So, I checked the stats today on my photoblog site and noticed that I’m right around the same number of visitors as last month. Not bad considering that we’re only 13 days into May. There are a lot of ways that these stats can be interpreted, but I try to focus solely on to the “unique IPs.” Yeah, sure, three of those visitors are definitely just me checking the site from the three computers I use the most, but I’m pretty sure the other 18 are from real people (as opposed to web crawling robots)!

So, yeah. I’m happy. Granted, I could get no additional IPs hits for the rest of the month – in which case I suppose I could conclude that everyone I’m telling this month had already visited it last month (before I had really started advertising.)

Still no orders flooding in, though. Hmmm. Maybe I should check those PayPal links again…!

I put up a new photo today if you’re interested (and yes, this is my way of copping out of writing a real blog entry.) I’ll check the stats again on June 1 and post the results here. After that, I plan to sign my photoblog up with as many blog registries as I can find. Should be interesting to see if that will generate significantly higher numbers.

Almost two years ago, when our families were arriving in Juneau for our marriage, Oksana and I tried very hard to be good hosts. Unfortunately, in planning the wedding, we weren’t able to spare enough time for the task. We were hoping that Alaska would play nice that summer and show our guests what it can be like on a sunny, warm day. That way we could turn them loose and let them make their own fun.

Seeing as we live in Southeast Alaska, though, it was much more likely that it would rain the entire time they were with us. That’s why I was practically ecstatic when the day of their Tracy Arm cruise dawned to clear blue skies – no matter what happened from that point on (including the possibility of a rained-out wedding), they would look back and judge their entire stay on that one, perfect day.

I was hoping for at least one such day during my mom’s visit this last weekend – lucky me; I’m batting 1.000.

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Yesterday I had a bunch of friends over at my place and I was so happy to hear that not a single one of them had watched the series finale of Friends the night before.

Then again, we had come together on a Friday evening to watch Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, so take that for what it’s worth.

My mom is coming to town today and I’m thrilled that she’ll be here though Mother’s Day (‘cause that means there’s a good chance I won’t forget to call her this year!) Oksana and I have spent the whole week in a suitable state of mind. That is to say, we’ve been freaking out.

Oksana, as expected, has that we’ve-got-to-clean-the-house-because-oh-my-God-your-mother-is-going-to-SEE-it mentality. And I, for the most part, agree with her. If my mom and stepfather are going to be spending a few days with us, I want them to be comfortable. And by comfortable, I mean: Not preoccupied with the way we live.

You know what? Thinking back… I do believe this is the very first time my mother has ever come to stay with me since I moved out of the house (for good) ten years ago. Why is it that it can feel so natural for us offspring to return to the nest, and yet at the same time feel strange when the parent role-reverses on us?

I don’t know, but I’m sure glad my mom never stayed with me when I was living in my dorm. Or in the trailer. Man, I really should get serious about buying a nice, respectable house.

I’ll get back to that tomorrow.

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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