ROLEY

  • Sandy Hands, Oct 18, 2019

    ABOUT THIS PHOTO:

    Canon T5i

    18-55mm @44mm f/5.0 1/2500

    My daughter’s hands. In the sand. It looked like art to me, not a brand.

    I think you understand.

  • Getting Off The Self Help Train

    There was a time when there weren’t aisles full of self-help books at your local bookstore. I recall that there were some self-help books that your local B. Dalton or Waldenbooks wouldn’t have carried. For those, you had to go to your local crystal-wearing, chakra aligning, toad licking new age store.

    Today, there are two or three aisles at Barnes and Noble, and they consistently rank higher and higher on Amazon. Not only that, but since they are no longer content just to have a bestseller, they’re all over YouTube and Instagram, and they have podcasts. I don’t know if it’s because the snake oil salespeople have gotten better, or we, as a society, believe we’ve gotten worse. Of course, believing we aren’t quite right is what self-help gurus want us to do, and millions of us have bought into that idea. I would suggest that, for the most part, we’re fine, and we need to stop believing the motivational flavor of the week.

    I have a few reasons why I believe we need to see this industry as the flim-flam it is:

    First, a personal note: If you have to plant doubt and possibly a small amount of fear into a person to get them to buy something from you, I just don’t think you’re a decent human being. No amount of baby-kissing, puppy rescuing, or school planting you do in Africa, I can’t escape the fact that you profit off that doubt and fear.

    Second, there’s a small part of the population that suffers from a sort of self-help attention deficit disorder. They jump from method to method, and when they don’t see immediate or short-term improvement in their lives, they give up and move to the next method that hooks them. In truth, the books aren’t the help that person needs, rather recognize that the action of moving from thing to thing when one doesn’t work quickly might be the beginning of the answer to their problems.

    Third, and I can’t stress this one highly enough, most of these books say the same thing. Of course, they dress it up to match their personality and voice, but the basic premise is almost always the same. I spent two years reading every self-help and productivity book I could lay my hands on while researching a character for a comedy podcast. After that many books, I concluded that it’s almost formulaic:

    • These books always start with a generalization. It’s meant to describe for you the person who ‘needs’ this book. It’s almost always written generally enough that many people will recognize some trait they possess in the writer’s avatar. That plants a seed of self-doubt in your mind, and that’s by design. If you recognize yourself here, the chances of you buying the book go up.
    • Next, the writer will introduce themselves and explain why they are qualified to help you. Generally, they do this by telling you they were once where you are right now through a sad and almost tragic story but for the epiphany that changed their life. Depending on the writer, they will next go into what has happened since then. They might tell you the number of accolades they’ve received. They might name-drop people that you will certainly know to suggest an association. Some writers will tell you of their abundance, while others will share their philanthropic efforts. They will tell you that you can live that same life if you follow their directions, not all of which will be in their book. More on that later.
    • In every chapter of their book, they will have a quote from some deep thinker you might know. They’ll lay out a premise that will introduce the subject of that chapter and then unnecessarily remind you of who they are through a ‘personal story’ that relates to that chapter. They’ll then cut to the main idea of that chapter and give a list of x number of reasons why they think they’re right. They’ll recap and close.
    • At the end of the book, they’ll offer some congratulations and tell you that if you want to get even more information, you can go to their website and get their online course, join their premium membership, or buy some product that costs more than people have the sense to pay.

    When you see this formula laid out, it makes you wonder: If it’s all the same, why is this a bajillion-dollar industry? You’re not paying for the content. You’re paying for the personality, style, and voice that hooks you for whatever reason. Once on the hook, you’re part of their gravy train until you decide you want off this ride.

    I believe the best way to get off this ride is to give you the common denominator. So, here are the things that every self-help book has in common:

    1. Set A Goal, Make A Plan

    The first thing you must recognize is that getting your life under control can’t be a scattershot thing. Start small and identify a particular area of your life you would like to improve, and define what success would look like. For example, I wanted to get up earlier and have at least an hour to myself before going to work. This would mean I needed to get up between 4:30 and 4:45 in the morning on the weekdays, much earlier than I was used to. Working backward from there, I realized that I needed to go to bed earlier, stop consuming caffeine at a certain point in the day so I could go to bed earlier, lay out clothes and pack a lunch at night before bed, and stop taking devices into the bedroom and read a book instead, and force myself not to hit a snooze button no matter how much I would like fifteen more minutes. After a month of incorporating these steps into my life, I have made that time possible. Now I can move to the next goal.

    2. You Can’t Just Think About It.

    This is the linchpin of everything else I will put on this list. If you’re addicted to self-help and productivity porn, and you plan and make lists and think about it and never take action, everything else is useless. For years, I would carry a notebook with me everywhere, take all kinds of notes on to-do lists, and write endless ideas and vision statements I never used. I was always ‘Fixin’ to get ready,’ which is another way of saying I wasn’t ready. Eventually, I had to recognize that the reason I wasn’t moving forward was that I wasn’t moving at all. Once I took action, things started happening. You have to make procrastination and paralysis a thing of the past. Go do the thing.

    3. Progress Is A Daily Practice.

    When I was a very young child, I had a problem with a bully kid punching me every day on the playground. I cried to Dad about it, and he said, “If he hits you, then hit him back”. The next day I went back crying to Dad. “Did you hit him back?” He asked. “Yes, but then he hit me again,” I said. Dad was confused by my answer. “Well, why didn’t you hit him back a second time?” I got very upset by the question. “Because I didn’t know I was allowed to him *again*!” 
    You can’t just hit the bully once because they’ll hit back. Only this time, the bully is Life, and Life hits harder. Hit Life back hard every day. You may not win, but you will get stronger at dealing with the bully.

    4. Your Discipline Equals Your Results

    It’s this simple: If you can get your mind right, you can get your life right. The more you can incorporate the second and third points on this list into your life, the more you will be able to get your life under your control and work towards the goal you set. When my life is going the way I want it to, it’s because I have followed the systems I built for myself, and I do my best not to let other people control my day. I make time for quiet; that’s generally my drive to work in the morning. I don’t keep my email open during the day, and I don’t ever open it up first thing. I do one thing at a time because I know I can’t multitask. I find the time to hit the gym. I get a good night’s sleep. I block out time for the side gigs during the week, and I ensure that every day includes the wife and the kids because they’re the reason I do anything. When I forget to use these systems and lose my discipline, my life is not where I want it to be. So I do my best to keep to my discipline. Find what works for you, and stick with it.

    5. It Won’t Happen Tomorrow

    As I previously wrote, people often jump from system to system and guru to guru because they don’t see results in a short amount of time. To quote a favorite meme of mine, ‘That’s not how this works’. I started lifting weights on Memorial Day Weekend 2018. It’s a year and a half later, and I’m finally seeing some visible positive results from working out two to three times a week. I had to commit to putting in the time and the work for the long term. If I had become discouraged six months in, I wouldn’t have ever seen the progress I see now. Now that I see results, I’m more compelled to keep going. I have a simple goal. I turn 50 in July 2020, and I want to define what 50 looks like. It’s a long-term goal. This isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon. Stop treating everything like a sprint.

    6. You Need To Own It.

    When you have minor setbacks or major failures, sometimes we look to place the blame on anything but ourselves. “It’s not my fault, the dog ate my homework. Mercury was in retrograde. The Illuminati towed my car.” Having agency over your own life means you get the wins AND the losses. You have to own it, so stop making excuses for why things don’t go well. Learn, Adapt, Overcome.

    7. You Don’t Have To Be Nice But Don’t Be A Jerk.

    People will understand if you’re having a bad day if you’re honest. What people don’t deserve is your sour attitude. Try to be nice, try to be positive, but on those days where it’s hard, make an effort not to be a jerk. Or, as my Nana used to say, “Be nice, or be quiet”.

    It seems a bit weird to say ‘It’s that easy,” because clearly, it isn’t. But, without the fluff, it does look simpler than the motivational voice of the day makes it out to be. You don’t need to find the next voice out there that hooks you; instead, listen to your own. You’re OK. Yes, everyone can be better at something, but that does not mean you’re a failure. You don’t need self-help. What you need is self-help that works.

    Where I come from, self-help that works…is help.

  • 7 Steps to Good Podcast Audio

    In the late Nineties, when getting audio posted on the internet was more complicated than now, I remember using a headset mic to record audio with a Sound Blaster 16 PCI Card, then editing it with SB Studio on my 486SX PC.

    (Yes, humans had evolved to the point of having opposable thumbs by then.)

    To stream audio on the internet back then, you either used Windows Media Encoder or, my personal preference, RealAudio. Both methods needed two files to work: the audio file itself and a file that acted as a middleman. When you clicked the play button, you were engaging the middleman file, which pointed to the audio file on your server. Once accessed, it loaded up in Audio Player, and once it felt like it had enough lead time, it would play. The smaller your audio file the better.

    Having a small file was great for another reason — you didn’t have a lot of space for things back then. My first website was on GeoCities, and that gave me 10MB. Megabytes. By today’s standards, that’s microscopic, and yet we managed to get audio entertainment up on the internet long before podcasting and long before anyone really cared much about audio quality. As a result, the bit rate on those early sound files was usually Mono 16-bit 22kHz files — they’re pretty horrible. You won’t be listening to Dark Side of the Moon at that quality, and if you are, I seriously question your life choices!

    Today, we don’t have these problems. Definitely not one of length or server space if a podcaster like Joe Rogan can go to three hours regularly. And not one of quality if you’ve heard anything from NPR — the gold standard of production quality. That said, if you’re just starting out, no one expects you to produce anything like the quality of Serial.

    Most independent podcasters are an army of one, while big podcast outfits have the staff to dedicate to production. Most people who evangelize podcasting will tell you that the message is more important than the production quality if you’re connecting with an audience. As you gain experience, the desire to make your show sound better is perfectly natural. I have found this a stress point for some beginners because while they might have a decent audio editing program, they’re not quite sure what to do with it beyond recording. This is compounded somewhat by people who would like to make this sound complicated so they can sell you their solution. The good news: it isn’t complicated at all.

    There are seven steps to making sure you have decent podcast audio.

    1. STFU or GTFO

    Simply put, if it’s in your recording space and it makes noise, silence it or remove it. Clinking glasses, pencils or fingers tapping on tables, pets, kids, you name it. If it cannot be made to be quiet, it should be made to leave. The less noise you have to deal with during recording, the less cleanup you’re going to have to do later. Remember: “We’ll fix it in post” is a pipe dream, and sometimes you just can’t fix it.

    2. Stop That Damn Racket

    Some noise can’t be silenced — air conditioning, for example. It’s also possible that the ambient noise in the recording space can’t be quietened much at all.

    That’s OK. Most of Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) available today can capture a ‘noise print’ from a file and remove as much of that noise. When you record, make sure to have at least five to ten seconds of silence before anyone speaks so you can capture that noise print. I also like to leave five to ten seconds at the end of the recording.

    You can also use a noise gate that quietens the input if the signal falls below a certain level. If you have a budget, you can purchase DAW plugins or standalone programs that analyze the sound file and attempt to correct them automatically.

    Once you’ve removed most of the general noise, make sure you listen to the file and check for any other noise that needs to be removed manually. Sometimes, you can’t remove a noise because someone is talking over it. In that case, assess whether you can remove the line and still retain the context and meaning of what the speaker is saying. That brings me to the next step….

    3. They’re Smarter Than They Sound. Really.

    This next step is not only helpful for good sound, but it’s also a great idea if you don’t want you or your guests to sound like idiots: get rid of the filler words like ‘Um’, ‘Ah’, and ‘Er’. If you or your guests stammer through something and trip all over the words, remove it. Likewise, if you or your guests use crutch words or phrases like ‘you know, ‘like,’ or ‘I’m just saying,’ remove them if you can.

    I personally can’t stand the relatively new trend of people starting an answer with the word ‘So’. If I can remove it, I do. Shorten long pauses. Remove audible breaths. Finally, as you edit, you may become familiar with the talent’s pacing. Do your best to match that pacing throughout. The talent will sound much more professional, and if it’s a guest, you have increased the odds of having that guest back.

    4. The Audience Can’t Listen If They’re Deaf

    I’m sure everyone has had this experience watching TV or listening to radio or podcast: The ads are much louder than the content, and you break speed records to wrench the volume down before you bleed from the ears.

    Dialogue, music, remote interviews, and sound effects are sound files that come from a myriad of sources, and almost none of them are recorded or exported in the same way. Also, you may have spots within your own dialog where your volume goes up and down while speaking. It’s your job to make sure you don’t leave your audience riding the volume knob to hear you while running the risk of leaving them with permanent hearing loss at any moment. DAWs can do this through the normalization function, while websites like Auphonic can do this automatically.

    Aren’t You A Little Tweaker?

    Next, we need to make the talent’s voice sound good. To do this properly, I need to give you a hard truth: every voice is different, so the things that make one voice sound good will not make every voice sound good. Another hard truth is that, for the most part, no one sounds quite like they think they do. I think most people believe their voice is deeper than it really is because it sounds that way to us. When you play a person’s voice back to them, it’s entirely possible they don’t recognize it. Sometimes, people will tell you upfront they don’t like hearing themselves — that’s perfectly natural. Using equalization, this is very much a trial and error process where you’ll be tweaking the low end, midrange, and high end until you hit a sweet spot. Since every voice is different, it’s simply a learning process. For example, you don’t want to add more low-end to someone who already has a deep voice. Instead, you may play with the mids and highs to add some crispness and brightness to the voice. In some cases, you may decide to add some light compression, but I don’t think it’s always appropriate to do so. Your results may vary, but the only way to learn this is to do it.

    Put It All Together

    Now we’re ready to assemble all your resources and add them to your multitrack space. Intros, outros, music, dialogue, sound effects, and anything else you need for your production. Lay them out on your timeline, adjusting the volume so that everything sounds natural and has the right flow. Nothing should be drowned out; nothing should overpower.

    Are You Listening?

    Finally, listen to your whole timeline in real time and correct any mistakes you haven’t caught. Once you’re satisfied, export your file at -16 LUFS. This is the standard for loudness with podcasts and ensures that your podcast will sound consistent with the loudness of the majority of podcasts out there today.

    You won’t get it right the first time— that’s ok! By following these steps to getting good podcast audio, you’ll increase the chances of having the kind of consistent, high-quality podcast you want — one that listeners will appreciate and share with others.

  • The 3 Questions You Need to Answer Before Starting a Podcast

    In my last article, I made the case that there are three different types of podcasters: The Hobbyist, The Corporate Podcaster, and The Entrepreneur. Each one has its place in the world of podcasting, and I believe every one of them belongs here.

    You might come into the world of podcasting for fun and find yourself as an entrepreneur at a later time. You might create a podcast for the company you work for and do something for fun in your off-time. You may do all three if you’re in the game long enough.

    When I started in 2006, podcasting was still very much a pirate thing, and there weren’t any “rules.” Incidentally, there weren’t as many podcasts out there either. Today, according to Nielsen and Edison, there are at least 700,000 live podcasts.

    You’re free to take anything I’m saying with a massive grain of salt, but if the days of “If you build it, they will come” were ever a thing in podcasting, those days are long gone. If you want them to listen and subscribe to your show, then you need to make something people can find and want to listen to.

    If you’re a hobbyist, this may not be that important to you. That’s fine. Podcasting can and should be fun. However, if you’re a podcaster that wants a following, engagement, community, and a possible way to market a product or service down the road, then there are some things to consider.

    In my mind, there are three questions that any podcaster who is serious about the craft needs to answer.

    What’s It About?

    While this would seem to be an obvious question, it would astound you how many people simply turn on a microphone and just ramble all over the place. Full disclosure, I’ve done this as well. Go look at the descriptions of podcasts and see how many of them are a variant of “whatever I feel like talking about.”

    If you look at the reviews, you may not see many. In fact, you may only see less than 10 episodes, the last one being more than six months ago. Why? Because they didn’t define the show. If you can’t describe the show, then you can’t tag it correctly in the Podcast Directories. You can’t write a good description. You won’t know where you should promote the show, or you’ll promote it in places that will have no interest at all in it. If you can’t do these things, then no one is going to find your show.

    Who’s It For?

    Do you know who your audience is? I have a client that found his audience in a unique way. In fact, without this experience, he wouldn’t have a podcast. He’s a Civil War historian from the South with a contrarian point of view from other Southern “Civil War historians” you may have heard of. He made a video explaining this on Twitter, and it went viral. He had a built-in audience of hundreds before he even decided to do a podcast.

    When he announced that he was thinking about starting a podcast, his audience enthusiastically encouraged him. Ten episodes in, he’s doing quite well, and he’s leveraged his success to drive people to a Patreon account that’s pulling in over $100 a month. Not bad for a first-time podcaster who’s still learning.

    My client found his audience, and a passionate one at that. Do you know who your audience is? What’s your subject? What are you passionate about? Try testing your idea out as my client did. Post your idea somewhere on social media, and see if it travels beyond your followers. Does it engage with people who usually never engage with you? Does it get the attention of Opal in Toledo, who you’ve never met? If it does, you may be onto something. Test it out.

    Why Would Anyone Listen to This?

    Of all the questions needing to be answered here, this one is possibly the most important. After all, there are many podcasts about podcasting or creative work out there. Why in the heck would anyone want to listen to mine? How am I different?

    With over 700,000 podcasts out there, the market for every niche is filled in some way. Do some market research. Listen to the other people in your category. What are they doing?

    In the Podcasts about Podcasting category, most of the podcasts are more about marketing and less about what appealed to me back at the very beginning. The appeal was the act of creating art for fun, for therapy, for a purpose, or for any reason that floats your boat. This is in direct opposition to the supposed podcasting ‘gurus’ who believe — in my opinion — that podcasting should be done by certain people with a particular purpose.

    I rebel against that philosophy, as any good pirate should. That’s the podcast I wish to present to the world, and I think that’s why people should listen. Find what sets you apart from the others in your space. That’s your lane to occupy.

    Final Thoughts

    This is the very beginning of the process, but if you’re treating podcasting as a serious venture, then you really can’t afford to overlook these questions. Answering these questions provides you with clarity. If you have clarity at the very beginning, then every other decision you make as you go through the process is less complicated.

  • Four Reasons Why Templates Might Work For Your Podcast

    Have you ever noticed that some of our favorite podcasts follow a certain path on every show? For example, one of my favorite tech podcasts follows a very predictable pattern. There’s a small preshow banter, followed by any announcements or housecleaning issues. Next, they go into follow-up, then they get to the News or Featured Topics of the week. Finally, they have a Q&A segment and possibly some post-credit banter. Strangely, this format is also done by the majority of long form tech podcasts, and at least one comedy podcast is co-hosted by someone who also appears on these same tech podcasts

    Go figure.

    I say all of this to say that this didn’t come along by accident. One podcast started this format, and a co-host or a guest on that show liked it, and used it on their podcast, and so on. It’s easy and predictable. Also, because a lot of these particular podcasts are produced on Macs, they can embed chapter marks in their podcasts so that the listener can scrub through things they don’t care about.

    Using a template to map your podcast out may be one of the smartest things you can do for your podcast. Here are four reasons why you may want to consider it.

    IT STREAMLINES YOUR SHOW PREP

    I can’t tell you how many times I have sat down in front of my microphone, loaded up Audio Hijack, hit record…and nothing came out. My brain literally switched off the second I hit that record button. A lot of the time, I’ll sit down with an idea of what I want to talk about, but it’s not fully formed or mapped out. Learning to fly by the seat of my pants was something I had to learn how to do early on. You never knew if you were going to be stuck on mic because somebody or something left you hanging, so you needed the ability just to go, and try to sound intelligent. As podcasters, we have the luxury of hitting stop if we don’t sound the way we’d like, but what if we don’t sound like ANYTHING? We draw a blank? Knowing that you have, say, four segments to your show that need to be filled with specific content makes your job easier when it comes time to find that content and plug it into your template. SHOW PREP becomes easier, and you’re not breaking your brain thinking of something to say out of the blue with no content to support it. I find — and you may as well — that it is easier to talk about something than it is to make something up to talk about.

    IT TEACHES YOUR LISTENERS

    One of the common bits of feedback I have received from time to time is that my other show follows no specific format. Now in the case of that show, it’s by design. I like RoleyShow to be as freeform as possible, and what I talk about on Monday might be 180 degrees removed from Tuesday’s show. I think my listeners have come to expect that my show is about as frenetic as I am, so they have learned that I jump around. I’ve made that change after years of podcasting in a different way. If you’re just starting out, or if you’re podcasting about a particular niche, then it might be a good idea to make use of a show template. It makes your podcast what some folks might call ‘snackable’. Maybe I don’t need to hear follow-up, I can scrub right through that. Maybe I just want to hear the main idea of your show. Maybe I sent in a question or a comment, and I want to skip straight to that. If you’re consistently using a show template, it helps your listeners go to where they want to go in your show for what they want.

    Now, some of you might be saying that making the show skippable in that way hurts the show. I think exactly the opposite. Make your show as listener friendly as possible, and they’ll keep listening in the long run. That long run is much more valuable to you than today or this week.

    IT PROVIDES NATURAL STOPPING POINTS

    Unless you’re doing an interview show or another kind of show where you need to keep rolling all the way through, I don’t think it’s a good idea to try to do a podcast all in one take. If you’re using a show template, then you can hit stop, save your file and move on to the next segment. Take a short break or a stretch to get yourself back to the center, hit record, and keep going. That way, you can sound fresh and engaging all the way through the show. Some hosts start blazing, but after about 10 minutes, you can hear the voice starting to get raspy, their energy level is fading, and by the time the show is ending, both you AND the host are ready for it to be over. Don’t be like that.

    Also, if you’re planning to monetize your podcast in some way, these stopping points are the perfect place for ads or other kinds of monetization alternatives. Back in the early days, I remember one very big podcaster putting in mid-rolls for their show, and it certainly lived up to its name: These ads would literally drop in the middle of sentences. But the time you got back to the show, you forgot what they were saying. That’s poor practice, and you’ll lose listeners that way after too terribly long. Create space for those opportunities by being able to finish thoughts before moving on to an Ad.

    IT MAKES REPURPOSING CONTENT EASIER

    What if those segments could be repurposed into blog posts, Medium articles, Linked in, or IGTV videos? The larger your reach out from your podcast, the more attention your podcast will get. The way to do that is to consider making parts of your podcast — these separated segments — available in other formats at other places, with a link back to your website or wherever your podcast home is. Ideally, you’ll have your own dot com, but that’s a story for another day.

  • Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel July 21, 2018

    ABOUT THIS PHOTO:

    Taken with iPhone X

    4mm, f/1.8 1/950 ISO 20

    July 21st is our wedding anniversary, and so this day we got in the car and went all over the place looking for things to shoot. My friend Pete Feds had a shot like this, and I was curious to see how he got down here to take this shot. It’s surprisingly easy, as there’s an apartment complex directly behind me.

    That noise, though. In season it’s got to be nearly unbearable.

  • Neptune at 31st Street VB Oceanfront, June 16, 2017

    ABOUT THIS PHOTO:

    All Photos taken with Canon Rebel T5i w/18-135mm Lens

    I suspect that along with the Great Seal on Mount Trashmore, this has got to be one of the most photographed things in the city. I’ve certainly taken more photos of this guy than should be considered normal, and there’s a good reason for it. He takes on a different quality depending on the angle, the weather, the light, the background, and his age. He’s been there since 2005, and I swear he gets better as time goes on.

    When I was a younger man, this piece of land Neptune stands on was originally the site of Seaside Amusement Park until it got knocked down. It was going to be a hotel until the citizens said no. My Senior year of High School we staged a walkout and walked to 31st Street to ‘Save Our Sun’. If they had put a hotel here, it would have completely closed off the view all along Atlantic Avenue. Cooler heads prevailed, and it became a park alongside the Hotel that ended up being built next to it.

    I think he’s beautiful, and I love to sit on the benches across from him and be quiet for a while and watch him age gracefully through the salt, sand, and spray.

  • Seagull, May 26 2017

    ABOUT THIS PHOTO

    Canon T5i, 18-135mm, no other data available

    This is probably my favorite picture of the whole lot. It captures everything I love about the beach in one shot. Sand, surf, and seagulls. I very rarely make prints of my own shots, but I made a print of this, and it’s on my wall.

  • Picnic Umbrella, Outer Banks, July 1, 2016

    ABOUT THIS PHOTO:

    Taken with Canon Rebel T5i

    18-135mm @135mm f5.6 1/4000 ISO 400

    I can’t lie to you about this: When I saw this shot, I said “this is going on my desktop”. And it stayed on my desktop for years. Sometimes it’s OK to take a shot just for you.

    I like this a lot more than that Windows XP Default hillside screen, I’ll tell you that much.

  • Self Portrait, June 4, 2016

    ABOUT THIS PHOTO:

    Taken with iPhone 6s, No Other Data Available

    I don’t remember the exact circumstances behind this photo, but based on the fact I have headphones on and my hand is on my chin, I’m fairly sure I was editing audio and listening as intently as I can. Most times, when I have to dive deep into the weeds on a piece of audio and work on the tiny little things, I get into this posture. I can’t see for certain, but I’m pretty sure my eyes are closed. Nothing but the sound exists when I’m in this state.

    One reason I know that this is 2016 is what I’m wearing. That Fall and Winter I was on a kick that I needed to look more my age, and my wardrobe was more on the business side of business casual. I’m the kind of person that finds something he likes and buys five of it in different colors, because I hate standing in front of the closet wondering what to wear that day. That year it was exactly what you see: Oxford collar shirts and V-Neck sweaters. I also decided to let my hair—what there is of it—grow out after having a buzz cut for five years or so.

    I used this photo as my profile picture everywhere for a long time until I decided that people needed to see my face, for which I’m dreadfully sorry.