Alumni Band Pictures

A few days ago Daniel sent me some shots he took during our homecoming weekend. Since Kate and I are in North Carolina for the holidays (which we'll be tracking on our joint blog) I finally have a little time to put them up. Let me just say in my defense that I hadn't marched or worn tenors in 3 years, and these pictures were taken at the very end of the day, when I was half-dead. I swear that my technique was a lot better back in the day. Anyhow, you can see me and my giant friend Eric in the first shot. Then, Kate and are are maxin' and relaxin' by the Engineering Mall fountain (aka the beer can after the safety issues).
The last picture is great for a couple of reasons. First, I like the old guys who showed up at the last minute, because they didn't bother to learn any of the cadences, and while we were marching they just kind of marched along with their vintage snares on slings. Plus, check out the ZZ Top beard on the dude on the left. I guess that's another advantage of alumni band- you're not allowed to have any facial hair besides a mustache while you're in school. But it alumni band you can go all out. In a related issue, look how everyone in the picture is relaxing, looking around, taking it all in. Except me. I am dead serious. This could me a few things. Either:
A) Old habits die hard
B) I'm such a musician that I just snap back into the routine
C) I'm a huge tool
I think my record speaks for itself.

No More Perfect Season -or- On to the Playoffs!

This is one of those highly conflicting sports situations. The Colts lost yesterday for the first time this season which, as SportsCenter put it, "Drops them to 13-1." Do you really get "dropped" to 13-1? To make it to thirteen straight wins is pretty good, and we still wrapped up home-field advantage for the playoffs, but what dominates the headlines is that the Colts lost. I hate losing, but there's a reason only one team has ever had an undefeated season. They can now focus on the playoffs. I'm still a proud fan.

Compounding the inner-confliction for me is that I also root for the Chargers, who were the spoilers yesterday. While they are a distant second in my NFL heart, I follow them because they have almost as many former Boilers as the Patriots, in Linebacker Shaun Phillips, center Nick Hardwick, and of course my boy Drew Brees. These guys were at Purdue during my time there as a student, and Drew was practically worshipped. When Brees was drafted it was a real novelty to have a Purdue guy you saw in college play on Sundays, plus the Chargers had that non-threatening, sad-sack-but-bless-them-they're-trying appeal so I kept it up. Now of course Purdue has produced a lot of NFL guys, so I almost need more of a justification. If you want to keep up with pro Boilers, this is a good page to know.

Speaking of Purdue and inner-confliction, this is the first time in 9 years that I've entered the holiday season without a Purdue bowl game to look forward to. I still have my fallback of rooting for any Big 10 team that's playing (namely Penn State and Ohio State). Now, I'm as disappointed as the next Boiler that we didn't qualify for the post season- by one measly game no less- but really, everyone has a bad season now and then. If you can grade football teams on a scale of 1 to 10, then we've been hovering at a 7 or 8 for the last few years, and this year we were a 6. It's not like when Nebraska went from a 9 to a 2 in one season. Now people are starting Fire Joe Tiller websites. Now you know I didn't agree with everything from this last season, but come on. It was really one big learning experience. We learned a whole lot of things that didn't work.

So, back to the Indianapolis Colts. It's still been a great season, and I'm really looking forward to the playoffs. However, Kate and I have tickets to the New Year's Day game against the Arizona Cardinals, and I was hoping to watch them clinch the perfect season. Now it looks like we'll get to see a bunch of backups. Well, with the way Arizona has been playing, that still might be a pretty good game. Go Colts!