DanceNet: Editorials from July, 2003.
Many thanks to Tony & Aurelie Tye who invited me back to attend the live music dances of the weeklong Beantown Lindy Hop Camp. I only attended the weekend event but I got a glimpse of many of the things I missed from the weeklong event.
Richard Badu's and Ryan Francois' "Shorty George" skit during the "Broadway Night" event.
The integration of the resident band, Peter Davis and Lindy Hop Heaven, into many of the classes.
The afternoon barbecue and games.
A lindy hop demonstration by Ryan Francois & Jenny Thomas and Kenneth & Helena Norbelie...at Balboa tempos.
Michael Francois, son of Ryan & Jenny, take over the dance floor for a personal dance jam.
The ice cream party on both Saturdays.
A Tandem Balboa by the French contingent (one guy and two women). A lot of people stopped dancing to watch that.
There's so much more that I didn't hear about. I'm hoping to get together with Tony & Aurelie to talk about Beantown. Perhaps that will get more of the weekend attendees (including myself) and perhaps some of the people didn't attend at all to consider spending our summer vacation time at Beantown in 2004.
All talked out...nothing new this week.
In your "Dance Calendar" listings in both West of Boston and Western Massachusetts, you list "Boston Tea Party, Sheraton Ferncroft Hotel, Danvers, MA" in both March 2004 & March 2005. Danvers is basically North Shore/North of Boston. I wonder if these 2 events should be listed in your "Dance Calendar" for these 2 geographical areas of Massachusetts.
Actually, the Boston Tea Party is a regional event so it's listed in the calendars for all the New England states, just like Summer Hummer, Beantown Lindy Hop Camp, Swing Out New Hampshire, and other events where people from other states might drive up. If I feel motivated, I'll add those events to the calendars for states as far as Virginia.
Note that for the Boston Calendar, I will also try to remember to include listings for those DanceNet Sponsors who offer live music for dancing. One, I don't believe the average person will drive a couple of hours for a dj dance but they might do so to hear a particular band, and two, there's an advantage to being a sponsor of this website.
One more thing, if the rest of you dance promoters haven't figured it out yet, the earlier you send me your information, the more likely I'll get around to typing it in on this website AND the longer it's visible on this website. I was busy since before Beantown and some information expired before I got around to entering it.
P.S.: On the other hand, since it's my website and I'm the only one working on it, I could include my yardsale on the calendar if I really wanted to do that.
Sometimes it just amazes me by watching the extent to which some people will be lazy. I've written about the rather minor issue of people leaving shopping carts in parking lots where they'll interfere with the ability of others to park. (yes, in the big picture of world hunger, war, and evil, it's not a big deal.) I was watching someone dump their cart right where they had put it to load their van (between their van and another car). They then had to back out *slowly* to avoid hitting the cart with their own vehicle. They were too lazy to move the cart out of their *own* way.
Another guy loaded up his SUV and *then* looked around to make sure no one was watching him so that he could leave his shopping cart in the lot instead of rolling the cart to the collection point not all that far away. Now, the thing that *really* bugs me about this is that these people are teaching the next generation of kids that it's okay to be lazy and inconsiderate as long as there is no chance of getting caught and getting punished.
In my last two jobs, I worked as a field engineer working at customer sites around the country to get them up and running. When solving problems, it was considered a very good talent to not assume that the customer was an idiot and to make sure all *possible* questions were asked.
I have a friend who just got DirectTV recently because he could get "JadeWorld", a group of Chinese movie and news channels. At some point, the Chinese channels would "flicker" and at certain hours the channels would go away (absolutely no signal). Of course, those hours were after normal working hours so the channels would be working when a technician was available. Logic indicated that the problem had to be either the external receiver dish or the satellite (since the local channels worked and they came off a different satellite and different transponders). The technician who showed up saw that the stations were working and just assumed that the customer didn't know what he was doing so the technician just spent the time teaching the customer how to use the remote; he didn't get on the ladder to check the alignment on the satellite dish as indicated on the work order. I got a call the next day from DirectTV and the customer support representative told me that it had been a problem with the satellite after all.
Oh yes, I found it amusing that the person on the phone told me that someone had gone up to the satellite and fixed it, as if it were a normal task like someone fixing a transformer on a utility pole. I have to wonder if they really believed this or if they just made up the story to make the customer happy. It only costs a few hundred million (or more) to launch someone into orbit and a satellite in geo-synchronous orbit is really too far up to be reached by any "technician" (definitely too far for the space shuttle).