Date:
April 30, 2012
I just passed the 6th anniversary of my very first autocross event ever. A lot of things have changed in that six years — the cars I drive, the driving lines I take, and my ability to go fast (though not necessarily always pointing in the right direction, if you get what I mean). But some things haven’t changed. Thankfully, most of the people who helped me get up to speed as a new autocrosser are still autocrossing and continue to be very good friends.
I remember when I first started out, I was in awe of the speed of my main competitor, James, whose Nissan Sentra SE-R was classed in the same class as my Audi A4 was (G-Stock). I thought to myself, wow, I’ll never get to be that fast. But when I talked to some of the other autocrossers, they jokingly referred to him as a new autocrosser. James had been autocrossing for a couple of years, wasn’t that enough to qualify him as an expert?
It’s hard to believe that I’m roughly in the same spot that James was when I first started. And now I understand what the other old-timers meant with their jokes. I’m six years into this sport and I know that I’ve still got a lot to learn. [Continue reading →]
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Categories: Driving
| Tags: autocross
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Date:
April 29, 2012
I’m wrapping up the discussion on swing scenes on this website. Comments on the posts The decline of a swing scene and Bringing the swing back are now closed. I believe that everyone who had something to say had their chance to do so, and would like all further discussion to move offline where I think it would be more productive. Thanks to everyone who was willing to stick their necks out and put their name next to their opinion out in the public eye. As public as a non-indexed personal blog can be, at least.
I learned quite a bit from the past couple of days, both about my own viewpoints and the viewpoints of others. And despite the doubt that I had at times that I had completely ruined my welcome in one of the places that I loved the most, I’m glad that I wrote what I wrote and that things are looking up. [Continue reading →]
Categories: Dancing
| Tags: chambana, swing
Date:
April 26, 2012
Boy, did my previous post really set off a nerve, and understandably so. It was both comforting and slightly depressing at the same time to see that I wasn’t the only person to have these thoughts.
Perhaps I’ve lost a massive chunk of friends with the last post, and though it was never my intention to do that, I can understand it if folks back in Champaign never want to speak to me again. Personally, I hate it when someone offers me criticism without offering a corresponding suggestion for how to get back on track, so I’ll try to make it up with ideas on what Illini Swing can do to get back in the swing of things. Best of all, these are ideas that I’ve actually already discussed with several important people who will likely be in charge of things for the new year, so you already know this stuff, you just need to do it.
And I’ll go a little deeper into my own perspective and why I’m thinking the way I am thinking. If you do not agree, I respect that, but at least hear me out. [Continue reading →]
Categories: Dancing
| Tags: swing
Date:
April 25, 2012
Was it all in my mind? Maybe it was just the fact that it was the only scene I knew for the longest time, which skewed my perceptions of it when I first started dancing. But now that I’ve traveled all over the Midwest, dancing in Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, and Michigan, I can’t help but wonder about the future of my original home swing scene in Champaign, Illinois. I had always assumed that the swing scene at the University of Illinois was one of the strongest in the state, but as I drove home to Michigan last Sunday, the following question kept popping up in my mind: is there any reason for me to return “home” to Champaign to dance? [Continue reading →]
Categories: Dancing
| Tags: chambana, swing
Date:
April 15, 2012
Normally, these pictures site around until I get to them (as I’ve still got a massive queue of images to go through), but a special request for an image to go into a magazine article means I went through a couple of pictures really fast. Don’t worry, there will be more when I get to them… [Continue reading →]
Categories: Driving, Photography
| Tags: autocross
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