Well, it seems I was right about the Augusta Ballet Company. I have it through the grapevine that the Augusta Ballet Board has voted itself a presenting company only. This only formalizes what I’ve suspected since the ‘reorganization’ several years ago. I can’t find a link in the Chronicle, or other local news outlets because, I’m certain, the board would prefer to have this decision be somewhat quiet.

Supporting Ballet is so much easier without those costly dancers and artsy fartsy types living, working, and paying taxes in the community.

I wrote a fairly pithy letter to the editor at the Metro Spirit. Recently, the 'Augusta Ballet', announced a party celebrating the retirement of their debt. The first sentence uses the weak construction, 'Some people say...' without telling us who are 'some people'. This is a celebration of what exactly? Below is my letter:

balletdebt.pdf

After receiving a short note from Graham Percival regarding the known issue in the Lilypond GUI and Leopard, the latest release does play nice with TextMate. I have been able to start the tutorials and even create a little midi file. The reason I'm doing this is because GarageBand finally adds the ability to create custom ringtones for my iPhone. I can create the music in TextMate, use Lilypond to make a midi file, pull it into GarageBand and go nuts. Fun. I've almost got Christopher O'Riley's version of Bulletproof in there. I haven't played with Lilypond in some time and it's the learning curve is a little steep.
On another note, Tess has taken her first ballet class. Tammy asked her, "Don't you want to be a doctor?" "No, I'm going to be a ballet girl." So much for the fancy retirement community. I love her so…

The Double-Tour

http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/michalek/video.html

Congrats to my kids for some wonderful dancing at the Davidson Fine Arts Senior Concert. You guys looked great! Stay in touch with the old man.
Dig this; remember how I'm always talking about perching over your standing leg in attitude? If you're arms go from low to high you shouldn't change your weight; just change the arms. Here's an example:
What I'm talking about.

Stay tuned!

For my '06 GHP'ers: the DVD is almost done. I'll post more Sunday.
I have just had some correspondence with Kyndal's Mom about the DVD. If there's one reason the DVD isn't ready, my many technical debacles besides, it's because to this day I have been unable to account for the Thursday night show's tape. I have searched high and low. I scoured the theater, the grass outside the theater, my car, my room, the studio. It simply is not anywhere I can find. I gathered from all of the activity around the camera that the tape got legs and walked away. I can't go so far as to accuse anyone because I could not be in two places at once. All of the help that I had was working backstage. So, again. If anyone has this tape, I want it back. No questions asked. I don't care how you got it, I need it. This was Kyndal's last dance performance. Her parents brought a camera and I didn't let them tape because I was going to be able to do it better myself, plus there would be thousands of red dots and parents watching the viewfinder and not the show. Not to mention that taping the show isn't allowed: look at the cover of this week's New Yorker.
So basically, not only have I delayed and delayed and delayed your receipt of this DVD, I have robbed Kyndal's parents of any record of their daughter's last show. The fact that I'm no longer invited to GHP is small punishment for that. I am truly sorry for losing that show. I wish I could go back in time and have put that tape somewhere completely safe. For everybody else, I have all of the video captured on disc. I just need to add titles and convert it to DVD format, burn it, duplicate it, and send it out. The only reason I have enough time to type this long message is because I'm waiting for an employer to call me for a job that was supposed to be here yesterday. I have been crazed since the day that I left Valdosta. So, stay tuned. I'll post something on Sunday. B.

Well, there comes a time in every man's life when he has to ask who he really is. Well after a lot of time with a men's group and some emotional talk with Tam, Tess' blessing and the understand of my closest friends and family I can finally come out:

After several weeks, really months, of looking around, I've decided to go with ZenCart for Susan’s new shopping cart. The decision came to me in Dothan, AL. I'm down here during my 25^th year of the Nutcracker. I like the fact that ZenCart uses CSS for layout and XHTML for markup. It does have a learning curve, but the wiki is helpful and I'll just need time to play around with it. I may have more opinions about it when I get more into it, but so far so good.
While down here I met Benjamin Linn. He dances in Birmingham with Alabama Ballet. I have several friends in that company now (small world). I'm hoping to help Ben out with the website for his “Benjamas”. He's got a placeholder site up now, but it needs a lot of work. It should be a fun project and hopefully I'll be able to squeeze my fat ass into one of his products. I don't know if they make enough polar fleece.
I'm also looking forward to getting home to work on the DVD's. My kids have been waiting patiently since the summer and it's been one thing after the other. Since Tam and I have established an HQ, and I have to shiny new hard drives to install, I can get down to business.