T-Minus 263 Days: Disney YouTubers

 

In 2011, I used a video streaming service named LiveStream. With this service, I could use my cell phone data plan and the camera on my cell phone to broadcast live events where ever I wanted to.  I used it for various things, but something important I used it for was our 2011 trip to Disney World. 

 

I live-streamed my wife and I renewing of wedding vows from atop the train station overlooking Mainstreet USA. I live streamed walking around Frontierland at the Magic Kingdom and watching a parade go by. And I live-streamed the Disney fireworks.

 

The audience wasn’t very big - just a few friends. But that was OK. Just the idea of being able to share Disney World from across the Internet with other people was mind blowing.

 

Fast forward a few years...

 

In 2013, YouTube started opening livestream. Shortly thereafter, Disney introduced free Internet Wifi to their parks. Today, there is a flood of “you tubers” broadcasting live from the parks every day. Some have a few hundred viewers and some have many thousand. In fact, just about anytime you are feeling some Disney withdrawal? You can probably follow along with some YouTube as they explore the park. 

 

ResortTV1 is my favorite and is, in my opinion, the leader. Here, a brother and sister take turns visiting the parks, sharing their adventures, answering questions, and providing trivia. 

 

There are others including the CrazyDisneyLady, WD News Today, Corey Meets World, Earsom Emporium, Drew in the Moment, and more.

 

If you visit Disney World, it is likely you’ll see someone walking around holding a camera and seemingly talking to themselves. In actuality, they are talking to hundreds of people. Those people show their appreciation by replying with “Super Chats”. This is money that fans send to the Youtubers to help support their work.

I'm not trying to say that I was the first Disney Youtuber. I'm sure there were others broadcasting live from Disney before me. But I'm sure I was one of the first because I was doing it before YouTube streaming and before the park had Wifi. Regardless, I love this trend. If I have a bad day at work, or, just need a pick-me-up? I stream something from Disney and it almost feels like I am actually there.

T-Minus 280 Days: ResortTV1

 What do you do when you can't go to Disney whenever you want? One idea is to tune into Resort TV1 on YouTube. They go live on a regular basis. But even when they aren't live, their replays are incredible. The ResortTV1 members (a brother (Josh) and sister (Jenna)) visit the parks and walk around with a camera, filming the parades and rides at 4K as they go. 

They also visit Universal Studios

My favorite is the VLOG Strolls where Josh walks around and narrates what we are seeing. Josh is an expert, so, it is like having your own private tour of the park!

Check them out:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAjpFyA7FCRoGOuj5i4kq9g

T-Minus 497 days: Florida with Five, SunRail, PODS, and more

A three day weekend meant three days of purging! We finished the kid art, then moved to kid books, some baby items, old notebooks from work, and my wife went through several totes containing her desk items from previous jobs.

We have now sorted 33% of our 270 totes! And 15% of our totes are now empty. 15% doesn't sound like much - but that is 41 empty totes!

We continue to watch YouTube videos as we purge. This weekend we binge watched Florida With Five, a family with five kids who moved to Florida one year ago. The area they live in sounded so familiar, so, we decided to figure out where their house was. I know, that seems super creepy. But we have lived in that area for 8 or 9 summers and know it really well. What got us interested was when they talked about the Sun Rail, a commuter train that goes to Orlando. In all the research I had done and all the time spent in the area, I had never heard of the Sun Rail before. How was that possible?

It took some work during lunch time, but, we narrowed it down to what street they lived on. I had drove by that area five years ago and was amazed at how developed it had become! I had never considered that area because when we drove through it, it was just fields and golf courses.

And that is where the creepy part ends. I found the street, but I probably couldn't find it again without a ton of work. I would never tell anyone or care to go there. I just wanted to better understand the SunRail and now I see how developed that area has become, which I didn't previously know.

The SunRail extension to the south completed in July 2018. You can now take the rail from Poinciana all the way into Orlando and beyond. I plan to learn more about this because it could be a way to beat the I4 traffic!

We watched many videos that showed how people packed a pod. From what we saw: people don't move to Florida with furniture! I don't know how anyone can afford to move to Florida and buy all new furniture - furniture is expensive! We decided we needed to take a trip to Florida to do a final search for houses, and during that trip, visit some of the furniture stores in the area to see what the trick is.

A few other things we noticed was the use of different sized boxes to maximize every inch of the pod. A final thing we noticed was how much packing material often gets used: they'll wrap something in a blanket, then wrap that in plastic. Then they'll line boards and cardboard around that. The trick, from what I learned, is to pack the POD in sections - building walls of belongings. After each section (or wall) you use rope to hold it in place. This continues, section by section and wall by wall until the entire POD is filled.

I also learned that a POD can hold 10,000 pounds, however, the pod itself is 2500 pounds, so, really it only holds 7500 pounds (the same as a 22 foot moving truck). That may actually be a problem because I have a home gym filled with weight machines, dumbbells, and free wights.... how the heck am I going to move all of that? Perhaps I'll just sell everything and use a health club membership in Florida.

The weekend ended with three days of purging. We filled eight garbage bags with trash, and two garbage bags for the yard sale/donation. It was a lot of work and we are exhausted!

T-Minus 501 Days: Florida Suburban Dad

My wife and I have been watching a ton of YouTube about moving to Florida. We came across the Florida Suburban Dad and watched many of his videos. Suburban Dad has several... odd... tattoos on his arms and when we watched his first video, my wife said "Change the video!" but we stuck through the first video and found that we enjoyed what he put together.

Suburban Dad has over 9000 subscribers! I live that he is from upstate New York (because we are too). Something else I like about Suburban Dad is that he doesn't just sit in front of a camera at his kitchen table and talks. He walked around his neighborhood, drove to work, walked down the beach, sits by his pool (or in his pool) and talks. He does sit by his pool and talk a lot, but that is OK - I can imagine me sitting out by the pool talking with people!

Something we notices with all the YouTube videos is people do not tend to think much before they record. They just turn on the camera and ramble. Suburban Dad does suffer from that. IMHO, someone should think about what they want to say, jot down a few ideas, and record with a clock. If the clock says you have talked about a subject for five minutes? You've probably covered the subject and can move on. Instead, youtubers repeat themselves, clarify, make the same points over and over, and circle conversations. It can get annoying. Suburban Dad does this, but... you get to enjoy looking at the beautiful Florida back ground when you get bored hearing the same thing repeated, so, it is OK.

The best video that everyone needs to watch? How he maintains his pool. If you plan to have a pool in Florida? You need to watch this video.

Suburban Dad has a ton of videos and I have only watched a few, but, I look forward to watching more while purging the house.

Relocated Tourist

It is back! After missing from the Internet for years, you can find the adventures here:

https://therelocatedtourist.wordpress.com/

Moving to Orlando - Davenport Video

I love The Dis Unplugged and I was thrilled when they started a series about moving to the Orlando area. Their third video is "Moving to Orlando - Davenport". 

Moving to Orlando - Winter Garden Video

I love The Dis Unplugged and was thrilled when they started their series on Moving to Orlando. The following is a short video showing parts of Winter Garden.

Moving to Orlando - Celebration Video

I love watching The Dis Unplugged and was thrilled when they started a video series exploring moving to the Orlando Area.  This is their second video, named "Moving To Orlando - Celebration Florida".