I just got a call that my youngest brother's daughter just had her baby, a little girl, around 2:00 this morning. It was a bit of a surprise as she wasn't due until the 13th so it's a few days early. It's her first baby and the labor went pretty well, less than four hours. Girl, 4 lbs 15oz (tiny baby)

I'm working on knitting my first hat, a matching one for the Irish Hiking Scarf I finished a couple of days ago. So far it's going pretty well. I'll post a pic when it actually looks like something.

The back and hip have been bothering me a lot after 6 weeks on the road. This afternoon it was really annoying me so I decided that I needed to be laying down to try and ease things a bit. I tried the couch but that just wasn't nearly firm enough and made it worse. I tried the bed but that still wasn't good enough, so I tried the living room floor. Ahhhhhhhh. That did the trick. I laid on the carpet with a pillow under my knees for a little while, stretching my back as far as possible. I s...

After what seems like forever I finally finished the Irish Hiking Scarf tonight. I think it came out ok for my first cabling attempt. Now I just have to start on the hat.

I am finally home again after several weeks of being on the road. When I got home the sky was looking pretty ugly so I immediately walked over to the C-store and bought some brews to put in the fridge. I then called and ordered a pizza as I need to make a grocery run tomorrow. About 5 minutes after the pizza arrived it started raining. Pouring would be an apt adjective. I don't care. I am comfortably in my recliner with some hot pizza and cold brews. It can rain all night for all I care, I...

This morning I delivered the two big generators to a water treatment plant in a small GA town. The road leading to it was a narrow two lane road and the driveway was short with an electric gate. There was a deep ditch on each side of the narrow drive. There was no way possible for me to turn into this drive without running my trailer wheels into the ditch. I hooked the turn as wide as I could so that only the wheels on the left side would go into the ditch while the right ones remained on ...

It's such a beautiful day here in Atlanta. Sunshine, not too cool, not too hot, and a nice breeze blowing. After eating breakfast in the truckstop I had a seat on one of the benches outside near the entrance and enjoyed some fine outdoor knitting. It's nice to be able to sit outside and enjoy the nice weather and fresh air while knitting. Knitting outside is such an enjoyable experience and is a great way to pass the time. Naturally I had several comments and conversations while sitting a...

I spent a little time in the bar next to the hotel in which I am staying. I took my backpack with me and worked on my knitting while there. It fostered some amusing comments. Hey, I'm not knocking it, you're bigger than I am. That looks like good therapy but I'm not big enough to do that in public. Cool, whatcha makin? Do all truckers do that? Everyone I talked with tonight commented on my knitting and more than a couple of them indicated in a round about way that they were respec...

I parked my rig in this truckstop on the KY/TN line and went inside for some dinner. After eating I decided to wander into the tv lounge and sit and knit a while while watching whatever was playing on the wide screen tv. I found a comfortable chair, took my knitting out of my backpack, and started working on it. After a minute or so an older guy mentioned that he used to "do that" when he was younger and that his mother had taught him. Another driver then made a comment and asked what I wa...

I got my load all loaded up this morning at the yard. A couple of very large generators going to GA and some sort of doohicky that's part of an overhead crane assembly of some sort. It's an odd, X shaped thing, about ten feet across from end to end of each part of the X, with cable wheels on each end. The doohicky is just slightly too large to actually fit on the trailer, even set kinda sideways as it is, and sticks out a couple of inches on each side. Just enough to technically be an over...

I pulled into the yard today and put my truck into the shop to have some minor damage dealt with. While unloading yesterday I kinda broke my truck. It was really muddy where I was unloading and while up on the top deck of the trailer I slipped and let go of the ratchet binder I was holding. Ratchet binders are all steel and weigh around 6 lbs each. It flew out of my hand and slammed against the edge of the fiberglass fairing right behind my sleeper. The fiberglass shattered. Shit happens. ...

I'm checked into a hotel again tonight. Still feeling a bit ragged from too much sun. I wandered into the hotel lounge around 5:00 to have a beer or two. Of course I took my knitting with me as hotel lounges tend to be a bit slow and boring. The bartender was an older lady who took interest in my knitting and who happens to knit herself. She complimented my work and we chatted about such things for a little while until the locals began filtering in from their fields. The locals here in thi...

Despite being a little on the ill side from the after effects of heat exhaustion, and simply getting old, I'm not yet out of the game. I got bored and felt like I needed to get at least some sort of exercise. I decided that lifting weights for a little while might make me feel better. But no weights. The dresser in this motel room has a large enough opening underneath that I can fit under it. I did a couple of bench presses with it but it's far too light. I put the tv on it but it was stil...

The sun makes life possible, and also makes it impossible. Today was an impossible day. The load I am hauling to WI is a bunch of fabricated steel, a bunch of parts to build a conveyor system, and took me about four hours to load and secure. The sun was beating down the whole time. After about two hours I was starting to feel the effects of the brutal sunshine. I was getting a little light headed and was feeling weak. I grabbed a bottle of Gatorade out of the fridge and drank down a good b...

Since I had some time to kill I called a cab and went to a local bar for a few cold ones. While there I became engaged in conversation with a rather attractive young lady who happens to smoke. I have been off tobacco for two months as of today. I totally blew my quit. I smoked several of her cigarettes and wound up buying a a pack and smoked most of it. I make no excuses, I did it because I wanted to do so, but am highly disappointed in myself right now. Two months of being quit went right...