Fair play

Today’s Monday, which means I’m late with this update but these days what else is new? I’m totally swamped but enjoying it.

I’m six weeks into this 12-month gig and haven’t had time to come up for air yet. That might come this weekend, when I head to Denver for Zippy’s tournament, but who knows.

The laptop isn’t making the trip, which means I might go into DTs or similar if I can’t check my email but I do need to get away.

Technically, the two-day excursion isn’t taking any time off as I’ll leave Friday night and get back around midnight on Sunday, but it is time away so that counts in my book.

Honestly, I was thinking about it and I can’t fathom when I’ll take my 10 vacation days. There are some road trips I want to do from here, but right now I either don’t have the time or money.

Really, it’d be nice to just settle into some kind of routine. Until that happens, I stress about being away. There’s so much to do.

But for the past two Saturdays, I have gotten off campus.

My Zac Brown Band ticket winner also bought tickets to give to volunteers. I did that through drawings and the winners of two insisted that I go with them, which was fine with me.

So last Saturday, I got to see the Zac Brown Band, which was very cool. I felt like it was a little closure since I did all that work leading up to the tickets in the first place. (Indeed, multiple people – including my supervisor – told me I should have just taken those tickets for myself anyway, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.)

I’m not all that much of a concert goer but I had a good time during the ZBB. Truth be told, though, I’d have preferred the Eat and Greet – or really, just the Eat.

But I do really like their music (and have now bought two of their CDs) and had a good time, even if I was a bit “on guard” since I was with a volunteer.

The fair was cool, though small. It’s the state fair, but I’m told some of the other cities in ND have larger fairs, so I’m not sure how that works.

This past Saturday, I got to go again. Ashton, my new counterpart as a VISTA, won the tickets and insisted I go with her. I didn’t want to initially (especially since the village coordinator had wanted to go) but caved.

Man, I am glad I did. I had a BLAST.

Yes, the show got started late due to a maelstrom, complete with high winds, hail and evil lightning. But once it got going – about an hour late – it was just awesome.

Ashton and I sat in the grandstand instead of SRO, which was where the tickets were for, and really could barely see the stage. The ZBB had had screens up, but Foreigner didn’t. Not sure whether they did and took them down during the weather delay or what, but I cold only see inch-high people.

Which was fine. It was essentially a cover band at this point anyway, and man, did they cover. I think the only song I knew from them that they *didn’t* do was “Double Vision,” and we missed the first song (prior to the rain delay) and that could have been it for all I knew. And the lead singer sounded exactly like Lou Gramm.

The drummer, whoever he was, was leaving the band after that gig and we knew it was over when they came out and, as he was banging away, started disassembling it and then had hootchie cootchie dancers all over him. Nice send-off.

They brought in the high school choir, which was really special since the school was the one that flooded. The band’s foundation gave a donation and said all CD sales from that night would go directly to the choir, which was nice.

Essentially, it was a fun evening to go and get out, even if now I do feel like I’m hours behind.

I need someone to invent a 40-hour workday, then I’ll be just fine. Fair enough.

Guess who's in charge?

 This weekend, I’m on my own! Our new village coordinator is out of town and I am the inmate in charge of the asylum. Yay!

It’s sort of a combination between cruise ship director, golf cart driver and stressed out flunkie.

I’ve already greeted (and forgotten the name of) our new cooks, who are entirely welcome since the last crew was a bit … uh, well I’d rather not say. And one of the cooks, half the married couple, has voiced a few complaints already. Joy!

But they seem nice and I think they’ll be fine. If they can produce some not-sour tea (let’s not just keep dumping new tea in the old … it does go bad) they will be my friends. The current guys don’t even remember to put out lunch.

And one of the issues was easy to fix. The complaint was the fact that the AC didn’t work, but I fixed that immediately by turning it ON.

Saturday morning, I had to wake up early to do announcements and all that and then had to do six loads of laundry to wash all the sheets. We only use the fitted sheet (the volunteers bring their own set) but it still took awhile.I saved time by using the golf cart, but I forgot I had to charge it (actually, I just didn't know how far it would go on a charge and pushed my luck).

I also cleaned the bathrooms, just dumping the trash and refilling the TP and PT.  Three hours total. This is a little insane, but it wasn’t like it was heavy work or anything, just time-consuming.

The other night I sat in on an orientation because I had to start doing them myself for the people in the groups coming in. I hadn’t planned on it. I mean, I’m working 12- and 14-hour days right now and I knew I had this weekend come up and I need to cover Steve.

So that night, I had just taken a shower and was headed back to my RV, assuming I was just going to faceplant and get some sleep. But Steve caught me and asked if I was going to sit in on the orientation.

My first thought was like, sheesh, no. I just want to go to bed. I’m not even wearing underwear, for God’s sake. But once I got back to my RV I realized I really needed to do the dry run and went back in. (And I did put on underwear.)

Saturday so far has been fine if exhausting but Sunday is just going to be rough. I need to figure out how to get food since we don’t get lunch here but I have no idea when the groups are due in.

Mostly, I’m just feeling totally scatterbrained today because there are so many irons in the fire.

As seen on TV

So, the question came up to me the other day why I haven’t bothered applying to any PC Response (short-term PC) gigs lately. That’s something that interests me, definitely, but my applications haven’t garnered much attention.

But the thing is, I’m here for a year. And I like it. I’ve gotten more job satisfaction out of Minot in the first four weeks than I did in all of my PC service.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I loved Morocco; I still miss Morocco. Daily. (Oh, and remind me to tell y’all about EC’s doppelganger, found right here in Minot, though he’s not a possibility.)

But here, I’m doing more what I signed up for. PC is really vague. You form your own job and you sometimes have to fake it. You also have great friction, at times, when your site doesn’t agree with what PC wants. I mean, the times I got into real arguments about my job description was when I tried to do what PC wanted and it conflicted with my mudir’s idea of my job.

So here I have a definite job description and although I do stray from it from time to time, I know what my goals are. They’re measurable.

And if I walked out right now, I feel I’ve done more than I did in 27 months of PC.

My first event was this week; the open house that had been planned, but not really detailed, before I arrived. It kinds of got handed to me and two other committee members.

All told, we had probably between 100-150 people. Not bad, really -- we had NO idea what to expect.

My coup had been securing two fair tickets to the Zac Brown Band's performance at the fair ad well as their eat and greet beforehand. The band is big on that, so it worked out great.

I think I already told the story that, before I got here, someone had asked the fair if another one of the acts could do something about flood relief. The person they talked to – not affiliated with the artist at all – said no. I was like uh, it’s not that person’s call.

Not being totally ignorant of music and PR, I know that bands schedule time in for community relations stuff, and honestly, it doesn't get a whole lot more community friendly. But those committee people (not the two I was working with) were just so completely appalled that I'd consider going around the fair person I just didn't even bother to tell them.

But, with the OK of my own supervisor, I did. And got an immediate response from the ZBB saying sure, we'd be glad to help. (Some people make things so much harder than they should be.)

In the last week, I've been on TV, in the paper (http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/567274/Hope-Village.html)
and on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNkOco_a18M) promoting Hope Village and the like, so I had no idea what to expect.

Well, the open house went just fine. I did tours and information sessions and got some positive feedback. We'll see if anything like money comes from that, but it was fun.

The auction went phenomenal. I mean, phenomenal. I was hoping to raise enough to get one of these sanitizer machines used in power washing. They're $400 and we needed two.

I entered a bid to start us out, and I put it in Wendy's name. I was kind of worried for three days there, but eventually someone placed a real bid of $50.

My rules called for raises in $1 increments, so I was surprised when the next bid was $100. And then the next was $200. Then it went to $400, $500 and $550.

Then I got a guy who's from here but lives across the state who put in a bid of $1,500. I was stunned and still am.  The winner ALSO bought six tickets to the rest of the shows and I’m to give them away (two to Kid Rock and Foreigner and four to the rest of the bands). PLUS, he handed the tickets back so I could re-offer them to Bidder No. 2, who agreed to follow through with his original bid.

So all told, it’s about $2.5k, which, as I put on the release, is about the cost of the diesel fuel we use monthly to keep the food cold.

What is even better, though, is that the winner is really interested in community service in Minot. I’m hoping we can work together to get some regional and/or national attention in here. Maybe some kind of alumni hockey game or something.

So far I’m a great success, so I hope I can maintain the momentum.

Until now, I haven't really looked past the open house, but now I am trying to sit down and figure out what's next. I have a LONG line of stuff to do, but mostly, I'd been planning for that and now that it's over I'm a little lost.

It's still ridiculously hot here, and since it doesn't get dark until 10:30 or so it's hot all day. My RV doesn't have air so I kind of wander around to find a place to sit and work. I’m really attracted to the rec chapel because it has AC.

Tomorrow I have to present a PowerPoint presentation to the Lions’ Club. Yes, me, speaking in public. Believe it.

24/7 Cookies: Not a good thing

Good thing that happened this week: I learned my DirectTV, while pretty much worthless for TV shows, has Sirius radio. Channel 6058 is Prime Country from the 80s-90. Except for the fact right now it’s playing “Achy Breaky Heart,” it’s been a lifesaver. I no longer have to stream Radio Margaritaville, either. I get that one, too, pus Willie’s Roadhouse and the new country one. Yay!

Bad thing that happened this week: I, quite foolishly, stepped on a scale last night at my supervisor’s house. That was wrong. The three-hour workouts and half-hour commutes have been replaced with 24/7 homemade cookies and living, working and socializing in the same land plot. Not good.

I’m staging an open house this next week and am getting a little freaked out about it. PR-wise, the timing is bad because I’m not the “official” spokesperson yet and don’t send out things without running them through at least one other person. Unfortunately the gatekeeper to the more-or-less internal group is on vacation and I don’t have access to her list.

But I’m working on it. I got a call to meet someone and wound up doing a TV spot, which is not what I had in mind when I rolled out of bed and threw on the USS Remey reunion ’99 T-shirt thee minutes prior to meeting the guy.

I landed a great silent auction item: tickets for two to the Zac Brown Band’s Eat and Greet prior to their performance at the fair.

Really, it's an awesome pull. I got amazing cooperation on their end and who would have known way back whenever whoever scheduled them to play the fair that they’d pretty much be *the* hottest act in country music when they arrived?

They came on the picture when I was in Morocco, so I really am not all that familiar with them, or at least didn’t think I was. Now I’m learning that some of the stuff I’ve been hearing since I got back (both times) and have liked have been their songs. Like the one with Alan Jackson. (I haven’t heard the one with Jimmy Buffett, but it’s got to be good, right?)

Now I am reading more about the band’s Eat and Greets before the show and my God, they sound fabulous. Chef Rusty, who’s a Cajun guy (Karen, are you with me here?), travels with them and shops locally the morning of the show, then puts on this big picnic prior to the show.

Now *I* want to win the auction. Technically I could bid (I wrote the rules and didn’t think to exclude anyone) but that would look really bad, I think.

But man, I’d really like some decent Cajun food. Percy’s Poppers would be really nice about now.  

But then, I guess I do have that scale to think about.

Not in the job description

I’m not sure what your run-of-the-mill AmeriCorps gig is like, but I’m sure what I am doing is not it.

First of all, AmeriCorps focuses primarily in cities. I’m sure they’d deny that, but when it comes down to percentages, there are far more concentrations in large cities than anywhere else.

As result, what trickles down to me isn’t put-into-plannable where I am. And a lot of the stuff that’s offered doesn’t pertain to my situation. I learn to filter out a lot of what isn’t relevant in my situation.

And when I fill out things like timesheets, they’re pretty much pieces of fiction. See, in theory, I work a 40-hour week, but, like PC, that’s sort of not true. Essentially, unless you’re in your own private living space, you’re on display.

For most AmeriCorps volunteers, this isn’t the case. They have their own housing, apartments, families and lives – some even serve in their hometowns, living with their spouses and children or parents.

But me, well, life in the trailerhood is a bit different. Essentially, I am “on” 24/7. It’s not a bad thing and I’m not complaining about it, but it’s somewhat inconceivable to others. I step out of the RV – whether it’s to refill my tea, run an errand, work in a cooler space or what – and I’m out there.

People know me as a staff member and as one whom they can ask if they have any questions, so if I am out, I’m available to ask. For example, two nights ago, someone drove up looking for a volunteer. I spent 15 minutes helping her hunt for the person, and all the while I was dressed in my PJs, wearing a towel around my neck and carrying my toiletries basket – I’d been headed to take a shower when she drove up.

So how does a person fill out a timesheet on that?

This morning, I had penciled in time to work on a grant. I’d been working on it awhile but realized we needed some paperwork we’re not going to be able to get in time. That is a bummer, but as it turns out,

But before I realized that, I was settling in to work on it. And that requires tea, which requires a trip across the compound.

That, in turns, necessitates talking with people and seeing how they’re doing and how things are working. And putting out cookies for everyone. (I’m not making this up – I was talking to the cooks and they are not allowed to put out food someone else makes, so I, as a neutral non-cook, am in charge, at least temporarily, of setting out the baked-by-community members cookies.)

So, naturally, I pick up a few cookies, but also gathered all these plastic bags to throw away. In doing so, I recognized I heard sirens in the background, but thought nothing of it.

Armed with tea, trash and cookie parts (I took three smashed sugar ones), I wandered to the Dumpster on my way back to the RV. Way off in the end of the lot, I noticed a big red truck. Then I noticed its lights flashing. And then, as sirens wailed, another one pulled in, and then a police-type fire car drove in the other driveway.

Turns out, one of our reefers – freezer semi-trucks – had caught on fire somehow. The wiring or something. It wasn’t serious – the fire fighters weren’t there for more than five minutes – but the trailer is again down and we had to move, assembly-line fashion, everything from that freezer into the other truck.

And once we moved it, we had to move it again to rotate the food, like to push the meats back as far as we could to keep it frozen.

So this, I am sure, is not in my original job description, but it’s one of those things that has to be done. And this is me we’re talking about. If it has to be done, I’m going to be in there doing it.

I’m just not sure how to credit that on a timecard for Uncle Sam.