Small-town America: mission accomplished

You have to click on this link and watch (not read) the story. Yes, that is a command.

http://www.ktuu.com/global/story.asp?s=8356823

This is a project that has been months in the making... and to see the story I've put dozens of hours into on the front page of KTUU's Web site... and to have watched it as it was broadcast throughout Alaska... is a huge feeling for me.

I'll try to get the video up on my blog soon, but in the meantime, take the few minutes to click the link and watch the story... it's one that will leave you feeling all happy inside... at least that's how I feel when I watch it.

Mediocrity

Why is it so easy to get sidetracked?

When do you realize that it hurts to beat your head repeatedly against a wall?

Tonight we showed a 15 min. "preview" video of the film Joshua and I are making about the Engaging Muslims project...

And to put it bluntly it was awful....

The atmosphere in the room... at the end-of-project-celebration potluck... seemed to be more facade than genuine emotion...

A fact that came through in the interviews we did for the film...

Add to that a ridiculously short time-frame for producing a video (esp. while starting a new job), a project director who often left us out of the loop, and a community of people that don't want to be filmed...

And you have a recipe for disaster... or at least mediocrity.

So why didn't I bail last Fall? The signs were all there.

Why haven't I bailed on another project... one for Channel 2... that seems to be way more pain than gain.... No way should you have to call someone 17 times to set up an interview...

In my frustration... one thing is clear...

While I deeply want to write and tell stories... I also want sanity... moments of calm... time in the mountains...

And none of this is worth giving any of that up.

From north to really north

Last month I was smack in the middle of Manhattan... the vibrant and bustling center for international politics, multi-national corporations and world renowned art...

Last week I was within the boundaries of the same country... but in a different world entirely.

I crossed the Arctic Circle and landed in Kotzebue... a rather large native village of 3,000 people located in the northwest corner Alaska!

The trip was one of four that Joshua and will make for a video were producing on a tribal doctor named Della Keats

Slowly we're inching our way toward the dream... traveling the world, telling stories and getting paid to do it.

On this last trip, it may have been middle of April, but it was bitterly cold. Add an non-stop, howling wind to zero degrees (Fahrenheit) and after seven minutes outside the cheeks start to go numb.

This is the Alaska everyone pictures when they ask me how I make it through the winters.