Jobs are plentiful in Montana and wages have risen, but they remain low compared to pay in other states, an economist said after state government’s annual Labor Day Report on employment went to the governor. ââ�¡â��

But most of the time, I just can�t believe I�m sitting in a dingy jail being yelled at by some jailhouse lawyer who thinks you can�t be convicted of armed robbery if the police never found a gun. �

This morning I went for a run. It’s something I’ve been trying to do recently as an antidote to stress and the steady destruction of my girlish figure. I always dread those first steps, and on bad days even once I’ve started I think about whether it would be ok to walk for a while, or just stop and turn back and go home. The funny thing is, as long as I make myself stick with it to the end, I’m never unhappy that I did it once it’s over. It’s a little scary to think about how many things in life are like that, so I won’t. I’ll just admit that running, for me, is one of those things that’s best when it’s done.

And today was even better than usual because at the end of my run I got a special visit from Lance Armstrong! I kid you not. As soon as I finished my “workout” Lance was right there in my earphones telling me, “This is Lance Armstrong. Congratulations! You just completed your personal best time for the mile!”¹

It’s just thrilling to know that Lance cares so much about little old me. [tags]running, apple[/tags]

1. Ok. I realize that Lance was giving me a pre-recorded message saved on my iPod and triggered by the magic of the Nike+ sensor, but I’m not letting that ruin the moment.↩

Forget what I said about reading. I haven’t read a single page since that time, nor have I read a single blog. I have about 30 seconds each day to read something not related to work, so I look at the local paper online and it’s so full of gay-bashing, bible-thumping, and general intolerance that I just want to run away. I guess I can take some comfort from the fact that, the better I do my job, the more I’ll be contributing to the unhappiness of those perfect people in the glass houses who express all that bigotry and self-righteousness. That’s something, at least.

Things are still busy around here. I’ve finished a couple of books that I’d like to write about but don’t know if I ever will. This one was recommended by my sister, and looks great. Perhaps I’ll check for it at the local library. Has anyone read it?

Does anyone else have recommendations? I’ve kind of been focused on non-fiction recently, but reading the Deathly Hallows and The Road reminded me how fun and relaxing it is to have a good piece of fiction to escape into. The good peeps who used to read this blog when it had regular content to read were great readers and recommendersââ�¬â��if any of you are still out there, what are you reading now?

While I await your recommendations and try to muster up something intelligent to say about what I’ve been reading, I will recommend that you read Scoplaw for the last many weeks. Great stuff there on the transition from law student to lawyer, bar exams, moving, poetry, fiction, music, and more. He’s the one that reminded me I used to be a blogger. Maybe someday I will be again.

� (via)

Gee, it’s too bad I’m so busy. If I had some free time I could head up the road to the Testical Festival. When in Rome…

I was actually very near there on Thursday when I attended Sentence Review at the Montana State Prison. I was reminded that prisons are our society’s blatant expression of hopelessness. We send people to prison to throw them away, to give up on them, and by doing so we are saying that we have no hope for these people. You’ll hear proponents of incarceration talk about how prisoners have access to all kinds of rehabilitative programs to help them come out better than they went in, but you won’t hear much about stuff like that from the people who actually work in prisons or from the prisoners themselves. Those are the people that know how unlikely it is that prison is going to be good for anyoneââ�¬â��prisoner or the society who sent him there.

On the bright side, the sadness of prisons makes the work of public defenders all the more important . . . even if people do use their freedom to do nothing more than eat cow’s balls. . . .

Pen the next page of our mystery! We wrote the first chapter in the story of Tasker Volt, and we need you to follow up with the next 300 words. Read the latest installment, then write your own continuation. �