KunoStories

Back, eh? Did you subscribe to my RSS feed. I’ll send the stories to your Inbox.It’s unofficially official, but here’s the tentative schedule for Left to Right Road Trip 2k9:
Left to Right 2k9 – Yellowstone, Mt Rushmore, Niagara
Wed Aug 12th – OC to Vegas, 5 hrs, 1:00pm – 6:00 pm, gamble a little, stay night.
Thurs [...]

All of the ECP stories are from my unforgettable time spent volunteering in Pisco, Peru with the organization Burners Without Borders. I received an e-mail from one of the main organizers updating us past volunteers on Pisco.  If you’re looking for future vacation ideas, I can tell you the 6 weeks I spent volunteering in [...]

It was a Wednesday night, and I was getting nervous about leading the “Intercambio” cultural exchange with the local kids. Earlier in the day, at the 8 AM organizational meeting, I had raised my hand to volunteer to PM (project manage) Intercambio that night. Now, 5 minutes before I was supposed to be [...]

How to play Spades (the card game)!
Materials:

1 Deck of playing cards
Pen
Paper

Players: 4 (only)
Time: 45 mins – as long as you want
Basics:  Two teams of two, with players on the same team sitting across from each other.  Deal out all the cards (each player has 13 cards).  Bet how many ‘books’ your TEAM will win.  Win [...]

Materials:

Poster board
Magic marker (black, permanent)
Deck of cards
Basket, hat, or bowl (for the money)

Set-up:

Draw lines dividing the poster board into 11 x 11 squares (draw 10 lines horizontal, and 10 vertical).
On the top edge write one Team Name, on the left edge write the other Team Name
Have people ‘buy squares’ for $1 each.
People write their name [...]

Just in case anyone was wondering, the ECP plumbed for a volunteer organization. Yes, the sink, showers, toilets, and pipes we installed were ‘por los ninos’ or ‘for the children’ as we liked to say. This being the case, our first day of on-the-job training consisted mostly of bargaining with shop owners to [...]

Bottle of Rum: $10, Bottle of Coke: $4, Four Ice-cream bars: $2, ECP Plumbers Driving around in a Tuk-tuk for Hours Doing Rum and Coke Dentist Chairs: Priceless
There’s a plumber legend that states a plumber can only respond to any question with one of three answers: “yes”, “hell yes”, and “let’s talk about it.” [...]

Honestly, we thought it was just another day of plumbing. The term “honestly” is used rhetorically here – we’re plumbers, which means we can’t lie. Wow, there’s so much to tell you. Let me see if I can break it down into manageable pieces (a codo, a tubo, and a mixto). [...]

It was Tuesday the 15th at about 8:15 am at our regular morning organizational meeting. Forty plus volunteers are sitting in an outdoor area of a place known as Base Camp, where at least half of the volunteers have slept the previous night in two dorm rooms. The de facto leader, Jimmy, a close-to-30, thin-framed, [...]