Hello everyone
So I asked my driver manager to get me up to the Springfield Mass area for Easter weekend, and he sends me down to North Carolina. I've been getting crappy miles all week, so I took the run. Now I'm stranded in Bristol Va at least until tuesday because my truck broke. The local office depot had this here toshiba laptop for $450 after the mail in rebate so I bought it and a length of cable to connect to the interweb and here i am. I don't know if it's a great computer but it was cheap and I'm cheap and not making tons and tons of money just yet. I shall leave a few things out of this entry as there are pics to go with and I don't have my cable to download from the digicam onto here.
Only Lizzi seems to have commented in my journal in my absence. I love you lizzi! I want to give you hugs and kisses and a good hard rogering.
Anyways, trucking is rather a combination of beautiful mornings and some frustrating bullshit. You just have to let being flow. good things pass away, you cannot take refuge in the nice places with the nice people you find, but then the crappy places and situations you get into pass away as well.
Last weekend I took what in one sense was a pretty crappy run, 350 miles over three days, but it afforded me the opportunity to goof off over the weekend, to take my time and some stuff. It was kind of aggravating in a certain sense because the load was heavy, 42000 pounds of dog food to haul through mountainous west virginia with a pitiful 400 horse engine, but it was cool to pass through the state, very poor and rural, but full of the fresh green and breath of the new spring. When I picked up the load in ohio it wasn't ready yet so i ended up hanging out in the guard shack at the distributor's place playing guitars with the security guard. then the next morning i had a hell of a time getting the load legally balanced on the rear wheels because the tandem slider pin was real stubborn and the scale at the distributor was very erratic.
Anyway, WVA was an interesting drive through. Charleston looks like a cool city to visit but I didn't see anywhere to park within city limits. About an hour south of charleston though is a craft place called tamarack where I saw a string quartet play some nice stuff, and then I ended up hanging out with Greg and Tish westman, and a couple of friends of theirs; playing guitars and dulcimers and psalteries. check out their website at westmaninstruments.com.
The way I feel in my heart right now is kind of weird. I have a problem dealing with the meaninglessness of work. In a certain sense I feel like i'm wasting my life and shouldn't be doing this; i should be a college professor. But the problem with that it that being a college professor is really, as I see it, just a sort of accounting. I attended some guest lectures of profs applying for a position at the umass classics department when i was trying to get into teaching latin, and their description of the academic work that they did was disheartening, horrilble exhaustive cataloging of data. very little in the way of soaring with ideas.
so in a certain way being a trucker is a lot like being a classics prof/archaeologist, you put a lot of long hours into very boring work, but you get the opportunity go to see some places and get to meet some cool people.
One thing that I've noticed about myself that's different now is that I have a certain internal longing to get jobs done. I sort of feel like i've failed at something because my truck broke and i'm just hanging out for a long weekend and someone else had to come get the trailer and bring the load to its final destination.
I hope I can get home next weekend, see my cats and put up some pictures on my next blog entry.
I just noticed that this motel 6 has wireless and i didn't need to buy the cable, but I've already opened up the box and torn it up. shit. well, maybe sometime I'll actually need the cable. but not if I get that cingular card. . bah, sometimes I do stupid shit.
I shall have to go down to the local starbucks and do a little drawing. everywhere you go in the usa you can find pretty young women to watch at starbucks. If i could get my internal inhibitions quelled i might even manage to talk to one sometime. you also find attractive women at mexican restaurants, i've noticed. whatever; hopefully with this laptop i can be a little less out of touch with the world, now.
aleikum salaam
So I asked my driver manager to get me up to the Springfield Mass area for Easter weekend, and he sends me down to North Carolina. I've been getting crappy miles all week, so I took the run. Now I'm stranded in Bristol Va at least until tuesday because my truck broke. The local office depot had this here toshiba laptop for $450 after the mail in rebate so I bought it and a length of cable to connect to the interweb and here i am. I don't know if it's a great computer but it was cheap and I'm cheap and not making tons and tons of money just yet. I shall leave a few things out of this entry as there are pics to go with and I don't have my cable to download from the digicam onto here.
Only Lizzi seems to have commented in my journal in my absence. I love you lizzi! I want to give you hugs and kisses and a good hard rogering.
Anyways, trucking is rather a combination of beautiful mornings and some frustrating bullshit. You just have to let being flow. good things pass away, you cannot take refuge in the nice places with the nice people you find, but then the crappy places and situations you get into pass away as well.
Last weekend I took what in one sense was a pretty crappy run, 350 miles over three days, but it afforded me the opportunity to goof off over the weekend, to take my time and some stuff. It was kind of aggravating in a certain sense because the load was heavy, 42000 pounds of dog food to haul through mountainous west virginia with a pitiful 400 horse engine, but it was cool to pass through the state, very poor and rural, but full of the fresh green and breath of the new spring. When I picked up the load in ohio it wasn't ready yet so i ended up hanging out in the guard shack at the distributor's place playing guitars with the security guard. then the next morning i had a hell of a time getting the load legally balanced on the rear wheels because the tandem slider pin was real stubborn and the scale at the distributor was very erratic.
Anyway, WVA was an interesting drive through. Charleston looks like a cool city to visit but I didn't see anywhere to park within city limits. About an hour south of charleston though is a craft place called tamarack where I saw a string quartet play some nice stuff, and then I ended up hanging out with Greg and Tish westman, and a couple of friends of theirs; playing guitars and dulcimers and psalteries. check out their website at westmaninstruments.com.
The way I feel in my heart right now is kind of weird. I have a problem dealing with the meaninglessness of work. In a certain sense I feel like i'm wasting my life and shouldn't be doing this; i should be a college professor. But the problem with that it that being a college professor is really, as I see it, just a sort of accounting. I attended some guest lectures of profs applying for a position at the umass classics department when i was trying to get into teaching latin, and their description of the academic work that they did was disheartening, horrilble exhaustive cataloging of data. very little in the way of soaring with ideas.
so in a certain way being a trucker is a lot like being a classics prof/archaeologist, you put a lot of long hours into very boring work, but you get the opportunity go to see some places and get to meet some cool people.
One thing that I've noticed about myself that's different now is that I have a certain internal longing to get jobs done. I sort of feel like i've failed at something because my truck broke and i'm just hanging out for a long weekend and someone else had to come get the trailer and bring the load to its final destination.
I hope I can get home next weekend, see my cats and put up some pictures on my next blog entry.
I just noticed that this motel 6 has wireless and i didn't need to buy the cable, but I've already opened up the box and torn it up. shit. well, maybe sometime I'll actually need the cable. but not if I get that cingular card. . bah, sometimes I do stupid shit.
I shall have to go down to the local starbucks and do a little drawing. everywhere you go in the usa you can find pretty young women to watch at starbucks. If i could get my internal inhibitions quelled i might even manage to talk to one sometime. you also find attractive women at mexican restaurants, i've noticed. whatever; hopefully with this laptop i can be a little less out of touch with the world, now.
aleikum salaam
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
I definitely would like to be a trucker if so.
I bet you could do a very interesting photo /poetry /napkin doodle project from meeting all those girls across the land.
So I hired a lawyer. To hell with it. I'd rather spend $600 fighting "the man" than just succumb to the BS. I'm only doing so because they required me to go to court. They coulda just had their money, but if they're going to make it hard on me then I shall reply in kind.
Anyhow, broken down trucks suck. It happens to everyone, true. BUT... it is nice when you always go to the same shop. They know you, they know the truck. They lube it every 10k, change the oil every 20k. Aggressive maintenance pays off in the long run. Now if only my A/C was working properly...