And he's off!!!!!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to officially announce that as of yesterday morning (Sunday), I am alllllllllllllllllll set to go.

Go?

Go where?

WHY, MADISON, WISCONSIN OF COURSE!!!

That's right. I will be joining a large contingent of VIP's from Drum Corps Planet in their "section" at quarters, semis and finals. If you are going to Madison, please make sure you say hi to the guy in the bright ass Hawaiian shirt. THAT WILL BE ME!!! I'm committed to wearing colors that will make Cozy Chops from down south seem tame, and Sam Signornelli blush in embarrassment. I would like to tip my official DCP baseball cap towards the owner and publisher of DCP John Donovan for making this trip a reality for me. What started as a half-baked "you wanna go?" question in a recent I.M. session with me went from a "oh come on, I can't afford that" to "well, maybe this would work" to "hang on, let me check with my mom...uh, I mean wife" to "HOLY CRAP!!!! I GET TO GO!!!!" Pretty interesting what life is like--I just hope WWIII and fricken wait until AFTER finals. Of course, I was hoping WWIII would wait until after Revenge of the Sith came out, too...so I'm hitting a home run in the "Holding Off WWWIII" department.

I'm VERY excited to be going. Now for those of you that are not familiar with my history, for the 3 years I marched in drum corps (85, 86, and 87), World Championships were at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison. I'm pretty familiar with the Madison area, and it's pretty important to me. Also, I went back in 1992 to finals for vacation with my buddies and co-workers at the time Phil Mortensen and Pete Perez. We stayed at the dorms just across the street from the stadium. Pretty ghetto, but we didn't care. Anyway--it's going to be very cool that I get to go. As a matter of fact (small world moment here), I'm getting free housing back there. I write drill for Hesperia HS up in, well....that would be Hesperia. Gee, thanks Turner--that was profound. The director there is Shane Sherrodd. Shane is the younger brother of Sean. I used to be Sean's boss at Knott's Berry Farm in the Security Department, and we used to carpool for the graveyard shift. I'd go pick him up at his house in Fullerton at 11pm, we'd start our shift at 1130, and then leave at 7:00am the next day. We were pretty good friends, but as in life, sometimes things get in the way. I quit Knott's and moved on to the OCFA, got married. Sean got married, stayed at KBF for a short time, but then moved on to Disney and started getting into hotel security operations. Anyway, here we are 12 years later, and he's the head of security for Hilton Hotels in Wisconsin, and I'm...well, I'm still a putz. But he's letting me crash at his house. VERY VERY cool. And we talked on the phone the other day, first time in 10 years, and it was like no time had passed between us. Like I said, it was very very cool.

Soooooooooooooooooo...I'm flying back on Wednesday to Chicago, driving to Milwaukee, setting up shop, going out and partying with my bud on Wednesday, and then...it's THREE STRAIGHT DAYS OF CORPS!!!!

Now--some bad news.

1. I'm going to miss my wife and kids. My son is particularly in a cute phase of his life. So--sigh...the things you have to give up for CORPS!!!!

2. I've got lots of drill design stuff to do this season--and I'm doubting I'll be wanting to write drill in Milwaukee. So--I'm going to be behind the curve so to speak. BUT--upside is that I will be able to see first hand AWESOME drill (Rosander, Gaines, Billings, Sylvester, Weber--goooooooooood GOD I'll be in drill design 7th Heaven!!!), and either one of two things will happen. One, I'll be inspired to new heights of what can be done and what I can do myself, or, two, I'll become despondent and catatonic because I'll see that I'm nowhere NEAR as talented as these guys and I'll jump off the pressbox at the conclusion of finals.

3. I pressed the "purchase tickets" button WAY too quickly when I was booking my flight with United, and what turned out to be a great price was negated by the fact that the RETURN flight I booked was FAR TOO FREAKIN' EARLY IN THE MORNING! Hence, I was charged $100 to "change" my flight. WTF is that all about United???? You rat bastards. You better fly that plane straight, smooth and freakin' FAST. That's all I'ze gotz to say.

4. I don't get to go with my partner, my brother, my friend and inspiration Carl W. Nelson. He's got scheduling conflicts plus he's moving into a mansion somewhere so he has no time available to go. So, when I would be sitting with him and his family at a cool comfortable Irvine Spectrum Theater to watch quarter finals...I'll be sitting in the stadium. He said he'll be looking for me. He won't be able to miss me (center section, on the 50, 30 rows up from the side line...fat guy in Hawaiian shirt...therrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre's Turner!!!!!!!!!)

Well...that's it. I'm fricken jazzed. I think I might have to do my very first ever Finals Review...hmmmmm...we'll see if I actually want to work on Saturday night or not.

That's it for the blog today--hope you had a great time and hey, let me tell you one more thing...

GET OUTTA HERE!! :-) Love ya...mean it...

Kingsmen Alumni Corps Debut

Well, since I'm not quite sure WHO exactly is accessing my blog anymore, I thought I'd put this video on my board. This will show anyone from my high school and college days that may have stumbled on this site that I truly am still a "band geek"...and for those that are hip to what I do anyway, this is a recording of one of the VERY best nights of my life when I was able to announce for the official debut of the Kingsmen Alumni Corps. This short 2 1/2 minute clip is their warm up they did at the Walnut Field Show back in the begining of July...it was an HONOR to announce for them.

98 Southern Miss Drum Majors - Esprit de Corps

These drum majors are on CRACK!! I've NEVER seen something like this before...actually, I'm lying. I DID, but it was in the early 80's when the term "show drum majors" was bantered about here in the southern California marching band scene. I tried it a little in my junior year, but truly I wasn't good enough--or whatever. But anyway--this little clip ROCKS!!

And just when you think you got it all down...

...and you're convinced you're going to go the DCI Theater experience at the Irvine Spectrum on August 10th...and you think you're going to be hanging with your great friend and brother Carl W. Nelson...and you think life is what it is...

sigh..........

Someone offers you 50 yd tickets for DCI quarters, semis, AND finals, SAME seats, every night, for face value. And then you get on line and check flights. And you realize you can afford it. And then you get on line and check car rentals. And you realize you can afford it. And then, you call a former fellow security officer from my days at Knott's Berry Farm who now resides in Milwaukee, and he offers up his gigantic house to me to stay with him FOR FREE (except for dinner one night), and we talk on the phone tonight, and it's like NO TIME HAD PASSED BETWEEN US. And you wonder...

...is this meant to be???

MORE TO COME as the finances get figured out and the i's are crossed and the t's are dotted.

Or something like that.

Cue up the banjo music....

...and go to my friend Jon's blog to see the latest in deep fried goodness and day out at a fair strangely handing out dolls to kids.

Jon...really now...I bet their faces lit up!!!! Are you HIGH?!?!?!?!?

:P Razzing you dude...

Oh for my "readership", all 13 of you...I'm alive. I'm well. Suffering through the hottest HUMID summer I've ever had the joy of being in, even while on tour with the Velvet Knights in 1985, when we went through the DCI Southern Tour from HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!! I'm writing tons of drill, getting my schedule lined up and finalized for this fall and judging with SCSBOA, and contemplating seriously stepping into the netherworld of winter guard judging and hooking up with the world-famous WGASC.

We'll see...and now get outta here.

I'm soooooooooooooooo not ready....

....for this summer!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's 96 degrees outside, which doesn't sound like much, but the damned humidity is high enough to choke a llama.

Speaking of llama's...I sooooooooooo suck at blogging compared to my blogging idol. Just wanted to clear THAT up.

OK...back to drill hell. And thank God for Pyware.

And Carl W. Nelson.

I'm out...and so should you. Get...OUT...

What was that? Oh...a big NOTHING

After all that work...all that angst...all that perfecting...all that "going way beyond"...

The sum total of the amount of information used from my most recent "creation" at work during the Board Meeting at the OCFA?

0%.

Oh well. You do what you're told. I did. And I succeeded. Such is life...move on.

MAN I'm tired.

Update...and apology

Apparently I'm getting more hits on this stupid blog than I realized. I have a good friend at work who razzes me about updating my blog, and truly, I have been extraordinarily busy this past week since that last weekend of HELL. So...updating has been difficult. But I got an email yesterday from a REAL long time friend...and realized maybe I need to do more. Regularly.

So...HI! I'm still alive. The scoop is that I'm busier than I've ever been at work. I had to prepare an analysis of some of the things we're working on with our new Tiered Emergency Medical Dispatching Program (TEMD). Had to show percentages and this and that and the other thing--and oh, did I mention this was at the request of the #3 guy of the entire department (Ops Chief) who then was going to turn it in to the #1 guy (the FIRE CHIEF). So not only did it have to be mathematically sound, but it had to look good and readable on ONE PAGE in Excel. Ohhhhhhhhh yeah...almost forgot the fun part. I was told that I had to design it to make sure that it could be "universal" so I could take other data from other things and just "throw it in" and the chart would still work.

And it was due in less than 12 hours.

True story.

Ok--just realize that I enjoy math about as much as a root canal (which is strange because I really love writing drill, and isn't THAT just an extended exercise in XY coordinates and crap?!?!?!). I know Excel in how to create forms and how to do VERY VERY basic things...like "AUTO SUM"!!! Wooooooooo hoooooooooo!!! I'm good at that. But I quickly learned how to create my own formulas and reference certain cells and back and forth and this and that...I basically sludged through it by getting the data I needed, compiling it, making it make sense, make it look pretty, make it "universal" and then...sending it to the Ops Chief.

Earlier in my blog I had an epiphany about being scared and asking what's the use of being scared. I'm not normally intimidated by people...more the other way around, that I inadvertently intimidate people. The Ops Chief intimidates me. Pure and simple. Ohhh I fake it that he doesn't. Oh but he does. So, by sending this thing out to him, it wasn't as though I was "taking my life and career" in my own hands or something--no, not that melodramatic. But I was on a certain amount of pins and needles. About 10 minutes after I sent the email with my creation to the Ops Chief, my Outlook "dinged" with the message "You have an email from the Ops Chief, and boy is HE PISSED". KIDDING! He wasn't. He just said, in typical executive management way, "I'll get to this in a minute. Thanks." That was it. I stared at my computer screen for about 15 minutes in shock, and of course, anticipating the follow up "this is horrible get your ass over to my office" email--because I was TRULY "faking it until I made it".

Next thing I hear...my door opening in my office. And there standing was?

Right...the OPS CHIEF FOR GOD'S SAKES!!! Did I mention he knocked before he came in? Did I mention then me, thinking of course it was a dispatcher checking to see if I was awake or my immediate goofy supervisor wanting to say something insulting to me, yell out in response to the knock, "Yeeeeeeeeeeeah, what is it?????" in the most irritated voice I could muster? Yeah...real good Turner. Anyway--he sat down with me, told me I was on the "right track", gave me some actual real good suggestions about more format than anything because you see, it wasn't that HE cared about it, it was because it was going to the CHIEF CHIEF. And then, right in the middle of his explanation of things, he looks at me and says, "Now look, I don't know how the hell to do all this--you might as well tell me to install spark plugs in a diesel engine." Ahhhhhhhh hahahaha, that's a good one, hahahahahaha. We laughed. Tension broken. Hahahahahaha.

But in the back of mind, I had a voice saying, "SHUT UP TURNER!! Don't say ANYTHING about the content of what he just said. You don't know a THING about engines, so you run the risk of looking dumber than you actually are. There's a chance spark plugs don't REALLY exist in a diesel engine. Please man, for the love of GOD, don't say anything." You'll be happy to know I just laughed it off and didn't comment.

Do diesel engines have spark plugs? I'm thinking not.

Anyway...I continue to work on the project, adding a WHOLE 'NOTHER LAYER of data on to ONE SHEET, make it look pretty, and then send it to the Ops Chief later in the day. He types back to me a very very nice email that I'm going to frame, because apparently my hard work paid off, and he said, in part, "Great job...this is what I was looking for--actually, MUCH BETTER than what I was looking for." He don't compliment too much...so I be happy.

Anyway...that's only ONE thing that I've been busy with...and that's all I can update for you today. I am taking a personal day off from work, heading to Valencia today for a meeting, than back down home and back to the Fire Department tonight for a Board of Directors meeting. My first.

See ya--now get outta here.

A review of the review, by a reviewer.

If you follow my blog, which to me, if you do, is amazing...but IF you do, then you know that one of my inspirations in life, at least from a literary standpoint if not a philosophical one, is Lee Rudnicki--whose great and long-standing blog has educated and entertained me for a VERY long time. Also, if you follow my blog, I mentioned that I actually had the chance to meet him last week after communicating with him directly and indirectly via the Internet and on a couple of conference calls. The classic case of "putting a face with the name" although we've both had our pics plastered around on the Internet (no gay porn jokes, Dumitru!!!). In any event...I offer this link HERE so that you may go read a review of the same LMS-LA event that I speak about. This is written by the guy, Lee, who basically started the whole thing. He has a readership of his blog of about 3 1/2 BILLION people, so, I'm feeling pretty good that he mentioned me not once, but twice...and it wasn't because I SUCKED EITHER!!! Thanks Lee!!

Currently southern California is at the threshold of a new dawn as we do our best to BURN DOWN OUR STATE. I just had a morning report from the state fire folks--the big fire out in Yucca Valley (which I thought was all dirt and rock--apparently they grow things there too!) is almost 40,000 acres and ZERO containment. That means that this fire is officially OUT OF CONTROL. We in the Fire Dept don't like those words OUT OF CONTROL much. Suffice it to say, even though I'm safe in Orange County, we all know how quickly life can go to hell in a handbasket when God decides to use our geography as a freakin' frying pan. It's HOT. And it's getting HOTTER this weekend. I can hardly wait.

Marching band season for me is in full swing--writing lots of drill...really pining inside for me to be able to get into the LAST FRONTIER I have in the pageantry arts, and that's to actually challenge myself to be able to be good enough to write for a Division I corps. That goal is so important to me that it's something I taste. I have feelers out there right now...but unless my name is Jamie Holly, apparently I won't be getting any Division II, III, or Division I jobs in the entire western United States. SHEEEEEEEEEESH! Oh well...such is drum corps.

Speaking of which...the folks in yellow and purple are doing a great job. Solid corps this year for So Cal Dream with much better programming and music and visual strength than ever before. And truly they could be so much greater if whatever PALL has fallen over folks in southern California that keeps them from seeing the fun and excitement of marching in a corps that's NOT going to suck every available minute out of their lives to participate in!!! I view senior corps as nothing different than being in a softball league, or a bowling league, or being a member of a book reading club or whatever. It's something to do as AN ADULT--and it has a LOT of benefits too! It's not that hard...and like I said before...14 million people between Santa Barbara and the Mexican border...and we can't get a full sized corps? Maybe that will change next year...

I'm out...and so should you...now get outta here!

WHEW....my weekend...is complete...

That's the weekend that started on Thursday for me, and ended...ohhhhhhhhh...late Sunday night. What did I do?

--Thursday morning--early morning breakfast meeting at Denny's w/director of Villa Park HS. Things are beginning to happen and take shape there. Good stuff. Kids are NOT going to know what hit them when my director friend takes over. Former Marine...poor kids.

--Went and checked out the students at Chino Hills HS and helped to teach a little marching basics and expand on the visual philosophy of Ryan H. Turner which is:

"Marching is nothing more than walking, with just a little bit of style and tempo." I'm patenting this. I'm tired of people marching like it's some kind of strange physicality made up by aliens from another planet. JUST WALK. Now raise your toes. Straighten the leg. Stop leaning back. VOILA!! YOU'RE MARCHING!!! Holy cow will you look at that?!?!?!

--Wrote some drill for one of my bands to tie up the opener a bit for La Sierra HS in Riverside. COOL OPENER!! I have no idea what it is. But it's cool. Band director wrote it--so the music just says, "OPENER".

--Friday...after writing the drill and running out of time, keeping me from going back out to CHHS, I headed poste haste to Torrance High School to help get the LMS-LA variety show going. Lots of angst when I arrived...lots of relief when I left. Hmmmmm...

--Saturday--24hr shift at the Fire Department. Tension. Angst. Tension. More angst. I love the OCFA.

--Sunday...Home, church, what's that? REHEARSAL FOR A CHOIR I'M IN!?!?! Uhhhhh...I'm supposed to be at a retirement thing for...what's that? You'll KILL ME IF I LEAVE? My...that's not very Christian of you. Well I know you're my wife...but you can't KILL ME!!! After rehearsal--race home, take off nice duds, but on lounge duds, head off to Bellflower HS.

--Arrive at 4:30pm, ready to announce for drum corps show. Notice pressbox all closed up. Something not right. Yep--district playing hardball with the show sponsor saying the contract was only for the field and the lights...but no pressbox. Uhhhhhhhhhhh...ok brainiac. I swear, the higher you get in beauracracy, the dumber you get. Hats off the Bellflower Superintendant for being about as dumb as they come. I ended announcing from the track a complete drum corps show (14 units in competition, 2 in exhibition). I was NOT dressed for it, and it was the first time in 22 years of announcing I had to do that. Of course, at least I HAD a sound system. Beats the time I did the show at Santa Barbara City College in 1994 when the sound system shorted out, and I had to YELL at the audience from the top of the pressbox. THEY LOVED IT. MY NEW GIRLFRIEND (later, my wife, THE WARDEN) loved it. My voice?

Hated it.

Anyway--show went well. I announced with great aplumb and enthusiasm, and got to shake hands with instructors and directors from all over the place. Sort of cool to hob nob with nobs while being a nob.

Sunday Night--12am...land my happy butt in bed, only to wake up 5 hours later...and BACK TO WORK BOY!!!!!!!

Monday...major data analysis and back and forth with the Medical Director and the Batt Chief of EMS and MY boss and HIS boss and both MY AND HIS boss...got what we needed by the time I left at 1630hrs. Oh but the fun at work was JUST ABOUT TO BEGIN...

Monday night--driving home, Nyleen wants to meet at our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner--meet her there. Kids are in RARE form, especially Michael Ryan. MY GOODNESS. What a wing nut. Just like dad. We drive over to Circuit City in Brea to find a specific universal remote. They don't have it. Drive to Rite Aid to see if they had it. Not the model we wanted. Ended up getting the model down from it and I insisted we go home. Wrote only 6 pages of drill. Collapsed in bed at 2100HRS!!!!! VERY early for me. Sarah AND Michael Ryan both had nightmares last night and created HAVOC for me and my sleep which is NOT GOOD!!

Tuesday--after a VERY nice breakfast at home of bacon and eggs (YUM!!!!!!!!), drove to work. Was planning on having a quiet day. No worries, no stresses, maybe go sit with a dispatcher or two and talk to them one on one and see how things are going--try to be HUMAN, and not a STUPIDvisor. Covered the floor from 0700-0900. All was going well...until MY boss comes out and says, "Get ready Turner. The Chairman of the Board of Directors wants a dog and pony show in 45 minutes" of the new TEMD program that I'm helping to develop. GOOOOOOOD GOD!!! Nothing like last minute. Ran to dorm rooms, made myself look presentable, met with said Chairman at 1000hrs sharp, and we got along GREAT. She's the one that spearheaded this TEMD program and so I was insistent with her that it was working and no major issues. VERY enjoyable time.

After that was done, I had to go take a walk. It was rather stressful.

So that's my weekend at a glance. Hope YOURS was better than mine...

Now get out of here.

Ryan

I am ONE TIRED BOY...

I was the MC for the Loud Music Symposium--LA show held at Torrance and even wrote a review of it...you can read it here.

I'm pooped. Remember my previous thing about a medical condition causing this fatigue? Well...hahahaha...a long-time friend and even employer at one time emailed me, just to say hi, telling me he likes to keep up with my life by my blog (furthering my OTHER friend's contention that I should keep this damn thing updated!!!! THANKS...more fuel for Dumitru--exactly what I need right now)...and telling me that all I need to do is look at my stupid schedule for this weekend!!!!! NO WONDER YOU'RE "FATIGUED"!!! Yeah...Rip Van Winkle, eh Dumitru???

So here I sit...I'm doing a 24 hour shift with the good ol' OCFA, starting my day at 5:30am this morning, after getting home from last night's LMS-LA show at 12midnight. By the way...THAT REMINDS ME...

I'm digging what they're doing with the 22 freeway. Really I am. It's been a long time coming. But, as my mom would say, "dammit all to hell", or as my dad would say, "Judas Priest!!", or as my mom and dad would say together, "SHUT UP RYAN!!!", did they HAVE TO START WORKING ON THE DAMN FREEWAY AT 11pm ON A FRIDAY NIGHT!!! Did Caltrans MISS THE MEMO that I was COMING HOME VIA THE 22!!!??? Did they FAIL TO REALIZE that they delayed me by not 10, not 20 but 45 minutes because I had to deal with lane closures and knuckleheads in their rice-burning shoe-sized cars (yes--that was a racially insensitive culturally biased statement I just made--but I call it like I see it--and truly, "they" CAN'T DRIVE!!!!--well, at least last night they couldn't!)?

OK--sorry...rant over. But man...I was BURNT. I was wasted. Tired. FATIGUED. And I had to deal with this crap on the 22. You know, more about the drivers of the rice burning cars...you know what? Damn the movie Too Fast and Furious Drifting Tokyo whatever...it's what's causing what I saw last night. Damn movie. And speaking of which--a friend of mine that has NOTHING to do with Fire Department or BAND was talking to me about his 19 year old son who came home the other day after seeing aforementioned movie. Conversation went something like this...

SON: "I'm moving to Tokyo, Dad."
DAD: "Reason?"
SON: "Because they drift over there."
DAD: "It's windy?"
SON: "No dad...they race. You know? Cars. But they call it drifting."
DAD: "OK."
SON: "Don't think I want to go to school right now. Just want to go to Tokyo. Learn how to drift."
DAD: "Son?"
SON: "Yeah."
DAD: "Shut the hell up and take out the trash. Please."

Problem with the not-so-funny dialogue above was that the 19 year old son was not joking. There was more discussion afterwards about HOW THIS COULD WORK OUT...which is code for HOW WOULD DAD BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO SUPPORT SAID SON TO GO TO TOKYO AND LEARN HOW TO DRIFT. If it was my son, he would never have been able to form a thought about that because his ASS would be too tired from marching in CORPS!!!!!!!!!!!

ooooooooooooooooooo rah!!

Anyway...are you having fun reading my blog?

You are?

WHY??

Now get outta here...

There's a disturbance in the force...

First--Kim Ding Dong Il decided that he hadn't said enough with his "nuclear war" threat to America, so in a truly symbolic fashion, decided to launch some missles in a "test" on July 4...just as we were celebrating our freedom AND launching our Space Shuttle. Now--say this had been the old Soviet Union doing this, or China--I'm sure we'd be a far different nation today. Mainly because we would have all simultaneously crapped our pants. BUT--this being North Korea, run by a short, puffy-haired, Mazda RX-7 collecting (true!) nutball--I think our government was more like in a "ohhhhh him again?" mood. So, we activated our missle defense system (true), NORAD kicked it up a notch on their own alert board (true!), I'm sure we had large parts of the Pacific Fleet hanging between them and us (probably true), and I'm sure that had something actually landed on American soil, Pyanopingpong or whatever their capital is would have been a parking lot as of today. Saddam was one thing...but this little ankle biter is another. My take...just be happy I'm not king. Because North Korea WOULD DEFINITELY not exist right now. And I think there MAY be a credibility issue here with our country, as a KNOWN hostile communist country made some pretty serious threats AND launched some missles. And we did--NOTHING. We talked. We stepped our defenses. We bitched to the UN. We had "stern warnings". Is it just me, or is it true that bullies ONLY UNDERSTAND POWER BY FORCE?

Second--not to scare anyone, but there is a health issue I am dealing with. I'll just say that while it creates some hilarity at work, I'm thinking there actually may be a medical problem going on. I'll just say that extreme fatigue has entered into my life, and it's a little scary. I'm NOT used to extreme fatigue. I'm talking falling asleep at times when I really shouldn't be...like during the day...typing at my computer...and NOT REALIZING I FELL ASLEEP. That indicates there may be something wrong. Keeping an eye on things. Going to try crystal meth and some crack for awhile and see if I can get myself back on the normal Ryan H. Turner track.

Third--my home computer is starting to not be so reliable. Does anyone happen to know why in the boot up process my computer will stop before even getting to the opening Windows XP screen and give me a DOS-like line that says "DISK BOOT FAILURE--PUT IN SYSTEM DISC AND HIT RETURN". Sounds bad. And it's random.

Fourth--I had a great 4th of July. God Bless America.

That's it--I'm MCing the Loud Music Symposium tonight, and the Impulse show on Sunday. I'm working at the Fire Department for a 24 hour shift on Saturday. Busy busy busy...

Things are heating up in Senior Corps land...

The universe just tilted...just a little bit...

The River City Regiment just squeaked by perennial powerhouse San Francisco Renegades at a competition up north last night in Stockton, California. This sets things up nicely for the corps that I write the show for, So Cal Dream, who will be traveling up north next weekend to compete against these two groups with a show that is pretty dang good on its own terms.

WOW!!! Congrats to RCR!!! And Renegades needs MAJOR props for battling on this season despite some pretty massive struggles during the rehearsal season, which included no less the ENTIRE snare line (except one--and I think he was eating a ham sandwich) at various points within I believe a 7-day span, quit the corps for a variety of reasons (none of which I have heard had ANYTHING to do with the Renegades organization as a whole--meaning, no disgruntled people--injuries, family things, work, etc).

The Westcoast Showdown next weekend...be there...and see the California "giants" of the fledgling senior corps movement on the west coast duke it out.