I had a surreal moment on Saturday afternoon. I can’t say it changed my life, but it certainly made me take stock. As you may know, the NY Times has taken some interest in my little Altoids iPod Battery pack project, which, I can only imagine, is about to open some doors for me. The NY Times is the most recent in a long list of media coverage that is just about started. As you may also know, G4 TechTV’s The Screensavers did a feature on the battery pack a few weeks ago. It will be appearing in the March issue of Popular Mechanics, and the February issue of MacWorld magazines. That’s all in addition to web press such as forbes.com, boingboing, hackaday, engadget, etc. It’s hard to know how to feel about all this, but let me tell this short story to start.

Two weeks ago I was emailed by NY Times reporter requesting to do an interview with me about the battery pack. I agreed, of course, even though all the attention this project is getting seems ridiculous to me. We did short phone interview a few days later where I explained, as I have explained to everyone who has asked me about it, that Drew Perry did all the inventing, and all I did was put it all in an Altoids tin, and even that wasn’t original because I have since found a guy who did it before me. Lucky me, I guess. I explained to the journalist that am not a real “electrical engineering guy”, that I don’t know what “ohms” are, and I just think Altoids tins are a great little storage box. I’d squeeze a playstation in there if I thought it could fit. I explained that I don’t normally solder as a hobby, and that web development is really “my thing.” But none of that mattered. He ate all up and asked for photos. I provided what I have in 4 megapixel resolution the next afternoon.

I guess it wasn’t enough, because early last week I was contacted by the photo editor, who asked if it would be OK to send a photographer to my house to get some pictures of the battery pack. I explained that it would be fine, but since I had FedEx’ed both of my other versions to various other news outlets, I had nothing to take pictures of. I would need a few days to whip out another one. He insisted I not whip out another one until the photographer arrived and could document the whole process. Jesus. I scheduled Saturday at 1pm.

The whole thing made me nervous. What if I messed up the dremel hole? What if I crossed the wires? What if it didn’t work? I was so nervous, that I broke down and simply built it the night before. It took and hour and a half, and I didn’t care how disappointed the NY Times would be on Saturday.

Saturday rolls around, and an older, Vietnamese photographer shows up promptly at 1pm. After 45 minutes or so of difficult macro photography, we start to talk about things. He asks about the project a little bit. My roommate and I ask about his cameras and his life. And then the most extraordinary thing happened, aside from the fact the he was standing in my dining room in the first place. He explained who he was…

This mild mannered photographer was Dith Pran, the famous Cambodian refuge, who is the subject of the film The Killing Fields. He has been working for the NY Times ever since he escaped the prison camps of Cambodia. He is an amazing man, who has seen just about everything, pain, death, war, prison… 50 members of his family were killed during the conflict. His whole family, in fact, save him and his one sister. Everyone, his whole life was taken away, yet he persisted, eventually to NY, as a photographer for the most well-known newspaper on the planet. (read this short interview with Brian Williams at MSNBC.) He has compiled a book of stories from 29 other survivors to make sure that nobody ever forgets the 2 million Cambodians who were killed during that attempted genocide, Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors. Now there is also a book about his life, written by his friend, Sydney Schanberg, The Death and Life of Dith Pran.

I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed, as I held the backdrop up behind an Altoids tin, as he stood in his socks (he removed his shoes when entered as to not soil my carpet) on his tippy-toes on one of my Design Within Reach dining room chairs, straining to get the framing just right right to take a photograph of an ALTOIDS TIN that I hooked 3 batteries up to with 4 wires. This man, who has seen everything, who has a foundation to make the world aware of the holocaust in Cambodia, who was part of the holocaust and nearly eliminated, who has a film about his life, and a book about his life, who has done something, everything with his life, was taking a picture of my Altoids tins.

There was no pride, only embarrassment, which grew as he talked me into taking pictures of me hold the battery pack, building the battery pack, smiling at the battery pack… for the next 2 hours. He photographed me, and made me feel comfortable, and made me smile, and laugh, and became my friend. He explained to me that this story would be this coming Thursday’s Circuit section’s front page, and that this was a “big” story, and that I was “very smart”. And my friend made me embarrassed with his compliments.

And when he left, I bowed to him, and held my head low, as pride and humility battled their way through my head as I dialed my father’s phone number. It wasn’t until hours later and many clicks on many Google results that I understand exactly who Dith Pran was, and what he had done, and the feeling got worse, and better, at the same time.

So I justify the whole thing in my head like this: I didn’t invent anything. I don’t know anything. I didn’t DO anything. I assembled a silly battery pack. But somehow, somewhere, somebody was interested enough to send this amazing man to me, and in a small way, he has changed my life. For that, and only that, I am thankful. Dith Pran, my new friend, thank you for reminding me that there are way more important things in life than advertising, and websites, and press coverage, and solder, and iPods, and Altoids.