Hey, remember Vine? Back in 2013 or so, it was a site where you could upload 6-second clips of video. I made a few clips but the site shut down after a few years. I thought about them recently and I figured I should keep a copy here for reference in the future.

https://youtu.be/3hN-ivcHRGw

I heard about Facebook Dating a couple years ago at one of their keynotes. It seemed a little ominous because they just know so much about you. But they made a couple points that I thought were smart:

• No dating within your circle of friends.
• Only single people.

But then I started hearing reports that married people were getting notifications about Facebook Dating and sure enough, I got one. So, I had to make a video about it.

I have to say, I’m totally fascinated by dating because I have almost no experience with it. My wife and I met through writing letters (this was before email was a thing) and we pretty much started going out as soon as we met in person. And then we got married pretty soon after that.

So I thought this would be a great chance to try out the whole dating experience. My wife vetoed that idea pretty quickly. Ah well. On the plus side, this is a rare video where she makes an appearance! So there you go.

So, a while back, I went to Japan with some friends at work for a conference so I thought it’d be fun to make a video about useful phrases for tourists. Surprisingly, it became one of my more popular videos on YouTube.

And then I remembered this one time when someone asked me how parents tell their kids they love them in Japanese and I joked that I had no idea since my mom never told me that, so that led to a video about useful phrases for friends and family.

And then I had this idea about how there really isn’t swearing in Japanese, which led to a video about swearing in Japanese.

This latest video came about because I was thinking about my experiences working in Japan and then in Hawaii at a sorta Japanese company. I only spent a few summers and then one year working in Japan and it was a long time ago but hopefully, the information is still relevant.

I loved my time working in Japan and at the other company that was sorta Japanese. Those were crazy and fun times. But the work culture is pretty intense over there and I’m thankful that I work and live in America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQrRbcKVOtg

I don’t talk a lot about work much in my videos or on this blog, because I like to focus on the stuff I do outside work in these places. But over the years, there were some interesting things I learned at work that had an impact on the sort of things I do outside of work. So I started jotting them down.

At some point, this started to become a list, and then I thought it might make for an interesting talk because, hey, I like to talk. But then, I couldn’t think of an appropriate place to give such a talk. But then, it occurred to me that I’ve got a YouTube channel, so there it is. I don’t know if anyone else will find this interesting to watch, but I had fun making it. Actually, more than fun, I found it satisfying to make.

This is also something that I’ve been trying to work on: It makes me happy when people enjoy the things I make but I’m trying to worry less about that and concentrate on the work itself. In other words, focus less external validation and more on internal validation. Hmm, maybe that’s another video…