Folsom Prison Blues

We toured old Folsom Prison today. We were told not to bring cell phones so I could only capture this (very recognizable) photo of the prison entrance. I was in awe of the structure and appreciated the history. We walked across the floors of cell blocks where prisoners were writing, watching cable, sleeping, listening to whatever was piping through their headphones, looking out at the crowd, and I even heard a toilet flush in one of the upper cells. This is their every day... crammed in small spaces, many doubled up. While it makes me appreciate my personal freedom and my living space, I make efforts to live by the Golden Rule and keep from ending up in such a confined, controlled condition. Moving on. We walked through the oldest of the cell blocks, still active since it opened up in 1880. At one point I looked over at our tour guide, a former CO and currently manages the plant on prison grounds, and see these eyes peering through one of the small openings of the almost solid metal door of a dark cell. It was disconcerting and a bit creepy to say the least. Alexander had a hat on and he kept his eyes under the brim to avoid any eye contact. 

One of the highlights of our time at the prison was standing in the cafeteria where Johnny Cash performed, among other tunes, "Folsom Prison Blues"! We walked down the same road next to the prison walls Mr. Cash was leaning on in the images starting at 1:16 in this video. Man, I wish I had my camera on this tour... just for the opp to snap a photo of my son leaning on that same wall in his Johnny Cash shirt!

The tour ended with a guided walk through the metal fabrication building where all of California's license plates are created by the inmates themselves. That was kind of a neat experience, albeit sharing an environment of heavy machinery and sharp metal plates with inmates. All my life I've been told license plates are made by criminals (and I thought it was sort of a joke until I became an adult) so it was interesting to actually see this happening. At one point our tour guide had one of the inmates explain part of the process to us. He was wearing his blues with "CDCR Prisoner" printed down the leg of his sweatpants. He was a nice enough guy but I couldn't help but be distracted by my curiosity of why he was there in the first place. And by the way, manufacturing license plates is quite involved and these inmates had their jobs down to the letter... literally! It's loud, it's fast, and it can be tedious! I even witnessed one of the inmates fixing an error by hand-painting parts of the lettering with the dark blue paint you see on our license plates before having to re-bake the plate.

Our guide pointed out one of the inmates who, after 30 years of imprisonment, was about to get out in 6 weeks. His comment was, "can you imagine what he's feeling?" I gave an artificial response because really, I don't know what he's feeling. I would imagine after 30 years this is all he knows and is conditioned to. I don't know if he's excited to finally be free or has anxieties wondering what the hell he's going to do with his life outside of prison. I've heard stories of prisoners having such a tough time out on their own they find a way to get back into their Folsom Prison "Blues". 

Not Quite An Idiot Abroad

I caught all 3 seasons of An Idiot Abroad presented by (starring) Karl Pilkington and created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Even though I caught all of it on Netflix, I like it enough to own it on DVD. Just saying. So the whole show is about Ricky and Stephen sending their friend, whom they consider to be a moron or some sort of twonk, abroad on different adventures around the world. We get to go along with Karl and get his perspective on these diverse cultures and environments. 

In the beginning I thought he was just this really negative bloke (yeah, I said it... hard not to after saturating my brain with Karlisms all weekend long) who had nothing but shite to share about these amazing experiences! As the episodes go on I'm realizing more and more that Karl is actually more of a realist (not to say I agree with all of his thoughts, but he's not completely off on many things) who calls it like it is. He says out loud what many people are already thinking. He just doesn't have a brain-mouth filter. 

Watching the way he interacts with people (of all cultures), he treats them all the same. He doesn't speak louder or slower and, in fact, never changes his tone or expressions. He's very social. I often thought Ricky and Stephen told Karl to really play up his antics for sake of viewership. I wouldn't put it past them as savvy entertainers and producers, but Karl is so consistent that it can't NOT be who he really is (that was a double negative in case you missed it). He's a bit closed-minded, but ultimately I find him funny and when you watch his eyes while he's listening to someone, he means take it all in. He tends to over-analyze everything. And I mean everything! 

During this quite daft and very funny interview between Ricky, Karl, and Warwick Davis (Willow, among many of the characters in his film career), he mentions that Ricky makes things seem worse so whenever he says something Ricky makes it seem more harsh. One night while watching the show I thought the same thing. I was fully entertained by this video.

I should be clear that I'm a fan of Ricky Gervais and I'm sure he's intentional in his exploitation of Karl's thoughts. In the video below is a better example of Ricky taking something Karl says and making it seem idiotic. It's linked to exactly where this transpires in the clip so just click to watch. Granted, Karl's said some pretty idiotic things during his adventures but let's be fair... we all have in our lifetimes. And there's always some bloke who'll use it to their advantage for a laugh. People were accusing Ricky of bullying Karl but even Karl himself dismissed that as bollocks. 

Karl on how he gets opportunities

♠♥u

Not-So Sharp Image

I'm bummed I spent money on this product. The first part of its name is FOG-FREE. You can see from Day 1 images that it was not the case. This is only after heating up the shower water for just enough time to see if it actually worked. Nnnnope. It fogged up quite quickly. Here's the full list of reasons I didn't care for this...

1. The light is actually on in the first photo. The halo lighting around the mirror isn't bright enough to see very well. I even turned the lights out to see what it'd look like. Lots of blue hue and had to really be close to the mirror to even see decent enough.
2. The radio audio was okay (as shower mirrors go) but seemed to suck up battery juice.
3. One suction cup didn't seem to like to hold too long. Kept having to re-adhere.
4. Just too many features for a shower mirror. Although nice to have, didn't really use.
5. You can see in the bottom right how it ultimately ended up. It fell off for the last time leaving the suction piece on the wall completely unattached from the mirror arm.
6. The piece that pulls out for the razors sticks out even further than the mirror so I'd keep knocking into it with my arm or hand. Maybe would've been best for larger showers.

 The Sharper Image Fog-Free Shower Mirror with Radio

I tried to look it up on sharperimage.com but it's no longer available. Good thing. #landfillfodder

♠♥u

Resdad more here: http://www.findnsave.com/offer/The-Sharper-Image-Fog-Free-Shower-Mirror-with-Radio/26620766/#storylink=cpy