Mike Ryan

Visited Dad in Pittsfield this Columbus Day, the best weather and foliage we've had for that weekend in a long time. Sarah documented it thoroughly...

When the party nominees emerged, I was for the first time in my life satisfied with the choice before me. I've been voting in Presidential elections since 1980, and had never before seen both parties nominate candidates who I respected, and expected to serve well.

Been awfully quiet around here for a while, despite my best intentions for regular updates back a few months ago... But, here's a little something - I managed to get in among the first hundred for DrupalCon DC, to be held the first week of March 2009.

Friday was our last work day. This one was, again, helping out a FUUNO church member, who is having a new home built by Habitat for Humanity:

 

 

We worked on the framing inside:

Thursday morning we continued our drywalling and firestopping in the Ninth Ward. Sorry, looks like I didn't get any more photos... In the afternoon, we returned to JazzFest. First up: Randy Newman, who performed a great set - of course, Lousiana 1927 was featured, but he also had some good new material. Including the audience participatory I'm Dead (But I Don't Know It).

So, that Wednesday we moved on the the Lower Ninth Ward. A group called lowernine.org is working on rebuilding homes in the most heavily devastated neighborhood in New Orleans, and we did our small part Wednesday and Thursday. Here's the house we were working on:

 

 

Back to work for the 2nd day. Checking in at FUUNO, we caught Christ and Noe (among others) in action:

So, on Monday we got down to work. The volunteers gathered at FUUNO, and split into three groups. One group worked at the church, and one went to another location that I don't recall. Here are some before photos at the church (afraid I didn't get any after), where they are building a commercial kitchen (you can see the sanctuary through the framing in the last photo):

On to our 2nd day in New Orleans (at this rate, I should have the week finished by Christmas!). First thing, of course, we visited Cafe du Monde (no visit to NOLA is complete without a plate of their beignets, wallowing through ankle-deep powdered sugar).

Sarah and I got back a week ago from a week in New Orleans, and I've finally got a little time to start writing about it. Arlington Street Church, where Sarah is very active, has a partner church in NOLA - First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans, in the Broadmoor neighborhood. She's a member of the PC³ (Partner Church Coordinating Committee), which organizes regular trips to help rebuild.