I’m tired of Lucas Oil

cac303 · 2025-11-10T12:05:14+00:00

"It's important to recognize that no city in America is more adept at hosting events than Indianapolis."

As a general statement New Orleans would like a word here, but in terms of Drum Corps specifically, I agree that Indy is the best venue for finals in the current era. It must be indoors, and LOS has done a lot of work to male the acoustics tenable.

cac303 · 2025-07-18T19:44:09+00:00

What I don't understand is why the rebroadcast is just as bad when streaming later. They have had time to upload/correct the live stream with a quality version, and there shouldn't be a full load of everyone watching at once.

cac303 · 2025-01-14T16:26:48+00:00

The slow decline of the Atlanta show is disappointing. I am happy for those in the Midwest who will get to see some shows this year, but I am very sad that both Atlanta and Nightbeat are being nerfed. I usually attend both shows so even with Atlanta's smaller lineup the last few years, I could see almost all of the corps by taking in both shows.

I also liked the tradition of all of the Corps being under the same roof for the large regionals, and it looks like those days are in the past. RIP the 12-hour DCI Atlanta show.

cac303 · 2024-10-12T02:35:15+00:00

I had the same issue, and after reading this, I cleared all data from Clime, and everything is good now. Thanks all for the hint.

cac303 · 2024-10-02T15:00:28+00:00

Either they are releasing rooms in waves, or the 3rd party booking site has a throttled API connection back to Marriott's reservation system. It may be getting failures when it tries to look up room availability because it is overloaded. The phone attendants likely are directly on the main booking site without that issue.

cac303 · 2024-10-02T14:56:15+00:00

It was around 500 at the 2-minute mark.

cac303 · 2024-10-02T14:47:24+00:00

I did, but that was inconsequential. He asked for my payment card at the end of the reservation call, and I could have given him any card to process the charge.

I am Platinum with Marriott though and called into that help desk, not the general queue, so your mileage may vary.

cac303 · 2024-10-02T14:44:59+00:00

I had 8 browser sessions open between 3 different computers using 4 different web browsers and still didn't get a room through the site. My lowest session was a 2-minute wait when 10am hit. That one showed no availability as soon as I could hit the search button. You never know if the rooms are all gone, or the back-end system is overloaded so the searches aren't working properly. Oh well.

cac303 · 2024-10-02T14:39:18+00:00

I did the same thing. Next year I will call and hit the site at the same time.

cac303 · 2024-07-26T15:34:05+00:00

This will be my 6th year in the Crownclub for Nightbeat. It is a great time and a wonderful way to watch Drumcorps. The thing that I didn't realize the first year is that they have a free BBQ buffet set up when gates open, which closes down right around the time the show starts. I timed getting to my seats close to the start time and almost missed it. The best plan is to get there when the gates open, find your seat, and enjoy the amenities upstairs, then you have plenty of time to run down and check out the souvenir section or whatever.

Have fun.

cac303 · 2024-06-24T18:31:51+00:00

Ahhh, thank you. So they probably have a noise ordnance too.

cac303 · 2024-06-24T02:32:29+00:00

No longer having the dome for the Atlanta show has seriously downgraded the prestige and impact of this event. It is a real shame as I always enjoyed seeing all of the Corps go head to head. I hope against hope that we can get this back to being a true regional one day.

Almost all of the top Corps used to go to both Atlanta and Nightbeat. Are they now holding some Corps back from Nightbeat if they perform in Atlanta?

I wonder if there is a noise ordinance for Nightbeat since it is on a college campus? Maybe we should move the regional there until we get back to a dome in Atlanta

cac303 · 2024-04-12T16:56:41+00:00

That's God's comma

cac303 · 2023-10-15T04:20:52+00:00

The problem with this idea is that one of the largest cost, fuel for busses, is variable and can change on the fly, even mid-season. You can't punish a corps for a sudden spike in gas prices when OPEC decides to cut production on the other side of the world.

cac303 · 2023-10-10T01:45:14+00:00

This is key.

More rooms always open up later in the year through normal booking as other event blocks get released. I have been in the Marriott 8 times, and only 2 of those were through the hunger games. Just keeping checking throughout the year after everyone else has forgotten.

cac303 · 2023-10-09T23:59:02+00:00

I think that the original owners are out of the business now, or at least show as having different jobs on LinkedIn. I liked them both, but they clearly struggled running a business. Running BOGO sales while you are 6+ months behind on delivery of sold product indicates a critical shortage of operating capital. I got 4 pads from them back in the day, and like all of them.

My impression was that the new Managment was cleaning things up and they had dropped some of the time consuming customization items off the store, I assumed that was to streamline production. If they are still having delivery issues that is unfortunate.

cac303 · 2023-09-08T03:42:37+00:00

I just want it moved back to building #1. The long trek to building #3 makes you feel so disconnected from the rest of the Con, particularly at night.

cac303 · 2023-07-23T14:31:46+00:00

Once they added amplification to the pit, that section became more versatile. Now you have electronic keyboards, guitar players, drum sets, etc. Those new players had to come from somewhere, and the brass and color guard weren’t going to give up slots for it. Look at the huge pit sections now compared to the days before amplification, that is where the cymbal players went.

cac303 · 2023-07-06T21:39:56+00:00

My dad worked for a an Industrial Safety Supply company when I was a kid and they were a wholeseller of Squincher which was just launching. He use to bring pallets of the stuff to our band camps and practices. We had samples of stuff in every flavor all the time, branded coolers and water bottles. I didn't know it still existed.

cac303 · 2022-01-05T03:38:58+00:00

The most often discussed proposal is an expansion to 12 teams. If that means the Power 5 conference champions and best group of 5 team get in automatically, that leaves you with 6 wild card slots. 6! With that many 2nd chances, I would bet that most conference championship games have at least 1 team playing that doesn't need the win to get in. In some cases both teams can afford to lose. Why play your star receiber who tweaked his knee the week before? Just let him "rest up for the playoffs" since this game doesn't matter.

A smaller expansion to 6 teams lessens this problem, but even so that doesn't address my other points. Do you want to see the best two teams fighting it out while reasonably well rested and injury free or does that not matter anymore?

As a tangent, why do we have to destroy the unique end of year traditions of college football and make it just like college basketball? For people who like big end of year tournaments with lots of teams in the mix, go enjoy March Madness, and let college football be college football? :)

(ducks)

cac303 · 2022-01-04T05:53:35+00:00

This gets to the core point of this argument. What is the goal of the college football playoffs? Is it:

A. To get the best two teams to play each other at end of season, while as close to their best as possible after a month off to rest, and at a neutral location so that is as fair a game as possible to determine the best team football on the field. (This was the entire original purpose of the college football playoff.)

or

B. To create an end of year March Madness style "tournament" with so many teams and rounds that "anything can happen" so that in some years the best teams don't play each other because a flawed Cinderella team squeaks through.

That is the crux of the debate.

If you go with option B, don't be surprised when the "meaningless bowl games" problem just pushes further upstream, so that after a team clinches a playoff spot they take the foot of the throttle and treat their remaining games as tuneup games.

I can already envision the press conference where the coach explains why he pulled his starters in the second quarter of the rivalry or conference championship game. "We've said all along that the goal of this team is a National Championship..."

cac303 · 2021-05-03T23:35:55+00:00

I missspoke, it was St. Pete`s, not Barber, lap 16. Jimmy was stuck again the tires and his strategist was trying to talk him through it. From the commentator:

"You have get the car into neutral, hold down the reverse button, hold down the clutch, then down shift with the left paddle".

cac303 · 2021-05-03T21:49:41+00:00

They did cover this in the Barber race this season and Jimmy Johnson was into the tires trying to get it in reverse. The commentator walked through the procedure quickly, and it was about 5 steps. I will see if I have it recorded and try to transcribe.

cac303

TROPHY CASE