other dog

Know all about that-I don't own a truck except the B-model ,but where I work most of the trucks have the c-15 475 cats and there's always one or two at Carter cat being worked on for one thing or another.Not too much major stuff,but we've had a time with broken rocker arms, water leaks,oil leaks,etc. The starters haven't been lasting on them either.I'm driving a 2006 Peterbilt with about 300,000 miles on it now and i've had broken rocker arms twice,intake valve actuator malfunction twice, and one turbo put on it. The truck I drove before that,one of my all time favorites by the way,was a 2000 W-900 with a 525 N-14 Cummins that had almost 700,000 miles on it when Jeff traded it for the Pete.It ran great,pulled good,never broke down and got well over 5 mpg pulling heavy loads across the mountains. The last new trucks they ordered they went back to the ISX Cummins. I don't know that they'll be any better. Drove a couple of them before,and it was always EGR problems.They're supposed to be in in October. Jeff turned my truck up to a 550 and it's really pulling good now,so I guess i'll be starting over too. I wouldn't mind giving one of those new Detroits a try,but now it's getting to the point where you have to buy a particular brand of truck to get the engine you want. I don't get to pick anything anyway,I just get to drive it. That 550's a "hawse" though-'til the engine light comes on.

I made the trip to Florida and back,but i'd rather have gone to Romulous,Michigan or somewhere. It's too hot down there,and my AC wasn't working. I've always heard you should run the AC periodically in the winter,but I never did. Guess I should have,it worked fine when I turned it off last fall. It was a sweltering 80 degrees in Boca Raton Tuesday evening. Didn't get there 'til about 2 o'clock,because I didn't get away from Lynchburg until 3:00 Monday. I had 8 skids of sheets, 4 pallets of racks, and 1 machine. Made it down to exit 7 in Ga. Monday night and stopped at the little fuel stop and went to bed. Next morning I fueled up,because I figured fuel would be higher in Fl, got my book right,and went on to Boca Raton. I had to load lumber in Brooklet,Ga. Wednesday so I made it back up to exit 7 in Ga. and went to bed-almost 700 miles round trip,all but 14 miles in Florida. Like last time I saw: 0 armadillos 0 alligators 1 girl in a bikini,but she was on a billboard ...but I did see lots of palm trees,and have pictures to prove it! Worst part though was right after I left the shop Monday-my trailer was in Lynchburg,and I had to go to the bank so I just bobtailed. When I pulled into 460 I thought I saw something in the mirror at the end of the driveway that looked like diesel fuel,and pulled over to make sure my fuel tank tops were tight. They were, but when I walked back around the front of the truck a tanker went by and blew my hat off. I looked in front of the truck...nothing.Looked underneath it,in the woods,in the median-no sign of it. I'm not concerned about the hat,it was just a black "Cat" cap,but it had my little bulldog pin on it with the bulldog wearing an "Aussie" hat. I bought that pin at the Winchester antique truck show year before last. I might stop there tomorrow at that little pull off and look again-I would like to find the bulldog. He's wearing a red hat if you happen to spot him.I bought a new cap at the fuel stop,and i've probably got dozens of them here-you should always carry a spare! I'm off today,unloaded the lumber in Moneta this morning, and i've got an appointment at the eye doctor tomorrow,but we didn't have anything today anyway,so... how do you like my new hat?

You're right,that's what I always say-I pull in at the shop and the mixer is parked there still looking pretty good and it still works good and i'll say "now how many of these new Peterbilts,Freightliners,or Internationals will still be around in 43 years?" Most likely none of 'em. And you're right about the emissions engines- when they have a particular engine available long enough to perfect it and get all the "bugs" out, like an N14 Cummins,they have to change it to meet the newest pollution standards so they have to start all over. I've often wondered about if truck manufacturers did like the car makers and came out with an old look cab with all the latest bells and whistles,like a B-model cab,only bigger, or the old 2 story International DTC 405-always wanted to drive one of them!

looks like y'all did a great job! I like the black fenders too.

Don't worry about the english-I don't think none of ours is perfect either!

yeah,this Pete has two electric mirrors,usually i'd just have one on the passenger side-really handy.

I must be off-Jeff just called,and i'm still sitting at home drinking coffee. He said when I get around to going to Lynchburg to unload the load I dropped Friday night they're gonna reload me there for Boca Raton,Florida so i'd better get going. I'll try to take a picture of a palm tree,everybody's probably tired of snow pictures. OK, here's some snow pictures to look at until I get the palm tree developed-

That's probably all true today about the chemicals and environment and expense,but 30 years ago when H.H.Moore put a new bumper on a truck he would buy a plain bumper,just primered,and take it to a place in Richmond and have it chromed-I took some down there myself,to a place on Hull Street. He said it was cheaper to do that than buy a chrome bumper in the first place. I painted the cab marker lights on the mixer with chrome bumper paint,pretty expensive for a spray can but it looked pretty good...of course it's a mixer,not exactly a show truck.

I noticed it has the windows in the sleeper. I always leave the curtain down on the passenger side,if you have to blind side back that window comes in real handy sometimes. You can use the power mirror at first,then when you get jacked around too far you can look through the sleeper window and see the back of the trailer. Real nice.

I would mail you one of the pork chops I cooked on the grill yesterday,but it would be 3 days old by the time it got there. I always use a big hammer and a chisel to cut the top out of a barrel-power tools are too dangerous. Besides,I don't have a grinder anyway.

beautiful truck,and an outstanding restoration job!

I like the 379 I drive, especially when that Cat runs like it's supposed to. I don't have a TV in it,I bought a cheap one with a 5'' screen once but leave it at home. Usually when the wheels stop turning I go to sleep. I sure do like the refrigerator though,it saves me a lot of money on food. It's parked out here in the driveway now,and it could use a good interior cleaning too,so maybe when you get done with yours...

I THINK I relocated most of the pictures on the computer but I have no idea why they disappeared from HP photosmart,where they were all in one convenient place. I talked to ma on the phone Friday and she said her TV remote quit working so she bought a universal remote,followed the directions to program it and still all it would do was turn the TV on and off. We bought one once and that's all I could get it to do .Couldn't change channels or volume at all. She said my sister Lucy and nephew Michael came over and Michael had both of hers working and doing everything in a few seconds.

I found out my scanner was not compatible with windows vista,you could only get a driver for windows 98,nothing after that,and the primax website said they weren't gonna make any more drivers available for any later versions,so I figured I was just SOL. Since i'd been wanting a scanner because I take all of my road pictures with a 35mm,I bought a printer/scanner/copier at Wal-Mart today. Only thing is when I installed the program and gave it a try I lost all of my pictures that used to be in HP photosmart. And I had like 300 pictures...now i've got 35. I used to click on photosmart,view library-total pictures 300 or what ever,now it says total pictures 35. I mean ALL of my pictures were there...now I got 35...what's up with that?!! Where'd they go?.. It had all of my truck show pictures,all my webcam pictures,all of the digital pictures-every picture I had! Oh well,no sense crying over lost pictures-though that was my first thought-most of them are on The Diesel Gypsy's site,some are on webshots,a lot of them are on BMT,some on Kodak easyshare,some are on disc...and the rest are just gone evidently.."gone like a freight train,gone like yesterday,gone like a soldier in the civil war ,bang bang,gone like a '59 cadillac,like all the good things that ain't never coming back,she's gone ... Montgomery-Gentry Had some pictures at Wal-Mart too,Jobyna dropped the film off there Friday.She had it in the one hour developing envelope already,but there was no one at the counter.When they paged the photo "technician" she came over and took it out of the envelope and put it in the 4 day envelope,I guess because she was too lazy to develop it then. When we went to pick it up yesterday they said it would be in Tuesday. I was disappointed and Jobyna was HOT!

Thanks buddy, 23 and feel like i'm 63 in my knees. ahhh,23...I remember 23-it was 1979,I started driving for H.H.Moore in June of '79,just 2 months turned 23. Left there at the ripe old age of 49.

After my long, grueling, all uphill 20 mile hike home-I meant to say 2 mile flat as a board walk,hit the wrong key-I went to Carter Cat the next morning and picked the truck up.Ran great. Went on to Petersburg and loaded a load of steel going to Nazareth,Pa. After I unloaded Wednesday morning I had to go to Sparrows Point to load coils back to Lynchburg.I was outside tarping when I heard the phone ringing-it was Jeff. He just wanted to let me know they had a load of kyanite going to Fremont,Oh. and he was going to save it for me. Perhaps to make up for going to Nazareth. Nazareth is a good load,but since I had to go to Baltimore,and everybody knows how I hate running northeast,and I do like going to Fremont...except I listen to WLW in Cincinnati on XM a lot and I already knew they were calling for the biggest snowfall this winter,starting Friday morning. And all day Friday...and Friday night...and Saturday. They said they were expecting a foot or more,and I figured it might be worse up around Fremont,which is a little bit east of Toledo. So when I got to the shop Thursday morning I asked my usual question-"is this for Friday delivery,or Monday delivery?" The usual answer is "it's for whenever you get there delivery",but Todd said "we never put off 'til Monday what we can do on Friday". Yeah,right...but since they had already held the load for me for a day we thought they might be getting low in material,so I was off like a herd of turtles (Old Bill). When I unloaded and left there about 8:30 yesterday morning it wasn't snowing and I had to go all the way to Pittsburgh to reload,so I thought I might get lucky and miss it altogether-the Pittsburgh weather channel called for snow and rain with a high of 38 degrees. It was 26 in Fremont. I took 20 east to Monroeville,got some fuel,then to Norwalk and back down 250 to 224,turned to the east and still no sn-what's that up ahead? Oh...snow. And more snow. Couple of miles and the road was covered. It was covered all the way to Lodi,where I got on the interstate. Which was covered except for two tracks in the right lane. I was going to go down 14 to 51 into Pa. then take 60 down to Pittsburgh but I stayed on I-76 to Youngstown and went rt. 11 to 14,thinking the big road would be better. 14 probably wasn't much worse because all this way I only saw 2 salt trucks and one of them was parked on a ramp on 76. The trailer was completely covered in snow and ice,I couldn't even see the marker lights,but traffic was proceding fairly well,just slowly. The only accidents I saw were on the westbound side. A little bit after I crossed into Pa. there was some rain in the snow and about halfway down rt. 60 the snow just quit like you turned a switch off and the road was just wet the rest of the way-all rain and 38 degrees when I got to Galv-tech,most of the snow gone off the truck and trailer and what wasn't melted and fell off in the floor when I was loading.I chained and tarped inside,but there were no more trucks there anyway. Left there around 3 o'clock and got to Lynchburg about 11 last night,and the temperature never got below freezing again all the way home. Now i'm glad I went of course because I'll have Sunday off. You shouldn't have to work on Sunday anyway,but it's a truckdriver's life to have to do it I guess. Always was one of the worst parts of the job. Especially in summer when you're going up the road on Sunday afternoon and at every house you pass everybody's in the back yard cooking on the grill and drinking a cold beer and listening to the race and enjoying their weekend. And you're going to Cleveland or somewhere....

$3.95 yesterday on rt. 40 in Pa. somewhere between Uniontown and Md.

might be too late to run in '08, but you should start your run for president in 2012 now. maybe there's a place for me in your cabinet

happy birthday to you,happy birthday to you

Man,what an adventure I had today! Last week was pretty routine,went to Triadelphia with a load of piling,Galv-tech back to Lynchburg,then I took a van load of kyanite to Orchard Park,and brought a load of hay back from Edinboro,Pa. to Altavista for Stacy Compton,the race car driver. (ok,that part wasn't so routine) He drives in the Craftsman truck series this year. I had 580 bales in the 53' van.Hay is scarce around here because of the drought. So I left Sunday going back to Point Marion,Pa. with another load of piling.I told Todd Friday I didn't want to go back up there because the job site was such a mess.He said this was going to the other side of the bridge,across the river from where we unloaded before,so I said "OK,maybe it'll be better"...WRONG! When I got there this morning,after running rt.119 out of Morgantown which is crooked as a dog's leg,I saw the crane sitting there and said "that doesn't look bad at all". Then they told me they parked the crane there over the weekend in case it flooded.When they walked the crane back down over the bank right to the edge of the river-actually on a platform of crossties on a pile of rip-rap in the river-it didn't look so easy anymore. No wonder they moved it in case the river got up. I had to back down straight to where the crane was at first,then cut the trailer over to the left...or right,depending on how you look at it. The problem was a great big hole they had dug on my left and the chain link fence on my right,so I had very little room to turn the cab. I had to pull up and back up several times,working the trailer over a little at a time. I finally got backed into position and unloaded,and of course the bank was so steep they had to pull me back up it with a bulldozer. I took a couple of pictures,but they're not developed yet. When I left there I had to go to Galv-tech in Pittsburgh.I was going to take 88 up to 21,but I didn't think I could make the turn onto the bridge when I came out of the job site,so I figured i'd just go up 119 to Uniontown and then 51 north. And I thought the first part of 119 was crooked! I kept hearing the dump truck drivers that are all over the area saying "southbound at the wall" or "northbound at the wall" and had no idea what they were talking about. I found out pretty quick though-a little ways out of town I got to this curve to the right with a big concrete wall on my right,and it took every bit of the road for me to get around it-if i'd have met anybody in it somebody was going to have to back-up. Got to Galv-tech and was the only truck there,got loaded pretty quick and was going down rt. 40 somewhere between Uniontown and Keysers Ridge when the engine light came on and I lost most of my power and my engine brake was doing little or nothing. I struggled onward to Keysers Ridge truck stop and pulled in and checked the fault code-intake valve actuator malfunction. Jeff said to try to make it in and take it to Cat in Lynchburg,so I did. Only took about an hour longer than normal,got passed by everybody on the highway. When I dropped the load of coils in Lynchburg I tried to phone home so Jobyna could pick me up at Carter Cat.The phone rang,and rang,and rang-no answer,not even the answering machine. Billy-Bob was at Handy tarping his load when I dropped the trailer and offered to give me a ride,so I got him to pick me up at the Cat place and he brought me over to the store two miles from here,over on 699.He could turn around there easily and go back to 29 and continue on to Duluth,Ga. I walked the two miles home. In the dark. By myself. Only one dog came after me and he turned out to be friendly,even walked with me for a couple hundred yards. When I was about a quarter of a mile from home my phone rang-it was Jobyna. She said the phone hadn't rang all day and didn't have a dial tone.I told her I walked all the way from Lynchburg. My investigation found that the phone line was pulled part of the way out of the wall plug.The line goes behind other dog's (that would be the beagle,not me) bed and aparently he had gotten tangled up in it and pulled it loose. That's all right,I needed the excercise anyway.

You learn something new every day-i'd have thought a baby consignment sale was where you bought babies! And the nerve of that b...! It's still yours and she hit it,what it looks like doesn't matter.You should have rolled out the door onto the parking lot complaining about the pain in your neck and your back-I bet she wouldn't have thought that was so funny! I can't drive a big truck either. Jeff told me to drive his pickup-a Ford F-250- to the bank one day and I told him I couldn't drive a 102 wide,it was too big for the drive-thru window. It's not really,but I was afraid i'd knock the mirrors off of it.

yeah,we should've started years ago -or we should have anticipated todays problem years ago anyway