DOWN TO THE NITTY-GRITTY : FLOAT CREWS RUSH TO BEAT DEADLINE.Byline: Luz Villarreal Daily News Staff Writer While most of the world is anticipating Tuesday night's countdown to the New Year, thousands of volunteers decorating floats for the 108th Tournament of Roses Parade The Tournament of Roses Parade was established, and first held, on January 1,1890, in Pasadena, California, eight miles (13 km) northeast of Downtown Los Angeles. Rooted in tradition, this parade is broadcast on multiple television networks, watched by upwards of one are working under a different deadline. They're counting down to 3 p.m. Tuesday, when judges responsible for ranking the 57 floats in the New Year's Day parade The New Year's Day Parade is parade of 10,000 performers through the streets of the West End of London which takes place annually on 1 January. The first year the parade took place was 1987 as the Lord Mayor of Westminster's Big Parade. will inspect every visible inch of the gigantic floral displays. ``Everybody thinks we have until midnight, but we don't,'' said Nan Koupal, crew chief for Unocal's underwater-fantasy float, which features a large mermaid and brightly colored sea animals. ``It's my job to have this done by 3 p.m. on Dec. 31.'' The 33-year-old Agoura Hills woman, who has decorated parade floats since she was a youngster, issued marching orders Noun 1. marching order - equipage for marching; "the company was dressed in full marching order" equipage, materiel - equipment and supplies of a military force to her volunteers Sunday inside the Rosemont Pavilion near the Rose Bowl, where 14 floats were still under construction Sunday. ``You either love it or you hate it,'' she said. ``Me? I'll be 90 years old and still doing these floats.'' With the clock ticking to Tuesday's deadline, volunteers were running on caffeine, fast food and adrenaline during Sunday's last-minute frenzy. ``It's hard to describe the feeling,'' said Janet Thornton Professor Janet M. Thornton CBE, FRS, is Director of the European Bioinformatics Institute on the Genome Campus at Hinxton, near Cambridge, U.K. She is one of the world’s leading researchers in structural bioinformatics, using computational methods to understand protein of Canoga Park, a member of the detail crew for float builder Phoenix Decorating of Pasadena. ``Everyone is working very hard for the same thing. It's a lot of work, but you can't rush it. Everything has to be in its place before the float goes out.'' For 11 years, the Years, The the seven decades of Eleanor Pargiter’s life. [Br. Lit.: Benét, 1109] See : Time 54-year-old schoolteacher has dedicated hundreds of hours to the painstaking work of pasting flower petals, crushed rice, seeds and a variety of vegetable matter to parade floats. In the process, she's become attached to them, often naming the projects she works on. ``I've named this one Alexander,'' she said of the horse on the Automobile Club's float, ``Camelot to the Rescue.'' Thornton forgets about the long hours when she sees the finished product. ``It's the climax of the year,'' she says of the annual decorating effort. ``It's also a great way to start the next year - seeing your float on Jan. 1.'' The enthusiasm is contagious, even for first-time float decorators like Lisa Gaudet and her niece Sandra Geraldo, who were working on the Unocal float Sunday. Neither has ever watched the Rose Parade - live or on television - but both can't wait to volunteer again next year. ``It's amazing a·maze v. a·mazed, a·maz·ing, a·maz·es v.tr. 1. To affect with great wonder; astonish. See Synonyms at surprise. 2. Obsolete To bewilder; perplex. v.intr. the amount of work that goes into it,'' said Gaudet, 34, of Reseda as she glued tea leaves to a turtle in the underwater-fantasy float. Geraldo, a 14-year-old freshman at San Fernando High School San Fernando High School, located in San Fernando, California, is a secondary school that is a part of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The school colors are black and gold. All girl teams are referred to as Lady Tigers, all boy teams simply as Tigers. , said she was surprised the floats were not all made of, well, roses. ``I had no idea. I didn't think it was all rice, beans and seeds, too,'' she said. The floats will make their debut at 8 a.m. Wednesday before an anticipated 1 million people lining the 5.5-mile parade route. An additional 425 million people in more than 100 countries are expected to watch the parade on television. On Sunday, thousands of people got a peek at the floats at five decorating sites in Pasadena, Duarte and Azusa. Thousands more attended the fourth annual Rose Bowl Family Festival, enjoying food, live music, horse shows and tours of the Rose Bowl, under sunny skies and 65-degree temperatures. The admission-free festival will continue today from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. More than 150,000 people are expected to attend by Tuesday. Rose Parade marching bands from around the world are also performing field shows inside the Rose Bowl. Admission is $5. Float viewing will continue today from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is $2 per person to tour all five float decorating sites. Children under 8 are admitted free. CAPTION(S): 2 Photos, Map Map: ROSE PARADE ROUTE The 108th Tournament of Roses Parade will get under way at 8 a.m. Wedneday. The parade will start at South Orange Grove Boulevard and head east on Colorado Boulevard Colorado Boulevard (or Colorado Street) is a major east-west street in Southern California, United States. It runs from Griffith Park in Los Angeles east through Glendale, the Eagle Rock section of Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Arcadia, ending in Monrovia. , then north on Sierra Madre Boulevard Sierra Madre Boulevard is a 7-mile long road connecting four suburbs of Pasadena, California; Hastings Ranch, East Pasadena, and San Marino. For the most part, is a winding road divided by a grassy median, built around an interurban line of the Pacific Electric. to Paloma Street. Floats can be viewed at the parade's end Parade's End is a tetralogy (four related novels) by Ford Madox Ford published between 1924 and 1928. It is set in England and on the Western Front in World War I, where Ford served as an officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, a life vividly depicted in the novels. near the corner of Sierra Madre Boulevard and Paloma Street. Photo: (1--Color) Tim Harrington attaches the hand to the fisherman on the Cal Poly Cal Poly may refer to:
(2--Color) Mike Stanley David R. Crane/Daily News |
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