I got my truck out of the engine shop Tuesday morning. Finally. I then went to the yard, hooked to a double-drop (lowboy) trailer, and drove a couple of hours up to Chilton to pick up a snow broom truck heading for the airport in Seattle. The truck needs to deliver at the airport no later than noon on Friday. No idea why, but that's what they want. I got the thing loaded and chained down and started running West. The first part of the trip, WI, MN and Eastern SD was cold. Yesterday morning...

Due to the slow economy I had to drop my previous home provider. I have now set up a new home page on a free hosting server. The site is pretty crude right now and is a work in progress, but for those who have contacted me asking when I will have the webcam feed back up, here it is. I'll be editing and adding to the site as I find time. http://www.gpstrucker.000hosted.com

I just set up a Twiiter account. For anyone who uses Twitter and may be interested, my user name there is Knitting_Guy.

I finally got dressed and dragged myself out of my hotel room around 11:00 this morning. I was getting hungry and thought Chinese sounded good. Nothing wring with a bit of sweet and sour tabby once in a while. I put on my wool coat, stocking cap, and gloves, and out I went. It's a bit warmer today than in previous days. It's still cold of course, but not that brutally frigid air that was around a couple of days ago. There's a Chinese buffet a mile or so away from the hotel that I had been mea...

As I am stuck in the hotel until Monday I went over to Applebee's for dinner and a few adult beverages. I saw a few people I know and had some good conversations, and met a few new folks thanks to my knitting. It seemed a pretty typical night. At one point a forner server/bartender came in, she hadn't worked there for some time, and we were chatting (after exhanging hugs and such). At one point I excused myself and went to the restroom. As I came back to my seat I overheard the conversatio...

I had stopped working on the turtleneck when Mom passed away but have recently resumed working on it. I am almost finished with the body. Sorry about the poor picture quality. My regular digital camera is in my truck, which is in the repair shop, so had to use my webcam.  

It's pretty much a mixed bag right now. The bad: I'm stranded in frozen WI as my truck is in the engine shop. Again. As I suspected, they had to pull the head. I just spoke with them and my truck won't be ready until late Monday. So much for making any money this weekend.   The good: Yesterday was payday. As business has been slow it wasn't such a great payday, but it was something. I called my friend Naomi and sent her a comcheck for enough to pay about 2/3 of what I am behind on ...

My truck is in the shop yet again. Earlier today I noticed steam coming out of the stacks. That's not normal. I had topped off the coolant yesterday and kinda wondered about why it was low. The heat, which will usually run you out of the truck was weak to the point that my feet were numb from driving and I was wearing my insulated gear to keep warm, was just not there. Between yesterday and today I lost 2 gallons of coolant. That's not normal. Way too much. The shop checked it out and pressur...

Monday afternoon I picked up a tunnel freezer (whatever the hell that is) in Jacksonville, FL heading to the Sara Lee plant in Downer's Grove, IL. The trip was pretty typical until I hit Indianapolis this morning. Snowstorm. Major snowstorm. The roads were a complete disaster. It normally takes me on average about 30 minutes to get through Indy. Today it took better than 3 hours. Once I got clear of Indy things got progressively worse with each passing mile. There were car, SUV, and big ri...

This cold bug has been pretty rough. I think that spending some down time in this motel was probably the best thing I could have done right now. As the room has a mini-fridge and microwave, I went to the grocery yesterday and stocked up on enough food and Gatorade to last me my stay here. This both saved me some money as opposed to eating out, as well as saving me the effort of going out to eat thus maximizing my rest. I've been drinking a lot of Gatorade to try and stay hydrated. While I ...

When I was a kid I had a dream. Ok, kids have dreams all the time, but this one has fucked with my head my whole life. It was a seriously fucked up dream and I am convinced it was just G-D fucking with me for His own amusement. He never has really liked me although I don't know why. I was laying in my bed, the top bunk of bunk beds, and this really old looking guy with a long grey beard was standing beside my bed. Well, being a kid I was totally freaked out. The old guy put his hand out fo...

I delivered a fuel tanker truck to the Army Air Field in Savannah, GA today. Things being what they are they weren't able to find me a decent reload out of here today. I made my way to the nearby truckstop and ordered myself a nice hot bowl of chicken soup while waiting to hear from dispatch about a possible load. The soup was good and did help open up my stuffed head a bit. As the day ended without my getting a load I am stuck here for the weekend. As much as I need the money perhaps it's...

I made it back into WI today. This trip has been horrible. To top it off I have caught a very nasty cold and feel like shit. I got to the yard fairly late in the afternoon and put my truck in the shop to be serviced, have the APU repaired, and to get a stone chip repaired in the windshield. The glass guy won't be there until tomorrow morning so they put me in the hotel for tonight. I walked over to the Applebee's next door for a couple of beers and to spend a bit of time talking with some ...

Sitting here tonight I realized that if I were to depart this mortal coil right now no-one would really miss me all that much. That's a sobering thought. There really isn't anyone with whom I am all that close these days who would pay more than a passing notice of the fact that I was no longer taking up space or using up air on this little planet. There are a few who care about me, yes, but none at all with whom I am actually close and who would truly experience a vacuum in their life if I we...

Yeah, ok, I am depressed. I know that and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. My mother just died, business and my income are dead, and I am about to become homeless and, from the way it sounds, unemployed to boot. Yeah, I'm depressed. When I am depressed I am cranky. Very, very cranky. But I swear, if one more person wishes me a Happy New Year I am not going to have to worry about a place to live because I'll be going to prison for choking the life out of them! What an inane thing to...