other dog

Hmmm, don't know, I never even noticed that. I thought they were just regular H beams laying down flat.

Here's a girl in a car taken several years ago, but it looks worthy of a re-run. Another big praying mantis, and a blonde. The sky- A girl in a car. An ATM. Here's a couple of wimmens on rt. 29 going to the Lock'N Music Festival. And I even saw some big Mack trucks.

I did not see much this week, just this girl in a car- And this redheaded woman cleaning out her side box in the parking lot. and this big praying mantis. Some units for sale in Appomattox. A car on a highway. And another girl in another car. A red Peterbilt dump truck. An unsecured load of steel leaving the mill. A lot of water in Berkley Springs, W.V. A load of unsecured steel. And another load of unsecured steel on the Pa. Turnpike.

I don't usually even have breakfast on Sunday's when I have to leave, but this morning there was 4 eggs left in the carton, so I fried them all. They were very delicious with the 4 pieces of Jimmy Dean sage sausage I had with them.

Happy birthday!

Meanwhile, in the top secret barbecue research and development department at an undisclosed location near Winfall, Va. the test team is hard at work...

I saw all these cars traveling north on I-79 in West Virginia last week. And this Ford pickup was at Sadler's Truckstop in Emporia, Va. ...And this bolt was in this tire- I was in Pittsburgh, and I called the Michelin tire service, that we have a national account with. They sent a truck all the way from Butler, Pa. to fix it. Three hours. Looks like there would be a Michelin tire shop in Pittsburgh...you'd think anyway. Nice looking tire he put on though, I wish I had 8 of those for winter. They're B.F.Goodrich tires. I saw a girl in a car looking at a phone too. Oh, I even saw some big Mack trucks. This is a '79 DM. The driver said they wash it and wax it every night, and all their equipment looks like new.

I saw some things this week- like the Winfall Department of Public Works employee working on the Winfall sign...or maybe she was just holding it up. I saw a girl washing a tank in Winfall. Some Kubota equipment. I saw this lumber in this Conestoga. Peach trees in South Carolina. Turkeys in the field just up the road from here. Lots of young ones. It used to be pretty rare to see wild turkeys, but not any more, you can hardly walk outside without kicking one. I saw a girl in a car. A sign on 81 that had blown down. I accumulated a hitchhiker... a happy looking little fellow.

Holy crap!😮

dammit!..you just can't hide any more.

nope, never heard of that, but thank you, i'll keep that in mind if I have it again, the pain is no joke.

I knew I had a picture of one somewhere that I took at a truck show, but I couldn't find it on the computer. Then I found it in a photo album that i'd almost forgotten. Taken in 2005 or 2006 I think, at Troutman, N.C. before I had a digital camera.

Did you get an OBX sticker?..everybody else has one.

It is extremely extreme, that thing hurts like- well, it is very painful. Still looks like this right now, and it's been two weeks.

that's the first thing I wondered!

Yes, that would be the one.

I've been drinking the heck outa cherry juice, Wal-Mart had pure tart cherry juice, no added sugar or anything, except water. Tastes pretty good too.

Hey Red, nice to hear from you!

If you did I don't remember, you should probably tell us again.

Yeah, US Steel had plants all over, all were bad. Homestead was actually one of the better ones I loaded at, but I only loaded there once. Gary, In. was the worst, and Fairless Works was a close second, of the ones I loaded at. I think a requirement to work at US Steel was that you had to be an asshole, but that seems to be the case at a lot of steel mills. Armco, now AK Steel, was just about as bad.

I wondered how bad my luck was going to get, but... I had the gout so bad this week that I could hardly walk, I believe because of getting too hot on several occasions last week and almost melting. I couldn't work all week. Went to the Dr. in Appomattox Tuesday and had to use my left foot on the brake in the car because my foot hurt so bad. If you've never had the gout, the pain is excruciating. I'd only had it a couple of times before, and never anywhere near this bad, or that lasted this long. She gave me a prescription for some medicine, some pills that you took 2 of, then waited an hour and took one more. Then you had to wait 3 days before you could do it again. My insurance would not cover it, so I paid $20 cash for one dose, 3 pills. Took them, they did nothing. So I called the doctor back on Wednesday, told her it did nothing, so she said she would call in something else. Went back to Altavista, picked up the prescription, this time for 21 pills. Insurance covered it this time too. I had to take 6 pills the first day, 5 the next, then 4 and so on. You have to stop taking it gradually like that, or bad things will happen. By Thursday morning my foot was still sore, still had the big red spot where the big toe bone connects to the foot bone, but the pain had eased enough so I thought I could go to work. So I called headquarters, and they had a load going to Salinas, Kansas that delivered Monday. That was great. I would stay home Thursday, go load yesterday, then hit the road, try to get over around Charleston, W.V, then have all day today and tomorrow to get to Salinas, plenty of time. But as I was getting ready to leave yesterday- almost ready to walk out the door in fact- I went to get a pair of lace-up boots out of the closet because I thought it wouldn't hurt my foot as bad getting them on and off as my pull on boots did. And I noticed that the laces were wet. So I turned the light on in the closet and saw water all over the floor. The hot water tank was leaking- of all the rotten luck, and on top of everything else! So I had to call headquarters, put off loading until Monday, go to Lowes, get a water heater, got the wrong one- the water lines needed to connect on the side of it, but they went in the top- so I go all the way back to Lowe's, which is in Madison Heights, to get some longer connector hoses so I can hook the water lines up. And they don't make longer lines than what I had, 2 feets. I needed one about 6 feet long. So I got another tank instead, with the connections on the side this time. Brought it home, and it's just enough bigger than the old one that it wouldn't fit in the little space. I could hook everything up, but instead of being back in the little corner it would be sitting out in the closet. That was unacceptable, so I put both heaters back in the boxes. Or I should say what was left of the box the first one was in, because I pretty much destroyed it getting it open. This time I measured, researched, looked on the interweb, and found the heater I needed. It said 5 were available at the Madison Heights store. So I loaded both heaters on the pickup, went back to Lowe's again. Got my money back for the two wrong ones, but they did not have the right one. They checked the Lynchburg store and said they had 6 available. So I said "I looked on the internet before I left home and it said that you had 5 available, but you don't have any." So they called the Lynchburg store, and they did have one, so I drove over there and grabbed it, came back home and put it in and hooked everything back up and turned the water back on. After I was satisfied that there were no leaks, I had to put the panel back in place and put all the stuff back in the closet. After all this running around it was after midnight by the time I got to bed. And I was thinking, man, I sure had some rotten luck this week. And then I got to thinking, about how lucky I was. If I had not decided to get those other shoes, and walked out of the door, I would have been gone until the end of next week- with water leaking in the floor the whole time. That would have been a real disaster, probably costing me thousands of dollars. I was sure lucky!

Especially that Superbird, you'd be set for life if you just had that one.

And pickup trucks. I wanted a newer truck than my 2002 Ranger, but not brand new, like in the 2008 to 2012 range, with enough power to cruise up 81 200mph, so I could keep up with the rest of the traffic, but they're all just crazy high, even with well over 100,000 miles on them.

It also said that two of the giant Macks were sold to a coal mine in Alaska, but nothing about the rest. I wonder if any of them still exist?

I agree. Union greed put many trucking companies out of business, steel mills out of business, and are the reason what should be a $10,000 car costs $30,000. What ever happened to an honest days pay for an honest day's work?