the weekend.

Oh my. It's been just about a week since I've posted last. And if I remember correctly (I don't have my latest post right in front of me, and I'm too lazy to go find it), my last post didn't really count for much.

So let me start with the highlight of my weekend. Making my friends jealous. Tenth Avenue North came to campus and put on a free concert. And if that's not awesome enough, I was in the very front, in the very middle. I could basically touch Mike if I wanted to. The only disadvantage was that I learned that he spit a lot when he sings. He didn't spit on me or anything, but still. Not awesome.

But did anyone go with me? Yep. One person. Then he left after the person he came to see went and did his set and then left. 2 bands later, I was still there. All alone in the front of a huge crowd of people. Awesome? not really.

So in summary, the highlight of my weekend was horrible combination of amazing and not so much all in one.

Today, though, the highlight was the weather. It isn't hot. It was low 70's and overcast, which I think is just about perfect. Just cold enough to want a sweater, but be okay with shorts. Not humid, not awful...

SPEAKING OF HUMID. Oh boy do I have a story for you. I'm bad at this blogging thing... I have good stories, but my memory decides to not remember the good ones. Well... "good", anyway. Everyone loves to hear about other people's misfortune, if not slightly unwillingly.

So this Saturday was devoted to band. Baylor was playing Rice, in Houston. And of course, they took a good portion of the band with them. I volunteered (though if I had only known how badly it could go, I may not have signed up) weeks ago, so I had to go. I woke up around 12 because I had gone to bed wayyyy late on Friday due to a new obsession with Dexter (the real TV show, not to be confused with Dexter's Lab :D), which happens to be on our Netflix. Anyway, I had to be at the buses at 12:30 to leave Waco, so I quickly got my stuff together, only to realize I had tossed my band shirt in the bottom of the dirty clothes last week, and never got a chance to wash it. I wasn't so concerned about it being smelly and awful or anything, but it was horribly wrinkled, and the directors don't like that. Something about national network television...

So I went on a hunt for an ironing board. (I already had an iron. It appeared in our room. It's actually been in a bag on the floor since move in day, but none of us claimed it...) The rooms obviously don't have them, and neither of my roommates had one, and the laundry room doesn't have one (even though the ones in the girls dorm does... stupid Baylor and your stereotyping), and the front desk didn't have one....so I gave up on finding the ironing board and improvised with a towel and my desk. It didn't work so great, but it worked and the wrinkles were gone and I appreciate ironing boards so much more now. Yay learning experiences.

So after that huge ordeal of getting my stuff together I still managed to snag a ride and get to the buses on time. Then came the beautiful three and a half hour nap to Houston and to the galleria, where we ate dinner. They gave everyone $17 for dinner, which is a pretty good amount, but my OCD kinda went nuts. Why 17? Why not save some money and make it 15. or give us a little more and make it an even 20. Just.... why 17?! Anyway, it took my small little group of some trumpets (which was totally up to us. They said go and be back at this time and we left. It's a nice change in trusting status from high school) at least 20 minutes to find the food court in that monstrosity of a mall/small city within Houston, but we eventually got there. Of all the places I could eat - there were many - I ate good ol' Sonic. I don't know why that's important enough to mention, but I really love Sonic. Then I got some quality Marble Slab and life was great.

So it was back on the buses, and off to the stadium, which is right out of downtown... it was like, a 5 minute drive. Then we got off the bus and I suddenly realized that that huge ice cream was just a bad choice. It was about 6, so, just about the hottest part of the day, and it was in Houston, so there was about a nine million percent humidity. (or 90-something percent. whichever) I got over it, but still.

We got up to the stadium and saw the Rice Band, called the Marching Owl Band, or the MOB. The MOB is pretty awesome, not gonna lie. I wouldn't want to be in it, but it's awesome. I don't really wanna get into it, because it's lots of detaily things, but just as an example, the trombone section was wearing togas and one kid had a fried turkey on his hat. Or as his hat... I couldn't really tell. The name is a bit of misnomer too, since they don't march. They run around and then stand still and make fun of something at halftime. Usually they make fun of the opposing team and school (one time they were playing A&M shortly after Reveille had died, so they played "oh where oh where has my little dog gone", in college station. They had to be escorted out by policemen after the game because the aggie fans wanted to physically impair the MOB), but on this particular night, it happened to be the 60th anniversary of the stadium, so they made fun of the administration of their own school instead.

The game made it to about halfway through the second quarter before the officials noticed the lightning that had been going on for a good 15 minutes. Then they called a weather delay, and we all retreated to the concourse, under the nice protection of lots of concrete. We, as a band, especially did, since we all carry large metal objects. Yay. The only problem was, now there are thousands of people in a small, semi-closed space. More hot. And really, really humid, considering it was raining now. It doesn't get more humid than that. So instead of hanging out, we did an impromptu concert for the thousands of people hating Houston. It was pretty fun, but tiring, since it was lots of straight playing, without the game going on (we can only play between plays during the game).

As soon as Dr. E gave us a break, one of the tubas, out of boredom, or something, started playing the tuba part at the beginning of Hey Baby, which was not on our set list anywhere, and hadn't been played in the band in three years. And even playing really softly, and leaving out phrases, about 30 people started singing along, right where they're supposed to, and then one trumpet plays the loud "BAAAAH BA BA BAH" (you know the part), and then EVERYONE starts to play, or at least everyone who thought they could find the notes. Dr. E was not happy that we had self initiated a song and played it in its entirety. But we were all rather proud of ourselves.

About 45 minutes later, the rain stopped and the game went on. Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime or two, the game ended. It's not important to the story, but we won pretty handily. Sic 'em. Let's go ahead and put a few parts together. Kick off was at 7pm. Games usually last about 3 hours. This one had an hour and half tacked on to it because of Houston's gayness. And we were 3 and a half hours from our beds. Yes. We got back to Waco around 3 in the morning. That's gotta be the best part of the story right there.

On the bright side, we watched Independence Day on the way back, which I hadn't seen in a really long time. Still a good movie, if you were wondering.

So yeah, that was my trip to Rice on Saturday/Sunday morning. I made $17 dollars doing it, minus the bit I spent on Sonic and ice cream.

The next day, I woke up and watched the Cowboys whip the Texans, which is also pretty awesome. So, while I did my fair share (and then some) of complaining during this long rant, my weekend wasn't really all that bad. I'd LOVE to hear all about yours in that comment box just down below this :]