Everything Is A List

After failing to find out anything regarding the “Landmark Supreme Court ruling” regarding prison sentences in California I headed outside for the afternoon session of PFT Plus. Lately I have focused much of my own personal exercising in the mornings and do take it much easier in the afternoon. This was the case yesterday as I did workout in the PFT plus class but did little else in the way of exercising during the afternoon. Much of talk between the Instructors was regarding the upcoming PFT Class. The Coach stated the class would start today (Tuesday) but I received a calendar from one of my dorm mates who works in the Education Department. This calendar has the dates of all the PFT classes and states the class starts on Wednesday (tomorrow). If the class were to start on Tuesday a list should have been issued by the afternoon on Monday. (Incidentally it seems everything is a list in this place. There is a list for those waiting for PFT and FFT classes. There are other lists and pardon the pun but the lists go on and on!) There wasn’t a list published Monday afternoon so I had my doubts the class would start today. Personally I was very interested because my name should be on it. Also because the list had not been published I would receive many questions from my fellow inmates as to the status of the class. Unfortunately I cannot answer these questions because I just don’t know.

I can understand the big deal regarding the list because this is the first step in the process of getting to a fire camp. Fire camp is certainly a goal of mine for several reasons; one is it gets me closer to my family since my sentence is reduced. Also, it gets me closer (physically) to my friends in Southern California and I look forward to seeing them in the coming months. Additionally, the fire camp provides me with a much better quality of life and I will be a positive member of society.

I had a slight dilemma because it was evening yard and I had a 7:30 pm telephone call scheduled. I don’t like getting a 7:30 pm telephone call because sometimes the yard doesn’t open until this time and it infringes on the allotted 15 minutes. Last night there was some incident on the upper tier at a little past 7:00 pm which delayed the opening of the yard. It was getting dangerously close to 7:30 pm but thankfully the yard did open and I arrived at the telephone at precisely 7:30 pm. I connected with my wife and instantly told her about the “Landmark Supreme Court Decision” (I have since found out the information I received prior to speaking with my wife was incorrect and unfortunately I may have put my wife on a wild goose chase. I will speak with her tomorrow and let her know this decision has no affect on me whatsoever.) I did waste much time on the telephone call on this topic but I did find out that all of the letters I have sent to my wife and mother have been received. I did express to my wife that a few of the entries I have written in the past week have taken me quite a while. I think the lack of mail that I have received in these past weeks creates me to write more in the blog. Whatever the case, I am sure much of what I write bores just about everyone but it does provide great therapy for me.

My wife and I did come to a decision regarding her “family visit”. We agreed the “family visit” would be much easier on everyone involved if we waited until I reached the fire camp in Southern California. The “family visit” here would be no sooner than March and presumably I will be transferred in April so one month is no big deal. Even if it were May that would be fine as well because the “family visit” at fire camp is much nicer than here.

My wife did mention that my mother was reading about the incident which happened on the Level 3 yard Friday night. My mother read a newspaper account on the internet and knew more about the incident than I did. Apparently there was a race riot on the other yard over a drug debt. According to the account on the internet there were 300 inmates involved and everything was under control within 3 minutes. I knew something was up when the C/O’s did not come through for the 9:00 pm count. Other than that I had no idea there was a riot until my wife mentioned it last night.

I did walk with my friend last night but we only did 2 miles because of all the interruptions and I was hoping to go in prior to 9:00 pm in order to watch the return of “Heroes.” I was able to get in the dorm just as “Heroes” was beginning and I was able to get a seat on the bench in the television room. It looks like “Heroes” is expanding their character base and the remainder of the season should provide very interesting. After “Heroes” I was able to fall asleep about 15 minutes later than usual with a limited lemonade intake I was able to get a restful sleep.