On Saturday night, after the Nationals competition, I went to the old grad student pub I used to manage. They were having a bartenders' party, so all the old-timers were there. Naturally, I broke out my fiddle and played. The ex-gf for whom I named the first tune I wrote a couple weeks back finally got to hear it, and was positively giddy, partly because she loved the tune, and partly because she actually had a tune named after her. One of the founders of the bar even danced to it while I played, which was fun.

On Friday night, after the Houston Regional, a few of the festival organizers held a ceilidh in the bar attached to the hotel. In reality, it was just a bunch of Celtic music lovers with no musical skills sitting in a circle listening to one of the Nationals competitors fiddle. He dragged me up, and we jammed together, and I played for a bit while he took a break, then we jammed together again some more. That was a lot of fun, to "share the stage" with a musician of that caliber. It would have been more fun had my repertoire been bigger, but still...

Also during the night, I sang in public for the first time, even more frightening, I did it a capella. The tune was "Minstrel Boy". Apparently I did very well, because there were lots of "oooo"s and "aaahhhh"s when I finished. I smiled, and said, "All that shower practice is paying off, I see!", and got a good laugh.