I used to offer live sessions. I stopped doing them a few years ago when I had "the incident" that ended up costing me my sight in one eye. (In a nutshell, I was assaulted.) Since then, I get really bad random migraines that make it difficult for me to commit to a schedule. Some days I'm great, and I can record video and work for hours on end. Other days... not so much. The only thing that helps is to go lie in a dark room for a while.

Plus, I've found that recording video is a better use of my time. I can reach more people that way, and the forums are a great place to answer follow-up questions or I can make addendum videos and/or answer questions in Quick Queries videos... so I've got plenty of options. I've done a few live videos for user groups like the DAAUG, and those are fun, but I do them sparingly.

But I'm not really big on live, interactive stuff. Alex and I played around with doing some live stuff on YouTube, but... meh. Even before my incident, I never really liked live Zoom / Teams meetings, and I absolutely hate talking on the phone.

I'm sorry to hear such a harrowing experience.  Was the attack related to your doing live sessions in any way?  I've heard stories about YouTube streamers getting harassed, stalked, or worse.  If it was just a crime that happened in your life, I would say practically everyone can relate to that.  I was in jury duty once, and 200 people were asked in if any crime had occurred to them and/or their families, and nearly everyone raised their hands.

Oh no... completely unrelated. It wasn't like a Salman Rushdie crazy guy stabbing him on stage or anything like that. My fiance and I were out one night in a bar, and some guy got in my face, and before I realized it, he sucker punched me and landed me in the hospital with a detached retina, broken bones in my face, and nerve damage. It was all caught on surveillance video, too, but the DA refused to press charges, and two different law firms wouldn't take the case because the guy who hit me was a penniless young punk, and the bar it happened in had no insurance. So... yay me!

After emergency surgery to save the eye, and two followup consultations with different retina specialists, I was told there's nothing they can do. So, I'm waiting for medical science to advance to the point where I can at least get a Steve Austin, 6 Million Dollar Man-style bionic eye... or maybe half a VISOR like Geordie has... or I'll even take a Borg implant. That would be cool.

My reluctance to do live sessions stems more from the reason that I cannot control when these migraines hit. I can feel GREAT for weeks and nothing happens, but then need to spend the day in bed due to a stabbing headache. It's completely random. Which sucks because I used to LOVE being in front of people. I used to teach in the classroom back in the 90s / early 2000s. I was in a rock band in my 20s. I enjoy performing. I can just never tell when a migraine is going to ruin my plans. My fiance and I have actually left shows and events early due to a headache kicking in. So... it sucks.

But... Sami and I are throwing around the possibility of putting together some kind of Access-related event in the future... maybe like a weekend retreat in Orlando or something. Try to talk a bunch of people into doing a presentation or something... still just considering the idea though... so we'll see.