Hank Table

Here are pictures of the Hank Williams table under construction. The face carving is 90% done, but I still have to stain it and make the legs boots. The other picture is of my curly mustache I am growing. This picture is from three weeks ago, you can just see it starting to curl. It looks much better now.

Pirate's Day

Last Tuesday we celebrated Pirate's Day. It is a holiday created by one of our Americorps and some of his friends in Chicago. Pretty much you dress up like pirates and get really drunk. Scott, the creator, actually flew home to celebrate it this past weekend. We had a much more tame version here in Dallas. We dressed up and played tag for two and a half hours on an elementry school's playground. Here are some pictures. The first is of Scott and I all dressed up. I am the large half assed one. The other two are people walking the plank. One because he didn't dress up and the other because he dressed up way to well.

Saturday, March 25

Here are pictures from the past month of Saturdays. The final picture from each house is pretty much where the house stands today. The first picture is house number one lifting shingles on the roof. The second is one of our core volunteers installing a door on the storage shed of house one. Picture three is at the the end of the day on house one last Sat. Picture number four is of house number two at the start of the day Saturday. Picture number five is house two at the end of the day. Picture six is of house three from the roof of house two. Last is picture number seven of house three's carport.

The Great Dallas Flood of 2006

Last weekend here in Dallas we had a huge storm. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures but I do have a story of my adventures on Sunday. It had been raining for two days straight when I left the house Sunday afternoon to go get lunch. One of the streets I was trying cross had a good bit of water running down it but cars were crossing and it didn't seem so bad to me. I gun it across this intersection and right when I make it to the other side a big wave hits the front of my Explorer and it shuts off. I am stuck in the middle of the road with two feet of water on either side of my car in the pouring down rain. After a few minutes of sitting there I see a guy on the side of the road pointing at the front of my car. I open the door and look out to see a log jammed in between my tire and the front bumper. I decide I better get that out before it does any damage, so I climb on the hood of my car hang my legs off the side and try to kick it out. Luckily, after a few kicks it comes out. I figure there is no point in getting back in the car so I wade through the water to the side. I was in a Hispanic part of town so nobody spoke English and I didn't have my phone on me, but after a while I found a kid who spoke English and he said his dad had a truck and would be willing to push me, at least out of the flood. So he gets the truck and I go back through the water and get in my car. He pushed me out to higher ground where I then had to wait for another hour and a half before my car would start again at which point I drove the half mile back to my house. I spent two hours, only made it half a mile, and didn't even get lunch. Rain sucks just like Oprah. Both put me through a crappy ordeal and leave me with nothing to show for it.

Saturday, March 4

I am a little behind, sorry. We have been out on site everyday for the past month working on our own houses plus two model homes in preperation for the Americorps Build-a-thon we are hosting in May. Thankfully we finished the model homes today and can move in a group of A-corps NCCC kids who are coming early to help us get ready. Above are pictures from Saturday March 4. The first four are from the first house I started and the remaining three are from my house start on that day. The first picture is of volunteers lifting OSB on the roof to finish decking. The second is the volunteers in front of the house at the end of the day. The third is my Americorp Lisa hanging out on the roof. The fourth is of volunteers installing windows. The fifth is of the house start with walls partially raised, the guy in the yellow shirt is my house leader Ron. He is one of our Core volunteers. The sixth is of three of our core volunteers installing cap plate on top of the walls. And the final picture is the overhead view of the house that I got by climbing a tree in the back of the house. I have more pictures from the past few Saturdays that I will hopefully be posting shortly. I now have three houses going all of which are dried in, meaning they have at the very least blueboard on the walls windows and doors installed and tar paper on the roof. More to come later.

Wednesday

We came out with our core volunteers on wednesday and put up our front porch beams and set all our trusses. Here are pictures of the house going into Saturday #2.

Rain!

Here are pictures from Saturday. We worked the entire day in the pouring down rain. It kept us from putting the trusses on but we got all the walls stood and sheathed and we had a good time. The volunteer group was a frat. from SMU who did a great job and stuck with it even in the miserable conditions. The first picture is the SMU kids sheathing the walls with OSB. The second is my Americorp Lisa yelling at them to get to work. The third is the SMU kids at the end of the day standing on the front porch. And last is one of our new core volunteers Scott making plumbing cuts on one of the wall segments.

House Start

Whoohoo! It's finally time to start building again.













I start work on my first house of the year tomorrow and I plan on documenting the entire build right here so stay tuned for updates. This is a picture of the slab and the walls awaiting volunteers. Hopefully by the end of tomorrow all the walls will be standing with trusses on top.

Oprah, Shmoprah

So, I was supposed to be on Oprah yesterday, but, apparently she is too good to put me on. If I am going to spend 10 of the most boring days of my life in Houston to help build Oprah's Katrina houses, the least she could do is put me on the TV. From here on out I am no longer watching Oprah. Who's with me?

I Rule

Welcome To my Blog. It will be a couple days before anything worth reading will be here.