finally...an update

well well well...i guess its time...time for another mandatory post...lets see...i ll try to keep this brief and easy to read by chopping up paragraphs...

a lot has happened since the last post...our time here in Pascagoula is almost up and what a ride its been...volunteer coordinating has its pros and cons...the pros being interacting with all the different volunteers that have come through that I ve had the pleasure of coordinating and getting to know due to my position...i can now proudly say that if i need a place to stay in Illinois, Missouri, or Ohio i have some awesome people i can call up and crash with...the cons being basically everything else...hahha...but overall...a very rewarding experience...

so on April 14th we ll be leaving pascagoula to head over to houston, texas for a week of debriefing and reflection and just plain old reunions with all the other teams from our campus...and after that week...we ll be heading over to our next project in NEW ORLEANS...

"nawlins" as its called down here in the south is the next destination...my team is really happy because we got our first choice of projects for this round...we ll be staying at Camp Hope and working with the New Orleans Habitat for Humanity...my team and i are really excited to drop the admin work and just get to focus on building for a good 6-8 weeks...we want to get all the building skills down so that when we go to our next projects we ll actually know what we re doin instead of just BSing.

i m especially excited to be going just because i ve heard so much about camp hope from friends and my family who stayed there for a week volunteering in the exact same spot that i ll be doing rebuilding...who knows...maybe i ll be building houses on sites that they helped gut or clear out...that would be pretty cool...my family drew pictures of themselves on some walls in camp hope so one of the first things i ll be doing is going to find those walls and take a picture next to it...for those that dont know...camp hope is a huge volunteer center in new orleans that houses close to 800 volunteers if i m not mistaken...some people say the rooms look like army barracks which are basically rooms that have been divided by one sheet of drywall with 15-20 mattresses piled in a room...some people are skeptical...but i m totally excited

i ve been loving the feeling about not having to worry about what i m gonna eat or where i m gonna sleep...americorps nccc is an awesome program that i think all of you should definitely do...i keep finding out that there are a lot of middle school and high school students down here helping out because service hours is a requirement for their graduation...thats so cool...when i heard that i totally thought that that is what it should have been like for me...instilling a sense of service at a young age would totally make our culture a little less self centered in my opinion

so the big project at our center started last monday...100 homes in a 100 days...a lot of media hoopla on monday where most of my team actually got on the front page of the newspaper for the area...pretty cool i guess...wish this project luck...getting 100 families into their homes will be such a great accomplishment for this community...

i went to new orleans for st patricks day which was pretty fun...bourbon street is definitely a place that is booming with culture and nightlife...definitely something you dont see everyday...i can honestly say that i m sick of seeing those plastic beads everywhere...i dont understand the obsession with them...i refuse to wear any...

we had a new team join us about 2 weeks ago who are helping us run the place now and i really am glad that they re here...it helped mix things up and added a breath of fresh air into the atmosphere around here...i like them a lot and its already sad to think that we wont be together for the rest of the projects...but yeah...we re having fun down here

other things of interest might include the BAR ASSAULT that we were unfortunately involved in...basically we were all hanging out at the local bar which is like 4 blocks away from our center...this is a small bar that we ve been to a few times before where we have always met great people...the night we went was a more crowded night and lets just say...not many minorities...in fact, i along with my teammate who is african american were the only minorities in the bar...there were a couple of us playing shuffleboard...which by the way is such an awesome game...basically some drunk young football-lookingish guy who was playing pool all of a sudden starts pointing his pool stick at my friends and saying "you got a problem? you got a problem?"...both of them (who werent even facing him at all!!!) both said calmly "no, no problem" and go back to playing our game...after one of my teammate leaves to answer a phone call...my other teammate...the african american one...gets assaulted...all of a sudden i see the guy charge my friend and basically sucker punch my friend and runs him into the wall...he then proceeds to throw him against the other wall across the room...at this time... i m a little in shock but rush over there where at this point, tables have been knocked down and they are now wrestling on the floor...(note that my friend is not fighting or throwing punches at all....he has his hands up the whole time)...so when i get over there to try to break it up...i get picked up from behind and SLAMMED to the floor...by a big huge football looking guy with this pastel blueish polo shirt with his collar popped...after i got off the floor, some old man runs up to me and asks if i m ok...i just go back and try to break up the chokehold the guy has on my friend (and at this point all my other teammates are screaming at the guy to stop)...after a couple more seconds my friend gets out of the guys hands and i walk with him immediately to the front and tell my friends we re leaving...one of the regulars walks up to us outside the bar and asks us what happened and i begin to explain that we re volunteers in the area and that we re not here to cause any trouble and he immediately tells us that he knows who we are because we had come in the other night and he asks if we re ok...i immediately think that my friend and i have to get out of the area so we walk back to the center...the whole walk back all i could think of in my mind was guys coming in pick ups to jump us again...but we make it back ok...as soon as i get him inside i head back over to the bar because all our other friends are there (a significant amount of which are girls) so i wanted to make sure that everything was ok...i catch up to them halfway to the bar and they told me what happend after we left...they told me that all the locals in the bar came up to us and started defending at us yelling at the guys who started all the trouble...they said that they all came out saying "i m sooo sorry...please dont let this be a representation of mississippi for you...these are just young redneck kids who havent learned the way yet"...funny hearing them say rednecks...they wanted to drive the rest of my team home just to make sure we got back safely...they were all so nice...one of the bartenders actually yelled at the guys saying "those are my friends, get out of here"...they all told my teammates how thankful they are that we are here and how sorry they were...it was really a nice thing on their part and really helped save our thoughts on mississippi...it was just so random and bad because if you knew my teammate who got attacked he is the quietest person ever who hardly speaks to US so its impossible that he would have said anything to strangers...hhaha...who knows if it was racially motivated or not but its just ironic that the only 2 minorities in the bar got attacked...he was fine...he didnt have a scratch on him and i just had a bruised elbow for a day or two...and now it just makes a cool story...to have actually been in a bar fight with tables falling...we went back to the bar just recently and we found out that those guys are banned from the bar forever...and the people still love us there...so there...little details are left out because i could go on forever but that s the gist of it...bar fight in mississippi...hahha

now on a lighter note...the weather is warming up here and its getting a little humid...oh man...i dont know how i m gonna survive actually doing manual labor in this weather...a lot of deodorant and cologne will have to suffice...

its only been about 2 months since i ve left but it feels like forever...i feel like i ve known my team all my life...i guess thats what eating, sleeping, working, and basically doing everything else with your teammates will do to a person...but its awesome...we have a good team that works well together...

after talking with my old roommate, i ve come to the conclusion that i really miss these certain types of noodles...so if anyone has nothing to do and wants to send me something random...get me some MI GORENG noodles from your local Ranch 99...they look like ramen packets...but they re like a dry noodle that doesnt have any broth...if you send me a bunch i will love you forever..i m trying to think of other things that i ve been missing or want....hmmmm

i cant really think of anything else of significant importance that has happened since the last post...i really want to post pics that i ve been taking or that my friends have been taking since i totally dont take as many pictures as i should...but its just so much more difficult...so i ll post a link to one of my picture sites and you can look for yourself what i have up there and maybe later i ll post some actually on this site...here it is

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v55/dulldavid/denver/

a couple points of info for everyone...when i call people and ask people why they dont call ME...i always tend to get the same lame excuse...and yes its understandable but still lame...i always get the excuse that everyone thinks i am busy and they dont want to bother me...i understand that but seriously...i would much rather get missed calls from people then not get anything at all...here are some things so you dont have any excuses...currently i am 2 hours ahead of pacific standard time...i wake up at 7 AM here and get done with work around 5 PM...so basically anytime after that i am free...i stay up to about 3 AM everynite so thats still 1 AM for all you at home which i m sure is still later than a lot of you...so dont be afraid to call...i know i should be calling too but if you feel like calling...just call...10 minutes, an hour or a minute...i dont care...and i ll try to call more too...

one more point of info is that if you re gonna send me a package, please let me know...i know this might be lame but if you send me a package to denver at this moment...i wont be getting it for a couple of months because they dont forward packages from denver to wherever my project is if it is too big...so sometimes it might be easier to ship it out directly to where my project is but you have to ASK me first. I dont want to get back to denver to open a package only to find that whatever was sent is eaten by mold.

well the last thing i m gonna post is actually a video of my teammate from when we were back in denver...he s a great musician and this is when he played 2 songs that he wrote at our talent show...seriously...he s really really good...we make him play these songs all the time...the quality of the video isnt great but the audio is good so just listen...he definitely has potential to make it...so listen and enjoy...i really didnt like the first song that much when i first heard it but i absolutely love it now...its called ariella...and the second is called mother mary and its also awesome...



and i dont know if you read this but if you do...happy birthday wootie...

take care you all...miss you guys...keep me in your thoughts and prayers