I'm Back! July Reading Vlog (Hiking, Exams, Birthday, and More)
Hello! I’m back! It’s been a while. Well, it’s actually only been a month, but it felt like a long month. My July was absolutely packed; I accomplished more in just a few weeks than I have in several years, so let’s talk about everything I’ve done since we last caught up. From hiking a mountain in Colorado to passing exams here in Kansas City, I feel like a totally different person than I was when I released my last post! Amidst all this, I was reading John Gwynne’s The Hunger of the Gods, so I’ll be giving some of my spoiler-free thoughts on that book in this post, too.
Colorado
I went to Colorado for the first time in June but never really talked about it. Yeah, I know, it’s wild that someone who enjoys hiking has waited this long to go, but I finally did it! We hiked a 14,000-foot elevation mountain—I didn’t quite make it to the top, but that allowed me to stay at a nice spot above the tree line to take some awesome photos and videos that I’m really proud of. The trip was challenging but rewarding, which is exactly what I want from trips like this.
I got to listen to John Gwynne’s The Hunger of the Gods while on top of the mountain, which was an amazing experience, let me tell you. There was nothing but me, the wind, the mountains, and an incredible fantasy story on top of Mount Huron. Talk about clearing your mind. It was absolutely gorgeous.
AWS CCP Exam
The bulk of my June and July months were spent studying for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam, which I took in mid-July. This is the primary reason I decided to take a break from video production in July—I knew that I would be overwhelmed with learning and studying for this exam, so I had to cut down on creating videos. I’m glad I did because this was a lot of work. I spent four weeks watching lectures, then one week studying and taking practice tests before I finally took the official exam to receive my Cloud Practitioner certification.
If you don’t know, my day job (well, night job) is working as a Subject Matter Expert for Zoom’s Events and Conferencing platform. Historically I’ve been a technical analyst and systems administrator, so this is a bit of a lower rung on my career, but it has been a decent break from the mentally taxing work I used to do. Now, I’m looking to make a change and move into a cloud architect role. The first step was passing my Cloud Practitioner exam, which…
I did!
It was a huge relief to pass that exam. When I sent in my test, I felt like I had scraped by, but it turned out I’d done fairly well, getting about the equivalent of an A if this were a high school test. So I passed, and I’m now a certified cloud practitioner!
Hire me.
Terrain Painting
Those of you who’ve been here since the beginning—which, hey, it’s awesome you’ve stuck around for this long—remember that my foray onto this channel was a big D&D campaign tutorial series. I don’t talk about D&D on my YouTube channel anymore, but I do still run a campaign! So as part of my month off, I worked on painting some Dwarven Forge terrain I’d ordered for my campaign. I’ve got a cave arc coming up in my campaign, so I’ve been madly painting cave tiles and decor on Thursdays while I watch Critical Role. I haven’t done terrain painting in a few months, so getting back into that swing has been good.
Reading Hunger of the Gods
Much of my reading for Hunger of the Gods was done while working on less intensive tasks, like driving or painting. I wish I had time to sit down and read more frequently, but the busyness of this month has left me without the opportunity to flip through pages (apart from while I was in Colorado, when I got to read on the plane and before bed most nights). That being said, I’ve really enjoyed this book so far. I feel like the decision to add some more viewpoints really helped to round out the story—I haven’t found anything that comes across as unnecessary or “fluff". I haven’t finished Hunger of the Gods yet, but I plan to quite soon. From where I am, though, I feel like I’m going to enjoy this one even more than I enjoyed Shadow of the Gods, which is really saying something since that was my favorite read of the year!
MSF Course
I signed up for the motorcycle safety course months ago—the earliest one I could get into was July, which was fine because it meant I got to just take an entire month off all at once rather than a random week or two throughout the year. This is something I kept hush-hush for quite a while but have been so excited about! I’ve always wanted to be able to ride a motorcycle, and I’ve always wanted one, but I never got the chance to make it happen. This year, I bit the bullet, took the class, and… I passed. I’m so delighted!
I cannot tell you how excited I am to not only be able to ride a motorcycle but to have a motorcycle. I bought a Kawasaki Ninja 400. Right now, it’s a standard green color, but I plan to get it painted in the future once I’m finished dropping it in parking lots. I’ll probably post updates of that on my personal Instagram—this is a story channel, not a motorcycle channel, so don’t worry: I won’t talk about the bike here too much.
Even though I want to.
Birthday Gift to Myself
Yeah, I know; the motorcycle was definitely a gift from me to myself. My birthday is July 29th, so I got another present. I’m not sure that it’ll be in the video or on this post because I’m getting this post put together the day before I get the present, but… it’s a tattoo! Like the motorcycle, this is another thing I’ve always wanted but never got. Now, I finally have my first tattoo! There will be more to come.
I started off small, so I chose the Firefly logo from one of my favorite video games, The Last of Us. This is a game I’ve played countless times, and the Firefly logo is highly recognizable to fans of the series, so it seemed like the most obvious choice for my representation of it. I’ve also considered getting Ellie’s tattoo from the sequel, but we’ll see. I only have so much space on my body and many ideas bouncing around in my head.
Thank You
Before I wrap things up here, I want to take a moment to express my immense gratitude for the crazy support I have received since I went on this break. The passive growth I’ve experienced has been unprecedented. My YouTube channel had an uptick of 50% in subscriber counts and way more views than I expected! I owe part of this to the incredible generosity of Cam Wolfe, who gave me a shoutout over on his channel. Cam is one of the key people who inspired me to make my own content—and even helped inspire my stylistic choices—so it was shocking to hear from people that he’d name-dropped me in a recent video. I’m absolutely ecstatic and can’t thank him enough! I'll link his video below. You should check him out!
I also can’t thank anyone enough for watching and engaging—it’s so cool to have an audience that wants to talk about stories. I do my best to respond to every comment I receive and am sorry if any slip through the cracks. Especially on a couple of my videos, there has been a significant amount of discourse, and it’s tough to keep up! I appreciate you all wanting to talk about these videos I put out, and I’m incredibly grateful to everybody who has encouraged me to keep going. I appreciate you!
Conclusion
And that’s my July! It has been an absolutely crazy month for me. It’s hard to believe all of this happened over the course of just a few weeks, but that’s the truth! I’m really looking forward to spending August and the months that follow enjoying a leisurely, relaxed pace. This has been a lot for me, but I’m ready to reap the rewards of all this hard work! Next Wednesday, I’ll have a post that’s more in keeping with my regular content—specifically, I’m going to talk about five shows I can’t stop recommending to people. Keep an eye out for that, and I’ll see you over there!
