Day 3

Date: May 17, 2011

Time: 11:11pm

Playing on iTunes: “Desert on the Moon” by Hiromi Urehara

Day three...rain, rain, and more rain. Today has been the worst out of the three in terms of weather. Since we had to get up earlier to move out of the band room for the kids to have band class, we tarped the majority of the pit and hung out for a little bit, then after the day meeting we had to roll the pit about 1 mile from one place to another while the sky opened up on us...luckily I had my poncho (thanks dad!). After moving from the high school band room to the college performing arts center, we were set for the rest of the day...at least we thought so.

My vibes. This is my setup for the entire summer!

After rehearsing for about a half hour, some crazed chorus teacher comes barging in complaining about noise and how we have to stop and that he has a concert soon...he was not a very pleasant person. After some dealing with him and figuring some things out, we continued to rehearse until 1:30 then broke for lunch. Went back to the performing arts center afterwards and rehearsed till about 5:00, then we REALLY had to get out of there because there was some concert, and man, did he make sure we were out of there...what a rude guy!

Well, as we were loading, it was still and continuing to rain and rain and rain. It wasn’t the most fun thing but it’s great to start off this way for the season because then we get used to how to operate when it’s raining out in the sense of covering the pit in an efficient and professional way so that if anyone sees us they say, “Wow! They know what they’re doing!”  

Snack time rolls around 5:00pm and we roll back to the high school band room for our evening block. This block was chock full of changes...meaning our instructor changed a lot of our music in the percussion feature, for the better! =) We have some really cool parts in the percussion feature and it’s exhilarating playing this stuff...unfortunately the past day or so, my wrist has been becoming more and more swollen so I’ve had to resort to going to the medical team and getting it bandaged up, iced up, and wrapped up to insure that I don’t have to sit out a few days during spring training. Gotta take care of myself. (I’ll be fine...don’t worry)

The pit driving from place to place via John Deere Gator and trailer.

After our evening block we had an AMAZING dinner that I could smell from about a quarter mile away; meat loaf, mashed ‘taters, corn, and gravy...mmmmm my favorite! Then we proceeded to go the meeting house to fill out donation request forms called march-a-thons. Before spring training the entire corps was asked to get 50 addresses and fill out personal messages to send to people to ask for donations (ask if we don’t ask for enough already!) But seriously, this is an expensive activity; about $1,000,000 to run for the summer! So that took me about 45 minutes to finish up, and now I’m ready to head to bed and get ready for another day tomorrow!

Quote of the day: “Look at someone when being addressed, you’ll understand more.”