Denver Day 4

A day I thought was going to be a relaxing day turned out to be filled with commitments!

Started the day with a quick trip to Einstein's Bagels, then back to the hotel dancing and observing the callers from the GCA school at the 10am to noon dance.  NOTHING was set up in advance except the flooring, so I went up to the room to grab my sound equipment for the dance.  When we all got back downstairs, the sound guys were setting the room up, so we hauled my own equipment back upstairs.  The new callers did a pretty decent job and I was proud of them.  I remember how much nerve there is doing something like this in front of several squares of your peers.

A few minutes before that dance ended, Kris and I headed off with Bear Miller to get our costumes for the trails-end dance.    After the fittings and such, we came back downtown for a lunch at Mad Greens and put the evening's dance together.  Another trip back to the hotel to check out the music in the room we were to call in.

Got in a quick nap after that, but the 5pm GCA meeting was creeping up fast, but made that with time to spare.  I left that meeting at 6, so I could get to the caller reception in Jorge's suite up in the nose-bleed heights of the hotel.  Then I left THAT early, so the four of us could get our costumes up for the dance...when we paraded in, there were probably already 15 squares on the floor, and that swelled to 40 or so by the end of the first hour.

The abysmal thing about that 3 hour dance was the horrible sound that the dancers (and we) had to put up with.  Just dreadful.  No matter what we did to try to correct the levels and such, it just never got better.  A lot of the Wilde Bunchers had shown up during the day, so it was great to see the new dancers jump in there and get their feet wet.

But that dance finally ended...we did 13 tips in 3 hours, mostly Mainstream and Plus with a spattering of A2.  I'm not sure I'd call a trails-end dance again unless the sounding of the halls could be made better.  The room we were dancing in was VAST with extremely high ceilings and a mix of rock or metal walls which did bad things acoustically.

The after party was fun in the lobby bar, with a huge number of acquaintances and friends from years gone by showing up for a good schooze.  The lobby bar was NOT ready for the huge amount of business!

Get to sleep in tomorrow.  My first hour (advanced) isn't until 11am!

Denver Day 4

A day I thought was going to be a relaxing day turned out to be filled with commitments!

Started the day with a quick trip to Einstein's Bagels, then back to the hotel dancing and observing the callers from the GCA school at the 10am to noon dance.  NOTHING was set up in advance except the flooring, so I went up to the room to grab my sound equipment for the dance.  When we all got back downstairs, the sound guys were setting the room up, so we hauled my own equipment back upstairs.  The new callers did a pretty decent job and I was proud of them.  I remember how much nerve there is doing something like this in front of several squares of your peers.

A few minutes before that dance ended, Kris and I headed off with Bear Miller to get our costumes for the trails-end dance.    After the fittings and such, we came back downtown for a lunch at Mad Greens and put the evening's dance together.  Another trip back to the hotel to check out the music in the room we were to call in.

Got in a quick nap after that, but the 5pm GCA meeting was creeping up fast, but made that with time to spare.  I left that meeting at 6, so I could get to the caller reception in Jorge's suite up in the nose-bleed heights of the hotel.  Then I left THAT early, so the four of us could get our costumes up for the dance...when we paraded in, there were probably already 15 squares on the floor, and that swelled to 40 or so by the end of the first hour.

The abysmal thing about that 3 hour dance was the horrible sound that the dancers (and we) had to put up with.  Just dreadful.  No matter what we did to try to correct the levels and such, it just never got better.  A lot of the Wilde Bunchers had shown up during the day, so it was great to see the new dancers jump in there and get their feet wet.

But that dance finally ended...we did 13 tips in 3 hours, mostly Mainstream and Plus with a spattering of A2.  I'm not sure I'd call a trails-end dance again unless the sounding of the halls could be made better.  The room we were dancing in was VAST with extremely high ceilings and a mix of rock or metal walls which did bad things acoustically.

The after party was fun in the lobby bar, with a huge number of acquaintances and friends from years gone by showing up for a good schooze.  The lobby bar was NOT ready for the huge amount of business!

Get to sleep in tomorrow.  My first hour (advanced) isn't until 11am!

Denver, Day 5

A Friday...normally the end of a work week, but the start of the week here as a half-staff caller.  Err...I mean...

After reasonably successful sessions of A2 and C1 in the morning, the rest of the day was a hodge-podge mix of socializing, dancing and other convention related jobs. 

Vince from Atlanta had asked Danny earlier in the day if we wanted to go to dinner.  By the time dinner time came, the entourage ended up as 7 people.  We ended up at the Rialto Cafe in two booths, and didn't get to visit with Vince, Trevor and Curtis at all.  Weird.

I got drafted to run the upstairs "queue up" music for the Grand March.  These things do tend to drag on since they're supposed to be the pageantry part of our event (like the Olympics), but mercifully between the Grand March, the anthyms (the Japanese anthym is still sung, although the Japanese presence is down to about one person), the (unfortunately not-well-planned) Memorial tip, and the announcements, they ended up 15 minutes early.  I was sad about how the Memorial Tip happened.  No one knew it was coming up...Bear announced a parting of the floor and several RMR volunteers walked the memorial panels up and down the path this left, while Garth Brook's "The Dance" was playing.  The callers had the best view of this...most of the 1000 or so dancers couldn't see much of it, and had no idea what was going on, other than some music was playing.  Oops.

The Bear Hour was festive enough, for sure.  Bear Miller is a hoot to work with...the hard part for me is being tagged to call the Bear Hour for past several years now and try to keep it fresh somehow.  I tried to make it an event, rather than just do the same-old, same-old Mainstream Lite dance.   I was trying to think of something to do, in the realm of the Wet Tshirt type of idea, and came up on the fly with the Furriest Bear in Your Square contest.  I'll have to expand that idea if I ever do this again.  We had the Front Range Bears who were promoting the Octobearfest come up in the 3rd tip to learn some easy square dancing.  I walked through "Running Bear" as something different to do toward the end of the hour, and MOST (but sadly not all) of the squares did quite well at it.  I hope we succeeded in the hour, because although the sound wasn't optimal, it was still much better than the other systems the rest of the convention was using.  WE at least had a yak stack to work with!

I really enjoy these specialty sessions!  The hall had to be opened larger, since the room (normally the Plus hall) was absolutely packed with men.  I'll be looking forward to see what other callers do with it in the next 4 conventions, since I get to be a dancer participant and am not on staff.  (Tradition seems to dictate that the Bear hour and the Leather hour get their own prime time slots, but all the other specialty tips are just add-ons...maybe these should be put back to add-on status?) .  I'm sad the LJ tip is happening when I'm calling my Hexagon hour.

After that fun was done, we did a social tour of the bar area, wandering with our $2 coaster beers from spot to spot visiting the few souls that hadn't beaten a path to the Honky Tonk Queen contest. 

Danny just came back from a quick stop at the HTQ.  Mustang Mary (aka Ken DiGenova) won!  Danny just posted it on the IAGSDC website.  Ima Cornholer came in 2nd (a stunning rout I'm sure) and Charlie Robertson (the caller escort!) came in 3rd!

Denver, Day 5

A Friday...normally the end of a work week, but the start of the week here as a half-staff caller.  Err...I mean...

After reasonably successful sessions of A2 and C1 in the morning, the rest of the day was a hodge-podge mix of socializing, dancing and other convention related jobs. 

Vince from Atlanta had asked Danny earlier in the day if we wanted to go to dinner.  By the time dinner time came, the entourage ended up as 7 people.  We ended up at the Rialto Cafe in two booths, and didn't get to visit with Vince, Trevor and Curtis at all.  Weird.

I got drafted to run the upstairs "queue up" music for the Grand March.  These things do tend to drag on since they're supposed to be the pageantry part of our event (like the Olympics), but mercifully between the Grand March, the anthyms (the Japanese anthym is still sung, although the Japanese presence is down to about one person), the (unfortunately not-well-planned) Memorial tip, and the announcements, they ended up 15 minutes early.  I was sad about how the Memorial Tip happened.  No one knew it was coming up...Bear announced a parting of the floor and several RMR volunteers walked the memorial panels up and down the path this left, while Garth Brook's "The Dance" was playing.  The callers had the best view of this...most of the 1000 or so dancers couldn't see much of it, and had no idea what was going on, other than some music was playing.  Oops.

The Bear Hour was festive enough, for sure.  Bear Miller is a hoot to work with...the hard part for me is being tagged to call the Bear Hour for past several years now and try to keep it fresh somehow.  I tried to make it an event, rather than just do the same-old, same-old Mainstream Lite dance.   I was trying to think of something to do, in the realm of the Wet Tshirt type of idea, and came up on the fly with the Furriest Bear in Your Square contest.  I'll have to expand that idea if I ever do this again.  We had the Front Range Bears who were promoting the Octobearfest come up in the 3rd tip to learn some easy square dancing.  I walked through "Running Bear" as something different to do toward the end of the hour, and MOST (but sadly not all) of the squares did quite well at it.  I hope we succeeded in the hour, because although the sound wasn't optimal, it was still much better than the other systems the rest of the convention was using.  WE at least had a yak stack to work with!

I really enjoy these specialty sessions!  The hall had to be opened larger, since the room (normally the Plus hall) was absolutely packed with men.  I'll be looking forward to see what other callers do with it in the next 4 conventions, since I get to be a dancer participant and am not on staff.  (Tradition seems to dictate that the Bear hour and the Leather hour get their own prime time slots, but all the other specialty tips are just add-ons...maybe these should be put back to add-on status?) .  I'm sad the LJ tip is happening when I'm calling my Hexagon hour.

After that fun was done, we did a social tour of the bar area, wandering with our $2 coaster beers from spot to spot visiting the few souls that hadn't beaten a path to the Honky Tonk Queen contest. 

Danny just came back from a quick stop at the HTQ.  Mustang Mary (aka Ken DiGenova) won!  Danny just posted it on the IAGSDC website.  Ima Cornholer came in 2nd (a stunning rout I'm sure) and Charlie Robertson (the caller escort!) came in 3rd!