SanFran Craigslist Rideshare!

For about a month, I will be in San Francisco working on a show for the Oregon Country Fair with the amazing Shannon and Alex. To save a bit of cash, and have some company to California, I searched Craigslist... and it turned out great. Heather and Noah put me up in their house the night before, complete with pre-bedtime sauna! They were great company and we made a safe, quick, fun adventure of it.

All in good time, good taste (that might be questionable), a good price, and in the good 'ol ConVINCEingly, InVINCEible, VINCEnt Van Go (that's my little blue van)! Hooray for craigslist rideshares!

Meals on Wheels Benefit

Wren, Justincredible, and I were invited to put on a short show for the Meals on Wheels Benefit and Community Trivia night at the Bellingham Senior Activities Center. "March for Meals" was the name, and fun was the game.

Justin did his delightful hat routine,

Wren did his explanatory three-club juggling act, Wren and I did our rope act,

and the three of us did our "Frank Wiley Trio" juggling act.

Part of the evenings event was a dessert dash! And how well you did in the trivia rounds placed you in the order in which you were released to run for the cake of your hearts desire! This is Wren, focused on the carrot cake with real cream cheese frosting...mmm!

What a great event put on by Activities Director, (shown here on stage) Emily Ruzzamenti!

Vancouver Children's Festival!

So lucky me got invited to be a coordinator for the ShadowPlay tent at the Vancouver Children's Festival! It was a blast! I got to hang out around kids, watch them make shows with puppets, be inspired by their beautiful, curious minds and hang out with some great Vancouverites (Noodle, Niana, and Candy).

This is an example of the fun in the ShadowPlay tent!

Here's Noodle and I with the local, children's, rare, wooden zebra!

One of Noodle's project was making a double-headed weaving snake. Kids would come to her tent and get strips of fabric and weave the "skin" onto the shell of the snake.

 This is the inside of the snake, where kids were encouraged and excited to run through the colorful, compact, weaving snake belly!

A bonus to the festival was all of the baby geese! Super cute, but you can't get too close or the moms will bite! Somehow I was in the right place at the right time, and they just paraded smack in front of me!

 As a coordinator, one of our jobs was to personally add to the festivities by dressing up for theme days. This was superhero day... the majority of kids decided I was a ladybug superhero... and golly did they nail it!

 One of the many perks of the job was the ability to see any of the "stage" shows for free. There was Cirque Zuma Zuma (complete with foot juggler!), Baobab (African fable using storytelling, puppetry, masks and live music), Morgan's Journey (sweet clown show), The Queen of Colors (animated picture book coming to life through shadow puppetry, live music, painting, and video projection), The Little Old Man (a story of loneliness and friendship using rod-puppets), Sparrow (interactive toddler show), and maybe my favorite (with the queen a close second) James Hill: Ukulele Magic (just outstanding... brings "ukulele into the classroom"). What an inspiring and delightful adventure! Yay for Children's Festivals!

The Inflammable Circus Show!

This Memorial Day/Ski to Sea weekend, I had the privilege of performing in the Inflammable Circus Show! Chipp and Greg asked me to MC, and I don't know what it was, but I just couldn't say no!

It was awesome. I got to MC for my friends, sing my moustache song, and do rope tricks all with the live and lovely accompaniment of Maria in the Shower!

There was Laura...

Pedro...

Chelsea...

Clair, Maxwell and Chipp...

Reby (on her silk/trapeze)...

Strangely and Jeremiah...

Kayla (but as a zombi-ish gal)...

Taylor Lee Werner...

Dream and Anneka...

and Pokey!

Our curtain call!

One of the things about being part of the show is the preparation.

I was so stoked to MC this show, i wrote an "advertising" song for it! It goes like this!...

Come to the Inflammable Circus Show

It's Saturday Ski to Sea weekend

There'll be lots of fire tossed too and fro

And aerialists, acrobats, jugglers, stilters, portapotties and a beer garden.

Come to the Inflammable Circus Show

We're gunna heat you up

we'll get you fired up

Inflammable Circus will burn a lot of awesome into your eyes.

Come to the Inflammable Circus Show

It's gunna be so hot

You could roast a marshmello

Inflammable Circus could be the show that melts your heart.

NOTC on Vashon Island

The New Old Time Chautauqua had a benefit show on Vashon Island recently, and I got to come along and perform for a quaint community with some really fine folks. Here's the awesome poster for the show!

One of my roles was rotating MC, and sometimes you have to stall when an act isn't quite ready... this sweet girl come up and told a joke for all of us.

One of the notorious Vaudeville traditions is getting a pie in the face on your birthday, so here's Harry being celebrated in style.

 Godfrey Daniels was there.

 As well as poet, Kevin Murphy.

 The Flying Karamazov Brothers with Smirdikov doing one of my favorite bits he does called "Pass the Buck" where he's just "too darn busy" to reach the club.

Justin Credible.

 Wren and I performing Yippie Kai-yay.

 Once again Sam performing a favorite of mine... Old Fat Juggler, sung to the tune of Old Man River. The first time I witnessed this, I actually fell out of my chair laughing.

Thanks Sam and Chautauqua benefits for all the laughs.

St. Maarten and Tenerife

After just one day on our trans-Atlantic cruise adventure, we had port! We enjoyed our breakfast buffet, then walked the boardwalk into St. Maarten.

Fun facts: this island is in the northeast Caribbean (approx. 190mi east of Puerto Rico). The 54 square mile island is divided roughly 60/40 between France and the Kingdom of the Netherlands; they are roughly equal in population. It is one of the smallest sea islands divided between two nations, a division dating to 1648.

We only went to the Dutch side, but there, we found two geocaches. . .

and met a coconut merchant named Dexter who had quite an inspiring story about hard work and dedication... mixed with a lot of humor... he was great. Back on the boat we met these two... Tostin and Elisabeth. They came up to us laughing, and with German accents went on to tell us that we had stayed in their same hostle and been at the same beach in Puerto Rico! They were super fun and nice and we ended up chatting with them every day.

 After 7 days at sea, we made our second port call at Tenerife. This is the largest and most populous of the Canary Islands at 784 square miles. It is home to the oldest university of the Canaries, and also has the highest elevation of Spain, a World Heritage Site that is the third largest volcano in the world from its base, El Teide.

 We walked to the awesomely shaped "architectural symbol of the Canary Islands" the modern Auditorio de Tenerife.

From the view from there we saw rock paintings, seemingly honoring famous musicians.

We looked, unsuccessfully, for a geocache and made our way back to the ship in time for Wren to take his victory tour of the bridge after his team won the progressive trivia on the ship! Go international Mercorn!

(INSERT PHOTO OF THE TEAM HERE)

Time on the boat

There were so many things to do on the boat! Eating being a "big" one, but we also participated in a game called "what's in the bag" where you could submit your guesses to win the mystery prize. We never won, but it was fun, nonetheless. We also watched three movies (Bourne Legacy, Dark Knight Rises, and Sherlock Holmes 2) in the on-ship theater. We went to lectures, hot tubbed, learned napkin-folding, read, played chess,

played trivia and gambled, took a waltz class, lounged in the sun, used the gym, saw more shows, juggled,

watched (twice) the show by jugglers, Paul and Alexa of Airborne,

and was even in a show!

Wren and I (now "international" performers!) performed our Yippe Ky-yay duo rope routine, and below is a picture of  me doing the Chair Dance in the show!

What a great time. Travel by cruise is way more fun that I imagined... and speaking of fun, Wren was even practical joked from across the world with this little number from his mom. Fake poop... you so crazy!