hey!  what do you expect from a batchelor who has not furnished the guest bedroom in over 2 years?

At least now, with the upcoming Alaska trip, I know I can multi-task my recent furniture!

FSU camp chair, 3 man tent (with rain guard in case the roof leaks) and lovely view (beyond the parking lot) of Signal Mountain.  Welcome! ***********come on! a tent WITH indoor plumbing? how can you complain? LOL! ************

followed by the call for a possible tanker truck on fire on the interstate.  I took a minute to get dressed and hopped in the car - I'm a 15 minute drive from the firehouse - a state trooper arrived and reported smoke but no flames and quickly reported no fire.

By then the asst. chief had made it to the station and was enroute in the engine. 

And by then I was aware of my painful face and remembered my sunburn.  Please let there be no fire I thought, there's no way in hell I can "mask up" and strap a rubberized face piece on which is SOP for battling vehicle fires, even from a distance.

I was relieved when Chris reported the fire was indeed out and told another firefighter who was standing by with the water tanker at the station, to not respond.  I headed back home and when I went into the bathroom and saw my face, I thought I could never leave the house until this is over - I guess during the night, the skin started the process of blistering and filling the burned skin with fluid - I had two huge white teabags hanging under each eye.  I've never had bags under my eyes and last night the face was evenly burned, so where the hell did these extra folds of white skin come from? 

A few hours later came another call for a vehicle fire and I again headed to the fire house but by now the fluids had receded and the big puffy bags were gone.  No fire again, and with the recommendation of a medic, aloe is being liberally applied, LOL!  Though there were dangerous winds elsewhere last night, the big storms that came down from the north left us with very cool and very windy weather all day - I have been tempted to just sit outside with my face in the air!

At least Saturday when I crank open the sunroof and head north, my face and neck should be well prepared for a few weeks of sunshine from above!

No, I don't embarass easily, I spent 7 hours, from 10am until 5pm standing under what the weatherman calls "partly cloudy" skies.  Enough to brighten even the weathered face of a well traveled Irishman.  Of course sunburns mean nothing to my driving arm - I joke that someday it will simply drop off from skin cancer without me ever even noticing any discomfort.  But the face, and the back of the neck, are raw tonite.

On the plus side, we raised $1122 from the generous passersby at the interesate off/on ramp in Wildwood, GA. 

I almost choke up thinking about it because in all honesty, as a trucker who is confronted by panhandlers and grifters 3 or 4 times EVERY day I am on the road, my reaction over the years is to simply tune out beggars and charities.  I rationalize that I participate in several non-profit volunteer organizations into which I donate plenty of my time and hundreds of my dollars.

But to stop and think about the individuals who rounded a curve today and were met by two fire trucks on either side of the road, a blue haired clown waving large hamburger helper style hands at the occupants, and two guys in firehouse t-shirts wiggling a fire boot at them (shakeshakeshake, shake you booooooty!).

People traveling north 400 miles out of Flordia, people traveling east, 600 miles out of Texas, and more Dade County Georgia tags than I thought existed in Dade County Georgia.  People probably headed to a quick lunch and fuel, at $3.50 a gallon, in today's economy, after having dressed their kids for proms and graduations this month, bought nice dinners or flowers for Mom, and recounted the budget to figure their summer vacation alotment.  And these people, many who had NO clue we were a volunteer fire department that services accidents on the interstate and events, injuries, and illnesses at the 3 truck stops,  people who had no idea who these two men and a clown were, and they repeatedly opened purses and wallets, emptied change cups, a TRUCKER from Nebraska set his brake and disappeared into his bunk and came out with plastic bags filled with his $10 of toll change.  Not one buck.  But all the ones in the wallet.  Not just ones, but fives.  Not just A five, one man, in a jalopy of a pickup, dressed as a dirtpoor local, put a five in my boot, considered giving me another, then said "wait, I'll give this one to the ugly guy up there" and he moved forward to give us another 5spot.

12 tens, and another 6 people gave $20 donations.

I was abso-frigging-letely shocked by the support we recieved hour after hour, from neighbors, strangers, and the men in the 18 wheelers slowing down enough while hard at work to drop bucks into a boot for a fire house that has little connection to their world.

And the funny thing is, the clown closed the deal.  Had we not had a member who felt strongly about the costume, we would not have found out just how effective it was - people first probably thought there was an accident, but even after figuring it out, had there just been us tilting our boots and waving, with no signs to spell out for them that we were fund-raising, they likely would have cautiously driven past.  But the clown?  How can you not smile when a goofy clown is pointing at you, dancing the butterchurn, doing the moonwalk, waving to the kiddies, frightening the dogs, and generally doing some really bad mime material?  Once they saw BoBo (as I called him) they knew instantly this was not an accident, and knew instantly what we were doing with the boots.  People made u-turns, they promised to, and did, return after fueling, and I even noticed a couple of locals using the exit several times during the day, contribute again.

Of course we tried to flirt with the ladies in our 15 seconds of contacts, we admired the men's motorcycles and off road vehicles, Bo-Bo boinked the teenagers (one big puffy finger onto the nose) to get them to laugh, and we listened to the blast of big rig air horns all day long.

$1122.85.   That's  probably 1 donation every minute for 7 hours. 

Wow, thanks to them, and here's to hoping you take a minute to give a buck (or twenty!) next time you pass a local firehouse/rescue squad passing the boot at an intersection.bb. 

a night out tonite,

a day of passing the boot tomorrow (will go to the firehouse, join the others in driving up to the interstate, and hold out our boots for donations at the end of the exit ramp leading to the truckstop and our little corner of GA),

a rain day expected Sunday,

and final trip prep and buying camping gear I still need on Monday. 

Tuesday at the firehouse we try to quietly tally the money we raised without clueing in the Chief that we are hoping to use it to by a 'new' used piece of apparatus, an 85' 'snorkel'  (its like a ladder truck, but instead of an extending ladder that firefighters can climb, it is a two section boom with a cherry-picker bucket on the end for fire fighters, fire fighting, and high rescue). 

Our firehouse is full, but the Asst Chief really wants this thing that is being sold super cheap in Louisiana.  Even though we have no highrises here we have one of the nations premiere hang gliding sites in our first due and it is not unusual to get a call out for a pilot in the trees - a bucket would greatly enhance the safety of rescues that are now done by high-rescue specialists who climb the tree and bring victims down via ropes and pulleys. 

By Wednesday I should get the car serviced and packed and

Thursday will be my last night at the watering hole possibly for the rest of the summer.

Friday, its north to Alaska! 

the count down is on . . .

the "CSI" last week with the cameo by the "Mythbuster" guys was a tease of things to come.  This month they ("CSI") swapped writing teams with "Two and a Half Men".

Monday was the "Two and a Half Men" show with a murder mystery at a wedding investigated by a CSI agent who looked very much like Marge Helgenberger of "CSI" but still had all the raunchy humor of the sitcom.  There was the trademark "The Who" title song for the episode, the internal view of the body (Jake eating) and the scene recreations.  As an aside, how the HELL did Jim Carey end up with the ultra hot Jenny McCarthy?

Last night was the other half of the swap : written by the "Men" staff with the CSI team going to Burbank to investigate the death of a sitcom star who was killed when in Vegas.  This arc stars Katy Segal ("Married With Children") as a hated, selfish actress named "Annabelle Bundt" - if you are really not into it, Annabelle was once a tv clown, and Katy's "Married" character was Peggy BUNDy.  It costars Diedrich Bader ("The Drew Carey Show"  he was the goofy friend Oswald Lee Harvey - do comedy writers EVER take a break? LOL!) as Annabelle's husband Bud.  Even there, the name was a nod to "Married", Bud was Peggy and Al Bundy's son.  This joke is carried further by a scene with Annabelle as a dom 'spanking' Bud, "Are you a bad boy?  Who's your momma?".

She is murdered early, and  the show looks at everyone as a suspect, Bud, a stand-in body double, the writers, a former lover, and a competing actress in the show.

Oh man, I will be re-watching this episode all day tomorrow to catch all the jokes and inside gags. 

Arriving on set in Hollywood (which confused me a bit - this is a CBS show but I thought they panned past a broken plane like maybe the one from "Lost" which is an ABC show), the CSI team drives past a trailer for the cast of "Two and a Half  Men" where the 3 stars are standing outside in tuxedos (which they wore the "Men" show's wedding on Monday) and you see the young star, Angus T Jones, who appears to be smoking a cigar bite the end off it and spit it onto the ground.  I assume they were at the CBS lot even though it looked alot like Universal Studios.  I guess they all look alike (I worked for a time at ABC studios and that was definitely not the ABC lot). 

The next to last scene is of one of the writers and the female co-star of the "Annabelle" show talking to Grissom ( the 'actors' playing the writers of the fake "Annabelle" show are the real life writers of "Two and a Half Men").  As he leaves the set Grissom says something like "I'll be watching", and the writer plugs the real time for "Two and a Half Men" : "OK, Monday night, 9:30, 8:30 central" and he waves as he walks out of view. 

The final scene was with Deidrich where he is seen shaving with what appears to be a safe blade when his neck begins to spurt blood.  He is seen trying to stop the flow with a finger as the screen goes black - in the fade you hear him say "Oh.  OH!  Whoa! uhn! . . .   that looks BAD!" 

And that gives away the answer to the who-dun-it.

I know the CSI writers had to deal with a hard switch to basically a simple scenario in a half hour format, but the "Two and a Half Men" crew did a much better job of bringing humor to the CSI set in my opinion.  In fairness, they must have had forensic help from the "CSI" research staff to come up with the plot twists.

As the comic writers had Grissom say, "Dying is easy, Comedy is hard".

Though I wasn't huge fan of country in my younger years, I grew up in a house filled with records of the mellow sounds of singers like Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Della Reece, and Dinah Shore.

The pop country of Eddy's "Make The World Go Away" is as much a nostalgic sound of my youth as the Mike Douglas and Dinah Shore shows which I saw and heard him on.

It was 10 years ago when visiting my cousin up in Nashville that I was invited to join he and his parents at the Cafe Milano for dinner and a show for their wedding anniversary.  My uncle Keith had long been a huge fan of Eddy Arnold and Chet Atkins (who worked a great deal with Arnold and was known for his guitar style).  My uncle Keith did not know that Eddy and Chet were going to be sitting on stools 15 feet away from our table playing guitar that night!  At one point they both came over and were introduced by Ricky who was with the CMA and knows many of the top artists as well as managers in Nashville.  Chet passed away a several years ago and today is followed by his friend Eddy, who was about to celebrate his 90th birthday.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24521290/

this vid was sent to me by my sister and had me laughing hard - it is presented as a factual experiment, but towards the end you will get your clue, LOL!

(the introductory paragraph on youtube describes the clip thusly :

In 1965 Dr. Peter Witt gave drugs to spiders and observed their effects on web building. This short film about the results of the experiment was created by First Church Of Christ, Filmmaker.

though I do prefer to keep it on the downlow, I appreciate the affection and laughs sent my way.

I figured with the miracle of a digital camera I would share some of my fun with you.

The most sentimental is a card from Mom, well, the card isn't sentimental, its humorous from my "shishter shally" who knows of my flamingo interest (she sent me the flamingo lite string at Christmas, LOL!). 

(sorry, the focus is my fault, no flash taken inside) But the inside of the card has Mom's attempt at a signature.  With senile dementia, it is very difficult for her to concentrate on a task, much less to complete it the way she has been asked.  This signature came over the course of a full day with our wonderful caretaker prompting Mom all day long - I'm guessing, to simply sign it "Love Mom".  You'll see she managed the LO, but then was distracted by the last word of the card "long"

Next is the more warped humor of a friend at Merv's, my local hangout.  The punch line is "Bottoms up on your birthday"  the front is a little less subtle, LOL!  Thanks JohnT !

Not  birthday related, but today I did receive my firehouse dogtags with my official member number :

yes, etched into steel.  Should I become a crispy critter, they can still id me by my id that is snapped onto my running gear.

On a lighter (did I say lighter?) note, good friend tinat , helped make the calls to include friends Monday night (JohnT's card was signed by a dozen buds and accompianed by a balloon bouquet - "from all of us").

First was the gift she told someone she "could get away with".  Well, maybe.  LOL!  For me, a diehard FSU alum (and Miller Lite drinker), she gave a special edition bottle of Bud wrapped a special orange label for the University of Tennessee  (the bud is the anchor for the balloons and is still in the backseat of my car). 

The card was a custom made one of a spotty dog fire hydrant :

Also knowing my (well it used to be!) subtle use of the flamingo for my first home, she made a gave me this nightlight :

ya know, I KNEW there was a reason I made the choice two years ago to make a home away from the highway for myself.  Thanks to all my friends in Chatt as well as all of you here at Mindsay who put up with my bad jokes, opinionated rants, and rambling, but hey, I'm a rambling kindaguy.

Is it a coincidence that 28 years ago, here in Chattanooga, Merle Haggard became my number 1 country favorite? 

"um, well, usually the tradition is to sprinkle dirt on the loved one's casket".

(sorry!)

One of the co-founders of Baskin-Robbins icecream empire passed away today at age 90.

from the A.P. wire :

LOS ANGELES - Irvine Robbins, who as co-founder of Baskin-Robbins brought Rocky Road, Pralines ’n Cream and other exotic ice cream concoctions to every corner of America, has died at age 90.

Robbins had been ill for some time and died Monday at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., said his daughter Marsha Veit.

While the company advertised that it offered 31 flavors, in fact it has created more than 1,000 flavors, according to its Web site.

Generations of kids trooped to Baskin-Robbins stores to buy ice cream flavors like Jamoca, Daiquiri Ice, Pink Bubblegum, Nuts to You and Here Comes the Fudge.

“Frankly, I never met a flavor I didn’t like,” Robbins told The New York Times in 1973.

Some were short-lived and created to mark specific events, such as Lunar Cheesecake for the moon landings and Valley Forge Fudge for the 1976 bicentennial.

When the Beatles were to arrive in the United States in 1964, a reporter called to ask whether Baskin-Robbins was going to commemorate the event with a new flavor.

Robbins didn’t have a flavor planned but quickly replied, “Uh, Beatle Nut, of course.”

The flavor was created, manufactured and delivered in just five days, according to the Web site.

Robbins opened his first ice cream store in Glendale, Calif., in December 1945, following his discharge from the Army. He used $6,000 from a cashed-in insurance policy his father had given him for his bar mitzvah.

Robbins offered 21 flavors at the store.

“In light of what Baskin-Robbins was to become, that first store was incredibly amateurish,” according to a biography by his daughter Veit. “It was called ’Snowbird’ because Robbins couldn’t think of anything else. The opening was delayed for a day because the paint on the floor hadn’t dried.”

His cousin Sybil Hartfield bought $39 of the first day’s sales of $53, according to the biography.

His brother-in-law, the late Burton Baskin, opened his own ice cream store in neighboring Pasadena a year later. By the end of the 1940s, they had joined forces to create Baskin-Robbins. Robbins recalled they used a flip of the coin to decide which name came first.

They also decided to sell their stores to managers, pioneering the franchise concept for ice cream stores.

As corporate policy, employees were allowed to eat all the ice cream they wanted, because, Robbins said, “I don’t want my employees stealing.”

Robbins was dedicated to upholding the quality of his ice cream regardless of the cost, his daughter said.

“Everybody has a proprietary interest in ice cream,” Robbins told the Times for the 1973 story. “All you have to do is mention ice cream and everybody has a flavor.”

Baskin-Robbins was sold to United Fruit Co. in 1967, but Robbins continued to work for the company until retiring in the 1970s.

Today, Baskin-Robbins is part of Dunkin’ Brands Inc. and has more than 5,800 franchises worldwide.

In addition to his daughter, survivors include his wife, Irma; another daughter, Erin Robbins; a son, John Robbins; and sisters Shirley Familian and Elka Weiner. His son is a noted author (“Diet for a New America”) and advocate of vegetarianism and natural foods."

Obviously, no call-back from the local truck outfit and I wasn't interested enough to harass them with calls every morning to see what was up. 

Weather, sore foot, hotel unavailability, and gas costs made me choose to not go to New Orleans for the Jazz Fest today (1000 miles round trip and 3 nights hotel for a long day of touring the quarter on foot followed by an 8 hour day of standing in the sun t the fair grounds).

Did a little favor for a friend hauling a fridge for him the other day and got out to the pub for a couple of nights, but otherwise have spent the days planning the upcoming trip.  I sent out a follow-up email to the Ernie Ball company asking the status of my job application for the "Battle of the Bands" tour driver gig.  I asked her to let me know ASAP if I'm not being considered so I can start on my trip a little sooner and get back here to work a little sooner as well.  Otherwise, I plan on leaving in two Fridays - taking the car and will buy a tent and camp stove to try and cut a few hundred dollars off my hotel/motel budget.  I'm crossing fingers that temps that are peaking now at 60 days, 40 nights, might warm up a little bit more before I cross into Canada and hit the Rockies.  True camping will start with a night in a teepee on the Blackfeet reservation in Browning, MT.

Oh!  I am now officially a published photographer!  My shot of my Trucker Buddy kids in their classroom in Iceland is in the May issue of Challenge magazine at Pilot Ttravel Centers (free!).  I've got 30 issues packaged and ready for the post office tomorrow - ouch, it cost $140 to get guaranteed 3 day delivery, I'll have to take a chance the $40 one week service for the 15 pound box will get it there before classes end.

I was at home when the call came out for a brush fire which a resident was unable to control and it was approaching a structure. 

I checked google maps to see where it was.  Yesterday I responded from my TN residence to my GA fire department in my car to another brush fire and had to stop and ask directions : "Hi, I'm a new member of the volunteer fire department.  Can you tell me where Creek Road is?  I have to go to a fire." LOL!

I was enroute to the Bishop Road scene today when the chief, who was already there with Tanker 41 (it carries 3000 gallons of water and a booster line for smaller fires) called for additional manpower from the station.  I detoured and headed to the fire hall figuring I'd get there with others and respond with them.  As I crested the hill and started down towards the fire house, Engine 4 came into view and went on the air with two personnel.

Looks like I was on my own and I first thought I'd just grab my gear and respond to the scene in my pickup when over the station radio I heard "Engine 4 to personnel at Station 4.  Please respond with the tanker".

Woo-hoo!

I threw my gear into the passenger seat, unplugged the charger, started 'er up and waited for the air to build up in the brake system.  Meanwhile the Chief was calling and I was uncertain if I should answer since the unit wasn't responding yet and I still had not been assigned a member number to use on the radio.

After what seemed like forever the air came up, I released the brakes, hit the lights, flipped in the siren and grabbed the mike "Tanker 4 responding, Dade".

Knowing about yesterday's event, the Chief who recognized my voice came on the air again and asked "Tanker 4, are you familiar with this address?" LOL!

"!0-4, Tanker 41.  I'm enroute, status 1" (driver only) I replied.

I tried, I admit, to get my camera going as I went past the truck stop, air horn blaring, siren screaming, creeping up the long  grade at 30mph with the overweight vehicle, but I must have 'double-clicked' the shutter button as the video started and stopped without my knowing it.

A flatbed 18 wheeler pulled out in front of me with a load of steel rebar and refused to pull over as we both picked up speed before making the steep grade of Hooker Hill.  I was on his bumper but could not pass him and he simply would not go to the shoulder knowing it would force him to gear down and start over again.  So thank you asshole trucker.  Lights and siren, I had to gear down and come to a stop on the steep grade as he slowed to 5mph and I still couldn't go around him.

I let him gain a hundred yards or so and then began the slow uphill climb again.  By the time I came to the turn off I was on his bumper again siren and horn blaring at him the whole way.  A column of smoke was clearly visible above the treeline.

Not much of a fire - a previous fire had taken an old uninhabited trailer to its metal frame and the owner of the property simply treated the whole thing as a dump.  Somehow he had started a grass fire that worked into the old debris and while he tried to control it with a garden hose, it spread across about a 1/4 acre of land next to his home and adjacent to the woods.

People, CALL 9-1-1 FIRST, then try to fight the fire if you think it is safe to do so! A fire can double in size every minute.

The main fire had been knocked down by John with a handline off Engine 4, Tanker 41 was still running a booster line into the wooded perimeter manned by a Georgia Forestry firefighter who also had responded, and the yellow 3" line hooked to my Tanker 4 to supply the masterstream with Ryan operating it.  

I hooked up to the Engine and supplied its 500 gallon tank with my additional 2000 gallons as well as supplying Ryan's "blitz" line, a heavy duty master stream that can pump hundred of gallons per minute through its nozzle onto a fire.

Then a quick disconnect, a shuttle to a hydrant a block from my Lazy B property, and back to the fireground to hit the hotspots.  Afterwards I refilled Tanker 4 a second time and chatted with a neighbor and by then the others had returned to the station and gone back to work.

Not much excitement, but at least I finally have my first response as an emergency driver and a pump operator under my belt - it only took a year!bigb.

worse, a Discovery TV geek?

With no knowledge ahead of time, I watched my taped version of last night's CSI (the original).

I had had a fun night out, much longer than usual and had settled in for a later night watching my

VHS tape of the evening's prime time line up. 

CSI was interesting, weird, and started with a more than usual disturbing scene - someone accidentally (?) set on fire in the police station (here we suspend belief and accept that a potential suspect would be questioned in the fornesics lab). 

Investigating the incident, where the suspect, when tasered, went up like a bonfire, the team recreated the event trying to figure out why the fire occured - inebriated suspect? faulty taser? ingredients of the pepper spray adminsitered prior to the tasing?

A 3rd party phone video of the action gave new info - that the pepper spray used was not from a standard police issue bottle, but by a banned older model that has a flammable quality to it. 

So the CSIs then go into the lab to try to recreate that, spraying the older pepper spray on a dummy and then tasering it, and VOILA, it lights up like a roman candle!

You still with me?  As this experiment is done, in the background are two guys in lab coats, and I'll be damned if they aren't Adam and Jamie, the former hollywood special effects guys who are now hosts of their own Discovery show, the MythBusters!  Freaking hilarious!  They then replay the experiment and in the slow-mo, you more clearly see the two of them, big grins on their faces, and Jamie gives a big thumbs up that the experiment played out as expected.  Great cameo, congrats to CBS for having the originality to do something fun like that!

Oh, it's gettin' juicy in DC today!

Latest news - the DC Madam, a woman who ran an upscale escort service in Washington, DC that catered to some very big wigs, was arrested and charged a few months ago and convicted last month.  She had a little black book that had numbers in it of her clients, but no names associated with those numbers.  That was her way of ensuring the men privacy.  Yet after her arrest she welcomed the help of the press to try and figure out who belonged to which phone numbers.  BIG names were bound to come out prior to her trial but none did, several VIP were supposed to testify about their involvement, but none did.  One of the women working for the Madam was arrested, and commited suicide.  Hmmmmmm.

Today police in Florida found her dead of apparent suicide at her mother's home.  Riiiiigggggghhhhhtttttttttt!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24408142/

3 of the top 5 blogs are people whining about 'news' coverage of Miley Cyrus yet there are enough people interested in the story that there are 3 of the top 5 blogs about news coverage of Miley Cyrus (and the story itself, last time I checked, had more than ONE HUNDRED comments on it).

God forbid mindsayers don't give a crap about your opinion, how dare they have one about a so-called professional photographer shooting quasi-child porn while the press simply focuses on the career of the minor.

Hasn't the whole "mindsay news is not news" thing been beaten to death already? Get over it already and ignore it if it bothers you.

to eliminate fuel taxes for the summer travel season as a way to help reduce the costs, if temporarily, of gasoline and diesel.  http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080429/us_nm/bush_gasoline_dc_1;_ylt=AgOvkWIs2Ipw18fD4NicBhIGw_IE

The two articles I saw say nothing about how soon that would occur if it did.  I bet it happens AFTER I have bought the 600 gallons I need to make my journey.  At 18.5 cents per gallon, it would reduce my travel expenses by almost $120.

You know, some days, even when on hiatus, it is good to wake up early. 

I got to bed around midnight and was wide awake by 6am so came out to watch some tv and thought, ya know, I haven't looked at a Sunday paper classified section in weeks.  Or craigslist.

I wondered if there might be anything from Manpower looking for a temp driver that could help me make a few cash dollars between now and my departure on the great Alaska adventure next month. 

An ad on CL from Friday.  "Need driver, TN to FL M-F 30cpm, have load ready to go Monday".

I googled the phone number which was local and found a link to a boat hauling operation - warehouse just down the road and another around the bend (Moccasin Bend, the curve of the TN River where it snakes around the tip of Lookout Mountain) off Brown's Ferry Road, about halfway between here and the LazyB.

30cpm isn't very good pay - I earned 45 cents per mile over the road and the last job I quit was 32cpm.  But they mentioned running to mid and south FL and a google shows that Ocala is 500 miles - south FL is 800 miles.  So, an average length of haul about 650 miles, times two trips a week should be around 2500 miles which is more than I was driving for Crete Carriers.  2500 x 30cpm = $750 week or about $600 take home.  Not great, but not bad and certainly enough to meet my minimum needs if it were to be a full time gig.  If temporary and even if it were one full week and 2 weeks with only one round trip, that would still be $1200 more in my bank account than I have now.

When 7am rolled around I called the first number and asked for "Bob", but got someone else who, it turns out, is a driver, enroute to FL.  Not any driver.  The owner, Sonny.  We chat - he used to do boat hauling using client's trailers but expanded to general freight a couple of years ago when it became tougher to make money (you might haul a boat to the east coast or to Florida, but good luck finding uncommitted freight already on a trailer coming back to TN).  So he got a couple of dry vans, and one refrigerated unit, and now hauls to customers he got to know when running boats - steady freight and usually able to get the driver back to Chatt or nearby by Friday.  He pays the deadhead (empty) miles to Chattanooga even if the return load goes somewhere else like Atlanta or Knoxville.

I told him my situation, my background, and my idea that I thought the position might be temp to carry me for a few weeks - that I was then leaving for a trip to Alaska for 6 weeks.  "Flying"? he asked. 

"Hell no, I'm a driver", I said - I'm road tripping. 

He paused and then said, "shoot, give me 3 weeks and I might be able to find freight going up there and you could get paid to drive to Alaska".  I don't think he was serious, but the fact that he wasn't fazed by my admission that I was looking to work only a few weeks and then take a break until July was a good sign.

He told me I need to call Bob later this morning - the man he hired to take care of the "headaches".  After a few years of growing the business, he and his wife decided they liked the driving, not the paperwork.  He said if I came on board I would be driving his current ride, a '99 freightliner.  That's pretty old, probably has a million miles on it, but he says its in great shape   Its exactly the type truck I've been running for the last decade so I would be perfectly comfortable in it - hell, its even red like my Crete truck!  Could this be my ride in a couple of days?

I imagine the white KW will be the boss's since the front page of his website shows his wife standing in front of it.  http://www.slip2shore.com/ .  They have a better than average safety record, good equipment, but show problems with drivers which I imagine is tied to the turnover rate of a small company.  Gotta love the email addy as well " haulingassets", LOL!

Hmmm, got breakfast done, showered, took out the trash, now I just need to gather my DOT card, my license, my resume, my DAC report (professional truckers version of a credit check, except it reports driving history, jobs, tickets, accidents, and evaluations by prior employers), and maybe, optimistically, go ahead and pack my duffel bag for a 4 day road trip, just in case!

toot-toot !

my laptop, thanx to geeksquad at Best Buy will be back on-line tomorrow at $150 LESS than I expected.

But I have jerry-rigged the old unit with an ethernet cable and am laborously using a pain in the butt keyboard to type this out.

I just read a legal analyst of MSNBC saying she thought it was a good decision.  I think she is full of shit.

To those that may not know, my background is both a criminology degree (with many courses in legal opinions regarding both constitutional as well as procedural limits on police action) and many years as both a cop and a law enforcement professional.

The emphasis seems to be on the 'over kill'  - the number of shots fired,  with the acceptable explaination that cops are trained to kill, not wound.  BUT, this 'cop' who fired 31 shots emptied his automatic, reloaded and emptied again saying he thought his weapon jambed.  'This cop' was a detective, not a street cop possibly new on the force with limited firearms experience.  He did NOT not know his weapon had discharged 15 times into that van?  BULLSHIT - recoil, sound, visual track of shots fired . . . what a MORONIC defense.

Shooting the van - I'm sure there are better details, but popular media says nothing about the van ramming any vehicles, merely hitting them as it tried to get away.  Where is the 'mortal danger' that allows officers, no, DETECTIVES to open fire on a van?

Victims criminal history was NOT KNOWN to the detectives, so has NO bearing on the legitimacy of the shoot.

So we have a comment outsiden a club, not an action, that suggested someone was, or would be armed.

The detectives followed them AROUND A BLOCK and did not feel a need to take action?

The detective(s) then allowed the perps to gain the sanctuary of a lethal weapon?  ie :  the van.

Some detective, at 3 a.m., saw MOVEMENT INSIDE A VAN? that suggested the perp was reaching for a weapon?

What part of TRAVESTY doesn't this MSNBC "expert" or the judge, understand?

If you can believe it, the judge said : "Questions of carelessness and incompetence must be left to other forums."   Uh, careless discharge of a weapon resulting in death IS for the criminal court, NOT "other forums".

God Bless the victims family and the people of New York.  I pray they maintain their cool and let the lawyers bring it through the appeals process.  NYC police and courts should be ashamed AND held accountable.

Not murder by any means, but those detectives, as far as the information I have seen, are dead guily of manslaughter or at the least, reckless manslaughter.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/04/24/nyregion/20080424_BELL_GRAPHIC.html

doooooobeedoobedoobedoooo.

It was after midnight when an odd call came over the scanner, something that reminded me the loneliness of the cb radio late at night.  All quiet and then someone in a quiet voice speaks softly of something very dramatic.

Years ago it was two truckers with one calling to the other : "y'all right?"... Silence  "not too much farther, y'all right?" ... silence.  More silence.  Finally, another voice in a drawl, "yeah, all right.  still back here, eyes are open for a while longer".  Then silence again.

The night shift is sort of spooky if you've never been a part of it.  Its not all neon and thumping music.

Tonite, 2 hours ago the Sheriff signed off and told dispatch he'd be out of service at home at 10pm, the dispatcher wished him a good evening and he returned the sentiment.  Just after 12a.m. the dispatcher called out a unit number I didn't recognize and also called the New Home paramedic and a rescue unit for a 109d that had just been found. They verified that the police were enroute.

One sheriffs officer requested the unit on scene "rope it off" for him.

Didn't take much for a stranger like me to figure that was the sole county homicide investigator responding with the ambulance to the discovery of a dead body.  A dead body discovered in the midnight hour in Sleepy Hollow (I'm not making it up, take a peek for yourself) :

***************never mind, for some reason mindsay is refusing to post image links from google even though they appear in the initial blog entry.  here's a link, instead : http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=142+willow+lane,+Trenton,+Dade,+Georgia&sll=34.981557,-85.598409&sspn=0.007577,0.018282&ie=UTF8&ll=34.981803,-85.599074&spn=0.007577,0.018282&t=h&z=16 *************************** 

I checked local 10-codes and found it in fact refers to a deceased patient, not a dead body, so I can only guess if my homicide unit guess is correct, that it is a formality.  But there was an awful lot of hush-hush discrete talk on the radio as units found their way down to the gravel end of Willow Lane.  Notifications were made, coordination between the counties (I'm guessing a Marion County, TN hospital ambulance responded for a local patient and then due to the death, had to notify our county in which the residence lies).

But still, to look at the rural location and think that at that very moment, in the dark stillness of northwest Georgia a dozen people were alerted to come to the aid, and to the final care for someone. At midnight on a quiet spring Monday night.  It was kind of sad.  Not the stuff they make tv shows out of but something all your local responders have experienced many times before and more haunting than any crime or accident scene.

Peace to the new spirit, whoever it may be.bb.

While nice weather has returned to southeast Tennessee and northwest Georgia, my foot problems jumped from one shoe to the other for the first time and now I find myself on day 3 with leg in the air and icebag on the toe.  A shame, I could be getting some work done at the LazyB or at least starting a couple of small projects (a shame, riiiiiiigggggghhhhhhtttttttttttt!).

Meanwhile, on the scanner, the week has been quiet at the firehouse until this morning's call out for a 4 car accident.  Before I could even look up the location on google maps the Chief was on-scene with "multiple airbags deployed" (he works 1/4 mile from the station and the accident was 1/4 from the station in the other direction on US 11, a narrow country 2 lane).  I had decided to not respond since he is also an EMT for an adjoining county and would have everything done by the time I could possibly get there.  I figured if he gave a scene report indicating an extrication was required then I would start that way.  Within 5 minutes two volunteers had already come up on the air to ask if he wanted manpower to respond from the station and with his go ahead they brought Rescue 4 up the street (probably to clean up the scene with absorbant and brooms). Chris then came on the radio and asked for the ETA of the police..  He then advised the Medic unit that was responding that one patient first asked for an ambulance, then declined an ambulance and was now acting "a little altered" LOL!

The cops stepped up their response, everything got sorted out, and the funny patient got to walk away without a ride either in the ambulance or the deputy's car.  Everyone was in service 15 minutes after the dispatch - just about the time it would have taken me to get there.