Welcome to Fourth Round! Days 218 + 227 + 230

Day 218 – Tuesday September 14, 2010

After two days in the van, we arrived in New Orleans late Sunday night.  Our work week is Tuesday through Saturday so we got Monday off to rest and recover from our 20-hour drive.  We went to WalMart late morning for grocery shopping (most of us have a strong dislike of the store but it’s MUCH cheaper for getting the basics and had other household items in its vast stretches) and I picked up a bike along with my groceries.  It’s a mint green cruiser, a one-speed with reverse-pedal braking.  It’s completely impractical and therefore lovely.  Its fat tires were wonderful at not getting broken on the many shards of glass strewn about the streets and sidewalks on my later hour-long ride.

The ride itself was also lovely, my first venture into the city after our grocery trip.  Most of the sights along the way back – we drove by United Saints so I could see the team’s last housing – were places at which the team had spent a significant number of nights drinking second round.  When I had asked (on at least two occasions) what there is to do in New Orleans other than drink, I’d been met with long pauses, I-don’t-knows, and “nothing?”s.  I was a bit nervous that this could be the truth, though more so overwhelmingly skeptical about the prospect of “nothing”, so was relieved to run across both the vibrant little French Market and the aquarium along a nice Riverwalk boulevard.  I also biked up Bourbon Street, mostly just so I could have gone, albeit in the daylight.  I might (might) make it again sometime.  Even at night.

Today was our first day of service with Habitat Restore and Warehouse.  It was great!  I did have a headache all morning, which was less than fun, but I much enjoyed the service day, especially my work on the warehouse side.  (The warehouse distributes donated new construction materials to Habitat build sites; the ReStore, like Baltimore’s Loading Dock, resells donated goods – from crèche scenes to sinks to doorframes and windows – as the money-making side of the establishment.)  Buck and I began helping Paul, who runs the warehouse, load long pieces of metal into a trailer bed at Dr. Bob’s.  Dr. Bob is an artist who works in a small building and yard a couple of blocks from the ReStore, which he shares with a miniature extension of the warehouse and sometimes a Habitat truck or two.  The whole time we worked, Paul chatted with us about where we’re from and such.  It turns out that he’s from Massachusetts and has been to Northampton on multiple occasions.  I decided that I like him a lot.  Jor had told me before I came that she loved working with him.  I do too.

Later in the morning, after spending my only time on the ReStore side dusting off paint-protecting stuff and Christmas tree stands, Amanda and I went over to Dr. Bob’s and loaded up some insulation made out of recycled jeans (“none of the itchy stuff’, announced Paul).  Amanda drove the box truck over to a build site ten minutes away, where we unloaded it into two neighboring houses.  I had the fun job of handing the insulation out of the back of the truck to the build crew.  I enjoyed it.  My arms were covered in dirt by the time we made it back.  I also knew how to latch up the back of the truck and operate the mechanical up-and-down back ramp controls.

We returned just in time to load up another order for a further-away build site.  I learned where the shims and “1-bys” (1x4s, 1x12s, etc.) are in the warehouse as we refilled the truck.  At the first drop-off, I’d met a girl named Katie who’s “from your neck of the woods” (Paul’s introduction).  It turns out she’s dating Eoin, a guy I rowed with in high school.  During our warehouse loading, I met a guy named Mike who went to school with Katie and knows Eoin.  It seems half of the Habitat people I met have spent some time in Massachusetts, most of those not far from me.

This trend continued later in the afternoon, when I got to go on the delivery with John, one of the ReStore staff.  As we drove across the Mississippi to drop off the boards and such which Amanda and I had loaded, I learned that he too had spent time in my neck of the woods.  Kinda crazy.  John and I had a good time, finally finding the site after Google Maps directed us to the wrong part of the street and eventually making it back across the Mississippi after an hour caught in traffic during which about four ambulances and three police cars raced by with lights flashing.  The delivery took over two hours; I liked getting to see a bit more of the city and take our time unloading all the boards at the site.  I ended up dirtier and more smudged than before.

I much enjoyed showering when we returned home.  I felt super-clean.  It made me happy.

Day 227 – Thursday September 23, 2010

I was involved in a world record today.  Certified by the Guinness Book.  It involved tons and tons of macaroni and cheese.  Well, just over 1 ton.  But that’s a lot of mac ‘n’ cheese.

Cabot paired up with Habitat, somehow, to make an event out of creating the world’s largest macaroni and cheese.  The final dish weighed in at 2,469 pounds.  It was stirred in a cauldron, itself weighing 1,900 pounds, dating from the late 1700s.  Traci and I, after being the lucky ones to have our names drawn by Melissa (of the five available, herself included, since Buck is in Michigan this week for a friend’s wedding), got to join Wolf 3 at the mac ‘n’ cheese event.  Once it was officially weighed and the woman who served as the Guinness Book of World Records official witness presented a formal certificate to the chef in charge, we helped distribute bowls to thousands (close to three, to be precise) of people who came to help consume all that mac ‘n’ cheese.  There was a line over a hundred people long for part of the morning.  I was busybusybusy, which I loved.  After we did the distributing, we got to eat some of the tasty record-setting dish ourselves.  The noodles, having been stirred up in the cauldron, shoveled into bins (with a literal shovel), ladeled into our bowls, and spooned into our mouths (by us) were delicious.  Very flavorful.  Bread crumbs, pepper, and everything.  A world record has never before tasted so good to me.

Life at the ReStore is also good.  Aisle 1, my pet project, is looking fantastic.  I continue to enjoy getting out of the building on deliveries and pick-ups.  The Tuesday to Saturday work week still feels quite strange.  In the evenings, my team watches lots of movies.  I’ve been reading lots of books, especially during the horror movies.  I took a break, of course, to watch Pirates of the Caribbean the other night.  So much fun.  New Orleans is still big, dangerous, and not all that pretty; I’m continuing to take adjustment time.

Day 230 – Sunday September 26, 2010

Gwyn gave me a hug yesterday.  This made me happy.

She had asked me a couple of days ago to do a store directory and I finally set aside the day to do so yesterday.  We had discussed it briefly – a list stating “Doors…aisle 8” and the like which I could paint on one of the recently repainted hollow doors set aside for just such projects.  When I went to make the directory, my first task was to map out what it should even include.  I drew myself a map-like directory, a style I thought might be easier than “Lighting…aisle 27” since aisle 27 (along with about eight other aisles) is hidden in the back behind the employee-only loading dock.  I showed Gwyn the map for what to include, mentioned how this version was just like in department stores, and got approval to go ahead – map, not list!  I grabbed a door, painted the lovely shade of French Market Blue, and got to work.  I used masking tape to make all the aisle lines for the store then busted out the purple paint and made it pretty.  The end result was surprisingly artistic-looking after I painted “Welcome to the ReStore” next to the paint-and-sharpie map (sharpie, I figured, would be easier for changes in the event that some new item gets a permanent aisle).  I waited for the paint to dry then took it to show Gwyn.  She was thrilled, declared it better than she could imagine, and asked if she could give me a hug.  All in all, a productive Saturday at the ReStore.

The other productivity I’ve had at the ReStore is the shining success of Aisle 1.  I had thought it’d be great to make a small display of items for sale then realized multiple displays might be needed to cover the range of items in the store.  Wandering around looking for things I’d want to display, I found that Aisle 1, right by the entrance ramp into the store, had fairly little in it and looked rather scattered.  Gwyn said the idea of a display sounded great – they had had great success displaying children’s schooldesks, which didn’t sell when stacked but immediately did when set out classroom-style – and I should ask Bob.  Bob gave me the go-ahead and even allowed me all of Aisle 1 for my plans.  Gwyn fully endorsed this free reign, glad to have the rather scattered aisle off her hands.  A week ago, three volunteers helped me clear out the aisle and collect up items from around the store to fill it.  My original idea was to showcase the second- or third-best desk, stove, etc. with small markers directing people to the desk, appliance, or other section where they could find their own best item.  As items came in off the loading dock and the space filled in, it became clear that it would become more of a showcase for best items, mixing decent with almost-new. 

Friday was the first busy day Aisle 1 experienced, Tuesday through Thursday being understandably quieter shopping days.  The result?  Seven – seven – items sold from “my” section.  I had been on the warehouse side all day and came over at the end to find missing a futon sofa, a small bookcase, a taller wicker bookcase, a sewing machine, a small picture frame, and the small lamp perched on a cabinet.  Needless to say, I spent the first hour of Saturday (pre-directory) filling in all that was gone.  One of the new items I added was a wooden mantle for around a fireplace from Neil’s mantles-and-door-frames section.  One customer asked me in the morning how much it cost and Gwyn told me later that she’d fielded multiple questions about mantles, an oft-overlooked item, during the day.  Pretty cool.

I’ve learned some solid retail sales lessons in my time at the ReStore, most sparked by my own intuition and simple observations about customer behavior.  It all comes down to this: 1) customers are lazy and 2) the more you can do to make things easier for customers (e.g. subtly spotlight one good-quality item of each type, put good stuff in a display section), the happier both you and your customers will be.  Simplify it for them.

I'm Baaaaack!

Didja miss me? Yes, yes, it's been four months.  And five days.  Spanning two entire rounds.  In good news, I'm back! 

Posts may continue to be sporadic, but I have lots and lots of enthralling entries saved just for you.  And whatever friends or frenemies of yours may read this.  Tons of exciting things have happened (literally, tons) including 30 days on disaster (hence the lapse in posting), 2 weeks as an STL at Perry Point, a 14-day summer break, and 6 leisurely weeks of vacation - I mean service - in Massachusetts.  (Vacation, you wonder?  We live within ten minutes' walk of our own private beach, I got weekendly parental visits our final three weeks, and I got fun desk jobs all round.)

We drive back to Perry Point tomorrow!  Fourth round: NOLA.  There's lots to share before then so I'll post occasionally with moments from the past.  We begin with the most recent past.

Days 204 + 205 (post-race recovery)

Day 204 – Tuesday August 31, 2010

Two days post-Half-Ironman: Huh?  Whaa…?

One day post-Half-Ironman: Ouch…what?

Day of Half-Ironman: That was fun.  Let’s go sit down away from the sun for many hours.

My triathlon was Sunday and it was tons of fun.  I’m now having trouble focusing when tired (that being ever since about 7:30 last night, which was approaching my bedtime), but I’m surprisingly unsore.  My shoulders are a bit tight, but new bike gadgets should help fix that.  In fun news, I survived.  In other fun news, the usual cut-off time for a full Ironman is 17 hours.  Not bad, not bad.

Life at the Marion Institute is great.  Working for Glenn gives me lots of freedom to learn new things since he’ll frequently have me do one or two assignments then send me off to someone else for a bit.  On Friday, for example, I helped him with some Connecting for Change edits in the morning, learned to enter Cambodian Living Arts donations into the office system around midday, and prepared gift baskets for the weekend board meeting for Desa in the afternoon.  I enjoy learning new things.

Both weekends have also been tons of fun.  Mom and I headed to Boston last weekend and enjoyed a show (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), some shopping (yay new running shoes a week before the race! – don’t try this at home), and excellent birthday dinner for her big day.  I spent this weekend driving to and from Middlebury, Vermont, (4 ½ hours away) with Becky and Glenn, hanging out with Dad pre- and post-race, and, oh yeah, doing a really long triathlon.  Glenn is lots of fun outside of the office.  I like hanging out with people in the real world (outside work, not outside the NTrip, just to clarify).  Becky and I both enjoyed the race immensely and I know at least one of us (that would be me) plans to do another.  Before doing another, though, I plan to spend the next week sitting, sleeping, and having vague trouble grasping the right word at any given moment.  I’ll also stay out of the sun a fair deal, as I currently associate it with exhaustion.  Mmm, shade.

Day 205 – Wednesday September 1, 2010

Welcome to September!

On a half-ironman update, I feel great!  I’m waiting at least until tomorrow to exercise – I know my body appreciates the rest – but I’ve been much more able to focus today and generally enjoyed life.  My shoulders are a bit sore, but all else is well.  I just set up my countdown to my next race, a half marathon in NOLA which Buck picked out for himself, Melissa, and I.  It’s 7 ½ weeks away.

Last night, we had a wonderful cookout at Sacred Hearts (our lovely retreat center housing) with local neighbors who will enjoy the Great Neck trails long after we’ve left and staff members from both Allens Pond and the Marion Institute.  I loved getting to hang out one last time with all these amazing new friends and appreciate just how many people I’ve gotten to know this round.  Though I initially felt a bit bounced around at the Marion Institute when Glenn kept sending me off to others, I now absolutely love that I had the opportunity to help out so many of the staff there.  It was fun to see Michelle (CLA donations fun time), Judy (Green Jobs, Green Economy logic models with Kalia), Desa (gift baskets for board members and NCCC alum extraordinaire), and, of course, Glenn (so many random edits).  Plus Becky, Gina, and Lauren from Allens Pond.  This is a great part of the world.

Today, we had our final half day of Mass Audubon service for the round, said our goodbyes at the Marion Institute, and came home to pack and load the van.  We had actual down time this evening, my first in awhile since my weekends have been so full with fun parental visits.  Tomorrow, we roll out at 5:30 AM for the Point.  I’ve already called driving first shift.  I like starting off early.  For van rides, not workouts.  But I’m working on that.

PS  I love New England!

The 190s

Day 190 – Tuesday August 17, 2010

Duck Derby was fantastic.  So too was the weekend that followed.

After a day full of ducks and auction items, Dad swept me off to Plymouth for a couple of days of team-free relaxation and wanderings.  We enjoyed brunch and mexican (separate meals) along the main street, spent much of Sunday at Plimoth Plantation, imagined the plantation buildings in their original locations from atop Leyden Street, wandered Burial Hill and found the Bradford family plot, went to a movie (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World), floated aboard the Mayflower II, and splashed around at the fantastic hotel pool, complete with Plymouth-rock-themed hot tub (yes, we did see the real rock too) and Mayflower-themed spirally water slide.  I had a wonderful time.

My return to the team was quite nice too.  Dad took me to lunch and we went grocery shopping then I settled back in for a lazy Monday-off-work afternoon.  I finally broke open my Ancient Greek textbook – the one Mom had gotten me for Christmas – and was happy to discover that there are very few letters in Ancient Greek which I hadn’t seen in math class.  Who thought math and Classics was a strange combination?  I can already read basic words, such as autonomy and Hippocrates, which makes me happy.

Today was our first day back at Great Neck (Wildlife Sanctuary).  That meant that for Traci, Jeff, Sabrina, and I it was our first day at the Marion Institute.  Glenn, with whom I’ll be paired for the next two weeks, gave us an extensive (think: two hours) orientation and tour in the morning.  Afterwards, Sabrina went off to start working on family programming for the Institute’s upcoming Connecting for Change conference with Lena while the rest of us headed down to the basement for an hour of straightening up the shelves.  We stopped at noon for our hour-long lunch.  Glenn had informed us very matter-of-factly that lunch is an hour so thus it is.  In true AC fashion, we take half an hour of official lunch and half of sponsor-mandated break.  So I refer to it, anyway, as we justify the appropriate time-giving-ness.

In the afternoon, Glenn announced that cookies had been brought and were in the kitchen.  They were giant and Swiss chocolate chip.  I had half of one and it was delicious.  Traci had a full one and felt stuffed.  We also got down to actual work.  My primary task was creating a spreadsheet of all the Connecting for Change speakers (almost all of our work will revolve around the conference) for the bookstore which supplies books for the event.  I entered the books which speakers had said on the form that they’d written then looked up what books other speakers had written so the bookstore could stock those too.  There are going to be lots of speakers.  It looks like it’ll be an amazing conference.

Day 192 – Thursday August 19, 2010

Today officially marks the end of my attempts to write every day.  Well, yesterday did but I didn’t write then.  So today marks the official documentation of yesterday’s cessation of attempts.  Yes, it got to me.  And by ‘it’ I mean AmeriCorps.  I was once an eager soon-to-be-Corps-member, reading blogs and soaking up anything and everything about the NTrip on Facebook.  Quite notable was the dramatic drop in blog posts once people enter NCCC, often down from that idealistic once a week to one or two a month throughout CTI and first round, then one or two in the entire second half of the service year.  Now I haven’t posted on my blog since before Tennessee, but I certainly have a lot to post.  My future service companions will have the option to read hundreds of days’ worth of entries about life in the NTrip.  Or not to, should they be slightly less absurd than myself.  Anyway, I’ll now write on a most-days basis.  Or maybe a many-days basis.  We shall see.

Yesterday, I spent my entire service day at the Marion Institute compiling information on past sponsors of the Connecting for Change conference.  The “Past Sponsors” section of the Marion CFC website has about 8 sponsors on it.  There are, it turns out, over fifty.  I made a ten-page word document with the sponsoring organization name, website, and logo plus a paragraph on each, often some rewording of the organization’s mission statement or website “About Us” section.  I finished just before we ended at 5.  It was fun.  The four of us – Traci, Sabrina, Jeff, and I – all went out to lunch at the Thai place across the street for Jeff’s birthday.  It was also fun.  There were more cookies at the office.

Today, I spent my Marion time on past CFC exhibitors.  The “Past Exhibitors” section of the CFC website has exactly zero exhibitors on it.  There are, it turns out, about seventy.  No logos this time, but I spent my day compiling organization names, websites, and informational paragraphs.  I’ll finish up early tomorrow morning and move on to whatever comes next.  A highlight was editing an email for Glenn.  He had asked Sabrina to and she’d laughed and brought it downstairs to me.  There were only little things – a misplaced comma and a grammatically incorrect sentence – but I do love to edit.  Also on editing, I found a typo on the website of one of the grad programs that has had a table at CFC.  Really, grad school?  Really??  Silly grad school.  There’s no way I’d go there.

I also survived my Team Leader interview today.  I had it at 9 AM, right at the beginning of our service day.  My phone interview, which lasted 47 minutes, was with Chris Quaka and Kat (the wonderful Badger STL).  The TL interview is structured a bit differently from the CM interview.  The CM interview focuses on how you’d do in a team and your views on various subjects such as flexibility and diversity (how would you define it? how do you live it?).  The TL interview starts out with some of the interview basics (e.g. what expectations would I have of the TLs in my unit? how would I help prepare them to fill those? (professionalism and knowing they’re there for each other; set clear expectations, be available, and help them get to know each other so they have each other as resources too)) but then focuses on a series of scenarios.  My scenarios involved spending a week with a team that was struggling, hearing AmeriRumors about one of my best TLs, and a poorly executed transition community meeting.  Afterwards, I got to ask Kat and Chris about their biggest challenges and successes this year.  I liked Kat’s answers.

So what’s next on the agenda?  More awesome service in an amazing program.  These two weeks at Marion are helping make this the best service summer ever, so much more than I’d imagined it would be.  We live in a huge “cottage” by the beach, I have a triathlon in two weeks, the team is performing well, and I get to spend the entire summer in an office.  How fun is that?!  So fun, I know.

In other news, we did a fun teambuilder tonight.  We got a list of 29 items we could take on a camping trip if our group got lost in the woods and had to choose 15 to bring and prioritize those.  Fortunately, the 4 bags of marshmallows did not come.  The gun and ammunition, however, made it on the list at number 5.  I would definitely bring a tent above those.  We already had a water jug, peanut butter, matches, and sleeping bags.  What a good top 4.

Climate Rally Awesomeness

The Climate Rally was fantastic.  Kate came to visit and got to meet some of my teammates; we went on an epic quest for humidity-fighting treats on my lunch break.

Newspaper estimates today (one day post-rally) place attendance figures around 150,000 people.  Yay for environmental consciousness!  And awesome concerts.  I hope even half those people do something greener (e.g. bike to work one day, wash clothes in cold water sometimes) to help make this world a climate-happier place.

I got to watch John Legend and The Roots from the fifth row.  It was fantastic!

Days 75 to 77

Day 75 – Friday April 23, 2010

I woke up today feeling energized and ready to go after under 7 hours of sleep but a fabulous previous evening.  My body, unfortunately, had other ideas for today.  I was doing well as we headed to meet Darin at Herring Run Nursery, but spent most of the rest of the day feeling a bit under-the-weather starting once we settled in to weed the potted nursery plants.

Team RIO, fortunately, is awesome at taking care of one another.  My teammates were totally fine with me taking a couple of sick hours to nap in the shade of a tree directly abutting the nursery.  I was able to sleep a bit and felt mildly better when I returned to weeding two hours later.  I made it through another hour of service, this time alphabetizing laminated information pages about the nursery plants by scientific name, before I took another break for my second nap of the day.  Traci had suggested at the end of my first nap, which coincided with the end of her and Roy’s lunch break, that I sleep in the wheel-less wheelbarrow which was now resting on the ground.  This was the site of nap two, which was excellent.  The wheelbarrow was comfortable, I was warmer than the first time because Melissa had loaned me her sweatshirt to use as a blanket, and I woke up feeling much better.  All was good.

We had divided up for much of our service day.  Traci, Roy, and I stayed at the nursery eventually joined up by Sabrina and (briefly) Laura, our wellness counselor up at the Point; Jeff, Lindsay, Chris, and Amanda headed over to a local school to supervise middle-schoolers in tree planting; Melissa helped at the nursery and drove people around in the van; Kathy took a sick day and Buck was on a personal day.  All of us on duty for the day rejoined at the nursery at the end to clean up and gather up plants for one order a woman had come to pick up.  We then headed back to the mansion where we met up with the rest of our team for PT.

PT today was the mile run test for our physical assessment.  Being a bit sick, I wasn’t going to run a mile so I’ll do mine tomorrow.  Today, I timed everyone who did run while Kathy and I did up-and-side gators (an arm and shoulder exercise).  Afterwards, I walked two laps of the track with Melissa to round out the rest of PT time before stretching.  

Day 76 – Saturday April 24, 2010

Today was a great day.  We finally got to see some of the fruits of our canvassing labors, we had project reveal for our awesome second round spike, I ran my mile (fast), and I had a fun night out on the town with friends.  All excellent.

We began our service day at 8 AM with a return to Walter P. Carter Elementary/Middle School, the base of operations for our first two days of Tree Baltimore free tree canvassing.  This time, we got to help out at the first of the three free tree giveaway/planting days we’d been promoting via door tag distribution during that canvassing.  After helping arrange a bunch of trees for planting around the school itself by some of the day’s volunteers, we actually got to plant trees in the neighborhood!  I worked with Melissa and four guys on volunteer days from local energy companies.  Together, we loaded fifteen small trees – thirteen flowering (a mix of persimmons and serviceberry) and two shade (red maple), all between two and six feet tall – into a wheelbarrow and took them up a few blocks to the area we’d been assigned. 

Following a map and an associated list of addresses and tree requests, we proceeded to plant those trees in people’s yards around the neighborhood.  It was very rewarding work.  While the first tree Kyle (from Constellation Energy) and I planted went to a less than enthusiastic house owner, she certainly didn’t turn it away.  My next tree, which James (Baltimore Gas & Electric) and I put in, went to a very happy owner, as did our fourth (the third encouraging us to go ahead and plant it anywhere in the front yard).  Though some of the trees will certainly have lower chances of survival due to less-than-impassioned owners, we placed many in caring homes where they’ll be watered with love multiple times per month.  Out of our entire list of fifteen houses, only one person declined a requested tree while two asked for a second one.  We happily obliged.

Once we’d finished with our deliveries, we wandered through the neighborhood with extra serviceberries and red maples in our wheelbarrow offering them to anyone we saw outside on porches or in yards.  We ended up having two takers out of about five offers, which was a much-better-than-I-expected return.  The first was later the highlight of the day for both Melissa and myself at Team RIO’s daily Closing Circle (a tradition we started two days ago as an end-of-service-day reflection time).  We were walking along the street with our wheelbarrow and as we passed two men leaning against a truck, one jokingly asked if we wanted to plant one of the trees we had in his yard.  We said, sure, we’d love to!  He was, understandably, taken aback but then both he and his wife, who was sitting across the street with two friends, became totally psyched as we went ahead and planted a new serviceberry in their front yard.  They kept smiling and he thanked me profusely multiple times for us giving them this tree.  It was a very cool experience.

We returned to the school at noon to help pack up the giveaway event, loading extra trees into the back of a Tree Baltimore pick-up truck and folding up tables.  We had hoped to be done with our service day then – Abby had projected a short day and Melissa had our project reveal planned – but we ended up with one more task to test our AmeriFlexibility.  The Ash Street Garden folks had traded supplies for sweat equity with the Loading Dock.  They needed extra hands to help hold up their end of the deal.  We spent the next two hours at the Loading Dock shoveling and redistributing dirt and mulch in the front parking lot.  We moved piles of each from the lot itself into the new bordering landscaped plant installation.  One guy from the Ash Street Garden was working with us, but he eventually turned all his attention to his truck battery, Chris functioning as his knowledgeable helper, when his truck sputtered and died with a bed full of mulch.

Around 3:30, after an hour of post-work rest at the mansion, Melissa texted us to come meet her outside because our project reveal was ready!  We ended up spending the next 45 minutes working our way through a very cool reveal.  Melissa had guided a spool of heavy-duty string (though she said yarn works best) from tree to tree in the forest, winding it around some and tucking folded paper clues in the string-tree intersections.  Our task was to link hands (traveling together, as if we were in the Vanimal) and work our way through the course as a unit.  Some of the clues had challenges (e.g. give each person’s middle name, nobody providing their own) while others had hints at our next project (e.g. are we ready for a Monday to Friday work week?).  We rotated through who was in front, circling the chain around so each leader could join the back after reading out a clue, so everybody got a chance to share one paper aloud with the group.  Kathy and Roy had the honors of reading our final project itself at the end.  I’m so excited for it!  We’ll be working with United Saints in New Orleans, Lousiana!  Yay NOLA!  Yay construction!  United Saints’ mission is to help rebuild and build houses in the First Street parish of New Orleans as part of the greater Hurricane Katrina recovery effort.  We’ll be helping out on all types of tasks, from painting to gutting to drywalling, across multiple project sites.  Both the service work and everything else about the project sound absolutely amazing.  Also, we’re incredibly psyched to be headed to New Orleans.  It’ll be fantastic.

 

Major event four of the day (or three, depending on your counting system) was my mile run for our monthly PT assessment.  I headed over to the track with Melissa and Buck to complete the test I’d sat out yesterday.  It went incredibly well; I finished in 7 minutes, 47 seconds.  This was the second mile I’d run since middle school and the first under eight minutes in that time (my initial PT assessment mile having been 8 minutes, 5 seconds).  Brandon (aka Buck - don’t get confused) ran the last lap with me, which was quite nice.  I enjoyed hearing his commentary on pushing through certain markers (only 200 to go) and starting a sprint as we turned into the last bend.  It made me realize that my mile is now pretty much even with my 2K erg time-wise, lending ease to comparisons between the two.  Fortunately for me, only one involves running.

Event five was a fun evening in Fells Point with Traci, Buck, Roy, and Sean (from Wolf 5).  Melissa had ungrounded the Vanimal at the end of project reveal so we decided to take it out for a night on the town.  Buck, Roy, Traci, and I headed down around 7 and enjoyed dinner at a vaguely tropical-themed restaurant overlooking the harbor.  Sean got his team to drop him off amidst other errands and joined us after dinner.  We all wandered around for awhile, stopping in a music store for a bit where Sean and I tried on many pairs of ridiculous sunglasses, then settled on walking about twenty minutes to Inner Harbor to check out ESPN Zone (Traci and Sean had never been).  A relaxing half hour there preceded our return to the Vanimal for me to drive us all home.  Good way to spend a Saturday night.

Day 77 – April 25, 2010

I feel comfortable stating that our ISP today made this day one of my highlights of this service year.  There may need to be about a hundred highlights by November, but this will certainly be one of them.

Eight of us – Traci, Kathy, Sabrina, Lindsay, Jeff, Buck, Chris, and myself – headed down to DC this morning for the Climate Rally, a big Earth Day week concert event on the National Mall.  The local Baltimore contact for the event, Pearl, had approached us with postcard fliers last weekend at EcoFest and said they were still welcoming volunteers.  When we saw that Sting, John Legend, The Roots, and Passion Pit would be there, we decided immediately that this was a must-do ISP.  Pearl had coordinated a charter bus down to DC for the event (people were bussed in from all over the region) so we were set with free transportation.  We were even provided with metro cards to ride from the bus drop-off at Stadium-Armory over to the Smithsonian station.

After a van ride to the bus, a relaxing bus ride (during which I listened to my iPod for the first time in weeks as I sat in the fourth row back, right side, aisle), and Chris’ first ever subway ride, we stepped out onto the National Mall and found the volunteer tent.  We were happy to begin our ISP with the distribution of free bright yellow t-shirts for us to wear as volunteer identification.  Yay free t-shirts!  We then got a tour of the event from three young volunteer coordinators as we learned our duties.

We’d been told we’d be working in the areas of crowd control and logistics.  Our actual duties fell more along the lines of “be a presence”.  The goal was basically to have volunteers, police, and first aid stations accessible at all points of the rally, which stretched across a fair deal of the area between the Washington Monument and the Capitol.  We were part of that volunteer force, equipped with little knowledge but plenty of enthusiasm.  What did we know?  Where there were bathrooms (everywhere), how the event was eco-friendly (the stage lighting and giant display screens were soy-powered; the sponsor tent section was run on solar and wind power), and what to say about the schedule (there isn’t a public one, but we do know that The Roots will be playing 4 times and Sting will be performing at 6:30).  Once informed, we were encouraged to spend the day wandering the event and simply enjoying it.  Perhaps one of the least difficult tasks ever in this case.

Sabrina and I checked out the sponsor village at the beginning of our shift.  We didn’t make it back as far as the four NASA tents (to which I directed a group later when asked), but I had a great conversation with the people at one tent about worldwide population growth and said growth’s rate in and impact on developing and developed nations.  I felt like I learned a lot.  Kate, living in DC as she does, was able to stop by late morning, which was fantastic!  We walked over to meet her at the Metro stop and went to sit together by the stage as the early bands got going.  We ended up running into Raven 4, in DC for a final day before moving to Vermont tomorrow for the end of their spike (rounds split between multiple projects are fairly common), and hanging out with them for awhile.  Afterwards, I took a lunch break to walk with Kate to Starbucks for cold beverages.

I returned to find that Sabrina, Traci, Jeff, and Lindsay were now wandering around some other part of the city attempting (rather unsuccessfully, as they were lost) to complete an off-site task for one of the volunteer coordinators.  It sounded like they were supposed to meet someone near a Metro station but had not been given the clearest instructions; they ended up walking for some time before returning to the rally.  Still at the rally myself, I found Kathy and sat with her and one of the Ravens in the shade for a bit then moved closer to the stage, where I soon found Buck and Chris (thanks, cell phone, for helping me meet up with friends in crowds).  As the three of us stood together, a guy approached me from a nearby blanket and asked, “What team are you from?”  It turned out that he had been a TL at the Point last year (for one of the Raven teams) and was at the concert with last year’s Programs STL and Wolf 1 TL.  Yes, AmeriFriends do stay in touch outside the bubble.

I considered going over to introduce myself to the guy who was Wolf 1 TL, but I was soon distracted.  Kathy joined us and she and Buck went to sit down so she could rest her leg while Chris wandered off momentarily.  As I contemplated whether to sit with them or stay comfortably standing, John Legend came onstage to perform a song with the group that was out there.  That made that decision easy.  Since my teammates were all set with friends, I took the opportunity to use my impressive crowd-weaving skills and go watch John Legend up close.  I made it to about the eighth row of people standing packed together by halfway through the song.  Twenty minutes later, I (and the clump of volunteers I stood near) were in the fifth row.  I stayed there for the next hour and a half – this really was following their instructions by keeping a presence and schedule questions were less pertinent as the major concert part kicked in – and was so glad I did.  I got to listen to James Cameron speak about Avatar and the environment and hear from the awesome guy who founded Earth Day 40 years ago and from Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), who sponsors lots of climate legislation.  I also got to see and hear (and feel, thanks to the intense sound vibrations in the ground) some phenomenal musical performances.

The Roots did indeed perform a bunch of times, first on their own then with most of the other artists there at one time or another.  They were fantastic.  My hands-down favorite, though, was John Legend.  He sang and played on the piano for a good twenty minutes in the course of the concert.  His main performance, towards the end, was with The Roots.  He and they are releasing a CD together in the fall and they performed one of the songs on it, a cover of ‘Wake Up (Everybody)’.  It’s one of my new favorites.  I’d never even heard it before today.

The concert and the entire rally were phenomenal.  Not only did I provide some direction to inquisitive attendees (though I was asked three times as Passion Pit performed who they were and didn’t find out until a bit later), but I got to learn lots and saw John Legend and The Roots perform from five rows back.  And they were very awesome.  Very awesome indeed.

I headed out as Sting was introduced to meet up with my team, fortunately finding the group easily since my phone battery had died an hour earlier.  It turned out they were all meeting up right then, which was perfect; I had totally missed the message because my phone struggled to send or receive data within about thirty feet of the stage (and then the battery died).  We returned home late, not leaving DC on the bus until 8.  Melissa met us with the van at the bus drop-off outside Johns Hopkins, we had a fun dash to the Vanimal in the pouring rain as thunder crashed overhead, and we headed home for a later dinner (for some of us, anyway) and a good night of sleep.  Fantastic day.

 

Round 2: NOLA!

We took a team picture before project reveal Saturday afternoon; it was one of our first times all together since first round began.

Project reveal involved lots of hand-holding and string.  And fun times in the woods.

After project reveal, we debriefed on the picnic benches outside the mansion.

We learned that our second round spike is in New Orleans!  We'll be building houses and doing other construction-related activities with United Saints of First Street.  We'll be living in our own house with three bedrooms and wireless internet.

Days 73 and 74

Day 73 – April 21, 2010

We did not mulch trees today.  We did, however, supervise high school boys as they mulched trees.  It was fantastic.

Our morning began at the forestry department tool containers in Druid Hill Park (the park we drive through every day to work), where we loaded up lots of shovels, rakes, and wheelbarrows into the bed of a Tree Baltimore truck.  We distributed the tools evenly to 14 mulch piles around the park, all along the central road.  We also distributed ourselves evenly (seven remained after accounting for Melissa taking three to the doctor) to the mulch piles.  I got mulch site two, which stretched from the road up a gentle rise to a gazebo.  It was excellent.

Unlike our deer fence post-hole day at Cylburn Arboretum, we had an adequate number of tools and supplies (buckets for carrying mulch supplemented one wheelbarrow per pile) for the number of volunteers.  I got 35 boys at mulch site two along with two teacher chaperones.  All our volunteers were high school seniors from a local Catholic school participating in their annual service day.  They were tons of fun, your typical senior boys. 

They got through the two piles of mulch in roughly twenty-five minutes, but we fortunately had a third pile delivered and set some to raking leaves to occupy a bit more time.  They finished the third pile around 11:50, well before the anticipated 1 PM lunchtime, but ended up being able to clean up early and enjoy their cookout lunch at the gazebo.  This was good, because Ann and Charlie from Tree Baltimore already seemed to be grasping for additional tasks for them to do at 11 AM just before they coordinated the second mulch delivery.

Fun story of the day: I was talking to a couple of my, uh, less motivated volunteers as they ‘supervised’ mulching at one tree.  One was fixing a wheelbarrow by replacing the missing metal axle piece with a stick (worked out perfectly) while the others stood in a circle near the tree and occasionally spent about five seconds spreading around a new bucketful of mulch as it was delivered.  The guys enjoyed asking me questions, such as where I went to college (they were all impressed) and what AmeriCorps NCCC is.  One asked if I’d played a sport in college and I said yes, I’d played rugby.  Upon hearing this, his friend turned to him and said, “I told you she could beat you up!”  What??  Melissa later suggested that perhaps our stylish steel-toed boots give this impression.  Apparently, though, I came off as a leader to them.  I did feel pretty accomplished keeping all 35 of them quiet and attentive during our initial briefing of safety (stay out of the road) and why and how we mulch.  I also intentionally hooked my aviators on the top of my sweatshirt for the morning in spite of the overcast sky.  Because these things matter with high school boys.

We had lunch at the gazebo cookout then headed back to the tool containers to label lots and lots of tools with P&P stickers, continuing the work we’d started yesterday.  The rest of our afternoon, which turned out to be quite a rainy one, was filled with this labeling.  We began at the tool containers then moved to the tool trailer outside the P&P office building then back to a small container next to the first long one with which we’d started.  Lots and lots of stickers and tape.

Our evening was pretty excellent.  We had a team meeting before dinner – the weekly Wednesday specialty roles meeting which will now be the weekly Wednesday team dinner – because Buck is back as a Team Trainer (the specialty role responsible for teambuilding exercises) and brought with him the knowledge of his composite team practices.  He started a weekly practice of each sharing a high and a low from the past week.  For this week, we did a high and something we’d like the team to improve on so he can appropriately tailor future teambuilders.  My high was returning to Moveable Feast.

 

After the meeting, we had team dinner for the second night in a row!  Crazy, I know.  Melissa made chili, half vegetarian and half with chicken, which was most delicious.  I’ll need to get her recipe for my TL days.  Sabrina made brownies from mix for dessert.  Also quite good.  I forced Melissa back into our pre-spring-break workout routine with a walk twice around the loop afterwards.  It wasn’t a huge workout, but it was a good first step back into things after over a week off running.  It was a great routine to get back into and I laughed a lot along the way.

Day 74 – Thursday April 22, 2010

I had a stellar day today.  Let’s start with Happy Earth Day! and go from there.

I awoke to a foggy grey morning, so much so that I decided to forego my usual drive-to-work sunscreen application.  We headed at 8 AM to the Parks & People office, where we learned from Abby that we’d be splitting our day between two Earth Day volunteer events.  Good start.

Our morning event was at a United Church of Christ in the Locust Park neighborhood of BMore.  Our site would have been within eyeshot of Inner Harbor except that the UnderArmour sports gear national headquarters building was between us and the water.  I love UnderArmour and was happy to hear from Jim, the pastor who was the primary church presence at the event, that the company is a very good corporate neighbor.

The volunteer morning was lots of fun.  We were joined by students from Francis Scott Key Elementary/Middle School, which is about two blocks from the church.  The student group included some adorable young kids, perhaps second grade, who sang a gardening song at the opening remarks.  The other major attendee was Maryland Lieutenant Governor Brown, who brought about ten staff members and came out to plant stuff.  Mary from Parks & People, who had set up the natural play space at EcoFest, coordinated the volunteer efforts.  We got a picture with the lieutenant governor, part of that political photo op series taken before a politician leaves an event, and all told him what states we’re from.  It was lots of fun.

Our role in the service project did not, for the most part, involve the students this time.  While Amanda worked with children planting things inside the fence, most of us headed outside the church fence into the UnderArmour parking lot and pulled dead vine fragments and tons of live English ivy off the fence; Chris and Brandon also removed barbed wire from the top.  Removing vines reminded me of our work our very first day with Parks & People pulling vines off the outside of the Duncan Street Miracle Garden fence.  I had lots of fun with it.

Sabrina found out just before lunch that she’d be heading back to Perry Point from this afternoon to tomorrow morning to move forward with her pet project of starting up a Corps community garden in the Village.  As a result, she asked me to take her spot on the upscale ISP tonight.  Possible awesome ISP?  Duh I said yes.

We drove from Locust Park, the first neighborhood community garden having been officially planted by the students, to Carroll Park at 2 PM.  We found Abby there at the volunteer day, which was a joint Ravens football team staff and M&T Bank event.  She led us down the main path beside the golf course to our work sites.  While three people started out lining a small newly-planted-by-volunteers garden with rocks, the rest of us headed further along to a medium pond.  The pond was split into two smaller ponds by a ground-level rock divide about 10 feet wide through which a channel ran connecting the two bodies of water.  Lots and lots of trash builds up in the pond and on the rocks.  Our job was to help the volunteers already there remove some of that trash.  They had already collected about twenty bags of trash by the time we arrived, between paddling around and cleaning the water and banks in three canoes and walking down to the water’s edge.  We added to the giant pile of trash bags with our (mostly on-land) collection.  I focused on collecting trash out of the dead invasive stalks on the land abutting the boat launch.  After about 30 minutes, Molly, the very enthusiastic volunteer coordinator, told me that I could go ahead and bag up the invasives and the trash all together because they would all end up in the same place (incinerator or landfill).  This sped up my work immensely and I ended up with five big brown paper leaf bags full of invasives and trash.  Mmm, accomplishment.  

After a full day of Earth-ness, we hopped into the Vanimal for the ride to our ISP, changing into our AmeriTuxes (the sharp black pants and white polos we wore for induction) during our RiteAid stop along the way.  The five volunteer slots offered to us were taken up by Jeff, Lindsay, Chris, Amanda, and myself.  The rest of the team had not been interested in an additional four hours of ISP after a full service day; we ended up totally lucking out. 

The event was Hope in the Harbor, a $175-per-plate fundraiser for the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.  It was held at a museum in Inner Harbor and we knew that Duff from Charm City Cakes, the head guy on the television show Ace of Cakes, was a big guest at the event.  The entire affair ended up being totally awesome.

It took a while to find out where we needed to be once we got there.  Namely actually gaining entrance to the building took about twenty minutes since the door guards didn’t know volunteer coordinator Ken by name and he didn’t think he’d need to come to the door when I called him because we were volunteers so should get let in.  Fortunately, he did eventually come find us and everything was smooth sailing from then on.

Ken was completely on top of his game organization-wise and already had all of us divided up into our roles for the night.  Jeff and Amanda were posted at the silent auction, helping bidders with the process and guarding against wandering items.  Lindsay and Chris were ushers in the main dining hall, helping people find the way downstairs and generally being available for questions and such.  I was a greeter.  My job was to stand by the front door, welcome people to the event, shake hands, and point them to reception and the wine tasting and silent auction beyond.

I found my station and met the four women with whom I’d be working.  Two of them, Joann and Carol, introduced themselves right away and got to chatting.  They spent most of our hour together asking me questions about NCCC; Carol and I only got to greet about five parties each as a result.  Carol was in her forties and showed me pictures of her twin boys.  Joann is 79 and told me repeatedly how much more she knows at 80 than she knew at 50.  She shared with me stories of the service she engages in, Ken assigned us both to the 9 PM silent auction item-distribution shift as greeting wore down, and we spent the rest of the night wandering the event together.

An evening with Joann is a grand adventure.  We headed upstairs to the main dining room, where we watched speakers present moving, emotion-filled testimonies about the amazingness of St. Jude’s.  We then headed back to the kitchen with my teammates for some leftover hors d’ouvres since Joann was quite hungry.  The event’s live auction was just finishing with an awesome grand finale when we returned from the kitchen.  As we watched and listened, the final item – a custom-made cake from Charm City Cakes – went for a mind-boggling $15,000.  Even more impressive, Duff asked if the bidder who had been competing with the winner would be willing to make a matching bid.  When he assented, Duff agreed to go ahead and make two custom cakes.  One cake became two and fifteen thousand dollars for St. Jude’s became thirty thousand.  Kind of insane but also really awesome.  (I later learned from Ken that 85 cents from every dollar donated to St. Jude’s goes into the hospital and research, with only 6 cents going to administrative expenses.)

Joann’s philosophies, of which she shared many, include ‘Live life to the fullest.’  She enacted this by leading me to pretty much every food table at the event after the silent auction.  The main room was lined with tables set up by local restaurants and she took it upon herself to try food from almost every one during our hour break.  (Volunteers sampling the food was completely fine with all involved, at least wherever she’s involved.)  I was keeping her company, chatting and offering an arm on stairs and making sure she got water when she needed it, and so of course joined her as she walked around the event.  She encouraged me to try almost all that she did, leading me to test some very unexpected delicacies.  (Duck is yuck but whatever that squishy Lebanese thing was it was great.)  My favorites were the desserts.  I tried a cinnamon roll and the famous Captain Crunch french toast (overrated, in my opinion) from the Blue Moon Café.  When we got back to the silent auction level, I got to try pumpkin chocolate chip cake from Charm City Cakes!  It was fantastic.  Dangerously Delicious Pies had chocolate pie and a chocolatier was set up in the silent auction room.  Basic summary: awesome.

I ended the night with more Joann time.  Her favorite things to discuss included how happy she is in life (she’d be ready to die tomorrow with no regrets), the constant presence of God, my apparent ‘old soul’, how much she likes people, how much she likes me and we connect, and lessons learned during a long and happy life (e.g. keep your thoughts positive, as they control all; if you have aches and negativity, acknowledge then release them and move on).  I had a lot of fun walking around with her, offering a helping hand where I could, learning from her carefree seize-every-moment style, and enjoying amazing food together which I would otherwise have been very unlikely to try (instead leaving it for the guests as my Joann-free teammates tended to do, having not walked up and asked about trying things as she did).

Summary of the day: Met the lieutenant governor.  Filled five leaf bags with invasives and trash.  Discussed NCCC with inquisitive people.  Ate Charm City Cakes (i.e. famous) cake.  Made a new friend.  Tons of unexpected awesomeness.  In case you missed it, I love this program.