GPzMike Abroad

Wow, while on break I went over the 100 day mark in Haiti!

MHB3 was another fine time. Did mostly same same as the previous times: Jacmal to stay in a hotel and sleep in a bed with a pillow, running water, and flushing toilets. Oh, and buffet dinners and breakfasts with good food. Not that the food we get here is 'bad', its just the same and not as much of the goodies stuff like meat that I like, being a no holds barred carnivore as I am.

We are coming to a close on School 4: tomorrow I go back to hang doors and start building the school furniture. From there I will run out to School 5 to install door jambs and window jambs so that the stucco can begin. School 6 landfill by the Korean UN is scheduled to start at the beginning of the week and if so then I should be out digging ditches and putting up forms for school 6 by the 29th.

School 6 will be a big one: 300 children so it's going to be 2 buildings measuring 84' x 20'. We have a camera that does time lapse photography and we are going to set it up at the site so we can see the build as it happens. It should be really cool to see and I'm really looking forward to getting School 6 underway. I've still been refining my building technique and I'm confident that School 6 will be the one that it all comes together for. I'm sure there will always be minor tweaking to do, but I'm confident I'll have the big strokes down pat. The cut list is now in an excel document automated to tell me how many of each particular component I must produce before I transport it all out to the site. The huge jig I built for assembling the roof structures (trusses) worked like a charm at school 5. It does need a bit of tweaking, but overall it's doing it's job cleanly and without complaints. As long as I keep all the trusses facing the same direction that is...hehe. Off a bit is okay as long as the are ALL off the same amount. There's something to be said for being consistently wrong, doncha know!

My biggest failing on School 5 was that somehow I allowed the damned trusses to get set out of plumb. I won't say how much as it's an embarrassing amount. The first truss was plumb, then I (ahem) assumed that the layout marks would be enough to keep the rest within a reasonable range. Wrong, wrong, wrong. sigh. Worse yet was accepting it was too late to correct the error. I had to let it go. Every fiber of my being screamed 'NOT ON YOUR LIFE'. So now I know I've got to refine the truss rolling procedure a bit. (truss rolling: that act of tossing the trusses atop the walls, rolling them up into position, and nailing them off). NEVER AGAIN, DAMMIT!

Had a great ride back from Jacmal, but you wouldn't believe me if I told you the truth so I'm not gonna bother. Nobody here believes me either...even when I have a witness in the form of a passenger. Oh well. It was a fun ride!

I can't believe it. Just went upstairs to lash down the rain fly since there's some weather threatening. Someone stole one of the cinder blocks I use to hold my fly down. Not only did they walk off with it, but they cut a guy line I had attached to the block and left it laying at the foot of my tent! Just back from break and already I have to be an asshole and start in with nasty meeting notes. The only shitty pat is I have to wait until tomorrow nights meeting to express my dissatisfaction. grr.

Okay, off to bed. Night all!