I just spent the weekend participating in the 2007 San Francisco Dance-o-Rama. I have to run to the airport now, but it was a fantastic weekend and I’m even taking home a little something! ;o)

Update: It looks like a couple people have already found my site via Google searching for info on the San Francisco Dance-o-Rama - I’m not sure what they were looking for, but allow me to post a little more info.  In addition to my day job, I spend anywhere from four to sixteen-plus hours a week taking ballroom dance lessons.  This past weekend was the Arthur Murray Area 6 Dance-o-Rama, held in the lovely Grand Hyatt in San Francisco, CA.  A dance-o-rama consists of (at least) two days of constant dancing competing against hundreds of other students from studios across the country.  I personally had 52 “entries”, plus two solo routines, and a group formation - to give a little perspective, the top instructor had 307 entries dancing with various students.  My instructor came in 2nd with 297(?) or so entries - congrats.

It was a great weekend, though.  Dancing, especially competitively, is a great rush and when we weren’t dancing we were cheering on our fellow students and teachers.  As noted above, I did pretty well taking first or second in nearly every heat I competed in.  I only recently (in the past year) took up this hobby and I am very pleased and surprised at how well I did.  I am already looking forward to the next competition I’m going to which will either be in Chicago in the fall (if I can finance it…) or Hawaii at the beginning of 2008.  I’d love to go to Chicago so I can re-unite with my original Arthur Murray studio as well as see all my old friends, but I will have to budget very stringently in the next few months in order to do so.  I also have a lot of work in front of me in order to step up to the next level in the dance world and compete at the level that I want to.

This evening, a few friends and I went to a restaurant called Timo, formerly Thyme.  This place is right up the street from me and I’ve passed it dozens of times and have always wanted to check it out.  I must say - one of the best dining experiences I’ve had.  Ironically enough, the outdoor garden patio is rated as one of the best in the city, but being that winter has come early that was not an option.  Regardless, the food more than made up for that.  Service was excellent with sneaky waiters finding a way to continuously refill the water without being noticed and folded napkins in the event that you left the table (which we did to check out the garden patio).

For dinner, I chose the pork shank - other options at the table included a halibut special, sea scallops, and a steak.  The pork shank was absolutely amazing and truly fell off the bone - no knife was needed.  All of the other dishes were spectacular too - I would order any one of them.  Dessert, as well, was amazing.  I had a trio of creme brulee that was easily some of the best I’ve had.

I simply can’t say how good this meal was.