May Project at Forest Park

I fulfilled my entire commitment of 51 hours working at Forest Park for the last two weeks. It did not go without a few bumps in the road as it rained several days resulting in reduced days and even some cancellations. There are some key flaws in how the school and the park go about communicating with us workers about scheduling mishaps. However, the good times outweighed the bad as I got to work with my friends and learn a lot about how the park is run on a daily basis. Overall, it was an interesting experience and one that I believe most would be interested in.

After the week of AP tests and Biology classes, I was eager to begin my time working at the park. I had heard from my friends that the work was grueling due to the high temperatures. However, I believed I was in luck because the forecast appeared to be mild for the entire week. I arrived about ten minutes late as I had gotten lost in the many roundabouts and turns that needed to be mastered before getting to the proper location. Eventually, I reached the destination and my friends and I mulched trees for the next five hours. The work was rather monotonous: shovel dirt into wheelbarrow, take wheelbarrow to next tree, dump soil around tree, and rake until pretty. It was rinse and repeat until lunch. The lunch break was glorious, an on-the-clock hour free to spend in anyway. To my wallet’s dismay, we frequented several restaurants over the span of two weeks. The first day we went to Amigo Joe’s, a Mexican restaurant with very mixed reviews from the seasoned workers. I was a fan of the chicken tacos and had no stomach problems unlike a few of my unlucky friends. All and all, the first day was enjoyable and not too difficult as the mid-70s made being outside pleasant.

The second day did not go as smoothly as the first. Instead of Forest Park, we were assigned to a location about five minutes north, Project Brightside, an operation meant to provoke sustainability. After a little under an hour of sitting in the line of endless cars that lined Highway 64, I exited to go south on Kingshighway. Unknown to me, shortly after turning heading turning right, there was a massive pile of rubble blocking the way to Brightside. For the next 15 minutes, I scrambled through a complicated detour to reach this place. To make matters worse, the center that the building is located in features a huge Wells Fargo sign, overshadowing the other inhabitants. I was not the only one who had a problem, the other Chesterfieldian had so little hope that he decided to follow me in the journey to Brightside.

After this debacle, the day seemed to have taken a turn for the best. After an hour and a half of weeding in moderate rain, our supervisor called us in to get us out of the rain. In an attempt to wait out the storm, we all sat in the conference room snacking on treats the Brightside staff was kind enough to give to us. However, about an hour later, it was obvious the rain was not going to let up and we were sent home. At the time, our full hours for the day were promised as we would have worked the entire day if it wasn’t for the rain. The entire May Project crew rejoiced and went our separate ways. Little did we know, those hours were not as guaranteed as we thought.

The next day, through fault of our own, our situation took its first evident turn for the worse. Once again, we were mulching for the entirety of the day. As boredom took over for many of us, the chance to horse around became enticing. This was all in good fun until one of us tried to see if the pitchfork we used for shoveling dirt would stick in the mountain of soil if thrown properly. No one was in front of him and the projectile did not come close to harming anyone. I was away from the incident, but others at the scene did say the venture was a success as the pitchfork stuck into the pile. However, our boss saw the action and did not take it lightly. This was the first stupid action of the day.

After four hours of work, we all went out for lunch again. This time we went to Joey B’s, a pub-like restaurant. The food was really good but the kitchen staff proved that you cannot rush perfection. We got the checks an hour and a half after we had entered, more importantly, 30 minutes after we were supposed to have been at the park. We scrambled to get back but we were caught as we were exiting our cars. This led to a very harsh talking to as the pitchfork incident still weighted heavily in our boss’ mind. We apologized profusely as we knew we had done wrong. Matters would get messier as the day’s events were then reported to the school.

The weekend went by quickly to make way for another week of work. Monday went by without a bump in the road; we knew we were under close supervision and genuinely felt bad for our stupidity. As the baseball season ended over the weekend, I was now working until 3:00 instead of 1:00 as I no longer needed to go to practice. We all went home tired but proud of the amount of work we completed. At the end of the day, I did the math and concluded Friday would be my last day.

Tuesday we were back at Brightside. I am proud to report that I had no trouble getting there as I had remembered the ins and outs of the detour. However, it was pouring and we were sent home immediately. Once again, we were told that we would be receiving all of our hours as we had no choice but to leave. A few hours later, I receive an email saying the rainout hours will not be counted and we need to work them off. Additionally, we would be docked an hour and a half because of the lunch fiasco. I agreed with the latter decision but attempted to fight the first move as it was not fair to make some of us drive over an hour to work and then turn us away empty-handed. When you consider the time it takes to get back home, it takes some of us over two hours. However, I was not able to fight city hall. Instead of Friday being my last day, Tuesday was now the goal. I had to call my real job and drop the shifts I had previously signed up to work.

For the next seven days, we worked diligently. The rain stayed away along with the heat making conditions enjoyable. To my dismay, we visited Brightside once more and weeded for nearly the entire day. My knees and back were thankful that we only went back there once more. We got to see an arborist cut down a tree that was approximately ten feet around. I knew there was a technique to it, but had never seen it in action so it was interesting to see how all of the cuts came together to make the tree fall in a safe manner. The fallen tree was then cut into several pieces that must have weighed several hundred pounds each. The pieces were then hauled off and eventually there was no sign besides a lonely stump.

Fortunately, the rocky start gave way to a smooth finish. The last days went smoothly and I fulfilled my hour requirement. Although waking up at 6:30 was rather unpleasant, it felt good to know I was helping the park staff; I am more than confident that we earned back the reputation we had lost. It felt good to make a tangible difference, one that is so unlike what we do in school. It feels good to finish essays on Shakespeare but it is a different feeling all together to finish something requiring only strength and hard work. In total, we mulched every tree around the Jewel Box and around the Muny. The other day, our yard was mulched and I had a better understanding of how hard it is along with how they do it. As I do not frequent the area very often, I also saw how big of an operation Forest Park is. It takes tens of workers working hard day in and day out in order to keep the park looking good. Behind the forestry office featured a parking lot lined with several heavy duty trucks meant for highly specific tasks. It was incredible to see the amount of precision and ingenuity that went into the modeling construction of each vehicle. All and all, my May Project at Forest Park was a long experience, but one that was worth it.

Youth Office Shenanigans

Since my last post, my May Project has been a lot more interesting! On Monday last week, Nahuel took Erin to a few meetings around town concerning crime, so Adam and I had a bit of downtime during which we took full advantage of the drink closet and office Keurig (Adam’s signature drink is hot chocolate with two French Vanilla coffee creamers added in—it’s as ridiculous as it sounds) and learned a bit about Russian culture (which ended up being very timely since Adam just received his mission call to Yekaterinburg, Russia) with help from Bahh, Adam’s laptop’s narration voice.

When Nahuel got back to the office, he gave me a copy of the Metro St. Louis Export Plan to read and write a memo on. This document was pretty dense to get through, so I just turned my memo in to Nahuel yesterday. Essentially, the plan, which was drafted by the World Trade Center in Clayton, outlines a number of concrete strategies for the St. Louis region to expand its economic presence internationally and increase trade and exports. It will be officially released on June 22, and I think it presents a very thorough set of steps for St. Louis to capitalize on its preexisting export potential, create a support network for exports, and increase collaboration among companies in the area and abroad.

On Monday, we also met a new intern named Claire, who is a rising junior at Regis University in Denver and is the daughter of the former Chief of Staff to Mayor Slay. She is interning in the Mayor’s Office through the summer, and it’s been great sharing the office with her, albeit a bit crowded. She was doing a bit of research on fair wages for workers with disabilities and some other economic development topics that Nahuel assigned her.

A lot of our time the second week at work was spent polishing our Sister Cities PowerPoint and practicing presenting it. We emailed all of the contacts with our sister cities that the World Trade Center provided us, but unfortunately did not receive very much useful information from them, so we stuck primarily to research we found online. On the subject of emailing people, we sent an email to the President of the Board of Aldermen asking him if he would be able to chat for a bit regarding his job, but he never got back to us.

Last Wednesday, Erin and I went to two meetings with Carl Filler, who works in the Mayor’s Office in the areas of crime and education. The first meeting, held at the World Trade Center, concerned education in the Promise Zone. There were many people in attendance at this meeting, ranging from representatives from educational outreach organizations to school superintendents, and they were all very passionate about improving the educational quality of schools in the Promise Zone (primarily encompassing North St. Louis City and County). I am confident that this group will be able to put their grant money to good use in aiding students in St. Louis. The second meeting we went to with Carl was with the Thread STL Founding Steering Committee and was held in the meeting room back at the Mayor’s Office. There were only five people in attendance, excluding Erin and myself, and honestly did not make too much sense to us, given that the purpose of the meeting was (I think) just for the members of the committee to touch base and plan a conference they want to hold in the future. From what we could garner, Threat STL is essentially an organization that aims to train its members on the value of forming and utilizing partnerships effectively.

On Thursday, Erin, Adam, Claire, and I were invited to the World Trade Center’s Board Meeting. During the meeting, they invited everyone in attendance to come to our Sister Cities Presentation the following Monday, which made us a bit nervous because the majority of board members were high ranking officials from various companies in St. Louis. They also presented their financial report and work they are doing with Sister Cities International, but the highlight of the meeting was hearing from the director of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge. She talked about the exciting prospect of establishing a dual customs program with Mexico to facilitate easier transport of cargo between the United States and Mexico, while capitalizing on Lambert’s underutilized potential. There was also some mention of flying livestock internationally. After the meeting, there was a short reception welcoming visitors from Saint-Louis, Senegal. Adam and I helped ourselves to the refreshments, and we all tried to network with Suzanne Evens, who is the President of St. Louis-Stuttgart Sister Cities.

This past Monday, we met two new interns from WashU that will be joining the office for the summer. We also finally gave our Sister Cities presentation at the World Trade Center and it went fairly well! It seemed like those in attendance learned a few things from what we had to say, which was great since they all actually work at the WTC and are thus very familiar with St. Louis’s international presence already. They were especially intrigued by the concept of “trade brothers,” partnerships between cities established with the sole purpose of economic ties rather than traditionally culturally based relationships like those of sister cities.

Overall, my May Project experience was a very positive one. It was genuinely very interesting to see the inner workings of our local government, and it seems like there are a lot of dedicated, hard-working, intelligent people striving to improve our city. I learned a lot and got a great sampling of the many things that our government does on a day-to-day basis.

Working with Seniors - End (Part 3 of 3)

I don't want to brag, but I've gotten hit on by a lot of old ladies in the past two to three weeks ("she puts the ew in cougar," one of my coworkers remarked), and it's kind of boosting my self-esteem. But jokes aside, I have gotten way more out of this service work than I originally anticipated, as I have, from the first day, endeavored to represent my school by putting my best self forward, and as a result, I, somewhat unintentionally, became one of the most versatile and active helpers at Dilworth, which provided me with a wider diversity in the type of work that I participated in, and therefore helped make my service more varied and enjoyable. My enthusiasm and willingness to engage also won me the compliments of several of the employees and my fellow volunteers ("everybody knows Zach"), which even further incentivized me to work, which is not to say that my enjoyment of this service opportunity was entirely contingent on the recognition that I received from other employees, as in the past, I have stated that my interactions with the residents were hugely rewarding as well, however, the appreciation that I felt from my coworkers certainly contributed to a positive overall experience. I will say that my final day on the job was less pleasant than some others, as I worked in the memory care facility for the first time, and trying to interact with residents who shouted the same sentence over and over or could not remember an event in the last day or hour, or the last five to ten minutes, was difficult to say the least. To watch my coworker have to explain an activity to a resident for a whole minute (the activity was inflatable bowling) and have him still fail the grasp the concept, and instead of picking up the ball, grabbing all the pins, and then finally kicking the ball into the pins, and then having the same resident, just a mere fifteen minutes later, forget everything that he had been told, and have to be explained the rules of the game, all over again, was draining even to the observer. I honestly think it would be depressing as hell, and I don't know I would even be able to stand it, if it was my full-time employment to actively engage with residents who have no chance to remember or simply think anything; it forced me to consider the quality of life of an individual that is no longer capable of reason, one that can still experience emotion, but can no longer comprehend why. As someone that enjoys learning and thinking and generally being self-aware, this is an intimidating prospect, to say the least, especially since Alzheimer's and dementia have plagued so many of my remote family. However, my favorite and far and away the most enthusiastic of my coworkers also happened to be stationed almost exclusively in memory care, so therefore I feel that I can recommend this opportunity to any future volunteer, and, provided that they come in with a positive attitude and an open mind, I am confident that they would have a very fulfilling and fun experience, just as I have.

- Zach

Last Post (adieu)

I finally got my program to complete one of goals of the simulation: to calculate the total cell number at a given time and the number of cells in each phase, specifically in S phase.

My program basically assumes that all cells take the same amount of time in each phase. I did not use a probability distribution or a coefficient of variation (CV) to take into account the variation of phase times, since I am not sure how to do that.

Here is a breakdown of my program:

Inputs:

• Number of cells initially
• Number of cells in G0, G1, S, G2, M
• Total cell cycle time
• Time in G1, S, G2, M
• Stop time
• Probability of cell in G0 entering cycle

Outputs:

• Total cell number at stop time
• Number of cells in G0, G1, S, G2, M 

I used a random number generator to determine whether or not a cell in the G0 phase would advance to the G1 phase and into the active cell cycle. The probability of this occurring is an input by the user. I used a probability of 0.5 for debugging. Since there were so many inputs and outputs, I decided to use File Input and Output, with the input parameters all in one file and the outputs all in another.

The hardest part was probably figuring how to calculate the total number of cells at the end of the simulation and making sure the cells in each phase added up to the total number. It was more complicated when I factored in G0 cells that entered the cell cycle, because G0 cells don’t divide, but once they enter the cycle, they do. It took many trial and error, but I got it eventually.

Overall, this project has been very interesting, and I learned that my programming skills need to improve by a lot in order to create a relatively accurate simulation!! But I had a great time and hope to get better J  

Forest Park

My experience with forest park is one of somewhat mixed emotions. It wasn’t the most exciting work, seeing as how the vast majority of my time at the park was spent wheelbarrowing and spreading mulch around trees. Still though, it was a pretty easy job and relatively rewarding. By the end of May we would drive through and see the huge number of trees that we had mulched, and that was a pretty good feeling.

While most of our time was spent mulching, every once in a while we would get some variety to the mulch life, and work with Operation Bright Side at a number of different locations. My first day we went to Bellerive Park, and while it definitely involved some mulching, that was not the focus of our efforts. The event we were catering to that day was “Milkweed for Monarchs: The St. Louis Butterfly Project”. We started by unloading plants and placing them in their designated areas to later be planted by a group of local elementary school students. Once everything was set up, the kids showed up to plant. Some bureaucrats also showed up to get “candids” of their immense devotion to the community. While they were doing that, we were basically just mulching the areas that had already been planted. Around 12 ish we got our lunch break, and we were able to get in on some of the free Subway sandwiches that were available for the event. After lunch, and once everything was planted and mulched, the mayor held a press conference to explain his efforts at revitalizing the population of monarch butterflies, which was apparently an issue very dear to his heart. He shared a touching story about how when he was a kid, he used to see clouds of monarch butterflies. He explained how all he wishes is that the kids of today have the opportunity to see the same thing. By organizing this event in which a display of 40 or so plants would be set up, he made quite the impact towards the long term success of the Monarch butterflies. During the press conference, we were to set up gift bags for all those who attended. They had very specific requests with regards to the exact orientation and position of all of the goodies in each bag, and I think we pretty much nailed it. After the press conference, we had to clean up the event, which was actually a lot more work than would be anticipated. We were left to clean up a pretty large amount of chairs, tables and other miscellaneous objects, carry, and load them into a nearby building. By then, we were pretty short on numbers and since the cameras were gone we didn’t get much help from the bureaucrats, so it ended up being quite the chore. When it was all cleaned up, however, we were all given free t-shirts, so it was a pretty good day. Once I got home I realized I was mistakenly given two(!) free t-shirts instead of just one, so I guess it was even better day for me.

The rest of the days were mainly just mulching, however a few days worth of work at Forest Park went to cleaning up from a large tree that fell during a storm. This took a number of steps and days to actually accomplish. The first day was devoted to just picking up and loading smaller debris onto a truck to be taken and put into a chipper elsewhere. Next, our supervisor Brad cut the larger parts of the tree into pieces small enough to be moved by hand, which were then loaded onto a truck and put into a chipper. The rest of the tree that had fallen had to be moved by a bobcat, so we didn't really have to do much other than repositioning some of the bigger logs. After the cleanup, Brad cut the rest of the tree down and it was actually pretty cool to see the process that goes into cutting down trees of that size. Another bonus was that while he was cutting the tree down, a group of Billy Goat Chip Company sales people were wandering through for some event and gave us some free bags of chips.

The rest of our time, however, was spent mulching the seemingly endless supply of trees Forest Park had to offer. Generally what happened was that we would be put in an area with a large pile of mulch, and would load up wheelbarrows with mulch using pitchforks and shovels. Then we would take the wheelbarrows over to the nearest tree that needed mulch and dump it. Next we spread out the mulch around the base of the tree either by hand or with a rake. The only things you had to keep in mind while doing this were to keep the mulch off of the bark and to spread it out evenly and make it look aesthetically pleasing. This skill could be mastered after mulching 2 or 3 trees, so while incredibly easy, this wasn't the most exciting job in the world. There was some level of satisfaction as the pile slowly shrank in size, however soon our main supervisor Russ would be sure to pop back in to throw another load of mulch onto the pile.

The mulching process could be done relatively thoughtlessly and wasn't particularly stressful, however, so other than having to wake up at 7 every morning and struggle through early morning traffic, it was a pretty good gig overall. It did get to be more of a pain later in the day, however, considering the mulch pile stayed in the same place while the trees that needed to be mulched just got farther and farther away as the day progressed. So by the end of the day most of our time was spent walking wheelbarrows long distances to and from the mulch pile.

Our time spent mulching was not without progress, however. One day, when we were given three wheelbarrows and two people, we were forced to innovate to maximize efficiency. Sadly, when supervisor Brad saw us loading up for one of our double wheelbarrow excursions, we were forced to go back to the single wheelbarrow life. So I guess maybe it was without progress, but oh well. We tried I guess.

Later into the month of May, we did more work with Operation Bright Side, which was a nice change of pace. The rest of our work with Operation Bright Side took place at their actual facility, rather than Bellerive Park like it was the first day. A lot of what we did there was just beautification. We spent most of our time around the facility doing a mixture of weeding, sweeping, and setting up for events. Also mulching. (they at least used a different type though). Some people also got to work with a power washer, which was apparently pretty fun to use, although I sadly cannot speak from experience. While we were working outside of their facility one day, we also got a bit of a show when there was a fender bender just across the street from where we were working. I didn't get a chance to see the actual collision, as I was just on the other side of some bushes, however I got to hear about 10 seconds straight of honking from one of the drivers soon after the accident, followed by a very heated argument between the two. It was pretty entertaining. 

Despite the overall ease of the job, we still had a number of bumps in the road to finishing our May project.

May 17th was a tough day for us all, with the news that Front was taking away all of the hours that we were given on rain days. This set me back somewhere around 15 hours, however even now I’m not sure exactly how many it was considering we were kind of in the dark on the hours that were actually taken away. There were three days in which I thought it was my “last” day of work, only ending up having to go back and work more the next day. It was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, and the uncertainty of it all was kind of a pain to deal with but it all worked out fine in the end. Assuming I’m actually done with my hours now, which I’m pretty sure I am. Hopefully?

Despite the mundaneness of the the job, I think it was still a pretty good experience overall. It’s good to know that we helped out with the park and the various projects we helped out with through Operation Bright side. Also, I think all of the time spent mulching changed me. Now, I feel at ease when I see a well mulched tree. On the other side of the token, however, I’ll never be able look at a tree with a bare base the same again.