I worked at a jobsite today. It's the first time since I arrived here. I'm usually in the office, at meetings, or visiting homeowners. I love construction too. The physical labor, using my hands, getting messy. And being able to step back and see what I've accomplished. It's so hard to see the progress doing disaster recovery work. I know it's there. But it's not very visible. So, it was nice to do something where I could see progress being made.

I spend all day taping and mudding. I had to reset alot of the screws in the drywall because the people before us didn't completely drill them in. I was suprised at how much faster and easier it was to do the work as the day progressed. To be honest, I didn't want to leave at the end of the day. And I was covered in drywall mud too. I told the volunteers that tommorow I was actually going to put some drywall mud on the walls instead of my clothes.

One of the homeowners called me at 9:30pm. I was suprised she called so late. But I quickly realized why she did. She was scammed by some contractors just recently. The people she hired were supposed to put in electrical wiring and other utilities in the walls. Then the volunteers I sent over to her house were supposed to sheetrock over it. Well, the contractors never did the work. And they took all her materials with them. They came, she paid them, she went to work, and then they took all her stuff and left.

It ridiculous that this kind of bullshit happens to people. And to people who are trying so hard to start some sort of normal life again. They don't deserve this. But I was amazed at how undaunted the homeowner was by it all. She just said, "Oh well." And she's already got more material on the way and has found a reliable friend to help do the utility work. The volunteers will probably want to go back and help too. She suggested postponing sending them but I told her they will want to help even more now, knowing what happened to her.