1st SPIKE

I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But you don't. HAHAHA.
Well, some of you do, but for those who don't, it's better to hear it straight from me, so if you want to know, give me a call or send me a message on my AIM sn: every1luvsjosh. You can leave me messages at any time on AIM by the way, if I am offline, they will go straight to my phone.

I will give some hints though:

• Who: Red Three
• What: Trail building, reconstructing and replanting from fires 6 months ago, brush removal, etc. We will be living in tents for the duration of our SPIKE.
• Where: 21 miles from the coast of LA-Long Beach
• When: Starting November 26th for 8 weeks

Sounds pretty rough, huh? Candy to anyone who can guess right who I haven't told yet and hasn't found out through reasonable means (anyone who I have told). If you would like to guess, though, let me know. I am super excited to get going now though. More info later.

-Josh

Happy Make-a-Difference Day!

Today was the first project for all of the teams: our team had the task, along with Blue 5, to clean up a small park in the local area. It was so great. Our team(s) worked so well together, and we got a lot of work done. The area was a triangle approximately 60' x 200' x 200' and had planted areas the entire way around. Our job was to pull the weeds around the plants and add more mulch to the already existing stuff. We planted about 5 trees, moved about 1 ton or so of mulch, pulled a LOT of weeds and had a great time doing it all. I wish I had pictures before and after to show you all, but I was too excited to get to work that I didn't even grab my camera. Sorry. Maybe I'll be able to find some from others who were there and will be able to post later, who knows. Thats all for now everyone!

-Josh

ALRIGHT!!!

Sorry, no pics today all, I'm in my room waiting for dinner and have a chance to update this. We got our team assignments yesterday which was uber exciting. I am a part of Unit "Red" Team 3. My team is pretty sweet too, though I will miss Pod 21 and our illustrious lead(v)er Grant. But my new team is my family for the next 9...ish months. We went out with Green 4 last night and hSd a cookout by the American River which was awesome. It was a great way to bond with our n teams and have an awesome meal too. Today was the test/training for Van Drivers... and I passed, so I'm excited about that, I will be one of four CM drivers for my team. There are 12 people on my team plus our team leader who's name is Brooks. Other than our cookout, our first thing which we did as a team was our Physical Training (PT) baseline test. SOO much fun. It consisted of 2 minutes each of push-ups and sit-ups and a mile and-a-half run. We were basically doing the test to push ourselves and set a point to grow from throughout the year. I was really happy with my results: 50 sit-ups, 25 push-ups and 16:43 on the run. I can't wait to get better than that though, and I am ready to start our normal PT so I can push myself even farther.

It was a good day, and today is my first night on duty, so I am going to go get dinner and then go do duty work after.


-Josh

P.s. If you want to send mail, message me on AIM or leave a comment on here with contact info so I can give you my address.

P.S.s. To be on duty means that we are patrolling our campus for safety and cleanliness. Part of our responsiblities include looking for people who dont belong on campus, keeping the noise level down after quiet hours, making sure theres no "purpling" or mixing of genders in a room after quiet hours start, and picking up trash in the common areas.

San Francisco!!!

So, here are some pictures of San Francisco. I changed the colour and contrast on a few of them to make them look cooler. We walked for about five and a half hours around the northeast part of San Fran today... it was crazy!!

Excited, Back From Old Sac

I am SO excited right now, its nearly 12:30 and I cannot sleep at all. IM GOING TO SAN FRANCISCO TODAY! I can absolutely not wait, and yet were not meeting until 6:30, so I have another 6 hours to either stay awake or try and sleep. Presently the latter option doesn't seem like a possibility. We're supposed to be taking the light rail into Sacramento tomorrow morning, then from there, we find the Greyhound station. Take the 2 hour trip to San Fran. We were planning on leaving around 7, but plans changed a little and we are now leaving around 9:30ish... so yeah, fun stuff. Ameri-motto: Be Flexible! UGH Luckily Greyhound has a pretty flexible exchange policy. We won't be able to stay for very long, but its still San Francisco. So for the 5 hours or so that we'll be there, I am sure I'll have a blast!

So the pictures are from Old Sacramento, and they're all basically of the same area down by the river. That was a pretty cool place, lots of neat little shops, and just a lot of fun to hang around. Definitely someplace you have to visit if you come out here at some point in time. Pics explain it all if you ask me!

On campus... Finally!

Yesterday was absolutely insane. By far the longest day of my life... mostly because it lasted 27 hours! I woke up around 3 or so yesterday morning in Columbus, went to the airport, grabbed breakfast, and then went to security (which by the way took like 15 minutes... seriously. So I waited for nearly an hour to board the plane. We took off to some bumpy skies, but landed safely in chicago, where I had an hour and a half wait for my next flight to Sacramento. I got to the gate, and was one of the first ones, but slowly they just kept coming, and I swear we took up almost half the 737 we were in. Craziness. So, yeah. Together, the flights lasted about 5 hours.

I am on campus in beautiful McClellan, CA; which is just outside of Sacramento. I've completed all of my in-processing, have my uniform (on) and have until 1:30 pst to hang out and relax.

I'll post more when we actually do something interesting. Just so you know, I am on campus, and am running on PST which is -3 hours from eastern. Have a lovely day!

-Josh

Welcome and Introduction

Haha, so here is my (hopefully not so) fatal attempt at a Blog. If you dont know whats going on, this coming year I will be doing a year of service with Americorps's NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps) program. Basically I'm going to be doing a mixture of the Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity, along with much more, including education among other things. I will be gone for about 10 months, leaving next Wednesday the 17th from Port Columbus (at 7:30 ugh) and should be out there around 4 p.m. est. By the way, out there means Sacramento, California. Yeah, thats right, I'm doing my 5 weeks worth of training in California. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me on AIM or through e-mail, because I doubt this will be updated, let alone checked, every day.

-Josh