Second Week in September 2010

Oops, looks like I have a little catching up to do! Not only is this not really a big deal, it's pretty much expected that it would be this way. With Cowtown and the usual vacation after, it's been a while since I wasn't doing something else. So if this seems so four weeks ago, it's because it was. My apologies in advance if something important gets missed.

Monday was pretty slow, Tuesday started badly, I was told that because of a possible emergency that my vacation the following week might be canceled. I took the news like a trooper and team player, and said to let me know before I left work on Wednesday (it turned out to be a non-issue). When I got home from work I hurriedly cut the lawn and went to the first Blues dance lesson that Frank and Merinda were teaching.

Funny thing, yeah, I don't so much do my triples in swing, but when I try to take them out to do Blues, I end up doing them. Still it was interesting to try something new in dance forms. Swing moves are applicable, but the focus is on moving with the instruments, not the beat. This might be tough for me to learn, but I think worth it.

Wednesday was the start of vacation! Work did not mention anything about it being canceled, so I relaxed after work ... by grabbing Troy and the basketball, and headed out to the court. We played against some neighborhood kids. We played to eleven, and the score was tied at 6-6 until we ran out of steam. I wasn't aware at the time, but Troy got elbowed in the ribs pretty hard, so he was hurting.

Thursday was the start of Cowtown, and I messed around all day until I had to pick Steve Hwan up at the airport. We had already preplanned a photo safari. I thought Steve might want to get some pictures of something that would not be available in Los Angeles (Glendale). My two thoughts were the Platte River Pedestrian Bridge (a favorite of mine) and Boyer Chute. I think the views are more interesting from the Platte River Pedestrian Bridge, but there is always the chance of a Bald Eagle at Boyer Chute. After I picked up Steve, I described both and let him choose ... off to the Platte we went.

I swear I will jump off this cliff into the ocean way down there. I might sprain an ankle, or possibly get wet.


Steve is so gregarious, of course he made new friends right away.


There were certainly plenty of good shots available.


I'm not quite sure how these little sand piles were formed.

You can see all the pictures that I took there here. Steve and I went straight from there to the my house, then to the Cowtown Opening dance at Elmwood Park Pavilion featuring Big Sandy and His Fly Right Boys. The lighting was as bad as you might expect in the location, but the music and dancing were good.

It turns out there is no one actually named Big Sandy, who knew?


I believe I am trying to do the robot here.


Corinn did eventually come in.

You can see the rest of my welcome dance pictures here.

Friday morning came and I was up mostly early to get down to the Eagles Lodge to help Carol unload and set up the Mobile Carol's Closet. Of course, by the time I got there (3 minutes late) her, her mother, and Ben Peet had the van mostly unloaded. That's okay, there was still plenty to do. Most of the classes that I wanted to do were Friday, and what do I remember? Peter telling me "I didn't teach you to do that..." and also fixing my hand when I Balboa. We all went to lunch at the International Cafe, I had a lamb plate. I think it's funny how normally confident people occasionally get nervous when immersed in another culture. In the afternoon there were more classes, including a BalSwing class, I think I'm really going to work on getting the footwork into my muscle memory.

Something about a girl eating an apple is a picture I can't resist ... stupid snake.


Really, no caption is needed.

You can see the rest of the pictures I took from Friday classes here. I volunteered to 'work' dinner for the Jitterbugs. This consisted of driving Peter and Mia to Christy and Ryan's house for dinner.

I took garden pictures and people pictures.

You can see the rest of my dinner pictures here. After dinner Peter had me stop by a C-store so he could pick up some smokes. Of course, it's not cool that Peter or anyone smokes, but it was definitely cool to drive Peter around and pick his brain about art and dance. Eventually I ended up at the dance.

One of the hard part of having a camera hobby, taking pictures of my beautiful friends modeling vintage clothes.


I competed in the dance contest, with the usual results.


At least one person ... um ... creature liked my dancing.


I was fortunate enough to have Sarah nearby to take my pictures during the contest. Also thank you the organizers to put up good lighting.

You can see the rest of my pictures from the Friday dance here. After the JIVE volunteers cleaned up the upstairs, we all headed downstairs to the late night breakfast feed and dance.

This might be my favorite picture of Ben, he looks so happy.


Nothing says swing dance quite like a disco ball.

You can see the rest of my late night pictures here. Eventually, I slept. Saturday dawned, and I headed back to the Eagles for morning classes, or considering how long I slept in, morning class. After the class, we went to eat at Flavor's Indian restaurant, which no one where it was. It turned into a cluster, we got directions from someone who will remain nameless, it wasn't there. It turned out to be a couple blocks from the Eagle's lodge, but it took us :45 minutes to get there. I had goat. The rest of the afternoon passed without unexpected events.

How to put a little style into your dance.


Jillian had a little trouble with egress from Cecily's car.



Some dance class headshots.


If you're going to style, do it big!

You can see the rest of my Saturday day pictures here. After the classes, it was time for our latest installment of Mass Chaos. We chose a church that we could walk to from the Eagle's club, so Joe and I did just that. In between classes and the dance Frank, Joe, Steve, and I went out to dinner at Upstream. Steve bought, thank you. Then got ready for the Saturday night dance.

Omaha Ballet put on a demonstration from their October 3 "Swing, Swing, Swing" show.


Typical Steve, making funny faces and in the finals.


I'm still not sure what is going on here.


Mama's don't let your babies grow up to leave their cameras sitting around so just anyone can grab them and snap random photos.


Coach Bob Devaney and his star quarterback.


Isabel was cold, so I lent her my hoodie ... we might be different sizes.

You see the other 57 photos from the Saturday dance here. After the dance, I and the other JIVE members cleaned up, Maggie and I unsucessfully tried to get donuts from the Donut Stop, and then we headed over to the late night.

No doubt this is the thrill of Jillian's lifetime.


After all that dancing, you start to see things.


Probably a once in a lifetime photo, probably that's not such a bad thing.


I enjoyed this guys company, but frankly his dancing was a little stiff.


Lee is an antlerhead.


Kelley says "You're going to put Steve in this section twice, but me only once?

This was the latest I ever gotten home on a Cowtown Saturday night, 3:15am. I crawled into the sack and was out quickly, only to wake up and face more dancing ... Praise the Lord for that, unless you're a Southern Baptist. I actually did go to the classes, I actually thought about participating too. We went to lunch across the river at Alvarado's, good times, good times.

Megan's hair is really five feet long, okay, well maybe four. Really!


If these two are both smiling at the same time, something inappropriate is going on.


Ah yes, preparation for the annual corn eating contest.


I processed this one while on vacation, so I had lots of time to mess around

You can see the rest of my Sunday class pictures, including some that came out of discussion with Steve that was probably worth the price of Cowtown admission just to get picture tips from him, here. I went home and took another quick nap, then grabbed a footlong Subway sandwich, and headed to the venue, the Old Mattress Factory. In case you weren't keeping score, that was lamb, vegetarian lasagna, goat, fish, pollo asado, and a sub for my Cowtown meals, what does it mean? Probably nothing. First up, the corn eating contest. The corn eating contest, being what it is, kind of offends my sensibilities, so I can only imagine how someone like Cecily feels about it. I'm sure some people find it too objectionable to watch, it's kind of gluttonous ... and since we're already into one deadly sin, it's a matter of pride to me that I finished my first ear before Matt did.

This year, for the first time ever, there was a junior division.


Joe ate exactly one kernel.


Our mothers are just so proud of us boys.

You can see the rest of my pictures from the Corn Eating Contest here. Once again an instructor, Andrew, finished first, Matt second, and Vivian third. The weirdest part of the corn eating contest is that three minutes after the finish of the contest, you are hungry again.

Sarah and her new haircut are going to rule the air.


Steve almost cooperated with the pink hat ... almost.



I took this very nice sequence of Maggie.


The Grand Marquis was the band, dang they're good.


I don't think anything was going on here, but it sure looks suspicious.


Why, it's a (dancing) reenactment of Katie's Facebook profile picture.


Too cool for my camera!


...and the last picture of the weekend, at least it was a good one.

You can see the rest of my Cowtown Sunday dance pictures here. All my Cowtown photos can be found here, I believe there are 538 of them. Jillian's Cowtown photos are here, Matt's can be found here. Lisa and many, many others have posted pictures to Facebook.

And thus wraps up another Cowtown Jamborama, I think I'm getting good at these things. There sure are a lot of super nice swing dancers in the world, even the ones that I disagree with I really like.

P.S.: I'm only four weekly postings behind. This one was started on 9/14, and posted on 10/14 ... good job.

First Week in September 2010

Monday was a holiday off, yeah! Last Monday holiday I had to work. It wasn't just any holiday it was also Kimee's 15th birthday, so the whole days was hers. First trip was to the pedestrian bridge over the Platte River. We drove to the south end of the trail and walked across to the north. When I left the house I checked the National Weather Service site and they said there wasn't a significant chance of rain, of course when we got as far away from the car(s) as we were going to get ... lightening!

Sunny skies on the south end of the bridge...


...and at the north end? Stormy skies.


Erin says "why didn't you tell me not to wear jeans?" Maggie says "leave your cell phone on the shore." The water was cool and surprisingly fast.


Kamber thinks it's funny when I fall on my butt.


Don't be scared Kamber the storm won't get you, I know this because it didn't.


Eventually we made our way back to the cars and lunch, then we got a visitor ... Kasee wants a pony, but didn't want to pet this horse. One thing is for sure, she (the horse) knew what baby carrots were.

You can see the rest of my pictures from the adventure here. Here is my reimagined story of the trip:

After a trip of several days via caravan, then several tens of miles of walking through trecherous terrain, we arrived at our destination. CJ could barely stand from some sort of virus he had picked up from the natives, and Kasee was still bleeding profusely from the arrow she had taken in the ankle. Still, it was a beautiful day as we began to cross the river, when a sudden storm came up and nearly blew us of the rickety bridge. We somehow crawled to the end of the bridge and took little shelter under a ledge. As quick as the storm came up, it went away and we wandered along the dry riverbed looking for Inca gold and stupid boys and their ATVs. We didn't notice the river had swollen until it nearly carried us away, Erin's expensive clothes were all but ruined, and our native guide and equipment manager, Maggie McGravy nearly lost all of our expensive equipment. Fortunately, we all survived. On the way back we had to navigate through piles of dead bodies until a magical girl on a unicorn transported us back to the camp and fed us lunch.

Here is Maggie's reimagined story of the trip:

ok.. here comes the story of a lifetime!
it was kimees 15th birthday so we decided to take an ADVENTURE! after we loaded our life saving equipment into the vehicles, we started our journey. once we arrived at the Platte we hiked a long and tedious trail to the bridge. when we got to the bridge the clouds started to look quite peculiar. in the distance we saw massive flashes on lightening and the thunder was so loud the bridge shook! we managed to cross over without losing anyone over the side. but all of a sudden cj got horrible stomach pains! we thought we were going to have to call the life flight people to come take him away. we were lucky to have shannon with us because she used her magical nursing powers to heal cj. while cj was being cured me kim erin kamber kasee and eric had to take shelter under the bridge to keep away from the weather. the winds got as high as 170mph, which started to create huge waves on the river! we were all scared for our lives!!! BUT out of nowhere the winds started going down and the clouds started to float away and out came Gods Fingers shinning down on us :) we were all enlightened by the sight. then shannon and cj came back good as new. since the weather was now cooperating we went onto the sand bars. we were all laughing and having a great time when all of a sudden me kim and erin were walking across, what we thought was shallow water, and erin and i were sucked in by a massive whirlpool! everyone else was frantic with fear, looking for their hopelessly lost amazing friends. but then out of now were erin and i were spewed out of the water and safely on the sand. everyone cheered with joy! but what everyone didnt know was tht i had my brand new ipad in my purse. when i landed i jumped up as quick as i could to make sure my precious technology was ok which it was, im thanking the God Fingers for tht one :) then after we had enough water fun we started to head back to the car. it was very uncomfortable for me and erin because our clothes were all wet so erin rolled down the bridge to dry off..fail on her part! BUT i felt some pain and to my astonishment i had a flesh eating disease eating away at my legs (which went away when we got back home)! and to top it all off kimee had a pounding headache. we were almost back to the car when shannon and eric noticed a disgusting cluster of maggots across the road. they looked around to see where the maggots were coming from and they found a dead body! no one knew wat to do! but we decided to leave it as is and continue on with our merry way. then when we were back at the car we were eating our delicious lunches and we were interrupted by a local girl riding her horse..bareback. we chatted with the girl and her horse. but after she left she came back with what seemed to be her mother and her horse. we said hello again and surprisingly they trotted on by and flew away on their horses into the sky. then after experiencing our wild day of adventures we decided to head home, and we all lived happily ever after!

what a fun day tht was :)

Kamber too has a reimagined version:

So it was Kim's fifteenth birthday and boy what a day it was. It seemed like alovely day so we decided to take a trip down top the Platte River. The skies were clear, the birds were chirpping, and there was a gentle breeze. We drove in two seperate cars. Maggie, Kim, Eric, and I were all in one car while Shannon, Kamber, CJ, And Kasee were all in another.
When we were turning into the state park, there was a street sign that said Kimberly st. While we all knew it was spelled wrong, there was nothing we could do about it (without a Sharpie anyway). We walked al the way over the river and through the woods to the river. We got there when all of a sudden there way hurricane type weather blew in from out of nowhere. Now this was very odd because, if you did not already know we live in the middle of the USA, nowhere near a flipping ocean.
Lightning and 200 mile an hour winds were present. Still being the smart people that we are, we went out in the river. Quicksand is everywhere when you are at the Platte, so we almost sunk completely under at least a hundred times.
Kim, Maggie, and I also decided that we should see how far out into the river we could get, when all of a sudden giant electric eels came out of thin air and tried to make Maggie and I drown. For some unkown reason, they let us go although one of them had Maggie's phone in it's mouth. I wrestled around with the this eel to get her phone because she had just received a very important text from Jason asking her to be his disney princess. Naturally, she said yes after I retrieved her phone so we had to head back so she could marry Jason.
After we went over the bridge and through the woods, we found this mysterious trail of maggots. Again, using our brains, we followed the trail, where we found a rotten, half-eaten corpse. It was too far disfigured to tell how long the person had been dead, but Kim refused to call the police because well... she's just mean like that.
Eventually we had to stop to eat lunch, and while we were setting up a white horse came running by. Kim jumped up on it's back and rode away into the sunset where hse met her prince charming, who happened to be named Westley.

When we got back to the house Shannon, me, Kamber, and Kasee tried to nap together on the couch. Four bodies, one small space. Yeah, that didn't work for sleep. Later on it was time for Kimee's birthday dinner, she picked Runza. The dinner was exactly what I expect from Runza. After we ate, we went out into the playland.

It was the first chilly night since the start of the summer, and some people can wear shirts as dresses.


Rachel got all artsy on us.


Ally went zooming down the slide at 88 mph.


A picture even Shannon can't complain about.


The birthday girl gives her smiling approval to the days events.

When we got back to the house, we put in Princess Bride and watched it. I got the rest of the pictures here.

Tuesday was supposed to the first Thriller Dance practice, but I got stuck in front of the computer for my third and final Fantasy Football draft. For the third time out of three I had major computer issues that caused part of my draft to be automated, so I didn't end up getting exactly the players I wanted. Also I drafted last in two leagues. I've played in six leagues over four years and I'm even money, considering the tremendous amount of entertainment I get out of it, that's a bargain.

Wednesday was a dull day and I stayed home, but Thursday was a bonus dance courtesy of the Creighton Swing Society.

I figure the top of Katie's head is about 7'10" or so in this picture.


Everyone in the group did a jump pose, sans me, and timing wasn't perfect.

I only took about 30 pictures, you can find them here. Friday was also a dance night, and then on Saturday, two more dances. The first one was a dance / street festival at First United Methodist Church, which, unfortunately for them, coincided with the first Husker game of the season.

It wasn't just swing dancing going on. You've seen this group on my pictures before.


We did dance... Photo credit: Matt



...but there was plenty of goofing off to go around... Bottom left photo credit: Matt


...including fun with perspective.

You can see all of my pictures here and Matt has a collection too, they are here. After I left there, I went home, and then over to another neighborhood dance that I had been invited to by Lindsay. There weren't a whole lot of pictures taken due to declining light, but there are a couple super cute ones in here. After we left there, Merinda, Nate, and I ate at Goldberg's. I then went over to Shannon's and hung out for a while, then home.

Sunday was the Bears first game and let's just say that it was a victory, but not a satisfying one. I was a little wound up at the Bears coach for not kicking that field goal, if he had, the "drop" in the endzone would not have been an issue later, because it would not have affected the outcome of the game.

The only other thing that happened was a late night Mass Chaos on campus at Creighton University.

Next week is Cowtown Jamborama, I'm sure it will take forever to get my pictures up ... since I'll be in Chicago all week.

August / September Bridge Week 2010

Monday dawned, and also slowly dawned on me that I was not just 'normally' sore from the festivities on Saturday, I had something else going on. It was a lot of muscle soreness to the point I felt like I couldn't walk. Tuesday morning I had a pretty good fever going so I stayed home. I ended up going over to Stacy's birthday party for just a little while, but no pictures, I probably looked like heck.

Wednesday was my interview for a new position at my current employer. It was a pretty intensive interview. It's not one of those overnight things, it might take a while to find out about.

I am in three Fantasy Football leagues this year, and my first draft was on Thursday night. This one was a 'bragging rights' league with coworkers. I had technical problems when I did the draft, but mostly got who I wanted.

Friday I went to the Jitterbugs dance.

Saturday I had nothing planned, but there was a general idea of the Zoo with Shannon and the kids. Well one sick kid later, the plan morphed into a visit to the wildlife safari with the three girls.

I know it's bad quality, out of focus, and overexposed, but I love this picture.



There was the usual collection of lions and tigers and bears ... oh my, that's not it at all.


MMMOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!

Kamber and I took a bunch of pictures, go figure, you can see them all here. Once we got back to Shannon's I messed around with the camera.

You can pretty much guess as to whether or not Kamber likes it.

Sunday was an early in the morning Mass Chaos in Springfield. Afterwards we had breakfast at Wheatfield's in Papillion. In the afternoon was the second of my fantasy football drafts, there were technical glitches. In the evening several us met at Kaleb's to play Arkham Horror using the Kingsport Horror and Lurker at the Door expansions. We played twice and won both times.

Fourth Week in August 2010

Monday I worked late trying to catch up, and Tuesday was the same. Work has all of a sudden become 40% busier, and I'm working a little late many nights. No real rhyme or reason to the increase. It's good to be busy at work.

Wednesday Troy and I went to see the Rush concert. In trying to remember the last big concert I was at, it was probably Rascal Flatts at Westfair, probably in 2002 or 2003, so it's been a while, but concerts haven't changed much. As much as I loved Rush in my teens and early 20's, I never saw them. The show was pretty long, although it included a break in the middle. Geddy can't quite hit the high notes like he used to, but the band could definitely play. I took some very typical concert pictures with my iPhone, if you are interested, you can see my pictures here.

Thursday after work I went down to meet the Shannon and the kids at the park. Unfortunately, there was only about :30 minutes worth of light once I got there. We still had a good time.

Friday I got my plates renewed during lunch. No matter what people might complain about this in the Omaha area, :15 minutes and $100 beats the heck out of what it was like in Chicago. Friday evening I went to Jitterbugs Night Out. Matt had his birthday jam.

Saturday was a very busy day. Matt was celebrating his birthday with several events. I could only bookend the events because I had Mass Chaos in the middle. The beginning event was at FunPlex and messing around in the water all afternoon. Matt has a waterproof camera, so he did all the picture taking.

Here I am pointing at Vivian. Why, I don't know. Photo credit: Matt


No, this isn't an action shot, it's more of an inaction shot. A bunch of people had trouble in that spot. Photo credit: Matt


I don't know why people think I'm a troublemaker, I was peacefully walking down the lazy river when Vivian overturned on her tube and knocked me over! Photo credit: Matt


Matt, me, and John did handstands underwater. Photo credit: Matt


Suddenly a three headed monster appeared and confused Jon. Photo credit: Matt


We all got pretty worn out after three hours of playing, or at least I was. Photo credit: Matt

Immediately after swimming I went off to Mass Chaos at Saint Leo's and their Young Adult group kick off event. We played kickball and ate a lot of food. I then went over to Kimee's birthday party, we danced!

Finally I went back to Matt and Viv's house, arriving before the party broke up, in fact, we goofed off for several more hours. This involved the first extended conversation I've had with VK in a half a year, that felt good. The evening ended with Me, Matt, Vivian, Mark, Lisa, and Jenny sitting around with a can of whipped cream and goofy conversation. I love my friends. If you'd like to see all of Matt's pictures from his birthday, you can see them here.

Sunday began with another episode of Mass Chaos, followed by lunch at Don and Millie's. Sunday afternoon was lazy and sore. Sunday evening we had a birthday dinner for Troy and Ben at P.F. Chang's and then drinks at Fox and Hound.