Thursday, October 23, 2008
Work Day 4
Today we woke up to a raining day. Expectations were lots of interior work and mud, mud, and more mud. We got to the site and assignments were given out, I selected a off-sight project. About ten of us went to another house in Waveland, a hard hit area, to finish some task to get this house to its owner by EOY. We completed some siding, added installation, caulked. This was my first time using the power tools. I forgot the name, but it was to measure and cut the concrete singles to fix, which were then nailed into place and caulked. We arrived back to the main house at around 4PM, just in time to cleanup the job site. The house looked amazing, exterior had its final coats of pant, paint touch up was competed, the house numbers were nailed into place, interior window boxes, ceiling lights, soffet vents, some base flooring was nailed down. It finally looked like a home to be. We also were assigned some cleanup activities in an adjacent house, used for staging of cabinets and other stuff. Today we left the raining job site for dinner and hopefully another Phillies victory.
Other notes
While we were walking back to our car a lady pulled off to talk and thank us for our efforts and wanted to let us know this is still appreciated. As we walk to our jobsite we often get honked at, which just shows their appreciation. A family located across the street of our build site, daily stops by twice a day with goodies, chips, donuts. He is always cheerful and appreciative of our work to date. We see them throughout the day wishing us the best. Today he stopped over and talked to a group of us about how pleased he was of our work and accomplishments.
Work Day 3
Today we awoke to a very overcast day. Breakfast was unusual, bacon, sausage and donuts, sounds like a winning combination. Off to the work site and we are again split into many groups, some the same as yesterday and some different. I started out carrying drywall, this was a hard job to recruit for. Afterwards work with a couple guys cutting boards for the top of the soffet area, first large sheets were cut into strips, then those strips were cut out so that air vents would fit into them. Finally these sheets were given to another team to be applied to the roof. After a couple hours of this work, I moved on to painting. Did some touch up painting of the exterior then work on painting the first coat of the side deck wall. It was a pale green...This completed my day. The drywall contracts took a couple hours completing the whole interior house, it was amazing to watch them work, such precision and speed. They slapped the drywall up and nailed it into place, while cutting out all needed cutouts for windows, doors, vents, electrical boxes, etc. Then they applied mud and spread it out evenly, pointed corners were a must. Finally they completed the ceiling with a textured white ceiling material. Other contracts can to the site to compete the roof with shingles. I was told they completed in hours during the down pouring rain. Yes it rained for the most of the day, making Mississippi mud, hard to walk and work in this mess. I often made tasks difficult as many were working in the areas were rainfall wouldn't reach them. Scaffolding and exterior painting was pretty much off limits. During lunch we took our team picture with our trip t-shirts. After work we all rain for the showers as it was out to dinner, as Hancock bank sponsored a dinner at Shaggies, a local popular seafood restaurant on the coast of the Gulf. It was raining something fierce. Dinner was tastey and spicy, corn on the cob, shrimp, sausage, jumbolia, deserts, etc. Thank you Hancock for you hospitality. There were a couple birthdays which were celebrated with cake and a birthday song. Then it was game time! The rest of the night was spent support the fightens and celebrating their first world series victory since 1993. Off to bed for another working day.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Tuesday - Work Day2
Work up on time and got ready for the second day of work. I felt really good, surprisingly. Had the standard Continental breakfast and headed to the sight. This time we volunteered for a number of different jobs, I selected installing windows. We had about 10 windows to installing. First we carried then into there spots, made sure the were nice and level, nailed them into place and applied flashing. This was a pretty good experience. Then I we off to build the frames for the soffet around the end of the roofs, which ended the morning as lunch time came, a lot quicker this day. We headed to Wendy's for lunch. When returning to the job site, we completed the soffet installation around the entire house. Then end with a number of odds-n-end jobs, like carring drywall. The house now had tar paper on the roof, porch had it ceiling placed, complete siding and soffet was completed and painted. There were jobs of caulking, and many other contractors ran wire and plumbing throughout the house. When leaving today it look very close to a complete house, but there is much more to do. After this workday, we went to the bay saint Louis beach, relaxed in the sand and gulf of Mexico to wind down the day. Our group then went to Pizza Hut for the dinner buffet. Then most retired at the site in preparation to tomorrows tasks. I finally got caught up on most of the blogging
Tidbits
I all driving a minivan with 6 others....I will try to get there complete names but for now first names only, Joe, Mike, Bill, Angela, Vera, and Macky. I think we all get along very well and have had lots of good times to date. We travel to and from the job site and take our meals together.
The guys and girls have separate cabins with bunk beds, the guys have wooden bunks, beds are too bad, espescially after a hard day of work. The showers and bathroom as connected to the main building, showers are trickles of hot water as long as you can hold the spiket on, but all is good after a hard days work.
I am now drink water from a can donated by Anheuser-Busch, never had their water or had water from a can, but it does the trick.
The guys and girls have separate cabins with bunk beds, the guys have wooden bunks, beds are too bad, espescially after a hard day of work. The showers and bathroom as connected to the main building, showers are trickles of hot water as long as you can hold the spiket on, but all is good after a hard days work.
I am now drink water from a can donated by Anheuser-Busch, never had their water or had water from a can, but it does the trick.
Monday - Work Day 1
Alarm went off early, earlier then expected 6AM EST, but 5AM here. I was probably the first to wake and wake others. Went back to bed for a quick rest and then got up and ready for breakfast. We had a continental breakfast and off to the worksite. We started with an introduction to the Habitat employees and other volunteers. We were given pieces of wood with number on it, which dictated the job and group we were assigned to. I was given group 4 and a star, the star meant a special initial project. The special project had to go offsite to perform some offload detail. The house that we were working on had the flooring established and a couple walls framed out nothing much more. My initial task was to off load a truck with a number of prefabricated framed walls. But before our work, the 4X4 got stuck in the red mud of Mississippi. We managed to set plywood and wood near the tires to eventually get the truck on solid ground. Then we spent about an hour of offloading the truck. Once that was finished we returned to the jobsite to join our group, #4. My task was to carry wall framing to their location in the house handing them over to another group for nailing, once that was done, we put up scaffolding to apply plywood to the exterior walls. Others were assigned many tasks, like painting, nailing, cutting, etc. Lunch time came and we went back to out site for shrimp poboys. After our hour break we headed back to the work site. There we were assigned carrying the trusses and stage then on top of the roof for another group nailing them down. Finally my last job of the day was getting cut plywood on the roof to get it all nailed in. We finished all the framing, exterior walls, roof, soffet painting and many more that I can't remember or know of. We decided to go out for dinner and hit a very good mexican restaurant and watched the Monday night game. Then returning to bed for some well over due rest. I felt really sore heading to bed and feared the next day. Not much time for blogging
Rejuvenate - Sunday Trip to Mississippi
-Disclaimer, I am not a blogger or creative writer, but doing so to communicate in one massive format and not have to send multiple emails. Some fact may not be true or entirely true read at your own risk.
Early Sunday morning 4AM - woke up, got ready finished packing then let for SEI to meet the shuttle which leaves for the airport at 6:45. Not much on the road at 4AM, so I made good time and was actually early for the shuttle. About 6 were taking this shuttle to the airport, we left little before 7AM and got a the airport around 7:30, checked in and waited for our 9:40 flight to New Orleans, we were so early I was able to exchange my seat for the emergency seats which had better leg room. We meet up with the rest of the 15+ at the airport. Flight was delayed on the landing pad as we were rerouted to bypass camp David as something top secret must have been going on. We still got to our destination on time. We got our luggage and rental car. Headed for lunch, we stopped at some restaurant called Cotter Brown's, watch some NFL highlights and had some grub. Menu was tasty, poboys, hoagies, awesome cheese fries, alligator, etc. While eating this person leaving said hello and asked me how i was doing, I replied back with a thank you. He stopped as if he knew me, so I just started to talk further. He just wanted to say thanks and show appreciation for all the work done and what we were about to do. -this was not the last time people showed there appreciation- We were on the cuff of the Mississippi rivers so we walked up the levy to see the river and barages being towed up and down the river. To waste some time we headed to a local park to see the river up close, there was lots going on, cook outs, football, volley ball, lots of fun. While walking in the park a couple people spoke up and asked us what we were doing and we talked for a while and they were extreme thankful for all that we were about to do. We left for the Langniappe site, which was about a hour drive. We arrived found our bunks and meet up with the rest of the group. Dinner was served around 6PM, sandwiches, soup, Mac-n-Cheese. I was all good and tasty. Orientation started around 7PM. This session lasted for about an hour, rules and regulations, short video about the going ons in bay Saint Louis, Langniappe projects, and Habitat projects. We were all excited to start working in the AM. Some headed out to watch the Sunday night football and ALCS games. We meet up with our Dublin counterpart, where else by the bar.
Early Sunday morning 4AM - woke up, got ready finished packing then let for SEI to meet the shuttle which leaves for the airport at 6:45. Not much on the road at 4AM, so I made good time and was actually early for the shuttle. About 6 were taking this shuttle to the airport, we left little before 7AM and got a the airport around 7:30, checked in and waited for our 9:40 flight to New Orleans, we were so early I was able to exchange my seat for the emergency seats which had better leg room. We meet up with the rest of the 15+ at the airport. Flight was delayed on the landing pad as we were rerouted to bypass camp David as something top secret must have been going on. We still got to our destination on time. We got our luggage and rental car. Headed for lunch, we stopped at some restaurant called Cotter Brown's, watch some NFL highlights and had some grub. Menu was tasty, poboys, hoagies, awesome cheese fries, alligator, etc. While eating this person leaving said hello and asked me how i was doing, I replied back with a thank you. He stopped as if he knew me, so I just started to talk further. He just wanted to say thanks and show appreciation for all the work done and what we were about to do. -this was not the last time people showed there appreciation- We were on the cuff of the Mississippi rivers so we walked up the levy to see the river and barages being towed up and down the river. To waste some time we headed to a local park to see the river up close, there was lots going on, cook outs, football, volley ball, lots of fun. While walking in the park a couple people spoke up and asked us what we were doing and we talked for a while and they were extreme thankful for all that we were about to do. We left for the Langniappe site, which was about a hour drive. We arrived found our bunks and meet up with the rest of the group. Dinner was served around 6PM, sandwiches, soup, Mac-n-Cheese. I was all good and tasty. Orientation started around 7PM. This session lasted for about an hour, rules and regulations, short video about the going ons in bay Saint Louis, Langniappe projects, and Habitat projects. We were all excited to start working in the AM. Some headed out to watch the Sunday night football and ALCS games. We meet up with our Dublin counterpart, where else by the bar.
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