Day Four, House Three

So, I really am smiling in this pic - and that really is me behind all of that PPE (that's military speak for Personal protective equipment). I'm standing in front of about 1.25 days worth of "trash" - also known as probably 95% of someone's personal belongings, and all the guts of their house.

It was another long day, this one harder than the first three. I think we've all just reached a point of exhaustion. This was our second day at this house; we made a lot of progress the first day and we finished up today. It's pretty amazing to know that we were able to accomplish that much within two days. At times the task seemed impossible to accomplish - staring at mounds and mounds of unidentifiable personal belongings, sheetrock, insulation and wall to wall carpet (ick!). Today insulation was the bain of my existence. It was like gremlins when they are exposed to light or water - it seemed to mulitpy inexplicably.

Tonight I went to "dinner" with some of my tent mates. They are on a different team than I and their house owner suggested they go to one of the bars up the street from our camp for crawfish. So, I tagged along - always one to sample a little of the local flavor. Their house owner was at the bar (Lehrman's in Chalmette). Very sweet, older gentleman. We couldn't buy a beer in this bar. Mr. Louis had never heard of Abita, but he was more than happy to buy me all the Purple Haze I wanted - even though I'm not even working on his house. Good crawfish, good beer, very nice people. The girls from Idaho even seemed to enjoy themselves ;-)

Not sure what tomorrow has in store - maybe another "fresh" house.

Will try to post more pics today. Mike, our team leader, christened our pile of trash with a bottle of bourbon today - partially for fun, partially to mask the smell of rancid food - I got a fabulous shot!