On August 16th we had the Jackson Scottish Festival. The band did very well, taking first in both quick march medley and timed medley. We took first in piping both times. And second and third in ensemble and drumming (don't ask me which we took what in, cuz I dont' know).

Matt took second in 2/4 and 6/8 March, behind Dusty Gunn. It was expected, but Matt is most definitely improving. (Thanks Andrew!) Shawn only competed in MSR (march, strathspey, reel), and took second behind Justin Howland. Also expected. He opted out of Hornipe, Jig since he was having drone reed issues.

This year, we started a new tradition with having a clinic with the judges on Sunday. It didn't go quite as planned, but I still really enjoyed it. We got to have an open forum with the judges (Jimmy Bell, Patrick Reagan, and Ed Best). After a few hours of going over EVERYONE's score sheets (it was ok, we all have a lot of the same problems, and they did well to generalize their comments), we broke into pipers and drummers. I have no idea what the drummers did, since I'm a piper. However, Jimmy went over a few people's pipes and helped them be set up a little better. Then Patrick taught us a simple piobaireachd (pronounced kinda like pee-brock). For my first introduction to piobaireachd, it was actually not too bad!

Since nothing really went according to plan, we didn't get fed lunch. We finished at 2:30, filled up the cars, and stopped at Wendy's before heading home. Overall, the weekend was quite nice, especially compared to last year, which was quite cold and rainy.