Cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.
The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at
Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltters in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltter be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanimg huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt.

Today will be the end of a very long and exhausting week, after two more performances for the Newark school district later today I will have completed an amazing 14 shows over the last seven days. Might be time to get a massage or see the chiropractor! 

I love magic conventions. I love the creativity that's exhibited by other performers who are passionate about their art. It's about being inspired again. This weekend I attended the Golden Gate Gathering, a small gathering of magicians. This was the best magic convention ever! Not because of the magic. But because angels in heaven are rejoicing. My friend and former manager at Magic Max, Jody, accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and personal savior.

My wife Katie is creative as an artist.

Recently she has surprised me with a sign on James' door.
Next she picked the Met Life Snoopy at a gig we did at Oracle and decided she wanted to recreate Snoopy the flying ace on top of his dog house. She painted a bird house red and drew bullet holes on it.

She mentioned making a diaper cake for our sister-in-law's baby shower. And Voila!

If any of our current customers are hosting a baby shower feel free to ask us about our other party planning services that we're expanding into including unique catering services in conjunction with Phat Cat bakery. Phat Cat is founded by my cousin who I'm encouraging to do catering. Many of you have already seen her son at your events creating balloons for us recently. I've been to literally over 2000 parties and she'll create appetizers, entrees and desserts not seen at any of the parties. If only I can get my wife to finish the Dan Chan the Magic Man book idea she came up with. If anyone has self published or illustrated a children's book please let us know if you can help us.

On Friday morning, I was feeling a bit under the weather with either a stomach flu or a virus. Regardless of how I felt, we ended up performing at Franklin Elementary School in Burlingame. By the time I woke up Saturday morning I felt horrible. This next day was scheduled with 5 shows in the day all around the Bay Area! It's days like these I wish I had a regular desk job where I could just call in sick. The first event was a week long library reading festival, that was heavily publicized with our names. The second and third gigs were for the Oracle Corporation, a repeat customer who's use us over 5 times in the past and the last one I did was a birthday party a short distance away. We performed 4 out of 5 shows that day and ended up passing off the last event to another great entertainer. In the last ten years of professional performing I've only had to cancel or find a replacement 3 times out of two thousand plus performances. My stomach is feeling better today and luckily we only have 3 performances today!

An article I read earlier this year highlighted someone who found money and returned it to it's rightful owner. My wife Katie and I discussed what we would do if faced with a similar situation. We discussed the subject of provision, human nature and greed. A few weeks later, we were faced with a situation of smaller magnitude at Ranch 99 where we were not charged for a bag of rice.

We were already outside of the store when we noticed. Katie simply asked the question "what do you think is the right thing to do?"  After a quick discussion, I ended up going back into the store and paying for the rice. Which leads me to a situation today: today I made a few purchases in Palo Alto. The first purchase was paid for and a second transaction was about to be made. But due the multiple transactions going on, the owner of the store forgot the smaller transaction.  I had left the store and was already about a mile away before it even occurred to me that he may have not charged me for the $420 worth of goods. I pulled over and sure enough I was not charged for the transaction. I decided to return to the store to pay what I had owed, and paid and boy was the owner thankful.

It was ironic to me that it was more difficult to return the $15 bag of rice than it was to return to pay for the $420 item today. Although it was not difficult to pay for the rice, it was hard to convince myself to walk back and pay for such a "small price" item - a supermarket that big wouldn't miss one bag of rice, right? As I have told Katie, we are blessed so that we may be a blessing to others around us. It is ironic to me that although we give to charities and tithe larger sums than the amounts in question, I still am sometimes tempted to cut corners and cheat elsewhere. Although Katie and I seem to buy anything we want, we are still very frugal about a lot of things. We don't have a land line, nor do we have cable TV.  This inner struggle makes me realize how much of a sinner I really am. I haven't always done the right thing, yet God is still working in me so I might work to give Him glory in all that I do.

"He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much." (Luke 16:10)

After writing this I stumbled on this blog. I thing this blogger has it right. Below is a short excerpt from his blog.
http://psalm145.blogspot.com/2007/04/faithful-in-little-things.html

To me, integrity is really an alignment of our character with the character of God and our behavior as a result reflects God's character.

Neat idea, the proof however is being faithful over time. Faithful in the little things.

I'm convinced that while none of us have been completely faithful, we can demonstrate integrity in all areas of our life. While many of us have a long way to go, if we start now with the little things, we'll be proven ultimately to be faithful in the big things as well.

If you are one of those people that have really failed big time some little test, take heart. God isn't done with you yet and you can start today to begin work again on becoming faithful in the little things.

Hum... It's been a long time since I've had a desk job. About once a month for the last year, I've been entertaining the idea of getting a "normal job". It's just that I'm somewhat bored learning new magic and juggling tricks. I love my job, yet at the same time I feel like I'm bored with it. I guess people are never happy with what they have. Ideas like getting a customer service job or a job as an officer often float around in my head. I'd love to get a creative job like video production, editing, or graphic design job. Lately I've been on youtube.com learning Photoshop and video editing. If anybody reading this blog has a fun job I can tag along at, let me know.

Suffering from boredom, I've learned how to play with my wife's Canon S5 IS. The S5 has the capability to highlight one color in a picture and render all other colors black and white without the use of photoshop. This is the coolest feature on her camera.

I'm currently practicing my video editing skills... Here's what I've got so far.

Our summer schedule is taking off. If it is anything like last year's we'll be performing for well over 200 shows, with over 100 people in the typical attendance. In fact, a few of our recent shows including a Chinese New Year celebration at Sacramento State University had over two thousand people seated in the audience. If you know of anyone interested in sponsoring a show at either a school, library, festival, or museum please send them my way.

Financial commitment will include the cost of producing the show plus advertising.
Benefits will include your company's image on print, PR, blog and websites. Over 10,000 people per month visit www.danchanmagic.com to download a free magic trick after attending a live show.
Sponsorship opportunities include live performances, television, and more...
Immediate Opportunity: Dan has performed in Japan on the US Marine Corps military bases 4 times in the past. Due to cut backs in funding, our military does not have the funds to have him back this year. In the past Dan has performed at the base movie theater, and Friendship day. Friendship Day is a festival in Japan hosted on the US Marine Corps base to promote friendship between the US and Japan. In attendance will be over 100,000 people over the course of two days, plus military personnel and their families.

I met Kumar Pallana an actor and juggler today in Oakland CA. I first met him in 2006 at the IJA juggling festival where he received the Historical Achievement Award. When I found out that he lives in the Bay Area, I asked for his card. At that time he personally invited me to his house in Oakland. I've been wanting to visit him ever since, but every time I've called him he's busy with traveling and movie projects. At 90 years old, he's still juggling and acting. Kumar has been featured in several movies like the Terminal, Rushmore and Royal Tenenbaums. He showed me some juggling plate tricks and some ring spinning stunts. If you'd like to see him in action check out the above movies or search for him on youtube under "Kumar Pallana". Kumar is quite a character, and a really nice guy.