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Wednesday, March 17, 1999
One year ago: St. Patrick
I spent a rather worrrying day, but all turned out OK in the end. The last little bit of updating that we needed to do for the website I'm working on, depended on getting some information back from the team that handles downloading files from Microsoft.com. They were running a bit behind, and I started wondering if I'd hear back, or if I'd filled out the wrong web form, or what? We are just a small part of the whole IE5 launch, and I didn't want to get in the way of that, but we needed to know the info! Finally we did get it, and all went smoothly on our end.
I said at our team meeting that I wished we did this major stuff more often! We do incremental updates with no problem, but this mass updating has tasks associated with it that are only done then, and the behind the scenes stuff is rather arcane. I get it figured out, then don't deal with it again for several months -- the perfect time for my memory to get blurry!
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After my dance class at the Century Ballroom, I went to a new place. The Aristocrat Club is a bar (and restaurant?) in that funky (and not in a good way) area between Pioneer Square and the International district. CSL produtions has started a new "theme" night there: Club Rat Pack.
"Think Vegas, circa 1957. The glory years of Sammy, Dean-o and Frank. Where Seattle's "IN" crowd comes to socialize over martinis and cosmopolitans. {SPECIAL $3.00 martini every Wednesday}. There is still a dance lesson (taught by 'the always well dressed' Dan), but the focus here is drinking and looking good. Come fly with us in cozy surroundings where the drinks are stiff, the dames are sweet and crooner swing is king. Elegant or creative dress code encouraged."
Well, obviously this isn't my regular sort of thing, but my buddy Joe Ross was performing with his "Irish/Scottish" pick-up band, "Merle Haggis and the Drifting Highlanders," so I wanted to support him. I had debated taking the bus down there, but I drove instead. This meant that I drove to the Century earlier, even though it's only about eight blocks from my house. I knew if my car wasn't nearby I wouldn't go at all.
I lucked out and got a parking space just a block away. That made my evening right there! After paying the cover and getting my ID checked, I was directed down a long stairway to the basement of the building. I have no idea what the restaurant part of the establishment is like, or even if it is operating these days -- I couldn't see anything through the windows. After about forty steps down, I went through a curtain made of mylar strips and found myself in what could have been a wine cellar or fallout shelter, with low ceilings, arches and columns all around. DJ Leslie$ was at the bar and greeted me surprisingly warmly. "It's been a long time!" she said, and gave me a hug.
"What do you think of our version of a Las Vegas lounge circa 1957?" she asked. They had done a lot with the decor details: movie stills of the Rat Pack on the walls, cards and dice on the tables, emphasis on martinis and cosmopolitans for drinking. They had an "Ol' Blue Eyes" martini with Bombay Saphire gin on the specialty drinks menu. I contented myself with an NA beer and found some of my buddies at the tables beside the small dance floor. Joe, his brother Dan, and "Up and" Adam were all there, along with Denise, Tao, and Chad. David Flajole and some others arrived later. There were plenty of folks there that I didn't know, of course.
The floor was big enough for six or eight couples, and there were people dancing most of the time. The emphasis may not be on dancing but that's what interested me, so we did the best we could. The music was mostly danceable, but there was more fast music and more Latin played than when Hep Jen is DJ'ing.
I enjoyed myself, but the smoke did bother my eyes. Finally it was time for "Merle Haggis." They just set up mikes on one side of the dance floor: Joe/Merle in full kilt, Monty Banks on accordian, David Tobin and another player (whose name I didn't catch) on fiddles, and one more person on the bodhran (a tradtional Irish frame drum). The band members beside Joe wore plaid flannel shirts tied around their waists, instead of kilts -- kind of grunge Celtic. The sound was rough -- Joe's mike was almost complete distortion -- but there was good energy and fun. There were some drunks behind us, whooping and hollering, and shouting random comments between songs, like "Play some Irish shit!" But it was all good natured. I was impressed by one woman who got up and did a cartwheel across the dance floor! And there was another who did know some Irish stepping.
The band played five or six songs, and I left after that. A fun, different evening!
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