Ballroom Dancing–The Bolero

We went dancing tonight, and had our normal lesson at Fred Astaire with Lorenzo, but then stayed for a Bolero Class with Jason. Wow, that’s a very cool dance! It was our first lesson dedicated to that dance, but we learned a lot (relatively speaking). Jason is also a very good instructor, working not only on steps, but on form and techinique. We had a blast!

It makes such a big difference to take notes right after classes when it is still fresh in your head, and then to go home and practice a day or two later. You won’t remember everything perfectly, but the notes definitely help refresh your memory. I have developed my own ‘engineering style’ short-hand to diagram the steps, and I can usually understand my chickenscratch later on.

Regards,
Dave from Charlotte

Child Saftey-Baby Gates, Ballroom Dancing

(Dave blogging)
We had a Kidco Configure Gate-80 from back in the “old days” in the apartment (2000-2001), and it was built so well and worked so well we lugged it around with us for several years, thinking we’d use it again somewhere. We did use it a bit in our current house around late 2004-early 2005, while it was under re-construction. I set it up across a couple of 2-by-6 forms I threw together from scraps so it wouldn’t damage the wood in the living room entry. This kept the kiddies in the ‘safer’ non-construction area when we would visit the construction site.

Well, we have an exercise machine in the bonus room, and the kids will hear me on it and come in to inspect my agonizing plight. The older ones are probably OK, but there are some moving parts that look like they’d be horrific finger-chewers if the younger tykes got too close. So I’ve been thinking of a way to create a non-permanent barrier to give me just a foot or two clearance from the machine. I finally pulled out the old baby gate and measured it off…UGH! (an interjection) it was about 5-6′ too short. So I examined it for clues to its model and manufacture and hopped on the web. I wound up buying a second 6′ G80 gate, plus a 24″ extension (which I wasn’t positive I needed, but did not want to go drilling holes in the wall and then coming up short–it was a worth guess, I needed it.). It’s a pretty easy thing to use and connect (although I think I remember being a little confused as to which way to hang the wall-connectors last time), and it works well. I had the think up in under 45′, despite having to tinker a bit and realize I needed to remove a section to make it all work. Anyway, I am much more content knowing the little ones will not be getting at any flywheels or shredders while I am working out. Here’s the manufacturer’s information link, if you are interested:

KidCo Products

You can purchase it through Amazon.com or other vendors. I think their other products look pretty solid as well. I’ve seen other makers’ baby gates, and they look pretty flimsy. KidCo’s have been good and solid with attention to detail in design.

So, we installed the gate, and danced with abandon (after the kiddies were down for bed, mind you). We’ve been working on Rumba and Cha-Cha tonight, but worked on Foxtrot, Waltz, Tango, and Rumba on Monday with Lorenzo from the Fred Astaire Dance Studio on Sharon Amity Road near Independence. He’s an outstanding instructor, although we do miss our regular instructor, Mickie, as she recovers from foot surgery.

I will say one thing: I mentioned in an earlier blog that the “triple dance practice” (we play the same song three times in a row) may be too long to practice one type of dance–this is not true when the children are in the room. We are trying to train them to sit and read or play quietly while we practice dancing. It did not work too well tonight, so three songs was about what it took to practice a few moves for each style. It also did not work too well a couple of weeks ago when our babysitter got a flat tire and we had to take the kids with us for a lesson. After that, we determined we’d train them to put up with us practicing for 30 minutes. Progress is slow, but sometimes you can only expect small miracles from day to day.

I know it can be done. I have trained #5 (at one year old) to be able to sit on my lap while I work on the keyboard and not touch it. It takes about 3 days, with a 1-hour session each day. I sat her on my lap without worrying how much typing I actually got done. I was more focused on watching her, and gently putting her hands in her lap and saying “no” each time she reached for the keyboard or mouse, and giving her a “good girl” praise each time she controlled herself and did not touch the keyboard (placing her hands on the desk, or just plain whiffing). She really responded rapidly and well, although she still needs one or two rounds of “no” and “good girl” each new time I put her on my lap in front of the computer. I didn’t think it was going to work at first, but then Robyn challenged me by telling me how her girlfriend did it in 3 days–she knows I am a sucker for a challenge.

So I just hope I am up to the challenge of training 5 at once to restrain themselves from wreaking total havoc for 30 minutes while we dance…

Dancing from Charlotte

Charlotte Knights, Home Depot Workshop

(Dave blogging)

Well, it was a fun and busy weekend.  Took the older three children to Home Depot on Saturday AM and made wooden birdhouses with them at the Kid’s Workshop.  That was fun, except we accidentally nailed #2′s together with the front facing inward, so there was nowhere to put the birds’ landing peg.  Still fun nonetheless.  We’ll paint and lacquer tehm later in the week.

Took the whole family to the Charlotte Knights game Saturday PM against the Richmond Braves (we were married in Richmond).  Even though we made sure all the kiddies got good naps (#5 got THREE naps on Saturday to prepare for the game), we did not make it past the seventh inning stretch.  Still, it was fun for all.  It was “pink shirt” night in support of Breast Cancer Prevention.  So that was worthwhile. 

 Painted some mini-pumpkins with the kiddies today, and will polyurethane them tomorrow to improve longevity.  Also painted a wooden model biplane with #2, and pencil cases with #2 and #3.  #4 started her first project at age 2, going on 20:  a double-decker birdhouse.  Not sure she knows what she’s making, but she sure had fun going at it with a paintbrush.

 Went ballroom dancing tonight with Robyn.  Worked on Tango and Rumba, and practiced some elements of Foxtrot and Waltz on our own as well.  In the process of re-writing and reorganizing our ballroom notebook so we can figure out what in the world we are doing.  Had to create our own shorthand to diagram the steps.  Got the stereo and PC working in the bonus room so now we practice up there at home after the kids go to bed.  That helps a lot.  I created separate playlists for each style of dance, after looking up lists of songs for each style on the web, and ripping many from my old CD collections.  You would not believe how many popular rock and roll tunes can be danced with ballroom steps. 

Also made a ballroom ‘mixer’ playlist and a ‘triple practice’ playlist where I line up three songs in a row from each style.  We are finding at this point that we usually run out of different elements to practice after one song each, but hopefully our repertoire will grow in time.

 I’ve got more to write, but need to turn in soon.  I’ll write more if I am still sleepless later on.

Regards,

Dave from Charlotte 

Children and Computers (part 2), and Ballroom Dance

Well, #3 child (3 year-old) finished both School Zone CD’s at the Pre-school level, and started the Kindergarden one. He is pretty funny as he laughs his way through the thing. Second day of school was good. They spent half a day doing missionary work with Robyn, and still completed a whole day of classes this afternoon before dinner.

I have a couple of old Dell Dimension desktops that I play around with. I have one that has its primary system drive in a hard-drive drawer so I can swap hard drives and boot with W98, XP or Linux. I swap in the W98 drive when my dad or Robyn’s mom visit. They are used to it, but both are horrible about downloading stuff (including viruses) and crashing the system. I got tired of having to “re-tread” the thing over and over, so I finally gave them the drive but told them I can’t afford to spend hours or days to keep recovering it for them. If they crash it, it is up to them to fix it or go without it. It seems harsh, but visitors to your home do not have a God-given right to access your personal computer. It seems to have some positive results: my dad now brings his laptop when he visits and I get him on the wireless network. He seems happy with that. Ma still struggles with the old W98 machine but has not crashed my important systems (work, finance, etc.) since I did that.

Anyway, the point being is that when they are not here I slap in the XP drive and move the machine to the bonus room. I hook it to my exercise machine and have ripped a bunch of my old CDs to the secondary drive. Then I can choose to work out with headphones (when the kids are sleeping) or hook it to the stereo and play it out loud as I work out. Robyn and I also practiced some ballroom dancing up there tonight. That was great fun. It has taken me a while to map out to different playlists which songs are Rumba, Foxtrot, Waltz, etc. But now we are on a roll. I have an inexpensive credit-card sized remote that I slip into my pocket, and when we want to move on to another song or another type of music I just hit the button.

But I will say, it still is a bit easier ripping with the MacMini, which I have hooked up to my system downstairs. I am thinking the next upgrade will also be a MacMini, so I can transfer music files with an iPod. However, I found a great way to transfer my entire photo album (over 15,000 pictures) from the PC to the Mac. I also put a hard drive drawer into a Belkin external USB 2.0 drive enclosure. I just downloaded the files to a spare old hard drive (remember, I had lots of crashed ones from Dad and Ma) via the external enclosure and moved it over to the Mac. That helps a lot, since I have not mastered the networking between the Mac and PC platforms. I can access the PC platform on the Mac (bootcamp), and sometimes can see the Mac from the PC, and the PC from the Mac, but I cannot seem to transfer files back and forth.

Enough tech stuff. I thought this would help me get to sleep, but it has not worked so far. I think I’ll try reading a book.

Sayonara. Hajimemashite.
Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru.
(Even dust, if accummulated, will become a mountain)
P.S. No, I do not speak Japanese. I studied it briefly in college and forgot evrything. I have a sister-in-law from Japan who takes good-natured delight in pronouncing my name Dee-bu-o, rather than De-bu-o (her pronunciation lightheartedly means “one who is fat”, not too inaccurate these days). I pillaged the quote from a website of Japanese sayings:

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=899788&lastnode_id=0

which is worth looking at if you enjoy such things. Does anyone know how to make a link active?
-Dave in Charlotte, NC