Connections, Cheese and Socialism

Monday, July 16th, 2012

 

       In some ways, it seems a bit odd to be posting today's blog so early.  It is not even noon yet, but I've already worked my day.  Right now, I'm about 45 minutes outside of Chicago.  I plan on driving through after 10 p.m.  That's the only sensible option really.  

      Leaving at sundown, the world takes on a different feeling.  Before I left Fargo, however, I happened to be walking out of the Petro, and was walking out the door shortly behind a gentlemen presumably from the South.  I only presume that because he was wearing overalls and a faded red ball cap that read "Ole Miss" in dingy black letters.  He could have been from Boston for all I know, but we all come laden with presuppositions and judgements.  Seeing as there were two doors, I got the first one, and he got the second one.  He waited for me a bit, and I could see that he was a bit hesitant to get back out into the truck.  

      Seeing this, I told him that I was not in any rush either, saying that it was nice to be out of the truck.  He agreed heartily, as only a large framed, stocky guy can and we shared a chuckle.  Some small talk was exchanged and he then told me that he was getting ready to leave.  Another overnight run.  I told him that it was the same for me.  For a brief moment, there was a deep laugh, borne out from a deep sense of connection and empathy.  At least for me there was.  It was nice to know that there was somebody else in the same shoes as I was.  I'd been waiting for that all day without knowing it.

       A little while later, I was off and running, putting miles behind me.  At one point, I stopped in a Kwik Trip in Wisconsin, looking for some cheese curds.  Why else would you stop there?  Going inside, I found the curds in a one pound bag.  I thought about it for a while.  For $6, you too can have a pound of cheese chunks.  I was sorely tempted until I read the nutritional information.  A single package had 16 servings.  Seriously.  Calories per serving? 120.  That one pound of cheese could feed a person for an entire day.  Knowing that I'd want to eat something else, I instead opted for 2 cheese sticks (80 calories each).  I have now come to the conclusion that Wisconsinites like all dairy products (barring perhaps milk) amazingly salty.  Having eaten the cheese, happily I might add, I felt a strange need for lots of water.  

        I will say that the best part of driving through Wisconsin in the dark is that it is dark when you do that.  This is wonderful for me because I am unable to read all of the political signs in the dark.  Having just come off a recent recall election of nasty proportions and some serious ickiness, I was glad to miss all the signs.  I was, however, privy to one sign towards the beginning of the morning, after my 5 a.m. nap  It was simple and read "Socialism- spreading poverty equally."  This got a reaction out of me, and beggared the question of whether or not this guy actually knew what socialism is.  In the end, I decided that it was best left alone.  I'm not going to change his mind, and I needn't let him effect me.  A good lesson overall.

     

     

Sittin'

Sunday, July 15th, 2012

 

        This whole night driving things has me a bit out of sorts.  For example, today is part of my 34 hour reset.  Normally what would happen is that I stop one evening, take the entire next day off , then roll out the morning following that full day off.  Not so this time.  I've taken the whole night off last night, and I will be going back to sleep shortly.  I slept for a few hours earlier, just out of sheer exhaustion, trying to stay awake and keep the momentum for night driving going.  It somehow feels wrong to need to go back to sleep in a couple of hours, as I've only just woken up.

     I want to promise myself that I'll get on a normal schedule again, and have a job where I live someplace, but can travel, either on weekends or not.  Ha.  It has been said that always wanting to quit is part of being a driver.  I still refuse to paint myself as a driver though.  It seems so limiting.  It is, far and away, the most portable skill I have, capable of generating a modest but sufficient income.  I do not think I'll ever drop my CDL, but at the same time, I may end up looking for other options again.  Maybe it's just the tired talking.  Have you ever tried to live on a permanent sleep deficit?  I swear this is why most truckers are so low energy.  

      Since not much of note has happened today, I'm keeping this brief.  I stayed up late, slept some, ate some breakfast.  That's about it.  Just trying to wrap my head around leaving tonight still.

Storms, astronomy, and Fargo

Satruday, July 14th, 2012

 

     The past two nights, I've awoken and started driving in the dark.  This has been fantastic, since each night brought distant thunderstorms to the southern horizon.  I watched with glee as the lightning arced from cloud to cloud, in a series of fragmented bolts.  On occasion, the bolts would strike the ground, perhaps igniting a fire some place beyond my concern.  Both episodes were dry for the most part, with a few bands of rain.  Every so seldom, a bolt would blast down in the field of my direct vision, temporarily blinding me in the darkness.  Even after the bolt evaporated, there were negative images in a greenish black, burned into my vision.  Happily I eat a lot of carrots, so that passed quickly.  I like to think to myself that this is some kind of omen or something.  Maybe it isn't, but maybe it is.  I do not recall having any specific question in mind at either time.  The best I can do is take it as a sign that I chose the right route instead of driving through driving rains.

     Having passed the storms, The rest of the night brought me into North Dakota.  It is a lovely place, which I now understand had no trees at all until settlers came across.  I figured that there would always be trees where there was enough water, but I was wrong.  Trying to picture the plains without sparse shelter-belters seems like an alien concept to me, but "normals" change all of the time.  

      The highlights of the day thus far has been the large number of small wetlands along the roadside.  Humans call them "Prairie Pot-holes," while all other creatures just live there.  Cattails line the banks of these small bodies of water, still and reflective in the early morning light.  On one of the larger ones, what some would call a large pond back East, a Canada goose was leading her troop of quite large and maturely feathered gosling across the otherwise calm surface.  In all there were six not so little ones in tow.  I saw no sign of a partner goose bringing up the rear, which seems quite odd to me.  I hope all is well with them.

      Contrary to popular belief, the Great Plains are not entirely flat.  Sure there are some places that are, but up here, as well as in South Dakota and Nebraska, I've traveled some slightly rugged terrain.  I even had to down-shift a couple of times to maintain my RPM's.  Nothing you'd want to bike up, but nothing so high as to afford you a hang gliding location.  There was, however a scenic overlook just outside of Dickinson, ND, that sat atop the plateau, over looking a series of valleys cut out by the river below.  

     Sunrise was once again amazing, still with the same dark grey clouds, but layered, evoking the effect to the sun rising out of an envelope.  A few hours previously, I saw the waning crescent moon rise, a deep red and larger than any crescent I've ever seen before.  I kind of did a double take, unsure as to what I was seeing at first.  I was also privileged enough to watch Jupiter and Venus rise this morning.  Venus was much less luminous lower in the atmosphere than we more often see it bright and higher in the sky.  It almost looked like Mars from that angle.  

       Not many people out here to comment on, but I did notice that in the restaurant that you can kinda tell which women are native to this part of the country.  It seems that the predominant hair style is straight and long.  Sensible, yet traditional.  Eyeglasses were quite common amongst the women, all shaped in a  sensible and intelligent rounded rectangle form.  It was as if there was a colony of stereo-typed librarians here at one point that ended up spreading across the northern plains.  The people highlight is that I saw a brown person at the truck wash!  Like some rare trading card or token ethnic dude on a television show.  

      For entertainment, I think I'll walk over to the Home Depot across the way and ask if they have wood chippers for sale.  Particularly, ones strong enough to chip, say, a dismembered human body.  I wonder if they get that a lot here in Fargo?

Snowin' and Blowin'

Sunday, December 4^th, 2011

      “Christ on a Cannondale! It's about time we saw some terrain.” These are words I imagines Lewis and Clark saying as they crossed out of the monotony (but easy miles) that is the Great Plains. I said that myself in hopes of emulating the intrepid explorers who were mapping a land already known to First nations and plenty of French fur trappers. But that is beside the point.

      Today, I ventured across North Dakota, much of it under the cover of darkness. I've heard rumors that this is where they keep all the clones of the U.S. government, so I'd just as soon not be spotted out here. Honestly though, going in the dark serves two purposes. The first purpose being is that it justifies my coffee habit. I figure, “Hey, I'm up before the freakin' SUN. I get to have coffee.” Granted, the sun never really stops working, but I'm only human. The second bonus to driving at night is that I don;t get as distracted by the scenery. In this case, there is so little to look at that ANYTHING more interesting than endless horizon becomes a target for scrutiny.

      Today for example, I became a cow spotter. I'd look for cows huddled together keeping warm in the blowing snow. There isn't much snow, but enough to blow around and make a huge cloud behind the truck when driving, much to the consternation of other motorists. My unspoken goal was to see every cow along the way, and wish them a better life the next go-round. At one point, I became so fixated on cows that everything cow-sized looked like a cow to me. Torn black plastic? A couple cows hunkering down in a fence corner. Couple big rocks in a field? Two cows hanging out with a little blanket of snow. I'm starting to wonder if something is wrong with me and this recent obsession with cows.

      Maybe it was because I was really craving cottage cheese. Here at the Town Pump in Billings, MT, they had a pint of it for sale in the store so I bought and ate all of it. Along with some butterscotch pudding! When was the last time you had that?

      On a more work related note, much of the job is spent calculating driving time and hours to get from here to there. I took that reset yesterday, because I was certain that I would not make it to Oregon in time for delivery even if I didn't rest. For some reason though I had some second thoughts about the timing. I somehow managed to recalculate the hours wrong. I was feeling a bit upset at myself for making a mistake, and not delivering on time. I certainly hold excellence in very high regard, especially in my work. So I drove for a while feeling a bit crap when it occurred to me that this re-calculation was wrong and that my original thought was correct. What a relief!

      All told, the time went by really quickly thanks to a couple snow storms up here. One gets so focused on driving that everything else just kinda goes by the wayside. My biggest scare came when passing a fuel truck going up a hill. You see, the roads out here are so vast that plowing almost always waits until the snow stops. I saw 2 plow trucks today (both working the same exit) in a 620 mile drive. This means that the highway usually has a single lane cleared, almost entirely from the action of big trucks driving by and blowing the snow off. This leaves the passing lane a mess more often than not. Packed snow, occasional gravel (as evidenced by being pelted by it every time some one passes you) and a rare bare spot make for a rough ride. So going up the hill, passing this fuel truck, the wind is still gusting. Thankfully I'm pretty heavy (hauling 22.5 tons of cooking spray) or else I might have been blown off the road. At least I felt that way. When you're driving a 53' by 13' sail, you can feel the wind push your trailer around. At 60 mph, not the best feeling in the world. That said, I passed the guy and made it Safely to Billings, where I will soon go to sleep :) Good night all!

No rest for the wicked, but some for me

Saturday, December 3^rd, 2011

      It has been said that on the 7^th day that god rested. Rest is good, as it helps maintain your capacity to produce whatever it is you produce. What I wonder is, “Why does an omnipotent being need to rest?” That and I wonder why people are applying the concept of time to something that is timeless, without form and cannot be described. That said, I'm no god. Well, maybe in a different plane of existence, sure, but not in this one. Not being a god, I don't get the seventh day off. I get the eighth day.

      So today, I am resting. I could just as easily have driven a good 10 hours today without so much as batting an eye. Maybe a few bats, since it does get kinda tiring, but you get the idea. The only thing preventing me from motoring on down the road is federal regulations. The FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Act) dictates that drivers may not drive after working more than 70 hours within an 8 day span. These working hours include both driving and not driving worky stuff, like checking in at a shipper, or inspecting your truck. But I'm not thinking about that today. I am resting.

      Fargo, North Dakota is where I'm stopped at, but I see no signs of a woman with a wood chipper. For that I'm grateful. It feels like autumn up here (oh wait.. it is) in that it isn't 12 degrees out. Well it was warmer. Now that the sun is setting, it is back down below 20 degrees, as per usual for here this time of year. I'm parked at the Petro Stopping Center, off exit 348 on I-94. Nice enough place. Wouldn't have thought I'd need to lock stuff down.

      Being that I'm resting today, I slept in (until 8 am! holy cats!) and have not been doing much. I went into the truck stop a couple times to get out of the cab for a bit and to stretch my legs. There's not much to see around this part of town, unless you feel like walking into Home Depot and browsing for a while, but meh. Returning from one of these little jaunts, I noticed that the cover that sits atop my chain rack is lifted up. Odd. I attributed it to the wind at first, then I started counting my chains. Someone actually stole one set of tire chains off the truck!

      For me, this is not a big deal since I technically have enough to chain up my truck in a pinch. One set has a broken link which may flap around and make some noise, but I can deal with that. By using a bungee cord. Still, the very notion that someone would feel so desperate as to steal a set of chains just makes me stop and consider our economic system. How sad is it that some guy feels a need to steal because he doesn't feel that he has enough money to buy a set? Why is money so artificially scare? To maintain value? If you say so, but that still operates on the principle of scarcity and competition which is contrary to the nature of the world.

      It is especially counter to Taoism. Well, according to the quick reference guide on religions I found in the truck stop. This is what I do on off days. I putter around and look at neat stuff. There is a rack full of laminated quick reference guides for all sorts of thing, like religion, reflexology, cooking, weights and measures, the United States, and a whole bunch of other things that I've already forgotten about. It was nice to read such a simple version of Taoism. Nothing ever need be complicated.

      Tomorrow, I plan to leave at 0400 local time and be on my way back west. A maintenance appointment awaits me, and what looks to be some more down time. I'm also considering going back to the Woolley Mammoth to get my banjo (!). However, the idea of moving all of that stuff from one truck to another company is a bit daunting. Not only that, there is the orientation I'll need to attend and that means a shared hotel room. All of that is well and good. My only concern is that there won't be a truck waiting for me at the end of orientation. Which may mean waiting, or getting bussed to someplace else to get into a truck. Like I was at this company. Perhaps I'll hold out on the banjo a bit more.