other dog

reminds me of that new sweater he was wearing the other day...

I went to Danville with Zina from Gladys to her dr's appointment this morning. I saw all these trucks lined up at J & J Truck Sales, which is right next door to Atkinson Truck Sales. Between them they have about 8 million trucks for sale, I used to see dump trucks with their mud flaps all over the country. But this green dump one really caught my eye, I really like that color. That's a crappy picture too, but not too bad for a drive-by shot taken with a phone I guess. The dr's office we were at was actually in a building that used to be part of the famous Dan River Mills. It was a 4 story building and on the first floor there was a room that was a small museum I guess, it had displays and pictures of the tobacco warehouses that used to be there, the textile mills... and this display about the wreck of the old 97. Very interesting. There's a tank museum in Danville too, in the old Disston Tool plant. We haven't been there yet, but it's on our bucket list.

There's a lot of things I don't like on the Zinamobile. I have the '87 F150 and a 2016 Impala. The Impala's a great car, I love it. But Zina traded her Accord for a new CR-V last year, and it takes some getting used to. If you get out and take 2 steps away the doors lock automatically, kind of a pain in the ass if you're carrying groceries in or something. It also has the lane departure thing, and if you change lanes without using the turn signal the steering wheel starts shaking, and it tries to take control and bring you back into the lane you're trying to get out of. I can reach in my car and start it with the key, hers won't start unless your foot's on the brake when you push the button. There's a lot more stuff I don't even know about it, and like I told Mark, vision386 here, the other night, the dang owners manual looks like the phone book, it's about 600 pages.

That reminds me of hauling pulp wood to Westvaco in Covington...sort of. I was running with Running Bear one day, and he said he bought an exercise bike at a yard sale. The guy that was selling it said he used it for a while, got tired of it, and after a while he just used it to hang his clothes on. So Running Bear said he bought it, used it for a while, got tired of it, then just used it to hang his clothes on. So I said "I could use an exercise bike". So I bought it, used it a while, got tired of it, then just used it to hang clothes on. 🤣 True story.

OK, thanks Bob.

I was just doing some research on the computer- what?..no, really. Anyhow, I decided to take a look at BMT, but it wouldn't let me sign in for some reason. So, I to tried to change my name from other dog to "guest", but I couldn't sign in as a guest either. So I tried my phone, and here I am. Still don't know what's going on with the computer.

Welp, the leftover chicken looks like this now- it's good too!

I had a welder shock me one time, almost 50 years ago. Not a small shock, a "knocked me down and gave me a nose bleed shock". I was working in a garage and a guy brought a lawn mower in to be fixed. The frame was cracked around all the bolt holes where the motor bolted to it. I had some little small rods (stick welder in those days of course) and I welded up all the cracks, ground the area around the holes flat, then laid flat washers over the holes and was welding them in place. I put a new rod in and as soon as I touched the electrode holder with the rod it knocked me flat on my ass. Don't know why, it hadn't done it before, never did it again. I got up off the floor, found my glasses, and it did cause my nose to bleed, but that was the only injury.

So, aren't you going to tell us what the smart ass uncalled for comment was?

The two white breastesess- can you say that?..that might be racist and offensive to some people, because everything seems to offend somebody- anyhow, the two lighter colored- can you say colored?..never mind, I'm getting sidetracked here. They were marinated in a garlic and herb marinade, the wings, drum sticks, and thighs were marinated in teriyaki marinade, and the leg quarters and breast and wing pieces were just coated with the usual top secret rub. I already ate one of the teriyaki thighs and a wing, just to make sure it was fit for human consumption. It was delicious.

Well, I guess we'll be having chicken for dinner every day for a while. I bought a whole chicken that I wanted to spatchcock just to try it, because I'd never cooked one like that before. And Zina had taken some chicken out of the freezer to make room for something else, so I said "no big deal- I'll just cook all of it". The last chicken I cooked was so good I had chicken for dinner three days in a row. So y'all come on over and get some chicken, we've got plenty. I never did try that spatchcock thing, I cut it in half first, then I separated the leg quarters from the breastesess and wings. I just hope I can duplicate the results from the last time.

There's a place in VA. that might be worth looking into. I don't know a thing about them, but a lifetime guarantee is a lifetime guarantee.

Absolutely, I've hauled girders way shorter than that 150 footer that were way more challenging to deliver. Many jobs in West Virginia were tighter spots to get in to. On that load going down to 840 in Tn. the only time we even had to use the dolly was coming out of the plant in Abingdon and after we got to the job. All the rest was Interstate.

Yes, everybody knows that. That's why trailers had sliding tandems. But depending on the load you had, how long it was, and where it was going sometimes was more important than getting axle weights right. Axle weight was actually the least of our worries.

Here's one I brought out of Banker Steel in Lynchburg . I think this beam went to Ashland, Va. when they were building 295.

First truck I drove for H.H. Moore.

that's the truth!

One of the dollies H.H. had. This was the one I pulled the most. Made from a Mack truck chassis. You had to pull the front axle up onto blocks and chain it to the beam when it wasn't being driven. Dragged out of the junk yard with a Farmall M and slapped together some kind of way. Under that 150' beam that was just dropped on there in a haphazard manner by two Farmall H tractors. One had a front end loader, the other one had just a hay spike. I said "are you sure i'm not over on the drives?" They said "don't worry 'bout tha' mule, jest git on down yonder wit it''.

That's kind of like gear shift knobs- they used to have a whole shelf of them at every truck stop, now they bring top dollar on e-bay.

I remember going across Hawk's Nest on rt. 60 in West Virginia, when we would always stop at the Catholic church in Boomer and set our brakes up. They had a big paved parking lot and I would pull in there and get my 9/16 wrench and the piece of cardboard I carried out and adjust the brakes. Lock them down and back off a quarter of a turn. You might not adjust them anywhere else, and if you did you might back them off half a turn. But I'd stop there every time I ran Hawk's Nest and it was a quarter of a turn. 🤣 Been across there many times in an F model Mack with a 50,000 lb. load of coils on. You needed to have your $#it together, nobody around here even knew what a Jake Brake was then.

The hardest ones to load were the ones with a "sweep" on them, or curved beams. You had to position the dolly way up under them to get them to set up, then you had all the overhang to deal with. But like they say, if it was easy everybody would be doing it.

So, instead of having oversize permits to do what you had to do you'd be better off with a 70' overhang?..interesting concept. You had to load long girders so they would "set up" on the dollies, meaning they would stay there and balance, without turning over before you ever put a chain on them. This was actually all carefully thought out and done, nothing was hap-hazard about it.

Yes, even though it was 2 different companies I drove for the same family for more than 42 years. I started driving in January of '79 and went to work for H.H.Moore in June of 1979.