Happy Hour

So… it’s been awhile. There has been silence from The hhwst.net Radio Network… from Happy Hour to Academic Nerds, it’s been silent. There are plenty of reasons, many of them good and some of them bad. Heck… is anyone even out there anymore? Does anyone even remember us?

I want to start out by saying that I’m truly impressed that Happy Hour went week to week as long as it did… the longest run prior to this was about 25-30 weeks, tops. So, for me, huge accomplishment with this show and all the others that followed. Happy Hour, through out all the incarnations, has been a fun show for me. We’ve gone through many of a change in the three years we’ve been back, and all for the better. I loved that we moved into a studio with The Stabcast (which is still going strong, and I am very happy for Santoro and his accomplishments), that we were featured on Stickam on a weekly basis (we had huge success with The Zombcast, until a certain nerd broke my spirit), and that I had the vision to expand one dopey Internet Broadcast into a network of shows (not that it was an original concept).

That last point– expanding into a network– is where, I believe, a lot of my trouble started. It was too much, too quick. I was hosting up to five to six shows a week, doing the editing (if needed) and publishing, and trying to write blogs for each show. Yes, I had help on-air with all my wonderful co-hosts, but with a full time job during the day and doing the network for free (as it should), I got stressed out. If I let one day go by without doing some work, I had a pile of things to catch up on, and I would let it go because I had no desire to work on it. Then the pile grew and grew and grew. I loved doing all of it… and I hated it.

I mentioned that my spirit was broken, and I will admit it has played a role in my absence from internet broadcasting. I’ve chatted with a friend about it recently and he was under the assumption that was the main reason I’ve walked away. That couldn’t be further from the truth. It may have been the sole reason The Zombcast broke away, but not the whole network. There are so many more things I want to do– That’s a reason I’ve taken a few steps back. My son and my family… now that’s the reason.

Every father out there understands where I’m coming from and I’m not going to get into the details of why and what we do as a family, but rest assure, it’s worth not doing radio six days a week. And I still attempt to do Academic Nerds from time to time, but schedules conflict and whatnot. But more on that later. As I said, I’m opting to spend my weekends in the house (or out of the house) with Jen and Trey and that’s the best decision I’ve ever made… the last seven plus months have flown by with my little guy and I don’t know if I could live with myself if I had to miss it for podcasting.

I did mention another reason for the setback in radio– other projects. I’ve spent most of my life focusing on two things that I’ve wanted to do– wrestling and broadcasting. I’m satisfied with how my wrestling career turned out… my dream was to wrestle in front of a paying audience and I did it quite a few times. I may not have made it to the grandest stage of them all, but I always knew that I had better luck being struck by lightening, so I count what I did accomplish as a big ol’ win. Plus, I walked away with only ever sustaining one major injury and arthritis in my knees.

I’ve enjoyed my broadcasting career thus far and think I’ve had, for a dopey podcast, a bunch of success and have a sense of pride for what I’ve accomplished. I don’t fee like it’s as big of as win as my wrestling stint was (which is odd, as I’ve had thousands of people listen to me talk every week, but only a hundred or so watch me wrestle at each event), but I think my broadcasting dream has turned into an entertainment dream. I have a lot of creativity in me and I can’t let it go to waste. I have about four years left in me where I can take a big leap of faith in one of my passion projects, and I’m currently working on two of them; a third to start this winter.

So yes, I’ve stepped away from radio because I want to enjoy time with my family. But, that doesn’t mean I’ve given up! I’m working on my first (official) novel and a web-series. This winter I plan on starting research for the movie I want to write/direct. It may not be radio, but I’m still doing things for me while being a dad, and I think that’s the most important thing in life… take care of the family first, then have some fun for yourself (by the way, I’m not perfect in any way, shape, or form… this is my first rodeo as a dad and I’ve made plenty of mistakes… I’m just lucky that Trey loves me unconditionally and that Jen is very forgiving and/or accepting of my idiocies).  I may not have followed that credence to a T yet, and honestly, that little saying (which I’m sure has been said before, so I’m not taking credit for it) it just came to mind as I typed this, but I think it’s something that we all can agree with and follow.

So… after close to a thousand words, I’ve informed you what’s been going on and parts of the future with my other projects, but what of this grand network of shows? Well, I’m not 100% sure of the game plan, and I’ll try to have a better idea in the next week or two, but there is a game plan. I plan to officially relaunch the network on January 1st, 2013. I hope to chat with Garrett and perhaps start Academic Nerds back up before then, but definitely hope to have it part of the weekly line up on that date. I need to sit down and figure out what I want to do with the show that started it all and all the other ones. I can tell you this… I won’t be part of all them, not anymore. At that rate, I don’t know if I’ll be part of more than Academic Nerds… which leads to an interesting turn of events for Happy Hour, eh? Take everything I just said with a grain of salt… as I haven’t thought of ANYTHING for the network yet… nothing concrete at least.

Until I have more updates, follow me on various social environments that our housed on the interwebs:

Twitter: @hhwst || Facebook: facebook.com/happyhour.steeltip || Tumblr: nerdykev.com

Also, I’ve been posting stuff for Crude Humor Studios (our parent company):

Twitter: @CrudeHumored || Facebook: facebook.com/crudehumor