Posted on Aug 21, 2009

Lions, tigers, and injuries. Oh my!

On Sunday, Emily and I decided to do a quick impromptu bouldering session at the local climbing gym. Unfortunately, I did something bad that I’m afraid is going to haunt me for quite a while. While holding on to a really funky and hard to use hold, I heard a “pop” as my hand forced me to let go and fell to the floor. I stood up to try and get back on that hold and felt a really sharp pain in my wrist.

I gave up on that hold and moved on to a couple more climbs but we had to go very soon. I went home, took a few ibuprofen, and hoped it would feel better in the morning. Today, it’s still swollen and aches all the time. I’m icing my wrist as I speak.

My second climbing related injury! I’m not even sure if I wrote about the first, but I tried to campus on a few holds and miscalculated a reach and punched a plastic hold very hard, fracturing a knuckle. That hurt for a long time but I was able to deal with the pain and keep climbing since there wasn’t anything to immobilize in order to heal. I’m not so sure this injury is going to be as simple.

It’s likely one of my pulleys. I have a doc appointment next Friday. Until then, it hurts to type, hurts to climb, hurts to do just about anything so I’ll probably be moping around wishing I had warmed up and stretched better for my short climbing session on Sunday.

Posted on Jun 18, 2009

Kick-ass swing: Fats Waller – A Good Man Is Hard To Find

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This man is one of the staples of many DJ sets. He’s classic down to the last drop. Raw rhythms, a lot of them original, chunky piano, rag, stride… you name it he did it. Fats was the man. So much the man, in fact, that…

Waller was kidnapped in Chicago leaving a performance in 1926. Four men bundled him into a car and took him to the Hawthorne Inn, owned by gangster Al Capone. Fats was ordered inside the building, and found a party in full swing. Gun to his back, he was pushed towards a piano, and told to play. A terrified Waller realized he was the “surprise guest” at Al Capone’s birthday party, and took comfort that the gangsters didn’t intend to kill him. According to rumor, Waller played for three days. When he left the Hawthorne Inn, he was very drunk, extremely tired, and had earned thousands of dollars in cash from Capone and other party-goers as tips.
Waller, Maurice and Anthony Calabrese. Fats Waller. Schirmer Books. 1977.

Tell me that isn’t badass!

Update: As per my father’s suggestion below, a great primer to Fats Waller is to start with his boxed set If You Got to Ask, You Ain’t Got It! (CD | MP3).

Posted on Jun 11, 2009

Updating WordPress via SVN when the repository URL changes

WordPress has a great and constantly up-to-date wiki for administrators to manage WordPress installations via SVN. Every time a release is made, I just search google for “wordpress svn sw” and copy the svn sw link over to my terminal.

But recently they changed the repository URL — which means anyone using the old URL will get the following error when they try to update (assuming they are using the svn sw command):

svn: 'http://core.svn.wordpress.org/tags/2.8'
is not the same repository as
'http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress'

The fix for today’s (2.8) release is easy (replace 2.7.1 with whatever you were previously using):

svn switch --relocate http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/tags/2.7.1 http://core.svn.wordpress.org/tags/2.7.1/ .

Then just do your normal:

svn sw http://core.svn.wordpress.org/tags/2.8/ .

It’s not hard to fix, but I’m not an avid user of SVN. So every time I do an update (assuming the repo URL has changed), I have to look at svn help and remember the syntax for changing repositories. Now, since I wrote this, I won’t need to. Perhaps this helped you too!

Posted on Jun 9, 2009

LINDY 500

Charm City Swing will be hosting an amazing event, the LINDY 500, June 19-21. This is actually our second year hosting the event — it was held under the name “Leap Year Lindy Weekend” last year.

Just like last year, we have an amazing lineup of guests dancing with us and teaching workshops:
Kevin St. Laurent, Jo Hoffberg, Nina Gilkenson, and Michael Seguin.

We’re now less than 2 weeks away. Registrations are starting to pour in from everywhere — DC, Philly, New York, Boston, Cali, Atlanta, and more! We’re going to have a ton of great dancers again this year.

Last but not least, the band lineup:

  • Friday: Cangelosi Cards
  • Saturday: Boilermaker Jazz Band
  • Sunday: Sac Au Lait

Whether you’re a beginner or very experienced, there will be something for everyone. Hope to see you there!