They Are Here and Some Are Out Already

The new Volvos are here and some have already been put to the test as trucks break down. I'll be in mine in a few days and I can then give you a run down! Ironically Big Jim M got into his new Volvo this week when his old truck's turbo blew up. I seen to recall that he got into a new truck 4 some years ago when he collided with a deer and did in his front end! Sort of fishy.....no?

The World Cup of GADCO

GADCO stands for General American Door Company if you need to know. They have their own "World Cup" going on there. I'll tell you a story. As it unfolded in real life a while back it made my hair stand on end but its sort of funny now. My company pulls loads of doors out of GADCO. One day around noon I was hooking a trailer there when to my surprise a raging horde of 30 or so GADCO employees begins to charge out of the building directly toward me. I thought I'd better put in a call to the undertaker while wondering what I had ever done to deserve this fate. Within 30 seconds however the horde was running right past me to the noon break soccor game to commence in a open lot just beyond the row of trailers. Apparently they do this at noon every nice summer day. While driving around other parts of the Chicago area where many Hispanics work one can see many soccor games in progress during break times. Later that summer I was at GADCO again and they must have had their World Cup tournament play happening because I saw even some of the factory shirts out there in their little golf carts observing the action!

Will They Use Sticks and Brooms?

Could it be that soon the U S forces in Iraq will be driven out of the country with sticks and brooms manned by the common folk who no longer want our troops killing their neighbors, friends and relatives?
Look out Mr. President! Sooner or later they will have had enough!

Sometimes Lots of Wheels are Involved

Folks who haven't travelled in Michigan probably haven't seen trucks like these. Six, seven and eight axles carry the weight of their loads. These trucks gross weight loaded to the maximum legal limit is in the area of 170,000 pounds. They carry more than one and a half times the cargo a typical 18 wheeler can carry. Michigan and neighboring Canadian provinces allow these trucks on their major highways.

Two Years Have Gone with Two Years To Go

Seems like yesterday when I got the call from Julia's Daddy declaring her birth. Now she is according to her Mommy "the sweetest, smartest, most lovable sweetheart baby in the entire universe, and she's having a birthday!" My how time flies. But now in less than two years into the future I will be able to visit her and her sibling(s) and the third Grandchild (wherever in the world that one might be living) for weeks if not months at a time and be sure that they all have plenty of trips to McDonalds for Fun Meals and other "grandfatherly excursions". I truly look forward to spending time with them rather than with Volvo and a load of paper!

Pulling With Oars

A threesome of young men literally passed our boat on a canal north of Amersfoort. Were they training for the varsity? 

Pulling With a John Deere

Its very common to see large farm tractors on the dutch highways as they travel from field to field or even pull trailers filled with dirt. This one trailed us for a distance during a Dutch holiday traffic jam. 

Pulling With a Volvo

Yes, they pull with Volvos in Holland too!
Most popular though are the cabover tractors as they are shorter and thus more maneuverable on the streets of Holland's cities. 

Having a Bad Rubber day

Have you ever had one of those problems...or was it two at the same time? Drivers often will run home or to a shop with a flat. The problem shown occurs now and then when the three remaining tires can't hold the load and another one blows. I once was pulling a trailer from the Wisconsin Dells area to Wisconsin Rapids to a tire shop when a nice old man passed me and then excitedly hailed me down to let me know that I had a flat. Yes, I am aware of it I told him. I had heard it blow out a few miles back and parts the tire had wrapped around the axle and were dragging along. I guess he had never seen a real good blow out.

Ironwood, My Hometown

From the Ironwood Daily Globe

200 inches of snowfall to date Published Thursday, March 23, 2006 11:29:18 AM Central Time It's a psychological barrier, but an important one. "Want to let you know we've officially reached the 'over 200' mark for snow this season," said DeeGee Pawlicki of of the Western Upper Peninsula Convention and Visitor Bureau. "We didn't make it last year." For a region that markets itself as Big Snow Country, the 200-inch figure is a point of honor. "My official connection is the wastewater treatment plant, right out my window," Pawlicki said from her office near the Gogebic County Fairgrounds. "With four inches overnight, we now stand at 202.5 for the season, or 16.87 feet." The heavy snow created hazardous driving conditions Wednesday evening. The last measurements taken by the Gogebic County Road Commission at two of the region's typical snow "hot spots" show there's some catching up to do. As of March 17, the snow gauge at Copper Peak had received 170.5 inches, while the gauge north of Wakefield had received 184.7 inches.

When Will They Learn

As I drive around I listen to the radio a lot and hear the silliest speaking errors.
One that drives me up the wall is the pronunciation of the letter "W". Its not "doub you" or "doubo you" dummies. Its "double you". It is the only letter in the alphabet that has three (3) syllables. It should be easy to spot and pronounce correctly especially if the talker works for the University of Wisconsin system and does air work on WPR. And its worse yet if he/she has been anointed to record a series of station ID's most of which use the letter "W".

So many radio talkers also have the "myself" syndrome. Somewhere they got the idea that the word is a subjective or objective pronoun. Wrong! Using it as such is a serious grammatical error. Use "myself" only for intensive or reflective purposes. It cannot stand alone!

I continue to here talkers use the word "incidence" and "incidences" when they should be using "incident" or incidents". Hey, they are two entirely different words and anyone who is allowed to talk on the radio should know the difference.

Incident refers to

1. A definite and separate occurrence; an event.
2. A usually minor event or condition that is subordinate to another.
3. Something contingent on or related to something else.
4. An occurrence or event that interrupts normal procedure or precipitates a crisis: an international incident.

Incidence refers

1. The act or an instance of happening; occurrence: did not expect criticism and was surprised by its incidence.
2. Extent or frequency of occurrence: a high incidence of malaria in the tropics.
3. Physics.
   1. The arrival of radiation or a projectile at a surface.
   2. Angle of incidence.

What is the incidence of the incident. The incident happened three times. The incidents incidence was three! Got it now?

I'm at the point where I can't stand it anymore and tune to another station when some of these talkers air their talking problems. I'm ready to go to satellite radio where perhaps the quality of the presenters is better.

The Dying Will End!

If I heard right Wisconsin has had 32 snowmobile fatalities this winter. Finally someone over there has recognized the cause and is suggesting a55 mile per hour night time speed limit for these killing machines. Wow, what insight!

I Felt Like the Big Time

Its been a number of years since the dispatch gave me a reprieve from the up and down and the back and forth. Last week was such a reprieve. I left Sunday for deliveries Monday in Wisconsin and Illinois and then made an afternoon pickup in Montgomery, Illinois. That pickup delivered in Jackson, Michigan, Tuesday morning and I was then sent north to Pinconning, Michigan, to rescue a load which had been left there a few days before when a tractor broke down. That load delivered in Willard, Ohio, Wednesday and then I was sent to Streetsboro, Ohio, even farther east, for a pickup of steel for the U.P. mines. I made it back to the company's Quinnesec Warehouse on Thursday morning after logging 1950 miles in a rather enjoyable 5 day adventure. I even had some time to get connected and played Scrabble with Northfield and Rotterdam a couple of times. As an encore I then made a quick trip to Cincinnati to complete the week. Ah, the joys of trucking but will they soon end for this driver?

It is now Saturday 3/18/2006 at 5:46:24 PM
Event: Retirement at 65
Scheduled For 5/13/2008 11:05:00 PM
2 years 1 month 26 days 5 hours 18 minutes 36 seconds or
112 weekends or
787 days or
18,893 hours (12,595 waking hours) or
1,133,598 minutes or
68,015,915 seconds

Pony Express is Fast!

Wow! Uncle Sam wants to put tax refunds back into our check accounts as soon as possible so we can spend the bucks and keep the economy going. I think I e-filed on the weekend of February 11 and the refund was in my bank on February 24th. Now that is fast! But now I have nothing to spend it on so I think I will invest it instead in some stock in General Motors.

Volvo Turns Four

Talking about "driving around". Volvo turned 4 years old this week. She also needed the mechanics attention. The clutch master cylinder gave out rendering the clutch useless. Anyway we got it fixed and continued logging miles on Volvo to add to the 611,000 already on her. That's close to 3000 miles a week for each week she's been on the road. Her first pull was on February 19, 2002.

The Random Drug Test

The truck drivers you see out on the road are required by the rules of trucking (CFR 49 Part 382 available as e-CFR if one has about a week free to study the stuff) to submit to random drug tests. Now this is required of not only the known drug and alcohol users but also of those who never touch the stuff.
Now, this happened here in America and I hope I can tell the story as it unfolded and continues for the next two years for a fellow driver whom we'll call Joe. Joe is a career driver having owned his own truck and now has been with the company for about 4 or 5 years. He's about 50 and has never touched drugs and has a beer or two on the weekends. Joe was ordered (computer draw) to go to the drug testing place to yield a sample which he did. He signed some paperwork which was given to him to sign. He then asked the administering staff if that was all and was told it was. He left the office. The next day he was summoned to the company office and told that he needed to go back to the testing place. The doctor in charge there told him he had failed the test because he had not signed ( I think initialed) a seals on the urine containers. Now remember I said the attendant had told him is so many words that he was done. The attendant had not told him he needed to sign or initial those vials. I guess Joe should have had the knowledge of the testing procedure to do this. He didn't. Too bad for Joe. To make the long story short Joe is now attending substance abuse counseling for a while and will be on "probation" and must be tested a zillion times over the next couple years and was even threatened to be sent to anger management when he began to get a bit frustrated during discussions with the staff at the testing site and with the rehabilitation counselor. And to top it all off Joe must pay for all this out of his own pocket. What do you think?

Paying Bills

I think this is a bit funny. As the internet has become a real time saver for paying my bills it is ironic that the only bill I need to pay by delivered check or cash is my internet bill (I leave the only other bill payment check which is for my rent in the room where the hungry landlord scoops it up like a hawk catching a mouse)! I even inquired if she at the ISP office would take a credit card for payment. Nope, they hadn't progressed to that point in the financial world yet. Maybe someday but not this month. She bills me via email and a pdf file thing, I write out the check, and deliver it to the mail slot in the wall at their office a couple blocks down Vulcan Street. To save the bother of having to do this monthly I pay for two months at a shot. Strange isn't it. The only bill I have to pay by check and get delivered is my internet provider's bill!

It was an International Test Drive

As they in the office all say a trucker is never happy. Well, what do they know. They gave me this brand new International to take out for a ride. So I did. And after two days I was ever so happy to get back home and back into Volvo. A new truck is always a little hard shifting but this one would take a weeks learning. The tranny was the same as Volvo's but matching it to the more powerful engine would take some time. I enjoyed the extra power the 475 produced but the noise of the bigger engine and lack of adequate sound proofing plus added road and wind noise again from the lack of sound proofing exceeded my expectations. I would venture to guess that the noise level of that unit was 3 to 4 times that of Volvo. The noise would be very difficult to live with. Otherwise, the unit handled well and maneuvered well. I would really miss the fingertip cruise controls and the other controls on the Volvo's steering column. The International had the cruise, wiper, and other controls still on the instrument panel so the driver needs to release his right hand from the steering wheel and reach way up to use the controls. Also the turn signal switch was the old fashioned type which did not self cancel. Turn it on and turn it off was the order of the turn. I also missed the little chirping sound the Volvo's indicator produces. The "house" part of the cab was well apportioned except it lacked the little chest of drawers with the pull out tray the Volvo sports. There was no where one could set down a plate of food for instance. Its a lot of little stuff that adds up to a lot when one is accustomed to Volvo's amenities. I couldn't vote for this truck. Give me a Volvo with a bigger engine and I would be happy!

A Freightliner Test Drive

Today I forsake Volvo and get into a "Frightliner" or is it an International?????Some salesman would like to get Mr G to buy up some of his trucks so he dropped this one off last week and I have been appointed to "check it out" for a couple trips. Generally a truck is a truck but this one has a 475 hp engine so it is a bit "stronger" than Volvo's 350. I'll try to report on the test runs soon. I sure hope Volvo won't mind. Oh well, its only a truck.

Mourning Dove

This is one my personal mourning doves. They land on the stairway roof just outside my window for a bit of water from sun melted snow.

One of "Those Days"!

It actually started one hour before Wednesday started so lets start then! I arrived at my destination 13 hours late having been sent out about that many hours late by the company. Of course it was shift change time so meetings were going on and the usual before work conversations needed to be attended to. Anyway I was sent to a dock area to wait until the spotter pulled a trailer out. He got to doing this about an hour later. I then could back in and relax......doze a bit waiting for the clamp lift to begin taking the load off. He got there about an hour and a half later. It was 2:30 am or three and a half hours after my arrival that I found a parking spot and went to sleep.
About nine I decided to head her home through the snow. The difficult travelling conditions added a few minutes to the 350 mile trip. At about 4pm I got my next dispatch. Pick up the trailer at the warehouse and finish loading at the mill next door. I got to the mill just in time for their shift change! Another hour and a half wait! Finally loaded I was making my way out of the mill when Volvo's warning lights give me a show! The electrical system had a malfunction and the voltage was down to 11 volts. The engine died as there was not enough voltage to sustain the necessary functions. The mechanic got there in about an hour and found no bad connections so we went back to the shop and picked up some new batteries which were installed and I drove the truck back to the shop.A new alternator was installed and in another hour I was on the road again! I was heading for "the cities"!
But not for long. About 40 miles out, bambi decides to cross the road. SMACK. I got to the the next safe spot to stop and sure enough the green is dripping from the radiator! Not a real bad leak but enough to require immediate attention. I headed her home. Now when the reservior above Volvo's radiator goes dry the engine shuts down. I had a gallon of drinking water which I dumped in the first time the warning lights for a shut down came on and made it to an open establishment for more water the second time. Into the shop I eventually drive again and we found the minor leak at the juction of a hose with the radiator! At least bambi had not damaged the radiator. The lose hose was clamped down and I was again ready to hit the road.
But not for long. It was now 8 hours after getting home from the previous fiasco and I had made no progress toward my destination except getting loaded so why hurry now? It was bedtime! The load got to there Thursday afternoon.

Two for the Price of One

A real deal in the old days was a buy one meal get one free but now it is buy one Kia and get the second one free! I heard it on the radio. I can't remember where for sure but I think it was a northern lower Michigan radio station. How about that. Buy one Kia SUV and get an $18,000 Kia sedan or whatever free for the kids!
I also heard another ad in Minnesota which advertised a huge purchase of Chevy Cavaliars and Pontiac Grand Ams by a dealer who was now passing the savings on to anyone who needed two new cars at once. With absolutely no money down one could drive home one of each for only $389 monthly. I guess it would be best to tow one home or bring a second driver with. I didn't hear for sure how many months but maybe till Social Security kicked in or the like. What a deal! Again 2 for one low monthly payment! One for you and one for the kids!

The Very Same Buck!

It was sometime in the mid 40's when an uncle of mine, an excitable sort, shot at and dropped an immense buck. Being a most law abiding type he immediately applied the metal locking tag required to be so affixed to the bucks antler. As he "whewed" and tried to stop his shaking (buckfever) all of a sudden the buck shot up and took off into the swamp. Apparently bucko had only been knocked out by the bullet. My uncle sat there dazed and dumbfounded! Vowing to get him he continued the hunt that year but the wiley buck eluded uncle's quest.
The following season uncle returned to the very spot of the previous years activity, found a cozy stump to sit near and settled down to wait. It wasn't much more than an hour when along came an immense form of the buck through the brush. Could it be the one he dealt with last year? Uncle took care to take good aim and fired. The buck dropped in its tracks! Uncle carefully approached ready to blast again if necessary and then dropped down to count the points on the rack! But what should he notice? The metal tag from last year was still affixed and proved to all that this big one got away once but not twice!

Dude with Rack

Look at the rack on this dude!


The Iron Mountain paper had this to say about "the dudes" one of which is pictured here in Theresa Peterson's photo in today's The Daily News


Older bucks will represent a larger proportion than normal of the buck segment of the Upper Peninsula deer herd in the upcoming firearm deer season, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. They should also show excellent antler development.
Theresa Peterson/Daily News Photo

Jim Anderson had this to say in the related article:

Bigger bucks
By JIM ANDERSON News EditorIRON MOUNTAIN — Hunters in Dickinson, Iron and Menominee counties might see fewer deer this year, but the bucks that hunters do spot should be bigger, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.The state’s 16-day firearm deer season opens Tuesday.Tuesday’s opening day forecast calls for mostly cloudy skies with a 50 percent chance of snow and a high near 31. It might also be breezy.Wednesday’s forecast is partly sunny with a high near 31.Winter deer herd losses in the southern Upper Peninsula were minimal, the DNR said. However, there will be fewer young bucks because of poor fawn production in 2004, wildlife biologists predict.
Hunters in Dickinson, Iron and Menominee counties might see fewer deer this year, but the bucks that hunters do spot should be bigger, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.The state’s 16-day firearm deer season opens Tuesday.Tuesday’s opening day forecast calls for mostly cloudy skies with a 50 percent chance of snow and a high near 31. It might also be breezy.Wednesday’s forecast is partly sunny with a high near 31.Winter deer herd losses in the southern Upper Peninsula were minimal, the DNR said. However, there will be fewer young bucks because of poor fawn production in 2004, wildlife biologists predict.

The Mourning Dove: To Hunt or Let Live

Should we or should we not hunt these little creatures?
This is a mourning dove apparently so named because of its making a "mourning" sound.
Many states allow hunting of the beast but Michigan is locked in controversy at this time. At first hunting was to be allowed in a few southern Michigan counties but a petition drive put the hunt on hold.
I am well aquainted with a family of these birds which live where I live. They frequently land on the roof of the stairwell just outside my big window. I've offered them food which they enjoy. Often as I descend the stairs to my car they scare the hell of of me by flying out and up from under the stairs where they apparently have gathered for a snack of gravel.
A dozen or so can be seen on most days on the electical wires or rooftops in the neighborhood.
What do you think? Should we let these tiny little beasts coo around and eat gravel or should we allow hunters in southern Michigan blast them out of the sky as they pass over! Or should we just sit and chuckle as the bird huggers and bird hunters argue their cases?