So in pure “Web 2.0″ fashion, I have decided to change my last name. As a fad cognizant web-netizen I think it is only fitting that I start updating and upgrading my life. This is starting with my name. From now on, you can call me Trykl. Like Flickr and Frappr, I have chosen to drop the last vowel of my name ,change up the spelling a bit, and give myself some reflection. I will also start spelling various other objects by their new “2.0″ name.
For instance:

• Lights are now Lites.
• Tables are now tabls.
• Phone is now Phon
• Computer is now Computr

For that matter, I think that spelling anything correctly is not even necessary.
You see:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

So, form now on, we dno’t hvae to eevn wrory aoubt seplinlg at all. Srecw the Splel Ceckher!!

I haven’t really had the will to write lately. I have been pretty down in the dumps. Things aren’t horrible , but I can definitely say that things aren’t GREAT.
I have been dealing with some “trust issues” lately. Someone lied to me. I confronted them about it and they were very sorry, but in the process I have learned a couple things about myself.
One, is that I may seem very forgiving, and I don’t show my feelings for very long. I’m not so sure that’s good though, since I also seem to have the same things happen over again.
I know that a “good person” forgives and forgets, but I also know that if there is no consequence for someones actions they may not learn. So, what do I do?

If it was my wife that had lied to me, would I have to “make her pay” for a time? If it was a guy at work, would I stop hanging around them for a while? If one of my siblings had lied to me, would I sanction them (like they do in the UN)? What is an acceptable consequence? Are any consequences acceptable? Is the fact that I don’t trust what they say just a by-product, or is that consequence enough in and of itself? I really don’t know.

The other thing I have learned is I am really bothered, but I don’t show it at all. Publicly, I may seem to be alright, but privately I’m pissed off. I feel like this last month is up in the air. I feel like everything this person told me is now suspect. What else has this person lied to me about? I want to believe that the lies I know about are the only ones being told, but I have no way of knowing… This person could be lying about other things, and I wouldn’t have a clue about it… especially if lying comes so easily (as it did in this case).
I don’t know what to do, if anything. Trust is important, but dwelling on this could also be harmful to me. I want to have this friendship pick up where it was before I was lied to, but if I let it go like it never happened, then there is no downside to lying to me again. I want to forgive and forget, but I also want to deal with my anger in order to get through it.
I would imagine that the next couple of weeks will probably iron all of this out; time is a great band-aid for things like this.
Thanks for listening, dear reader.

Shifting gears again:
Some friends of mine, Sunshine and Aaron, just welcomed their first (and only) child to their family. Sunny maintains a site where you can see little Edan with her mom and dad. Give her blog a visit if you’ve got a minute and you like a little interpersonal voyeurism.

Have you ever had a tooth-ache?
I have. It was horrible and I wanted to rip my whole head off. I called my dentist and couldn’t get in to see him for 2 weeks. It was not good. Needless to say, the next 2 weeks were not fun, but I made it, and I lived.
Tonight I worked on the third floor at the old jail. It was nice to not be at the Annex (the new jail), but I still had to deal with inmates. The inmates on the 3rd floor are all “low-risk” and generally mild mannered. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be able to be there. Still, inmates are inmates. They still exude that air of entitlement, so as long as you can deal with that, you are A-OK.
Tonight I was doing my first round, and was hit-up by an inmate for some Tylenol. As a CO, we aren’t able to give any medications. Not Tylenol. Not Advil. Not aspirin. Not anything. It is a pretty hard and fast rule, and every officer is aware of it. We aren’t allowed to dispense meds because we aren’t medical professionals and we don’t know if the inmate is allergic to anything, and we don’t know what else the inmate may be on that could react with whatever they are asking for. These reasons aren’t the only ones, just the ones I could think of “right off the bat”.
So, this inmate tells me that her tooth hurts, and I tell her she needs to fill out a medical request form (standard procedure) so that she can be seen by the nurse. Fast forward a couple of hours, and still I have no request form. You can bet that she still asked for medication every time I saw her though. Then at about 9pm, she calls me on the intercom and tells me she needs to go to the hospital. I ask why; it’s because of her tooth-ache. WHAT!?
I tell her she’s probably not going to the hospital for a tooth, but I will advise the nurse, so she can be seen.
As I am about to turn off the intercom, I overhear her telling another inmate that she doesn’t want to see the nurse because of the medical fee, and that she will then have to pay for medications. She thinks that this is “F@!#ing stupid”, and that she shouldn’t have to pay anything to get her tooth taken care of. She says that it’s her “right” to be taken care of while she is in jail.
To that, I say, no… and yes.
OK, OK, you may be thinking “Poor girl with the tooth-ache”, but let me submit this:

Even if we have some kind of insurance, there is almost always a co-pay for the visit, and then another for medications. Why is it that this inmate feels that she is entitled to better medical coverage than I am. Even if she doesn’t have any money, she still gets the same level of care as an inmate that does. A debt goes on her account, but she still gets medical care at a greatly reduced cost to her. She doesn’t even pay an insurance premium. I do. Why is she entitled to, essentially, free medical care, when every month I have medical premiums deducted from my paycheck?
An inmate comes into jail and suddenly they get every ailment they have ever had, taken care of, and issues that have plagued them for years suddenly become emergent. Why? Why is it that taxpayers bear the brunt of medical costs for people who, more than likely (60% recidivism rate?) to go out and get into trouble again?
I know that we, as a society, are supposed to take care of the broken and the weak. I know that inmates are people, and that if they have medical problems, we are expected (by law and conscience) to tend to their needs. I just get sick of the entitlement.
If you are in jail, don’t expect for me/us to run you to the hospital for every hang-nail or tooth-ache. It is presumptive and asinine, but don’t worry, because we will still take care of you. We probably won’t even say anything to you about it, but you can bet we think it… loudly.

/begin rant
We will feed you when you haven’t eaten for a week because you have spent every last dime on the drug of your choice. We will give you your psych meds even though you stop taking them every time you leave jail, and not because you can’t get them. We will get you stitched up when you get into a fight with someone your better. We will clean up your shit-stained room after you come down from heroine. We will keep giving you your medications even after you try and hide them so you can take a larger dose to try and get high.
Just don’t ask us to like it, because we have seen too much and watched too many do horrible things to themselves over and over again.
/end rant

I don’t think I have a good handle on this question. More importantly, I don’t really have a good answer either. But you can just imagine that I’m gonna give it a stab anyway.

I know that I like the idea of writing my thoughts out so I am able to have a journal of types for myself. The funny thing, is that I get a bit excited when I hear that someone has read my blog, or when I talk to someone and they say something about my blog. I silently smile to myself. Though, I am not sure exactly why. Should I even care? What does it mean if I do?

I don’t really think that I say anything new or particularly EXCITING, but maybe that’s not what draws readers. For that matter, I seem to get about 7 “hits per day. Not exactly a HUGE readership, but respectable for someone who thinks he doesn’t care. I know that some people read to get an idea of what jail is like from an officer’s point of view. It’s not exciting to me, but to someone who has no real idea, it can be eye-opening.

I find myself checking my site stats about as often as I do my e-mail, and that can be a couple of times a day or more. I don’t hinge my efforts on how my stats are doing, but I do get curious about them when I see a spike or drop of any significance.

For instance, before I got into trouble at work, I saw a HUGE spike. Every one of my pages were looked at, and not just perused through, but really read. When I finally did get talked to about it at work, I had a good idea that my captain had read my ENTIRE site. I’m not sure that hurt or helped me, knowing he had, but I knew, so that’s something.
I don’t have stats of exactly who is reading my site, just basic info on where they are in the world. I don’t have money for the big-time stat monitor, and I don’t need it anyway. I use a free service from Google, that shows some interesting facts about who is reading and where they are coming from. This page is what February looked like.

The upper left is a stat for how many people have read the blog in the last time period you select. You can select any time. Day, month, year, hour, just about whatever you want.
The upper right, is an idea of whether they have been to the site before. You can see that the new to returning ratio is about 50%.
The lower right is a chart of how they got to your site. My referrers (as they are called) seem to be mostly direct (meaning, they typed www.thetreichels.com into their browser’s address bar) and Google. Sunnydaysareahead.blogspot.com gives me about 15% of my referrals, so thanks, Sunny.
The lower left window shows where the people are reading from. This is not precise, but is a good indicator of the general area of my readers. I can tell by this that most of my readers come from Longview. Go figure.

There is a plethora of other information available, but this is the meat-n-potatoes for me.

So, what is the answer to my question? I like it when people read my blog. What can I say. I know that not every post or every page is all that exciting. For instance, this post won’t mean much to anyone but me. On the other hand, I hope that my readers, you all, get a little from it. I just not too sure of my REAL motives. Do I write for myself or my readers?

If I had a gun to my head, I would have to say that I write some of my entries for myself, and some are for myself AND my readers. For instance, what you are reading now is mostly for me. I don’t really care if no one reads this. It is more an exercise for myself than a entertaining piece for other people. In contrast, THIS entry HERE, is for myself and the readers.

So, in conclusion, I would have to say that it really depends on the day. If it is just a “ME day” then it’s all about me, but if it’s a “US day”, then it’s about all of us. Hopefully, you won’t care either way.