5/17 WARM SPRINGS [Washington]

I don’t really know what happened here. We almost certainly went to a school gym of some kind. I remember wiring one of my cameras into the sound system, which is a strangely satisfying thing to do. We filmed some outside interviews, and I got to try out my new microphone for the first time – it worked really, really well in the wind.

Setting two long-running patterns, attendance was less than anticipated, and most of the audience sat as far as possible towards the back. No one ever really sits in the first three rows, regardless of where they’re actually location in relation to the speaker.

The final ceremony was a long march around a huge courtyard area, with drums and all the trappings. As the cameraman, my job was to sprint ahead of the group, film them approaching, then sprint forward to a new place.

The rest of the day is pretty fuzzy, although I’m pretty sure it ended with a few hours of driving, just like almost every day. Why was the day a huge success? Some of us were working on under five hours of sleep in two days – the others were close to that, too. Even so, we put on a whole day worth of ceremony and presentation, plus hours of driving; and no one snapped at anyone else, no one gave up or quit, no one broke down. That is success.

I did fall asleep and miss lunch, though.