On May 20, Steve Zetterberg leaned back in a chair and propped his boots on what used to be the receptionist’s desk at Highway Technologies’ Missoula branch office. Nearby, the office manager paced as he talked on a cellphone, while another group of employees stood idly in a group, speaking quietly. Most of them had found out over the weekend that this was their last day of work. All of them were blindsided by the news.

“There was no talk of this coming,” says Zetterberg, who is a field supervisor with the company. “It’s like getting kicked in the stomach.”

While he says he knew the company had been struggling nationally, Zetterberg believed the Montana office was profitable.

“We thought naively that we were in great shape because we were one of the few offices making money,” he says. “But nationwide I guess they couldn’t secure the financing to do the work.”

As of May 21, Highway Technologies’ corporate office had not returned phone calls requesting comment, and its website had been changed to a password-protected page. The only official statement came via the company’s Twitter account on May 17: “We are sorry that as of this morning, Highway Technologies doors have been closed.”

Though details are sparse as to what made the business so suddenly close shop, the subcontractor has for years been facing problems with safety violations. Since 2007, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has inspected the company on 10 different occasions. In February, it was fined $480,000 and placed on OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program following a 2012 incident where a Wisconsin construction worker was killed after coming into contact with power lines. According to a public affairs representative from OSHA, the company was in the process of contesting those penalties when it announced its closure.

Find Rob Brezsny's "Free Will Astrology" online, every Wednesday, one day before it hits the Indy's printed pages.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): "I'm still learning," said Michelangelo when he was 87 years old. For now, he's your patron saint. With his unflagging curiosity as your inspiration, maybe your hunger for new teachings will bloom. You will register the fact that you don't already know everything there is to know … you have not yet acquired all the skills you were born to master … you're still in the early stages of exploring whole swaths of experience that will be important to you as you become the person you want to be. Even if you're not enrolled in a formal school, it's time to take your education to the next level.

Where You’re Drinking: It’s summertime (sorta) and the living is easy. During the glorious bright, warm days of late spring, all we want to do is find a place to relax outside, sip a cold one and feel the breeze on our skin. We can think of many great places to drink outside, but Al’s and Vic’s has a special charm. This isn’t the most scenic of patios, located as it is in an alley, with the view dominated by power lines and a telephone pole. Once we spotted a severed chicken foot sitting on one of the tables, and watched as a group of people, determined to enjoy the sunshine, sat there anyway.

• Al's and Vic's

So, about that charm: There are a few theories as to what makes the Al’s and Vic’s patio special. For one, on a slow weekday afternoon, bartender James Cleveland puts special care into mixing drinks, from muddling lemons to blending a gin and tonic and topping it with bitters. For another, despite the power lines and telephone pole, we can still gaze at plenty of beautiful blue sky while sipping our cocktail or beer. Cleveland has his own theory. “If you like to watch homeless people pee in dumpsters,” he says, “it’s a slice of the seedy side of Missoula.” We’re not so sure about that one. An afternoon kicking back outdoors seems like a slice of something nice, anyway.

What You’re Drinking: We’re partial to the specials, like Sunday’s $1.75 Olympia tallboys and $3.25 double wells on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Where to find it: Al’s and Vic’s is located at 119 W. Alder St., next to James Bar. You’ll find the patio in the back.

—Kate Whittle

Happiest Hour celebrates western Montana watering holes. To recommend a bar, bartender or beverage for Happiest Hour, email editor@missoulanews.com.

Curses, Foiled Again
Authorities charged Carolyn James, 55, with assaulting her 96-year-old mother in Dickson City, Pa., after a neighbor recorded James slapping the invalid woman on the back and neck, screaming obscenities and threatening to break her arm. Mark Gruss told investigators he was testing webcams when he picked up a live feed from a webcam in James’s living room. James had installed the webcam herself so she could keep an eye on her mother. (Scranton’s The Times-Tribune)

New Orleans police said surveillance video recorded an armed robbery that began when a man pointed a shotgun in the victim’s face and demanded money. The victim grabbed the shotgun from the robber and chased him off. Moments later, two men drove up, and the driver said, “Give me my gun back, and I’ll give you your phone that you dropped.” The victim declined and used the shotgun to knock out the rear windshield, sending the two suspects fleeing. (New Orleans’ WWL-Radio)

The Rockies Today, a project of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at The University of Montana that provides daily links to top news stories, will be on hiatus until Monday, June 3.

Top news links, courtesy of Mountain West News.

Wyoming gets a head's up on federal fracking rules
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell called Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead to give him a brief description of federal rules on hydraulic fracturing, rules Mead said are not needed given the state's regulations on the drilling process.
Casper Star-Tribune; May 17

Annual survey in Montana's Bitterroot Valley finds more elk
The annual spring aerial survey of Montana's Bitterroot Valley found 7,373 elk, up from the 6,238 elk counted last year, and the fourth highest number since the survey began 48 years ago.
Ravalli Republic; May 17

Top news links, courtesy of Mountain West News.

Montana county commission wants to talk water with USFS, DNRC
After learning that Ravalli County's objection to the U.S. Forest Service's attempt to gain in-stream water rights on two streams had been denied by the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, the county commission has invited Tom Tidwell, chief of the U.S. Forest Service, and the top officials of the DNRC to come and talk with them about the Forest Service's plan to pursue in-stream water rights on 11 streams in the Bitterroot National Forest.
Ravalli Republic; May 16

Top news links, courtesy of Mountain West News.

Find Rob Brezsny's "Free Will Astrology" online, every Wednesday, one day before it hits the Indy's printed pages.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the alternate universe created by Marvel comic books, there is a mutant superhero called Squirrel Girl. She has the magic power to summon hordes of cute, furry squirrels. Under her guidance, they swarm all over the bad guy she's battling and disable him with their thousands of tiny chomps and thrashing tails. She and her rodent allies have defeated such arch-villains as Dr. Doom, Deadpool, Baron Mordo, and Ego the Living Planet. Let's make her your role model for the coming weeks, Aries. The cumulative force of many small things will be the key to your victories. As in Squirrel Girl's case, your adversaries' overconfidence may also be a factor.

The Independent has been chronicling Beach’s legal struggles and a tenuous freedom that he’s enjoyed this past year and half. When we broke the news to him this afternoon, there was a long silence. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I have to make some phone calls.”

Peter Camiel, Beach’s Seattle-based attorney, said he wasn’t sure how quickly Beach will be returned to prison. “It could be right away,” he said.

Beach has maintained his innocence for decades. He said that police pressured him into providing a false confession in 1983. In Dec. 2011, a Montana district court judge freed Beach after finding that new evidence introduced by his legal team during an evidentiary hearing could alter the verdict if presented to a jury during a new trial.

The Supreme Court in its decision today found that the lower court erred when it ordered Beach free and granted him a new trial. The court opined that “Beach’s new evidence was not reliable.”

Camiel has said that if the Supreme Court reinstated Beach’s conviction, they’d appeal to the federal court system.

The Indy will have more on this story.