The View From Wisconsin
Just a random set of rants from a Sports Fan from Wisconsin.
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Odds and Ends for a Saturday
Boy, Bucky really smoked Temple, didn't they? I think Alvarez may have run out of plays when the third quarter ended. When you're up 65-0, there's only three plays you need to have - run left, run right, run straight ahead.
On to more (or less) pressing matters:
- Unfortunately, gas prices haven't gone down much here in Waukesha County. It did shoot up to $3.499 in a few places, but it flattened out to $3.199 by Labor Day. It's dropped down to $3.099, which is what it cost per gallon to fill my tank last night. I would hope we would be back below $3 by the end of the month, but now that they're going in and doing damage assessment along the Gulf coast, anything could happen. If there's even a small glitch with the restarting of an offshore rig or a problem with a pipeline, panic could keep prices up at $3 for the forseeable future. Meanwhile, I keep laughing at all these ads on TV for the latest SUV or truck. I don't even think Hummer is really all that enthused with their new H3, the so-called "smaller Hummer". I have been seeing a lot of Honda Priuses (Priusae?) out there; considering that diesel is still under $3 in most places, and that hybrids are starting to become a viable option, it wouldn't surprise me if there's a surge in their sales over the next year or so. It's almost like the diesel engine "fad" that happened after the gas crisis in the late 1970's and into the 1980's. I still have memories of my dad's 1982 Olds Cutlass diesel, with the "glow plugs" and the rumbling engine.
- The new Harry Potter book is a little bit more ubiquitous than I previously thought. I went to Half Price Books, intent on selling my once-read copy of The Half-Blood Prince, and they told me they could only give me $4 for it. When I asked why, they said that the book is being sold cheaply at so many retailers, and there are so many copies of the book out there. In fact, they said they were averaging about one copy of the book per day being sold back.
- I see that there is now a video game from the people who gave us Roller Coaster Tycoon, called Prison Tycoon. The goal is for you to build a prison – privately owned, of course – and build it up so you can make money off of it. I'm not sure, but I don't think that game would be very popular around my workplace.
- Speaking of that: I just want to go on the record about how frustrating it is working with youth in the intake cottage of a juvenile detention facility. The kids tend to have a lot of misconceptions while they're in our cottage, and it gets annoying after a while. The first is that they don't think that we, as staff, can figure out when they are lying to us. At some point they need to realize that staff get lied to all the time (and no, I'm not just talking about management). It's our job to figure out what's really going on in our work unit, so it's not difficult for us to find out if a kid is lying in short order. Another one is that they think that they can "get over" on staff with relative ease. They're so used to playing one adult against the other, it's like a game to them when they say, "Well, other staff told me I could do this." It doesn't occur to the youth that a.) staff do talk to each other, and b.) the department rules regarding following the orders of staff applies to the here and now. In short, my response usually is, "That staff isn't here right now, I am, and don't do that." Unfortunately, most of these kids think we just fell off the back of a truck or something. A third misconception is about how many of these kids think that they'll be out of here and everything will be OK when they get home. I read letters constantly about "can't wait to get home" and about planning parties for their return to society. The truth is that the average youth that is sent to EAS returns at least once – the actual average over the last eight years is a little more than two intakes per youth.
- The next step in my long journey with my back issues is a CT scan. I go to Waukesha Memorial Hospital next week to get crammed in to the CT machine and have them take pictures of my lower back and hip area. Hopefully they'll find something this time around. I really didn't realize until I started this whole long process how chronic this back pain has been.
Copyright © 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, Joseph Houk. All rights reserved.
