Taxes. That’s what the cool kids do at 6:30 Saturday morning. Spent the day helping to run a TAP satellite site. I made sure the assembly line style service we provide ran smoothly. Made a record for client with the most W-2 forms, totaled at 11 for one year. Also saw a couple 3 thousand dollar returns.

In the evening a couple of us went to a show at the Metro. It is a local venue about a 1/2 block from our apartment. The band Aqualung was headlining an 11:30pm show. In case anyone hasn't heard of Aqualung (I hadn't either) they have a Coldplay type sound. To read all the great things I have to say about the show read below:

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Americorps in the news. The Washington Post had an article about Americorps and the NCCC program. When I looked at it today it was in the top ten most viewed articles.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/27/AR2006022701190.html?referrer=emailarticle

Check out the Alumni created save americorps NCCC site:

http://web.mac.com/thomashowardjr/iWeb/Site%203/SAVE*NCCC%20Info.html

Taxes... TAP's office is located in donated space on the 91st floor of the Sears Tower. We arrived at 9am and proceeded to be trained to use tax software. During the course of the morning we got to meet the staff. Most of who have been in Americorps Vista or NCCC programs. Bob the founder started TAP when he was 22 in 1994 and can be safely described as a type A personality. I gather he likes analogies, baseball, fast cars and beer. No doubt I'll be describing more of TAP in the near future. From about 5 till 9pm we set up 20 laptops at a local high school and helped 50 people file tax forms. It was hectic to say the least.

Welcome to Chicago! We have arrived in one piece. In case you want to google earth our address its 1151 Waveland IL, 60613 (we do not receive mail at our apartment so keep using the Denver one). Wrigley field is visible from the front of the building. Our living accommodations are unbelievable two floors, six bedrooms and two baths for the 10 of us. I feel extremely spoiled since the rest of Americorps is working for FEMA and living is large red tents... Ok, I'm over it!



-Housing is provided by our sponsor TAP



-Living room and Dan (he's that guy in high school that tried to get in every picture in the year book).



-One of the single rooms

Tomorrow we will begin six weeks of doing taxes for immigrants and poor Americans in the metro area. After that its fire season in CO!

On the road again. We get 5 dollars per meal for road trips. McDollar menu! Some of our activities have been the classic Mad Libs, playing with the government radios, ipod transmission (music), 20 Questions (this little machine that can guess what your thinking and it really works, weird) and reading books or Cosmo.



-couldn't have described Nebraska better myself

Chicago. First day on the road. For safty each driver can drive a max of 2 hours at a time. The van can only drive for a max of 8 hours a day. Today we made it to Aurora, Nebraska.

Graduation from training day. Yuppie!



-Dorms freshly straightened for inspection before leaving for Chicago