Most people probably know about the wildfires in Georgia by now. I a few hundred miles South of where the fires are burning. Our area is currently under an air quality warning because the smoke from these fires is being carried on the wind right down to us. This morning it was so thick you could barely see across the street. It's thinned some now but you can still smell it in the air and people with breathing problems are being advised to stay indoors out of the smoke. I had planned to ...
Mondays usually suck. Everyone knows that. My Monday was more like a Sunday. I slept in, made some coffee, and was generally lazy most of the morning. This afternoon I got slightly ambitious and washed my bent. It sorely needed it. Hell, I even swept the carport. Exciting day huh? I had planned to make chicken and yellow rice for dinner but the lazy thing kicked in again after washing the bent and I settled for pizza instead. I'll probably make the chicken tomorrow. I did make it to...
I stumbled out of bed this morning, put on some coffee, and picked up the phone to call my mother. No dial tone. WTF? I booted up my PC and verified that the DSL service was working. Ok, so it's just the phone. It's too early for this crap. I called Mom on my cell phone and wished her a happy Mother's Day. She thanked me and said that it's next Sunday, not this Sunday. Oh. I really should be fully awake before making phone calls. After a couple of cups of coffee I grabbed the phone and ...
When I left Key West this morning I opted to run US 27 up through the middle of the state instead of angling over to the interstate. Florida is one of those states where you can often make better time on the secondary highways than on the interstate. Judging by the police activity on the South-bound side of the highway I'm guessing that the cops must have been tipped off about a drug shipment heading for Miami or the Keys. I don't think I've ever seen that many cops searching that many veh...
I made it to the Key West airport right at midnight. I spoke with the fire station captain and told him that I wanted to show him something before I began unloading the truck. He had already been filled in on the fact that the truck had suffered some damage. He looked at it and said "That's no big deal, it could have been worse." And that was pretty much it. I began the process of unchaining the fire truck and prepping it to be unloaded. While I was doing this the airport Director showed u...
While running through TN today I got a call from the boss. He said he just wanted to check up on me to see if I was ok now that yesterday's bullshit was over and done with. I told him that I felt really bad about what happened, but that I now had to focus on getting the job done. He said that he wanted to make sure that I knew he wasn't upset with me over the incident, that he was just upset over the incident itself and I shouldn't take it personally. I assured him that we had known eac...
My Florida oversize permit arrived this morning. I discovered that the state of Florida had thrown us a curve ball. Normally the permits specify daylight movement only, along with all of the other restrictions, as well as the route to be used. Well the Florida permit did all of this, but they added a second page. It seems that I have to run the entire length of the state during daylight hours, but from Florida City (just South of Miami) to Key West must be run between the hours of 9:00PM ...
After the crappy day I had I just didn't feel like sitting in the truck. I decided that I wanted to take a nice walk. I googled the area and found a bar 1.5 miles from the truck stop. That would make a fine destination for my walk. Long enough to get a bit of exercise but not so long as to wear me out. I memorized the map of the immediate area and set off walking. I walked a half mile East, made a left and walked a mile South, made another left, walked 60 feet, and found myself standing in...
This afternoon I was making my way through Southern IL, through the rain, when some dimwit decided to pull off the shoulder directly in front of me. As I had traffic on my left I had no way to swerve to miss this idiot so the only choice I had was to slam on the brakes. Slamming on the brakes while hauling a 50,000lbs fire truck is not a good thing but it's preferable to running over a car even if the driver is dead from the neck up. The rear chains snapped and the fire truck skidded forwa...
"R" called me at the hotel shortly after 8:00 this morning to let me know that my truck was finally ready at the engine shop and also that the fire truck I am hauling to Key West was ready to load. Cool, things are finally coming together. I made a mad dash over to the yard and grabbed "J" to drive me down to get my truck. Once I signed the final bill I hopped into my truck and started back North to go get my load out of Oshkosh. Along the way I made a quick stop at Wally World to pick up ...
The truck wasn't ready today. Surprise surprise. I went and picked up a couple of things for "R", a military truck and a generator. When I got back to the yard "A" said something about he was going to pull the generator off right away. I just shrugged and walked off. I'd done enough free work for one day, I'd gotten rained on, and I was hungry. He knows me well enough to know that when I'm in that sort of mood it's best to just shut the hell up and let me go. I hope he had fun. I return...
I checked out of the hotel at 10:00 this morning and went over to the yard to find out about the status of my truck. They said it's supposed to be ready some time after lunch. Cool. I unloaded my stuff from the van and turned the key in to the shop. I then checked in at the office. My worker's comp check had finally arrived and the office had loaded the money onto my fuel/payroll card. I endorsed the check so they could deposit it into their account. "R" in dispatch said that he had a f...
I changed rooms right after eating lunch and started in on my paperwork. Even though there were three separate trips all requiring their own sets of reports I managed to throw the whole thing together in about 30 minutes. I then hopped into the van and dropped them off over at the office so they can be processed by payroll tomorrow morning. I'll get paid Friday which is always a nice thing. Another of our drivers is staying here in the hotel with his wife. I ran into them out in the hotel ...
When I checked into the hotel all of the smoking rooms were booked (2 different wedding parties here this weekend). She put me in a non-smoking room and asked that I keep the window open as much as possible to help vent the smoke. This morning as I was in the lobby getting my coffee she told me that she would have a smoking room available for me later if I wanted to move. As the new room is on the first floor instead of the second where I am now I happily agreed. My bad hip hates the stai...
As it's such a beautiful day with just some scattered clouds in the sky and the air feeling reasonably warm (for Spring in WI), and just happening to have wheels, I decided to go out and find myself something for lunch. I opted for the Chinese buffet down the street and sat down to enjoy a nice leisurely meal. While I was enjoying my lunch I noticed this one kid of about 10 years of age kept watching me as I was eating. When he eventually realized that I was aware of his staring he asked m...