Is this body lice???

That's the quote of the day by my good friend Tom Hart. Today was a great day here in the Bay. For me it consisted of finishing the office, rearranging all of the stuff in the great room, and getting "Conjacked" to learn some metal bending and caulking tips. Emily and I have been gloating all day over having nailed the color for the new office. We painted and had a wonderful time. Dave and I will be sealing the freezer tomorrow and hopefully get that ready to go. Tonight for supper the 'terns went to chateau de Jean and ate some delicious barbeque and introduced Dave to twice baked potatoes. We had a great time. After that we decided to go to the laundry mat and that was a good idea since I only have three pairs of socks. I've been warned by some 'Nam vets that I don't want the jungle rot. The laundry mat was interesting... everything from swing dancing to jui-jitsu lessons to slaps. Fun fact for the day: Tom Hart has never been beaten at slaps or thumb war. Pictures from the laundry mat will be added tomorrow seeing as how Emily has already put up the camera. Oh yea and I forgot about the other fun thing we did. Emily and I stood on top of the office will a crew from H'burg made a bucket brigade tossing mattresses to Dave and Zech who would then hurl them to Emily and me javelin style. Those guys are beasts. In a good way. Well all my peoples are going to bed so I should too. Haley and Ryn if you are reading this... we miss y'all so bad and can't wait for you to come back. Call us sometime. Cheers.

guys I'm computer illiterate...how does this system work?! oh yeah, and the reason you don't know who I am is that I just finished my last final TODAY so I'm still at school...but I'll see ya'll in July!

El'lo Mates

It's aboot time for a (BB) Blogger Break!
I think the theme of the day is something along the lines of Sleep Deprivation...
After a 4:30AM trip to the air port many of us are running on E - but I suppose that is a small price to pay for a fellow intern.

"you're from jersey??.....*oh.*" -- thoughts on being a yankee in the bay

OK, so we've all been talking about putting up profiles of ourselves. (Note: as a group, we very rarely do anything that we talk about doing. :P ). So here we go. First one. :)

Name: Kathryn. Ryn. Jersey.
From: south Jersey; W&M in VA
Age: 20 years, 6 months, 29 days
Favorite color: green
Favorite pizza topping: vegetables
Top 5 favorite bands (today): Carbon Leaf, Hootie & the Blowfish, Coldplay, Journey, U2
5 new favorite words I've learned in the Bay: scrill gun, futtons, nips, lame, lagniappe
Major: English & secondary ed.
Weird fact: I don't want to teach English.
Top 5 favorite hobbies: dumpster diving, thrift store shopping, surfing, roadtrips, climbing trees
Question: Why don't I eat meat?
Answer: I don't like it.
Top 5 heroes: Lance Armstrong, my Dad, Lagniappe Leper Colony '06 'terns, Kelly Slater, Tyler Hamilton
What my tattoo will be of: On my right foot, Integrity, Strength, Endurance, Beauty, Truth--one on each toe; and a leaf on the bottom.
Top 5 new things I want to do this summer: learn how to whistle with my fingers, learn how to say "dawg," learn to drive a skidsteer (& a stick), catch a flounder, dance on a table
Random fact: My hair is actually blonde. Probably it will be back by the end of the summer.

:)

Typical day in the life of a 'tern

6:00 - Awakened by the early rising older men in our bunkhouse
6:01 - Decide that it is too early and roll over for another hour
7:00 - Wake up again and feel bad because all the volunteers are already working
7:06 - Gain enough motivation from guilt to actually get out of bed
7:15 - Eat a danish and drink some powdered milk... breakfast of champions
7:45 - Start walking around the facility so that people will think we are working
8:21 - Actually start working after having thoroughly inspected the grounds
8:25 - Remember that we haven't put on bug spray and Vanilla Fantasy... convenient break
9:00 - Water break
9:45 - Water break
10:00 - Water break
10:34 - Start wondering what time it is
10:35 - Remember that we don't want to know what time it is because it is depressing every time we find out
11:00 - Now depressed because we accidentally found out what time it was and we still have an hour to go until lunch
11:13 - Water break (stalling for lunch)
12:00 - Lunch time... never lasts as long as we want
12:45 - Nap time with eyes open
1:01 - Doughnuts in the parking lot with the skidsteer
1:07 - Curt finds out and holds an emergency meeting
1:30 - Water break... must keep those dehydration blues away. Kim starts talking on the phone.
1:43 - Start actual work for the first time
1:44 - Start wondering what's for supper
2:49 to 3:23 - Eric and Tom start doing Charles Gray impersonations
3:23 - Emily and Ryn make them stop
3:24 - One more quote from Charles
4:19 - Insist that it is time to start cleaning up
4:27 - Dr. Tom holds a meeting about keeping up with the tools
4:36 - Water break... Kim finally gets off the phone
4:41 - Dr. Tom holds a meeting about keeping up with the tools
4:55 - Reapply bug spray/Vanilla Fantasy
5:17 - Start walking around looking important again until supper
5:51 - Tom and Eric coach Emily and Ryn in talking southern
5:57 - Emily and Ryn practice the pronunciation of dog.... or dawg... or dwahg... dag...
6:30 - Eat supper
7:06 - dog.... or dawg... or dwahg... dag...
7:40 - Best time of the day.... bath time
8:01 - Take a nap
9:14 - Go to Bay City Grill.... dance the night away... sweat more.... laugh
10:56 - Jean and Tom dance on the table
10:59 - Jordan cuts in on the old man dancing with Haley
11:56 - Waffle House
12:15 - Five rabid F.R.O.G's launch a sting operation on Haley, sending her to the bathroom in hysterics
12:16 - Haley won't come out until Eric and Tom neutralize the F.R.O.G. forces
12:17 - Ryn falls out of her seat in a sudden giggling fit; Emily, still wet from the F.R.O.G attack , is not amused.
12:31 - We arrive back at the base, and Haley dons her barber's apron to trim the 'terns hair
12:33 - Water break
12:45 - Kim gets off the phone but this time no one knew when she started talking
12:49 - Haley mows a chunk o' hair out of Zech's head, and silently gasps and tries to break the news to Zech
1:00 - After more Charles impersonations, everyone goes to bed, only to wake up a mere 5 hours later to the familiar sound of diesel refrigerator.

Top 5 favorite ways to sweat at lagniappe:

5) listen to the greatest hits of all time...fm 102.3
4) hack down a giant stump in the Larroux's backyard
3) hang toilet paper holders on the plywood walls in the sauna (aka: bathroom)
2) army crawling under the 12 inch space under the bunk houses
1) dance with Jean at Bay City Grill

This is what we do for fun...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi2CfuqcUGE

Check it out. It will change your life.

"I grew older...but New Or-le-ans didn't"

Top 5 ways you can tell you're a Lagniappe intern:

5) You use a drill as a blow dryer
4) WaffleHouse home fries are called PO-Tay- TO s
3) You learn how to talk Miss-Sippi
2) Your infestations of bug bites closely resemble leprosy
1) You smell bad

Words of Wisdom

Zech here, it is my fourth day four at Bay St. and it has been yet another HOT day!!!

I am tired and don’t feel much like writing, so how about a simple encouraging quote to warm our spirits – It is one of my favorites.

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity;
an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Winston Churchill

It's Mardi Gras...so....

So maybe it's not really Mardi Gras...but we did find some beads on the side of the road today... (that's for you , fellow interns!)

More importantly, we built a shed and learned how to drywall, delivered a shed, ate Chinese Food (where I laughed more than I thought was physically possible; we might not be able to go back there...) and now we're sitting around "the office" aka Jean's front porch.

Much like Tom, I didn't have time to unpack before I was put to work! I'm dirty, sunburned, and bug bitten...but like Jean said yesterday, Christ is okay with us not being okay! Keep us in your prayers, and you all are in all of ours!