Good Day Google Plus - Friday the 13th Edition!

Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to another edition of the Friday the 13th edition of Good Day Google+. You know, I wanted to go out and get a hockey mask this morning and it just started storming again, so I didn't make it out. I wasn't sure Walmart would have one anyway, but I thought that might be an interesting way to start the show. So maybe next Friday the 13th we'll plan a little further ahead. We're missing one right now, and that's Ryan Hanley, and he's over on My Sister Mia's. And he should be joining us soon, but let me go through who is here with us today and we will get started. So to my left is Maggie Unzueta. Maggie, how you doing?

I'm doing great, and since Mexico is playing, I've got my little sombrero going. Viva Mexico!

Yeah, and I don't know how many of you know it, but I am half Mexican too.

Yes.

Although I know nothing about soccer.

It's 0-0 right now, so you guys in the comments, please tell me, please let me know what is happening.

Who are they playing? Who are they playing?

Cameroon.

Ah, okay.

It should be an easy defeat. Sorry Cameroonians, but it's, yeah, but still it's a big game because it's the beginning of the World Cup and You know, we have to, we have to, we have a lot of people to defeat, so yeah.

Absolutely. All right, and then next to Maggie is Joanna Liberty, and how you doing today?

Very well, thank you.

Good to have you, and you're coming from Missouri?

I'm in Indiana.

Indiana, I knew it was in the middle there somewhere.

Very close enough.

Where exactly? So how are things in Indiana today?

Pretty good. It's actually sunny. We have had rain and thunderstorms all week. So it's good on one hand, but on the other hand, it means I have to cover my potato tower again all the time as soon as it rains.

And I just noticed, is that a pig with a party hat behind you?

It is, yes. My birthday was last Sunday, and I always dress my pig whenever I'm doing anything on camera. So I don't think— there's a tick over on the lamp too, but I think the lamp is out of the picture.

Okay, now the pic of the party hat's pretty cool. I like that. It does add to the occasion, especially with the festivities and with Mackie in her little hat. So very nice. Ryan doesn't know what he just came into.

Sorry to be late, Chef. I apologize.

No problem. I knew you were on with Mia, so that's not a problem. So next to Johanna is my friend Jeff See, and he is here. From the Manly Show, which I took part in yesterday. So how you doing in Texas?

Doing good. It's gonna be a hot one again today. We had some rain yesterday, but it's gonna be warm. I'm afraid it's gonna be warm this summer in East Texas.

It's looking like it's gonna be warm all in the South. I mean, they were laughing on the news the other day, and the guy says, oh wait, I know what the weather is— is mid-90s and rain, 50% chance of rain every day until the middle of October. And the weather girl went, yeah, that's about it.

Yeah, we don't have any severe weather. I grew up in Kansas, and once in a while we'll have tornadoes come through here, and here the water table is so high nobody has basements. Yeah, go to the center of your house, bend over, and kiss your rear goodbye is pretty much the plan for tornadoes here. Yeah, it makes me nervous, makes me really nervous.

I have a friend in Oklahoma, and I asked her, because she's in that tornado alley, she says, well, we do have one He goes, "But you know, if things go falling down and get us trapped in there, it's a death trap. We'll never get out." So she goes, "We just sit on the porch and watch and hope for the best." I was like, "Okay." I'd take my chances with the basement.

I would. That's just me.

We don't have a basement here, but Florida doesn't get too many tornadoes, although a little earlier I'm hearing that wind going, "What the hell's going on out there?" It's, you know, it's "we're not in Kansas anymore" kind of weather.

That's right.

Well, glad to have you here today. And then just join us, we have my friend Ryan Hanley. How you doing today, buddy?

Jeff, it's so good to be here, man. I'm doing very well. Just came from the Mia Connect Power Chat Show, so I'm all, you can tell I'm all kind of jacked up because she gets a good energy going. So I'm happy to have this conversation. This is going to be good stuff. And first Hangout with Jeff Z, so glad to see you. Through the screen, my man, and I'm digging that beard big time. I have this scraggly little Irish thing. If I could get something like that, I would have it, but it comes out red and in weird directions, so I don't go there.

Well, there's a lot of gray in this, but my kids want me to go for the Yeard, where you grow it out for a year. I don't know if I'll make it or not.

We'll see. It is a good-looking beard. It is a Grizzly Adams kind of beard. Very manly. I hope you have some flannel shirts that you can wear with it.

I do, I do.

Yeah, I was in the same boat. I tried growing a beard once and my mother actually paid me to shave it. It was that bad. But it was so nice not having to shave in the morning.

Oh yeah, I agree with that.

Really nice. I don't mind that at all.

Yeah, well, let's get started with our show today. We've got a few people checking in and we're gonna say hi later on to them, but right now we're here and it's, it's really No set theme on the show. It's just chatting amongst friends and talking about what we're doing on and off the Plus. Maggie has got something special for us. Maggie is going to be, hopefully, going to be a regular fixture on the Good Day Show, showing up every now and then and talking about wine or talking about food or possibly both. We'll see whatever moves her for the time. It's only 10 AM. California.

Maggie? Yes, it's 10 AM and I'm going to make the sacrifice. It's in the honor of Mexico defeating— here, how about that? Defeating Cameroon today.

I don't even know where Cameroon is. Can someone tell me where Cameroon is?

Far away.

That works for me.

But okay, so in Mexico they make tequila. But yeah, anyways, this one here is not from Mexico. It is from somewhere, I actually don't know much about this wine. It's Smoking Loon, and what caught my interest was the unoaked Chardonnay part of it all. And a lot of people are used to just regular chardonnays. I am all about the unoaked right now. I'm looking for summer wines, wines that are just bright and fresh. This has a different— hold on, let me just pour some so I can—

Explain what unoaked is because I'm not familiar with what that means.

Most people aren't.

Yeah.

Most people aren't.

Sounds cool.

Well, most— so think about an oak, so there's no oak. So this wine spends no time in oak. And when you put wine in oak, it develops things like butter and vanilla and different flavors that add or sometimes enhance certain flavors of the fruit. So what you're getting in a wine like this is just a punch of fruit. And the bouquet is a little bit different. It's more fruity. Just think fruits. And taste, it's just fruit. It's a fruit punch with some alcohol in it. Oh, and the other reason why I really like this wine— I swear I haven't been drinking, kids. It's only 10 in the morning. But it has a screw top. So to carry it around, you can carry it around to the park or picnic. Here in California or my beach, they don't allow you to have wine but in a sippy cup. Let's keep that on the DL, please, people.

They're going to kick me off of Coronado Island.

It's like, oh, Maggie. Anyway, so the other thing about this wine is it's cheaper. Oaked, anything that's oaked, most traditional Chardonnays. I mean, it's expensive. It's expensive to have oaks, oaked barrels and put them in there. So if you take that out, you're going to have less cost to produce this stuff. So this wine was only $9. And I had another one, and I wanted to say it was like $7. This is cheap stuff. Oh, and let me also tell you about pairing. So when you want to pair this wine, you have to be careful. It's not like your traditional white goes with white kind of thing. You know, you think of white Chardonnay with chicken or something like that. Kim Boltman posted— oh, and I see her, she's on the comment tracker here. She had a chicken. I would not pair this with an unoaked wine. I would probably do more seafood-ish kind of things, like seared ahi or Brie, maybe something that's briny, lemony, thinky. What else? What else? Camembert, maybe. Anyway, all right.

You need stronger flavors to go with it because it's unoaked?

No, that's a contrasting pairing. I'll talk about that some other time. But what I'm thinking of is the lemony brine that you have on some of the cheeses. That's more where I'm going with it, to pair with the lemon that's here. Ooh, and it's cold. Do you guys see it? It's right there. Do you find it? Okay, I love wine. I'm sorry, who was asking?

How do you find it? Is it like with the Chardonnays, if you go to your local store? I mean, is there a special section?

I bought this at Albertsons, which is just a store, a grocery store, like a regular grocery store. So you could find this anywhere. Yeah.

How would we know it was unoaked? How would we be able— would it say it was unoaked?

Yeah, it's right on there. Or it says something like sans, without. Yeah, you might see something like that. But for the most part, it will say. Like right on there, it'll say un-oaked Chardonnay. Oh, look at this. I love it. I love that it's cold. Yeah.

Anyways.

All right. Beach, summer, un-oaked Chardonnays. That's my tip. For your kids.

And then you got a screw top on it, makes it even easier to carry with you and to drink.

Yes, more sippy cups.

Or I'm bagging.

Well, I was waiting for the show to start, right? So I actually put it in my lunch bag to keep it cool. I guess that's one way to do it, you know.

Excellent. Yeah, in the old days of the restaurant, I worked in a restaurant in Ocean City, and Ocean City was a dry town. New Jersey, and you could not have alcohol. It was a religious town set up early, and in fact they weren't even allowed to be open on Sundays for a long time. They had blue laws there. But all the doctors and people that wanted wine with their dinner used to come to the back door, and they would bring the bottles in to us, and we had all these pitchers, these ceramic pitchers made up, so the wine would make its way. And people would call, can I bring wine? I said, no, but you can bring juice. "but I want to bring wine." I said, "You can't bring wine, but if it's in a juice jar, you can bring juice." And some of them wouldn't get it. Some of them just wouldn't get it. All of a sudden you'd hear, "Oh." I like my mommy juice.

Oh wait, Nazim, thank you, zero zero, keep telling me what the score is, please.

Cameroon, we've had a couple people, Cameroon is between Nigeria and the Central African Republic in Africa, which is north of the Congo. Just to give you a, Richard Clarkson said that and we had someone else, Carmen said that as well.

Cool.

I kind of feel bad then for wishing them not to win because they can't have much of anything else but soccer coming from there.

Yeah.

Oh well. But I hope—

Mary doesn't care. She still wants Mexico to win.

Mexico— sorry. Mexico will win, considering what I saw in the first quarter there. And I just want them to say, ¡Gol! Gol! That's classic. I love it.

Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Let's move over to Joanna. Joanna, let's talk to you a little bit. Tell us what you've been up to or what you like to do on and off the Plus.

Oh, well, the big thing I'm working on right now is the ShiftCon conference, which I know you are aware of. So that's kind of like a big thing that we're having a lot of fun with and gearing up for. It's super fun. So I do that mostly on the Plus. And then off the Plus, I'm really into permaculture and organic gardening. So spending time in my yard and trying not to get too messy before your show, that was a big one today.

Do you plant a lot of stuff around your house?

I do, yep.

I am. I've been working recently— well, today I had to refill my potato tower, like I said, but I just started a new guild under one of my fruit trees, so I'm trying to get a cherry tree to— it's not in the best spot, so I'm trying to help it out by planting other things like comfrey and horseradish and rhubarb around the bottom of it so that they can help bring in the nutrients that it needs.

I had to do that with my pear tree.

Yeah.

So have you met Wayne Miodor? Have you talked to him at all?

I have not.

That'd be a good person for you to connect with because he does a lot of sustainable stuff and he's really— he's starting a new show. He's pretty cool. He was on one week, but talking to him, it was like I was happy I was doing something right, at least with what I'm doing. Yeah, he has a lot of information. So for those of us that— for those of that don't know, why don't you tell us what ShiftCon is and what you do with that?

Okay, ShiftCon is the very first blogger conference for the eco and wellness niche. And what I do with that— so okay, we're bringing together a lot of bloggers who do awesome things that are in food activism, that talk about helping people learn what kind of foods are healthy, what things to avoid, reading labels, a lot of different things like that, as well as fitness and personal training. Kind of broad. We also have organic gardening people and people who can tell you, one of the girls, Angela England, she wrote a book about, I think she's one acre, how to grow food for your family on one acre. So different things like that bring a lot of really cool people together. And one of the other things that's cool about it is all of the food that we're serving is non-GMO and organic, sustainably grown, you know, local farms. So we're bringing in a lot of really cool things. So what I do for that, I'm, uh, my actual title, I can remember it here, I think the sponsor coordinator. So when we have like our expo hall, I help the sponsors figure out, you know, which booth is theirs and making sure that all of the tiny pieces are matched up together.

Well, that's a pretty big responsibility. I mean, you're downplaying it a little, but it's an immense undertaking. And Leah—

Yeah.

Leah has really stepped outside of her comfort zone, I think, a little for this. And it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. And the fact that it's all sustainable and non-GMO— and she had to explain that to me at first. I mean, I knew what GMO was, but I didn't really understand why it was so bad.

Yeah. Well, can I just chime in here? Because you guys really helped me in understanding how important, especially being a food blogger and just being out there. Oh wait, that just reminds me. You guys sent me something and I'm growing mushrooms in my kitchen. It's so cool. Yes, how's it going? You know what, I should bring it.

I'm sure you should.

It's so cool. And my son at first was like, "Oh, what are you doing spraying that box?" I was close to throwing it away because it took forever. To sprout. But as soon as it was sprouting, it went boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So I'll bring it over here in a minute. Anyway, so you guys really helped me, so I want to thank you guys for understanding the importance of this. I'll be right back. Let me grab some mushrooms.

One of the cool things I've done this week actually is getting the food trucks all lined up because for the lunches we're having different local food trucks come. So that's been really fun working with them.

That's awesome.

I can't hear.

I'm sorry, what kind of food trucks do we have coming in for the event?

I can tell you for sure Peaches Truck is going to be there. They have barbecue. Hurricane Truck will be there. You know, there's different days, there's several that I can tell you. Hurricane Truck, I totally forgot their menu, but she actually has a really cool one, it's Hurricane Kitchen, and then Gastro Bus, if you've ever heard of them, and Green Truck on the Go is another one.

Well, that should be fun, some different, I love food trucks, we have a ton of them out here too in Florida. Maggie, show us your mushrooms.

Okay, mushrooms and wines. People, I'm gonna get kicked off of G+! But check out these mushrooms! Look at how cool! And they're great out of this box, so thank you so much, Jen, for sending them. It was you, wasn't it?

Yeah, yeah, we did that with Mushroom Makeover.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Those just keep coming back.

After you harvest them, they'll keep recropping for a while.

Well, okay, and they have these cute little ones down here. I don't know if you guys can see them.

I have a market for those at the University of Albany if you want to send them up to me. I can probably move those for you. And get a decent rate of return, just so you know.

Well, I'm excited to cook with them. I think this big one I'm ready to eat probably. But yeah, you guys sent me some recipes, so I'll send you guys pictures. I'll send you guys pictures. Oh, and then I guess I could do the back too, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, so I've got mushrooms growing. You have to understand another thing, that I kill everything. I do not have a green thumb. I mean, my mother is, you know, this was so easy. If I could grow this, kids, if I could grow this, so can you. Okay, that's enough. How's Mexico doing? Anyone? Anyways. I'll blame this all on the wine.

I think it's still tied 0-0.

What's that?

I think it's still tied. No score yet.

Oh, OK.

I definitely agree with Candice. Quote of the show so far, Maggie, show us your mushrooms. I was not prepared for that kind of show when I signed on today.

I'm going to get kicked off of G+, kids. I really am. It's—

oh yeah.

Well, maybe if I go and take wine to Mountain View. Cool.

You guys will have to excuse me for a minute. They're cutting the lawn outside of my window right now. I don't know if that's what you're hearing, Jeff, or—

yeah, it probably is. It sounds like a lawnmower.

Yeah, they're, uh, you know, he's been picking this time lately. Usually he's a little earlier, but I think with the rain he was a little delayed, so I've been shutting myself off while he's right outside the window. One of the things about not having to cut your own lawn—

one of the bad things about not having to cut your own It's always something on a live show, isn't it?

Yeah, well, you know, that's what makes them live and interesting. You know, things happen and it's kind of how you go with them. So we're getting some nice comments in here too. We got one— where is Mia? Mia is so excited about ShiftCon, she says. Mia will be there with us and we're hoping to do some really cool things with Hangouts there when we're at the conference. Should be a lot of fun. And Carmen— Mandich said something about sustainable change, the community Wayne Miodor started. And he's really got some really nice things. Candice with the show us your mushrooms.

Maggie.

Maggie is one of the— what was it? We penned the term the hotties of G+, wasn't it?

Oh, OK. Thank you. Thank you.

We'll have to put that under your picture then.

I'll change my G+ Plus profile now, like food blogger, wine blogger, and Heidi FD+.

There's got to be a great hashtag in there someplace.

Oh yeah, right. And hold on, someone's asking me about French. Oui, je parle français aussi. Not just mushrooms, by the way. J'aime la viande aussi.

Was that the question in French? Okay, I did put that up there. And Maggie does speak French as well as Spanish.

Spanish is actually my native tongue. El español es mi primer idioma. Sorry, I'm not trying to impress you guys, but that is really— I enjoy my languages.

Absolutely. Here we go. And Richard Clarkson, Maggie, I was told by a gardener that I couldn't kill some flowers he gave me, but I managed to do it anyway. He was shocked. I've heard that before too. Oh well. And now let's turn things over to Jeff. He's been sitting there patiently. And how you doing, buddy? You want to talk just a little bit today about what you're doing, what you got planned?

Well, you know, just like yesterday you were on my, uh, The Manly Show with, you know, the manly gang over there. And what we try to do is have, you know, we talk about social media and marketing stuff, and then we, you know, try to have some fun. And so yesterday we had a cooking show and we actually cooked. I and Stephon were outside and so were you, and it was a lot of fun. It was just a good time to hang out and hopefully teach some guys to get off the sofa and into the kitchen. But that's fun. And out of Google+, one of the things that I do that totally doesn't have anything to do with computers is I also raise bees. I'm a bee guy. And so last year was my first harvest, and I got 5 gallons of honey. And it's looking really, really good this year.

Amazing. I love organic honey, dude. That's fantastic.

Yeah, and it's— I mean, don't get me started, but the thing is, when you go buy stuff at the big box stores, there's not really any regulation on honey, and you will get— I mean, a lot of it's watered down from China, and there's heavy metals in it. It's just bad.

It's awful. And you don't get any of the benefits of the pollen that the local bees collect into your system. You're not getting any of the nutrients, and it's not helping you fight your natural allergies. I started eating honey I'm going to go on. I don't mean to hijack your thing, but I had really bad fall allergies in upstate New York. I started eating natural honey from within 3 to 5 miles. There's 3 or 4 different people that have hives, and fall allergies went away last year because I was eating honey every day in my oatmeal.

Sorry, Jeff.

I didn't mean to hijack you there.

No, but that's what— I have 4 hives, and actually, I had a call from A social media client on Wednesday, they had bee invasion, and luckily I got them before they put up much comb, but I actually got another hive out of the deal and so— and helped the client out as well. But yeah, it's something that has nothing to do with computers, nothing to do with anything else, and I have a blast doing it. I can go outside, 4 hives, I went and just stacked some more— they're called supers when you stack them on top to collect the honey, and I stacked more supers, so hopefully this year we may even get more than 5 gallons of honey. But it's just a lot of fun. That's awesome.

So how many hives do you have then?

I have 4, and the one I got from Wednesday is— we put it in what's called a nuc, which is a nucleus hive. It's got just about 5 frames in it, and so we'll see how they do, if they're still around and they survived everything, and then we'll have 5 hives.

So I think a lot of people think that, you know, bees are one of those dangerous insects. You know, we all get those misconceptions of wasps where, you know, they'll sting you, but bees pretty much won't bother you unless you really bother them.

Yeah, unless it flies at you and gets tangled in your hair or something, but usually when they're out foraging, they won't bother you. Now, if you go to the— and I have what's called really kind of gentle bees, they don't— I could probably just put on a hood and be fine. I use the— I don't like getting stung, so I wear the whole big bee hazmat suit, you know, and go out there. But it's just— it's calming to me. It smells good. It smells like beeswax. And bees are— the inside of the hive is sterile. I mean, they get everything out that's bad. And it's just— and the sound of the hives, and I mean, they make this huge hum when you're there. It's just really cool.

I was at a conference last year, and I'm trying to remember the guy's name, but it was up in Pennsylvania.— a real big bee place up there, and he had to go rescue some because sometimes they have hives that need to be moved, and they put them, I think, in these little cardboard boxes or whatever to try and move them. And while he's driving, they started coming out of the box, and people park next to him with the lights pointing because his car is filling up with bees.

Oh no.

He just couldn't let them get away.

Yeah, that's no good. But yeah, it's— I mean, it's a lot of fun, and I encourage people to, you know, buy local honey. I know it's more expensive, but it's— it is like Ryan was saying, it does help with your allergies.

Well worth it. Yes.

And we really— it's a— I mean, you can have— in even in New York, they have people on top of buildings have hives. So you can have a hive even if you have a small, small little backyard or anything. It really is a scary situation with the bees right now.

So yeah, I don't— I don't beet keep myself, but from my own experience, one, it tastes better. 100% tastes better than anything you're going to buy in the store. Two, you're supporting local economy, which some people care about and some people don't. Most importantly, for your own benefit, eating the honey off the shelf is like— you could just be sucking on sugar packets. You're getting nothing out of it. The locally sourced honey, there's so many benefits to it. I'm such a firm believer in it, and I 100% support local honey, plus the bees, right? All these foreign bees are starting to take over these ecosystems, and you're having a hard time with pollination and all kinds of different stuff.

So I think it's like 80% of the world's crops are pollinated by bees. So I mean, it's a big deal if they go away.

I mean, yeah, I don't think people realize how much trouble we'll be in if we don't have bees. You know, if the bees go, we're screwed. It's over.

The food goes.

Yeah, yeah.

So when the zombie apocalypse apocalypse happens, I have plenty of honey for everybody.

Here, I have to post this from Maggie. It's, why did the fungi leave the party? There wasn't mushroom. Ba-dum-bum.

Very nice.

I'm known on G+ for my cheesy jokes and my one-liners. So I had to put one in there. And by the way, wait, wait, wait. There was a goal, so— Goal! I had to, I'm sorry, I had to. I'll be more civilized then. Cheers.

Here's a question from Kevin Burns. Jeff, where do you go to locate local honey producers? Never heard anything about it here, so I buy from Amazon and from local wholesale club.

Yeah, I almost guarantee the stuff you're buying from the local wholesale club probably not local honey. It's probably like Subi stuff, or it's just not good. You can't— there's probably a farmers market in driving distance from you, and that would be the best place to buy local honey. Some stores, I mean, our local stores actually have local honey too, along with the other stuff. Just make sure, you know, to find it and try to get as close to you as possible. I mean, mine's, you know, my backyard, so it's really local. But you can find somebody or just ask around. There's people selling local honey probably around you.

I think lots of times health food stores are good places to start if you can't find anything anywhere else. They usually have some local honeys on stock.

Yeah, it's marked up quite a bit at health food stores. If you can find a local farmer or farmers market, you can probably save some— couple bucks on it.

Farmers markets are the best for it. Oh yeah.

Absolutely.

You can go to like localharvest.org, they're a good website that you can find all different kinds of local food depending on what you're looking for, but they're a good one.

I actually don't sell any of my honey, I just give it away. I actually, it goes through my company and I use it as a promotional expense. I put my label on it and just give it to my clients and I mean it's a cool thing for them, they like it.

Jeff, I will email you my address. I want to taste your honey.

It's just wildflower honey, and it's not— I mean, it's just filtered through pantyhose, and I never wore that pantyhose, so it's really good.

Are we just going to gloss over the fact that Maggie just said that I want to taste your honey to Jeff? I was hoping that was going to go over. And we just kind of— Jeff just kind of rolled with that poker face. That's it. I hear it a lot.

Yeah. Thank you, Ryan.

Thank you.

Mushrooms, honey, wine. Yeah, it was nice knowing you guys.

She's the all-American girl here from Mexico.

From Mexico, there you go.

He speaks French.

Oh, you know, here we go, Joanna. Finally, here, you should put the web address up. findlocalharvests.org.

Great.

Joanna, have you hooked up with Courtney Sullivan here on G+ yet? I have to do that. Look her up. She's all about locally sourced farmers markets. She runs her own farm called Humble Hill in New York, and she would just be a really cool person. She's all about like the real food hustle is like her brand, and she'd be a really cool person for you to hook up with. Courtney Sullivan is her name.

Thank you.

All right, since Ryan's talking, let's move over to Ryan. Let's talk about— I know you have something you want to talk about today.— and I'm happy to hear about it.

So, I want to talk about my off Google+ first, then the other thing, because I just started 5 weeks ago P90X training. So, was an athlete in high school, athlete in college, and around age 25, just life and I had a corporate job at the time, I just kind of stopped working out. And not that I put a ton of weight on, I just became unathletic, didn't really do anything for almost 5 or 6 years. 5 weeks ago, my wife and I actually joined a local gym by a certified master trainer in P90X. We go every day, the 2 of us, and train P90X. It has literally changed my life. Not just P90X. I really like that workout format, but there's a lot of things that work. The exercise— you know, we're talking about natural food and sustainability, and I think that physical health is a big part of that. And I have done this like 180-degree thing on being active and how much that increases your ability to output as a professional. And I've seen my work level increase, my dedication to my work, I've stopped procrastinating as much, all because of getting my body in shape and really focusing on that and putting in the hard work there. And it's tough to get up in the morning 5 days a week and do this grueling 45-minute workout where some days you can barely type on the keys afterwards. 5 weeks in, I can tell you that I am a better worker, professional, get stuff done, my mind is clear for having to do it. I wanted to share that because it's been life-changing for me. On Google+ in my work, I'm currently in the process of launching my very first book, Content Warfare: How to Find Your Audience, Tell Your Story, and Win the Battle for Attention. I'm doing it in kind of a cool way.— and this is one of the reasons I was really happy that Sheff offered, or decided to have me on today, because I think that a lot of people, myself 100% included, saw the book thing as a larger project than maybe I was able to take on, considering all the other day-to-day stuff that we have to do. I ended up hooking up with a guy by the name of Guy Vincent, who is the founder of an author's crowdfunding platform called Publishizer.com. So there's lots of crowdfunding platforms, so it isn't specifically Publishizer, but what I really liked about this platform, and specifically Guy as a professional, was that he took 2 years of me cultivating this idea and putting all these words together, and in 3 months has taken it from this, like, "I'm going to write a book someday," to we're 5 days into the crowdfunding campaign and we're almost 70% funded already., and it's been just this amazing experience. And people— I found a lot of— I shouldn't say a lot, but I've gotten some pushback on people about crowdfunding, right? So they say things like, "Well, geez, why are you crowdfunding? Can't you just sell your book when it's published? And what is this, some sort of money grab?" and all that kind of stuff. And there's two reasons why I think that I'm really glad that I did it this way. One, is validation of the idea. A lot of authors make the mistake of putting in all this hard work of putting this book together, and then you launch a book and your audience doesn't connect. It doesn't make sense to them, or it's not what they wanted. I had Joanna Penn on my podcast last— or my Google Hangout show, which I turned into a podcast last week. She's a bestselling thriller novelist, self-publisher. She said, "You write for yourself, you publish for your audience." audience. Using that, crowdfunding has allowed me to validate the fact that there are people out there that want this idea, that want this product, so I know it's worth moving forward. The second part is, what crowdfunding does for them is activate the audience. Now, before the book is live on Amazon, they're into it. I have the ability to make them beta readers and give them the op— letting people give me feedback on cover design, all this stuff. I just— for authors, because I know a lot of people, right? Google+, you meet so many people that have great ideas, and they talk about writing a book, and they feel like it's just this step that is too far to take. I really wanted to evangelize this process, and particularly this platform, because I really like Guy, and I think that he's as professional as it gets, and has done good stuff for me. I think it can be done. There are ways to do it. That allow you to feel comfortable with the process all the way through, uh, help you with some of the expenses. My entire crowdfunding campaign is going to expenses. It's not like I'm making any money off this, uh, because I wanted to put a physical book in people's hands. In the 4.5 years that I've been building my audience, I've never once asked them to pay for anything. Everything I've ever done has been for free, um, and this is the first thing. And to have the support that I've gotten so far tells me that there's something here, and I think that a lot of people have that type of audience, and I think this platform allows them to activate it. So that's kind of what I have going on right now.

That's pretty cool. I did order a book, and I ordered—

thank you so much—

a book book, because I wanted to be able to hold it. Most things I read on my Kindle, but every now and then I want to actually have a book so I can put it on the shelf.

So, Dennis, I'd like to ask you a follow-up question to that. So So part of that— so that was a big decision of mine, right? Like, do I just publish an ebook and do print on demand, or do I pay the extra expense of creating this tangible, glossy, with the COVID the whole thing? And what I ultimately decided was I really wanted to give the people who wanted it that thing, right? Like that thing that you held and it was shiny and it looked great. And I'm only going to do a limited run. And after the limited run is over, it will just be print on demand, ebook, and audiobook. But for the people who really want, I want to give them that thing. So you appreciate that. I think there is a segment of the audience that still— of the readers that still like that physical thing for some books.

Yeah, I would never buy a cookbook in an ebook. If I want a cookbook, I want to be able to hold it and have it in front of me or have it out. There's certain books that I don't think I would ever. And then I have some authors that, you know, if I really enjoy their work, I want to have some of their books around because I feel like I have a part of them.

Yeah.

Can I chime in?

Sure.

I'm chiming in a lot today. I have 3 cookbooks and they're all e-cookbooks, and the only reason I did that was because I didn't— and it's happened so many times— you go to a yard sale or you go somewhere and I would hate to have my book just sitting there and they're selling it or giving it away. I would hate that because I put so much time and I would rather give it to someone. I'd rather send it to someone. Not only that, but I've seen people have their Kindle and I do this actually. I put my phone up so I could see what I'm cooking on where you would have the cookbook. You know what I'm talking about, the little stand thing. That's usually where I've seen people just kind of flip through the Kindle pages. And that I would appreciate. I would appreciate more for it to live on as opposed to going to some dumpster. It would kill me.

I don't know. Yeah, I agree with you on that point. It's a valid point. It's just also, but I'm of the generation that has a hard time giving up paper. People can't believe that I don't read. I mean, I read voraciously on my Kindle. I absolutely love it. Love my Kindle. My wife can't really use one. She has to have a book in her hands, and I didn't think I would ever be able to do that. There's just certain books, just because of still how I grew up, that I feel more comfortable with having. Like, I don't use cookbooks so much to cook from. I look at a cookbook as entertainment.

Yeah.

Honestly, I mean, I'll read it just for entertainment. I won't necessarily make anything out of it. I might see a recipe—

Because of how bad the recipes are?

Is that what you mean?

Well, you know, I haven't bought a book since the iPad came out, and I have bookshelves still of books because I read every night before I go to bed. That's just part of routine since I was a little kid. But I would buy a physical book from Ryan if he would sign it. And so to me, it would be something with— that's when I— I've got a couple authors that I've had the signature in, and I've done that, but everything else is is ebooks. And I cook with them all the time in my kitchen on my iPad. I have a— it's a Lifeproof case. You can actually dunk it in the sink in it because I spill stuff in the kitchen. So anyway—

I think that the physical copy, you know, it— because I have a shelf. I have about 25 books. I'm looking at it right now that are all hard copy. And the book, the physical, even though I have some of those books that I have physical copies on, I have them in ebook, like Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. That's like an every week read for me, and I have the hard copy here and I look at it. The hard copy, I feel like I own the message. The ebook is great. I suck in the knowledge. It goes into my brain. But when I see, I'm just looking here, I'm not going to read all the books I have, but Crush It! by Gary Vee. I've read that. I read it in ebook first, and then I went and bought the hardcover because I wanted to have it on my shelf because it It's just like this reminder to me of what I learned in that book is brought back every time I see the physical copy. I don't know, that was my thought. Like I said, I'm doing a limited run, and then it will be the only run, unless we sell millions of copies, and then obviously we'll do whatever.

That's how I am too. If I like a book, I'll read it on an eBook, but I consider those throwaways more than a real book that I can give to someone else. If I have a physical book and I think one of my friends would really like it, I will give it to to her, and then she'll give it to someone else. If I like a book though, it comes on my bookshelf in a hard copy.

Ryan, I want to ask you a question. You talked about your P90X thing and how that boosted productivity. I used to lift weights, but they're so heavy.

Yeah.

I noticed about a month ago, I was just getting things were slacking off and stuff. So I started doing the— I think it's called the Pomodoro Technique, where you work for like 25 minutes and then you get up and take a 5-minute break. Yeah, I've been doing, you know, after 25 minutes I do some push-ups or do some sit-ups, and I've noticed, man, I've got more energy, I can do more things, I'm more creative. And I mean, how that works.

Yeah, you know, it, um, it's— Dustin Stout is actually doing that, that same thing that you're doing with the push-ups, and— I just, you know, it's— there's all these chemicals in your body, right? And we're not meant to be sedentary. And when, you know, the nature of the work, and we're all on computers and stuff, and the way life works, we're much more sedentary than our bodies are supposed to be. So I've like geeked out on this hardcore since about— for about 2 weeks now, because 3 weeks in I just was like, wow, what is happening to me? Like, I'm writing more, I'm thinking more, I feel like Things are coming to me quicker, and it is all because I wasn't taking care of my body. I eat pretty healthy. Obviously, I grow peaches and apples— or pears and apples in my backyard. I have all these different things, but I wasn't taking care of the physical side of my body. Since I've done that, it takes the mental and your health, and it just amplifies them. It's like the 3 pieces that you need to have. Yeah, man. I will never go back. I will always be doing something now.

They're saying that sitting is the new smoking. That's what they're saying.

Yes.

I've been reading all these articles. Yeah. Gout, blood clots in your legs, there's so many awful things. I'm actually about a week away from purchasing a standing desk that I'm going to—

That's so good. Yeah. They have a Treadmill Desk where you walk?

Treadmill Desk. I have one right here.

Do you really?

Well, it's not up right now. It's just a treadmill right now, but I have a little desk that I can put on it.

It's the best.

So going on the whole smoking thing, so this is called Smoking Loon. And Delilah, when she saw this— you guys know Delilah, the monogamous temptress— she said, "It sounds like a nut job with a cigarette." Oh, a drunk nut job. That's what it was, smoking a cigarette.

Blair, I want to pop this up from Carmen. Friday the 13th full moon mushroom wine honey, totally romantic and mysterious.

That's great.

Yeah, we've got some other great comments up here. Carmen Rojas, I bought several audiobooks and the ones that were really good I go back and buy the paper version. I think a lot of people are saying that. Nazim Beltrán's here and he's working on taking his wife's cookbook to the Kindle and Fire format. And I think I hear a lot of people talk about that when they go to do the e-format books, that they're different for different version, different types of e-readers, and it really gets to be a little tedious.

Especially if you're going to have images, it does for sure.

Absolutely.

Alright, and oh, here, this was funny. Let me put this up. Cheryl Deuce, all takeaways: show your mushrooms, get to taste honey.

That's like a life, that's like an affirmation for life.

Absolutely, so we've had some fun here already on that. So we still have some time left. Anybody else have anything they'd like to talk about?

Well, I want to pick Ryan's brain because I've been wanting to talk to him for a while. You know, you moved your podcast from just a podcast to the Google+ Hangout format and you say it's great. I'm really thinking about it and I'm going to do it. Reviving the Manly Pinterest Tips Show. I was going to do it as a podcast, but I'm thinking, okay, should I do that? Because I want to do— should I have video with it? Is it better to do a Hangout and then download the video? I know— why did you switch?

So I, I think that this is the future, right? Like, I just love this format. I love the audience engagement. I like the fact that it's live and that whatever happens here is captured in the video. I like that when a show is live, the person who's being interviewed, because all my episodes are either one-on-one or one-on-two, me interviewing two people, and I like that when you're being interviewed in a live format, the things that you say aren't your pre-packaged answers, right? It's kind of like that, but you get these little tidbits, and if you're really listening, then you can pull out all this value. That you don't get from other shows. You know, because people who are on shows, they tend to be on a lot of shows, which is fine. And I think that by doing it in a Google Hangout format, unlike just a traditional podcast where it's taped and, you know, if someone makes a mistake, you can just go back, this pulls out a whole different layer. And then you add in these crazy comments and questions that the audience brings in, and all of a sudden you have this unique kind of thing that you could not create again if you tried 10 times. You couldn't do the same show twice. So when I moved to the Google Pod— from just a podcast audio only to the Hangout, I actually saw a jump of about 50— let's see. In the first week, I saw a 50% jump in downloads, and over the course of time, I'm now like— let's see, I'll just tell you numbers. I went from about 4,000 downloads a month to now I'm going to be cresting 8,000 this month. Downloads, and that's in 2 months of doing Hangouts. I've only been doing Hangouts for 2 months. It's just— people love it. They just— it's just a more dynamic product that you're delivering to people.

Do you have problems with them when, like, they say something that doesn't translate to audio only? I mean, are you always thinking that in the back of your mind, okay, I need to repeat the question that was read off— that was on the screen, or that kind of thing?

There's a little bit of that, yeah, yeah. So if you pull up a question from an audience member read it, you know, you need to make sure you do that. If someone's doing something with their hands or making a funny face, you kind of say that stuff. But the audio audience is looking for the nuggets, right? Like, they're going to listen to your show, but they're looking for the nuggets, and they're looking for the banter, and those brief moments where something's happening in video. I think that they'll give you those in exchange for the more dynamic nature of the conversation that you're getting back. That's at least what I found. I've never had anyone that was a podcast listener complain once about the fact that I changed it over to a Google Hangout. Not one negative comment, and I have enough people who like to let me know when I make mistakes that they would have said something to me if they had an issue with it. I think it's a great move, and it's a head of the curve move. You're riding the wave way out ahead. Most of the mega podcasts haven't even considered this format, and I think that they're missing the boat, and I think that that's our— that's a jewel for us. That's something we can capture.

Cool. Well, thanks. Sorry, I didn't mean hijack the show.

Strip out the audio with, or how do you take your audio out of your Hangout?

So if you use— so in the fall— so the reason I didn't do this earlier was because the audio that YouTube used to capture off of Hangouts was awful, like awful, awful audio. But in the fall of 2013, they upgraded the audio that they capture, so it actually, though it's not like super, super dynamic, it's pretty close. I mean, it's nothing that someone would say, "I can't understand you." It's pretty good. So I actually, using Audacity, you can input, you can input the downloaded YouTube video right into Audacity, and it automatically strips out the video and just gives you the audio. So if you're using Audacity to manage your podcast, you don't even need to do anything with it. You just download the YouTube video and upload it to Audacity, and it automatically strips out and just gives you the audio.

So you don't have to— is there a way— can you edit it at all, or do you need to?

Yeah.

So Audacity is actually a free program. You can go to audacity.com or just Google the word Audacity, A-U-D-I— I can't spell it— Audacity, and download that program. What it allows you to do is— so I'll do— I can add my intro music, I do a little intro voice thing, like let people know what the show is about, if there's any updates, like maybe I'll say, "Hey, if you haven't bought the book yet, contentwarfarebook.com, get your copy today," and then another piece of transition music, and then my uploaded YouTube audio, body, and then an outro, and a little, maybe one more call to action, package it all up, export to MP3 format, download it, or upload it to Libsyn, and then from Libsyn it pushes out through iTunes and Stitcher and all those great stuff. Yes, that's how you spell Audacity.

Very cool. Thanks.

Yeah, no problem.

Good to know. And we will be, uh, touching on that when you guys are doing your podcasting session for me on the virtual conference. So those watching too, you will be starting to see some of that come out in the next few days hopefully. I'm still waiting on one last confirmation and then we'll go. But we have the second annual Blogger— Virtual Bloggers Conference on Google+ coming up the last weekend of June. It's going to be pretty, pretty good. We're going to have a lot of topics for you. So I changed it up a a little bit from last year, but it'll still be a lot of fun and a lot of good free information from all our wonderful friends on Google+ who are always so happy to share with us all their knowledge and their expertise. So be looking forward to learning more about that. Yeah, I think podcasting is really still an untouched medium for a lot of people.

And the more I research it, it's just huge.

There is no— this is my last soapbox, I promise, and then I will jump down and I will put it away. There is no better way to connect with your audience than by giving them deeper pieces of content, rich content to connect with you, Rich. Blog posts are fantastic, but if I look at my Google Analytics, I can tell you the average visitor to RyanHanley.com stays for 2 minutes and 2 seconds. 2 minutes and 2 seconds. Fantastic. But through Stitcher, which is the only place that really gives you— it's a— for people that don't know, Stitcher is a resource to listen to podcasts, like iTunes. Stitcher is the only one that gives you these analytics. The average listener to my podcast listens for 27 minutes.

Okay?

So though the audience is smaller that listens to the podcast versus reads my blog, they are much more invested as me— in me as an expert, um, and they're much more invested in the content and the brand in general, which means that people connect much closer to the Content Warfare brand, which is the name of the podcast, versus just Ryan Hanley, because they're so invested in that thing, because they spend 30 minutes at a time with me, where on a blog post it's only 2 minutes. So, uh, if you're looking to build that deeper relationship with your audience, I do not think— and this is another example of it. I mean, this show would be synonymous— Google Hangouts synonymous with podcasts. But there's no better way to connect on a deeper level with your audience than providing them with this type of stuff. And podcasts are so untouched, so untouched.

Well, I think too that, I mean, video is one thing because we have to be at our desktop to watch this. And I bet that if you compared your Google Hangout views and the time that people watch it you see them kind of drift off. But podcasts are going to stay on it longer because they can take it with them. They can go and do something else while they're listening to you. They can go for a walk, they can go work out. You're kind of glued with this video stuff right now, and so I think that's why you have that long time that people are investing is because, man, ever since iTunes did the podcast app, I mean, things have just gone crazy. So I think I'm right there with you.

And they're in cars now. They have iTunes Play or something like that. They're in Mercedes and Honda, and Stitcher is in basically all the worthwhile competitors to iTunes, and SoundCloud is blowing up. It's just, it's an incredible platform.

And with all the people that are commuting, it's the perfect medium for them to listen to while they commute, especially if you're commuting 5 days a week and you're on something that takes half an hour.

Yeah.

Keep it like under half an hour when you're doing these podcasts because it's kind of the commute time that you want to stay under.

Yeah, very cool.

Excellent, great, great stuff. We have a few more comments here and I wanted to shout out, I don't see her comment now, but my sister Mia Voss is in the audience. Thanks for stopping by. Candice Marcos saying she loves podcasts. She can take them on the road wherever she's going, stop when I need to, Restart when I'm ready. I'm a huge podcast junkie.

Absolutely.

And Kevin Burns is commenting on— thank you for asking the question. Yeah, I think a lot of people want to know how simple it is. And I'm assuming when you said there's a free version, there's a paid version too, Ryan?

I don't think so.

Okay, so it is free. There's not something you get more tools with then.

If there is, it is nothing that in my 84 episodes I've ever needed.

Perfect.

So then it's a wonderful— now I've also heard people— now do you just push yours on iTunes or on that? I've heard there's— it's good to like link up with some of these groups that do a lot of podcasts for people and then become associated with them.

I mean, any way to get more exposure. I basically have done everything wrong when I launched my podcast 2 years ago. It'll be 2 years in August. It's like anything else. If you have a network of bloggers that all support each other, then you all help each other grow. Same with podcasting. The same type of little networks form, and everyone pushes each other's stuff. Not in a bad way. You just promote each other and help each other and support each other. Basically, you need to be on at least SoundCloud, Stitcher, and iTunes to be hit the majority of the market. Those are the 3 major platforms, and then if you can have people, you know, then it's just like marketing a blog, you know, get on other podcasts, get it out there, social media, all that good stuff, capture emails.

Good information. Alright, well, let's run down and talk to everyone before we go. We're getting close to the end of the hour, and if you have anything you'd like to share with us at this time, this is it, a good place to do it. Tell us what you're up to or where we can find you. Maggie? What you got planned for the next week or two? Anything?

Well, right now I'm going back on my drinking— it's not my cocktails. I'm filming right now a series of skinny cocktails, so that's coming out in about 2 weeks or so, and I'll be putting out more information as the time goes on. And as I mentioned, this was my recommendation for summer. This is the Smoking Loon An oak, just try an un-oaked, it's totally different. And anything else, just go on my website, InMomMaggiesKitchen.com. So that's me.

And Joanna, anything you've got planned for the next few weeks or for the summer?

Well, obviously Shits County is really big, and then I'm also the brand manager at Momovation, and we are finishing up one now on a 30-day gluten-free challenge that's ending here in the next couple weeks, and then we're starting up another one with Earth Mama Angel Baby. July 9th is when that one is starting.

What is that about, the Earth Mama Angel Baby?

I should know this answer.

Theoretically, I do.

They have the only, I want to say, non-GMO Project verified, but I don't remember which product it is. I'm drawing a blank, but they have a lot of really awesome products for moms and nursing moms and pregnant moms, you know, things like that. There's some options. But actually, Leah's calling me right now.

Good, no problem. Alright, well, thank you, and we'll look for you later on. And Jeff, what do you got planned coming up?

Well, we, you know, I encourage people to go watch if they missed it yesterday. I had Chef on and we did the Manly Show outside and did some cooking. It was just a lot of fun, so I encourage people to go watch that. And then on the 26th of this month, we're doing another episode of The Manly Show with Jason Weiser. So I'm really excited. I've been a big fan of his for a long time, and I'm excited to have him on the show. And we're going to be talking about repurposing content, so that'll be a real good one. And buy local honey.

I'm sure your honey tastes great.

Oh, it's going to show up somewhere.

You know it is.

I've got tons of hashtags right now going. All good. Chef, we can't hear you.

Yeah, we can't hear you. Well, I guess Ryan, you're up. Sorry, Ryan.

That's all right.

We lost Chef.

There he is.

That's all right.

For me, right now, it's all about the Content Warfare book, trying to get this thing funded by Sunday, which would be the first time that Publishizer's had a book fund in its first week. I think it would be an incredible accomplishment, something that I'd love to have happen. I shared the link in the event page if anyone's interested in checking the book out. At least watch the trailer. I put a ton of work into the trailer, and I'm very happy with the way it came out. Even if you don't buy the book, just watch the trailer because it's fun. And then that's it. That's what I got cracking. Thanks for having me on.

Oh, my pleasure. I'm glad we could have you on. And you know, there is a full moon tonight, and I think it's a special full moon. I don't know if any of you are going to be out there howling at the moon, but— What's that, Maggie?

Sorry, I wanted to mention about what Coronado does. I'm on Coronado Island off of San Diego, and They got— we got paddleboarding just to— when the full moon is out. So you're paddleboarding with the full moon out. It's really cool.

That way you can see the sharks when they sneak up on you?

No.

It's a bay. There's no sharks. Yeah, we're okay. We're safe.

I actually saw some people swimming at a beach in Florida. I'm going— and it wasn't ocean water. I'm like, oh my God. Because they tell us wherever there's water, there's alligators. And I kept waiting to see something happen, but evidently it was a safe zone. So the first thing you learn is don't go in the water, you know, because there could be alligators. Alright, so there'll be no howling at the moon then today. I don't know if anybody wanted to howl. I used to do that at the one last restaurant I worked at. Occasionally I would howl just because I could. I know I had a lot of my workers were Mexican, and one of the first times I did it, one of them turned around and went, "Coyote!" They were right in on it. There was no problem. That's where I met my wife, and she'd have to explain to the people out there, "That's just the chef. Don't worry about him.

He does that sometimes." On that note—

do we have a score? Paul, I'm a plus one, but is there a score on the Mexico game? Have we heard any more?

1-0, we're winning. I think we only have a few minutes left on the clock, but it's pouring down. So there are pictures of Herrera, who's the coach, and he's drenched. I mean, he's out there and you see him with his whole intensity, like, you know, he's just drenched, yelling. I mean, so you can imagine how difficult— this should have been an easy win. But I blame the rain, Zach.

Blame the rain.

And just the thrill of competition. Sometimes easy wins are the hardest ones to take because the other team has absolutely nothing to lose. So on that note, we're going to say goodbye for another wonderful episode of Good Day Google+ on this Friday the 13th. And I hope you have a wonderful day ahead of you. And stay lucky and stay happy. We'll see you all real soon.