I just posted a lot to my LJ site, if you care about things I write.

An update on dancing: Salsa classes are going really well, and we've been asked several more times if we teach. Which is funny, since we're still learning salsa. Lara dances it without enough hip movement (making it look vaguely like west coast swing), and I'm hopelessly trapped in the forward-back basic (dance with people from other South American countries, and you'll know what I mean when I say that there are many "basics"), bit since I'm a strong lead and she's a great follow, we look great dancing with each other and others.

Also, we didn't get our act together to make a poster for dancing for her school's activities fair, but someone else beat us to the punch and had a sign up sheet (though no advertisements) for a dance club. The guy at the table (who was there for another organization but wanted to be a part of the dance club) wanted to combine a music-mixing club with a club-style dance club. However, the Ringling employee who put out the sign up sheet approached Lara after our salsa lesson saturday night and told her that he had hoped we would run the club. Since I also met someone who is going to start teaching hip-hop lessons at our dance studio, and that was listed as one of the dances on our sign-up, it seems to be falling into place.

On a non-dance note, I had to buy a new mouse today. My mouse died, because the laser in it died. It had been going for a couple days, but I thought I must have been using it weirdly for it to act up. Then it just died yesterday. Well, having spare mice with different connection types, I thought it was no problem. But wait! Of my three spare mice, all old track-ball types, none of them would work! I have no idea why. I just used some of my best-buy gift card to get a new one though, so it was all good. Some of the mice at the store had so many options I had no idea what I would have done with all of them.

On a beach note, the Red Tide smell in the air has backed off a little, but we're still afraid to go to the beach. Red Tide is some semi-natural phenomenon that causes all the fish to die, and the birds that eat the dead fish die, and people who go swimming can get gangrene in cuts or develop severe lung problems. Both Lara and I got sick just from dancing on the sand two days in a row (photographed by a classmate the second time). It felt like someone was sitting on our lungs, then we got a headache and a stomach ache at the same time, combined with the need to sleep for about two days. We don't want it again, as much as we're dying to go swimming, so we have to confine ourselves to the pool in her apartment complex. It's just not the same.

Well, it has been a while since I've updated this. As you probably know, unless you found this page randomly, I just moved from Texas to Florida a few weeks ago. Life is good.

The condo Lara found for me is excellent. It's in downtown Sarasota, which means I can ride my bike almost everywhere I need to go (I fixed my bike and right now it is my primary transportation), and I'm only a few blocks from the bus station, if I need to go further. My room is spatious and all my stuff fit. My roommate, named JP, is from Boston, a hard worker who is a waiter right now until he can find a job in real estate. He's very clean, and we don't interact much, both being reclusive at home and gone most of the time. The most we interact is to put away each other's clean dishes. I'm used to hand-washing dishes, and we don't go through enough dishes to fill the dishwasher in three days, so it's easier to just hand wash things as we get them dirty, and leave them to dry. The other comes along, and after eating, puts away the clean dishes before washing the other stuff. Thanks, mom. I'm sure you're bitter I never did it at home [laughs]. The only thing about my place is that between the cluttered bedroom and the small dining table and the very very clean couch, it can't hold large parties. Which is ok, because Lara's condo (she's compulsively clean also) has a big table and lots of space.

I'm finding myself missing little things that I never thought about, like a draining rack, a peeler, a bowl big enough to serve salad, salt and pepper, and a brush to clean my toilet. I've remedied their lack, but still. It was quite obvious to JP that this was my first apartment [laughs]. Also, to get internet, I had to get wireless, so if you're ever visiting, you can bring your laptop with wireless. I also have a new cell phone, Sprint, 941-306-8348, and free sprint-to-sprint, and free 7pm-7am nights and weekends.

However, to catch me at night, you'll be lucky. I've been turning it off at dancing, and not taking it at all when we go to the beach. My lifestyle right now involves going to the beach every day or three, going dancing at least four times a week, and riding my bike around getting things done, and working on my computer. I'm getting a lot of reading done, as well as working on my cooking (I surprised Lara's friends by bringing her lunch between classes on a day when she missed breakfast). I'm doing research for job hunting, and I have a couple things in the works, though I haven't found a primary job possibility yet. Lara's dad, who does a lot of hiring at his company, has sent my resume back to the drawing board a couple times [laughs].

Lara and I have more things to pay attention to in regards to dancing. She's been asked for a card several times, and I've been asked if I was a dance teacher, and someone asked where we perform. Our favorite lessons are group classes of tango on friday evenings and salsa on saturday evenings at a place called Sara Dance Center, run by a man named John. After helping teach one of the other teachers a move in International Cha-Cha friday night, and teaching several people after class the technique for the move taught during the salsa class, John offered to let me teach a beginning salsa class if we have as many beginners next week as we did this week. Which is awesome! I didn't even have to ask. Also, we're trying to get together a beginner tango class for friday night, at the same time as our advanced class. He has two rooms of his studio, equally large with mirrors and dance floors, so we could have a beginner class taught by one of his other teachers at the same time as our advanced tango class, and then we could all dance together during the social dancing afterward. It would be great, and we've already given contact info to a couple of people who are interested.

So besides business cards for dancing, and figuring out a possible lesson plan for the salsa class, we have to make a poster to advertise for a dance club we want to start at Ringling, Lara's school. She has a club fair on Friday, and we need to get word out and get members to join. I can teach beginner/intermediate ballroom and salsa, and Lara can teach lindy hop (she could teach advanced if she had a partner that could do it...I still need lessons at the beginner/intermediate level), and together we can teach beginner/intermediate tango. I have a lot of experience giving private lessons, just teaching friends randomly, and she actually taught a lindy group class for two years. The difficulty isn't the teaching, but getting people together who are interested. There are 5 colleges in the area, and we need to recruit from all of them for a dance club. We'll need to find people willing to be liasons for the club at their particular school, while we will organize and run the entire thing. It's going to be fun!

Um, also, I'm planning on calling people with my new phone to chat. If you don't hear from me very soon, it's because I don't get around to it very quickly. Talking on the phone generally feels like a big waste of time to me, and even emailing, which previously took up so much of my time, seems like something to do if I've got nothing better to do. Between biking and swimming (pool and ocean) and dancing, I'm staying in pretty good shape. Other things in the works: Lara and I are planning on reading the Bible together all the way through, and we're figuring out where we can practice tango every night, and she's going to teach me to draw so I can accompany her to figure drawing, and though it's pretty far down my list, I'm going to find time to practice cello, probably infrequently, but that's better than the almost-never that I do now.

That's all for now. See ya, blogger.