other dog

The news was on a minute ago and they had a list of people called "wingnuts of the year". Alan Keyes was on it because he said Obama was a Nazi and a communist-the people of Illinois knew it, and now the rest of America would know it. I've heard him speak before and he's a man I would vote for. He also said if something doesn't change the U.S. as we know it will cease to exist-sounds familiar, doesn't it? Rush Limbaugh was also on the list for comparing Obama to Hitler. It was on CNN of course. That's why I like Fox News.

Hope I haven't burned it on the outside-got my coleman lantern out there, but it's still hard to see.

Todd's got a bunch of Columbias. I drove one to Dillwyn once to pick up a load of kyanite while my truck was being serviced. Felt like I was turning over all the way. You can see good out of them though. I always thought the Centuries looked like a possum in the face, where the Columbias look more like a chipmunk.

drove a couple of Freightliners at H.H.'s. Pictures didn't come out too good, took it from pictures in a photo album.

I'm up because I put a boston butt and a piece of boneless tenderloin on the grill to smoke at 4 am. Might be done by noon. I always wake up early anyway-except when I gotta go to work

Thanks, I'll give that a try. I had the big bulldog up for a while, but I didn't know about the slide show. I got the digital frame working. The USB cable did not come with it, and of course Wal-Mart didn't have one that fit, but the one that came with a little Panasonic video camera I've got fits it. I didn't use it anyway- I bought a little card reader and a memory stick, plugged the memory card into the reader, plugged the card reader to the computer, put the pictures on the memory stick, plugged the memory card into the frame, works great!

what are you doing up so early?..you been up all night?

Got a nice Christmas e-mail from Old Bill. He's still having his difficulties of course. He'd been picking out an outfit from Murt's closet to take to the nursing home for her to wear today. He's very appreciative of any and all help he's recieved. Even though her care is paid for by her- whatever their equivalent to our social security is called, gummint pension I believe- he no longer has that part of their income to live on and said he'll probably have to move to a smaller (cheaper) place.

I'm in. I was wondering if he got anything from the kid's insurance co. when he got wrecked, but he probably could afford Johnny Cochrane and Perry Mason to defend him. Bulldog man had to go physical therapy for a right good while.

Thank you very much indeed, and the same to you and yours.

that pretty much says it all too

excellent point

yep, it's all in the family. I haven't driven a Mack, except for my cement mixer, since about 1983 when I got out of a '79 F-model. The first brand new K100 H.H. bought for me was an '83 model. Jeff put me in a nice W900L at first, then he traded it for the Pete i'm driving now. It's nice, top of the line. Shame the sumbitch stays brokedown so much. Maybe that's why the previous owner only kept it a year. I really wish Jeff had kept the Kenworth-it was nice too, and the N14 (525 hp) never malfunctioned. It had almost 700,000 miles on it when he traded it.

Amen brother, Amen!* *there's an extra "Amen", so Bulldogman does not get credited for this quote, and therefor recieves no royalties or other compensation

Yeah, been at F.L.Moore and Sons 5 years now. Was at H.H.'s 25 and a half. I left mainly because of the low-life good for nothing a-hole dispatcher they had at the time. Got along with most everybody 'til he crawled in. Now I wish i'd left sooner because I run south and west instead of northeast all the time, got a better truck, and make more money. I really like Bonnie and Larry Moore though, can't say anything bad about them. Their yard is just west of Appomattox on 460. We're about 8 or 9 miles further west.

It'a all PGT. They took H.H.Moore Jr. off the truck doors and put PGT on them. They're still running some of the old H.H.Moore trucks but they're going to the newer PGT IH's as they phase the older trucks out.

That's what I disliked most, that the biggest part of it went to the northeast. For a while we'd run 2, and sometimes 3, trips to Boston every week. I don't care if I never go to Boston again! Story is the main reason PGT bought out H.H.Moore Jr. Trucking Co. was to get the Banker Steel account.

Montague-Betts was a big structural steel plant in Lynchburg. Actually they had 2 plants, the south plant near the airport and the north plant near the stadium. We hauled steel all over from there-lots to Boston, the Pittsburgh area, Baltimore and northern Va. They shut down and Hirschfield Steel was in the old South plant for a while, and one of the top Hirschfield guys, Don Banker, went on his own and started Banker Steel in the old North Plant. Then Hirschfield left and Banker Steel then moved part of their operation back to the south plant, so they are now about the same as Montague-Betts was in the 80's. And the main reason Montague-Betts gave for selling in the first place was that there wasn't enough business to keep them going. My next door neighbor works for Banker Steel now and he started with Montague-Betts then worked for Hirschfield, so he still works in the same place, but for 3 different companies.

hmmmm...is that why the cat picture that I made small came out real big in the actual post? then when you clicked on it it instead of biggerizing it shrunk down to the size it was supposed to be in the first place. I tried to post some pictures on my blog too but they never would show up, and I smallerized them a lot too. It's a wonder my keyboard even works this morning- I spilled half a glass of red kool-aid on it last night.

Yeah, i'm sure they did. We never did haul much of that pipe anyway, Huss had that pretty much covered and H.H. pretty much had all the Montague-Betts freight and kyanite mining. We would get a load of it from Huss sometimes when they were real busy.

Western Express is in the old Huss terminal in Madison Heights, but TMC opened a terminal at Concord Turnpike and old 460, right on the corner there across from where Templeton's Market used to be before they put the bypass in. Western Express was hauling most of the pipe from Griffin, but now I see mostly TMC hauling it.

Saw this coal train in West Virginia, headed west. It should have been going east, so I flagged it down to see if the engineer was lost and needed directions. Santa Claus himself was at the controls. Said he had several stops to make in Illinois and needed a train to carry that much coal, and as soon as he dropped the coal off he would get on with his regular deliveries.

The flat bed binness is the same way. We get paid by percentage and every load paid pretty good. They wouldn't take a load if they couldn't make a profit, wouldn't haul cheap freight. Then you get big companies like say, TMC, and they come along and cut the rates so low you can't compete. They took several of our hauls out of this area altogether, and some others that we used to be the main carrier for we now only get a load here and there if they don't have a truck available.

I'm glad you got a good sense of humor-or that I live too far away for you to get me!

That's what I would do under those circumstances. And I know a guy that did hold a truck until he got the money he was owed, in the 80's. He brought the Astro he was driving home and chained it to a tree in his yard.