Christmas Eve in San Diego

The weather was unusually nice in San Diego this Christmas Eve.  In the early afternoon as the temp stretched up to about 70 degrees, a group of friends gathered to decorate bikes with as many sparkly things as you could get to fit, dawn Santa hats and ride up and down the ocean walk while playing Christmas music from an iPod system strapped to the back of one of the bikes.

I enjoyed riding leisurely at the back of the pack where I didn't need to think of the pace (as it was being set for me) and where I could hear the music well.  The spectators seemed to enjoy it as well.  My companions chose red as their dominating color of choice.  My green shirt (which I own for playing soccer in, it is our team's color) elicited one of the funniest responses...After a line of "Santas" someone proclaimed "And an Elf!"

Glad I could lend a little balance to the event.

The day also served as another reminder to not take yourself too seriously and to take the time to do the things you truly enjoy.  With the great possibility of misspelling her name due to hailing from Holland, I will give it a shot anyway.  Jutka, the lady with us in the white shirt has recently gone through many months in a hospital and many surgeries.  With her body on the mend, she was like a kid in a candy shop with her renewed freedom to "zoom around" on a bike in the sunshine. 

One section down

Been spending much of my time in the office recently working on the manual for the new San Carlos house project.  It is a big project and we decided to divide the manual up into 5 sections.  Today I submitted a draft for one of the sections to a peer, made some suggested changes and am ready to call that section workable.  Although there will undoubtedly be major changes in the future, there is a sense of completion and yes, some relief.  A Christmas present to myself.

Day Trip

While the group went to work on framing Bertha's house...

She was busy in her daughter's kitchen cooking away... she made burritos for the whole group.  They were delicious!

It was a pretty great day all around.

A Day Trip to Tijuana

What would trips to Mexico be without some soccer!

This guy has some skills.

The game this day drew quite a crowd.

These girls are having a great time burying
things in the pile of leftover rock from the house.

Noise

There is so much going on around us in our culture.  TVs radios telephones cellphones ipods gaming systems and computers keep us plugged in continuously with social networking tweeting facebooking google plus-ing and myspaceing keeping us "connected."  Sometimes it can be too much.  I am not sure we were meant to live at such a frenzied pace.  This is one of the reasons I like working in Mexico.  Generally there is less of...everything.  It is nice to have an excuse every now and then to not be in the loop on everything.

Well, that was interesting.  Now will get to what I was actually going to post about.

There is a classical radio station here that I tend to listen to regularly.  It has the identification letters XLNC which is pretty great, say it out loud and it is like an address to royalty.  On the way to work this morning they played some George Gershwin.  I would not really classify myself as super sophisticated but a few of the words that came to mind to describe this arrangement included enchanting and adventuresome, inviting and exciting.  A lovely way to start the day.

Mexico? Yep, It's still there.

Went to Mexico today with the fellow intern to do some preparations for the Christmas celebration we are going to have on Saturday with Amor's Mexican pastor's and their families.  We shopped for gifts in the Comercial Mexicana.  Packaged the gifts at camp and then stopped for a delicious lunch of  tacos, a torta (sort of like a taco sandwich with bread instead of a tortilla) and an apple flavored drink.

It was a beautiful day.  The sun was out in full force with a cool breeze to balance it.  As we were on our way back to the boarder, school was getting out.  There were lots of elementary aged kids milling about in their blue school uniforms, excited to see the parents there to pick them up.  Sometimes the landscape appears sparse in this area until you put these people into it.

A Snowless Christmas - but there are lights!

Although San Diego doesn't get snow for Christmas, they still play the same Christmas songs...and decorate like there is.  There is a street close to where I live on which everyone decorates in a grand way.  The type of street where you park and walk.  A few images...trying to capturing some of the thousands of lights.

December is here already!

Welcome Back!  (if I have not lost you due to lack of new posting)


With another trip to San Carlos, AZ in November and a flight home to Indiana for Thanksgiving week, the month of November flew by.  In the weeks that I have been in San Diego, the times have been busy.  Outside of work, between soccer, a couple of different church groups, softball, day trips to Mexico on the weekends, and for this week, walking a friend's dog I seem to be constantly on the move.


With a first very rough draft for the manual I have been working on for the Amor San Carlos house done, the tougher job of filling in holes and refining details has begun.  There are so many detail things still to be learned.


I hope you all had a very nice Thanksgiving and had some good visiting time with family and friends.  In lieu of the obligatory "Thanksgiving" post, I will pass on a thought that a friend of mine was pondering regarding being thankful.


What if you woke up in the morning and the only things you still had around you were the things that you thanked God for the night before?


 For what are you truly thankful?




Side note:  In case you were wondering, our soccer team is improving!  Our record does not look impressive (1-7-1) and indeed we are in last place, but we are not losing games by double digits anymore.  As a matter of fact we were quite close this week, I think even having the lead for a while in the 2 to 3 loss.

Some Modeling...

no, not the fashion kind.  It is not perfect, but I have been working in a new program...

Plumbing

House

The Water is Fine...

when you are wearing a wet suit.  If you ever wondered how warm blooded animals can survive in cold ocean waters, fret no more.  Assuming their natural protective layers are even better than what we can create for ourselves, they are perfectly fine.

This is called a long board, for obvious reasons.  It is about 10 feet long
and is rather buoyant, great for the beginner surfer.

Thanks Jon for the early morning opportunity!

Focused on Pipes

I have been doing some searching on the internet for some information on ABS piping so that I can attempt to create an accurate model of the plumbing for the Amor house being built in San Carlos.  This is black pipe material that often serves as drainage and vent piping.  I was looking for images that had some size information included for the different fittings and connectors you can use, "Y" branches and "T" branches, that kind of thing.  After several different searches that were not yielding the results hoped for I decided to broaden my search so I deleted some of the adjective words from my search and went with just "ABS"  Having been focusing so intently on this piping information, I was momentarily startled and confused as to why the screen was suddenly full of men's flexing stomach muscles.

Tourist for a day

When my friend, who also happens to be my cousin came for a visit, we took time to do touristy things.  One of my co-workers explains the oddity of the situation this way, with the jobs we have, sometimes it is easy to forget that we live in San Diego.  I don't believe I have forgotten that I live here, but I haven't taken the time, resources or energy that is necessary to do many touristy things.  That is why a visitor was great.  We ate breakfast at a cafe overlooking the Pacific Ocean and watched the surfers, rode bikes along the coast, walked around Seaport Village shops, went to a Padres baseball game, played volleyball on the beach and had freshly caught fish from a recommended place for dinner.  Thanks for being a tourist with me, Megan!

A Doll

She really liked her puppy and the baby ducks her family were raising.  Another day trip image to make you smile.  :-)

The Dark Side of Sports

I have recently ventured into what my immediate family has considered the dark side of sports.  Either myself or siblings have participated at one point or another in just about all of the sports (basketball, baseball, softball, gymnastics, kickball, swimming, volleyball, tennis, track and field, cross country) that are available in a mid-sized town in central Indiana and while football didn't make the list, we watched plenty of it.

You have covered them all! you say.  Well, my friend, if this is your statement, like us, you may have just offended a large and growing fan base of ... soccer.

That is right.  Under consistent invitation and a potentially painful curiosity for the game of continuous running around and kicking a ball into a net (which in a well matched game may happen a total of a couple of times), I now have license to add soccer to my list of organized sports that I have played.  After my first game ever, my team has informed me that I am not too bad.  Go figure.

Black Out!

I was sitting at my desk working away when the lights all started to flicker and then the power went out...to 7 million people according to one news source.  I was experiencing my first blackout.

In Indiana, black and brown outs are things we would hear about in the news that happened to those far out people who live in California where life is expensive and earthquakes are a commonality.  The power was out for about 10 hours this day in the middle of summer.

Some side effects...
No power means no traffic signals.  Although the traffic was heavier than normal (who can effectively accomplish great things at work in this world without electricity to power their computers?!  definitely time to go home), the interstate was surprisingly smooth flowing.  After getting off the interstate your normal travel time is greatly multiplied.  I estimate it took me about 5 times as long to get home as normal in the non-interstate section, and I only had to go through 3 stoplights!  When the power goes out, once you reach your intended destination, you stay there.

I happened to decide a little music might be nice for the ride home this day and although it makes sense there was still an unexpected aspect to turning on the radio and finding that there were very few stations.  I found one that was still playing music.  They were running off of a generator.  I couldn't help but smile and turn the volume up a bit as I was driving down the busier than normal road in the city without power when the first song I heard them play I think was called Take a Back Road by Rodney Atkins.

The next day I stopped by the grocery store and found that the meat and dairy had been cleared out.  Too bad for you if you want to buy some milk or turkey.

It was cool though to hear people talking about what they did that evening.  It sounds like people really can enjoy themselves doing those old time activities like a barbecue with the neighbors (to eat that thawing meat) or  watching the kids ride their bikes or throw a ball outside (because *gasp* no tv!).  A great reminder that not everything in life always needs to be bigger or fast paced.  Try being unplugged for a while, you might like it.

Shoe Shopping

I have been thinking about getting some new shoes for a while now.  A couple of weeks ago the situation reached a point of no longer being an option as parts of a shoe that are not supposed to be exposed became so.  The critical stage was reached in large part do to my true dislike of shopping for shoes *gasp* and really shopping in general (I know, crazy!).

Why so negative toward such a favorite pastime of so many? you ask.  Let's put it this way.  In part, as far as shoes go, I haven't owned a pair that have pink on them since...I don't remember when.  I have been buying men's athletic shoes for years.  In general, stores just don't like to carry my size in the female versions.  My feet are not freakishly large.  I have never had anyone awe at their magnitude.  Tripping over them is not a regular occurrence.  Apparently they are just far enough out of the normal range to not be bothered with.

The store I found a couple of weeks ago though provided a respite from the drudgery.  It may have taken an entire warehouse of shoes on stock to do it.  But they were able to provide friendly personalized service and produce a pair of shoes, that fit. 

and they have pink on them...

While these shoes will likely help jump start more regular exercise attempts (hopefully!), they may also serve to bring joy to another... Ginger loves to play fetch and go for runs and her owner is happy to let me borrow her.   

Ginger, ready to play!

If you would like to see some of the other things Ginger and those like her may enjoy...in contrast to a cat's thoughts, check out the following diary entry... http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/humor/otherhumor/dog_cat_diary.htm

Whirl Wind Weddings!

Don't freak out!  None of them were my wedding.

I recently returned to San Diego from a week off of work during which I attended a couple of weddings.  The first was in Georgia where all of my immediate family gathered.  This was the first time I had seen most of my family since January.  It was a lovely airport welcome.  Many Aunts and Uncles and Grandma Raver were in attendance at the wedding, also.  It was great to see everyone.

The Georgia wedding was my cousin's.  An Italian-Catholic wedding officiated by an Irishman.  It had the first official "cocktail" hour before dinner that I have been to where wait staff actually walk around with food and drinks on trays.  Picture 1 is right after the ceremony.

Look at these good lookin' people!  These are my brothers
and sister.  (Shoes were removed here for a height
comparison.  Some of the people I work with think
I am tall...I may be, but...)

The second wedding was for a couple of friends who I met at church in Columbus, Indiana.  They are one of those couples where you just can't help but be delighted for them.

Some of my favorite people, Chris and Jenny, were
also in attendance.  We danced the night away.

And look, who else!  Sam and Darcy.  I first met them when
they came on the Mexico Family Camp trip with Amor this summer!

It was also a great week in between.  I was able to say hello to several friends and neighbors, attend a Starr's house cookout (another of those great Columbus families), take a trip to the Indiana State fair, play a few games, and read a few books.  Vacation at it's finest.

Irony

Sometimes I wonder at the irony of things.  They don't even have to be big or life changing.  For example, I went to a Catholic elementary school and consequently wore uniforms.  I loved the uniforms.  You didn't have to put a lot of planning into what you were going to wear and what you did wear pretty much always matched and fit with what everyone else was wearing.  My sister did not like uniforms.  She wanted to wear her own things.

Now, my sister is a nurse and wears a uniform (scrubs) to work and my jobs, post high school, have not had a uniform.  The dress codes have ranged from business to casual.  Currently, at least, I get to wear a work shirt  when I am working in the field which is close to a uniform.

 Through college I also moved a lot.  Do to a work study program I was in, I was moving every 3 to 4 months.  I looked forward to not moving for a while.  I took a job, settled in...and after 4 months my job was cut.  So what did I do?  I eventually ended up at Amor working with a "field" focus which so far has had me sleeping in places other than "my" bed sometimes 3 out of 4 weeks in a month.  I suppose since I have had some clothes hanging in the same closet since February though, that this is a step toward what I was looking forward to.

Dinner with Friends

After having worked in the field for a couple of weeks non-stop in June I was super blessed to get to visit with some friends from home.  Dan and Sara Beth came on Amor's Mexico Family Camp trip (where I was introduced to Amor a couple of years ago) and stuck around for a couple of days afterward. 

They decided I needed to try the Corvette Diner.

In case you couldn't see it in the first picture, the lovely hair style-ings of our waitress are more easily seen in the second photo.  Thanks D and SB for a night with fun for the sake of fun.

The diner also had some profound words posted on the wall to encourage deep thought and contemplation.  Thought I would share.

A New Material

The new material we are trying out for the Apache Reservation houses is called Panel W and essentially creates a steel-reinforced concrete structure with built in foam insulation.  It isn't going to go anywhere when it is complete.  The finished roof is, more or less a concrete slab.  On my last trip out to the "Rez" we poured our first roof.  We hauled buckets of cement up to the roof and spread it out by hand.  It is a long, hot day's work.

Team work to get the cement up to the roof.

Staff Michael and participant Mike getting started with the spreading.

The first San Carlos Panel W roof.

Exciting Office and Other

What is Mary up to?  You wonder.  It has been a while.
  
Indeed it has.  It has actually been a few weeks since I have been on a "traveling" adventure.  I have been mainly in the office working on putting together a new manual on how to build a house with our new material on the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona.  The new house material is called Panel W.  It is made of panels with a styrofoam type core with a wire mesh on each side of it.  The idea is pretty simple.  Basically, we put the panels next to each other, wire them securely together and stucco the inside and outside.  The roof will be done the same way.  We are still in the early stages of learning all the tips and tricks but for what we do know, I am trying to get it into a descriptive and easily understood format.

Due to the exciting nature of "technical" writing and instructional documents in general (be honest, how often do you "read the entire manual" when you buy something new, even when the first few lines tell you to do so), I will spare you great detail about beams, ties, wires, pipes, forms, rebar, bracing and cement for the time being.  Suffice it to say, a first rough draft for pouring a foundation and standing the panels has been printed for perusal and scrutinizing.  It is a rinse and repeat kind of cycle.

I have gotten to sketch up some drawings for tools that we have made to help us along.  For bending rebar (a steel rod), for example.  It was fun using some of the drawing details and dimensioning I was introduced to in high school.

In a couple of days,  I head out to Arizona again.  Will be out there for a couple of weeks.  Growing up in Indiana I heard words like Wind Chill in the winter and Heat Index in the summer for what temperatures actually feel like as opposed to what they are...checking weather.com for the areas we will be...it has a note, UV Index: 10+ Extreme.  I guess this will be my introduction to the 10+, so glad they don't bother to estimate an upper limit.  Wouldn't want to frighten anyone.  :-)  The plan...drink water, water, apply sunscreen, water, reapply sunscreen water, wear a hat and hang out in shade when possible.

Until next time, stay cool!

Mmmm Chicken

Sometimes I think I take stuff too seriously, that is why I am thankful to have some co-workers who would do crazy things for free food...  Sometimes you just have to dress like a cow and go to Chick-fil-A for free lunch on "Cow Appreciation Day".  The workers behind the counter will be happy to see you.  The little girl in line in front of you will stare with big eyes...maybe confused...possibly terrified.  But with a delicious free chicken sandwich, waffle fries and lemonade, everything will surely turn out alright.

Stuck in Traffic?

Do you ever have those days where you just seem to be going nowhere fast?  After a day in the field in Mexico,  I was almost back to the border and ended up stopped in traffic.  I was surrounded by vehicles on all sides and therefore, got to wait it out.  Below is a Google Earth Image of the intersection I was waiting at (Pink arrows are traffic directions).  I was about where the pink spot is.  I wanted to turn at the blue spot and lots of people wanted to go where the green spot is.  People (including a big bus) started lining up for the green spot blocking the other three north/south driving options and then the north/south drivers filled in the gaps.  

It quickly turned into what looked like one of those games where you have to slide cars around in a parking lot to get one out, kind of like these  :-)  http://www.lilgames.com/highway.shtml or http://www.2flashgames.com/f/f-146.htm

How was this remedied?  It took a police officer coming and blocking off the green ramp before people would concede and take another route.

Do we ever find ourselves stuck (and maybe holding other people back) because we are determined to do something or maybe haven't considered other options for getting a job done?

Some More From the Build Site

Here are a few more photos from the build started with the last group.  This is a job everyone can get involved with.  Olivia (4 years old) decided her small hammer wasn't good enough.

Baling wire, then tar paper.

The family we are building for has been helping from the beginning.

.

At the end of the day, the house has a roof, is wrapped in chicken wire and is ready for stucco.

Troupers and Some Mexico House Construction

When you plan to come work with Amor months in advance there really is no point in checking the weather.  Checking shortly before you come, however, is a good idea.  Memorial Day weekend was the first trip to Mexico I have been on that included a nice cold rain and gusty winds.  It is amazing what a fire can do for you even while it is raining.  This group had high spirits as they gathered around the fire to warm up and dry off.  Their clothes where steaming as they dried.

One person in the group was prepared though.  He used to be a boy scout.

  

The group was determined to stick it out.  Good call on their part.  The rain stopped by 9:15am and the sky was clear and sunny by the time afternoon came around.  They were able to build and stand the walls and roof sections over the slab they poured the day before.

Mixing concrete for the the slab.

Building a walls in the street.  It is a small lot.

More wall construction going on on top of the finished slab.

Walls are starting to go up.

Getting the roof sections squared and attached.

Rosarito Camp - Basic Necessities

 The end of the spring building season and beginning of the summer season has been accompanied with the dismantling of camp in Tecate and building camp in Rosarito.  This time I remembered to bring a camera as we were once again building baños.

The shower house.

Open field, check.  Deep hole, check.  Baño parts, check.

One piece at a time.  This is an art my friends.  Put them together in a certain order and you don't have to fight it too hard, and in the mean time, take care not to fall in the hole.

 Two sets of seven baños.  Done.

Mi Casa es Su Casa

Most of my time in the field so far has been spent in Arizona on the Apache Reservation.  On Saturday I had the opportunity to work with a couple of groups for a day trip.  Both of these groups are "regulars" coming down at least once a month.  How great is that?!  They pretty much knew what to do at the work sites, I worked to get the materials they needed and then got to talk with them, the families we were building for and one of the pastors on our Mexican pastor board. 

Alicia, the grandmother at one of the sites really seemed to enjoy chatting with me...and laughing at my lack of Spanish vocabulary.  She and some of her grandchildren made us some chicken with rice and mole sauce and cool drinks.  They were very thankful to be receiving the house so their family could stay together and insisted that I come to visit saying "mi casa es su casa"..."my house is your house."

One of our pastors helped us get some materials for the other location.  He lived close so I stopped by to see where he and his wife and daughter live.  They are working to finish some of their living areas and he joked that it may be a couple of years, but the invite was there again, "mi casa es su casa."

How humbling it is to have multiple invites and genuine gratitude when we come for a day to work on a house and share a little bit of life together. 

Spiders, Snakes and Snails?

Happy Friday the 13!  The day seems significantly less frightening when it comes in May, nevertheless, an appropriate day to share some of the warnings, dangers and creatures that have become part of this experience.

My job has taken me on several adventures and new dangers are made apparently regularly.  The roads I travel through the mountains and desert as I go from San Diego to Arizona often warn me of high winds, steep declines and falling rocks.  I also encountered official warnings of flash flooding and cows.  No joke, a regularly occurring sign.

Some of the other perilous creatures we have occasion to encounter in the desert work environment where we work:

Spiders – big ones.  I have not witnessed personally any giants, but have had some small ones crawl up my leg.  Our volunteer groups tend to see more of these (some of a large and furry body nature – read tarantula) in the evening when things cool off.

Wild Pigs (Javelinas – the beginning of which sounds like “have”) – I have also not yet been an eye witness to these.  But again some of our groups have.  They have been woken up by the pigs terrorizing their camp…ramming coolers, shredding bags and eating small children.  One of our long term volunteers narrowly escaped death as he was sleeping in a tent away from the group and the pigs entered the camp coming up through the wash right next to his tent.  It was solely his quick thinking and “playing dead” that saved his life.

Scorpions – I have indeed seen these, almost sat on one the other day.  They move more quickly than I had imagined.  Frightening thing about these…the smaller they are the more dangerous they are as they as they cannot control their venom.  We instruct people to shake out their shoes in the morning clear them of all such little friends.

Lizards - This horned toed lizard came to help us put up trusses one day.  It was very kind.

Snakes – This is indeed a desert work environment we are working in.  This rattler greeted me the other day.  I have learned since taking this picture that when Mr. Rattler is coiled up on himself, he can leap twice the distance of his body length…noted for the future.

Snails - I realize that snails are significantly less frightening than spiders and snakes to most people, but I also know that most people will not willingly touch live snails.  Personally, I cannot be sure of people’s sanity when they eat the creatures, the slimy goo does not convey a savory thought.  I don’t even have to travel from San Diego for these delights.  When it is damp outside, there seems to be several of these fellows hanging out outside of our apartment. 

           

Thanks for reading, may you encounter as many creepy crawlies as you wish today!

Mary