Greetings: An update on the previous month. September was a bit of a roller coaster ride with some very high, highs, and some very low, lows. But I made it through and we are into the month of October. Last month, I gave you a piece of artwork, each day, that showed my journey through my Photoshop course. I also let you know that soon this blog will migrate to cwklein.com due to some unbusinesslike actions of my host. I have gotten the domain, but I am working on the new design. Toward the end of the month, Awakening was accepted by Newman Springs publishing, but it looks like it will be cost-ineffective, which will end my writing career. I will probably still write, and as always, the work will be available, but I will surrender my dreams of being a best-selling author in the coming years.

Mundane day

Because I am in a place that barely has a picnic table, I was truck-bound. That is normally not a problem, but after being cooped up for a week, I find it annoying. I am very moody and a bit depressed. Things just came too quickly for me to deal with in a big chunk. So I spent the day working on the new website. I think that I am ready to pop up the shell. I will check it in teh morning if I have time and maybe pop it online for the world to judge.

The rest of the day was spent in meditation and repose. I have to consider things. Truck, work, Awakening, life in general. Too much to think about right now, and I think that I blue a fuse in my brain. I took a nap and had one hell of a dream about swash-buckling to save an innocent little girl on board a clipper ship, Galleon, or Sloop. I can't remember the details of the ship other than dark sails. Then I could not remember how I even knew the differences between a clipper, galleon or sloop. Or even how I know what a Dutch Fleut, brgantine, or schooner is. I just seemed to wake up with this junk in my head. Weirdness. Never been my area of study. My nautical knowledge is limited to the U.S.S. Consitution, a Frigate. Weirdness, I tell you, weirdness.

But I have to get my brain into order here, or things could go very bad, very quickly. Hell, I may become a super-villian and try to steal off of the planets ozone. Which leads to another interesting point. Yesterday I spoke to Blondie (code name for a driver that I work with), and apparently, this intelligent young lady, is a flat-earther. I can honestly say that I am stunned. I have no issues with her being opinionated, hard-core right wing, and very outspoken, but being a flat-earther, is a bit more than I could handle. Weird.

Fighting the Moodies

I got to my receiver right on time in Manchester, Connecticut but it was one hell of a dock. It took me almost 20 minutes to get backed in because it was so tight. But I got unloaded and got on down the road to Wallingford, Connecticut where I faced another tight dock. But not nearly as hard as the first one. I was loaded up and down the road quickly. I rolled until the 11th hour and shut down in a rest area halfway through Pennsylvania.

Restlessness sucks

It was an easy work day, and I was tired when I shut down, but I could not sleep. I wanted to grab a Starbucks in the Travel Plaza, but they were out of milk. How does a company that makes their money off of a product, run out of one of their main ingredients? Weird. But I shut down, at some honey-nuggets for dinner, and then tried to sleep. But that was not as easy as it sounds. I slept for about two hours then woke up wide-awake. I could not get back to sleep. It was annoying. In finally dropped back into the land of Morpheus, but that led to me oversleeping and leaving out late. Pfft.

Since I had some extra down-time, I figured I would update Photoshop, which usually takes hours. But there were no updates. So I fired up the program, loaded up a "lucy" pick and modified the hell out of it. This was the result.

Can't get things in order.

I rolled then shut down at the Love's in Schuyler, NE. I popped on a movie after dinner and I was more than 15 minutes into it before I realized that I was in German. The movie, "How to be really bad" was pretty good. But is was weird because I do not speak conversational German, but I understood it perfectly. When that was done, I tried one in Hindi and understood it for a while, then I couldn't. So, what's up? I looked it up and it is a supposed paranormal phenomonon "discovered" ny Charles Richet in 1905 called Xenoglossy. Richet was a French parapsychologist and thus far there is no admissible evidence for this event. I would love to talk to someone about it, but it was temporary. Toward the end of the night, I turned "How to be really bad" back on and could not understand it. So that is about the weirdest thing to ever happen to me, at least recently. But it did put the day in perspective. I tossed that all behind me, put some music on Roku and got e-mail done, the blogs caught up, did some work on the new site (you can check it out if you want at cwklein.com - but it is just a shell right now), and relaxed. Tomorrow, I drop, then pick up right away and head back toward Illinois. Oh, and here is a citation for Xenoglossy if anyone wants to look into it. Xenoglossy. (2023, May 26). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenoglossy

Just a side note here. Netflix is a BUTT. They have changed their policy so you have to be on the same network to be in the same household or put yourself in "travel" mode, which requires two-factor authentication. Way to go Netflix, thank you so much (sarcasm intended) for supporting the truck drivers of the United States.

On Track.

I got a good night's sleep and was up with about three hours before I had to roll. I grabbed my big list and started from the top. That was something that I have been putting off for a while - the reading material list. I hit TradePub and downloaded every item that I had sitting waiting for me. And that turned out to be about 70 items. Ouch, apparently, the last time I downloaded my queue was in 2019. OYE VEY. But I have them now, and I am going through them for usefulness. About 1/3 of them will be obsolete or hype for a single product, but that still leaves close to 50 that will be useful. Ah time, you grevious biatch!

Once I got those downloaded and sorted out, I had about 50 left, as anticipated. I added those to the 1200 that I have on my external drive and I set them up on a schedule to go through, one by one, and identify those that don't have an interest anymore. I have some stuff on homesteading that is redundant, and I am going to remove the industrial level management stuff. That is beyond my kin and things I will never use. I am hoping to get that reading list down below 500, and I will go from there.

I had some time after I shut down at Love's, so I made some baked potatoes and tossed some hamburger on them. Not terrible. I watch a movie "Samaritan" staring Sylveter Stallone, and it is the first story in a long time that had a twist that I did not see coming. Not the greatest movie, but the twist was good. The acting was overdone, the storyline was unbelieveable, and the character deveopment was popcorn development. Just put it in the heat and see what comes out at the other end. Dinner and a movie out of the day, it was time for sleep. Tomorrow is the weekend run. Yee Haw.

The World Shifts

I did not start out the day well. I got about seven hours of sleep in the Love's at Newton, NE. but I was plagued with nightmares. Normally, I love a good nightmare, because I can lucid dream, grab the dreams, and turn them into my own personal playground. But that only works if I am prepared for the dream and have a trigger set to identify the dream and take control. Last night, such safeguards, which I usually put in place in evening meditation, were not there. So bad dreams that I could not control. One of them will never be discussed here, or anywhere. The other one, was about vicious bears that used the bathroom in a panel trailer, and then, as everyone scattered, came toward me, probably to rip me to pieces. I, resigned to my fate, crossed my arms and waited for teeth and claws. Before they could complete their charge, they became SHAVED bears and turned Jewish. I am counting this dream as a slip into the obscurity of madness. Because I have no way that I can figure out or justify the symbolism behind bald, Jewish bears. That is outside of my wheelhouse.

The rest of the day after wakeup, was okay. I did the work thing and then shut down. I did not make as far as I would have liked, but if I had pushed it, I would be pushing into Indianapolis for the night. Never a good choice. I did finish the final book of "Vatta's War" by Elizabeth Moon. It was predictable, but well written. Now I am on to "Eric" by Terry Pratchett. This is one of the disc world spin offs, and I can't wait to see what he did with it. We shall see. At the same time, I am formulating my evil plans. Getting off the truck, making sure that me and the family have all we need before that happens, getting the stories published (more on that later). All kinds of fun things. I am heading into a 34-hour break, so with some luck, I can get all things caught up. Dream on boy, dream on. (Areosmith, 1973 - I am just full of the musical references today, aren't I?

Break time!

So, down in Jasper, TN. and it is not where I thought it was. I mixed Jasper up with Lambsburg, VA. It is a much nicer place, except that the internet does not work. I will have to use my personal internet, but only in short bursts to save my data. I have a hell of a lot to do that does not require internet anyway. I am doing the new site, and most of that is offline. Right now, I am moving the blog to the new format. Oye, what a job, that is more than 50 years of stuff. And I have writing to do, lists to make, the truck to clean, food to cook, etc. I have canned music and movies, and I set that up on the TV, so I had something rolling in the background. So, I wound up spending the nap napping and working on projects. I will count it as a pretty good day.

Making use of my time.

Because I was down and did not have internet, I spent the day doing a bit of round-robin work on my stories, photos, sites and all. It was a pretty good day, even if it was a bit borning. I did grab a sandwich at Subway and double checked my timing for tomorrow and all. For the most part, it was very relaxing, so I will take it.

Calmness boy, calmness

Thankfully, I was napping when Haley called with the news about the cancellation. My patience is kinda at an end because this is going to toss the week into the air. We shall see how it works out. So, since I was sitting in the yard, all the way in the back lot, again out of internet range, I chose to work on my writing again, and cleaning up the truck. I am a bit on edge. The girls are traveling, I am stuck in Atlanta, and it has me in a bit of a foul mood.

I'm not well, ya know?

I spent the morning before my dispatch getting the previous blogs caught up to date and working on some of my writing. I did watch another episode of paper girls, and I think that gives me three episodes left before I'm done the series. And i still have no idea where they're going with the plot. That is Annoying as hell. The girls are on their adventure, and i am on my way to Connecticut for a drop on Thursday. I was not really feeling well today so I shut down early and went right to sleep. Sometimes you just have to revel in the easy days, even when they are annoying.

Evening before New England.

I had about five extra hours before I had to sleep because of location and appointment. After I got settle in, I did a little writing and worked on the back-blog, then settled in to watch TWO episodes of "Paper Girls" and that brought the series to a close. The funny thing is that I have watched the entire series now, and I still have NO IDEA what the plot was. No closure, no resolution, no advancement of the storyline. It is not memorable. It was interesting. I know that K.J. will grow up to be gay and will come terms with it and that Mack (McKenzie) will die at 16 years old of Brain cancer. But I also know that in the end, the bad guy becomes the good guy, and dies, the four girls are seperated, one of them invents time travel, and two of them are out of time in the 1950s. HUH? Even if they planned to continue the series, that is too many dangling strings.

Anyway. I finished the series, and now I am moving on to "Queen's Gambit". There are only a few of those. And then it was time for bed. I did make myself a nice noodle, pea, mushroom and beef casserole for dinner. Then I shut my curtains and said goodnight ot the world. I am feeling a bit off, but I am hoping it is just being tired. We shall see.

I am reminded of Pink Floyd.

I want to go home, take off this uniform and leave the show. That is from Pink Floyd, the Wall. And that is about how I feel today. I had such an excellent week last week, all things considered, and pulled an excellent paycheck. But one run into the Garden State, and the positive mood is shot to hell. Add to that a 14-hourPLUS day and it just sucks the big weanie. But wait, there is more. Sitting in my truck, in the (insert colorful phrase here) dock, waiting to be loaded, an a bleached blonde (I could tell from the roots, its not an assumption) walked up to the truck, bouncing in what I assume she considers all the right places, leans on the truck, showing off her goodies, and said...and I am serious... "Are you a truck driver?". I looked her in the eye, even though other things were trying to get my attention, and replied. "Pardonnez-moi jolie dame, je ne parle pas anglais. Je viens de France." Which means, "Pardon me pretty lady, I do not speak English, I am from France." Luis came to my rescue and chased her away. She bugs all the drivers when she is outside on break from the company across the street. Looking right at her, I said "No problem Luis, I am used to strange people doing strange things." She glared at me. I smiled and took my paperwork. Luis and I looked at each other and laughed our asses off. At least it was something funny for the day.

I got out of there, ignored the truck GPS that was trying to take the back way to Bordentown, and jumped on the turnpike. It did not save me much time, but at least I did not have to keep looking behind me for police because I was rolling on restricted roads. I hit the Molly Pitcher service area, treated myself to Panda Express, enough for dinner and then lunch tomorrow, and tried to get some rest. My dreams were plagued with playing with sky puppies. Those are bats if you did not know. What a weird dream. Huh?

Yeah, I am about done.

I am at the end of my patience here. No one has any drive anymore. I have noticed this on a lot of docks. People sitting around bullshitting when they should be working. A perfect example was the dock today. It was taking about 30 minutes for the dock operator to unload each truck, but it was also taking 30 minutes for him to START the unload. He was sitting talking on his phone between trucks. I could see the screen while he was standing behind my cab when he did not realize I could use my mirrors. I am pretty sure, considering the dancing that was going on with the video chat, that it was not a work call. But this is a trend lately. Unload a truck, take a long break, repeat. I wonder if it has always been this way and I just did not notice it. Hmm.

Anyway, I am down in Mebane, NC. at the Love's for the weekend, and it will be an unpleasant experience. I expected to be here, maybe overnight, not for two days. They have nothing. No coffee, no showers, I can't even refill my water and will probably have to buy bottled water. It is really annoying. But at least there is internet, even though it is slow as hell. But I shut down, made my dinner, pulled my last two protein packs to go in the fridge and micro-freezer, and watched the first episode of Queens Gambit. It's not really my thing, but I will give it a try. There are only like eight episodes. Shrug. Then it was time to get some rest. Tomorrow is another day.

The bad, the good, the bad....yeah, the good.

Mebane, NC. is not the best place to be for a weekend, but I am trying to make the best of it. I got a good night sleep and got up and started working through the day. I did the morning routine, then re-worked the round-robin. And then things got a bit tricky. I did the morning thing and a couple of rounds on the round-robin. But the weather outside was getting a bit rough. The cab was shaking from the wind and I lost my balance, sitting down right on my keyboard. Snappy snappy, and I lost the use of a few letters. That was an annoyance. And I don't have a backup with me. Bad planning. When I talked to the wife, I decided to get a replacement, at least for now, from Love's. That they DO have. $40 and I got a wired set that I can use for the next two weeks. The thought of going two weeks without email or updating the blog, well, that would not due. I will take this Ace set home and put it upstairs in my cubby and grab a replacement from the garage. Problem solved, for now.

Owie!

Laura and I worked on a private project for a bit, and the bad connection and brain-thinking made my head hurt more than it already did. So, I made a command decision. When I got off the phone, I binge watched The Queen's Gambit and completed the seven episodes. If you have not seen this series, I would highly recommend it, but with a caveat. The storyline is a bit dry, but it builds on itself until the final couple episodes where it becomes almost addictive. By the end, you can deeply relate to Elizabeth Harmon, the main character. Well done. Then it was time to do one nmore round of stuff and off to bed.

I have not stopped doing the artwork, I am just working on a series of things for the books and stories. For instance, this is Dr. Vivian Edgemond from one of the short stories. Her main feature is that she is blind in her right eye, which is a lot harder to depict in a portrait than in the written word. But since it is a key point in the story, along with her unnaturally red hair, I think that I hit it right. Hint: She is NOT a good guy.

Riding the motivation wave.

My mood was a relentless storm, the thunder claps of my anguish resonating in an invisible frequency. But I refused to bow down, standing tall against the fierce tempest of emotions, and powered forward with all that I had. I bet from that mini-introduction, you can figure out what I was doing today. You got it, I was doing the back-blogging and writing. I have 46 novel-length stories that are fleshed out. I also have 25 short stories with ideas and beats in place. I can finish any one of these, shorts or novels, in under a week. I need focus, and a plan. I need to rise above the fear of failure and do my thing. Freedom is where I live. The world is my home. Life is what I make it. I don't shrink back from fears and doubts; I use my strength to overcome them. This is who I am, who I was meant to be. That being said...

I spent the entire day delving into my creative world. I worked about five of the pieces of art from the past year, finished out the outlines of all 25 stories, and now I have the "beats" done for all but 17 of the novels. I have developed EVERY character, and I have started working their deep-descriptions and backstories. I rolled random movies and music in the background, a cacophony of sounds and colors filling my senses. I looked up from my computer screen to find "Pitch Perfect" running, its characters belting out harmonies that echoed through the room. The movie was almost at its climax, the tension palpable and heavy in the air. Despite the distractions, I found myself swept away by my own fictional worlds, lost in their twists and turns. Then it was time for chicken, potatoes, and peas for dinner. Considering that I made myself in-truck beef stew for breakfast/lunch, it has been a good eating day. The finale of the day was rocking out about 20 back-blogs, which was 18 more than I had planned, so that puts me way ahead on that project.

As I contemplate the move off the truck and back into a more stable and hopefully fulfilling life, I have to consider the consequences of these actions. I make a good living over the road, but the cost to family, and potentially sanity, is at risk. I have tried to sit and figure things out, but I just can't get my mind around some of the possibilities. I can set requirements, but they lead to delays and potential strife within myself and with those around me. The issue defies analysis, OR I am overlooking the potential for analysis out of a fear of change. I don't think that is it, but I do not discount the possibility. Sigh. Too much thinking to do.

Here comes a new project. As time allows, I am doing a single panel for each short story and novel on which I am working. Of course, I had to start with my first (ever) story, The 13th witch. A coming of age story about Jeanette, a young lady that has turned her back on her birthright as a witch. When she loses her mother after a long illness, the coven demands her compliance in taking leadership of the coven. Still denying that she is a witch, Jeanette is sent through time into one of her ancestors to face judgment in Salem during the burning times. If she can convince the village that she is innocent, she can return as a mortal. But if she is burned an accused witch, she must return to the present and take her place as the head of the coven. Can Jeanette change the course of history? Or will she die in the hand of early America?

Time, a bit extra.

I had a bit of extra time today. I made a bit ooops this morning and dropped about half a liter of water on my laptop, the good one. I was able to get it cleaned out, dried out, and fired up. But it is having all kinds of errors. It really slows down my ability to do the artwork for the books, but I will muscle through it for now. I was able to finish up the one above and start the next one. I made my dinner, fish and potatoes with peas, and then relaxed for the evening. A lot of things are coming together, and I am beginning to think that this past (horrible) weekend may have been preparing me for some good things. I got a call from Walmart, and a total of 42 responses. The ones with offers are low end, under $20 an hour. But there are a few ones in there that I am communicating with. I have been questioning my choices and potential choices, and it looks like Gaia may be answering those questions. We shall see.

Exit 43 is a story of a man in a snowstorm. When the driver of a big-rig pushes just a little too hard in a white out, he finds himself taking Exit 43 off of I-40 in Tennessee. The only problem is that there is not an Exit 43 and the diner that he waits out the storm in, has the strangest customers.

Feast or famine.

So, last night, after I got settled in for the night, I connected to my phone Wi-Fi and did the catch-up thing on email. I had almost 50 requests for contact from ziprecruter, Snag-a-job, et al. Granted, of those, about 35 of them were things like Aflac, "own your own company selling companies to other people", and "come sell insurance...". But that still leaves 15 or so that were worth a tickle. Plus Wal-mart Asset Protection. Lilith may just be tossing me a bone. Time will tell.

While in the docks, I did two interviews. One for a forensic analyst position with MPD and the other for a robotics company in Millington, TN. Both sound like a lot of fun, and the pay is over 90K, but they both require extensive background checks. I am not getting my hopes up on these two, but at least they helped me hone my interview skills via remote. That can always help.

When I finally shut down for the day, it was in Diamond, OH. at a Love's that I did not know was there. A nice surprise, because it will make morning much easier. I am still 1000 miles from where I am going to for Thursday morning. So every little bit helps. I finished up the next single-panel for Exit 43, and started work on the next one. Right now, I have done two short stories, and it is time to work on a panel for a novel. I am just not sure which one. The reason that I am doing this is I am slowly building cwklein.com and part of that is a marketing site for the stories and novels. But it is slow going. Oye. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. I have to roll hard and get as far West as I can before I shut down. I have a very tight window starting at 7:00am on Thursday, and I want to see how hard I can push it. I may wind up sitting all day, but we shall see.

When Abigail is abducted by a serial killer, the world changes for two people. It changes for Abigail because the incident unlocks something within her that she didn't know she had. But it changes more for her abductor, because he has no idea that he has bitten off more then he can chew with a cute victim of questionable sanity.

Push and down.

These are the days that I like. I started out right on time and was able to roll hard into Missouri, shutting down at the Love's. I made my dinner, some Asian Chicken, which was disappointing because it was supposed to be pork, but I forgot what meat was next. But I made it work. Then I watched an episode of "the Sandman" with a guest star of Jenna Coleman of Dr. Who fame playing a female version of Constintine. Then it was time for my daily battery of writing and off to sleep. I like it when the days roll like clockwork. I am not happy about doubling back to New Jersey, but it is home week, so I can take it.

One annoyance with my potential plans is that we have to get another car. Even with Rowan potentially heading back to Japan, the Jeep drinks a lot of gas. The trade-in value on it is pretty much bottomed out, and I use it to pull the cart, but it is impracticle for daily use at this time. So I jumped over to Carmax and took a look at thing. OYE. The thought of putting us another $15,000 in debt just pisses me off. I have to think of something else.

Brian is the most intelligent computer ever built and Brian can solve any problem put to him. Never tell a computer to solve the problems of the world.

On my way out of Kansas.

It was a very long day, working to the limits of the clock, and it is going to be that way tomorrow as well. But I got shut down, watched some "Family Guy" while dinner cooked, then worked on my writing. I am getting pensive about home-time, and then permanent home-time to come. There are just too many balls in the air, and I am not handling it well. I really need to center and balance, but every time that I try, another ball hits the air. Pfft.