One day down, many more to go!

Well, it was pretty early and pretty chilly when we left Charlottesville this morning. As usual, several guys showed up late and two guys would have missed the bus had we not called and awakened them. Special thanks to Flammenwerfer for giving so many guys rides to the bus! I'm thinking of getting a cattle prod for future use. We met our seasoned bus driver, J. W., and proceeded to torture him with several B-grade movies on the bus's DVD system. We stopped in Maryland for a quick rest stop. As you can see, some of them weren't quite awake yet. Doppelgänger, though, seemed to have a pretty good time at the rest stop.

We rolled into Philadelphia around lunchtime and headed for the two famous and competing Philly Cheese Steak emporia: Geno's and Pat's. Though Geno's had the flashier signage, the jury's still out on which place had the best sandwiches. After lunch, we headed for the Liberty Bell, where we learned that Pennsylvania is misspelled on the bell. We then tried to get to Doylestown and eventually made it, though the traffic was fierce. We met our generous and gracious hosts, Dr. Joseph Ohrt and the Central Bucks West High School Men's Ensemble. After a quick rehearsal of our two combined numbers (Thompson: The Pasture and Biebl: Ave Maria), we feasted on a dinner provided by some moms of the Men's Ensemble students.


While Balderdash amused (frightened?) some of the high school guys with tales of life at UVA, Radagast reacted with horror. Others (Trifecta, Keebler and half of Caspian) got acquainted in more traditional ways, and a good time was had by all.


I like to call this one "Dumb, Dumber and Percolator," but they didn't think it was funny when I told them (except for Percolator).

The concert went pretty well, considering how long a day we'd had. The Central Bucks Men wowed us with several new works and some flashy movement that was really effective. Who knew there was a place for Ninjas in men's choral music? We enjoyed seeing so many UVa alumni at the concert and were glad to welcome them onstage to sing 10K and the Good Old Song. It was also great to see Glee Club Alumni and Friends Chairman Doug List, who lives nearby and finally didn't have to travel too far to hear Club sing. It was also nice to see last year's Glee Club president, Jack McQuarrie, whose grandparents arranged housing for most of the Club guys in town. Tomorrow, another early day as we head to Northampton, Mass. and our rehearsals with the Smith College Glee Club for Sunday's performance of the Fauré Requiem.