Max Titov

Squeaky clean traveling

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This is my second post that involves a particularly unusual dilemma.  I am not yet concerned and I hope that this blog won’t become a chronological reference guide of what to do in questionable situations.

Last week I returned from a 7 day vacation at the beautiful Turks and Caicos.  It was the best of times.  Looking back I have to attribute the success of the trip as a partial reason that lead to the concluding calamity.

After my return; on the following Sunday I was scheduled to go on a business trip.

 

This Sunday while packing the new dilemma elegantly stood up and introduced itself:

What do you do after you come back from a long vacation: throw all your clothes in to the washer.

What do you need to travel cross border: a passport and associated business identification.

What happens when you find a pair of squeaky clean pair of shorts and [although equivalently clean] mangled passport in one of the pockets: the usual: momentary sense of anger, disbelief, frustration, and agony typically expressed in some form of blame or verbal foulness.

 

That’s right, in that particular moment there’s no better way to define my state of existence as: over hyped uncertainty.

Yes, I was packed: all my belongings were patiently waiting by the side of the door.

Yes, I wasn’t sure how bad the situation was.

Yes, I had mixed feeling of worry and relief.  This could either be devastating for my business and my ability to travel or this can be an excellent excuse to avoid another trip.  A part of me was even excited that I didn’t have to go anywhere and could run down to the gym.  I know talk about my actual priorities!

 

So, what happened next.  I took a few deep breaths.  Analyzed the situation and acted accordingly:

  • The passport was still readable; just mangled
  • I called the border crossing patrol and explained the situation; the gentleman was quite nice and suggested that if the document was still legible it’s worth going through with the trip
  • I’ve considered the possible outcomes, pros, cons and decided on a direct coarse of action

The analysis took at most 15 minutes. I was calm, collected and actually excited to discover if moving forward with the trip would yield a positive outcome.

I was confident that if I am honest, sincere and can explain my situation to the border patrol; then the officer would be able to pull up my digital information and let me through.

I’ve told myself that in the worst case scenario I would be turned back and would have wasted some travel time.

 

So, that is exactly what I did.

And yes, this story does have a happy ending.

I’ve made it through with flying colors.

 

So, what do I want you to take away from my experience?

  1. That I had an amazingly relaxing vacation in Turks and Caicos – I strongly recommend the place if you’re looking to get away from reality [just make sure you keep an eye on your personal belongings and check all your pockets before throwing things in to the washer]
  2. Don’t blame yourself: accept that things happen and move forward
  3. It’s important to stay calm, rational and think things through carefully in great moments of stress – yes, the future can seem bleak; but if you take your time, think things through, understand your situation and what is in your control then a possibly disastrous moment can turn in to a new adventure

 

Until next time,

Max

 

Max Titov

Sliders DIY

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Yesterday I faced a dilemma. I have a project. The project involves the improvement of my dancing vocabulary [hip hop/salsa/etc….]. Now the problem in question is related to my ability to produce frictionless movements with my feet.

My limited wardrobe of shoes mostly consists of runners and dress shoes for work. Isolating runners in particular: although comfortable the problem with a typical running shoe is that the rubber sole on the bottom sticks to pretty much everything; that’s what they were designed for. You don’t want to be sliding around when you’re running on a track – you want good solid traction.  And despite my lack of fashion, jumping around in my dress shoes to a hip hop routine is not something that I am yet comfortable with.

So what do you do?

The typical/normal approach would probably be to run in to the store and pick up something that fits the requirement. I am sure the local footlocker salesman would be happy to sell me some hip hop swagger sneakers.

Refusing to conform to the social standards I took a different approach [I know, this is the battle that I choose to fight, really?]. I found an old pair of runners and dug up some masking tape. A few minutes later the combination of those two individual components evolved in to a completely new species of footwear.  The SLIDERS!

All I can say is: it works, it’s cheap and I feel pretty good about coming up with an out of a box solution to get what I want.

Cheers,
Max

Max Titov

Let’s talk about it

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I spend a considerable amount of time putting my thoughts down on paper but the majority of what I write never reaches the open public.

I write to friends. We exchange emails and do so often.

Although I find writing to be comforting I’ve struggled with the idea of getting my thoughts across in to the public domain.  There are many reasons why and it took me some time to figure out the majority of them.

And, no!  I don’t have it all figured out yet.

 

Vulnerability: Writing or any type of creativity requires some back-bone, some trust and the ability to be vulnerable with your audience.  It’s one thing to open up to your trusted friends [those few who’ve been with you through the though times and lived to tell the tale – or perhaps keep it to themselves]; it’s a complete different experience to throw yourself at the mercy of the public.

Everyone has an opinion and everyone has the right to speak their mind.  It does take a certain level of strength to be authentic, to speak your thoughts and to accept associated challenges.

 

You’re not a real writer and what you have to say doesn’t really matter: The dreadful self-ridiculing voice that keeps us at bay.  I try to focus on the positives but in the process I think I miss the opportunity to deal with the root problem.  If I am honest with myself: I think this impacts my struggle with putting my thoughts online.

High school and a single creative writing course in university were the only sources of formal exposure to writing curriculum that I had. The creative writing course was amazing but it wasn’t enough to sufficiently break through a formula/algorithm based discipline of Computer Science.

Public writing always took a back-seat to life.

Now that I realize this: I will try to be more proactive and address my fears directly.  Do the work: write, because you love it, forget the fears and move forward.

 

Who are you writing for? I haven’t fully figured that out yet.  And this might be the biggest road block that prevented me from moving forward.  What is the purpose?  Who will read this?  In this vast digital space who will actually take the time and what value will my words have?

I like to do things for a reason.

A big part of me is an extrovert  so I draw energy from communicating and sharing with others.  As a result: there’s a great fear that all of this is for nothing, that all of this is a waste of time and simply just another “whim” that I took on a spur of the moment.

Conclusion

My dear reader, my unknown confidant: what can I say? I am not quite sure where this will take me, but I’ll give it an honest try.  I’ll write for myself and I’ll write for you; hoping that somehow we can both find some meaning in the process.

 

Your’s truly,

Max