I’ve been in prison camp for just over 2 1/2 months, which is about 10% of my expected stay. My daily routine is still similar. During the week I get up around 6am, grab breakfast, lift weights at the gym, then get to a van for work at 7am. With my new Unicor job, I take a 20 minute van ride on some nice country roads to a warehouse on the grounds of Allenwood Federal Penitentiary. They bring us a boxed lunch while working and then we typically return to the camp between 1:30 and 2pm. Upon arrival back I check email, get ice and rest a little. If it’s not too cold outside I run from 3-3:30; otherwise, I use an elliptical at the gym. Then I shower and am in my cube for the 4pm count. Dinner is typically 4:45. After dinner I check email, write, read, and wait around for mail call. Sometimes I walk over the gym and play pool as well or on Friday nights I attend Trivia night with a small group of white collar inmates. At 7:45 I talk with Patti. Then at 8pm I either read the same book as Patti or watch the same movie as Patti and some of our children, with me using a tablet watching in my bed. I’m addicted to snacking on Hershey’s with almonds, Hershey’s special dark, and Butter Toffee peanuts around 8pm. I brew a bunch of Lipton black tea for iced tea in the afternoons and evenings and snack on Coke Zero, Doritos, salt peanuts, chocolate protein shakes, Swiss Miss cocoa, buttered popcorn, fake cheeses and crackers. To compliment the mostly bland food, I use ketchup, bbq sauce, sweet & hot Asian sauce, black pepper, garlic powder, Italian cheese blend and Italian spice blend (He has to purchase all of these items at the commissary).
On the weekends I’ve been sleeping in until 7-8am. Typically on Saturday I’ll check email, lift, write, then I’m in the cube for 10am count. Around 10:45 there is lunch, which is often breakfast type food. Then I read, write, email, watch TV and then resume my normal schedule at 3pm with a cardio workout. Often on Sunday, Patti will visit, sometimes bringing the children. She’s been arriving around 9:15 am and leaving around 2:45 pm.
Patti has been keeping busy at home. She did all of the Christmas shopping, like she normally does. She has been bringing in wood to a dry staging area in the back of our house, keeping the house warm with a basement stove on 24×7 since mid-November and using an upstairs stove on many cold nights. Heating the house is a part time job and she is proud of using very little oil again this winter so far – less than 1 gallon. Last year I think we managed to only burn a few gallons as well. She has been finishing up some office work for our pool business – collecting $ from customers who still have not paid, bookkeeping, taxes, W2, etc. She also helped my attorneys and me with yet another bank seizure, where they froze our joint bank account again. They planned to take all of the funds in it, which were from our 2022 income tax refunds, but after we pointed out that half was Patti’s, we settled with them taking half the account. It wasn’t a ton of $, but the timing could not have been worse with checks bouncing again for us only days after I arrived at prison camp. Also it is nice not having to find and start yet another bank account. Apparently there is a collection division that just seizes any money in my name. It’s going to be an uphill battle trying to figure out how to save any money in my name, so that I can retire some day.
January had some unplanned car and home repairs for Patti. One of our cars has a bad axle/half shaft. I replaced it myself at 50k miles right after we purchased it in 2018. I replaced the side axle about a year ago. Now the original side axle had the CV joint boot break again at just over 100k. Definitely a bad design on the car which is a 2013 BMW 528xi (Don’t purchase this car). The 2.0 liter engine alone has many issues. It’s great on gas, but a lemon…Then a rock punctured a relatively new tire on the same car. Luckily both issues should be covered by warranties, but it is a hassle for me to coach Patti through these fixes. Then last Friday, right before the deep freeze, the furnace thermostat went blank. Patti continued to heat the house with wood, staying up late and getting up early. One of our pool customers who owns an HVAC company was out yesterday and discovered only the circuit breaker tripped. When everyone is used to me fixing everything and I’m not around it’s frustrating. I tried to teach everyone how to manage home maintenance and repairs without me, but it was tough to cover every little detail. Before I left I performed maintenance on the cars, lawn mower, snow blower, both wood stoves, and replaced major parts with the pool, but there are always surprises. We also have 2 winters of split and sawed up firewood, some of which will require some splitting. Then we have another 2 winters of wood ready to be processed. All this wood is compliments from another great pool customer who owns a tree service company. I even taught Patti and Gabriel how to use our chainsaws if needed. Luckily, they have lots of experience with the log splitter, although the kids hate that machine 😉 Coincidentally the engine for the log splitter died just weeks before I went away, so I replaced it with a cheap Harbor Freight engine. Our son Connor was out today from his apartment in Bloomfield to clean out the basement stove pipe. It is great that Connor and Gabriel learned that task just before I left. I also taught the family how to close the pool for a second time this fall.
Everyone continues to be so supportive to us. As I previously mentioned, we received lots of emails and texts from customers. Two customers stopped over Christmas Eve to visit with Patti. Family members have spent extra time with Patti and the children over meals, visits, and movies. The children themselves are close and communicate with each other and Patti via text daily. I’ve received numerous letters, cards and emails from family, friends, old employees, and fellow parishioners. For Thanksgiving, a neighbor and parishioner gave Patti a holiday food basket from the Rosary Society and church and for Christmas the church gave Patti money to assist with some expenses (Patti has earmarked the money to deposit it into his commissary account when it needs to be replenished to pay for supplies, email and movie rentals). We are so blessed to have such generosity and love from everyone.
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