yesterday…

So – normally we try to get out picture updates throughout the day and a summary out at the end of the day for work trips. But yesterday took “work trip” to a whole new level. We got as far as taking pictures – but to actually get them out to Facebook or to the blog was just one step too many.

We had three main projects going on:

Dan Klein & his son Kevin worked on replacing a window with a door (to help The Fallout building meet fire code). They were successful – though there was a touchy moment there when the door might have been hung to swing the wrong way. Crisis averted, all is well, and folks can now easily egress via the back of the building thanks to a ton of hard work from Lori and others to clear out the hallway.

The Source has a new once-foreclosed-upon house that will be joining to their transitional housing network – it’s pink and is decorated with dolphins, flamingoes and cranes, so another group worked at “The Crane House”. Ryan and Sara worked on drywalling inside, while Jeremiah, Christy, Mike, Messiah, Alyssa, Myster, and Nate worked on hauling, making and pouring cement for a sidewalk and digging post holes. They made it! By the end of the day the cement was covered to protect it from the coming frost and the posts were mounted and aligned and ready for the next stage of a storage shed project.

A third large-ish group worked on building a wheelchair ramp into the Art Coop building. That may not sound like a big deal, but the ramp needed to loop through a deep alley so needed a significant support structure in order to be set up correctly. Todd was crew boss for that project with a great deal of help from Tom – and they were joined by Lori, Jake, Ramiro, Antonio, Nick, Ryan, Alyssa, Myster, Messiah and Angela. A bunch of folks circled around and helped with additional projects here and there, pitching in where ever it was needed. Mike’s nephew Walker joined in as well – he’s been on other trips with us so it was neat to see and work with him again. After an 11-ish hour work day, (added to all the setup work from Friday), the ramp was installed! It still needs a railing and finishing, but all things considered it was quite an accomplishment.

The exhausted group packed up the trailer and headed to the Y for showers, followed by supper at Pancho Villa – a restaurant near The Source that has become a favorite. At around 10:30 we headed back to The Fallout where Peter shared a bit about the history of The Source, as well as the story of how they came to acquire the Crane House. Then it was back to the church and it wasn’t long before the building was dark and quiet.

Alejandros Essay (typed by Ramiro Rosas)

Mike is very strict about wearing your seatbelt while he is driving. Alejandro would always forget to put his seatbelt on while we started driving. So mike would always read the rules that were written on a sticker about what precautions should be done when driving a 15 passenger van. So Mike made Alejandro write a 200 word essay on the way back to Wisconsin:

Most of the people drive everyday to work, field trips, and more. Seventy-Two percent of the people driving DO NOT KNOW the cautions, and ten percent know the cautions and don’t follow them, and the rest don’ even know what’s going on. Scientist predict in the future all drivers should eat, to keep them stop thinking of food, this will help cause accidents. Sleeping helps to relax, and dream and stop focusing on real life, but sleeping while driving might  be a bad thing. Teachers from ”UW Washington University” were looking and observing most of drivers need more sleep to keep them awake, drivers don’t realize how important it is to sleep, “people who make shortcuts always lose… (Mike C.)” Texting is another thing that is causing accidents, why? ill give an example, as I am driving I get a text message from my friend saying “where are you?” I say “I am home” when I m not even home. 20 mins later my friend is in my house and for not paying attention to his text while I was driving we could chill for awhile. The perfect time to drive is on a sunday afternoon in a sunny day, no traffic and is a day to relax, the conclusion is to drive safe  

now this is a short article on paco’s music rap group, Nameless, created in the trailer park. with a coming up song about saint louis, although the song is unnamed at the moment but will go into work with M. Collison and R. Collison and more members of the rap group. and a remix of a song well known but you will see how well it sounds. Along with that there may be a live performance of it very soon, pressured, we will do our best to give you the best of our skills we have. It will be at the church, but the day I will leave a mystery! ;D here is a short sneak peak to the beginning of the song
“havin breakfeast early in the mornin/ even though some of us are yawnin/ while we’re servin/ up a meal/ a sweet deal/ or a combo/ that takes a dance or a mambo/ through our system/

How Ramiro got bit by a girl, as told by Garrett and Ramiro

It all starts with the falling of the pinata.

Ramiro: I jumped in and grabbed the pinata so all the kids would get some candy. I'm never doing that again.

Garrett: I was standing by and I just saw Ramiro at the bottom of the pile with all these kids jumping on top of him. It was crazy. It was like a mad riot. Now I know how police feel at riots. There was no way we could control those kids. Then he got bit by a girl and I just stood and watched (see "flip flops to the head" story from earlier this week).

The End.

flip flops to the head (Ramiro's story)

Yesterday I was helping  pack up from our work site and I noticed a kid hitting another kid in the head with a flip flop. I watched. The kid was screaming bloody murder. Then Mike came running up and one of the moms came up and told the kid to go home. Then Mike stopped the flight and gave me a hard time about not stopping the fight. Later, I saw some kids fighting at the kids club, and I broke them up right away. No more kids fighting on my watch! - Ramiro