Two Weeks

So, what’s the normal amount of time between blog updates? Is a week good?  It’s been a busy one, so a quick update can’t hurt. 

Training has been much the same; slow.  Today we learned how to use a hammer.  Like the kind with nails. So... thanks to that, I finally understand that “hit the nail on the head” metaphor.  Maybe tomorrow we’ll learn rulers and scissors so I can finally get some insight on “measure twice, cut once.” 

We have started doing service projects though, which has been great.  Friday, we piled into the vans and spent the day picking Mullen weeds with a bunch of sixth graders.

The day started off great, with a pretty funny group of sixth grade boys, and a ton of weeds that needed to be pulled.  By the end of the day, they were spitting on each other and stealing each other’s lunches.  I wish I was twelve again, cause one of the kids brought a bunch of fruit snacks, and I would stolen that shit in a heartbeat.

I spent Saturday morning picking up trash with a group at a park near our campus and learned the following two things:

1.    Whoever designed the grabber claw things we were using to pick up trash was a genius. They are the perfect size to pick up 40oz malt liquor bottles.  40 bottles account for about 70% of the trash in Denver.

2.    After finding a crack pipe (weird) and a whole watermelon (weirder) I made the logical conclusion that Gallagher is living in Denver, and too strung out on crack to do his job right.

That afternoon, Erik and I went back to Royal Arch in Boulder, but this time we brought some friends...

... And made some new ones...

 Sunday, we woke up at 5 AM to work a fun run, and Monday we re-did a garden at an elementary school.  So in all, the work projects are a great break from training, but I still can’t wait for our first spike. (Our big work projects are called spikes.  We have lots of cool lingo.)

Tuesday night I went to a Dr. Dog show with Erik, Katie, Sam and Ethan.  They had a crazy light show, and played forever.  Sounded great too.  The show was at the boulder theater, which was a great venue, really pretty and great beer on tap. We all had a blast.

As a sidenote, I just bought a bunch of postcards, so if anybody would like a penpal let me know, or send me a postcard (I need some more love at mail call)

Chris Matthews- Class 17
AmeriCorps NCCC
3001 S. Federal Blvd.
Walsh Hall, Room 136
Denver, CO 80236

One week in

Alright, we're a week in, so it's probably time to get this thing up and running. For those of you who don't know, I left Seattle two weeks ago to take a position with Americorps NCCC, and i moved to Denver, which looks like this:

I feel pretty ignorant, I was half expecting snow when we got here, but the weather has been balmy so far. Like this:

As for the program itself, we train for a month, and then spend the rest of the year on a series of work projects (by van) around the southern US (specifically AZ,CO, NM, TX, KS, OK, MO, and AR).  Lots of you have been curious what those projects will be, but at this point, I have no idea. I'm envisioning that it'll be like that ATT/ Toms shoes commercial, where I give shoes to a bunch of happy kids. But then I remember that they gave us steel toed boots.  Do little kids like steel toed boots? That's probably not it at all.

So far training has been pretty slow, and I have to keep reminding myself that this program is for 18-24 year olds, so I'm toward the top end of that spectrum.  It's been a bit of a throwback living in a dorm again, and today a lady from planned parenthood came to show us how to put on condoms. Basically, I'm feeling a bit like a freshman, I just can't decide if its a college freshman or the high school kind.

This last weekend was lots of fun, my roommate Erik and I went up to Boulder on Sunday and went to Chautaqua National Park to hike to a rock formation called Royal Arch.

And the view (boulder on the left, Boulder on the right. get it? heh heh):

That night, we stuck around to see the Walkmen play at the Fox theater, which was a fun show. Erik and I were super beat from the hike or we would have enjoyed it more.  They played The Rat as part of the encore, which was great

The next day Erik, Katie and I were back in boulder for Blitzen Trapper, which was awesome.  They sounded great, and the main guy can play. First concert I can remember with an extended banjo solo, or where the band smoked weed out of an apple on stage.  They played Furr and we played the "Penis!" yelling  game.

I'm planning on putting the rest of the pictures up on facebook soon-ish, so if you're interested, check in there.  I'll try to keep the entries here shorter. Here's a picture from Red Rocks amphitheater, which we saw during our van training. (RR is a close second to the Gorge in places that could make me tolerate hearing Phish.):