Trucking can be like a bad marriage...

I was in a warehouse the other day...and happen to look over across the warehouse floor...and noticed all the forklifts were 'robotic'...functioning, loading, moving freight, without humans...it was the oddest thing I'd ever seen in a warehouse...

The people told me it's been that way for years...I just never noticed I guess...
Also the lady working there told me that in one more year, the robotic forklifts will even be loading and unloading trucks...wow...

Good for the bottum line of the company...bad for the forklift drivers...wow...

As I looked out over the vast warehouse floor and observed all the robotic forklifts, it just reminded me of the movie 'Terminator'...you just never know...



The rise of the machines...their coming for your jobs...

 

As the summer fades, and fall sets in...(in the SE it's still summer)...but anyways...

Most of these drivers spent all their summer cooped up in their trucks, with a/c blowing full blast...never really ever enjoying the sunny sky's and or walking through the green grass at rest areas...

Just drive and park and sleep...drive and park and sleep...so what good does summer do them? They spend most of it cooped up inside their ice box...

I rarely see drivers just walking around rest areas...even ones that are lavishly landscaped...(unless they have a pet)...but you don't need a pet to just walk around and stretch your legs...and to just enjoy the season...

Soon you won't be able to leave your truck when the rigid winter weather hit's and tempurtures drop near freezing...

Won't have nothing to complain about...cause when it was nice and sunny out...what did you do?
Stayed cooped up inside the truck with a/c blowing at full blast...

That's why I gotta get out at times, many times, and just enjoy the day for what it is...walk over to a creek, and be amazed...as I was as a child...

I don't ever want to loose that ability to be in wonder of nature, a tree, the grass, even the insects...

Sometimes this hurry up and go enviornment will make you mute to all of that...

 

Back on the road after a long weekend off...and even though it's pretty much a in and out trip...(I'll be away for at least a day, maybe two) it still feels 'empty'...

I have satellite radio now, and that does help...now I can enjoy Bill O Riely, once again...but still radio still doesn't replace being home or in home territory...being up close and personal with people who know you, and even building new relationships...

Let's face it, life is about relationships...and being on the road for long periods of time robs you of that essential...

I see, observe, a lot of lonely looking people out here, particularly older males...some of them look so sad, and out of touch with 'love'...some have little pet dogs with them...to give them that bit of companionship that the road robs many of...

I went cloth shopping this weekend...went to a place I normally don't go to a purchased two really colorful, or fashionable shirts to deliberatly contrast myself with the often 'grey' enviornment I find myself in out here...

Older lonely guys stumbling around in sweat pants and cut of sweat pants...(I guess sweat pants they cut in half to make into shorts)

You can tell these poor guys don't have wives...or a woman...cause if they had 'love' in their life...their wives or women, would not go for that...and they would hopefully take better care of themselves...

Women usually don't allow their men to physically deteriate...

Some of these older guys just come out here for weeks, months, and just loose touch...some loose their spirit...

That's why I could never be out two weeks, home 2 days type of driver anymore...I could not see myself surrendering my days to this enviornment for long periods...maybe one or two days away...at times...but no more...

It's just not the same anymore...

Everyones so distant now days...hidden in their own worlds, wearing these ear pieces..



As a result...no one speaks anymore...people walk around like cyborg robots tied into an electronic matrix...which makes it even more lonely out here...

I'm a personable person and like saying 'Hi'...with a smile....that seems to be going out of style...instead you see people walking straight ahead, never concerned with how the people infront of them are doing, while chatting for hours and hours on the headset...

Oh well...just needed to do some writing, as I take a temporary break...
Time to put the pedal back to the metal...

 

Gone since Monday...nice short round trip...totally uneventful....I did an experiement on myself...and it's funny how just 3 days can alter your mood...

When I left, I had on a spazzy cool shirt...when I returned...I did not even feel like wearing anything 'spazzy'...instead I 'toned' down to match my enviornment....and that's just after 3 days...now imagine the effect 10 days away can have on your moral or creativity and or self-esteem...

Now in the past I could do it...when I was younger, and related to trucking in a totally different way...I miss those days...

I miss the attitude I had back then...you can never really get that back though...just like you can never get back how x-mas or other holidays felt to you as a kid...

You can remember, but cannot replicate the feeling...

One thing that was kinda funny today...

1. I stopped at a truck stop...I was concerned about a certain scale being opened or closed...I asked several male truck drivers their opinion...the last guy i asked was this big chubby tall dude...he was a 'blck' version of Pauly in the movie 'Goodfellas'...looked just like Pauly, but was blck...

Anyhow...he gave me his opinion, I thanked him..got bck in truck and left....

Later...as I approached a trucking only parking rest area...I decided to pull in one more time to make sure indeed this scale was closed...so I pull up next to a random truck...and who do you think it was??
Yes...it was 'Pauly'...the guy I spoke with earlier...

I was like ''....and so was he...I'm certain he thought I deliberatly followed him into the rest area...(He was on the phone though...so I waited outside his truck)
But while I was waiting I kept thinking 'Ok...this guy probablly thinks I'm following him, probablly thinks I'm up to something, probablly thinks I like him ect ect...

Anyways...when they got of the phone I said 'Say arent you the guy I talked to at the truck stop'?? (I was playing dumb)...and he was like 'Ye'

Anyways we both kinda made light of it...but funny thing is...they ended up getting my phone number...

Why, I really don't know...with their engine cranking I could barely hear them...just heard them ask If I had any silver dollors...I said 'no'...

And then I ran into them again at the truck scales and at the rest area just south of the truck scales...how odd...

Anyways...

Some of these older men are odd acting out here...this guy told me all he needed now was a younger woman so he could have 'babies'...'say what?.

I was like to myself 'why are you looking at me while you say that??'
I can't give you babies...

I don't know, some people...

 

The guy I work for is content with me doing whatever I want...he just seems happy to have found a decent driver...

I mean he could obviously put the truck on with a carrier that made more money...but then he might risk loosing me...cause like i told him and his friend...(who's in my boat, only with kids) I'm just not ready to surrender anymore of my life to life on the road...

Expecially in the winter...dark lonely cold truck stops..all alone...



I mean xm radio is nice...but it can't substitute human contact or interaction...

And todays drivers just don't have those old fashioned talketive skills like the older generation did...they'd talk up a storm with you...by you dinner, whatever...they just had a different spirit to them...like in those old trucking movies..and they were always eager to teach...

Todays driver is more reclusive...content with his/her electronic gadgets and cell phone ect ect...they don't even notice you anymore...

I can't see myself surrending my life to this anymore...not unless the pay off was really good...the feeling of just sitting there...surrounded by people, by souls, yet so alone...cb radio chatter use to offset the lonliness..



But no one hardly uses it anymore...instead everyone just sleeps, or goes in the back of the cab and watches tv or chat on their cell phones for 18 hours a day...so the interaction that drivers use to have with each other, that offset a lot of the lonliness, is just not there no more...

Unless you do like me and practically force yourself on people...but even then the conversations are very shallow...

This winter, I prefer to stay in the SE...where at least the sun will be out...and I don't have to deal with snow...

No days, if your stranded...I mean who would stop and help you??...no one...

To be honest with you...I don't care about being 'rich' anymore...I realize now to be rich...you need to be given a large sum of money at once...from a bank or family member or lottery...

I may never be moneterially rich...but I will always be rich in spirit...people generally like me in real life...

Like today, as I left the grocery store...some 85 year old man saw I was a driver...and pulled up next to me and started talking up a storm...telling me about the old days...right in the middle of the parking lot...

And he offered me his number...told me I could call anytime...

(Ok, what's up with all these men offering me their number??

He was like the second guy in one day to offer me their number...well the other guy wrote down my number after asking for it...)

Anyways...I'm getting off topic...
All I'm saying is...no more over the road stuff for me...(at least that's what I say...now watch me end up changing my mind in a few weeks if some big money comes up)

I'm just saying...I'm not planning on it...have no desire for it...the trucking golden years are gone...gone forever...it's a different generation now...that whole smokey and the bandit era is gone...and replaced by Swift drivers...

Or angry young urban guys who speed past you doing 85 mph...

And one more thing...how come when I or you, sleep in the truck...you always wake up feeling 'grogy' ?...does it have something to do with the diesel fumes or fermaldihyed...the stuff those cheap travel trailers have in them that cause cancer??

No matter how long I sleep in the truck...when I wake up I always feel like someone drugged me..



Like this morning when I woke up I felt stupid, dumb and blind...like 'where am I?'....
But at my residents I never wake up feeling like that...it only occurs when I sleep in the truck...
Could it be from all the diesel fumes from the other trucks and traffic you breath in all day and night...like an accumilative effect???

I mean think about it, all day long your breathing in car fumes on the interstates...and at night, with trucks idoling...your breathing in more carbon monoxide as you sleep...not good..

Ok...I'm done for now...

 

To all the moderators on here, all the drivers, former drivers, old timers...let's just dance...

This songs for you...even the guy with the weapon...(can he not replace the weapon with a rose?...oh well...tonight we dance)

Live long and strong ya'll...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVdhZwK7cS8

 

Everyone knows how this feels...

Sunday arrives...you stall, diddle around, but the clock keeps moving...finally your like..'ah heck' may as well leave now...

It takes about an hour or so to get ready and take care of last minute stuff...finally turn the key and go...go get trailer...

As the sun starts to set earlier...Sundays take on that gloomy winter feel...

I'd rather be hunkered down in bed watching football and or other stuff...just still, maybe with bedroom window cracked catching a cool breeze...

But instead your in the truck, loud truck, around other loud trucks...

You've been still for 2-3 days...suddenly your being thrashed around everytime you go over rail road tracks or any pothole...

In trucks, bumps in the road or ruts are magnified...stuff you might not feel in a car, thrashes you around in a truck...expecially while bobtailing...

Mentally your still at home on the couch, or at the lake or whatever you do to relax...but physically your being thrashed around in the truck...your drinks spill, something falls from the over head and hits you in the head...

You become irritable...until you re-adapt to life in the truck and the load noisy vibration filled ride...

Then again it all depends on your mood before you leave...

I volunteered my time this weekend...wanted to step out of comfort zone and be around a different enviornment...I was around airplanes, people and cars...and cops...who helped...or I guess you could say we helped them...

And it's a good way to make future contacts...volunteering your time and allowing people to see you, is far better than any resume...

I saw like 23 year olds with corporate offices...I was thinking 'wow, they sure did it right'...

And guys in their 30's flying learjets...again...I was like...'wow'...



I use to want to be a pilot years ago...should of stayed focused...oh well...

Another thing...'politics makes you forget how to love'....

I just felt like saying that...politics will keep you in a perpetual bad, crabby, condecending mood...and will sour your outlook on life and others...

Anyways...just checking in...I'm a member to several forums...each having it's own feel and flavor...

I've been meaning to get a dash cam soon, so I can record everything while I'm driving...

later..

 

These have got to be the dumbest animals I've ever seen...totally clueless...what, are they blind and deaf?

Are they genetically prone to suicide?
I mean even when you try to slightly move out the way, it's like they change path to deliberatly get ran over...

I must have seen at least 20 of these things ran over tonight...

I mean their out there foraging for food in the middle of the road...

And almost hit a rabbit...why do animals wait till the last minute to make a mad dash...
Why cross the road? Don't be like the chicken...
Anyways...time for bed...