Happenings
I had a pretty busy day at work yesterday. It wasn't as busy as Monday but it was still pretty crazy. I came in in the morning and finished writing some letters that I had started so that I could get Angela (my supervising attorney) to look over them. After that I met her at the Bannock county courthouse so that she could approve the letters and so that I could sit in on a hearing. The hearing was uneventful but the facts behind it were pretty interesting. I'm not sure how in depth about facts I am allowed to get without violating confidentiality so I will be very general.

An adult son suffers from some type of mental illness that makes him unable to follow ANY type of rules. So anywhere he lives he ends up being kicked out or arrested. Well the dad is the only person that is willing to accept any type of responsibility for him so he was in court attempting to get the appropriate power over the son. In order to do this the judge had to rule that the son was incapacitated. The hope is that by being considered legally incapacitated some of the pending charges against him will be dropped. It was really sad to see this father that cared so much for his son attempt to take on so much responsibility for this guy when he literally can not stay out of trouble. Anyway, it was interesting and sad at the same time.

In other news Lettie left for NC for a wedding early in the morning. I was going to go also but plane tickets had gotten expensive and I can't really afford to miss so many days of work. Without her here I will have her car and be able to do what I want. Unfortunately I usually just follow her around so I might end up with a car and no where to go. Oh well.

After work I went home watched the news and got ready for my softball game. My first game with this team didn't go so well. For the first game they had me at shortstop. I hadn't touched a softball in more than 6 years and I had only played in 4 0r 5 softball games in my entire life (I am attempting to set up some sort of excuse for what is about to come). Well I finished the game with 4 errors. The worst of which came on a pop up. The batter hit the ball really really high so I was back peddling to get to it. Well it floated further than I thought so when I tried to reach back and catch it I fell to the ground and the ball landed beside me. The guy who hit the ball thought I was going to catch it so he didn't even bother trying to run to first base, so once the ball hit the ground his entire team was yelling at him to run. Since I was on the ground I couldn't get up fast enough to throw the guy out. The crowd thought this was hilarious and I was embarrassed. On a more positive note, I went 3/3 batting and had a couple RBI's. Unfortunately in the game last night the errors continued but the good fortunes at the plate did not. I finished with 2 errors in 3 innings and I went 1/3 at the plate. I am starting to think that I was not made to play softball. It would be one thing if I embarrassed myself in front of people I knew but I don't know any of these people so it was even more embarrassing. I am still trying to decide if I am going to play in any more of their games or just sit out so I save them the errors.

After my game I went over to Omar's and watched 'swordfish'. I only saw the last 1/2 and I wasn't very impressed.

Cerebration
One of the things that has shocked me the most about working landlord/tenant issues is how mean and ruthless some landlords can be. For instance I had a guy come in a talk to me because his landlord cutoff his power and removed his front door to try to get him to move out. This is clearly not allowed and the landlord knows it. Unfortunately the Idaho law doesn't really provide much recourse. The only thing we could do is write a letter to the landlord informing him that he was breaking the law and demanding that he return the power and the door. If the landlord doesn't do this then we have to sue him. All of this can take up to a month to do. All the while this guy is living in a house with no front door and no power. When he has to go to work he is forced to leave a blanket covering the spot where the door used to be and hope that nobody walks in and steals his stuff. Sad.

Another thing that got me thinking yesterday was the court hearing I sat in on. The adult son that I made reference to early had been in prison for a number of years mostly because of his mental illness. This infuriates me. Its not that he didn't do what he did but its that his problems have not been addressed. This guy obviously needs some help and sticking him in a concrete cell with a bunch of guys that will take advantage of him is not the solution. A lot of politicians in this country aren't interested in really solving crime, they just want to be viewed as being 'tough' on crime. What a crock. If they were more interested in solving problems rather than getting re-elected then maybe we would make some progress. Get these mentally ill people out of jail and into treatment. Stop building prisons and spend money on things that will SOLVE the problem and not just mask it. Sure we feel safer when crazy people are locked up and not on the streets but does it make us feel better that we are neglecting to actually help these people. It has gotten so bad here in Idaho that this guy can't voluntarily admit himself to the hospital. He was going through a bad time, realized it and tried to commit himself but they turned him away. There wasn't enough space at the hospital. In order to be admitted they told him he had to be sent by the court. They were basically telling him to go do something crazy so that the judge would order him to be committed. What would really happen is that the judge would send him to jail and not the hospital because there is space in the jail. So in the end this guy never gets help.

Maybe more fault should be placed on the people that vote for these politicians. I mean if we changed what we demanded then they would change their stances. Of course that would require a tiny amount of critical thought and I would never expect people to do that. I mean who would want to put in that much effort into voting.