30Apr2008

Last time I wrote I was in the middle of writing about my weekends in February and March, which were in Sacramento, Lake Tahoe, and San Francisco. Since those are already more than a month ago this post will be a little longer because of everything new that has happened since then. Because of all of the different things I’ve done recently I’ll put the dates of each thing starting with the first weekend in March and going all of the way up through now. Here it goes…

29Feb2008 – 02Mar2008 (Tahoe)
This weekend was another weekend in Tahoe. This time I was with yet another group of people and there were a total of 12 people. The other 11 people in the group beside myself were from two different teams – my team is great but I do enjoy weekends without them because we see each other all day literally every day so it was nice to get away with another group. We rented two cars and a house about 5 miles from the lake and on Friday arrived late enough where going out wouldn’t have been worth it, though there was plenty of time to party at the house. We played games, cards, sat around and had fun, and the best part was relaxing in the hot tub that was right outside the back door. We spent a few hours in there on Friday night and even longer on Saturday night. On Saturday morning we drove about 10 miles to an area on the southwest corner of the lake called Emerald Bay. Of the few times I’ve been to Tahoe now Emerald Bay has been a stop for me each time though it’s always with different people. This time it was a beautiful, clear day though there was a couple feet of snow. Of course I forgot to bring shoes for the weekend so I was wearing flip-flops the entire time though being from MN helped quite a bit. After being here for a little while we drove to the southeast side of the lake to the town of South Lake Tahoe where there is a lot of shops, food, casinos, and other tourist-type stuff. We split up into a couple different groups during the day to make it easier to get around. My group did a little shopping and walking around town then went to Hard Rock Café for food and a couple drinks. Hard Rock is inside of one of the casinos so on our way out we walked through and decided to stop and try our luck at the roulette table. I lost $15 though a couple of my friends won a total of a little over $100. After the casino my group headed back to the house and got right into the hot tub again. After another long night of partying in the hot tub we woke up in the morning, cleaned the house, then headed back to McClellan. It was another great weekend with a group of fun people, fun places, and a great time for everybody.


08Mar2008 (Berkley/Dawkins)
On this day two of my teammates and myself just got in the car and headed towards the San Francisco. We walked around for a couple hours and then headed towards the college campus in Berkley, CA. Our reason for going was to see a guest speaker that my two teammates were familiar with – Richard Dawkins, a world-famous Atheist. Though I had wasn’t at all familiar with him I was very interested in learning about him and seeing him speak. I really enjoyed his presentation, which was about his latest book, and afterwards there was a Q&A session that didn’t last as long as everybody was hoping. I learned a lot from listening to both the presentation and the Q&A and found it very fascinating. Our original plan was to meet some people and find a place to stay for the night though the presentation was done early enough where we could go out for an hour and still have plenty of time to drive home and get back at a decent time. Even though it was only one day we did a lot and saw a lot though it was good to get back home.


15Mar2008 – 16Mar2008 (Fliers/Shamrockin’)
This weekend wasn’t as eventful as the previous ones, though I got a total of 12 extra community service hours (80 extra hours are required to finish the program). The first one I did is barely worth talking about, but a group of 4 of us walked around a couple neighborhoods and taped fliers to mailboxes. I didn’t actually read the flier, though it had something to do with a community event that had a bunch of resources like tax preparation help and things like that. The best part of this was that it was a really nice day outside – clear, hot, and sunny. The next day was an event called ‘Shamrockin’ Half Marathon’ that we helped with. It’s an annual event that includes a 5k run and a half marathon and 5000 people signed up to run in it. We did some setting up before the race and then the majority of our time was spent cutting the automatic timing chips off of the runners’ shoes as they finished the race. It was a simple job though it was a fun time getting to work with the 20 or so other AmeriCorps people and the other volunteers that were there working.


17Mar2008 (St Patty’s)
For St Patty’s Day we had a group of about 15 people go to downtown Sacramento for a majority of the night and the rest was spent at the bar near McClellan. We started at an Irish Pub downtown and ended up at one of my favorite places called Streets of London. Overall the night was a typical St Patty’s night, though it was fun because I met a few more AmeriCorps people I hadn’t met before whom since then have become much better friends.


19Mar2008 (Team Meeting)
We had a brief team meeting since our current project only had another week left and we didn’t know where we were going for our next project yet, which begins right after spring break. It was at this meeting that we found out we were going to Hawaii! Throughout the entire year in AmeriCorps only 1 team goes to Hawaii and it was us! There are something like 37 teams in the program so we got pretty lucky. The other most-wanted project is in Alaska and the team I went to Tahoe with during the very beginning of March got that one!


22Mar2008 – 23Mar2008 (Sonoma Camping)
Easter Sunday and the day before were spent in Sonoma County. A small group of us rented a car and started driving towards Sonoma County with no plans in mind. The group I was with and myself get along very well because we are all about not having a plan and just going with the flow and letting whatever happens happen. We drove to the town of Sonoma and stopped at a couple little shops and then ended up going to Sugarloaf State Park, which is just north of Sonoma. We got our campsite, firewood, food, and drinks and sat around the campsite all night. The next day we packed our stuff and drove around the area a bit to see the area and to find a winery to go to. Because it was Easter we weren’t sure if places would be open but we had no problem finding a nice place that was. The building was large and also had a huge outdoor patio with tables and chairs. We ordered some wine and sat outside for a couple hours before heading home. The weather was perfect and it was great to be there though it definitely didn’t feel like Easter one bit.


29Mar2008 – 30Mar2008 (Ghana)
Saturday was the 51st year of the independence of the country of Ghana. There was an event planned that had 450 people expected to show up and my group helped with the setup and catering at the event. We started with setting up all of the tables with tablecloths, plates, silverware, centerpieces, and a couple other random things. The catering service showed up late so when they arrived we had to rush to distribute the food and from that point on was a very fast-paced night. It was my first time catering, but I learned that you need to be very quick because of all the things happening at the same time. With the salads, the main course, and the desserts all needing to come out in order, one at a time, and with cleanup of the dirty dishes in between each one, a few hours flew by because of how busy we were. At the end we were also in charge of rinsing all of the dishes. We didn’t need to clean them completely though we did have to rinse all of the food off and for 450 people there are a lot of dishes that needed to be cleaned. I had the idea of going to the loading dock in back and setting groups of dishes on the concrete and spray them down with the hose, which turned out to be a very good idea. Our only other option was to use the one small sink they had that would have taken us much longer. Needless to say, the hose idea was a great one. The next day the people that organized the event was hosting a party at their house and invited us for all of the work that we did. They were very friendly people and when we arrived the very first thing they did was show us where all of the beer and alcohol was. There was quite a bit there too and we ended up staying for several hours. The whole experience was great – more connections, contacts, and I also learned a lot about the culture. They are very friendly and will always welcome you into their home.


31Mar2008 – 04Apr2008 (Transition)
Transition week is when all of the teams who were scattered in the western region of the US or down in the Gulf come back to McClellan for the week. Since I had been living at McClellan for the last 2 months for my job it was really nice to see everybody temporarily moving back in. The week has a few planned events though most of it is free time. Friday there was a special one-day event called ‘Life After AmeriCorps Day’ where you can go to any number of workshops or lectures with topics relating to what you can do after AmeriCorps is finished. I wasn’t interested in most of them though the one that I did enjoy the most was about becoming a team leader in AmeriCorps next year. Every team has a team leader and I would being doing the same types of things I’m doing now only I’d be the leader of the team, there would be significantly increased responsibility, and also the pay is quite a bit better than now. I haven’t decided for sure if I’m going to do it yet though I can definitely apply and turn it down later if I change my mind. Also if I did decide to do it I would do it at the Denver campus, which is the campus that works in the entire central part of the country. So, when this Day After AmeriCorps Day was finished it marked the official beginning to spring break!


05Apr2008 – 12Apr2008 (Spring Break)
For spring break I went with 3 friends – Kelsey, Matt, and Alicia – and we rented a car and planned on driving down the coastal highway from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Our first night we stayed at Kelsey’s aunt and uncle’s house in Monterey, CA, which was an amazing house up in the hills with a pool, hot tub, and an amazing view. We checked out a little bit of the town, went out to dinner, and spent the rest of the night at the house in the hot tub. The next morning packed up and headed towards Big Sur for a night of camping. The entire trip south was spent driving along the coast and stopping every once in awhile at scenic overlooks and taking a few pictures and just relaxing. Every day we had no more than 3 hours to drive to get to our next stop so we took our time enjoying everything we saw. From the start our nights were spent in: Monterey, Big Sur (camping), Morrow Bay (camping on the beach), Carpinteria State Beach (camping), Hollywood (hotel), and San Francisco (hotel). There’s a ton I could write about because it was a jam packed 6 day adventure though I’ll simply summarize it as an awesome break from AmeriCorps while seeing many new places, driving down most of the coast of California, and going to a Giants game in San Fran and got to see them play my favorite team (the Cardinals) and also my favorite player: Pujols!


13Apr2008 (Last Day of Break)
The last day of spring break was spent hanging around McClellan saying goodbye to everybody because most teams, including mine, were going to head to their next projects. I packed up my suitcase, said a few goodbyes, and was ready to head to Hawaii.


14Apr2008 (Travel Day/Jobs in Hawaii)
We left to go to the San Francisco airport around 6am and my group was actually split into two different flights. My flight (and half the team) left at noon and had a 3 hour layover at LAX before flying into Maui. The other group had a direct flight to Maui from San Fran but didn’t leave until 4 or 5. When we arrived in Maui our project sponsors and a few people we would be working with were there greeting us and brought us out to dinner before driving us to where we would be living. We live at Old Maui High School, which was built in the 20’s and stopped being used in the 70’s and 1 of our 4 jobs while in Maui is to help restore the campus. The campus is several different buildings and a lot of open space, some of which we will turn into a garden.
Our main job (where we will spend the most time) is removing Kiawe, which is an invasive species of plant that is killing all of the native Hawaiian plants in this particular area. These plants actually grow into a very large thicket of trees and have very sharp thorns on them. It’s tough work, but we remove the trees that are covering several acres of this beach property. They have been removing the trees from this area now for 6 or 7 years and they said they are about 90% done. I’m still learning about these trees, but they are in the mesquite family and are very, very good for burning and cooking though I haven’t tried for myself yet.
Another job we have is working for an organization called ‘Teens On Call.’ When we first arrived I had no idea what it was – it’s a big field with tall grass and weed everywhere and several beat up shacks scattered around the property. The guy who runs the place, Brian, is an awesome guy with a huge vision for this place and the teens that work there – and is actually following through with what he has in mind. First, one main idea of the place is to have a place for teens to go to stay out of trouble, to learn any number of trade skills, to learn responsibility, and to make a few extra bucks ($10/hour, cash, and paid each day they work as an incentive). The place is all about self-sustainability and making the most out of what you have available. It’s ridiculous how many donations they receive from people and organizations in the area, both with obviously useful stuff and then apparent junk like rotten, beat up lumber, and all kinds of other stuff. But their philosophy is take what you can get and make it work so in the case of the beat up wood just cut off the bad parts and keep the good stuff and it will for sure end up getting used somewhere. My favorite thing that is going on there is a ‘farming’ technique he learned from a Ph.D. friend of his. This guy developed a system for growing high quality crops in a very small space – it starts with a tank similar to a swimming pool filled with about 80 small catfish and the water (and everything else in the tank) slowly drains into another small tank that filters the large solids, which is GREAT fertilizer that you can use anywhere, then the liquids from here drain into another smaller tank that contain several little plastic balls that removes the algae, and then finally into a very shallow, rectangular-shaped tank before being pumped back into the catfish tank. In the shallow tank you place styrofoam flats that have a series of maybe 6” holes that hold small pots that contain whatever you are growing. Here, he grows lettuce and the roots simply hang down into the water that is loaded with nutrients. It grows much faster than farming and is much higher quality – the long-term idea being you can install this system at home and grow many of your own crops. Because the guy who developed this was still in the testing phase on a small scale they provided this system to 5 different families in Maui. It worked so well that they got a grant from the state to install 5 more systems – and because THAT worked so well they got a federal grant to install 5 more. Brian also mentioned that his friend tried this system on a larger scale to see how it worked. He said this system was set up for an 11-acre field and in one ‘season’ yielded 5 million heads of lettuce! I’m very interested in this whole self-sustainability thing, which luckily goes very, very well with my degree in civil engineering. I told Brian I have a degree in CE and he said he will have some special projects for me sometime soon. I’m hoping for the best!
On Saturdays we work in a valley only a couple miles from Lahaina, the big resort town on Maui. The valley we work in used to be the home to an ancient Hawaiian civilization around the year 500. It’s a very sacred place and the guy who runs it gave us a very detailed history lesson about it. Our job there is to not necessarily restore it to what it used to look like, but to preserve what is there and do what we can to improve the place. With the thousands of different plants in here you could survive easily and a lot of the plants don’t exist anywhere else, which is why they want to preserve what is there. There is a lot of weeding, creating gardens, and general cleanup in terms of protecting the areas around these endangered plants. Though the property is only a couple miles up the mountain it’s a good 20-minute drive on a rough, rocky road up the slope though an area that is similar to a rainforest. It’s a bumpy ride, but awesome at the same time.


19Apr2008 – Now (Free Time in Hawaii)
It’s no surprise by now, but one thing a few of my teammates and I like to do is find where the nightlife is wherever we are living. Unfortunately, living where we do – 3 miles from the nearest town of Paia – makes it difficult to get there and back with limited transportation. There are only a couple good places in Paia where you can go at night for a beer, though they are both awesome places with outdoor seating. The good news is that hitchhiking is legal here and actually very common so getting home is easy. I’ve hitched 3 times now and saved myself a 3-mile walk. It’s also a great way to meet people although the conversations aren’t long, but it’s really cool to see how friendly and willing people are to pick up strangers.
There are also a ton of beaches around here. Only a mile and a half from us is the worlds best wind surfing beach. It’s not in its prime season right now but every day there are tons of people out there because the waves are decent size and are so consistent. There are always wind surfers, kite surfers, and regular surfers out there and there are good and bad beaches for each type.
One of our days off we drove up to Haleakala National Park, which is at the highest point on Maui. There are two mountains on Maui and the highest point is a tiny bit over 10,000 feet. We drove up there and it was very cool because on one of the slopes on one side of the mountain there is a big round crater, which has a very unique weather system. In a 10-minute period, looking down towards the crater, it goes from perfectly clear to completely cloudy because of the heat fluctuations and then back to clear again in only a few minutes. As the hot air rises out of the crater and combines with the very cool trade winds blowing over the top you can see the clouds from the crater very quickly rise up and it was very cool to watch. Because there are winds blowing in all directions and constant temperature changes the clouds overhead, when they are present, are moving in all different directions and reminds me very much of home when a big storm is blowing in. You see a lot of churning, rotating, and movement in all directions, only here it still bright and sunny – very cool.


So yes, a lot has happened and everything I wrote is only the beginning. If you want to hear more about any of this just ask and I will tell you what I can. We don’t have internet access where we are living (we need to go to town to the internet café) so I can’t go on as often as I want.

Also I added some more pics - both new and old – to my Picasa page and you can access that at: http://picasaweb.google.com/JaJaCar1

11Mar2008

In the last few weeks I've had my birthday, visited San Francisco twice, Lake Tahoe twice, started a second job in addition to our current job at the Sacramento Urban League and I've done two different few-hour volunteer jobs.

The weekend of my birthday was great (Feb 15th for those of you who don't know...)! Friday we went to downtown Sac and went to a couple different bars - the first one was with the Pyramid Brewery with about 6 of my teammates, then we went to a really nice Irish pub called the Streets of London and met up with another dozen or so AmeriCorps people. The next morning I was sitting in the computer lab with one of my teammates actually verifying plans for our trip to Tahoe the following weekend when I overheard a couple other people in the comp lab talking. I heard the name 'Umphrey's McGee,' which is a great band that I had seen once before and several friends of mine are really into. A few weeks before this I saw they were playing in San Fran (about an hour and a half drive) on Fri, Sat, and Sun of my birthday weekend though I couldn't find anybody who was interested in going so I put it off. So, I asked the two in the room if they were planning on going to the show the next night (Saturday) but they said it was sold out. So we checked for tickets for Sunday's show and they were available. We had work off on Monday because of whatever federal holiday it was so we talked about going to the show Sunday night and finding a hotel for the night. Within 15 minutes of even walking into that room with no plans for the rest of the weekend we booked a one-night trip to San Fran that included a concert at The Fillmore, which turned out to be one of the coolest venues I have ever seen a show. One of the girls that was going had a car so we didn't need to worry about getting there and then the 5 of us went and had a great time for not much money at all - a great end to an awesome birthday weekend!

The following weekend (Feb 22nd) we had planned a trip to Lake Tahoe and originally had 15 people going. By the time we ended up going we only had 6 people that went - the people we lost, all but 1 anyway, had good excuses to back out. It seemed unfortunate at the time but turned out to work out perfectly actually. One bit of good news was that we only needed to rent one car, which makes it a little easier for getting everybody around. A couple days before we left we heard the weather may be a little rough and were actually considering backing out altogether. As we got into the base of the mountains driving in it started snowing a bit and all of the trees were covered in snow and was an amazing sight. We finally got into the town of South Lake Tahoe and traffic was very slow and we decided to not bother driving around town if we didn't need to and just stay at our condo we rented. Being from MN I was surprised at how slow traffic was in the snow, especially where it's flat and not mountainous at all! In MN people still drive the speed limits on the highway during a blizzard so it surprised me that people who live in the mountains where it snows a lot during the winter drove as slow as they did. All night I was a little worried about getting home in time because it snowed all night and our rental car was due back by 3pm and if we were late at all we would not only have to keep and pay for the car another night, but would have to figure out a way to get it back in the morning, which would be difficult because we have work at 8am. In the morning I decided that we should probably go to the hardware store and buy chains for the car tires - a piece of advice I heard from a few people earlier on. I went to the store, bought chains for $30 (we all split the cost), learned how to put them on, and went back to the house so we could clean up and leave ASAP. On a good, dry day - if you drive fast - you can get from our base to Tahoe in an hour and a half. I wanted to be on the road by 11am since we didn't know what to expect for traffic and road conditions. Traffic was VERY slow leaving town and chains were actually required at a certain point on the highway back. If you didn't have chains on there were little businesses and people in trucks around the check-point selling them for at least $40 plus could charge around $30 to install them. After seeing that I felt a lot better about my decision to buy them earlier. The traffic was very slow until a certain point and then picked up quite a bit until the point where you are required to pull over and pull the chains off the car. Luckly I knew how to do it and took them off in about 30 seconds and then jumped back in the car and started driving really fast back towards the car rental place. The whole time I was going back and fourth on whether I though we would make it or not, because we still had to fill the car with gas before we got back. Finally we rolled into the car rental place at 2:56pm! Just after we drove in and got out the guy closed the gate behind us - we made it JUST in time! I know if we had more people, more cars, or hadn't gotten those chains when I did I know for sure we would have not made it back in time. Another great action packed weekend!

I still have a lot more stuff to write about, though I will continue the rest soon!

12Feb2008

So since my last post a lot more has happened once again. We moved back to Sacramento and had one 'transition week,' which was all of the teams that were in the gulf that were going to be working in the western region moved back to Sacramento, and all of the teams that were in the western region moved back to Sacramento before beginning their projects, whether they were in the western region again or in the gulf. Transition week was mostly free time and hanging out with all of the people we hadn't seen the last couple months, but there were also a few things like finishing paperwork from our previous job in Gray and learning more about our upcoming project (our now current project). Also during transition week we worked a one-day project at a local city park removing non-native plant species. These plants spread quickly and take over the existing plants so there is a process to cutting and removing these plants so they don’t spread anymore. It’s not ‘fun’ work but my team is very good at having a good time no matter what kind of job we are doing, which makes the day go by a lot faster. After transition week all but 4 or 5 teams left to their jobs around the country and it's much quieter around the base. Luckily the teams that are there are really great and fun to hang out with. My team is great too, though it's nice to finally see other AmeriCorps people on a regular basis.

We just started our second week working at the Greater Sacramento Urban League. Rather than try to summarize it this is taken directly from the website:

“Our Mission:
The Greater Sacramento Urban League pursues a mission to enable African Americans, other minorities and the underserved to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights. The organization carries out its mission at the local state and national levels through direct services, advocacy, research, policy analysis, community mobilization, collaboration and communications. A 501 (c) (3) organization, GSUL is committed to being the premier social services, educational and technology training center in the Sacramento Region.
GSUL has established history of enabling underserved communities to secure self-reliance through advocacy, services related to workforce preparation, employment, education and literacy, and economic development.
Currently, GSUL provides workforce development training, GED preparation, SAT preparation, health education, childcare services, transportation services, intensive case management, after school programming, life skills training and employment assistance. Annually we assist over 100 high school drop out students obtain their GED; provide classroom training to 150 welfare to work or dislocated workers. Our after school programming enriches the lives of 40 students a week. We teach employability skills and provide direct placement to 150 clients each year. Our health department impacts the lives of 350 children and adults each year. Our service population is considered at risk for a variety of reasons, they are high school drop outs, unemployed, welfare recipients, or achieving poor school grades.”


Our first week went well, though some of the team is having trouble staying busy the whole day. We are split up into different parts of the building doing different jobs, though some areas are much busier than others. I spend most of my day with the computer classes, which teaches typing, Microsoft Word, Excel, and Power Point. The class consists of people from 18-60 and all are there for different reasons, but it’s great to get to know them on a personal level as well as help with any computer questions they may have. The class meets every day from 9-4 (9-12 on Fridays), which means I spent most of last week with them and will continue to spend most of my days with them until the class is complete in a few weeks from now. Of all of the jobs that my team has in the building mine is one of the top two or so to have consistent work. Because of this we may see a change in our schedule in the weeks to come – something like working someplace else on Mondays and Fridays and continuing to work here Tuesday through Thursday. While I’m in the classroom in can use the computers (like I am RIGHT now) and have plenty of free time while everybody is working on their computer projects.

This building does some great things for people if they choose to take advantage of its resources. The people enrolled here don’t need to be here and while there are some that don’t stick with the program there are several who are motivated to make the most of this place. Just last week NBA official Derek Richardson came in and gave a motivational speech about doing what you love and not letting anything get in your way. He mentioned how he grew up in a rough part of NY and his elementary teachers would tell him how he wouldn’t amount to anything. He said he loved playing basketball though it was kind of an accident as to how he started officiating. He started off just to make a few bucks and then realized he loved it and then set a goal to be in the NBA. His coworkers would make fun, laugh, tell him it would never happened, but he took any ref job he could get and slowly worked his way into better leagues with better players until finally he made it to the pros. Here’s a pic of him with Dwayne Wade…

By the way, I'm starting to go through my comments on here and there are several that aren't labeled with names so I have NO idea who they are from. If you want it to be anonymous then you can send me an email or something telling me? Thanks!

14Jan2008

So it's been over a month since my last post, which is when we began our first project and now our first project is almost done! So for the last several weeks we've been working with the Bayou Area Habitat For Humanity in Gray, Louisiana, which is a small town between the two larger towns of Thibodaux and Houma. Both towns are about 5 miles away and Houma is where we do most of our shopping and hanging out when we aren't at our house. We've checked out a few of the local bars - nothing special - and the live music in this area is terrible compared to Minneapolis, which I miss quite a bit.

We've visited New Orleans two different times with one more planned for Jan 19-20 for Mardi Gras and our last weekend living here. The French Quarter and Bourbon Street are great places to visit and can't wait to go back for more. The first big difference I noticed and am still getting used to is the fact you can walk down the street with a drink in hand legally. Other weekends we've spent usually one night staying in watching movies and playing games and the other night going out to movies, bowling, bar, and other places.

This past weekend the whole team did some work in two different FEMA trailer parks in Slidell, LA, which is just north of New Orleans. We cleaned and organized the community centers, built a garden, and built two big signs for the community center to post events, news, and other things going on in the community, and had a bunch of arts and crafts activities for the neighborhood kids.

As far as our regular weekday works goes we have done quite a bit since arriving here several weeks ago. Along with our team there is another group of volunteers who live on site called 'Care-A-Vanners,' who are typically retired couples from the north that travel to different Habitat sites around the country for two or so weeks at a time in their RV's. When we first got here there were 7 RV's (14 volunteers) who have since left this site, but now there are 9 new RV's (18 volunteers) who are living here now. With that many volunteers you can get a lot of work done in a short period of time. Our first house took 3 weeks to go from foundation up to finished exterior (shingles and siding complete). The drywall is the next step on that house though they are waiting until the house we are currently framing is to the same point so the contracted drywallers can do both houses in one job. The house that is currently being built has been worked on for only just last week and today (6 work days) and is being shingled and windows and doors installed. There are also two other houses on site that were fully framed and drywalled when we arrived and since have painted all the interior walls and also installed all of the door and closet frames and are currently installing baseboards, which we should finish tomorrow.

I should probably also mention that I had a little accident last Thursday on the jobsite... I was using a knife and cutting a tie and it slipped and I cut my hand. The knife went in pretty deep into my right hand kind of on the top side between the thumb and finger. I went to the hospital, had it stitched up, and now just letting it heal. I'll spare the gory details, though I will put some pictures online after I get them from the people who have them on their cameras...

One thing I haven't done yet is read the comments you've all been leaving on here! To read the comments I need to go to a separate web page, which I didn't even realize until recently so I will be going through those and responding to you sometime soon!

In addition to those pictures I will be adding more to the link below when I get them on my computer!

PICTURES: http://picasaweb.google.com/JaJaCar1

First Days in Gray

The last night at McClellan (the 25th) was a big night because it was the last time everybody would be together until spring break when everybody goes back for the break. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to everybody before I left but I know everybody will stay busy until spring break and the time will probably fly by.

Monday the 26th of November was the first day of our 5-day road trip from Sacramento to our job site in Gray, LA. We drove from the base in McClellan, CA to San Bernardino, CA, which east of Los Angeles. Several teams are traveling down to the Gulf and will split up when we get near the sites down there, but for the road trip down there we are all staying at the same hotels along the way. We arrived at our hotel (the Hilton, very nice) around 5pm, checked into our rooms, and then went to dinner. After dinner there were about 30 people who went to the hot tub and pool for the net few hours – and it was very nice outside. We woke up in the morning, had breakfast, then had to have the van fully packed up and ready to go by 7am.

After driving for the day we stayed at a hotel in Tucson, Arizona. We drove around a little bit to check out the town, had dinner at a small Mexican place and went to Dairy Queen by the University of Arizona campus. Again, the next day we were up and ready to leave by 7am.

Wednesday night we stayed in Fort Stockton, Texas, and Thursday night we stayed in Houston, Texas. I won’t get into it here, but the Houston highway system SUCKS…!

Friday we finally arrived at our house in Gray, LA. It’s a small house with 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a kitchen – no living room and no real place to sit down comfortably, but we are making it work. We live in a neighborhood that is made up entirely of Habitat for Humanity homes and the houses we will be working on are literally just outside of our door. There are many families with children and many of them play outside all day - there is also a brand new playground just across the street I haven’t met any of them yet, but I know I will be getting to know many of them as early as tomorrow. It’s hard to think that everybody that lives here was directly affected by the hurricane and lost their homes and everything in them. In general, the people down here seem very friendly and are very happy to have us and other volunteers to help out. Just before we got to Gray we had lunch at a small local diner about two hours from here. We talked to a few of the people in there and briefly told them what we were doing. As we were finishing up the waitress came over and told us that one of the customers that we talked to paid for our entire bill! So far it’s been really great here and tomorrow morning, about 8 hours from right now, we will finally be starting our first day of work – the day we have all been waiting for since starting the program.


A few pics are up, but more will be coming very soon...
http://picasaweb.google.com/JaJaCar1

22Nov07

Since I last wrote I've had 2 awesome weekends (and weeks, too) along with another great weekend coming up. Two weekends ago we had a group of 12 people and rented a house in Lake Tahoe for the weekend, last weekend we went camping at Camp Mendoceno as a unit (there are 8 teams of 12 people per unit), which is near the coast a few hours north west of Sacramento, and then today we have a car of people going to wine country until Saturday (Sonoma and Napa). We have a hotel in Santa Rosa, which is a few miles north of Sonoma, and we are spending Thurs and Fri nights there and hoping to see a bunch of wineries and just driving around and doing whatever we feel like doing and then coming back to campus on Saturday sometime.

Yesterday was the AmeriCorps Induction Ceremony, which means we are officially done with training (finally...) and Monday is the day we start 'working.' Monday and the following 5 or so days after that will be spent driving in our 15 passenger van heading down to Louisiana. I don't know the route we are taking, but I know we can only drive 8 hours a day, can't drive over 65, we are staying in hotels along the way, and we are driving with several other vans as a fleet. Of the 33 or so teams here 22 are heading down to the Gulf so I'm hoping to see as many of my new friends as possible though some I may not see again until spring break. All of us have been waiting all month for Monday to start as we are all very anxious to get down to our job site and start building houses! Just last week I found out that we will be both living on and working on Bon Jovi Lane - Bon Jovi and Oprah apparently donated a bunch of money to fund the construction in the area and they are known to stop by every now and again...

First, I'll start with our weekend in Tahoe. We had 3 cars of 4 people, all driving separately, and we rented a house a couple miles from the lake that ended up only being about $35 a night per person! There were several bedrooms, full kitchen, a hot tub, and a great view of the forest and mountains from the back yard. We spent most of Friday night partying in the house and hot tub, Saturday and Sunday was spent driving around the town a bit and checking out the casinos, Hard Rock Cafe, Emerald Bay (very scenic), walked around the towns, and spent the evening hours at the house.

The next weekend we all went to Camp Mendoceno as a team. It was the first time we all drove together as a team in our van for more than an hour at a time. It was about a 4 hour drive and when we arrived we were assigned cabins, loaded our stuff in the cabins, and then had a bit of free time before our activities and dinner. The cabins and bathrooms were all open-air - there was a roof but instead of windows there were just open spaces. We were told there was a 'big tree' about a mile down the train tracks that were there so we walked to check it out. The tree was ok, but the walk there and back and the scenery around the tree was more impressive, I thought. The rest of the weekend consisted of getting up at 5:00 am for physical training (we've been doing it 4 days a week so we are used to it), meals, a bunch of activities, a ropes course, and both nights there we had a bonfire with a couple guitars. The weekend was really great though by the end it was nice to get back to the base.

Right now I'm actually sitting in the car driving to Sonoma for the weekend. We don't have any specific destinations in mind except for our hotel in Santa Rosa though I don't think we will be going there until later. We may go hit the Redwood Forest, the Petrified Forest, a bunch of wineries - we don't know yet but we'll figure it out as we go. I know there are going to be a few different groups of people from AmeriCorps either staying in or passing through Sonoma the next couple days so I hope to meet up with more people if possible.

I'm also planning on posting a bunch of pictures very soon at: http://picasaweb.google.com/JaJaCar1
There aren't any pics on there yet but there will be soon.

Cheers!

4Nov07

Well, a lot has definitely happened since I last wrote. The first big milestone that occurred is that we were put into our permanent teams of 12, which we will be with for the rest of the program. Fortunately, I am with a GREAT team of people who are all friendly and looking to have a good time all of the time, which is something I was really hoping for. We've done several activities already that allow everybody to get to know each other better and it's going very, very well. Four of the five days this past week we had our 'physical training' sessions that start at 5:30 am and consist of a bunch of stretching, push-ups, sit=ups, a bunch of other stuff, and then running about 3-4 miles. The rest of the day each day is a combination of breakfast, lunch, dinner, a bunch of in-class training, and free time.

Last week was our first actual project where we go to a job site and do whatever work they ask. We went to a special needs school and build stone flower gardens, planted trees, created flower beds surrounded by mulch paths, and removed weeds from certain areas of the property. There were two teams (my team and one more) there and we worked for maybe a total of 6 hours or so and the place looked dramatically different from when we first got there to when we left.

The other big milestone that happened on Friday was that every learned where their teams would be going for the first phase of projects (each phase is 8 weeks, the first starts the Monday after Thanksgiving). My team will be going to the city of Gray, LA, which is about an hour west of New Orleans. We will be working for Habitat for Humanity and will be building several homes from start to finish, which I am really excited about. There are many other teams that will be in the gulf coast all of the way from Houston all of the way into Florida with many of them located in New Orleans. My whole team is looking forward to being so close to New Orleans and we plan on spending as much of our free time there as possible.

In my other free time I've been to downtown Sacramento twice now, the most recent being this weekend. We spent several hours down there, checked out three different local breweries, and took the light rail back home. In the next couple weekends I hope to get to either San Fran, Napa, Sonoma, Tahoe, and Yosemite. A few people have already gone to each and I've heard all good things so far.

Ok, gotta go!