The first three days of Spike 1 are under my belt and I've got to say it has been great! Our first day we showed up at the Vicksburg Military Park and met with Virginia and Mike who will be our supervisors over the next three weeks. We sat through yet another power point for a few hours until lunch. Afterwards, Mike took us out to practice grinding and spray painting the confederate/union line signs.
Mike is around 30 and looks like a character out of the Archie comics. When he asked where I was from and then asked "where in Upstate, NY?" I knew he was going to be from around my area. Low and behold, he's from Watertown! Small world. Furthermore, when he asked if any of us had used a grinder before I couldn't help but chuckle. Dudley and Alex would be so proud because I'm putting everything they've taught me to use! I almost want to walk around saying "NO!" to everyone who is using the tools wrong or overdoing the signs. Who would have thought I'd be the one moving fast now?! Crazy!
Day Two we went on a day long tour of the park with one of the nation park rangers. She was very knowledgeable and brought a whole different perspective to the park than when dad and I just drove through. She gave cool symbolism behind the monuments, like the Illinois has 47 steps to illustrate the 47days of the siege on Vicksburg!
Unfortunately my team is already tuning out my humor because during the ride Uncle Jackie (actual name, Johnathan but he's chinese and so I call him Jackie Chan... don't worry Mom he likes it, I'm not being racist) asked about General Sherman. Our guide, Elizabeth, said she would look up the answer when she got to her office and I spun around and said "She'll give you the answer later because she wants to be sure, man!" HAHA! no one laughed but me. Then I explained it, which is always painful, and then I got a few "OOOooooo....that was bad."
Today we had our first full day of work. We met with Mike and Ben (the older maintenance guy) and went over safety, safety, safety! Ben is a fun guy as well and wants us to enjoy ourselves here while getting our work done. I worked on the first few signs with Mike and got him chatting about Man vs Wild to which he got enthusiastic (he used to be in the Army in the arsenal) and said even he wouldn't "eat any of that fuckin shit" to survive. Then he asked what we did for cooking and I said we had a vegetarian but for the most part eat what we want and he said "I never liked those vegetable things... Do I have a little fuzzy tail? No. Is my name Peter Cottontail? No...I had a girlfriend once who said she seen me eat a goddamn salad and I said BULLSHIT you seen me eat that rabbit food!" He cracks me up.
Our goal for the first day was to finish grinding, priming, and spray painting 25 signs and we got 26! Great success! I got Mike laughing pretty hard before I left today because I asked "Yo Mike, you know where the bad dogs go?" holding up my pinky and pointer finger while keeping my two middle fingers pinched together to make a dog looking figure). And then i said "To the POUND!" and gave him a fist pound!! hahaha he loved it.
We finished the day with PT at the YMCA because AmeriCorps gets in for free on Friday and Saturday. I ran outside while the team lifted and did a semi-workout. It was PATHETIC! Granted it was a bazillion degrees, I was dehydrated, and I worked all day... but I don't like to make excuses. It was 5 repeats about a half mile with a hill. I tanked. Hard. Luckily I didn't have my watch so I don't know exactly how bad it was but I know it was probably a smoking 6min pace if even.
All together I'm pumped about our work for the next three weeks and I'm ready for a nice cold beer to decompress for the weekend. Tomorrow I'm going to give puppies baths at the Humane Society for Independent Hours... can life get better??
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