In some ways it reminds me of the game Life. You can pick one of two routes with your little plastic car: One leads straight to a job, and the other goes through college to a career that pays more.

I have an article on the front of the today’s local section in the Journal that details the creation of a construction industry coordinator position at the Rapid City Area Chamber of Commerce. The person hired for the spot will basically match bodies with jobs — in this case, specifically construction jobs.

Both Jim Scull of J. Scull Construction and Linda Rabe of the chamber said there’s no conflict with the “you should go to college after high school” message.

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I have mixed feelings on this one. Almost anyone with writing talent (and question-asking ability, too) can do my job. Still, my college years taught me a lot about how the world works, showed me how bureaucracies function, and gave me a lot of perspectives about other things besides journalism.

But I do see Jim and Linda’s point: Not everyone goes to college. And those high schoolers go somewhere — often to low-paying jobs without much chance of promotion. Or worse, they don’t work at all.

What do you think? Is this position a useful tool to get kids good jobs or is a distraction from getting graduates to college?

It’s been tough recently for sit-down restaurants. Today comes news that the profits of the company that owns Olive Garden are expected to slip below Wall Street estimates.

Casual dining chains like Darden’s Red Lobster and Olive Garden restaurants have been hit hard as consumers cut back on eating out amid rising gas prices and the continued housing slump.

That comes on the heels of bad news for other restaurants, such as Chili’s. Some have even filed for bankruptcy. It appears cash-strapped customers are skipping the up-scale chains, since places like McDonald’s and Hardee’s continue to do OK.

My guess is more restaurant chains will open in the shadow of the new retail chain stores opening up along Interstate 90 at Rushmore Crossing and near Cabela’s. But amidst all that growth, have your eating habits changed as the economy has gone south and prices have gone up? Do you eat out less, or go to a cheaper place?

That’s right — it’s not just pizza anymore. Starting Monday the pizza delivery giant will roll out four $4.99 sub sandwiches you can get delivered to your door, reported USA Today earlier this week.

The move is clearly an invasion of Subway’s and Quiznos usual business. I thought it seemed a little strange at first, but it wasn’t more than a month ago I ordered that pasta thing Pizza Hut delivers. And, when think about it, the pizza delivery companies already offer to bring breadsticks, pop and other goodies directly to you.

Call me old-fashioned (at age 28), but in some ways I miss the old days when a pizza joint was a pizza joint and a burger joint was a burger joint — not a place to get a salad that still isn’t that healthy once you put on the dressing and breaded chicken.

I hotfooted it down to Furniture Row on Friday, after we first got a heads-up in the newsroom that the place would open up on Saturday.

It seems like Furniture Row corporate was putting out the news of the Rapid City location’s opening before they told the local guys about the press attention. Regardless, the local folks treated me well as I asked a few questions, and as they checked with their corporate marketing about the announcement.

That place is BIG. There are four stores, but they’re all under one roof and the walls don’t quite go all the way up, so you get an idea of the size just by looking up. I spent most of my time there wandering around the Denver Matress area, which was still getting unpacked. There’s plenty of furniture obviously, with large openings between each ’store.’

Where do you think this puts Fischer Furniture? I haven’t been down to any of the Fischer furniture stores yet (I’m new in town, remember) but it appears they’re expanding quite a bit. I love the ‘Fearless’ name, though. Is furniture sales a cutthroat business here? Is Furniture Row going to give Fischer a run for its money?

Some more detail to go along with today’s story about winter heating prices:

While natural gas heating prices are going to fluctuate, don’t expect the prices to drop too much. Along with the usual “It’s the high price of oil!” reason comes a new bugbear: We don’t get cheap surplus off the overloaded natural gas pipeline anymore, said Richard Matteson, a spokeman for Montana-Dakota Utilities.

South Dakota’s location near producers meant it could get a deal on the gas when producers had extra product they couldn’t send to the East, due to crowded pipelines. But recently, more pipe has come online, which means we don’t get a discount, Matteson said.

In addition, natural gas is increasingly used instead of coal to fire power plants — part of the blowback over environmental concerns about burning coal. That means natural gas — which usually isn’t the regular means to produce electricity — is getting a lot more use, especially in the East.

“In other words, they’re using it year-round, full time,” Matteson said.

Bottom line: Prices will swing with the market as usual, but the good ol’ days of cheap natural gas for South Dakota are probably over. At least for awhile — take a look at this article about increasing production.

Chesapeake Energy Chairman Aubrey McClendon, after extolling the virtues of the company’s emerging prospects in Louisiana’s Haynesville Shale, brought up the subject during the company’s latest earnings conference call even before he was asked.

“Now before you become concerned about longer-term natural gas prices as a result of the sheer size of the Haynesville, please remember some likely natural constraints to the play’s growth,” McClendon cautioned.

It’s likely to take several years to build the pipeline capacity to move gas out of the field, which itself should take decades to fully develop.

Constraints on new production and declines in older fields, “plus increasing demand from the U.S. power sector should be sufficient, in our view, to prevent a U.S. gas glut from developing.”

Hello, folks. I’m Jeremy Fugleberg — I’m the new business reporter at the Journal. I just started Monday, so I’m still getting up to speed on a lot of things, but I wanted to get blogging before the week was out. As always, feel free to get in touch with me via e-mail or phone if you’ve got any business tips or story suggestions.

E-mail: jeremy.fugleberg@gmail.com

Phone: 394-8421

I’m excited to be here. Fast facts about me: My previous job was East River — at the newspaper in Watertown. I’m originally from Michigan, via Washington and North Dakota. I’ve lived in South Dakota since 1999 (I met a girl…) and am a graduate of South Dakota State University.

I’m working my way through the lunch-time culinary delights of the downtown area, and I was hoping you could give me some pointers on where to eat next.

What’s good? What’s interesting? What would surprise me?

It’s not a good sign when the place that sells cheap gas closes. As Rapid City and the rest of the country have endured soaring fuel costs for … oh … forever, it seems, one of the city’s discount gas stations is closing. Mirastar, that station located in front of the Wal-Mart, will close as of tomorrow (Friday). No new cheap gas station will takes its place … it will be torn down. An excerpt from our story:

Wal-Mart shoppers who buy discounted gas at the Mirastar location in front of the retail store’s Rapid City location will have to fuel up elsewhere soon.

The store is set to close Friday along with 41 other Mirastar stations throughout the United States.

Tesoro operates 76 Mirastar stations nationwide and leases the ground upon which they sit from Wal-Mart.

Nobody else will move into the station, said John Simley, a Wal-Mart spokesman. As part of Tesoro’s decision, the energy firm will also entirely remove the stations.

Tesoro made the deal in 2000 to operate the Mirastar stations jointly with Wal-Mart and opened locations throughout the United States.

You may have seen the Journal stories this week about the Boneyard bar and entertainment venue in Whitewood. There has been a note posted on their Web site since July 3, explaining they were trying to secure financing for the 2008 Sturgis rally. When we visited the bar this week, it didn’t look like it could possibly be open in time for the rally … everything was locked down and deserted. It didn’t look as though anyone had even opened the place.

But Friday, the Junkers — the family from Minnesota which opened the Boneyard last year — were at the bar, working to get it opened in time for Monday. Nothing like waiting until the last minute. Could be the story we published this week prompted a new note on their Web site, dated July 31, shortly after they were interviewed by the Journal. This note read:

The ‘great decision’ has been made. The Boneyard Saloon will be open for the Sturgis Rally ’08. This is due, in great part, to all of you out there that have given us so many words of encouragement…..for this we ‘thank you’. Pardon the pun…but we will be operating at the “bare-bones level” …. but we will be operating….and we will be there to greet you and show our appreciation for you support. We may still be setting up when you get there…. but grab a cold beer, kick back and enjoy the day or pick up a hammer and join us.

For those of you who read the June press release on our web site; that facts have not changed. We will continue to seek out alternative funding/investors/partners and remain committed to our vision of establishing the Boneyard Saloon as the ‘best of the best’. We’ll keep trying if you ‘hang with us’.

See you at the Boneyard!

The Junkers

The Junkers may need to open, seeing as their business has had a lien placed on it, and they owe over $1 million to creditors. If the business doesn’t survive, it would be a shame. Not only will that 40-acre entertainment center likely become a vacant year-round eyesore (which it is the remainder of the year anyway), but the Junkers spent a lot of money to bring in some name-brand 80s/hair bands in their inaugural season last August. And with RocknTheRally being reduced to three days this summer, there are fewer big shows for music fans.

So Boneyard’s quick departure will be felt.