other dog

I saw the results from the Cumberland County Christmas Parade .Ma sent me a newspaper clipping and I managed to get another first in the 1951-1975 antique car or truck category. The decorations I put on it looked really bad. It ended up looking like a cement mixer with a bunch of stuff hanging off it,but it always seems to be a popular entry down there. I saw lots of people looking at it,pointing at it,and taking lots of pictures of it. At least nobody seemed to be laughing and pointing at the driver. I went to Fremont,Ohio and back first of the week and was ready to call it a week. I thought Jeff was gone to Florida,but he's not going until next week,so I went back up the road to Avon,Ohio. Besides,he gave me $200 for Christmas before I left so I figured i'd put forth the extra effort-it was just Wednesday anyway. You know what they say, " when the cat's away..." Now i'm glad I did go of course and i'll be off until Wednesday anyway. I got my safety bonus for the year too and went to Wal-Mart yesterday and knocked out all my Christmas shopping-gift cards for everyone! I try to get a little something for the nieces,nephews,and granchildren anyway- Everyone else is on their own,but I did give some BMT calendars too.

yeah,long as your bones don't start sounding like a hog eating hickory nuts when you walk-then you'd better go to the doctor.

Hey Paul, there's a Fleet Pride in Lynchburg too. F.L.Moore and Sons gets a lot of parts from them. I ended up getting a 5" stack for the mixer from then and all the necessary adapters connect it to the 4" pipe.Then I made a bracket to put the old muffler guard over it so it would look sort of original anyway. Then I noticed 5" stacks piled up in every corner at the shop that drivers had taken off to put 6 or 8" ones on their truck that I could have gotten free.

Only problem is,I don't have a snow blower!..or snow. If you want to send yours down,i'll mail it right back when I get done blowing the leaves into my neighbor's yard...I mean into the woods.

I started raking these knee deep leaves yesterday-perhaps I should have started sooner,like a month ago.Reminds me of West Virginia's snow removal policy. I was forced to stop when the torrential downpour started...when 12 or 13 drops of rain hit me I retreated back inside. So today I tried it again and broke the handle on the rake,but I repaired it with a plastic oar handle from an old inflatable raft I used to have and half a roll of electrical tape. Got them piled up anyway,in several different piles. Now all I gotta do is get them transferred from the yard into the woods,maybe next weekend. Can't do too much in one day, it'd ruin my reputation as a world class slacker.

You'll have to teach Paxton how to shift that tri-plex without using the clutch until his hip is better,and he'll be all right.

That reminds me of my '70 Chevelle SS engine-I had a tarantula intake too,same valve covers,same Accel Super coil,same air filter-about all the filter you could have and close the hood without a scoop.I bought it from a friend of mine and he wanted to keep the turbo 400 trans. to put in his blazer,so I went to a junkyard and got all the parts and linkage and put an M-22 Muncie in it too. It had a .030 over 402 in it,not quite as hot as yours,ran 13.80's on street tires with the stock rear,3.70's I think. A long time ago-as what's his name sings,thanks for the memories.

Hey Paul,sorry to hear about your fall,but glad to hear you found all your parts. Ever thought about getting a pair of crampons?..and an ice axe? might come in handy up there.

Hi Joe,how's everything? I'm in until Monday anyway. I've never been to Canada,but i've always wanted to see the country,and Alaska-in the summertime though! I picked up a load of steel in Connecticut one time that was so rusty it looked like they dug it up off the bottom of the ocean,and they made me tarp it.When I signed the bills I wrote on them "rusty when loaded" and the man was irate because I did. I just told him "well,it's rusty". When I delivered it they put it outside on the ground anyway,so it didn't even need to be tarped in the first place. That's just the way a lot of the #$%@ers are. Just part of the job,but I guess it would drive some people to get'em an AK 47 and go berserk!

Just got home about 7:30 this morning.Could've been in about midnight,but I ran out of power and had to take a nap. The power plant load kinda sucked-it's near Fremont,where I deliver Kyanite regularly, and it paid about $100 more dollars than a Fremont,but when you consider that I had to go to Richmond to load,then go through two separate security checks when I got there-they looked under the hood,in the sideboxes,all the tool boxes on the truck and trailer,in the cab,in the sleeper, then after I went through 2 security gates where you pull in and a gate closes behind you before the one in front opens,they did the complete search all over again-it's just not worth the hassle. I know they're just doing their job too,but since i'm not a criminal it's kind of offensive when they get up inside the cab and sleeper and go through everything...twice. Then I went to Masury,Oh. Thursday with a load of beams. Everybody hates to go to Masury because the load has to be tarped,winter or summer,even though the beams are stored outside on the ground at Petersburg where we load them. Apparently it somehow gets wetter if it's on a trailer,and it's hard to tarp beams without tearing the tarps up. I didn't cover the ends and still tore several holes in the tarps. After I'd been there about an hour and a half they decided to unload me,and I went on down to Galv-Tech in Pittsburgh and loaded up 5 coils for Handy in Lynchburg and dropped the trailer there this morning. Now i'm home raking leaves...well,i'm going to in a minute...maybe.

Oh...that sounds pretty easy,I'll give it a try. Thanks David

No,sorry,I've never had any dealings with them at all,but I did read or saw somewhere on a website that they had lots of old Mack parts available. When the muffler on the mixer rusted out I tried to find a muffler and 4" stack and nobody in Lynchburg or Roanoke had any 4" mufflers or stacks.Everybody said they could order one for me but it would take several days to get it. I asked G.H.Jamerson if they had anything laying around,because they had nothing but Macks at Jamerson Brothers Trucking since they started in the '40s until the late '80s ,and he said they had sent a whole trailer load of obsolete parts to the scrap yard a week or so earlier, including mufflers and 4" exhaust pipes and stacks. He said he would have given me any of it,but it was too late by then of course. I might give Beebo Litchford a call at Litchford's garage a call later-they say his father Frank had all kinds of old,rare,and obsolete parts upstairs at their garage and Frank knew where and what everything was. I don't know if they still have the old stuff or not,Beebo mainly just does heavy duty wrecker service now I think and not as much mechanical work as Frank did,but he may still have some old parts. He has a huge "junkyard" with lots of old trucks too,but he's a funny ( not ha-ha funny,funny as in 'odd'") man to deal with. I needed trumpets for the horn on the mixer and got some from him. When I found a pair that fit I had to go back and check with him before I took them off to make sure it was OK to take anything off that particular truck. He didn't charge me anything for them though.

Barry,they say there's no such thing as a stupid question,but...I can't figure out how to start a new paragraph,like when i'm writing in my blog and go on,and on,and on...so this might qualify as one-how do you start a new paragraph?

I went to the DMV office in Altavista this morning before I went to work to get the title for the mixer changed.It kind 've started out like a typical Monday morning. I had to find a notary public first,to get my official DMV antique license application form notarized. I stopped at the first bank I saw,but they wouldn't do it because I didn't have an account there. So I went down to the Altavista town offices,got it notarized,then went to the DMV office. I had to get it changed because my wife's name was on the title too,and she passed away 2 and 1/2 years ago. The first thing the woman at DMV wanted to know was if I had a copy of the death certificate...well,..no- your records indicated that one of the owners was deceased,that's why I have to change the name on the title. O.K, I'll just look it up...yep,that's what it says-take a number and have a seat until we call you. A few minutes later they called me to the counter and a man looked at the paperwork and said " I can't do this-it's got to be a supervisor.Have a seat again". So I sat back down and the guy went in the back somewhere and came back a few minutes later with a woman,the supervisor. I explained my situation,showed her the letter and paperwork,gave her the old title,and she said that's $10 for the title change. I said " but what about the one-time $50 fee the letter says I have to pay again?". She said "you don't have to pay that,you just get the name on the title changed and keep your old tags,and you're all set". Great! Here's your ten dollars,i'll see 'ya! So it only cost me $10 when I was expecting to have to pay 50 more,so it turned out to be a pretty good day after all,and having to go to the DMV for anything is usually not good. If I had mailed it in I would have sent the $50 for new antique plates,because the letter they sent me said that's what I had to do,and they would have sent me new plates and never told me I didn't need new ones so they could get that $50 i'm sure. Then I went on to Lynchburg and unloaded the coils I dropped Friday night and went to the shop and fueled,and got the rest of the day off. Gotta go to Richmond tomorrow and load some air compressors going to a power plant in Oak Harbor,Oh.

Not me...I have a little Ford Ranger,dark blue,and a red,white,and blue cement mixer. By the way,where are you located,in case I want to spy on you?..unless it's a secret,then I don't want to know-might get in trouble.

Hey Paul,I was looking for Fishers,N.Y. in my road atlas but didn't see it in the index,so I went to Google Earth and typed it in and went right to it. I really like looking around on Google Earth at different places. Some places it won't zoom in very close on,like here. But Fishers-I don't know if you've ever checked it out,but i'm sure you can see your shop on it.I didn't know exactly where to look of course,but you can see cars and trucks in the parking lots and on the highway. Very detailed. Tom

Once again i've made the trip to Cumberland and back. Got a picture before the parade started ,( THE DECORATIONS LOOKED PRETTY SHABBY THIS YEAR! ) the Dabney brothers 9 second '66 Chevelle, some good friends of mine for years,and one of the bulldog headed into the sunset-going home!

Well thank you very much Paul,that's a nice compliment. I have a "Wheels of Time" magazine that shows A picture of a B-model Mack pulling a tanker in upstate N.Y.,though not in the Adirondacks,and it's almost buried in snow. I believe it was on rt. 26,north of Binghamton.

Yeah Joe,it really is a nice parade.You have to pay an entry fee of $10 to be in it,so I guess that keeps the riff-raff out ! Route 60 goes right through town,and it's 4 lane through town,so they just close the right lane before the parade and put numbers on little flags by the road so you know where your place is.You just find your number and park in that spot,put the decorations on,and it's a straight shot through town,no turns or anything,then I pull over and take the decorations off,and go back to Concord. I live near Gladys,but I keep the mixer parked at F.L.Moore and Sons shop,where I work. p.s....half dressed women? ..and your parade is when?

Yep,you're right Joe.That's what they do. I don't like driving in those conditions,i'm not near as brave as I used to be! But, like you said,you still got to do your job to earn your pay. If it gets too bad,i'm looking for somewhere to park it though. I don't really care about trying to be a hero at all. I've been to the Cumberland parade 3 years now,and won 3 trophies.That's not why I go of course, , I was born and raised in Cumberland.The trophy streak will probably end this year anyway,but that's all right. The first year the theme was "a red,white and blue Christmas" so I was dead-on with my paint job,then it was "oh Christmas tree" so I painted a board red,attached an artificial Christmas tree to it,and strapped it to the front bumper.Last year it was "Christmas bells" so I borrowed 2 big plastic bells and had them on the rear of the mixer.This year the theme is "A Jamestown Christmas"- how do you decorate a cement mixer for that? I have no idea,so i'll just go and put something on it,because the rules say it's got to be decorated.

Usually you don't even have to run a continuous bead,just kinda stick the rod in there and go round and round a couple of times,and the weld will "draw" it enough so it comes right out.

Gee you get up early!

Had a long week this week,driving in snow for most of it. I left last Sunday for Orville,Ohio and when I unloaded Monday morning it was snowing and the radio said the wind was gusting to 50 mph.When I took the straps off of one side of the tarp it blew off and over the trailer and was flapping like a flag,still holding on by the straps on the other side.I finally got it detatched and it blew up under a trailer parked beside me.I struggled with it for a while and decided I was never going to get it folded,so I was waiting to get unloaded so I could just get it up on the trailer somehow and get it strapped down. When the truck at the dock beside me pulled out I grabbed a corner of the tarp and dragged it up to the dock and stuffed it under the door.Then I went inside and pulled it in and got it folded and rolled up with no problem,then did the other one the same way. All this titanic struggle with my tarps probably took 30 minutes,and the tarp was winning the battle until I outsmarted it. Went from there over to Sharon,Pa. and loaded up 2 coils and back to Lynchburg.The crane was broken at N.B.Handy,so I had to take them to the shop where they unloaded them with the forklift.Then on to Dillwyn to load a Fremont,Oh. I knew they were calling for more snow in Ohio Tuesday night,so that motivated me to get all the way to Fremont,trying to beat it. It started snowing about the time I got there,around midnight. Wednesday morning it was still coming down,with about 3 inches on top of the tarps.I had to get a broom and get up on top and sweep the snow off before I could pull them off,because it was so heavy. Again,I had much difficulty trying to fold them,not because of wind this time,but the snow.I had to fold them on the ground in the snow,and when I got finished they were about the size of a Volkswagon beetle,and weighed about 1400 lbs each ( that's just a guess ) so I had to get Troy to put them on the trailer with the forklift. Then I had to go to Macedonia to load coils for Roanoke.It was still snowing,but the roads were in good shape,plenty of salt. Ohio does a good job on the roads,they were putting brine on them from the time I crossed the state line at Marietta Tuesday night,long before the snow started falling.That's key,getting an early start on them instead of waiting until they're covered and people start wrecking,like they do in West Virginia. I made it all the way to Beckley with no problems,but when I got on I-64 and headed east it looked like they had used up all the salt allotment for the year,or they forgot 64 was even there. It was completely snow covered and I was a little nervous starting down Sandstone mountain...OK,I was a LOT nervous! I mentioned Sandstone before,if you haven't been across there it's a 5 mile 7% grade,speed limit is 45 mph for trucks,and it has 2 runaway ramps on it.I was easing down in the low side until about halfway to the first runaway ramp when it appeared to have been salted and you could see the pavement again.It was clear the rest of the way down,across the flat,and about 3 quarters of the way up the other side,then it was back to completely covered. When I got to the top there was a truck jackknifed on the westbound side,a pickup in the ditch on my side,and a car in the median in a distance of about a mile. I was trying to get to exit 161 where I was planning to stop for the night anyway.The ramp is at the bottom of a hill so I was still taking it pretty easy,running about 35 mph. A car was ahead of me about half a mile,so I wanted to keep plenty of distance in case I had to stop if he decided to slam the brakes on to see if the road was slick. Right about the top of the hill a Swift truck went by in the left lane and he must have been doing 60 mph.That's fine if you're by yourself,the hill was straight down and straight back up,but if something were to happen unexpectedly in front of him,like that car spinning out on the bridge at the bottom of the hill,there's no way he could have gotten stopped. So I finally made it into the fuel stop and parked.From Beckley to there I saw just one truck salting the road. I went on to Roanoke and unloaded Thursday morning,then by the shop for fuel,and went to Petersburg and loaded some beams going to Carnegie,Pa. Got up there Friday morning,and yep,snowing like he....uh,heck,snowing like heck. Took a long time to get unloaded because the forklift was spinning in the snow and he could barely get up to the trailer. Once he got a lift of beams picked up it was all right,then he could hardly get back from where he was putting them on the ground back to the trailer to get another lift. I finally did get unloaded of course,then went over to Galv-Tech in Pittsburgh to load coils for Handy,and by the time I left there it had warmed up and the roads were just wet,so I hammered down to Lynchburg,dropped the load at N.B.Handy about 9:30 last night and bobtailed home.Got the Cumberland County Christmas Parade Sunday. It's the longest trip of the year for the mixer,about 55 miles one way. At least they're calling for nice weather,with temperatures in the 50's!

I ended up adding a can of carrots to mine. Your recipe sounds better than my Mama's,but i'm not gonna tell her.

Yeah,I saw it up close-I went to Orville,Oh. Sunday and it was snowing Monday morning,unloaded in Fremont,Oh. Wednesday morning and it was snowing,this morning I unloaded in Carnegie,Pa. and went to Galv-tech in Pittsburgh to reload,and it was a real mess up there this morning.