Happy 10th Birthday, Elise!

Today our sweet Elise turned 10 years old! I still remember the morning she was born like it was yesterday. It was shortly after 6:00 am when Jessica delivered her in a small hot tub at a birth center in Bellevue, Washington. With the music of Elliott Smith playing in the background, Elise was brought into this world and I got to hold her for quite a while shortly after. Obviously, it was an experience that Jessica and I will never forget; it’s just hard to believe that 10 whole years have already gone by since then.

As is usually the case with our kids’ birthdays, we’re spreading the celebration out over several days. Since today is her actual birthday, she started off the morning with breakfast in bed, then came down later in the morning to open presents. We went to a play center in the afternoon to let the kids get some exercise, then we went out to dinner as a family. We let Elise choose the restaurant, and luckily for all of us, she chose Chef Kenny’s, which is an Asian vegan restaurant that we love.

After dinner, we came home and did some night swimming, then took a break to enjoy a cake that Elise and Mom baked last night. More swimming and hot tubbing ensued. All in all, it was a great day, but her birthday celebrations are far from over. Tomorrow, the kids will be going to my Mom’s house for a couple nights and I know she has a few things planned. Then next Thursday our good friends the Palmers are visiting us from Washington for a long weekend. 

Instead of having a traditional birthday party, Elise wanted to go see the new Barbie movie in theaters with her friends, but she wanted to wait until her buddy Miles was here for a visit. Jessica got tickets for a big group of Elise’s friends to go to the movie, but Enzo and I decided to pass. I’ll admit it does look funny but since my friend Leon will be here, I think he and I will take Enzo to do something that day while the girls are at the movie.

I know Elise still has all these fun things to come but I hope she enjoyed her day today. It was pretty much the perfect family day and I don’t think anyone will be forgetting it anytime soon. Happy 10th birthday Elise, we love you!!

The Last Few Weeks of Summer Break

Jessica and the kids have been enjoying their break this Summer, but it’s flying by and they will be heading back to school in about three weeks. We’re really excited for our friends to come down for a visit, but they all know that this will basically be the last hoorah. In addition to the movie, we’re all going to a water park one day while they’re here, so that should be a lot of fun.

We recently celebrated the 4th of July, which was also Peach and Spencer’s third birthday, by having my Mom plus our friends Tiko and Tina, plus their two girls, Helen and Beatrice, over for swimming, a BBQ, and fireworks at the park. We were spoiled by relatively cool temperatures during June but that all seems long gone. The forecasted high temperature for this Sunday is 117 degrees, which is extreme even for us. I remember it getting that hot one day during our first Summer here, but it never got that hot last Summer. When you live here you just learn how to live with the extreme heat during the Summer, but at least we always have a pool to go out and jump into.

An Update on Vegas Showbiz and Cappers

Shortly after my last family blog post, Vegas Showbiz was accepted into the YouTube partner program. They recently lowered their limits to get into the first level of the program and we qualified, so I applied and we were accepted almost immediately. Now that we’re in the partner program we’re technically able to start making money, although that hasn’t happened yet. We’re allowed to sell private memberships to our channel but I don’t think that makes sense for us at the moment. We’re also able to accept tips/donations via the Thanks button below our videos, and we’re able to sell Super Stickers, which are digital pieces of art related to our channel.

I don’t expect us to capitalize on any of these options, but I’ve definitely seen an uptick in our viewing numbers and subscribers since we got into the program. It makes sense that YouTube would start surfacing our videos more in searches now that we’re in the partner program, because the better our videos do, the better they do in terms of advertising revenue. Our big goal is still to get to 1,000 subscribers because at that point we will make it to the next level of the partner program, and at that point, you start getting paid a portion of the revenue generated from ads being viewed when people watch your videos.

It won’t be a huge amount of money, but we expect it to be enough to buy tickets to a show each month. Our plan is to reinvest the money into doing more fun things to make videos about and grow the channel that way. Although we had a lull between February and May where we were only producing two videos per month, getting into the partner program has definitely been reinvigorating. We’re not quite halfway through July and have already dropped five new videos for the month. Here’s our most recent one, which is a review Enzo and I made after visiting Fly Over Las Vegas on the Strip.

Regarding Cappers, last Friday Devin and I went live by releasing it to the world! Our main website is located at https://cappers.ai, so if you want to learn more about what we do, that’s the place to go. The web application that people pay for subscriptions to is located at https://app.cappers.ai. So far we don’t have any paying customers but I’ve made some nice progress this week. 

Yesterday I messaged about 10 professional sports handicappers on Twitter; I introduced myself and offered them a free Cappers subscription. I explained that I was trying to gather feedback from established handicappers so I can fine-tune the site and asked if they would be interested. I have already heard back from three of them who are interested and one, who has over 56,000 followers on Twitter, has already gotten set up with a free subscription. Another one has 35,000 subscribers, so if I can get these guys to tweet about it, give feedback, and perhaps give a testimonial on our site, we’ll be looking good.

Our main goal for these first couple of months is to get feedback so we’re ready for NFL season. Hopefully working with these established handicappers will help get us there. In addition to promoting the site via Twitter, I have also been making videos for the Cappers YouTube channel and writing blog posts for the Cappers blog. Most of the blog posts I have written are heavily focused on sports betting, but my first one was more like our origination story. I wrote about growing up in a house where my Dad ran an illegal sports gambling operation, and how he always told me to do something better with my life. I honestly feel like my tech experience combined with these experiences as a child makes me very qualified to be a founder of a company like this. If you’d like to check it out just go to: https://cappers.ai/blog/2023/07-july/01-commandments-of-sports-betting 

I’m already working every day to get us ready for NFL season and I expect to be hustling for months to help build up our subscriber base. Devin and I should be starting our Vegas sports podcast soon as well, so hopefully all these things will start coming together and the site will blow up. I’m not worried about it because I know how much hard work is being done; it’s just a matter of time.

More Homemade Music

I’ve been on a roll with content creation lately and music has been no exception. I recently tried something new by recording music specifically to be used for the background of a Vegas Showbiz video. Normally, when I record music I’m trying to come up with progressive, interesting ideas and play things that sound impressive. This time, it was a different approach because I wanted something simple with an uplifting feel to it.

I was particularly proud of this one, not because it was the best playing I’ve done, but because I recorded it in an old-school way using my actual amplifiers and microphones. Normally when I’m recording music at home, I plug my guitar into my computer and use software recreations of classic amplifiers. This approach has always worked well and sounded good, but it almost feels like you’re cheating. I’m able to pick from all these classic amps from the 50’s 60’s and 70’s, then mix and match them as I please.

This time, I set up a couple of amplifiers in my bedroom closet, which is the closest thing I have to a recording booth, then mic’d them up and cranked the volume. The music was intentionally simple but the guitar solo was done in a single take with zero practice or preparation. In a strange way I was more proud of this than most of my other stuff, mostly because I was using my own physical amps and pedals to get all the sounds.

I also promised my Uncle Bob that I would make a video with the guitar he gifted me before moving back to Washington, so here it is. Again, I used a microphone in front of an amp with lots of volume, which I think is good for the soul. Playing loud feels so good!

Obviously, it’s been a busy few weeks but I honestly believe that staying busy is the secret to happiness. I’m looking forward to making more music to use in our videos, excited for the future of Vegas Showbiz on YouTube, and extremely excited about everything going on with Cappers. It’s only a matter of time. For now, here are a few more recent photos from our Summer.