Turning the Page

Monday, July 30^th, 2012

      What keeps us running? Is it personal achievement? Fear of something? Desire to get somewhere other than where we are? Trying to lose weight? Doctors orders? I have my own answer for this question, but I will certainly note that I've been running pretty solid for the last four days, driving from Springfield, MO, up to Aurora, IL, then over to Tacoma, WA. All this to make it back in time to leave again going the other way.

      When you run so hard to get somewhere, the days go by in blurs. You take the federally required minimum ten hours off, sleeping maybe six or five of them. Hygiene takes a bit of a hit, since it seems like there's no time for anything. There are some incidents that hold prominence in my memory of the last week.

      Leaving Springfield, I was assigned a load out of the Kraft factory. I had no idea how much different stuff Kraft makes, but have a look sometime. I had settled in for a wait, since it was a live load, but I was still in a bit of a hurry. You're always in a hurry when it is time to go home. And I was hungry. My stomach was about to jump out and get its own food. Walking into the shipper, the entrance way is a makeshift break room, with vending machines against the far wall, and a low table built into the near wall. The narrow path between the obstacles was decorated with a smattering of chairs of varying makes. They totally had a microwave. Rummaging in the truck, I found that I had some microwavable Velveeta shells and cheese. Oh yeah. Guess who makes that? I went in and joked with the clerk about my lunch. He came back with a pouch of the cheese sauce, flopped it on top of the microwave and said jokingly that the big pouch was the real stuff. He walked away. A few hours later, the pouch was still there, so I took it and put it in my truck. Sitting on the floor, I found that after a couple hours it was rather hot, as the floor heats up from the exhaust filter not too far under the passenger seat. I will say that in a pinch, Velveeta makes a good hot pack and will stay in your shirt for a good spell, the foil stuck to your skin. Later in the week I tried easting the Velveeta with some salty corn chips, figuring “nachos.” Bad idea. That stuff is way to salty to be used as nacho cheese, at least with chips like Fritos. So I tossed the bulk of the bag, sad for the loss of my heating pack, but not that much.

      Blowing through Iowa and South Dakota, then a touch of Wyoming and into Montana. In the South East part of the state, one will find the monument to Wounded Knee. More specifically a pretty boy turned slaughterer. (curly hair that would make Fabio jealous!) They even named the national forest after that Custer guy. This time was much different. A fire had swept through some time before. Entire trees still standing upright, looking like spent matches. The Earth was blackened in many places, in others it was scorched red, devoid of any trace of organic matter. Some surviving trees showed traces of where the heat had singed all of the needles off, as if the fire still haunted the area, leaving a shadowy trace of its existence. Little burnt out nubs of bunch grasses set amidst a blackened landscape. And the smell. It still smelled like an ashtray. The area reeked of char. For all of that, some annual grasses had sprouted, brilliant yellow green, vibrant with new life among the failed cinders, brought about by the recent rain that had swept through. That whole scene will leave an impression for some time.

      So now I'm back, getting ready for the next adventure. I'll be hanging up my CB for a little while at least, maybe for a long while if I find something else I wish to pursue. Chances are that I'll be back out on the road, running. From what though? I've been so busy running for work that I've not really had time to take stock of my life, to reflect on events, to experience my emotions, from joy to grief. I have a lot I need to work through. I can see why some people stay out on the road all of the time. Your problems can't catch you if you are one step ahead of them. If you're always focused on what you are doing right then, the thoughts get crowded out by the present, for better or for worse. Still, some things do need to be experienced, and this is what is happening for me now., now that I've stopped moving. For now.

A shot at redemption

Tuesday, July 24th, 2012

     A welcome day of rest.  Sure, I had the hours to drive today.  The interest was certainly not there.  I feel that I've kinda let myself go in as much as my routines are concerned.  I have not done my exercise in a couple of days, and I've not meditated as much.  That said, it feels like a welcome break from the daily grind of life.  While on the one hand, I want to create a certain kind of life, the other hand wants me to relax a bit and know that the routine will continue if you really want it to.  Rather than berate myself for not sticking to a rigid plan, I decided to do something completely different and go into St. Louis.  

     In some ways, I was hoping that the city would redeem itself after the spectacle of the drive by monkey spanker.  (In retrospect, it seems funny to me how we on one level know that all dudes have a unit, but that we never think of it, or choose to forget it until we accidentally see it).  Happily, I have a friend in the area who just happened to be available today.

      The first step is getting from the truck stop to any place else.  This involved a cab ride.  Amazingly, the dude was early!  Even better, we had a fantastic conversation.  It started off with me asking about his work, and he happily obliged by telling me that it was alright, but that he was moving on to work in the oil fields in Montana, near the Canadian Border.  He asked if I was a Christian, and I explained my views, which were certainly not his.  When explained, Christianity sounds kinda silly and hokey.  Regardless, we got into how the U.S. would be a much better place if people would simply listen to each other, judge less, and accept more.  His politics were conservative to a tea, claiming that Obama is the greatest threat to our country.  I managed to avoid that conversation and steer it towards corporate influence and the broken political system.  Great stuff!

       Downtown STL was hot today.  The Arch is ginormous, and the Courthouse is being refurbished.  That did not stop me.  Someplace north of the courthouse there is a long string of city blocks converted into parks.  There was even a food truck!  I felt as if it were some kind of rare event out here, especially when compared with Portland.  Having some lunch then looking through the parks, I went to wade in one of the many pools.  Just getting my sandals off (could you imagine wearing work boots today?!) and getting my feet wet, a volunteer (it said so on her name tag) came out of somewhere.  She advised me not wading in that particular pool, as "some homeless people use it as a latrine."  I did not bother to ask if it was number 1 or number two.  Instead, I got out and moderately burnt the soles of my feet on the hot pavement in doing so.

     Further down the way is the real city garden, complete with screaming kids hanging out in a pool.  That was kinda fun, but the real fun was revisiting an old friend who I've not seen in the better part of a decade.  Our first stop was the Botanical Garden, decked out for the Chinese Lantern Festival.  Certainly a hot day for walking out in the sun, never mind all of the people working out in it.  In the gardens, there are a number of traditional decorative structures, most made of silk covering a metal frame.  The two displays that were not of silk caught my attention.  There were two Chinese style dragons, made from plates, presumably on a metal endoskeleton.  Tied in a traditional manner, these two creatures were about 50 feet long apiece.  The other non-silk creation was a mythical creature made of all sorts of other animal parts, the name escaping me at the moment.  This sculpture was constructed of little glass vials filled with colored water and tied in a traditional manner.  Absolutely amazing!

      So since we we here, there was the obligatory Anheuser-Busch Factory tour complete with free beer at the end.  They had the Clydesdales in their stable area, one getting his pubes trimmed.  Seriously.  I won't go on about the horse behind him hanging his dong out to dry; that clause alone says it all.  The sheer scope of the brewing is amazing, with Budweiser consuming 9% of the U.S. rice crop every year.  The smells are sweet and grainy, and the temperature variances about 70 degrees from the coldest to hottest.  On what looks to be 10 acres of floor, 3 people bottle all the beer that comes out of the plant.  Three on a shift.  There were 4 times that number of hosting staff in the hospitality room (where they give you the free beers).

      Overall, I've decided that this town may somehow have redeemed itself, but through no fault of its own.  Seeing an old friend and having a good time is priceless.  Seeing the horse dong is something I could have done without, as dongs seem to be some kind of theme for me here.  Honestly, St. Louis needs to keep it in its pants.

   

Human rights

Sunday, July, 22nd, 2012

 

     The soil here is dry and solid.  New grass struggles to grow in the arid heat, withering and scorching plants for miles.  Corn, tall as a man, stands idly by, watching, waiting for rain, leaves curled up to prevent further loss of moisture, the lower leaves long since turned brown and brittle.  The ditch-weed  is growing bright and green, seemingly impervious to nature's whim.  Around a pond, the cat-tails remain green, but there is an edge of brown creeping inward as the dessication of the landscape continues.  It's been hot for days.  Humid but no rain, and it shows.  Illinois is dry.

       Mississippi, however, is not.  The locals there assured me that it has been raining almost every day for months.  the ground is soggy and saturated, emerald lawns shine in contrast to the parched plain to the north.  It was in Mississippi that I had a singular awakening.

     I pulled into a Love's travel center.  Technically for fuel, but a bathroom break is always welcome.  I have a good time at the pump, chatting with another Swift driver who was next to me at the shipper.  Good guy from California.  I put exactly 80 gallons in, proud of the achievement (pumps register out 3 decimal places, so this is no easy feat) and head inside to relive my bladder and improve my blood sugar.  Directly outside the door to the fuel desk, there is a pair of ladies, a table and piles of stuff on said table.  Wearing their neon yellow shirts, the ladies are hard to miss.  Even more so, since they are actively greeting all who stroll into the store.  Well, one of them was doing the greeting, the other seemed to have a supervisory capacity, in that she was sitting down, silent and watching.  Not really pushing the goods.  

     So I walk up to them, the talky one in particular, and inquire as to their doings.  I am then informed that they are selling goods to raise money for their ministry.  Right on!  I love social groups that try to do good in the world.  Normally, I'm quite a sucker for charities, especially people trying to sell handmade lacquered wood clocks in 90 degree Mississippi heat, that is as humid as only Mississippi can be.  I was thinking of just handing them a fiver and walking inside.

      Then it dawned on me as to where I was.  For some reason, perhaps inspired by my recent thoughts, I asked what their stance was on homosexuality.  At first, she kind of looked at me, blank stare.  Her reply was "I'm a Christian."  Of course she was.  It was a Christian ministry.  My response was to simply raise an eyebrow, quizzically.  She went on to say that she believed in everything the Bible said, and took it literally.  Huh.  This is not the concept of Christian I had in my head.  For me, the concept of love everyone as yourself does not exclude any group, for any reason, race, creed or lifestyle.  I thought to myself, "so then you surely do not eat shellfish, since that is an abomination unto god's sight, as per Leviticus."  I did not press the point.  I instead asked if she had any gay friends.  She informed me she had recently moved to the area and was not going to go out and search for those kind of people now that she was part of this church.  Ah.  I understand.  It is a simple case of wanting to feel a sense of belonging to a group.  A feeling for a need of support, having the people you surround yourself with influence you.  I felt a deep compassion for her.  She went on to note that she did have a gay friend in Knoxville, whence she came, but she doesn't speak with him any more.  In fact, she now prays for him to change his mind.  While on the one hand I am outraged by this, on the other hand I am deeply compassionate for her.  I've been in a similar boat.  Not with this issue, but more along the lines of road rage.

     I've come to realize that the common denominator in all of the things we dislike is our own person.  What makes something wicked or blessed is our own point of view.  For her, she was taking on the issues of her church to belong to a group, something anyone who's ever been alone as much as I have can relate to (trucking).  Instead of trying to convert her, I simply smiled and walked into the truck stop.  You see, now that I realize that every single action we take becomes society, I'm shaping myself up.  I would give to anybody who asked for money, out of sheer kindness.  Not any more.  I will no longer support bigoted causes knowingly, and in cases I do not know, I will ask and test, and probe to find out where my energy is going to and what kind of society I am helping to create.  In my society, everyone has equal rights, or nobody has any rights.  It is my opinion that when you say it is alright to exclude any one group from having rights, dignity, or humanity that any other group may be next on that list.  To defend everyone's rights, we need to stand for the minorities.  It has been said that gay rights are human rights.  I certainly think so.

      After getting my sandwich and reliving myself, I walked back to my truck.  The very same lady asked me if I wanted to make a donation.  I was pretty sure that I didn't put on one of those Scooby Doo masks.  I politely told her that I had already spoken with her and I was away. 

    

Really, Saint Louis?

Monday, March 19^th, 2012

      For anybody driving long haul trucks, getting home is perhaps the most compelling event that can happen. When it comes to stopping for a while with friends and family, you'll be willing do things you normally would not. I'm not one to sling iron, but I will if it means the difference between getting home or not. (“sling iron” is trucker speaking for putting snow chains on your tires). We become willing to drive the last bit of our hours to get that much further the next day. Today felt quite good to roll out of the southeast, let me tell you.

      I was pretty jazzed for leaving my pick up an hour and a half before my appointment time. Blasting out of Nashville and into Kentucky, I just wanted to put the miles behind me. To be quite frank, it went smoothly. I listened to unit 7 of Pimsleur's Spanish 1, and will certainly have to listen to it again. Otherwise, the drive was wonderfully uneventful until St. Louis.

      I have a friend from St. Louis, and the place reminds me of him. Driving across I-64, you get a splendid view of the Arch that the city is so famous for. I've heard it was quite the feat to actually connect the two separate legs. Apparently, the sun and heat would twist the metal so much that it would have been exceptionally difficult to fuse the towers barring an engineering miracle. Then come the billboards. I saw several advertising Budweiser. It seems that they take their beer somewhat seriously here. Some blurb about some kind of 2011 sports championship. But what struck me the most was how beautiful it could actually be.

      I've been on the northern side more often (along I-70) and it tends to be a grittier place than what I saw today. A park stretched along the interstate for miles, with people walking, biking and jogging along a path. Union Station looked well cared for, and the buildings looked spiffy.

      To help me get a feel for the place, I like to look into the windows of cars that pass me. I do this mostly because I pass so few cars, and I can't see into them when I am passing, the truck is too wide and high. So I am compelled to look down into the cars going by. Sometimes, I'll get a wave and a smile. Rarely, I'll get a kid wanting me to honk my big horn, which I happily oblige. I was that kid once. The most common event is an empty passenger seat with nothing going on.

      Sure, I get people talking on cell phones, people texting, but some days you get some odd balls. Disappointingly uncommon is sighting animals riding shotgun. Nothing is more fun than seeing a dog hang its head out the window, tongue flapping in the maelstrom. I recall an incident involving a man reading a newspaper. Impressive, but foolish. This evening just outside of St Louis, I had a girl picking at one of her feet. Very flexible!

      The most memorable one happened today. I looked over and saw some guy *ahem* pleasuring himself. There should be such a thing as eye bleach, or a mind wipe. He was driving just slow enough to pass me, but not fast enough to pass quickly. Its just after rush hour, so maybe he's enjoying himself after a hard day of work, no pun intended. I mean, this has got to happen all the time right? Sure, why not? My first instinct was to vomit, which I luckily repressed. Not that the act itself if repulsive, more the idea that I got the impression that he wanted me to see it. I so hope that is not true. There are some odd people out there for sure. I'm going to comfort myself and choose to believe that he did not think anyone could see him workin' it. Please let that be true.

Still in Purgatory it Seems

Sunday, March 18^th, 2012

      Some few days later, I still find myself in the Southeast. Nashville is hot today, but the breeze is gentle and welcoming. It's too hot in the truck to meditate or play the banjo, so I'm inside the truck stop relaxing. These last few days have been curious to say the least. Honestly, I'm not even sure where to begin, or what to mention, so I'll start with what is the most obvious to me.

       It is fairly apparent that if I want any kind of life, I can no longer drive trucks over the road. Technically, I can have a life of sorts, but it is similar to being a nun. Obviously, I'm not a woman married to Jesus (he's totally pimpin' with all those wives!) rather a guy married to the road. For the record, I will say two things: 1) the road doesn't put out and 2) I imagine it would either a) burn like hell, or b) rub your junk off. Consequently, the road allows for other companions, but not for any length of time to be considered enjoyable.  Not only that, the road does not offer companionship beyond your own thoughts, or the opportunity to do anything but drive.  Five days a month is not enough time to live a good, balanced life.

      In light of this seeming engagement, I am opting for a divorce of sorts. I am considering other career paths. During the last few days, I have spent time meditating on this, reflecting kind of passively and actively weighing the ups and down of various enterprises. The honest truth of it is that I'd just as soon hang out and play banjo all day, but that is far from realistic at this point. I'm not even to a level where I can consistently play the same few songs I know without the occasional flub.

      Practically speaking, I will need a job that pays actual income if I want to purchase some land to steward. There are options that are way out there, from sustainable building to intuitive healing, all of which I feel would require extra training and more time devoted. More time than I can find between loads and the minutia of this job. There are so many experiences that I would like to have between now and whatever comes next, and they all require money. So, practical concerns win out for the meantime.

      Between now and then is a tricky amount of time to commit to a particular field. Perhaps five years, maybe more. As I was contemplating my options, it came to me. I can do anything honestly. If I can put up with the alternatingly frenetic and languid pace that is trucking (never mind the intermittent showers and frustration of things breaking down), then I am sure I can put up with any other job. Yeah, people can be tiresome. I see it everyday on the roads. It becomes easier to deal with when you start seeing the idiot that cut you off while driving and talking in his cell phone, is just another person, with their own experiences and subjective morality.

      Not only can I probably survive anything, chances are that whatever I do doesn't matter in the end. During a meditation, I came to realize that succeeding on a physical level holds little interest for me other than maintaining my somewhat modest american life. I'm sure I could pare down even more. Perhaps what is lacking is the connection in my own mind between the mundane and the sacred. Inevitably they are both cut from the same cloth, one a reflection of the other. The thing is, I can fly, teleport and dive into the sun in other realms. Here I can appreciate what has been created, and work to make things better. Which is cool and all, but teleportation... kinda hard to beat that one. Wait until i get better at energy manipulation!

      Long story short, the most pragmatic options honestly bore me. I'm not inspired by mundane work as I conceive of it. I'm not sure if I can find inspiration in going to a job for the next 10 years or so. Therein lies the challenge.

Pissing in the Wind

Tuesday, March 6^th, 2012

      It was a day like many others. Some part of me expects things to be magical the entire time. I'm sure that is the 7 year old in me that never grew up. Some times, he can be at odds with the reality of adult life. Perhaps everything can be novel with the right frame of mind, but that isn't as easy to come by as I would like. Not yet anyway. I'm working on it.

      Really nothing spectacular to report today, save some amazingly sunny weather with very comfortable temperatures. I've enjoyed the sun and welcome the feeling of spring, however early and due to global climate change it may be. Out on the road, I ran into a bunch of Mayflies already. Seems like a fairly solid indicator to me of how we're adjusting seasonal norms. I mean, we don't go around calling the “Marchflies” or anything so preposterous.

      Along weather related lines the wind has been fierce today gusting to 45 mph. Having an empty trailer in these winds (like I do) is a bit precarious. It kinda feels like driving on ice. The back tires of the trailer will kick into the passing lane, usually not by much. Little or no, one can certainly feel it in the driver's seat. What scares me more is when the drive axle does that. I'm not sure exactly how I can tell, but after a while you get a sense of your truck.

      In other news, it seems that I have an incredible sense of timing, almost to the point of being psychic. In the Edwardsville lot, there is a profound shortage of trailer sin working order. This means that I spent about 3 hours this morning either hunting or waiting for a trailer. Instead of sitting hawkishly by the trailer repair bay doors, I took my laptop and went inside to have a nice, but unexpected chat with my sweetheart.

      Out of the the blue, I decided to get up and check on the trailers. Just as I walked out of the drivers' lounge, they were opening one of the bay doors to release the newly repaired trailer. There were another 4 guys on that row waiting for a trailer, but I followed the yard jockey to where he dropped the trailer and connected to it right quick! There's a lot to be said for being in the right place at the right time.

      Now I'm in Kankakee, IL, just south of Chicago. And by “just south” I mean an hour away. There is a new truck stop here so I had to stop. Going to the bathroom after a few hours is a great relief, so I made that a priority. Heading to the men's room, I make for the furthest urinal from the door (some odd feng shui thing for me Ii suppose). If you've never been into a men's room, first of all: really? What kind of woman hasn't ever even looked inside of one? The answer may be a sensible one, but certainly not curious. Anyway, I'm sure we all know what urinals look like, but we may not all know that there are these plastic things in the bottom that serve a couple of purposes: to keep the tiny bits of urinal cake from getting washed down the drain, to make it smell nice in some cases (really!) and to catch the inevitable tangles of pubic hair that “trickle down” Today I found that there were advertisements written on these plastic do-hickeys with a sharpie marker. The ads below matched one of the ads on the flyer at eye level above the urinal itself. No kidding. Each of the four urinals featured a different product that was being promoted this month. My urinal was casually mentioning “ear buds (brand xyz) for 12.99, normally 14.99, $2 savings”. This sounds like a brilliant merchandising scheme from someone who knows that guys look down when peeing. Brilliant. And very disturbing. Next it will be an LCD inside the urinal itself I swear.

A momentary lapse of reason

Sunday, March 4^th, 2012

      Well, it seems I did not write yesterday. Perhaps the job is getting to me. Or maybe it was the 3 hour long nap in the middle of the day that totally messed with my head. Suffice to say, I made it to the Edwardsville terminal, just outside of Kansas City (both of them).

      One of the main reasons for me to get down here was to have the shop fix my fuel gauge. Well that and the door. I got here sometime around 1030, I took my time and had a nice leisurely drive, because I could. It feels really nice to be able to relax and not be on a schedule. I drop my trailer and bring in the paper work for someone else to haul it away. I wash my hands of it. I scanned in the scale receipts for reimbursement, and they totaled to just under $50. Hehe. Ah well, at least I'll see that all back again.

        The next order of business was to check in with the shop. Well, it seems that a few techs called in sick yesterday. They were already short handed as it is. There is a flock of trucks waiting to be looked at. I took my nap in front of the garage doors waiting for the initial inspection. Apparently i really fell asleep, long enough for the shift to change. I had no idea how tired I was. I suspect not having coffee in the morning may have contributed to this. It is for the best really.

       The door is more or less fixed, but it seems the hinges are warped enough for them to want to replace them. The big issue is the fuel gauge, which will involve taking the whole left side apart and turning the tank around. I can honestly say that I do not understand it. Oh, and they won;t be able to even consider doing it until Tuesday. Guess I'm laid up here for a while. The upside of that is that once I am fixed, I'm sure to be moving right along with a load to some place far away, in any direction. That's the best part of being in the middle of the country. Stuff is going wherever you want to go.

      While they were looking at my truck, I spent my wait time talking the ear off a couple of other drivers who were in the garage as well. For the life of me, I can not recall what the hell I was saying, but I'm sure it was rather light and banal. Fun talking. Making silly jokes about nothing in particular. Small talk about being broken down and such.

      The terminal is a different story. I have only now escaped what feels like the crushing despair of the drivers' lounge. It is a low energy kind of place. Even the shop is. I wonder if the terminal manager knows anything about this. Each terminal has a distinct energy which I readily pick up on. I am glad for my banjo and my best friend to talk to (and the bears too!). In fact, Barnaby wants to hear some more banjo.

Weighting and Appointments

Thursday, January 26^th, 2012

      Well, that's a load off my mind. No, I'm not trying to make clever puns, I feel honestly relieved to be out form under the last couple of loads. Sometimes, when you have a load for a long time, it becomes really familiar. Other times, it becomes too familiar. Like when you are pulling giant rolls of paper over some mountain range to a place that makes cereal boxes. Yeah that gets old fast. This time though, the loads were heavy, but much more valuable.

      For the last week, I've been hauling copper around; first in the form of anodes (thin flattish sheets about 3' x 2'), and most recently in the form of billets (3' cylinders with a 10” diameter). All told, both loads weighed about 78,000 pounds. Or, if you like, 39 tons. Today's price of copper (bright, clean) was 3.92 a pound. This week I moved about $310,000 across the country. This is my contribution to the GDP this week, not counting fuel and other stuff like eating and scale tickets.

      Normally, I don't give a rat's behind what is “in the box.” In fact, I really don;t care in most ways. It isn't my stuff. All that matters is that I get to where I need to go without incident or losing the freight (my life or health above all however.) These loads add the extra dimension of potential cargo theft. Perhaps it is a mild paranoia on my part, but who can say? I can't think of anybody who'd bust into a trailer with a massive lock on it then walk out with 1200 pound cylinder of copper. I have, however, heard a story about people stealing those huge rolls of paper off a truck (those weigh 7,000 pounds+). I suppose that if you want something bad enough you have to be willing to take it.

      So now, I'm hanging out just outside of Tupelo, Mississippi. The west end technically. I've been here long enough to watch the rain come and go. Long enough to get confused multiple times about how that lick goes in the two songs I am learning. Then long enough to watch the sun come out for a bit, then set. It is kinda funny, since I was asking for rain the other day to wash all the road salt off my truck that had accumulated in the shitstorm that was Wyoming. I'm thinking I wished a bit too hard. That said, it smells like spring here, with brilliant emerald fields of something or other (sod?) lining the highway.

      On a related note, I was also wishing for a run to Laredo, Texas. Lo and behold I get one! The thing is, I am scheduled to be home next weekend. That is all fine and good. Normally, it would not be an issue, but the “hours left to drive” thing comes into play here. I'd have to drive pretty hard and straight to get back to Seattle in any amount of sensible time. I messaged the planners to see if they could get me a more direct route home. Here's the thing though. I've already committed tot he plan (see yesterday's entry) and even called the shipper trying to get the trailer loaded early. He is already planning the bills around my trailer number. Man! *laughs* Still anyway, I am going to try to get back to Seattle sooner rather than later.

      In the meanwhile, I will practice banjo more, making mistakes as I go. It feels kinda good to be able to make mistakes and not have very serious repercussions. I'm sure life is that way to an extent, but not when it comes to appointment times. So I'll still push for Seattle.

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I wish I was in Dixie

Wednesday, January 25^th, 2012

      It has been said that there are no wrong choices. It has also been said that we make the best decisions with the information we have available. It has been said that it can't be done. It has also been said, “because I said so.” A lot of thing shave been said about everything. I was about to suggest that everything has already been said, but new things keep coming up to say as our collective pool of knowledge expands. Back to my original two points.

      While there may be no wrong choices, and we do the best we can with the information we have, I feel that having incomplete or changing information may lead to some decisions that are less efficient than the optimum. Perhaps that is setting the standard a bit high. Moreover, it may be an impossible standard to keep or even reach when the information is a variable you do not control. So I thought I was going to California. I'm not. The long and short of it is I thought I could take the load with the time I had left, but I forgot to factor in the hours I had already run yesterday. Like I said, best with the information we have at the time. Despite communicating that, I was still on the load, except I was now set-up to pull it to a terminal where somebody else would run it to California. So I went to bed.

      Waking up in the morning sometime around 0900 local, I scratched myself a bit in that kinda manly morning way rolled over just in time to hear a text message alert. Well. What could that be? Its a new load assignment. Huh. Better get myself together and out the door. Looks like I am picking up at the place I am delivering to, and taking whatever it is to Fulton, Mississippi.

      In the trucking world, there is this thing called “forced dispatch.” The meaning is fairly obvious, but essentially, you go where they tell to go and pull that load. Swift is not technically a forced dispatch company, but you'd better have a good reason not to take the load. A good reason would include, “I have to break some laws to do it.” Actually I think that is the only good reason. I hear tales of some drivers who will not go into New England under any circumstances, and more commonly with N.Y.C.

      There is a little system involved in getting loads, which does not ultimately guarantee that you will be doing that the next day. The company finds a load, and sends it to your truck. You then have to plan it out in your head (faster is better) and determine if you can run the load. You then respond to the pre-plan either accepting it or not. Clearly, there is plenty of room for error in this process, because the company doesn't know how much time you have to run (which makes no sense at all since you have to send in the previous day's hours every day) and there are people involved. I do my best not to screw things up, but I am only human. Then when all of this is said and done, you've accepted the pre-plan (it is still a pre-plan until you get a load assignment) the company can still take it off of you at their discretion. So I guess I am a bit bummed not to be going to Shafter, CA.

      On the bright side, I don't have to drive my skinny butt off to get somewhere. Getting up at midnight to drive is just crazy talk! So I'll enjoy to Southeast and the rain that came today. The rain is a lot different than in the northwest. It doesn't chill you to the bone. Then again, I wouldn't want to live here either.  I'll say hello to Memphis for y'all.

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Time and a Habit

Tuesday, January 24^th, 2012

Time is such a funny thing. In many ways it is an artificial construct of man. Maybe it is only that, maybe not. I'm no philosopher. I'm thinking about this because I'm jumping time zones lately. Anybody who has experienced jet lag will be aware of what all this shifting does to you. Granted, I've only shifted two hours earlier, but even that will mess with your head just enough. In the end, the only time there is, is now. For that is all we ever experience. Now, I am in Kingdom City, Missouri.

This morning found me wanting to stay in bed a lot longer. I just might do that tomorrow, since I have a 12 hour delivery window and all of 30 miles to go. I drove the better part of the day in a haze, just cognizant enough to drive, but not much more than that. Keeping up the gratitude practice was difficult, since my mind was blunted by drowsiness, but we do what we can. Nebraska went by mostly in the dark. However, one thing I really sincerely appreciate is how well routes are marked. Even before I was where I wanted to be, there was as sign telling me which way to go for the next route number. Fantastic! This is why I love driving in the States over Canada any day of the week.

Returning to time once again, it always struck me as funny how we have time zones. Don't get me wrong, I understand the concept behind it. (I'll stay away from daylight savings, mostly to spare all of us a rant.) I sometimes wonder what it would be like if all times were local. Hah! That would make delivery times such a pain in the ass wouldn't it? I was also musing the other day about how the people on the west end of a time zone totally have different noons. Better still, as I drove from Mountain time into Central time yesterday, I noticed that the border was a road running north-south. I saw a house on the East (Central) side of the road. So, if they had neighbors across the street, would they really be on different time zones? Then there was a manufacturing plant of some ilk not too far away. Do people come from MST to work in CST, and how do they set their clocks? I certainly don't understand.

Another thing that comes with time is habits. I'm not going to say that all truckers develop strange habits like I have, but I've come up with some strange ones to help develop a sense of home. Sadly, this has to do with using the lavatory, as most humor does of late, but I found it quirky enough to notice and poke fun at. Whenever I am at a terminal or truck stop, I want to feel like I'm 'home' or someplace familiar. When parked for a duration, I'll inevitably have to use the toilet. Naturally I go, since the other option is potentially deadly and rather anal retentive (pun intended). Fine. Wash up then leave. Of course use a paper towel to open doors with handles, because I don't want my hand touching the same surface as some other dudes hand that was just touching his a) ass or b) unit. Plenty of people don;t wash their hands out here. That is not the habit, that is just common sense. So time passes, and I'll have to go again. Given the opportunity, I will go to the exact same stall and use it again. It has become “mine” for the time being. Urinals included. They are mine. If it is a busy night or morning, I may adopt a second stall for personal use. Somehow this makes me feel better, and I don't get why. It just does.

So yeah, time has a way of doing strange things to you, even if only a little at a time.

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