Like the Catholic in me used to say, forgive me Father, it's been three weeks since my last blog.   It's been a good three weeks though with lots of progress on two to of the new homes FCDR is building for homeowners here in Plaqimines Parish. Three weeks ago we were visited by a group from Swampscott, Massachussetts led by Sharon Thomas. Most of their group were boomerangers (worked with us previously and then came back). That same week, my sister Mary came down for the week as well, and together we worked on the home of Pamela Williams on Adema (pronounced either Adam-uh or Adeema). We got all of the laminate flooring installed as well as kitchen cabinets, countertops and hung a bunch of interior doors and baseboard (pre-painted prior to installation). The next week, my son Alex came to work with me for the summer. He's a junior at Central Michigan Univ, studying sociology. That week we had no groups coming in, so he and I headed over to help Bay St. Louis with their Americorp Buildathon. In the three days we worked with 75 Americorp volunteers and framed up three more houses. Bart called me on Tuesday night though and said, " Enough playing around, come back to work on Thursday. So, back we went and we dug a hole at Adeema for the landing for the elevator or lift. Then we built a Flatform using marine grade lumber. Nancy and Craig helped us out on that and Craig did all the insulation on the underside of the house while we were in Mississippi. This past week we had a visit by another boomeranger group who came all the way from Oregon. Pastor John Maas brought wife Judy along and two of the brother boomerangers, Virgil and Ralph, both brought their wives, Twila and Joy as well as Twila's nephew Patrick. That's the way we like it, people come down, have a great time then go back home, tell their friends and bring em back to see us. This week also brought back, all the way from Minnesota, eh, Mr. Roger Kube, a professional painter with a pickup truck full of painting tools and supplies, main one being his airless sprayer. His quality control person (wife Jean) who is usually with him wasnt able to come this week. Another small group of two, Jonathan and Ella from North Carolina came down to help out for the week. With the looming threat of a rising Miss. river bearing down on Plaquimines parish, the three sisters from the north dispatched Alex and me over to Biloxi to chill for a few days at the Beau Rivage so that my now 21 year old son could purchase his first beer and (as it turned out) loose his first money at a casino, or as I like to call it, supporting the local economy. First night of blackjack we managed to play for three hours and they still didnt take all of our allowance, went back the next night and they finished us up. Had fun though. After that we drove over to Tuscaloosa, Alabama to see firsthand the damage that the tornados of april 27 did to the city. It was unbelievable, the power to level house after house. That may be FCDR's next stop after we finish these four new homes.. One or two little glitches- oops- previous const. director told the pile driver the wrong height for two of the four houses. one is two feet too low- not too bad because no house is set on the platform yet, so we just build a short knee wall and start again with a new deck. The other however, house is done, drywalled, finish floors, cabinets, painted ,etc. and we are talking with a local house lifter-upper- to see if we can fix that one. Dag nabit, never enough time to do it right but always enough time to do it twice. stay tuned. Peter