Yeah!!!

The ball is over!!! Next week my life returns to normal and I can go back to having two hour lunches and I can go home as early as I want - yeah!!! Friday was a little chaotic and stressful, but it went. Here's the play by play:

In the morning I got up with Kurt and his dad and went out to the golf course. The guy running the tournament really didn't need my help, but since I was there, I volunteered to sit at the registration table and take people's money (I'm pretty good at that). I was originally going to play golf, but decided I'd better not and gave my ticket to our friend Mike who had a good time. Instead, I went to work and made sure that everything was on track for the ball.

When I got to work the ladies were printing the last posters and programs and the Master Sergeant was gathering the detail that was going to help with the setup. Everything seemed to be going fine, so I left for the hotel. When I got there the tables were in their correct places, but there was only one guy putting everything else together - no chairs or tablecloths or anything like that. We started putting our flags up and getting everything we could arranged. By noon, we were done and waiting on the hotel staff (who decided to take a two hour lunch break), the emcee who was still golfing and all the rest of the people participating. They all came, slowly, but never at the same time. The color guard practiced by themselves, the emcee ran through everything by herself, the COL came after she left and made changes to her script and the audiovisual guys were having serious issues. That was the stressful part, but it all came together right around 5:45pm, 15 minutes before people were scheduled to arrive. It was a good thing I brought my outfit to the hotel and was able to just change there. The room looked great, but we never had a chance to rehearse the evening (which would be apparent later).

People started to arrive around 6:00-6:15 and we were supposed to have a receiving line, which is a stupid thing where where everyone gets to go shake the host and General's hands and maybe have time to say hello. No one likes doing it and we actually voted not to have a receiving line, but the COL decided he wanted one, and that was that. It was a complete bust, and no one went down to the room where the receiving line was and they (the General included) just ended up standing there. I really wanted to say 'I told you so' to the COL. But no big deal, they just closed the line early and everyone mingled. Everyone seemed to be doing fine. Except for starting a bit late, everything was going fine. The first mistake was on the part of the emcee (an Officer who no one is really fond of to begin with). She decided not to look at her script and told everyone to take their seats right before the toasts, so after we were seated, we had to stand back up again - a small thing. After all the toasts were finished, next was a video presentation and the emcee did a horrible job of getting everyone's attention. She just wasn't loud and didn't have a voice that carried well. Once the video started, everyone quieted down and watched, until the sound went out. The AV guys scrambled and were able to get it going after about 30 seconds, but it felt like a long 30 seconds. They also had to mess with the sound board to get it to sound right (which comes in later). After that there were a few announcements that no one heard, because again the emcee just kind of sucked, and then dinner. I was smart in putting my table in the back with all the funny people who had no manners (we had a great time), but was not smart in forgetting to tell the hotel that we should be served first. Dinner took forever but the food was actually pretty decent. The emcee made up some time by talking fast through the history of the aviation branch and then got to the cake cutting ceremony. They did the cake cutting and she asked everyone to remain standing for the singing of the Aviation Song. This is where I went "oh sh*t". I forgot all about the background music for the song. I mean, I asked someone else to get it for me, but I didn't ask him what he did with it or how we were going to play it. With everyone standing there waiting for the music to start, I ran up to the front and told the emcee that we would have to sing without music. It is an awful song to sing and even more awful without music. I thought the whole thing was pretty funny, but still I was quite embarrassed. I was lucky that our Command Sergeant Major didn't make it to the ball, he would have killed me. After the cake, there was a short break before the entertainment. They started off singing "Sweet Home Alabama" which sounded awful since we had messed with their mixing board during our video presentation, but they worked it out. The rest of the night went okay, the General was mildly entertaining and didn't talk for too long. For the end of the night, I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice and had arranged with the DJ to play the background music for the Army song. Unfortunately, the emcee decided to wonder off script again, and the DJ's cue to play the music got messed up and everyone stood there for an awkward few seconds until I was able to get his attention and get the music going. After the ball ended I snuck off to a back room and just relaxed while waiting for the ballroom to clear out. I didn't want to hear any remarks about the night, good or bad, from anyone. Plus, my feet were killing me and I need to get off them (it's taken two days now for my poor feet to recover). Overall, I had a great time and I think most of the Soldiers did too. The glitches that we had were pretty obvious, but all minor except the singing of the song without music. I realize now that if we had even one full dress rehearsal, none of those things probably would have happened, but it would have taken a lot more work on my part to get everything coordinated for a rehearsal. A fair trade-off I think. Now all that's left to do is print out thank yous and hand off the continuity book to someone else. I'm definitely ready for maternity leave :)