Oregon

Oh, Eugene.

Well, I went to Eugene for the fourth time... and even though the Huskies got creamed, I had a wonderful time. The crowd was packed into that tiny little stadium, like always, and it was as noisy as ever... they booed us, like always, but it's something else when we play their fight song (in a good-will gesture of respect), and they start clapping and singing with us - and then there were the Oregon fans next to us in the stands that were rocking out to the songs we played - so that made my trip, along with being able to hang out with my mellophone friends again, and be on the only away Varsity/Alumni Band trip of all time! I'm just making history all over the world this year.

It's always odd, seeing fans walking around the stadium before games... Husky fans see us and start cheering, drunk ones jump up and down and want to high-five you, and then they all yell something such as 'Go Dawgs!' or the like. And then there's the taunts and boos and husky dog stuffed animals with nooses and those stupid duck whistles... oh, Eugene. It's pretty amusing that everyone vents their feelings about either team on us... I mean, come on! We're just the band!

Oregon's colors are green and yellow... so I saw a t-shirt that said: "Gang Green". I don't know what team they were for... A clever one, though was: Go Green, Yell "O". They are pretty excited about their O. (we enjoy calling it a zero)

The only bummer about this trip was the ridiculous movies we watched on the bus... particularly "Super Troopers", which unfortunately has JBL (and fortunately - because it was the only thing in that movie that isn't horrible) - why did he ever take that role! Ug! At least I had a YKYBWTMRWW moment. And then we watched the Waterboy with Adam Sandler. Gosh, I don't care for his movies! It turned out to be sort of funny - not clever funny - but just stupid funny. And then on the way back we watched two awful movies, both about loser guys doing nothing but getting into trouble and saying the f word, literally every other line. I almost lost it, so I got my mp3 player out and listened to my selections from the LOTR soundtracks and all of Jon Foreman's EP's. And I fell asleep after writing a little on a new project.

But our hotel was super! I went to sleep immediately after hitting the pillow, about 5 minutes after we walked in the door at 12:15am. It was the same one we stayed in for the Oregon game in 2004. For breakfast, along with eggs and toast and stuff, they serve corned beef hash! YKYBWTMRWW moment number two! And I said the whole thing when I saw them! "Mmmm, Boy! What could be better right now than a heaping helping of wholesome hash?" and later, "very small potatoes... and flavorsome corned beef... the very essence of the product." But there was a sale! Hooray for Scott! And they are really good! Too bad it didn't come with Hashbrown Private Eye, and a who-done-it.

I did a lot of sleeping on the bus, and that was certainly refreshing for today.

Jp