Before I got on house arrest, I did a lot of research of what could happen while on house arrest. Some of the stuff I found out was unannounced visits from police, state police, probation officers and unannounced searches of your home, mandated piss tests and so on.

Thus far, I have had to take one piss test which was done the day I got my anklet and my PO has called week in advance to let me know she would be out to see me the following week.  I am not sure if all PO's do that, but I thought it was a nice jester especially given the day she arrived, I literally just walked my naked self down the short hall to my bedroom to get dressed. I had to yell for my wife to answer the door who was in the next room over doing her hair and makeup. I don't think she knew I was still naked bc I get dressed pretty quickly. Except with this anklet I have to wear high socks that I can fold down over it for two reasons; 1. it digs into the back of my ankle and I already have a mark from the first couple days of not wearing socks. 2. help hold it it in place so it is not peeking out from the bottom of my pants.

That is the other thing that really sucks, wearing pants in the summer. I clean buildings and doing so in the heat sucks to begin with then to add pants on top of that, I kid you not, I drip sweat like I have just boxed or did some cage fighting for 3 hours or more. It is awful. But I am sparing myself the embarrassment of people staring at it or talking about it.

A couple things have changed since being convicted by the state and handed my sentence. I used to think if someone did something wrong, that they automatically deserved the max of that harshest punishment possible. I also used to think that people who committed crimes were 'bad' people.  Clearly, I have changed those thoughts. Yes, I, like many other people have made mistakes. Some people just didn't make mistakes that led them down screwed up justice system path. Some have. My mistake does not define me, it is however, a PART of me. We have all done things that we look back on and regret for many reasons, maybe we weren't thinking, maybe we thought we knew better than what our parents were telling us, maybe we were  impulsive, uneducated, misguided and the list goes on and on. Those who made mistakes that were not against the law, according to the state, or simply didn't get caught were lucky. Do I now think all persons who committed a crime are 'bad' people. NO!!!! Most of the time, as I have been reading biographies and watching documentaries, those so called bad people came from good families, had an education, good jobs, contributed to society, kind people who made the wrong choice.   Additionally, before going through the jacked up justice system we have, I had very little insight on how things really worked and how sentences were decided upon. I had no idea a judge could be calling their cases at 9 o'clock am and then decide they are not ready to be on the bench until 10 am. No clue. I had no clue that a judge could postpone your appearance because they started late and didn't get to you before the courthouse closed, only for you to be called into the courtroom at 9 am and wait until 10 before the judge came from their chambers. NO CLUE!!! And they still get paid. Mind boggling.  If I show up for work an hour late, I surely am not getting paid for that hour. That is something else I believe we need to revamp so to speak. Little did I know with how a judge sentences carries many factors. Like, do you have a rap sheet (record of prior convictions), did you cooperate with the police, have you complied with ROR (released on own recogniative...which is an alternative to being released on bail. ROR is where you have never been locked up and have to follow the guidelines the county sets forth such as not leaving the county for any reason and ROR is free of charge). There are other contributing factors as well but I don't know all of them. With every crime committed there are mandatory minimum sentences the judge must impose set forth by law makers. Now, those sentences can be altered so long as the convicted person is serving the min. Now the min sentence for my 3 convictions was 3 years prison. I ended up with 9 months intermediate punishment which translates to house arrest and 3 years probation. Now while I am on probation, tho I do not have all the details just yet, I am not allowed to move from the county that I am in. I am allowed to travel outside of the county so long as an address and phone number is provided of where I will be and for how long. Like I said, right now I do not have all the details to it and will find out more once I am off house arrest next May. The nice thing, I think at least, is probation does not start after my house arrest is over, but rather began the day I was sentenced. You see I keep saying the day I was sentenced, because I plead guilty prior to being sentenced. So that technically was not my sentencing date. Lot of legal mumbo jumbo essentially. Lots of technicalities.

Weekends are the hardest because I cannot leave my house for any reason. Let me rephrase that. I am allowed to take my dog outside for 5 min intervals, but most of the time there is someone out there and they want to talk your ear off and then next thing you know you have been out there for 20 mins. To me it is not worth it. I can throw laundry in being it is behind my building, but again 5 min intervals. So, technically I can leave my house per se, but to me it is not worth the risk. If i am longer than 5 mins then I am considered to have broken house arrest rules and my ass gets thrown into jail for 3 years. That is why I say it is not worth it.  I would rather reluctantly smoke out my spare bedroom window, take Izzy out during my working hours being I clean the buildings where I live and do my laundry on work time too. I just feel so bad when Izzy has to use to the pee pad when my wife is working long shifts and the neighbor is doing her catching up with laundry, house work, cleaning her ferret cage, taking care of her dog and so on.
  



Until next time.