Update

New Year (well as far as my “anniversary” goes at least)…. New job! “Chef Hollywood” (as I am called) is now working as a Chef for the officers in the “OM” aka The Officer Mess Hall. I just started the new position this week and so far… it is fantastic. I had no idea this […]

Well… that’s one year guys. Absolutely surreal. Never in my wildest dreams (or fears to be more accurate) would I EVER have imagined that I would be in federal prison… EVER. But here we are and I have decided that I am going to look at this milestone (and the future milestones) as an anniversary.

Control. The elusive notion that we all seem to try to grasp and implement into our lives at every little facet but the thing that seems to evade our grasp at every turn. And behind these walls… just forget about it. I have been struggling the past couple weeks with my lack of “control” as

This week is dedicated to an incredible book that I was sent called “When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi. Man – what an amazing journey of life lessons through a heartbreaking but uplifting and immensely insightful true story about Paul’s life. I highly recommend that you guys check it out… just emotionally prepare yourself

I had an interesting idea this past week during one of my “homeboys” birthday parties (I know… I will explain). Whenever one of the guys has a birthday in here… the rest of the crew gets together and buys ingredients to make a “team meal” and we all get together outside on the basketball court

Cool experience this week… I was working in Psychology and I got into a conversation with one of the Psy-D interns that is doing her residency here at T.I. We sat and talked for almost 2 hours and for those couple hours… I was no longer in prison. I was having the type of conversation

I had the honor and priviledge of being invited to the graduation for the 31st DD-RDAP class this past week. DD-RDAP is the Dual-Diagnosis Residential Drug and Alcohol Program that T.I. runs (also just found out that T.I. is the only facility on the west coast that has this specific program outside of the “standard”

So… some “incidents” have taken place in my unit this past week and because of this… the powers that be decided to close our TV rooms “until further notice”. The guys are not happy about this… so there are now 100-150 dudes standing around… walking through the hallways… in not so great of moods… complaining

My sister sent me the transcripts of a Ted Talk by Brene Brown this week that smacked me right in the face… it hit home in so many ways that it choked me up while I was reading it on multiple occasions. Not because what she was saying was sad or brought up bad memories…

I had an email exchange this week that I have been thinking about… it touched on my current outlook on life… specifically the ability to portray positivity in a very negative place. I thought it would be helpful to share my thoughts as it has been extremely important for me throughout this journey so far