meta-roj

i thought a little self-aggrandizement was in order…

you can see original performance photography in two new places….

dianna, duchess of dance and people’s choice winner in the 2003 east coast belly dance classic competition.

and…

raqs sahara, the professional performance troupe under the direction of rachel kay brookmire.

dianna and rachel are both amazing performers and gracious people. go see them.

call me crazy, call me lazy, call me stupid, but tonight, i finally put two horn sections together in my head.

from jackie brenston and the delta cats (featuring ike turner) “rocket 88” (1951) and buckaroo banzai and the hong kong cavaliers (1984).

*ding*

just a brief note for anyone who hasn’t heard from me lately.

i had a drive fail (western digital wd1000jb) a few days ago, and while i didn’t lose any “stored data” – it’s very likely that i lost about 12 hours of email.

anyway, i’ve been working through the recovery process (and using the event as an excuse to clean a few things up and get reorganized a bit, but today (as you can probably see from the content here on the blog), i’m mostly back in business.

i now return you to your normally scheduled net.

every day.

i probably should’ve said something sooner, but… well, it’s not going anywhere.

a short while ago, i updated the dance portfolio on my performance photography pages.

if you’d like to see some incredible performers (their pages are always linked from their images if i know they have a site), come check them out.

this evening, as i was sitting down to enjoy my traditional “rice with junk on it” dinner, and with the sun slowly setting outside my window, i heard an altercation on the street in front of my house.

through glass, and over the sound of a tv flipping channels, i think i heard someone say “and don’t you dare tell your mom i said that” or something to that effect.

so, i poked my nose out the front door, and found a 20-something contractor who was paving a neighbor’s driveway all afternoon shouting down a 7- or 8-year old kid on a bike. and when he noticed i’d noticed, he got relatively quiet and the kid made his escape.

a short while later, i decided to pick up the papers and check the mail and such – an excuse that would bring me within 30 or so feet of the scene of the altercation. the guy approached me, and asked it if was my kid (it’s not – and i’ve only seen him on the street and i’m not entirely sure which house he belongs to – which is very different than my experience as an 8-year-old, but i digress).

the guy then claimed the kid was out of control and had used inappropriate language with him… now, here’s where the tarnish on my armor shows up. i smelled bullshit, but i didn’t call bullshit. i just said i didn’t know the kid, and only heard the noise.

i don’t know which door to knock on to find out the kid’s side of the story, but nobody has any business dressing down an 8-year old – and if i did hear what i think i heard – telling them not to tell their parents – that’s way over the line.

but i folded at “you’re being watched, don’t do anything stupid.” this was certainly the easy way out. the kid’s safe, the contractors are gone. but was any harm done? i dunno. and i feel like i should.

i am so very not qualified.

no matter what joi says

(he graciously left out all the python references i missed)

i’m apparently not the only one suffering strange bursty behavior with email.

this has been a bad week for computer things – it seems that since isabel came through town things just haven’t been “quite right” – but i’m having a horrible time keeping email timely. i actually sent out a message to several people with whom i had ongoing or pending material in email, just to make sure i didn’t lose anything with isabel (and things were lost). the trouble may be a bit broader than isabel and power failures, so, i apologize to anyone i’ve left hanging.

akma reports something similar happening there.

this is odd.

ah, isabel… (what a namesake, but that’s a different story)

isabel knocked down a small tree, and, after most of the storm had passed, and i was feeling a bit confident, we lost power.

so, everyone has survived, with the possible exception of some of the neighborhood wildlife (seem to be missing some squirrels – that might be imporant to some readers).

cleanup isn’t so bad, just time-consuming, and obviously the power is back, so i have much catching up to do.