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Band camp!

Thursday and Friday were freshman camp days, but as you can see...Not only the freshmen attended :)

I've very pleased with the freshmen class this year, though I could still sit here and point out all the mistakes. Their marching careers have only just begun and they're already well on their way!

Our show this year is titled something like "Journey Through Africa" and though we've only heard parts of it (And haven't starting playing yet) I'm pretty excited.

There's a LOT of visuals in it, including a huge dance feature with yes, US performing some sort of African dance while the percussionists play away.

But more exciting than any of that...The trips.

As I've mentioned, the Canada trip is most definitely a GO for this coming July, where we will be performing every day for about 9 days, including a specially written western themed field show.

We will also be attending the Fiesta Bowl in late December to march in the parade (I will remind you, and perhaps you all can watch us on the TV!) and compete with other bands. We will also be having a huge New Year's Eve party with all the bands, which will be great.

Alone with that, we have our usual trip to Disneyland, and we will be going to Six Flags after championships in December. We usually do that every year, but last year since we hosted, we couldn't go.

It will be a very expensive year, but we're all looking forward to it, so I just know we'll pull it together :)

However, it will change my original plans for next summer...

I was hoping to attend Phantom Regiment's drum major camp (That is, if the location was close enough) to work on my conducting skills for when I'm a music teacher some day. I was extremely excited, but now I will have to wait until the summer before my senior year.

I was also hoping to attend the DCI Finals in Indianapolis (Though it was never a sealed deal, I was still working on it lol) but that won't be happening either.

However, I can't complain, what with such an amazing year ahead :)

This video was filmed by our drum major, when Reggie asked for a camera to record what we look like, for comparison.

Luckily, I had my Flip on hand, as I intend to document the entire season as much as possible :)

The top image is a still capture from the Flip Mino, and the bottom is from the Nikon S50. I ran both cameras. The Flip video produced a 640X480 AVI file that was about 35 MB. The Nikon produced a 320X240 MOV file that was the same size. Conclusion - the Flip produces much superior video.

UPDATE: I just discovered that my Nikon has a 640X320 mode (after all this time). While the quality in that mode is much improved, the sound quality does not improve, the size of the file is doubled, and the amount of video time is cut in half.