10 years--Gettin' back on the horse!

Monday July 7, 2008

Repeat after me:
Recaps are worthless!!!

I'm currently sitting on an off-ramp just south of Montgomery with yet ANOTHER blown recap. This will make number four since March. Unfortunately, this one also took out the emergency air line on the trailer, so I'm dead in the water.

While inspecting the damage, on the side of I-65, a tanker truck wandered off on the shoulder right behind me and scared the livin' bejezzuz outta me... so... I smoked the brakes and flat spotted the tires on the trailer for a mile, dragging it in low gear to the off-ramp. I'm not gonna die for a flat tire.

I've never had this much #### trouble with tires in my life—even recaps! Whoever they're getting these from is doing a hell of a fine job inspecting the carcasses for previous heat damage.

And they say recaps save billions of dollars per year... uh huh... right. In whose little crack-smoking fantasy? You can plainly see how much money they save when you drive down the highway, and count the gators every ten feet.

 

Saturday July 12, 2008

LOL... it's a lot harder than it seems! Once you get out here driving (for a company that keeps you running), there's little time for anything else.

Sometimes I'll have things that I want to write about, but then when I stop, I'm too tired to fire up the computer. Then when I do have the time, I've forgotten what I was gonna write about in the first place.

One topic that has been sitting on my back burner for a while, is Florida Statute 311.12(3)(A)'which states that anyone who enters a port in Florida on a regular basis, needs to be fingerprinted and have a background check done. That's me, sometimes once a week'we deliver to ports all along the southern coast.

Now I'm all for the security of our country... but this is just a plain "money grab". Florida requires their own badge and corresponding background check even if you have a TWIC badge (Transportation Worker Identification Credential), which also requires fingerprinting and a background check (and costs $130). How long will it be before all Americans have their prints, retinal scan and DNA on file with FBI? Not too much longer, I'd suspect.

So, Friday, when I dropped my load at the port of Panama City, I was directed to go inside the Port Security office, fill out an application, give up my fingerprints and then cough up $50 for the privilege. Granted, my employer paid for the badge'it's just the underlying principle, which reeks of a country that is fast spiralling toward Totalitarianism, that gets under my skin. Think about all the loss of freedom and privacy we've incurred since September 11, 2001. Somewhere, Osama is hiding up in the hills, laughing his butt off at all the hell he has caused for this country.

Ever read George Orwell's 1984? It's almost scary how prophetic it is. Think about how much time out of the day you are under the watchful eye of a camera'they are everywhere... stores... your workplace... on top of lampposts on the highways... on traffic lights. You can hardly go anywhere without being under some sort of surveillance. Privacy? You have none! Trust? That's an antiquated principle.

We've become a nation of paranoid security fanatics'distrusting everyone who crosses our path. Got a passport? Nope... not good enough... you might have forged it... "You'll need to submit your prints, DNA and a sample of your bad breath to get OUR ID card. We don't trust you."

I'm sure our forefathers would be proud of the way the United States turned out.

Ok, down off the soapbox... I better go check my DVR to see if the Conspiracy Theorist Police have my place surrounded yet.

 

Wednesday July 16, 2008

It was bound to happen sooner or later...

BAM! That's what I woke up to at about midnight while sleeping soundly at the Pee-Lot in Breaux Bridge, LA. A Knight driver backed into me and hit my trailer.

I jumped out of the truck to assess the damage, just as the sheepish looking driver of the other truck came up to also have a look. Lucky for him, he hit the front corner of my trailer with the back corner of his trailer and they matched up pretty good... not so much as a scratch on either one. Sounded worse than it was.

After reminding him that it's a good idea to "get out and look", I helped him back it in and then went back to sawing logs.

Texican Litter

Seems that our "South of the Border" friends have come to Baytown, TX and brought their penchant for heavy littering with them. These self-explanatory pictures are from the parking lot at the Flying J. Nice... huh? Kinda reminds me of Mexico City.

 

Tuesday July 22, 2008

It's 12:04 am and I should be sleeping... I should be dead tired.... but I'm not... I'm pissed off! Thanks to the communist pigs at the scale in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, I probably won't sleep a wink tonight. But hey Mr. DOT Pig, rest assured that I am in the sleeper while I'm not sleeping and my log book is currently on line 2.

I received my first ever log book violation for "record of duty status not current". I had the page for today all filled out, I just didn't have the lines drawn because I left the place I loaded at this morning in a foul mood (a long story in itself)... and left my log book half done.

Normally I log everything on the computer and draw the paper version current to the time and place I left at the beginning of the day—transcribing the rest at the end of the day. Mr DOT Pig informed me that this method was not acceptable. That If my computer had no printer hooked to it, that I must keep the paper version current as well... no filling it in at the end of the day.

I'm not sure what this one is gonna cost me yet, but I know what it's gonna cost the state of Louisiana... thousands of dollars that I would have spent on fuel, food, stuff. Yes, Mr. DOT Pig... rest assured I will not be spending any of my hard earned money in the Communist Republic of Louisiana—I'll be sure to stock up on fuel and food before I hit the state line.

 

Tuesday July 22, 2008

8:35 am... I think I slept an hour or two. My eyes are gritty and look like I smoked a pound of dope. Thank you Mr. DOT Pig for insuring that I got a restful night's sleep.

Now I'm just waiting another 25 minutes for my restful sleep to be done so I can do my pretrip and get on the road.

While I was in the sleeper getting my restful sleep, I talked to the safety dept.—he thinks the fine is gonna be about $225... for a $%#ing line in the book!

I think I'm gonna have 5 t-shirts made and they'll be my new uniform. They're gonna say: "Do I look like a #$%#ing ATM machine to you?"

 

Tuesday July 22, 2008

I just had a thought... the next time I go by the scales in Breaux Bridge, I'll stop at the rest area just before that, make a copy of my log page for that day and tape it to my friggin driver's door. That way they won't have to ask to see it... it'll be right out in the open. I'll bet they pull me in for a level 1...