Two letters in one day.
Wow two letters in one day, sort of. Day one still of the new approach to writing.
Because the brains around here could not figure out how to keep the air conditioner from pumping out cold air, they shut the whole thing off. It means that as I sit here to write, I am suffering from sweaty pits and mild trouble breathing.
I did nose around and according to one of the inmates who may actually know a thing or two; this building has its own boiler for heat and hot water in addition to the "chiller" unit. The system is under computer control and they could not get it to properly synchronize. Instead of doing some sort of manual override, they left the air circulation on without the chiller.
I still cannot understand why we cannot get enough of the cold air from outside into this three story room. If hot air rises, and the output vents for the system are in the ceiling, one would think that if it could get some of the cold air from outside in here it would cool off in no time.
The bigger problem to me is if that is not happening, what kind of "fresh" air do we get in the room? Currently we have 106 men in here, all who seem to take delight in either seeing how long they can go between showers, or enjoy the sport of gas passing at all hours of the day and night.
I have mentioned that the system allegedly takes in eight percent outside air. Even thought it is cool enough to wear sweaters outside in the courtyard, here I sweat and type.
We could certainly use two of the floor fans which are now at the front of the room, directly opposite the side with the doors to the hall and the doors to the courtyard, and place them by the doors to pump in the cold air. I have been told by some of the inmates that have been here for a while that this was done in the past. Instead we have six or seven fans blowing around the same stale hot air.
Four of the fans are mounted halfway up the wall in the four corners of the room. They are pointed down, and since hot air rises, these fans are essentially blowing the warmer air back down on us. The bottom line is I am very miserable and yet I must perform at peak efficiency in order to provide the quality product (my letters) you deserve.
I did make it out to walk today for the first time in about ten days. I came back hungry and was going to make some pasta and tuna with onion and mushrooms for one, but it turned out to be for three. I finished cooking, eating and dishwashing and then jumped into the shower.
By 2:00 PM I was at the typewriter and pretty much transcribed, proofed and printed the handwritten letter by 3:45 PM. Today was pizza for dinner. At 4 PM, I had one rectangular piece of pizza. I could easily eat three or four slices, but here one slice is the meal.
We played four-handed spades from 6 to 8 PM, and I basically did not do much for the remainder of the evening. I did complete my reading of the Saturday May 14, New York Times, and will work on the Sunday paper tomorrow.
The heat works against my full cup headphones, as the vinyl covered padding, which does a great job of keeping out the noise, does not breathe at all. I think I might have mentioned that before. Hopefully we will get the cool air back on soon. The officers do not have a separate area with air conditioning, so at least they also suffer along with us.
While it is too early to tell if I can keep up with the new idea of writing out in long hand, it did work great today.
There was one spot in the letter where I still had two words reversed while I was printing the ribbon copy. I was able to stop the page from being printed, manually go back and erase the two words and retype them in the correct order. I then restarted the printing and finished off the page. I am going to be vigilant and seek to produce near perfect letters.
I continue to slog my way through "
Killer Angels" and am now at page 103. I am going to take a break and read some more of it now and then return to this letter tomorrow. It is now 11:50 so tomorrow is only ten minutes away. I will probably read for more than ten minutes.
It is tomorrow, and then some. I woke up at some point last night, glasses on, light on, Killer Angels lying in front of my nose. Took glasses off, turned light off, and moved book to the shelf and went back to sleep. Not sure "Killer Angels" is good bedtime reading.
It is now 10:45 AM and I did go for the one hour speed walk, took my shower and am now contemplating a nap. Cheese, four slices, is the alternate selection for lunch today. That is what I will be eating. On Pita bread. The main selection is tuna. They do not give you any mustard; it really is just the cheese and the pita.
After lunch, I will set up shop and type this letter. [Best laid plans; I did more napping/reading this afternoon. Two Hours of card playing and it is now 9 PM]
That is about it for now.
PS. I did receive the books (twelve not ten) and your Tuesday letter today. Thanks for the books. I really need to get reading. I must have over twenty-five books in my possession now. Some are already read and I need to get them to the library. Some are reference, but there are still lots to read!!! Hopefully once air gets back on I will be able to read more. The heat is just so wearing. It would not be bad if we could get the nice cool air in. I know I am beating a dead horse.
In keeping with the think before I write plan, I will not add anything to this letter now, but will handwrite out my daily letters over the weekend, typing some each day and you will get it all by Wednesday?
9:15 Time to P & P.... proof and print!
