Eagle '04

Publish'd

Here we go.

News

Check the San Antonio Express News, the Neighbors section, on June 30th.

A winner is me.

I'm an Eagle Scout now.

Whoa.

I can't believe it's over.

I spent a couple of hours yesterday actually completing the project. We had a caravan of four cars deliver the computers, printers, monitors, speakers, and everything over to Princepe de Paz yesterday. In the pouring rain. I heard we got roughly 10 inches in 24 hours. It sure seemed like it was pouring the hardest around 2:45, when we left the storage facility. I'm amazed we made it there in one piece, but very - very! - glad that it's all over. Now I just need to finish the writeup, present the project to the troop and area committees, and wait for the paperwork to go through - with any luck, I'll be an Eagle scout pretty soon. Thanks to everyone who donated or helped the project in any way.

Allllllmost

For a few days out of the past week, I've been going to the storage facility early in the morning and installing Windows '98 on the computers. As it is right now, 15 of the computers are completely ready to go, operating systems and all, while there are 3 more semi-broken ones that I'm pretty sure I can fix. I've learned a lot from this project, I'll say that much - I've had to deal with a really amazing amount of error messages and I took apart a few of the computers several times, trying to fix different problems. I'll know for sure about the last three on Sunday, since I'm going to go back and finish up that morning.

It's looking like I'll deliver the computers to the Princepe de Paz church on Wednesday at 3 PM, and then I'll be done. They're even trying to get someone from the Express News, I think, to come out and do a story on the project, which would be excellent for the writeup. Finally.

That's better

Met with a man named Jeremy yeseterday. I sold him about half of our remaining hard drives and a couple of spare monitors annd raised $91 for the project, which combined with the $10 from the Krispy Kreme sale should cover just about all of the project's expenses. That pretty much solves the funds problem, which is a major load off my shoulders. I'm still waiting on that information from Gabriel before I can order those Windows '98 licenses, though.

Almost

Okay. A few things have happened recently. I met with Fernando and Gabriel Velasquez, the guy who introduced me to Fernando in the first place, last Wednesday. I learned that Fernando has resigned as the president of Cassiano Homes due to, in short, all the red tape. I have also learned that the original plan isn't going to happen. Plans have changed. Here's what's going to happen: I'm going to donate 18 computers to the United Methodist Church. Using their tax exemption number, I'm going to order the necessary copies of Windows '98 beforehand and install them. If all goes well, that will be the end of the project and I'll be done by the end of the month.

I'm still going to be involved after the project is officially over, however. Fernando, Gabe, and I agreed that five of these computers would be centrally located at one of the the Church's local facilities for use by certain nonprofit organizations whose names I honestly don't quite remember. Another five will be donated to the presidents of local nonprofit housing organizations who need them to do work when they're at home. Finally, a committee of people I know and trust (Fernando, Gabe, Jennifer [Gabe's wife, with whom I work at the downtown library], and my father) will be formed to identify eight individuals in the community who show leadership and would be benefited by technology and then donate the remaining eight to those individuals. Nifty.

I'm waiting for a bit of trivial information from the Church that is nevertheless necessary for the Windows licenses' order form before I can order the copies of Windows '98, and then I'll be able to finish up the project - probably by installing the things myself - and donate the computers. At long last, things seem like they might be nearing their end.

Printers

Just got two printers from Melley Wood. It's almost at the point that we've got one printer per computer, which is awesome.

Pix

Photos from last Saturday are now up on the Eagle photo album.

Near completion

Wow. What a weekend. Spent yesterday helping a friend with his eagle project, and today doing mine. Spent about four hours today working on mine, with the help of ten volunteers. We started with thirty-something computers full of personal data with many non-functional parts and ended up with eighteen completely operational PCs, wiped clean of any and all information. I blew a fuse at one point (and by that I don't mean I got really angry, I mean I shorted out the power) because I had something like ten computers and monitors along with two fans hooked up to two power outlets. The guy who ran the storage unit was cool about it, though, and we got everything working again after five minutes. Adam Monroe taught everyone how to do what we did; I couldn't have done it without him. Brilliant guy. Once I talk to Fernando about getting those licenses of Windows '98, I'm going to go back with a couple of guys and install those and test out the network cards. But today we took care of the hard part.