Call Me Morpheus

I've recently been doing a series of how-to articles on Blogger Hacks -- cool tricks you can use to get Blogger to do spiffy new things. This week, I got to write a guest column about them all for Blogger Knowledge. Check it out: Hacking the Blogger Matrix.

Update: This is turning into a fairly popular article. It even showed up on BoingBoing. There was also a WebUser UK article about it, though I was rather disappointed in how they referred to it as hacking into Blogger, which sounds rather more evil than anything I intended. Anyway, it's fun to see people noticing and commenting on it.

Disclaimer: While I do appreciate all the comments and emails from people about this, I will probably not be able to respond to them all. Also, please note that I don't take requests for particular hacks, or for tech support. (If you have general Blogger/BlogSpot questions, please check out help.blogger.com, or write to Blogger Support.)

Gold Country Stunt Mandolin

I went over to Livermore yesterday for the premiere of Miz Evie's Gold Country, the movie that various Fletchers and Crains filmed last year but only just got finished editing. It ended up being about an hour long, and was a lot of fun to watch. I'm listed in the credits under "Stunt Mandolin," thanks to some creative editing of the barn dance scene, which gave the impression that I can play in the band and dance at the same time. I got a copy of the DVD, plus another disk that just has all the raw footage from the barn dance, which might be interesting to see, though I haven't watched it yet.

Costa Rica

It's official! I'm going to visit Quena in Costa Rica! I had been thinking I would go sometime in October, but then Lacey decided she wanted to come along too, which will make things even more fun. So we moved it up considerably so she won't miss any school. We're going to be gone August 25th through September 5. (And actually, Lacey will be staying a bit longer on her own.) This will be my first time out of the country in about 11 years, so that will be exciting. And we get to see Quena! Yay!

Well Waltzed

Waltz Weekend was good. I didn't actually learn a whole lot of new stuff, but it was fun to meet and dance with a lot of new people, and I was very glad to get to see and dance with Jessica again, too. I also worked out some new cross-step waltz stuff on my own, with some variations on a matador position move, so that was kind of cool. I finally sat down and read through Richard's "complete" list of 62 cross-step moves and found that I know pretty much all of them (not the hovercraft move, though) so I guess it's just time to start inventing more.

Brave Combo last night was absolutely fantastic. They are so much fun to dance to. Highlights included a hyper-speed polka, sailing smoothly around the room with Tina while various other frantic couples flailed past us, and an absolutely gorgeous last waltz with Jessica to a tune that just make me want to melt.

Let the Waltzing Begin!

Waltz Weekend starts tonight. The schedule is here if you want to see what I'll be doing all weekend. It should be fun, especially with Brave Combo playing on Sunday night. Looks like there will be a lot of cross step, which is always my favorite. I'm also curious about things like "jazz era waltz" and "the quest for the perfect waltz." Fun fun fun.