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 ith only two hours remaining on his shift for the day, Don decided to stop at a truckstop to take a small bathroom break this morning. As he was returning to the highway, a combination of factors - but most of all his own inattention - resulted in his getting tangled-up with another truck. Don was making a left-hand turn and clipped the front fender of a truck that was sitting in the left hand turn lane. Don was facing the sun and in heavy traffic and didn't clearly see what his trailer was doing until it was too late.
 The other driver was stopped 15 feet over the stop bar, so the officer very graciously decided to not cite anyone in the accident and left it for the insurance companies to squabble over. It's not an excuse for Don hitting a stopped vehicle in traffic, but it was a contributing factor along with all of the others. | |
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 o after having an overdraft at the end of last week, I've gotten two HUGE paychecks in two days that correspond to the two weeks I was on the road prior to my home time. So at the moment, my checking account feels like it's swimming in cash. For a few days anyway. Ever since buying the house, Welf and I have been a bit cash strapped, but it appears we're out of the woods now and things will be back on track.
Don is progressing nicely, though I've discovered that he doesn't retain things very quickly, even with daily repetition. This may make things a little more challenging than I initially thought, but I don't anticipate it being a serious problem. He's not like... Jason slow or anything.
I have a couple of dirty little secrets that I'll be sharing with everyone in the coming weeks.
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 h let's see... where were we.
I finished up Alex's training and put him off the truck last Thursday before going home for the weekend. I have a new student named Don. He's 40 and from Flint, Michigan. He's a bit of a talker, so hopefully he doesn't take my generally quiet nature personally. So far he's doing okay; really rough on the shifting, but we'll iron that out in a couple of days. Otherwise, decent lane control and he's reasonably bright so I don't anticipate the Qualcomm or maps/directions/routing being any big deal for him. Hopefully I can get him up to speed in a week or so and begin putting down some miles again. Between Thomas, Alex and myself, the three weeks I was out prior to my home time, Sally saw 16,200 miles. I need some more of that.
Sally has been running great for the past couple of months. Her turbo is leaking oil, I get some compression in the cooling system, and she has some creature-comfort annoyances, but she takes everything I give her. She recently ticked past the 900,000 mile mark. Only 32 more weekly payments and she's all mine. Hopefully, if I can keep Sally stocked with quality students and roll like I have been, I can get her paid for sooner. I'll be so glad when I'm done with the lease. Maybe by this time next year I'll be able to give her a much deserved engine overhaul. Maybe by the first quarter of 2009 I can have an additional truck on the road and someone working for me.
My home time was relaxing and enjoyable. Of course, it's hard for it not to be when I have such good company as ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) welfy. In addition to puttering about the house in a manner that an old codger like me is supposed to, we went to a folk dancing class on Friday night and had my parents over for Sunday dinner. Also, I'm beginning to think I'll never get past "Freya" on Expert.
A dear friend of mine who I regrettably don't make enough effort keeping in touch with since she moved to the far-off land of Pennsylvania, has begun a LiveJournal. So now I have no excuse as long as she keeps writing. She's also good friends with aloneinky who I pimped on these pages a while back. The journal name is slhorsfield, and I'm sure she would appreciate having a few starter friends to get her in the swing of the social aspect of LJ. Take a peek and see if it's for you if you're in the market for a new friend.
While we're on the subject of livejournal.friends: tequilaprophet ... wtf? I hate to see the good ones give it up.
And now... some quick movie reviews:
 Cinderella Man (2005)
Director: Ron Howard
Cast: Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger, Paul Giamatti
A biopic about the astonishing, if brief, championship boxing career of James J. Braddock. Great story, an okay script and fantastic set/costumes (Depression era New York City, the estimated budget for the film is nearly $90 million), but, unfortunately the acting is stiff and contrived, even from Giamatti who has been known to steal the show with his character work (Private Parts, anyone?). How he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for this role is beyond me. The real problem with this movie is the pacing, though. Howard has such a great set and props to work with that he lingers too much to show how pretty it is and many of the boxing scenes are too long, repetitive, and tedious.
 Dark Star (1974)
Director: John Carpenter
Writers: John Carpenter, Dan O'Bannon
A collaboration by two men who would make a considerable mark in the sci-fi/horror hybrid genre just a few years later. It's laughably low-budget (there's even a beach ball masquerading as an alien) and the acting is horrible. It is more of a comedy than a dramatic film and has its moments, but won't be of interest as anything more than a historical curiosity in their early careers. Starting in 1978, Carpenter would direct Halloween, Escape From New York, Christine, Starman and The Thing in a four year period and O'Bannon would write the screenplay for Ridley Scott's Alien in 1979.
 Unknown (2006)
Cast: Jesus Christ Jim Caviezel, Greg Kinnear, Joe Pantoliano, Barry Pepper, Peter Stormare, Chris Mulkey
First-time director Simon Brand and first-time screenplay writer Matthew Waynee get everything right and attract a small ensemble cast of quality character actors for a no-frills thriller worthy of being called Hitchcockian. The film has a unique premise: five men wake-up in an abandoned factory and can't remember who they are or how they got there. There are obvious signs of a previous power struggle: two of them have been restrained and one has been shot. The factory is locked-down by security doors and they can't get out. Over the next 98 minutes, the characters gradually regain pieces of their memory, while trying to escape. There is nothing spectacular about the script, but it is tight as is the editing. Little is wasted and it is compelling through the very last frame.
 Three Days Of The Condor (1975)
Director: Sydney Pollack
Cast: Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Max von Sydow, John Houseman
This often over-looked film yields some great performances and on-location filming in New York City. Without giving too much away, Redford is a bookworm for the CIA, code-named The Condor. When he unwittingly stumbles into a conspiracy within the agency, he has 72 hours to unravel it and try to stay alive. A film like this could easily sprawl and become a mess, but it stays tight and gripping (it was nominated for an Academy award in the Best Editing category). Redford is his usual charming, somewhat-fumbling self and Dunaway gives a decent turn as the obligatory eye candy. Houseman is on-screen far too little for my tastes, but von Sydow's supporting role is top notch. Probably not worth going out of your way, but if you're a fan of solid, gritty 70s-era cinema, you owe it to yourself to check it out. Not in the same league as All The President's Men or a weird, gem like Dog Day Afternoon but better than, say, Marathon Man.
( Other stuff I've been watching.... ) | |
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 ey wow, I have a LiveJournal.
I spent my home time organizing the house and spending time with welfy mostly. I've been back on the road for a few days now. I've acquired a new student, named Thomas. He has a horrible cold and is constanlty coughing. Today the back of my throat has started feeling sore. Lovely. Other than that, he's an alright guy. He's doing well and we get along; can't ask for much more than that.
Since autumn officially starts next Saturday, I'm going to try and finish up posting gams photos this week since it's supposed to be a summer project. A few more have straggled in over the past couple of weeks. If you've been putting it off, this is your last chance.
A small discussion began in my last entry about what "jake brakes" were. Rather than reply, I thought I'd just write one of my little truckgeek explanations for the remainder of this journal entry, just in case you ever wondered. This is a really basic explanation of somewhat complex mechanics and thermodynamics. But here's the meat of it.
The Jacobs Brake is actually a brand name which has become synonymous with all engine compression brakes. Diesel engines don't work like gasoline engines at a very fundamental level, even though both are four-stroke engines (one powered stroke in four). In a gas engine, you need fire, fuel, and air. (1) Air is throttled at a precise ratio with the fuel, mixed, and sucked into a cylinder by a piston on a down-stroke. (2) An up-stroke compresses the air/fuel then it is ignited by the spark plug, (3) causing an explosion which provides a powered down-stroke. Finally, (4) a small valve opens in the top of the cylinder and the smoke/heat is exhausted during the final up-stroke. The valve closes and stroke 1 begins again.
In a diesel engine, there is an absence of fire; there are no spark plugs. (1) Unthrottled air is sucked into the cylinder and (2) compressed. In a diesel engine, the compression ratios are much, much higher, creating temperatures upwards of 1,500 Farenheit as the air is squeezed. In other words, there's no need for a spark plug. (3) Fuel is then injected into the hot air causing ignition for the powered down-stroke and (4) the final up stroke exhausts the fumes through an opened valve.
If you've ever stuck your tongue in the top of a soda bottle and then sucked all of the air out using your tongue as a valve, you know the force the vacuum can apply as it tries to pull your face into the bottle. In a gasoline engine, this is what happens when you take your foot off the gas. Stroke 4 just pushed everything out through the exhaust valve. Since you're not giving it gas, nothing is sucked into the cylinder, so stroke 1 creates a vacuum inside the cylinder. This causes drag on the engine in stroke 1 and stroke 3, as the vacuum tries to pull the piston back up during these two down strokes.
Since air going into the cylinder of a diesel engine is unthrottled, this doesn't happen. Even if you're not supplying fuel, the air still is tightly compressed on stroke 2, but then acts like a spring pushing back down on the piston for stroke 3, the power stroke. In the case of a heavy truck going down a hill, gravity becomes "free energy" from the drive-wheels, through the transmission, providing compression only to have it push the piston back down in a powered stroke and send the energy back to the drive-wheels where it's added to the gravity... again.
What someone figured out was that by adding a second exhaust valve, which could be opened at end of the power stroke (3), the hot, compressed air could be exhausted. In a truck rolling down a hill, the "free energy" coming through the transmission is absorbed by the compression stroke, but is now robbed from the engine by its release through the exhaust, causing a discernible net loss in power. That is what an engine brake is and that's why it makes that loud WOP WOP WOP noise when a truck driver takes his foot off the fuel pedal; it's the tightly compressed air rapidly escaping the cylinders in succession at the end of their respective stroke 3s.
The engine brake disengages whenever the fuel or clutch pedals are pressed and can be turned-off altogether via a switch on the dashboard. They can be particularly dangerous on rain/snow/ice covered roads. Since it only provides braking power through the drive wheels, it's a recipe for a jack-knife on anything other than dry roads.
Hopefully that wasn't too confusing.
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 only have to make it through one more week with Tom. He plans on taking his PTO when I head home this coming weekend. He's beginning to get on my nerves. He's 32 and has a 19 year old fiance. No big deal right? Hello pot, this is the kettle and you're looking mighty black today. But it's the 19 year old younger sister of his ex-wife. Every day he fights with her on the phone, asking her where she's been, what she's been doing, accusing her of lying, sure that she's cheating on him. Heh. Um, dude your fiance is so morally bankrupt that she'd have a relationship with her sister's husband. What're you expecting here?
Oh yeah, and he has a Nextel phone. This means lots of walkie-talkie conversations. Last night, while stuck in Brownsville, TX for the night we went to a reasonably nice Mexican seafood restaurant. In the middle of dinner, she two-ways him and for nearly five minutes carries on a conversation with her with the volume at full blast. Now granted, I'm not the most refined person on the planet, but I do have manners. He didn't excuse himself, ask her to call instead, or anything. He just sat there having this conversation with her and that annoying chirp going off every 15-20 seconds and her voice broadcasting through out the restaurant.
As if all of this wasn't enough, he talks just like Sam in I Am Sam. Both in tone and cadence. It's maddening.
We're now in Laredo waiting on a new load. My guess is we're here for the night. While getting a much needed shower, the truckstop PA was pumping out classic soul and put me in a mood. After returning to the truck I grabbed the headphones and loaded the laptop up with some Wilson Picket, Otis Redding, and Ray Charles. Tom was back from his shower, two-waying back and forth with his girl, so blasting "I'm a Midnight Mover" was a nice escape.
was watching a really bad slasher/zombie movie the other night called Severed. Seriously, if you're already getting an R rating for the gore and violence anyway and you DON'T have gratuitous nudity; just don't make the damn movie, okay? I mean really, there was even a romantic sub-plot and sex scene that cut to the next morning with NOTHING. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?!?! The female character was a tree-hugging activist, so naturally when she was offered a ham sandwich she announced she was vegan. I chuckled a bit at the awful stereotyping and then later got to thinking about how much vegans irk me.
Now, don't get me wrong. I don't care what anyone chooses to do with their life. It's your body and if it makes you happy, knock yourself out. There are lots of people who just don't like red meat and choose predominantly vegetarian diets for themselves or do so for genuine, specific health conditions under the care of a physician. What irks me about a lot of vegans though, is the militant self-righteousness, blatant propoganda, lies, departure from reality, and lack of logic used in justifying what is nothing more than the fashionable lifestyle choice of a pretentious, self-important twit. Not only is the belief that a vegan diet is better for you than a balanced diet which includes meat patently wrong, it can be dangerous if you just swallow most of the vegan propoganda for the sake of being trendy.
There's a reason why emo kids are all pasty, underweight, and sickly looking. Grow-up and have a pork chop, son.
- Tags:opinion, trainees
- Music:i'm a midnight hurter, all night lover... listen hyeh!
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 esterday I acquired a new student. His name is Gary and he hails from a small town in upstate New York near Binghamton. He's a young guy, 21, tall and lanky. I'll try and grab a picture of him in the near future. Prior to stepping on my truck yesterday morning, he had only been to five of these United States (NY/PA/OH/IN/IL). In the past 36 hours, we've added 7 more. I love getting the guys who haven't travelled very much. The vicarious pleasure of their excitement is always enjoyable. Hopefully we'll get to the west coast during his time with me. That usually blows the east coast dude's minds.
When I separated from my ex-wife a number of years ago, I almost immediately began to consort with a young lady with whom I worked. We dated and cohabitated, with varying degrees of happiness, sordidness, and drama. When we called it quits, we struggled to maintain the friendship which had been the foundation of our love affair. Due to our intimacy from being romantically involved, we had a bond, trust, and closeness with one another which we both cherished and wanted to maintain, even though we mutually acknowledged that we didn't make the greatest couple in the world. Five years later, however, we still count each other as the greatest of friends. I was even the "maid of honor" at her wedding.
A couple of weeks ago, she began a LiveJournal, filling it with thoughts and stories from her experiences as a wife, mother, family historian, non-traditional college student, and odd-jobber extraordinaire. With her busy life, she finds little time for social activities and craves adult interaction. So far, she's had a blast interacting with me and Welf but I'm sure she'd love to make some more LJ friends. You can find her journal over at aloneinky, which come to think of it would've been a great user name for me, although in her case the KY stands for Kentucky.
No, I haven't forgotten about gams. It's just that I only have three photos left because no one is sending me any! These gams come to you courtesy of the_fishery, reprising a photo similar to the one she submitted last year, though this one is a lot more fun.
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 ontinuing with soopageek's greatest hits - this is probably the funniest thing I have ever written here or anywhere. In the spring of 2005, I had a student named Jason. I can't possibly recount here the depth of entertainment Jason was, but if you're truly interested in reliving the experience, I have both a tag and an entire memory subcategory devoted to the various entries I wrote during that period of time. On March 7, 2005 I attempted to do an impression of Jason. Basically I pondered, how would Jason explain the internet to someone? And this is what I came-up with.
"Jason Explains the Internet"I saw this show, on the Discovery Channel once, where they had these typewriters with little TV's that sat on top of 'em. Do they have the Discovery Channel where you're from? I think they costed about three thousand dollars! And people wrote things on them and stuff. Yeah, about three thousand... maybe 900 dollars. And they use the Ty-uh-TV, mm-writers to talk in ciphers. You ever hear of anything like that? They said something about "cipher space" or something. And I think I remember ciphers being like secrets, only not letters, but 8 numbers you can't hear. But we don't have anything like that in Harrisburg. Do you know James Berman? He had a TV repair place in Harrisburg, but he was from Aynisscratch, Illinois. I thought he might've fixed your TV one time because he had a goldfish he bought at the State Fair in Louisville 6, no, maybe 15 years ago. He went to ITT Tech, or maybe MIT to learn engineering on TV's and he says they have this inner net that catches everything you type to send it overseas and the goverment's worried about pirates. I didn't even know they still had pirates, did you? We sure don't have anything like that in Harrisburg. It sounds sorta scary, 'cos the pirates have viruses that infect the males with worms, which sounds kind of gross, ha ha. And I think it must only infect the really strong guys who work-out and stuff because he said the worms were in "he-males". He said the worms can travel the whole world in a couple of hours without dying. I guess that's 'cos of all the oceans being wet. That's why the government is building the Reformation Super Highway to cross the oceans safe and not have to worry about pirates and worms. Someday, like maybe next year, you'll be able to drive from here to China, or Canada or something. I think that'd be kinda wild, ha ha. To be able to drive to Canada?!?!! | |
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   fter spending nearly an entire day doing virtually nothing in St. Louis, Steve and I picked up a load in Salem, Illinois bound for Laredo, Texas where it most likely is later headed for Mexico. Laredo is a bustling border town, that over the past decade or so has grown exponentially to accommodate the boom in shipping between the U.S. and our southern neighbor. Between the massive amount of shipping, the seediness of Nuevo Laredo on the other-side of the river (no doubt with a teeming red light district lined with $20 street hookers), and the pervasive presence of law enforcement of every stripe, it feels like Mos Eisley on Tatooine.
I feel like Han Solo, you're Chewie, she's Ben Kenobi, and we're in that fucked up bar!
Which reminds me, I need to go see Clerks II as well as Pirates in the very near future.
don't remember dreams very often which is always a source of envy for me for those of you who do. Yesterday, I slept for a few hours while Steve was driving and awoke from a very vivid dream involving friends in Omaha. Now, with the exception of meeting navygreen and her family a couple of months ago, I don't know anyone in the Omaha area. In the dream though, these were very good friends who I cared a lot for, and I was visiting them for the umpteenth time and there was a feeling of history and back story.
And when I woke up, I felt this huge feeling of loss. I wanted to know these people and for them to be real. Then I began pondering about my subconscious. Maybe I have this rich, alternate-reality life in my subconscious that I only visit when sleeping but I'd have no way of knowing since I don't remember them. Maybe we all do; only remembering the really bizarre parts of the dream because they're so foreign to this reality. This of course led to thinking about the nature of reality and that old chestnut, what is real? That whole Matrix notion of reality being a product of the mind. Is it any less real because it's only a dream? And what about psychotics? Schizophrenics? Maybe they have an ability to relate with the personalities and people of dream reality while awake, a la John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. Maybe they're not crazy, just wired differently.
 ately, I've fallen out of love with LiveJournal. There's no particular reason that I can associate with this malaise so I'm attributing it to one of two things: either it's just a phase which I'll snap out of or it's just my typical time line for boredom with all things computer/internet, which is about 3-5 years. In the late 80's, it was local electronic BBS. In the early 90's, it was internet-based MUD games. In the late 90's, IRC and the early aughts it's been LiveJournal. I don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon and I hope it's only a phase. My current internet obsession has become Conquer Club. Dork that I am, I even bought a premium membership for the low, low price of $20 annually so that I can play unlimited simultaneous games. I've always loved playing Risk, and lately that love has been intense, playing both at Conquer Club as well as a Risk CD-ROM I've owned and enjoyed for many, many years. I don't know if anyone else on my f-list is a Risk player, but if you are I highly recommend checking the site out. If you do and wanna play, send me a message and we'll play together.
've still got gams to share. These belong to shaden.
Barring any late submissions, I have my two favorite photos left to go. Look out!
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 hile having the camera out yesterday to take photos of Tim, he inquired about it, specifically whether it was digital or not. He has a laptop with him, so he asked if I would take some photos of him with the truck. Today when we got to our delivery point in Utica, MI he asked if I'd take some now.
He looks so tiny next to that big truck.
spent a good portion of my day riding while Tim drove. With all that down-time, I finally had a chance to sort through the 1,100+ photos that welfy, myself, and a few friends took over the month of May. I decided that, considering the amount of photos, that I would create an online album containing a fraction of them as a representative of our adventure on the road together. Additionally, I uploaded some photos of abandoned locations that Welf and I have explored in the past few weeks. By the time I got them all uploaded and sorted into their respective albums, I stopped to grab a bite to eat and chat with Welf this afternoon. I went to LiveJournal out of reflexive habit to find that my LJ syndication of my gallery had already pulled the feed of the new albums... before I had had a chance to set the highlights I wanted for them. Crikey.
 oday's gams are another husband and wife team, stormodacentury and dsptchrgal.
Everybody all together now.... Awwwww. Incidentally, I only have ONE MORE LEGS photo to post unless some of you lollygaggers get on the ball and send me something today or tomorrow. I've been saving my favorite for last.
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 left Frankfort on Thursday morning, deadheading to Nashville with a short run back over the border to Morgantown, KY. Then I popped back down to Springfield, TN and picked up a load going to the Washington, DC area. This afforded me the opportunity to spend the night at home in Frankfort en route to the east coast.
he truck has been running nicely since the additional repair work last week with the exception of someting wrong in the fuel system. It had actually started a few weeks ago while out west. When descending grades and engine was required to provide some of the braking power, the check engine light would come on, then got back off when I accelerated again. It only did it on occasion and so infrequently that I had forgotten about it. It began doing it a lot on Thursday and and by Friday morning, it was staying on for long periods of time after the smallest of grades, taking forever to go off again and only after a long bout of acceleration. What's worse, I was experiencing a degradation in power while the engine was on, and some sputtering. I stopped in Charleston, WV and had the fuel filter changed for good measure and that seemed to clear things up. No more check engine light... for about 100 miles then it started coming on again on the grades and got steadily worse, but not as bad as before.
hile having not one, not two, but THREE tires replaced on a loaded trailer I had picked-up in Williamsburg, VA on Saturday morning, I was browsing through the shop store and saw a jug of Howe's Power Klene, a lubricant and cleaner for diesel fuel systems. I bought a jug figuring, what the hell, and put it in the tanks the next time I fueled in northern Maryland on my way to Tobyhanna, PA. There was an immediate improvement, but the check engine light still comes on every now and then. I'm guessing the fuel injector is just old and dirty and that it's been causing diesel to back-up into the filter housing on downgrades, tripping the sensor. I'll keep giving it treatments to see if it cleans it out enough that it's not something worry about any more, or at the very least, until I can talk with someone in the shop back home.
 n my way to Tobyhanna, I picked up Tim, a fresh out of trucking school student. He's a young guy, all of 21 years, and from Lowell, Massachusetts. He has an exotic accent that suggests he may originally have come from the Caribbean, but I'm not sure. When I asked where he was from all he offered was Lowell and I'm not the prying type. I'm only going to have him for a few days though. When he was assigned to me, I called the student department and told them about my plans to train mxpwr. He's currently on a trainer's truck, but they're having a little bit of what you could call a personality conflict. The original plan had been for me to get mxpwr after his PTO midway through training, but now we're coordinating a crossing of paths in Omaha on Tuesday and he's planning to forgo the time-off and just do the whole thing straight through. I explained all of this to them, but they still wanted to get Tim on the truck with me rather than having him sit in Allentown all weekend. Besides, he has a great chance of picking up another trainer really quickly there.
 ight after picking-up Tim last night, I was getting ready to merge onto U.S. 22 east when I experienced what felt like a loss power of power accompanied by a loud hissing noise. My first thought was "What now?" as I pulled over onto the shoulder of the ramp. After a cursory examination, I deduced I was losing air rapidly, which is what the loud hissing was. The loss of power was actually drag from the spring brakes engaging due to the loss of air. With the brakes set, the air stopped leaking. I let the tanks recharge with air and while leaving the trailer brakes set, I released the truck brakes and the hissing began again so I hopped out and grabbed my flashlight to inspect. I crawled under the truck and found the air hose attached to my brand new brake chamber disconnected from the fitting on the frame of the truck. They shouldn't have had to have removed it to replace the chamber, so I'm guessing maybe they had knocked it a little loose while working on it and the lovely roads in the DC/Baltimore area had taken care of the rest. I was able to thread it back on and tighten it up with my trusty channel locks and it was all good.
o, right now Tim is driving us to Anne Arbor, MI where we have to deliver in the morning. We just got on the Ohio Turnpike. He did rather well across the mountains on 80, considering it's his first time driving; he's a little weavy and gear grindy, but that's par for the course with the new guys.
'm still getting a late straggler or two on the gams photos. There's still time! These legs belong to fujerica, my proverbial mama bear. Mama bear's got it goin' on.
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Location: Cheyenne, WY Last week, after making it back from blustery Kansas, I dropped Russell off at our terminal in Springfield, OH around 1am Thursday morning. It occured to me that I never posted a photo of Russell. I took this the day we traded the old girl in for the new one.  After seeing Russell to his motel room and wishing him good luck, I went in search of the room of my next trainee, Jospeh. I had spoken with him on the phone several times that day to co-ordinate my arrival time with him. He had already completed 86 hours of training which was a good thing, since I would need him to finish my trip to New Jersey then hightail it back to Kansas City by Saturday night for lacyunderall's surprise birthday party hosted by justamy. After helping him move into the truck, I drove a bit more while we talked and got to know each other. He was wired and ready to do some driving, so rather than finish-out my shift I stopped just west of Columbus and let him take over. He had taken several weeks off since beginning his training due to a fractured hand, so he was a little rusty, but I was soon comfortable with his ability to control the vehicle and crawled into the bunk for a nap. We reached our destination in Jersey around 3pm the following day, far too late for us to get unloaded that day so we were stuck there until morning. I suggested to my new truckmate that we spend the evening in the New York City. While we got our things together, I snapped the following shot. Meet Joseph.  I began making some phone calls to my NYC peeps. First I called mybluenotepad (aka ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) hope_sets_sail, aka AJ) who I hadn't seen since the Slint show in March. I knew he was suffering from a broken foot and had been reduced to getting around on crutches, so I figured the prospect of him being game for any non-essential walking was slim. He said he would call me back when he got off from work to let me know for sure. I also called queenkatieett and left her a voicemail. She called me back while Joseph and I were on the NJ Transit bus into the city. Naturally, the staggering draw of teh soopa was too much for her to resist, so dinner was agreed upon and I was to call her back once my feet hit the street in midtown. Over the course of the past 14 hours I had already given a condensed version to Joseph of How I Met My Girlfriend in addition to Why We Were Going To Kansas City. Now came the story of When I Met The Queen and he was becoming intrigued by LiveJournal. I love going to New York City. It's even more fun when you're with someone who is visiting for the first time. You get to re-live your own "first time" vicariously through them. Sure there's a subway entrance located inside, but stepping out of the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown is a jaw dropping experience. 8th Ave is usually packed with yellow taxi cabs vying for fares among the people exiting the terminal. A short walk to the corner and you're looking down 42nd Street, its gawdy marquees and electronic billboards summoning you into Times Square. While I called The Queen and we quickly decided on Little Italy for dinner, Joseph and I strolled along 42nd toward Broadway. The convergence of 42nd with Broadway and 7th Ave marks the southern boundary of Times Square. While I finished talking with Katie, Joseph gawked at all the people and flashing lights. ( Read more... ) | |
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You shouldn't mess with me
I'll ruin everything you are
I'll give you television
I'll give you eyes of blue
I'll give you men who want to rule the world
Two neat things I've learned you can do with the LiveJournal admin console in the past year: You can make a journal or community friends-only by default so you don't have to remember to lock the posts: for communities, it's: set for COMMUNITY_NAME newpost_minsecurity friends for personal journals, it's: set newpost_minsecurity friends You can disable lj-cut tags for either the "Recent Entries" link for all journals you read or for your entire "Friends List" link. I opted for the latter since I hate cuts. set opt_ljcut_disable_lastn 1 and set opt_ljcut_disable_friends 1 respectively
I wanna know about the book you're reading, I wanna know about the blood you're bleeding
I got Erwin off the truck on Thursday afternoon in Springfield, OH. I caught a quick photo of him when we were going to lunch the other day.  They didn't have any new trainees for me, so for the meantime I'm solo.
Familiarity breeds attempt.
I got to visit briefly with Welf on Thursday morning. She roused herself from bed at 6am to meet me for breakfast at a nearby truckstop, the scene of the crime, in fact. That's love, folks.
Time wounds all heels
Just for hockeyfag, courtesy of welfy
Give me a reason not to bite | |
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Location: Richfield, UT 
This past weekend with Welf in Lexington was fun. We had sushi with yshaloo, xianxu, goingincirclez, and mix3d3m0ti0n5, then off to karaoke with Ysha. Last night I had dinner with justamy in Kansas City and tomorrow night it looks like socializing will be had with democritus and psycat90. It's the whirlwind Soopageek Tour 2005 TM, sponsored by copious quantities of coffee and cigarettes. Check local listings for dates and times, void where prohibited by law. | |
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Location: Benton Harbor, MI They couldn't get me into a terminal today for the repairs I need because there is another load that needs coverage. When I was talking about my dispatcher this afternoon about the next load, she said the other driver was picking up a load in Holland, MI that had to be in Ferdinand, IN by morning. Problem is the other driver is just about out of hours. In fact, he will onlybe able to get about an hour away from the shipper before he has to shutdown. Over the course of the conversation, she began using the other driver's name, constantly referring to Paul, adding that we would have to get cell numbers traded so we could co-ordinate the load split. Naturally, I was curious. "Paul Sinclair?" I enquired. Turns out it was. "Oh, I've got his cell number already. Paul was my very first trainee." When I had concluded his training last November, he managed to get on the same account that I work-on. He's the only student aside from stormodacentury with whom I've managed to keep in touch. Once or twice a month we'll call each other on the phone and talk shop about the account. A couple of weeks ago while heading to Arthur, he had called me and asked where I was. When I told him I was I-70 west of Indianapolis, we soon deduced he was only 4 miles behind me. We met-up that afternoon at a McDonald's just over the Illinois border and visited for about an hour. We had breakfast once back in the spring, too, when Jason was with me. I called him this afternoon. "What do you say, old man?". He assured me not much. "I hear I've got to come take a load from you. What kind of driver are you anyway? Who the hell trained you?" We chatted some briefly and decided he'd probably not make it much further than Benton Harbor. Another call later in the evening would solidify it. Upon arrival, we visited for a bit at the Flying J, then I left him to finish getting his rest so I could make the all-night push for Ferdinand. Hopefully tomorrow I can get this truck worked-on. The paper logs were fun but it got old real quick.
My new trainee is Johnathan, a young guy from Tennessee. When it comes to training, I much prefer the young'uns. (The door has been intentionally left open with that last sentence.) Typically, the younger dudes have actually, you know, seen a computer, which makes a great deal of the non-driving training a lot easier than it does with the older guys. Johnathan, like Jim, is planning on taking his PTO. I'll barely have him on the truck for a week. Incidentally, I did manage to capture a quick photo of Jim last week while we were in Vermont, in case you were wondering. 
I've been entirely too busy to read LiveJournal. Thanks for taking the time to read my crap. | |
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