This week, Tim and I headed north to Brazil, Indiana and Northview High School for an IHSCGA winter guard show. It had been a busy and frustrating week for the both of us so we were craving the visual cornucopia that only winter guard can supply.

Being in the right frame of mind is critical if we expect to keep up the supply of extraordinarily average photos that we are known for. As is usually the case, we utilized music to mentally prepare us for a day at the show. We knew that we would take well over 1500 photos at the show and we needed some real "stick to your ribs" kinda music to keep us focused for the hours to come. There was only one type of music that can do that - DICTIONARAOKE. Nothing puts us in the mood for a marathon winter guard show like hearing songs where the singers' soulful voices are replaced by monotonal computer generated ones.

Here's an example. Check out Easy - originally recorded by The Commodores.

After listening to that for two and a half hours, we were ready for the show!

Because of some unforeseen circumstances, like misjudging the driving time and stopping at a fast food restaurant for a drink that took them about half hour to make, we were late to the show and missed all of the Novice Class.

We got to the show a few minutes before Class B. We quickly set up next to the judges’ box and prepared to start shooting photos.

Once Class B started, Tim’s and my usual banter of meaningless trivia and obscure references was replaced by the rapid clicks of our shutters capturing photos of guard members’ feet and backs of their heads.

You could even make out some faces in some of the photos if you squint your eyes and turn your head a little to the left.

We had pretty good positioning for shooting photos but there was a set of stairs in the middle of the stands that allowed access to the upper level of bleachers. Some of the railing was missing so they were closed. The contest officials knew we were coming to the show, so they wanted to make sure that we got the message.

After shooting a couple guards, I got caught up in the moment and crossed the barricade and started taking photos on the stairs.

An eagle-eyed contest staffer saw me cross the barrier and immediately confronted me. I was told that just because I have "one of those Internet sites" it doesn’t give me the authority to walk around the gym like I own the place. "Besides," she said "it is not like you are the official IHSCGA photographer or anything."

The contest official then sent me to back corner of the gym "to think about what you just did, mister!"

After spending a couple hours in the "penalty box," my whining and sniveling finally drove the person guarding me nuts and she let me go back to the home side of the gym.

Finally there was a break in the action. All of that shooting made us pretty hungry. A quick look at the contest program was all we needed to send us stampeding to the concession area.

They had breadsticks, and Tim and I were on a carbohydrate consumption mission from God!

To our horror, we soon found out that the breadsticks were not on the menu and were listed in the contest programs by mistake. Tim immediately sat down and started sobbing. "The contest program lied to us!" "I bet that Dr. Adkins guy is behind this."

Tim finally pulled himself together and we headed back to the gym sans breadsticks.

The rest of the show continued to its conclusion without incident.

After the awards ceremony, we packed up our gear and headed back home. My car needed fuel so we stopped at a station in Terre Haute. I think the guy behind the counter was one of our seven fans because he directed us to what he called a "special pump for web celebrities."

I am not sure what happened, but it cost us $96.19 for 10 gallons of regular unleaded gas. I would have asked about it, but we were excited to get back on the road and get home so we could update the web site.

A few miles down the road we saw something that we thought was too good to be true. Just outside of Sullivan was a place that was advertising tanning beds for a really sweet price!

Tim and I had visions of starting a tanning business to help fund the SI web site. Unfortunately our trip to the gas station had set us back more than we expected. Despite checking the glove box, the seat cushions, and rooting around on the floorboard of my car, we could scrape up only $24.78 so we had to pass on the offer.

We made one last stop before we headed home - a fast food restaurant that rhymes with Kurger Bing. We ran into some folks from Castle while we were there. I am sure that they were attracted to the whole monarchy thing, so it was understandable why they stopped by.

While we were in line we got to witness a couple interesting orders take place. One woman ordered a burger, but stipulated that it had to have two bottom buns. We never heard an explanation why she didn’t like the tops of hamburger buns. Next a guy came in behind her and wanted a burger without meat. This really happened. I could never make up something that strange. Anyway, the folks from Castle, Tim and I had a good laugh about the whole thing and spent the next ten minutes looking for the hidden camera because we KNEW this had to be part of some new reality TV show. We never found the camera, so we quickly ate and headed back to Evansville.

This was certainly one of the most memorable trips we had taken in a while. We laughed, we cried, and it became a part of us.

...and people ask us why we spend time on a site like SI.