Election day, and the Saturday before that

[damont]

Thanks to blackpaladin for the icon and letting us use it.

We are a block from the polling place and you haven't been able to BUY a parking space on the street since montuos went to work. I walked over about 11 am, took me a little over an hour to get through the entire process. Much of the time that I spent in line, I was trying to apply queueing theory to Brookfield Precinct's setup and seeing if I could come up with suggestions to make the whole thing flow better. (Did I mention that I studied theoretical Comp. Sci. in grad school?)

Who I voted for is my own business. But in a landslide, the Best High School Marching Band in Virginia must be the Mighty Marching Chargers.

Went down with the band on Saturday as truck co-driver and pit crew. I disavow all association with the bus drivers, who (1) drove in the "No Trucks Or Buses Whatsoever, This Means You" lane on I-95, and (2) made LEFT turns out of the RIGHT-turn-only lanes to get onto Route 1 north of Richmond.

After lunch at a mall north of Richmond [see (2) above], headed for Gloucester. The truck was ahead of the crowd; by all accounts, one bus broke down on I-64 going east; blew out BOTH tires on one side in the rear, and left a spectacular groove in the pavement. The state police allowed us to overload three busloads into two in order to get there, and one band who arrived early agreed to switch timeslots with us.

What wew were doing at Gloucester HS was State Marching Band Festival, actually one of several regional festivals held across the state. Bands are rated on a scale that's supposed to set a uniform standard across the state, but no placements are announced -- just a rating of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. A "1" rating is the best, indicating a score of 90 or more out of 100 possible points. Chantilly scored a "1" rating in all possible categories. We were far from the only band to do that, but even so, it was an Adequate Warmup for what came after.

Next stop was Coliseum Mall in Hampton for dinner. Drove right past the University of I-64, er, Thomas Nelson Community College, where I used to teach; they still have the BIG sign there that's only visible from the interstate, even though getting there from the interstate is a pain (and getting back TO the interstate is even worse). The most common approach to this mall is a left-exit flyover from Mercury Blvd, followed by a left turn at a light into the mall parking lot. I have ALWAYS hated that approach, even in a car. In a big truck? Fahgeddaboutit. So we got off I-64 one exit before everyone else and went "in the back door" as it were, involving far too many traffic lights... and then waited for everyone else. Turns out the "usual" exit was under construction, meaning they had to wait forever to make a left turn at bottom of the temporary ramp, and then had to wait some more to make the left at the far end of the flyover. So, even though we were behind everyone else on the expressway, we got there 15 minutes ahead... go figure.

After dinner we went down to the big stadium in Hampton for the Kecoughtan HS Warrior Classic. The MMC's had won this in 2000 for their first win ever, which started us on the current winning streak. We repeated the win in 2001, then had missed 2 years due to other commitments. But we were back this year... the kids marched and played their hearts out -- several parents said it was the best they'd seen us do all year -- and ended with a final score of 97.6, winning our classification, and Grand Champion as well, beating the second place band by more than four points. GO MMC'S!

Drove the truck home, stopping in Williamsburg for far too much caffeine, got back to school a bit after 2 am. This caps off a pretty incredible four years. Tony is a senior; he and his classmates have NEVER lost a marching competition in Virginia or North Carolina, and have been regional finalists at the Bands of America competition all four years. This is a record no other HS band in the state can match. Saturday night, another band's director said to one of my fellow band parents: "Whenever I see Chantilly at a competition, I know I'm watching one of the top 3 marching bands in Virginia." The band parent related this to us later, and added: Bring on the other two! For all practical purposes the MMC's have just four-peated as (unofficial) state champs, and that deserves the highest praise and commendation.

So if you see killernurd or read his LJ, drop a note of congrats.

I'm way behind on LJ because of the long weekend, so please bear with me if you haven't seen much from me by way of posts or comments.

Comments

[theimp79.livejournal.com]

Wow that brings back memories. I miss marching band SO much. We did Tournament of Bands competitions, which was always a problem since our band director was an "artist" and made us march to the most bizarre music that I think has ever been performed on a field. The TOB judges didn't like that very much, so we never were rated well. I think we would've done better had we been in another program. I'm so glad your guys did well.
Erin the IMP!