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From the Ground Up | Molokai Dispatch

We made the local news! :-)

It takes a village — not to raise a child, in this case — but to build a home.

Molokai Habitat for Humanity’s latest project brought 15 volunteers hailing from the mainland to Ho‘olehua as a part of Habitat’s Global Village program. The team was here for 10 days and left early last week, after making substantial headway for a home currently being built for the Kaai ‘ohana. It is expected to be completed in two months.

via www.themolokaidispatch.com

A little perspective

This morning I returned to work for the first time in 17 days. I’ve been in Hawai’i most of this month, a six-day vacation on Maui followed by an 11-day Habitat for Humanity build trip on Moloka‘i.

I was struck by the inanity of my reactions to a few things as I started the workday.

First, the bit of SQUEE when my badge worked to let me into the building, and then into my secured workspace. No reason it shouldn’t have worked, but it’s always nice when you return from an absence and you can still get into the office.

Second, someone stole my chair. I’m using a different chair that isn’t quite right, does not have the adjustments just the way I was accustomed before I left.

Next, my monitors are at the wrong height, and I can’t seem to get them where I want them to be despite wrestling with the adjustment arm half a dozen times in the hour I’ve been here so far.

My work email had 7,000 unread items in it, and Outlook is still yakking with the Exchange server to synchronize and index everything. So I can’t search or sort mail effectively yet.

And now I’m delayed in my work by an network credential that expired and I have updated, but has not propagated fully through my primary domain. I can’t connect to any network resources right now.

All of which seems absurdly important on the one hand—how am I supposed to get anything done if my primary communication methods aren’t working the way I need?—and laughably stupid on the other, because I just spent 11 days helping to build a house for a family who had been waiting more than 20 years for permission to build on their own land because a government bureaucracy kept dragging its feet and piling delays at every turn.

A few hours’ wait for my email to sync and index and my network login upate to propagate?

Totally okay with it now.

Lunch for breakfast

Three-and-a-half-hour layover in Kahului, and the airport bar & grill we found near our gate doesn’t offer breakfast items. So it must be time for a beer and a burger at 10:00, right?

And... we’re finished

Six build days from flat platform to walls up, windows installed, siding on, roof in, and lanai built and raftered.

This has been an amazing week.

Among the many reasons I love Hawaii

It isn't raining — I know this because I'm sitting under a gorgeously clear and brightly moonlit sky — but the slight breeze in the palms sounds exactly like a light rainstorm.

Ahhhhh :-)

The roof structure is up!

We left the build site 3 hours ago with the lanai completed and the roof structure in place.

Crazy week!

Delicious!

Grilled mahi mahi and steamed veggies at the hotel restaurant tonight, looks delish!

Not quite sure we have enough pillows

Five pillows apiece on these twin beds:

I think they just aren’t trying hard enough.

Check another item off my bucket list

Never thought I would actually get to hear “Stand By Me” on ukulele. Just happened at dinner in the rain.

I *love* Moloka‘i. :-)

I rarely choose wines by label alone, but...

this one spoke to me, somehow.

We made this :-)

About four hours ago, I learned how to install vinyl windows in wood framing.

An hour ago, I led a team of five as we lifted, shimmed, and nailed the northwest window into place.

This trip RULES.

Papered and windowed

The sealer wrap and window installations have been our main tasks today. This photo shows the house’s northeast corner (back door is on the right).

I only learned how to hang windows at 08:00 and by 11:45, I was leading a team of five as we installed the northwest window, far right in the photo.

We’re also hanging siding on the south (front) side of the house.

Moving along nicely!

The promise of a new day

05:30 arrived *fast* today, but we have the gorgeous eastern sky to help wake us up.

Astounding spread

Kumu Farms, a Moloka‘i organic farming concern, is hosting us for an amazing Fields to Table Dinner this evening. Spectacular flavors to come!

Fields of basil

I could spend the rest of my life in this field at Kumu Farms.

Ring around the ankles, yeesh

Wish I could say it was a tan line, but no—when I peeled off my shoes and socks, I realized I’ll go home with more dirt and sand than I will color.

Progress!

From platform...

To first wall raised Monday afternoon:

To all exterior walls and most interior framing completed Tuesday afternoon:

We are kicking ass! :-)

(And I hope the pix post in the right order)

Ready to work!

The foundation and platform for the house we’re building for Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village on Moloka‘i.

We start the wall framing and siding today, and with luck we’ll get to build and install the roof trusses later in the week.

Sunset in paradise

Another ho-hum end to the day on Maui. ;-)

This was full when we got here 21 hours ago

Not really. But damn, do the bugs in Hawai‘i LOVE them some Julie Anne. Which is good for me, I’m entirely unbitten so far :-D

Winging it

“Feet wet” over the Pacific for the next five hours.

Why I will never be on the PGA tour

Matt: youve been working a hell of a lot lately
Don: Yuh.. I don’t have a carpool anymore, so it’s an easy way to avoid traffic, and I also want to bank up hours so I can travel a lot over the next few months w/o using my paid time
Matt: ohhh ok
Matt: where you going?
Don: San Diego in April, Salt Lake in May, Molokai in July, road trip in August/September
Don: Possibly India in there somewhere too
Don: Though the India thing would be for work, so no time off required for it.
Matt: holy crappers
Don: mmhmm
Don: All but the India trip are definite
Don: If the India travel plans had worked out as originally hoped, I’d be there now in fact
Don: Would’ve left on/about the 6th of this month
Matt: wow, why Salt Lake?
Don: See friends who still live there, and participate in a charity golf tournament
Don: Which by itself is amusing because I play golf like drunk people fuck
Matt: ROFL
Don: Hell of a thing, my golf game. I have a strong drive, I can get 150-200 yards sometimes, but I can’t aim to save my life.
Don: It’s worth your scalp to be within 20 feet of me when I swing off the tee ;x
Matt: lol I’ll keep that in mind

Help me build houses on Moloka‘i in July 2010

UPDATE: I hit my fund-raising goals in early June—thank you to everyone who donated! You can still make donations through my participant page linked below, but the full amount of your donation will go to the Moloka‘i Habitat for Humanity affiliate.

I’m participating in a Habitat for Humanity Global Village trip to Moloka‘i, Hawaii, in July 2010. I’ll be part of a team of 16 working to build affordable housing for Hawai‘ian natives who support the tourist and other industries of Hawai‘i but cannot themselves afford to live in the communities where they work.

Our trip cost is $1,500 per person, which includes local transportation and the cultural and teamwork experiences of the trip. You can donate to support this effort by visiting my participant page and clicking one of the links in the You Can Help! box.

The year in cities, 2009 edition

Spent at least one night (or most of a day, for the day trips) in each of these cities in 2009.

Listed in roughly chronological order; links go to related posts or categories.

• Seattle, WA*
• Orlando, FL
• Sequim, WA* (day trips, first to hike Dungeness Spit and later for Easter)
• Yakima, WA
• Kapa‘a, HI
• Telma, WA (actually a cabin on Lake Wenatchee)
• Cannon Beach, OR
• Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
• San Francisco, CA

Lists get a bit shorter each year. If anyone remembers a city I’m overlooking, sing out in the comments.

Previous lists: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008.

Returning to the world

I loves me a vacation, but I hates me the return to every-day life.

To wit:

I had 2,231 unread email messages in my work account. My “delete unnecessary mail” rules killed 825 of them, leaving 1,406 for me to review in some manner. The vast majority of these were threaded replies, so I knocked out a couple hundred more in short order by reading the newest messages first, but still. 1,406 unread messages over five workdays? Blargh.

I spent much of Sunday in a bleary-eyed fog of sorts. The flight back from Kaua‘i was a red-eye, Saturday at 22:30 HST to Sunday 07:10 PDT, and in my usual fashion I managed not to sleep a wink on the plane. But I didn’t want to muck up the days and nights by sleeping before Sunday night, so the day flashed by in this welter of confused imagery and sounds and unpacking and tripping over cats and trying very hard not to have to go to the grocery store because I was in no condition to drive.

Ended up sleeping about an hour midday, just enough to knock out the fuzzy feeling until it was time to retire for the night. But I was still on Kaua‘i time anyway—my brain wasn’t ready for bed at midnight because it was only 21:00 HST. Silly brain.

But now I’m back in the office, back to the usual daily bits of life, and it feels like the week I was in the tropics was maybe 17 minutes long. Except for the flights, which were each 3.5 years, give or take a month. Travelogue to come.

So how was your first week of August?

Spouting Horn

Click image to view full size, 1280 x 1024Blowhole of the Pacific on Kaua‘i’s south shore.

Beautiful day for snorkeling

Click image to view full size, 1280 x 1024Po‘ipu Beach on Kaua‘i’s south shore.

Fashionable chickens?

Click image to view full size, 1280 x 1024Accent wallpaper pays amusing homage to the ubiquitous fowl at Kountry Kitchen in Kapa‘a.

Wailua Bay

Click image to view full size

The view from our 3rd-floor lanai on the east side of Kaua‘i.