Hi folks,

I've provided web hosting for some of you over the years.

As I notified everyone in an email a few minutes ago, I am exiting the web hosting business effective March 1st.

I've enjoyed providing web hosting, but it doesn't make economic sense for me anymore, nor do I have the time to provide the high quality hosting I think everyone deserves.

Of course boutell.com (and Boutell.Com, Inc.) aren't going anywhere, but the site will be migrating to a managed virtual private server provider, and it will not be hosting other people's pages, email, or websites.

I recommend ServerGrove to anyone who is looking for hosting, whether you are moving from boutell.com or not. They provide VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting for $19/month, and their VPSes come preconfigured for seriously great PHP work. You really can't beat that price in combination with professional support. I'll likely be moving www.boutell.com to one of their bigger VPS packages.

If you know someone who uses my hosting service, please do us both a favor by tapping them on the shoulder and saying "hey did you read Tom's email? You know you need to move your website by March 1st or else, right?"

It's been a blast, and I'll miss playing host and sysadmin for many. But I've moved on to other challenges and, well, it's time. Many thanks to the hosting customers who have stood by me through the years!

Tags: boutell.com, geek, hosting, tom's life, web, work

Baillala: dile que no, tap your left on eight, her right in your left. Give her a free spin inside turn. Chill out and wait for her to finish. Dile que no.

Baillala dos: dile que no, tap your left on eight. Give her a free spin inside turn. Turn left yourself.

Adios medio: like a regular adios, then step into the middle of the circle, then step out five-six seven. Repeat that bit.

Siete coca-cola: dile que no, tap your left on eight. Roll her in, push her out again, continue into a 360. Don't let her get away from you, keep her close, keep it tight and continuous, don't let her step back and away.

We spent a lot of time on the setenta complicado again, which is good because, we'll, it's complicado but it's nice to have it falling into place and not completely beyond me anymore. Rock.

We need more people in the rueda! Philly has a zillion salsa dancers, we need more rueda visibility. Any salsa dancer can pick it up quickly...

Tags: dance, estilo, philly, rueda, salsa, south philly, tom's life

Bed is for two things. If I'm not doing one of those two things, I will not hang out in bed.

I'm not an insomniac as a general rule but I've flirted with it lately, and I think good sleep hygiene will help. My body needs to know what's supposed to happen next when my head hits the pillow.

Tags: new years, resolutions, sleep, tom's life

( End-of-year wrapup meme. )

Tags: 2008, new years, tom's life

Last night, 1130pm: OMG starving. Want coconut lime scones. Really badly.

11:35pm: zest an entire lime rind into the mix.

11:50pm: MMMMMFFFFRARGMUNCH.

12:30pm: ITCHY ITCHY ITCHY ARGH! Tongue swollen, totally have that "you screwed up and drank orange juice, which you have always been allergic to" feeling. Scary, for anyone who knows how serious allergies can potentially be. Take a claritin and two ibuprofen, for lack of anything more apropos. Finally get to sleep an hour later.

Apparently I am allergic to lime zest, especially in substantial quantities. I have suspected this before but this was sort of a perfect test and hard to ignore. The only other interesting incredient was coconut milk, and I've eaten a whole lot of Thai food in my life without falling down.

Lime zest shows up in other things I eat; the reason why it has only been a mild irritant in the past is probably that there wasn't such an epic amount of it, plus it was often cooked longer (these were just baked for ten minutes).

I hate being a freak who's not allowed to eat stuff (as opposed to choosing to be a vegetarian of my own free will), but I think I have to put lime zest on the no-fly list. Phooey. The good news is that lime juice has never given me any troubles. It stands to reason that there are compounds in the skin of a fruit that aren't necessarily inside it.

Tags: allergies, food, health, tom's life

To the parties who have expressed their concern (including but not limited to salsa friends, my daughter, and random kindly strangers in K-Mart),

I am not a zombie. I'm just decaffeinating. I am ultimately at my best without BRAINS caffeine. And while it is unlikely I'll remain caffeine-free indefinitely, I am in desperate need of a detox after pulling out all the stops for BRAINS Obama.

Also the clips on the bridge of my BRAINS glasses fell apart this morning so I've been stuck in BRAINS contacts all day, making my glassy-eyed, brain-eating appearance all the more BRAINS apparent.

Please do not be afraid. I'm not going to eat your BRAINS brains. I'd have to stand up to do that.

, Tom

Tags: caffeine, health, tom's life

The election is over, so I'm detoxing off caffeine for a while.

I was fine all day... kicking ass, really. Then a few minutes into rueda class my brain stopped working. Twenty minutes later I was overcome with exhaustion and had to apologize and go home.

It's not an unpleasant feeling, physically. It's sort of delicious, in fact. I'm looking forward to that deep, deep sleep I haven't had in a while. Goodnight ladies and gents. Rooo raa zzzz snort.

Tags: caffeine, sleep, tom's life

solestria asks, "so what did you do last night?"

I picked up Eleanor from her after school activities a little early and brought her to the Rosin Box to purchase her first pair of jazz shoes. Eleanor already has ballet flats for her ballet class, but they are soft-soled, therefore not appropriate for her salsa class. According to the proprietor, the jazz shoes we purchased are Mike Andino's recommended practice shoe for salsa. and they are only $30. I could've purchased heels she'll outgrow in five minutes for $75, but I did not. I could have purchased an extremely handsome pair of English shoes for myself for $120, but I did not.

On the way east from there, we naturally passed Capogiro, and succumbed to the inevitable. O the pain. Half pumpkin, half dark chocolate for me. Eleanor had half chocolate, half vanilla. Total: $10.

We resumed our trek and soon passed Genji Sushi Express at 1720 Sansom Street. I'd already made dinner plans of my own with nohx, but it was dinnertime for Eleanor, who promptly inhaled california and avocado rolls. I nibbled on edamame. $15.

We stumbled across an Obama volunteer office and picked up new buttons. Little 50-cent ones for both of us, and a $1 "Woman for Obama" pin for Eleanor.

There was no getting home without passing Borders! Restraint was shown: paperbacks only. Eleanor bought Flyte, the second book in the Septimus Heap series. I picked up Ilium, the first in a newer series by Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion. I recently reread part of the Hyperion series and was sad to finish Rise of Endymion. I... may have had something in my eye at the end. $12, all told. Eleanor also spent $6 of her own money on an Eleanor Roosevelt bookmark.

After dropping off Eleanor at her mother's I met nohx for dinner at the Royal Tavern. It is good to have palz in one's own 'hood. I spent $10 (with tip) on the tempeh club sandwich, which is tasty. I avoided the temptation of more expensive fare... but mostly because the advertised pumpkin ale did not exist. Also, I am still a rueda newbie and I'm okay with that, but I don't like to screw up for reasons that are within my control. So drinking before class is not a great plan.

Around nine-thirty I hit rueda class at Estilo, which was even better than usual. The rueda actually flowed as it so rarely does when moves are being taught. $10 (which I forgot to pay... oops... I'll pay Saturday Mike!) I also met, or re-met, Julie of Salsa in the Suburbs, a great latin dance studio in Media, PA (suburban friends take note). This morning I sent her a login for the Salsadelphia back end; she's my guinea pig for Project Let Everybody List Their Own Stuff. I'm excited to see how it plays out.

Afterwards I felt pretty done in, but there's a new salsa night at Glam on 2nd street in Old City and I had to give it a shot, seeing as Joe Figueroa is involved. Also, I had the impression it was free.

So I went. And it was not free, it was $7. There were maybe twelve people in there, a good mix of men and women... all sitting down. That was a little odd, but I recognized some people so I made the decision to shell out a few bucks and head on in and scoop up a girl.

And boom: in this tiny little place, there were exactly enough men and women to go 'round; everyone could dance at least a little, some people could dance a whole lot better than me; everyone was incredibly nice. And we all rocked out until a little after midnight and decided to go home at pretty much the same time. Yes, separately.

A wonderful day. Also: a $96 day. This is why cash is never petty and it is why I don't indulge in "little, affordable" things every time I get the urge. It's also where all my damn money went in the nineties (well, the portion of it that isn't in my house). You gotta make choices. I don't regret indulging yesterday at all— I was overdue— but you can bet this is not how I roll on a daily basis.

Tags: dance, economics, eleanor, food, money, philly, salsa, tom's life

Two weeks ago: brooding about whether anyone will show up for puppet karaoke. Decide to quiet my own jitters by buying a ticket in advance. No point worrying about it after that.

Thursday: guest list begins to emerge from the murk. Hey, people are coming! When did this happen?

Friday: Live in my livejournal, socializr.com pledges to fix a bug that threatened to mildly inconvenience me on my birthday, because that makes the baby jesus cry.

Saturday: a small army descends on Ly Michaels.

Alex Strang and the Puppet Karaoke crew put on a show with many sweet spots, overwhelmingly led by "Sarah Palin," who explains the urgent national security need to shoot any animals standing between herself and a clear view of Russia. Later she is confronted by "Read Fox," on behalf of the animal community. Many opportunities are seized to showcase Palin's self-lampooning comments in recent interviews. A++++.

There were some... brown spots as well. I gotta say I'm not crazy about Funion Foo, whose only joke seems to be an inability to pronounce the letter "R," or about the new "retarded librarian" character, who similarly descended quickly into "retards are funny" territory. I understand that something more Borat-like is being attempted here, but that got lost and both bits became one-dimensional and annoying.

But the Palin sketch more than redeems all, and if it is not up on YouTube in the next five minutes, I will dispatch a trained flock of marbled murrelets to peck Alex Strang into submission.

Emcee Robert Drake was congenial as always, though the hoped-for hordes of Sex Dwarfers did not materialize on this particular occasion. No matter, we brought a helluva posse ourselves.

Remarkably, jeremym— excuse me, Tony T from New Yawk— whose brilliant riff on a vacation trip to Lancaster ("we bought a lot of jam and butter and put it on muffins. They should call it Vacation Muffinland") segued nicely into Weird Al's "Amish Paradise." And also xtingu, whose fist-sized tough guy rocked out with more cock out (and more bass) than pretty much any male performer of the evening.

I followed my usual "POGMA '05" philosophy— no premeditation, all puppet assembly and character creation must take place on site— and wound up with "Megene Debs," the Presidential candidate of the Antisocialist Party ("that Sarah Palin is eating into our base"). Megene shredded the Talking Heads' "Wild Wild Life" while propping up one loose eyeball and sweetly promised to kill Robert last.

Thanks to everyone who came out to help me celebrate!


Afterwards I headed over to Brasils briefly to get my dance on a little. This was clearly gilding the lily but it's my birthday and I'll overdo it if I want to. The DJ played a few bachatas, which I made good use of... and then a thirty-minute block of reggaeton. zzZZzzZzzz. Time to go home and get some sleep, mon petit velociraptors.


An aside about the venue: Ly Michaels-provided buffet was billed as asian fusion but turned out to be straightforward corner takeout Chinese. And not bad, as that goes. But there was no hint of the intriguing stuff you see in their dinner menu. I think they could have done better for the price. The vegetarian options appeared to consist entirely of salad, and though I'd called ahead to be sure there was a decent option the front of house staff came close to just saying "eh" and dropping the ball. That's not really okay in 2008, especially in a place that clearly aspires to some swankiness. But eventually they did find someone who knew the fried rice was vegetarian.

Tags: food, karaoke, philly, puppet karaoke, tom's life

I was part of Estilo Dance Studio's student showcase yesterday. It went well. It went very well. No, there's nothing on YouTube yet.

Thursday night: three hour practice session. Sleep fitfully.
Friday night: five-hour dress rehearsal and practice with the entire studio. Whip up finale piece on the fly. Sleep properly, thank gnu.
Saturday: on my feet from noon till 2am.

Our matinee show was a little shaky, the evening show was aces. I really have to struggle to come up with things to complain about in our evening performance. We definitely got where we wanted to go.

So much for the idea that I'm constitutionally incapable of doing the same thing twice. I don't have that excuse anymore.

Backstage between shows I watched a salsera spike her gatorade bottle with vodka. This is how you know you're officially in showbiz.

Apparently we'll perform again in a few weeks at Alfie's. I'm looking forward to that.

The abominable weather very understandably kept a lot of guests away but we still drew a decent crowd in the afternoon and a large crowd in the evening. As a general rule fellow dance fiends braved the weather (or the flooded streets after the weather), while everyone else sensibly stayed home. So the social dancing after the show as very, very good indeed. As was the afterparty at Brasils.

There are classes this morning. I just realized I want the day off. Even knowing I won't see a dance floor again until Wednesday, I still want the day off. This never, ever happens.

So I'm putting the final touches on Salsadelphia instead...!

Tags: dance, estilo, salsa, tom's life