Update, just an update...

Nothing important here, people are hunting or harvesting or working their tails off (think that phrase comes from the old days of horse drawn stuff) and I am pretending to catch up to the things on the internet, I am so behind, older and fat and that is my fault.

The Civilian Marksmanship Program is out of ammunition, and that can't be a good thing. Still I put in my order for ammunition, on September third, and yesterday, October nineteenth, it was delivered to my door by the friendly folks at Federal Express (FedEx for those in the know). I looked for all the stereo typical Gun Loving fools stuff, didn't find the cases of beer, or trash barrels of empties, no Confederate Battle Flags nor patches, I do have, hanging on the wall in the Computer Cave a Bennington flag from the fine efforts of General John Stark and company (it is just beautiful). And the Green Mountain boys were there with their flag, which has a whole different type of being Green.

And to really check on this Redneck stuff, I am again reading James Webb's Born Fighting : How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, yep, I do like to look that over periodically. Our family oral tradition is that the Dungeys left Ireland for England during the struggle between James II and William, and the evidence is that one of William's soldiers (from the Dutch?) settled in Kent and they married good English women ever after until they departed for America, Australia, and other points in the the British Empire. I go with the oral tradition, cause you got to believe family and it would explain my love of fighting and the Williams that keep cropping up in the male names.

Almost time to rejoin Humanity, have breakfast, unpack and store ammunition, exercise and jog (I have been so slack) and be a better fellow than you would ever know --- or try to be.

Linking Books and they circulate...

First batch of books finished and moving out in circulation today, another book cart full going through processing, another cart unboxed and preparing to move into processing and four still to be opened boxes of books to go. Maybe, if everything works well I can get everything done by next Friday. Turned in my Fire Extinguisher and First Aid Kit Report for the month, now I have the library reports to email to the Gang of Three (Go3). Our special Interlibrary loan system for the Camps came back up on line today, so I know there are others out there as I see their replies to the requests. Looking forward to the book budget figures, since it was cut by fifty percent I will have to be tighter than I really am, more paperbacks and less latest of favorite authors, which always come out in hardback first.

As we start processing the materials the favored few show up to see what they HAVE TO HAVE FIRST, don't play well with others and you want to know why some of these patrons should stay here? Because they don't play well with others.

The world didn't miss me, but that is okay...

I dropped off the world for a bit, didn't spend anytime on making it a better place, unless my absence was a positive thing. Five or six wargames yesterday, two today, I did watch The Patriot with Mel Gibson (it is almost Braveheart done in the late 18th Century). Read more about the Revolutionary War, and then Sunday I posted, went to church and then sank into dropping off the world again. This time I watched Waterloo with Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer - when I say I am a certain pattern I do know what I am talking about. By time dinner was done and my wife was off to her church I was ready to break out -- so I did.

If this were a soap opera I would be off to find some foolish females, but they are stuck on television and the gossip columnist's page of the vanishing newspapers. I was out for the ride, and maybe some new warmer dryer gauntlets for the Trusty Triumph, tomorrow will have just above freezing waiting for me. The Eagle Leather was closed, they didn't know I was coming, so I continued my ride, hard and fast down I-5, then turning off to go to the bookstore - such a guy, such a library guy. I wanted a copy of Paul Revere's Ride, and the History of the Rifle (which is really American Rifle A Biography) I didn't find the second book but did run across Fusiliers : The Saga of a British Redcoat Regiment in the American Revolution, so I grabbed it and went to the non-fiction upstairs to see what was there -- and found the book I didn't have the proper title for. Now I always kid the inmate patrons about how if they don't know the title and author they will have to put up with whatever I find that could be close - and don't ask me to spell correctly for them either -- still I try, so did the sales people at Borders, I walked out a richer man for my gain, and helped stimulate the economy a bit more. Ever try to stick three books in their bag inside your leather bad boy jacket and not look like you should be riding an H-D Fat Boy, cause you are one? No, well, except for being a bit blocky in the belly I am sure no one noticed. Well, I have enough reading awaiting, and after the Beautiful Ladies get done talking on Korean television I get to watch the Iron Empress. Life is good.

Not much here, but any story is better than none...

I got on my morning ferry, looking for that seat to nap upon, and under the seat across from me was a five dollar bill, the new Lincoln in colors and tricks. I pick it up and wonder at my luck, I need half a million or so, but five dollars is a start. Where did it come from? The last trip from the island brought most of the third shift off and the students, those kids that live on the island and commute to school by ferry. Since adults use wallets or money clips I go with the thought that it is some kid's lunch money and got lost along the way. I give it to the Security Chief on my way off the ferry, tell him where it was found and what I thought. I don't need five dollars, I can actually carry cash for days now so I will wait on that mythical Lotto win of MILLIONS, and hope the kid got to eat somehow.

Aside from thinking that I am dying from electronic entertainment I really don't like watching entertainment and then having to wait for the next piece of action after four to eight commercials, that is really wasting my time. Since my wife is at a Revival I will put the Blues on and read "The Chronicles of Malus Darkblade" volume one, by Dan Abnett & Mike Lee. I will be out for a bit, somewhere else where everything is falling apart, and Assault Swords are probably illegal, never mind magical. I think too often that we (the People) keep waiting on that Hero and Leader that is going to solve our problems - but Sam Adams and John Hancock weren't the folks that fought the British all the way back to Boston, they were politicians - they needed the fathers, the farmers, the craftsmen, the men without title nor honors - just steady, brave and true and they needed a lot of them. And they came forth, the real heroes are legion, the political celebrities are noted... and thanked by History.

Okay, the splash landing was the best...

I was impressed with the landing on the Hudson River, and more impressed that the pilot hasn't been all over television talking about it. My father was a pilot and made some of the softest landings I have ever had, in some of the finest farmland in America. But I was thinking that there are thousands of professionals in their work that could do it even when everything goes bad, and if they can't they still die trying to do it right.

I went to see Defiance today, a movie from a time long ago, and far away. Still, I liked the movie, and understand the critics - but then they never lived in a time when people die beside you, behind you and in droves, they haven't lived with the lie that being a Jew means you are inferior and won't fight, they haven't lived with the lie that hiding will keep you safe, which is as bad as the one that says fighting will keep you safe. I will have to try and read the book, because the movie doesn't tell me enough about the brothers and what they did to survive and save 1200, not an insignificant number when people are dying by the millions. Having studied some about resistance and guerrilla warfare I want to know about the tactics. I have laughed too long about the survivalists that I think have little training in combat operations, but then I could be wrong. I have been so before. And then they came to America and built a life and a trucking company?

Won't he ever grow up? I mean, sixty-one?, reading...

Stayed up to finish Starship Troopers, again. Did I learn anything new? was there something I missed the first twenty times I read it? Is it that different than any other "young man going to war for all the wrong reasons" story? Well, I do know I still like the story and I figure I will read it again some day - given enough time, and yes, it was worth the loss of sleep staying up till after midnight. I mean it is not like I have a life that I have to participate in at that time - the time the infomercials start to crawl across the television as they figure out the lost are all that are watching. I was listening to the Blues for background, I do have some taste. Clayton Tait did the artwork, which is not Mobile Infantry but Space Marines from Warhammer 40K.

How to Destroy a Library

Libraries have always been part of my life, I find them full of things I want to know about, think upon and stories to enjoy . They insure that I am continually learning, long after departing the classroom, and they have always supported the quest for knowledge about fighting, loving and foolishness unique to my life. Since I am not the only patron to use the library I would say that for my tax dollars the public library achieves more than the public school system in education, far beyond the K through 12 range. Imagine Lincoln, Douglass, Jefferson and others that valued the printed words with the library systems of our last one hundred years.

Ignorance is destroying our libraries, the people that think they can steal the whole book, CD or tape don't understand the worth as part of a shared collection. I have been weeding the collection at McNeil Island's library of all the books that are missing pictures, pages and sometimes whole chapters. To the one individual that took something away from us all - a curse on your efforts for evil - not that I am a cursor. I don't need to be - in your little world things are stolen from you, you live in fear of being found out. You know the reason you want those pictures of scantily clad elves is because you are attracted to desires for the bodies of children - that is an ugly thing and most of the other inmates will do bloody things to you if they find out. No, you don't need to be cursed for your life is dark, the hidden pictures of beautiful cars, women and motorcycles that you think give you power are just waiting for the corrections officers to find or for you to toss out when the fear finds you again. I know that you won't stop messing up your library, stealing from it and ruining it - not until you grow up and learn to value things you haven't had to pay for, that don't cost you anything directly, until you grow up and learn to share, until you get really old and accept that others will get better people around them in life, and that you will die alone because you never became a better person. You will be back to the library that you have profaned and marred, and those wounds you left don't heal - there isn't enough money for repairing the Vandals' destruction.

Another type of ignorance that destroys libraries, is budget cutting. So having worked in libraries for over fifteen years, the fears of the staff always focus a bit on the budget cycle. There are only so many dollars, and one can hire five people at thirty thousand a year and only one at one hundred and fifty thousand a year. Which is fine if the the big payroll provides more donations and bequests and improvements in how the library provides services and relevance to the community needs. Having been one of the five on budget cuts while there are always well paid leadership and management - leading and managing less every time the budget is cut - I have my opinion. Seems that I have voiced my opinion and shocked some of that leadership a bit before - but I blame that on not being well led and stress relief. Budget is exactly like diet - a word that exists to describe a process and quickly becomes associated with an uncomfortable process that hurts something in one's good life, but if you had always known and observed the process - and lived in moderation - the pain would never be there. But when one has over-reached in spending, the cut back comes and the staff is reduced, the hours shortened, the service slinks off into only a memory and an old fairy tale, until that final cut must be made - that closes the door to the library. Those doors don't ever seem to re-open, and another light in the lives of the library patrons old, new and future is extinguished.

Working a prison library, where there aren't too many lights for the most terrible population of prisoners, 1200 inmates with open time for only six hundred and sixty to have one hour a week, every week that the one Library Keeper is around to open the door five days. There are too many potential patrons that can't improve their minds, lives and futures. They will be coming one day to live with you - to become part of your community. Will they be better neighbors? Did they get a chance to learn what they hadn't before being imprisoned about working for a better life, making good choices and basic good manners? Or are you going to get the fools that still steal from library books, that don't share, that don't care and that only know how to scare?

Friday, furiously finishing...

I normally step out long and quickly, the foot race to the gates from the ferry, and today I am a winner! I pick up a backup tape on my way into the prison, get the distribution from Control and open the library, turn on the computers and the day is fast and full and fun. Everything in its place and still bubbles of something new and something different, when the patrons show up in the afternoon they are loud and boisterous. I have three hours of roar and rumble of bass voices, then suddenly Recall is sounded and the library empties, my crew cleans off table discharge, puts the chairs in place as I turn off computers. They wish me a good week's end and one mentions he has a four day weekend since his mother is visiting on Monday. I tell them that I will see them Monday, Lord willing as I time stamp the time sheets for their departure. Silence, I put the radio away, turn off the lights, pick up distribution and walk to the door, going out and turning around to lock it. Check the door, turn the knob and shake - the library has finished its first week of November. Only rest a bit before Monday starts it again.

Good morning, too early but sleep is done...

Time to run, haven't gotten the blood pressure measured yet, but I am very heavy, although a half pound lighter than yesterday morning. Imagine that, change to fresh batteries and the air pump and measuring stuff hummmm, right along and find the pressure and the heart rate in record time. Duracell, not that Energy Bunny.

Dreams were different, a bit, there was a military overcast, but a church was much more central than barracks with broken plumbing. The church was a bit disorganized, but the ladies of the church (and this was a kind of country church) rode around in shiny aluminum camper vans with busy hens painted like nose art on the rear end in eight foot by seven foot size - nothing 'chicken little' about that, and they were busy. There was singing, picnicking and good works being done, but there was friction and the minister was in shadows and not leading as much as led... I did get to slide my M1 Garand into the dream, to take shooting, right up there with the other church activities. I have thrown darts, played cards, dominoes, volley ball, softball and pitched horse shoes - but have never shot targets with the church. More the Boy Scout activity, is my life that compartmentalized? Is compartmentalized a verb? Don't forget the Girl Scouts need to learn how to shoot, too. Breda would never forgive my lapse.

Big day today, register the newer rifle on Fort Lewis, registered weapons hurt so many fewer people than unregistered weapons - look it up (everyone has an opinion). Then drop off twenty-six dollars in rolled coins for my savings account - every penny saved today will help the credit crunch. Bankers know if they don't have money to move and if they don't move money quickly that they won't get rich and be able to send their grandchildren to Ivy League schools - because bankers only get paid by the number of times they assist in moving money - more times equal more money (successful moves, not the throw away kind). And it doesn't matter what kind of money - drug money, thug money, tax money or Zimbabwe's best fresh printed. The only thing the government needs to do is make sure the money is sound - but policy seems to dictate that is really beyond the control of the government, or they pretend it is. Although the United States is my country and is BIG, STRONG and wonderfully Democratic as an evolving Republic/Empire - the current policy of printing money to pump up the volume is exactly what little ol' Zimbabwe does to keep the population placid... along with thuggery. We haven't gotten to the laws making us behave better yet, but they are right behind the bail out. Anyway, back to my last positive thought - put your loose change into a bank today, help jump start the economy (no, don't go buy anything on credit, pay all that off!).

The visiting English librarian visits today, this afternoon, the crew cleaned up and we look okay. I have eleven boxes of almost new books, donated by a citizen probably because our library was in the newspaper and he was reminded that not everyone was as fortunate as he. So he shared, and it adds to the work day, but he is a man and the books I have looked at so far will circulate well in my reading population. Still, there are too many for just my library and we will list and ship to other libraries and camps over the coming weeks.

My wife has finally paid attention to my being gone this weekend -- off to shoot, wondering if I was going hunting. Nope, just shooting. She has the estimators coming on Friday morning before she goes to work. She had yesterday off, Federal Holiday, and was housemaking and humming along. I got the Kiwi, Strawberry, Pineapple, Cherry shortcake for desert last evening - which is why I am not two pounds less weight this morning, but it was so good - yes, Cool Whip could have added a pound but she didn't add that and I like real whipped cream - but no one does that anymore do they?

well, it is tuesday, garbage goes out day...

My dreams were of making and firing fireworks off, a very amateur production and intensely exciting when done well, and if they didn't launch the worry about them becoming just a local area bomb in place - the place one doesn't want to be. Nice dreams, and a new exploration.

The visit from the communications officer and my top two supervisors went very well, very quickly. The best part was that when movement was called the surge of inmate patrons, carrying books and questing for knowledge and being typically demanding constantly interrupted our conversation. I was busy and looked like a juggler on that pre-Swiss circus ball going around entertaining. There was a Recreations Staff guy that took pictures but I couldn't figure that out, he was shooting towards the library and the inmates, and they don't have to have pictures done and are protected, we'll see. The quickness was coming on one boat and leaving on the following one - less than an hour on island. Works for me, I had a ton of stuff that I stopped and had to go back and finish.

I am proud, I have cleaned up and shredded the dreaded procrastination pile of plenty 'portant papers. All the numbers are carefully placed in the proper digital accounting device (Quicken in this household) or hammered in furiously so the total reflects my kind of reality... I am so ahead of Wall Street, I don't have to ask for help from Congress and I am not blaming anything on the sitting or previous administrations - I blame Earl. Broad shoulders and broad belly he can bare the burden. Since the selling off on Wall Street I went looking for the closing prices in what we invested in, and are investing in, and plugged them in - it has been a while since I did that, but I did have the reports from July about the second quarter - yep, we are poorer again, sigh. Having plugged the numbers in for over thirty some years I am prepared for the ups and the downs of the market - and even with yesterday's results I am so far ahead of that just returned from Vietnam guy buying a two hundred and fifty dollar Pontiac with the wires dangling loose and the body internally rusting out (road salts anyone?)

Three weeks not taking the Doctor's recommended medicines, and I feel better every day - must be getting closer to Heaven's door than I know. I don't know anything except to go see the doctor when one is sick, wounded or ill. But if he measures you and finds you different and out of the box, I don't think taking a pill is going to help - and what one believes has much to do with the success of medicine and lack thereof....

Y'all have a great day, some lucky folks are harvesting and I just have to take out the garbage and go jog after breakfast. The mound of shredded paper I created must get to the land fill for future flaky foundations.

Dazy two back on the job, going to day three...

One would think that they missed me, they were politely absent Friday but Monday they poured in to see if we have anything new, have I heard about the latest Cormac McCarthy, and would you please get me all the DSHS addresses in Seattle. I walked down to the dock and ran into one of my better patrons, young man had just been released and was walking up the road I was walking down. He has to go get his check cashed, he was supposed to have a bus ticket, but being a guy and his ride over an hour away he was walking to the bank- about three miles from where they land the ferry he got off. I was supposed to cancel his reserves when I got to the library - but I will do that when I find his name on the Release list.

Rumor had it that I had cancer, won the Lotto or had a breakdown. But they missed me (seven days), the crew isn't really tuned up yet either, but today we should get more done and find all the changes I have to make happen before Friday when my supervisor returns, and next Monday when the Program Manager and my Supervisor will be bringing a Communications Officer from the Office of the Secretary of State for an orientation visit. Seems we are still looking for help on BROADCASTING our story. The Institutional Library Services blog has gone live - you can find us at: Well, imagine that, I went looking in the Washington State Library webpages and couldn't find our button to push.... and there are blog buttons here, and blog buttons there and one wonders who is in charge of blog buttons and why they can't be in one place? as well as other places. Ah, I ain't perfect - looking at my link in the library links on the left I notice my creative spelling Institutioinal Library Services always was more "i" in my life than others wanted to share.

It would be nice if the thousands of library people wanting to find out about institutional library services knew where we are, but then I couldn't find the button and I work in that blog, sigh. Well, in home email is again the offer of donation of books to our libraries, will have to respond.

Fourteen and a half minutes to go...

Well, The News Tribune article about the Library I keep open showed up this morning. I am not a real librarian (MLS) to those that know, but am to those that want one and only get me. Nice picture, Mister Lui Kit Wong, you are even better than I anticipated - made me wish I was that nice looking guy in the picture. Brian Everstine hit the right note, and wasn't jarring in his report, you the readers may make up your mind about what could be done. My sister asked if I thought it would get more money from the legislature and I had to say no. There isn't more money, and the priority will go to more police and laws, I will keep working on one better reader at a time...

Since my last blog about reporting on me and my work will disappear when this gets posted I will note it again, since their site has been updated. From my telephone interview with Ms. Mudd -- a PDF file of an article in the OCLC "Western Trek" magazine. I mentioned being interviewed and page eight and nine are the result. One nice lady at church this morning actually wanted me to sign my picture, I got a good laugh out of that, only fourteen and a half minutes of fame to go, best get back to work on it.

workday, how it goes and now you know...

I have an eleven and a half hour break from home, for travel to work, work and back, five days per week. Monday and Tuesday start at 9:30 AM and Wednesday through Friday start at 6:00 AM. So I raise the garage door and wheel the Trusty Triumph out, turn fuel valve, pull choke (not really) hit switch, and go back to pack lunch into backpack and put on helmet and goggles, grab gloves and lock down garage door and get on motorcycle. Take a breath, pull on gloves, zipper jacket, look at the Sunrise, push in choke (not really), hands on grips, pull in clutch lever, push down into first gear, look around one more time and roll down the drive engaging clutch friction zone, roll on the throttle and away...

It is a thirty minute ride, with all the traffic lights and stuff to slow me down, Lakewood police and photo speed traps. But it is a great day and I am mellow, alert and having lots of fun on the ride. I do notice with the sunny day and it being Friday that the roads are rather empty - did I miss the notification of a holiday? Is everyone calling in sick? I am so on top of it rolling into the parking lot and shutting down. I lock up, pack the helmet and goggles in the backpack and put on the baseball cap and start walking down to the dock. Thirty to thirty-five minutes, walking by the new construction on the High School and down the hill through the woods. It always reminds me of Pennsylvanian forest, oaks and maples with broad branches and leaves shading the roadway. Since I go so slow I approach a doe with her fawn, preparing to cross the road, lean and delicate she eyes me and twitches her ears in my direction, safe she walks across the road with the fawn in trail position, stopping as the fawn enters the wood to eyeball me and twitch the ears, making sure I am not following. Nature is to be part of, not just read about. Now if human females paid that much attention to me I would be in trouble, all the time.

I talk to one of the counselors about the article about the library - everyone with a computer and time on McNeil Island got a chance to read about it, some write and this man talks with me about it. He rides a Harley with all the trimmings when he feels Harley-like, only the best of days, with leathers, chaps, and boots. We load on to the ferry for the ride to McNeil Island. Loading takes twenty minutes, the ride takes twenty minutes - I could nap or read, so I read about shooting my rifle better "The Hunter's Guide to Accurate Shooting: How to Hit what you are aiming at in any Situation" by Wayne Van Zwoll. Foot race off the boat onto the floating dock (tide is twelve and more feet) and on to the prison. Pick up distribution and open the library, turn on the computers, switch back up tape and take my gear off and put the radio with fresh battery on my belt.

The first three hours are doing Overdue notices, answering email and checking in books from the book drop, then shelving and shelf reading, I get permission to add twenty-seven donated books to the collection and I download their MARC records, write the call number up for the clerks to make and give them the books to prepare for circulation, I will get them one more time to link them and check the processing. One of my workers has a visit, every two weeks if he is lucky, so he leaves after an hour. We do a hot trash run, recycle and trash with rag bag exchange - which means we get outside into the Industry compound and say hello to all our patrons at their jobs - and they do want noticed and appreciated. I have prepared the outgoing mail so while the clerks are back at their units until called for lunch I take the mail and overdue slips and pickup notices to the communications boxes and the mailroom. One bin for one bin, daily news papers, three magazines (two of them in Spanish) and eight interlibrary loan (ILL) items, a very light mail day.

I stop for my lunch; a pickle, sandwich and two red apples. I get two workers back after lunch and that looks like the crew, so shelving has effectively stopped. We take in, check out and find desired items. I register some new patrons and answer more email, and find I have two book carts approved for purchase - only sixty-six items and sixty dollars under budget - I will look at something to fill that gap. The missing worker shows up two hours after lunch, he fell asleep - it is Friday and I expect everyone that works will want to sleep early and long on Friday - it doesn't happen that way, but seems like it should. So the shelving starts again in the last hour, the new books are almost ready for linking (I will wait until Monday). We sent five CDs off to Acquisitions for processing, they were donated by inmates - so they could buy others, they are only allowed to own fifteen, I believe. I close up and put in the mail bins all the returned ILL materials from the afternoon, first out going mail is Monday at 11:30.

Book talk today covered: "The Last Lecture" purchased and read recently by myself and my worker with the visitor, he wondered that the author hadn't died -- I would find out later that today he did. Another worker has been convinced to read "Dune" and he doesn't do much fiction and science fiction isn't his genre - but he will do well with that one. He turned one of his buddies on to "Forever War" which he had recently finished, and I told him to try "First Blood" and forget Rambo the movie and put yourself in post Vietnam America. Being tough guys, the three of us have done all of Cormac McCarthy's recent works. Patrons want me to buy all the J.A Jance and Evanovich that I can get. One patron that is always on me about buying more James Patterson was worried about my long bushy eyebrows and I told him he would be talked about if he kept looking at me that closely. It doesn't grow on top like it once did, eyebrows might be all I get soon, look what they do for Andy Rooney. I am wading carefully in the book "A History of the American People" by Paul Johnson -- recommended by Jerry Pournelle, who is fighting his own battle with cancers, growths and age. I don't need more History, just a fresher look at it from this Englishman's perspective.

Recall is sounded, the library empties and the crew cleans off the tables, re-sets the chairs in place and says good-bye promising to show up in a couple of weeks. I turn all the computers off, one last check of email, put the radio and keys away, sign the tool inventory form and shut off the lights. Another week bites the dust. It is almost four and I have an hour and a half left before I ride up on the sidewalk at my home.

The afternoon is beautiful, the ferry ride isn't packed - some people must have left early and I talk with the tool sergeant about whatevers, and read more about that sight picture when shooting. We get on the first bus out, I get on my motorcycle and the day is perfect except for all the caged drivers hogging the road, sigh - the oil industry will have another great quarter of profits. At the same place I met her yesterday is the young woman on her Sportster. She has a blue shirt today, it was purple yesterday and this time she is a couple of cars behind me. Since this is the same time and place as yesterday, we are now in a relationship. I didn't like her getting ahead of me by taking the road she did, cutting four stop lights out of her ride - so today I take her turn first and she follows me - she rides fearlessly but not foolishly, and we are almost paired riding to and down Pacific, we go into the turn onto military road in fine form and on to where we will each leave the road - each to our own lives - just a short casual relationship, but she rides well and that is a good thing. It is almost five - thirty.

Home, dinner with my wife, Korean zuccinni pancakes, with seasame seed soy sauce and Smackdown awaits - but I will fall asleep somewhere during commercial breaks.

End of the Year (Fiscally speaking)

All the money must be spent by the end of June, and accounted for and don't disturb the fellows over there doing it. It is a lot of work. My part of it was spending the money budgeted smoothly over the ten months I was granted (two months belong to the accountants that I must not disturb), and I am close to where I should be. Explained to me several times during the last few weeks that my dollar amount granted was only a temporary figure and it could end up higher or lower - as the accountants worried at it. I was given a day to go Purchase Order Shopping, first amount was $1089.52 but by the time I made the telephone coordination it was $1122.00. The first time I went to the book store the manager wasn't in, and it was a wasted trip, so I went back to my library and worked on stuff that had piled up. I have procrastination piles at work as well as home, but my Program Manager has told me for years that it was okay not to get everything done each day and to have something left for tomorrow - hmm, they haven't been working with a military mission that says all equipment accounted for, cleaned and refilled and ready to roll back out - or you don't get to go to bed or back home until it is done, my habits are engraved on my work expectations.

Well, the shopping went well, since I had a long wish list for older books missing from series, favorite authors that we had worn the pages out for heavy circulation, some classics and music requests - get us more music CDs! In three hours I shopped and picked up and looked over and grabbed the final copy - kind of fun spending the State's money on my fancy - but then I did get many things I won't read, but that they will. It is an almost regular library I keep and reading will set one free, if only while he dwells in the world between the pages and his mind. I was rung up, and packed out and get a ten percent discount for bulk purchases of used books. Four big boxes on a hand cart and out to my Caravan, load it up, return the handcart and drive off to the Depot loading dock. I label the boxes "Library" and talk to the freight chief, he gets them put on the first truck for the ferry in the morning and I am done for the day. I missed the last ferry that could have gotten me to work an hour, so I took two hours off after calling my supervisor, who had been holding down the library while I was shopping.

The following day I report for work, and catch up on what I hadn't done the day before and take my whole four inmate crew down to the mailroom, and there are the boxes and two days of mail bins - work awaits and we haul it all back up the stairs to Control and into the library. I unload the boxes on a bookcart and hide it away - curiosity is terrible, and knowledge is power and a commodity on the inside my clerks have real work to do and fondling new books and CDs just isn't going to be done on this day. Next week we would start processing.

So I organized the books, and searched the internet for MARC records to download, I find a hundred and fifty of the items. I get the inmates to make call numbers and add genre labels as needed, stamp, barcode, date due slip and 3M security strips. I will wait on downloading the MARC until I have a clean day and can link all the items, since I must submit a report to the State Library about all the additions to the collection. Since I can't find everything, the British and Australian publications not always covered in my search areas I have to send those items off to Acquisitions for them to process and return to me with a MARC to link to, I am still waiting on two from April but it is all part of that end of Fiscal year clean up and account for all the dollars. I am receiving other material prepared for adding to the collection as they continue to process the small additions and stuff that was stuffed in the closets until they could get around to them. Twenty-four items and eight items and I have loaded them up and the patrons are already reserving some of them - everyone wants to be first for the latest Patterson or Vachss.

Well, keeping the library open and normal operations, plus adding the extra processing and accounting makes a busy day, but on Friday I will download and link and they will scan, check one last time, putting those special books on reserve and grabbing the ones they just can't wait to read (the best part of working a library is first dibs). From only a wishlist on Thursday, to an actual item in the collection for circulation on the following Friday, and I get to ride a motorcycle with a smile for a job well done and a great week's work.

*The picture is posed from last year's movement of the library - not from receiving new books...

Diversity or division and gang warfare?

Back to work, running a prison library and the work flows. Today the Mexicans came up with more requests. My token Hispanic, who calls himself 'Brown' and says he doesn't speak any English was looking out for his brethren. If they speak Mexican they always approach him first, so he comes up with another young man to ask for something about Aztec Dance. They are having their heritage day in September (don't think Cinco de Mayo) for El Grito is 16 September, and want to have the Aztec costumes, music and dance as part of the festivities. I asked if it was going to end with open heart surgery, prison humor, and wanted to know if there was more. They wanted pictures and stories about Ninos Heroes, Villa, Zapata and Benito Juarez. I get waves of this kind of request.

As Juneteenth was being planned I get requests for The Emancipation Proclamation, some Black History and Heroes. I shake my head, the books are there on the shelves, have been all year and have been read - but the men asking for assistance aren't real readers and would like something to hold in their hand and work with. American lack of education system at its worst, grown men that can't read well enough to be confident that they could find the right answers.

When the white men started looking for Viking, Norse and Nordik Religion, myths and History I began to think I was watching the rising of the Aryan Nation again. Sure enough, they started looking for Aryan language and roots. The search is on, and History and Fantasy flows from the books and information found. Now I see a Scavenger Hunt Game on typed sheets of paper - over a hundred tough questions about Norse Kings and their wars in England and the World. New and old Historical Fiction of the period and the Vikings are getting well circulated. I am even asked to give some classes on the Germanic migrations, and the follow-on Nordic. I haven't time nor talent, but I do make sure the best of the books are present for reference and circulation.

I give all the assistance I can in each group's search for truth and its roots. The prison has taken most of their identity away and stuffed them in white t-shirts and khaki pants. All alone they have little power, together with a tradition and a history they become greater than just felons. They know that they can't be Americans any more, they have no Rights when they leave the Corrections system, as former felons they can't have weapons, serve in office nor vote. Unless their civil rights are restored - look it up, the law makes a felon a permanent lower class in America.

I constantly compare my military experience with the prison, and always like the military better - it is an honored (except by hippie peace-niks) profession. And prison is where the felons go, the ones growing pot near a school bus stop (school ground?) and the ones carrying a firearm in public libraries, lots of ways to become a felon - ask Martha Stewart. The military always loses much of its 'honor' when some civilian thinking person comes along to make it less military - luckily they send the armed forces off to fight and the military comes back with a roar, and the ones wanting it to be kinder and gentler are sent to improve the education system or fix voting fraud at home. Anyway, my point is that the military will take the need to be part of the group of gory glory gunners and use it to get the best out of what could have been the worst. The only way I can make a big difference in the prison is with a respectful, challenging but helpful educating of the inmate into what is in the library, what we can bring into the library and what he can do with his new knowledge. He has to do all the work, and he has to survive and he has to spread the word about what he has found. I always like one old hand inmate leading a new guy from the chain around to get registered and shown where the good books are, another one for our side.

Sunday shines

I weigh 204.5 pounds today, my blood pressure is 115/68 or 119/73 with a consistant heart rate of 37 beats per minute sitting down. I am reading Cinderella Man, by Jeremy Schaap, better than the movie, which I have and love - because it speaks to the people, the country and the times of the events. Best History lesson on America of the period.

I started blogging because the Institutional Library System was going to build a blog for the public and I was supposed to be one of the blog writers, and so I started Just the Library Keeper and I wrote and posted and posted. Then I told my family and friends about it and sent them links to check it out. Some looked but never returned, but I kept churning out words and didn't have to bother the family any longer. Then I decided to stop worrying about the calendar and posting my measurements and exercises on it, I built another blog Physical Fitness for Foold so I can see what I thought when, what I weighed and measured, and my general health and a bit of what was happening. Just think of all the trees I have saved by not sending letters, think of all the cyberspace left for important commercial announcements about Viagra or variations of get me rich schemes. Hit that DELETE key, folks.

Well, the Institutional Library Services blog site will be closely monitored for political correctness and comment, of course the ones monitoring it don't want to write it, they just want to control it and the public image. I find my blogs helpful, I get to write and whine and wonder, I have my favorite places to check for thoughts from other folks - some close to my thoughts but the most interesting are from people doing their lives well, writing it, and I get to peek and become a lurker - although when I feel important and wise and sharing I do drop a note, most not too worthy. It would depend on the subject I am commenting on. There are people that visit my site and drop comments or just read, I am not counting visits nor comments and more than anything I write because I want to say something and that will be enough.

My sister wrote a wonderful letter, and sent it email, and I have her last two from before but then I wonder if she or her husband check my blog to see how I am. Probably not, my teaching sister said she liked the blog idea and thought she could build one, but then she is very busy and I don't think she got around to it, she didn't say she had - and she still writes letters. My brother is doing stuff in Denver, with music and sound, and supporting the current Presidential Primary conflict (oops, it is only a contest not a conflict).

Well, I do need to get started on this Sunday, Communion Sunday in my chuch, working in the choir (can't really sing, so work at it), and riding my motorcycle to the girl friends (like I ever had any - I am just out for the ride without rain). I do have a round Mount Rainier ride on 14 June with some sunshine riders from DOC, has a barbeque and poker run with it. No, I don't have any idea what to do with a poker run, nor the social barbeque - but I want to ride around Mount Rainier. Seems sometimes like I don't get out enough. This Friday, the 9th, the 191st Infantry Brigade from Fort Lewis has a motorcycle safety ride, two hundred and fifty miles in six hours, they asked the Patriot Guard Riders for assistance and I don't feel 9120 miles on my Triumph enough to make me a mentor, but I would like to try and keep up with those young folks and have a great Friday. I ought to for my Community Service, not given for breaking the peace or a law but just because I can relate and community service shouldn't be thought of as a punishment but an honor. That is the problem with push ups, used punishment too often.

Well, my wife has a birthday tomorrow, so I had best figure out how to help celebrate it - kiss and a hug minimum, jello birthday cake? I should be so much better when I grow up. She is looking so beautiful this morning, as we breakfast together - twas my prep.

What do they read? isn't the important question...

When I give briefings to visitors to the library I am often asked 'what do they read?' and the cheap throw away answer is 'True Crime, of course'. The truth is that 'they' (the inmates) read everything that you do, except they can't go online and the Department of Corrections has a list of books and types of information that would be bad to have them read while in prison, mostly about security issues. I think the more important question is 'what do they steal from the library?'.

I mostly think that only stupid people steal from a free library inside a prison fence where they can never get it outside. But then the intelligence of some patrons is questioned in every library I have ever worked at, in response to their questioning mine or my co-workers', certainly. But back to what they steal, they start with stealing the sports section of the newspapers, for betting on fantasy football or other real events. They steal the colored pictures of beautiful models digitally enhanced, if not also under a plastic surgeon's care. Those things are easy to hide and pull out when one has forgotten what their sexual desires are focused on, needing refeshed. Some of the fancies are a bit stranger but I have purposely missed mentioning those.

The theft that is costly is of books, 'the self-weeding collection' as we in the prison libraries understand it, and the most popular ones are the ones that give them POWER. Robert Greene puts together a book, titled "The 48 Laws of Power" and it is immediately stolen. Yes, we do have a 3M security system and all the books are sensitized and how long do you think it takes them to figure it out? However it happens, the book is now gone, and we buy a replacement. Robert Greene comes out with another title "The Art of Seduction", and it is immediately stolen and I buy a replacement. Do you see the pattern here? He has a third book "33 Stategies of War" and we haven't seen it since the second circulation. I am buying all three in paperback and will read them and then donate them to the library, for they do have some excellent information that I have gleaned from a life time of reading, and Robert Greene found the same and put it together nicely. I expect they will also be stolen, for the inmates that steal from our libraries inside of prison have lost everything, feel no control of their lives and are afraid of most people and things around them. So they steal what they hope will make them stonger, and then don't read it, just hide it and hug it for warmth and feel it makes them a player again.

Kind of like those self improvement books, how to build one's abs - you can buy five or six of them - but until you start curling your body and flexing the core and working tirelessly in motion the abs don't change - not from hugging those books or putting them on the shelves, they must be read, practiced and re-read and understood. But then I did mention what kind of an inmate steals books, didn't I? Luckily most inmates just check the books out and return them very late, overdues abound, for inmates have a personal time that doesn't match the date due stamp - not very fair, most books come in on time or are re-newed, circulation is about seven thousand items per month, and I only have to replace the stuff that wears out or is lost. I only have about twenty books 'missing' in action a month. Write another one, Robert Greene.