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