"Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson US essayist & poet (1803 - 1882)

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

I'm getting too old for this....

I can't believe that after 2 1/2 years away from the insanity that I am back teaching colorguard. What was I thinking???? Last spring I ran into the band director from the local high school (1/4 mile door step to door step from the house) at Meijer and he asked me if I'd be interested in coming back and running the colorguard this year.

I had to get back to him, even though the time commitment was far less than it was when I was there last. They are not doing competitions, just one for the heck of it, only Friday night football games. After some family discussion and temporary misplacement of my brain I accepted the position.

Fast forward to this week. We are having a pre-camp at the school...8am - noon for the whole band and 1pm-4pm for the guard and percs. That is 7 hours of high school drama and the equivalent of doing aerobics in a steam room. Seriously, Monday and Tuesday was about 92 degrees in the shade and muggy as all heck. Just standing still you broke a sweat. Of course due to shrinking school budgets the air conditioning is not on in the school so it's almost hotter in there because at least outside there is the occasional breeze.

So far the week's gone pretty good. We're doing a Doors show~ the music is enough to make you want to gouge your eyes out...just ask Mike, he loves it when I write the work at home and have to listen to it over and over and over ~ go ahead click the link and take a listen. Mon & Tues we had to work at the pace of spin for 15-20 minutes, take a 5 minute water break...it was hot and we were all dripping with sweat.

In the afternoon session where it was just guard & percs we took a brief break around 2:15, went inside for a potty break and found the band room empty. The percs had left??? One of the girls texted one of the percs and found out their instructor let them go early, they had nothing else to work on . Nice. Now how the heck do I keep my girls there going over the same 2:05 worth of work over and over and over?

Tuesday after beating the dead horse to a bloody pulp I let them go a little early so I could have some time to write the 2nd song's work for today.

I just can't believe how much energy this crap takes. How did we ever do it? This is only pre-camp too, next week is band camp from 8am - 9pm all week. (Un)fortunately I won't be able to be there since the family is taking a little vacation on Mackinac Island with my dad & step-mom. Looking forward to a relaxing week on the island! I'm going to need it.

On other fronts....

Mike will probably post soon to lament his back to basics running since his Garmin crapped out on him. He called their tech support and the battery is D.O.A. He can pay $99 and ship it to them and they will send him a refurbished one....not sure if we're too happy with that since it's not even 2 years old, but what can we do? Going for his training runs has been a terrible experience for him because he has nothing to pace himself on....can you believe it? How did he ever train pre-Garmin?

Eh, well....

6 comments:

L*I*S*A said...

Tell the whiner to take a Timex watch or his Rocky Raccoon watch and figure his pace out the old fashioned way.

Sheesh...

Fun Guv..have fun with colorguard stuff.

Nitmos said...

No Garmin?? How is one supposed to train in those conditions??

Ew, god, I don't envy you and the color guard work. Somehow....enjoy that.

Anonymous said...

At least his running skirt is clean and he hasn't broken any fingernails this week.

What a wuss.

-tange

Anonymous said...

OMG, how in the world did you ever let yourself be sucked in AGAIN???!!!???
-t

LauriO said...

ok...ok....I bit, I clicked the damn link! WTF....I forgot how unreasonably cheezy this crap was. I guess that's what you get when you "buy" canned music. AND THAT....was with a professional band doing it. Not some pimply faced band geeks in the middle of a field not paying a lick of attention to their drum major!!! TEE HEE!!! XOXOXO

Animal said...

"Band camp."

*shudder!*

Better YOU than ME, baby!

:-)