Back in 2002 there was a fire that managed to wipe out everything I had in storage. That was a horrible experience that I wouldn’t wish on anyway, but there was a silver lining – the insurance check pulled me all the way out of eight years of accumulated college and credit card debt.

Oksana and I married a few months later, but it took us quite awhile before we got her INS paperwork sorted out. Eventually, she received her temporary green card and (coincidentally on the same day) was offered a decent-paying job. The intervening six months, where I was the only one working, weren’t that bad. I’d trade having a single-income family over a pile of minimum interest payments any day.

Very quickly the benefits of a dual-income, debt-free, children-absent family were realized. Around our first anniversary in August, after Oksana and I had figured out how to manage our money with (seriously) five bank accounts, we sat down to talk about creating a savings goal for the end of the year. $5,000 seemed attainable.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (2.3MB)

Mr. Michael Maas has been soapboxin’ lately in his blog about a new site he stumbled across called Songfight! I thought I’d weigh in with my own opinion as an impartial listener.

The Songfight! formula is simple and strangely appealing: Each week the webmasters-that-be post three hypothetical song titles and open the door for anyone to submit a song with the same name. Writers have only a week to write, compose, record, and upload their song before the voting begins. When the deadline passes, the discussion, reviews, and criticisms (constructive and otherwise) begin to gather in the forums. Eventually votes are submitted and tabulated and, by the end of the next week, a winner is declared and is subsequently showered with the eternal love and adoration of the selfless Internet community. Or something like that, anyway.

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Last weekend, Boomstick Deodorant showed at the Panhandle Picture Show in Haines, Alaska. Boomstick had already premiered at a Juneau Underground Motion Picture Society show, but with essentially no acceptance policy on what they decide to show, I didn’t feel like it mattered much. The Panhandle Picture Show is an honest-to-goodness film festival – with judging forms and entry fees and everything! – and it marked the first “real” critique of any video project I’ve done.

How did it go? As well as I’d hoped, I suppose. Boomstick got laughs in all the right places and a good bit of applause at the end, and I have to say that, surprisingly, I think it played better in Haines than it did in Juneau. While I didn’t win any awards, at least I did get a bit of superfluous recognition each night when the show’s announcers asked the “film” makers who had traveled to the show to stand up for applause. Since it was only myself, two others from Juneau, and one person from Canada, those few seconds of people craning their necks to look made me feel like a bug on a microscope slide. I guess I’m not the kind of person who craves public recognition.

The show itself was remarkably long – spread out over two nights, there were about five hours of videos and films to wade through. Boomstick was by far one of the shortest entries (clocking in at less than 3 minutes) and it seemed out of place in a show full of films pushing the 20 minute limit. Overall, I still enjoyed myself… despite the ennui induced by so many self-indulgent, experimental videos.
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I’d like to take a moment to formally introduce you to a new project: My Photoblog!

About a month ago, my wife and I started up a new section of arlomidgett.com where we could post some examples of my photography and attempt to actually make some money off of it. The first photo was uploaded on April 1st, and I’ve kept it fairly quiet since then.

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And now for something completely different.

I’ve been fed up with myself lately. See, I’ve got an annoying, mile-long perfectionist streak and sometimes it prevents me from doing the things I want. How? Let’s use updating my blog as an example.

If you’ve been reading along, you probably now know far more about Cuba than you ever cared to. When I returned from my last trip a couple months ago, I was all gung-ho about sharing my experiences – I think the initial veracity with which I attacked my keyboard vouches for that. Eventually, though, as the trip fell further and farther (what’s up with those words, anyway?) behind me, I lost the valuable initiative that kept me cranking out ordered ASCII characters.

Ever since I crossed that nebulous line where my writing libido had decreased, it’s been a struggle to finish the Cuba Guide. Not only that, but I think I lost my theme – I always intended my entries to be a guide about what to expect in Cuba with a healthy dose of “Arlo in Cuba Anecdotes.” Somewhere along the way (the intro?), I lost site of that and simply wrote about what one can do there.

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More to come.
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Part the Sixth: Part the Second: Specific Recommendations II

Trinidad
I’ve been to Trinidad on two separate occasions and they couldn’t have been more different. In 2000, I was there shortly after New Year’s, within the first two weeks of the new millennium. When I returned at the end of 2003, much had changed for the worse.

What was noticeable right away was the increased “hassle factor.” Granted, the second time around, I was there in the height of the high season – right between Christmas and New Year’s. The streets were packed with tourists, housing was scarce, and you couldn’t walk a single block without someone trying to sell you something.

At first I wondered if I was mis-remembering how things were in Trinidad three years before. After a day or two, I knew it couldn’t have been as bad as it is now. Perhaps the government loosens its regulations for the high season and the officials look the other way when people start selling cookies in the streets, get together for an artisans market, or brazenly offer tourists “illegal” lobster in the streets. I sure as hell hope so. With the hassle factor as high as it was, I’d have a hard time recommending Trinidad again.

And considering how wonderful Trinidad can be, that’s a horrible thought.

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