Well, I thought we had decided on a float idea for this year.

I should have known better. Every year, at some point during the year, we definitively state, "THIS is what we’re going to do," only to change our minds about a month before the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and go in a completely different direction. This year was no different.

We had a super-secret float meeting at The Sandbar today with the veteran float builders, choreographers, and costumers. It might sound like we’re a professional bunch, and I guess after all these years of building floats- and almost always winning a prize- we could be called professionals. Peach brought her folder full of sketches made on construction paper, and she loaded up the jukebox with the songs for each idea. She made her pitch for each idea, giving us an idea of the structure we could build, the costumes we could wear, and of course the all-important song.

Some ideas were new; some we’ve seen before. None of them will be revealed because we might use it; if not this year, then next year or five years down the road. After we made it through Peach’s sketches, and the other new ideas that were brought to the meeting, we each got to make our case for our top two choices. We’re very democratic like that. Surprisingly, the same few ideas got all the votes, and we have a clear winner for this year. And it was my top choice so I’m super excited.

The most important factors that go into our decision are structure and music. A theme could be great, but if we can’t come up with some type of meaningful structure to build, it’s useless to us. Same with the music- if we can’t find a catchy, upbeat, danceable tune to go along with the theme, we won’t do it. This year, we have a fantastic structure to build, and two great songs that the crowd will know and love.

Dave had to be the rebel and suggest "Crank Dat." He even gave us a demonstration of the dance. Nobody bit on that one; although we did laugh ourselves silly at his dance.