state of the jungle

I have not put out much content lately.

My time has been divided between a lot of other projects.  And for some reason, a lot of folks have been writing to me to say:

1)  You need to say my message

1b)  I know you don't agree with my message, so we need to have a six hour chat so you can stop being so stupid.  And, no, I won't listen to your stupidity.

2)  You need to make your videos/podcasts/articles this other way.  Why not?  Explain it to me in detail.

3)  I need you to promote my stuff (and no, I'm not going to promote your stuff - that would be silly)

4)  I have promoted your stuff on my teeny, tiny, pissant site.  I now demand that you take the time to think of a way to promote my stuff in a big way (and no, I don't want to create an account on your stupid forums)

5)  Answer my question in email that has already been answered in the forums.

6)  When bad guys hassle you, why don't you just do what the bad guys want and get on with your life?  Explain it to me in detail.

7)  You need to run your forums my way (and no, I've never run forums before).  Why not?  Explain it to me in detail.

 I want to buy the web site permies.com for dirt cheap.   Hello?  Hello?  Why won't you respond to my emails?  That's just rude.  You need to be professional.

9)  How much advertising can I get on permies.com for $50.  Hello?  Hello?  Why won't you respond to my emails?  That's just rude.  You need to be professional.

10)  I have listened to all of your podcasts and watched all of your videos.  I have read many of your posts at permies.com.  I want to get into a six hour email discussion with you about how I question your values and you need to be held accountable to me.

11)  I found your video submission to this other site to be really good.  But since you used your real name on the site, and you used your real name on the video I cleverly deduced that the site poster and the video maker are the same person.  Therefore, I think it is wrong of you to do that.  And I demand that you stop.  No, I am not the site owner.  Hello?  Are you going to stop?  Hello?  Hello?  Don't you dare ignore me!

12)  Hi!  I noticed that you live in Montana.  That is beautiful country.  I have a cousin that lives in Bozeman.  I live in North Carolina.  Have you ever been to North Carolina?

13)  Hi!  I noticed that you live in Montana.  That is beautiful country.  I have a cousin that lives in Bozeman.  I live in South Carolina.  Have you ever been to South Carolina?

14)  Hi!  I noticed that you live in Montana.  That is beautiful country.  I have a cousin that lives in Bozeman.  I live in Utah.  Have you ever been to Utah?

15)  Hi!  I noticed that you live in Montana.  That is beautiful country.  I have a cousin that lives in Bozeman.  I live in Michigan.  Have you ever been to Michigan?

16)  Hi!  I noticed that you live in Montana.  That is beautiful country.  I have a cousin that lives in Bozeman.  I live in Mexico.  Have you ever been to Mexico?

17)  Hi!  I noticed that you live in Montana.  That is beautiful country.  I have a cousin that lives in Bozeman.  I live in Costa Rica.  Have you ever been to Costa Rica?

18)  Hi!  I noticed that you live in Montana.  That is beautiful country.  I have a cousin that lives in Bozeman.  I live in England.  Have you ever been to England?

19)  Hi!  I noticed that you live in Montana.  That is beautiful country.  I have a cousin that lives in Bozeman.  I live in Southern California.  Have you ever been to Southern California?

20 ... 29) Very similar to 12 through 19

30)  ________ sent you a private message on some system that will require you to log in and jump through weird hoops to track down the private message.  The private message will probably be long, rambling, demanding and make no sense.  You will be tempted to reply, but that would just lead to another email like this one.

31) I forgot my password on permies.com and the email address was a throwaway email from a company/ISP that I'm no longer affiliated with.  Could you please give me an hour to try to figure out if I'm a bad guy or if I am legit?

32) Somebody on permies said something i don't agree with and I demand that you delete it and ban them immediately.  But never tell anyone I said this.  Why not?  Explain it to me in detail.

33)  Can you attend our event that would take four days of your driving at your expense?  There might be as many as eight people there.  Why not?  Explain it to me in detail.

34)  Thanks for taking six hours to teach me how I can help save you one hour of time.  It turns out that I can't actually do that one hour thing.  Sorry.

35)  There is one point in this video that I don't like.  I demand that you change the video and re-upload it.  And, no, i will not upload my own video.  Why will you not do as I demand?  Explain it to me in detail.

36)  Hi, we're going to have some lame event where six people might attend.  We think it would be a great opportunity for you to give us $500.  We'll mention you at the event and mention you in tiny print on our lame posters.  Why not?  Explain it to me in detail.

37)  I need you to explain to me, step by step, how to build a rocket mass heater.  In email.  And after you have spent four hours, I will tell you that that won't work because of some crazy thing.

38)  I see that you posted something an hour ago, therefore you are currently on-line.  But you have not posted to the thing I want to you post to.  I now need you to explain, to my satisfaction, why you posted to that thing and not to my thing.

39)  Hi, this is youtube, we noticed that this one video had gotten a lot of views.  We need you to provide proof that everything in the video was created by you or that you have written permission that satisfies our legal department.  Make yourself comfortable, this is gonna take a while.

40)  I know we set a date and time for you to spend a day driving here to video this stuff, and this is sorta the last second, but I have to cancel because I think my hair will look too messy.

41)  I know you drove a long ways to get here and I told you I would be glad to do this, but now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the whole youtube thing.  So I'm just gonna say "no".

42)  Now that you have taken all of that video, how much are you going to pay me?  I won't settle for a penny less than a thousand dollars.

43)  Remember when you drove all the way out here and took that video a week ago?  I need to ask that you not use that.  

44)  Now that we're done taking video, I need you to make sure that you run your video by me before you put it on youtube.  Frankly, I don't trust you.

45)  I remember when your web site was small and you asked me to do stuff with you.  I would have nothing to do with you then.  But now that your web site is big, I like the idea that we have a relationship.  And by "relationship" i mean that you do what i say.

46)  You made a video of me four days ago. When will that video be up?  Why not tomorrow?  Explain it to me in detail.

47)  Can you come speak at our far, far away event?  I will promise that 100 people will be there, but when you arrive there will be only four people and an apology from me that I forgot to announce the event.

48)  I refuse to use a site that uses any form of censorship, but i still insist that you promote my stuff because your censored site has mysteriously become a thousand times bigger than my free-for-all-spam-and-hate-infested site.  Now that you are so big, you have an obligation to do as I say and be my personal bitch.

49)  Can you drive five hours to give me four hours of advice that I will ignore?  I'll give you a cup of coffee in return.  Why not?  Explain it to me in detail.

50)  How dare you say these things!  You are misleading people!  You are destroying the fabric of our society!

51)  Paul, I love ya, and all the stuff you do, but you gotta change this one thing you do to be more like me.  And if you make this change, I will give you empty promises of helping you do things.  Of course, if you make this change, i will lose all respect for you and do nothing.

52)  Your efforts to block spam from permies.com have somehow blocked me.  I am not a spammer.  Take down your spam block so I can get in.  (exchange 20 emails in an attempt to resolve this - and in the end still not be sure if they really are a spammer or not)

52b)  WTF?  You banned me?  What did I ever do to you?  (uh, apparently you use the same IP as a spammer)

53) Please give me detailed instructions on how to make a permaculture site like yours, but, you know, without you.  

54)  I thought I would forward this to you:  "I refuse to have anything to do with Paul Wheaton.  He's a money grubber, a censor and doesn't even abide the permaculture ethics.  All of the real permaculture community avoids him."   ----  you might want to consider what they are saying.  If you are not going to change, can you please explain to me, in detail, why?

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I've been struggling with lots of maddening computer problems the last few months.  And I am still kicking myself for losing all of that excellent video footage.  My new laptop should arrive tomorrow and hopefully all the computer issues will go away.

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I am currently about 2000 emails behind just for the last six months or so.  I am catching up.

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I want to thank the plotskateers that did my bidding.  The last effort was a huge success and made me very happy.

I want to thank Brice Moss for saying he would take over fiddling with the podcasts and following through!  He has one up so far, and the questions he has asked me prove that he is currently working on #2.  He has already saved me a big gob of time.

I want to thank Kane Jamison for setting up all the blog stuff and podcast stuff.  That is a big gob of crap that I am glad to know nothing about.   He needed very little from me and got a whole lot of stuff done.

I want to thank Jami McBride for getting our wiki up and running when people said that were just dying to fill it with permaculture awesomeness (and then they disappeared).

I want to thank Burra Maluca for taking on my reddit stuff in such a big and effective way.  So cool!  I want to also thank Burra for helping me with several thread cleanups.

I want to thank the admins here at permies.com for deleting gobs of spam before I get there.  And for bringing stuff to my attention that needs my attention.  

I want to thank every person that clicks on "report to moderator" for spam and/or for stuff that might be outside of my comfort zone.  That is a massive time saver to me.

I want to thank every person that has answered a permies question with the words "paul would say ..."  and they are spot on.  That is a big help.

I want to thank every person that has lots of good posts high on interesting content and has never posted something that I ended up deleting.  You are setting the pace and tone for this site and making zero work for me.  Thanks!

I want to thank every person that took the time to better understand reddit and then stood up for me at reddit.  

I want to thank Jocelyn Campbell for making a lot of the podcast stuff so much easier for me.

I want to thank the celebrity Jack Spirko for taking his very valuable time to give me advice on gobs of things.

I want to thank Suzy Bean for asking how she could help and with very little guidance did exactly as I asked.  I still see her name popping up in all sorts of places that I didn't expect.

I want to thank every person that uses the naming convention I prefer on permies.

I want to thank the folks that send me purely words of encouragement.  I think I have heard from about 20 people that have said "In my book, you are the coolest person in the world."  and from about five that have said "You are my Sepp Holzer."  One time on reddit I saw a comment that said "Wow, Paul Wheaton posts here?" and then somebody commented on that to say "yeah, is reddit awesome or what?"  ---  that was a big upper for me.

I want to thank the publishers and movie producers that value my opinion so much that they send me free stuff.

I want to thank permaculture magazine for liking me so much that they continue to run ads for me at no charge.

I want to thank all of the people who say they will do something and then do it.  Invisibly.  Or, they do cool things for me and never utter a peep.  I only find out about that coolness by accident much later.  That is crazy awesome.

I want to thank all of the people that think I am fucking awesome exactly the way I am.  

Paul, like anyone I don't agree with 100% of the things you say and do, but I think you give a lot more to the world than you take from it.  Thanks, keep it up.

He was quoting emails he receives demanding that he change videos.  Paul was not the one 'demanding'.

I think Paul probably forgot # 55:
"I sent you an email 5 minutes ago, and you have not answered me yet!"

For each new podcast/video/article/whatever I get more and more of this. 

I'm getting better at ignoring it.

Today I was thinking about the expression "you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs."  And I make a lot of omelets.

And, of course, with 12,000 people per day, there will be at least one that gets hysterically pissed that I don't do things exactly their way, so they pop.  I'm getting pretty used to this.

I suppose if the site grows by a factor of ten, I should expect ten pops a day.

Sorry Paul, it doesn't work that way.  It's logarithmic.  If you grow by a factor of ten, you'll get 100 pops per day.  LOL

paul wheaton wrote:
For each new podcast/video/article/whatever I get more and more of this. 

I'm getting better at ignoring it.

Today I was thinking about the expression "you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs."  And I make a lot of omelets.

And, of course, with 12,000 people per day, there will be at least one that gets hysterically pissed that I don't do things exactly their way, so they pop.  I'm getting pretty used to this.

I suppose if the site grows by a factor of ten, I should expect ten pops a day.

Ain't it great being a celebrity

52c)  You banned me? WTF?  What did I ever do to you?  Don't you know how important I am?  Well, I just went and told 7,000 people in my community what a horrible person you are for banning me.  And to think of all the great things I've done for you.  (apparently, when you switch browsers you are no longer logged in - and some folks see this as being banned)

55)  I have an event on tuesday.  Here is the PDF.  Please post it to your site.  In the future, it would save me time if you just monitor my web site and copy my event stuff to your site.  Thanks!

Well, I'm not one of the heavy posters here as I'm mostly lurking and trying to absorb all the info I can on topics I know absolutely nothing about (read: I can't even ask a good question most of the time).  But at least I haven't had any posts deleted!  I have been using the report-to-moderator button, but wasn't sure whether that was helpful or not.  Apparently it is, so I'll keep doing so.

Keep up the good work, Paul.

That list is a nightmare. I'm new and haven't posted much, but I liked what I saw when I lurked enough to sign up. Like I said in my intro thread, I am here to learn and I have already started doing that. Keep up the good work, and don't let the crazies get to you too much.

Well damn, I read this whole thread thinking you were going to go down the "jungle-in-my-pants" road.  ( I don't remember which podcast you said that on - I almost passed my coffee through my nose)

The last few days have been a lot more of this sort of thing.

I've even gotten emails from people wanting me to be their messenger boy for talking to others.

Hey man, it's your BBQ and it tastes good.

56)  I tried to use something on your site, but it isn't working.  By not telling you details, I think we can turn this into a lovely email exchange.

57)  I spent about four seconds looking for something on your site and didn't see it.  So I thought it would be fun to email you and ask you to find it and send me a link to it. 

58)  I've posted a ridiculous question out at some odd spot on the internet.  It's been a whole day, why have you not answered me?  You are such an ass.

58a)  The question is: how much money will I make?

58b)  If I build it, will you poison everybody in the house?

58c)  Can I be self sufficient?

58d)  What do I plant?

58e)  Can you come to my house?

With the kickstarter thing, I think I got 100 more emails than I normally get.  It's gonna take me a day to put a dent in that.  For a lot of the emails I've processed so far, I'm saying "hey, can you ask this in the forums?"  And then some are responding that they need me to explain "why" to their satisfaction, and why can't I just answer their question, etc.    Maybe it will be a week for me to catch up.

At the same time I'm feeling really good about how the footage came out for the kickstarter video:  the part with me and the barn.  That's a huge thanks to Krista Miller Larson.  She picked the spot, drove out there, worked my camera and gave me direction/ideas in what to do.  Then she used her own fancy pants camera to take lots of pictures.  We spent hours there.  And she is a professional photographer!  And she didn't charge me a nickel.  It was mighty kind.

And then I get to thinking about all of the people that do hundreds of things all the time to make all this stuff work out.  It's a little overwhelming.  I think it would be a full time job just to properly thank all of the people that chip in here and there.

I look at that video and I think about the colony collapse disorder video.  Jacqueline gave me about six hours for that.  And a place to stay overnight at her place.  And meals.  So huge. 

Once I get to thinking about this, I start thinking that there may be a thousand people that I have not properly thanked for their help.  I'm such a clod/ass/doofus.  I should be better about this stuff.

Hi Paul, this is Dale. I e-mailed you 5 min. ago and right in the middle of it my battery went dead, so I'm not sure if you got my e-mail, did you? If you did please call me at home so I know you got it.  555 555 5555        I went to the bathroom, did you call?

      Although we've never met I figure you're one of my best friends and it's okay for me to impose on you in this way. After you read my e-mail tell me what you think of the plans and check the measurements to make sure I didn't make any mistakes. You might want to recheck the math too. The jiggamatrometer hooks to the flibnermbometer and it runs on pig farts and fairy dust.

    That's only the preliminary sketch. I have 36 pages of hand-drawn specs which I am currently scanning. They should be about the same quality as the old mimeograph copies from the 70s. I'll message you as I think of more components.

   I'm hoping you can help me finance this project.

  Do you want to come over for supper? I'm having trouble getting along with other people on the forums and I want to be able to say " yeah, well when Paul was over at my place for supper we agreed on everything - so you're wrong."   That'll teach them. 

   My sister is single – are you married?     Does it weird you out knowing that I have your picture on my wall?      Did you just turn on the lights in your living room?        Why are you shining a flashlight into the field?                                                                                                        

This week: 1, 1b, 2, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 7, 10, 11, 30, 31, 33, 37, 50, 51, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 57, 57, 58e

All of these have happened one to five times, but #5 and #57 have been so common this week, I just had to mention them more.

I cannot keep this pace up.

As is, a big gob of my daily email goes unread. And video and podcast production has come to a near standstill.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, to do just thing things that I want to accomplish today would take 100 people ten years.

And then I have a parade of people telling me that I need to do their weird stuff on top of all this.

Paul, I think you’re doing a great job . It’s growing pains. You’re getting more hits and becoming more well-known so it’s bound to happen.

I’ve no idea if this anecdote will sound like blather, but when I had my first kid I read something that addressed growth milestones. It talked about how babies wake up during the night for feedings, and it said that about the time that parents are utterly exhausted, the baby is developed enough that its tummy can go longer between feedings. At that point parents will coincidentally start sleeping longer and responding slower because they’re plain tuckered. It also said that around the time a baby starts to crawl, that’s also the time when its immune system starts working on its own.

I guess what I’m saying is that you’re not going to please everyone so just keep being Paul. It will work out- whoever’s meant to stay and listen/participate will do so, and those who aren’t will move on, and your forum- and more importantly, your peace of mind- will be more solid for it.

Makes me think of the Garden Party song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFugRFKqjFg

Maybe you can make use of one of those “sticky” features and place a note at the top of the forums saying something like:

“Hi Ho, glad you’re here. I can’t answer individual questions, but the beauty of this forum is that there’s lots of others who love to take a stab at it. And if you do some searching, you might find that someone else has already asked the same thing and got a great answer back!”

And any other baseline message you think everyone should keep in mind.

I now have 10,009 youtube subscribers.

Last month, about 920,000 people visited my permaculture empire and each person looked about 6 things, for a total of 6,519,441 views.

I receive about six hate mails per day and about two love letters per day. I do my stuff for the latter folks. The former group need to discover that there is more to the internet than me.

I have the footage for 140 more videos that need to be pushed up to youtube. I have the raw materials for about 50 more articles. And I'm falling behind by about 20 emails per day.

Well Paul, if you ever need to flee to a small Central American country, I can probably be of help. : Those messages are why when you have threatened to give me credit for something, I just say you can have all the glory, and the headaches that come with it.

People can be so weird. Not sure if you knew, but the shrinks have now said that being narcissistic isn't being mentally ill. So, you can't even call these people crazy...

And no, it wasn't me on the Costa Rica one. lol

I have bitten off more than I can chew.

Way too many important emails are being swept down the email river. I am trying to transition from working 100 hours a week to working 70 hours a week - and not pulling it off.

We are experiencing powerful growing pains trying to get things started at the farm. At the same time, things in the online world seem to be reeling with opportunities, but each opportunity has a human liaison. Something that should take two minutes takes four hours. And lots and lots of stuff coming up like in the list above.

I feel bad that I haven't put out new videos or articles in a long time. And that I have not gone through the forums to answer questions.

In a way, people have complained for a really long time about the low quality of my stuff - and now I am (sort of) doing something about it. I'm putting a lot of thought into how to reach into parts of the world that have never been reached into before and conveying some of this stuff. Involving true professionals. I think the cards are a big part of that and so is the permaculture voices conference. And a few other projects in the hopper.

Even though the whole podcast thing still is thousands of dollars in the red, I think it was the podcasts that led to the jet pack stuff - so the podcasts have earned their keep.

I think when I started this thread I was barely able to keep up. And now I am definitely not keeping up. Things have shifted to more of a space of "95% of the stuff I should be doing will just never get done." And 80% of the new things that will come to me that I really need to deal with, those will also not get done.

Even the thought of making a list of the things to do is too much.

As is, I think I am doing a really lame job on promoting the current kickstarter, plus a lame job on promoting the new rocket mass heater dvds, plus a lame job on promoting the workshops that will happen here in october, plus a lame job on the upcoming projects, plus a lame job on projects here at the farm, plus a lame job of keeping up with the staff here at permies.com.

So I post this here as a sort of lame apology.

I think you are doing a fantastic job of putting "Paul Wheaton's best way to do something (many, many somethings)" into many, many, MANY peoples minds. And for each mind you directly touch, they will pass this on to others, creating a snowball effect. PLEASE DON'T FORGET THAT ANY GOOD YOU DO WILL BE MAGNIFIED EXPONENTIALLY.

Keep up the good work, watch a sunrise or a sunset without thinking about your to-do list, enjoy your life, and continue to enrich others'.

(I had been contemplating sending a thank you e-mail, but didn't want to add to the pile of e-mails you are behind on, had about decided to send one that just said thank you, no need to open email in the subject line, when I saw this thread)

It will probably turn out that most things will come together in time, so rather than being lame, they will be somewhat delayed instead.

Stress is a killer. I'd rather see a slower progression, than illness or worse, forcing a slower pace.

I probably shouldn't have revived this old thread. I thought it might serve to remind people to refrain from insisting on personal attention from our glorious leader. Instead, it prompted a response, that took another little bite out of his time budget. This is my lame apology for that.

I think Cassie is now getting 98% of this stuff, so I don't have to see it.

Ernie and Erica are here and this morning, around the brekfast table, we were talking about people that contact us.

At first we talk about people that contact us and it seems that they think that our function is to serve them. They don't want to read articles or watch videos - that's for lessor people. They want us to explain it to them directly. Sometimes over the phone. They don't "use forums" - that's for lessor people too. Or, the way that they learn is by interacting with other people. And since we "seem" to have "claimed" something, we need to submit ourselves to their scrutiny.

Then Jocelyn pointed out that for every one of these people, we get two of another sort: "Hi! I've recently learned about permaculture and I think we could be great friends! Can I come by for a cup of coffee and a visit? I would love to hear about what you are working on and I would love to tell you about what I have learned!"

Jocelyn is right - we get a lot of this. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy talking to people that have listened to most of the podcasts or people that have watched most of my videos or read most of my articles, or have been reading permies for years. But this desire of folks to be my new BFF who have consumed none of my stuff is a bit shocking. We have had some people like this actually come here. They consume a lot of time and seem to disapprove of a lot of things. I think I should make a thread for people like this and direct them to that thread - but so far my brains cannot seem to come up with the foundation for that thread.

I sometimes see a television show or a movie, and I enjoy the size of the credits. A big movie might have been the work of a thousand people working full time for months or years.

I am baffled at how upset a few people are that I don't do *ALL* the work myself. That I don't do all the video editing. Or that I don't answer all the emails. Or that I don't plant every seed. Or build every thing. I find myself creating a list of all the things that I did by myself - but what does it matter. It still will be less than 100%. Much less than 100%.

I get to thinking about certain small projects that I want to do myself, but then I think about all the projects I need to do that only I can do.

One person commented that on their property, they personally get more done than any other worker at their place. And they have huge pride in that. I have to agree that that is noble and excellent. And if they can do that *AND* convey their experiences to others, that would be even better still. Amazingly awesome - I suspect there are a few superheroes doing something like that. I think I was doing a bit of that twelve years ago.

But I now have a whole new idea and new mission. It isn't really about what I do. It's more like I need to build an army. A permaculture army. I need to garden gardeners. Ant village seems like the optimal path for that. And I have a few more ideas. I think that if I had a business with millions of dollars to give it a go, I could dramatically accelerate this. But I don't. So I have to find a path to get it to work out. And that path is to go get money so that those funds can be used to create the things that need to be created PLUS be a bit of an income stream for ants and gappers.

I figured it out the other day that about 20 people depend on money from me every month. Some more than others. So I need to come up with a pretty healthy pile of money each month. Every day is a bit of a scramble to figure out how to do that.

Everything is being done on the freaky cheap. But we are making forward progress. The down side is that I am almost entirely removed from doing a lot of stuff.

Our infrastructure is getting better. Our processes are getting optimized. I am building more and more residual income streams - so that I can continue to have income without having to work.

- - -

On the bright side: I suppose if a person thinks I am a fucking loser because I am not doing 100% of the work, then that person will avoid me. I think that is a good thing. And if that person can find the time to publicly share that I'm a loser because I am not doing 100% of the work - I do have to wonder if this person might actually be a corporate troll.

- - -



I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam.

I'll just say that this site is a continual source of spoons for me to put it in spoon theory speak. You've created a place where literally thousands of people can come to get inspiration and genuine insight from like-minded individuals and that is a great thing. Hopefully having that that can help to balance the negative coming from the vocal detractors/time-suckers. Just lump those people in with the bad guys that aren't worth the focus of your attention I guess...

Here's to growing the Permaculture Army:

Waah! They're all girls!

It's outlandish to imagine you could do everything yourself. One of the main tasks of The Boss is to delegate!

I want to thank the person that after several email questions and replies asked if he could pay me for my professional service because I had helped him more than those he had seen in person. I gave him my PayPal adress and he promptly sent me a payment.

I got my daily-ish newsletter tonight with the article "State of the Jungle" and my god it was hilarious! (Probably not so hilarious when you have to deal with those emails though!) That is really brilliant writing.

Anyway, I popped on over to here because I thought you might like to know that in a business/financial goal setting class tonight we were asked the big WHY we want to reach our goals (mine is to learn, live and spread permaculture) and then we were asked who is it that you admire most and consider the top, most inspiring person in the area of your life's purpose and goals and my answer was PAUL WHEATON!!! Just saying.

I also think about what I would use gazillions of money for and one of my BIG goals for that is to do whatever and donate/share whatever in order to support and further your cause (Permaculture the Genius Way a la Paul Wheaton!). So if all goes as planned, you will someday in the not-too-distant future be the beneficiary of millions of dollars Paul. Ok I have no clue what I am doing NOW but I am smart and I can learn so why not eh? (Ha! Canadian content there eh?) So YES I am going to share my millions with you one of these days! ETA: Ooof I will share in U.S.D. not CAD haha ha didn't mean to worry you with the Canadian content comment! LOL

Anne,

I am looking forward to the "gazillions of money"!

Thanks for the awesome boost!

59)  I sent you an email commanding you to run your website my way and I see that you have not obeyed me.   You need to obey RIGHT NOW, OR ELSE!

60)  I read something you wrote about the way you manage your web site and that's just bananas.  You have to stop that.

61)  I have used other web sites, and they manage their web site "the right way".   Since you do something different, that is obviously "the wrong way."  Comply with my demands immediately.

62)  I posted something on your site and got all the benefit I wanted.  Now I want to do something different - stop all the other things you are doing and make it be the way that I want now.

The only way to make everyone happy is to sell ice cream. Since we do not do that, there is going to be issues.

Personally Paul, I would just like to shake your hand. Farmer to farmer that would mean a lot, and I suppose, say a lot.

My calendar today is pretty packed.   And I have about a hundred important emails from the last three days to sort through (aka, I've already processed all the easy emails).


This is gonna take a half hour to sort out:  

https://permies.com/t/120/49856/contact-contact-paul-contact-staff#1157996

(there are at least 4 confusions in that that need to be sorted out)


This is gonna take about and hour and a half to sort out:

https://permies.com/t/146876/permaculture-projects/bootcamp-waiting-list#1157695


Sorting out the well, the book reprint, winter shelter for boots, accelerating dev on PEP, personal health shit, the greenhouse project, an advertiser on coderanch, future events, two complications with the bootcamp waiting list, housekeeper stuff ...   just a big list of stuff to get done today.   And about 30 new things will roll in every hour.  So three big meetings will cause a lot of pileup.


Just trying to say, to those people that read this sort of thing, please be patient as I am falling behind a bit more than normal.

paul wheaton wrote:Just trying to say, to those people that read this sort of thing, please be patient as I am falling behind a bit more than normal.

I am getting a little bit caught up but still really behind.  If you have an email to me that needs my attention, please bump it up.  Stuff that is from real permies has priority (a lot of emails are stuff where they say they are real permies, but after a few exchanges I learn that they are just saying that to get something from me).  

63) I bought 12 physical books.  They arrived.  I need a full refund because your book mentions the internet and my internet is slow.

64) I bought a product made by somebody else on your digital market.  I need you to answer my questions about it via email.

(yup - these are real)

I am trying to catch up more than usual.  We are processing the completion of the kickstarter, plus I got to go have surprise surgery stuff (I'm fine now and recovering nicely).  On top of all that, we are closing in on our summer events.  To mix into that, I am getting a feeling in my bones to make youtube videos again.  I have installed a new video editor and done some tinkering.  I've ordered a few new video toys and am talking to josiah about some video he has stored.

All this is to say that I am a bit more behind in my emails (and other stuff) than usual.  I am working on getting caught up.