See y'all at Drum Corps heaven in Madison

The annual caravan to the DCInternational Drum & Bugle Corps Championships will take place in August in Madison, WI. The Finals will conclude the DCI season on August 12, www.dci.org . DCAssociates has their championships in "Rachacha," Rochester, NY, Labor Day weekend, www.dcacorps.org .

Everyone it seems will be there. Ryan Turner, Velvet Knights drum major in '86 - '87, is flying in from the Left Coast, thanks to encouragement from John Donovan, some Drum Corps Planet honcho, www.drumcorpsplanet.com . James Dawson, CorpsVets pit and DCPlanet contest ticket winner, and Jerald Sheets, CorpsVets sop soloist, will both be cheering for their fave corps.

I'll be there parking buses...Maybe even doing some other tasks. Look for me at the Drum Corps World booth. Please say "hi" and subscribe, www.drumcorpsworld.com . Hopefully, they'll let me down at field level some. I sometimes have trouble getting into the VIP suite as they require shoes, and I keep flunking the spelling test on the same word: "VIP."

General Effect: The generic definition, please

If only I could grasp the meaning of General Effect so easily. For the past decade, I have no earthly idea what the judges are instructed to look for during the off-season meetings in several associations.

An offer from Mars you can't refuse

Nourishment has been discovered from Mars -- The Blue Devils "Godfather: Part Blue."