Keller & Yonder

Tonight I went to see Keller Williams and Yonder Mountain String Band at a little venue in Ashburn. It was basically a big field where they set up a stage. It was a little reminiscent of Bonnaroo.

The concert was really good. Keller is amazing. He's a one man band that basically records short snips of music (while on stage) and loops them and then adds more instruments, one by one. Once he gets several things going, he sings and plays guitar and does full songs. I don't know if that explained it well but it was really fun to watch. He's a true musician.

Yonder Mountain String Band is a bunch of relatively young guys doing some serious bluegrass. I've never felt so close to West Virginia; I had trouble fighting the urge to slap my knee in time to the music. Seriously though, they are excellent musicians and I actually really enjoyed the music.

So You Think You Can Dance

This is my favorite show of the summer. I've been watching since the first season and it just keeps getting better. So You Think You Can Dance is basically the American Idol for dancers. Since I was a dancer, it hits all of my happy buttons. There are some really great dancers on this show.

My cousin Alyssa also danced and we got to reminiscing about our dance days while I was in Florida. I say I was a dancer but maybe I can give some perspective. I hate just saying I was a dancer or listing my years of dance because, well, years of experience do not necessarily equal a good dancer (as you'll quickly learn if you watch the show). Now, I am not saying I was great but I could hold my own. I could not have made it on this show but I was decent, if that makes sense. I found some old pics from my dance years.........

I did competitions (more than I can count) and did things like dancing at Disneyland and in the Pregame show for Superbowl XXX. I taught at each studio I danced at and choreographed some competition pieces. I actually did several professional dance gigs, which most people don't know about. I danced at 2 clubs my freshman year of college as a go-go dancer. That's the best term I can think of to call it. To be clear, this was clothed dancing! We were just there to promote the clubs and get people on the dance floor. I was also a dancer in an Elvis impersonator show. Yes, seriously. It still gives me the creeps to think about having to fawn all over that Elvis (think later years Elvis). Me in the Superbowl XXX Pregame show in Phoenix:

I had my own business for a short time in college teaching after school dance classes to elementary school kids. That was a lot of fun. I actually started college as a double major in Dance and Business. Yup. It took me almost 2 years to figure out that Engineering was really my calling. I can't imagine where I'd be right now if I'd finished the dance degree.

Back to the show. The best part of watching this show is that I've taken class with several of the choreographers. One of the guest choreographers in previous seasons is Brian Friedman. If you check out his Bio, you'll find that he's actually from Phoenix, where he had a studio called Dance Source. I took class with him for several months but unfortunately, his studio had cement floors (yes dancers, feel free to gasp in horror). I decided my knees deserved better and switched studios.

We also used to take an annual trip during spring break each year to L.A. and the EDGE Performing Arts Center. Many of the choreographers on So You Think You Can Dance have or do teach at this studio, like Mandy Moore and Alex Da Silva. So I guess the show is just extra interesting to me since I've had the joy of taking class with these amazing choreographers.

CMMI Training

After only a few hours of sleep, I was off to a week of training on CMMI, which is the process improvement methodology we are implementing that will lead to a certification this Fall. I've taken the Intro to CMMI course already so this class was intended to provide more details on each concentration area (called Process Areas) within the model. The class was really good and I learned a lot. The model is fairly complex and I was able to get clarification on a lot of things that will be important for our appraisal.

Part of the course involves each student giving a presentation on the way their organization has implemented one of the process areas. My presentation was on Decision Analysis and Resolution (DAR) and how we've implemented it at Platinum. I didn't have much time to prepare since I was out of town the 5 days before the training and was swamped with a proposal before that. Apparently, lack of preparation works for me because several people came up to me and complimented me on my presentation. It was a nice ego boost.

At the end of the class, there is a test to officially pass the class. The other people in the class had been studying for weeks, which made me really nervous since I started studying on Tuesday night. To give you an idea of the amount of material covered, there are 22 process areas (PAs) and each PA has roughly 5 to 10 practices associated with it that help implement that area. We had to know all of those and which practice went with which PA, among other information about the model. Besides that, we were told to know the "key definitions" in the glossary of the CMMI book. Um, what??? The test wasn't too terrible, although I could see how you could easily fail it without some serious studying. I got a 95%- yay me.

The class took up so much time that I didn't even get to unpack from my Florida trip until Friday. I'm an unpack-the-first-day-home kinda gal so this is very out of character.

Dance

Last summer I took dance classes at a studio in Bethesda. Once school started again, it was hard for me to keep up with it and I stopped. As most of you know, my first love in life was dance and I still miss it when I'm not taking class.

Tonight I went back to class for the first time since August. The class kicked my butt. I don't think non-dancers understand how incredibly in shape dancers are. There were push-ups and sit-ups involved, as well as an incredible level of endurance. I'm not sure I'll be able to move my arms or even walk tomorrow but I'm proud to say I made it through the entire class (a little under 2 hours). Although I was able to keep up and can still follow the choreography, my technique is lacking big-time. It was wonderful to be back again though. I'm planning to go back for more torture next week. :)

New Gym

I live by lists. I constantly have so much going on that the only way I can make sure everything gets done is by having a permanent, changing list. One of the items that has been on my list for about 6 months is to check out the gym that is "free" with my condo association. When I first moved here, the gym was under construction so I joined Jungles Gym, which is nearby. It's expensive but I like it because there are always machines available.

Last weekend, I finally made it to the condo gym and it is awesome. A lot of condos have gyms but it's basically a room with a treadmill. This gym has treadmills, bikes, ellipticals, weight machines for everything, and free weights. And since it's only condo people, it was relatively empty. So I cancelled my gym membership and can save money but still have a nice gym. Woohoo!