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dutchmanof316
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Name: Jimmy
Country: United States
State: Virginia
Metro: Charlottesville
Birthday: 10/7/1984
Gender: Male
Interests: Sports, including but not limited to, basketball, baseball, football, archery, biking. Reading. Being Outside. Spiderman.
Expertise: i'm studying civil engineering, does that count?
Occupation: Student
Industry: Engineering
Message: message me
AIM:  jimmywahoo
Yahoo:  the_dutchman_of_316
Member Since:
2/12/2006
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| monday morning i awoke, made the now daily routine trip to mocha moose, and made my way then to church for a delicious breakfast of french toast and fruit. assignments came in and there was need for about 12 people to do a roofing job. sign me up. who doesn't love running around on a roof, shooting nail guns, and tearing off old shingles and what not. the team assembled and departed, we were to meet with 3 brothers, and one brother-in-law at the site. before departure we went to the back of the church to get the necessary supplies, de-roofing materials, hammers, nails, tarps, wheelbarrows, brooms, gloves, etc. we loaded up the hoofam mobile (bernie's suburban) and departed for the unknown. upon arrival and early into the day i came to the realization that few of us (w/ the exception of andrew) really knew what we were doing. nonetheless, day 1 of this project involved strictly removal of the roof, and that requires about as much skill as eating a pop tart. thus the roof was de-shingled, and de-papered. the family was very nice, an older couple with thick southern accents, they let us meet their pet bird, caesar, he talked...incessantly. it was hilarious. that night we had dinner at the church and went to the bridge ruins at night. those of age had some drinks, we celebrated davis' 20th birthday. after that elizabeth, leah, stope, bernie, harrison, jt, laura, and i walked along the beach and ended up in an elementary school playground. we talked for a couple of hours about nothing in particular; just enjoying the night and one another's company. tuesday was similar in process to monday, i woke up with severe soreness in my legs, specifically my calves, as well as my back, probably from bending over and walking on a slanted roof all day the day before. we did our standard morning routine, coffee, breakfast, sing sing sing, and off to assignments. the other half of the group found out how sweet roofing was so there was a high demand to be on the job, but it worked out in the end. we loaded the suburbie and took off. today's activities required more skill, we papered the previously exposed roof, while continuing to de-roof and shingle other portions. for lunch the family bought us about 25 mcdonald's cheeseburgers, i had 2 and a half in addition to standard lunch protocol (mre). after lunch we were able to start shingling, for some crazy reason a couple of the four brothers thought i had an idea of what i was doing so they kept asking me to do different tasks, i wasn't much into it, but i appreciated the vote of confidence all the same. today we got to start using the nail gun, boy was that fun, althought i was a little intimidated because there was a lot of pressure to ensure that the shingles continued to be in straight lines and that we didn't step on the new shingles and get tar on them. this care usually required consistent use of a chalk line (what a fascinating little device). at any rate we got a lot of shingling done but the entire front portion of the home still needed to be de-shingled and completely re-roofed. at night a bunch of guys went to visit a phi delt pledgee's house where they had crawfish. i didn't make the trip so the few of us that stuck behind (along with all the girls) went out to mellow mushroom for dinner. i enjoyed myself and even tried to get the waitress to come hang out with us later (i left her a map to tent city) but she never showed. alas, my efforts were futile, i went to bed very tired, having not slept well the two nights before. | | |
| so the boys went to bed assuring the girls (leah & tara) that we
didn't need the provided space heater, afterall it was seventy degrees
during the day, who needs a heater. i think i woke every hour
absolutely shivering, or, if not because of that, then because of the
train that ran directly behind tent city. at any rate, we awoke sunday
and discovered one of the most important landmarks of ocean springs -
mocha moose, the local coffee shop. this would become a morning
tradition for the remainder of the week. we packed the cars and
drove the short two miles to christus victor, our supporting
church. there we attending a church service, it was a lutheran
service and not unlike a typical episcopalian service. our group of 25
made up about 1/3 of the congregation. the hurricane had done
damage to the church such that the sanctuary had no carpeting, and only
dry wall. still it was an excellent service in which we also got to
take communion. after church we packed our lunches where we discovered
another staple, MRE's, that is meals-ready-to-eat. we split into
groups and departed for our worksites. on my team was stope, harrison,
pember, lee ellen, hilah, caroline, seamus, bernie and ted (our ex-army
ranger leader guy). after taking a couple of wrong turns we arrived at
our jobsite. a home that had previously had 3 ft of water in it. we
were there to demo work, mainly ripping out dry wall and ceilings as
well. we had a successfull day, it was humbling to work along
side the woman who lived there, it must have been so hard for her to
tear apart her home, still she was in high spirits. the mre's were
awesome, they were based off of some chemical reaction that resulted in
boiling water and instant heating of food. we had discovered a miracle,
mre's with their massive calorie intakes and absurdly high sodium
contents. we concluded our first day of work around 4:00, ted
took us on a tour of some of the more devastated areas of ocean
springs, ending at what used to be a bridge that connected biloxi and
ocean springs, all that was left were the columns and some massive
pieces of pavement. we spent the afternoon there, then went back
to tent city. caroline, lee ellen, hilah, harrison and i went for a
run, ending at the bay where we went swimming, we came back to the
tents, showered and ate dinner, after dinner was an informational
meeting where we learned, among other things, how unhealthy swimming in
the water was. it was a very biased informational meeting that
involved one woman bashing the red cross for their lack of aid/support
and another guy trying to make his everyword as dramatic as
possible. we made it back to the tents around 9:30 or 10:00 and i
fell promptly asleep.
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| while some of the group awoke at 8am for a morning run, the majority of
us slept in until about 10. we meandered over to the main house
and had a delicious breakfast of fruits and cereals. after breakfast we
were in no particular rush to leave so we watched some arrested
development and took turns in the full body massage chair (ooh). we
eventually left around 12:30 or 1:00 for ocean springs mississippi. i
was in the same car for the first leg of the trip, we actually left
elizabeth's jetta in favor of a pacifica which was much larger and had
a really cool gps system. before getting too far out of town we
stopped at a used books and music store. everything was quite cheap and
we all managed to find something enjoyable for our listening (or
reading) pleasure. back on the road we traveled down and out of
tennessee and made our way through alabama and parts of georgia.
we stopped in tuscaloosa alabama for lunch where we met up with
everyone and had mandatory mixing of cars. at the gas station lee
ellen managed to leave her wallet (with just about everything in it) on
the counter. she didn't realize it until we were 40 min out of
ocean springs and had stopped at a mccallister's for dinner. it turned
out okay because the clerk saw it, called and cancelled the credit
cards and jon terry and kelly shepard picked it up the next day. we
eventually made it to ocean springs (around 10:00) what should have
been a shorter 8 hour drive, turned into about a 10 1/2 hour drive,
primarily because we tried to caravan and we stopped a lot, but all the
same it was fun. we were immediately directed to our place of dwelling,
"tent city," where we were given 3 tents for the 23 of us. there was a
girls tent, guys tent, and a "leader" tent. we were all pretty tired
but before heading to bed stope and i checked out the town. ocean
springs was small, certainly what i think of when i hear the word
"town." a couple nice little bars, coffee shops and the like. we
got to bed at a decent hour and prepared for church and our first day
of work.
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| we left for the cozy little city of chatanooga around noon on friday, sarah was not in attendance due to a court date the following thursday, this left me sad and slightly apprehensive at going on this trip without her, not that i didn't know anyone, just that i wouldn't be able to share the experience with her. harrison, seamus, elizabeth and i packed vance's little 2001 jetta to the max and departed for the great state of tennessee. we ran into traffic at one point (later to find out workers were using dynamite to do some blasting). this stop resulted in a breif albeit strenuous interstate jog. the car ride was enjoyable and involved napping, eating, music and more eating and napping. we arrived at our destination around 7:30. the vance family was a good ol' southern democrat family; still despite their political stances they turned out to be rather normal, nice people (joke). we helped the family get ready for the other fifteen people arriving in an hour. then we took a tour of the vance estate, which includes a beautiful home, pool, and pool house. harrison and i attacked the later caravan as ninjas, using our ninja magic to wreak havoc and mayhem. everyone sat down for some sticky bbq dinner (quite good) and all the boys tried to be real men by eating the hottest bbq sauce they could. only after harrison and bernie both began crying was this activity suspended. the night was a lazy one filled with arrested development and homeward bound. after the girls "went to bed" a large fraction of the guys jumped in the freezing pool. running into the pool house with wet feet assured me of disaster, sure enough i wiped out badly, but felt better after showering with davis and stope. all videoed and documented for your viewing pleasure. we fell asleep with cocoa (the dog) on our air mattresses.
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| okay okay, so it's been a while, and the few faithful readers i've built up have probably given up on my xanga as a passing fancy. i wish i had more time now to expound on all that has gone on in the last 22 days. really i can't. introduction to geotechnical engineering begins in 11 minutes and i absolutely can't miss out on that. at this point i can assure you that some type of briefing on spring break is in the works (although no quantity of words will describe the experience) and secondly, i've recently been doing a decent amount of reading and am anxious to pose some interesting theological suppositions, or at least explore some scripture i believe may be frequently overlooked. in short, stick around, don't count me down and out just yet..
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