Which Way Do I Go?

 

Crap, it's gone again. When I used to blog regularly I'd often carry you, the reader, with me throughout the day. I'd talk to you, describing what I was doing or thinking about. Most of it was discarded, but there was often something worth relating and when I came to write I'd already have a sort of rough draft. I found myself doing that again. I'm not sure why. The only trouble is that I never sat down to write, until now, and now I can't remember what it was that I was thinking.

I do remember one thing. I was driving through the construction on 37, I mean 69. It was raining. The lanes have shifted in various ways over the course of the project and the water made the old lines show up as prominent as the current lines, which have faded somewhat. It was really bad. I had to consult my knowledge of the roadway at times, which I could since I drive that stretch every day. I don't know how people unfamiliar with the area coped and I wondered how a self driving vehicle would deal with a situation like that. Would it just shut down and ask for manual input? What would happen if one car's software interpreted the lines correctly, but another car in the adjacent lane followed the wrong path? I think transportation departments are going to have to spend a lot more on maintaining their road markings when self driving vehicles become common.

I remembered an incident that happened to me a few years ago. I've told this story before, but that was way back in my original blog The Reluctant Trucker, so it won't hurt to tell it again. I was in a construction zone on I 95 in Connecticut. It wasn't raining but it was dark and the lane markings were faded. Traffic was moderately heavy and I was in the middle lane doing about 50 with cars on either side, but none in front of me, when we came to a lane shift. Earlier the lanes had shifted in an equal, opposite direction and those markings were still visible. With no familiarity with the roadway I didn't know which way to go.

It was a crisis moment. There was no chance to stop before the shift and if I made the wrong choice only a miracle could have prevented an accident, maybe even a pile up. The way that I tell the story I heard a voice in my head that said, “Use the Force Steve.” I actually remember it that way, but it's more likely that's something I commented to myself in the exhilaration after it was all over. After all I was busy using the Force.

I Zen'd it. I let go, my body did the driving. I assume that I picked up cues from the cars that were beside me, that I could only see as lights and shine in my convex mirrors because the result was a smooth 50 mph transition to the new traffic pattern, just as if I knew the road like the back of my hand.

Will artificial intelligence be able to use the force? Perhaps better than we flawed humans.

Will artificial intelligence have a soul? Do we?

Sorry, questions for the discussion group.

 

Sodden Nightmare

 

The world is green again! Regardless that it was a mild winter Spring is most welcome. It makes driving around Southern Indiana a pleasure and the work that I do securing loads a tolerable burden. Well, mostly. Driving is still stressful, always, and while the work may be tolerable it isn't any easier. It's still work.

I remember extolling the virtues of working out of doors to some kid who'd hired on with us when I was building swimming pools. Fresh air and sunshine rather than recycled air and artificial lighting. Healthy physical labor rather than sitting in a cubicle or on an assembly line. I was in my early twenties, he was in his late teens which shows how relative being “a kid” can be.

I am sometimes still “the kid” in a group of friends, but at 59 I'm almost grown up, and I still stand by my recommendation of working out of doors. There's a big difference between what I was doing then and what I'm doing now though. Back then when inclement weather hit I got a day off; today I'm out in it. That's what can make my work sometimes “intolerable,” especially in winter. I put intolerable in quotes because of course I do tolerate it. Why, in these very pages I have numerous examples of times I've done so, and I still keep coming back for more, which brings me to the true subject of this post.

Monday of this week it rained steadily all day. With temperatures in the mid to upper 40's it was cold too. My first assignment of the day was to deliver a load to Heitink, an architectural veneer manufacturer located here in Bloomington. We deliver a lot to them and I'm not sure if it's a wood or a paperboard product, a backing for their veneers I presume, but I know that it definitely has to stay dry. “Are they going to take it today?” I had to ask. Some places who handle moister sensitive materials have provisions for unloading in the rain, like an indoor bay or a roofed pad, but not Heitink, as far as I knew. The dispatchers just shrugged. “I guess I'll take it over there and see,” I said.

”Take it over and see,” my boss echoed.

The road that Heitink is on is also home to Rose and Walker Drywall, another product that must remain dry. Another driver was folding his tarps in the road preparing to deliver some drywall, which was covered with plastic underneath the tarps. He didn't look happy, even gave me a dirty look as I eased by. “Easy dude,” I thought. “Been there, done that (having delivered drywall in the rain before), and I may well be in the same boat.”

I usually just pull into Heitink and start untarping but today I figured I'd better see if they were going to accept the load first. I walked in and looked around until I found a forklift driver who didn't avert his eyes when I looked at him. “Please don't tell me you're a flatbed driver,” he said as I approached.

His greeting made me hopeful. “I am, but I can come back tomorrow if you can't take the load in the rain.”

”Nope, sorry,” he returned. “We've got to take it, we need the material.” My heart sunk. We discussed the logistics of the operation. He wanted me in front of the loading docks so they could get the board inside as quickly as possible. If any other trucks came in they'd just have to wait. They were going to go on break in about five minuets so I was to unstrap and when they came back from break we'd unload. I'd have to peel the tarp back as we went to keep the rest of the load dry. My heart hit bottom. Those tarps are not easy to manage when they're dry, wet they're a nightmare and to peel them back a little at a time even worse. Hey, I'd done it before and survived...

When I got back outside my heart sunk just a wee bit more. I hadn't noticed before but the straps were underneath the tarps. I couldn't unstrap, I'd have to do that as I went and be left to fold the tarps and roll the straps after they were all done. I wondered if they'd send somebody back out with a forklift to put my tarps on the trailer when I was finished. The damn things are heavy enough dry, I was afraid I'd hurt myself if I tried to lift them wet.

Then came the first bit of good news of the day. I discovered that there was a sheet of plastic underneath the tarps. I was able to completely untarp before we started to unload. Of course when I pulled the front tarp off the wind took the plastic and tried to run with it. The other tarp held it in place though and I was able to scramble onto the trailer and avoid any damage. After that I was careful to secure the plastic as I eased the other tarp off. The hooks on the ends of the loosened straps were perfect for weighing it down.

I was able to get the front tarp folded before I heard the forklift bumping down the gravel path that it always comes from at Heitink. The second tarp had come off in a jumble and was going to take some work to straighten before I could fold it. My goal was to have both tarps folded before the forklift left so that I didn't have to ask it to come back. I was alternately up on the trailer peeling back the plastic and throwing straps, and down on the pavement folding my tarp. The rain kept coming down. I finished folding about the same time the lift driver finished unloading.

The lift driver put the tarps onto the trailer then drove over to me. I was expecting the paperwork but noticed that he didn't have any. “The paperwork inside?” I asked. He nodded, then said, “Today's the kind of day why I said I'd never drive a flatbed. A conestoga maybe, but never a flatbed.”

I mumbled something about how my job sometimes sucks, but as he pulled away my true thought was, “What's your point?” I couldn't read him. I'm always ready to be nice but was he just giving me respect or calling me a fool? I'm thinking the latter, or I would have felt the respect. I watched his fat giggle as he bounced back along that gravel path to the dim warehouse where he spends his days.

It's no wonder I was in a foul mood, wet as I was and disrespected to boot. So there I was dripping and shivering in the dispatch office, thinking I'm going to catch my death, when they send me out on another mission without any inquiry about how the delivery went, or anything close to a thank you. I kept hoping that it was going to be a short day because of the rain but it kept going, mission after mission until Herk and Steve were both gone and it was just Dave left when I clocked out, the guy who stays late.

”I'm sure glad this day's over,” I said. Dave laughed like it was some kind of a joke. I slunk out, still sore and thought, “These guys wouldn't last ten minutes doing what I do, on a good day.” That's when it hit me: what I had endured was just a part of my job. No, those dispatchers or that forklift driver wouldn't last ten minutes, but it was their choice not to do what I do. So they sit in an artificially lit office breathing stale air, except on the best of days when the door is propped open, and don't get any exercise. I'm out in the fresh air (never mind the diesel fumes) and get plenty of exercise. Sometimes the weather keeps it real, but I'd rather have it real. I may be overweight, but I'm not fat.

When I got home I peeled off my wet cloths, literally, and took a warm shower. I put on my pjs and started a fire in the wood stove. I'm telling you, you can't get comfort like that without first having endured.