knomat?

Week two in Thailand has started out strong with a lot of dirt moving. I would have liked to had the opportunity to blog more, but we didn’t have much down time until today. When we did have down time, I was tired. And hot. And dirty. All I wanted was a shower and my damp bed.

It’s been a really great experience. This is my second Global Village trip with Habitat for Humanity, and I still have nothing but good things to say about it. The people, the experience, the things you learn and, most importantly, helping those in need all make it worthwhile.

This is my first time in this area of the world. All of my international travel has been limited to European countries. It’s quite different - the style, the people, the traffic, the food, the climate - all of this has been a new experience for me. The hardest thing for me to get used to was the heat/humidity combo - quite a drastic change from what I’m used to.

Building the house has been the most fun. The bricks we use are made locally, and are created in a way that makes house building very efficient and affordable for the people here. They are interlocking bricks and the easiest way to think about them is to picture an oversized lego block. Habitat has a good description of them on their website.

Goods are cheap in Thailand. I’ve bought many nice gifts and other accoutrement for 2 and 3 USD. A soda was 15 baht (about $0.45). My sweet new aviator sunglasses were 80 baht (about $2.40).

So, things are winding down. We’ll pour the floor tomorrow and (hopefully) dedicate the house on Thursday. It’s been great working with the family. I can’t imagine the sense of pride they have working on the house they’re about to start a family in. It makes me feel good to know that I’m able to help them do this.

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why the coffee in my travel mug wasn’t making its way through the opening to my mouth. The safety was off. The spout was open. Then, I realized my nose was covering the air intake hole. My nose isn’t that big. Seriously. That’s just bad design.

Oscar was wearing a pretty humorous t-shirt at work today. It’s an original design by him. Check it out and laugh.

I bought my ticket to the Virgin Music Festival this weekend.

I’m particularly looking forward to seeing the following bands, in this order:

1. The Beastie Boys
2. Wu-Tang Clan (I wonder if all of them will show.)
3. The Police (I feel obligated to include this in my list, but … meh.)
4. The Smashing Pumpkins
5. Modest Mouse
6. TV on the Radio
7. Bad Brains

Most of the rest of the bands will be new experiences for me. I haven’t been to a music fest since last summer’s Bonnaroo extravaganza, so this will be a welcomed weekend. I must say that I’d much rather go to Bonnaroo this year, especially since The Hold Steady will be there (along with Tool, The Flaming Lips, Kings of Leon, and The National). Alas, I don’t think it’s in the books for me.

1) Run a race.

But I did. Today I ran in the Brain Tumor Society Benefit 5k here in Washington, DC with Kimmy and a good number of her local crew. I had little idea that I would actually make it through the whole thing without stopping, since I haven’t ran in … ohhh … ever. But I made it. The best thing about the whole experience was me finishing the race and hearing my name announced at the finish line. Good times. Maybe I’ll start running. It seems like something I could get into.