Chronicles of a New World Man

Goodbye (and Thank You)

2008-11-22T01:41:00.005-05:00

Oakmont, PA

Home. I flew back to Pittsburgh yesterday, meeting my family at the airport and returning home after 290 days of service with Americorps NCCC. My swirling emotional mix continues; despite my relief and pride at having completed the program, I know I will never see the majority of the people I served with again. With that in mind, I'd like to wish everybody from Denver farewell, and all the best wishes in the future. It was a hell of a ride.

Americorps NCCC
Class XIV
Central Region
Sun Four

Carly Colgan - Team Leader
Gina Bianchini
Travis Cambra
Megan Cuneo
Zach Farmer
Dulce Garcia
Gatien Gaujac
Atiya Rideout
Meredith Sortwell
Vanessa Staff
Britney Sutcliffe

So, what's next? I wish I knew. I'm planning on going back to school in for the fall semester in 2009, but I have yet to put in any formal applications. For the next few months, I will be living in Pittsburgh and trying my best to find employment until the summer, when I will (hopefully) be working back up at Sheldon Calvary Camp in Ohio. Life goes on.

Not for this humble little online journal, though. I started it in January 2008 with the intention of keeping a record of my term of service. I think I've accomplished that fairly well, and I have decided to shutter it for the time being. It will still be online, and people will still be able to comment, but I will not be regularly updating it as I have been previously. Mind you, this is a temporary decision; if in the future, I end up going off on another half-cocked adventure (or, y'know, something that I've put a lot of thought and planning into...but that wouldn't be my style, really) I will resurrect it. God knows this thing isn't exactly an example of brilliant writing, but I have had a lot of fun getting my thoughts and experiences down. I think the very act of recording such things has helped me develop both my thinking and writing, and thus it has served the purposes I set for it in the very first post I made almost a year ago.

To anybody who has come across this blog, thank you for taking the time to read and comment. Seeing the feedback and responses that people have left has been very gratifying, and I greatly appreciated it. I have a Facebook (Zach Farmer, Catholic '10) , telephone (412 480 0104) and I use Instant Messenger (parrthd07) all too often, so please keep in touch.

With that, this is Zach Farmer signing off...for the moment.

Complete!

2008-11-19T00:38:00.005-05:00

Congratulations to the Corps Members and Team Leaders of Americorps National Civilian Community Corps, Class XIV: Central Region.

My term of service is officially over. I am no longer an employee of the Corporation for National Service. I am now an alumni.

Ten months of work behind me. Oddly enough, I still remember the first day VIVIDLY. I woke up at 4 AM, after going to bed at midnight. I would have gone to bed earlier, but the Super Bowl had ended with a satisfying Giants win over the Patriots. I took a quick shower (that was lengthened slightly because I spent a good five minutes or so staring at my reflection in the shaving mirror, asking myself exactly what the hell I was getting into as the water continued to pulse down on me) and dressed. My dad and I rode out to Pittsburgh International in relative silence. He was tired; I was still trying to wrap my head around what was about to happen.

The airport was busy, but I cleared security quickly and headed to the gate. I wrote a post there, The Deep Breath Before The Plunge, then boarded the aircraft and tried my best to relax. The flight itself was uneventful, but the instant the wheels touched down on the runway in Denver, my heart leaped into my throat. The tram ride between the terminal and the main concourse took less than five minutes, but it seemed endless. My heart was racing, my palms were sweaty, and I was more nervous than I had been in a while. I met the Americorps representatives in the concourse, got my bags, and boarded the bus to campus. From there, it was surprisingly smooth: bus ride to campus, check in and get room key, a bit of unpacking and a quick look at the schedule. I spent the rest of the afternoon playing football with people I had just met (some of whom I talk to even to this day, some of whom I do not, and some of whom left the program altogether).

Since that day, February 4, 2008, I have...

-personally completed 2110 hours of work (2030 of direct service, 80 of independent service)

-logged over 13,000 miles in vans, cars and aircraft

-set foot in 18 states (Colorado, Louisiana, Texas, Indiana, Michigan, Kansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New Mexico)

-personally led and managed over 200 volunteers (from Alternative Spring Break, Southern Baptist Conference, and various other volunteer groups) on various work sites in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans

-aided in the construction of a house in Sabine Pass, TX that survived the 25-foot storm surge of Hurricane Ike

-served as the assistant manager of the Johnson County Volunteer Center in Indiana (after the flooding this summer), dispatching over 800 spontaneous volunteers in order to provide aid to more than 150 households in the affected area

-worked as part of a trail crew in Copper Harbor, MI and helped to complete a mile of world-class hiking/bicycling trail

-served as the night manager of a Red Cross shelter in Lake Charles, ultimately responsible for the well-being of 175+ clients and staff

-worked as part of a crew that sorted, organized, inventoried, and loaded over 5,000,000 pounds of donated food in a distributions warehouse in Kountze, TX

(This is not my attempt at braggadocio. This is just an example of what an average Corps Member can do over ten months of service with the National Civilian Community Corps)

I don't possess the degree of writing talent necessary to accurately describe how I'm feeling right now. It's a bit of everything, I suppose. Relief, that I am free of the sometimes onerous demands of the program. Pride, that I was able to complete my term of service knowing that I did my best to be the hardest worker on the team. Sorrow, that I will be leaving the greatest people I have ever had the chance to come across. Regret, that I did not take advantage of every opportunity for new experiences and personal development that I came across over my term of service. Uncertainty, as to what my future (both near and distant) holds. A number of other emotions too, but I don't know how to put them into words. Tonight marks the end of a journey that really started for me in the fall of 2006, when I first made the decision to take a year off from college and pursue other goals.

As for now, however, I fully intend to enjoy my last night in Denver with the people that made the last ten months both agonizing and unbelievably fulfilling.

Precipice

2008-11-18T11:42:00.002-05:00

Had our final Sun Unit meeting this morning, and now it's finally starting to sink in that I graduate from the National Civilian Community Corps tomorrow. Even throughout this past week, as I have completed out-processing paperwork, did Sun Four's final team-based activities, and presented the last debrief to the Denver staff, I was never able to really come to grips with the fact that my term of service with Americorps ends tomorrow.

Our Unit Leader, the esteemed Vaughn, gave a little speech this morning about how many Corps Members have no concrete plans for the future. He mentioned that we did not want to be looking back on our lives after turning 40 and wondering where the time went...and THAT hit really close to home. That exact thing has been a huge fear of mine for years, and having somebody like Vaughn spell it out in essentially the same words I use is...disconcerting, to say the least.

Graduation tomorrow. Graduation tomorrow. I keep thinking it to myself, but it STILL doesn't seem real. Ten months of travel, of hard work, of endless bullshit, of new experiences and incredible people, of difficult living conditions, of getting things done...and it comes to a close tomorrow. Don't ask me how I feel, because I honestly don't know myself. I will do my best to make sense of it all and get back to you tomorrow.

This Is A Boring Post

2008-11-11T22:15:00.002-05:00

Listening to Genesis' 'Watcher of the Skies' a lot lately. Dunno why, but it's classic Genesis...sound experimentation, lyrics based (I think) on some kind of sci-fi lizard invasion, Phil Collins' dramatic drumming. That and Jimmy Buffett's tribute to the revival of New Orleans post-Katrina: 'Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On'. (And it rained/nothing really new. And it blew/seen all that before. And it poured/the earth began to strain. Ponchartrain/there in the Ninth Ward, to the second floor). Very poignant, a bit sad, but ultimately optimistic.

I am extremely enthusiastic to return to Pittsburgh. The atmosphere on campus has become something similar to an episode of 'The OC' or something...lots of annoying eighth-grade-esque drama. My flight lands at 3 PM on November 20th, and thus begins another period of uncertainty for me. I will almost certainly be returning to college (although I don't know where yet) for the 2009 fall semester, but as to what I will be doing until then...Christ knows. I'd love to head back up to Conneaut for the summer, so we'll see.

I highly recommend Newsweek Online's series, "Secrets of the Campaign". A seven-part article, it takes readers behind the scenes of both the Obama and McCain campaigns, from the primaries to Election Night. The reporters in question were allowed unprecedented access to the campaigns with the promise that they would not reveal their stories until after Election Day. It's a VERY cool collection of articles, with a great deal of insider information. Here's the link to Chapter 1: http://www.newsweek.com/id/167582

In other news, Ben Roethlisberger has got to get his game together. That is all.

Re-Entry

2008-11-07T22:14:00.003-05:00

Amarillo, TX

Halfway through with our final journey to Denver, and the weather is turning cold. This should not be nearly as much of a surprise to me as it is, but we've spent the last two months in the Gulf. Today was basically the first cold weather I've experienced since the first week or two in New Orleans. Good thing I brought a sweatshirt. Irrelevant, I know. Sod it.

I caught the first episode of Whale Wars on Animal Planet tonight. The show follows the crew of the Sea Shepherd, an environmental organization that takes Greenpeace's opposition to Japanese whaling to the next level. The crew uses aggressive and controversial methods, such as tear gas and flash-bangs, to interfere with the whaling ships and save the endangered whales. Now, don't get me wrong...I am not a rabid environmentalist. I don't like the concept of whaling, but I could never spend months at a time eating vegan meals aboard a small ship in some of the coldest and roughest weather on earth. However, some of the things these guys do are pretty damned cool. Playing chicken with ten-thousand ton ships? Strafing processing ships with stink bombs from a chopper? Fuckin' A. (I can just imagine how your resume would look. Job Description: Bow gunner.)

One more travel day. Our belongings are currently in the back of a Ford F-150 pickup with a cap over the bed, and let me tell you in no uncertain terms that this is the World's Worst Truck. Despite being a 2006 model, it does not have a CD player or auxiliary input. The cup holders are cheap foldout things that can hold literally nothing in place, and the entire interior is absolutely filthy. The engine, though, really ties it all together. There is some sort of transmission problem with the fucker; it refuses to shift up with any kind of promptness when the gas pedal is leaned on. This results in a very loud revving noise, but little in the way of actual acceleration. This poses a problem on the endless two-lane roads that we traveled on today. Several times, while attempting to cross into the opposing lane to pass, our drivers have had to back down and duck behind the vehicle they were attempting to overtake in order to avoid oncoming traffic...which at first glance seemed far enough way to attempt the maneuver. The truck simply did not accelerate quickly enough to get clear. Very frustrating.

I am not a fan of Texas, but we encountered some picturesque scenery today. Hours were spent driving through utter desolation, many times with 40 to 50 miles of road between towns. The only signs of life for dozens of miles at a time were the occasional small oil tanks and cattle ranches. Should've brought my camera.

Changing of the Guard

2008-11-05T22:58:00.002-05:00

Extended Stay America
Austin, TX

We're back at the same hotel in Austin that we stayed at before our deployment to Beaumont a month or so ago. FEMA is requiring all of us to return in order to check out...a process that consists of our team leader handing our FEMA badges to the security people at headquarters. Once again, their logic must be above my comprehension. I had to stop by the Joint Field Office to fill out a report (because I am an idiot, I left my badge in Kountze and thus had to account for it) and I was struck by the dozens and dozens of Americorps members I saw there. They were from Denver and Sacramento campuses' Class 15; they had just finished their month of training and were only a day or two into their first project deployments. They had clean uniforms, unmarred by the paint stains, rips, and general wear that distinguish a 'veteran' Corps Member. With nine months of service ahead of them, I could almost see the gleam of anticipation and enthusiasm in their eyes, which I knew well; they were the same feelings that I held when I first arrived in New Orleans at the beginning of March.

I feel a bit bad for the new Americorps teams that have come down to replace us on disaster deployment; they are walking blindly into what could charitably be called an epic clusterfuck. Several of the Denver unit leaders have been giving them the impression that there is a great deal of work to be done down here, and that FEMA has things under control. Nothing could be farther from the truth; the vast majority of the teams currently down here have been short of work and have fallen victim to massive disorganization and incompetence by FEMA and the Red Cross. In fact, the incoming teams have been advised to disregard anything negative that we tell them about the last two months on deployment. That's about as fucked up as it gets; the first real experience that these new Corps Members have of the program is almost certainly going to be frustrating and hugely negative, and they are being kept in the dark about it. Hopefully it gets better for them after first round; it's not nearly as bad of a program as I've made it out to be over the last two months. It's just been pretty crappy lately.

Good luck, Class 15.

Magic Walls and Holograms

2008-11-05T00:25:00.004-05:00

I begin by congratulating Senator John McCain for a valiantly fought campaign and a gracious concession speech. I didn't agree with him most of the time and I didn't vote for him, but he's a stand-up guy, a war hero and as true a patriot as they come.

Watching President-elect Barack Obama on that stage in front of hundreds of thousands of people was a very surreal experience. Despite my disagreement with several of his positions on issues, I had been pulling for him over the last several months; his idealism, energy, and reconciliatory attitudes converted me...and GODDAMN, can the man give a speech. Obama will go down in history as one of the best orators to ever hold the office of President, and rightfully so. He achieved some of the larger margins of victory ever amassed by a Presidential candidate, and will have a Democratic House and Senate to work with for at least the first two years of his administration.

After two years, having the election finally come to a close is very odd. Coverage of the election, starting with the first debates between over a dozen candidates for each party, had become so widespread and common that it seemed natural to hear so much about it throughout the course of the day or the week. Now it's over, and I don't know what to do with myself.

I'm hoping to get down to Washington DC for Barack Obama's Inauguration in January; I experienced Bush's second one in 2004 thanks to LeadAmerica's PYLC program and found it to be a lot of fun...but thanks to DC and its one-extreme-to-another weather, VERY cold.

I can tell that my writing is rambling as much as my thoughts are tonight; I've been up for a LONG time today and have basically been sitting in front of the TV since 4 PM. Speaking of TV...what the hell was up with CNN tonight? During this campaign season, I have been a big fan of CNN due to a combination of Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, and a large touch-screen map (the Magic Wall, apparently) of the United States that can be used to display just about any kind of information relating to voters, elections, etc. This map is cool as hell; CNN reporter John King was able to bring up any county in the country and its data dating back to the 2000 election. He could expand and collapse screens using his fingers (kinda like an iPhone, for anybody who has seen one of those in action) and could conjure various graphs and pie charts. Very cool. However, it seems that CNN got a bit technology-happy tonight...at one point, Wolf Blitzer was interviewing Jessica Yellin. Or, should I say, a holograph of Jessica Yellin. Apparently unveiling this new technology tonight, the network took great pleasure in summoning a half-size graphic of Yellin, who apparently had 18 cameras ringing her at whatever location she was in. If you didn't see it, go YouTube it...it looked EXACTLY like that scene from Star Wars when the hologram of Princess Leia pops up (in fact, the first thing I thought when I saw it was "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi...you're my only hope").

Anyway, it was a hell of an election. Good luck to Senator McCain...take a vacation, man. As for President-elect Obama...time to go to work. We're with you.

Long Live Democracy

2008-11-04T14:18:00.002-05:00

After more than two years of positioning, primaries, debates, sparring, more debates, and endless punditry and prognosticating, it all comes down to tonight. Polls begin to close on the East Coast at 7 PM tonight, and shortly afterward we should be getting the first results of the most hyped and expensive election in the history of the United States. I cannot wait. The sheer volume of information that will be coming in is mind-boggling; not only is the White House up for grabs, but 435 House seats and 33 Senate seats are in play. The Democrats are attempting to tighten their grasp on both the House and Senate, while the Republicans fight an uphill battle on all fronts.

GO VOTE. If you haven't already, GO DO IT. I don't care if you vote for Barack Obama, John McCain, Ralph Nader, Bob Barr, or write-in your own name...just go do it and vote your conscience. 18- to 25-year olds vote far less frequently than any other age group, despite the fact that we have so much stake in it. The kinds of issues that have come up in this election and that the next President and Congress will deal with are those that will affect us for the rest of our lives. Conventional political wisdom does not regard 18- to 25-year olds as an influential voting bloc (as it does with seniors, union workers, etc) because so few of us just do not go and vote. Our voices don't get heard, our beliefs don't get expressed, and decisions are being made without our input or approval. College costs, climate change, our financial policies, the war in Iraq, education, Social Security and our budget crisis are only a FEW of the issues that our generation is going to have to deal with in the future, and we aren't having our say. It's infuriating. GO VOTE.

And now for some predictions.

President (popular vote %)
Barack Obama: 52%
John McCain: 47%
(Obama takes the Electoral College, 313-201)

Pennsylvania 4th Congressional District
Jason Altmire: 54%
Melissa Hart: 45%

A Statement of Beliefs

2008-11-03T22:23:00.002-05:00

I believe that basic human freedom is inviolate.

I believe that gays and lesbians should be allowed to get married.

I believe that the easiest way to bolster the economy is to allow people to spend their own money.

I believe therefore that taxes should be kept as low as possible.

I believe that the Founding Fathers got it right the first time.

I believe that government should stay out of religious affairs.

I believe even more strongly that religion has NO place in any kind of government.

I believe that abstinence-only sex education is irresponsible, unrealistic, and dangerous.

I believe that the states have the right to determine whether or not abortion should be legal.

I therefore believe that Roe vs. Wade should be overturned.

I also believe, however, that when all is said and done, a woman should have the right to choose what happens to her own body.

I believe that America should pull its troops out of Iraq.

I believe that American military should not be used as the world’s police force.

I believe that genocide is the only exception to the above rule.

I believe that the United Nations needs to get its act together and be as effective at policing rogue nations and preventing genocide as they are at humanitarian efforts.

I believe that the genocide in Sudan will not be stopped until the Janjaweed militiamen responsible have been thoroughly destroyed.

I believe that a couple squadrons of Apache gunships are ideal for such a task.

I believe that the government that governs least governs best.

I believe that the Second Amendment clearly lays out the right to an armed citizenry.

I believe that anybody who wants to own a firearm should be required to take classes to learn to shoot and store them safely.

I believe that the Second Amendment does NOT give us the right to own submachine guns, assault rifles, machine pistols, land mines, RPGs, or other such heavy weaponry.

I believe that government intervention in the market is a major cause of the nation’s current economic problems.

I believe that the recent bailout bill will be seen as the worst decision made by Congress since the vote to invade Iraq.

I believe that a truly free market will succeed far more often than not.

I believe that the PATRIOT Act is the first step down a slippery and dangerous slope.

I believe that Donald Rumsfeld should be brought to trial for allowing our soldiers to go into battle without the equipment necessary to keep them safe.

I believe that anybody who truly supports our troops should be ashamed of the stop-loss program and of the Pentagon’s unwillingness to provide comprehensive, quality health care to our veterans.

I believe that our political leaders have to date been unworthy of and have completely failed the brave men and women of the Armed Forces.

I believe that if the Iraqis haven’t properly trained, equipped, and deployed their military and police forces out after more than five years of the United States Army and Marine Corps doing their job for them, it’s just not going to happen.

I believe that insurance companies, healthcare companies, mortgage companies, and oil companies have a right to make a profit, but not while inflicting a crushing burden on our citizens.

I believe that regulating these companies from Washington, however, is unconstitutional.

I believe that investment in clean, affordable sources of alternative energy is absolutely necessary, and immediately.

I believe that drilling for oil in the Gulf or Alaska will help nobody but the oil companies concerned.

I believe that in a decade or so, Social Security will make the current budget crisis look like a minor bump in the road.

I believe that throwing tax dollars at an ineffective program is not going to magically fix it.

I believe that allowing the federal government to take control of the healthcare system is a recipe for disaster.

I believe that ‘neoconservatives’ have absolutely destroyed the Republican Party.

I believe that true conservatives would not have invaded Iraq, turned a surplus into a staggering deficit, increased the size and power of the federal government, and kowtowed to the religious right.

I believe that I’m tired of explaining the difference between the two.

I believe that the American dream should be possible for those who work for it.

I believe in the unlimited potential of a man (or woman), his mind, and his work ethic.

I believe in the triumph of the individual over the collective.

(This in no way represents the viewpoint of any organization, movement, or person besides myself. This in no way represents my endorsement of a particular candidate at any level in tomorrow's election. I voted my conscience, as I believe everybody should do.)

Winding Down

2008-11-02T19:18:00.003-05:00

Kountze, TX

One day of work left. It almost seems unreal after so long, but it's the truth: tomorrow, November 3rd, is our last day of work for this project, and thus the entire Americorps program. It's not over YET, however; on Wednesday, we will be driving to Austin to meet the new team from Class 15 that will be taking over for us. Our return to Denver will take place this Saturday. The end is within sight; one more week of travel and confusion before the last two weeks of out-processing. God, I cannot wait. I was a bit sad to leave my first project in New Orleans, I was a bit sad to leave the cool people in Indiana and Copper Harbor. This time, I'm not sad at all. Our work has dwindled over the last week or so, and we have moved into the front hall of the local firehouse. The firefighters and the Red Cross volunteers have been amazing (especially a gregarious Connecticut-ian named Joe who happens to be a brilliant cook...THANKS JOE!) but there are two teams (total of 17 people) living in a really small room and sharing two port-a-johns and one shower, so I'm quite excited to get back to a hotel.

Random sports-related thought of the week:
Okay, I know the NFL is a copycat league. The Ravens took the Wildcat formation to a new level last week by sending Joe Flacco deep, which resulted in a 43-yard catch. Today, the Chiefs one-upped that by throwing a touchdown pass to quarterback Tyler Thigpen. I'll admit, it's novel (in the NFL, anyway) but I won't be really impressed until they hit Peyton Manning on a go route. Just sayin'.

Ouch.

2008-10-28T20:34:00.004-04:00

After ten months of being stuffed into vans, sleeping on rickety, squeaky cots, overworked to the point of exhaustion on a weekly basis, and living in WAY too close quarters with many many people, my body is finally rebelling. That would explain why I have been battling some unknown sickness for the last three weeks or so, and why yesterday my brain inexplicably decided to release my hands' grip on the heavy item I was holding. Gravity then took over, and aforementioned item (a large roll of plastic wrap) scored a direct hit on a single toe on my right foot, causing immense pain and, more than likely, a fracture. Since then, I have been limping around like fucking Igor from the Frankenstein movies (and am constantly fighting the urge to mutter "Yeessss, masssster" in a sibilant voice) and my toe is swollen to twice its normal size and is a pleasant blackish-purple color. I duct-taped the damned thing to the toe next to it (I don't need no stinkin' doctor...) and have a good five or six ibuprofen swimming around in the bloodstream at the moment, which is about all that can be done.

Enough about that shit. TWO CONSECUTIVE DAYS OFF are upon me, and I barely know what do with myself. Seriously, it's weird...with the exception of our couple days of waiting in Austin, this is the first real two-day break we've had since we flew down in September. Eight days left before we drive back to Denver, then two weeks there and I am done with Americorps...back to the 'Burgh and Christ-knows-what-else. I found out that I've logged over 1800 hours of service since February (and then made the BIG mistake of multiplying that by the federal minimum wage to see how much I SHOULD have made. Note to my fellow Corps members: DO NOT DO THIS. It's depressing.), far more than the 1780 needed for graduation. Good news.

Sports (especially NFL) fans:
Go to ESPN.com and check out Gregg Easterbrook's blog, Tuesday Morning Quarterback. It's the best football-centric blog I've run across thus far. I recommend highly.

I need an air card or something; in the ten-odd minutes I've gone back and forth between this blog and several other websites, the local wireless network has crapped out five times. Lousy FEMA-contracted company...

Update! I mentioned in my earlier post Final Approach that the neighborhood of Sabine Pass, where we worked this spring and summer, would take a 25' storm surge from Hurricane Ike. A week or two ago, I had the opportunity to head down there on a day off and take a look. The bad news was that the town had been hit HARD. Ever see those pictures of a town in the Midwest that had been rocked by a tornado? It was a lot like that...empty foundations, lots of debris laying around, houses bent and cracked by the rush of water. Dry mud was caked all over the ground, and the giant tree that we sat under to eat lunch was ripped out of the ground. Even the streets were littered with various pieces of housing, lawn implements, and vehicles that had fallen victim to the storm. The good news was that the house we worked on was UNTOUCHED, as were the several other Habitat for Humanity-built houses in Sabine. We were fortunate enough to talk to the homeowner that afternoon; she said that the water made it up to the deck (which, if you remember, was raised by pilings 14-odd feet off the ground) but that the house itself was not touched by the water. In fact, she had moved all of her belongings into the house from her trailer (which was subsequently washed away; she never found it) before evacuating. See, we build 'em fucking RIGHT. Suck it, hurricane...you ain't NEVER gonna tear that house down. THAT one I'm proud of.

Outlines

2008-10-24T21:27:00.000-04:00

During the morning meeting of the warehouse workers a couple days ago, one of the Red Cross managers pointed us out and said, "All of you Americorps guys are great, you work your asses off and you should be proud". This was followed by a round of applause from the 20-odd other people directed at us. I think I should have felt grateful and proud...instead, I felt really uncomfortable. I always do whenever we get applause and praised for what we do. We do work hard, but that's our job. I don't think we should get special credit for doing what we're supposed to. It's like giving your barber a round of applause for cutting your hair, or a mechanic one for fixing your car. Now I am completely in favor of giving a person credit in the form of a tip, a sincere thank-you, a future referral, etc. if they do their job especially well...but to me, a round of applause is a bit over the top for a bunch of young adults schlepping pallets in a warehouse. The sentiment is appreciated, however.

The wanderlust is acting up BAD of late. It's a combination of the isolated nature of our housing and the fact that I have less than a month left before I'm home. I have been rolling around another of my half-assed ideas in the old skull, this one involving a two- or three-month road trip around the country in a couple years, once I save up enough money to pay for gas and other such travel expenses. I'll have friends along for some parts and drive alone for others, and I'll take a camera and some notebooks to keep a record. Like the Great Anchorage Race, it's in the conceptual stages at the moment, but here's hoping.

Haven't done an NFL bit in a while, so here goes:
-Peyton Manning has spent the last seven games doing his best JP Losman imitation, and for the good of the Colts (and my fantasy team) it needs to stop.
-The upcoming Steelers-Giants game might be far more than a great game between two 5-1 teams...it very well could be a preview of the Super Bowl.
-You know the situation is serious when Troy Polamalu, of all people, speaks out.
-You do not fine Hines Ward, Hines Ward fines YOU.
-The Arizona Cardinals and Buffalo Bills are making the playoffs this year. I called it before the season, and I'm sticking to it.
-The NFL's best team, record-wise, is being led by KERRY COLLINS. Who'da thunk it?

What's That Spell? CENTRAL

2008-10-17T21:00:00.003-04:00

I miss Central Catholic. That's not a statement that anybody who knows me well would EVER have expected me to make several years ago, but I've been finding that it's more and more true as time goes by. I miss the camaraderie that comes with spending four years with 800 guys, the associations that become friendships that become brotherhoods and fellowships. The traditions and formality that soon become everyday routine, the sense of pride you get from being a Central student, the "Central mystique" that sounds crazy at first, but turns out to be truth. I miss it all.

Most of all, though, I miss the football games. At the same time that the leaves begin to change and the weather begins to cool in Pittsburgh, other things happen. High school stadium lights click on, grills get fired up...and the most fanatic student section in football suits up and invades the stadiums of Quad-A schools everywhere. Central doesn't have a home stadium; they use CMU's field for their one or two home games a year. Thus, the rest are away...but they don't seem like it. The Central Catholic student section is legendary around the Pittsburgh area for their massive turnout and absolute insanity. Rival fans (Woodland Hills, Penn Hills, Gateway, etc) absolutely despise us, because we invade their stadiums and, more often than not, beat the hell out of them in their own house. Some of the best memories I have of my four years at Central have come from football games (the bullhorn at Woodland Hills, almost getting shot at Penn Hills, the epic tailgate in Central's parking lot before the game at CMU, the comeback at Heinz Field for the WPIAL Championship, collapsing the fence at Hersheypark after the State Championship win...) and I really wish I could go back and relive them.

Warehouse

2008-10-13T23:01:00.003-04:00

Ford Center Complex
Beaumont, TX

Four-odd months after leaving Beaumont and swearing never to return...we are back. Naturally. This time, we're living in a MASSIVE tent set up behind the Ford Center Arena. It's relatively comfortable (for a tent, that is...) and the food isn't half bad either. Our place of employment is a huge warehouse up north in Kountz, which could possibly qualify for the title of World's Most Disorganized Distribution Center. It is full of thousands of pallets of various food items, paper products, cleaning supplies, household items, etc...all of which are intermingled and mixed with each other. Our job is to separate, classify, organize and inventory all of it, while at the same time trying to deal with dozens of incoming and outgoing truckloads of supplies. We're working with a dozen-odd Red Cross volunteers and the owner and several employees of a trucking company who have put their business on hold to transport these supplies around the Gulf Coast. It is physically demanding; entire pallet-loads of food have to be moved, transferred, and repackaged. The good news is that by the end of our deployment, I will most likely be an OSHA-certified forklift operator! Gotta look on the bright side...

But it's hard. I can't really understand why (well, I can, but I'd just rather not explain it) but I have been feeling down lately. It's a combination of exhaustion, the issue that I would rather not mention, and the fact that I'm so burned out on Americorps. It seems like years since I first flew out, and I've just had more than enough of all the bullshit. I want to get back to living my own fucking life without having to worry about people looking over my shoulder all the time, and dealing with being jerked around and treated like slaves. It's just worn on me, and the only thing that allows me to get up day after day and go to work is the thought that in less than three weeks I will be back in Denver, and in only a little more than a month I will be home.

A Sudden Rush of Efficiency?

2008-10-06T17:53:00.003-04:00

ExtendedStay America
Austin, TX

Unsurprisingly, we have moved again. The Red Cross finally released us from their disaster relief operation, and we've been reassigned through the Denver campus to work with FEMA in Texas. After a seven-hour drive from Lafayette to Austin, we settled in at this ExtendedStay (which, to be honest, beats the hell out of a volunteer shelter). Today, we drove into the FEMA headquarters here in Austin, set up on both floors of an old department store at one end of a large mall. After going through the registration and screening process (to make sure we weren't secretly subversives trying to wreak havoc on...the disaster response, I suppose), we had a mind-numbingly boring two hours of training.

What happened next was the surprising part. A Unit Leader from the Perry Point campus got up and told us that we would have two days off here in Austin, then we would be assigned to a number of local DRCs (Disaster Response Centers) in and around the affected areas. Our job would be to run the intake and registration for these centers, giving the regular FEMA staff members the opportunity to start doing client casework. This shocked me...not because of the nature of our job or anything, but rather the fact that we were being told exactly what we had been assigned to do. FEMA, of all organizations, had apparently the wherewithal to realize the asset they had in our several Americorps teams, and had been able to assign us to somewhere where we could do some good. Shocking!

Of course, with three days until we're actually sent out, there are still some uncertainties. For example, we are not sure where exactly we will be assigned. I, for one, am hoping for Houston...but it's possible that we will be going to Beaumont (AGAIN?!) or the devastated region of Galveston. We also do not know our housing, whether it will be hotels (crossing my fingers for that one, obviously), staff shelters, or camping. But it's nice to have at least a tentative timeline, and an even more firm job assignment.

Depression

2008-10-01T18:50:00.002-04:00

Warning: this post contains a great deal of stream-of-consciousness writing. It doesn't necessarily make perfect sense, nor is it necessarily perfectly accurate. I'm just writing it as I think it. Be warned.

Fuck I'm sick of this. I'm a fucking janitor for this stupid volunteer housing center in the middle of nowhere, Louisiana. An hour of work in the morning cleaning bathrooms and wiping off tables, and that's it for the day. Fourteen hours of lounging around, trying to find food and looking at Facebook every five minutes, then trying to get some sleep before getting up and doing it again the next day. I am an Americorps member, and I will get things done, indeed.

I'm so fucking done with this program. Previously, I could overlook all of the middle-school drama and the absurd rules because of the work; when it came down to it, I was doing some good for people that need it. Now, though, we're trapped in some bureaucrat's wet dream, hanging in limbo until the Red Cross, or Americorps staff, or FEMA, or United Way, or fucking NATO or whoever the hell is in charge gets their shit together and figures out that a trained, qualified, experienced Americorps team SHOULD NOT BE CLEANING FUCKING BATHROOMS. So, I'm fed up with it. I'm sick of moving every three days only to do nothing time and time again. I'm sick of not having my iPod anymore because some cock breath stole it. I'm sick of seeing and working with the same immature people day after day. I'm sick of not being able to drive anywhere. I'm sick of being treated like a four-year-old. I'm sick of being discarded by people I care about for people that don't care about them. I gave up basically two years of college and ten months of my life, and for what?

I can't help but think that life is passing me by, and has been for a while. I keep doing these things that I think will make me a better person, but it seems like it just results in more wasted time. I have this desperate fear that I'm going to end up in my 40's or 50's, looking back in disbelief and wondering where the hell my life went, wondering why I didn't enjoy it when I was young enough to do so. I don't know, maybe I'm just being overly paranoid, but it's hard when all of my friends and the people I grew up with are off living life and doing cool things...and I'm here sweeping the floors in Louisiana, hundreds of miles and months away from anybody that gives a damn.

Broom On You

2008-09-27T19:52:00.004-04:00

After a pleasant two-day trip to Baton Rouge (for the purpose of what must have been sightseeing, for nothing relevant actually got accomplished), we have been assigned...right back where we were previously, in Lake Charles. This time, our team has been given the task of keeping the Volunteer Housing Center clean.

Yes, you read that correctly. Now, bear with me. We have endured a month of training (much of which revolved around disaster operations with the Red Cross) in Denver, two construction projects, during which we got a firsthand look at the devastation in the Gulf Coast from Katrina and Rita, three weeks of a disaster call-up in Franklin, IN during the Midwest flooding, and three and a half weeks of staffing and managing various Red Cross evacuee shelters. IS IT ME OR ARE WE A BIT FUCKING OVERQUALIFIED TO BE FUCKING JANITORS?!

Ahem. The reason why we are unable to do anything relevant is that the headquarters in Baton Rouge refuses to release us from their authority, which would allow us to head down to Dallas/Fort Worth and begin relief efforts in Texas. I guess they feel they still need us...which is clearly not the case. Therefore, when my team leader asked for one volunteer to work with Bulk Distribution (loading, inventorying, unloading, and driving box trucks around to drop off supplies), my hand immediately shot up. It's not bad work; we're able to take truckloads into some of the hardest-hit areas in Southwest Louisiana, and deliver them directly to local distribution centers. Beats cleaning toilets any day...

On a different subject: Alright, I know my weaknesses. I know that in the past, I was the nice guy that kinda allowed people to walk all over me in an attempt to get their approval. I recognized it even as I did it, but hoped that they would see me in a better light because of it. Over the last couple years I've been doing my best to break out of that pattern, but I know some vestiges of it remain. However, it's massively insulting when somebody just out and out expects me to roll over for them. For example: you tell me that you're interested in me, you tell me that you want to try a relationship with me...but you also tell me that you have no intention of breaking up with your boyfriend (who, I might add, is a cheating scumbag). I know that you don't see anything wrong with that, but I don't think I've ever been so insulted. What do you expect me to do: wait eagerly by the phone like a puppy dog for months until you realize that you're dating an asshole and finally deign to grace me with your presence? Fuck that.

End of rant.

Nocturne

2008-09-20T10:43:00.002-04:00

Southwest Louisiana Volunteer Housing
Lake Charles, LA

The arrival of Hurricane Ike at our former housing in Baton Rouge was anti-climactic; it was windy and it rained a bit, but the conditions never worsened beyond those of a thunderstorm. In other parts of the Gulf, however, the damage was incredible. Galveston is most likely going to be uninhabitable for more than a year, Beaumont has suffered a lot of damage, and Houston has a long way to go before it recovers.

Our team is currently running a shelter out of the First Baptist Church in Westlake, LA. The church is the third incarnation of the shelter; it began in a small elementary school cafeteria, then moved to the Martin Luther King Community Center before being transferred to the church. For the first time since we arrived, things have begun to calm down. There are about 170 clients living in our shelter, and the local headquarters has done a decent job of supplying us with things that we need. I have been assigned as the night shift shelter supervisor, which means I'm responsible for the overall operation of the shelter between 8 PM and 8 AM. I work with three other people from my team, as well as two Red Cross staff nurses and several National Guardsmen from the local armory for security. Thus, I am essentially nocturnal now; once I get off shift at 8 in the morning, I tend to take a shower and fall into bed...only to get up around 7 PM and prepare to do it all again. In general, it has gone well...however, like any undertaking of this magnitude, there have been some problems. So, without further ado...

It began with the takeover of the delivery women. After our move to the MLK center, it was determined that the overall shelter manager would be my team leader, who both myself and the day supervisor would report to. Several hours into the first day shift, two women from headquarters arrived at the shelter, ostensibly to drop off paperwork and supplies. By the time I came in for the night shift, they had taken over...led by what I can only describe as an extremely masculine and pushy woman bedecked in Harley-Davidson apparel. She proclaimed herself to be the shelter manager, and appointed her "co-worker" as the second in command. This in itself did not irk me as much as did the immediate realization that neither of these bitches had the slightest idea what they were doing. Needless to say, within a day the Harley woman had been kicked out...but not without leaving quite a mess for us to clean up.

Some of the other interesting events thus far: the arrival of a bus with 50 people seeking shelter at 1 AM, when everyone else was sleeping...our constant dealings with a larcenous old man who stole a coffee pot, a pocketknife, and Christ knows what else...the drama between a drug-addicted mother, the abusive and mentally challenged grandmother, and the two little kids that ended up with Child Protective Services coming out...the revelation that we had a woman with a warrant out for her arrest and her child-molester husband in the shelter...and that was in the span of about four days. Wonder what will happen tonight...

Final Approach

2008-09-12T22:41:00.004-04:00

At this point, I'm not even surprised. After packing up all my gear this morning, we were told that our trip to Alexandria would be delayed, and possibly canceled. I'm not positive about the precise bit of Americorps policy that spurred this decision, but I can imagine it has something to do with the directors not wanting us to drive through the leading edge of a Category 3 hurricane. (Wimps.) Thus, we will be here at the Summa Staff Shelter in Baton Rouge, riding out Ike as he makes landfall in about two hours. This storm, at 600 miles wide, is fucking massive. As of the last time I checked the Weather Channel website (weather.com - one of my new favorite sites), Ike is supposed to make landfall aimed directly at Houston, with its miles and miles of canals, refineries, shipping ports, and waterfront businesses. This does not bode well for all of the aforementioned. A wall of water will be pushed down those canals, destroying everything in their path. Galveston has been getting the crap beat out of it since this afternoon, and the storm has yet to officially arrive yet. The National Weather Service sent out a press release utilizing unprecedented language: those who do not evacuate in areas of coastal Texas will face "certain death" from the storm surge. They are not fucking around about this storm.

While we're on the topic of storm surges, I'd like to refer you to several posts I wrote around May and June, when I was working for Habitat for Humanity in Beaumont, Texas. The house my team was working on at the time was in the little town of Sabine Pass, located deep in the marshes of the Texas/Louisiana border. The area contains miles and miles of oil refineries and a massive Liquid Natural Gas terminal. It is also, as of this afternoon, expecting a 25-foot (!!!) storm surge to sweep in from Hurricane Ike. As much as I disliked Beaumont, my thoughts go out to the people of that tiny little marsh-front town. With any luck, the house that we helped to construct (which was build up on 10-foot pilings) will weather the crush of water and wind. Good luck, Sabine.

As of now...the lights are on, the phones still work, the internet still works. The wind has been steadily picking up since this afternoon, and we've had the occasional rain squall, but the outer bands of the storm have yet to really come down on us. There are crude signs posted on the wall of our shelter that read TORNADO SHELTER, which I feel is an extreme exaggeration. Short of that, though, I am prepared: I have a Mini-MagLite, my video camera, bags of pretzels and jalapeno chips, and a book or two. So we'll wait through the minor bits of the story that spin off and hit us, then hopefully get sent somewhere relevant to go do something important. For once.

Here we go...

Wrath (Natural and Otherwise)

2008-09-12T01:02:00.008-04:00

I suppose I thought I was joking yesterday when I mentioned that perhaps we would stay somewhere two days in a row, but clearly I was wrong. Sure enough, we got orders this afternoon to drive back to Alexandria, where we will be opening another shelter in the Coliseum. It remains to be seen if people actually take refuge there, but here's hoping. This could be my last post for a couple days; it's likely we will take a significant hit from Hurricane Ike, and there's no telling whether power, internet or phone service will be available. Never thought I'd be riding out a Category 3 hurricane as part of my Americorps term of service, but it's one more thing to cross off my Bucket List and will make a pretty cool story if it heads for us.

Anyway. The Red Cross seems to be slowly usurping FEMA's long-held position of the most disorganized agency in a given disaster area. In the week since we flew down to Baton Rouge, we've had four different housing locations and, with the exception of one shift at the Alexandria mega shelter, have accomplished little in the way of meaningful work. Say what you will about every job being important, but there's no reason why a team of relatively well-trained Americorps workers should spend their time on a disaster deployment sweeping the floors in a staff shelter or restocking the bathrooms with toilet paper. Every once in a while we'll unload a truck full of supplies, but half the time we find out that the truck went to the wrong place, or the supplies aren't needed anymore...the list goes on and on. It really is amazingly frustrating, not being able to do anything relevant due to the Red Cross' inability to figure out what the fuck they need done and where the fuck they need it. To hearken back to my post from Denver International Airport, this is NOT why I joined Americorps.

From the path (kinda) of the storm...

Perpetual Motion

2008-09-11T00:19:00.002-04:00

Staff Shelter
Baton Rouge, LA

Once again, we've been transferred. The word was passed down from on high: since Hurricane Ike was taking aim at Southern Texas and looked to be leaving Louisiana alone (alliteration, anyone), the LSU Megashelter would not be open for clients. Anybody who still wanted to evacuate would be given a place to stay at smaller shelters nearby, but the facility would be closed and the majority of the staff would either cycle back home at the end of their deployment or travel to Houston, Corpus Christi or Galveston to help with last-minute preparations for Ike. Our team was told at 11 AM that we would be returning to Baton Rouge. We hurried up and packed accordingly...only to sit around for five hours before actually being given the information as to our destination. This in no way surprised me.

So here we are, at a staff shelter in Baton Rouge that was opened at around 8 PM this evening. It has been set up in that kind of professional building that houses various and sundry clinics and doctors' offices. The accommodations here are actually pretty nice; three or four to a room, internet and power, access to a shower trailer. Supposedly our team and the other Denver campus team that we're working with will be running the staff shelter for the duration (which, if you've been reading any of my previous works, could be anywhere from like six hours to next hurricane season, really). Our responsibilities haven't really been outlined (again, not a real big shock) but there's a staff meeting tomorrow morning at nine, so we'll see.

In other news. Due to my assignment on the graveyard shift at the Megashelter (and my subsequent 8 AM - 4 PM sleep cycle) I completely missed the majority of the NFL's Opening Weekend. This pained me greatly. However, I was VERY gratified to see that my Steelers had handled their business against the Houston Texans. Ben Roethlisberger was flawless, Willie Parker scored more touchdowns than he had the entire 2007 season, and the defense stepped up in grand fashion. Brilliant. Well played, boys. Yet another bright spot of the weekend (for me, anyway...my friends from the Boston area were undoubtedly somewhat less thrilled) was seeing Tom Brady go down with a season-ending knee injury eight minutes into the first quarter. Don't get me wrong: I don't like seeing anybody injured. Really though, it couldn't have happened to a nicer team. Say what you will about Randy Moss, Lawrence Maroney and the defense: the Patriots are not going to make the playoffs with Matt Cassel under center. The balance of power in the AFC East has shifted (for this year anyway)...and the beneficiary might very well be the previously-hapless Buffalo Bills (who, as you recall, I had predicted would make the playoffs well before Brady's injury. Mark it well, folks).

Quick thoughts on Opening Weekend
-Kurt Warner is going to be the next Vinny Testaverde, but much better.
-Different jersey, same Favre.
-Michael Turner wasted four years behind L.T.
-God, the Rams are awful.
-If the Bills could stick to special teams all game, they would win it all.
-Tavaris Jackson? Is that REALLY the best the Vikings can do?
-How did the Bengals let Joe Flacco take it 38 yards to the house by himself?
-Peyton, that had better have been a fluke.

So for now I return to the night shift, trying to stay awake and find things to do, and hoping we stay in one place for more than three days this time.

Lull

2008-09-09T15:12:00.004-04:00

LSU-A Megashelter
Alexandria, LA

It seems like weeks since we landed in Baton Rouge to start work for the Red Cross. It has been only five days, however, and they have been eventful. Our first night was spent in a church hall without power (thus no A/C or hot water). The humidity and heat inside the tightly packed hall was bad enough that I set my cot up on the patio under the night sky. Thanks to the power outage, I was treated to one of the most spectacular displays of stars I have ever seen. The next morning, we made the 5-mile trip to the Red Cross headquarters on Airline Highway (which, thanks to the lack of working traffic lights, took about an hour) and was sucked into the disaster-standard procedure of 'hurry up and wait'. Between our arrival at 9 AM and around 2 that afternoon, we underwent a brief (and pointless) training session and sat there waiting for something to do.

A few of us were given the task of driving 'communications equipment' (which consisted of: a single laptop, a phone and a charger) up to Alexandria, about two hours north of Baton Rouge. Upon arrival we found what might be one of the coolest facilities I've ever seen. Known as the Megashelter, it is a massive building with roughly the same floor space as the David Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh. Completed earlier this year, it is the first purpose-built hurricane shelter of its size in the country (Author's Note: hurricane shelters are almost always set up in gymnasiums, churches, schools, etc...structures with lots of floor space, but otherwise poorly suited to accommodate hundreds of displaced people). This megashelter is specifically built as a hurricane shelter. It can withstand a direct hit from a Category 5 hurricane,
and house over 5000 clients (the Red Cross' preferred term for storm victims)
with enough bathrooms and showers (always a major problem for shelters) for both them and the staff. They have a dedicated medical wing staffed by officers of the US Public Health Service, separate living space for Red Cross, EMT and other staffers, a large cafeteria, and the loading docks and storage spaces to deal with the massive amount of supplies that so many people need to operate.

At the moment my team and the 50-odd Red Cross staffers are sitting tight. We finished cleaning up after the Gustav evacuees a day or so ago, and are now just manning the shelter and preparing for the potential clients that will be coming our way to avoid Hurricane Ike. It's quite uneventful for now. The calm before the storm, so to speak.

Update The Second

2008-09-04T08:37:00.002-04:00

Gate A45
Denver International Airport

So we have a little bit more information as to what we will be doing upon arrival in Baton Rouge. There are 49 emergency shelters in the city, and we are slated to be running at least one, possibly more of them. The condition of Baton Rouge itself is not good; there is no power, and it is unlikely that it will be restored within two or three weeks. Wait times for basic services such as food and water are up to three hours. There is no hot water, so showers and laundry are unlikely. We will be working 7 days a week, likely 17 to 18 hour days. We will be sharing a staff shelter with dozens of other volunteers, and will be asked to work longer than our slated 21-day deployment.

It will make our first disaster callup, in Indiana, seem like a vacation by comparison. Hell, this is why I joined Americorps.

Here we go.

Update

2008-09-03T18:38:00.003-04:00

As I had suspected, we have been pulled from our Habitat project in Biloxi, largely due to the fact that the trailers that would serve as our housing have been flooded. We have been reassigned to the Red Cross disaster relief effort in Louisiana. Come tomorrow morning, we will fly down to Baton Rouge (which, if my rudimentary French serves me correctly, translates to Red Stick) and take over the operation of a Red Cross emergency shelter. Our team will be responsible for the general management of the shelter, including the care and feeding of the temporary residents. The problem is that we don't know exactly where will be sent to. Our shelter might in Baton Rouge, or possibly as far south as Lafayette. We won't know until we land tomorrow, which seems to strike me as a fairly good representation of how disorganized Americorps can be at times. I shall spend the rest of the night packing and attempting to determine how I will cram my backpack (currently stuffed to the gills with clothing, books, this laptop, and Christ knows what else) into the overhead compartment on a 737. Brilliant.

A Sigh Of Relief

2008-09-02T15:21:00.003-04:00

Denver, CO

Relatively good news yesterday: Hurricane Gustav dealt New Orleans only a glancing blow, with minimal flooding reported in the Ninth Ward, Plaquemines and St. Bernard Parishes. It is yet another setback to a city that recently marked the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, but the general consensus seems to be that it could have been much worse. Over 2 million people evacuated coastal Louisiana in the hurricane's path, proving that despite a number of problems that remain with the levees, many of the issues of Katrina have been rectified. Meanwhile, out in the Atlantic, Hurricane Hanna and Tropical Storm Ike are beginning to intensify. It appears that Hanna will travel up the Eastern Seaboard, striking somewhere between Florida and South Carolina sometime this week. As Jimmy Buffett sang, "Tryin' to reason with hurricane season..."

The question now for me is where my team will be deployed. I was supposed to head down to Biloxi, MS on Wednesday, but there were reports of flooding in that area so at the moment, it's unclear where we will be. It is possible that we will be sent to the New Orleans area again, or possibly Baton Rouge or Lafayette, both of which took the brunt of Gustav's wind and rain. Meetings and conference calls are taking place as I speak, as the Denver campus tries to figure out what it will do with the 17 teams slated for Gulf Projects. So at the moment I sit here, unsure of our destination or job assignment. That's the nature of the job, I suppose.

Mental Bouncing

2008-08-26T11:39:00.003-04:00

Oakmont, PA

I did not pick a particularly good time to come home. Most of my friends left for college the same weekend I got home and are busy, so I spend a lot of time sitting here bored. My good friend in the Marine Corps had his orders changed, so there's really no telling when (or if) I'll be able to see him before I head back. Curses.

Has anybody else noticed how shitty of a week the aviation industry is having? Plane crashes in Spain, Kazakhstan (yes I did spell that correctly), Utah, California, Canada...what the fuck? Keep the damn things in the air. I'm catching a flight back to Denver on Monday morning, and I would like this trend to cease immediately.

The start of the NFL Regular Season is approaching, and I am growing more and more excited. The preseason is mildly intriguing in that you get a chance to take a look at your rookies and backups, but that's balanced against the possibility of losing a star player for the season in what amounts to a scrimmage (see: New York Giants DE Osi Umenyiora). Some interesting things of late:
-Cardinals fans and coaches might have to accept the fact that the Matt Leinart project might not be a success. Leinart was drafted in the first round as the unquestioned franchise quarterback. After three years, however, he has shown little in the way of development. Veteran Kurt Warner was named the starter, and Cards fans have to be wondering: what is Leinart doing?
-The Atlanta Falcons have named rookie Matt Ryan the starting quarterback. This does two things. First, it writes off Atlanta's season. There is little in the way of talent besides Michael Turner around him, and first-year QBs rarely meet with success. However, it also gives the Falcons an undoubted new start after the Bobby Petrino and Mike Vick fiascos.
-My Steelers have GOT to shore up that offensive line, but Rashard Mendenhall looks GOOD.

Hey Hillary fans, please shut the fuck up. Hillary lost. It happened. You can't change it. Being bitter as hell because Obama didn't pick her as his VP is pointless. She is a terrible candidate, and if Obama had picked her, they would have lost in the general election. The era of the Clintons is over; it is time for Bill and Hillary to save themselves any further embarrassment and begin withdrawing from the public eye.

The Road Not Taken?

2008-08-23T09:08:00.002-04:00

Denver International Airport

As a preface, I would just like to make it known that as early as February 2008, I had predicted that Joe Biden would be Barack Obama's running mate. Even when the media was hyped for Tim Kaine or Evan Bayh, I stuck with my Biden prediction for one reason: he fills the holes in Obama's resume. The two major criticisms leveled against the Democratic nominee are that he is inexperienced and that he has little in the way of foreign policy credentials. Biden is serving his 36th year in the Senate and is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, making him far more qualified than many of the other proposed contenders.

Yesterday the newly reunited Sun Four traveled up to the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs for a day of obstacle courses and leadership training. It was thought-provoking for me, because it made me wonder where I would be if not for Americorps. Some background is needed. I have a 5-year-old-boy-esque fascination with aircraft. From the time I knew what the Air Force Academy was, it became my dream school. I thought (and still do) that being a combat pilot is about the coolest job out there, short of a double-O agent or a vampire hunter or something, and thus I was convinced that I would go through the Academy and end up flying some absurdly fast and powerful fighter as a career.

It was about this point, however, that my eyesight began going to shit. One of the worst days of my life to that point (age 11 or so) was when I learned that I would never be able to do that kind of flying, even if I got contacts or corrective surgery. From that point, my interest in the Academy waned; I could still get flight training, but I would be restricted to transports and the like. Not that those aren't vital to the logistics of the military, but that wasn't the kind of flying I wanted to do and thus another dream fell by the wayside. Watching cadet-piloted gliders soar overhead yesterday made me remember that particular ambition, and from that point my thoughts drifted to what I would be doing if I had not joined Americorps.

Most likely I would be going to school (though NOT at Catholic University...one year of that shit was enough), probably working (and making FAR more money than I do now, but I digress) and trying to figure out what I want to do with my life (making just as much progress...none...as I have thus far). This kind of what-if game is not, however, helpful. I need to learn to just accept where I am and what I'm doing.

Well, Damn

2008-08-15T19:53:00.002-04:00

Grand Island, NE

If any of my VAST readership hails from the great state of Iowa, I would like to reassure you tonight: you are safe. Your tax dollars are being well-spent by the Iowa State Police to mount massive, coordinated efforts to halt what most would agree is the most ominous threat facing the Hawkeye State. Yes, you guessed it: speeders. The Iowa State Police put on a magnificent display this morning, using two spotter aircraft and no less than eight cruisers to pull over motorists on Interstate 35, including two large vans with government plates. I was behind the wheel of one of those vans, and I have to say that the effort expended was well-worth stopping us dangerous scofflaws, who showed a blatant disregard for the law and the posted speed limit of 70 mph. The fact that we were keeping pace with traffic at 80 mph is irrelevant, as is the fact that traveling slower than the flow of traffic is a nuisance at best and dangerous at worst. What IS relevant is that a major victory was scored for law and order today in Iowa. Thank you, state troopers of that wonderful, flat state.

Now sod off.

Disdain

2008-08-14T21:39:00.004-04:00

Michael Phelps has, for the second Summer Olympiad in a row, proved his utter dominance over the sport of swimming by absolutely crushing his opponents. It's not even close, really. Phelps could spend the first ten seconds of each race sitting on the pool deck eating a sandwich, then casually climb down the ladder into the water, lazily swim over to his lane, and STILL end up leaving the rest of the competitors choking in his wake. This guy is one of the greatest athletes ever, and will easily (and deservedly) break Mark Spitz's gold-medal record. Way to go, man.

While we're on the topic of the Olympics, I have to admit that, despite my early reservations, I am glad that the games are being held in China. Not because of its history or place in the world, mind you. Rather, I'm glad that the world as a whole has a chance to see how intolerant, dishonest, and generally ratty the country is. From using 13-year-old gymnasts (the age limit for the Olympics is 16) to incredible levels of censorship on the internet and in the media, to brutally suppressing those who advocate (and rightfully so) Tibetan and Taiwanese independence, to allowing their capital to become so polluted that it makes Mexico City look clean by comparison...gotta love socialism. Thanks for nothing, you vicious bastards.

Quick Points

2008-08-09T12:03:00.002-04:00

-Anthony Smith is a classless little bastard. High-stepping on an interception return as a rookie, smugly predicting a victory against the New England Patriots last year (and subsequently getting treated like a refugee), and now leveling Hines Ward with a cheap shot in practice. I don't care who we need to sign to replace him, this guy has GOT to go.

-Charlie Batch's broken collarbone is not good. He's one of the best backups in the league, and with his loss the Steelers are one play away from having to throw rookie Dennis Dixon to the wolves. Dixon has potential, but he's an unpolished product at this point. If we have to rely on him this year, it will be a long season.

-'Jet Favre'? What the hell? Bad news for my Bills-obsessed friend Joe: it looks like the Jets are no longer keeping the Dolphins company as the AFC East doormats. With the addition of Favre, that team could definitely compete.

-Speaking of the Dolphins, I wonder if they'll have any more success with Chad Pennington and his candy arm than the Jets...

-The Vikings could make it to the NFC Championship game for sure if they had somebody other than Tavaris Jackson under center.

-Rashard Mendenhall is looking more and more like another solid pick.

Assumption

2008-08-02T19:53:00.003-04:00

Right, well for once I've decided that I will do my best to look to the future and actually make some kind of plan for the months and years after Americorps. Thus, I have decided to put in my application to be a Team Leader for Americorps NCCC for 2009. Make no mistake...even if I'm accepted, I have yet to decide whether or not I'll take the job. Assuming I do, I will be working out of the Biloxi, MS campus, which will open its doors for the first time in January 2009. I would be part of Class 15, Southeast Region, at the newest of a total of five campuses. (Denver, Perry Point MD, Sacramento, Vinton IA, and Biloxi MS) The way I figure it, it can't hurt to apply, see if I make the cut; if I decide I don't want the job, it would be simple to turn it down and allow one of the waiting-list candidates to take the position. I was hoping to finish the application today, but thanks to Americorps' slightly outdated website, I have met with limited success. Ah, suppose that's what the weekend is for.

Speaking of that...four work days left before we leave Copper Harbor. I cannot wait. I have learned over the past several weeks that trail work is not my forte; while it is undoubtedly a boon to the region, I find the work itself to be mindless, repetitive, and menial. To the staff of the Copper Harbor Trails Club, I extend my sincere amazement. I have no idea how people like Aaron (our site supervisor) can do it 6-7 days a week, spring to fall. Give me construction any day.

And my plans for the immediate future: we will be leaving Copper Harbor on August 14th and arriving back in Denver on the 16th after two days on the road. Our team will experience its first transition week back in Denver, packed full of informative, relevant meetings and enjoyable team-building activities (sarcasm in italics, people) then on the 23rd I will be boarding an (early, grrr) flight back to Pittsburgh for a week! Cannot wait.

Another Open Letter To Brett Favre

2008-07-25T21:14:00.003-04:00

Come ON, Brett! What in the hell are you doing? You brought your team to the NFC Championship Game last year, then held one of the more emotional press conferences of late and announced your retirement. You were lauded as one of the elite quarterbacks in the history of the game, a champion and a competitor unlike any other. That was a hell of a way to go out.

But then you started making inroads about coming back. Not immediately, mind you...rather, over the summer: just as Packers faithful and the team itself was becoming adjusted to the idea of Aaron Rodgers as the starter. You gotta understand what that did for the front office. If they welcomed you back, they would be doing nothing less than yanking the rug out from under the young quarterback drafted four years ago as your heir apparent, at the exact moment that he needed the confidence of the team and the office. If, on the other hand, they told you that they were set, they risked the wrath of the millions of fans that absolutely love you.

For good or ill, they chose the second route. I can't say whether or not the 2008 season will prove them as prideful or incredibly foresight-ful, but I have no idea why you are trying to get traded to the Jets or Buccaneers. Don't get me wrong, neither team has a secure quarterback situation at the moment and both would absolutely love to have you, the original gunslinger, under center for them...but how wrong is it going to be seeing you in the Jets' white and green or the Bucs' red and white? You are the absolute epitome of the Green Bay franchise, and have been since 1992. I wrote an earlier article about just such a travesty, hoping against hope it won't come true.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. There are few things I would like to see more than you taking the field again this year...in the Packers #4. Here's hoping, Brett.

Isolation

2008-07-23T21:39:00.002-04:00

July 23, 2008

Copper Harbor, MI

It seems like the towns get smaller with every project we are sent on: New Orleans to Beaumont to Franklin…to Copper Harbor. It’s the northernmost town in Michigan, located at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Total population: 81 residents. The nearest movie theater, grocery store, hospital, etc. is an hour away, in the town of Houghton. For all its isolation, however, this is a cool little town. There are a couple of ‘motels’ with cabins for rent rather than rooms, two little shops that sell maple-craft novelties, an awesome little ice cream shop, and a state park less than a half-mile up the road. It has the vibe of a resort town writ small; most of the people that you see around the town on a daily basis are tourists that come for the camping, kayaking, hiking, or mountain biking.

Those last two hobbies are why we are here. Our team is working with the Copper Harbor Trail Club to cut and refine two and a half miles of trail through the woods, a mile and a half of which will climb the 2500’ Brockway Mountain. These trails are regarded among the best in the country for hiking and mountain biking; the International Mountain Bike Association will be holding their annual rally up here in the next month or so, and there is the legendary Fat Tire bicycling festival, which occurred a week before we arrived.

And fuck me if it ain’t hard work. To be honest, it’s the most physically demanding work I’ve ever done in my life. Construction doesn’t hold a candle to this. We use pick-mattocks and Pulaski tools (combination axe and mattock) as well as sharpened MacLeod rakes to cut flowing trails through thick forests and steep hills, contending with 6” roots and massive rocks in the process. It’s exhausting and dirty work…but oddly satisfying. There’s something affirming about looking back at dozens of yards of trail that you tore through earlier that day.

Tent camping is a different matter. Now, I love camping. I am an Eagle Scout and have spent many nights in various tents and shelters around western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, and Virginia. I’ve camped in 110-degree heat at Fort AP Hill, VA and have had my tent nearly collapsed by an overnight snowfall of 13+ inches up in Ligonier. Camping with an Americorps team is a completely different kind of event. We have people who have never camped before, and people who have but do not like it. We also have to keep our work equipment in good shape, and do all our cooking and cleaning. This last point is a tough one. Of the three cooking stoves we requisitioned from the tool room in Denver, two have since broke. Thus, most of our cooking is done over the fire…which tends to limit our menu choices and make even the simplest cooking task far more difficult.

EDIT: For some reason, there is wireless internet in this dinky-ass little town. No cell reception, grocery store, bank, post office...but they have Wi-Fi. Go figure.

Once Again...

2008-07-15T23:16:00.003-04:00

Rock Island, IL

For the life of me, I cannot understand why travel makes people so tired. I do nothing but sit in a van for eight hours, occasionally driving a shift or two, but for some reason I have a ton of trouble staying awake. Obviously this is slightly more difficult to deal with when I'm actually driving; spending a half-hour jabbing myself with a pen to keep me from falling asleep at the wheel gets old quickly. Oh well.

So here I am, in another nondescript hotel in another nondescript town in the Midwest. We're a day and a half of driving time away from Copper Harbor, whereupon I will spend about a month working long days to build trails and living in a town of 81 people. Brilliant. I don't know, Americorps is a great project and all, but I'm not terribly excited about this particular project. That's the breaks, I suppose.

After tomorrow night I will not have access to the internet and I will be out of cellphone range for almost the entirety of the project, so I hope nobody has anything important to tell me. I will check my email and messages as often as I can...which might be about once every three weeks or so. With any luck, however, I will be returning to the 'Burgh for a brief fall break at the conclusion of the project, so who knows.

Fare thee well, everybody.

Come Fly Our Crowded, Overpriced Skies

2008-07-07T20:39:00.003-04:00

Gate B-25
Denver International Airport

Okay, okay, I admit it: the sole purpose of this post is to demonstrate to all 2 of the people that read this thing that I can indeed make entries from cool locations...in this case, Denver International. Since, however, I took the trouble to snake my way onto the airport's Wi-Fi, I suppose I have to actually find a topic to discuss.

HOLY SHIT, is airfare expensive. I mean, Jesus. I know the skyrocketing gas prices have caused the airlines to boost fares in order to not get demolished. The problem is that along with these massive price hikes have come service that, even compared to a couple years ago, is terrible. Planes are late more often now than at any other time in history (something that I can relate to: the plane that I am waiting to board is currently a half-hour late) and passengers increasingly find themselves bumped off flights, waiting in a terminal for hours at a time, and dealing with lost or damaged luggage. The problem is that there is not a whole lot that the airlines can do. They have had to scale back their operations and lay off staff in order to avoid raising their fares even higher. They have had to resort to charging passengers for just about anything, including American's $25 fee for a SINGLE checked bag, and United's $30 "service fee" if a reservation is made over the phone as opposed to online.

Now, the good news. I'm in an aisle seat, I'm riding a (relatively) new Airbus A320, and I'm going home for a week of relaxation. I'll take it.

Today We Celebrate Our Independence Day

2008-07-04T02:04:00.002-04:00

A brief excerpt from the Declaration of Independence...

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security...

Let us not forget what this meant, and still continues to mean. Happy Independence Day.

Release

2008-07-03T21:38:00.002-04:00

Ah, finally...good news from the government. After more than five months bumming around the country with little in the way of time off, we're finally being given a break. On Saturday morning, we will head out of Franklin...destination Denver. We will arrive back at campus on Monday morning, barring any major catastrophes en route (seriously, this is not the time for that shit to happen) and at 7 PM, Mountain Time...I will be on a United Airlines plane on my way back home to Pittsburgh for seven days off! I am beyond excited. Seven days back in my city, with its Primantis, O-fries, the best pizza on earth on Ardmore Boulevard in Forest Hills, my friends and fellows, my little Celica with its manual gearbox, my cats...god, I need this time off.

Right. Overzealous anticipation aside, some updates regarding the past week or so. The chaos of our first week and a half here has faded into...well, the only word to really describe it is boredom. The list of homeowners that needs volunteer help has receded to a half-dozen or so, from its peak of forty or fifty. That's good for two reasons. First, it shows that dozens of families are making progress on their rebuilding and recovery efforts. Second of all, our flow of volunteers has slowed to just about nothing; we sent a grand total of two people out to work today, not counting members of my team. It's good there are not many people depending on our efforts anymore. But christ if it ain't been exhausting.

By our (slightly fuzzy) count, my team and I...

-dispatched over 800 volunteers
-sent volunteers to or worked ourselves on 45-odd addresses
-unloaded and sorted 25-30 semi-trailers of furniture, appliances, and other donations
-sorted 300 pounds of food
-delivered 4 vanloads (around 300 gallons) of water to an isolated mobile home park
-conducted assessments on 125 houses
-made/received over 1000 phone calls in the operation of the volunteer center
-helped a couple desperately poor families move out of cramped hotel rooms or trailers on the edge of collapse and into decent, albeit temporary housing
(We know all this because NCCC teams are "encouraged" to keep track of quantifiable accomplishments; we keep concrete numerical records of the work performed).

All this in 21 days. It's been a long couple weeks.

That's The Way It Begins

2008-06-26T19:08:00.004-04:00

If you drive north out of Pittsburgh on Interstate 79, you will make it to the city of Erie after about two hours. (One, if you drive the way I do...but I digress.) Head west on Interstate 90 for a half-hour. Eventually, you will come to the small lakeside town of Conneaut, Ohio. Take Broad Street north as far as you can, and then make a left onto Lake Road. Otherwise known as State Route 531, it runs along the Lake Erie shoreline, with only a few vacation houses between it and the steep cliffs that lead down to the waterfront. If you stay on Lake Road, you will pass a harbor, a park, a hospital and a gas station before finally approaching a slight bend in the road. On your right is a long slatted fence, through which, if you drive by at speed, you can see a large field with a massive tree growing in the middle of it. A baseball diamond and swimming pool sit on the right side of the field, and one oddly-shaped building resides at the base of the tree. Along the left side and back of this field are 22 tiny, low-slung white buildings with green-shingled roofs.

This little piece of land on the Lake Erie shore is, with the exception of my house, my favorite place on earth. Harry E. Sheldon Calvary Camp. Calvary. SCC. My home. I have been coming to Calvary since 1998; seven years as a camper, and two as a member of staff. This year, 2008, will mark only the second summer since then that I have not made the journey to the Erie coastline. The other was the summer of 2005, between my time as a camper and the start of my employment on staff.

At first glance, Calvary doesn't look that impressive. You can walk from the easternmost spot on campus to the westernmost in about five minutes. Some of the buildings are almost 80 years old, and they show it. The view, though, is spectacular. Not ten feet behind the female cabin line, the ground ends and the cliff drops a hundred feet to the waterfront below. The lake stretches out to the horizon, and on clear, windy days the whitecaps look spectacular. None of this, however, compares to the sunsets. From the clifftop, you have a perfect view of the sun as it sinks down into the lake. I challenge you to find a better place to watch the spectacle.

The location, the history and the facilities are impressive. What really makes Calvary unlike any other place on earth, though, is the people. For some reason, this little plot of land in Ohio attracts some of the greatest people I've ever met. The friendships you make up there are different than any others, because of that element you share with the other person; that indefinable Calvary spirit. It is impossible to put into words, but if you've spent any time up there, you know what I'm talking about. Several of the guys that I worked with up there were in my first cabin with me, ten years ago. That's what this place can do. It's amazing.

And I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be at the moment.

Sorry, Folks...

2008-06-21T18:31:00.002-04:00

We are a volunteer center. We organize needs and assign volunteers to meet them. That's IT. We are NOT:

-the Red Cross
-FEMA
-the Indiana Council on Aging
-the Department of Homeland Security
-omniscient (unfortunately)
-the food bank
-Sears
-totally organized yet (give us time)
-capable of finding your Social Security check
-Medicare/Medicaid
-a babysitter (no, we have no jobs for a 7-year old)
-capable of cross-referencing files for the entire state of Indiana
-capable of giving you directions to anywhere in the county
-FEMA (seriously, stop calling us and getting mad when we're not)
-fond of being bitched at over the phone because you told us the wrong information
-capable of pulling an endless stream of volunteers out of our ass
-a FUCKING BABYSITTER (stop bringing your children, dammit!)
-capable of giving you money because you didn't get your welfare check

We have had many people expecting us to be all of these above listed things (as well as many more that I'm not remembering at the moment) on numerous occasions.

Drainage

2008-06-19T22:00:00.002-04:00

Franklin College
Franklin, IN

'Exhausted' does not even begin to describe how I feel right now. Let me explain. We are living at Franklin College in the small town by the same name, and running the Johnson County Volunteer Center out of one of the halls on campus. In the process, we have had to contend with an ever-changing command structure, local political drama, a power-grab by various local, state, and federal agencies, a constant flow of information that was shaky at best and completely wrong at worst, and difficulties with establishing lines of communication.

So let me begin by explaining exactly what my team does. We take requests from victims that need volunteer help to clean up from the flood damage. This could include removal of debris from basements, disposal of various waterlogged appliances, tearing-up of saturated drywall and floorboards, or simply cleaning the mud and muck out of a house. The local food bank and donation center also request volunteers to fill their staffing needs. Once we have these requests, we assign volunteers to complete them, and keep track of what tasks have been completed.

Sounds simple, right?

Not quite. Our first problem is finding enough volunteers to do the work that needs done; we have had difficulty trying to consolidate the various church groups, Scout troops, and individual volunteers and run them through our center, so that we can keep track of them and avoid sending people to complete jobs that have already been done. That particular problem is being solved slowly, as the word gets out that volunteers should come to us, rather than trying to do it themselves. The next problem is that the victims are rarely home due to the condition of their houses, and thus we are unable to send volunteers to the location. Disaster areas are prime targets for various types of unscrupulous fucks that would like nothing more than the chance to loot an unwatched house, so for liability reasons we don't send volunteers to houses unless there is somebody there to keep an eye on them and tell them what needs done. The third major problem that we tend to run into is transportation; due to lawsuit-averting Americorps rules, we cannot drive any other vehicles than our vans without signing a ton of waivers and such, and we cannot even drive our vans with less than three team members in them. This makes getting people from one place to another a MAJOR hassle.

And that's just the job as it is written. In reality, my team does FAR more than that on a daily basis. We have unloaded at least fifteen semi-trailers full of food, water, appliances, clothing, and other household goods. Some of my teammates spent a couple hours in a muddy crawlspace underneath a house, cleaning out saturated insulation. I and several others drove a couple van-loads of water to an isolated trailer park (I shall tell the story of Friendly Village in a later post). I have spent HOURS on the phone over the last couple days (with various victims, volunteers, the Red Cross, FEMA, the Indianapolis Council on Aging, ACCESS Transit, a large number of church groups, a Boy Scout troop leader, a couple of VERY nice older people who were stuck in a shitty motel with nowhere to go, at least two people who chewed me out for, I suppose, being unlucky enough to be the one to answer the phone, and fuck knows what else) in an attempt to establish lines of communication and get at least something done...with varying degrees of success. My phone bill is going to SUCK; for about three days, my personal cellphone was one of the two contact numbers for the entire center.

To add to the list of interesting things that happened to me since arriving here, I strained (read as: fucked up REAL good) my back hauling heavy-ass things off a truck, and thus am in pain whenever I try to do simple things such as, say, walking. Awesome.

Oddly enough, though, despite the fact that I have been running off of caffeine and momentum for the last couple days, I kinda like it...and no, I'm not a masochist. Why do you ask?

Oh.

Major Hydrological Event?

2008-06-12T21:45:00.002-04:00

UPDATE: The National Weather Service is classifying the flooding that has struck Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan as a 'major hydrological event'. It is what is known as a '500-year' flood, and by far the worst that has hit the area in human memory. Thousands of people have been displaced, hundreds of roads and bridges have been washed out, and more rain is forecast for this weekend.

This is why we have been pulled out of Texas. Tomorrow, we will be arriving in Franklin, IN where we will be working at the local donations warehouse and the volunteer center for two counties south of Indianapolis. The team will be staying at Franklin College, and organizing donations for displaced families, as well as doing administrative work and dispatching volunteers. As of now, we are slated to be deployed for 30 days.

Disaster Relief

2008-06-09T19:21:00.002-04:00

UPDATE: Due to the extensive flooding in the Midwest, I have been put on notice to prepare for disaster relief deployment. We will be leaving Beaumont in the next 24 hours, and will be spending anywhere from three weeks to 30 days in Indiana or Wisconsin. Since disaster relief is a priority, I will NOT be back in Denver for the campus transition week, NOR will I be back from June 27 to July 6th during our summer break. It is unknown yet where we will be going, what we will be doing, or what sort of communications ability we will have there, but please call me at (412) 480-0104 if you have any questions.

Sod It All

2008-06-08T22:46:00.002-04:00

Controlling my emotions is very important to me. Like anybody, I will experience a wide range of varied emotions at one point or another. Unlike most, however, I do my best to prevent them from manifesting. In no way am I comfortable sharing how I feel; I would much rather just deal with it inwardly and endure. This is a change from that status quo.

I fucking hate Texas. We have been here since April 24, and will not be leaving until June 19. Due to our three-day transition week in Jackson, we have missed out on the full transition week and accompanying weekend that most teams are given, as well as the travel time both ways between. All told, this accounts for almost two extra weeks at this project, as opposed to every other team in our unit and all but about five from the entire Denver campus. Combine that with the oppressive heat and humidity (heat indexes over 100 degrees), the absolute dearth of activities nearby, and the total lack of things within walking distance, and I am sick and tired of his goddamned state.

The project itself is also pissing me off in a number of ways. Our new site supervisor, Rory, is a laid-back and funny guy that does his best to remain involved with us during the workday. He tends to look towards several people, myself included, whenever he needs a job done; the three or four of us are his go-to guys (all of us are male, incidentally) . This has created resentment and bitterness towards both Rory and those of us who he looks to within the rest of the teams. They raise allegations of sexism, despite the fact that there are several guys between the two teams that he does not ask for assistance. They apparently have yet to consider that the three/four of us constantly ask him if there is anything he needs done and are the first to step up whenever Rory or the other supervisor needs people to do a job. Furthermore, once we are given a job, we finish it; others are more inclined to stand around and chat on site. Of course, when I attempted to raise these points, I was immediately met with responses of 'Obviously you don't have a problem with him; you're a guy!' No, you fucking fools, WE STEP UP.

And that brings me to my last, and possibly biggest, source of stress: my team. Not only do many of them congregate aimlessly and chat, then wonder why the supervisors don't immediately look to them...they also turn relatively small incidents into HUGE dramatic episodes. (For example: when the kitchen at the temple was being used to prepare food for a big festival this weekend, the cooks accidentally misplaced a piece of Tupperware belonging to one of my teammates. Apparently choosing to ignore the fact that it could be replaced for a dollar at Walgreens, she absolutely flipped shit; she questioned every single one of us regarding its whereabouts as if we had deliberately stolen and destroyed, say, her cellphone. She then proceeded to complain and bitch about the Tupperware for no less than three days, constantly airing her disgust that people would be using, in her words, 'our kitchen'. She also apparently chose to ignore the fact that it was in no way our kitchen; we were very graciously being allowed to use the kitchen free of charge by the Buddhist monks, who were organizing the aforementioned festival). It is this kind of minor, petty shit combined with spoiled, selfish people that drive me up a wall. I have been talked down to like I was some sort of underling (from both the girl described in the Tupperware story and another power-hungry Corps member, not a team leader) and treated like I was a four-year-old (from a different Corps member only a few years older than I). I have been living with this team continuously since the beginning of our time in New Orleans (around March 4th) and am counting the minutes until I can get away from them. (Disclaimer: there are some people on my team that are hard workers and very cool about things. This little rant does not apply to them).

So, I will do something that I normally loathe, and lay my feelings out. I am physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. My patience is frayed thin; it takes a good deal of willpower every day to avoid going off on a Denis-Learyesque, bridge-burning, alienating rant punctuated by me laying my fist through a wall. I have not seen my friends from Denver in four months, and have not seen or hung out with my friends and fellows from back in the 'Burgh in five. Despite the fact that I am halfway through the program, I still have no idea what I want to do afterward, and little in the way of usable skills to get me there. To be honest, I'm very lonely down here; apart from one or two people on my team and a similar number on the Perry Point team, I don't have anybody that I'm close enough to to talk with and really want to hang out with.

Sod it all. June 27th. June 27th. June 27th. I'll just keep telling myself that, and hope it lives up to what I need it to be.

Sayonara

2008-06-07T23:13:00.003-04:00

Say farewell to the relevancy of the Clintons.

That's right ladies and gentlemen: Hillary Clinton has finally bowed to that which has been obvious for almost two months now, and has suspended (read as: ended) her campaign for president. It's questionable whether it's already too late to stave off a mass defection of her supporters to John McCain, thus sinking Barack Obama's chances. If that happens, it's quite possible that, far from being the heir apparent of the Democratic Party that she was even a year and a half ago, she will end her political career (and make no mistake, it will be ended) as hated and reviled as Ralph Nader after his refusal to submit all but handed George W. Bush the White House in 2000.

Fare thee poorly, Hillary; may you trip over your Texas-sized ambition and break your fucking neck.

Believe

2008-06-05T00:17:00.002-04:00

Alas, the curtain has fallen for the Penguins' 2007-2008 season tonight. The Detroit Red Wings have come away with their 11th Stanley Cup victory after a hard-fought 3-2 victory over the Penguins. My disappointment is obvious, but I'm also proud and excited. The Wings had been the best team in the league all year, and after dropping the first two games disappointingly, the young and inexperienced Penguins put their backs to the wall and gave Detroit a fight over the next four, including a triple-overtime victory in Game 5. The two early losses gave both the team and their fans a chance to show their character; neither gave up at any point. Even as the final seconds of Game 6 expired, the Penguins crashed Osgood at the net and came within inches of scoring a tying goal with literally tenths of a second remaining.

Why am I excited? Potential. The Penguins rampaged their way through the Senators, Rangers, and Flyers before going down fighting to the Red Wings. Marc-Andre Fleury played heroically throughout, including an absurd 55-save performance (24 of those coming in overtime) in that aforementioned Game 5. Sidney Crosby, Jordan Staal, Marian Hossa, Ryan Malone, Sergei Gonchar, and the rest of the team had fantastic performances at one point or another throughout the course of the playoffs, and even Evgeni Malkin, who had virtually vanished after the regular season, made his presence known with a Stanley Cup goal. The team is generally young, unbelievably skilled, and WE WILL BE BACK.

Thanks for a great season, boys.
HERE WE GO PENGUINS.
2007-2008 Atlantic Division Champions
2007-2008 Eastern Conference Champions

Stream Of

2008-05-30T19:23:00.002-04:00

This is going to be an odd post, because even though I have a strong urge to write, I have very little that I specifically want to write ABOUT. Thus, this has the potential to wander quite a bit.

Hm, first things first. It was a great relief to see the Penguins' offense finally come together and score some goals. The first two games of the Stanley Cup Finals were, to say the least, disconcerting. Not surprisingly, it was Sidney Crosby that keyed the much-needed victory on Wednesday night with two goals. We need to win tomorrow night at the Igloo, because if not we will be facing elimination in Detroit for Game 5. Come on, boys...time to play.

Our project has not improved much; we've learned that our normal site supervisor is planning on quitting and finding a new job immediately after our team leaves in the middle of June, so that would explain his relative apathy towards us and the project. Furthermore, with each passing day less and less work gets done. This is immensely frustrating for those of us on the team who want to get things done and actually do work, as opposed to sitting around and chatting endlessly.

Hm, with that out of the way, what else can I riff about? This is where it will begin to wander. Heeere we go...

I have recently been listening to a lot of Counting Crows, which I have a newfound appreciation for. Can't say what brought this on; I knew and liked them beforehand.

I REALLY miss my car, although I'm quite glad that I don't have to buy gas. HOLY SHIT it is expensive.

I haven't had good buffalo wings or good pizza since I came out to Denver in February. I am planning on rectifying both situations when I return for summer break. Speaking of that...I will be returning to the 'Burgh either late in the evening of June 27 or early in the morning of the 28th, and will be there until the afternoon of July 6th.

The mosquitoes in Texas are large and vicious. Fuck them all.

Buddhists are generally very cool people, despite being vegetarians.

Football season is coming soon. Christ, I cannot wait.

Stick a fork in Hillary; she's done.

If I ever travel to South America, Africa, or Southeast Asia, there is no way in hell I would ever use local airlines. Those planes fall out of the sky a good two or three times a month.

Speaking of that, I wish I could fly a plane. Might come in handy some day. That and play drums. Oh, if only.

Alright, that about wraps up the Stream of Consciousness post. Thank you for not paying attention.

Theravada

2008-05-22T17:06:00.002-04:00

Unsurprisingly, being 20 feels no different than being 19. Who woulda thunk it? Anyway, my team has moved into the Chu Buu Mon Buddhist temple in downtown Port Arthur. It's quite cool; we're living in the social hall/residence wing of the temple, and not only is it air-conditioned, but unlike the YMCA, our hosts do not hate us and want us gone. The monks are all very nice and welcoming, and gave us an open invitation to sit in on a Buddhist service at some point. I have never seen one before, so I will take them up on it.

This week has not gone especially well. It began with the confirmation that I would not be able to make it back home over Memorial Day break; the only airline that flies out of the Southeast Texas Airport, Hair Care and Tire Center (thank you, Ron White...it's a dinky little airport) is Continental Airlines, and fares back to Pittsburgh were just too high. Lousy fuel costs. Anyway, after that slight disappointment, things went downhill. Texas is hot and humid as hell; you know the weather sucks when it's 8:30 in the morning and your shirt is sticking to your back. Not at all pleasant. Not only that, but we had some problems with our site supervisor. He spends most of the day sitting in his truck on his cellphone, while we're out working. This is annoying, but what really gets me is that he tends to get mad when we, as AMATEURS at construction, make a mistake and end up wasting time and materials...as if we were deliberately screwing up to make him look bad. He gives us little in the way of support, then blames us for our occasional errors. It seems as if the first step to improving our performance would be for him to get his ass out of his truck and actually supervise...but that's just one man's opinion.

There is a three-day weekend coming up, and that does tend to help. I've learned that I will be coming home June 28th and staying until July 6th, and that will be nice to get back home.

Anyway. As I predicted, my Penguins made quick work of Game 5 against Philadelphia to send the Flyers back to their crappy city and propel themselves into the Stanley Cup. Unfortunately, Dallas was unable to pull off the upset against Detroit, and thus it will be the Penguins and the Red Wings playing for the Cup. This is a struggle of experience against momentum; the Penguins have barreled through the Playoffs, losing only two games in the process. They are a team of young stars such as Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal, and Marc-Andre Fleury with the energy and spirit to win. The Red Wings, on the other hand, have many experienced playoff and championship veterans to bring to bear, and have been the dominant team in the league all season. It will be a hell of a series, and I dearly wish I was in Pittsburgh to cheer on my Penguins.

My prediction: The Penguins will win in six games. LET'S GO PENS!

Huh?

2008-05-15T12:32:00.003-04:00

My last day as a teenager has started off oddly. After wasting an hour of travel time heading to and then back from Habitat's warehouse in downtown Beaumont, we arrived at our usual work location to find that the site's port-a-johns had been burned down. Let me repeat that: the port-a-johns had been burned down. Three partially built houses had been spared the fire (thankfully) but OUR FUCKING PORT-A-JOHNS HAD BEEN BURNED DOWN. I haven't been so absolutely confused in a while. Was it lightning? There was a thunderstorm last night, but there were far taller phone poles and trees immediately adjacent to the site that lightning would seem far more interested in than a pair of PLASTIC commodes. Was it douchebag kids that thought it would be funny? (in their defense, I found it hilarious...just the sheer random asshole decision to torch a port-a-john) I mean, there are no electrical components that could malfunction and spark a fire....SO CONFUSED. Anyway, it turned out well; between the charred remnants of the cans and the inches-deep mixture of mud and clay that had taken over the site, the supervisors decided to give us the day off.

Brilliance

2008-05-08T15:25:00.005-04:00

The entire area of southeastern Texas smells absolutely terrible. This is thanks, no doubt, to the square miles of oil refineries and natural gas plants that are the hallmark of Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Sabine Pass. It is the lifeblood of the area; every day, I see dozens of pickup trucks marked with the logos of various oil companies. I just wish it didn't smell so damned bad.

Next Monday is the start of the 2008 Jimmy Carter Work Project. Run by Habitat for Humanity and sponsored by Jimmy Carter, this is a week-long period of intensive home-building by Habitat and countless volunteers. Unfortunately, this year it is based in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans...where we just left. Nonetheless, even here in Beaumont we will be working with a number of different community organizations under the eye of local media. With any luck, we will be participating in a so-called 'blitz' build. These involve dedicated, well-practiced teams of volunteers who build around the clock for the length of the Carter project, taking a house from foundation and floor system to total completion in the space of a week. Fucking cool.

I was thrilled to see the New York Rangers fall to the absolutely dominant Penguins in five games. See ya Jagr, Avery. Next comes the Battle of Pennsylvania; a series with the Philadelphia Flyers. Pittsburgh will once again prove that it is by far the best city in the state.

Holy shit. This is the 2008 regular season schedule for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Sunday, Sept. 7
vs Texans

Sunday, Sept 14
at Browns

Sunday, Sept 21
at Eagles

Monday, Sept 29
vs Ravens

Sunday, Oct 5
at Jaguars

Sunday, Oct 12
BYE WEEK

Sunday, Oct 19
at Bengals

Sunday, Oct 26
vs Giants

Monday, Nov 3
at Redskins

Sunday, Nov 9
vs Colts

Sunday, Nov 16
vs Chargers

Thursday, Nov 20
vs Bengals

Sunday, Nov 30
at Patriots

Sunday, Dec 7
vs Cowboys

Sunday, Dec 14
at Ravens

Sunday, Dec 21
at Titans

Sunday, Dec 28
vs Browns

(Thanks to the Steelers' official website for this schedule)

We have the toughest schedule in the NFL, by far. We go to Jacksonville, New England, and Tennessee, and play the Giants, Colts, Chargers, and Cowboys at Heinz Field. This is apart from our regular divisional games, that, thanks to the unfortunate and hopefully short-lived resurgence of the Browns, might not be the easy wins of years previous. Naturally, the easiest schedule in the league goes to...New England. Go figure. Are they trying to give the Patriots a perfect season?

I Shall Try My Hand At Sportswriting

2008-04-29T17:15:00.002-04:00

It has been two days since the end of the 2008 NFL Draft, and I have some thoughts.

In general:

- Miami made absolutely the right choice with their first overall pick by going with Jake Long. Like any offensive lineman, he won't often be in the limelight, but Long has the skills and experience to give the Dolphins a much-needed boost. They also selected Chad Henne in the second round, showing their relative lack of faith in John Beck.

- Baltimore should not have chosen Delaware QB Joe Flacco in the first round. He has tons of potential and with his physical skills, he will develop into a good quarterback, but with Steve McNair's retirement, the Ravens need help at the position now. Do they really believe that Flacco can manage an NFL-style offense better than Louisville's Brian Brohm or Michigan's Chad Henne, at least in the next year or two?

- Contracts for rookie players are absolutely astonishing. Last year, JaMarcus Russell signed a six-year, $61 million contract, with $35 million in guarantees (Thanks to RotoWorld for this information). This all for a guy who has never taken a single snap in the NFL. Essentially, these guys are being paid for their great college careers. That's all well and good, but even the casual football fan can give you the names of fantastic college players that crapped out in the NFL. It's a huge risk for a team to pay rookies this much, but the alternative is having to deal with endless holdouts and other such distractions.

Now, for dem Stillers.

1) Rashard Mendenhall (RB, Illinois)
2) Limas Sweed (WR, Texas)
3) Bruce Davis (LB, UCLA)
4) Tony Hills (OT, Texas)
5) Dennis Dixon (QB, Oregon)
6) Mike Humpal (LB, Iowa)
7) Ryan Mundy (S, West Virginia)

- I am surprised that we waited until the fourth round to pick up an offensive lineman; the entire line underperformed last year, and it doesn't help that we lost Alan Faneca to the Jets. I understand not selecting one in the first round; by the time we picked at 23, all of the O-linemen worth a first round pick were gone. Fourth round, though?

- I like the selection of Limas Sweed. He is tall enough to win a jump ball with a cornerback, and fast enough to get behind safeties. I agree with Hines Ward that we didn't NEED a tall wide receiver, but it's nice to have one. Hines, Santonio, and Sweed are going to bother some defenses this year.

- Rashard Mendenhall was a good choice for the 23rd pick. Willie Parker is an excellent running back, but the 2007 season showed that he has trouble handling the every-down role for a full season. Mendenhall changes it up with a tendency to run inside, and is a good receiver out of the backfield. The Steelers have the makings of an even more formidable ground game next year.

- Dennis Dixon was an interesting choice. He suffered a knee injury at the end of last season, but he is fast and athletic enough to work out as a receiver if necessary, and one who can throw the ball at that. He could definitely be a more effective, albeit a backup, version of Kordell Stewart if we use him right.

- We love drafting linebackers.

I Don't Need Your Civil War...

2008-04-26T23:45:00.003-04:00

If Hillary Clinton wants to see a Democrat in the White House come November, it is time for her to get out of the race. It's that simple. She is too far behind in terms of pledged delegates for her to have any hope of catching Barack Obama. She claims that she is ahead in the popular vote, which is only true if one counts Florida and Michigan, where Obama did not appear on the ballot due to the Democratic Party's sanctions against those states (So yes, she beat nobody). She is also seeing more and more of the so-called 'superdelegates' defect to Obama's camp. It is these three truths that make it all but certain that the Democratic nominee for the White House in 2008 will be Barack Obama.

Clinton claims to be fighting the good fight; not giving up and taking her campaign to the Democratic National Convention. While normally such a course of action would be a symbolic show of toughness and conviction, the truth is that Clinton's determination to stay in the race might very well allow John McCain to win in the general election. McCain's candidacy was determined months ago; since then, he has been laying the groundwork for the big show. Despite the conservative base's discontent with McCain's moderate policies, the Republican Party is relatively unified behind him. Both Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney have come out in support of their former opponent. He has been going after both Clinton and Obama in his campaign speeches.

And thus lies the problem. The Republican movement is geared up for the general election. Money is being raised, advertisements are coming together, and the campaign strategy is being formed. Meanwhile, the Democrats are still in primary mode. Clinton and Obama continue to snipe and attack each other, further dividing the Democratic Party and wasting money that could be put to use against the Republicans.

Between Iraq, the falling economy, the administration's mismanagement of the Hurricane Katrina response, and the massive impending deficit, there is absolutely no reason why the Democrats should not be able to claim not only the White House, but wider leads in both the House and Senate come November. No reason, that is, except for the chronic infighting brought on by Clinton's stubbornness. If she backs out of the race, the party will unify behind the idealism of Barack Obama and recapture the optimism and energy that it had a year ago. In such an instance, it is hard to envision a situation in which McCain can pull out a victory.

Author's Note: I am in no way endorsing Barack Obama. I find him to be a big-government liberal with little in the way of fiscal responsibility, albeit one with an unusual idealism. However, I despise Hillary Clinton and I find John McCain, the Bush administration, and the majority of the Republican Party, anathema to the term 'conservative'. This post is simply an attempt at a neutral analysis of the Democrats' situation. Come November, I will most likely vote for either the Libertarian candidate or write-in Ron Paul.

Go Time

2008-04-25T22:41:00.002-04:00

Beaumont, TX

We have arrived at the YMCA in Beaumont, behind which sits a large blue trailer where we will be living for the next seven weeks. There is a team from Perry Point here right now, but they are heading back to Maryland on Sunday; another team will be down in a little more than a week to replace them. Work begins on Monday; it's nice to have a couple days to unpack and get to know the area before we have to get busy.

Our living setup isn't bad; it is not one trailer but rather four combined to make one surprisingly large building, complete with bathrooms, a lounge, several different sleeping rooms, and storage. It won't be bad, but apparently we will be forced to move at the beginning of June due to the YMCA's summer camp programs. The problem, unfortunately, is that at the moment, we are not sure where our housing will be at that point. Oh, the joys of government service.

I am quite enthusiastic about one particular aspect of our housing: there is, apparently, a Waffle House within walking distance. Why, might you ask, does this excite me so much? The answer is simple: Waffle House is a brilliant place. It's cheap, greasy, and open all night. What's not to like? Since our team will be cooking for ourselves, it will most likely be useful to have a place like that to go when (not if) one of our cooking attempts go astray.

Onto other matters. My Penguins overcame a 3-0 second-period deficit against the New York Rangers to win the first game of their semifinal series tonight. It was AWESOME. The Rangers are good, but we're on a roll this year.

And I seem to be the only person around that is actually excited about the NFL Draft tomorrow. I can understand why many football fans aren't fond of it; there's no actual football, it moves too slowly, and these kids are getting paid obscene sums of money without having ever taken a snap in the NFL. I love it, however, and I'll tell you why. It's all about the potential that these guys represent. They are, for better or worse, the future of the teams that they join tomorrow and Sunday, and the anticipation that comes along with such a label is palpable. For example, most casual Dolphins fans won't marvel at the play of their first overall pick, tackle Jake Long. They know, however, that Long will most likely be on the left side of their line for the next decade, clearing paths for the running game and giving their quarterback protection. So who will the Rams draft at #2? What about my Steelers, or the rival Browns, Ravens, and Bengals? Furthermore, who will those players become: the next Joe Montana, Reggie White, Jim Brown...or the next Ryan Leaf or Ki-Jana Carter? I LOVE THE DRAFT.

Ahem. Rant over. Thank you for your time.

Enscorcellement

2008-04-23T18:05:00.003-04:00

Jackson, MS

With our first project behind us, we are here in a hotel in Jackson for our transition week between projects. Normally we would drive back to Denver, but since our next project is just five hours away in Beaumont, TX, it isn't worth the six-day round trip for two-odd days of meetings. The meetings, of course, are the typical federal mix of the nitpick-y and the interminably boring. We'll be in Beaumont on Friday night, and will start work on Monday morning; we'll be doing the same kind of construction there that we were in New Orleans.

It's good to take a little time off from the communal living and cold showers of Camp Hope, but I can't help but think that Beaumont will be considerably less fun than New Orleans. It will be good to work closely with my team though.

We Are Merely Players, Performers and Portrayers

2008-04-21T18:42:00.003-04:00

If there are any Rush fans reading this, I DEFINITELY recommend getting tickets for the second leg of their Snakes and Arrows tour. I saw them last night in the New Orleans Arena, and it was an awesome show. Unsurprisingly, they played a decent amount of material from their new album of the same name, but no Rush concert is complete without a litany of their classics. They kicked it off with Limelight, the song that first got me interested in the band. Tom Sawyer, YYZ, The Spirit of Radio all followed; they played Witch Hunt and Red Barchetta, both from their brilliant Moving Pictures album. They also played the first two parts of their prog-rock epic 2112, which in its entirety is 20-some minutes long. Neil Peart demonstrated once again why he is the best drummer on earth with a 10-minute solo during which he put all of his massive wrap-around kit to good use, and guitarist Alex Lifeson and bassist Geddy Lee tore it up with the energy and chemistry that makes Rush such a legendary band. Go see them, it's an absolutely amazing show.

I have been trying my hand at writing songs again recently, and I have discovered that I'm still terrible at it. For some reason all of my songs are essentially about the same thing, and since I have no idea how to read/write actual music, what I end up with is a mediocre collection of poems that leave no question as to how much of a bitter and cynical asshole I am. Gives me something to do during meetings, though. I have a bunch of them saved on here and I keep going back and attempting to revise, thinking that at some point I will have an epiphany and write Lennon-esque lyrics. Right. Perhaps I should just concentrate on learning to drum.

Ceiling Unlimited

2008-04-20T11:30:00.004-04:00

Yesterday marked my last day of work with the New Orleans Area affiliate of Habitat for Humanity. Our team has completed its first-round project, and will be heading to Beaumont, TX this week to start work there.

I will be honest: I do not want to leave. I came to this realization yesterday afternoon during work, and it surprised me. For a little less than two months, my team has been going through the same routine day after day, week after week, until at one point, the entire project felt like one vastly long and monotonous day. This last week, however, has been different. The group of volunteers that we have been working with have been absolutely amazing; three or four of them had extensive construction experience, so they were able to accomplish tasks quickly, efficiently, and correctly with little in the way of supervision. This might not seem like a big deal, but keep in mind that on a typical week, I have had to spend much of my time checking on volunteers' work and correcting them quite often. Having a group that was able to work as well as they did and do it right the first time was refreshing.

So, I will miss those guys from Vermont, New Hampshire, Michigan, and the US Navy. I'm going to miss Adam and Danny, my awesome site supervisors who taught me how to do both the big things (raising walls, roofing) and the little things (setting nails, shimming). I'm going to miss Chuck and Joy, the future homeowners who currently live in a FEMA trailer behind the site. I'll miss all the awesome college and high school kids who spent their spring break down here building the house instead of partying. I'll miss the church groups that worked their asses off all week (but not the ones that asked me if I had found Jesus). I'll miss the world's best barbecue at a little hole-in-the-wall place called The Joint. I will miss the city of New Orleans itself; not just the jazz clubs on Frenchmen and the cool little shops on Royal in the French Quarter, or the awesome po-boys and red beans and rice at Mothers. Rather, it's the culture and the vibe of the city that I will miss; that indefatigable spirit that insists on its own rebirth in the wake of tragedy. This city took a hell of a hit in 2005, and there is still vast amounts of work to be done, but if there is one thing that I can take away from this project, it is my absolutely certainty that, thanks to the citizens, the locals, and the occasional volunteer, the city of New Orleans is going to rise out of the ashes of Katrina and Rita. It might take a while, but I know that for my part, I will be back.

Nobody's Fault But Mine

2008-04-17T12:02:00.004-04:00

Anybody that knows me well can tell you that I am not a fan of planning. I find that it's far too cold and clinical to eliminate all chances of spontaneity from an event; being able to wing it is half the fun of a road trip or something of the sort. When things go astray from your grand plan, as they invariably will, you must be able to react and adapt. Over-planning makes this difficult.

However, there are exceptions. I have recently learned the value of having a backup plan in case things go completely to hell. Let me explain. To my chagrin, I learned several days ago that there is a chance, and not a small one, that I might be thrown out of Americorps. There is, of course, a story behind this that I would be glad to tell people, but I don't feel like typing it all down. Regardless. I will do my best to negotiate with the people in charge to stay in (or, failing that, allowing me to voluntarily withdraw as opposed to being kicked out) but my eternal pessimism leads me to believe that such an effort might be a waste of time. Nothing has been decided yet, however.

Hence my backup plan. At the moment, if Americorps lets me go, my plan is to head home for a week or so to get things in order and receive the obligatory ass-chewing from my parents, then pack up, catch a Greyhound to Georgia and begin hiking north on the Appalachian Trail (a backpacking trail that runs from Georgia up the East Coast and ends in Maine) taking pictures and writing along the way. I doubt I'll have the fortitude or money to complete the whole thousand-plus mile trek, but I shall do my best to make it as far as I can. After that, who the hell knows.

And onto other things. My Pittsburgh Penguins have proven that they are the class of the NHL, sweeping the Ottawa Senators out of the playoff race in four games. The Senators, if you remember, eliminated the Penguins last year in four games. Payback is a bitch. It is unknown who they will face next round thus far, but they have been looking like contenders all year and that trend will continue throughout the playoffs. GO PENS.

Not much in the way of football news lately, unfortunately; I hate the NFL off-season. The draft is coming up this weekend and I'm remarkably excited. Yes, I will be spending that Saturday at work, but will be receiving frequent updates from people back home. The Steelers have got to concentrate on their offensive line; it was the team's weak spot last year even before we lost all-world guard Alan Faneca to the Jets. I'm hoping for Jeff Otah myself; he went to Pitt and is used to the rough playing surface at Heinz Field. Plus, he's a local boy and will go over well with the fans. If he's off the board by the time the Steelers pick at #23, Boston College's Gosder Cherilus would work well at tackle.

Finally, a plea to Robert Plant: STOP TOURING WITH ALLISON KRAUSS. Trust me, a lot more people will come and see you if you start touring with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and Jason Bonham. You are the reason the anxiously-awaited Led Zeppelin reunion tour hasn't happened yet. The hell with previous commitments; come back and rock.

PS: People are reading this! Fuckin' A, I never thought that would happen. Leave me a comment, even if it's just to tell me I'm a crappy writer; gotta read it to come to that conclusion.

An Unfortunate Series Of Events

2008-04-13T00:51:00.002-04:00

I will impart to you a tale of a five-second span of time that took place around 10 AM this morning while on my work site. The events that occurred during aforementioned time span...to put it lightly, they sucked.

First, some background. We are at the stage of construction during which the primary focus of the volunteer crews is to measure, cut, and install the siding on the house. Before the entirety of the walls can be finished, however, the windows in said walls have to be furnished with trim (small pieces of 1x4 that surround the window frame) and a shaped piece of wood that diverts the rain from the top of the trim. That was my task this morning: cut the shaped wood to size and nail it to the top of the trim. This required that I spent time atop an A-frame ladder...nothing that I haven't done many times before. Simple enough.

Last night, however, it rained quite a bit. This would not matter, were it not for the large amounts of mud that surround our site. It ends up everywhere; on the porch, on the trim...and on the ladders. Therein lies the root of the problem, and thus began one of the more unsuccessful five-second segments of my life.

It began with a misguided hammer swing. As anybody who has ever done any nailing before, this is not an uncommon event. Even the professionals miss from time to time. I missed with the hammer, and smacked the piece of shaped wood. It is not a large or sturdy thing, though, so one end cracked off. This was annoying, but still nothing overly serious; when dealing with volunteers (and the occasional stupid Americorps member like myself), one learns quickly to keep extras of everything on hand. I swore and started down the ladder to cut another piece, and it went downhill from there. I had gone two steps downward when I slipped on a chunk of mud on one of the ladder rungs. My feet went out from under me and I dropped about three feet, scaring myself quite badly in the process. My right foot landed oddly against a rock, sending my ankle in the wrong direction. This threw me off balance and I stumbled backwards, cracking my head quite hard against the side of the house. That terrible head-impact feeling of swimming came over me and I attempted to re-orient myself...when the ladder hit me. You see, when I was first falling off the ladder, I unsuccessfully tried to steady myself by grabbing the side of it. Upon landing, there was JUST enough of a pull on the ladder to spur it into a slow but definite descent...which ended when it smacked off my right shoulder and clattered to the ground.

At that point, I was done. In five seconds I had succeeded in not only scared the shit out of myself and dealt significant pain to my foot, ankle, head, and shoulder...but I had FAILED to install the rain-diverting wood as I had intended.

It was not a good day.

Acceleration

2008-04-11T23:01:00.002-04:00

Recently I have been overtaken by this crazy urge to go home, get my car, and hit the road. I enjoy Americorps, I enjoy the project that we're working on, I enjoy my team (generally)...but my chronic wanderlust is beginning to awaken. I can't say whether it speaks to my inability to be satisfied somewhere permanently, or my fear that I won't be able to hack it here in the program, but there's a small part of my brain that's already planning various routes and destinations (although to me, arriving at a destination is almost anticlimactic).

My hands are eager to close around my steering wheel and gearshift. Some Springsteen blasting through the radio, quick tap on the clutch with my left foot, just long enough to shift up...right foot down onto the gas. Drop the hammer and set the cruise control at my customary 80 as the little Celica surges down the empty highway into the night...at least that's how I envision it. God damn, I miss being able to drive where and when I want.

An Open Letter to/about Brett Favre

2008-04-06T01:34:00.004-04:00

There is word floating around the sports world that Brett Favre might be reconsidering his retirement and coming back to play again. Let me begin by saying that even though I do not possess a Madden-esque man-crush on Favre, I am a big fan. It might, therefore, surprise some when I offer this plea:

Brett, please stay retired.

Here is why. Since he was traded from the Falcons in his 2nd season, he has been the face of the team. From 1992 until 2008, Favre has been synonymous with the Green Bay Packers organization. He has taken the team to two Super Bowls and won Super Bowl XXXI in 1996. He has started 275 consecutive games (the longest such streak in the league by far) and has set virtually every passing record in the book with the Pack, becoming one of the unquestioned legends of the game in the process.

The problem is that if Favre returns, he would be signed not by the Packers, but by one of the several teams around the league desperate for a short-term fix at quarterback (Miami, Baltimore, Atlanta to name a few). To see the Packers' legend in another uniform would be the same as seeing Joe Montana in a Chiefs' uniform during the end of his career, or, god forbid, Jerome Bettis or Hines Ward in another team's colors.

Favre is not a Vinny Testaverde, destined to be dug up and signed to a series of short contracts for different teams. Brett Favre had a legendary career with the team that he led for 16 years, and should retire as a Packer for life.

Frustration

2008-04-03T22:05:00.005-04:00

I don't get it. I honestly cannot understand how so many intelligent, capable people can be so constantly and consistently immature. I know this might seem like a theme in my writings, but it keeps getting at me; at what point are people going to just start acting their age? It's not that hard. For those who might mistake my frustration for antipathy, let me just remind you that the reason that I tend to get aggravated is that were it not for these things that I mention, our team would be absolutely amazing. It's these problems that are the reason that our team is, as I found out tonight, on the verge of being disbanded. I have been accused of being a negative influence on the team because I don't join in on all of the bullshit, so I guess I'm the asshole. Right.

Kentucky Straight Bourbon (Street)

2008-03-27T21:51:00.006-04:00

Oh, the recovery. Americorps teams from Denver had their spring break over Easter weekend, and let me just say that it was QUITE good. We stayed in a hotel directly across from the famous New Orleans Convention Center and just enjoyed the weekend...in many different ways. :-D
I have found my Xanadu, and it is known as Bourbon Street. For those who are unfamilar with New Orleans, let me attempt to describe it to you.

Imagine the best college party you've ever been to. Subtract the ever-present douchebag meatheads and the horse-piss beer, and replace them with happy drunk tourists, Hurricanes and Hand Grenades (both of them are highly potent drinks designed to get the consumer quite inebriated). Swap the crappy rap music on a stereo with awesome LIVE blues, jazz, and rock in one of the many bars and clubs. Trade amateur beer pong for cute girls 'showing off' for beads. Add a couple hokey little shops selling fun tourist shit, and a smattering of strip clubs and sex shops. Sound like a good party?

Now make it seven blocks long.

Alcohol and debauchery are not the only things to see and do in New Orleans, however. The historic French Quarter also boasts some of the coolest music clubs in the world, an antiques shop specializing in old weaponry, Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville, fucking awesome French donuts known as beignets, and, last Saturday, the Guiness World Record for Largest Oyster Po-Boy.

Let me explain this as well. A po-boy is a well-known New Orleans specialty. It is essentially a hoagie, but constructed with chewy French bread. The most famous variety is made with fried oysters, but shrimp and pretty much any other sandwich ingredients will work. So on this particular Saturday afternoon, I wandered into the French Quarter and, much to my surprise, I came across a HUGE fucking sandwich on Bourbon Street. Made up of quite a few loaves of French bread, this sandwich stretched roughly two blocks. Each of the seafood restaurants in the area had nine or so feet of the po-boy with which to work, and they prepared their fried oysters in their own individual way. The oysters were added, the pictures were taken, the record was set...and then they cut it up and distributed it to the many people who had come to watch. I am pleased to announce that I snaked a piece...and it was amazing.

In the athletic realm, a big old 'fuck you' to the Pitt basketball team for taking a knee against a mediocre team that, by all rights, they should have crushed. Not only did it screw up my bracket, it dashed my hopes. At least fucking Duke lost...bah.

Five Years Gone

2008-03-19T23:10:00.004-04:00

Five years ago today, the United States officially launched its invasion of Iraq. As of the time I write this post, 3992 American soldiers have been killed, as have 175 British troops and 133 soldiers of the other nations involved in the coalition. Many more innocent Iraqi civilians have lost their lives for no other reason than the branch of Islam that they follow, or even worse...for no other reason than their presence in the wrong place at the wrong time.

By a purely material count, the American taxpayers (people like you and me) have financed this war to the tune of $500 billion ($500,000,000,000). It is estimated that when all is said and done, with veterans' healthcare and withdrawal costs factored in, the Iraq war will have cost the United States more than $4 TRILLION.

I do not want this to be construed as an attack on our troops in any way, as some would have you believe. American soldiers have served our country with the kind of bravery and honor that have become legendary, and I have the utmost respect for each and every one. I have friends in several branches of the Armed Services, and I will welcome an argument with anybody who denigrates them or the job they do. It is the mission itself that I criticize, and those that sent them to complete it. It was poorly envisioned, poorly planned, and poorly managed, and we are paying for it in American lives.

Why are our men still there? What are they enduring snipers and bombings for? What are they dying for? It has been well-documented that there were no chemical or biological weapons in Iraq before our invasion, and Saddam Hussein and his regime have been overthrown. It is said that we are there to preserve the freedom and security of the Iraqi people, and as noble a goal as that is, that is not the job for the United States military. Stability in Iraq will not be restored until Iraqi police and military forces take over for our troops.

The Iraqi Defense Force might not have reached the same level of readiness and skill that the United States Marine Corps has, but the time has come to allow them to do their jobs. At the moment, they are viewed by the Iraqi people as nothing more than our puppets, a perception not dispelled by the sight of American troops backing them up. We have built the foundations of democracy and security in Iraq, but our continued presence is beginning to undermine it. It is time that we allow the Iraqi people to stand on their own feet and restore their nation.

One Small Step For Pitt

2008-03-16T00:08:00.003-04:00

Congratulations Pitt, 2008 Big East Champions.

Now comes the real test. 65 teams, one bracket. The conference championship was a big win, especially over a fearsome Georgetown team, but it's the Tournament that matters.

HAIL TO PITT

Oh, You Crazy ACC Kids

2008-03-14T19:28:00.004-04:00

If you ever want to see something funny, get a bunch of college kids from Duke and a bunch more from North Carolina together around March. Apparently both schools are on break at the moment, and both have sent contingents of students down to Camp Hope. This is all well and good. However, it is March. We are in the midst of college basketball season; conference tournaments are going on as we speak, and the NCAA Tournament is not far away (For those of you who don't follow basketball, the rivalry between Duke and UNC can be equated with Hatfield vs McCoy, Montague vs Capulet, Yankees vs Red Sox...these two schools HATE everything about each other). So for somebody like me (a Pitt fan with a considerable amount of antipathy for both) it is quite amusing to witness the hateful glares and occasional calls of 'UNC sucks' and 'Fuck Duke' that are inevitable whenever groups of their students pass each other. Shame that they'll be gone when the tournament proper begins; that would be very entertaining.

While I'm on the topic, Pitt is still alive and well in the Big East. Despite their general dominance in inter-conference play (including a brilliant last-second comeback win over Duke a couple months ago), Pitt has an infuriating tendency to choke and lose to mediocre Big East teams, especially at home. With any luck, we'll be able to make a good showing in the Big East tourney, maybe even mount a run against Georgetown. But seriously tho, Pitt...please don't fuck it up.

The Alternative

2008-03-12T21:35:00.003-04:00

There are few things as misleading as a raw oyster. For those who haven't had the pleasure of sampling these underwater delicacies, be warned. They look disgusting, like a...giant gray loogie, really. They FEEL disgusting; cold and slimy. However, do not let this put you off. These things taste absolutely amazing. It is difficult to describe how good they taste, other than to say that I highly recommend them.

Anyway. Disappointing news over the last several days as Congressman Ron Paul has announced his intention to begin 'winding down' his presidential campaign. Not that we really expected a dark-horse victory from a libertarian-leaning candidate, but Paul's approaching withdrawal is symbolic of what I consider to be the most worrying trend in American politics: the Republican party's rejection of true conservatism. Rather, they have embraced big-government neo-conservatism that kowtows to the religious right and flouts the Constitution.

Is it any wonder that the eventual Democratic candidate, be it Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, already has a significant advantage over John McCain? I mean, for Christ's sake, this is a guy who says that he would stay in Iraq for the next hundred years. The problem is that the average person thinks that people like McCain and Mitt Romney, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove are conservatives. It really does give us a bad name.

But that was the whole point of the Ron Paul Revolution. It was the best way to get the word out: there are still many people out there that believe in the Constitution as it was written, the free market as it was intended, and the individual rights of each person. It is unlikely that Congressman Paul will mount a third-party run as many of his supporters have hoped, but even so, the point remains that people do not necessarily have to, as Leo McGarry once so brilliantly put it, "...vote for the lesser of who-cares."

Getting Things Done?

2008-03-06T21:12:00.006-05:00

Camp Hope
New Orleans, LA

(A brief note before I get into weighty matters. Brett Favre retired the other day, ending a long and brilliant career. He owns just about every passing record in the books, but it is not simply his statistics that make him among the greatest to ever play football. The essence of Brett Favre's brilliance was in his sheer love for the game, his unparalleled toughness, and his ability to improvise. I remember a game in which he took a brutal sack that sent him to the sidelines. The announcers guessed that he would be out for the rest of the game. Two plays later, on fourth-and-fifteen, Favre went back into the game while the team doctor had his back turned. He waved the backup quarterback off, took the snap...and proceeded to throw a 35-yard touchdown pass. Farewell Brett, you will be missed.)

Now for the serious. Yesterday afternoon, after three days in the van, we arrived in New Orleans. We drove through the city on our way to Camp Hope (the volunteer camp where we are staying) and at first, it appears that the city was on its way to recovery. Downtown was certainly thriving, the Superdome showed none of the trauma that it and the people inside had endured, and the billboards and people were out in full force.

Then we headed out of the city. We soon found ourselves in the Upper Ninth Ward, where floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina had reached almost five feet. I was really surprised by how many houses showed no signs of recovery.

We crossed the bridge into the Lower Ninth Ward. This was the neighborhood that sat right next to the levees, and it was absolutely devastated when they failed. A storm surge of more than 18 feet wiped away houses, vehicles, and everything else in its way. As we drove through the Lower Ninth, our van was absolutely silent as we took in the destruction. There are blocks and blocks of the area that are just empty, nothing but overgrown lots where houses used to stand. Those houses that remain are, if possible, even more eerie; they are run-down, boarded up and abandoned, even after two and a half years. Some have massive piles of debris out front, from a recovery effort that just stopped. What really got me, however, was the paint markings. During the initial rescue and recovery effort after the storm, firefighters and other rescue workers used spray paint to mark houses as occupied, abandoned, uninhabitable, structurally dangerous, containing pets, or containing the bodies of humans and animals. In many of the lower-class neighborhoods like the Upper and Lower Ninth, those paint markings still remain on the houses as a silent reminder of the vast destruction of property and life that took place.

Listen to what you will; New Orleans has a long way to go before it recovers. In a rare moment of naiveté, I thought that between Americorps, Habitat for Humanity, and the other volunteer non-profits down here, the cleanup and rebuilding would take no more than a couple years. That was before I arrived. There is no way that some of these neighborhoods are going to recover anytime sooner than ten years.

If anybody wants to help out down here, let me know.

...When We're On The Road

2008-03-02T15:42:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is the day that Sun Four (the fourth team in the Sun unit) begins our three-day road trip from Denver to New Orleans, where we will spend the next two months leading volunteers and assisting Habitat For Humanity. As I've mentioned before, this is my dream project. The ten-person team I'm on is great, even with two of our original members out with injury and illness. And I mean, come on...it's NEW ORLEANS.

Americorps NCCC is an intensive and difficult program requiring a great deal of commitment to the work being done and the mission of the program. It seems that the people that signed on would tend to be mature and knowledgeable about global issues...but unfortunately that's often not the case. I've noticed a real lack of maturity from some of the people here, and it worries me. Thankfully, none of them have found their way onto my team, but they are out there. There are times that I feel like I'm back in 8th grade, with all the gossip and drama going around. Not only is it annoying, it speaks to a greater lack of dedication and maturity that, while not a real problem during training, might end up causing real problems on a disaster relief call or after two months camping out in a national park.

Don't get me wrong. The vast majority of the people here are intelligent, capable, and very mature, and I'm very glad to have the opportunity to talk and work with them. However, as always there is that small number who are apparently unable to grow up and act their age.

Bitching aside, we of Sun Four are the proud owners of a brand-new Chevrolet 15-passenger van (less than 50 miles on the clock) that looks and drives brilliantly (for a van, I mean). I cannot wait...three days of roadtripping across the Heartland and down to the Gulf.

Lord I was born a ramblin' man...

We're Only At Home...

2008-02-23T17:28:00.003-05:00

Damn, what happened? Things actually seemed to work out well this time. I got my permanent team assignment yesterday, and I think I lucked out. The people that I'm working with are all intelligent, dedicated, and capable (far more so that I, but I digress); I did not get stuck with any of the people that I did my best to avoid during the first three weeks of training.

But that's only half of it. What I was really wondering about was my project assignment. After a bit of suspense-building by Carly (my team leader), she finally revealed it to us:

Habitat for Humanity, New Orleans.

NEW FUCKING ORLEANS. Even before I became familiar with AmeriCorps, that's where I wanted to go. The city is still in need of massive amounts of reconstruction and cleaning.

So when Carly mentioned Habitat, I figured I knew what we were supposed to do. The ten of us would work with a couple construction professionals to build and refurnish a house, right? Wrong

The ten of us would be in charge of over a thousand volunteers, mostly college students, coming down for Alternative Spring Break on not one, but ten different project sites. Each of us would handle a hundred people, and would be the second-in-command behind the site supervisor.

Holy shit. How the hell am I going to lead a hundred people to build a house when I can't even figure my own shit out?

...Is Better Than The Way We Had It

2008-02-14T18:42:00.002-05:00

Ever live in the midst of an epidemic? It's no fun. Apparently, the Denver Health Department has declared that our campus is the focal point of an epidemic of flu. Almost 1/4 of our Corps is infected, and we've all gotten free flu shots and prescriptions of Tamiflu. I've avoided it thus far though, so hopefully my immune system (which typically resembles that of an AIDS patient) has finally come through. The worst part isn't the illness though; it's the quarantine. Everybody who's been diagnosed has been forced to remain in their rooms for five days. Without internet, TV, and with a limited supply of palatable books...I would get cabin fever quite quickly.

This in-depth training that we're getting from Americorps is beginning to wear. Intellectually I understand the necessity of it; in order to accomplish the tasks that we might encounter over the next ten months, we're going to need to learn our assignments inside and out. That being said, there's a big part of me that wants to just grab a hammer and head down to New Orleans. Probably my chronic wanderlust acting up again.

In the unlikely event that anybody reads this damned thing, I can only get online very occasionally at places with free WiFi, since TLHU hit its heyday around 1930 or so and has gone steadily downhill ever since. For some reason, my cellphone is also having trouble finding reception, so don't call me either.

And That Rocky Mountain Way...

2008-02-10T13:37:00.000-05:00

The internet at TLHU is somewhat unreliable (by which I mean it doesn't work at all) so I'm here in a coffee shop in Englewood leeching off its free Wi-Fi. With any luck, the campus IT guys will get off their asses and fix the connection...but somehow I doubt it. Thus, it's quite possible that this is the only place I'll be able to access the internet. Curses.

It's been a long week. I've learned to play football on a sheet of ice, drive a 15-passenger van safely (an absolute 65-mph speed limit? Say it ain't so!) and find my way around Denver via bus and light rail.

Anyway. Yesterday we headed out to Boulder, Colorado. This might be one of the coolest towns I've ever been to. It sits right at the base of the Rocky Mountains (that's not an exaggeration either; a quarter-mile out of town and you're heading up through mountain passes) and is a popular destination for ski bums and all those who love strenuous physical activity. Naturally, we couldn't pass the opportunity by. We went hiking. Up a mountain.

Now I know what comes to mind when people who have never been out West hear that phrase. They picture a mildly exerting walk up rolling hills on dirt trails. Before this week, that's what I would've thought too. Not so much. Rather, it was a tough hike up through trails that were not only narrow, but rocky. With cliffs on one side. Oh, did I mention that they were covered with ice? Yep, it was dangerous and very tough.

And I loved it.

Me, of all people. Me, who has a fondness amounting to a passion for unhealthy food and beer. Me, who has been known to drive two blocks rather than walk. When I finally made it down from that mountain, my shoes were soaked through. My legs felt like rubber. Were it not for my buddy Nick's quick reflexes, I would've slid down one of the cliffs. I was more physically exhausted than at any time in the last couple years.

But goddamn, I was proud. I don't even know of what, precisely; it was only a three-mile round trip, and I accomplished it with no amount of grace or skill. For some reason though, that didn't matter. I had made it.

Here's hoping that trend continues.

Rocky Mountain High

2008-02-10T13:36:00.000-05:00

February 6, 2008

Teikyo Loretta Heights University

Denver, CO

I have been in Denver for almost three days, but have seen almost nothing of the city itself. Apart from a brief excursion meant to certify us as drivers of Americorps’ 12- and 15-passenger vans, we have spent all of our time on campus getting trained to be Corps members. The campus we’re using, Teikyo Loretta Heights, was formerly a female Catholic college in the early part of the century. It was closed, then purchased by Japanese investors and converted as housing and education for Japanese transfer students. It is also the headquarters of Americorps’ Central Region, overseeing operations in fifteen states in the Midwest, as well as the Gulf Coast region.

So that’s what I’ve been doing: receiving instruction on the Americorps program and the ins and outs of full-time service. I’ve signed up to be interviewed regarding a position on the wildfire teams, which are deployed around the Midwest to combat and suppress the wildfires that are all too common…I’m not sure whether or not I want to do that yet.

Other than that, I’m truly amazed at the ease with which everybody is coming together as a group. I don’t know whether it’s the goal we have in common, or whether it is just good luck, but everybody that I’ve met so far is amazingly friendly and willing to talk. My typical quietness/shyness has yet to show its face, and it’s a pleasant surprise. Perhaps this is exactly what I needed to finish it off once and for all. Here’s hoping.

We went up to Red Rocks, the legendary amphitheater built by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s National Conservation Corps (the predecessor to the program that I’m currently in). I think I did more physical activity sprinting up the many, many steps than I’ve done in the last three years…but it was a good feeling (after I was able to stop worrying about an impending coronary). It’s a spectacular venue, and I sincerely hope I’ll be able to see some good shows there this year (Rush?! Zeppelin?!). The gods of rock willing…

The Deep Breath Before The Plunge

2008-02-04T07:59:00.001-05:00

Gate C-51

Pittsburgh International Airport

I love airports. Not every aspect of them, mind you; the security checkpoint is enough to make even the most patient of men entertain thoughts of violence and bloodshed. It doesn’t help that your average TSA employee is either way past the age of retirement or seemingly fresh from the halfway house. But I digress. I love airports, and always have. There’s just something that appeals to my sense of adventure and wanderlust when I read the departure boards and the signs at the gates. I mean, hell...from where I am right now I could board flights to Chicago, Phoenix, Baltimore (yeah, right), Washington DC…and those are only the destinations I saw on the way to my gate. The potential for adventure is endless; one or two connections and I could get to pretty much any civilized point in the world.

It never pays to be early. I learned that lesson this morning. Monday mornings tend to be among the busiest times to fly, so I figured that I’d get to the airport a good two hours early, giving me plenty of time to clear security, grab breakfast, do my customary lap around the concourses, and board. However, I was able to finish getting searched in ten minutes thanks to the alternate checkpoint across the street, plus my flight was delayed a half hour. Now I’m sitting at the gate typing this crap, trying to convince myself to start reading Kerouac, and looking askance at the heavy fog that is slowly creeping this way as we speak.

Everything hit me this morning as I was crawling out of bed. I should be surprised that it took me that long to really comprehend what I’m about to do…but I’m not. Here goes. I’m about to spend the next ten months out in the Midwest and Gulf Coast with 400 people that I’ve never met, almost all of whom are years older, more experienced, and more capable than I. I will be doing various service projects that require skills that I do not possess. To do this, I have given up three semesters of college (which, by the way, I have no clue where or how to make up) as well as ten months of my life.

As they say, it’s a bit too late to back out now. Here we go.

(Oh nice, airport WiFi. Great success.)

Wrapping Up

2008-02-03T23:04:00.000-05:00

Some assorted things that I've been thinking about on my last night in Pittsburgh.

1) The Giants won the Super Bowl, and I CALLED THAT SHIT. They did it exactly how I predicted they would too: pressuring Tom Brady and avoiding mistakes by Eli Manning. I am a genius. Never thought the Patriots of all teams would become choke artists, but far be it from me to complain.

2) It's 11:10 PM, I have to be at the airport in seven hours and oddly enough I'm almost completely packed. One rather large duffel stuffed to the gills and a backpack...not too bad.

3) I really do want to keep up this journal thing throughout my term of service. Depending on where I am and what I'm doing, I might not always have Internet access. In that case, I'll type up entries and so forth on MS Word and then just copy-paste them into here. If that happens, what I shall do is create headings outlining the date and location when I actually do type them up, rather than the automatic heading on here. (Thus, depending on the situation, I might be uploading four or five entries on the same day, even though they span a week or two of real time.) Got it? Okay.

Right. Seven hours. Time to go to bed.

Regarding Guitars

2008-02-01T17:34:00.000-05:00

And now for something completely different.

According to Rolling Stone, the average rock fan spends almost 5 hours per year in arguments relating to the best guitarist in history. There are many names that are invoked, and rightfully so: Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen, and the rest. Many unbelieveable guitarists out there rarely have their names mentioned in such discussions. The reasons for this are varied, but I see no reason to stick with the status quo.

Thus, I present my list of the Top Five Underrated Guitarists

1) Alex Lifeson - Rush

2) Mark Knopfler - Dire Straits

3) Tom Scholz - Boston

4) Neil Schon - Journey/Santana

5) Leslie West - Mountain

Disillusionment

2008-01-31T01:22:00.000-05:00

Among the first posts on this blog of mine was a brief review of the Republican candidates for president. In that aformentioned review, I mentioned that despite the fact that I supported Ron Paul, I would have little trouble backing Rudy Giuliani or John McCain should they emerge with the nomination.

I come to you tonight to retract those statements. Rudy is out of the race, and any support I once held for McCain has evaporated thanks to the most recent GOP debate. So, without further ado, I would like to present my UPDATED review of the Republican candidates.

Mike Huckabee: A genuinely funny man who, in spite of myself, I keep finding myself thinking Well, this guy's not too bad...as long as he avoids the topic of faith and its accompanying issues. (anti-gay legislation, school prayer, etc) Invariably, however, he mentions his religion and says things like 'We should change the Constitution in order to bring it more in line with the Bible.' At that point, my disdain for his political/religious views return with a vengeance. As I mentioned in my previous post, at the moment he's gunning for the Vice President slot and, as long as he doesn't get anywhere near my Constitution, that's fine with me.

Mitt Romney: A sickeningly rich neocon who always treats his opponents with an infuriating air of smugness. He gives off the same air of fake sincerity as Hillary Clinton, and has succeeded in pissing me off to no end.

John McCain: Ah, how the mighty have fallen. (in my mental standings) Eighteen months ago, this was my candidate for 2008. He was a war hero as well as a moderate Republican with fierce opposition to earmarks and heavy spending. I still have a lot of respect for him as a combat pilot and a prisoner of war, but in terms of politics I have been completely disillusioned. He's running the same kind of dirty campaign that Hillary and Romney have been engaged in for a year, and thus has taken himself down to their level. The problem is that once you're there, it's difficult to get back out again.

Ron Paul: In my opinion, the only candidate worth voting for. Unlike all three of his opponents, Dr. Paul believes in truly limited government that drastically cuts spending, reduces bureaucracy, and thus allows for vast cuts in taxes. Dr. Paul supports individual rights above all, including privacy rights that are currently under siege from the PATRIOT Act and House Resolution 1955 (look it up; the potential for abuse is staggering. Sedition Act, anybody?) He rejects the concept of a preventive war and advocates the return of American troops from Iraq to save both lives and the trillions of dollars being pumped into the war. He supports strict adherence to the Constitution by the federal government.

To the Republican Party: Please, ditch the neocons. They're nothing but a bunch of bible-thumping, gay-bashing, big government theocrats whose spending habits make Bill Clinton look thrifty by comparison. Take the party back to what it is genuinely supposed to be. Read The Federalist Papers. If Ronald Reagan were here, I believe he'd take a baseball bat to 90% of the party. This is out of hand, and precisely why I stopped being a Republican around 2004. (yes, I know I wasn't old enough to vote then. Not the point.)

Has Anybody Noticed?

2008-01-29T03:08:00.000-05:00

Anybody notice that Mike Huckabee doesn't mess with John McCain? I mean, every other candidate out there snipes at each other in the debates and through various press releases and speeches. If they don't mention each other by name, they infer it in such a way as to leave no doubt as to whom they are referring. However, Huckabee NEVER goes after McCain...even if they disagree, Mike prefaces his response or statement with a two-minute tangent about how much he respects McCain and the like. He's defended Mac from Mitt Romney on several occasions as well. So I guess what I'm thinking is this...

Mike Huckabee is angling for the Vice President slot if McCain gets nominated.

Think about it. Huckabee had a big win in Iowa but ever since then it's been slow. After his defeat in South Carolina...a state that he was supposed to win big due to its large evangelical population...I'm thinking that he's basically come to grips with the fact that if he couldn't win there, he's not going to win anywhere else important. His campaign is running out of steam, and he's hoping that by not pissing McCain off in the same way that Mitt Romney and Rudy Guiliani have, he'll be able to take the VP slot at the convention.

Clever move, Mike. Clever move.

Yay Sports, Yay Report (Part III)

2008-01-23T21:34:00.000-05:00

After spending one of the more boring weekends of my life in Greensboro, North Carolina, I come back to find that I only hit .500 on my predictions for last weekend. No matter, now we come to...

Super Bowl XLII
Let's look at what everybody knows. The New England Patriots have yet to lose a game this season. Tom Brady and Randy Moss have both set touchdown records at their respective positions, and as a whole, the Patriots have scored more points by far this season than any team in history. They can win on defense, they can win by running the ball, and they have the most fearsome passing offense ever brought to play outside of the University of Hawaii. The Giants were a wild-card team that started the season slow, and almost fell victim to the late-season collapse that has doomed several of their past runs at a playoff spot. Seems like an easy pick, right?

Hold on. Don't forget that it was the Giants, in the last regular-season game, that gave the Patriots the biggest scare they've had all year. Eli Manning has yet to turn the ball over in three playoff games, and has shown the kind of efficiency that one would expect from his brother, and former Steeler Plaxico Burress beat Al Harris, one of the better corners in the league, like a red-headed stepchild. However, better offensive teams than the Giants have fallen to the Patriots this season.

Ah, but the defense. As fearsome as Tom Brady is behind that All-World offensive line, it has come to light that when teams bring the rush against him, he's mediocre. San Diego proved that in the AFC Championship; they blitzed him throughout most of the game and forced him to throw three interceptions. I can think of three or four quarterbacks off the top of my head that are actually better than Tom Brady against the pass rush. And there are few teams better at bringing heat on a quarterback than the New York Giants. They lead the league in sacks. On the other side of the ball, the Patriots' aging defense has shown signs of vulnerability.

Everything here points to a New England victory: the hype, the history, the track records, the Vegas line, the statistics. Something about this game just says 'trap' to me. I'm going to call the biggest upset since Broadway Joe and the Jets took down the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. Let it be known here and now that I'm picking the Giants.

New York Giants over New England Patriots

Yay Sports, Yay Report (Part II)

2008-01-17T19:27:00.000-05:00

Right, so looking back at last week, I didn't do all that badly with my predictions. I called three out of the four of the games correctly, including the Giants' upset of the Cowboys, so I'm pretty satisfied. Now, for the Conference Championship games.

Green Bay over New York
Lambeau Field in January is not the easiest place to play under the best of circumstances, and despite another efficient performance in a road win against the Cowboys, Eli Manning will have trouble without an effective running game. Favre, running back Ryan Grant, and the Packers' defense will pull off the win, but Eli will fight to the end. Favre goes back to the Super Bowl.

New England over San Diego
I sincerely hope I am wrong about this one, but I cannot see there being an Upset Special in this game. The Chargers would have a rough time beating the Patriots if they were completely healthy; with LaDainian Tomlinson, Phillip Rivers, and Antonio Gates all either out or playing hurt, they don't have a chance. New England wins big to move on to the Super Bowl. (Editor's note: boo.)

Yay Sports, Yay Report (Part I)

2008-01-11T10:29:00.001-05:00

Alright, that's enough of politics for a moment. Now, on to sports. It's Divisional Playoff time this weekend, and here are my predictions:

New England over Jacksonville
If there is any game I might be wrong about, this is it. Jacksonville has all the pieces in place that, on paper, could drop the Patriots: a strong, two-headed running attack, a defense that bends but doesn't break, and a quarterback who can move out of the pocket and make plays. I think everybody in the country (except New England fans) is hoping for the legitimate Jaguars to pull off the upset over the annoyingly good Patriots...but with the way Tom Brady, Randy Moss, and that defense is playing, I just don't see it happening.

Indianapolis over San Diego
Last year, the entire conversation centered around Peyton Manning and his lack of a Super Bowl ring. He had an immense amount of pressure surrounding him and it showed in the Colts' first two playoff games, where he had mediocre games. This year, however, the pressure is on New England. Manning, a notorious perfectionist, will bring the Colts back to the AFC Championship.

Green Bay over Seattle
I am not sold on Seattle at all. They beat Washington, but the game was closer than the score indicated; were it not for a mistake or two late in the fourth quarter, the Redskins pull it out. Green Bay, however, is for real: Brett Favre taking big gulps out of the Fountain of Youth and playing like he did back in the day, a rushing attack that is surprisingly stout, and a playmaking defense. I think Green Bay is going to win, and they're going to win big.

New York over Dallas
Yep, the Upset Special is back. Since he was drafted, Eli Manning has recieved criticism for being a choke artist, unable to perform in big games. This year, it seems like he's beginning to shake it off. He played well against New England in a losing effort with literally the entire world watching, then efficiently picked through Tampa Bay's defense in the first round of the playoffs. I think the Cowboys are going to underestimate the Giants, and pay for it with elimination.

Steelers fans have recently learned that Hines Ward played a large part of the season with injuries that probably should have sidelined him. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the guy has more heart than just about anybody in the league. Not only did he play hurt for months, in a losing effort against Jacksonville he had ten catches for 135 yards. Here's hoping Hines recovers well from his surgery and comes back doubly dangerous next year.

And this is my open letter to Steelers management: Please, please, please do everything in your power to keep Alan Faneca on the team. The man is among the top two guards in the league (next to and perhaps ahead of Vikings G Steve Hutchinson) and has anchored the Steeler line for ten years. He's blocked for everybody from Bettis to Zereoue, Fu to Willie Parker, and has done it damned well. Anybody we get to replace him, no matter how good, will fall short and that will have adverse consequences for Willie, Ben, and the team as a whole. He's been the bright spot on an otherwise shaky line, and we cannot afford NOT to resign him.

Anathema

2008-01-11T10:03:00.000-05:00

(A brief aside: I have been listening to 'Holy Grail' by Hunters & Collectors a lot recently; I can't get it out of my head. It's a very good song by an obscure band, so check it out.)

So in the last day or two several of the major news networks have discovered 'Ron Paul Political Reports', supposedly written by the Congressman himself, which are nothing more than bigoted and racist rants. These news organizations are using this to conclusively prove that Ron Paul is nothing but a whack job. Now, I cannot say for sure whether or not these newsletters are indeed his, but it simply does not make sense that Dr. Paul wrote them. Here's why: Racism, and in fact all forms of bigotry, are collectivist ideas. The entire foundation of various prejudicial ideologies is based upon the fact that every member of a certain ethnic, religious, social, etc. group shares certain negative characteristics exclusive to that particular group. In other words, the social group one belongs to matters more than the individual itself.

Now anybody who is familiar with Dr. Paul's beliefs knows how unlikely it is that he would be the writer of a racist rant. He is a strident individualist; thus his opposition to big government and libertarian politics. Ron Paul authoring such a collectivist work would be akin to Ronald Reagan coming out with an essay advocating a tax increase and the formation of a massive and powerful federal government. It's just anathema to their real beliefs.

An Introduction to American Politics, Part Three

2008-01-09T03:39:00.000-05:00

And now the Democrats.

Dennis Kucinich: 'Short' seems to be his major characteristic...that and his obsession with the phrase 'Impeach Dick Cheney'. The man is the definition of 'fringe'; he once claimed to have a religious-ish experience with a UFO, and has a plan to defend America against alien attacks, which he would put into effect were he to be elected. Plus, Ani DiFranco is playing a major role in his campaign; what other evidence do you need to realize this guy sucks?

John Edwards: I disagree with a lot of what he says, but you cannot deny he's a genuine populist the likes of which America has not seen in a while. Everybody claims to understand and empathize with the working man; thanks to Edwards' background and experience, he is one of the few candidates that comes across as genuine in that regard. He has little chance to capture the nomination, but would make a great vice-presidential candidate (again). He's also the second-best public speaker, behind none other than...

Barack Obama: My favorite Democrat. I probably could not disagree more with this guy, but anybody who has ever heard him speak will admit that he's one of the most passionate and genuinely idealistic people who has ever made a run for President. Even if you dislike most of his ideas, you can't help but be a little bit more inspired to do some good after hearing Obama up on a stage. He is the 21st century's answer to Bobby Kennedy. I would vote for him only if the Republican nominee totally sucks, but I can't say I'd hate seeing him as President.

Hillary Clinton: My hatred for this bitch runs deep and hard. Every single thing she does or says seems so calculated to garner approval; I don't actually belive she has a point of view. Her opinions are formulated and shaped by pollsters who tell her what the people want to hear. Her claims of experience are complete bullshit, and I wish somebody, ANYBODY, would call her on it. Were I unlucky enough to be Bill Clinton and thus married to her, I'd extend a big old 'fuck you' to Hillary and endorse Obama. I would literally tear out my own esophagus rather than vote for this bitch.

And now, sleep.

An Introduction to American Politics, Part Two

2008-01-09T03:15:00.000-05:00

Now I shall unleash my opinions regarding the other major candidates from both parties, and will start with the Republicans.

Mike Huckabee: This guy is as big a theocrat as you can get without becoming an Ayatollah of some type. If he wins the Presidency, that old Sunday-school song 'Onward Christian Soldiers' will become a terrifying reality. Homosexuality will become punishable by death, and anybody who does not convert to evangelical Christianity will find themselves in some type of Inquisition-esque torture chamber. Of course, I'm exaggerating; he's a friendly, funny guy who happens to be an absolute Jesus-freak. Read the Establishment Clause, chief. No way would I vote for him.

Mitt Romney: If I were directing a movie that involved the President of the United States, I would look for somebody who looked and sounded EXACTLY like Romney. In no way does that mean that he would actually BE a good President. He's entirely too neocon-ish for my taste, and everything about him screams 'staged'. He takes a lot of shit for his religion though, which pisses me off; why should that matter? At least he's not pushy about it like Huckabee.

Rudy Giuliani: Other than that annoying New York accent, I like the guy; he's a relatively common-sense moderate who did a damned good job with a huge fucking city that was an absolute hole when he took over. Yes, everybody knows he did a good job after September 11th, but his most impressive accomplishments were long before that day. Chances are that I will support this guy if Ron Paul drops out.

John McCain: This guy has bigger balls than any of his competitors on either side of the aisle. He spent five and a half years enduring all sorts of torturous bullshit in the Hanoi Hilton after putting foot to all sorts of ass in the cockpit of an F-4. I respect this guy more than just about anybody, and he definately knows what he's talking about, but as petty as this sounds, he's 72. I think that's too old for him to assume the office of President. That being said, if he's the one to come out of the fray with the nomination, I'm behind him all the way.

Fred Thompson: I liked Law and Order, and I liked Die Hard II, but the man looks like a basset hound. Enough said.

Ron Paul: He's the candidate for people who hate politicians and love the Constitution, rather than just paying it lip service. See my previous post, and just Google him if you're curious. This guy is the man, so vote for him.

An Introduction to American Politics, Part One

2008-01-09T03:01:00.000-05:00

Now that I've dispensed with my eerie-ness of the day, on to more pressing matters. Having spent a good three hours watching the returns from the New Hampshire primaries tonight, I have some...thoughts on each of the candidates. (WARNING: it's politics time. I tend to piss people off when I get onto this subject, so just be advised)

Many of you (assuming anybody actually reads this damned thing) know that I am a supporter of Congressman Ron Paul for the Republican nomination. Certain people (supporters of a number of different candidates), trying to exert some type of political superiority, have asked me, "Don't you know he's not going to win?" Thank you, James Carville. Yes, I know Ron Paul is not going to win. So do you. Hell, so does HE. I do not honestly believe that Ron Paul thinks that he has a legitimate chance to win the nomination. My question, though, is...does that matter? Think about this: the TWO most productive days in terms of fundraising by any candidate in the history of the American Presidential race have not been in support of Hillary Clinton or John McCain, Mike Huckabee or even Barack Obama, whos support amongst college students and younger people is almost unprecedented. No, those massive fundraisers have supported Ron Paul, a so-called 'fringe' candidate. Furthermore, over 80% of those donations were given in denominations of $100 or less. This shows that it is not big Washington PACs funding Congressman Paul's run, but rather the people. When Paul appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, all you had to do was listen to the audience's response to understand that at least half of them were Paul supporters. Every time CNN or Fox or MSNBC holds segments on the election and the various primaries and caucuses, there are Ron Paul signs floating in the background.

What's the appeal of this relatively obscure Texas Congressman (originally from Green Tree, PA) that inspires such enthusiasm? For me, at least, it's his straight-talking Constitutionalism: he is a conservative in the true sense of the word. (I will hit on this point later on) And it's true: he's not going to win the Republican nomination, let alone the White House. But it doesn't matter. The Ron Paul Revolution, powered by nothing but enthusiasm and the common man, is not going to fade away anytime soon.

And So It Begins

2008-01-09T02:35:00.000-05:00

This is my first REAL entry to this blog-thing I have opted to create, so let's get started.

First of all, this was an extremely creepy night. I decided to take a late-night/early-morning walk around my hometown of Oakmont, and it could have gone better. Let me explain. I make fun of my little town quite a bit; it's overwhelmingly populated by senior citizens, it has absolutely no worthwhile places to eat cheaply (with the exception of Veltre's Pizza), and the entire town is built on a massive hill...which, of course, I live near the top of. Therefore, to get to the 'business district' built around Allegheny River Boulevard, I have to walk down that huge hill...and therefore back up it once my journey is complete. That being said, I maintain that Oakmont is one of the nicest places to walk around, especially at night. There's just something about my town in the dead of midnight that's just peaceful and calm. It lets me catch up on my thoughts (or just walk around with my iPod at full volume) and other such necessary activities.

Right, back to the story. It has been unseasonably warm the last two days (63 and 67 degrees respectively; let's not forget that this is Western Pennsylvania, not Florida), so I decided to briefly resurrect my favorite summer tradition of a late-night walk around Oakmont. From the moment I left my door, however, it just seemed...off. Not only were the trees completely bare, but throughout my entire walk, I had that eerie feeling that I was being followed. Looking behind me several times yielded nothing, but I just couldn't shake that damned feeling. The wind was also blowing quite forcefully, contributing even further to my sense of general wierdness. (If anybody's seen the movie Twister, it was EXACTLY like that moment when the old lady is looking out her window at her wind-chime sculptures and they all start going at once, complete with eerie music - in my case, that wierd sound-experimentation beginning of ELO's Fire On High on my iPod- and you just have this awful feeling of foreboding...EXACTLY like that) I honestly stopped dead in the middle of Washington Avenue and spent a good two minutes alternating between looking around worriedly, and convincing myself to calm the fuck down and keep walking.

Genesis

2008-01-07T17:55:00.000-05:00

So. Why have I, Zach Farmer, suddenly attempted to break into the world of blogging? A good question, and one with both no answer and several. First of all, I suppose, I am attempting to prove that I'm not as bad a writer as I have recently begun to fear. As to whether or not I am correct...that has yet to be seen, and perhaps this will enlighten me. Second, I have a rather annoying habit of mentally composing accounts of the various things that happen to me throughout the course of my day. That is, an event will occur and even as I am reacting to it and experiencing it, a little part of my brain is 'writing it up' as if I were describing it to somebody later on. This, then, is an outlet for that habit to actually manifest itself in a useful way. Third, I have many opinions about many different things, and, while I have no illusions about anybody's desire to actually hear them, it is helpful for me to write them down. If nothing else, it allows me to work through them, find flaws and faults in my arguments, and fix them. Fourth and finally, is to provide a written account of the completely new and unknown phase in my life that I'm about to begin, if for nobody else but myself.

So. What is this going to be, exactly? To be honest, I'm not precisely sure; as of now, it will be primarily an account of my term of service with Americorps. Along with that, I will be riffing on music and movies, sports, politics (especially the 2008 Presidential Election) and anything else that I feel like talking about. Really then, I think I could've summed up this paragraph by telling you that this is going to be a blog about anything and everything.

Comments and questions are more than welcome.