Fire Crew

Fire has been really rough so far. We are being forced to stay in the Hilton for two weeks. It sucks, we get breakfast at the kitchen downstairs every morning and they make us what ever we want while we watch them do it, we have only five choices of drink to choose from, aaaannnndddd we have to have waitresses take away our dirty dishes when we are done. On top of that we are only given $21 for dinner every day, I mean.... who is able to spend that little of an amount on one dinner. Its not like our entire dinner budget for the two weeks is more then we get a month for our stipend. (if you didn't get my sarcasm, we have very posh living quarters and a very nice food budget) The only downside to that $21 is we can only eat at: a fairly "nice" buffet, a mexican restaruant, and Ruby Tuesday's.

The fire that I am on is at The Great Dismal Swamp in Suffolk, VA. There are lots of peanut plantations surrounding everything and the town is "fairly" small. The team and I most likely won't see much fire if any, but we get to learn how pumping water into a very out-of-the-way fire works and possibly working with a machine called a Marsh Master to remove about 800 ft. of 8 in. piping through out the forest.

Update on life

I will be heading out Thursday night to go and fight fires in Virginia. I am really pumped to finally be going on fire, even though we may not actually see "real" fire. It may just end up being really good training with some Hotshots and most likely living in a Hilton for two weeks. One of the main things we will be getting out of this will be lots of really good networking for future jobs in Wilderness Wild Firefighting.

Right now I am on Vacation at the Point and it has been a really chill relaxing time so far. Just sleeping, eating, and watching the Olympics. I bought my plane tickets last night and will be back in Vancouver from September 1st through September 7th. Its not very long but hopefully it will be a nice break from the AmeriBubble. Talk to yall later and i will try to put some pictures up later this week.

Hey Everyone!!! Its been awhile and i actually have some free time where i am not completely exhausted to the point of having to sleep all of the time. I have had a lot of fun times, expecially trying to camp with these kids. Just to give you a little bit of what camping was like add: 50 14-17 yr. olds, 80 degree heat, 90% humidity, 12:00am, and being forced to stay in a tent with 5 kids all night. If you want to know the whole story or more of it, call either my mom or myself. i can't promise i will answer because i work 80-100 hour weeks and am busy that entire time.

Most of my team during transition

Pete's last night with our team and as a Corps member, he is now a team leader

Relaxing at Cafe Dumond (sp)

My team wining a push up competition

My team without April our third crew leader (she was off during the day)

My team at a low ropes course

Oh and my Dad called from Iraq today, it was really good talking to him.

Summer of Service

I am now back in New Orleans. We are staying in Camp Hope for two nights and then will be moving to Dillard University where we will be staying for the rest of Summer of Service. Thats about all the update i am going to do right now. Talk to yall later.

Life in Bridgeport, CT

So this is my last week in Bridgeport. Kelly and I leave on Sunday to head back to Perry Point to start our training for Summer of Service. We will be getting to the Point three days earlier than the team and will still be at transition with everyone to give our debrief/brief presentations. This project has been amazing, we love all of the sponsors and have a great time at work every day. We have gone to several baseball games, been to a womans championship roller-derby, seen a Broadway play, and been to New York a few times. In the beginning of the year we started with just the concrete foundation on Arctic Street. We started with putting in floor joists and sub-flooring for the first floor and after that was complete the walls were put up for the first floor. Once that was done we put in the second floor joists and sub-flooring. This last week we got the second floor walls up and should be starting on the roofing tomorrow and Saturday. Last week we had a group of 150 high school seniors everyday that we had to lead each day. It was a great experience and i had a good group of high school students everyday.

We have also learned how to play cabbage ball which is a big southern game; kind of a mix between baseball and softball. I got to see my first Broadway Musical this last weekend and i really liked it. It's called Spring Awakening and we all liked it very much, it was definitely worth the money. Its been so hot this last week or so that some people have been sleeping out side and others have been sleeping in the basement with our team leader. There were only a few brave men that still slept up stairs. Saturday we are going to one of our sponsors houses for a big BBQ with all of the team and most of the sponsors and site supervisors.

I am sure there has been more that has happened but i can't remember them right now. I figure that these are the more important happenings of this project. Talk to y'all later and i will post some more pictures in a day or two.

Last Week or so pictures

Going on a hike this last weekend

A couple of the guys from Wogle last round

Us at Yale

A better picture of the Brick Condo's

Our warehouse cat and a couple of her baby kittens

Random Pictures: Some from NOLA and some from this project

The sub-floor is now done this is a picture from yesterday

Putting in the joist hangers

My team leader and the house architect (She is from Peru)

Kate and I putting in more joist hangers

One of the new levies in New Orleans (its super tall)

The AmeriCorps housing that we were building in NOLA in an old warehouse.

The Warehouse in NOLA

The two Denver teams and the two Perry Point teams on our last day in NOLA

The Wogle team