Bringing the Drama

on Saturday i went into NOLA with some youth group people to participate in some mission work. it was me, one other adult, and three kids from our church. we were meeting up with people from other youth groups to do some stuff in the 9th ward. they broke us up into different groups to go do 4 different projects and mixed up the groups so different people from different youth groups would meet each other. i led three other guys to go move mattresses in preparation for a giveaway next week. basically we showed up at a flooded out gym at a church, and moved mattresses and box springs inside to stack up against the wall. the mattresses were donated from a hotel in Dallas and are going to be given away to people in the neighborhood in the next week. initially we started with an 18 wheeler full, so it was a daunting task at first to see what looked like an endless trailer full. in addition, there were supposed to be 10 people to do the job, but we only had four due to the small number of people helping today. we got it done though, even though we were undermanned, and had some fun along the way.

however, it wasn’t all total awesome fun time. we’re a united methodist youth group because we’re at a UM church. i get that. we got shirts today with a GIANT UM logo. at lunch we had to read these devotionals that were like a page and a half long. then when we got back to the church we originated from, they had a whole worship service, complete with communion. it just seemed too complicated to me. the shirts, i can deal with a logo on the shirt, but a huge logo? the devotional at lunch, reading that sheet of paper, just seemed a little much. when we finally got to the prayer, the kid that said it said a great one. why couldn’t we just have gone with that? then after, the worship service, we had been out all day doing work, we were tired, and yet i felt like i was sitting through a service that was for the leaders to make themselves feel good at leading worship. the first song had lyrics like “I am free indeed” and yet i was sitting there thinking i was trapped and not free! there was also this part of the service where the different groups got up to the front to talk about their project, so i went up there when my group did. the leading pastor asked us a trick question almost. we’re up there and all talked about our day and how hard we worked, and the guy asks us if any of the people there at the old gym were members of the church we were at. we had no idea, but we didn’t think so, which we responded with, but then he says “well, there was one lady who was a member of the church.” dude, what was that for? i should have asked him that. we finally were able to leave at 4:30.

the main thing though was going out there helping people. i was proud of the guys i worked with, and of all the other kids who showed up. i just wish the adults involved wouldn’t have made the rest of the day so jampacked with irrelevant stuff.

so an update on my shoulder….i started going to PT on Monday and the PT assigned to my case examined me and took her time, a little more than the orthopedist did. she doesn’t think i have a torn labrum, but rather an impinged muscle. specifically, she thinks it’s possible the supraspinatus muscle could be impinged. she said it could have happened when i had a small irritation, then gotten painful when i did something like boxing. (we had a fight night [with gloves and mouthpieces], and explaining that was a bit awkward. “were you punching a bag?” “no, i was punching a person”. i suspect that night i could have really hurt it, because i was swinging hard (and missing mostly) but i don’t specifically remember feeling anything other than soreness). she gave me rehab exercises to do at home and so far i think they have helped a lot. on Wednesday i had my first real PT session, and she had me use weight machines and free weights to work my shoulder. then she massaged all the muscles around to get blood flow going. it was a little painful, but it felt great after. i need to do my rehab exercises before i go to bed tonight actually. i have my next appointment tomorrow right before lunch and don’t want to disappoint! the good thing about the impinged muscle is obviously it probably will not involve surgery, just some PT. i’m still in line to go back to the orthopedist the first full week of October, so hopefully i’ll have a definitive answer of a diagnosis one way or the other after that.

last weekend, i moved any and all hurricane debris out to the edge of the street to be picked up. this included the branches that fell during Gustav AND the branches and fence pieces that fell during Katrina that i always thought i would burn in my firepit that i never got around to. the parish came and picked up the stuff yesterday, so my yard looks much better, and i don’t have a pile of old wood in my backyard anymore.

today at work was another episode out of a tv show. the BO guy sits behind me by about 10 feet now, and normally it’s fine. he sometimes is on the phone a lot, but lately it’s been okay. today though he called IT…..ON SPEAKERPHONE. he was on the phone for at least an hour on speakerphone, and at one point had two IT people on the phone with him, so it was like a 3 person teleconference. i think it was something about his password, but i wasn’t sure. we don’t have a complicated operation going on to login to the computer. you log on to the computer with one password, then log on to the network with a different password. this simple concept is lost on the older people at our office sometimes, most recently today. i’m definitely getting tired of the circus that’s been going on lately. things are in the works though like resumes being sent out, so we’ll see what happens soon.

so Thursday night, i noticed my refrigerator making a clicking sound every few minutes. it was still working, but i knew there was a problem. i googled the problem and realized it was a broken start relay. not immediately finding a how-to, i called to schedule a repair from Sears when i got to work the next morning.

this experience kind of played off of my Subway experience on Thursday. i stopped on my way to Jacob’s to get a sandwich. the guy asked me white or wheat, i told him wheat. he makes my sandwich and gets to the toppings. i tell him “lettuce, tomato, onions”, he puts lettuce, tomato, pickles. i repeat “onions” twice before he figures out onions does not equal pickles. he goes to take them off but i told him i was going to ask for them anyway. when i open the sandwich, he made it on white. hopefully the kid is not looking at subway as a career. anyway, so calling Sears….i tried to schedule one online, but they were giving me a time window of 8 am to 5 pm. whatever. i called the 800 number to hopefully talk to someone and schedule a slimmer window. it gave me the option to schedule a Friday appointment online, but when i called, the guy told me the next available day would be Tuesday. i told him about the available Friday appointment online, but he said he didn’t see that. so i told him i’d call back later and hung up. i went online and scheduled the Friday 8-5 appointment. someone called me about an hour later and said nobody could come Friday, but they could come Saturday. fine, so i agreed to that and figured someone would call me in the morning.

i stayed up most of the night watching the Ike coverage (i was fascinated to see a hurricane’s landfall from the comfort of my home instead of being evacuated). i got up this morning and googled how to fix the start relay. i found this webpage where the guy basically made a picture tutorial on how to fix it. it seemed easy enough, so about 9:15 am i set off to Home Depot to get the replacement part. sadly, HD does not carry any refrigerator spare parts, just spare refrigerators. one of the guys told me about an appliance part supply place, so i took off for the supply store. i called my sister on the way to get the location because all i had was a street name. i found the place and walked in to find two gentlemen discussing appliance brands and the guy behind the counter had a cowboy hat on.

after the other customer left, i explained to the guy behind the counter my problem. i had brought the model number of the fridge but unfortunately he did not have the part in stock. he asked if i had brought the original part, but i hadn’t, so i had to go back home then return with the original part.

the original part:

when i got back he saw that he still did not have the replacement part, but he would be able to help me out with a universal relay, something i’d have to rewire to get to work. we walked over to a rack full of relays and he pulled one off the rack. he opened it then said “i have no idea of your experience level for this” and i told him i didn’t really work on refrigerators, but if he told me how to install it, i’d get it done. he showed me what i’d have to do, which didn’t seem complicated, as long as i kept the wires correct. i wrote down his instructions and thanked him for the part. it was $27, Sears was going to charge me $65 just for coming out, then i assume money for the part.

on my way home i called up the Sears 800 number and cancelled the appointment. i was on hold for almost 10 minutes! the guy asked me why i was cancelling, and i told him “i figured out how to fix the problem and am doing it myself.” this was about 11:30, and no one from Sears had called me to tell me they were coming, so who knows when they would have actually gotten to my house!

i started by taking off the old wires using scissors so i could splice the new relay in. i plugged in the relay to the compressor like i was shown at the supply shop, then plugged in the wires to the capactior. then i spliced the power wires together.

i plugged in the fridge….the compressor didn’t kick on. i called the shop, he asked if i had wired everything and i told him i did, and he said to just wait, but he gave me the number of a guy to call if it didn’t work (he was going to be at the shop until 1). so i waited and watched the Clemson/NC State game, then i went and checked the fridge, still nothing. i looked at the wiring i had done……i had mixed up two wires going into the compressor (there are three). so i changed the wires and plugged in the fridge. SUCCESS! the compressor kicked on and everything works. i fixed the fridge myself for $27.

here’s what all i needed, the utility knife, scissors, and instructions:

i ended up throwing out the milk, juice, and meat that i had in the fridge, but it wasn’t that much. i might throw out more tomorrow if i think i should….but still, I FIXED THE REFRIGERATOR MYSELF! FOR TWENTY SEVEN DOLLARS!

today i went and helped my friends move their stuff from their tree damaged house to a storage unit so they could store it until they find a more permanent place to stay than the girl’s parents’ house. we loaded a small trailer and the back of a pickup with ruined stuff, then a relatively large uhaul with stuff to go to the storage unit. we got to the storage place, and realized the unit seemed smaller than the truck. my friend zach was sure we could fit everything because he told us about how he had done it before, putting the contents of a uhaul into a smaller storage unit. the rest of us though were not as sure.

i don’t know how long it took us to unload stuff from the truck, load the heavy stuff in the storage unit, stack things to the ceiling of the storage unit, etc. however, when we were done, we had about 4 square feet of bare concrete left, and some room to spare. it was a little bit unbelievable.

then i got home and watched football and realized Ike might be coming. great.

(oh, and i got my water deemed safe, so the Saints party is on)

so the trip home wednesday was fortunately uneventful. there was a bit more traffic than normal, but i was able to stay on I-59 and not have to exit and take my alternate state highway route. there were tons of La. residents on the road obviously, and a few who thought it’d be okay to drive 65 in the left lane. i exclaimed “we’re never going to get home at this rate!” a few times. with the additional cars on the road, the slow drivers in the left lane caused a long line of cars to form in the left lane. also, there were several power and tree trucks caravaning in the right lane, which made the slow left lane drivers even more bothersome. no matter, because there were no accidents or screeching halts.

i stopped at the Picayune walmart to get groceries since i knew the walmart near my house was not open yet. several hundred other people had the same idea i did, so the grocery stop took a little longer than expected.

it’s been nice being home. i’ve done some cleaning in preparation to possibly hosting a Saints party on Sunday. my neighborhood is still under a boil notice (boil water before drinking or cooking with it) which i am hoping gets lifted today. something about the water treatment system got messed up, so i keep checking the parish website for updates. the water thing is the only thing not back to normal. i heard that my neighborhood only lost power for 3 hours on Monday, so that’s awesome. i didn’t lose any food in my fridge, which is a far cry from Katrina.

the only damage to anyone’s house that i know of are my friends zach and faith. they had a tree fall on their house. they were renting the house though, so they just have to move their stuff out and the owner is going to get the house repaired. i say all of that like it’s no big deal, but i know personally that it’s a big deal. fortunately they won’t have to be the ones getting the repairs done.

i went running yesterday and it was insanely humid. it had rained earlier in the afternoon, so i thought it would be nice and cool. it was cool enough, but the humidity made it pretty miserable. i only had to dodge one tree and one power line along my usual 5k route. the weather is supposed to clear up somewhat this weekend, so i have high hopes.

i’m going to finally go home tomorrow. my sister called and said i had electricity back. the water has not been deemed safe to drink yet, but i can deal with that okay. problem is, EVERY other parish except for Orleans is allowed to go back tomorrow. I-59 is only two lanes wide. i have mapped out an alternate route to get back without using the interstate. we’ll see how it goes. i may be calling people to “go into the map” to direct me back because i don’t have a GPS. i’m hoping to be able to clean out my fridge and go to the store to restock. hopefully walmart will be open tomorrow or thursday. i don’t really have much food at the house, so i definitely need to get to a grocery store.

today i was able to get some free chick-fil-a (we got coupons at the game) and the CFA milkshake i had been craving all weekend. birmingham is not such a bad place, so it has now entered into the options for moving.

i’ll post more when i can. hopefully i’ll have internet back too.

my sister called me this morning to say she was able to go by my house, and it is fine. the power’s still not back on, and i heard there are state troopers at the LA/MS border keeping people from entering the parish (ie county). the local governments asked if people could stay out till at least tomorrow for them to assess damage and fix things like trees in the road or downed power lines. my plan was to maybe try to go back today, but if i drive 4 hours just to be stopped at the border, i would not be very happy. besides, with no power, i can’t do much plus i had to go to the store, so there’s not much food. if i can get back tomorrow i’ll be able to clean out my fridge and go from there.

i made it back to birmingham Sunday afternoon and got back in time to go to church with cj. the church meets in a fantastic old building. it was pretty awesome.

today involved lunch with a group of people i didn’t know, hanging out with someone i hadn’t seen in 6 years, and a birthday party that involved guitar hero. oh, and keeping up on Gustav. i talked with my sister who had stayed, she’s okay. her apartment is okay but without power. she has since moved to my aunt and uncle’s house which is nearby because it has power. something like 85% of the parish (or county) has no power. i’m not sure if i’ll go back tomorrow or not. i asked my sister if she can go by my house (which is REALLY close to her apartment, why didn’t she go by today?!?) tomorrow morning and let me know what’s up. i was able to check my utility company’s website and find out my house doesn’t have power. i’m not THAT worried like i was after katrina, but i guess in this case no news is not necessarily good news.

my parents are having a great time in Tuscaloosa. they had evacuated initially to get up to birmingham, but after drama with traffic (6 hours just to go about 80 miles to start off!), they called me when they got to the tuscaloosa area. i told them to get off the interstate and take a break, and after that, just go to hotels and try to find a room. my mom was trying to reserve one, but i had heard on the radio last week that just going to hotels sometimes helped. they found a room about 15 minutes after we talked, so were all excited to finally have a place to go. my dad called me this afternoon to tell me they found a Five Guys and had a delicious burger. i had told them how fantastic Five Guys was after i had eaten at one in Florida on the youth retreat. they are probably going to go back on Wednesday.

as far as i know, no one i know has had damage to their house. the storm definitely was not nearly as bad, and all reports were of less than expected rain and winds. miraculously, the storm had weakened before it made landfall. i was watching a local news feed over the internet, and saw how the storm was coming in this morning. it was cool to see flood wall additions to their jobs. at lunch, they had a tv on CNN which when i was watching showed a reporter in the middle of a rain squall holding an anemometer upside down. i couldn’t hear what he was saying but it might have been “OMG! you won’t believe how strong these winds are!” i think they wanted levees to break or something. the headline on their website earlier today was a lot different from local websites. oh well, Gustav certainly did not disappoint me!

with all the drama of the past couple of days, i’m surprisingly doing okay. the game yesterday was awful. horrible. a nightmare. Clemson’s defensive and offensive lines got manhandled. still though, it was fun hanging out with friends, going down to Gameday, and watching football on 20 different widescreen tvs. also, i was able to get out of the GA Dome without getting into a fight, which unfortunately does not extend to all Clemson fans. some people should just not be drinking at a football game.

as far as Gustav, i just got a call that my parents are leaving. most everyone i know is spread across alabama. i’m going to stay in birmingham until i can get back, which looks like probably Wednesday. i’ll update things when i can. if i get another extended vacation from work, i’ll probably go traveling or something. it’s weird to say i am not freaking out, but having already dealt with a major storm, a glancing blow from another just doesn’t seem as bad. please keep the whole situation in your prayers though.

yesterday at work was pretty good. i’ve been working on this one calculation for about a week and a half, but i’m still not well versed with the analysis world, so i was having to ask a lot of questions. yesterday afternoon, i was finally able to get help from my supervisor and it was like the light came on. i was able to get what i needed to done and send out an email before i left with the results i found. it was kind of awesome.

also yesterday, i was getting directions to birmingham to meet CJ later today in preparation for Clemson/Bama tomorrow. i plugged in the addresses on google maps, and noticed a little camera icon by my address. i clicked and MY HOUSE IS ON GOOGLE MAPS! apparently the google mobile drove through and snapped photos in my neighborhood. (i wish Paris was my neighborhood) i saw that they pretty much did the whole NOLA metro area. i thought it was pretty cool.

i need to go finish getting some stuff together. i have my stuff ready for this weekend, but i’m also going to be bringing some stuff over to my aunt and uncle’s in case that Gustav guy shows up while i’m gone. the models are shifted more to the west, but i can’t completely trust them. still, i feel a little better than i did yesterday or a couple of days ago. just hope i can get home early next week.

also, today marks 3 years since katrina. i don’t feel nearly as weird as i did the two previous anniversaries, and in fact it seems like such a long time ago. the attitude with Gustav’s mostly “we know what it can do, we’re doing what we have to. however, we also know how bad things could get, and we’re ready for them.” it’s kind of cool to see people have confidence and not in a panic.

TOMORROW IS GAMEDAY! OMG WTF BBQ!