Contest, contest, contest, contest….

Hey guys!

I’ve been quite quiet lately…it’s a busy time of year. It’s competition time for band so every moment has been focused on how to make the organization better and cleaner for competition. In fact, we had our first festival competition yesterday at Blinn College in Brenham and we not only won Top Percussion and Top Soloist (clarinet) in 5A, we won 3rd place!!!

Next week, we have a festival sponsored by USSBA at Shelton Stadium (Hays HS) in Kyle. What’s really cool (for me) about our going to this contest is my kids get to march on the field I spent my entire high school career marching on.

After that, we have UIL 26 Region Marching contest at the RRISD Athletic Complex. This is the big ‘un of the season. Let’s hope the feel of last year’s success will be remembered so we can continue in the success and let in a great tradition. If that does happen, then it’s off to…

…the UIL Area Marching contest aslo at the RRISD Athletic Complex. Our band has only been to this contest once before. Neither Brian nor I were on staff that year but according to Matt (who was on staff) and the kids who went, it was Christmas in October because it rained and rained and rained at the Region Marching contest. There were very few bands that didn’t advance that year so was it truely earned then? Probably not…I’ve seen the tape on show. :mrgreen:

So, those are all my Saturdays in October. I think we’ll probably be meeting as a staff most Sundays to review our work so far from the tapes and plan our next week. I’m going to try to squeeze in the Grey’s Anatomy nights and maybe even a Halloween party in there, too.

Speaking of Grey’s Anatomy, I’m loving this season! The fantasy scene at the start of this past week’s episode was just…well…SEXY!!! 😛

The follow-ups

I have a few posts to follow up on.

First, chicken soup!! I’m actually eating some for lunch today and in the words of Rachel Ray, “Yum-o!” I’m not sure that it pictures well but I went ahead and took a phone-camera pic of it:

I’ve got plenty in the freezer for a while and I’m quite excited about that.

I guess the next post is the marriage one. I guess I’m getting a little bit of that feeling of “single and lonely” although truely, I’m not lonely. Everyone always says that when the timing is right, the right person will come along. I’m still trying to keep my belief in that but the older I get and the more set in my ways I get, the less likely that seems to be. I carry on….

This leaves me with the most spoken about topic at school – the halftime debacle, fiasco, endangerment of students – it’s been called that and more, let me assure you. The head coach and the head director have been working out what happened and I think they’re planning on having football players come to the beginning of band rehearsal today to appologize. It has certainly been an interesting few days since Friday night but I’m not going to go into anymore of the drama and details, seeing that it all seems to be clearing up.

That’s it for now. Have a great week everyone!!

What the???

Here’s the story of the night:

Stony Point vs. McNeil HS football game. The game is going fairly well, both teams are playing hard and the score is fairly even. Halftime comes and the McNeil band does their halftime show and goes a bit over their time (but what band doesn’t the first time they put their whole show plus drill team dance on the field?) but not by much. Our band goes on the field to do the show, they get through the drill team song, the opener and the ballad and I notice we’re running low on time (but there is still almost 2 minutes on the clock) and the team is already waiting to run through their tunnel thing. We get about 1/4 of the way through the closer and there’s 1:09 on the clock and the football team decides to run onto the field!!! The band is STILL MARCHING THEIR SHOW!!!! I’m in the pressbox, appauled and parents and families are looking back seeing what we’re going to do. The drum majors stop the band and once all the team has passed by on the edge of the field (between the pit and the band), they signal the band to come off the field. Although very confused, they do.

All this time, where are the coaches you ask? Right next to the team. They make NO attempt to stop their kids and seem to have no regard for the safety of kids with no pads and helmets potentially getting hit by a football player running at full speed. Although many parents encouraged us to pack up an go home at that moment, we stay the rest of the game and perform the closer at the end of the game. At no point (even after we all returned to the school) did any coach offer an explaination nor apology. There were at least 4 administrators at the game – not one came over to see if our kids, no, THEIR KIDS were okay. Can you believe that???

Unexpected…

We had an unexpected early release today. About 11:30, the power went out in bits of the school. It was really weird because for example, the lights in the music library cut out but the power in the plugs were still going strong. Same thing in the band hall – one switch of lights were going but the other weren’t. The office made an announcement about intermittent power outtage through the school and they were working on it. About 30 minutes later, all the power went out. We had some band moms working in the uniform room (the new uniforms are in – more on that in another blog) and I told them if the power isn’t back on by 12:30, they were going to call school for the day. 12:40 and an announcement comes on saying they were arranging for transportation and they would let us know when to release school for the day! They finally released everyone at 1:30 only for all the lights to come back on again…go figure! At least my band got to rehearse and sightread some new music. They need every sightreading rehearsal they can get and they enjoy it (YAY!). So, I’m home now, getting ready for the girls to come over for Grey’s Anatomy (we’ll miss you, Mon!). What an interesting day!