Three Weeks

Alright, update time, and today’s a juicy one.  It features fire drills AND karaoke.  We leave for our first project in a little over a week. More importantly, we just found out where we will be going, and what our teams for the year are going to be.  More on that in a bit, but I gotta start with Halloween!  This year I was bender from Futurama.  2 pizza boxes + 2 rolls of duct tape + one grey sweatsuit = the best costume I’ve had since mom stopped picking them out for me. 

Saturday, we all went downtown in costume to celebrate.  I met up with fellow LCHS alum Kevin Luby to start the night off right with some karaoke.  The lady who was running the karaoke loved my costume so much that she cut me to the front of the list, and I sang a spirited/ really shitty version of “Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto” by STYX.  For those not familiar with the song, it features such classic lyrics as: “You're wondering who I am/ Machine or mannequin/ With parts made in Japan/ I am the Modern Man” and “I'm not a robot/ Without emotions/ I'm not what you see” which sound pretty funny coming from a drunk robot.  It then concludes in this weird/ really shitty bit where you just sing “I’m Kilroy!” over and over.  After I finished, Kevin promptly showed me up with some Bon Jovi.  

After karaoke, we left to meet up with a bunch of americorps folks.  I think these pictures speak for themselves.

Not much new during training this week.  We did have a 5 AM fire drill, one of the many perks of dorm life.  Denver is cold at 5AM in November.  We also got our teams this week, and I got placed in Water # 4 (This designation probably means nothing to any of you, but this is my blog, so I write what I want. deal with it!).  We also found out where our first project is going to be, so I think it’s time to introduce the chris-tracker.  How it works is this:  Through a series of space lasers, NASAs, and robot satellites, the chris-tracker triangulates my exact position and projects it onto a map.  Right now I’m in Denver, so the chris-tracker looks like this:

For our first project, we’re going to be working with a non-profit called Veterans Green Jobs  to help ready a re-sale warehouse for a January opening.  The project will be in Denver, so the chris-tracker will look something like this:

I kid. I’m actually pretty excited to stay local and see more of Denver, it really is an amazing place.  As for the team, I don’t quite know what to expect.  I’m with several folks that I got to know through training, who are all great.  But I’m one of only three guys on our team, and I really don’t know what to expect from the other two.  Seven girls is a lot of estrogen, so if I start talking about “Eat Pray Love,” fall colors, or frozen yogurt, please, someone stop me. We have one more week between now and the start of the first project, so we’re almost to the gooey center of this pastry that is NCCC. Woot woot!