Arthur Murray’s Christmas Ball, Irvine, California, December 2007.

As a voice-actor, ballroom dancing was something totally foreign to me until about two years ago, when my wife finally convinced me to go to Arthur Murray’s dance studio in Redlands.  The fact that we were hooked on watching the Dancing With The Stars show on television helped seal the deal.  We have been having a lot of fun learning and practicing the Waltz, Foxtrot, Swing, and Rumba.  This past weekend my wife and I were able to do all of these dances on one of the largest dance floors that I have ever seen, at the Arthur Murray Christmas Ball, which was held at the Hyatt hotel’s ballroom in Irvine California!  Arthur Murray studios from all over Southern California participated in this event.  What a blast it is to get all dressed up, go to the ball, dance around the dance floor in the grand ballroom, eat good food, all to the sound of a great live band playing Christmas music!!

 

Where the voice-over part of me comes in, is that I have been podcasting about Dancing With The Stars, as well as the tv show LOST and the Green Bay Packers, for over two years now.  And now I can talk more about the Christmas Ball on the next episode of my Tuning In With Wayne Henderson podcast (available in iTunes and at www.whpodcast.com).     

 

Blogging Around the Inland Empire and Beyond brought to you by Ladybug Plants Interior Plant service at www.LadybugPlants.com!

The “Blogging Around the Inland Empire and Beyond” blog is brought to you by Ladybug Plants Interior Plant service at www.LadybugPlants.com, Maintaining plants for people in businesses and homes in the Inland Empire since 1983!  Ladybug Plants provides the finest interior plants and pots to compliment a variety of workplace and residential environments.  We work with your budgets to provide the best possible plantings for your unique interior spaces.  After design and installation we return and service those plants on a weekly basis, ensuring you of a professional looking planting at all times.  Our service area in Southern California includes Redlands, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ontario, Loma Linda, and Yucaipa.

 

 
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Can we please have parking spots big enough for our normal-sized cars to fit in? Oh, and how about bringing back angled parking?

What is going on with parking lot designers these days?  I am beginning to think that they are using some cheap software program that appears to have been written using metric measurements or something!  And to boot, once their design is stenciled-out onto the parking lot, nobody does any real world testing to see if anything other than an old Yugo will fit into the spaces!  I’m sure you’ve noticed this trend as well.  You see a nicely restriped parking lot, and as you cruise into it you think to yourself “wow, it looks like they somehow have created more parking spots than they had before”!  Then, of course, when you try parking in one of these new parking spots, it all becomes clear.  EVEN IF you are careful and talented in parking your car, it doesn’t even fit into the space all of the way.  And that’s when you are driving an average sized car.  If by some chance you are driving a full sized truck, or an SUV of any time, you almost don’t even fit into two of these fabulous parking spaces!  I know, I know, some of the fault of this is due to some starry-eyed legislator who, in a deranged form of logic, thinks that if he or she forces businesses to make smaller “compact” parking spaces, then this will then force the American public to give up their trucks, their SUVs, their mid-sized cars, and even their smallish sports cars, and instead purchased one of those small toasters on wheels!….ALL SO THAT THEY CAN COMFORTABLY PARK WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THE “COMPACT” PARKING SPACES!  Unfortunately, reality sets in when nobody buys new cars to fit a parking space, and instead just parks as well as they possibly can, ends up getting door dings, and leaves the parking lot frustrated.  So, in a nutshell, due to these “compact” parking spaces, cars all across America are more door-dinged up than ever.  It’s a blight of our country that MUST BE STOPPED!  Please help!  Let’s find a way to bring back full sized parking spaces….or at least the gentle, elegant beauty of “angled parking!!!!!!!

 

Famous Dave’s in Redlands. Long wait made longer on purpose?

I went out to Famous Dave’s in Redlands California last weekend. We were quoted an approximate wait time of around 40 minutes, which seemed alright. They gave us a vibrating pager device to let us know when our table would be ready. I always wait as close to the door as possible to make sure my pager is in range, and that I am within earshot as well. Anyway, after about an hour I went to find out if I was close to the top of the wait list. The man told me that they had paged me (which they didn’t) and that the waitress said that she twice came outside asking for my party by name (which she didn’t). I explained that the pager has been firmly in my hand, and that was waiting right by the front door and NOBODY called out my party’s name or anything even similar to it! Funny thing is, that a couple that I am friends with was there at Famous Dave’s the same night, and THE SAME EXACT THING HAPPENED TO THEM AS WELL! I’m not sure what is wrong with their pager devices, nor am I unable to determine why the waitress at Famous Dave’s in Redlands appears to be lying. Very strange indeed. On the plus side, the Cajun Chicken Sandwich was great. I may go back. But if I do I will be waiting in the inside lobby.