Looks like there’s hope for the goths after all.
I’ve posted my photos from CONvergence, the sci-fi convention to which I was invited to play accoridon pied piper for the Dystopia Party. You can check the slideshow, but be sure to view them in album form, because I’ve written some back story for each of the photos.
Happy Independence Day to all my American readers! Hope yours was fun.
I spent mine saying some good-byes to my friends at CONvergence/Dystopia, joining Dave Ahrens’
family for a barbecue and then getting dropped off by him at the
airport. Here’s a shot of me from earlier this afternoon, ready to
celebrate the 4th American style: lookin’ stylish with a
stars-and-stripes tie, resplendent in my Elvis sideburns and ready to
rock, and posing beside a ridiculously large automibile.
It doesn’t get more “American Badass” than this.
The tie got raves at the airport. A number of the staff at the
Northwest Airlines counter came to check it out, a young woman at the
security checkpoint winked at me, gave me a thumbs up and said “Great
tie, dude!” and the stewardesses on my flight were all over the tie.
Maybe it’s time to start a “flags of the world” tie collection.
…from the CONvergence sci-fi convention held in the Twin Cities, and more specifically, from the Dystopia Party,
where I was treated like a rock star. I also got to indulge some of my
geekier urges, which included checking out some custom Klingon bat’leths. It took a lot of convincing to get Wendy to take this photo of me with them…
No, I didn’t buy them.
More photos later.
In the process of prototyping an application for Blogware (the blogging tool used in creating this blog) that made use of its stats package, I noticed some incoming referrals from Wikipedia, of all places. It turns out that I’m listed under the “Accordionists” section of the Accordion entry. I’m listed alongside some serious bright lights: Guy Klucevsek, Weird Al, Lawrence Welk and my accordion role models John Linnell (from They Might Be Giants, for making the accordion cool) and Art van Damme and Dick “Daddy-O” Contino (hipster accordion legends, who made the accordion sexy).
It’s sort of odd that I’m listed among these people: with the glaring
exception of me, they’re all pros; I’m an amateur and a seriously
goofball one at that. I’m deeply honoured.
Wikipedia, being a wiki, is designed to accepting editing and
contributions from anybody. One of the necessities of such a design is
a history for each entry, which allows you to see what changes were
made, when they were made and who made them. Thanks to the history page for the “Accordion” entry, I know that a contributor named Bob Jonkman added me to the list on April 13, 2004. Thanks, Bob!
I’ll have to add some people to the “Accordionists” list: Jason Webley and Domenic the Accordion Beatles Guy both of whom have been doing accordion rock far longer than I, Astor Piazzolla, the undisputed king of accordion tango. And I can’t forget my accordion partner in crime, Karl Mohr, without whom I wouldn’t have become the Accordion Guy.
July 1st is Canada Day, and this one marks the 137th birthday of this fine country, my adopted home since January 1975.
Happy birthday, Canada!
And just for kicks…
(The story behind the banner is here.)
After just over a week’s worth of vacation (a weekend of outdoor bacchanalia at the Om Festival followed by a week of hanging out with the lovely Wendy), I’m back at work, fully recharged are rarin’ to go.
I largely avoided the Web and email, so there are probably a few people
to whom I owe some return correspondence. If you’re one of these
people, I will get in touch with you today.
Here’s The Redhead facing off against me at air hockey at The Great Canadian Midway, located on Clifton Hill, the cheesy tourist street in Niagara Falls.
(Alas, I accidentally erased a great video she shot of me displaying my
strength at one of those “hit-the-thing-with-the-sledgehammer” sort of
amusements. Working out has been paying off.)
The Redhead loves air hockey and pinball.