people and their guns

This is a website a friend emailed me and i thought it was both beautiful and frightening. Thanks lucas for sending me this. Click here to go there!

MY FIRST!!!!

Ha, that sounded bad, the title that is. I meant my first house. I am really excited about this one, because it is a very very narrow lot, measuring 30' wide. once you put in all of the setbacks, it leaves a 20 foot space to build your house. Hells yeah!

I think that we might also be able to build a pretty nice house because it is going to be small, maybe two bedrooms, and we have a similar budget as the rest of the houses. I really like the client too. Very sweet man. he came into the office today to meet with me in camoflauge insulated coveralls. He just wants in his house. He doesnt care. He doesnt want to live in his trailer any more. When we went to measure the site, we were greeted with a very happy dog. He was young and his personality reminded me a lot of Miss Deloris. So... I am really excited about this project. It has a lot of potential. Ahhh... ok off to work.

Oh yeah. Deloris has a boyfriend. More details on her new man later. But i think she is a hussy! Always chasin all of those men dogs around. First Hector, now this little boy dog. This one is a younger man too. What are we gonna do with her? Ha.

Oh yeah! I have posted some new pictures of Ocean Springs on my Flickr page

a review of my weekend. This has to be quick

So i have had a pretty good weekend.... I got a lot done including my budget, cleaning my house, laundry, uploading my pictures on flickr, but my overall free time productivity is down. New Years resolutions always result in a failure to meet the goal, but i am going to keep trying. I will be a very productive person this week!!!!

Friday and saturday nights i hung out at sweets. I had a few chips(free beer markers) left, so i stayed close. I got a lot of cleaning done saturday morning, and a lot of things i have been needing to do, finished. Yesterday i woke up, ran deloris, and started cleaning some more. I went to the Hands On Volunteer Camp so Robin could cut my hair. It looks good. Thanks Boo!!!!

I rushed home to change, and headed up to the lynchburg for some shuffelboard.

I sat with my friends and watched the shuffleboard tournament, and played a little pool. I got a call from Rachel at Sweets asking me to work that evening. So....i had to switch to water, not a big deal, and i did steal a few swollows of beer from a friend. Thanks boo.

So i went to work at sweets, which was so much fun. It was funny to see people when they came in and see me behind the bar. one guy just shook his head. HA! I like bartending there, and i hope rachel needs me again. There is something a bit empowering about bartending. Oh yeah. its because i am controling the beer. HA HA
alright, gotta go to work.

A nice week, and arguments!

I know it has been a while since my last post, so i will touch on a bunch real quick.

Last Sunday was super bowl Sunday. I met some folks I had met a few nights before at the Grocery up at they Lynchburg which is a bar much like sweets, but bigger , they sell liquor and they have shuffle board. It was pretty nice hanging out with a younger crowd, and meeting good folks. The only downside is they insisted on buying jager for the group. Jager and i don't really get along too well. I finally talked someone who was buying a round into getting me a whiskey, but i guess i will just have to toughen up and just embrace the jager if i am going to continue to hang with this group.

Work has been a bit tough on the heart this week. I met with a client, who's house i am supposed to begin designing, and we get there, and they begin telling their story. The husband of our client got very emotional. It is rough going on those types of visits, because everyone is so desperate to get into their homes. And we cant do it fast enough. I really love listening to people open up, but it really tears me apart at the same time. When i left the meeting, i was just trying to take in what he had said, and i cant even begin to understand. I don't believe i have the capacity to grasp it all and i am continuously humbled by these conversations and the people who are able to deal with what life has thrown at them.

I have also gotten my first taste of dealing with construction managers. One of these guys who is down here managing the construction for a christian volunteer organization is doing work on one of the houses i worked on. He came up to my office, and started almost bad mouthing the client. I have really taken a liking to this client, and this CM was just being intolerable. "we cant do this, we cant do that" He was just being difficult. He wanted me to change the plan because it would save him from digging 20" deeper. Come on. He needs to remember why he came down here in the first place. He is more concerned with the numbers now, than the clients. I have seen him for the past 3 days, and it just gets worse and worse.

So, yeah...
my evenings have been really nice. I have made a new friend up at sweets. It is nice to have someone to really talk to on a regular basis. He was there last night, and some of my new friends from the Grocery came by. We drastically changed the demographics of that bar last night. the average age in the bar was lowered by 20 years last night. The grocery folks were disappointed that there is no Jager at Sweets. (thank god!)

alright back to work boo!

Ocean Springs Mardi Gras,

The Ocean Springs Mardi Gras was a lot of fun. It started off with a day of grey skys. the outlook did not look promising. Depression was beginning to sink in because i thought that my first Mardi Gras Parade was goint to some how be deminished because of the rain. Oh.... How i was wrong. I will get to that in a second though.
My mom and her friend Al came into town for the parade. They got in Friday night. We went to Sweets, had a few beers and stood around the fire, and watche the meat for the next days celebrations cook. below is Ron, the owner of Sweets Lounge workin on the pigs.

The next day, we went in search of a place to eat breakfast, there is no diner in Ocean Springs (at least within walking distance from my house) so we ended up at a gasstation, and got bacon egg and cheese burritos. Mmmmm....

We headed back to the house to get all dressed up for the parade, and headed across the street to join the festivities. It was wild, much like tail gating for the Auburn Games. THere were folks setting up tents and marking off their little piece of territory to catch their beads.
It was a drizzly day but it did not seem to matter too much. Everyone was in the spirit and into the spirits. Not a rain drop was felt, i can promise you that. I dont have any pictures of the actual parade, i was too busy catchin beads. At the begining, i was a bit awkward asking for the beads. I felt a bit silly, but after an hour of bead slingin floats, i was a pro. I had so many beads, it is not funny. and this is only the first parade. Ahhh.. i am gonna be bead crazy. I dont really know what i am going to do with all of them, but i will figure it out.

My Stash!!!! All of the stuff seen on the table was collected at the Ocean Springs Mardi Gras Parade!!!

After the parade, we went back to my house, and changed into dry clothes, and returned to sweets for he rest of the festivities. It was a fun day! Cant wait to go to my next one

Finish house below and program boys and girls club

Today i am going to finish the Lee street house drawings and work on the programing of the boys and girls club

the boys and girls club in need of some love

I am beginning to work on one of the girls and boys clubs down here. Christine, one of my coworkers, and I went to visit the after school program yesterday, and we were pretty astounded at how the place is being used. Before the hurricane, the center had two buildings to offer a place for their students. A tree landed on the building where the older kids , a group comprised of students ranging in ages from 12-18, spent their afternoon. The building is unsafe and uninhabitable. All students, through kindergarden to 12th grade, now fill a little concrete block building that used to be a day care center I believe. Because it has rained a lot, the students couldnt really play out side due to the puddles in the play yard. They havnt been able to play for over a week at the boys and girls club because of the rain and cold. Think of the trouble the staff must be having keeping the kids somewhat calm. They are lacking storage, and space for the programs they need, and to meet the energy levels of the childeren. The directors have high hopes for the programs they want to offer the kids, but just dont have the space to do it. Oh, i hope this project gets funding. It really needs it. The boys and girls club is a great program, and this needs to be one too.