Today, I wanted to tell you about my YouTube channel and how I’m preparing to get it up and running. I’ve had it since around 2007, I believe. Historically, I’ve mostly used it to watch videos and like and subscribe to other channels.
I have a few old, old videos up there… from Kenya. They were just dropped there as a placeholder, really. But I’ve been thinking about starting a channel for many many years.
We have some upcoming vacations, and I thought I’d give it the ole college try. I’m always blogging about my vacations… and I’ve always dreamed of vlogging about them too. My other passion, of course, is writing. I thought I would combine the two on a YouTube channel. I don’t yet know what this will look like. For now, I’m mostly playing around with a video editor… preparing to start.
Here’s my first real attempt. I didn’t want the added pressure of filming new footage, so I took some old footage and tried my hand at editing in some standard YouTube elements. Trust me, this is basic and unprofessional… but all the tutorial videos I’ve been watching tell you to start somewhere. And they also promise you’ll get better after you start. I’ll have to take them at their word.
The next step for me will be actually filming footage. Ugh. One day I’ll give it a go.
Here’s the Unboxing of my 2020 novel THE CAMINO CLUB… the arrival of my author copies.
Think about subscribing and liking. I hope to start soon and if I do I certainly hope I figure out my way around the editing software prior to our arrival on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in September!
I recently put my newest novel, I WILL TELL THE NIGHT, on KOBO.
After a bit of a struggle, I was able to get I WILL TELL THE NIGHT uploaded to KOBO, for those who prefer it over Amazon.
As of today, you can now pick up your ebook copy of I WILL TELL THE NIGHT on KOBO!
The synopsis:
Finn Barker escaped his family in Miramichi, New Brunswick, decades ago for the anonymity of Toronto. When he learns of his mother’s impending demise, he decides to make the trip back home to say goodbye. But going back will awaken all the sleeping ghosts Finn’s not quite sure he’s willing to stir. With no time to decide, his split-second decision to jump back in has him driving across the country, with his boyfriend Steven behind the wheel. Along the way, Finn begins to unpack the mess he left behind. There’s the grandmother, MyImogene, he adored, and the twin brother who died of cancer when his own parents would have preferred to lose the other twin. There’s also the huge scandal Finn orchestrated with a teacher that gave him the Dutch courage he needed to flee. It was almost all bad.
Finn makes it in time for goodbyes, but then there’s the still very active strife between him and his father, the funeral, the family, and the secrets that shed new light on the cause of the rift between his parents and his beloved MyImogene. Every family carries secrets. Finn discovers they’re the one thing you can’t escape, no matter how far away you run. Secrets always catch up. Often, it’s death that has a way of bringing them back into the light of day. He was able to make peace with his dying mother, but can Finn make peace with all the rest…or is it time to run away for another thirty years?
Like all good things, vacations also have to end. If not, I would never see home again.
I actually fantasize about that very thing all the time. Sure, I’d visit home…but I could also imagine never being anywhere longer than a few days or weeks. My soul is nomadic. The world often feels like home. There is beauty in every corner of this world we live in. I have an ache to see all of it. Or as much as I can before shuffling off this mortal coil. What is home, anyway? Is it a place, or is it the people you share your life with?
Enough pining and opining. We finished the last post on Bangla Road, near Patong Beach in Phuket. We definitely visited Bangla Road repeatedly. I guess we couldn’t stay away from the action. Kind of exciting and terrifying at the same time. But the next day was our first real day of exploring the resort we were staying at.
A woman selling scorpions on sticks while walking through the crowds on Bangla Road. NO…we did not partake.
Bangla Road, a blur of humanity…
The enchanting aroma of the plumeria makes it one of my absolute favourite flowers…
We spent quite a bit of our time around the gigantic pool at the resort. There were a few pools, but this one was sprawling…it included three water slides and waterfalls and it had an island at the middle making it a bit of a lazy river if you chose to make your way all the way around. It was a super huge pool.
There were plumeria trees all about the pool, which meant plumeria blossoms floated lazily about in the pool. You could swim up to them, pick them up, and take in their captivating scent. Heaven!
We went back to the same two side by side restaurants the next day, after spending a lazy day by the pool. We alternated between the two restaurants…which was a bit of a horror show. They did not have a wall separating them. There were people on the sidewalk on both sides, each chanting their reasons we should pick their restaurant over the other. Once we decided, there were victors and losers…celebrants and dejected. It was odd, but there was the added bonus of seeing the defeated the whole time you ate on the winning side. Avoid eye contact! (-;
Both restaurants offered pretty much the same food. The seafood was out front on the sidewalk in chillers or aquariums. You could choose your own seafood…either frozen or alive. We did not want to decide the fate of any of the live lobsters, so we picked a frozen one. We just could not do it. I know in the end there really is no difference, but we could not point at a live lobster only to have it served up on our plates minutes later.
What you see below is DEFINITELY a lobster that was on ice.
I guess other people always pose with their pick. The server practically insisted on this photo. I obliged and felt totally squigged out by it.
Fish
Pineapple rice in a little restaurant near Bangla Road…
These last days totally bled together. I couldn’t tell you what happened when. I guess if I follow the progression of the photos it will tell me…but as I said on a previous post, the photos sometimes jump around on my timeline when we’re travelling internationally as well. I think the time change does something to the timeline in Google Photos.
I tried several times to get the pool in one shot, but it seemed impossible. It was so massive. Here are some of my attempts…
selfie by the pool…
From the top of the slide tower…
Another angle…
Yet another angle from the top of the slide tower…
We were only a few hundred feet from the world famous Patong Beach, so we made a couple of walks down there throughout the days. It’s a gorgeous beach, filled with activity. I’m sure there were people from all points of the globe on that beach while we wandered it.
Michael, finding a heart stone on the beach…
Proof of our existence on Patong Beach, in Phucket, Thailand. (-:
Seahorses sailing…
The entrance to Patong Beach, just across from the entrance to Bangla Road…
This was an amazing way to end a dizzying two and a half weeks in Thailand. We did a lot of travelling…from Bangkok to Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai to Phuket. It was good to have this chill ending with pools and beaches and fun places to explore at our leisure. I would definitely recommend ending your Thailand visit on the beaches of Phuket. It’s the way to go!
Goodbye, Phuket!
Everything ends, or so they say. After three flights (Phuket to Bangkok, Bangkok to Taipei, Taipei to Toronto), we found ourselves back home. But truth be told, I was home the whole time. My home is not a place. Doesn’t matter how many times you click your heels together, if the right people are beside you…you’ll always be at home.
If you’ve enjoyed this series on our Thailand adventures and would like to support this page, you can do so by buying me a coffee!KevinCraig-BuyMeACoffee
