It has been more than four years since I gave an update on my YouTube career. I am sure everyone has been waiting with bated breath to hear about my progress. But more seriously, while my progress is mostly of personal interest for me, I do think that what I said in 2021 is still true: the idea of the internet or social media or "content creation" being an easy gravy train that people can jump on continues to be a receding mirage. Although I have been more successful than I hoped back at that time, I am still not making money from YouTube.

At the time, I had a total of 8 public watch hours. Since sometime in 2022, 8 or 10 public watch hours is my daily average. In fact, since 400 hours in the past 365 days is needed for monetization, I check my statistics every day to see if I have gotten enough hours that day to equal that (4000/365, or a little less than 11 hours a day). At one time last year, I had well over 4000 hours. But also, not enough subscribers. Back in

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There is no "stovetop espresso", there is only good, strong Moka pot coffee.

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Any coffee aficionado will tell you that espresso is its very own thing. True espresso (N.B. not 'expresso") is made by a machine that uses pressures of around 8 atmospheres to force very hot water through a dense cake ("puck") of finely-ground coffee. It needs a particular build of machine to make it, and nothing else comes

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My sister began this journey around three years ago. For a small additional fee, she and my mother invited me to join them in this ambitious undertaking. I must admit that I was skeptical due to all the paperwork and red tape. I will also state that they did most of the work. Yet the notion of it becoming a possibility compelled me to take that leap of faith and join them in their quest.

I've never visited this location. I have never experienced its culture firsthand…