Archive for June, 2009

• 06.18.09 Kick-ass swing: Fats Waller – A Good Man Is Hard To Find posted in Dancing

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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).

• 06.11.09 Updating Wordpress via SVN when the repository URL changes posted in Technology

  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!

• 06.09.09 LINDY 500 posted in Dancing

  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!

• 06.04.09 Home rock climbing wall posted in Climbing

  Last Saturday I began a project I’ve been planning on doing for a long time: I started building a home rock climbing wall.

  My original plan was for an almost horizontal roof in the basement rafters but they have been unreachable due to the fact that I need a large workshop (for renovations) and the amount of crap Emily and I are storing in the basement. Saturdays are for brainstorming and working on house projects, so as I was organizing some stuff downstairs I realized I had a perfect start for the climbing wall under my stairwell due to my recent stair replacement project.

  

  

  

  
  
  

  I started on the easiest to reach stair by cutting a piece of plywood and reinforcing it to the stair frame. Then, I attached a second plywood piece two stairs up. I opened my box of climbing holds [Thanks, Dave!] and decided on the optimum placement for each. Then I tested and played around until my hands lost most of their skin and I could no longer do a pull-up.

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