other dog

I was stopped when I took those, except for the dump trucks. Randy hasn't given me permission to say Kodacketronomy, so I still have to say taking pictures.

Gotta love that flatbeddin', eh?

Thanks Ed, I needed that. As you might have guessed, that's one of my favorite pictures!

That's pretty much how Other Dog's day goes too-

It started off kinda bad, and it didn't get much better. I unloaded some landscaping timbers in Moneta Monday, and reloaded a load of treated lumber going to Akron. Ed wanted me to weigh the load somewhere because he's still trying to figure the weights since they started using some new chemicals in the treating process, which is supposed to be more "environmentally friendly". So I stopped at the Love's in Fairplain,W.V. and weighed it- 83,740 gross. This after i'd burned probably 40-45 gallons of fuel off. Then I get about a quarter of a mile from Carter-Jones Lumber in Akron and Case Ave. is closed, so I had to follow a detour, knocking down poles, driving through people's yards, underneath clotheslines, around trees, but I managed to get there. Then of course the reciever guy says "oh, you should have just went to here, turned there, then there again, it's a straight shot from the expressway". Fine then. Anyway, I went from there up to Elyria and loaded some plastic pipe on big metal reels and delivered them to Roanoke. Unloaded in Roanoke Wednesday, and coulda went home Wednesday night, but couldn't get anyone on the phone. I got to the shop around 2 o'clock, and phoned home all evening, no answer. So I spent the night in the truck, eating beans out of the can, when I should have been home. I finally got a response to my messages at a quarter to 10 that night, when I was asleep. I did not answer the phone because I was very irate at that time. "My phone never rang"..."it got accidently turned off when it was in my pocket"..."it'll never happen again"... So, Thursday I went to Moneta and got a load going to Cortland, Ohio. The store is right at Warren though. Weighed that load at Fairplain too, just for curiosity- it was only 81,840. Rained almost the entire way, and I went one exit past Carter Lumber and parked at Flex-Strut in Warren. We deliver and load there, and they told me I could park there. It was 41 degrees and still raining when I got there. When I got up Friday morning it was 17 degrees and snowing pretty good. I released the brakes to go down to Carter to unload...and nothing happened. I knew right away what the problem was, so I put on all the clothes I could find, and crawled up under with my flashlight, hammer, big screwdriver, strap bar, and commenced to beating on the brake shoes. Every single brake shoe except the steering axle was frozen solid to the drums. Finally got them all free and when I was putting the bar back in the tool box on the headache rack I noticed that the tray on the bottom of the headache rack that my chains go in was full to the top and frozen solid too. So I took the bar and started beating on that too, and tried to pull the chains out. I finally got 3 or 4 loose but the rest wouldn't budge. I finally had to hook the binders that were hanging from the rack to the chains and use my pipe to tighten them, and finally pulled them out in a big block of ice. I threw that down and beat the hell out of it to free the chains, as I was seriously pissed off by then. Then I went and unloaded, and all my straps were frozen solid. I had to hold my bar in one hand to release the pressure, then take the hammer in my other hand to release the pawl. When I got the straps loose on the winch, I still couldn't unhook them on the other side- they were frozen solid to the lumber, so I had to climb up on top and free the straps from the lumber. They were so stiff I couldn't even wind them back up, and had to use the bar to rewind them, so what should have been a 5 minute job took half an hour. Then I went over to Sharon and loaded 2 coils going to Lynchburg. Other than running in snow all the way back to Lewisburg, W.V. I had no further difficulties. And I saw some things and took pictures of the things I saw. This is the load that grossed 83,740 lbs. This is a big Mack truck I saw at Newcomerstown. This is a big Mack truck I saw on rt. 220. This is a big Mack truck I saw in Fairplain. This is a great looking Superliner dump truck on rt. 7 in Ohio. Saw this KW in Concord, Va. this morning. Saw this on the back cover of a Canadian trucking magazine Old Bill sent me. He also sent me this-

Glad to see you're not lacking for toys.

thanks Bob- been a helluva week!..that's a good title-helluva week.

try to get some pictures of half nekkid Florida women with big hooters please- don't forget your camera.

speaking of barefoot- when I was a young'un my brother and I would go barefooted from about April until school started in September. Not because we didn't have shoes, we wanted to go barefooted. Our feets would get so tough on the bottom we could go anywhere barefooted, in the woods, across gravel, on a hot tar road, through the briar patch, didn't matter. Now I can't step off the porch barefoot.

I must admit that as a kid I consumed a few "Milk Bone" dog biscuits myself.

Unfortunately, I no longer drive a Peterbilt.

The old IH dump truck at the shop is an old road tractor with air ride, and it's terrifying to drive on the road with a load of gravel. You've got that constant feeling of "i'm turning overrrrrr...."

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OK Vinny, i have a question. If one train leaves St. Louis headed west at 3:15, and the other train leaves Denver at 4:30 heading east, how long will it take randyp to finish moving 300,000,000 cubic yards of Texas dirt over to Arkansas?

I had an encounter with the Illinois coppers about 30 years ago. I had loaded in Joliet and was driving a 1977 F- model Mack east on I-80,minding my own business, running the speed limit, heading to Winchester,Va. The eastbound scales were closed,west side was open, and a little ways past them a cop pulled me over. He said "i'm takin' you back to the scales". I said "I ain't got on but 40,000 lbs, you want to see my bills?" He said "no! I want to weigh you!" So I had to follow him to the next exit, make a flip, go back to the west bound scales, got a green light, then go to the next exit to get headed east again. I thought about going in the scale house and showing my ass, but I didn't, I just went on. Probably the best thing to do.

I saw a 70 LS6 Chevelle for sale when I was looking for that picture- $39,900. The 66 and 67 GTOs and Tempests are one of my all time favorites when it comes to good looking cars.

I had a '70 Chevelle SS myself, but it was a 396- 350 (402) not a 454. It did have headers, Crane cam, tarantula intake, 780 Holley, electric fuel pump, all the usual hot rod goodys. Sold it when I got married the first time, 1977.

A-hemmm...maybe in '62, but by 1970 there was a new king of the road, eh?

I called them yesterday, they said they couldn't do the proper repairs here (Lynchburg) so they sent it to the Roanoke shop, and they sent it to Richmond. Should be back good as new in a couple of weeks.

Crap, that ruins everything! My apolligies, it wasn't a clear view and I thought maybe it was your girlfriend in there. I fixed it.

The Cat scale at the truckstop is expensive, but you do get a little truck picture card when you use them.

Speaking of Duluth, we deliver to N.B.Handy there regularly, but it's been a while since I was there.

But everybody loves !