famous like Meadowlark Lemon

Recent Entries

6th-Mar-2007 08:06 pm - you like spaghetti, too!

he report of my death is an exaggeration.

I've been inconsolable for a week because no one had LJ-nudged me. You can thank

navygreen for giving me my first ever nudge. As a result of my phishing expedition a couple of years ago I had grand plans for your fuckers. Anyone know where I can unload several pounds of thermite and magnesium powder in a hurry?

For those of you not following LARM's journal, he's going to stay with me an extra week since my company is short on equipment at the moment. They're going to pay him extra as compensation, of course, I get the luxury of having a good, and cool, student on board for a while longer. Last week, we were afforded the opportunity to drive by the Oregon Shoetree, which was the first I had ever encountered. I had never been back to it in all these years and my only photos of it were taken with the really awful camera I had at the time. It's nice to finally have some quality photos of it.

This past weekend was spent at home, spending time with

welfy and socializing with friends and family.

On Saturday, Welf, LARM, and I went to Cincinnati to meetup with Patty and her beau to see Doug Stanhope perform. After the show he was gracious enough to pose for a quick photo with us in the foyer of the club. Patty sent me a text message the next day to let me know that Doug was in a car wreck later that night and apparently is in pretty bad shape. I haven't been able to find any news about it anywhere but hopefully he'll be okay. With the possible exception of Lewis Black, I can't think of another comic working the American club circuit right now that matters as much as Stanhope does.

On Monday, while I was spending time with my kids, Welf visited with

janietrain. When I was done with the wee-Soops, I joined them only to discover that

brianjedi had joined the festivities at some point and a game of Karaoke Revolution had begun. Somewhere, there exists a really embarassing video of me doing "Respect" that will likely grace Welf's journal in the very near future.

I may have been mistaken in assuming that the new Modest Mouse album would be the album of the year if my current last.fm charts are any indication.

Now I gotta find time to read your journals. What's been goin' on?

Tags:friends, larm, photo, welfy
Location:St. Louis, MO

2nd-Feb-2007 03:05 pm - yeah it's still boring but I wanted to write about it anyway

took the additional time-off as a sign that I should probably do something about my tooth abscess/sinusitis. Even though my puffy-ness from a couple of weeks ago has subsided, it was eventually replaced by a headache which is ever-present unless I'm constantly dosing myself with Advil. He was able to squeeze me in at 4pm yesterday to check me out and prescribe a regimen of antibiotics, decongestants, and nasal sprays to combat it. He actually praised me for waiting a few weeks to give my body a chance to fight it on its own, since I'm otherwise an amazingly healthy person. He and I seem to be of like-mind in that too many people seek to over-treat simpler maladies at the slightest sniffle. I've long believed that the current trend of the past 15 years to sanitize EVERYTHING and the over-use of antibiotics has contributed to poorer health, and has not been a benefit. Certainly appropriate steps need to be taken to prevent major outbreaks of E. Coli or salmonella, but goin' all Howard Hughes with the hypochondria and paranoia only serves to weaken the immune system. Personally, I think we're already seeing the effects of this, as its been my observation that we've become less hardy as a species. In another generation, I feel this may come to rue with a vengeance.

ver since getting the new EVDO Aircard, after accidentally (if not somewhat gloriously) smashing my old one to bits in a laptop tumble, I've had problems with the computer halting in error while the new card has been in use. My fear is that the PCMCIA slot was damaged in the tumble and that the card is shorting somewhere when it's jostled around, yet I've never been able to discern any specific correlation to the computer-freeze and the jostling. I've found Windows XP SP2 to be a remarkably stable OS for the most part. The type of halt I get is a blank, black screen and then I have to to do a hard shutdown and reboot. In my previous experiences with this sort of halt, it's most always a hardware issue. I'm hoping that it's not, and that I just have some nasty registry problem due to the new card and it's drivers essentially being copied over the old one. I've tried numerous uninstalls/reinstalls and firmware updates to no avail. The next step is a reinstall of the OS, which frankly I'm probably due for anyway. If that doesn't fix it, I guess I'm screwed. I had hoped that there was maybe some sort of USB-to-PCMCIA solution on the market, but they seem to be very hardware specific to the card and pricey to boot. I may have to suffer through the year of frugality with the annoyance of laptop crashes. 2008 will mark my two year anniversary as a Sprint customer and should enable me to get a $150 credit toward a hardware upgrade. There is a USB version of the EVDO modem which I might have to seriously consider if my PCMCIA slot is indeed fux0red. That would probably be a more cost-effective solution than trying to repair the slot itself.

he repairs on Sally were completed yesterday afternoon. After returning from my doctor's appointment and fetching

welfy from work, I went to retrieve her and brought her back to the house. I made myself available for a load and made dinner for us and

chasinghighways, who had been hanging out with me at the house for the past two days in hopes that the truck would be ready at a moment's notice. Around 9pm, I got a load assignment. We loaded in Columbus around 5am and have begun the 1,100 mile trip to Houston. It doesn' t have to be there until Monday morning, but I suspect we'll be there sometime in the middle of the night tonight. I know LARM is just as happy to be back on the road as I am. Even though he gets PAID regardless while he's in training, it's no fun sitting around when all you want to do is drive, learn, and see the country. On that note, Sally is running rather nicely and I hope that she will continue to relatively problem free for the next few months. She likes to run, and I still have a good deal of faith in her engine. Once she gets going, she has no desire to stop. I just have to make sure that the things she needs to roll are kept in good repair so she can. She's like an aging person who's still full of heart and adventure, she's just getting arthritic and needs a hip replacement every now and then.

Tags:gear, larm, sally, truckgeek
Location:Linden, TN

19th-Jan-2007 09:29 pm - LARM the n00b

ast night I met LARM for the first time at the terminal in Allentown. He was done with his orientation, but there was still the formality of him being released and assigned to my truck. Apparently, the n00bs finish orientation as a group and become eligible for getting onto trainer trucks. He took advantage of a free motel room for the night and I parked at the terminal until all of this came to pass.

I woke up this morning and there was still no message authorizing me to pick him up. I called student assignments and within a few minutes had permission to put him on the truck. I called him to let him know I was on my way. After getting him and making a quick trip to a local supermarket, we had trip information: loading in Gap, PA bound for Akron, OH. I opted for driving to the shipper and after loading, back out to the Tollroad. I don't like to throw too many things at the n00bs at once, and prefer for their first time behind the wheel to be open highway.

However, it wasn't ideal conditions. By this time, it was beginning to get dark. There were high winds and we were under a light load and snow was spitting from the gray skies. I stopped at a service plaza west of Harrisburg. We switched seats and I gave him a crash course on the cockpit guages and switches before letting him begin. Soon, we were snaking through the parking lot on our way to the on-ramp. While his shifting wasn't flawless, it was better than most as he climbed through the gears. He shifts a little fast, like you would a car, not allowing enough time for the RPM's to drop, so there's a little crunch as it goes into gear. I suspect he'll iron that out soon enough. He has good lane control, he's patient, and is conscious of his mirrors. These are basically the things I look for the first time a student drives. I can already tell that he's going to do well. On top of all of this, he's confident and not nervous, two qualities which can take days for some to achieve.

After dropping this load in Akron, we're picking up a load in Columbus and heading for California. I don't know if a split is planned or if they want us to take it all the way. It's not due there until Tuesday, but if I dont think we can make it there by Monday, I'll probably ask for a split: not getting there until Tuesday makes a tight timetable for being back home by next weekend. A lot depends on how well he's still doing by tomorrow. I'll re-evaluate it more and see how I feel about it, and how he feels about it before making a decision.

We spent the day talking about video games, music, and movies. Basically, we probably have nothing else to talk about now. We're getting a long great though. LARM has created a LiveJournal and wrote his first entry in it last night, complete with a self-portrait. This saves me the trouble of posting my usual first-day photograph. I thought some of you might be interested in seeing the entire ordeal from the student's perspective. He also hasn't seen much of the country, which might be interesting to read about as we make our first cross-country trip.

You can find him at

chasinghighways.

Tags:larm, training
Location:Ravenna, OH

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