Deer, Booze, and Push-Ups: A Quiet Week with a Few Twists

This week felt a little slower than usual, which is kind of rare around here, but there were still a few funny moments and milestones worth sharing.

One of the bigger incidents happened when staff found a whole stash of hooch—liquor—hidden in the front part of the ceiling in the visitation room. Nobody’s sure how long it had been up there, but the fact that it hadn’t been touched probably means the person who hid it got caught and sent to the SHU right after bringing it in. Usually, that stuff disappears fast. As a result, they shut down visitation this weekend, and a lot of guys didn’t get to see their families, which was tough for many. I didn’t have a visit scheduled, so it didn’t affect me personally, but I do have people coming soon, so I really hope they open it back up in the next week or two. Everyone was also worried that we’d get locked down in our cubes, but thankfully that didn’t happen.

On the lighter side, I wanted to share a little something about the deer here. A lot of guys are from big cities like D.C. and New York, and they’ve never seen deer up close. So after lunch, people save their apples and launch them over the building to the grassy area near our windows. The deer—about a dozen of them—come up to eat, and some guys get so excited they bang on the glass just to get their attention. There’s even a bino (piebald) deer, mostly white with patches of brown, and it’s wild-looking. I’m from Ohio so deer aren’t new to me, but watching how hyped the guys get about them is pretty funny.

Workout-wise, this week wasn’t great for my running. I had a bad week and couldn’t get into my long-distance groove. That said, I’m still building up to my upcoming 10K run, so I’m hoping the rest helped. On the strength side, I had a small win—on my Saturday push-up workout, I managed 950 push-ups. That’s up from 900 the week before. It’s not a huge jump, but I’ll take any progress I can get. Every rep counts.

That’s about it from here. Sometimes a slower week is a good thing.

Stay safe and stay legal out there.