Pangea Life

Corey Funderburk posted on November 1, 2006 - 4:20pm no comments

Hi all,

I hope that everyone had a great Halloween! Laura and I followed through on the Chipotle Boo-rito idea and I believe she will have the pics posted in her blog, so check them out! Besides that, work has been picking up quite a bit. It's nice to feel like I have a place in my organization now. I'm going to give a quick rundown of my most recent tasks:

  1. Training Manual Updates: Basically, taking new screen shots and writing explanations as our systems are constantly evolving. I'm working on the version for the end-users (service coordinators in our case).
  2. Laptop/Desktop Deployment: Setting up laptops for our co-workers to use at conferences for a computer lab they set up as well as for doing demos of the software we develop.
  3. System Testing: We had to check that transfered data was moved correctly from one system to another by spot-checking different residents' info. Also checking that links, titles, content, etc are correct and working within the system.
  4. Software Architecture: Continuing to develop the software for our Mentoring program including building forms, researching inputs and reports and working with the actual program functioning - watching the trainings. These trainings help us to see what kinds of activities go on and help us to make our forms more comprehensive and useful.
  5. Researching for Education project - Our company received a grant to build software for tracking AP and Honors classes/tests in San Diego high schools. The idea is to see if classes like AP, Honors, AVID, etc are adding to students' abilities to succeed (i.e., go to college, get a job, etc).

So, that is basically it for me. I'm still working on my loan issues. No one seemed to be able to help. I wrote a scathing letter to my university with a referral from a past professor. Hopefully something will work out :-/. As far as the rest of life, things are going very well. I've been playing indoor soccer (highly recommended), going bike riding a ton, and doing some baking. Laura and I went to the Haunted Trail in Balboa Park (near our apartment in San Diego) and got chased by ghouls, goblins and creepsters running with chainsaws - good times. We even rode our bikes to visit this random, self-maintained topiary garden a few miles from our apartment. Some person turned their entire yard into a zoo full of topiary animals. Pretty nifty. Anyway, hope all is well!

AmeriCorey

Filed under:

Corey Funderburk's Recent Field Reports

Bye!

Corey Funderburk posted on September 6, 2007 - 4:49pm 2 comments

Hi Everyone! This is really more of a goodbye as tomorrow is my last day as a VISTA :'(. I have absolutely loved my time serving with CTC so I want to say thank you to everyone who has made it such a great program (that's you HQ!)! You guys are great and supportive, not to mention extremely fun (makes all the difference). …read more

Interesting new Google Tool

Corey Funderburk posted on April 17, 2007 - 4:50pm no comments

I recently heard about this new tool that Google offers through its Maps page. Basically, the tool connects you via phone (for free!) to any business you search for on Google Maps. This works for long distance or local calls. It could be of great use to non-profits trying to save a little money, if you're at a phone that does not allow calls outside a certain area, or even if you're at a pay phone. …read more

When "Benefits" aren't enough

Corey Funderburk posted on March 21, 2007 - 2:23pm no comments

Hey guys, Anyone out there have one of those pesky "pre-existing conditions" that our benefits prefer not to cover? Well, I did, and it was time to fulfill a prescription (for a measly, oh, $150!) so it came time to find some alternatives! Anyway, my doctor turned me on to a "patient assistance" program. Basically, I searched online for the website of the company that manufactures the medication I needed and then sent them an email explaining my financial situation. I received a reply the next day complete with information on patient assistance programs and an application to be completed by my doctor and myself. A completed application, attached tax forms and a month of waiting later and I am happy to say I received a little medical card from the company giving me my prescription for FREE! Booyah! …read more

Projects, Daytrips and Life in General

Corey Funderburk posted on February 22, 2007 - 3:30pm 1 comment

There has been a lot going on in my neck of the woods (San Diego, CA). Work: For one thing, my company, the Pangea Foundation, was just granted a contract to develop databasing software to be used in the Home Again Mississippi project (I think that is the project; If not, you get to see a cool webpage with stories). It is really such an honor that a company as small as ours was chosen to do such an enormous project. Unfortunately, though, we only have until March 30th to finish (people need homes!) and we just found out we got the job yesterday! Craziness! The gist is that there was some sort of insurance/state relief decision made where select people are each being given $100,000 to rebuild/repair their homes. However, the state of Mississippi has no way to track who needs it, at what stage they're at or any of the other details that go along with it. So along comes Pangea to the rescue! They saw some of our other systems and have heard about our great tech support and training assistance (ya baby) and felt we were the company for them. It's so exciting! Our software will hopefully expedite the process of all of the people getting the funds they need to rebuild their homes. Woot! …read more

more