We ended up spending most of our time in three houses within a block of each other (and 2 houses were side by side). There was a little work outside of these three houses, none of which I was involved in (I did all of my work in the three main houses). The outside work included:
– a little drywall work in a house that was mostly finished
– picking up shingles off of the ground at a house that was being re-shingled
– moving a very heavy “play house” that was something like 12′ x 12′
– loading up several storage sheds on to trailers to be moved to sites

As far as work that I was involved in:

Monday: The work site was about 3 miles from the Habitat headquarters, so a very short drive right through downtown Battle Creek. The group was split into three groups: one made up of guys went to move the “playhouse,” one went to a house on Jericho Street, and I went with Mrs. Dubbs’ group to a house about a block from Jericho. It turned out that I was the only guy on the group. The primary focus of the work in this house was to finish interior demolition – some had been done already. We had to clear all plaster and laths that were still on the walls and ceilings, we had to remove all baseboards, we had to shovel and clear out the powder insulation that was all through the house, and we had to pull out every nail on the walls and ceilings. For those who have never dealt with laths, there are many many nails for every board, and so there is an endless-seeming supply of nails on a wall where laths have been torn down. I got to work pulling down the remains of a ceiling, and I pulled nails out of the ceiling boards. This was to take most of the day, and was largely overhead work (it was tough on my shoulder by the end of the day).

The rest of the team attacked the chimney, tearing it down from the roof line to the basement in about 5 hours or so – they cranked on it. The bricks were thrown out the window, and then were picked up by a team on the ground, and then thrown in the almost-full dumpster. By the end of the day, the dumpster was full, and we had to start piling trash on the lawn. Other students went to work on the baseboard, which did not come up easily. This led to shouts of “Oh, yeah!” and such when a board let loose. There were also multiple people who were trying to keep the job site clear of junk, with only some success – we were making messes faster than they could be cleared, especially on the second floor where we were mostly concerned with teardown instead of cleaning up.

We did join the rest of the group for lunch over on Jericho Street. That group had walked into a house that had not been touched, and were just doing demolition on it. To make things more fun, they had no dumpster, so they were trying to work around piles of debris.

Tuesday: I went back to the same house as on Monday, but with a slightly different group of students. The students are encouraged to switch around sites to get to work with different students and to work on different houses.

I puttered around a bit, and then talked with a Habitat guy (Dirk) who wanted me to take a student with me next door and tear down a ceiling. The house next door was mostly stripped inside, but there was one room that still had a drywall ceiling on it. Habitat had hoped to keep it since it was in good shape, but the heating crews needed it removed. So, I got a student, and we went at the ceiling with a hammer and a crowbar. It made a huge mess, but we managed to plow through all of the sheet rock in about two hours. Unfortunately, tearing down the drywall left all of the drywall screws in the ceiling, which (you guessed it) had to come out. But that would have to wait – I had to make a trip to Lowe’s to get more dust masks; we were going through 20 or so a day (it was messy work), and I had only brought 40. I got back from Lowe’s just in time for lunch, which was over at Jericho again. Right at the end of lunch, a dumpster was delivered to the Jericho site. It is an odd thing to be so glad to see a giant trash can, but now the Jericho house could be cleared out of all the piles of debris that were lying around everywhere.

After lunch, four students and I used two drills to take out the drywall screws. It was all overhead work, and the drills got heavy fast, so we took turn spelling each other. Sometime during the afternoon, a truck delivered our replacement dumpster (the full one had been taken away right after lunch). I helped clean up our drywall mess, and the crew in the other house cleared their trash up. I wrapped the day up by going back to the original house and I pulled nails for another half hour.

Wednesday: We (the group) started the day by loading some siding on to a trailer. The siding was in cardboard that had sat out for some time, and the cardboard was quite slimy. I did not load – I just watched and took pictures.

I then went back to the house where we had taken down the drywall ceiling (I called it the “new” house – in the sense it was new to me on Tuesday as opposed to the original house from Monday). I worked with one of the chaperons who is very handy (he does construction). We set to work doing framing. The chaperon (Nate) and a Habitat worker (Mike) did the actual framing. We had two students cut the boards using a circular saw. They were a little nervous at first, but they did a nice job. I kept an eye on things while I pulled nails out of framing studs that we had taken down so that we could reuse them. We spent the entire day (except lunch over at Jericho) doing framing. It was a pretty easy day for me, and I felt a little under-utilized. It was probably okay so that I could recover from all of the overhead work of the last two days, but I still felt as if I did not do too much.

Thursday: We started the day loading siding again. Again, I just took pictures. I then headed over to the original house, where I finally got my hand slimy by unloading the siding with the help of four other students. That took probably about 30-45 minutes. I saw that I was not really needed at the new house, so I headed over to Jericho to see if I could be useful.

I started by going into the kitchen to help remove a ceiling in there. It actually turned out to be three ceilings – the original plaster-and-lath ceiling, and two more ceilings installed over it (I think one was plaster and one was drywall). The ceiling came down in cascades of plaster – so much so that I actually found chunks of plaster in my underwear later in the day.

I did that for awhile, and then I left it (in a volunteer’s (Dave’s) good hands) for a water break. I saw part of the group cleaning out the garage around the side of the house. I was tired of plaster and dust, so I leant a hand at hauling the junk. On one trip to the dumpster, I found a DVD of the movie Mean Girls, which I gave to Craig since it was a point of pride that he had never seen a Lindsay Lohan film.

I then went back inside and pulled out the old electrical wire (it was not up to code), and then pulled more nails. Now that I was over at Jericho, lunch was served over at the new house. I spent the rest of the day on pulling wire and nails. One interesting thing about Jericho – it had gas pipes in the ceiling for gas lighting! Pretty cool – that must have been from around 1890 or so.

Friday: Friday was the last day we had on the job sites. I went back to Jericho, where I had the satisfying job of getting to go in the basement and tear out the furnace and all the ductwork. I got to do this with my boss, who was a chaperon on the trip. We were saving the duct work for scrap, but we could still hammer on the stuff in order to get it down. With some help, we got the furnace and hot water heater removed. We also had some students attack the cast iron sewage pipes with sledge hammers. We yanked out all of the small iron and copper piping that was used for water (to faucets).
 
At lunch (at the new house), Habitat brought us brownies, ice cream, and hot fudge as a thank you. That was very nice of them (and quite good to eat after a week of low chocolate availability!).

After lunch, I went back to Jericho to finish cleaning up the basement. The group as a whole finished up the house about 3:00. Not too bad – a whole interior demolished in five days. We all went back to the new house, where the group spent time cleaning up while the group that was already there continued to do framing. I helped Craig and a couple of students yank one-inch staples out of the old kitchen floor, which is harder than it sounds. We wrapped up around 4:00 or so, and called it a week.

I am very proud of the students – they worked very hard, and I never heard any complaining. As a matter of fact, one day the crew on dumpster duty spent most of the day singing songs ranging from  The Lion King to Sunday School songs. I get to be involved with some very quality students – one the best benefits of working at CVCA.

Post script – I do not know how long the link will be active, but here is a short video the local paper made:
http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070330/VIDEO/70330012

This was my second year to go on the Diakonos Spring Break trip. Every year, CVCA sends some students and adults to go help Habitat for Humanity in a city within a few hours of NE Ohio. This year we went to Battle Creek, Michigan, with 25 students and 8 adults.

We could not have asked for a nicer day to travel on. We met at the school last  Sunday around 12:30, and we got on the road around 1:15 or so. We loaded into 4 vans, 1 pickup truck, and my car (a Ford Focus hatchback). Last year, we used my car to haul stuff, but this year it was not needed for that. My car was going along mostly as a around-town vehicle to run errands in, which it is very handy for.

The weather was fine, and we took route 80 West into Indiana, where we headed north on route 69. A short trip west on I-94 took us to Battle Creek. We had two short stops along the way – once in western Ohio, at the only non-renovated why-did-we-stop-at-THIS-rest-stop stop along the highway. Folks used the bathroom and bought some food if they wanted to, and we got back on the road fairly efficiently (about 15 minutes). We then stopped about an hour later in Michigan to gas up some of the vans. All in all, I think the trip took about 4.5 hours.

Once we got to the Habitat for Humanity building we would be staying in, we unloaded the vans, and we got set up in our rooms where we would be staying for the week. The facility was fairly nice; the girls had two smaller rooms to keep their stuff in and sleep in, and the guys had one small room to stash our stuff in; we slept in the big common room. Habitat provided small mattresses for everyone – they were thin (about 3″ thick), narrow and long, and most people just threw their sleeping bags on the mattresses. I have back problems, so I brought an air mattress to sleep on – I was spoiled, but it kept my back in fairly good working order for the trip.

The facility had 4 bathrooms – 2 guys’ bathrooms and 2 girls’ bathrooms. During the week, after we got back from the job sites, the girls got to “convert” one of the bathrooms into a girls’ bathroom so they could have 3 showers (there were 19 girls to 14 guys on the trip). The kitchen was fully equipped and could seat all 33 of us, albeit a little cosily.

So, the trip got off to a very good start. I’ll try to blog more over the next few days. I’ll break down the trip into categories: the working day, the spiritual life, and entertainment.

God is pulling no punches this week. Our group is going on a trip to help the poor. Yesterday we get the visit from the census folks doing research that leads to stats on the poor. Then, Ken gave a very angry sermon based on Amos about how badly we treat the poor (you “buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals” from Amos chapters 3 and 8, mainly). Wonder what God is trying to say to me?

Our address was selected at random to be part of the Census Bureau’s surveys. It involves being visited once/month for four months, then being “out of the survey” for eight months, then being back in the survey for four months again. They ask questions about how many people live here, do we both work, are we working full time, how many hours is that, etc. Each month also has a supplemental survey. One month it was about going out to eat, one month it was about smoking. This month it was about poverty and about health insurance. As part of that, we got a brochure from the Census Bureau on the latest stats on poverty and health insurance. Some lowlights:
– Earnings went up 1.1% last year, but real median income (they do not explain what this is, but it is different from earnings) has gone down 1.8% for men and 1.3% for women from 2004 to 2005. This has gone down for two years for men and three years for women.
– The number of uninsured went up 1.9 million people from 2004 to 2005, to 46.6 million people (15.9% of the population).
– 12.6% of Americans live in poverty (37 million people).

It is a little ironic (or good timing) that this survey happened the day before our group leaves for Habitat. I don’t have great answers to help the poor across the country, but at least some teenagers can help three families out.

I’m off to Battle Creek, MI, for this year’s Diakonos trip. Diakonos is the CVCA service group that helps with Habitat for Humanity. This year there is a group of about 25 students going, and we’ll be gone about 6 days (over spring break). I’ll try to keep notes like I did last year (check out postings here if you want an idea of what goes on).

We had a solid Fools show this last Thursday. It was a rainy evening, and it was the Thursday before spring break (a day that can be project/test/paper intensive), and there was an Ohio State basketball game on TV, and we still a decent-sized crowd of about 30 people. The audience was a little quiet, which is weird when you are on stage, but Meredith (who was in the audience) says she heard lots of murmured comments such as “that was funny” or “that was great.”

I was pleased with how the show went – we had a few slow spots, and as the director I noticed a few spots where I would have liked things to have been heightened or for relationships to have been stronger, but on the whole I think the Fools did well. The show went about an hour and ten minutes total. I also was encouraged in that a junior who was quite funny in Audience Participation Freeze wants to join the Fools; I asked him to try it this year for the five weeks remaining before our last show. I know it is not much time, but it will help him get used to improv, and it will help me get the Fools up to six people for the last show (my ideal case is 7-8 people). The last show should be on Tuesday, May 1st, so mark your calendars.

Mer and I did the whirl-wind tour to South Bend and back this last weekend. We went out to see Sis-der, Prof. Dad, and of course, the World’s Cutest Niece (WCN).
The trip out was uneventful. It takes about 4.5 hours to get to Sis-der’s house when we leave from CVCA (including one supper stop). For good measure, we threw in a bonus Dairy Queen stop just over the Indiana line, and then we managed to miss our exit, which resulted in a 20-minute delay. So, we got to Sis-der’s house about 10:00 or so, and after quiet greetings (the WCN was in bed), we all rambled off to go to sleep.

Saturday was a nice, sunny day. Mer and I slept in until about 8:30, and as good fortune would have it, so did the WCN. Prof. Dad had to put in some office time, and had an appointment as well, so he left shortly after I got up and had showered. While Mer got ready for the day, I took the opportunity to throw some Maura O’Connell on the stereo and danced WCN around the room. WCN then headed off to take a nap (taking after Uncle Mu!).

Since our friends who live in South Bend, Gen and Dan, were coming over to visit, and since it was St. Patrick’s day, Sis-der made soda bread while I watched her and listened to Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me on the radio (a favorite Saturday pastime of mine). Mer joined us about 1/3 of the way into Wait, Wait.

Sis-der offered to take us to a museum, so we decided to go to the Healthwork’s Children’s Museum once Sammy was up. We got Sammy bundled to go, and we took the short drive to downtown South Bend. We parked in a parking garage and walked to the museum, where we were greeted by a large human heart. I was taking a liking to this place….

The museum is dedicated to teaching kids about how the body works, and they don’t shy away from some of the more disturbing things. I beat Mer in a quiz (by one question) on “grossology” that included questions about snot and sweat and such. There was a climbing wall made to look like skin, including a very large skin mite bug thing. There was a computer program that asked you about you (height, fingerprint style, eye color, etc.). The WCN was looking rather worried by an entire wall of intestines.

My clear favorite was this picture of just the eyes and the brain. How much more 50s monster movie can you get? It reminded me of the optometrist sign in The Great Gatsby.

After about 45 minutes in the museum, it was time for the WCN to eat. So, Sis-der FORCED us to go to the downtown South Bend Chocolate Cafe. What a wonderful store. Not only was it a very nice and comfortable cafe, but it had lots and lots and lots of chocolate. I did have a real sandwich first, but then I had a very good turtle cheesecake, washed down by a dark hot chocolate. I was feeling pretty queasy then. Next time I go, I will have to try the Chocolate Explosion cake – it is the biggest piece of cake I have ever seen – it was between 10 and 12 inches high, and they were not shy about cutting it rather large (which is good, since it costs $10 per slice).

Since lunch was so exhausting, we went back home, where WCN and I decided to take naps. Once I got up from my nap, I watched WCN and Prof. Dad play in the “Playpen of Wonder” (it’s all in the marketing) until it got close to WCN’s bedtime. About that time, Gen and Dan came over for supper. Sis-der and Prof. Dad had made a very good meal of chicken and soda bread and a potato/cauliflower dish. Dessert was a light cake, made heavy by a good portion of chocolate ice cream. It was great to see Dan and Gen – they are funny and interesting people. It always makes me think when I am at a table with two doctors, two lawyers, an English teacher with a Masters degree, and me. At least for now, I have more education than the WCN!

After I was done eating, I excused myself to the much more comfortable couch. I have some back issues, and I do not like sitting in wooden chairs for longer than I need to. I finished the evening by reading most of Shaw’s Pygmalion, while listening to the conversation in the dining room (the adjoining room).

Sadly, Mer and I had to leave on Sunday morning, but the weather was good, and we made it home in almost 5 hours on the dot. We still hope to get back to see WCN and company about once a month.

After several months of obsessing about it, I finally got a Dobro (or resonator guitar) today. I really love the sound of Dobros. I hope to spend several happy months learning the basics. Click here or here to hear this model (a Gold Tone PBS) of resonator guitar being played by someone much better than I am.

Last night was the big Fools reunion party. What a great time! Nine of the twelve graduated Fools made it, which is very good given they are all in college and have real lives not involved in hangin’ with a 36-year-old.

We had the usual Riordan party fare – pizza from Domino’s, chili and whoopie pies and peanut butter cake from the Hartville Kitchen. We all sat around and ate and gabbed for about 30 minutes, then spent an enjoyable hour and a half watching (and commenting on) The Princess Bride. We then got to spend about an hour doing improv. We just went around the room, and everyone got to pick a game that he or she wanted to do, and the people that should be in the game as well. I wish this had been a show – it was a REALLY funny evening. Here is how things went:

Josh picked Superheroes. The Psychosomatic Platypus had a crisis of mouth tumors, so he called on his friend, Liquid Plasma (Kevin). They needed more help, so they called on the help of Dr. Phil (Michelle). Things were finally solved by Mr Shifting Spaghetti Face Man (Steve), who ripped the tumors off of the Platypus’ mouth.

Kristen then picked Blind Line, where you pick up lines off of the floor (which were all the closing lines of famous movies). The scene was a funeral, so Kristen was kind enough to go to the funeral of Emily’s goldfish. It turns out there are many goldfish funerals in Emily’s life, and Kristen could relate because of the death of her moon-howling multiple-personality dog. There was some tension as Kristen belittled the goldfish and Emily pointed out that maybe Kristen took after the dog.

Steve picked Genre Rewind, where Clarice was trying to sell him bath bubble products to make him happy after Steve’s wife (Brandon) ran over the family dog as she stole the family car. Brandon returns and is shocked to find another woman in the house, but is intrigued by the prospect of romantic bubbles. The scene was played out twice more, once as a French romance (with really great bad accents) and once as a bloody horror film in which Brandon solved much with a chainsaw.

Brandon’s turn came up and he picked The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Advice with Kristen and Josh. Brandon played a hick (and quite well – I don’t know what this says), Kristen seemed quite into violence, and Josh channeled all his answers through the spirits. The panel helped solve problems ranging from how to get rid of mice to how to beat diabetes.

Emily picked New Choice with Steve and Josh (Josh as the “new choicer”). The scene was about Emily being a new, just-off-the-plane tour guide in Mozambique. Steve was a camera-happy tourist. The local groups of people (at the airport) included a man who waved a sharp stick around. Steve thought the man was going mad after his picture was taken, but Emily explained that it was just a show of affection from the man. After a second picture was taken, Emily explained the man was just waiting for Steve to explain his true feelings for the stick-waving man, which Steve did.

Michelle gave us Poetry Slam/Interpretive Dance with Clarice. It was a moving rendition of Michelle’s original poem, Shiny, with perfect choreography to match the emotional words.

Clarice then gave us another rendition of Superheroes with Kevin, Steve, and Michelle. Kevin started off as Da Initiator, who quickly realized he could not find his dress. So, he called in Michael Jackson, played disturbingly well by Steve. They then had to call in The Computer Inept (Clarice), who was not able to help. Finally, the whole thing was solved by The Machine Gun Nun (Michelle), who blasted a hole in the wall, revealing the dress.

I chose Political Debate, where I squared off against Emily and her “ideas man,” Kevin. My “ideas man” was Michelle. We had a round debate on the merits of Hungarian clocks (clocks in Hungarian) and on the issue of mandatory wearing of folk costumes.

Mer choose Paperback with me being the reader. She was trying to sell me a Rolex watch from in her trench coat, while I responded out of the Oresteia by Aeschylus. It never ceases to amaze me how well Paperback works, and this went really well.

We ended the improv with Kevin choosing Location-Vocation-Means of Death with Josh (who started), Clarice, and Emily. Josh had to act out being in a laundromat, as a barber, who was killed by the running of the bulls. I don’t remember all of the details of who everyone thought he or she was, but they did guess barber (as well as baseball pitcher).

I ended the evening by drawing names from a hat to give away the extra food and stuff. I had bought two pillows that had arms on them, which I am told are called “husbands.” Thus I have the great satisfaction of saying that Michelle and Josh both left with husbands.

It was a wonderfully fun evening. These guys are very talented, have great chemistry, and are just a lot of fun to be around. Some of the Fools had not done improv in almost two years, but they still were awesome at it. These guys mean much to me, and I am very happy most of them could come over for a reunion. I’ll have to have another Fools party once schools let out (but before it gets too hot in the house!).

Today, I had visitors to my blog from France and Germany. The French hits seem to happen about once/week. The German hit is new. To my international fans, bonjour and Grüße!