Hi. This is Kyle Bondo, and this is Timothy Kim O'Brien, and you're listening to Pod Rec, the podcast that helps you survive your podcast. And on this episode, we're gonna talk about a new tool called Zincaster. Hi, and welcome to this episode of Hard Rock. And you might be saying to yourself, Tim Kyle. What the heck you guys been? You guys have been MIA for 6 months. What gives? What happened to Pod Rec? Where are you guys?
I'll tell you what? All your answers are in this episode. We're gonna tell you where we've been, what we've been doing, and why we've been gone for 6 months. But first, wanna talk about this tool that Tim found called Zendeskaster. And right now, we are talking on it. And as a podcaster, These are the kind of tools you really wanna play with. Because when you have guests and you wanna interview guests, there are certain tools that you need to have in your toolbox,
in order to gate to get guests onto your show without having to go there. And, of course, if 2020 ever costs anything, it's that guests aren't moving around. And in 2021, they're still kinda not moving around. The remote lifestyle is still here and well in in effect as people get vaccinated and as people are still trying to reawaken from the pandemic. So this tool, Zincaster,
is 1 of those things that you should really take a look at. And that's what we're gonna do today. We're gonna get into Zendesk after, and then we'll talk about where the heck we've been. But, Tim, this is this is kind of your thing that you've brought to us. Give us kind of a little 101 on what the heck is Lancaster and why would I ever want to use it. Well, Kyle, you know, I I gotta say I've I've missed you, bud. I I've really missed you. I mean, you too. You know?
The the bad thing with Zendesk, where I'm what we're doing is we're using the free version of it, is I can't see Kyle. and I really wanna see Kyle. I Kyle, could you send me a photo of you on the cell phone, please? Because I I really need to see your face. Like, 1 better. We're we're on the about page at gagopod.com. You can go there and see me smiling and it's a couple years old, but still me.
It is still him, folks. It is still him. It is fantastic. You know, that that that has saved this whole show. Thank you so much, Kyle, for that. So So I'm all done. Zendesk, why would we pick up Zendesk, because, you know, Kyle and I, we've been doing a squad cast for for a long time, pretty much since they've come out. And we've had we had a previous episode where we looked at Riverside, and we looked at a few other things. But ZenCaster came to me because
I was actually interviewed on another show. I was interviewed by York Campbell on poetic Earthlings. Joe hasn't posted yet, but I've been doing some voice over work for him and all that good stuff. But Yeah. He he sent me he was like, hey. Listen. We're gonna do it on Zendesk, and initially, I thought, well, Zendesk, or isn't that, like, iOS thing is then an Apple thing. I don't have an Apple product. I don't even have Apple's in my house. I won't allow Apple's in my house. You know? But
he was like, no. No. No. No. No. No. It's it's you you know, you don't have to have iOS. You know? Okay. Cool. So I got on there, and he's got a paid version. He got to see me. I got to see him. He and I have talked for a couple of years now. and and he didn't run away. So that's good. So we we tried it out. And I and I was looking at it, and I was like, this is a lot. It has a lot of similarities to your squad cast kind of things. But it has some kind of interesting differences.
So I'm just letting you all know that we're not being paid by Zendesk, or we're not getting free anything except we're getting the free service that, you know, anyone can go out and get. So we're we're not getting anything from this. Nothing says Zen like Zencaster. Exactly. Exactly. It's very sad, though. Yeah. We didn't we the we're not the sponsors. Right? But it's just kinda works. No. It it's it's and and that's something I like about it too. It's not intimidating.
So the first thing I did was I signed up for it. And I sent Kyle an invite. And just like, you know, with many other services, Kyle grab that invite. And I went ahead and logged in to the to my end of it as the host. And Kyle just No. Appeared right on time, which, you know, which for Kyle is a good thing. Where? That's a rare thing. Well and that's, you know, kinda 1 of the, you know, 17 reasons we'll talk later on in the show about why we've been gone for 6 months. The 17 reasons that I have.
17. Kyle is Kyle has way more many reasons. I stepped earlier by his house today, and I saw all the posted notes. folks, he went through, like, 3 boxes of post it notes for reasons why it wouldn't been gone for 6 months. So this could be a really long show. I'm just We'll grab your crawler if you like me. I have I have definitely more re I think I have I think I have 3 way more reasons. Okay. But the user experience
on on this side of the fence, I'll talk about here in a minute. So So talk about the the setup where as the as the host of your Zendesk recession, you're you're talking about how you sent me an email and that work, but it kinda backed it up a little bit. When you first approach Sincaster, is there what kind of things do they ask you to do? Do they want your blood type and your firstborn? a credit card?
How does this work? And then how did you send me the invite? And then I'll talk about the user experience of what it's like to be a guest because that's technically what I am right now. Sure. Well, I I did give them my firstborn, and, you know, I I'm I'm but that's why I have twins. So, you know, an air and a spare. You didn't need you didn't need a credit card. You're game of Thrones. Exactly. No. But you didn't need a credit card. I
like I said, I went with the free. The paid version is 20 bucks a month, or you can do it for pay the whole year and pay 18 bucks a month. You get a 14 day free trial if you go for the paid version, obviously. And you get the video stuff and you get, you know, more bells and whistles with this. But, basically, I put in my information, name, email address, username that I wanna use, And, boom, it was set up. I I don't even have a little not icon, a Eveatar for this.
It it's just very bare bones, which is fine. So what I did is I After I set up my account, I create an episode. So I click create an episode, and I'm like, okay. That that makes sense. And I have my recording screen in front of me. And if I'm looking at it, which I am obviously right now. There's a invite and there's a timeline footnote right underneath the timer that's there, and there's a recording button that's there. What I did to get Kyle is I hit the invite button.
I put in Kyle's name. and his email address, and that was it. And the email went off. He picked it up. And then and then it was good to go. Now here's the thing that I think falls a little flat here. but it could because it's so stripped down is that it didn't allow me when I created the episode. and sent out the invite. It did not allow me to put a date and time on it. So it's just I'm creating an episode. I'm naming the episode.
and it's just sitting there waiting for me to do something with it, which, you know, I with squad cast, you know, I I could schedule it and get reminder and all that kind of good stuff, which is fine. But with this 1, bare bones, it's a free free service. unlimited audio recordings, which is great. So we can go on for hours and hours with this. But that would be, you know, if I'm going to
ding it a little bit. I'm gonna ding it for that, but it's I'm not I'm not I'm not crying about it. I'm just saying, it would be nice to schedule that and to get a reminder email to the guest and to the host because sometimes, hey, we've got a busy life. and we'll talk about that with my 17 reasons and Kyle's 3 reasons about why we were gone for 6 months, but not right now. So, you know, it's good to get those reminders. I it is. What?
You know, we all have busy lives, but You know what? This is Trish Brown. This is free. This is not costing me a thing, and it's working beautifully. And that's the best part of of any of these of these applications.
is the the free part is nice. And your the stripped down is definitely, I think, the best way to to say this. So I got an email. In fact, I got 2 emails. I think you sent it to 2 different email accounts just to make sure that that I actually got it. And I get an email This is Tim has invited you to record a super high quality with Zendesk, and there's a start recording button
big blue button in the middle of the email. It gives me a a a top 5 dos. Like, check my Internet speed and and headphones. and make sure I'm using a Chrome browser or Firefox. And then it gives me 5 don'ts, which is don't use a mobile, device to record. So they're already trying to help me be a better guest. Right? They're already trying to do that for you. That's kinda nice. So I hit the start recording and the browser window opens and it asks me permission to use my microphone.
And I think that's a pretty good pretty good thing. Like, can I allow Chrome to use my microphone? So there's some sort of browser magic going on there. and I hit allow. And Bob's your uncle, I hear Tim. And that was pretty much it. And here as a guest, all I see is my name and Tim's name, there's a chat window for some chatting going on, and a clock in the corner.
And the clock is is zeroed out until Tim hits record, in which case a big red circle appears, which is obviously the record button. and the clock starts. It starts ticking down. Right now, it says 11 minutes, 16, 17 seconds. So I can see not only that, but I can see my audio waveform appearing under my name. So I know that I'm talking and it's recording
And Tim right now is just flatlined because he he's been gone for, you know, 6 months. And we had to check his pulse, and I'm sure he has 1. but we'll get to that we'll get that realtor. And the waveform is is showing me that I'm actually talking at a pretty good volume. even though my I can look at my mixer. I can see my wave bar there, but it way, but if I didn't have a mixer, what I'm just talking to, like, you know, you know, your pods or talking into maybe handheld or a USB microphone.
It's showing me how loud I am, where I'm you know, where when I stop talking, when I start talking, so I'm getting feedback from this kinda nice. and that is the guest experience. I can't see anything else. There's no video. I don't I don't have any queues except for the 2 little icons that are in the on the left hand side, there is a raise my hand icon and a mute button. Now, mute buttons are great because if I cough
or comes to my house, but dogs decided to, you know, start a howling. I can hit the mute button. We don't have to, you know, you don't have to hear all that stuff. Right? That's good. or say I have a point to make or maybe there's more than just Tim on here. Maybe there's, you know, 4 or 5 people on here. which looks like with the screen size here, that there could be more guests or hosts in this session.
which means that how do I let someone know I would have something to say or I would like to interrupt you or rather than just interrupting you. And that's my bread and butter. You know? I just just butt in. Right? That's that's Tim's
Tim tried telling me, hey. In 6 months, dude, I haven't heard from you. And now here, we finally talk, and you can't shut up. Can't get a word and edge wise. That's the that's the the kind of, you know, the things we would talk about where we've been for the past 6 months. But we'll get to that later. The hand you could raise, then could be, like, you know, Tim being the host of the show could be like, hey, Kyle, do you have a what's your point? Or what do you think about this? and you've got some visual cues. That's kinda cool.
It has no other buttons. That's it. Now I'm guessing what's in the corner is some sort of chat tool to for help desk.
That sounds I've seen those before on websites. That makes sense. And then there's a Zendesk or logo in the corner if I click on that. nothing happens. If I click on the record button, nothing happens. There's a chat window and this little help box which pops up and says hi there. and it wants me to start a conversation, which I I don't, so I turn that off. That's it. I really can't do anything else.
So except for focus on what we're talking about. And that's it. That's that's the guest experience, and that's kinda what you want your guest to do. is focus on why they're a guest, why they were bringing the value to your show. And that's what this does. Absolutely. So so part Tim, I'm you know, I'm I'm pleasantly surprised of the 3 we've done because I remember Squad cast on Riverside. You had to get to enter in all this stuff at the beginning, and then there was all this really complex
checking. I mean, complex is is compared to Zincast where complex, it might be what it would be called. It was simplistic, you know, check your audio, check your headphones, that kind of thing. This 1? Nope. Can I use your microphone? Yep. You're in. It record. Yeah. You're talking. For people who are not technically savvy or technology savvy, This is a pretty good this is a pretty good option. Well, it and it's at the right price. I it's at the right price, Kyle. I it's free.
So this this part of it is free. I I can't complain about that. And I do like as the host, I do like seeing your waveform and my waveform together. I I can see those going on. And something that we had talked about before we hit the big old record button is that when Kyle and I talk at the same time, it doesn't cancel 1 of us out.
I know in because of the the job that I have, I I know in Teams, it can have a a thing for you know, it'll cancel people out and and stuff like that, Zoom is like that.
I know squad cast was a little we we had some issues with that, so we had to be we had tread likely. So, usually, you would hear Kyle talk, and Tim knew to shut up until Kyle was done or took a breath. And as soon as Kyle hears my voice, he knows to shut up. Otherwise, we've got, you know, some issues going on there. But with this, Kyle can talk over me all that he wants, and there you go. And And that's what he usually does anyways. And that's -- Call it a common area.
Well, it's -- That's part of these 17 reasons. That's part of 72 weeks. in the navy. So I have I have lots of lung lung capacity. It all comes from my my mom and dad thinking that that if I joined track and did a bunch of sports, I could basically grow out of asthma. And turns out, they are right -- Mhmm. -- by having a cardio vascular system to help me you know, process air more and grow some lot bigger lungs
actually helped my asthma. Mhmm. There you go. And that's part of the reason that Kyle was Kyle and I were gone for about 6 months. This this has something to do with it. We'll get to that. I think that's in your 3 reasons and my 17 reasons. That's right. Well, given to Kyle being in the navy. That that's that might be a whole of the podcast. Anyhow, Something else on the -- Different rating. -- side. It's a different rating.
Something else on the whole side that I really enjoy Unfortunately, Kyle can't see this, but it's a a time a timeline footnote. So I can put a footnote anywhere in this and go and a little pop up comes up. And let's say I'm doing a time line. A footnote right now at 17 minutes, 15 seconds, and I can go navyjoke. Navyjoke. I can type that in and boom. And then it'll pop up underneath Kyle's name as a footnote.
So, you know, well, you know, if you're doing an interview with somebody and you get a really good point and maybe you want to use that point or or they say they have really good answer. You wanna use that answer for Some shows like to do the they'd like to bring in, you know, little snippets in at the beginning and then, you know, start up the show. or some people are using it with Headliner, and they wanna have, like, you know, 30 seconds or a minute
where, you know, people can hear that and go, oh, yeah. That sounds like a funny show or that sounds like a really interesting lead in into the show. That would be perfect for you to do something like that. Now Or depending on use that's a time stamp your your your shows too because the 1 of the interesting good. things that I think is is
is novel. I don't really think. No. Not a lot of people do it. I think I think Dave Jackson might do it in his show, and I think the feed does in their show where they put the timestamp and the link to that part of the audio. And I know in PocketCast, you can jump to that part of the audio click on that link. I wonder if that would help you do it. Like like, you know where you asked the question. So you know that's the lead in to when the guest makes the answer.
That would kinda work out too. Wouldn't know what or here's another question then. Can you add footnotes to the audio after the the session's over? That'd be interesting thing to test. That I don't know, obviously. Yeah. because we're doing this test live. Yeah. I wonder if you have to do it live. So you have to get kinda skilled at that. That seems like something that would be a challenge. While you're having, like like patting your head and rubbing your tummy,
to do a footnote while you're asking a question, while you're listening to a guest. It'd be kind of You don't really practice that, I think. Yeah. That that that's gonna be something probably for the more advanced user for this. Yeah. What if you have a producer running the screen and then you have host and the guest talking, and the producer is putting those notes in there while people are talking. That actually might be the reason for We think it should be.
Okay. Well, I would here's the thing. On on the free version, you can get the host plus 4 guests. On the paid version, you can post plus 5 guests. So if you were doing something like that, that's a really good idea, Kyle. I would have the producer be the host, and then the interviewer and and then have the guests be the other the other folks on there. So that way your interviewer or the talent
doesn't have to worry about anything. They don't they don't have to be technically savvy either as long as that producer is. Boom. They put in the footnotes. They make the edits. they, you know, they pull out certain things from from the actual interview, from the audio files, and you're good to go. Let's speak about audio files on this too while we're at it. Okay. So this is gonna, you know, bring us down to this will put when we download this, it is gonna be in an m p 3.
And from what I'm seeing, it looks like a 128 kilobyte file, which when I publish an episode, I publish at 96. Some people publish lower than that. But a 128 is pretty pretty high quality there, which is high quality. Yeah. that's that's really high fidelity, which you don't really need. I, you know, I the podcast engineer show, Chris Kern, You know, he recommends
not doing it that high because your file is gonna be huge. It it will not huge, but it's gonna be bigger. like your audio and then piece of cheesecake. Right? Yeah. Exactly. Cheesecake. I like Cheesecake. Underbucks, Chris. Well, we you know, Dave was his under bucks mentioning him earlier. Dave is Dave was on a a a a a mortgage contract. Yes. Just the pay us back installments.
Well, basically, anytime we go through Akron, Ohio, we can stop stop off at Dave's house. So It's true. It is the school podcasting Airbnb. There we go, hey. Gabe, that's gonna be a hundred bucks 10% of the b m b way you do that because you know all of us podcasters wanna come and hang out in your house. It's true. He's in Texas this week at the time of this recording, so his house is free. So if anyone needs to stop by and and needs to place a crash, Dave is out of town.
might have to feed his cat. Does he have a cat? No. He doesn't have a cat anymore. He needs another cat. Maybe bring him a cat. There you go. Bring him a cat. He'd come home me like, I don't remember having a cat, and I remember having food. Anyway, high quality sound. That's where you're going with. Right? The cheesecake. That's what I'm going with. Yeah. And I I don't think you need that high quality of a file to work with because I like to work with WAV files, and then
when I'm done with my edits, then I'd like to go ahead and master it and mix it. And then do the make it into an m p 3. my personal choice, something I again, a hundred bucks to Chris Curran, something I learned from him, something I learned from you, Kyle. And that's just that's that's my signal chain. That's what I like to do because when you're doing editing, it is a destructive thing.
It is a destructive process. So anything you do to it, you can't undo it to it. So it's best to start off with a WAV file versus the m p 3 because an m p 3 is already compressed. You must have heard of the word of the day. Compressed. For the word of the day, destructive audio. Mhmm. Strictive process? Yeah. It's a destructive process. Yeah. A destructive process. We'll go like that. That should be like a rock band.
You know, during that 6 months, we we he's talking about this. The the rock band destructive process, I think, might have played, but anyway, we'll get back to that later. Mhmm. So -- Yep. -- what else about this? Do do you see as an advantage to somebody who doesn't know anything about about anything. Like, it's, like, straight off the train doesn't have any idea what podcasting can do for them. They bought a microphone. They have a laptop. They're gonna use Zincaster.
you think this is the product design for them? I think so. This is it's very basic Even on the host side of the house, it's very basic, which basic is not necessarily a bad thing because Remember, we had a episode where we were talking about different podcast apps, and I really I mean, I I love Pocketcasts. until they changed all the stuff. But when I look at podcast apps, Google Podcast is the thing that I show everybody because it is so easy to go ahead and use.
And I'm, you know, I'm subscribe to a 130 podcast. I'm my heavy podcast user. However, when I'm out in public and I'm showing somebody, you know, my podcast or recommending a podcast, or if I forward a podcast to somebody, I'm using Google Podcast because it's easy. It integrates well with everything. This easy integrates pretty well. I know 1 thing Kyle was talking about before we got the recording going is that
And we did a little prerecording and then, you know, hit stop. Kyle could see his file. He couldn't see my file. because this is doing it on 2 separate tracks. Right. Kyle could see his file. Couldn't see my file. So he could go ahead and download his file if he wanted to. You know? So your guest can go ahead and do that. So that's that's something that you may wanna be
cognizant of. You wanna you wanna be aware of that because that guest could, you know, just go ahead and download it. But it's only gonna download their track. It's not gonna download your track. So, yeah, be be aware of that. And and I would say, you know, tell your guest, hey, just don't touch anything except for the mute button or the hand holding, you know, the hand up button or the chat. touch nothing else, and there's nothing else for them to touch.
So Just good. And that's only when you stop the recording. So think that's a good thing because that prevents them from doing things like what you did on river on river casts and It's Rivercast? No. Riverside. I found. Riverside. There we go. Riverside and squad cast is there are certain buttons that if you press, boom.
by, you know, you're out there, which is yeah. Those are bad to hear. It's like, I don't even I don't even see how I I guess the only way I can leave the session is to to kill the browser. Yeah. Close out your browser. leave button. Yeah. I don't look around here. There's no leave button. Mhmm. It's a Yep. Oh, 0, I found a new button. There's a little hidden button underneath my track, and when I pressed it, like, a little tiny little tiny tab, it gives me health check passed, Mike, unknown.
Storage. Right now, this is, I guess, storage on my my laptop, I'm assuming, 6600 gigabytes, local backup, is it looks like it's is it doing a local backup to my and a cloud backup? Interesting. That's a neat little thing. Do you have it on yours? Yes. I do. Yeah. Look at that. It's like it's like it's just sneakily hidden hidden in there, and that's kind of an interesting way to to hide detail, to hide the drawer in a way that if your guest doesn't have any idea what to to do about this,
then they don't need to see this. Like, right click on health check. And now it says critical checks. Shows me a bunch of things at a path. It shows me some warnings. It says it recommends I have at least a point 5 gigabytes of free local storage space for saving backups, and there's some support articles there. So there's a some some of the detail some of the technology details
is hidden under this little tab and under health check which I think is really interesting, but if I click it and it goes away, if I never knew, it would I would never know. So your guest doesn't have to to worry about being scared by the technology coming at them. They're seeing the waveform I see everyone's name who's there. So not only top of that is is because
I didn't even put my name in. So I'm assuming Tim, you do set something up that put my name in there, which means that of all the people in the in the conversation, their names will appear So I don't have to worry about forgetting someone's name. I can just look on the screen and see see the name. That's a handy little feature. Tell us about how you what what did you did you have to to When you send the invite,
how does that how does that process work? Did you have to just put my name basically into it? Or Put your name in. Put your email in. Send. and done. Now, again, I I would easier too. Yeah. That that that's super easy. Now, again, I'd like to, you know, see some reminders. I'd like to you know, it it says, you know, email has been sent. So let's say that, you know, I mistype Kyle's email address. I'm not gonna know that it didn't get to him.
And I don't know if there's a way for that to ever happen or for Zendesk or to, you know, do something like that where, you know, it you know, if they see a bounce back or anything like that, then that happens. But, yeah, it's it is super easy now. Another thing is that you can kick somebody out.
So if I really got mad at Kyle, And I was just like, you know, I I I you know, he's he's he's he's talking, all the smack, and he's cousin and swearing, and all that kind of stuff. which happens because, you know, he's a navy. No. He's a really nice guy, folks. You can do that all the time. because he does that all the time. But you have the kick button that you can go ahead and get rid of the guest. If if that's what you really wanna do, which, you know,
it it may be useful to you in may not be useful to you. Just depends on, you know, whatever the heck that you're doing. 1 last thing I would do wanna talk about here before we get into all that cool stuff about the 6 month hiatus that we had. And, you know, and and and the whole Buddhist thing that that that Buddhist trip that we took over to Nepal is So we're gonna I'm gonna give you a little bit of the sausage here as how the sausage is made as Dave Jackson likes to say.
So when we record this, you know, we we record the intro on the outro. And so that's what we did to start off with is that we recorded the intro on the outro, and I hit stop recording. And then the main section, the main body of the interview, I hit new recording. So what happened is when I did that, both of our screens refreshed, which was a little unnerving because we didn't know what the heck was happening. but it came back to another recording screen just like the other 1.
And I hit record again. And now what I'm looking at is recording 1 has all my notes, has all the files for recording 1. and recording too. Now you can't when when you are in a record when you have hit recording, you can't go back to the other recordings. you're you're stuck in this recording. So you can't go back. So let's say, you know, you you like you you're a heavy editor for your podcast, for your interviews, and all that, and you put in all these notes.
when you're recording, you can't go to the other recordings to look at those notes. So It seems like a feature that seems like a feature that we'd have, so you don't, like, click on something and blow the whole thing up. because it's -- Yeah. -- in the browser and the browser has some sensitivity to it. Would it not? Yeah. I would think so. I would think so.
And we're using Chrome browser on this too. So, you know, I'm well, I'm using Chrome on on my end of the on the -- I see. -- the recording. Yep. So that is Zendeskter, folks. It is. And I'm looking on the blog, and you said that Zancaster has raised $4,600,000 in their seed round to help build stronger communities So they have funding.
They have a paid version of it. So it's not something that's free that's gonna just go away because They're not maybe there's no, you know, path to profit. They have a path to profit. And so they have paying customers If you want the high end bougie side of Zencaster, you can you can pay for that to get the video and some other added features. But if you don't, you just need the free talk to a guest part of it
because you're, you know, you're you're right now, you're small time, you're you're growing your podcast. So sometimes, the small tools are good for growth. And you can get that later when you're making all those, you know, all the stacking all those benjamins with with your advertising because you have so many fans that'll love your show, you can then go to the Zincaster, the bigger side of that. But as an indie podcaster, just start now, this is not a bad way to go, I think.
And with -- Yeah. -- you know, some mill a couple $1,000,000 behind them and some some heavy hitters, Josh Nielsen is behind this as well. So there's a there's a a couple different things about Zendesk, that looks like it's here to stay. It's a competitor in the market. and it has enough traction for your podcast and enough quality for your podcast. to be a legitimate weapon in your or tool, if you would, in your podcasting arsenal.
Because for 6 months, we've been thinking about this. We've been thinking about tools like Zendesk, and it has has been on our mind, and we've been tossing and turning and unable to sleep and, you know, feverish notes and beautiful mind, charts on the walls with thread connecting all the different players of Kickstarter and how Zincaster got its start. And we finally come to this final culminating period where we can say, Zincaster is is a thumbs up,
Tammy. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely thumbs up for it. Now you guys have been with us for 49, 50 episodes. Some of you have been with us for longer than 50 episodes. True. I don't know how, but you've been with us longer than 50 episodes. And for that, you know, that's the you're part of the pod rack team. You know? You're you're probably sitting outside on my patio, Bob ready to knock on the door. Anyhow, you know that Kyle is more of a tech guy than I am in in certain aspects.
He's more of the IT on the IT side of the house. versus me, which, you know, I'm learning. I'm doing okay. I I think. But this is very nonintimidating. It it's very the UI, as I like, or the UX -- Mhmm. -- with user channels. Yeah. Hey. You know, I've been around you for a few years. You use that correctly. You know, the UI is very simple, and the UX is very pleasing. Oh. There you go. One's a motion and 1 is, you know, visual styling. There you go. And there's no comic sands in here anywhere.
Oh, definitely not. Feels very healthy. Helvetica. It's a little it feels very Helvetica or maybe Helvetica. Yeah. maybe some some open Which reminds me, Gal. Yeah. You you need to listen to a creative pep talk. It's a podcast by Andy Jay Pizza. I swear to God, that's his name. What a name? And he was interviewing somebody from Adobe Not LiveWire, but Firewire or or it's an Adobe Podcast. And they did a episode. on if fonts were at a party. What would it sound like?
Okay. Definitely. I I'm I'm hooked. You're gonna have to send me the link to that. That is That is definitely something that would be interesting because, you know, me, I'm I'm totally a papyrus guy. You know, I love me some avatar. Folks, he's not kidding. Okay? I mean, y'all don't I don't know what I'm dealing with over here. I'm like, Ryan Gosling. You just can't handle papyrus. It's like, I know what you did, James Cameron. I know what you did.
You haven't seen the Saturday Night Live skit with Ryan Gosling about the Papyrus font from James Cameron's EBITDAR, please do. Okay. We'll include that link in the show notes. It's definitely still a new app to watch. Yeah. It definitely's there you go. So this is the Zendesk. Zendesk. -- e a s t r because, you know, in the tech world right now, we can't have any e's. No 1 knows why. but that's it. denkaster.com
is where you find this, where you sign up, and where you start using this, and I'd really encourage you to to test it out. and definitely test it. This is something you don't wanna just jump into and be like, oh, by the recording, I've got a guess on Friday. No. You need to get your wife, your loved 1, your snooping, and other, you get someone to to
to experience this with you. Play with the buttons. Try to break it. That's what I always encourage people to technology. Try to break it. Try to do dumb things. Click on buttons you're not supposed to. Trailer. Kill the window. Refresh the window.
you know, turn your microphone off. We did that before. I switched channels of my mixer with the microphone, killed the dead. Mhmm. Had to restart my session for a quirk. So there's things you have to experiment with, worst case scenario troubleshooting is a huge benefit for when the worst case scenario happens. This is the Murphy's Law.
is, it's gonna go wrong. So experience that now. So that when you're in the middle of talking to Seth Godin, you don't freak out when you lose him. You can get it right back because you know how to connect the pieces back together again. That's what you should do with this. How did you know that I was talking to Seth Godin next week? Because he's your spirit animal.
Well, I mean, that's what I've been doing for the last 6 months is, you know, trying to find Seth Godin and been stalking him. And, you know, I I I know that he doesn't go to Starbucks, but I'd send him our books anyways with, you know, my my mug on it and all that kind of good stuff. So, Kyle, you know, I I think I think we've tortured our listeners long enough. I think so too. I think so. I think we need to come clean and Yep. And and say, hey, you know, what's going on?
Who who wants to go first? Do we do we flip a coin? Yes. We're gonna flip a coin and -- Here we go. -- here we go. We're gonna here to hit the desk. Here we go. Here's the coin ready. Yeah. Alright. Hold hold tails or heads. Ready and call. Heads. Would that sound good? Heads it is. You go first. Yeah. That was a giant of 50¢ piece. No. That was a challenge coin. Oh, okay. Yeah. I got a couple of them here, but this challenge coin comes from the American Battlefield Trust.
The Nice. Yeah. We'll civil war history there for you. So, Tim, you get the the honors of coming clean first. would you like to start? Alright. Well, yeah, let's just dive right into it. Let's let's go hit let go both the barrels and big guns. It's a Band Aid off, my friend. So yeah. So, you know, everyone's 2020 has been, you know, very challenging, shall we say. 2021 revealed to me that well, I've been having some issues with my brain. Let's just put it that way. And
we've been researching it for the past 4 or 5 years. Since college has known me, I've been, like, in the hospital every other week, which is he'll Larry's because the first conference he took me to you, I had my neck fused. and I was on a lot of drugs, but he didn't know that. He just thought I was weird anyways. Anyhow, after about 4 or 5 years, it's been determined that I do have MS, and I do have multiple sclerosis. And it the version I have of it is called clinically isolated syndrome.
So I've been dealing with that in the changes that that that occur with that. And, you know, we're gonna be, you know, doing meds and all that kind of good stuff. But, yeah, I had to really, you know, take a step back and really reevaluate a lot of things. And that's where I've been at with this. Creator or podcast has still been going on. It's almost been on kinda like an autopilot kind of thing. because I
did the smart thing and planned for the year ahead. So that way things would would be nice and light. But for me, energy levels were really low, and we're we're working on that with medication and nutrition. and things are a little bit better. Things are a little bit better, but that's where I've been at for 6 months, Kyle. I got an excuse to you.
Oh, wow. That is that's heavy. That's some heavy stuff, man. I I I feel for you, man, praying for you. That's that's the the hearing that that news and how that's impacted your life is is rough. And, you know, I I hope that the the dot you got some smart doctors because you you need some peace of mind. I think that's a that's definitely a given. Where's Kyle been? Well, Here's a here's a little snapshot, a little behind the curtain of Kyle's life.
Several months ago, my daughter who is 26, who moved to Texas a couple years ago, called my Wi Fi app and told us that she's pregnant. Fact that she will be having our first grandchild. In fact, Little Lydia is going to be born sometime in late October or early November, if all goes well. Now my daughter, because she's pregnant, was having some medical issues that has to do with some other stuff being pregnant and having medical issues at the same time is a rough thing.
So the decision was made that we weren't going to be twice a year grandparents. We're gonna move to Texas. So The entire family has almost like moving an aircraft carrier back to the direction it was going. When you turn an aircraft carrier, it takes, like, 5 miles of ocean to do it. We're starting to turn the entire family towards
that goal. So we live here in Virginia. We're gonna move to just outside the Dallas area is the goal. and to be there before the birth hopefully to help my daughter enough out with her medical issues and etcetera. But that involves a ton of refocusing all sorts of things because I need a new job was 1 of the ideas. My current job may be able to let me work remotely from that location and still work for the office here in Virginia. But I work for an organization that has 17 layers of bureaucracy.
So that decision is gonna take months to figure out. So that's 1 avenue of approach. The next avenue approach was go find a new job. Well, that means I needed to refresh all my skills because when you work right work, A lot of times you get atrophied with some of the technologies you need to be around in order to get become good for employers.
So I've done a lot of retraining myself, started getting some certifications in place to, if I need to, if the door shuts on working remotely from Texas to go find new employment. So that's that. Plus on top of that, Prepare a house, pack a house, sell a house, move a house, find a new house, move into that house, and all the complications that come with that. So that is where my entire mental focus went for a while. and that has
stopped me for doing a lot of things. I haven't produced I think since January, I haven't produced a single podcast episode for any of my podcast. on the other hand is able to get create art podcast going, doing a lot of repurposing of his KDOI podcasting, and getting some interviews in. He's been very active in this. and it's been inspirational
to try to get me back on the saddle again, but it kinda took us It's gonna take a surprise. It was a big it was a it was a hit and a blessing all at the same time. So the entire mind that is focused around creating content and doing things, had this shift for how do I spester my family? And that's where that's where a lot of my energy went for for the for the past several months. And just like they say all the time in podcasting, baby's ruined podcast.
And I and I was like, yeah, come on. That's a that's a that's a that's an skis because I have grown children. You know, I don't have never experienced that I was I got into podcasting when my kids were graduating from high school. So I don't have that experience of the baby. But now that this little Lydia is coming into our life, yeah, the focus has changed to that. That is the that has become the the center point of our entire entire creative mental focus.
So it's it's been it's been a distraction. But now that some of these things have been worked out, and we've got some we've got a lot of strategies, a lot a lot of plans in place on what we're gonna do, Now here we are again. We're focused.
Tim finally got a diagnosis that made sense and got some of the things in place to to to understand what the hell is going on with him and same on this side. We got a good plan in place for how we're gonna pack up the family and move from Virginia to Texas, which is a little bittersweet because Tim just lived down the street. But ironically, in the past. What? It has 18 months. I think I've seen Tim, what, in real life, 3 times, 4 times,
something like this. It's 1 of those kind of things where it's like we talk more online and through social media than we actually talk in real life. So being in Texas is not gonna be any different than being in Virginia. Plus, there's conferences and also other things we can we can rekindle and become back and been busy and often things. So It's not like the end of Hodrex. It's just, you know, hey. I'm just relocating. That's all. Not going away. Just relocating. It's just it's all geography.
But the geography takes a lot of energy and a lot of time and focus away from doing things like podcasting. Now if podcasting was you know, Tim and I, every time we said, that'll be a hundred bucks and the hundred bucks actually showed up, well, that'd be a little different because it'd be certainly nice if podcasting what's the full time gig, but it's not. So because it's the side hustle, the real gig's gotta take precedence, and that's that is where Kyle has been.
And it's important to take care of your family because, you know, podcasting, it's gonna be here. It it it hasn't gone anywhere for the past, you know, 15 years, and it's not gonna go anywhere. It's not suddenly gonna shut down tomorrow. Yeah. Just because -- Right. -- you know, Kyle and Tim are not here for 6 months. And and this is something that, you know, we have talked about a lot. When we were doing the in person classes and all that, we were talking about, you know, kind of that
work life balance for lack of a better term. And a lot of other podcasters like Dave Jackson have have talked about this. Daniel J. Lewis have has talked about this, that, you know, sometimes you need to take a break. Sometimes you need to, you know, take a time out. Life happens. you know, hey. Kyle's up and moving. He's leaving me, folks. He's leaving me. Oh, god. And, you know, but it I know he's gonna send me a ton of pictures of this brand new grandbaby, and I can't wait to see that.
Annie lives in Texas. I've got family in Texas. So, yeah, I'll go out and visit a good old child just now in the summertime. And for Texas, that is, like, from April until November. So, you know, I'll I'll come by in Christmas and New Year's and stuff like that. Maybe -- There's in New Zealand, Texas.
isn't it, like, summer and hell? That's it. That's the 2 seasons. Oh, and freezing cold. Don't forget the freezing cold that happens once a week or for 1 week. Yeah. Once a week. Yeah. For 1 week in the year. Yeah. Exactly. No. I've lived in Texas. I lived in Abilene, Texas. Oh, that's right. And Yeah. Yeah. I'd lived there for 3 years and didn't see snow, and Then I moved back to Illinois, and I said, I'm living in the south. Forget this. I realized you didn't miss it that much.
You you you don't have to shovel sunshine. Let me just say that. You know? That should be it. Don't have to shovel sunshine. Yeah. You really have to. Next on Pod rack. There you go. Another t shirt idea. Yeah. But, you know, with Pod rack, it's been like this since day 1. It's you know, we're we're 2 guys that, you know, you can sit and have a coffee with. and we're gonna give you our ideas. We're gonna give you our take on things. And that's what it's been for the past, you know, 50 episodes.
And that's why we wanted to do this episode. Obviously, you know, the whole Lancaster thing was a way to get in. was a way that we could go ahead and do this at at GWIS thing for both of us. But we also wanted to, you know, reach out to all of you that listen to the show and and let you know, hey, listen. You know, we we have lives too. And sometimes, life does get in the way, and that's a okay.
Because once you come back to it, then, you know, you're gonna pick up where you left off just like just like an old friend. I I know Kyle's got the old friends like this. I've got old friends like this where you cannot talk to that person for 2, 3, 5, 10 years. and then you get a phone call, and it's like, no time has passed. Yep. Just go right back into that conversation that you had last last time on that. So final thoughts here.
because I I think we need to go ahead and, you know, give these people a little bit of break, Kyle. Okay? a little bit. So final thought here is this, Zendeskter. Gets 2 thumbs up. from PodRact. I think it's a great tool. I think it's a simple tool and don't mistake simple Well, don't mistake basic for simple or or something subpar. Because, you know, sometimes the simplest things are the best things for us. And with Zendeskaster, again, we're not a commercial for Zendeskaster.
Good interface on that. You know, it has the buttons that you need. It it's not there's not any waste with that. So definitely give it a shot for yourself. shoot us an email, let us know what you think about it. And and and and talking on, you know, with with Zendesk after and all that kind of good stuff, with your life, with your podcast. You know, we're here to help you survive your podcast, and sometimes surviving your podcast means you gotta put it on pause for a minute.
We have great listeners. We have great fans. They do reach out to us. The interview that I was on with York Campbell He tapped me on the shoulder and said, Tim, once the next pod rack coming out, I love you guys. I'm like, hold on. Hold on. we're we're we're we're making it happen. But we know that you're out there. We know that you're listening to it. We know that you wanna make your podcast a better podcast. And We needed to take a break. We took a break. We're back at it.
You know, there may be some more bumps in the roads, some more hiccups down the way. but that's okay because we're still gonna provide you with the content that you want from us, so all that good stuff. wanna thank you for jumping back into the episode with us. Wanna thank Kyle for putting up with me for last past 6 months. But, you know, me being lazy because I always feel that I'm lazy.
And, you know, I'm just wishing all of you a fantastic podcast that you can put out and be proud of because I know Kyle and I, and I'm gonna speak for Kyle on this 1. I know Carl and I are really proud of what we put out here each and every episode, and we can't wait for the next episode to pop out. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Pod Rec and for
sticking around. know we've been gone for a while and I hope you liked our explanation for where we've been. I mean, we kind of tortured you with that a little bit. But, you know, it's it's good. It's good to take some time. So thank you very much for listening. please check out all our episodes at pot rack.com. And if you're really interested in a question or have a something that you need solved, By all means, please email us at pod rack@gmail.com.
And of course, when you go to our website, we'd love for you to pound that patreon button because Tim and I need coffee, and we're a little coffee poor right now. The summertime's around and we need that need that Java flow in order to be created. But we appreciate anything that you can do to help us. Even just sending us an email to us. Thank you. It'd be fantastic to see if you respond over out there. And actually, the thank you is to you. Thank you for listening.
And until next time, we're here to help you survive. your podcast. Take care. Okay. If fuzzy was he was up there, fuzzy was he has no hair. because he wasn't briefed. because he was he. Pod rack has been taken over by ADF, chemo productions. That's right. Another damn fine chemo production. Timmy Kay and friends. Gagapod is next. Another Kylo Bondo. experiment with audio. Too much time on my hands. Too much time on my hands. But I don't know why I'm singing that song.
This podcast is part of the GagglePod network. Find more podcasts like this atgagapod.com.