Couple interesting stories.

First, don't freak out. But I heard at the end of the day yesterday that a worker for one of the sub-contractors got shot on one of our jobsites yesterday. Well, I got more detail today and you can relax because it was actually 2 workers and it was basically unprovoked. The story goes like this. The site was next to an apartment building. Some dude was beating up on two women. He was probably their pimp or something or maybe they were both his girlfriends. Anyway, this caught the attention of the bricklayers. They were looking at the dude and he said to them "What are you looking at?" Now, I don't know if the bricklayers responded to him but apparently the dude walked over and shot one of the guys in the hand and the other in the leg. I would say that is pretty unprovoked. Then the chicks that were getting beat by the dude start attacking the bricklayers. Unbelieveable. Anyway, I think the bricklayers are okay and the dude is in jail.

Next story, this morning I was working with three female volunteers from a credit card issuer. Not ten minutes after we arrive on the site do we see a domestic disturbance breakout in the front yard of the house kitty-corner from our site. The guys was about my build and the chick was about 200 pounds. They both had each others dreads in their hands. So there they are in the street hunched over head-to-head pulling each other's hair and swearing profusely at each other. I couldn't make this stuff up. They temporarily break it up only to be going at it five minutes later. I see clothes being thrown in the street and pushes maybe a couple slaps but no punches. They wrestle a little and the woman eventually throws the skinny punk on the ground and sits on him right in the middle of the street. Well, needless to say my volunteers were excited to now have a story to tell their co-workers who were working at a different site. After about five minutes of sitting on the guy I hear their car take off. The volunteers told me that they both got in the same car and took off. Crazy. The neighborhood also had a drunk dude yelling at a guy on a bike that the drunk apparently thinks was stolen from him. And I'm back to that site tomorrow.

Last story. I'm sitting on my couch after work getting the my daily market wrap-up and I see some dude walk up the driveway and ring the doorbell. I'm thinking this is no good as he is a pretty shady lookin' dude. Turns out he wants to cut my grass or wash my car for $1.99 so he can get some dinner from one of the fast food joints. Our grass happened to be long because whoever usually cuts it hadn't been around in a while. So I told him sure, what the hell go ahead. Then he asks for a cup of water. I oblige. Then he asks for a gas can or something else to put gas in. I told him I didn't have anything. I thought he was going to ask to borrow my car next or nap in my bed. But he eventually cuts the lawn and offers about 10 other services. Oh yeah, this dude actually has a name, William. So I give him 250% of his asking price and another cup of water and now I have a freshly cut lawn.

To give you an idea about the neighborhood. I looked into a vacant lot for sale two blocks south of my house and it was $65k. That was quite a bit more than I had expected. But it is a good size lot with nice big trees. Another 10 years and this will be the place to live in Jacksonville.

Have a nice weekend.