I don't really know him, and them, personally but I get the impression that Juan Ruiz and his Los Bachateros down in Australia are doing some serious kick-ass advancement for the bachata cause.  On this page you'll see that they've got a workshop coming up that's going to be teaching not one.....but two different styles of bachata. 

It sounds like something I'd really enjoy but, of course, I can't make it.

Juan Ruiz is known for his 'bachata moderna' style of bachata but the 'bachata dominicana' teacher will be Airagdin Pavon More, AKA: "El Moro", who has his own dance company in Australia, is teaching the 'bachata dominicana'.

I've seen Troy and Jorjet doing that style of bachata and it does look like fun.

Yeah......no doubt, bachata is really proving to be a very diverse style and one which lots of dancers have been very receptive too.  I don't think there's any doubt that the recent growth of the popularity of bachata in the last couple of years is due primarily to one guy, Jorge Elizando from Texas.

I remember when Jorge had to beg promoters to let him teach.  All he wanted to do was have a chance and he gave the promoters a totally 'no risk' guarantee regarding the money, etc.  I won't go into that but suffice it to say that he doesn't have any problems getting bookings now.

The only other big proponet of bachata that I know of in the US is Rodney Aquino.  I think Rodney was heavy into bachata too but I don't believe he went out on a limb financially to promote it like Jorge did and I don't think he was travelling worldwide like Jorge did. 

Jorge quit his 'day job' after just his first year in bachata.  I remember when he'd sleep on my couch when he came to Houston to do some of his first workshops that I helped him promote. Now of course, he travels worldwide and, rumour has it, is even found a nice young lady who's fixing to be his partner for life (if you know what I mean).

But that's not to say that any one of these guys is better than the other.  Actually it all goes to prove what I always thought....i.e. that there was room in the market for another dance.  Everybody was all wrapped up and focused on salsa because that's 99% of what was being promoted and taught.  But these guys, Juan, Jorge and Rodney have created and grown a whole new dance culture and one that I think offers a lot more to more people than salsa does.

For what it's worth, I think we're going to see something similar with both kizomba and  rueda.  Notice I didn't limit it to 'casino rueda'?   But I won't go into that now.

Anyway........this workshop in Australia looks like it'll be a good one.  Make it if you can.

I just set up a hosting account at www.nathosting.com .  Although they are for sure not the cheapest,hosting just about anywhere is still relatively cheap and I'll tell you why I went ahead and went with NatHosting.

First of all, Veretekk used to recommend NatHosting.  Then, and I forget exactly why, Tom Prendergast, the owner and 1st Chair Solo prophet of Veretekk had some kind of bad experience with them and ceased recommending them.

But......I had already purchased a few domains there (6).  So I just let'm sit there.

Then a few weeks ago I started getting automatic notifications that those domain names were coming up for renewal (that's the way it works regardless of where you buy your domain names).  So I knew I had to make a multiple decisions:

• Was I going to keep the domains
• Was I going to actually set something up on them, and
• Where was I going to host them...i.e. NatHosting or somewhere else (e.g. Hostgator.com where I already have several domains).

End result was that I decided to stay at NatDomains with those few that I had there.  And the reason was because they do have 24/7 phone hosting and the two guys I called and talked to were very nice.  Also......I liked the music they had while I was waiting on hold (it was the "Cherry Poppin' Daddies" or something like that) and they site seems to have a lot of good stuff on it.

I called back a second time because I needed some guidance on how to get into the 'Fantastico' tool that automatically sets up WordPress blogs(automatically.....that's why they call in 'fantastico'!).  And again, the tech support guy was very nice.

They had a cheaper package but it didn't allow me to set up multiple domains as I plan to do.  So, I'm spending about $8 a month there.  Just a couple of Smoothies, right?

Anyway.......I still like Hostgator too but the reason I wanted a second hosting account is because I've read that Google, when they 'crawl' your sites, it can detect if they're all hosted on the same server (i.e. with the same host) or not.  And somehow, they regard your sites more authoritatively if they don't appear to be related (i.e. obviously all hosted at the same place).

Thus, I needed an alternate hosting location.

Just as an aside, I've been told that there's a lot of money in setting up your own hosting company.  You can do it strictly as an affiliate.  You don't really have to know or do too much.  Apparently there's a lot of hosting being sold, and domains being bought, nowadays and much of it stays on the books and renews and renews and renews and renews.  So it's good income that grows over time.  That's something I might do someday.....might.

Here's a very informative article written by Ron Paul, Congressman from Texas (down near Friendswood) on his current activities, and their progress on ending the Federal Reserve.  This was re-printed on the newsletter I get from Glen Beck.  It's a short read and you may know some of this stuff but it's written in such a way as to make some of seem new to me.

  ****************************

July 9, 2009

The Fed Must Be Stopped

Written by: Ron Paul 

Some of you salsa teachers out there who really are pretty good but all you've got in your revenue stream is teaching person-to-person......you're missing the boat.  You won't gonna be able to keep that up forever and youre 'brand' might not someday fade from. 

If you're really a good teacher, why don't you have any DVDs for sale?

Don't say it's too much of a hassle because it's not.  Not with www.kunaki.com .

You just make the video content, send it to them and they'll produce it, package it, deliver it, take the money, and send you the difference between their wholesale cost (about $1.76) and whatever you sell it for.

Check out their site at www.kunaki.com  and look at this video I made.

I was just reading that Sarah Palin's quitting didn't really change most people's opinion very much if any.  There's a certain group that already didn't like her and there's another group who's opinion of her had little or nothing to do with the governorship of Alaska.

Me?  It didn't bother me.  I was surprised but it didn't bother me.  But I had another thought just now.

Haven't a lot of the liberals been criticizing her for lack of experience and/or supposed lack of finesse or knowledge in some situations?

Well, my thought on that is, "So what?  Who's worse in office?  Somebody with bad policies and/or morals or somebody who at least has the right principles from which to base decisions and evaluate advice from advisors?"

I'd much rather have somebody like Palin who believes in pretty much the same things that I do.  I'm not worried about her making a 'decision' because, for crying out loud, as President she wouldn't be just casually making critical decisions without talking to other people who (supposedly) are 'experienced' in these things.

I'd much rather have a Mac that does what I want it to do than a Windows machine that's totally screwed up.

According to this article, Obama and his administration still think terrorists have Constitutional rights.  Or more accurately.....'some Constitutional rights'.

Incredible!  What a bunch of idiots. 

I just finsished reading a very good book called "Empire" by Orson Scott Card, the same guy who wrote the classic sci-fi story "Ender's Game".  This story, "Empire", concerned a hypothetical near future civil war in the US.  It was a very good story and I'm going to be posting more about it soon, but I digress......

The book had me thinking more about such things as this Obama news and that puts it (re: Constitutional rights for terrorists) in an interesting perspective.

My point is that if 'we' give Constitutional rights to every Tom, Dick and Harry, especially those that wish us harm, what's the point of even being an American?  What was the point our our struggle to become 'one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all"?

That would be like a guy working hard to have nice things for his family and then his neighbor coming over all the time thinking he's entitled to borrow stuff.  Sure, charity is one thing.  But entitlement?  I don't think so.  Especially when that neighbor (or in this case, the terrorists) are actively seeking to make you like.....dead.

This is more evidence that Obama is anything but 'an American'.  An American would always put our interests first and foremost and our safety would be his or her first concern.  This Obama clown lives in a utopian dream world.  I have no doubt that the Russian are laughing their asses off at him behind his back.

This is not the way that truly great leaders would act...people like Patton, Eisenhower, Golda M........(the former Israeli leader), Teddy Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Nixon, Regan, et. al. would act.

This is a song writer's tool I saw as an ad on something else I was looking at.  It's a little rich for my blood right now and not actually something I'm in dire need of but, still, the demo is very interesting and it just goes to illustrate there's more to the songwriters craft (or I guess it could also be used by regular writers too) than you knew.

Of course, if you are in the music business it might be something you're interested in.  Don Baarns?

Do you know Don Baarns?  I don't know him personally but I do know that he has a very nice blog.  It had been a while since I'd seen it and, in fact I don't recall that I ever examined it in detail, but I just looked at it again it's very nice. 

I'd recommend it.  Don Baarns and www.theunlikelysalsero.com

One thing that I think is very unique and interesting about Don is that he's a musician.  A real one who used to (and maybe still does) make money at it.  As you probably know, it's not common for musicians to be dancers.  Still, Don is a musician and I'm sure that gives him some unique perspectives in his teaching.

That's probably why he posts some very worthwhile posts about music.  And not just salsa music either..but music in general.  And he posts some good videos too.

This articles implies there's a trend toward parties with less salsa and more of other dances.  Is that right?

I don't know, but I definatley am all for more bachata, rueda and kizomba.

In a world where all governments are run by the same king of assholes, what's the eventual end result?

I know, and I'll tell you....but first:

Here's an article I just saw about tha national debt, how it's growing, and how 'experts think...' it'll be a problem (AKA: an understatement).  It points out that right now, each and every American ows $37,000.

That's a lot of moolah even in inflated dollars.  So what conclusions do I draw from this?

Well, first of all I note that it says:

"......And it's expanding by over $1 trillion a year.

The mountain of debt easily could become the next full-fledged economic crisis without firm action from Washington, economists of all stripes warn.

Unless we demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal sustainability in the longer term, we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently told Congress.

Higher taxes, or reduced federal benefits and services - or a combination of both - may be the inevitable consequences."

I'm thinking, "No shit, Sherlock!"

Anyway.........do I think it's going to happen?

Yeah, I do.  People don't change.  As long as we've got the same people or the same kind of people in government, ain't nothing changing.  The continency I think is worth looking at is 'what happens when this situation starts to upset the ruling oligarchy's applcart?' 

What's going to happen when the situation gets so bad that everybody owes everybody else money that nobody could nobody could ever hope to repay anybody else within the context of tradional, common sense and economic morals.  

They will change the in such a way that it supposedly solves the problem but also in a way whereby 'we(i.e. "We The People") have to make some sacrifices'. 

More specifically, we'll wind up with a 'big brother' government that supposedly gives us the protection we 'need'.... but ....in return for some liberties that 'they' feel we're no longer mature enough to exercise on our own.

In other words...socialism to the extreme.  We're screwed.  We get less.  They get more.  Nothing changes.  The assholes are still in charge. 

We'll be 'safe' alright.  As long as we don't want anything more than everybody else.  They......can't solve the problem.  They are the problem.  We need to simply send them home.  Let'm go back to wherever they came from and get a job at Walmart.