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