Operation Big Boy.

I was recently told that my absence is the blogging world has been noticed. Suffice it to say, the world will begin to spin wildly off its axis if I don't get off my ass and write something for my readers. So here goes.

For those who don't know, I argued at a federal sentencing hearing back in February. The ins and outs of the legal stuff are wholly inconsequential. But in the end, our client got sentenced to thirty-three months at a medical facility in Kentucky. So. About a month ago, I get this email from my supervising attorney. For narrative purposes, I will call this individual Hobart. So Hobart emails me and wants me to come up with a proposal for how to get Big Boy (not his real name), the client, to Kentucky.

At this point, I'm sure many of you have stopped reading and are thinking to yourselves, "Get him to Kentucky? Isn't that the job of the Department of Corrections?" If you had this thought, I applaud you. Yes, it is DOC's job to get Big Boy to Kentucky. But right after the hearing, a marshall approached Hobart and said, "You know, Hobart. We really don't have the resources to get Big Boy out to Kentucky. Perhaps you should consider alternate meas of transportation."

At this point I could stop for a moment to write a small rant on how DOC sucks. But I have work to do, so I'll skip over that. However, feel free to submit your own. In fact, best rant regarding DOC wins. What do you win? Hmmm. That's negotiable. Submit your rant for review, and along with it, submit a proposal on what you'd like to win. There you have it. Now back to the story...

Alternate means of transportation. But why? Well, as it turns out, Big Boy isn't called Big Boy without reason. Big Boy weighs 467 pounds. Big Boy's IQ also places him within the borderline range of intellectual functioning. It should be no surprise to you that Big Boy cannot read. So after throwing email back and forth (and after being inappropriately chastised by Hobart), I got approval to drive Big Boy to Kentucky in my car. So on April 12 at 5.30 pm, my driving companion and I picked up Big Boy and made the long trek to Kentucky.

I really wish I had something interesting to say about the trip, but it was fairly uneventful. We did hit an electrical storm of some sort on the way out (in West Virginia, I think), accompanied by torrential downpours. That was not fun. But we made it. We dropped Big Boy off before 9 am on the 13th, stopped for breakfast at a local Waffle House, and then drove right back to Connecticut. My driving companion drove about two-thirds of the way there and back. So I just mostly sang songs and told bad jokes. Somewhere in Pennsylvania (on the way back) I noticed a billboard. "Jesus will come back as lightning." Holy shit. Jesus lives in West Virginia. Who knew?

Right, so this story really wasn't so exciting. My apologies. But wait, there's more. Now for some excitement.

Kentucky trivia, courtesy of my friend Trivia Boy (also not his real name. I'm sorry, ok? I couldn't come up with a better name. I'm tired.)

Kentucky is the 15th state.

Kentucky is known as the Bluegrass State.

Bluegrass is not really blue. It's green. But in the spring, it produces bluish-purple buds that when see in large gields, give a rich blue cast to the grass. Early pioneers found bluegrass growing on Kentucky's rich limestone soil, and traders began asking for the seed of the "blue grass from Kentucky."