Last Weekend

The Baton Rouge Habitat affiliate started three builds this weekend. The first is a community build funded by the ReStore and from our "Fund for Humanity", where the mortgages of existing homeowners are used to pay for new development. The other two are sponsored by Formosa Plastics and are a blitz format -- they will be completed this weekend.

I'll let the Formosa sponsors speak for themselves and recommend you visit their 2 Xtreme Blitz Build Blog to view a daily progress report. In particular, you should read this to learn about my mighty replacement, Stephanie. She is a remarkable individual, and in her brief time here has distinguished herself by her attitude and personality.

Coach Rob Spivery of Southern University brought about twenty of his basketball team and coaches to work with us to build a house for Kim. Because it was the first day of the build, Lynn began the day with words of thanks and a blessing, Joan introduced our gracious homeowner and Mike started organizing the volunteers. Just one day before, several of us on the construction staff worked into the early evening getting this site ready preparing the sill- and top-plate and completing the house layout on the slab. This is one of the rare times I have been able to work with our new AmeriCorps, and I really enjoyed the opportunity. Among our new employees are some truly bright spirits and I will regret not having an opportunity to work with them more. This affiliate is better off because of them.

I worked with Mike and Lynn Saturday at the Community Build. For us, it was like old times working together on my last weekend as an employee -- and I was glad to work with them. They have treated me like family since I've been here, and I will never sufficiently express how much I will miss them.

Hey, Hey. I got my 'A'

Now that the end is near, and I have successfully completed my term here as an AmeriCorps with Habitat for Humanity - a friend gave me a wonderful gift, my very own AmeriCorps/Habitat shirt. I finally have my very own A.

What [I have|have I] been doing

As I mentioned previously, I was to make an entry to let you know to which organizations I have applied. Let's not tell either of my current employers, in the event that I have to lower my head and plead for employment (since James asked that oh so poignant question). Without further ado (cliché of the day), the list:

Doctors Without Borders
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
William J. Clinton Foundation
The Carter Center
Save the Children
Grameen Foundation USA
ACCION International
Geekcorps

and two more that I just submitted and don't want to jinx, yet. I think this may just be a partial listing because I think I've applied to a few more organizations than these. These jobs range from IT specialist to a camp coordinator in Darfur, Sudan. I feel confident stating that I am not uniquely qualified for any of them, but they all seemed like something to which I could have adjusted. And, I've only officially gotten rejections from two of them (I seem to recall).

Again, unless you are actually offering me a position, this is the best place to check the online, realtime status of mattfite's non-profit job search.

Three more...

The two Methodist builds and the Women Build kicked off this weekend. I believe that the Women had all of their walls up before the Methodists did, but let's not tell them that. It was a race to finish on Saturday because like most residents of Baton Rouge, our volunteers wanted to be home for the 2:30 kick-off for the LSU/Auburn matchup. The fan loyalty is something we have to plan into the weekends - so we were prepared to knock-off a bit early.

Veni, Vidi, I had my ass handed to me

The Thrivent build started on time, and after two build days, we're still more or less on schedule. Congratulations to the house leader as she's really earning her stripes. That means that this weekend we start three new houses in Hidden Cove.

I say we, but I don't really feel it. It's odd not being a hands-on part of the build, after helping with the previous ones since I arrived. Perhaps that's the reason why I resigned today. September 29 will be my last day at Habitat for Humanity of Greater Baton Rouge.

Oh, I'm certain that some (all three) may be curious 'what's next.' And, if I knew I would tell you. I will continue to seek a job with a non-profit or other organization that is trying to improve the quality of life for someone else, that can provide me with some way of finding something I do well, and using it to help others.

One year ago, I was working with a team of volunteers in Kauai building a dust wall to enclose a 150-house development during its construction. We were rushing to reinforce the wall because there were three tropical storms moving toward us. I was incensed at what I felt was a lack of coherent response at the time to the devastation of hurricane Katrina, and within another week - Hurricane Rita would begin to threaten Texas and Louisiana. One week later I determined that I had started something that I wasn't going to be able to finish anytime soon. I am thankful for that group of friends that I made and the new ones that welcomed me in Baton Rouge. Frankly, I'm grateful for everyone that I've met for this entire year. In one year, I began and ended my time with AmeriCorps, and I have completed the hardest year of my life, and the best year of my life.

I have no idea what the future holds. But I promise that I will spill it here first.

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Faith Court is done

So we finally dedicated Faith Court and turned the street over to the city. The mayor of Baton Rouge, Melvin L. "Kip" Holden, attended the ceremony where we presented him with a plaque commemorating the event. The family that donated the land to Habitat, and subsequently the city, also attended. The ceremony didn't last very long, but it was still very meaningful. After the event, the mayor stayed around to mingle with our staff before they went off to continue preparing for this weekend, when we start building the first of the remainder of the houses we will build this year.

Last night, I was asked to give an orientation to the ladies that will participate in our Women Build that begins next Saturday. Minutes before I was to attend, Lynn told me that last year there were more than 90 women who attended a similar reception, a point she neglected to tell me when she asked me to speak. Fortunately for them, and me, there were no more than 25 who attended. Not only was I asked to talk about construction, I was also the only male there - no pressure whatsoever. The Women Build is one of the builds we do that doesn't have a sole sponsor, but instead is developed of funds raised by functions like our Pink Toolbelt Bash, auctions, a raffle, and selling sponsorships by the square foot. For a mere $55, you too can sponsor one square foot of the house they will build.

Now that September has begun, there will be little rest until November. I'll do my best to keep this site updated as there should be more than a few upcoming photo ops.

Televised

The first Friday of every month, a local news affiliate, WAFB Channel 9, gives us a few minutes at 5:53 a.m. to plug what we're doing at the affiliate. Lynn has been our face on the news for a long time, but this month, our new executive director made his appearance to discuss the upcoming build season and give a report from our dedication at Faith Court. I'll plug here that although the photos are uncredited, they are mine and show some of our staff, AmeriCorps (both HFHI and *NCCC) as well as the house sponsor, Exxon Mobil. Enjoy.

Weekend Watch

It looks like news, but I think it's just an advertisement for a program this weekend. CNN will air a special report on world poverty and will feature three organizations trying to help in different ways.

The article illustrates an example of a Bangladeshi woman using microfinance to improve her family's well-being. Microfinance is a term used to describe providing small loans to individuals in developing nations. Often, the value of the loan is less than $200. These loans are intended to allow individuals and families to improve their economies by promoting entrepreneurial behavior. Additionally, there is no collateral required to grant one of the loans. An example of an institution that provides these types of loans is the Grameen Foundation. One barrier to providing this type of loan is that the transaction cost is such a significant percentage of the loan value. These costs can be mitigated by providing a larger loan to an individual, who will then work with the community to disperse it.

In addition to microfinance, the show will highlight the work of Heifer International, an organization that also embraces the principles of helping build economies for individuals and families. What distinguishes them from other organizations is that you can 'shop' through their catalog and give livestock, among other things. For example, for $250 you can donate a water buffalo to a farmer in Asia. Heifer International also believes in microeconomics, agroecology, animal well-being, gender equity and combating HIV.

Finally, President Clinton will discuss his organization's commitment to these principles.

Anyway, although I'm plugging all three of them, none of them have responded to my requests for employment. Regardless, I still think they're doing good work.

Another Dedication

Although we were scheduled to dedicate the last house on Faith Court, and the street itself today, we rescheduled at the last moment to only dedicate the house. This was mainly due to weather, as we had the threat of rain all day and the mayor's calendar wasn't suited for an outside, rainy event. Hopefully, next Tuesday we'll dedicate the street that Habitat built.

Even without all the pomp and circumstance we would have had, it was a very nice celebration. Although we had many of our new AmeriCorps, it was much like the celebrations we had when I first arrived, our hard-working staff, a sponsor and homeowners that we have really grown to love. It was a very special day.

Paul & Bernice are such warm and genuine people. The wonderful part of this story is one of the first houses that I worked on in Baton Rouge was for their daughter, and today we dedicated the house we built for them just three doors down. In fact, the first time I tried to take Bernice's photograph, at Omeisha's dedication, I had to beg her to be in the photo. Today wasn't much different in that regard. For me, today was a wonderful reminder of what I came here to do, and like all good stories, the end of this one came full circle back to Faith Court.

Katrina: One Year Later

While President Bush calls for a return to New Orleans and southern Mississippi, one gracious hotelier has provided a place for them to stay.

In honor of those that died, and those whose lives were immeasurably altered, I'm proud to announce the opening of the Beau Rivage casino and hotel. Nothing says "I'm a survivor" quite like opening a hotel and casino. "We scoff at natural disaster." Finally, Mississippi can begin recouping their tax base and those who never settled with the insurance providers on their houses have recourse. Let it ride...

I know, I know - I'm being naive and this message marks a return toward prosperity. They spent a lot of money in the community getting it up and running and the revenue provides a tax base. Now, tourists have a place to stay and eat when they come look at the devastation, or to swim in the ocean - sorry, I haven't quite beat the cynic in me down as much as I hoped. Perhaps it's because of this report by the U.S. Census Bureau that announced today that 12.6% Americans live in poverty and that 24.9% of black Americans live below the poverty threshold. Further, Mississippi's poverty, at 21.3% is the highest in the country. Louisiana is not far behind (currently number 2 (or 49 depending on your perspective)) at 19.8%.

The positive spin here is that these rates have remained relatively unchanged since 2004 and "marked the end of four consecutive years of increases in the poverty rate (2001-2004)."

Thoughts on a Rainy Day

Yesterday was a nice day for me, because the staff at the affiliate threw a surprise birthday party for me. At my last job, occasionally, I would take off on my birthday or even go out of town, just to avoid any celebration. But yesterday's celebration was nice and thoughtful. I really don't like being the center of spectacle, but these were people that were genuinely wishing me well and maybe now that I'm a bit more comfortable in my own skin, I can accept it as that.

Today, I don't feel as though there is anything new and interesting to report from Baton Rouge. That, and because it is my birthday are probably two of the reasons why I even read my horoscope. Now, I don't usually do that - it really is an indicator that I'm bored and I'm actually sorry to share it here. But, it seems poignant (to me and the approximately 6.6e9/12 other humans who share my zodiac sign).

"Today you could learn a lesson ... and that lesson is that positive collaboration can move mountains. You have power and passion, but if you can gather up one or two other people who share your passion, your power will grow exponentially. Do what it takes to make a healthy group dynamic -- focus on the big picture and encourage other people to keep personal issues out of things."

Ahhh, hope!

Which made me think to share a few other quotes I've collected over the past year. Ones that continue to inspire me, and give credit to those I've collected them from.

First, is the famous quote attributed to Margaret Mead:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has"

Next, is Nelson Mandela's charge against poverty and challenge to the G8 to respond with action:

"Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom."

When I was young (real young) I remember the bitter disappointment when I learned that there wasn't really a Spider-Man, Superman, Justice League or Jedi/Starfleet Academy. I like talking about justice. I like watching "Who Wants to Be a Superhero". Hero is a word that often gets tossed about by publicists and media campaigns, but I really do get the same sense of exhilaration that I got when I was young learning and reading of real champions of justice and equality.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated when accepting his Nobel Peace Prize,

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant."

I won't even attempt to summarize it, but his Nobel lecture, "The Quest for Peace and Justice" is as appropriate now as it was then, as he describes poverty, war, nuclear threats and racial and religious discord. Again love - not the "sentimental and weak response which is little more than emotional bosh", but the love that is the "supreme unifying principle of life" plays a pivotal role in his challenge.

So, in my year of living from the heart, I want to thank Leigh Ann for posting this:

"Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can."

- John Wesley

and this:

"All men and women are born, live, suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about... We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live."

- Joseph Epstein

and to Scott for posting this:

"If we are to have peace on earth ... our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and as long as we try, the more we are going to have war in this world. We must either learn to live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as fools."

Martin Luther King, Jr. 1967

and finally to Monica for reading this to me last year in front of a house in Kauai:

"People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."

Although these are credited to Mother Teresa (three Nobel laureates in one post), they are a modified version of Kent M. Keith's Paradoxical Commandments, the real inspiration for the title of this blog.

It's Almost September

In just over two weeks, we'll be back in full-swing. You may recall that we've produced twenty houses this year, with all but two houses occupied at Hidden Cove, and the dedication of the remaining two in the next week.

Next week, we will dedicate the last house on Faith Court as well as hold a dedication of the street itself, as we turn it over to the city. This is a big event because it marks the completion of a multi-year effort to develop a new street and the end of this fifteen house development. I'll provide a special report on the dedication of Faith Court next week. Next week also marks the end of my ten-months as an AmeriCorps with the Baton Rouge HfH affiliate.

This September we start the following:

• September 9 - one house sponsored by Thrivent.
• September 16 - four houses. Two sponsored by local Methodist churches, one Women's Build, and one community build - sponsored by our ReStore.
  
• September 23 - two houses sponsored by Formosa.
• September 30 - five house, two-week blitz, sponsored by Baptist churches.

October we slow down a bit. We finish all of the above and pick up one, one-week blitz sponsored by a local Presbyterian church. That will make thirteen total, and then we begin fifteen additional houses in November and December.

There's a lot of work to come, and it's a unique time here in Louisiana - the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's impact in the region. This time last year, I was preparing to come visit a friend in New Orleans before I was to leave on a Habitat Global Village build. My flight and subsequently my plans were altered as a result, and here we are a year later. Come to think of it, United still owes me for the airfare. Anyway, there will be a lot of memorials and celebrations here in the next week, and I'm certain there will be a lot of reflection on the past year.

It's been an interesting year.

Meet my replacements

When I arrived last year, one other AmeriCorps and I started on the same day. Terrell worked with Lynn as a volunteer coordinator, and I worked with the construction staff. Over the past month, seven new AmeriCorps volunteers have joined our affiliate to work in construction, family services and volunteer coordination. It's pretty diverse group: some young, some more mature, but all eager and bright-eyed. This is in addition to the ten AmeriCorps NCCC that are working with us for six weeks.

Our last day with the affiliate is scheduled for August 25 (week ending 8/27). I think we will leave the affiliate in better (certainly more) hands that what we provided. Given that there are still 30-ish houses to build this year (approximately twice as many as was built last year, and half-again more than we've already built this year), someone's work is still cut out for them.

New Team

We have a new team of AmeriCorps NCCC here to work with us. Today, Silver 4 from Charleston, SC arrived to work with us through the middle of September. I feel bad for them not only because of the heat & humidity but we won't start building new houses until September, and the work they have ahead of them is site preparation and cleanup, and eventually some prebuild. We are their first service project of the year, so we need to set the bar high.

Our next round of houses will start construction on September 9. This happens to be the date I left last year to go work on a Habitat Global Village build, and subsequently changed my life's direction. Enough about me. To get to 50-ish houses, we need to build 30 more this year. As I previously stated, September 9 and then the 16th are our next two start dates and we have already started preparing the foundations for those houses. This team will at least see the walls raised on the September 9th house before they move on.

We're going to try to get them a bit more integrated into our affiliate than we have with previous teams - today I gave them an orientation from the construction perspective, a bit of history of the affiliate and how we're attempting to do things post-Katrina/Rita. Kim, an AmeriCorps who has joined us in the past few weeks, gave them an overview of the family selection process and Lynn, our development director, brought them up to speed on our sponsors and volunteer needs.

We hope to have them attend some of the home-buyer classes to give them a better understanding of the processes involved in partnering with families. Hopefully, they will have a better perspective of the affiliate operations before they leave us.

Welcome aboard.

For some reason they thought I was going to succeed

[Those purely interested in houses built in and around the Greater Baton Rouge area or the happenings of a HfH affiliate may stop reading now, this one is going a different way]

So [my second favorite way to start a new subject. 20 points to the first person that figures out the first,] I was pleasantly surprised at the outcome of the past weekend. I debated myself if I would even admit out loud what I even did (I won/I lost), but it kinda is important to me and is fitting that it happened this year. Yes, I'm so old that I attended my twenty-year high school reunion.

I suppose they are hit-or-miss - you either like 'em or you don't. As you may have intuited that I'm at some personal crossroads, I do like to reflect from time to time if this past year has been the most productive use of my time, or if I'm indeed insane. I'm not certain why this particular group of people hold sway over certain aspects of my life, but I was clearly nervous leading up to the event, and figuring out how to describe my current status was definitely one of the reasons why.

What I discovered is that I found myself in very familiar territory after the anxiety subsided. Many of them are also on their own personal journeys of discovery. Those that aren't may find themselves on one soon enough.

I can be terse. Ok, I tend to be terse. Often, I try to know my audience. For example, sometimes people are just asking you a question they want you to ask them in return - no long or thoughtful reply on my part is necessary. If some non-engineer asked what I did at my previous job, I would often ask back how detailed of an answer they want, or were we just making conversation - if so, it may be simpler for me to suggest potential topics that will hold both of our attention. Or when someone asks the inevitable, "what kind of computer should I buy" I have to get them to define "kind" for me. Because where I'm thinking processor architecture or processor manufacturer, they're talking vendor or retailer. That led me to the comforting, but probably annoying habit of just answering enough that they're sure not to follow up. But every once in a while, when the tide is high, the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars, I'll describe in great detail what I'm doing.

Maybe it was the venue, or because we are at similar points in our lives, or maybe it's good old curiosity, but more than one person seemed genuinely interested in my past year and it afforded me the opportunity to meet the challenge of responding with a thoughtful and genuine response. And, with every response, I took the time to learn from the previous reply to further refine, even for myself, what the heck I have done for the past year, and what I want to continue doing. If for no other reason, it was worth it to open myself up to old anxieties and insecurities of high school. Fortunately, there were many other rewards (ok a few, but they were good), but I'll keep them to myself.

The irony of the whole deal was that I took all this time to figure out what I'm even looking for, and it was best summed up by my great friend Alisa, who said "Oh, you're just like those guys in 'City Slickers'. You know, looking for One Thing."

A Very Busy Day

Today started with a meeting at 7:30 and it seems all I did was run from one appointment to another for the entire day. The first one was our weekly construction meeting where we plan the week's activities. The 9:00 was our staff meeting where we met not only our new Executive Director Chris, but also another AmeriCorps employee who moved here from Missouri. Next, we met with a group from a Presbyterian church who will begin a house in October. Moving on, I ran to help one of our new AmeriCorps, Kim, move a dresser and bed into her new apartment. This I followed up with a conference call with Silver 4, the AmeriCorps NCCC team that will join us from August until the end of September. Throw in a meeting with Chris, another trip to move a mattress, a last cigarette while leaving the office where I witnessed a police officer drop his ticket book (that I subsequently retrieved and will report tomorrow) when he drove off in pursuit, and a mad dash to avoid a thunderstorm on my motorcycle, and you can call it a day.

I mention all of this, because in all that hustle, the meeting with Chris was the most significant. In fact, it was one of the most significant I've had since I moved to this town. Chris comes from a construction background, has worked in non-profit development, and was a priest. I've mentioned here that I'm interested in pursuing opportunities abroad with non-profits and I had an opportunity to share some of this with him. In fact, I got to share a lot with him. I'm reasonably certain that I could stay with this affiliate when my AmeriCorps obligation ends (which I believe is August 27). To fulfill my requirements, I am to have completed 1700 hours by then. I'm not certain I will achieve that - it will be close. The two months I spent in St. Bernard don't count toward my hours, and that put me a bit behind. I believe that around that time, I'll post something summarizing my time here in Baton Rouge, so stay tuned!

To get back where I started: the meeting with Chris was a great opportunity for me to remind myself of some of the reasons I took the year off. To say (write) it out loud again, I wanted to spend a year living from my heart, helping others, making connections, and learning about myself. I don't want to get ahead of myself, and I'll save some of that for the end of August, but it's always good to assess where you are, how you got there, and where are you trying to go. Rather, it's good for me to assess that. You do what you have to do for you.

Anyway, if you want to see a work in development, you can take a look at a map of some of the houses that we've built this past year, and some of the ones we're getting ready to build. It is a work in progress, and I will update the map with icons to distinguish new business from old business at some point in the near future as well as update it as we secure the property we will build on this fall. It uses the Google Maps API, and is available here.

(Ok, last aside. I've snickered before about blogger's spell checker doesn't recognize blog or blogger. It doesn't seem to recognize Google either. Cute.)

Status from Baton Rouge

Eh-hmm. Please pardon my recent lack of updates.

Of the ten houses we built in Hidden Cove, five are currently occupied and the other five shall be occupied soon. In fact, we are primarily waiting on electricity to be turned on at three of those houses, and the others will be closed out soon enough.

This is not to say I've really had a hand in that part, Christiaan and the other construction workers have been keeping that up. I've been doing office work. You see, it all started a few weeks ago when [start crazy flashback sequence]...

A couple of Friday's ago we lost our construction director. The next Tuesday, Christiaan, Mike and I met with a couple of members of the board and we decided that we would try to plan the thirty-two houses that we are building this fall and finish up the twenty-ish houses we currently have in development. So my part in that has been to figure out where we are, where we are going, and how can we get there. For some reason, I've felt that I needed to develop something to help do that, and I've spent the last couple of weeks basically developing a web front-end to a database where we track the status of our current builds. I guess you go with what you know, although I really don't know that much about web front-ends, or databases for that matter. Anyway, it works, for now.

The hard part really was figuring out where we are, which I believe we almost have an accurate picture. The next hard part is beginning the next wave of houses, currently scheduled to begin on September 9.

To help us, we have a new team of Americorps NCCC starting this Friday, and we have some new construction bodies that have and will start soon. Rachel joined us last week, and at least three more should join us during the month of August.

Today, I got to meet our new Executive Director, Chris. Today was his first day so I had limited interaction, but he will join us at our 7:30 construction meeting tomorrow to get an idea of what we've set as our current priorities. I think it will be nice to quit being headless, or more accurately, quit being a hydra.

In other news, the future homeowners of the last house to be built on Faith Court had a little tragedy over the weekend. The house in which they currently live caught fire, so it is now uninhabitable. We've decided to focus our efforts on getting their new house completed, so we've set a goal of getting them in their house by next week.

Speaking of Faith Court, as Christiaan and I drove by the Popeye's down the block from Faith Court, Christiaan pointed out something strange about its side door. You could tell from the Police line around the building that it wasn't going to be good, and later we confirmed that the door was indeed covered with blood. It turns out to be the blood of the manager, who was shot, stabbed and left to die in the freezer early this morning. They did catch and charge someone with the murder. Lynn pointed out to us that it wasn't the assistant manager who always calls us "baby". Instead, it was someone equally as nice. Apparantly, there was a shooting at the Piggly Wiggly parking lot (across the street from Popeye's) the day before.

The handprint on the door, visible from the road, is still lingering in my mind.

"We believe that every family in the United States is entitled to decent shelter."

These are not the words of Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity, instead they are the words of William J. Levitt, one of Time magazine's 100 Most Important People of the Century. Beginning after World War II, he and his company are recognized for revolutionizing the home-building industry and building more than 140,000 houses worldwide.

After WWII, the U.S. government recognized a need for 5,000,000 houses and incentivized private industry to provide this housing by securing loans made to builders and to buyers. Five years after the war, 4,000,000 houses had been produced. William J. Levitt's company had produced over 30,000 of them.

In the tradition of Henry Ford, Mr. Levitt applied modern principles to the manufacture. He developed a stationary assembly line where the workers would move but the product remained fixed. He decomposed the construction into 26 (or 27) steps and then allocated teams of two or three to perform their unique step on each house (raising studs, red paint painters, white paint painters, deckers, sheathers, washing machine bolt tighteners, etc.). All of the material used on the site was cut to length, labeled, sorted and delivered to each slab (yes, they used concrete slabs and would trench each house in less than fifteen minutes) in identical kits. He purchased his own timberland and sawmill. He manufactured his own nails. At the height of their production they could produce 36 houses/day.

The cookie-cutter housing concept was not without its critics and controversy (would William Safire be proud?) He was himself Jewish, but would not sell to African-Americans. His argument being that while he had no room for racial intolerance, the prevalent attitude was that the large majority of his customers would not favor integration. He once said, "As a Jew, I have no room in my mind or heart for racial prejudice, but, by various means, I have come to know that if we sell one house to a Negro family, then 90 to 95 percent of our white customers will not buy into the community. That is their attitude, not ours." Always a capitalist, I believe he described it a little more palatably as, "We can solve a housing problem, or we can try to solve a racial problem but we can't combine the two." I believe that Time recognizes him not only for revolutionizing U.S. construction practices, but for leading the suburbanization of America.

Does any of this sound familiar? Racial parallels aside, we've been building 10 houses since May. Once again, I'm going to write that "we're almost done", and we are. We expect to be ready for two more homeowners to move in on Friday, and hopefully a couple more the following week. But, as Christiaan pointed out in the Fortune magazine article that introduced us to William J. Levitt, he was able to complete a house every fifteen minutes and because of the amount of preparation, they only required 20% of their labor to be skilled. I believe the "15 minutes" may be a deceptive statistic, but I do believe that they understood volume and this assembly-line technique has merit.

Anyway, their houses were 750 square feet, one level, two bedrooms with an attic. Our houses are 1150 square feet, one level, three bedroom houses with an attic. I hope that we could at least keep up with practices from 50 years ago.

(Thanks to Google, I was able to do a good amount of research while another Project Runway marathon was on Bravo. Most of this information was gathered from The Capital Century, Wikipedia, and Time.)

Thoughts on Independence Day

[Watch out, he's talking politics again]

It's raining in Baton Rouge, I'm surfing through web sites of organizations that provide aid and relief while watching a 'Project Runway' marathon. It occurs to me that while I've provided a link to the Millennium Development Goals, I've not listed them for those that didn't want to follow the link.

The eight specific recommendations of the UN Millennium Project are:

1. Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty
2. Achieve Universal Primary Education
3. Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
4. Reduce Child Mortality
5. Improve Maternal Health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability
8. Develop a Global Partnership for Development

The report from which these goals were produced is available online.

It is widely accepted that over 1 billion of our world's population live under conditions of extreme poverty - a condition defined by people that do not have access to the basic human necessities of food, water, shelter, education and health care. There are not extreme poor in the U.S. Extreme poverty is a condition of the developing world. This is not to say there are not poor or people in need in the U.S. I can look around my neighborhood and you can look around yours, and we'll both find there are people who are in need, but not to this extreme degree. I have spent the last eight months helping people in need, and it has been rewarding.

Sub-saharan Africa and Asia are the two regions most affected by this condition.

The G8 has pledged to cancel debt and increase aid to these nations. In the past week, Bono's group Debt, AIDS, Trade and Africa Group (DATA) reported that the G8 was collectively off-the-mark in its pledge to increase aid to Africa. There was some good in the report, but there was much room for improvement. It seems he even left his audience with a lightly veiled threat. From the article, "Next year when we get to Germany and we're not back on track we won't be talking pop concerts ... we will be demonstrating in very different ways."

Anyway, to bring this back to the 4th... I'm a child of the seventies, and was raised watching School House Rock. In addition to learning that three was indeed a magic number, and finally learning what the functions of conjunctions were, I also learned the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, in song. In it, is described domestic tranquility, general welfare, and blessings of liberty to ourselves and posterity while striving to create a perfect union. Don't the Millennium Goals sound like implementations of these principles? Or at least vaguely parallel? What better way to promote those principles and our 230 years of maturity than to help the greatest number in the greatest need. This would be a foreign policy that I could embrace, wholeheartedly.

first resident

I think we've almost got this one right. The owner of Lot 59 (a.k.a. the Sue Gunter House, the one on the right) moved her belongings into the house on Friday, June 29. That's only 26 days after the blitz ended. Her electricity and HVAC unit were installed on Friday, and I believe she spent her first night in the house on Saturday. This is such an accomplishment for us, and by comparison to the Thanksgiving 2005 blitz, we are much improved.

Of course, we had several things in our favor this time compared to last: the number of volunteers, the amount of preparation, it probably doesn't hurt that I know more about what I'm doing now, the number of NCCC teams that helped us, and even that we have Christiaan working with us now is a great benefit compared to last time. Note that in the photo, Christiaan is installing two of the two-hundred or so shelves that needed to be installed. I believe he installed a total of six shelves. To be fair (and I don't really want to be), Christiaan is much more valuable doing other things than installing shelving - that's where I fit in, and why I make the big bucks.

Other good news from Hidden Cove is that I installed the last wire shelf on Saturday! The flooring has been installed in a number of houses, so I think we just need to put shoe mould down in those houses and they'll be complete. Hopefully, the remainder of the floors will be installed in the next few days, and then we'll follow behind them installing the moulding. This can still be completed in a week or so, and maybe then we'll get some more homeowners to move in.

There will still be a bit of exterior work to complete. Many of the houses have problems with the siding that needs to be corrected, but we can work on that once we've completed all of the interior items and not prevent people from moving in.

Today I went to lunch with all of the ladies in the office. I stopped by the office as they were leaving for their new monthly event, and they invited me to join them. I think they could tell that I was lone..., err, bored (why else would I go to work on my day off) and offered me a distraction.

Anyway, Happy Independence Day.