Concert Choir Day Ten: Back on the Singing Horse

Aloha!

We’re finally starting to get caught back up with the blog after several days in a row of intense memory-making.  Thank you for your patience!  Whew!  Right now we are headed towards Niagara Falls for two more days of performances and visiting some of the coolest places in the world.  The boys are very wound-up right now.  It’s a little annoying, but I am playing the “I have to write the blog” card, complete with headphones.  Headphones can be a Prefect’s best friend.  (Sorry about the lack of photos on this post.  There is limited internet, so uploading pictures would take forever.  We'll make it up to you tomorrow.)

Yesterday was a turning point for these boys, I think.  About this time every year, they finally figure it out.  The routine has set in.  The trust is developed between all of them.  Just about anything we can teach them about their jobs, the concert, the music, or anything else we do on this tour has been discussed at length.  This is where they decide to put it together and make it happen.  It’s like this every year – just part of the process.

We started Friday as late as we could to allow the boys enough time to rest.  Typically, when I wake boys up in the morning, there are about 5-10 that are just lying in bed, waiting for their permission to get up.  On this day, I don’t think any of them were awake before I got there at 8:00.  They were tuckered-out!  

The Best Western we were at was a very good one, as far as Best Western’s go.  When you stay at as many different motels as we do in June/July, you can easily notice the small differences.  For example, motels with automatic doors are a good start.  The second thing that you can look for is an on-site manager, which this one had, and she was good!  The third thing we look for is if they are ready with our key cards and mail before we get there.  The ones that are prepared are on their game.

The breakfast at this motel was well above average.  The boys had all they wanted of bacon, eggs, sausage, hash browns, waffles, fruit, yogurt – pretty much anything they would want.  If the boys left this area hungry, it was their own fault.  (I don’t think any of them did.)

After eating, there was a little time to spend in their outdoor pool, but first we needed to wash some of their uniform shirts so they had something clean to wear.  The hotel offered to through their travel uniforms in their big washer/dryer instead of making us stand at their single guest laundry with a stack of quarters.  This was a HUGE help to us – probably one of the highlights of my day.  This saved us about 2 hours in staff time and saved us from having to put uniform shirts over the back of bus seats to dry them out.  Gets pretty humid on the bus when that happens, as I am sure you can imagine.  With temperatures well into the 90’s here, it was great to get this help.

The boys were pretty pumped to get into the pool, as you can imagine.  The water was nice and cool as well.  It was an outdoor pool, with plenty of sunshine and the air wasn’t miserably hot yet, as it was only 10:00 in the morning.  After about 35 minutes, we put the boys back into their rooms and had them pack for the trip to Auburn, New York.  By 11:15, we were on the road. 

Since we were in a motel the night before, we didn’t have bag lunches and needed to find some lunch on our own.  The best option for us on a day like this was to go to a buffet, where we could save some money and time.  We tried to get into a KFC, but it didn’t have a buffet, so we went down the road a little to a Pizza Hut.  All the boys had their salad before eating a truckload of pizza.  We are down to just one picky salad eater – yay!  The wait staff at Pizza Hut was apprehensive at first about having a group of 40 come eat, but they warmed-up to the boys very quickly.  By the end, they were extremely impressed.  The manager even knocked an extra 10% off the meal because they were so good.

After lunch, the traffic picked-up considerably.  We were running about 20 minutes behind schedule, but with traffic, that ballooned quickly.  The amount of road construction on the route did not help either.  Since the church we were performing in was so beautiful, it hosts several weddings each weekend.  We had a tight window schedule to meet if we wanted to get some stage time in, as they had two wedding rehearsals this evening as well.  We missed our early time slot unfortunately, but we still had plenty of time to relax, eat dinner, and go through our normal concert routine, minus some stage preparation time. 

 

Everything at St. Mary’s in Auburn was terrific.  They spoiled the boys with a wonderful chicken dinner!  The boys then warmed-up in the amazing sanctuary before changing for the concert.  The church routinely hosts boy’s choirs, so the crowd was very nice with lots of knowledgeable audience members.  The American Boychoir, the Rochester Boychoir, and the Boston Boychoir all perform there.

During a lull in the action, I sat the boys down and had a little chat about everything.  It was a great chat.  I also had the privilege of presenting Jacob Rud and Thomas Stewart with their level one leadership pins.  They have been doing a fantastic job lately and certainly deserved them.  More pins to come….  

The concert went fairly well, musically.  Considering they have been away from the singing for  a few days, they bounced back nicely.  During the concert, we had a special feel-good moment.  Aaron has a part in the concert where he asks the audience members if they have any questions, which they always do.  It’s a nice little break for the boys, and a great chance for the audience to ask questions they are dying to have answers for.  There are always a number of really good questions.  (It’s my new favorite part of the concert.)

On this particular day, we had many questions about their practice schedule and other things from the adult members of the audience.  Just before we were about to go on to “Minnesota Morning”, seven year-old Xavier in the third row raises his hand and asks the boys what it is like to sing on a stage.  Aaron really didn’t have a great thing to say, so he simply showed him.  For “Minnesota Morning”, we have the boys actually sit on the stage in a casual fashion.  Aaron brought little Xavier over and placed him right next to Sam in the front row and started the song.  It was so cool watching him sit there in the middle of the boys.  A lot of the audience members were “ooing” and “awing” as well.  It was pretty cute.

The end of the concert went very well, also.  We finally broke the 15 minute clean-up mark!  (I had to bribe them with a cookie, but it worked…) The boys met their host families and headed home for the evening. 

 

It was a great day!

P.J.

Concert Choir Day Nine: Start Spreading the News

Aloha!

After a day like we had yesterday, a little rest and recuperation would be a nice thing. We’ll have plenty of time for that on July 7^th!

This morning’s plans had us eating some breakfast in the motel lobby and then boarding the bus for the second day of our visit to New York City.  As you can imagine, the boys were more than a little pokey from the late night we had before.  We solved it by giving them a Red Bull and some stay alert tablets from a truck stop we came across just outside Louisville.  That seemed to do the trick for most of them. 

 

The first part of the day was actually in New Jersey, where we navigated our way down to the waterfront and took some pictures in front of the New York skyline from Liberty State Park.  The boys were able to go through a moving 9-11 Memorial dedicated to the victims from New Jersey.  There was also a piece of twisted steel that once held the massive buildings up that served as a reminder of the terrible events of that day.  

In order to get to the islands, we needed to take a series of ferries to get there.  They launched from the park we were at.  We had to bring the boys through security and then wait a few minutes before boarding the ship for Ellis Island.  The boat ride was pretty fun, as we managed to snag good seats on the top level.  The temperatures were warm, but not crazy warm like it was set to be later in the day.  So many boys took pictures!

Our time at Ellis Island was heavily dictated by the ferry schedule.  We didn’t have oodles of time, so we held-off on souvenir shopping for the morning.  We brought all the boys through the main level exhibits just inside the main doors then let them break-up into small groups to tour the rest of the exhibits they wanted to.  There is so much history in this building and its importance in our country’s growth is incredible.  The growth of the island is pretty impressive to, starting as a small island and growing (literally) as more space was needed.  Worth researching if you are nerdy like me and into that kind of stuff.

When our ferry arrived, we jumped on it and rode into the Statue of Liberty.  The ferry ride brings you right across the front of Lady Liberty at a perfect distance for photos.  I think the ship was leaning a little from the number of boys on that side of it.  We docked and did our photos right away.  While we were waiting for the next ferry anyway, we decided to have lunch there in their little cafeteria style restaurant.  It was sort of a madhouse, but all the boys got enough to eat and drink.

Drinking was sort of the theme for the day, as we were pushing incredible amounts of water on them throughout the day.  With incredible amounts of water come frequent bathroom breaks – it’s a time-consuming battle.  Finding water in downtown New York is a battle to.  It’s so very expensive!  I think we went well over our budget for water while we were there, but it was what was necessary with temps in the low 90’s.

After eating lunch, we hopped back on the ferry and made our way to Long Island.  We did our best to impress upon them the massive sizes of the buildings.  When you consider that most of those buildings are the size of the IDS Tower in Minneapolis, and there are hundreds of them, it really puts things in perspective.  When we arrived at Battery Park to offload the ferry, waves were making it difficult to allow for safe transfer to the shore.  The waves would slam the boat against the dock and send everyone flying a good two feet to the left instantly.  The first time was a little scary, but as it continued to happen the boys really got into it.  About 25 times the boat slammed up against the dock.  When it was safe and everything was tied-down, they lowered the ramp and allowed the passengers to get off.  

With lunch and the ferry schedules throwing us a little behind schedule, we had to book it in order to get back on track.  Our first stop was One World Trade Center and the 9-11 Memorial.  Unfortunately, when we got there we saw the incredible line to get through security that was estimated to take about 30 minutes.  This wasn’t possible with the other stops we had for the day, so we took our photos the best we could and started heading the 4 miles by foot up to Rockefeller Plaza.  

It was becoming very clear that pushing the boys that distance in this heat wasn’t going to be a great plan.  (We actually walked further five years ago when we went into New York, but it wasn’t quite this warm.)  Since we are on a very tight budget in order to fit everything in, we didn’t have 39 tickets in the Subway planned, but it became a necessary expense.  Aaron used his schnazzy new phone to navigate us to a subway station and we loaded the boys onto the right car that would get us there.  About 15 minutes later, we emerged just blocks from our destination and fresher from the short rest.

The NBC Studios Tour at The Rockefeller Plaza was the highlight of the day for many.  For Anne Curry fans, it was a little bittersweet, as it was her last day on The Today Show.  We had to split the group into two in order to accommodate everyone.  The tour started with a short video on the history of NBC and the rules of the tour.  It was interesting to me to know that Rockefeller Plaza was actually built for radio, not television, so many of the floors and studios have had to be redone in order to accommodate the changes in broadcasting processes. 

 

The first stop on the tour was pretty cool – the Football Night in America set for Sunday Night Football.  The very set where Bob Costas and Tony Dungy break-down the game was set-up for us to see.  It is the highest rated program on NBC, for those keeping track at home. 

The second stop was for a little program called “Saturday Night Live”.  You could see the train station set still standing there as the tour guides talked about how they banished Chris Farley to one of the side sets for most of his sketches because he made such a mess and it took longer to clean-up.  Since the show is on hiatus for the summer, they set-up banks of computers and temporary sound booths on the floor and in the seats to help support their 2012 Olympic Coverage, starting next month on July 27.  (I know you will be eager to get home from the Land of Lakes Choirboys Golf Tournament that day so you can watch the opening ceremonies with the satisfaction of knowing you helped support the boys, just by playing golf earlier in the day.)

The third stop in the tour was with the news programs of NBC.  There wasn’t a whole lot going on there, which either explains their plummet in the ratings or was a by-product of it.  I didn’t ask.  Right after this, we were able to see the make-up artists of NBC and how they make masks and have adapted to the HD era of television.  In my group, we went into a mock studio where two boys, Steven Kelly and Joel Zimmerman were invited to give a short news report and weather update in front of a green screen, complete with Teleprompters and sound.  It was pretty neat, but ultimately a weak attempt to get you to buy something at the end of the tour.  (They recorded it, but neither of the boys wanted to buy it.)

 

The last stop of the tour was on the set of the Today show.  Anne Curry’s chair was still sitting there, complete with a masking-tape “Curry” stuck to the side, right next to “Roker” and “Lauer”.  Lisa got a little misty-eyed, I think.  Outside the windows, you could see some barricades being placed for the next day’s live concert by Maroon Five.  We made our way back out to the starting point and bid our NBC Page farewell before dropping all your hard-earned money on “Friends” coffee mugs and “The Office” bobble heads.  The NBC Studios Tour was very fun!

We tried to take a picture in front of the 30 Rock fountains, but they had some event being held there which detracted from the scenery a bit.  Oh well, we still got about 20 other places this day.

From NBC, we had to go about 15 blocks to the Empire State Building.  We didn’t have to be there at any particular time, just around 7:00.  This gave us time to eat at a McDonald’s directly across the street and spend more of your hard-earned money at a sweet discount gift store.  Prefect tip of the day:  When they advertise 20 postcards for $1, you have reached your destination.  The boys loaded-up on gifts at great rates!

The Empire State Building was our final official stop of the day.  The timing was perfect to view the sun setting in the west over the New Jersey horizon.  From the top, you were able to see everything we walked around from the top of the city – a perfect ending to as perfect of a day as you can have in New York City.  Three blocks away was Penn Station, directly below Madison Square Garden, where we boarded the train and headed to New Jersey, where Rodney was waiting with a cooled bus.  The Choirboys trip into the big city was over and a lifetime of memories were stored in their little heads.  After a 25 minutes drive to the hotel, they washed their faces, brushed their teeth and hopped into bed.

Goodnight, Choirboys.  Good job today.

P.J.

Concert Choir Day Eight: Taking the First Bite Out of the Big Apple

Aloha!  It’s back to the old blog routine after two extraordinary unbelievably awesome days.  I’m going to do my best to get you caught back up to speed.

Yesterday morning feels like a week ago.  We woke-up in Frostburg, Maryland and loaded the bus for our next stop:  New York City.  The families in Maryland adored the boys and made us promise that it won’t be another five years before we return again.  I don’t know if we can keep that promise, but time will tell. 

 

Once on the road, the rest of the morning was pretty easy.  We hit a few rest stops along the way in Pennsylvania and ate some delicious lunches provided by the church in Frostburg.  I don’t know how they are as a church, but when it comes to food – they know their stuff!  The bread that was used to make the cubs they provided us was great.  (I should clarify.  Everything in the sub was great, but the bread stood-out.)

We used our usual after-lunch rest period to get the boys as ready as possible for the long night ahead.  Of course, during what was a great nap, a Lamborghini flew by us with its incredible sound.  Some of the motor heads in the choir, like Alexander Loahr immediately popped-up to see what it was.  It was hard to get upset with them, as the site of that candy-apple red car blazing by us was awesome!  The majority of the boys never even blinked.  That could be because of our loosening of the rest period restrictions some.  In the past, it was a rare treat for the boys to be able to listen to music during rest period.  We’ve been trying it all but one day this year and it seems to be working just fine.  It’s not as much for sleeping as it is just a time for peace and quiet.  Mission Accomplished.

Around 2:45 we arrived in Pompton Plains, NJ and settled into our Best Western Plus.  It’s quite nice here, including a pool and some wonderful conference areas and breakfast rooms.  We called Papa John’s in Pompton Plains and ordered 15 Large Pizzas to meet us at the hotel.  We needed to eat our supper a little early in order to make it to the show in town on time.  Dinner went well and once we were all settled, we loaded the bus and made our way into Newark, NJ to meet our train.  

The only real snag in the whole plan was this nasty cold bug that Rodney picked-up along the way.  He really needed a good afternoon to rest and recover.  This was that afternoon, so I hopped in the driver’s seat and battled the traffic to get down there.  I wasn’t real sure if we were going to find a spot to park the bus or if I would need to stay with it until the boys came back from Superman.  We dropped the boys off at Penn Station (Newark) and I threw the flashers on to find somewhere to park.  To my surprise, the very spot we happened to park at was one of the only spots in the area you actually could park!  (Aaron spent well over an hour calling everyone in Newark to try and find where we could park the bus.)  This meant I could run and catch-up to the group and go along to the show.

Lucky for me, (not so much the boys), the train we needed to be on was having mechanical issues and limped into the station.  This allowed me time to catch-up to the rest of the group.  We boarded the train, but within a minute or so, they announced that the train was not working and we needed to go to a different train.  

Some of the most high-risk times for us to get separated from boys are loading and unloading trains/subways.  It’s fast.  It’s noisy.  There are multiple doors, and there is a lot of “less than model citizens” in these situations.    We go over the moves we want to take (as far as staff placement) everything, but there is always some variable we couldn’t control that makes us adjust on the fly. This week, I am happy to report that everything went perfectly.  The boys did very well.

Once we were on the back-up train, we had to wait about 45 minutes, parked on the tracks.  Aaron had the boys leaving much earlier than we needed to so we had this cushion.  It was a good move, because we used all of it.  The train was parked in such a location that we had a good view of the skyline and the newly constructed “Freedom Tower”, or “One World Trade Center”.  It’s impossible not to feel a little something in your soul as you watch that building rise above the rest of the urban landscape. 

The boys were very full of questions during this journey into the city as well.  Some of the boys were put on “Question Quotas” for the day to help and limit the amount of insanity the staff had to go through.  It was only moderately successful for those couple boys.

The train eventually began moving and brought us into New York.  Penn Station (New York) is directly below Madison Square Garden, which is pretty neat.  We walked the 6 blocks or so to the Foxwood Theater for the 7:30 showing of “Spiderman”.  Despite all the mechanical setbacks we had, we were only 10 minutes late or so – just the first number.  By the second song, we were in our seats as Peter Parker set-up the story.  

The technical aspects of this show were breathtaking.  Spiderman flies right above the audience at a pretty intense speed.  The end of the show has an incredible final fight scene in mid-air, right over the audience.  Spiderman even comes down on the audience floor a few times.  Pretty sweet!  The boys really enjoyed it!

After the show, we had a little time to kill (if we wanted), so we brought the boys a couple blocks over to Time Square in the dark.  What an amazing place to be!  We showed them where the ball drops, where “Good Morning America” and MTV are located, and of course we took about a million pictures.  The boys were in awe of all the lights and action taking place.  On the way back to the train station, we stopped at Madison Square Garden for a few pictures.  (It is also right across the street from the Hotel Pennsylvania, where the LOLCB stayed in 1997 when we sang at Carnegie Hall.  Ironically, Friday is the 15 year Anniversary of the concert!)

In the train station, a worker saw our group and snuck us onto the train about 10 minutes before anyone else could get on.  He also locked our train car so nobody else could get on.  The Conductor also came down and met the boys.  She hooked us up as well by making sure to open our door a little before the other doors so we could get out and on the way before anyone else.   Just about everyone we have interacted with down here has been exceptionally nice to us.  These boys have a way of warming hearts and bringing people together.  Quite a few total strangers had long conversations with our boys on the trains/subways as well.  (Don’t worry – the people didn’t give-off the creepy vibe.)

The boys were very tired by the time they made it back to the hotel.  We put them to bed right away, especially since we had to be back up and moving in 6.5 hours.  Ick.

I also must thank all the people that have contributed through the GiveMN.org website during this tour to help support the boy’s trip and this program.  You are all wonderful people and your support it greatly appreciated!

We will you in on our second day in New York tomorrow.  Be sure to check it out!

Until later,

P.J.

Concert Choir Day Seven: Go East Young Men, Go East! (Part Duex)

Aloha!  

I’ve got a few minutes to catch everyone up now that Adam is fully integrated into the tour and taking care of all the finances now.  What a great help it is to have the staff we do!

I actually want to give them their due credit for a minute.  The reason all of this is possible is due largely in part to the awesome team we have assembled at the Land of Lakes Choirboys.  Of course, everything we are able to do on the road starts and stops with the awesome support we receive from Mary Jo back in Elk River.  Without her sending us spending money updates, calling parents we need letters from, taking care of the day-to-day needs of the organization, and doing hundreds of other things while we are on the road, we couldn’t take these trips.

The next cog in the system that makes all of this work is Rodney Tracy, our outstanding motor coach driver.  I tell you folks: it doesn’t get better in this business than Rodney.  Always has a smile on his face and can drive this bus through a McDonald’s drive through if you need it.  On top of all that, he spends hours every day checking the safety devices and systems on the bus to make sure it is always in working condition.  It’s not often a bus returns home in better condition than it left after 4,000 miles.  With Rodney at the helm, it will.

No tour would be complete without the Prefects that take care of the jobs nobody else wants to.  Kenny and Adam are the perfect Prefect pair and with several tours now under their belt, they are beginning to get the job done through experience and the little shortcuts you can only learn by doing.  

Kenny is a great guy to have for morale on a trip.  He is constantly smiling and chatting with the boys to make sure they are in good spirits.  It’s hard not to smile when you are around Kenny.  In addition, he is usually the one due all the credit for the photography on this trip.  He’s well into the gigabytes of pictures now, and we haven’t even gotten to the most photogenic parts of our tour.  The knowledge he has gained from working in a pharmacy has also made him a tremendous asset as our meds distributor. 

Adam has only been with us for two days now, but his impact is being felt greatly as well.  Adam’s attention to detail is rivaled only by Inspector #4 at Hanes, who has been ensuring my socks are snug on my feet for several years now.  This is exactly the person you want handling the finances on tour.  (To give you some perspective, he kept a $95,000 tour last year accurate to the penny – despite going through 3 different currencies on two different continents.  That’s pretty incredible!)  

As great as Prefects are for a tour, they just don’t have the comforting feel a mother brings.  Lisa is just that, except when she doesn’t get chocolate in regular intervals or the person in the seat behind her kicks it for the 9^th time in an hour.  She always has her finger on the pulse of the choir and helps us identify so many small issues before they get bigger.  Some of the observations she makes floors me – after all these years of touring together, she still amazes me every tour.

Of course, there is Aaron.  Mr. Carpenter has taken the notion of tour planning to an entirely new level in this organization.  If there is a 15 minute window to give the boys a new experience or opportunity to see something they probably couldn’t back home, Aaron will find a way to get it into the schedule.  On top of the “fun” side of the tour, the concerts he develops and the contacts he makes before the tour even starts ensures our trip will be successful.  It’s the leg-work before the tour that makes it awesome.  His organization skills and vision for the future help to mold the tour and organization in the best direction possible.  

With the experience we have all gained over the years, we all know our roles and have a good idea for what to expect as each day comes along.  It is a pleasure to travel with these awesome people and provide the best trip possible for the boys.

So this morning, we met at the school in Hilliard that has been our launching point for the past two days.  I received so many great compliments from the host families that I barely had time to greet the boys as they came this morning.  That is always fun!  This was another great stop for us and I think we made some good friends while we were here.   We did have our first lost hat of the tour, but when that new hat is purchased from your spending money, it tends to be the last hat those boys tend to buy for the trip.

The First Round of The Choirboy of the Year Award was voted on this morning by the boys.  Here are your nominees (in no particular order):

Jeremiah Shoemaker
Camden Goepferd
Joey Leibig
Noah Carpenter
Jacob Rud
Daymin Lang
Aaron Otten
Chi Asangwe
Jack Strub
Jacob Gordon
Steven Kelly
Isaac Volker

This will be a tough vote this year.  So many boys are doing an outstanding job.

The boys that are moving on to the second round were the Top 8 vote getters.  They were (in no particular order):

 
Jeremiah Shoemaker
Camden Goepferd
Joey Leibig
Noah Carpenter
Jacob Rud
Daymin Lang
Steven Kelly
Isaac Volker

Congrats to all the boys that received votes this year.  It is not an enviable position to have to select just one of them from a pool like that.

The bus ride to Maryland brought us through four states and ushered in some mountainous scenery.  It was a pretty average ride, other than that.  We managed to watch a little Dudley Doo-Right, but I think we either wore-out the DVD or it got scratched.  Dudley is no longer with us.  (As you can imagine, this has been a difficult time for some of the staff members who have known Dudley for some time now.)

The concert in Frostburg was pretty good.  The crowd was nice and the people were very hospitable.  The boys had huge plates of some amazing spaghetti.  The sauce was incredible.  The food alone was worth the trip!

Still had trouble getting our clean-up done on time.  16:24.  Ugh.

One other note:  Letter #2 is in the mail.  Expect the first one anytime now and the second one by this weekend.

Tomorrow is off to NYC!  As you can imagine, the boys are on the very excited side of things.  Aaron has everything mapped-out, so this should be an intense, scenery-packed, high-energy trip through the Big Apple.

I need my beauty rest.

P.J.

Concert Choir Day Seven: Go East Young Men, Go East! (Part One)

Aloha!

Just a mini-update here.  The First Round of The Choirboy of the Year Award was voted on this morning by the boys.  Here are your nominees (in no particular order):

Jeremiah Shoemaker
Camden Goepferd
Joey Leibig
Noah Carpenter
Jacob Rud
Daymin Lang
Aaron Otten
Chi Asangwe
Jack Strub
Jacob Gordon
Steven Kelly
Isaac Volker

This will be a tough vote this year.  So many boys are doing an outstanding job.  Tonight I will share who is moving onto the next round, so stay tuned....In the meantime, WRITE LOTS OF EMAILS TO THE BOYS!  :-)

Concert Choir Day Six: The Trouble with Trebles

Aloha!

How's it going!?!  Can I just say how awesome these boys are?  You're little munchkins were rock stars again today as they conducted a three-hour workshop and followed that by a concert.  No big deal, just another day with the Land of Lakes Choirboys.

So here is how it started!  Yours Truly got to sleep in an extra 20 minutes while Adam, Rodney, and Aaron went to the school to get all the boys.  We are in Hilliard for two days, so they had very little luggage and a few hours to kill in the morning.  We had a plan, but we needed to execute it properly if it was going to work.

We called ahead to the Best Western yesterday to see if the boys could come and go swimming in our motel, but they have a policy that you can only have as many boys swim as you have rooms rented.  Therefore, we were allowed to have exactly 16 boys swimming - no more.  To facilitate this, we split the boys into two groups.  The boys that are on the bus cleaning crew and riser crew worked on their jobs.  Adam put the riser boys through their paces while the bus crew made our awesome bus even more awesome smelling.  (That bus has been fantastic for us this year...)

Group two snuck in the back door of the motel and quickly changed into their swimsuits before hopping into the pool.  They had a blast throwing each other around and splashing their buddies in the face with water.  Oh to be a boy again.

After 25 minutes, the pool boys showered off and changed up in our rooms while the working crew changed and snuck in the back way to get to the pool.  We convinced them to be sneaky to make it a little more fun.  Those boys got their 25 minutes in the pool while the first group wrote in their journals and wrote letters to their girlfriends and mothers.  It was a good couple hours for them.

When both groups were done in the pool and the cologne was drying on the letters to the girlfriends, we ate our lunches in the rooms and took a great nap on the floor of three hotel rooms.  It was nice for a change to not be on a loud, moving bus while you are trying to sleep.  After a good hour and 15 minutes, we woke the boys from their slumber and boarded the bus for the school where we were scheduled to hold our workshop at 2:00.

The group that was hosting a boys singing camp for the week were members of the Hilliard School system that were looking into starting a boys choir program like our own.  They had 18 boys who were very eager to learn what we had to offer them.  The boys from Hilliard were apprehensive at first but our boys really got to know them and helped them along through the day. (To be perfectly honest, our boys did fantastic today helping them along in their exercises and showing them a good example of what a choirboy is.)

Adam started by leading them in an ice-breaker that had them going around and talking to each other to find out interesting facts about each boy.  Then, our Artistic Director brought the two groups through exercises that worked on posture, breathing, and tone production.  Our boys then performed "Heilig" for the group and demonstrated for them the pure tone of a boy's choir.  It was pretty sweet to see their expressions on their faces!

Throughout the day, the boys had breaks to run around outside and play on the playground.  I believe there was some ultimate Frisbee and basketball going on as well.  While they are in the workshop, Rodney and I took the bus to get her washed and stopped by a grocery store to stock-up on water and Windex.  After all the cleaning that bus got today, it is sure looking fine!

Dinner was at 5:00 and consisted of Sloppy Joes.  Yes, they were sloppy.  I would not be surprised if traces of them are still on the faces of our boys.  They were very good to eat as well.  We had the boys chill-out back stage for a few minutes before the show.  I also had the privilege of awarding two Level Two pins for the Leadership Development Program.  Steven Kelly and Noah Carpenter have been fantastic this first week and were certainly ready to move on to the next level in the program.  I was going to wait until we got home, but I need to reward some of our boys that consistently go above and beyond the call of duty, which they always do.  I hope to award many more pins as we go through the tour.

The concert went fairly well.  It was in the gym of the school, but it was quite well attended.  It seemed like several boys had extended family and friends in the audience as well.  Who knew Columbus had this many ties to the boys?  The only snag of the day came during the clean-up that took an unusually long amount of time.  For some reason, this year's choir can't seem to move with any sense of urgency when they need to.  They are very laid back and really like to talk to each other.  This is one of the closer groups I have ever worked with as well.  I think many of the past year's events have brought them close to each other and they are just genuinely good friends.  I still need to find the carrot that gets them to clean-up on time.  Once they figure that out, it's going to be as good as it gets.

The boys were able to get to their host families quite early today.  We passed several of them at the ice cream place next to our motel as we were pulling in.  (They get so spoiled on the road - seriously!)  Tomorrow we continue East to Maryland with a full concert for a former concert site of ours in Frostburg.  Repeat concerts are usually well attended, so we can expect a nice crowd tomorrow.

This guy needs to get to sleep and prepare his DVD finger and BINGO voice for the long journey ahead.  It could be a long day if I can't function in those two primary duties.

Until later,
 
P.J.

Concert Choir Day Five: It t'was a mammoth day!

Aloha!

Greetings from the great city of Columbus, Ohio!  I have a little more energy today to write this thing, so I am going to hit it hard before I hit the hay,

For starters:  The mostly doing fine and wonderful.  We have one boy who has a slightly sick tummy, but he thinks he will be fine by morning.  We have another boys who is unhappy because he found out he will be reimbursing his host home from last night for the personal belongings of his they now have to ship home.  Other than that, the boys are making fans at every single place we stop along the way.

We are starting to gain quite a lot of friends on this tour - more than usual.  Each choir has its own personality.  There are things they are really good at and things they still need to work on.  This year's choir can't clean-up quickly at the end of a concert to save their life, but they are very good with the manners and talking to adults.  (We are still working at improving both of them.)  Well, onto Sunday.

Today was our first "day-off" of the tour.  With no concert, but many miles to travel, it wasn't really a "day-off", but it was more relaxing as far as the boys are concerned.  We started-off this morning by meeting at the church and packing the bus as we usually do.  Today we also had the chance to make our own lunches in the church kitchen.  Our older boys packed the lunches while the rest of the boys loaded the bus and chatted with their host families.  The families seemed to really enjoy the boys.  It was a great stop with a great crowd.  I am sure the boys will have many fond memories of this stay.  By 8:05, we were on the road, headed for Mammoth Cave.

The boys were unusually chatty this morning too, probably in anticipation of the cave and the shopping trip afterwards.  The drive was nothing overly special, but there were moments on the back country roads of Kentucky that I felt like playing a banjo on someone's porch.  It was a little bit like you would think the back roads of Kentucky might look like.

Our bus driver, Rodney, is amazing.  He is the machine that keeps us mainly on time and safe throughout the day.  Now on his third tour with the LOLCB, he always makes sure the bus is ready to go when we need it and parked where we need it.  I don't know what we would do without such a reliable person at the helm.  If you get a second and want to write him a "thank you" note, I will be sure to pass it along.  I think he would really appreciate it.  You can send them to mail@lolcb.org.

We arrived at the cave right on time to take a quick bathroom break and board the buses for the short trip into the park to the entrance of the cave.  For the basic tour we were on, the entrance is actually the same one they have had since they started giving tours almost 100 years ago.  I shudder to think what the stairs and infrastructure must have been in there back then.  Today, it is your typical OSHA-style maze of ladders, stairs and lighting that you would expect in a federally-run national park.  It must've been a pretty crazy tour at the start of the century.

The boys had to go through an air-lock in the cave to keep too much fresh outside air from coming in and disturbing the cave to begin the tour.  After that, it was down a little more than 1,000 steps to the bottom where they had the opportunity to see some fossils and other cool things.  The temperature throughout the cave is 54 degrees year-round, so although we were doing a ton of walking, it was relatively comfortable.  We didn't sing in any of the caverns like we thought we might be able to do.  Surprisingly, in these caves the acoustics are not all that remarkable, unlike the salt mines in Poland or some of the other caves the boys have been at over the years.

Towards the end of the tour, the boys were brought to a spot and they turned all the lights out for a minute or so to show what total darkness and silence is.  (If there was just a way to recreate this on the bus...)  It was pretty good for some of these boys to be able to experience.  After this stop, we headed a few more minutes to the "Frozen Niagara", a special spot in the park that has some incredible stalagmites, stalactites, and other interesting formations created over 1000's of years.  The boys thoroughly enjoyed this part of the tour and will have many darkened pictures of it for you to see. 

Unfortunately, due to the lighting conditions down there, photography was difficult today.  You sorta have to take my word for it that they had a good time because we can't exactly show you like we would want to.  Kenny was able to take these photos, but I will check and see if any of mine turned-out tomorrow.

After exiting the cave, we split the boys into two groups.  Half of them shopped while the other half had lunch.  Since the gift stores are generally smaller, we have to get creative sometimes with getting them all through there in a reasonable amount of time.  I did allow the boys to buy some pretty cool pocket knives, but I made them turn them back in when they got to the bus.  Didn't need a repeat of the Bullwhip Incident of 2003!  :-)  Those few boys will be getting them when we get home...

On the rest of the trip to Hilliard (Columbus), we went through a few notable cities.  The first was Louisville, where we stopped at the airport to pick-up Isaac and Adam Saxton, who were meeting up with us.  (Isaac's brother got married this past weekend and Adam was mentoring some young speech competition participants.)  While they were waiting for us to pick them up, they managed to get to a Kentucky Fried Chicken while in the state of Kentucky.  They thought that was pretty cool.

The days drive also brought us through Cincinnati, where our very own Twins happened to be playing today as well.  We didn't stop, but we did feel a little smug as we drove through the town while they Twins were wrapping-up their victory today.  Take that, Cincinnati!

When we arrived to the school tonight in Hilliard, the boys quickly unloaded the bus and were off to their host families for the night.  We got in about 9:00 pm, so they didn't have a long time with them today, but we are here two nights.  Tomorrow is a pretty neat workshop we are hosting for 18 young men at the school that are looking into starting their own boy' choir here.  I think this is so awesome!  I hope we can help them however they might need it.

We are now also an hour ahead of most of you folks, so I need to end this 23-hour day and hit the hay.  The boys are going swimming in the morning at our hotel, cleaning the bus, and voting for the first round of Choirboy of the Year tomorrow.  I hope we can get some pictures of those for you all to see.

If you like what you are seeing in this program, I encourage you to go to Givemn.org and financially support the tour we are currently taking these boys on.  It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance for many of these great guys, and we cannot do it without the help of people like you.  Every single dollar helps!

Until tomorrow,

P.J.

Concert Choir Day Four: Nobody met us in St. Louis

Aloha!

Sorry about the lateness of this post.  I needed to get a good night’s rest last night after a couple grueling days in a row.  Here’s what you missed.

Yesterday was a very early start for us.  We woke-up the boys around 6:25 am and ran them through the continental breakfast before boarding the bus for Evansville, Indiana.  Since we were virtually on the other side of Missouri by Kansas City, we had a long day ahead of us in the bus.  410+ miles.  The boys did a great job getting ready and we were on the road by 7:15.

 

By 9:30 we were ready for our first rest area, which turned-out to be a little more rustic than we were hoping for.  It actually was just a few permanent out-houses attached to a parking lot.  Not a big deal when you carry around hand sanitizer by the gallon.

As we were coming in to St. Louis, we played a History Channel documentary on the building of the Gateway Arch.  The freeway in St. Louis goes right by the Arch, so the boys were able to get a good look at it from their seats.  It was quite eye-opening to see just how many boys had already been in it with the LOLCB.  We sure do get around the country well – especially the Midwest.

For lunch we had the choice of McDonald’s or The Cracker Barrel.  Cracker Barrels are typically very good to us and the boys get a good meal to boot.  (I like it because they have the little games the boys can play at the table to keep them entertained.)  When we pulled into the Cracker Barrel parking lot, I pretty much gave-up on the idea of us being able to eat there because of all the cars.  A breast cancer walk was happening in the area and the place was packed.  I ran in to get a map of all the other Cracker Barrels however and one of the hostesses talked me into talking with a manager before I gave-up on us eating there.  The manager promised he would have us in and out in an hour, which I balked at, but he reassured me.

So I took him at his word and brought the boys into the sea of pink walkers.  One hour and 50 minutes later, we emerged full, but well behind schedule.  This pretty much made me crabby for the rest of the day.  The afternoon rest period was a longer one since the boys didn’t get quite as much sleep the night before as I would’ve liked.  

We were scheduled to arrive at the church at 3:30 to prepare for mass, but thanks to our lunch, we didn’t actually make it until 4:00 – giving us only 30 minutes to prepare.  The boys are champs though, and they handled it very well.  The Cathedral in Evansville, Indiana is amazing, as you can see from the photos.  The people are equally as nice.  Following Mass, the church hosted a chicken dinner for us.  It was very good!

The concert was another very solid performance from the Rockstar Boys Choir.                 

As they have done the three nights before, they entertained the audience and brought them on a musical journey through the concert.  So many members have been commenting on how much they love “Minnesota Morning”.  It is without a doubt the favorite amongst the audience.

After the concert, the boys cleaned-up and met their host families.  This is one of the areas in which we need to improve yet.  Typically, I like to shoot for a 15 minute clean-up time for the boys, but we are still in the 20’s for time.  It really just comes with practice, and the more we can rehearse it, the better. 

The boys are doing very well for Day Five. Health wise, they are all in great condition, drinking plenty of water and getting plenty of sleep.  Tomorrow is onto Mammoth Cave in Kentucky before driving to Hilliard, Ohio in the Columbus area.

Until then,

P.J.

Concert Choir Day Three – No, we are actually not in Kansas anymore.

What an awesome day!  This could be a record length blog post, so I will see if I can tone it down a little for the sake of your eyes and free time.

I always love mornings like this one.  The weather was perfect.  The birds were singing.  But perhaps the best part was the glowing reports from the host families about the boys.  I saw a few teary-eyes as the boys loaded the bus and said their goodbyes.  This is a wonderful church community and I really hope we are able to make it back this way in the near future.  (To my knowledge, nothing was left behind in a host home either!  Key words:  to my knowledge.)

After counting-off and going over a few details of the day, the boys had the opportunity to work with Mr. Charles Bruffy, whom I spoke about yesterday.  What a great treat this was for the boys!  Mr. Bruffy worked with the boys for about an hour and really helped to reinforce so many of the things Aaron is working to teach the boys.  Mr. Bruffy mentioned how much he enjoyed our choir and how good we were.  It was a great experience for all of us and it is one of the many things we hope the boys take from their time here in the organization.  (I hope to upload a video of our clinic with him, to our Facebook page.  I apologize for those of you that do not have Facebook, but I cannot seem to figure-out how to get the video from my phone to the blog, so I figure this is better than nothing.  This particular video actually has him playing the top part on the piano with Lisa, just at the conclusion of our workshop.)

After saying our goodbyes to Mr. Bruffy and the rest of the Rolling Hills Presbyterian Community, we hit the road for a nice “relaxing” day at the Arboretum in Overland Park.  It is an amazing complex, complete with wonderfully manicured grounds and miles of walking trails.  The boys first ate lunch outdoors amongst the birds.  Our lunch was provided by the church and each boy had a hand-decorated lunch bag for their enjoyment.  You could tell a lot of work went into making just the bags for the boys, let alone the actual food inside that was equally deserving of mentioning.  After we destroyed two cases of water like it was nothing, we hit the trails.

Over the next two hours, the boys hit numerous trails and exhibits along the way.  I am sure they will have thousands of pictures of show you in a few short weeks when they get home.  I apologize in advance for having to act interested while you watch all those photos of random trees, rocks, and Koi Fish.  (Sp?)

Today’s rest period was a great one.  I estimate that just about every boy was sleeping today for a good 45 minutes – they were exhausted.  When they woke, we were in the parking lot of the hotel at about 3:15 in the afternoon.  We quickly unloaded the bus, checked into the hotel and had every boy shower and change into a clean set of travel uniforms.  By 3:58, we had 34 fresh smelling boys loaded on the bus headed for dinner reservations.  It was one of my prouder Prefecting moments.  (By 4:19, we had just about all of their journals checked and a letter was turned in from just about every boy as well.  I hope to get them out on tomorrow’s mail, so expect them mid next week.)

Dinner was outstanding.  The boys were treated to authentic Italian at V’s Ristorante, just a few blocks from the church.  A plethora of different dishes were tried, and quite a few salads too, I might add.  Of course we had the “challenging eaters” to contend with, but I think it was relatively lower at around three for this meal.  We had our first lost tooth of the tour from Tristan.  He wiggled that thing until it came-out.  We don’t really have a policy on losing teeth at the dinner table, and since he wasn’t really able to eat anything because of it we let it slide this one time.  By 6:00, we were back on the bus, headed for the church.

Warm-ups were rushed a little more than usual due to our decision to check into the hotel and shower the boys.  It was the right call to make though.  The rushed warm-ups didn’t seem to bother the boys one bit though.  They gave one of the finer performances I have ever witnessed from the Land of Lakes Choirboys!  They had energy.  They sounded great.  They were entertaining.  It was everything we expect from them and some – you really need to get everyone you know to that Homecoming Concert on July 6 – it is going to be special!

In the crowd was Mr. Ah’Lee E. Robinson, who is the CEO of the Board of Directors, Founder, and Musical Director of the Kansas City Boys Choir/Kansas City Girls Choir.  He seemed to be quite delighted with the boys performance when we were able to talk with him during intermission.  He had members of the Kansas City Boys Choir with him to take-in our performance as well.  We love being able to meet other musicians, particularly from other boy choirs when we have the chance on tour.

Also in the crowd were a few other people.  An elderly couple was celebrating their 66^th wedding anniversary.  They told Aaron “they will remember this night forever!”  Landon Owen’s grandparents live somewhere in the area and were able to make the short trip to see the boys.  Our good friend and LOLCB Associate Director Taylor Quinn was also here, visiting old friends and bringing several of them to see the boys.  Some of you may know that Taylor lived in the Kansas City area before joining the LOLCB.  The boys really seemed excited to see him.  (We kept it somewhat of a secret from them.)

The only real low point of the day was the end when we had to break some hearts that were set on swimming at the motel.  In all the rush of getting the boys cleaned-up and moved into their hotel, I may have promised them a dip in the pool if they were able to get finished with the concert at a reasonable time.  They did a good job at the concert and we had plenty of time afterwards.  Only problem is, we didn’t realize there wasn’t a pool at this motel.  #prefectfail

To make up for it, we went across the street and bought them out of Dilly Bars – literally.  That seemed to make most of the boys forget.  It’s probably for the best though, as we have a very early start in the morning. Tomorrow is 410+ miles on the bus before a 4:30 Mass and 7:00 Concert in Evansville, Indiana.

Until then,

P.J.