The Journal...
Welcome to another adventure as viewed through the near-sighted eyes of a SI staffer, otherwise known as The Contest Journal.
I was really excited about this week because I FINALLY saved up enough money to buy a new camera!!
Actually this isn’t the camera - I just couldn’t figure out how to take a photo OF the new camera WITH the new camera.
My new camera is a digital model. Does it make me a better photographer? Absolutely not, but now I can put my blurry photos on the web even faster
than before!!
As with all new items, you should always read the users manual before operating the camera. Sometimes I have a lot of trouble following the technical jargon in users manuals, so I struggle to get through them. Fortunately my friends at Nikon knew this and had a users manual made especially for me.
As usual, music plays a critical part of our day. It gets us in the mood to watch a bunch of performances and interact with all of our bando friends. Tim and I had a pretty busy week and were kinda keyed up from the events that happened, so we were in the mood for something to "clear the palate" so to speak before we got to the show. There was only one album that had that ability - Pink Floyd Cramer: Live at Red Rocks. The person who thought of pairing Pop/R&B super diva Pink with country music
piano legend Floyd Cramer was a genius! Who would have thought that two artists from radically different genres would interact so well? The performance was very powerful with original compositions like "Dark Side of the Moon," "Wish You Were Here" and "The Final Cut." The last number ended as we pulled into the parking lot at Castle. After I stopped the car, Tim and I sat and sobbed for fifteen minutes because the songs touched us so deeply. After that we have a half dozen doughnuts each and went into the stadium.
Tim and I were happy that we were finally going to see Gibson Southern. We heard that they were hot this year and are going to be in the running for another state championship. After their performance we were amazed that they could pull off such a complex show and do it so effortlessly. We could tell that their staff and pit crew were pleased with the performance too when they insisted that Tim and I join them in a game of Twister on their gigantic tarp during the lunch break.
During the afternoon, we saw a bunch of really cool performances at Castle. Unfortunately we couldn’t stick around and chat with anyone at the conclusion of the contest because the start time at the Evansville North show was about 45 minutes after the end of the Castle show.
One of the perks of being "SI Guys" is that we get reserved parking at all of the shows. The folks at the Evansville North show knew that we carry a lot of equipment with us and made sure that we go the best parking spot on the lot!
Despite driving really fast, albeit legally (cough, cough), and getting a sweet parking space, we were a little late getting into the stadium. This didn’t go over well with the audience. When Tim and I walked into the stadium, the crowd immediately started shouting things like "Why haven’t you posted the photos from the Castle show on the site yet?", "Why can’t your web site be more entertaining like ISSMA’s?" and "Scott, the glare off of your bald head is hurting my eyes!" I put my cap on and we promised to fix the site when we got home from the show.
The Evansville North show lived up to its billing and was really exciting. As an added feature, there was a gentle rain during the latter part which made our photos look like something you would see hanging in an art museum.
Lucky for me, because I was going to enter a contest called "Wet and Wild - Peppy Pictures with Perspiration and Precipitation." The deadline to submit entries was only days away so the rain could not have come at a better time.
What a great day! I hope we have as much fun next week at Jasper. See you there!
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