December 8, 2009

It was a grueling day today... but I think that was mainly due to the fact
that it was raining and sleeting all day. Dealing with the rain while driving
makes me tired after the fifth hour or so.

I struggled to find a parking space near the end of my hours today, I'm here at
a flying J (Not usually my choice of place to go, as I'll have to pay for a shower here in the morning, probably.) after I checked out the nearby VA (my first choice for parking... kudos to them for the slanty spaces I don't have to worry about backing out of) and a pilot (their parking arrangements are shit, as I find it extremely difficult backing into their 90 degree angle spaces with my split wheel trailer, but I have a card with them... so I actually get free showers.)

So I'm sitting here now way back in the nosebleed section of the parking lot, I found myself extremely fortunate to find a space back here. However, after a second look, I think I might know why some of the other truckers opted not to park here.

After I got out to have a pee, I noted a large fenced in area with some antennaes poking out of the roof. After getting my flashlight out, I noted small radio waves on a yellow warning sign. To my relief, they weren't the radioactive symbols I thought I saw... but it might turn out to be as bad in the end. I read the little warning next to the symbol, saying people not properly protected against radio waves (microwaves?) were not to enter the fenced-in area. I hope that fence being there means the area outside it is safe to be around... otherwise I might just be radiated by it while I sleep. I'm not driving anymore, there aren't any other spaces... this will have to do.

There's another truck sitting in a space on the other side of it... about the same distance. Maybe he knows it's safe? Or maybe he was just as desperately tired as I was, and decided to take the risk. Hell, I smoke half a box of cigarettes a day, anyway... maybe the cigs are going to get to me first, anyhow.

I'll make sure to check for extra heads growing out of my shoulders. Who knows, the mutations I get from this might make for a good story...

Other than that, I saw a burning trailer yesterday, coming out of St. Louis. It was pretty cool, I wish I had a camera for that sort of thing. It was a regular camper trailer with a S.U.V. pulling it. I don't know what started the fire, but the truck was still rolling when I spotted it at first. I didn't know what it was at first, but as I passed it, I saw that a huge bit of flame was burning almost completely through the trailer. The flame reached higher than the cab of my truck. (12 foot high truck.)

I don't think anyone got hurt, though. The guy probably lost his truck, I bet. The fire was pretty big, and toward the front of the trailer; he probably couldn't have unhitched it without getting burned.

Let's hope for the best, whoever that was...

December 9, 2009

I took the road less traveled.

A lone trucker came down a path that split in two... stopping where the road split, he looked long and hard at both roads, wanting to travel down both of them.

He looked as far as he could see down one way, seeing distant, but unreadable road signs that way. Turning his gaze the other way, he looks down the smaller road and sees it to be far less traveled. He does not believe the directions he was given, but still follows them to the road less traveled.

He now sits in a small snow covered town, stuck in the snow of a small parking lot he thought he could turn around in, trying to get back to the road more traveled.

And that has made all the difference.

Damnit.

December 10, 2009

I feel bad for getting stuck yesterday, but hearing stories about other truckers, I now understand why I haven't been fired yet.

1.I haven't ripped my trailer apart, because I put the chains on the wrong spot when I was securing my load.

2. I haven't driven over a fire hydrant, and drug it for 500 feet, to where the cops actually had to stop me before I noticed.

3. I haven't backed into another truck at a truck stop, and then driven off with
another truck's hood still stuck to the back of my trailer... 200 miles to another truck stop, where I backed into another truck, and caused that one's hood to fall off, too.

4. My load hasn't decapitated anyone yet.

I suddenly don't feel like the worst driver in the world anymore... for now.

Additional note: I'm sitting here idling, and my transmission is giving me question marks on the display. This disturbs me. How am I supposed to know what I'm doing as a driver, when my own equipment is confused? (I put the damn thing in neutral, what's so hard to understand about that?)

Love the stories,my man. Made for great Sunday morning (hey,my Sunday mornings start at noon) reading.

Keep these updates coming. Great stuff!

Great Updates!

Stay away from those fenced in antennas...
Those are Radio Towers!
Touch em and you'll get the zap of your life, or end of it!

That's funny, Tyler... my monday morning starts on sunday at noon, now... that makes it like I'm in my own bubble dimension that's an entire day ahead of you, now!

Hello from the future!

Huzzah for people having read my bloggage.

************************************Dec 14***************************************

It seems a really odd thing to me, to see handicap spaces for trucks to park in.

I saw some truck sized spaces with the little blue handicap sign in some Ohio rest stops. Maybe it's just a legal thing... but if you think about it, driving a truck isn't really a job for a handicapped person.

If you really have trouble walking a long enough distance, that you need a space closer to the rest stop... wouldn't it present a problem even climbing into your truck?

Trucking is a job that requires a lot of bending, pulling, and lifting. Even with the no touch freight people, you're responsible for hooking up, and unhooking your trailer... and walking around it to inspect it.

I haven't seen how handicapped these truckers are, though. Who knows, maybe they have one of those super handicap helper dogs that learned how to unhook a trailer...

I would like to see that.

Maybe they don't have to climb into their trucks, either. Maybe they have those chair lifts old people use to climb their stairs. Maybe the handicapped truckers wheel up to their truck in their electric wheelchairs, and hit a little remote control button, and a service elevator comes out, like in one of those public busses.

Maybe Steven Hawking could be a trucker then, and shift the gears, and steer at the same time all using that little mouth control piece, and that little keyboard he uses to speak with... all while cussing out the nearest trucker for cutting him off over the c.b…

Do handicapped truckers need the little handicapped plates on their trucks?

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**************************************Dec 15*************************************

I got up all early to get to this factory on time... I could have slept in, and probably had a better, more well rested day.

Instead, I'm sitting here in a truck line because someone didn't give a shit enough to call off while not showing up for work. Now they don't have a crane man to unload us... and someone is probably coming into work, or they're still trying to find someone to operate the crane.

You know, I've used that little crane-hand in those stuffed animal machines... I think I did enough to get the hang of it. Give me the controls to that 30 ton crane, and I'll get us all out of here in time.

Yeah, I dropped the little toys in the machine and all... and the coils might kill someone if they fall, but it's a risk I'm willing to take, just to get the hell out of this place...

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*********************************Amish surprise**********************************

"Hey, I have an idea... why don't we paint our buggies jet black, have black horses, dress entirely black, and put dim, almost unnoticeable candle light on the front of our buggies, and drive around at midnight, so drivers can't see us?"

Church congregation: "Great idea, Jebidiah!"

Okay, I get it... the Amish want to kill themselves. They can't commit suicide, though, so they have to use unsuspecting motorists to do it. Do they honestly have to involve me, though?

I'm driving along, looking for fucking road signs, and watching my gauges on my dashboard. There weren't even any Amish signs out yet where I was. I come around the corner...

SURPRISE!

Amish guy doing 10 mph.

Mind you, I was only going about 35 mph... It’s a good thing I obey the speed limit in small town areas, or there would have been a lot of wood chips and a bloody smear somewhere in Ohio near the 250/71 South junction.

Amish people should be kept within the borders of their own signs. I had no warning whatsoever. It's not like I would have been hurt or anything, but I probably would have gotten fired, or gone to jail, or jackknifed my truck, and totaled Mabel's small pie shoppe.

Oh, and I would have felt bad for killing the horse, too. Fuck the Amish guy.

Also, after fifteen minutes when I finally pass the guy… Amish sign.

HAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA.... funny joke.

Surprise! You're in Amish country.

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*********************************Dec 18******************************************

Had a strange dream last night. Well, last morning. Whenever it was I slept last.

First off, the whole scenario started when I had to wait at a factory for twelve hours.
That was fun. Then my whole schedule got screwed up because I had to be up all night, and had to sleep during the day, the morning after (Sleeping during the day wasn't a problem for me a month or so ago, I guess things change.)

So I slept light, I dream when I sleep light.

Here's the dream:

It was a third person dream this time, does anyone ever have a dream where they are themselves, but they are watching themselves, like from a remote camera?

Maybe it's all the third person video games I play.

So anyway, I walk into this roman coliseum. I'm in the middle arena, and I'm very far off, you can only see a distant silhouette of me. I stop in the middle of the arena, and notice (from the camera view, not from what my actual view would be) that in the stadium seating are a bunch of middle aged Asian men standing around. (They all had the same face. I think it was the triad boss from grand theft auto 3) they were all in black and white, like they were animated. They were also poorly animated, you could see their faces squiggling and moving as they stood there, all staring away from me. Now that I think about it, they were all staring at my camera view.

They all wore purple fedoras.

"Ey, what's all this, then?" I say in a Monte Pythonesque voice. Don't know why I was English... but that's the way the dream went.

At that point, they all turn around and rush me... and beat the living shit out of me, and ran away in a big cartoonesque cloud of dust.

Then it was just my battered silhouette laying there in the middle of the arena.

End of dream.

I woke up laughing. It's good to know I can laugh at my own misfortune, I guess.

I wonder if the dream meant anything...

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**********************************Dec 19*****************************************

Had to ship a trailer to Toledo today.

Isn't it wonderful when someone gives you directions to the place, but when you get there, the place has no indicating markers whatsoever, that that's the place you're supposed to be in?

I follow the directions perfect, but when I get to the place, it's all trailers from other companies. Not a single trailer from my company was there, and it was a small lot,

So I call my dispatcher, asking if his directions were out of date, and we weren't shipping out of that spot anymore, I asked him if he got the wrong directions, and a couple other questions. After a while, I guess he goes and looks on Google earth for where I was, and gave me some more confounded directions, saying that I should go on this street where I kept bearing left, and bearing left, and bearing left. (Complete bullshit directions)

So after an hour or two, I'm sitting in that lot again, going to make the call... but then some woman who called herself "Chocolate" stopped by, and told me I was sitting there in the right lot.

As it turns out, our trucks were hidden behind the fucking building, and to get to it, there was this little hidden road behind the other company trailers to get to it.

First question I asked when getting directions: "Can I see our trailers from the road?"

Dispatcher: "Oh yeah, we have a lot of equipment there."

How is hiding our shit behind a building visible from the road? Why don't we even have a sign for this pad?

Am I supposed to psychically divine this shit?

So after searching this maze for hidden walls for an hour, I finally get back behind the building... and the trailer I'm supposed to take is attached to another truck already. It's my job to move it away from the trailer,
I guess.

No big deal. But in this small duty, my evil brain comes up with an idea. I don't think this man's dispatcher told him he was switching trailers. What if I just park this man's truck clear across the lot? He gets there Monday, and it's just his truck there... he might put two and two together. But if he gets there Monday, and both his truck AND trailer were gone... what would he do?

Would he search for his truck, not knowing it wasn't attached anymore... or would he freak the hell out, and think it was stolen? Would he call his dispatcher? Would his dispatcher even know what had happened? How long would this man be shitting himself before he found out his truck was still there?

I chickened out, though. Maybe it was the golden rule thing... maybe I thought I might get in some trouble, if this guy had a heart attack.

Or maybe, I just wouldn't get to enjoy the joke, as I wouldn't be there to see him react...

Dude! Your dream rules. That so reminded me of the ending sequence in Idiocracy. Other notes:

I've never heard of a handicapped trucker either.
I plead the fifth on desire to take out an Amish buggy.
I sooooo would have moved that guys truck!

Love these, man.

Didn't have an internet connection last weekend, so I couldn't post. The two half-weeks made for one whole week, though. So here you go.

Dec 23rd

Not a lot happened this week… Since it’s the Christmas week, I got the go-ahead to leave and visit my mother early. I have a load going to Kentucky, and the Columbus pad was on my way, so I don’t even have to drive my own car to visit my mother.

I had to fight to get routed here, though… which made no sense. This pad was on the way, so I asked if I could just drive my truck here, and be halfway to my destination when I started out next Monday.

When asking to park here, the dispatcher said he couldn’t do it. When I asked him why, he hemmed and hawed around giving me an answer. He said “I’m sorry; I can’t let you do that.” I asked if it was a rule that I couldn’t park at a pad that wasn’t my own terminal, he said no… and he just couldn’t let me do it. In the end, the best I could tell was that he was telling me that it was too cold in the Columbus terminal, and I couldn’t park there because my truck’s fuel line would freeze over.

I park in Weirton terminal. How the hell is Weirton West Virginia any warmer than Columbus, Ohio? No one comes out to my truck to warm it in Weirton, so none of that excuse makes any sense.

Want to know the funniest thing about my dispatcher not wanting me to park in Columbus? On Monday when I came back, I was routed to refuel… in Columbus.

So my dispatcher wanted me to leave my truck in Weirton, drive my car out to Columbus, drive back to Weirton, pick my truck up, and drive it back to Columbus anyway. It’s not like the company would have paid my gas mileage, either.

So I call the guy’s supervisor, and the supervisor was completely fine with me driving my truck out there. Why the dispatcher was trying to stop me is a complete mystery…

Dec 24th

Saw the stupidest wreck in the world, on the way here.

So say you’re driving a small ford cargo van with no windows in the rear… making the entire back half of your van a giant blind spot. You’re stopped at a stoplight in the left lane, but suddenly realize you want to turn right.

When the light turns green, would the thought even occur to you that there might be a car sitting in the lane to the right, or would you just stomp down on the gas pedal with your wheel all the way to the right, committing to the turn without even looking?

Guess what the guy sitting in front of me did?

I had a hard time believing I saw what I saw… but just the same, that’s what happened. How do you not think ahead, and get into the right lane in the first place, with that kind of vehicle?

How do you not think there might possibly be a car where you’re trying to turn? Is jamming on your gas pedal somehow going to make the car to your right not made of solid matter? Because it’s not like he just hit this car as it was going forward, he would have slammed his side into it if it wasn’t moving at all.

Stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.

After that, they just sat in the middle of the highway. It’s great that he wants to slam into other cars and all, but his car wasn’t even disabled. He could have pulled his car off to the right, and dealt with his situation out of the line of traffic.

Instead, now I’m sitting in the lane behind him, and the traffic is going around us at full speed now. My truck doesn’t have the proper acceleration power to get into the fast lane, and get going to a good speed, without being a traffic hazard.

Having half a brain myself, I just don’t punch the gas pedal and go careening into traffic, like the retard van driver, so I have to spend five minutes waiting for a hole to appear in the curve of the road.

The van driver was just stepping out of his van as I found the opportunity to pull out. I made him jump a little as I blew the air horn at him going past. I could understand how he would jump. Have you ever had a truck’s air horn blast you right in the face? I bet his ears were ringing afterwards. Good, I hope I gave the stupid fuck a heart attack.

If your car can still move, don’t sit out in the middle of the road, people!

Dec 25th

Merry Christmas, y’all.

Not trucking today… at my mother’s house. I had another odd dream, so I figured it was worth documenting.

There was a lot of dream this time, but I don’t remember most of it, as it normally happens. This part I remember, though… and if I were ever to write a book, I think I would actually put a part or two of this in it. (Not all of it, though… as all of it would be far too silly to make sense out of in a book.)

The main part I remember was that I was kayaking uphill in a foggy snowy forest. Two other people were with me in separate kayaks. I think they were Stan and Eric Cartman from South Park. They were both in the same long kayak, talking about something south parkish.

I remember the river was freezing over, and we had to avoid a lot of ice, and the river was going pretty fast downhill. Still, we were making some decent headway against the water.

Suddenly, I heard a terrible earth shaking cracking noise from up ahead, but I couldn’t see what it was. I pulled my kayak off to the side while I listened… Eric and Stan kept paddling ahead, yelling at me for stopping.

After a few minutes, they were almost beyond my vision, and there was a rumbling noise that shook the earth, along with a few more cracking noises. I realized that the huge trees at the top of the hill were splitting as I saw some trees rolling past at an incredible rate of speed.

It was like an avalanche of sorts, but made entirely out of trees. I shouted for Eric and Stan to stop, but they couldn’t hear me anymore at that point. So I picked up my kayak, and got out of the river, starting to drag it down hill. (Though it would have made more sense to just turn the kayak the other direction, and start paddling with the river.)

So I start running and dragging my kayak while the trees clattered and smashed other trees around me, sending planks of wood flying every which way. I couldn’t see too well in the fog, so I kept tripping and falling over roots, and things like that.

As I ran toward the end of the mountain, I kept asking myself…

“Oh shit… WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?! SHIT!!”

And then the mountain turned into an African savannah at the bottom, and it went into another part of the dream.

There was another part of the dream that involved me finding out that the trees were being thrown by this horse faced Minotaur looking thing, with the fur of a wolf. He had a very English sounding name, but I forget what that was.

At that later point in the dream, I was going off with this revolutionary war looking army with muskets in order to kill him. We were trying to sneak up on him, but the drum and fife player kept playing their instruments as we snuck up on him.

It ruined the surprise attack element. Then I was woke up by a dog barking before we got there. End of dream.

I wonder how our army did against him…

Dec 27

Got back on the road today….

I have to say, I love my GPS, and CB that I got for Christmas… the GPS has its own set of problems, though.

Before I talk about the GPS, I’ll have to say that I’ve already come up with a name for it. Sure, it’s weird to name your equipment and all, but I couldn’t help it after working with it for an hour or two.

I named my GPS Miguel Barrett. The Trekkies that would read this would already have gotten that joke. It’s a female voice, and it reminds me a lot of the computer voice from star trek. Miguel Barrett is the name of the lady that did all the computer voices from the original star trek, to the latest movie. (She died recently, though… but she lives on as the voice in my truck!)

Miguel Barrett likes to take me on a lot of back roads… I don’t care for that one bit. That aside, I made a turn on the wrong road today, and Miguel Barrett begins to recalculate, giving me a map of the spot I can turn around in…

All seemed fine, I turned on my turn signal, and prepared to make a left turn after a row of trees, and after I pass the row and begin to turn…

Cemetery with a full funeral procession sitting in the middle of it.

Fuck. I already started to make the turn, and that road is taking me right through that Hearst, and the first car. So I had two options, slam on the breaks, and make a hard turn back onto the road, or; I could be a little creative, commit to the turn, and pull that truck right on up to the gravesite with the waiting mourners.

Then I could put on the parking break, hop out of the truck smoking a cigarette with my Nascar hat on, and say: “Hay y’all! Sorry I’m late… did I miss the good part of paw’s fun’ruhl yet?”

It was in Kentucky, the southern drawl would have made me more believable. Plus with the southern lifestyles those folks live, it wouldn’t be that shocking for the man to have a sudden illegitimate child or two.

I think it would also have been fitting for me to ask them to have that coffin, as it would be a waste to let all that good wood sit in the ground. Just dump pa’s body in that CEEment hole, and help me load that sum’ bitch up on my flatbed.

With all that said… I chose the first choice. Damn my lack of a spine.

Dec 28th

More back road craziness with Miguel Barrett today. But that wasn’t the funniest part of the day by far. Though I’d like to point out that the mental image of me staring at a computer screen, and cursing out Miguel Barrett’s name might be an interesting mental image for you. (“Fuck off Miguel Barrett… MIGUEL, YOU GO TO HELL, AND YOU DIE!!”)

Today was the day for fun with my CB radio. It’s working well now, and I finally mustered up the courage to do a little wire twisting inside the guts of my truck, so that my CB would have a power supply. (The little spark it gives off when I attach the ground wire unnerves me.)

I’ll have to say, I was looking forward to a little human contact over the radio. But are they really humans on the radio? Honestly, I think they just get a bunch of cats and swing them around in bags in front of the radio receiver. How the fuck is the shit they say considered English?

High sounding trucker: “Awwritderrrrr easbounYUuuugotit Onna itchgop.”

That’s exactly what it all sounds like. I’m glad I got this CB for free, or I’d demand my money back.

On a positive note about the CB, I did get to taunt a religious nut, though.

Trucker: “Well God bless y’all on this fine day. Who’d like to thank Jesus for something today?”

Me: “I think I would.”

Trucker: “God bless ya brother, let’s hear it.”

Me with a gay sounding lisp: “First off, I’d like to thank god for my faithful gay husband of two years… and second off, I’d like to thank Jesus for the five grams of cocaine my husband bought for me on Christmas.”

Trucker: “…”

Me “WHOOOOOOOOO…. PRAAAAISE JEEEEEEsssssus!!”

Trucker: “Imma pray for you, friend.”

So there you go. I need prayer. Will you pray for me, too?”

THE END. (but not the end end… just the end of this thing, here.)

What in the hell did you eat on Christmas to give you dreams like that!? Good lord, man!

Just think, if you reach the upstate NY area you can use that CB to hook up with Crazy Joe!

I had some ham, on top of ham, with a side of ham... with some ham for dessert.

What would Jesus do?

Eat less ham.

As for Crazy Joe... I wouldn't be able to tell him from the 20 other people that sound exactly like him in the New Jersey area, on channel 19.

It would be like looking for a needle in a stack of needles...

Jan 4 2010

Started the day with a blah kind of mood… I’m kind of sluggish with starting out my weeks, that way. I drag my feet like a kid going to school… but once I get into my truck, everything feels a little better. I’m getting more comfortable sitting in my truck, than sitting in my own room now.

Is that a good thing?

The most unfortunate thing about starting this week out, was that Miguel Barrett (My Gps) died.

Sonnovabitch.

500 dollars for this thing, and I get a whole week out of it before I need to do some bullshit registration for it. I get the whole thing that the date on the calendar changed, but it doesn’t seem fair to me. I didn’t think the damn thing would stop working altogether… I thought it would just work with out of date software.

So it’s another week of being lost like before. I better not have to pay another 100 freaking dollars to update you, Miguel Barrett…

The Starship enterprise would never have this problem.

Jan 5 2010
Winter is upon us.

When a road is plowed, I usually don’t think of it that much. I guess it’s still a problem for those truck drivers that drive double and triple trailers though. The snow piles up on the shoulder of the road, and it has a tendency to catch the wheels of those rear trailers. Once the rear trailer gets out of control for those things, I guess it’s all over.

If you ever really watch those triple trailers as you go by them, you’ll see the third trailer in the back is usually rocking back and forth pretty wildly. I see this happen more often than not. Sometimes I’m kind of scared to pass those trucks because of what the rear trailer is doing.

I’ve been told the truckers driving triples have to constantly watch what their rearmost trailer is doing. You could be driving a straight line, and almost get rolled over because of some road defect you barely noticed had a catastrophic effect on your third trailer, and you might just find yourself rolling over, or being dragged to the side of the road before you even realized what was going on.

I’m guessing the Fed Ex driver driving his triple on the road I saw took his eyes off his trailers for a second, though… and went off on the shoulder. When I passed him, he was off a steep shoulder in a 5 food deep ditch, with the front of his truck completely curled around, and almost connecting with his third trailer to make a circle. His truck’s front was facing the complete opposite direction of where the traffic was going.

It must have been something to see. The truck looked intact still… I wonder if he was alright. (No, I didn’t just leave a recent accident, there were cops there. Shame on you for thinking I was that heartless!)

Other than that, I saw a heard of eighteen deer merrily prancing across a barren cornfield. That’s the only way I can describe a deer’s run… a merry prance. Deer have the gayest looking running gate in the world…

Man up, stupid deer. Learn how to run like a horse, or something.

Jan 6 2010

I woke up this morning, and the sun was actually out. It was amazing.

I thought it was some sort of sign that it was going to be a good day. Hey, I’m human, I make mistakes, too.

So I get underway, and start heading east with the sun to my back. (It’s the best way to be, really. I like driving away from where the sun is, the visibility is best, that way. That, and the time just after the sun sets are the two best times for visibility, I find.) Then I see a peculiar truck heading the opposite direction. Not so much that the truck was odd, but it had in giant billboard sized letters “JESUS”.

Jesus what?

Jesus saves? Jesus lives? Jesus is watching you, so be good? Mention Jesus’s name at our trucking company, and get half off rates on your next shipping cost?

See… when you go to convey a religious message, your message usually has to say something more than just the God you worship. You have to say something about the God that will appeal to my spiritual sense. Yes, it’s Jesus… I see the Jesus, but what’s the point of the Jesus being on your truck?

WHAT THE HELL DOES YOUR JESUS WANT FROM ME?!

Was it even THE Jesus that I was thinking about? Maybe the guy was a Mexican, and he was really proud of his name, or something, I don’t know.

But I figured out what it was all about, later… I think someone was showing me a very involved real life metaphor…

After I passed the Jesus going the other way, I came over a hill…

And discovered I was driving into darkness! (dun dun dunnnnn.)

So that’s what it was. I was going the opposite direction of the Jesus truck, and so therefore I was going into darkness. Stormy clouds and stuff. If I had only been going westbound, I would have been going the path of the Jesus truck, and not had such God Awful piss weather all day.

That makes sense… right?

Anyway, that was the last of any actual sunlight I had seen that week. I saw a giant clusterfuck of snow ahead, and left my sunlight behind. So long, nice weather…

Jan 8

Ghetto Drivin’

I don’t know what it is about the hood. It always seems to have that little tiny grocery store with the tiny little sign. It always has the bars on the windows, too. It’s when I pass that tiny little grocery store that I notice that I’m in the ghetto… that’s what happened today.

They need a little ghetto alert on the truck driving maps, so I know when to avoid a road, too. That would be a handy thing to have in a trucker’s atlas. I’m going to suggest that to my map company when I get a hold of their 800 number next. Do you think they’ll give me credit for the idea?

“Now presenting; Rand McNally’s 2011 trucker’s road atlas, now with ghetto warnings for drivers!”

…I would totally buy that road atlas.

So it’s 10 at night, and I’m driving through the ghetto, and its five thousand below zero… sounds like it’s time to get myself lost, right? I’m very good at that. I think someone stole a road sign at some point, or maybe I just got spooked and took an exit onto a freeway to get away from the ghetto, I don’t know.

Anyhow, I end up lost. At least I’m on the freeway… but somehow, I drive twenty miles and manage to get myself into another ghetto. Are ghettos really that big? Ohio must really suck to have a ghetto neighboring a ghetto, if it wasn’t the same place.

The second ghetto was odd, though… after fifteen minutes of driving through the projects. (And they definitely were projects… apartment buildings with bars on the windows is not a good sign.) I suddenly found myself in a good neighborhood. It was like two or three blocks of nice houses… followed by another bad looking neighborhood after that. It was like the eye of a hurricane.

At some point of being lost, a homeless looking man started walking onto the street toward my truck waving his arms at me. I don’t know what he wanted, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to stop. I probably would have debated with myself about stopping if he stepped right in front of my truck and stood there.

He may not have been homeless, though… he was waving both arms at me, like he was driving to flag me down, and get me to stop. Perhaps he was a distressed motorist, I don’t know. If that was the case, I hope he’s okay. I still wouldn’t have stopped if I knew that, though.

I AM NOT STOPPING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING GHETTO FOR ANY REASON.

::chuckles:: Stupid deer.

I should tell you the dream i had when i saw myself in third-person.

Hi folks. It was a busy week this week... I didn't have much time to write down about the shit that happened. I'll catch you up next week on what happened.

Not alot happened anyhow. The weather was good... which was good for driving, but not for creating problems to whine about.

So next week, I'll catch you up on:

- A cop accidentally pulling me over.

- My Harrison Ford zombie dream.

- The ressurrection of Miguel Barrett. (Not the real one, though.)

I'd be interested to hear about it... random person that has no face. (To the person that had the third person dream.)

I forgot to sign in.

Perhaps some other time I'll tell you about that dream I had on 12 Jan 2004, right now, I gotta look for a job (for some friends, I still have mine, surprisingly in Michigan) and some mandatory Baseball Mogul 2007 to play.

I wondering why Dr. Rock is not on at 10pm (Monday the 18th), maybe there is a schedule change? I'll have to look.

Drive safe Psychorabbit, I would of ran over the Amish guy. I wonder if Mormon Polygamy towns have those signs.

PS. BUY MY BOOK

We're in the process of moving the TRX main hub this week, so wacky things like shows not being on when scheduled is a good possibility.

Jan 22 2010

Meer people.

I got called into the office today. It was the main office where all the dispatchers worked, for a meeting. I knew I would never want to work in a cubicle environment… sitting in your little space, staring at the four little walls that are smaller than the four little walls that are already surrounding you.

To avoid the misery of the situation you’re in, you hang little trinkets on the walls of your little walls in an attempt to recreate some sort of homey feel. Or to claim ownership of the little box you’re forced to stay in all day.

…nothing to look at but the work in front of you.

But I didn’t ever compare it to any sort of wildlife. That’s what it reminded me of when I walked into the office today, being lead to the meeting room. As I came in the door, a field of cubicle walls sat in front of me. A low hum of chattering people and ringing phones echoed off the walls.

As I turned to walk, a head poked up out of a cubicle to look at me, then popped back down. Then another head popped up, not as high as the last one. This happened with a couple other cubicles… not all of them, though. Their cubicle dwelling life caused them the need to search for extra stimulus… a new person coming into the office was the best they could do, I guess. As they popped their heads up to have a look, they reminded me of something.

Meerkats.

I remember watching that meerkat reality show before, early in the morning, the meerkats popping their heads out of their holes before they left for their hunt. Either that, or gophers I’ve seen on the side of the road, looking up at cars as they passed. I think they already use the gopher people metaphor for something else, though.

So I hereby dub these cubicle dwellers, the “Meerpeople”.

Jan 14 2010

I accidentally got pulled over by a cop, today. I don’t think that happens to many people. Those many people don’t drive trucks though, and they don’t have to go through the weigh stations like we do. Even so, not many truckers get pulled over by accident.

It was the beginning of my day, and I guess I was still a little hazy. I see the flashing lights of a weigh station, so I go to turn in, and slow down behind a line of other trucks. What I didn’t see was the parking lot situation we were all headed for. At the back of the parking lot, and oversized truck decided to park itself like a normal truck would, in a normal truck parking space, blocking the road behind it.

The cops didn’t tell him to move, though… so maybe he had gotten pulled over, and was in trouble, I don’t know.

Anyhow… the trucks were all moving around him through the parking area, because we had to. The cop wasn’t flagging any of the other trucks, so when he looked up at me, waved his hand in a circular fashion, and pointed to a parking space, and said “That way” I got the idea he was pulling me over. I wasn’t going to chance it anyhow… that’s the last thing I need, to make a mistake and piss off a D.O.T. cop. (A notoriously grumpy folk, I hear.)

I’m a little nervous at this point, sitting in a parking space, watching the cops talk off to the side, because I didn’t sign a lot of my daily log sheets, and I didn’t do the math on a week or so of available hours to work that week. I don’t do that every day, I’m often too tired at the end of my day, to start doing math.

So I nervously fret for about ten minutes… waiting for the cops to come over and brutalize me for being a dumbass… but I notice that no one seems to notice me being there. After five more minutes, I get up the gumption and decide to go over and ask them what’s going on.

When I got the attention of one of the cops, he looks at me all surprised.

Cop: “Yes?”

Me: “Uh, hi… is someone going to come over, or should I just wait by my truck?”

Cop: ~Blinks at looks at me for a minute~ “And who are you?”

Me: “That falcon truck over there, I was flagged over.”

Cop: “Flagged over… by who?”

Me: “You?”

Cop: “I flagged you over? For what?”

Me: “I was wondering that, myself.”

Cop: “Oh, I was probably waving you on, sorry about that.”

Me: “Oh………. Okay, then.” ~Walks away before he changes his mind~

So I got to spend a fifteen minute break standing there like a retard… shitting myself for no reason.

Nice.

It's been a reeeeeaaaally long time since I've posted. Sorry, I've been really tired at the end of my days, not alot of time for blogging. I'll play some catch-up with the missing posts, if anyone cares enough to read them.

Jan 25 2010

Exploding movies.

I’m a little worried.

I found a special rental deal at a TA truckstop, where you could rent a DVD from the place, and you didn’t have to return it… five bucks. Apparently, you could watch the movie for two days after you opened the little package, and then it would just be unwatchable afterwards.

Seems like a good deal, right?

So I get Benjamin Button, and I watch the thing… finish watching it, and forget to take it out of my computer.

Here’s where the worry part comes in: How exactly does it become unusable? It says that after you open the plastic wrapping, the DVD then becomes active. How exactly does it become active after you open the plastic? Is there an oxygen sensor inside the thing that detects it’s in open air? I don’t see any hardware on it… how else would it know that it’s been activated? It’s not something with the cash register, because I would wait a day, then open it, and then still have it for two days, according to the writing on the cover.

Is this thing linked up to a satellite, somehow? Is big brother watching me watch Benjamin Button? (Does he know how boring I thought it got around the sixties, when they bought their home?)

What makes it unusable, if it’s not hooked up to a satellite that would make it unusable? Does it have it’s own little timer that opens up a tiny vile inside spreading acid inside the DVD, dissolving it’s information? Would it be like a mission impossible message, and just blow up in my hand, causing me to lose a finger? This movie might not have been worth the five bucks…

Well, it’s been sitting in my computer for four days now… I’m afraid to open the cd hatch and have a look. My computer might have been destroyed from the inside.

I don’t know, the possibilities are terrifying…
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Jan 27 2010

Portable porta-potty.

I saw some road workers walking down the road today. I think one of them had IBS, because there was a truck following behind them with a porta potty on a trailer. Okay, so it probably wasn’t that… they were probably taking the porta potty from somewhere else, and just throwing the trash in the truck, but that’s not what it looked like at first, to me.

Sometimes I think I would like that truck to follow me around places, so I didn’t have to find a place to poo when I needed to. When I had to go to the bathroom, I would just pull over, and my porta-potty truck would be right there. That would be nice.

I know there are truckers out there with the super huge sleeper cabs that have a toilet in their truck… but that means you would have to deal with the stink after a while, and find the proper disposal facility when it was full. I don’t want to have to deal with that.

When the porta-potty was full, the potty truck could just take an exit off of somewhere, dump it’s load, and then find me again. I could totally go for that. I’d probably have to hire a Mexican (sorry, Tyler) to haul it, as I don’t make a huge amount of money, I would need some cheap labor to be my pooper hauler.

If he was really cheap, then I could just hire him all the time, even when I was off work, on the weekends. Before I was a trucker, there were times I could have used my own private pooper truck. I’d keep it nice and clean… or at least that’s what pedro would do… what else am I paying him for?

Sorry folks… it’s my potty truck. I’m not going to share.
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Jan 28 2010

Miguel Barrett screwed me.

Miguel Barrett screwed me today, but not in the perverted sense that you’re thinking of. (You sick little monkies!)

It’s the first time that having a gps worked to my disadvantage, today. I played with a new function on it, and ended up on a worse-off state.

I had a 600 mile delivery from Kentucky to Pennsylvania; I got to Virginia and had driven for 11 hours, so I had to stop, according to the rules of the people that make rules for things…

I didn’t have my gps set for the destination, though, I had it set to a rest stop that I THOUGHT was within 40 miles of my destination. (I set the gps to the function of finding a rest stop near my destination, instead of along my route. HOW THE FUCK IS 110 MILES AWAY FROM THE DESTINATION CLOSE?)

I don’t get to the rest stop, though, too tired. So I sleep at a closed weigh station, figuring to get up at my proper time, and get to the TA along my way, have myself a shower, and a restaurant breakfast. I follow the directions, get on the turnpike, and go fifty miles to the exit where the TA is, and park there… do my thing, and get back in the truck. I didn’t stop at the restaurant, though… wasn’t feeling hungry enough for some reason.

I get back in my truck and set my GPS to get to my destination. IT TAKES ME BACK 50 MILES TO THE ROAD I JUST LEFT, to get me back to my destination. I don’t know how much this is going to cost me, but that 100 mile turnpike trip is coming out of my check… and I arrived late, to boot. I’m not using that application again.

Damn you, Miguel Barrett.

You can hire the Mexican for the Psycho Rabbit Porta Potty Tour as long as he's a legal one!

2-1-2010

Look out for me, I work… at SEVERSTAL!

I’ll have to say, Severstal was one of the more interesting places I’ve ever picked steel up at. First off, it kind of sounds like the name of a factory from a horror movie, or maybe a German concentration camp of some kind.

Severstal was a goofy place, though. While I was there I only saw one employee for the entire place, and that was the security guard up front. There were no workers on the floor, and the only possible other person in the place was the craneman that rode in the crane overhead to load the steel onto your truck.

The glass on the crane cab was reflective, though… so I’m not entirely sure if there was a person in there. It may have been a skinless terminator pushing the levers, for all I know.

Aside from no people working there, I’ll also note the goofy upc scanning system they had. The security guard gives you this little tab after you give him this pickup number… and then you take it to the dock you’re supposed to go to, and scan it under the little laser thing.

Once the scan is recognized, a little beep beep boop tune plays. It was really too musical for a serious steel working plant, it seemed out of place. The tune that played reminded me of that little tune combination lock Gene Wilder played to get into his factory in the Willy Wonka movie. If Willy Wonka had a steel mill… that would probably be an idea he had for the upc scanner. His tune would be a lot more whimsical, though.

Finally, there was the matter of the cb radios always knowing where you were. There were eight or nine radios on the floor, and at one point, I was walking toward the bathroom, and one of the cb’s asked me where I was going. (I had asked one of the other truckers previously where the bathroom was.) I told it I was going to the bathroom, and the voice on the radio told me to use the proper walkway.

Another CB started talking to me when the door to exit the plant wouldn’t open. I didn’t see any Cameras in the place, which was what made it kind of creepy. I wonder where they hid them…?

Maybe they had little orange oompa loompas watching me from behind the walls?

Also, I had a chat with the security guard as I was leaving. He started telling me how Severstal used to be this giant community with all these people living on all the premises. There used to be a hospital, a fire station… and they even had their own morgue.

The thought occurred to me, that if ghosts were real, this was the sort of place they would roam around. Old heavily populated places with such a tight knit community are always rumored to have that sort of thing.

The guard said I could sleep there that night, so I asked him if that spot was anywhere near the morgue… he said no, so I decided to stay there the night... there at the old haunted steel mill called Severstal.

I made sure to lock the doors before I went to sleep.
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2-2-2010

Potty trucks confirmed.

When I left Severstal to drop off my load, I saw another potty truck following the road workers.

Both potty trucks were in Maryland.

I still want one…
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2-4-2010

Fuck my old trainer.

I had to pick up a trailer in Clearfield, Pa, and it was attached to my old trainer’s truck. I know the asshole knew someone else was picking up his trailer; he left the paperwork in the little clipboard on the trailer. That’s where you leave the papers when you’re dropping it off for the next trucker.

He left his truck freaking attached though, leaving all the work for me. On top of that, his God damned truck wouldn’t start, so I had to wait an hour for the mobile mechanic to show up and give it a jump.

After the tow truck guy left, I wasn’t too happy. I wasn’t going to be as nice to my old trainer as I was the last guy. My trainer gave me extra work when he could have been considerate, and he cost me an extra hour on top of that, even.

So fuck this guy… I took his truck, and not only did I park it behind the building, I even took his truck and hooked it up to another trailer. Not only is he going to have to look for his truck, he’s going to have to look at each truck in the lot before he discovers which one is his. (It’s hooked up to a van trailer, not a flatbed… I know he isn’t going to expect that. There’s another truck next to it, too… so he isn’t going to see his truck’s number right off the bat. He’s going to have to walk right up next to his truck to see if it’s his or not… so he’s going to have to walk up to, and look at every truck there if he wants to find it.)

I don’t care if I get in trouble or not… I’m pissed.

Fuck that guy.
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2-6-2010

Damn the torpedoes.

I don’t care if the main road home is shut down from a five car pileup.

I don’t care if it’s a record breaking blizzard, and you can’t even see the road.

I don’t care if it’s a state of emergency in Pennsylvania, and everything is closed.

I don’t care if it’s technically illegal to drive, and I would get a severe punishment if I’m caught on the road. (Though I didn’t really know that at the time… maybe that would have stopped me, had I known.)

I don’t care if the parkway is littered with the carnage of broken cars.

I’m not spending my weekend in my trucks sleeper cab. DAMNIT, I’M GOING HOME!

It was a state of emergency in Pa.. Like I said, the main road going home was shut down, and I spent an hour fiddling around with my gps to get a proper way home. She kept bringing me back to 376, which like I said… was shut down.

So at one point, after roaming around Pittsburgh area at random, I just said screw it. I got a room at motel 6, and decided to go for it in the morning. In the morning… after helping to push two cars out of the parking lot of the motel, (It was the only way to clear a path for myself to get out.) I start heading home.

376 was clear by then… totally clear. It was unusually clear by the time I got to it. In fact, I was the only car on the road. I was the only car in Pittsburgh… the only car.

It was kind of neat to be completely by myself in the middle of the city. The whole scene had a post-apocalyptic feel to it. (So Obama was right, when he said snowmaggedon.) I could probably have stopped in the middle of the parkway and done a few doughnuts if I wanted to… no one would have known.

When I got to my home road, I punched the gas, and motored through some snow drifts… it was lucky that I made it through, but I was almost home. If I got stuck, I could just walk the last mile. I didn’t care. I wasn’t stopping; I just wanted to get home.

When I got home, I stopped at my father’s house for a minute. At that point, I found out as he told me that my driving home wasn’t technically a legal thing to do. If the cops saw me, they probably would have stopped me, and given me a three month suspension.

…oops.