I am CuTRis

Award October 30, 2005 For the second time today, Cutris has won the prestigious, annual Dude of the Week award. This award sponsored by the Women of Today, is given out once each month.

In our world, we are often given one side to the story… whatever the story happens to be. The United States does not use weapons of mass destruction, though we do have them. Furthermore, the 15,000 lb. Daisy Cutter bomb, which destroys everything within a 600-yard radius, is not a weapon of mass destruction. I have recently begun a dialogue with a man from Syria who found me on my blog. He is afraid that the USA will invade his country, because of the allegations that Syria is arming Lebanese terrorists. He had those awful pictures of the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison. This led me to wonder if the USA is also spreading terror? http://www.nd.edu/~techrev/Archive/Spring2002/a8.html http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/iraqis_tortured/

Yesterday, as I was hiking up a muddy creek in the Wilkie Unit of the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge, I found that I needed to use a “Gorock Stick” to improve my safety. For those of you who may not know what a Gorock Stick is, it was named after a man whom I first wrote about sometime ago, who lived around 5000BC. Mr. Gorock may not have invented the concept of using a stick to poke unstable ground in order to find safe passage, but he did in fact, perfect the art form. In a time when it was important to have the basic skills of hunting, using weapons and poking a stick in the ground to find safe passage, Mr. Gorock was the undisputed expert in the use of what would later be referred to, as the “Gorock Stick.” Some of you may have seen the movie “Nanook of the North,” in which the lead character, Nanook, used his spear to find safe passage across dangerous ice flows. It is likely that Gorock’s stick too, may have doubled as a weapon such as a spear. The stick that I used wa...

A flock of pigs was seen flying over a frozen hell on Sunday... Yes, the Vikings had actually won a game.

One of the e-mails I had yesterday informed me that I didn’t get the job I had wanted. I was down to the last two applicants, and I interviewed twice for it. I could get upset, but it apparently wasn’t the right job, and I’m not going to let it ruin my day.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The city of Providence (you may remember this battle from previous posts) finally sent my refund for the excess they charged me for the (rip-off) excise tax for my car that I don’t own anymore in a city (Providence) that I don’t live in anymore. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t give up easily. I outlasted the Providence Tax Assessors office!

I went to my car dealer after my summer trip in July, and the service guy tried to talk me into all kinds of unnecessary repairs. I did decide to go with a transmission flush, since I know the transmissions on most cars are crap. The guy wanted to do a brake inspection, and I negotiated a tire rotation while they had the wheels off. The rotation wasn’t on the invoice, but when I asked, I was told it had been done. I was also told that my brakes would need to be done this fall, because they were down to 20% of original. I called the service guy when I noticed my tires hadn’t been rotated. He said he’d “take care of me” next time I came in. I went in the next morning. He said he couldn’t help me because the mechanic who was supposed to work on my car wasn’t there. I was mad. He told me he couldn’t help me, so I backed out and backed all the way to the front where I went in and asked to speak to a manager. I was explaining to the manager what had happened, when “Andy,” the service guy ran...

This is YELLOW ??? No, it's ORANGE .

"You wouldn't think you were so smart if you had a wasp up your butt!"

Most of the kids in detention think they are really cool and really tough. Some of them know everything. A lot of them are in detention almost daily. One decided that it would be a good idea to threaten me yesterday. He is currently serving a 5-day suspension. No doubt, some of these kids are destined for prison someday. Even if they’ve been in juvenile detention, they have no idea what’s in store for them after age 18. I haven’t seen one of them yet that would last more than half a day in an adult lockup. I really wish that I could help them, but most of them are too stubborn and too proud.

One day an ant was walking down the street when it heard its name, “Philbrashen.” Who could have been looking for a tiny ant? It thought. It looked around with its compound eyes, listened with its auditory senses and felt with its antennas, but there was no one around! Suddenly it heard the sound again, “Philbrashen! Philbrashen! Philbrashen! But again, there was nobody there! Then the tiny ant heard someone say, “Damn these allergies! Philbrashen! Philbrashen!” Suddenly feeling spooked, the little ant ran home.

This is a "sanitized" copy of the letter that I e-mailed to an employer who is insisting that I interview in the morning... Person, Title Person, Title Address RE: SECOND INTERVIEW FOR, ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR OF CURRICULUM I received two phone calls regarding a second interview for the position that I talked with you about last Thursday (10/6/05). Each time I was asked to interview in the morning, and each time I explained that I have a job and I can only interview in the afternoon. The last call did not sound very promising, since I was not given any alternative besides this Thursday morning. I am currently working for ISD ###, and my hours are Monday through Friday, 7:00AM until 1:30PM. I cannot in good conscience take off work to interview for any job. I respect my employer, my coworkers, and the children who I work with. While I am still interested in the job, and I am available most any afternoon (except this Wednesday when I have another second interview), I cannot i...

Within our society that pretends to be politically correct at all cost, it is difficult to address any real problems. I have personally worked with drug addicts, convicts and now I work as a detention monitor with Jr. High School students. The interesting and perhaps sad thing about it is that certain demographic groups are disproportionately represented in all of these areas. In my experience, it has nothing to do with prejudice, and everything to do with the attitude of the individuals. These attitudes seem to be passed from parents to their children. Wanton disregard for rules and almost complete defiance of authority is often ignored by the parents and embraced by the children. More likely, the children learn from the example of their parents. If the school continually sends discipline notices home and the parents ignore them, how will the child know to change? If the child refuses to serve detention and the parent will not intervene, what can the school do? Street Culture seems to...

On my birthday I went hiking at Rapids Lake. I was climbing down a ravine, when I found some clothing and a bone. I looked around a bit, but wasn’t interested in digging. I don’t know what it was all about, but I put it in my ranger report. Otherwise, I seem to be generating a lot of interviews all of a sudden. I have two so far this week and maybe another. There is one job I really would like to get, and I just found out that I have made it to the final two!

I would like to take this moment to send kudos to President George W. Bush. After only five years in office, he has said something that made sense. People should drive less, in order to save gas. Who’d a thought it? It reminds me of President Jimmy Carter, who asked us all to conserve energy back in the 1970’s. Perhaps we should have listened. What happened to change that? Oh yeah… now I remember. It was Reagonomics. That makes sense, because last time the USA financed everything, Ronald Reagan was President. Still, George W. Bush is beating Reagan at this by far. I reckon the deficit will wreck things in this country for a while. I don’t think you can give tax breaks to the wealthy, finance a war and cleanup after a hurricane without breaking the bank. Still, that thing about using less gas is good isn’t it?

It was a beautiful day for a fire drill, and we had one at the Jr. High where I work. The bell rang, we filed out and I held the door as the students “escaped.” Then, all too quickly we were called back inside. I walked out to the fringes and called out for the kids to head inside. That was when I saw it. A small kid, probably a 7th grader, threw a pebble… or whatever it was and I heard the “ping,” as it hit a car in the parking lot. He was busted! I told the kid he was coming to the office with me. He was bummed. Just before we got to the door, I asked him why he was throwing rocks at cars. He mumbled something. Then I asked him, “how about if you get to class and don’t ever do that again? Without a word, he hurried in and up the stairs. I think that those few moments that he thought he was in trouble were befitting of his “crime.” I’m sure that the car has been hit by pebbles following trucks too. KJC

So, while working in detention at the school, sometimes I have to put discipline information on the kids' records. It reminded me of talking to my friend Mark about our “permanent records.” Back in school (I went to Richfield), the teachers used to tell us that something we did (wrong) was going to go on our “permanent record!” How ominous this sounded! Mark and I were wondering where our permanent records are… now… today… We would joke about things like seeing each other’s permanent record being moved by a forklift, or perhaps being pulled by the Budweiser Clydesdales on a wagon. It got pretty funny actually! The truth of the matter, however, is somewhat different. It seems that when I g ot my new job with the school district, my permanent record (from when I was in school), was trucked down to the school district where I am now working. They had to warehouse it in the bus garage, where it accidentally tipped over and crushed three school busses. Mark’s permanent record has to be ...

So I am now working as a detention monitor at a Jr. High School. I told the people who hired me about my experience working with drug addicts and convicts when I was with the county. Now, it seems that the students are talking about the “prison guard” that watches detention. I never told anyone that I was a prison guard…

Beyond the obvious problems with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there are a few things that I find really bothersome. First, if you want to fix the flooding problem, it isn’t enough to create levees and dikes. The wetlands need to be reestablished. As a volunteer ranger in the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge, I spend lots of time hiking the wetlands and river bottoms. I know that the only reason this wonderful wilderness area isn’t being developed, is because it floods. By allowing that area to continue to exist, the cities aren’t flooded and the byproduct is that habitat is available for the wildlife. Humans arrogantly think that they are so important, that they can destroy the habitat of other animals. What should be remembered is that what injures one often injures all. The destruction of wetlands increases the likelihood of floods. On the topic of arrogant humans, I find it upsetting that people weren’t allowed to take their pets when they evacuated the disaster zone...