in and out of state travels

It’s that time again. Field REPORT! As there have been a few developments lately I’ll share some updates with you all. I went to my first computer distribution on November 10th in Everett, WA. It went well but it definitely was not what I expected. As it turned out I was the one who ended up running the distribution and “training” the recipients how to use their new computers It seemed like some of the recipients didn’t really want to be there, or at least I was under that impression, and they just really wanted to sign for their computer and leave. I’m not really sure how to handle that but maybe in the future we’ll have the training as a requirement before we give out the computers. I was really glad that another person from my organization, Chris Florez, was there to help out and to make sure things went smoothly. All in all it was a successful distribution and we gave 6 families new computers.

As some of you know I was at the CTCNet conference in LA. Although it wasn’t quite what I expected in terms of a conference, it was cool to see some fellow vistas and hang out. Also stopping in San Fran on my way back to Seattle was really sweet. I had never been to SF and biking across the Golden Gate Bridge was probably the highlight, that or biking up Twin Peaks (I think). After my out of state travels, I had the opportunity to travel to eastern Washington, which is really like a whole different world compared to western WA. The landscape and the people are completely and totally different than the western side of the state. It’s a really mountainous region and towns seem to pop up out of nowhere and are incredibly tiny. The reason for my trip was to visit some of our TechREACH Alliance Project (TAP) clubs. It was fun to be out on the road as I don’t have a car and drive rarely. Belting my favorite tunes out was particularly enjoyable. The club visits were interesting because again, like the distribution, I had envisioned the clubs using the materials we had supplied them and basically going by the book. This was not the case with either club. They both really focused heavily on the hands-on, which definitely isn’t a bad thing and looking back on it it’s probably true that if I were in an after school club the last thing I would want to do would be read from some student manual (even if it is awesome/informative).I was impressed with the clubs, At least now I have an idea of how the clubs function and I’ll definitely learn more from each club I visit. That’s all for now. Happy T-gives.