URDC Report #2

Our backs haven't been cooperating with us today. We went to the teach for Bill and Carol Goss's waltz "Try To Remember" but we couldn't do it, despite the fact that we knew 95% of the figures. We decided to try an easier dance in the afternoon, since Kenji and Nobuko Shibata's mambo "Tequila" seemed way out of reach of our frail bodies. We did Tim and Debby Vogt's beautiful Bolero "My Heart Will Go On" instead. We just barely made it through Chris and Terri Cantrell's cha "Una Manana,", which came next.

The Tango we learned yesterday was "Don Diego," by Brent and Judy Moore.

I also failed to mention that we met Roy and Janet Williams. We still have not hooked up with Bob Benjamin.

The San Antonio convention center has the best dance floor we have ever been on. Why they don't hold the dance here more often is beyond me. The weather here is warm and humid, but not hot and not nearly as humid as Ohio, Virginia, or New York, other places that I've danced in summers past. There have been some thunderstorms but all at night or during a dance session, not while traipsing back and forth between hotel and convention center. The fallout from Hurricane Emily gave us some rain during yesterday afternoon's session, then was quickly gone.

Our only complaint thus far is that after the afternoon session today, they locked us out of the main hall for about fifteen minutes while practicing the hall of fame dance, which must remain a big secret.
Unfortunately, our street shoes (and those of several other couples) were locked in that room and we couldn't leave the building for that time. This only delayed the process of our getting ice onto our aching backs in the hotel room.

Everyone here has been exceptionally gracious, except of course me, who went ballistic at the aforementioned shoe episode. Mary says I seem to be on the warpath today.

There has been some private discussion of the HOF dance. Someone noted that Kenji and Nobuko's "Beyond" was on last year's ballot but not on this year's ballot. Others have noted that the time allotted for the HOF presentation is long, bringing speculation that there might be two dances in a tie.

After tonight we'll know the HOF dance and the more of the Top 10 dances but not yet the Top 5. They always save the best (and the most obvious) until last.

I have a new PowerBook and I'm trying to use it instead of the MiniDisk to record all the dances. Unfortunately, although I'm quite familiar with Macs, I'm not familiar with the new notebooks. Unknown to me, I recorded several hours of dancing from the internal microphone instead of the audio cable. All told I lost about 1/3 of the convention dancing and 1/3 of the new dances being presented. That's frustrating.

If I can dance all I wish tonight without hurting my back and Mary's, make it to review sessions of dances we didn't quite "get" while at the same time staying in the room and icing our backs, complain to "management" while simultaneously apologizing to innocent others who bore my wrath earlier today, get good sound recordings while not dropping my computer again, and meet all the Weavers who are supposedly here but who I will never recognize, then miracles truly can happen.