This past Friday, I enjoyed a wonderful visit with my friend Lee Nobmann. Lee is the founder of Golden State Lumber and several other successful business ventures. He is a man who has achieved an extraordinarily high level of success on many levels. Besides creating businesses that employ hundreds of people, he is a role [...]
This morning I spoke with Ralph, a young man who is beginning a 10-year sentence at Taft Prison Camp. Understandably, Ralph is a bit lost as he advances through his first weeks of confinement. He worries that his girlfriend will leave him, he worries how his life will change, he worries about the challenges he [...]
Last night I finished the final edits I would make to the sample chapter for Earning Freedom. I put the changes in an envelope and sent them off to Carole. She should receive the envelope on Saturday, and after she makes the changes, Carole will submit the package to Jim, the literary agent who represents [...]
Today my younger sister, Christina, celebrates her 42nd birthday. I began serving my prison sentence when Christina was only 19, and my criminal decisions began before she graduated from high school. Those bad decisions I made led to my missing a significant portion of my sister’s life, and on days like today, her birthday, I [...]
I’m very grateful to Dr. Sam Torres of California State University in Long Beach. He is Professor of Criminal Justice at the university, and for 20 years before he joined academia, Dr. Torres served as a U.S. Probation and Parole officer. Today I received a beautiful certificate of appreciation from the university. Dr. Torres sent [...]
Today I listened to the sad story of Juan, a story that is all too common in America’s prison system. Juan dropped out of high school at 15, and that decision began what has since become a cycle of failure. Juan’s parents would not allow him to live at home after he quit school. He [...]
This morning I finished a first draft of the second chapter of Earning Freedom. The initial proposal suggests a manuscript of 105,000 words, though with the two chapters I’ve written, I now have more than 25,000 words. Either I will have to increase the word count to 140,000, or make significant cuts. At this stage [...]
This morning I woke at 3:15, eager to resume my work on the manuscript. I’m on the final pages of the first draft for chapter two. That doesn’t sound like I’ve done much work, but I have more than 20,000 words of the manuscript written, which is a strong start. I’ll likely suspend the writing [...]
My lovely wife, Carole, told me that I should only write positive articles. I don’t really understand what she means, as I feel that all of my articles are positive. When I write, I strive to describe the life of confinement. In prison we have many obstacles, though I always strive to describe strategies I [...]
Carole brought me some wonderful news this morning from the Franklin Covey group. That is the group that promotes Stephen Covey’s work. Dr. Covey’s book The Seven Habits of Highly-Effective People has been a helpful resource for me throughout my prison journey. Learning that someone from that esteemed organization was contacting me brought a sense [...]
