[00:15] I don't know. This is hard. Okay, here we go. Okay, If you've been watching me for a while, you might recognize this intro.
[00:28] And you might recognize this guy, Bernard Hack. Well, or was my pug Moses. He's been part of my channel,
[00:42] my branding and my life for a long time. And a few weeks ago I had to put him down And I want to make this video in a way to just,
[00:57] A bit of a memorial for who he wants. Talking about personal stuff? It's up to you to, I feel like I had to,
[01:09] I wanted to say goodbye like this. This is how I do things. I make videos. He may have been part of your life. He's been part of our branding for a while.
[01:21] but also I needed to figure out why this hit me so hard because it did. I was crying and I don't normally do that. My kids were like, dad, I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that. And then I just had to leave.
[01:38] Everything I was working on here at the studio, we just packed our family car, our big passenger van because we have a massive family. And we left. They didn't know I was gone until I was already gone. Which by the way,
[01:52] thank you team for handling everything while it was gone and being so gracious Also a massive shout out to Twin Gate for agreeing to sponsor a weird video like They also helped me stay connected to my studio while I was gone.
[02:06] And so even though I had to leave and I did still have to work, for some reason I just had to leave. And I just had to drop everything to go, guys ready. And that's what we did.
[02:22] It's an island right off the Gulf of Mexico or America, And we picked Galveston because that's where we got Moses. My wife and I got married in 2009 and we drove down to Galveston to take a
[02:37] cruise for our honeymoon. And on the way there, Looking back and inside the pet shop was this crazy eye looking pug. They just turned around, looked at us with these eyes and we're like, okay,
[02:52] If he's still there when we drive back up, we're going to get him. So the story, we drove back up there he was, we got him, and this was 15 years ago.
[03:05] He's always aged with our anniversaries and he's been with us through this is our leaving for Canada Yard. missionaries for a bit. And he was there for every kid.
[03:27] Did you kid in the Face by Omo? When we brought the kids home, he was their dog. every significant moment, every high, every low.
[03:43] He just was always there. And you really don't consider that until something like that is gone. All the driving I did and the alone time is that yes, it was rough. Him passing,
[04:00] It was what he represented and all the memories he was attached to. years. He was there during the season of growth where we were struggling,
[04:14] growing our family. Hey guys, Chuck Abey Moses here, and we were happy, really happy. Not to say that I'm not happy right now,
[04:26] but just looking back at those memories, it was a really good time. Chuck and all the joy and stress that accompanied that. family. So for me, he represented all of that. And again,
[04:43] or sentimental about pets, but this guy passing, it got me.
[04:57] putting him down meant looking back on all those memories and having them all kind of flood in everything he was attached to was my life becoming an adult and And I just remember before we left for our road trip,
[05:12] he would always have a spot right there in our kitchen where he'd lay and by the And that spot was now just empty. So I just would,
[05:25] make a cup of coffee and he was just there. I just kind of sat there on the floor in front of a spot with my cup of coffee
[05:39] and just left all the memories of everything he was about and all the things he was attached to just wash over me We took him to the vet and we all had to hug him and say goodbye.
[05:56] And I held his mushy wrinkly face in my hands and just in that face, that little grace, mushy face that held 15 years of memories, moments that he helped shape and he was part of it,
[06:09] made me stop. It's like a sudden stop in a car. I'm like, hold on. What it felt like if you've ever gone through something like that. it felt like I was closing the door on that season of my life,
[06:24] that building season, and I wasn't quite ready to do that. Like what am I doing with this channel? Why am I network, Chuck? That's not who I am. My name is Chuck and I'm a dude with six kids.
[06:40] So I had to leave immediately house to figure this out. If you see this tattoo here on my arm, it says, let's just go. we are prone to just leave because that's what we love doing.
[06:57] Way back in the day I made a video about us trying to sell everything and live in an RV and travel the US full time. That was going to be our house.
[07:09] This life is not what I had in mind. We don't want to buy a house and live in the suburbs.
[07:21] We want to live a different kind of life and we really want to travel. I'm quitting my job so I can travel with my family of five and an RV trip At the time I was working a full-time job as a network engineer,
[07:39] So on those long drives, I would spend so much time in prayer just saying, God, And this was one of those things I was trying to just strive for. I even landed a job that agreed to let me work remotely in an rv. Like I said,
[07:54] I ended up leaving that job and we never left in the rv, which allowed me to work from anywhere. And I took that to heart.
[08:07] We sold all of our stuff and we booked one-way tickets to Paris, France like my wife, me, three little kids just took off. And we lasted about three months before we get super homesick.
[08:24] It'd be hard to travel with a dog like that. And we got back and he was there waiting for us. It kind of makes me sad. Our design for our lives is like, let's just go.
[08:38] We got this tattoo when we got back and we got this tattoo because we had every intention of still living by that mantra to just keep going and just travel. But then the world stood still for everyone covid hit.
[08:51] So we put down some roots, some serious roots. We bought a house. I quit my job and I started this YouTube thing full time. Our kids were growing and developed deep friendships around us.
[09:04] We went to Japan for a month back in 2023. But we never really revisited that lifestyle and life just kind of felt like it Our oldest girls are starting to become teenagers. Life is getting busier.
[09:21] and I started working more than I ever had worked. I prayed so hard for this business or whatever it is,
[09:33] and I wasn't sure if that's what I wanted. I asked my wife during all this like, is this where you saw us being or is this where you wanted us to be? And she's like, kind of, but I didn't think you'd be working so much.
[09:48] I didn't realize that I was just going and doing and building and not even stopping for a moment to think. So again, I stopped. I said,
[10:00] We're going to leave, just go and travel and try to revisit some of what we used to be, get back to ourselves from the past 15 years and figure out are we
[10:13] where we want to be right now? And the road trip was awesome. We drove to Waco, this was one of my favorite parts of getting out and traveling is meeting fans. I met you at that donut shop.
[10:25] And then we went to Austin and I met this guy named Chris at Five Guys. We just happened to be in Austin during south by Southwest. That was pretty cool. And as we were leaving Austin, I met a fan named Patrick.
[10:40] We went to Fredericksburg and I met Rt who I still need to send back a DM on I also met a guy in a pharmacy in Fredericksburg. I forgot your name, showed the kids the Alamo. While we're in there, I met a fan named Ashton.
[10:55] It's great to meet you. Alright, wait till, look at the Alamo. Well, I didn't really get to explore it because Chloe was in a rush for no reason. All we did was say I wanted to look at all the stuffs.
[11:08] Well, that's what the internet's for. Let's go. We went to a random small town called Latonia to stay in a farm and I met a fan named, what was your name? Think your name was Brent in a small grocery store,
[11:21] And then we finally made it to the beach at Galveston. Is it that crazy? Oh, that's cold.
[11:38] Moons out. This is fun. What doing
[12:00] massive shout out to Twin Gate for sponsoring this video and making it possible It kept me connected to my studio and my data center no matter where I was. And it was wicked fast then me like an idiot.
[12:13] I forgot to take any kind of travel mass with me. I had no way to get my footage back with my people easily. bought a Raspberry Pi five, an external hard drive under ethernet cable.
[12:28] studio, but I still needed a secure connection. So for that, I use Twin Gate in this amazing feature they have called a service account. It gives me the ability to install a headless client on that Raspberry Pi that
[12:42] not just every resource, only one resource. My sync thing server here. So it's safe and secure, zero trust. And it was just like one line of config. It feels like a magic every time I set something up for Twin Gate.
[12:57] Check 'em out. They are free for home ies like you and I. So show them some love, check 'em out, link below. Anyways, Now I'm trying to bring this home to a point I feel like I figured out.
[13:16] Here's the lesson I have and the lesson I have to tell myself often and that I hope you take to heart is that you need to take time to step away and reflect. Ask yourself, is your life going the direction you want it to go?
[13:29] Are you steering your life, the boat of life if that's what we're going to do right now? Or are you just being drifted by people and
[13:41] circumstances? Millie, hey, you're drifting. Come back this way. Okay, If you're not steering your life and making sure it goes a certain direction,
[13:53] it will be steered by someone else. Are you where you want to be? That's how drifting off course works. So you have to take time to reflect, and you may already be going the exact direction you want to go,
[14:08] but it's important to just stop and make sure that's still the case. Take inventory of where you're spending your time and what's most important to you. Which by the way, where you put your time is what's most important to you.
[14:20] It's the only truly non-renewable resource. So for me, here's what I learned when I stopped and reflected first, I love what I do and it's easy to get wrapped up in it and sink all your time
[14:35] into it too much. I'm going to stop that, not stop working. It's okay team, making sure I'm spending good, rich, quality time with my kids, my family.
[14:47] Also, this trip made me fall in love again with traveling, leave the city. And I want to make sure I do a lot more of that. I still want to. Let's just go. just maybe staying in Japan for three months or something.
[15:01] But I also figured out that I do love what I do. I love this YouTube channel. I'm so grateful for my team and the people that I'm surrounded with. But I needed that trip to kind of just reset, have those moments of reflection.
[15:19] And this was very much a memorial trip to mourn the And he lived a long life. Like 15 years is the top end of the range for how long pugs live.
[15:32] We even stopped at a tattoo shop in Galveston. We took all of our kids in there, the kids got some stick on tattoos as well.
[15:45] Shout out to Pablo G for the wonderful tattoos. It was so cool. But then as we were leaving Galveston, coming back up to Dallas, I wanted to bring this full circle.
[15:59] Moses adopted him into our family on the way back from Galveston. I was really on the fence about doing this because I am not sure if I was ready
[16:13] for that. It kind of felt like an insult to his memory. That sounds silly, but it did feel like that. And I wanted some time. the idea that was kind of chewing on became a better
[16:28] idea. And by the end, when we're driving back home, That feels weird bringing a new pug into the family because it felt weird not having a pug in the family and we needed a new Bernard hack. Well, right.
[16:41] So we stopped at a pet shop, not the same one. And there was one pug there, But after seeing this dumb little face, we had to.
[16:54] So we got a new pug. His name is Mochi. Oh my God, he does act exactly like Moses. Maybe all pugs act the same. I don't know. But it did help with the healing a bit.
[17:11] I know this video is weird and you kind of got to peek into my life and my and I appreciate you giving me the platform to do that.
[17:24] And I'm hoping that this video isn't just going to be like, oh, some sappy video about Chuck crying over his dog. I'm hoping that this can be a video that makes you today, right now,
[17:40] stop and reflect on where your life is and may be in a great place. Or maybe that your life is not where you want to be and you got to make some Maybe you're not making enough money.
[17:56] Make those changes. I've been there. I've been there. get up off my butt and do something else. Study for a certification.
[18:09] Just make sure that you're in control and that you're constantly taking time to Because if you're not steering your life something or someone else will,
[18:21] and you won't always like where you end up. Anyways. RIP Moses, he'll be missed. happy life and he made me and my family so happy. And I hope that just seeing his little face on the channel brought you a little
[18:36] bit of joy. That's it. I'll catch you guys next time.