Kilties insanity

[Galen]

Time for more I guess.

All I can say is wow.

No doubt Jay will make the best of a bad situation.

This gives me an idea- "Presenting their 2011 show, "Murphy's Law"..., THE KILTIES!!!"

[morganhill]

What a god awful string of bad luck. I am certainly happy all Kilties and staff made it back to Wisconsin safe and sound.

I saw the Kilties this year on tape from an early season show. I was both impressed and surprised. A great corps and a great show.Why you didn't qualify for finals this year has got to be one of the greatest drum corps mysteries of the season. Hang in their guys, there is always next year!

Edited September 7, 2010 by morganhill

[TomPeashey]

Jimmy & Jay are STILL in Coufu NY. Part for EQ truck wont get here untill Wedesday afternoon.

oops... posted too quick

Corfu... is the name... if they need to kill time they can go to Darien Lake a mile down the road... world class amusement park...

if it's open today with school starting ...

Edited September 7, 2010 by TomPeashey

[J.C.]

No doubt Jay will make the best of a bad situation.

You're absolutely right about that Matt. Like me, Jimmy and Jay had a fantastic time in Rochester, and they won't let a little thing like this tarnish the fond memories from 2010 DCA Championships!

Thanks to everyone at DCA for delivering a great championship experience!! Your tireless efforts are greatly appreciated by all of us!!!

[Donny Drum Corps]

So there I was, in NY at 6 am leaving for the great state of WI. So we set off with a 1990 yelloe van that's seen better days, and a box truck towning a trailer. About an hour down the I recieve a call saying that our van blew a tire, but they had no tools, the equitment truck needed to turn around to bring them the tools that were on our truck

So as toll roads usually go, you've gotta go up 10 miles, back the other way for 13, and turn around again to actually get back to the van. We get the truck turned around and pass the van in the other direction. Suddenly we hear something clanging around. Now if you've ever driven an equitment truck, you know that's not really that abnormal to hear. Unfortunatly it was followed but the battery light comming on, and the check breaks light. So with no breaks and a truck that is sounding like it wants to poop its engine on the interstate we pull off. No sooner do we pull off and a HUGE plume of sweet smelling smoke comes roiling out from under the hood. Awesome.

After a bit of concern for fire, we realized something in the engine had failed causing the belt to fall off, and thus it overheated. Awesome. A state trooper was called, and a wrecker was on the way.

Mean while back at the van they've managed to get the tire changed after a few Kilties driving themselves stop to help. Keep in mind our van, aptly named "squeeky" contains: Scott Stewart our director, his wife and member Junko, Mike one of our drum majors who is also horn/visual staff, Mindy visual staff, and David colorguard member/staff.

Meanwhile back at the truck, Pat (who had originally stopped to help the van) carts Mike to the equiptment truck to see whats going on. Pat sees that he will be able to tow the trailer if we switch trailer hitches. So that's accomplished with more then a bit of fighting. A few people manage to get the belt back on the truck, enough so that we can roll the thing forward to get Pat's truck in front of the trailer. Everything gets hooked up, we're ready to go. It's been decided that Jay, and Jimmy will stay with the truck, and I will ride with Pat so I can drive Pats truck in shifts since the other 2 members he was taking had no experiance pulling a trailer. We meet up with the van, stop shortly after to switch a few people around to different vehicals as some people are going different places, and away we go.

A little while later we recieve news that Govies big green bus decided to blow a tire near the Dells in WI, and had to wait 4+ hrs to get it fixed, and their other bus was stranded in NY with no breaks. Awesome.

After a bit of driving in our strange little 2 car convoy we come to the great state of Indiana. Our truck is running pretty close to running out of gas, so we finally stop about 150 miles east of Chicago to stop, fuel up, eat, for what is likley the last time this season. I go inside to eat my over priced under cooked KFC, when Mike our drum major comes up to me with a look on his face that mixes confusion and concern. He says he was backing out of the fuels island and the wheel wouldn't turn. He pulled a bit more, and he heard a snap, but could steer.....kind of.

First of you've got to understand that "squeeky" has about 6 inches of play in the wheel where it wont turn, and as far as I can tell the only person who can keep it consistantly on the road is Scott's wife Junko. so this was already an issue.

So being the only one with any mechanical experiance I finish my gross chicken and climb under the front of the van with Mike. I look at the usual suspects, steering box, tie rod ends etc, and see nothing out of order. so I grab the anto sway bar and give it a jiggle. The entire suspension moves, bars, drag link tie rods etc, for those of you who don't know this is a bad thing. After looking closer I determine that the bolt that holds the drag link in place is gone. To put it into laymens terms. We've all seen those shopping carts that have the one wheel in front thats going all wonky right? That's what would have happened with both front wheels, on the interstant, at 65mph, you don't stand much of a chance.

So after I had to ruin Scott's day with more bad news, we got rides and made some phone calls to get everyone home. The only corps piece of equiptment that made it home was the trailer. At about 10pm we arrived in racine to end a trip that took around 16, but should have taken about 11.

Also I understand MBI had some trouble with their equiptment truck prior to comming out to DCA.

Which brings me to only one conclusion.....It's a conspiracy. It's not enough we don't get enough shows, or get scored badly at DCA.......now they're trying to kill us.

You couldn't make our story up yesterday. One thing after another, after another. This weekend in general was a strange combo for the Kilties. Bad luck, good luck, bad karma, good karma. didn't make finals, but had a great show, truck breaks down, but at exactly at the right time to be rescued by other members, van suspension breaks, but on a fuels island so no one was hurt. It was an amazing weekend. I could say that I would have rather flown home, but I'm not really sure that's true. I don't think I would have liked missing that experiance.

Here's to getting home safe after one of the best drum corps years in recent history, hope all of your travels were safe.

WWBD

Must be a Wisconsin thing...my whole summer was spent like that with another Wisconsin corps, LOL.

I am glad things worked out. If would have known. I live in Batavia.

Donny

[BigDale]

Thanks to everyone at DCA for delivering a great championship experience!! Your tireless efforts are greatly appreciated by all of us!!!

And thank YOU for all your hard work this summer!

[G-horns]

...

Also I understand MBI had some trouble with their equiptment truck prior to comming out to DCA.

Which brings me to only one conclusion.....It's a conspiracy. It's not enough we don't get enough shows, or get scored badly at DCA.......now they're trying to kill us.

You couldn't make our story up yesterday. One thing after another, after another. This weekend in general was a strange combo for the Kilties. Bad luck, good luck, bad karma, good karma. didn't make finals, but had a great show, truck breaks down, but at exactly at the right time to be rescued by other members, van suspension breaks, but on a fuels island so no one was hurt. It was an amazing weekend. I could say that I would have rather flown home, but I'm not really sure that's true. I don't think I would have liked missing that experiance.

Here's to getting home safe after one of the best drum corps years in recent history, hope all of your travels were safe.

WWBD

Not quite targeted at the Midwest. I understand that Grennies' equipment truck broke down on the way to Rochacha and they had to rent.