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Last year on the eve of Halloween I had a Pumpkin Carving Party in my apartment. This year I did not have it, but some other people did. They decided to create a Jack-O-Lantern computer. It actually glows in the dark just like a real Jack-O-Lantern. Step by step assembly process is here.

Joanna and I were Fred and Ginger at DanceSport Halloween Party. Year after year DanceSport ballroom and latin dance studio has the best Halloween partner dance parties. This year, due to the studio's moving, the party was put together at the last minute and there were not as many people as at the previous Halloween Parties, nevertheless it was still fun. There was a student dance performances as well as the costume contest. Joanna and I got in the finals.

Here are the links to past DanceSport halloween parties I attended:
2004
2003
2000

The last 5 days I spent in Bergen, Norway visiting my friend Marianne for her birthday. The birthday party was held at her brother's restaurant Macumba, located in the center of Bergen. There were more than 30 people at the party. There were multiple speeches including the speech by the Birthday Girl herself. Unfortunately all the speeches were in Norwegian and I had no clue what they were about with exception of the end of Marianne's speech when she introduced me to everybody and crowned me as the King - the Guest of Honor.

We also had a quiz of how well we knew Marianne. All guests divided in several teams and answered multiple-choice questions. My team happened to have one of her brothers who you would think would know her quite well, however we only got 7 points out of 10. The team with her mother got 10 points, but her mom claims that she did not contribute much to the answers.

After having dinner we were dancing until 4 AM. I plugged in my laptop to the DJ's mixer and provided some of the Salsa and Hustle music. Marianne and I did a Hustle demonstration which impressed everyone. They were all clapping to the beat as we were dancing. Hustle is not well known in Norway, so it was quite a spectacle!

Marianne and me and three more people visiting her from Oslo and Copenhagen came back to her apartment at almost 5 AM and sat around talking about how the party went and who hit on who etc... Marianne's living room was transformed to a kindergarten where the three guests and I were sleeping.

The next morning we had breakfast. Marianne's mom came with the gifts that she took from the party to her house and Marianne proceeded with the gift opening. Her birthday was actually on that morning.

After breakfast we went for a walk to Mount Floyen. The day was beautiful. We saw some great views of the city. Later we went to the Bryggen - the oldest part of the city.

At night we had Dinner at Marianne's parents' home. The entire family gathered for dinner which is a customary thing to do on Sunday nights in Norway. Everyone had an assigned seat. After I was impressing everyone with "you name it, I play it" piano playing.

On the next day while Marianne was working, Johannes and I went to the Bergen Aquarium. Johannes is Marianne's Norwegian friend who was her classmate when she studied in Academy Of Dramatic Arts in New York. He was living in the same building in New Jersey where Marianne and I used to live. It was cool to see him after 4 years. Here he is at Marianne's birthday party in 2001. The Bergen Aquarium must be quite famous in Norway because it actually has a domain name with the Norwegian word for aquarium: akvariet.com. It had quite an interesting collection of all kinds of sea creatures. In addition to them, it had some lizards and snakes. They also showed a 3-D move SOS Planet. It was very cool. The computer graphics was so realistic that if the animals did not have smiles and smirks on their faces, they would look totally real.

For the remainder of my visit, Marianne and I went dancing. On one day we went to a club that had a Salsa night. I have to say, the Salsa scene in Norway is very different than in New York. No where in New York you would see so many Caucasian people dance salsa. And the girls there are sooo cute! We did some video recording of us dancing with my camera. The next day we went to a dance studio where Marianne teaches Salsa. We reserved a room there to practice and videotape our dancing. I was amazed to see how many young people are taking salsa classes there!

It was great to be back in Bergen. Last time I was there was back in February 2003. Back then the city was covered with snow, but this time I could see what it looks like in the Fall with trees still having some leaves on. Here are some photos of Bergen that I took during this trip.

The link to all photos is here.

This weekend Jacob Javitz Center hosted the annual consumer electronics show called Digital Life.

We finally had a birthday party for our dear friend Joanna!

From October 12 through October 15th Kerrie and I were performing in a German play Emilia Galotti on the stage of Harvey Theater which is part of the Brooklyn Academy Of Music. We were part of the 16 couples dancing the waltz in the closing scene of the play.

Gulliver and I are getting to know each other. And no, this is not my dog.

Can you imagine to zoom in from outer space: all the way to the street where I live: For a while I was impressed by Google Maps - the way you can just drag them with your mouse. But today I discovered a whole new dimension to viewing satellite images - Google Earth. You can literally fly from one place on Earth to another (you zoom out all the way out into outer space, see Earth rotate to the direction of your destination, and zoom in up to the street level where you can see cars and people! You can drag the image and it will pan over redrawing the new area on the fly! You can change the viewing angle and see elevation. You can also display local attractions, restaurnats and hotels right over the images of the streets. This is suuuper cool. Since it's a stand-alone desktop application, as opposed to something that runs in your browser, Google Earth can take full advantage of your computer's hardware. Speaking of which, you do need to have a supped up computer to be able to run it effectively. Try it now! (Currently works on Windows only).

But there are good news and bad news. The good news is that areas such as New York City are mapped out very well. The bad news is that my hometown St. Petersburg, Russia only has part of it mapped out to high resolution. Also to find it, I had to enter Moscow in the search box and than pan over to St. Petersburg which is spelled on the map as Sankt-Peterburg (to match Russian spelling).

Now this is one of the most hilarious gadgets that I've seen. It is actually sold here.

Well this has been the last Tavern On The Green dance night in the outdoor garden this season. The garden security guard Craig a.k.a. C.L. Smooth has seen us dancing there many times and has given us the names listed on this photo.

I met Julia Kulakova more than 6 years ago. Today I went to see her perform bellydancing at Turkuaz restaurant.

Performance Photos More info about Julia

Since eBay emailed me a pdf with this certificate, might as well display it on my website :)

The videos from the Dance Off have been posted here. Scroll down to Dance Off section.

The photo on the left is a living proof that humans really came from monkeys. I think at Bronx Zoo they perform some crazy experiments with cross-breeding different species. Take a look at a mix of a mouse and a rabbit or a half-zebra half-mule. A creature that looks like a monkey but has a face of a dog can be found here. Click on the photo to see the rest of them.

Today Kerrie and I went on a day trip one hour away from Manhattan to the Hudson Valley to see Kykuit, which has been the home of the four generations of the Rockefeller family. We wanted to take the Grand Tour of the estate at 1:45 PM, but even though we got there shortly after 1 PM, the tickets for that tour were all sold out. So I recommend making reservations in advance if you go on this tour. Instead we ended up taking a smaller tour of the house and the inner gardens.

Our tour was set to begin at 3:15PM, so we had some time to kill and drove to Lyndhust mansion which was about 5 miles away. Since we had limited time, we did not go inside it. But I, acting like a spy, took couple of pictures through the only open window on the ground level. Next to the mansion there were some very friendly statues and a well protected rose garden with rose bushes tall enough for me to smell with no effort.

After seeing Lyndhurst we headed back to Philipsburg Manor which is the visitors center for Kykuit tours. They had a gift shop which at the time of our visit featured plethora of halloween related merchandise. Kerrie indulged herself in shopping while I checked out the manor property. After crossing the bridge over a lake, I arrived at a water powered mill attached to a house with some grain processing equipment. On the grounds of the manor there were people dressed in the outfits of the 18th century colonial America showing how some of the tricks of the trade. Kids get a chance to milk a real cow.

At 3:15 sharp we were taken on a mini bus to our ultimate destination - Kykuit. It was just a 5 minute ride into the splendid estate of the Rockefellers. It consisted of vast golf course, gardens, and lawns and of course the main mansion pictured on this page. We tried to dress as if we own the place, but unfortunately they would not allow us to feel at home during the guided tour of the house. Most of the rooms were sectioned off with ropes and we could only walk around in a group together with the guide. Speaking of the guide, we were very lucky because our tour guide actually lived on the estate when she was a little girl. Her name is Laura Bunt. Her grandfather was John Davison Rockefeller's gardener and her father was one of the estate's carpenters. Her uncle was the chauffeur. She gave us plenty if inside stories about the Rockefeller family and her childhood spent on the estate.

At the entrance to the mansion there was a large fountain which is replica of some other famous fountain. There are two entrance gates to each side of the fountain.

The rooms on the main floor of the house were furnished in old fashioned classical style, but in the middle of it all there were several modern art pieces. Actually in the basement there is a huge collection of modern art which shows that the Rockefellers appreciated that art form.

Outside the house there was a vast garden of which we only covered the "inner" section. The garden also featured several modern art sculptures. Behind the house one could admire the splendid view of the Hudson Valley. In fact the word Kykuit comes from Dutch language and it means "lookout".

My Photos Lyndhurst Philipsburg Manor Kykuit

Related Links Lyndhurst Philipsburg Manor Kykuit

At night I went to the New York Salsa/Hustle Congress.

Today I was delighted to receive yet another envelope in the mail from my Brazilian friend Ludmila. This time it was a copy of the Brazilian newspaper Jornal Dance News featuring a photo of Ludmila and I on page 4. The photo was taken when Ludmila and I went dancing to Everst Hotel during my stay in Brazil. Translation: The title (idiomatic)- "Inside The News". Above the picture - "Straight from the land of Uncle Sam the choreographer and Ballroom dancer Raphael Pungin visited Brazil in the month of July." Under the picture - "Raphael Pungin and the Brazilian dancer L. B." "Dance News International. Chic, isn't it? Starting from September, our newspaper will be available in the United States to the Brazilian community thanks to our correspondent Raphael Pungin exchanging Ballroom dance culture news." I guess it's time to tally up my other press appearances so far: New York Daily News (February 13, 2005) New York Sun (January 31, 2005) Krone (Austrian newspaper) (March 29, 2004) University Of Rhode Island Alumni Journal (October 16, 1993)

Last time I heard Mitsuko sing was more than 5 years ago when she did her senior recital at Manhattan School Of Music performing classical vocal pieces. Back then we used to hang out at DanceSport while both of us were taking dance classes there. I was pleasantly surprised to bump into her several weeks ago at Central Park Tango. It turned out that she is now performing jazz and today I attended her concert at Shatters Cafe. She was performing in a wide variety of styles from Bossa Nova to ballads to standards. Check out Mitusko's website: mitsukojazz.com.

Photos

Jon Stetson and I after the show

Being a rational person, magic has always fascinated me because I always tend to want an explanation to everything that I don't understand but care about. The more magic shows I see, the more I am amazed by the magician's skills.

Today I went to a show called Monday Night Magic. It is the longest running off-broadway magic show in New York City. Tonight's line up of the magicians included Torkova, Rocco, and the featured magician Jon Stetson with whom I am pictured on the left. The show was hosted by Jamy Ian Swiss who also did couple of tricks as part of his introduction to the show. Torkova and Rocco were part of the first half of the show. All of their tricks were illusion based. Various objects appeard in their hands out of nowhere, they multiplied and transported from one hand to another. While watching Rocco I realized that most of his tricks are based on the stuff that he put in the sleeves of his jacket. I actually could see him slipping stuff in there and taking it out. Several times during his act I could already tell that a new object would appear in his hands before it actually did. Most of the props that Rocco used were cigarets and bottles of alcohol - the objects that suited his look.

Then there was a 15 minute intermisssion during which the spectators could see some closeup magic tricks by some other magicians that were scattered in various places in the theater. People gathered around the magicians and could see the tricks literally in front of their eyes.

The second part of the show consisted of Jon Stetson. His magic was not illusion based. Instead it was based on mind tricks. Basically he was able to guess what people where thinking. For example, he asked a random person from the audience to think of her first boyfriend and then he was able to guess his name. He did have one cool illusion trick where he borrowed rings from random members of the audience and was able to link them together inside of the palms of a volunteer on the stage. Jon was very entertaining. His numerous jokes seemlessly integrated with the audience responses to his acts. Many of his tricks were similar to the ones I saw at Chamber Magic show at the Waldorf Astoria.

I highly recommend Monday Night Magic to anyone. They have a show every Monday and each day they have different magicians. It's very likely that I will come back several times!

It was a very hot and humid day and I really had doubts I would even attempt to dance because I was sweating even before I got to the Tavern. But the music mix was great - lots of standard foxtrots which don't demand tremendous amount of energy, so dancing was great on an almost empty dancerloor - something I rarely see at the Tavern On The Green.