3/19/07 - Day 3 - Monday - Proven right yet again
The first day on the job. We got up at 6:30am except for Sunshine because he was sleepy and stayed till 7am. Breakfast was bagel omelets which were terrific along with cereal. After a quick meeting, we went off to our jobsite, a house that had been started the previous Tuesday and already had side papering on it. My job was to work with about half of our group at fitting and nailing in particle siding (a mix of wood and concrete), and let me tell you, the human scenery greatly improved. Most of the local workers were women within 5 years of my age and they were already tanned, freckled, and beautiful. I restrained flirting with them because I'm not too stupid to realize that every male volunteer that's down here for a week has probably hit on them at least once. Scott, on the other hand, stayed with the two most beautiful ladies on the scene in the back doing siding the entire day. I was impressed...and a bit jealous. But hey, it was cool. There are some pictures of today I have posted as well, which will turn into a progression of the house as the week wears on and I will hopefully make a short DVD of the house and how much we have done to it.
Today we accomplished: Front steps, 2 sides of siding, all of the dry-walling in the entire house, and a lot of painting was done. It was a really productive day. I have a blister on the front of my thumb from all the hammering I did today. It was also amazing how unskilled some of these people are and how not proactive they are in attempting to get jobs done. I was disappointed to learn that one person even quit the job two hours early to go take a nap. Seriously, why even go on the trip? That actually sickened me. And this same girl is a bouncing betty when we return, full of energy. To sum up today, I felt like, compared to any day this semester, that I accomplished a ton. I also had a lot of fun doing it and am at the most peace I have been in a long time, except for you know...almost dying when the Sherminator got to drive the van after going to Wal-Mart. I learned even more about this naive idiot. He doesn't know the rules of the road and absolutely cannot think on his feet. Take leaving the Wal-mart parking lot for instance, where we spent 4 minutes just trying to direct him to an exit, an exit to which he cannot even make a left turn to go back to camp. We make a right turn. We make a left turn into a parking lot instead of making a U-turn because the Sherm audibly states that he is too afraid to make a U-turn. We proceed to pull into a parking spot in the Auto-Zone since he cannot even make a full circle in an open parking lot. We get in a position to pull out of the parking lot, he checks for oncoming traffic and guns it...only to have everyone scream watch out because he didn't look ahead of the van...where a Dodge Ram was making a left turn in front of us. He barely even brakes and the Ram pulls out in front of us. The Ram makes a quick right turn, when the Sherm wasn't looking and almost plows into the truck again...and instead of braking, swerves into the other lane without looking. Oh, did I forget to mention that in the parking lot he ran over the curb and almost tipped the van? I didn't? Well, that happened as well.
We came back for a nice dinner and here I stand before you, writing incessantly so as not to forget the one Spring break in my life that I've actually taken a road trip. And now time for a fitful sleep next to pedophilic old men who, under the guise of good samaritans, are actually look at our nubile bodies. Eww...not going to think about it.
3/18/07 - Day 2 - Sunday
Okay, technically day 2, but this is the first whole day we've been here. I am currently downloading all the pictures I've taken, and since the CF card is only 128 megs, I only have 47 pictures today. "only." I told the group that I would put all of the pictures on my computer as the week progresses, organize them, and burn them to cds. That's the easiest way to make sure that I get all the pictures without the hassle. But anyways, I got up around 8am, because I needed to sleep in of course. The church camp is in the middle of Bay St. Louis, and is basically like a modern Dachau in setup. There are 8 bunk houses and one huge General Steel pre-made building. Inside there are bathrooms and showers that are separated, but the entire rest of the building is delineated by nothing more than chest high walls and tables. I learned how to play Euchre this morning with Jon and Drew, and came pretty close to beating them with Scott as my teammate, but we ended up losing by one point as the day progressed.
Breakfast was delicious...and actually all of the meals are delicious. I feel like I'm being treated like a king in that respect. There was a church service where the pastor self-flagellated (it is a Presbyterian church, after all), but just before the service I saw a flier that said the church was looking for 16 college-aged students to work over the summer as unpaid interns. I jumped at the chance and talked to the pastor directly after service and told him he would have to pry my cold, dead fingers off such an opportunity. I don't care if I get a physics internship, this is an opportunity so much bigger than I am and I would regret not taking him up on the opportunity. Plus, he said one of the positions available is taking pictures of all the different worksites and working with technical stuff. OMFGWTFBBQ, I told him he literally said, "Alex Boecher, I want you to come down here this summer." And as I just typed that, I am beginning to believe that God is telling me to come down here for the summer. I don't tend to pick up on things that God tells me, but maybe this is one of those shoves. Interesting.
After service, the girl I regard as the leader of the group, Melissa Myers, said there was a swamp tour opportunity. 8 of the 12 of us went. It is on the Pearl River in Louisiana, about a 40 minute drive from where we were. It was a life changing opportunity, let me tell you. Go to the pictures page and you'll see all I've done this week. I'm sure the pictures will be endless. But anyways, we got there and the trees were so beautiful, I just started snapping pictures left and right. The tour guide was amazing and I'll never forget how nice the guy and how much he knew about his river. The first thing we did was go and see a 15 foot alligator that he estimated to be 70 years old judging by his size and how long they've seen him around. It was amazing to see these creatures in their element, in nature, and if even half of America were to see such beauty in nature, conservation efforts would go through the roof. But the rest I cannot explain, you'll just have to see the pictures.
To cap off the day, we went to Waffle House much to Jon and Drews' joy, and proceeded to have an amazing Waffle House meal and deal with amazing Waffle House staff who, despite great Waffle House prices, couldn't add our tickets right and we almost got ripped off by roughly five dollars. It was crazy, but we loved it anyways. One of the girls actually cried because she didn't get her toast. Although she said she cries really easily, and it was probably crying from laughing too much, but actually crying. But that pretty much closed up the day because it was dark when we left, there was more Euchre and I talked with a few people who were from Knoxville, TN. There have been so many groups here over the past year, and the outpouring of help is stunning. It gives me hope for humanity to work together to solve problems...except global warming.
And to make the day just that more exciting, there is no recycling here, so I started a recycling program! We're going to bring home all of the cans this week and my hopes are by the end of the week to make a schedule where church groups bring cans home each week until recycling services are restored. We're currently drinking everything out of Busch water cans that were donated by Anheiser-Busch. Yep, we're drinking out of beer cans. Bunks are out at 10pm, good night all.
3/18/07 - Day 1 - Saturday
Today is day 1 of the MI Habitat for Humanity trip. This was a downright bad day. My day basically started the Friday night when I didn't stop talking to a few people until about 10:30pm. Since I was going to be driving all of Saturday, I had resigned to go to bed around 9pm that night. 10:30pm was a bargain my body gladly took. My roommate, on the other hand, did not have to drive the next day, but still had a 16 hour drive ahead of him which meant that he didn't have to sleep and he had to be up at 4:30am. Long story short, he interrupted my sleep first by coming in at 1am, second by his first alarm at 3am, and thirdly by his 2nd alarm at 4:30am along with his last minute packing. I was pissed. Oh well, I got over it.
I arrive a few minutes behind schedule to our meeting place and the only other person not to arrive is Sherman, the Frisbee house douche who complained about getting up at 5:30am because it was 'before the sun was up' which is why I will refer to him here on out as Sunshine or just Sherm. Sherm will play an important role in the coming blogs, of this I am sure. So, we get on the road at 6:05am instead of 6am because Sunshine got up at 5:50 with about 10 bags to bring on the trip and then proceeded to inspect every car to see which one had the most space to lay out in. The van won, thank God. The first few hours of the trip pass uneventfully, and with my suggestions on the route, we shaved off a good 60 or so miles by driving through Champaign. Of course, the lead driver gets the credit for his great navigation skills instead of me...but that's ok. We stop twice, very efficient, in and out in half an hour, and no problems arrive until Memphis. Just north of Memphis, Becky and I trade places in my Ranger so I could sleep, and I wake up to some wild jerking and her grumbling about keeping up. It turns out that the first two drivers are speed demons through downtown rush hour Memphis traffic and she's trying to drive a truck, one she has never driven before. I call the guy up on his cell and tell him to quit doing 80 in such heavy traffic and that we were having trouble keeping up. Take note that by this point, Becky and I had counted at least 16 times that the van driver, Drew, had swerved on the other side of the white line, 7 time of which resulted in hitting the noise strips. They argued that my speedometer was off and that they were only doing 70, but they forgot to take into account the fact that we had to go faster in order to catch up with their steady pace after being stuck behind slow cars. So we all made it through there decent and for the rest of the drive, the guys want to do 75. I was pissed because you get bad gas mileage that fast and there was some beautiful scenery, but they told me to keep up and I wasn't paying for gas. I still don't like wasting fuel...
The next stop was for dinner south of Jackson where we had our most inefficient stop. First off, there was no gas and I was at half a tank. Secondly, it took Sunshine 10 minutes to get out of the van and is the last in line. No exaggeration. We all order burgers to go at Wendy's, except for Sunshine, who orders a 6 inch wide plate of chili. Now I love my chili, but it is not a friggin' to-go food!!! He clambers back in the van and some how makes the rest of the trip without spilling it. I was amazed. But when we got back on the road, we ran around 75 mph and I wanted to see the scenery. But apparently the people at the church were waiting for us, so we had to make good time. Long story short, we got there in one piece around 8pm, everyone was very hospitable, and we were shown our bunks around 11pm. Around 2am, we found out that there was a 60-year-old that snored louder than thunder, but with a towel over my head, I made the best of things and had a decent sleep.
3/07/06 - Square the operator and divide by 2*m
The stress is over! I finally finished my second quantum physics test and I think it went well. So I'm updating my blog, watching Scrubs and waiting for Lost to come on. I also need to get dinner somewhere along in there.... I'll get around to it sometime. I've gained 10 lbs since the beginning of the semester and I think its muscle, but who knows. Maybe I'm just a fattie.
I met a really nice girl the other day. I've known her for awhile, but we never got to know each other very well. I think I'll take her out to dinner and work on becoming date-able again. I've been somewhat of a work-a-holic between the Admissions Office, IT, Habitat for Humanity, research, tests, and everything else that usually piles up on my life. Oh yea, internship deadlines. I'm working on that, too. Stress encompasses my life like a cold damp blanket that never leaves me alone. I'm so ready for spring break! Of course, everyone says that, but I can't wait because I want to go help people live in a house! I recently found out that the eye of Hurricane Katrina went right over Bay St. Louis. In fact, I have a gallery of pictures you can view that profile the eye of the storm very, very well. Take a look.
Beyond that, nothing much. I still have not updated the links on my 'links' page but I plan on getting to the xml coding soon. Check back and see the new stuff.
2/25/07 - Carry on, Journey of life, trimming whiskers, dog or a cat
There happens to be a new greatest CD in my life. It's the Anchorman Soundtrack CD. Will Ferrell continued his great performance by compiling a great mix of songs and commentary. The title was random excerpts from one such commentary which had me in stitches. Oh Steve Dursey, you poor son of a bitch...
I still haven't
gotten my Quantum Mechanics test back, thank God. I am truly terrified of
getting that test back because I don't want to find out that I failed
it.
You say, "Alex, it wasn't that bad." There were 4 questions and I got 2 of them
completely wrong. "Spalding is lenient," you say. I didn't write
anything down for one of the two I got wrong because I was so dumbfounded and
the other one I scribbled a lot which could get me partial credit. I'd say
a safe bet is around the 50s or 60s. AAAAAAAAA!!!!1!!!1!1!1!!11!
I went to Nelle's birthday party last night which was a blast because I got to teach a bunch of people how to get hammered out of their minds without even trying. I even succeeded with a few, but the rest resisted my charms and drank in moderation. Smart kids they were... Ah well, I tried to tone down my peer pressure last night on everyone except a girl there named Carole who is one of the most uptight women I know and I wanted to get her to loosen up and have a good time. She ended up drinking like one and saying she was dizzy and spent the rest of the night giving people fucking water. Whatever, some people even I can't change.
Nothing much else new, I hope you enjoy the graph from indexed, a blog that I found that's somehow connected with the guy who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek.
2/19/07 - I have become comfortably numb
I have gotten back into the habit of writing a blog often because I have started having more time and I'm attempting to make myself more motivated at life. As of late, I have had no motivation for anything...period. I missed the deadline for one of my internships because I didn't fill out the damn papers soon enough. They were due the 12th...and as you can see, it is currently the 19th. It has taken me a week and a half to fill out my good grades report for the insurance company so I can save a lot of money on my car insurance. No, I didn't switch to Geiko, farkin' lizard. I am, however, hopefully keeping up my grades. I'm doing well in at least two of my three classes. But in general, I have been pretty numb to the world's problems. I even forgot a few appointments, but that was also because I'm so busy. I have to keep my date book on me at all times, otherwise I could forget to write something in it. If it's not written in that book, I won't do it because I'll forget. Just this weekend, I had homework assignments in every class, a tour of campus on Saturday, an Ambassador's club meeting Sunday evening, the Habitat for Humanity build from 8-12 on Saturday, and countless study groups to attend. AHHHHH.
Besides that, I kind of miss home, more so because I won't be there until June for sure, and maybe not even until August if my New York internship goes through. I have two other internships in line that could come through; one in Chicago and the other at home in Eau Claire, WI. I'm hopeful that I'll have a summer internship, I've worked pretty damn hard at getting these things coming through.
Only one more week until I start my photo-blog. A picture a day for a whole month!
2/14/07 - A picture says 1000 words
thanks xkcd.com
2/12/07 - A whole new look
So kp has let me in on an awesome way to do a blog. It's a photo-blog where I take one picture of myself every day for a month and post it instead of writing stuff. Considering I don't write on my blog enough, this seems like a good idea, so starting March 1st, I'm going to start posting one picture per day. I think it will go along well with my new website look. The side bar is a picture of me swinging into Dells Pond in the middle of Eau Claire, WI. A few small things have changed such as the lack of a guestbook page because the host for that fun little thing went down. I have a misc. page which I have to work on a bit, and my links are still the same except I haven't been able to change the background to white yet. I know the white is pretty harsh, but I was running low on ideas and it was the best of about 4 different ideas I had.
I found out last week right after the Superbowl that I am going to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi where Hurricane Katrina victims are still trying to recover from the mess. I'm so glad I get to go because I didn't do anything over Christmas break like buy presents for Operation Christmas Child, but this will help to make up for it. I don't know if we're going to tear down old houses or build a new house, but as long as I'm going somewhere for Spring Break! I even get to drive my own truck because I'm packing everyone's gear in the back and taking it down. 12 hours of farkin' awesome music, some weird people I don't know and well...I don't know.
Other than that, I'm glad I finally got my website updated and if you go through my pictures (which are also newly updated) please notify me of any broken links. Thanks. Heh, and I'm still looking for someone to be my Valentine! Who's up to the task?
1/5/07 - Coincidences
I don't believe in coincidences, I believe in miracles. I choose to ignore luck and look for divine intervention where others see statistics. It is the way of people who have faith, and I think that fate has brought me many twists that would have otherwise not occurred.
I had an interesting conversation this evening with an acquaintance I haven't spoken to in over a year. The reason that I chose this evening to respond, I don't know, but I think that God puts people into and out of our lives for a reason. Whether or not we agree with those reasons, or in fact know what those reasons are, is up for grabs. I learned many things this evening that I did not know, mostly things I didn't care to know since they pertained to events in the past, but I heard them nonetheless and dealt with them.
It is funny how someone believes that with a few simple words, they can fix the wounds that were cut so deep. I think I'm being way too cryptic for anyone to understand what I am trying to explain, but it's better that most people don't know. That's the privilege of having a blog; only you know what's truly going on and only you can edit what is said.
To be on a clearer path, I got home from a pseudo-date with a very nice girl I was introduced to in Eau Claire. From what I see, she's got it all; looks, knowledge, personality. She's even single, who'da thunk it? I'm not really sure how I happened upon such a nice girl, but my hopes are high for a future encounter, maybe over the summer? It all depends on what happens this semester. I wouldn't mind finding a girl this semester to date, but since I'm not the one for half-ass relationships, I probably wouldn't be out of said relationship by summer. So that leaves me in a pickle as to whether or not to let this nice girl go her way and see what happens this semester, or hedge my bets on her. Who knows, I'll find out Saturday night, our final meeting before school begins for me.