08 Jul

I’m Back

I’m back! And I found out that people actually read this and miss it when I’m gone! Wow!

So where did I go? It was all square dance related, so it’s fair game for this weblog (BTW, here’s another meta article on weblogging in general: The Blogging Revolution).

First, I went to the National Advanced and Challenge Convention in Milwaukee. Maybe it was because this was the last one, but this was probably the best one I’ve been to (I think I’ve been to four or five, so it’s not like I’m a long-time attendee or anything). The facility was good for our purposes: convenient to the airport, all the floors in the hotel, good (almost excessive) air conditioning, and no local area distractions (i.e., temptations to do something other than dance). I did get out with a party of folks one night, and happened to stumble into one of Milwaukee’s legendary german restaurants. Little did we know, as we wandered through the streets of downtown Milwaukee, and were rejected by an English restaurant (Grenadier’s) because we didn’t conform to their dress code (we weren’t conforming to square dance dress code either), that we would end up in a place that’s “consistently voted Milwaukeeans’ favorite restaurant,” Karl Ratzsch’s.

I was fortunate enough to be able to dance C3A with Steffen Mauring, the organizer of the biennial iPac European Plus, Advanced, and Challenge convention. Since I just learned the level in one weekend and hadn’t danced it since, I was pretty terrified. However, folks were kind and put up with my lack of floor time. I have to say that it’s fun to be dancing “on the edge” again.

After Milwaukee, I went home for a couple of days and then took off for two weeks in Baltimore for the 49th Annual National Square Dance Convention, the Gay Callers Association callers school, and Crack the Crab, the IAGSDC convention.

More on Baltimore tomorrow.

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