GPzMike Abroad

August 6, t+111

gpzmike — Mon, 6 Aug 2012 22:10:00 GMT

Paul has arrived and it's helped tremendously. Still not exactly sure what his job description and my job description are. We don't communicate like Matt and I do, but we are learning about each other slowly and he's certainly a go-getter so in the end it's all good.

I'm trying to get a handle on some of the items that need attention but it just seems like everything needs attention. The budget needs attention, the employee moral needs attention, the schedule needs attention, inventory needs attention. I'm learning to let go of some of the stuff - it's helpful now that I've begun formal meetings once per week with my department heads. We only just began but already I am enjoying a clearer head because I don't feel so compelled to keep track of what they are up to during the week.

Filipino thought processes are still confusing to me. Just can't quite seem to figure them out. I talked with the foremen and they were talking about creating teams within the work force to bring lower skilled masons up to speed. The next week they have abandoned the idea and are advocating firing people. Two weeks later they are saying they would rather see all the guys come thru the project together as they've put so much effort into the build. And now I hear from an outside source that they really do think there should be firings, but they assumed I didn't want to do that and so were trying to play the party line. Very confusing.

The mountain bike is purchased and I've gone on a couple of rides. Had to spend some time last night adjusting the shifters but I think I've got them fairly well sorted out. Still drags some in a couple of gear combinations but I just have to learn to avoid those combos and all will be dandy. It feels like I need to go on another break but I'm pretty sure I just got back from one. That may be a bad sign. lol

I got my care package from mom 2 days ago. I'm now enjoying peets coffee again, and a couple of other 'must have' items. Thankfully there are not many of those items for the price of delivery was very high. If I'd have really been thinking ahead I would have gotten meds sent on that trip. On the other hand, I think I will have those delivered by mule - much cheaper and safer.

July 25, t+99

gpzmike — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 10:10:00 GMT

Well it's been a very intense 4 weeks or so. When Matt left I was tasked with running the show and there was just no way to cover everything. I covered an amazing amount of duties, but inevitably things did slip thru. Now that Paul Raddant has arrived we will be able to start repairing and getting back online those items that have been languishing.

The longer I stay the more incredible the place becomes. Yesterday I was riding the m/c to work and saw the cutest damned little tiny girl on the side of the dirt road in what we call the meadow which is a picturesque house along the way to our build site. She was dressed in a brite little dress and had a big umbrella open shading her from the sun. I so wanted to snap a photo but alas it was one of the very few times I've been without my camera. I take few photos, but carry the darned thing constantly. Then along comes 'one of those moments' and wouldn'tcha know it...grr.

We are suffering some moral issues with the employees right now and that's something I take very hard. I recognize I'm not vey good at being a 'half full' type of person, and I certainly have my share of faults. I can't help but wonder if, as the 'boss', those faults have a way of trickling down into the employees. Or am I being overly full of myself? These are areas I've had little navigational experience in. I know there are a few key items I can do to improve the moral: weed out the chaff, learn the names of every employee so I can engage them personally (been making headway on this one, but not fast enough dagnabbit), find some room to give some raises, begin a training and worker of the week type recognition program, institute regular employee reviews, get a weekly open forum construction meeting rolling, and (likely the weakest of the ideas) set up a comments/suggestions anonymous box.

One important thing I've learned just recently: there are serious ramifications to being a softie when you are at the top of the roster. I know some of you (Korin! lol) are rolling your eyes at that...but hear me out!

My foremen brought an issue of insubordination to me. I went into the field and had a talk with the worker and he got in line. Sounds all nice and dandy, right?

Wrong. Here's what happens as a result:

The workers see that the foremen don't have any real authority because if they are compelled to bring something to my attention (likely meaning there have been repetitive issues) all I do is just what the foremen do: I talk to the person and get them on board. So the employees know that even if they get in trouble with the foremen it'll be okay because they will get more chances with me. I'm undermining the power of the foremen and making the problem worse rather than better in the long run!

The foremen and HR came and talked with me about it and I realized the error I was making: if a personnel situation gets to the point that I need to brought in, then it should be viewed by all as a VERY serious matter. Not a casual conversation type of matter.

Okay, more later. I went out looking to buy a mountain bike yesterday and think I found one - it will be very good for my sanity here to be able to get out some tension on the trails around here...once I find them. I ran into a couple of bikers yesterday that guided me to a bike shop and they offered their number to me so that we can hook up and they can show me some trails in the area. Cowabunga, baBY!

not sure what day it is

gpzmike — Mon, 9 Jul 2012 22:16:00 GMT

Going crazy but a good crazy. Matt has been gone for some weeks now...feels like months and months. Everything is going great but haven't had time to breath much less blog. My second in command just arrived so in 2 weeks perhaps less I'll be on a mini break and will be able to do some writing.

All is well.

Mike

Saturday, June 10, t+58

gpzmike — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:30:00 GMT

Today was the Pacquiao/Bradley fight. Matt Engel is leaving in 5 days and today was also his going away party. Four pigs were killed and prepared as well as a host of other dishes for the party. All the workers and many of their significant others and children were on hand for the festivities. Elvis, the owner of the compound we live in, bought pay per view and set his 45" tv up in the courtyard for all to enjoy the fights.

Yesterday one of the pigs was killed to bless the new Mahogany Forest build site. If you wish you can see the video clip of the event here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IILj7t0xiSU&feature=youtu.be

We poured the first concrete footings immediately after the blessing and today we ate that pig as well as 3 others.

It's been a very rough week for the Build Crew. The new site is just not ready for us but we must march forward or perish, and march we so do. The city hasn't yet gotten in there to make the road passable to any but 4wd vehicles if rains hit the area. We've had heavy bouts of rain each evening this past week. If we don't push on then our work force will be laid off - many cannot afford to wait around for us to get the city to prepare the site properly so they would likely go on to find other jobs...decimating our workforce and setting us back uncountable weeks of training education and team building.

Thus we find ourselves laying out the roads, helping the workers harvest the mahogany by clearing brush, piling logs, and burning the debris. It's frustrating to be bleeding money and man-hours doing something that another agency ought to be doing but knowing that we are over a barrel and have no choice but to do it.

The city has brought in a bulldozer to clear the stumps but they aren't in there until we bug them about it rather than coming in and taking care of it. Hence, they came in to clear the stumps in our first block only to set us back a day and a half by running over our layout stakes and completely tearing up the ground without after coming in to grade the land. One day the dozer was merely used as a gloriously expensive if butt ugly boom box. Then it sat empty on the site.

It's a good thing it's a really big 'dozer or they'd never get anything done!

We've had no volunteers on the site for the past 2 days. We knew we were in trouble a couple weeks ago with the work flow. We hoped that the Mahogany Forest site became available to us in time to keep any slowdowns from happening, but it has not been the case. The crews, left alone, would have likely been okay but we did not account for the impact a new program would have on the available work.

Last monday we took on a Cash For Work program. This is a program designed to inject money into the hands of those impacted by a disaster by giving them a temporary job which happens also to aide in the recovery of the area (for instance, clearing debris on public roads after an earthquake). Our program takes 20 people for 10 days and puts them to work digging footings and septic tanks for our permanent homes that we are building. Each pit or trench has a monetary value and time we thing it should take. If they work diligently they can make good money. In fact, at one point we had the uncomfortable realization that one crew of 3 workers were going to each make quite a bit more than the AHV employed local worker that was their work supervisor (whom we pay above scale)!

The main thrust of it all is just this: they burned up the work we had and due to rains and other limiting factors we could not open up new ground for them to keep digging fast enough. And since they were doing work that we would normally have our employees doing - and we'd promised the employees that they would not be affected by the presence of the Cash for Workers - we needed to fill those trenches and footings with concrete immediately. But we failed on that front as well due to the limitations of site access and delivery of raw materials.

In short we have had a failure on a couple of fronts.

What's making it all the more fun and interesting is that tomorrow the head of the project leaves for two weeks of r-n-r and Matt, Project Lead of the Habitat Build, leaves permanently on thursday. That leaves me in charge of Habita and second in command of the whole shebang. Yikes! I don't have any time to deal with stuff on the base side: I'm focussed solely on pulling the Habit build out of the mire. We are on the way, but it's a house of cards at the moment. Any misstep could put the project into a tailspin and leave us having to postpone the Cash for Work program or other even less desirable ramifications. T'would not be a great way to start out my 'reign'.

Are we having fun, yet? :)

Saturday, June 10, t+58

gpzmike — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:30:00 GMT

Today was the Paquiau/Bradley fight. Matt Engel is leaving in 5 days and today was also his going away party. Four pigs were killed and prepared as well as a host of other dishes for the party. All the workers and many of their significant others and children were on hand for the festivities. Elvis, the owner of the compound we live in, bought pay per view and set his 45" tv up in the courtyard for all to enjoy the fights.

Yesterday one of the pigs was killed to bless the new Mahogany Forest build site. If you wish you can see the video clip of the event here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IILj7t0xiSU&feature=youtu.be

We poured the first concrete footings immediately after the blessing and today we ate that pig as well as 3 others.

It's a good thing it's a really big 'dozer or they'd never get anything done!

In short we have had a failure on a couple of fronts.

Are we having fun, yet? :)

Wed June 6, t+54

gpzmike — Wed, 6 Jun 2012 22:50:00 GMT

Uh oh! My visa is up in 5 days. Crud. Can't fly away right now so I have but one choice: go to the visa office and pay them money to let me overstay my welcome. Was really hoping to take the opportunity to fly to Vietnam and figure out how to go see Scooter's soccer field. Guess that will have to wait until a break later in the timeline.

So Matt is officially leaving the project and returning home. Can't blame a guy for being in love. But he will be missed. No doubt on that mark.

On the other hand, it means I get to move up and take over for Matt! Now that I'm looking forward to. Mostly excitement, but also some trepidation. I'm fine on the construction side of things. Managing the people and the work flow and so on. It's the 'upper crust' stuff I'm nervous about. The relationship building with other key people in the whole arena up at the site such as the City Engineer, Habitat Site Supervisor, Habitat Logistician, key players in our supply chain: them thar sorta people.

AND, I need to delegate more of the stuff I'm doing on the construction side which is really quite difficult to let go of. grr.

The road and the site in the Mahogany Forest is pretty much all leveled and the city is working on building roads back in the core of the project so they are not paying our road much attention. The fallout is that we are trashing our vehicles trying to get materials and tools and personnel out to the site each day. The rains held off for a week but we weren't yet going full tilt out there since the city had yet to give us the green light. Now the rains are back and we are suffering for it...or rather our vehicles and efficiency is suffering. Additionally, since the city is overloaded we are out there doing much of the land clearing - further evidence of the cart being before the horse. And we soldier on, regardless.

Sorry...just got sidetracked: Gary Jaehne, a riding and racing buddy died out on the road doing what he loved best: riding his motorcycle. Just stunned. And I can't be there for the Memorial. This sucks. I'm going to bed.

Photos: Cagayan de Oro, Philippines II

gpzmike — Sat, 2 Jun 2012 21:59:00 GMT

Fun and work, work and fun...who can tell the difference?

Videos for your enjoyment

gpzmike — Sat, 2 Jun 2012 21:20:00 GMT

Hey y'all...here's a couple of vids for your enjoyment. Both should be watched to full enjoyment...in order.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO1JrtyWX7s&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzJj8AKLv_8&feature=youtu.be

Cheers!

Mike

Thur May 24, t+38

gpzmike — Thu, 24 May 2012 20:30:00 GMT

Wellllll....crud. It doesn't look like the Mayor plan is going to come together for us. There is, however, another very likely looking site that we are calling 'The Mahogany Forest Site' since it's a mahogany tree plantation at the moment. The trees are young-ish (perhaps 10 or so years?) though the area is pretty and serene with birds and rustling leaves and quite cool under the shade of the trees. Seems a shame on some level to tear it out and put in a bunch of quadraplex homes. There is some thought that the site is large enough to encompass the balance of our commitment to build another 160 or so homes. I'm not so sure it's that large especially once you take into account that roads must be provided to access the homes. We shall see as tomorrow we are slated to receive the site plan for the lot. We could be ready to build as soon as 10 days from today. With the rate things move here I'm thinking more like 14 plus days.

It's likely going to get a tad uncomfortable around here for a spell until we can sink our pick axes into the soil there.

We seem to have come out of the rainy trending spell of weather we had going. But tonight it dumped somethin' fierce so who the heck knows.

May 22, t+36

gpzmike — Mon, 21 May 2012 21:01:00 GMT

Wow, 10 days since the last update...too long. Though I did post up some vids and pix so...well, a picture...1000 words and all that there bullpucky.

The past week has seen a lot of rain in the evenings. It's wreaked havoc with our work days as it normally starts about 3pm and pisses for a goodly spell bringing all work to a grinding halt. In fact, we had a terrible day on Saturday trying once again to save the septic tank from filling with feces and trash infested water.

Think on that: we worked to keep shit water out of the septic tank.

Ain't life grand?

We won the battle, but it was only because while we were cutting the trenches to get the water to run into the creek below the build site (sigh) we were also sandbagging the septic tank. The worst was that the Public Works Dpt was supposed to have been in there 2 days prior completing their culvert work. But they didn't show so it was either loose all our hard work, and make the tanks already dug unusable (can you imagine standing in a tank that's been flooded with that water in order to finish building the tank for 8 hours?). So we manned the shovels and pick axes and abandoned the relatively dry warehouse for the stench and wet of the canal. Did you know a pick axe, when used in 1-3 inches of water, fires water directly at your legs, body, and, if you get a particularly solid blow, your face? We learned to keep our mouth's shut in short order! Alas the elevation of an intermediate pond was against us and for a while there we were forced to not dig but paddle at the water with shovels in order to move it along.

I just know there's a friggin' outstanding joke in there somewhere...but I can't quite see it. Anyone want to take a stab at it?

I'm about out of my first pound of Peets coffee. One more to go. Also just killed off the first of three jars of Cytomax (gatorade like powder but tastes good even if warm). It's been a tad over a month now and I really don't feel like I've made much of an impact just yet...but I'm on the cusp of implementing some stuff and so I'll soon feel like I'm starting to pull my weight.

We are hard up against our deadline with the Habitat guys: they've not been able to get us more lots to build on and so we've begun the process of turning off the supply lines with local merchants for materials. We've not yet had to lay off any workers, but the work load is getting very thin. Thank goodness we are in a lull for international volunteers at the moment or I wouldn't be able to put them all to work. We MUST get sites issued to us this week or we will be in a world of hurt. The thought of losing the headway we've gained with organization, teamwork, infrastructure, warehousing, housing, etc is mind-numbing.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the day of answers.

A few videos

gpzmike — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:45:00 GMT

Just a couple three videos to share. Enjoy!

Mike

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GOwI_UiTzc&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3vq0tuulgw&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euwvj2yX3Ng&feature=plcp

Photos: Cagayan de Oro, Philippines

gpzmike — Sun, 13 May 2012 16:38:00 GMT

Project CDO

May 12, Saturday, t+26

gpzmike — Sat, 12 May 2012 19:55:00 GMT

Travis is gone. He was the last of the other site supervisors on project. Nate leave shortly. Matt is still trying to decide.

An me? Working very hard to get a handle on all of it.

Right now trying to design an inventory tracking system in Excel that makes some sort of sense with the crazy system of in/out/sometimes we know what building that stock went to/we've built more houses than we have been given inventory for. I'm going nuts. These systems really need to be in place before the need for the answers the systems provide about the almighty dollar must be answered. I mean...really.

Yet, at the same time if we waited until all the t's were crossed and all the i's dotted in a situation like this we'd never get started on the bloody project! At some point the command to 'Go! Go! Go!' must be given. Full steam ahead, damn the torpedos.

To make matters worse, the rebar crews have gotten 4 houses ahead of the rest of the construction. Hell, we don't even have the sites to build those 4 houses line out for us from Habitat/the City yet! So getting a handle of how much rebar we are burning per house will have to wait until we are breaking ground on building 20...damn near 1/2 way to our goal of 53 buildings! Now that's just plain silly. The first building we built should have been a calculation building. Then the 2nd and the 3rd would have refined that number. From there if we made any changes to the structure we could just track the quantity of materials those changes took, add them to the burn rate/building that we'd already calculated and viola!

I'm a little out of my element on this one. I mean, I know and understand basically what we need to do, and I can create a system for it...but slogging thru the backlog and trying to make it fit into a system while building the system is a big ask.

And I soldier on.

In other news: seems we've hit an early rainy season as it's been raining every evening for a couple days in a row now. Today the rains hit at around 2:30pm. I was walking down the street at the HfHp site and suddenly everyone was running...and people don't run around here - they look at me rather strange when they see me running from one lot to the other. I found out moments later why they were running. I went from dry to underwear dripping water down my inner thigh in about 15 seconds flat. I didn't have a hope in hell of running for cover. By the time my brain registered that it was raining, it was raining HARD, and by the time my brain registered that...well...it was all over. I could feel my socks soaking up the dribble running down my legs.

The septic tank hole being dug at building 10 was inundated with water when the city installed culvert alongside the road overflowed. That's the culvert that doesn't actually cluvert anywhere. It sorta just stops at our warehouse. So when the area next to our warehouse became a pond I thought 'hmm'. Walked around the corner and saw the water within about 5 inches of the hole but by the time I got back to the warehouse to grab a shovel and try to dig a trench to relieve the pond it was all too late. We dug the trench anyway...hell, we didn't have anything better to do since all legitimate work came to a screeching halt.

Another fun day in Cagayan de Oro! Tomorrow I'm going to slog thru that damnable spreadsheet if it kills me.

May 7, t+21

gpzmike — Mon, 7 May 2012 21:48:00 GMT

I had housecleaning duty today. Today is Monday. Monday is a deep clean day: aptly named 'Deep Clean Monday'. Sweep and mop under bunks is the biggest part of it. That means everyone has to pick up everything off the floor and put it on their bunks if they want to keep it. Everything left on the floor is unceremoniously swept up and put into the free box. Today's tally:

35 pesos

2 pair flip flops

1 unopened beer

1 textbook: Human Anatomy and Physiology

3 backpacks

1 duffel bag of clothing

1 sword

1 SLR camera

1 belt

26 cigarette butts

15 cups of coffee

1 bag of Halls menthol candies

1 set of xrays

And a trashbag full of trash.

I can handle most all of it...but for the cigarette butts. Nasty, lazy frickin smokers. Just flickem on the floor. sigh. Thankfully there's no smoking inside so they were all outside and on the balcony...but still! Put yer butt in a fricken ashtray or empty fer cryin' out loud, eh?

I'm spending my evenings reading up on masonry construction techniques. I'm a barrel of fun. Learning alot - unfortunately most of the knowledge is only making me more and more aware of the questionable quality control and baseline knowledge that seems common in post disaster construction.

The real issue, too, is, as ever, cost vs life. it always comes down to that. Always. How much do you spend to save one life? Well I suppose there's also cost vs building longevity...but in the end that, too, comes down to building safety, ie, saving a life.

Well, 8pm here - dinner is done, most people have showered and have settled in for a beer or whatnot. I think it's time to load up some new tunes of the ipod and hit the showers. Feeling a bit of fuzz on my upper lip which means I've not showered in 2 days. Thankfully those were two days of laying about not doing much so I'm not a complete Pigpen. Others here go for quite long spells between cleanings. Can't imagine it: after two days I can roll big wads of sweat and dirt saturated skin balls off my arms and chest.

And with that lovely image I leave you.

May 5, t+19

gpzmike — Sat, 5 May 2012 14:50:00 GMT

Today is Saturday. Every other Saturday the international volunteers have the day off. Today is that day. The local work force, however, continues working. Therefore, some staff must carry on on these days. Today I and Matt Engel took the AM shift and Travis and Nate will be taking the PM shift 'up top' at the work site.

Travis will be leaving in another week or so. Nate will be leaving by the end of the month or sooner, IIRC. What is still being considered is Matt's exit strategy/timeline. It is important to the almighty bottom line to reduce the fluffy, white powdered wig wearing overhead personnel to a minimum. For those of you having a hard time counting...that would leave one person to run the show: me.

The level of support and competency of the office staff and field staff is very high. It's not like I'm all alone nor as if there hasn't been a fantastical amount of work in preparation for this eventuality. There are systems and personnel in place. But, it's going to be a bit dicey at first to plug all the inevitable little holes in the dike that are inevitably going to appear when the staff thins down to one. You can never foresee ALL of the fingers stuffed into ALL of the holes until they are removed and the water starts rising up around you neck (well, hopefully, I will recognize the rising water well before it hits my neck...like down around my shins). I'm a tad nervous about it I don't deny. But I'm also very sure I can make it all happen. Perfectly, no. Hell, if I allow myself to start dabbling in that well I'd be quickly scrapping some of the fundamental design issues of the buildings. It's all a balancing act.

You know: Ye Olde Iron Triangle: balance cost vs quality/scope vs time. But even it is flawed. The truth lay somewhere in a murky and shadowy in-between world. The best we can hope for is to find a way to keep everyone reasonably happy with the outcome. It's extremely rare that we will ever find a way to make all parties exuberant and deliriously happy...there are just too many people with too many bars to measure up to.

I'm not complaining in any way. This is a serious challenge. I am prepared to throw myself into it full tilt boogie. Matt, though, does (and for this I'm happy) recognize that there are some relationships that he's cultivated from the beginning of the project 3+months ago that are very valuable to the success of the overall project. Handing those delicate relationships off to someone (me) will not be as effective as maintaining the relationships - and in the Philippines, relationships are crucial to getting the gears of industry and government moving in your direction.

For instance: we will be shutting down our deliveries of concrete blocks at the end of next week because we have not been issued lots to build on by Habitat/The City government as was promised. This is an ongoing dilemna and the best way to get action is by cultivating relationships with the proper powers. The 'squeaky wheel' concept does not work here so well. So Matt's continued presence might well be extremely valuable as an AH 'ambassador' so to speak. That would free me to keep tabs in the field and in the books.

We don't know for certain yet what will happen. These are concepts and thoughts running wildly around that have not yet come to roost on any particular side of the fence.

A small boatload of IV's (international volunteers) have gone to a music festival so it's pretty quiet around here. Think I'm gonna post this up and go have a bit of a nap. Then I'll start scanning in all the receipts from my hospital stay so I can get reimbursed for it from my travelers insurance. Oh, and I think I have at least a couple of photos to post up...I'll either get them on now or this evening when I'm posting the scan's.

Here's a couple of video links to keep your interest up:

http://vimeo.com/40609686

http://vimeo.com/41477258

Tue, May 1, t+15

gpzmike — Tue, 1 May 2012 20:05:00 GMT

Okay, for those that didn't hear about it: I admitted myself to the hospital last week. I had been feeling like poop and while they didn't initially find anything wrong, the Doc was worried enough about my condition that they wanted me to return the following day for another CBC (Complete Blood Count). I decided rather than return and keep sleeping in hot, close quarters with others it might make more sense to stay in the hospital where there was a better chance of me healing and getting healthy.

As it turned out that was the right call: I was finally diagnosed with Dengue. This is a mosquito transmitted illness. Generally, there are 4 strains and from what I've read it's fine to get...once. At subsequent infections the risk for contracting the ugly stepchild, Dengue hemorrhagic fever, increases - but only if you get one of the other strains. Since you build a resistance to a strain once you've gotten it, it's likely that any subsequent contractions will be from one of the other strains. With Dengue hemorrhagic fever the body can start bleeding and bruising as there is a loss of platelets, and low presence of oxygen in the blood as well as other blood oriented failures. It's actually a bit scary:

"With early and aggressive care, most patients recover from dengue hemorrhagic fever. However, half of untreated patients who go into shock do not survive."

So: I am wearing plenty of mossy repellant and long pants as well.

I am doing fine now and on the mend. I will be on light duty for the remainder of this week then, pending clearance by my Doc, will return to full duty next week.

I am trying to get a handle on the inventory/money trails around here. Perhaps I'm in over my head, perhaps I'm too old school in my thinking, perhaps I'm steeped in the newest methods for thinking about this sort of business type stuff: I'm having a hard time following the data streams on this project. It's just gonna take me a long time to get my head wrapped around all of it. The difficulty is that improvements and changes are taking place to the systems and methods I'm still unclear of and that leaves me exponentially falling behind.

I think I work best when I'm in on the founding of the work so I have a sense of the thread of evidence, an understanding of 'how we got here from there'. In order for me to understand how 'here' works I really need that background of intelligence.

I've got a long and winding road ahead (I think there's a song in there somewhere!).

t+10 Mike is sick - posted on behalf of Mike by his dad

gpzmike — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 11:12:00 GMT

Hi. This is Dean, Mike's dad. We just heard from the building programs lead for All Hands in the Philippines that Mike has been sick and in the hospital for the past couple of days, diagnosed with Dengue fever (not Dengue hemorrhagic fever, which would have been much more serious). Following is the communication that we received:

Mike wanted me to send you a quick note on his sickness.

He took ill earlier this week, and after 3 days went to get some tests at a nearby hospital. They took him in for some further testing and observation where he has been able to rest the past 2 days. He informed me that he was officially diagnosed with Dengue, which does match many of the conditions he was reporting. It's not life threatening and he is receiving excellent care and constant monitoring.
I saw him yesterday and he is in good spirits and recovering well. He expects to be out tomorrow or the next, they are working to get him back to a level of normal, maybe not carrying 2 shoulders of 42kg cement bags Mike style normal, but regular human normal.

He doesn't have internet access at the hospital where he is, so don't worry that he hasn't been his active online self.

Wed, April 25, t+9

gpzmike — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:50:00 GMT

9 days is it? Yikes. Feels like 4 or 5.

I'm sick as a dog. Really bad congestion in my lungs, fevery/burning skin, running nose, headache...all the good things. Been down for 2 days. If I'm not feeling able to work tomorrow I will go to the hospital and see if they can figure out what's wrong and get me well again.

This sucks. I'm here to be active and do stuff not slough around on my arse coughing and being miserable, dagnabbit.

I'm out.

heres the worksite:

8°27'10.79" N 124°36'18.31" E

here's the base:

8°27'36.77" N 124°36'18.81" E

Monday April 23, t+7

gpzmike — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 18:00:00 GMT

Yesterday was my day off. Laid around in bed until 8 or so then had some Peet's and hooked up with Andy. He was heading home early and I hopped a ride with him to SM Mall which is on the way to the airport.

Andy is a really nice guy of 73. As he put it, his mind still says he's 28 and can go to a steamy hot country and work with the young guns...but his body started saying differently. He was hacking and coughing from the smoke, dust, and pollution in the air and he was not acclimating to the weather well either. He felt he it was better for him to head for home and make room for someone better equipped to do the work. I think he was a bit heartbroken - as anyone would - to hit that age-wall where you've got to give up some or many of your concepts of yourself as 'capable' and 'adaptable' and start taking seriously the age of your body when you consider tackling something.

You realize that you have fully entered the downside of the bell curve of life.

I am not looking forward to that day. I am a physical being. Everything I do is directed by what I can do physically. How will I cope with that moment when I know that I shall never again slalom ski with gusto, carry 100lbs of concrete and be able to run back to the truck for another, pick up a sheet of 3/4 plywood from the top edge, help a friend move by loading my truck to the gils, or just hop on the mountain bike and take on a 25 mile ride just because I feel like it...or go to the Philippines and help people rebuild their life after a typhoon?

Anywho...back to our regularly scheduled drivel: so I went to the mall and ate calzone at Yellowcab Pizza, bought a bit of frozen yogurt, and bought a cellphone with qwerty keyboard for $20 or thereabouts, and stopped by the Ace Hardware (!) in the mall (!!) and picked up a package of rubber feet for the bottom of my computer. I did look for sunglasses that had built in bifocals but although I hit perhaps 5 places selling eyewear nobody carried them. From there I headed back to the camp via taxi (where I was once again asked about my wife and kids...lol) and read and catnapped the rest of the afternoon away. I was a very nice day off as there was basically nobody on the base - for a while it was just me! Oh the luxury of it!

As Andy was, so to am I finding the breathing here a bit difficult. Been coughing up a lung today. It was a - I hope - terrifically smokey/smoggy day today and this is not a chronic thing I'm going to be doing battle with for the next 5 months. I've had a very pronounced tickle on the left side of my throat for a couple of days and it seems to be gone today. Perhaps I am sick and this is the progression of it. Katrina and I shared a water bottle by accident and she was feeling terrible. Better a passing ick than a chronic cough.

Today was back to work day and I again ran around putting out fires as any good middle management type must do. "Mike, we are out of pipe", "Mike we are out of paint rollers", "Mike we are out of water", and so on and so forth. I am glad to put out the fires, and there will always be fires to be put out no matter how good a system we create for the builds, but I am looking forward to putting some procedures into place that will help mitigate the need for us to always be operating from a place of emergency and reaction.

Okay, well...lol...this won't be posted for at least a couple of days since some bright minded individual decided to steal the fiber optic wire for the area for it's copper wire content.

Uh. Yeah.

Sigh.

April 20, t+5

gpzmike — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 20:45:00 GMT

Another challenging day, but slightly better than yesterday. Body still feeling quite off kilter. It helped that a wind and bit of cloud cover came in this afternoon. Raining here now...nothing bad or crazy, just some good ole rain.

Had to apply some IcyHot to the back as it's sore. Asked Kim to do it and when she asked what it was I replied "It's IcyHot PM so it'll keep it hot all night". Ahem. Sigh. To be fair, she did ask me "where I wanted it" so I felt I had to return the favor.

Apparently there are great massage joints around so I'm sure I'll be making some stops at those establishments. Perhaps even on Sunday.

Tomorrow is a day off for the volunteers, but the local hired folks work tomorrow so as a big boss man (yuk yuk) I have to be out there in the field. Regardless, it's a wise move to be out there showing my face as I'm 'the new Bob'. Bob is the fellow that's returning home and so I'm here filling his shoes.

Today we had an interesting conversation on the site: Why do we steal from Peter to pay Paul? Since they are both apostles of the big JC, is this some sort of biblical reference? If so, in reference to what? So there we were moving dirt into one of the homes to level out the floor before we pour the slab discussing the bible...and none of us came up with any compelling arguments. Of course, none of us were particularly steeped in bible studies - and we were all bordering on dehydration to boot. Heck, most of my understanding of the story of JC comes from that wonderful musical 'Jesus Christ Superstar' and the movie 'Stigmata' (well, I did read up on the writings of Thomas [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas] following that movie...so it wasn't completely Hollywood-ified).

I'm off to bed or at least to lay down and read just as soon as I drink a couple of cytomax waters to hydrate for tomorrow. Haven't yet pissed once during the day: not a good sign of proper H20 intake.