Power off = day off

Today was certainly and odd one. I had an unexpected day off after a power outage. Each month on the last Friday of the month the maintenance crew turns off the unit power at 7 am to test the generator system. This always knocks out my alarm clock, so i wake up late every time. This morning was no different, except that it happened on a Tuesday and the generators didn't kick on. When I woke up at 8:15, the electricity was still out and it stayed out until after the officers were finished with the morning count. This meant I couldn't go to work; the lights couldn't turn on anyway.

When the power was finally restored, I went down to the library for work. I didn't stay for long. My boss wasn't feeling well and decided to go home to rest and
recuperate. That left me with the rest of the day to myself back in the dorm.

I've got to say, days off in prison are not near as fun as days of on the outside. We really don't have much to do, and even Munchkin can wear out after too many games. I just lay in bed and read my current book, Lowboy. I would have liked to stay active and productive, but I guess one more day to add to the years isn't so bad.

Lockdown, johnny sacks, and a sick roomie

Lockdown has been going on for three days now, and it's actually been quite nice. We have to stay in our cells all day, which has given me a lot of time to read. I've already knocked out two books and am looking for the hat trick. The environment has been much more conducive to reading too, with the TV off and no one stopping by to interrupt. I sure do love the quiet. Alan has been gone to work making sack meals in the kitchen for two days so I even have the cell to myself sometimes.

The sack meals have been far better than the usual johnny sacks of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and prunes. These sacks have potato chips, pancakes, syrup, biscuits, meatloaf, and other cooked meats. I had heard that the sack meals would be better but I didn't expect such a changing menu like we've had.

Unfortunately, some of the food did Alan in. He came back from the kitchen Tuesday not feeling well. A few hours later he was hurling. Yesterday he was bunk-bound except for the times he hopped down to use the toilet. I'm glad I didn't catch whatever it was he got. Maybe it's my cast-iron immune system. I was the only one in my family that did not get sick while we lived in Africa. I hope it stays with me.

I'm not looking forward to packing up all my stuff and hoofing it to the gym, but this lockdown has been far better than previous ones in an open dorm setting. I don't think I'll come out on the flip side quite as batty as those previous episodes because I've been able to use my time instead of having to deal with the silliness of thirty other guys. There is something to be said for these two-man cells.

For the love of reading

For those of you who are curious, here is my reading list from 2009. The books are arranged in chronological order of my reading them with one star for recommended reading and two stars for my three favorites:

1. Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood
2. On the Road - Jack Kerouac *
3. The Jesus Way - Eugene Peterson
4. Truefaced - Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, John Lynch
5. Ex-Con for Christ - Dan Dugan
6. Watchman - Alan Moore *
7. Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
8. Don't Waste Your Life - John Piper
9. Walking With God - John Eldredge *
10. Othello - William Shakespeare
11. Midsummer Night's Dream -- William Shakespeare
12. Dr. Faustus - Christopher Marlowe
13. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky *
14. Darkness Visible - William Golding
15. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince *
16. Pygmalion - George Bernard Shaw
17. ABC of Architecture - James O'Gorman
18. Architecture - Jonathan Glancey
19. Architecture: A World History - Daniel Borden
20. Building - Mario Salvadori
21. Gulag Archipelago - Alexandr Solzhenitsyn **
22. The Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac *
23. The Housekeeper and the Professor - Yoko Ogawa **
24. Architecture - Sinclair Gauldie *
25. Architecture as Art - Stanley Abercrombie
26. Shortcomings - Adrian Tomine
27. V For Vendetta - Alan Moore
28. Experiencing Architecture - Steen Eiler Rasmussen *
29. Real Christianity - William Wilberforce
30. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand *
31. Black - Ted Dekker
32. Red - Ted Dekker
33. White - Ted Dekker
34. Same Kind of Different As Me - Ron Hall and Denver Moore *
35. Alvar Aalto - Nicholas Rey *
36. Godric - Frederick Buechner *
37. Turn of the Screw - Henry James
38. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hasseini *
39. A Thousand Splendid Suns _ Khaled Hasseini
40. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
41. Shadow's End - Sherri S. tepper
42. The Walking Road - Robert Kirkman
43. The Postman - David Brin *
44. Jedi Search - Kevin J. Anderson
45. Secrets in the Dark - Frederick Buechner **



"How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book." ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

A strange vacation

So far, being in solitary has been a nice change of pace, almost like a vacation. It is quiet almost all day, except for the few times that other guys back there yell to each other through the cracks in their door. The sound echoes loudly and wakens me if I'm sleeping. I haven't spoken to anyone other than a guard for the past day and the total number of words I've used can be counted on my hands.



I've spent my time reading., Right now I'm almost finished with On the Road, Jack Kerouac's classic Beat novel. I've read about 200 pages over the past day. If I could keep this pace, I'd finish my stack of books pretty quickly. It's so much easier without distractions, especially the box with the moving pictures.



The food I get is the same as the stuff I would get in the dining hall, except that sometimes I get a lot more. The dessert today was chocolate pudding and I got heaps of it Bless those kitchen workers! Buzz-cut said I had the most stuff of anyone he's ever inventoried that didn't include food. That's from not going to commissary in forever. It seems I'm eating decently regardless.