A steady stream of hours

The past few weeks have been busy as I have been contributing to Damage Control’s Twitch channel. Twitch is a service that easily allows people to both stream themselves and watch others stream in real-time playing video games, chatting, or drawing. One of my original goals with the new PC I built was to stream myself playing video games from my computer. Another goal was to make my efforts visually match what one of my fellow Damage Control co-writers was already doing on Twitch with his own streams. This is possible on my PC thanks to a program called OBS (or Open Broadcaster Software) which allows me to directly capture video or stream footage of my computer’s desktop. In terms of Twitch and other similar services, it allows for a variety of graphical overlays so each person streaming can have a unique look to their broadcast. In my own case, I open the game I’m playing on my PC, capture the game’s window in OBS (which has the overlays already set up), and broadcast that footage live, while I talk to those watching via a microphone.

On Twitch we aim to make Affiliate, or have a minimum of 50 followers while meeting a few other requirements. If we can make this goal people will be allowed to subscribe to our channel, bringing us a direct form of income. We set our income make goals fairly low—enough to cover the monthly cost of hosting Damage Control’s blog online and the yearly cost of owning the domain. This isn’t a huge goal, since we’re not relying on streaming income to pay the costs for our web presence as we all work regular jobs. So far we haven’t made any money on Twitch, but one of the major keys to making Affiliate is to stream on a regular schedule.

To that end, I’ve been streaming for several hours every Sunday evening. My efforts have provided a sense of regularity to the Twitch channel that we haven’t had for months. It has been an exciting experience, but I would love to combine my efforts with my co-writer’s so we can stream roughly twice a week. We’re not there yet, but it’s good to have goals.  At the very least I’m enjoying myself as I play games for my friends and whittle away at games in my backlog.

 

In what ways have you tried to take one of your favorite hobbies to the next level?

The graphical overlay for Damage Control’s Twitch channel.

An eventful summer

Labor Day has come and gone, kicking off the start of the fall season. The true fall equinox is practically around the corner. In other words, summer has gone by quickly. Where did the time go? This blog hasn’t been updated since May 22, but it has not been forgotten. What better way to catch up than to tell you about my eventful summer?

The period from the end of May to the end of June was incredibly busy. After much discussion earlier in the year, my fiancé decided to move in with me. The fastest way to save the money for a wedding and a house would be to combine households. Additionally, having him move in would make it easier to build the repair fund for the duplex. My goal when moving into another home is to hold onto this property, but the unit I currently live in will need a slight renovation thanks to wear and tear. The amount of wear and tear will no doubt double with the addition of another person and another pet.

July and a good chunk of August saw my duplex unit crowded as there were moving boxes everywhere. As my fiancé’s items arrived, we had to sort out what would stay here and what would go into storage. Also, for the first time in four years, I found myself sharing my living space with another person. While the experience has been nice, has taken a little bit of readjustment. On the bonus side, it’s nice to have someone to spend time with after work. Not long after we toiled to unpack everything, I started on my next project.

I wanted to build a new computer to better accommodate my desire to livestream and/or record myself playing video games. I bought new parts to assemble a computer near the end of May. My plans were to originally wait until the holidays to buy the parts, but with tariff uncertainty I decided not to wait. So not only did June/July see moving boxes everywhere, but I had boxes of computer parts everywhere as well. It was during the last week of July and the first week of August when I assembled the computer.

Since my fiancé is an automotive technician, he was able to help me with wiring the case, and tidying up the wires when everything was assembled. From start to finish, the project took about eight hours. There were lots of stops and starts, and sometimes leaving the computer sitting unfinished for days. The end result was a speedy new computer (with a VERY large case) which could better accommodate my video creation goals.

As I sit here on my new computer, I’m happy to be back to writing. (If you’re curious about computer builds here are the parts I used for mine.)

 

How was your summer?

My new PC right after it was built and properly wired up.

Productivity software- from OneNote to Trello

For a good chunk of my writing life I’ve been using Microsoft’s OneNote to take notes and follow up on my ideas for articles. I liked how I could sync the program from my PC to my smartphone, opposed to having two separate sets of notes. Recently, OneNote has been letting me down for various reasons.

First, whenever I went to access the app on my smartphone I found myself being constantly logged out. This is an issue because I often take down notes whenever the inspiration for an idea hits me. Sometimes these ideas occur when I’m on the go or at work, leaving me with a limited amount of time to jot down my thoughts. I’ve had countless moments when I had a great idea for an article, but didn’t write it down immediately only to forget it later. (I know plenty of other writers who have this problem.) Having to login again wastes precious time, especially if I don’t always remember my password. Second, when I logged in and jotted down my notes, I discovered they didn’t always sync up with my PC, which made my original reason for wanting to use the program meaningless.

Last month, I finally became fed up with using OneNote. I thought about alternatives when Trello struck me as a perfect fit. When I worked for Epic Careering this was our primary way of keeping track of article ideas and various projects. The program worked flawlessly on desktop via browser and as a smartphone app. Additionally, I noticed a lot of my artist friends using the program to keep track of their queues and workflow. Trello got another big push when I set up an account for Damage Control to keep track of our writing projects. At this point I figured if Trello could work so well for everyone else in my life, why was I still putting up with OneNote for my personal writing workflow?

I finally sat down one early morning and transferred all of my writing notes from OneNote to Trello. The process took a little less than an hour, but I was able to decide what I wanted to keep for ideas and what would no longer work. I was also able to set checklists and add deadlines to projects to better keep myself on task. The transition went well and I’m not sure why I didn’t think to use Trello sooner. Looking back, I used Trello to organize my video game backlog before I did the same for my writing projects. Hindsight is something else.

 

What programs do you use to organize tasks and projects?

I used Trello for my video game backlog (pictured) way before I used it to keep track of my writing. I don’t why I put up with OneNote for so long.

Continued adventures in being a landlord

It has been a little over a year since I wrote about my other job as a landlord. Previously, I mentioned that I rented my upstairs unit out to a family member. In terms of repairs and bringing issues to my attention, this last year has been productive. When problems arise I’m told immediately and they work with me. My only regret is not being able to take care of big problems quickly. Unlike landlords who own multiple properties (and have multiple streams of passive income), my resources are limited. In term of money and saving, being a small-time landlord is similar to being a homeowner—this is doubly true if you also live in your rental. When it came to my attention the roof needed to be replaced I asked for time to save up the money. Patch jobs helped slow down the problem of leaks, but they were only a band aid.

When March came I had saved up enough money to buy the roofing supplies. Doing my taxes and receiving a refund helped put me over the top in terms of obtaining the money for the labor. Ater pricing the supplies and using a family member knowledgeable in roofing, I was able to replace the roof last month. I purchased the supplies from Home Depot, drove them home, and the roof was replaced within about five hours. It helped that I live in a small duplex– basically two apartments stacked on top of each other, and didn’t need much in terms of materials. It also helped that the new roofing material (rubber) could be placed and melted over the old material (shingles). All and all, the project cost just over $2000.

One major source of satisfaction was being able to save up the money for this project instead of having to take out a loan. Two of my goals since becoming a full-time employee at my night job were to pay down my debt and save money for repairs. In this case my goals were accomplished and my tenants are satisfied.

 

What was the last big goal you achieved? How did you achieve that goal?

Rooftops by Jeffrey of Flickr