Saturday, February 8th
Been a week , that’s for sure. Leaving for outside every day with a full bag of stuff for the day at 7:30, 3 days of rain and wind, its just gets old and tiring. Today looks like a sunny day, hope to get recharged this weekend!
Productive morning typing till 9:30, lockdown, then skipped chow and went outside at 11-12:30 for a great workout. 12:30-2 typed and made a couple calls, all really hard to do during the week right now. But looks like contractors should be done this next week, hopefully before the rain returns Thursday.
At 2, my reading in-between typing led to a much needed nap. Would have been longer even, but a few guys on Level 3 above me were screaming every time the Lakers scored, would have thought it was the Super bowl:) They are annoying to listen to at 3 in the afternoon when its nap time:)
After lockdown, watched Bill Maher, he repeats Friday nights show on Max on CNN with commercials. Then to the movies, Twister I tonight. Wasn’t bad or too corny.
All in all, not a bad Saturday before tomorrow and Super bowl Sunday!
Sunday, February 9th
Finally, Super bowl Sunday is here! Nice to do some quiet/peaceful typing this morning till 8. Then outside till 9 and did my cardio workout, crisp but sunny and 50 or so. Afterward, lockdown till 11, then we got our paper sack dinner from the guard for later. Normal PBJ stuff and turkey and cheese. Was going to go to church from 12:30-1:30 but was typing and missed the move.
Good news is they moved our 3:30-5 lockdown up early to 1:30-3, so we could go out to watch the game. Sure enough, instead of opening the cell door at 3, they waited till 3:40, coin flip time. Shouldn’t be surprised. At halftime we had an amazing pizza, all the trimmings, from my personal chef:) And I had a 4 pick, got 3 right but missed on the over/under like most folks. Would have been a 14-1 payout or 7 books/140 stamps. Guess that’s why we bet:)
Rest of the weekend was just reading, but overall a good weekend for prison life.
Monday, February 10th
Looks like another beautiful day, and its commissary day. Perfect start to the day, full $180 commissary at 8 am, and instead of going outside with the bag of stuff all day, we went back to our cells. No mandatory outside today, hallelujah! After unpacking just typed on/off till chow. Perfect start to a Monday here!
Silly as it sounds, not having to go outside is so refreshing, almost like a weight off my shoulders. Tiny bit of freedom to choose what to do again:) So typed after chow till 1, outside 1-2 for a workout. TV till 3:30, lockdown. After dinner in library to writeup Valentines Day cards to get in the mail this evening. Not a bad start to the week.
Little progress with one of the inmates, Jose. He’s being denied FSA credits as he has an ICE deportation order on his file. But the law requires a final order of deportation signed by a judge, which he swears he has never seen a judge before. His case manager agreed and is looking to find the real document. Another guy is now doing the same thing with my help. Now sure how I feel about helping Jose, he’s been in US 30 years, all his family is here, but he never got legal?
Now I’m doing the same for another inmate, Nestor.
Tuesday, February 11th
Sure enough, after thinking our Unit isn’t going outside anymore, at 9 they called everyone outside again. Right when I was leaving for Medical at 9. Finally saw the doctor after couple more hours wait. He was apologetic, filled out a referral to a rheumatologist. Apparently I should get an email confirming an appointment, but no date. Guess they had an inmate years ago conduct violence at the doctors office with another person who met him there as he knew ahead of time the date. Anyways, the Doctor reiterated they will provide whatever treatment the rheumatologist recommends, so fingers crossed! I also advocated for Steve, who still never got his intake exam, and the doctor agreed to get that handled as well.
Missed chow, but that’s ok. Went outside to the Unit, windy but 60 and sunny. So walked the track, then changed into my workout clothes and did a 2 hour workout. Haircut after that and back to the Unit. Full day so far:)
About 9 pm, Steve came by dejected his BP-11 to the Office of General counsel in Washington D.C. came back denied. Reasons cited show they didn’t even read his filing. Now his only option is to file a lawsuit, a Federal Tort Claim in the courts. Nothing more for me to say, this says it all. Watching all the DOGE examples on TV of federal bureaucrats and their behavior, makes me wonder why I’d expect anything different here?
Wednesday, February 12th
Rained hard last evening, so thinking not going outside. Sure enough, 7:45 they called it again for constriction. 55 degrees, cloudy, no wind or rain thankfully. So walked track for an hour, then headed to education do somethings like journal writing and warm up:)
10-12 was chow/outside again. Walked the track till 11 with Steve. He was having another “I am a victim” episode triggered by his BP 11 denial. Its so hard for all of us who hang with him. On the one hand, we get tired of the victimhood and mood swings, and on the other we want to help but nothing seems to work. I tried to get him to rely on his faith and Holy Spirit, and all I got is a victimhood response around there not being a God who would put him through all this. Well last time I checked, I came up with examples way worse than here, from Auschwitz to the Sudan etc. But I didn’t mention those:) Later in the walk, I encouraged him to be more persistent, stick with things all the way till the end ,etc. When I used the word “victim” he lost it, and after yelling at me asked me if I want to fight yada yada. I was in his face and he in mine. Poor guy. Later that evening, another inmate, Mike, who walks with Steve and I, came to me separately complaining about being tired of dealing with the victimhood as well. Problem is if we report it to get him help, he’ll probably go the SHU for protection from himself, which of curse we don’t want for him. If we don’t report it, what happens if he does something that harms himself? I really wish the DOJ had their ombudsman officer up and running, someone not based here we could speak with.
12-1 back in library working on blog 11 of my BOP series, then movies 1-3, lockdown till 5. After three days of bouncing around everywhere, I find it hard to be motivated to type in the evenings. So I did one or two 15 minute sessions, little TV, then read. Gets old have to admit. Good news is we must be close to being done with construction. But combined with cutting our phone minutes by 200/month, can’t make near as many calls to keep in touch either. Used to be 35/month calls, now 20/month. Not even one call per day…
Thursday, February 13th
Are we , aren’t we, that’s the question? Rainy night and should be 1.5 inches today, so are we going out? Blessedly we made it past the 7:45 witching hour and then the 9 am witching hour. Perfect!
I took full advantage of the morning to type my blog and a weekly journal. After 10 blog posts, I’m taking time to summarize high level what the outline for the 36 months of the BOP START Transformation Plan requires. Sure hope Pam Bondi sees it somehow:) Would love to help them implement it! The next phase of the series will be posts with five and ten year time frames to accomplish them. Things like transforming the BOP workforce and so forth. These will also be much more BOP focused.
After chow went to class 12-2, but it was cancelled for some reason. So went back to Unit did some typing, reading, TV, even a 30 minute nap:) So nice to be inside not getting wet and cold, schlepping around all-day, so I took advantage of it!
Evening was more of the same, though I did try to go to Education/Library 6:30-7:30, but got down there and it was closed again.
About 5 pm, a memo was posted on our electronic bulletin board telling all case managers( manage FSA and location transfers to other prisons and half way houses) that illegals will no longer be allowed to transfer to halfway houses, they must remains in prison their entire term. Even without an order of deportation’s signed by a judge, just a detainer. BOP is definitely not a sanctuary prison:) This memo upset all the illegals and created all kinds of questions for them. Several I’ve been helping came up to me asking questions, definitely a tough pill for them to swallow. My guess is this will make it easier for ICE to to come to one location for deportation purposes. Guess it makes sense as this location was repurposed 18 months ago as an ICE facility, with about 80% of 2000 inmates being illegals/Hispanic. All kinds of other rumors floating around as well about them being centralized in another location, etc. Guess we’ll see…. Interesting way to communicate with inmates, copying us on a case manager memo:)
Friday, February 14th
Happy Valentines Day! Always feel guilty on days like today not being home with those I love like my girlfriend/partner today. Just not a damned thing I can do about it yet.
Should be the last day of rain, then 68 by next Tuesday and sunny again. No call to go outside so thinking we are done!! Hallelujah!
Spent the morning typing and organizing things till 9, then library to reload books to read plus write several journals and reread my appeal notes from a couple weeks ago. Yesterday I learned counsel didn’t mail the govt. response until Feb. 3, a week later than I was initially told, so should get any day. We have to file a week from today, so cutting it a little close.
After chow, stayed inside till 2, then went out till 3 on the track. Sunny and windy, even with my sweats on it was a little chilly. Every ounce of my being and all my prayers are focused on making this the last Valentines day inside prison!
Around 8 pm checked my email, had a Happy Valentines from my daughter and telling me she just got engaged- so happy for both of them! Now one more reason to make this appeal successful!!
Praying for Liberty and Freedom and to see my Family and Friends soon! BJ
