Retreat and Music Trip'07
The weekend of the 20th and 21st I went to Rome, NY on a youth retreat with church. We lead worship their and it was amazing. I guess there were lots of activities and sports and stuff I just didn't feel like doing them.
I got home on Monday from Annapolis, Maryland on the music trip. This weekend I have been in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, D.C. and Virginia. Annapolis was so sweet. On the way there, we stopped at the same rest area that we stopped at in 8th grade on the Washington trip. Then we stopped for lunch a little bit south of Harrisburg. Then we stopped in Baltimore at the harbor and it was really cool. Not too long after that we got to our Hotel in Annapolis. We stayed in the Embassy Suites hotel. It was awesome. You could see whoever was out on every floor so we could all talk to each other, and the actual hotel room was amazing. There was a living room... kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. I called the pull out sofa, KooMax called the chair, Sean called the couch cushions on the floor and Kevin got the bed. After we settled into the room, we got on the bus and headed to dinner at the Old Country Buffet... that sucked. Then we went to watch the Navy Glee Club at the Annapolis Naval Academy. Ryan Swift and I sang the Battlehymn of the Republic with them. After the glee club we went back to the hotel. Kevin, KooMax, Sean and I had a battle. They dominated me. There was popcorn and candy all over the room. Saturday morning I went downstairs for breakfast. They had a place where you could get omelettes made to order. I ordered a bacon and cheese omelette an Mrs. Neri abducted me and told me that Jansson wanted to see me. Turns out I was supposed to be in a choir rehearsal. Mrs. Neri got my omelette for me with home fries, and more bacon. It was awesome. Then I went to the room for a shower. I got ready and then boarded the bus for competition. We got there and unloaded and set up. Symphonic band went on first. We rocked the house. Then orchestra went on. Then Jazz band went on. Then we left for the community college for JukeVox and Choir. We started to get off the bus and walk to the auditorium when we found out that we were in the wrong place and had to get back on the buses and drive across the campus to the right place. The room was acoustically dry, which was great for JukeVox. We warmed up a bit then we started singing. Our first song was Venus. Then we did Superman, then we did Don't Speak. The director of the Navy Glee Club was one of our adjudicators and he worked with us. He said musically we were really good and basically just worked with us on our stage presence. He also worked on our vowels. He was a nice guy. Then it was time for select choir. We all got into our robes and started warming up. Those choir robes were hot. We started of with Jesu Dulcis Memoria. Our second song was Ka Hia Manu, I despise that song. It's primative and we sound like wild banshees. Our closing song was Salmo 150. Our Adjudicator told us that we were the best high school choir he had heard in a while. He told Jansson that he was a musical genious. Then he worked with us for about 45 minutes, which would have been fine if we weren't boiling in our choir robes and standing up the whole time. After that, we packed up and headed to the hotel. I got a mohawk in Chad's room and then went upstairs and washed all the hair off and got dressed up for the awards dinner. We got to the dinner and there was some party band there and they were all in their late 40s/50s. It kind of sucked. We got alot of awards. Orchestra got bronze, Choir got silver, JukeVox got Gold, Symphonic got Gold and Jazz got Gold. We got the best instrumental program award, JukeVox got the adjudicators award, and we got the maestro award for best rhythm section in Jazz Band. We were pretty proud. We hung out there for a couple hours and were bored out of our minds. Then we went back to the hotel and had another battle. This battle was far greater than the last. Before the battle actually started, i put a tootsie roll in the microwave to see what would happen, and it expanded so I put about 10 more in and added some flavored tootsie rolls and other stuff. It was kind of cool. Then the battle really began. Not only were there pilllow beatings and popcorn all over the floor, KooMax decided to stick some twizzlers in the microwave and begin throwing them. Those things hurt. Not only were they hard, but they were hot. I stepped on one and my foot got burned. Then Kevin sarcastically asked me to get a bucket of ice, so i did it anyway and when I got in Sean and Kevin had locked themselves in their half of the suite. I threw the contents of the bucket of ice at their door. Ice was everywhere. Kevin made me pick all the ice up and then we continued our battle until we all fell asleep. In the morning it was the same routine. Downstairs for breakfast, upstairs for a shower and changing, on the bus. This time we were going to King's Dominion, a theme park in Virginia. It was cool. I bought a pair of aviators there. I went on what I believe was called the Hypersonic, then I went on the Italian Job, and then I raced Kevin, Josh and Cissell at go karting. Then I basically did nothing until we left. Cissell and I wanted to go to the fake tattoo place and get a tattoo that said "I Love Mr. Greene" but they didn't have any. I was one of the first people back on the bus. All the seniors were on bus 1 for the special senior thing they do every music trip, so for some reason, our bus, bus 2 was following bus 3, who's driver was cleary on some sort of mind altering substance. When we got close to the hotel, he thought it would be cool to turn into some developing plot of land. We drove to the end of this two lane road divided by a median, and we were blessed, or at least thought we were that there was a turn around at the end so we could go down the other side, About a half a mile down, there was a barricade in the middle of the road. This could only mean one thing. Mr. Greene and Vinnie decided to let us die and got off the bus while the bus backed up for half a mile. Now, in my experiences riding tour buses, they hop curbs alot. I don't see why they couldn't have purposefully hopped the curb over the median instead of backing up for half a mile. It was kind of scary. We crashed into something once, not sure what it was, then we started driving away really fast, hit and run style. Finally we were back on the road to the hotel. When we got there, we were an hour later than we anticipated, and bus 1 was only half an hour away. We went swimming. The pool was salty. I didn't like it. Then Sean and I both realized we didn't have room keys. So he was like "go up to the desk and get a key to our room" when I saw the line I had a better idea. I told him to get the key to our room, and I got a key to Vinnie's room. Then we dried off and changed. Then we ordered pizza from Pizza City. It took a while but it was good. While we were waiting for the pizza, we went up to try the key on Vinnie's room. It worked, so we went in. I took his remotes. Then we went back downstairs. Curfew was like 12 or 1 or something. When Vinnie came to do the room check, he mentioned something about latching his door at night. When he left we tried to race him up to his room before he could get in, but he was already there. He opened the door and said give me the key and we ran. He met us at our room and again said give me the key. Then he threatened to turn us into Frank Bai-Rossi, so I gave him the key, and he said what else, so I gave him the remotes, and then he said what else and we told him that was it. Apparantly he thought we took more room keys. We told him our two plans. Plan A was to take both of his T.V.'s but we would look suspicious walking around a hotel with two T.V.'s. Plan B was to go up to his room at a ridiculous hour and all 4 of us would climb into bed with him. He laughed and said he wasn't going to tell Frank. We hung out in the room for a while and then went to sleep. At 5:30, Josh, Tim, Adam and Dan came in to our room and Josh started playing my guitar and singing. Then the stole the pizza and left. In the morning we went down to breakfast and then came back upstairs to pack up our stuff. Sean jokingly said to me we should take the sign with the room number on it, so I took a flat broken part of the door and wedged the room number off with it. It's hanging up in my room now. After Vinnie checked our room, we borded the bus. We drove for a few hours and stopped at a truck stop somewhere in P.A. for a part for one of the buses. I bought gatorade and new aviators because Kelan broke my other ones the day before. Then we got back on the bus and drove for about 40 minutes and stopped at the smallest mall I have ever seen for lunch. I walked across the street to taco bell because I only had $5 left. When we got back on the bus, nobody really went back to sleep. We all just kind of talked for the rest of the ride and we got back to school sometime. we unloaded crap and then I went home. Thats my story and I am sticking to it.
Last night I went to the Relient K concert at Waterstreet Music Hall. It was awesome. When Kevin and I got there we saw the line was all the way down the street. Luckily we saw Cory and Kyle Sullivan and jumped in line with them. Doors opened a little bit after 7 and we got front row. That was the first time I have ever been front row at a Relient K concert. I was stoked. It took forever for the concer to start. Sherwood opened. They were good. I liked them alot. Then mae played. They were good but they were just too chill of a band to go see I guess. They didn't stop to talk to the crowd at all. Relient K was last and they were amazing. They played a couple of songs and then Dave broke his kick head. They played faking my own suicide acoustic sort of while Dave changed his head. Then Matt played a theme song from some T.V. show. Then they had one of their guitar tech's Eric come on stage and play Mr. Sandman. Then Dave was ready. They then covered a Weezer song. Ethan Luck from the O.C. Supertones played pedal steel on Faking My Own Suicide and the Weezer song. He was good. Then they played more. Then they left the stage and we all started chanting 1 more song for a while, and they came back up for an encore. They played Sadie Hawkins Dance, Be My Escape and I So Hate Consequences. It was such a good concert. I didn't get to go to the merch tables afterwards though. I was sad. Well, thats all for now folks.
Mitch
I got home on Monday from Annapolis, Maryland on the music trip. This weekend I have been in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, D.C. and Virginia. Annapolis was so sweet. On the way there, we stopped at the same rest area that we stopped at in 8th grade on the Washington trip. Then we stopped for lunch a little bit south of Harrisburg. Then we stopped in Baltimore at the harbor and it was really cool. Not too long after that we got to our Hotel in Annapolis. We stayed in the Embassy Suites hotel. It was awesome. You could see whoever was out on every floor so we could all talk to each other, and the actual hotel room was amazing. There was a living room... kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. I called the pull out sofa, KooMax called the chair, Sean called the couch cushions on the floor and Kevin got the bed. After we settled into the room, we got on the bus and headed to dinner at the Old Country Buffet... that sucked. Then we went to watch the Navy Glee Club at the Annapolis Naval Academy. Ryan Swift and I sang the Battlehymn of the Republic with them. After the glee club we went back to the hotel. Kevin, KooMax, Sean and I had a battle. They dominated me. There was popcorn and candy all over the room. Saturday morning I went downstairs for breakfast. They had a place where you could get omelettes made to order. I ordered a bacon and cheese omelette an Mrs. Neri abducted me and told me that Jansson wanted to see me. Turns out I was supposed to be in a choir rehearsal. Mrs. Neri got my omelette for me with home fries, and more bacon. It was awesome. Then I went to the room for a shower. I got ready and then boarded the bus for competition. We got there and unloaded and set up. Symphonic band went on first. We rocked the house. Then orchestra went on. Then Jazz band went on. Then we left for the community college for JukeVox and Choir. We started to get off the bus and walk to the auditorium when we found out that we were in the wrong place and had to get back on the buses and drive across the campus to the right place. The room was acoustically dry, which was great for JukeVox. We warmed up a bit then we started singing. Our first song was Venus. Then we did Superman, then we did Don't Speak. The director of the Navy Glee Club was one of our adjudicators and he worked with us. He said musically we were really good and basically just worked with us on our stage presence. He also worked on our vowels. He was a nice guy. Then it was time for select choir. We all got into our robes and started warming up. Those choir robes were hot. We started of with Jesu Dulcis Memoria. Our second song was Ka Hia Manu, I despise that song. It's primative and we sound like wild banshees. Our closing song was Salmo 150. Our Adjudicator told us that we were the best high school choir he had heard in a while. He told Jansson that he was a musical genious. Then he worked with us for about 45 minutes, which would have been fine if we weren't boiling in our choir robes and standing up the whole time. After that, we packed up and headed to the hotel. I got a mohawk in Chad's room and then went upstairs and washed all the hair off and got dressed up for the awards dinner. We got to the dinner and there was some party band there and they were all in their late 40s/50s. It kind of sucked. We got alot of awards. Orchestra got bronze, Choir got silver, JukeVox got Gold, Symphonic got Gold and Jazz got Gold. We got the best instrumental program award, JukeVox got the adjudicators award, and we got the maestro award for best rhythm section in Jazz Band. We were pretty proud. We hung out there for a couple hours and were bored out of our minds. Then we went back to the hotel and had another battle. This battle was far greater than the last. Before the battle actually started, i put a tootsie roll in the microwave to see what would happen, and it expanded so I put about 10 more in and added some flavored tootsie rolls and other stuff. It was kind of cool. Then the battle really began. Not only were there pilllow beatings and popcorn all over the floor, KooMax decided to stick some twizzlers in the microwave and begin throwing them. Those things hurt. Not only were they hard, but they were hot. I stepped on one and my foot got burned. Then Kevin sarcastically asked me to get a bucket of ice, so i did it anyway and when I got in Sean and Kevin had locked themselves in their half of the suite. I threw the contents of the bucket of ice at their door. Ice was everywhere. Kevin made me pick all the ice up and then we continued our battle until we all fell asleep. In the morning it was the same routine. Downstairs for breakfast, upstairs for a shower and changing, on the bus. This time we were going to King's Dominion, a theme park in Virginia. It was cool. I bought a pair of aviators there. I went on what I believe was called the Hypersonic, then I went on the Italian Job, and then I raced Kevin, Josh and Cissell at go karting. Then I basically did nothing until we left. Cissell and I wanted to go to the fake tattoo place and get a tattoo that said "I Love Mr. Greene" but they didn't have any. I was one of the first people back on the bus. All the seniors were on bus 1 for the special senior thing they do every music trip, so for some reason, our bus, bus 2 was following bus 3, who's driver was cleary on some sort of mind altering substance. When we got close to the hotel, he thought it would be cool to turn into some developing plot of land. We drove to the end of this two lane road divided by a median, and we were blessed, or at least thought we were that there was a turn around at the end so we could go down the other side, About a half a mile down, there was a barricade in the middle of the road. This could only mean one thing. Mr. Greene and Vinnie decided to let us die and got off the bus while the bus backed up for half a mile. Now, in my experiences riding tour buses, they hop curbs alot. I don't see why they couldn't have purposefully hopped the curb over the median instead of backing up for half a mile. It was kind of scary. We crashed into something once, not sure what it was, then we started driving away really fast, hit and run style. Finally we were back on the road to the hotel. When we got there, we were an hour later than we anticipated, and bus 1 was only half an hour away. We went swimming. The pool was salty. I didn't like it. Then Sean and I both realized we didn't have room keys. So he was like "go up to the desk and get a key to our room" when I saw the line I had a better idea. I told him to get the key to our room, and I got a key to Vinnie's room. Then we dried off and changed. Then we ordered pizza from Pizza City. It took a while but it was good. While we were waiting for the pizza, we went up to try the key on Vinnie's room. It worked, so we went in. I took his remotes. Then we went back downstairs. Curfew was like 12 or 1 or something. When Vinnie came to do the room check, he mentioned something about latching his door at night. When he left we tried to race him up to his room before he could get in, but he was already there. He opened the door and said give me the key and we ran. He met us at our room and again said give me the key. Then he threatened to turn us into Frank Bai-Rossi, so I gave him the key, and he said what else, so I gave him the remotes, and then he said what else and we told him that was it. Apparantly he thought we took more room keys. We told him our two plans. Plan A was to take both of his T.V.'s but we would look suspicious walking around a hotel with two T.V.'s. Plan B was to go up to his room at a ridiculous hour and all 4 of us would climb into bed with him. He laughed and said he wasn't going to tell Frank. We hung out in the room for a while and then went to sleep. At 5:30, Josh, Tim, Adam and Dan came in to our room and Josh started playing my guitar and singing. Then the stole the pizza and left. In the morning we went down to breakfast and then came back upstairs to pack up our stuff. Sean jokingly said to me we should take the sign with the room number on it, so I took a flat broken part of the door and wedged the room number off with it. It's hanging up in my room now. After Vinnie checked our room, we borded the bus. We drove for a few hours and stopped at a truck stop somewhere in P.A. for a part for one of the buses. I bought gatorade and new aviators because Kelan broke my other ones the day before. Then we got back on the bus and drove for about 40 minutes and stopped at the smallest mall I have ever seen for lunch. I walked across the street to taco bell because I only had $5 left. When we got back on the bus, nobody really went back to sleep. We all just kind of talked for the rest of the ride and we got back to school sometime. we unloaded crap and then I went home. Thats my story and I am sticking to it.
Last night I went to the Relient K concert at Waterstreet Music Hall. It was awesome. When Kevin and I got there we saw the line was all the way down the street. Luckily we saw Cory and Kyle Sullivan and jumped in line with them. Doors opened a little bit after 7 and we got front row. That was the first time I have ever been front row at a Relient K concert. I was stoked. It took forever for the concer to start. Sherwood opened. They were good. I liked them alot. Then mae played. They were good but they were just too chill of a band to go see I guess. They didn't stop to talk to the crowd at all. Relient K was last and they were amazing. They played a couple of songs and then Dave broke his kick head. They played faking my own suicide acoustic sort of while Dave changed his head. Then Matt played a theme song from some T.V. show. Then they had one of their guitar tech's Eric come on stage and play Mr. Sandman. Then Dave was ready. They then covered a Weezer song. Ethan Luck from the O.C. Supertones played pedal steel on Faking My Own Suicide and the Weezer song. He was good. Then they played more. Then they left the stage and we all started chanting 1 more song for a while, and they came back up for an encore. They played Sadie Hawkins Dance, Be My Escape and I So Hate Consequences. It was such a good concert. I didn't get to go to the merch tables afterwards though. I was sad. Well, thats all for now folks.
Mitch
posted by Mitch VanDenBerghe at 5:28 PM
2 Comments:
I hit two for three.
Retreat awesome.
Music trip awesome.
you have a mohwawk!
Only 4 lines for the retreat?!?! What the heck!! What about the awesome experience of getting to ride up there and back with that handsome, wonderful guy?
LOL
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