Habitat for Humanity Build-a-Thon

I survived. The last couple of months have been hecka busy, and the last couple of weeks particularly so. But the Mexico mission trip, the Habitat for Humanity Build-a-Thon, and the Oakland Firefighters Random Acts Dinner Dance fundraiser were all successful, and I managed to complete all the other stuff I needed to, as well.

OK, sure, I'm taking an extra week between apheresis appointments (last year they had me take an extra week after Mexico anyways), there were a couple of messages waiting for me that still need answering, and it's going to take me a while to catch up on my sleep (last night I got 12 hours, and would have gotten more if the cats hadn't woken me for breakfast) but for the first time in too long I've got spaces on my calendar.

I haven't been completely idle today (the cats took care of that department after breakfast was served). I started a blog to update people on the progress of the Thrivent Builds house with Habitat for Humanity East Bay. The Build-a-Thon finished yesterday, and 8 houses went from foundation slab to roof trusses in 4 short days. Pretty darn amazing. You can read more about it on the HEBTB blog.

Breathe

I feel like I've barely got room to. Breathe, that is. We got back from Mexico Saturday evening, short a vehicle (dead transmission; it was the one towing the equipment trailer) and I did a hurried job prepping the media for Sunday morning. After church I spent a wonderful afternoon with Katarina, talking, reading, playing with the cats, and generally relaxing. Deep breath.

I knew this week was going to be busy. Thursday through Sunday is Habitat for Humanity East Bay's big fundraising and building event, the annual Earth Day build-a-thon. I've missed it for a couple of years because it was the same week as the Mexico trip, but it's a great event and I've missed doing it.

This year I'm the chapter specialist for Thrivent Builds, helping to coordinate things between Habitat, Thrivent, and local Lutheran churches. Thrivent is now the biggest sponsor of Habitat ever, but the catch is that local Lutherans need to raise money and volunteer. So I knew I was going to participate, even if that meant *gasp* skipping the Mexico trip. Even though they didn't fall on the same week this year, as busy as I've been the last several months, I was seriously thinking about skipping the Mexico trip. But I looked at the calendar and figured three days of rest would be enough, and decided to do both.

Of course there were the little matters of prepping the media for Sunday (including a video slideshow of the Mexico trip) even though I won't be there, Oakland Firefighters Random Acts having their big fundraising event on Saturday (I'll be ducking out of the build-a-thon early to help), and the host of mundane details that fill up every day life.

Then Sunday night I got an email from Random Acts that a young man I knew named Irving had died. He'd been battling cancer for years, and had been near death a couple of times, so Random Acts, Make-A-Wish Foundation, Children's Hospital, etc. knew him quite well. A wonderful kid, always smiling and cracking jokes, and just wanting to be a normal kid, not a depilated pincushion. Miraculously he was doing a bit better and had gone home from Children's for a while, so this was a punch in the gut for all who knew him. I can't even begin to imagine what his parents and brother must be going through.

So it's time to fire up ProShow Gold and make YAMV (Yet Another Memorial Video) for the funeral on Thursday. I got a break from them a while back to do a video for my sister-in-law's 40th birthday, but I feel I'm getting entirely too much practice at the memorial kind. Say a little prayer for strength for me, and a whole bunch of prayers for Irving's family and friends. Vaya con Dios, Irving.

186 MPH

Sunday we hosted a steel drum concert at Resurrection Lutheran. A member of the CSM Panhandlers is part of our worship team, and arranged to have the band come and perform a concert to raise money for our annual mission trip to Mexico. We take the youth group down to the barrios of Tijuana to build a house for a family in need. The houses are very simple (we build them in 3.5 days), but a vast improvement over what the families are living in. Most common is a square made from four old garage doors, with two more for a roof, and a door cut into one side. And yes, that means a dirt floor and no windows. So a concrete slab floor, two windows and a real door, stucco walls, and a roof that doesn't leak is a big improvement.
As simple as the houses are, they still cost money to build, and it costs money to get us down there. That's where the fundraising concert came in. I built some extensions to the stage area so we could fit them all in, and so I could see the bass players (the "6 bass" players have six full-size steel drums, which takes some room), and borrowed a video camera so I could do a little IMAG (image magnification) and put the band on the big screen. We got a great turn out, and raised a big chunk of the money for the trip. Thanks, Panhandlers!

The band is a blast to watch and listen to. As the director said in introducing one of the songs, the tenor players move about 186 MPH and manage to get all the notes. They're amazing to watch. Here's a taste:

"Wow" doesn't even cover it. It looks even better when viewed directly on YouTube's site.

No Man is an Island

...but some kitchens are, namely ours. Today, for the first time in too long, I put in a full day working on the house. And work on the house I did. Not even peripheral stuff like organizing the basement so I can store stuff, get to the table saw, etc., but actual work on the actual house.

I finished removing the trim and paneling in the old entry hall (preserving the larger pieces of paneling for future re-use), removed the weird insulation (using my spiffy new 6.5hp shop vac to suck up the stray bits and pieces along with the mouse droppings), and started removing the trim and siding around the outside of the old door.

The result is that the kitchen is now completely cut off from any semblance of an unchanged house. One side has the old window opening that looks into new entry hall. Another is into the dining room, which is stripped down to studs and subfloor. And now the last open side is the hall, which is similarly denuded of finish materials.

I still have a lot to do before I demolish the kitchen, and numerous interruptions in the weeks to come (apheresis tomorrow, for starters), but it felt good to get some progress done on the house.

Go in Peace

Katarina's dad finally succumbed to Parkinson's. It's been a death by inches, so it's a relief to see him finally at peace. Katarina wrote a song originally for her aunt Marjorie when she was near the end of her battle with cancer. She recently rewrote "Go in Peace" to be more general. You can listen to the song on her music page here.

Go in peace, Erik. You are loved.