When I walked outside this morning I was greeted by the site of this:       It had bloomed during the night. There are several more "buds" that should bloom over the next few days. It was a nice surprise first thing in the morning.

Damn I hate having the hiccups. Annoying as hell. Been going on for an hour now and I'm getting pissed. That's all.

One screws you to your face, one screws you from behind. Either way you're getting screwed.

I finally made it home once again. I'm pooped. A couple of times I thought about just pulling in somewhere and finishing the trip home tomorrow. But I really wanted to sleep in my own bed tonight instead of the truck, so I pushed on. As I sit here in my recliner, swilling a cold beer and enjoying the feeling of not being in motion, I have to say it was worth it. I hammered down to Miami today to deliver the final piece, a concrete pump heading for Guatemala. I got the the freight forwarder an...

I am finally on my way home. I have stops in NC, SC, GA, and FL on my way. I should be home in a couple of days. While still in WI I decided to visit the local western shop to pick up some jeans and a couple of shirts as I was pretty low on clean clothing. I could have just gone to a laundry but I hate laundrymats. I have shopped in this western store for several years and have gotten to know the owner a bit. He takes great pride in his personal service and was happy to assist me in findin...

I made it back to the yard yesterday. I'll be hauling a load home this time around. I need the time off after more than two months on the road. As Monday is a holiday my first stop, in Savannah, GA, won't be until Tuesday so I had some time to kill. I wanted to get a room for the night but as this is the 105th anniversary weekend event for Harley Davidson I suspected that getting a room would be both difficult and expensive.  I was right. I called my usual hotel and they told me they ...

In what I can only describe as a deplorable action on the part of an employer, trucking company Sid Wainer & Son fired truck driver John Acheson. Not for being a bad driver, not for being a bad employee, but rather for being a good, decent, responsible citizen and helping the NYPD make five, count em folks, five arrests. Here is the story in the New York Post:   SAMARITAN TRUCKER FIRED By PHILIP MESSING Posted: 4:04 am August 25, 2008 A trucker who helped the NYPD mak...

Yesterday I made my first stop on time. A crane was to meet me at the site at 8:00 am local time. I found the place ok and the crane was waiting. They had instructed me to come in gate #2. I saw the large "No trucks this gate" sign as well as the crane sitting there. That drive was built for cars not large trucks. Oh well. I managed to wiggle my rig into place next to the crane and pulled the chains off the large, 13,000 + lbs generator and the crew set to work rigging it for the lift. Everyt...

I made my delivery over in RI last week, picked up a dozer in CT, and a 7,000 lbs steel door in PA, and hauled them back to WI. On the way across NY state I stopped in at a small road house with truck parking. I used to visit there failry often but as I don't normally go out that way much any more I hadn't been there in a few years. The place hadn't changed too much. They still have truck parking and a large "Truckers Welcome" sign. The biggest change is that the joint has never owners sin...

I'm hanging out in a truckstop hotel waiting out the PA oversize curfew (can't run on the weekend). The place happens to have a bar. Several of us drivers were standing outside talking. One driver happens to be black and he got to talking about how some people toss around the word nigger, and how he didn't consider himself to be someone to whom that word applies. The conversation turned to the whole moronic race thing for a bit, and I voiced my own opinion on how stupid racism is, as well ...

I just vwatched an olymplcs fight between Ola and some guy who's name I can't recall at the moment. What a farce! During most of the fight I thought Ola was just wearing his opponent down with the Ali "rope a dope". But as the final round came and went it was obvious that Ola was more worn down than his opponent. Who won the decision? Ola, WTF? His opponent landed far more effective punches than he did. It wasn't even close. It was obvious the other guy won the fight. I boxed in High Sc...

While sitting in the truck stop this evening there was this one driver who pretty much lied about everything he talked about. After a few minutes I just couldn't take it any more and started questioning him about some of the stuff he was saying. After catching him in several lies, like "it only takes me about a minute and a half to download a DVD" he started getting pissed and finally told me he didn't think he wanted to talk to me any more. I can't imagine why. I can't even imagine what w...

Over the weekend I either picked up some stomach virus or ate some bad chow, I'm not sure which. The effect is the same though. Being sick any time sucks, but somehow being sick out here on the road is especially bad, and having extreme diarrhea make driving especially challenging. I was supposed to deliver my first stop in the suburbs of Chicago yesterday morning and the second stop this morning. No such luck. I was unable to move from the truck stop for fear of not being able to reach a ...

I'm writing this as a way of making a commitment, sort of making it official so to speak. I am going to once again try to quit smoking. I've tried and failed before. I'm going to try again. It's pretty tough to quit while driving a truck. Smoking is so much a part of my driving that when driving I find it very difficult to not smoke. But I'm going to try. Again. I've set my quit date for Wednesday. I have between now and then to mentally prepare myself for that first very rough few days...

I finally got a bit of time to install Slackware Linux on my new laptop. It was well worth the small amount of time involved. The default installation ran pretty well, but after I reconfigured for the sound card and installed the nVidia graphics driver, as well as some of my personal tweaks, it is amazingly fast. The damn thing screams. While Slackware has a reputation for being difficult to install and configure, I've been using it since 1995, the total installation and set up time was ab...