| Adventures in Team Leading |
[13 Oct 2008|12:01am] |
Today, my group of 20 software-company employees turned this:
Into this!
And the other 200 people did some other stuff, like painting 17 classrooms, covering the blacktop with games and maps, building a basketball and vollyball court, planting gardens. Whatever. Look at my pretty benches!
I might do a more detailed post when I am not so tired. Maybe not. I kinda get the impression I am boring you all to death with this work talk, but since I think it's super-awesome, it's hard not to share. Once the other VLs start using our tam blog I will probabally move mostly over there.
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From ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) gildedage |
[12 Oct 2008|11:23pm] |
The rules: Post this list in your LJ, along with your answers. If you can answer all of them without giving yourself an aneurysm, congratulations! You are overqualified to be Vice-President.
Magazines or newspapers that you like to read:
Least favorite Supreme Court decision that's not Roe v. Wade:
Favorite Vice-President (NOT A CANDIDATE GOD DAMN YOU NAME AN ACTUAL OFFICE-HOLDER):
Worst thing Dick Cheney has ever done:
Favorite movie:
Favorite scene from that movie:
Do you blink?:
( Say it ain't so, Joe )
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| Productivity report! |
[11 Oct 2008|10:43pm] |
I think this is as good a time as any to call the end of my first full week working with Hands On. I'm not totally sure because I don't have any actual days off this week - today and Monday we were technically off, but today we spent 7 hours doing prep work at the school for our corporate event tomorrow, and Monday me and Rosalie are doing the Women Rebuild thing in St. Bernard Parish.
Week 1 totals, including group projects:
Bunks built - 50
Rooms in the bunkhouse painted: 6
Piles of lumber sorted and carried - enough to build 8 tables, 10 benches 4 puppet theaters, and all 50 bunks.
Locker rooms cleaned: 1 (so the Teach for America people could come in and paint it. It was icky.)
Homeowners talked with: 2
Site visits: 1 (house of a woman whose contractor did a shoddy job then ran out on her.)
Classrooms prepped: 3
Classrooms painted: 1
Relevant movies seen: 4 (Trouble the Water (again) When the Levees Broke (again) Hurricane on the Bayou, that PBS documentary.)
In other news, I still have not assembled any of my own furniture. It's on my to-do list for the next time I have a day off that I don't spend doing what I do on my days on.
Tomorrow, I boldly lead a team of 15 forced volunteers from some company for the school beautification project. My team is building benches. I'm not entirely sure our half-day of training on effectively managing volunteers has prepared me for this, but if I'm lucky, they'll be too distracted by the fact that I don't know how to build benches to notice.
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| Drink of the Week: Jamestown |
[11 Oct 2008|05:41pm] |
This is a martini. But it's a martini with a lovely raw oyster soaking in the bottom of your glass, so that when you finish your drink, you have a gin-soaked oyster.
3 oz Bulldog gin
Dry Vermouth
1 Chesapeake Bay Oyster (any variety)
Ice
Chill martini glass
Shake gin with ice
Pour ice out of glass, coat inside of glass with vermouth
Pour out vermouth
Add oyster
Add gin
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| What is Hands On? |
[07 Oct 2008|11:01pm] |
Today we went to hear a talk and then man a table at a Tulane 'service fair' thing. So, if you were wondering what HONO is, here's our one sentence answer: 'Hands On is a rebuilding nonprofit that coordinates volunteers.' Then we gave them pamphlets and directed them to our website.
Inspiring and helpful fact:
Since 2006, over 7,000 people have volunteered through HONO, contributing over 500,000 hours of work.
This is a lot.
After Tulane, we went back to the house to assemble bunks. Know what's awesome? Power tools. Power tools are AWESOME. Holding huge wooden things in place so that everything can be screwed together into bunk-shape, not quite so awesome.
More work on the bunk-house tomorrow. By next week we'll have our VL office set up there. At least, that's the plan.
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| Friends Cut Warning |
[07 Oct 2008|07:47pm] |
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Hey, guys, work is taking a serious, serious toll on my ability to keep up on LJ. I just defriended a bunch of people-- and a lot of people I really like keeping up with, but I just feel awful that I'm not keeping up with my real life friends and close internet friends, so it had to happen. I am very sorry to cut you guys-- there's nobody on my friendslist I hate or anything, but I just needed to do it for my sanity. If you really, really want me to add you back, please just ask.
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[04 Oct 2008|04:06pm] |
THE OBAMA BUS HAS COME TO MY HOUSE.
Technically, I think they are here for the street fair that is being held on the other side of my house. (I woke up this morning when the band started playing literally fifteen feet from my window. It was kind of nice.) But there is a giant Obama bus parked by my front door, and this is filling me with illogical glee.
Training was kind of put on hold for a day of actual productivity. I came home covered in blue paint. I suspect this will happen a lot. But we get the weekend off, so I can rest, recover, and see a show tonight. Pretty good.
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[29 Sep 2008|08:40pm] |
I've gotten way behind on commenting/posting and things - sorry! My computer has become temperamental about picking up wireless - a step up from it's usual pattern of merely deciding it doesn't like my wireless. Now some days it won't even acknowledge a signal if I go down to McDonald's. Which is probably good for my health, as I didn't need the excuse to be hanging out there all night.
Real updates to come. Sometime.
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