When's it gonna stop, DJ?

I have survived yet another International Age Group meet here in Fort Lauderdale, which capped off a surprising short week last week (and helps account for the lack of post last week). Flying back from Cayman on Monday helped shorten things as well. But back to the "IAG"...

The meet is a 3.5 days beheamouth (Thursday afternoon on through Sunday), featuring over 1,000 swimmers who range in age from 10&unders all the way up to 17&overs. It draws an interesting mix of teams: local, out-of-state (e.g. Boston and Chicago), and out of the country (US Virgin Islands, Guatemala, Mexico City). And, as typical with South Florida this time of year, it rained for at least a portion of every day of the meet. Now, the thunder and lightning accompanying this rain caused the meet to be delayed and portions of it to be canceled/rescheduled to later times. It hung around the entire weekend, never completely over and done with but instead lurking off in the background (or rather waiting to emerge from the Glades).... Despite this, a fun atmosphere seemed to have prevailed.

The image sticking in my mind happened during the start of Saturday night's second warmup period (the first one had been truncated just as it was about to end by a thunderstorm, which delayed the meets start about 90 minutes). With the sun starting to come through the cloud-enshrouded sky in the backgroud, from the second story window near me I looked out across the width of the pool and saw a group of about 5-8 late-middle/early-high school aged boys, all wearing matching green team shirts (and various shorts), standing at the top of the still sparsely-populated grandstands and doing the Cha-Cha Slide (or rather attempting to do it: they didn't have enough dancing area atop the metal bleachers to really do the "2 hops this time", or the Charlie Brown).

It was a refreshing sight, to see the fun still being had. This despite the recent delay in the main reason of being there (the meet), and the hint of uncertainty still present that the storm might return (it did, actually, buy not before the session couldn't be snuck in). The Slide did reappear again before the end of the meet: the next evening (Sunday) during a time trial session--the's night finals fall victim to the weather (though 2 swimmers did qualify for next week's US Olympic Trials).

I don't wanna rock, DJ
But you're making me feel so nice
When's it gonna stop, DJ
'Cause you're keepin' me up all night