My son and I took a walk through the Strip yesterday. Bought a couple of roast beefs at the original Primanti's, crossed Smallman to the newly refurbished Terminal, plopped down on a big plastic couch ... and a passerby was kind enough to snap the pic seen above.
There's no point to the story other than I had the free hour to pull it off.
That hasn't been the case much for seven-plus years. Anyone who's started their own business, as Dali and I did in 2014, can attest that days off don't exist. Heck, time off doesn't exist. She and I go pretty much around the clock, seven days a week, and even the lighter days invariably have a few hours committed to the company.
That's not complaining. We love what's been built. But it's no less true.
In fact, speaking for myself, I'm probably complaining less than ever. And that's partly because we're finally back on our financial feet following the pandemic, but also because we're so very grateful that Jarrod Prugar and Eddie Provident both came aboard full-time recently to take on a lot of the tasks that only Dali and I had been handling. Background-type stuff you don't see -- page management, production, quality control -- but essential to how we operate and the professional face we put forth.
Maybe it's a defect on my part, but I can't go to bed until I feel the site's as close to perfect as it can get. I was staying up till sunrise, both home and road, going over everything. I wouldn't get enough sleep, I'd be a wreck the next day, and the cycle just kept going and going.
But having these two, with their passion for the same, has made a monumental difference. In addition to being able to spend time with Marko and Dara (via FaceTime, since she's at school), Dali and I have both been freed up for more creative work. In her case, that's involved graphic design, promotion, new merchandise and so forth. In mine, it's been, as I hope you've noticed, a lot more writing. I've made it to more events and, in turn, delivered more columns than at any time in years.
And it hasn't just been Jarrod and Eddie. I've been equally uplifted by the addition of all these hyper-enthusiastic podcasters to our platform. Meaning just their presence. They're so excited, so proud to be here that, in a lot of ways, it's felt like 2014 all over again. Feels like the sky's the limit. And with some of the results we've seen already, that just might be true.
All of this comes down to one thing for me now: Have fun. I didn't get into this to get rich, but I sure didn't get into it to be miserable. My happiness, to a large extent, comes from this job, from this company. So that's the goal. Every day, I want to have fun, be happy, enjoy what I do, enjoy who and what's around me.
I'll be at Lambeau Field this weekend, an American treasure, and I'll savor every minute of it. It's a great job. It's a great company. It's a great community we've been blessed to build here. Being too busy to embrace things like that ... not a problem anymore.
PENN STATE 88, PITT 68
Our drive to achieve 1,000 total free subscriptions for Pitt and Penn State students still has the Nittany Lions in the lead, 88-62, and we're still waiting on the first school to reach 100 so we can distribute the first set to students at that school.
If you'd like to contribute, email me directly -- DK@DKPittsburghSports.com -- and, after you hear my thanks, Dali will reach out with the rest. The cost of either one is $20 each. You can contribute one, or as many as you'd like. Every contribution counts, large and small, and they're all appreciated equally.
MILITARY REALLY SLOW
Our concurrent campaign to match 2,000 military veterans to free one-year subscriptions saw 7 purchased this week -- thank you! -- for a total of 664.
What matters is that the contributions have kept pace with the actual requests from veterans, almost one-for-one. At the same time, this has slowed to a near-crawl, and it'd seem vital to pick it up soon to have a shot at the target by year's end. (We hit it last year on Veterans Day, fittingly enough, and that's coming up Nov. 11.)
If you'd like to contribute, just like the college drive, email me directly: DK@DKPittsburghSports.com. The cost of these also is $20 each.
WEEKLY APP TIPS
Ways to make the app experience even better:
• I realize this'll sound obvious, but ... use our menu! And yes, we do have a menu! It's those three stacked lines in the top right corner of both the app and site and, when it's tapped, it unfurls a super-organized collection of everything we offer. And I share this mostly because I'll occasionally hear from readers who ask how to find this or that from the home page itself, and it's way, way easier to just open the menu and go through there.
• Apple's new iOS 15 system that was released a few days ago is delivering gorgeous app alerts, which reminds me to repeat here that you can control which ones you do/don't wish to receive. Just go to your Profile -- top left corner -- thumb down to Notifications, choose Select, and you'll see the screen with all your team/type options.
BACK TO BUSINESS
• Our page views for the past week were 611,554, down 1.4% from a week ago. Our most-read original piece was my column on the Steelers' loss to the Bengals, at 31,533. Broken down by team, articles on the Steelers brought 23.9% of our traffic, the Penguins 17.4%, the Pirates 10.2%, Penn State 4.2%, and Pitt 1.9%.
• Our new subscribers for the past week were at 22, down 5 from a week ago.
• Our new app downloads for the past week were 40 for Apple, down 42 from a week ago, and 67 for Android, up 8 from a week ago.
• Our podcast downloads for the past week were 165,155, up 21% from a week ago, and that included our first two 30K+ days.
• Our YouTube video views for the past week were 55,912, down 6% from a week ago.
• We're at 42,439 (-28) followers on Twitter, we're at 37,148 (-26) followers on Facebook, we're at 14,542 (-9) followers on Instagram, and we're at 8,090 (+175) followers on YouTube. These figures are just for our official company accounts on each of those platforms, not including any of our individual accounts.
• We make mistakes. If you see one, email: Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Anything you need, including lost/forgotten passwords, email: Help@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Random trivia fun, to be read in an Alex Trebek voice: This non-sports celebrity, one of our most famous subscribers, renewed their subscription Friday. (And no, I'm not betraying a confidence, as this individual's been public about being a member.)