Last month I made my first sale from my photoblog site.

Or, if you want to get technical about it, I made my first sale back in January.

Let’s go back to the real beginning. April 1st, 2004 was the day I posted the first image to my photoblog. The weeks leading up to that foolish day, I had been struggling mightily with the Greymatter software, trying to wring some sort of decent design out of it. I was happy with the final results, but the weekly process of uploading a new picture was, to put it simply, a pain in the ass. Lots of html code, lots of writing, lots of image preparation.

Still, I enjoyed doing it. I kept it up, posting one image a week, all the through late October. I wish I could blame the end-of-posting on the back-to-back business trips I took in late October and early November, but really, it was just another case of blog burnout.

So, there the site sat, forever displaying on the main page the last uploaded photo. Neglected but not forgotten – you can tell by the way I categorized the site on my main page’s redesigned index: “Optimistically Updated.”

And then, late in March, Oksana decided to start work on our taxes. While sifting through our small business’ records for the previous year, she encountered a suspect PayPal charge for $18. I didn’t know what it was off the top of my head, so while she looked over my shoulder, I logged into my account and checked its history. Problem solved.

Before I logged out, I noticed something – a balance in my account for 280-some dollars. What the heck? I followed some links and discovered that someone had placed an order for the Mendenhall Glacier Panorama print from my website almost two months prior!
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Four-and-a-half years ago I met my wife in Venezuela. If you’ve read my engagement story or wedding journal, you probably already know that we started seeing each other while traveling in a university group. What you may not know is that another couple that met on that same trip just got married!

███████ ████’ and ██████ ███████’ big day was April 23rd and Oksana and I were very happy to have been a part of the celebration. Of course, their engagement came as no big surprise; we’ve been hanging out with ████ and ██████ at least once a week, almost without fail, for two solid years.
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Last June, I bought Oksana a cute little digital camera that fits into an Altoids tin. That bit of information isn’t actually required for the enjoyment of this weblog entry, but it gives me a frame of reference on where to begin. Bear with me.

The camera was a Pentax Optio s40 and for a gift, it was more expensive than Oksana was comfortable asking. Of course, that mattered little to me; she wanted it, I was going to buy it for her. That I would be able to ask for a $300 reciprocal gift for my own birthday was a barely even considered.

As September approached, I gave careful consideration to what I wanted to receive in appreciation for my birth: A TiVo. Or, at least, a TiVo-like device.

I don’t actually know anyone that owns a TiVo, but, from my internet readings, I had read a lot about how they were going to revolutionize my TV watching. Epitomizing the counter-stereotype husband of a habitual channel changer, I was searching desperately for something revolutionary or, at the very least, alternative.

A TiVo is definitely that. You can think of it as a digital VCR, but actually it’s more of a PVR, or Personal Video Recorder, as that name is reserved for something that records TV programs directly to a hard disk. With a sprinkling of specialized hardware and software, a PVR can even allow you to do such vaunted actions as pause live TV, skip commercials, and automatically record your favorite shows without, gasp!, setting the time.

Sounds like silicon perfection, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the reality isn’t all puppies and rainbows. While TiVo hypes their $99 specials, they don’t like to advertise the fact that their low-end units have small hard drives which will encourage you to use only the lowest quality recording settings. If the lack of expansion doesn’t scare you off, the monthly service fees will. TiVo charges $12 a month for their scheduling service, without which you’re left with an oversize paperweight. Sure, you can pay $249 for a lifetime subscription to the service, but what if they go out of business? Even assuming they’re around until the Second Coming, that’s another 250 clams added to the attention-grabbing introductory price. To the uninformed, that could seem dangerously close to a bait and switch.

So, I wanted a TiVo, but $300 would only pay for about half of the model I really wanted. Moreover, the lack of an upgrade path galled. What to do?

Why, build my own, of course. Too bad it took me six more months to do it.
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If I had my way, I’d keep all my friends nearby – I’m selfish that way – but I can’t deny that there’s something special about reconnecting with people that have been out of touch. Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder.

Two weeks ago today, a friend sent me a link to a Juneau Empire article. That morning, the newspaper had published a story about an Argentinean couple who were spending a week in Juneau. There was mention of a poetry reading and solo concert at a local plant store, but otherwise it seemed like filler for a very slow news day.

Well, thank God for slow news days! The Argentinean couple turned out to be Magú and Alex Appella – Spanish teachers and friends whom I hadn’t seen in almost three over five years! Before I’d even finished reading the article, I had mentally rearranged my schedule to fit in the “concert” at The Plant People. The only problem was that I had to wait through 36 long hours. That evening after work, I told Oksana the big news and she picked up instantly on my excitement. She was more than happy to go with me to the show and meet the people I’ve often talked about.
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A few months ago a friend of mine, Mike Maas, heard that a theatre production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch was in the planning stages here in Juneau. Having been a big fan of the movie, he immediately made some phone calls to try to find out how he could, in some way, become a part of the show. Just when it seemed like he’d dead ended in unreturned phone calls, someone from Perseverance Theatre called – completely independent of his own inquiries, mind you – to offer him the off-stage role of Music Director and the on-stage role of Skszp. Anyone within shouting distance last November knows how thrilled he was.

Starting in December, Mike met with the cast and crew of Hedwig for many, many hours of rehearsals. Most days it seemed he would leave work and rehearse until almost midnight. On at least one occasion he worked on the play nine days straight without a day off to recuperate. We rescheduled our social gatherings around his new schedule and listened to his complaints about the rigors of 8-hour rehearsals contrasted with his excitement about how well things were coming together.

Much to my disappointment, Mike devoted so much of his free time to practicing that a video project we had planned to shoot was eventually shelved. I had no real desire to see the original Hedwig movie and, besides supporting a friend in his creative endeavors, had no real inclination to spend $44 so Oksana and I could see this show, either. I couldn’t understand why he was so overjoyed to be in a fringe show about a German transvestite with a failed sex-change operation, but we went last Saturday anyway.

You know what? I get it now. Hedwig and the Angry Inch fucking rocked! (Before the show, Mike asked us, “Are you ready to RAWK?!” It’s never “rock” with Mike, it’s always a throw-the-goat, Billy Idol sneer, “RAWK!!”)
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If you’ve been wondering why I haven’t posted an entry to my site in over 6 weeks, wonder no more. Ever since I started up this blog, I’ve wanted to write about the Halloween where I dressed up as Darth Maul… and here it is. It’s out of control, off the hook, up in your grill. If the MS Word stats are to be believed, this entry contains slightly more than 12,000 words typed out over 1,000+ minutes. With two drafts I made well over 1,000 “revisions.” If you figure a “page” is anywhere from 200 to 250 words – this entry somewhere between 48 and 60 pages of text. As they say at Idlewords: Brevity is for the weak!

I wouldn’t expect anyone to sit in front of their monitor long enough to read this in one sitting; therefore, I’ve put in “chapter breaks” at convenient stopping points. Good luck!

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I’ve never been much of a fan of Halloween. Oh, sure, as a kid I looked forward to amassing large piles of candy through the implementation of the normal traditions, but it was never really one of those holidays that I anticipated with fervor. Despite a general lack of enthusiasm on my part, I have nonetheless had many memorable experiences on All Saints’ Eve.

My earliest memory of Halloween wasn’t exactly a good one. I must have been about four years old, living in an apartment in Morehead City, North Carolina. My younger brother had not yet been born, though a quick mental calculation tells me that my parents must have already expected his imminent arrival. I bring this up only as a frame of reference – at four years of age, I was still too young to be trick or treating without adult supervision. Furthermore, I lacked the placebo security afforded by a sibling companion.

Our apartment complex, if I can trust some of my earliest memories, was laid out in a square. The front door to each of maybe 9 or 10 units faced inward to a small, shared courtyard. A sidewalk conveniently rimmed the courtyard, allowing easy access into each home while simultaneously providing a finite, circuitous pathway for young children who did not yet have the rampant Halloween candy ambition of older Americans.

I only remember one scene from that particular Halloween night; everything else I have reasoned out. Either my mother or father was escorting me door-to-door; of that, I am fairly certain. I probably had one of those hollow plastic orange pumpkins into which I could stash my treats, who knows? What I do know is that when we reached the fourth or fifth door and rang the doorbell, something bad happened.
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Don’t blame me; I didn’t vote!