Well, sales are down, my hopes for getting some help keep getting dashed, and interest in this blog seems to be waning. I had been thinking this would be my last year for making videos. I had a few new ideas, some of which I could do alone, and some that would require assistance. I’ll probably be finished with the things I can do, by the end of May. I still have a few videos to release. If I spread them out, I may be able to keep my store alive through summer.
I think I’m a little depressed, which is influencing my current thinking, but this day has been a long time coming. After shooting mud videos for over 20 years, I’ve pretty much done everything 10 times. I’m also ready to move on to something else. That’s not to say I won’t go out and play in the mud; I’m just not going to haul a ton of camera gear with me and spend half my time setting up equipment to capture video. I’ll be able to move around more freely, travel light, spend less time cleaning equipment afterward, and there will be no video to edit and publish.
I may go back to shooting short videos for my blog on my GoPro; no fancy camera setups, low quality audio, and only quick edits. Then again, even keeping up with this blog feels a lot like work, since I get so little feedback. I really appreciate those of you who do send me messages, but there are very few of you.
I know I’ve taken breaks in the past, for similar reasons, but this time is different. I’ve had this web-site and my clip stores for well over a decade. After I take down all of this infrastructure, I’m not going to rebuild it. This era may be ending, and a new one will begin. This blog, and my clip store will be active for a few more months, at least. After that, it’s just a matter of deciding how much of the archive I want to keep around, and much time I want to spend maintaining it. I have other priorities, and my on-line mud life isn’t yielding an adequate return on investment. To quote Kenny Rogers from “The Gambler”, “You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, know when to run”.