Danceable Feast contra dance weekend

 

 

Wild Asparagus, in concert

I just had a wonderful time at the Danceable Feast contra dance weekend near Eugene, Oregon, November 13 to 15, 2009. This was the tenth year of the weekend, though the first year I’ve been, and I think the first year I was even aware of it. It is sponsored by the Eugene dance community.

 

Wild Asparagus was the band, with their driving dance music that is impossible to stand still to. Wild Asparagus was the band at Dance Awakening in 1997, the first contra dance band that absolutely gripped me. Listening to David Cantieni’s bombard this weekend, I came up with the thought that bombards can resurrect dead people, get them up and dancing, and maybe there was a bombard player at Jesus’s grave. George Marshall was the caller, and he is also part of the band. I bought their brand new “Live at the Guiding Star Grange” double CD (not yet available except in person), and listened to it on the southbound train last night. Back in the feeling so easily!

 

the blur is due to lack of flash on my iPhone, but it does capture the feeling

The other part of the dance weekend was The S Curves and swing dancing. The food, prepared by Annie and her crew was great. I chuckle when seeing vegan – vegetarian – gluten free – dairy – no dairy permutations of the dishes, when in Nevada I still usually get “vegetarian? what’s that?”

 

Most of the attendees were northwest people, but there was a strong California contingent as well. No other Nevadans, though. I especially enjoyed dancing with Jacque and Denise, but all the dancers were competent to spectacular.

 

Ethiopian food

I love Ethiopian food, the tastes, the things it is made out of, the tradition of eating with injera rather than utensils. Recent I managed to eat two Ethiopian restaurants: Queen Sheba, in Sacramento at 1704 Broadway, and Merkato Ethiopian Cafe, in Las Vegas at 855 E Twain. Both were great. There is an Ethiopian restaurant in Reno, but I haven’t gotten there yet. Ironic that I’ve been to more distant ones before the close one.

first real snow

Our first real snow of the winter, about six inches in the valley, a lot more in the mountains. It is blue skies today, a good day to be out, but I’m mostly working.

settling in on WordPress

I’ve decided to go with WordPress, the hosted version, for my personal blog. I can have multiple blogs for other purposes by installing local copies, as I’ve done on the NNREC website, and still be in a similar though not identical interface. I looked at other installed blogs provided by my host Cedant, at Blogger, and at Moveable Type. I’ve had a TypePad blog for some time, and I like that interface, but it is not free and has less flexibility than WordPress unless I buy higher cost options. I found Moveable Type too hard to install and manage, with limited UNIX skills. Blogger is OK and will probably get better quickly with the Google connection, but it is just not there yet. WordPress is not perfect, and some of the themes don’t seem to work properly, but it is pretty good. WordPress it is, for now.

I imported my old TypePad posts from 2005 and early 2006, which was easy.

So, now, to find the time to post more regularly!

exploring blogs

I’ve been exploring TypePad (hosted), Movable Type (my own), WordPress (both my own and hosted), and Blogger (hosted). This blog is the hosted version of WordPress, at wordpress.com. Can’t say that so far they are much different from each other, though I can clearly say that having a hosted blog takes a lot less effort than setting up my own, though there is more flexibility in numbers of blogs and users when I have my own. I also have a “personal” and a “community” blog on raincloudpub.com. It will take some time to explore all these and see what works best.

desert hiking 2005-12

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Originally uploaded by allisondan.

While I was in Las Vegas for the holidays for my family, I went on five great desert hikes: Goldstrike Canyon with hot springs, White Rock and Ringbolt Canyons and hot springs, River Mountains (with Mark Pitchford), Mesquite Canyon (with Mark Pitchford), and the hills behind my sister’s house in Henderson. Ah, being out in the desert, in short sleeves, even shorts two days, that is the life. I was so happy after these five days in a row of hiking, and being in the sun.

Howard Booth Reunion and Celebration

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Originally uploaded by allisondan.

On November 20, a small group of people joined to celebrate Howard Booth’s receipt of the John Muir Award. We hiked north from Mountain Springs to a point above the sandstone bluffs, enjoyed talking about hiking and backpacking trips going back 40 years, looked at the peak register with some old names in it, and wrapped it up with a beer at the Mountain Springs bar. That evening, we gathered for dinner at Lance & Lorelle’s, joined by the Pitchfords and my mom Ruth Allison, for more fun.

Snow

I woke up to about eight inches of fresh snow. It is beautiful. But I’m not going to get over the hill to join my friend Steffani in a Winter Solstice celebration. On the other hand, what more appropriate thing to keep me from a solstice celebration than fresh snowfall?