other dog

'sallright...have at it!

arrright,y'all need to slow down. Y'all are replying before I get done commenting here.

I picked up one of them little free papers you see all the time at truckstops,and the owners of the movin' on KW were taking it to Pittsburgh power for some work - it originally had a 903 cummins in it,but I think they were changing it to a 444 or something. I'd have kept the 903, I drove one in a '74 co4070A IH and it sounded great.They're probably just going to show it anyway,they wouldn't need 800 horsepower anyway,and for just being cool,a V8 Cummins would be awesome.

if everything works here,these are a couple of hills that a truck driver can appreciate as being very,very,steep and the pictures show it. The Kenworth is the original one used in the "Moving On" tv series. So,what's that got to do with 36 degree banking? Bristol has 36 degree banking in the turns,and that's steep too...Besides,Paul was getting annoyed that I was taking all the good blog entry titles, a.k.a. whatever day of the week it was. It gets harder and harder to come up with a new and catchy title all the time you know. And another thing-I've been known to criticise drivers who graduate from "truck driving school" and hit the road already having forgotten more than myself or most everybody else has ever known about driving on this blog,and today when I was anylizing my new "Wheels of Time" I came across the article about Joe Becker. This entire issue is about drivers and companies who recieved golden achievement awards,with 50 or more years in the trucking industry. Joe Becker is 79 and still trucking. In the mid 70's he started a truck driving school in Minnesota.He offered a 6 month, 1,200 hour course for interstate drivers and a 4 month 900 hour course for intrastate drivers. You had to log 5,000 miles with an instructor to graduate,but I guarantee you those drivers knew what they were doing when they hit the road. He eventually closed down his training school when others offered shorter courses. I know they say there's a driver shortage,but the "new breed" attitude of these guys coming out now is something else.Not all,but a lot of drivers are so hateful and arrogant-nothing like the commaradorie-oh forget it,i'll never be able to spell comaraderie-that there used to be. Where drivers used to be quick to help each other,now they're quick to cuss each other out for the least little thing. Unreal...what happened?

I'm off 'til tomorrow.Neal asked me Friday when I called in empty at Orville,when he gave me my pick-up number for IDS and told me I could unload in Roanoke whenever I got there, if I wanted to talk to Todd then about a load for Sunday.I told him no,i'll just call Monday-i'm not really into working 7 days a week.I've got lots of bills to pay like everybody else,but if all you do is work,what's the point? I mean you've got to be off once in a while. I left Saturday when I went to Wisconsin,got back Friday,and left again Sunday and didn't get in 'til Saturday. This right here is my biggest enjoyment of the week.

oddly enough Joe I once googled "Cannonball"/tv series just to see what I could find on it,because i'd seen cannonball GMC's at Hank's and just barely remembered the tv show. I went through about 20 pages of websites before the tv series was ever mentioned,and when I finally did find it it said no episodes were known to exist today.I thought that was the end of that story,but it wasn't long after that when I saw the robert's hard to find videos "Cannonball" reference on BMT. I ordered 2 DVDs with 2 episodes on each of them,all that was available. p.s-what the heck does she know anyway?

Hi Paul, haven't heard from you in a while,i've been out and about. About that Peterbilt, - ...oh...well..,never mind then.

if it was lemon meringue,or however you spell it,it would have lasted that long with me too, but if it was a lemon chess,well that's just altogether different.I love a lemon chess pie,and one of them would not have lasted me all the way home.

I've seen Porky's but it's been years,White Line Fever was on tv not too long ago ( well,within the last year i'd say ) and I remember Movin' On and BJ and the Bear,but I didn't see BJ and the Bear much.I watched 'ol Sonny and Will regularly though. I you like really old trucking, I remember "Cannonball", a series from about 58-60. Two guys in a Cannonball GMC . I saw a reference to a site called "robert's hard to find videos" right here on BMT that still had a couple of episodes of it available so I ordered them. It's pretty neat just seeing that Cannonball Jimmy still trucking.

I remember the band.When I was a teenager "Love Hurts" was a big hit for them. That and "Hair of the Dog" are the only Nazareth songs I could name though. I was going down 81 to Chattanooga or somewhere a few years ago and decided to drive down by the Bristol track just to see it and it was lit up that night too,pretty awesome looking.I've still never seen it in the daytime. I guess the banking is like taking a picture of a hill,the picture never seems to show just how steep the hill is.I've seen a couple of pictures at Hank's truck pictures that looked scary steep even in the picture,but not too many.I'll try to find them if you want,you might've seen them before. But the best Bristol example i've ever seen was when Ned Jarrett had a racing show that came on every Sunday morning.He had some really interesting stuff,like what 200 mph really looked like-he was driving 55 mph at Talledega and Terry Labonte passed him doing 200+. He wanted to demonstrate how steep the banking was at Bristol,so they took a crane and lifted A VW beetle over the wall (this show came on probably 20-some years ago,before it was so built up all the way around) and set it down at the top of the banking. When they turned it loose it just rolled right down to the bottom. Good stuff! And tarping-I've pulled flat beds most of my career and it's just part of the job,something you gotta do,so it doesn't really bother me that much, EXCEPT- it really burns me up when like i've mentioned before people want you to tarp stuff for no apparent reason. I've picked up lumber in Palmer,Massachusets before that was supposed to be tarped,and it had snow a foot deep on top of it. I told them they could unload it if they wanted,but I certainly wasn't going to climb up on a load of snow covered lumber to tarp it,and I didn't. We used to haul lumber for Hoover treated lumber in Milford,Va. and they wanted everything tarped,year round,even though they stored it out in the weather and everywhere we delivered to did too. A lot of the steel we haul is the same way,it just makes no sense at all. Nothing that I know of gets wetter just because it's loaded on a trailer,and there's no salt on the road when there's no snow or ice,especially in the summer. I think a lot of these idiots in management have absolutely no common sense,plus they just hate trucks and truck drivers. And that's what gripes me about tarping!

,Yep,last time I unloaded in Orville the wind tried to blow the tarps away 'til I got them drug inside the building,this time it was the cold. The tarps still had ice and snow and salt on them,there was snow on the ground,and when you try to roll them up you can't get any traction on anything so you can't get them rolled very tight so they end up big as a small car,and hard to handle. And I don't have a lumber tarp,I carry two smaller ones. And It's hard enough to stay clean on a flatbed anyway, but when you get the salt all over everything it's even worse,all you gotta do is touch the truck or trailer and it seems to be all over you,and tarping and untarping is really bad. I'm not complaining though,I don't care for slick roads either. And it's good to know that if I go missing somebody would actually notice-thanks!

Made the trip to Nazareth,Pa. I passed right by the Nazareth Speedway going in,never seen that before. I drove the truck to Rockingham,N.C. to races a couple of times,and stopped and looked at the race tracks in Daytona,Talledega, and Darlington,and have passed by Bristol,Dover,North Wilkesboro,Atlanta,Michigan, maybe a couple more. Used to go to Charlotte,Richmond,and Martinsville every year,but it just got so expensive,and the traffic got so bad,and the cops in N.C. got so hateful I quit going. Nazareth looked kind of grown over,even for the off-season. I don't know if they still have races there or not,it might have gone the way of North Wilkesboro and Rockingham. I know they didn't have cup races there anyway,but didn't they run Busch races there at one time? I don't remember what kind of races they have there. Anyway, back in the real world I went down to Baltimore from Nazareth and loaded coils at Worthington Steel for Metalsa in Roanoke-the truck frame plant.Then over to Moneta and picked up treated lumber going to Fairmont,W.V. It rained in West Virginia Tuesday night. It was about 38-40 degrees went I went to bed.But Wednesday morning in Fairmont it was well below freezing,and the parking lot at 84 Lumber was like a skating rink,completely glazed over with a sheet of ice. I couldn't get turned around and backed in the gate 'til about 10 or 10:30 I think it was.When I finally got unloaded I had to go to Pittsburgh to load,so I just stayed on U.S.rt. 19 North thru town until I got back to I-79 at Morgantown. I saw several old trucks going that way,some old Autocars,and one place where you could look down below you and see lots of old iron,including at least one H-model in the woods. The road through there is narrow anyway,and there's no place to pull over and look,or take pictures,but i'd like to.I wish I could take a picture of every old truck I see. Kinda makes ya wonder just what might still be found parked in the woods to rust across the country,and forgotten. But,back to the real world,it's work,work,work.I loaded in Pittsburgh for Franklin,Va. It was an N.B.Handy load,but it went straight to the customer.Should have been on a straight truck,their yard was so tiny. When I got that off Thursday morning I went to Dillwyn and picked up a load of Kyanite going to Orville,Oh.It was bright and sunny when I left the shop,but by the time I got to Lewisburg,W.V. it was snowing so hard you couldn't see. I was pretty much out of the snow by the time I got to Charleston,but it was about 2 degrees in Orville Friday morning.Folding tarps is about like trying to fold a piece of plywood when it's that cold. Then over to Macedonia to reload coils at I.D.S. for Metalsa in Roanoke. Unloaded there this morning,and got home around lunch time. I see I got a "Wheels of Time" and a "Double Clutch" this week,so it's time to check them out now. Hmm...used to be that would be the first thing I checked out,wonder what's up with that?

I was in the office Friday and a driver named Joe came in. He had a load going to Syracuse,N.Y. but he had no name for the customer and no delivery address on the bills. He said " how am I supposed to find this place in Syracuse,i've got no information". Jeff was sitting there and never hesitated a second and said " just pull up in Syracuse and blow the horn,somebody'll come get you-that's what I would do". I thought it was hilarious,but I don't think Joe got it. He just said "well Syracuse is a big place" and went on out the door.

Yeah Old Bill told me to chew lots of gum too. He was smoking 3 to 4 packs a day he said-nonfiltered. He must have had one lit the whole time he was awake to smoke that much,but he quit.

Sorry, I know it sucks, anymore it seems like the only time I'm home is to sleep then back to doing something. Glad to see you are holding strong on smoking. lol,yeah,that's about it Joe-as whatya macall'um used to say,thank you for being a friend-and I ain't smoked one yet. If I didn't burn one last week I should pretty much have it made. P.S.-aaaaargh!!!!!!!!!

things might be altogether different now,but when I worked at Cumberland Auto Service from '74-77 we had a brake relining machine that was a pedal operated air machine,and all you did was put the rivets in the hole,lined the rivets up in the machine and worked from the center out to the ends of the shoe-put the rivets in,line it up ,step on the pedal,brad the rivets,move to the next hole outward-you're done. I did it as a teen ager and never remember a lining cracking,you started in the center and worked outward like tightening down a cylinder head.That doesn't mean I know anything...maybe it just means i'm getting old and relining old shoes just isn't done that much anymore.

Yeah,thanks for reminding me Joe,i'm outa' here tomorrow headed to Nazareth, Pa. then to parts unknown...always an unknown adventure ahead,at least I can come home and relax for a while...haven't smoked one since the last one,new years day I think.

d'oh!!!!!

I have to disagree on the ugliest truck of all time thing-I still think that's that weird looking cabover Peterbilt from the-late 80's probably? I can't remember,but it was one ugly a#@ truck!

Well,I was gonna leave Sunday,but ended up leaving Saturday anyway. Afterwards I was glad I did of course-I drove to Maysville,Ky. Saturday and when I left there Sunday morning I still had 600 miles to go to Endeavor,Wisconsin. It was a good load,paid me $760. After I unloaded Monday I went to Chicago to reload for Baltimore.That paid almost $300,so I had a pretty good week in by the time I unloaded in Baltimore Wednesday morning. Then I went across the Key Bridge to Sparrows Point and loaded a couple of coils for N.B.Handy in Lynchburg,dropped them at the shop Wednesday evening,then took a van load of Kyanite to Chester,W.V. and when I unloaded there Thursday morning I went down rt. 2 a little ways and reloaded at Follansbee for Richmond,Va. I was going to drop down I-79 to 68 and over to Hancock,but since the snow was up to the bumper and still coming down at a rate of 14" an hour ( note-I may not be totally accurate in my weather reports,but that's what it seemed like to me at the time,so i'm as accurate as memory allows me to be ) I just stayed on 70 to New Stanton and ran the turnpike to Breezewood,then dropped back down 70 and 17 to 95 to Richmond.Went from Richmond back to the shop in Concord Friday,dropped the van,then hooked back up to my flat and went back to Petersburg and loaded a load of piling going to Nazareth,Pa. for Monday delivery...whew!

Yeah,I fully understand that not being made of money thing. I haven't even started the mixer in a while...not since the Christmas parade I think. I was going to start it yesterday and dump the water,but had to go to Petersburg to load and it was dark when I got back and I never did.

well good luck with that unit Joe,I hope it's for sale and the owner was just waiting for the right buyer to come along and give it a good home and he'll sell it to you so cheap you'll think you stole it.

blue ( sorry,I couldn't resist )

...did I just see Batman and Robin walking into the truckstop?