Day 45

Date: June 28, 2011

Time: 11:49pm (PST)

Playing on iTunes: "Old Souls" by Hans Zimmer (Inception OST)

The above music selection is a recommendation by Maggie Sorbi. Thank you Maggie.

Location: South Medford, OR

Recent Trip: 370 miles

Welcome gloomy day in Medford, Oregon. Aside from the weather, this school is definitely the best school in the country. Nicest school grounds, showers, gyms, fields, overall the nicest school we've ever been too. The morning started off pretty smooth. We had some rain which we had not dealt with since ht east coast back during spring training. We loaded the pit in the rain.

 After loading the pit in the rain, we located ourselves under an overhang where we were able to get out of the rain and get some work done. It was a little crammed under there but we're all good friends so it was okay! 

This was going to be a fairly quick day, relatively. We were going from 9a to 7p, which seems like a long time, but the way we broke up the rehearsal blocks made it go by very quickly. The reason we stopped at 7p is because it was a LAUNDRY DAY!! Time to clean some more clothes. I was extremely happy because this was an opportunity to wash more than my clothes. I decided to throw in my air mattress sheets, pillow cover, and shower towel; the things I use the most outside of rehearsal. As well as the corps washing their clothes, the administration team took everyone's uniform to get cleaned. This is a full day process. I'm not entirely sure where they take them but I'm assuming some sort of dry cleaners. But I will tell you that they came out squeaky clean. Like a brand new uniform.

Oregon is by far the most beautiful state we have been to. Aside from some of the tiny little towns with very little in them, the scenery is absolutely gorgeous. Take a look at some pictures that I took.

 One more day in Medford!

Thought of the Day: "Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill

Day 44

Date: June 27, 2011

Time: 10:30pm (PST)

Playing on iTunes: "Tripping Billies" by Dave Matthews Band

Location: San Lorenzo, CA Day 3

Here we are...day 3 of San Lorenzo. Our final day in California! Today was a short one; a morning block then free day in San Francisco. This morning's goal for the corps was changes in the show. Even though we have been getting better scores every night, we still have a lot that we need to change to make the show amazing. One big change was a re orchestration of the notes in the beginning of the ballad. On the field it is set up so that the demons are playing right behind the pit and they're supposed to be mocking the angels' music by playing it badly, but apparently we weren't playing it 'bad' enough. So they re orchestrated it so it sounded worse than it did before (funny how that works huh?). And we also added in some pit to accompany them. It was a very cool, yet different, part of the morning block.

The rest of the morning block, we worked on some more sampler changes. Our sampler guru Ian Grom, came in and changed some sampler effects in the beginning of the finale and it definitely brought the final piece to a different level. Not a very physically hard morning block, but definitely a successful and productive one.

The pit loaded the truck in a total of 15 minutes today. That is our new record and
it is VERY fast for where we are in the season. Let's load it in 5 by the end of August!!

Once leaving San Lorenzo, we headed off to San Francisco. This city was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. I couldn't imagine living there though, way too many tourists. Here's some pictures that I took of the city:

Hyde St. leading to Lombard Rd.

Lombard Rd. from the top

Lombard Rd. from the bottom

View from the top of Hyde St.

Whiskey glazed pork over mashed potatoes
from a little Irish Pub

The pit went out to dinner again. This time instead of a beachside oasis, we tried a little irish pub near the wharf. Very different atmosphere but definitely a quaint dinner spot. Not too expensive either (considering the city we're in...). I could not get over all the hills around the city. No way would I be able to drive up and down those, very scary coming down those streets. You need to be an pro if you have a stick shift. Good thing it doesn't snow here...The trolleys were really cool. My friend Taylor and I took a trolley to the other side of the city. It was a really cool ride and very authentic to the city. I managed to leave without spending too much. I got some nice cigars, a new backpack (since my zipper broke) and some post cards. I will definitely have to come back another time and stay for a few days to do everything I wanted here because 5 hours just is not enough time to go do everything. But this was definitely a nice little teaser trip to San Francisco. I approve.

See you in Oregon!!

Thought of the Day: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:3

Day 43

Date: June 26, 2011
Time: 11:34pm (PST)
Playing on iTunes: "We Are the Future" by the 2000 Cadets








Location: San Lorenzo, CA Day 2

Every morning we get woken up by music playing for a few minutes then Ben Pouncey (drum major) says "Good Morning Cadets" and tells us what we need to do to prepare for the day. This morning we woke up to "Stars and Stripes Forever". I'd have to say I absolutely loved waking up to that. It was a very fun, peppy march to wake you up in the morning. Especially the crazy flute solo at the end!


So the pit was already gifted with donuts, but the corps got donuts for breakfast!! I had...well...we won't say how many I had...but they were good! Another special gift this morning was the cops jackets. Every year the corps is able to order a special jacket that only Cadets members are allowed to order. You get your name specially printed on them. These are bowling style jackets. And on the back they say Cadets. See below:

The jacket colors you see vary because of different cameras.
The color of the jacket closely resembles the first picture.

There are railroad tracks directly outside of the high school that we're staying at. Every half hour or so this train comes barreling through with it's abnormally loud horn and just overtakes anything that is going on at the moment. It gets a little frustrating at times but fortunately it's the California AMTRAK so it goes by VERY quickly. 

On our way to the show tonight, there was a lot of beautiful scenery outside going through the hills of California. But the one thing that really struck me was the amount of windmills they had. I don't know much about California, but looks like they're very advanced in the wind power industry, because there were miles and miles of windmills just spinning and spinning. I can't even imagine how much power was being given off by these things. 

32nd Annual Moonlight Classic, Stockton, CA
1) The Cadets - 78.8
2) Blue Devils - 77.7
3) Phantom Regiment - 76.05
4) Santa Clara Vanguard - 74.55
5) Blue Knights - 71.45
6) Madarins  - 64.1
7) Pacific Crest - 63.55




After the show we traveled back to San Lorenzo for tomorrow's very short rehearsal block and then FREE DAY in San Francisco!!


P.S. If anyone would like get an even more updated feed of my adventures this summer, you can follow my Twitter here. You can see what the Cadets are doing play by play throughout the day. You DO NOT need a Twitter account to follow it.




Thought of the Day: "Think to yourself, are you prepared? Are you ready for what's coming ahead? This is a question you should ask yourself for anything in life, school, work, music, etc." 

Day 42

Date: June 25, 2011
Time: 11:22pm (PST)
Playing on iTunes: "Baba O'Riley" by The Who








Location: San Lorenzo, CA
Recent Trip: 180 Miles

After a very short trip north, we got a decent amount of floor time (5 hours) coming into San Lorenzo, CA. Today's schedule was a fairly decent show day. We had about 5-6 hours of rehearsal throughout the day before getting ready to leave.

The San Lorenzo Rebels

 The pit found a very close, semi-shade zone right near the truck. This helps for us because we can just like quickly to the pit when we're done with whatever is going on. When we are unloading in the morning, even before, our instructor Ian will go around looking for a good zone to set up in. Picking the right zone is essential since it determines whether we'll be baking in the sun all day or cooped up in the shade. Personally I like the sun because then I can get tan but the rest of the pit doesn't seem to agree with me!





Today was a very big day for changes in the pit. There's a lot needed to be worked on as far as electronics go in the pit. As you remember from my previous blog, drum corps is adding more and more electronic samples, patches (sounds), and electronic substitutions lately. Our good ol' friend Iain Grom is the master of samples and electronics. He came in a few days ago and will be with us til next week. He helped us a lot today by getting us a boat load of samples to put in the show to help fill up some gaps that are needed to be filled. Let me tell you, he's a genius. These samples sound really cool. He just takes the sampler machine away for a few hours, plugs it into his computer and writes his own samples. Then once their loaded on the sampler, we just have to hit a button and his creation comes out of the samples machine. Every he's done for us thus far is amazing and he's a genius.

Iain working on the asmpler

We had a GREAT surprise today. There is this donut shop across the street from the high school we're at, and the pit jokingly said "We should all go to the donut shop at lunch and grab some donuts!!" But no more than 15 minutes later, an alumnus of the corps (who absolutely adores the pit) went to the donut shop and got us a box of donuts!! Chocolate covered, glazed, coconut, sugared sticks, you name it. All amazing tasting. I love being in the pit!

Tonight was a big show. It was our first regional show; DCI West. You can think of it like the finals in MLB; the NLCS (National League Championship Series) and ALCS (American League Championship Seris). Tonight was the NLCS. I know we're from the east but we were part of DCI West. I'm not exactly sure how everything works with scoring as far as how that works into finals but I know that these scores are important. Taking the walk down to the stadium was as usual very important as far as mentally preparing myself for the performance. We took our trip down the VERY steep hill (which really was horrible rolling out instruments down by the way) and rolled into the full stadium with a huge crowd. The largest I've ever performed for. It was just an amazing feeling seeing all of those people in the stands waiting for you to come and perform for them. I loved it. Bu it was definitely a different listening situation since there were empty seats all behind us and to the sides of us (since they don't use that seating anyways) and the sound just bounced off the seats and came right back at us. A very large echo to say the least. But nonetheless we still performed another great show! Here is the outcome of tonight's performance:


DCI WEST - Standford, CA
1) The Cadets - 76.95
2) Blue Devils - 76.45
3) Phantom Regiment - 73.94
4) Santa Clara Vanguard - 73.4
5) Blue Knights - 70.45
6) Madarins  - 62.9
7) Pacific Crest - 62.2




Thought of the Day: "Be proactive. Take charge and don't hold back."

Day 41

Date: June 24, 2011

Time: 11:50pm (PST)

Playing on iTunes: "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry

Location: West Clovis, CA

Recent trip: 270 miles

California just keeps getting better and better. Went to the beach yesterday, now we're at a beautiful high school with beautiful weather; 75 and sunny! Couldn't ask for more.

When the corps wakes up everyday, there is a whiteboard on the food truck that has the schedule for the day. Although we're usually told where to go and what to do, it's nice to know the schedule of the day just incase if you have someone visiting and they need to know what's going on. And it's just nice to know how your day is going to lay out. Personally I love it because I love having a scheduled life...couldn't live without it. Here's what a show day schedule could look like (varies day to day):

Now as I said, this high school is REALLY nice. Not to mention very wealthy. They have a semi for their band equipment along with a box truck and a small trailer to move more equipment. I was very impressed to say the least.

On top of the nice automotive vehicles, they have an olympic sized swimming pool! WHAT?! This is absolutely insane. What kind of high school needs an olympic sized swimming pool?? In talking with my Uncle who is from California, apparently this school is big into swimming. And that they were because when we woke up for the day at 8a, there were already kids outside practicing their swimming. Very dedicated group of high schoolers.




As the pit was loading the truck, we were having a lot of trouble with this smell that was going around the parking lot. To me it smelt like burning rubber, to my friend Dan it smelt like sewage. Regardless, it was not pleasant and was distracting most of us. We ending up finding out they were tarring the roofs around the school grounds. Not the best thing to deal with but we got through by covering out faces up with old t-shirt sleeves that we had cut off our shirts during spring training to make sleeveless shirts. As you can see below, Samuel Ferrante is modeling his grey sleeve that is covering up his nose so he doesn't have to deal with the smell.

After our rehearsal that day, we were off to our first show in California! The one thing that I appreciated when going into that stadium was the one fan who yelled out before we performed "Welcome to California!!". That made me feel very welcome to the state since we aren't the favorited group around the area.


Tonight, my Uncle Alan and Aunt Angela came to see me perform with the Cadets. This is the first of many visits from my family throughout the summer so it was great to see some "outsiders" that I was close with. I really missed them and was so happy to see them. I haven't seen them in a long time since they live in California. They were both very impressed with the show and the dedication everyone in the corps has for perfection, performance, and overall greatness. My uncle said, "Ya know, let me tell you something Robert...never in my life have I see such a dedicated group of kids. You're all amazing. Keep up the good work kid." That made my night because it shows that people realize appreciate all the hard work that we put in. All in all it was a great night.

Uncle Alan and Aunt Angela came to see the Cadets!!

Scores from tonight:


CLOVIS, CA
1) The Cadets - 75.3
2) Blue Devils - 74.6
3) Phantom Regiment - 71.3
4) Santa Clara Vanguard - 71.3




Thought of the Day: "Take some time to broaden your horizons and see what's out there in the world. You'll learn a lot."

Day 40

Date: June 23, 2011

Time: 8:51pm (PST)

Playing on iTunes: "Piano Man" by Billy Joel

Location: Huntington Beach, CA

Recent Trip: 390 miles

Today was our first real free day. In drum corps we are given a very few amount of free days to give us some breaks from our many hours of rehearsal. Sometimes they’re because the drum corps may be on a special trip to a place and the corps director may want the corps to check out that place. In that case, this is the first time the Cadets have been to California and so it’s great that we get a free day in Huntington Beach. It was the most relaxing day I’ve had here yet!

But it isn’t a free day without doing SOME playing. On our way out to the beach, we stopped at a high school for about 2 hours to get an hour and a half of floor time and then about half hour to and hour to get packed up to leave. We then proceeded to go to the Yamaha Headquarters (U.S. Division). Yamaha sponsors the Cadets with all the equipment we have. Being drums, vibraphones, trumpets, tubas, and essentially any musical instrument we use in the corps. It was a way for us to give back to a company that has done so much for us. This was a great feeling for me because I love giving back. Whether it is to people or organizations. It is a great feeling doing something for someone whether they have done something for you or not. All of the faculty came out during their lunch break and got a free concert by the Cadets!! It was great to see all of the Yamaha faculty so happy to see us play. Especially when we played our encore tune, Don’t Stop Believing by Journey! They all loved that one.

As you can see there are red (demons) and white (angels) drums. We received the
red (demon drums) from Yamaha today.

After performing at Yamaha, we traveled to the beach. This is the first time I’ve been to California so I made sure that I did everything I could while I was there. Put my feet in the pacific ocean, try different foods, do different things, etc. I feel I achieved everything I needed to today. Here is a few pictures that I took of the day today!

As you can tell, I liked the palm trees.

The pit eating in style!!

Filet Mignon that I got. Absolutely devine!

The pit made a camp fire on the beach!

Off to Clovis, CA tomorrow!!

Thought of the Day: “Have fun. Things can get monotonous if you don’t have fun while doing them.”

Day 39

Date: June 23, 2011

Time: 12:05am (PST)

Playing on iTunes: "Waiting" by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

Location: Mesa, AZ

Recent Trip: 405 miles

Arrived in Mesa, AZ at about 5am. This gave us approximately 2 hours of floor time because we needed to start early. Today was going to be an extremely hot day so George wanted us to start early and end early before it got too hot.

Everyone getting ready for the day meeting

Every morning we start the day with a meeting with the corps, George, and Rudy (assistant director). We call this “the day” standing for the day meeting. In “the day”, George or Rudy will talk to us about what we’re going to do that day; our goals, things to think about, motivational speeches, etc. It gets the corps ready and excited for the day ahead. It’s a refresher after a night’s sleep. At the day meeting this morning at 8am, my phone calculated 101 degrees...man was Arizona going to be hot.

The high school we stayed at...VERY NICE

The pit in the shade zone

The pit found the greatest zone we have ever practiced in yet this summer! It was this quaint little outside lunch area under and overhang with overhead fans. The fans were set to turn on during the school’s lunch time so when the kids during the school year were out for lunch they would have circulation. So throughout our warm up block we got random spurts of warm air from the fans. Highly entertaining.

We had a very short ensemble block which started at about 1pm. At this point it was around 117 degrees (the turf measures a steamy 180 degrees) outside, but I was confused since I was not sweating at all. I guess it is just because it is such a dry heat that you don’t sweat as easily. I don’t know, I’m not complaining. I was very happy about that! Today was also a show day so we had to have a short ensemble to get prepared for our show that night.

Our show that night was our first sold out show...and apparently that field’s first sold out audience in a long time! I had a great show tonight as well as the corps. The corps sounded great.After the show, we received our scores and we got a 75! Much improved since our last performance. Great sign because we did only have a short day of rehearsal today. This was an amazing day to be a Cadet. We performed in a sold out stadium AND we improved our performance from the night before. I’ve started getting compliments from fans outside of the stands about our show. It feels great to have people comment on you about something. Personally it motivates me more to perform. Overall, I’m just glad that we can make their day perform for the great audience of Arizona.

Thought of the Day: "Successful people do the things that other people, otherwise, do not want to do.”