Monthly Archives: March 2022

Help still required

It’s that time again, time to update my payment information across multiple systems. Luckily this only happens once every four years or so, as this interaction illustrates why companies still need to hire someone people with an eye for detail and a ounce of empathy for their customers.

Kudos to PayPal who somewhat uncomfortably updates this info automatically.

Unfortunately, Pair Networks has no area to update your payment details in their VPS account that I could find, unlike their shared hosting which has a completely different UI. Parent company Libsyn, hides billing information in a different place for their Enterprise accounts. Public Mobile uses tiny text as an afterthought and their database is so slow you need to wait 2 minutes for each screen change. And the list goes on …

Every time I think there must be so many accepted UI patterns that work, that there must be no more work for those people concerned with their customers experience, I come across situations like this.

I’ve allocated a couple of hours for this. I hope it will be enough.

Like a fine wine

I can think of no better analogy to describe the cup of coffee I had at The Shed on Monday. After a weekend of drinking coffee from the likes of The Java Moose and The Second Cup it was particularly refreshing to taste coffee’s true potential.

See you again St. John

This past weekend found us in St. John, NB, a city I don’t think I have ever visited but may have driven to when I would have been too young to realize where I was.

We were there for Camrens swimming meet, his first off-Island meet and the largest since COVID turned kids lives upside down.

The uptown is full of wonderful architecture with intricate detail and I loved the sturdy old brick homes. At the same time there was a certain edge to the place, which might be due to it’s current and past industrial activities, but also the poverty that was evident for all to see. The uptown suffers from the same fate as Charlottetown, as it’s extremely quiet, with few locals about, as most prefer to live in the outer edges and shop and eat at the soulless big box stores. It’s a shame that it is only tourists who appreciate an interesting downtown.

St. John is home to not only Crosby Molasses, but also a couple fine coffee roasters, which I will get to brew over the coming week. Drinking copious amounts of coffee there re-affirms to me just how lucky we are to have The Shed. There is no comparison.

We are looking forward to going back to St. John in the first week of May for Canada Games trials, and we’ve already booked an AirBnB for that period. The hotel’s in Saint John look like they haven’t had much in the way of investment for 20 years, and at least in the place we stayed, it shows.

1,000,000

We passed a particular milestone recently as we reached 1,000,000 downloads over a 30 day period with Sleep Tight Stories.

Downloads as a metric of success are fraught with inadequacies; I could like others, shorten our episodes and publish every day of the week, and our downloads would certainly go up. Rankings on Apple Podcasts are somewhat the same, though supposedly more qualitative, they are but one measurement.

If you asked me how to create a podcast and get to even greater reach than ours I could tell you. If you asked me how we did it, I couldn’t, because we haven’t really done much of anything, other than to consistently create and improve our audio over a long period of time. My wife and are very “quiet”, so much so that you might think that we have a “we don’t talk about podcasting” rule ala fight club. Other than 2 cheap ads on Overcast we haven’t advertised, haven’t done any cross promotion, collabs, or been featured in any publications whatsoever. I seldom talk to other podcasters, nor do I network. And we live on PEI, which is not what you would call a hotbed of children’s entertainment, or a hotbed of anything really.

This is all a fault, and yet here we are.

We are not particularly ambitious. I like creating audio that kids enjoy, and that helps kids relax and get a good nights rest. And now that much of our current material is written by myself, I can tailor our stories specifically to their needs and interests. We aren’t setting ourselves up for a sale, or to join Amazon or iHeart, or be an “exclusive” Spotify podcast (they don’t advertise to kids anyway, so we wouldn’t be attractive to them), we just hope to continue making something meaningful to ourselves and our audience.

So, here’s to reaching 2,000,000 per month.

Commute view

Sheryl spent a few days in Truro this week which meant I was without a car, so I took the opportunity to run to and from my office in the downtown. It’s not really that long a walk either.

Madness

The Aston Origin has been a part of the sound of our podcasts and voice over for almost 2 years. It’s a condenser microphone and has all the advantages and disadvantages that most apparently have.

I can’t remember the exact reasoning for selecting this brand, but I’m sure reviews, price and the mic’s aesthetic had something to do with it.

While it sounds fine, I’ve always struggled with it’s idiosyncrasies – it’s sensitive and as such picks up every little crackle and pop, mouth clicks and environmental noise present. This makes the environment we record in critical and sometimes editing a pain.

In terms of sound, I’ve always found that the mic is missing a certain clarity or openness in the mid-upper range. Something I have heard from others, and something I haven’t been able to add in production.

Aston has had a couple sales of late and when they were selling at a significant discount at Long and McQuade I jumped at the chance at purchasing the Aston Stealth to see if a “broadcast quality” dynamic microphone might make for a noticeable improvement and perhaps alleviate some of the issues we have with the Origin.

It’s different, not better. I’ve been struggling for hours listening to my voice and Sheryl’s speaking into the mic. I’ve produced finished work and I’ve listened to raw recordings. I cannot discern a noticeable improvement, and the back and forth is driving me to madness.

I’m hoping they will take it back.

A New Place

I dropped into The 5th Wave this morning as I was determined to spend time drinking coffee amongst the backdrop of people and their chatter after being stuck inside for so long. My first stop was The Shed but I swear it has been closed more often than open whenever I have dropped by this winter.

The 5th Wave has the advantage of a convenient location and an interior set-up conductive to staying for longish periods that make for a pleasant experience. It’s bright and geared towards a younger clientele; more Japanese minimalist than College bookstore. The music in the shop is front and centre, which is almost always a mistake, as it was at The Shed, and many other places who don’t think of audio as an integral part of their experience.

Yesterday when spending time at The Shed I remarked that their drip coffee tasted better than my pour over. It was quite good, and their pour over is even better. Buying black drip or pour over defines to me the character of a coffee shop. That’s what I ordered today at The 5th Wave. Their drip is a med-dark roast with a flavour profile not unlike many other slightly upscale coffee shops like Receivers. It wasn’t distinctive or great, but it was fine. They don’t do their own roasting and much of the flavour of coffee is dependent on freshness, so they are perhaps at a disadvantage in developing a uniquely flavoured product.

I’ll come back for an expresso again in the near future, and would certainly prefer spending time in their bright environment than say the darkness of the Victoria Row Receivers or Alambé Coffee.

Returning to normalcy

It’s wonderful to be out of isolation and able to move about. It’s especially great to be able to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee; coffee shops being the only place in Charlottetown in winter where you can actually be around people (I don’t do bars and there are no co-working hubs).

I delayed going back to CrossFit as we tend to be in close contact with others no matter how stringent we follow public health guidelines.

Whether my symptoms were a result of COVID or simply a chest cold, or whether there is a difference I won’t know. The medical system can no longer test people let alone give people a detailed diagnosis.

What I do know is that it’s been close to 2 weeks since onset of symptoms, 10 days since I had my positive result, and I still don’t feel anywhere close to 100%. I would never expect that my lifestyle would make for a teflon armour against illness, but I am surprised at how long it is taking me to bounce back.

Today the sun is shining and coffee tastes and smells like coffee again, so life feels good.

COVID Files

We are nearing the end of our required isolation period. I have gone outside each day – yesterday for a walk, and later a short run. The day before I went out and pushed some wet snow around. Fresh air and exercise is a decent antidote to many things.

Sheryl is still largely asymptomatic but with enough cold symptoms that it is affecting her voice, which is problematic when we have voice over work to do. Her experience shows that rapid tests are fallible. She has been asymptomatic all along, tested negative each and everyday, but when getting a pcr test, had a positive result.

Camren is back to normal and is competing in the open tonight, and has a swim meet on Sunday. Catriona is still testing negative, likely because she spends all her time in her room.

I still have a chest cold which I had before I first tested negative and later tested positive. Because of the constant coughing, sleep hasn’t been possible this week, which has an effect on my mood, and my ability to do the things I want to do. I often wondered if those who refuse to follow public health guidelines never get sick or perhaps don’t care about not accomplishing much if they do. I can’t stand putting plans on hold while my body recovers.

One symptom which is disconcerting, is that all the coffee I have been drinking this week tastes vaguely like vomit. This after just ordering a box of coffee from a roaster in Truro (of all places). I’m hoping this is temporary.

Brain fog

I’m sitting here trying to write a children’s story and a short missive about our listener growth but am incapable of stringing sentences together in a coherent manner. I’m experiencing total and complete brain fog.

Camren was the first to test positive for COVID and is back at school today. Sheryl and I both tested positive later, and are both isolating until the weekend. Catriona is enjoying her alone time and ordering food via Door Dash. Camren suffered from sore throat and headaches, and I have a cough from hell, which has meant no sleep. Sheryl is asymptomatic.

Life is grand.