All the leaves are brown ....

... and the sky is gray <$1 to Mama Cass>

I love Fall … leaves are turning, the air is showing it’s first signs of crispness and my desire to hibernate is increasing.

As is now typical of my Fall seasons, colorguard has consumed most of my free time over the last few weeks. The rest of my world has been a typical washing machine of events …colors have faded, reds have bled and socks are missing and as usual life is it’s own blend of peace and bedlam.

September 22 I spent the day with Golden Valley. What can I say about Golden Valley? Up close they are your typical high school girls; a mixture of chipped neon nail polish, rainbow colored barrettes and too small t-shirts … but on the move they are incredible. I was totally impressed with this guard. They’re disciplined, skilled and intent on becoming the best they can be. They were like a herd of hamsters scurrying to greedily scoop up and store every crumb I put out there for them. I loved working with them and I’d like to think I made a difference. I hope so anyway and I hope I get to do it again someday.

September 29th was the first band review of NCBA’s 07 season and I was there with my Elkies. I’ve done a fair amount of nail biting over this review. Zero run-throughs with the band and limited performer skills were the foremost reason for that. Then on Friday night, in the last hour of the last rehearsal and, in what felt like a suicidal move, I made the critical decision NOT to wrap the guard around the band at this review. Understandably, I prepared myself for the worst score in civilized man’s history but comforted myself with the knowledge that at least we’d be putting our best foot forward … no pun intended. Well, I don’t know who those kids on the street in those Elk Grove guard uniforms were but they did a bang up job. The score was middle of the pack and a pathetic 68 and I sincerely don’t care. Given that we basically did half a performance it’s a fair number that comes as no surprise … what WAS a surprise, and an especially good one at that, was the quality of the kid’s performance. It was eye opening and it’s given me a whole new perspective on the potential of this program over time. I love who I’m working with, I love who I’m working for and I’m stoked for TOC … and next year.

I watched a number of bands after the Elkies performance. As an adjudicator for (and often a loud defender of) NCBA I find myself in a pickle for I’m embarrassed by the auxiliary adjudicators placements and scores for Armijo and Golden Valley that day. I’ve wrestled with this since Saturday and almost a week later I’m still certain that had I been in the box that day I wouldn’t, couldn’t, have seen it the way they did. The tough thing is there’s no way that I can say anything about it. It’s not my job to do so. It’s a lot like being a marching member in that it’s my responsibility to just put my head down and do my own job and trust that those around me are doing the same. I wish (oh how I wish) there was an education director or caption manager, or some other position within NCBA that monitored the adjudication process. The tough thing is that I really think they were wrong and I’m right. Either my ego is out of control (and yeah it happens all the time) or they don’t understand the parade art form, the parade criteria and how to really apply it. The next review and the next set of adjudicators will likely write the end of that story. We’ll see.

So this weekend I am butt cheeks to the wind at my first WBA assignment. Here’s to hoping this little minnow can successfully swim in a bigger pond and that some veteran shark doesn’t come up behind me and bite me in the ass in the same way I’ve just done to last weekend’s band review adjudicators!!!

I’d certainly deserve it though if they do ... but I hope they only do it in their blog like I just did ... heh.


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