Well spring break is almost here for me. It's almost like a holiday the way kids celebrate it these days. It's kind of sad, though, because most universities around me are having theirs this week, but that's OK because my friend Kaitlyn Summitt will be back in Iowa next week, since Northwest Missouri is having their spring break at the same time that we are. Only a few months ago I was trying to make big plans for spring break, because I have never actually gone anywhere or done anything crazy for it before. I figured this would be the year, since I'm finally out of high school.

Esteban Aguirre (right) and Joe Musick attempt to tie two ties before the Vanguard birthday dinner.
But no, those plans didn't work out after I realized that I already travel a lot as it is. By May, I'll have been in California for eight weekends over the past seven months, so that will have to count as my spring break trip. Last Wednesday was almost like Christmas all over again. I was told during my trumpet lesson that I needed a new metronome. So I had the chance to order one online from the same company I bought my trumpet and French horn. Then Wednesday afternoon someone knocked on my door. Too bad he wasn't a jolly man wearing a red suit with a white beard -- that would have made it perfect. Anyway, I got my new Yamaha metronome, which is great. When I went online yesterday afternoon to see what was going on in the drum corps world, I found out that the Aria interviews had started up again, and the first one was with one of my new friends, Joe Musick. It reminded me of a story from two weeks ago. Somehow over time I managed to forget how to tie a tie, which is kind of sad. I was going to ask our wonderful drum major Stuart to do it for me, since the drum major should be able to do everything (shouldn't he?). But I ended up getting Esteban, a trumpet player, to do it. Since Esteban is apparently a genius, he knew how to tie a full Windsor knot, which Joe Musick didn't know how to do. While Esteban tried to tie my tie, he was trying to explain to Joe how to tie his pink tie, but he kept messing up. So while they were both heavily involved in trying to their ties I took a picture of it. So if you watch the Vanguard birthday dinner video and see a trumpet player wearing a pink tie while we're playing "Send in the Clowns," that would be the wonderful Joe Musick.

Stay tuned same place time next week, hopefully.