Filed under: Zach | Tags: awesome, construction, habitat for humanity, Helping, kansas, lawrence, life, Road Trip, Travel, Video, Volunteerism
Today, as advertised, the Good Works Tour worked (as arranged by our host, David Baldwin) with the Lawrence, KS, branch of Habitat for Humanity, helping to finish up a house. The GWT spent most of the morning doing some light drywall work, and the afternoon working at the Habitat Re-Store, where Habitat sells materials that would otherwise be destroyed, as a fundraiser for the Habitat projects. We were fortunate enough to even meet the future owner of the home, who was volunteering on site.
In possibly related news, our next project will be building a house from the ground up using entirely recycled materials and little to no archetechtual experience. Though, if I’m lucky, the other dudes will let me use the plans for the house I designed in high school. It has a greenhouse!
Here’s the video from our ranch adventure in Montana. We work with power tools! And I get to stand on a roof! Dangerous!
Special thanks to the Baldwins for being great to us (and making one mean brisket — James & Tim), and to Ms. B for putting us in touch with her Kansas family.
Back in New Jersey in 8 days (Oh god),
– Wisedog
Filed under: Tim | Tags: ball of twine, crawker, Documentary, good works tour, kansas, lawrence, roadtrip, Volunteer
Today we drove from Boulder, Colorado to Lawrence, Kansas. A lot of people told us this would be our most boring drive, but we proved them wrong. How did accomplish this Sisyphean task you ask? Easy, we visited the world’s biggest ball of twine. And boy, was it big. Here’s a picture of how happy James was to at last meet the holy grail of twine.
Mmm twine
The best part of visiting the ball of Twine was finding it. It is located in the tiny town of Cawker, which is also home to the ‘Ball of Twine Inn’, and sidewalks painted with a trail of twine. We parked on the main street and went in search of our epic quarry, but found ourselves unable to locate it.
Of course we decided to ask the locals, here’s an excerpt from a conversation I had in a gift/antique shop.
Me: Hi, I’m trying to find your ball of twine.
Store Owner: Yep.
Me: … Umm. I’d like to know where your ball of twine is?
Store owner points the direction from which we had walked.
Apparently we had parked almost catercorner to this gargantuan landmark. Perhaps our minds weren’t ready for the bliss that is beholding the ball of twine, but you could definitely see it from our car.
After we laughed at what we had done we discussed what this meant about our navigation skills, visited the legend, then proceeded to Lawrence, where David and Jill Baldwin have graciously put us up. Tomorrow we Habitat for Humanity! Yes, some places are foolish enough to trust us with power tools.
One Love,
Tim
PS Kansas has people. Really. And flat land is impressive because of the big sky. GWT <3s Kansas.
Filed under: Zach
Hello from Denver, home of the Broncos, allegedly cold beer, and Tim Allen. (What?)
We had a blast working at the SAME Cafe today; they have an awesome program, and everybody who gives their time there is really cool (and the food is GREAT!)
Being in town during the Democratic National Convention has been a trip in and of itself. We saw a man dressed as the Pope with a naked mannequin on his shoulders, standing on a street corner. I know, poignant, right?
Here’s the video from our experience with Adopt-a-Stream in Seattle. Hope you enjoy it! (See my previous post if otherwise.)
Also, mad props to the Townsends for connecting us with their way-cool cousin in Boulder, who’s been good enough to host us. Also, mad apologies to Sam for waking him up this morning. What can we say? The Good Works Tour is loud. It’s part of our mission statement. Not really, but kinda, if you think about it.
Thanks for watching us, and caring about what we’re doing for some reason,
– Wisedog
Filed under: James | Tags: Boulder, Colorado, Democractic Convention, Denver, InterConnection, Oprah, SAME Cafe, Travel, van, Video
First off, please email Oprah. Ok, now on to more news.
Today we drove, drove, drove all the way to Boulder, Colorado. We’re staying with our friend Kim’s cousin, Kristin, and all of her roommates. Kudos to them for getting us out of our van and onto some couches. Mad ups to the people of Boulder.
Tomorrow, we’ll be commuting to Denver to work at the SAME Cafe. SAME stands for So All May Eat. They’re an awesome organization that is a pay what you can cafe that’s always serving and always busy. We’ll be sure to check out the Democratic Convention while we’re in town and yell at delegates and stuff.
Also, here’s a new video today about one of our experiences in Seattle, WA. We were working with InterConnection, a group that does work rebuilding computers and giving them to those in need. The best part is volunteers are rewarded after 60 hours of work with a computer of their own! Enjoy! (Be sure to check out the competition Tim go into while we were there.)
Thanks,
James
Filed under: Tim | Tags: CHOICE Humanitarian, Computers, Guatemala, Helping, Road Trip, salt lake city, Travel, utah, Volunteer
Hey GWT followers,
Today we worked at CHOICE Humanitarian. Sometimes it seems like our timing is intentional. Over the weekend a tragedy occurred for this organization; a plane shuttling volunteers to Guatemala crashed and eleven people were killed. Needless to say their small office was full of activity; we were pleased that they let us help in a time where they have so much to do. Zach and James did research on news articles and statistics while I created a flash movie from letters of condolences. See, I did do something with my digital media degree! (bottom of this page)
What CHOICE does is amazing, and we were so happy to lend a hand when they could really use it. This is the first time GWT has worked behind computers, which was something a little bit different for us. It was also one of our longest days at a site, from quarter to ten to seven o’clock, though there were people in the office before we got there and we were not the last to leave. There’s something about doing work that benefits others that makes it easier and more fulfilling. CHOICE also exemplifies something that we’ve noticed makes a huge difference in the success of volunteer orgs – they focus on what the people they serve say they need and set them up for the long term. This sounds like a very basic thing, but it’s very easy to believe you know what someone else need and be totally off the mark. CHOICE judges their success not by the completion of projects, but by the projects the people they trained go on to create.
If anyone from CHOICE is reading this, we would like to offer our condolences for your departed comrades. We read and heard a lot about them today, and they truly were exemplary people.
Tomorrow we depart for Denver! Maybe we’ll see this big salty lake that’s supposed to be here before then.
Much love,
Tim
Filed under: Zach | Tags: food, Food Bank, meals on wheels, northeast emergency food program, Travel, Video
…have been uploaded! Thanks to a series of flukes, we now present Meals on Wheels – San Francisco and the Northeastern Emergency Food Program of Portland.
Filed under: Zach | Tags: Helena, Helping, Montana, Road Trip, salt lake city, Travel, utah, Video, Volunteer, volunteermatch.org
What a drive we made today, from Helena to Salt Lake City! We stopped by Big Sky, though we didn’t have the opportunity to climb up the peaks. Good Works Tour 2? I think absolutely.
We had a blast working (and counting shooting stars) on the Kleffner Ranch and we look forward to working with CHOICE Humanitarian tomorrow.
We have a veritable treasure trove of videos for you, Good Works Fans. And they’ll be up as soon as possible (1 tonight, 2 tomorrow, we hope). Here’s the video for our stop at VolunteerMatch.org. Enjoy it, as I hope you enjoy all our new videos.
And if you don’t enjoy them, you should be enjoying them. And if you do enjoy them, tell more people that they should enjoy them. Remember: you are all part of the Good Works Tour if you help spread word of our mission! Plus, for every one person you refer to the GWT videos, you earn one GWT buck, good for one hug! …We didn’t actually make any GWT bucks yet. …and probably won’t. Besides, anybody who needs a hug can get one from the Good Works Tour for free. But we’ll take your word for it. That’s how the Tour rolls. Let’s just say you get mad props.
Anyway, here it is.
Tonight, we get to see our friend Christine, who’s just moved out to the Salt Lake area, and who’s generous enough to host us while we’re here. Rules!
Polygamy means more people to love,
– Wisedog
Filed under: James | Tags: cell phone, good works tour, Helena, helping people, Kleffner Ranch, Montana, Montana Living History, Oprah, restoration, Road Trip, Travel, Video, Volunteer, Volunteerism
Holy crap. If you haven’t been to Montana, you should go just to see the stars at night. We’ve been here for a little over 24 hours and it is a good time. Today we restored what may be the largest old barn in America with Montana Living History. These guys are a great group that celebrates this state’s history by encouraging residents to visit historical sites and throwing a Wild West Fest every year in early August (we JUST missed it). The barn is on the Kleffner Ranch, which also happens to be the place we are staying. Last night our blanket was THE STARS! Boo yah, that’s what I’m talking about Big Dipper! Where you at, Polaris? I’m looking at you, Way of Milk!
Also, about five minutes ago our own Wisedog helped out in front of the cafe where we stopped to write the blog post. He found a woman’s cell phone and called a bunch of people in her contacts until she came over to pick it up! It was a nice phone too. He’s the man! A very Good Works Tour thing to do. And yes, we got it on film.
Tomorrow we’re heading out on another long drive to Salt Lake City, UT. On Tuesday we’ll be working with CHOICE Humanitarian. Check them out! They’re international.
One small favor we ask all of our Good Works Fans, please send our web address out to your respective mailing lists, clubs, friends, family and Oprah. Seriously, email Oprah. I’m not kidding about emailing Oprah. If you don’t email Oprah, Tim will cry because you didn’t email Oprah. Remember, email Oprah…. Oprah.
In other news, Timmy U cut together a kick butt video of us at Dorothy’s Place in Salinas, CA. Please, check it out. Also, forgive the few blips in the footage. This is the day our camera died. Sing that last sentence to the tune of the Don McClean song.
Thanks,
James
Filed under: Tim
Hey there GWT fans!
Today was a very full day. We started at Adopt a Stream where we cut willow branches that will eventually grow roots to help support the bank of a stream. I never realized that you can reclaim a habitat, we saw a pond that had previously been a parking lot – I never would have guessed. This was GWT’s first nature friendly stop, which we hope makes up for how much gas we use.
After that we took a break to make the ultimate nerd pilgrimage.Thats right we stopped at Wizards of the Coast. They gave us sweet goody bags and let us hang out in their lobby. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen James quite that excited.
We then proceded to InterConnection, an organization where volunteers can learn about computers while earning their own by working for 30 hours. While we were in the refurbishing section a man made the statement he could take apart a computer faster then anyone else in the world. So of course I challenged him to a race. We tied, but I think I got lucky.
We saw more of Seattle tonight, it is a terrific city. Now we have to rest up for the long haul tomorrow, off to Helena!
Right back atcha,
Tim
Filed under: Zach | Tags: Food Bank, Helping, Oregon, Portland, Road Trip, Seattle, Travel, Volunteer, Washington
Greetings from beautiful Seattle!
We must be on the “awesome places to live” leg of our trip, because every city since San Francisco has had great vibes, and came up roses in more ways than one.
Today, in Portland, we worked with Northeastern Emergency Food Bank, stocking shelves and learning about all the great things they do for their community. Portland is a beautiful, friendly city. Mad, mad thanks to our friend Jerod who hosted us and made us a delicious and healthy breakfast.
After eating well, working hard, and meeting cool people, not to mention loving every minute of the largest bookstore I’ve ever seen (Thanks, Brent!), we hopped back on the road north to Seattle, home of even more awesome people and the Space Needle. It’s a needle that points to space, as far as I can tell. Which, therefore, makes it wonderful. We camped out in a café in the Capital Hill section of town, where I made some new friends, and Tim painstakingly put together this latest work of art, as we make up for time lost during the camera transition. Enjoy this video featuring our work at the Monterey SPCA!
Tomorrow, we work with Adopt-a-Stream and InterConnection. More about those guys after we spend some time with them. Hopefully, we’ll be saving nature and repairing computers. Opposites DO attract!
Sleepless,
Wisedog
Good Works Tour 