Click the picture and read Shaugran’s comment… I have nothing to add, except that he told me to stand in that spot and take the picture. Java Jive was awesome - great turnout and lots of people to dance with!

Uploaded by thesongboy on 26 Jan ‘07, 10.41pm CST.

Friday night was awesome… had dinner with my friend Kelley at an awesome Ethiopian restaurant in Edgewater, then went downtown to hear some great music and even did some dancing! Yoko played with a few Japanese players and it was this strange fusion of Japanese folk music and blues… but very interesting. All the folk songs were sung in English and all the blues songs were sung in Japanese! My favorite songs were the first one (we were only there for the second set) and the last three which were very bluesy.

Uploaded by thesongboy on 26 Jan ‘07, 9.29pm CST.

And of course… a little foosball to spice up the afternoon. We had a pretty good time between that and hacking the X-box. Yeah, our apartment is basically like a big high school youth room, just with beds. Especially now that we have DDR on the big screen TV… yeah!!!

Uploaded by thesongboy on 21 Jan ‘07, 4.45pm CST.

So Kaylyn came over Sunday afternoon and we made lunch. However despite half an hour of looking we could not find the wine screw. So we wittled at the cork for another 45 minutes with this pocket knife until Kaylyn finally got it wedged in just enough that a medium-sized drip of wine came out… then she held the wine bottle over her class until it was full. We just got a wine key too! (Or actually, Tessa got us one because we had to borrow one from the neighbors the week before.)

Anyway, lunch great and everyone had a good time. Hey - half the fun of it was watching everybody try to get the wine bottle open. (Everybody tried something at some point!)

Uploaded by thesongboy on 21 Jan ‘07, 4.44pm CST.

This was before we started dancing (I went with early with a non-dancer friend and we just listened and hung out until the other dancers showed up). Billy Branch was walking through the crowd playing his harmonica. The energy in the room was amazing!

Uploaded by thesongboy on 21 Jan ‘07, 1.22am CST.

Saturday night… against my better judgement… here we are blues dancing at Kingston Mines. Had an out-of-towner from San Diego which is always a great excuse to go dancing (as if I need one). The show was awesome - but I didn’t get to bed until like 3am and I was slightly sleep-deprived all of the next morning while playing in the band at church!

Uploaded by thesongboy on 21 Jan ‘07, 12.57am CST.

Not the most awesome pic but this was about on my way out of the city.

Thursday night I finally got out for some swing dancing!! Went to 920, the local hot spot thursday nights… and even ended up going out for Thai food with a bunch of people after closing the place out. Good things come to those who love swing dancing so much they close out the venues every week.

Uploaded by thesongboy on 19 Jan ‘07, 3.30pm CST.

Right now I’m in my hotel room in San Francisco. All my expenses are covered for the week and all I have to do is setup a cluster database system for a client out here. Which is hardly work since I love doing it.

Today. I had lunch with a woman from Japan, a guy from India, and a guy from Vietnam. The guy from Vietnam told us about how when he was a kid during the communist occupation of Seoul his family’s house was occupied and they fled south on foot, begging for food for two months. When they returned to Seoul years later the house was flattened. Now he’s a Database Administrator here in San Francisco. We had Thai for lunch and I brought the leftovers home to reheat for dinner. They don’t have a microwave here at the hotel for public use but apparently the concierge here thinks I’m an interesting character and he offered to take me downstairs to the employee break room. I popped my food in the microwave and he turned on a basketball game (Pepperdine and Gonzaga) and we sat down and watched for awhile. My food finished and we talked for another ten minutes about how he got to america; he was born in the Philippines and has only lived here four years. And apparently being a concierge is a great job - he loves it. :)

The hotel room is amazing; couldn’t be any more downtown in San Francisco. Plus, they were booked and we needed a room on short notice so I ended up getting a junior suite at a discounted corporate rate. (It’s covered for me but it’s still cool that we got the deal. In fact without it I probably wouldn’t have been able to stay here.) I couldn’t believe my eyes when I opened the fridge and it was stocked with beer, wine, juice, and everything you need to make like 30 different mixed drinks. I probably won’t indulge but it’s still pretty cool just knowing that I could if I wanted… so for now I’m finishing off my Thai and I’ll probably drink that cranberry juice when I’m done.

Not sure exactly how I got here but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with a lot of grace and a little story about talents… better invest wisely… but at any rate I’m quite happy about it and enjoying the ride in the meantime!

Rich took this picture and the last one - he’s amazing with a camera! This was when I was getting ready to head to the grocery store to buy ingredients for the amazing pancake breakfast.

Had a NYE party at our place and the last person was still here when I left for work this morning (Tuesday)… lots of people stopped over and there was amazing dancing all night. Around 5 or 6 we started watching swing dancing DVD’s then around 7 or so we put on Princess Bride and all fell asleep while it was playing. Woke up a few hours later and made a huge breakfast before dancing a little more.