Philly Fest 2006 Diary

Hey everyone, Andrew here. I'm sorry I haven't been keeping the blog updated. No, wait, I take that back! I've been keeping busy with things like college, work, juggling, and most importantly: attending juggling festivals. I'm becoming addicted to them. Speaking of festivals, Philly Fest was a blast. I always try to journal my festival experiences, and I will of course share them with my loving and supportive Jog readers (all three of you, and I'm counting myself and Joe Showers). My festival thoughts may be boring, or they may be interesting, or they may be a bunch of ramblings, but they are always my attempts to reconstruct the fun memories I have had at juggling festivals. So maybe this is all more for my benefit not yours. Like I said, no apologies! So without further ado, here is part one of my Philly Fest 2006 Diary.

Philly Fest 2006 has come and gone. It was only my sixth festival, and yet I still cannot say it was the best, the worst, or just average. Festivals are like your children – none of them are your favorite, but they are all special in their own ways. OK, I apologize for that over-used metaphor. You can stop laughing now. Maybe the idea of unique festivals will fade when I'm 30 and I've been to hundreds of them, but I sure hope it doesn't. Anyways, my trip began when Sean and Chris drove down from Toledo and picked me up at my house. I had never met Chris before. But there in lies the beauty of road trips - we certainly felt like friends after seven and a half hours in the same car! Chris has been juggling for a few years and comes from a background in magic, so he has a lot of interest in performing. We discussed programming languages, the nuances of performance versus hobby juggling, and THE GAME (I lost). We had planned on doing some sight seeing that Friday evening, but it was too dark and we were too tired. We got settled into our hotel room and spent the remainder of our night watching videos on YouTube and juggling. I discovered a cool trick, which is more common than I had originally thought. Even if it isn't original, I'm encouraged that I actually came up with it independently. Maybe I'm not as uncreative as I thought I was.

The next morning, after our lovely continental breakfast of stale cereal and prepackaged muffins, we drove into downtown Philadelphia to find the actual festival. Not until we were downtown did we find out that our directions only led us to the parking, not the actual festival. (I forgive you Sean, haha!) We walked through China Town attempting to not act like idiot tourists and find our way to the school gymnasium where the juggling would go down. After a half hour of searching and asking directions, we made it just in time. We were greeted by none other than 60% of The Jog crew – Joe Showers, Brian Gadomski, and David Stephens. I “taught” David how to ball pass - apparently his only experience was with club passing. He picked up 8 quickly and we soon were working on 10. Don't ask me why 10 beanbags is easier than 9, it just is! Brian showed off some of his new cigar box tricks - all of them are very fresh from what I can tell. It wasn't just boring takeouts and other cookie cutter tricks. I really like his style. Joe practiced his 5 volleyball cascade – he definitely makes it look easy. I couldn't even start four of them. Joe is indirectly challenging Ursupio (of 100 jugglingfotos fame), who claims that tricks with 5 volleyballs is nearly impossible. I personally can't wait for that YouTube video. David was working on a cool 5 ring trick. 1-up 4-up, splitting the 4-up and letting the 1-up ring bounce off the floor to go back into a cascade. Watching David practice is actually quite amusing, because he is willing to throw himself into the ground so his props don't. If he starts working on 8 rings, I believe he should wear a helmet.

After we had a delicious cheesesteak lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon juggling. I met several cool people, including John, Richard, and Anthony. John Haffner is a funny, funny human being who makes Russian-style juggling balls. You should buy some Haffniums from him next time you see him. [We'll discuss the benefits of Russian-style balls in another article.] If you're a fan of the hit technology audio/video podcast Diggnation, you may have seen Richard. He sent them an e-mail and they featured a video of him juggling on the show. Way cool. It's always fun to meet people you've only seen or talked to on the internets, and Anthony (aka Rancid3000) was no exception. We talked about the other Anthony (that's Gatto), his forums, and everything else jugglers can't stop talking about when they're surrounded by other jugglers.

Coming soon in part 2: The public show, edible siteswaps, and much less.

• The trick I learned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3L7bOxzLAY


• Brian's cigar box work: http://www.jugglethis.net/files/videos/nitebox.mov


• Richard on Diggnation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr9OPpm_tuU


• (In photos [left to right]: Joe, myself, Brian, and David.)