Dr. Phil’s “Blogajawea”

Well friends, fans and strangers, it’s time for another entry in the blogosphere finally.  There have been a number of things that have gone on since my last post.  Work at WebMD continues to be busy, the Personal Health Record area is starting to get a lot of attention, the house is gutted and being remodeled, and there’s this drum corps called the Oregon Crusaders which is getting all charged up and ready to rock the heartland.

Whew, so where do I start?  Well, since the Oregon Crusaders is on the verge of their first performance (dress rehearsal in 2.5 hrs), I’m going to start and end with OC.  We’ve had some ups and downs in membership, but the kids who are here are working their butts off and we’ve seen tremendous progress in the last few days (and it’s been 67-70 degrees and partly cloudy the entire time).  The show Inner Connections is such a rich piece of work that it’s difficult to put into words.  Every element of it has been written so that all sections contribute to a complex but engaging (and very demanding) show.  Our bus seat partners have been determined, we’ve got the bus company and the trucking company ready to go, and we’re looking forward to a great season. 

We were sorry to have to cut our first tour a show short.  Our financial campaign has come up short, so we had to make some tough choices.  But as hard as that decision was, it helped us to have complete confidence in the full eastern tour, where I’ll be “Back home again in Indiana.”

If you liked our show last year, just wait until you see this one!  Hope to see you soon!

Last Saturday, during our first camp and Orientation for the 08 season for the Oregon Crusaders, I asked our vets to stand.  About 40 students rose, and 35 of them had been rookies just a year ago.  They had gone through the drum corps experience.  They had learned so much, and they were ready to now enter a new year transformed.  Transformed as veterans. 

It would be easy to talk about the students.  All the experiences.  The friendships.  The competitions.  The gates.  But it has been more difficult to realize my own transformation.  Before this last season, I talked about drum corps from a first person perspective like I really knew about it.  I had been a long-time fan, and had even been fortunate enough to get to know the Santa Clara Vanguard as a member of their Board of Directors.  But I had never marched drum corps.  I had never even really volunteered for drum corps.  Whatever it was I had, it wasn’t exactly drum corps experience.  But at the end of 2006, when my local drum corps had lost its staff and was in danger of folding, I thought that I could help.  I became the executive director, with the plan of hiring a corps director to help manage the corps.  I wasn’t able to find that person last year, but was lucky enough to find other passionate and talented staff to help me to keep the corps going and to create a new foundation for the group.  I served as corps director as well, and during the process I had one of the most rewarding and gruelling years I could ever have imagined. 

Before 2007, I loved drum corps because I loved the artform.  The power. The sound.  And I had a vision for what the artform could achieve.  New and wonderful things.  I have never been emotionally moved like I am with a strong drum corps (or a hornline with a good melody and plenty of impact, at least).  But 2007 changed that.  By the time we had gone through the camps and all-days, the staff and students had become just as important a part of drum corps to me as the art.    And then there was tour.  It was a a blur.  A gruelling blur that is mostly blocked from my mind.  Housing was a nightmare, at least in California.  Getting the fleet where it needed to be was a major stress.  There were a number of issues.  I thought that I would have some emotional epiphany when we finally reached Finals in Pasadena, but I had been so emotionally and physically drained by the journey that I had nothing left.  No reserve.  I just wanted to get us back to Portland safe and sound.  

When we reached Portland, it took me a while to recover, and then a few weeks later we had our banquet.  Despite the stress, the pain, the strain of the tour, the kids had had a great experience and they were so thankful, and they were looking forward to next year.  Their spirit lifted me up, and I was more enthusiastic than ever that we could achieve something new, something great.  And what’s more, we were able to find fantastic staff members to add to our staff of 2007 - a program coordinator, and a corps director.

So with our new momentum, and with the experience of 2007 behind us, I knew a lot more about what to do and what not to do. Things were back into perspective.  And with that, we’ve kicked off the new season with a great camp, and I spent Thanksgiving being confident about our year ahead.

Confidence.  Perspective.  Drive.   A rookie no more.

Over 110 performers from around the Northwest joined us yesterday at Southridge High School in Beaverton for the OC Orientation for the 2008 season.  Not only did we have a great turnout, but we have already learned some of our 2008 show, Inner Connections!  See www.oregoncrusaders.org for a video scrapbook from the camp.  Jeff, Travis, Todd, Missy, Chris, Ron, Mike and the whole staff were excited by the level of commitment and enthusiasm of our students. 

In the morning we started with some opening remarks, and I had all the people who were veterans 1 year ago (i.e. had marched 2006 or earlier) and who came to our auditions exactly 1 year ago stand up.  About 5 people stood up.  The crowd applauded because these were the people who believed in us the most.  They invested their time and effort into helping the Oregon Crusaders survive, and become great in the 2007 season.  I then asked all of our veterans who were joining for 2008 to stand.  An additional 35 people stood up.  We’ve gone from having only a handful of veterans to over 40 returning! 

And in addition to all the people (vets and new members) who joined us yesterday, there is another 40 who have signed up to be a part of OC but had a conflict yesterday.  What a great start to the season! 

While we cannot predict the future, I bet that the students who were with us yesterday will tell their friends, and we will have a mighty powerful drum corps this season!

Some pictures from yesterday:

Welcome everyone to my new blog.  I felt like I was the only one left who didn’t have one, so here it is! 

Blogajawea! is where I’ll post information about my travels, my work toward helping Americans take better control of their helath care, the Oregon Crusaders Drum and Bugle Corps, and other aspects of my life.

The name Blogajawea! comes (of course) from blog + sacajawea, not because I live on Sauvie Island which was one of Lewis and Clark’s stops (with Sacajawea), but because last year while in Astoria for the drum corps camp I began adding “ajawea” to lots of words.  Thanks to Travisajawea for his encouragement and support for adding ajaewea to every wordajawea.

So Welcome!  I hope you enjoy the posts.