The Contradance website

March 22nd, 2009

I rewrote the Charlottesville Contradance website a couple of years ago when I was learning .NET. I found that .NET is a good platform in some ways, and a weak platform in others.

What is good is that I was able to easily place widgets on the screen and associate them with data. I created a fairly rich site (for the time!) without learning a thing about JavaScript. It also has “master pages”, so you can create a template for a number of pages without having to repeat the same HTML over and over.

What is bad is pretty much the same thing: I was an applications programmer and I was able to create the site without having to change my paradigm and without having to learn much about HMTL, CSS, or JavaScript. Some of the .NET pages I created tended to be pretty heavy. What is also bad is that the site needs to be hosted by a Windows server, and that limits your choices.

The entire schedule is driven by a set of XML files. My thinking was that I’d like to keep an entire mirror of the site on my computer and just FTP it up. That way, I can’t lose data if the ISP goes under. In retrospect, I think the way to go is to use a database, but have backup procedures in place.

One of these days I’ll rewrite the site in Ruby on Rails.

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Contradancing

March 22nd, 2009

I’ve been an avid contradancer for over 25 years. I also play for contradances, call contradances, keep the local contradance website, and I started the dance in Harrisonburg, VA (now moved to Dayton, VA)

I’ve seen the dance evolve quite a bit during that time. When I first started, there was a revolution towards “zesty” dancing, with a typed-up, stapled booklet that contained the manifesto and a bunch of dances. It is funny to look at the dances in that booklet now. Many of them are very dated: They don’t have a partner swing, they are triple-minor, they don’t have any flow, there is a lot of inactives standing around. I wouldn’t call most of them any more.

Also the music is really different. I’d say there is a distinct style of music, which is a mix up of French Canadian, old-time, swing, Klezmer, Irish, and trance music. It used to be that most bands were strictly in one style.

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Bayou Faux Pas

March 22nd, 2009

We’ve revived our Cajun band, Bayou Faux Pas, last fall and had such a great time at the Watermelon Festival and a wedding, that we’ve decided to start playing together again. We play a very traditional style of Cajun music, which no one else in Charlottesville seems to do. As far as we know, we’re the only band like this for over 100 miles.

Rick though up the name years ago, and we are still getting chuckles about it.

I play an Acadian single row button accordion, hand made by Marc Savoy.

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Floorplay: Contradance music

March 22nd, 2009

I’m having lots of fun with my band Floorplay. We are a trio that plays contradances and other places that need a dance band (like weddings and conventions). I’m especially proud of our CD, which is all original, yet is richly varied and deeply rooted in the Contradance tradition. And now we’ve played at just about every dance within a 150 miles of home! Thanks Rya and Aaron!

I’ve also been a member of other fun and successful contradance bands: Buzzard Rock Bayou Boys (with Steve Parks, Mike Williams, and John Beach), Pas De Quoi (with Laura Light and Tom Hinds), and Catharsis (with Mary Prendergast, Will Morrison, and Jennifer Myer).

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Plum Jam

March 22nd, 2009

I’ve been in a fun band called Plum Jam for many years with Sandy Goodson, her sister Janice, and son Drayton.

We play eclectic Americana music and we have a CD out (with hot original tunes and sweet female harmonies in a variety of styles).

You can hear our music on our website.

I play fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and accordion in this band.

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Experimenting with a blog format

March 22nd, 2009

I’ve been waaaay behind in updating my home page, and I was curious about setting up a blog, so I decided to combine the two. This blog will have all the info that I want on my home page. At the moment I’m not planning on updating it often, but we’ll see if I get “hooked”.

I’ll be experimenting with themes and all the other WordPress features here, too.

One of my reasons for playing around with WordPress is that I’m studying UI design and usability in the New Web. I’ve had a couple of first impressions:

1) As simple as the initial setup is, it sure is hard to figure out how to attach to the database! This is being hosted on a commercial hosting service and it was not at all clear how to set up the config file. I edited it by hand because a note in the quick instructions suggested it.

The error message is really vague. It says it either can’t find the db, or it couldn’t log on to it. Well, it sure would cut my debugging by half if I knew which it was. Editing the config file by hand was a pain and after every experiment I had to FTP the file up here. Editing using their interface was just a matter of filling in a couple fields, trying it, hitting the back button, and trying something different. I wish the instructions suggested the web interface first.

2) I created a second user so I wouldn’t be posting as “admin” and called myself “Paul”. Then when I logged in, it wouldn’t take “paul”. The user name is not changeable, so I’m stuck with that.

3) I’ve looked all over for a place to upload an Avatar. I guess I’ll find it eventually.

4) I could spend a lot of time figuring out all the ways to customize this. I don’t really have the time, but that is just the way computers are… I hate going on the Easter egg hunt to press everything until I find the secret menu. I just want to point to what I want changed and change it.

For instance, if I’m logged in, there should be some type of link with the blank avatar that allows me to upload it there.

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