I Have Thoughts: February 2013

Happy End of February, everyone! It's almost spring; which means: temps will rise to beautifulness, Mom & Dad will visit and I'll be continuing to stay busy educating the youth of Mass Bay!

We like to have fun in our bullpen!

We are ready for St. Patrick's Day

Cube Decor.

Margarita's is a cool TexMex place in Everett that we patronize. They hosted a fundraiser night for us last week. So, OF COURSE we had to go support our own program! DUH!

A few of our kids submitted applications for the Prudential Award...with Presidential Recognition. Of course, our very own YAB Co-Chairs, Amanda and Thomas were winners. She even got an extra recognition thing from POTUS. Very cool. Love our YABbers!

Amanda Lee

Thomas Vu

Hilarious...and typical of up here.

Snow piles in the mall parking lot

Waylon is very artistic...with chalk...all over his mom & dad's apartment walls...and doors. LOL. It comes off so they let him, I guess. He's so funny about it. He concentrates really really hard. You can tell he has a vision and really "sees" what he's trying to put up there.

So, as some of you may have heard, I'm now officially ONE degree from Kevin Bacon.

Background:

Kat Powers is our Rock Star Communications Director. A Community College in Lowell was hosting a panel on the relief efforts in Haiti (ongoing) and wanted Jarrett to say a few words and participate. In exchange for this, Kat negotiated Youth Programs having a table to show off our activities and a photo op with the other people on the panel. A professor there is the son of one of the major players in the US MIlitary effort, Lt. General Keen. He asked his good friend whom he met down there to also join the panel:

Yes, that is two time Academy Award Winner, Sean Penn. He was gracious for his allotted picture time at the post-panel reception. Very cool to add to my life experience as well as the ARC/New England experience.

Shawna looking fab in the car

Me cheesin' in the car

Our info table...Shawna

Moi

Mr. Penn, Jarrett, Lt. Gen Keen

The panel in action

That was super fun. Again, ONE degree from Kevin Bacon, yo! Sweet! We're trying to get Kat to arrange other cool things like this.

One of our YAB Members is kinda a big deal...

Yasmin Siraj is an American Figure Skater. Today she is in Milan for the World Junior Figure Skating Championships! She's a sweet girl who is very active in her community as well as being academically excellent. Shining star, for sure.

Nothing else much is going on except randomness:

Melissa is moving to NYC soon...in the next few months. I'll have the apartment to myself if the landlord is okay with that. I don't see why not. I pay the rent on time and am not a problem tenant. Daniel will be bringing our stuff up in a month or so. Can NOT wait to have couches and bookshelves and my BOOKS and CDs and DVDs. It's like living in a dorm room right now.

The YAB Talent Show is at the end of March. It's going to be pretty good.

That's all, folks!

Love you much,

Jini

I have tons of pictures so this will be a picture blog this week. Mostly. You know me: I gotta be verbose.

Side note:

Dear National Weather Service, please stop naming storms like Blizzards and smaller snows. It's stupid. Sincerely, Me.

Aah, blizzard Nemo. Or as we at ARC called it, DR 278-13.


Stop and Shop on Friday just before snow started

My grocery cart. Yes, I got snacky food, too. LOL.

Provisions...notice the Margarita Bottles

More Provisions. OCD: Spices alphabetized

MMM...Food!

Melissa's SUV

Those are from about 1 or 2pm on Friday...just an hour or two into the blizzard. It wasn't a hard snow but it was steady and windy. It accumulated ... quickly. These were taken from my front porch while Prince braved the cold to do his business. The white SUV in the picture to the right is Melissa's. You'll see that as a point of reference going forward.

About 6pm Friday Night.

Melissa's Suv

It was steady wind and snow all afternoon and it wasn't about to stop.

Not sure what time this was: prob early Sat.

Melissa's SUV

This was before everyone was up and at 'em.

Saturday mid-day

Prince making his way thru the dig out

Everyone got up and started to dig themselves out after noon or so. You don't want your car to stay under the snow too long or it gets iced and extremely difficult to undo.I went out about 3 or so with Melissa to help her dig out her SUV. Thankfully we have a super nice neighbor who took pity on us and used his snow blower to do it for us. See? Super nice.

Prince got stuck in the snow.

This is a water fountain in Kendall Square

So yeah, I survived the Blizzard. Then I had to survive working for ARC after a blizzard. We opened over 7 shelters...mostly on The Cape. It's all hands on deck when a disaster happens around here. Jarrett doesn't care if you're a Youth Outreach Coordinator, a disaster responder, a Director of Development, an accountant or...a CEO: you are expected to help out however you can. He managed a shelter for a 12 hour shift, himself.

Monday Shawna and I helped out in the DOC (Disaster Operations Center) on the 1st floor. We called shelter managers to make sure they were okay, ask what (and who) they needed. Then we helped staff those shelters for the next shifts by calling potential volunteers.

I was briefing Leighton on shelter ops


The daily 10am con call w/shelter managers & key personnel.

On Tuesday I was supposed to serve a 12 hour shift in a shelter in Dennis/Yarborough on The Cape. I drove down with another volunteer but because of some communication issues, they were closing by the time we got there and really didn't need us. We got to help pack some things, though.

Wednesday I was part of Bulk Distribution. We drove to our Dedham office and loaded "clean up" kits in a couple ERVs (Emergency Response Vehicles) so volunteers could distribute to people who were back in their flooded homes. I stayed with the Bulk Dist manager (a cool guy from upstate NY who was down to help us) and managed logistics.

Kat jumping in to help load the ERVs

Jordan and Jamie

Downstairs next to The DOC is another room we call DOC2 (lol...creative, huh?). It was storage until recently when they decided to acquire a "sponsor" and use is as a museum of cool ARC stuff. Also, it's extra meeting space. So what is "cool ARC stuff?" Old articles, pins, posters, pictures...and clothing. How awesome is this?

Thursday I joined the case work team to head to Scituate just north of The Cape. It's on the ocean and they had bad winds and a lot of flooding. The waves came over the sea wall and brought tons of rocks and even boulders into the road and under their houses. A lot of damage was done up there. When we got there is was 5 days post blizzard so most of the people had already called contractors and repair work was under way.

Inn on the coast...cool, Bob & Jo

Our awesome case work team


That has a driveway that is covered by rocks from the ocean.

The garage moved to the front of the house instead of the side in the back.

Friday I was back in the office and then at a school teaching, "Scrubby the Bear." Yeah: it's a program to teach elementary kids how to properly wash their hands to prevent the spread of germs and disease. It was fun.

Valentines Day Flowers, Chocolate and Bear

Birthday Boots from Mom & Dad

We had a three day weekend that was lovely. Daniel didn't have any loads so he got to spend the weekend with me. Very nice! I got a zip car and drove to Milford to meet him. Extremely relaxing and fun weekend which ended with me getting a bed! A real bed! Super nice. I couldn't sleep the first night because I was too comfortable. 5+ months of sleeping on a single mattress on the floor will do that to ya, I guess.