other dog

And the old GMC logo.

You know the deal- you run like hell to get somewhere so you can sit there and wait...and wait...and wait some more.

Fortunately I didn't have to go in the "secure" area.

After I cleared the snow off the driveway with the leaf blower, it started to sleet...then came the freezing rain. So I still had to go out and break up the ice with a shovel before I finally got out Monday morning. I was planning to go around 3 or 4 am, I thought it was supposed to be about 40 degrees by then but it was still freezing. It was only up to 34 when I finally left at 9am. Then I got to the shop and got a broom and swept the snow off the trailer and load of coils, then I hauled ass to N.C. to try to get 2 stops off. Just a little ways into N.C. on rt. 86 you couldn't tell it had even snowed- There's still quite a bit laying around here now. By the time I got to the second stop in Benson I was sweating when I was folding my tarp. Then I had to haul ass to Kernersville to pick up one of these stainless steel canisters. They're for storing spent fuel rods. Took it to the power plant near Pottstown, Pa. We - me and Curtis were running together- went up 52 to 77 to 81. I've posted pictures of Pilot Mountain before, but it's always an impressive sight to me. It was warm that day, but if you go by there on a really cold dat it looks like this- another old joke...moving on- After spending all night and half a day at the power plant, we went to Parker Ford, Pa. to load steel going to Monroe, Va. It was 9 miles from the power plant, but as the crow flies it only looked like a mile or so- this is the power plant from where we loaded at Bushwick Steel. Spot mirror on the wall at the steel getting place- I saw this log truck on rt.24 when I was going to Dillwyn to get a load of Kyanite in a van yesterday. It's called the "Log Hog". It has a 6-71 Detroit in it, and it used to have straight pipes, don't know if it still does or not. When I lived in Appomattox you could here it coming long before you ever saw it. The owner stopped by the house and gave my youngest son a ride in it on his birthday when he was about 10 years old. My son was about 10, not the owner of the truck. Anyway, it had a "for sale" sign on it. Then on the way home yesterday I saw this girl from Texas in Winfall. I stopped and she said she had fallen and couldn't get up- she asked me if I would help her into the back seat of her car, then she winked at me. Like i'm stupid enough to fall for that! I told her she looked fine to me, and besides "you can't drive the car from the back seat!" Then she looked at me like I was nuts!..I left her sitting there and went on home.

Check "Pictures of the Week" Mike, I try to throw in a Winfall wimmins picture.

And have a weight limit- they'll run you across the inbound scales when you come in the door and across the outbound scales just before you get to the cash register on the way out.

.

http://worldstartmz.com/man-kicked-out-golden-corral-after-eating-50lbs-of-food-sues-for-2-million/ The article said this man, who looks to weight about 700 lbs, was thrown out of a Golden Corral restaurant after eating for 7 hours, consuming between 50 and 70 lbs. of food. So now he's suing Golden Corral for 2 million dollars.

My "snow blower"- looks just like my leaf blower. Didn't do a bad job though, beats my old square point shovel. I blew the pickup off at first, it's still snowing and it looks like a little sleet mixed in it now so I won't be able to blow the sleet away, but that little bit should make it easier to get out. The highway hasn't been touched of course. And I was going to drive the blue truck home, but I decided at the last minute to drive the blue one because I had planned to leave last night.

Neat stuff there- I read the book and have seen the movie about PT109 several times. And who could forget McHale's Navy?

probably had those too, I quit reading when I got to spleens.

Oh. And how did you know what my phone looks like, do you have a secret spy camera hidden in here somewhere? I'd better start looking...

rabe? that reminds me, I saw Rapa scrapple in Food Lion today. Never noticed it before, but I never looked for it before either. Had all the good stuff in it- pork liver, snouts, spleens.

I can get everything but butcher string- I know, i've got some speaker wire around here somewhere...

Wow, that's awful nice of her.

You're right about that, it's kind of the same situation with truck driving jobs and what we're paid . Sure, as gearhead grrl said, we should get payed more, or would like to get paid more, but it's a catch-22 situation- I work for a small company too, and if they had to pay everybody by the hour for every hour they worked and extra for everything they did like tarping a load, dropping trailers, mechanical work, and so on, they would probably have to close the doors because they just couldn't afford to stay in business, then there would be that many more people out of work. Union workers can't work if a light bulb needs changing, then they have to call a union electrician to come change the light bulb while they just wait and do nothing, all the while probably making as much in a day as I do in a week, and never doing anything "over and above" exactly whatever their job description says they have to do. No wonder why some companies look overseas for cheaper labor.

That's the way they are now, they're all about "me me me, eff you, it's me me me!" No such thing as respecting your elders, or even common courtesy any more...very little anyway.

HMMMM...almost makes me consider moving to Australia, except for this- https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/things-in-australia-that-will-kill-you-animals-that-will-try-to-kill-you

I thought it was a T800 with the high hood at first, but now i'm thinking it's probably a C500. We were rushing to get the dozer unloaded and reloaded and I didn't even get a chance to look at it, just snapped those couple of quick pics when he got there. Mr. Burke was in a rush, thinking we'd get it back to Concord anyway, and we would unload it at his place yesterday morning, but I told him we'd be lucky to get to Danville by sundown. And his brother was in a rush to get going because him and his helper hadn't eaten all day. C500 KW His brother was real nice too, he has a completely restored B61 that was a Jamerson Brothers truck that he said I was welcome to stop at his place in Walterboro and look at whenever I was in the area. It's a mate to this one-

He said it weighed about 35,000 lbs. That's probably pretty close, this web page http://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/003/0/8/3084-allis-chalmers-hd16.html says 31,500 lbs and i'm assuming that's without the blade, hydraulic cylinders, cab,etc.

I could use that in the back yard to hide in myself- run an extension cord out there, have tv, ac, mini-fridge full of beer...

I went up to the observation deck at Winfall Towers on the way home yesterday. You can see all the way to Brookneal from up there. I observed this girl up there observing the Winfall skyline.

I took a load of pipes to State College, Pa. Monday. Unloaded Tuesday morning and went to Sharon to get 2 coils. It was snowing pretty good when I left State College, this was after I got on I-80. Saw this unit across the street when I was leaving Sharon Coatings. It snowed most of the way back, but 79 was clear- rt.19, not so much. This is coming up Powell Mountain, north of Summersville. HatCity said he was plowing and salting this section, but I think he was parked in a cross over drinking coffee. The only time he did any actual plowing was when he went to Sheetz to refill his thermos and grab more donuts. After I unloaded the coils in Madison Heights I went to the shop and hooked up to the bulldozer trailer again so I could run down to the S.C. line on rt.38 Thursday and get that dozer that I was supposed to get last week for Mr. Burke. We left the shop at 6:15am and got there around 10:30am... the dozer got there around 3:30pm. Last week the truck that was bringing it broke down, this week he blew a tire on the lowboy. Then after somebody brought him a tire and put it on, he made it about 10 miles and blew a tire on the lowboy. So he had to get another tire brought to him- and it was the wrong tire, so the tire guy had to go back and get the right tire and come back again. So what should have been a fairly easy one day mission turned into a 2 day deal. The only other issue was that Jeff told me the blade was 10'6'' wide. Mr. Burke said it was 11'6'', and my N.C. permit was for 11'. But I didn't get stopped or checked, so it didn't matter. We couldn't run after dark so we went to Candor, N.C. and parked it, then we went over to Southern Pines- Mr. Burke just happens to own a home there and he plays a lot of golf . He called a friend that he knows from one of the golf courses to come pick us up and he took us to Mr. Burke's house, and picked us up yesterday morning and took us back to the truckstop. The home is for sale by the way, because he said he just didn't go there much any more- a palatial estate too, and only 200 grand. He called a taxi to take us to get something to eat. Went to some sports bar, I don't remember the name of it. Mr Burke said "they've got everything from hot dogs to filet mignon here,and it's all good- I highly recommend the filet mignon". It should be good, it was $32 I think. A hot dog was $10.99- but fries were included. I got a shrimp po'boy, $13.99, and had 4 Bud lights at $4 each. I felt uncomfortable- but just a little- that he was spending that kind of money, but he's as nice a man as you'd ever want to meet and he paid for everything. He apologized for all the delays, but I told him that it was no problem for me, it was pretty much par for the course driving a truck, things seldom go as smoothly as planned. And if any of you are ever stranded in this area, just call me, i'll come get you. We'll stop by the store and get a pack of hot dogs and a loaf of bread and cook them over a fire on a stick, that's more my speed. But we got the dozer back yesterday and unloaded it in a field at his house in Appomattox, then I dropped the trailer at the shop and went to Lynchburg and got a load of coils going to Raleigh and Benson, N.C. for Monday, binness as usual. They're calling for 2 to 4 inches of snow here Monday. I don't know about N.C. but I told them if it was slick around here Sunday the load would still be sitting at the shop Monday morning. Supposed to be warm again by Tuesday, in the 40's. Nice looking old KW Mr. Burke's brother has. At the truckstop in Candor, N.C. Unloading

that was a tight squeeze- thought at first they weren't gonna fit, we had to move the quarter fenders to get them in there.

A little over 32, full of fuel.