The shoot for Extreme Home Makeover was fairly miserable. I knew this going in as the bus was being pelted with rain as soon as we left the UMN campus at 7:30 A.M. Upon our arrival we were scooted into a tent where we enjoyed a decent mini breakfast meal. Fun fact was that every pizza selection included some form of bacon which pretty much ruled me out eating any of it. I’m still on the egg-fish-dairy-chicken modified vegetarian diet that I’ve been keeping up since early 2006. There was a brief reprieve when the brass section was asked to enter the kitchen and participate in a scene being shot there. The trumpets made a valiant attempt to be featured up front by asking that everyone else go in before them. This attempt was quashed when the Dr. Diem (our marching band director) insisted that the trombones be up front. Nice! Either I’m completely in a full head on shot or I’m not in there at all. The scene setup was that volunteers were going to play the musical instruments that adorned the new living room’s shelves. They attempted to play them and sounded terrible. Paul Dimeo turns and asks ”if you guys” (off-camera) can help out? We then play the last note of the Minnesota Rouser at 130 decibels for several seconds after which he replies, ”Now that’s a band.” Yes, it’s corny, but then again so is the entire premise of the show.