Saturday, January 18th
So nice to have next 3 days on Holiday/weekend schedule. no outside at 7:30, though it does seem the crew is working quickly. Two weeks of 4 days/week and this past week 3 days, so only 11 work days so far. Look like they could be done in another five work days, at least 2 weeks BOP time:)
Since I have a good cold going, decided to stay in all day. So got lots of typing done and emails as well all day. And 2 NFL games in the afternoon/evening.
My poor friend Steve, who went to the SHU for70 days for failing his urine test first time, came back after 2 1/2 hours tonight, almost failing it again. This is his third test in five weeks. Crazy. The stress in his face is so sad, sometimes this place can be so mean. The irony is he has never done drugs…
Fairly productive day overall, and look forward to library from 8-12 quiet and no interruptions.
Sunday, January 19th
Not so fast as Lee Corso says! Sure enough library opened at 8 and those who hadn’t signed up ahead of time to stay longer left for lockdown at 9. Perfect. Except 10 minutes later the temporary guard came around and confessed he screwed up and didn’t turn in the “sheet” with the names of who signed up and are staying by 8 am. So we all had to go back to our Unit as well and the library shut down. Wonderful example of BOP following the rules, even if the list of names was only 10 people!! That’s what happens when all the “education ” guards want a 3 day weekend, and bring in a guard form the Yard without any training and knows nothing about any procedures. Heaven forbid the library had turned in the list Friday since they shut off signups Thursday anyways. Now I get to stand in my cell during lockdown , spread my papers across my bunk, and stand and write on top of my locker again:) Lovely, all for nothing.
Spent the rest of the day watching NFL, interspersed with lots of typing.
Monday, January 20th
Got up early focusing on my appeal email for counsel till 8 am. Per usual, picked up a couple additional thoughts re-reading one last time:)
From 8-10 watched the Inauguration, the last 30 minutes through our cell door. Its pretty surreal to be appealing a sentence based on wrong legal rulings, watching a President who himself faced not one but many trials/lawsuits at one time, followed by all the splendid speeches about Liberty, Freedom, country based on laws and rule of law, etc. Definitely not a perfect system, but then what is? I’m writing this during Carrie Underwood’s singing ” Star Spangled Banner”. How’s that for reality and irony?
Thought about going outside on a decent day, but still fighting my cold, so will take it easy. Basically typing and Inauguration till 3:30. One of the inmates, been here just 3 weeks was a J-6 guy. And at 3 pm, just as Trump was speaking at his rally at Capital One Arena about the Israeli and J6 hostages, a guard came and told him to grab his stuff. Sure enough, his pardon had kicked in and he was out of here, to the shock of all of us. While we all knew it was coming, knowing how slow the BOP and DOJ are, we figured a week or so, especially on a Federal Holiday. Then Boom!
After lockdown, rest of the evening was spent on College football National Championship. Kind of sad, no more college football until the week before Labor Day:) Have to admit, still smarting from about happened to my Oregon Ducks defense in the Rose Bowl, so ready for next season already!
With the end of the 3 day Holiday weekend, tomorrow should be busy, as we’re ready to get typed and make 4 copies of Jorge’s’ BP-9 so he can tend to his daughters health issues. Plus of course being outside again….
Tuesday, January 21st
Sure enough, after 3 day weekend, headed down to Education at 7:30, but no one there, guards saying closed for the day. Nothing like a 4 day weekend for everyone ! So annoying though, after Sunday’s debacle, as it not just library, or education classes, but a law library we have access to PC’s with database of cases as well. Thankfully my timeline today wasn’t deadline driven, which often times is for people. But never any notice about being closed for some reason. Even our Yard guards do a better job announcing closures. Sometimes they just make it hard for people to get stuff done.
So outside on a 31 degree morning at 7:45. Basically just walked the track till 10 as best way to stay warm, though can’t say I got a lot done:)
Surprise Surprise, at 10:30 went to chow so left coat and stuff outside thinking we’ll come right back. Nope they stuck 300 of us in the move theatre for 90 minutes. Turned off the lights , couldn’t make a DVD audio work so gave up. Freezing in there, for some reason they can’t fix the heater after 5 years! So 55 in there, and of course our crap, including coats, is outside, Pretty productive day so far:)
Ended up being a decently warm afternoon, which was nice But with 20 MPH winds, so hard to do any work outside. So just read my Diesel book till 3. Evening caught up on emails, made call and lots of reading. My cell mate got stung by something outside a week ago, and his arm is swelling up like a balloon and he’s in a lot of pain. Finally after the long weekend, medical gave him some antibiotics to fight the infection. What a mess when in a 50 ft cell…
Learned tonight the BOP CEO resigned today. This is one time I don’t think the BOP status is her fault. She’s been there maybe 18-24 months and as my blog says, this BOP needs a 10 year transformation. Not sure even Congress or Trump really understand what an institutional mess BOP became during the last 50-75 years. Its really that bad.
Wednesday, January 22nd
Decent start to the day, Education open at 7:30 helps! Today is class’s signup so probably extra 200 guys mainly Mexican in line here now. I signed up for Day Trading class. Its a black market thing, the instructor requires a fee of 20stamps($8)to get in, or double to get in and not attend. Can’t make this up but then again…
Getting Steve’s BP-11 typed finally, will review tonight. Jorge’s’ BP-9 with his 6 page Release Plan is next to type.
9 am went back to the Unit for my legal call with counsel. Haven’t spoken since December, and with no filing deadline on anything right now, was really nice to cover a bunch of issues that have been nagging me and not be rushed. Looks like the schedule is shaping up like this:
* This Friday, January 24th, the government replies to Macritchies and my appeal filing
* We respond to that filing February 24th
* April 2 are oral arguments by all the attorneys in San Francisco- available via stream next day
* Then we wait for the ruling and opinion, 4-6 months or so
Once I get copies of Fridays filing next week( better start praying now to get them:)), I will summarize any thoughts. At this point my main purpose is to just make sure counsel knows what I feel about certain legal issues, or incorrectly stated facts/laws by the government( not sure why they do this given they are pursuing justice). From then what they do with it, addressing/ignoring it, is up to them, but at least I feel heard and understand why or why not included.
Then the day got fun again. Outside at 10:15, the guards had us bring our stuff into the movie theatre auditorium, where its 50 degrees, get chow, come back and watch a movie for 90 minutes. Of course the audio is still broken… Finally they let us out at 12:15 so I hightailed back to Education, then outside at 1:15-3 for a great workout, first in 5 days now that I feel better!
After lockdown/chow TV, phone calls,and lots of reading. Another day in paradise:)
Thursday, January 23rd
Productive time in the library with Steve ready to copy his BP-11( copier broke of course:)), and tweaked Jorge’s release Plan. Make final edits on the PC in our Unit tonight and print at library in the morning and should be good to copy as well.
For some reason library didn’t let us know till 10:30 that our Unit was at chow, so went straight there. Then to gym for 45 minutes and then outside at 11:45. Beautiful day, 75 is the forecast. Then boom! 15 minutes later right back into the gym. The entire prison went into lockdown mode and mandatory count, which we do sometimes when someone doesn’t answer when called to a meeting , appointment, etc. Eventually dragged on and on, so we figured something else was up. Fortunately I was prepared and had a Grisham book with me, so just read for 2 hours till 3. At 3 we normally go back to our Unit for a 3:30-5 lockdown, but today we went straight back to our cell and immediate lockdown. We knew we were skipping dinner, so we made a carnitas rice bowl with pepperoni plus fresh greenpepper and onion:) Thankfully our doors opened at the normal 5 pm time:)
After all that I raced outside at 5-6:30 for a workout beautiful evening, not many people. Too bad a 75 degree day and we couldn’t enjoy it! Rest of the evening spent typing/reading, no TV tonight. When one of the guys came back from the library he shared what a guard told him about what really happened today. The Fed’s showed up, asked the guards to lockdown the prison, then interviewed a bunch of guards and apparently arrested 3 of them. Guess we’ll find out whether that’s true or not!
Friday, January 24th
Off to a normal start, but for some reason our 7:30 move to library didn’t happen till 8:10. we were joking that maybe they were short guards:) The way prison works, various inmates have their sources for “inmate.com” to track down rumors. I’m sure we’ll be talking about what everyone heard tonight!
At the library I printed out the final exhibits for Jorge, a 6 page Release Plan. Now I have to wait till after 5 pm tonight, in our Unit, hit print on email, come back to library and print on their printer. There is no email access in the library…. Then we can make copies of everything and turn in his BP-9 to hopefully get back to his daughter. So cumbersome/ unproductive but that’s prison life. Since the copier is down, probably won’t lose time anyways, as I’m sure Monday is soonest it will be fixed:)
I’m kind of in an interesting spot workload wise. Won’t get any appeal related docs probably until late next week. Steve and Jorge are basically handled. So next project is helping 3 guys get First Step Act credit who are denied as their gun sentence makes their otherwise eligible drug sentence ineligible according to the BOP. The Law doesn’t say it is still eligible or not, so the BOP relies on a 1984 law to support its position. 30+ years ago before the FSA was even written:). Looks like I will have to help all 3 with their Administrative remedy process(copout, through BP8,9,10,11), all a waste of time in my view. I’m going to help them facilitate 3 different arguments to see which is most effective,if any. Would be a lot simpler if Congress had just written he law and addressed it at the same time. Oh well. My blog addressed the 4-5 specific fixes they should ake to the law, this eligible/ineligible being one of them.
Beyond that, I’m caught up on writing my journals, book reports, so my backlog is really about typing everything. Just so hard when all you can do is 5:30-9 pm each evening with everyone else:) Even 2-3 cycles of 15 minutes typing, then waiting 15 minutes is as much as I feel like doing in the evening. So that makes typing he priority for this weekend:
– Section IV of A Better Tomorrow Book
– New Blog post
– 2 weekly journals
Next week I should write another section for the ABT book plus research on the eligible/ineligible legal question above. Then I’ll ramp up on my final response to the government’s filing on my appeal until Feb 24th and that will be it for the appeal!
Was outside 10:45-3, last beautiful January before the rain comes this weekend. Did lots of track, some reading, then broke down and played Bocce ball with the guys. After 1/2 hour of practice, and getting the rust off, Steve and I played the “champs” from a recent tournament and we destroyed them:)
After lockdown, rest of evening just some typing and reading. No TV, as all logging and fishing shows on the History channel!
Praying for Liberty and Freedom and to see my Family and Friends soon! BJ
