WBA vs NCBA ... tastes great, less filling

So the Hoo-Ha broke down …………………………….

I was on my way to lunch last Thursday and the engine wouldn’t turn over. Click – Click – Click. A friend here at work was nice enough to give me a jump and it turned right over. I gave it a 20-minute run to recharge the battery but when I turned it off and then on again … Click – Click – Click. ACK!!!! So later that evening my husband futzed around with it and not only could he not get it started but it wouldn’t even take a jump or go Click – Click – Click for him. ACK to the 10th power!

The next day I called the guy I bought the car from and he arranged for it to be towed to his auto shop where he had a diagnostic run on it, installed a new alternator as well as the new front axle he promised me he’d replace when I bought the car and had the whole thing done by 7pm Friday evening. The bill was $125 -- $75 for the tow and $50 for the alternator. Does it get any better than this? This guy is such a blessing!

On Saturday I spent the entire day being cold and damp again and wondering how is it that I got all the non-sunshine judging assignments for NCBA this fall? Oh well … sigh … some really good stuff happened on Saturday. Benicia High School was holy cow awesome in the parade. IMO they are the poster child for what parade in NorCal should be. Damn near perfect. When I got to the stadium that afternoon I was intrigued to find out that Stockton is going to have a new drum and bugle corps called the Buccaneers – hmmm, I wonder when they’ll be looking for staff??? Later that night at the field show event either Foothill, Buchanan or Granite Bay could have walked away with first place. I gave it to Granite Bay for guard with a 91 because they came with their A game. It’s a very pretty and powerful show but there’s also a lot of nice guard moments that have to do with skills with equipment and I’m a sucker for that . Foothill ended up taking auxiliary sweeps because of the average between the judges – we two judges just didn’t see things the same way. On the way out of the stadium we ran into Jolie and Ron and it’s nice to know we can all recover from 2006 and still be friendly.

There was also a competition in Fairfield on Saturday and my kids from Woodcreek must have represented well because they lost first place by on .5! I wish I would have been there -- and I can’t wait to see the recaps. The Franklin kids had a surprisingly nice showing too taking home an auxiliary trophy for 3rd place – their first guard trophy this season. So all good things happened on Saturday for everyone. I’m satisfied and ready for the winterguard season. With my friend Stu’s help I’ve found a song I feel good about using for Woodcreek and I’ve got some costuming ideas so we’ll see what develops.

Sunday was a very long day (and another cold and damp one too). Stu and I left for WBA finals in Clovis at 8:30 am and got there about 11:30 – just in time to watch 3-4 of the 3A bands. Our good buddy Alton FINALLY caught up with us … ahem … and I think in all we watched about 20 bands. Some were bad and there was a lot of mediocre and a handful of hey-really-pretty-good. I only saw a few things that really rocked my world. There are more bands in WBA than in NCBA but the quality of them, with the exception of Logan who IMO is in a league completely their own, is on par with the top few in NCBA. I expected there to be a much bigger difference than what I saw. The only real and identifiable difference is that the WBA bands have a universally more drum corps feel to them than do the NCBA bands. Although the top of NCBA is going that route also. Anyway I was very impressed by Beyer High School’s 3A band’s show concept to Imogene Heap's "Hide and Seek" and Logan was impressive if for nothing else than successfully using 3000+ kids on the field and making it look interesting and appealing – Foothill could take a lesson from them in layering as well as organization.

As soon as Logan was done performing we split and headed for Outback where we stuffed ourselves into a sleepy state that made our drives home through the fog a real challenge. I got home pretty late and am back at work today with my eyes burning. I can’t wait to get home and go to bed.

Finally some down time to look forward to.