deodorant.

See, much more prompt than the last blog, although not a lot has changed. Down in Rosewood we have almost completed the two houses we marked the slab for. One of the houses has Presbyterians working on it everyday, affectionately dubbed the presbos, and we thoroughly enjoy working with them, A) because they are nice people, but B) (and be being very very important) the food. Every morning they bring in pots of coffee that we drink, for lunch they provide copious amounts of southern food (like fried chicken, potato salad, red beans and rice), and at the end of the day they send us home with left overs--cookies, fruit, chips, chicken and sandwiches. We sure are going to miss those presbos when the house is done at the end of this week. Next week we start the Greek builds, today I spent the morning marking slab again and something was just not working out we had a ton of different marks and measurements down before we got the right one, now lets hope that we remember which lines are the right ones when we put up the walls.

Just two weeks left in Baton Rouge, and then Gold 2 is moving into the woods. Actually, we have a ton of time off between the end of the project and camping in the woods. See its a five day drive back to Sacramento, and then we have about 4 days of spring break, and after that it is about a week of transition period doing paperwork and briefing for our next project, so it will be quite a while before Gold 2 goes to the woods.

Our next project is split into 2 parts, the first part is in the woods outside of Fresno. We will be working with a state park to remove invasive species and hopefully return vegetation the eco-system. The goal of the project is to provide a healthy outdoor park for residents of Fresno. While we are there we will be camping in some spiffy Ameri-tents. We will cook on a stove, and perhaps over a fire. We will be out of range for the internet for three weeks, and cell phone use will be minimal (we aren't sure about the electricity). We are also not very clear on the shower situation...pack extra deodorant.

The second part of our project is spending four weeks in Colfax, California. A large town of 1500ish, maybe less. We will be living and working at an old community center. There will be a great deal of demolition work, as some of the classrooms are unsuitable for use, and we will also we working on maintainance of the other buildings. We will be living in a building for this part of the project with computer access, but again, the shower situation is still not quite clear. I repeat deodorant.

Anyways...in the meantime I will continue to construct houses in this lovely humidity we are experiencing. Until next time...

whoopsies!

Whoopsies, Mardi Gras was a while ago and I have yet to tell you about all the debauchery that took place down in New Orleans. It was quite thrilling, see, we got there on Saturday night and like a lively young 22 year old I cracked a beer and turned on the olympics. Wild. Sunday morning there was a parade right around 10 am, so, since I was kicked out of our hostel at 8:30 for being too loud and rambunctious (too much of a morning person if you will) I was able to grab a cup of coffee and watch the hooligans in the street staking out their turf waiting for floats to come by in a few hours. People are funny, drunk at 9 am, but I was actually expecting much more craziness from NOLA. I did not even see any ladies exposing themselves for beads. It was more like extremely crowded tailgaiting. It was a beautiful sunny weekend, a great day to be outside with a cold beer and a patch of grass to try and catch some beads. The night time didn't even get that crazy, I saw some people fall over things, but still not the shenanigans that come to mind when you think Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

So that was several weeks ago down in New Orleans. Life in Baton Rouge has also been an adventure. I have appropriately titled this blog whoopsies because I find myself saying "Whoopsies!" over and over again at work. Now let me tell you, the construction site is not the best place to say whoopsies because you will likely freak someone else out, or it means you screwed something up (usually both). But, I have also become quite the knowledgeable construction worker. Okay, obviously I am kidding, but I do feel much more comfortable on the work site here than I did back in Stevens Point (sorry Dad). I have learned how to mark a slab as in what walls will be going where, and where doors and windows will be, and then marking the walls for studs, windows, and doors (and Mark loves to joke about finding the studs right here and pointing to himself). This week was especially cool because one day we marked the slab, and the next day we built all the frames and put them up and started putting the plywood on the house and it looked like a house...from nothing to house in one day! Then we put on the trusses and the plywood to make the roof and I get to crawl around like a monkey and it is all a lot of fun and I feel confident leading volunteers and working without constant supervision.

Well, I think I am starting to ramble about boring things that no one really understands but just know that everything is going wonderfully with Habitat for Humanity of Greater Baton Rouge. The people that we work with are fantastically nice and fun and funny and I love working with them.

Gold 2 has been going through some stress, with all of our vibrant personalities, some were bound to clash, it just ended up that one person ended up being "the odd man out" and felt they were unable to continue working on our team. The Unit leader came down and talked with us, and that person is moving to another team, so we will se how things go from now on. I think Gold 2 will persevere and become even stronger! "gold deuce, on the loose"

on that half hearted note, i will end, and try to be quicker about my next post.