Aug. 22, 2013: 7:00am: Listening to: "Another Way to Die" by: Disturbed

September 3rd would have been Justine's birthday. Her life was taken from her way too early. There's not a day goes by that I don't miss her. I never knew I was capable of loving that much. But every day I see so many acts of violence on the news. And I don't understand it anymore. Recently a friend of mine asked me why I worked out so much. And let me be clear, I did not lift weights before I came to prison. I explained that there are a few reasons. 1) My health. I want to be healthier. Even if just for myself, I want to look good. Maybe that's a flaw in most of us, we still care what others think. But most importantly, reason 3) I am 5'9", I weigh about 175 right now and I work out every day (not right now since I hurt my back). I can bench press 300 lbs in the gym with the real weights, I can squat over 300 lbs and I can dead lift over 400 lbs. In here, in this environment, guys look at you and they know I'm pretty strong for my size. For something this simple, it means that I probably won't have people bothering me in here. But on the down side, I am down there in the gym working out with other guys who are predators, they lift simply to remain big & strong so that they can continue to prey on the small, old, weak, and young. There are a lot of young white kids in here, when I say young, I mean 18-25. And a good percentage of them have already been sexually assaulted by the predatory homosexuals. But that's life in prison. We're not here for being good. But I stay outta it and mind my business. You don't tell on nobody in here and you mind your business. In any prison on Earth, there is always that 1 person who does not care about killing you and it's better to be safe than sorry. A few nights ago we had our 1st annual PLA picnic in the gym. PLA stands for "Pennsylvania Lifers Association". It's a small organization in here where the members do multiple things. We attempt to make prison life better, we work on legal issues, but to me, most importantly, we have fundraiser sales in here and we take, let's say we sell sodas. We have a soda sale for 2 weeks, we make $2,000 profit, we take that money and divide it up into 2-5 charities and we make a monetary donation. Staff handles all the money. If you let prisoners handle it, some would steal. It is rough in here without money. But the prison accounting office handles all of the money so none is ever stolen. When I was president of the prison chapter of the Jaycees, Altar Rock chapter, we made donations to many charities every month. The Jaycees sell ice cream in here every day. We do not get to keep a penny of the money, all profits are sent to the charities of our choosing. Some of my favorites were St. Jude's Hospital, the children's burn unit in Pittsburgh, children's hospital in Philly, and the prison has a listing of a few women's houses. Where abused women can go to get help, they live there until they can get away from their abusive partner. Those homes always need money. And last but not least, we always gave money to food banks. I had to go to food banks with my mom as a kid and I know how important they are to keep families from going hungry. Anyway, we had our PLA picnic in the gym. 80 convicted killers eating until you were stuffed and playing bingo. Yeah, you heard me right, we played bingo for 90 minutes. I took a new photo, my friend is sending it to his daughter to make copies for me so I can send it to my family and I will probably post a copy too. I was disappointed in the color of the photo. It didn't turn out very good in the gym with the poor lighting. We pay $1.50 for a photograph in here. But I wanted to take one to send to Krista. Her social worker called here asking to speak to me, but my counselor wouldn't let put us on the phone together. He told me to call her collect at her office. I explained that the phone system does not allow us to call anyone collect anymore, so his answer was for me to pre-pay for the call. It's over $10 to make a 15 minute out of state call. I can't afford that. So I wrote to the social worker and explained that if possible, we have to do everything through the mail. Phones ain't free and they definitely ain't cheap. Right now I am watching Big Cat Diaries on the Animal Planet. These big cats fascinate me and make me hate them at the same time. When I see them attack and kill a female impala that is in the middle of giving birth, it makes me hate them, but then when I see how they care for and protect their children, it makes me admire them. I didn't know my great uncle Dean very well, but I have come to admire this man since his death. He worked his whole life doing amazing jobs in and out of the military but before his death he spent over a decade researching our family tree. The one thing he was unable to discover, and this really bothered him, was our family name. He traced our family back to Ripateatina, a small town in Chieti, which is in the Abruzzi region of Italy. But back then our family's name was spelled "Pizzica". When my family came to this country in 1907, someone changed our last name to what it is now, Pezzeca. Not a big deal, I guess, but it always bothered my great uncle. He traveled the USA and Italy researching our genealogy. He might have died from cancer but he lived a good life. He raised an adopted son who went on to serve in the military and go to Harvard. Imagine that, someone from my family, going to Harvard. Well, I guess that's enough reminiscing for today. Hope I wasn't too boring. Thanx for reading. Take care & God bless. Ciao.