As someone who’s started to dance late in life and has been doing it for a few years now, I figured I’d offer a few pointers on how to make that wish a reality. But first things first, lets dispel some myths:

1. Myth 1: Dancing is Hard

   The learning curve of any new skill begins with a sharp incline, and dance is no different. It takes a certain amount of bull-headedness and determination to work your way up that, but every subsequent dance becomes measurably easier once you’ve made the first ascent. I won’t lie and say it’s a breeze, but I will adamantly stand by my statement that it’s the first one that’s the hardest, and that it’s not as hard as you might think.

   Having said that, imagine yourself just having walked off a club dance floor, heart pumping, endorphins running through your system, sweaty and out of breath. Now imagine not having done the standard generic club bump-and-grind, but instead a full set worth of coordinated partner dancing.

   In other words, yes. It’s worth the effort.

2. Myth 2: It takes Years of Practice

   It takes exactly one hour to learn a dance, though it takes a lifetime to refine it. Even professional dancers never stop learning, and they have the added handicap of having to keep up with every style there is, which is no small feat. If you want to be a professional that’s one thing, but if you just want to learn enough to look good on the dance floor and have fun doing it, you’ll quickly realize it takes far, far less time. No guarantees about dance addiction though, once you get hooked, you’ll never stop wanting to learn more .

3. Myth 3: Lessons are Expensive

   This, to some extent, is true. Ballroom studios are businesses, and since they are the only places where you can learn some of the more formal dances (Viennese, Foxtrot, etc) they will charge you somewhere between $75 – $125 per private lesson. Group lessons at studios are generally cheaper, but they are usually used as tasters- they’ll teach you enough to whet your appetite and then hand you the bill if you want to learn more.

   What they don’t want you to know is that there exist vibrant, active, social dance communities that will charge you far less than they do. Here, the “taster” group lessons are attached to a clubs’ themed dance night and are usually part of the cover charge, and if you want to learn more there are intermediate and advanced group lessons that will cost you somewhere between $10 and $15 a session (at most). In other words, for every expensive lesson there’s a cheaper alternative, you just have to know where to look.

4. Myth 4: I Have No Sense Of Rhythm

   Believe it or not, you do, you just have to know where to find it. The best place to look is your heartbeat, though the second hand on a clock could serve as a good substitute.

5. Myth 5: I Need a Partner

   This is a two-sided problem- either your Significant Other isn’t interested or you’re afraid of being left on the sidelines when the music starts.

   Believe it or not, there are fewer couples in the dance community that you might think. If Dance isn’t a defining element of your relationship already (or you don’t really want to make it one), it’s probably best if your partner doesn’t join you on nights out. Not only will it prevent jealousy when you dance with others, but it’ll ensure that you don’t ruin the scene for each other if things don’t work out.

   As for being left on the sidelines, make sure you go to the group lessons first. They never require a partner, and are an excellent way of introducing yourself and making friends. Soon enough you’ll be expanding into the social scene and meeting all the cool people out there, and won’t be hurting for a partner.

Step 1: Decide to Learn

Also known as “Get your ass off that couch”. Seriously, people, the largest obstacle standing between you and that dance floor is the motivation to start learning. I won’t lie and tell you it’ll be easy, and it will certainly take a while until you feel really comfortable, but I can guarantee that you will have fun every step of the way. So take a long, hard look at that nascent dream of sweeping across parquet flooring and dedicate yourself toward achieving it.

I have two specific notes here, the first for guys: It’s ok to admit that you’re intimidated by it- skill is a hard thing to achieve, and the last thing you want to do is look like an idiot on the dance floor. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, I’ve fallen over in front of everyone. It will take you about two months of weekly practice to really feel like you’re comfortable, but after you overcome the initial hump you’ll be happy you did. Why? Because for every guy that’s on the dancefloor there are 10 wallflowers wishing they were you.

The second note is for everyone: While social convention has it that women follow and men lead, in practice this is less and less the case. I will be referring to partners as leads and follows, and furthermore want to point out that there is no difference in difficulty between each: Follows have to learn just as much as Leads do, and while the skills are often different one is by no means less difficult than the other.

Step 2: Pick a Style

The Style you choose to learn is perhaps the most important step, because it’ll greatly affect how much you enjoy learning. There are some styles that are extremely difficult and can be quite frustrating at times, while there are others that are so simple that you’ll wonder what’s kept you so long. It’s my personal recommendation that you start with what’s known as the “Social” dances: They’re easy to learn, have active vibrant communities, and most of all learning them won’t break the bank. For those of you who are determined to really dig into the entire breadth of what’s available, there are plenty of ballroom studios that do a series of broad introductory lessons, but they can be much more expensive.

East Coast Swing

This is the bread, butter and foundation of all of the swing dances, and serves as an excellent springboard into West Coast, Lindy Hop, Balboa and Charleston. It comes in two different styles, single-time and triple-time, the former of which is much better for faster tempos. The music ranges all the way from Big Band Classics such as Sing, Sing, Sing to far more contemporary Ska, and chances are you can find a vibrant and local swing community anywhere.

Speaking personally, Swing is fun. Fun, fun, and more fun. You can look absolutely spectacular doing it, but the focus of the dance is more about enjoying yourself than pulling every move off flawlessly. Contests exist for the super competitive, but even there you can tell that they’re not doing it for the medal, they’re doing it for the enjoyment.

Salsa

Salsa is, much like the condiment, characterized by the fact that it’s hot and composed of lots of different individual styles. There is no single right way of dancing Salsa, and local flavors color the steps practically everywhere. While you might learn the basic steps of one style, soon enough you’ll be blending in moves that originated in others, and as such your breadth as a dancer will spread rapidly without you even knowing.

What is important to note is that there are three distinct “major” styles of Salsa. On-1, On-2, and Cumbia. The first two are effectively Mambo danced on different beats (On-2 is much harder to figure out than On-1) and the last is almost an entirely different style that’s danced extensively throughout Latin America.

Speaking personally, Salsa is all about passion. Latin Dances have a very sensuous reputation which can really add to an amazing experience on the floor, but it comes with a cost: This same reputation attracts sleaze, which can be a major turnoff for both leads and follows. The secret? Sleaze gets discouraged easily, and only the most misguided and desperate return night after night. In other words, it’ll be obvious whom you should avoid.

Rather than braving it alone, I recommend you find a friend or two to go with the first few times until you can get a better idea of who’s safe and who isn’t. It’ll be pretty obvious, just take a look and find the dancers who clearly know what they’re doing.

Argentine Tango

Where Swing and Salsa are all about energy, Argentine Tango (not to be mistaken with International Tango) is all about subtlety. Even basic students will quickly realize that the amount of control and communication that can happen with a simple step or weight shift is extremely difficult to master, and the fact that the music is very straightforward makes this an excellent dance for the beginner. It is by far the most challenging of the three, but the lessons of balance, control and physical communication will give you a foundation that will make learning any new dance much, much easier. You can brute-force your way to a reasonable level of skill in Swing and Salsa, but in Argentine it simply won’t fly.

Other Styles

While I’ve only listed the popular social dances above, they are by far not the only ones out there- they are merely the ones I recommend to someone trying to get their feet wet. They also happen to all be extremely popular in the western world (I know nothing about China and India), so you should have no problem finding lessons or places to go dance. If you have questions about any other specific styles (Waltz, Viennese, Foxtrot, Tango and whatnot), I’d be more than happy to answer them in the comments. They are by no means lesser than the ones I have mentioned, and are fantastic in their own way.

Step 3: Find Some Lessons

This is the easy bit, especially if you’re anywhere close to a university. Lessons are often as little as a google search away, and chances are there’s a dance scene right under your nose- you just have to look.

When looking for your first lesson I recommend either going to a club group lesson or, if you can find it, an introductory group series provided by your local dance community. Expect 4-8 lessons series that’ll start with the basics and get you through some foundational turns and embellishments, and they’ll cost somewhere in the $40-$100 range for the entire series. Many times they’ll be coupled with an open practice session where nobody will think twice about helping you drill and refine what you’ve just learned.

Step 4: Enjoy Yourself!

Relax and enjoy yourself. You’re learning something that’s new, fun, social, and while you’ll run into a few bumps along the way I can guarantee that those will seem trivial in hindsight when compared to all the fun times you’ve had.

And, if all else fails, give me a ring. I’ll be glad to join you if I’m ever in town!

First of all, in an effort to deal with blog neglect I’ve shifted my usual authoring time to before work rather than after. Afterwards there are simply too many distractions- mental, physical and… ahem… social for me to really get focused on my thoughts and get them down. Whether I can keep it up is anyone’s guess, but for now I’ve got a nice cool morning, a full battery and a patch of sunshine to write in. What else could you want?

Secondly, we had our annual reviews here at work recently, and by all accounts I did pretty well. I had to go out and get a short-term prescription for insulin to deal with much of what was said during the review, and after a rather superfluous compensation discussion (what am I going to do, argue about a raise? Oh no! You’re giving me more money! Whatever will I do!) I’m now happily sitting on a modest increase. Given that my last three places of employment didn’t really believe in “raises” per se (one of my coworkers was fired because she asked for one), it’s a welcome change.

Thirdly, we released a bunch of new content for my project, HP Print Studio yesterday, which marks our first major push for international content. Included was pretty much all of south america, so in the end it was only two new languages (Portuguese and Mexican Spanish), but given that every country can customize the application down to the last background image, rolling out those 18 new countries was no small feat.

Of course, doing a rollout of that scale showed some of the cracks in our localization strategy, so I won’t lie and say it went smoothly. I was at work until very late on wednesday resolving last minute inconsistencies, and had to give up my weekly salsa lesson/social for the project (which I find amusingly ironic- latin america, salsa… get it? . Having said that, I now have intimate knowledge on what’s broken and how to fix it, and an initial cost/benefit analysis means we might even be able to charge the client for it (though at this point I’m doing it simply for my own peace of mind).

Lastly, we had some… unfortunate downsizing at work. I won’t go into the detail of who, how and why, just to reassure my readership that I wasn’t affected (well, other than the shell shock). The reason I brought it up is because, having gone through two business evaporations, two acquisitions and a few other unfortunate staffing events, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this kind of event handled so well.

How do I mean that…

First of all, most of my downsizing experience has been reactive, in that a business had to suddenly adjust to an unexpected market adjustment or ‘catastrophe’. Fact is that most of those events could have been predicted with a little foresight, and reductions came as a surprise to the majority of the organization- even HR in some cases. My takeaway from those was that the business is poorly managed, and that there is no real driver at the helm. In short, that the only direction the business had was as a result of momentum.

In contrast, everything about yesterday’s event seemed strategic, well thought out and considered, and ultimately necessary. It was done because of the recession- I won’t lie there – but it was also done because of a whole host of other (undisclosable) conditions had been factored into the decision process. My takeaway here was that not only is there a driver at the helm, that driver also likes to to pull into a garage every so often, adjust the mix, check the fluids, clean the filters, refill the nitro and get a new set of fuzzy dice for the mirror. In short, someone who knows exactly what’s going on under the hood.

Having said that, if any of my former coworkers would like me to use my burgeoning network within the digital creative community to help connect them with potential opportunities, let me know- I’ve made some contacts through the Adobe User Group that may prove valuable.

The catch though is that this next month, at least from a work perspective, is really going to suck. I can’t really go into the details, but in a nutshell all the things on my plate are coming to a head NOW, and some of those things are interfering with the others due to some legacy processes that we’re still trying to scale. Given that I work in the Agency World™, process improvements don’t happen unless you have an ROI argument or a client willing to pay for it. If it’s not built right the first time, chances are you’re stuck.

Thankfully, the experience is invaluable, and I’ve learned some absolutely amazing things about building large scale multi-platform deliverable applications. Next time around much of this won’t happen, though for the time being I’m going to have to find some of my own time to throw at the issue so that in the long run I can have some peace of mind and free time.

Unfortunately, that means that Dance has effectively fallen off my radar. I know I love to do it, but when I can’t guarantee that I’ll be free for my 8PM lessons on a regular basis on account of work, well, I can’t really do anything about that. So in order to make sure I don’t lose the hobby altogether I’m doing a measured pullback and returning to my roots and origins: Salsa. As much as I hate to step away from Swing and Tango and Ballroom and all the others for the time being I’m afraid I just don’t have the time.

Scaling that back, however, has opened up a surprising amount of time for other things, time that under other circumstances would have been spent in transit or in support of my usual posterior shimmying. For instance, my apartment garden is flourishing, my Bonsai are crawling out of their pots, and I’ve started releasing some code libraries again over at Practical Flash. Plus, of course, I’m making cheese.

Having said that, I’m looking forward to this next week. On Monday I’m speaking at Flex Camp Cleveland on “How to build your first Flex Application”. I’m pretty nervous about that one, actually, since I go on right after Ben Forta . Yes, that Ben Forta, the guy who’s pretty much the face of ColdFusion for Adobe. Furthermore, on Friday and Saturday I’ll be volunteering at the Cap City Classic. The original plan was to run the Half Marathon, but splints stopped my training, though I’ve just gotten a small post-work running group started to get me back up to some acceptable mileage. Given that, I’ll be running back and forth from my road marshal position on saturday, which nets me about 8 miles and change with a nice long break between the two.

Then in May, I’m taking a break. I have 2 weeks of “vacation” scheduled, one for the Adobe Community Conference in San Francisco (Which neatly coincides with my birthday. Hint Hint), and then a week of careless lounging at the beach for memorial day. I still have to find someone to help me run the May Adobe User Group presentation night, but I should be able to get that done fairly easily. I hope.

Ahh well, back to polishing off my presentation, and then I’m off to go enjoy the nice weather some more.

Of course there are some caveats- I scaled my speed down to a 10 minute mile with ten second negative splits on the mile, so other than the distance increase I wasn’t really pushing myself. Even so it feels like a significant accomplishment not only because it’s the longest I’ve ever run in my entire life, but because I’ve also managed to break past the 3.1 mile mental barrier that comes with training for a much shorter race.

What really struck me about the whole experience is how easy it was to go the extra mile(s). Once I’d gotten up to speed and convinced my body it wasn’t stopping anytime soon, it was just a matter of keeping my mind occupied while my feet did all the work. My iPod really helped with that, but I’m told the bigger races don’t allow headphones. I can already imagining myself stopping after the 3rd mile because I got bored and saw something shiny lying in the road.

Also, pacing is a challenge. It’s easy enough on a treadmill, but when I run outdoors it’s hard for me to throttle back right at the start because I have no real way yet of judging how fast I’m going. This will probably come with time- after all, I started running when it was cold out and I’m a huge wuss about running in subzero weather. Once the weather gets nicer and I can actually run to work I’ll hopefully get better at this.

I find it odd that so many people who train for marathons treat them as single-shot goals. If I’m going to train for something of that magnitude I’d rather build up to it gradually so it’s something I can do on a regular basis, rather than give my all for one big herculean effort and then go back to life as usual.

So where to go next? Well, the mileage buildup program I’m on right now is having me do 6 miles (~10K) next weekend, so I’m within spitting distance of one of my goals. Additionally there’s a half marathon in April that I might accelerate my training for, but part of me isn’t quite ready to make the commitment yet: I want to make sure I’m comfortable at longer distances first (see above), and I still haven’t decided if running is going to supplant dance as my primary personal time suck.

Speaking of dance, on a whim I went to a Swing dance workshop in Dayton last Saturday (whose web page seems to have disappeared), and I had an awesome time (though they ran late and thus I had to miss the last lesson). Reading the description of the event you might have thought that it was a standard series of classes with fancy names- starting with the basics and then building on the same. In reality, the classes assumed that you had some Lindy background already, and rather than boring everyone with relearning the basic, really dug into the nuances and details of good technique. In short, it was Basic Lindy for Advanced Dancers. A day extremely well spent.

Of course, the event also came with a bit of a somber note; on the drive back my mind went into self analysis mode and came to the rather alarming realization that I am once again falling into my old Pittsburgh social patterns: I end up a part of so many social groups that I never seem to be able to really belong to any single one. How I personally define this problem is fairly moot, because I already know what the solution is: I have to give something up. Be it running, be it dance, be it blogging or cooking or my geeky gaming habits, something has to go so I can refocus on the remainder and really commit to them.

Is this anything new? Are you kidding? I’ve known this for years.

Anyway, this morning I got an earfull of Pink Martini, followed by a mandate to move a project to PHP. Yeah, life is damn spankin’ good right now, and my mood is through the bloody roof.

Blather about Blading

I’m feeling a bit chunky at the moment. Haven’t gone out blading in a while, but that’s because one of my bearings started to grind (left front left bearing). I took it home and cleaned it, and the ball’s not shattered, so I think it’s still good and will last me another hundred miles or so. My wheels, however, are… well, I’ve rotated them once, and they’re starting to look like they need to be rotated. Which usually means that they’re done. Now, I have never actually bladed enough to wear down the wheels. I feel… somehow proud of that. The only problem is that it appears that there no longer is a shop in pittsburgh that carries Inline supplies. Dick’s stopped carrying them because people got injured and returned their equipment. Target and WalMart don’t sell wheels and bearings, only full skates. The First Avenue shop is closed and up for sale. Which leaves me… well, online, to be honest. But it appears that Inline Skating’s turning into a niche sport, which means I get to be all elitist about it! WOOT! Oh well, my new wheels are in the mail, I should have them by the time I come back, which should trip the light fantastic. 80mm, Slightly harder than my previous wheels (so they last a bit longer, even though my legs will feel like jello after cobbles), and they just happen to have had a deal on APEC 9 bearings at the same time. Now, I was eyeing the $130 creamics, but… well, I’m not a racer. And though I’d really like to be able to add a good 10% to my top velocity, I’ll stick with going below breakneck speeds, thanks

I actually wandered over to the Three Rivers’ art fair monday, yesterday, and today during lunch. Being a pedestrian gives me a new appreciation of exactly how fast I go when I’m on blades. When I go up to speed I do what I refer to as the PNC Park Loop in about 15 minutes. Some of those times are slow, but when I’m coming off the 6th street bridge with a quarter mile of downhill acceleration, I absolutely rip past the field and the pedestrians there. If I didn’t know how to do step-over turns I’d be a very flat krotscheck… or there’d be a long black mark on the sidewalk as I desperately brake. Anyway, the long and short of it is that I get to go out blading today again, which makes me happy, and my body’s already ready to kick me with an endorphin rush.

Blather about Hair

The nice thing about having had long hair is that you never really have to bother cutting it much. Going to a stylist on a regular basis is just so… annoying for someone with my schedule. And since there’s nothing uglier than a balding man with long hair, I’m going to opt to get myself a clipper set and see if there’s a setting I can get away with using on myself. The way I figure, if I fuck up I can always go bald…. right? Right?…. hoo boy. Maybe I should make a doctor’s appointment first- see, I have this silly bleeding scalp issue that’s been going on for a while now. Originally I got a prescription for nizoral, which seemed to help, but given that it keeps coming back I suspect it’s a pretty well rooted ringworm infection (It’s a fungus, fuckers! Not a Worm!… though that’d be pretty funny. Well, for everyone else. Fungus is still funny. Wait three months, and you can harvest mushrooms on my head!).

Blather about Music

I have 1263 songs in my music library, all of which is legal at this point, sucking up 11 Gigs. It took me 3 days to re-rip it onto my new iMac (mostly because I wasn’t at home 24-7 doing that). I still have to download the album art for close to 120 CD’s though. I’m getting another 2 CD’s today, another 6 tomorrow-ish (Willie Nelson, B.B. King, Pink Martini, Muddy Waters, Peggy Lee, etc.), and I have to wonder… …is that a lot? I mean, I know some of my friends who easily top that, though perhaps not legally. Admittedly, there are things in that library I’m not exactly proud of (New Kids’ Hangin’ Tough for instance), But it’s a nice broad spectrum of music. The only thing I don’t have is really recent stuff (past 6 years or so). I have some Maroon 5, and am exposing myself to iTunes’ song of the month which has already snagged me a couple of disks. Also, Pink Martini’s new, but… well, not exactly indicative of current trends. Anyway, in a nutshell I like the fact that I’ve got a nice, broad selection of musical styles, slightly biased towards dance music. Slightly.

Blather about Weight

I still think I’m fat. Some people look at me and go: You’re on crack. My response is that you can’t see my real belly, because I have mad abs with the strength to suck in my gut all day long. I am, however, not doing anything about my weight. Or rather, I’m no longer “dieting” as it were. Adjusting my lifestyle one iota at a time, yes, try to get myself down to something approaching 180 by the end of the summer.

Blather about School

I’m done in December. Registration for my last semester is next week. Somehow this feels… strange, because I know for a fact that my schedule’s not going to open up as much as I thought it might. Yes, no more homework, no more assignments nor obligations… but I already know how I need to manage the change. As much as I want to fill more of my time with dance and gaming (and will, on the nights that I’m free), I’m going to start working more. Regardless, knowing I’m almost in my last semester makes me… feel strange. I know I’ve learned something. I know I learned a LOT. But I don’t know how much of it is directly applicable to my present job, and I also don’t know where I’m going from here anyway. There’s some interesting stuff going on at my company, stuff I won’t talk about because it’s shiny and I don’t wanna share.

I fear for the human race. What does it take to find someone with a bloody brain? An Opinion? The ability to construct an argument? Instead of this consumerist fad-driven shallowness that’s trying to copy the personality of what happens to be on this weeks’ Maxim?

What’s with the gloomy? The continuous “I have a worthless life” depression, the lack of desire to grab life by the balls and do something about your shitty situation? I know I’ve been going through some rollercoasters recently, but at least I come out of the doldrums long enough to do something about it. All in all, my life’s pretty fucking awesome, and the last thing I want is some groupie trying to get her hands on my ass just because she wants a slice of success at my expense.

… … …

No wonder I don’t usually go clubbing. Thankfully, Suzie was there to give me an excuse to extract myself from icky situations.

I walked out of there at 11PM in a daze. So. Much. Fun. And here I’ve been wasting my evenings playing a game that is, at best, a fun way of being the central figure in a story. Well, allright, not wasting, but you get the idea. It’s a completely different style to mambo, but the moves translate rather easily, and I managed to adapt my usual repertoire with ease. Of course, then I realized that my usual repertoire had no business being on a swing floor. But hey, one adapts, learns new things. Already I have new a few new people I recognize, a few new faces I can casually label as ‘potential friends’, and best of all, I have no social obligations on Saturday nights until easter. In other words, my weekends are officially full again*, and I have an excuse to approach people and ask them to help me refine my style .

Scheduling

A while ago, I got a question from John-Eric in one of those interview memes that asked me something along the lines of how I manage to keep such a full and active schedule and not go insane. At the time, I answered that it was the fact that I did not have as many social obligations as he did. After all, he lives in a social hub, and the nature of such is that anyone, whenever they happen to feel social, are far more likely to drop by the Embassy looking for people to do stuff with than anywhere else. With that comes peer pressure, obvious or no, and an inability to plan ahead for more than a few days. I’m not saying this is wrong, or bad. It’s just different, and I think the public perception that I have my life and schedule well in hand (it’s not) is a result of this. When one becomes used to a constantly changing environment, one ceases to plan ahead because it’s really a futile effort. Something else will come up, and in the end ones free time will be filled with things that spontaneously arise. To me, being able to schedule in advance is a luxury. Too often I’ve told myself: “I want to do X”, just to have plans scuttled by the above interruptions. Yes, contingency plans are always good, but they should be the exception, not the norm. Why? Because there are many activities that require long-term preparation. For instance, I want to spend a week in the Minnesota Boundary waters, and I want to spend another week somewhere tropical. Now, I know in advance that my sister’s getting married in a year, so there’s a week of vacation time shot right there, and I only get two. Add to that the plane flight, making reservations that won’t break the bank, saving up money, and all the other elements and you realize that it is not something you can just pick up and do… well, not in my financial situation at least. As a result of the pursuit of this luxury, I have tried to (unconsciously, I think) treat everything like it requires preparation. The end result is that I might have given up spontaneity, but the value of that seems… almost minimal when compared with the memories I create when I plan ahead and do something really special. The fact that I do this more often than others is the only real difference. But has the spontaneity been lost? I’ve been wondering that, given how rigid my daily routines are. And I find that it’s not the case. Not only do I leave blank spots in my schedule (Usually reserved for personal project time, depending on which fancy strikes me at the moment), and when presented with an opportunity to hang out with someone I will almost always scuttle my plans in favor of social interaction. There are some exceptions- if I have already paid for something (Salsa Lessons and Classes come to mind) I will usually bow out. Hobbies take precedence (This is a pro and a con- give me the opportunity to cook or dance, and I’ll bend over backwards to attend). And I am always, always open to other people joining me. It’s a question of temporal perception. Do you remember as a kid, when having a whole dollar seemed like you owned the world? Now, you lose a dollar in your pants and don’t think twice, but when a $20 goes missing you notice. It’s the same with time- seconds, minutes, hours used to matter, but as one ages that perception expands to the next larger scope. I suspect that one of the reasons I’m drifting off on a social tangent to everyone else is that there’s a split there. Of course, this is a chicken-and-egg question (Did I start drifting first, or did my perceptions change first), but I find that these days I think in terms of months, with weeks perceived as a subdivision thereof. Day-to-day activities still happen, yes, but when I schedule things, I plan out almost a month in advance (recently, it’s moved up to ‘seasons’, which is mildly disturbing). To contrast, I quote Sameer when asked what the Embassy is doing next weekend: “Dunno, ask me on Friday”.

Classes

This semester I’m taking Finance and Decision Tech (Which really is just simulation modeling using simplex and other methods). They’re on Tuesday/Thursday night, which is good because it leaves me monday/wendesday to do any studying that I didn’t get done sunday afternoon. But the ease with which I am stepping into some of this content is making me wonder about what I need to learn. See, as a developer I have no problem at all handling the equations that the professor writes on the board. At several points I was even ahead of the professor, to the point of trying to take a stab at the homework during class (without much luck- he didn’t cover N variables for N larger than 2). Add to that the fact that I do pretty well in ‘fluffy’ classes. Classes like HR and OB, where one tries to define such transient things as human behavior and make sense of them (This isn’t psych- we don’t care about the why, we only care about the what). Even there, where the defenitions are blurred and we are weaned on the statement “It Depends”, I have no problem pursuing the paths of contingency and the myriad web of cause-effect possibilities. It’s… intuitive, really. It makes sense. So where’s the problem? The intersection. I don’t know whether I simply have two distinctive methods of thinking, split by task, but when it comes to bridging the fluffy and not-so-fluffy I start to struggle. Marketing, for instance, attempts to not only evaluate buyer behavior based on such vacuous things as whether they feel happy that day, but tries to put numbers to that inherent uncertainty in an effort to derive projections. I should probably point out that I work for a marketing firm right now. By this time, I should have chosen a focus in my studies. I haven’t yet. I could easily go MIS if I wanted to, but then I already know all that stuff. Operations would be lovely, especially on the higher levels, and I really am interested in things like Negotiations. Fact is, there won’t be a focus printed on my degree (Which is sad), and there are no elective restrictions so I can claim to be MIS and take OB courses, but I’d like to be able to talk shop when someone asks me about it. I’ll have to look at the electives available next semester. I have at least until then to decide anyway… …but there’s another question. I realized that the amount of money I’m pouring into this degree via loans is really going to shoot me in the foot. I then realized that I can complete the degree in 4 semesters rather than three by taking 4.5 credits rather than 6, have it be out-of-pocket affordable, still qualify for undergraduate deferment, and thus save 20K in loans. Once again, a question I don’t have to answer until November, and it’s likely to loosen up my schedule a bit and give me a bit more free time. The decision really comes down to whether I’m willing to give up the $750/month cash flow for 16 months now for the extra $300/month cash flow for 60 periods down the line. A finance guy would look at this and tell you it’s a no brainer. Me, I factor in perceived benefits as well, so it takes a bit more consideration.

Cooking

I will no longer be posting Adventures in Cooking posts here. I know, I know, it’s something I love to do, and some of you really enjoy them, so I’d be an idiot to delete them permanently. Don’t worry, I’m not. I’m simply in the process of moving them to a new and far more digestible format (Digest. Get it? Bwa ha haa….). It will still be available in your Livejournal via RSS feed, too, so you don’t even have to change your habits. See? Convenience! I make it easy for you to convert! Join the Dark Side! Anyway, something else I’ve noticed is that I really never, ever actually do meals. So I’m going to take a page from the extraordinarily talented and organized Liz and start cooking meals-for-the-week on Sundays, because I have this nasty habit of eating everything I cook at once… and most recipes come in portions of 4 or 5 . This, of course, will be fighting for Sunday time with Football @ Chuck’s, Salsa, and Homework, so I have to figure out how to pull that off.

Friends

I love you guys. I really do. If you’re reading this, it includes you. Pardon my mood swings, we know I’ll get over them. The only thing I ask is for occasional social contact, ’cause the last thing I want to do is for things to atrophy. That can be an email, coming along to one of my myriad salsa outings, inviting me to this/that/the other (Thank you KT, I did get your invite last night, but it was 10:30 when I did), telling me to drag my ass over for Beer & Pretzels or else, or forcefully beating me over the head with a boardgame and dragging me to some dark and dank corner of the world, stale with the smells of paper, plastic, ground up snack foods and caffiene-laden nights of gaming. I’m currently working on a bit of a side project that’ll blow your socks off. It’s for each and every one of you, and it’s a way I hope to give back everything you’ve given to me (Well, the positive things at least). For this, I need volunteers, people willing to provide me with a 150x200pixel or larger photo of themselves that puts you in the best light possible (No, Jameel, the picture of you with your shirt off doesn’t count), willing to proofread something for me, and willing to wait while I get around to writing it in the first place. I would give specific invitations here, but I really don’t want people to feel like this is some kind of special admission club.

Gaming

It should come as no surprise, to those of you who have been paying attention, that gaming is taking a smaller and smaller role in my life. Nevertheless, I have recently joined an email Aberrant campaign, which so far I’m enjoying quite a bit- See, the premise is the ever-so-popular “Yourself as a Superhero” Genre, with the caveat that I never get to see or define my charactersheet save an initial statement of ‘paradigm’. My paradigm? Well, there are two possibilities:

1. First the statement of “I don’t want to be a Superhero in any world made by WhiteWolf”. This is because the Aberrant campaign setting, like so much of White Wolf, comes embedded with a timebomb. Sooner or later, there’s this dark/creepy/dangers/corruptive/volatile element in yourself that guarantees your demise. Not only that, but usually it’s a violently destructive element, and quite frankly I don’t see the point of taking on powers if I end up destroying any good I might have done with them. You are Guaranteed To Lose. Why, pray tell, would anyone play a game where they are guaranteed to lose?
2. Second is the idea of the subconcious. I know there’s papers and papers on this subject, but I’m taking the metaphysical and romantic (And somewhat pop culture) approach that there really is untapped potential somewhere in the back of my brain, and combined with some of the global conciousness theories that are floating out there I’m really big on unconsciously diving into the deepest recesses of the human mind and making it do what I want it to. Imagine a Nova unaware of his own skills, subtly but constantly imprinting his desires on the global subconcious .

In the world of the Camarilla I’m starting to attend fewer games, but then that’s just me having a busy life. When airplane tickets to Phoenix dropped below $200 this last week (buy now, people. Seriously) I bit the bullet and made ICC reservations, so I’ll be in on thursday around 7 and out sunday around 3ish. I plan on playing the Drunk Venue for most of the convention, possibly crossvenuing to the Pool Venue, the Sunshine Venue, the Senslessly Flirty Venue and, given opportunity, the I Ownz Y00 On TheD@ncefl00r Venue. I have a room with two Queen beds, but I really want a single King, so if anyone wants to trade, feel free to drop me a line. No, you’re not allowed to crash with me.

So I head home after work at about 330PM yesterday (After having spent the night there) and decide that a nap would be a good idea. I set the alarm to 530, so I have enough time to get to class at 615, right? My internal clock kicks me out of bed at 525, and I have to run from the bathroom to the bedroom sudsy because I forgot to de-prime the alarm five minutes later. So I wander to class, manage to pay attention (We cover CRM and the importance of relationships, then go into calculating present lifetime customer value given retention across multiple complementary product lines- see? I remember!), then wander home to get ready for Salsa.

At this point I’m pretty much running on autopilot. And the wonderful thing about autopilot is that it’s not attached to common sense in any way, so I’ll just happily keep doing things simply based on momentum. Go home. Put away books. Make small dinner. Take shower. shave. Get dressed, etc…

Apparently, however, my common sense had different ideas. It gave up on trying to convince the Brain to talk to it because all of those cycles are being used for autopilot. So instead it mounts an attack on my motor reflexes, and manages to shut down my lower spine right as I sit down to put on socks. Now, I was sitting down on my bed, so I went horizontal, which apparently is the default off-switch for the autopilot. And now I was left with a huge void in my brain where it used to be, common sense somewhere in my lower back, and my inner ear suddenly found itself the lone little protester with a tiny picket sign in the control room of my mind next to the big red shut down button. Being the hippie liberal that it is, it took the chance, then ran out and threw a massive party with my motor nerves stripping on the table while the musculature was in the jacuzzi with the cardiovascular system.

Anyway, given Patio, Room for Entertainment, Lasagna (made by Quack, which was mucho tasty), and alcohol, Fred, Jim, and I decided that it would be a wonderful thing to usurp her house for a Memorial Day BBQ . 45 minutes, a trip to geagle, the beer distributors, and Chad’s place later, we were cookin’, happy, and having a grand old time in the wonderful weather. I cannot remember eating so much in a long, long, long time. The Rum Cake? Killer. Lasanga? Oh yeah. And of course, chad is magic on the grill. So between the amazing food, the good and socially inebriated company, and the continuous return to the conversation topic of why Stu was walking funny, I was kinda sad to wander off to Salsa with a full belly and no idea how the hell I’d manage to keep any semblance of agility on the dance floor.

Luckily, Food Coma came to the rescue. Realizing that I had about 30 minutes to kill before I had to get ready, I hang out in my new den and putz away at Metroid a little more.

Two hours later, I wake up. And know what? It was worth it. Because I still went to salsa, had a magic time with Jessica and the french Economics PhD student whose name I can’t pronounce, much less spell, was intercepted by an amazing woman named Nefertiti (I shit you not, that name is awesome), and lo and behold she actually taught me something about how to lead (or rather, how not to- interesting story, actually: I noticed she was reacting oddly to some of the things I was trying to do, so I said: I cannot tell whether or not you’re really good or you’re a natural. Turns out she was the former). Dude. I totally approve. Given that it was memorial day, the place was unfortunately packed, so rather than hanging out until 3AM like I planned I decided to leave early, though I dropped my brand spanking new business cards (I know, pretentious, but they’re my first, so I’m entitled to some preening) in an effort to rustle up some downtime practice and hang-out time with the cool people I’m getting to know there, and head home to curl up with that warm fuzzy feeling you only get from a day well spent.

And then my internal clock woke me at 7AM. sigh….

• Last Thursday- BMIS2411, Information Systems. Interesting, but a core class.
• Last Friday- BMIS…something or other, Knowledge Management Systems, Labor Day Makeup. Neef, friday class sucky sucky. Still, the material is interesting.
• Last Saturday- Early morning trip to DC. Much meat was grilled , much DDR was danced, much furniture was bought. Kudo’s to Tom, Matt, and that guy who lives with them who never said anything.
• Last Sunday. Hanging out, Tom made waffles. Having forgotten my actual passport in Pittsburgh, I returned home for a late evening of Salsa, discovering that even if I go for a single hour, I can still have mad amounts of fun. Assembled some furniture, and did some howework.
• Monday this week- Work. Some of my coworkers got together and started doing a lunch go-to-the-gym thing at my gym, so I tagged along for moral support. Lunchtime is *empty* there. Bonus. In the evening, KMS Class. Good stuff- I’m digging this Harvard Business Case method (offshoot of Socrates). A bit of appreciated contribution at the beginning and I was riveted to my chair for the rest of the night. Good material, discussing Knowledge Vs. Information vs. Data. I have a lot of fun insight on this, but hardly any time to talk about it. Maybe some other time I’ll get a chance to expound on the concept of cognitive patterns.
• Yesterday- Work. Gym at lunch. Post work went to Strauss’ game, which admittedly is starting to get a bit boring… the frustration of not knowing what to do/where to go/why to keep adventuring. When the PC’s try something, maybe throwing them a bone would be a good thing. *shrug*… for what it’s worth, it’s at least some social exposure that I’m missing.
• Today- Work, Gym at lunch, will probably not go to soccer tonight, because of homework due tomorrow and cleaning that needs done at home.
• Tomorrow- Work, maybe Gym at lunch, Class in the evening with homework due and a small group meeting afterwards for our team case study.
• Friday- Work, Gym at lunch, evening spent cleaning.
• Saturday- Morning’s homework time. Midday I’ll probably go to the Cam Recruitment BBQ, though I dunno if being a scary old person there would be a detriment to recruiting. Evening I’m spending time with Ratha who’s in town this weekend, and have managed to be the person who’s responsible for that nights entertainment… and I haven’t the foggiest clue of what to do. Thoughts?
• Sunday morning- Any homework that isn’t done yet. Afternoon will be Catherine’s game. Evening I’m introducing a complete newbie to Salsa (Andrea, to those of you who know her), so I’ll be headed to the beginner lessons if anyone wants some moral support.
• Next week… rinse, lather, repeat.

Let me be honest: it’s been pretty good being you. You have your ups and downs, your lefts and rights, but most of the time you manage to trundle through this life of yours without stubbing your toes too often. Still, I think its about high time I gave you a little bit of perspective:

Firstly, on Salsa: So it’s 7PM on a Sunday and you’re idly considering not going. Yes, I know, the last few weekends you’ve had decent reasons not to go, but the other times that you’ve had the time (not to mention that you keep making excuses to your other friends on why you can’t do things on Sunday nights) you’ve come within a haris breadth of letting the doldrums prevent you from going. Let me ask you a question: What reasonable justification do you really have for sitting on your ass at home? None! Hell, you’ve never not had a positive experience going to Club Havana. Yes yes, you feel awkward asking the people you usually go with to dance, and for some reason you’re too insecure about your dancing skills to ask a complete stranger who might mop the floor with you. But the remedy for both of those is to keep going, keep practicing, and keep enjoying yourself. Now stop trying to justify cutting Salsa out of your schedule- you enjoy it, it’s fun, and your reasons to do away with it have less substance than a Bush campaign speech.

Secondly, on Women: Face it, bro. You’re alone, and you have as much skill at flirting as a drunk fratboy. Yes, being alone sucks, believe me, I can relate, but you’re certainly not going to attract anyone if you keep acting like a manic moron at every social event that you go to. I know you think the alternative also sucks- who wants to be a wallflower? But unless you find a happy medium between bouncing off the wall and stoic amusement, you’re going to have to get used to being the slightly unhinged fringe element in the social circles that you frequent.

Thirdly, on your Apartment: For god’s sake, bud, it’s been three years and you still don’t have the place at the level where you feel comfortable having people over. Yes, readjusting your finances to finally get this place furnished is a good thing. Just think of the enjoyment you’ll get out of actually being able to use the space rather than having to dodge boxes all the time. I know you’re arrogant as hell, but is it really going to kill you to offer some pizza to a few friends of yours to at least help you get your shit organized? Hell, even better: Get your kitchen back to a functioning level and cook something for people. That way you get your shit stowed and you get to have fun cooking.

Lastly, on the Camarilla and Work: Work Comes First. I don’t bloody care about how important you think that little algorithm for Wes is, or how long you’ve been coding on that Cam Database of yours. Given that it looks like you’re going to be blown off anyway, after dropping 100+ hours of your private time and pretty much alienating some of your closer friends because of the emotional instability that came with the isolation, at what point are you going to realize that no fan club is worth sacrificing your professional potential for? Look at the previous three points: There are three things up there that you love doing, that don’t make any demands of you save what you put into it, and that don’t come with the overwhelming drama and obligation that the Camarilla does. YES you helped found the local chapter, and YES you’ve already contributed an assload of time into the org, but at some point you have to consider it a loss and move on with more profitable opportunities. Ditch the Cam. You know you want to, you just haven’t figured out how to extricate yourself from your obligations yet.

Sincerely,

Mike K

Tomorrow will be ‘do all those things you’ve been putting on hold because of finals’ day. Laundry, Coding, Cleaning the House, etc. With, of course, SALSA at 7PM (Yes, I’m still going to beginner lessons. Sue me). Anette and a friend of hers are coming along, and hopefully Sylvia can convince her beau to take her out dancing again . Oooh, I should talk to Joy- she might be interested as well . Sadly, Rachel won’t be there, but she’s off being all robotic in Italy and Las Vegas (which of the two I’m not quite certain at the moment).

Oh. My. God: So. Much. Fun.

According to Rachel and a young Asian girl whose name I don’t recall, I picked up on the dance much faster than others. I really don’t know why, but I suspect that it was because after my first drink, my inhibitions went out the window and I shifted into ‘have fun at all cost’ mode.

Now, of course, I’m sore. Nevertheless, the amount of fun I had tonight will make this a definite constant event in my schedule, so if any of you crazy people out there would like to join me, it’s a $5 cover (you get a $5 coupon for your first drink out of it) it’s possibly one of the most fun things I can think of doing on a Sunday night.

Compared to this, the 4th of July party had better have a dance floor.