On the road again...

Just can't wait to get on the road again...*ahem*... okay, I won't quit my day job. I just want to get back to doing my day job~! Tomorrow is Monday, it is still a holiday week, as New Years is right smack dab in the middle of the week, but I am getting the heck out of here. Don't get me wrong, I surely love staying at home with my family and friends, spending time playing with all my new toys and having a grand old time pretending to be unemployed, but truth be told, I miss being at work, even if I do complain about it from time to time. Two weeks is too long for me to be off the road without missing it. Heck, two days and I get itchy sometimes...

I miss the solitude of being on the road, the relative quiet, listening only to the sound of the tires on the pavement as I truck on down south again. I miss the gentle rumble of the engine at night, rocking me to sleep as I idle to stay warm. I miss the terrible food, the stale coffee, and the epic views out the windshield. I miss the interaction with the strange people I meet as I go by and watching the weirdness that is my country going down the road. I took a quick trip to the store today with my daughter for some things and as a few trucks went on by, I looked up, sighed a little, and said..."I wanna go truckin' again."

It is a holiday week, and I have no idea if I am going to get a load out of here tomorrow or not. I don't want to end up sitting at home for another week, so pretty much whatever they decide to give me is going to be fine with me. I am out of paid time off until mid January, then I get my three weeks paid off time for the year. Just like last year, I am going to save at least one of those weeks off for the holidays and budget my time wisely. I just can't wait.

I am taking my new Alvarez with me, and some of my other toys, but mostly I'm just going to take my clothes, and myself out the door as soon as I can tomorrow, and get back in the saddle. Don't expect to hear from me until later in the week. Have a great new year everyone~! I will be ringing in 2009 from behind the wheel on the highway this year...I promise to wave as I go by!

My best to everyone!

Merry Christmas Everyone~!

Wow~! The holidays are here and gone. Sometimes they seem so fast and other times they seem to just drag on and on. So it would make sense that it has been a while since I updated here. Let's see what has gone on?

The run up to Christmas was pretty uneventful. We had the party, and mostly just hung out here at the house, seeing a few friends along the way. It was pretty quiet mostly. Both my wife and my brothers wife (since they work at the same place) had to work this week and the weekend as well. My brother was on call as well, so we really did not make big plans other than for Christmas eve, and Christmas day.

The whole family gathered Christmas eve, as per our tradition, and exchanged gifts. We had a buffet type dinner, with all sort of different foods to snack on all evening. We laughed and joked, and had a general great time all evening.

Christmas day was just the household family. It was a nice peaceful day , until dinner. We usually get a fresh turkey from one of the local turkey farms. It is never dry, never frozen, never processed with any machines. The place is a real gourmet turkey farm... they even "calm" the turkeys throughout their lives by playing classical music for them all the time!

Well long and the short, we got a bad Turkey. There was something terribly wrong with it. It "looked" alright on the outside, however as soon as we started to carve it, we knew something was wrong. The color was not right, it had cooked all the way, but there was this wine red tinge to it, but only on the last 1 inch of the bird near the skin, not in the center of the bird. It was dry, tasted funny, and it took no time to determine we got a bad bird. 25 pounds, almost 75 dollars, and it ended up in a garbage bag. Very sad.

This years Christmas was more epic than I ever imagined as far as gifts went. We really went too far I am sure. In the mix were some gifts that really stunned us. We got some video games, some other surprises we normally do not get, but the biggest gift for me this year did not cost a lot of money, it was the amount of sneakiness that went into getting it.

A few months ago I was with my brother in our guitar shop. A guy came in and asked if we could buy his guitar for whatever we could give him. I looked at it and it was nice, in great shape, no more than 2 years old, and well cared for. He needed money to feed his family he said. He was having hard times. I felt for him, but I could not buy it at that moment. The shop bought it for 85 bucks - the price of the hard case it came with, but that was it. I felt awful for this kid. I have had to do that in my past. It is never easy.

I wanted to buy the guitar, and I had the money, but needed to feel out the situation at home. I realized it would have been hard to get away with. I went back the next day and it was GONE! Sold in under 24 hours. The deal on this thing was too good to be true, but honestly, that fast?

My brother had "excused" himself, went outside, called on his cell phone into the shop, gave Ron his credit card, and bought it. He told Ron to hide it and never let me see it again. Ron was only happy to screw with me!

....

It is sitting next to me right now. I am smiling at it. It sounds divine plugged in and not plugged in. It is an Alvarez RF20SC You can see and hear a video of what it looks and sounds like here:



I got to be honest, I can barely put the thing down.

Happy Happy New Year Everyone!!

Snow Day

We had such a wonderful time at the party. It was far more political than expected, with tension you could cut with a knife, however we rose above the clatter and politics to shine as a couple. My Tracey is the best!!

We awoke, just like last year, to a snowstorm of epic proportions, just like we did today. Tracey tried to make it to work, got about half way there, and called it quits. It took her 3 1/2 hours to drive what should have taken about an hour total. It is dangerous out there.

All the local schools closed except for one. Apparently that superintendent thought the drivers we all miricale workers. As you can see the result from the local news here said:

"DeWitt, New York (WSYR-TV) - Two kids were injured after a school bus slid off the road at the corner of Kirkville Road and Roberts Street in the Town of Dewitt.

The injuries are not considered serious.

The bus was carrying about 40 students and was headed to Pine Grove Middle School.

The school bus tried to go around a truck and the driver couldn't see the ditch because of the snow"

So we are all housebound, snuggled in as the temperature reaches a blazing high of 14 F /-10 C. Hot coffee, Russian Tea Cakes, warm blankets, and pajamas are the order of the day... I love days like this.

This should be interesting...

Tonight will be the company Christmas party for my area and my wife and I are both attending. We have been looking forward to this for a long time and now the day is here. The catch is that there has been a shit storm brewing and I am worried about how things are going to go.

There is a nasty rumor mill in our small trucking company. Drivers, managers, dock workers, and dispatchers alike, they all talk about each other like it is high school. Let us add that the party last year was fantastic and everyone had a great time, so we booked the identical party for this year, but there will be half the turnout. The owners are coming in from out of state, got all excited last year, since we had such a great time, so they are bringing the whole family and a ton more people from the corporate office. I got a feeling they will be disappointed.

Add that to the terrible weather we are having, the economical meltdown that we had, the no cost of living raise, the bonus no bigger than last year, and an open bar with lots of drinkers.... should be a hoot.

Tracey and I are really looking forward to the hotel and the 5 start treatment for one night. The rooms (yes that a picture of the real room) are really really nice. We did not get to go away this year just the two of us so this is kinda our big "hurrah" for the year until later. We are planning a nice, quiet, and romantic evening just for us. The party is part of it, but since the party is in the hotel, and we got a room for the night, we can bail out pretty much at any time and go have a party of our own. I am going to stop and buy some wine for the room and maybe a bit extra in case we decide to invie a coworker and his girl friend up as well. We will play that by ear.

We are going to go play high rollers for the evening. We are doing a casino night. The party will start with drinks and an open bar, then dinner and awards (I am getting some kind of award and gift but I have no idea what for). After that we have a company that has set up a casino in our private area of the hotel and I will be at the blackjack table the whole night, drinking with the owners and my manager, while taking all their money, just like I did last year. I am looking forward to beating the snot out of them while looking like I could care less and talking about economics and business. It totally messes with them that one of their truckers is a former business owner with a degree in engineering.

Good times! I will will doge the political bullets, take all their money, and go romance my beautiful wife like the awesome husband I am. Sometimes.... life is geat.

A zombie a day...

Decided I needed to get out of the house for a little while today so I went to John's house to play Zombies!!! This is, quite possibly the best board game I have ever owned. We have way too much fun playing this and discussing the finer points of the zombie invasion.

Today was no exception. John soundly destroyed me while we watched CNN news and discussed how many times we could attribute the news to the impending zombie horde that we all know is coming eventually. We laughed and joked for hours. It is nice to have friends that are as crazy as you are!!

All packed and ready to.... sit?

My bags were packed, next to my chair. I was dressed and ready for the road. It was going to be a good day. I sent in my normal e-mail to the dispatch office "I am ready to go now." Nothing...

Long very pissed off story later, they really screwed up. They sent 3 guys from out of state in here for a Monday before the holiday and there isn't enough loads going south for those 3 guys, let alone the 2 that live up here. So, Merry Christmas, the week before the holiday, we get to sit home unpaid.

Luckily, I saved time off, and I can use my Christmas bonus to get us through without it being a crisis. I am glad I have an emergency fund for just this kind of thing. I get very frustrated when I get held up through no fault of my own.

So yesterday was a total blivet. I got very angry and couldn't even blog about it. I do have more to tell today, but I will wait for a while. Right now I am headed down to the city to do some errands and to see a friend for a while. That will cheer me up!

The day started out relaxing...

I got up this morning and checked in at work to see if I had a load out of the city today heading south. Apparently someone down there thought it would be a great idea to send 3 southern drivers up here for Monday morning. So there was no way they were going to find 5 trailers and 5 loads out of here this morning. So the other driver and myself that live up here got to stay home today. Hopefully tomorrow they will have freight for us.

So I called my buddy John. Usually when I am stuck at home on a Monday, we get together and hang out, play some video games like little kids, do errands, whatever comes to mind. He was up for it, of course, and told me he would be up here in about an hour.

Phone rings.

"Hello?"

*Huffing and puffing, cars going by, wind noise*... "I need you to come rescue me!"

"Where are you?!?"

*More noise, a slamming sound, rain, a tractor-trailer truck goes by* "I just got my tire back, it fell of my Jeep, while I was going down the highway. I'm on the side of the road..."

Well as you can imagine I was out the door and in the car before he finished the sentence. Poor John has 2 Jeeps. One is new, one is very old and beat up. He had the old one, and was going up the road on a 6 lane highway when the thing stated to make noise, then shake badly. He pulled over and as he did so, the front left steer tire and rim took off down the road without him, leaving him scraping along the side of the road with only 3 wheels. In the freezing rain, he got the Jeep stopped, ran down the middle of the busy highway to get his tire and rim back, while calling me to come rescue him.

Turns out someone someone stopped and helped him get the old tire back on the Jeep before I got there. He was a mechanic and said it wasn't that bad, but he needed a new tire and rim. I got there, we ran to his place, he had a spare, came back, swapped the tire on the side of the road in the rain (**!! what fun !!**) and I followed him back to his mechanics shop.

When he went to back into a parking space, the wheel wouldn't roll backwards. The mechanic thinks it's a busted CV joint. Frustration and worry ensues. See, John does not have a lot of money, and since its the holidays and the economy is in the toilet, its even worse for him. He's upset, but we talk to the guy at the shop and he is a friend of John's and promises to take care of him.

I bring him up to my house to hang out and try and calm down about the Jeep. He is upset and rightly so, but I manage to get him somewhat cheerful. Then the phone rings a few hours later and we get the news.

$6.48 ~!

That is all it cost to fix the Jeep. Apparently when he broke the wheel off the thing, one lug stud snapped, and when John tried to back up, it came loose and fell in the wheel, hanging it up. The other lug nuts we scavenged from the road, they were fine and John had some spares handy in the glove box. The labor was free since the guy was a friend of John's. So he only charged for the replacement lug stud. Just under 7 bucks.

John was so relieved, as was I. Sometimes life works out okay. Not always, but sometimes.

Bearly doing a thing...

What a nice day~!

I had a relaxing day here at home, just resting and doing nothing. It was a good day to do that. We all have been working very hard the last few months in this house. No one here has been slacking at all, so this was a nice change.

My daughter had a friend over today and that was a lot of fun for her. She is growing up so fast... it is scary to think about.

I got nothing else for now other than the new menu for Shadowe's Pics and some new and strange links in my menu. Tomorrow is a new day and I will be probably heading off to work for the week. So have a good one everyone and if I think of anything else exciting... I will post.

Half a year (and a day) later....

I'm back...

I won't even begin to explain what has been a hectic and difficult 6 months. I am well, my family is mostly well, and life is pretty good overall.

I know, I know... "What happened? You just dropped off the face of the planet! Where were you?" I hate to admit that I had no excuse to not be here other than lazyness and time. I was too lazy to make short updates, and I was not making my blog a priority in my life. I was very busy dealing with my daily life and, as I have been scolded for many times, the last person I made time for was me.

I did post a bunch of things on my Picture Blog, but they are unorganized. I will get to clearing that up as time goes by.

I am still working at the same job, still living in the same home, no one has died, nothing really catastrophic has occurred, life has just been one long string of little moments, tied together by other little moments.

Music has been an on and off endeavor as I find the time and inspiration in some moments when things are quiet, and then in other times I can not imagine taking the time to bother picking it up. It is a terribly slow process that is interrupted by daily life. I need to find a time and place daily to sit down and express what I am feeling musically. It would be therapeutic and good for my soul, but I haven't made that happen just yet. I hope to someday.

For anyone who was reading this, and stumbles across the blog yet again and is reading this now, I am sorry for being gone so long and causing any concern that I was causing. I hope to be more regular with my updates over the winter.

It's nice to be back.

Wildlife at home

Turkeys in the snow

Boxes

Transportation

State Fair