Okay, let's see if you can stay with me here

Well ...

We got out early on Friday, as you know. Earth 5 went home and did some packing. After dinner, I headed out in the rain to UC Boulder's outdoor theater to watch a Shakespeare play, Love's Labour's Lost. Yes. I sat in the rain and watched Shakespeare. I had tickets to it, someone else was supposed to go with me but they went on dispatch. So I went to get my money's worth. It was quite good, actually. Around the third act I noticed that the rain had stopped. It was a little cold, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the actors actually reminded me of a friend who, coincidentally, is a stage actor and really into Shakespeare.

The next morning, we loaded our truck up with things that we wanted to move to Nederland so we wouldn't have to bring them back to Denver. We also put all of our nonperishable food in there. A few people ran that up to the bunkhouse in Nederland while the rest of us cleaned. Once we were finished all of that, we were off. We stopped at Panera for a team dinner on the fly. No one really wanted to drag out the round any longer and three team members were missing, so we didn't really have much desire to do a full-on team dinner.

We got back Saturday night. I was exhausted after running around with all of this new ATL stuff that I have to do for Ervin. So I just went to bed.

On Sunday, I put my free day to good use -- I went into the city to the Denver Art Museum. That was also quite fun. There wasn't much (Philly is actually bigger, surprisingly), but there were a lot of interactive features to the museum. http://www.denverartmuseum.org

And then Monday began. I had a lot to do: Balance the budget, getting Media, CAPper and Service Learning paperwork from the teammates responsible for those tasks, the Project Completion Report with its list of Quantifiables, Project Evaluations from members ... Basically, I spent my entire day in the office, getting help from someone, printing something, copying something, emailing something. Yeesh. It carried over into today. We had our briefing this afternoon, but beforehand I was running around to everyones' rooms to get their Reflections for the portfolio, doing their "room inspections" (whatever), talking to Kevin (Earth Unit Leader) about the vehicle predicament, talking to Bobby (Supply Manager) about the vehicle predicament ...

Which brings me to the explanation. Now, follow carefully and I'll do my best to be concise. Between Earth 4 and 5 there are four trucks. As I mentioned in a previous post, a few team members are joining other wildfire teams and the remaining members of Earth 4 and 5 will merge into a team. On Friday, the last day of Round 3, Travis, John and Adrienne, were driving downtown to get haircuts in Boulder when some guy rear ended them. They're fine, Travis was not at fault and the truck is still driveable. But the fender is bent and the tailgate, while it still functions, is difficult to open and close to the point that it needs to be fixed. So that truck is being signed back to Bobby and we'll keep Earth 4's trucks for our use, as well as Earth 5's other truck when it returns from dispatch.

But that's not the predicament. Right now, the team consists of Joanna, Scott, Paul, John, Adrienne, Travis and myself. Nikki, Blake and Chris are on a dispatch, as is Ervin. John, Adrienne, Travis and I will be taking the scheduled AmeriCorps Fall Break next week. Joanna, Scott and Paul are taking the other break later in September. As such, they'll be heading up to Nederland to work next week. However, in discussing the truck situation with Kevin, he called Chad to find out the work situation. Scott and Paul were put on the call list for the Alpine Hot Shots and they apparently have a pretty good chance of getting called as soon as Friday. If this is the case, Joanna will be the only one at the work center next week. According to Kevin, this violates AmeriCorps's "Buddy System" policy, so he has to run it by our director to see if Joanna being by herself is kosher. If she's going to be allowed to spend next week up in Ned by herself, she'll need to sign out the budget with me because Ervin isn't here. The rest of us will have to return here to Denver after our breaks because we have a community meeting on Tuesday after Labor Day and we'll sign out the other two trucks then. However, there will only be four of us and, technically, three people are supposed to be in a government vehicle if it is being driven somewhere. And I honestly have no idea when Ervin's getting back from dispatch. Got that? Yeah.

But somehow I've managed to keep my head above water thus far. I think the worst is over. The rest of the week expands a little and it looks like I'll have more time to myself or to get things done without having to be somewhere, so that's nice. Boy, oh, boy. It's funny. I never thought I would actually do anything as an ATL ...