I took a short run down to Sioux City, IA. No big deal, just a snow blower truck. In less than 500 miles my truck went through 4 gallons of coolant. That is NOT a good sign. Well, I made it back to WI today, after another 4 gallon of coolant, and put my truck into the engine shop in Milwaukee. They offered several times to give me a ride up to our yard, but I said that I would stick around until either they had it fixed or said they couldn't get it done today. In my experience these folks ...

I'm sure most of you heard about the Winter storm that hit the west coast, even if you haven't read my blog about the problems it caused me. Well, I finally made it to my delivery in Three Lakes, WI this morning after holing up in a hotel in Wausau, WI last night. It was just too damn cold and windy when I pulled in there and checked in. MY GPS told me there was a Buffalo Wild Wings across the street from the hotel. As it was Thanksgiving, the Buffalo Wild Wings was closed. Damn! I was rea...

I am still holed up in a hotel in Grand Junction, CO. Once it was obvious that the weather wasn't letting me out of here today I decided to go down to the lounge for a couple of drinks. I had spent the afternoon downloading some old 1980s music videos and running them through some enhancement and editing software to make them reasonably presentable for my Archos tablet. Have I ever mentioned that one of my hobbies is collecting 1980s music videos? While sitting at the bar I was watching sa...

On Saturday Donner Pass, I-80 in California, was getting pounded by snow. The only route open to me to get out of the state was to go south and cut over to I-15 and go out through Las Vegas. It added an extra 200 miles to my trip but was the only option other than sitting for several days. Nevada and Arizona were no problem but before I got too far into Utah and I ran into crappy weather. It started as rain and as I went along it progressed from sleet to full out snow. The roads were passable...

Tonight finds me parked in Lodi, CA after a very tiring day. I started out at 5:00am CST and tried to make the best possible time for my delivery in Lodi. The wind continued to give me trouble with my tarps and I wound up stopping several times before the sun came up to replace broken tarp straps. By the time I reached Sparks, which is just outside of Reno, pretty much all of my tarp traps were broken and I was out of spares. The rear tarp was shredded. I went into the truck stop and picke...

Yesterday afternoon I picked up a couple of large water filtration units down in Colorado Springs heading for the Stockton, CA area. The units are quite large and had to be tarped. The guys at the shipper helped me to get the tarps over the units. The tarping was quite a job as there were high winds. We put one tarp on three times because the wind kept blowing it off before we could get a few straps on it to hold it in place. The high winds were a real problem as I was heading north. I had...

I am currently in Denver, CO. I drove out here over the weekend and had to fight a pretty strong wind storm through IA and NE. When I got to CO it was snowing. Yuck. I delivered some snow removal equipment to two locations here yesterday and am now just waiting for them to find me a reload back out again. Before I left out I had stocked up on food supplies. It's much cheaper to eat that way than in truck stops, and in Winter it is especially important to carry emergency supplies anyway. ...

I am now on my way to Baltimore after a rather annoying delay at the shipper. I was told that there would be three of us picking up at 7:00am. I was there on time and when I rolled through the gate I saw that there was only one other truck sitting there. It was a driver I know and have run with in the past and after I parked my rig I got out to talk with him. We shot the crap for a while while waiting for the folks working for the shipper to get around to loading the fire truck ...

This evening finds me in Greencastle, PA. I hauled eight elevator cages from a factory in Wisconsin to a wind farm under construction on a mountain top in Middle-Of-Nowhere, PA. The original plan had been to deliver the cages first thing this morning and then come down here this afternoon to pick up some crane parts for a customer back in Wisconsin. That plan was tossed out the window as I wound up blowing half the day at the wind farm. A piece of advice, if you need to get in and out in ...

I went over to the motel bar for a couple of cold ones. While I was there a couple of 20-something guys came in and ordered beers. I noticed a couple of 20-something girls out by the pool. They looked pretty attractive. I nudged the guy next to me, one of the 20-somethings who had come in earlier and pointed to the girls by the pool. He said that one was his sister and the other was his cousin. Ah. I asked him which one was his sister and he said it was the tall blond. The other was a shor...

This morning I went over to Denny's for breakfast. They have a special deal where you get a free Grand Slam breakfast if it is your birthday. Hey, if it's free it's for me. This evening I went over to the motel bar for a few brews. It was a pleasant time. I chatted with a few people, including a guy who is running a mountain bike race tomorrow, as well as a couple of less than ugly young ladies. All in all, it was ok. Yesterday I went over to Tampa and bought myself a birthday present. I p...

Title is pretty much it.

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Mathematically, it is highly probable that other intelligent species exist in the universe. Many stars, and thus their possible solar systems, are far older than our own. This suggests, on a purely mathematical and logical basis, that there could well be intelligent lifeforms far older than our own in the universe. Perhaps even millions of years older. I have been watching some documentaries about UFOs and crop circles. OK, I know, many people, myself included, are highly skeptical of such th...

I got myself a load back down to Florida so that I could renew my commercial driver's license, which expires a week from tomorrow. Without it I can't earn a living in my chosen profession. I got to the DMV office, stood in line for about 90 minutes, finally got to the "check in" lady and was informed that due to Federal regulations which went into effect the first of the year I needed to provide a whole slew of documents. One of the documents is a certified copy of my birth certificate. Th...