Travis Abram

Nope… not dreaming… you are actually reading an update from me. But not a real update, just a little fake one. Working on some maintenance things. I might give you a real post soon, but until then, follow my twitter. =)

We made it to day 0 of our first spike project! Today, after some confusing van swapping, we will be leaving for Austin to the FEMA Joint Field Office for out-processing. Pretty much, I think they just want their computer back.

Forgive my scattered train of thought today. My mind is in that bizarre state where there is so much to think about that you ultimately don’t think about anything. Yeah, there is packing to do, and some cleaning, and reflecting, and some paperwork I haven’t touched, and I should eat something today, or something.

I’m still taking pictures. I will post well over 300 (probably not) when I get a chance over Christmas. Deal.

I will also try to post from the road as internet connectivity permits. I need to eat.

Merry Christmas, from all of us in Silver 2, AmeriCorps NCCC. (Except for Andy. He wasn’t cool enough to look at the camera like the rest of us)

Hello all. I’m sad because I haven’t actually been able to post any of my pictures the entire time I’ve been in Texas, and I’m sure that makes you sad too. I’m sorry, and I’ll do what I can. At the very least, I’ll upload more when I go home.

We are on our final week in Winnie, Texas. Our work is wrapping up, and our project is winding down. We have visited 579 homes in the last few weeks. We’ve been in contact with hundreds, and added nearly 50 new families to our database. Now that they are on the grid, they can get help. That isn’t even considering all the small things we’ve done like connecting them to the food bank and the Vine (clothing thrift store), as well as utility assistance and general help. Our work here has been strange, but our project sponsor has been vehement that we have helped out in a huge way. St. Vincent DePaul has decided to apply for another AmeriCorps NCCC team. In my eyes, that is a success for us.

In other news, the weather is frigid. Right now, it is 37 degrees with the “real-feel” around 27. We did a nice, brisk, 10 minute run at 6:45, then half of our baseline test. My sit-ups improved (64) and my push-ups (42) were ok. More importantly, my form has improved. We’ll see how my mile and a half time pans out.

Our next project is going to be in Long Beach, Mississippi gutting houses and doing finishing work (cabinets, counters). We will drive down there after Christmas break, but only spend 2 weeks there. We will be in the area for the entire second phase of the corps year, but have no idea what happens after those 2 weeks. AmeriFlexibility!

It is cold. I’m violating policy right now by wearing my hat indoors, but when you can see your breath indoors… Welcome to Texas!

“I’m going to go get some tortilla chips.”
“Good thing the salsa is in the refrigerator.”
“But my mouth can’t handle that.”
“We could have gotten the medium one.”
“Is this conversation being…”
“I think so…”

I have nothing I wish to write tonight. I’m tired, and really just wanted to stare at the computer screen, letting my heart mimic the rhythm of the blinking cursor. Then I ask my team to talk so I had something to talk about in my blog.

I’m compressing Love Actually so it will fit on my iPod Touch. Then I can cry anywhere, so long as my battery is charged.

I had 4 days off in a row, which really just means that I didn’t have an excuse to neglect my blog any longer. Thanksgiving was spectacular. We all chipped in in what ways we could, some teammates took the reigns, and we ended up with enough food for 30 or 40 people to eat until they felt sick. 3 stuffings later, we were ready for our team nap.

I’m pretty stoked to spend some time with family and friends during Christmas. I love my team and all, but some time away from them will be nice too. We are just all pretty stressed and burnt out on this project we’re working on right now. We are doing needs assessment going door to door, and it is tough work. The hardest part is that there is really no way to see our progress or impact. We are constantly reassured that this is exactly what the county needs to be done, and that what we are learning is a great help, but it definitely feels like we are spinning our wheels a little. Either way, it is a good way to test our patience.

A handful of us went to Houston yesterday to volunteer at a farmer’s market. The drive was early and long, but the market itself was pretty amazing. We helped set up in the morning, then ran a booth doing face painting for free. First kid: I ask him what he wants. He says picachu. :/ I had him draw me one first, just to make sure I was doing it correctly. All things considered, I was pretty content with myself. (sidenote: I still have glitter all over. It will never wash out) To entertain some of the children (and adults), I started to juggle and incorporate others into the fun. The head guy was excited, came up to me, and asked if I would be a regular and teach people to juggle every Saturday. I had to break it to him softly that we would only be in Texas for another 2 weeks, but I still took it as a huge compliment.

Today, I think I’m playing Taxi driver again. Ryan and Kristin need to be picked up from Beaumont, and Andy and Amanda need to be picked up from the ferry from Galveston in the opposite direction. Maybe I’ll work out this morning…

Good Monday Morning! First of all, I’m sorry the last post had broken images. I was trying to be lazy and not re-upload them to my server. It did not pay off. They should be better now, but thank you for the heads up.

We have a 3-day week this week because of Thanksgiving, which is pretty spectacular. Unfortunately, it feels like we have yet to get momentum with our canvassing duties. Chances are, this week is going to be a little disjointed. We compiled a list of Thanksgiving meal favorites, and we’re trying to accommodate them all. My 2 requests were fruit salad and sparkling cider.

AH! Meeting time. Peace.

I haven’t posted in a while. It wasn’t for a lack of free time or internet connectivity, but purely because I am lazy and wallow around in my laziness pretty much every chance I get. Also, I had some technical difficulties with my ipod touch turning into a brick. Bricks don’t communicate very well with the internet. Either way, ipod is fixed and all my music on it is gone. Left a ton of open space for things like the first mummy movie and the Jimmi Hendrix Experience.

So, welcome to Winnie Texas. The rumor was true, and we have internet. We are staying in the St. Vincent DePaul warehouse, of sorts. There are 11 of us sleeping in a waiting room, so we are nice an cozy. Our kitchen is pretty large and stocked somewhat frequently. We are pretty far away from people, which makes the night sky stand out spectacularly.

I lost the drive to keep posting. We are going to the youth barrel races today. We met a young girl that will be competing. I’ll write more when my head is no longer on the keyboard.

I have a few minutes, so this is what I know. We are still working with St. Vincent Depaul in winnie, Tx. It was considered one of the hardest hit cities by Ike but has had very little aid. We will be working on needs assessment. Half of us will be in the field gathering data and the other half of the team will be working on data entry. We will be rotating between the eleven of us. We will be living in two classrooms in the St Vinnies building. I’ll let you know more when I can. Rumor has it that we will have Internet.

We made it to Galveston! We have Internet in our 500 person tent, but it is dialup at best. Thus I take this opportunity to update you from the Texas A&M Galveston campus where we are getting trained in needs assessment and data entry. Go figure though, we still don’t really know what we will be doing here or where we will be. Rumor has it that we are still going to Winnie, but saturday at the earliest. We’re just floating on.

It has been two months to the day since Ike struck.

My thumbs are getting quicker at typing blog entries on my iPod.

I am still taking picture but won’t have a way to upload them for a while. Hang in there. I promise they are coming.

Just a quick update: we made it to Texas! I’m in the hotel in Austin updating from my iPod again. Not too bad really if I can just keep an Internet signal long enough.

As expected, it was a long day of travel. We left New Mexico and entered Texas following the Mexican boarder much of the way. Hooray highway 10. When we made it here, we found a BBQ place that had amazing brisket. It started to sink in a little.

After that, we walked some of downtown Austin. It is actually a really cool city with some great nightlife and live music. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised. Tomorrow we have our big meeting with the head office where we may or may not figure out where we are going. I do know(I think) that we are going to be here another night, so I should be able to give you all more info when I get it. Sleep well world!

So this is my attempt to try and blog on the road from my iPod. So far, so good. We are on the road to Texas. We stayed last night in Kingman Arizona. We got in pretty late, but still had time for some swimming and watch the presidential victory. It was pretty spectacular.

I’ve spent the majority of the trip driving or riding in our cargo van. I don’t mind much. It gives me some space and time away from the group. There is going to be very little alone time this year. I don’t think I realized how hard it is going to be, constantly surrounded by people. After college, I’ve pretty much been alone. Graveyard gas station. Parents’ basement. I was always alone. That has rapidly changed. Now I get to practice patience.

We have heard from the first teams to make it to camp Tarmac. It sounds pretty sweet, but we are trying not to get our hopes up. Things change daily. There is a good chance things have already changed.

There have been a lot of firsts this trip. For one, I’ve never before written an entire blog post with my thumbs before. I’ve sort adopted a strange challenge. I’ve been trying to do push-ups on strange things or at important places. I’ve done push-ups on the Golden Gate Bridge and in every state we’ve traveled through. I’ve done them at every stop along the way, on fire hydrants and stone retaining walls. It is silly, but it keeps the blood flowing between hours in the van. I also bought a patch in San Fransisco and plan on sewing it onto my bag. Little things.

Well, if you are reading this, I succeeded. I didn’t spend any time editting this entry and would have no idea how to if I could. Frgv my bed spilling

Hello adoring public. I know I’ve been neglecting you all very much lately, but I’ve had some pretty good excuses. But I don’t have time for excuses, so I’ll just let you know what is going on.

We finished CTI, and learned where we are heading for our first spike. We will be working with FEMA at Camp Tarmac at the airport in Galveston, TX. We still don’t know what we will be doing, but we’re getting kind of used to that. We leave for Arizona tomorrow, then New Mexico the day after that. We are making the entire trip in 3 days. Hooray for being a van driver.

We went to San Fransisco this last Saturday and walked across the Golden Gate Bridge in the rain. It took a little over 2 hours, and we were soaked. It was also impossible to resist the urge to see how many push-ups we could do in the middle.

I’m sorry this is so short and relatively boring. I’m pretty fried right now. (We spent the day working on rebuilding a playground that has been burnt to the ground twice. They aren’t building it out of wood this time) Also, I’m not bringing my laptop on this spike. It sounds like we are in a tent on cots with 300 other people. I’ll let you all know how that goes.

I know I haven’t been writing very much lately, and I really have awesome excuses. The first and best excuse is that, at this point, if I go to bed I get less than 8 hours of sleep. I’m sorry. Deal with it.

Noteworthy on campus is the suspense my team is being put through in finding out where our first spike will be. Most of the other teams we’ve spoken to have all been given their assignments, but we have been left in the dark. I’m not going to lie; it is driving most of us pretty insane. I promise. There are rumors and speculation like you wouldn’t believe, and we can’t help but suspect that our devious team leader is instrumental in our torture. Nonetheless, this falls in the realm of things we have absolutely no control over. It still sucks.

We went to camp Mendocino over this last weekend, and took approximately 1 million pictures. I’m still trying to find the best way to link to everyone’s galleries. I’m really sorry, but I’m running out typing power. Eyes… closing. Here is a picture of me with our silverback!

So I was on a roll there for a few days, posting epic blog posts with pictures and everything. Then something happened. Then P.T. happened. Then waking up at 5 happened, then passing out face down with the lights on at 8:30 happened.

I’m getting pretty busy. I’m coordinating an independent service project for local children and their families for Halloween which takes the little scoche of free time I have. We are leaving for camp Mendocino Saturday morning and will spend the weekend out of cellphone range. FYI.

To sum things up, life is pretty sweet. Things are tough. PT is draining. CTI classes are long. The weather is great, and the people are starting to come out of their shells and have a good time. Time to sleep.

P.S. This is what a part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were taken out.