the next few months.
Smokey Da Van 