hughesmaxwell@gmail.com

the other photos

2008-11-11T07:43:00.001-08:00

day two hundred and eighty-nine

2008-11-11T06:18:00.000-08:00

This morning it was forty degrees in Perry Point. I walked from where I live at building 9H to the computer lab. The leaves on the trees have been falling for a while it seems and I would say that this is the last week that any of them will survive.

My time here in Maryland has passed quickly despite the lack of consistent work. A week ago, I went with Steve and some others to the Compassion Center in a neighborhood called College Park in Northeastern D.C. to help out with some chores. The CC provides a place for grief counseling through peer interaction in addition to some other obscure things. It is an odd place run by two people who are clearly not stable. I ranked it as the most bizarre day of work this year. But at least it was work.

Leaving New Orleans all those weeks ago was a drag but it got better at the airport. I saw John Goodman outside having a cigarette and then I saw him on my flight to Houston. He was reading a Time magazine in first class with his headphones on. When I saw him I thought about the acting roles I thought suited him. He was planned to play Ignatius Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces but it never happened. He has lived in New Orleans for some years and if anyone were to play that role it ought to be him.

Houston is a miserable place. The whole city just seems like it fell out of the sky. We stayed in Houston for the first two nights and during the day time we (my disaster composite team) worked at the mega-shelter in the southern part of the city cleaning cots. The American Red Cross was running the shelter. Typically, Red Cross volunteers get a Debit Staff Card that has $800.00 dollars on it to cover living needs for a 21 day deployment. It is too much money so we were living easy because all ten of us had one. We also had three rental cars between us so that provided more freedom than I was used to in AmeriCorps. We were not assigned a traditional team leader but we had Jayme that acted as our point of contact between Perry Point and the Red Cross. It was great to prove that a team doesn't need a team leader to function properly.

After our days in Houston were over we drove to Galveston. We stayed at a FEMA camp on the tarmac of the airport in Galveston. It was run by a company called Brookstone that has a bunch of camp equipment. They had showers, tents, computers, TVs, laundry machines, generators and all sorts of other things it takes to house 500 people in the middle of an airfield. They subcontract out the security to a company called ResponseForce1. It is made up of a bunch of over weight fellas that have the Marine Corps' colorless sentiment. They clearly couldn't get onto a police force but at least they take their job very seriously. The smell of the cafeteria made me want to retch. Consistently the food would be fried and/or covered in gravy. The salad would be soggy due to it being severely overdressed. I couldn't find peace in the camp because of the guns, generators, cots, tents, fences, ID cards, plastic bottles, etc.

Work was nice because I often got a chance to go out on an Emergency Response Vehicle (ERV). The ERVs are as big as small UHaul trucks with a window cut into the side of it that we use to pass out lunches and dinners. We would drive through the neighborhoods that still had no gas or electricity to feed the people that were still living there. I value the experience I had of talking to the people out in town. They were notably appreciative of our presence. We also fed a good deal of contractors working on homes. I can't say that they were the neediest since they were working and probably generating an income.

Because we had rental cars and not U.S. Government vans to travel in we had the freedom to drive to Austin two separate times. I like Austin an awful lot. We went to a natural swimming area called Barton Springs, played frisbee, drank coffee, hiked through the woods, played music and all of the stuff I forget about when I am working in a place like Galveston. Christian, my teammate in Texas, is from Austin so we were welcome to stay with his parents over night.

Back in the North I feel like I have decompressed a good amount. I have played football, frisbee, read, jogged, walked to the library and grocery store, slept, fasted on two separate days, and now I've become bored. I am itching to return home and begin my plans for real life. AmeriLife has fostered a bit of complacency in me. Much of my life was taken care of. I knew where I was but important decisions were already made for me. I don't appreciate that and I feel that it has inhibited my freedom.

I feel not like I have served my country. I have served people. I am offended that on this Veteran's Day we remember the people that willingly killed others in "service." I am not afraid to say that because as John Brown said, "a man dies when his time comes, and a man who fears is born out of time." I believe that the people who decide to serve their country with violence are afraid to choose for themselves. John Brown didn't deserve to be hung. He earned the opportunity to die at Harper's Ferry. Brown's "country" couldn't purge their misdoings with his blood. For those who had no choice, I empathize.

perry point photos

2008-11-06T10:32:00.000-08:00

badger five

texas photos

2008-11-06T10:04:00.001-08:00

day two hundred and fifty-three

2008-10-06T16:43:00.000-07:00

Coming off of a wild weekend, I've had even a bit more unexpected news delivered to me today. But first, let me explain the events leading up to this point.

On Friday after we finished our laundry, Pete got a call from the director of operations of RT. She explained to Pete that some volunteers had canceled their scheduled work day at the last moment. We of course were willing to step in and work. Meg, Kelsey, Steve, and I had a project set up for that morning with Marilyn, the co-founder of the New Orleans Food and Farm Network (NOFFN), preventing us from committing our whole Saturday to working at the house where the rest of the team spent their day. The four of us worked from 9:15am until 12:30pm at a micro-farm in Mid-City. It was a kind of side project for Marilyn who normally does more administrative tasks for NOFFN. We also met the urban farm guru of New Orleans, Macon Fry the Garden Guy, who is an awfully nice chap who takes time out of his weekend to help set up gardens like the one we were working at. He has his own farm near Xavier University in a really obscure neighborhood where he just harvested some okra. I had no clue that okra stalks got so tall. At Marilyn's garden we spread out a big pile of soil that had just been delivered. It was blissfully repetitive work and for snacks she brought some apples and fig newtons. Her plans for the garden's bounty were unclear but she has made some kind of arrangement with the restaurant across the street from the garden about supplying them with produce. I think it will mostly be a model that the city of New Orleans can use if they want to develop some type of local urban food system. I appreciate the idea of keeping it as an awareness and education resource in lieu of turning it into a business enterprise.

After our work in the garden we went back to the house to scrape paint. Luckily, Meg and I had another project scheduled at the Iron Rail Book Collective later that afternoon. It is in the same warehouse as Plan B and is a great community resource for anyone to use. They have a remarkably lean lending library with all sort of super interesting books and a few computers with Internet access. Meg and I alphabetized the biographies and autobiographies and also put the philosophy books in chronological order from the pre-Socratics to the post-Modernists. She did most of the organizing.

The next bit of unexpected news came after Meg and I got through working at Iron Rail. Meg called Pete to alert him that we were done and Pete fired back and said that we were moving away from the DMZ to a volunteer housing building. We had to to gather our things and leave immediately because the plumbing was not working properly and the pipes were letting waste water into the downstairs part of our house. Our new shack is a church called the Church of the Annunciation and it is a part of the Church of England. It is extra swank. Nice mattresses, breakfast, lunch, dinner, hearty showers...the works. We are living with a team from the Denver campus that is also working with RT but they seem to be a little bit shy. There was a funny incident that occurred during our first night's sleep. A Denver Team Leader that was visiting the Team Leader of the team staying here now somehow spent the night in our building. While Kyle was out for the night she found her way into our room. She choose the closest and most available bed she could find and that happened to be Kyle's. She only stayed for a few minutes but after she left there was a moist area on the mattress. The only thing I saw was her bare bottom exit our room while I heard Pete say, "Who are you?" Kyle arrived not more than ten minutes later to find his bag and mattress damp. He was understandably distressed.

Today's work was typical. We primed another house in Broadmoor. The last and most notable piece of unexpected news came from Pete once again. I am going to Texas to work at an American Red Cross Shelter. Pete let me know that he had received a call from Headquarters in Maryland saying that I am leaving tomorrow. I don't know much but I know that my airplane leaves at 11:55am and arrives in Houston sometime after that. I could be working in a shelter anywhere from Galveston to Corpus Christi. I am assuming that the shelter serves those displaced by Hurricane Ike. This is typical of NCCC. My teammate Nat was sent to run a shelter for Hurricane Gustav several weeks ago and has since returned to our team. He was in Alexandria, Louisiana and then Baton Rouge.

I am disappointed to be leaving New Orleans. I am comfortable here but I think this will be an enriching experience. Because I don't know how much access I will have to a computer with Internet access, this may be my last transmission for the time that I am in TAY-hass.

day two hundred and forty-eight

2008-10-02T16:14:00.000-07:00

We just got back from City Park. We played Ultimate Frisbee and I had a lot of fun. We challenged Badger 4 to a game when we go back to Maryland. I think we can take it to them if we play well. They are revered as the jock team so if we could beat them we would have supreme bragging rights.

Yesterday's work was the true post-Katrina experience. We gutted a house in Broadmoor. Two refrigerators, an ice box, two toilets, two 300 lbs cast iron bath tubs and a dumpster and a half worth of debris. We threw a ton of furniture away. It was satisfying work. One of the refrigerators had not been emptied prior to evacuating so there was some very rancid goo living inside. We duct taped it shut and literally tossed it into the dumpster. It was quite a sight. We hoisted the box of rot onto the ledge of the porch and then Kyle, Nat, Pete, and I pushed it off and into the dumpster waiting below. It gave a loud whack and then leached muddy blackish slop onto the floor of the dumpster. Unfortunately, there isn't the practice of disposing car batteries, refrigerators or anything hazardous properly in New Orleans. It all goes to the same landfill on the West Bank. I smashed my middle finger and now it's bruised.

"The mouse ate our flour," cried Bre. We have little animals in our house that come out after we go off to bed. They eat crumbs from the floor and occasionally they find their way into an open bag of chips.

I am excited to see Palin and Biden go at it. nytimes.com has it online so it will be easy for us to watch. I'm not going to vote. Obama has gone from "the change" during his campaign for the nomination to the same old middle-of-the-road whatchamacallit. The key is to not have any expectations because he isn't going to do nothing about anything.

day two hundred and forty-three

2008-09-27T14:41:00.000-07:00

This week's work was familiar to me. We were tasked with the job of priming and preparing a house is Tremé. Throughout October there will be a total of 4000 volunteers working for RT in New Orleans. Our team is working to prepare as much work as possible for essentially unskilled laborers to complete. The majority of those volunteers will be S*bucks coffee employees. The general thought that is behind corporate involvement in non-profit/volunteer work is that it gives relevancy and a cause for remark to the corporation so that they can post photos on their website or newsletter. Something like: "Thousands of Baristas Descend on the Crescent City to Rebuild" with a few golden images of people wearing green mermaid shirts with paint brushes in their hands. RT will reap the benefit of donated money and equipment from the corporation so that they can put toward aggressive progress on homes.

The house we worked on was two stories with little to no ground space surrounding it. We used extension ladders that barely satisfied the height demand. We finished on Thursday morning and there was not any work planned for us because the director of field operations for RT thought it would take us the entire week to complete. For the rest of Thursday and all of Friday we worked briefly at a house in Holy Cross clearing the area around it so that volunteers don't trip while they work on the exterior of the house and at the salvage yard de-nailing ancient wood that can be resold. Apparently termites don't like old wood, particularly Cypress, so using it to build is beneficial.

There seems to be a lot of waiting around before, between, and after work. That is evidence of RT not operating as efficiently as we thought it would.

There was a Critical Mass bike ride last night that I participated in. It was tiny compared to ones in San Diego but it was still exciting to be participating. There were only around 50 of us and we left Jackson Square in the French Quarter at around 7:00pm. We rode through the Quarter, into the Marigny, back through the Quarter via Decatur St., then into Mid-City/Tremé where it kind of just dissolved. I rode on with a smaller group back toward the river.

This morning Steve and I walked to the Farmer's Market and then to the book store we like on Chartres St. I couldn't find any Knut Hamsun books. I couldn't resist Henry Miller.

day two hundred and thirty-six

2008-09-20T19:29:00.001-07:00

I'm no insect expert but I've concluded that the welt that I noticed on my arm yesterday during lunchtime was induced by the bite of some kind of arachnid. I looked closely in the light today and the two fang holes are evident. Aside from the spider bite, work was fulfilling. We worked at a house also in Broadmoor that is in the begging stages of reconstruction. It had been gutted but the throwaway stuff was just stored in the backyard for some amount of time. Our job was to move the heap from the back to the front where a dumpster was waiting. It was dry but overcast all morning until the afternoon when a steady rain began. The pile was composed of smashed up lumber, drywall, plant debris, tile, and other ruined building material. The rain made it extra heavy and considerably more messy. The interesting thing about the pile was that it was a habitat for lots of little buggies. The pile had: ants, rollie pollies, black beetles, big fat Madagascar cockroaches, wolf spiders, small spiders, geckos, and frogs. I felt bad because we were taking away their home. After work we did laundry.

I woke up this morning at 7:15am and left the DMZ around 7:40am. I walked to a cafe in the Bywater which is a neighborhood adjacent to our neighborhood, St. Roch. The walk is not far; maybe three quarters of a mile. I liked all of the groovy stuff on the walls and the coffee was ok. After that I walked to the farmer's market on Magazine St. in Downtown, also called the Central Business District (CBD). It was indoors which I didn't expect because last time I visited it was held in the parking lot of the building it was housed in today. I guess they were planning for rain.
I bought some apples that were grown in Mississippi which I thought was strange. I didn't realize that apples did well in humid climates. I also got some honey, a jar of plum-jalapeño jelly, a slice of wheat banana bread, and some juice. I bought a bottle of watermelon-lime juice and a bottle of apple-beet-carrot juice. I drank them both there. I also got a tamale to bring back to Steve. On my way home I stopped at a yard sale and found a nice collared button-up shirt for only two dollars. It would have been less had the guy not known how good the condition of the shirt was. Steve liked his tamale and after he put on his clothes we left for the Marigny, a neighborhood that also borders St. Roch.

On Tuesday I went into a place called Plan B. I learned about Plan B at some point during my last stay in New Orleans in the Spring. Plan B is community-run bike project that functions as an open workspace for bicycle repair. The workspace makes an array of professional bike tools available for use to the public for free while volunteers offer free help in bike repair. The bike shop makes parts available at low cost or for small donations. All of the proceeds from parts sales are used to keep the project running. They are believers in community-based education and the idea that people learn things from others in a variety of settings. They feel that operating a space where folks can share what they know and learn what they don't strengthens a sense of community. Finally, they think it's important to rescue useful bikes and parts from the trash and reuse them to counter the extreme wastefulness of industrialized nations. Sounds good to me. Today was my last day in the shop getting my bike put together. It cost me sixty dollars total. It's a nice thing to have a bike.

day two hundred and thirty-three

2008-09-17T15:29:00.002-07:00

Auuhhh yes, back to the shackles of the N-Triple-C, literally. After returning from my two-week leave I share the same sense of confinement with Steve. We both spent time away, this past week, from the structure of AmeriCorps and had not noticed the freeing of our souls. Upon our return, we noticed a few new features of our Ameri-life. Now that we are living in a slightly more dangerous neighborhood of New Orleans (compared to our first project) we are not allowed to be a outside of our Demilitarized Zone alone at night. This means that if I were to leave the house during the daytime I could not return after the sun has gone down alone without being reprimanded by Pete.

Our house, which is bright green, has very nice hardwood floors with a couple of bathrooms, WiFi, and a purple ten-foot metal wall crowned with barbed wire. I feel oh-so-safe.

I flew into New Orleans Sunday night; Pete and Alyssa came to the airport to fetch me. I found my cot in a room that Steve and Kyle were living in. It is cramped but adequate.

Our first day of work was an orientation of how Rebuilding Together is structured and of New Orleans architecture. I appreciated the orientation because it was thorough and interesting. After our morning orientation we went back to the warehouse and salvage yard to do some work with Wilbur, the guy in charge. He had us moving ancient doors and windows salvaged from houses that were set to be demolished after the storm. It is open to the public and almost everything is for sale.

On Tuesday we went to Hollygrove, Lil' Wayne's old neighborhood, to go door-to-door signing people up to have trees planted in their front yards. We had some people interested but the majority were hesitant because trees tend to fall over when there are high winds. It was special to be able to knock on people's doors and actually talk to them. We covered a lot of ground and I was pooped after the day was over.

Today we worked with some other AmeriCorps people that are working for RTNO permanently. We spent the day at a double shotgun in Broadmoor (the lowest neightborhood in the the city) putting in fiber-glass insulation. It was easy to install but it was hard to keep it from touching my legs. I had gloves and long sleves on but my legs got a little itchy toward the end of the day. We will finish up tommorow.

Steve and I are going to see some music tonight in the Quarter. The venue is called One Eyed Jacks and the band is called Silver Jews. I can leave the DMZ after dark because Steve will be with me.

new orleans photos...again

2008-09-17T15:29:00.001-07:00

one of many pieces by banksy (elysian fields and decatur)

spooky abandoned warehouse (exterior)

spooky abandoned warehouse (interior)

plan b (the marigny)

my bicycle

farmer's market

creepy house across the street from the coffee shop (royal st.)

a neat corner townhouse with upstairs gallery (royal st.)

me sitting on a giant stack of drywall (broadmoor)

rainy friday morning

the kitchen with our electric stove...again

my room and my cot

the salvage yard

the view from our porch (faubourg st. roch)

the green house (our house...the DMZ)

day two hundred and eleven

2008-08-26T12:48:00.001-07:00

My last day of work here in Florida was fun. I worked on fitting trusses and nailing down ply-wood on the roof with Ralph, the guy I thought was always cranky. He was nice today; even playful. Ralph has been a carpenter his whole life with a stint teaching mentally disabled students. He is an acquaintance of Pete Seeger. He told me about watching Seeger play in upstate New York on the fourth of July and about his red woolen cap that was two sizes too small. It will be a sad day when Pete Seeger dies.

We ate at a restaurant called Squid Lips last night. It was a cheesy seafood place on the Indian River in Sebastian which is a town or two north of here. I was expecting our waiter to be dressed in pirate garb but it was just a crusty old lady that smiled a lot. I ate tuna. It was described on the menu as sashimi grade tuna lightly seared. I would have preferred it to be uncooked but it was still just fine. Peter paid for everyone so that was generous of him I guess.

After Dinner was over, we walked out of the back door and down onto the dock that extended out into the river. The sun was going down and Florida looked kind of pretty...for Florida. We were watching the water and checking out the catfish when someone said manatee and we all looked up. Out about 15 yards there was a big grey thing coming out of the water. It stuck its nose and it belly out to suck in some fresh air. It was bigger than a cow. I like manatees, they are vegetarian.

After spying on the manatee Steve sat us all down and read us a story that he wrote. It was about a single mom living in Indian River County that looses her house. It is a scenario that is probably fairly common.

Tonight I will clean one of the bathrooms in the lounge. Steve will clean the other. I need to do some laundry and clean out my trailer. I will attempt to do all of that after we get back from the beach. We are scheduled to leave for the beach at 5:45pm. I hope we don't have to stay too long. I will be a busy guy tonight.

We are leaving at 7:00am tomorrow. I'm all stocked up with Clif Bars and Kashi granola bars so I don't have to eat Arby's while on the road. Project Runway is tomorrow night and Meg and I are pumped up about seeing it. I hope the hotel we stay at has the Bravo channel. I will also be starting a new book called the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. It's written from the perspective of an 15-year old Autistic boy. Meg finished it today and I asked if I could take care of it for a while. I will have something interesting to read in the van. That's a good thing.

day two hundred and nine

2008-08-24T18:39:00.000-07:00

We are back from Steve's college journalism teacher's house. The team was invited to their vacation home after Steve sent the Chuck Fountain we kept hearing about an e-mail. Before our gathering, Steve got together with him for a drink and a little catching up at the Disney owned resort in Vero Beach. Steve said it was epic. They hadn't seen each other in two years so there was all of AmeriCorps and writing in New Mexico to talk about. Fountain was always a bit more fond of Steve during college so the fact that Steve wanted to get together was welcomed.

Fountain did some time at Boston College and Columbia. He is releasing a book this January about the business realm of Spring Training, with a few chapters devoted to Dodgertown here in Vero. It has a boring title: Under the March Sun. He's your typical New Englander with light grey hair and an unrealized potential. There were five Pulitzer winners that graduated from his class at Columbia. Fountain is a small fish.

Earlier today we found ourselves on the western shore of the Indian River wading into swamp water with trash bags in hand. Our "service day" was radical. We got to hang loose with Rodney, the Indian River Mosquito Control dude who loves to keep the river clear of trash. Today we focused on removing some lumber from hurricane destroyed docks that was strewn along the banks. I got bit on the neck by something. I think it was a spider. The swelling has gone down and I feel fine so I don't think it was venomous.

Yesterday, the beginning of our four day farewell tour of Indian River County, was spent at Steve's parents' friends' house in Port St. Lucie, which is about 40 minutes south of where we live. They were jolly folks with a big white house with landscape lighting and a few cameras pointed in several different directions. They were welcoming and very curious about AmeriCorps. I ate too much.

My birthday was a normal Friday. After work I was presented a watermelon that had HAPPY BIRTHDAY and the seven signatures of my teammates written on it with a Sharpie marker. It was way better than a stupid card.

Pete is taking the team out for dinner tomorrow night. We haven't decided on where we are going to eat. I would like to eat fish. Sashimi would be ideal.

On Tuesday, our last day of work, we are having a cook out at the beach with the Habitat folks. They are putting it together to thank us for helping out.

day two hundred and four

2008-08-19T10:46:00.000-07:00

Live from the Treasure Coast under siege of Tropical Storm Fay!

We worked for a few hours in the warehouse cleaning up and doing odd jobs instead of working at the subdivision today. I was pulling apart sliding glass doors. It was fun because there was lots of banging and breaking glass.

At around noon, Dave, the guy who runs the warehouse, said we ought to hang loose in the lounge because there was a tornado warning issued for our area. We aren't really taking things too seriously. Watching the local news coverage is hilarious. They are treating this storm like another Andrew. Don't get me wrong, it's the most intense rain I have ever experienced but it's just really windy (50 mph gusts) and lots of rain. We are watching the last half of Scarface. I like Michelle Pfeiffer. I think we are going to have to unload a semi-truck load of cabinetry that can't wait until tomorrow to be put into the warehouse. I won't need to take a shower tonight.

Last night we learned where our next project will be. We are working with Rebuilding Together in New Orleans. I'm insanely excited to be going back. It will be so nice to be there for the beginning of Fall. Rebuilding Together is a national non-profit organization with 225 affiliates across the United States. They aim to create affordable housing by bringing volunteers and communities together to rehabilitate the homes of low-income homeowners. More construction is a bit disappointing but I am glad to be working on houses in New Orleans. Another remarkable focus of RTNO is that they are committed to preserving the integrity of the culture and architecture of New Orleans while rehabilitating homes. They are in partnership with the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans.

On Sunday we have a "day of service" planned at a boat dock near the Habitat compound. Kelsey set it up and hopefully we can get a few volunteers from the community. I think we are picking up trash or something like that.

This last week of work will be slow I'm sure. I am eager get out of Florida.

day two hundred and two

2008-08-17T14:20:00.001-07:00

This morning we left the Habitat compound around 8:30 bound for the eastern shore of the Indian River. About a week ago, Kelsey set up a half day service project with the Keep Indian River Beautiful (KIRB) organization. It was a great way to spend the morning. We picked up trash along the water using kayaks. We each got our very own and a couple trash bags. I didn't do to well picking up trash. I got a medium Coke cup from Burger King, a triangular piece of wood with a few barnacles on it, a Bud Light can, and a large plastic pot for flowers or herbs (like one from Home Depot). The river was calm and wide. I saw a variety of birds: a big black one perched on a fallen tree holding a fish, two cranes, a small green bird, and one fat grey pelican. I also followed a dolphin for about half a mile. I got to within about five feet of it. It was not as big as the ones you usually see in the Pacific Ocean, really neat though. My back and arms are extra tired. I like kayaking.

After we got back, Steve, Alyssa, and I decided to go to the beach for a while. I think I will miss having the option of going to the beach when we leave Florida. I hope our next project is somewhere great where I won't miss being at the beach. I'm hoping for an education project in a place like Brooklyn or Boston.

Yesterday's half day of work was a bit different from what it usually is. We went back to the completed Grace Grove subdivision to lay mulch. There was a giant pile, about nine feet tall, and it took us about three hours to spread it all out. I like work that is laborious and simple. It's also a plus when you can see what you have accomplished.

On Wednesday we had the opportunity to tour a citrus grove here in town. From what I've been told, there is this thing that I think is called the Indian River Citrus District that is supposed to be world famous and it covers counties from Daytona Beach down to a little bit past Vero Beach. Louis Schacht, the soon to be heir to the Schacht Grove, showed us around his farm and packing house. He is a super friendly guy that can't understand why people are actually interested in seeing the operations of his company. He has lived in the same house and grew up around his dad's business helping out for most of his life. Now they do special Christmas time orders for people with 60 dollars to blow on fruit. He does all of his business over the phone or online. Once someone places an order their fruit is picked and shipped the same day. He made a point to say that a couple times. Typically with bigger commercial farming operations the fruit is picked green so it can be shipped and then once it reaches its destination it is put into a big room where several bushels at a time are gassed with acetylene and heated so that they ripen. Acetylene is known to retard oxygen absorption in the brain. He grows oranges, grapefruit and a few exotic citrus strains. None of it was in season so we didn't get a chance to taste.

He also talked about the two diseases zooming around the state right now, Citrus Canker and Greening. Canker is not so bad and can be cured if a tree acquires it. Little black specks appear all over but does nothing to the taste or texture of the inside. Fruit that usually gets Canker is juiced because no one wants to buy ugly fruit. Greening is more serious and ruins the entire fruit. It makes the inside rot and the seeds shoot out of the side. Greening is also systemic which means that if a tree has it then it must be pulled out and burned so that it doesn't spread through the air or by insects.

Apparently the Florida citrus industry is dissolving because of disease and land development so plenty of farmers are nervous. He said that today it is an 11 billion dollar a year industry but will be only half of that in five years. Florida is under quarantine and is not allowed to ship citrus to any other citrus growing states like Louisiana, Arizona, Texas and California. That is arguably the most limiting factor for growth in Florida.

Max's Fairly Frank Factual Findings 4 Florida:
-too flat
-too many bugs
-too much rain
-too many old people (I like old people, they're wise, but too much of one thing can be not good)
-too spread out
-too segregated

day one hundred and ninety-five

2008-08-10T07:13:00.000-07:00

I watched the Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics on Friday night. I was impressed with how elaborate the production was. I heard some ridiculous number like 15,000 different performers. It was as close to a world event, outside of an alien landing, as you can get.

Since then, I spend twice the amount of time as I typically would in the lounge watching the events. Last night I watched Men's Indoor Volleyball, swimming, and Gymnastics until around 1:45am.

Work varied more than it ever has this week. I did a little roofing, grouting tiles, painting, and I even spent a couple of days away from the job site.

On Thursday Alyssa, Kyle and I went with a funny old man named Fred to a town called Fellsmere where there is another subdivision in the process of being completed. There isn't any work going on but there will be when Fall approaches since there will be more people available to help. Fewer people live in Vero Beach, and Florida in general, in the summer time since it is so hot.

Our job was to move everything, which included building supplies like lumber, tile and fiberglass insulation, out of a big storage container and into a new one. The old one was leaking and the moisture infected a bunch on the lumber with mold. It was a lot of heavy lifting and kind of an endurance race because there were thunderclouds threatening all day. We did get everything out and then back in without any problems though. Fred is a coot that has lots of seemingly philosophical sayings like "You'll never finish until you start," and "I was born at night, but not last night." He spent some time in North County when he was a young guy so when he found out I was from San Diego he wanted to talk about his surfing days.

Yesterday, the team went with another character from around here to an already complete subdivision that needed some repairs. His name is Rick and he has medium long blonde hair and says "brother" after most of sentences. Steve, Meg and I decided that he is the embodiment of Florida.

Our task was to repair two or three portions of a plastic fence that extends around the perimeter of the subdivision. The story was that one part was blown away by a recent storm, one part was torn apart by kids, and another part was slammed by a fallen tree. For the wind blown part, I was sent into the swamp to retrieve the strewn panels of the fence. I had a machete and long pants so I was equipped well enough for it. I didn't touch the part that was wrecked by kids but I did help with dragging the tree out from the backyard of one of the residents. There was an angry hornet's nest that we somehow disturbed while heaving the tree that added a sprinkle of excitement.

After we buttoned up all of the missing parts of the fence we came back to the Habitat compound to move some bricks. There is a good sized brick pile out back that has whole bricks and broken bricks. Rick wanted us to sort through the pile picking then stacking the good ones and discarding the not so good ones. It was good work. Not mentally challenging but physical, which I like. Thirty minutes after beginning the good work I noticed that the pile had watermelon vines shooting all over it! And even seven or eight pretty ones! I accidentally picked one.

Steve and I went over to Ricardo's house for dinner last night. He is one of the construction supervisors that is super friendly. We met his family and ate good food his wife Claudia prepared for us. We even sung Cumpleaños Feliz and had cake.

I will go to the beach later this afternoon.

day one hundred and eighty-eight

2008-08-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

I finished The Sun Also Rises at the beach today. Poor Jake Barnes. It was nice to read on the shore because the clouds were thick and it made the sand cool. I made my usual way down towards the northern end of the beach and laid my things out. There aren't many people at that end of the beach. Somehow, there was a tilt to the waves which prevented body surfing. I was content.

Carrie, the volunteer coordinator, invited the team to her house for dinner and a movie. The documentary was called "Briars in the Cotton Patch" and it recalled the tumultuous period surrounding the founding of Koinonia Farm in Southern Georgia and the beginning of Habitat for Humanity. The farm was a place for Blacks and Whites to work and live together harmoniously. It undoubtedly stiffened tensions in that area. Clarence Jordan was the founder and he had many of the same values that I do. Millard Fuller came to the farm in the 60's with his family to live and eventually lead the founding of Habitat for Humanity in Americus, Georgia. Steve made a good point about how the narrator made it seem like the people from that area had come together and that there was no more unrest in the present day. We ate s'mores afterward.

Steve, Kelsey, Meg, and I went to an Indian restaurant sort of near the "downtown" area of Vero Beach for dinner tonight. It was too much money for what I got and I didn't happen to notice any legitimate Indians. But bad Indian food is better than none at all.

Work this week went well. I'm becoming an old pro at the finishing of the eaves. I would like to switch jobs because it is getting to be boring.

The world of sports will be picking up. The opening ceremony for the Olympics start Friday and the beginning of the Chargers pre-season is on Saturday. I am grateful to have access to a TV.

I moved from the trailer I was in and now Steve and I share a trailer. I like it better. My set up isn't as nice but it is good to be free from the insanity of Kyle and Nat. They tend to have unproductive arguments about the minutia of life.

day one hundred and eighty

2008-07-26T19:17:00.000-07:00

So...construction is hard. Completing tasks in a reasonable amount of time with an agreeable amount of neatness is challenging for me. Of course, painting is something I do very well and in fact I was even complemented on my attention to detail by Gerrardo, the Latino guy who oversees the majority of the painting. But for the most part, using a hammer and working with wood is tough. Slammed thumbs, splinters, and even a slightly re-injured right wrist/hand. I'm becoming more chummy with hammers as of late however.

For the past few days I have been working closely with Pete installing fascia which is either vinyl or aluminum stuff you nail to the area of the roof that protrudes over the edge of he wall and its underside. I guess you can call it the eave of the house. It's now pretty simple once I got some practice. I imagine that most new tasks on the job site will require a day, maybe two, of familiarizing.

(a side note...I was laying a little bit of sod earlier this week and I accidentally pressed my hand into a Fire Ant hill. I was given several bites on my hands and in between my fingers. They burned quickly after and then itched relentlessly for the remainder of the week. I hope that won't happen again)

The guys at the job site are all business. They are experienced and not interested in silliness. Ralph, the crankiest of them all, is pretty amusing to us. We end our days talking about Ralph's salty comments during our van rides back home.

We also found out that there is a gym in town that offers a "Habitat for Humanity discount" and so half of us signed up for gym memberships. It was very cheap and they allowed us to pay for only half a month which was awful generous of them. It's called Christi's Family Fitness Center and they "make fitness fun." The building is big and new with lots of fitness gadgets and accommodations; Certainly not an old school gym.

I've been going to the beach often. Warm water is seemingly saltier. Maybe I am imagining it. a few days ago we played Ultimate Frisbee on the beach and it was an intense leg exercise. Running in the sand is super difficult. Conversely, diving in the sand is fun and tolerant of the impact when you land.

Today was our short day. Saturdays are big volunteer days and we do a good job leading them on the day's projects. We only work until noon though. I taught a young guy how to use a drill. I had him pre-drilling holes in 16 foot two-by-fours. He was timid but did a nice job. We had lunch with Carrie, the volunteer coordinator for Habitat, and she explained a lot of the controversy involving this HFH affiliate and a community called Winter Beach just a few miles North of were we are. Some community members of Winter Beach have organized themselves and are unhappy with the plans for a subdivision, similar to the one I am working on, near their homes. There have been articles published in the Treasure Coast Palm newspaper with all sorts of snide remarks attached. They argue that the low-income housing will negatively affect their quality of life.

The American Way, so it goes... Stake your claim and protect it.

day one hundred and sixty-eight

2008-07-14T09:23:00.000-07:00

New York City is still there. It is a dangerous place to be when you have money. Now I'm fat and happy.

Alright! I'm pumped up for the next five months of my national service commitment. Our team did our final preparations for our next project in Florida and we were heading south by Thursday. The drive was tough. We took Interstate-95 all of the way. We traveled through the remainder of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and then finally in to Florida.

It's bright in Florida. More so than any other state I've been to. We live in trailers. They are comfortable and the one I live in is called "The Jaybird." I have a nook in the back carved out for all of my things. I live with Kyle and Nat. They are a little messy and like to play computer games. Our air-conditioning stopped working the second night we were there. It was fixed and then quit working last night. It really is essential in Florida because it's so warm. We have a lounge type space with no windows in the warehouse behind the trailers. We have DirecTV, a full kitchen, and two bathrooms with showers. Having access to TV is strange. I am excited to have the opportunity to watch the Olympics when they begin on the 8th of August. We will be responsible for all of our breakfasts and dinners. Lunch will be provided daily while at the job site. Supposedly, they are catered buy local restaurants so I'm assuming they will be descent.

Yesterday I jogged from where we live at the Habitat for Humanity building on 45th street and US-1 to Homiston Beach. It is four miles away. The jog was pleasant but it got very hot as I approached the bridge over Indian River. The ocean water was warm but not uncomfortably warm. I would say it was 70 degrees if I had to guess. The sand at the shore was white with tiny bits of crushed up shells. I spent an hour body surfing and laying on the sand. Since I didn't want to walk back home I made my way down to South Beach where I knew the others from my team were swimming. I hung out with them until a thunderstorm on the horizon started coming ashore. As we packed up there were lightening blots hitting the water several miles out. It was awesome to see the rain pouring out of the clouds and the lightening.

Our first day of actual work is tomorrow and I am really eager to begin on some of the houses still yet to be complete. Our work week is Tuesday through Saturday which is a little bit odd. We will be working at the Grace Woods subdivision about 20 minutes from where we live. It is about 70 percent complete and we will be helping to complete it. It is the staff's hopes to finish it by the end of the calendar year. I am most excited for the possibility to be working with potential home buyers. Those that apply for homes are required to complete 300 hours of "Sweat Equity" which means that they have to work as a sort of repayment plan.

We had a meeting with Peter Cottontail and I am very happy with his approach to becoming our team leader.

florida photos

2008-07-14T08:00:00.001-07:00

poor rat...a casualty of fay

badger 5 with louis schacht (center)

schacht citrus grove

gerrardo and ishmael at the jobsite

watermelons in the brick pile

two completed homes (yep, those are solar panels. they power the water heaters)

the jobsite

me at the vero beach baseball stadium advocating for AmeriCorps

badger 5 at the dedication of a finished home

my room

my bed

my clothes

my effects

the Jaybird

the beach

me

day one hundred and fifty-one

2008-06-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

I'm at the computer lab. This is me killing time before I go back to 9H to pack. I'm excited and I want to keep my mind busy so that time won't drag.

I went on an adventure with a couple of guys named David and Cody this past Saturday. We decided to pack some food and a couple of water purification tablets and set out into the woods for the night. We followed the coast line away from campus and around a bend in the water to the other side of Furnace Cove. We found a clearing and set up a fire pit. After camp was up we found a mulberry tree. They look like blackberries but aren't as sweet. I ate a few hand fulls of those. We also found a wheat field and harvested some of the buds. They were surprisingly fun to chew. I saw a relatively small wolf spider and a mama black widow so I was a little bit nervous about not having any shelter. I brought some long pants and the fire was warm enough so that I didn't need a sleeping bag. David fell asleep around 11:00pm. Cody and I didn't sleep. We packed up our stuff at 5:00am and set back for ol' Perry Point at 5:30am. I was thirsty so I cut up a watermelon at Cody's house and had my way with it. It was perfect. I went back to 9H and had a nice shower. I was ready for sleep at 8:00am.

On Wednesday there was a Corps wide event called the Amerilimpics. Our team competed in Ultimate Frisbee and dodge ball. I had more fun playing Frisbee because we were better at it and the game was really close until the other team scored the final goal with only a couple minutes left to play. They beat us six to five. I feel bad throwing balls at the girls who we played dodge ball with. I hit one pretty hard and I can't imagine she liked it.

After the games had ended Jenna took the team out to eat at the Lighthouse Diner in Havre de Grace which is across the Susquehanna River. I had a spinach and feta omelet and Jenna revealed our new team leader. Peter Burns is his name. Pernicious Pete. At the beginning of the year we had a "get tah know yah" mixer and he introduced himself as "pernicious Pete." No one cared to ask what it meant because they just figured he was a dope. He could have simply said "pretentious Pete" and it would have served the same purpose. He went to Cornell University and graduated in 2005.

That night I also had fire duty with Eddie, the queen from Bakersfield. Fire duty is lame because you have to sit at the front desk of 9H from 8:00pm to 6:00am. By now it had turned into Thursday and we had to present our debriefing for our last project to a few staff members at 2:00pm. It went great in spite of my lack of energy.

Today Pete took us to Subway for lunch and we got chance to talk to him for a few minutes. He is obviously educated and I like him more as we begin to get to know each other.

It's not long now...

day one hundred and forty-five

2008-06-21T09:50:00.000-07:00

I am at the Perryville Library. It was built in 2007 so it is really clean and has lots of computers. It is two and one quarter miles away from 9H. It doesn't feel so far because the walk is so enjoyable. The route goes past the water and through the woods behind the VA Hospital.

We got back to Perry Point yesterday around noontime. As scheduled, we had our meeting with Sean and Ms. Roberson about the possibility of Steve acting as our team leader. As expected, the decision had already been made to not include Steve in the interview process before we even had a chance to make a case. They said "from past experience we know that it doesn't work." That logic doesn't make sense to me because I believe all cases are different and should be judged accordingly. They went on to say that we didn't trust them to make a good choice for team leader. Nevertheless, I am pretty excited to see who they choose. I hope they don't decide on another unreasonable disciplinarian like Jenna. The idea that whoever they choose will have been a Corps member for half a year is comforting.

Being back in my old room at 9H is weird. I no longer have the bottom bunk; which is a bummer in some ways. The building is in worse shape than when we left it. There seems to be more junk around and more holes in the walls and ceilings. Last night we had pasta and salad for dinner. I ate green beans and three bananas and drank water.

I try and not hang around 9H too much. I don't think it's healthy. Yesterday after out meeting I unpacked and then jogged to the library to check my e-mail and bop around the Internet. Jenna and Alyssa, a girl on my team, went grocery shopping last night and dig a crumby job. I'm not sure why Jenna is still doing team leader stuff. She ought to focus on her new job.

There is a program called "Summer of Service" that some of the other Corps members are participating in. It will last for two months and it is a chance to lead 14 and 15 year olds from New Orleans in NCCC style projects. A total of three Corps members will lead a crew of 10 - 12. It sounds like a load of fun. I would have applied but my summer plans were already made.

I miss being at camp already. I wish that we could have left for break straight from there. We said goodbye to Sean Baker, Josh, and the rest of the staff yesterday morning. Sean gave us some apple butter that his wife Jesse makes every October. It was a real drag leaving all of those guys. I will miss them.

I'm hoping this week goes by quickly. I am feeling restless and impatient.

day one hundred and forty

2008-06-16T17:36:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was pleasantly uneventful. We worked for several hours at the camp down the road for all of Saturday morning. We helped put up two platform tents and cleared and area for a volleyball court. The tents are 225 square foot platforms with a wooden frame and a giant piece of high-quality canvas stretched over it. For lunch, I ate a bunch of cantelope that was kind of okay, I guess. Saturday afternoon was filled with rain and a little bit of thunder. We as a team decided to go to a movie. We saw "Sex and the City" and thought it was entertaining but a little disappointing compared to the TV show. I wore shorts and a t-shirt which was a mistake. The theater was air-conditioned and it seemed like the vent was aimed at my legs. After the movie we got food and then quickly went back into the Big Rock Candy Mountains. I spent part of Sunday in the sun; fitting...no? Today I am burnt; fitting...no?

Today was the first day of our last work week here in Virginia. It passed quickly. A school group came in this morning, so we had programing in the afternoon. I taught the Animal Traces class twice. The first class went well in spite of a little drizzle. Drizzle is actually good because it softens the ground and makes animal track easier to spot. However, the students typically don't like walking through the woods when it's wet out. As the first class was ending the rain began to pick up. We heard far away thunder but we continued. I was in the middle of the skull identification portion of the second class when there was an unexpected flash and a loud clack as if a truck was being snapped in two. I would guess that the strike was no further than ten yards away. It was by far the most intense sound I've ever heard. The kids were understandably hysterical. I some how refocused them and finished the class. We ate corn for dinner.

Sean Baker, the ultra friendly operations manager, invited our team over for dinner again. We will go tomorrow night. He and his wife Jesse are super generous. It will be a well earned meal since I am scheduled to clear trails with Josh all day tomorrow. We will work normally until Thursday. Thursday night we are going to do the zip wire. We are told it's ultra fun when you aren't able to see anything. I'm guessing it's in the same vein as Space Mountain at Disneyland. We roll out of camp on Friday morning and are due to meet with Ms. Roberson, the Eastern region director of NCCC , and Sean Kuether, our unit leader, when we get back to Perry Point. We are to discuss the new team leader role. The higher ups normally don't promote from within a team so this is our oppurtunity to vie for Steve's future as team leader. I don't think it will go well based on the way things typically work with NCCC.

day one hundred and thirty-seven

2008-06-13T17:09:00.000-07:00

I have two big news items. Jenna, my team leader, will work at the AmeriCorps office in Maryland for the remainder the year. She hasn't left yet, but as of right now there is no one that is in line to replace her. Steve has shown interest in being our team leader and I support him fully in that decision.

I also know where we will be sent next round. We are going to Vero Beach, Florida to work with the Habitat for Humanity in Indian River County. Habitat for Humanity builds simple, decent, affordable housing in partnership with people in need according to their website. I am very excited to be doing a little bit of construction. I don't know much else about the project. I don't know where we will be living or working in the Vero Beach area but I am optimistic.

Aside from the major happenings around here, business is as usual. I taught three Survival Skills classes today with seventh graders. I hadn't worked with any students as old as this group and I found it to be a lot of fun. There is a phenomenal gap between sixth and seventh graders in terms of maturity level. They tended to adhere to my instructions more carefully. For survival class, we build shelters with branches, sticks, and leaves. This group of four girls made almost a complete log cabin with their resources. It was amazing that they did it with only like 25 minutes. It wasn't quite water-proof but if they had more time they could have easily made it that way.

On Wednesday, I helped Josh, the recent Virginia Tech graduate acting as the naturalist here at camp. After the recent thunder storms there were reports of fallen trees so he and I cleared trails all around camp. We found a leaner, which is a tree that fell but was caught by another tree before it could hit the ground. Those are especially dangerous because you typically don't know which way they will fall when they are cut loose. The leaner we wrestled with for two hours was stubborn. It was big and tangled in grape vine. I got to use this fantastic tool called a poll saw. It is literally a chainsaw on the end of a ten foot poll that can extend to about 18 feet. I don't think I was allowed to use it considering I'm not "certified" by AmeriCorps to use chainsaws but I don't think it's a big deal. After we brought down the tree there were branches and debris still stuck in the leanee tree (if that makes any sense). We couldn't get high enough to bring any of it down so summoned Tarzan's strength and I climbed the grape vine that looked to be the sturdiest up to the first branch and knocked down what I could with my hands. It was loads of fun. I would love to do what Josh does in an urban park like Balboa Park or Golden Gate Park. I think I would approach it more from an ecological stance and with not so much of a utilitarian sensibility.

Tomorrow my team is going to another Christian Summer Camp that is less than a mile down the road to help out with clearing trails and installing a volleyball net. We are only working until 1:00pm and they are feeding us lunch so that is exciting. Hopefully it is reasonably yummy.

This coming week will be our last here at camp. I will miss being here. I've never seen a professional type place function more like a family. All of the staff and people near-by are so warm and what makes the whole scene completely unique is that I don't think we're getting any special treatment. I think this is how they would behave with anyone.

It's totally time to go though. I see Dylan and Lindsey in less than two weeks. How 'bout that?

day one hundred and thirty-one

2008-06-07T17:09:00.000-07:00

Wild strawberries are beginning to appear in the woods. They are bright red and tend to be about the size of a marble. They taste like water, not sweet.

Today is hot. The thermometer said 92 degrees but it feels hotter. The four boys (including me) worked at a domestic violence shelter that serves women and children for a couple of hours today. We did a little bit of yard work.

Earlier this week I rode horses. I rode three horses and their names were: Clyde, Stormy, and Strawberry. Clyde was the biggest and best ride of the three, but Strawberry is my favorite. She is the most friendly of all. The reason I got to ride horses is because Beth, the girl who is in charge of the horse paddock, wants them to have a little bit of riding experience before summer camp starts on the 22nd of June. I haven't been on a horse in at least ten years but I felt confident. We rode in a straight line behind Beth and we never got to trot or gallop which was too bad but it was still fun.

There was a massive electrical storm that passed through the area on Thursday afternoon. A tornado warning was issued as well. I was working in the EcoEternity Forest, a section of camp where they bury people's ashes under leased trees, when we were told to turn in because there was a storm coming. Not five minutes after we got back to the van did the rain and wind pick up. By the time we made it home there were crashes of thunder and a ridiculous amount of rain; no tornadoes though. Our power went out and stayed out until around 10:00pm.

Aside from that, my week hasn't been too remarkable. We have only two weeks left here and I'm definitely ready to be moving on.

dc redux

2008-06-01T15:31:00.000-07:00

I navigated our way into D.C. Nat has illegible handwriting so he asked me to copy down the directions to the shelter. I basically assumed responsibility for the whole voyage right then. It didn't bother me, I like that sort of thing; I navigate for Grandma Honey too don'tcha know.

We made it to the CCNV in about an hour and twenty minutes, right on schedule. Parking was more complicated than it should have been but that was expected. We met Mr. Burton, the charismatic guy that appeared to be running the place, and he led us to a room and then passed us off to Sabu. Sabu explained to us that we were in a room that was full of donated items. It was quite a room. It was dank and crowded, about what I expected. We went through linens, clothes, electronics, books, and any other odd end we came to. We also had to stack the former director's belongings in the corner of the room. He is no longer the director of the CCNV because he was embezzling funds but he still had gobs of junk that he was suppose to at some point return for.

We took lunch around noon. We headed up to Union Station that was only a few blocks away to check out the food court. I had some Indian with Steve and then we did some people watching. I've eaten Indian food with Steve at least once both of the times we have visited D.C. We hung out there until around 1:00pm and then started heading back. We noticed some dark clouds and guessed it would rain soon. Mr. Raymond, another guy in charge, met us as we returned from lunch. He set up a VCR for us to watch a documentary on how the CCNV came to be. He didn't stick around for the show. Then there was crashes of thunder and heavy rain. Originally, it was a federal building and then it became the CCNV. A man by the name of Mitch Snyder was kind of the founding father. He was totally radical. He fought Reagan for years to get funding to make the place livable for the residents. Snyder, in the spirit of non-violence, did not eat anything for 51 days while sitting in Lafayette park across from the White House. Reagan finally promised money after Snyder was hospitalized but didn't fulfill his promise until two years later when Snyder then had a hearing and was granted funding. Learning about the history of the CCNV got me really fired up about the whole terrible situation in the United States that hasn't changed since Snyder's 1984 hunger strike. Mr. Raymond came back and we asked a few questions. I asked if Snyder was still around. Mr. Raymond said that we has found hung in his room at the CCNV. No one knows how it happened.

After the documentary was over we went back into the storage room and continued sifting. We finished up around 4:00pm. Steve, Nat, and I decided to walk up to the Capitol and then down The Mall to the Lincoln Memorial which is about three miles. Then we walked an additional two miles up to Foggy Bottom Metro Station. The Metro is great, think BART but better. We took the train to Dupont Circle and hung out there until 11:00pm. We found a great bookstore that had a restaurant called Kramerbooks. We slept that night in the shelter. It was good sleep.

The next morning we worked for only a couple of hours and then said goodbye. After work was over, we all went to the National Air and Space Museum. I saw a great iMax type movie on Black Holes and the Spirit of St. Louis. Charles Lindbergh was quite a guy. Following that, was a trip to the Jefferson Memorial and then we got out of town.

Work tomorrow!

capitol dome!

washington monument

my reflection in the vietnam war memorial

union station

the authentic original spirit of st. louis

my sleeping arrangement at ccnv

day one hundred and twenty-three

2008-05-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, we for sure go to Washington D.C. Nat, my teammate who has organized the trip, has been known to be a little bit forgetful, so I wasn't positive we were going until he confirmed it today. We will be working at a homeless shelter called the Community for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV) for two days. It is the largest homeless shelter in the United States with over 1,300 beds. The strange thing about staying over night is that we have to pay for every four hours we sleep. After some finagling, Nat brought the price down to seven dollars a head which is nice. Plus, we get all of Saturday night and Sunday afternoon to see the sights which I think is swell.

Yesterday I taught the Native American class four times. It was a marathon of a day. The first thing I do with the kids is march them into the woods in a single file line to search for "a leaf." It frustrates them because that's all I tell them at first. Then I say that it is green; flustering them even more. I walk them between trees and around bushes. When we come to the shrub that has the leaves we are looking for I sit them down and reveal that it is called Spicebush. I go on to explain that the Sioux tribes that lived in the area would pluck the leaves and steep them in boiling water to make tea. I ask if they have any guesses for why they did that. Some of the time they guess that it aided the Natives with digestion (the correct answer), but most of the time they don't.

After that I lead them back up to camp and get them going on starting fires. While they are pulling apart store-bought twine to eventually form a fluffy hair ball, I get the leaves into the water. The next task, after they have their balls of hair, is to gather thin dry sticks. They never gather enough. Every group gets a hot coal, sticks, and a hair ball. You are suppose to put the hair ball over the top of the hot coal and blow until it catches fire. Then, you carefully pile the tiniest, thinnest sticks on top so that they catch. Eventually, the kids just start using dry leaves. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. It's all pretty fun though.

The next activity is popcorn! my favorite. Typically, I have a nice big fire in the main fire pit and by the end of class it has died down to coals. The hot coals from the fire make perfect conditions for popping the corn. I use an old coffee can, oil, and aluminum foil. The kids get to have tea and popcorn after they have succeeded or failed with starting their own fire.

Unlucky for me, in my second class of the day, a girl took her hot coal out of the pan we provide to make fires on and put it on the ground. She asked for help and I unknowingly knelled down and put my forearm and her hot coal. The burn didn't hurt so much but I think the scar will be gnarly. It's as big as a silver dollar. Burn scars are not cool looking scars. Good thing mine is on the under side of my forearm.

Aside from the burning, the week went well. This school group we had this week was the biggest yet. I counted like 90 kids.

Less than a month remains until I see Lindsey in New York.

day one hundred and eighteen

2008-05-25T07:48:00.000-07:00

Three weeks in and morale is high. The sun seems to have taken residence in Northern Virginia and activity is picking up at camp. We had another group of fifth and sixth graders on Thursday and Friday and a group of high school seniors on Saturday.

On Wednesday, however, the director of Camp Highroad, Rick Dawson, granted us a day off and drove our team an hour and a half north to Gettysburg, PA. In return, we agreed to work on Saturday.

The museum and visitor's center is big and brand new. Somehow I lost everyone else and spent two solid hours looking at all of the artifacts and documents on display. There were sketches of what the Confederate Congress building would look like found in Braxton Bragg's personal notebook that I thought was neat.

After we walked through the museum, we took a driving tour of the battlefield around Gettysburg. The battlefield extends two or three miles in every direction around the town. Every battalion or regiment that fought at Gettysburg has a memorial statue lining the road that passes through the battlefield. We stopped at Little Round Top, the Union's stronghold position throughout the battle, and we could see the entire battlefield. It began to get a little bit windy so we got back into the truck and decided that we wanted some food before we left for home. There was an outlet mall off of the highway that had a few choices so we went there. I had an eight dollar quesadilla that Steve paid for because he owed me some money. It was super disappointing. We left around 3:oopm and by then I was a little sleepy. I sat in the back middle seat with Steve on one side and Kelsey on the other. As I dosed, I would accidentally crash into one or the other depending on which way the road curved. I apologized to both of them after the ride came to an end.

I spent all of Thursday clearing trails of debris. Wednesday's winds brought a good amount of sticks and leaves into all of the pathways around camp. I would guess I walked a total of nine or ten miles. My feet were beat up and I slept well that night.

I taught two Wilderness Survival Skills classes with Jenna on Friday Morning. I don't like that class as much as the Stream Study class. I find that I don't have as much to say. Additionally, there has to be a big enough fire to cook the cinnamon apple pouches for the kids at the end of class; but with the recent rain, getting a descent fire going is stressful. In the afternoon I helped Shaun clean the pool. It is in the middle of the woods so it gets all sorts of debris in it and needs to be cleaned a least once a week. No one is allowed to use the pool until a third party lifeguard comes to work for the summer.

On Saturday I helped my teammate Kyle, teach Mountain Boarding to the high school kids. That was kinda fun. The hill that is used is not steep enough so it's too slow to be considered fun. They seemed to enjoy it though. I spent the rest of the day down by the river behind our house laying on a tree that had fallen across. It is a little challenging keeping your balance but still pretty comfortable.

Sunday means laundry...so thats what I'm doing.

day one hundred and eleven

2008-05-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

This past week was my first leading students. They were fifth and sixth graders from a private school that emphasizes the education of the gifted and academically talented called Edlin about an hour away. Their caravan arrived around noon time on Wednesday.

After lunch was over, Steve, Kelsey (another girl on my team), and I led the group of sixth grade boys on a hike down to the quarry. It is my favorite trail because it travels along a stream and is really steep in some spots. The boys were rambunctious and loud mostly because we encouraged them to be. We reminded them that they weren't in a classroom and that they didn't have to use indoor voices. To be safe, we numbered each one and told them that I would howl periodically throughout the hike. We explained that when they heard me howl they would have to number off in order as loud as they could so that we knew everyone was accounted for. We took a few hot dog buns down to the quarry because there are thousands of small perch fish that live there and it is sort of fun to let the kids fed them. They don't get very big because there isn't an descent food supply but they do keep reproducing. The hike was suppose to last for two hours but we didn't take our time so as we were finished, we still had an hour to fill. Luckily, they were all energetic boys and didn't mind playing football for the last hour so that's what we did to occupy their time until their next activity.

The next group was the fifth graders and that group was both boys and girls. We again led them down to the quarry but this time we stopped more often and talked. I would point out the Spice Bush and Garlic Mustard plants along the trail and Steve would talk about how dead things in the woods feed other still living things. This time we only had 25 minutes to kill after the hike so we played a few camp style games. Both groups seemed to enjoy the hike.

Thursday was the longest day. I had a stream study class, another quarry hike with the sixth grade girls, and canoing in the afternoon. Steve is an experienced canoe rower so he did a lot of the instruction. Everything went well but I don't think the sixth grade girls appreciated the hike or the canoing as much as the other groups. They yell and get angry with each other more than the boys. The second canoing group that afternoon was the fifth graders.Twenty minutes after we got everyone into the water a canoe capsized and Steve had to go in and rescue the two boys Ibou and Ryan. Ibou hurt his ankle so I gave him a piggyback ride back to the cabin so that he could have a seat and apply ice. I left Ibou and went back down to the pond to help Steve get everyone back on shore. The last canoe to come out of the water was one rowed by a female teacher and a girl student. The teacher stood up too quickly and she toppled into the water along with the other girl. They weren't hurt thankfully.

Friday was rainy and wet but all of the activities went on as planned. In the morning I taught the Animal Traces class. We identified skulls, looked at animal tracks, and then I split the group into teams and sent them out into the woods with a chaperone to look for signs of animal life. They did a great job finding deer poop, also know as scat. After that class was over, I hustled down to the pond to help Steve with the sixth grade boys. There was a rumor going around that a few of them were going to purposefully tip their boat. Steve and I let them know that we knew about the plot and told them that we had talked with their teacher about having them stay wet on the ride back to school. We got everyone into the water but had to call them back in after only an hour because it was too rainy. None of the guys pulled anything fancy on us.

After all of the students left we met up with Sean, the operations manager, and Adam, a seasonal camp counselor from Melbourne, Australia. They needed some practice belaying so our team got to climb the rock wall a few times. It is a lot tougher than I remember. They also needed some practice on the zip wire. I went down three times, super exciting.

Sean also invited us to come over to his house to have dinner with his wife and kids that night. He lives just down the road and has many acres of land. They own cows, sheep, chickens, and a big garden full of fruits and vegetables. We ate hamburgers, pumpkin puree, unpasteurized whole milk, salad and apple pie and fresh whipped cream for dessert. Everything we ate was from out back which amazed me. Tommy, his eight year old son, showed us all of the animals and what was growing in the garden. It was a great meal and a lot of fun hanging out with the whole crew.

On Saturday, our team went to the 75th reunion of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in Edinburg, Virginia about an hour and a half away. The CCC was part of Roosevelt's New Deal and is the foundation on which NCCC was founded. They unveiled a statue and we got to participate in the tree planting ceremony. Each of us took a bit of the special soil that was piled in a little mound next to the tree and plopped it in. The soil was special because it was from Camp Roosevelt, the first CCC camp a few miles East of Edinburg. We ate lunch after that and listened to way too much talking about this and that. It was thrilling to see and talk to all of the old CCC fellas.

Today is a mellow Sunday. Just a little laundry and hanging out in the office on the computer. We are having hash browns and French toast for dinner tonight.

virginia photos

2008-05-12T17:37:00.001-07:00

the grimace of success

badger 5

strawberry the horse

i've used neosporin on it

steve and i cruisin' to gettysburg

look out

sitting quietly enjoying my leisure time

ranger hughes on duty

call me...I get reception

pond (we canoe here)

friendly horse on camp grounds named hershey

road in to camp

willow lodge (my window is upper right)

deranged

dc

2008-05-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

My first weekend at camp wasn't actually spent there. Steve has a pal from college, who also worked at the newspaper, that just graduated and is home for next several weeks. His name is Derek and his home happens to be in Alexandria, a suburb of Washington D.C. that is near Mount Vernon, George Washington's historic estate.

Derek, and his old friend from high school, was nice enough to drive an hour and a half into the wild to pick Steve and me up. It was kind of strange to be in a personal vehicle and not the van. It seemed like we drove for more than an hour and a half back into civilization, but I didn't keep track.

We pulled into an ordinary driveway and met Derek's parents, the Hawkins. Jamie, the father, is a fantastic guy. Very charming. Very intelligent. He was welcoming, although being completely surprised to see two young guys in his kitchen. He seemed to know Steve pretty well. He was totally smiley and warm to me. Immediately, Jamie facilitates a blind taste test of his home brew called Sweet Bessie Ann something against another commercial beer from Oregon called Rogue yada yada. It pleased him to know that Steve and I couldn't tell any difference between the two. It may have been hospitality, maybe it was showing off, I couldn't tell. We chatted up both parents and the little sis for a few hours then we left for a well-lit bar/restaurant called Ted's where they have live Bluegrass on the weekends.

There was an adorable couple with front seats that couldn't have been younger than 80 that skedaddled around 11:00pm. The band was tight, I had french fries.

Steve slept on the couch in the basement. I remembered to bring my sleeping bag so I was comfortable on the ground next to him.

Derek, Steve, and I woke up made a few eggs and coffee. We hung around with the folks until around 1:00pm and then took off for town. The Washington Monument was more squatty than I expected and the Capitol Dome was no more impressive than San Francisco's City Hall. The city is laid out like a European city with lots of circle and squares and seven story buildings. We went to a record store in a neighborhood called Adams Morgan. We spent one or two hours paroozing. Steve found a flyer for a music show nearby and we decided we were interested. Before we left the record store we also decided that we were hungry. There was an Indian restaurant across the street. I ate Black Lentils.

The rock show was at a funny place called the Bobby Fisher Memorial Building which is kind of an abandoned hallway with piles of bricks in several of the corners. It was six dollars get in. The music was loud and the performances were radical. It was quite a spectacle. D.C. Hardcore Revival is how it was explained to me. One of Derek's friends was there and after the show was over we all went back to Alexandria to find a few onions. We bought two big yellow onions from an IHOP that was open (all the grocery stores were closed). We paid two dollars. We whipped up a simple batter and had a pile of onion rings while we watched Return of the Jedi. I only got to the Cloud City part before I fell asleep.

This morning was pleasant. Derek's little sister made waffles and eggs for Mother's Day; enough for the whole house. Steve and I did the dishes. I made sure to crush and lay the left over egg shells over the base of the two hops plants out back. We spent the rest of the day reading the paper. Derek is going to drive Steve and me back into the salt mines in about 45 minutes.

day ninety-nine

2008-05-06T17:47:00.000-07:00

My fever may have broken today. I don't have a headache and my throat feels normal. On Wednesday afternoon I started feeling really terrible; stiff and sore throat, head ache, swollen tonsils. Mom called and asked how everything was and I told her about how I was feeling. She thought it would be a good idea if I tried to make it to the hospital because it may be Meningitis. I looked online and then ran into a guy in the lobby, who had it a month ago, and I started to believe it might be Meningitis. A couple of nice team leaders who weren't busy drove me to the emergency room.

The hospital was big and new. The parking lot was really simple to use and only about half full. I wasn't that at ease to be going to a hospital in Mississippi but everything seemed okay so far. The ladies at the front desk had twang but were nice. I got my wrist band and headed into the waiting room to watch Law & Order. I waited for two hours and they called my name. I had a temperature of 101.3 but no Meningitis. The doctor scoffed when I said the word. She said that I wouldn't be talking or walking. She looked down my throat and told me it was Strep. It was a relief to hear that but she didn't scrape my tongue or swab my mouth or anything like that. She wrote my prescription and sent me on my way. Apparently, if I wasn't allergic to Amoxicillin she could have just given me a shot and I would have been done with it but instead I took pills. I got Hydrocodone for pain and Clindamycin as the anti-biotic. The Hydrocodone is in liquid form and it tastes like cough syrup. It makes me extra drowsy and have strange day dreams, but not all the time. I have been taking the Clindamycin every six hours since 12:00am Thursday morning.

We left Jackson Friday morning and got into Knoxville, Tn around 9:00pm. Saturday we left and made it to Virginia around 4:00pm. We couldn't stay that night at the camp because there were people still sleeping there so we stayed at a hotel in Sterling, Va near Dulles Airport. On Sunday we finally made it to were we will be staying permanently. The camp isn't far from where the suburbs end and it begins to get a little more rural. The drive is pleasant, there are horse farms and rolling hills. The camp is really spread out so there will be a lot of walking. I get cell phone reception and there is wireless internet available in the office. Nights are lonely but we usually try to watch a movie or have a fire in front of the house.

Today we cleared brush from an area that had been over grown with vines. After that was done we learned how to teach the Stream Class. The lady that designed the classes gave us tips about how to treat the kids and what to bring for materials. We used nets, plastic boxes, a funny pair of binoculars, and an animal identifier sheet that was laminated. We cruised up and down the stream looking for little friends to observe. I found a crawfish and a few little guppies. After we decided that we knew enough about that class she taught us the Survival Class. First we built a shelter with sticks and leaves. Then we got a pail of water from the stream. Then we boiled it over a fire we made with matches. She had a few marshmallows for us to toast. We did that and also wrapped apples up in aluminum foil with butter, sugar and cinnamon. When the fire had gone out we put them on the coals and they got soft. Those were definitely good.

We each have different nights to cook and Jenna and I cook tomorrow night. We are going to use the grill to roast corn on the cob and chicken. I will also make some black beans and rice. The house we live in is brick and has an up stairs and a scary basement. We have a living room and thee bedrooms. The boys share one, the girls share the other and Jenna gets the last one to herself. The beds have mattresses that are way too loud when you adjust yourself for a more comfortable position.

There are ticks too. I've been warned about watching out for ticks because they have Lyme disease.

Right now I am in the basement of the office doing laundry. They leave the door open for us to use the internet and the washing machines.

I hope this round passes by as quickly as last round did. I have a feeling it wont.

day ninety-one

2008-04-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

At this moment I am in Nat and Steve's Jackson hotel room. We are on the second floor and out of the window we have a sea level view of interstate 55. We get to see a lot of cars whiz buy; thankfully, we can't hear them. The reason I slept in this room last night is because I was assigned a room with only one bed and with someone already in it. Last night, around 11:00pm, I slid my key card through the door lever of room 583 and discovered a non-AmeriCorps member living there. I went downstairs to ask a few questions about getting a new room, but the woman at the front desk couldn't help me. I guess every room was occupied. I ended up calling Steve at about 11:15pm. I slept on the floor with a comforter and a pillow. By the way, we got to the hotel around 3:45pm, seven and a half hours.

Ms. Roberson, the Eastern Region director of NCCC, formally apologized to the entire Corps for the confusion.

Additionally, the hotel was suppose to have food prepared for everyone but they didn't. Our team went to the Waffle House down the road for dinner. It was my third visit to Waffle House; second in Mississippi. Since I was, and still am fasting I wanted to order the team a few slices of pecan pie with my allotted AmeriCrops food money. Last month, I was fasting and my team was at a restaurant. I used my money to buy chips and guacamole for everyone to share. This time it didn't work out. I asked the waitress for six slices of pie. She gave me static about how she didn't want to cut into a new pie of something like that. She essentially just sort of ignored me.

Yesterday, we drove over the Ponchartrain Expressway to exit New Orleans. It is a twenty-four mile road that skims about 10 or 15 feet above the lake. I figured that at mile twelve we wouldn't be able to see land in any direction but that wasn't the case.

This morning the hotel had food for us. I didn't eat any of it of course but I am feed up with seeing gnarly southern food. They served grits, eggs, bacon, fried potatoes and wonder bread toast. Everything is coated in a thin layer of butter. I guess I am lucky to be in the middle of a fasting period.

We had a long "community meeting" with all of this flowery language from the unit leaders about how great we did during first round and how terrific next round will be. After all of the praise, they laid the real story on us. The vans have been crashed too much, there is still too much irresponsible alcohol behavior, too many sexual jokes, etc. I feel like I am back in Maryland.

Our debriefing of round one is tomorrow morning and almost everyone on my team is having a fit about being unprepared. I think everyone ought to chill out.

There are T.V.'s in the hotel rooms!

day eighty-nine

2008-04-26T15:50:00.000-07:00

Today's rain is strange. It isn't warm; it's like rain in California except that there is thunder and lightening. Our entire team volunteered at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (also known as Jazz Fest) on this rainy day. It is an expensive annual music festival that goes for two weeks (seven days total) at the horse race tracks in Mid-City.

We arrived early this morning and got set up at our stations. I was sent to the handicapped access tent where they have special listening devices, bathroom/line passes, and braille items for people with disabilities. My job was mainly to keep six or seven pedestrian pathways clear of sand and dirt. To satisfy Louisiana law, these pathways had to be swept every two hours. My first round of sweeping went smoothly since there was no one roaming around the infield. My second round was not so easy. By this time, there were thousands of people cruising around. I felt like a jerk trying to sweep in the front of people's way. There were a few nice guys that told me that I was wasting my time and that I was in people's way. At least Steve was sweeping with me so we could work as a team. Eventually, we deemed all of the pathways clear. To kill a little bit of time, Steve and I went to the Blues tent to check out James Cotton who I thought would be a salty bluesman, but he wasn't. After another go around with the broom, Steve and I decided that we had had enough, plus it was two o'clock and that's when our shift ended.

We were super hungry so we went over to where they were selling vegetarian red beans and rice. A giant plate was only $5.00 so at least the food wasn't over priced. It began to sprinkle a little bit and I saw a trailer selling Roman Chewing Candy for 75 cents a stick. I got strawberry because there was no other option. It is essentially taffy dipped in glue. It was kind of fun to eat.

When the rain was heaviest I started noticing all of the women with dresses and high-heels. They were having a rough time. A lot of them had trouble remaining upright.

I feel like Jazz Fest is geared toward the middle-aged crowd. There doesn't seem to be any new or exciting acts outside of the local bands that play around town on any given night. The headliners were lame, aside from Al Green and Elvis Costello. Of course, I won't be around for those two shows.

We leave at noon tomorrow bound for Jackson, Mississippi. We will spend a few days there presenting our PowerPoint slides and doing paperwork for our next project. After this week is over it will be nice to be away from all of this AmeriCorps jive.

day eighty-five

2008-04-22T20:00:00.001-07:00

It was a wild Earth Day. Today was my second consecutive day working with the New Orleans Mission. It is sort of a homeless refuge that has been at the same location on Oretha Castle-Haley Boulevard in Central City since 1989. They provide showers, food, and a bed to 140 people a night. It's an important place.

The city seems to have it out for them. They have had trouble with passing health codes since 2005. They get monthly visits from city inspectors that threaten to shut them down every time. Every time they find a way to pass.

Yesterday, an inspector visited in the morning. He said that all of the food in one of the pantries had to be moved to a different pantry. There was food mixed in with paper products and apparently that is a violation. Plus there was a few doors throughout the building that needed to be freed from the insulating foam that surrounded them and then framed with ply-wood.

The food took all afternoon to move. There were around 7 palettes; each stacked five feet high. The doors had funny angles so that ate some time as well. We finished around 4:00pm.

Today we found out that they passed. However, the inspector was looking through some of the boxed food upstairs and found two-thousand pounds worth of elbow macaroni that needed to be thrown out. Boll Weevils were living in the boxes. Since the food was upstairs, it needed to come down. I volunteered to be the receiver as Steve pitched every last box over the railing and and down to me. Each box was twenty pounds. I caught 94 of 96. The first dropped box hit me perfectly in the chest and knocked me back onto the of boxes I had already secured. The second one came only five or six throws later when I didn't get under it all the way and it went through my arms. My shoulders and forearms are bruised but they aren't sore.

After that, we began working in their fruit and vegetable garden in the back. It yields carrots, radishes, beans, corn, tomatoes, mint, dill, zucchini, and squash...I think. The garden was being overtaken by grass. We cleared an area around the perimeter so that unwanted growth would have a tougher time finding its way into the garden. We also aerated the soil so that it drains better when it's watered. It felt appropriate to be gardening on Earth Day.

For dinner, we had a real Cajun treat: Crawfish, red beans and rice, succotash, and café au lait. I ate a couple of Crawfish. They are tedious; not rewarding. They taste like briny mush.

For dessert, our team took almost the entire Hands On staff to Creole Creamery. I had café au lait ice cream. They have this thing called the Tchoupitoulas challenge (named after the street that runs along the river). It is eight scoops of ice cream, eight toppings, whipped cream, six waffle wafers, and four maraschino cherries. Chad, the guy with the girlfriend from Staten Island tried to eat it. He ate about half and then gave up. It melted by the time he was ready to quit.

We are trying to establish a recycling program here at the Hands On building. Recycling isn't easy in this city.

I have a ton of superfluous work to do this week since our time in New Orleans is coming to an end. After every project there are two portfolios, a debriefing, reflections, PowerPoint presentations, and all sorts of nonsense that has to be completed.

day seventy-four

2008-04-11T19:35:00.000-07:00

I now know where our team will be headed next. Middleburg, Virginia! We will be working at a wilderness adventure camp called Camp Highroad. It is a Christian Methodist camp but I don't get the feeling we will be involved with any church groups. From what I understand, we will be leading hikes, nature classes, clearing trails, and conducting swimming lessons to ordinary fifth and sixth graders from around that area. Jenna, our team leader, didn't make it easy on us. She positioned clues about our next project around the neighborhood so that we would have to hunt them down and figure it out. First, we went to Buddha Belly, a bar/laundromat. Then, as a team, we went to the new coffee shop on Magazine. After that, we went to our van; then to the park across the street. Every check point had a bag full of letter scrambled so we had to decipher them. I am excited to see what it's all about but I am concerned that there may be no Internet access and that there may be no cellphone service. That will be a struggle.

Otherwise, this week has been right on. I did get to see the Soul Rebels at the street fair and they were totally cool. The fair itself was rad too.

There is a new volunteer from Frankfurt, Germany named Burkhard. He is tall and was a math teacher in Germany for 20 years. He has a heavy accent and is hysterical most of the time. Other times he's quiet.

I finished the last half of When the Levees Broke and I thought it was pretty heavy. I also got stung on my wrist by a nasty Buck Moth Caterpillar. I fell asleep under an Oak tree in Audubon Park and one landed on my wrist. They are black or brown with barbs all over them. It left a big welt in the shape of it's body and it made my wrist swell up. That was on Sunday so it is pretty much gone by now.

I was involved with another corporate project this week. We went to a different day care, this time on the West Bank (across the river), and did things like paint their fence, plant trees, and make flower boxes. The lady that explained/described the corporation was vague, but I guess these people were Human Resource employees from architecture firms from around the country. Whatever, they were whiners. We finished everything but we didn't do it simply.

Some of our team, including me, will be volunteering at the V-Day exposition tomorrow. Yesterday we had our orientation at the Superdome where we got rules and what to expect. The writer of the Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler, addressed us also. She was a great speaker and she explained why having the event this year at the Superdome was so important. There is a giant group of women that are attending the event that were in the Superdome during the Storm. These women were mistreated and consider the Superdome to be a bad place. This year's V-Day is intended to be the beginning of a process were women, specifically those women who were neglected, can come to terms with what happened. I am assigned to escorting presenters from check-in to the greenroom. That means I may get a chance to meet Oprah Winfrey.

I can't really believe that I have been in New Orleans for as long as I was in Maryland. It doesn't feel as long at all. I am excited to be moving on though.

day sixty-seven

2008-04-04T18:55:00.000-07:00

Our building is empty. Since all of the college's Spring Breaks are winding down Hands On has only nine volunteers this coming week. Plus the two other AmeriCorps teams from Sacramento left Wednesday morning. It's quiet and more boring than ever.

I switched rooms. I moved into a room down the hall. It's more comfortable because there are only three of us living here and we share a bathroom with the five girls on our team. I can't understand it, but it works for some reason. I never have to wait to use the toilet or the shower. Luckily we have a sink and a mirror in our room so I don't need the bathroom to brush my teeth. I also have a lot of space to move around too.

On Tuesday I was a team leader for a "corporate project."

Let's say, Qualcomm wants their employees to get their picture taken volunteering while in New Orleans for their annual sales conference. Qualcomm will pay Hands On to organize this day of service and the Qualcomm employees will take a day off from work to volunteer.

For my corporate project, I led a group of twenty L'Oréal sales people in building bookshelves. They all showed up at the daycare center we were working at in matching long sleeve white shirts with their last names printed on the back (like baseball players), hats, and burlap totes (only for the ladies). They even had black Chuck Taylor's for the men and brown ones for the women.

Surprisingly, they all worked hard and did a nice job of using the drills. Even the ones that had never touched one figured it out. As we finished priming the shelves to be painted, a woman asked if there was a place that she could wash her hands. I asked "what happened," thinking there may have been a spill or she cut herself. She said that nothing was wrong except that her hands felt gross and that she was worried that the paint wouldn't come off if she didn't wash it off before it cured. I told her that she ought to wait until the end of the day because it was likely there would be more stuff that would get onto her hands; plus I didn't know where a spigot was. She seemed frustrated and I told her that "showering usually does the trick, it's just water-based."

The daycare we were working at was unbelievable. It is run by Mr. Mc Millan, a super smiley man that dumped all of his FEMA money into getting the daycare back on track after the storm. It supports 170 children everyday; and it feeds them! Enrollment is remarkably cheap so parents from Central City can have a place to send their kids.

The day was a huge success. As a whole, the L'Oréal group laid sod in the back play-yard, painted a map of the United States, Painted the wooden fence that surrounds the yard, and built bookshelves and benches. It was totally satisfying for me to see it all completed at the end of the day.

On Wednesday, a woman from Loyola University came to talk to our team about getting to know the city better and how to be more knowledgeable with volunteers while they are here. She presented a PowerPoint that had a little animated graphic that showed the levees breaking in chronological order and how long it took for the city to fill up. She was a great speaker but for some reason I didn't like her delivery. She didn't have any cool tips or facts but she did encourage us to go and seek the information we find interesting and to tell our own story.

Thursday was interesting. I went out with some volunteers to help an organization called Unity. From what I understand, they literally take people off the streets, furnish and house them, set them up with a caseworker, and find work for them. The homeless population has doubled after Katrina from 6,000 to 12,000, so it is really a pressing need.

Catch, the women in charge, is a great woman. She sat us down and gave us a 40 minute orientation about the housing climate in the city and the challenges she faces as the organizer for Unity. She is a high energy get-to-it kind of lady an we helped her organize donated clothes in the Unity warehouse (an old gutted catholic schoolhouse built in 1927 with no electricity or plumbing and a dank smell) and run furniture and domestic items out to newly housed people, e.g. stoves, dressers, pots and pans, linens, etc. I found it rewarding even though sorting through clothes can be a little thankless at times.

Tomorrow there is a farmer's market/festival on Freret street. It is only a 15 minute walk from where I live and it is all day so I have that to look forward to. The Soul Rebels, a local brass band I have been meaning to see is playing in the afternoon so I can't miss that.

I crossed the Mississippi River.

day sixty

2008-03-28T18:14:00.000-07:00

This week I was forced to lead a couple of volunteer teams on Tuesday and Friday. I prefer to stay in the backyard during the day but occasionally I am asked by Jenna, my team leader, to go out into the field.

On Tuesday, I lead a group of Harvard grad students; we scraped and primed a house in Central City. I find that once you get everyone going and keep their trays full of paint then they will work hard and for a long time. Frankly, the house was in more need of some plumbing work than new paint. The woman that lived there didn't even have a functioning toilet. After our work was over I decided it would be okay if the group walk back to the Hands On building. That was apparently against their policy so Jenna came down on me like I had stolen from a thrift store, which I didn't appreciate too much. She lectured me about how dangerous it was to have the volunteers walk home and all this bologna.

She never seems to sympathize with any of our team. When we suggest that Hands On ought to try and gear itself more towards the actual needs of poor New Orleanians, e.g. construction, she defends Hands On like it were her own organization. There are other things too. I wish she just could relate to us and sort of be our team leader and not their employee.

Aside from that, everything else is okay.

Today I was asked at the last second to take a team out with an environmental organization called Ground Work that tries to bring a sense of community to urban areas through landscape and garden maintenance. It sounds a little contrived and unfocused but it seemed to be okay. We had a great lunch at this place called Cafe Reconcile which is a non-profit that provides an opportunity for at-risk youth to get restaurant work experience while studying at the same time. They serve soul food and the guy from Ground Work happened to know the cook. He was super generous and talked to us about the whack ways the city is trying to house the poor folks that lost their homes/possessions.

In general, I miss home. I miss avocados, Sadie, bicycles, the trolley, hills, Lindsey, my bed, football, etc.

I was in the park across the street from my building earlier tonight and 40 cyclists rode down Napoleon on a Critical Mass ride. I got super excited and shouted "!bangarang!" as they rode by. It is the last Friday of the month after all. It reminded me of home.

Still haven't crossed the Mississippi River...

day fifty-six

2008-03-24T13:39:00.000-07:00

Today is my last day of Spring Break. I walked to the very beautiful part of Audubon Park and past the old mansions on St. Charles. I walked past Loyola and Tulane Universities...seven miles.

Today wasn't nearly as eventful as yesterday's extravaganza.

On Sunday I left around 8:45am bound for Greenwood Cemetery where John Kennedy Toole is buried. I made the mistake of chugging 40 ounces of water before I left so after only the first mile I had to wee-willy-winkie. I made my deposit at Walgreen's and then entered into Broadmoor, the lowest neighborhood in the city. After the storm, there was eighteen feet of water.

Not long later after leaving Broadmoor I had to pee again. I inconspicuously slid into a Burger King on South Carrollton Ave. I was back on the road in no time. I was approaching the cemetery from the southeast when I noticed a wacky little cafe/new age hoopla herb store. It was only 11:00am so I decided to have a seat and cut into my book a bit since I had been slacking a little as of late. I got what I needed from the counter and found the back patio area. Think of a wooden deck with an over hang, a chain-link fence and then a cemetery. That's what the set-up was like. After only a few pages, T.K., a song by Clinic, (top 10 fav. bands) came onto the speakers. I asked the guy (who later I find out is named Kyle) working the register if the speakers were his responsibility. He confirmed it was his doing. I told him "right on!" and went back to my book.

After I was rested up and ready to begin my search for Toole's headstone I went into the trippy herb store. This tall guy with some corky piercings that seemed to be the manager said "what's up." I told him my plan for the rest of the day and he (Den-A) became interested in hearing more. I explained further that I am a part of AmeriCorps and that I walked from Magazine street. After only a little more small talk, he mentioned that he's the care taker of the cemetery that borders his business. It is called the Odd Fellow Cemetery and he offered to let me have a look.

He explained that the Odd Fellows are an old secret society that is now dieing out. Apparently they were intellectuals and artists and for the most part "odd." We came across this tomb that was undergoing a Voodoo ritual and that is when Den-A let me know that his Voodoo priest lives in the back "right in that pink house." In the tomb, there were some feathers, bones and a strange charcoal orange molten substance that I asked Den-A about but didn't get an answer.

Den-A has lived in Mid-City, the neighborhood where a lot of the city's cemeteries are, for his entire life. He is an enterprising guy that wants to buy a hearse and start his own cemetery tour company. He eventually wants to run for mayor of New Orleans too. He knows a lot of the kooky stories about New Orleans and the whole state for that matter. He told me all about the the racist Chinese sheriff of Jefferson Parish, Harry Lee, and how he built a wall around his beat to keep blacks out. He told me about the 1927 flood and about the corruption behind the Louisiana State Lottery. All his tales were funny and entertaining because he is a resourceful story-teller. He also told me about his 2005 flood experience. He now smokes forty cigarettes each day. He let me know that he lost a ton of music recording equipment but that he is one of only sixty people to receive Road Home grants.

After checking out the Odd Fellow Cemetery we went over to the Metairie Cemetery for a quick tour. Metairie Cemetery is an old affluent cemetery where the founder of Popeye's Chicken and a ton of old Southern Confederate war heroes rest. One guy's tomb had a giant marble phallus draped in a shroud. I thought that was fitting. Then we went to a black cemetery where Buddy Bolden, the Jazz musician, is buried. He doesn't have a marker but there is a gnarly oak tree over his grave. Den-A also showed me his own house and what the progress looks like these days. He has new bamboo floors and almost all of the original doors are going back in.

I was so appreciative of his willingness to show me around a give me an unadulterated version of what really happened. I made sure he knew that.

I never made it to Toole's grave site but I did get quite a comprehensive information experience.

Still haven't crossed the Mississippi River...

day fifty-three

2008-03-21T18:19:00.000-07:00

Stamps are expensive. The post office's hours are difficult to work with. They aren't open on the weekends so it is tough for me to make it there before they close on weekdays. It is on Louisiana avenue. After making it to the post office I pointed myself toward downtown.

The day was so nice.

I walked down St. Charles which is a busy road with a streetcar line that runs down the middle of it. It's only $1.25 to ride but the day was too nice to waste the money. Plus those damned stamps...too much money these days.

In Lafayette Square there is a giant statue of Henry Clay, who I learned was a great senator. I rested there for a while.

I continued down St. Charles and made it to the French Quarter. I walked down Decatur street and then past Cafe Du Monde. That's were they serve the beignets and t-shirts with the logo printed on them. I thought I might get in line but I left.

After bumping into a couple of staggering hillbillies I became disgruntled and went to a bookstore on Chartres (pronounced char-tres not CHAR-tray) that I had been to last time I was in the neighborhood. Like before, I couldn't find anything worth buying so I left and wandered up and down Canal street looking for the statue of Ignatius, the main character in A Confederacy of Dunces.

I took a picture and as I snapped it, this young guy yelled something like, "...taking a picture." I looked and asked him to say again what I didn't catch the first time. He became sort of shy and I asked him if he knew who the statue was supposed to represent. He didn't answer and I told him it was Ignatius, the main character of of a great book that takes place in New Orleans. I asked him if he was from New Orleans and he said "yes." I told him to read it because it would make him laugh; but he would probably have to be older. He didn't seem to hear anything I said.

I became frustrated and started walking home. I decided that I won't be back to the French Quarter unless I have business there. I came across a barber shop on Magazine street with other gentlemanly items for sale. I talked with the guy working the counter. We eventually introduced ourselves and I came to find out that at Stein's Market and Deli, which is across the street, there is a sandwhich named after him, Sam is what it is called. Cole slaw, Russian dressing, Swiss cheese & hot pastrami on rye. Sounds pretty good but not good enough to eat.

I walked 11 miles and got a sun burn on my forehead.

Still haven't crossed the Mississippi River...

day fifty-one

2008-03-19T17:11:00.000-07:00

I find myself having more optimism. Yesterday I volunteered to take charge of the backyard/tool shed and today I got started. I will be responsible for keeping the shed and its contents organized and ensuring the backyard area stays in order. Hands On doesn't have the funds to do construction on houses but they do have tons of donated tools, e.g., hammers, shovels, saws, drills... What the Hands On Higher Ups envision for the shed's future is a community tool source for people and organizations (with the means) to draw from. I think that's a brilliant idea and I am super excited to be a part of that. Plus, I have creative control for a lot of the lumber in the backyard when it comes to building shelves and racks for our building. Before I became involved with running the backyard area I was doing different projects every day.

Most of the projects were worth while and fun but some weren't. Our first couple days were filled with the orientation process and a tour of the city. The first day of work for me was Wednesday and I went to Singleton Elementary School in Central City, which is a dangerous neighborhood. They were doing their standardized testing and the 1st graders didn't have anything to do so I chaperoned their field trip. We went to the Louisiana Children's Museum first and then to Audubon Park (the second largest park in the city) to have lunch. I chased Calvin and Wayne (the two young guys that decided to befriend me) around the museum and around the park. They were super rambunctious but still entertaining. As we were going home the two boys pestered me to say the "A" word and the "D" word. I told them I didn't know what those were. I showed them pictures of Lindsey and they thought she was so pretty, which she is.

Thursday was a long day but productive. Steve and I decided to install mailboxes around the city. They are relatively easy to put in and are great for people who have moved back in but are not living like they once did. For lunch that day we drove to Lake Ponchartrain to eat by the shore. The water was warm and clear. There were oodles of shells on the beach and I collected some of the pretty ones. As we were walking back to the car I found five dollars on the ground. I ended up giving it to the Common Ground outpost (http://www.commonground.org/outpost) in the Lower Ninth Ward. We finished up our mailboxes and then we ran into this former AmeriCorps guy named Josh who was working on the same block. He was with a non-profit called the St. Bernard Project and they do construction on houses. It costs them $10,000 to go from studs to paint. We worked with him until about 5:00pm and then said goodbye. Steve and I are interested in going back on the weekends and helping them out.

On Friday I went back to the Children's Museum not as a chaperone but as a regular volunteer. I got to work in the arts and crafts department. We listened to the Jazz and Blues station in New Orleans WWOZ 90.7 and made paper bag puppets. It was nice to sit.

Saturday was torturous. My team and I drove to Baton Rouge for a big symposium type thing with all the other AmeriCorps teams in the Gulf. It was a giant waste of our budget and it provides another reason for the critics of AmeriCorps to argue that the program isn't worth the tax dollars. It wasn't a total waste of a Saturday; I was able to see and hear about the other teams' projects and how they are doing.

I finally made it to all of the Magazine street antique shops on Sunday. I walked a long way. I measured it on the computer when I got home and it turned out to be like five and a half miles.

Monday was fun. I went to an orchard 45 minutes away, right next to the Mississipi River, to pick oranges for the Second Harvest Food Bank http://no-hunger.org/. There were giant fire ant hills all around the orchard and when you poked one with a stick all the ants would rush out and scurry around. I ate five oranges. They were better than normal oranges. Right as we were leaving, the girl that drove said she couldn't find the key to the car and that she may have dropped it in the orchard. we had a search party going and it was really hopeless. We ended up finding it on top of the car.

I am getting more settled in. Last night there was a lightning storm that was exciting but a little too loud for sleeping.

Still haven't crossed the Mississippi River...

new orleans photos

2008-03-09T22:24:00.000-07:00

Burkhard

Audubon Park

Audubon Park

Audubon Park

Odd Fellow Cemetery (Canal street, Mid-City)

Odd Fellow Cemetery (Canal street, Mid-City)

Odd Fellow Cemetery (Canal street, Mid-City)

Odd Fellow Cemetery (Canal street, Mid-City)

Royal street, French Quarter

Statue of Ignatius (Canal street, downtown)

Nice paper bag puppet (from the children's museum)

Camp street, Garden District

Showing off (Lower Ninth Ward)

Steve and me installing a mailbox (Lower Ninth Ward)

Concrete foundations (Lower Ninth Ward)

White house driven into neighboring house (Lower Ninth Ward)

Corner of unnamed intersection (Lower Ninth Ward)

Magazine street (Garden District)

Napoleon avenue (Garden District)

Hands On building on Napoleon ave (I sleep here)

New Orleans

day forty

2008-03-08T21:55:00.000-08:00

On Friday we departed Perryville at 7:45am for New Orleans. We drove through Virginia and I found it more beautiful than Maryland. Western Virginia is full of mountain-like hills so it made for good scenery. We rolled into Tennessee around 5:30pm and found our hotel in Knoxville at 6:00pm. There were four other AmeriCorps teams staying there so the lobby was very hectic. There was free wireless Internet so I got to do some research about cafes, restaurants, book/record stores, galleries, etc. before we arrived in N.O. the next day. Three of us had to share a room with two king sized beds so we devised a plan; that plan was to combine both beds and let the loser of rock, paper, scissors sleep in the middle, on the crack. That ended up being our nice friend Nat from Chicagoland. I woke up around 6:00am and hustled down into the lobby for some oatmeal and a waffle. We left for Louisiana around 7:00am.

We sailed through Alabama. We stopped for lunch in Mississippi at a Waffle House (Southern version of Denny's) and I had the Chef's salad with I-talian (eye-talyun) dressing. The twang is for real in Mississippi. We arrived in New Orleans around 4:30pm and found where we will be staying at around 5:00pm.

We came from the north, so that meant traversing Lake Ponchartrain which is the body of water that is supposed to be kept away from New Orleans by the levees. Once we completed spanning the bridge that streaks across the lake, neighborhoods began to manifest. These neighborhoods were badly flooded when the levees failed and the damage is still obvious. It's unreal to see houses being swallowed by vines and ones that are partially standing and streets still littered with debris. The storm left these neighborhoods close to the lake uninhabitable. The people that used to live here are gone.

We drove directly at downtown for some ways and then we came near enough to see the Superdome which is terrifically impressive. We made it to our place of residence for the next eight weeks on Napoleon Avenue no problem and I got all set up. I live in a room the size of a high school classroom with about ten bunks. I sleep on bunk "B" which is on the bottom next to my teammate Steve who also has a bottom. I have come to realize that the bottom is most comfortable when it comes to using a bunk bed.

After a killer dinner of rice, beans, cilantro, guacamole, lime, tortillas and freshly-made horchata, Steve and I went to explore Magazine Street. We live only a block north, at the corner of Camp Street and Napoleon Avenue. Magazine has a good selection of restaurants, bars, antique stores, men's and women's clothing stores, cafes and just about everything you might need. We are so fortunate to be living in such a prime location. Steve and I found the alternative rag for the city and there seems to be a ton of free music for us to see. I couldn't be happier.

Still haven't crossed the Mississippi River...

new york

2008-03-05T20:18:00.000-08:00

A guy by the name of Chad, who happens to be on Steve and my team, drove us to the edge of Staten Island. He has a girlfriend that lives in Staten Island so he visits her on a regular basis. (East Coast tolls are outrageous) He let us know that the Staten Island Ferry was free and a great way to get into Manhattan so we took his advice. It's great! it goes right by the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, so I got a great view.

When we arrived the snow was coming down heavily and then suddenly it became rain...strange. It made for an icky walk. We stayed in Astoria, Queens that night with Steve's friend Lauren from Northeastern College in Boston. They worked at the school paper and they became friends and are still obviously in contact.

Taking the subway for the first time was exciting. The stations are generally damp, smelly, very old and dirty looking. I found the network to be simple and straight forward though. It is two dollars, no matter the distance, and sometimes they have deals like six rides for $10. I saw two rats, their size was unimpressive.

I had bad sleep in Astoria because I had to lie on the hard wood floor. The morning wasn't bad though, we said goodbye, thanked Lauren and set our sights at Brooklyn. We spent part of the day cruising Bedford Ave., the hipster zone, and I bought a baguette, hou hou hou baguette...foo doo fah fah. When we became bored with Brooklyn we took the subway to the Lower East Side to do some more wandering. We found this place called The Cake Shop that had goodies and a record selection and some interesting Manhattanites. We killed time there until Steve thought that we ought go to Times Square at night, I reluctantly agreed.

Times Square is dirty and crowded and offensive to me. Luckily we all felt that way so we strolled up to Rockefeller Plaza, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Radio City etc. and decided that it was too cold and windy to press on so we commandeered a subway and bailed on Midtown.

That night we were suppose to stay with Steve's New Mexico Newspaper friend (Sean or Shawn) in Brooklyn but we couldn't get a hold of him until very late but eventually it all worked out. He has a nice place in a lousy part of Brooklyn but it's a great location for him because he is a teacher at a middle school only 15 or 20 blocks away. He was very hospitable and sleeping at his place was more comfortable because he had more in the way of comforters and pillows.

The next morning we went to his roof (seven stories) and looked at the Manhattan skyline. The sky was completely clear and seeing it all at once was very impressive. We (now four of us) decided that we wanted to check what Greenwich Village had to offer. The neighborhood is sort of collegey now but it still has it's charm. We found Yatagan Kebab House selling a $2.00 falafel that was mighty big. We continued to roam and found ourselves in Chelsea which was quaint and nothing like disgusting Times Square. Sean or Shawn left us (now three again) and we decided we wanted to visit Strawberry Fields in Central Park. The sun was headed down so we decided to call Chad and see what he was up to because by now it was Sunday and we needed to be heading back to ole' Perryville. We called and found ourselves exiting New York the way we arrived, on the Staten Island Ferry.

travel companions (Amanda and Steve)

2008-03-05T20:15:00.001-08:00

perryville photos

2008-03-04T13:28:00.000-08:00

Dresser with iPod, water bottle, books, cell phone, etc.

Bunk (angle one)

Bunk (angle two)

Me grinning after work

day nineteen

2008-02-16T12:47:00.000-08:00

Another Saturday, but this one is a fun and productive one. This morning I awoke to silence because 95 percent of my unit had gone to either Baltimore or Philadelphia for service projects. They got out of town around 5:00 am this morning and they were quiet about doing so which was nice because it afforded me the opportunity to sleep in.

I finally got the tubs I was asking money for at Home Depot last week and this was the first time I got a chance to use them. We have four of them and they are 54 gallons each. I got up around 8:30am and planned on meeting Dan, one of the Team Leaders that has showed interest in driving a van to the recycling center this morning. He is very impressed that 9H (our building) has such a simple and efficient recycling system because that isn’t so in The Village, where he lives.

He showed up around 9:30am and we loaded the tubs into the back of the van along with the other smaller recycling packages that each house had accumulated. I noticed he had a Chrome bag so I asked him where he lived (Minneapolis) and if he rode a bike (he does) so we had a lot in common. We talked about the knuckleheads in AmeriCorps and how we both were caught off guard when we arrived. He has this Garmin handheld GPS navigator device that is awesome so we got there with no problem. We weighed in at 5400 pounds on the nose and when we left we weighed 5098. 300 pounds of recycling in one week! I was really proud. I made plans with him to go next week too.

After I got back home and washed out the stickiness at the bottom of each tub I ran into my roommate Patrick and we decided to grab some of the bikes we saw in the hallway and head out to do some errands. We knew who they belong to and we knew they got them at a thrift store a week ago so we helped our selves. One belongs to a girl named Veronica and her bike is called “Twilight Twist.” The other belongs to this flamboyant Mexican boy from Bakersfield; it’s called “Heartbreaker.” I rode that one. We had heard about this shed near the AmeriCorps administration building called the “Drift Store” with lots of used and left over uniform items that are for the taking. I loaded up on black cargo pants and Patrick snatched a couple grey long sleeve t-shirts. After that we headed off campus to the grocery store (Food Lion) to pick up some pens; I paid in cash. Then we went to the Perryville Library to hop on the computers. Luckily I am a part of AmeriCorps or I would have had to pay $15.00 for a library card; instead it was free. After that we stopped at the pizza place (Ercole’s) closer to campus to grab a $2.00 slice. These guys must have been right off the boat because it was a struggle to order even though all I had to do was point. I wanted to pick up some stamps at the post office but it turns out they close early on Saturdays.

Aside from the fun I had today this week has been quite eventful. I learned where our first project will be and that one of the two crumby girls is headed home for good. We leave for New Orleans on the 7^th of March and will be down there for around two months rebuilding houses, painting murals, playing with kids, etc. We are going to be in the city which will be extra nice since I won’t have to depend on the van as much.

The girl flew home this morning much to my delight. She realized that she wasn’t quite ready for ten months of AmeriCorps service.

Still no full bodied contact with the Chesapeake Bay…

day twelve

2008-02-09T13:51:00.001-08:00

This morning our team went to the YMCA to exercise. They have racquetball courts there so I am excited about going back and giving that a try.

Whenever possible I try to get someone outside to throw the football at. I also play ping-pong at night.

This past week was eventful. On Tuesday I found out who my permanent team is and as of now I am content. My team leader is boring and kind of a stickler for the rules but she is punctual and fair.

We have a couple of team members that I will try my best to ignore; both girls. The rest are tolerable.

On Wednesday we went to Wilmington, Delaware. I never heard of it but surprisingly it is a big as Fresno. I don’t know why it exists. I think they made stuff during WWII. Now it’s poor an dirty. We did an AmeriCorps activity called “community mapping” which is really fun. We essentially walk the streets with questions we intend to answer. For example: renters vs. home owners, major employers, location of schools and hospitals, types of businesses, etc. I think that in a more interesting city “community mapping” would be really fun.

On Thursday we went to Philadelphia to work in a park. We worked in a large urban park similar to Morley Field. The ranger had us plucking non-native invasive species of plants from a creek area. There was a vine we had to strip from trees, a long skinny red shoot with thousands of super skinny needle type thing that grew like a weed all throughout the area, and tall brittle sticks that also had spikes called Devil’s Walking Sticks. I had a lot of fun romping around in the woods and after our work was done we went to the Old City area to check out the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. We wandered around in that area until we found a place to grab some pizza. We went to SOHO Pizza. It was ok. $2.25 is fair. We had a bit of trouble finding the freeway back south only because I wasn’t in the navigator’s seat. Philadelphia is kind of a hip place. There were a ton track bikes around the city but unfortunately we never made it to South St. were a lot of the bike action takes place. I might live there if I needed to.

This weekend our team is going to a park here in Perryville to pick up litter. I expect to spend around 4 hours doing that.

I saw the albino deer.

day five

2008-02-02T09:42:00.000-08:00

Today is Saturday and I have not a lot to do. I went to breakfast and I took a walk around the campus taking pictures and exploring. Today there isn’t anything scheduled so I have the whole day to myself. I might walk into town later today but I have to be back in time to attend a boys meeting regarding some puke found in one of the bathrooms; that’s at 5:15pm.

There is a lot of boredom here at nights so a large number of the Corp population is forced to find entertainment outside the campus. There is a bar called Rendezvous (“the vous” how perfect is that?) that a lot of the drinkers like to go to. I heard that the guy who vomited wasn’t even in his own bathroom, go figure…

It turns out that those 2000 cigarettes on the front lawn of our building didn’t come from us but the sick veterans that occupied the building before us. None the less, there is still a ton of smoking going on around me and I wish there wasn’t.

We are assigned our permanent teams on Monday (4 FEB 08) so I think things will begin to get less hectic. I hope my team leader is a smart nice guy with a good sense of direction. Yesterday we went back to the doctor’s office in Delaware to have our TB tests read and the woman that drove us got lost for 15 minutes finding the place and for 20 minutes trying to get back on the freeway.

I’m eating very well, lots of fruits and breads. I forgot my tea at home so I can’t have any in the mornings; hopefully it will come soon. I’m drinking a lot of water so we are accumulating plastic bottles very quickly.

I started a recycling program in our building and I think I might run to Home Depot with a team leader to grab 4 Rubbermaid tubs so that we won’t have to keep using plastic bags.

There are about 40 or 50 goofballs (men and women) that I would like cut from the program right now. They didn’t do anything wrong but their attitudes are terrible and aren’t mature enough to be living with roommates and fending for themselves. I hope the majority is weeded out by the drug test results but I don’t think it will make any difference.

Generally, I’m happy but I wish there were fewer hillbillies and more people with sense that had applied to the program.

Still no deer sightings…

day one

2008-01-29T18:43:00.001-08:00

If I had money in my bank account I could have watched the first season of Flight of the Conchords. Instead, I watched Alton Brown on the Food Network for free all the way to Atlanta; very fancy.

Our traveling Americorps group grew as time passed and as we departed Atlanta there were 8 of us. After landing at 8:30am we (now more than 40 of us) had to sit around and wait for our shuttle to fetch us at 11:00am. More of us assembled at the USO office and by the time it was time to pile onto the shuttle there were 60 of us.

Baltimore is an ugly place. I don't blame John Waters for wanting to make wacky movies about it i.e. Pecker

I didn't expect to see patches of snow on our descent but on front lawns and ball fields there was icky snowy ice that had been there for weeks. The air smells good, not Julian good, but fresh none the less.

I live in a big building called 9H. It has 2000 cigarette butts in and around the front lawn. It also has a lot of rooms and I live in a room called 117 with three other boys. I am pleased with them so far. As I was finishing my cold shower, James Brown was howling about how good he felt. I also felt pretty good on account of me being so prepared. I knew those laps at the cold water pool would be of benefit.

What we ate for dinner was boring but sitting with one of my roommates was entertaining.

I touched the water that the Campus is next to (Chesapeake Bay) and it was cold. I might build the courage one day to bathe in it but I will have to do it quickly since I don’t think swimming is allowed.

Still no deer sightings...

max

2007-10-04T18:00:00.001-07:00