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.

Austin, TX

Hello friends. So after three days of traveling from Sacramento, we are currently in Austin, TX. I personally loved the trip. We drove down through California and the Mojave Desert. Through Arizona on Tuesday and stayed in New Mexico. We passed through endless miles of open land and saw a ton of mountains, cactus's, wind energy windmills, mesas, and plateau's. Today we are doing in-processing with FEMA and then tomorrow we leave for Galveston, TX to work with United Methodist Corps. We don't exactly know what we're doing yet but it has something to do with working at a call center trying to get people back into their homes. Well that's all folks. I'll talk to you later.

1st travel day

so we completed our 1st day on the road. we pretty much just drove down the center and eastern side of california. now we are riding next to the colorado river and we literally just crossed the border into arizona. gotta lot road left in front of us. last night we stayed in needles, ca if you want to look it up. happy election day. talk to you later. gwynn out

Quick Update

I did not get a chance to go to San Francisco yesterday. It was just a little hard to work out. However my Uncle Michael came here with my two cousins, Marco and Gianna, and we got to hang out for the day which was fun. Still leaving at 6:30 tomorrow morning for Texas. YEE HAW!

Update Post

Just wanted to also post a quick update on the past week. This week was the final week of my Corps Institute Training and I was officially inducted in the Corps on Friday. Not too much else new stuff to report this past week. It was the normal routine of trainings, and meeting, and info sessions. They pushed back the departure date for Texas a day and now I'm leaving on Monday. This means two things. First, that means that our travel schedule is pushed back and so on Tuesday I will probably been passing through Arizona. So that means on election day I will be the home state of one of the two major candidates in the election. This also means that I now have this whole weekend off. So shortly after I finish this blog, my Uncle Michael is going to pick me up and I'm going to hang in San Francisco this weekend. So that's really it for now I guess. I'm planning on writing a few quick posts from my van ride down to Texas just to give a cool travel blog feel. Also, I don't know what our internet situation is going to be once we're down there so I don't know how long or how frequent my posts will be once I'm down there. But I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Good bye for now, loyal readers.

2008 WORLD SERIES CHAMPION PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES

The moment that I have been waiting, literally, my entire life for has finally happened. The Philadelphia Phillies have won the World Series. WOW! What a feeling! So many emotions boiled up inside me once the Phillies took the pennant. Simply incredible. I have invested a lot of my time and energy into this team and it finally paid off. You gotta love the way this team won it, too. Hamels was phenomenal on the mound, Utley argulably the best all around player on the team with his bat and the great plays he made in the field. The bats of Howard and Werth, the tenacity of Victorino, the sexiness of Pat Burrell. All these players did an amazing job this year and I was glad to be able to feel apart of it. But as old Chuck Dickens once wrote, it is the best of times and it is the worst of times. For the first time since I 3 years old, I am living more than 2 hours away from the city of Philadelphia. When Lidge struck out Hinske to win the game, I was 2000 miles away. When the team cracked open the champagne, I was 2000 miles away. When the parade went down broad street, I was 2000 miles away. The amount of joy I have for the team winning is equal to my sadness of not being home to celebrate with my fellow Philadelphians. But either way, the 2008 World Series Champions are still the Philadelphia Phillies no matter how far away I am and that's a very good thing. Congratulations Phillies and congratulations Philadelphia.

What a week!

Greetings and salutations, friends. This past week has been pretty intense and full of good times. As I said last week, we started this week with a retreat/mini-project up in the redwood forest. IT WAS AMAZING! The camp we stayed at was beautiful and secluded, the trees and scenery were breath taking, and I had a lot of fun with my team. We did some work by winter-izing the camp and sealing some outdoor decks and porches. We also had a lot of team time including doing a ropes course, performing team skits, and planing a modified version of the Newlywed Game, called the Newly Team game. My team, Blue 5, won of course because its been 3 weeks and we feel like we've known each other for months.

Then we came back Wednesday afternoon just in time for game 1 of the World Series!!! WOOOO HOOOOO!!!! I have been going nuts out here the past week for the Phillies. Luckily I have been able to convert a lot of my friends out here into Phillies fans for the month of October so I atleast I have people to watch the games with. Big time performance from Hollywood Hamels, a nice home run my Utley, and somebody forgot to tell Rollins, Howard, and Burrell that game 1 started that night.

Also, we've doing more training since we came back from Mendocino. That's right, I have been getting up at 5 in the morning to work out. They let you know that physical training is a part of the Americorps program, but they forget to mention that it's at 5:30 AM. I don't mind the working out though and actually enjoy getting back in shape but I just would rather do it on more that 6 hours a sleep. We also have been doing other training including my team position of peer helper training. Along with Sarah, we are responsible for being a confidant for everyone in the team; someone who people could talk to about anything on their mind.

Yesterday was fun because it was Make A Difference day in Sacramento. A day similar to Community Day for all my hundreds of loyal St. Joe's readers. We partnered up with the California Food and Agriculture Department and helped maintain community and school gardens throughout the area. It was a lot of fun but hard work.

But then last night was the icing on the cake: GAME 3 OF THE WORLD SERIES, one of the greatest games I have witnessed as a Phillies fan. My heart was racing and I don't think was able to breathe the entire 9th inning. It was such a momentum game for the Phillies and I really hope that they not only win, but win the next 2 so the celebration can be in Philly were it belongs. Game 4 is tonight and I can't wait.

Finally, I save the most important news for last. I found out were my next project is going to be. It's where the stars at night are big and bright....

DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS!

That's right, in a week from today I will be driving 3 days down to Austin where we will be working with FEMA on Hurricane Ike recovery efforts. Now, we are going to Austin but we are most likely going to be deployed in one of the first few days down there to the Galveston area that got hit the hardest. We have no idea what actually going to be doing but we were told it most likely will not be manual labor and something more along the lines of funding stuff and trying to get people back into their homes. Its crazy the lack of press and media coverage has gotten, eerily similar to what happened after Katrina. Ike was the 3rd most costly hurricane to hit America (after Katrina and Andrew) with around 80 people dead and nearly 300 people still missing. I'm excited to go down and get things done.

The Freakin' Weekend

Well howdy, y'all. How's everyone been doing? Things have been going quite swimmingly here in Sacramento. This week we did a lot of training this week with a million different meetings and info sessions on topics such as diversity, CPR/First Aid, and team building. We also started our physical training this week. Yea, so I've been having to get up at 5 in the morning and then go run and do calisthenics. The fitness training isn't so bad, its just getting up at a time when the moon still hasn't gone down frightens me.

But luckily today our morning session for today on tool training was cancelled. So for the first time in awhile I got to sleep in which was very nice. I have van driving training later this afternoon. But the real exciting news is that Monday morning my team will be driving 4 hours north of here to go on a retreat/mini-project at Camp Mendocino in northern CA. The camp is located in the redwood forest, a geographic location I have always wanted to travel to. Along with winter-izing the camp (which is used by the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco in the summer) we will be doing some more team building. There will be a ropes course and camp fires and all that lovey dovey type stuff.

Not too much else to report this week. I still couldn't be happier with team of 10. They are all really great people and from all over the country. I guess I never introduced my team before so I'll just tell you their name and where they are from:
Andrew, Texas
Sarah, Wisconsin
Louise, Minnesota
Nicole, Ohio
Kristin, New York
Lindsey, Connecticut
Nick, Michigan
Claudia, Illinois
Debbie, Maryland
and our team leader Brittany is from Massachusetts

I want to close this post with a shout out to my Philadelphia Phillies. I am not used to watching Phillies baseball in October so this past month has really been unbelievable so far. If you are reading this blog, you probably know me and if you know me you understand my passion for Philadelphia sports, especially the Phillies. I got to be honest, of course I miss all my family and friends but the one thing that has made me truly home sick is not getting to be in Philadelphia for all of this. Either way I am still very, very excited for the World Series and can't wait to see what happens. This Phillies team is very special to me and I have waited all my life for this team to finally have a chance at the world championship. Bring on the Rays/Sox.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to read this. Thanks also for the comments that everyone left, I really enjoyed them. Thanks to you, loyal readers, this has become the fastest growing Bill Gwynn blog on the internet. Peace.

Week 1 Update

Hello everyone! Well this has been quite the week. Except it feels like I have lived a month out here in the past week. So I now am officially in Americorps NCCC and it is great. This first week started out with getting a temporary team, called a POD in americorps jargon. Then we sat through endless amount of training info sessions, got outfitted with a uniform, and got processed into the system. This first week, each POD got to do a one day service project and mine was at the Folsom Zoo. You may have heard of Folsom from a certain Johnny Cash song about a prison. We had to fill in a huge erosion hole next to this massive bear cage. I had a blast and really got a chance to bond with my POD.

But on Friday afternoon, we got our permanent teams that we will be with for the next 10 months. It was tough to leave my POD who after only one week I already got accustomed to but when I got my new team I was very relieved. I am on team 5 in the Blue Unit. My team is incredible and I can't wait to face the next year of service with them. Everyone is really funny, bright, and open. A great group of people for sure.

The local life outside of NCCC has been pretty good too. They're a couple pretty good places to go out around here, including a biker dive bar and a sports bar. Also, last night I got to go to downtown Sacramento (we are located about 15 miles from downtown) to this free event called Second Saturday. It was a hopping music/arts festivals where I had a really good time.

There is so much I want to tell everyone about what its like out here but there is just too much to write about. So feel free to leave questions in the comments section and I will try to answer them in the next post. Also, they gave us a few ground rules about our blogs. The biggest one is since Americorps NCCC is a government run organization, I am not aloud to talk politics on it. So in other words I can't say that I like Senators from Illinois or I can't say that I want a Senator with a lot more experience than any other vice president candidate to win. So you're not gonna be able to find out who I want to win the election in November on my blog. I will remain completely and truly unbiased. Even if there could be some politicians from the non continental United States that I can't stand, I will not be able to write about it on my blog.

Well thats it for this week. I know it was a little dry this week but I'll try to spruce it up on my next postings. And give me a break, it before 9am here and football starts in a hour. This is the best I got.

Sac Town!

I finally made it! Woo hoo! I made it to Sacramento, and I am wiped. It is around 3 or 4 here, but it feels like 6 or 7 now and i have had only like 3 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours. I just wanted to make a quick post that I arrived safely and everything is good.

salt lake city

I just landed in Salt Lake City, Utah. Connecting flight to Sac town leaves in less than an hour. You will have to excuse me, I have to see about getting multiple wives while i'm here

PHILLIES!!!

Well we are getting closer and closer to my 7am flight to California on Monday. It is a very exciting time for me on many levels in this final week on the east coast. This past weekend I got to say good bye to a lot of people who are closest to me with a going away/graduation party. It was a good time to be had by one and all it gave me a chance to see a lot of my friends and family before I leave. I am sincerely thankful for everyone that came. While it was great talking with everyone that came and their presence was truly appreciated, one moment sticks out in particular...

THE PHILLIES CLINCHING THE NATIONAL LEAGUE EAST DIVISION TITLE!!

Yes, my favorite team in my favorite sport has taken the title home for the 2nd straight year. This fact alone is very exciting to me but there is more exciting news than that, loyal Bill's Americorps Blog readers...

I AM GOING TO GAME 1 OF THE SERIES AGAINST THE BREWERS!!

Wow, there is a lot of excitement in this blog, can you feel it? Tomorrow, I will be in attendance at the 3 o'clock start time in Philadelphia. I cannot wait. I really believe that the fightins' have a good shot at doing some serious damage in this post season (and for once I'm not talking about damaging Philadelphia fans hearts). Well, we'll see anyway.

Well that's it for the forth sensational post to my blog. A quick thanks again to everyone who was able to come to my going way party. I am blessed with such genuinely good people in my life. Also, I hope to try to fit at least one more post in before I leave Monday morning. So long, friends.

me and my bicycle

Isn't techology great? I'm writing this post in the middle of a bike ride a few miles down the road. I'm currently sitting on the grass on this beautiful day in downtown West Milford. How am I writing this then? No computer, no laptop, no hi-fi wi-fil connection. I'm typing this post to show case how I plan to write a majority of my blog posts. I'm using my cell phone to add my 3rd sensational post on a very promising up and coming blog. I'm not bringing my laptop with me to Americorps, so this cell phone is going to be my main form of communication with everyone back home.

Self loathing blogger

I also wanted to mention that I have always thought that blogs were a pretenous, self indulgent way for people feel like they are actually doing something. But I just wanted to start this because it would be impossible to stay connected with all the people I want to. This blog will not only be a spot to share my stories and hilarious ancedotes about my time in americorps but also my daily thoughts, ramblings, and non-sense that run thruough my head. So I hope you all strap in and take this magical ride with me.

My first blog post

So I thought it would be a good idea to start a blog for my friends and family to visit while I go away for 10 months to do Americorps NCCC. For those of you who don't know NCCC is a volunteer program where I work with a team, of about 10 people who are aged 18-24, on community service projects around the United States. The projects focus on one of Americorps NCCC six different areas: environment, education, public safety, unmet needs, homeland security, and disaster relief. Each project lasts 4-8 weeks in length and can be any of the 50 states.
So as of today, I am exactly 3 weeks away from leaving for Sacremento, CA where I will train to prepare me for my work with NCCC. Training will last about 4 weeks and from there I will go to my first project. I have already received a letter telling me that 60% of my projects will be in the gulf coast region still recovering from hurricanes.
Well this was just a stort introduction and I really hope I keep up with this. I think it will be a fun way for me to stay connected with friends and family back home. But I bet in reality like 3 people will actually read this.