element43

The Commodores! playing Popeye, yeah!

Oh I know of all the cities in Kansas, Ellis, Hayes, Russell, Elsworth, etc aren't far either, but my experience with people in the area is that it's a burden to have to drive 15 minutes to the next city to buy groceries, so I didn't know how far people in those towns would be willing to drive. I too would love to see a corps in Kansas again though, maybe it would help spark some growth in their high school programs as well?

neighboring towns and cities? last time I was in Salinas the only thing neighboring it was a lot of farm land dotted with houses, lol honestly I have no idea what the talent level of any high school programs in kansas are because you don't really here much about them, but i do hope that the Sabres can make something happen this year, good luck to them :)

Yay, I'm trying out for mandarins this year.........and I'm gettting cut, lol. My instructors told me that I need to have more faith in myself, but whatever, I think the audition itself will be a great experience.

a lot of guard guys stick to the guard :P

Well I'm too lazy to read through the whole thread so I hope I'm not saying what's already been said, but really if you're listening to CDs or watching the Cinecast or DVDs what you're seeing is limited so although you might think that one show was better you have to remember that you're not seeing the whole product unless you see it live. I loved the Cascades show, and I thought they played much better than the Mandarins and musically should have been ahead of them. Then again the Mandarins had an absolutely amazing guard, and marched much better than the Cascades (and yes I saw these shows live) and that was reflected in the scores. Overall did I think they should have tied? Not really, I thought the Cascades would have ended up ahead, but I'm a Mandarins fan so I'm not complaining :)

w/Stp: I said they'd be 5th before any competitions, and nobody believed it, some people even told me that Crown and Madison would both be ahead of them.

w/Stp: Stretching from Alhambra to Santa Clarita means that it went over all of Pasadena, and was in parts of LA. As for San Diego, who cares about their weather? DCI's not going there :P

Okay so our lovely DCI friendly California weather brings us this in August: "...A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING CONTINUES UNTIL 330 AM PDT FOR CENTRAL LOS ANGELES COUNTY... *AT 250 AM PDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A LINE OF THUNDERSTORMS...SOME OF WHICH WERE SEVERE...EXTENDING FROM ALHAMBRA NORTHWESTWARD TO SANTA CLARITA. A SPOTTED IN LA CRESCENTA REPORTED NICKEL SIZED HAIL...FREQUENT LIGHTNING AND HEAVY RAIN AT 240 AM. ALL OF THESE THUNDERSTORMS WERE MOVING TO NORTHWEST AT 16 MPH. THUNDERSTORMS WILL AFFECT THE SAN GABRIEL...SAN FERNANDO AND SANTA CLARITA VALLEYS THROUGH 330 AM PDT...PRODUCING HAIL...LOCALLY HEAVY RAIN...FREQUENT LIGHTNING AND POSSIBLY WIND GUSTS TO 60 MPH. HEAVY RAIN WILL CAUSE LOCAL FLOODING AND PONDING OF WATER ON AREA ROADWAYS AND FREEWAYS." *sigh* as much as I love thunderstorms they better stay away in 2007, oh and they suck hardcore when you're suppose to be having all day drill rehearsal in about 4 hours, oh well the band can sit inside and play music and I can sit in the office hoping the "field" (it's a black top) dries enough to rehearse.

Jersey Surf got it for division II and Taepei Yuefu got it for Div III

I don't think any busses actually run on the 110, i just meant that if I were in one of the corps competing I wouldn't want to take the 110 to the stadium Well compared to the LA Basin and the San Gab Valley, SCV tends to be about 5ish degrees hotter, but with 20% less humidity. For example, today Pasadena has a high of 83 with 58% humidity, Valencia has a high of 87 with 37% humidity. Personally I think the difference in humidity kinda balances it out, but I know some people would prefer the humidity over the dryness (I think those people are nuts) and whatever.

That's a picture of a Bluecoats person They weren't actually from Texas at that point, they were from Hutchinson, KS until 1990 or '91 I blelieve.

he said he wasn't reviewing everyone

I don't think I'd want to take a bus on the 110

Big earthquake? Not likely. Big devastating earthquake? I doubt it. I've been through plenty of earthquakes, they're not scary or devastating most of the time. Northridge earthquake in '94, big yes, scary and devastating? Not really.

Speaking of Valencia though I think that College of the Canyons (in Valencia) would be a great place to hold the Div II/III Championships. It's the largest stadium in the area that I know of other than the Rose Bowl. Significantly nicer and larger than Mt. SAC's or PCC's, and the school has more than enough parking for the Corps' trucks and Busses to park at the school instead of having to park down the street and around the corner and wherever else so that there's room for the spectators to park (I know that was a problem at one of the SoCal shows this year with the High School not having room for more than a couple busses on the campus. There's be plenty of school's for housing the corps in; in SCV (where Valencia is) there are 6 high schools, 6 Jr. Highs, and more elementary schools than I know about, then there's Northridge, Chatsworth, Granada Hills, etc all close to Valencia.

I live in Valencia, that's further away then any corps would need to be, but I could understand corps wanting to house here because it's much nicer than some of the areas between here and Pasadena. Point being, I drive to Pasadena 5 days a week and it takes me 30-45 minutes to get there even when I hit the morning traffic. The Gold Line runs from Union Station (downtown LA) to Pasadena I believe (I know something does). For major events at the Rose Bowl they run shuttles from Parsons' parking lot and from the parking structures in Old Town Pasadena, I'd be willing to be some of those shuttlese pick up at or near the Gold Line station. The parking prices I don't know for sure, but I think it's like $5 or $10 to park in Old Town and it varies at the stadium depending on the event. Parking for the Rose Bowl game at the stadium is $25 so I'd imagine parking for DCI will probably be less than that. Valencia's fun? Please clue me in on the cool things to do here......since I live here. Granted for the drum corps kids from out of the area there is Six Flags Magic Mountain and Hurricane Harbor, that would be a nice free day for them (I never go there, but when you grow up 5 minutes away from it, well the excitement is lost rather quickly). As for putting them in Palmdale that would suck!!!! and I'll tell you why. The high schools in AV (and this is first hand information from multiple AV HS Band Directors and staff members) have black top practice fields for their bands because they don't want them on the grass because the soil is crap so the band rehearsing on it kills it rather quickly. Now I know that corps will rehearse on concrete and whatever else if they have to, but the practice field at at least one of those schools isn't at all level (I mean it's like marching down hill when teaching basics) and the yard lines aren't even at all.

oh did you have to put that idea out there? now I'm trying to avoid thinking about Stu's uniform

maybe it was reverse alphabetical? or something random, rock paper scissors, flip a coin, draw straws, whatever, and who cares? they're going on back to back so who goes on second isn't going to be the deciding factor

I thought Stanford's stadium was too small

Tourism and plentiful lodging seem like things that Pasadena can handle, at least from my perspective. Hmmmmmmmmm the Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl Football Game accompanies the parade attract way way way way more people than DCI will and they manage to find somewhere to stay and all of the groups that come out to perform in the TofR parade always find things to do. Pasadena has some wonderful opportunities for tourist. Two incredible museums (Norton Simon and the Huntington), and of course there's LACMA, The Getty Center (and the Getty Villa by that time), MOCA, Gene Autry, etc if you're willing to drive, the California Philharmonic (at the LA Arboretum, which is a wonderful place to visit as well), the Pasadena Symphony, the LA Philharmonic, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, the Pasadena Pops Orchestra (at Descanso Gardens, another wonderful place to visit), Disneyland is near by, there's incredible shopping in Pasadena (South Lake and Old Town) or in all of the surrounding areas, world class reataurants, etc etc etc etc. Quite frankly I can't think of any city that DCI has been at recently that is anywhere near as tourist friendly as Pasadena. Oh and out of curiousity, what does San Diego offer for tourists that Pasadena doesn't? I've been to both quite a bit and well San Diego has never really excited me. Well it'll be nice for the west coast Div II/III corps to be able to go for a change now won't it? I'd be willing to bet that you'll be seeing BDB, SCVC, Spokane Thunder and Mystikal in Pasadena in 2007.

Or they could make semis because of this placement. If they go on after PC and have a much better show (and I suspect they will) it'll boost their score. 45 minutes later all the judges might not remember exactly how much they boosted up SW compared to PC and it could end up putting them ahead of Mandarins even though the Mandarins could very well deserve that spot in Semis. Then again they'll have the live scores happening like last year, so they should know by that point what the score was for SW so they can score Mandarins appropriately

so since I know that some theaters opened up extra screens last year after selling out, does anyone know if theaters will be doing that again? The theater closest to me (like 2 minutes away) sold out this weekend and I haven't bought tickets yet, and well their staff seems fairly clueless, so I was just wondering if anyone knows what the criteria was for opening a new screen.

Okay Mandarins and Southwind have been head-to-head twice this season at San Antonio and at Indianapolis. Mandarins won at SA by 1.88 Southwind won at Indianapolis by 1.06. So head to head would really put Mandarins ahead too. Oh and if we went by head to head then Mandarins and Cap Reg have faced off for times and each has won 2 times, Mandarins have gone head to head with 'Scades 4 times and won all 4 of those. So if you want to complain that it should be based on head to head it seems to me that the Mandarins would still have every right to be on the cinecast and this is coming from someone who had the pleasure of having Mike L for a visual designer and instructor four years in a row and definitely has a positive bias towards his corps as a result.

the dramatic drop in our colorguard score didn't really help us :( Hopefully other judges will view the show differently