Ok…so my dad passed away and we put up this nice little condolence guest book page and it wasn’t listing on any browsers for a good long while. That made it a little more difficult to navigate to, but it meant that we weren’t getting unwanted traffic or comments on the site.
I got a call from my uncle and emails from a few people, saying there was spam on that site so I went in and moderated them into the evil black hole where all deleted spam goes. Then I decided to check this site and, lo and behold, I found 548 comments awaiting moderation (yep. I have mostly no time at all for posting or moderating so there was a bit of a backlog), of which only 3 were legitimate.
My blog here is mostly fluff, so, yeah…it’s not pleasant but I figure to get some spam now and again and it’s not a big deal…but a memorial/condolence site?! I am saddened and disgusted.
On a more happy note, the concert in conjunction with Pride in Art and Powell Street Festival up here in Vancouver was successful. It was a bit of an adventure, what with us initially losing our venue up here because of the city workers’ strike, but we managed a change of venue from the Roundhouse to the W.I.S.E. Hall, and we made reasonably quick work of setting it up in time (read this as: a lot of setting up chairs, renting more chairs and setting up more chairs instead of rehearsing) before the show, and blowing folks’ minds (the acoustics were a little more than favorable for taiko and even my ears are still ringing a bit)…but EVERYONE had somewhere to sit! That was a great accomplishment, given that we thought we were going to have to ask people to sit on the floor.
Ok, seriously. The concert was a lot of fun and we had a lot of happy folks in the audience when we were done and I (we, meaning the jodaiko crew, really) owe a whacking huge load of thanks to a whole lotta folks (to be listed when I get a spare minute…likely in another post)
Powell Street Festival was also a lot of fun and we got a standing ovation at the end, with the biggest bummer being we didn’t get to play either “takoyaki” or “yatai” becuase there just wasn’t time.
Maybe next year?
For sure we hope to be doing more concerts in Vancouver, B.C.
Now we’re headed down to Seattle where JODAIKO will be participating in the Taiko Ten (free) concert and some of us will be teaching or taking workshops and hanging out and so forth.
Lastly, to all of you have sent condolences and koden and such…thank you. thank you. thank you.
I can’t say it enough. Thank you.
July was tough and August is only slightly less tough so far. Receiving notes and messages of caring and support is a great comfort and has been truly heartwarming.