Yesterday the doc cleared me on my blood pressure and I received my medical card for a year. It's normally two years but once you have been diagnsed with certain conditions, high blood pressure being one of them, they cut it back to a year. That's ok, at least I get to continue working.

On January 9th I had my bi-annual D.O.T. physical and failed due to high blood pressure readings. As a result I wish ony issued a 90 day medical card, which expires on April 9th. Yesterday I finally got around to seeing a doctor for a follow up. My blood pressure was still high. As I haven't had a real physical in years and am now 50 years old the doc gave me a full physical including blood work. Barring the results of the lab work next week he proclaimed me in reasonably good health with...

Yesterday I picked up some parts of a crane in Louisiana and am hauling them to Georgia. I made it as far as Pensacola, FL where I stooped to get a cold drink. When I stepped out of the truck I heard an air leak that turned out to be the air bag on the passenger side of my steer axle. Well, that pretty much stopped me cold as I couldn't ignore it. I put the truck in a shop. The nearest place that had that air bag was in Atlanta. They are having it shipped over night so I should be back on...

A fellow who goes by the handle Smoking Dragon has started making a line of custom corn cob pipes. I saw a few photos of his work and asked him to make one for me. We consulted on materials and color ideas and then I left the design to him. I received it last week and have to say I am not at all disappointed. I think it's a great looking pipe. I haven't yet smoked it as I think I'll save it for St Paddy's Day. The bowl is a Missouri Meerschaum Country Gentleman bowl, the sh...

It seems the scammers have been chased out of Africa. Got this in an email box today.   Greetings, I am Dr. Tien, A Taiwanese and also the Managing director of Taiwan Business Bank (TBB) I write briefly to request your cooperation in a lucrative mutual business involving a $25 Million USD, If interested reply me now with your FULL NAMES & TEL NUMBER to my email below as I shall discuss further logistic about this business cooperation between You and I. I expect your sw...

This past Thursday marked one month since I stopped smoking cigarettes. I had promised myself when that time came I would buy myself a new pipe, but wasn't around any pipe shops on that day. On Saturday I stopped at Truck World in Hubbard, Ohio. They have a small tobacco shop inside the truck stop so I looked around a bit in there. I spotted a Dr Grabow Big Pipe and since that is one Dr Grabow model I didn't yet own I bought it. Not a fancy, high end celebratory pipe, but I like it ju...

I've had an iPad tablet for some time now and, while I really like it I have often found it limiting in some ways. I decided to give an Android tablet a try so yesterday I picked up an Asus TF101 Transformer tablet.  First off, it's quite a bit less expensive than the iPad. $399 for a 32GB tablet. It is currently running Honeycomb (3.2.1) but the Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) upgrade should be any time now. It's a little bigger than the iPad, and slightly heavier. I really like...

I've been on Google+ for a little while now. It's very interesting the people you can find on there. A good many authors, scientists, and the like are on there. I am following many of them now, and the one that really surprised me was Jeri Ryan is on Google+. Wow. If you're not a Star Trek fan you are probably thinking "Jeri Who?" If you are a Star Trek fan you know exactly who she is. She has some interesting and sometimes amusing posts and it's kind of cool to have found ...

Wow, I don't know what the deal is, but I have been doing some serious sleeping of late. Wednesday night I went to bed at my usual time, 10:00PM and didn't wake until 8:00AM. I normally wake, without an alarm precisely at 6:00AM. Last night I went to bed again at 10:00PM and didn't wake until 9:30AM. That's just ridiculous. I about shit when I looked at the clock and saw the time. I never, ever sleep that long. I am just guessing that for whatever reason my body was needi...

I hauled an over-weight military truck from Wisconsin to Long Beach, California and delivered it on Friday. The trip wasn't without issues. I had high winds across Wyoming and a snowstorm in Utah. My trailer developed electrical problems in California but I managed to get the load delivered before putting it in a shop to be repaired. Once the trailer was repaired in Carson I made my way up to Ontario, CA to the truck stop. It was only a 46 mile ride but thanks to LA traffic it took 2 1/2 ...

Well I am now back in Wisconsin once again. It was raining down in Texas and I saw a lot of flooded out roads, not to mention all of the lakes that are normally fields. There was even a few cars I could just see the roofs above the water. Dumb asses actually drove into it, can you believe it? After spending a day in Kansas delivering one load and picking up another I made my way towards Wisconsin, I stopped in Council Bluffs, Iowa for the night and visited a little redneck, hole-in-the-wall d...

Well, the burden of yet another new regulation has been placed upon the trucking industry. No hand-held cell phone use at all. One must use a hands-free device and must use voice dial or one button speed dial. Pressing more than one button, or failing to use a hands-free device will result in a fine to the driver between $1,000 - $2,750 and a fine to the driver's company of $11,000 (and most likely costing that driver his job). In order to be certain to comply with this new law, and to ma...

This morning I delivered a farm tractor to a, well, farm. I pulled up and stopped at the place, climbed out of my truck, and immediately heard ferocious barking a little way from me and moving closer, fast. It was a medium sized black dog. There was a larger dog loping along behind her but he wasn't barking, just running along for the hell of it. I stood my ground and waited for the barking dog to get closer. I was watching her the whole way. She was barking madly but her tail was wagg...