Squirrel on a Bass Drum and other Tales

I'm Sure this Happens to Every Band Director
During The Colleague's birthday throwdown at the Casa de Playa, the Youngest Colleague Brother regaled us with what has to be the best "first day of school" story any teacher has ever witnessed and told. Now there is no way to capture the storytelling abilities of said Youngest Brother, so I will just tell you the following details and allow you to write your own tale. Note: details are in random order:

• Youngest Colleague Brother is band director at local (elite) high school
• Over the summer, a family of squirrels made a home in the ceiling of the band room
• Young special needs student takes giant poop on hallway floor
• Squirrel falls from ceiling onto bass drum
• Vietnamese custodian vomits ONTO pile of poop on hallway floor
• Crafty students use sousophones to build squirrel maze
• Band director decides this is the best day of school ever

The Beach Report
The above-mentioned birthday bash for The Colleague has come and gone. Friends and family gathered at the beach for a last little taste of summer. There was no pomp. Little circumstance. There was quite a bit of snoring and a few skinned knees. When it was all said and done, The Colleague was officially 40 years of age and Supervan was loaded up with 15 bags of empty bottles. I hope you feel welcomed into your second 40 years, Colleague. There was a lot of love on that beach.

The Swarm
I love the warm weather and all, but the sooner we can get a nice hard freeze overnight to kill whatever damn bugs have hatched along the Burke Gilman trail, the better. There I am, cruising along the trail at a nice 8:30 pace when the swarm descended upon me. Little tiny fuckers that flew up my nose, into my mouth, into my ears, behind my Oakleys. It was heinous.

I found that when running west, into the sun, I could see the little swarms coming and sort of dodge them (when the trail wasn't blocked by teams of Super Lycra Dudes power commuting from Redmond to Seattle on their $3,000 bikes). But running east I only knew they were there because they were getting in my teeth.

The protein packed bugs in question are tiny, like little gnats or miniature mosquitoes, and the swarms of them are huge, maybe 20 feet across.

Anyone know the story with these things? I don't remember them from last fall but surely they are a regular phenomena on the old BG Trail. Whatever they are, they turned what was going to be a 9-10 miler on the trail (read: easy on the calves and feet) into a 6 mile loop back up into the Kenmore Summit, where the hills are steep and at least one neighbor wants me dead. Good times.

Coming Soon...
I have been back to the Learnin' Factory a few times in preparation for the start of the school year and it seems like I'm going to have to write my annual Learnin' Factory Prediction Post soon. It shouldn't be hard...not much has changed.

People really think these things matter, don't they? Stay tuned.