California Star Ball

So the California Star Ball this past weekend was my 9th anniversary in competition. In 1997, I stepped onto the floor there and competed in collegiate divisions of American smooth, rhythm, and Latin, and then tried my hand at Novice Latin and Open Amateur Smooth. The funnest part of that is to look back on the Smooth. Elizabeth (and Ginger) and I placed well in all the collegiate events, and even made the final in the Novice Latin, but got last in the Open Amateur Smooth (4th out of 4). I remember at the last second not even wanting to step out onto the floor when I noticed that the other amateur couples had "routines;" the deck captain convinced us we'd do fine. Never would I have thought that in 9 years, I'd be in the same ballroom dancing with Laetitia doing the Open Professional Smooth, and placing 2nd... it's been a fun journey, and I don't even feel like it's close to over, but I just couldn't help but get nostalgic.

Thanksgiving Travels

Laetitia and I did quite a bit of traveling this past weekend. We got up at 5am on Thursday to start our drive up the 5 to Paso Robles... +/- 5 hours later we were happy to see my family and their friends. Dinner was good, and had some pleasant surprises, like Shane's family macaroni and cheese recipe (we got down on more of that later). Friday, we rested, visited, and in the evening, Laetitia and I went to San Luis Obispo for some dancing at the Madonna Inn - that took us down memory lane, since we used to go there back in the day with the UCSB group, and for me, even earlier, with the Ota's cotillion group. All the while, we snapped pictures with our new camera (sold the old one on ebay). I've posted pictures at my Google/Picasa share. On Saturday, we visited a little more, but then had to head off to LA so we could check in to the LAX Radisson and get ready to compete at the California Star Ball. When we got into our room, we had the pleasure of catching a man with his pants down! Laetitia went downstairs and gave the clerk and ear full, then we got to a new room with no hot water - what a way to start! Anyway, despite all that, we got 2nd in the pro smooth championship and got a decent night's sleep before heading out to Disneyland the next day. I think those pictures speak for themselves, but it was great to have short lines and to FINALLY see the new Pirates of the Caribbean. Now, it's nice to be back home!

Pacific DanceSport Competition

So this last weekend, Laetitia and I danced in our 3rd professional competition since turning pro in September. One of the major changes in turning pro, besides dancing against a new pool of dancers, is actually getting to dance more than one event per competition. So, we got to dance Rising Star on Saturday, and Open Championship on Sunday. Our DVD looked pretty good, too, but I don't think I'm going to post clips since the camera was on the short side of the room, but we were glad to see some improvements in certain aspects of our dancing. We'll be competing again Thanksgiving weekend at the California Star Ball, so hopefully they'll have cameras in better position. For now, here's a picture/proof from this last weekend!