After not having much knitting time for several weeks I have finally had some decent time here and there to work on the Irish Hiking Scarf and have made some progress on it. I'm pretty happy with the way it's turning out even if it is only about 1/3 finished at this point.

I delivered the snowplow blade to the Air Force base in Colorado Springs this morning and then the snowplow truck to a dealer in Denver this afternoon. Everything went surprisingly well despite all the road construction and some tight turns. I'm now parked at a truckstop in Denver awaiting a reload. Same old story, hurry up and wait. Makes me kinda glad I took my time getting here. I'm going to wander inside and see what's to eat as I haven't eaten all day and my stomach is starting to...

It's pretty damn chilly in WI about now. Long sleeves and jackets chilly. It's too early for this crap. When I was in VT earlier this week I noticed that the leaves on the trees are already starting to change colors. It's too early for that too. I've opened up the heat valves in my truck and have the heat going in my hotel room now. I checked into the hotel today and spent the evening hanging out at the Appleby's next door. I worked on my knitting a bit while I was there and it was confirm...

I am so used to our elected "representatives" screwing us over that I am actually surprised when they do something that is actually in our best interest. The Senate did such a thing today when they voted 74 to 24 to cut off the funding for the Mexican truck pilot program. For those who are not aware, this Bush pilot program was to last for a year and would allow Mexican trucking companies full access to operate within the United States. They would be allowed to haul freight to any point in...

I'm currently on I-80 in central PA enjoying a bit of quiet time before hitting the road again. The trip into the NE was interesting and served to remind me once again why I don't like running up there. The first stop, in VT, required driving through some beautiful country on narrow, winding roads. When I finally rolled into the little town and came upon the place I was to deliver it was painfully obvious that it was simply impossible to turn my rig into that narrow, sharply angled gravel ...

I finally made the two deliveries in Des Moines this morning after spending last night in a hotel. This stupid load that should have taken at most three days has had me tied up for 6 days. Absurd. The final insult added to financial injury was when I called to check the balance on my fuel card as today is payday. My payroll was a whopping $24. WTF? I got on the phone to the boss. I have bills to pay. It seems that we got screwed on the rate for the load I hauled up out of FL. Big time scre...

After making the Chicago delivery this morning I beat it out of there as quickly as I could and then stopped at a truckstop on I-80 for some breakfast and to make contact with the two Des Moines locations to notify them that I will be making their deliveries tomorrow morning. Or so I thought. The one was no problem at all, but when I contacted the second one I was told that they are having some sort of bullshit grand opening open house sort of thing tomorrow and won't be accepting any deli...

The day got off to a bit of a shaky start but otherwise didn't go too badly. A portion of this load of conduit, a stack of elbows, shifted on my way to the first stop but stayed in place well enough for me to get there. After they unloaded their stack I carefully loosened the straps on the shifted stack so as to not release pressure too quickly and cause the whole thing to fall over and off the trailer. I then climbed up (the stack was on the top deck of course) and began pulling and shovi...

Geez, I could have easily gone postal the past couple of days. I decided to switch from XM to Sirius a couple of days ago so I bought a Sirius radio receiver. I have yet to actually activate the damn service. I've stopped at no less than five different places that sell Sirius radios so that I could buy an activation card in order to start the service. Two of the five don't sell the cards for some damn reason, one sold them but the idiot clerk didn't know how to activate the damn thing, a...

I'm parked for the night in North Little Rock, AR after spending last night in a motel in a little burg known as Seven Oaks, TX. The motel was cheap, the lounge wasn't overly busy, and it was a relaxing evening. The drive up to here today wasn't too bad but could have been better if there weren't so many complete morons on the roads. Happens every holiday weekend. One in particular had me about ready to run her dumb ass off in the ditch if for no other reason than the safety of the motorin...

I made delivery at the Army Depot in Texarkana, TX this morning despite having a little too much liquid fun last night. I felt better than I expected when I woke so I grabbed a cup of coffee and headed on over there. It actually went pretty smoothly for a change. I cruised on down towards Houston after that. I'm parked about an hour North of there. When I got here I fueled up although I was only down to about 50%. I wanted the free shower that comes with fueling up. I had my shower and sha...

The past couple of days have been a tad tough. I picked up some stuff, steel parts, in Milwaukee and hauled them up to the yard, loaded and secured my own load which was a mixture of air units, a military truck cab, and a pavement roller, and started for OK. I had to make delivery in Seminole, OK before noon on Thursday as they were knocking off for the holiday weekend. I need to make delivery at the second stop, Texarkana, TX (military base) before 1:00PM Friday as that's when they knock ...

On Wednesday of last week I went to an ATM to draw $200 off my fuel card (I get paid throuogh my fuel card) to pay some bills. The machine spit of a single 20 dollar bill and then a receipt showing a $200 transaction. The screen also starting displaying an out of service message. Well hell. I made a note of the phone number for the ATM company and called them about the problem. The man took the information and said that he would enter the dispute into their system and they would resolve it...

When I arrived at the delivery location this morning I spent a couple of minutes talking to the guy before I started working on untarping and unsecuring the load. I made sure he knew that the thing had been sitting outside in the weather, was rusted, and that it had been loaded in the rain. I didn't want him bitching at me for it's condition, especially after going through the trouble of tarping it. He informed me that he knew that it had been sitting outside for a month and that they were...

George Hotz, and 17 year old in NJ successfully hacked his iPhone to unlock it so as to make it work with his choice of cellular providers. The hack involved opening up the phone, and making some internal circuit changes and the installation of additional software and took him about 500 hours of work to finally get it right. Link