Folks, I have been offline for over 6 weeks due to the Coronavirus.  Here is a link to my Corona story:

COVID 19, Ventilator, I Survived
The past six weeks have been a blur. On March 7st, I came down with a slightfever and thought nothing of it. By Thursday, March 12th, after a temperature of100.3 each of the last few days, I called my doctor. We discussed that I may ormay not have Corona, but we would treat it the same either way…
CogitationsIrv Shapiro

As I rebuild my strength, I am planning the future of DrVax. Over about 15 months, starting in December 2018, but mostly last year, the DrVax Youtube channel grew to over 11,000 subscribers. With over 100 videos, thousands of comments, and almost 800,000 views, the channel has connected with tens of thousands of viewers, subscribers, and non-subscribers.

My COVID-19 forced vacation provided me with an opportunity to think about my subscribers, contents, and goals for the channel.  In 2019 as momentum grew, the DrVax channel transitioned from a pastime to a full-time job.  I felt pressured to post 1-3 times a week while still enjoying the challenge of building my viewership.  I attempted to reply to the vast majority of comments and included long replies that provide one-to-one technical support for my viewers.  Since 3d Printing videos obtained the highest number of views and most extended watch times, I focused the majority of videos on 3d Printing.

In a couple of months, I will be eligible for Medicaid, and I retired from the majority of my corporate responsibilities over a year ago.  As my strength returns, I am going to refocus the channel on my foundation goals.

I love learning new things, making stuff, and sharing what I learn with others, and while I enjoy helping my viewers with specific issues, I see these questions as a way to help many people by posting the questions and answers in a public space.   To support this, I will be creating a better way to engage with this blog and will post instructions to my YouTube channel about how to use my improved user forum.

The user forums will require a free login. By providing me with your email address I will have a better way to communicate very selectively with you.  The majority of my communications will be via the forum.  I will direct one-to-one questions to the forum so everyone can benefit.

Instead of struggling to find topics for multiple videos a week, I am going to follow my interests and the interests of my viewers and post fewer videos with better research topics over a broader range of subjects.   I will challenge my viewers who may have initially visited the channel to learn about 3d Printing to more broadly engage in the art of making stuff.  You can expect to see more videos covering electronics, woodworking, construction of projects that include multiple disciplines, and even some simple, accessible software engineering (programming).

As makers and I consider my viewer's makers, we need to embrace multiple skills and techniques to engage with the DIY opportunities fully.  At times as makers, we build stuff we could buy for less; however, the satisfaction of creating things from scratch fuel our desire to create.

So welcome to the future of DrVax.  Do not worry; I will continue to cover 3d Printing enriched with much more extensively.  I look forward to beginning to post 2-3 times a month vibrant and exciting content and depending on my schedule more often.

Thanks for sticking with me over the past weeks, stay healthy, and keep making stuff.

Irv