Having finally received my electric bill for November I can tell you how things stand financially after my third month in this bizarre experience.  Again, I’m not tracking my money in quite the same way as the field team, but this should paint a pretty good picture of what the difference in living expenses are like.

Housing: $500/mo. still.  This isn’t likely to change any time soon.

Utilities: $66/mo.  Since last month this number has literally doubled.  I’m expecting it to double again next month when the temperature drops even further (daily averages are in the 20s here).

Food: $58/mo.  Oh dear.  That’s less than one third of what I was spending on average as of last month.  It also works out to roughly $2/day.  The real secret is that I happened to buy a bunch of bulk items right at the end of October and then ate nothing but turkey for a solid week after thanksgiving, so my grocery bill was largely negated.  The only increase was in eating out: I have decided to start liking coffee, which I foresee becoming a financial burden in the long run.

Drinks: $188/mo.  Of course, what I gave up in my stomach I reclaimed in my liver.  It should also be noted that I lost 10 lbs in November (and for those of you who know me the pertinent question should be “from where?”).

Transportation: $0.  I still ride a bike.  It’s still a piece of shit.

Other: $13/mo.  I didn’t buy any more clothes this month (though I’m still on the lookout for a decent pea coat), or any luxury items/entertainment at all.  Some hardware to help insulate the house was about all I purchased in this category.

JS0 Expenses: $167/mo. (average of Sept. – Nov.)   I feel like it might be interesting to also track how much editing for JS0 costs me.  Since I’m all the way on the other side of the world it doesn’t make much sense for the field team to be handling procurement for my office.  I buy the hard drives, the networking gear, the cabling, and whatever else is necessary to keep my office afloat.  It doesn’t cost all that much (discounting the camera I use to capture tapes with and my laptop) but it might be nice to see where this number goes.

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So, all told, I’m looking at roughly $1072/mo., now including JS0 business expenses (but still excluding my taxes).  Sustainable?  Maybe!

I’d imagine few experiences in life compare with that of sitting in front of a camera, reliving your life’s tragedy as genuinely as you can. The small aperture opens to the largest audience of your life. Behind computer screens across the US and in 44 countries around the world, people I’ve never met and anyone I’ve ever known will hear my story, share my embarrassment, or judge my failure. As you might imagine, it wasn’t easy to summon whatever honest feelings I had about my divorce, knowing that whatever I said would be absolutely indelible. It wouldn’t have been possible without the rock-solid trust we place in Jed when he cuts together our episodes.

Episode 7 is only the most obvious example of what Brian, Matt and I feel each time we step in front of the camera. We’ve spent lifetimes building reputations among our colleagues, friends, and family members, so it isn’t difficult to imagine how self-conscious we can sometimes feel, and how difficult it can be to be honest about something as personal as a failed relationship.

Honesty and vulnerability are elements that set us apart from other shows about travel, but they wouldn’t be possible if we didn’t have complete faith in Jed. Episode 7 was my most vulnerable to-date, and although it is still painful to watch myself, it honors and confirms the trust I placed in Jed.

While the cast and crew land and adjust to Tokyo, I have set out on a trip of my own– a trip back home. I simply couldn’t allow my marriage to end without seeing Sonya to say goodbye, no matter how painful it would be. So, on December 5th, I began the first of 72 total hours of travel, by air and land, that would take me from Saigon to Minneapolis, MN; Davenport, IA; Santa Fe, NM; and ultimately, Tokyo. I have already made it to Santa Fe, where I’ll be able to spend Christmas with family. I regret that the cast and crew cannot enjoy the same privilege, but with every day home I grow more and more ready to take on Tokyo and the world.

As Brian said in the episode, we are practically family.  We live together, we work together, we play together.  We’re friends, colleagues, roommates, and fellow travelers, and in such circumstances, friendship must intensify.  Rob’s divorce hit the entire team…hard.  It was heartbreaking to see our best friend go through such an ordeal.  Everything was put on hold, and we pulled together to act simply like the band of friends we were when this whole crazy idea was born.

After Buon Me Thuot, we grew to dread the words “100%,” even though it became a routine part of our lives.  To me though, the phrase doesn’t just mean “finish your glass.”  I think it accurately describes the camaraderie in this team – we’re in this together one-hundred percent.  Vietnam has been 100% in so many ways, and friendship is definitely one of them.

The price for getting to travel the world is steeper than you may wish to pay.  And it’s not just measured in dollars.

This episode was excruciatingly hard for us to put together.  It took everything I had emotionally to keep watching Rob’s confessions over and over again, and I’ve been dreading the impact it will have on him when he has to relive those experiences while watching the episode.  Never before have I been faced with real moral and emotional consequence in my line of work, and the process has been a bittersweet.

When I took on the job of primary editor/producer for JS0 it was a mostly carefree decision.  I was basically unattached to the world and had some money saved away so I could take whatever job I wanted at the time.  I chose to tell the story of 4 people having an adventure because it sounded like fun, but in the course of working with them over the past 6 months the experience has turned into something far more complex.  Not only are we all friends now (though I’ve never even met some of the team in person), but the story is getting more and more serious, and the act of retelling it is having a greater impact on my life.

This episode especially: I’m still recovering from a relationship that ended almost a year ago.  More accurately I’m not recovering from it, and hearing the numerous parallel’s with Rob’s situation has been stirring my demons.  The unique challenges of editing very painful material concerning a friend’s life, the events of which remind you horrifically of your own, has made the past two weeks completely surreal.

Wherever he is, I hope Rob is finding some closure right now: for both our sakes.

But apparently there is.  FedEx has managed to take 8 full days to get us our tape shipment sent via 3 day shipping.  Which, when speaking geologically, is actually very similar to 3 days.

As a result of this Epic Fail, there won’t be an episode today.  Or tomorrow.  My bet is that we’ll be live again Wednesday morning.  In the mean time I’ll have a couple more posts from the American East as well as my November financial update.

To tide you over until then, check out these babies:

That’s my new remote storage.  Having filled up 750Gb with material for only the first 6 episodes of this season I decided to upgrade to this pair of monstrous 1.5Tb drives to carry the load from now on.  Those are the new Seagate ST31500341AS drives that are making as many headlines for their failures as for their insane capacity.  Apparently I’m a gambler.

Also, I bought them on Black Friday at a discount that left me paying the simply unthinkable price of $0.08/Gb.  Even 4 months ago the best deal you could get on 3.5″ storage was $0.15/Gb.  I’m paying more per month for $0.60/can beer than I am HD video storage.

I’ll post another entry later this week detailing just how one transfers 750Gb off of a RAID array and onto a long-term storage drive with only two functioning SATA ports between four computers (hint: you don’t).

I lost a bet, a bet about ostriches

Once I had an adamant bet with someone that you could not in fact ride an Ostrich. It wouldn’t work. People are too big, ostriches just can’t support you, they’re mean, they can peck you from any angle, and no sane person or law would permit it. Besides, I had either seen a cartoon or read an article online that clearly outlined how impossible it was.

That was a bet I lost.

As it turns out, for just under $1 you can ride an Ostrich in Vietnam for as long as you can hold on. The real problem with this is that Ostriches do not want you to ride them, and in fact I’m pretty sure they don’t want you near them. However due to the dedication and harsh grasps of a team of handlers you can climb on top and receive a full 4.3 seconds of instruction in grunted sign language in how to ride before they kick start the Ostrich down a hard dirt path.

You ride at speeds ranging from a gallop to a sprint until  the Ostrich suddenly stops and throws you onto the ground.

I cannot think of another time I’ve been happier to lose a bet, or had more excitement for a dollar.

Hell yes ostrich riding.

My marriage ended in October. Tomorrow it’ll be one month and twenty six days. I’ve written fifty-seven different eulogies, and I start over every time. I haven’t found the kind of language that does it justice, or even a way to communicate how I feel.

Tomorrow will be Thanksgiving, and it feels oddly symbolic. Tonight, there’ll be no shopping, no oven, no pies. We won’t fall asleep together. I won’t spend tomorrow with family, walking the dog, watching football, setting the table. I won’t pour her a second glass of wine or eat two helpings of dessert. There’s no house to clean when we’re done.

Tomorrow I should be thankful. After all, she’ll be happier this way– but I feel lost, angry, regretful. I feel that this has been the biggest failure of my life. And most of the time I feel nothing.

After three Thanksgivings together, it’s hard to remember the day otherwise. We started traditions, saved recipes, took pictures. We had a box for the champagne corks we got on our anniversaries with two inside. We rented movies on Friday night.

It’s good to be in Saigon on Thanksgiving, lost with friends who are all lost too. I can’t be reminded of it here. I’m a thousand miles from the snow, ten thousand from the blanket, and further from the beating heart beneath it. It’s cold in Minnesota, colder in Saigon.