5...
...days until band camp. boy it's sneaking up on us already. am i ready you may ask? yes i am! i think it'll be a great experience. i can't wait until we set a few of the charts down (like maybe the first 10 or so) and march to them because that will just be the coolest. and i also hear that we have a morning session during band camp which starts at 9:00 am and runs till 12:00 pm and then we get an entire hour for lunch which is totally cool and then we have an afternoon session from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. so that's like 7 hours of band goodness lol.

well today at 11:30 am was the big old home week picture down on the square. it looked as though the entire freakin town was there this morning and everyone like went ina big circle around the lightpost that is in the center of the square. and i thought "gee, these people sure are stupid. i mean if the camera has to swing around in an arc, wouldn't you think that that light post just might be in the way?" oh well. we needed a sheep dog real bad because without any sort of direction, all the people in the town would've just wandered around and eventually died like ants or something.

but fortunately, our sheep dog or person with a megaphone arrived and told us to stand in certain places and stuff and kassie and jeremy decided not to be in both ends this year but david and i wanted to. you see, everyone stands in this big 'u' formation in one corner of the square and the entire thing takes up about one side of the square. and as the camera starts at one end, and then pans around, you can run from one end of the 'u' to the other and then boom! you're in both ends of the picture. it's pretty interesting actually. a bunch of other kids were running too.

they took the first camera run and they started at one end and david and i were in that and then the camera passed us and we charged across to the other side with about 20 other kids and we just barely stopped in time before we would've plowed a couple of old folks down. boy that would've been good at all. then, they took a second photo and we had to run back to the starting positions again. and then, after that they took a third photo and david and i began to realize how incredibly hot it was getting since it was nearly high noon.

and then the photographer up on the big ladder and his assistant were like, "oh hey in that last one, there were too many people moving so we're gonna have to take one more." it turns out, no one from the back of the crowd could hear the megaphone so they figured it was over after the third photo. so we had to suffer once more running back and forth. that was my old home week photo experience for this week.

now i have finally been able to be in the photo twice! whoopeee for me! and david! lol. too bad kassie and jeremy didn't want to do it at the last moment. guess they'll have to wait another 3 years for that to happen. and tomorrow is the parade and i'll explain more about that now.

reporting time for the parade tomorrow evening is 5:15 pm (i'm always like 20 minutes early lol) and we have to wear our band shirts, our blue pants, black shoes, and black socks. but thing about the shoes is, they have to be black and i don't have any black shoes. so i ended up spending $43 on a pair of shoes that i would most likely be wearing one time in my life. well for band at least. there might be a "formal" occasion sometime so i'll probably wear them for that.

the funny thing is that when we went in the shoe store, we said to the shoe guy "well we need a pair of shoes, black laces and everything, tomorrow for the parade and..."

"that's quite interesting," said the shoe guy, "because the zimmermans were just in here and they said the exact same thing."

that made it easier for the guy because he already new what we wanted. marty zimmerman and i were friends way back in middle school and i remember he was in the rank in front of me and he had this absolutely perfect posture and all and i would try to march like him and stuff. so yeah that was the somewhat strange occurence for the day.

and that's about all for me right now. tomorrow night after the parade, kristin, laura, justin, and i will walk home from the school to my house (not that we'll really feel like walking after almost 3 miles of marching and playing). and we're just gonna chill at my house tomorrow night till around 11 pm and i'll write about that when i get around to it. friday is when the army band plays down on kaley field and then they have fireworks so i'll take a look at those. but otherwise, that's the latest news.

ziggy