IJA Fest I
I’m going to try breaking this up into installments, so that I can rattle on comfortably about the juggling festival in gory boring detail…
The IJA trip was a blast… I think the festival this year was better overall than last year. I will post a link to the competitions results once they are up…I should only appear on there once, for when Michael and I came in second in the eight club passing endurance.. I also came in fifth this year in three club backcrosses endurance, a happy little improvement over seventh last year. The shows were, overall, quite good. Thursday night had the individuals and teams performance championships, Friday was the big Lazer Vaudeville show, and Saturday was the Cascade of Stars. I also caught most of the Renegade shows on both Thursday and Friday nights.
Rode there with Michael and his wife Jenny.. We had planned to leave in the morning, 9 or 10, but didn’t actually get away until the early afternoon. We still arrived with plenty of time to check in at our hotel, (I had booked a separate room, two beds in case some cool person from the fest needed crash space), register at the festival, and look around the gym space before the championship show. This year they were taking photos of everyone and printing out ID tags with special coded information in the border decorations: how many days you paid for, what shows you paid to see, etc. The tags were to act as tickets to all of the shows. So of course, the card printing thing was down when we registered, and I was given no name tag with the assurance that my name would be placed on a list to get into the evening’s show, and instructions to come looking for my tag tomorrow. Began wandering the gym, looking for friends, checking out the vendors… Chatted with some folks for a while before spotting Mark and getting hurried along to Indian food before the show. On the way we realized there was nowhere near enough time for Indian food and went to a local diner instead.
Got to the theater just at 7:00 as the show was supposed to start. Ticket trouble: they could not find my name on the list, until I spotted it, hand-written in on the side of the page.. But we were still in time, found our seats, and the show started. There were, overall, more drops than I would have expected in the championship show.. A juggler from Chicago ended up with a medal in the individuals category..and I’d never heard of him before. One more reminder that we don’t have a good, open juggling club here in the city proper of Chicago. He was also, I think, the only American to medal. Ryo Yabe took the gold in the individuals, something I think he deserved last year as well. His diabolo routine once again blew my mind…although I’ve heard that there are some diaboloists in France who put Ryo to shame..I have yet to see anything of theirs though.
The Renegade show that night rocked! The Renegade shows are after-hours, anything-goes, not-suitable-for-children-or-clowns type shows. I missed the beginning, but Mark Hayward was emceeing and basically all of the Japanese guests to the festival had decided to perform. Matt Hall got roped in as translator, being pretty much the only person at the festival with passable skills in both English and Japanese. Once the Japanese acts finished, and someone had decided to try and play Duck Duck Goose onstage for the next act, Michael Jenny and I headed on to the hotel.
A nice start to the fest, and tomorrow maybe I’d even juggle!
IJA
In about half an hour I should be leaving for the Quad Cities to attend the IJA juggling festival. This will be my second time going, after last year. I came in third in the quarters juggling competition, so I’m aiming to top that performance this time.. I will return on Sunday, and hope to be able to blog about it shortly thereafter. The shows should be amazing, I’m planning on attending some of the workshops, and it’ll be awesome seeing the extended juggling crew. Mark is putting on the big variety show on Saturday. He asked if I would like to be a stagehand for it, but I want to actually see it too much to help him out, and had to refuse… He always puts together rocking shows.
Redesign
So Harper went ahead and made The Rats look all pretty and brand new.. So I’ll try to get back into the habit of writing things here..it’s hard to get back into it after a long break.
I have a new boss at work, effectively filling in a layer between me and my old boss. It’s going to be a good setup..she really knows what she’s doing and is good at leadership stuff. Plus, it means there will be another staff at the house where I work, and I’m always glad for someone else coming along to help with the load. The job is trying.
I’ve just started riding my bike to work most days. It’s seven and a half miles each way, and while Chicago is very flat, the wind has been against me each way (like going uphill both ways, but harder cause it’s..um..real..I swear) . Except for today…today was a sudden cool day, after a week inching towards 100 degrees..today I rode to work in 70 degree weather with a breeze at my back. It was much easier.
Matt has moved away to New York. He should perhaps hang out with my sister…. Our new roommate is Katy, a coworker of Erica’s. She is still setting up, and probably will be for some time..she will take Hiromi’s room when she moves back to Japan in a month or so.. For now, Katy is camping in Matt’s old room. Which was my room almost four years ago.
