Prison Pete
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Prison Pete on the Move.
[Editor] I noticed a lot of references from Atheist Rants & Rages recently, so I surfed on over. There was a post about Pete and I commented there. I thought I would reprint and expand upon those comments here.
To answer the question regarding the Christmas time delay, Prison Pete's blog postings are normally about two weeks behind the date of his letters to me. However, I was away on vacation the last two weeks of December, and during that time Pete wrote me six handwritten letters averaging eight pages each.
Since then I received an additional eleven letters, all handwritten! He doesn't have much else to do besides sleep, read, and write.
All of his letters do eventually get typed, but I have not caught up and the blog is still running about four weeks behind. It was much easier for me when Pete had regular access to a typewriter and all I had to do was scan his typed letters into an OCR program to produce machine-readable text.
Up until recently I typed all of these handwritten letters myself, and then several kind blog readers responded to my pleas for help and volunteered to type some of Pete's letters. This has helped a lot, but I still spend a significant amount of my time editing the typed letters before posting anything on the blog. I remove personal references and change all names to protect the innocent (or the guilty).
It is an awful lot of work for me, and though I have complained about it several times lately, I would like the blog to continue so I am hanging in there, but am not doing as much for Pete as I used to do.
I currently have seven letters waiting to be typed. Any volunteers?
As for Pete, as of the beginning of January 2005 Pete is no longer in the county jail and has been transferred into the NY State Prison system. Unfortunately, in the move Pete lost his address book.
You would think by now that he would know my address by heart, but alas, the first two letters he wrote to me from NY State prison he used the wrong zip code. It took three weeks for these letters to reach me, and I guess it is lucky that I received them at all.
The second of these letters, the first one written from his new home, I just received yesterday. So now with these letters to type, I am even further behind in the posting schedule.
The other problem caused by the missing letters is that for about ten days I did not know Pete had moved. I have since learned that NY State prison inmates have extremely limited (for all practical purposes, nonexistent) phone privileges, so he was unable to call me and tell me that he had moved.
This disconnect between us resulted in me continuing to send books and letters to the county jail where he had been. My letters were eventually "Returned to Sender" after about a week in transit, but the books were refused and returned to me with postage due.
I am not the world's greatest typist, and I spent several hours today typing the first of the two "missing letters." I hope to start posting from them in the next day or two. I would rather have a slight delay than have the blog get out of chronological order. Be patient, I will eventually catch up.
So now Pete is serving NY State time and yes, I believe he is being punished twice for the same crime. I don't know how this is possible either, but he is hopeful that the recent Supreme Court ruling (see UNITED STATES v. BOOKER [04-104]) will help his situation.
At best, he could be released immediately (but would still be on Federal probation); at worst, well, he often says things can always be worse, but I think that his current situation in this regard already is the worst, and he would not be eligible for parole until November 2009.
To answer the question regarding the Christmas time delay, Prison Pete's blog postings are normally about two weeks behind the date of his letters to me. However, I was away on vacation the last two weeks of December, and during that time Pete wrote me six handwritten letters averaging eight pages each.
Since then I received an additional eleven letters, all handwritten! He doesn't have much else to do besides sleep, read, and write.
All of his letters do eventually get typed, but I have not caught up and the blog is still running about four weeks behind. It was much easier for me when Pete had regular access to a typewriter and all I had to do was scan his typed letters into an OCR program to produce machine-readable text.
Up until recently I typed all of these handwritten letters myself, and then several kind blog readers responded to my pleas for help and volunteered to type some of Pete's letters. This has helped a lot, but I still spend a significant amount of my time editing the typed letters before posting anything on the blog. I remove personal references and change all names to protect the innocent (or the guilty).
It is an awful lot of work for me, and though I have complained about it several times lately, I would like the blog to continue so I am hanging in there, but am not doing as much for Pete as I used to do.
I currently have seven letters waiting to be typed. Any volunteers?
As for Pete, as of the beginning of January 2005 Pete is no longer in the county jail and has been transferred into the NY State Prison system. Unfortunately, in the move Pete lost his address book.
You would think by now that he would know my address by heart, but alas, the first two letters he wrote to me from NY State prison he used the wrong zip code. It took three weeks for these letters to reach me, and I guess it is lucky that I received them at all.
The second of these letters, the first one written from his new home, I just received yesterday. So now with these letters to type, I am even further behind in the posting schedule.
The other problem caused by the missing letters is that for about ten days I did not know Pete had moved. I have since learned that NY State prison inmates have extremely limited (for all practical purposes, nonexistent) phone privileges, so he was unable to call me and tell me that he had moved.
This disconnect between us resulted in me continuing to send books and letters to the county jail where he had been. My letters were eventually "Returned to Sender" after about a week in transit, but the books were refused and returned to me with postage due.
I am not the world's greatest typist, and I spent several hours today typing the first of the two "missing letters." I hope to start posting from them in the next day or two. I would rather have a slight delay than have the blog get out of chronological order. Be patient, I will eventually catch up.
So now Pete is serving NY State time and yes, I believe he is being punished twice for the same crime. I don't know how this is possible either, but he is hopeful that the recent Supreme Court ruling (see UNITED STATES v. BOOKER [04-104]) will help his situation.
At best, he could be released immediately (but would still be on Federal probation); at worst, well, he often says things can always be worse, but I think that his current situation in this regard already is the worst, and he would not be eligible for parole until November 2009.
Comments:
I could type some for you. My AIM address is chavezravine1433, or email me at chriswinn@at2k.org. I love the blog and would be glad to help.
Peace...
Peace...
Di,
How do I get in touch with you? I looked on your blog and did not see an email address. You can email to me from the email link in Prison Pete's blog.
Thanks,
Editor
How do I get in touch with you? I looked on your blog and did not see an email address. You can email to me from the email link in Prison Pete's blog.
Thanks,
Editor
If you need any help typing the posts for Pete's blog, I'd be happy to help out. E-mail me at greeneyedkitten2003@yahoo.com
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