The more you travel and the more people you meet you find yourself with a spiel tucked on your utility belt ready to wield at any introduction. “So what do you do?” the familiar question rings once again. 3…2…1… Are you ready to answer? How much do you believe in the answer? Is it the answer you really want to give?
Often I find myself playing with that answer these days.
“I’ve been really enjoying climbing recently”
“I Run, I’m working on increasing my running stamina”
“Fly my drone, yeah mostly looking for cool places to fly the drone”
To which you almost always get a confused look or if its a British person perhaps a sarcastic come-back. Don’t worry it’s followed up with another “oh I mean what do you do? you know for work… to earn money?”
But Really? Who is Sam Billingham and what does he do?
If our actions define us I’m a half laptop warrior - half runner, hiker, climber, cyclist, drone pilot, video enthusiast.
Three years ago it was easy to answer the question. I lived and worked in London. I taught short programming courses in web development to people looking to up-skill, change career or broaden their knowledge. I worked for a cool company with fun people but had this nagging feel there was a world of opportunities drifting by. I saved some money, packed my bags and said screw it i’m sure I can make it work out there. Since then the question has been harder to answer.
For the last two years and 9 months I’ve bounced from travel trips to living in my parents basement. I split my work remotely as a freelance web developer and hoping from city to city in the UK teaching web development to young people.
With some minimal money in the bank I’m free to spend time figuring out what it’s all about. My shining star is freedom. Freedom of opportunity, freedom of location, freedom of association. Owning more of my time I am able to work towards projects and ideas I believe in it’s not perfect but its a work-in-progress.
This year I dug pretty deep into the Steem Blockchain working on a number of different projects, most prominent is @finallycomments - a blockchain based comments system similar to Disqus check it out at finallycomments.com.
I’m fascinated with blockchain tech and it’s ability to allow trust in groups of people outside of centrally structured organisations. The Steem blockchain and it’s unique ability to provide rewards for content lead me to dig deeper into what possibilities might exist alongside creating my own content to share.
I’ve got a youtube channel which I like to tell myself is a big part of what I do but in reality it’s been a struggle to hit upload. I’m constantly trying to decide which direction to take my video and in doing so have ended up stalling out. I’ll be working on how to best use platforms like d.tube alongside the mainstream alternatives moving forward.
Capturing unique perspectives with a drone has been something i’ve been working on and enjoying. I mostly post to Instagram but will be reworking/adding to the photo side of my website at sambillingham.com.
Working to find those angles with the drone
Running! I often find myself asking “how can people not love this”. Running to me is one of the best parts of life and to hear someone say they hate it or haven’t done it it years almost makes me feel physical pain. I can’t even explain it but there is an overwhelming freedom in being able to walk out the door and run. A hit of life in a pure form, it re-fills me like a wave of energy. I post runs and cycles on Strava (if anyone is into that, follow me there 🚀)
On Sunday August 26th I finished the second of two cycle trips. First from my home near Birmingham, Uk to Copenhagen Denmark covering over a 1000miles on my bike and second from Tromsø to Lofoten another 260miles both of which I’ll share more on in future. I used to watch hours and hours of sci-fi and always longed to be an adventurer discovering far off places. It took me 26 years but I realised you don’t need a spaceship, that our planet is pretty magnificent and you can go on adventures right now.
As you can see I’ve been using the mainstream content platforms Youtube, Instagram, Strava and my personal website sambillingham.com. My aim with the Steem Blockchain is to work on how to integrate the blockchain into these uses and find viable alternatives using the tech available. As a developer I feel empowered to work on some of these ideas personally. If you’re interested in the link between blockchain/personal-websites or blockchain/fitness then lets chat.
✌️SB
This post was authored by @sambillingham , a member of the sndbox incubator. Learn more, follow @sambillingham or begin a conversation in the comment section below.
Empower artists, writers, musicians, non-profits and community initiatives - delegate Steem Power to @sndbox (using the links below) or follow our curation trail. Learn more about Sndbox - watch our introduction, here.
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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://sndbox.blog/a-birds-eye-view-from-a-laptop-warrior-meet-sam-billingham/