Post Gordon ~ Thoughts, Commentary & Reflections

Good News, Bad News

Good news, pipes thawed out; bad news, will probably freeze again with new below-zero cold coming soon...

Good news, Golden Comet chicks in new digs; bad news, it's probably already too small and they are consuming chick feed voraciously. Like... wow!!

Good news, chicks have larger waterer and new feed bowl; bad news, they're very noisy, chirping, scratching furiously, eating, drinking, carrying on, adding more feathers, big noisy hurry to grow up...

Good news, shoveled enough to get out on highway; bad news, cold weather for rest of week will probably--no doubt!--keep snow here all week!!

Good news, Dayton's still closed so far; bad news, might just open today if roads here are any indication. (Have to do Dayton run then.)

Good news, all 3 of my alarms work; bad news, yeah, time to roll out!


//Dayton receiver conditions just changed black to red, from 'no movement' to 'essential, emergency vehicles only.' Moving towards amber... Probably not going to green for a while but amber is enough to run it.

 

Actually, I did. Just got too cold with heat tape needing replacement.

It's STILL on my 'maybe do' list. Aren't you up a little late, even for 3-hour time difference?

 

Yeah, I get important stuff done when the raccoons and opossums are up and about, too; it's called SLEEP. Roosters just started rhoo-ing. AH-rhoo...

(A rooster wouldn't 'crow'--now, who would call it THAT??)

Ugh!! Dayton receiver is open and operations normal. Guess I'll start car...

 

Hot, Hot CoffeeMate!!

Not gonna have time to get what I'd like written tonight, but will take a quick swing at part of it. I guess you know you're in the vicinity of IU (Indiana University) and its great music school when you look over and what the gal in the black SUV is reading up against the steering wheel while she drives is a musical score... probably on her way to church choir or accompanying service on piano or organ.

Dunno.

An oddly numerous amount of law enforcement for a Sunday morning. For example, R&L pulled over for a citation on southbound SR 37 (heading towards Bloomington). Not a CMV enforcer, just a garden variety trooper. A lot of 4-wheel torpedoes pulled over, too. Up on exit 115, I-70, there's a Loves under construction, Burger King and a Speedway with a large truck lot. Saw white truck with smacked up front end, passenger side window busted up and a long scrape completely through passenger side of trailer backed into a space. Did it have something to do with the Wel reefer? Dunno.

I stopped on the way back and a crew was still pulling CoffeeMate out of the box, which had caught on fire (reefer fire??), blackened the trailer back more than 20 feet back from the bulkhead. Why, I wonder, did the driver not pull the tractor out from under the trailer? What I saw from a distance were the emergency lights, including a fire truck that had obviously entered the Interstate against traffic after traffic had been shut down.

As I got closer, a large billowing cloud of pale smoke rose well above the overpass. Three smoke eaters stood inside the back of the trailer, which had its swinging doors open. I took a break there on the way back--cashier knew nothing--cooks were still talking about it and a straight truck flat bed left with pallets of CoffeeMate where the tops of the packages were distinctly toasted.

Burned. Tellya. Burned.

Last 2 trips the I-70 traffic gods have been with me. Last week it was mechanical issues on the eastbound side, today this fire on westbound at exit 115. Each time I was I traveling the other way.

Cool, I'll take it!! Tomorrow's St. Louis, Wayne's run...

 

Leaning on Wayne

Last night got Sunday directions to Dayton receiver from Wayne. Very helpful and he's always good for an unpredicted wrinkle, man! Once within about 10 miles I pulled out my--call them--'company directions' (just a single page with the briefest of directions) and darn! Wayne's directions and the Dispatch direction sheet do not match, not at all...

I just wanted the sheet to refresh what Wayne told me last night, but--it's NOT to be! Oh! What to do, what to do...

Well, I did the most logical thing, I called Wayne but it just rings through and goes to voicemail. Hmph! Gonna have to make a decision coming up here pretty quick. Wayne or Dispatch? Dispatch or Wayne? Eenie... Eenie... Eenie...

I mean, Wayne's directions and my semi-official directions sheet direct from our Bloomington office, they send me to entirely different gates and tellya, makes a difference at this place. Okay! I chose Wayne. Drove up to gate, got checked in, continued on to receiver.

No-o-o proh-bleyy-mo. Very cool.

 

People's Park, Bloomington, Indiana

Who knows, maybe the other directions would work just as well... Nah! Don't even want to try that. And the wrinkle? Why, when I was calling Wayne, he was doing his Sunday thing.

Your Sunday thing, Wayne? Well, yeah, he says. On Sundays he's over at People's Park on Kirkwood in Bloomington, a small park where Occupy had their tents and provides a hangout for street sorts just two blocks off IU's (Indiana University) campus. Kirkwood is the 'official' traditional downtown area of Bloomington where the Lotus Festival and various other events take place each year and has a variety of ethnic and non-ethnic restaurants that finger off from there from IU, on to the Square that houses the County offices (some of them) and was the courthouse. The old courthouse, if you will.

The Square is where you go to protest this or that. Meet there, find yourself a spot on the lawn, get comfortable and, well, protest. Haven't done it myself yet. Thought about it. It could happen. But back at People's Park, Wayne and his people have coats, clothes, peanut butter sandwiches--stuff for the street sorts who have a tough time of it in this weather--for sure!

Now the oddball thing here is that I've been involved with the Bloomington homeless community. My 96-year-old buddy over at the retirement home even more so. Hal, by the way, is slipping away. Some of his friends called me that Hal wanted to meet with some of us back a Sunday or so ago and I completely forgot about it, so stopped in on Hal the next day.

Not good. I wouldn't expect that he's got a 97th year in the tank. Not likely. Hal didn't know if anybody had been by the day before but did enjoy some strawberry-banana milkshake from Steak-N-Shake.

It's all good. Or for good. Which makes it all good. Hal would appreciate Wayne's Sunday thing. I'll mention it next time, that a truck driver I work with has been doing this 'Sunday thing.' Yeah, Hal will appreciate that!

 

Good points! Self-preservation has merits.

I'm told my Dad got a job in the mines for a short time and apparently got sideways with a Uke (depending on the size, the tires dwarf a tall man) and the big, expensive machine went over the side and into the pit--you hafta see these open pit mines... He jumped. That's supposed to be a no-no in the mines, but they wanted him back. He wouldn't go. Had enough of that game!

Even the jump off the machine is a long ways down. Especially while it's going over the side into the abyss. One day with my track loader (13-tons) a tree branch was getting in my way on each pass so I turned into it to break it off and inadvertently my left track dropped off over the side of the hill where I was working and I couldn't save it, so I stepped out on the edge of the still-moving track, which put me perpendicular to the machine, now crazily sideways on the hill; I took a couple steps on the track and jumped. The trackloader kept going, did not fall over and ended up pressed against another tree at an equally crazy angle.

The solution is you dig it out, shore it up as you go with short logs on the low side, dig under the high side until it's pretty much level or level enough to operate and then just walk it out.

Took a few days...