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I’m sure I’m way slow to this realization, but the kind of paper you use in an inkjet printer really makes a difference. Not so much in quality of the print, but a whole lot when it comes to jams. We recently bought a new combination printer/scanner/copier dog-walker and I was extremely frustrated with how often it was jamming up. When we first got it no problem, but after printing about 100 pages it started to jam up more often that it printed a sheet correctly. I was pulling my hair out when it just came to me: “I’ve always used plain copy paper, why don’t I just try the ink jet paper and see if it makes a difference.” Oh glorious day has it made a difference! I haven’t had jam one since I started using the inkjet paper, and while it is pretty irritating that it doesn’t owrk with the (cheaper) copy paper, at least my printer is reliable again. I hope this helps keep someone else from tearing out the chunks of hair that I did.
Well, Prison Series readers: just got great news. Carlos is finally out of “the hole”, (solitary confinement), and is not going to be charged with anything in connection with the inmate who got beaten up. It’s a great load off my mind, I can tell you. Finally I can change my Page-A-Day Calendar off the entry for Feb 10th (the day he got rolled up) that reads “Never Give Up on Anyone. Miracles Happen Every Day.” Thanks to all of you who prayed for him, as I did. I had a bit of a ‘crisis of faith’ over this issue, but God’s timing is always perfect, and hopefully, things will just keep on getting better and better for Carlos.
I am getting ready to take a trip to Calif with some of my family, ie sister (Panther)& son (Michael), brother(David) & wife(Jane), and my own son, Jim to see other sister(Francie) and husband (Neil) in San Luis Obispo. I know we will have a lot of fun. I am a little apprehensive over the 6 hour drive to Boise tomorrow in the predicted snowstorm, but I will take my time. I plan to blog the trip, so for your sake, I hope it is amusing.
We had a busy day at the prison store today. When I arrived for work, a couple of ordered shipments had already arrived. When this happens, the clerks stack all the boxes in the first, small room that is separated from the main store by a locked door. The first room is also locked, but an officer can let them in. Noone can get into the main store without me and my magic key. Sometimes there is so much stuff in that entry room that I have a hard time even getting to the second door to unlock it, but that wasn’t a problem today. Joe arranges all the invoices, writes our store merchandise number next to each item on it, then hands it over to me to input into the computer. Now after inputting, I usually have Joe check to make sure I have entered the correct number of items received to avoid repeating silly errors. “No,” he told me today, “You put down 48 pens. It says we received 24.” “But, isn’t it 24 2-pks?” I queried, “And don’t we sell them by the each?” What I heard next was not something I often hear, and it was music to my ears: “You’re right,” he grinned sheepishly. Now, that’s what I’m talking about!
The guys, meanwhile are busy stocking shelves. Often, a box will be a bit crushed, and inside will be damaged merchandise. Today it was coffee and cocoa butter lotion. It’s not a problem though; the company is very good about replacing damaged items. Then its time for me to run the store orders on the computer. Today was a very good day; lots of inmates had ‘money on their books’, and we had lots for them to buy. Also, this is their last chance for store until I get back on March 20, so they are trying to make the most of it.
My new clerk, Sean, is working out very well. He is smart and enthusiastic, and a good communicator. I didn’t think the job would be fun anymore without Carlos, but I was wrong. Though different, it is becoming enjoyable once again. Sometimes I think Sean is a little frustrated with Joe’s teaching methods. Joe knows the job so well, he begins to explain, then just takes over and does it himself. I brought in some pizza and cake today, and we celebrated the good news about Carlos. I hear glowing stories about Miss Ida, the former storekeeper, and the wondrous feasts she used to bring in. “Miss Ida loved to cook,” Joe fondly remembers. I know I can never live up to whole barbecued turkeys and homemade jalapeno bread, so I won’t even try. When I leave today, everyone wishes me a safe and fun vacation.
So, parole for a week. California, here we come!
UltraMom
Just a quick note: I was just looking over the stats for this web site, and it looks like 40% of the hits to this site are still coming from Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer opens you up to all kinds of virus, spyware, and security related problems, and is a fairly outdated crappy browser besides. Do yourself a favor, go download firefox and install it. It is free, it is much better, and it will help keep your computer from getting bogged down with spyware and stuff like that, though you are likely to already have quite a bit of that since you are currently running Internet Explorer. Trust me, Firefox is better, try it for a week, and you’ll never go back. Oh yeah, when you get it installed and have it open, try pressing Ctrl-t. A new tab will open and you’ll be able to keep more than one website open in the same window in different tabs. That is a feature that I will never be able to do without again. Oh yeah, one more tip: if you want the link you are clicking to open in a new tab, hold down the Ctrl key while you click the link (you can also hold shift along with it to open the new tab in the background. If you haven’t yet, go download it now. Really. You’ll thank me later. Now! Go!!
Went into Tokyo today for a meeting with a potential client in the morning. We had a nice talk, and she seems extremely interesting. I definitely want to talk to her some more in the future even if I don’t do her website work for her.
After the meeting, I was very fortunate in that Tod had not yet gone to lunch, and we were able to go out for sushi in Kanda and catch up. It had been way too long since I last saw Tod. Gotta take UltraGirl to that sushi place soon, it is fantastic. We learned about a new (to us) type of sushi today called noresore (no-ray-sew-ray) and if you are interested I can explain more about it later.
After we finished eating, Tod went back to work, and I went over to the Apple Store in Ginza since I had noticed this morning that one of the two memory slots in my powerbook had stopped working. I was 1 month away from the expiration of my warranty so that was lucky, and I went ahead and bought the extended warranty I had been meaning to buy for quite some time. The friendly fellow at the Genius Bar examined the machine, confirmed that a memory slot was indeed not working, and told me I’ll need to send it in to the repair center to have the motherboard replaced. Now I just have to figure out when I can do without Calculon (said Powerbook’s name, all my computers except the older ones, have the names of characters in Futurama) for a couple of days. Until then I have to limp along on 1 Gb of ram.
Well, I really want to keep up with writing here, and I would dearly love to be writing at the same time as my dear UltraMom, but I always seem to find myself finally getting around to trying to write something when bedtime is eminent. I got that extra comment I needed too, so I need to work on another off those longer posts about the house hunt.
The house, by the way, seems to be coming along pretty well. The frame is all done, and the roof tiles are on. There is some black tar paper like stuff on the outside, and some chicken wire looking stuff stapled on top of that. I think the chicken wire stuff is likely for the purpose of giving the siding something to grip, so I think the siding will go up soon. It looks like they are working inside the house quite a bit now, so though we can’t go in there I’m guessing that is progressing as well.
In other news, I got my taxes for Japan done yesterday. Now to do them for the U.S. I’ve probably already whined on here about how the U.S. government charges for taxes even when I make all my money abroad so I won’t go into it again. Just to head off comments about it at the pass though, I have my own business, and so the place I’m getting nailed is, if I recall correctly, social security taxes which don’t fall under the $80,000 foreign income credit. Which reminds me, Japan and the U.S. recently came to some agreement about retirement taxes paid in one country applying to the other country’s retirement system so I need to ask my accountant about that for this year.
UltraMom here, reporting from the prison store where I have been given an awesome responsibility. But to fully understand this task, a little background information is in order.
Last month, in my month-end packet, I received an equipment inventory to review and update. On the list were three freezers, each with its own serial number and state issue ownership number, but, alas, in our establishment is only one freezer, though a very nice one. Upon consulting with my staff, they recalled that there were, at one time, two freezers, but one had quit working and the old Lieutenant had it consigned to the outer regions of the camp. I noted on the form that, actually, only one freezer was currently in our possession, signed, dated and soon this very important information was winging its way back home.
I thought the deed was done and thought no more on the matter until a couple of days ago when Jackson phoned me. After the pleasantries and the requisite number of “cools” and “awesomes”, he inquired about the state of the two no longer existing freezers. “Call Ida (the former storekeeper),” he ordered. “Do everything you can to find out where those freezers went.”
“There were ever only two freezers while I was there,” Ida informed me a short time later. “One of those two quit working and it was taken to the dump.” Now we were getting somewhere!
“Okay, okay,” mused Jackson, “See if you can send Joe out there to get the state ownership number off of that freezer. I really need that number.”
Well, okay. “They won’t let me go out there by myself,” Joe predicted. “It’s outside the gate. Besides, its really muddy out there.”
I approached Sarge with my request: “Can I take Joe and Crash to the dump?”
He regretfully shook his head. “No, I can’t allow that. You can ask the LT, but I don’t think so. You’ll have to go yourself.”
On my way to find the LT, I ran into Sarge again. “My boss says I need to go look at the old, junked freezer and get the state number off of it,” I told him. “It looks pretty muddy out there, and I don’t want to ruin my shoes.”
“Oh, you mean the ‘bone pile’, ” said Sarge. “I thought you wanted to take the guys to the city dump. Yeah, go ahead, but be sure to take two of them.”
Okay. John and Crash changed their shoes, anticipating muckiness, and I, having no shoes to change into, anticipated only walking partway, but the ground proved more solid than it looked. We wandered past all manner of rusty, junked appliances, vehicles and impressive metal objects. To my delight, several rabbits put in an appearance; apparently this was their home. Finally we arrived at the freezer, jotted down the number and made our way back to the gate, congratulating ourselves on a job well done.
A note greeted me on my return. “Call Jackson.” Well, I was planning to call him anyway; I had his precious number after all. But, no, he wanted more, and here we come to my task, or quest, if you will: “Bring me the sticker with the state ownership number on it,” he commanded. “I tried to call you back, but you were already gone.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked, ready to laugh at his little joke. As it turns out, he wasn’t. “I feel like I’m in one of those Fairy Tales, ” I told him, “You know, ‘Bring me the golden feather from the eagle’s wing.” “Yeah, just get it and mail it to me,” he repeated, unamused. “But, Jackson, how am I going to get it off of there?”
“Just send Joe out with a flat screwdriver,” he suggested. “He should be able to get it off with that.”
Well, we had been through that before, and later in the day, I decided to just go on out there myself and not get involved in all that permission-asking stuff again. Crash procured a screwdriver for me, and out I went. But the screwdriver head was too broad, and all I accomplished was to mash the edge of the flimsy sticker. “I’ll have to try it later,” I grumbled to myself. “Guess I’ll need a thin-bladed knife or something.” It had been raining off and on all day, and the wind was fierce. Fierce, I tell you. On the way back, I started jogging a little to try to warm up and get back a little quicker.
But when I arrived back in the building, the place was in a bit of an uproar. Several inmates were having trouble keeping a straight face, and Officer Holt motioned me over. “Can I talk to you a moment,” he asked, steering me inside the office. Uh oh. “I didn’t know you were out there,” he began, “and suddenly I saw someone running. I almost chased you down. I thought a prisoner was taking off.” I assured him that I had learned two valuable lessons that day: 1) Let someone know if you are going to go outside the camp to the bonepile, and 2) Don’t run. Joe and Jay found this very amusing; me less so.
A few days later, I got permission to take some guys out with me again, this time armed with a small pocketknife. Now we had Sean, our new clerk, and since Joe was really not into changing his shoes, I took Sean and the ever-eager Crash. But we STILL couldn’t peel that pesky label off. This isn’t the way “Quests” happen in those fairy tales. Deal with it, Jackson.
UltraMom, the Failure
UltraMom here, still in prison. In our last episode, UltraMom was looking for a new inmate clerk to replace the much-missed Carlos, who was sent to solitary in Cedar. As you may recall, he was accused of taking part in badly beating up another inmate, but the only thing he was guilty of was being in the wrong place at the wrong time . Carlos is still “in the hole”, and I fear things are not looking good for him. As part of the prison code of conduct, “ratting” is the lowest of the low, so Carlos would never finger anyone else to save his own skin. “Ratting”, at a previous time, in fact, was the reason the unfortunate inmate received the beating in the first place.
Joe and I had been making do with the help of Jay, the property clerk, and the ever-friendly and oh-so-helpful Crash. When I returned to work after a few days off, I was hopeful the recommended prisoner Sergio would have arrived as promised, but in seems he was diverted him to another prison. That left us back at the “drawing board”. After reviewing my “kites” and getting some more input from officers and my trio of assistants I approached our Caseworker, Ms. Smith, with my selection. “We need to have interviews,” she informed me. We can have no prejudice or discrimination.” That was fine with me; and we arranged for a time the following day when the new Lietenant, Ms Smith, the current crew boss of most of the inmates and myself could get together and grill our prospects.
So, what qualities do YOU look for in a prospective employee? Several things come to mind:1) Its good if they come to the interview in clean jeans and blue button-down shirt instead of holey sweats and grungy t-shirt, 2) Not too many Notice of Charges or Yard Points (indications of disciplinary actions for misconduct), 3) Should have some time left to serve. You don’t want to train a new store clerk, only to have him skip out on you cause he got parole or was approved for a rehab-type program, 4) Better if not “fire-trained”. Most of the prisoners go out on work crews and fight fires in season, if they have been able to pass a written and physical fire cert. test. The crew bosses don’t like to lose a good fire-trained man to an incamp job, 5) Better if a bit of a loner; “friends” can exert pressure to give a little extra from the store! 6) The store job doesn’t pay all that well, so its better if they have a little outside money coming in from friends or family. 7) Honesty. Probably better to steer away from those whose crimes involved stealing or robbery.
But you probably came up with the same list. Just basic, common sense stuff, right?
I arrived the next day at the appointed time to find the prison in an uproar. It was also the day scheduled for inmate TB testing, and the nurses from Cedar were about an hour late. Lunch was happening somewhere in there, and also a couple of shipments of ordered product for the store and kitchen arrived. Interviews were postponed until later in the afternoon.
Finally we were assembled in the caseworker’s office. When Mr. Finch, the crew boss supervisor found out we were interviewing 13 candidates, he rose from his seat. “Count me out,” he said as he beat a hasty retreat. “I’m okay with anyone you pick. I’m not sitting here for 13 interviews.” Well, now there was a chair for the interviewee. I got a quick lesson on using the intercom, and we were off and running. “Gonzales to the caseworker’s office. Gonzales. And bring your I.D.” I asked most of the questions with occasional input from Ms Smith and Lt Hudson. Two of the men had decided they no longer wished to work in the store. The others assured us that they were above threats and temptations, as far as the store was concerned. Over one hour later, the Lt asked me if I had made a choice.
I put forward the name of the inmate I had originally chosen and the deed was done. “Be sure to save all your notes and applications,” Ms Smith told me. “Put them in your CYA file.” Unlike many unfamiliar acronyms bandied about the prison, this one I had heard of “Cover Your ###.” I wanted no hard feelings, so I called each candidate back and spoke to them individually in MY office (the store). It was actually kind of nice for me to become familiar with a few more faces and stories, and noone seemed to harbor a grudge at not being chosen for the elite store job.
Sean, our new store clerk is an intelligent young man of Asian/American heritage. He is learning quickly under Joe, a perfectionist and merciless taskmaster. Besides his eagerness and work ethic, Sean has one more quality I highly value: he talks to me. I have already heard much of a young life messed up by drugs and the wrong companions. I also hear how Carlos helped Sean “turn it around” once they met in prison. “I had a bad attitude,” Sean tells me. “I got into trouble and fought all the time. I got out of work any time I could. Carlos came up to me and said, ‘Hey, Man, what are you doing? Do you want to get out of here, or what?’ Carlos kept to himself mostly, but everyone respected him and noone messed with him. I didn’t have anything when I first got here, and he gave me stuff out of his own pocket and showed me the right way to act. Carlos was like a mentor to me.” Sean now has obtained his high school diploma with very high marks, and admits to being a “bit of a nerd” cause he loves to read. I have him on a one month probationary period, but I have a feeling he will work out.
When I get to work today, there is a memo in my box. It is from Lt Hudson. From now on, it seems, inmate hiring will follow a different procedure. In the interests of not wasting valuable time, the prospective boss needing new help will screen the candidates him or herself, narrowing the field down to 3-4 likely ones. The “committee” will then interview only those few. Wonder where THAT came from?
UltraMom the boss
