It's A Blog About Nothing!

Back when I first started this blog, I was down in the Hive on day shift and needed a place to vent. It was extremely stressful and I was having trouble sleeping and needed somewhere to blow besides at the wife and kids. They didn't put up with that very well, as you can imagine. I get to be a real pr*ck when I'm stressed.

So I started ranting here. I could scream all I wanted, because back then nobody was listening. And the walls here are nice and soft when I bang my head against them.

But now that I'm not down there anymore my stress levels have dropped considerably along with the odds that I would drop dead of an aneurism.

The down side of that is that my blog has become what the investigator called it when he read my stuff. Boring. Nothing more than a personal journal.

Take today for an example:

They made me the Education/Library officer this evening. I wasn't looking forward to it because education is always a pain in the butt. The classrooms are separated between two different buildings; the first and second floor of one building and the second floor of the other. I always worried that something would happen in one building while I was dealing with a situation in the other one.

There would be, of course, multiple locked doors between me and where I wanted or needed to be. And there I would be, fumbling with a huge set of unfamiliar keys and frustration would only make it worse.

There are, in my opinion, entirely too many different locks in this place. I completely understand it from a security standpoint. More locks means more keys which means less of a chance that somebody will be able to work their way through them to escape. But my personal aggravation standpoint bares it's teeth and snarls each time I have to fumble for an unknown key to open a door.

Luckily for me today they closed education early and the classrooms were emptying out as I walked in the door. That was just fine with me. I could close up one building entirely and have nothing but the library to deal with. And it didn't open up again until 6:00pm when the yards opened.

I spent the first 2-1/2 hours of my shift eating my dinner and reading a book. A nice change of pace. The librarian is a nice lady who made coffee and sat outside and smoked with me.

I could work in a library, I think. A real one full of humans, not this one hip deep in inmates. It's not bad, as far as small libraries go. I asked the librarian and she said they had about 14,000 books there, which was a bit startling. It didn't look like that many.

That made me feel like a bit of an amateur, though. Last time I checked our books here at home we had a bit less than 2,000 of them. I don't have room for 14,000 books, but I would like to.

After the library closed at 8:00, I went out and wandered the yard until I ran into the Watcher and I hung out with him for a little while then called Lt Baby Boy and asked him if they needed me anywhere. He just said "Naw! Go out on the yard and find somebody to argue with!"

Heck, I could do that. And I stayed out there for the rest of the shift, pretty much doing what I had done all day, which was nothing. It was a bit blissful. And I almost felt guilty getting paid for that eight hours.

But not enough to give the money back, or anything. Let's not be silly.

Wednesday is Eat What You Want Day and Twilight Zone Day. It's also National School Nurse Day and national Night Shift Workers Day. Huzzah!

Feast Or Famine

On Friday we were so short I didn't get to go home early even though I came in at noon. But it's all good. I got three and a half hours of comp time for it. That will look nice on my paycheck when they do a comp time payout.

Today we were so fat we had four officers and a Sarge out on the yard and they sent us a fifth, the little laundry gnome, when laundry shut down for the evening. On the way inside I heard several people say "There's so many people here! I'm going home!" but nobody did.

Not at first, anyway.

Right about 8:00 pm when we shut down the yards, Sausage said "I'm going to leave here in a little bit. I got lots of stuff to do at home." I thought "Yeah, right." Then I thought "I wonder if he told Sarge he's leaving early?"

He hadn't. He waited until he was almost all the way out and called Sarge on the radio and told him he was leaving for the evening.

There was one thing I was sure glad of this evening. One, that I wasn't the new guy. He got pulled for all of the crummy details and had to run everywhere while I got left to 'watch the yard.' And two, I'm glad I'm not Sausage when Sarge catches up to him next. He's an evil minded old basticule who will probably torture Sausage for days when he gets the chance.

Psychologically torture him ,anyway. They kind of look askance at waterboarding and stuff like that. Not exactly sure why.

One kind of fun thing happened while I was out on the yard, though. They got some new dogs for their program and one of them is a pretty chunky chocolate colored something or other named Hershey. He's a big old teddy bear of a dog. Everyone says he's fat but he's pretty much just alot of dog, if you know what I mean. Probably somewhere around sixty pounds. very friendly.

I was sitting on the golf cart and Hershey came along pretty much dragging his handler and climbed right up on the cart with me and sat down like he was saying "Enough walking! Let's ride!" And he didn't want to get off of the cart. Inmates aren't allowed on the carts except in the case of real medical emergencies and I'm sure I would have gotten into trouble for having a dog riding around with me on one. Even if I had to have his handler running along behind. And while I was trying to get him off the cart peacefully (after quite a few pets and some ear pulls) he turned his butt around and sat down on the gas pedal of the cart and we started rolling down the walk. Almost dragging his inmate handler. Again.

That cart has absolutely no brakes and I had to force my hand down between the seat and Hershey's profound bulk and turn the power switch off to get us stopped again. After that we decided that Hershey could walk the rest of the evening. But every time I passed them in the cart, he started pulling like he wanted back on.

I think he's destined to be a traveling dog.

So Tuesday is Clean Up Your Room Day. Nope. Can't see that happening.

Hmm... I seem to have screwed up my days a little bit. I said Friday that Monday would be Lupus day, Buddha Day and Windmill Day and it's really Tuesday. Now I'm not sure what day I'm referring to or even what day it actually might be. That's what happens when I'm too tired to type! Oh... snap.

Dog Tired

Great googly moogly. I'm pooped. I'm so tired I hit the 'cancel' button on that picture three times by mistake before I could get it to upload.

You would think that only eleven and a half hours at work wouldn't be that bad, but it came down pretty hard on these old bones.

Had to be in at noon for shotgun training, then work a full shift. Earlier in the week, they were letting people 'flex' their time after training rather than have them accrue overtime. But we are so short on Fridays that I knew that wasn't going to happen. And it didn't.

To top it off, I got stuck on 30 yard. Generally, it's a pretty mellow and easy place to work. It's not even really a yard, just a long walkway from 30 house to B-yard, about 50 or 60 yards long. But there's a dogleg in the middle of it that creates a blind spot you can't see into from the house or the big yard, so they stuck a shack the size of your average outhouse at the corner and called it 30 yard.

And even though my zone of responsibility was very small, when you do the 30 yard inner perimeter check, it encompasses 10 house yard as well (since there is no 10 yard officer) so that walk turns into a mile or so after you wind in and around everything and backtrack to get all the gates and whatnot. Fortunately I only had to walk it twice. Once at the beginning of shift then again at the end.

Old age is catching up to me. I don't think I'll be going after the 30 yard spot if it opens up.

So, by your leave, I'll just check the calendar for the weekend and call it good.

I hope you don't mind.

Saturday will be Paste Up Day, and National Roast Leg of Lamb Day. Yum! It's also alot of other things, like Join Hands Day, Kentucky Derby Day, Mother Ocean Day, National Homebrew Day, National Scrapbooking Day and National Train Day.

Sunday will be No Socks Day and Have A Coke Day. It will also be V-E Day, National Red Cross Day, Stay Up All Night Day, National Miniature Golf Day and Mothers Day.

Monday will be Lost Sock Memorial Day, Buddha Day, Lupus Day and Windmill Day.

You have a good day. I'm going to bed.

I've Been Wrong All This Time

Since pretty much nothing other than rain happened today, I thought I might write about something just a little different.

I mean, things happened, they just weren't very exciting. I found a broken padlock that mysteriously fixed itself when it got into someone else's hands. When I was heating up my hamburger I dropped my mustard packet into the ketchup. The parking brake slipped off of the cart and I had to chase it down the hill and pulled a muscle in my back trying to get it stopped again. We all thought there was going to be a tornado when the storm front rolled in, but one never appeared. Sausage chattered at me until my brain tried to chew it's way out of my skull. And it rained on me every time I stepped outside.

But other than that, nothing really happened.

So....

I found out this morning, while doing unrelated research, that I have been using the word 'Hyperbole' wrong all of my life and nobody ever corrected me on it. I was even pronouncing it wrong and no one ever said anything. I always said Hi-Per-Bowl instead of Hi-Per-Buh-Lee, like it's supposed to be.

I do like my pronunciation better. But that's beside the point.

For years I have been using the word in place of the word 'hypothetical'. Saying "In a hyperbole situation like, what would you do if you found a live swordfish in your glove compartment?"

Now that I realize that I have been doing that, I feel really stupid. And I've been doing it for years. Why didn't anybody ever say anything?

I am such a nimrod sometimes.

I guess now that my dirty little secret is out, I'll just go check the calendar then go sulk under the covers. I have to be in early tomorrow for shotgun training anyway. Pfui.

Friday is going to be Beverage Day. Hoist a few for me! It is also Joseph Brackett (?) Day, Nurse Recognition Day, No Diet day, No Homework Day, No Pants Day and Tuba Day.

P.S. I looked it up for you. Joseph Brackett was a songwriter and Elder in the Shaker church. He wrote a song called "Simple Gifts" which apparently got big a hundred years after he wrote it.

Too Much Time On My Hands

It was one of those nights when everything went smoothly up in the comm room. Nothing was lost, broken or misplaced. I got through the inventory amazingly fast and with minimal interruptions. When I went to check the admin building all the doors were locked that were supposed to be locked.

In short, I was bored to tears.

During one of my smoke breaks Vinnie came down and showed me a page of the novel he's been writing at for the last few years. It struck a chord in my brain. Things whirled around in my head and when I got back up to the comm room I sat down at the computer and this came out:

I walked in to find a partial roll of toilet paper laying on the floor. Only one or two squares of it were loose, flapping slowly in the breeze there on the floor.

Who in the hell had left that there?

Where did it come from?

And why toilet paper? What did it mean?

It was incongruous. It was ridiculous. But it gave me a shiver that went all the way to my core like someone had just poured liquid nitrogen down the back of my pants. The kind of chill that is so hard your butt cheeks slam together like you'll never be able to poop again.

I wanted to bolt for the basement and very nearly did before I realized that we didn't have one. The attic was equally fictional. This building only had one floor. Who designs buildings like that? It was insane. What if there was some sort of emergency?

An emergency like the very one I was facing at this moment.

Only one way out of the room. And, as I had missed seeing the roll of toilet paper on my way in, it was now between me and the door. Escape appeared to be impossible.

Think! I had to think! I've read all of those books. One of them had to have a solution. All of those hard bitten detectives who had been in deadly peril must have faced something similar. Battling it out with armed thugs was nothing like this, you understand. But one of them must have faced something almost as dangerous as my present situation.

Suddenly, it hit me!

An idea, not the toilet paper.

I leapt forward, grabbing the errant roll in my hand and winding the loose squares back onto it and stuffed it unceremoniously back into the desk drawer.

That was a close call.

I may have to put myself in for a bonus.

When I finished writing this I decided I would print it out and save it for later. There is no printer in the comm room. The nearest one is down in the control center, which is where I print things anyway.

So I sent it down there. And the following conversation ensued:

Ms Odd: The printer is working. Rev is upstairs. He must be bored.

Sgt Puddle: Yup. Nobody else sends anything up here to print. Must be him.

Vinnie: This should be good!

A few minutes later my phone rings and Sgt Puddle says "Are you okay up there?"

Me: "Oh yeah. Got it under control. I subdued it."

Then Vinnie gets on the phone. "Did you have any further contact with the roll of toilet paper?"

Me: "No"

Vinnie: "Did you receive any injuries from the toilet paper?"

Me: "No"

Vinnie: "Do you need to see a counselor?"

Me: "No, I'm good thanks anyway."

And they spent the rest of the evening leaving partial rolls of toilet paper all over the place, just to freak me out. It almost worked a couple of times.

The bottom line was that apparently I have too much time on my hands. I need a hobby. Or a girlfriend. Or a girlfriend with a hobby. Or maybe one of all three of those. I'm sure my wife wouldn't mind.

So Thursday is National Hoagie Day. There's a celebration you can really sink your teeth into! It's also Cartoonists Day, Cinco De Mayo, International Midwives Day, Martin Z. Mollusk Day and the International Day of Reason.

And just who in the snap is Martin Z. Mollusk?

Backing Up

Even though I had been doing my own backup files on the external hard drive, my new computer decided that it was going to do a scheduled backup this evening, right after I came home.

I explained to it very firmly and decisively that it should be performing this onerous task at 2:00 am on Sunday mornings. At which point it agreed and proceeded to back up my files anyway, pretty much locking up my computer and preventing me from using it. It cheerfully agreed with me to do this at 2:00 am on Sunday mornings, while doing it right now anyway.

We were, it seemed, at an impasse.

I could, of course, use one of the other computers in the house. We have, at present, five of them. All hooked into our wireless network and all quite capable of posting an entry on my blog.

But it was the principal of the thing, you see. I wanted to use my computer and sit in my comfy new chair and have my things about me while I composed whatever opus had sprung unbidden from my brow at the moment.

Of course by now whatever it was that I was going to write about has completely fled my mind and gone off to sulk in a dark corner somewhere. Undoubtedly I will find it years from now when I actually get around to replacing the carpet. I'll find this dried, dead, dessicated, withered up husk of an idea jammed beneath the coats and the stack of monogrammed pillows in the closet and think "What the hell was that thing? Ewww!"

I just sat here, staring at the screen while it went on it's merry way creating another backup file that I will never be able to find again should I need it. Of course should I ever have any computer trouble, all I have to do is locate the nearest ten year old who should be able to fix my problem in no time. I think the kid that works in the local computer geek store is no more than fifteen.

Remember when computer geeks all looked like Jerry Garcia? They all had beards and suspenders and wore sandals everywhere they went? Now those same guys all wear suits by Brooks Brothers and drive BMW's. Sheesh.

So I wasted half my remaining awake time waiting in vain for the thing to get done. In the meantime my sleepy pill was working it's way into my system making my eyelids weigh about ten pounds apiece. I have to keep stopping and slapping myself in order to finish a sentence.

I think I'll stop and check the calendar before I fall asleep on the keyboard and wake up with qwerty face syndrome.

Wednesday is National Candied Orange Peel Day, which just sounds nasty. It is also the Great American Grump Out, Intergalactic Star Wars Day and Respect For Chickens Day.

May the fourth be with you....

The Perfect Spokesman?

I was on my way home tonight, composing my blog entry in my head. I had it all figured out how I was going to write about how they blew a hole in the levee after all because a federal judge said that our 180,000 acres of farmland and 200 homes were less important than a town of 2,800 people and is, from what I've heard, a dump anyway. It sounds to me, from the descriptions, that the place would probably benefit from a good rinsing out.

Anyway.

I was on my way home, like I said, composing my post and listening to the radio with half an ear while I drove and thought.

And this radio commercial comes on for some prescription-strength allergy medicine that is sold over the counter. Claims it will allay all of your allergy ills with one small pill and won't make you drowsy like some of those other medicines.

Their radio spokesman? None other than Alice Cooper.

Seriously.

Would you buy anything based on his recommendation?

Let me rephrase that.

Would you buy anything that didn't come rolled up in a baggie based on his recommendation?

Seriously. They might as well have gotten Keith Richards or even Charlie Sheen to endorse their product.

I'm not doubting the man's talent, but do you think someone who devoted their life to craziness and excesses is a good celebrity spokesman for a drug company? A legitimate drug company?

"Hi. I'm Alice Cooper. Use this product or Satan will move into your underwear drawer and I'll come bite the head off your cat."

I think if I ran into Alice Cooper on the streets and he said "Here, try this stuff, man! It's killer!" I'd probably believe him. But if he came up to me trying to hawk allergy pills as the cure for my ailments I'd just stand there and look at him funny and wonder if I was on Candid Camera or something.

I'm just saying.

Anyway, they blew the levee and we will probably be getting some of those level 5 inmates pretty soon, unless they find some other place to put them until the waters subside. It's going to be a large pain in the butt and nobody is looking forward to the extra hassle and drain on our manpower that this will entail.

That all being said, let's check the calendar, shall we?

Sorry about the rant there. It just struck a weird nerve.

Wednesday is Lumpy Rug Day. It is also National Disabled Pets Day (?), Two Different Colored Shoes Day, Garden Meditation Day, Public Radio Day and Paranormal Day.

Wow. I think I'll stick with the lumpy rug. Got one of those already.