It Is About Time! It is about noon here, Thursday, July 26, 2007. I have an unexpected day off and thought it would be a good idea to spend the day writing posts for the blog.

There is plenty to write about but I am having difficulty getting started. I am now typing out a draft, using carbon paper to preserve the ribbon, and will then proof and print out the final copy.

I started (for the umpteenth time) to write out my thoughts for the blog in a notebook, then this morning another attempt at handwriting out a draft and that lasted all of five minutes before I ended up lying down on my bed and napping my way through the morning. Now I am just buckling down and doing it. [Note: It is now 7:30 PM and I am starting the proof and print. I have twelve double spaced pages to cover.]

Yesterday, I broke one of my cardinal rules of not working on other inmate’s property. We are allowed to have a small plastic personal fan that can clip on to the end of our beds. They tend to attract all sorts of dirt and eventually make a real racket or just stop working. I had taken my fan down to work and used the air compressor to clean out the motor. I applied some white grease and now my fan runs better than new.

I took my neighbor’s fan down and when I opened it up to blow all the dirt away I saw that this fan had already been toyed with by someone else. The wires were all haphazardly attached and not even properly insulated. I should have just closed it back up and returned it to my neighbor, but no, I went ahead and took the motor out and not only found the bad wiring but discovered that pieces of the motor were missing and had ended up in the bearings. As I am typing this I am getting all sorts of grief about how I broke his fan.

Tomorrow I am going to take his fan and mine down to work. Using my fan as the model, I will attempt to properly solder and insulate the wires. In the meantime he has taken the fan apart several times and has probably gotten it to the point where I will not be able to fix it. If all else fails, I am going to put the insides from my fan into his case and then I will need to buy a new fan. The now broken fan is not one he brought new; he purchased it as part of the prison underground economy in used, half-assed condition for a couple dollars worth of stamps. The new fan will cost me around $8.00.

I am working on a database solution for one of the officers in the food service area. He has been off for the past two days. Instead of being able to head over and work on that project, I will first need to solve the fan problem. The end result would appear to be that not only will I miss out on computer programming time, but I will be without a working fan for the next two weeks. Good move Pete.  ¶ 10:57 PM