had to take a longer route today.

Welcome to a new century... Or Millennia
Probably feels like time travel for a few.

 

Ty Midwest MacDaddy, Im having trouble these days with that. I hardly recognize my Country but that is a whole nother issue.

I guess Im here to share what I learned while I can and maybe point the young women and men to the path of high dollar trucks and gravy train loads before the 90 day abusive dispatchers ruin them.

 

Ah yes... The original GPS... Stars!!!
Yes, I bet those were interesting days for sure.
Thanks for the laugh or two...

 

All I can say is company policy is company policy. If you do not agree with it and there is no leeway for you to make decisions then go somewhere else. I've been told my routes before. If you don't feel safe, then go slow. Call and let them know you're going to be 8 hours late because you had to reduce your speed to 15 mph to keep from killing yourself or someone else. When they ask why explain to them the way they routed you and give them the alternate route you would like to take. It's not them that route you. It's a computer system that plugs in fuel stops and tries to account for the best fuel mileage route. It doesn't work to well though.

 

You do use stars. Let's see.

Big dipper at 10 pm will sit a certain angle, the pot, the far end by two stars form a line up to the north star.

Also big dipper rotates every 2 hours. You will be very close to actual time 10, 12, 2, 4 and 6 within 10 minutes. I think the 10 pm position of the big dipper has the long handle going northwest up and left. I have to pull up astronony and check it.

Another method to find north in the day time is to shove a stick into the ground. Put a stone on the shadow cast by that stick a way out. Wait 30 minutes. Put another stone on the new shadow position. Line through the stone marks north and south. Depending on time of day, morning east after noon west you will work out north and south.

Sextant requires local noon the US Navy Observatory in DC has a auotmatic phone line that will mark whatever time it is when you call. Use that to mark noon and take your shoot.

There is a set of books you can buy I think 4 all together, with this set which is full of tables, you can work out your position anywhere on the planet with a sextant depending on time of day and year.

Im actually working on that. It's a way to try and sharpen and possibly... just possibly might be a path to a new life doing something good instead of rotting in this chair at home.

 

Nope... I respectfully disagree... But then again I'm an "easier to ask for forgiveness than permission" kind of guy.

 

Good call OP....remember, if a road looks curvy on the Atlas page, it'll be 10 times worse on the ground. I use that alone to dictate my route sometimes.

 

Thinking the line would be E/W not N/S
and Morning is West and Afternoon is East.

But I could be wrong, it's been a long time since I earned my Orienteering Merit Badge in Boy Scouts.

Sounds like a fun career... Maybe start a thread on it here on TTR to keep us updated with what you are learning and where it's leading you.

I'm serious... I would not mind hearing more.

 

There are possibilites. Maybe the Sea.

I just don't know yet. Cleaning up my medical issues and reevaluating life to see what is possible in the time I have left. Tomorrow is not a gaurantee.

I'll get into something trust me, raise all sorts of heck. lol.

 

Charge that Hill my friend!!!