Questions

 

Maybe it's not the speed of light. Maybe it's another modality, like the rate that dark matter decays.

I'd once read that if you travel the speed of light you could be everywhere in the universe at once. That means every when too, right? There is, after all, only now.

But that doesn't make sense. It still takes time for light to travel. Or does it?

So the reason we don't have single payer health care, like the rest of the Civilized World is that during the great recession it didn't make sense to put all those people working for the devil out of work? I agreed at the time but I'm having second thoughts.

How 'bout the Military? Who they all working for?

The easy answer is the American Taxpayer, and Military personel in turn pay taxes, but ask the women and children of North Waziristan. Have they even heard of due process?

 

Footsore and Shoeless

 

It was a rude awakening earlier this year when I stepped into a puddle of water in my GorTex® lined boots and my foot got wet. It was the start of the end. The uppers were actually sewn into the soles so the shoes might have been saved, but the waterproof membrane had already been breached. Then just leave it to me to jump right on the situation. I made them last as long as I could. They weren't flopping yet, but were coming undone on both sides from the instep to damn near the toe.

Someone suggested I could get more use out of them if I duct tapped the sole to the upper once the last threads let go. Only I've done that before. What does a poor boy do? He put cardboard in his shoe. The duct tape wears through quickly. You need to carry a roll.

The deciding factor was when I realized that my recent back problems were attributable to the shoes. So, to make long story short; I got myself a fine pair of new boots. Not cheap either, that don't make no sense. That last pair gave good service for a decade. I'm not sure these will last as long wearing them everyday for work, but I won't be gong back for another pair in a couple of years, and it was the only pair that advertised a waterproof membrane, though without a brand name, rather than the simple unqualified claim of "Waterproof."

I do have some pictures for you. I do have something more to say. Please be patient.

 

 

 

Nowhere Like Home

I found a penny, heads up. Good luck! Does that mean that I'll get to go into work or stay home? These are the lean times and I need the work, but I'd still rather stay home. I'm turning into a hermit. I never want to leave the house. I like it here, humble as it may be.

Touch Base

 

I don't claim to have a blog anymore. Every time that I've told someone about this recently I never heard from them again. So then I go back and review what I'd written "lately" and I realize it's all crap. I just can't win friends and influence people this way anymore, as I once did.

Let it be a testimony to my demise.

So let's review, let's look at that last post, Epic Nightmare. It was a nightmare. I talked to John. He didn't refuse it. They had him do the first run because he'd done the gig before, he knew the ropes. It was intended for me all along. That's cool, so let's get to the nightmare part.

Did I mention it was a landfill? I can't recall ever having had an olfactory dream until after playing around on the top of Vigo county, and it was very specific. But that's just troubled sleep.

What is a landfill? Trash (with garbage) and dirt, fresh dirt. John's parting words of advice were, "Pray it doesn't rain."

It was a sloppy mess in dry conditions. Three days in there was precipitation. It was a constant drizzle on the way over to Terre Haute, punctuated by intense but brief downpours. The loader at Certainteed said that he'd dodged one of those to get my load strapped down. I told him how it was and said that if it came a downpour I was going to sit it out in the truck. We agreed that would be the best idea.

The next time that I saw him he was telling me how he'd been caught in a squall. I had to admit I'd been caught with my pants down too. I mean, there I was trying to unstrap the load when the storm hit, with the lift driver waiting, temps near freezing and the wind screaming like you're on Hoosier Hill or something. Yeah, it was hell, and come to find out that I'd left the door to my cab open, now my seat was wet.

Then there are the niceties of the predicament like trying ever so hard to throw the straps so that they'd land on top of the load, but having the wind carry them straight into the mud. And what about when temperatures went below freezing, which they surely did, and you had do deal with those mud laden frozen straps with your fingers screaming to be cut off?

It's all in a day's work.

There's no way I could convey all the ways in which that job sucked, but now we come to the reason for this post: I have a couple of friends who have mid level management positions over at Cook. They've been trying to recruit me. Sure I'd start out impoverished but I'd have insurance and get a raise every six months. Why, I'd be simply poor in no time at all and eventually I'd be middle class.

It sounds great, once I got through the introductory period. We don't need to hire Mexicans to do this stuff, we got Hoosiers. But I could make do, I know how. Only I couldn't imagine myself going to the same building every day to go to work, even if my tasks got progressively harder.

When again would I get to see the curve of the Earth in Indiana without travelling to the big lake, or be able to observe the scavenger habits of sea gulls and crows and their less than admirable interactions, or the joy of revving my engine into life and watching them all scatter hither yon by appointed principle?

Yeah, it was hell to go through, but novelty is worthwhile as well as the satisfaction in doing a job well done, and in the respect one gets from doing so.

I wanted to win the lottery and asked the I Ching why I didn't. In clear, unambiguous language it said that there was much more to be gleaned from life than could be gained from the luxury that wealth could offer.

I'm still going to buy a ticket someday, I'm sure.

 

Epic Nightmare

 

John did it first. The only thing I can figure is that he turned them down, said, "No way."

I've told you about Certainteed before, the manufacturers of cement-board siding for houses. The stuff that is meant to withstand the weather, stored outside and shipped in waterproof cozys but still needs to be tarped?

They've got some discontinued product. A lot of discontinued product, and they're sending it to the landfill. I got a clear answer that they tried to sell it, but I still don't know if they tried to give it to Habitat for Humanity or anything.

So I go back and forth generally five times a day to haul a heavy, sometimes very heavy (overweight) load up a slippery slope to the top of Indiana. I don't know the elevation but what could Hoosier Hill have on this place. I can see the curve of the Earth up there.

And the wind blows, and it's muddy, and flatbedding generally sucks! Did I mention that it stinks?

So, it's all good. I've got pictures, of this and limestone too. You poor misused friends who read me.

I'll catch up.

 

3D Hills

 

Terry Gross is one of my heroes. She's the shit!

I should have taken Ernest's advice. Well I did the easy part, I wrote drunk. I just didn't follow up and edit sober. Details, details. I'll let it stand. It's true, after all. My sentiment, that is. Whether global warming is a hoax or not still seems to be in some dispute.

I was strapping down a load over at Indiana Limestone in Oolitic. Another driver was doing the same next to me. He drove for Boyd Bros out of Washington, IN. He was the talkative sort and asked me if I'd ever considered driving for his outfit. My warning systems went off immediately. "This guy wants to take advantage of the 'recruitment bonus' that so many companies offer, as much as a thousand bucks if your new hire lasts a year."

"Nah, I'm pretty happy where I'm at," I replied.

Did I really say that? Happy with this nightmare?

The guy kept rambling on but since I'd released him from potential gain all he had to say for the company were complaints: problems with the dispatchers, problems with the logistics...problems, problems, problems.

It's tough all over. I could relate to what he was saying, though mostly in retrospect. "That's one of the things I really like about Stonebelt," I said, "they've all been drivers, they know what it's like."

I had to take a hit on the equipment. His rig was nice and new and I was obviously driving a worn out piece of shit, hooking to a battered old trailer, but in the end it's true; I'm fairly happy with this gig, and I do like the people that I work with and for.

Why just the other day I discovered a new scenic route. I'd earlier recommended US 50 from Bedford to Lagootee. I still do, but once you climb the hill just outside Lagootee stop at the overlook park; that was the only reason to go past Shoals anyway; then turn around. On the far side of Shoals follow US 150 East. You'll see what I'm talking about. That might be the hilliest, curviest highway in Indiana, I dunno. I do know that it's beautiful. You come down out of the hills into French Lick so you can visit the casino before heading home, if you want to, or why not just stay there at the resort!

I got a boost the other day. I was being loaded over at Victor Quarry and the guy who was before me came over to ask advice in securing the load. He was new to trucking. He'd been a contractor until "the bottom fell out."

Interlude: Another one of those. I don't know how many former contractors, carpenters, stone masons, bricklayers I've met in the last year. It's definitely a theme. There's no telling how skilled they may have been at those jobs since the housing bubble scooped up so many laborers into its maw and may have simply spit them back out again, but it's encouraging that these new drivers fulfilling the present "driver shortage" may have had some other experience before getting behind the wheel of a big truck, at least, on this race to the bottom.

I had to admit my own ignorance, but gave him what help I could. Later, when he was ready to go but the exit lane was blocked by other trucks he came over to chat while I strapped down. "So you're local?" he asked (I drive a day-cab).

"Yes," I replied.

"You lucky..." At first I thought it was that I got to go home every night he envied but it became clear that he was quite taken with the area.

The bottleneck opened and he left. I left shortly after. When I came down the big hill and around the sharp curve and there he was almost in the ditch on the side of the road with his flashers on. You don't understand, there is no shoulder, soft or otherwise, but there is a ditch, at least in that spot.

"Oh no," I thought, "what trouble has the new driver gotten himself into?"

There was a car behind him that after some hesitation zoomed past. I was going to stop but as I approached he climbed back up on the road and started off. When he came to the entrance to the 3-D Mill he pulled into the drive. I stopped in the road with my flashers on. I still don't have a CB so I wanted to make sure he was alright.

"Did you see that old railroad trestle back there? It must be a hundred years old! I was trying to get a picture of it." By that time of the day I knew that they were done at 3D, who have another drive anyway, so I told him he could stop right there and get as many pictures as the remaining daylight allowed.

He was from Norther Illinois. I don't know whether he thought this was Appalachia or what, but he was quite taken with the area.

 

White Buffalo

 

I'm just going to lay it out for you folks:

I'm a Doomsayer. I wish it weren't so but I saw it when I was a child and thought, "No, the adults are responsible, they know what they're doing."

Ooops.

It's become clearer and clearer to me; one whose mind grows foggier and foggier with drink and age.

Thank goodness that as my post-op transsexual friend who knows she's a Goddess says, "It's all good."

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.