PATREON

January 20, 2017

I can't thank everyone enough for the thoughts, prayers and words of encouragement this past week. Your support has been truly overwhelming. It is going to take some time to get on top of all the e-mail, messages, text messages and calls before I can get back to everyone personally. But I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you again for the love and support.

After more than 17 years, and without any warning, I was fired because my former employer claimed that they were no longer able to pay me. This came as a huge shock to me considering that, during the same time period, my former employer had purchased a sports car (all cash), a full size SUV, a new home, added a custom pool with an elaborate pool house, and the list goes on. Call it naivete or stupidity on my part,  but hopefully you can understand why I didn't see this coming. Only later did I learn that my firing was simply a cost cutting measure. 

Now recently unemployed, I had to apply for cheaper medical insurance for my wife. According to a response to an employment verification letter, my former employer attempted to have my wife disqualified from getting cheaper insurance. Since I am an independent contractor, there is no unemployment benefits, no retirement or anything like that at all. Obviously this couldn't have come at a worse time.



My job was my family's sole source of income and our life savings were decimated after my wife had emergency surgery for a ruptured brain aneurysm just one year earlier. The medical bills from her hospital stay have been financially crushing to say the least. In fact, at this point, we still owe over $33k.

My former employer then began downloading my personal YouTube videos, rebranding them with his company logo and reuploading them to his YouTube channel as "unlisted." When confronted with copyright strikes from YouTube, threatening letters were sent to my current employer saying the situation could get "ugly" for them and would "not look good for anyone involved."  So, I was essentially bullied into dropping the copyright claims in order to keep my new job.

The whole affair was messy. 


The good news is that these events have led to me reopening Hypothermia. 

Hopefully all of you will come by to see me for your daily dose of tech news and reviews, much as you have done for years. I have also set up Patreon account for those of you that want to give a couple dollars a month to support Hypothermia while I do the same computer news and reviews that I have been doing for decades. With any luck and a few advertisers, we can get Hypothermia up to speed in no time.

My family and I can't thank you enough for your support over the years. Whether it is just by visiting Hypothermia every day to get your daily dose of tech news, by donating or pledging support via Patreon, your help will get us through this extremely difficult time.

Advertisers, please feel free to contact me at steve@hypothermia.us or hconsole@gmail.com as my old e-mail address no longer works.