REMEMBER THE ALAMO (DOME). Sorry about the lack of blogging. I have been at the State Marching Band Contest in San Antonio as a sponsor to my beloved Mighty Panther Band. The Baby plays in “The Pit”. Here are my observations about the trip.

1. The Alamo Dome is a beautiful facility and perfect for band competitions. We sat in the third level. The sound was wonderful and the view was perfect for seeing all the formations.

2. The Alamo Dome is not well run. We waited over an hour in line for tickets, missing several bands. Since they were charging a whopping $17.00 for the prelims only, that was not appreciated. They were understaffed badly. Some people did not get to see their own band. Others would have missed, but people had mercy on them and let them go ahead. Then, it took over half an hour to get a mushy hot dog from Aramark. There was one person taking orders, filling them, and taking money, while dozens of people stood in line. Bad Dome, Bad Dome

It was all overpriced. You had to buy tickets separately for the preliminaries and the finals. Food was exorbitant. Cokes were $4.50 and did not taste like cokes. The food was no better than you would get at a high school football game, but was very expensive. Some of the kids had a hard time getting enough to eat on the money they had. Bad Dome!

3. Band kids are good kids. Out of 250 kids, we had only two or three problems. The odds would be worse with adults.

4. My body does not like bus trips. Who knows how long it will take me to recover from this. I had to stop at Starbucks for a latte just to make it into the office.

5. It is hard to stay on the Atkins diet when you travel with kids.

6. Teenagers are amazingly resilient. We got them up at 5 a.m. on contest day. They dragged around the hotel like zombies. Five hours later they marched and played the best they ever had.

7. I love marching band.

8. But, most of all, I love The Baby.