• Location: Linden, TN

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.

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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.

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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.