other dog

After my long, grueling, all uphill 20 mile hike home-I meant to say 2 mile flat as a board walk,hit the wrong key-I went to Carter Cat the next morning and picked the truck up.Ran great. Went on to Petersburg and loaded a load of steel going to Nazareth,Pa. After I unloaded Wednesday morning I had to go to Sparrows Point to load coils back to Lynchburg.I was outside tarping when I heard the phone ringing-it was Jeff. He just wanted to let me know they had a load of kyanite going to Fremont,Oh. and he was going to save it for me. Perhaps to make up for going to Nazareth. Nazareth is a good load,but since I had to go to Baltimore,and everybody knows how I hate running northeast,and I do like going to Fremont...except I listen to WLW in Cincinnati on XM a lot and I already knew they were calling for the biggest snowfall this winter,starting Friday morning. And all day Friday...and Friday night...and Saturday. They said they were expecting a foot or more,and I figured it might be worse up around Fremont,which is a little bit east of Toledo. So when I got to the shop Thursday morning I asked my usual question-"is this for Friday delivery,or Monday delivery?" The usual answer is "it's for whenever you get there delivery",but Todd said "we never put off 'til Monday what we can do on Friday". Yeah,right...but since they had already held the load for me for a day we thought they might be getting low in material,so I was off like a herd of turtles (Old Bill). When I unloaded and left there about 8:30 yesterday morning it wasn't snowing and I had to go all the way to Pittsburgh to reload,so I thought I might get lucky and miss it altogether-the Pittsburgh weather channel called for snow and rain with a high of 38 degrees. It was 26 in Fremont. I took 20 east to Monroeville,got some fuel,then to Norwalk and back down 250 to 224,turned to the east and still no sn-what's that up ahead? Oh...snow. And more snow. Couple of miles and the road was covered. It was covered all the way to Lodi,where I got on the interstate. Which was covered except for two tracks in the right lane. I was going to go down 14 to 51 into Pa. then take 60 down to Pittsburgh but I stayed on I-76 to Youngstown and went rt. 11 to 14,thinking the big road would be better. 14 probably wasn't much worse because all this way I only saw 2 salt trucks and one of them was parked on a ramp on 76. The trailer was completely covered in snow and ice,I couldn't even see the marker lights,but traffic was proceding fairly well,just slowly. The only accidents I saw were on the westbound side. A little bit after I crossed into Pa. there was some rain in the snow and about halfway down rt. 60 the snow just quit like you turned a switch off and the road was just wet the rest of the way-all rain and 38 degrees when I got to Galv-tech,most of the snow gone off the truck and trailer and what wasn't melted and fell off in the floor when I was loading.I chained and tarped inside,but there were no more trucks there anyway. Left there around 3 o'clock and got to Lynchburg about 11 last night,and the temperature never got below freezing again all the way home. Now i'm glad I went of course because I'll have Sunday off. You shouldn't have to work on Sunday anyway,but it's a truckdriver's life to have to do it I guess. Always was one of the worst parts of the job. Especially in summer when you're going up the road on Sunday afternoon and at every house you pass everybody's in the back yard cooking on the grill and drinking a cold beer and listening to the race and enjoying their weekend. And you're going to Cleveland or somewhere....

$3.95 yesterday on rt. 40 in Pa. somewhere between Uniontown and Md.

might be too late to run in '08, but you should start your run for president in 2012 now. maybe there's a place for me in your cabinet

happy birthday to you,happy birthday to you

Man,what an adventure I had today! Last week was pretty routine,went to Triadelphia with a load of piling,Galv-tech back to Lynchburg,then I took a van load of kyanite to Orchard Park,and brought a load of hay back from Edinboro,Pa. to Altavista for Stacy Compton,the race car driver. (ok,that part wasn't so routine) He drives in the Craftsman truck series this year. I had 580 bales in the 53' van.Hay is scarce around here because of the drought. So I left Sunday going back to Point Marion,Pa. with another load of piling.I told Todd Friday I didn't want to go back up there because the job site was such a mess.He said this was going to the other side of the bridge,across the river from where we unloaded before,so I said "OK,maybe it'll be better"...WRONG! When I got there this morning,after running rt.119 out of Morgantown which is crooked as a dog's leg,I saw the crane sitting there and said "that doesn't look bad at all". Then they told me they parked the crane there over the weekend in case it flooded.When they walked the crane back down over the bank right to the edge of the river-actually on a platform of crossties on a pile of rip-rap in the river-it didn't look so easy anymore. No wonder they moved it in case the river got up. I had to back down straight to where the crane was at first,then cut the trailer over to the left...or right,depending on how you look at it. The problem was a great big hole they had dug on my left and the chain link fence on my right,so I had very little room to turn the cab. I had to pull up and back up several times,working the trailer over a little at a time. I finally got backed into position and unloaded,and of course the bank was so steep they had to pull me back up it with a bulldozer. I took a couple of pictures,but they're not developed yet. When I left there I had to go to Galv-tech in Pittsburgh.I was going to take 88 up to 21,but I didn't think I could make the turn onto the bridge when I came out of the job site,so I figured i'd just go up 119 to Uniontown and then 51 north. And I thought the first part of 119 was crooked! I kept hearing the dump truck drivers that are all over the area saying "southbound at the wall" or "northbound at the wall" and had no idea what they were talking about. I found out pretty quick though-a little ways out of town I got to this curve to the right with a big concrete wall on my right,and it took every bit of the road for me to get around it-if i'd have met anybody in it somebody was going to have to back-up. Got to Galv-tech and was the only truck there,got loaded pretty quick and was going down rt. 40 somewhere between Uniontown and Keysers Ridge when the engine light came on and I lost most of my power and my engine brake was doing little or nothing. I struggled onward to Keysers Ridge truck stop and pulled in and checked the fault code-intake valve actuator malfunction. Jeff said to try to make it in and take it to Cat in Lynchburg,so I did. Only took about an hour longer than normal,got passed by everybody on the highway. When I dropped the load of coils in Lynchburg I tried to phone home so Jobyna could pick me up at Carter Cat.The phone rang,and rang,and rang-no answer,not even the answering machine. Billy-Bob was at Handy tarping his load when I dropped the trailer and offered to give me a ride,so I got him to pick me up at the Cat place and he brought me over to the store two miles from here,over on 699.He could turn around there easily and go back to 29 and continue on to Duluth,Ga. I walked the two miles home. In the dark. By myself. Only one dog came after me and he turned out to be friendly,even walked with me for a couple hundred yards. When I was about a quarter of a mile from home my phone rang-it was Jobyna. She said the phone hadn't rang all day and didn't have a dial tone.I told her I walked all the way from Lynchburg. My investigation found that the phone line was pulled part of the way out of the wall plug.The line goes behind other dog's (that would be the beagle,not me) bed and aparently he had gotten tangled up in it and pulled it loose. That's all right,I needed the excercise anyway.

You learn something new every day-i'd have thought a baby consignment sale was where you bought babies! And the nerve of that b...! It's still yours and she hit it,what it looks like doesn't matter.You should have rolled out the door onto the parking lot complaining about the pain in your neck and your back-I bet she wouldn't have thought that was so funny! I can't drive a big truck either. Jeff told me to drive his pickup-a Ford F-250- to the bank one day and I told him I couldn't drive a 102 wide,it was too big for the drive-thru window. It's not really,but I was afraid i'd knock the mirrors off of it.

yeah,we should've started years ago -or we should have anticipated todays problem years ago anyway

No Paul,I don't have any idea about either one.It is a pretty solid looking old truck,has a big winch on it too.The keys were in the switch though. I just talked to the woman who answered the door,didn't see anyone else around.I'll try to find out if you want me to look into it.

yep,and we're playing right into china's hand-that's exactly what they want us to do.

yeah,at all times of the day and night the roads are packed-I often wonder "just where are all these people going? doesn't anyone just go home anymore?"

Oh,I forgot-I fueled at the Kwik-Fill in Northeast,Pa.Thursday and fuel was $3.79 a gallon.I just filled one tank,enough to get back to the shop.

I absolutely 100% agree! Al Gore is full of #$@& about this global warming crap anyway,and democrats and "tree huggers" are going to ruin us-oops,didn't mean to get into politics here-but I listen to talk radio all the time,and form my own opinions and agree with those who say the "cold war" never really ended,and russia and china want our economy to be ruined-look at the federal deficit now! I hear drivers blaming George Bush for the price of fuel all the time,and he has nothing to do with the price of a barrell of crude oil. And liberals want to take God out of everything-oops,didn't mean to get into religion here-but I think as a nation we need to turn to God,because things aren't looking too good right now. I'm not the most religious person by a long shot,seldom go to church,smoke,drink,and sometimes cuss,by I do believe God is our only hope now...sorry to go off on religion and politics, but i've said it now...i'll get back to what I do best and try to keep things light around here.

I went to Appomattox to see Jeff and Teresa today.Took the back roads and stopped to look at a B-model i'd seen a long time ago.It was sitting in a field near a row of trailers,back off the road a quarter of a mile or so. All you could see was the back of the cab,but I could tell it was a B-model Mack. I said I was going to stop someday,and today was the day. An elderly lady came to the door when I knocked and she said I was welcome to look it over.I asked if it was for sale,and she said " it probably is ". You could tell it's been there a while,and I didn't examine it real-real close but it looked pretty solid. I was impressed when I looked inside,it looked better than I would have expected from the outside.It's a B-61 with a quadruplex,I don't know what year.I'm gonna post the pictures in my album,and if anybody wants me to check into it further i'll be glad to . I told the nice lady that I couldn't afford to pay attention when she said it was probably for sale,but someone else might be interested. Oh,I also saw a White Compact in a field,and A Transtar International grain truck in another field,so I stopped and took pictures of them too. Good day to be outstanding in a field I guess. Yes Paul,a tandem like this,in these colors would look good with your name on it.

"...it's almost lunch time anyway,guess i'll roast a hotdog on a stick" -DON'T LET THIS BE YOU!