I’m a product of that marching program. Until I joined the band I was a completely undisciplined wallflower incapable of any real interaction with anyone. Now I’m a successful small business owner, father and husband. If it wasn’t for the tutelage and experience I received being a part of something bigger than my young high school mind could perceive I’d likely have not gone on to anything notable in my life. Curtailing a long running program because a. it’s too expensive and b. the new band director doesn’t like marching activities is idiocy. Why apply for the job if you want to eliminate half of it? Moron. Too expensive? Really? Music is time and time again proven to be better for academics as well as improving future prospects for success.

Here’s the note I received about the board’s decision:

In a very sad turn of events the Centennial School district board voted to shutdown the 2009/10 fall/winter marching program. A large contingent of Band Parent Assc members were present when the board was presented with the recommendation to continue the music program but only march for the rose parade. To our amazement the board pres. Shar Giard would not allow comment from any of our group even though it was clear they were acting on mis-information about the number of students currently participating in marching band and colorguard. They did not give any consideration at all to the members of the colorguard as they are not band students. We have had several meetings with the superintendent and members of the board and have had representation at all their meetings and all along they have been telling us that they are very supportive of the marching band program, that they wanted it to continue.
In case you had not heard we were also in a transition of directors this year, spearheaded in part by the band parents assc. because we wanted to see more dicipline and control of the program. Mr. Dave Mann has served as the director since Bret Cappelluti and with great enthusiam and effort. We applaud him for his time and wish him well in the future.
The position of director was posted and a number of very qualified applications were received. In the end the position was given to Mr. Claud Garrett, the current photography teacher at CHS, who had also applied. The administration said their hands were tied because of union rules and the fact that many teachers were being laid off due to the budget crisis. It seems Mr. Garrett had the right to bump anyone the school might have hired from outside. All that said the fact is that while Mr. Garrett has the credentials to teach music he has no interest in marching band, doesn’t even pretend to like drumcorps. He came to a band parent meeting last week and stated that the decision of whether there would be fall marching was out of his control. But it was very clear that given the choice he would not want to run it.

For all of you alumni I am greatly saddened as I was a parent during years when the CHS Marching Band and Colorguard was at the top of its game. I’m sure as you have chosen to be a member of this group that you too have fond memories of your marching days. It is very sad that there could be no future competitive marching band at Centennial.

I would ask that if you feel moved to do so you either write or call the superintendent, Dr. Mckean and all the current district board members and remind them that this is a program that has a rich history and should be preserved. You can find their contact information at this link..

http://www.centennial.k12.or.us/contacts/contacts_board.php

this group will continue and I invite a discussion on this matter

thank you

Mark Huff
CHS Band Parent Assc Communications Director

To the members of the board: You obviously weren’t members of the band so don’t understand the bond we all share regardless of what years we attended. If you want to kill something to save money why not cut out some of the athletic programs? More kids went through the music program then the athletics programs so it’s obviously a better investment. Regardless of anything the likelihood that I’ll ever donate money to the school again is exactly zero. I experienced how it was spent then and it doesn’t surprise me in the least that once again the band gets the sharp pointy end of the stick.

Oh and Claud Garett, obviously you aren’t qualified for this job in the least no matter what degree you’ve got. The Centennial band deserves someone who will appreciate their history. If you apply for a job do the whole job not just the parts that appeal to you.

Anyhow the last bit of 2008 had some very odd ups and downs. Let’s start with the upside though:

• Launched the website for my newest endeavor: Slate Technologies woo. Looks great and was designed by the team over at Duel Designs who do such excellent work that they’re now part of the Slate Technologies team (which is very cool and will help us launch quite a few spectacular projects coming very very soon).
• Started putting more effort into No Filter Fridays, which for those of you who are fans there is now a twitter account called succinctly enough nofilterfriday. Up next on that plate is a weekly podcast with video and some other coolness

On the downside at the end of 2008 was some family drama. Sucks that it had to happen but nice to finally know what type of people some of my relatives are.

Into 2009 we have even more great news!

• I got to have a whole week with my awesome wife Zoe while the boys were off visiting Grandma. It was like a 2nd honeymoon of awesomeness!
• Slate Technologies took just a short 3 months to outgrow Cubespace so we’re moving on down the road to a much bigger place which is good since our team has now grown from 2 of us all the way to 7 of us! Holy crap!?
• We managed to set up a couple of strategic partnerships with a couple of different local startups
• A launch page has been setup for the WordPress Dreamteam site.

Aside from trying to launch multiple products, setup new sites, migrate friend’s websites to better hosting I also found my time even further in demand due to the obligations of being both a “charter member” of the Portland WordPress user group (I’m not entirely sure what a “charter member” does only that it sounds somewhat cool with just a dash of pretentious) as well as being one of the Legion of Tech‘s new board members.

In just the last week I’ve managed to juggle a whopping 5 different projects all while attempting to deal with an impacted abcessed wisdom tooth. Finally managed to get into a dentist today and got a prescription for antibiotics & Tylenol 3. Biggest upshot of the dentist appointment was getting to see just how badly impacted my wisdom tooth is. Ow!

I am setting aside some time to post more often (Friday’s between 2 and 3 I will get a post up no matter what) as well as get back to posting less about work and more about the family and I.

Anyhow there’s a nice tasty little update on what the hell I’ve been doing with my time and if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go enjoy some of the painfree time I’m getting to experience after a week of agony :D

Not too much to report at the moment on that but expect:

Drumcorps talk (Did you know that the last time a democrat won the election that the Phantom Regiment won DCI? 1996 and 2008. Very cool).

Drinking (yay!) (he’s not hefe he’s my bitter)

Doctor Who (Nooo David Tennant can’t quit the show Nooooo!)

and even that thing that just happe (holy crap Obama is our next President!!)

Plus maybe a semi secret surprise announcement from yours truly. (I let it out in a few tweets over on twitter)

Alrighty tune in tonight at 10pm on http://strangelovelive.com to hear my thoughts and conversations with the awesome hosts. It’ll be stupendifying!

For those who have no idea what Drum Corps is (go see a show!) here’s a parking lot video from the 2007 season (go SCV!!)

They’ll get to see:

• The Santa Clara Vanguard
• The Concord Blue Devils
• Phantom Regiment

as well as many more corps!

Also a quick shoutout to my good friend (and former Cascade) Tim who’s in SCV as well as Stephanie LaRue who’s also a fellow Cascade who made the change down to SCV. Good luck this year folks!

Well that’s it for now. Time to get my butt in gear and head out to California for the holiday weekend.

Anyhow there’s 5 great Cascades videos and 5-6 SCV videos. Give them a watch and then let me know what you think. If I ever get my tapes back from Jimmy Fursman I’ll go ahead and post videos from last summer as well.

Enjoy:

Drumcorps Videos

Enough complaining though. In the 4 weeks almost since I last posted the corps has changed massive swatches of the show and cleaned technical mistakes galore. It’s really starting to come together and our success score wise is starting to gain momentum. The way that everyone is more and more of a family unit now is great. I’ve made new friends and run into old friends on tour so far which is really what this activity is all about at the end of the day.

Well that’s enough of a post for now since I’m trying to finish watching the Stargate premieres sent to me by the always amazing Amanda (thank you and you still Rock!) in a much needed care package from home. Back to doing this crazy driving thing and maybe actually taking some pictures now and again.

So far I personally have driven from beautiful rustic Mt. Angel, (which is home to the best Octoberfest in the country) up to Seattle and back in one day while picking up the souvie truck and switching vans. Also have done quite a few hospital runs in addition to driving all over the place collecting last minute props and supplies to ready the corps for the big tour. Only 2 days remain before we start out on the road. Next stop will be a quick one two punch to the northern California cities of Stockton and San Jose. After that some relaxing fun in the sun in Ashland Oregon and then back to our home stomping ground of the Pacific Northwest.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the art of the show performed for a big audience since the interaction between members and the audience always seems to result in a massive upswing in the confidence and performance energy. Nothing sounds quite as sweet as the screams of happy corps fans (note: the unhappy screams are usually due to unforeseen circumstances like earthquakes and the walking dead; The walking dead thankfully are a very rare occurrence) Also looking forward to seeing how we’re going to stack up against the competition since we already know we’re winners, for some reason DCI likes to tell us whether or not we’re right about it ;)

My brain has been overwhelmed a bit with new ideas for designs and much photographic goodness. When I have a chance I’ll be putting up a wallpaper based on the drumline and maybe brassline shortly thereafter. Regardless of all of that it’s been great fun so far and I’m looking forward to writing more as internet time becomes available.