Day 8

Today we finished the whole job!!! It was too late to take any pictures so I will post the final product tommorow. Nothing special really happened today. One funny tidbit is that we had a skylight in the bathroom so when anyone wne to to use the restroom it was an interesting experience. the funniest was when Maw Maw entered the bathroom and yelled several times, "I'm going to the bathroom!" She also told the guys that if her roof leaked she would hunt them down in colorado. In fact she said, "I will hunt you down with a baseball bat and come to your church." I think this motivated the guys to take extra percautions. They all laughed it off and truly loves when she speaks. Tonight we will go to Seafood World where the guys will eat a lot of louisinana special type food.

Other than that we are all having a really good time.

Andrew

Day 7

These guys are amazing! As you can see from the pictures they have framed the whole den and have started raising the roof. They worked long and hard and then feasted on etoufea, jumbalya, crabs, and boiled shrimp. Whoa boy!

We woke up to rain and had to do some quick repairs to keep the rain from leaking on our beds. Th kitchen started to leak and Maw Maw is deathly afraid of the feared black mold. This mold supposely acts like a virus and spreads through the whole house. However, i am pretty sure it is a conspiracy to scare and then gauge the old people of all their money.

We will finish everything up tomorrow.

Andrew

Day 6

Today, the guys came and they did some crazy building. They built walls onto the den and in the back. they also demolished the roof and started to rebuild it. They all are doing a fine job. We treated them to po-boys from Bears and then went to see the Pizza Man. To my surprise the pizza man has wheat crust so I had a coupled of slices. Bay Wertz accompanied us and wanted to show the guys some more louisiana food so we went to Rouses. He showed us pickled pigs feet, crawfish, king cake, and hog head cheese. Hog head cheese is actually boiled pig head somehow fashioned into cheese. Yum.

We found Joey's Macthbox cars which is a huge burden off of the Insurance companies shoulder's as Maw Maw was going to claim them. Also, I found a letter from Jackie to Aunt Fay dated Febraury 14th, 1962. It thanked her for a blouse which she said she would wear to the basketball games.

Andrew

Day 5

Shingles Shingles everywhere...

I spent the entire day tkaing off shingles and felt paper from the roof. The goal was to get down to the actual boards. You will see from the above picture the work that I have done. My father spent most of the day finishing taking down a brick wall.

The boys missed their flight by eight minutes. Nate's exact words were, " we were standing there in line to get our bags checked and they cut us off like a bad habit." So instead of arriving at 2:00 they will come in at 10:15. So eight minutes costs 8 hours. This is all okay though because we really just lost a couple hours of actual work time.

Tommorow the real fun will begin as they survey and start rebuilding.

We also went to the Home Depot. This reminded me of a satire that I wrote in my head once entitled Homer Depot and Walma Mart. This story is about a man and a woman named Homer and Walma. It was inspired by the lived of mu uncle Joey and my aunt Nikki.

Anyways, the home depot was a complete zoo. So many people want to build and it took as the enitre morning plus three trips through the checker to get everything we needed. Some $800+ and many hours later we left with the supplies we needed to get started on the project.

Another interesting tidbit is that Wendey's is offering a $6000 sign on bonus to work for them. That's a lot of 1/4 pounders and frosty's folks. No one seems to be able to get people to work and businesses are getting desperate.

Andrew

Day 4

Tired very tired.

Today I did the backbreaking work of taking shingles off the roof. This is a fairly easy job but a tough one. One thing is for sure is that there are a lot of shingles on Maw Maw's roof. My father spent most of the day finishing demolishing the den. Tommorow we go and pick op Nate, Jason, and Hondo. This is when the real work will begin and we will make progress leaps and bounds.
The picture on the left is Maw Maw standing through the big hole in her roof.

I also spent a good while poudning the heck out of a brick wall. All in all it was a very tiring day.

Again I am tired and will watch a movie.

Day 3

As I sit and write this there are mosquitoes flying around trying to bite me. I sweated today as my father and I tore down parts of Maw Maw's roof. All of this went fairly smoothly except the following:

• Here they are...
  1. My father sawed through some of Joey's old school papers that were in the attic.
  2. The Star Wars box was smashed by a tree and to my utter dismay it looks as though Luke and his Friends have finally met their match. They have overcome many obstacles including The Rankor, Storm Troopers and Lord Vader but that ole giant tree got them.
  3.My grandma's ancient bed that was made by here great grandmother (Which would be like my great great great grandmother) had cotton in it that My Maw Maw' s great grandmother hand picked. It was not damaged to our dismay as it was heavy and we had to lift it out of the attic. I mentioned that we should just put some of the cotton in a jar but my Maw Maw would not hear of it.
  

Beyond this I was pleased to see that a game system from the seventies survived the Hurricane. It is entitled super pong iv and it predates the Atari. Also, we found a digital camera on the roof that seemed to be left over by FEMA. I did look at the photos to make sure it was not a relatives, (and no they weren't any naked photos...I knew you were thinking it).
The pictures above show me standing above the attic and looking down into the room where the tree mainly fell.

Lastly, when we went to the Seafood Gallery the young waitress called me "baby" this took me off guard as only my wife calls me that. I wonder what the folks of the south use as their terms of endearment.

Anyways, the mosquitoes have bitten me three times and I must seek revenge.
Andrew

More pics of day 2

This is anohter picture of my fahter taking out the roof.

Days 1 and 2

Day 1

Well the first day was rather uneventful as I spent most of the day flying. I had to fly to st. paul and then to New Orleans while my father and Maw Maw flew directly to NO. I had a different flight b/c I return at a different time.

Mike, my uncle, picked us up and took us to a mexican joint named George's where we somehow spent $80. This was ok because mike payed.

We slept at Mikes house and then woke up to a busy day


Day 2

We woke up and Mike made us breakfast and then we gathered supplies. My father's friend, Bay Wertz, had much of the supplies that we needed. In fact almost all of our tools came from him. He even had a scid lifter that we used to take out the roof pictured above.

The damage that was done to the house was made by huge trees that fell down. The picture above shows the roots of one such tree in my Maw Maw's front yard. You will also note my Maw Maw in the picture.