A Super Sized Post

Hello, Bill fans. It has been a little while since I have last talked with you my friends. I know what you're all thinking and no, the rumors are not true. I did not eat myself to death by eating too much pizza. Well I guess I will get that out of the way. No, I unfortunately did not complete the pizza challenge. I'm not proud of that fact, but I never gave up. We did the best we could and my partner, Nicole, and I each ate around the same amount of pizza which totaled to be a little more than half the pizza. In the near future, I'm hopefully going to be doing a post of a bunch a pictures that will include pictures from the challenge. But for this post I'm just going to try to update you on what I have been doing the last few weeks.

The day after the pizza challenge, we volunteered at a fun run for kids to teach them health and fitness at an early age. I was a course guide and pointed out where they needed to run. But here's the kicker. The race took place at Lego Land amusement park and it is amazing. We actually got to walk through a lot of the park. The best part is an area called Mini Land, that holds 1:8 scale replicas of areas around the United States including New York City, Las Vegas, New Orleans, San Francisco, LA, and Daytona racetrack. The area I found particularly amazing was in Washington DC where on the mini Capital Building they had the Obama Inauguration set up. Wait till you see the pictures of this. No detail was spared. They even went back to change the color of Michelle Obama's dress to yellow after they had already set it up.

Later that weekend, we did some sightseeing. First we went to an area called Sunset Cliffs along the beach. The cliffs overlooked the beach and had a neat erosion look from all the years of waves pounding against it. Next we went to this cemetery at a Naval base that offers a really great view of the city. Next,we went to an area downtown called Balboa Park. It's a beautiful park that holds many museums, trails, and fun things to check out.

Then comes Monday, which means the start of another work week. A week full of digging holes, building deep water holes to irrigate the trees, planting trees, building berms of dirt around the trees to save up water from rainfall. The work gets a little tedious at times but I still over all really enjoy the work. But the free time we get has been so amazing here that it seems like we're always working for the weekends. Although, this particular week, a little excitement took place because the mayor of San Diego came to campus to give the Alliant International University, at which we are staying at and doing our tree planting for, a proclamation for 80 years of service to the city of San Diego. We got to meet the mayor and then he was kind enough to check out the work we have been doing.

The next weekend we volunteered at an urban farm/community garden downtown at the City College of San Diego. We learned a ton about local farming, agriculture, and how to garden (all topics I am thoroughly interested in). One of the guys who runs the garden works with a movement called "Farms Not Lawns," in which they suggest that the world would not have food shortages, people would be healthier, and there would be less fuel costs because less food would have to be shipped if everyone grew a small portion of vegetables on their lawns.

Later that day, we went to Coronado Island which is adjacent to downtown San Diego. It's a beautiful island with a nice beach, a touristy area, and the Coronado Hotel. The Coronado is an extravagant historic hotel that was built in the late 1800's. They used it to shoot scenes from the movie Citizen Kane (as shots of Kane's mansion) and in the movie Some Like It Hot (as the hotel where the men... I mean women perform). The next day was relaxing and we just chilled out and watched one of the most exciting Super Bowls I can remember.

Then another work week. A couple of the nights though, we got volunteer at the San Diego Food Bank which turned out to be a lot of fun. The first night we separated expired donated food and then the second night we worked on an assembly line making boxes of food for the elderly. We were able to move through over 2 tons of food. I guess I should explain why we're always volunteering extra at places outside of work. As part of the Americorps NCCC program, along side our 1700 hours required to graduate, we also need 80 hours of Independent Service Projects. These ISP's have to take place outside our work and have be done at a non-profit organization, a faith based group, or a school.

That brings us up to this past weekend. On Friday, I went up to Los Angeles with my teammates Sara and Nicole. Nicole's twin sister lives in Santa Monica and she was nice enough to let us crash at her place for the weekend. I had such a fun time. We did a few of the touristy things such as go to the walk of stars, see Gromann's Chinese Theater, drive throughout Beverly Hills and on Rodeo Drive, see the Hollywood sign, and go to the Santa Monica pier. And it took us all weekend but we saw a celebrity on Sunday. As we were walking down the Promenade (a series of a shops in Santa Monica) we saw Billy Mays. That's right. The Oxy Clean commercial guy. I know how impressed you all must be.

Well thank you for reading all of this. Unless you just scrolled down to the last paragraph. Which in that case, what the hell are you doing? There is some pretty interesting stuff up there. I tried to make this a big one on purpose just because I missed it for a few weeks. I'll try to put up that post full of pictures soon. Also, I hope to get back in the habit of this becoming a weekly or at least semi-weekly blog. A missed one week due to the internet being out. The other two weeks I must blame on sheer laziness. Well, thanks for taking time out of you're busy day to read about my life. Peace.

The Challenge

I sit before you on the eve of a most courageous challenge set before me. Tomorrow night, at this time, I shall be joining the list legends: Kobyashi, Joey Chestnut, Eater X, and William "The Refrigerator" Perry. That's right, tomorrow I shall become a competitive eater. Let me explain. Last weekend, we were out getting a bite to eat at a pizza place near by. Halfway through the meal we notice that they have a challenge for a team of two people to eat a 30" pizza in 1 hour. No bathroom breaks and no throwing up. So my teammate, Nicole, and I mentioned how we would both like to try it. So tomorrow night this epic gauntlet will be thrown down. If we are successful, we get the pizza for free, a free t-shirt, and our pictures forever immortalized on the wall of Luigi's Pizzeria. If we lose, we will have to pay $40 for the pie and forever have the shame of not being able to do it. Wish us luck.

Not much else to report. The work has been going really well and we've been planting a lot of trees. Also, last night I had a dream come true. We volunteered on behalf of the San Diego Food Bank to sell programs at a San Diego State basketball game. It was phenomenal. I got to yell all night, "PROGRAMS! GET YOUR PROGRAMS HERE!" Then I would make up different saying to attract the customers. Then finally, to top it off, I would make up songs to what the pep band was playing and turn them into songs about selling programs. For instance, "Whoop! Here it is: Programs. Whoop there it is: Programs." When I started to sing to the songs, it was a guaranteed sell. It was a lot of fun and for a great cause.

So long Bill Gwynn readers and hopefully by the time I talk to you next I will have had completed the challenge and be wearing my free t-shirt as I type my next blog. Peace.

Greetings From San Diego

Hello Bill Gwynn loyalists! Welcome back to my world. I'm currently sitting in a dorm room on the Alliant International University campus in San Diego, CA. We have been here for a week now and we have been working pretty hard. Each day we work from about 7-3 digging holes, planting trees, and putting in irrigation pipes on a the hillside of a canyon right next to where we live.

This is a look at the outside of our dorms.



Here's the pool right outside our dorms. Trust me, it's not as good as it seems. The water is kept at sub-Arctic temperatures.



Here is the hillside that got completely burnt by wild fires in 2004.



Here is a closer look at the hillside.



And here's another.



Here's my team at the start of the work day.


Everything has been going pretty great. The work has been a little back breaking in the 80 degree San Diego sun but its also very rewarding. I know all my friends back east are a little jealous when they read that I'm working in such sunny weather when your are currently suffering through 6 degree temperatures. All I can say is, "Lay off. I get paid less than $12 a day." I'm just kidding of course. The area is tremendous and I'm having a blast. The beach is 15 minutes away and there is some beautiful scenery around. The highlight of my leisure time, however, took place last Sunday when I was able to locate a bar devoted to displaced Philadelphia Eagles fans. I got to watch the game there and it felt like I was right at home. We got to sing the Eagles fight song after every touchdown and of course celebrate a big win by the birds. Next stop Arizona.


He's a look at the beach we went to that's only 15 minutes from where we live.



Here's one more glorious look at the La Jolla beach in San Diego.


Well that's it for now. My New Year's resolution is to try to update this thing more so hopefully you will be hearing again from me real soon. Peace. Go Eagles.

PICTURES!!!

I apologize that these pictures are in no chonological order or any order in general. You're just going to have to take these pictures as they are. Most of these pictures were stolen from my team mates.This is a picture of the ride home back to Sacramento, CA through the blizzard. This is in the southwest, either in Arizona or New Mexico.
This is me tearing down some dry wall covered in black mold with a sledge hammer. I harnessed the power of Thor.
This is downtown Sacramento. Our training in October took place about 15 minutes from here.
During out training, we had a short retreat up to Mendocino, CA in the heart of the Redwood Forest.
Here are a couple of signs outside of abandoned homes in Galveston, TX.
It seemed like these people loved looters.
Here are a few pictures of the destruction on Galveston Island.
More damage.
Debris scattered across an abandon house's lawn.
A destroyed garage.
A typical tag on houses around Galveston.
This is my team's Christmas sweater picture. It's a little dark but I'm near the top in the red sweater.
This picture at the beach was taken the day before Thanksgiving. How many of you got to go swimming at Thanksgiving?
This is my team mate Nick and myself enjoying a turkey leg at Dickens on the Strand, the event I talked about in my last post.
This is me dressed as Patrick from Sponge Bob Square Pants with my team mate Nicole as the elf. This is during a Christmas event at the Moody Gardens (the hotel, museums, and pyramids right next store to where we were living) that we got to volunteer at in Galveston.
This is my team mate Andrew, Big Foot, and I at our retreat in Mendocino.
This is our team with a resident of Galveston, who's lawn and garage we cleaned up after it was ruined from the storm. Also in the picture: Michael Jackson.
My team with a Methodist Volunteer in charge of organizing groups to clean out houses. We mucked out the house behind us.
My team at the sea wall. The sea wall, which is about 15 feet high, was built after the massive hurricane in 1900. The sea wall construction actually raised the elevation of the city and before Ike, protected it from countless amount of hurricanes.
This is my team doing the best High School Musical impression. That's the gulf of Mexico behind us. My team from left to right: Kristin, Me, Nick, Louise, Claudia, Sara, Andrew, Lindsay, Nicole, and Debbie.
These are my friends Mike, Sierra, Chris, and Billy on Halloween which took place during training in Sacramento.
Here is some of my team next to the base of the redwood tree I pictured earlier with our team leader Brittany in the green sweat shirt.
Here is some my team on a scavenger hunt during our training in Sacramento. We are currently eating chocolate covered insects.

Merry Christmas!

Happy holidays! I figured since this is the season of giving, I will give everyone the best present imaginable: a new blog post from yours truly. Now I know it's been quite awhile since you heard from me on this thing and I apologize for that. My greatest fear with starting this blog was that I would get lazy with it and forget to do it for awhile. Well, my greatest fears have been confirmed I guess so I'm going to make a New Year's Resolution that I actually keep up with this.

So let me bring you up to date with my work. We finished up our project in Galveston, TX on December 14th. Our work doing needs assessment was both an entertaining and challenging task. We personally got to see the many lives of people who were destroyed by Hurricane Ike which hit Galveston dead on nearly 2 months before we even arrived there. Homes were still not cleaned out, black mold grew on the sides of walls from where flood waters had got up to, and some houses with not much at all inside: no furniture or appliances. The actual information we collected from all the residents of Galveston was then put into a database where in the next few weeks a case manager will take over and work with individuals to get everything they still need. We did the job so quickly that we canvassed the whole Island about 2 weeks earlier than we were supposed to. So for the last 2 weeks we canvassed some surrounding areas and also got to muck houses. Mucking houses is basically gutting houses; ripping out all the drywall, tearing up carpets, and clearing it out so all the black mold and shaky foundation is no longer a problem.

It was a great first project and I really came to love my time in Galveston. The Island is really starting to rebuild over all. A couple of cool signs that Galveston is heading in the right direction are that two big annual events that take place in Galveston actually went on during our time there. The first is Dickens on the Strand, which is a Charles Dickens festival in the downtown area known as the Strand. The Strand was one of the areas hit the hardest by Ike with flood waters rising above 10 feet. The second was a giant biker rally that in years past as many as 500,000 motorcyclists flocked to town. This year it was a little scaled down but it still attracted around 200,000 bikers.

We left on the 14th and headed to spend the night in Austin, about 4 hours away. Austin has to be one of the most fun cities I've been to. Then the next day we headed north towards Oklahoma City, through Dallas/Fort Worth, then headed directly west through the Texas panhandle, and on to New Mexico, Arizona and finally California. We rode parallel to historic Route 66 for nearly all of the trip. The surprise of the trip was that we drove through blizzards almost the entire way through the Southwest.

To close, when I go back to Sacramento after Christmas break, I will be starting on my new project in San Diego, CA! We will be staying at Alliant International University that was hit hard by wild fires in 2004. We will be clearing brush, planting trees, and building a sustainable irrigation system that will act as a fire line. I am really looking forward to spending my winter in beautiful Southern California. And if my blog doesn't inspire you to want to volunteer, I just wanted to let you know that there is going to be an Americorps NCCC group volunteering in Hawaii for their next project. Enjoy the holidays and talk to you all in 2009.

BILL GWYNN ON THE NEWS!

http://www.khou.com/news/local/stories/khou081114_tnt_ike-help.1b2f44c14.html

Check out yours truely on the news, Bill Gwynn Superfans.

Galveston, TX

Hello Bill Gwynn fans! Long time, no see. How is everyone doing? It's been a little while so let's get busy with the updating. I am currently sitting in the communications tent at my residence on Camp Tarmac. As the name implies, the camp is located on the runway of an operational airport. But don't let the location fool you, it is such a sweet set up. To start, I have been sleeping on a very comfortable cot in a 500 person tent. I have never had 499 roommates before (and I'm guessing most of you as well) but it has been working out surprisingly well with no complaints. We have a pretty big dining hall tent where they have been feeding us well.... too well. The first night we arrived here we had a surf and turf dinner of steak and fish. I know, right? Where am I? And most of the meals have been equally impressive with pulled pork sandwiches, pastas, omelet bars, and last night, the most delicious meal thus far, ribs. We also have a fitness tent with weights and exercise machines, a communications tent with laptops, and an entertainment tent with a huge flat screen and surround sound. That not enough for you? But wait...there's more! We have a medical trailer that pretty much can give you any over the counter drugs for free, the whole campus is wi-fi, and they do our laundry for us! That's right. I'll say it again in case you missed it. They do our laundry for us.

In all seriousness, I would never complain realistically about all the plush accommodations but at times I do feel guilty for all we get. When I planned to volunteer for a year, I planned on living simply and while some elements like our port-a-potties fit that life style, others don't. With that being said, I am so thankful to the services that help support us. They have really made it an easy environment to live in.

As for the surrounding area of Galveston Island, it went through a lot with hurricane Ike. I have seen a ton of destruction since arrival. Massive yachts on the sides of the road, endless businesses closed, and houses either completed gutted or leveled. There is much work to be done here and I'm glad our team was assigned here. The actual project that we will be working on has switched about a billion times since we've been here. We are now working through a program called Good News Galveston to do needs assessment. We are going to be going from door to door filling out surveys and interviewing people for, as the name implies, the things people still need. I'm very enthusiastic about our assignment because it will give me a chance to hear people's stories first hand.

On the lighter side, we had the day off yesterday and we had a lot of fun. On the other side of the airport is a pretty nice hotel and set of three pyramids. The hotel is where have been doing most of our hanging out. It's upscale but the lobby is quiet, with a moderate bar, pool tables, flat screens, and just a chill environment where you can do anything from sit and read to throw down some conversation over a few cocktails. The pyramids adjacent to the hotel each house a different attraction. The main pyramid is a beautiful aquarium that holds a ton of fish, some seals, and a bunch of penguins. It really is a fun aquarium with good attractions. The next pyramid is only partially open and is a discovery museum with an IMAX (that will be reopening shortly) and a ride-film. The final pyramid is a botanical garden that unfortunately will not be opening for 9 months. Also with price of admission, you get a boat ride around the bay that was quite pleasant.

So all in all, everything is going pretty well for me down here. I have a great living situation, a job with meaning and purpose, and things to do. Now, that I'm pretty settled I will try to write on this more with greater detail into the work I'm doing here. Thanks for reading. I hope this wasn't too long or boring. I worry about these things sometimes. Bye for now.