So here's an entry I wrote on thursday but was prevented from accessing the internet due to the glories of technology. I think I was feeling a little grumbly at the time, so color me blue. Currently things are cool, we found out for about the fifth time when we are leaving for our next project, and for the fifth time we are leaving on a different day. We leave friday for camp Mendocino, so we can spend a glorious weekend in the woods not getting into trouble, or something like that.
On an unrelated note, with the arrival of my giant "ethical hacking" anthologies my interest in tech has gone back up, so I have things to occupy all of my durn free time. What better place to learn to hack than on a government computer?
Kidding, kidding.
Here's the thing I wrote a couple days ago (mood dims):
Tomorrow is our last day at the boys and girls club, and I am sorry to go. Not just because I loved eating grilled cheese for lunch everyday and having such awesome facilities, but because I will miss the kids, and feeling like, for once in AmeriCorps, I was actually making a direct impact on someones life (besides making their job easier).
Thus far, it often feels like we've essentially just been free labor for nonprofits that can't afford the real deal. Catalina, for instance. It's damn expensive to hire 11 people to do odd jobs and weed fennel 8 hours a day, and Corpsians will do it for a wee piece of land to lay down on and a smile. We definitely did some of that at the boys and girls club, but instead of helping a island that is falling out of favor with tourists regain some of its composure, we tripled the number of floating staff at the club. These kids need attention.
I'll be the first to say I've grown up with almost every advantage possible. Two attentive parents, four involved grandparents for all of my developmental years, a supportive extended family, and born into one of the most influential demographics on the map. 90% of the children at the boys and girls club lack at least one parent in their lives, and many miss both, with a father virtually nonexistant and a mother in jail. They are raised by their grandparents, other relatives, or the foster system.
Did you know that in the foster system it is possible to apply to get you child transferred out of your home? If a family adopts you as an infant, and decides when you hit early adolescence that you've become to much to handle, only a few signatures stand between you and a new home. There are a number of these "lost children" at the boys and girls club, kids who lived with a family, as a part of a family, for eight or so years, only to be booted back into the faster care system when they needed consistent adult role models most. People decided to trade them back in for a younger model, one that they can control again.
It might show, but today was our final debrief with our project sponsor. He shared some of the kids' backstories, what goes on in their lives. He told us a few success stories, of kids who got on track and pulled themselves out. He told us of the ones who don't pay attention, riding along in the foster care system untill they hit 18 and get shocked when the government ceases to help them.
Some of these kid have it rough, the hooligans that we played dodgeball and uno with, did math and writing with. I always tried to be attentive, admiring, and kind. But now I wonder how I couldn't have done so much more. The system, like all systems, is broken or has never worked in some areas.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Boys and Girls club
Really, I'll get to the leftover Catalina Journals at some point. They just seem so stale now. Eh. But Boys and Girls club is still interesting, and it turns out that we have one more week still. This is very good news, in the event you were wondering, because it means one more week of wifi and phone service before I head out into the hinterlands of Mendocino to:
Cut, burn, chip area around ropes course – 5 days
Cut, burn, clean up area around archery – 1 day
Clear out oak trees around Shawnee – 1 day
Walls at Arts & Crafts – 1 day
Doll House Floors - 1 day
Organize / Empty nail + tool shed - 3 days
2+ miles of dirt road brush back/clearing – 3 days
Tear down bathroom – 2days
Trim 30 Apple Trees – 1day
Garden: planter boxes, greenhouse, stonewall, worm bins – 2 days
that's the official itinerary they sent us. I would say the most interesting thing so far looks like tearing down a bathroom, but that could change based on how much they let us use sledgehammers.
Boys and Girls club though? This week there was no dodgeball, unfortunately, but they still don't usually have much work for us to do in the mornings. Meaning that from around 11 to about 2:15 I serve America by lavishing time on lunchmaking (grilled cheeses, carbonara, you name it), reading books, and playing starcraft, which I happen to have on my flash drive. It's a good life.
Usually our days at the Boys and Girls club are all about playing with the kids/helping with homework, just kind of drifting among the groups and making sure no one hucks dodgeballs at peoples' faces (or when they do, stopping vengeance and providing ice bags). But recently I have become a little boy's private tutor. His mom is really intense about him getting his homework done, and asked me one night to check over ALL of it before she left. So I took a good while to go over math and reading homework that gave me ugly flashbacks, and now I am the boys official go-to guy for help. Actually, even more than go-to guy, since he won't let anyone else help him. What can I say, why would you settle for less?
Kidding aside, he's a really nice kid, I just miss some of the mingling/not really having to do any work bit. This guy has an amazing work ethic; Friday we were hard at work while everyone else was running around (the club doesn't even HAVE homework hour on Fridays). But it's cool. Changing the lives of America's youth and all.
One more week, then off to mendocino. And for the record, I finally got my camera cord in the mail, so I can finally upload photos from my camera. I am thus far trying to figure out how to put them on here in a less obnoxious fashion than copy/paste. Here's Silver IV at the end of wildland firefighter training in our bangin' yellow and greens, btws PICTURES!!!! that I can put in with my uber html skills
Cut, burn, chip area around ropes course – 5 days
Cut, burn, clean up area around archery – 1 day
Clear out oak trees around Shawnee – 1 day
Walls at Arts & Crafts – 1 day
Doll House Floors - 1 day
Organize / Empty nail + tool shed - 3 days
2+ miles of dirt road brush back/clearing – 3 days
Tear down bathroom – 2days
Trim 30 Apple Trees – 1day
Garden: planter boxes, greenhouse, stonewall, worm bins – 2 days
that's the official itinerary they sent us. I would say the most interesting thing so far looks like tearing down a bathroom, but that could change based on how much they let us use sledgehammers.
Boys and Girls club though? This week there was no dodgeball, unfortunately, but they still don't usually have much work for us to do in the mornings. Meaning that from around 11 to about 2:15 I serve America by lavishing time on lunchmaking (grilled cheeses, carbonara, you name it), reading books, and playing starcraft, which I happen to have on my flash drive. It's a good life.
Usually our days at the Boys and Girls club are all about playing with the kids/helping with homework, just kind of drifting among the groups and making sure no one hucks dodgeballs at peoples' faces (or when they do, stopping vengeance and providing ice bags). But recently I have become a little boy's private tutor. His mom is really intense about him getting his homework done, and asked me one night to check over ALL of it before she left. So I took a good while to go over math and reading homework that gave me ugly flashbacks, and now I am the boys official go-to guy for help. Actually, even more than go-to guy, since he won't let anyone else help him. What can I say, why would you settle for less?
Kidding aside, he's a really nice kid, I just miss some of the mingling/not really having to do any work bit. This guy has an amazing work ethic; Friday we were hard at work while everyone else was running around (the club doesn't even HAVE homework hour on Fridays). But it's cool. Changing the lives of America's youth and all.
One more week, then off to mendocino. And for the record, I finally got my camera cord in the mail, so I can finally upload photos from my camera. I am thus far trying to figure out how to put them on here in a less obnoxious fashion than copy/paste. Here's Silver IV at the end of wildland firefighter training in our bangin' yellow and greens, btws PICTURES!!!! that I can put in with my uber html skills
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
FRT certification and various amounts of temporality
Well then. It certainly has been a while since I was on here. My sincere apologies, I’m having a hard time getting a solid schedule down. Although, to tell the truth, spotty bloggings may be the case with my Ameriyear. My next project is up north in Cali, where there is no phone service, let alone wifi. We’re going to do maintenance stuff at a boys and girls camp, such as demolishing bathrooms and burning brush piles (which is apparently what qualifies this project as FRT necessary).
On the fire note, all us FRTers got out official certifications Friday. Last week mon-thurs was spent in classrooms learning about fire behavior, safety protocols, and general fire-fighting know-how. Seeing as I am incapable of remaining awake when set in a chair and talked at (unless I have food: I utilized tortilla chips to give me brief periods of attentiveness), the class was pretty ho-hum. But, on Friday, we did field training.
We drove north to the Tahoe Hotshots’ headquarters (Hotshot groups are the professional wildland firefighters, they’re pretty badass), and splintered off to do simulated fire-fighting activities. Hotshot instructors hiked us out into the middle of the woods where we cut line for most of the day. Cutting line is the primary method of fighting wildfires. You remove fuel along one of the fire’s fronts, theoretically stopping all fire movement in that direction. Given Pulaskis, shovels, Mcleods, and a variety of other diversely named tools, we cleared a 5’ wide swath of woods down to mineral soil. It’s relatively backbreaking. Towards the end of the day, if I bent an arm, every muscle seized up, and I would have to use the other arm to unbend it. I look forward to applying this work in the field.
Another cool thing is our fire shelters, the aluminum foil sleeping bags we get issued to keep us alive in the event of extreme heat exposure. They function by reflecting radiant heat and giving you a pocket of breathable air inside the shelter. They’re relatively useless against direct fire exposure, so its advised that you not use them. Another theory is that the shiny exterior of the shelters makes it easier for the helicopters to find your bodies after the fire’s come through. Whatever.
But back to the cool part, during the field day we simulated a fire breaking out of control. In full gear (with our tools and packs), we ran out of the valley we had been digging line in, dumped our packs, and sprinted to a clearing with a practice (plastic) fire shelter. We then deployed and hung out, and were told who survived and who died. I think the asthmatics were the ones that died, cause they couldn’t make it up the hill fast enough. It was fun though, sprinting uphill in giant boots and fire-resistant clothing.
Yeah, all the fire crews were issued special fire-retardant clothes. They’re great, because instead of the usual, exciting, AmeriCorps grey-and-beige, FRT’s get forest-green pants and big-bird yellow shirts.
Lessee. What else interesting? Oh, TAHOE!
So this weekend two friends and I headed to lake Tahoe for a weekend of snowsports. We got in later-ish on Saturday, and spent the rest of the day wandering around the town. Tahoe is a pretty cool place, what with its huge tourist revenues and all that. But Sunday we got up early and headed to Homewood ski area, which was cheap and perfectly sized for our one day. Also, their “teen” distinction is 13-18, soooo I got to ride for $35.
Since we were renting, two of us got snowboards for the day. In a few words, a blast. It started snowing pretty heavily in the afternoon, so the last half of the day was filled with excellent runs with great cover, and I even managed to do some glades on a board, of which I am immensely proud.
The only issue to the snow was that California has some nasty laws regarding snowy conditions, and the road to Tahoe is probably one of the curviest and cliffiest I’ve been on besides the Mt. Washington Autoroad. Once it started snowing, we discovered that Caltrans has the authority to require tire chains on all vehicles. Being good tourists, we financed the booming chain industry in Tahoe (conveniently provided for all those stuck without them), and outfitted our dinky little rental car with them.
Tire chains are easy to put on if you know what you’re doing. We learned fast, but that is not to say that putting chains on tires on a 20-degree, snowy Tahoe night is a fun process. I remember very clearly thinking “Wow, my hands are so cold. It would be really easy to slice them without knowing while wrestling with this darn tire chain” (darn probably was not the word used). Then I looked at my hands and tried to figure out where all the blood was from. We got back fine, and my hands are healing just dandy. It was an “experience.”
I still have loads more Catalina stuff, but I wanted to actually talk about what we’ve been doing recently. Which is Boys and Girls club of greater Sacramento, but I’m tired and sick and on the edge of sleep deprivation so excuse me. Tomorrow or some time in the future.
Time? What the heck is that? All I know is that I’ve already spent ¼ of a year here in Cali. It’s crayzeh.
On the fire note, all us FRTers got out official certifications Friday. Last week mon-thurs was spent in classrooms learning about fire behavior, safety protocols, and general fire-fighting know-how. Seeing as I am incapable of remaining awake when set in a chair and talked at (unless I have food: I utilized tortilla chips to give me brief periods of attentiveness), the class was pretty ho-hum. But, on Friday, we did field training.
We drove north to the Tahoe Hotshots’ headquarters (Hotshot groups are the professional wildland firefighters, they’re pretty badass), and splintered off to do simulated fire-fighting activities. Hotshot instructors hiked us out into the middle of the woods where we cut line for most of the day. Cutting line is the primary method of fighting wildfires. You remove fuel along one of the fire’s fronts, theoretically stopping all fire movement in that direction. Given Pulaskis, shovels, Mcleods, and a variety of other diversely named tools, we cleared a 5’ wide swath of woods down to mineral soil. It’s relatively backbreaking. Towards the end of the day, if I bent an arm, every muscle seized up, and I would have to use the other arm to unbend it. I look forward to applying this work in the field.
Another cool thing is our fire shelters, the aluminum foil sleeping bags we get issued to keep us alive in the event of extreme heat exposure. They function by reflecting radiant heat and giving you a pocket of breathable air inside the shelter. They’re relatively useless against direct fire exposure, so its advised that you not use them. Another theory is that the shiny exterior of the shelters makes it easier for the helicopters to find your bodies after the fire’s come through. Whatever.
But back to the cool part, during the field day we simulated a fire breaking out of control. In full gear (with our tools and packs), we ran out of the valley we had been digging line in, dumped our packs, and sprinted to a clearing with a practice (plastic) fire shelter. We then deployed and hung out, and were told who survived and who died. I think the asthmatics were the ones that died, cause they couldn’t make it up the hill fast enough. It was fun though, sprinting uphill in giant boots and fire-resistant clothing.
Yeah, all the fire crews were issued special fire-retardant clothes. They’re great, because instead of the usual, exciting, AmeriCorps grey-and-beige, FRT’s get forest-green pants and big-bird yellow shirts.
Lessee. What else interesting? Oh, TAHOE!
So this weekend two friends and I headed to lake Tahoe for a weekend of snowsports. We got in later-ish on Saturday, and spent the rest of the day wandering around the town. Tahoe is a pretty cool place, what with its huge tourist revenues and all that. But Sunday we got up early and headed to Homewood ski area, which was cheap and perfectly sized for our one day. Also, their “teen” distinction is 13-18, soooo I got to ride for $35.
Since we were renting, two of us got snowboards for the day. In a few words, a blast. It started snowing pretty heavily in the afternoon, so the last half of the day was filled with excellent runs with great cover, and I even managed to do some glades on a board, of which I am immensely proud.
The only issue to the snow was that California has some nasty laws regarding snowy conditions, and the road to Tahoe is probably one of the curviest and cliffiest I’ve been on besides the Mt. Washington Autoroad. Once it started snowing, we discovered that Caltrans has the authority to require tire chains on all vehicles. Being good tourists, we financed the booming chain industry in Tahoe (conveniently provided for all those stuck without them), and outfitted our dinky little rental car with them.
Tire chains are easy to put on if you know what you’re doing. We learned fast, but that is not to say that putting chains on tires on a 20-degree, snowy Tahoe night is a fun process. I remember very clearly thinking “Wow, my hands are so cold. It would be really easy to slice them without knowing while wrestling with this darn tire chain” (darn probably was not the word used). Then I looked at my hands and tried to figure out where all the blood was from. We got back fine, and my hands are healing just dandy. It was an “experience.”
I still have loads more Catalina stuff, but I wanted to actually talk about what we’ve been doing recently. Which is Boys and Girls club of greater Sacramento, but I’m tired and sick and on the edge of sleep deprivation so excuse me. Tomorrow or some time in the future.
Time? What the heck is that? All I know is that I’ve already spent ¼ of a year here in Cali. It’s crayzeh.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
More Catalina Stuff
Awright, here's the next entry I did
---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---
Catalina: day too tired for math (11/27)
Got back from two night, 35 mile hiking trip with Patrick (one of my awesome teammates) about 1.75 hrs ago. It was awesome getting back because my beloved teammates brought thanksgiving leftovers up to camp from the dinner they had at the Avalon teen center while we were backpacking. Seeing as we brought essentially no food on the trip, we were hungry.
We wanted to hike to the end of the trans-Catalina trail from our tent site and bck over the thanksgiving weekend. It is a 56 mile hike round-trip, and we each brought a small container of dried oatmeal, and between us had 14 small granola bars (those 90 calorie per bar crap. Sheesh, it’s not like I’m on a diet), two tins of honey roasted peanuts, and a handful of raisins. We didn’t have enough. I did bring (and carry the entire time) 5 liters of water.
So, yeah, this hike was a last minute decision. I had to lend Pat a spork, we left so fast. We had no tent, no bivies, just our pads and bags against the wind.
The first night we started out at dusk (~5pm) and hiked till 7pm. It was an amazingly stressful hike. The moment it got gull dark I took lead cause Pat didn’t have headlamp, and following the trail was an extremely fretful process. I worried about getting lost, even though it really didn’t matter as we were hiking on a small island, but the trail was light a dusty and the surrounding terrain was also dusty and only slightly darker. So I would get increasingly worried each time we left a trailmarker behind, until we found the next one 500 yards later.
To our merit, though, we only got lost once. The trail crossed a dry lakebed, and with no markers it was impossible to follow the trail. We found it again by beelining in the right (we thought) direction, but there is something about being tired and hungry in the darkened wilderness that freaks me out and feeds my panic monster. We had done a hard PT before hiking and I know we were throwing ourselves into an insane hike with little/no preparation. That was part of why I wanted to do it, feeding my urge to vision quest in the wild. It seems weak in retrospect to have put so much nervous energy into those few miles, but I do know that the more tired I am the more likely I will want to curl up when placed in a strange situation. Not that I ever have (damn right) but it’s that much harder to do stuff.
But it turned out ok. We aborted the 56 mile hike on day two when 2000foot elevation gains/losses in 4 miles took the wind out of both of our sails, but we still ended up hiking 36 miles overall in under 48 hours (day 1 [starting at dusk: 6 miles]->night 1->day 2 [turned around: 18 miles]->night 2->day 3 [got back around 1:30: 12 miles]). Pretty decent I’d say.
Our second night was blessed. We were both dead from the hike and hanging out at a campsite (pay-per-use, which we did not), when the site ranger drove by. She noticed us lounging on said site, and asked us if we were camping there tonight. When we said “no, we’re just cruising through” (it now being 3:30 and the last thing we wanted was to have to move), and told us our story of a failed attempt at a farther campsite, she told us that the campsite we were on was rented to her for the night. She told us that she was heading home (it was thanksgiving), and that we could use her campsite if we wanted. We got caught site-stealing (pretty much) and were given the site. THANK YOU, RANGER LADY.
Then we got home and our teammates had saved us Thanksgiving leftovers from the teen center and it was glorious.
Currently I am enjoying glory:
-my sleepingbag, hung up to air out, rotates naturally in the wind for even UV exposure
-kiwi can be eaten like and apple, skin and all and then some (4 down the hatch. Don’t tell my teammates)
-I realized I have had the most instances of déjà vu in my life since starting AmeriCorps: 4
-One at a conference table eating lunch during a project
-One walking over a curb
-One sitting at a picnic table on our tent platform
-One I can’t remember but remember having
-> With all of these I get recollections from what I think are dreams I’ve had. Just brief emotion/memory snapshots. It’s crazy
Awright, gotta head 4 miles to Avalon to charge cell phone, wash clothes, etc
---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---
everythings good here, getting my red card for wildland firefighting this week
---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---
Catalina: day too tired for math (11/27)
Got back from two night, 35 mile hiking trip with Patrick (one of my awesome teammates) about 1.75 hrs ago. It was awesome getting back because my beloved teammates brought thanksgiving leftovers up to camp from the dinner they had at the Avalon teen center while we were backpacking. Seeing as we brought essentially no food on the trip, we were hungry.
We wanted to hike to the end of the trans-Catalina trail from our tent site and bck over the thanksgiving weekend. It is a 56 mile hike round-trip, and we each brought a small container of dried oatmeal, and between us had 14 small granola bars (those 90 calorie per bar crap. Sheesh, it’s not like I’m on a diet), two tins of honey roasted peanuts, and a handful of raisins. We didn’t have enough. I did bring (and carry the entire time) 5 liters of water.
So, yeah, this hike was a last minute decision. I had to lend Pat a spork, we left so fast. We had no tent, no bivies, just our pads and bags against the wind.
The first night we started out at dusk (~5pm) and hiked till 7pm. It was an amazingly stressful hike. The moment it got gull dark I took lead cause Pat didn’t have headlamp, and following the trail was an extremely fretful process. I worried about getting lost, even though it really didn’t matter as we were hiking on a small island, but the trail was light a dusty and the surrounding terrain was also dusty and only slightly darker. So I would get increasingly worried each time we left a trailmarker behind, until we found the next one 500 yards later.
To our merit, though, we only got lost once. The trail crossed a dry lakebed, and with no markers it was impossible to follow the trail. We found it again by beelining in the right (we thought) direction, but there is something about being tired and hungry in the darkened wilderness that freaks me out and feeds my panic monster. We had done a hard PT before hiking and I know we were throwing ourselves into an insane hike with little/no preparation. That was part of why I wanted to do it, feeding my urge to vision quest in the wild. It seems weak in retrospect to have put so much nervous energy into those few miles, but I do know that the more tired I am the more likely I will want to curl up when placed in a strange situation. Not that I ever have (damn right) but it’s that much harder to do stuff.
But it turned out ok. We aborted the 56 mile hike on day two when 2000foot elevation gains/losses in 4 miles took the wind out of both of our sails, but we still ended up hiking 36 miles overall in under 48 hours (day 1 [starting at dusk: 6 miles]->night 1->day 2 [turned around: 18 miles]->night 2->day 3 [got back around 1:30: 12 miles]). Pretty decent I’d say.
Our second night was blessed. We were both dead from the hike and hanging out at a campsite (pay-per-use, which we did not), when the site ranger drove by. She noticed us lounging on said site, and asked us if we were camping there tonight. When we said “no, we’re just cruising through” (it now being 3:30 and the last thing we wanted was to have to move), and told us our story of a failed attempt at a farther campsite, she told us that the campsite we were on was rented to her for the night. She told us that she was heading home (it was thanksgiving), and that we could use her campsite if we wanted. We got caught site-stealing (pretty much) and were given the site. THANK YOU, RANGER LADY.
Then we got home and our teammates had saved us Thanksgiving leftovers from the teen center and it was glorious.
Currently I am enjoying glory:
-my sleepingbag, hung up to air out, rotates naturally in the wind for even UV exposure
-kiwi can be eaten like and apple, skin and all and then some (4 down the hatch. Don’t tell my teammates)
-I realized I have had the most instances of déjà vu in my life since starting AmeriCorps: 4
-One at a conference table eating lunch during a project
-One walking over a curb
-One sitting at a picnic table on our tent platform
-One I can’t remember but remember having
-> With all of these I get recollections from what I think are dreams I’ve had. Just brief emotion/memory snapshots. It’s crazy
Awright, gotta head 4 miles to Avalon to charge cell phone, wash clothes, etc
---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---
everythings good here, getting my red card for wildland firefighting this week
Thursday, January 7, 2010
The Continuing Catalina Chronicles
Here's the next bit. Yeah, I'm a lazy liar who can't type stuff up when he says he will. But, in my defense, the wifi is down again. And no more news on the shooting. There is just this sketchy hookah bar that most people figure is a front for some eastern-european mob, and that's where the shooting was. Not surprising really.
---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---
Catalina: day 1
Today was much less eventful than our travel day. I made some oatmeal for bfast, and then we stacked wood all day. It looks like we may be stacking a lot of wood. Two years ago there was a massive (4000 acre ish) fire on Catalina, and all the wood that was cut down as fire prevention/cleanup got stacked in one huge pile at our campsite. It turns out that fire codes don’t allow the wood to be neatly stacked in one MASSIVE pile, so we have to separate it into individual cords. There is upwards of 50 cords of wood in this pile, I’m sure. And, ironically, the last AmeriCorps group that was on Catalina? Yeah, they stacked the wood into one massive pile. We’re just redoing their work. AHH
But stacking wood is weird. It makes me miss home, and especially Jacko. We stack wood better than anyone. If throwing and stacking wood was an Olympic event, we would easily net bronze.
Last night was cool because we all went to sleep essentially the moment it got dark. Which is to say 7 o’clock.
---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---
More...soon?
I'll talk about the boys and girls club soon too, that's where we're working now. It's a pretty cushy post. Can you say industrial dishwasher and access to their food supply? I can.
---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---
Catalina: day 1
Today was much less eventful than our travel day. I made some oatmeal for bfast, and then we stacked wood all day. It looks like we may be stacking a lot of wood. Two years ago there was a massive (4000 acre ish) fire on Catalina, and all the wood that was cut down as fire prevention/cleanup got stacked in one huge pile at our campsite. It turns out that fire codes don’t allow the wood to be neatly stacked in one MASSIVE pile, so we have to separate it into individual cords. There is upwards of 50 cords of wood in this pile, I’m sure. And, ironically, the last AmeriCorps group that was on Catalina? Yeah, they stacked the wood into one massive pile. We’re just redoing their work. AHH
But stacking wood is weird. It makes me miss home, and especially Jacko. We stack wood better than anyone. If throwing and stacking wood was an Olympic event, we would easily net bronze.
Last night was cool because we all went to sleep essentially the moment it got dark. Which is to say 7 o’clock.
---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---journal---
More...soon?
I'll talk about the boys and girls club soon too, that's where we're working now. It's a pretty cushy post. Can you say industrial dishwasher and access to their food supply? I can.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Catalina Journal take 1
So I did keep a journal on Catalina, here's the first entry from the night we arrived on November 23. Though, before I do the journal, there was a shooting right across the street! An army of SWAT and about 12 squad cars. More tomorrow on that one. The rumor currently is at least on dead and it was a bad drug deal involving the Russian mob.
---Journal---Journal---Journal---Journal---Journal---Journal---Journal---Journal---
The trip here was insane. So much action and just generally cool stuff has already happened. The start of the trip, where we all gathered up at the van, was tight-strung with energy, and the first ten minutes in the van was all yelling and laughing and good vibes, being late but not really and leaving campus for the first time on the first SPIKE.
So the first interesting thing that happened occurred when we arrived at our living arrangements at the Best Western Hotel.
But I don’t want to skip stuff. The trip was good, I listened to the ever-reliable ‘pod, we drove through mid-California to the coast, stopped at subway, and made a lot of sarcastic remarks.
Ok, interesting thing number one. When we stopped at the hotel, we did it strategically, because we were planning on putting 11 people in a room booked for four (thus saving oodles of cash we could then use to eat). So, I got out with our leader (Vlad) and another teammate (Laura) and we went to check in. Buuut, when I hopped out of the van, I forgot my headphones were on. My ipod yanked after me, the headphones jerked out, and it clattered neatly into a storm drain.
I took my typical route in calamity and ignored the problem. I find issues much easier to deal with when the emotional elements are ignored (MY MUSIC! NOOOOO!), and we went inside to check in. Later, I came out with a teammate, and managed to stick most of my upper torso into the drain. It wasn’t a grated drain, just a 6”x3’ slit in the curb which dropped about four feet to a cement slope that drained the water into the sewers or wherever it goes. The good news was that I could see my ipod, and there was no water to be seen. The bad bit was I couldn’t quite reach it, because trying to fit any more of my body into the drain brought some serious creakage from my ribs.
But, thank goodness for Jason (our unofficial cook), we had some cooking tongs. With said apparati, I was able to nab my ipod and save it from the clutches of the LA waste-treatment system. A shout-out to the old-fashioned ipod minis which can bounce off anything and not break.
The second crazy thing was the general process of fitting 11 people into one hotel room. This was no master suite neither, it was two queen beds crammed into a room, with an attached bathroom. There were three people per bed, and no space to walk on the floor. I was pretty comfy with my therma-rest, and even managed to call dibs on an outlet to charge my phone.
All the while we were all slightly concerned about whether or not the hotel would call us out on booking a room for four and then parading 11 people laden with gear through the hotel. I would like to take credit for solving that problem, if there ever was one. I went back down to the lobby after we all got up to the room to check on parking arrangements for our van, since it couldn’t fit in the garage. When I got to the lobby, there were two elderly ladies checking in with the receptionist, so I stuck my hands in my pockets and waited. However, while I was waiting, one of the ladies made a comment about “hiring one of those young men” to help with their baggage, and gestured in my direction. Being a good American lad, I laughed and asked if I could help. Long story short, I ended up loading up a cart for them and trundling their luggage up to their rooms. The women were apparently friends from elementary school traveling and sight-seeing across the west coast. Carol and Caroline, and Caroline was traveling with her husband.
They were really nice people, and I got a chance to talk about AmeriCorps NCCC as I put their bags in their rooms. One of the women tried to put a twenty dollar bill in my pocket, but I told them I couldn’t and wouldn’t anyway, policy and morals and whatsuch. Why would I sign up for NCCC if I wanted money for helping people?
The reason I take credit for ensuring the hotel didn’t care about us piling into a room is because I volunteered to help these women right at the front desk and was very obviously being a good Samaritan. Brownie points for the overbooked room.
The next interesting thing was a classic Silver IV crisis. We needed to go shopping for food while in Long Beach, so that we could bring it to Catalina with us and avoid paying lots of dough on the island. So we headed to Sam’s club to buy bulk. Unfortunately, we have something of a planning problem, and when we got there, a couple of rather important things became apparent:
1) We didn’t have a Sam’s Club membership
2) Sam’s club doesn’t give you bags to put your purchases in
3) We sure as heck hadn’t brought any extra bags
But, in classic Silver IV manner, we fixed everything on the fly. Nicole, our teammate from NYC, was an excellent distraught young idealist and talked the manager of Sam’s Club into letting us make the purchase without a card (we ARE supposed to have cards as AmeriCorps members, we just hadn’t been issued them yet). We purchased a few big, reusable grocery bags to put the food in, and the rest we packed into our clothes bags. I had refried bean cans and goldfish mingling with my socks.
But that’s the end of the crises. We made it over onto the island just fine, and spent the first day being driven around to see the 1 square mile city.
It’s beautiful here. I’m sitting at our picnic tables, fifteen feet from out sunken firepit so my headlamp doesn’t disturb the team. We’re all just sitting in silence. The stars, though I’ve been told they’re not as numerous as they could be, are gorgeous. I definitely wish you could see it. Our campsite is completely secluded on the top of one of their smaller mountains. We’re about five miles from the small city of Avalon, with permanent tent structures, bunks, running water, and a fridge, stove, etc.
I wish I could turn down the moon, it’s so damn bright. Earlier we found sports equipment in shed on the camp, and spent a half-hour hitting rocks with bats and golf clubs, throwing around volleyballs and footballs.
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Awright, I'll do more tomorrow, I want to sleep. We start at the boys and girls club tomorrow.
---Journal---Journal---Journal---Journal---Journal---Journal---Journal---Journal---
The trip here was insane. So much action and just generally cool stuff has already happened. The start of the trip, where we all gathered up at the van, was tight-strung with energy, and the first ten minutes in the van was all yelling and laughing and good vibes, being late but not really and leaving campus for the first time on the first SPIKE.
So the first interesting thing that happened occurred when we arrived at our living arrangements at the Best Western Hotel.
But I don’t want to skip stuff. The trip was good, I listened to the ever-reliable ‘pod, we drove through mid-California to the coast, stopped at subway, and made a lot of sarcastic remarks.
Ok, interesting thing number one. When we stopped at the hotel, we did it strategically, because we were planning on putting 11 people in a room booked for four (thus saving oodles of cash we could then use to eat). So, I got out with our leader (Vlad) and another teammate (Laura) and we went to check in. Buuut, when I hopped out of the van, I forgot my headphones were on. My ipod yanked after me, the headphones jerked out, and it clattered neatly into a storm drain.
I took my typical route in calamity and ignored the problem. I find issues much easier to deal with when the emotional elements are ignored (MY MUSIC! NOOOOO!), and we went inside to check in. Later, I came out with a teammate, and managed to stick most of my upper torso into the drain. It wasn’t a grated drain, just a 6”x3’ slit in the curb which dropped about four feet to a cement slope that drained the water into the sewers or wherever it goes. The good news was that I could see my ipod, and there was no water to be seen. The bad bit was I couldn’t quite reach it, because trying to fit any more of my body into the drain brought some serious creakage from my ribs.
But, thank goodness for Jason (our unofficial cook), we had some cooking tongs. With said apparati, I was able to nab my ipod and save it from the clutches of the LA waste-treatment system. A shout-out to the old-fashioned ipod minis which can bounce off anything and not break.
The second crazy thing was the general process of fitting 11 people into one hotel room. This was no master suite neither, it was two queen beds crammed into a room, with an attached bathroom. There were three people per bed, and no space to walk on the floor. I was pretty comfy with my therma-rest, and even managed to call dibs on an outlet to charge my phone.
All the while we were all slightly concerned about whether or not the hotel would call us out on booking a room for four and then parading 11 people laden with gear through the hotel. I would like to take credit for solving that problem, if there ever was one. I went back down to the lobby after we all got up to the room to check on parking arrangements for our van, since it couldn’t fit in the garage. When I got to the lobby, there were two elderly ladies checking in with the receptionist, so I stuck my hands in my pockets and waited. However, while I was waiting, one of the ladies made a comment about “hiring one of those young men” to help with their baggage, and gestured in my direction. Being a good American lad, I laughed and asked if I could help. Long story short, I ended up loading up a cart for them and trundling their luggage up to their rooms. The women were apparently friends from elementary school traveling and sight-seeing across the west coast. Carol and Caroline, and Caroline was traveling with her husband.
They were really nice people, and I got a chance to talk about AmeriCorps NCCC as I put their bags in their rooms. One of the women tried to put a twenty dollar bill in my pocket, but I told them I couldn’t and wouldn’t anyway, policy and morals and whatsuch. Why would I sign up for NCCC if I wanted money for helping people?
The reason I take credit for ensuring the hotel didn’t care about us piling into a room is because I volunteered to help these women right at the front desk and was very obviously being a good Samaritan. Brownie points for the overbooked room.
The next interesting thing was a classic Silver IV crisis. We needed to go shopping for food while in Long Beach, so that we could bring it to Catalina with us and avoid paying lots of dough on the island. So we headed to Sam’s club to buy bulk. Unfortunately, we have something of a planning problem, and when we got there, a couple of rather important things became apparent:
1) We didn’t have a Sam’s Club membership
2) Sam’s club doesn’t give you bags to put your purchases in
3) We sure as heck hadn’t brought any extra bags
But, in classic Silver IV manner, we fixed everything on the fly. Nicole, our teammate from NYC, was an excellent distraught young idealist and talked the manager of Sam’s Club into letting us make the purchase without a card (we ARE supposed to have cards as AmeriCorps members, we just hadn’t been issued them yet). We purchased a few big, reusable grocery bags to put the food in, and the rest we packed into our clothes bags. I had refried bean cans and goldfish mingling with my socks.
But that’s the end of the crises. We made it over onto the island just fine, and spent the first day being driven around to see the 1 square mile city.
It’s beautiful here. I’m sitting at our picnic tables, fifteen feet from out sunken firepit so my headlamp doesn’t disturb the team. We’re all just sitting in silence. The stars, though I’ve been told they’re not as numerous as they could be, are gorgeous. I definitely wish you could see it. Our campsite is completely secluded on the top of one of their smaller mountains. We’re about five miles from the small city of Avalon, with permanent tent structures, bunks, running water, and a fridge, stove, etc.
I wish I could turn down the moon, it’s so damn bright. Earlier we found sports equipment in shed on the camp, and spent a half-hour hitting rocks with bats and golf clubs, throwing around volleyballs and footballs.
----Journal---Journal---Journal---Journal---Journal---Journal---Journal---Journal---
Awright, I'll do more tomorrow, I want to sleep. We start at the boys and girls club tomorrow.
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