Harry Potter and the Country Western Dance Craze

Can you imagine Harry Potter doing the Two Step? I cannot. I have no idea of what kind of dance the kids do in the fourth Harry Potter movie, but it looks vigorous. I wonder, every time I watch it, how many girls went flying across the room as their partners hoisted them high in the air and lost control.

The first time I ever took a dance class, so far as I can recall, was in the fourth grade. I was madly in love with a cute girl named Cathy Hutto. I had watched her shyly fir months and never once could think of a thing to say to her. 9-year-old boys aren't supposed to be infatuated with girls, but I was infatuated with Cathy.

Well, one day our class was introduced to Square Dancing. Through machinations I no longer recall, Cathy turned out to be my partner. I was in hog heaven, sitting on cloud nine, flying high, and soaring free. Had I only known then what I know now, I probably could have made her my girlfriend. I think, as I recall those memories, that she actually liked me.

Can't imagine why.

But we danced together. Yes, Cathy was my first dancing partner. I'll always remember her short brown hair, her deep dark eyes, and her skinny arms. She was also my first Girl Scout dream girl. Up until that year, I had only been infatuated with the occasional Brownie Scout (which may not make sense for people outside the United States -- I don't know what the equivalent scouting ranks are called elsewhere in the world).

Except for the fact that I got to hold hands with the girl I had been drooling over for months, not much else stayed with me from that Square Dancing lesson. If you're a teacher thinking about giving the kids a Square Dancing (or any kind of dancing) lesson next year, here's a hint: Give them a weekly dance period. Sounds like a lot of work, but my romance died before I could needlessly connive my way into the girl's heart.

Not that 9-year-olds need to be serious about that sort of thing, but I was crushed not to have had more time to spend with a girl who usually sat on the far side of the room from me. We want what we cannot have.

The next time I took a Square Dancing class, I was in college. For reasons I don't recall, I was avoiding a real physical education class. I taken a First Aid class, a bowling class, and managed to drop out of a Volley Ball class. So I needed one more P.E. class to get my P.E. credits lined up and one quarter despite all my best attempts to arrange a decent schedule, I ended up taking ... Square Dancing.

It's hard to be the only man in a class with 30 women who don't want to dance with each other. The first day of class, as the teacher was laying out the rules, she neglected to mention how I would be partitioned, shared, or otherwise circulated among the ladies. So she said, "Ladies, grab a partner!"

Next thing I know, a gorgeous girl named Paige came running across the room to grab me (she was taken, but by the end of the quarter, so was I -- by a girl not in the class). The teacher immediately sensed the drawing of claws as shrieks of anger and disappointment rang out. "Everyone will have to share the only male partner in the class," she cried out. "And Michael, please make sure you dance with each of the ladies."

BTW -- that class was a major workout. Did I say I was avoiding a "real" P.E. class? Hah!

I did, actually, have a favorite girl in that class. Her name was Joanna, and if I had had sense, I would have found a reason to talk to her a little more often. I could have dated her. I should have dated her.

Alas! It was not meant to be.

Now, Square Dancing is a bit more formal than what most people think of as Country Western Dancing. Around Houston, people usually associate C W Dancing with Two Step or maybe some line dances. We did learn line dances in that class. I wish I could remember them, as I'm terrible at line dances. But they have probably long since gone out of fashion.

Oddly enough, when I go to the Chinese Cultural Center with my friend Maggie, there is an inevitable line dance or two. Why? I have no idea. Those people just love to dance and they don't care what the style is. So one minute you'll see people sweeping across the floor in a graceful Viennese Waltz and the next they're lining up with their thumbs in their belts, yellin' "Yeehaw! Git along leetle dogies!"

Imagine Jackie Chan in a western movie -- a serious western movie -- and you'll get an idea of what I mean.

It's all about having fun, of course. And if you can enjoy being rigid and plastic while doing a tango with a complete stranger, you can enjoy a relaxed spin around the room for a Two Step.

My friend Geno asked me tonight if I thought he could learn Two Step. I think he knows enough basic dance moves that he could pick it up pretty quickly. I don't often dance Two Step myself but I learned the basics a couple of years ago to get ready for a sort of test date. I say "test date" because at the time I wasn't sure I wanted to be seeing the person I'd agreed to meet at a local C W dance bar. She reminded me too much of someone from my past.

But agree I did, and I popped into Gloria's dance schedule in panic, asking if she could give me a primer on basic Two Step. I had seen Gloria do some fancy dancing with another teacher, so I knew she could handle the request. Gloria had, by that time, been teaching me for about a year (I think) and I guess she knew I wasn't quite ready for (Two Step) prime time.

The planned-for evening went off about as well as it should. I soon after decided not to pursue the lady, but I didn't completely write off Two Step. It's a pretty dance when done right and can be downright vigorous.

I've stood in on a couple of Two Step classes in Houston that Gloria has arranged for students. By "stand in", I mean I know just enough to follow a good backlead from a teacher who needs someone to demonstrate basic moves. I was able to lead a beginner about as well as any other beginning man in the room.

So while I may write mostly about Salsa dancing and occasionally about Ballroom Dancing, I don't think poorly of C W Dancing. I just don't fit that into my schedule. I've made my choices and that's that, but you never know. I might end up with another country girl who wants a man who can whirl her around the room. Next time, I'll be a little better prepared than when I was in the fourth.

Happy dreams, Cathy, wherever you are.

Harry Potter and the Week of Recovery

I have five puncture wounds in my abdomen and chest. I had a sixth in my hand where the IV drip was connected, but that doesn't really count. When I woke up Friday afternoon after the surgery, I was in a lot of pain, but not from the puncture wounds where the robot-guided microsurgical instruments had penetrated my body.

My right shoulder was killing me. I was in a lot of agony, and for the first time in my life I couldn't wait to ask for pain medicine repeatedly. I stay as far away from narcotics as I possibly can. I have watched them and other drugs ruin people I have cared deeply about, destroy lives, and end what should have been (in my opinion) careers and lifetimes filled with hope and accomplishment.

But I couldn't get comfortable for the life of me. It was only after friends had brought me back to their home, where I am recovering under their care, that I learned many people experience pain in their neck and shoulders after surgery. Apparently they flop your head back and shove stuff down your throat. Makes sense. But someone could have warned me.

I remember asking for the Demetrol shots maybe 3-4 times while in the hospital. I have ignored the Vicodin prescription they gave me. I am just using over-the-counter pain relief (acetaminephin) for my gradually declining soreness.

To while the hours away, when I'm not exchanging furious text messages with interested parties, I've been re-reading Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince. Technically, I was supposed to read it while I was in the hospital, but hospital beds and chairs are so uncomfortable I never even tried to open the book.

I've also watched some DvDs. Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith (should have picked The Phantom Menace, which remains the best of the six movies); How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days; and maybe one or two others. But I've watched all the DvDs before. I'm kind of bored. Even The Incredibles failed to keep my complete attention, although I noticed some new details I haven't picked up on before.

I reread my latest essay at MERP, "Politics: Just Politics", and have cringed at the obvious typos which need fixing.

I called my boss and left him a voice mail saying I'm alive.

But for the past couple of days, when I haven't been sneaking cake frosting into my otherwise bland diet (which today expanded to include a scrambled egg and potato soup), I've mostly walked and read Harry Potter.

Harry is interesting because he ages in the books. I don't know why other people are interested in Harry, but that is why I'm stuck in the Harry Potter zone. I can read about Frodo Baggins and his itty-bitty trinket a few hundred times because people keep asking questions I don't know the answers to, but frankly there are parts of The Lord of the Rings that bore me to tears. Haven't found many passages in the Potter books that slow down as much for me.

In fact, as I reread the Potter books (and rewatch the movies), I find myself wondering more and more where J.K. Rowling is going with this series. Now, I don't mean I want to know in advance if Harry lives or dies. That really doesn't matter much to me (although I'd rather have him live than die, since too many authors end up killing off their heroes in my opinion). What I mean is that there has to be a point to the whole thing, and the more I revisit these stories, the more I feel they are about Tom Riddle and the less I feel they are about Harry Potter.

That's a very subtle message, but we actually see farther into Tom's psyche and motivations than we do into Harry's. In fact, Dumbledore just sort of sums up Harry Potter in one sentence: "You want to kill Lord Voldemort, don't you Harry?" (I'm paraphrasing).

Harry is a means to an end. Voldemort has to die. But the question remains: does Tom Riddle have to die? And if Tom Marvolo Riddle must die, who kills him? I don't think it will be Harry. I think the answer has already been laid in the earlier books, possibly in material only revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince.

We learn a great deal about ourselves if we study what other people think of us. Depending on which characters in the stories speak about him, Voldemort is either the greatest wizard who ever lived or he is the biggest monster to emerge from the Wizarding world. The difference lies chiefly in how one defines greatness.

Remember what Ollivander told Harry? "The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter. It's not always clear why." But on the basis of the wand that chose Harry, Mr. Ollivander concluded that the Wizarding world could expect great things from Harry. Does that mean Harry is great because of his wand? I think that in Ollivander's eyes, the wand seeks out greatness rather than makes it. A great wand is matched with a great wizard.

But greatness is measured by different standards. Voldemort had a choice and when it came time to make that choice (somewhat prematurely in his life experience, I think), he chose the Dark Path. In Tom Riddle, we see the birth of the Dark Lords of the Sith. We saw Melkor become Morgoth. We see good become evil. And yet Tom was not wholly good in his beginning.

He was born innocent of the sins of his father (who abandoned his mother) and his mother (who magically ensnared his father) but he was never wholly free of sin. And yet Tom was set on a hard path because he had everything stacked against him. As his powers emerged and he learned to use them for his own benefit, there was no one around to temper his judgement and show him the difference between right and wrong.

Dumbledore came along too late to have that kind of influence over Riddle. Or did he? We see in Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince that at some point in their teacher-student relationship, Dumbledore had invested time in discussing the power of love with Tom Riddle. But Tom never accepted the truth of Dumbledore's wisdom.

So here he is, 50 years later, spiritually shattered and conspiring (it seems) to take over the world. He has become thoroughly evil by committing evil act after evil act. And yet, how many people are really like that? I can think of a few historical leaders (such as Adolf Hitler) who, by the end of their lives, had become so consumed with their evil values they felt no remorse for what they had done.

The leaders of Al Qaeda are clearly so steeped in evil they feel no remorse for the thousands of murders they inspire others to commit. Innocent blood to them is only the pavement on the road to their personal sense of glory. They honestly believe they will achieve greatness by committing horrendous acts of gratuitous evil.

Is Tom Riddle any different from the monsters who murder the innocent? Not by the time Harry Potter is old enough to learn about Tom's early life and choices. But just as Osama Bin Laden was once born a human being with hope of redemption, Tom Riddle was once a character who could have made a choice to walk down a righteous path rather than stand in the shadows.

Just as Osama Bin Laden has now thoroughly immersed his soul in evil and sin, Tom Riddle (in his persona of "Lord Voldemort") has soaked himself in the blood of so many innocent victims there seems no hope of redemption for him.

It would, I think, be perceived as an enormous cheat if Rowling had Riddle turn back to the "Light Side" at the very end. Only George Lucas can get away with that because Luke Skywalker, the most unlikely of heroes in any epic adventure, felt the good in his father. No one is feeling any good in Voldemort. No one is feeling any good in Osama Bin Laden.

So Riddle has to complete his journey of self-destruction and it won't matter if Harry kills him or if Severus Snape turns out to be truly faithful to Dumbledore's ideals and kills Riddle or if a really ticked-off Ginny Weasley comes out of the shadows to slam a knife in Riddle's back after he does off Harry.

Riddle is doomed because he has destroyed himself. He cannot win because he has already lost. Who was it who said, "What does it profit a main to gain the world but lose his soul?"

I think Rowling is showing us that Tom Riddle made bad choices, but someone else keeps making bad choices in these stories. That someone is Harry Potter. In the end, can Harry Potter afford to kill off Voldemort without becoming the next Lord Voldemort? For, you see, Harry's only motivation is revenge. It was revenge which spurred Tom to eliminate his last living relatives (on both sides of the family) and, in a way, it was revenge (against an uncaring Wizarding world) that spurred Tom to commit horrific crimes that transformed him into Lord Voldemort.

Harry has come close to crossing the line but he hasn't crossed it yet. Dumbledore has attempted to impress upon Harry the appreciation for the power of love that he failed to impress upon Tom. I think that, if Harry doesn't become the next Dark Lord, it will be because of his love for those around him -- perhaps Ginny Weasley will be the obvious focus of his love, but I don't think Rowling will make it that obvious.

Both Harry and Tom spent their early years living as social outcasts. Both Harry and Tom were introduced to the Wizarding world after they had discovered their powers. Both Harry and Tom had used their powers to extract petty vengeances against those who had done them wrong.

Harry Potter is, for all intents and purposes, Tom Riddle. Tom Riddle is for all intents and purposes, Harry Potter. Each is the other as he could have chosen to be. Each is what he has made himself into. But Harry has not yet come to the final moment where he has to confront the real demon inside himself. He hasn't yet been faced with the temptation of wielding dreadful power that could seduce him into walking that dark path.

I think maybe where Rowling is going with this story is that, if we choose to fight monsters who threaten our world, we have to be very, very careful not to replace those monsters with our own ambitions.

And I've got a few more days to dwell on these happy topics while I recover from the five puncture wounds.

Stop Heartburn: Fix That Hiatal Hernia

This is the icky post, but I'm going to be offline for a few days and I'd rather use this last window of opportunity to say something that I've been wanting to say for a long time.

If you live in the United States or any place where you have been inundated by Nexium commercials, you have probably (like me) begun to tune out the "If you have heartburn 2-3 times per week, see your doctor" message. For the longest time, I thought those commercials were just trying to scare people into asking for Nexium.

While that may be a great marketing ploy, the truth is that the message is right on the money. I've learned that the hard way, although my condition has been diagnosed in time that I have an option many people miss out on.

I told my brother, after I was diagnosed, that if he's having heartburn he needs to see a doctor. I thought heartburn and acid reflux disease were just normal, mild conditions that everyone experienced and there was nothing you could do about them. I was wrong. Worse, these conditions can reach a point where you have some serious medical problems.

I've experienced occasional heartburn since I was a kid. Never thought much about it. I used to drink a glass of milk and that solved the problem. About 9 years ago I had chronic heartburn that was so bad I woke up in the middle of the night and threw up several times a week (I told you this would get icky). My doctor concluded I had an ulcer and he put me on Cimetidine for a few weeks. The heartburn and the vomiting stopped after a few weeks.

A few years ago, I went out to mow the grass in New Mexico. I'd lived there for several years, and everyone told me that Albuquerque was the allergy capital of the world. I never seemed to have an allergy problem, so I figured I was lucky. Well, that day I spent about 20 minutes cutting grass and weeds in the front yard and then went into an allergy attack that lasted 12 hours. I finally took an antihistamine and went to bed for two days. Antihistamines knock me out and I rarely, rarely take them.

When I woke up two days later, I could barely walk. I was so dizzy I could barely stand up. That was my first experience with Vertigo, which lasted for about a month. My doctor put me on antivert (a standard antihistamine that doesn't cause drowsiness). The dizziness gradually went away. I remember laying on the examining table in the doctor's office, watching the ceiling writhe like it was alive with millions of white worms. He was writing a prescription for me and he said, "You can get up now."

"I've tried twice," I replied. He came over and helped me up. I wasn't allowed to drive a car or operate lawn mowers or do much of anything for several weeks.

After I moved to Houston my allergy problems went away. But I took a job with a company that operates a refrigerated environment. During the course of 2-1/2 years I got sick a couple of times but struggled back to health. My doctor here in Houston treated me for a couple of oddball things where the medicines sometimes made me walk into walls. We switched medicines and I moved on.

A little over 2 years ago I caught a cold while working in the refrigerated environment without adequate clothing. The cold turned into bronchitis, the bronchitis turned into pneumonia. By the time my doctor had the pneumonia under control, I was having a massive Vertigo attack. This one lasted for 2 months, and I barely remember a few minutes here and there from that time frame.

The Vertigo was so bad I was referred to an Ear-Nose-Throat specialist who ordered some minor tests, determined he couldn't find what was wrong, and he wanted to start doing massive tests like CAT scans (he still wants to). Well, I left that job and ended up back in Florida without insurance for a while, so I was careful not to do things that might trigger Vertigo attacks. One of the neat things about Vertigo is that you can wake up in the morning, completely incapable of standing up, crawl into the bathroom, throw up, and Voila! You can stand and move about.

Vomiting is one of the body's ways of adjusting itself. The doctors don't really explain how it works (maybe they don't really know), but they all say, "If you feel a lot better after you vomit, why complain?"

Well, isn't modern medical science wonderful?

Somwhere in my Floridian stay I started hitting antacids. Not much, but every few days I found myself with a case of heartburn and I started keeping antacids close to hand.

In late 2004 I moved back to Texas. The heartburn got worse. I eventually decided to just keep a bottle of antacids in my car and one at home. I was chewing antacids every two hours. Thought nothing of it because the heartburn went away. Just before it came back.

Well, last March I took a little trip up to Dallas and I got sick again. Cold turned into Bronchitis, Bronchitis turned into Vertigo. This lasted about two weeks because this time I was on to that trick. I sucked down every antihistamine and decongestant my body could tolerate.

Also, the ENT had told me to take a daily dose of B-100 vitamins. His treatment (which is not a cure) reduces the recovery time from a Vertigo attack to about two weeks. I can almost live with two weeks' impairment. Almost.

The months moved on and my doctor started hinting it was that time in my life where I should do a certain uncomfortable test. "Look," he said. "I'm a man, too. I hate this test. I've gone through it. But I don't want to let anything go wrong down there that's going to kill me. Do you really think that ignoring part of your body is going to keep you healthy?"

Okay, he was almost persuasive. We agreed that because I was eating antacids like candy that he would check out everything at once. Only, for reasons I forget, I couldn't schedule the test last Fall as we planned. Well, what the heck? I didn't want to take the test anyway.

But I got sick again this February. These colds-turn-into-bronchitis situations were getting old. Three years in a row around February or March I've gone through the same crap. This time my doctor gave me some powerful stuff that not only killed the bronchitis, he told me to start taking Claritin and a decongestant. "Don't worry about what the doages say," he advised me. "I'm your doctor and I'm telling you to take THIS much stuff to get the gunk out of your system. And when do you want to do your tests?"

Okay, I let him scope me. The good news is that I'm healthy down there -- no problems. But he then picked up a cardboard flipover illustration. "Have you ever heard of Acid Reflux Disease?" he asked me.

"Sure, I've seen the Nexium commercials. They drive me nuts."

"Well, I'm not ever trusting you again," he added. "And here's why."

He flipped the cardboard thingee open and said, "This is phase 1. This is phase 2. This is phase 3." With each phase, you see more damage in the esophagus. There are only 4 phases. "This is you," he concluded, flipping to phase 4. He held up a picture of my esophagus and compared it to the flip chart. If anything, I looked worse than phase 4.

"Most people in your condition would be screaming for narcotics," the doctor continued. "You? You just pop some antacids and move on." He rolled his eyes.

"Fortunately," he added, "We got in there in time. I can fix you, but you have to make some decisions."

Well, the ulcers were easily healed. He put me on Prevacid and I didn't have to touch my antacids again. I almost donated them to charity, but I've been with them for so long there was a slight sentimental attachment to them -- or maybe just some quiet paranoia.

But the reason why I have Acid Reflux Disease is that the aperture at the bottom of my esophagus (my food pipe) stays open. I have a hiatal hernia. Part of my stomache comes up through that hole every time I breathe. Worse, at night, when I'm laying down, fluid comes up and gets into my lungs. That's why every little cold turns into bronchitis and pneumonia.

One of the most uncomfortable symptoms of this condition is that you cannot sleep. You're constantly throwing up, or gurgling up. When I can drift off to sleep, I'm good for about two hours. Then I wake up choking and hacking and I have to sit up for an hour while my stomache settles. This happens even with the Prevacid. Of course, I sleep with more than one pillow. The more you elevate your head, the better. But that doesn't fix the problem.

My doctor says I'm lucky because I have no scar tissue in my esophagus. If there were scar tissue, I would have to live with this for the rest of my life. But we diagnosed it in time and I've elected to have a laparoscopy, which is a relatively new surgical procedure. The surgeon will use microtools guided by little cameras to go in and tie off my esophagus. The really inconvenient part of the procedure is that I'll be on a liquid diet for a few days.

I'm not looking forward to that, but my doctor and the surgeon assure me that I won't need the Prevacid or antacids any more. I'll be able to sleep normally. I won't have to be afraid of getting a cold. Who knows? Maybe there is some connection to the Vertigo.

But there was one little catch. They wanted me to take a "motility test". What was that? A nurse sticks a tube up your nose, snakes it down your throat, and then asks you to swallow. The tube has some gizmo in it that gauges your ability to swallow. There is no point in performing a laparoscopy if you don't have the strength to force food down your newly closed esophagal aperture.

I was kind of put off by the description of the test, but I went ahead and tried to do it. I say, I tried to do it. I choked and gagged so much the nurse kept saying, "Do you want me to take it out?"

"I just want to get through this," I insisted. "I don't ever want to do this again." Against my pleas she pulled it out. I was in so much pain tears were streaming down my face. I was sore for several days afterward.

So, my doctor conferred with the surgeon, the surgeon conferred with my doctor, they all said, "Maybe you should see an ENT."

Conveniently, I knew one. My doctor agreed to refer me back to him. The ENT gave me the, "I'm not going to lie to you. I need lots of data before I can figure out what's wrong. So it's up to you how much we learn" speech.

He ended up having one of his assistants try to stick a tube up my nose. It didn't go any better than the first time.

Well, by this point I'd scheduled the surgery but couldn't get cleared for it. I called the surgeon and said, "I really don't want any tubes up my nose." My doctor warned me he might not approve the surgery.

"What's the worst case scenario?" I asked.

My doctor shrugged. "Worst case? It doesn't work."

"Yeah, but what does that mean? What happens when you try to eat?"

"Oh, well, the food has to go somewhere. If you cannot swallow, it comes back up."

I breathed a huge sigh of relief. "I can live with throwing up," I said, feeling like a Bulimia victim. "I just don't want you to say 'Well, you could die.' I'll sue you if you kill me."

He laughed. "You won't die. If the surgery doesn't work, they just undo it. But the purpose of the test is to see if they can do it safely. 1% of people are not candidates for the surgery."

He proceeded to tell me in graphic detail about how many of his patients fall into the 1%. I'll spare you the details, except to say that some of his patients are not out of their teenage years and they have to take Prevacid or a similar medicine for the rest of their lives. Children can have hiatal hernias, and if they go untreated the scar tissue develops and then they cannot have the surgery.

Meanwhile, back at the surgeon's office, he just shrugs off the lack of a motility test. "It would be better if we could do it," he said. "But I'll just assume you failed it."

"So I don't get to have the surgery?"

"No, I'll do the procedure, but I won't do a full 360 degree wrap. I'll just do a partial wrap. You'll be able to swallow."

Now they tell me....

Look, I don't know how many people have chronic heartburn, but I know what you're going through. If you think the Nexium commmercials are just trying to make you paranoid, think again. When left untreated, Acid Reflux Disease can cause lesions that turn cancerous. And other things happen, too. Eventually, you become too old for any kind of surgery. And the impact on your quality of life is tremendous. Do you really want to wake up choking in your sleep every night?

I don't.

So I'm going for the surgery. As far as the Vertigo is concerned, there may or may not be a connection. Doctors have lots of theories about Vertigo. I just know that if I can diminish the chances of developing bronchitis, I probably won't have to suffer another massive Vertigo attack. I'm tired of losing weeks and months out of my life.

And that's all for now.

Recovery time from the laparoscopy takes up to a week. I may be able to return to work before the end of next week. I picked Memorial Day weekend for the surgery because I wanted as little disruption to my life as possible. I'll try to start blogging again around Monday.

Have a great weekend.

And those of you who know where I'll be, remember to call me Friday evening like you promised. I'll be going stir crazy about then.

I can only imagine what I'll be like come Sunday evening....

Lou Dobbs goes off the deep end

I occasionally check news headlines throughout the day. Rarely does anything really catch my attention. But today I saw "Dobbs: Bush, Congress to working folks: Go to hell" and thought, "Okay, CNN is doing some rabble rousing. Let's see what the Militant Media has to say."

Apparently, Mr. Dobbs feels he is more qualified to determine wartime strategy than our generals. Frankly, I'm glad he's sitting in his armchair, preaching to the liberal choir. Much as I would like to see our troops come home from Iraq, we don't need another Bill Clintonesque retreat from Mogadishu. CNN made Mogadishu into a disaster as much as President Clinton did. By every military measurement, we won the battle in Mogadishu. But CNN doesn't want the U.S. to look like a winner. They want us to look like losers so they can bash whomever is in office.

I'll give CNN that much credit for their yellow journalism: they are only Democrats for as long as it takes to get the Republicans out of office. And then they are Republicans until the next Democrat takes control. Responsible journalism is supposed to rise above the politics. That is what they teach journalism majors, but at some point the media eschew responsible journalism and they begin whacking away at political parties and elected officials.

You know, if a Congressman gets caught with $90,000 in his freezer after the F.B.I. just videotaped him accepting what is allegedly a $100,000 bribe, I say let's spend some public money and see what is going on. Maybe there is something there.

But there is a reason for why the Country Music industry is panning the Dixie Chicks. They have eschewed producing good music in favor of proving they don't know a thing about international politics. It's just so weird how all the critics don't care who we trample in our zeal to be the biggest nation on Earth, but when it comes time to make amends and pay the price for our selfishness, we're all supposed to be anti-war activists.

We are in Iraq because of 50 years of policy-making by both Republicans and Democrats. We are not in Iraq because George W. Bush has a personal vendetta. He may not be the best President we've ever had. He may not be calling as many shots as Dick Cheney is. But he's man enough to stand up for what's right and try to do the right thing.

I hope and pray he finds a way to get us out of Iraq because my biggest fear is that some anti-war Democrat will be elected in 2008 and we'll pull a Spain and run for the hills like cowards. And then we'll really be in a mess, because every terrorist organization in the world will know that the United States can be intimidated and frightened and bullied.

War is not an answer to anyone's problem, but as soon as the bullets start flying, you have to make a stand. History is filled with the sad stories of nations and armies that turned tail and fled. They were stabbed and shot in the backs by the thousands. And in today's shrinking globe, we have nowhere to run for cover.

We don't need to let the news media determine national policy. We need to start accepting the fact that there are consequences for every policy-decision that is made in Washington. We just have to work through those consequences and strive to find the best possible path together.

Right now, the terrorists are winning the war because the American news media is terrified.

Being on the short list of life

I'm supposed to make a lot of phone calls these days, but over the past month or so I have found my most productive days tend to be the ones where I make the fewest phone calls. That's contrary to the whole "It's a numbers game" philosophy about sales. Then again, they say that quality is more important than quantity. We go through life wondering who they are, those nameless experts and spewers of conventional wisdom. I've begun to think they are space aliens (although some people have identified Them as radioactive giant mutated ants).

Quality-over-quantity is a powerful rule of thumb. It works well in search engine marketing, where good SEOs advise their clients to focus on conversions and sales rather than just boosting traffic (for clients who need sales). It works in your social life, where having a few good friends is better than having many faux friends. It works in your garage, where having a few good cars is better than looking like you run a cheap used car dealership. I once had four vehicles. I'm not sure of why, since at no time were more than two of them being used anyway.

That was when I lived in New Mexico. It seemed like I spent my Saturdays ferrying vehicles down to the gas station, washing them, and getting basic maintenance work done. And yet, oddly enough, when I started to reduce the size of the fleet, I felt like something was missing from my life. We become so used to quantity that when we finally start to get quality, we don't appreciate what we have.

Quality might be a cute text message about cookies that comes when you're sitting with three other people. What do you do? Laugh and joke with the decision-makers, or take the text message?

Quality might be a girl who comes up and says, "Do you dance Viennese Waltz"? What do you do? Say, "Nope. Sorry. But call me when you're ready to Cha Cha" or do you say, "No, but if you hum a few bars I can fake it"? Take the waltz, for we may never pass this way again. At worst, you'll look like a fool. But what do you look like when you wimp out?

Quality is a Three Musketeers bar. Quantity is M&Ms (which do melt in your hand if you hold them long enough) or Reese's Pieces.

I'd rather be that rare individual someone stops and takes the time to say "Hi" to, than one of the faceless Everymans populating an Incredibles movie.

I'd prefer to be the kid being dragged into the lake by Grandpa Bass than the kid reading the comic (although I had a 1500 comic book collection when I was a kid).

I once met a businessman on a flight from Atlanta to New Mexico. We did the "So what do you do?" thing and when he found out I was a programmer he made some comment about how Windows was looking so great. I tried to explain that Microsoft has never provided quality, just quantity. He didn't get it. He thought Microsoft was innovative and cutting edge. Why? Because he had been inundated with Microsoft ads that say they are innovative and cutting edge.

Repetition is often the key to success. Keep telling people how great you are and eventually you'll have an army of drones mindlessly repeating how great you are. The U.S. drills its soldiers endlessly (when the budget is there) in the execution of their basic tasks. We have the best army in the world (or so we say). Repetition is where quality and quantity blur their distinctions.

Or, to put it another way, practice makes perfect. So I always tell new dance students when they start complaining that they'll never get the steps and the rhythm down. "There is so much to learn," they say. Yes, there is. And that is part of what makes it fun. Learning itself is fun, when it's a quality experience. I think so many kids hate school (I did) because it's more about quantity than quality. Which is not to say that teachers don't try to make it about quality, but they are under the gun. They have to cycle their students through the system each year and start over with a whole new batch of students.

Experimental schools try to emphasize quality, but I'm not sure they get it right, either. They are under pressure to turn out graduates who can compete in the "real" world. But every time I listen to the Louis Armstrong song "What a wonderful world", as he approaches the end of the song he sings, "I see babies cry, I watch them grow. They'll learn much more than I'll ever know" and I think, "That's our education system. Is life really supposed to be like that?"

I can do things today that the average Roman soldiers and Greek philosophers could not even imagine doing. And yet, would I be able to conquer their worlds or lay the foundations for a future science? My car is air-conditioned, upholstered, and has a CD-player and satellite radio. I drive around in more luxury, at higher rates of speed, and travel farther than did Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Jesus. But will I have as much of an impact on humanity as they have had?

Khan bucked the rule-of-thumb and went for quantity over quality. He conquered more of the world than anyone in history. He killed more people than anyone up to Napoleon Bonaparte's time. And by the time he died, he had an estimated 30,000 living descendants. He was the most successful Alpha Male in human history. Supposedly 6% of all Asians today are descended from him.

It's good to be the Khan, but the last time anyone tried to rack up his kind of success the United States intervened with a Coalition of the Willing. Mankind has learned its lesson about world conquerors (for now). The lesson tends to be, "Get them before they get the rest of us."

So, we can no longer dream about slaughtering our way to the top. Instead, we have to work methodically on improving our skills, one dance at a time, one box of cookies at a time, one phone call at a time. We have all become players in the game of life because it's too dangerous and risky to live life. We keep practicing for the final exam that never comes.

We're constantly improving the quality of our lives with a quantity of experiences. So when quality comes knocking, what do you do? Say, "Good stuff but not quite what I'm looking for?" or stop and smell the perfume?

The point is that each day brings a new decision to make, even if it's the same choice you made yesterday. You make your bed and you sleep in it regardless of whether it's flat on the floor or high off the ground. It's your bed and no one else can decide what to do for you.

Or, to put it another way, "I don't know the Viennese Waltz yet, but if you don't mind getting dizzy, I'll be happy to whirl you around the room before the music ends and the dance is over." After that, we'll just have to wait and see....

This space intentionally left blank

As the end credits roll in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Matthew Broderick comes out of his room, looks at the camera, and says something like: "Are you still here? The movie's over. Go home."

The blog will go on, but I haven't had time to write about anything.

My chemical romance: Stop and smell the orange perfume

I wear a few colognes and a fragrance oil. I have several scents that I use on a varying basis. Sometimes I wear strong mixes and sometimes I barely put on anything at all. Occasionally I go without. For as long as I can remember, people have associated me with one scent or another, and I have associated people and places with various scents. In fact, most of us can identify about 2,000 scents without any training.

When I was kid, livng in Miami Beach, when I would visit my friends I often noticed that certain homes had a pungent, "something's cooking" smell. Some homes had a sharper, crisper sophisticated fragrance. Some homes seemed "flat" to me, having no smell at all. I occasionally wondered, in my child-like way, why that should be. I came to feel more comfortable with my home's "flat" smell, but some homes were so cool to visit just because the kids' moms kept them smelling so nice.

Many years later, while watching a rerun of Sanford and Son in those awkward late Saturday afternoon hours where there is no point in going somewhere because you have a date or a party or are going out with your friends, I caught an episode where Fred and Lamont visited a white family's home. Fred (played by the late Red Foxx) complained that the home had no smell. The audience, apparently sensitive to remarks about homes smell to some people, whooped and hollared. I laughed because I knew what he was referring.

When I was really young, I spent some time with African American women in their homes. They were my baby sitters, or maybe maids who had offered to watch me for a day or an afternoon. I remember their homes vividly. They had what I would call slightly musky odors, which are common in open-air homes in south Florida (or used to be common). One summer my family rented an open air house that had a similar musky odor. It was undoubtedly due to the mold and mildew forstered by south Florida's high humidity. But to a child's nose, a slight tinge of musky odor is not necessarily a warning sign. It's just a curiously different scent that gives a place character.

For years, when I would pass by a diesel bus, I'd be carried back to innumerable youthful afternoons spent exploring Miami Beach with my freinds as we rode those old, un-airconditioned buses with the bars over the windows. The city had air conditioned buses which on really hot days provided welcome rides, but my richest memories of buses come from those older metro models where you could smell the diesel fumes each time the bus stopped. I remember looking out the windows, the people walking along the sidewalks, and how excited my friends and my older brother were about whatever trouble we were about to get into.

When I was fifteen, my family lived in central Indiana. They had cheeky little buses for their "metro" service which I thought were smaller than the outdoor trams I had loved to ride in Miami Beach. These midwestern buses were built for a small town that needed mass transportation. It was a college town so plenty of people needed to ride buses.

One day I was taking the bus downtown and a woman got on. She was dressed in tight white slacks and a white top to match. It was a pretty sexy outfit. I would guess she was in her mid-20s. She was attractive but not incredibly beautiful. In fact, I hardly remember her face at all. Her hair may have been light brown and shoulder length. Her perfume, however, was to die for. 15-year-old boys are still just learning to deal with the hormonal surges of adolescence, and this woman was wearing a scent that would drag grown men down to their knees. She enveloped the bus in a cloud of exotic fragrance and I spent the rest of that ride, until she got off, in a euphoric state of mind. People today would say I was in a DIHL mode -- deer-in-headlights.

If you have ever seen a deer standing in the middle of the road late at night, stairing your headlights as you try to bring your car to a screeching halt without hurting yourself, the animal, or your vehicle, you know what a DIHL looks like. But unless you have been sent off to la-la land by a fragrance so out-of-this-world that you are left totally unfocused, incapable of any coherent thought, you have no idea of what it feels like to be the deer. I have been the deer.

Women occasionally ask me what the fragrance was. I have no idea. An older friend of mine sometimes wears Chloe and it sort of reminds me of that fragrance, but she doesn't put me into a DIHL state. Maybe I am now partially immune to the effect. Maybe it was some other product that smelled like Chloe.

A couple of years ago a girl who used to go dancing with my group at Sullivan's Ringside and Tropicana came to the club one evening wearing an absoluetely incredible fragrance. It wasn't like the one from my youth. It didn't drive me to complete inaction, but it was captivating. She told me it was called Intuition. I assume there is only one perfume called Intuition and that would be the product by Estee Lauder. Would it smell that great on every woman? I doubt it. Fragrance experts and some salespeople have told me that perfumes and cologne mix with our body oils and that changes their scent.

One fragrance I almost bought for Linda last year was (I think) Miami Glow by J.Lo. But I decided against it because I had no way of knowing what it would smell like on her, or if she would like it. But just coming out of the bottle it was an intriguing scent and well worth a try, I think. I asked someone else to wear a perfume for me a couple of years ago, and she surprised me by doing so a week later. The test fell flat because I couldn't detect the scent. I did not win any poins for that faux pas.

I went out with a friend last night and at the beginning of the evening I gave her a short ride in my car. When I got into my car this afternoon, I was carried away by an overpowering aroma. Wow! I don't know what she was wearing, but I hope she keeps it stock piled by the gallon. The whole evening came back in a flash. That's the stuff memories are made of. Of course, the fragrance is gone now. Or maybe now I'm trying to detect it my mind is just converting it to flat fragrance. I don't know.

I actually have a terrible sense of smell. Many odors that make people gag barely register on me. And I have occasionally been told I put on too much fragrance oil. One girl I used to work with said to me one day, as I changed work locations, "I'm going to miss the smell."

"You mean I stink?" I asked, quickly estimating how much money I would soon be tossing down the drain.

"No," she said. "You smell great. But sometimes it's just a little strong."

"But you'll miss it?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah," she confirmed. "You smell great."

That wasn't always the case. When I was a younger man, my mother gave me a cologne for Christmas. I think it was English Leather. I didn't really like it and only tried it on one date. I have no idea of what my date thought of it. Back then, I didn't know much of anything, though she did agree to go out with me again. A couple of years later, someone (perhaps my sister) gave me another cologne with a strong citrus-like scent. I didn't get the message then, either. It's bad when the women in your family are buying colognes for you (or maybe they were just subtly saying, "Michael, we like our men to wear colognes and your dates will appreciate that, too").

I wasn't entirely without a fragrance. I fell in love with Coast deoderant soap. Love the scent. Use it to this day when I'm not letting someone else buy the soap. But I had to wonder, one day when I was in college, if I was making the right choice. I had car trouble one day and got down under the hood to do whaever ineffectual things I knew to do to car engines. A couple of neighborhood boys, seeing a car hood up, came over to learn how to be a real man from an older guy. So, there I was: surrounded by wannabe Alpha Males-in-training, trying to figure out how not to look completely stupid and incompetent (although I may have just been putting coolant in the radiator -- still trying not to look stupid and incompetent), and one of the boys said, "I know what soap you use."

Well, I couldn't help but smile in that manly, what a creepy thing for a kid to say way and I said, "You do, do you?"

"Coast! The Eye Opener!"

That might have explained why I wasn't dating anyone at the time.

When I did start wearing colognes, I took the plunge carefully. I bought something without knowing anything about it. There was a citrusy scent to it. I splashed it on, went to work, and snuck up to my cubicle. Thinking I had gotten away with changing something about myself, I was about to start relaxing when I heard a sniffing sound. An older lady I worked near was walking around the room, sniffing the air like a hound dog. She tracked me down quickly.

"What are you wearing?"

I had to fess up. She decided I had made a good choice. She was just so surprised to catch me wearing a cologne. But after that day, I became bolder and tried more fragrances. My favorite is now a product by Amouage, which is not something you'll find in any department stores. I'd seen a few references to Amouage Gold on the Internet and decided to try it. Houston has a good selection of perfumeries and it turned out that one of them was the only licensed distributor for Amouage in the United States (the cologne is made in Oman). The saleslady persuaded me to try the Dia because they were out of the Gold. I've stayed with the Dia although another saleslady there has occasionally suggested I try the Ciel.

I knew the Dia was good for me when I went grocery shopping one day. A couple of really cute girls came walking past me and as I turned a corner one of them said to her friend, "He smells so great".

I'm not entirely sure what's in the Amouage. I'm sure I may still have a little card somewhere that tells me some of the ingredients, but I just go with what works. And I like it, though occasionally I can get a little headache.

Perfumes (and colognes, which are perfumes) can cause headaches, other allergic reactions, and in some cases even toxic effects. Some people are highly allergic to them. I learned that one day when I was visiting a doctor's office. A man who was just checking out started sneezing. The receptionist asked if he was all right. He said, "I'm allergic to his cologne," nodding at me (I don't think I was wearing the Amouage). I was hardly wearing any. I felt really sorry for the guy, considering how popular colognes and perfumes are. He undoubtedly charts a different course in social life than I do.

Nonetheless, some fragrances actually have medicinal properties. One study indicates that citrus fragrance acts like a highly effective anti-depressant. There is a difference, of course, between a natural fragrance source like oranges and a commercial perfume, many of which use alcohol as a carrier. I try to avoid the Eau de Toillette (alchohol-based) fragrances, but that is no guarantee that people with allergies won't have a reaction to my scents.

Being (I think) reasonably tolerant of the fragrances I wear -- enjoying their scents -- I continue to wear them. And I appreciate the occasional fragrances people wear around me. But I'm no expert, and I don't pretend to understand all the reasoning behind advice that fragrance experts provide on how to select perfumes and colognes. I won't buy a cologne without getting a couple of women to share their opinions with me, although saleswomen may just be telling me they like something without caring. I think I once bought a cologne on the basis of bad advice. Or maybe the salesgirl did like the way it smelled on me, but I couldn't work my way through the entire bottle. I eventually threw it out. It was just too wrong for my own sense of smell.

But I know when I like the way someone else smells. I almost wish my car could smell so nice all the time.

When you ring my bell...

There was an annoying disco song from the 70s where some girl kept singing over and over again, "You can ring my bell, you can ring my bell...." I wish I could forget it, but it is indelibly etched into my mind.

One day when I was in the fifth grade, our teacher was called away from the classroom. The kids sat quietly for a few minutes until we realized she had really gone far away from the classroom. First one kid and then another started whispering to a friend, and our voices grew louder, and we started talking across the room, and finally kids started laughing and joking out loud. I was teasing some girl and yelled out, "You can ring my chimes!"

Immediately, the loud speaker above the door blared out, "Who said that?"

Oh, how quickly 30 kids can drop into whitless, guilty, we've-been-caught silence. The administrative audience had been listening in on our conversation. My one remark, spoken out of pure ignorance (and repeated only because I'd heard someone else say it a few days before and thought it was a cool expression) earned me yet another trip down to the principal's office (I have many memories of those various principals and their cramped, ugly offices).

I had no idea of what that expression means. In fact, that was a bit before I entered adolescence. Of course, I'd already kissed my first girl by then. In fact, I started kissing girls a few years before, when boys still thought it was an icky thing to do (I guess it depended on the girl, but I thought Leslie Bouillion was just really cute and kissable). But chime-ringing had not yet entered into my world as anything other than a cool expression that I vaguely understood meant something like, "Make me very happy."

What's funny is that "Ring my bell" and "Ring my chime" started out with a very different meaning. It goes back to ancient Rome, prior to the scandalous age where every Roman citizen supposedly engaged in casual debauchery. The Romans were, for most of their history, a very pious, conservative people. They had high moral standards and did not approve of sexual activity outside of marriage. Now, people being what they are, I'm sure there were Romans through all generations who stretched the boundaries and occasionally crossed the lines.

But marital fidelity was, for a long time, one of the chief Roman virtues. Women, especially, were expected to remain faithful to their spouses. The primary reason for such concerns is really simple: Men want to know that the children they are raising really are theirs. Plain and simple. Whole tribes have been killed off, with the exception of young women of child-bearing age, just to ensure that other men's children did not live.

The Romans were pretty merciful to their enemies. They often hobbled men who surrendered in battle, maybe cut off a hand, turned them into slaves, and shipped them out to plantations to toil in the fields. Millions of acres of land were tilled by Roman slaves for centuries. The women were turned into domestic servants, prostitutes, and personal attendants.

However, it's often been said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. As the Romans became more powerful, they became more interested in abridging their strict moral standards. Adultery, while not formally accepted, became a passion of lonely wives whose husbands often spent years fighting in foreign lands or long days associating with other men (or other women) in the baths, brothels, and other places wives were not permitted to go.

Older, wealthier men often took young virgin brides, begat their children, and then left the brides to raise the kids at home. The young mothers may or may not have desired to remain virtuous, but if they were particularly beautiful they found they could curry favor and influence politics by attending the right parties. Roman emperors occasionally seduced their followers' wives. Some emperors made these wives into long-term mistresses.

The trickle-down effect ensured that as the elite members of Roman society engaged in more and more debauchery, the middle classes would experience it, too. After all, those elite members of society had to find someone to discreetly debauch with, and seducing a lonely soldier or merchant's wife or daughter might be easier than competing with an emperor or prince for elite women's attentions.

There were laws against such activities, and penalties. Men, if caught engaging in adultery, might have to pay a fine. Their wives could divorce them. Wives sometimes dumped their husbands but sometimes they just got their revenge by cheating on the cheaters. However, Roman laws were often created to ensure the integrity of Roman (male) dignity. The Romans had been humiliated many times and in many ways through history. They always came back and ensured they would not suffer similar indignities again.

So, somewhere along the way, indignant Roman husbands passed a law permitting any husband who discovered his wife's indiscretions could immediately take her to a brothel and leave her there. The wives were not only divorced by such actions, they were completely disowned. And to heap humiliation upon disgrace, they had to accept the attentions of any men who wanted to be with them. Furthermore, the men were required by the law to grasp a rope as they reached their final moment of union and pull hard. The rope would ring a loud bell, notifying the citizens that yet another unfaithful wife had performed a public service.

This penalty was left in place for several generations, but it failed to deter Roman wives from fleeing the households of their unforgiving husbands to find (temporary) love and pleasure in the arms of other men. The bells began ringing more frequently. And they rang and rang at all hours of the day and night. They kept ringing until one of the emperors, driven to distraction by the constant bell-ringing, had the bell-towers torn down.

Once I learned that bit of history behind bell-ringing, I lost all interest in the expression that I had thought so amusing when I was a naive young lad. Maybe some of those women enjoyed the life under the bells. I don't know. At some point, it had to be pretty obvious to Roman wives just what they would be enduring if they got caught committing adultery, but apparently a fair few of them took the chance anyway. That doesn't say much for the quality of their marriages.

Well, the Romans eventually turned in their empire for a set of Dark Ages and the expression "Ring my bell" evolved into something about pleasure and joy. People forgot where it came from, and maybe now they only think it came from an annoying disco song from the 70s.

On the other hand, we've incorporated bells into all aspects of our lives. We have bells on telephones, doors, animals, cars and trucks, computers, and everything else. And we make music with them. In fact, were it not for cowbells, I'd probably lose the beat for many Salsa songs while dancing. I can usually stay in time when I hear the cowbells.

Keep ringing. I'm enjoying the dance.

The Evolution of Dance

I received a couple of emails from my brother and his wife the other day. Both had the subject line "Evolution of Dance". I thought, great! they've been infected by a virus. But yesterday my brother called me to just to say "Hi" and he asked if I had watched the video. Nope. I thought you had a virus and hit DELETE.

So, I undeleted the emails and clicked on the link to The Evolution of Dance. It's a great review of dance styles from the 1950s to the 2000s. Very funny. And guys: only a comedian can get away with wearing white socks and black shoes.

Don't really have time to discuss much else this morning. I doubt you'll be reading about Pedicure Girl in the future. I decided to drop by that nail salon I mentioned and got slathered with lotion. I said, "No lotion, please." The lady said, "Okay." And then she creamed my arms with lotion.

That's just not my thing. Won't be needing a manicure for a while....

I've been getting requests for private dance lessons. I don't teach privates. Don't really know enough to teach them, but the requests are flattering. Of course, the last 3 or 4 requests have gone something like this:

Excited girl at end of class comes up and says, "Do you teach privates?"

"Sorry. I have taught a few classes but I don't teach privates. You can ask Gloria to arrange some private lessons."

Look of disappointment on girl's face. "Oh, that's okay."

So, all right, maybe they have a little flirting in mind. Maybe it's just that they don't want to take privates from Gloria. I don't know.

Technically, if someone were to ask Gloria about taking privates with me, she might discuss it with me. I could teach some basic stuff for a while, I think, and I am under contract with Gloria. But there are many aspects to teaching dance that I'm still not proficient with.

Remember: I don't always move with my center (although if you're a beginner, you wouldn't know that). The point is, if I'm not doing it right, I'm not going to teach you how to do it right, either.

There are a lot of pointers I do share with beginners in class. Last night I worked with several girls in quick succession on how to maintain a frame. We also worked on Cross Body Lead basics. The most common mistake (besides not maintaining a frame) that women make when learning a Cross Body Lead is that they turn too soon. They keep trying to face me as they pass by me. I finally had one girl drop her left arm from my right shoulder so I could literally force her to walk past me before turning. She began to understand after that.

Well, I have to run. Plenty of dancing to do this weekend. My legs will be mush by Sunday....

About Matt Tinaglia, editor of Parma Endorion

Parma Endorion: Essays on Middle-earth, 3rd Edition is one of the most popular eBooks in the world. With more than 1 million downloads, only electronic works by Seth Godin and Stephen King have been downloaded by more people. Although I wrote the 1st edition of Parma Endorion as a collection of Web essays in late 1996 and early 1997, it didn't achieve the breakthrough worldwide recognition it has realized until the English language edition of the Ebook was released in January 2002.

Within 3 weeks, more than 25,000 downloads prompted eBooks'n'Bytes to proclaim Parma Endorion as the top download of the year. It didn't hurt that the Parma Endorion 2nd Edition Web site had just been selected as one of the most scholarly Tolkien resources on the Web by writer Angela Gunn for the now discontinued Yahoo! Internet Life Web site. Angela's article was published in December 2001 to coincide with the release of Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring".

Since January 2002, Parma Endorion: Essays on Middle-earth, 3rd Edition has been translated into Spanish and Italian. Portions of the eBook or earlier versions of the essays have also been translated into Greek and Polish. A Portuguese language translation of the eBook was started in 2005 and should hopefully be finished in 2006.

As a free download, Parma Endorion has been widely distributed across the Internet by authorized and unauthorized distributors. Our estimate of more than 1 million downloads is most likely extremely conservative. Fans around the world cite Parma Endorion as a source for their reserach. Thousands of students, teachers, librarians, and research students have used Parma Endorion as a resource for their literary papers, theses, and dissertations.

All that is to say, this eBook which has touched so many people's hearts and minds would never have been published had it not been for Matt Tinaglia. Matt not only edited the English and Spanish language versions of the book, he designed the eBook format and layout. He inspired me to update my research and produce a once-in-a-lifetime achievement. The Parma Endorion eBook is my Silmaril. As Feanor said he could never reproduce the Silmarils, I don't see how I can ever produce anything that will enjoy the success of Parma Endorion. Its popularity and influence have amazed and humbled me in many ways.

Well, earlier this year, when I launched this blog, I offered members of the Endor Discussion Group (which used to be Xenite.Org's Middle-earth Mailing List) an opportunity to win a feature article. The first person to find the correct URL for my then unannounced blog won the contest.

I didn't think to disqualify Matt, and he found the URL within a day.

So, after many months and considerable effort, I have finished the official Xenite.Org profile of Matt Tinaglia.

Please drop by and read Matt Tinaglia: Six Sigma Meets Middle-earth. You'll learn a little more about Matt and something about an industrial processing revolution that helps explain why American industry's productivity has skyrocketed over the past 10 years.

The Wednesday Girl Report

Not much unusual happened Monday evening in the dance classes, although Anna (one of the girls I've mentioned before) told me she cannot feel my lead. "You're not moving with your center," she whispered. Hm. Well, normally I don't put much into the feedback offered by people who have been dancing only a short time, but this time something in the back of my mind said I'd better pay attention. So when I got a chance, I took Gloria aside and said, "Anna says I don't move with my center." Gloria said, "That's because you don't."

Now, after 3-1/2 years, I figured I'd be moving with my center without having to think about it. This is something Gloria and I covered in my first year of private dance lessons on more than one occasion. So, what happened? I don't know. Ballroom Dancing is not very much like Salsa Dancing, but you have to move with your center in both styles. If I'm not doing it in Ballroom, I'm probably not doing it in Salsa.

Since we had a few extra guys than ladies Monday, I spent about 30 minutes with a couple of the other guys practicing moving with my center. One guy, Gary, who actually teaches Country Western dancing, explained that you can tell if you're moving with your center by picking one foot up. The idea is to move forward (or back or to the side) in such a way that you keep your weight over the foot you are moving. You should immediately be able to pick up the other foot without losing your balance or falling.

That is, you want to move your full body weight in the direction you're moving. I've done this exercise before. So why am I not dancing properly? All I can think of is that I have gotten so used to dancing with beginners that they just don't know when I'm doing something wrong, so I've picked up some bad habits. Occasionally one of the advanced ladies will say I'm doing something wrong, but we're usually learning new moves and techniques in the advanced Salsa classes. I have to keep up with a lot of things.

So, I'll be watching how I move in future classes. I don't want to be told "I cannot feel your lead" by someone again. That's kind of embarrassing, although I've been switching dance styles so fast I really don't expect to be continually smooth for a few more months. It just takes practice.

In other dance class news, I observed some interesting body language from Noor, the little girl who joined the Beginner Ballroom last week. I say little because she is so tiny. I hope she doesn't read this blog, but one of the other guys mentioned it while she was standing next to me. I haven't told her my last name. Anyway, Noor is -- I am pretty sure -- a teenager. I don't often see people that young in the dance classes. I think I've danced with 3 young girls since joining Gloria's dance classes.

A few weeks ago one teenage boy came in with his family. He was obviously unhappy and uncomfortable being there. I took him aside and said, "Look, I know you don't want to do this, but if you stick with it and learn how to do it, I promise you'll be glad you did in a few years."

I probably shouldn't be giving out man-to-boy advice like that in the dance classes, but boys for some reason just tend to look at dancing as something only girls do. And then we grow up to be men and we learn too late that women want their guys to dance. Dance lessons should be a mandatory part of every teenage boy's education.

Anyway, Noor came into the dance class when I wasn't looking. I was standing near Chris, one of my friends, and chatting with him when Gloria started the class and said, "Everyone grab a partner." I usually wait to see how many ladies there are. Since I'm a warm body, I cannot grab a partner. Well, Noor came running up to me. I didn't think anything of it, but in retrospect I think she wanted to dance with me rather than one of the other men whom she didn't know.

I did make an effort to help her relax and enjoy the class last week, so I became a safe known quantity. It never occurred to me that I might so quickly put a young girl at ease. I don't spend much time with teenagers any more, although I have five nieces and have always gotten on well with them. I've got lots of practice at teasing girls in a non-romantic way and just treating them like kid sisters. I don't like being the Stern Uncle with my nieces, although one of them lived with me for several years and we had more of a father-daughter relationship.

Noor doesn't make eye contact. Okay, young girls probably should not be making eye contact with older men. I've never really thought about it. But she is almost the only dance partner I've ever had who consistently looks over my right shoulder. That is a pretty good place for a woman to look when she's dancing with a man she doesn't want to be intimate with. Most women look down at their feet when they are just learning to dance, and looking down throws your balance off and really messes you up.

Noor, in fact, has a great natural gift for dance. She swears she doesn't dance in her room or with her friends, but she picks up the moves pretty quickly. She is so far only struggling with Cha Cha, and I think that is more because of anxiety than anything else. She says she doesn't like it, but I have told her if she stays with it she may come to love it. People take longer to get that syncopated cha-cha-cha step worked out than in other dances. I do my best to help her relax but Cha Cha just takes practice.

At one point during the Cha Cha phase of the lesson, Gloria separated the ladies from the men and that was when Noor started looking at her feet. From across the room I began whispering loudly, "Look up! Look up! Don't look at your feet." I must have been pretty loud because Gloria stopped talking to the class, turned to me, and said in a mildly reproachful way, "Would you please?" That was when Noor stopped looking down. Timing is everything.

I don't know what it is, but sometimes I just feel all protective towards women and girls. I don't stop to think about what people are going to think about that. A few years ago, people where I was working all thought I was in love wiht a girl I had to work with on a project. I guess she had a crush on me. I didn't pay any attention to it, although sometimes I suspected that might be the case. She was always playful and would call me up to report the least little problems. I was actually trying to date another girl in the office at the time. But people still tease me about the one I had to work with.

And then sometimes there are the misses and near-misses. I don't write about all the girls here, but Monday afternoon one of the others I've been speaking to reminded me that the universe really doesn't revolve around my blog (and me). She walked right past me without saying a word.

Google Engineer Matt Cutts to SEOs: Think Before You Link

Google rolled out a new search engine in January that was dubbed Big Daddy. That is, they changed the way they crawl the Web and the way they index the Web. The update lasted from January through the end of March. As of April 1, the old Google was turned off and is no longer active.

Many Webmasters have complained over the past few weeks of losing many, most, or all of the pages from their sites in Google's index. Rankings have changed for some sites, too.

Google engineer Matt Cutts has devoted numerous posts on his personal blog over the past few months to an educational campaign in which he has stridently advised Webmasters to avoid certain practices that have become widely accepted and promoted throughout the Search Engine Optimization industry. In particular, Matt has questioned and challenged the practices of trading links (known as reciprocal linking in the industry) through exchange services and buying text links, often through text link brokerage services.

Yesterday, widely respected SEO specialist Mike Grehan published an interview with Matt in which he quoted Matt as saying: "I think a lot of what's perceived as the sandbox is artefacts where, in our indexing, some data may take longer to be computed than other data."

The Sandbox Effect was first noticed around the beginning of 2004, when new domains failed to achieve any significant rankings in Google's search index. People reported delays in achieving desired rankings of anywhere from 6 months to a year. A few high-profile domains with lots of publicity and news links zoomed past the Sandbox Effect.

It is apparent that Google has long been working on ways to determine which Web sites can be trusted (in terms of following their outbound links) more than others. The criteria for selecting Trusted Content Sites have not been publicly disclosed, although much speculation has been shared on SEO forums, blogs, and Web sites for about two years.

Today, Matt published a very lengthy post on his blog in which he responded to a wide array of criticisms directed at the Big Daddy rollout. I have posted what I feel are the most important excerpts from Matt's post and his followup comments in Spider-food's Matt Cutts discusses the Sandbox and EXPLAINS discussion, as well as in HighRankings' Matt Cutts on Big Daddy: Major Message to SEOs discussion.

Matt basically admits that Google is looking not only at who links to your site, but also where your site links to. If they decide too many of your inbound and/or outbound links are going to pages they don't trust, they won't trust your page and they will crawl your page less often.

He implies that removing untrustworthy outbound links from your site should help it to regain trusted status, but one can guess that Google will be comparing images of pages captured through several crawls to see if untrusted links are removed temporarily or for the longer duration.

When Webmasters simply swap links because they like each other's sites, that's okay. Webmasters have been swapping links on that basis for years, and Google has no problem with such exchanges. As long as it is clear to them that your links are editorially chosen. But if you link out to other sites that are linking out to other sites that are all obviously trading links, and if Google detects the trading pattern, if they decide you have some undisclosed percentage of these types of links, they may trust your site less and crawl your site less often.

As best I can determine, Google is only going to ignore links it doesn't feel are trustworthy. In the short run, this shift in priorities may affect the rankings of Web sites that depend on linkage to achieve high rankings in search results. But Google's algorithm looks at over 100 factors and bad or mediocre search optimization specialists have ignored those other 100 factors for years.

Personally, my sites are doing fine in Google. I have never relied upon link building to achieve high rankings in search results. I get high placements on the basis of content. Furthermore, I stopped swapping links years ago. I now link out to sites because I think they have good content and for no other reason.

People like me have weathered the storm. Many other people, including some people who have paid for search engine optimization, have now lost visibility and/or rankings in Google because they played the link game and didn't listen to the warnings coming out of the Googleplex.

The bottom line is: it's Google's search engine. They can do whatever they want with it, and when they want to change the way they do things, they have every right to do so.

In 2006, Google invoked that right in a huge way.

Got a Web site? Tell Google what you think about NOFOLLOW

Matt Cutts, a Google engineer who actively fights Web spam, has a personal blog where he occasionally discusses how Google views the Web. For the most part, though he provides insight from Google's perspective, Matt is expressing his own opinions, which may not necessarily be the same as Google's official position.

But one area where Matt has been championing Google's cause through his blog is the REL=NOFOLLOW attribute. This is an HTML attribute Google proposed that Webmasters begin using last year. Supposedly the other major search engines have agreed to support the attribute, although there appears to be no consensus on how much they are doing so.

The attribute was designed to address a very specific problem which is usually referred to as "blog comment spam". In reality, the comment spam afflicts guest books, forums, classified ads sites, and any Web site that allows people to post information about their Web sites. Blogs, however, have been especially hard hit by comment spammers who drop in links to their sites.

For the most part, these links lead to junk, auto-generated content sites that were only created to host Yahoo! Internet Marketing or Google AdSense advertisements. The spammers are therefore achieving two things with their heavy linking: they are bringing in random traffic from click-throughs on their links and they are boosting the link popularity of their pages.

Link popularity has a more direct impact on Yahoo!'s search engine listings than on Google's, but it is possible to boost pages to the top of many Google searches. Recent research still indicates that most surfers don't know enough about how to use search engines that they continue to click mostly on the first five listings. Generally speaking, on any random search, the odds are pretty good that you'll find equally useful and sometimes more useful content 2-3 pages past the 1st page, but about 80% of all searchers stay on the 1st page of results.

So the spammers do whatever it takes to get their junk sites in the top ten results on Google, MSN, Yahoo!, and Ask. From there, they just count on people clicking on one of the advertising links to get away from the junk. Advertisers hate these kinds of sites because they don't bring in any sales (or very few) but they cost a lot of money.

I personally disagree with the REL=NOFOLLOW approach. Google wants Webmasters to insert this tag on any link they don't trust. It is intended to be automatically inserted on comments and in forum posts, signatures, and profiles. But in my opinion, REL=NOFOLLOW does nothing to address the problem, which is that Yahoo! and Google are paying the spammers to abuse the Web.

If you operate a Web site, and if you are familiar with this issue, check out Matt Cutts' latest comment on NOFOLLOW. I think it's important for the Web community to speak up and let Google know (they often read Matt's blog at work) what people feel will or will not help.

This is an opportunity for Webmasters to share honest feedback with Google through someone who truly listens and cares about what happens on the Web. But be quick, because Matt will be leaving on vacation this Friday and he'll be offline until the end of June.

I moderate comments here on this blog. So far, it doesn't take much of my time. Eventually, the comment bots may find me. But if they do, using NOFOLLOW won't stop them. I'll still have to moderate their junk posts.

Dancing, Dating, and Decisions: What A Man Wants

I knew it was a strange way to get a pedicure because he was filling a small pool or an oversized jacuzzi with a lot of water. A girl came in and told me to take my shoes and socks off. And then as I walked around the pool Linda came by pushing a mail cart and sporting a huge diamond engagement ring on her finger. That was when I knew it was time to wake up.

I hate to admit it, but I do sometimes feel like there are moments when I'm in a competition with Linda to see which us can replace the other in our hearts first. Does that go with the territory of breaking up? We're both stubbornly not calling each other, and I'm still obviously thinking about her. But in my defense, it's not like I don't run into many stimuli that remind me of her.

So, let me go back to Thursday. If anything happened earlier in the week that I haven't posted about here, it's forgotten until some strange moment where I'll be gently reminded of it. But Thursday set new forces into motion in my life. Some of them are only gentle pushes in interesting directions. For example, Dr. Jane Chance, whose books many Tolkien fans are familiar with, came to the Thursday dinner party for the Inklings Roundtable of Houston. Jane is a great lady with a wonderful sense of humor and insatiable child-like curiosity.

She has been wanting to learn how to Salsa dance. Her schedule has been pretty intense this year. College professors often juggle many eggs, and Jane not only continues her research and writing, she has made a few trips. But her academic year is over, so after Thursday's dinner she approached me about showing her some Salsa venues. I promised to put something together this coming weekend (May 19-20), although my calendar is looking full. Jane is happily married, so far as I know, so don't anyone get the wrong idea here. We're just friends.

Anyway, agreeing to go Salsa dancing with Jane Chance was just the capstone to an interesting evening. The real adventure actually started earlier in the day, before I arrived at the Black Labrador. You see, I do a terrible job of giving myself a manicure. I was out on a date about two-and-a-half years ago and my girlfriend (at the time) looked down at my hands and said, "You know, a man's manicure only costs about $10.00". Women are rarely that blunt and obvious, so I took the cue and started paying for occasional manicures to keep my fingers from looking like the dog tried to eat them along with my homework.

Well, come Thursday my hair was feeling a bit long and shaggy, so I decided to get a haircut. I drove down to the West Gray area of Houston and found a strip mall with a discount hair styling chain store. I'd been there once before last year and felt it was an okay place to go for a haircut, but I wasn't about to go out of my way to give them my business. So I walked in and one of the hair stylists asked if I wanted a hair cut. I said, "Can you take me now? I've got to be someplace in an hour."

She signed me up and took me back to her station. "Do you want scissors or electric?" she asked. Now, I've been asked this question before and I have never had a clue as to what the difference is. So I just shrugged.

"Just make it look good," I said. And then I caught myself. "No. I want it to look hot."

She smiled and said, "Scissors it is." She proceeded to give me a haircut that even I think is good. Normally, I don't pay much attention to how my hair is done as long as I don't look like someone put a bowl over my head and trimmed off the excess. But she did a great job, and when she finished I asked why there is a difference between scissors and electric.

"You have enough wave in your hair that scissors will work better for you," she explained. And then she added, "And you won't need to use a comb with this haircut for a while." She was dead on. I've barely needed to use a comb in the past few days. That's a big deal in the windy city of Houston, because normally a few minutes outside is all I need to look like a mad scientist who has stuck his finger in the wrong power socket once again.

As I exited the hair salon I passed one of the thousands of nail salons you'll find scattered around Houston. I'm pretty sure that Vietnamese nail salons are more common than Starbucks, although I don't have scientific data to back up that conclusion. There is a rumor that Houston lays out streets and neighborhoods on the basis of where all the Starbucks stores are situated. How Starbucks makes money is beyond me, because there is one on every corner. And right behind it is almost certainly a Vietnamese nail salon.

This one was kind of upscale. It looked expensive. I glanced in and saw some cute girls. Hm. Well, glancing at my hands, which I had been tending to for a few weeks, I figured it was time to try a new salon. I went back on Friday. I think the same cute girls were in there from the day before, but you have to understand that I only glanced in as I walked back to my car on Thursday. They were busy when I stopped in on Friday after work, and I had places to be, but the girl giving the pedicure was by far way too cute for any man to pass up.

I did not get a pedicure. I just let the oldest lady in the group (who was the only one free) give me a manicure. But the other girls checked me out and I checked them out, and the really cute one made sure she found many reasons to walk by me and glance my way in the mirror. The other girls knew the score because one of them eventually spanked her, but when I asked if that was because she gave bad pedicures they all said, "No, she give GREAT pedicures."

I was almost tempted to go find out today, except my legs were so sore I could barely walk. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Just let it suffice to say that if you start to read about Pedicure Girl in the future, you know where I met her. She is, I am almost positive, NOT a traditional Viet girl. At least, she spoke with relatively little accent. The other two young girls both sported body tattoos and maybe some piercings. I'm not thrilled with tattoos on women. In fact, I don't really like them at all. Why spoil a natural beauty with something that doesn't compare even closely?

Well, enough with Pedicure Girl. Now I have to talk about Friday evening. My friend Maggie has been trying to fix me up with a friend of hers since last year. Almost since I started seeing Linda seriously. Maggie met Linda and while she said the usual approving things that good friends say about your new "someone", I always sensed some reservation from Maggie about Linda. And as the months rolled by Maggie became even more reserved. I'll admit that she probably had more to do with my breakup than any other reason. But Maggie is one of those people who reads others well. And, besides, I know there were times when I wished my friends would listen to me about guys or girls they were seeing, and they didn't. So, this time I listened to a close friend.

But I would not have stopped seeing Linda if things hadn't begun to tank anyway. My interest began dying somewhere in January, I guess. By then, Maggie had arranged two evenings for me to meet her friend Sylvie. Sylvie is very sweet, very attractve, and very Viet. By that I mean she grew up in Vietnam and is conservative and traditional. You have to be extremely patient with conservative Asian girls. They don't give their hearts away very easily. They like to know a guy for a few years before they'll consider him potential boyfriend material (which means marriage is a real possibility). My Asian friends were amazed I got as far as I did with Linda, though some of them (who have not met her) remained skeptical.

So, when Maggie began mentioning her friend last year, I couldn't help but think, "Well, I don't know if I want to spend another two years just saying 'hello'." That's unfair to Vietnamese girls, but sometimes it just feels so frustrating to try and get to know someone who draws very strict lines. When I was in college I tried to date someone whose family opposed our relationship. After about six months of sneaking around behind Daddy's back I decided to press her for a decision on whether we were going to become an open couple. All our friends knew we were on to each other. But she was a conservative American girl and she ultimately chose not to go against her family's wishes. So far as I know, she has never married, but I lost touch with her years ago. I don't know what her story is.

If a conservative American family can prevent one of its daughters from marrying a guy who is too something, multiply that tenfold for a Vietnamese family. That is what you're up against when you're an American man of non-Asian descent trying to win the heart (and hand) of a very traditional Asian girl. Linda warned me when we first met that I would have to invest a lot of time in such a relationship. At the time, I was actually trying to date a friend of hers. It really took a long time for me to look at Linda in that way. But as long as that took, it would have taken even longer for her to commit to me -- if she ever would have.

Maggie (who is Chinese but married an American man) tried to explain all this to me. Other Asian friends did their best to explain it to me, too. But once Linda caught my attention, there was no turning back. When I left Houston a couple of years ago, I moved back to Florida to be near my brother and his family. After a few months, I knew I wanted to come back to see if something would happen with Linda. My oldest niece told me many months later that I had said something to her about "going after Asian girls". I don't remember that remark, but it shows how much Linda had crept into my thoughts.

Well, Friday evening I had asked another friend of mine to go dancing with me. She and I have occasionally gone dancing together, most of the time with a group. I'll admit I was testing the waters to see if there might be some potential there. She is not Asian, but she is fun to talk to and dance with. So, she had an after-work function Friday evening but agreed to meet me at Plaza 59 as soon as it was over. She called me Friday afternoon and said she had just heard the dinner thing would go on for several hours. Once again, I had no backup plan. I have to quit doing that.

So I stopped by Maggie's work and talked to her a little after getting my manicure. I mentioned that my evening was looking like it might fall apart. "You aren't seeing Linda again, are you?" she asked in a very disapproving voice. Haven't talked to her, I swear. "You should see Sylvie," she said, satisfied I wasn't sneaking around behind her back.

Sylvie is quite beautiful and I'm sure many men would love to get to know her. But the problem with Sylvie is that I've only met her at ballroom dance socials. She's been dancing for several years. I've reluctantly let Maggie invite me to a couple of ballroom events a year. When Gloria Jones started teaching Ballroom Dancing Classes again this year, I offered to be a warm body for the Beginner Ballroom class. She occasionally needs extra men. And now I'm starting to spend some time in the Intermediate Ballroom class, although I'm a bit behind the curve compared to the regular students.

So, every time Maggie and I talk about Sylvie, I quite honestly tell her I think I've made all the impression on Sylvie that a dead slug does. I mean, I can barely dance with her and trying to chat up someone with loud music blaring in the background is a waste of time. So Maggie has been trying to figure out a way to get me and Sylvie together where we'll have something in common other than dancing, but which won't be crossing the lines of conservative Asian propriety.

Inspiration struck Maggie Friday. She mentioned that Sylvie might want to go dancing this weekend. So she insisted on calling Sylvie, who mentioned a USABDA function was being held Saturday at the dance studio where Gloria teaches. I occasionally hear about these events but rarely go because I don't dance ballroom (except Cha Cha -- I'm socially acceptable at Cha Cha now). So, as Maggie negotiated with Sylvie (who knows the score -- Maggie has been upfront with her about trying to set us up), Sylvie suggested she wanted to go dancing that night (Friday).

Well, here I had planned to spend the evening with someone else, and now I was about to meet up with Sylvie, our self-appointed chaperone, and make it an interesting foursome. My heart said, "Give it a shot." After all, my other friend and I are just friends. She hasn't really indicated that she wants to date me.

So, there I was later in the evening at Plaza 59, trying to figure out how much dancing I could do with three women before graciously saying "Good evening, I have four dance classes tomorrow." Eddie Lopez had a huge class but as often happens he was a little light on men, so after he finished teaching the basic step he invited me to join the group. I partnered with several ladies and along the way noticed my friend Trent (we celebrated his birthday a few weeks ago) standing by. After the class, I invited Trent to join me, as the ladies do not enjoy waiting to take turns dancing with me.

Two guys and three girls is not a great mix, but there are usually other men who will come circle my group like hungry vultures waiting for the old lion to miss a trick. I figured this would work. Trent agreed to hang around for awhile, but 45 minutes later when I went to get a drink, he cut out on me. 5 minutes after Trent left my three ladies came in the door. And to cap off a challenging evening, Lan was also there (she often dances at Plaza 59 on Fridays). All I have room to say about Lan is that she is another person who is in a different place in her life than what I'm looking for. She has nonetheless made her interest known to me, and I've been sorely tempted a few times to take a shot. She is one of those raven-haired (Vietnamese) beauties who seldom has fewer than six men chasing her. I, of course, am the one who won't chase her. I suppose that is part of what makes me interesting.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and Lan let me know in class Saturday morning that she did not appreciate my refusal to ask her to dance Friday night. Of course, I had a legitimate excuse. Unfortunately, being with 3 other women is the one excuse no woman will accept. Enough about Lan.

After Salmerum finished playing their first set, Maggie and Sylvie said good-night and left the club. I was going to hang with my friend a while longer and try to salvage the evening, but suddenly Sylvie came back in and invited us to go get something to eat. I instantly recognized Maggie's hand in the invitation and knew I had to accept. I made as gracious a choice as possible, but I managed to snub my second woman for the evening (technically, three if you count the club hostess, whom I've been flirting with occasionally -- but I think she just enjoys the flirting).

So Maggie, Sylvie, and I went off to a Chinese restaurant that serves Vietnamese dishes. This is actually a sort of ritual with Maggie. She seldom gets a chance to eat dinner before she goes dancing, so she eats afterward. Sylvie knows this. I know this. Nonetheless, we all understood this was to be my and Sylvie's first chance to spend some time together outside a dance venue.

The meal was fine. Sylvie and I talked and I think I made a better impression on her than that of a dead slug. She opened up a little and seemed genuinely interested in the conversation. Of course, I had to say something stupid like Com Ga Chi instead of Com On (I said something like "you're welcome" instead of "thank you"). It does make a good impression on the Vietnamese people if you try to learn their language, but I was always careful to do some homework before writing a little note for Linda. Winging it with Vietnamese, where the same word can have six different meanings depending on how it sounds, is about as advisable as walking over molten glass in your bare feet.

We tentatively agreed to meet up at the dance studio for the USABDA event. Maggie said she would call Sylvie and coordinate. I should have known right then and there I would need a Plan B. But I was tired and needed to get some sleep.

So, Saturday morning came and I got up early to do four loads of laundry. I only mention that because I lost 1 sock each from 3 pairs I had just bought a couple of weeks ago. I no longer buy cheap socks. So my day started off with a minor fashion faux pas. No big deal, I guess, as I have other socks to wear. But these three pairs all have unique patterns. There is no hope of making them spares.

Well, Gloria mentioned she was expecting some new students to join the Beginner Salsa class, so I ducked out early to wait for them. An absolutely gorgeous (non-Asian) woman was waiting to sign up. I suppose I shouldn't say much as I foolishly gave her my card. Why did I do that? I don't know. Men do dumb things around beautiful women. I guess they get used to it. So, anyway, she'll probably read this blog, assume I'm just another jerk player, and move on. That's okay. Things are getting worse by the hour.

I went home and collapsed into bed for a few hours. I don't normally go dancing on Friday evenings when I know I have four classes on Saturday AND an evening of dancing. But I went and did it anyway.

I got to the dance studio in time for the 8:00 PM Waltz class (that was actually a FoxTrot class taught by Tonya from Johnny Walden's West Side Dance Centre). A USABDA function is one of the rare events where all the dance teachers can come together, socialize, and mention each other's studios with some professional courtesy and the understanding from everyone that students are off limits. No preying on the competition's students, although it's inevitable that the students ask each other who their teachers are.

Some day, I may blog about the dramas of a dance teacher's life, as seen through the eyes of a student. But I digress more than usual.

There was a cute Asian girl in in the Foxtrot class. Her name was Yen (or something like that). She seemed to be with an American man, who may have been her boyfriend, her wannabe-boyfriend, her husband, her classmate from another studio, or her teacher. I couldn't tell anything except that they knew other pretty well. Nonetheless, Yen indicated some flirtatious interest in me when I expressed some in her. I made a mental note to keep an eye on her in case my Slug personality showed itself to Sylvie during the evening.

There was another cute Asian girl, Lily, in the Foxtrot class. I detected no signs of interest from her durng the class, but she didn't seem to be with anyone. Trent was there along with his dance partner. Trent latched onto Lily after one of the breaks and our friendship almost tumbled right there. He's single. He knows the score.

Well, I called Maggie at some early point in the class and left her a voice mail saying I was in the back part of the studio taking the class. She called me back a little later to say she was really tired from working and was just going home. She offered to call Sylvie to tell her another lady she knew was there, but we both knew the evening was shot. So, I sighed deeply and debated whether I should call MCR and say, "Please come back. I've been a fool."

The class ended with me being partnerless (too many men again) and I went off to find a seat. My friends invited me to join them at their table. Lily just happened to be wandering around looking for a seat, and she asked if she could join us.

Well, this is getting long. Several people whom I know came in to enjoy the evening. I danced with Lily for the better part of an hour. She was impressed with my Cha Cha and tolerated my FoxTrot and Rumba. Where I think I scored points was when the Viennese Waltz started playing. I can do a basic Waltz (1-2-3, 1-2-3) and maybe turn my partner, but Viennese Waltz is something else. Lily has been learning International style Ballroom and I've been learning American style. She impressed the major differences upon me at one point by hugging me closely to her chest as we blazed away across the floor. I forget what I was trying to dance with her.

So the Viennese Waltz started and Lily asked in her least confident voice, "Do you know Viennese Waltz?"

By this point in the evening we had gotten used to saying to each other, "No, please show me."

Well, I figured, what have I got to lose? The most distinctive feature of the Viennese Waltz (that an untutored non-dancer may notice) is the basic has a quick double-step in the middle. So I just grabbed the girl and went winging my way around the room like the dance scene in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast". I almost got away with it. There's just one thing I didn't know about Viennese Waltz: you have to change direction every few spins or your partner gets dizzy.

I know enough about closed dance positioning to keep my eyes on my partner's eyes. That's not only a mesmerizing experience, you don't pay attention to the room whirling around you. You can go much, much longer without getting dizzy. Okay, I've been dancing 3-1/2 years. Lily has only been dancing 6 months. Even though I'm a total klutz when it comes to International Ballroom Dancing, I still know far more about dancing in general than she does. I was so blown away by being with someone who knew steps I didn't know that I forgot there were still disaparities in my favor (and that underlies my confidence -- I know I can learn any dance step, given enough time). It helps that I have perfect peripheral vision, and a lot of experience at avoiding other couples in clubs. I did a pretty good jb of avoiding collisions, for the most part (and the only one wasn't my fault).

Lily had to ask me to stop long enough so she could explain about the change in direction. I couldn't figure out how to do it gracefully, so she finally just said, "Dance," and we went whirling around the ballroom, spinning in one direction, our gazes locked upon each other's eyes (she picked that trick up from me, I guess). That is the first Viennese Waltz I have ever tried to dance, and it was magical, no matter how badly it must have looked to all those teachers whirling and dipping so gracefully around us. I didn't care. I was just glad I could get the basic step down right.

And Lily has really beautiful eyes.

Well, all good things come to an end. As I had friends who were showing up (not my regular dance group, but other people I've met through dancing), so she had friends who started to appear. Lily retreated in typical conservative Asian fashion to the far side of the dance hall with a group of other Asians. One guy in particular sat close to her but I was pretty sure, after observing them during the evening's showcase (yes, I watched the dancers, too), that he is not (yet) her boyfriend. Lily eventually came back to retrieve her street shoes and purse (like she was so overjoyed to see her friends that she forgot about her personal stuff and left it with complete strangers -- riiight).

I thanked her for dancing with me and mentioned I'd like to dance with her again. Not that I get out to these ballroom things on a regular basis, but she dropped some hints about where to look for her in the future. Problem is, my calendar is looking very full for the next few weeks. I might as well mention here I'll be having some minor surgery over the Memorial Day weekend.

Roundup on the Inklings Roundtable of Houston

Mary Dodson Wade is a down-to-Earth Texas lady who gently corrected me on one point: she is not really an expert on C.S. Lewis. She is a professional writer who has written 35 books, many of them as works-for-hire for educational publishers. Her market niche is for younger readers at the elementary school level. She actually has written some neat books, some of them for the older student/adult markets.

Mary's specialty is really Texas history, and she has written books on George W. Bush (when he was still Governor of Texas) and Condoleeza Rice (when she was National Security Director). Other Texas-related books include a biography of Sam Houston.

The C.S. Lewis book is part of a series of books that includes a biography. She didn't have any copies of the Tolkien book with her (someone else wrote that one) but I bought a signed copy of her C.S. Lewis book. For a self-acclaimed non-Lewis scholar, she gave a very interesting and well-considered introduction to the man. There were quite a few of us in the audience who really only knew Lewis through his Tolkien connections.

Lewis afficionados undoubtedly know already there really was a wardrobe that Lewis and his cousins played in when they were children. Mary showed us some interesting pictures and covered the high points of his life. If she gives another lecture to the Inklings Roundtable, I'll be sure to mention it again. If you ever have an opportunity to see this world-traveling lady, do so.

Jane Chance attended the dinner tonight and she was in pretty good spirits. She has expressed an interest in Salsa dancing on occasion so I've agreed to invite her to join me and my friends next week. This weekend I only have plans for Friday evening. I'll be going dancing with someone I haven't mentioned on the blog and I don't think I'll say too much right now. She is a friend I've known for a few years. When she called me to confirm the invitation this evening, she asked who else was going. I said I was tired of putting groups together. It's just the two of us. She'll have to join me from work, as she has an after-hours function to attend to.

Things heated up over at SEOMoz in one of their blog discussions. People came out of the woodwork to argue with me over imaginary statements I didn't actually make. Without getting into the details of a banal technical argument, suffice to say that as soon as I challenged the blogger on a small point, people began reading meaning into my words that was not there. This is a common fallacy of Internet discussions, and I've succumbed to it myself on a few occasions. Someone writes the equivalent of "I don't think hamburgers are pink" and a lot of other people immediately respond with, "Why do you think hotdogs are blue?"

Total disconnect.

But that's the way it goes, sometimes.

I had a lot of errands to run at lunch and so I stopped at a McDonald's near the office to grab a quick bite to eat. Apparently they were having a corporate inspection. I saw about six or seven people standing around with stop-watches and clip-boards and they were timing how fast orders were processed.

McDonald's: I would appreciate an improvement in quality of food over speed of service. I usually only eat McDonald's as a last resort. Why kids love McDonald's food is beyond me.

But the girl in the pink golf shirt was cute. I would have loved to been interviewed by her. Unfortunately, they seemed only interested in how promptly the counter-people served up orders (and how well they were made by the people in the back). The staff were obviously feeling anxious over the inspection. But I've stopped at this store before. I've never found much to complain about. Only once did they mess up an order.

Some of the other fast food restaurants in the area could use similar inspections, in my opinion. Ah well.

Antonio Banderas and 'Take The Lead...'

Well, how could I resist the temptation to see "Take the Lead"? It's actually a pretty good movie, although Banderas doesn't dance much, and they cut in and out of his routine so much with the camera that it's hard to tell how much he actually danced. I think Banderas can, in fact, dance somewhat. He certainly did his own dancing in the "Zorro" movies.

"Take the Lead" is based on the true life story of Pierre Dulaine, a New York City dance teacher who really did develop a dance class curriculum for public schools.

The best scene in the movie is unquestionably the Tango competition near the end of the movie. That's all I will say. There are other good scenes. The acting is okay, the dancing is better. The movie really is about dancing, and Banderas delivers some great lines. His style of inducing people to take up dancing is smooth and effective. Does it work in real life? Actually, yes, it does. I've done some of those things myself (although instead of using a tie, I just ask the girls to close their eyes).

Social dancing really is about trust and strength. Both dancers have to trust each other, both dancers have to develop strength (and stamina).

The Hip Hop dancing is good. Not the greatest on-screen Hip Hop I've seen ("Honey" had better choreography), but the kids are obviously good dancers.

One of the best lines in the movie is, "Do you want to dance? Then dance for yourself, not others." That is so true. Good dancers are good because they invest their love in the art.

There are some catty stereotypes and some cliched mini-dramas in the storyline. Nearly all the kids have some sort of conflict to resolve. The story between Jason and Lharette is the one that gets the most attention, but it doesn't really work well for me. To do it right, they would have to have their own movie. As presented in this movie, it's too choppy and episodic.

As I was working on other things before turning to the blog this morning, it seemed like there were a hundred ideas for points to make. But I cannot remember one of them. I did not intend to just write about the movie, but I'm a little tired.

I did drop by Elvia's Cantina around 8:00 PM. I was hoping Johnny Walden would have a little dance class, but he wasn't there and the only people who might have been there for the class left soon after walking in. It's a shame that Elvia's won't promote their dance class any longer. They used to bring in 15-20 people every Wednesday evening for that class.

There is a school across the street, Dancing For Life, which I have heard a few people talk about. It only opened a few months ago but it seems to be struggling to stay open. I know they have some social dances every week and do a fair amount of ballroom dancing, but I've never gone there. Elvia's and Dancing For Life are located on Fondren near Westheimer. The Melody Club, where many private or semi-private dance functions are held, is one street over behind Elvia's. And both Tropicana and Metropolis are located at the intersection of Fondren and Richmond. There are a couple of after hours Latino clubs within a few blocks, too, and a Vietnamese dance club and ... well, that's just a big dance district for West Houston.

And tonight we have the Inklings Roundtable of Houston's monthly dinner. Mary Dodson Wade, a C.S. Lewis biographer, will be the guest. If you're in Houston, drop by the Black Labrador on Montrose near Richmond around 7:00 PM. We're usually in the private dining room on the ground floor.

Something Corporate Down With The IT Jobs

My ex-boss is in Las Vegas this week, checking out a technical show. That has absolutely nothing to do with anything, except that I often wish I had his kind of job. Which is ironic because when he was my boss, I often told him I didn't want the job (that he had at the time). One day he called me into his boss' office where they told me and a couple of other employees they had just resigned from the company. I stood ready to deliver on my oft-spoke promise to resign on the spot, because I did not want to become the IT director.

Instead, he spent his two week exit period persuading me to stay and try to make a career path for myself into the parent company. I had no ambition to move up to the parent company. I was happy where I was. In nearly 30 years of working in the computer industry I had seldom worked for people I really wanted to work for. Most of my past bosses are genuinely likable people. But they just had so many bizarre traits or made weird judgement calls, I couldn't find a place where I was happy for long.

One guy literally pulled a chair out from under me so he could give it to a girl who was protesting that her chair was just fine. She gave me back my chair after the boss left. She was extremely embarrassed by the episode. I was already thinking about what it would take to update my resume. I don't care how cute the girl is. You don't take a chair out from under me to give to her.

Another boss had bad breath. I mean bad breath. People wondered how he stayed in business because he did not make a great first impression. I knew my days were numbered when he decided I should take on technical responsibilities for which I had no training. Instead of using me where my experience made me productive, he threw me into an impossible project that he just insisted could be accomplished. Two years after I left that firm I asked the programmer he handed the project off to what happened to it. The programmer said he finally just put his foot down and said, "There is no way to do what you have promised the client."

Bad breath, bad judgement. Some bosses just have bad attitudes. You can't do much about that except realize you hired the wrong boss. Of course, one hopes to avoid hiring a boss with a bad attitude by interviewing the prospective boss. Employers are impressed if you ask them questions about how their companies operate. You need to do that to see if you can fit in with the corporate culture. Things become impossible, though, when you don't get an opportunity to hire the boss.

That has happened to me on three occasions. All three times I've regretted staying around to work for the new guy. Technically, it happened to me again last year, but this time around my former bosses have stayed on to work in the new situation. Things have not tanked with the new boss, who has striven to bring two offices together to form a complete corporate entity. It's been stressful for everyone, but so far no one has bailed on the company. That is remarkable.

The first time I got a new boss without having a chance to interview him was for several reasons. My direct supervisor, unfortunately, became ill and eventually passed away. Several people in the company recommended that I replace him. However, the corporate IT manager had to work out of Los Angeles and I wanted to stay in Atlanta. About the same time we were dithering over that, a new CEO was brought on board to oversee the merger of the firm with a larger international conglomerate. So, while I was negotiating (badly) to take on the corporate IT job, I heard through the grapevine I was already under consideration for promotion to higher international status.

It was unnerving, but everything unravelled when I made a recommendation that was ignored. The company was going to install a new computer in its London office (technically, the firm I worked for was already international with four offices around the world). London gets hot in the summer time and the office had no air conditioning. I pointed out that the corporate plans for the new computer would prevent its functioning for about 12 hours out of the day. And yet, it would have cost $20,000 to install air conditioning. That was simply too expensive. (I pointed out that being unable to use the computer would cost the company more than $20,000.)

Rather than take the blame for inevitable disaster, I resigned. The president of the company, who had personally advocated promoting me to corporate IT director, flew out to Atlanta to ask me why I was quitting. I spent an afternoon explaining to him technical stuff that high executives don't normally care about. "Do me a favor," he said. "Write this all in a letter."

I didn't want to do it. "Why?" I asked. "I have resigned."

"Trust me," he said. "I promise it will not be used against you in any way."

I honestly liked this gentleman (I use the term lightly -- he was wild and crazy). I decided to trust him. I wrote up my technical objections and sent him the letter. On my last day at the job, a couple of ladies in the London office called me to say good-bye. The installation was underway and I asked how it was going. One lady, from Ireland, immediately burst out in her strong Irish brogue with: "It's going to be a disaster, Michael! I can read the writing on the wall. I wish you were here to take care of the problem."

I wished I could have prevented the problem. A few weeks later, my (then) former supervisor mentioned to me that it was a good thing I had written that letter to the president of the company. When the new IT manager started blaming me for the disaster in London, the CEO started muttering things like "Maybe we can sue Michael for doing this to us." The president of the company, the man who had hired the CEO, brought out my letter and reportedly said, "We are going to do no such thing."

Sometimes, you find out too late that you really do have a great boss. I'd work for him again, but I suspect he's retired by now. I heard they did away with their IT department anyway. Probably a wise move, all things considered. The person who became their IT manager boldly confessed to me one time over drinks that she had walked away with a previous employer's clients and left the guy bankrupt.

The second time I was not involved in hiring a new boss happened with another internationally active company. The board of directors forced their president to resign. He was, it turned out, the only man with vision involved in the company. They eventually hired someone to replace him. As often happens with new CEOs, the new guy came in and started driving away long-time employees, cancelling productive (profitable) projects and products, and alienating customers right and left. I watched him escort about 30 people off the campus over the couse of two years. He actually fired a few more than that but I was at lunch or something when they left.

I spent the last six months of my tenure there doing nothing for the company. They had so immersed themselves in the culture of destroying a profitable business that I was quite outspoken and critical of all management decisions. Needless to say, I was no longer included in any projects. But the largest corporate client wanted my expertise available at a moment's notice, so I was given a computer, a desk, and a telephone. I got so bored I did everything I could think of to get myself fired.

Eventually, when the president came in to reprimand me over something stupid, and to demonstrate once again that he was an idiot, I couldn't contain myself any longer. I said, "You know, if I had something to do around here, I wouldn't be getting in to trouble like this."

The lights slowly came on in his eyes. He swallowed slowly and said, "Well...I guess if you have nothing to do, then we don't need you."

Technically, they did need me because I was one of the few people left on staff who cared enough about the customers to continue being their advocate. But this man was determined to run the company into the ground and the fact that it barely survives today, many years later, is a testimony to the lost opportunities and lack of vision he contributed to its history. His ambition was to compete with Microsft. Don't ask me what the company's name is, because I assure you that you have never heard of it.

Round three of Stupid Bosses Who Should Not Have Been Hired did not happen all that long ago. I reluctantly became an IT director for the third time in my career. I don't like the job mainly because there is no one between me and the demanding executives who have no idea of what the human limitations of putting together automated projects are like.

One of my favorite bosses, with whom I argued constantly despite a deep liking for him, used to call me into his office every Monday morning. He would say, "Michael, I want to push a button and have the computer do everything for me." He'd then proceed to lay out an idea for a new project. He usually had a very good grasp of what he wanted, and I seldom had to ask many followup questions.

But Monday was always followed by Tuesday, and on Tuesday morning he'd say, "Michael, I know I gave you a project yesterday, but I need you to do something for me."

And Tuesday was followed by Wednesday, when he would say, "Michael, something has come up and I need you to stop work on whatever you're doing -- on my authority -- and take care of this priority."

Thursday followed Wednesday in about the same vein.

Come Friday he'd be asking for Monday's project, which of course was not finished. I was working 18 hour days at the time and had little to no social life. I think I gamed with my friends on the weekends or something.

It doesn't help that I almost completely automated his business process. It took much longer than hoped or expected, and I completed most of the work on a system redesign after leaving to work for another company. But once I finally left Atlanta, that company pretty much used my software for years with only occasional minor tweaks from a friend (another former boss with whom I got on well) who did contract consulting.

I'm a miracle worker. Many programmers are, and we're not ashamed to say so. People ask the damnedest things of us. And we often find ways to deliver what we initially think cannot be done. Sometimes we're right and things really cannot be done. But one of the key principles of great programming is great supervision. You have to have someone between the programmers and the decision-makers. Otherwise, the programmers end up spinning their wheels, changing priorities before things are accomplished.

The former boss who is visiting Las Vegas is attending a technical conference being put on by the company that was nearly run into the ground by the idiot I didn't hire. The former boss (not the idiot) stood between me and corporate decision-makers who are wonderful people. I occasionally have lunch with them and have made it known more than once that I would return to IT for their sake, if only because their office is close to where I live.

But he protected me from all the constant, last-minute, reprioritizing demands that render a programmer's skills and training ineffective.

So, when I inherited his job, I lost my insulation. I lost all hope of accomplishing anything. I told the new CFO that if he wanted me to be productive, he'd have to hire a new IT Director. He said, "Okay. I'll do that." And then he gagged because he found out what IT Directors think they are worth. He didn't understand that IT Directors have to lie, finagle, wiggle, conceive, plot, deceive, and manipulate their ways through corporate mismanagement. They do it so that their programmers and technical staff can do their jobs.

IT Directors don't have to know jack about computers. All they have to know is that if they let the boss anywhere near the technical staff, they have failed as IT Directtors. IT Directors have to take the blame for all the bad decisions, stupid spur-of-the-moment purchases, cost-cutting measures that deplete annual budgets, and everything else that goes wrong. They have to take the blame for all the bad stuff so that their bosses, the CFOs and CEOs, can take credit for all the hard work that the programmers and technicians put into making the company systems work 24/7.

This is why effective programmers walk around in a world all their own. They are isolated, coddled, protected, and sheathed. They don't know what grovelling, miserably weenie-like positions their IT Directors have to assume on an hourly basis in order to distract the corporate decision-makers from inflicting total disaster upon the company. I hope God loves a good IT Director, because I sure do. There are not enough of them to go around, and I have no ambition to be one.

I don't take crap very well. One of my former bosses, someone I used as a reference for many years, used to tell my future employers, "Michael has no tolerance for idiots and fools." He was not exaggerating. He had no reason to lie, either. He knew I wasn't being considered for any diplomatic jobs. He knew people were looking at me to come in and save their jobs by cutting code faster than anyone else.

If you hire me, all you have you to do is give me an objective and then shut up and get out of my way. You don't know enough to tell me how to achieve that objective. Your IT Director should know that much, but you don't. All you need to know is that I only miss deadlines when micromanagers with no clue about programming step in and tell me that a 3-month project will take a year.

So there I was, surrounded by greedy, ambitious executive decision-makers and wannabe greedy, ambitious executive decision-makers. And I was negotiating with Mama-company executives and project managers for a reasonable schedule to implement a system changeout that -- so I hear -- hasn't yet occurred two years after my departure. I stayed on the job for six months. At one point I was in a meeting with the Mama company project managers and I asked them point-blank, "Are you guys going to hire someone like me?"

They said, "No."

They said "no" even though at that very moment they were taking resumes from programmers with far less experience and much poorer credentials than me. In my niche programming industry, I really am one of the guys who wrote the books. And this company knew that. My former boss had gone out of his way to tell them what they had in me.

So they went out and hired someone who had not written an application like the one they were developing. An application I had been working on for 3 years.

I could have written it for them by now.

All they had to do was be honest, hire me, shut up, and get the hell out of my way. Maybe they were looking for job security. I don't know. Maybe my new CFO boss, who couldn't make a right or wrong decision without summoning an impromptu committee, really felt he needed to keep me around. After all, I was convenient to blame for everything that went wrong (and under his tenure, so many things went wrong I stopped counting). I hear I'm still being blamed two years later for things that are just now going wrong.

It's often been said that stupidity is its own reward. Whoever first drew that conclusion probably was an IT Director.

Hercules on Coke in Gone With The Wind

There is dancing in "Gone With The Wind". I don't recall exactly what type of dancing, as I only sat through the movie once. But I recall the dancing scene, where Vivian Leigh was trying to speak with Rhett Butler in a calm, poised manner while her legs were twiddling away to the beat of the music under her hoop skirt. I'm speaking of the movie, as I haven't read the book. Don't know how Scarlett handled dancing in the book.

This morning I picked up my brown shoes from the Houston Shoe Hospital. I had them resoled, relined, and reconditioned. It cost about $77. Should one pay that kind of money to have a pair of Pronto Uomo shoes refurbished, or should one bite the bullet and buy a new pair of shoes? I don't much like brown shoes, but they go with my brown khaki pants, which I now tend to only wear on Sundays. I don't much like brown khakis because they look so Software Firm.

But I don't wear all brown any more. There were times in the past when I wore a brown shirt with brown khaki pants and probably a black belt with black shoes. I'll never do that again. Ever. Not since someone pointed out that Ashley Wilkes always wore brown in "Gone With The Wind" (the movie -- I don't know about the book). No man wants to be Ashley Wilkes. We want to be Rhett Butler, and Rhett only wears brown in one scene -- the scene where Scarlett dumps his temporarily wimpy [CENSORED]. Throughout the rest of the movie, Rhett wears black, or blue, or grey. He looks stylish, distinguished, dignified, cool.

Rhett is cool. Ashley is...icky.

So I picked up my shoes this morning, paid my $77, and thought to myself: "Why did I just get these shoes re-dyed back to brown?" Maybe because they are the only shoes that go with my brown belt, which I only wear on brown khakis, white, or black. Or blue. Actually, I think these brown shoes look pretty good with my blue jeans. They almost look like boots sticking out under my denim drape. But Pronto Uomo shoes are far more comfortable than any boots I have ever worn.

For that matter, they are far more comfortable than any other footware I have ever tried. You can keep Mr. Cole & Mr. Hahn. I can pay far less for a pair of shoes and get as much discomfort as I get from Cole & Hahn. I hate my Cole & Hahn shoes. I do my best to avoid dancing in them. I cannot bear to throw them away because I paid about as much for them as I pay for Pronto Uomo shoes. I'm hoping to gradually wear out Cole & Hahn enough that I can get them reconditioned into something comfortable. That day may never come.

So, I don't normally go dancing in my brown Pronto Uomos, but I do dance in my black Pronto Uomos (of which I own several pairs). You can work and play in Pronto Uomo. You can dance in them. Just keep in mind that they are made of real leather and every now and then you have to have them resoled and reconditioned. Or else you have to buy another pair and they cost more than $77.

So, I had a Hercules moment Monday night (yesterday) while ballroom dancing in a pair of black Pronto Uomo shoes. This anecdote will require two digressions.

First, I'm talking about Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, starring Kevin Sorbo. The 4th season episode "...And Fancy Free" guest-starred the very cute Willa O'Neill as Althea. Althea was a forlorn farm girl living in the Greek city of Rhumba (as in Rumba dancing), where every street featured at least one dance studio. Michael Hurst guest-starred as Edith Longbottom, playing the Widow Twanky (this show was one of the most amazing, innovative television shows ever to be produced -- how often does a co-star guest star as someone else?).

Althea's ambition was to dance, but her father forbade her to dance. He wanted to bury his shameful loss in the past. The story line is an homage to the Australian "Strictly Ballroom" movie, which is a fun flick to watch on a Saturday afternoon with a few friends. (NOTE: This is the second digression.) "Strictly Ballroom" tells the story of the son of a couple of dancers who operate a rundown dance studio. They are grooming him to compete in the Pan-Pacific something-or-other dance competition. He is required to dance a very strict program, but the poor boy wants to dance Paso Doble. Paso Doble is not a "ballroom" dance, according to some people. I think it's interesting.

So, Hercules comes wandering through on one of his "legendary journeys" and he meets Althea as the town is bullying her. No hero can resist the needs of a damsel in distress, so Herc immediately steps in and offers to help her win the annual dance competition. That's where the Widow Twankey comes in, because she is the only dance teacher willing to take on the hopeless pair of dance partners.

Somewhere during the episode, Hercules ends up cutting wood (chopping down whole trees) for Althea's father. She brings him some lemonade. Kevin Sorbo, who is shirtless in this scene, proceeds to drink the lemonade as Willa O'Neill licks her lips and sends oodles of "God, he is SO sexy!" signals to the camera. Kevin leans back and drains the lemonade, letting it splash down his manly chest as the film-speed slows down and treats (the ladies in) the audience to what is respectfully known as a Major Thud Moment.

I'm not sure, but I think Kevin also draws some water and splashes it on his head to cool himself off. At least, I remember such a scene, but perhaps it comes from another episode. In any event, it's a memorable scene as Hercules is so obviously oblivious to the sexual devotion the very young Althea is radiating toward him.

Back to Monday night, but keep in mind that though I am reasonably fit, I have no delusions about being Kevin Sorbo. He's taller than me and I suspect he doesn't eat nearly as many donuts as I do. I was not wearing brown. I think I was wearing a light blue shirt with grey slacks and a pair of my black Pronto Uomo shoes. I had just come from work.

Gloria Jones now has me helping with three ballroom dancing classes on Monday evenings. It's a workout, let me tell you. This month, she moved some students out of her pre-intermediate ballroom class and was left with only two men. Gloria invited me, another advanced Salsa student named Ivan, another former advanced Salsa student named Sanai (a lady), and a couple of intermediate ballroom students to help with the pre-intermediate class. Ivan, Sanai, and I all helped with the Intermediate ballroom class, too.

Well, with so many guys in the room, and since Ivan is still relatively new to this "help with as many classes as you can" syndrome, I decided to just work on footwork and timing for most of the pre-intermediate class. But I also ducked out to get myself a Coca-Cola from a gas station across the street.

About halfway through the Pre-Intermediate class, a cute little girl came running up to the door, looked at the class schedule posted there, and ran off. A few minutes later, she came back, followed by an older man. They spoke to Gloria and started filling out registration forms. Gloria then asked her helpers to work with them to prep them for the Beginner Ballroom class. Ivan hesitated to approach the girl, so I went up to her.

We spent about 10-15 minutes trying to recap the basic steps from four dances (Rumba, Foxtrot, Waltz, and Cha Cha) before the Beginner Class began. At the top of the hour we went over to the large classroom where the Beginner class is taught and went through the lesson. Now, the girl's name is Noor. I resisted the temptation to repeat last week's performance with "Linus and Lucy" Lucy and said nothing about "Oh, were you named for Queen Noor?"

I just danced with Noor, but I found out that she has no dance experience. She kept trying to lead me and I accused her of having dance experience. She finally admitted she had seen a movie this weekend that ignited a spark of desire in her to dance. What was the movie? "Take the Lead", starring Antonio Banderas. So, for the rest of the hour, I occasionally dropped my voice into a heavy, sexy Latin Alpha Male tone and said things like, "Now you are dancing with Antonio!" She cracked up every time.

Somewhere in the middle of the Beginner Ballroom lesson Gloria broke the men away from the women to explain some point about keeping a frame or something that I have heard many times before. I saw my opportunity to sneak over to my Coke bottle and take a sip. Now, I know well enough not to just bend over to pick something up off the floor. Most guys do that, however. It's kind of a big turnoff for me to see some guy wheeze over and fumble for something on the floor. I just kneel quickly, scoop up what I need, and stand up straight. It's more dignified.

For some reason, after scooping up the Coke bottle, I turned around. Didn't need to. I was just taking a drink. But I was thirsty and not thinking so I just tilted the bottle back and started swallowing.

I saw about five women (including little Noor) loooooking at me. In an instant, Willa O'Neill and Kevin Sorbo flashed before my eyes as I recalled every scene in microscopic detail from "...And Fancy Free". I had to struggle to resist the urge to poor the Coke over my head. What was an unexpected Hercules (or Kevin Sorbo) moment would quickly have become an Adam Sandler/Steve Martin moment. Ick. Who wants Coke in their hair anyway?

What is it with women when a guy just wants to take a drink?

Mission Impossible: Dancing, Dancing in the Dark, Dancing with the Stars

I treated myself to an action movie this weekend and saw "Mission Impossible III". I don't know if I'll ever be able to erase the memory of Tom Cruise dancing in his underwear (from "Risky Business") but I try to impose new imagery whenever possible so as to have more Tom Cruise moments to recall than I can possibly want to. As action movies go, it was pretty good, but I really wish someone in Hollywood would get a clue about countdowns. Going to the last second is boring. It doesn't increase the tension for the audience because we know the good guy will win and that the bomb will be stopped within 1-2 seconds of detonation. Find a new gimmick, guys. This one has been done to death.

So, on my way out of the theater parking lot, I noticed a business card stuck in my driver's side window. I was halfway out of my parking space with vehicles coming down the lane both ways. I don't know why, but I didn't do the sensible thing. I chose not to pull back into the parking space, open the door, and grab the card. Instead, I used my button control to roll down the window.

There is now a business card permanently embedded inside my door.

What if there was a desperate plea for help written on it? What if Linda saw my car, grabbed a business card from some poor hapless stranger whose wife wondered why this beautiful Asian girl was accosting her husband in front of their kids, and scrawled upon it, "Michael, Em Yeu Anh! Let's get married and have lots of babies!!!"??

What if someone who reads my blog just wanted to say, "Dude, nice car. Maybe we'll run into each other at a nice club some time."?

Dudes, if you feel the compulsion to put a business card on someone's car, do not slip it into a movable window. You have no idea of whether the driver will do something stupid like try to roll down the window. I may agonize over this lost moment for another 15 minutes. Do something sensible like, I don't know, keep the stupid thing to yourself and don't bother me. Leave a comment on the blog or something. I'll see it there.

I did like the movie, but the whole effect was spoiled by the business card thing. Maybe the IMF agency was trying to recruit me to buy a t-shirt or somethng. I didn't see business cards on anyone else's car. Was it just a special moment for me? Should I call my friends and family to see if anyone has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom? Can you imagine what the kidnappers are doing about now?

"He's not gonna call. Maybe he didn't see the card."

"Of course he saw the card. I put it right in the driver's side window. He'd have to be stupid enough to try to roll the window down to miss it!"

I can't handle this on a school night.

I did go dancing this weekend. My friends and I went to Club Tropicana, where Grupo Kandente (or La Orquesta Kandente -- guys, pick a name) played live music almost from a decent hour. MCR (that's an anacronym for Miss Cute Reluctant) joined us once again. That's three weeks running. I'm not sure, but I think she may be serious about this dancing thing. Did I mention she drives for over an hour to get to dance class, drives back home to work a part-time job shift, and then comes back to Houston for the evening?

There's some interest there, I think.

I've been trying to enjoy some time with her without making it seem like I'm enjoying time with her. How do you do that? Like Han Solo said to Chewie, "I dunno. Fly casual".

During one of my casual flying moments, actually prior to everyone else arriving at the club, I was speaking with German (pronounced Her-mahn), the gentleman who gives the free dance lessons. He mentioned that he has stopped the free lessons on Tuesday nights for lack of students. He says Saturdays are slowing down, too. He and other teachers complain that "Dancing with the Stars" not only seems to have sucked the life out of Salsa dance classes, it appears people lose interest in dancing when the show goes off the air. I don't know how many dance teachers have said to me, "I can't wait for the Fall television season to start."

Well, a while later, a couple of really cute ladies came in and greeted German. One of them was, in my opinion, a knockout. She looked possibly Asian, possibly Hispanic (some Hispanic women could pass for non-descript Asian -- I'm not sure why). She was dressed in a brown and black lacy dress. Very hot. Very sexy. We could barely take our eyes off each other. I was sitting there hoping she'd get into the free dance lesson (which finally got started about 15 minutes late) so I could see how she danced.

I don't like to dance with strangers any more. It used to be because I all too often picked cute girls who couldn't dance. But sometimes they can dance and you just have to know the right moves. They don't follow. It's not worthwhile, in many cases, to ask a stranger for a dance. So, if you can pick out the ones who follow, you may have a chance to dance with them. Problem is, every other guy who gets to the club early (who knows how to dance) has the same thing on his mind. I usually don't lack for dance partners, so I seldom ask strangers to dance any more. But lately, I've been dancing with a lot of strangers.

Later on, German asked his friend to help him demo a move. Hey! She can dance and follow! I saw potential there.

I was speaking with my friend Geno when I looked over by the restrooms. I saw a cute, curvacious figure leaning back against the wall in a somewhat seductive pose. She was wearing a brown dress. I thought, "this is my chance."

Wrong lady. This was a pretty young girl (I mean, she was gorgeous, but she was young). Well, by the time I was standing there in front of her, and her eyes were roving up and down my frame, I figured I'd better ask her to dance. So we headed out to the floor and as I turned around to face her I noticed someone's body odor wafting our way. I looked around to find a direction to dance into and took her into my arms.

And nearly gagged.

The girl was rank. I mean she was outrageously awful stinky. I know there are some women who don't wear perfume. Some people are allergic to perfumes, but you don't expect to meet them in a night club where everyone is supposedly trying to smell their best (the attendant in the Men's restroom keeps at least a dozen colognes available for desperate men, and I've noticed the Ladies' room attendant takes a case of stuff in there, too).

The dance was almost bearable when I turned the girl and broke away from her for a moment, but politeness (and the dance style) demanded I come back to closed dance position. Nonetheless, I noticed she liked to do a cute sexy pose when she turned, so inspiration hit me like a lightning bolt. I did the only thing any gentleman can do when he wants the girl to stop the dance and think it's her idea.

I leered at her, staring openly at her luscious body. That took all of three seconds before she said, "I have to go to the restroom." As she walked away from me, and the air conditioning wafted clean smoke-laden air my way, I breathed a deep sigh of relief.

A while later, I noticed an older gentleman watching the dancers. He reminded me of my father, who is in his 80s (Dad is quite a bit older than me). I thought, "He looks like Dad."

A while later I noticed the older gentleman leaving the club. He said good-bye to the cute woman in the lacy brown dress (the one for whom I mistook Miss Stinky Brown Dress). She knew him. I felt sorry for the gentleman because he was obviously disappointed. Was no one willing to dance with him? Why? I didn't really pay much attention to him so I don't know if he gropes the girls, can't dance, or does something else.

Nonetheless, that was the moment I realized this cute woman in the lacy brown dress had drifted two tables closer to me as the evening progressed. She ended up sitting right next to me. And I didn't ask her to dance.

Why?

Because I don't dance with strangers when I can avoid doing so. Looks don't matter. Only the experience matters.

Talk like an SEO: Optimizing your SEO vocabulary

There's nothing more boring than reading a search engine optimization forum where all the members use the same jargon and buzz words without any variation in meaning. Deciphering people's intentions and problems is much more interesting and challenging when not only do they clearly not know what they are talking about, but they also clearly don't know what they are saying.

For example, let's take the popular Google word PageRank. Originally, PageRank referred to Larry Page, co-founder of Google, who naively concluded that Web site operators only link to Web sites that have good content (he obviously never operated a Web directory where he had to vet thousands of submissions from sites that consisted of nothing but fluff links because the site operators couldn't think of anything to say).

Larry's idea was that citation-based ranking would help determine which sites are more important to the community than others. On a megascale, the concept generally works. Unfortunately, communal judgement of what is important and worthwhile is about as helpful as taking a political poll among delegates at a convention: Tell me, Mister Republican Delegate, will you vote for Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter?

In today's SEO world, PageRank is used to refer to the little 0..10 numbers that Google displays in its toolbar. Google doesn't explain what these numbers are, although many SEOs believe they are a proxy value derived from a logarithmic scale that converges to an average of 1. Don't ask me what that is supposed to mean, because I don't speak gibberish. But many SEOs do.

People who are new to search engine optimization, however, often confuse PageRank for the actual rankings Web pages are assigned in various search results. And to make matters more confusing, most of those people are unaware of the fact that the same page can rank 1st for "goffy stuppid phraseoncology", 2nd for "phrased oncology stuffy guppid", and 3rd for "what was that?". So often enough search engine optimization forums are filled with posts from newcomers who ask how to increase their PageRank for some specific expression.

And some SEOs do talk about "context-specific PageRank", which is pretty much useless and meaningless in itself.

PageRank is designed to evaluate importance, not to determine placement in search results. Google claims to add PageRank scores into total ranking scores (which are derived from about 100 factors). A page's value of importance can, therefore, influence its position in search results, but many pages with low PageRank often outrank other pages with much higher PageRank.

Keyword density is another expression that has been beated to death. Most experienced SEOs now know to beat up on anyone who talks about keyword density, largely because Dr. E. Garcia of Mi Islita wrote an article called The Keyword Density of Nonsense. Dr. Garcia is a true, bona fide search engineer. He has a degree and everything.

Like so many academics, he speaks well above the heads of most SEOs (and most people in general), but he has made a legitimate effort to reach out to the search engine optimization community to explain some of the science behind search engine design. He also uses his expertise to promote his own search engine optimization consulting service. One must wonder, at least on some mildly amused level, if he is not therefore seeding the competition with some slightly inaccurate information.

Keyword density is almost as useless as checking an Alexa ranking. Alexa tracks the activity of about 11 million Alexa Toolbar users who, supposedly, visit Web sites of interest and value. Alexa warns people not to take their rankings seriously. Nonetheless, some well-known marketers tout their "Top 2000 Alexa Ranking" as if it means they actually provide value to the Internet community. Knowledgable SEOs know that the Alexa service is a joke. Anyone with a CGI-BIN privilege can boost their Alexa ranking by clicking on their page pages through proxy servers. You can also require all the people in your office to surf the Web with Alexa-enhanced browsers, and require that they visit your own Web pages throughout the day. Alexa won't care.

The only people who do care about Alexa are those folks who don't know how spoofy the service is and people who want to take advantage of the folks who don't know how spoofy the service is. It's sad when a service like Alexa says, "Don't trust our numbers -- they are not reliable" and people insist on trusting the numbers. But that is the world of search engine marketing. They don't read what Google says about its ranking algorithm, either.

No SEO forum discussion is complete today without someone babbling on about the Semantic Web and Semantic indexing. There are still some clueless people who insist that Google has implemented Latent Semanic Indexing despite the fact that experts like Dr. Garcia say it's too complicated for search engines. Despite the fact that simple searches which show that no semantic indexing is occurring.

Semantic indexing's goal is to identify the concept behind your query. If you search for "how to meet girls", maybe you're really interested in "dating and marriage". A semantic index will reduce all "how to meet girls" and all "dating and marriage" documents to a table and figure out which ones are really talking about the same stuff. That just doesn't happen today. You get some overlap because some pages mention both "how to meet girls" and "dating and marriage". For that matter, some of those same pages also talk about "save the whales" and "dolphins stranded on the beach". Does that mean this article is really relevant to environmental issues?

If your company wants to find a good search engine optimization specialist, they need to look for people who don't shout endlessly about PageRank, Keyword Density, Semantic Indexing, and link building.

Linkage is important to search engine optimization, but search engine optimization specialists who rely on linkage to achieve high rankings are either only focusing on a handful of hyper-optimized search expressions or they don't know what they are doing. Search engine optimization begins with keyword research. But not all keyword research is good. Some people still look at what their competitors are optimizing for. That tells you nothing about what you need to know. Effective keyword research focuses on what people are searching for.

A good SEO specialist knows that some links are better than others, but a good SEO specialist will not blabber on about high quality links. You want solid linkage that will help build your traffic and visibility. Whether it affects your search engine rankings should be at most a secondary consideration. If you emphasize linkage over everything else, you're ignoring 3 out of 4 of the Fundamental Principles of SEO.

Don't do that.

In fact, stop worrying about your search engine rankings. If you have this much time to read my blog, you should really be more interested in dancing and body language. Or maybe J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.

Have a great weekend!

Tolkien fans want a Google logo

Tolkien Gateway has launched an online petition to persuade Google to create a special logo for their front page for January 3, 2007.

As online fan activities go, this one is a little innovative and at the very least worth some of my link love.

Go for it, TolkienGateway. Get the logo.

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Tolkien_Google_logo_petition

Salsa Music and Cha Cha Songs

A couple of Gloria Jones' Beginner Ballroom Dancing students recently asked me to recommend some songs for them to practice to. They also take Gloria's Salsa class, but we were winding down the Ballroom class when they approached me. I don't actually have a very long list of salsa music or cha cha songs, but I suppose I should start compiling one.

I did send them an email with some suggestions. I had to do a little research, although I have a few Salsa CDs that I listen to. Actually, I think most of my CDs are packed up in storage in Florida. I can only find a handful of them, some of which I keep in a carry case in my car.

For anyone who wants a great random sampling of 1990s and 2000s style club Salsa songs, you absolutely need to get Salsa Fresca. It's probably recommended on more Web sites than any other Salsa CD and it is one I personally own. There may be other great collections out there, but this one is a classic. You could pretty much just play and dance to this CD all night if you wanted to have a Salsa dance party.

The two best-known classic Salsa artists are Celia Cruz and Tito Puente. Tito is also known for many other styles, including Cha Cha. His songs are classic and you still hear them in the clubs decades after they were first recorded. Bands still cover them in their live performances. And Celia was a legend, the queen of Salsa.

Cha Cha lovers know Santana songs intimately. "Black Magic Woman", "Oye Como Va", "Smooth", and "Evil Ways" are songs I have danced Cha Cha to many times, usually with my friend Maggie. You can also dance Cha Cha to Sade's "Your Love Is King" and "Smooth Operator" (can you imagine dancing to the long version?). The Pointer Sisters are extremely popular with Cha Cha enthusiasts. I think Gloria plays "Fire" quite a bit in her Cha Cha lessons (but I have to admit, when I hear her Cha Cha songs, I just start grooving).

Yelba, who lives and performs mostly in Houston, offers some free download samples from her "Latin Fire" CD. She's simply incredible, and she has good Cha Cha ("Derroche") and Salsa ("El Talisman", "El Tamalito") songs in her list.

You could dance a very, very slow Salsa to Cha Cha-suitable songs. In fact, many teachers combine their Cha Cha and Salsa lessons because Cha Cha basically uses all the steps in Salsa, with the addition of the three sliding "cha cha cha" steps on the 4-and-1 beats. That is, you count 1-2-3-4-and-1-2-3-4-and-1. The "cha cha cha" slide is performed on the 4-and-1.

Another great slow Salsa song is "Olga, Mire, Vea" (or "Oiga, Mire, Vea") by Orquesta Guayacan. I'm not sure about the spelling. I first heard this song somewhere in the distant past. But I heard it often at Elvia's Cantina in Houston while watching (or participating) in Johnny Walden's free dance classes. You could probably dance Cha Cha to it, although I've never tried. Or maybe I have. It's hard to remember.

Della Reese, perhaps best known to general audiences for her acting (Touched By An Angel) is often cited on Cha Cha music lists. I've not actually heard any of her songs (and recognized her as the performing artist), but so many recommendations are probably very reliable.

I don't know much about Ballroom music in general. Gloria teaches the basic Rumba step to the Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love". There are probably a few other slow Bee Gees' disco-style songs that are suitable for Rumba. Almost anything 50s Rock-and-Roll may be good for Jitterbug, I suppose, although Jitterbug goes back before the 50s. I tease the Ballroom students and tell them they are ready to be extras on Happy Days after they learn the Jitterbug basic. It seemed like that was the only dance they knew on that show. Could just be my memory, though.

Frank Sinatra's "The Way You Look Tonight" is good for FoxTrot (at least a slow FoxTrot). Usually Maggie just says, "Michael, Foxtrot!" and I trot out to the dance floor without a clue about what song we're dancing to. I admit it: Maggie usually backleads me in Foxtrot, although I'm getting better at it. My friend Trent is totally intimidated by International Foxtrot (or so he says). Don't know. Haven't tried it.

International Ballroom dancing is supposed to be more difficult than American style Ballroom. American Foxtrot is about as simple a dance as you can learn, with its slow-slow-quick-quick step. It can be a very elegant dance when two experienced partners take it to the floor. But it's a safe social dance for inexperienced dancers to get out on (if they have a partner who knows the timing). If you can dance the Two Step (a popular Country Western dance), there should be no reason (in my opinion) why you cannot learn American Foxtrot. And vice versa.

Of all the Ballroom dances I've learned so far, Cha Cha is my favorite. Unfortunately, the clubs my friends and I go to seldom play Cha Cha. Johnny tells me that Salsa is also a Ballroom dance, but though I love Salsa it's just not as sexy and smooth as Cha Cha. When you get out on the floor with a Cha Cha song moving through your veins, you feel totally sensual. It's just a really sinuous, feline dance that any man can look good at.

And when the ladies learn to dance Cha Cha, whoa! Do they look good. It's a pity May didn't come back to the Ballroom dance classes. She would love Cha Cha, I'm sure, though she was intimidated by it. Cha Cha is unquestionably the hardest of the Ballroom dances to learn because of the syncopated step. A lot of people lose their timing as soon as they try to do that first "cha cha cha". It just takes practice.

But when a girl knows how to dance Cha Cha, and she hears that music, all she needs is a man who understands what it's all about and then she shines like a star. It doesn't matter what she looks like, how she feels about herself before and after the song plays. It's just magical to watch the women come to life with Cha Cha. They look, feel supersexy. They become incredible.

For a few brief moments, Cha Cha dancing transforms your world, and you are lifted up into the company of angels. You never forget the first time you get it right, and you never stop wanting to get it right again after that.

That's what good dancing is all about.

C.S. Lewis biographer to speak at May 11, 2006 Houston Inklings Roundtable

Mary Dodson Wade, author of books such as C.S. LEWIS: THE CHRONICLER OF NARNIA, ALL AROUND TEXAS, and BENEDICT ARNOLD will be the featured guest at the next meeting of the Inklings Roundtable of Houston.

So far as I know, she is not the Mary Wade associated with the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College.

The meeting will be held at 7:00 PM on Thursday, May 11 at the Black Labrador Pub, located at 4100 Montrose just north of the intersection of Montrose and Richmond in Houston, TX.

Dancing with Jessica: Not Jessica Alba, just Jessica

I feel I have to be careful in what I post here about the people I meet. As this blog becomes increasingly popular (thank you for stopping by), the chance that someone I write about will come by increases. In fact, one of my dancing friends has already visited the blog and she feels it would be well recieved by several of the people mentioned. I still feel a little self-conscious in that respect, but I wouldn't put this online if I weren't willing to deal with the consequences.

In any event, one concern I have is that people may feel like I am focusing on Asian women. I'm attracted to women of all ethnic groups. It's just that some of the more interesting anecdotes involve Asians. And the fact my last relationship was with an Asian girl means that memories are constantly being triggered by any Asian women I meet (especially the ones named "Linda", and lately it seems like they are all named "Linda"). For those who are counting, Miss Cute Reluctant is neither Asian nor named "Linda".

So, all that is to say that Jessica is Asian. I think she is married, too. But let me back up and start at the beginning.

It was Saturday evening and I showed up at Plaza 59 a little earlier than my group to ensure there was no problem with my table reservation (always a good thing to do if you are organizing a party at a club). The hostess set me up by the door, where my friends could see me as they came in. We had good access to the bar and pretty good access to the dance floor. In fact, it's hard to find a bad location in Plaza 59. While the club is smaller than Tropicana, I think it's laid out very well and just looks really, really nice.

So I sat down at my table and watched Eddie Lopez's free dance class. He was well into it by this point, had learned all the students' names, and was joking with them. Some girl (presumably one of his advanced students) kept sitting down or going back to the bar, but when he needed to demonstrate a good move, he would call her over. I counted noses and saw there were a couple more ladies than men. One lady in the center of the line seemed cute in an Asian way, but I was sitting at least 50 feet away from her.

Eddie saw me sitting down and invited me to come over. I don't actually know him, although I know who he is. A lot of my friends respect him as a dancer, and it's obvious, when you see him dance and teach, that their respect is well-deserved. So, since I was summoned to take a free class, I figured I might as well slip in beside the cute Asian girl.

When I came up beside her, I realized she was a little older than I previously thought (but I am a terrible judge of age). She also had a "baby tummy", which many women are embarrassed about although I think most women wear their baby tummies well (girls -- you only get one of these after having babies -- I actually had to explain that to a teenage girl recently). Most of us have a few places where we show a little more skin than we want to.

So, we reached a point where Eddie said, "Everyone grab a partner." I figured there would be a rotation, so I grabbed Jessica instead of the lady on the other side of me. I had miscalculated my placement, though, as Eddie had to move a lady down to one end of the line to match everyone up. Still, I introduced myself to Jessica, scanned her left hand (men do this almost instinctively), and saw she was ringless.

A lot of women hate it when men do that. Why do we do it? Because we're evaluating women as they evaluate us. We're just slower in collecting information (a typical woman can usually scan a man in about 1/6th the time it takes a typical man to scan a woman). So, I thought, "Well, no ring guarantees nothing, but we'll see."

Jessica had no clue about who I am (in terms of a dancer). She assumed I was just some well-dressed guy come to the club early. So she asked me if I had taken the class (Eddie's class) before. I said, "No". So then she asked if I Salsa dance. I said, "A little."

We got into the basic move with a simple turn and after I asserted my lead, her eyebrows perked up. Eyebrow raising can be done intentionally, but body language experts say that it's usually an automatic response. If you see someone's eyebrows rise quickly, it's generally a sign of increased interest in something (but not a clear indication by itself of what kind of interest -- there could be hostility associated with the interest).

As the lesson unfolded, we went into a rotation as I expected. The next lady I danced with was Lucia. She was cute, too, but Hispanic and I was kind of surprised that she didn't have Latin timing. It's not that all Latin women should be able to dance Latin style. It's just that I meet so few who don't know something. So, Lucia has finally decided to learn how to dance. I waited a few years, too.

I stayed with Lucia quite a while, and was able to take her by surprise, too. But after we rotated again, the ladies in the line knew something was up with me. They started asking me how many years I've been dancing, if I was a teacher, etc. I didn't really say anything except, "I've had a few classes."

The line got so jumbled up with the moves Eddie was teaching that I took one partner away from the group so we could have some space. There was one poor Asian guy whom Eddie was picking on mercilessly. He laughed at Eddie's jokes, and Eddie reassured the group he was familiar with the gentleman and only meant his little jibes in a good-natured way. I didn't feel like Eddie was being a jerk. He was trying to keep people smiling and in a good mood. He had gauged this group's tolerance for critical humor well. That's a rare gift, in my opinion.

Jessica kept glancing at me. I never saw her glance at the Asian man, but I started to sense that they had to be together. So when she finally came back around to me in the rotation (she had not danced with the Asian man up to this point from the time I entered the club), she was obviously eager to be my partner again.

She laughed and said, "I think you have some dance experience." I shrugged and said, "Maybe a little."

So, we finished the lesson as partners. Eddie came over and gave me some cues on how to execute a neat move I haven't done before. The man starts out by leading his partner into Fifth Positions or Cumbia steps. In a Cumbia step you turn to your left and swing your left foot around behind you (keeping it close to your body). Then you turn back to your right and face your partner. You pause. Then you turn to your right again and swing your right foot behind you. Then you turn back to your partner and pause. And so forth.

After doing four of these steps, Eddie had the men grab their partners' hands in a cross-hold, a handshake style. My right hand to her right hand. The man then pulled the woman in front of him, causing her to over-rotate her next Cumbia as she turned to her left slightly. The man stepped behind the woman and grabbed her left arm. We then went back and forth a couple of times and stepped back around our partners.

Very cool step. Jessica and I struggled with it a little in part because I added an extra step (that Eddie noticed and discussed with me) and because she was getting nervous. She knew I was an experienced dancer by this time and she was starting to feel a little anxious. That often happens with both men and women as they partner up with more experienced dancers. I see it frequently when I help with beginner and pre-intermediate dance classes.

The last thing Eddie did was introduce the group to Merengue. Jessica said she had never danced Merengue and asked if I had. I said, "A little." She gave me a disbelieving look and braced herself for the inevitable.

As the music started up, Eddie turned us loose and said, "Do whatever you can think of, men. Just be gentle with the ladies."

Well, Merengue is an easy dance to learn. It's easy to do wrong, but most people pick it up faster than the other Latin dances. So I took Jessica through numerous spins and turns. I had her moving pretty smoothly. She started laughing and saying, "I don't know how to dance like this!"

People were looking at her like she was crazy. So I said, "Well, it's not me. You must be an expert Merengue dancer. You're really good!"

And she looked good. We had quite a few eyes on us as the song finished. She thanked me, I thanked her, and I went over to join those of my friends who had already arrived.

Later on, as I was dancing with Miss Cute Reluctant, I noticed Jessica was sitting with the Asian man. I don't believe either of them attempted to dance to the regular music. Eventually, they left the club together. So, I have no idea of whether they are married. I guess there is a chance I may see them again. They both seem to be genuinely interested in learning to dance.

But that is really what dancing should be all about for a man: making his partner look good. That's why I like the social Latin dances. Women can shine if they learn to relax and trust their partner, and if their partner learns to do it right.

Salsa Nights, Ballroom Dancing

May didn't come back for the May Ballroom dancing class. I was kind of disappointed, but I saw it in her eyes last week. Something didn't click with her. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was just something going in her life. She's been the most interesting "beginning" student I can remember dancing with. But when you help with dance classes, you have to understand that you're not likely to see many people for more than a few weeks. I do my best not to seek any sort of friendships or attachments in the first couple of months of a student's dance life.

I suppose that makes me seem standoffish, but when you dance with 15-30 ladies a day, remembering names and faces is just impossible. And I don't do this every day any more, but I used to dance 5 days a week. Some nights I'd take or help with a class and then go out dancing with my friends at one of the local clubs. There have been many nice guys and many cute girls and beautiful women (and some otherwise memorable people) through the years. I can recall many faces but few names.

Friday evening some friends and I went to Fogo de Chao to celebrate a friend's birthday. I've never been there. Another of our friends called to say he was running late. We got to talking about how expensive it would be (I grossly underestimated the cost of dinner) and he said, "Man, I just got back from overseas. I'm broke!" He bowed out. The rest of us had a great time nonetheless and we only complained a little about the cost when the check came. Some restaurants are amazingly generous to themselves with their automatic group gratuities.

Friday was kind of an oddball day for me. They're doing a system conversion at work and told the staff we could wear jeans. I knew I was going out right after work and didn't think I'd have time to get home and change, so I wore some nice slacks and a sport shirt. When I got to the restaurant, I was the only guy in my group not wearing a blazer or jacket. So, I went from feeling over dressed to feeling under dressed in the space of an hour without changing a thing.

But a lot of the restaurant's clientele were dressed even more casually than me, so I didn't feel uncomfortable. And I especially didn't feel uncomfortable when an attractive lady kept making eye contact with me. Problem was, I was with my group and she was with hers, and she just kept flirting with me. Maybe next time I'll just manufacture an excuse to go introduce myself to a group of strangers (she was with two guys). "Pardon me. May I borrow the Grey Poopoo?"

Hm. Needs work.

I didn't want to go dancing Friday evening because I knew I'd be facing four hours of dance classes Saturday, and then there would be dancing Saturday evening. But several of the ladies just had to go check out Plaza 59. I walked in the door and asked the hostess if she could steal a table for me (they are often reserved two weeks in advance). She found us one near the fish tank, close to the bar and not very close to the dance floor. But, hey, it was a table.

Eddie Lopez was there, teaching his free dance lesson. He's started getting some interest. He's a top-notch dancer, but I've watched him sit around with a group of guys waiting for women to show up for the free class. He drafted my three lady friends into taking the class. One of them may have taken an interest in his dance lessons. I'm not sure.

So, Saturday came and went. I staggered my way through the dance classes with a sour right ankle. I am not sure how I injured it, but it started feeling bad Thursday evening (yes, I helped with dance classes). It's still sore tonight, and I went through two out of three ballroom dances. It's funny, but I can do just fine in Cha Cha with a sore right ankle, but I was in agony while dancing the Waltz, Foxtrot, and Tango. The difference is that in the Latin dances (like Cha Cha and Rumba) you're not picking your feet up. You just slide them across the floor. With the other dances (including Tango), you have to pick your feet up.

I have never wanted pain medicine so badly in my life. People are asking if I'll go dancing this weekend. Maybe, but I may not actually "dance" very much. Depends on who goes.

One of the new girls in tonight's Ballroom dancing class was named Lucy. When I partnered with her (yes, Gloria has started doing some limited rotations), I politely asked her name, and then I said something stupid about Linus and Lucy (from Charlie Brown). She said, "Who?"

Right. I feel so Old School.

Well, Lucy and I didn't hit it right off. My sense of humor was putting her off a little, so I changed my tactics and toned it way down. I informed her that she didn't seem very interested in the class and that she could always trade me in as a partner. By this time, she started to protest (yes, the old Reverse Psychology ploy still works on occasion). I figured I'd better deliver on the deal, so I made the guy next to me switch partners. Oh, the look she gave me was priceless. Hehe.

It wasn't two minutes before I heard him say, "So, what's your name?"

"Lucy."

"Oh, like Linus and Lucy...."

It went downhill from there. Somehow, I don't think she'll ever be a Charlie Brown fan. But, who knows? Maybe she and her friend will come back next week. They did pay for the class, after all, and I've made it clear that they don't have to dance with me if they don't want to.

Many other things happened, but I'm exhausted. I'll save the Jessica story for another post (she's married -- don't get the wrong idea). At least, I think that guy was her husband....

Iraq: War in Iraq and how news & media report news

I'm no fan of the anti-war movement. Neither do I want our soldiers to stay overseas and continue putting their lives in danger. But when we leave Iraq and Afghanistan, we need to do so with the expectation that we won't have to go back for the same reasons. The American people seem to understand that much, but they are generally frustrated with the progress of the war.

The chief reason people are frustrated is that they pay too much attention to the news organizations' headlines and too little attention to the details of the news stories. And I have to admit I spend a fair amount of my time just scanning headlines, too. But I have some publishing experience and I know you cannot really trust headlines to accurate convey the gist of the details.

Some political commentators, both Republican and Democrat, are quick to allege that the media have a "liberal bias" or are "too conservative". CNN's 'Iraqi president eyes deal with armed groups' story (the URL may change content) from May 1 is an indication of "liberal bias".

CNN typically bundles all recent news stories about a major topic at the tail end of its online updates. In this article, they cover a lot of ground, but the headline actually captures the most important point. Jalal Talabani, President of Iraq, has been meeting with leaders of Sunni insurgent groups who hate Al Qaeda and Musab al-Zarqawi. These insurgents have been fighting the Americans for, they say, the wrong reasons.

They view us as invaders. Well, maybe the fact that we invaded their country had something to do with that.

They view us as occupiers. Well, maybe the fact that we have stationed 150,000 troops in semi-permanent fashion on their soil, and the fact that we dictated how they would form a new government, have something to do with that.

But it has always been our clear desire and intention to leave Iraq as soon as possible. The insurgents are only just now beginning to realize and accept the truth. Why is that? One reason is that the Arabic-speaking world, like the United States, has its own "liberal bias" and "too conservative" media. And some of their broadcasters don't mind just outright lying and distorting the facts in order to make America look like a villainous colonizing power.

Many people feel that the Qatar-based network al-Jazeera favors Al Qaeda. The United States government apparently got tired of defending itself against the lies that al-Jazeera publishes (or used to publish -- I've stopped trying to read their English-language Web site). But is al-Jazeera really sympathetic to Al Qaeda or are their journalists simply in tune with millions of Arabic-speaking people around the world who hear little more than that the United States is once again bullying its way through international disputes?

We do bully people. American citizens should be aware of that. The United States has installed dictators, supported dictators, launched and financed small wars between other nations, and often placed whole countries under embargo as a means of "negotiating" a solution to some issue that affects our national interests. But we Americans drive our gas-guzzling cars, shop in our relatively safe shopping malls, and go out on weekend dates without really thinking about who may be suffering on the other side of the world for the sake of our comfort.

Liberal Americans think about these issues more than Conservative Americans. But right now, we have a largely Conservative government. It's so conservative, that the "liberal media" had to raise a fuss just so they could watch CNN instead of Fox News on Air Force One.

I have to admit that I may not agree with the way CNN reports the news (I actually feel ABC World News Tonight does a better job -- or did when Peter Jennings was the anchor, but I've stopped watching television news), but I get tired of Fox's constant parade of screaming sound bits, 30-second whirlwind meatless stories, and conservative tirades. They support President Bush. Good for them. Every President probably should have one American network on his side.

CNN, on the other hand, goes out of its way to undermine Conservative presidents' agenda. When Ronald Reagan was President, he introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative, which incorporated many proposed elements. The most controversial element was a space-based defense system to protect us against intercontinental ballistic missiles. CNN and other "liberal" news organizations immediately dubbed the program "Star Wars" and maliciously referred to it only as "Star Wars" as often as possible in order to distort public perceptions of the program.

Now, anyone who was active in the Computer Science community at the time could tell you that many computer scientists were scared of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Computer Scientists can be scary people themselves. Among other things, they like to "prove programs are correct." That is, they don't just write code and run it on a computer. They subject it to intense mathematical analysis to determine that the programs will only precisely what they are supposed to do and only what they are supposed to do.

The Strategic Defense Initiative, however, was going to require programs to track up to 100 concurrent missiles at a time. This requires multi-tasking, what we call "spawning" of new tasks. That is, when you detect 100 missiles rising from the Earth, you have to launch 100 copies of your tracking software and let each one track a missile. Then they all have to coordinate. Back in the 1980s, Computer Scientists had no way of determining if our space-based defenses would accurately track the missiles or, instead, start lobbing their own missiles and ray-beams at American cities.

Why did the media call this "Star Wars"? Because George Lucas had popularized the name, even though the SDI program bore little resemblance to what George was painting on the silver screen. When you're pumping out propaganda the way CNN does, any slur will do in a rush.

The latest round of CNN propaganda consists of numerous polls to check the pulse of American political opinion. Hardly a day goes by where 1,000 or so people aren't being asked some very leading questions about whether President Bush is doing a good job. You know, considering the fact that President Delano Roosevelt declared war on Germany and Japan and that President Truman dropped nuclear weapons on Japan and involved us in the Korean War, I'd say Bush is doing a pretty good job.

Not that we should not have responded to the attack on Pearl Harbor. But President Bush (and his father) have struggled with the legacy of World War II, the Korean War, and the Cold War. Many American Presidents committed this country to mutual defense treaties, and enacted policies that have required us to be manipulative and bullying, that we are expected to honor to this day. Anyone running for President in the 21st century must honor those treaties and carry through those policies.

The potential consequence of shirking our responsibilities is that someone like Saddam Hussein may rise up, raise the 4th largest army in the world, and start attacking his neighbors. People forget that is how the Nazis began their rampage across Europe. The appeasers tried to concede land and privileges to the aggressors in the hope of maintaining "peace in (our) time", and instead they found themselves losing ally after ally. We, of course, created Saddam Hussein. Well, he was already there but he was conveniently positioned to be our punising stick when Iran's conservative religious government allowed some radical students to take control of our embassy and hold our people hostage.

We are in Iraq today because Ronald Reagan gave weapons and money to Saddam Hussein in the hope that Iraq would beat the Iranian people to a bloody pulp. Many Iraqis and Iranians died because of that policy, which though it spawned the "Iran-Contra Arms Scandal" (and made a national hero out of Oliver North) was (in my opinion) an excessive response to our national humiliation. Admittedly, Iran's leaders talked for a while of violently exporting their fundamentalism to other nations.

If Iran were indeed to carry Fundamental Islam to other lands through military force, the United States would be forced to fight a major conflict. Why? Because we have mutual defense treaties with Israel and Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and other nations in the region. It's not like the American government has the luxury of standing off and allowing its treaty obligations to wither away. We have done that, too, and paid a high price for it.

The alternative to putting a warhawk-family like the Bushes into office is that we end up with wussy Clintonesque leadership. President Clinton went out of his way to get American troops out of the line of fire. Somalia is the mess it is today because Clinton was unwilling to provide our forces with the armor they needed to back them up when Somali warlords started looting U.N. supply convoys. Instead, we ended up fighting the Battle of Mogadishu -- which by every military benchmark we won. And Clinton (and the news media) acted like the battle was a shameful humiliation for the Amercan people.

Yes, some of our soldiers' bodies were treated badly in the aftermath. But you know what? If our men had been given the support they asked for, we could have brought them home.

Instead, Clinton redeemed himself by destroying tanker trucks, oil facilities, and bridges in the Balkans. Technically, Clinton proved all the generals wrong. Up until Serbia started slaughtering its neighbors, American generals said you could not win a war through air power. But when the Serbs ran out of gas, and obviously became easy pickings for American fighters and helicopters, the fight went out of them. They capitulated when the only American soldiers to set foot on their soil had been rescue teams and downed pilots (and probably some special ops troops).

Hooray for our side. We can end any little brush war by dragging it out needlessly as tens of thousands of people are butchered. We have a great strategy for success.

Is Bush doing a good job? I have no idea. I disagree with a lot of the things happening in Washington. I don't much like Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Conservatives, or any decision-makers who don't make decisions I feel comfortable with.

But I'm totally fed up with the weekly "How is Bush doing" polls. And I'm fed up with the "It's been three years since Bush declared major hostilities over" (technically, he was right -- there were no longer any armies for our army to fight). Today, we're not fighting the Iraqi army. We're fighting beside the Iraqi army. The Middle East is rife with militias and armed groups. Iraq is not unique in that respect. Even Israel has armed civilian groups that would be called militias in other countries.

So if you are asked to participate in one of those propaganda polls (whichever side), here is a suggestion: hang up the phone. Don't participate.

Thank you, dear readers, for coming this far. We'll be returning to more of Michael's adventures in life with the next post.