other dog

And thank you for thinking of us! Holy mackerel- i'd buy all four of those beers that girl's holding, and anything else she might be selling...I mean like a bag of potato chips, a sammich, another beer, doesn't matter...

Nice! I'm going to try to talk Jeff into getting one of these whenever he decides to trade my truck in. I'm not picky, but I want the 505, 13 spd, 3.55's.

They rode just like that- I pulled over on the ramp at exit 2 right after I crossed the Va. line on I-64 to check them, and took that picture. I came down 79 to 19 to Summersville, then across 39 and 20 to rt. 60. I asked Todd before I left- "how am I supposed to chain coils down in a van?..do they nail blocking in the floor?" He said "no, just close the doors and ride- where are they going to go?" I said "through the wall- what if I bring the van back with a big hole in the side and the steel is laying in the woods up on rt.20 in West Virginia somewhere?" He said "then we'll have to talk." I did take it easy around the curves though.

Been slow for pictures lately... I took a van load to Chester,W.V. I was looking on my laptop in Chester to see if I could pick up any free wi-fi signals. I did not, but I saw some strange names listed- Loaded steel in McKees Rocks. Saw this old picture in a National Lampoon magazine from 1983. I found a cardboard box full of them over at the dumpster last summer and brought them home...yes, really. No info on the picture, the caption was ridiculous because it's a comedy type magazine, but it looks like they were checking at the scales somewhere. Looks like a B model behind the crackerbox.

Thank you for thinking of us. I started watching that on TV the other night before I went to bed. Saw Reggie Jackson, Richard Rawlings, and Ray Evernham there. The first couple of cars they sold brought crazy money- crazy to me anyway- over $100,000! I can't even remember what they were now.

You're absolutely right, that's common sense- which nobody thinking up all this crap and thinking it's a good idea seems to have.

That's what I was saying- http://www.answers.com/article/1181946/20-things-that-show-everything-in-australia-will-kill-you?paramt=1&param4=fb-us-de-lifestyle&param1=dailydose&param2=29738051&param5=10152155151086186&param6=29741441#slide=1

...and they wonder why there's a driver shortage?..really? As far as speed limiters, we've talked about how truck A is running 62 1/2 mph. trying to pass truck B running 62 mph. It only takes a minute for traffic to be backed up for miles, then everybody behind gets impatient. If everybody is governed at the same speed, there's gonna be fuster clucks like they've never seen before- everywhere.

I passed by there on the way to Petersburg with a mill roll about 11 this morning. If i'd known I was coming home i'd have stopped, but I thought I was taking a van load from the yard to Chester,W.V. They put it off a day so they can get the return load ready in McKees Rocks..

I think you'll be impressed, it's well worth taking the time to give it a look.

The only other way I know is the two hammer method- get somebody to help you. Put the nut back on flush with the top of the shaft, so you won't mess the threads up. Get in there and pull up on the wheel as hard as you can and have somebody else hold a ball peen hammer against the top of the shaft and hit it with another hammer and it should pop loose.

I'd never heard of the place before, didn't know what the rockshelter was. That was a nice looking wrecker, the loader man was familiar with Insana, said they had some big equipment. The lovely assistant had some bigguns too.

Here's the loader operator's assistant admiring the wrecker.

Now that's photo-worthy! Didn't see that sitting around anywhere, but I couldn't do much looking around in town, it was a tight place to get through, with a couple of hard turns to make. I did see a place just out of town on Meadowcroft Road with a lot of cars, trucks, trailers, and junk sitting around. There was even an old McLean trailer there. I unloaded at the gray square in the center near the bottom of this picture. There's the long hill I came down to get there, but it was snow covered Wednesday except for a little strip in the center.

Well, back to the old binness as usual- I took a load of pipes to some museum in Avella, Pa. It was located right in the middle of nowhere. I went up a hill getting there... Then I had to go down a hill when I got there. I turned around here and the unloader man unloaded the pipes here. Here's the unloader man talking to the wrecker driver that was going after another pipe truck that was trying to come in from the other direction. He told me he didn't know how he made it as far as he did, the road was no wider than the truck. I heard him tell the wrecker driver he thought he'd need a bigger wrecker to get him out, so he must have been in a really tight spot. Some rocks. There's the hill I came down, i'm about to try to get back up it. Looking down in the hole i'd just come out of. Crossing the New River Bridge in W.V. I usually take rt.39 in Summersville over to rt. 20 at Nettie, and 20 to rt. 60 in Charmco, then 60 to I-64, but I stayed on 19 all the way to Beckley because it was snowing. It was chilly too. They had the roads pretty well salted though. I took a load from Lynchburg to Columbia,S.C. yesterday, and loaded steel in Charlotte going to Richmond today, but I didn't see anything to photograph.

Looks pretty tall too.

Old Bill was sending me issues of it periodically, and I liked it so much I subscribed so I wouldn't miss anything.

The blue one across the road has a Cat in it, but I don't know what size. I had just started to look at it when a pickup went by, then turned around and came back. I thought it was the wood cutters wanting to know what I was doing fooling around their equipment, but they were deer hunters trying to catch their dogs. I talked to them for a few minutes, then walked on back to the house. I took the chipper I was hooked to in the first picture from Dillwyn,Va. to Parkersburg, W.V. The picture was taken at H.H.Moore's shop in Appomattox. The second picture is on rt.60 on top of the mountain coming east out of Beuna Vista, Va. I was on the way back to Dillwyn to get another load when I pulled over and walked up on the Blue Ridge Parkway to take the picture. That would be a great looking picture, but I just had an old Kodak 126 camera at the time. It was taken around 1980.

I know- no pictures, it didn't happen. Yesterday I took some trash out to burn it in the barrel. Couple of cardboard boxes, an egg carton, a few plastic bottles. I threw a plastic bottle in first so the boxes wouldn't get wet in the bottom, started ripping up a box to throw in, and noticed a dead animal in the barrel. I thought "now who in the world would throw a dead animal in the trash barrel"? Then I saw the dead animal move. Upon further investigation I determined that it was a possum. I felt sorry for the fella, no telling how long it had been in there. Probably climbed in looking for a snack, then couldn't get out. I laid the barrel down so it could come out but it was scared and crawled as far up into the barrel as it could get, getting coated with wet ashes in the process. Then I thought "I should go get my camera". But, I got another plastic bottle and reached up in the barrel and nudged him towards the exit. He opened his mouth and looked at me, and didn't even hiss at me. It looked about as much dead as alive. But when I got him out on the ground he perked up right away and waddled off towards the woods at a high rate of waddle- black and covered in wet ashes, but probably happy.

Strange how things happen like that. I.................probably wouldn't have had time to stop.

Looked around a little more today, the timber crew's not working, been drizzling rain here all day. Spotted something i'd never seen before- it's on the far right side of this picture. Zoomed in-

I think a Morbark was the only kind of chipper i'd ever seen before. H.H.Moore was a contract carrier for Westvaco for years, and we hauled chips, then pulpwood, from Westvaco woodyards to the paper mill in Covington. Hauled some to Luke,Md. too. Westvaco had Morbark chippers, the old ones had V12 Detroits on them, the later ones they got had 600hp. Cummins engines on them and they would just eat a big stick of hardwood up- like in a couple of seconds. Morbark chipper- Best chip truck I drove- Chip pile at Covington-