The Month of April So Far

Hey Donald and Karen if you do end up finally getting this email leave a comment and i will try and figure out how to get you all my back blogs.

So it has been a long while since I have updated you guys and i apologize. This will probably be a long post and hopefully i will be able to remember everything. Lets see, the last post left off on my free concert and finishing the house.

The first week of April: The first couple days we worked at a Home and Garden show for Walmart talking down all of the displays and packing it all up. One of my team members was moving a very large pallet of vitamin water and the top five boxes fell off and we were allowed to keep them all. It was a great day for just that reason. (we got tons of free bottles that lasted us about 3 weeks.)

The second week of April: This week was a pretty good week. Myself and three other guys were put in charge of blowing in insulation into the attics of the houses that we finished building. It was super hot and sweaty and when i was done after just over an hour my entire shorts and shirt and socks were completely soaked. It looked liked i jumped into a pool with all of my clothes on. We found out where our next project is going to be. We will be moving to Bridgeport, CT. We will be working for Habitat for Humanity and be leading teams of volunteers to build houses. Then once a week the team will be removing invasive species from a state park. Then on the Friday of that week our project sponsors gathered the two Perry Point teams and the two Denver teams to tell us that we will be moving to Camp Hope in New Orleans the following Monday. So we enjoyed our last weekend in Ocean Springs pretty chill. Pretty much just three of us went to our favorite bar and just talked for a few hours. I said good bye to the bar owner and told him it was our last time there and he gave us free t-shirts which are pretty sweet.

This past week: We drove to N.O. on Monday and had the entire day off to just get used to the place. Camp Hope is a Middle School that the flood cleared out and is now a volunteer camp for a few years until its turns back into a school again. Tuesday was a half day of work in which we just got a tour of the area and told what we would be doing for the community around us. What we did during the week was tear down an old fence around the perimeter, put up new poles for the new fence (which is taking way to ****ing long), painted an office room, organized all of the tools and equipment that came with the warehouse, and built the wall frames to make new rooms in the center. Our Site Supervisor, Randy, is a very interesting guy. He has tons of stories from his past life and will give you a deep discussion about you the entire time. Over the weekend we went to the Bourbon Street area in New Orleans. I didn't drink at all, i hung out with two friends that are under age. It was a great night but rounding up all the drunk people was a pain in the ass at the end of the night.

I can't remember exactly when it was but we got free tickets to a hockey game and it was a great time. Three of us didn't feel like sitting up at the very top with the rest of the teams (the tickets were the worst tickets in the place) so we ended up sitting about 15 seats up from the glass which wasn't bad, but there was better. I was a lot less inhibited at the time so i walked down to three people in a box seat and told them i noticed that there were open seats and asked if myself and a couple friends could sit there. (I gave them a speal on how we are building houses down in the gulf and we got some free tickets that were absolutely horrible) So we got free box seats for the last trimester of the game, it was absolutley awesome.

Pictures from Spike 1

At the Beach hanging outwith friends

At the beach tanning (thats beer getting poured on me)

St. Patrick's Day with the Denver Teams

Team Picture at Induction

My team Saying the pledge in front of the entire symposium

Rob's 21st Birthday

My Craw fish Dinner (isn't he cute)

Working hard at the house

My free VIP Avenged Sevenfold concert

Mudding The House (it is now all finished but i don't have pictures yet)

The Weekend and the House

This last weekend was a pretty gosh darn good weekend. Saturday our to Perry Point teams had an ISP all day. We worked at a Horse and Mule Pull/Rodeo. There wasn't much work for everyone that was there so i helped out with parking in the morning and then once the main parking was done Rob and i basically just sat in the stands and watched the Mule Pull competitions for the rest of the day. It was a pretty fun event, but unfortunately we had to leave before the real rodeo started. After we got back from that we came back to Camp Victor got dressed then a group of us went to The Shed. Which is a pretty famous BBQ restaurant that has been featured on the Food Channel and lots of other food news. We got there and ordered our food and sat and ate with one of the teams from Denver. Pretty much as soon as i finished my food one of my friends from Denver came over super excited saying that he just talked to the lead singer of his favorite band (Avenged Sevenfold) and told him about AmeriCorps. The singer asked him what his name was and then said. "We are having a show tonight, I will put your name on the list for two tickets tonight." I said i would go and we got permission from our TL's to head out right then. We got to the concert while the band before A7X was going on and talked to the Will Call lady to get our free tickets, our names weren't on the list so she called the tour manager and got the ok so we got VIP passes to a concert that would have normally cost us about $80 each. The concert was an amazing concert and we almost got kicked out a couple times for moshing (the were very strict on moshing and crowd surfing) The VIP passes basically just meant we got free tickets, to be able to go back stage we needed the lead singer to escort us. Then right after we got back from the concert i went out to the bar to hang out with a couple friends from Perry Point and Denver. Over all it was an awesome day. Sunday i slept in till about noon, walked to a famers market to try some honey, and then walked to the beach and laid out in the sun all day until dinner. Rob's 21st birthday was on Monday so we all went out Sunday night at midnight and celebrated the day. Since it was Sunday all of the main bars that we go to were closed so we had to go and find a different local bar and celebrate there. It was a fun night and i was the sober person that watched out for him while he was getting lots of free drinks. Then Monday night about 5 of us just went to the local Sports bar and had a beer or two. It was really relaxed and was nice since there really weren't many people out on a Monday night.

The house that we have been working on is almost done, the walls are all done, the floors are put in, the ceiling is pop-corned, and all the base board is in. All that is needed is a couple window trims and a little bit of touch ups. The next house that we will be working on is supposed to be one that we have to start at gutting out completely and working our way up to the finished product. I think that is all for now, i will put a couple pictures up in a day or two. Love y'all!

My New Look

Work Look

Bar Look

Casual Look

Its definitely a differen't look, I am probably going to be letting it go back to how it was, assuming it will go back.

Working on Houses

The first week has come to an end and it has been a good week. We have been building houses for some Katrina victims in Pascagula, MS. I have built brick/sand walk ways to the houses and then spackled dry wall and everything else that is involved with dry walling houses. I am getting a very nice tan now and the weather is gorgeous (mid and high 70's). The humidity started getting stronger today, but it still feels nice. The only bad thing about this week is that i have poison ivy all over my arms and its starting to spread to my chest, sides, and leg.

Tomorrow all the AmeriCorps in the Gulf Coast is going to a large symposiom in Baton Ruge, Luisiana. We have two classes during the day, i am taking Go AmeriGreen and an info session on becoming a Team Leader. My team was selected by the much higher ups to go on stage at the very end of the day and stand in front of everyone to recite the AmeriCorps Pledge. Well I am going to go and see 10,000 B.C. or possibly go to the beach I am not sure yet. I will talk to y'all later.

First Couple Days of SPIKE

We left Friday morning to head head down south. We spent Friday night in Knoxville, TN at a Days Inn, which was surprisingly really crappy. Saturday morning we left real early headed down through Georgia and then went west to Mississippi. On the way through Georgia we ran drove through a snow storm and it was freezing. But once we got to Mississippi the weather was quite nice, I hung out for a bit that night but then just went to bed. Sunday morning i slept in till about 10:30am. My team went to Biloxi, Mississippi for the day but myself and Phil decided to stay back and relax. I took a leisurely breakfast and started talking to some people from Denver and we decided to go to the beach which is only about 1/2 mile away and the water is reasonably warm for this time of year. So I spent most of the day at the beach with a couple of the Denver teams while my team was seeing other people from Perry Point in Biloxi. Today (Monday) my team drove around Waveland, MS which got the very worst of the hurricane and the place is looking better but there are still plots of land where stairs lead to nothing and there are drive ways that lead to just fields of grass. After Waveland we drove to New Orleans to see the destruction there as well. We drove through the Lower and Higher 9th Ward which is where the flooding hurt them the most. (I don't know if you knew already, but New Orleans didn't get get by the hurricane. For them the levees just broke and they were flooded for an extremely long time which hurt them horribly because everything became rotten and destroyed. After the Ward's we drove through the French Quarter and ate at that one famous French coffee/donut restaurant. We drove back so we could get back in time for dinner at 6:00pm. Tomorrow will be our paper work day and site orientation, our actual work won't start till Wednesday. Well I have to go and have a team meeting, I will tell you more about my living situation next time i write something.

Oh and here is a picture of my house mates back at the point. Two of them aren't there because they didn't show up for our house picture.

This Week

Hola Everyone. Today was the final class day of the Wildland Fire Fighting program, we took the final exam and all we have left is our mock fire tomorrow in the woods. We will be pretending there is a wild fire and will be fighting it like we would on a real fire. I think its going to be a really fun last day. And we will be getting our Red Wing Fire boots tomorrow, we already have the hardhats and gloves. Some people got all of their line gear and fire gear but i didn't, i was too far south on my spike to get issued it right now.

Friday we will be leaving to our spike which has been moved to Mississippi but thats all we really know now and even that isn't 100%. Once i know more about the project i will definitely tell y'all.

For those of you who haven't heard i got my second tattoo this last weekend. A couple of us in the house have been wanting one for awhile so we decided to go and get it. I really like it and am happy how it turned out.

Here is what it means

The Eagle:Patriotism and my Eagle Scout for Boyscouts.

Water: I love everything that has to do with water any where

Circle/Color: The two circles are for a group of friends at NMT. The color is in memory of a friend that died last year.

Rain Drops: A drop for each of my family

Talk to yall later and there will definitely be less posts once i am on spike since i won't have as much access to the internet. But i will be journaling so i remember everything. I will be updating my pictures on picassa today or tomorrow so if you want to see more pics they will be up there.