September 22, 2005
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Pics by Brian Schmid, the owner of the first digital camera I ever saw. Sony Mavica with a built-in floppy disk drive.
I have a cool job. How often does someone call up saying, “Nick, can you help clearing a tree out of the road? It’s blocking State State.” Oh, at 9:30p. Matt told me that he was headed to City on a Hill, a ministry on the Near West side of Milwaukee (is that accurate, Nikki?), with a chainsaw and needed a truck. So I grabbed the newest truck (of course) and biggest chipper we have (of course) and got there at 10p, rolled past the police blocking the road off and rolled into position.
Matt and I have done tree work together before, so we got to cutting and chipping like good buddies…just in the dark this time. The tree only lost one branch – you can see how big that branch was! It demolished the wrought iron fence and sprawled across 3 lanes. In no time, we were pumping out 116 decibels (rock concert: 110 db) with the chipper. Can you tell I love this stuff?? Plus I like throwing huge wood around. The chipper did fine chomping through 16″ logs.
Interestingly, Esther and I had looked at some tree work to do there not even a week before this happened. She’s the expert, really. The story behind the location is pretty amazing. The hospital that used to occupy the city-block sized campus donated it to a couple groups, and City on a Hill received a 350,000 square foot portion for their ministry. Think of that! That’s 8 acres of building space!
They use it “to provide adult education, job training and other services to area residents” in a down-to-earth way. They’ve also got a Royal Rangers boys program there too and that’s my connection – Matt and I have both graduated from their Academy and teach camps now.
Ok, ok…I’ve now been awake for 40 hours here, and it’s time for bed. The storm work, the classes, and the ever-hyperactive social life really gets in the way of sleep. This weekend’s plans:
Friday: Paul and Storm at Shank Hall – I’ll spot you a ticket! Anyone? Here’s a sample MP3. It’s even better live!
- Saturday: Victoria Zoe’s 9th birthday party (I bought her a scrapbook, stickers, and stationery)
- Sunday: a little known band called…shoot…what’s it called? Uptoo? No… I think it’s called
U2 . Maybe you’ve heard of it. At the Bradley Center with my other friend Matt.
Comments (8)
That top pic is really, really neat! Reminds me of the movie “Back to the Future”.. the eerie quality, I guess.. I’m diggin it! And yes, you do have a cool job
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U2! Have fun, buddy!!
ryc: thank ya thank ya!
You didn’t miss a whole lot at the Gasthaus w/Comedysportz…except a good Ted Koppel imitation.
Great to get in on some of your action with work. And how cool to give your sister(?), the nine year old, a scrapbook and stickers, plus stationary. What an ‘in the know’ gift giver… you can’t go wrong with a scrapbook and stickers!!
::shakes head in disbelief:: Posting twice in one week?? I…I…I’m at a loss for words…could this be the old Nick I used to know??
I don’t want your long post to go unrewarded, so…when you say Matt, do you mean the Matt I haven’t seen in ages? When are you bringing him over?!?! Maybe before Uptoo
::trying hard to be happy, and not bitter, that you are going to U2 and I am not.. even though I like them more than you do:: =)
C’mon Nick… I put that worship band pic up on my site ONLY for people that haven’t been to Danny’s site.. SOOO what are you doin looking at it?!
well I hope you learned your lesson, and maybe you should have thought about what you were doing BEFORE you looked at that entry… ha ha ha j/k well…Congratulations!!!
and have a good weekend!
sooooo I remember this one! you were going to stop by before/after the tree clearing incident, but we both decided it was a bad idea, as we were trying to detach a little, remember?
i’m feeling sufficiently detached. you come back now.