Ravens Send Off

Today, I had one of my most disappointing Pep Band Gigs, ever. And that's saying a lot, because I've had a lot of gigs. The gig was a send off for the Ravens before they left for New Orleans and the SuperBowl. The Ravens had requested a large presence from the Pep Band, so we obliged with at least 45 musicians. When we got to the Inner Harbor, we were ushered around the back of a pavillion, led upstairs, and placed on a balcony behind spectators. All of the festivities were in the Amphitheater, in between both pavillions. We could not be heard by the people down there, nor could we see anything that was going on. We weren't even allowed to play the Fight Song when the team arrived. When we got back to the busses, we were told that there was an area that was set aside for the band, but more press had arrived than they had anticipated, so we lost our space. Quite disappointing.
To make up for the diasppointing Pep Band Gig, I had a pretty cool party at the Tidewater. A World War II veteran who had received the Medal of Honor came to talk about it with a 2-star general. At the end of the event, both Mel and I were presented with a coin.

Even though Tom believes that coins are pretty common, they are totally uncommon in my lines of work, so I was pretty thrilled to receive one.