Bob Loblaw's Law Blog

He's back, ladies and gentlemen.  After a nice long blog hiatus, I thought i'd finally update you on the past month filled with heat strokes, mosquitoes, mullets, and basically all the other wonderful things that make Mississippi the great state that it is.

What has happened...lets see...

1)  The studio has grass now! Pretty excitin' y'all.

2)  4 walls are up on the house.

3)  It was 91 degrees yesterday.

4)  I attended my first car race (and i'm pretty sure Chyna from the WWF and Charles Manson were there too).

5)  I took a nice weekend trip to Clemson, SC to see my favorite tigers, too bad their football team sucks.

6)  Rome in 28 days.

6) And once again, Mississippi is hot.

Just to fill you in on the work thats been done on the house so far:

-Site was cleared (old concrete piers from previous house destroyed by the storm were removed)

-Holes were dug for the new piers (20 in total, 10.5 ft. high)

-Piers were placed in the holes, concrete was poured in around them, and the tops were notched to receive the girders.

-Girders were put into place and attached using large bolts (10.5-11.5 ft. off the ground)

-Joists went up

-Subfloor went down

-16 ft. high wall was constructed and raised

-12 ft. high wall built and raised

-Long rear wall built, raised and sheathed

-Front entry wall built, raised, sheathed, and wrapped.

I think raising walls is one of my new favorite things.  The first one we raised was 16 feet high, weighed about 700 pounds, and took about a dozen people.  The second one was a lot easier since it was only 12 feet.  I thought the third one was gonna be the hardest because it's sloped from 16ft on the left side to 12 feet on the right side, and it's about 24 feet long, and we only had 8 people lifting it, but it went up with no problems.  The fourth one, however, was a different story.  We decided not to strap this one to the floor before we lifted it because it's 12-14 feet high  and only 12 feet wide, so compared to the other ones, this one was easy.  We were also down 2 people, so only 5 were lifting it, I'm not counting Megan because she definitely just pretends to lift.  So anyway, as we got the wall about halfway up, it starts to slide away from us.  I'm pretty sure we all had images of just our feet hanging out from under the wall after it crushed us, or of the wall sliding off the floor and falling 10 feet to the ground, but we held it up, pulled it back, and put it back down.  (I think my rock hard calf muscles did all the work).  The 2nd try had a better ending, but only because we decided to strap it to the floor that time.  Hopefully we'll get the rest of the walls and the roof finished by next week.

In other news, Caroline's mom graced us with her presence for a week.  She was a great cook and liked to make big meals, so it was great to eat something other than Ramen or frozen pizza for once.  While Ellen (Carol's Mom) was here, we had our SouthCoast Design/Build Open House, which was pretty fun.  The mayor of Pass Christian (his name is Chipper, by the way) came to do a ribbon cutting, we had our project on display and a silent auction.  There was a ton of food and beer, so overall it was a great success.

That's it for now, hopefully I won't wait another month for the next post...I know how excited my avid readers get (all 4 of you).

Oh and we were on the news on Tuesday. Here's the link to the clip

-Mike

Georgia On My Mind

Welcome back people.  Unlike my classmates in Europe, exciting things don't happen here every day, so I like to wait at least a week to update.  Although I did book my flight to ITALY in November to meet up with the traveling group in Rome and possibly travel north to see the people in Riva.  Also, John and Liz booked their flights to come down here and see me during Thanksgiving Break, since I can't go home that week because of all the volunteer groups that come.  I'm excited about the level of craziness they will bring to Mississippi.

Ben left us on Friday to get back to his life in New Orleans.  Overall, I thought he was great asset to the design team because he knows anything and everything about architecture and construction.  After Ben left, Chris, Meggles and I hightailed out of studio to Atlanta for our first football game against Alabama.  It kinda sucked that it was the only Hokie football game I would be attending all season.  That was the first time I went to Atlanta, not counting the airport, so I was excited to see the city too.  On Friday night, we went to Buckhead, which is the really rich area uptown.  We met up with Chris' friends and went to a bar and that's where my hatred for the Alabama fans began.  It was fine hearing "roll tide" come out of the first five Bama fans mouths, but after the 300th time, I was ready to throw them into oncoming traffic.  After the bar, Chris dropped Megan and I off at my old roommates hotel while he spent some quality time with his ex.  (Thanks again Lauren for letting us stay with you).

After a freezing night with Megan's blanket that wouldn't even cover a newborn baby, we woke up the next day and decided to go to the Georgia Aquarium to kill some time since kickoff wasn't until 8.  We drove into the city and got our first glimpse of Dragon-Con!  According to the website, "Dragon-Con is the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the US".  It was hysterical to drive through the city and see people dressed up like characters from Star Wars, a girl wearing high heels and holding a fake machine gun, and then see the VT and Alabama fans walking around giving them weird looks.  Apparently this is a huge convention, because these people were all over the city and the line to get into the convention stretched several blocks.  (Erica, I'm assuming you're very mad you missed it this year).

We parked and laughed every time we passed someone in costume, then we finally got to the Georgia Aquarium.  It's the largest in the world and is the only in North America that has whale sharks.  All of this said, it wasn't worth $27.  The exhibits were good, but it was way too crowded and there were too many screaming children.  The only reason I wanted to go was because there was a Titanic exhibit (yeah i know I'm cool), but the next showing for that wasn't until later in the afternoon so I didn't even get to see it.


Perhaps someone from the South can explain this to me...but why do the guys feel its appropriate to wear Dockers and dress shirts with bow ties to football games???  And for the girls, why would you wear dresses that aren't even your teams colors!!!  I don't think i'll ever understand that.  So after walking by the ridiculously dressed Bama fans and hearing "roll tide' another 500 times, I met up with Bish at her tailgate and then went off to try and scalp a ticket.  While doing that, I met up with Lindsay and Emily, who drove up separately.  Emily came ticket searching with me, while Lindsay and her boyfriend went off to another tailgate.  We probably walked around for 2 hours looking for someone selling tickets.  Finally about an hour before kickoff, we saw a VT guy holding up 2 tickets and ran after him.  I didn't expect to pay anything under $100 for a ticket, so I was shocked when he said they were $60 each in the lower section on the 15 yard line.  The game was great, up until the 4th quarter.  I'm pretty sure I could hear Bish's high-pitched screaming from across the stadium.

After being thoroughly pissed off, Emily and I met up with Lindsay after the game.  It was weird to run into 2 people from North Rockland, Briana and Anthony, within 5 minutes of each other outside the dome.  Then I split up from Emily and Lindsay to try and find Megan, which was a pretty stupid idea considering both of our phones were dead.  I guess the beer during the game really helped my thought process.  And so, my solo journey half-drunk across Atlanta at midnight without a phone began.  After walking until about 2 am, I finally decided to take a taxi back to the hotel room and hope Megan was still alive in the morning.

I woke up the next morning with a charged phone and tried calling Megan 10 times, but her phone was still dead.  Then I called Chris, who was staying in a hotel right by mine.  He picked me up at my hotel, but then we sat in the parking lot for about 5 minutes because we didn't even know where to start to look for Megan.  We decided to call Lindsay to see if she had talked to her at all.  She called her the night before from her friends number, so we decided to call that.  After calling the number three times, the guy finally answered and put Megan on the phone, who gave us her address.  Chris and I drove across town to her address, which was a nice little condo community.  However, when we got to the address she gave us over the phone, we looked out and saw a big black guy lifting weights in the garage.  After thinking about what she could have possibly done last night, she walked out from a different condo the next street over.  And that was our weekend in Atlanta.

Back to Pass Christian...this has been a very busy week in the studio.  The 10"x10" piers started going up on their holes this week, so we had to finalize our floor plan and floor framing plan so we can begin construction on that on Tuesday.  The final design for the house is almost done, but we still have a lot more to do, including the wall framing, electric plans, materials, etc, etc.  Hopefully I'll keep you updated some time next week.

-Mike

Live Every Week Like It's Shark Week

Welcome back y'all.  This past week was quite eventful.  In studio we started designing the first draft of the plan for the house, but I won't bore you all with the architectural details right now.  On Thursday night, we had a potluck at the studio with some people from around town.  Since my 21st was the next day, the girls decided to turn it into a party for me, complete with cake and Transformers party hats.  Needless to say, it was awesome.  We decided to continue the party down at the beach, and I had my first legal sip of alcohol at midnight.

The next day we went to studio in the morning.  Leah had told us about a Hurricane Katrina forum that would be taking place that afternoon in Ocean Springs, a city about 40 minutes to the east.  We drove there and had lunch in its downtown area, which was actually really nice because it was elevated enough above sea level so Katrina didn't completely destroy it.  


Despite being severely underdressed for the forum, everyone there greeted us kindly.  We first met the mayor of the city, Connie Moran, and a local architect, Bruce Toler.  The meeting was mostly filled with city officials, urban planners, and architects, and most looked to be over 35.  We did feel a little awkward at first, especially when we had to stand up in front of everyone and say who we were and where we're from.  The rest of the people at the forum had to stand up and tell their personal Katrina story.  The man leading the forum asked each to say their name, what they do, and what they would do differently if another Katrina-type storm was heading towards the coast.  Some people tried to bring humor to their stories, one guy even said he wished he packed more underwear because he didn't expect to be gone for as long as he was.  Other stories were sadder and some people couldn't even finish because they were on the verge of tears.  Towards the middle of the forum, Andres Duany came into the room.  Duany is a very successful architect and urban planner.  He's working with towns all along the gulf coast (including Pass Christian) to help them improve.  He suggested some ideas, but I don't know how feasible they would be.  One of his ideas involved hiring a retired Navy Admiral to work with city officials after a storm because he would knows how to deal with a crisis.  Overall, the forum was a great experience because we got to hear how the people got through Katrina on a personal level, and also how the city got through the storm.  


After sitting through a 3 hour forum on my 21st birthday, it was safe to say I was ready to get out of there and over to New Orleans for the night.  I won't include all the crazy details of the night because I know all of my family will be reading this (hi guys), but I'm sure you can imagine.  I don't think I was fully prepared for how unbelievably insane Bourbon Street is.  The night started out with Hurricanes and Hand Grenades, and ended for me after I was pulled up on stage because Zack decided to buy me 5 shots of Patron to do in about 7 seconds (thanks buddy).  I'm sorry to say that everything past midnight is a mystery.




Surprisingly, I woke up the next morning in the hotel room (thankfully it was right on Bourbon) feeling like I was hit several times by a Mack truck.  The walk back to the car was brutal.  I was on the verge of throwing up every time I walked past a bar on Bourbon and saw the neon sign that said "Hurricanes" or "Hand Grenades"  I made it to the car without incident, but made Emily pull over once we were driving.  It wasn't until later on that I realized we were in New Orleans for the 4th anniversary of Katrina.  


Saturday was my recovery day, filled with movies and large glasses of water.  I was feeling 100% on Sunday, so Zack, Megan, Chris and I decided to go to the Hard Rock pool in Biloxi.  If you remember, I couldn't get in last weekend because I wasn't 21.  I got in this time no problem, and received my "over 21" wristband, which made me feel awesome.  The hotel was cool and the pool had a nice swim-up bar.  There's also a casino inside so we decided to hit that up as well.  I lost $3.  We're still gonna make it a Sunday ritual, minus the gambling.

Back in studio, it was hard to get back into designing after our lively weekend.  We met our client for the first time yesterday to show him our current plan for the house.  Paul is a really nice, down-to-earth guy. He's originally from California and is currently living in a Mississippi cottage in town.  It was good to finally meet him so we know exactly what he wants in his house, and what he liked and disliked about our current plan.  For the most part, he liked what we designed, but I was surprised to hear that a big porch wasn't important to him, which is a quintessential part of almost every house along the gulf coast.  He also threw us a curveball when he asked for a 3rd bedroom, which is hard to fit in a house thats 32' x 56'.  However, I think we came up with several good solutions while working on it today.  


And so that was my week.
I'll finish up with some words of wisdom from Tracy Jordan:

Tracy Jordan: But I want you to know something... You and me, it's not gonna be a one-way street. 'Cause I don't believe in one-way streets. Not between people, and not while I'm driving.
Kenneth: Oh, Okay.
Tracy: So, here's some advice I wish I woulda got when I was your age: Live every week like it's Shark Week.


-Mike

AND SO IT BEGINS...

As you can already tell, I had a problem with my iWeb blog, so I had to switch over to Blogspot, which doesn't make it as easy, but it gets the job done.

We started the day on Thursday by waking up early and going to the studio to help Leah and Caroline. They will eventually be living there, but the renovations are taking a little longer than expected. The studio is a really cool house a block away from the beach. When you first walk in, there's the studio, conference room to the left and office on the right. Behind that is the kitchen, guest room and

living room, and upstairs is 2 more bedrooms for Leah and Caroline. Everything is being beautifully restored, and it will look incredible once completed. Since the studio wasn't finished yet, we helped Leah and Caroline make desks and benches in the morning. That's when it first hit me that Mississippi in August is HOT and insanely humid. I was literally outside for 5 minutes and when I looked down I was drenched in sweat.

So after lunch, and a new shirt, we went to the Pass Christian library and met Sally, the local librarian who knows everything there is to know about the town and its history. For anyone in my family, just think of Grandma Nickie, but substitute the

Long Island accent with one from Steel Magnolias, and that was Sally. I was actually glad we got me meet with her, because she showed us her own before and after photos of the town and told us her story, which was pretty heartbreaking. She had survived Hurricane Camille in '69 (which also destroyed the town) and now she had survived Katrina. She and her family evacuated somewhere up north for Katrina, and after several days, when they were allowed back in, they realized that her house was gone, along with the houses of her siblings, children and most other family members. Then she told us the now famed story of the police officers who were trapped in the library during the storm. 13 of them had to stay behind, and when their station became unsafe, they fled to the library. After a car hit the south side of the building, water started pouring in and they tried to shoot out the doors on the north side to get out. This failed because they were extremely strong hurricane doors, so eventually they climbed out onto a roof overhang and rode out the storm there.

After we were all thoroughly depressed, we went back to studio to work a little more. The next day, we went back to studio, but were sent home after lunch. I decided to take a bike ride around town to take some pictures, depressing me further. I rode up to several houses

and by houses I mean overgrown foundations with little piles of bricks or old, scattered belongings. It was a little eerie to enter these properties because it reminded me of images of Prypiat, the city near Chernobyl. Walking along, you'd see remnants of a structure, overgrown with weeds and personal belongings, like tattered shoes and broken teacups. The bank vault was one of the eeriest places, almost like a Cold War bunker. There were still surveillance tapes and travelers cheques inside. Outside, the screen on the ATM machine still worked, despite being torn apart by either the storm or looters.

On Friday night, Leah and her family hosted a shrimp boil at her house. There are several

places to buy fresh shrimp in The Pass. The one we got it from involves a short Vietnamese man who swings on his hammock all day and sells it out of his van for $2 something/pound. I was pretty excited about dinner because I had only tried grilled shrimp before. It was a little nauseating to rip the heads off before you eat it, but it was really good.

Saturday was a lazy day. We all went to the beach, but were too scared to get in the water because of the jellyfish. Later that night, Zack, Chris and I went to see Inglorious Basterds, which was awesome. Any movie about killing Nazi's is a winner in my book.

I had a Sunday fun-day. We tried going to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Biloxi. Pool entrance is free for non-guests on Sundays, they call it Detox Day. What they failed to mention

on the website, however, is that its only for people 21 and over. We decided to go back next Sunday, after my 21st birthday weekend in New Orleans, when I actually will need a serious Detox day. Instead, we packed a cooler and went down to the beach to kayak and lay around. I did go in this time, and thankfully wasn't stung. At 6, we met Lean, Caroline and Ben (our visiting professor) for dinner at Shaggy's.

And that finally brings us to today. We had our first design day with Ben. He took us back to first year with our initial exercise to warm up our minds. He seems like a cool guy and hopefully he'll help us bring some good ideas to the table once we start designing the house.

Well, it's currently 3:30AM, and I'm still awake because I accidentally took a 3 hour nap today. I am starting to get tired now so Bye Y'all.

-Mike

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

After a 21 hour drive, I finally got here yesterday at around 5:00.

This leg of the trip also went pretty quick, maybe because I had Zack and Megan with me.

In total, I drove through 10 states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Mary

land, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.

Total Mileage: 1321.5 Miles

Avg. Speed: 62.5 mph

Max Speed: 77.4mph

Total Time: 21 hours, 8 minutes

And I want to thank Karen (my GPS) for those statistics

But anyway, onto my first impressions of Pass Christian.

When we first drove in, we came in away from the coast and moved closer. Away from the coast, you wouldn’t even know that a Category 4 Hurricane rolled through. As we got closer to the gulf, and into the city of Pass Christian, the view started to change. We saw driveways leading to bare foundations, concrete stoops

that led to nowhere. Even houses raised 10 feet up on wood posts weren’t spared. While driving

through, I was trying to imagine what the 30 ft. storm surge was like and it’s just unbelievable to think about.

After arriving, we drove straight to our apartment. Zack, Chris and I would be sharing one and Megan, Lindsay and Emily would share the other. The apartments are really nice. They don’t look like anything special from the outside, but they’re really nice inside, with granite countertops, wood floors, and a lot more good stuff. After moving some stuff in, we decided to go and meet Leah, our program coordinator, architect, and Virginia Tech alum. She lives down here with her family now and has rebuilt several houses in town. Her most recent project is rebuilding a church that was completely destroyed by the storm. Leah and her family live in the same development as us in a nice big house, raised 10-15 ft. off the ground. Her dad told us about some stuff about the town, including how outrageous the insurance policies were now. If your house meets the new stringent building code, the insurance is around $6,000/year. If it doesn’t, its significantly higher than that. He told us about a restaurant down by the water, and the insurance would cost them $80,000/year, even though it only cost them about $80,000 to build it.

So after visiting Leah and her family, we decided to go to that restaurant, called Shaggy’s, for dinner. It’s right on the Gulf of Mexico and next to the marina and Yacht Club. The downstairs is a huge open room with a stage and bar, and the upstairs has

the seating for the restaurant and another bar. I’m not a big seafood guy and wasn’t ready to try gumbo or crawfish so I just ordered a pork sandwich. The bar was really nice and has live music on the weekends, so I know where I’m gonna be spending a lot of my time after August 28th (my 21st). After dinner, we were all pretty tired from the drive so we passed out at like 10.

This morning, I woke up at about 7 (I still can’t sleep late because i’m used to getting up that early for work), and explored the town more. I ran a big rectangle around town, stopping occasionally to stare at the destruction. I didn’t notice the night before, but there were a lot more driveways to nowhere and “Katrina Cottages” than I realized.

The town itself is hard to describe. There’s a main road that runs right along the beach. Scenic Drive contains all the mansions that were quickly renovated after the storm. There’s a nice fishing pier, marina and yacht club. I ran past the war memorial park, which is right next the police station, city hall and library. These were all still housed in trailers. A new library is being constructed, but I’m not sure if a new police station or city hall are planned yet. (More info on the old police station on the Pass Christian Wikipedia page).

After exploring, I went back to the apartment. Lindsay has finally arrived, the last member of our group. We all decided to go to Wal-Mart in Bay St. Louis, a city to the west of us, right over the bridge. Construction on the Pass Christian Wal-Mart is still going on, but it should be opening soon. After spending a hefty amount at Wal-Mart, we unpacked, had lunch, and went to see our new studio and check out the beach.

The studio is in this really nice house 1 block away from the beach. It was obviously severely damaged by Katrina, but Leah and her team renovated it and it’s really nice now...muchhhh better than Burchard and Cowgill. After the studio tour, I swam in the gulf for the first time. It was pretty warm and really quiet. The beach was deserted, I suppose because everyone in town works and there’s no more tourists. It would be perfect if there were waves higher than 6 inches

After the beach, we came back home to play cornhole, make dinner and drink a few. Oh and there’s this stray cat who lives under our deck and he always comes around looking for food, but we didn’t want to feed him because he’d never leave us alone, but today we finally decided to feed him. I do actually feel better about myself.

THE DRIVE: PART I

I can’t believe its that time already. It sure was fun to pack all my stuff with one arm after falling on my elbow at camp last week. Don’t ask me how, but I actually managed to fit everything in my tiny Corolla, including the cornhole tables i just finished painting (the fumes were fun) and my 2 kayaks.

Before I left this morning, I decided to go out to breakfast with Mel and Vin. My mom was her normal fearful self...”Aren’t there gonna be alligators in the water down there while you kayak?”, and “There’s two hurricanes coming your way.” Apparently she also thinks I’m still 6 years old because she gave me the “Don’t talk to strangers” speech and wanted me to call her every time I stopped for gas and food. After reminding her that I’ve done this for the past 3 years, I finally got on the road at about 9. My plan was to stop in Blacksburg for the night, then meet up with some people and set off for Mississippi tomorrow morning.

I love how the trip down to VT gets easier each time I do it. The 8 hour drive is so quick now, maybe because I put my portable DVD player on the passengers seat and listen to movies. (Today was Jurassic Park and 30 Rock, of course) However, I was a little apprehensive this time because I had the kayaks on the roof, but they were fine up there, even while I drove through torrential rain In Virginia.

Currently, I’m in my empty apartment in Blacksburg. Hopefully I’ll fall asleep early since I have to wake up at 5:30 to meet Zack and Megan. Wish me luck driving through the Dirty South tomorrow, I don’t even know what to expect.

Peace,

Mike