Sunday, March 14

We have attracted a lively crowd of energetic young people from Washington and Lee University (the VMI cadets are coming next weekend), and except for the traditional moments of panic and chaos, all is proceeding according to the plans that are actually sort of complete.

The deck is built, and is approximately the same size as the frame. The site is backfilled, and safety rails are going up this week.

We are having some timber troubles that will need to be resolved on Monday (some rejects and still no sign of the rafters), but all in all things are going swimmingly. We're warm and dry, and the food's been good.

Thusday, March 18

Beautiful sunny weather and there is a growing crowd of familiar faces to help the work along. Everybody is at the site this afternoon. Roger Nair is checking my layout, and I am working the phones, mostly about rafters and the conference.

In Lexington, the bents are going together for the lower-level framing. I suspect they have at least two of them raised by now. We did the ceremonial driving of the first peg in the spring sunshine.

We have a nice crew of students, and now a handful of TFG volunteers, and another handful of VMI cadets. The ranks of both will swell tomorrow. We have tons of cutting to do, but Roger and I have appreciated this half-day to ourselves to get through the bulk of the layout, so that when all the rendezvous members show up tonight and tomorrow, we can put them right to work on cutting without much discussion. The GC is supposed to spend tomorrow decking over the lower level and making the safety railings. I suspect he'll be getting a later start than we had planned, but we'll see. We're in pretty good shape, I think, but you never really know.

Sandy Bennett {of Blue Ridge Timberwrights) has been exceedingly helpful with the unobtanium rafters. John Miller (of Dreaming Creek), even more so. Project Horizon is buying rafters from John and Sandy will resaw and deliver them tomorrow. It has been a struggle. The logistical support from Project Horizon has been flawless except in this one matter. My fear is that so many people were looking for rafters that we will have three times what we need by this time tomorrow.

The troops are a little tired of institutional food, but that monotony was smashed last night with a lovely vegetarian dinner by Laurie Macrae, who opened her restaurant (the Blue Heron oon Nelson Street) to us on her night off, donated the meal (and the wine) and then the staff got sufficiently into it to announce that they would forgo their own wages.

Based upon the principal that no good deed will remain unpunished for long, we passed the hat for a huge tip and then met up with the staff at The Palms (for live music) and The Oasis (for green beer). Not all of the students were on time for breakfast. All of the instructors, of course, went straight back to work and passed a quiet evening with the layout tools, a new Lyle Lovett double CD, some of Colonel Mullen's cigars (even for Ellen Gibson) and a bottle of single malt courtesy of Dan (Mc)Fadden and our last adventure in Scotland. Not a bad way to run an airline, really.

Tonight promises to be another reunion event with our friends trickling in from all over. It will be good fun.

Friday, March 19

As predicted, the Friday work plan was drastically modified by the advancing twin fronts of arriving Guild members and the promise of worse weather. All manner of familiar faces are wandering in to shouts of joy and the embraces of long lost friends. These embraces are actually quite dangerous for the new arrivals, as the current inmates are solidly betooled at belt level. No matter, this is beginning to look like even more fun than before.

A smallish crew (of large-ish lads) remained at the site all day, working on their tans and fitting up the bents and floor systems for the middle level. A concrete snafu, magnified by a framing opportunity, required the deployment of Dr. Palmer's Magic Chain Saw, prompting a trio of melodic cadets and MassArt students to burst into song with 'Chain Saw Wizard' to the tune of The Who's 'PinBall Wizard.' "How do you think he does it? What makes him so good?" They're artists, you know.

Work proceeded apace, and the lower framing was kind of finished in time for supper in the basement of the Trinity United Methodist Church. It's the same kind of covered hot dishes that Garrison Keillor makes fun of, but we're here to testify that it was good, and abundant, and graciously provided by a bunch of people who seemed genuinely delighted to have us here. I saw several timber frame veterans drinking milk, which is certainly a first for me.

Then it's back to the bunker for a meeting (we're doing ok, really) and introduction of the newly arrived (COLTS students, and grizzled veteran timberframe stars). A little chat about tool safety, including a graphic tale about long ago and far away events. A bit of a speech about domestic abuse by Elizabeth Pharr (Executive Director of Project Horizon), then on to the evening's principal entertainments: two media presentations by the Brown family.

Laura Brown put on a dual carousel slide show of our Scottish adventures, with musical accompaniment, and catcalls from the audience. Unlike some of our fairweather companions, Laura and Rick's slides showed rain as well as rainbows. Especially nice shots of the barge and the merriment surrounding its unloading, but no pix of me working, just standing around giving orders, again. What's up with that? A very nice presentation that will be forwarded to the Whistler conference in April, I think.

This was followed by a short video made by Marie Brown in an attempt to explain why she missed all that schooling while in Scotland. The video was convincing enough to win her some sort of science award, even though it concluded with the traditional Scottish salute from the men in kilts. So immature.

A large number of our companions went on into the small hours of the night with Liar's Club and other amusements, including a big box of cigars passed around by a guy who says his name is Troll, a couple of more bottles of that Scottish solvent stuff, and some pretty good music, too. All in all, it's difficult to recognize this as work. -- Joel C. McCarty, Executive Director

Saturday Morning, March 20