Shownotes:
After we quit our day job at Extra Space to do Geek Brief full time, we moved to the familiarity of our home town. We moved into a loft in an old building and if you were around during that phase, you might remember that we were sick a lot. We pretty much coughed for the whole time we lived and worked there. During that time we met William, the Geek Brief Intern and I built my first computer from scratch. We moved from there to a townhouse where we hired our first employee, Emily. She married a soldier and moved away. We LOVED the townhome, but the rent was freaking expensive.
Almost a year ago, Neal went to the Travel Channel Academy in Washington D.C. (if you go, tell them Neal Campbell sent you!) On the flight back home, we decided to go forward with our dream to buy a bus and travel to all 50 states. For most of 2008 we worked on making The Big Trip happen. We launched a Web site called PaidbyPixels.com where you can buy a 100 pixel ad for $50. For each 100 pixel you buy, you get an ad rotation on the Geek Brief Web sites, so it’s a pretty good deal. PaidbyPixels.com so far has raised about $20,000 for the Big Trip, a good amount, but not enough to buy a bus so we’re saving it in a money market account. We’re either going to continue saving that money to buy a bus, or we’re going to lease a bus from the Hemphills and do the trip really fast. In order for it to be called the Big Trip it has to be epic. In our thinking there are two ways to make it epic. Do it fast or make it long. In the mean time, we’ll continue to do little big trips until the economy improves.
This past summer, when we got serious about bus shopping, we met Sean and Louise from OurOdyssey.us. They live in a Neoplan bus full time. They’re retired geeks and they work with the Red Cross during Natural disasters. We got great advice from them about buses and got serious about buying one. At the time we started planning The Big Trip, it was possible to get a mortgage on a bus, if you were going to live in it. In late Summer, that was no longer possible so we got a glimpse of the credit crisis before everyone else. Bankers told us they would be happy to loan us money to buy a house, but not a bus.
So we have a couple of Big Dreams for Geek Brief. One is the Big Trip and the goal with the Big Trip is to capture awesome tech research in HD and share the best stuff with you guys. The other Big Dream is to take an ordinary house with no technology other than a door bell and a garage door opener and turn it into a gadget house. We wanted to do the Big Trip first, but the economy said no, so we bought a house and re-arranged our dreams.
The house has two large studio spaces that we can dedicate to shooting shows. Our goal is to launch a couple other shows in 2009, but to do that we’ll have to hire an editor to help. Shooting video is fast. Processing it is interminable, so before we grow, we have to hire a helper.
That’s pretty much our story. Now we’re working on the future. Since Christmas, we’ve been setting up the studio. We’ll get back to work distracting you from all the bad news in the world on January 2 with one exception. The Canon 5D Mark II arrives today so we’ll shoot an unboxing and share our first footage with you on Brief 485. Thanks for watching and have a Happy New Year!
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December 29th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Congratulations Cali & Neal on your new house and wishing you an even bigger year in 2009!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
December 29th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Of all the GeekBrief video I’ve watched, many, this is easily the best by far–editing etc.! The talent even excels beyond her norm.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Cali and Neal. I love watching your show and it has been a great demonstration for me to get my own shows going. I am not doing tech stuff, so no competition there. I am going to be doing environmental stuff instead. But I want to run things the same way that you do and I am trying to figure out how to do all of that. Having the back story helps!
December 29th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
glimpse into the credit crisis before anyone else? its been talked about by experts for a good 3 years now. Just no one [wanted to] believe them. Anyway.
about the big trip, i just wondered why you couldnt offset a large/entire part of the cost via some sponsorship deal with whoever you choose to go with. It would be a great showcase of their product no doubt and im sure you have large & varied enough an audience to make something like that enticing.
My two cents.
December 29th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
akk.. i forgot to ask something i wondered about alot, and that is, what compression scheme to do you use for your ‘Small’ format? It plays incredibly well on an iPhone screen and requires surprisingly little bandwidth. I think i started to notice this a few months ago, i dunno if you guys changed anything at some point over the summer?
In comparision to what they offer @ revision3 for ‘iphone bandwidth’ quality, yours is miles ahead, with virtually zero compression artifacts visible. And yet it doesnt seem to be that much bandwidth hungri..er, at all!
i wish the guys at revision3 would take notice, seriously.
keep up the good werk and best of luck for all you undertake in 09, to both of you, and everyone who contributes to it.
December 29th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
TIP: Overdubs should be done in the same environment if possible!
December 29th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Congratulations on the new house. I expect the next surprise you will have for us is a new addition to the Geekbrief family and I don’t mean that helper you need to hire. Happy New Year!
December 29th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Cool that you guys are expanding. Too bad you aren’t in the MD area, I’m game for some evening/weekend interning, heh.
Looking forward to 09 and your impressions on the video aspect of the 5DmkII. It’ll be interesting to compare to my own.
December 29th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Cali/Neal – I stumbled upon Geekbrief last week (just two days before Christmas). I’m not passionate about gadgets (excuse for not discovering you earlier) but have quickly become fond of podcasting. Over the last 4 days I watched every gb episode and youtube video I could find on you guys. Your story is incredibly inspirational (and somewhat spiritual…but I’ll hold on elaborating). Best wishes as you enter 2009!!!
December 29th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Hey Cali
I am now using godaddy.com for my site’s domain that I hope to give a makeover before the summer, and it is totally simple to use! Thanks for promoting them, there amazing. I will do some more business with them. I now have jacco.tv with godaddy and working on getting jacco.biz there in a little wile. I hope to find and by jacco.nl, nut that is not looking to hopeful…
December 29th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Yay … a house! That means equity, plenty of room with privacy and a place for the dogs to run and play while you two geek out the house. I’ll follow along with the show notes and visit the featured web sites. Congradulations Mrs and Mr GeekBrief.TV homeowners! :-) Geek the place to the rafters! ^..^~
December 29th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Congrats, Cali & Neal on your new home! Hope you enjoy many prosperous and happy years of blogging fto and from it.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:23 am
Congratulations on the new home. As I’ve said before I love the show and watch faithfully very happy for your success and look forward to watching your shows in 2009. My wife and I are having our second child anytime now so may be a bit groggy. Ciao for now.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Congratulations on the new home. I’m really looking forward to your adventure. I have used X10 in past homes and I’m about to begin automating and securing our current home. Where money is no object, there are lots of cool choices. It would be really helpful to be able to better compare options for specific tasks. Keep up the great work.
P.S. I really miss the show note links for your podcasts in iTunes, since 11/23. I know we can get them on the website, but it was great to have them handy with the podcast.
December 31st, 2008 at 10:44 am
Congrats Mr & Mrs Homeowners!!
I hope you love the 5Deux! I have the glorious distinction of being the first person to return one to Canon for warrantee repairs — yippee skippee! I get it back today, though, so I am VERY EXCITED! I’ve missed it! Where are you Mr FedEx driver!!????
…looking forward to the ‘09 shows!! Rock on!
~Carey
December 31st, 2008 at 10:59 pm
You probably have tons of volunteers, but I’d love to work for your show. Willing to learn anything!
January 1st, 2009 at 10:20 am
Loved the ‘trilogy’ on how you two got started in podcasting. Good luck as you move into 2009. Here’s to many more years and an expanded NC channel/community of entertainment.
January 1st, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Hello,
I was sent the link to this story by a family member. I do freelance video editing with Final Cut Pro. My website is at http://www.ericcockhill.com
I’m not sure what you need and what hours – but I thought I would express interest.
Thanks,
Eric
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Congratulations on your new home! Looking forward to the new shows you both come up with. Happy New Year!
January 4th, 2009 at 10:34 am
I know the Big Trip is on hold and youins are changing things up, but I thought I would turn you on to another website that documented 9 cross county summer vacations. http://www.cross-country-trips.com/
It inspired me and I’m on a three year plan to try to make that dream happen.
Also the site is one of the best uses of Drupal I’ve seen.