jill shanna dot com

I know, I have not kept up with this blog at all. There’s a lot of other stuff going on right now.

I totally missed the American Cup live online, but if you have Silverlight, you can still watch it on USA Gymnastics’ website, at least for now. This is the full event, plus some intro fluff and stuff that did not air on NBC. And best of all (at least so far), no ads inserted!

Just found this YouTube channel of Universal Sports’ gymnastics videos–definitely easier than trying to find everything on their own website.

Update on comebacks: Shawn Johnson is back on the National Team but still has yet to appear in competition. Her ACL tear while skiing last year combined with taking a couple of years off of the sport, a growth spurt, and aging have have made for a challenging return to the gymnastics elite. I really can’t wait to see her compete, though. I think she is capable and might even be a better gymnast after some of the experiences she’s had in the last two years. It is also nice to see gymnasts who are a little older and more shapely competing successfully at an elite level. Break down the stereotypes, already.

Alicia Sacramone is also still in the game, so I hope to see her again in competition soon. Nastia Liukin said she was going to start training months ago, and see where it went–no real news from her since then. I would be pretty surprised to see her come back…she doesn’t sound that sure about it and has a lot of other opportunities in commentating, hosting camps, releasing clothing lines, and such, and I think she likes all that stuff. It’s hard to come back after this amount of time off, but I think she could do it (remember her in 2009 at Nationals?)–but only if she was 100% committed to it. Only time will tell.

Paul Hamm finished school and went to Chicago to be a trader (I believe) and decided he just wasn’t ready to be done with gymnastics for the rest of his life. He plans to make a run for the 2010 Olmpic Games. He was supposed to compete in February’s all-men’s Winter Cup (which they don’t televise, for some reason) but suffered a shoulder/chest injury that required surgery, so he is going to have to rehab from that first. I really hope he can come back and stay uninjured so that his journey completes in the best possible way. He’s an amazing athlete with a great attitude and deserves all the accolades and achievements he gets.

Good question! I was attempting to complete a an overwhelming summer courseload that was too ambitious. Had to drop something at a late date. Then I was trying to get an internship and scored a co-op doing Web development, and possibly more. My brother’s wedding was coming up, and I was making the jewelry for the bridal party. I also was trying to get my own jewelry out there and finally did sell a few pieces at the end of the summer, but never had enough time and jewelry prepared to get a table at the Farmer’s Market this year. I was so busy this summer that I had to forgo Habitat for Humanity entirely. This is why I have not posted in months. I did get a mix posted on SoundCloud and should have my August one FINALLY posted soonish….

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I am very happy this week. I’m heading to Chicago tomorrow night for what should be one of the best club-DJ shows in Chicago this year: Paul Van Dyk, one of the guys who really got the trance scene going in the U.S., is on his world tour celebrating 10 years of Vandit records. He brings with him successful crossover DJ and artist Paul Oakenfold, who has recently released some DJ sample CDs and a Perfecto Las Vegas compilation (which sounds great). Check out the flyer for the show.

I’ve been listening to Paul’s past and current tunes, compilations, and remixes on DJTunes.com to job my memory and hear some of the new stuff so that I’m fully ready to bounce at the concert. I had forgotten about some of these old PvD tunes that I loved! Emma and her friends will be joining me at the show (yay!), and I may even (if I can find them) meet up with the Chicago TranceFormation Meetup group led by Sound Bar and ETN.fm DJ Zita Zie! I look forward to meeting a fellow trance music lover who is also a successful female DJ. I have prior plans and will be cabbing over with friends, so I don’t know yet if I’ll be able to meet the group at 10:00 PM at a bar down the street–but it would be nice to meet some fellow trancers (trancies? trance fanatics?).

I’m really looking forward to this show, after a pretty long hiatus from going out dancing or taking a trip up to Chicago. It should be kick ass. Photos, video, and comments will be posted after I get back.

Just installed WordPress 2.9.2 via automatic update. No issues so far–booyah.

For those of you wondering why no new photos have been posted for a long time, videos have been basically non-existent, and I took a long hiatus on my website, here’s a big reason why. (This happened a couple months ago.) This rundown may help out some other newbies to some of this moving-from-one-host-to-another stuff:

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