Punchlist.

Well, I lived through the day on Saturday. I managed to get the trailer out to the site without incident. Then I got back to the warehouse to meet my volunteers. I had only one true volunteer. He was a guy that was getting a feel for Habijax and what we do because he is going to pitch the idea of sponsorship to his company. Sponsorship consists of a company putting up $50k toward building a house and also working a certain number of volunteer hours by company employees. In return the sponsor company gets to deduct, not the $50k, but instead the appraised value of the home which is usually around $90k. It is a pretty sweet deal for the company. Anyway, the 9 remaining volunteers were actually future Habitat homeowners earning their 300 hours of "sweat equity." Keep in mind that probably close to half of the homeowners we deal with are significantly overweight females with limited formal education. They are all nice people but trying to lead a group of 10 people on punchlist is a very difficult task, especially since it was only my second time leading a group by myself and the first time I only had 4 volunteers. We had to do "Pre-Carpet Punchlist."

Pre-Carpet Punch consists of about a million things but basically we have to get the house ready for carpet to be laid. The superintendant is supposed to make a list of everything for the leader and the volunteers to do. However, my list only had about 5 things on it which wasn't nearly enough for 11 people. One thing was to repaint all 4 bedrooms and the hallway. This was a problem considering we got to the site with brushes and rollers but no paint. So I managed to keep people busy cleaning and caulking for the morning. We broke for lunch early at 11 so I could go pick-up the trailer, bring it to the warehouse, pick up a bunch of supplies, and eat lunch. I get to the other site to pick up the trailer and all the Baptist have left for the day. This is a problem because I need help getting the trailer on the truck. There happens to be a possibly homeless man sitting on the porch eating a huge sandwich that I believe the Baptist group gave him. He is like 90 with a cane. I tell him my problem and he agrees to help me back in. 15 minutes later the trailer is hooked on and the ladders are secure and I'm off. Much thanks to the sandwich eating homeless dude. I'll have to bring money with me next time for such situations.

So I finally make it back to the site at 12:30 with paint and other supplies. One such supply is an extension cord. I plug it in at the pole and start unwrapping it and bringing it toward the house. After I get it half unwound I find that the other end has no female end but instead just exposed wires. Isn't that a nice surprise? After cleaning my shorts I unplug the extension cord and decide we can work without the light. We procede to paint almost the entire house in less than 2 hours. Once the painting was done, so were my homeowners even though we were supposed to have 45 minutes left. I delayed them until 3 pm and signed their sweat equity log books and sent them on their way. However, one was slow to leave and I think she was pretty sweet on me because she was complimenting me on my beautiful teeth (most of the homeowners have at least one gold tooth and several missing teeth) and was the last person left and making small talk with me while sort of gazing at me. I didn't get the digits though. That pretty much wrapped the day. Chaotic but rewarding when it was finished.

Saturday night most of the Americorps went to Kristen's parent's house in Yankeetown near the Gulf. They had an awesome house. Two story spanish style with a full house length upstairs balcony overlooking the pool and hot tub and the whole thing was screened in with one of those Florida screen things. There was a outdoor bar next to the pool and under the upstairs balcony. This was all facing a little river that includes, at times, alligators, porpoise, manatee (we saw several), fish, and the occasional shrimping boat. It was really an incredible place. It was quiet, with a good size yard, palm trees, spanish moss, and four dogs. We just ate food and swam until we had to leave Sunday to get back in time for the Jaguars game (which we won).

Sorry this post was so long but it was an eventful weekend. I doubt there will be anymore this long. I hope everyone out there is doing great. I have to eat some lunch and go play golf. Take care.

JAP