TWHSParent

Yes, it is (we seem to love cross-country moving - NOT). We are closing on a house in Greendale, IN in mid-October. I did just purchase tickets for Grand Nationals semi-finals and finals, so it looks like I will be there!

Well, it may not be San Antonio, but I am tentatively planning on attending at least Saturday at Grand Nationals this year (2023). With everything that happened in Arizona, my wife decided she couldn't stay there any longer, so we've packed up and moved back to the Cincinnati area. About 1.5 hours from Indianapolis.

Just because I had to look it up... https://comicvine.gamespot.com/mad-mod/4005-46670/

From the Danpodcast they are doing a top half/bottom half split for finals this year just like BOA.

Auto qualifiers do not take any of the spots in semifinals. The top 30 scores advance to semifinals. The qualifiers add to that number. So it is theoretically possible that the top 30 are all from say class A. Then there would be 4 qualifiers from each of the other 3 classes filling semifinals up to 42 bands. They'd be starting at ~0500 in the morning to get through all of them.

Maybe a little, but it depends on the band. Also think that they are trying to project to the press box, and you are sitting above it while very few high school outdoor stadiums have seats higher than the press box. I've sat in the lower level, press box, and top level at the Alamodome. Press box is best, but the lower level seats right up against it are awesome too!

Or maybe everyone knew Avon was attending in 2017 and decided to go all out to beat them, then just kept that competitive level as the standard going forward.

In the end, it is all about making state. In recent years 2016 jumps out at me - they barely squeaked into the last state spot at area, but ended up 7th (IIRC) at state finals (and 2nd at BOA). Huge improvement with that show at the end of the year. 2 weeks to get that closer done and cleaned up. There's lots of good stuff in this show, and I'm now looking forward to seeing it completed.

Agree with your overall take. I personally like what Avon is doing more than what Carmel is doing (but Carmel is currently performing slightly better). I get just a whiff of Texas influence in Avon's music choices. I think Avon has a chance at GN to overtake Carmel in GE (and maybe performance), but it will really depend on the judging panel and what they are looking for in a show. A more current design, or a "classic" design? I really did not like TWHS's show the first several times I saw it, but as it has cleaned up and fleshed out I have completely flipped my take. I think it will surprise at San Antonio (both BOA and UIL).

Short answer - no. The gap actually grows a bit due to MGE carrying more weight. I recalculated the scores into 20/20/40/20 format that BOA uses (note only 1 MGE score which is doubled in the final calculation. I list it here twice to account for it.): MP VP MGE MGE VGE Total Vandegrift 18.42533 17.3 17.8 17.8 17.5 88.82533 Ronald Reagan 17.9 17.6 17.4 17.4 18 88.3 Vista Ridge 17.95 17.7 16.9 16.9 16.7 86.15 Cedar Park 18.3 17.2 17.3 17.3 16.5 86.6 Round Rock 17.3 17 16.5 16.5 17.1 84.4 Rouse 16.95 16.8 16.3 16.3 16.2 82.55 Hendrickson 16.1 15.8 15.6 15.6 14.9 78 Brandeis 15.6 15.65 15.5 15.5 15.5 77.75 Leander 16.5 15.3 15.4 15.4 14.6 77.2 Alexander 15.25 15.6 14.5 14.5 15.8 75.65 Dripping Springs 15.2 15.05 15.1 15.1 15.3 75.75 O'Connor 15.25 15.1 14.8 14.8 15.1 75.05 Position changes would have been Cedar Park to 3rd and Dripping Springs to 10th.

Could be. I pulled this straight from https://marching.musicforall.org/result/westhouston22/

They are there: 7:15 p.m. – Class AA: Liberal Arts and Science Academy, TX 7:30 p.m. – Cypress Woods High School, TX 7:45 p.m. – Oak Ridge High School, TX 8:00 p.m. – Lake Travis High School, TX 8:15 p.m. – Seven Lakes High School, TX 8:30 p.m. – Foster High School, TX 8:45 p.m. – Friendswood High School, TX 9:00 p.m. – Pearland High School, TX 9:15 p.m. – Cedar Ridge High School, TX 9:30 p.m. – Cy-Fair High School, TX 9:45 p.m. – Claudia Taylor Johnson High School, TX 10:00 p.m. – Stephen F. Austin High School, TX 10:15 p.m. – Ronald Reagan High School, TX 10:30 p.m. – Class A: Franklin High School, TX

General for prelims. Finals is general seating in the lower deck and reserved seating in the upper deck.

As a basic introduction try this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUagU8YrJZc I've also attached one of the images of my current state from a MRI I had done last month. I annotated it (so not perfect). This is a side view of the aorta through my chest. The dissection continues all the way down the aorta into my left iliac artery.

For entertainment, I started following a few chess youtubers. Odd choice as I'm not a particularly good chess player, but I have found it interesting. I followed the recent candidates tournament pretty closely. Other things included reading and playing some slower paced games on my computer. I've also spent a great deal of time learning as much as I can about my condition since it is not well known and relatively little is out there. Had to do some digging... There are other things going on that take my time and attention, some of which are not good (lets just say that I had to hire a lawyer). I've also had a couple short trips around Arizona, one to the Grand Canyon via the Grand Canyon Railroad, and the other was several days in the Sedona area. Sanity has varied depending upon the day, but I and my family are still holding it together. This has been extremely challenging for my wife, and I want to be sure to sing her praises - she is awesome! I thank you for your kind words. I enjoy engaging on this site and hope to continue to do so. If you ever get bored and want to learn about a condition that happens at a rate 1/100th of heart attacks (so 100 heart attacks for each 1 of these) and kills at around a 60-80% rate let me know. Academically I find it very fascinating to learn as biology was my weakest science area (physical science for me!).

Right now it is all the medical appointments, surgeries, and of course bills that are more of an impediment. Health wise I can and have traveled back to Houston a couple times to meet with experts on my condition. My energy level is still much lower than it was, so I have to be careful so I don't get exhausted, but it is slowly coming back from my cardio workouts. I am still improving, and I hope to be able to attend in person in the future, just don't know when yet.

I am still hanging around. No major changes - things are moving in a positive way generally (little ups and downs of course). I will never fully recover, but I can still have a good quality of life. But it is so hard to keep pushing! Such a mental and physical struggle pretty much every day. Thank you for asking about me. Little things like this help keep me moving forward. It is greatly appreciated! I hope you are doing well with your studies.

Breathing is immensely better. Before it was on the order of trying to breathe through a straw - if you aren't very active it is probably OK, but once you start to do something it is a pretty big struggle. I think being a brass player in my earlier years helped - it really increased my lung capacity even now all these decades later, and strengthened my diaphragm. On the less good side, the surgeon is pretty convinced that scar tissue will grow back, once again impeding the airway. So I may have more surgeries in the future. I am not a fan, but prefer to be able to breathe.

Short update. Still kicking around, which is a good thing. Saw a study recently where if you are roughly the 20% that survive to more than 60 days post surgery (yes, about 80% die of what happened to me) then your lifespan tends to go back to the normal ageing curve. I just had a 2nd throat surgery yesterday that is a complication of my original hospitalization. They used a large (9mm) breathing tube during my open heart surgery to repair my aorta that stayed in for the first ~10 days. It caused damage to my airway and created what are called granulomas (non-cancerous). In my case these have grown abnormally large and partially blocked my airway at my vocal cords (both behind and in front), which both seriously impacted my speech and, more importantly, my breathing. Hopefully yesterday's surgery, where they more aggressively lasered the growths, will be the last. We'll monitor of course. My throat is very sore after the lasers and talking hasn't come fully back yet, so more healing to go.

Copied from Hornrank forums: Finals Schedule 7:45 p.m. – Class A: Murray H.S., KY 8:00 p.m. – Ronald Reagan H.S., TX 8:15 p.m. – Dobyns-Bennett H.S., TN 8:30 p.m. – Vista Ridge H.S., TX 8:45 p.m. – William Mason H.S., OH 9:00 p.m. – Claudia Taylor Johnson H.S., TX 9:15 p.m. – Blue Springs H.S., MO 9:30 p.m. – The Woodlands H.S., TX 9:45 p.m. – Broken Arrow H.S., OK 10:00 p.m. – Marcus H.S., TX 10:15 p.m. – Avon H.S., IN 10:30 p.m. – Carmel H.S., IN 10:45 p.m. – Flower Mound H.S., TX 11:00 p.m. – Class AA: Norwin H.S., PA

Also not a Texas band, but props to Murray, KY for being the first class A band to advance on score since 2015. Huge accomplishment for them!