General and Housekeeping

I want to send a post that will address some odds and ends about the newsletter. Since I moved from Substack last Summer (July 2025) to first a self hosted Ghost blog/newsletter, and then more recently moving to their hosted solution, there have been a few changes and some things you might want to adjust (or to even say goodbye.)

Subscriptions

First, you are in control of your subscription. When I moved, there were some (about 10%) that were marked as unsubscribed when I left Substack. What I believe that meant were they were people who had opted for the "in app" notification instead of email notifications.

Since I have no way of determining whether they had explicitly unsubscribed, or whether it was the notification setting, I have manually re-enabled them. If you really want to unsubscribe, at the bottom of this email is a link to "unsubscribe". When you click that, you will be taken to the website and given the option of turning off emails. You can turn them off (all three newsletters are independent) as you wish. Or just all of them, and go on your merry way.[1]

If I re-enabled your email, and you wish I hadn't, I apologize. I do know that before I left Substack, they were playing lots of games with active and inactive subscriptions to limit my reach. If you want to unsubscribe, turn off all the emails, and I will respect that desire.

Paid Subscriptions

Astute readers might see that I have enabled payments, and have a $5 a month tier. This is purely for those who feel that they want to support the site. With the move to the hosted Ghost offer, my out of pocket for the number of subscribers will be about $560 a year. That is not nothing, but it is an amount I am willing to pay.

If you pay, you will get the same content, the same emails, the same abilities as a free account. That sounds like a rip off, but you will get my gratitude that you are helping to defray the cost.

Please, don't ever feel compelled to chip in cash. Unless we get to 7,000 subscribers, this is a hobby I can easily afford.

The Three Newsletters

I do segregate my posts into larger categories. I originally did this because when I posted about my guitars and other musical gear, I got really low opens and reads.

Being a man of science, I realized that content didn't play well. Thus, I structured this into three categories:

• Sweaty's Corner - #1 - This is where you are reading this. It is the main event. I write about politics, tech, science, topical events of the day, etc. I post here most often
  
• Musical Dreaming - #2 - this is where I share some of my musical finds. As a guitar player, who came of age during the era of hair metal (the 1980's), I have a penchant for that era, and also, I like to hunt down talented ladies who play and share them.
  
  I know my tastes are not for everyone, so if you prefer to not get these emails, please just unsubscribe from it.
  
• Guitars and Gear - #3 - this is the one that is death to my stats. Hence the reason I originally segregated. I am fortunate enough at this point in my life to be able to afford to feed my GAS[2]. I post here very infrequently (the last post was when I added a Strandberg N.2 Original to my collection) and if you really don't give a fig, please log into the web, go to your account, and unselect this newsletter. With the migration, I went from 50 subscribers to 1,882, so a lot of you will want to cull this.

Posting frequency

I try to do real posts a couple or a few times a week. I learned early on that posting more than once a day would lead to waves of unsubscribes, so unless some really wild shit is happening, it will be no more than once a day.

But, this is a hobby, and I often go stretches between posts due to work related insanity (I am a product manager in a group that builds training to support IT certifications) so, if you don't hear from me for a week or more, that is not a cause for alarm.

Why I run this page/site?

I have always been a techie, and I like the idea of being able to publish on my own, without any friction. I have been blogging since 2009, starting on Wordpress with several changes over the years.

I am one of those rare techies that actually is/was pretty good at marketing, and part of that is being able to express myself. Of course, I do use a lot of profanity, because that is who I am, and how I talk in real life. I am early Gen X, and that is just how we were wired.

Additionally, I voraciously read news, and other things. When I internalize that information, I have opinions, and from my time on Substack, I learned that there was a cohort of people who would read that.

If I didn't have this outlet, I would still write it down, and just not share it. It is who I am.

Again, I am aware that I am not to everyone's taste, and if you are offended by the profanity, or upset about the amount of email in your inbox, please unsubscribe, and go your own way. No harm, no foul.

Final Thoughts

For those who have been on this ride with me, I want to say thank you. I have to write because I have passions that need to be put to paper (or electrons), and the one thing that gets me all tingly is that so many of you have stumbled across something that I wrote, and mashed that "subscribe" button.

For that, I deeply thank you.

Lastly, one thing you can do to help get the word out is to share posts that resonate with you. Share via email, share via your other socials, or clip/crib in your own posts.

Together, we are Sweaty's Corner, and I am glad we are here!

1 - Don't worry about hurting my feelings. I know people are busy, and that I am not everyone's cuppa. The last thing I would ever do is to try to coerce you to stay.

2 - GAS is "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" - it is a terminal disease that most musicians have, that there's always one more guitar, one more amp, one more effect that will deliver nirvana.