Sipping Coffee -

Wasted Honor -

Carl R. ToersBijns is the author of the Wasted Honor Trilogy [Wasted Honor I,II and Gorilla Justice] and his newest book From the Womb to the Tomb, the Tony Lester Story, which is a reflection of his life and his experiences as a correctional officer and a correctional administrator retiring with the rank of deputy warden in the New Mexico and Arizona correctional systems.

Carl also wrote a book on his combat experience in the Kindle book titled - Combat Medic - Men with destiny - A red cross of Valor -

Carl is considered by many a rogue expert in the field of prison security systems since leaving the profession. Carl has been involved in the design of many pilot programs related to mental health treatment, security threat groups, suicide prevention, and maximum custody operational plans including double bunking max inmates and enhancing security for staff. He invites you to read his books so you can understand and grasp the cultural and political implications and influences of these prisons. He deals with the emotions, the stress and anxiety as well as the realities faced working inside a prison. He deals with the occupational risks while elaborating on the psychological impact of both prison worker and prisoner.

His most recent book, Gorilla Justice, is an un-edited raw fictional version of realistic prison experiences and events through the eyes of an anecdotal translation of the inmate’s plight and suffering while enduring the harsh and toxic prison environment including solitary confinement.

Carl has been interviewed by numerous news stations and newspapers in Phoenix regarding the escape from the Kingman prison and other high profile media cases related to wrongful deaths and suicides inside prisons. His insights have been solicited by the ACLU, Amnesty International, and various other legal firms representing solitary confinement cases in California and Arizona. He is currently working on the STG Step Down program at Pelican Bay and has offered his own experience insights with the Center of Constitutional Rights lawyers and interns to establish a core program at the SHU units. He has personally corresponded and written with SHU prisoners to assess the living conditions and how it impacts their long term placement inside these type of units that are similar to those in Arizona Florence Eyman special management unit where Carl was a unit deputy warden for almost two years before his promotion to Deputy Warden of Operations in Safford and Eyman.

He is a strong advocate for the mentally ill and is a board member of David's Hope Inc. a non-profit advocacy group in Phoenix and also serves as a senior advisor for Law Enforcement Officers Advocates Council in Chino, California As a subject matter expert and corrections consultant, Carl has provided interviews and spoken on national and international radio talk shows e.g. BBC CBC Lou Show & TV shows as well as the Associated Press.

I use sarcasm, satire, parodies and other means to make you think!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saturday, April 23, 2016

Sipping Coffee -

Sipping Coffee in the early Mornings –

Life can’t get better than this.

Every early dawn, I pull the white metal framed lawn chair with white plastic straps into the brightness of the rising daybreak sun. A 12 oz. cup in hand, taking in the time God has given me for my retirement in life, I am spending these days dreaming about making my necessary pilgrimage towards the end of days to come. As soon as I sit, my puppy finds her way under the chair and stretches out her body to feel the cool damp ground underneath her as she watches over me.

Living in a place, not too far from the sprawling metropolitan city of Los Angeles, I view the sky, the birds, the living things around me with great peace of mind, knowing that I am well on my way to finding an eternal peace within myself and life itself. Reaching for the sky, I often think of the past and my times in Ohio, New Mexico, California and of course Arizona. Longing to see New Mexico once more, I plan to travel this year to see the hot air balloons rising into the cold dampened air around Albuquerque.

Needless to say, I have had some memorable days of excitement and roughness in my life but those days are all but left behind me now. For the time being, my life has settled to ashes and dust of the past and dreams of a glorious day after this coming sunset. Taking every day, one day at a time, I live it to only pray for tomorrow. My past has been filled with romance, adventure, laughter and sorrow. There were moments of war, conflict, harmony and peace but nothing that could bring me back to apologize for whatever I endured, was not for a better purpose than to live for tomorrow.

So at some point, we start asking ourselves, why did these things happen and for what reasons do we question our past; where is the glory, and all the regrets? What is home and where is my place in life when this retreat from the rest of the world takes place in life?

I have now engaged in a full circle of events, that carry no special meanings; however, these are positive engagements meaningful to me. This journey or paths that have been guided by fate and destiny, has embraced my life as I want it to be known when those last days comes in fact together. I want you to know who I was and where I came from but more important, who I am today. It is only right that my legacy is filled with facts that gives someone pleasures to remember me by and laugh about it together. Even if that someone is a remotely placed best friend from the past who knows me better than myself.

Fortunately, I have traveled frequently around the world from South Asia to Europe, from Europe to the Americas and from the Americas back to Asia. The most stressful journey was back to the Americas from Southeast Asia and now, for the very last time ever, I am settling in my spot in the circle of life that is ever glowing with the fires of passion and desires to be happy. Dealing with the reality that was slowly setting in, I am glad that I endured the challenges presented to me throughout my life, they shaped my mind, my heart and passions. In all this, reality set in. A reality that could be hard to face if it wasn’t so full of controversies and agreements.

You can’t buy love, happiness or pleasures; you have to go out into the world and find them and then earn the right to claim them for yourself, without the enablement of others. Standing on your own two feet, with one solid heart and mindset, bonded to make you stronger and give you the choices life offers when the journey is almost over.

Essentially speaking, no amount of wealth can buy you happiness, self-respect or understandings. They have to be gathered from the inside world and not from the external world we live in. thus we have to consider the fact that wealth, is not measured in money, but rather your own earthly possessions that you gathered on your journey that includes family, friends and lovers. More than anyone can ever realize, the dream is a living vision of the reality we have lived life.

These dreams cannot be shattered; they cannot be destroyed for their existence is forever. Dreams and visions, whether they are footsteps on the ground or in the clouds, enroll you in a class of wealth that can only be explained to be the good life God has promised us and loving every minute of it!