Post Gordon ~ Thoughts, Commentary & Reflections

Looking forward to it and whatever you care to post. You've come a long way from Covenant, fella.

 

Um-m-mm, Pizza Ahead!

Although nonstop, the flight out was long and uncomfortable for me as the gal next to me slumbered. The flight back was much easier as I must have slumbered. Well, I remember waking up a couple times. Seemed like a quick, short flight--not 3 hours. I'm attributing this to my time in Algodones. We'll see but I certainly walk and breathe more comfortably than when I left.

Out the window it looked like the snow out over a Minnesota lake in winter, bright sun, long expanse of white, even, deep and mostly flat. Of course, it wasn't snow and we soon descended into the cloud layer. I expected overcast below but seemed pretty bright out once we got through the clouds.

And the trees! Yeah, kinda forgot about the fall colors, visible as we broke through the clouds.

In the middle seat, left of me, across the aisle was a 91-year-old guy with a cap that announced 'B-17 Navigator'. Made sure we got him safely, promptly and properly out and several others stepped up to help, one to carry his bag. Skinny, flinty guy in the seat behind me, though, seemed as distressed about this 'delay' as he did earlier to 'protect' his iPad as folks walked by.

Isn't this the way it is though, some people step up, others couldn't be bothered. I'm thinking of the dustup over PJ and Navajo now. Yuppo.

The old WWII bomber navigator had carried on a pretty good conversation most of the flight, heard him say that by the time he was 21-years-old he was in combat. I asked if he had been in European theater or Pacific and he responded, "35 missions over Germany! I'm lucky to be alive!" Well, yes, and he was an instrument of a lot of death from the sky, too.

Told him about my Mom serving as a nurse in occupied Germany and France.

His son and daughter-in-law were in the back of the plane. Thought briefly to meet them since we're about the same vintage, decided not to, just get on with finding my shuttle to Bloomington.

Well, if the car's there, I'll buy pizza. Otherwise look up the tow company.

Could be too late today, too. In that case, spend the night in Bloomington and catch up with the car tomorrow.

 

On Making $$$ with Things with Engines/Wheels

Happily, did not have to catch up with the car at a tow company. Had them (pizza place that let me park car in their parking lot when Holiday Inn across the street would not let me park while I took shuttle from there in Bloomington to airport in Indy as they always have allowed free parking while you're out of town in the past) make me a 'Cream and Crimson' pizza.

Cream and Crimson are Indiana University's colors (white and red) but this pizza is really odd, potato slices and bacon on top of a 'special' pizza sauce and two kinds of cheeses. Mercury Sable ALMOST started, it's a hard starter and got a jump from a pizza cook... okay, fine. Pizza tastes good...

Drove over to say hi to 95-year-old friend while the pizza cooked. Found him up in wheel chair watching Texas Ranger with Priscilla Presley's husband. There was a great interview with Priscilla on Sirius Channel 19, the Elvis station while I had the Dodge Avenger from Hertz.

The airport shuttle was nice enough to drop me up on the highway rather than at the Holiday Inn, saved me over 2 blocks of walking. The pizza place is catty corner from the hotel but it's about a 3 block hike, no big deal but closer is better with a couple items to haul.

But what about the shuttle? That one run from the airport, an hour drive, brings in 17 passengers on this trip at $18-$20 per, depending on whether purchased online or from ticket kiosk. Driver did say that most of the runs pulled 7-8 passengers today.

Outbound (to Indy) is much lighter sometimes. I was the only passenger when I left over two weeks ago. But think about it. That's $300 for the one trip from Indy to Bloomington; leaves airport, drives to Bloomington, makes some Bloomington stops. They run two buses all day long and have been doing this for decades. Literally, decades. No, the drivers don't sleep in their buses...

...yuppo, they go home at night. What a concept!

In contrast, broker loads for a day's driving outbound in a tractor/trailer pay anywhere from $1/mile to $3/mile and that $3/mile run probably has deadhead miles before the $$ start. The $1/mile load you lose money on, so it better connect you with a load that pays. The $3/mile load may take you to an area with only cheap freight coming out so you get hosed...

Compare that with $300 from Indy to Bloomington for an hour drive...

...and do that all day long, sure, not always $300.

Maybe boring, but not a bad gig, driver. Year 'round, too.

 

Working Out at the Spencer Y

Boy, it's irritating to get a long post mostly written and poof! Gone.

Oh, well. Try again.

Yesterday morning spent 20 minutes in the Olympic-sized pool at Spencer Y. For a town of 2500 it's a jewel of a facility, lucky there. They take my $26 every month and it'd been since last year--until the week before I flew West. Took that week off, too. Did the pool that week before I left for PHX.

Came back 7 pm and walked the track for another 20 or more, then polished off with 5 min on a treadmill watching my heart rate. Supposed to get above 123 for 20 minutes ever so often in order to get a boost. Didn't. Kept it 90-100. Boost can come later.

Ugh! The scale! The scale! The Spencer Y scale tells me to lose 15 pounds--NOW. Had food poisoning a while back and my weight took a sharp drop, pant size went down to a loose 38 from a 'full' 40. Having trouble keeping my pants up and back up to 40--a really, really full size 40, too.

So that's my priority.

Went out about 5 am and put the 4 youngsters (chickens) that hang out nights on top of a large dog crate, put them inside the dog crate and locked them in. This morning one got out as I put food and water in for them. Will get that one tonight after they settle to roost.

Reason for this, the temperature's supposed to get down to 35, a new experience for the youngsters. They were hatched from fertile eggs from 2 feral Rhode Island reds I bought. One of my golden comets did the hatching and she's still broody, has left the youngsters while I was out West and returned to sit on eggs in the coop, which was built for the 3 goldens.

It's like I have a 3-herd flock, the 2 reds, the 3 comets and the 4 youngsters all sort of stick in their separate cliques. Gonna put some straw bales around the dog crate to protect the youngsters tonight. More importantly, need to extend the coop, has always been the plan so there's room for everybody and nicely protected from the cold this winter.

Such is Vic's life... well, my life.


//Chicken behaviour fascinates me. Sorry. The youngster that got out this morning sits on the ramp outside the dog crate containing its 3 siblings. Chicken life can be tough if you're an outlier without at least someone on your side, as other cliques will target you, run you off at every opportunity. Chickens have been known to kill...

 

West Coast Time and Gordon's Remarkable Pay Increase

Somehow I can't seem to get off West Coast time, was out there only two weeks and, yeah, there was an adjustment there, too. But I've been back since Thursday evening, should be coming around by now. In California and Arizona, it's roughly 10:30 pm right now; well, that's my nighty-night time--on average. Anywhere from 9:30 pm to 11 pm works for me.

Makes me wonder about the circadian rhythm impacts on drivers who run east-west, spend some time at each end for a triangle, up left coast, back down left coast then east again. Be fine if you just rose with sunlight and bedded down just after night fall. Doesn't work that way, though, does it? You've got that 3 or 4 am appointment at Wal-Mart or some other DC.

Wreaks havoc with the old body rhythm. You know, we see it all the time. Drivers so tired they can hardly stand up, yet too tired to sleep. Whatever. Even on the Left Coast I should be hitting the sack.

Oh, well.

The pay increase announcement by Gordon on Friday, at 10:00 am on Friday, in fact, by Travis Gordon--Hey! Who the Hell is Travis Gordon anyway?? Really!! Who is he? Haven't done any research on him yet. Steve, yes. The old man, Larry, yes. I'd have to look back and see the other brother. But, Travis?? Travis?? Wow. Okay, Travis, you're The Man. At least in my book.

Here's why. Gordon's pay increase is nothing short of stunning (really here, I don't stun that easily) in that Gordon, starting November 2 of this year, will pay detention after 1 hour. I think Wal-Mart recently extended the hours before Wal-Mart pays detention. What does Gordon do there?? Especially since Wal-Mart is such a major part of Gordon's world. Detention by Gordon after one hour??

I hope so!!!!!!!

It's remarkable that this is a pay increase by Gordon. Not Heartland. Remarkable. And this change, detention after one hour is a lot bigger than you might think because it has the potential of being structural and affecting the entire truckload industry downstream. Will it take? It should.

It should because there's a fundamental unfairness between two drivers, one with a 300-mile load to go pick up and another with a 1,200-mile load to pick up. And BOTH get detention only after 2 hours and look at the hoops you have to jump through to get it! Have to give the Gordons credit for being forward thinkers in a big way.

Sure, I've been grousing about the practice of making, forcing, drivers to work for no pay loading and unloading. An hour free compared to 2 hours free is a structural change. Keep in mind Gordon has 2,000 seats and just $5/day means $10,000 day across all 2,000 seats and that goes on 365 days/year. Which means that a mere $5/day sends $3.65 million out the door every year.

Whoosh!!

Now we're talking about 2,000 seats, most picking up a new load every day and delivering the next and repeat. Even drop and hooks take an hour. At what increment does Gordon start paying? It matters. Got big, big dollars on the line here. If a half hour over do you get paid for a half hour? Dunno.

Fact of the matter is that this could be a historic moment in trucking if drivers are smart enough to realize how many loads they pull each year and what an extra paid hour means for both pick up and delivery. The smart thing about this is that the Gordons are hardening themselves against an inevitable lawsuit against truckload carriers for not paying for hours worked loading and unloading.

Very cool, Travis. Very cool.

 

Well, here's a whole afternoon pretty much shot to Hell. Umph!

Hopefully the TTR gods have a good sense of humor today.

And a little rope, without that TTR trapdoor underneath.

Think I'm going up the road for a Dos Equis and a good bowl of Mexican soup.

Humph!


//Well, kinda too late already to bother with a beer. So sad. The day just sorta slipped away in a hail of keystrokes.


--On the other hand, decided if I was still on West Coast time last night, which I was, then I'm probably still on West Coast time tonight. Means it's still early. Hey! Ole! The waiter eventually brings me out a big draft beer. Es la cerveza chica? No, it's 22 ounce. I want the 12 ounce, which is perfecto. Two and a half bucks versus four-fifty.

If there's a beer in the refrig it may sit, then I'll drink half or a third, cap it and throw it back in the 'fridge. And, no, I don't mind stale beer. To me, goes well with day-old pizza. Which I don't have very often, either.

Who knew they had a killer seafood burrito for five bucks? Not me. There goes any help on the 15 pounds I need to lose. Scratch today off, nothing done (well, not much). Did wade hard, walk and kinda run for an hour in the pool over at the Spencer Y around lunch time. Could not have done that before the chelation and Plaquex treatments in Algodones. Before I left, felt short of breathe just getting out of the car.

Big, big difference.

 

E.D.T.A. Chelation~Los Algodones, Baja California, Mexico

What is E.D.T.A. and what is chelation and why did I take chelation treatments in Mexico? I'm going to talk about that, about E.D.T.A., chelation and my experiences with chelation in Mexico. Will take more than one post.

Ethylene Diamine Tetra-Acetic Acid aka Disodium ethylene tetra-acetic acid. The actual chemical formulation varies some and they're all E.D.T.A.

There are different types of chelation. During WWI--that's right, World War One--chelation was used to treat soldiers who had been mustard gassed. After these chelation treatments, other side benefits were noticed, like improved eye sight, stamina, reduced hypertension and the like. Chelation was further used during WWII (World War Two) for metal poisoning. In 1948 some research, testing and treatments began to explore those side benefits and chelation has been somewhat controversial, at least as far as Big Medicine still considers chelation unproven to treat heart disease, vascular blockages and the like.

Here's a link on chelation at the Mayo Clinic web site: http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/chelation-therapy/basics/definition/prc-20013013

Dr. Weil on chelation: http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART03408/Chelation-Therapy.html

National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/news/press...ation-therapy-for-coronary-heart-disease.html

US Dept of Health & Human Services, National Institutes of Health: http://www.nih.gov/news/health/mar2013/nhlbi-26.htm

Wikipedia: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelation_therapy

The best of the links above is US National Institutes of Health on the Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (T.A.C.T.) study which 'officially' concluded that chelation therapy "modestly reduces cardiovascular events."

You receive E.D.T.A. chelation intravenously over 2-3 hours. The treatments I received are something less than the "clinical dose." In my opinion, more is not necessarily better. E.D.T.A. combines with calcium, metals and minerals in your bloodstream and you pee those out in your urine later.

It is believed that these metals bind calcium into the plaque that accumulates in your vascular system. Towards the end of the intravenous treatment, vitamins and minerals are injected into the IV solution to replace good vitamins and minerals that have been removed as well.

 

How I Stumbled upon Chelation

The definitive word on chelation is that T.A.C.T. study (Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy) referenced at the US National Institutes of Health (http://www.nih.gov/news/health/mar2013/nhlbi-26.htm).

So, Ethylene disodium tetra-acetic acid is a salt you receive intravenously as an additive to an IV solution. It binds to heavy metals in your body and you excrete it all when you pee after treatment.

Ah, yes. One treatment, one needle. Inevitable. I always say, "Manuela (or Luz, whoever is sticking me), no needle today." They respond, "Sure, Victor."

Despite publication of the T.A.C.T. in the Journal of American Medicine in 2012, some States still will not allow physicians to administer chelation, others do. Here in Indiana there is a wellness center up in Indy that offers E.D.T.A. chelation at $200 plus per treatment. I was told it's $120 in PHX. Dunno.

Many of the physician believers and pioneers in the use of chelation to treat cardiovascular events were hounded out of practice. Oh, yeah. In Algodones, I paid $50 per chelation treatment and an additional $10 sometimes to add DMSO (after which you smell like corn tamales the next day, by the way).

However, Google searches or Internet links had nothing to do with my taking chelation treatments. Nothing. Used to own a mobile home in a senior park (55+ years-old) pretty much across I-10 from Palm Springs/Cathedral City. Folks were always talking about making the trip to Algodones for good, cheap dental work.

Once you get to Algodones, especially in the beginning with a different language spoken and every few feet a guy asking, "Need a good dentist, doctor, pharmacy?", the problem's how to go about finding a dentist you want to work on you among a few hundred amongst all these little store fronts. Answer: Carefully.

Best bet, look for waiting rooms with Americans that speak your language, ask about prices, how long they've been coming to this one, yada, yada. Done a lot of it over the years and it was probably, oh, 2006 when I spent some time in the lobby of the chelation clinic, listening to personal stores and the reasons others had to come there.

So it wasn't something I read and then went to Algodones; it was people I met there and their personal experience with chelation that got me interested for myself. And it was years before I took my first chelation/Plaquex treatment.