An open book journey of Christopher William Klein
Don't forget to check out the new PEACOCKING site AncientPathway.NET. March 1, 2023 Update. The February girls of Kiss of War are going to stay up for about half a month unless I find some extra time. I have a new camera sitting at home and I will do something fun for next month, but right now I am pressed for time.
This day got out of hand quickly. I hit Pepsi first thing in the morning, right on time and things were going well until I pulled out of the dock and found that they left a pallet on the truck. Long-story-short, they rejected a pallet and I had to play the game. It took about three hours this time to get it resolved, but I took it over to YRC and got rid of it. That pallet of Starbucks will be going back to Carlise, PA. No longer my problem. But I did get a call from breakdown, and I have a bad knock sensor. I will not be going to New England, instead, they are working to get me to Tunnel Hill to get it fixed. Joy.
I have been rolling a good mood for a few days, and it was bound to come to an end. Today it did. First it was the Pepsi thing up in the work section, then heading over to YRC. The site is hard to find and I blew past it. There was no place to turn a big-rig around, so it was a jaunt through some back roads until I get get back on track. That was a fun little adventure. Then it was trying to find a place to shut down for the night. I wound up in a rest area because the Love's at Salisbury, NC was full. But that is okay, I shut down and nursed a headache and bad mood.
I think that I got this. I headed out of Concord, NC., and into Kings Mountain, NC. The pre-loaded trailer turned into a live load, but they were quick about it, and I was down the road heading toward Alabama. I drop off there in the morning; then I head from Birmingham to Tunnel Hill to take care of this truck. Fun times.
I got into the Love's in Waco, GA., and shut down for the night. I made some pork and potatoes and worked on school. I had to do the interactive assignment, and it took about three hours. Oye. With that out of the way, I was able to relax a bit. I could have cleared some stuff off of my TODO list, but I chose, instead, to get ahead on the reading for next week and watch Tank Girl again. I chose that movie because I have seen it about a dozen times and it did not matter if I did not concentrate on it. Then it was time to head off to sleep.
The morning was a three-hour run into Birmingham, AL., where I got to play dodge the doggie while two dogs ran around the parking lot. They got me unloaded quickly, and then it was into the Tunnel Hill terminal to get service. There was an outgoing class, and I talked to many people, plus a few people in operations. There is enough wrong with my truck that they are potentially trying to repower me. I don't know what is going to happen with that.
I had time today, so I wanted to do something a bit out of the box and take myself outside of my comfort zone. I fired up Daz3D, used a base model, and then just noodled around. Once I had a base figure in place, I dropped the model into Photoshop and tweaked it. One of the big things with Daz3D is that I don't have any hair for the models, or in this case, very limited. I used the tools in photoshop to flesh out the model. It came out pretty good, but it is far from my favorite.
I hit the terminal around noon and there was a horrible thunderstorm right after arriving. I made it into the terminal and set myself up on a table. Then it was time to work through some of the stuff that I had sitting. First, of course, was updating the blogs. That is always a fun thing. Then, I had to take care of the Kiss of War game. I have been ignoring it for the most part lately because things have been a bit hectic. But Time is fleeting, so fun time. I got all the girls upgraded, and they are all above 20 now. That makes me a bit powerful now, and I don't have to worry about getting scouted and wiped again.
I have already gotten reminders from quite a few people that I have not updated Ancientpathway.NET, the photography site. This is intentional. I have been very busy lately, mostly due to the intense nature of school right now. Keeping my head above water is difficult, and I don't want to continue using recycled photographs. Laura got my new camera, which is waiting for me at home, where I will be in about two weeks. So this month, I am not going to update the PEACOCK site, and next month, I will start in with a fresh set of photos. Hint: There may be graveyards. I love graveyards! However, I continue to work on the Ancient Pathway rebuild. The Astrology portion is now complete with information but requires 144-page reviews, proofs, and edits. For now, it is on the back burner because I am working through, dum dum dum, the Holy Bible and the Ancient's commentary on the bible. I am enjoying it.
With downtime, after all the students and those in orientation left the building, it was time to break into school. I had six responses that I had to work through, and then I had a chance to jump on the next week. I figured it out, and I am 15 weeks from graduation. I received my advertisement today for my Cap and Gown. I have not talked to the wife yet, but I think I will pass this time. It was fun last time, but we don't need to go through that again. I can see the end of the tunnel. I am not sure how that makes me feel.
The end of the day was a bit calmer than expected. Once school was finished, I worked the artwork above, did some C++ and settled in to relax in the terminal. I did my laundry, which took forever, and did some reading in silence. It was a very nice way to end the day.
I got a few hours of sleep before they knocked on the door to get to work on my truck. I got up and in motion and went inside the terminal for the day. The shop assigned who they deemed to be the top mechanic available on-site. And I guess that maybe he proved it, at least a little bit. While he was waiting for a software update for the engine, which will not go into, he worked on the DClimate system. That is my bunk heating and cooling. The unit has been serviced several times and no one can ever find the problem. About 30 minutes after he said he was going to look at it, he came in with a video. The video showed a wiggling, loose wire on the control board. He tightened it and it is working fine. But he is going to run it through its' paces to make sure that it was something that simple. Oye.
So, the wife likes the full-frame monochrome works. Today, I appease the great wife-gods and give a nice black and white with full frame action going on. Tee hee.
I was up and in motion early and took it slowly. I did the morning thing and then tried to stay mostly to my normal routine. I had the advantage of the gym here at the terminal, which helped a bit. I spent the early morning working on The Self and got myself into a positive state of mind. The truck was ready around 200pm and it took a few hours to get it back in order. I set my available status to a bit after 200am, but heard nothing. Time to relax. Yeah!
I will not be assigned until tomorrow morning, so I used today to fully test the entire truck. Steve fixed it all. Everything is operating properly now. That is pretty exciting.
I had extra time today, so I worked the day pretty well. I was very heavy on school and finished up all of my reading for the rest of the course, and I did most of the assignment that is due on Thursday. I worked the Ancient site, did some C++, and a serious amount of French. All-in-all, not a terrible day. I am very tired, but I resisted the extra sleep. A calm day before the storm of the week.
Lori called me first thing this morning and gave me a Terminal Transfer out of Ellenwood. That makes for an easy day. I hit the Ellenwood terminal, hooked up, and headed over to Heflin, AL. to sit for the rest of the day. It was a nice way to ease back into the work thing. I like a calm day now and then.
I rocked a bit of extra time today, but it was not as good as the other time because my tooth is acting up again. Ouch. I hit Heflin, AL. mid-afternoon and closed my curtains, turned on the air, and took a two hour nap. That would have been all fine and well, except I did not intend to do it. Oye. I got back up, at dinner, which I messed up. I overcooked my pork. That is the first mistake that I have made with the air fryer. Weird. But it is all good. Pork, pesto-pasta, and carrots. The carrots were mushy. Pfft.
I had time today, so I watched M3GAN on Peacock. Man that is a freaky flick. It is not as potentially scary as something like Child's play but the tech behind it is within our grasp. They did do the Asimov three-laws thing, but the intent was there. It is a psychological horror flick and relevant if you understand the underlying technology. It was not well written, but it gets the point across.
And the morning starts with Capstone Lumpers. I hit the distribution center in Anniston, Alabama right on time and got into the dock. I had to wait half an hour because the clerk was at lunch, and then she sent me down to the lumpers. I have made my feelings on lumpers known previously, so I will not rehash it here. Grumble. However, I have to hand it to this site. They were quick and efficient. Except for the fact that they did not process a receipt, they did well. A quick call fixed the reciept issue, and I was back to the Love's where I started. I had to wait about two hours, but I got my assignment to pick up in Rome, GA at International Paper and I was back on the road. The Paper pickup was easy as well. Roll in, drop the trailer, wait, they load it and bring it back. Easy enough. Then it was a hard roll to the Kentucky State line for shut-down in a rest area. Today was pretty easy.
I was up about an hour early after a night of broken sleep. That was not fun. But I was up and in motion. The first annoyance was with THIS page. I had an extra tag in the code, and it was messing up the page. It took forever to find, but I found it and fixed it up. Then an easy work day. The biggest annoyance was getting out of Georgia and running through Alabama. There is a mountain in Georgia with a cop that sits at the top of a hill. If you don't check your breaks in the mandatory truck break check area, he comes to see you. Luckily, I do check my breaks. Not so for a dude from another company that I will not discuss. But he got his. Then it was a run across one of the worst roads in the state. At one time, it tossed me out of the driver's seat, even with my seat belt on. What a mess.
I had a lot of rest over the weekend, but I am rolling very tired right now. I am about 10 days from hometime, and it cannot come quickly enough. I have a whole lot to do when I get home, and I have already started getting the big list together, but it is getting away from me. I just need some downtime.
Things have been a bit rough lately. But today was an easy day, even if it was very long. I rolled from the Southern Kentucky state line all the way up into Iowa and shut down in Waterloo for the night. It was an easy drive when you consider the past few days, so I will take it. I have my potential weekend assignment. After I drop off tomorrow afternoon, I sit for the night, then pick up about 50 miles away in Meridian, MN. and take a load of seed or feed over to Arcade, NY. That is very close to the Canadian border. Then it should be time to start heading toward home. I am due on hometime in eight days. We shall see how that goes.
I can feel the negative creeping in on me and I am not going to let that happen again. I know that it is because of the downtime recently. But knowing the cause does not fix the issue. So, since I had the time, it was a good chance to do a wandering mind meditation. Clowns? Why the hell were horrific clowns in my meditation of a wandering mind? I do not have Coulrophobia, so there is no reason for it. I spent a total of four hours on the meditation with a recurring theme of evil clowns intruding. I did lucid dreaming and was surrounded by evil clowns. So it I put it into artwork. Come on brain, what's with clowns?
Yeah, it was a pretty cool semi-animated television show that lasted about three seasons, but today it was a description of where my brain is. I had the clown thing intruding on meditation and dreams, and I can't figure that out. I had some interesting dreams about people I know that are not suited for the blog, and my mind could not focus on anything important. I tried doing the sax thing, the study thing, the French thing, even C++, and all of them were a noGo. It was really annoying.
So, a 600+ mile roll into Iowa and shut down at a Love's. Then the old grey matter will not cooperate, so what do you do? Turn on the tube of course. But that became a rabbit hole of annoyance. I usually will roll YouTube in the background and do other things. But since I could not concentrate on the other things, it was going to be a dust bunny gathering session. Okay, no worries, I watched M3EGAN the other day, so surely there is something else to watch. Hello, rabbit hole! I have access to about eight different services such as Amazon Prime, Hulu, Peacock, Netflix, etc. Usually when I fire up the Roku, I will settle on the first thing that is even barely interesting, especially if I have seen it before because it leaves my concentration for other things and is just ambient noise. But today, time to go for a ride. I fired up Netflix and actually looked at what they have to offer. Then I did it with the rest of the services. I looked at almost everything. Across all the services, I found about three things that I would actually choose to watch. But that was because anything that was decent, was not on the services that we pay for. They were available, but for an additional charge. Movies like The Music Man or the original Dune or many others are only available as pay-per-view. Interesting. It was just a personal journey of curiosity, and now I know. These services advertise that they have thousands of pieces of entertainment, which is accurate. But most of what they carry is not top-of-the-line, at least for my taste. And, don't get me wrong, I recognize that there are those that may be content or even happy with this type of content. It is not a criticism, just an observation.
I finally took the hint from my brain that I may be pushing a bit too hard and let myself fade into obscurity for the afternoon and evening. I stayed awake long enough to talk to Laura, then took a short nap. Once napped, I tried to regain my mental footing but failed. Calm day it is. I wound up rolling something on Peacock that I can't even remember and doing some light reading for a few hours. I could not even get into any of my projects, so I am taking the hint and shutting it all down. Tomorrow is another day.
Things were a bit hectic today. I waited to roll into Austin, MN, for my appointment, but the clouds became ominous, and I rolled about two hours early. I was glad that I did. They took me into a dock as soon as I got to the receiver, and then I headed over to Albert Lea, MN, to the Love's. I shut down, and the sky opened up like the end of the world. The truck was covered in snow in under 30 minutes. So it was down for the night. Wow. Luckily, I have about a 22-hour dwell before I pick up tomorrow morning and head over to New York.
I watched the storm for almost an hour when I shut down. It was crazy. And as usual, people forgot how to drive as soon as it started. Quite a few tappity taps, but nothing major. Mostly just truck sliding while they were trying to park. But none of them hit me, so that I will take it. I logged into school, and my grades are finally updated for the past three weeks. 100 across the board, and I will take it. I had no concentration and no will to get anything done. So what to do? To counter the mood, I made an awesome dinner of Panko pork with caramelized onions, rice, and orange sauce. It was excellent. I turned on a Netflix series called Three Percent. It is an Americanized version of Squid Game, at least with the same core of pitting people against one another, betrayal, annoyance, etc. It is okay, but I seriously doubt that I will roll through the entire first season.
First was meditation without clowns. That was much better. I did some French review to ensure that I retain information, and I am, so there is that. Then it was time to break out the writing projects. I re-read the 13th Witch and I am happy with it. It is in the editor now and should be finalized before the end of the month. Right on schedule. I have worked on The Awakening but sadly, I just could not get into it. We are finally way from Eden and the Brood, and into modern times, but I am stalled on the process. I have to think seriously about where I am going with the story. I have been reading too much about the Science Fiction and Fantasy process, and the storyline is way too weak. I must find a better way to bring together the antagonist and protagonist. I hate to back-burner that project, but I can't get it to come together. Think ya wordsmith, think!
Today was fun, all sarcasm intended. I got started right on time to make my dock, but the roads were a mess. The state of Minnesota did a horrible job of clearing the roads. They left a sheen of ice both to the left and the right, and I had to ride the center line for about 50 miles to not slide into the median or into a ditch. Even running at half speed, it was a bit of a wheel-gripper. And some people did not catch on. There were about a dozen cars and trucks off the road. Luckily, there were not any real accidents, just slip-and-slides. I hit the dock and it was iced over as well. I had to help clear the scale and dock before I could get in. Then was the fun time. They loaded me right to the limits with less than 500 pounds to play with. That means that I had to head back to where I started the day in order to scale. I got it balanced first time through and was on my way down the road. I rolled into Indiana and shut down in South Holland, at a rest area. Tomorrow is breaktime once I get into New York.
There was very little on the personal plate today because the work day was a nail-biter. I was hyper-alert for most of the drive because of the small patches of ice. So by the time I was ready to shut down, it was time to cook up some chicken with orange sauce over rice, and then off to sleep.
Any easy roll, about eight hours, from South Holland to the New York State line. I shut down in the Love's in Ripley. It is not a terrible place and I can get a Bacon platter in the morning. I was very tired, but I stayed up most of the day and worked through cleaning the truck.
Work was a lot easier than the past few days, so when I hit Ripley, NY, I took the time to make a yummy dinner of pasta casserole and got a salad. Today is going to be a short entry, because to be fully honest with you, my faithful followers, I am struggling with solitude right now. I cannot get my mind to shut down, and my dreams are traveling to places better left in darkness. Meditation, though long, is unfulfilling, and I feel my own mortality. That sounds morbid, but I don't think that it is. It is not depression, or frustration, or anything negative, just a doldrum of the psyche, the flat winds over the ocean that give no purchase to the sail. While this may give a wonderful visual, especially coming from one that is not an old salt it is an example of the problem. The visualization took more than an hour to develop, and usually things will come split second before I can write them down. I am unconcerned because home-time is coming and I will be able to fully reset the old grey matter. But that is still a week away. For now, it was early to bed in what turned into a nine-hour sleep cycle. That right there tells me that the old brain is straining. I never sleep that long without ill effects. And there weren't any. But tomorrow is another day.
You have to love the easy days. The only work functions were cleaning the rest of the truck and checking in on my mentees.
Okay, the image above took about three days to make. It is a composite, using about 10 other pictures. I like it. But I was able to finish it today, which gave me a sense of accomplishment. I needed that. Then I finished up school for the week. That rounds out week four and leaves two weeks left to go. I did email, my personal stuff, and watched a movie. The movie was interesting. The Miseducation of Cameron Post which is an LBGTQ+ film starring Chole Moretz, the young assassin from the movie Kick Ass. It was an interesting film about a girl forced into a conversion camp after being caught by her boyfriend, with a girl, at prom. Oye. It was highly predictable but well-written. So I will say it was not terrible.
My drive is pretty much shot, so I finished up school and then relaxed for the day. I did some sax and some French, but other than that, I pulled my bump on the log trick. That is okay, I am allowed one of those once in a while.
Ah punctuation. Now everyone wants a tiny roll. See it, a comma where it should not be, indicating a Baby Roll. Grammerly warned me about it, but I left it there. Snicker, everyone grab a roll and some jelly.
I am punchy today. I was hoping for sunny skies, but that was not to be. In fact, the roll into Arcade, NY., was filled with grey skies and snow. I faced a parking lot of deep mud, but at least they got me unloaded quickly. Then it was over to Buffalo to pick up some Cheerios to take to North Carolina. But this dock was slow slow slow. It took more than three hours to get me loaded up, and then I had to roll 200 miles through small ski towns on back roads into Pennsylvania. It was a very long day.
There are times when it is okay just to let the mind wander, this is the product of one such mind-wandering event. I have no idea what it represents. I know how it was made, starting with an image of the Earth and a view through the lens of a camera. But I have no idea what it became. I don't know if I like it or not.
I woke up to cold and snow. Not a fun way to start the day. And the rest of the day pretty much stayed the same. I was listening to Divided in Death by JD Robb and rolling down the road. For most of the day, there was a Flurry snow coming down. It did not make for easy driving. By the time I shut down in Pennsylvania, I was exhausted. I made some fish and drifted off to sleep.
Sometimes things just come out of the blue. Today I got a Facebook friend request from someone that I did not recognize. It turned out to be Judy from the Delaware County SPCA. That is from a very long time ago. She was the cruelty officer and we worked together quite a bit. We did the whole catch up thing. It was interesting. My how time flies.
The tail end of the day was annoying. Because I was running mostly backroads, I was very limited to where I could shut down. I finally found a truck stop with an open space at a Sapp Brothers. I shut down, at fish and potatoes, and went to sleep. Today was exhausing.
Three days in one because they are running together due to some issues that will be down in the personal section below. But suffice it to say that the three days have been a bit of a pox on the ass of life. I have gone from Clearfield, PA., down into the Carolinas, and landed in South Carolina with my home run being started tomorrow, on Friday. It has been a bit of an uphill battle. The weather has been horrible, the runs a bit strange, and things have just not been cooperating. The pivotal point was Thursday morning when I had to get an escort to get into the North Carolina Port to pick up some rubber heading over to South Carolina. That was fun. But I got through it and got down the road. The funny thing is that this was not the right right. I was supposed to have a load going to Jackson, MS. for the morning that would have put me within spitting distance of home. But they had the wrong information for the order. So now I am about 500 miles from home. But that is okay, I was able to get the rubber dropped off early and I have a run that goes to Dallas, which I get to drop in Olive Branch. So it is the home run! We shall see how it goes.
It is said that cobblers do not wear shoes. If you don't know what a cobbler is, it is a shoemaker. People that do something professionally, rarely take their own advice. It is a parable, but that does not mean that it is not a truth. And I proved that. On Tuesday, I shut down for the day and had some extra time, so I logged into school and did a marathon operation of getting my stuff done for the week. The theory was that if I did that, then as the weekend, and home time, approaches, I could do the work for the final week, next week, before I got home. That way, I would not have to use precious home-time on the final week. But alas, that was not going to happen because the powers that be decided to toss a monkey wrench into things. Not just the monkey wrench, but the whole a whole troop of Monkeys to go with that wrench. But I shall explain.
If you use a computer and you do anything important on it, you should back your work up. I know this from experience. And I got caught with my pants (and my backups) down. Without going into the evil details of the trauma, I finished up school, restarted the computer because it was running slow and sluggish, and when it came back up, it just sat there. I could not click anything. Okay, hard reboot, it happens. Then NOTHING. It would not move past the Logo. That happens three times, and the computer goes into repair mode. It happens now and then and usually fixes itself quickly. Not this time. Okay, calm, I can do this. I can run a repair. Unless the repair fails. The process took 10 hours and required me to download a special tool from Dell to recover to factory specifications. You see the issue, right? No backup, full recovery. Yeah, ouch!
This is the hard part, and one of the reasons that three days are combined into one for this entry. The last two months of 2022 and all of 2023 are lost. That is more than 500 pages across two novel length books, eight short stories, the entire foundation for my OTR life section of this website, more than 2500 filters, brushes and settings that I have collected during the Photoshop course that I have used to create all the artwork since the beginning of the year. The modules, snippets of code, and framework for five programs in C++ and Java, more than 1000 updated pages to Ancient Pathway, and my entire secondary music, music video, meditation music, and audiobook/ebook collection ... this list goes on. But it has given me some insight into myself. I am not upset. And I think that scares me more than anything else.
Right now, I am sitting in South Carolina, getting ready to pick up my run for home. Then I get a week off to get things back together. And set up my AUTOMATED BACKUP. I have enough storage space on my server in Miami that this should not be an issue. I was lazy, and now I pay for it.
This was like trying to push a rock up a hill. I was loaded up and on my way and would have been able to make Olive Branch today if it was not was not for the two hours that it took to get around Atlanta. It does not matter what time of day you hit that city, there is always a delay. But I got through it and made it to Waco, GA. and shut down for the night.
I did the Atlanta thing and then shut down in Waco. I took the time to take a triple shower because I was feeling really scuzzy. I grabbed a sandwich from Subway and then off to bed. Today was a really boring day, but I was exhausted before it ended.
Easy peasy for the work day today. I was up and in motion, even though I was running a bit late. I still got out on time and hit Olive Branch early in the morning. I had time to drop the trailer, get things tightened up, and clean the truck before the wife picked me. Time to do the home-time thing.
I was out of the terminal by about 900am and on the way home. Laura and I stopped by the Bin stores and picked up a few bobbles. Then it was time to get to the house. Once there, I unloaded the car and, instead of sitting on my arse, as I tend to do right after I get home, I started working through the lists. I knocked a few things off of it and then the entire family headed over for some Japanese food. It was a very nice evening. Then it was back to the house, do a few more things, and off to bed. Tomorrow begins the hard press to get things done before I have to head back to work at the end of the week. Fun times ahead.
I dislike doing multi-day entries, but there are some times when it cannot be helped. This is one of those times. It has been a very busy week. So busy that I did not even have time to do my blog updates. And it has not just been busy work type of busy either. The more mundane stuff was doing the food shopping for the truck and doing laundry, the basics that I do each time I come home. But there were more interesting things as well.
More interesting is that we, the family, did a family dinner at Saito Japanese Hibachi in Bartlett. It was a bit pricey, but the portions were good and the food was excellent. Then there was a visit to Dr. Wong. Oye, that was a fun one. At first, they could not figure out my meds, because they had all kinds of things in my profile that I do not take. But that was because I am not a 65 year old man named Barry. I love it when they grab the wrong (computer) chart and it takes 10 minutes to figure it out. But overall, I am healthy for an old dude. Just a few minor issues that I have to work on. Of course, one of the reasons that I am staying out so long right now was that on Tuesday, I had to drive Rowan to the Airport to start his Japanese adventure. The drop was uneventful. I walked him in, watched him go through ticketing and then TSA, and he was gone. He is checking in pretty well and at last check-in was on his way to his final destination. All good. I tried to charge the Generator, but the battery is dead, hand-held Choates with an Air Conditioning check up, cleared the filing cabinet and shredded all the back paperwork, and set up the new camera.
One of the big things was school. I finished up week five and by the time this is published, I worked on week six. I still have a bit to go, but I am almost there. Then there are two courses left, and that is going to be a blessing. You will see why in a moment. One of the biggest, of course, was reinstalling the laptop. That took hours and hours, but I think it is back to production. But now I have to re-work everything that I lost, and that is going to be a bit annoying. I will get there. All-in-all, I am satisfied with my mini-vacation.
I had some pretty big plans for hometime this time through. Of course I did not get them all completed. But some of them are partially done. The weather played a big factor, but I did what I could. I hit Home Depot and got the supports for the front porch as well as the posts for the back yard fence. I could not find my circular saw, which is really bothering me, but I was able to use the radial saw to get everything cut to size. Next time Home, I should be able to get both the front and back installed in a few hours.
I honestly don't know what is going to happen with work. Eric Fuller announced that the company has been purchased by Knight-Swift. It has caused ripples of fear and trepidation through the company. The leadership continues to issue the statements that business will be Status-Quo but that is exactly what you say to a workforce to keep them productive while you figure out where to drop the axe. I am not trying to be doomsday-dave, but it is one of the things that I got from doing the whole college thing. How to handle a takeover. The first thing you do is LIE to your workforce to keep them productive to the bitter end, then you pull the rug out from under them. Is that what is going to happen? I don't know. But I am prepared for it if it does. The big thing is that Knight-Swift has one hell of a (negative) reputation. They are the fifth largest logistics company in the United States, but they make a lot of errors. It will be difficult to be under that umbrella, but we shall see. So things are up in the air. I have received quite a few calls asking my opinion, and I am being careful how I answer. It is going to be a waiting game.
The big work thing for today was answering a bunch of questions about the Knight-Swift takeover. People are really freaking out about this. I am sure that things are going to be fine, at least in the short term, but there are still nagging questions sitting in the wings.
It is almost time to go back to work and I am really not looking forward to it. I spent most of the day moving data so that I have my stuff for the road. I am rebuilding my digital life, with backups, after the big loss. The high point of the day was getting to spend time with the wife. It was nice to have a day with no obligations. Finally, I got everything packed up and ready to roll for in the morning. I am really not looking forward to being back on the road. But what can you do?
I never did get a pre-assignment, but I woke up to a load heading back to South Carolina out of the Olive Branch Yard. That makes things a bit easier. So I packed up the jeep and headed into work. It took about two and a half hours to get the truck set up, but that is discussed under the personal stuff below. What a day. I was not feeling well, but I wanted miles behind me. So I rolled until my fuel light came on and stopped in Jasper, AL at the Love's for the night. I was just mentally and physically exhausted.
Morning was simple. I finished double checking everything, and a spoiler, all I forgot was my USB key for my new mouse. No biggie. I loaded up he jeep and hit the yard. Then the fun began. All the food for eight weeks out fit just fine. But the new Air Fryer Oven, that is a different story. I installed it and did not like the look of it from the start. There was no room for airflow, but people say that they use them, so I gave it a try. That was a fiasco. I tried in all modes, microwave, air fry, and convection. All modes produce way too much heat, but that is not the biggest problem. It may say it is a 950W machine, but it is pulling down a HELL of a lot more than that because it flipped breakers and popped fuses. That was a lot of fun. So I finally put the old microwave back in place and decided to pack the new one up for Colorado. It really is a good one, just doesn't work in the truck with the heat restrictions and power requirements.
It took some work, but I was able to fit everything into the truck. I have eight weeks worth of food and such and I am ready for the tour. At least when it comes to food. I am really not feeling well, so I started out easy. I rolled from Olive Branch to Jasper, AL. and shut down just a few hours in. I will get some rest and try again tomorrow. I have until Monday to get this to South Carolina, and it is only eight hours away. Woo hoo.
I ended the day nice and early and got myself situated. The incomming weather kinda sucks, but that is for later. I at some honey chicken, then settled in with the A/C on and my music rolling. All good. I have everything set up to start rebuilding those things that were lost. But not today. Tomorrow, I will be on a 34-hour break, just one day out of the yard, and I am going to finish my final paper, get the new class set up, download my school materials, and, I think, start re-writing either The Awakening with some new ideas, or the political book. I have no decided. I lost hundreds of man hours from this crap, and it is time to rally and get them back.
I woke up around midnight, just in time, to the truck rocking back and forth. You have to have a bit of respect for the tornadoes of Alabama! However, it did give me the incentive to get in motion and get down the road. It took about eight hours to get to Orangeburg, SC. which is about 45 minutes from my Monday drop, then I was down for the day. It was a Love's, but the place is under major renovation, and as such, there are a few things that are not available. One of those things, of course, is internet. It is there, but it won't connect. It is part of the construction it seems. But that is okay, I don't need it like I normally do. I will use my phone for the personal stuff. So right back to work yesterday, then down for a 34-hour break. Yeah!
Once I shut down for the day, before noon, I loaded up on water, because Dr. Wong says I may be dehydrated. Time to double up. Oye! And of course, I took a short nap. I made sure that I left the A/C off so that I did not get too comfortable, then it was time to get up and in motion. Lunch was a sandwich and an orange, with a dinner of Hot Sausage and pasta. Pretty good way to start off the new tour. Right back to work then a break. All in all, I am going to count it is a highly productive day. I double checked my course and made sure that everything was all done, and then I took a peek at the new one. This final course before the Capstone is going to be a bit rough, but it really looks interesting. So we shall see. Tomorrow, I have off for the entire day, and I am not sure how that is going to go. I am still pensive about a lot of things.
One of those things about the CHR account that I am running is that when I come back from my hometime on Friday, they send me to pick up something that does not deliver until Monday. This means that I come back to work only to take a break for a day and a half the next day. Usually it works out pretty well. This time, I am not so sure. I have been way to pensive about things and I would rather be rolling. But instead, I am sitting in a Love's in Orangeburg, SC. waiting to deliver down the road on Monday morning. Fun times.
I could have gone either way with this Sunday, so I chose to do both. I worked my ass off, but I got some rest as well. I caught everything up that was lost. I have a list that I have to work through and I am setting my goal to be caught up to where I should be before I get back to Hometime in eight weeks. That means that I have to not only meet my goals of the next eight weeks, but catch up the previous 12 weeks of stuff that was lost. So I jumped right in. I could not get my C++ software installed because I don't have enough data left to do it and the WiFi at Love's is not working. That software, Visual Studio, is one of the things that I forgot while I was at home. The thing is HUGE. So I will have to wait until I have a Love's with stable internet. But that is okay, plenty more to do. I rebuild, mostly from memory, the short story shells that I had sitting that I had moved out of Dropbox to edit. They are back in place and in dropbox AND on the Triumph server. I have the documents started for the Awakening as well as the political book and the short story book. Rock and roll! I rebuilt my Yoga database and I am working on getting back on track with that. One thing that I forgot about and is going to be hard to rebuild is the social media project. I had about 20 sites chosen for exposure and I had written unique introductions and all. But I had not signed up for any of them beyond the common ones. I may let that project die, we shall see. I have all the previous papers that I have written, but I am back to square one with them and I have to start over. But at least I have them. The biggest loss is the photographs. That is pissing me off. But I have a way in place now to keep the new ones all backed up. I was going to try it this weekend, but it requires internet to work properly. Damn digital gods! Finally, I rebuilt the website projects, or at least the framework. I did close to 200 pages for Ancient, which is only a nibble of the 5000, and I re-planned the new portion of triumph for the OTR driver. I did not get the new Peacock into place like I wanted to, but that will wait until the beginning of the month.
That is all for now. Tomorrow is back to work, so once I did my tornado of accomplishment, I took some time to just sit back and relax. Fun times!
Okay, so we are back at it today. I rolled out of Orangeburg, SC. first thing and right on time. I got a call from operations and that just took the wind out of my sails. I am not going to name names because we are going to keep a positive outlook on everything. Apparently, on Friday, breakdown reported that I had a problem with my airline control valve and it had to be repaired. And that is when things went all hinky. I was instructed to drop my beer and head to the South Carolina terminal, 200 miles away. The first annoyance was getting into the dock. It is VERY tight. It took close to 30 minutes for me to squeeze into the dock, and I was doing better than most. But I made it in, put myself off-duty, and figured that I would get a leg up on what was wrong with my truck that I was not aware of. Let the fun begin.
I started with breakdown. A quick call found that there are no reported issues with my trackor and everything is green. Okay, that is weird. However, my trailer is 43 days out of Annual DOT inspection. Weird again, because I checked that when I picked up the trailer. So I looked physically. The placard on the side of the trailer says that I have until June 9, 2023. So it was a call to operations. This is where empathy comes in. I hurt someone's feelings because they did not feel that they were good enough to help me because I asked for a message to be passed the one that started it all. I could hear it in her voice and feel it coming through the phone. She even said that She is not good enough to help me. But the point is that she did NOT help me. Still in the dock waiting to be unloaded, I still did not know what I was doing when the load was clear. Sigh.
I usually try to stay positive, but today, I failed. I rolled the three hours from Summerville to Duncan in South Carolina. Usually, I can tolerate the way that some people act and talk, but today it grated on my nerves. I got to the yard, parked, and went to the service desk. The intake person looked at me like I had grown a second head when I asked about my tractor. Like DUH, there's nothing wrong with it, why are you checking? But the trailer did need the inspection. But they can't get to it until tomorrow. Oye. I let ops know this and began to check for empties on the lot. Everything empty was hooked to a tractor or tagged out of service. In the end, I did fine one, a NEW trailer, empty. It had a lock on it, but not locked, and a seal that was not sealed. I checked with operations, and it was listed as out of service. I did the leg work, got it put back in service and hooked to it. Only to find out that while I was busy doing the work to get it released, a planner assigned it to another driver. So, do I get to keep it since I did the work to not only get it relased, but to clean it, inspect it and sweep it out? Nope, the other driver gets it. This is not the first time. If I was like other drivers, I would have grabbed the trailer, left the lot and gotten about 30 miles down the road. They won't turn you around. Interesting. There are times when I wish I could be as dishonest and weasly as other people. But then again, I would not be the person that I am if I were to do that. A sad state of affairs. So the resolution is that I sit until tomorrow morning to check the status of the trailer that I brought in, and go from there. This is the fifth trailer that I have had to take for service this year. It is getting on my nerves.
I am trying very hard to stay in a postive frame of mind. But it is not working. The morning issues with work put me in a cold dark place. But since it is so hot, I guess that is okay. I used the excess time in the dock to get a few things done while I was waiting. I still have to download Visual Studio, but that is going to have to wait until I have stable, non-metered, internet. I updated the blog, checked in with my mentees, and did a bunch of email. That was helpful because it is stuff I don't have to do at the end of the day. Yeah, that will work. I also double-checked my audio books. I did not update them on hometime, so it is going to be a bit tight. We shall see what happens.
I lost my mental clarity and balance today. I got snarky with people and I know that they are just as frustrated as I am right now. But just knowing the facts does not help with the truth. After having my trailer taken away from me, I kinda snapped. It required three hours of meditation to get from a point of anger to just mear frustration. I am sick and tired of being the nice guy, but if I am not the nice guy, then that reverts me to the bad guy. And that is a journey that I do not want to travel again. The drawback to where I am emotionally and mentally is that it popped me into a shallow depression. I know the warning signs, and in this case, it was teh fact that I went to sleep for nine hours and then wanted to go back to sleep. Thankfully, I know these signs and was able to pop myself into a positve frame of mind. How? You ask? Well, as I am in the Duncan yard, I positioned myself in line-of-site of the internet repeated so that the signal was maximized. And then I downloaded the 30GB Visual Studio update that I did not do while I was home due to the data limitations that we hit on. The whole damn thing came down, and it came down FAST. Fast enough that I not only updated the C++ part of the studio, but the entire support system for Unity, Python, Azure, and others. All of these were on my long-term list for downloads in the next 15 weeks. I got the ALL. Then, just because I wanted to bust my own balls, I got the full installation of the Daz3D engine and ALL the previous freebies that I had for that system. Then, to top it off, I fully updated Adobe, which includes Photoshop! I did not get back my 2000 filters that I had been using to make the really cool artwork, but I did get back about 30 of them. So that is something. I was able to claw my way back from the brink using productivity. Now, I really want to sleep some more, but I am not sure if I am going to or not. Tomorrow is another day.
Okay, I am not going to explain the title for reasons of privacy, but when I read this a few years from now, it will make me smile. This morning, I went to a backwoods nursery and dropped off on a back road in a very rough pull in. But that was simple enough when I took my time. The people were very nice and they had a professional crew that took a bit of time but got the job done. Then it was a pickup in a small town in North Carolina before continuing North to the Kentucky state line. I shut down in a rest area, and that was the end of the day.
It was all work and no play today. I had to roll hard and I am still running a bit over an hour behind to make my Michigan drops. But we are going into the weekend, so I should have my last week run and be shutting down here for a break soon. I am tired and need a reset even though I just had one. Sad state of affairs huh?
kToday was mundane but fruitful. I am finally rolling hard. I made it into Michigan, and thankfully, I looked ahead. I shut down at the Love's in Bridgeport TWP along Lake Huron before continuing up the coast. There is not a lot of truck support up that way, so it would have been a bad thing. But it was a good day, and tomorrow I should be getting my double drop done, then heading to pick up my weekend load heading out to Iowa.
Okay, so I have come up with a plan. I have lost a hell of a lot of information and time due to the computer crash. So I am going nad-to-the-wall for the month of April. If I can get everything back to Status-quo before May 1, I get to buy myself hair for Daz3d. So I have a list of things that I have to complete. It should be an interesting challenge. I think that I can do it, but I am not sure.
It is cold in Michigan. There was snow yesterday, but nothing that stuck to the ground. It is cold. But I said that already. That is okay, I will be out of here tomorrow and on my way to Iowa. It will be better in Iowa, Right?
First thing is rebuilding my databases. That is music, resouces, and meditation. I tossed about 1/2 of it into a queue before I went to sleep and by some miracle, it actually came down properly. I have to catalog and tag it all, but that means that one of the big parts of the catch up and recover project is done. It is exciting. I should start my 34-break Friday, and that will be time to catch up the writing as long as I get school done first. I may actually pull this off. Woo hoo.
I had an early morning drop in Northern Michigan on Lake Huron. Fun little dock beyond a not-for-profit. It was a very tight squeeze, but even just as the sun came up, I made it in there. Then it was back down the Huron Coastline into Detroit. That was not nearly as much fun. The city is tight, and the drop was downtown in a facility right in the middle of a really poor area. I popped over to Frenchtown, MI, about 40 miles from my early morning pickup, and shut down for the night.
If you have been following along, you know that I lost all my filters and all that I have been using to turn the mundane into art. I am starting from scratch. This is my first attempt at art since I lost all my stuff. But I think that they came out pretty well. I am doing a study in black and white as part of the catch-up of the things that I lost. There will be more to come.
On the first drop, there was a pixey-like French Canadian receptionist that only spoke French. Yeah, I thought it was funny as well, until I found out that the food bank deals mostly with French speaking people. Then it made sense. I got to use my French lessons, and as long as she spoke slowly, I could understand a lot of what she said.
I have been around Detroit and through Detroit, but I think that this is the first time that I ever had to stop in the city. It is scary as hell. I watched someone beat the daylights out of woman in broad daylight and people just walked around them while it happened. I admit that I did nothing except drive by the incident. It really made me uneasy. Granted, the way that she was dressed, I am pretty sure she was a hooker, and the way he was dressed, well you get the picture. But still...
I am running enough ahead that I got to do some of my catch-up. I have 31 items on my list that I have to finish before the month of April to be back on track. I grabbed a few of the easy ones and knocked them out. I am headeding into Ohio and then Iowa, where I will be shutting down for a 34-hour break, that will be closer to 48 hours. While I am there, no lolly-gagging and I am going to concentrate on catching up the list. Since the list was created in one and two hour segments while doing other things, if I pour my concentration into it, I may be able to knock out the lion's share of it this weekend. We shall see
Today was a bit rough, but I made it through. I hit the dock right on time, but it was a mess. The facility was gigantic and the shipping office was on one side of the building and the docks on the other. It took about two hours to load me up, and I was headed out to Iowa. Then the fun began. There is rough weather in this part of the country from the Great Lakes all the way down into Mississippi. And I was driving right into it. For most of the drive, the sky was ominious and dark. At one point, visiblity went to 0 feet and hail came raining down. But I pushed through and made it to Clive, IA., about 4 miles from my Monday drop. What a day!
The day was work, work, work. It took about 10 hours to get loaded and get across the upper-area of the United States from Ohio to Iowa. And as you see above, the weather was not being cooperative. But I made it into Clive with about 20 minutes left on my clock. I fueled up, which rounded out my Love's card for the month, and I shut down in the rear of a 275 parking space Love's. I have Wi-Fi, a nice parking space, and tomorrow I am going to walk next door to Menard's and get some fresh fruit and veggies. Well-worth the hard roll to make it here today instead of tomorrow.
I was running right on time and hit Clive, IA., just when I expected to. I was able to get a decent parking spot and then went into Denny's for dinner. I really wanted a BLT, but they did not have bacon. So I splurged and got a country fried steak. Then I got a surprise. I forgot that Denny's is one of the places that has a Senior menu, and the steak is on that menu. I was able to get the senior platter, and it saved me $5.00. It is a bit of revelation that I am now and old man, but it saves me money. Funny. I considered running over to Menards to get it out of the way, but it started to pour and I decided to save that until tomorrow.
I am getting way too sensitive. While I was eating, I was rolling some YouTube videos and there is a new trend going on. It may not be new, I just may not have noticed it. People will do a split-screen view of them watching something. Sometimes it is a TV show, other times it is something like a cat-video on YouTube. On one side, they have what they are watching and on the other side, they have a view from their web cam as they watch the item. What kind of vanity play is this and why would they do it? Have people become that obsessed with being on camera that they don't make original content, but just show themselves doing something mundane? It is really annoying.
After dinner, I set up my catch-up list for the weekend and put it into a round-robin. I cleaned up the truck, just a little bit, and settled in to sleep. I set off the updates for my programs that have to get done and let them roll over night and it was time to travel into the land of Morpheous.